head on the cobbles.’
‘We are not such good priests, are we?’ offered Naslyn, with a smile.
‘The abbot is. Many of the others are. I do not want to see them slaughtered.’
‘Is that why you are thinking of staying, so that you can defend them?’
‘It is in my mind.’
‘Then I will stay too,’ said Naslyn.
CHAPTER THREE
CETHELIN AWOKE WITH A START, THE COLOURS OF THE VISION
filling his mind. Lighting a lantern he moved to his small writing desk, spread open a section of parchment and took up a quill pen. As swiftly as he could before the vision faded he wrote it down. Then he sat back, exhausted and trembling. His mouth was dry and he filled a goblet with water. In the days of his youth he could hold the visions in his head, examining them until all was revealed. Now he could barely sketch out the broadest lines of them before they dissolved.
He stared down at what he had written.
Cethelin could make no sense of the hound-wolf, but he knew that the tide always represented humanity. The angry sea was the mob in the town, and the shrine was the church. Lantern was right.
The mob would be coming with hatred in their hearts. Could a candle of love turn them from thoughts of murder? Cethelin doubted it.
The three-legged hound limped in from the bedroom and sat beside the abbot. Cethelin stroked its head. ‘You are not a wolf, my boy,’ he said. ‘And you have chosen a poor place to seek safety.’
Rabalyn entered the small cottage and closed the door quietly, inserting the wooden plug that locked the latch. He wandered through to the small living room. Aunt Athyla was dozing in the chair by the fire. In her lap were several balls of brightly coloured wool, and by her feet lay around a dozen knitted squares. Rabalyn moved through to the kitchen and cut himself some bread. Returning to the fire he took up the brass toasting fork, thrust a slice of bread onto it, and held it close to the coals. There had been no butter for some weeks now, but the toasted bread still tasted fine to a young man who had not eaten that day. He glanced across at Aunt Athyla as he ate. A large woman in her late fifties, she had never married, and yet she had been a mother to two generations of the family.
Her own parents had died when she was just fifteen — only a little younger than Rabalyn was now. Athyla had worked to raise four sisters and a brother. They were all gone now, and only rarely did she hear from any of them. Rabalyn’s own mother had deserted the family eight years ago with her husband, leaving two children in the care of the time-worn spinster.
He gazed fondly at the sleeping woman. Her hair was mostly grey, and her legs were swollen with rheumatism. Her knuckles too were slightly deformed by arthritis, yet she laboured on daily without complaint.
Rabalyn sighed. When he was younger he had dreamed of becoming rich and repaying Aunt Athyla for her kindness, perhaps buying her a fine house, with servants. Now he knew such a gift would bring her no joy.
Athyla did not desire servants. He wondered if she truly desired anything at all. Her long life had been filled with duties and responsibilities she had not asked for, yet had accepted. She had only one piece of jewellery, a small silver pendant that she unconsciously stroked when worried.
Rabalyn had asked her about it and she just said someone had given it to her a long time ago. Aunt Athyla did not engage in long conversations and her reminiscences were abrupt and to the point. As were her criticisms.
‘Just like your mother,’ she would say, if Rabalyn left any food upon his plate. ‘Think of those starving children in Panthia.’
‘How do you know they are starving in Panthia?’ he would ask.
‘Always starving in Panthia,’ she would say. ‘It’s a known fact.’
Old Labbers had later explained that forty years earlier a severe drought had struck the nations of the southeast. Cadia, Matapesh and Panthia had suffered crop failures and there had been great hardship. Scores of thousands had died in Panthia, the worst hit of all. Now, however, the Panthians were among the richest of nations. Aunt Athyla listened as Rabalyn explained all this to her. ‘Ah, well, that’s nice,’ she said. Some days later, when he refused to finish a meal that contained a disgusting green vegetable he loathed, she shook her head and said: ‘Those little children in Panthia would be glad of it.’
It had irritated him then, but he smiled as he thought of it now. It was easy to smile and think fond thoughts when Athyla was asleep. As soon as she was awake the irritation would return. Rabalyn couldn’t stop it. She would say something stupid and his temper would flare. Almost daily he made promises to himself not to argue with her. Most altercations ended the same way. His aunt would begin to cry and call him ungrateful. She would point out that she had beggared herself to raise him, and he would reply: ‘I never asked you to.’
His leggings were still damp, and he stripped them off and hung them over a chair near the fire. Returning to the kitchen, he filled the old black kettle with water from the stone jug and carried it back to the living room.
He added fuel to the coals, then hung the kettle over the flames. Once the water was boiling he made two cups of elderflower tisane, sweetening them with a little crystallized honey.
Athyla awoke and yawned. ‘Hello, dear,’ she said. ‘Have you had something to eat?’
‘Yes, Aunt. I made you some tisane.’
‘How is your eye, dear? Better now?’
‘Yes, Aunt. It’s fine.’
‘That’s good.’ She winced as she leaned forward towards where Rabalyn had left her tisane. Swiftly leaving his chair he passed her the cup. ‘Not so much noise tonight,’ she said. ‘I think all this unpleasantness is over now.
Yes, I’m sure it is.’
‘Let us hope so,’ said Rabalyn, rising from his chair. ‘I’m going to bed, Aunt. I’ll see you in the morning.’ Leaning over he kissed her cheek, then made his way to his own room. It was tiny, with barely space enough for the old bed and a chest for his clothes.
Too weary to undress, he lay on his bed and tried to sleep. But his thoughts were all of Todhe and the revenge he would seek. Rabalyn had always avoided trouble with the councillor’s son. Todhe was malicious and vengeful when he failed to get his own way, and merely surly and unpleasant to those he deemed not important enough to draw into his inner circle. Rabalyn was no fool and had remained wholly neutral in the only area where they were forced to come together — the little schoolroom.
When Todhe spoke to him, which was a rare occurrence, Rabalyn was always courteous and careful to avoid giving offence. He didn’t think of it as cowardice — though he was scared of Todhe — but more as good common sense. On occasions when he witnessed the bullying of other boys — like fat Arren — he had convinced himself it was none of his business and walked away.
However, the beating of old Labbers had been brutal and sickening, and Rabalyn found that he did not regret the punch that had begun this enmity with Todhe. His regret was that he had not had the courage to rush in on the adults who began the beating. No matter how much he thought about the dreadful incident he could make no sense of it. Old Labbers had never done anything to harm anyone in the town. Quite the reverse. During the plague he had gone from house to house ministering to the sick and the dying.
The world was indeed a strange place. As he lay on his bed Rabalyn thought about the lessons he had
