And now – if Radspakr was to be believed – the Pantheon wanted him: Tyler Maitland. He twisted the top back onto the whisky bottle and stretched his leg. This was an opportunity he wasn’t about to let slip. The next morning, dressed in his new kit, with his day clothes stowed in a rucksack on his back, he forced himself to jog all the way to the university, even accelerating on the ups.
VI
Over the coming weeks, the twelve initiates found their training alternating between stamina and strength. The vaults were set up with a variety of equipment – some hi-spec, some primitive – and they came to recognise the apparatus and to anticipate the exercises. When their blindfolds were removed, Freyja and Halvar were always solemnly waiting for them in the central vault and Tyler wondered if the two of them prepared everything beforehand, although he could not imagine these two stern Housecarls lighting candles and hoisting hanging sandbags. Perhaps night elves scurried up from hidden depths and set everything to rights before each session.
In the second week Thralls IV and IX left the process. Freyja pronounced their departure in matter-of-fact tones at the start of one session, saying that their amulets had been found beneath the yew tree. In week four, she stated, ‘Thrall III will no longer be with us. She was foolish enough to email her parents about her experiences and the Vigiles were not amused.’ Everyone glanced at one another, wondering what the Vigiles did when they were not amused.
So there were nine of them. They always began with running and stretching exercises and Tyler’s leg burned. Then on those nights when the focus turned to strength, it was his crooked arm that bore the brunt. They used stone dumbbells of varying weights for biceps curls. They carried even heavier pairs on slow walks across the vaults or clasped them as they stepped forward in alternating lunges. They balanced sandbags on their shoulders and bent their knees into gradual squats until their thighs screamed. They used parallel bars to practise lateral raises, sometimes forcing the upward motion to be excruciatingly slow and sometimes the downward. They dropped into push-ups and crunches and the cold flagstones were a relief in the sweat-soaked fug.
Their torturers-in-chief retained a parade ground mix of iron discipline and oath-ridden exhortations at the hopelessness of their charges. Yet Tyler also noted quieter touches in the detail of their approach – encouragement and even tenderness. When the ponytailed girl, Thrall VIII, struggled with the push-ups, Halvar patted her shoulder and explained gently that doing them from a kneeling position was much easier. When bald Thrall II continued to complete the challenges with ease, Tyler saw the admiring nods between the instructors. He realised that while they might shout and curse and prod and kick, these Housecarls were on their side. They wanted them to succeed. And the knowledge helped sustain him through the dark waves of pain.
But he also recognised that if there was one of their number who was consistently falling short, it was him.
What do I have to offer? he asked himself repeatedly. The others are all so naturally good at this. Some strong, some fast, some agile. Why am I here?
Four months before, on a rain-swept concrete stairway deep in the Craigmillar estate, he had been kicked unconscious by three youths in his first and final warning that it was one thing to eviscerate his meaningless life snorting coke, but it was quite another to attempt his own pathetic dealing of the little packages without proper permission. With a newly contrite fear, he had taken stock, sworn to himself that he would never touch the shit again, and found a new flat in Comely Bank. It seemed a world away from the hand-by-mouth benefits existence on the estates, but he still looked over his shoulder and stole out to sleep fitfully in his van where he felt more secure.
He thought his limbs would never recover from the attack, but he had purchased a punch bag and evening after evening he’d worked at it – whack, whack, whack – praying for improvement. Now, in the Valhalla training vaults, his face was a grimaced scream of pain as he bobbed awkwardly on the lateral bars and attempted to haul himself up ropes hung from old iron hooks.
One night Halvar knelt beside him as he struggled with press-ups. ‘In a Valhalla shieldwall your left arm will be strapped into your shield, and when the Titan Hoplites come at you it’ll be your primary means of defence against their shortswords. And when their Phalanx advances onto you with their eighteen-foot sarissas, well then, it will be the only thing that saves your life.’
After he fell exhausted from the lateral bars on one occasion, bald, smiling Thrall II, who eased through everything that was thrown at him, slapped Tyler on the back and gave him a quiet nod of encouragement. When he dropped the stone dumbbells, Halvar and Freyja glanced grimly at each other, and when he descended a barely climbed rope, he caught ponytailed Thrall VIII watching him with her wide unfathomable eyes.
Despite her slight frame, she performed better at the tasks than most expected. Her aerobic fitness soared and she bobbed on the bars and shinned up the ropes with balletic grace. On one night they were introduced to heavy corn sacks suspended from ropes and told to help each other bind their hands with strips of cloth. They took it in turns to punch the bags. Little Thrall VIII barely moved the sack and she reddened with frustration. Staccato seabird cries burst from her as she slapped and hit to no effect. She turned away with a look of embarrassed outrage. Then, in a blur of movement, she launched herself into the air, spun through 180 degrees, brought her right leg out so that it was level with her shoulder and hit the bag side-on with her heel. She completed her turn full-circle as the bag swung backwards, landing with perfect poise with her back once more to the apparatus. There was stunned silence as she walked away and then Halvar began a slow clap and, before they knew it, they were all clapping and laughing, and she was looking around torn between anger and bewilderment.
‘Not what we asked for,’ Halvar called above the noise. ‘But thank you for the demonstration, miss.’
When it was Thrall II’s turn, he shoulder-barged into the bag, almost tearing it from the rope. An impressed Halvar returned his grin. ‘Army rugby,’ Thrall II said.
Freyja stepped towards him with a raised hand. ‘Have a care. You may offer up stories and thoughts that can help us develop as a group, but not details that could reveal your identities. No one shares their true selves in the Pantheon. Choose your words wisely.’
Thrall II nodded and it was the first time Tyler had seen him with shoulders sunk and hurt in his eyes. Usually he strutted about with such supremacy. No, that was an unfair description. He didn’t strut, for that suggested arrogance and Thrall II was anything but arrogant. Self-assured, that was it. The self-assurance and competitive streak of an athlete. But also, Tyler now noted as he watched the shiny bowed head of the tall man, beneath the confidence was an altogether more delicate character.
Tyler Maitland was four and his sister, Morgan, seven, when their mother led their escape from London. Tyler had sensed the tension the day before, but he was dazed when she shook him awake and struggled to dress him in the middle of the night. He didn’t know why she needed him out of his pyjamas so rapidly in the cold February dark with the rain on the windows, but he knew she was frightened and he must be good and get into his trousers and try not to shiver too much or cry. Then his mother marched them down the stairs from their spacious apartment in Kensington. Morgan had her own small bag and clung bravely to her favourite teddy as they climbed into the waiting taxi.
It was an endless journey. The lights of London sank behind and the rain clawed at the windows. The fan pumped heated stale air under their feet and dried their throats. The windscreen wipers seesawed back and forth and the radio played tinny songs interrupted by static. The driver smelt of aftershave and whenever they stopped at wet, fluorescent service stations, he sucked on two or three roll-ups, ignoring the signs when filling up with petrol.
Morgan slept on one side of Tyler with her head against the door, and his mother’s own head nodded on the other side of him as she held his hand, but she kept forcing herself awake as though not trusting th
at it was safe to slip into unconsciousness. Tyler couldn’t sleep, even though the hum of the engine never let up and the miles kept passing unseen. He understood that what they did that night was of utmost importance and he stared wide-eyed at the motorway lights.
Perhaps he did sleep eventually, for suddenly they were driving over gravel and pulling up beside a rural semi that belonged to his mother’s sister. He was struck by the silence as he was helped from the car. The rain had stopped, but everywhere dripped like a million clocks and the air had been washed clean and smelt of such fresh newness after the stuffiness of the taxi. His mother handed over great wads of notes to the driver and he backed out of the drive with just a shrugged farewell. It was still dark. They had hot chocolate and biscuits at his auntie’s kitchen table and then he and Morgan were escorted to a cold little bedroom with bunk beds and heavy blankets. As they were left to sleep, she informed him solemnly from the top bunk that they were in Scotland now and would never ever go back to London.
They must have spent a few weeks with his aunt, although he could recall little of them except her home-baked teabread, his uncle’s pipe smoke and the cat that stole onto his bunk and left a warm, hair-strewn indentation on his pillow. His mother disappeared for long spells and she would exchange significant looks with his aunt whenever her mobile phone rang and she left it unanswered. At night he heard them talking from the kitchen and he knew it was about his father.
His father. In all honesty, Tyler could barely picture him. He hovered at the corner of his mind. He used to appear at their London apartment and very rarely stay the night, although in Tyler’s earliest memories his mother seemed pleased to see the man and would embrace him earnestly. He smelt strange. Heavy-scented, musky. Not unpleasant. He had long smooth hands and pretty cufflinks. He would sit Tyler on his knee and study him and search his face for something, but he didn’t play with him or seem to offer the love that his mother provided.
There were nights when he raised his voice at her and the children lay rigid in their beds. Morgan would say that he had been drinking, although Tyler didn’t really understand. His mother too seemed to drink increasingly – a tiny amber liquid during the day and tall glasses of clear liquid at night with lemon and ice fighting for space. She would make long, rambling emotional phone calls and they knew she was speaking to their father during his long absences. Sometimes she would call him horrible names and then sweep them up in her arms and cry and say she was sorry, and they would cry too.
One evening not long before their hurried departure, she drank heavily and came out of her bedroom in a sleek black dress. Her hair was brushed loose down her back, her heels clicked on the floor and her lips were painted scarlet and fixed in a tight pinched line. She gave them sandwiches and said she would be back in two hours, then strode out the large flat with silent purpose and even Tyler knew she possessed a terrible beauty that night.
When she returned, her make-up was smeared and she had been crying. She hugged them and got them bathed and into bed, kissing them with a breath of liquor fumes. Then they were woken by the voice of their father. He was shouting and their mother shouted even louder in return. There was heavy movement. The kitchen table screeched on the floor. One of them backed into their bedroom wall. A glass broke. Morgan climbed out of her bed and padded across the carpet to get in with Tyler and hold him. The yelling climaxed and they heard the front door slam. There was a long silence, although they thought they heard a muffled, keening sob. Then their mother came and looked at them from the bedroom door, but she said nothing and simply closed it again and her heels echoed away along the oak-floored landing.
Five days later, they made the journey to Scotland and several weeks after that they left their aunt’s house in the country and took a taxi into a city of spires and colonnades and battlements and hills. They arrived at a small ground-floor flat just a few minutes’ walk from the sea. The air had a salty, fishy tang and they shared hot-dogs by the sand, but the flat itself was cramped, cold and spartan. Without realising it, time drifted and it became their home for over a year. Official-looking strangers visited and quizzed their mother and filled out forms and asked the children if they were happy. Morgan went to school and had a different uniform from the one she had worn in London. Tyler found himself in playgroups for most of the weekdays in a hall that smelt of bleach and toast. Morgan told him that his mother now went to work, which was something she had never done in London. She picked him up each afternoon in a green uniform with a supermarket logo.
At weekends they played on the beach and watched the great ships ease past. After a few months, their mother bought a little second-hand Peugeot and they drove north to see hills with snow and vast wild tracts of land. And perhaps they were happy. Certainly Tyler didn’t think about London, nor remember his father.
VII
‘Violence,’ said Freyja, ‘is the art of knowing when to add speed to strength.’
It was late October. Winter’s bite was just around the corner and the evenings were once more darkening early. Seven weeks had passed since they had first stood before Radspakr, and they had shared much and grown as attached as a group can when they know each other only as numerals. They had dwindled to six as some of their number had been overcome by the expectations and given up their amulets under the yew.
Thrall X, the chunky woman whom Tyler imagined a yachter, had proved herself a fine all-rounder. She was faster and more agile than her physique suggested, and powerful on the strength tasks. She had short, unprepossessing, red hair and a small gold stud in her nose. She rarely spoke and seemed more comfortable with actions than words, and Tyler liked her.
Thrall XII, the broad man with the thick neck, remained one of the group, much to Tyler’s surprise. His fitness was an issue and he still sounded like a steam locomotive when asked to run, but he was built to use his arms and he could heave and pull and lift almost anything. Give him something to charge into and he was unstoppable.
They were joined by the single remaining odd numbered initiate, Thrall VII, a mousey-haired lad of only seventeen with a long horse face that seemed too large for his neck and a sullen, insolent demeanour. His physique was lean, hard and knotted, diligently honed, and he knew it. He strutted cockily and cursed when his performance placed below top spot. He liked to leer at ponytailed number VIII and even dared to give Freyja lascivious looks, which she ignored with glorious contempt.
Tyler felt a kinship with Thrall II. The tall man outperformed everyone, but he did it with gracious humility and warm comradeship.
Thrall VIII was the one Tyler found most enigmatic. She rarely spoke or partook in the sense of growing bonds between the group. She related a little with Thrall II, blossoming imperceptibly under his gentlemanly demeanour, but she avoided communication with Tyler and imposed a particular distance on him. She took care to miss his glance, but just occasionally he caught her big eyes on him and felt vulnerable under her scrutiny.
Without question they had all hardened after almost two months of arduous training. They were muscular, trim and fast. Only Tyler still felt like an interloper. Everyone could see that he was the one among them who wasn’t a natural athlete. His arm was improving, but it still throbbed with the demands placed on it, and his leg hampered him. He was slow on the ropes and dropped out of the press-up challenges. He imagined he could see surprise in the eyes of Freyja and Halvar when he returned for each session and he feared daily that he would be evicted from the process.
This evening the central vault was laid out differently. There was no apparatus. No stones placed at the edge of the room, no sandbags strung from ropes. Instead there was a giant hexagon chalked across the floor, with little bowls containing flaming oil at each of the corners. It was perfectly symmetrical and Tyler wondered how it had been created. Halvar was seated on a bench against one wall and Freyja was standing in the centre of the hexagon, facing them as they waited in a single line.
‘Without strength, you are but a le
af tossed on the storm. Without speed, you are but a rock whose foe will wash around you. If, however, you can hone your mind and body until you know precisely when to contain and when to release these two qualities, then you can let the violence within you burst over your foe.’ She walked in a slow circle around the inside of the hexagon, her boots tapping on the stone. The candles at the end of the room silhouetted her body. She was a tigress. ‘In pairs,’ she continued. ‘One on one. The first one to leave the hexagon loses. II and XII first. Then VIII and X. Then VII and VI.’ She paused and looked at them. ‘No rules.’
They were split into their pairs and required to remove their boots and bind each other’s hands with several wrappings of cloth until their knuckles were padded and blunted. Then Freyja directed II and XII into the hexagon. They stood opposite one another at the chalked edges, leaving about twenty feet between them. Halvar stepped between them holding a five-foot length of rope and beckoned them closer. He took their left arms and bound one end of the rope to each of their wrists, so that it hung between them.
They were powerful men and the other initiates watched mesmerised. Freyja had placed herself beyond the hexagon, hands on hips. Halvar stood between the opponents. ‘It ends when one of you is no longer within the hexagon,’ he said simply. ‘Begin.’
The word had barely passed Halvar’s lips before Thrall XII exploded towards his opponent. He held his broad neck low with his arms wide and bent like horns. He hit number II full in the chest with his head, and his hands grabbed at the other man’s shoulders. His tall opponent was taken three steps back by the impact and was only just able to arrest his momentum before he would have been driven from the hexagon. They swung precariously by the edge and became locked in a grunting, gasping embrace.
With an almighty shove Thrall II managed to push his opponent away and escape his grip. Then they began to circle each other, hands raised in classic fist-fighting pose with the stronger arm in front of the face and the other hovering just below the chin. They seemed to have forgotten the rope, which hung uselessly between them. Number XII shifted his weight onto his leading leg and launched a punch to the face. His opponent parried it with his forearm, knocking it away and striking forward himself.
The Wolf Mile Page 5