Glancing over at her, he smiled. He looked tired, eyes dark-rimmed and skin wan.
“Ah, you’re awake at last,” he said. “We have much to talk about. But first, you should eat and drink. It isn’t much, but better than nothing.” He nodded to where a handful of cowberries glistened on a large leaf.
“How?” she asked, looking from the fire, to the berries, and finally to the trout Dunston was now skewering on a slender branch, which he had sharpened for the purpose.
“The land provides much, if you know where to look,” he replied, with a twisted smile. “Everything seems better with a fire, and some food in your belly. It will be even better once this fish is cooked.” He positioned the fish over the smoking fire and sat back, looking at her through the haze of smoke. “Drink,” he said, handing her the leather flask he had taken from Raegnold at Briuuetone.
She unstopped it and sipped. It was water, with the faint tang of mead and leather. Aedwen suddenly realised how thirsty she was. She took several gulps of the cool liquid before handing the vessel back to Dunston.
“Eat,” he said, nudging the leaf with the cowberries towards her.
She picked up a small red berry, nibbling it. It was good. Her stomach grumbled. The smell of the cooking fish made her mouth flood with saliva.
After she had eaten a few of the berries and Dunston had done likewise, he wiped his beard with his hand and looked at her with those penetrating ice blue eyes of his.
“First thing first,” he said, “what happened to Odin?”
She told him of how Hunfrith’s man had attacked the dog. She blinked back the tears that threatened to fall as she spoke.
Dunston sighed. Picking up a stick, he busied himself poking and prodding the fire. Not wishing to intrude on the man’s grief, Aedwen looked down at the berries. They were the red of blood.
After a time, Dunston looked up. His eyes shone in the firelight.
“Now, why did you and Gytha see fit to rescue me from that barn?”
Aedwen recounted the conversation she had had with the widow; about her father meeting with Hunfrith but the reeve not mentioning it to anyone. She told him that Gytha believed Rothulf had been murdered, that he had unearthed something that had led to his death. She described how they had worried at the possibilities, going around the different reasons for the reeve’s secrecy, Rothulf’s drowning and her father’s murder until they had become convinced that Hunfrith was somehow involved and, if that were the case, Dunston would not be safe in his custody.
Dunston turned the trout, holding the branch so that the other side of the fish would cook.
“So you think Hunfrith ordered your father murdered? And that he might have killed Rothulf too?”
“We don’t know, but it seemed possible.” Aedwen felt foolish, as if Dunston were judging her words and finding them wanting. It had all seemed so plausible in the black of night.
Dunston stared into the flames for a long time, his eyes pinched, looking beyond the fire. At last he nodded.
“I agree. It would make sense. But why? What did Rothulf and your father know? Even if the rumours Gytha spoke of are true, why kill for that? Bastards are as common as ticks on sheep.”
“I know not,” Aedwen said. It always came back to this. What reason could Hunfrith have for killing the old reeve and her father? “Father was but a peddler.”
“Peddlers travel widely,” said Dunston, his voice trailing off, perhaps lost in his thoughts. “Who did he trade with?” he asked after a pause. “Did you go to the houses of any ealdormen or thegns?”
She shook her head.
“No. We had only been on the road for a couple of weeks. Father had little idea of how to make money at the best of times. But he was a freeman and proud. And he had always wanted to travel.” She wanted to say that she wished he had not been so proud. That he had been a fool to lead them north on dangerous roads with all of their goods on one small handcart. She longed to tell him of how she wished her mother had not died; that if she yet lived, her father would never have put his plan into practice and he would still be alive. But she said none of these things. Instead, she said, “He knew nobody of import. He was not important. A nobody.” She felt ashamed at the words. Disloyal. He had been her nobody. Her voice cracked.
“You say he had not always been a peddler?” Dunston asked.
“No, until recently, he had worked the land.”
Dunston nodded.
“An admirable labour. What changed?”
“My mother. She died.” Aedwen could hear the tremor in her voice as the memory of her mother’s passing rushed back, the pain as raw and sudden as a scab ripped off a graze.
Dunston turned the fish again, before adding a few fresh twigs to the small blaze. His firelit face did not give away his thoughts.
“I can only think of two ways to find out what your father spoke of to Hunfrith,” he said after a time. “One would be to go back to Briuuetone and ask Hunfrith, but I think we can agree, that is not where we wish to be headed right now.”
“And the other?”
“When you lose something, the best way to find it is to go back over the ground you have covered. I say we travel the route you took with your father and we speak with those he traded with. Perhaps one of the people he spoke to will give us the information we need to unravel this riddle.”
Aedwen could think of no better suggestion.
“And then what?” she asked, wondering what Dunston hoped to do if he got to the bottom of the mystery of her father’s murder.
Dunston squinted at her through the wafting smoke.
“If we find out why your father was killed our way will be clear,” he said.
“Clear?”
“Of course,” he said, lifting the trout and examining it to ascertain whether it was cooked. “I would rather not live out the rest of my days as a wulfeshéafod. I say we find your father’s killers, and bring them to justice.”
Aedwen stared at Dunston. Was he like her father? A dreamer. It was easy to have ideas, but quite another to see them through. She could see from the stern set of his jaw that he spoke in earnest. And this greybeard was not her father. She had seen Dunston fight, and he had brought them here to safety, finding food where they had none. No, Dunston was nothing like her father. And yet this was madness. How could an old man and a girl find the truth of all this? They scarcely knew where to start and they were outlaws, probably hunted even as they sat here in this cave. She looked about her again at the cut stone of the walls.
“Where is this place?” she asked. “I thought it was a cave, but these walls are shaped by man, not God.”
Dunston busied himself with the fish that he had replaced over the fire.
“We are safe here,” he said. “We’ll rest for the remainder of the day, then set off south once again at dusk. I do not wish to meet travellers on the roads.”
“But where are we?”
“Do you trust me?” Dunston asked, looking her squarely in the eye.
She thought for a moment. He was dour and irascible, but he was strong and honest, and she was certain he meant her no harm.
“Yes,” she answered at last.
“Then trust me when I say we are safe.”
“Very well, I believe you. But what is this place, if not a cavern?”
Dunston let out a long breath.
“It is a barrow.”
“A barrow…” she repeated, the word not making sense for a moment. And then, cold claws of dread scratched down her spine and she sprang to her feet. “We cannot stay here any longer,” she said in a hushed whisper, as if the sound of her voice might awaken the dead that slept deep within the crevices of the ancient burial chambers.
“Hush, Aedwen,” Dunston said, but she noted that he did not move to impede her should she wish to leave. “I assure you that we are safer here than we would be out in the open. The day is bright and if anyone should be looking for us, they would likely find us up here on the
hills.”
“But the dead…” she stammered.
“Are long gone and still resting. They mean us no harm and I have oft slept in these places. No harm has ever befallen me.”
Aedwen thought of his solitary existence, with only a dog for company, a dog that was quite probably dead. How he had been imprisoned by Hunfrith and was now a wolf-head, to be shunned by all men as outside the law.
He raised an eyebrow, perhaps reading the thoughts on her face.
“I have slept safely many times in barrows and the dead have never disturbed me. Now, sit, the trout is done.”
She sat down slowly, unable to hide the fear that had now gripped her. She peered into the dark depths of the barrow, but she could not penetrate the gloom. She imagined the corpses of long dead kings lying there, listening to the echoes of the voices of the living, feeling the warmth from the fire. Smelling with dried cadaverous nostrils the delicious aroma of the sizzling fish. Did they miss being in the world of the living? Would they come crawling out of their ancient tomb, reaching for her young flesh with their skeletal, grasping fingers?
She shivered, and shifted her position so that she was closer to the fire and angled to be looking into the barrow and not towards the light. She would rather one of the tithing-men of Briuuetone found her than some nameless horror from the black interior of the barrow.
Dunston did not speak, and if he noticed it, he ignored her trembling fear. He placed the fish on a slab of wood he had cut to act as a trencher. With deft actions, he used the seax he had taken to pull the fish’s meat from the thin bones. He offered her a piece of the trout. It was soft and succulent and tasted earthy and wholesome. The warmth of the food seeped through her, even as her skin prickled, the hairs on her arms rising as if she were cold. She could not shake the feeling that the dead were watching them, lying in wait for them to let their guard down.
“Are we truly safe here?” she asked.
“From the dead?” he asked.
She nodded.
“They will not disturb us,” he said. “You know, the first time I stayed in one of these old burial mounds I was frightened too.”
“So why did you go inside?”
“That is easy,” he said with a shrug. “To remain outside would have meant my death. I had been caught in a terrible blizzard,” he explained. “I was younger then, and less wise to the ways of the wild. I should have seen the signs in the sky, but by the time I realised the storm was going to catch me, it was too late to get home. Night was drawing in and the snow came down so thick I could barely see my hand in front of my face. I’d noticed one of the sacred mounds before the weather closed in, so I headed for it. They are dotted all over the land on the hills and the plains, but I’d never ventured into one before. I’d been too scared. But I knew enough about cold to know that if I stayed outside all night, I would not live to see the sunrise, so I swallowed my fear and I went inside.”
She watched him as she savoured the fish. He prodded the fire and the flames jumped and danced.
“I trembled like a child,” he said. He stared into the fire, lost to his memories. “As much from the fear of the ghosts that might inhabit the place as from the cold. And yet there was nothing for it. If I stayed outside, I would perish, so I entered the dark belly of the mound, praying all the while that the Lord would protect me.”
“What happened?”
“Nothing.” He laughed, looking up from the flames. “Eventually, I grew too tired to worry and I slept. When I awoke, the snow had stopped falling and it was day. The shelter of that barrow had saved my life and the dead did not seem to mind my intrusion.” He scratched at his beard. “No evil befell me that night, but when I left, I made sure to place a silver penny in the barrow and I offered a prayer of thanks to the spirits of those who lived in this land long before you or I were born.”
“You prayed to the spirits? Is that not blasphemy?” she asked.
“Maybe, but I don’t think it does any harm to be respectful. Just in case. Whenever I’ve stayed in one of these old caves, I have always left a gift. And the spirits have never troubled me.” He offered her a lopsided smile.
Did the dead truly live on in some way, she wondered? Her mother had been dead for nearly a year, and sometimes she could almost sense her touch or hear her voice. And yet she knew that her body lay deep in the earth, wearing her favourite blue dress and the necklace her father had given her as her morgengifu. Aedwen had placed the pendant around her cold pale neck herself.
“What will they do with my father?” she asked suddenly.
Dunston handed her another slice of fish and pondered for a moment.
“I daresay they will give him a Christian burial. They are good people in Briuuetone.”
Aedwen thought of Gytha and her girls, but just as quickly recalled Raegnold lashing out at Odin, and then attacking them as they fled from the barn. She was not so sure.
“Godrum is a good man,” said Dunston. “He will see to your father.”
Chewing the fish she prayed to the Blessed Virgin that Dunston was right. Her father had been foolhardy and unsuited to the life of a peddler. And he had never been a good farmer, his mind was always on something else, far off in some half-imagined fantasy of his. But despite his faults he was not a bad man and he deserved to be buried correctly. A sudden searing anger ripped through her. She was taken aback by the ferocity of the rage that engulfed her. Her father deserved a decent burial, but more than that, he had done nothing to deserve torture and death in a lonely forest glade.
“I don’t know how we can do it,” she said, her voice trembling with the force of her emotion, “but you are right.”
Dunston returned her gaze, sombre and unblinking.
“Right?”
“We must retrace our steps and try to find the truth.”
Dunston’s face was grim.
“Whatever your father knew, someone thought it was worth killing for,” he said.
“Yes,” Aedwen said, calm now that she had made up her mind, “and we must find out what that was and who his killers were. And then…” She faltered, unsure of the words she wanted to say.
“And then?”
Aedwen drew in a deep breath, conjuring up her father’s guileless face in her mind’s eye.
“And then,” she said, staring directly into Dunston’s icy eyes, “we make the bastards pay.”
Fifteen
Dunston dozed by the barrow’s entrance as the sun slid into the west. Aedwen had curled up once more, resting her head on her forearm. For a time she had turned and fidgeted, unable to sleep, casting furtive glances into the shadows at the back of the barrow, but Dunston had whispered that she was safe and eventually she had found sleep again.
Clouds had gathered all that afternoon, so as dusk ap-proached, darkness was already creeping over the land. Within the barrow it was dark when Dunston woke Aedwen. He had only ventured out of the barrow to relieve himself and to find some more food. He didn’t wish to risk discovery, so he had not returned to the river to fish, instead limiting himself to foraging for some more berries in a thick stand of alder and hawthorn.
He had also cut some linden bark and withies with which he fashioned a bag for any food they might pick up along the way. Into this bag he placed the leather flask.
Near the entrance to the barrow, Dunston pulled up some long grass. This, along with the fire-making materials that he had made earlier in the day, he wrapped in some of the linden bark and slipped the parcel inside his kirtle.
Finally, he had found a stout branch of oak, which he had cut to length and smoothed.
He handed the meagre handful of berries to Aedwen, who took them bleary-eyed and yawning.
“We will follow the road,” he said. “We will make better time that way and it should be safe enough. Nobody will be abroad at night, save for outlaws and brigands.” He smiled without humour.
He passed her the oak staff he had made.
“It will help
with the walking,” he said. “And, if we do run into any wolf-heads, that staff is thick enough to break a skull.”
She accepted it without comment and together they walked into the gloaming.
As the night before, Dunston set a brisk pace, but he was careful not to push them too hard. His knee throbbed and he was already favouring his left leg, limping slightly. He would be of no use to Aedwen if he could not walk.
They stomped down the hill, through long damp grass, leaving the yawning black opening of the barrow behind them. Aedwen crossed herself as they looked back. Dunston had nothing to leave the spirits that dwelt there, but he vowed that if he were able to return, he would give them a small offering as a token of his thanks. Soon, the mound on the hill and the dark doorway were lost in the gloom of dusk.
When they reached the road, it was full dark and the rising gibbous moon cast but a dull glow through the roiling clouds.
Staring up, face pale in the moonlight, Aedwen whispered, “What happened to the moon last night? It looked as though it was being eaten.” She shivered.
“I have thought long about what we saw,” he replied. “But I have no answers.”
“Could it be an omen?”
“Perhaps, but of what, I know not.”
They walked on for a time. The stones of the road were cracked and pitted, ravaged by centuries of passing seasons. But the path was easy enough to follow, even in the darkness.
Without warning, Dunston broke the silence.
“Whatever the sign meant, the moon is whole again now, as it should be. It seems that if it was being eaten, it was quickly spat out again.” She glanced up, perhaps to check that his words were true. “Put thoughts of the moon from your mind. We have more pressing matters to be concerned about.”
A light rain began to fall, making the road slick and treacherous underfoot. They trudged on in silence, each lost in their own thoughts. Now that they had decided on a course, Dunston was calm and less concerned with what might happen to him. He could fend for himself and defend himself, and, if things went badly and the tithing-men came after them and caught them, he would be taken before the moot. Was that so bad? Even if they found him to be guilty of murder, the only thing he truly valued that would be lost would be his honour, and that was his alone. Should they take his life, that would not be so terrible. He was content enough with his existence of hunting, trapping and forging. But he had not been truly happy for many years. Not since Eawynn. No, the idea of death did not concern him. He had walked with death for so many years when he had served his king, it held no fear for him now.
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