A Different Kingdom(90)

Wyr-fire. Michael shook his head helplessly. 'What are you saying? That when we reach the castle we'll be mere minions of the Horseman, glorified goblins?'

'No. Not you. You have, as I said, an old piety in you that goes deep. But the lady there ... '

Michael grabbed him by his apron and shook him, but the holy man did not blink. 'What do you want, Brother?'

'To come with you.'

Michael released him, not wholly surprised. 'Why?'

'We can help each other, you and I. Your lady's Wyrim blood will get us to the castle and my faith may help preserve the human side of her when we reach it. We can confront the Devil in his lair. '

'That's it. That's why you came to the Wolfweald. To confront the Horseman.'

'Yes. But I am not strong enough on my own, and my novice was a young fool, a coward of little faith.'

'He's dead.'

'I don't doubt it.'

'For a priest, you don't strike me as being too holy.'

'I am holy enough to have survived in this wood. And I know the way to the castle. I can guide you there. Without me you might wander the wood till you die of old age, or until the Horseman is ready to receive you. He controls the paths of all who walk here, unless they have the faith.'

'Faith!'

'Yes. Faith. It has kept me alive here for twelve years, a broken, limping thing at times, but still potent. Let me come with you. It can do no harm, and may do great good.'

'You would set yourself against him, would you? Now there's hubris... Cat would never let you come.'

'Tell her I am to be your guide, no more.'

Michael hesitated. He thought of the changes in Cat, the way she seemed to be metamorphosing into something else. He wanted it to stop. He did not want her against him if he ever made it to the damned castle in the end. The thought was more than he could bear.

And yet he was sure he did not trust Brother Nennian. He had not come this far to be a mere means to someone else's end.

'I'll see what Cat thinks,' he said at last.

Brother Nennian bowed slightly, then with one swift movement drew the Ulfberht out of its bed of clay. He thumbed the edge.

'It would draw blood from the wind now. A weapon fit for a Crusader.'

MICHAEL FOUND CAT with the horses. The brief rest was already filling them out, though Fancy had a tendency to gorge herself. Nennian's hay had been dampened by the winter's rain and had little goodness in it. Cat doled out the Brother's barley grain as though it were water, and Michael had to restrain her; too much of the stuff would give their mounts colic. It was rich after the short commons of the previous weeks.



They stood leaning on a rail very like a hitching post before the horses' lean-to whilst the mist vapour thickened and beaded Cat's hair with grey drops. It made spiders' webs into tangible, jewel-like things and hid the tops of the tallest trees so that they might have been beans talks racing up through cloud to some giant's castle above.

Cat was goosepimpled, and Michael embraced her from behind, burying his nose in her hair.

'So you are not so shy now in this holy place? Has the priest given his permission, then?' But she relaxed in his arms, tilting her head back so he was able to kiss the side of her neck.

'We'll leave soon,' he said, his voice muffled by her flesh.

'Mmm.'

'Brother Nennian is coming with us.'

'What?' She pulled out of his arms and faced him. 'What did you say?'

Tiredly, he told her that the Brother knew the way. He would be their guide, no more. Otherwise they would be wandering until the Horseman was ready to receive them.

'Why is he so charitable to us, knowing what I am? He wants something, Michael. It is in his eyes. He is not offering to do this for nothing.'

'Maybe. But we need him, Cat. We can use his help.' Seeing this did not convince her, he said: 'We'll leave him behind once we sight the castle. We'll lose him in the forest. He won't come the whole way.'

She seemed slightly mollified. 'What's happening to you, Cat?'

'What do you mean?'

'Nothing, nothing.' Again that weariness, the sense of years piled on his shoulders before they had any right to be there.

Cat touched his beard gently. Her eyes had softened. 'You're grey, my lovely boy, all grey and grown. The wood has made you into a man, a warrior. You belong to it now, Michael.'

It's killing me, he snarled silently, but he bent his head to receive her kiss and she pressed her body against him. Hard and soft, bone and breast. He wanted to bury himself inside her and forget about castles and quests, horsemen and goblins.

And the wood. He wanted to forget about that most. of all, and scrape the gathering moss from his memory.





EIGHTEEN

ANOTHER NIGHT IN the smoky hut, a meal composed of the last of the goat stew. Michael woke the next morning with the bright rectangle of the window a lambent blur in his sleep-gummed eyes. Cat was in his arms, their bodies a tangle of limbs and raven hair. He blew dust from her eyelashes gently, saw it dance and glow in the sunshine that poured through the door, and smiled with simple, momentary happiness.