The Firedrake

by Cecelia Holland

  He reined up. William slid to the ground and walked a few steps away. He sat down on the ground. Laeghaire said, “Are you hurt?” He dismounted. The stallion had a cut on his foreleg. Laeghaire bound it up.

  “No.”

  The Normans had regrouped, but they were shouting. Laeghaire raised his head. He listened to them. William stood up. “Give me your horse,” he said. He mounted the brown stallion.

  “They think you are dead,” Fitz-Osbern said. His face was black with blood and dirt. “They think you are dead.”

  William pulled off his helmet. He turned and rode out in front of the Normans. They quieted. He rode along before them and a cheer began and followed him. It grew up like a storm and followed him. Laeghaire sat and heard them and bent his head.

  He could have died, he thought. He might have died. Oh, God, if he had died—

  William rode back. He called for another horse. Laeghaire looked up at him. He thought he had never seen that face before. Calm as a priest’s and savage, and huge; he thought this man much bigger than any other man he had ever seen. He shook, looking at William. The eyes stared glittering out, seeing farther and seeing greater than the eyes of a man. He thought he looked at a mask, and behind the shields of the eyes burned all the fires of the world in arms.

  Laeghaire glanced at Fitz-Osbern. He wondered if he looked as Fitz-Osbern looked, seeing William. He got up and mounted the brown stallion.

  “Thank you,” William said. He mounted a bay horse. He gathered the reins into his hands. He clapped Laeghaire on the shoulder. “Once more, Irish.”

  He looked down the long ride to the shield wall and saw that they had cut down the wall’s length. The Saxons had lost men, too. Laeghaire flexed his thumb and bit his lip against the pain. He curled it around his sword and rested the flat of the sword on his other wrist. William’s new horse was fresh and restless. It shied and kicked out.

  “Once more.”

  They charged under the horns and they ripped at the shield wall and were flung back. It was almost sundown. The field was slick with blood.

  “This is the last one,” William said. “Rest for it. This is the last one. We’ll camp here tonight and try again tomorrow if this one doesn’t work.”

  The archers bent their bows and raised the arrows and let fly. Laeghaire watched the arrows whisper into the ground and glance off the shield wall. He knew that he would not come back from this charge.

  “I’ll be disappointed if I don’t die today,” he said.

  William laughed. The laugh was big and thundering.

  No, we will never break them. The arrows slid by the Saxons. They pierced the standard of gold that, whipped in the wind.

  “Charge.”

  The horse moved forward, sluggish, and Laeghaire bent to ease him. He saw the bay horse moving easily beside them. The bay horse, that capered, while they moved with such pain.

  Up there, the golden standard fell.

  The Normans went a little way before they saw and realized it. They cheered. Laeghaire pulled the dirty air into his lungs and cheered. He felt the horse leap forward.

  “Get them. Get them. This time—”

  The brown stallion hurtled into the wall and it collapsed. The Saxons fell back step by step, and all along the wall the line broke. Laeghaire leaned forward and chopped over the stallion’s shoulder, clawing at them. He saw their startled faces, filthy too, and they fought up at him. Suddenly they turned and ran, and the Normans cheered again and chased them. Laeghaire spurred the stallion. The horse took three strides and fell. He fell over his head and somersaulted. Laeghaire thudded against the ground, ten feet from the horse.

  He got to his feet, dazed, and a great black bear of a Saxon dove at him. They fell and wrestled on the ground. Laeghaire drove his fists into the man’s face. He gasped for breath. The man had him around the waist. He snatched out his dagger and stabbed the man in the back. The Saxon reared up and threw him down. Laeghaire’s head struck the ground and he was stunned. The Saxon hulked over him. The Saxon drew a dagger. Laeghaire twisted away from him, flinging himself sideways. The dagger leaped for his face. The dagger slashed him, sliding over his helmet and driving into his face. He could not see; his eyes were full of blood. He lashed out. He flung the man off and staggered to his feet. “You’ve killed me—” He lunged against the man and felt the arms embrace him again and crush the life out of him. He stabbed again into the man. The flesh yielded like water. He stabbed and stabbed and stabbed. They were on the ground, rolling. He felt his last breath whistle through his teeth. He felt himself dying. They came to rest. The Saxon was still on top of him. The arms embraced him. He felt no more life in him to fight. He lay still.

  In the darkness he opened his eyes and saw nothing. He turned his head. The face of the man he had killed stared back at him. The eyes were dead stones.

  He moved. He pushed the man away and came to his knees. His head burst with a terrible ache. He swayed. It was dark. It was black night.

  Far down the field he saw fires. He climbed to his feet. He took two steps and stopped. He was alive. He could barely move. He was alive.

  I am alive. He took a step for each word: I am alive.

  The fires came closer. He saw men on the field, looking among the dead. The dead lay everywhere. He went down to the fires. They were spread out in a wide circle.

  “Who goes?”

  Sentry, off to his right. He stopped and lifted his head. The torchlight flooded over him. The sentry stared at him.

  “My lord.” The sentry took a step forward. “My lord. We thought you were dead. We thought—”

  The sentry turned and shouted, “Hi, you bloody Normans, the Irishman’s come back.”

  Laeghaire went by him. His horses were standing there, just past these fires. There was a lot of shouting. They were shouting his name. He stopped. They gathered around him. They did not touch him. They began to cheer. His name rose up out of their voices like a wave out of the sea. They shouted his name like a battle cry.

  Guy came shoving through them, beating them aside, and came up to him, with his head down like a penitent.

  “She’s looking for you,” he said.

  He put his hand on Laeghaire’s arm. Laeghaire jerked. “Take your hand off me,” he said.

  Guy looked up at him. The Normans were still all around, cheering him and shouting. His name hung in the air.

  “She said you weren’t dead,” Guy said. “She said nobody could kill you.”

  Laeghaire shook his head. “Well …”

  He started toward his tent. He looked up over the heads of the men who surged around him and saw William. William sat his fine bay horse there behind them all and watched. He wheeled the horse suddenly and galloped off.

  Laeghaire tasted blood in his mouth. He looked after William and laughed. He went down to his tent.

  “Laeghaire. Laeghaire.”

  She caught him by the arms and turned him. She put up a hand and touched his face. He felt the wound again, all down the side of his face. She sobbed and embraced him. She turned and crying led him back, led him by the hand like a child. She took him to her fire and sat him down like a child and got water and washed his face. He saw the firelight leap over her face and the tears and her hair and eyes. She gave him food and he ate.

  “Your face. Your poor face.”

  He could not see from that eye. Perhaps he never would. He finished eating. She wept. She held him in her arms and wept. After a while he pushed her away. He went to the black horse, tethered by the fire, and pulled the rope loose. He mounted the horse bareback. She stood by the fire. Her hair was a halo from the firelight. He rode off, just a little way, to a tree, and dismounted and sat under the tree, with his back to the fires.

  He remembered the child in the vault where the giant and the giantess were buried. He remembered the body of the child in the vault. But he was alive.

  It began to rain. He thought of the child and sat still. The rain soaked into h
im and washed down his face.

  “Irish.”

  “Well,” Laeghaire said. “Behold. The King of England.”

  William said nothing.

  “And now are you happy?” Laeghaire said.

  “They love you, Irish. They shouted your name like some hero’s.”

  “So they did. I heard them.”

  “If you hadn’t been there today, I might not be alive now.”

  “I accept your gracious thanks, my lord. Accept your life out of my hands, if you wish it. But it’s all in a day’s work, my lord. You need not thank me.” Laeghaire squirmed a little against the tree, getting comfortable. “As for me, I will always say that I have known the King of England.” He put his head back against the tree and looked at the branches. “And that the King of England knows my name.”

  “Laeghaire from Tralee. Laeghaire of the Long road.”

  The wind came up and blew the rain into Laeghaire’s face. William’s horse lowered his head and snuffled the grass. Laeghaire grinned. The silence drew out like a web between them. He could feel William testing it, uneasy of his way. The rain was cool.

  “What do you want, Irish?”

  “Why, what can you give me, King of England?”

  “Damn you.”

  William swung his horse and rode off.

  Laeghaire sat under the tree and listened to the rain. He felt it in his eyes. He thought of Murrough, of his dead son Murrough.

  He got up and went down again to the fire. Rolf and Hilde and Guy had put up the tent. He went into it. Rolf and Guy left at once. Laeghaire sat down and Hilde came over to him and bandaged his face. She wound the white linen over his face, careful to give him one eye to see by.

  “Laeghaire,” she said

  “Yes.”

  “You’re leaving, aren’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m not going with you.”

  “No.”

  “Would you stay if I told you I was pregnant again?”

  “No.”

  She fastened the linen. She was not crying. “You ought never to have brought me here. You ought to have left me in Germany.”

  “You’ll be happy here with Guy.”

  “I don’t love Guy.”

  “Why, I don’t love you, either. Leave me alone.”

  “Why can’t you love me?”

  “Leave me alone.”

  “When are you going?”

  “Tomorrow.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Oh, God, that sounds terrible. That’s horrible.”

  He laughed. He got up and went away from her. He felt stronger now. He laughed again. “Go be a countess, little one. But leave me alone. The King of England, may God bless him, will give you what you want for the mention of my name. Speak of me now and then to him, will you?”

  He went to the door and looked out. It was cool. The rain was chilly. He touched the bandage. Well, tomorrow, he thought. Tomorrow I will go.