Company of Liars

by Karen Maitland

  Narigorm shook her head. ‘If it is alone, it foretells that a gift is going to be given, a new life. But it is not alone.’ She held up a rune with a single straight line on it. ‘Isa means ice. You don’t see ice form on water until it’s too late, but it’s strong enough to destroy everything in its path. Isa stands for nine and the nine belong to Hati, the wolf that swallows up the moon. But now see?’ She held the two runes up together. ‘See the shape of the space between them.’

  We stared at the space where her finger repeatedly traced the shape made by the two letters together, a line with a triangle half-way down.

  ‘Thurisaz, the thorn, the troll rune, the curse rune. It changes the meaning of the other two. Now Kaunaz is filth and Isa is treachery. It means a gift will not be given, it will be taken. A life will not be given, it will be taken for his betrayal of those he loved.’

  I suddenly remembered where I had heard her speak of troll runes before; it was the day we were trapped in the town while they searched for the fugitive Cygnus. Narigorm had watched Rodrigo, Osmond and Jofre walk off together, then she sang a snatch of song. ‘Troll runes I cut… something, something… frenzy, filth and lust.’ Then she’d said, ‘I didn’t know who the troll runes were for, but now I do.’

  We hadn’t realized it then, but that was the first day we numbered nine. Did she mean that the troll runes were for one of those three – Jofre, Osmond and Rodrigo? But Jofre was dead and now she was speaking of troll runes again; that left Osmond and Rodrigo. I looked across at Rodrigo, whose face was pale and hag-ridden, his eyes wide, staring at Narigorm in fear.

  I turned furiously to Narigorm. ‘Stop this, stop it at once. This has gone far enough.’

  ‘Leave her!’ Rodrigo shouted, then added more softly, ‘Let her finish. I want to know what else she reads.’

  The sun hung low in the sky. Narigorm raised her hand, palm out so that her hand covered the sun, then she closed her fist, sweeping her hand down slowly as if drawing the sun’s rays down on to the runes. She picked up the third and last of the runes that lay in front of her. It was shaped like an arrow.

  ‘Teiwaz, the rune of Tyr who put his hand into the mouth of the wolf Fenrir and swore a false oath. His hand was bitten off. He surrendered himself to the wolf to save his friends. This seals the others, for its troll rune is defeat. The person who this prophecy is for cannot win against the wolf. It will destroy him.’

  Adela was clutching Osmond’s hand so hard that I could see her nails cutting into his skin. ‘But Narigorm, I don’t understand, who is this for? If Camelot gives the reliquary back, surely the wolf won’t kill him? He didn’t steal it. He’s not betrayed anyone he loved.’

  ‘But I have,’ Rodrigo whispered. He rose and walked rapidly away up the spur towards the heights.

  Osmond prised himself from Adela’s grip and hurried after him. He tried to grab him, but Rodrigo pushed him violently away. Osmond was not fool enough to try to touch him again. He turned back to the rest of us and shrugged helplessly. There was nothing we could do but watch Rodrigo go until he disappeared among the trees.

  Osmond and I set out the reliquary on the far side of the night fires. We marked the place with a strip of linen round a tree trunk and a ring of white stones round the reliquary which would show up in the moonlight, if there was a moon. Osmond debated whether or not to set a torch up near it, but decided against it, thinking the wolf might take it for a trap. The sun was already setting and the air was turning sharp and damp. Rodrigo had not returned to the spur.

  Osmond glanced uneasily towards the dark trees. ‘You don’t think he plans to stay on the heights and tackle the wolf after what Narigorm said, do you?’

  ‘I’m afraid that’s exactly what he might do. You start the fires and take first watch. I’ll go and look for him.’

  ‘But what if you’re out there alone after dark and the wolf does come? You’re no match… I should come too.’

  ‘And leave Adela and Carwyn unprotected? You stay here. If the wolf wants blood, better it takes an old dotard like me.’ I thought of Jofre and felt suddenly sick.

  Rodrigo was sitting on an outcrop of rock, staring out over the marsh as the skies darkened and the sun began to slip blood-red behind the heights. He didn’t move as I sat down beside him. Below us we could see the yellow dots multiplying in the distant fen cottages, as the villagers lit lanterns and rushes to keep the darkness at bay. There was a lantern too in a little coracle, a man fishing for eel in the gathering gloom. Overhead the birds filled the pink sky with their cries as they flew towards the marsh or departed for their roosting grounds. Thousands of starlings soared as one across the sky, twisting and turning until they resembled huge pillars of spiralling smoke, the sound of their wings like waves breaking on a shingled beach. Rodrigo gazed around him as if he was seeing it for the first time, or the last. Finally he spoke, his voice barely above a whisper.

  ‘Go back to the spur, Camelot. The runes are meant for me, not you. It is me the wolf will come for. I will be the next to die and I deserve it. I will not run away from it.’

  ‘Don’t listen to Narigorm, Rodrigo. She’s a child. She likes to frighten people. She’s been worse since Carwyn arrived and Adela no longer fusses over her. You’re not going to die and you most certainly do not deserve it. You are the gentlest and kindest man I’ve ever known.’

  Even as I reassured Rodrigo, a voice inside me was hissing, ‘Narigorm has never yet been wrong.’ But if that was so, the prophecy was meant for me, not Rodrigo. It must not be for Rodrigo.

  Rodrigo turned and looked at me, coldness in his eyes. ‘Have you not understood, Camelot? I murdered a man and I cut off his arms and destroyed them so that he would enter the next life as one of the cripples he despised. But I am not ashamed of that even now. It was not the worst thing I have done. I let two innocent young men die, one of them the person I loved most in the world. I should have protected them and I failed. The fault is mine that they are dead. Narigorm spoke the truth; I betrayed them.’

  ‘Rodrigo, listen to me. You can’t blame yourself for their deaths. Jofre was killed by Ralph’s father’s henchmen. It was not your fault.’

  ‘He would never have gone back to the town if I had stood up for him against Zophiel. When Zophiel threatened to flog him, he begged me for help and I turned away. He knew I did not believe him.’

  ‘He wouldn’t blame you for that.’ I hesitated. I’d never asked him this before, but now it seemed important to keep him talking even if it made him angry.

  ‘Rodrigo, when we first met, you told me your master had grown too old to manage his estate and his son had taken over, bringing with him his own musicians. Was that really the reason you left your master’s employ?’

  Rodrigo grimaced. ‘You were a stranger and…’

  ‘And honesty doesn’t oil the wheels of conversation,’ I finished.

  He nodded. ‘Who really wants to hear the truth except a priest at confession? And he is paid to bear the burden of it.’

  ‘I’ve never taken holy orders, but as the peat-cutter said, we’re all priests now.’

  Rodrigo sat in silence. He slowly opened his clenched fist and stared at the object which lay in his palm. It was the little glass tear which Michelotto had given Jofre. He rolled it around in his hand, watching colours slip from blue to purple. Then he held it up so that the flecks of gold glittered in the dying rays of the sun.

  ‘Jofre was the son of a cousin of mine, but I did not meet him until his father sent him to England to be my pupil when he was just a boy. His father already suspected that Jofre would grow up to be a lover of men, and it revolted and shamed him and Jofre knew it. That is why he sent Jofre to me. The man had no love of music himself, but I was in England and that was far enough away for his father never to have to lay eyes on him again. Jofre was heartbroken to leave his mother. He despised himself because his father despised him. Maybe he thought also that his mother was ashamed of him, but I knew her and I do not beli
eve she had anything in her heart except love for her son.

  ‘Jofre soon showed his rare talent for music. He learned easily, maybe too easily. There were many distractions in my lord’s court, but knowing how homesick Jofre was, I could not bring myself to be as strict with him as a master should be. Then my lord’s heir, his grandson, arrived to be trained in the running of the estate. He was a year or two older than Jofre, but the two seemed instantly attracted to each other. At first the old lord saw no harm in it. His grandson was quiet and studious, more suited to the Church than to court. He had not mixed much with boys his own age, and the old man seemed pleased by their friendship, encouraged it even, the two young men riding off together hawking and hunting. He thought it would do his grandson good. But then rumours began to reach the old man’s ear, rumours that what was going on between the young men was more than friendship. As you saw in the town, rumours of that sort disturb men greatly when they concern their heirs.’

  I smiled wryly. ‘If you have several sons, the predilections of the younger ones hardly matter; they can be sent into the Church or to war. In both professions it’s an advantage if they don’t pine for the company of women. But heirs must marry.’

  Rodrigo nodded. ‘Even so, I do not think the old man would have been worried by that alone. It is likely that in his youth he had taken comely young men as lovers before climbing into the marriage bed. With the virtue of high-born maids guarded like jewels, where else is a young lord to take his pleasure, except among beautiful young men, or pox-ridden girls in the manor kitchens or town stews? But discretion is everything and that is what Jofre and the young man lacked. When the old lord tried to caution his grandson to spend less time with Jofre, Jofre drowned his resentment in gambling and drinking, as he always did, and the studious grandson followed his example.’

  I could see where this was leading. Only one thing alarms a wealthy man more than the fear that his heir will not produce sons, and that is the fear that his heir will gamble away his money and lands.

  ‘My lord summoned me and told me that I must dismiss my pupil. But I had come to love Jofre. I do not mean in the way that Jofre loved men. My love for Jofre was deeper than that. It was the pure love of an older man for a younger. He was beautiful. He had so much life and vitality, so much talent, so much youth. He had everything before him. I was growing older, my body aging. I knew that my talent, which had never been as great as his, would depart as my fingers stiffened and my voice cracked. I could help him to be a great musician. I wanted to protect him, to take away the pain and self-loathing and teach him how beautiful he was.’

  He looked at me, a desperate pleading in his face.

  ‘Camelot, understand I could not dismiss him any more than I could cut off my own hand. I begged my lord for a second chance for Jofre. I promised I would control him, keep him far away from his grandson, but the old man knew as well as I did that it was like trying to keep a wave from breaking on the shore. The two had to be separated and since the grandson could not be sent away, Jofre must. He gave me a choice: either I dismissed him or he would dismiss me.’

  ‘So you left and took Jofre with you.’

  ‘In my lord’s employ there were too many idle men with nothing to do but waste their time gambling and drinking. Away from them I thought it would stop. But as you know, it did not. He was miserable and that was his cure for misery. I did not know how to stop him. I tried everything. I even… I beat him, that night in the widow’s inn, as you guessed.’

  I nodded grimly; even now I couldn’t tell him I had witnessed it and all that followed. I knew that would only add to his pain.

  ‘You had no choice and it did seem to bring him to his senses for a while.’

  ‘Until Zophiel started to taunt him.’

  ‘Is that really why you killed Zophiel?’

  For a long time he stared out over the darkening marshes. I thought he wasn’t going to answer, then finally he said, ‘I spoke the truth when I said I wanted to make him stop before he did to Cygnus what he had done to Jofre, but you are right, Camelot, I would not have murdered him to stop him. I would not even have killed him for what he did to Jofre when I thought he was just a man. But when I learned he was a priest…’

  Rodrigo’s voice took on a hard, bitter tone. ‘I killed him because he was a priest, because it is priests and pardoners and their kind who destroy the young and the beautiful, the innocent and the helpless. Christ showed us compassion. He showed us God’s mercy, but they use his name to torment those they should care for. They make them ashamed of what is beautiful. They make them despise their nature and their own body.

  ‘There are many cruel men in this world, Camelot. Men who rob and kill and prey on the weak, but at least they are honest. They do not claim it is God’s will. They do not drive a man to despair and say they are doing it out of love for him. If they torture someone it is only in this world; they do not condemn him to hell to be tortured for all eternity. Only the priests and bishops do that.’

  The expression on Rodrigo’s face was savage. ‘The priests tell us that a man is born as he is because God wills it so, then they punish him for being that man. They tell us we are made in God’s image, then what is God’s image? You think God is like Jofre, with the voice of an angel, a man who loves men. You think God is like Cygnus, who once had love and faith enough to grow the beautiful wing of a swan. Or is Zophiel, the priest, the image of God? Zophiel –it means God’s spy, is that not so? I know about Zophiel. The Jews told me about him. He was the angel who told God that Adam and Eve had eaten the forbidden fruit. He is the one who guards the Tree of Life with a sword of fire to drive out anyone who tries to enter Eden. If Zophiel is the image of God, then I do not choose heaven; I choose hell.’

  I had seen that terrible look on a man’s face before, on the faces of those being dragged to the gallows. Some scream and plead, some swear and curse, some go serenely, convinced that the open gates of paradise await them. But the worst, the most chilling, are those who neither fight nor embrace it, but just accept it, their faces fixed in a look of sheer hopelessness and despair. The eyes stare out at you as if they are already the eyes of a dead man, and not a dead man in paradise, but one who is in purgatory or worse, far worse.

  As Rodrigo rose from the rock and walked away, I knew he was not coming back. He knew that he was going to die and nothing I could say would change that. My art was the creation of hope. That was the greatest of all the arts, the noblest of all the lies, and yet I couldn’t conjure it for him. His belief in Narigorm’s runes and his own fate was stronger than any hope I could create for him, because, like those men who surrender themselves to despair on the gallows, he believed he deserved to die.

  I couldn’t let him go alone. I had no idea what he intended or what awaited him. I didn’t know what I could do to prevent it, but I had to be there. If the wolf was out there waiting for him, I would see it, and if I could not kill it, at least I would finally know what it was.

  It was dark by this time. The clouds lay heavy in the sky, obscuring moon and stars. But even without light it was not hard to follow Rodrigo. He blundered forward, crashing into bushes and stumbling over tree roots, as if being pulled along on an invisible rope. At least he was heading away from the marsh, that was something. Then the noise stopped. I thought I’d lost him, but as I reached the edge of the trees, I saw his dark shape walking across a clearing towards the biggest of the hollows.

  The moon slid out from behind the clouds and in the moonlight I saw what I had never seen in daylight. A pearly-white mist lay in the bottom of the hollow. It only rose to the height of a man’s knee and as Rodrigo walked into it, it swirled about his legs, but his body and head rose above it as if he was wading in shallow, luminescent water. I glanced about at the other hollows. They too had the same shallow pool of mist swirling in them and yet there was no mist between the trees.

  Then I heard it, faint and distant, the sound I most feared – the howls of a wolf. The hai
rs on the back of my neck prickled and I gripped my stave so tightly it hurt. The howls were moving closer, but too quickly, too fast even for a running wolf. I stared about me, but the howls seemed to be coming from every direction as they had done that night in the gully. I searched desperately in the darkness for a pair of eyes, the shadow of a movement, but there was nothing. Rodrigo too was frantically turning this way and that, but he seemed chained to the spot in the centre of the hollow, like a goat tethered as living bait. He held out his arm protectively as if he was waiting for it to spring on him as he turned, trying to see from which direction it would come.

  Then the sound changed; now it was a singing of wings as if a thousand swans were bearing down on us. But there was nothing to be seen in the moonlit sky. Rodrigo had sunk to his knees, covering his head with his arms and crouching so low in the mist that I could see only his clenched fists over his head. The noise grew louder and louder. I could stand it no longer. I ran towards the hollow, trying to reach Rodrigo, but as I broke free of the trees something white caught my eye just a few yards away. I hadn’t seen it before because the trunks and scrub around me had blocked my view. Narigorm was crouching on the ground among the trees, her white hair gleaming in the moonlight. One hand was stretched over the runes in front of her, the other extended, palm outwards, towards the hollow. Her eyes were closed and there was a look of intense concentration on her face.

  I took a pace towards her. The sound of the wings seemed to be coming from her, but that was impossible. The sound changed again, back to the howling of a wolf, and this time I knew beyond a shadow of doubt the howls were coming from her. She was the centre of it. She was the creator of it. But she was not howling.

  Her lips were moving. ‘Morrigan, Morrigan, Morrigan.’

  The faster she muttered, the louder the sound which seemed to emanate from her outstretched hand. She must have sensed me coming towards her, for she opened her eyes just as I raised my staff and sent the runes flying in all directions. The howling stopped instantly as if it had been severed with an axe.