Daughter of the Wolf (32 page)

Widia tensed again, his face giving nothing away. He nodded, refusing to call this man lord, or father. ‘Where's your mare?'

‘Storm?' Ingeld paused mid-step. ‘In her stable with a capped hock. I thought she should rest it. I expect Athulf's looking after her. What business is it of yours?'

‘Have you been riding her too hard?'

Ingeld had a smile hovering round his mouth. ‘Tend to your hawks and your hounds, huntsman. I know what I'm doing.'

‘That's not what I hear.'

Ingeld paused for a moment. ‘Are we still talking about Storm? Or have we moved on?'

‘You know what I'm talking about.'

Ingeld still had that smile. ‘She's lovely, isn't she?'

They stared each other out. Widia bit his lower lip. The urge to violence was almost too strong for him, and his hand twitched towards the hilt at his waist.

‘Come on then.' Ingeld spread out his hands. ‘What's stopping you? I'm not armed. Do as your conscience lets you.'

Widia jerked his hand from the smooth ash of the knife-hilt as though it had bitten him. ‘Don't tempt me.'

‘You're very ready with your temper for a man who has no claim.' Ingeld was still smiling, but his eyes had narrowed. ‘I saved your life last year: you might do well to remember that. If you've said all you have to say, I'll be on my road.' He turned back to the pathless route downhill back to the minster. As he watched the dark-blue shape dwindle rapidly among the trees, Widia heard him pick up the whistled tune again.

One throw. Just one...

For all the mass of scar tissue down his ribs, he could still aim a knife with force and precision. He took a savage pleasure in imagining the sharp blade flying end over end, embedding itself neatly between the abbot's shoulder blades, Ingeld gasping, his arms flying wide, staggering, slumping to his knees and falling face down.

The image in his mind's eye was so vivid that it was almost more shocking to see Ingeld still picking his way down the slope.

Yes, Ingeld had driven off the boar. There was a debt there he could do without.

Debt?

He had shoved Ingeld out of the boar's path first. And now Ingeld had taken his girl.

Donmouth owed him, not the other way round. Donmouth owed him a lot, and Ingeld most of all.

Widia watched until the solid, confident figure was out of sight. He had never yet attacked any man from behind and without warning, but he could wish he had fewer scruples.

Perhaps next time the boar would do his work for him.

A tiny woven basket, containing a folded butterbur leaf. Someone less sharp-eyed than Fredegar could easily have passed it by or trampled it unnoticing. The priest looked left and right in the early light but as ever when the gifts arrived the churchyard appeared deserted.

This was the fifth. First, there had been that little bone cross. Then, on a bitter morning, just before Lent, a benison of two early eggs in a nest of fleece, small and speckled but delicious after the months of dearth. Then a few weeks later a hare, its neck broken, and the noose still dangling, early on a Sunday morning. A gift from someone who knew that the Lenten fast was lifted on the Lord's Day? Most recently a wreath of spring flowers, long-stemmed daisies tight-woven, buttercups and bluebells threaded through, already fading by the time he found it. Other than the hare, everything had been beautifully presented, and today's little offering was no exception. Fredegar unpinned the thorn that held the leaf together to find a couple of dozen wild strawberries gleaming beneath. To seek out so many perfectly ripe fruits this early in the season must have taken time and trouble, and once again Fredegar found himself profoundly moved. He lifted the basket to his nose and inhaled the essence of summer.

Someone wanted to give him pleasure. It was not a thought to which he was accustomed, and it made him uncomfortable.

Half a year this had been going on, and he had come no closer to finding out his benefactor, although he had been scanning the Donmouth faces at high days and holy days. Was there some unmarried girl nursing an unlikely and illicit passion for her sallow priest? Did one of those stolid churl's faces conceal a guilty secret that would be revealed some day in confession, these gifts left in the hope of a lighter penance?

But although plenty of folk blushed or scowled or averted their eyes under his scrutiny he was no wiser. He fingered the bone cross where it lay on his breastbone between linen and wool, and wondered where to put the basket. It had been skilfully plaited and coiled out of straw, and though he knew never to underestimate the marvellous delicacy of which men's hands were capable, he rather thought that small fingers had made this, and female ones. A few white petals had been scattered over the garnet fruits.

Again he wondered about Elfrun, and again he shook his head. She had a generous spirit and an impulsive one, but her gifts were public ones from her and Abarhild, like the new altar linen, and made to the clerics as a group, or to the church. This furtive practice was surely alien to a girl like her, although of late she had had a haunted look about her which disturbed him. Had an oblate or a young cleric in his care had that look he would have pressed the lad to make his confession and clear his conscience, but he was not Elfrun's novice-master and he felt deeply inhibited about raising the question of her soul's wellbeing with her. Some six weeks ago she had made her Easter confession to him, instead of to her uncle, but it had been perfunctory – should he have challenged her then?

Neither age, nor sex, nor rank should prevent a confessor from doing his plain duty, scrutinizing a penitent's soul as a
medicus
would a flask of urine. And usually Fredegar was scrupulous in his duty. He was sealed to silence, and he held the grubby secrets of the souls of Donmouth in his heart, as though in a locked and iron-bound chest. But he had been unable to put Elfrun to the test, although something heavy was lying on her, the depth of those once-clear brown eyes shadowed and sad. Something more, he thought, even than the burden of her father's death. The shadow had fallen on her before that dreadful news.

He shook his head, walking back into the church. Without meaning to, he took a strawberry from the basket and put it in his mouth. A moment of grainy nothingness, and then as his tongue crushed the fruit against his palate a burst of pure flavour, like sunshine and sweet music, that tasted every whit as good as it had smelt. The strawberry was the plant of the Holy Virgin, in flower and in fruit at the same time, and he had heard it said that these little fruits would be the food of the blessed in Heaven.

But, God forgive him, he was supposed to be fasting before mass. With renewed resolve, he folded the leaf over and pinned it back into place. Fresh linen gleamed on the altar. The year's first harvest of rushes and sweet flag was strewn on the floor. The little church looked as fine as he could make it. He set the little basket down at the base of the altar. A gift to him, or to God?

‘You're not doing so badly, child.'

Elfrun wasn't sure to what her grandmother was referring. The fine-woven diamond-patterned twill which her gnarled hands were tugging this way and that, or the management of the hall? Or just that Elfrun was still somehow moving through her life, despite the awful numbness that deadened her to the world, the sense that she was walking on eggshells, this monstrous clawed grief that gripped her, bear-like, and took away her ability to breathe?

She nodded, and said nothing.

Abarhild had been making one of her unannounced visits to the hall-women's house and the weaving sheds, examining both the work still on the looms and the finer bolts of cloth and braided bands that had been their winter's labour. Not a woman present had escaped having her work dissected, and some of the younger ones had been left in tears. Abarhild appeared highly satisfied with this result now, and she patted Elfrun's arm with her free hand. ‘We'll make weavers of them yet.' She sniffed. ‘Lazy, slapdash creatures, girls. You have to be hard on them so that they learn to be hard on themselves.'

‘Yes, Grandmother.'

‘They think because I'm old they can get away with poor work.' She sniffed again, and yawned. ‘You're not as bad as some.' She patted her granddaughter on the shoulder. ‘I never thought you would manage so well. But we have to think about the future.'

If the news of Radmer's death had frozen Elfrun it appeared perversely enough to have brought Abarhild back to life. She was spending a lot more of her time at the hall, and somewhere through the fog Elfrun knew that she was grateful to her grandmother. The last few blurred, stumbling weeks would have been impossible without her.

‘Take me to the hall, girl. I'm worn out. I need a seat by the fire and a cup of wine.'

‘Yes, Grandmother.' Elfrun pushed her cloak back and waved an arm at a scurrying child. ‘Go and tell Luda he's wanted in the hall.'

‘Yes, lady.'

A snort, and the faint sound of hooves, and Elfrun half turned to see Athulf trotting into her yard, on Mara. She still minded the old sword that hung permanently now at his belt. For that matter, she minded that he had got in the habit of saddling Mara and taking her out without asking. She herself had no heart for riding, however, and she hoped she was not such a dog in the manger that she would deny the same pleasure to him. Besides, Mara needed the exercise.

But she would not let him have Radmer's best sword. Dunstan had brought it safely home, and she had seen Athulf eyeing it. That sword and its scabbard weren't in the heddern any more: they were tucked under the thick-plaited rush of her pallet.

Not a chance she would let Athulf have that sword, though she didn't quite understand why it mattered so much to her.

Athulf was not alone. The spring sunshine glinted in the russet hair of the tall young man riding in behind her cousin, and with a slight tensing of her gut Elfrun recognized Thancrad of Illingham. One thing to know that Athulf spent his waking hours riding and hunting with him; quite another to have Thancrad trotting into her father's yard on that beautiful bay mare of his, with his shoulders back and his head high, looking about him as though he owned the place.

Elfrun knew Athulf would gladly have ignored her, but he could hardly show that same discourtesy to his grandmother. Both young men were slithering down from their saddles to make their bow just as Luda came bustling up, an officious squint on his long face.

If she ordered wine now as her grandmother had commanded, she would have to offer some to Thancrad. It would be too pointed a snub otherwise. But she hated the way he was standing so easily, resting his weight on one foot, holding his horse's reins and looking around him with that cool, narrow-eyed stare, assessing the hall and the stables and the hounds the dumb dog-boy was leading out of the kennels.

Luda was waiting, his eyebrows raised.

It was no good. Abarhild was tired; she was old; she needed warmth and wine and a comfortable cushion. Elfrun was going to have to swallow her pride. But she hadn't been able to forget the jeer on Athulf's face a couple of months back, the way he had menaced her with his blade.
Don't you want to know what he says about you?

No. She didn't. She had a positive horror of finding out. Just having Thancrad here made her jumpy. Even absent, Radmer had been a bulwark against bad things happening. And Illingham was the nearest likely source of bad things.
They're trouble
, Radmer had said.
Avoid them.
Almost the last words he had ever said to her.

Luda was still hovering.

‘Young man!' A long moment before Elfrun realized her grandmother was addressing Luda. Abarhild put all her weight on Elfrun's arm and thrust her stick at the steward. ‘Wine in the hall.' She turned back to Elfrun and said loudly, ‘Keeping us waiting. My father would have had him flogged.'

‘He's a free man, Grandmother.'

Abarhild grunted with amusement. ‘As if that would have made any difference.' She waved her stick again, at Athulf this time. ‘Let me see that sword.'

Athulf came forward unwillingly, and Abarhild peered at belt, hilt and scabbard. ‘My father's sword. I thought so.'

‘Yes, Grandmother.' Surprise was making Athulf's voice swoop unnervingly. Elfrun had to repress a sob of laughter, and he noticed. His face tightened and flushed, and he was clearly bracing himself for a row.

‘My father's sword, on a boy destined for the priesthood?' But unbelievably Abarhild was smiling her hard-faced smile, nodding and tapping the ferrule of her stick on the ground. ‘And his father's before him. It hangs well on you. I was beginning to think you'd never grow.' She nodded at Athulf. ‘Wear it for the time being. And we'll have to think again about your future now.' She half turned to include Elfrun. ‘Everything's different now.'

Athulf was shifting uncomfortably, and Thancrad stepped forward, deflecting attention, and bowing. ‘I am Thancrad of Illingham, lady.'

‘I know who you are.' Abarhild cleared her throat, almost growling. ‘I knew your father when he was a wisp of a lad not half your size.'

The thought of Tilmon, massive as a side of beef, ever having been
a wisp of a lad
was almost enough to set Elfrun off again. She could feel laughter coming up inside her chest like the punch of a fist. What was wrong with her?

‘And how is your mother settling in at Illingham?'

‘If my mother had known I would be seeing you I am sure she would have sent greetings.' He bowed. ‘She is well enough, but she complains about the damp.'

‘Really? After where she's been?' Abarhild snorted. ‘Come on, inside.'

Elfrun sat on a stool at Abarhild's feet, her head lowered and her hands clasped around her untouched glass, the thick brown plaits hanging down the sides of her face and hiding her hot cheeks. She wished they would go away.