Abomination (10 page)

Cuthbert felt briefly uplifted by the compliment, only to grow even more nervous as the King’s words reminded him of the responsibility that now weighed upon him. He placed a hand to the back of his neck and rubbed nervously.

Wulfric did not know what to make of the callow, fidgety little man who stood before him. Little more than a boy, really. There had been many like him during the war, pressed into service despite their protests and their tears. Most of them had not
survived long. But behind all the awkwardness and jitters, Wulfric recognized a spark of something in the boy’s eyes—a keen intellectual curiosity that he remembered once burning within himself as a young man, before war had made it a luxury to be swept aside. In a way he envied Cuthbert. Before the Norse came, he had often dreamed of joining the clergy himself and devoting himself to a life of quiet scholarship.
In the next life
, he told himself.

“You came with Aethelred to Winchester?” he asked Cuthbert.

Cuthbert nodded. “I was one of many he brought from Canterbury to assist him with his . . .” He hesitated, looking for the right word. “His . . . experiments. I dared not refuse, but I feigned a sickness contracted on the journey so that I might have as little hand in it as possible. Many of us were not comfortable with what the archbishop was doing. Few of us had the courage to refuse or question him.”

“What became of the other clerics when he escaped?”

“One tried to stop him. He was turned, God help him. The others fled shortly after for fear of being punished for complicity in his crimes.”

“But not you.”

“I have no family, no means, nowhere else to go. I cannot return to Canterbury. And even if I could, I would not. I have vowed to help somehow undo what I helped to bring about, and I told His Majesty so.”

Wulfric smiled; he was beginning to like this man. Oftentimes a fretful demeanor like Cuthbert’s could be mistaken for spinelessness, but the more Wulfric took the measure of him, the more he was convinced that Cuthbert was no coward. From his own hard-won experience, he knew that true courage was not the absence of fear but doing what must be done in the often-paralyzing presence of it.

“In Cuthbert’s study of the scrolls, he discovered that they contained more than just the words of transformation,” Alfred explained. He looked at Cuthbert. Still ridden with nerves, it took
the cleric a moment to realize that the King was expecting him to continue the tale.

“Oh! Yes. The scrolls also contained detailed descriptions of several other quite interesting invocations, some of which I believe were intended to be used to counter the transformative effect. Put simply, I believe it may be possible to bless an object—such as a suit of armor—with a ward of protection that would dispel any magick directed at it.”

Wulfric looked at Alfred with puzzlement. “I thought you had ordered the scrolls destroyed.”

“I have been working mostly from memory,” explained Cuthbert. “I have a very good one.”

“Does Aethelred know of this?” Wulfric asked him.

“No. By the time I deciphered these counterspells, I had seen for myself what the archbishop was doing, and I decided it was best not to pass on any further knowledge to him. When he asked me, I told him that the rest of the scrolls were beyond my ability to translate.”

Wulfric was impressed. A nervous little milksop this young priest may have been, with a lifespan likely measured in seconds on any field of battle, but Wulfric’s father had taught him to value intelligence and sharpness of mind more than any other quality, and it was fast becoming clear that Cuthbert had no shortage of either. Still, it was difficult not to feel extreme unease as he considered the strategy that Alfred had proposed with such confidence. Kings, Wulfric contemplated, were always more sanguine about their war strategies than were the men charged with carrying them out on the battlefield. He gave Alfred a skeptical glance, such as few of those at court would dare attempt.

“
This
is your plan? Magickal armor?”

“I’m sure by now you would agree that Aethelred’s magick is no fantasy,” said Alfred. “If the arcanery with which he conjured these monsters is not in doubt, why should we not have as much confidence in the other spells gleaned from the very same scrolls?”

“I look at this as I would any other weapon of war,” said Wulfric. “I will believe in its usefulness once it has been proven in the field. How exactly do you propose to test this?”

“I thought we might put the armor on you and throw you at Aethelred,” said Alfred with a sly smile.

Wulfric turned again to the cleric. “Does your knowledge extend to anything we might use offensively against Aethelred and his horde?”

Cuthbert looked puzzled. “I’m sorry, my lord . . . such as what?”

Wulfric glared at him, irritated. “I don’t know! A rain of fire? Enchanted arrows? You tell me, you’re the expert!”

Cuthbert looked down at the floor, embarrassed. “No, my lord. Nothing like that, I’m afraid.”

“So you can protect me against this conjurer’s magicks, but not against the beasts he creates.”

“For that, my friend, you will have to rely upon your sword, and your wits, as you always have,” said Alfred, with a smile that he hoped might foster some encouragement. It did not succeed.

Wulfric sighed. It was becoming increasingly clear to him that there was to be no escaping this dire duty—not only for the debt he felt he still owed Alfred, but because the more he saw and heard of Aethelred’s sorcery, the more he genuinely feared for the chaos and destruction it might spread. He could refuse and go home, but then how long might it be before war or something even more terrible arrived in his village, threatening his wife and child? No, this mad priest had to be stopped. And if he would not do it, then who would?

“I will want to choose the men I take with me,” he said to Alfred with the weary tone of reluctant acceptance.

“Of course,” said the King, trying not to show his relief.

Cuthbert was still standing there, quietly wringing his hands. Wulfric looked to him now with a nod. “Starting with him.”

Cuthbert’s eyes widened in alarm. “Excuse me . . . what?”

“If this campaign is to be successful, my men and I will rely heavily on your knowledge. Your
unique
knowledge.”

“Yes, yes, of course,” stammered Cuthbert, with the beginnings of what felt a lot like panic. “But I can discharge my duties here, enchant whatever armor you require before you and your men depart. Anything you—”

“That will not be sufficient,” Wulfric interrupted with a wave of his hand. “This magick of yours is unproven. We may require your expertise to maintain or adapt it as needed. And we will almost certainly encounter situations that will require improvisation. You will serve us best in the field.”

Cuthbert could hear his own heartbeat pounding in his ears like a drum, and darkness seemed to be creeping in from the corners of his vision. His knees felt weak. His stomach tightened. His mouth was suddenly so dry he could barely speak, but his keen sense of self-preservation somehow compelled the words to come forth.

“My lord,” he offered meekly, voice cracking. “With respect, I am a scholar, not a soldier.”

Wulfric clapped his hand heartily upon Cuthbert’s shoulder, and the cleric’s legs almost gave way beneath him.

“My friend,” Wulfric said, “as of today, you are both.”

Cuthbert was dismissed, and as the priest scurried off in the direction of the nearest outhouse, Wulfric and Alfred walked back from the chapel to the courtyard where Wulfric’s horse was stabled. For a while, neither man spoke. But the pall of unspoken words hung over them both until Alfred was forced to say something. Anything.

“Where will you start?” he asked.

“I will find Edgard,” said Wulfric, with no hesitation. He had already thought that far ahead. “There is no battle, no campaign I
can conceive of, that I would fight without him at my side. Once he is with me, the others I need will follow.”

Alfred nodded his approval, and they walked several more steps without a word. Wulfric gazed at the stones between his feet, deep in sober contemplation. “Of course, first I must give the news to Cwen,” he observed, his voice lower now, as though speaking to himself.

“How will she take it?”

“Truth be told, I do not know which I fear more—Aethelred’s army of abominations or her reaction,” replied Wulfric, only partly in jest. “I promised her I would never go to war again. That was her one and only condition when she agreed to marry me.”

“You are not going to war,” offered Alfred. “This is a singular mission on behalf of your King—and frankly, your God. Cwen is a woman of faith, is she not? Surely she will understand that.”

Wulfric gave it thought. “A crusade,” he said, finally.

“Just a small one,” suggested Alfred wryly, with a smile that he noticed Wulfric did not return. Alfred knew his friend well enough to see that there was something more on his mind, something even he was reluctant to voice.

“Is there anything else you would ask of me?” he said. And that was enough to stop Wulfric in his tracks. The knight turned and looked at Alfred hard, with something as close to anger as the King had ever seen directed at him.

“I have only one question to ask,” said Wulfric. “How could you have been so blind as to not see where this madness, this . . . 
heresy
, would lead you?”

Alfred looked about him as though searching for an answer. And Wulfric saw now in his face things he had seen many times in other men, but never in his King. Remorse. Guilt. Shame.

“I have asked myself that question many times. I have also asked God. So far, neither of us have an answer. All I can offer is this: Everything I have done in my life, including this horrifically misguided venture, has been compelled by a single aspiration—to
protect and defend this kingdom. So it pains me more than you can understand to know that my actions may have now put it in greater peril than any Norseman ever did. But that is why I ask you now, not as your King, but as your friend, to help me this one last time. To help unmake the wrong that I myself have made.”

Wulfric looked at his King. Alfred found his expression impossible to read, and he waited, for some gesture of understanding or, dare he hope, absolution. But all Wulfric gave was a single nod before he turned and walked away toward the stable where his horse was waiting.

“It will be done,” he said, without looking back.

When Wulfric arrived home, it was worse than he had feared. Cwen bawled and cursed and threw everything at him that her heavily pregnant state would allow. Alfred had been wrong, of course—not about Cwen being a woman of faith, but in suggesting that it would help her understand why Wulfric had to leave her when her belly was ripe and she needed him most.

Wulfric knew that Cwen would never have believed a story of monsters and magick, so he told her instead a tale of a dangerous band of heretics led by a deranged priest who was spreading blasphemies and had to be dealt with—it was, after all, still true, in a manner of speaking. But invoking duty even to both God and King carried little weight with Cwen, whose priorities now began and ended with the gift she carried inside her.
Tell Alfred he can stick his little crusade up his arse!
she had screamed at him between bouts of hurling copper pots from across the kitchen.
God does not want you chasing mad priests a hundred miles away—he wants you here with me and your unborn child! How can you do this to us now?

This is why warriors should never marry
, Wulfric later thought to himself as he packed his saddlebag and nursed a bruise on his forehead from a milk jug that Cwen had aimed particularly well.
Because war is a jealous mistress. She has a way of calling us back to her, long after we thought we had bid farewell for good
.

Wulfric mounted Dolly and headed out that same evening. He had hoped to at least stay the night, but Cwen had told him in no uncertain terms that the only place he would be sleeping would be the stable. And so he rode into the night, heading east, to where he knew he would find Edgard. At the top of the hill, he stopped and looked back, hoping to catch sight of Cwen watching him from the doorway or the window. But there was no sign of her. Sadly, he turned away and spurred his horse on.