Valkyrie's Song

by M. D. Lachlan

  He’d seen the girl, seen the ships, in the visions Styliane had conjured. They moved him to action and when William had attacked England he’d been with him, looking not for plunder but for a young woman who might offer him death.

  If he was to find Beatrice he needed to think, doing most of his travelling with the stone suppressing the wolf in his breast. That made him vulnerable, easy as a man to kill. So he needed to travel the land with companions – the Norman invaders.

  The woman, Styliane, fled from death. They were bound by a magical pact formed under the gaze of dying gods who would not let him die the death he needed – a final ending, never to be reborn. But first he had to find the girl – the lady of fate. Styliane was a powerful seer, a holder of the runes, and she had seen what he had seen. If the lady could find the girl she would kill her if she could. Death to Loys was death to Styliane too, their fates were linked, and the great lady could not allow that.

  In the burning, plundered north, he took the wolfstone from around his neck, put it into his purse. As long as it didn’t touch him it would not affect him. Immediately his senses were keener, as if he had instantly emerged from a heavy cold. He tasted the air, cold iron and smoke; sharp fear seeping from every animal stall, every byre. He tapped his tongue to his palate. In a day or a week he’d gain the magical sense to lead him to her. Could he look at her? She had something inside her – a sound, a shape – that called to him. A rune, but one made of darkness where the others were made of light. It had been in Beatrice, and before her in others. Would she be like his wife? He hoped not.

  More screaming. They were killing again. This time he went over to look – a stir of curiosity in him edging out his revulsion. A rush; the thumping of feet. A boy of maybe thirteen tore from the burning house, dashing for the fields. The Normans watched him, expressionless, unmoving. The kid wasn’t equipped for the weather – just a shirt and trousers and a split shoe that flapped like a snapping mouth as he ran.

  At the start of the day the men might have charged him down. Now, out of pity for the horses, they let him go. The animals were weary with chasing.

  Loys felt the flicker of an instinct to pursue. As a wolf, the sight of that uneven gait and the smell of the boy’s panic would have been a great lure to him. But he was human. He wanted the boy to be all right. He wanted it all to be all right. Why this one? Why select one pebble from a beach above any other? Why? In the flood tide of murder that had engulfed that land, reasons were swept away. Why save him? Loys envied the dead, free from the mire of sensation and loss. Perhaps the boy reminded him of a child he’d known – a son he’d watched grow old and die.

  ‘We need someone to cook and make the camp for us tonight,’ said Loys.

  The knight in charge of the men, Robert Giroie, shook his head.

  ‘We’ll head to the next farm and stay there for the night. The farmers can cook and tend to us and we’ll slaughter them before turning in, save any funny stuff at night.’

  ‘He might be a smith. Worth saving.’

  ‘What makes you say that?’

  ‘The forge.’

  ‘He’ll need hammers. I’m not letting him wander about with those.’

  ‘I’ll take them.’

  ‘You’ve too soft a heart, foreigner.’

  The men called Loys ‘foreigner’ because he had come from the east, showing many eastern manners. The style of his dress was eastern, too – his loose-fitting trousers, his curved sword and turban. He had presented himself with gifts at the court of Duke William and been accepted. He had quickly conformed to the style of the court, though he’d kept his curved sword. His manner of speech too was strange – archaic, using many words that only the oldest people knew. And of course, he had not had a part in the invasion. Many of the men regarded him lightly.

  ‘I am a practical man.’

  ‘As you please. If you want to flog your horse catching him, go ahead. And stop fiddling with that pebble. You drive me mad with your heathen habits.’

  Loys realised he was stroking the cord of the wolfstone. He returned it to his purse, then kicked his horse forward and headed out into the wild countryside beyond the farm. The boy was making for a line of woods a good three miles away. Loys could not yet sense the boy’s desperation like the smell of roasting meat on the breeze as he would were he a wolf, but he didn’t have to. The boy howled as he ran on with that flapping, beating shoe.

  The horse was difficult to control – the stone that suppressed his wolf nature also made it possible for animals to bear his presence. Another week without it and he would have to walk. A week after that and he might run all day, fleeing his hunger, finding it waiting for him at every turn, behind every tree.

  The boy’s breath was reedy and high, like an ill-made flute; the horse’s hooves beneath it like an accompanying drum.

  Loys knew the boy wouldn’t understand him, so when he spoke he did so for his own benefit.

  ‘There’s enough harm here. Come back. You’ll die in the cold. Come back.’

  The boy’s shoe tore away on the hard ground; he stumbled, fell and stood again. Loys brought the horse around him to cut off his path but the boy dodged, nipping around the animal and running once more. A great cheer went up from Giroie’s band.

  ‘Try an old woman, foreigner, you’re not up to the lad.’

  Loys turned the horse. It was like trying to ride a dog. It writhed and bucked under him. He had never been much of a horseman and when the animal stumbled and lurched it spat him from the saddle. He hit the hard earth, all the wind going out of him, the heel of his hand smashing down to break his fall. Another cheer from Giroie’s men, this time ecstatic. Whoops of laughter came bounding across the cold field. He stood. He’d broken his sword hand, he was sure. Never mind. There would be time to see to that.

  He chased on by foot and a Norman wag shouted ‘Follow my goose!’ after him, the name of a child’s game. Another ten steps and the boy stumbled again, falling to the ground sobbing. Loys knew what was required of him – kill the boy. That was the only way to reclaim any respect at all with his companions. He would not do it. His father had been a Norseman and he knew the English language was similar to Norse.

  ‘Friend,’ he said. ‘Protector. I have seen enough hurt.’

  The boy’s breathing was violent, each inhalation nearly lifting him from the earth.

  ‘Come on.’

  Loys bent to him and put an arm to his back but the boy rolled. He had a knife! Loys recoiled but the boy stabbed into his chest. He was wearing no mail but he turned and his thick gambeson took most of the force of the blow. The wolf skulking inside Loys came snarling into his mind. He struck the knife away and caught the boy by the throat, his lips drawing back from his teeth, ready to bite.

  No! Not that! He threw the boy down and stepped back. The boy got up and ran again. The cries and catcalls of the men across the meadow came to him like the screaming of gulls behind a ship.

  He was chasing the boy, fast, his instincts triggered by the violence. No! Loys stopped, forced himself to find the stone in his pouch. This was too fast; he could not go to a place where the human faded and the wolf ruled. He couldn’t open the purse with his broken hand so he fumbled for it with his left. He finally had it and he tied it about his neck in a loose knot as best he could, pressing the cold stone to his skin. Immediately his hand hurt more, he breathed harder but the will to tear and bite the boy had gone. Two riders broke from the group at a trot.

  ‘If you can’t do it we will, foreigner!’

  He ran hard now, desperate to reach the boy before the horsemen. The boy could not outpace him, exhausted from running so far, only one shoe on his foot against a man in good boots who had not run a fifth of the distance. Loys grabbed him and dragged him down. Now the boy was not even struggling. Loys took him in his arms, holding him, his body hot from the chase.

 
‘I had a child like you,’ said Loys. ‘I couldn’t save him. But I have saved you.’

  The horsemen drew up. One – a big man called Stephen – drew a sword.

  ‘Are you going to fuck him? You look like you are.’

  Loys returned his gaze. ‘We will have a servant for tonight,’ he said.

  ‘Well put him to work,’ said the horseman. ‘Guillame will be back from his excursion up the hill soon and I want the pick of the meat before that fat bastard gets his teeth into it.’

  Loys looked towards the great hill that loomed over the dale. Cloud had dropped onto the top. Was that why the farmers had run there, because they knew the fog would descend at that time of day? Guillame would be lucky if he didn’t fall off the side, along with his men.

  9 A Spear’s Greeting

  The cold woke Tola. Her house had stopped burning and now did not even smoke. The predawn pinked the sky and Ithamar shouldered his pack. The clouds that had rolled in the night before were still there, purple as bruises, full of snow, ready to drop. The light revealed no more to eat than the fire had – the Normans had been thorough. Tola was not hungry. They had skinned and roasted Lar the night before. She did not let herself think about the meat. She was hungry and had to survive, that was all.

  They had not spoken during the night. She had nothing words could say, there in the ruins of her home. Ithamar, if she had been able to marshal her thoughts to think about him, would have been a mystery to her. Fear was the only thing she felt from him and scarcely even that. He seemed to reflect her own self to her. Somewhere up on the hills a wolf was howling, its voice the key to a trove of nightmares. It was that sound that knifed through her heart when she tried to read Ithamar but it came from her, not from him.

  ‘Will they come?’ said Ithamar.

  ‘They might go anywhere,’ said Tola. ‘They don’t know the land and could come upon us by accident. You came for me. Where are you taking me?’

  ‘I want to go to York,’ said Ithamar. ‘The seer who found you is there.’

  Lost in thoughts of her family and of Hals, she had not questioned him on that. Her father had spoken of Volva – wise women who could see the future, find a thief, or curse a pig to barrenness. He was a Dane and such women had once been famous among his people. She had asked him if she, who could certainly know a thief by sensing his creaking, sneaking heart, might be one. ‘Perhaps,’ he’d said. Her father had died fighting the Dane Hardrada two years before at Fulford Gate under Earl Morcar. King Harold had come and driven the northerners back into the sea, but too late to save her father.

  ‘There are such people? Seers?’

  ‘You raised an army from the stones on that hill,’ said Ithamar. ‘You should know.’

  ‘Are you one?’

  ‘I follow the old gods. I follow Woden, who makes bountiful our fields and slays our enemies, but I am not a seer. Magic is women’s work, or that of the gods. I know a few tricks but no more.’

  She drew the cloak about her.

  ‘Where, then?’

  ‘There is a band of us at Grey Horse Cave. We need to get there and then move on to York.’

  ‘Why not go directly?’

  ‘Other men need to come there and we can’t make it alone. There are men at the cave who know good ways to the city, who will keep us from the Normans. We should leave the horse now the day is clearer.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Too easily seen,’ said Ithamar. ‘We need to go on foot.’

  She touched her ribs. Would they be better or worse out of the saddle? She would soon find out.

  They cut loose the horse and struck south, a bitter wind at their backs. The horse followed them and Ithamar had to drive it off with stones. They had to be very careful about being seen, though they could not go up onto the fells. The weather became too bad – the wind hurling sleet at their backs, pushing them on as if impatient with their progress.

  It hurt her to breathe and walk but it hurt to stop and freeze. She went on, afraid to stop to sleep because of the cold.

  They travelled out of the valley, further than Tola had ever been. Strange hills were all about her, looming grey out of white. The ice wind made her head ache and the sleet had forced its way through both her cloaks, making a damp patch across her shoulders. At one point, where paths crossed, they saw a great many horses had passed – Normans at their ravages, no doubt.

  ‘We will die if we stop,’ said Tola.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But can we have a fire?’

  ‘We have nothing to make a fire with.’

  They walked all morning and then most of the afternoon. In the evening they saw a farm – no more than a hut and a few fields. The Normans had not got to it yet.

  ‘Will it be safe?’ said Tola.

  Ithamar didn’t speak, just strode towards it. It was obvious the hut would be safer than staying outside in the open.

  They descended the wide valley. It was snowing properly and the wind was blowing hard. They came to the hut. There were no animals around, not so much as a chicken. Ithamar knocked on the door. No answer. He shoved the door. It would not budge.

  ‘We need to get in,’ he said.

  He climbed up on to the low turf roof and cut into the packed earth with his knife. He had made two cuts before he gave a great ‘hey!’ and jumped back. A spear had emerged through the turf, narrowly missing his leg.

  Tola shouted at the door. ‘It’s not the Normans, sir, just two travellers looking for shelter.’

  ‘Get out! Do you think me mad? No one travels in this season.’ It was the voice of an old man.

  ‘We are burned out by the Normans ourselves. Please grant us shelter, all our family has been killed.’

  ‘Then you’re bad luck. Go away.’

  Ithamar thumped the door. ‘Old man, open, or I’ll open it myself.’

  ‘Then you shall have a spear’s greeting.’

  Ithamar shoulder-charged the door. It bent under his assault but did not give. As it bulged Tola saw a glimpse of rocks behind it. The man had barricaded himself in.

  ‘Don’t make me break the door!’ shouted Ithamar. ‘It will be a colder night for us all if I do.’

  ‘Get away!’ The voice inside was hysterical, full of wolf howls, of the cries of lost lambs, of the anguish of the people of the dale trapped inside their burning farmhouses.

  ‘Please be calm, sir, we only want shelter. The Normans are far from here!’

  There was a scraping from inside. He was removing the rocks. Ithamar signalled for Tola to step to the side of the door. He did so himself.

  A bang. The door was open and the man flew out, spear first.

  Ithamar drew his axe. ‘Accept what we say. We are friends!’

  The man was old, thin and tiny, his eyes wild. He was almost comical; he reminded Tola of an indignant little bird. He fixed his spear on Ithamar and charged again. Ithamar side-stepped the attack and smashed the butt of his axe into the man’s face, sending him reeling backwards.

  The old man did not drop the spear and was not finished. He charged again and this time Ithamar knocked the weapon aside and engulfed the man with his arm, taking him to the floor. The old man had all the strength of frenzy and wriggled free. From somewhere he produced a knife and stabbed into Ithamar’s arm. The wildman cried out and now it was his turn for frenzy. He smashed his fist into the old man’s face, again, again, again. Then he was upright, stamping down on him. It was a while before he had finished, and when he had, the old man was dead, his mouth gaping open, deformed so far that it looked as though he was pulling a face for a child’s amusement.

  Tola said nothing. It was just a horror among horrors, a white sheep on a snowy landscape. She looked down at the body. It did not even seem human – just a bundle of rags. The hand still clung to the knife.

  ‘
I had no choice,’ said Ithamar. He removed the knife and took up the spear.

  ‘No,’ said Tola.

  ‘Here,’ he said. ‘Take these weapons. Do you know how to use them?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Best not bother with the spear, then. Keep the knife hidden and wait until the Norman is close. They’ll almost certainly try to rape you so that will be your chance. Stab hard and well into unprotected flesh.’

  ‘That will not save me if there are many.’

  ‘No. But it will kill one of them.’

  She went inside the hut. There was wood and kindling but the man had not risked a fire. There was nothing in the way of comfort there and the bed was just a stack of blankets and skins. A cup was on the table, the rim bitten. The old man’s terror had killed him. A braver man might have welcomed them in and been glad of the company and protection.

  Ithamar joined her, the old man’s clothes in his hands.

  ‘Can you tell if they are coming?’ he said.

  ‘The whole land seethes with hatred and fear. It is difficult.’

  ‘Will they come tonight? Can you tell?’

  ‘Maybe. If they are near. I cannot tell.’

  ‘Then we’ll have a fire. Leave the corpse at the door and the Normans may think their kinsmen are within.’

  ‘There would be horses here. And they would not pass by in this weather but come within for shelter.’

  ‘Nothing can be ideal here. We’ll die from cold if we don’t have a fire. We’ll wait until full dark. They won’t see the smoke. Thor has sent us a good cloudhead and the night will be black.’ He spoke haltingly, as if any word took warmth with it as it left his body.

  Ithamar saw to his wound. It was not deep but it was bloody and she saw how he pressed it with the old man’s shirt for a while, put leaves upon it and finally tied it. She would need those skills soon if she was to have any measure of revenge.

  There was a little food in the hut – some gritty bread and cured meat. Had the man lived alone here? Not possible – there must be other farms nearby. She could sense no one. Perhaps they had fled, leaving this stubborn fool to die by the hands of his kinsmen.