Thancrad must not know that there had been anything in that sight to disturb her. She swallowed hard as she unlatched the gate. Gethyn came trotting up to her and she bent over the dog, making a fuss of his ears. Blis snorted and shifted from hoof to hoof, setting her harness-trinkets jingling.
‘It’s your uncle, isn’t it? And the shepherd’s wife.’ Thancrad’s words were bitten off at the end. ‘What a risk to take.’ Hot blood swamped her. She thought he was looking at her oddly. ‘And you didn’t know.’ It was a statement, not a question.
‘I knew... I knew there was someone.’ She thought back four, no, five months, to that bitter day when she had inadvertently eavesdropped on her uncle and grandmother. She had almost forgotten that conversation in the shock of Fredegar telling her that he would be teaching her no more Latin. Thancrad turned his head sharply. He was looking away from her, up towards the hills.
‘What?’
He lifted a hand. ‘Listen.’
She frowned, concentrating. One of the horses snorted softly. And then she heard it too, hardly louder than the summer breeze in the birch leaves. Little bells, chiming and clanking in the far uphill distance, and behind the bells a soft steady bleating note almost too faint to hear.
Hirel was bringing the flock down for the shearing.
57
Thancrad vaulted the gate and pelted into the dark doorway of the barn. Elfrun could hear raised voices, muffled by the walls, and she felt sick again, imagining the panic, the vulgar, bare-legged scrabbling for breeches or overdress. It was humiliating to be associated with such a scene, even at this distance. She turned away to stare up the thickly wooded slope. The sound of those tinkling bells would carry some distance on a warm, still afternoon like this, but nonetheless Hirel might round the corner far too soon. She had to get up the hillside and forestall him.
Her only thought was concealing Ingeld’s shame. She looked up at the great carved saddle on Hafoc’s back and shook her head. Storm presented just as much of a challenge. Without a leg-up it would have to be Blis. Without Thancrad’s permission? She glanced behind her, and swallowed. What choice did she have? ‘Come on, girl. Stand still.’ Thancrad was nowhere in sight. She kilted her skirt up and hurled herself over Blis’s back, swinging her right leg over and tugging her skirt back down as far as possible with one hand while she reached for the reins with the other. ‘Come on, darling. I’ve been up on you before. You know me, don’t you?’
Blis walked obediently forward, and Elfrun found her balance, urging the pretty mare up the track with her voice more than anything else.
There was a furious barking ahead of her. Gethyn had gone questing up the hillside, sniffing this side and that, and now he was out of sight. From somewhere above her there came a high-pitched yelp.
Elfrun gave Blis a firm kick and the sleek little pony broke into a smooth trot that carried them several hundred yards further up the hillside’s well-beaten track. Round a great clump of flowering elder and into a furious scuffle: two rough-coated sheepdogs and Gethyn in an all-out snapping whirl in the middle of the path. Hirel was wading through the terrified sheep, roaring away. The bleating from the sheep was tremendous. Hirel lashed out indiscriminately this way and that with his crook, and Gethyn went yelping back to his mistress. Hirel whistled sharply and his own two dogs slunk back to his heels. He shouted and pointed, and they went scurrying round the flock, nipping at the heels of the strays and the stragglers.
Elfrun had reined in. She and Hirel stared at each other. A horrified look was spreading over his face. He pulled the greasy felt cap from his head and made an awkward bow. ‘Lady! Begging pardon, but you should have kept that dog back. Couldn’t you hear the wethers coming down?’
Blis was restless, dancing and shuffling. She didn’t like the slinking dogs or the mass of sheep still moving towards her, and Elfrun was having a hard time keeping her in the one place. ‘I want to talk to you,’ she called over her shoulder, trying to haul Blis’s head round.
‘I can’t talk to anyone until I get these penned.’ He had a handful of stones grubbed from the track and he threw these one after the other into the bushes ahead of the sheep, trying to startle them back into the flock. The two dogs snarled and slunk pressed low to the ground. ‘Get your dog away, lady!’
Rounding up the startled and straying wethers would give them a little extra time. Breathing a blessing on Gethyn and his undisciplined ways, Elfrun let Blis have her head, and the little horse went almost skipping back down the path to the sheepwick.
Ingeld’s grey Storm was gone. Elfrun’s breath left her in a gust. She slithered down from Blis, gave her a grateful pat and hitched her next to the patient Hafoc. ‘Come, Gethyn.’
Saethryth was watching her from the barn door, her crumpled blue overdress back on, her hair a silver halo. ‘You? Why are you here?’
‘Your husband’s coming.’
‘Yes, I—’ Saethryth’s hands flew to her head. ‘Help me with my hair?’ And then, ‘Were you here before, with that boy, the Illingham boy?’
‘He very kindly offered me an escort.’ Elfrun tugged out the bigger wisps of hay and straw, then divided the silky mass into three rough hanks and braided it quickly with the ribbon that Saethryth thrust into her hand.
‘Thancrad of Illingham.’ A teasing note entered her voice. ‘You and him, up here for the same thing we were about?’
‘Shut up!’ The clanking of the sheep-bells was getting loud. ‘You – should – be – ashamed – of – yourself,’ she said between gritted teeth, emphasizing every word with a tug on the hanks she was plaiting. Saethryth waited until Elfrun was done, and then she spun round, her rose-petal face so contorted that Elfrun recoiled.
‘You wait,’ she spat, jamming her linen coif over her head and tying it in place with fumbling fingers. ‘Just you wait till you have some man you loathe poking you between your legs and ordering you around. See how you like it. Then judge me, with your mouth pursed like a cat’s arse.’
‘My uncle—’
‘I’m not talking about your uncle. I mean him’ – she jabbed with her thumb – ‘that great gormless oaf you married me to.’
‘Me?’
‘You gave us your blessing.’
‘You can’t blame me! You and Hirel were dancing happily enough at your wedding. I saw you.’
Elfrun watched the shutters come down over Saethryth’s face. ‘You don’t know what you’re talking about.’ The approaching clank and bleat were very loud now. ‘When he touches me it’s like he’s handling a ewe. A dead ewe. He’s kinder with the live ones.’
‘But that doesn’t stop you – with him, Father abbot – my uncle. If it’s so horrible why do you do it at all?’
The other girl’s face was still closed and remote, but as Elfrun stared she saw a small smile begin to tug at her mouth’s corners. ‘Because Ingeld’s different. So very different.’ Saethryth turned her wide dark-blue eyes on Elfrun. Her husky voice was hardly above a whisper. ‘You cannot imagine what it’s like with him.’
Elfrun had a sudden blinding vision of Saethryth’s white, sprawled legs, and Ingeld’s caressing hand. Hot, sick fury took her. She hunched her shoulder and turned away.
Saethryth reached out a furious hand and pulled her back. ‘If it had been anyone else but your precious uncle you’d have left me there asleep, wouldn’t you? For my man to find us and do what he might with us?’
Elfrun stared in disbelief at the hand on her shoulder. ‘Don’t you dare touch me.’
Hirel unlatched the gate and the sea of wool, dirty white and grey, near black and warm brown, came pouring into the yard. Saethryth darted across to the entrance to the pen, shouting and waving her arms, and the flock went yammering past her, the slanting evening sun gilding their fleeces.
Hirel was resting on his crook, looking beyond weary. ‘You’d not believe how far some of them had strayed, lady. I’ve been all night and all day on the hill.’ He yawned hugely. ‘And that’s just
the wethers. Saethryth, hurry up and pen them in.’
‘I want to talk to you about the shearing.’ Elfrun could hear her voice was too abrupt. The sweat was trickling down her ribs.
‘The fleece? It’ll be good this year. Strong. The grass—’ Hirel’s eyes flickered past her, and he frowned. She turned to see Thancrad coming out of the barn, a bundle under his arm. He had folded it carefully so that the silk didn’t show but Elfrun recognized the chasuble’s linen lining. She had sponged stains of oil and picked fragments of wax out of its lush folds too often not to know it, even inside out and folded as small as its stiff fabric would allow.
‘What’s he doing here?’ The shepherd’s voice was little more than a growl. One of his dogs cocked its ears.
Elfrun drew herself up. ‘He is with me.’ She didn’t like the suspicious look on Hirel’s face. Wordlessly, Thancrad went over to Hafoc and strapped the bundle up behind the gelding’s saddle before turning back to help Saethryth drag the heavy hurdles across the entrance to the pen where the wethers were milling and bleating. Hirel’s brows darkened further. He crossed the yard to take the other end himself, shouldering Thancrad out of the way. When the pen was secured, he turned back to Elfrun, ducking his head and avoiding her eye.
What was wrong with the man? She tried to remember the errand that had brought her up here in the first place.
‘I want to talk to you about the shearing. We need to plan the feast, get the cooking-pits dug, choose which animals to slaughter. So let me know when you have in mind. I should have been up here before, I know – it’s late already.’
Hirel nodded, but he still wouldn’t meet her eye.
Something else struck her, something that had been in the back of her mind. ‘I wanted to ask you about the lambskins, as well. I’ve been looking back through the tallies, and talking to Luda, and it’s been getting worse year on year for the last several. But this year seems to have been the worst ever – at least as far back as I could see. Much the worst.’ She looked up. ‘Is there anything you can tell me about this? I’m not blaming you—’
Her words had literally wrong-footed him. She saw him pause and sway and stumble mid-stride. ‘Lady?’ The blood had drained from his face, leaving the raised line where the bear’s claw had gouged him above the eyebrow dark and angry. He was shaking his head. ‘No.’
‘What do you mean, no?’
‘Not me, lady. Not me. He said you’d never notice.’ Hirel was gabbling, his hands blundering out in front of his body as though to fend her off. ‘I just did what he told me.’
There was only one possible he in this conversation. ‘Luda.’
‘Last year’ – Hirel looked at his wife – ‘last year, there were too many deaths, all at once. That snow!’
‘That’s true enough, lady.’ Saethryth straightened up from where she had been leaning against the hurdle, scowling and picking her teeth. ‘I remember my father saying much that. They kept what they could but too many of them had got maggoty.’
‘And two years ago?’ Elfrun was feeling the almost pleasant heat that comes from righteous anger. ‘And this year – the worst year? There was no lambing snow this year.’
‘I kept some back. I’ve hidden them. He told me to.’ Hirel looked pitiful. ‘He said he would give me a silver penny.’
‘You did what?’ Saethryth sounded as startled and furious as Elfrun felt herself. Thancrad’s face was quiet, watchful. Elfrun wished passionately for a moment that he wasn’t there and then was grateful in equal measure that he was. This day would have been a nightmare on her own.
‘It was for you,’ Hirel said. He sounded like a baffled child. ‘It was for you, wife, to buy you pretty things. But I lost it.’
Elfrun stared at her shepherd. ‘And did it never occur to you that I would have rewarded you for your loyalty if you had come straight to me and told me of this?’
‘Rewarded me?’ Hirel sounded dazed.
Saethryth crowed with laughter. ‘Now, you might, lady. Now. But last year? You were no more than a helpless little ean yourself, bleating for its dada.’
Elfrun wheeled on her. ‘Did you know about this?’
‘Not me.’ She shrugged, and darted a furious look at her husband. ‘No one tells me anything.’
‘Enough,’ Elfrun said. She was feeling sickened in equal measure by Hirel’s stupidity and Saethryth’s spite. ‘Where are the lambskins now? Go and get them for me immediately.’
Hirel turned at once and shambled towards the barn. ‘In the rafters, lady. Will you come?’
No power on earth was strong enough to make her go back in that barn.
‘I’ll go with him.’ For all Thancrad’s height he looked like a stripling next to the shepherd.
Saethryth was at her side. ‘I hope they cleared everything out, him and Ingeld.’ She smirked at Elfrun. ‘It makes a fine bed, that silk. You don’t sleep on silk, do you, Elfrun?’
Elfrun turned her back. The men were gone for a while. She leaned over the fence and made a fuss of Gethyn, who had been lying with his head on his paws, panting. ‘Sorry, boy. Thirsty? Saethryth, fetch a bowl of water.’
‘For the dog? I have to lug every drop of that water.’
Elfrun bit her lip. In high summer Saethryth would have to go a mile with her buckets. ‘Sorry. I didn’t think.’
Saethryth eyed her sideways. ‘You never do, do you?’
The summer evening seemed to have gone on forever, but at last the sun was touching the rim of the hills in the north-west and the sky was flooding red behind great streaks and swathes of gilt-edged cloud. The air was thick and close. A curlew flew low over their heads, giving its shrill, unearthly cry as it glided into the long grass.
Thancrad and Hirel emerged at last, and Thancrad came straight over to where Elfrun was standing by the house door. ‘There are two stacks of skins,’ he said in a low voice. ‘One hidden between two bales of straw in the rafters – about a third of the total, and looking to be the finest. Your shepherd says the steward was going to take them to York himself and sell them.’
‘A third? The finest?’
Thancrad’s brown eyes smouldered. ‘Stupid, greedy fools. They’ve over-reached themselves. And if the steward was only giving the shepherd a single penny, then there’ll be a fine stash of your silver buried somewhere around his own house.’
Elfrun opened her mouth and closed it again. She blinked a few times, and glanced at Saethryth, who was staring at them. But too far away to hear what they were saying, surely.
‘What is it?’
‘Is this my fault? They would never have cheated my father.’ She put one hand to her mouth, trying to keep the tears back.
Thancrad glanced over at Saethryth and Hirel, who were standing several feet apart. ‘Are you sure of that?’ He moved to stand between them and Elfrun. ‘Not here. Don’t let them see you weak.’
She nodded and squared her chin. ‘I will send someone up for the skins,’ she said loudly, and turned her back.
Thancrad followed her to the gate.
‘You did well there.’
‘You think so?’
He nodded. ‘Here.’ He offered a step with his hands and she swung herself into Hafoc’s saddle, banging her knee on the cantle on the way. She pulled Hafoc round, her voice even louder and harder to hide her pain.
‘Don’t think you’ve heard the last of this, Hirel.’
But there was no sign of the shepherd. Elfrun looked furiously around the sheepfold, feeling authority slipping like sand though her fingers. ‘Where is he?’
‘You think he tells me?’ Saethryth shrugged. ‘He’s gone lumbering off down the hill, lady.’ The scorn in her voice made the courtesy sound like an insult. ‘Maybe he’s looking for another little lost lamb.’
58
It was dark under the trees, though the sky would be light for a long time yet. They rode carefully, ducking under the low branches, letting the horses find their own way through the ruts, following
the dry bed of the stream.
After a few minutes, Thancrad broke the silence. ‘What will you do?’
‘About the lambskins? I will have to take it to the assembly. This isn’t for settling at Donmouth.’
Thancrad looked across at her. She was pale and withdrawn, her shoulders hunched, her hands gripping the reins too tightly.
‘But the assembly’s weeks away. Months. Perhaps I should go to my uncle...’ She put her hand to her breastbone.
‘Come on.’ He slipped down from Blis’s back and took her bridle. ‘You’re going to fall out of that saddle in a minute.’
She patted the high pommel. ‘You can’t fall out of this saddle.’
‘Have you eaten today?’
‘Am I one of your hounds, for you to fret over?’
He smiled at that. ‘You’ve had a hard day.’
‘Yes, I have, haven’t I?’ She looked down at his hand on Hafoc’s bridle. ‘Do you think my uncle has gone back to the minster?’
‘I would have thought so.’
‘I need to talk to him about what we saw today. And the longer I put it off the harder it will be.’ She gave a little, self-mocking laugh. ‘Left to my own devices, I’ll just turn up for compline as usual and sing along like a good girl as though nothing had happened.’ Her throat was tight. ‘Would you come with me? Now?’
Thancrad was quiet for a moment, then, ‘Do you need to confront him?’
‘Do I need...?’
‘You could just let it go.’
She stared at him. This had not occurred to her. He was looking at the path ahead and all she could see was the thick russet hair of his crown. ‘Are you saying I should pretend nothing had happened?’ A drop of rain fell on her hand.
Thancrad clicked his tongue and tugged Blis away from a tall clump of summer grass. ‘Elfrun, everyone knows about the abbot of Donmouth and the shepherd’s wife. Everyone, it seems, but you and maybe the shepherd. It’s a long while since they first started playing their bed games.’
Elfrun’s face looked stiff. Her jaw muscles visibly tightened. ‘But that’s wrong.’
Daughter of the Wolf Page 33
