But, ‘Athulf, master?’ Cuthred turned and spat into the fire. ‘You’re dreaming. Stupid boy. Get to work.’
After a long moment, Cudda tugged his tunic off over his head and held out a hand for the apron. Wynn folded her arms across her chest. ‘I was here first. I was helping—’
‘Give.’
‘Come on, Wynn,’ Cuthred said. ‘Don’t you start making trouble. There’s work needs doing.’
She could hear the danger in his voice, and knew she had no choice. Huffing with annoyance, she bundled the bulky leather off and handed it over reluctantly.
‘Off you go, chicken-bones,’ Cudda said. ‘Back to Mam and the other whinging babies.’
She shrugged elaborately, refusing to rise to his taunting, but her face was thundery and she dragged her feet on the way to the door.
‘Still want a job, Wynn?’ Her father jerked his head. ‘There’s more sickles need an edge putting on them, out the back. Get yourself a whetstone. And stay out from under our feet, you hear?’
Wynn retraced her steps, trying to keep the smile off her face as long as Cudda could see it, and grabbed a small whetstone from the great oak slab where her father kept his tools. Just as she was ducking out through the entry she noticed a rider coming through the trees on a chestnut pony. She tensed for a moment, but it was only Elfrun, from the hall. To Wynn’s surprise the older girl reined in the pony and swung herself down to the ground.
‘Is your father at the forge?’
Wynn stared at her. Could she not hear the sound of the bellows? There might be no hammer-clang, but the gasping lungs of the forge were loud enough. ‘Yes.’
‘I’ve a message for him.’ Elfrun sounded as though her temper were none too sweet. ‘I wasn’t going to come this way, but Luda caught me as I was leaving the yards. And your father won’t thank me for it.’
‘What’s the message then?’ Wynn laughed shortly. ‘No, don’t tell me.’ She pulled a pompous face and hunched up one shoulder, a nasal tone entering her voice. ‘Does that lazy fool of a smith not know the barley’s ripe for cutting?’ Her mimicry of the steward was cruel and accurate, and Elfrun had to half smile and nod in recognition. ‘No need to take that message to my father,’ Wynn said. ‘He knows fine well, and he and Cudda are hard at it.’ As though they heard her, the clanging of the hammer started up again.
‘Cudda?’
‘Acourse.’
‘But—’ Elfrun stopped, frowning, and Wynn eyed her curiously.
‘What is it, lady? Is it anything to do with the blood on his tunic?’ She felt a pulse of excitement. ‘Has he been fighting again?’
Elfrun shook her head, to Wynn’s disappointment. ‘He and Athulf followed the hunt, and Widia was gored by a boar. It’s Widia’s blood.’
Wynn stared. This was even better. Bad enough in her father’s eyes that Cudda was out climbing trees or fishing with Athulf, but hunting boar! She couldn’t begin to tally the boundaries, spoken and unspoken, that he’d transgressed. This was power indeed! Would she do better to tell her father directly, or to keep Cudda wondering how much she knew?
But Elfrun seemed to misunderstand her wide-eyed silence. ‘Don’t fret – Cudda wasn’t hurt. If he’s got blood on his tunic, it’s just because blood went everywhere. I thought he’d gone off again with Athulf.’ She sighed. ‘And Widia – well – it’s bad, but my grandmother’s looking after him.’
But Wynn had lost interest. The forge had little to do with the huntsman’s preserve of kennels and mews, and Widia always looked after his own knives and spear-blades. ‘If Cudda’d gone with Athulf again this evening our da would have killed him when he got back,’ she said. ‘He’s always dodging off.’ She scowled at Elfrun. ‘You can tell your own da that it’s me that keeps the forge going at least as much as Cudda. More. I do more than Cudda.’
Elfrun had turned to hoist herself on to the pony’s back, but she stopped at that and looked hard at Wynn, holding the younger girl’s gaze for a long moment. ‘Yes, I’ll tell him that,’ she said. ‘I will. He should know.’
13
Abarhild used her crescent knife first to mince the garlic fine and then to scrape it into the brass pot with the chopped leek, before pounding them together. ‘Get me that little glass flask from my chest. No, the blue one. Bile.’
She took it from Elfrun’s hand, pulled out the rag, shook the bottle and sniffed, her whole face pursed. ‘I hope the damp’s not got in. This was taught me for swollen eyes. Mother Gisela would have been shocked at the thought of putting it on a wound.’ She frowned into the dark corner of the heddern where Widia lay restless and muttering.
Elfrun nodded. She too was disturbed by the sight of the taut, hot skin around the ragged gash across Widia’s ribs. It was after her mother’s death that Abarhild had started talking her through the salves and drenches, and what symptoms might prompt which response. Over the last couple of years she had helped with countless cuts and bruises, but this was by far the worst she had seen. At first he had seemed to be mending fine well, if slowly, but now the skin smelt wrong, and while his face didn’t look too bad the wound on his side was oozing and hot.
‘Make yourself useful.’ Abarhild eyed her granddaughter. ‘Go to Luda for me – take a pitcher and ask him to put a little wine in it.’
‘Is it for Widia to drink?’
‘No. It’s for the salve. Get going, girl.’
Once outside the little storeroom and in the dim peace of the hall Elfrun drew a deep shuddering breath. The pitchers stood on a trestle table at one side and she grabbed the nearest by its gritty handle and went out of the hall, into a grey summer afternoon, where a light drizzle fell. Round the back to the storerooms and cook-house, her heels dragging despite her grandmother’s injunction to hurry.
Luda was always best avoided.
But no one was at work in the cook-house, or in the little yard; no sign of life other than a few barn fowl scratching in the mud. Elfrun knew she should ask first, but Abarhild had said they should hurry. Surely Widia was more important? Shrugging to herself, she ducked under the thatch of the lean-to buttery, and turned the spigot herself. How much was a little, anyway? She watched the thin yellow liquid dribble through until perhaps a quarter of a pint stood in the pitcher, and then reached forward to close off the flow.
‘Stealing wine again?’
Elfrun yelped and half turned, the wine sloshing. Luda stood close behind her, arms folded, a forbidding look on his pouchy, lined face. She hadn’t heard a thing.
‘I shall have to tell your father.’ His nasal voice was serious, his face still disapproving, but somehow she could tell he was enjoying her discomfiture. She had always found it hard to look at him; his deep-set eyes were too close together, giving an unsettling intensity to his stare. The drizzle had beaded in his greasy grey curls.
‘What do you mean, again? I haven’t been stealing wine. It’s for my grandmother!’
‘Likely!’ He clicked his tongue. ‘Turn off that spigot.’
She hadn’t even realized that the wine was still trickling out and dripping on to the packed earth of the floor, and her face was hot as she twisted the spigot round. ‘Why do you always think the worst? My grandmother asked me to bring wine for a medicine she’s making for Widia. There was no one around to ask, so I just took what she needs.’ She stepped forward and pushed the jug at him. ‘Look! There’s hardly any in there.’
He peered in and snorted. ‘Only because I caught you at it.’
‘No!’
‘We’ll go to your grandmother and see what she says.’ He gripped her by the upper arm and she tried to jerk away, relieved again that the pitcher held so little wine to spill.
‘Yes, let’s. Then you’ll see I’m telling the truth.’ She tried to barge past him, wanting to get round the clay-and-wattle walls of the cook-house and back into the big courtyard, but his hold on her arm was too tight. It was shameful being frog-marched like this, and she just hoped the courtyard was as
empty at it had been earlier.
Jingling and a creak of leather, and they both turned, Luda’s grip slackening. A dun horse she didn’t recognize coming through the gate, but a rider who was vaguely familiar. One of the king’s riding-men; she had seen him at the meeting. Luda dropped her arm and stepped forward, tugging his tunic down over his hips, trying to hide his limp.
In the flurry of greeting Elfrun ducked back into the hall, garnering a nod of approval from her grandmother.
‘There’s a man here,’ she said. ‘From Goodmanham, I think.’ She was still flustered. ‘Or wherever the court is? I think my father said they were at Goodmanham.’
‘One of Osberht’s men?’
Elfrun nodded. Abarhild’s face pursed. ‘Come to worry your father, no doubt.’
‘He has a fine mount, but not as fine as Hafoc.’ But – to be fair – few horses were as fine as Radmer’s. ‘Funny colour, though. Almost yellow.’
But Abarhild wasn’t interested in horses. ‘Bring that bowl over for me. The brass one. No, you silly girl, the one with the onion and garlic in.’ She tipped in the wine, then covered the mixture with a coarsely woven piece of linen, weighted at the corners with little balls of clay. ‘There, that just needs to sit.’
Elfrun glowered at the door. ‘Luda thought I was stealing wine.’ She rubbed her arm. ‘He was angry, even when I explained. I thought he was going to hit me.’
Abarhild was silent for a long moment. Then she said, ‘Luda is an old and trusted servant of your father’s. It is possible that he still thinks of you as a child. More than possible, given how childishly you still behave sometimes.’ She raised a reproving hand. ‘Let me speak, please. But you are not a child any more, and we have to make sure that people understand that.’ She drew in a deep breath, and Elfrun braced herself.
But Radmer was in the doorway of the heddern, blocking the light. ‘Put up one of my good tunics and some linen in my saddlebags, Mother. The grey one will do. I’m away up to Driffield on the king’s orders. He wants to talk something over with me.’
Not Goodmanham then, but still away to the north. Another of the king’s many vills, a day’s journey. Elfrun had never been to any of them, never been further than Barkston Ash for the spring and autumn meeting except for that one intoxicating trip to York last winter, to see Ingeld ordained priest with all the splendour the cathedral could afford.
Radmer was looking past her. ‘How’s he doing?’
‘Badly.’ Abarhild was tight-lipped.
Elfrun was suddenly consumed with horror at the thought that she would be spending the next few days trapped in the stuffy heddern watching Widia die by slow inches. ‘Let me come with you?’
‘You?’ Radmer shook his head, frowning, turning away from her even while he was still speaking. ‘No, no. You’re needed here, Elfa. Where’s Dunstan? I need my sword.’
‘Get your father’s tunic for him, child.’ Abarhild turned to her son. ‘No word waiting for me from York? No letter?’
‘Were you expecting anything?’ Radmer was hefting the leather bags down from their pegs. ‘I told Athulf to saddle Hafoc for me. The brat is always hanging around here. Time he made himself useful, for a change.’
Abarhild bristled. ‘Athulf has been looking after Storm. And he does a good job of it.’ She hissed between her teeth. ‘Give him something better to do, if you think he’s wasting his time.’
Radmer turned his back, and Elfrun tried to look busy. Dunstan had come in and was sorting out sword and belt from the rack of war-gear. Elfrun turned to the great carved and painted chest where her father’s clothes were stored. The lid was a heavy slab of oak, and it was an effort to lift it right up and over, and lean it against the wall. As she did so, the scents of costmary and mugwort came up to meet her, and she had a sudden blinding memory of her mother, picking the herbs, and hanging them to dry in their little linen bags, and showing her how to strew them in the layers of clothes. Never forget the moths and their worms, Elfa, too small to see, almost, but they’ll destroy all our work if we let them. In her memory the chest was huge, so high she could hardly see into it, the raised lid a great slab disappearing into darkness: she must have been tiny.
The grey tunic was on the top, with its plain black and white bands at throat and cuff. Her mother had planned to embroider over them in silver, but in the end there had not been time.
Shoving the tunic under her arm, Elfrun banged down the lid more heavily than she had anticipated. Abarhild hissed her disapproval and whisked the tunic from her, following her son out into the big gloomy space of the hall. Dunstan was untangling a leather strap, fair brows contracted. He gave the sword-belt a shake, then scooped up sword and scabbard and turned to go after them.
‘Elfrun.’
Hardly more than a whisper, half-formed: ... frun...
She could hardly bear to look at the scabbed red gash that seamed the left side of Widia’s face from eyebrow to jawline. Abarhild had said to watch in case it too began to ooze and tighten. To bend close and sniff the bruised and swollen skin, hunting the whiff of rot. Her throat tight, she leaned in and did as she was told.
Widia reached up a hand.
‘Stay still. Don’t talk.’ How it must hurt him to talk. ‘Don’t move your mouth.’ The left half of her own face had begun to throb in sympathy.
He closed his eyes. She moved a little closer and hunkered down. ‘Abarhild is making you some special medicine. Something she learned from the nuns at Chelles. It’ll take a day or two, but you’ll be well again.’ Elfrun put all the conviction she could into her voice, but she knew she was talking to this tough, seasoned man as though he were a little child, and she winced at her own ineptitude.
Eyes still closed, he nodded, a tiny movement but it made him shiver. Then, lips not stirring, he whispered something she didn’t catch.
‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘Sorry, Widia. I didn’t hear you.’
He opened his eyes then, dark and too bright at the same time, his pupils like black holes. He tried again, and this time she thought she did understand.
‘Saethryth?’ The last word she had expected to hear. ‘You want me to tell her something? You want me to fetch her?’ She jumped up, not waiting for an answer, relieved to have something practical to do.
The rain was hammering down now. She felt the mud spurt between her toes as she dashed across the yard and down the nettle-lined path that led to Luda’s steading. To her relief she didn’t have to go into the house. Saethryth was in the chicken run, her skirts kilted, one little sibling propped on her hip and another toddling after her with a basket.
‘He what?’
‘I don’t know what he wants. But he said your name. And I think he’s dying.’
Saethryth’s face twisted in a scowl. Her hair looked darker in the rain. ‘Why couldn’t he just have died straight away? Why is it dragging out like this?’
‘Look, are you coming?’
‘How can I?’ She shrugged, looking at the children. ‘I’ve got to get the eggs and look after these brats. Mam would kill me if I just went off.’
‘I’ll take them.’ Elfrun reached out her arms for the baby on the other girl’s hip, but Saethryth turned away.
‘No, I’m not coming,’ she said over her shoulder. ‘What good could I do? Are you sure it was my name he said, anyway?’
‘I think so.’ But no, she wasn’t sure. ‘Don’t you care? He asked for you by name! I think he’s dying. How can you not come?’
‘Just go away. Before Mam comes out and wallops me. Or worse, Da.’ Saethryth pulled a disgusted face.
Elfrun stared at her, but the other girl had already turned and was squatting to scrabble with her free hand under a thornbush for a stray egg, the little brother on her hip tugging at the damp curls of her hair and threatening to overbalance her.
14
The path wound down from the wolds, and the rising ground behind him cut off the westering sun. The track was steep-sided, and would no dou
bt run with water in the winter, but now it was late-summer dry with white dust and flint, though the leathery soles of his feet took the rough and smooth alike in their stride. Finn had had a good few weeks, following his instincts and the advice of chance-met folk on the road, meandering back and forth across these sparsely inhabited hills that marked the spine of Lindsey, dividing the coast from the flood-plains of the great river they called the Trent, the Trespasser. No one had set their dogs on him; no one had tried to rob him; though there was plenty of summer left yet for all that. His pack was lighter, and his little purse of silver heavier. His burden of knowledge was heavier too.
He wondered whether the monks and tenants of Louth would tell him the same story he had been hearing all summer, that the men of Mercian Lindsey lacked good leadership and had done for a generation. That the rising power of Wessex to the south took all the attention of Mercia’s rulers away from this north-eastern province, which had never forgotten its own past, although it had been tugged back and forth between the Northumbrians and the Mercians for as long as men could remember. And that those rulers were themselves complacent, their rich heartlands far to the west. As far as Finn could tell this corner of Mercia was an overripe plum ready to fall from the branch, sweet and whole from a distance but come close and you could see the worm-holes, hear the buzzing of the wasps as they fought for the sticky prize.
And the Lindsey-men spoke with contempt of their great neighbour to the north. Ten years and more since Osberht had led an army south of the Humber! Finn had listened with interest to the criticism. ‘We don’t mind that he leaves us alone,’ the Bardney guest-master had said. ‘But it squashes ambition.’ He topped up Finn’s almost untouched cup of ale. ‘And that does worry us. If he can’t promote his old retainers and set up the young men, they’ll be looking elsewhere. Nibbling at our edges.’ He had laughed then, and shrugged. ‘But strife between kin in Northumbria would also keep them too busy to bother us. As long as Alred – or whoever the contender might be – as long as he keeps off our turf we’re happy.’
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