Even with a withered arm, Godwin could use his shield. He powered it from his shoulder and upper arm, using it like a battering ram as he fought, barging and slicing alternately and forcing his opponent back. In doing so he opened up a gap between his own back and Ethelred’s, and the last robber was heading for it, sword upraised.
His swing was met by my long blade, immovable as rock. The robber turned a surprised face to me and what he saw in my eyes scared him out of his wits. He dropped his weapon and fell gibbering to the floor.
Godwin had beaten his opponent to the ground.
“Let’s save ourselves the trouble of a trial. You’d only be sentenced to hang anyway, and we haven’t got time to waste.” With that, he ran the man through. Ethelred found himself an opening and finished off his opponent through the heart. The last of them was crying and weeping on the ground, trying to crawl away from me. Godwin looked at him with something approaching pity.
“What did you do to him, Magister?”
“Asked him what he feared most and showed it to him - with a few embellishments.”
“What was it?”
“I don’t know. It came from his own mind, and I didn’t have time to examine it closely.” Godwin looked at me with something approaching disgust. This was not a soldier’s way.
“A clean death is better than lingering madness,” he said and cut the man’s head off before I could stop him.
“He would’ve recovered. I would have released him,” I said.
“I’d have hanged him anyway,” Godwin said and cleaned his bloody sword on the grass.
I wanted to give them a burial service but Godwin insisted that they’d wasted enough time for one day and, after a short argument, ordered me back into the saddle. I refused and, after a few more fruitless threats and orders, we agreed to light a small pyre. We collected sufficient brushwood in less than twenty minutes, and set it to burning immediately the bodies were dumped on top of it. I said a few words and then we were on our way. The horses would normally have been well rested after the time they had spent hanging around but the smell of death made even these battle-hardened beasts nervous. They wouldn’t be able to go much further that day; just through the village Ieuan had raced through two-and-a-half hours earlier and out the other side a mile or so. It was full dark when we finally called a halt, the time since the fight having passed with hardly a word between us.
The fire was made up and the meal was eaten before anyone said anything of any meaning. It was I who broke the silence as I was finding Godwin’s mood uncomfortable.
“Godwin, what ails you?” He didn’t look up.
“You. You disturb me. What you did to that robber. He was terrified, and you barely laid a finger on him.”
“I was you who killed him. I didn’t.”
“Isn’t a quick, fighter’s death preferable to madness?”
“As I said, I would have relieved him of his fear. And don’t think he wasn’t frightened of you: he was terrified.”
“But I didn’t drive him out his mind.”
“Nor did I. It was a temporary thing.”
“So you say.”
“So I do say.”
Silence fell again but it was broken, this time by Ethelred.
“I would’ve thought anyone would have been grateful to a man who saved his life, however he managed it.” Godwin glared at him. “With the greatest possible respect, sir,” he concluded, but his tone was not particularly respectful as he took a close interest in cleaning his sword.
“Aye, maybe.” Godwin said, but he was still out of sorts. He turned to me belligerently and said “Is that witchcraft how you bested Elfrith?”
“Who?”
“The man whose collarbone you broke at the inn, on the way to Whitby.”
“Oh, him,” I replied nonchalantly, “No. He was drunk and determined on a fight. He had only one thought in his mind, and that was spilling blood. He wasn’t very bright and so he held any thought as tight as he could. No room in his pea brain for any more than one at a time.”
“So you say you don’t use your spells to overcome others? How can I be sure you won’t get me to be your plaything? How can I be sure you’ll leave my mind alone?”
“Godwin,” I said evenly, “what I have I use carefully, and never for my own gain. Don’t you think,” I said, with some anger, “don’t you think that I would have influenced Oswy to decide in our favour if I was going to abuse my Gift in that way? Don’t you?”
Godwin regarded me for a few seconds and then he turned away with a growl, wrapping himself in a blanket.
“Get some sleep,” he said gruffly, “we have an early start in the morning.” Ethelred took his time finishing off tending his sword but I took the advice and rolled myself up in my turn.
I was floating on a sea of glass and oil and had been for Eternity. I could smell the further shore, the apples that hung in the orchards and I knew I was closer but not yet, not yet.
The skein of wool that the child held out was nearly exhausted. A shadow passed over a dark sky and reached for the tiny boy, its claws extending and stretching with fingers like daggers and twigs. It seemed to hesitate and lurch but came ever onwards, reaching down from the blackness in which it was formed - but there was a point of light! - and reaching but fighting against something, something. Then it pulled sharply away and fled over the hills to the north.
But it was still there, waiting for the child and fearing him. It still hungered and searched for another.
29
The Last Torment
He is standing in a wasteland. Smoke is rising from ruins all around. Streams run red with blood, the ground was soaked in it. There was no-one around, not even a corpse. The Land was laid waste and devastated and the war had moved on. He was alone in the middle of emptiness. Who he had come with and why he had come there - wherever he was - he knew not. Whoever had ridden with him had gone, and his horse had gone as well. He had been betrayed and deserted. His closest companions had gone, there was no-one on whom he could depend. Those he had trusted had run away. His heart is as devastated as the Land and his spirit is as broken as the shattered oak tree he is standing by, its splintered trunk smoking and the fallen branches little more than charcoal, ruined and desolate.
Steam is rising from broken huts and unspeakable piles of waste but there is no rain. The Earth sweats, the sky boils, there’s no rain. A crackle of thunder flashes across the mountains and dry drops of dust fall from the scarlet sky to the black earth. Mountains of ash rear all around, mounting out of the dead earth and leaning over like bones from a stripped, discarded and dissembled skeleton. A hot wind blows out of a dry month and whispers words as meaningless as rats’ feet over broken glass in a dry cellar. There is no water but only rock, rock and ash and an abandoned road from nowhere to darkness.
A Word came out of the south over his shoulder but he does not, cannot hope to turn again. A shadow came from the north and spread its wings across the sky. Not a cloud with rain - sweet water! - but darkness and death and there was no hope.
Embrace the darkness, accept it and you will be whole again.
His vision is failing and he can’t see. He can’t See!
Accept the wings and let them enfold you and comfort you.
He can’t see. He turns in confusion and sees a point of light in the darkness and the dark recoils from it. A hiss of hate came from behind and he turns again, stepping back away from the snake, if snake it was, but even a snake would have been welcome in this lifeless land and he would have embraced it like a lover. But it was nothing. Not even a reed broke the flat, featureless landscape where rocks pushed out of the ash like rotted teeth from fleshless gums in a dead mouth.
A dirty dog dug in the dung and disinterred a corpse, planted last year but ready to sprout. It may bloom this year, if there is water. There are the gashes that were his eyes, there the hole where his heart used to be, that beat so prettily and so well. There is nothing in his head but
straw and dry thoughts in a windy month. Had he done enough? This is last year’s tree, which brought life to the Land but now is withered and blackened and has no more to give. Had he a heart, anyone who had a heart, would give it through his hands to bring life to the Land.
A Word came from the south and he turns to hear and turns again to a cold blast at his back and the rattle of bones and chuckle spread from ear to ear.
A movement in a broken hut. A red face, sneering under a blonde thatch, then gone.
A great drum sounds once. Doom. Give. I have given everything. I can give no more.
There is a huge, crudely carved block of stone with slashes for eyes, pits for a nose and a gaping maw lined with teeth that had been so heavily soaked in blood that it was ingrained. He turns and tries to run but his legs would not carry him, they are glued to the ground. Give, the stone boomed.
I have nothing left to give. There is no-one here. There is nothing. I am alone. My friends have betrayed me. My horse has left me. There is torchlight, and red faces running with sweat, and they come for me.
Doom. The drum thundered but it brought no rain.
Give. Invaders come and they kill the Land.
Give sacrifice and bring the Land back to life.
I have no sacrifice.
Give sacrifice.
I have nothing.
He falls to his knees, weeping at his loss and the death of the Land, his Land and he has no Sacrifice to give and bring the Land back to life. He has nothing, no-one in the wasteland but himself, even the torches were extinguished and the red, sweaty faces have gone.
Over the mountains to the north the thunder flashes and there was no rain but he hears the cry of a child.
Give.
He weeps, he weeps and weeps but the tears are dry and are ash, more ash to pile up on the ground before him.
A soft breeze that promised rain came to his back from the south and he turns with hope and there is light in the red darkness, under the boiling sky and heaving Earth and if he can get to it there would be hope and a Word of kindness that gave more than it took but a blast of hot dry wind from the north knocks him face down to the ground and his mouth is full of ash and dust and he is blinded and his hands are full of ash and he knows that any fragment of hope is folly.
The sound of a child comes from the black, harsh mountains of the north and he is obscured in a great forest halfway between north and south, bewildered, and he knows he has lost his way. He has no guide, no hope and the only sign anywhere was the sound of the child in the mountains.
He stands and weeps and walks towards the cry, he can feel the heart beat, there is no hope for him and his tears are dry as dust as he walks down the wasted road to the desolate mountains, towards the sound of the child who might bring life to the Land at his hands.
Ieuan woke at the first light of the sun. His clothes were soaked in sweat and his eyes were stinging with tears. He couldn’t bring himself to make breakfast or wash. He got on his horse and rode along the desolate track, looking without hope for the next village he could find.
*
I had been drowning now another was drowning and I reached my hand for him but he moved away and he sank beneath the surface of the sea, which heaved and retched as if ready to spew the other out but held him until only a hand remained, just out of reach.
I woke up to Godwin’s gentle shake. It was still dark but there was the hint of light in the east.
“What hour is it?”
“About an hour before dawn. The false light is in the sky.”
“Come on,” I said, “we must catch him before he takes another sacrifice. I tried to bring him back but I couldn’t reach him. He won’t turn from his path.”
We prepared ourselves quickly, mounted up and ate a light breakfast as we rode.
“Magister,” Godwin said in a low voice. “I’m sorry for last night. We each fight in our own way, my head is clearer this morning.”
“Think nothing of it, Godwin, but thank you. It takes a big man to apologise when he thinks he’s done wrong.”
“I understand why King Oswy wants you to stay as his adviser. He would reward you very well.”
“I know that, Godwin, but I’m really not interested. I want as little to do with courts and earthly kings as possible. I have had all of that, and it was like ash in my mouth. I want no more of it. And besides, there is no vacancy. I’ve said it before: Oswy has a fine counsellor already, one who helps him take decisions - necessary decisions - that I would oppose.” Godwin nodded. His face was a grim mask but the apprehension behind it subsided. “When I leave Northumbria today, it will probably be the last time I will be here. I may not be able to persuade him to let me go another time.”
“Thanks.”
“Let’s get on now. Today will see the last of this, I think.”
As the light gained strength we kicked our horses into a canter, closing the distance between ourselves and our quarry with every minute that went by.
30
Betrayal of Youth
Ieuan pulled wretchedly to a halt. The sky above was a plain, featureless, washed-out grey and the vegetation hung limply from black, wet branches. It wasn’t raining now and from the look of the landscape it might as well not have bothered when it had. This sort of rain rots cabbages and blights turnips, he thought. But there was something he needed, something that his body wouldn’t let him forget. The loss of the Sight in his dream had frightened him and he knew it foretold the reality. He must have the Sight, and with it the Power to hold off and defeat his pursuers. There was no other way.
Even in this miserable weather children would be out. Some would be sent to tend crops, clearing ditches and digging runs for the surface water to run off, others, too young for work, would go off to their normal playgrounds in the woods. There would be one alone, there always was. He didn’t want to but he had to. He was exhausted and twisted with the conflict but, now he had decided that the deed had to be done, he was easier, and determined. He sat on his horse within the tree line He could see the village just down the slope before him, all laid open to his eyes, if he just moved his head to one side or the other. A miserable cluster of a dozen thatched mud huts, with two larger huts for storage and animal shelter, probably. The ground between them was churned-up cloying mud, a slurry of semi-liquid solids, more appropriate to a cesspit than a path or road.
The inhabitants went sluggishly about their tedious chores, depressed by the energy-sapping weather and the mind-numbing struggle to raise crops and tend animals. Ieuan felt the weather too. Muscles ached and joints pained him when he moved them, and stiffened up if he didn’t. He sat for nearly an hour, almost motionless, just the occasional creak from his saddle-leather as he shifted his weight to ease the stiffness. A damp mist hung in the air, thicker as it got higher, leaving the village as a clear bowl, like a picture in the middle of a smoky glass.
There.
A boy, a small boy, about five or six by the size of him, walking towards his hiding-place, engrossed in a leaf, or flower, or insect that he was painstakingly pulling to pieces but scattering carelessly as he walked. Ieuan pulled his horse further back into the wood and slipped quietly out of the saddle. The child didn’t hear - or paid no attention to - the slight creak of leather as he dismounted, engrossed as he was in his destruction.
Ieuan pulled a cloth and a bottle from his bag. He unstopped the bottle and poured a generous amount of cold-smelling clear liquid from it, soaking the cloth. He turned his head and then held it behind his back so that the fumes wouldn’t dull his senses, and watched closely as the child approached. Just twenty yards away.
The boy stopped and looked back to the village. Then he looked to the woods. Then back at the village again.
Come on. Come on, Ieuan thought. He was eager now, his own blood rushing through his ears, his breathing getting faster and faster, but still steady, still in control. He could feel the heartbeat, and all it promised of fulfilment and Power. He w
as all hunger, all anticipation. He looked around and felt with his mind for other presences. There were none, not nearby, not near enough to bother him. The child looked once more at the village then made his way - with more purpose - to the cover of the wood. Probably been told to keep out, but that’s what made boys so delicious, they were so defiant! They would go off on their own, wanting their own way.
Now! The child was right by him. A couple of steps and he had him, one arm round his small chest, the other clamping the drug-infused cloth over his nose and mouth.
The boy didn’t have time to do more than stiffen before the drug did its work and he slumped into Ieuan’s arm. He held the cloth over his mouth for a moment longer to ensure that his prize would not wake up too early. He threw a sack over him, tied the neck up and slung the baggage across the saddle before mounting himself, arranging his burden in front of him. He could feel the little life coursing through the virginal body. A shame it was so long until the night, when they could be one.
The drugged cloth went back into his bag and then he kicked the horse into a fast walk that took him through the trees and around the village to the west. He was tempted by a roaring mental bravado to ride openly through the settlement but he would not take the tiniest risk, not now, not now. When his Power and Sight were at their strongest, later, then he would do whatever he wanted and no-one - no-one - could stop him. He would be their master and they would do his bidding.
For now, he rode silently through the quiet woods, around the village and on into the wilderness to the north. He would have his Power back before he reached the Wall and no-one would stop him.
*
A short while later we three rode into the village and I ordered a halt. The mist that had hindered us on higher ground lifted over it but still hung above us, as threatening as death. We asked if anyone had seen the Druid and, if so, when. No-one had.
“Have we lost him? Did he turn off the trail?” Godwin asked. I shook my head.
“His trail is very strong,” I replied. “He’s been here.”
The Monk (Prince Ciaran th Damned Book 3) Page 36
