In The Grip Of Old Winter (27 page)

***

Peter rubbed his eyes with
the heel of his hand. “Did - did it?”

“It shone bright in the
dark,” said Wulfwyn. “And faded as I watched.” He stared at the fire. “I called
out to Godwine, for I did not know which way to walk. Or if I needed to fight.
Godwine came back and beat his feet upon the earth and I called again until he
came close. We lifted you up and carried you.” He gathered twigs from the
forest floor and threw them onto the fire. “I feared you dead, for you did not
move or draw breath. Eorl Oswald lay upon the ground, his life’s blood upon the
earth, his spirit fled and in my pain I saw the look of death upon your face
too.” He kicked at a blackened branch that crumbled under the blow. “Godwine
returned to the cave for the furs and I lit a fire.”

Peter sniffed. “Did the
barghest kill Oswald?”

Wulfwyn nodded. “The
spae-wife worked her will and the carrier too. For Godwine came upon them all
and thought to die as they crowded close around the Eorl.” Large soft
snowflakes drifted through the trees. Wulfwyn shrugged. “Then... lightning it
seemed to him, struck all three and flickered as it blinded their intent and
tangled their actions and they ran back, in torment, until it drove them off.”
He pointed up the slope. “It shimmered still as they crossed the snow on the
ridge and thunder and mist followed them across the hills.”

Peter frowned. “Why didn’t
they come back and take the seal-amulet?”

Wulfwyn faced him. “You lay
with death. Your will almost spent. This is the meaning that I glimpse. The
seal-amulet dies too when the bearer’s life departs and the binds between them
break and it is lost and cannot be known.”

Peter coughed and his stomach
throbbed. “You mean it’s like - energy flows out of the seal-amulet and it
stopped doing that - when I was nearly dead - and the spae-wife can’t sense it
anymore?”

Wulfwyn’s brow furrowed as he
listened. “This is the meaning that I glimpse. For why did the carrier have it
to give to you if the spae-wife’s life had not ebbed almost to death, so that
he took his chance and snatched it away.”

Peter wiped his cheeks dry.
“I wish I’d made it work before - before Oswald...” Fresh tears flowed and he
sniffed hard.

Wulfwyn nodded. “Godwine
though is safe and when we laid you down he worked upon your belly until the
water came out and you breathed once more. There is no shame in what is not
done, for the ways of all our lives are changed in these days.”

Peter rubbed his stomach. He
hated being sick, but he didn’t want to be dead. “I’m sad that Oswald died.” He
must be dead for ever now, for he’d never go farther back in time in this Age
to be able to save him again. “Poor Leonor.”

Wulfwyn scraped his hand
through his hair. “This is true. Yet she lives still, for Godwine saw her,
slung like some dead animal over the carrier’s shoulders, when they climbed
across the ridge.”

“Why have they taken her from
Bosa’s manor?”

“I do not know.” He punched
his chest with his fist. “My heart is torn. It weeps for Eorl Oswald, yet sings
for Leonor. That she lives renews my hope. Though what manner of hope we may
give her is clouded.”

Godwine scrambled out from
under the bramble bush. He wore Peter’s backpack and carried his knife and
gloves. He stood and held out the knife, hilt first.

Peter took it. “Thanks and -
thanks for saving my life.”

Godwine gave the smallest bow
and then pointed at the seal-amulet, pressed his hand against his chest and
gave a deeper bow.

Peter shrugged. “That’s ok.
It worked that time.”

Wulfwyn scuffed ash back into
the fire. “We mean to follow their tracks. They passed across the ridge soon
after the attack. The seal-amulet will be known now that you are returned to
life. Some leagues must lie between us. It’s will, like a blossom, will bloom
as we draw closer.” He faced Peter. “Is there the strength and the will to
follow?”

“I think so.” His legs still
trembled and he stamped his feet to ease their stiffness.

Godwine reached under his
jerkin and pulled out a small kidney-shaped skin. He unwound a cord at one end
that secured a flap of leather and mimed taking a drink to Peter.

Peter took the skin and the
liquid inside made the soft leather shift and slide against his palm. Godwine
brought his finger and thumb together until they almost touched.

Peter understood. “A little?”
He pursed his lips and took a sip. The liquid tore down his throat, through his
chest and into his stomach as hot as fire. His eyes watered, he gasped and
flapped his hand in front of his mouth. He thought his head might blow off.

Godwine nodded to encourage
him to drink again.

“He is not man-grown,” said
Wulfwyn. “It is enough for the first time.”

The burn lingered and Peter
hopped from one foot to the other as if that might dilute the sting. Godwine
took the skin back and wound the cord around the flap to seal the neck.

Peter hic-cupped and then
stammered. “What - what is that?”

“It is unknown,” said
Wulfwyn. “Godwine’s brews are all unknown.”

Peter, in a high-pitched
voice that cracked said, “I think I might be able to breathe fire, like a
dragon.” He’d never eaten curry, but at school he’d heard about vindaloo, the
hottest curry of them all. Godwine’s drink must be like that. How did people
eat such hot curry and why did they enjoy it?

The burn diminished and a
warm glow spread to the ends of his toes and the tips of his fingers. His tears
dried and he stared at the fire. Some of the branches, those that curved and
charred, he recognised as ribs. And the sword that Godwine gave Oswald lay
black with soot in the embers. Poor Oswald. It didn’t make him sick to look at
the bones, just sad and he watched the flames flicker and as he watched he
thought that they danced.

Godwine handed him his
backpack and he slipped it over his shoulders. It might still be wet, but it
didn’t seep through his anorak.

He gripped the knife tighter,
for a sudden rush of anger filled his chest with an impulse to stab something,
anything to release his grief and frustration and helplessness.

“Aaaargh!” He sliced twigs
off the bramble bush and they scattered and tumbled to the forest floor. With
wider arcs and harder swings, the bush disintegrated under his attack.
“Aaaargh!” His fury bubbled and every time it burst he thought of the barghest
and the spae-wife and the carrier and imagined that their bones snapped and
their flesh melted until all three lay broken and bloody at his feet.
“Aaaargh!”

Exhausted, he staggered back
and panted hard to catch his breath. Behind him, the fire crackled and spat. A
snowflake brushed his cheek. His body throbbed with heat and as he gulped for
air, the seal-amulet flared. He spun round. “Wulfwyn.”

Wulfwyn and Godwine stood
together, their arms before their faces as shields against the thorns.

In three strides, Wulfwyn
reached Peter’s side, his knife drawn. “The spae-wife.”

Godwine drew his sword, his
body braced and ready to fight.

Peter’s anger withered. “I
thought - I thought she’d gone.” He stared up at the ridge, into the trees,
beyond the fire, down the hole to the tunnel entrance, now revealed by the
broken bush. She might be anywhere, unseen, yet close enough to use the
seal-amulet’s power.

The silver marks revolved,
though none shone bright or clear. His palms sweated so that the knife slipped,
even though he gripped it tight. “Where is she?”

Wulfwyn whispered. “She is
not here. She cannot be, if Godwine’s words be true.” He strode around the fire
and Godwine followed.

Peter squeezed the
seal-amulet.
Which charm?
He stared so hard, his eyes hurt. The silver
marks revolved in slow circles and their gradual progression, round and round,
calmed his fear and he glimpsed, as if by a sudden light that flashed just out
of sight, a hint of meaning, a distant understanding of each silver marks’ purpose.

He gripped the seal-amulet
tighter, grappled with these tantalising revelations, longed to understand them
better, but they slipped out of his mind’s reach and the silver marks faded and
the seal-amulet went dull and cold.

***

Peter shouted. “It’s not red
anymore.” He held it up for Wulfwyn and Godwine to see. “She must have moved
away.” Relief that a mark hadn’t flared, hadn’t forced him to try and make it
work, made his heart pump.

As he approached, Wulfwyn
sheathed his knife. He took hold of the seal-amulet and studied each side. His
voice rasped low and deep, as if he didn’t want his words to be heard. “Might
it not be the spae-wife?”

Peter didn’t understand.
“What?”

Wulfwyn frowned and spoke
louder. “Might it be your anger?” He let go of the seal-amulet. “Anger flows in
your blood and releases a spark, like a flint that strikes to make a flame.”

“Like...” Peter said. “I’m
angry and that makes it work?”

“Do you believe this to be
so?”

Peter shrugged. “I don’t
know. It’s not happened before. I suppose...”

Wulfwyn gazed up at the
ridge. “Let us hope that it might be so, for we must follow. Leonor is captive
and I fear for her fate.” He strode around the fire. “Their tracks will be lost
as night approaches.”

Peter followed. “I don’t know
if I can be angry when I want.”

Wulfwyn said, “To study a
passion is to make it weak. A need will serve you better.”

Peter nodded and somewhere
deep inside he thought he understood, but he didn’t know the right words to
make it clear and so understanding faded, though instinct lingered.

Wulfwyn and Godwine faced the
fire and sank to one knee, their heads bowed. Peter did the same.

Peter knew the word ‘revenge,’
though not a clear idea of what it meant in real life. Characters in his
computer games often talked of revenge, but that just meant another excuse for
a fight.

His anger, tears, frustration
and helplessness when he attacked the bramble bush, revealed a newer and deeper
understanding to the phrase, ‘I will take my revenge.’ Like a hard lump of iron
stuck in his stomach, he wanted justice for Oswald’s death and Leonor’s capture
and he didn’t care how scared or hopeless or frustrated his attempts might be,
because he meant to fight and, he wished, to succeed. Even to death. His body
tingled with fear, but he meant to do as he said and that thought thrilled.

Wulfwyn and Godwine rose. The
flames flickered around Oswald’s blackened rib cage. Snowflakes drifted into
the fire and melted, then bubbled as their moisture dropped onto the embers.
Peter hoped that wild animals didn’t gnaw burnt bones, but that after the
frosts left, the bones crumbled into the earth so that Oswald’s journey, as
Wulfwyn explained, continued into the next life.

Peter didn’t know about the
earth or the fire spirits of which Wulfwyn talked. Did they mean the same as
God and Jesus in his time? He thought not. Perhaps in this time, as Muslims did
in his time, some of them worshipped different gods.

He stared at Oswald’s
ribcage. “Where’s Bosa? Is he burnt too?”

“No,” said Wulfwyn. “Godwine
found the spae-wife, the carrier and the barghest in the tunnel, but not Eorl
Bosa.” He pointed towards the ridge. “He might have walked with them, for
Godwine thought he saw another, though the distance and the strange mist that
swirled around them made it hard to see.”

Peter swallowed. “Do you
think Bosa killed Oswald and then escaped?”

“No.” Wulfwyn shook his head.
“He carried no weapon. Eorl Oswald held the sword Godwine gave. The barghest
leapt upon Eorl Oswald’s back and with its teeth, bit his neck.”

Why didn’t it attack Bosa?

“It’s weird,” said Peter.
“Bosa is unconscious, Oswald stands guard and is wide awake and yet Bosa
escapes from Oswald, the spae-wife, the barghest and the carrier. Suppose Bosa
did wake up, took Oswald by surprise and knocked him out, which gave him a
chance to run away before the others arrived, because he must have been running
away when we found him under the bush.”

Wulfwyn said, “There is
reason to these words. The prints left by those that pass are easy to read, yet
they fade under new-fallen snow and are soon lost. I have searched past all the
trees that stand fifty paces from this place and though I might have missed a
broken twig or a mound of scuffed snow, I did not find Eorl Bosa’s path.” He
waved his arm in a wide circle. “His marks are here, with mine and yours and
all the rest, but not one clear print reveals his passage. We cannot wait to
see if he returns and so his intent must remain unclear.” He faced the trees
and the slope that climbed to the ridge. “Come.” He strode away and Godwine and
Peter followed.

The barghest might have
eaten Bosa whole or buried him somewhere to eat later. No, a dragon might be
able to eat a man whole, bones and all, but not a big dog.
At least, Peter hoped not.
Did the barghest eat
bits of Oswald before Godwine appeared?
He concentrated on where he trod as
he walked between the outlaws.