said he don't want no shit-shoveling in daylight. Nor no shit-shovelers disturbing no ladies. We don't want to do it, lord, we'd sooner be in bed, but we got to do it, it's our hides if it ain't done by morning; chamberlain told me he'd have the skin off me for sure.”
The whine of the slave was unmistakable. As he spoke he kept pushing the cart forward, making sure the aged reek of twenty years of human dung got well to the thane's nostrils. The thane gave up, walked away still waving a hand in front of his face.
It would be hard to make this a story for poets, Shef reflected. No poet had ever found a place for the likes of Cwicca. yet the plan could never work without him. Slaves, freemen, and warriors looked different from each other, walked and talked differently. No thane could ever doubt that Cwicca was a slave on an errand. How could an enemy warrior be so undersized?
The gang reached the door of the women's privy, at the rear of the great quarter-acre pavilion. In front of it stood the permanent sentry, one of Burgred's hearth-companions, six feet tall and fully armed from helmet to studded boots. From his place in the shadows Shef watched intently. It was a critical moment, he knew. Cwicca had blocked as much of the view as possible with his cart, but just the same a watchful eye might be there in the darkness.
The gang surrounded the companion-sentry, pressing round him, deferential but determined, pawing at his sleeve as they tried to explain. Catching his sleeve, catching his arm, pulling him down as a skinny arm shut off his throat. A momentary heave, a strangled half-cry. Then a spurt of blood black in the moonlight as Cwicca passed a razor-sharp knife across vein and artery and windpipe, cutting down to the neckbone with the force of one slash.
As the sentry fell forward, was seized by six pairs of hands and upended into the cart, Shef reached them, grabbing the helmet, spear and shield. In a moment he too was out in the moonlight, waving the dung-cart impatiently on. Now any watchful eye would see only what was normal: the armed six-footer waving forward a gang of dwarvish toilers. As Cwicca's gang got the door open, pressed round it with their shovels and buckets, Shef stood for a moment in full view. Then stepped back into the shadow as if to watch the slaves more closely.
A moment later and he was through the door. And Godive was in his arms, naked beneath her shift.
“I couldn't get my clothes,” she whispered. “He locks them away every night. And Alfgar—Alfgar took the drink. But Wulfgar sleeps also within our booth, and he would drink no ale because it is a fast-day. He saw me leave. He may cry out if I do not return.”
Good, thought Shef, his brain cold as ice in spite of the warmth in his arms. Now what I meant to do all along will seem natural to her. So much less to explain. Maybe she will never know that I did not come for her.
Behind him, Cwicca's men were pressing in, still giving the impression of men trying to work quietly but openly.
“I am going into the sleeping-chamber,” Shef whispered to them. “The lady will show me. If you hear an alarm, flee at once.”
As they stepped into the unlit passage between the little individual sleeping-places of Burgred's most trusted courtiers—Godive moving with the sureness of one who had walked it a hundred times—Shef heard Cwicca's voice behind him. “Well, since we're here we might as well do the job. What's a few buckets of shit in a day's work?”
Godive paused as they reached the lowered canvas flap, pointed, spoke almost soundlessly. “Wulfgar. To the left. He sleeps in our room many nights, so I can turn him. He is in his box.”
I have no gag, thought Shef. I expected him to be asleep. Silently he caught the hem of Godive's shift, began to lift it up over her body. For a moment she caught at the material with automatic modesty, then gave way, let him strip her naked. The first time I have done that, thought Shef. I never imagined it would be no pleasure. But if she enters naked, Wulfgar, will be confused. It may give me an extra moment.
He pushed her bare back forward, felt the wince and the familiar feel of dried blood. Rage filled him, rage at Alfgar, rage too at himself. Why had he not thought, not once these long months, what they must be doing to her?
Moonlight through the canvas showed Godive walking naked across the room to the bed where her husband lay in drugged sleep. A grunt of surprise, anger from the short, padded box to the left. In an instant Shef was standing over it, looking down into his stepfather's face. He saw the recognition, saw the mouth open in horror. Stuffed the bloody shift firmly between Wulfgar's teeth. Instant resistance, a furious twisting like a giant trapped snake. Though Wulfgar had neither arms nor legs, he still struggled desperately with all the force of his back and belly muscles to get a stump over the edge of the box, maybe roll to the floor. Too much noise, Shef knew, and the privileged couples sleeping in the little canvas boxes around him would wake as well, perhaps decide to intervene.
Perhaps not. Even noble couples learned to turn a deaf ear to the sounds of love. The sounds of punishment too. Shef thought of Godive's scarred back, thought of his own, conquered the momentary repugnance. A knee in the belly. Hands forcing the shift deep down into the throat. Twisting the ends behind the head and knotting them, knotting them again. And then Godive was with him, still naked, thrusting forward the rawhide ropes Alfgar's men used to fasten their trunks of belongings onto the pack-mules. Quickly they ran the ropes round the sleeping-box, not tying Wulfgar down, but making sure he could not climb out, crawl across the floor. As they finished, Shef waved Godive to the other end of the box. Carefully they lifted it from its stand, placed it on the floor. Now he could not even tip the box over, make a noise.
The short struggle over, Shef took two paces across to the big bed, looked down at Alfgar, asleep in drugged slumber in the moonlight. His mouth hung open, a steady snore coming from his throat. Still a handsome man, Shef recognized. He had had Godive these twelve months and more. He felt no urge to cut his throat. He needed Alfgar still. For the plan. And yet a gesture. A gesture would make the plan work better.
Godive was coming forward, in gown and mantle now, recovered from the box where Alfgar had locked them. In her hand she held her little seamstress's scissors, a look of set determination on her face. Quietly Shef blocked her, forced the hand down. He touched her back, looked inquiringly.
She pointed to a corner. There it was, the bundle of birch-twigs, fresh ones, without blood. He must have been planning to use them later. Shef straightened Alfgar on his bed, folded his hands on his chest, placed the birch-bundle between them.
He moved over to where Wulfgar lay in the rays of the moon, eyes bulging, staring up with an unreadable expression: terror? disbelief? could it be remorse? A memory came to Shef from somewhere: the three of them, Shef and Godive and Alfgar, small children, playing excitedly at something—bulliers maybe, the game with the plantain-shoots, where each child took it in turn to cut at the other's shoot with their own, till the head of one or the other came off. And Wulfgar watching, laughing, taking a turn himself. It was not his fault he was a heimnar. He had kept Shef's mother, not repudiated her as he might.
He had watched his son flog his daughter half to death. Slowly, making certain Wulfgar saw every movement, Shef took the borrowed silver pendant from his pouch, breathed on it, polished it. Laid it on Wulfgar's chest.
The hammer of Thor.
Silently the two slipped from the room, headed through the darkness for the door to the privy, guided by the muffled sounds of scraping and clanking. A problem occurred to Shef suddenly. He had not thought of this in advance. A noble lady, gently bred and brought up. There was only one way out for her. Cwicca and his gang could walk out, protected by the obviously shameful nature of their task and their own size and gait, the unmistakable marks of the slave-born. He could seize the spear and shield again and walk with them, complaining loudly if need be about the shame of a noble thane escorting a shit-cart to see the slaves did not steal or loiter. But Godive. She must needs go in the cart. In her gown. With a dead body and twenty buckets of human dung.
As he got ready to explain to her, to speak of necessity, apologize, to promise a bright future, she stepped ahead of him.
“Get the lid off,” she snapped to Cwicca. She put her hand on the fouled edge of the cart, vaulted into the dark, stomach-gagging reek inside. “Now move,” came her voice from the depths. “This is fresh air compared with King Burgred's court.”
Slowly the cart squeaked its way across the courtyard, Shef striding ahead, spear-shaft sloped.
