The big blond Wolf by Christopher’s side faltered in his attempts to follow the tune on his own guitar, and Christopher stopped playing. Without looking up, he reached across, and gently repositioned the Wolf’s fingers. The Wolf tried the chord again and Christopher nodded, his eyes down. He resumed playing, slower now, pausing between each chord so that the Wolf could follow. Beside him, Christopher’s father sat, stone-faced and unmoving, his mandolin on his knee, waiting for David Le Garou to tire of the lesson and order proper music to start.
Bells tinkled softly in the darkness behind the slave line, and Wynter tensed. They had not prowled the slave lines like this for months, but Jean, in a fit of Wolfish temper, had done away with the last boy. And the girl? Who knew? One morning she just wasn’t there. Now the Wolves’ boys were once again seeking fresh entertainment for their masters, the bells at their ankles and wrists chiming as they stalked down the line.
Wynter shut her eyes. Do not let it be me, she thought.
A familiar voice spoke in her ear. “That’s all right, sis. You’re not one of them.” Alberon smiled down at her. “Come on. You’re in the wrong seat.”
She grinned into his sunny face and allowed him help her to her feet. Behind her, the bells moved down the line and Wynter heard one of the others groan in fear.
David Le Garou bowed courteously as Alberon led her around the fire.
“My Lady,” he murmured.
“Monsieur Le Garou,” she said, favouring him with a gracious tilt of her head.
By the fire, Christopher whispered, “Dad? What’s wrong with my hands?”
“Would you like to lie down in my tent, sis?” asked Alberon, putting his arm around her shoulders. “Have some wine?”
Wynter grinned and said that she would, and some roast beef too, if it was available. She glanced across the clearing to where Razi was standing.
Alberon chuckled at how absorbed he was in the proceedings at the fire.
“Brother!” he called. “Come along. We’ve no time for that! There’s work to do.”
Razi turned, his face uncertain. “But …”
“No buts, brother. We have business! Come along.” Alberon extended his hand. “Come along,” he demanded, his voice deepening.
By the fire Christopher whispered “Dad?”
Wynter wanted to go to him, but a voice inside her head, as loud and clear as her father’s voice, said, he is not so important. And she hesitated, trying to remember what it was she needed to do.
Alberon’s arm tightened around her shoulders and she shivered at how cold he felt. “These things happen all the time,” he insisted. “We have bigger things to consider.”
“No,” whispered Razi, his eyes on the fire. “No. I am not that kind of a man.”
“Oh?” said Alberon. “Really? Then who am I?”
Razi spun to look at him.
Wynter had never heard Razi scream before. The sound was terrible. She pressed against Alberon, terrified, and Razi backed away from them.
“Who am I?” gurgled Alberon. Wynter suddenly knew who it was that stood with his arm around her, and she jerked and cried out, trying in vain to pull away.
Don’t look! she told herself. Don’t look! But even as she thought it, her head was turning and she looked up.
It was Isaac, the man Alberon had sent to kill Razi. The man Razi had allowed be tortured so horribly, before the palace ghosts released him from his pain. Isaac’s eyeless sockets welled and overflowed, clotted tears rolling down his cheeks. His terrible mouth, only inches from her face, worked against its shattered teeth, that cultured voice coming, impossibly clear, from those ragged lips.
“Mary?” he said. “Don’t you know me?”
Wynter screamed, and across the clearing, Razi’s scream echoed her own.
Embla had stepped from the shadows by his side, dirt in her hair and in her eyes.
“What have you done?” she asked. “Tabiyb, what have you done?”
“I’ve done nothing!” A confession, a shameful admission of guilt.
“Nothing!” agreed Embla. “You have done nothing.”
Isaac sank to his knees, pulling Wynter with him, so the two of them knelt in the mud. “Mary,” he whispered. “Ora pro me… ora pro me …”
Pray for me. Pray for me.
By the fire, Christopher, at last, began to wail.
Wynter took a deep breath and opened her eyes wide.
Pray for me, she thought. Pray for me! But she couldn’t remember why she wanted the prayers or why her heart was slamming against her ribs like a rat in a cage.
The campfire was still burning, and she lay perfectly still for a moment, listening to the loud hiss of the flames and watching the moonlight slide and shiver on the trees at the edge of the clearing.
Christopher had slipped down from their pillow of saddlebags, and he lay facing her, his shoulders hunched, his chin tucked into his chest. He was moaning in his sleep and there were tears leaking steadily from beneath his dark eyelashes. Wynter felt around beneath the cloaks until she found his hand. She clasped it gently and pulled it close to her heart, unconsciously running her thumb across the gap where his middle finger used to be.
She shut her eyes again and let the hissing of the flames fill her head. For a moment, the sound relaxed her. Then it seemed to intrude upon her peace of mind and she realised that it was very loud, much too loud, and it was moving. Wynter opened her eyes again. She listened, staring out into the darkness. Then she slowly lifted her head to look over Christopher’s shoulder.
The Merron were sleeping. Úlfnaor and Hallvor lay protectively on either side of Sólmundr, lost in the dark bundles of their cloaks and blankets, Úlfnaor’s dogs fast asleep at their feet.
Only Boro was awake, his head resting on Sólmundr’s knee. He was watching intently as something crossed the clearing towards him. Wynter could clearly make out the movement of his eyes as he followed its progress across the forest floor. His tail thumped against the ground and he whined softly. Wynter scanned the area. She could see nothing, no floating light, no shadow, but she felt it in the air, that hair-prickle tension that presaged an apparition. Carefully, she lifted herself onto her elbow and waited.
Boro settled his chin against Sólmundr’s limp hand and his eyes followed the invisible presence as it tracked a path across the clearing and up to his master’s side. The big dog whined softly again, and his tail thumped in melancholy greeting.
Slowly the clearing filled with the roar and crackle of an enormous fire. Then Wynter heard it, soft and almost inaudible, Ashkr’s voice whispering gently through the sound of flames.
“Sól… Sól, a chroí …”
Sólmundr stirred, sighed, and opened his eyes. His attention wandered for a moment, then his eyes fixed on a point very close to him and he smiled. “Ashkr.” He lifted his hand, as if to touch the air, and suddenly Ashkr was there, kneeling by his side.
He was all flaring brightness, white and shimmering, flickering like a thousand moonlit flames; but perfect in every detail, right down to his pale eyelashes. His handsome face was filled with tenderness, and his mouth curved into a gentle smile as he gazed into Sólmundr’s face. “Mo mhuirnín,” he whispered.
Sólmundr traced the empty air where his beloved’s face should have been. “Ash,” he breathed. Ashkr’s smile deepened and he nodded as if to say of course. Sólmundr gazed at him, his fingers poised against Ashkr’s translucent cheek. “Fan liom,” he said. “Táim beagnach in éineacht leat …”
Ashkr’s face fell. He looked Sólmundr up and down, as if unable to believe his eyes. No. He vehemently shook his head. No.
Sólmundr smiled and nodded. “Sea…” he insisted softly. “Fan liom, Ash. Fan.” His eyes grew heavy and slipped shut. Slowly, his hand drifted to his chest as if the strength was fading from his arm.
Ashkr bent urgently over him, his hands hovering. It was obvious that he was longing to touch Sól’s face, longing to wake him. For the briefe
st of moments, his shimmering fingers brushed his friend’s cheek, and at the contact, Sólmundr moaned and shuddered with pain. Ashkr drew back in despair, and then he was gone.
“Wait!” Razi’s urgent voice drew Wynter’s attention to him. He was lying on his back, staring up at the moonlit canopy, his eyes bright with tears. “Wait!” he cried. There was a sudden, bright movement above him, like a sheet being snatched up and away, and Razi closed his hand on empty air as if to catch it.
“Please,” he whispered.
Wynter tried to follow the flicker of light, tried to see if it had been Embla. But it was gone.
The clearing shivered into focus. The air snapped back into place. The sound of the fires abruptly dropped into reality. Wynter took a deep, convulsive lungful of air and subsided limply against her saddle. Beside her, Christopher growled in his sleep, his face darkening.
Razi sat upright. He stayed absolutely still for a moment, staring ahead of him, his eyes wide, then he pushed his covers back and scrambled to his feet.
“Razi!” hissed Wynter, rising to her elbow. “What are you doing?” Ignoring her, Razi stumbled to their pile of tack and rooted frantically about until he found his doctor’s bag. He rose, the bag clutched in his hand, and looked about him as if uncertain of what he was doing. Then he swung around and crossed rapidly to the Merron side of camp.
“Sól,” Razi dropped to his knees by the sleeping man. “Wake up.”
At his clumsy intrusion, Hallvor and Úlfnaor jerked awake, startled. The warhounds growled in irritation, but they did not rise to their feet. Úlfnaor pushed himself onto his elbow, frowning. “What you doing?” he asked sharply.
Across the fire, the others shot to hands and knees, calling out and groping blindly for their swords. “Cad e?” cried Wari. “Aoire?”
Gesturing them to silence, Hallvor pushed her sleep-tangled hair from her face and sat forward. “Tabiyb,” she whispered, staring at Razi questioningly.
Razi did not acknowledge her.
“Sólmundr!” he said again. “Wake up.”
The warriors began to rise, swords in hand. Úlfnaor murmured soothingly, “Bígí ar bhur suaimhneas,” gesturing that they should sit back down, and they subsided warily.
Wynter pushed back her covers and got to her feet. She slid her knife into its scabbard and watched as Razi patted Sólmundr’s cheek and called his name. The warrior sighed and weakly shoved Razi’s hands away.
Hallvor reached across and took Sól’s hands, gently holding them still.
Razi gazed up at her. “He is terribly hot,” he whispered. “I should like to examine him, if I may? I… I should like to offer him my assistance.”
Úlfnaor translated, and Hallvor’s face softened in understanding. Sadly, she shook her head. She was telling Razi that there was nothing he could do.
“Please,” insisted Razi, and the healer sighed, nodded and bent forward to help him.
Wynter glanced at Christopher. Weighted down by his exhaustion, he slept on. Wynter hesitated only a moment, then she turned her back on him and picked her way across the camp to stand in the shadows by Razi’s side.
Úlfnaor pulled Boro to one side, allowing Razi to push Sólmundr’s covers back and lift his shirt. The bandages were clean and neat, and it was obvious that Hallvor had been doing an excellent job of taking care of her friend. Sólmundr lay quietly against his saddle now, his eyes half open, his breathing slow and heavy through slack lips. He hardly seemed to notice as Razi unbound his wound, but Hallvor continued to hold his hands against his chest and after a moment, his eyes slid to her and he smiled, as if seeing her for the first time.
“Hally,” he breathed, pleased and surprised.
Hallvor murmured something and squeezed his hand.
“Hally,” he whispered confidentially, smiling, “bhí Ashkr anseo.”
Hallvor and Úlfnaor exchanged a startled look. Úlfnaor glanced sharply at his people. They gazed silently back across the flames, their eyes gleaming as brightly as the weapons they held in their hands.
“Shhh,” soothed Hallvor, leaning over Sólmundr, her eyes on the others. “Shhh, a chroí.”
Heedless of her anxiety, Sólmundr smiled. “Ashkr,” he repeated.
“Shhhh,” said Hallvor sharply. “Sól! Shush.”
Suddenly Razi drew back, and Wynter’s stomach clenched at the sight of the putrid yellow stain soaking through the bottom layers of the bandages. She became aware of a terrible smell, and her heart sank.
Oh, she thought in dismay. Oh no.
Sólmundr jerked and moaned weakly as the final bandage came loose, and Razi sat back on his heels, his face blank.
All around the wound, the flesh of Sólmundr’s stomach was swollen tight, red and heated looking. The skin around the stitches was a suppurating mess. Wynter put her hand to her mouth, distressed at the sight and at the obvious hopelessness of the poor man’s condition. She raised glittering eyes to Razi’s face. He gazed at the wound for a moment, then he gently pressed his fingers down against one of the stitches. Pus oozed thickly from around the knotted thread, and Sólmundr moaned again in pain.
Razi withdrew his hand. Hallvor said something soft and kind.
“Hally, say not to mind,” whispered Úlfnaor. “She say you did everything that within your power, Tabiyb. You could not to have done more.”
Razi shook his head once in disagreement.
Frangok’s voice cut across them, hard and flat. “Is maoin do Chroí an Domhain Sólmundr,” she said.
Whatever this meant, it did not make Úlfnaor nor Hallvor happy and Wynter saw their expressions draw down in disapproval. Wari and Soma hung their heads, uncomfortable at Frangok’s tone, but the remaining warriors, Surtr and Thoar, seemed to be on Frangok’s side, and they nodded their support as the warrior pressed her point.
“Tá Ashkr ag fanacht le Sól,” she insisted, jabbing her sword in Sólmundr’s direction.
“Aye… ” echoed Sólmundr dreamily, “Ashkr.”
The Merron looked sharply at him.
“Agus Embla?” asked Frangok, leaning forward to see Sól’s face.
Every one of the Merron seemed to hold their breath, waiting to hear Sólmundr’s reply, but the poor man seemed oblivious to all but his own smiling thoughts.
“Sól?” demanded Frangok. “Embla.”
“Embla,” sighed Sólmundr dreamily. “Embla.”
“Ahhhh,” sighed Frangok, as if suddenly aware of a huge truth.
The warriors instantly snapped their attention to Razi. Something in their faces chilled Wynter. She moved so that she was standing between them and the still oblivious Razi. Her hand tightened on the hilt of her knife, and there was an unmistakable rising of hackles amongst the warriors.
Úlfnaor’s deep voice cut across the tension like a slap with an open palm.
“Níl Tabiyb ach ina choimhthíoch,” he rumbled dismissively.
The red-headed brothers turned their eyes to him, their faces hard, and Úlfnaor tutted, as if they should know better. He slid a disparaging look at Razi, and Wynter was shocked and enraged at the obvious disrespect in his face.
“Giota. Spóirt. Choimhthígh,” he sneered, contempt for Razi palpable in every emphasised syllable.
There was a brief moment of hesitation. Then Surtr and Thoar nodded and sat back. Úlfnaor spread his hands to the still uncertain Frangok, and tilted his head. Come on, that gesture said, you know I’m right. The frowning woman paused, then, sighing in resignation, she rammed her sword into its scabbard and pulled closer to the fire, her eyes on Sól.
Wari yawned suddenly, rubbing at his tired face, and dragged his cloak up to his chin, murmuring in the manner of someone complaining about the cold. Soma began to root about in their things. She pulled a blackened pot from their kit and it soon became obvious that she was preparing to make some tea.
Wynter stood uncertainly, her hand still on her weapon, her eyes skipping from one warrior to the next. The Merron seemed to b
e settling themselves down for a vigil, all their tension gone in the blink of an eye, and she found herself, as usual, thrown by their mercurial twists of mood. Hallvor’s soft voice drew her attention back to Razi. The healer was patting his arm and calling him, trying to wake him from the reverie he seemed to have fallen into.
“There is nothing I can do,” he said. His gaze wandered up to meet Wynter’s. “Sis,” he said. “There is nothing… I have no sulphur. I have no… I have not even a brace of mouldy biscuits to lay against the suppuration.” He looked back down at Sól. “I have left it too late,” he said. “I have left it far too late. I have neglected him and now there is nothing I can do.”
“Did any of the others see the ghost?”
Wynter glanced sideways at Christopher and pulled her cloak tight. “I do not believe so,” she whispered.
“Think,” he hissed. “Think hard. Did they see Ashkr’s ghost?”
Wynter shifted uncomfortably and looked back across the camp to where the Merron sat around the fire, keeping vigil over Sólmundr. “I think that Sól… I am certain that Sól told them of it,” she whispered.
“Oh, God curse him,” said Christopher.
Wynter anxiously shushed him, but it was simply a reflex. No one was listening. They may as well have been invisible, sitting there side-by-side on their blanket rolls, dimly lit by the glowing embers of their own fire. Even Razi, alone and brooding in the shadows at the edge of the clearing, paid them no heed.
“What way did they react to the news?” hissed Christopher. “Were they alarmed?”
Wynter scanned the Merrons’ patient, waiting faces and shrugged. “I cannot say that they were alarmed, exactly. Though they seemed to have some differences of opinion on the matter. All in all, they seemed to take it very well.” She gestured to the warriors. “They have been like this ever since.”
Once the warriors had settled down, Hallvor and Razi had wrapped Sólmundr’s wound in clean bindings, changed his sweatsoaked shirt and made him as comfortable as possible. Then Razi had removed himself from the company and retreated away from everyone. He had been silent ever since, seated at the base of a tree, wrapped in his cloak, staring at Sól.
The Crowded Shadows Page 39
