She checked the confessor. He was breathing, but faintly. She needed to get him somewhere he could rest, but what about the unconcious monk? Sigfrid’s horse was too big for her to lift him on and the mule wouldn’t carry two men. She peered at the farm buildings near the river. They were burned, she could now see. There was the ford just beyond the buildings and, past that, the edge of another big wood. The trees offered the best cover and a place to weigh her options, she thought. She’d have to make two trips, one with the confessor and the other with Abram.
She looked up again. Up on the hill she could see someone moving. She had to go. She called to Sigfrid’s horse, almost too softly to be heard. The animal turned as if ridden and came to her. It was a big beast and she was encumbered by the cloak and her boots, but the horse was patient and eventually she got on, shaking her head in disgust at the saddle. It was made of turf, as many of the Viking saddles were. No seat for a king, she thought, nor even for a lady. Still, it was a saddle and it worked, so it would have to do.
Aelis turned the warhorse around and walked it to the mule, leaning down to gather up the pack animal’s halter. She glanced behind her. The figure on the hill was now running down the slope waving at her crazily. From the big baggy kaftan tucked into his stockings at the knee, his lopsided cap and pointy little grey beard, she could see it was the merchant, puffing and blowing towards her, flapping his arms to attract her attention but not making a sound, like a court fool conducting a mad mime.
She guessed that he must be pursued, or rather that he feared attracting the attention of pursuers — that explained his silence. She knew that the merchant would try to ransom her but, then again, wasn’t that what she wanted? She couldn’t risk capture by the Norsemen. The merchant might get past whatever enemy forces stalked the riverbank, reach her brother and send help to get her home. He could help with Brother Abram too.
She brought the horse around to face him. Leshii bent over, resting his elbows on his knees, and wheezing like a clapped-out hunting dog.
‘You kept your oath!’ he said, as if each word was the weight of an anvil and had to be heaved out of his breathless body.
‘Did you keep yours?’
‘I had business with the king. As I see you had. Did the monks do for him? I can’t believe that.’
‘He died by the sword,’ said Aelis, ‘just his own, and wielded by a woman.’
‘You killed him?’ said Leshii. ‘All the warriors in Francia haven’t managed that. How did you do such a thing?’ He was bent double, still trying to catch his breath.
Aelis ignored his question; they had to move. ‘One of the monks is alive. You can carry him,’ she said.
‘Then you’ll have another body on your hands,’ said Leshii. ‘Let me help put him on your horse.’
Aelis nodded. That was, she had to admit, the best plan.
‘We’ll go to the woods,’ said Aelis. ‘From there you can cross to the south bank. Go to Saint-Germain or, if the way is blocked, try to send word to the city. There are men who can get in and out for the right price.’ She reached into the sagging byrnie and pulled out the arm ring. She threw it to Leshii.
‘Tell my brothers’ guards his sister sent you this, from the body of the king she killed.’ Leshii examined the ring, nodding in appreciation of its workmanship.
Brother Abram was not as light as the confessor, and it took a good deal of heaving to get him across the horse’s back. Aelis led the horse while Leshii steadied Abram and led the mule. Clouds scudded across the moon as they descended towards the black ribs of the charred buildings. In the gloom the ridge of the woods behind them vanished into shadow.
They didn’t see the rider at the edge of the trees come down the hill, nor the figure in the feather cloak who stepped from the darkness to take the hand of the pale woman and watch him descend.
19
Leshii was hungry now and frozen. It was that moment in the predawn when the night seems coldest, perhaps because you know the warmth of day is so close.
The lady had refused him even part of her cloak, preferring instead to use it to cover the senseless monks. He did point out that the big monk wasn’t going to notice if he was warm or not, and that it was better a man who was awake should take it, but the lady gave him a look that was not likely to warm him up. Still, he couldn’t complain too much because she suffered herself. Underneath the mail coat, which she showed no signs of removing, all she had on was Sigfrid’s light trousers and silk shirt. Not much for a chilly night.
As a man of lands of the Rus, he was used to the cold, but he was used to being adequately dressed too. The night had been chilly when the air was still, but there was now a breeze in the trees, blowing the cold of the river across their camp, if you could call it a camp. There was no question of having a fire, nor any flint or steel to start one with. Anyway, fires invite curiosity, the last thing they wanted.
The lady, against his better judgement, had released the mule and horse to forage in the wood. He thought they might as well kill one and eat it as lose it to whoever found it. The animals didn’t run off, though; they even came back after they’d been to the river to drink. The river. There was another problem. The spring rains had been heavy, and it was deep and fast-flowing. The ford could be crossed by a skilled rider or by five or six people, all linking arms against the flow, thought Leshii. An old man, a girl and two injured monks? Never. Still, he thought, he might just about make it alone if he could take the mule.
What do with the lady? He could disarm her as she slept and tie her up. But he couldn’t transport her bound and gagged all the way to Ladoga. An obvious captive was an incitement to robbery — bandits would try to ransom her themselves. And he couldn’t trick her into going willingly.
He lay down and tried to sleep, his mind churning over his problems. The horse had wandered around behind him, he thought. He could hear it snorting in the trees. Then he came to himself. No, both animals were there, next to the lady, untied but content.
It was another horse. He stood.
‘Lady, lady.’
Aelis was on her feet with the shield up and the sword in her hand.
Leshii could see nothing. He heard Aelis say a word under her breath in her native Roman. His command of that language was poor but it was a word any trader would know: ‘horse’. She was staring into the trees. She said the word again and there was a voice, almost in reply.
‘Stay there. Stay there. Hold it. Hold. Ahhh!’
There was a crash in the dark, the sound of someone falling. Aelis held up the sword. It gave Leshii no confidence at all. She looked exactly what she was — a fine lady dressed up as a warrior. She held the blade upright, the handle high at the side of her ear as if the weapon was a fan and the shield had its face to the ground, her entire chest and head exposed.
Movement in the trees, something coming at them fast, far too quick to be a man. A riderless horse. As it drew level with the lady, it slowed and went to join the other animals. Leshii watched in wonder as it did so. It was the strangest behaviour he had ever seen from a horse. One second it seemed in a terrible sweat; the next it was rubbing into the other beasts as if they’d shared the same field all their lives.
He didn’t have time to think about that. He saw a blink of white in the dark and a slower movement, left to right. He had the impression of something creeping, almost crablike.
‘That’s a Viking horse,’ said Aelis.
‘How do you know?’
‘The saddle, see. They’re so badly made, they-’
He never knew what she was going to say. He saw a face through the trees and, with his merchant’s ability to remember names, immediately knew who it was.
‘Saerda, friend, have you taken a fall?’
The man came forward, snarling like a dog who’d had a bone snatched from him.
‘You, lady, owe me weregild,’ he said. ‘You killed a king. What’s the rate for that? More dinars than Paris can hold, I think.’
