‘Why do you call me that?’ The name seemed to resonate in his head like the bell of hours.
‘It is your name.’
‘Release me from this place, devil.’
‘Would you be free?’
‘I would be free.’
‘Then run free.’
Suddenly Jehan was choking again, drowning, back in the pool. Something was beside him in the dark, its great head lolling against him, its breath hot on his skin, the monstrous note of complaint and agony that issued from its throat threatening to burst his ears. The wolf was next to him, held down with bonds cruel and thin. Its agony consumed him, and he was no longer himself; he was the wolf, trying to stand, trying to breathe even, beneath the awful constriction of the vicious threads that held and cut him. He broke his bonds behind him and ripped at the noose around his neck with his fingers, tearing the rope to nothing.
Something at his side was in its death throes. The seductive beat of a failing heart, constricting veins and muscles, the shallow, frozen breath filled his mind. His body responded to it and he forced his way through the water to drink in the delicious rhythm of death, to take it in and express it like a dancer expresses music.
There was a great cry. It was so near that at first he thought it had come from himself. But it had not. It had come from the man lashed to the column of rock, the man dying under Jehan’s fingers and teeth. More noise, more howling. The other monk was screaming for him to stop. Jehan went to him and made him quiet.
When he was done, Jehan lay a while in the water, like a corpse among corpses. He thought nothing, felt nothing. He did not question, did not think, as the pale child took his hand and led him from the pool.
40
Leshii was dreadfully tired. The fire was warm and hypnotic and he allowed himself an old man’s fancy of picking faces in it as he thought about his options.
The only hope he had was that the lady would arrange some sort of compensation for him when they returned to Paris. But how certain was that? The whole town was surrounded by a seething mass of Danes, like so many ants around the discarded core of a pear. There would be a fight to get in and Leshii wasn’t up to that.
Even if he did get in, how would he get out, this time with no warriors to help him? Accept it, you fool. You’re a poor man now. All your labours have come to nothing. He said the words to himself and felt very bitter.
Warriors — Franks or Danes — might think it noble to have striven and lost but he couldn’t see it that way. He had planned an old age in a courtyard garden warmed by the sun. He had thought he might have a fountain in the Roman style, a woman to cook and clean for him, perhaps even a bed slave if he could afford one. All that was gone, just the memory of a dream.
He fell towards a miserable sort of sleep but his anxiety brought him jolting back to consciousness.
How long could he go on trading for? He could make a living, of course, scratch together enough for food and some mean lodgings, but he knew what faced him when his eyes failed, his back seized up or his knees — already painful — became unbearable. He would starve or have to cast himself on the mercy of the temple of Perun. It was no way to end your life.
The warmth of the fire lulled him and he started drifting away once more. A noise broke his dozing. It was the call of a bird. He looked around him. Two ravens were perched on the sleeping Frank. All the feelings he had been suppressing inside him seemed to come bursting out — anger, disappointment fear — and he picked up a stick to hurl it at the birds. Then he stopped himself. The Frank was Renier, the one who had implied Aelis was a whore for cutting her hair. Leshii had had a thought.
He put the stick back down and looked around him. There was no raven coming for him. He went across to the horse and the mule they had brought with them. Both animals were hobbled — a forefoot and a back leg tied together to make it impossible for them to wander too far. He removed the hobbles and tied the beasts loosely to a tree. He wanted to saddle up the horse but feared too much stamping and blowing would wake the Franks. Then he took his knife and went to Aelis’s tent. As he passed the Frank, he saw in the moonlight that the bird had taken a peck at his cheek.
It hadn’t woken the warrior, though the man was mumbling in his sleep: ‘She is not of my party. She will counsel against me for my angry words. She will produce sons to frustrate the claims of my line. Eudes is not the man to lead the Franks. She is not of my party. She will counsel against me for my angry words. She will produce sons to frustrate the claims of my line. Eudes is not the man to lead the Franks.’ He repeated the words again and again.
The raven flew from the man’s shoulder up into a tree, fading to invisibility against the dark mass of the branches.
Leshii knelt by the flap of the tent. ‘Lady, lady!’
There was no answer.
‘Lady, lady. Quickly, before it’s too late. The Frank is enchanted.’
‘Who is there?’
‘Shhhh! Do not attract his attention. You must come away with me now. The Frank is enchanted and who knows how many more of them. You are not safe with these men, lady.’
‘What do you want, Leshii?’
‘Quick, pull on your boots. You are in danger. Hurry.’
Aelis came to herself and did as Leshii asked. She looked out of the tent across the glade. The Frank sat, his sword drawn, looking down at it and mumbling to himself as if he didn’t quite know what it was.
Aelis crawled out of her tent. ‘Alert the others,’ she said.
‘No, I think they may be enchanted too, we have no way of knowing.’ Leshii’s voice was an urgent whisper.
‘So what do we do?’
‘Come away, now. You are not safe. The ravens will find you everywhere. Ladoga is your only course. Helgi can save you if we can keep the enchantment away until then. I have a plan how we might do it.’
She looked at the merchant. Aelis, who heard people as music and sensed them as colours, could tell he was lying, or rather that he was motivated by self-interest and was not telling her the whole truth. He seemed to hum with threat, like the buzz of a hornet across a summer’s day. But when she looked at the mumbling Frank she sensed something of a different magnitude altogether. There was tumult there, disturbance, like a mighty flood driving a screaming waterwheel.
‘We need to go,’ said Leshii.
Aelis knew he was right, and they began to make their way across the camp. As they passed him, the Frank stood. ‘Look at your hair. That is the mark of an enchantress. You are no princess but a peasant slut!’
‘Get on the horse! Go back to where we met,’ shouted Leshii, who had given up hope of not waking the other Franks. He formed his hands into an improvised stirrup and Aelis jumped up onto the horse with a gasp. Her ribs were terribly painful. She forced herself to forget that, pulling up a spear from where it was stuck butt first in the mud.
The Frank leaped towards her, and she flicked the hindquarters of the animal out of the way with the pressure of her leg. Leshii kicked at the Frank’s legs and knocked him to the ground, but the man was up in a second. Other knights were pouring from the tents.
‘He’s enchanted; he’s trying to kill the lady!’ shouted Leshii.
Aelis put her legs to the horse, and it sprang forward into the night, away down a track. Renier went plunging after her, screaming and shouting.
‘You see!’ shouted Leshii. ‘You see!’
‘What has happened? Slowly!’ It was Moselle, buckling on his sword.
‘The lady is pursued by enchanters. They have possessed your bondsman. He means to kill her.’
‘Crap,’ said Moselle. ‘Get me my horse. Never mind the saddle; just get my horse.’
