“Ha!” Wulfhere growled. “Lady Morfydd, it is sentence of death ye have pronounced on that eastern weasel!”
“Be very sure ere you strike,” she said, using the personal pronoun. “Should the black owl be some being independent of Lucanor’s soul, after all, you will lose your only link with it.”
Cormac felt this woman’s warmth, and depth. “First we must lay hands on the misbegot dog,” he said, moving swiftly to pragmatism.
“Aye!” Wulfhere’s unremitting suffering made him even more tactless than usual, and he glowered at Cathula. “Very well, wench. Ye’ve explained all save why ye be here, telling us these things. Is it reward?”
“Reward?” Cathula seemed to find the word impossible to understand. “Ye twain is Sigebert’s blood enemies! Where else should I go? I want him to die…”
“Die he shall,” Cormac promised all grim. faced, “and life shall be better for yourself hence-forward, an it’s truth ye’ve told. An ye lie-”
He did not finish the sentence. The savagery of his dark face said all for him. Yet the peasant, so young and so old, did not quail. Like so many others, she’d been thrust and dragged into womanhood without having had time to enjoy being a girl.
“What should I fear?” she asked. “I saw my mother die awful. Sigebert One-ear’s had me for a plaything. I’ve did death on my own father. For that I am damned. I do not fear weapons or… sendings, or life or death, or man or god. Or demon either. It’s truth I tell ye.”
“We shall discover,” Cormac told her. She was at least half mad, he thought. Knowing what he did of Sigebert One-ear, he was not astounded.
“Come away, child,” Morfydd said. “You need to wash, and you need fresh garments and a meal, and rest. Anything else you can tell us will wait. D’you love nice fresh pork, hmm? Come along now-you must tell me whether you love chops best, or the sweetmeats…”
Left alone, the three men looked at each other. Howel spoke first.
“What think ye, Cormac?”
“That one’s not doing deception on us,” Cormac said readily. “Blood of the gods! The peasant wench never drew breath who could act a part in such manner!-and it’s peasant wench she is, from her speech to the calluses her hands bear from working in the fields. Attend me: her story rings true.” He looked from Howel to Wulfhere. “Nonetheless, we’ll be testing it.”
“How?”
“By going to this village of hers and hearing the gossip there. My father and Sualtim raised no stupid son! This may be a scheme of Sigebert’s however strong the reasons for thinking not. It’s Warily we’ll be going, then. Will ye be lending us a few of your best foresters, Howel, to scout for us and be sure no ambush is laid?”
“Och, man! It’s scarce need ye have for asking,” Howel said, going all old Celtic, “save as a way of stating your wishes. As well ye know, Cormac mac Art. They shall be found this very day.”
“Howeclass="underline" it’s the best of friends ye be. Remember; I shall. Lest there should be fighting to do, we’ll take most of the Danes with us. Two dozen, eh Wulfhere? All draw lots for five to remain and work on Raven?”
Wulfhere agreed, and so it was decided, amid much feeling of close camaraderie. The curses of those five who drew the losing lots nigh sufficed to wither the remaining wet out of Raven’s timbers with no need of the sun’s summery heat.
16
The girl’s body shone voluptuously in the moonlight. Thick pale hair hung down a smoothly muscled back, and water splashed about her thighs as she waded toward the bank. Many moon-silvered drops gleamed on her flesh or fell rolling, from her arms. She reached up to grip the twisted root of a tree for purchase.
Knud the Swift burst from the water behind her. She squealed at the digging of his fingers into the flesh of her well-curved hips with a celerity that fully justified his name-which the girl did not know. She called him by the name he had given her: Wiliulf.
She gripped the tree’s root harder. Knud had lifted her slipping feet clear of the stream’s bed. Still, as he was obviously not about to let go of her, she didn’t mind. She hooked her feet behind his powerful calves and settled her rump firmly against his belly. He made connexion from behind. She gasped; he grunted. They were both very busy for a while. The heavy tree-root was almost torn out.
Lying on the bank beside her, Knud sighed pleasurably. Was his own long-held belief that peasant women were best. For one thing, they were not expected to be virgins. No dynasties or estates depended on their being kept untouched for marriage. An they bore children, so much the better. A child was another pair of hands to work, and therefore always wanted. Thus peasantish lasses might lie with whomever they pleased with little fear of consequences. And they did. They knew a life of heavy toil lay ahead of them, and that they would be old all too soon. They were eagerly inclined to take their joys whilst they could.
The girl nestled against him. Her wet flesh felt cool. Was a pleasant feeling, the night being hot. Knud fondled her. She purred with enjoyment.
“Stay among us Wiliulf,” she cajoled. “It’s good fertile land hereabouts. We do not oft go hungry.”
“I’m a warrior, dear. There be places for me in the army of the Roman king. What should I fight here? Marauding crows?”
“Better than having the war-birds come for you when the fighting is over! Your limbs would stay whole, at least.”
She meant it. Knud found that downright insulting. He slapped her hip with force sufficient to make her yelp. “I can keep my limbs against most men’s efforts to maim them-when I have ax or sword! Syagrius be the likeliest man to give me one. I’ve earned my eating here, and a bundle of food to take me further on my road. I cannot be staying.” For courtesy’s sake, having been well reared, he added, “Not even for you, love.”
The very young woman was disposed to sulk.
She did not continue long when she realized it would gain her naught, and Knud began tickling her again into the mood.
Considerably later she left him, moving soundlessly across the ripe fields toward her family’s hut. The door stood wide in the hot night, its opening curtained with sacking. From the forest’s edge, Knud watched her go. Then he turned, and made his way by winding forest paths to where his comrades were encamped. Several times as he approached he whistled, soft and low. He’d no wish to come upon Cormac and company carelessly, be like to receive a spear’s point ere he could say his name. True, Prince Howel’s foresters had scouted the area close, and reported no trace of ambush or any armed force. Knud had spent five days in the village itself without being seized or coming to harm. He grinned reminiscently. No harm had befallen him indeed! Quite the opposite.
Even so a man could never be certain what might be concealed within a forest of these dimensions. Nigh thirty men that Knud could swear to, for instance, and not a peasant in the village yonder had any suspicion. Belike it could hide a thousand with ease. His comrades would be vigilant. Trust the wary man from Eirrin for that.
“Knud?”
“Myself! Aye and ye sound like… Atanwald?”
“Aye, Swift one.”
An obscure form showed itself, hand outstretched in the sign of peace. A scale byrnie glimmered faintly in the darkness beneath the forest roof. “Be sure of my voice ere ye come closer, lad. We’d not wish to be over-suspicious and kill each other. ’Twere a joke to make the gods laugh.”
“I know ye, man. Lead me to the Hausakluifr.”
Knud was soon in the encampment. He was roundly cursed for accidentally kicking a sleeper wrapped in a long cloak. Erelong Cormac and Wulfhere were awake and ready to give listen to his intelligence.
“All be as the little wench made claim, Captain,” Knud said. “They talk of little else in that pigsty village. I’ll wager it’s the mightiest thing to have happed there in a lifetime. Sigebert’s hunting, and the dogs, and the way he carried off Cathula. He paid for her, mind. The girl’s mother died. Horribly. Not long since, her father burned in his hut. All the village believes it was a drunken mischance-their ‘God’s’ will and justice. I’ve even talked to the priest.”