Maroboodus: A Novel of Germania (The Goth Chronicles Book 1) (19 page)

She pushed me and I toppled from the horse and fell amidst brambles, mud, and dirt. The Saxons were chuckling and Ceadda grabbed the horse, but she smiled sweetly at me and I could only frown in return. ‘I will lead us to the trails. Your Saxons don’t know them.’

‘Wait a minute,’ Ceadda said. ‘Please! No woman—‘

She spat and Ceadda went quiet ‘I shall. I have better judgement than you do. You don’t even know your friends. That one,’ she said and nodded at Aldbert, ‘the one I don’t trust, but who feels strangely familiar, has been twisting twigs all the time. With his hands. Deliberately. Perhaps he left a sign back in Marka that we took no boat? That we are here?’

We turned to look at Aldbert, who looked terrified as he still held a fresh branch of a rowan in his hand. He looked down at it and then at us. ‘I’m sorry. I’ve not done this before. I need something to hold. This is all—‘

‘Hold your cock like a proper man,’ Ceadda growled. ‘What’s the matter with you? You some kind of a coward? Or a woman?’ He looked startled and bowed to the wonderfully composed and brave girl on the horse. ‘No offence, lady.’

‘Some taken,’ she said coldly, but I pushed to Aldbert and grabbed the twig from his hands.

‘You trying to get us killed?’ I asked him, dreading the answer.

‘No, I was just deep in my thoughts, and I often need something in my hands. You’ve seen me making poems.’

‘Poems, by Donor’s gangly nose,’ Njord moaned. ‘He is a damn poet. Can’t even eat him, probably tastes like lies.’

Aldbert went on. ‘I’m nervous. I won’t deny it.’

‘Shh,’ Njord said, exasperated. ‘Best be quiet now or they’ll throw you in swamp. Break no more twigs, or the next twig might be your neck.’

I slapped my thigh with the twig and stuck it under my belt. I hesitated, wondering what to do with Aldbert.

‘She is right,’ Ceadda said and smiled like a wolf at our long looks. ‘We will be careful.’ He meant also Aldbert, as well as the way we traveled, and I agreed with him.

‘Is she?’ Njord asked, his thick lips pursed. ‘You called her a rancid witch when Cuthbert died. Thought she was ugly too. A spirit.’

Ceadda slapped his brother and didn’t look at the girl. ‘She knows her woods. Svearna might be … ‘ he stammered and gave her a small bow, ‘less noble and more akin to the vaettir and spirit animals of the deep, but they did live here first.’

‘Akin to animals?’ the girl asked him, aghast. ‘You are really trying to get that boat from my people, aren’t you? Perhaps they’ll cook thin broth from your bones, instead?’ They smiled at each other and I guessed they were not as opposed to each other than they had been. Goths made great common enemies. Or at least Aldbert.

‘She leads us,’ Ceadda allowed with some incredulity in his voice and the girl smiled and nodded in thanks.

‘What about him?’ she asked and pointed a finger at Aldbert. ‘I don’t like him. Not one bit.’

‘I will keep an eye on him,’ I told her but noticed she was not convinced. ‘Let me look after him.’

‘He is dangerous,’ she said softly. ‘Maroboodus—‘

‘I’m a poet!’ Aldbert said. ‘I’ve done nothing to—‘

‘A liar by nature, as the Saxon said,’ she said as if she had just proved a point, and perhaps she had.

‘I say he comes,’ I insisted and her jaw tightened. ‘I’m the leader here.’

‘Listen to the Pup,’ Njord laughed and the way his head swung from her to me, perhaps he hoped she would tear my head off.

She opened her mouth, but clearly counted trees as she sought to hold her temper again. She waved her hand in my direction. ‘I’ll teach you how to treat a princess,’ she said sweetly as if offering me honey and ale. ‘And in the end you will see every great leader has a goddess they must follow. My mother was like this to my father. You will see.’

‘You are done for, Goth,’ Njord chuckled as I glowered at him, having lost my authority, if I ever had any to begin with. He pushed me playfully. ‘There was no oath against speaking our minds, lord Pup, and I don’t remember making any to take your side in an argument.’

‘To you, I am Maroboodus,’ I said and was rewarded by snickering Saxons.

‘You two will have some interesting chats, I’m sure,’ Njord said happily. ‘So, we shall take to the hills then?’

She glared at the man, but he didn’t die as she probably hoped. ‘We go that way, yes,’ she said with determination. ‘I’ll show you some trails Father once showed me near here. It’s dark, but I think I’ll find them. Then we go over the hills, follow the Long-Lake, skirt that river, and then when we reach the Three Forks, the three rivers I’ll tell you where to go.’

              ‘So, let us move,’ Ceadda said and we traveled. We ran softly and rode carefully for the north, for the Lake, then turned northeast as a scout found trails that the Svea princess approved of. She would frown, squint along the tracks, and like a goddess of the hunt, her dark hair blowing in the wind, she pushed us forward. We made good time, avoiding people’s dwellings and the Saxon scouts were very good, wily, careful, and stealthy, especially with the girl’s help. We would stop, and crouch when we saw a local hunter and then another, trailing some deer, and wait patiently until they passed. We trekked through a deep, mossy wood that was steaming in the moist air and then took to the high ground of the hills Ceadda had mentioned, where it was dryer and heather fields were red and white in a late fall glory. They were very tall hills, though easily navigable, even on horses, and when we’d made our way across a few, it was afternoon. I gazed at the Long-Lake to our north, stretching from the coast far to inland, swallowing rivers as it went deeper to the misty lands, and to the south, where Goth settlements still showed by trails of smoke and well-tended fields. The wider river was making its lazy way to the west through the Goth settlements to our south. Ceadda was talking with the girl and she gave him some words, and the savage Saxon nodded. He walked to me and nodded at a patch of stony land where tall boulders stood on the  side of a hill. ‘We stop here and rest for some hours. Then we shall run with the wolves of the night and make our way as far as we can.’

‘The horses need rest,’ Aldbert said softly.

‘We will eat them, if they do,’ one burly Saxon said happily and I saw by the shocked look on Aldbert’s face he had decided the horses were fine. He probably thought he might escape with the help of a horse, should there be any trouble and he clearly regretted having said anything at all. I’d have to talk to him, and despite the promise I had made to keep him in my sight at all times, I couldn’t be sure he wasn’t giving us away.

The Saxons were sitting down, few were running to the woods to scout and Njord came to Aldbert and grabbed the bags of food from him, opened them up with a practiced yank and went on sniffing at the contents, like a pampered rat as he poked inside. I groomed Scald, checked its hooves and tied it to a tree, and noticed Ceadda standing on top of a tall, mossy boulder, gazing back the way he had come. Sol was getting lower in the sky and the peculiar, drowsy, and somewhat depressed mood you often suffer when everything is murky and night is falling, took over the camp. I went to Ceadda and he nodded at me and gave me his hand. I grasped it, he pulled me up to stand next to him.

‘You ok? Thighs not too sore?’ he teased me for riding.

‘My ass is sore,’ I agreed.

He laughed and clapped me so hard I nearly fell and he grabbed me. ‘Look, Red,’ he said and pointed a finger to southeast. I couldn’t see anything special and squinted. He noticed my hesitation and grunted, casing a nervous eye to the girl. ‘Pretend you noticed it, or she will probably not respect you. You did well to argue with her and not look like a spineless maggot, but just pretend to know what you are doing now, as well.’

‘I saved her ass, she should respect me,’ I told him, feeling like I was lost in the mists. ‘What am I seeing?’ I saw only trees and that made me anxious.

‘Not yet you haven’t,’ he told me darkly and nodded for the horizon. ‘Her ass is far from safe,’ he said and kept nodding towards southeast. ‘Especially if that Maino gets her. She’ll not like that.’ There, the endless hills, valleys, pine and birch woods as far you could see, dotted with some fields and even villages that were hard to spot. I nodded sagely, made him snort with amusement. ‘You are blind as a drunk rat. And I’ve seen some. They don’t see a cat if they run over its tail.’

I cursed him and turned to look west, the way we were going. The river snaked that way and then I saw it combine with others far away. ‘At least I see that.’

Ceadda sighed. ‘Three Forks, as she called them. Beyond that, is where our scouts placed Snowlake. There is a small body of water, lake or a swamp, nestled by the two forbidden looking hills,’ he said and shuddered. ‘Her tribe, they live by it. It was a large settlement of a hundred Svear, and they were well armed. But we surprised them. I’m happy we save a day’s hike.’

‘Your lord went all that way for a woman,’ I stated. ‘That he would have given our enemies in return for silver.’

Ceadda laughed. ‘Can you blame him? I think he forgot his greed the moment he saw her staring up at him furiously, her guards dead around her. She didn’t fear, not one bit,’ he whispered and turned to look at the girl, who had produced a comb and was looking up at us as we stood there on the rock. ‘He tried to have her the first night we made camp, but she refused.’

‘Refused?’ I said with a cold smile. ‘Tried to have her?’

He waved his hand, bothered. ‘Cuthbert the Black wasn’t a good man. What can I say? But she raked his face and kicked him in the balls so hard we all heard the chain mail jingle and him yelp. I doubt he has ever been more hurt. Well, except the day he was killed. He was grimacing when he tried to sit in the saddle, I tell you that, so his balls were probably swollen. He decided to wait,’ Ceadda said and smiled. ‘He planned to give her over to the high Goth for silver, but I’m not sure he would have. I didn’t always like our lord but he gave us plenty of loot, fine homes and our families what they needed to survive. Our land is no less harsh than yours. We get droughts, and sickness and fight Chauci in the south every year and I tell you now, those bastards have many men. Each year we bury a dozen of their warriors, but they seem to seed more and more just to spite us. Cuthbert was a famous lord, but there are others and someone else will take our oaths and we fight again. With you lot, even.’

‘He fought well,’ I stated reluctantly. ‘But if he tried to hurt her, I’ll kill him again in Valholl, the rotten bastard.’ I looked back to where we came from, thinking about Bero, Hughnot, and even Father. And Maino. Him above all others. ‘But then, so are many others. Rotten bastards.’

‘Now that you have her,’ he chuckled, ‘I thought I wanted to give you a fair warning. Keep your legs together when she hugs you.’

I chortled and nodded, wiping my nose that was dripping. ‘Gods, give us a hall and mead. So, what was I supposed to see out there? No more games.’

He shook his head. ‘Blind bastard, but I suppose it’s good you know it and don’t pretend. No good at sea, you wouldn’t be, but perhaps you could just sit at the oars, eh?’ His eyes were dreamy as he gazed down the hillside. ‘I bet your lazy Goth ass would love a hall at the end of the road and some well-brewed ale or sweet mead to invigorate your weary bones, but I’d love to have our ship,’ he said wistfully. ‘We do love our ships. They are almost better than a hall and a field of wheat or barley, and a warm wife. It’s a man’s life, that.’

‘Forget the damned boat,’ I growled. ‘What did you see?’

He nodded and pointed a finger down the hill. ‘Now look there,’ he said, pointing southeast. ‘See?’

And I finally did. There was a glint by a winding river, not very far. Then another. ‘I see it.’

‘Them,’ he corrected.

‘I see …them. Hunters? Locals?’

‘Manhunters,’ Ceadda said sternly. ‘I bet there are dozens. I just feel it in my bones. And if you ask Njord, they are a hundred or more. And they will have dogs. God Saxenot spare us if they find our trail. It’s a miracle they have not already. Perhaps the girl knows her business, after all, but I dare say I chose well to take the hillside.’ He stammered and blushed. ‘Though perhaps I would have stumbled on some of those halls she avoided.’

‘We could have taken a boat after all,’ I said and turned to look at the stretching body of water in the north and froze. There were specs gliding over the waves, ships rowing up and down the coast.

‘They have been there since morning,’ he smiled with a cold smile. ‘Goths. Most local, having been warned to look for us. They are careful Goths since Svearna will not like them this deep in these waters.’ He turned back to the valleys and spoke hesitantly. ‘I think you might have done better by leaving us behind and just riding off with her.’

‘But what if she would have left me in the woods?’ I asked him with a smile. ‘Or gave me to her people as a sacrifice?’

His eyes brightened and he chuckled. ‘Yes, I know we were to guard you more than her.’

‘We might still need that route,’ I reminded him and he didn’t seem to mind either way. Perhaps there would be an escape with them, should things go terribly wrong, but the Goths were guarding the waters now. He shrugged, eyeing the glinting metal not too far in the woods. ‘Too bad it wasn’t easy. Can’t be helped, I suppose. Looked good for a moment there, but now it can end up like a badly built hull that never sees water. Forgotten bones on some sad meadow,’ he said, eyeing the girl. ‘Why don’t you just go and talk to her, lout,’ Ceadda said. ‘Might want to know her name before things turn ugly.’