‘What cure?’
‘He said he could not kill.’
‘What did you do for him?’
‘Nothing. I told him to come to Christ and give up his savage thoughts.’
A splash from the submerged passage. Loys thought he would crush the handle on his knife, he held it so tight.
The voices at the pool stopped. Snake in the Eye came running up past them, no lantern to guide him, he was just a shadow in the dim light.
‘Get the man out of the water,’ said the wolfman. Then he was gone after the boy, a silent shadow himself.
Loys slithered down the smooth rock bed of the stream to the edge of the well.
The chamberlain was trying to get out but he was shivering violently and could not make his hands grip the ledge of the pool. On a shelf of rock next to him lay the Lady Styliane. Loys put out his hand but the man didn’t have the strength to reach up and take it.
‘She’s here. She’s taken them back. She means me to die.’ His speech was slurred and slow.
Loys lay down and grabbed him, but the eunuch was far too heavy to pull out that way. How to get the chamberlain out of the water? If he rescued him he would have his gratitude and all the benefits that brought.
Loys got his hands under the chamberlain’s arms and pulled hard. He didn’t budge. He shook as if his flesh was trying to writhe free of his bones.
‘She wants a death, for sure she wants a death. He wants a death. He is she as she always was he. Death begetting, mother and father of death,’ Snake in the Eye spoke from the passage.
The chamberlain grabbed Loys’ arm.
‘That’s right, come on, try to lever yourself up.’
But the chamberlain didn’t drag himself up, he pulled Loys down and forward into the freezing pool.
Loys took in great mouthfuls of water. The chamberlain’s arms wrapped around him, pressing him down into darkness. Fighting for air, grabbing at the chamberlain, forcing him down in the chest-deep water, Loys pushed himself up. The two men staggered through the water, falling, rising, fighting and falling again. Loys heard screams and shouting behind him, saw snatches of light before those arms forced him down again.
The chamberlain was exhausted by his time in the water, and whatever strength he’d suddenly found deserted him just as quickly. One moment he was powerful, almost irresistible, the next his energy had faded as rapidly as a flow of a stream cut off by a sluice gate. The chamberlain’s hands continued to claw at him, but his eyes were frightened. He clung to the scholar for support now.
‘Help me,’ he said. ‘The magic has deserted me. I am alone here and she means me to die. I took my power from here years ago and now she wants it repaid.’
Loys remembered how he had been used — played false and set up by the chamberlain. He could not trust the man, and now he knew his secret the chamberlain was a peril to him. Anger fuelled him. A verse from the Bible went through his mind: ‘till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return’.
Isais was dead. Loys was a murderer already.
He shoved the chamberlain down and held him. He put up no resistance and drowned easily, his hands on Loys’ hands, gentle almost as if the chamberlain was thanking him. Around Loys the light of the rocks seemed to suck and breathe as he waited for the chamberlain to die. A year ago he could not have killed but he had been transformed. By what? By love and the defence of his love. He released the chamberlain and the body floated face down.
He waded to the ledge nearest him, at the far end of the pool from the entrance. Something was around his hands, like weed. Hair. Long hair. He couldn’t look down, he just washed the hair from his hand and pulled himself up. As he did so a sharp pain bit his leg as something dug into his flesh. The stone he had taken from Snake in the Eye was still in his little bag on its cord. He sat for a moment to regain his strength. Where was the wolfman? Without him he would never get out of the caves. He had to find him.
The woman’s voice was in his head but it made no sense. A rock called Scream, a rope called Thin. What did it mean? He reached into his bag to cast the stone away but he didn’t. He examined it. A wolf’s head crudely scratched upon it, just a pebble tied in an elaborate knot on a thong of leather. The voice gabbled like a market trader. A rock called Scream, a rope called Thin. A rock called Scream, a rope called Thin. Something told him to put the stone around his neck. No, that is devilry. The insane shrieking of the childish voice jumbled all his senses, threw his thoughts into disorder. He would do anything to make it stop. Instinctively he knew the stone would help him. He tied it about his neck clumsily, his fingers at first unable to make the knot. In the end he managed it and the voice fell silent. As soon as it was quiet he was tempted to take it off again. He did not. He tucked it into his robe so no one could see the pagan symbol. He was ashamed of it, but the stone comforted him.
He heard a scream and he recognised the voice at once. ‘Beatrice!’ he shouted.
At the entrance to the tunnel, he saw someone move, someone with a head as white as a deathcap in the lamplight. Mauger was crouching at the edge of the water, a cruel curved sword in his hand.
50
The wolfman watched as Snake in the Eye walked through the dancing shadows towards the man who had emerged from the water of the tunnel, his sword drawn. It was the big Viking, naked save for a sword belt. The moonsword! Elifr would have recognised it anywhere. He wanted to spring forward, to insist the boy killed him with it. But the big Viking was there and he had the sword. Elifr opted to sit and wait, to see what unfolded.
Snake in the Eye approached Bollason boldly.
‘Hello, Bollason!’ Snake in the Eye’s voice was like that of a man greeting a friend on a fine morning rather than a warrior meeting another in such uncertain circumstances.
Even the battle-worn Bollason gave a start when he heard the boy’s voice.
‘Snake in the Eye,’ he said.
‘That’s a poor greeting, my friend,’ said Snake in the Eye. ‘Do you not welcome your leader and your god?’
Bollason kept his eyes fixed on Snake in the Eye. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘Need gods explain their purposes to mortals? Do we, who ride shooting stars across the void of heaven and whose enemies suffer numberless griefs, require to give reasons to men?’
‘Still mad and incapable of sense,’ said Bollason. ‘Light a lamp — the light here is dim and I have work to do.’ The wolfman caught the wariness in Bollason’s voice.
‘You paid me the service of allowing me holmgang,’ said Snake in the Eye. ‘I shall repay you by lighting your lamp. That’s how gods work.’
He took a bronze lamp from Bollason’s small bag, shook, rubbed the moisture from the oil-soaked cloth and quickly kindled a flame.
‘I have work to do here,’ said Bollason.
‘Don’t let me stop you,’ said Snake in the Eye.
‘Put down your sword,’ said Bollason. ‘We are friends here.’
‘We are,’ said Snake in the Eye. He sheathed his weapon.
Bollason gave a couple of tugs on the rope. Then he began to pull hard.
‘I think I saw you by some waters before,’ said Snake in the Eye.
Bollason said nothing, just kept pulling.
‘I know your name. This is not your well. You have a well, though — it’s near here, or is it the same well? Are all wells the same well? Is that your secret?’ said Snake in the Eye.
Bollason carried on pulling.
‘I took your head. When I gave my eye for wisdom, I took your head. You advise me and speak truths in my
