Blood Eye(85)

'Ealdred is happy to have you safe home, Cynethryth,' I said. 'What father wouldn't be?'





'Oh, Raven, pull your head from the mud. He is happy to have the damned book. That's why he celebrates,' she said. 'Because of the book. Don't be fooled by his piety!' The word was heavy with disdain. 'Silver is my father's god. Can you imagine what the book is worth?' Just then the mead hall's door swung open, releasing curses, shouts and laughter into the night. A man staggered out and dropped to his knees to puke. I thought of the Norsemen we had laid out in the mud before throwing their corpses into the sucking surf.





'Your father is an important man, Cynethryth,' I said. 'Of course his heart aches to have lost his son. But a lord cannot show weakness. Not in front of his warriors.' I remembered the empty look in Olaf's eyes when his son Eric with the white hair was killed by bowmen three hundred paces from where I now stood. The Norseman had put the sadness away so as not to weaken the younger men's resolve. I reached out and took Cynethryth's hand. 'Ealdred will grieve in his own way,' I said quietly.





She pulled away. 'He would not be grieving at all if he had not sent you and your devils to King Coenwulf's hall. If you had not come. It is because of you that Weohstan is dead. Because of you, Raven!' I had no reply to that and so I watched a plume of black smoke rise into the star-filled sky. 'And I am not the fool you take me for. You and my father are the fools if you think I believe your lies.'





'I don't understand, Cynethryth,' I said.





'He told me that you are leaving tomorrow to find Jarl Sigurd.'





'And I am,' I said, frowning.





'It has nothing to do with Weohstan?' she asked, daring me to lie. There were many things I would have gladly done to Cynethryth then, beautiful Cynethryth with her golden hair and her green eyes and strong nose, but lying was not one of them, and so I looked away. 'I know you're going to cross King Offa's wall to look for my brother. Well, you're a fool. Weohstan is dead and you will soon be dead, too, and because you are a heathen you will go to Hell and you will be damned for all eternity.' And though Cynethryth probably believed this, there was a gleam of light in her eyes, like the last ember amongst the ashes, and that gleam was Weohstan. She would not say it, but she had not given up hope of seeing her brother alive and that was enough for me to walk into a hundred Welsh spears, spitting fire and fury as I trod.





Then Cynethryth ran off into the night, and I was left staring up at the stars, which would not seem to stay in their places.





At cock's crow I awoke amongst the reeds in Ealdred's hall. The place stank of mead breath, sweat and stale food, and I stepped over stirring bodies to collect my war gear and move outside. It would be a warm day. The scent of violet bellflowers, yellow birds-foot, and magical red clover rose on a June breeze as men and women began their day's work. Chickens clucked and scratched in the dirt, dogs barked, cattle lowed and the forge rang out. I stretched my aching neck, drew some water from the well and tried to wipe the sleep from my eyes.





A hand gripped my shoulder and I turned to greet Penda, one of Ealdred's household warriors who had been recalled from a scouting mission along the Wessex coast. Penda looked like a man who would kill you for the fun of it. You could almost smell the violence coming off him. He wore no beard or moustache – a great livid scar carved from his left cheek to beneath his chin, on which no hair would grow. But the hair on his head stuck out in all directions. During the feast the man had made it clear that he disliked me, though he had grudgingly admitted I could drink well for a pup. He did not know that late in the night, when the timber roof had begun to spin around my head, I had left the table and puked my guts into a hawthorn bush.





'Feels like someone pissed in my ear while I was asleep,' he grumbled, squinting in the daylight and holding the back of his head. His arms were heavily tattooed with swirling shapes and his taut muscles showed beneath a simple mail brynja. It was too warm now to wear a thick gambeson beneath the mail and so most men wore a thinner one of toughened leather.





'I feel as fresh as a corpse,' I replied with a grin.





Penda drew in a deep breath, his eyes following a young redhaired girl as she left the well with two heavy pails. 'It's a fine day for killing Welshmen, Raven,' he said, pursing his lips and whistling after the girl, whose tunic was thin enough to reveal the swell of her behind as she walked. 'It's always a fine day for killing Welshmen,' he repeated, never taking his eyes from her. Penda wore silver and gold warrior rings on both arms and a beautiful sword whose grip was adorned with silver wire and whose pommel was set with amber. He saw my eyes fix on the weapon. 'Here,' he said, drawing the sword and handing it to me. 'I'll let you touch it, but be careful. I don't want your mother taking a poker to my arse if you cut yourself.'