All the Saxons shifted in their feet, unnerved by her intensity, and I knew Ceadda had a look on his face that was directed at me, and was saying, “I told you so, Pup.”
I took a deep breath and so began our flight. ‘Let us leave.’
We rushed up the hill, spears clanking on trees in the darkness and the night seemed to disapprove of our haste as we all stumbled along, save the horses, which were wiser. Then we took to the west over some harvested fields, and crossed a ball-freezing river and rushed for a village that was days away, in the land of the Gislin, lord of Svearna. Behind us, horns blared.
I was a Goth no longer. I was not sure what I was.
But I knew I was in love.
BOOK 3: THE HUNT
‘Gravemound is warm.’
Njord
CHAPTER 11
We trekked swiftly and quietly through the woods and over the hills, and there were plenty of rich valleys and hillsides filled with Goth homesteads. Dogs were barking lazily, the sound eerie in the night, echoing everywhere, and often leaving one confused of the direction of such possibly dangerous signs of pursuit. The four-legged guards sensed our presence, despite our attempt at stealth and when we did see a smoky hall half hidden by the woods and night-fog, men would often stand at the doors of the halls, squinting into the darkness, expecting beasts on two or four legs. We would wait, and then move, keeping close together.
‘We are lucky so many are in Marka,’ Aldbert noted and he was right. Many warriors had indeed traveled there for the funeral and the Thing. We moved like young hares, carefully, expecting to be pounced upon, but determined to find safety. The horizon and the clouds in the sky were light behind us, likely with the fires in Marka, but soon that too ebbed, and I swallowed in terror at the thought of them finding Ludovicus’s corpse in Maino’s room. There would be a thorough search. I looked at the Saxons guiltily, for even if I hoped for their protection on our journey, it was true we might have moved more stealthily and quicker with fewer people. No battle would end well, when there were only eighteen of them, and while I also thought they might buy me a way to escape the land altogether should the girl prove to be a liar, I had half hoped they might be blamed for stealing her, and for taking me as well.
But Hughnot would know.
Bero would guess.
No matter what conclusion Father reached, it would be safe to assume most thought I had reconsidered my allegiance and changed sides, and not even Father could spare my rear. Though, of course, they would be right to do condemn me. I had changed sides. It felt terrifyingly invigorating, everything was new and at the same time also rotten. I was a traitor. Savage men were there with me, a woman worth dying for, but I still felt terrible for my choices.
And it might all go to waste. They could catch us.
I just wish we had more time to escape, but we didn’t, I thought. They would know I had done it. They would know soon. I thought about the guard I had let live, and cursed myself for not taking his life, but in the end, I decided I couldn’t have performed such a murderous deed, and I knew it well enough.
I gazed at Ceadda. The man’s face was looking right and left, his head swinging, his grip on the spear strong, tense, as he passed from shadows to lighter spots, ever ready. He had been a warrior for a decade, at least. They would have had no issue with slitting the guard’s throat, but they had missed him in the dark.
We might have to fight. Perhaps we could do well in a battle, I thought.
The Saxons had no shields, but the raiders were a hardy bunch, their beards long and limbs strong, and they would not play fair, should something be thrown at them. They would be brave. They were also wise. One could see it in their eyes; concern. We were walking on very thin ice, and the ice was cracking under our weight, but we had no chance to be cautious. We had to risk much. They had been promised a boat, and for that, they had given oaths, but not a man amongst them could be sure to see their wives and children again.
A wolf howled somewhere near, startling me from my contemplations.
Ahead, the girl guided her horse with her shapely thighs and looked over the vast woods as if she owned them. Her eyes didn’t tell me anything like those of the Saxons, but she must have known how desperate our escape would be, no matter our trickery with the boat and not taking a one across the lake.
‘What will we be eating?’ Ceadda asked me as if this was the most pressing concern on the muddy track to freedom. He eyed his men running ahead in the woods, scouting, sniffling the air. Others were bringing the rear and he was right. We would need to eat. I eyed Aldbert, who patted a bag on his horse, a bulging thing, and I hoped he had not failed me there. I needed time with him to fully understand the level of his treachery. He had been my friend since our childhood, but while I wanted to understand him, to give him many chances to redeem himself, I was reluctant, and perhaps the Maroboodus that would later be the dread of his enemies was already rearing his bloody Bear’s head.
I wanted to hurt him for his deed.
I did.
I couldn’t help myself, but there was some petty, and also practical part of me that looked at him and found him a distraction, a potentially dangerous one and I was ashamed as well, because he had a hurt dog’s look on his face, and I had forced him on a very dangerous road. I regretted taking him, I regretted asking him to help me, but for some reason he was still here, trying to stay with us, so I’d have to give him a chance.
‘Bark,’ I told Ceadda and rapped at a passing trunk. ‘We can eat that, if nothing else. No time to eat now.’
‘I ate some of my oar once,’ Njord noted. ‘It was salty with my sweat and tasted all right. Kind of squishy after I let it settle under my tongue a bit. We had lost our munitions.’
I chuckled and pointed a finger at the bags on Aldbert’s horse. ‘But I came prepared.’
He noticed everyone was staring at him and startled, he tapped the bags. ‘We have bread, lentils, and meat. It won’t last, though. We forage as we go. There are cowberries, mushrooms.’
‘We don’t have our womenfolk with us,’ Ceadda whispered and nodded at the girl. ‘Can she help pick the food, so we won’t eat something deadly? She knows the woods, no? We are sea people, and don’t farm or forage. Do I look like a bear?’
‘Smell like one. You ask her,’ I told him, eyeing the pretty creature on the horse with awe and respect, and the same part that doubted Aldbert also gnawed at my thoughts concerning her.
Surely, she would betray me.
She had made me so happy with but few words, but it was like a dream, wasn’t it? Words were nothing. I’d have to speak with her soon about her life, my plans, and what I hoped I might accomplish with her and the Svea, and if the gods were kind, the doubts would fly away like sparrows. They would, if only she smiled. She was the key to my happiness, and to power both. ‘I wish I knew her name.’
Ceadda quaffed and shook his head. ‘Ask her, fool, and while you do, you ask if she could aid us so we won’t have to starve more than we did while enjoying your Bero’s hospitality,’ he chuckled.
‘And to drink?’ Njord asked with an eager grin. He poked at Aldbert’s bags. ‘Did you pack any? Some Goth ale? It’s weak piss, yea, but still I’d rather have that than nothing. Imagine that’s the only thing we never, ever looted when we raided a Goth hall and now I’d kiss a hairy Goth ass for a sip of some of it, even if it were served in a filthy pigsty from a slop bucket. It’s good for dousing fires or bathing in, and does nothing to quench a man’s thirst, but I’d still love some.’
‘Saxon ale,’ I said. ‘We have loads of Saxon drink.’
‘Oh?’ he asked, and smiled with happy anticipation, eyeing the bags with such hope my heart nearly broke.
‘Tears. Eat your tears,’ I told him as I looked at Aldbert whose face wore a disapproving frown. He looked like an old woman who was eating dinner with her husband’s young lover. He hated our Saxon company. Perhaps he hated the girl as well.
‘Very funny,
Goth,’ Njord said, chortling. ‘Tears. Saxon ale. I like your humor, Goth. It’s the sort of stuff you hear them meowing at you over their shields before they weep and shit themselves at the end of a spear.’
‘We drink water,’ Ceadda said simply. ‘Plenty of springs around, and rivers as well. Now, the Svea village is two days that way.’ He pointed to the west and a small river that ran that way below us lazily. It was glinting in the darkness and I heard it’s gurgling voice. ‘That river will combine with two larger ones a day away and that’s where we’re going.’
‘Three Forks,’ the girl stated.
‘Right, forks,’ Ceadda allowed. ‘We won’t go to the Long-Lake as we agreed,’ he nodded to some hills to the north with a hint of longing in his look. ‘We raided there three years ago, went past Long-Lake and I know there are some steep hills between the river to our south and the lake and that’s where we will hike, if the lady approves. We’ll avoid all the valleys,’ he said and bowed towards her back, ‘and that way we should avoid the villages and the heavily used hunt-trails. We will find some smaller game trails, and jog all the way and worry about drink and food as we go. Let’s hope they thought we took a ship away south, but if not, then we will have to be really resourceful. Let us lead, and it shall be well, eh?’
I looked behind to the east, for the coast that was not too far yet, but I was surprised I could already make out its gray surface. Then I noticed Sunna was rising. The morning had arrived. The celestial horses were dragging up their beautiful burden in the bright chariot and Hughnot would be roving to the cove, only to eventually find that I had betrayed him. I nodded at Ceadda. ‘Lead on.’
The girl turned to us. ‘It’s a good plan. But we won’t go to my village.’
‘What?’ Ceadda asked, alarmed. ‘Not going home? Where are you going?’
‘And why?’ I asked, horrified. ‘Surely we would be safe there?’
Njord groaned. ‘I know what she’ll say. She forgot something. We have to go back—‘
She slapped her palms together. ‘Shut up, Saxon. We won’t go back. In fact, we won’t go as far as you thought.’
‘Good news, finally,’ Ceadda grumbled.
She pointed a finger to the horizon in the west. ‘We will go that way, a day or a bit more away, and go over those three rivers, certainly, but we won’t trek much further from them,’ she said. ‘There is another village we will visit and that is near the river’s so you Saxons should be happy. It’s by the Long-Lake, very near the end of it.’
‘Why won’t we go to your home?’ I insisted. ‘Why—‘
She leaned closer to me. ‘I’ll tell you a bit later.’
I opened my mouth but growled agreement and turned to Ceadda. ‘Lead on. And make sure we leave no tracks.’
‘Impossible,’ said the woman with a smile.
‘Why?’ Njord frowned. ‘You think we don’t know how to lift our feet?’
She shrugged. ‘There are twenty men rumbling along in a wood filled with twigs, shrubs, and some of you drag your feet, Saxon, indeed they do. Any half-blind Svea could track this party and the tracker could be very drunk and probably crippled in addition to being blind and still have no problems finding this lot. You will have to hope and beg the Goths are not as skilled running the trails as are our hunters.’
‘They are Goth trails, aren’t they?’ Aldbert said unhelpfully.
She glanced at Aldbert with curiosity, but went on and spoke to Ceadda. ‘They’ll not be stupid, Saxon, the Goths. They will check the hills as well. They will herd us. They’ll come by the Lake, the rivers, and send men to look at the hills. They’ll make good time and go past and hope to catch us in a net. We will have to beg the spirits for help, for rain to pour down like a giant’s hammer, flattening all tracks, and even then we might walk right into them. Now we don’t have rain and will be careful and meticulous. When we stop, bury your shit. Dark gods of the rocky Jotunheim only knows why you brought horses along, as they will lumber along like a blind bear and will leave tracks a child might spot.’
‘You seem to enjoy the beast’s back just fine,’ Ceadda said with a mocking smile. ‘And I didn’t bring the horses. He did.’ He thumbed me and my red hair matched my face as I sputtered, and bit my tongue as I decided there was nothing I could say that wouldn’t sound like I was making excuses.
She glanced at me and smiled. ‘Yes, I enjoy it, Saxon. It’s best I won’t slow you down, at least, so let’s give my young, handsome Goth adeling some credit. In any case, you will make no fires. Don’t break branches, and tear out moss, if you can avoid it. Less you do, the better. Do drag your feet, and spears, and try to pretend you belong here.’
‘We have lived in these lands for a long time,’ I said with some pride. ‘We have hunted through these lands for both moose and for your war-parties—‘
‘Your kind,’ she said with amusement, ‘sailed to these shores a hundred years past from the islands. Your family, Friednot and Hughnot, only twenty years past. Your family is not the first who tries to take the lands from us. You know, my tribe lived in the coast then. Father often tells how his father grew up not far from your Marka. Now we have the woods and the lakes, but this is not your land. We made these trails, and we know them, Maroboodus.’
‘Well, while some others tried, we took the land. And kept it.’ It was a bluntly delivered statement, and I felt immensely proud for airing it.
She went quiet, her face smooth and there was no sign of anger. It was a curious, calm look, and while I wondered what that meant, Ceadda was trying to pull my sleeve. As a married man, he probably knew I was rowing into shoals, but he was too late. The girl took a long breath. She rode close to me and leaned near. ‘You, while handsome and foolishly brave,’ she said with a small smile, which made the men groan and me blush, ‘are ignorant as a babe. You and the dirty Saxons know nothing about this land. You don’t really know its smell, its beauty, the weakness and the power of the men who inhabit it, and you have never heard the voices of the spirits who occupy it, because they don’t speak to you. And you,’ she smiled very close to me, ‘would marry me? You need to know the land better, I think. Taste the turf, boy.’
She pushed me and I toppled from the horse and fell amidst brambles, mud, and dirt. The Saxons were chuckling and Ceadda grabbed the horse, but she smiled sweetly at me and I could only frown in return. ‘I will lead us to the trails. Your Saxons don’t know them.’
‘Wait a minute,’ Ceadda said. ‘Please! No woman—‘
She spat and Ceadda went quiet ‘I shall. I have better judgement than you do. You don’t even know your friends. That one,’ she said and nodded at Aldbert, ‘the one I don’t trust, but who feels strangely familiar, has been twisting twigs all the time. With his hands. Deliberately. Perhaps he left a sign back in Marka that we took no boat? That we are here?’
We turned to look at Aldbert, who looked terrified as he still held a fresh branch of a rowan in his hand. He looked down at it and then at us. ‘I’m sorry. I’ve not done this before. I need something to hold. This is all—‘
‘Hold your cock like a proper man,’ Ceadda growled. ‘What’s the matter with you? You some kind of a coward? Or a woman?’ He looked startled and bowed to the wonderfully composed and brave girl on the horse. ‘No offence, lady.’
‘Some taken,’ she said coldly, but I pushed to Aldbert and grabbed the twig from his hands.
‘You trying to get us killed?’ I asked him, dreading the answer.
‘No, I was just deep in my thoughts, and I often need something in my hands. You’ve seen me making poems.’
‘Poems, by Donor’s gangly nose,’ Njord moaned. ‘He is a damn poet. Can’t even eat him, probably tastes like lies.’
Aldbert went on. ‘I’m nervous. I won’t deny it.’
‘Shh,’ Njord said, exasperated. ‘Best be quiet now or they’ll throw you in swamp. Break no more twigs, or the next twig might be your neck.’
I slapped my thigh with the twig
and stuck it under my belt. I hesitated, wondering what to do with Aldbert.
‘She is right,’ Ceadda said and smiled like a wolf at our long looks. ‘We will be careful.’ He meant also Aldbert, as well as the way we traveled, and I agreed with him.
‘Is she?’ Njord asked, his thick lips pursed. ‘You called her a rancid witch when Cuthbert died. Thought she was ugly too. A spirit.’
Ceadda slapped his brother and didn’t look at the girl. ‘She knows her woods. Svearna might be … ‘ he stammered and gave her a small bow, ‘less noble and more akin to the vaettir and spirit animals of the deep, but they did live here first.’
‘Akin to animals?’ the girl asked him, aghast. ‘You are really trying to get that boat from my people, aren’t you? Perhaps they’ll cook thin broth from your bones, instead?’ They smiled at each other and I guessed they were not as opposed to each other than they had been. Goths made great common enemies. Or at least Aldbert.
‘She leads us,’ Ceadda allowed with some incredulity in his voice and the girl smiled and nodded in thanks.
‘What about him?’ she asked and pointed a finger at Aldbert. ‘I don’t like him. Not one bit.’
‘I will keep an eye on him,’ I told her but noticed she was not convinced. ‘Let me look after him.’
‘He is dangerous,’ she said softly. ‘Maroboodus—‘
‘I’m a poet!’ Aldbert said. ‘I’ve done nothing to—‘
‘A liar by nature, as the Saxon said,’ she said as if she had just proved a point, and perhaps she had.
‘I say he comes,’ I insisted and her jaw tightened. ‘I’m the leader here.’
‘Listen to the Pup,’ Njord laughed and the way his head swung from her to me, perhaps he hoped she would tear my head off.
She opened her mouth, but clearly counted trees as she sought to hold her temper again. She waved her hand in my direction. ‘I’ll teach you how to treat a princess,’ she said sweetly as if offering me honey and ale. ‘And in the end you will see every great leader has a goddess they must follow. My mother was like this to my father. You will see.’
Maroboodus: A Novel of Germania (The Goth Chronicles Book 1) Page 19
