Bard I (2 page)

‘That sword is too good for you,’ he said. ‘When I kill you it will be mine.’

Felimid grinned. Red was staining Tosti’s cross-­thonged breeches where he’d been touched. ‘You won’t kill me, Jute.’ He feinted at the giant’s side, then cut at his head and was parried, blade to blade. ‘You’ve already come as close as you ever will.’

Tosti snarled, and tried to make him a liar with a sweeping slash that whistled through half a circle at the height of Felimid’s waist. Felimid jumped above that devastating arc, or he’d have died in separate halves. Tosti was briefly off balance, and wide open. Felimid struck ere his feet touched the floor again.

His weapon’s razor edge bit through Tosti’s clavicle and gashed his shoulder deeply. Blood burst forth. Tosti backed away, swearing. He took his sword in his right hand. As he lacked index and middle finger to grip the hilt, it was a useless delaying of the end. Felimid moved after him. Metal clashed, and clashed, and Felimid struck Tosti’s broadsword from his clutch. Then he shortened his hold on his own slenderer weapon. stepped close to Tosti and struck him precisely in the temple with the silver pommel, big as a child’s clenched fist. The mighty Jute toppled bleeding on the rushes.

A roar of acclaim that Felimid felt he deserved burst from eighty bearded mouths. He’d suspected that Tosti was unpopular with his fellows; now it seemed certain. They, however, would not decide his fate; the bard’s green eyes moved straight to King Oisc.

He wasn’t grinning or cheering. His hands were splay-fingered and tense with anger on the huge mammoth tusks built into his throne, their tips curving forward above his head. His face looked stark. Tosti was a valued henchman, Oisc’s right hand in war. Felimid knew that unless he said something at once, and made it the right thing, the next words he heard would probably be, ‘Hang him’.

He thrust his sword point into the hard earth floor and left it standing there. Tosti’s blood slid darkly shining down the channel, towards the rushes. Felimid bowed to Oisc with easy, deferential grace.

He said, ‘It’s gratitude I owe you, lord. Had you not granted me leave to defend myself. I’d have fared very badly just now.’

His smooth face was absolutely grave. In the softly accented voice there was not a trace of irony or burlesque to be discovered. And Oisc Hengist’s son looked for a moment as if he’d been kicked in the stomach. He’d been reminded, with exquisite tact, that he himself had sanctioned what the bard had done. The words had been uttered in crass mockery, as Felimid well knew; but Oisc had spoken them. He couldn’t go back on them now, before his men. The loss of face would be too great.

Oisc grunted; hawked in his throat. ‘How grave are Tosti’s injuries?’ he asked.

‘The collar-bone’s severed, lord,’ answered one of his house-troopers, straightening from beside the prone giant. ‘It will knit. Otherwise, he’s lost a chip of muscle from the top of his shoulder, and taken this tiny stab in the knee here. He’s had worse, and thrived.’

Oisc grunted again. But he conceded that small harm had been done. He even brought himself to commend his guest’s showing, drink his health and thank him for not killing Tosti Fenrir’s-get. Felimid felt thankful for that, too. Winning on those terms would have been as disastrous as losing. The feast went on.

By midnight, the ball was a shambles. A score of men had drunk themselves senseless and snored on bench or floor. Some capered in skins of wolf, bear, hog or even horse, and made appropriate noises. In the lands from which their forebears came it had been a sacred rite, but a couple of generations in Britain had made the Jutes less pious. It wasn’t much more than a game to them now.

Some tested their strength by going down on hands and knees while other men straddled their necks, and then trying to stand with that bone-cracking burden. In Felimid’s opinion, only a drunkard would call that amusement. Some rushed together like fighting bucks in the rut, until their heads met ringingly and ran with blood. Some lay with women in the deep soft furs by several hearths, and that reminded the bard of his own soft bed. He decided it was time to retire.

He left the great hall by a lesser door. Chill struck him. Oisc’s burg smelled of the usual things; cattle, pigs, dogs, even a score of horses, although the sea-wolves were no horsemen, and twenty score people, all living within the walls of the strong square palisade. The king’s great hall dominated the burg. Around it stood barns, byres, sties, middens, houses and mere buts. Sweeping in to diffuse the strong commingling of odors came the cold salt air of the sea. for Oisc’s burg stood on the Isle of Thanet, where his father Hengist had been settled with his war-band by the Britons, three generations before. They had put down more lasting roots than the Britons wanted.

Felimid made for one particular barn. His bed was there, in the loft. One of the kitchen girls shared it with him. She was as British as her name, Regan. She had been captured in a raid on some farm and later given to the king in settlement of a debt. She had been married, but her man had been killed in the raid, and she had borne a son, who died in his first year. There was spirit in her yet, and laughter, although it had to be looked for. And she liked the bard.

He found her drowsing. The ladder’s creak and the soft rustle of the hay wakened her; the change in her breathing told Felimid that before she spoke.

‘Felimid?’

‘Myself. But by Cairbre’s fingers, you near as touching had Tosti instead.’

‘Felimid, Felimid! I thank God nightly, that one has never noticed me. I’ve seen him kill. He loves it. I was sure as can be he’d kill you too.’

‘So was Tosti,’ the bard said, taking off his clothes.

He began unaccountably to shake, hours after the event. Why? Just another brawl; he’d fought a hundred. And isn’t it the blase fellow you are? Be insouciant as you like with others, but don’t fool yourself. That was too near a thing. ‘I had to teach him his error.’

‘I’ll wager he hasn’t learned,’ Regan warned. ‘He’s–’ She did not quite dare say it. ‘You know what is told of him?’

‘I’ve heard, but it may not be true. Even if it is-and I grant his nature is ugly enough-he won’t recover tonight from such a wound as I gave him, taken in his man-shape. I’ll save my fear for when he has.’

She chuckled, eyes a faint shine in the dark. There were interesting small stirrings as she arranged the nest of furs and blankets to receive him. Felimid slid in beside her, glad of the warmth she had already made. She embraced him with arms and legs in whole-hearted welcome.

When Regan slept again, her head lay on Felimid’s breast and her sweet loins straddled his thigh. Little was further from Felimid’s mind than thoughts of Tosti; not even in dreams did they trouble him.

The next word Regan spoke was at dawn. ‘Felimid.’ He was asleep, but he slept lightly. Awakening, he ran a hand down the curve of her back. Her hips moved reminiscently.

‘Ah, Felimid.’

‘Sure, that’s my name,’ he agreed, still drowsy.

‘What you did to Tosti last night . . . I didn’t know you’re a magician.’

‘There’s what Roman rule for a dozen generations does to an island! I’m a bard, and that is only a lesser degree of Druid. You had them here, once. Where I come from, bards have been known to sing armies to defeat or to victory, and kings off their thrones or onto them. My grandfather Fergus is Chief Bard of Erin. We’re descended from Cairbre, the bard of the Tuatha de Danann. My line have been poets and harpers in Erin since the world was new, and magic’s in our heart-marrow.’

‘I remember you are pagan when you talk like that. I forget it most of the time.’

Felimid smiled. Slipping his hands from her buttocks down the backs of her thighs, and letting them drift up again to rest lightly on her waist, he said, ‘Forget it again, if it troubles you. It’s not a thing I would change.’

‘It does trouble me. Were you Christian, I could ask you a thing. That you’re pagan makes you one of a kind with Oisc.’

‘I’m one of a kind, and there it ends! Yet can I think of worse things than to be compared with Oisc. He’s a great hero, you know.’

He lied. His real opinion was less fulsome by far, although he wasn’t about to voice it in King Oisc’s own burg. He did not have to. Regan sensed what he really meant. In that moment, she decided to gamble on him. The small hands that had been caressing his shoulders suddenly gripped hard. She gabbled it all in a rush.

‘Hero? He’s a bloody pirate and murderer! Felimid, take me away from here, I’m begging you, please! I hate it here! I hate these heathen who grab me and use me whenever they feel like it-who sacked my home and murdered my people-and-I don’t mean you, but—’

‘Whoa!’ he said, hugging her. Partly sitting up, be rocked her back and forth for comfort. ‘You want me to steal you from Oisc? Is that it? You want to run away with me?’

‘Mother of God, no!’ She looked at him with amazement and something like horror. ‘We’d be brought back. He’d whip me, but he’d hang you. No. He has to be willing to let me go. Felimid, ask him! There is a chance he might give me to you.’

‘Hmm. He’d be more likely to give me a couple of broken ribs, the tight-fisted old wolf! These Jutish lords are not like those in the west. It’s little respect for poets they have in them . . . and say, in a drunken moment, he did part with you? Where would you go?’

‘I suppose-with you.’

‘For how long? I love luxury, Regan, but the truth is that I more often sleep rough than soft. I’m in scrapes and brawls from year’s beginning to year’s end. And when my feet itch, there’s not a woman or man can keep up with me. Are you maybe thinking to make me a Christian? Have me settle down?’ He shuddered. ‘No, thank you.’

And there it was. Before her home was burned, Regan had never gone more than ten miles from the spot where she was born. Most folk never did. She came of a good family, but that was no help. Nothing was left to which she could return. In Oisc’s dun she was a kitchen girl, and wherever she went, she would still have to be a kitchen girl-or a peasant’s wife, or a whore. Both those things were worse than what she had here.

But was it his business to decide that for her?

‘Well then, take me to some Christian town or village!’ she said. ‘Anywhere! It doesn’t matter!’

‘Why?’ he demanded. ‘Are Christians all that much kinder than sea-wolves? Not that my travels or observations have shown me, lovely darling.’

‘I’m losing my soul in this place,’ Regan said. ‘I haven’t been to church in half a year. There was a crucifix I’ve had since I was three-my father carved it for me-but one of the scullions threw it in a privy. I can’t even pray without being kicked. I can’t learn this language; it’s more like the noise of bears than any human talk! There are such creatures as Tosti, and that horrible man, King Oisc’s tame wizard. I can smell the evil of him ten yards away. He frightens me sick.’

She shuddered. ‘Listen,’ she said then, dully. ‘If you don’t help me, I’ll slay myself and be damned. For if you don’t help me, it’s not likely that I’ll ever meet another who can or will. Is that what you want?’

‘Not particularly,’ he mocked. ‘Dry your tears, for I’m a hard-shelled man of experience, not to be moved. And I’ll do as you ask. Let you not come nagging me if it isn’t tomorrow or the next day, though. With one such as Oisc, there’s bound to be some waiting before I can catch him in an expansive, merry mood-or induce one, whichever comes first.’

Regan’s small hands gripped him fiercely. ‘You mean it? You are not playing with me?’

Well she might ask. Not all that Felimid said was seriously meant, by a far cry. But he never lied callously, and what he had just said he did mean.

‘Surely. I’ve even a place in mind where I can take you. I have friends in the land of the Atrebates, good people, the best.’ Hardly anything was left of the tribe he mentioned save the name, yet the name lingered. ‘Mark you, Regan, there’ll be need to go canny. I have enemies there, too. The king’s son is as much a brute as any seawolf, and he’s not fond of me. Let him know you have been my bed-mate and he won’t be fond of you. But I’ll take you there if you have nowhere else to go.’

She believed him at last, and when she did, her joy was like a sunrise. He was generous and noble and fine, she said, and the best man she had ever met, and she babbled on like that for minutes until even Felimid thought her praise was growing the least bit extravagant, and in the most tactful way possible, made her cease talking. Not that he disputed a word she had said.

They made love in the growing daylight. Then Felimid lay (indolently pleased that he did not have to rise at once) watching Regan (who did).

She combed the tangles and bits of hay from her midnight hair, and swiftly braided it. When some women lifted their arms in that way, their breasts flattened to vanishing. Not Regan’s. Although young, hers had a heaviness of maturity. the breasts of a woman who has suckled a child. Wide strong shoulders and hips were hers, with a narrow, nimble waist between. and short but very shapely limbs. Her hands were roughened and red as a kitchen girl’s always are. She had the bluest eyes Felimid had ever seen, like the zenith of a summer sky. Maybe his promise had been rash. He wasn’t at all sure that Oisc would willingly part with her. On the other hand, it occurred to Felimid that he did not absolutely have to have the king’s consent.

Regan dressed quickly, kissed Felimid slowly and was gone. She had her work to do, and punishment to face if she shirked it. For the present, she was still a bondwoman.

On her way to the kitchen. she passed a tiny log hut. Four big stones raised it a yard off the ground. A flat­ faced yellow man squatted before it in feathers and reindeer skins, a curious drum on his lap. He was no larger than Regan, who crossed herself at the sight of him. This was Kisumola, the man she had spoken of, the king’s tame wizard.

Entranced, he at beating his drum in unearthly rhythms with a baton of reindeer horn. He could summon demons or the spirits of the dead with that drum, and banish them. He could divine the future. Painted pictures covered the surface of the throbbing, muttering thing. Men, women, animals, birds, and fish were represented, with symbols of rain, wind, snow. tide, and the sun. A carved wooden ring called an
arpa
skittered and danced over the figures as the drum was beaten. In the pattern of its movement, Kisumola saw the pattern of happenings to come.