by Katy Moran
“Yes, Da.”
“Well enough. Cenry, pour me a drink. This time I’ll give you a part of the tale you’ve not had before – how it started, right in the beginning. It began when the Wolf King turned to Christian ways. He gave up the care of East Anglia, going to spend his days in prayer at Bedricsworth god-house, where our girl Thorn lived before she came here. The Wolf Folk fell into sadness at the loss of their king, and my father chose to help them—”
Thorn glances up, sharp. “That’s not how they tell it at home.”
Penda laughs. “I shouldn’t wonder,” he says. “Be quiet, girl, and turn your ears to the tale.”
Thorn glares down at her hands, but even she’s not fool enough to speak when Penda has bidden her to silence.
“So,” Wulf goes on, “the Wolf King had a kinsman, brave and sharp, who was not so willing to let East Anglia come under the wise rule of Mercia. That’s your da, Thorn – Egric the Atheling, they called him, and a great warrior he was, famed from one end of this island to the other for his bravery. Now, Egric the Atheling had many ring-bearing men, bound to him by gold, and the youngest of them was called Essa.”
“That’s your da, Cai,” Aranrhod calls.
“He knows that, dafthead! Stow your gab.” Rhiannfel pokes her in the side.
“Essa,” Wulf goes on, “was a sharp lad, able to move right quiet and swift—”
“Just like Cai!” Aranrhy says, in such a carrying whisper she may as well have shouted.
“Yes, like Cai, my honey. Now stow it. So, one day Egric the Atheling gathers his men and says that one of them must sneak through the night into Mercia, right into the camp my father held at the East Anglian border, and find out when we planned to ride out and attack them. Ah, it was a crazed plot so brimful of cheek Egric’s men could scarce believe it. White-hearted, they were, and they begged him to think of some less risky plan – but they had not counted on Essa, who at once said that even if they were cowards, he was not, and would go that very night.
“So, Essa comes to the camp, with none of us any the wiser, and honey-talks his way into my father’s tent. He has his hound with him, of course: Fenrir. A fine beast, she was, and I swear to God Essa used to have talk with her, and understand her just as well as he did the speech of men.
“But, although Essa was a wild and canny one, my father was – and still is – wilier than the oldest fox in the greenwood. He saw at once that Essa had come to us as a spy – did you not, Da?”
Penda raises his eyes from the fire, and glares at me. I feel that cold shiver slide down my spine again. It is as if he looks at me and sees another. “It was not hard to guess, for anyone with a pinch of sense,” he says. “Did you never hear this foolish yarn from your father, boy?”
I shake my head. “No. We asked him and Ma lots of times how it was, living here in the north, but they never would tell us.”
Penda watches me a moment longer. “Is that so? It’s as well you have such a stamp of your father all over your face, or perhaps I should find it hard to believe that here before me sits the son of the Halfling Witch, or whatever it is they call him. A mannerless, unruly brat is what he was.”
“Anyhow,” Wulf says, “my father took it in his head to get Essa out of the way. It chanced that the time had come for his youngest son to marry, and so he agreed with Eiludd, King of Powys, a kingdom far to the west of here, that I should take his daughter.”
“That’s you, Mama!” Aranrhod whispers again.
Anwen laughs in the midst of plaiting Thorn’s hair, and says, “Don’t I know it.”
“So, my father bids me ride west to Powys with Essa and to cut his throat one night, when we are far from anywhere.”
The air in the hall seems to thicken. The fire crackles and spits out a stream of crimson sparks, which rise up with the smoke, and fade into ash. I have a sudden sense of falling away, of fading into nothing, which is what I should be if Wulf had followed Penda’s word, long ago. For a moment, I feel I’m looking down on the hall, at Wulf on his bench by the fire, with only Cenry and Edge sprawled at his feet.
I am not there.
Elf-led fool, I tell myself, and sharp, too. What’s the use in that manner of idle dreaming?
“And I might have obeyed him,” Wulf goes on, speaking soft, “had Essa and I not been set upon by outlaws, deep in the western forest. Right hobbled we were, and knocked cold, dragged along the forest floor like a pair of dead hares, but Essa woke before I did, and I came out of a daze to see him fighting like something from the spirit world. Never had I seen aught like it – Essa and his hound, bringing down men as if they were nothing more than flinders of wood.”
It hurts in my belly to hear this. No wonder Tasik hated me: they will sing of him for all time as a hero, but what did he get for a son? A liar and a thief.
“We bested them, between us,” Wulf says, “but to this day I owe Essa my life. So you see, don’t you, that I could not take his, even though my father had ordered it. For the first time in my life, I disobeyed my father and my king.”
“And, sadly, not the last time,” Penda says. “Cursed near two months you made me wait to ride on those sheep-faced Christians.”
“Essa and I did what we thought was right, which is all any man can do.” Wulf speaks to the whole hall, but still I feel that really he talks to Penda, and Penda alone. “When we reached Caer Elfan, hall of the King of Powys, I was wed to the fairest maid in all Britain, who sits before us now, her brightness not a pinch dimmed—”
“Oh, move on, Wulfhere!” Anwen says. “Quick, before your son casts up his supper.” She is right, too, for Cenry looks sicker than if he had eaten a week-old herring. To cheer myself up, I make kissing faces at him till he jabs me in the ribs.
Wulf laughs, taking a long draught of cider. “Well enough, give me the chance to speak, and I will. Essa was cunning, like I’ve said, and we both of us were sore afeard at Caer Elfan. We could not trust King Eiludd, nor his sons, either, and so we took it in our heads to ride out from there before they could do us any harm. We must take Anwen, though, and so I tell her the plot not knowing if she’ll go screaming to her father of the betrayal. We’ll be dead in a heartbeat if she does.”
“But I did not!” Anwen says, merrily. “I went with the hare-brained fools.”
“We take a hawk with us,” Wulf goes on, “to fool the gate-guard into thinking we ride out only to hunt. But it’s not long before we’re followed.”
“How did you know they were coming?” Rhiannfel asks, forgetting her place as the wise older sister.
“I’ll let your mother give you that end of the tale,” Wulf replies, “for I never knew, till she told me.”
Anwen ties off the end of Thorn’s braid and begins weaving the second one. Thorn is staring at me, a strange, frozen look on her face.
What? I mouth at her. What’s the matter with her?
Nothing. She shakes her head, looking away.
“Whenever I tell this,” Anwen says, “there’s folk that say I’ve lost my wits, but that’s their own look-out. We pelted off down the hill, chased by my brothers, and I’ve ever had the feeling Essa heard of their coming from the hawk: flying high above the hillside, it saw the riders, and told him.”
“The Halfling Witch,” Aranrhod says, breathless. “He spoke to birds, and horses too, and turned your brothers, Mama, into great teeth of ice with his elvish spells!”
I can’t breathe aright. I hurt. It’s too hot by the fire, too airless, and I can’t stay in here any more, listening to talk of Tasik when all I want is for him to walk in the door this moment. But he will not, because he is dead, and the fault is all mine.
I get up and stumble over Cenry to reach the door. I hear my name called but they might shout all they like. Footsteps pound – someone is coming after me – but they shall not be fast enough. No one is. I stream across the yard and past the village houses with their unshuttered windows all firelit and warm. Down at the riverside I sit benea
th the bridge and look at the moon rippling on the water’s dark skin, listening to the river slip along, trying to steady my breathing.
How is it that I’ve come so far across the world to live with strangers who know more of my father than I do?
Why did Tasik never speak of this to me? Why did he never tell me he saw into the hearts of horses and birds?
I think of the poor heretic bishop torn apart in the streets when I was just a child, before Tecca was even born, and I remember Ma dragging Elflight and me home so we should not see such an awful thing, saying furiously, What manner of place is this, where they treat men like nothing more than lumps of meat?
Not only have I lost my father and mother; I never really knew them at all.
Someone is down on the riverbank. I hear them breathing; I hear the clink and rattle as they walk across the pebbles, moving quiet – but not quiet enough.
“Cai! Where are you, tha feckless brat?” It’s Edge; Wulf must have sent him.
I lift a stone and pitch it into the river as my answer.
He’s here in a moment, kneeling beside me. Edge can be very swift and surprisingly deft given that he’s so big. His pale red hair is drained of colour in the moonlight. “Why didst tha let Wulf tell it, you great fool?”
I shrug. “I don’t know. I didn’t think it should bother me.”
“Chaff-for-brains. But tha must learn not to run off whenever you’re overset. You’re an atheling of the House of the Serpent, and you’d do better to face what the wyrd throws your way rather than skelping off. You’re not short on courage.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry to smirch the honour of our kin.”
Edge knows he’s scored a hit because normally he clobbers me when I give him cheek. This time he just cheerfully damns me to hell and stares out at the river. “I feel it too, you know,” he says after a while. “I miss my home, and wonder if I’ll ever see my folk again. The sun shall be high over the fells, this time of year, the harvest in, and my father and his men will be hunting roe deer across the moors – and I’m here, a hostage. Tha must just bear it, Cai.” He smiles. Edge hardly ever speaks of this, of why we are here, he, Thorn and I. He can’t quite keep the bitterness from his voice. “Come, let’s go back, before Anwen works herself into a fit.”
I lie down to sleep with just Ren stretched out beside me, leaving the others on the far side of the fireplace. Anwen has gone off with the baby to her pallet behind the long red blanket that hangs from one of the roof-beams. Penda sits in his chair still, a rug draped about his withered shoulders, staring at the fire as if we were not even here. He doesn’t flinch when Thorn whispers to Aranrhy and Rhiannfel – some girlish foolery, most likely, but it makes me feel lonely, when I hear Cenry saying, “Ah, stow it, I’m tired – ow, Edge, there’s no call to kick me.”
“There is if you don’t keep quiet.” Edge lies on his back, so easy in his own skin, one arm flung across his face to keep the firelight out.
I wish I were next to Thorn.
I lie watching the shadows ripple, soft blackness against gold, firelit wood. The old shields hanging on the wall seem to move up and down, as if they are fastened still to the boat that brought Wulf’s ancestors here from the east, long ago. I watch as, one by one, the torches sputter in their iron sconces and go out. I can just see Wulf, all shadowy, as he walks from one to the next, snuffing them. The darker it gets, the keener my ears seem to grow; I hear the crackle and hiss of the fire, old floorboards creaking beneath Wulf’s feet, the others breathing, Ren’s heartbeat – a slow, comforting thud – wind sifting through the dark trees outside, the river.
Wulf comes and crouches at my side, holding a tallow lamp. The hot, greasy smell of it catches in the back of my throat. He draws up the blanket, covering my shoulders. “Not tired?” he says, speaking quietly. How did he know I wasn’t asleep? Nothing gets by him.
I nod. “Wulf, I’m sorry I skelped off.”
“It’s all right. I should have told another tale.”
“It’s just that I wish he was here.” I couldn’t say this to anyone but Wulf. I wonder, is Penda listening? He just sits there, still as a hawk.
“I know.” Wulf looks at me, searching. “Cai – is there aught else that’s riled you?”
I swallow. Sometimes I wish my noble lord were not so cursed knife-witted. “No,” I say. “Just that.”
“You’ve not enough to do with yourself.” He smiles, shaking his head. “Let me see if I can’t think of aught to take your mind off it.” I feel his hand rest on my hair a moment. Then he says, “Sleep well,” and I hear him walk away.
Oh, this is grand. Now he will have me chopping wood for the next month, or laying fish-traps, or some other such brain-numbing task. How I wish I could fly and leap among the roof-tops of Constantinople, running from the guard. How that used to set my blood afire. I never had time to think on my sorrows, then.
I should not have lied, but how can I tell him? How can I tell Wulf I wish Penda had not seen me track that deer, and that I did not like the way he said, Did you never hear this foolish yarn from your father, boy?
Why do I feel so sure some part of the tale has been kept from me?
I remember sitting in the courtyard with Ma, Asha and my sisters, watching them thread necklaces of bright glass beads as I carved faces into a curl of vine-wood with my knife.
“Mama,” Tecca said suddenly. “Don’t you miss your mama? Why did you and Tasik leave behind all your kin in the north?”
Elflight and I swapped a glance. We’d long given up asking such things.
But this time Ma just smiled, looking down at the pile of glossy beads in her lap. “It’s all such a while ago, dear heart, and there are some things it does one no good to brood on. Look – here’s a nice green one for you. Have it, and I shall keep the blues.”
All told, what do I really know about my mother and father? That Tasik is called a witch, and his father a liar.
What were you covering up? I think.
It is as if part of myself is hidden, veiled behind a smoky mess of unspoken stories.
If the truth be told, I don’t really know who I am.
Two days later
OHO, I HAVE changed my mind about Penda now.
I can’t believe it. I daren’t believe it. This’ll be the best sport I’ve had since Thales the Knife sold me out to the chief, and Anwen’s going to stop it if she can.
“I cannot like this.” She shakes her head. “Wulf, it’s the same all over again, don’t you see? And Cai is too young to go riding off into Elmet, spying on some rebel chief. They are both too young.”
Wulf says nothing. He slouches in his chair, shoulders hunched, wolf-like, long legs stretched out before him. He gazes into the fire, toying with the dagger at his belt, which I know means he is thinking deep. I daren’t want it. I daren’t think on it. Wulf doesn’t fully trust me: he’ll never let me go. I sense the heat of Cenry’s joy from here, and his dread that Anwen shall put an end to this before it has even begun. He stands oddly still, as if turned to stone.
“My dear girl,” Penda says, taking a long draught of wine, “you are too careful. For every woman, there comes a day when she must watch her son ride out into the wide world. Take comfort in your daughters and the young bairn, and speak not of what you know not.” He nods at Aranrhod and Rhiannfel, who up till this moment have been playing cat’s cradle at their mother’s feet. Both now freeze, the web of yarn hanging limp between their outstretched hands. No one ever spoke so to Anwen in my hearing, nor in theirs either, I’d wager. Aranrhod flushes bright red and covers her mouth with her hands. She’s trying not to laugh. White-faced, Rhiannfel reaches out and pinches her, hard by the look of it, holding a skinny finger to her lips.
Anwen does but lower her head in a slight bow. She is smiling but her eyes glitter in a very fell manner, and I like it not. I pray to God she has the sense to keep her tongue behind her teeth. “Of course, my lord, I know nothing. I beg you, excuse me. I h
ear the baby crying. Come, girls, such manly, noble talk is not for our ears.” She rises from her seat and walks away, graceful as a swan.
Aranrhod and Rhiannfel huddle after her, whispering. Aranrhod steals a look back over her shoulder, but Rhiannfel grabs her arm, hauling her along so fast they nearly tumble over each other.
Beside me, I hear Cenry let out a long, low breath.
“I see the need for someone to go,” Wulf says at last, looking up from the fire. “I trust the Elmet-set no more than you, Father. We must make sure they remain loyal to us: the last we need is Orhan pledging himself to Northumbria now. But this is the work of a ranger, and my man Hlaf shall return from the south before the moon is full…”
He is not going to allow it; he is going to defy Penda and not let us go. I will stay here in this wretched village till I rot. I can’t look at Cenry.
Wulf smiles suddenly. “So let them go to Elmet, if they are willing to take the task. They grow restless of late, and I shall only have all manner of riot and strife on my hands if they’re kept here. They must learn a man’s work sooner or later.”
Yes, oh yes! I daren’t speak lest Wulf change his mind. I know that I am the restless one, though. He is not speaking of Cenry—
“You won’t be sorry, Da,” Cenry says, grinning as much as I am. “Will he, Cai?”
“I had better not be.” Wulf gives me a long look, and pulls the dagger from its sheath, watching the firelight gleam off the blade. “The Elmet-set move faster than thought: they’re not easy to track. Strangers in their land are meant to sound a horn as they ride – you’ll not be doing that, so they’ll suspect you from the start if you’re seen from afar. And once you find them, you’ll not be able to let down your guard for even a breath, and do you not forget it. They’ll tell you one thing and do another, so you must judge for yourselves if Orhan’s loyalty is true or not.”
“Why so edgy, Wulfhere?” Penda says, mildly. “Do you fear this little chief shall take a brace of hostages for himself? He’s not such a fool; it would do him no good.”
