Daughter of the Wolf (19 page)

But Cudda wasn't a child, and she remembered her insight of a little while ago. Not one of them was a child any more.

She should have seen this coming, or something like it, some disaster. She should have stopped Athulf. With her father away and Abarhild withdrawn to the minster, who was the lord of Donmouth, if not she? Not Athulf, with his pathetic attempt at cobbling together a war-band out of churls' sons, beardless boys with blunt belt-knives.

Why was he claiming to be a leader of men, when he couldn't look after them? When he laid all Donmouth open to a retaliatory raid from Illingham? When he never did any real work, boring work? Those hours and hours spent tallying sacks of barley and weighing wool with Luda: that was lordship, if you like. Not pretending to be a warrior.

She was lord, not him.

Elfrun closed her eyes and breathed in deep, trying to break the iron band that had somehow cooped her ribcage. If she were lord, then she should lead. Her place was at the forge, comforting Cuthred and his family, not skulking on the beach. She rose shakily to her feet. The wind had dried her tears but her face felt stiff and she scrubbed at her eyes with her knuckles.

When she lowered her hands, she saw a figure walking towards her, some way away, a slight fair-haired shape against the pale gleam of the sand and sky behind him.

Cudda, come back, hallowed in a shiver of silver light, raised up like a drowned sailor from the deep haunts of the sea.

She froze, as suddenly cold as though she too had fallen into deep water.

But the picture melted and remade itself, and she saw that though this man was young, and finely built, he was still older and taller than Cudda would ever have the chance to be, and he was a stranger.

Breath shuddered through her.

But where could he have come from? The trail of footsteps he left on the wet sand was already dissolving back into nothingness.

Elfrun drew herself up tall, put her shoulders back, lifted her chin, and waited. When he was around twenty paces from her she raised a commanding hand. To her inordinate relief, he stopped at once. ‘Who are you?' Her voice was higher than usual, but she didn't think it shook. ‘What are you doing on my land, unannounced?'

He bowed, and stood again, his right hand on his heart. ‘I'm a pedlar, lady. A chapman.'

‘Why didn't you blow your horn?' She would have said she knew all the wandering pedlars, those weathered men, bent and sturdy as wind-twisted thorns, who followed the coast road, coming through three, four, five times a year. The same faces at the same festivals, over and over. She knew at once she had never seen this fine-boned face before.

‘I didn't know there were folk so close.' He dipped his head again, but there had been nothing humble about his upright stance, his open gaze. When he raised his face he was smiling. ‘I'm new in these parts. Come across from the Lindsey shore.' He nodded his head southwards.

‘Where's your pack, then?'

He jerked a thumb. ‘Hidden in the long grass. My back needed a rest.' He put his head on one side. ‘Shall I show it to you? Prove myself?'

‘Go on.' Elfrun's hackles were still up. Why hadn't he come to the hall by the road as such wanderers usually did, instead of lurking along the shoreline? She was wary, running through her choices. She could clamber back up over the dunes, and summon one of the men to deal with him; but no one would want to be bothered about some chapman and his pack, not on a day like this one.

Or she could simply walk away while he was out of sight. But she couldn't allow wanderers to go unchallenged on her father's inlands, even if the man had been below the high-tide mark when she had first seen him.

She was lord of Donmouth, after all.

And she was clawing for any excuse not to go back to the forge, at least not until Cudda's body had been safely shrouded, and the blood had soaked away into the hard-packed soil of the forge floor.

Long-legged birds, redshanks and plovers, were picking their way over the gleaming sands, and sea-mews screaming above her head. The sky was hazing over, turning tarnished silver. If the stranger didn't come back soon, she would just walk away. Where had he come from, anyway? She could make out no sign of a boat either seaward or along the shore, although the estuary had so many little creeks and bays, and the fen extended so far inland in places, that a half-hundred ships might hide there if they had their masts down and put in with muffled oars on a moon-dark night.

But here he was again, skidding down the dune beside her. And she wondered now how she could ever have mistaken him for Cudda's after-walker, except that he too was fair and fine-boned. But this young man's hair was ashy-fair, not flaxen, and it fell straight; and now that he was close again she could see he wasn't so young as all that, years older than she had thought, somewhere in his early twenties though his beard was so slight; and that wind and weather had found the time to engrave delicate lines in the corners of his grey eyes. His cheekbones were wide and high, keeping the impress of his smile even after it had faded from his mouth.

But the smile was back now, illuminating his face from within, and Elfrun found a sudden sharp breathlessness afflicting her, a weakness of the knees which was a new sensation, together with a fierce longing to learn more about this stranger.

Of course she did. He was a welcome distraction – and she ignored the racing of her heart. A new face, someone who would talk to her of frivolities, anything to blot out the memory of Cudda's peeled and blistering skin, the ravaged eye-socket, the bone.

She wanted him to tell her something new, something she had never heard before. She needed different pictures in her head.

He was shrugging the densely woven wicker pack from his shoulders.

‘I'm not buying,' she said, and regretted the words as soon as she had blurted them out. If she wasn't buying, why would he linger?

That radiant smile again. ‘But these are my credentials, lady. So you know not to set your hounds on me. And if not you' – he shrugged easily – ‘maybe someone else might be interested?' His eyes flickered past her, inland.

‘Not today. No one would be interested today. There's – there's been a death. An accident.' She was trying to place him. His light voice had an accent which struck her as strange, but not as strange as that of the West Saxon hostages who had companioned the king last time he had come to hunt their woods and eat their stores. She fought the desire to press her cool hands to her hot cheeks. She was lord of Donmouth, was she? She could hear Abarhild, loud and clear.
Time you behaved like it.
‘What's your name, and who are your people?'

‘Tell me yours and I'll tell you mine.' He looked up from his straps and buckles, his face expectant. ‘And I'm sorry for your troubles.' He frowned at her. ‘I thought it was the wind, but now I can see you've been crying, haven't you?'

Taken aback by his directness, Elfrun dashed furiously at her eyes with the back of her hand. She hadn't meant to pass the time of day with this stranger, never mind let him know what was bothering her. ‘My name is Elfrun. My father is the lord of Donmouth.'

‘And this is Donmouth?'

‘Of course!'

‘I thought perhaps these might be your husband's lands.'

‘I'm – I'm not married.'

He raised his hands. ‘I didn't mean to pry. Sorry, Elfrun.'
Alvrun
, he made it sound. ‘And Donmouth is a fine estate, no doubt? A splendid hall and a high seat? A church, rich in silver and gold?'

She nodded, too proud to put him right, thinking ruefully of the hall-treasures her father had taken with him, of the shabby little church still earthen-floored and wooden-walled and likely to stay that way, for all Fredegar's disapproval. They would never build new, not with Ingeld as abbot, not while her father was gone. ‘And you? Your name?'

‘Finn. That's what men call me.'

She nodded again.

‘Do you want to see?' He was opening the lid of his pack. ‘I have some pretty things.'

‘I told you, I'm not buying.'

‘And maybe I'm not selling. But I'm proud of my wares. Come on, lady. Show courtesy to a poor wanderer.' He laughed. ‘Now I've made you blush for your shabby welcome.'

She knew he spoke the truth, both about her treatment of him and her treacherous blood mounting in her cheeks. She could feel her face growing still warmer, despite the nipping, insistent wind. Nonetheless she moved closer, intrigued despite herself by the bundles and packets visible in the basket, eager for any distraction to wipe away even for a few moments the haunting presence of Cudda's burned face.

‘Now...' Finn the pedlar said. ‘Shall I show you some white furs? Silk ribbons from the court of the eastern Emperor? A little amber – some glass beads, nothing fine enough for you.'

Was he laughing at her? She was feeling grubby and shabby enough already, and she flinched at the mere sight of the silk ribbons. He offered a coil of them, but she thrust her hands behind her back, painfully aware of the charcoal smears and the way her rough skin and work-worn nails would snag on the gossamer stuff. The high silver haze was lifting and the day beginning to brighten, if not to warm. She shook her head at him.

‘No? Are you sure?' He trailed a handful alluringly over his forearm. The ribbons slithered and shimmered enticingly, but she was more aware of the light dusting of golden hairs on the smooth brown skin of his arm, and the play of the muscle beneath.

‘No!' More sharply than she had meant.

‘Have you ever smelt kanella?'

Frowning, she shook her head.

‘Cinnamon, you might call it?'

Again, bafflement.

He unscrewed the lid of a little wooden cylinder and she peered in. Scraps and curls of brown bark. She lifted her face to his, puzzled.

‘Pinch a little. Crush it. Rub it between your fingertips. Take a deep breath, through your nose.'

Sweet and yet acrid, the scent hit the back of her nose: heady and utterly foreign. She closed her eyes and breathed deep, as he had told her. From somewhere came bubbling up the familiar words of the wedding psalm,
murra et gutta et cassia
– and she must have spoken aloud, because Finn said, ‘What was that?'

‘
The sweet scent of the spices, myrrh, aloes, and cassia, covers your royal robes,
' she said in English. She opened her eyes, still savouring the extraordinary smell, hardly seeing him. ‘
You delight in the music of harps in palaces decorated with ivory...
' Her breath caught tight somewhere between her breastbone and her throat.

‘Beautiful,' Finn the pedlar said. ‘Don't stop.'

Elfrun could feel her face hotter than ever, and shook her head again. She should not be here alone with this unknown man; she should not be enjoying herself, not on the day that had also seen Cudda's death. She had no idea why she was behaving like this. But she might be dead herself tomorrow.

Heaven knew the psalmist had enough to say about that.
Like sheep they are laid in the grave, and death shall feed on them
.

‘Beautiful,' he said again. ‘Like you.'

She shook her head.

‘Not beautiful, you think? Then I have just the remedy, lady.' He looked into her face and frowned. ‘Don't make that mardy face.'

‘What face?'

‘I can read you fine well. You were thinking I might insult you with some ointment.' But the thing he was unwrapping from a roll of sheepskin was no flask or jar. Something flat and metallic, highly polished, a disc a little larger than her hand, with a handle of welded loops. He passed it over and she took it with both hands, bemused again. Too many new things. She bent over and peered hard. Red enamel set into the greenish-goldish handle, and the flat surface of the disc finely incised with swirls and spirals of great beauty, some fields smooth, others minutely cross-hatched. Dents and scratches enough to show that it was an ancient thing, but not so many that they marred the design.

‘Turn it over.' He was refastening the buckles on his pack, not looking at her.

She did so, wondering. On the other side, the disc gleamed as though newly cast. Again barring a few scratches, the surface was perfectly smooth, shining as though the bronze were still molten.

‘Look into it.'

‘I am looking at it.'

‘Not at. Into.' He lifted his hand. ‘Like this.'

She raised hers, mimicking his gesture, and gazed clearly at her own face for the first time in her life. She was startled beyond words. Where had the chill October gone? In the polished metal, a face was painted in the light of a warm summer evening, a rich golden glow. And that face, staring forthright and wide-eyed back at her... It reminded her of the Madonna picture in St Peter's Minster in York, the one men said had come from the holy city of Constantinople, further even than Rome...

Only gradually did she realize she was looking at no icon but her own true self. The reflection was softened round the edges, but she could see her face clearly enough. Wide brown eyes, and strong brows, the shadowed hollows of eye-socket and cheekbone, strands of her chestnut hair escaping and softening her face, and a big smudge of charcoal across her broad forehead. She lifted her free hand with an exclamation and rubbed it away.

‘See?' Finn the pedlar was close at her shoulder, but the mirror was too small to reflect both of them. ‘Now tell me you're not beautiful.' His voice was warm and teasing.

‘Do I really have so many freckles?' She peered at the dusting that overlay the bridge of her nose and spilled across her cheekbones. No one had reminded Elfrun about the freckles since her mother's death. Suddenly she felt a deep self-consciousness. ‘This is silly. Beyond silly.' Sickened by her own vanity, she pushed the mirror back at him. ‘While we're blethering on, poor Cudda's lying dead back there.'