‘You’ve returned to help then?’ Wulfric said.
‘Unfortunately no,’ Aelric said. ‘My responsibilities in the south are many, and I’m just one man. The help that I’m sure Lord Elzmark will send is going to be more than enough to keep the village safe.’
He didn’t speak like a Northlander. It was odd to think that he had grown up in the village. His face was lined and his eyes were calm, as though he had seen so much there was nothing left that could take him by surprise. In that moment Wulfric knew a man like him would be a far better choice for First Warrior than he, would be far more able to take back the powers that Donato had usurped, even though he had never gone on a pilgrimage. How could he convince him to stay?
‘That’s what’s happening then? Lord Else…’ Wulfric said.
‘Elzmark,’ Belgar said.
‘Elzmark,’ Wulfric said. ‘He’s going to help?’
‘Assuming his envoy was happy with the horses. Was he happy with the horses?’ Belgar said.
Wulfric shrugged. ‘I think so. He seemed to like what he saw.’
‘Well then,’ Belgar said, ‘we can expect soldiers and wagons of food to arrive in the next few days.’
‘Are horses all they want?’ Wulfric said.
Belgar humphed.
There was a question that remained in Wulfric’s head. ‘What brings you home, Aelric?’
‘When the messengers arrived in Elzburg, I asked for leave to come north with his emissary.’
‘I’m sorry for your loss,’ Wulfric said. ‘Your help now would be a huge boost for the village. If I can convince you to stay.’
Aelric shook his head. ‘I really do have to return to Elzburg. I only came to bring Adalhaid back with me.’
Wulfric furrowed his brow. ‘What do you mean?’
‘I’m taking her back to Elzburg with me.’
‘What? She’s staying here. With me,’ Wulfric said.
Belgar shook his head and took Wulfric by the arm, leading him away from Aelric to where they could speak in private.
‘She’s an orphan now, Wulfric,’ Belgar said. ‘She needs to be with people who’ll be able to look after her.’
‘We’re betrothed,’ Wulfric said. ‘I can look after her. We’re as much her family as an uncle who lives half the world away.’
Belgar laughed. ‘The world stretches farther than you think, Wulfric. But that doesn’t change the fact that we can barely look after ourselves. You’re not old enough to marry yet anyway. I checked with Aethelman as soon as I found out about Aelric’s plans. Twenty years is what the gods decree.’
‘But I’m old enough to go on the pilgrimage? To fight? Die? I’m old enough,’ Wulfric said. ‘Or I would be if it suited everyone else.’
‘Come now, Wulfric. We still don’t know what the southerners will offer us. It might be nothing, or not much better than. Donato will take whatever they offer, and I don’t have the support to stand against him. We could all be starving in a few weeks’ time. Is that what you want for her? The Rasbruckers could come back before any soldiers arrive, to finish what they started. Do you really want her in that danger?’
‘Of course not,’ Wulfric said. He didn’t want her to go. He wanted to marry her and for them to rebuild together. He could provide for her, keep her safe. But now he had a doubt. Was he being selfish?
‘She can continue her schooling in the south,’ Belgar said. ‘She’ll be safe and want for nothing. Can you offer her those things?’
Wulfric opened his mouth, but closed it again and shook his head.
‘It’s been decided,’ Belgar said. ‘She leaves in the morning.’
‘I’ll marry her. Then no one can force her to go if she doesn’t want to.’
‘Don’t be daft, boy. You’re both far too young. Neither of you are of age yet.’
‘I’m a warrior,’ Wulfric said, but he felt his resolve weaken. ‘You can’t pick and choose what I am and am not old enough for.’
‘Even if we don’t all starve this winter,’ Belgar said, ‘things will be hard. Very hard. And they won’t get easier come spring. This winter is just about surviving. The really difficult part comes in spring when we have to rebuild and stand on our own feet, help from the south or not. Hardship like that sucks the life out of people. Is that what you want for her? I can tell you, if I had anywhere better to be, I’d be gone.’
‘WULFRIC. What are you doing here?’
It was getting late and Adalhaid was in the process of closing up her section of the shack that had been cobbled together over the remains of his home.
‘I need to speak to you,’ he said.
‘What about?’
‘You’ve spoken to your uncle?’
‘Yes of course.’
‘So you know then?’ Wulfric was amazed that she could react to it all so calmly. Was it that she didn’t really care?
‘Know what?’
‘That he’s come to take you south.’
Adalhaid furrowed her brow. ‘What do you mean “come to take me south”?’
‘That’s why he’s here. They told me earlier. When he heard that your mother and father are… Well, he plans to bring you back south with him, so you can be with family.’
She moved her mouth as though to speak but stopped. ‘He didn’t say anything to me. I don’t want to go, so I’m not.’
‘Belgar said it’s been decided.’
‘Well it was decided without me, so they can undecide.’ She ducked back into the small dwelling and reappeared a moment later wrapped in a cloak. She gave Wulfric a long, penetrating look that made him feel as though he was betraying her. He knew it was for the best, painful though it was.
‘I’ll deal with this myself,’ she said.
Wulfric watched her go a few paces. ‘Wait.’
Adalhaid stopped and turned.
‘I think they’re right.’ It felt like stabbing himself in the stomach to say it.
‘What?’ She stepped closer. ‘Do you… want me to go?’
‘Yes. I mean no. It’s the best thing.’
‘I can’t believe you’re saying this. I thought—’
‘I was against it at first too,’ Wulfric said. ‘Chances are not everyone here is going to live through the winter. Even with the southerners’ help. I want to make sure you’re one of the ones who does. There’s safety in the south. And comfort. I need to know you have both.’
‘I’ll be needed here,’ she said.
‘Every person who needs to be sheltered, fed, and protected puts the village under more strain. Most have nowhere else to go, but you do. If things work out with the southerners, we’ll be able to start rebuilding properly with the help they send come spring. Until then, it’s just about surviving. You can spend the winter at that university you always talk about. Learn things that will help the village, and come back to us. To me.’
She said nothing, but Wulfric could see from the set of her jaw that she wasn’t convinced.
‘You can come back in spring. It’s only a few months.’ Wulfric felt empty saying it. He could remember the last time she had gone away for a few months only too well.
ADALHAID LEFT THE NEXT MORNING. Wulfric watched as she and her uncle rode out of Leondorf for the Ruripathian city of Elzburg. One winter. She had said that before, and was gone for three years. This time her leaving was his doing, though. Perhaps it was the previous time also. Considering how much had happened in the past few months, Wulfric felt as though the entire world might be turned on its head in the time she would be away. Would he even still be alive? Change came quickly and in large measure in the Northlands. A voice in the back of his head said he would never see her again. He did his best to ignore it.
He stood staring down the road south. She glanced over her shoulder every so often, and even from that distance, Wulfric could tell that she was crying. He kept watching until she was long out of sight, feeling the hole inside him grow with each passing moment.
THE MAISTERSP
AEKER STOPPED TALKING, and studied the crowd for a reaction. They were silent, staring at him like infants expecting to be fed. There were times to allow a pause, and there were times to grab it by the scruff of the neck.
‘Our hero has now been forged in ice, in blood, and in ash—a boy stepped across the threshold of manhood—but has yet to be honed in true battle. Tragedy has followed him like a shadow, and he has been forced to part from the woman he loves with a passion that few of us will ever understand. Our object of mystery, the ancient Fount Stone, has finally found its way into the hands of a man ill-suited to its possession. Men of unbridled and ruthless ambition are in the ascendant.’
The Maisterspaeker considered stopping for the night. He had no idea what the hour was, and his voice was growing gravelly. Conradin placed a fresh mug of ale in front of him, and the Maisterspaeker put the thought from his head. He smiled, and took a deep breath. ‘And yet the change to the old order is only at its beginning…’
PART III
40
‘Leondorf survived through that first winter after the attack. It was difficult, but no one else died,’ the Maisterspaeker said. ‘The Ruripathians arrived in numbers the following spring, and slowly life in the Northlands grew to resemble life in the south. Buildings were rebuilt by southern architects and workers. The Markgraf sent an ambassador north to oversee his interests, and Donato solidified his position.
‘Silver was discovered on Leondorf’s borders not long after, which made it a very attractive protectorate for the Markgraf and those who sought to make their fortunes. The population swelled with prospectors, treasure hunters and those who made their livings off them. So life continued in Leondorf.
‘The hero of our tale remained. He had an overriding sense of duty to the people of his village, and an undying hope that one day he would wake and discover Adalhaid had returned. Three years have passed when we rejoin our hero, and we find him disillusioned, under-utilised, and questioning his choice to remain in Leondorf now that it is out of peril.’
WULFRIC LOUNGED on the porch of his house with Farlof and Stenn, surveying the village. It had changed so much since the southerners arrived. Mixed with the northern buildings of wood, stone, and thatch, there were now many of brick, plaster and slate that towered above their northern counterparts. A group of soldiers rode back into the village, with none of the ox carts they had left with the previous morning. Wulfric would have sniggered at the southerners’ misfortune and incompetence were it not for the fact that Roal had been guiding them, and he was nowhere to be seen.
Wulfric sat up and ran his eyes across each of the garrison soldiers’ faces. There were two fewer of them also. He didn’t care about them, but he was concerned about Roal. He stood and walked over to the sergeant of the bedraggled patrol.
‘Roal. Where is he?’ Wulfric said.
The sergeant shook his head. ‘I lost two men.’
‘Don’t give a damn about them,’ Wulfric said. ‘Roal. What happened to him?’
‘Rasbruckers. Jumped us just before the bridge on our way back. They killed Roal first.’
Wulfric screwed his face up in anger. In the three years since the battle and the attack, Rasbruck had recovered with miraculous speed. ‘Took the oxen? And the silver?’
The sergeant nodded.
‘Good luck explaining that to your boss,’ Wulfric said, before turning and heading back to the others on the porch. The others looked at him for news. ‘Be ready to ride out in ten minutes. Roal didn’t come back with them.’
Stenn and Farlof both shook their heads with mournful expressions on their faces. In three years of guiding the garrison soldiers through the forests they had each faced dozens of attacks, but Jorundyr had smiled on them and not one of them had taken so much as a scratch. It seemed only fair after how many of them he had already taken. Now, it seemed his beneficence had run out.
Wulfric watched the soldiers trudge back to their garrison. He didn’t like the fact that they were Ruripathians, but as men they weren’t a bad bunch. They weren’t bad fighters either—Wulfric had trained with them in the three years they had been in Leondorf—but they weren’t suited to forest fighting. It was part of why they’d never been able to get a foothold in the Northlands. Before they were invited into Leondorf, that was.
It was the third time in as many months that the ox-train coming back from the silver mine had been attacked, and Wulfric wondered if this one would be enough to finally provoke a response. He didn’t know if it was actually Rasbruckers who had carried out the attack, and he didn’t care. If it incited the Ruripathians into attacking Rasbruck, Wulfric was all for it. The Ruripathian Ambassador had refused to be drawn into taking any aggressive action since coming to the village. There was plenty of money flowing south and the attacks were usually only a minor irritation. Why stir up the wasps’ nest? he had said. Wulfric had always stopped short of calling him a coward, but at times it had required considerable effort.
The mine was on the fringes of Leondorf’s territory, and the road back passed close to the border with Rasbruck, the only crossing point on the river that the oxen could manage. There was a bridge there now, which made the journey faster, but not safer. The mine’s presence ensured the Ruripathians would remain, and that ensured Leondorf would survive, although it little resembled the village it once was.
The other tribes hated the fact that Leondorf had invited the Ruripathians into the Northlands, and expressed their displeasure every chance they got. The silver mine and its ox-trains were a prime target. One of the warriors guided the ox-trains and garrison soldiers each time they went out to collect the silver. There was little else for them to do.
Wulfric spotted Donato watching them ride out from the steps of the rebuilt Great Hall. It was taller and grander than before, but the remnants of the stone walls of the previous iteration had been repaired and reused. The spot near the back where Wulfric had spent so many hours as a boy listening was still there and it had proved useful. With the southern soldiers’ arrival, Wulfric had expected that Donato would do away with the warriors once and for all, but that had not happened. Unfamiliar with the region, the southerners needed scouts and guides and the Ambassador had insisted that they be maintained. It kept them relevant, but with each passing day Wulfric lost a little more hope that they would regain their old status. First Warrior meant nothing any more. No one even called him that. The village’s children played at being soldiers, not warriors. Half of them were the offspring of the new arrivals anyway.
Wulfric had no doubt that as soon as the garrison soldiers grew comfortable in the forests, they would be done away with, but that had yet to happen. After that? Who knew? Wulfric didn’t see himself as a farmer. Adventures in distant lands seemed the most compelling idea. He felt Jorundyr’s Path call to him. Alone, or with the others, it didn’t matter. There would be nothing left for him in the Northlands.
The comfort and sophistication of the south also seemed to have finally won Adalhaid over. She had not returned to Leondorf in the spring as they had planned. The memory of the expression on her face when he told her that he thought she should go south was never far from his thoughts. Perhaps he would go looking for her. Sometimes he wondered why he had not already. Fear that she had forgotten him? Fear that she had not forgiven him for telling her to go?
He had remained in Leondorf after the initial crisis had passed in the hope of revenge on Rasbruck. They owed Leondorf a blood debt, and he was determined that they should pay it. As the months and years passed, that hope looked increasingly forlorn, and he grew frustrated that the Ambassador would never order the attack, and had all but given up. But now? With a month’s ore lost? If anything spurred the Ambassador to action, it would be this.
They left the village and galloped toward the bridge, the final three apprentices from the pilgrimage that seemed a lifetime ago. Wulfric felt like a warrior for the first time in as long as he could remember. It hammered home his resentment of how they were
at the beck and call of the garrison, and left to wallow in idleness the remainder of the time.
It took a few hours to reach the bridge. The road was rutted and muddy from the regular traffic that carved it ever deeper into the forest floor. It made for slow progress, but Wulfric had little hope of finding anyone alive.
Roal was draped on the road’s bank, stuck with several arrows. His sword was drawn, and crusted with dry blood. It was as good a death as any warrior could hope for. Wulfric felt an unsettling pang of jealousy. They gathered his body and headed for home.
THEY RODE BACK through the village slowly, with Roal draped across the back of a horse. They wanted everyone to see that one of Leondorf’s sons had died in her service, but hardly anyone took notice. The Ruripathian ambassador had had a house built for himself beside the garrison barracks in the southern style of white plastered brick and red-tiled roofs. It contained all of the famed southern luxuries in great quantities—or so Wulfric had been told, for he had never seen the inside of it.
As galling as it was to see his decline in status, Wulfric and the warriors were not the only ones. Donato had also seen his power fettered, even though he was leader of the council. He had taken to calling himself ‘mayor’, a southern title. Wulfric found it satisfying that his own scheme had curtailed his rapidly growing influence. The Ambassador was deferential to Donato in public, but everyone knew who was making the decisions behind the scene. He might use the title of ambassador, but in reality he was a governor.
They had been gone for several hours, more than long enough for the ambassador to consider the loss of his latest cargo of silver, and Wulfric was keen to see if he would be provoked to reaction. With Roal delivered to the kirk where Aethelman would prepare him for his funeral, there was little more for Wulfric and the others to do but lounge on the porch of his house as they did every day.
The Wolf of the North: Wolf of the North Book 1 Page 27
