Wolf Blood (25 page)
Authors: N. M. Browne
‘What about her cubs?’ The old druid touches her carefully, feeling around her abdomen with competent hands. Not only does she not growl but she licks his hand.
‘They will be fine.’
‘You have a way with animals,’ I say and he laughs so heartily I wonder if he has lost his wits.
‘Ah, Trista,’ he says, ‘you still won’t see what you don’t expect. We’ll have to cure you of that.’ I am still puzzling over this when he moves to sit beside Morcant. Morcant is watching him with an intentness I have not seen before. He does not snarl a warning, but lets the old man touch the fur on his head, lets him put his scrawny arm around Morcant’s brawny back, lets him whisper in his ear. As I watch, the wolf shudders and between one blink of my eye and the next Morcant the man lies there, his skin blue-white with cold, waxy as one dead. His eyes are closed and his body is covered in blood as I have seen him so many times in my heart-rending visions. This is it: I have come finally to that moment that I have dreaded for so long, that I would rather have died than seen. Everything is as it was in my vision: the young man’s straggly beard, his long hair spread all round him and his bluish pallor that surely cannot belong to a living man. But his eyes open. He is not dead and the blood that covers him is not his own.
Chapter Thirty-seven
My skin feels cool and I am shrunken and naked lying on the ground. Trista is bending over me. Have I been sleeping? The sky is bright and the air is warm and smells of spring. What has happened? I smell blood and when I look down I am covered in it, but it is not mine; it belongs to the she-wolf. She is watching me with loss in her eyes, the flavour of sadness in her scent, and I understand. I have been the wolf, haven’t I? But for how long have I been cursed?
Trista is looking at me. She looks terrified. The wind blows her red-gold hair so that she looks like some wild creature of the woods. Her sea-coloured eyes are opened wide with shock and fear and now widen even further with joy. It takes me an instant to understand. She thought me lost to the wolf.
‘Morcant!’ Her cry catches in her throat so that it seems more of a sob. I feel the dampness of her tears on my human cheek, smell her own unique and special scent through the woodsmoke, mud and forest smells that cling to her. My human arms feel stiff and unresponsive but I find the means to embrace her. I work at my unused human voice and call her name; I spit it out like something that was stuck there, the sound is ugly but she cries the more when I manage to get the word out: ‘Trista!’
Her scent floods me with happiness. She hugs me hard and then there are people around her, warriors, and she is taken away from me. I want her to stay.
The old man beside me has his own peculiar smell: not quite man, not quite beast – the strangest stink I have known. I find myself growing wary. Who is he?
‘You’ve been lost, lad.’ Something in his voice is disapproving. I’ve seen him before, haven’t I? And then I recognise him. He’s the old druid we met in Ger’s hall.
‘Have you cured me?’ My body feels odd and I feel . . . strange. As if I’ve left a piece of myself behind. I clasp and unclasp my hand in a kind of wonder.
‘There is no need to cure a blessing.’
I shiver and he hands me a cloak. Something in his eyes compels me.
‘It is a curse. I’ve been lost, stuck – all this time . . .’ I say. How can he know what it feels to wake up in a strange place without clothes, memory, dignity? I last remember the snows of winter and I can see that months have passed and I don’t know where I’ve been or what I’ve been doing. The she-wolf is hurt and I don’t know how.
‘It is a blessing. You could have freed yourself any time.’
That makes me angry. ‘You don’t know anything.’ I growl and the wolf is with me suddenly. I am almost overwhelmed by a flood of wolfish thoughts, of sensory impressions. ‘If I could have freed myself, I would have done!’
‘You are not two but one,’ the druid says mildly. ‘It is easier to live as a beast than a man. You took the easy way.’
‘I am not a wolf!’
‘No.’ The old man’s hand on my arm is as strong as good steel and I am shocked to see the claws beneath his skin. Is he what I am? He holds my arm in a grip so tight it is almost painful. ‘You are a man and a wolf together – the best of both.’ He snarls and I see the golden shadow of a wolf in his face. He commands me: ‘You are the wolf. Remember!’
I do remember then. All of it. All the days when the man in me slept. I remember the night Trista failed in her watch because she was overcome with visions, the days of hunting and the joy of being a creature of instincts and appetites.
‘This must never happen again.’ The druid’s human voice is frail, but the wolf in him is powerful and the wolf in me submits to him.
‘Repeat after me: “I am the wolf.” ’
‘I am the wolf.’ As I say it, I know that it is true, know it deep within me. Something strange happens then. Something shifts and I feel different, as if I’ve been a spear warped out of kilter suddenly straightened, a broken sword made whole.
I look down at my own human hand and there beneath my own skin I see the shadow of a silver paw contained within me.
‘This is the first lesson. You are one being. One. There are more lessons, Morcant. Will you submit to learn them?’ His golden eyes bore into me.
‘I will submit,’ I say. It is the first time that I’ve felt at peace since I can remember. I am a wolf and a man in one flesh.
I turn to the she-wolf. She is suffering silently. I reach out to pat her fur, to remind her that the wolf in me is not dead but always here. She is wiser than I am, perhaps even wiser than Trista: she has always known that. She licks my hand. She makes that sound in her throat I know so well. I make a small human attempt at a response. She has lost a lot of blood, but I am not afraid for her. She is so strong.
Chapter Thirty-eight
Morcant is not dead, nor trapped in the wolf’s body for ever! I fall on him like a foolish girl and my tears mingle with the she-wolf’s blood and thus anointed he wakes again as a man.
There is not time for a reunion.
I can hear men cheering and shouting and see that the battle is over. Victory belongs to the celebrating tribesmen. The druid calls to Caratacus’ men to help us.
The leader is a young man no older than Morcant, with the dark hair and blue eyes of a westerner. I show him my garnet ring. I hear his swift intake of breath and see the pain in his eyes.
‘Caratacus has gone to speak to Cartimandua to ask for her help in the fight against Rome.’ I pause and see him fight for self-possession.
He speaks quietly, his voice hard to hear. ‘It is not over then? She will come?’
The druid looks at me. Should I say more? ‘Tell them, Trista. It is as well that they know.’
I hesitate. I can see the hope in their eyes; it pains me to destroy it. ‘I have seen that she will betray him. She will hand him over to Rome. The Brigantes will not come.’ The men grow silent.
‘What else did he tell you, Trista? He gave you something important?’ The druid’s voice is urgent. I don’t think he gave me anything to give these people hope. Without the Brigante, we cannot defeat the army.
‘He gave me this ring, and charged me to watch over his son.’
‘And?’
‘And he told me his story.’
The druid sighs. ‘Good. All is as it should be. Did you promise to tell his story, to keep it alive?’ I nod. It did not seem like a great burden, not compared to the responsibility for his son. ‘Then it is decided. You and Morcant must both come to Mona.’
No! I open my mouth to argue, but he commands here. Three men lift and lay the she-wolf on the shield of a fallen Roman and tie it to the harness of one of the ponies so that she may be dragged along the ground and has no need to walk. Morcant wants to carry her himself, but the druid insists that he does not. I hear the druid promise by the mother, by Lugh and by Taranis that the she-wolf and Morcant will not be separated. He makes Morcant dress in the druid’s own spare robe. Morcant’s natural colour is returning, and his flesh now looks less corpse-like. I can no longer see the faint silver shadow of the wolf around him, yet the wolf is awake. He has to be. I see it in the confidence of his walk, the assurance of his stance. He lopes towards me, smiling.
‘She will be well.’
I love the way his face looks in the druid’s white cowl. He takes my hand. It is warm and strong and human and I am struggling for control. I bend his stiffened fingers into a more human shape and clasp his hand as I did before when we travelled together. It seems a long time ago. When I look down, I see the silver paw under his pale human skin and his grey eyes are yellow with the power of the wolf.
This is not how it was. It is as if the wolf is inside him now, no longer a shadow but part of him. ‘How? What?’ I begin.
The druid is watching us both.
‘He has learned his first lesson,’ he says and his old eyes are sharp and golden. ‘He has embraced his double nature.’
I think I know what he means, but I am still confused. Something is going on that I haven’t yet understood.
‘I owe you an explanation,’ the druid says, and takes my arm as we walk, as if he were my elderly grandfather. It is an honour I could do without. I am wary of druids. Morcant still grips my other hand. The druid continues, ‘I knew that you had a rare gift when you came to us that night in the village. Even among druids the gift of true prophecy is rare. You can imagine my surprise when I sensed another presence, another rarer talent with you, his fate entangled with yours.’ He pauses for effect as druids do. Is he talking about Morcant? I thought that he’d suspected something. ‘I sent Ger to help you as soon as I could and made my own way to Mona – and then to Caratacus. I think you know the road, Trista. Have you still got the arm ring?’ I nod and taking it from my pouch slide it on to my arm. I can’t help but cry out. Somehow I see within him the form of a great golden wolf. He is surrounded by hundreds of the Wild Weird.
‘You see?’ I see that he is a werewolf, as Morcant is. I should have seen that before.
‘Note how the Weird are drawn to us. Those of us whom the gods bless belong in part to their world.’
Morcant surprises me by adding, ‘When I was a shadow, I learned some things about the Wild Weird. They are sustained by the old gods and when the worship of them dies, they die too. That’s why they can only live now in the most ancient and sacred of places.’
The druid looks at him approvingly. ‘The Wild Weird between them are the soul of the land. We are not just fighting for our tribal territories, but for the summer country, the territory of the soul. If the Romans invade the Sacred Isle, they will destroy everything. The sons and daughters of the tribes will live on, their blood will flow in the veins of their descendants whatever tongue they speak, but the beat of the land’s heart will be stopped. We have to remember who we are. Caratacus knows that: his story, the hope of freedom, our pride in who we are, will keep the old ways alive. Stories sustain the soul of the land. His story is worth an army in this other battle.’
I don’t know what to say. ‘We need you, Trista. We need the things that you can do and the stories you now know.’
I am still overwhelmed, confused. I find myself leaning against the solid bulk of Morcant. I don’t ask any of the important questions that I need to know. Instead I just mumble: ‘How did you get here?’
‘I fought with Caratacus but you both slipped away before any of us could get to you.’ I am startled by this and then I remember hearing the howling of wolves. ‘Morcant’s lived wild for too long. Your talent woke his. The wolf is very strong in him, as the fire of prophecy burns too brightly in you.’ He grins and I wonder if he knows about my fire-lighting. ‘If I’d not found him, he might have been lost for ever. I have been tracking him since the battle. I’m glad I was not too late. But you both need to come with us to Mona.’
Morcant grips my hand more tightly.
‘We have to go there, Trista,’ he whispers. He speaks quietly but of course the druid has a wolf’s keen ears and interrupts. ‘You have made mistakes against our rule, both of you. It was your calling as a seeress, Trista, to warn the Parisi chief of the Roman attack on his fort. You failed in your duty then. Morcant, you lost control of the beast in you and that too is a betrayal of gifts bestowed by the gods. You need to learn what we can teach you. Morcant has agreed to submit to the discipline. Trista, will you too come with me to Mona?’
I know what Morcant wants me to say, but even with the arm ring I know I have not seen all that the otherworld holds. There is darkness there and a strangeness that I am afraid to confront. I’ve had nightmares about Mona since I was a child. My father, my courageous father, would never speak of it without fear. Dare I go there?
‘I promised Caratacus I would watch over the baby . . .’
Ger has joined us while the druid has been talking. He is bloody, but unhurt, and he rests a gory hand on my shoulder. ‘But, Trista, I told you – we are going to the Deceangli lands. The Sacred Isle is in Deceangli territory. Me and Bethan and the boy will be as close to Mona as it is possible to be.’ I know that he is bursting with pride that he will have the care of Caratacus’ son and he wants me to be part of his happy ending.