Daughter of the Wolf (41 page)

Addan spat into the fire. ‘You can't join the war-band if the king won't have you. He'll have Thancrad long before you.' His tone was dismissive. He reached out to turn the hare round a little. ‘Why is this taking so long?'

‘I'm a better swordsman than Thancrad.'

‘Thancrad's got a father.'

Athulf tensed. ‘And I haven't?'

‘A father who'll speak for him. Who'll take a proper interest. It's no good your being Switha's little pet if Tilmon doesn't know you exist.'

A father who'll take a proper interest...
Athulf thought about Ingeld's offhand shrug and lazy smile. He bit his lip, hiding the slow burn of fury nestled in the pit of his stomach. ‘The only thing he's interested in is his woman.'

‘The shepherd's wife?' Addan grinned in his dark beard. ‘Oh, we've heard about her.
All
about her.'

Dene reached out and poked the fire. ‘They say the shepherd doesn't know, that he's too stupid to smell what's under his nose. Maybe you should tell him.' They were both laughing now.

Athulf was irked that they didn't seem to be taking him seriously. He rose from his squat and took a few paces away from the fire, into the nearest trees.

‘Don't you go too far,' Addan said. ‘We don't want to be using you for target practice again.' He patted his bow.

Athulf thought back to the swan-fletched arrow quivering in the birch-trunk, the first time he had met Thancrad and these two, and he laughed. ‘You never sent that arrow. You're not good enough, not half.'

‘And you think you're so sharp?'

Athulf wheeled. ‘I'm better than you, anyway. I led that cattle-raid, didn't I? Any time you want—'

Addan's young bitch was on her feet, ears pricked. ‘Stow it,' Addan said. ‘Someone's coming.' He grabbed her by the scruff and clamped his other hand round her muzzle.

The three youths froze. It was too late to do anything about the fire, though, and the roasting hare appeared to gaze at them, accusing, ghastly and reproachful.

There was a rustle and a scrabble in the long grass, and a lop-eared hound appeared and rushed over to Athulf. He turned to the others, hiding his relief, fondling the dog's ears. ‘It's all right. It's one of ours. The hall's, I mean. It must be Widia.'

The other two still looked wary. ‘He won't mind? Us hunting Donmouth land?'

Athulf grabbed the dog's collar and stood as tall as he could. ‘My land, you mean? Of course not. He wouldn't dare.' The dog was straining, longing to make the acquaintance of Addan's bitch, but Athulf hung on until Widia came in sight and whistled, and the dog, reluctantly obedient, went to his heel.

‘There you are. Good lad.'

Athulf twitched and frowned before realizing that Widia was addressing the dog. He had been praying that the huntsman wouldn't treat him like a child, as he still did far too often. Not in front of the others.

‘Fine hunting, lads. Better luck than mine.' He gave his twisted smile, and showed his empty hands. ‘May I join you?' He interpreted Dene's scowl correctly. ‘Oh, I'm not after your hare. Just your company.' His dog, released, went to nose in the pile of hare-guts, and was joined by Addan's bitch.

Athulf let out a long, slow breath.

‘From Illingham?' At their nods Widia squatted awkwardly and made a show of warming his hands, though the evening was mild. ‘Don't mind me. What were you talking about?'

Addan grinned. ‘Athulf's father. The lord abbot of Donmouth, and the virtuous example he sets us all.' He reached out and turned the blackening hare. He made a face. ‘It'll be dry.'

‘I don't care,' Dene said.

Widia laughed. ‘Quite right, lad. No need for butter and honey when you're out in the hills.'

Athulf came to a sudden decision. ‘We were talking about Saethryth.' He looked hard at Widia. ‘We were saying someone should tell the shepherd outright my father's been tupping his favourite ewe. They say Hirel still doesn't know.'

‘Aye, I've heard that.' Widia's face had gone taut, the scar tissue livid and stretched. ‘But I wouldn't be so sure. It may be that Hirel doesn't want to force a confrontation. You were there when he fought the bear, you saw how that fell out.'

‘The bear?'

Widia sighed. ‘Are you stupid, lad? He can't challenge the lord abbot to a fight. The abbot is backing the bear, so he fights the bear instead. But the bear won. Put yourself in Hirel's place for a bit. Leave the man alone.'

Athulf felt mulish, and all the more so for being contradicted. ‘But he ought to know what's going on. For his own good.'

‘Stow it. He loves his wife, I know that.'

‘What, that slut?'

Widia held up a warning hand. ‘Never in my hearing, all right? And where does Hirel get his living? There's more at stake for him than honour. You shouldn't talk like that, not about him, or her, or your father.' Widia's dog picked up his master's mood and growled low in his throat.

‘Why not? He's got plenty of time for her, but he's too busy to notice I exist.' Athulf reached out and snatched the spitted hare off the upright sticks. ‘That's done.' Gripping it tight, he hacked off a back leg with his belt-knife and chucked the carcase to Addan. ‘Yours, I believe.'

Addan was bristling. ‘I killed it. I should have had the first share.'

‘My hills, my hare. Want to come and get it?' Athulf waved the leg at Addan, then took a bite and chewed the charred meat, slowly and ostentatiously. Addan stared for a moment, then grunted something non-committal and began sawing at the pathetic little corpse with his own knife.

Widia looked from one to the other, a troubled expression on his face. ‘I'll be leaving you then.' He got slowly to his feet and whistling his dog he headed off down the slope.

As well as the hare, Athulf was still chewing over some-thing Addan had said earlier. ‘What did you mean,
Switha's little pet
?'

Addan grinned. ‘Go and ask her, why don't you?'

‘You come between me and the sun. You dazzle me.'

‘Are you complaining?' Saethryth leaned forward so that her hair tickled his face, and Ingeld brushed it aside, laughing.

‘No, not complaining. Never complaining.' He gripped her waist hard, delighting in the play of her strong muscles under the soft sheathing of skin, running his hands lightly over her ribcage and up to her breasts. ‘Just thinking. Just looking.'

‘Well, stop it! You have to go soon. Don't waste time.'

‘Fredegar and Heahred can look after the minster for me.' He closed his eyes and lay back. ‘Do that thing with your hair again.'

‘Only if you tell me I'm pretty.'

‘You are pretty.' He opened his eyes again and looked at her in mild incredulity. ‘Do you doubt it?'

‘And you've never loved anyone as you love me.'

‘I have never loved anyone as I love you.'

‘Not even your mother.'

He laughed. ‘Not even my mother.'

‘Not even Athulf's mother.' Saethryth lowered her head and drew her hair across his chest, a back-and-forth sweep of gossamer, and he sighed. ‘Go on,' she said.

‘I can't say that. I don't know if it's true.'

‘You still think about her.' She shifted sideways on to the thick-piled stack of straw that made their bed.

The mood between them had sobered. Ingeld propped himself up on one elbow and tugged a strand of straw free. ‘No, not really. It was so long ago, and we were so young, and she died. But she was my first girl, and I thought she was very lovely.' He pleated the straw over and over until the stem cracked and fell apart in many small fragments. ‘Does it bother you so much?'

‘Athulf isn't very lovely.'

‘Athulf is a lumpen youth. Hard to believe I was no older than he is now when I got him. But nonetheless he has a look of her, and I find I tolerate him for it.'

Saethryth sat up with her arms around her knees. ‘Move over. It tickles, with my arse on the straw.'

He shifted sideways, making space for her on their makeshift coverlet. ‘She's dead. We're alive. Life is short.' He stroked her cheek with the back of his hand. ‘Youth is shorter.
Life is on loan, love is on loan...
'

‘Stop it.' She caught his hand and trapped it against her face, kissing the palm. ‘Pass me the flask.'

‘There's not much left.'

After she had sipped the sticky liquid she put the wooden bottle down on the floor, not bothering to replace the stopper. ‘Why don't I feel guilty?'

He propped himself up on one elbow. ‘What do you mean?'

‘About this. About Hirel.' She made a circular gesture, encompassing the makeshift bed, their entwined legs. ‘I never meant to be a bad wife. But I am, and I ought to feel guilty.' She shrugged. ‘Why don't I?'

It was the most interesting thing he had ever heard her say, in nine months of her company. He knew fine well how the lord abbot of Donmouth ought to respond, that she was young and her conscience was unformed, that she needed instruction in the basic tenets of the commandments and the paternoster.
Ne nos inducas in tentationem
. Covet not thy neighbour's wife. But that all seemed too simple, and he would not insult her with it. Such matters were better left to those who believed in them, like Fredegar. Life's lease was too short, and the landlord ever-ready to foreclose...

‘Why don't you answer me?'

‘I don't know what to say.'

Saethryth wriggled, pushing the side of her face against Ingeld's shoulder as though she were a cat. ‘What I really feel is relief. I've been pretending to be good all my life, but inside I know, really, I'm bad. I've always known. And now my inside and my outside match, and it's as though I've put down a heavy burden.' She lifted her face and looked him in the eye. ‘Does that make any sense?'

He smiled and shook his head. ‘I don't have an answer. You call yourself a bad wife. Well, I am a bad cleric and I always have been, but I come closer to being a good man with you than I have ever done in all my life.' There were tears prickling the edge of his vision, and he swallowed hard. She was looking at him intently, and he leaned forward and cupped her face, the palms of his hands moulding themselves to her cheekbones. ‘You are so pretty,' he said, and again there was that obstruction in his throat and he had to swallow before he could speak again. ‘How could anyone so pretty be bad?'

It was no kind of answer, and they both knew it.

She pulled away from him and dipped her face, her hair swinging forward. ‘I am bad,' she said, ‘and you love it.'

He reached for her and pulled her down on top of him into a bone-crushing embrace.

Afterwards, when the hot tide had ebbed, she said, ‘Tell me again about running away.'

‘Come close then.' He lay back and pulled her in tight-curled against his chest and flank. ‘Let's go south. We'll take a boat through the waves of the Ocean, past Iberia and into the Middle Sea past the Pillars of Hercules.'

‘Is it hot there? Hotter than here?'

‘Always.' He thought of the maps in the pages of Isidore and Adomnán in Wulfhere's lovely library, the fruit and the music and the laughing girls in the old Roman poetry he loved so much. ‘There will be figs, and olives, and spice trees. All the wine you could want.'

‘What's it called, the land where we're going?'

‘The Earthly Paradise.' He sighed, and she cuddled closer into him. ‘There is no sin there, and everyone goes naked and unashamed, like children.'

‘Like us.'

‘Yes,' and he kissed the top of her head. ‘Like us. The streams run with honey, like sunshine you can drink. And every daisy is made of pearls. There are wonderful creatures there. The phoenix, who makes her nest from aromatic twigs.'

‘What's a phoenix?'

Ingeld began to tell her, but before very long her breathing slowed and deepened into a light snore. When he was sure she was asleep Ingeld pulled his tingling arm out from under her shoulders and lay down next to her.

He had no illusions. She was silly, and shallow, and capable of moments of spite that he found distressing. But at the same time there was an innocence there, a simple, childish greed for the good things of the flesh. She made no crippling moral judgements: she saw something, she wanted it and she reached for it. She wanted
him
. Eve, he thought, in Eden, must have been like this girl. He had never been so happy. He dropped a kiss on the lovely curve where her neck met her shoulder. Her skin smelt strong and musky, and he inhaled deeply.

Before long he too was asleep. In the long, slanting light the motes of dust and straw rose and fell in the warm air.

Elfrun clicked her fingers and Gethyn fell in at her heels. Widia was coming away from the stables and she waved him over. ‘Saddle Mara for me.'

His expression shifted subtly. ‘Athulf is out on Mara.'

‘Athulf? Again?' Elfrun glanced at Widia's carefully composed face. ‘Oh, never mind.' She knew only too well that stopping Athulf – short of shutting him in a heavy-lidded chest and turning the key – was a near-impossible task.

‘Where would you be riding to, lady?'

‘Up to the sheepwick.' She wouldn't normally go herself, but she didn't quite trust Luda to give her a report she understood. ‘I need a word with Hirel, about the shearing.'

Elfrun had thought Widia's expression guarded before, but it was nothing to the one he now assumed. She had never realized that his mouth and his dark eyebrows could make such perfectly stern, horizontal lines, broken only by the jagged-lightning line of his still-raw scar. But when he spoke his voice was mild. ‘I'll saddle Hafoc for you, if you like?' He jerked his head. ‘He's in the home field.'