‘Give them to me,’ he said, and gestured. The boy took fright at his foreignness, and it took comforting words from Elenya for him to relinquish his death-grip on the water.
The man on the ground had an iron barb in his thigh, another in his side. His skin was grey and felt clammy to the touch. When Va looked, he realized there was a vast pool of blood soaking into the ground underneath him.
He worked quickly, applying a tourniquet high up on the man’s leg, almost at the groin, and tightened it with one of the spikes that had dug into the turf nearby.
‘This man will die if we can’t get that arrow out and the hole sewn shut. Tell him,’ said Va to Elenya.
The boy looked from the monk to the woman, and ran off back into town.
‘I think he’s going to die anyway,’ she said. ‘But why did you change your mind?’
Va absent-mindedly smeared blood on his forehead. ‘I hate myself. I hate the compromises I make all the time. Life breeds sin, and I’m dirty with it.’
‘There, there. Just sometimes you forget yourself and do what’s right.’
Va sat back on his haunches. Up on the hill, a pitiful few had gathered together. In the valley, at the edges, robbers were at work, killing the wounded and stealing from the dead. Closer to the town, the King of Coirc’s men were moving across the fields, spreading out.
They were as appalled by the manner of their victory as Cormac’s men. Guiltily they picked up those they could save and carried them inside the stone walls.
CHAPTER 22
NO ONE QUESTIONED him or challenged his right to enter the town at the end of the day. He’d worked tirelessly, dressing wounds so that they might not turn to stinking rot in a few days, easing the last moments of those who were never going to see another sun rise.
He had preferred pulling arrows and sewing cuts and mopping blood to the prayers and the sanctification of souls. The men weren’t Rus, knew nothing of Orthodoxy, acknowledged someone other than the patriarch as their spiritual leader. Their own heretical priests had helped them far more than he could, because even as he crossed their foreheads with cold, shining water, he felt as if he was betraying his vows.
Va and Elenya walked behind the last of the carts laden with dead together with the people of An Cobh, as if they’d earned their place amongst them. Something made Va look up and back as they passed under the gatehouse. Staring down on them were two men, one with grey hair and a heavy gold chain, the other in a rich purple cloak: the King of Coirc and the Kenyan, Solomon Akisi.
The king failed to notice the incandescent rage directed at him, but Akisi caught a sudden chill and shivered. He whispered in the king’s ear and gave a surreptitious gesture, pointing out Va in the crowd below them.
As the townspeople left the procession to return to their own houses, their number thinned. Finally it was just the cart, the driver and a man with a prodigious moustache whose hands were as bloody as Va’s.
He addressed Va directly. Va looked blank and glanced at Elenya.
‘He’s inviting us to share his plank with him.’
‘His what? Is this some sort of insult, or a barbarian greeting?’
‘Plank. No. Board? Table.’ Elenya checked her translation with the man. ‘Yes, he wants us to come and eat with him. He says it would honour his building. Household. Family. Sorry, it’s been a long day. To be honest, I don’t think I care what you say, I’m saying yes.’
‘I don’t see us overwhelmed with offers. These people have no idea of hospitality.’ Va sized up the native. ‘Tell him we’ll go with him.’
‘My name is Eoin macDonnabhan,’ said the man, ‘and my house is yours on this sad day.’
He led them through the shadowed, narrow streets that were reminiscent of Moskva at its poorest. At some points they had to turn sideways to squeeze though the gaps between the walls. It was as if An Cobh had been grown, rather than built. macDonnabhan pointed out the important local landmarks – a stone tower, a marketplace cross, a long open hall with vaulted arches – and as Elenya patiently translated for Va, he started to address his remarks to her instead.
Va was party to less and less of the conversation, and eventually was left out altogether. When they arrived at a house close to the eastern wall and went in, he was momentarily surprised and left out on the doorstep.
Inside there was space and light and warmth, the calling of voices and the barking of dogs. Outside, he was quite alone. Then Elenya leaned back and asked him: ‘Are you coming in?’
‘Yes. What were you talking about all that time?’
‘I’ll have to tell you later. Va, do you trust me?’
‘I . . . suppose so. What are you doing?’
‘Trying to help you, though I don’t know why.’ She jerked her head. ‘In, and try not to frown at everything.’
Va stepped over the threshold. Someone reached behind him to shut out the night, and a hand at his back ushered him into the room. macDonnabhan clapped his hands twice, and talking from all, young and old, trickled to an expectant hush.
A dog as tall as the youngest child pushed its way through the forest of legs and sniffed tentatively at Va’s hand with its thin muzzle. Its nose was wet, and it spent a while exploring the interesting smells he’d collected since he’d last washed.
‘They’re waiting for you to introduce yourself,’ said Elenya.
‘Oh. Va. Brother Va. I’m sure His Holiness Father Yeremai, patriarch of Moscow and of all Russia, the patriarch of the Orthodox Church, would send his greetings.’
Elenya told them her name too: ‘Knyazhna Elenya Lukeva Christyakova.’ She explained what Knyazhna meant.
The Aeireanns drew breath as one. macDonnabhan scuffed his feet on the stone floor and looked at the filth he was covered in.
‘These aren’t my best clothes, Princess,’ he said.
‘That’s all right,’ she said with a sigh. ‘I’m not at all princessy.’
He motioned to Va that he should follow him. ‘Brother, we need to clean ourselves up before we sit at the table. You travel in exalted company.’
Va could see that macDonnabhan didn’t doubt Elenya’s title. They didn’t need to see her dressed all in gold, servants and handmaidens trailing behind her, passing down the central aisle of Novy Rostov’s cathedral. They could tell just from how beautiful she was.
A tub of hot water waited for them in a back room, together with bars of yellow soap and linen towels. macDonnabhan mimed what to do with them, and Va fought back a scowl. He said in Rus, his face determinedly neutraclass="underline" ‘We have baths a hundred times more grand than this where I come from. I come from the centre of Christian civilization, not some bog at the end of the world.’
They stripped and washed. One of macDonnabhan’s men – family by the look of him – brought in new clothes. Va dunked his habit in the washing water and started to scrub.
macDonnabhan shook his head. ‘Women’s work,’ he said.
Va brought his sodden habit out and wrung it. The muscles on his arms stood out like cords. ‘My work,’ he said in World. ‘My cloth. I have God’s orders.’
‘Holy orders?’
‘Yes.’
‘I understand.’ macDonnabhan said something to the man who’d brought his clothes, who ran off. ‘Wait, please,’ he told Va.
He dressed in a linen shirt and trousers, put boots on his feet and took out a small tin of ointment. He waxed his moustache until it was stiff. Va plunged his habit in again, beat it on the side of the tub and twisted the water out again. He was about to put it on, when macDonnabhan’s man burst through the door again, carrying a coarse brown bundle.
‘Holy orders,’ said macDonnabhan, presenting Va with the cloth.
Va put down his dripping habit and shook out his present. It was a monk’s habit: the wrong colour, and it was going to drown him. These apostate Aeireann brothers were built on a different scale to him. macDonnabhan was trying so hard, he was making it difficult for Va to keep the strict vows he had made.