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Not yet done, I turned Dandy about. I saw there were three figures ahead of me, backs turned, running down through a deep gulley. They were a youth – a mere boy-at-arms – an ageing man and, judging from the gait not the attire, a young fighting-woman. Another girl…For pity’s sake; was the fighting strength of the Elfwych so very much depleted? I gave a quick look for Wolfrid or his whelp, or any other friend, but found myself riding alone. Confident still, I spurred Dandy on. The Elfwych appeared to deliberately move apart when they realized they were being pursued, and I was gaining on them. The rough grass among broken stones, the deep cut of a stream at the bottom of the fall, was making it difficult for them to keep to their feet. Aided by Dandelion’s greater pace and sure-footedness, I would soon overtake them. (There was no need for me to guide her. Dandy would only have protested at the pull on the rein.)
Ahead of me, the fleeing woman turned her ankle, she pitched and fell, though I gave her scant notice until she scrabbled awkwardly to her feet again and turned to face me.
Why did I stop at her? Why dismount then? All three were easy victims. I liked women, of course. But this was another Elfwych and I was a Wishard. I felt the first unwanted physical stirring of my body. But then, violation – was that really my intent? – was such an impotent weapon upon a killing field. I might have smiled at the paradox. Violate them with your sword. Cut off their heads. Rip out their bellies. Do not try to fuck them. They will only fuck you first.
Yet, there I stood.
And there was something else…something far more curious: a connection between us I was at a loss to explain. What was this? A fleeting shadow, like wild bird flight, crossed my mind. For the second time that day I felt as if I was standing in two places at once. I was become an unwilling partner in some waking dream. The real world was less solid than a drift of smoke. And this Elfwych woman was my accomplice. We were conjoined and could not easily step apart. From somewhere there were questions, words were spoken, but so softly, I could not make them out; or their source…if they were not hers.
It was enough to hold my sword arm.
‘Shit!’
Kill her. Kill her and be done with it, Rogrig Wishard.
She was yelling at me now, but still I could not make out what it was she said…only understand the anger, the fervent anger showing on her twisted face, the fierce warning in her voice.
Her kin – the youth and the old man – were already well beyond my reach; above me at the top of the gulley now, only legs moving against a still blue sky, scrambling out of sight. If they were meant for a bodyguard, they did not intend to stay and make a fight of it.
I must use my sword. I must not look her in the eye…before or afterwards. One quick, clean stroke would finish it, Rogrig Stone Heart. She had led herself into the frae she must take the consequences of it.
Only, I held off. Only, I did look her in the eye.
And I will swear this to you: it was her…the dead woman. Yes. Impossibly, it was the same dead girl I had killed already. Living again, breathing again. Her eyes, her hair, her skin…they were the very same. Of course, there was a simple answer to this riddle, if only I could truly believe in it. Surely these two were close kin. This was a sister, then, or a cousin at the least? Though, my obvious inaction began to reveal my doubt.
In truth, I did not yet understand or recognize just what it was I had been privy to here. What I had witnessed – no, something more than that – what I had unwittingly become a part of. I might have guessed, and called it wychcraft – wychcraft at the hands of an Elfwych. Or else, it was some other unearthly masquerade…a trick; a faerie’s Glamour, or the work of a fell-wisp. Though, none of it was likely in a world that believed only in the certainty of a cold sword. I, a grown man, was far beyond faerie tales!
‘I saw you dead…’ I said.
‘You mean you wanted me for dead, Wishard!’ she returned with a fury.
‘I saw you…your head was broken, taken from your shoulders, played with for a bloody football!’
We had begun to sidestep each other. I was already holding my sword between us. We were circling warily about it.
‘What think you? I was in hiding,’ she said. ‘What better place to conceal myself upon a killing field, than in among the dead?’
Only, there was an obvious deceit in her voice that betrayed her.
‘I think you are an unpractised liar,’ I said. ‘And this is impossible…’
I raised my sword to make my stroke. What did she have to lie about?
‘Oh please, not now!’ she cried. ‘Not him!’
‘Eh?’
Her outburst seemed nonsense. It was not a response to anything I had said. Yet she repeated herself, with even greater venom.
‘Please! Not now!’
Then I felt the heat of the blow. My hesitation had cost me. She had struck first. She had stuck me with a short knife. My loose leather jack, sewn with its paltry strips of hammered iron, was always a poor man’s armour.
‘Shit!’
It was experience moved me then. We were at close quarters. I turned the edge of my sword and instead of using the blade, drove the pommel down hard upon her head. The contact drew blood and tore a sliver of hair and skin from her scalp, knocked her sideways. But it was a poor, glancing blow; I had meant to break her head open.
I hit her again and she collapsed already senseless.
‘Shit, shit!’
I too was bleeding. And though I should have finished it then, still I held back. I did not kill her. I…could not do it?
Stupidly – there was the noise and the threat of fighting all about me on the fells – I lowered my arm, sheathed my sword, and knelt down beside her. How might I explain this? (How might I explain any of this?) I wanted to touch her. Not a touch that would hurt her, not like that. Hurting her again would have been easy. I wanted…well, if I could make any sense of what I wanted…I wanted to prove that she was real, ordinary, human. And not some deluded man’s fetch; some foul whimsy brought up out of a night-torment.
She was wearing the common breeches and reinforced jack of a fighting-man, and yet at her throat there was a gold amulet. It was a single piece and simply fashioned, but this was enough of a conceit (or perhaps a mistake) to mark her apart…only a damned fool or someone confident, in both her rank and her sword arm, would openly wear such an obvious badge of privilege in the frae. I was a soldier-thief. She was my worst enemy. I should have stolen it from her, taken it as my prize; added it to Notyet’s growing purse. I should have loosened her breeches and stolen more…gone on my way and thought no more of it.
Her arm had fallen into the stream. The closed hand still held the knife. I took it up, threw the knife aside. I lifted her arm and laid it down, clear of the stream. I cupped my hand and, taking water, gently bathed her brow. That was all. As I did I heard the babble of the stream. I would swear this to you; it was speaking to me. Though it whispered, I could plainly hear its call. And I suddenly knew that if I would only listen to its voice then I would understand its words.
This Elfwych and this Wishard…they are the very same…
‘What?’
When I looked again I saw the stream was turning red.
‘Fucking, shit!’
I was still bleeding. I ran my fingers across the cut. The wound was long, but it was not too deep. Yet it had been a deliberate thrust. What was this Elfwych about? Trying only to injure me, to distract me rather than kill? And why would she do that?
Then she was moving again, her hand grasping at a tuft of grass, trying to pull herself upright.
I watched as she slowly dragged herself to her feet.
There was a moment of indecision. She stood almost within reach of me. What was it? Was she going to come at me again? (Even without her knife.) I lifted my sword, only to stay my hand before it ran clear of the scabbard. She turned slowly, almost invitingly, towards me – but invitingly of what?
Afterwards, a long time afterwards, I remembered there was an instant then when our eyes briefly met. What did we each see there? What was there between us?
I could so easily have felled her.
I could so easily have let her go.
I did neither.
Upon the moment, the distant, random clatter of swords striking against swords, the cries and counter cries of men in the frae, was usurped, overlaid by the sudden toning of an iron bell. First there was one, and then came a second in reply, off at some great distance. And then there were many. Each of them, languid, almost soporific in tone; it was a deep and sonorous sound. Their beat was deliberately regular and no sooner heard than the gathered crows – our constant aerial spectators – seemed to scatter above our heads, spiralling ever upwards into the very heights of the sky.
All around us, near and far, men stayed their arms; the fighting was instantly done with.
I let go the hilt of my sword, without a care, let it run freely back upon its scabbard.
The toning of the iron bells was an obvious signal. There were to be no more killings made this day. For it bore all the notes of surrender, and a defeat accepted. Perhaps even the death of a Headman.
Chapter Seven
The Unspoken Voice
When the Elfwych woman turned her back on me and walked away, heading towards The Rise, and Staward Peel, I did nothing more than follow after her.
I walked a-foot. Dandelion came trailing behind me, her ears pricked but without complaint. If there was any danger remaining, it was far enough away now and of little enough concern to ignore.
The toning of the iron bells accompanied us.
‘You have another name, Elfwych?’ I called out to her, raising my voice to be heard.
For the briefest moment she faltered in her step, as if caught, surprised to find me still there. ‘Use your eyes and look about you, Wishard,’ she said. ‘Upon Graynelore people die for their names.’ There was a slow drawl to her speech that told me her head was still befuddled by the blows I had struck. Though it had not blunted her tongue; the way she spoke dared me to make an argument. It was a mute point.
‘Aye, well, listen to the bells…There has been enough of death,’ I said, honestly enough. ‘What do you say to an equal trade instead…a name for a name?’
‘Ha! Does that not depend upon the goods offered being of an equal value, and the trader not simply a common thief?’
‘Are you a thief then, Elfwych?’ I was goading her.
‘And is my name safe with you, Wishard?’
‘Rogrig…’ I corrected her. If I did not answer her question (I did not wish to lie). It seemed she did not want one.
‘I am called Norda,’ she said, without inference.
It was my turn to falter in my step. I turned my head aside, certain I could not easily conceal my reaction to her revelation. I knew the name, of course. Who upon the West or South March of Graynelore did not? This woman was Norda Elfwych, the elder daughter of Stain Elfwych, Headman of his grayne. It was she that Old-man Wishard had set his eye upon (aye, and his lust). She was the prize we were fighting for this day.
Suddenly the iron bells stopped their toning. One by one, they were quickly stilled. Their message was delivered.
The silence they left behind them lay thick and heavy upon the air. No natural sound was willing to intrude upon it. It seemed the world had taken a deep breath, and now held it, waiting upon an outcome.
We continued to walk on together, if always at a safe distance from each other; still wary enemies and adversaries, and neither of us quite willing to take our hands away from our concealed weapons. (No fighting man – or woman – wears but one.) Though I carried my sword sheathed.
‘I did not ask you for an escort home, Rogrig Wishard,’ she said, at last, determined to break the uneasy silence between us.
‘I did not offer you one, Norda Elfwych,’ I returned.
‘Am I to be your prisoner then…is that it? Or perhaps you are to be mine?’ She tried to laugh, only to falter as she stumbled again.
This time I did not move to help her – though she was not expecting me to – I was being deliberately cautious of her now. She shook her head as if to clear her befuddlement, put a finger to her ear as if to stop the ringing. There was blood. Her pain was more than obvious. Certainly, she must have endured more serious injury – she was a fighter, and by reputation more than equal to many a man – only the last strike of my sword had knocked her cold. That had, obviously, annoyed her. I could read it in her face each time she glanced my way. She was, after all, the daughter of a Headman, and a privileged member of her grayne. (A grayne that, no doubt, felt it had a rightful claim to the title of Graynelord.) In her eyes, she had been brought to ground by a clumsy, common fell-man, a poor soldier-thief without distinction. She had managed to stick me with her knife and could well have finished it. Only, I sensed there was still something more to this than her common annoyance alone.
You are not even aware of your own true nature.
Did I say it, did I even think it? Or did she? She was looking my way, but her mouth was not moving. There were no words spoken. I will swear to it. I am a plain man, but I am not an idiot.
It might have been the voice of the babbling stream (all this time we had continued to follow its course), or else it was the movement of the leaves on a tree, or the scuffling of a breeze as it ran off through the long grass.
For certain I had felt a connection between us, but I had not understood it for anything more than, what? At best a weak man’s physical desire for a woman. She had roared at me. Why? Was it for my ignorance? (I did not know.) I had mistaken that too. So she had wounded me and I, in my turn, had struck her down. We both might thank the fortunes I had not the wit to take my advantage of her while I might.
Again I heard the whispers of an unspoken voice:
How long have I waited upon another…
‘What?’ I said.
Look to Wycken…You must look there…
‘Wycken? What did you say, there? What is this trickery?’
But that was the last of it.
Before me, Norda Elfwych looked suddenly ashen. Her face had drained white. She fell to her knees and let go the contents of her stomach.
I chose then to stay silent. I chose to remain Rogrig Stone Heart yet awhile. I waited with her until she was done and had cleaned herself up, then we walked on. We remained always just out of arm’s reach of each other. I deliberately followed a few steps behind her and let Dandy make her own way, free of her reigns.
We were not travelling alone, nor had we been for some time now. There were many others coming off the killing fields, instinctively covering the same ground. Some were riding, but as many men went a-foot now, driving their over-laden hobby-horses before them: the hobbs made to carry more than their full weight of dead men slung across their backs. Elfwych and Wishard moving in the same direction…
The fighting was done with. The day was won and it was lost. We were nearing The Rise, and close to the tower of Staward Peel, where we would wait upon the pronouncement of the manner of our truce, that we might all take ourselves safely to our homes again.
Chapter Eight
The Broken Tower
All settlements throughout Graynelore, though loosely planned, were broadly similar, often built upon lonely and inhospitable ground. They grew up higgledy-piggledy, sometimes upon exposed hilltops, sometimes hidden away within closed valleys, or kept a secret within dense woodland, as the country allowed. The best houses, though small and squat, were always made of stone, with walls so thick that, from within, you could not hold an ear to the world outside. Lesser dwellings were huddled together, with perhaps a patch of land for pasture, or for grain fields, or for root fields; the staples of our diet. All the graynes – great or small – set their houses as close to the Stronghold of their Headman as familiarity would allow. They maintained them in this manner, not out of any real desire for close community, but rather for mutual safety: common defence against the raider. In a moment of crisis, close kin were in eye sight and earshot of close kin, and might more easily raise the alarm, go to their neighbour’s aid, or make good their escape.
The Elfwych bastle-houses of The Rise were great in number. Only, as we began to pass them by, it became obvious that many of them were already long abandoned, and others, if still inhabited, were sorely ill-repaired. Strings of fell beasts were being led off nearby pasture, and Norda’s own close kin stood by and watched as Wishards brazenly took them. These were the first spoils of the Elfwych Riding then.
The weight of men about us steadily grew in number. There might have been as many as two hundred men waiting upon the breach in Stain Elfwych’s broken peel tower. Both sides still held their arms, as was the way of things, but it was more than obvious where the surrender lay.
At least no man there tried to hinder Norda’s progress. Perhaps aware of her rank, riders shied their hobby-horses aside and gave her way as she approached the door of the broken tower.
She looked back towards me only once more. I will admit it; I had already deserted her. I had deliberately slipped away into the growing crowds, was already lost to her eyes among the throng; Dandy too. I caught a glimpse of the question on her face. Had I been making certain she was safe…or safely delivered? I dared not disclose myself and attempt an answer. The job was done, either way. Beyond the Riding I, a common fell-man, had no further part to play here. Neither Graynelord nor Headmen sought my opinion of the terms of any truce. Certainly, it was not my place to interfere with the Old-man’s…conquests. Save for this: I was more than curious of that strange connection between us two; that ethereal bond that even now left an Elfwych and a Wishard somehow hopelessly conjoined. I made a vow then. I would play the spy and keep an eye out for Norda Elfwych. Within that broken ruin of a tower there were many vantage points a nimble man could choose to make his perch.
I used Dandy’s back for my first platform, climbed the broken stonework with ease from then on, and soon found myself sitting pretty within a, largely collapsed, arched wind-eye. The perfect spy hole! The spot gave me the advantage of overlooking both the inner Great Hall and the outer courtyard. The truth of the Elfwych decline had not been overstated. Staward Peel was in a ruinous decay. Its weakened face lay open to the sky in several places it should not have been.
I carefully watched Norda’s progress through the crowded courtyard. Among the throng I recognized my own close kin, my elder-cousin Wolfrid, and caught sight of Edbur-the-Widdle some way behind the Old-man himself.
The Graynelord was still mounted upon his beautiful silver-grey hobb, still dressed for show in his best finery and polished body armour. I had last seen him at the head of his grayne leading us into the frae, though I could see no mark of battle upon him. He was looking Norda’s way, staring avidly after her as she approached the breached doorway. His face and balding head stood out bright red with an unhealthy excitement. Suddenly, he stood up in his saddle: another deliberate show of his manhood. There was no disguise here. And if he made no movement to bar her way, content yet, it seemed, to stay his hand and wait upon the moment: he was making his intentions more than obvious.
When Norda walked across the threshold of the tower she was immediately faced by the remains of her own family…both the standing and the fallen. From the vantage of my perch, I could see by the way she pinched her nose and gagged at the throat – which she tried to disguise with her hand – it was the stench that first caught her attention. Though, I am certain, she was well used to the smell of the bloodied dead, forgive her reaction. After all, the sack of butchered meat presented to her was all that was left of her own father. I do not make the description frivolously. The tolling iron bells had not lied. If they had called for a truce, they had also warned of a Headman’s death. Stain Elfwych had been killed in battle. For the sport of it – and some small souvenirs – his enemies, my family, had crudely hacked his body into little pieces.
‘Ah, my dearest sister, thank the fortunes, she has returned safely to us.’ It was Iccara, Norda’s younger brother, who made the greeting. His face was tight with worry and thick with sweat, though there was no sign of a blood wound upon him. He had been in a heavy fight or else he had been running. With the killing of his father it seemed he was now the Headman of the Elfwych. A feeble weedling man, it was a title he did not want and was not best suited to. Let other men lead; let him alone. Of course, he had no choice in the matter. He may have been Norda’s younger sibling, his beard still a shadow of soft hair, but no woman was ever a Graynelord.
He pushed his lank hair away from his face and gave her a weak smile.
Norda appeared to sway, as if her legs were about to give way beneath her, and she might well have let them and swooned, but this was not the time to show a woman’s weakness. She feigned strength, and stood firm.
‘This day is lost, then?’ she said, desperately trying to keep emotion out of her voice.
‘Aye…lost my hen.’ There was a twitch about Iccara’s left eye. ‘Though not perhaps without a little hope; and even some advantage to it…’
‘Advantage, how so?’ she asked, confused. ‘And speak plainly brother, if you can, this day is already sorely long and ill-used. What are you saying?’
‘Old-man Wishard, The Graynelord himself, is…waiting outside for you. We have already spoken and come to terms. He has made us a proposition.’ Iccara broadened his weak smile, revealed his crooked teeth. It did not improve his look of obvious insincerity. ‘After the…unfortunate killing of our father, he wishes only for peace between our kin. He seeks but a simple Pledge from us this day.’
‘A Pledge?’ she returned.
‘Aye, well…All right…a Pledge and a union, then. He wants a union of our surnames: Wishard and Elfwych. A marriage would suit us both at this time, dear sister. Eh? What better symbol of our good faith.’
‘A marriage…between an Elfwych and a Wishard? Do you really think the man wants a marriage? Have you seen him out there? Have you? A strutting cock-bird! All he wants to do is fuck! And have a care my brother, his blood is up! I do not think he has a mind to where he buries his manhood!’
Iccara held his tongue still between his grinning teeth, as if in careful consideration of his answer. Across the years there had been so many Pledges, so many unions between the graynes. There was hardly a pair of fighting Headmen in all Graynelore who were not already cousins, of sorts. So much so, that that particular leash had become too long a measure to make effective political unions. And marriages, the strongest knots, close to incestuous. If a man took his enemy for his wife (though more likely for his whore) it was little more than expediency; a winner taking his spoils; a way for defeated foe to make up the balance of their loser’s reparation when other resources were scarce. What would a Headman prefer to forego: the little gold he possessed; the few stock animals that remained to see him through a winter, or would he rather give up a sister to a letch, a full grown mouth to feed?
‘Our own brother’s trampled body was brought home sorely broken apart. We needed four strong men and a blanket to carry the…the remains left of our father. There are at least two hundred men-at-arms waiting on an answer at our shattered door. You have seen all this for yourself, sister. Need I go on?’ Iccara was spitting as he spoke. There was neither sentiment nor any sense of personal loss. He took hold of Norda’s hair, pulled her head up, bringing their eyes level. (A better man than I might have drawn his sword and intervened. I only held on tighter to my perch and let the scene play out). ‘Believe me, sister, if all it was going to take to resolve this matter was a quick jack-up, I would hold you down myself and help him to it…Be assured. This is not a private affair. There is the well-being of our entire grayne to consider. Now, find me an alternative – preferably one that does not involve us all being butchered – or else make your Pledge and let us have done with this.’