A Novel

by Signe Pike

  Far below, the boats bobbed steadily in the winter waters, content to have their sails tethered because they knew in the morning, they would set sail to the west. To the wild freedom brought only by the sea.

  • • •

  It was the sudden pain that woke me just before dawn, a searing so violent I woke with a cry, gripping my cheek as if I’d been wounded. Rhydderch startled instantly from sleep, knocking unlit candles to the floor as he groped for his sword. When he stood to find the chamber dark and deserted, he turned to me, urgent.

  “What is the matter? Is it the child?”

  My fingers searched blindly for the source of the pain as Rhydderch fumbled in the dimness to light an oil lamp with a reed from the fire. Nothing. The curved bone of my cheek was unblemished, and yet my face throbbed as though it had been sliced from temple to chin.

  “It’s nothing,” I mumbled in confusion. “I’m sorry to have startled you. It was only a dream.” My husband’s gray eyes searched mine in the lamplight and I felt the stirrings of affection mingled with guilt.

  “Are you certain you’re well?” he asked gently.

  “Yes, I’m well. I and the babe.”

  Rhydderch let out a breath, relieved. But my heart was pounding so loudly that I was certain he could hear it. “I’m sorry,” I repeated. “Let us sleep.”

  I waited in the dark for an eternity. Foul weather had swept in and the wind was wailing as tiny particles of ice hissed against the shutter. When at last the rhythm returned to Rhydderch’s breathing, I crept from bed. The fire had died down, and my fingers trembled as I dressed, pulling on thick woolen stockings and securing my warmest dress and fur-lined cloak with a sturdy leather belt.

  Crowan, now my only constant companion, slept in the tiny room beside ours that she shared with Desdemona. But it was not Crowan I sought to wake. Crowan would only worry and raise such a fuss, she would never let me go. The floor felt like frost beneath my feet as I slipped into the dark, feeling my way to their door with a growing sense of disquiet. I stopped for a moment, suddenly unsure whether Desdemona was up to the task. But as I stood there in the dark, my face pulsing with a wound I could not see, I could doubt it no longer.

  Lailoken was hurt.

  I reached to stir Desdemona and she woke with a start. “Why are you no’ sleeping, m’lady?”

  I raised a finger to my lips, gesturing to Crowan. “You must ready yourself quickly. We are leaving now for Partick.”

  “But it’s stormin’ and bitter outside! It’s no’ yet mornin’!”

  “It must be now, Desdemona. Something has happened to Lailoken,” I whispered. “My brother has been wounded.”

  I saw the fear spring to her eyes; I knew she had long admired him.

  “An’ wha’ o’ the queen? She’s forbid it.” She glanced away. “They’ll beat me.”

  “If they seek to lay a hand on you, they must first come through me. Please now. Fetch Brodyn. Have him ready a boat and enough men to row. Do it quickly. Go now!”

  Outside, the stairs between the ramparts were slick with ice. I felt like a fly trapped in honey as we moved too slowly downhill by torchlight, frozen rain pelting at our hoods and hissing in its effort to extinguish our flames. We reached the lower rampart only to have two guards stalk from the warmth of the gatehouse, hostile and moody in the spitting cold.

  “The lady is not to leave,” the taller one said.

  I stared ahead, refusing to meet his gaze. “How dare you question me! I am with child and in need of my healer.”

  His face blanched in alarm. “Then we must wake a priest.”

  “I will not see a priest.” I turned to him, my eyes ablaze. “You would stand here and jeopardize Lord Rhydderch’s heir?”

  “If it is by your husband’s sanction . . .”

  “Where could I go without my husband’s sanction?” I lied.

  A look passed between the guards, but at last the taller one nodded, finally giving way.

  Rhydderch’s vessel waited at the dock’s edge, six of our men hunched over their oars against the cold. They inclined their heads as Brodyn reached out to help me aboard, and Desdemona and I huddled beneath the small winter shelter secured on deck as the boat cut through the dark water.

  “Did you do as I instructed?” I asked Brodyn.

  “Aye. I left word for Rhydderch. But I warn you, cousin, your husband will be none too pleased.”

  “Then it is thankful that in this matter I do not seek to please him.”

  “Will you tell me now what this is about?” Brodyn’s gaze went to Desdemona, who sat shivering next to me under a pile of thick blankets. “You endanger not only yourself.”

  “Not even a tyrant would punish me for going to my brother’s side,” I hissed. “Lailoken is in danger. Something has happened.”

  “Lailoken in danger? Now you say! We would have gotten word of any strife, Languoreth.”

  “He is my twin, Brodyn. You must trust in me. I cannot say more.”

  Brodyn looked at me a long moment before bowing his head and tightening his cloak against the cold.

  “How much farther?” I asked.

  “It won’t be long now. We should arrive by sunup.”

  I fixed my eyes on the glow of the eastern horizon. I could only pray, whatever had happened, sunup would not be too late.

  CHAPTER 33

  * * *

  Up ahead the morning sky flickered with an orange glow. From a distance I almost mistook it for sunrise. But as the boat slapped through the wintry chop of the water I saw the ominous rise of black clouds.

  Brodyn shot to his feet.

  “Oars, men, oars!”

  I rushed to the gunwale, straining to make out the source of the flames.

  “Sweet Gods, it’s the granaries,” I shouted. “They’re on fire!”

  I could see the inferno licking the squat wooden buildings halfway upriver. Fire lit the dawn like a funeral pyre, smoke gusting downwind until I tasted the charred wood in the back of my throat.

  “Faster. Faster, please!” I begged. Shouts and curses of men scrambling to put out the blaze carried over the water as we sped toward shore, nearly colliding with the dock. I blinked against the stifling billows, stumbling from the boat into a world of chaos.

  Men raced from the river and back with buckets of brackish water, their faces blackened with soot. I braced my hands beneath the curve of my stomach and rushed uphill, Brodyn and Desdemona at my back.

  “Lailoken?” I shouted into the crowd, my panic mounting. “Father!”

  “Languoreth!” Brodyn called. “This way!” He cast his cloak over me to shelter me from a blast of heat as we hurried past the granary closest to shore.

  “Brodyn!” Brant’s voice carried over the crackle of flames, and I turned to see my elder cousin, ashes in his hair and a gash on his shoulder, calling to his brother.

  “Whatever are you doing here?” Brant clasped Brodyn’s arm, then looked at me.

  “It doesn’t matter now. Tell us what’s happened,” I demanded.

  “It was a raid—a mob. Must have been near one hundred men. We’d doubled the guard, but what was twenty men to a hundred? I cannot think how word found you so quickly, but I am glad for it. Come, I’ll take you to Morken. We are badly in need of hands.” He looked over his shoulder as we hurried away. “And a healer.”

  “Who’s been harmed?” I scrambled to keep pace. “And what of Thoma, Father’s new healer?”

  “Thoma lies wounded. Lailoken, too.”

  “Oh, no.” I shook my head. “No!”

  “Cathan is tending as best he can, but . . .” Brant trailed off as we ducked beneath a low door and into the smoldering shelter of one of the last remaining granaries.

  My eyes swept the room, taking stock. Herbs and ointments were scattered across the floor. Many of my father’s men lay wounded, and I glimpsed the bloodied white robes of Thoma, Father’s new healer, who was splayed unconscious on the flagstone floor. Father pac
ed like a wounded beast, his face black with soot and fury. I startled as he slammed his fist against the wall.

  “I will have his head on a pike!” he shouted.

  “Father!” I cried.

  He turned and his rage collapsed into bewilderment as I rushed into his arms.

  “Languoreth, this is dangerous,” he said against my hair. “Whatever are you doing here?”

  “Never mind it. I’m here now.” I laid my head against his shoulder a moment before pulling back to search his face. “Where is Lailoken?”

  His face darkened again. He nodded to the far corner of the barn.

  My hands flew to my mouth as I spotted Cathan hunched over Lail’s prone body, holding a blood-soaked rag against my brother’s face. Discarded bloody dressings littered the floor. I nearly slipped on them as I rushed to my brother’s side, his name a sob in my throat. “Lail.”

  “Languoreth, thank the Gods,” Cathan looked up and I saw his face was bloody and bruised. The knuckles of his right hand had been smashed, but he was flexing them with a wince, preparing to do Lail’s stitching.

  “Your hand!”

  Cathan frowned. “Don’t fret over me; I will set it. I’ve survived many a kicking in my lifetime. I don’t intend to stop surviving them now. Lailoken’s bled too much. We need to stanch the wound.”

  I blinked in an effort to gain my bearings. Lail’s lashes lay flush against his cheeks, his face waxy and pale. I could not yet see the wound that bled beneath the cloth.

  I turned to Desdemona, who was staring at Lailoken as if she’d been struck.

  “Desdemona, fetch clean linens,” I ordered. “Quickly!”

  “Yes, m’lady.”

  I swallowed. “And someone build a fire. I am not certain this is a wound that will stitch.”

  He’d lost too much blood; I could tell from the waxiness of his skin. If the wound was too deep, I could not risk it festering. I would have to clean it as best I could, then burn it shut. I rushed to Thoma’s unconscious form, grateful to find his remedy sack still strapped round his waist.

  “I’m sorry, but I must have this,” I told him as my fingers fumbled against the buckles. “I’ll help you soon as I’m able.”

  I upended its contents on the floor beside my brother, sifting through them, frantic. Oh, thank the Gods. Sphagnum and yarrow. Copper salts. Thoma had all the makings to clot the bleeding and ward off infection.

  I looked to Cathan. “Let me see it.”

  Dried blood tugged at the cloth as Cathan pulled it away. I gasped as the blood spurted afresh and a wave of sickness rocked through me. It wasn’t the blood—I’d seen plenty of it. It was the wound itself. The gash ran from temple to chin.

  Lailoken’s face had been carved with a wound the same shape as the scar my father bore. This was no accident. This was a mark made of hate. I blinked and pressed the cloth hastily back to the wound, preparing to clean it.

  “Cathan, the wound is too big; we cannot stitch it. It will have to be sealed with fire. It’s the only way.” I looked up. “Who has done this? Tell me they have been punished.”

  “Oh, the men who did this have been punished.” Brant knelt by Lailoken, voice low and his dark eyes fixed on my brother’s motionless face. “Do you hear me, Lailoken? The men who did this have been punished. The first man slain was the one who sought to hold me back. Next among the dead were the three I discovered holding you down. But the man brandishing the knife . . . Well. I showed him what his weapon could do.”

  Cathan rubbed his temples with the heels of his hands. “Dead men cannot speak, Brant.”

  “Oh? And did we need them to speak?” Brant challenged. “It is no great mystery who sent them. And where do you think they have taken our grain? To Mungo’s lands upriver, that’s where. Easy as you like on the tide, and on one of our vessels, too.”

  I could not think of it. Not now. I fumbled through the spilled contents of Thoma’s sack for a flask that I hoped held vinegar. I sniffed to make sure before pouring it onto a linen and pressing it to the weeping gash. It would have burned like fire, yet Lailoken did not stir.

  “I should have liked to have questioned them,” Cathan said angrily. My fingers shook as I struggled to focus on the wound.

  Desdemona reappeared, her face tight with worry, a stack of clean linens in her arms. “Please, m’lady. Let me help.”

  “Find me a place where the fire burns hottest,” I said. Taking my blade from my belt, I handed it to her. “Hold this over the flames until it is glowing red. Glowing with red, do you hear? Then bring it back to me right away.”

  Desdemona nodded and I could have sworn that her distress seemed driven by something deeper. But whatever Desdemona felt, I did not have time to consider it. Lailoken began to stir and shift on his pallet on the floor.

  “Your son is strong.” Cathan looked to Father. “Come. We must hold him.”

  • • •

  Later, when it was done, we sat beside my brother’s still body and spoke at last of what had taken place. Lailoken had gone unconscious from pain. A blessing, for I hoped he would never remember what I could not forget: the smell of his burning flesh, the pitch of his screams. This was not a pain that could easily be borne by any man. Not even a warrior.

  Anger boiled in a sickening vat in my stomach. This could not go unanswered.

  “Tutgual’s men were posted on the ramparts,” Father growled.

  “The storm was pelting,” Cathan said. “They will say they were closed in the guard huts. They will say they saw nothing.”

  The silver-tongued bishop had inspired a mob to raid my father’s stores. They had disfigured his only son and escaped in one of our vessels.

  I could almost laugh at the absurdity of it. “So this is how Mungo would find his grain when his people are starved. An armed mob of one hundred.” This carried out by a man who followed Christ.

  It had been a span of only months since his naming, and already Mungo had sought out our sacred shrines and springs, claiming them as property of his church. He had hacked up our tribal land into arbitrary tracts now called “parishes,” placing each under the jurisdiction of a priest. He had even gone from hut to hut disavowing marriages among Strathclyde’s tenants and warriors that were not conducted by a monk. All of this had been done under the sanction of Tutgual.

  Brant rubbed a blood-streaked hand over his face. “They were armed with sharpened sticks. Hay forks,” he remembered. “Spears, stones, knives. Not one in twenty had a sword. But they came in scores. Men willing to kill for food.”

  “Lailoken was full of fury. He rode out faster than any of us could mount,” Cathan said. “We were too far behind.”

  “This cannot go unpunished,” I said. “Surely Rhydderch cannot stand idly by whilst such vile men attack my own brother in such a brutal and unforgivable act! I am a princess of Strathclyde. I will not rest until I see that wicked man pay. Surely Tutgual—”

  “Tutgual?” Cathan scoffed. “Tutgual will sit upon his ornately carved throne and do nothing. And you will not so much as move your lips in protest.”

  I looked at him, my eyes ablaze. “Why else have I been given to Rhydderch if not to use my influence to protect my family?”

  “You? You have no influence. Not yet. When you do, we shall use it. But you will make no allies in your new household by acting as such. We have our ways of dealing with such matters. You will see.”

  “I should have been with you,” Brodyn said. His voice was tight. It had not been an easy choice for Brodyn to leave Father and Brant to captain my guard. I waited now for Father to allay my cousin’s blame, but he only looked at him. At last Father bowed his head.

  “Your place is with Languoreth, Brodyn. And Lailoken’s justice has been served. The men who marked him are dead. My son is strong. He will yet live to see this man Mungo cast from our kingdom.”

  “Is that so, Father? And what will you do?” I challenged.

  “I have rage enough to wage ten wars,”
Father said. “But the bishop’s mouth is a yawning maw. Did we not predict that no matter how much of our world he swallowed, he would hunger for more? Yes, the cost has been great. But Mungo has overstepped himself now. I do not agree with my counsellor. I have a different mind.” Father nodded at Cathan in respect. “I believe Tutgual will be forced to act.”

  The Wisdom Keeper only raised a brow and flexed his fingers, examining the damage done to his hand.

  I looked to Father. “Kill him and be done with it. Mungo will never cease.”

  “You think I do not wish him dead?” Father turned to me. “Think it through, Languoreth. You are cleverer than this.”

  “Morken cannot kill Tutgual’s appointed bishop,” Cathan said. “To do so would force Tutgual to retaliate. He would raze Cadzow. Any who swear fealty to your father would be put to the sword. And then there’s Morken’s own daughter,” he said. “Kept so close in Tutgual’s own fort.”

  The harsh light of a winter’s dawn showed the age on Father’s face. My eyes fixed on the mottled scar only partly concealed by his thick, reddish beard.

  “But look what he has done to your son.” My voice broke. Father blinked and glanced away.

  “Look! He’s stirrin’!” Desdemona suddenly straightened. “Lailoken’s waking!”

  “Please, give him air,” I said. But I’d nearly lost my brother, and now I wanted no one closer to him than me. I had packed a poultice gently to Lail’s face, securing it with two long bandages, one knotted round his forehead and the other wrapping the oval of his face. It would need changing soon. My breath hitched as Lailoken’s eyes eased open.

  “Lie still. Don’t speak,” I said.

  His blue eyes roamed the world from his pallet on the floor and he winced with a moan, reaching for the wound on his face.

  “Don’t! You’ve been . . . injured,” I said. “I’ve sealed the wound and dressed it, but you mustn’t touch it, please.”

  At this he rolled his eyes. With some effort he worked to loose his tongue from the dry roof of his mouth. “You dressed it? Then I am truly in trouble,” he said.

  I shook my head as Father knelt beside us.