by Katy Moran
Essa always remembered that long-ago dusk because it was one of the few times Cai had mentioned Elfgift, Essa’s mother, without being asked.
Essa, Anwen and Wulf rode in silence the rest of the afternoon, squinting into the sun.
Anwen and Wulf were silent. Last night, they had lain together behind the deerskin curtain in Eiludd’s hall, and Wulf had put his seed in her while the whole hall cheered and clapped and sang of the fine sons she would bear him. They had known each other for less than the time it took for a new moon to be born in the sky and die there, and already she might be carrying his child. It was no wonder, Essa thought, that they had little to say.
But he could not bear the quiet: it gave him too much space to think, and it had not taken long for his thoughts to turn from his father and settle on what he was going to do with Wulf and Anwen. How could he stop them reaching Penda? He would not kill them, so how else?
His thoughts moved slower as the afternoon rolled towards eventide, thick like porridge without enough milk. His heart ached with the desire to be back on that Wessex hillside with his father and the great white mare, safe and free beneath the billowing sky.
Time slipped by and he fell into a kind of trance, only dimly aware of their journey beyond the mountains and the reaches of Caer Elfan. The pain in his right side spread through his body in slow, relentless waves, rippling across his skin, eating into every bone. He caught snatches of talk between Anwen and Wulf – they seemed to grow less awkward as the day rolled towards evening. She complained of the ache in her thighs, she had not ridden so far or for so long in ages; but later they were arguing cheerfully about something, Essa could not make out what, his ears felt full of water. Hitting something, a man with a black eye, running on frozen ice – they were talking about the rules of bandy.
And then, in his mind, Essa was back at home, racing with Red across the frozen marshland, crashing into Cole and Ariulf as Cole smashed the ball with his bandy stick. He remembered throwing himself belly down on the ice to catch the ball before it hit the crabbed hawthorn they had chosen for a goal, being filled with burning joy when he caught it. He and Red had won.
He wished he were there with them all now.
“What do you know anyway?” Anwen’s voice was high and clear, but Essa could not see her. He had fallen back even more and the other two were riding on, a length ahead of him. His sight grew clouded and the landscape fell away, a tumbling mass of green and grey. He could see only the two pale horses in front of him, tails swishing, their riders dark indistinct shapes. Their voices sounded as if they were coming from above, bouncing off the hills, swept away with the wind. He was so cold. Why would not the wind stop? A dark mist clouded his eyes and an iron ball of fear settled in his stomach. He did not want to die like this, away from everyone he loved. He did not want Wulf to bury him out here on these wild, lonely marches with nothing to keep him company but the whispering of the grass in the wind, and the lonely keening of the curlews circling above.
And if he died out here, the Wixna would die too – every one of them, without warning, without help. Penda’s orders echoed inside his head, every man, woman and child until we cross the river Deben.
He closed his eyes, and felt his fingers let go of the reins. Then he fell. The last he heard was Fenrir baying as if she had just sighted a deer, then Grani’s panicky scream, and the sound of her hooves striking the ground about his head, like the beating of a funeral drum.
Someone was carrying him through the darkness. His body was alight with pain and coloured lights danced inside his eyelids. Faces came at him out of nowhere: the Mercian, eyes dark with horror, the severed hand on the forest floor; Wulf smiling, flashing his sharp white teeth; Hild putting her shawl around his shoulders, saying, “See, Meadowsweet has had her cubs”; Cole, long ago, looking up as he showed Essa how to thread a blue jay’s feather on to a fish hook, every line and shadow of his serious face so dear and familiar; and Lark as she handed him the sword outside the village gate.
He could smell lavender now, and he called her name. She must be here.
Oh God, let her be here. He would have done anything to see her again. He imagined her running up the side of the village wall with her bow, scaling the great earth rampart like a cat. He saw arrows flying from her bow, and he flew with them, piercing the breasts and arms and legs of the Mercian warriors.
But they would reach her in the end.
He cried out and a voice said, “He’s with the spirits. He’s walking with the spirits.”
“Quiet, you’re scaring me. He’s just ill.”
He could hear someone breathing in awkward little starts, feel the muscles contracting in the arms that carried him.
Wulf was carrying him. It’s a good thing he doesn’t know I wanted to kill him not long ago, Essa thought.
“What ails him for God’s sake?”
“It’s my fault, I knew it wasn’t healing properly. We ought not to have let him talk us into this. I ought to have made him wait a couple of days.”
“Who’s this Lark he keeps calling for, anyway?”
“I don’t know.”
Then it went dark again, and he heard nothing.
Northern marches
ESSA was lying on a sheepskin with a blanket pulled over his legs, up to his waist. Fenrir lay sprawled at his feet, her head resting on her front paws. Anwen kneeled beside him, the blood-sodden linen bandage in a heap beside her. A bolt of clean linen lay folded next to it. He felt a jolt of anxiety, remembering the look in her eyes as he had stepped away from her in the courtyard at her father’s fortress. What was she going to do to him?
Her black plaits hung over her shoulders, their tips tickling the skin on his bare chest as she leaned forwards. His skin felt cold; she was dabbing a wet wad of cloth against his knife-cut. It did not pain him so much now. Maybe she was not going to hurt him after all: perhaps she was trying to help. Early evening sunlight slanted in through a doorway cut so low a grown man would have to stoop through it. He had slept in bothies like this with his father many times. Little green huts like the mounds left by moles, cut into the hillside for shepherds to shelter in when the night or a storm beat them home. He felt safe and at peace. He could do nothing.
She did not know he was awake. She twisted the lid off a clay jar, breaking the wax that sealed it. Then she tore a strip off the bundle of damp cloth and dipped it into the jar. It came away trailing a golden stream of honey, and the sweet scent mingled with the smell of lavender. Anwen was treating the wound with honey and lavender water: honey to keep out the rot, and lavender to make it heal faster. Lark was not there. He had known she wouldn’t be, not really.
But it did not stop him wanting her.
The honey dribbled on to the raw wound, warm and thick. Soon the whole area was coated. Then, with gentle fingers, Anwen covered it with a long strip of clean linen.
She looked up and he closed his eyes. He wasn’t ready to speak.
“Yes,” she said in British. “It’s best for you to sleep, cariad.”
Time slipped by, darkness fell and went away again, sunlight came and faded. He dreamed of his father, the great white mare running across the hillside, the firelit god-house at Caer Elfan. He dreamed of the ash tree in the courtyard of Hild’s village, Yggdrasil, the World Tree. He dreamed the serpent in Yggdrasil’s roots was coming for him, its great shining coils seething across the ground. He could not run. He could only wait.
Then, after a spell of darkness, he dreamed of his spirit journey again, soaring high above the earth, looking down on the hall below. I’m not a wolf, he told himself frantically. I’m not a real member of the Wolf Folk.
So what am I?
Morning came once more. Anwen sat beside him with a bowl of porridge and a cup of water. Fenrir was lying by his side now; she was sleeping, but one of her ears lay flat against her head, and her eyelids were twitching.
Anwen smiled when she saw he was awake. “We lit a fire outside – luc
ky we packed lots of food. We’ve been here days. Come, see if you can’t sit up and eat some. It’s got honey in it.”
Essa’s first thought was to wonder how many days. Long enough for Egric to send word to the monastery? Had there been time to bring the king to the border? He wished there was some way of finding out, of talking to Lark or Hild, even Egric himself, though Essa dreaded facing him. But they might as well have been in another world. He wanted to laugh. He had spent all that time worrying about how he was going to stop Wulf and Anwen reaching Penda, and it was as easy as falling off a horse.
“So did you not put all of the honey on me?” The words came out stiff and awkward, his throat dry. He reached out and rested his hand on Fenrir’s head, stroking her ears.
Anwen smiled, but she looked worried. “You were awake, then. I kept some. It’s good to put on wounds, though; did your mother not tell you that?”
“No, she didn’t.” He sat up and took the cup of water, draining it in one go. Sitting up was hard; the bandaged wound throbbed, but it was much better. The hard part was moving his legs and arms: they felt floppy and useless. He managed in the end and leaned back against the bare earth wall. He was wearing a loose white tunic now, and suddenly he felt ashamed of being so helpless, and that Anwen had done so much for him. Even after what had happened in the courtyard at Caer Elfan.
Silently, she handed him the porridge and he spooned it up, his hand shaking. The oats were thick and creamy; they must have used the last of the milk, or stolen some from a ewe on the hillside. The honey was warm and sweet in his mouth. It was bringing him back to life.
“I’m sorry,” he said. He was half thinking of that moment in the courtyard when he’d pushed her away. “I mean, thank you. What you’ve done—”
She smiled. “I’m in no rush to reach Mercia. I’ve heard what they say about Penda. They call him the mad dog.”
“You’ll manage him. Where’s Wulf?”
She stared at the floor. “He’s outside.”
Essa saw his sheepskin boots lying in a pile next to his pack and grabbed them, binding them firmly around his legs with the leather straps.
“Essa—”
He got to his feet, sucking in his breath as the movement disturbed his wound. He could feel the skin had knitted together at last, though. “I must speak to him, I owe him my life as well as you.”
She sighed. “Best you see him sooner rather than later.” He did not ask what she meant, just stepped outside, blinking as daylight flooded his eyes. They were staying at the bottom of a shallow, grassy gully, partially sheltered by a line of wind-whipped hawthorn trees. The sky was laced with tendrils of white cloud, the ground splashed with pale snowdrops; a breeze stirred up the grass. Spring was moving in at last.
He could hear a stream running along the far end of the gully. Wulf was crouching next to it, tending a smoky fire with his back to Essa. His shoulders were hunched. He turned away from the fire, wrenching a tuft of grass, about to start cleaning the porridge pot. But he saw Essa first. He sprang to his feet, face set and angry. There was something else there, too – sadness. He looked hurt. He must have argued with Anwen, Essa thought.
“I’m sorry,” he said, walking over to him. “I know you needed to get back.”
Wulf strode over until they were very close. The blood had drained from his face and his cheekbones stood out like knives. “Just who are you anyway?” he shouted, his voice ragged with anger. “Who are you working for?”
Essa’s breath turned to ice. Wulf was holding something. Something on a string of blue glass beads that glittered in the morning light.
Wulf was holding his ring.
“Whose is it?” His voice was thick with rage. “Who’s your lord, Essa?”
“Egric the Atheling.”
Wulf reached out and struck him in the face with the flat of his hand. Recoiling from the blow, Essa lunged forward and snatched the string of blue beads, clutching the ring tight. The leather thong snapped and beads bounced in the grass. He stepped back, feeling his breath escape in a long, raging hiss. The inside of his cheek had torn where Wulf had hit him, and his mouth filled with blood. He spat. His hand flew to his knife, the bone-handled knife. But before Wulf could reach his own, Essa threw it to the floor, chest heaving. He turned and walked off down the gully, expecting to feel a cold iron blade at his back. Wulf might easily grab him now and cut his throat. Essa was weak and could not fight back.
But Wulf did not.
“How could you do this?” he yelled. “I thought we were friends!”
Essa shook his head and carried on walking. His head was spinning and he sat on the bank, holding the ring and three of the glass beads. He pushed the ring down the middle finger of his right hand, and sat there staring at it: the band of gold that had brought him so much trouble. What was he meant to get in return for this? Egric’s love, generosity and protection, the warmth of his hall, the bounty of his harvests and all the ale and mead he could drink. Essa had not seen much of that.
“I’d rather be free,” he said out loud. He wanted to laugh. All he had done so far was betray his friends, betray Egric himself, even – and none of it by choice. He felt hot with rage. He hated Egric for binding him so, but most of all he hated his father. He was tired of being used, moved about at their whim like a goose-piece on a gaming board. A warm, thick feeling burst in his nose and blood dripped on the grass. He wiped his face and his hand came away smeared crimson.
Then Wulf was standing in front of him, holding a wad of grass. He sat down.
Essa took the grass and dabbed at his nose. They did not meet each other’s eyes. He heard footsteps and looked up to see Anwen running towards them down the gully, black hair flying about her shoulders.
She turned on Wulf. “How could you hit him! He nearly died.”
“It’s no matter,” said Essa. “I deserved it. It’s my fault. All of this is my fault.”
And he told them everything, starting from the day Cai had left him in the village, right up until his betrayal of Wulf; telling Mereleor that Penda had despatched most of his fighting men to the far-off eastern borders of Mercia, where he waited to pounce on the Wolf Folk.
“I would’ve told your father, too,” he said to Anwen, “but we left so fast there was no time.”
Wulf stared off into the distance, fiddling with a leather bracelet on his wrist.
“To think I asked you to fight with me, to wear a ring for me,” he said. “I suppose you meant to kill us, to stop us getting back.”
“I don’t think I could have done it. I’m sorry. If there’d been a choice, I would have worn your ring.”
Wulf turned to face him, laughing. “You’re my godfather!”
“I know – it’s all madness. I’m really sorry, I never meant for any of this to happen. I only wish there was some way of stopping it all.”
“Have you told him?” Anwen demanded, leaning across Essa to pinch Wulf’s arm.
“Oh, all right,” said Wulf. “If it makes you feel any better, I was supposed to kill you, out here. But I decided not to after what happened in the forest, when you saved my life. My father told me you were a spy; he guessed Cai was still loyal to the Wolf Folk. But I was going to defy him, and bring you back as my ring-bearer instead.” He sighed. “It was a crazed plan anyhow – he would’ve killed me.”
Essa’s stomach lurched. “What about Cai?”
Wulf shook his head. “I’m sorry, Essa, but he’s probably dead by now. They were going to kill him after we left.”
Horror gripped him. He thought of the British boy, Dai, and his brave sister who had died screaming curses at Penda. Had they killed his father the same way: a quick slash across the throat – or worse? And Wulf had not even been there to offer a poppy-wine draught to ease Cai’s passing – not that he would have taken it.
Essa wanted to get up, walk away, but he could not move. Hot tears splashed to the grass, pink with the blood from his nose. He leant forward and clut
ched his knees, resting his head on his arms. All those years in the village, he had got used to the idea that he would probably never see Cai again, that he was certain to be dead. But he had never expected it to feel like this: as though he had been stabbed in the belly. He felt hands resting on his heaving shoulders, Wulf and Anwen trying to comfort him. But he knew there’d be no comfort. When he woke up tomorrow it would still be the same: Cai was dead.
They sat there, staring down at the grass, Wulf and Anwen with their arms around his shoulders. Essa glanced up, saw Fenrir weaving her way towards them through the hawthorn trees. She stood before him, nosing at his hands, his head. He felt her tongue rasp at his forehead, her wet nose against the tip of his ear. He reached out and stroked her lean, brindled flank.
One day, even she would leave him and cross into that other land from which no one returned. For a moment, the thought made him despair: what was the point in anything, if it would all end in that strange, distant country? In the village, they called it the Land of Mist. For the Christians, it was heaven or hell. But then a strange calm washed over him: in time, everyone would be called to its gates, far below in the roots of Yggdrasil. If they were lucky, they would find the Hall of Warriors, and feast till the end of the world. If not, it would be a long, lonely wandering through a cold land. But that was not for Penda to determine, or any other king.
Suddenly, Anwen sprang to her feet, pacing frantically up and down. Essa jumped – for a moment, he had almost forgotten they were there. “I can’t bear it!” she said. “Why do we let them treat us like this, forcing us to carry on with their fighting and killing? There’s nothing in it for us.”
“What else can we do?” said Wulf, reaching over to play with Fenrir’s ears.
And then Essa knew. He got to his feet, his head clear. It was so plain to see.
“We’ll go north to Ad Gefrin,” he said. “To the High King. We’ll tell him everything, get him to rein in Penda. Mercia’s beholden to Northumbria, just the same as everyone else. Your father pays his tributes to King Godsrule, doesn’t he?”
