Daughter of the Wolf (24 page)

The others were joining him, taking up all the space round the fire. One of the women was bringing more wood, feeding it carefully into the blaze. Thancrad's mother was at his elbow with hard cheese, more oatcakes, some relish of onion chopped with herbs. He was starving, and he ate and drank everything she offered. He was always hungry, and usually it felt as though there was not enough food in the world to satisfy him, but at last he shook his head, and she motioned away the woman with the basket of flatbreads.

‘Now,' and she was sitting next to him. He looked down at the hand she had placed on his arm. A little, pale paw, broad with stubby fingers and tidy nails, Silver-gilt shimmered on one finger. ‘Tell me about your dear father.'

‘My father?' A wave of bitterness and exhaustion rolled over him. But she had called Ingeld
dear
. She wouldn't want to know his true thoughts.

‘Is he settling into being the abbot of Donmouth?' She laughed, and her tone was warm and affectionate. ‘It's so hard to imagine. Pious, virtuous... I remember how we all sighed over him, before I had to go away, when he was still only in minor orders. Of course, I was long married, and already a mother, but even so...' She shook her head. ‘But he would never have looked at me, even then. I was never pretty enough to catch
his
eye.'

Athulf couldn't work out if she was praising his father or criticizing him. Whichever, it made him uncomfortable, and he wondered how old she was. It was so hard to tell with women; once they were veiled they all looked the same. As old as his father, by the sound of it, and his father had turned thirty last year. That was why they had made him be a priest. You couldn't be a priest until you were thirty. His cup was somehow full again. The others were talking over the day's adventures, the flocks of duck that had stubbornly dodged the net, the valour of one dog and the stupidity of the other, the hilarious moment when Addan had stumbled and tripped backwards into the bog.

‘Ingeld's not pious,' he said. Despite everything Athulf felt the need to defend his father. ‘He says mass, of course, but apart from that...'

Dene had hauled himself to his feet, re-enacting the story of Addan's fall. Misjudging his step, he collapsed heavily into Athulf's lap. Athulf's cup went flying from his hand, and to his horror he saw it land and break in two on the edge of the hearth.

He cowered, waiting for the reprimand. But it was Dene on whom Thancrad's mother turned her censure. ‘Get off, you great oaf. That's no way to treat a guest. Let me get you a fresh cup, Athulf.'

So this was what it felt like, when you were the man who mattered most in a company. Warm, glowing, cosseted. Athulf thought he could easily get used to this. He looked across the fire to find Thancrad was watching them, his face solemn, hands loosely clasped between his knees. Thancrad could be such a bore, reining in him and the others. So serious, stern even, he reminded Athulf sometimes of Radmer at his humourless worst.

But he was being given no time to dwell on Thancrad's shortcomings. Switha was at his elbow again. ‘Try some of this. It's a different brew. There's more meadowsweet in it.'

He sipped. Cloying and sticky and so sweet it set his teeth on edge. He drained it at a draught.

‘I'm so glad that you and Thancrad have become such good friends. That was wonderful, you spotting the whales. That'll help us all through the winter. Tell me about it.'

‘Yes,' he said. He wanted to say something interesting, so she would go on thinking him wonderful. ‘I saw them first.' But his tongue was thick in his mouth, and he couldn't find the words.

It didn't seem to matter. She went on talking, asking more questions about the whale-drive, drawing him on to tell stories about his life, about Donmouth hall and minster. Shy at first, the words started coming willy-nilly. What it was like with Radmer gone. Cudda's death, and he felt the tears he had not yet shed prickle the corners of his eyes. How Abarhild and Ingeld between them had thwarted his hopes.

‘But of course you must have a sword! Are there no swords left at Donmouth?' She pulled back and stared at him, those warm, dark eyes round with astonishment. ‘Look at you! It's not just who you are – who your grandfather was – but such a promising young man...' Her eyes were flickering this way and that, assessing his shoulders, his thighs, her gaze as palpable as a spider darting over his skin. He sat up taller. She tutted. ‘Why on earth would they think to make you a priest? You could have Donmouth as a lay abbacy, if they put their minds to it. Surely Osberht would see the advantages to that? Whatever is Ingeld thinking of?'

‘It's my grandmother.' He cradled his empty cup and tried to remember everything Abarhild had said. ‘She says if I don't become a priest I won't get anything.'

‘Abarhild.' There was contempt in her voice. ‘That meddling old besom. She always did think she knew best.'

For all the fog and muzz of the mead, Athulf felt as though he had climbed a steep slope to emerge on a sunlit plateau with views to the far horizon. He had been trapped in confusion and anger for days. But it didn't have to be like that.
Meddling old besom
. The phrase was delightful. Everything was delightful. Switha was holding up a jug, those sparkling black eyes quizzical.

‘There are swords at Donmouth,' he said slowly. ‘But they're locked away.'

‘And who has the key?'

Athulf opened his mouth to say that Elfrun and Abarhild had the keys to the hall heddern, but a sudden lurch of nausea prevented him. Switha had turned away to replace the jug and, looking across the hearth, he found Thancrad still watching him, the firelight flickering on his cheekbones. Thancrad's eyes narrowed, and he got to his feet. ‘Come on.'

Athulf clenched his throat against another queasy surge, and he was only too relieved to let Thancrad steer him outside, into the chilly yard. He barely had time to register that the rain had stopped before he staggered and spewed heroically against the side of the hall. Retch after retch, until his throat and eyes were burning.

Thancrad was laughing softly under his breath. ‘I was watching you putting it away. I knew there'd be trouble.' Laughing, but he sounded bitter rather than amused.

Athulf was cold and sweating, but now that the mead was out of his belly he was more master of himself. His first instinct was to swing his fist against Thancrad's face, but he reined that in, swallowing down the bile. When he could speak he said, ‘Your mother is very kind.'

‘My mother?' Thancrad was outlined against the open door of the hall, and Athulf couldn't see his expression. ‘Yes, she's very good at drawing people to her. I can see why you'd like her.'

People? He wasn't
people
. Athulf needed very badly to think that Switha's smiles, her questions, that assessing, admiring gaze, had all been special, all been for
him
.

‘Come to bed, wife.'

Saethryth was sitting between him and the hearth, a dark shape with a faint golden outline. She had said she was going to finish her carding, but he had been watching her ever since lying down himself, and she had not moved, combs and fleece left untouched in the basket at her side. Her back was to him, and she sat with her arms around her knees, gazing into the little fire. If she wasn't working, she should come to bed. She still had her dress on over her linen and a shawl around her shoulders, as though she had no idea that he was waiting for her.

If he reached out his arm his fingertips would graze her back, and yet he felt as though there was a yawning gap between them, one that he could not bridge.

Hirel propped himself up on one elbow. ‘Wife?'

She neither moved nor answered, and this annoyed him. The night was cold, and he wanted her body next to his, to warm him as much as for his pleasure and the kindling of the child he wanted so badly. And she was sitting so as to block the little heat from reaching him. ‘Bank the hearth and come to bed.'

She responded with a shrug of her shoulders that could have been designed to anger him, but he was determined not to let her goad him to fury, not this time. Tucked in the pouch around his neck was the silver penny that Luda had finally handed over, and Hirel came to an uncharacteristically sudden decision. Putting a smile on his wife's face was not something that could wait until the first merchant ship or wandering pedlar came by in the spring when the sea-roads reopened. Give her the penny, and she could pass the winter with the pleasure of planning and choosing for herself.

‘Do as you're told...' He paused. ‘...and I've a gift for you, wife.'

That shrug again.

‘Wife?'

She muttered something.

‘What?'

‘Stop calling me that!'

Hirel felt an increasingly familiar surge of fury rising up from some pit of fire deep inside him, and he forced himself to keep breathing, to swallow it back. Shouting at her had got him nowhere. ‘Be firm with her,' Luda had told him, ‘that lass needs a strong hand. Belt her if need be.' But if he yelled at her, she just screamed back at him; and the one time he had taken her father's advice and given her a smack she had brooded and huffed, and refused to let him near her for days on end. That had been a few weeks back, when he had first brought the flocks down to graze the home fields, and the blow had come because he had been so hurt and angry at her chilly welcome.

‘Saethryth? Look.'

He was fumbling with the tight thongs of the pouch, all his attention engrossed in unpicking the hard little knots. But, when he looked for her again, the silver penny pinched between his clumsy, stained fingertips, she was gone. The door was settling back on its leather hinges.

Hirel swore. His first thought was to go after her, and then he felt aggrieved again. He was bone-weary, and the heap of blankets, topped with a couple of sheepskins, was only just warming up. This wasn't what he had bargained for when he and Luda had gone to Elfrun to tell her that the marriage was in the wind and Saethryth was willing.

Willing.

He swore again, and shoved the blankets to one side.

Outside the house the night was even colder, the heavens clear and a filling moon tangled in the top branches of the elder thicket. There would be ice on the puddles come the morning. Somewhere off to the west a vixen barked. Hirel turned east and south, he wasn't sure why, towards the sheep-track that led ultimately down to the minster pastures. He trod softly, bare feet careful on the slick grass, but if she wanted to avoid him it would be easy enough, he knew. He was a big dark shape lumbering and crunching though the silver night.

Was he even going in the right direction? He stopped, and peered back up the slope. The moon was bright enough to cast a long shape, and he could see nothing moving, nor could he make out any huddled shadow that might be Saethryth holding her breath, waiting until he had gone.

What was wrong with the woman?

He was a good catch, a steady worker, a free man. He was young and healthy. There were sheep of his own running among those of hall and minster. He might not have the standing of her father, but he had thought her glad enough to get away from under her parents' roof. You didn't have to stand and gossip like the old women to know that Luda had a heavy hand. You only had to be near the steward's house with a pair of ears on you. His wife fought back, though. That would be where Saethryth had learned her shrill curses.

Married all these weeks, and he'd only smacked her once. She should be counting her blessings.

Hirel carried on down the hill, for lack of a better option. She could have gone down the other track, the one that led to the hall. Back to her parents' house, as well, though. Or turned uphill, and followed the winding path that climbed at last to reach the summer pasture. But she would find no shelter up there, not in December.

He wanted to call her name, but the midwinter night was too huge and silent. He felt as though his voice would be swallowed up by the moonlit emptiness. What if he tried to shout and no sound came from his lungs?

‘Wife?' His voice was tentative enough. But she'd asked him not to call her that, though he loved its soft syllable. ‘Saethryth?' The land rose before falling away again, and from here he could see the moonlight on the still waters of the sea, a silver streak on the horizon. The cold in the back of his nostrils told him again that ice was coming.

How far did Saethryth expect him to follow her? Hirel had thought he would have found her by now, waiting for him, chilled and penitent, wanting him to plead with her just once more to come home. He thought with a sudden savage pleasure of the satisfaction it would give him to put a ring in her nose and a rope through it, force her to do his will that way, as though she were one of the beasts.

The beasts were so much easier.

And he had had enough. He was cold, and his bed was waiting for him. From here the path went down into the stands of timber, and she could be hiding anywhere. She could play her stupid little games on her own. Hirel turned abruptly, and as he did so he stumbled. The silver penny, which he had forgotten he was clutching between his cold fingers, flew into the sagging tangles of winter grass.

Hirel stared after it in disbelief. There would be no finding it, not in this light which made everything shine silver. But that didn't stop him from falling to his knees and rummaging through the dead grass after the little hammered disc of metal. Fruitless, and he knew it, and after a few moments he stopped and sat back on his heels.

Above, the silver circle of the moon mocked him.

Hirel wept.

Fredegar was alone in the church, broom in hand. He had been sweeping every corner of the muck and wind-blown detritus that constantly found its way in, despite his constant sharp words to the other clerics, especially the two boys. They never kept the door closed, and the birds had been constantly swooping in and out, soiling the altar.