There were three horsemen, all dismounted, at the top – another two who had pursued her down the slope.
One drew his sword but the other one cupped his balls. ‘Too cold,’ another seemed to say. None of them were serious about raping her just then, she felt the ice in their joints, their soaking feet, the chafing of the coats at their necks. No, they wouldn’t rape her right then. They’d wait until they had a fire and some food so their cocks weren’t shrunk to nothing by the cold.
They tied her hands and then lashed the rope to a horse. A Norman came up close to her, his nose almost touching hers.
‘Our. Friend. Dead. You.’ He drew his finger across his throat. ‘Souffrir, souffrir.’
Another horse came clopping up, ridden by a very young warrior. Behind it, led by a rope binding his hands, was someone she recognised. Ithamar! His wolf pelt was gone but she would know him anywhere.
One of the Normans said something to him in slow English.
‘Woman? Right woman?’
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘She’s a sorceress. You will be able to make her bring you many blessings. You will …’
He didn’t finish his sentence. The Norman put his spear through Ithamar’s chest. The hedge sorcerer looked down at it as if it was a strange butterfly that had landed there and he couldn’t make out its sort.
‘Sorry,’ he said to Tola. He slumped down onto the cold ground. As she was dragged away she saw the wolfstone at his neck.
39 A Wolf’s Larder
The rock would not budge. Unfed, the wolf inside Loys had all but closed its eyes. His senses were duller, the smell of the cave rank to him, not enticing or intriguing, though his eyes were still keen and his ears sharp. He had no desire to sniff around for the bodies, to push them with his nose, to turn them to expose the uneaten meat of the belly, the hock of the shoulder.
The little fire had died now and he was glad of it. His eyes ran from the remaining smoke but he knew that if he waited it would go. He lay on the cave floor for a long time until the smell of the dead fire numbed his senses. Eventually it became easier to breathe.
He felt his way across the floor, the only illumination from the nimbus of light around the rock that sealed him in.
Was there another way out? Perhaps but, the wolf sleeping inside him, he would have no chance of finding it in the darkness.
The faint sounds of battle came from outside and he renewed his assault on the rock. It would not budge. He sank down and turned his back against the rock, feeling its coolness against his skin.
In the realm of the gods he had freed a wolf from its bondage and the wolf had attacked the gods. Was this their way of repaying him? No. He breathed in the thick air. Odin was dead. But could death die? Or were the Fates willing him to be the wolf, no matter how he struggled?
He remembered the three women, the Norns, who spin the fate of all men, sitting spinning by the waters of the world well. He had thought he could break free of them but it would not be easy. When he had met the bright god Loki by the waters the god had called himself an enemy of death but he had only been playing a part in a story spoken years before by the women of the well. Loys was not an enemy of death. He was an enemy of destiny but here he was ensnared in its weft of flesh and bone, of torn bodies and dead eyes. To free the man, he must free the wolf.
He heard the keening of the wolf rune above him, a long cry of distress. They had caught her and, if they killed her, destiny had won the battle, a battle whose only aim was continuing the war, to trap him in a story without end, without meaning.
He sniffed at the torn corpses. They were not repulsive to him but neither did they draw the slaver from his mouth, the beast from inside him. The rune called again, a lonely note of distress.
He approached the slaughter trove. He could make out little more than the hunched shapes of the bodies in that darkness.
‘You must eat!’ His mother’s voice. ‘You need to be strong for your labours!’
‘Eat!’ his fellow monks had urged him. ‘Think of the poor who would gladly have your bowl. Think of me, who would gladly have it if you don’t want it. Eat’.
He remembered other times, other lives. He was a monk in a wood, tortured, bound by infirmity, forced to swallow the blood-slick liver of a friend. He was a man in a dungeon, beyond starving. He sensed his previous lives dimly, or the lives that had mingled with his under the eye of the wolf. He knew he had never done what he was about to do by choice, only coercion.
He picked up a hand. It was small and delicate. The loss of a child, a terrible and regular occurrence in the cycle of human misery. There was no horror for him in the cold of the arm, the skin beneath his teeth, the blood, fragrant as any bloom, in his nose, in his mouth. It was just food. And that was the horror. All those memories, all that joy, reduced to this, the tug of the skin against his teeth, the slip of his teeth against bone as they pared the flesh away. Horror was the years, lived and unlived, the fleeting connections, the loving and losing. None of that in meat.
He fed and the wolf ’s eyes opened inside him. Immediately the cavern was lighter, his senses sharp and clear, his rational mind, with its questions and decisions, a little duller. There was meat, there were enemies. First the meat, then the enemies.
He had hoped to eat a little, to allow the wolf to rise in him enough to suit his human purposes. The wolfish appetite had been pricked, the blood stink in its nostrils. It did not nibble like a lady at dinner, it gorged and tore until it was glutted.
As he ate, he spoke to himself. ‘I am Loys, a monk of Normandy. I broke my vows and ran away to the east with the duke’s daughter and there God punished me for loving. I travelled to forbidden places and released the wolf that killed the gods. I am a man. I am Loys and I am a man, beloved of Beatrice, who gave her life to save me, who I would follow into death.’
Gristle, blood, bone. A cold feeling swept over him, like entering a frosty morning from a muggy house, beautiful and clean. He said some other words but they were just leaves falling in the forest, losing all definition as they covered the ground. ‘What am I? I am Loys. What was I? I was Loys. I was Azemar, friend of Loys, forced to help his would-be assassins, the wolf ’s eye was on me and I didn’t know it until the dungeons of Constantinople awakened my appetites. I am a wolf against the moon. I am a brother, two brothers. I am several, many. I am born to tear the gods but there are no gods to tear.’
He swallowed, the taste metal, lovely. He laughed. Familiar things became unfamiliar. The dark was nothing to his eyes now and he spent a long time looking at a cooking pot, unable to determine whether you ate from it, pissed in it or wore it as a hat. It contained things. Meat. He contained things. Meat. He giggled and licked a dribble of blood snot from his lips.
There had been a point to all this eating but he couldn’t remember what it was. He had to save the woman. He couldn’t remember why but it felt important. He certainly mustn’t eat her. He should get out, he remembered that. But why? This place was warm, there was food. It was only when thirst gripped his throat that it seemed more desirable to leave than to stay. He would go, but for a little while, and to find water. Then he would return to his cave, the warmth and the meat-hoard.
The rim of the boulder blocking the entrance had lit and dimmed three times when he thought to move.
His nose was enough to tell him where the boulder was, the cold, wet air behind it. He put his hands to the rock and shoved. The boulder rocked slightly.
He shoved again and the top of the rock moved back to show a glimpse of the star-full sky. On his third push it turned to the side and he slipped through. The fog had gone and he was in a shining country of bright stars, a bloated moon, the grass sparkling in the wet light.
The smell of corpses was all about him, calling to him. He needed water but first he saw the body of someone he recognised. He did not know how he recognised him or where from but
his smell, his proportions, were familiar. Loys sucked moisture from the wet grass.
He knelt to the body and tore at the skin of its face with his nails. His fingers were changing. They were longer, thicker, and the nails were thick and black. ‘This country’s good,’ he said out loud and surprised himself with his voice. It was deep and rough, the words coming out as if through a grindstone.
He ate again, lay lapping at the grass and ate more. He was strong and swift but he had no urge to go anywhere. Why would he when the land was so bountiful?
He sprang up the bank above the cave. More bodies lay there, one a man who smelled of wolf. About his neck was a stone. Now he really did recognise that. What was it for? Not for eating. Then for what? He couldn’t recall. It didn’t matter. He pulled the body down the hill and shoved it into the cave along with the one he’d begun eating.
What a winter he would have here, the meat rotting into glory, the cave entrance sealed against wind and frost!
He sniffed the wind. There were others around, hostile men, he smelled their nerves and their aggression on the breeze. Would they find his den? He needed to scout them, to keep an eye on them and even kill them if necessary. This was his territory now and he would not have interlopers.
Another howl split the night of his mind and he saw a rune, writhing and turning as if in the air in front of him. The sound ensnared him, enchanted him. He had to go to it. He set off at a lope across the high fell, towards the sound of the rune, the smell of warriors and of horses.
40 At Rest
Freydis held Styliane in her arms. The fire crackled and spat in front of her, tucked into the little lea of the hill. Its colours were intense, glossy, more like the gems of the great church Hagia Sofia than ordinary flames. The runes were opening ways of seeing to her. She had wanted to use them to bring warmth to Styliane but the lady would not allow it.
It was days now since they had slipped out of York on a stolen horse using the noisy exit of Gylfa with the Normans as cover. They had run north. Styliane, when she had recovered from her faint, said they had an appointment with fate. They would look to keep it when free of immediate danger. That time appeared to have come.
‘The more you use them, the more you grow used to them, the more they grow in you. You haven’t my training, you haven’t made my sacrifices to be able to control them. If you wish to relinquish them to me then you must not think of them. Send them to the dark of your mind.’
Freydis poked the fire. It was as big as she dare make it. The fog had come down, which gave them cover, but she knew the weather could change in an instant here, the wind spring up and leave them exposed to whatever eyes were abroad in that country.
‘You took something from the well. Even when you were half dead you gripped it in your hand.’
Styliane reached inside her cloak and produced a stone, as big as an eye, the colour of old blood but with a deep sparkle to it.
‘What is it?’
‘A rune.’
‘Then use it to warm us.’
‘It is not that sort of rune.’
‘What, then?’
‘It is a tangle all of itself and a tangling thing. The god gave it to me.’
Freydis had seen so many wonders this almost struck her as normal. ‘Well, we cannot fail with gods on our side,’ she said.
The horse breathed. It, at least, had eaten. Water was no problem, they had too much of it – dripping from every rock, soaking the grass, trickling beneath the ice of frozen streams.
‘How shall we know where to go if I don’t use the runes?’
‘Think where fear is,’ said Styliane. ‘We’ll go there.’
‘It seems more difficult to go north. The hills seem steeper this way than any other, my feet heavier.’
‘Are you afraid of the north?’
‘I’m afraid of failing in my duty to you.’
‘You will not fail, Freydis.’
‘Must I die for you to return your runes?’
‘I don’t know. I lost the runes and I am still alive. Though now I will die. So yes, one way or another, soon or in many years, you must die. Without the runes you will age.’
‘If I die with a sword in my hand I’ll go to the halls of Freya to feast and battle eternally for that great lady.’
‘You will be her best servant.’
‘She will not be the best mistress. I have her here beside me.’
‘You give me comfort,’ said Styliane. ‘As fierce as any man but not wanting to be small like a man. Do the runes let you see how the warriors try to reduce themselves, narrow themselves, so they are a simple thing – a man that carries an axe is fearless and well-loved by his kin? The scholars and priests of Constantinople are no better.’
‘Women are freer,’ said Freydis. ‘Our lives may be bound by convention and rule but with each other we are free to be many things. A man tries to be few, to show himself a simple thing of honesty, wit and violence, though there are men who are gentle or thoughtful, who temper strength with humility.’
‘Though few,’ said Styliane. ‘The world does not reward such as they.’
‘Is the Norman like that? Loys?’
‘No. He is one thing trying to be many. Or trying to be nothing. He was undone by love and he lies like a warrior stricken in battle, his guts spilled, waiting for friend or foe to come and finish him. But no one will finish him. He must do that himself. And we must stop him. He must live because, if he dies, dies properly, then the story is over.’
‘What story?’
‘The one that is telling you, telling me.’
‘I don’t understand you, lady.’
‘You are a warrior, Freydis, you don’t have to understand, only to do.’
‘I am glad of that.’
They lay in each other’s warmth until morning. The fog was lighter but not light. Spectres of hills loomed in front of them, bushes appearing like ghosts to sink again into the engulfing mist.
‘I feel dread here,’ said Freydis. ‘I don’t want to go on.’ The horse stood and stamped and Freydis, walking beside it, stroked its nose.
‘Then it’s the way,’ said Styliane. ‘The scholar is the point around which everything must happen. If we find him, destiny will play out.’
‘And what if your destiny is to die?’
‘The story is shattered. Its ending can be rewritten. I am sure.’
‘My people believe that our destinies are unchangeable.’
‘And it suits a warrior to believe that – it gives courage. If it is your day to die, it’s your day to die. How can you be scared of what you cannot change? But destinies can be changed. We faced the gods at the world well in Constantinople. I gave a brother. The wolf gave a wife. Our destinies changed.’
‘How do you know?’
Styliane smiled.
‘I don’t. But I can’t imagine a girl born in a slum outside the walls of the world city was destined to become an immortal.’
‘Is what you believe and what you don’t believe all there is to the world, lady?’
‘I have travelled difficult roads to be where I am. I have seen death himself at the well. I have seen the women who spin the fates of all men, of you and me. I don’t know the truth, Freydis. Sorcerers imagine they can gain true knowledge gazing into their fires, chanting their rituals. Perhaps there isn’t a truth. There are just stories, told by the gods, and those of us who dare may take over the tale ourselves.’
‘You are a brave woman.’
‘I am a coward but I fight what I am afraid of.’
Freydis heard that voice in the hills, the long, cold stream of sound, the howl of the wolf. She shivered.
‘What?’said Styliane.
‘You didn’t hear the wolf?’
‘No.’
‘Then it’s him. Follow.’
Freydis kept the runes deep within her, so her feet froze and her cloak felt heavy.
In a dry valley she heard the damp footfall of many horses.
‘Normans?’
‘It must be. Be still.’
They waited, their own horse’s breath sounding like a bellows, so loud it seemed. The horses passed by in the fog, their steps muted in the heavy air.
‘We are hunted?’
‘Everything is hunted here,’ said Styliane. ‘It’s just a matter of whether we are their main quarry or simply sparrows who get trapped in the game-bird nets.’
Freydis began to feel very afraid, far worse than she had when she had found Loys the first time. This was the child’s fear of the dark mere, of the depths of the woods that are black and cool even in the heat of summer, of the noise in the night when she knew her father was away raiding but the stories of creeping monsters and foul fen hags he had told her still whispered in her mind.
She thought nothing of it. Fear was a fact for a warrior, like rain and lice. It didn’t stop the war, only made it uncomfortable.
When the fog was very thick they sat but as soon as they could see a few steps ahead they walked on. The horse breathed heavily, though Styliane was the lightest passenger it could hope for. It was hard to stop – nowhere dry to sit until the fire was built with curses and impatience, the collection of wood difficult, the taking of the flame harder.
They found tracks after a day or so – a great body of horses, dogs with them. They followed them a while until they reached a valley that split both ways. The horses went north, the main valley east.
‘Can you find the wolf?’ said Styliane.
‘He is north. We’re going the right way.’
‘How can you tell?’
‘The fear deepens with every step.’
‘Good. Then step on.’
41 A Promise Of Magic
The rope on the horse jerked Tola along. The fog had lifted and the Normans’ progress had become quicker.
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