And if she did refuse, then what?
She could see the king shrugging, pointing to the open door, clear as though she already stood before him.
She could go and find service on some other estate. Her weaving skills would make her welcome in the homes of any one of a number of distant cousins. Useful, worthy women could always find a roof, until they were too old to work. And a kind household would even find the old woman a sunny corner and a rusk to mumble.
But she had grown used over the last year to having choices and making decisions. Of having men listen to her. Even if they listened and promised and lied. Even if her choices and decisions were the wrong ones. She would have to forget about all that, as a poor relation.
So then what?
The road was open to her, as Finn had seemed to know.
Elfrun felt a deep bone-weariness that was only partly to do with her long night in the open and the horror of what had happened to Finn and his companions. It was herself, her guilty conscience, and her foolish vanity and fear of what might come: these were the burdens which were crushing her. Where was her much-vaunted faith when it was needed? She looked down at Finn. His lips were slightly parted, and one lock of his hair, ashy-fair and fine, had fallen over his forehead.
As she watched, his eyes opened.
As if in a dream that turned to nightmare, she saw his face light from within, and his right hand reach out to her, and then full wakefulness and memory bring the shutters down; and he turned away, lifting his shoulder against her.
‘Finn?’
‘Lady.’ He still had his back turned.
‘What are you and Auli to each other?’
She had no right to demand. She wasn’t even sure why that question, of all the burning questions, had come from her lips. But she knew that Auli had abandoned Finn into her care; and although that granted her no claim to an answer she felt it at least gave her permission to ask.
He didn’t respond for a long moment, and then he turned back, with a rustling of straw, and half sat up carefully, propping himself on his good arm, the blanket falling to one side.
‘Auli.’
‘Yes.’ She had to bite her lower lip, to stop herself from supplying his response. Sister. Cousin. Chance-met companion on the road. Anything but the answer she dreaded.
But the words, when they came, were not any of the ones she had foreseen.
‘Alvrun, Auli is my owner.’
She stared, literally making no sense of the separate syllables, unable to combine them into meaningful words. ‘What do you mean?’
He sighed. ‘I am her thrall. I work for her. She owns me, she and her father.’
‘Her father? The bear-leader?’
‘Who, Myr?’ Finn laughed scratchily. ‘No, no. Myr and Holmi and me, we’re all their thralls.’
‘So who is her father? Where is he?’
‘I don’t know. It was his boat that was putting in for us, but whether he was in it...’ Finn shrugged and made a face. ‘A lot can happen in a summer.’
‘So when you asked me to come with you...’ A slave with his eye on freedom. No wonder he had been buttering her up. Right from that long-ago encounter in the sand dunes he must have known her for what she was. A green girl with access to her father’s silver, pathetically ready to lie down with the first man who called her beautiful.
Vanity. Vanity. She hadn’t known it was possible to feel so utterly humiliated.
‘I think I had better go.’
‘Alvrun!’
She turned and walked out of the stable, into the autumn dusk.
66
The yard appeared deserted, but for the loops and skeins of hearth-smoke hanging in the still September air, and the smell of cooking. Everyone would be at their evening meal, and for this favour Elfrun was profoundly grateful. The last thing she wanted just then, hot-cheeked as she was and fighting tears, was to confront Saethryth and another half-dozen gossip-avid women, who might so easily have overheard anything she and Finn had had to say to each other. She would go back to the weaving shed – no, first she would go and beg half a loaf and some cheese. She hadn’t eaten since – and she realized then that she hadn’t eaten that whole day, nor the previous evening, and she was suddenly, bestially, hungry.
But she had taken no more than half a dozen paces from the stable-door when there was a thunder of hooves, loud and unfamiliar in the narrow, enclosed space of the yard.
Elfrun spun around, drawing in her breath to shout a warning and a reproof, but she wasn’t given the chance. There was a rider either side of her, their hoods pulled low, and a third coming straight at her who had looped his reins and was leaning sideways from his saddle, holding a grey cloak outstretched between his hands. Before she had time even to wonder what he was about, her head and upper body had been trapped in the coarse, scratchy fabric, and it was being bundled about her. Outraged, she put up her hands to shove the stifling cloth away, but now she was being grabbed under the armpits and hauled on to the back of one of the other horses, flung to lie face down over the saddle-bow, which dug more painfully into her midriff with every long stride. She shouted and tried to heave herself sideways, but the horse was wheeling now and the lurching trot flowing into a canter and then the crazy thud of a gallop, and she was suddenly more frightened of falling off than of staying on, no matter what was happening and who these riders might be.
But she knew exactly who they were.
Who had killed Ingeld? Who had speared the bear, and Finn’s friends, and Finn himself? Three men on horseback. Outlaws.
They would take her up into the hills.
Elfrun tried desperately to think, though the panic burning through her veins like fever fuddled her brain, and the saddle-bow was bruising her and winding her in equal measure, the rough wool pressed hard and stifling against eyes and nose and mouth.
They would have to slow down. They couldn’t ride like this once they were out of the cultivated ground and on to the waste, not unless they wanted to break a horse’s leg among the rough and the gorse. That would be her chance. When they slowed... No, let them ride a little way into the hills. She knew that landscape, every copse, every hollow. She could run and lie low.
The day was fading. They would have to slow down soon. The darkness would be her friend.
She just had to wait.
But the hectic pace wasn’t slowing, and she could hear the other horses galloping alongside, and then she realized she was slipping slowly forward with every great stride, her head a little further towards the ground, that there nothing she could do to stop it, and that if she fell she could be trampled. Every rise and fall of the horse’s head, every jolt of its withers, and she was another inch towards the ground. She twisted wildly, moaning with terror, knowing it was useless, knowing that she was letting fear win; and then she felt the cloth around the waist of her dress clamped in a strong hand slowly hauling her back to the centre. She was sick and dizzy with relief, and then furious with herself at her gratitude.
And then the pace did slow, and to her bafflement she heard the sound of splashing from the horses’ hooves below her. She had had it so clear in her head that they would ride out of the Donmouth yards and head uphill that she was genuinely mystified for a long moment, before cold realization could break through. They were taking her across the river.
Dark of the moon. Low tide.
They were taking her to Illingham.
Outlaws in the pay of Illingham. There were too many implications here for her giddy brain to grasp.
She could hear the water around the horse’s legs as it pushed its way through, the sound getting louder in her ears as the water deepened, and then she realized that either her dress or that grey cloak they had bagged her with was trailing in the water and wicking it up, because her legs were wet now, and she was getting cold. Colder still when they reached the other side and the horses lurched and swayed back up on to the opposite bank.
The horsemen had been ridi
ng mostly in silence, apart from the odd gasp or grunted word of encouragement to their mounts, but now the one who was holding her shouted something, and there was an answering call from ahead, and a whinny. Another horse trotting up.
There were words she couldn’t hear, and then a deep voice saying, ‘Did she fight?’ And a laugh from the man who was gripping her waist, echoed by the others, but nothing more. And then trotting, horrible trotting that bashed her ribcage repeatedly against the saddle’s pommel until she felt bruised to the bone and giddy with nausea. And then the soft thud of hooves on grass slowing and giving way to the clatter of a metalled surface: they were coming into a paved or a cobbled yard with a jingling of tack and soothing words and slowing again, and stopping. And then someone was hauling her down and setting her on her feet, turning her round and pulling the wool away from her face.
‘You got the right one then.’
He wasn’t talking to her. She blinked, light-headed.
Tilmon.
She had guessed as much already. But why?
If she spoke she risked being sick, and she was afraid of what she might say if she were to open her mouth, so she turned away and looked at the others, still mounted. A slight fair lad with a sulky face. Another young man, solider and with a dark beard that made him look older than she suspected he really was.
And Athulf, on Mara.
Elfrun closed her eyes, wrapping her arms around her ribs. There was nothing to say which could restore an ounce of her dignity. She had been wearing the same dress for two days and a night; she was dirty and wet. What price Elfrun of Donmouth now?
Athulf was watching her avidly, but when she swung round and stared him full in the face he dropped his gaze and wouldn’t meet her eye.
Now they had her, they didn’t seem to know what to do with her.
‘Where’s my son?’ Tilmon was moving away, towards their hall, a longer, more looming building than she was used to.
But it was his wife who came, Switha, that dark-eyed, kind-faced woman with a beaming smile and the manner of a hen fussing over errant chicks. Elfrun felt relief swamp her with all the shock of a freak wave.
‘Look at the state of you, child! Do I have to pick you up every time some Illingham oaf dumps you in it? Come with me,’ she said pointedly, ‘into the women’s house,’ shooting hard dark glances at the young men. Athulf was scowling, but he didn’t open his mouth. Suddenly Thancrad was there, with that set, immobile look to him. ‘Leave this to me,’ his mother said, and he stared for a moment, then nodded and shrugged and turned away.
She was already shepherding Elfrun, who was trying hard to fight the sense of being overwhelmed. ‘But what—’
‘Never mind all that now.’ Thancrad’s mother was opening the door, ushering her into the cosy dark interior. ‘Here, Ada, get some warm water,’ she snapped to another woman, who ducked her head and scuttled out. Switha was pulling Elfrun closer to the hearth. ‘Where’s my comb? Let’s get your wet things off.’
Elfrun hugged herself tighter than ever. She was beginning to shake, now that the shock of the ride was over, and she staggered suddenly as her knees threatened to give way beneath her.
‘Come on, girl.’ There was a new edge to her voice. ‘You’re soaked.’
And it made sense. Elfrun didn’t want to be cold and damp and dirty either. Unfastening her girdle with its burden of keys, she hauled her dress off over her head and passed it to the older woman.
‘And your shift.’
‘My shift?’ Elfrun stared at Switha. She was painfully aware now of other eyes, other voices, in the dark corners away from the hearth. ‘But I’ll have nothing to put on.’
‘We’ll find you something.’ Thancrad’s mother was the voice of sweet reason. ‘You’re soaked and filthy. I knew your mother, dear child. What would she say to me if I failed to care for you properly? Or Abarhild? I don’t want her telling me off for not looking after you, do I? Just look at yourself!’
Obedient to the tone of command, Elfrun looked down the length of her body to where her pale ankles and mud-spattered feet emerged from the sorry hem of her linen. Tattered, and stained, and wet enough to cling. Switha was right. ‘Yes. I’m sorry. If you can find me...’ But when she heard the note of apology in her tone she was furious with herself. She had not asked to be here, after all.
‘Come on, then. Hand it over.’
Hot-faced and shivering, Elfrun pulled off the linen shift, more aware than ever of those eyes on her exposed skin. The room was too warm and close, and she could feel trickles of nervous sweat running down her ribs. She had her girdle and keys and pouch bundled awkwardly in her hand.
Trying to shield her nakedness with her hands, she looked around for the promised garment, but instead to her disbelief she saw Thancrad’s mother pick up her discarded dress and shift and drop them on the fire.
‘I – You – What – what are you doing?’ She darted forward, but the linen was already darkening, charring, red-gold edges appearing to the holes, the old blue dress half smothering the flames, the room filling with the stink of burning wool.
‘Don’t be silly. You won’t need that patched old thing.’ There was a purr of complacency in the older woman’s voice that made Elfrun uncomfortable. ‘Come on, dear one. Let’s get you clean.’
The diminutive slave woman at whom Switha had snapped when they first came in was now reaching into the hearth with a pair of tongs to pull out a hot stone; she dropped it, with a hiss and a bubble, into the bucket of water she had just fetched. Dipping a rag into the water, she stepped forward and reached to pull Elfrun’s arm away from her body.
It was an effort not to scream and fling her off. ‘I don’t need washing,’ Elfrun said through clenched teeth. She wrapped her arms around herself again.
‘Don’t be so silly,’ Thancrad’s mother repeated. She didn’t sound so patient now. ‘Mud from top to toe. Anyway, what have you got to be so shy about? More like a boy than a girl.’ She stepped forward and grabbed Elfrun’s wrists, forcing her arms aside and scanning her up and down. ‘Look! I can count every rib. We’ll have to do something about that.’
Elfrun was far beyond humiliation now. She twisted violently out of the other woman’s grip. ‘Let me go! I want to leave, now.’
She had expected a fight, but: ‘Go on then.’ Switha stepped back and crossed her arms. ‘There’s the door. It’s not locked.’ She jerked her chin. ‘Off you go.’
‘I can’t go naked!’ Elfrun could hear the beginning of ragged, childish tears, and again she was furious with herself. ‘Give me something to wear.’
‘Then let us help you get cleaned up and we’ll find you something to wear.’ Soothing, unctuous tones. ‘You must be hungry, too.’
Elfrun closed her eyes. Again it sounded so reasonable, even attractive now that the jolting nausea had ebbed. Hadn’t she been on her way to find herself food when the horsemen came riding in? She had told Finn to get some bread, but she had eaten nothing herself that day.
Finn.
Tears pricked her closed eyelids. How stupid her pride felt now. That sudden blaze of self-righteousness had been fuelled by anger too, and the shame that had come in the backwash of desire.
Pride, anger, lust. Such familiar words.
Three of the seven capital sins.
Abarhild had been lecturing her about sin all her life, but now for the first time she began to realize what the word might mean. This wasn’t really about disobedience, wilfulness, the way Abarhild made out – though that might yet prove to be part of it. Sin was a bramble thicket made of her own selfishness, tearing at her, blocking her view, stopping others from coming close. Hurting them too.
She knew she had hurt Finn: she had seen his face.
Worse: she had meant to hurt him.
And the fight went out of her.
She stood passive as a post, her arms outstretched and her eyes closed, to let a couple of the Illingham slave women wipe her face, her arms and legs with
warm water; unplait her dishevelled hair and go through it as gently as they could with fine-toothed combs. Being tended; giving up her will to theirs: it was deeply soothing. She was almost asleep on her feet, swaying slightly and longing for oblivion, only the occasional sharp tug on her scalp keeping her awake, not responding even when she heard them muttering about the bruises rising on her ribs; and she was almost sorry when she heard Thancrad’s mother say, ‘Lift your arms above your head,’ and she felt the fresh, crisp linen slither against her skin and fall to her feet. It was too long, and too large for her, the hem pooling around her feet, but it was such a relief to be covered again, and she hugged the extra folds of fine white fabric around her as though it afforded as much protection as a mail-shirt.
‘Here.’ And turning she found at her elbow a wooden platter with warm wheaten bread, and new butter, and honey. The smell of the bread was almost more than she could bear. She tried not to stuff herself ravenously, to take small mouthfuls and chew properly as Abarhild would have told her, but it wasn’t easy, with the bread soft and crumbly on her tongue, the thick layer of faintly salty butter, the unbearable sweetness of the honey. She had to stop, however, when she realized to her shame that the other women were standing around her, just watching her cram her face while trying to keep the honey out of her hair.
‘Is no one else eating?’
Thancrad’s mother was smiling. ‘We’re looking after you just now. Here.’
A horn beaker of mead, sticky and syrupy, with that undertaste of bitterness she always found present, that sense of something lurking in the depths. She sipped and tried to hand it back, but the smiling, tiny slave woman pressed it into her hand, and she had to be polite, to drain it to the cloying, emetic dregs, and then have her hands and face wiped again. Her hair was pulled back, and combed again until it crackled. Thancrad’s mother was standing back a little and eyeing her critically, and again Elfrun noticed the unsettling way she had of darting out the tip of her tongue to touch the bristle at the corner of her mouth. Perhaps the woman didn’t know she was doing it.
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