‘My uncle? Yes.’ Elfrun pulled the cloak tighter and turned away a little. She didn’t want to listen. Saethryth was lucky that she too wasn’t being taken out by Long Nab and tipped over the topmost strake with a stone bound to her belly. There were those who had pressed for it, Heahred the deacon among them, furious, red-faced, stabbing the air with his finger as he argued that if she had kept to her wedding bargain then their beloved abbot would still be warm and breathing. And Luda had nodded, and looked from stony face to stony face, and growled his agreement. But Elfrun had simply refused to listen to the men.
The matter was bad enough as it was. There was no sign that Hirel had been at the slaughter-place. He had sworn by every saint in the calendar that he was guiltless, until Luda had ordered him gagged. But then, what would they expect the shepherd to say? His guilt was manifest, and only compounded by his denials.
Who else had such good cause to hate Ingeld?
She could hear Luda’s voice even now. ‘You have no choice, lady.’ She had been disgusted by the steward’s readiness in arguing for the death of his one-time accomplice, his daughter’s husband, though she had said nothing to him about the theft of the lambskins – not yet.
Never mind his self-righteous eagerness to push for the drowning of his own daughter, who was now willy-nilly back under his roof.
Bile and acid rose from deep in her belly.
‘Elfrun? Lady?’
Was Saethryth still there? Elfrun didn’t want to hear whatever it was she had to say. Wasn’t it enough for the other woman that she still had life and breath herself? ‘What is it now?’
‘Lady, my man never did it.’
And at that Elfrun did turn round. ‘What are you saying?’
Saethryth was gazing out to sea, the setting sun gilding her uncovered hair. Elfrun saw her throat work as she swallowed. ‘Oh, I grant you, Hirel would have been glad to see Ingeld in his grave. But never to cut his throat. They’d have fought, man to man, like he did the bear. And he would never strip him. He wouldn’t stoop to take the gold that was on his finger. He’s not that kind of greedy.’
Elfrun thought of the purloined lambskins and anger swelled within her. ‘So you say. But maybe I know him better than you do. He is a liar, and a thief, and a cheat.’
‘So you say, lady. But there’s one other thing you know as well as I do, and that’s that Hirel was wax in my da’s hands. You know what my da is like.’ There was a new, keening edge in Saethryth’s voice. ‘Hirel only hid those skins because he wanted a silver penny to buy me fairings, so I would love him.’
Elfrun felt her belly do a slow rise and plunge. She swallowed hard. ‘They worked together to cheat me.’
‘So you’ll be sending my own da out to Long Nab next with a bag on his head?’
Elfrun turned on her. ‘For all his sins, it wasn’t Luda who killed my uncle! And don’t pretend you care what happens to him. He wanted to do the same to you.’
Saethryth was silent for a long moment. At last she said, ‘If Hirel killed Ingeld, then where did he put his clothes?’
‘They could be anywhere.’ Elfrun shrugged, trying to pretend that the question had never occurred to her. ‘He could have buried them, burned them, thrown them in the sea, hidden them somewhere.’
‘Had he time? Had he? Really?’ Saethryth sounded as though she had been drinking a bitter brew. ‘And another thing, lady. Ingeld’s horse.’
Elfrun wanted to stop her ears. They had not found Storm. She had bolted, they had decided, floundered into the fen perhaps. There were places in there where a full troop of men and horses might sink and be lost in moments. But how far and how fast had Ingeld’s grey mare had to run, that they had not found any sign of her?
‘Why are you telling me this, now, when it’s too late?’ Elfrun gestured out to sea, where the little leaf-shaped boat was already far beyond the reach of a human voice. Hirel was guilty. Hirel had to be guilty.
‘It wasn’t him.’
‘Who then?’
No answer.
‘You can’t just make claims like that. If not Hirel, who?’ Elfrun’s voice had a new edge of anger to it. Her own silent question of a few moments back returned to her. ‘Who else hated my uncle enough to kill him?’
‘I’d stake it was the priest. That foreigner.’
‘That’s ridiculous.’ Elfrun turned away. She knew folk were watching her, and she herself should be watching the boat.
‘Look how he put down Cudda, like a beast. He’s a cold, hard man. And I know he spoke against us, me and Ingeld.’ Saethryth’s voice rose to a wail. ‘And even if it wasn’t the priest, it still wasn’t Hirel. Couldn’t you just have driven him away?’ Saethryth sank to her knees and put her face in her hands.
Elfrun closed her eyes.
Unseen, unheard by either of them, a long dark shape slid overboard from the little bobbing leaf and splashed heavily into the sea.
60
‘How about taking the four-oarer out to the sandbanks and hunting seals?’ Athulf unhooked one of the big knives and hefted it admiringly. ‘The dog-faced ones are pupping. Easy game.’
Widia shrugged. ‘I don’t fancy it.’ The thought of going out in the boat made his stomach turn, although common sense told him that in the weeks since Hirel’s drowning the crabs and little fishes would have picked him clean, and his bones would have sunk down into the dark. But it didn’t take much these days to bring about that giddy lurch in his guts.
Athulf grinned. ‘Get some white fur to make a hood for Saethryth?’ He replaced the knife and half turned, watching Widia’s face carefully.
‘What do you mean?’
Athulf raised his eyebrows. ‘Oh, is it meant to be a secret? The whole world knows, Widia. You’re still besotted enough to hope to pick up dead men’s leavings, when she’s out and about again.’
‘You disgust me.’
‘I only know what they told me.’
‘Who? Who told you?’
‘You know what they say about widows.’ Athulf shrugged, and smirked. ‘Common knowledge – once they’ve had a man they’re never happy without something between their thighs—’
Widia shoved him hard against the wall, grabbing the neck of his tunic with one hand. In the other he had a foot-long knife. ‘Who?’
‘Someone who thinks you can do better.’ Athulf kept his voice light, but he was mesmerized by the killing edge on the blade. Perhaps he should have brought his sword to Widia after all. ‘Maybe it was Elfrun.’
‘Elfrun? I don’t believe you.’ They stared at each other across the gleaming surface of the knife. Athulf was unnerved by the speed with which Widia had moved, and by the contorted rage on the huntsman’s damaged face.
‘Put that knife away, you fool.’ Athulf’s mouth was dry. ‘If it wasn’t Elfrun it was some other silly gossiping girl. They’re all the same. Why does it matter to you which one you take?’
‘All the same?’ Athulf watched Widia’s knuckles whiten. ‘My God, but you’re like your dead da. People’s lives are just one great joke to you, aren’t they?’
‘Put the knife down.’ Athulf was breathing slowly, waiting for his moment. ‘And don’t ever say I’m like Ingeld.’
‘I’ll say—’
Athulf brought his knee up hard, at the same time punching Widia in the midriff, aiming for the scar tissue and the badly mended ribs, a blow with all his body weight behind it. The knife clattered as Widia bent double, choking and taken as completely unawares as Athulf had been a moment earlier. He straightened up slowly, clutching his ribs and his groin. The boy had put on weight and breadth of late, and Widia felt as though someone had driven a pile into his flank with a mallet.
‘What a family you are,’ Widia said, his voice ragged. ‘Your da was a disgrace to the name of priest, your uncle broke his promises to me and abandoned his people, and you – you think you’re a warrior and leader of men but you’re no more than a spiteful child.’ He bent down and picked up the kni
fe, checking the blade for damage. ‘The sooner the king finds a new lord for Donmouth, the better. And I don’t mean you.’
Athulf shrugged. ‘Luckily for me, nobody cares for your thoughts.’ He moved towards the door, but on the threshold he paused and turned back. ‘But don’t think that means I’m going to forget a single word. I’m going to be master here, you know. Hall and minster. Then you’ll see.’
The knife was undamaged, and Widia shoved it back into its sheath, his breathing still ragged. He wondered yet again why he stayed at Donmouth, when he was a free man. His mother’s family were from north of York, and he knew his kin would welcome him. A place could always be found somewhere for a good huntsman. He wasn’t going to stay to be at Athulf’s beck and call, not for much longer. The mews felt close and airless, and he had a sudden longing to be out and alone. There was that young peregrine he was training, and he decided he would take her out with a lure. The summer evening was young yet and he could lose himself in the fierce joy of the bird.
‘Widia?’
He paused, his back to the mews doorway, the falcon on his glove, his right hand reaching out for the lure.
‘Can I come in?’
‘Go away.’
‘Widia? Please?’
He had known even without Athulf’s insinuations that she would be back in the world soon. She couldn’t hide in her father’s house forever – and he knew fine well that she wouldn’t, not her, even if she could. The pain and nausea racking him came from Athulf’s assault, not from her presence.
‘Go away,’ he repeated.
‘Just turn round and look me in the eye and say that.’
He obeyed, slowly. The bird on his wrist swayed and rebalanced herself. He could feel the grip of her talons, even through the thick leather.
‘They should never have married me to Hirel. I should have married you.’
He stared at her in disbelief. ‘Aye, maybe. And then it would have been my place in the bed Ingeld took.’
‘You can’t believe that.’ She took a few quick paces towards him but he held up his free hand in warning, and she stopped. ‘I would never have listened to Ingeld if I’d had you!’ There was a shrill edge to her voice.
‘Aye, but the boar put paid to that. Do you not think I’ve wished a thousand times I’d just stood out of the way and let it charge at the man it was meant for? That would have saved us a lot of trouble.’ He was struggling to keep his own voice steady, not wanting to startle the sleek, hooded bird whose claws clutched his glove so trustingly.
‘Elfrun would grant you land now, if you asked.’ Saethryth was biting her full lower lip, her eyes beseeching.
‘Aye, and maybe she would. She’s a good lord, to me at least.’ Widia felt a slow heat growing inside him. ‘But you were glad enough to catch Hirel, and glad enough to betray him when something better beckoned to you. And look what came of that. He and Ingeld are not a month dead and here you are like a bitch in heat. Do you think me such a fool?’
A shuttered look came over Saethryth’s face. ‘Nothing came of it.’
He wasn’t sure he’d heard. ‘What?’
‘Nothing came of it,’ she said, still soft, but he knew he’d caught the words right this time. ‘Hirel never killed Ingeld.’ The flat certainty in her voice sent chills down between his shoulder blades.
‘Who did, then?’
She shrugged. ‘How should I know?’ She looked at him sideways, dipping her head and glancing up through her pale lashes. ‘I thought maybe it was you.’
He stared at her. There was a long moment of silence, but to Widia it felt as though the air was full of screaming voices. At last he shook his head.
‘Never even tempted to kill him?’ To his disbelief an intimate note had crept into her voice, and she took another couple of steps towards him.
Widia had a sudden, vivid memory of that jaunty back, Ingeld going whistling down the slope, and the ease with which he could have thrown his knife. How many folk were speculating, same as Saethryth? Everyone, was the answer. Every soul who had known he and she had been courting, before the boar... He had to stop this. Was she going round all Donmouth spreading her filthy lies? ‘What does it matter what I wanted? I never raised hand or knife to the man, and I can prove it. I was in the mews when the word came to the hall.’ He was thinking back, his thoughts suddenly frantic as a netted linnet. Had anyone been in the mews with him? Only the dog-boy, and he couldn’t speak. But surely no one who knew him would believe for a moment he could have done this thing?
‘Then maybe you didn’t.’ Saethryth shrugged, a lazy up and down of her shoulders. ‘It was someone else, maybe someone else who wanted me. Or hated Ingeld, for another reason. But not Hirel.’
Widia shook his head. Everything pointed to the shepherd. He was not surprised that grief and shock had sent Saethryth off balance, but he found her presence unsettling, and he longed for her to go and leave him with his birds.
‘I told Elfrun,’ she said suddenly, a new hardness in her voice.
‘And?’
‘That’s all.’ Saethryth’s face tightened. ‘She didn’t want to know, so I left it. I’ve not said anything. I wouldn’t have spoken now, except for you saying it was my fault.’ He opened his mouth, but she was still talking, in the same stiff, flat voice. ‘And now I’m back under that roof, with Da and Mam, and so I thought I’d come to you. I always did like you, and maybe I could forget about your face. But now I see you’ve changed too. Everything’s changed.’
61
Somehow the hay had been brought in in its time, and the barley and the oats harvested, and the sun had shone on Donmouth, and the celebrations in church and hall and harvest field had all happened in the right way and in due season. The sheep had even been shorn, by the lads who had been working with Hirel and as many extra hands as they could muster, and the raw wool baled; and the women’s house had been busy dawn to dusk with the rustle and thud of the looms. Elfrun knew that behind her back the gossip and the laughter had risen to something like their old levels.
But not when she was there. Never when she was there.
Nor had Elfrun ever mustered the courage to bring up the matter of the lambskins with Luda. When she found time and nerve to tell Widia the bare outline of what had happened, and asked him to go up to the sheepwick and bring the skins down from the secret place in the rafters, he reported them already gone. ‘What will you do?’
She had shaken her head. ‘Be more watchful. What can I do?’ She felt the familiar tightness in her temples. ‘I’ve made the man drown his own son-in-law. Isn’t that enough?’ Somewhere around the place there was a bag of her silver, but Donmouth was big, and a little leather pouch was an easy thing to hide.
At the harvest meeting she had stood up in the assembly before king and archbishop, Donmouth and Illingham and all the hard-faced men, and for the first time found she didn’t care what folk might say about her. She had reported her uncle’s murder, and the drowning of Hirel, and she accepted the murmurs of shock, and approval, and the quiet words that came afterwards, when men who had known Ingeld from his boyhood stopped her to pay their respects. Never had the name of the abbot of Donmouth sounded so golden in men’s mouths. She had had a brief meeting with the king in the splendour of his tent, the narrow-faced archbishop standing by. She had looked at their faces, knowing that her wellbeing lay in the palm of their hands, and murmured quiet words. For all the recent scandal Donmouth was still producing the renders and tithes king and Church demanded. They had let her go with their blessing, but she knew that with neither Radmer nor Ingeld to give her ballast her grasp on Donmouth’s tiller was of the most fragile. They wouldn’t take it from her yet – to do so now would look like a reprimand, and she had done nothing wrong.
But it was probably only a matter of time.
And she knew men looked at her curiously, sideways, a new calculation in their eyes.
She unhooked her cloak. Wynn had brought the new and the old tags,
and riveted them back in place with sharp little taps of her hammer, squeezing them into place with tiny pliers. Elfrun had been bowled over by the skill of the girl’s work. To be sure, the new one was cruder, its shape blurred, the etching and chasing nothing like so fine as its parent. But it looked much the same from a little distance; it weighed as much, it held the strap down and it flashed in the sun, and Elfrun had been effusively grateful to the gruff, defensive child. She had worn the cloak at the meeting and its red folds had been mail-shirt and shield to her.
And she would need it to keep her warm on her walk to the minster.
September was only midway through but the long days of summer were a half-forgotten memory. The ash trees were heavy with seeds and the thorn with haws, the leaves brown-edged and wind-burned, and the summer grasses, the dockans and nettles and hogweed were dying back in one great sagging mass of vegetation. The thin wind had swung round to the north-east and it nipped like a ferret, sending the dead leaves spinning before it and heralding winter, and she was gladder than ever that the harvest was safely in.
‘We’ll finish this tomorrow. It’s too dark.’ She wound her thread round the shuttle and rested it on a cross-beam, out of the reach of the kittens. Coming out of the weaving shed she could see that although the sun had already set there was still just enough light to make out the clouds of the upper air racing, like the leaves, before the wind.
There had been no time for her to walk even as far as the minster for the last two weeks, she had been so taken up with seeing that the dead bees were strained out of the honey and checking that the bales of wool were the right weight; and then the harvest meeting; and now that there was a little breathing space she found herself longing for the calm of the church and Fredegar’s clear dark voice singing the antiphons. She would be too late for vespers, but sometimes she thought she loved the night hours best. That was such a simple world. She knew what the rules were. All she had to do was keep her face quiet and her hands folded and come in with the responses at the right time.
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