Daughter of the Wolf (27 page)

Not so much the flavour, though that had palled long ago in the dark, hungry days of midwinter. The chewing. Hard enough for those with their full complement of teeth, she thought angrily. One of her women had stewed the air-dried leathery strips all day to make something she could mince and manage, but Abarhild tilted the bowl and supped out the broth alone, leaving the indigestible nuggets for someone else. Sunday had come at last, and she surely deserved something better after the six long hungry days of the Lenten week. Fredegar had suggested she fast before mass, but that was one reform she couldn't hold with.

The world was coming out of winter, with the equinox in sight, and Easter itself less than two weeks the other side of it. Celandines were flowering on the sunny side of the sheltered ditches, and every bush was full of busy nest-building. But for some reason the spring warmth wasn't reaching her bones, and Abarhild pulled her stool closer to the hearth.

‘Careful, my lady!' Her woman was at her side, steadying her. ‘We don't want you falling in the fire!'

They were both silent for a moment.

‘It's nearly time for mass,' her woman went on at last, offering Abarhild her stick. And indeed, the minster bell was loud and close. ‘You'll enjoy that.'

‘I'm not going.' She took the stick and planted it in front of her, both hands gripping hard.

‘Forgive me, my lady?'

‘I said I'm not going.' Abarhild looked discontentedly at the concerned face, pink and foolish, looming over her. ‘It's too cold in that hovel of a church.' She pulled her woollen wrap more securely around her. ‘Who's singing mass, anyway?'

‘Father abbot, my lady. Your son Ingeld. Let me help you up.'

‘I know who the abbot is, you gabbling fool.' Abarhild shifted away from the source of her annoyance. ‘And I'm not going. You go. Tell him I'm not well.'

‘But I can't leave you if you're not well!'

‘Then tell him I'm too tired. Tell him anything you like. Just get out.' She raised her stick.

Her woman backed away, and bolted.

Abarhild stared at her hands where they clutched the smooth blackthorn. Her hands were famously white and smooth, long-fingered and skilful, with oval nails which her women rubbed with sweet oil until they shone. She was proud of them, she deployed them artfully when she spoke in the hall, lifting her arm in a practised gesture so that the embroidered linen fell back, exposing the pale skin; and her gold rings and gleaming nails scattered the firelight. At the harp. At the loom. Reaching out to move a gaming-piece triumphantly across the board. Those were her hands. Who had stolen them, and replaced them with these useless lumps of gnarled wood, hideous with their veins, their massive knuckles and withered skin? Once she had thought there could be no worse fate than being taken from her cloister. But this was worse. What sorcerer had done this to her hands?

She began to struggle to her feet. The stool shifted behind her, but she managed somehow to keep her balance. Her hands – no, not her hands, those travesties that belonged to some old woman, not her, never her – groped for her stick. When had she started to use a stick? Something was terribly wrong.

Someone was behind her, supporting her. Strong arms. Gentle. ‘Grandmother? Are you all right?'

‘Yes,' she said.

That boy. Ingeld. No, Ingeld was her son. Her darling son. Her last-born. It couldn't be Ingeld. Why would he call her grandmother? That other boy... a dear, good boy, angel-faced, They said he was wild. But it was right and proper that boys should have a spark about them. She had always liked the wild ones. Not girls. Girls shouldn't be wild, for their own good.

Her wild boy. What was his name?

‘Grandmother, there's a boat in the bay! We think it's my uncle come home!'

And at that some of the fog cleared.

‘Radmer,' she said. ‘Oh, dear God. At last.'

The boy – Athulf, that was it – was helping her out into the sunlight. Her eyes watered with the brightness of it.

‘They're just harnessing the oxen, Grandmother.'

‘You don't want him to come home, all you little foxes,' she said, loud and clear. ‘You've been having a splendid time while the wolf's away.'

Silence, but for the
tee-ick tee-ick
of an alarmed lapwing, somewhere down by the shore.

The boat was a pot-bellied coaster, ugly but serviceable. It stood out in the estuary while one of the Donmouth four-oared fishing boats was rowed over with Luda aboard. They watched the steward standing unsteadily in the rocking bow of the little vessel and shouting up at its captain, but they could hear nothing of the words. Elfrun observed the little glinting rills of the waves coming over the mudflats, and thought back to the day her father had left. Was it truly only half a year? What a child she had been. Her only thought then had been to please him, and do as she was told. She looked sideways at Athulf. He still looked like a child, beardless and soft-chinned for all the greater breadth and height, but he had changed too.

Luda was shouting at his oarsmen now, and the boat's prow was turning. No one new had scrambled over the strakes and down into the little shell. Elfrun scanned the ship again, looking for her father's familiar bulk, for a second boat putting out, but as far as she could see there was nothing.

A cold hand gripped her heart. Was this ship bringing the bad news she had been telling herself and everyone else was never going to come?

‘Father abbot, there's a gift for you aboard, the man says, from friends to the north.'

‘For me?' Ingeld's voice was urbane as ever but Elfrun could not miss the relief on his face. ‘From whom?'

Luda jerked his head. ‘They're coming. It's a Frisian trader, been up to Tayside over the winter and heading homeward now.'

And indeed even as he spoke the little broad-beamed yole belonging to the trader was pulling for the shore, five men aboard, four rowing and one standing. Or was it six? A smaller figure, much smaller, also standing.

As the boat drew closer they could all see there were the backs of several shaggy animals on board, stowed between the middle thwarts. Very small horses? The tide was low, and even such a shallow-keeled little craft couldn't come right into shore. It grounded itself some twenty yards out, and rocked sideways, and the men aboard started jumping over the strakes and into the thigh-deep water.

The new arrivals were being lifted over the topmost strake and carried to the shallows.

‘They're dogs,' Elfrun said in disbelief.

Athulf's eyes were shining.

Enormous, leggy dogs, with shaggy coats variously in pewter-grey, creamy-red and ashy-black, and pointed, intelligent heads. Three of them. And a little child to lead them.

The red-cheeked captain was bowing to Ingeld. ‘From his grace the lord abbot of Meigle, my lord. I have a letter' – the captain pulled it from the neck of his tunic – ‘but I can tell you, my lord, that these are pearls among hounds. From the bloodlines bred by the ancient kings of Fife, celebrated in song and story, and as valiant in the hunt as they are on the field of battle.'

‘I know a good hound when I see one.' Ingeld held out his hand.

‘I've no doubt of that!' The captain grinned and passed the letter over. ‘Only obeying my instructions, my lord.'

Ingeld looked up, his dark eyes gleaming. ‘Their names are Gethyn, Bleddyn and Braith.'

Elfrun looked at the hounds. Indeed, they looked like creatures out of legend, standing up to the chest of the silent, brown-haired boy who held them on their red plaited leashes. Their collars were also of red leather, with gleaming bronze buckles. One yawned, and she had to keep herself from flinching at the sight of the great teeth and lolling pink tongue. ‘And the boy?'

‘There's nothing here about the boy.'

The captain stepped forward again. ‘The boy goes with them.' He grinned and spread his hands. ‘He doesn't speak. But the abbot's dog-master told us that he was raised in the kennels himself and has tended these three since they were pups. He's a good boy.'

‘You mean, he doesn't speak, or he can't speak?'

A shrug. ‘Whistles, lady. Gurgles. But the dogs always know what he means.'

She stared at the boy. Small, with glossy nut-brown hair and eyes, surely no more than seven or eight years of age. He gave no sign of knowing that he was the subject of their talk. Deaf as well as dumb? Or did he only comprehend the language of the Picts? She would have to try him with Hirel or one of the others who spoke British, and see if anyone could make himself understood.

Elfrun took a deep breath. ‘You must come up to the hall.' She waved an arm to show she meant crew as well captain. ‘Uncle, you may house these creatures in our kennels for the time being. You must all come – we must feed you and reward you for the service done to our house.'

Ingeld had stepped forward too, but he was greeting the hounds not the men, letting the great shiny black snouts sniff and lick his palms and nuzzle between his fingers. Athulf had joined him, and for the first time Elfrun could see how alike her uncle and her cousin were, now that Athulf was growing, at last. The dog-boy was still standing in the fringes of the sea as his charges thrust themselves forward to make friends with their new master. His large hazel eyes looked downward, at his chapped hands clutching the plaited leather, at the chilly little waves that came breaking around his heels.

‘What are you doing in here?'

Athulf ignored her.

The heddern, at the back of the hall, had been dark even before Elfrun had come to the doorway, but she knew what she had seen.

‘You shouldn't even be in here. Put that down.'

He had his back to her, not so much as acknowledging her presence.

She felt a screeching fury threatening to hatch inside her and choked it back. ‘Put it down,' she said again. ‘How did you get in here?' There were only two keys. Abarhild had the spare for safekeeping. All their wealth was in here, of wool and linen and treated lambskins, of stored garments and precious spices, of the war-gear and hall-gear that her father had left behind. No one was allowed in here without her say-so.

It was the war-gear that was troubling her now.

‘How do you think I got in?' Athulf had lifted the sword and was squinting down its length. ‘You're blocking my light.'

‘That's my father's sword.'

‘My father's father's.
Our
grandfather's. And his father's before him.' Athulf sounded as though his teeth were clenched hard.

Elfrun bit her lip. ‘That still doesn't give you the right—'

‘And look at it!' He still had his back to her. ‘I can't believe stupid scar-face Widia keeps his precious hunting knives in a barrel of oiled sand, while this gets left to rot in its scabbard.
Look
at it!' He swung round, his hand high, holding the sword with the point down. ‘There are nicks in the blade not whetted, and
rust
...'

True enough. Even in the murky light of the heddern Elfrun could see the dull, rough-brown patches, like a malevolent mould that had crept across the old steel. The hilt and guard still glowed, though, their gold-wire ornaments standing proud and untarnished against the dulled silver.

‘It's not Widia's job, looking after the swords,' she said. ‘My father took Dunstan with him, remember—'

‘I know that!'

‘Put it back.' Elfrun took a deep breath. ‘I'll tell Widia to see to it, if that would make you happy.'

‘No.'

‘What?'

‘Widia's only a huntsman. He's no swordsmith.' His arrogance was blinding. ‘I'm taking it. I'm going to get sand and some goose fat to deal with the rust, and then I'll take it to Cuthred. If I'm going to carry a sword I want it properly maintained.'

‘You can't have that sword!'

‘Why not? No one else is using it. It's not your father's best. I wouldn't have touched that one, even if he had left it behind.'

‘But you can't just take this one, either. He'll be so angry—'

‘I'm nearly sixteen!' It came out at a shout, and long force of habit had them both looking guiltily at the door. In a lower voice, Athulf went on, ‘If your father were here, he would have invested me with my sword by now. Long ago. Thancrad had his sword when he was fourteen—'

‘So that's what this is about.' Elfrun sat down heavily on a barrel, her back against the wall. ‘Thancrad of Illingham. I should have known.'

‘They said if I have my own sword I can join their wolf pack. Him and his cousins. He said I was good.' Athulf extended his arm, lifting the sword first this way and then that. The blade was a heavy one, and for all her anger Elfrun was impressed by his steady grip and smooth, graceful turns. ‘I am good.' He turned his wrist and brought it down suddenly, whistling through the air, and she flinched and faltered despite herself.

‘Athulf!'

‘See? As good as he is, any day. I need a shield, too.' He turned his head and scanned the shelves and racks.

‘Athulf, this is madness. Put that sword back. My father will be back soon. You can ask him then.'

He turned and looked at her, and Elfrun did her best to hold his gaze. Hard to see anything but the little cousin, the pest with the floppy, mouse-brown fringe, dimpled and desperate for attention, always toddling after her on his sturdy legs. He was walking towards her now, the light from the doorway falling on his face. His eyes were a hard, pale blue.

‘You really don't understand, do you?'

He lifted the blade to the horizontal in one even gesture that made it seem a living extension of his arm, while still moving towards her. She forced herself to stay still and keep his gaze as he came closer and closer, stopping at last with the point resting lightly on her left breast. ‘My bossy big cousin,' he said. ‘Always telling me what to do. Always judging me. Like Grandmother. Telling me I should become a priest.' The scorn in his voice was palpable,
priest
spat out like an obscenity.