Abomination (15 page)

“See to the burial,” he said. “Find a suitable plot in the cemetery here and ensure that the grave is properly marked.” The men nodded and carried Osric away. Wulfric turned, looking for Dolly, who was idling nearby with the other horses. It was the first sight that had brought him happiness all morning, and as he pulled himself up into her saddle, he found himself grateful for small mercies. He could not bring himself to imagine her killed, or worse still, wounded by one of Aethelred’s creatures such that he would have to finish her himself. But at least one small part of this grim tale would have a happy end; they would ride home together.

Edgard cantered over to Wulfric’s side on his own mount and the two watched the last of the twisted animal carcasses being put to the torch. “Not a bad morning, I’d say,” Edgard offered, with the
look of a man who might have enjoyed the day’s slaughter a little too much.

“Nor a good one, either,” said Wulfric. “I am only glad that it is over.”

“Over? My friend, this will be over only after we have hunted down every one of Aethelred’s monstrosities that remain. You and I talked about this. We both knew our task would not end with the death of the archbishop. After we return to Winchester, I suggest we take a day to resupply and rest, and then begin—”

“I am not going to Winchester,” Wulfric interrupted. “I am going home. You are more than capable of commanding the Order without me.”

They had discussed this many a time in the weeks since routing Aethelred’s horde at Aylesbury—the need for a standing force of men to carry on the work that he and Edgard had begun. There remained the long and difficult task of hunting down each and every abomination that had fled from battle, hundreds of them now scattered throughout the land, a threat to every man, woman, and child in lower England. But Wulfric had never had any intention of commanding such a force. He had suggested founding the Order only so that someone else could complete the task in his stead, allowing him to go home to his family. And he knew that Edgard would relish such a duty, so he could delay going home to his.

Edgard looked at him, surprised. “You do not at least wish to deliver the news of our victory to the King yourself?”

“That honor I am happy to leave to you. I made a promise to my wife that I would not be gone a moment longer than necessary, and I intend to keep it. Give Alfred my regards, and ask him to please not call on me again. At least until my son is grown. He will understand.”

Wulfric turned Dolly toward the gate and spurred her forward. A part of him, the part ever consumed by a sense of loyalty and duty, griped. Edgard was right that dozens of Aethelred’s
monsters still roamed free and would continue to pose a threat to innocent people throughout the kingdom until all were found and dealt with. But the greater part of him, the part that wanted nothing more than to be reunited with his beloved Cwen and to meet his newborn son for the first time, would not be argued with.

Aethelred is dead, the threat he posed vanquished
, he told himself.
You have done everything that Alfred asked of you. You owe him nothing more. Now go home and be with your family. No one can say you have not earned it
.

The thought drove Wulfric to ride even faster. His home was little more than forty miles to the west. A new life awaited him there, a better life, and if he rode fast enough it could begin before sundown.

Wulfric made it home just before eventide. He had been mindful not to press Dolly too hard, but from the pace at which she ran even unbidden, one would think she, too, knew their destination and was just as impatient as Wulfric. Together they chased the setting sun until they arrived atop the selfsame hill from which Wulfric had taken his last look at his homestead before heading out to hunt Aethelred what seemed like a lifetime ago. The sunset painted all the valley below in gold, and there in the distance, Wulfric saw smoke rising from the chimney of his cottage. His humble home looked as it ever had, and yet to Wulfric it had never been quite so beautiful.

He rode Dolly down into the valley and across the fields that made up his small plot of farmland. In his absence, the soil had not been tilled or tended; he would have much work to do, and quickly, if he were to sow any crops in time for harvest. He smiled to himself, relishing the prospect of the sweat of honest labor, of dirtying his hands with something other than blood.

As Wulfric drew closer to his house, he saw her standing just outside it. Cwen was taking freshly washed clothes from a large wicker basket at her feet and pegging them to a line from which to dry. Wulfric gasped at the sight of her; he had almost forgotten how strikingly lovely she was. After long months away, seeing her now was like seeing her again for the first time. He reined Dolly
to a halt and stayed there a while, admiring Cwen’s beauty in the lambent sunlight.

Cwen caught sight of Wulfric when she turned to take a garment from her basket. She did not react instantly. Instead she finished with the washing, methodically hanging the last of it over the line to dry before walking to the front of the house to meet him. The sun was setting behind Wulfric, causing Cwen to shield her eyes as she approached.

Wulfric spurred Dolly forward, and as he drew closer, he saw for the first time that the great bulge in Cwen’s belly that he had grown so accustomed to before he left was gone. Glancing at the washing line behind her, he noticed the tiny linen shirts that hung alongside the full-size dresses and skirts fluttering gently in the breeze. His son’s clothes.

Wulfric dismounted, suddenly acutely aware of how uncertain he felt. In his zeal to return home, to arrive at this moment, he had never once thought to imagine what might await him. Four months ago, he had ridden away from his wife, leaving her to carry the burden of birthing and raising their first child without him at her side. He had broken his sacred vow to her, a vow little more than a year old, and had chosen the worst possible time at which to do it. She had cussed and cried and thrown everything at him that conceivably could be thrown—he still bore a mark on his forehead from that milk jug—and had told him that if he chose to leave he would not be welcomed home upon his return, if indeed she was even still there.

At the time, Wulfric had dismissed that threat as idle, blurted in anger in the heat of argument and to be regretted and withdrawn shortly after his departure. But now, as he stood before her, he was none so sure. He did find some small relief in seeing her here; she had at least not made good on that part of her threat. But as he looked at her now, her face expressionless and impossible to read, his stomach tightened. It began to dawn on him that the
blissful reunion he had dreamed of for so long might in reality be something he had not prepared for.

She took a step toward him, to better see him in the fading light of day. Wulfric braced himself, too nervous to speak, and in any case not knowing quite what to say. It was a strange, unfamiliar feeling, this particular kind of trepidation. Wulfric was no stranger to fear, of course; no soldier was. He had come to know it well and in all its myriad guises, from mortal terror in the face of a crazed Norse berserker to the chill dread he had often felt in the presence of Aethelred’s malformed horrors. In every case, he had known how to gird himself against that fear, to conquer it and thus his enemy. But this . . . the most abject terror in the face of almost-certain death somehow paled in comparison to how he felt now, caught in Cwen’s inscrutable gaze, facing the sudden realization that the thing he cherished most in all the world might have slipped beyond his reach, lost forever, and by his own doing. He had never before felt so utterly disarmed, so helpless, so afraid.

His mind raced as he considered what approach to take. Contrition? Triumph? Should he have stopped on the way to pick flowers to offer her? Brought some of those elderberry scones she liked from the baker in the village? His heart sank lower still as it began to dawn on him that no words, no apology or gesture, might be sufficient to wipe away the wrong that he had done her.

He was still searching hopelessly for the right words when Cwen ended at least that part of his suffering by breaking the silence first.

“I knew it was you when I first saw you up there on the hilltop,” she said.

What did that mean? Was that good? The words sounded good, but not their tone. If she was pleased to see him, why did she look at him like something the cat dragged in? Or was that just the way she was squinting against the sun?
Don’t stand there like a dumb animal, you idiot. Say something!

Wulfric glanced back at the hilltop, a good five hundred yards away. “Should I take it as a compliment that you recognized me from such a distance?” he asked, hoping to channel a little of the roguish charm that Cwen once admitted had made her fall for him in the first place. But she seemed unmoved.

“No,” came her dispassionate reply. “It was Dolly I recognized, not you. I’d know that horse anywhere.” She took a step closer, scrutinizing Wulfric more closely but without betraying any hint of what might lie within her. “What is that . . . thing?”

It took Wulfric a moment to realize that she was referring to something on his face. His hand came up to touch the thick, wiry beard he had grown while away. “You don’t like it?” he asked as he self-consciously ran his fingers through it.

“It looks like a diseased animal crawled onto your face and died,” she said. “It will have to go if you want back into this house, much less into my bed. So what is it to be?”

She placed her hands on her hips expectantly, as though awaiting his answer. But by now her cool facade was becoming more difficult to maintain; Wulfric detected the subtlest hint of a smile. She was toying with him—and the realization felt like a thousand-pound weight being lifted from his shoulders. He could breathe. But, just to be sure, he drew a knife from his belt, grabbed a bedraggled and bristly tuft of beard, and began sawing away at it. Cwen rushed to him with a broadening smile and moved the knife away.

“Later,” she said, and she gazed lovingly into his eyes. “You can shave it later.” And she flung her arms around him, pressing her body to his as tears flowed down her cheeks. Wulfric let the knife slip from his hand and returned the embrace, holding her more tightly than he ever had. A single tear rolled down his own face and disappeared into the matted jungle of his beard.

“I prayed every night for your safe return,” she said between sobs.

“Every night?”

Cwen looked up at him and wiped away a tear, and there again was that impish curl of a smile. “Well, the first night I prayed you would fall from your horse and break your neck,” she said. “But every night after that, safe return.”

Wulfric smiled, more out of relief than good humor, and embraced her ever more tightly, not wanting to let go. “I feared that you would hate me,” he said.

“Believe me, I tried. I learned I only hate the things that take you away from me.” She looked at him again, this time without any trace of lightheartedness. “Tell me you are done,” she said firmly, almost as a demand, one not open to negotiation. “Tell me that this was the last time. Swear it.”

Wulfric cupped her perfect face in his hands. “I am done,” he said, with sincerity and certitude. “This was the last time. I swear it.”

Cwen melted. They kissed. And then she took him by the hand and, smiling warmly, began to lead him toward the house. “Come,” she said. “There’s someone I want you to meet.”

It was dark inside the cottage, which was lit only by the failing sunlight arcing through a small window. But Wulfric saw it immediately, the little crib in the far corner with a woolen blanket within, its contours shifting gently as something beneath it stirred. Wulfric was drawn to it as though hypnotized, his hand slipping from Cwen’s as she remained by the doorway, watching him with a smile. He approached the crib slowly, transfixed, until finally he stood over it and gazed down at the tiny, squirming bundle that lay there. He glanced back at Cwen, his eyes asking for permission. Smiling, she responded with an encouraging nod.
Go ahead
.

Gingerly, he reached into the crib. His hands were coarse, from a life spent handling all manner of tools and weapons, the instruments of life and death. He had never held anything so delicate, so precious as this. He trembled as his hands closed gently around the writhing blanket and lifted it carefully up and to his chest. He turned into the light and saw the child’s face, no larger than his fist,
eyes half-open, not long woken from sleep, so tiny and so perfectly formed it defied belief. Wulfric gazed down in awe as the child stretched and gave a wide-mouthed yawn, and his heart swelled. He had never in his life experienced a joy like it. And as he stood there, cradling his firstborn, he knew. All the horrors he had witnessed in his life, all the hardship and sorrow . . . if that was the road he had had to travel to arrive at this moment, to be rewarded with the priceless, perfect gift he held in his hands, then it was worth it ten times over and more.

Cwen arrived at his side, smiling warmly. “Here,” she said as she gently adjusted the positioning of Wulfric’s hands, showing him how to properly support the infant’s head. “That’s better.”

Wulfric was still so overwhelmed that his words came haltingly; he stammered as he spoke. “What is his name?”

“I’d hoped to wait until your return so we might both decide,” said Cwen. “But I like Beatrice. After my mother.”

It took Wulfric a moment. Then he drew back the swaddling blanket and looked. Cwen regarded him with amusement as the realization sank in. Wulfric had not even considered it. Somewhere deep down he had been so sure it would be a boy. In his dreams, it was always a boy. All the names he had toyed with, spoken aloud as he and Dolly plowed his fields, to hear how they sounded, were boys’ names.

Perhaps it had been a way to allay some of his trepidation about becoming a father; he had been the eldest of five brothers and knew at least a little about helping to raise boys. Sometimes in his dreams he would spar with his young son with wooden swords, teaching the boy to defend himself and his home should the need ever come—as Wulfric wished he himself had been able to when the Norse came for his family. That was one way he knew to be a father. But a girl was something else entirely. Girls were so much more
delicate
. What did he know that he could possibly pass on to a daughter?