Wynn nodded, her gaze intent. ‘He may not come with me, lady.’
‘Do your best.’ Elfrun turned to Auli, and took a deep breath. If the stranger girl had something to say about the assault on her property, her men and her bear, then she should say it.
Auli murmured something to Finn. He nodded, and she stepped forward. Suddenly her big knife was in her hand. Athulf’s eyes were wide, his gaze flickering, the whites fully visible. There was nowhere to run.
‘Wait!’ Elfrun hardly recognized her own voice. She hadn’t seen this coming.
Auli said something further to Finn, her eyes never leaving Athulf. A big weather-beaten man with a broken-toothed grin was moving closer to Athulf now, and her cousin was shuffling, side-stepping, trying to watch for danger in all directions at once.
Her cousin. Little Athulf with the fringe that always got in his eyes, the sticky chin, the perennial anxiety about being left out, the cry of Wait for me.
And Finn said, ‘Wait? Why?’
Elfrun knew he was only translating Auli’s query, but his flat voice twisted her heart. Was this the same person who had noticed when she had been crying, who had called her beautiful, about whom she had been dreaming those hot, inchoate dreams in the fireside half-world between waking and sleeping? Dreams that seemed so real...
She gave herself a little shake. ‘Why?’ Scrabbling to justify her indecision. ‘Because it wasn’t just Athulf. What about those two?’ She gestured. The young men who rode out with Athulf and Thancrad. The dark-bearded one and the slighter, fairer one. She could never remember which one was which.
And another voice said, ‘Kill them both.’
Both? Not all three? Elfrun turned to find Switha staring at her, her gaze hard-edged. She was next to Tilmon, but for all his bulk and force her husband seemed insignificant next to her, with her dark, gleaming eyes and crackling energy. Tilmon was frowning. He seemed to be having the same difficulty understanding her meaning as Elfrun was herself.
Switha looked up at him. ‘You want Donmouth, without having to burn it first? Now’s your chance.’ She gave a little sideways jerk of her head, towards Elfrun. There was something she wasn’t putting into words, something Elfrun still wasn’t getting. There was an unspoken conversation going on: she could see it, tangible as a spider weaving its deadly gossamer, a web made of sidelong glances, lifted eyebrows, the quirk of men’s mouths. She could see it, but she didn’t know what it meant.
Finn got it, though. He grasped Auli’s arm and muttered something, and she tensed, swinging half round with her knife still held out. Her eyes met Elfrun’s again. She pulled away from Finn and reached out a hand. Hesitating, Elfrun clasped it with her own. Another little tug at the weave of the web. The ruddy, weather-beaten man with the broken grin was next to her. Elfrun looked nervously up at him.
Finn said, ‘Elfrun, this is Tuuri. Auli’s father.’
‘What does he want?’ She didn’t want to take her eyes off Switha. Every nerve in her body was screaming, and she still didn’t know why. Auli’s hand was warm and dry and hard, squeezing hers – a spurt of comfort – and then relinquishing it.
‘He speaks English.’ A gruff voice, and she looked up, startled, at Tuuri. He was smiling at her, and she realized there had been movement, closing in, an inner circle forming about her and Athulf. Tilmon and Switha on the outside. No weapons had been drawn, yet, other than Auli’s knife. Tuuri said, ‘My daughter tells me you protected her and my men, and the bear. And then she left Finn with you, knowing you would help.’
Elfrun flushed. ‘That was just chance.’
‘Chance, yes, but also choice. You could have left him to die, but you warmed him and tended him, and you tried to find the killers. I am in your debt, by any reckoning.’ His face was kind, his voice respectful. ‘And at the bear-fight, from what Auli tells me, that was not chance.’
It seemed so long ago. She cast her mind back, trying to remember what she had done A day of mist and shifting damp, and horror. Ingeld, so solid and vital and handsome, with the sun glinting on his ring of office.
She had found Storm, but her uncle’s ring and his clothes were still lost.
Who had killed him?
‘I think maybe you need my help now,’ Tuuri said.
74
They were closing in. Elfrun could see the steady movement out of the corners of both eyes. Athulf was staring at her, his face white but calm, his eyes narrowed. Just as she had at the bear-fight, she had mistaken his anger for terror.
‘What happened? In the heifer field?’ She knew that this was no time to be asking questions, but she had to find out. ‘Athulf, how did Ingeld die?’
And Athulf smiled. ‘His blood’s not on my hands, cousin. Was that worrying you? I am not my father’s keeper.’
But surely he was quoting – misquoting – scripture out of season? For all his flippancy Cain had killed his brother Abel. And Abel’s blood cried out from the ground for revenge. ‘So what did happen then?’ Elfrun took a step towards him and stopped, repelled by the half-smile which was still hovering. He did have that look of his father Abarhild commended so often. But lacking Ingeld’s easy charm, the effortless way in which her uncle had made everyone to whom he spoke feel that time with him was time in sunshine. Athulf’s smile had an awful coldness about it, and she wondered why she had never quite realized that before.
Athulf jerked his head sideways and she glanced at Dene and Addan.
‘It wasn’t me!’ Dene’s voice was strained, as though on the verge of breaking. ‘I never hurt him, I just held his bridle. Like when we got you, yesterday, all I did was ride with them... I never killed anybody. I did throw a spear at the bear, but I missed. I swear it.’ And he was paler even than Athulf, greenish-yellow about the corners of his mouth. A dark stain was spreading across the front of his breeks. Elfrun was revolted.
The circle around them had fallen still. Tuuri’s face was intent, flickering from Addan and Dene to Tilmon, and back again. Without shifting his gaze he reached out a hand and pulled his daughter closer to him.
‘So you – Dene? – you held Storm’s bridle. And Athulf never touched him – what did you do then, Athulf?’
‘I talked to him.’ There was a note of savage satisfaction in her cousin’s voice. ‘I told him what I thought of him. He didn’t like it.’ His eyes flickered sideways. ‘And while I was doing that Addan came up from behind.’ Athulf jerked his chin backwards and drew his finger across his throat in one easy gesture.
‘It wasn’t my idea.’ Addan’s tone was defiant.
‘I didn’t think for a moment it was.’ Elfrun was fighting faintness, but the contempt in her tone was loud and clear enough. ‘I’m sure Athulf can take all the credit for that.’ Her mind was fluttering like a moth in a candle-flame. She had drowned Hirel for killing Ingeld. Athulf had drowned Hirel. Athulf had begged to be one of the execution party. She felt as though she too were sinking ineluctably down into deep, dark, cold water.
A hand cupping her elbow, steadying her.
Finn. She breathed more easily, hoping he could see her gratitude.
‘Sadly,’ Athulf was shrugging, ‘it wasn’t my idea, though I wish it had been. Any more than taking the cloak tag was my idea.’ His eyes flickered from Elfrun, with the cloak bundled awkwardly under her arm, to Tuuri, from Tilmon to Switha. ‘Oh, getting revenge on the bear, that was my idea. We only killed the men because they tried to protect the bear. But the inspiration for all the rest came from the lady of Illingham.’ And he offered Switha a little bow.
Elfrun spun on her heel and stared at Switha, standing with her beringed hand resting on Tilmon’s arm. Switha’s sweet face, her dark eyes, the tendrils of silver-black escaping from the veil edge, even that little bristle in the corner of her mouth: Elfrun could see her every detail with extraordinary clarity. She was smiling. And she said, quite lightly, to her husband, ‘I told you we should kill them both.’ And then, to Athulf, ‘What a little fool you are
. So easy to play. Did you really I think I was going to help you to Donmouth?’
Athulf stared at her, mouth twitching, his face deathly pale.
A shift in the pattern, a movement of men. Elfrun had a sudden sense that she had been here before, on an April morning a year and a half ago, watching the men outside the king’s tent, the alliances breaking and re-forming like clouds in the summer sky. Tilmon’s men; Tuuri’s men: so little to distinguish them. The angle of a cap, the way in which leggings were bound, the nature of a pattern on a braid...
But Tuuri’s men were putting themselves between her and Tilmon’s men, and Finn and Auli were either side of her, and Finn was saying, ‘Run.’
So she ran.
Other than Finn and Auli she had no idea who was with her, and who in pursuit. Behind there was shouting, grunting, a cry of pain and then the clash of metal. She had a terrible desire to look back, but she had done that once already, and to do it again would be to tempt fate beyond endurance. They hurtled under the trees, heavy-berried rowan and elder. Nor did Elfrun have any idea where they were going, or any time to wonder. Her hands were too full with the cloak easily to manage the extra hampering yards of her Illingham finery, and while it did briefly cross her mind that she could escape on Storm there was no sign of either the mare or the dog-boy. Had he guided her home to Donmouth, with Wynn and Gethyn? He was a miracle with animals, that child.
Her heart was too big, it would surely burst, or swell and splinter her ribs, and her breath was burning. More shouts from behind, and a howl, cut short. Blade meeting blade.
Out from under the trees, into the light and air where the mid-morning sun dappled the ripples with gilding too bright to bear. They were running straight down to the water, the river broadening out to estuary and open sea. The tide was high, little waves lapping at the top of the strand. A flock of outraged oystercatchers took wing with their shrill peeping.
And straight into the water, to where a sleek, pointed ship rode at anchor. Not an Illingham fishing boat, they were smaller and blunter, and they were all pulled up on the foreshore out of the reach of the tide. Elfrun and Auli were floundering in their skirts, the heavy suck and drag of the water on fabric slowing them down.
They were alone.
And at that Elfrun did look back.
Three figures on the beach, a mere fifteen or twenty paces away. Tall, russet-haired Thancrad, and slighter, fairer Finn, and Athulf. The first two had Athulf wrong-footed, he had his back to the water, and they were moving forward, and he was stumbling back, into the lapping shallows.
None of them was armed, but the look on the two faces she could see was deadly. A splash next to her, and she saw Auli, her knife drawn – still? – again? – wading back to the shore. Gulls bobbed on the water.
Auli was moving quietly, keeping right behind Athulf. Stalking him, Elfrun realized. She was only a couple of yards behind him, and she raised her knife. And Elfrun gasped.
Was it that gasp that alerted Athulf? He swung round, fast as a stooping peregrine, and lunged for the knife. He had Auli’s wrist, and he was forcing it back, and the knife slipped from her grasp and splashed into the water. He dived, and scrambled up again, soaked to his skin, the knife in his hand held low, blade upwards, ready to thrust up into a man’s heart, or lungs.
Elfrun could see glances exchanged between the other three. Then, again faster than she could quite understand, Finn hurled himself at Athulf’s waist, tackling him around the ribcage, below the field in which the knife could be brought into play, hoping to bring him down. But, while Athulf staggered, he kept his footing. It only took a moment for him to reverse the knife and bring it down, jabbing hard at Finn’s grey-clad back and wresting the blade free for another blow.
And in that moment Auli came up behind him, put her knee in the small of his back, grabbed the sides of his head, jerked backwards, and broke his neck.
Elfrun heard the crack.
There were figures stumbling out now from under the trees.
Auli let Athulf’s body fall into the knee-deep tide, and stooped to retrieve her knife, driving it hard into the sheath. Finn had fallen too, and she and Thancrad lifted him, their arms under his shoulders. Elfrun followed them to the boat, which rocked in waist-deep water. Further out three more keels rode at anchor.
Auli hauled herself over the topmost strake and turned to help Thancrad lift Finn over the side. He was streaming seawater and blood, and Elfrun heard the thump and saw the boat rock with the force of his landing.
‘Elfrun?’ Thancrad took the cloak from her. She wondered why on earth she had clung on to it, when a wiser woman would surely have dropped it when she ran. Thancrad pushed it over the side of the boat, and now he was making a foothold for her with his hands as he had done earlier to get her up on to Storm.
She shook her head. If Auli could slither over the side of the boat like a seal then surely she could do the same. The edge of the strake hit every rising bruise on her ribs, and for a moment she thought she would simply crash back into the sea, but in the end she managed it.
Auli was crouched over Finn. The boat creaked and lurched again as Thancrad pulled himself aboard. Finn lay on his side in the bilges. It was slowly turning red, little thick coils of blood snaking through the sun-tinted water.
Auli was shaking her head.
Elfrun opened her mouth but no sound came out. She reached forward and together she and Auli began to turn Finn carefully on to his back. The fine grey wool was stained with red, and his skin was turning grey as they watched. His eyes were open, but they were dull. When they moved him his arm flopped to one side, as though there were no bones, no sinews, no tendons.
Thancrad had withdrawn into the bows, his face closed.
Auli leaned down and kissed Finn on the forehead, and then drew his eyelids down with the first and second fingers of her right hand. She said something under her breath, but Elfrun did not hear.
All her senses seemed to have left her. She could only see grey, hear nothing but the rush of the blood in her ears, taste and smell nothing but ashes, her body numb and cold.
Not even tears.
Not even breath.
There was a hand on her shoulder, and then she felt herself being drawn into a warm embrace. It was Auli, and Elfrun let herself lean, let the other girl support her. She could feel Auli’s breath warm on her neck, and her hands on her shoulder blades, and for a long moment they clung together, kneeling in the bloody water. They were interlaced in perfect balance, each holding the other, stopping the other from falling. It was bitter, and sweet. Elfrun had never in her life been so close to a girl her own age as she was to this foreigner, with whom she could not exchange a single word.
The boat heaved and lurched again. It was Tuuri. He took in the scene at a glance, and said something in an alien tongue which was self-evidently blasphemous, turning and punching the side of the boat as he swore, bloodying his knuckles.
Auli let Elfrun go gently, and turned to her father. She was pointing to the shore, and to the boat, miming the fight as well as presumably describing it. Elfrun looked back to where the tide was washing the long, dark shape of Athulf’s body to and fro. Would anybody care to bury him?
Tuuri was looking at Thancrad, face tight, but Auli said something else, and he relaxed. Other men were splashing out to the boats. Smoke was trickling up from beyond the trees.
‘Tilmon?’ Elfrun asked. ‘Switha?’ She too glanced at Thancrad.
Tuuri gave his infectious, broken-toothed grin. ‘They made a big mistake. Let themselves be outnumbered. A second, bigger one. Barred themselves in their hall.’ It took a long moment for his meaning to sink in, but when it did she turned and looked again at Thancrad, properly this time. He too was watching the smoke, like a fledgling bespelled by a snake. Darker now, and thicker, beginning to billow up above the trees and eddy sideways away from them in the wind. The crackling of flame was faintly audible.
‘Blis! The horses!’ Thancrad h
ad blenched under his tan, his mouth a square black hole of terror. He scrabbled for the side of the boat, but Tuuri put out a hand. ‘Nej, lad. We’ve not fired the stables.’
Elfrun thought of the hundred clear yards between hall and stable-block. The breeze was off the sea. They should be safe enough. But just one rogue spark might do it.
Thancrad had stopped, his mouth working. ‘Even so,’ and he was clearly battling for self-possession, ‘the smell of the smoke... I can’t just leave her there. Her and the others.’
His parents, trapped in the burning hall, drawn swords to drive them back at every door; and all he could think of was the horses? But Elfrun thought she understood. Switha and Tilmon had brought this down on themselves, warp and weft of their fate woven on a loom they had built and strung with their own hands. The horses, though, were guiltless.
And Tuuri seemed to understand as well. He barked an order, and one of his men set off back up the beach, as fast as he could stumble over weed and dune. ‘He will lead the horses down here, and hobble them. Will that do?’
Thancrad nodded, a little muscle twitching in his jaw.
Auli grasped her father’s sleeve and said something in that high clear voice like a bird chirping. Tuuri nodded. ‘Alvrun?’
She jumped. Everything still seemed so thin and dim and far away.
‘My daughter wishes you to know that, had he lived, she would have given Finn to you as your own.’
Her own? Elfrun blinked and shook her head like a dog with a flea in its ear. The words made no sense. How could such a quicksilver soul as Finn be owned, or bought, or given?
How could the lady of Donmouth love a slave, or a freed-man?
Better, maybe, that he was beyond all that. Gone like the summer geese or the winter swallows, to some place she knew nothing of. She half opened her mouth, to ask about the faded lattice of scars on his back, and then closed it again. None of that mattered now, with his body cooling at her feet in the bilge water which slopped to and fro with the rocking of the boat. His blood had sunk and settled, a lower, darker layer.
Daughter of the Wolf Page 44
