Blood Eye(109)

'Then I should never have betrayed my father,' Cynethryth said, turning her back on me.





Why are we men such fools? Freyja knows we can make sheep look quick-witted. This beautiful woman had risked everything for me. Alone, she had ridden many miles, crossing the fast-flowing Wye to warn me of her father's treachery. Now her brother, whom she adored, was dead and she was wet with his blood, and I talked of honour. We men know how to kill and believe this makes us great. But women possess innate knowledge of the pain of giving life. Perhaps this is why they feel its loss more keenly. Women bury their men and go on living, and they are much braver than us.





I stepped up to Cynethryth, removing my helmet as she turned to me. 'I am sorry, Cynethryth,' I said, 'and so long as I breathe and even in the life after I will remember what you did for me. For us.' My throat tightened further. 'By the All- Father, I swear I'm bound to you, Cynethryth. I would slit my own throat and be denied Valhöll if you asked it of me.'





'Must it always be about death, Raven?' she asked, a tear rolling down her cheek. 'What about life?'





I had no answer to that. 'Come,' I said, putting on my helmet and taking her hand to lead her south. 'We must reach the ealdorman before he sets off across the sea.' Because she needed answers too, or because she had nowhere else to go, Cynethryth went with me.





That night we slept amongst a stand of straight birches. Their rough, white bark looked dry, but the trunk's cracks and crevices still held a previous rain. Old Asgot had taught me that such trees are imbued with feminine purity, a kind of seidr, he said, which can protect a man against witches.





'So long as they hide us from the English, old man,' I muttered, as we made a bower with bracken and hornbeam whilst the night forest came alive with foraging creatures. We slept lightly and set off before dawn with empty stomachs and aching feet. The forest was damp and quiet and I winced at the noise my war gear made, though it could not be helped. Cynethryth was clear-eyed but wild-looking, her fine features reminding me of a peregrine, and though Weohstan was dead and his blood still on her, she pushed on, and with my war gear weighing me down it was all I could do to keep up.





'What will you do, Raven, when we catch up with the ealdorman?' Cynethryth asked. She had not said her father. A cold rain began to fall amongst the canopy above, fat drops bending the leaves before tapping on to branches, exposed roots and my helmet. It freshened the air and I was relieved to no longer smell blood and death.





'Well?' She grabbed my hand and stopped me. 'What will you do? I want the truth.'





A lie came to my tongue, but died there, because something in Cynethryth's green eyes, in the strong line of her lips, said she knew what was in my mind. 'I will kill him,' I said.





A cumbersome silence swelled between us. Then, after a while, she looked at me. 'He will have his household men with him. You wouldn't get within a spear's throw of him.'





'You have not seen me throw,' I said petulantly. 'I'll think of something.'





'Raven,' she said, pushing her golden hair behind her ears. Beneath the gore she looked fragile though I knew she was not. 'I hate the ealdorman now. Because of his greed, my brother is dead. He cares nothing for me, because I am a woman. Because I am not my mother,' she added, a deep sadness touching her face. 'I cannot inherit his power. Even Weohstan was a sacrifice he was willing to make.'





'Sacrifice?'





'Weohstan's death gives the ealdorman a tenable reason for war with Mercia. My brother was under Coenwulf's protection, wasn't he?'





'You don't believe he meant to let his son die,' I said, thinking of the millers and farmers Ealdred had sent with me to bring Weohstan back.





She hesitated. 'I don't know.' Then she shook her head. 'I cannot watch you kill him. Even if you got the chance.' It was hard to imagine this was the same girl who had come giggling into King Coenwulf's church when I had climbed out of a coffin. She was beautiful still, yet somehow immeasurable, like a deep gorge, and I did not know what to say to her.





'Ealdred must pay for his treachery, Cynethryth. There is no other way. He must die, or there is no honour.'





Cynethryth blinked rain from her eyes, the drops resting on her lashes and running down her cheeks. 'There is another way,' she said, her mouth tight. 'We could take his silver and go. Ealdred is blinded by the gospel book. He won't find us. We'll take his money and that will be your revenge and we will be safe. Safe, Raven,' she repeated and I admit the word sounded sweet as honey. I remembered Sigurd's last words to me before he had raised his sword and charged at the English. I could run away with Cynethryth. Perhaps she would grow to love me and perhaps I could put my seed in her belly and raise children whose eyes were green like hers and not red. Maybe we would grow old and those we brought into the world would remember us long after.