Daughter of the Wolf (16 page)

This was the rest of her life, stuck up in the hills forever, bar sheep-shearing and haysel. She wasn't sure whether life was worse when Hirel was at home, or when she was left entirely alone. At least when she was alone he wasn't pawing at her, or throwing her those wistful looks which looked so ridiculous on his jowly, black-browed face.

She had known what a mistake she had made on their wedding night, watching him staggering and spewing and passing out. And her gradually realizing that no one else was going to clean up the mess. And that there was nowhere else to lie down but beside him.

Hirel was hoping hard to get her pregnant.
You'll be settled when you've weans of your own.
But there had been no sign yet, and for that she was thankful.

The day was surprisingly pleasant for October, the turning leaves of birch and rowan glowing against a deep blue sky; it should have been a good day for making butter, but the work was hard and weary, and her heart wasn't in it. She had discarded her housewife's veil – no one could see her, after all – and pinned her thick flaxen braid high on top of her head, and now the sun was warm on the back of her aching neck.

Weans of her own.
Hard enough to learn to be his wife over the last few weeks, never mind mother to his children. As if she hadn't slaved all her life looking after little brothers and sisters! The last thing she wanted was to start again on that endless round. But if she went home, she would have to do just that. What choice was there?

And she couldn't go crawling back to the hall and beg to be let out of her marriage already. She just couldn't. The other women would snigger, and Elfrun look down that snotty little nose of hers. The staff thumped viciously back and forth in the wayward churn. Perhaps some more cream would hurry things along. She tipped a ladleful into the churn from the earthenware pot at her side, and poured a little down her own throat for good measure. It distracted her from the stink of the barrels where the lambskins were tawing.

Better get on.

Hirel had left his old hound with her while he took the young bitch down to the hall with him. Macsen was restless, prowling up and down and growling, but she ignored him. Wolves posed no threat, not at this time of day. Macsen just couldn't bear being too old to work, with his greying muzzle and stiff legs. Hirel said he had always been the best of the dogs, and it broke his heart to see him like this. He petted the dog, tickled him under the chin and stroked his ears, ran a scratching hand down his spine.

He knew how to handle the dog all right. So what made him so clumsy with her?

She shoved the staff up and down a few more times and at last felt the beginning of the heavy dragging response that meant some transformation was happening inside the churn. About time. The last time she had been down to her father's steading Luda had told her several times exactly how much butter and cheese the sheepwick would owe the hall, and that she was now responsible for all of it. She might be a married woman now, but she seemed more firmly under her father's hand than ever. At least he wasn't slapping her around any more. She sang furiously beneath her breath, ‘
Churn, butter, churn! Come, butter, come...
'

Macsen had frozen. He was staring past her, and lifting his upper lip to show what was left of his teeth as he growled on a single, unnerving note.

Saethryth half twisted round. A dark shape shimmered on the edge of vision, in front of the sun. She squinted and it came a little clearer: a figure approaching on horseback just outside the wattle hurdles, hooves noiseless on the new grass. She tried to get up, but she had been squatting in the one position for too long, and her legs were stiff and awkward, threatening to fold beneath her as though she were a newborn lamb.

‘I didn't mean to frighten you.' He was slithering down from his saddle and looping his horse's reins over one of the posts of the lambing pen.

She blinked into the dazzle, half-giddy from heat and effort, and from standing up too quickly. The lord abbot, walking towards her. She had been aware of him since his return from York, of course she had, and more so since she had gathered all her courage in her hands to run to the minster and ask what had happened to Widia, on that dreadful day. But apart from that one time, stripped to the waist and stained with blood and water, she had never quite been able to take him seriously: a shimmer of silk and golden thread, a blur of sweet smoke, a babble of eloquent gibberish. Now here he was clad as an ordinary man, though still with glitter at throat and cuff; and no ordinary man would ever have such a smooth chin or such clean hands, or ride such a sleek white mare. She ducked her head awkwardly, and looked up again to find that he was smiling at her, and coming closer still. She felt her cheeks reddening. His thick dark-brown hair was scattered with silver, but his eyes were dark and bright at the same time, and his teeth were white.

‘Are you looking for my man? Hirel's not – he's not here, my lord. He's down at the hall, gone to meet my father...'

‘So I'd heard,' he said. He was still smiling, though his gaze went flickering past her, to the little house beyond. ‘You have cream on your face, did you know?' He reached out and stroked his thumb over her chin, and then very deliberately he touched his thumb to his mouth.

Saethryth felt an even hotter wave swamp her cheeks. She took a step backwards and stumbled against the churn. It toppled and fell, slowly – oh, so slowly... She could see the buttermilk lapping the wooden rim, ready for tipping out and sinking into the dusty soil... but at the last moment he grabbed the churn and righted it, setting it firmly down on a flat patch of ground.

‘Looks like you need someone to keep an eye on you.'

Saethryth stuck her chin out. ‘I would never have stumbled if it hadn't been for you.'

‘Is that right?' He was looking at her avidly, like a hungry man staring at bread, and she knew her cheeks were still scarlet. If he touched her again, she didn't know what she might do.

But he didn't. Instead he smiled, a slow, lazy curve of the mouth that had her insides turning somersaults. ‘I hope I haven't spoiled the butter. Bring some down to the minster when it's done? Tell them it's special, for me.'

And he had gone, just like that. Turned and swung himself back into the saddle and ridden away, leaving her flushed and restless and confused. She stared down the track for a long time, until the angle of the shadows reminded her that time was passing, and the butter wouldn't churn itself. Butter, he wanted, did he?

She would give him butter.

‘Close the door. Was there anyone in the yard?'

Hirel stepped in, and shoved the door of the hall shut behind him against the hazy autumn sunlight. The day seemed strangely warm and airless for so late in the season. He shook his head. Luda was squatting on a three-legged stool by the cold hearth.

‘Don't you have the lambskins?' The steward's voice was sharp. He stared at the shepherd's empty hands, his unburdened back.

‘The ones that you asked me to hide for you?' Hirel wanted to be sure. He was afraid of this little man, now his father-in-law. ‘This year's?'

‘Not so loud!' Luda tutted. ‘Of course this year's. What else would I mean?'

‘No,' Hirel said slowly. ‘Not with me.'

‘Where are they then? I gave you plenty of salt and alum. I wanted them sorted out, ready for market.'

Hirel grunted. ‘Aye. Skinned and salted each one the same day we killed it.' He paused, thinking back. ‘I had Saethryth scraping the fat off, but there were so many, you hadn't given me enough salt.' He shook his head. ‘Nor enough alum, neither. And a fair few were too maggoty to save by the time your lass got to them. The rest are still tawing.'

‘My lass? Your lass now.' Luda grinned without humour, showing his long top teeth. ‘Learning a bit more about her, are you? No matter.' He picked up his wax tablets. ‘We'll set them all down as lost in the bad weather or taken by wolves, anyway.'

Hirel nodded. ‘A lot was lost, you know.' He frowned earnestly. ‘Really lost, I mean. The flock was scattered at lambing – too often the crows got there before I could. Not like you're putting down there.' He stabbed his raddle-stained index finger at the neat set of tablets. ‘Much worse than last year.'

‘You told me.' Luda shook his head. ‘That's how it goes. Good years, bad years—'

‘You don't have to tell me that.' Hirel was twisting his matted felt cap in his hands. Thunder growled in the near distance, and the air in the hall was unseasonally close. Hirel could feel sweat beading his forehead and prickling in his beard. ‘Think she'll notice? The lady?'

‘Elfrun? Never – not unless you let something slip.' Luda squinted at his son-in-law. ‘So mind you keep quiet. She believes everything I tell her. Now the old besom's down at the minster we're much safer, believe me. That was a piece of luck.' He tapped his tablets. ‘Where are the skins now?'

‘Still up at the sheepwick. I told you.'

‘And when will you bring them to me?'

Hirel's scowl deepened. ‘I want my penny first.'

Luda snorted. ‘I can't pay you till after I've taken them to York and talked to the scribes and the leather-workers. But my cousin should give us a good price.' He paused, looking at Hirel's lowering expression. ‘Don't you trust me?' He leaned back on his stool and folded his arms.

Trust him? Hirel wasn't that much of a fool. He had been shepherd's boy then shepherd at Donmouth all his life, brought up to it by his father, and he knew the wiles of hall servants, even those that were now his kin. But he chewed his lip and twisted his cap and said none of this. ‘What when Radmer comes back? What if he finds out?'

‘He won't. But better safe than sorry.' Luda tapped his finger against the side of his nose. ‘So mum's the word, eh? Even to Saethryth. You know what women are like.'

Hirel frowned. ‘I want my penny now.'

But Luda was already pushing past him on his way to the door. ‘While you're about it, pray for a kind winter.' The steward limped out without looking back.

As if Hirel needed telling. Every man, wife and wean in Donmouth was praying for a kind winter. It had not been the worst of years, but very far from being the best. It was wrong, the lord being away. It was as though the weather knew they were weak. So yes, they were all praying, just as the minster men told them to do. Ducking under the thatch and out into the yard, he kicked viciously and accurately at a stump of rotten wood by the path, and it splintered in a shower of tindery fragments.

The next pedlar who came through lugging his fardel on his back, the next merchant's boat to put in, Hirel had planned to buy as many pretty things as a silver southern penny could get him. Ribbons. Beads. Such trash as women liked.

Pretty things for that pretty wife he had somehow landed, who dragged around the sheepfold with a face like the thunder which was threatening. Hirel gnawed his chapped lower lip. He had been away from home for too long already. Four miles to plod, with the westering sun and the sweat in his eyes, back to the little sheepwick on the edge of the high summer pastures where he cared for a few sheep of his own and a great many of those belonging to the lord of Donmouth hall and the abbot of Donmouth minster.

‘Will you take off your dress? And your shift as well.'

Saethryth just stared at him.

‘What? Is it so much to ask?' He smiled. ‘Cat got your tongue?'

But when he looked at her like that she lost the ability to think, never mind speak.

‘I want to hold you,' Ingeld said. ‘I want your skin next to mine.'

Hot blood charged through her veins. She had thought she knew so much, and yet here she was flustered to incapacity by this simple request. His little private bower was dim, but she felt as though the noonday glare was flooding through both the room and her body.

She mumbled something, more thoughts than words. Then she lifted her head and spoke clearly. ‘Hirel never asks me to take my shift off.'

‘If Hirel valued you properly you wouldn't be here, would you?'

There was only one possible answer to that.

In the end it hadn't been the butter that had furnished the means of her coming to him. That butter had been for the hall, and there would have been questions asked if the weights were short. After nearly two weeks of seeking excuses, she had come down with the cheese instead. Two big rush baskets of hard cheeses wrapped in the coarse leaves of butterbur and pinned with thorns, that had banged against her legs, their plaited handles chafing her fingers, for the darkening three miles between sheepwick and minster. At least the path was downhill all the way. And then the minster cook had tried to take them from her and shoo her away, but she had stood her ground. ‘I want to see the father abbot. I have an important message for the father abbot.' And in the end, grumbling and shrugging, they had let her knock at his door.

And he had said nothing. She had come in and closed the door behind her, and when he saw her his face had lit up, and he had risen from his stool and taken her in his arms, holding the whole length of her close against him, a broad, solid wall against which she could rest. She had buried her face in his shoulder and breathed in the smell of him until the wool began to fret the skin of her cheek, and then she had lifted her face and let him kiss her as though he were trying to drain her to the dregs, leaving her gasping and unsteady.

Being slobbered over by Hirel was sickening; his thick, flabby mouth made her flesh creep. There was something cold about the way he touched her, that didn't realize she too was a living, responsive creature.

But every kiss from Ingeld had seemed a different question.
Is this what you like? This? And now?

And now this.