King's Blood (26 page)

But the Lady stood above any mortal king. She passed by that outstretched hand to rest her palm on Edith's forehead.

The touch was warm and cold at once, calming and troubling, comforting and deeply disturbing. “You will be what you will be,” the Lady said. “First patience. Then endurance. At last, perseverance. Then destiny will hold you in its hand.”

Edith did not know what that meant at all. But she would. That was the Lady's promise, sunk deep in the silence beneath the words.

Patience she had had. Now she must endure—what?

“Patience,” the Lady said. If she had been mortal, Edith would have said that she smiled. She drew back, taking both warmth and terror with her.

The light whirled away, and the vision with it. The last of it lingered in an exchange of voices. One was Cecilia's. The other was a stranger's, but something about it was incontestably mortal.

“I will take her,” the stranger said.

“Are you certain?” Cecilia asked. “After this, the gods know what will happen.”

“I have faith,” the stranger said. Like the Lady, she seemed more amused than not. “The child needs teaching. Who better to instruct her?”

“No one,” Cecilia conceded. “But—”

“You have troubles enough,” the stranger said. “Go, attend to them. I'll keep watch. When the time comes, I'll do what is necessary.”

“As you will,” said Cecilia. She sounded reluctant, but not so much that she would keep resisting.

Edith stored that exchange away in her memory, keeping it there until, like the Lady's words, it should begin to make sense. She lay for a while then in her own body and her own bed, until the world was steady around her, and she could trust herself to open her eyes.

She felt like herself again. Her body was strong. Her magic was safe in its place. Her wards were even stronger than she remembered.

She had been given more than restoration of strength. Her magic was more solid somehow. At the same time it was more supple. She could lift it like a hand and make a light in the dark room, and open the window on wind and starlight. But it would not let her see where her father was, or if he was safe.

That was part of the burden that was laid on her: to be patient and endure. She had not been given a choice.

Someday, she vowed to herself, there would be choices. Someday soon. She was not a child any longer. When she was fully a woman, she would act as she judged best—and nothing, mortal or otherwise, would stop her.

CHAPTER 29

King Malcolm had been feeling strange since the eve of All Hallows. That was an unchancy night in any age or place, but as he lay in his tent, struggling to sleep, he had thought he heard the Wild Hunt in full cry above him.

It had not touched the camp or taken anything from it, man or beast, but the raiding that until then had been almost care-free had gained a wild edge. The blood they shed was redder, and their weapons thirstier for it. The earth drank it greedily, but gave nothing back.

“There's a haunting on us,” said Connall. He had been Malcolm's squire years ago and still looked after the king's weapons when it suited him. It had, lately—he had demoted Malcolm's squires to cleaning armor and tending horses, and taken the royal armory into his personal charge.

Connall was of the old blood—so old that people whispered he was part fey. He was small and wiry and dark, with quick eyes and quicker hands. No one could catch a fish in a running burn faster than Connall, with only his hands and the light of his eye. That eye could see farther through a stone than most, and make good sense of what was on the other side.

Today, the day after Martinmas, they had taken a little cesspit of a castle outside a market town. The market had retreated before a torrent of rain, but the castle was surprisingly well provisioned. Malcolm's men had found ways to warm its drafty keep, mostly having to do with tanned hides on the floor, bolts of wool fashioned into makeshift tapestries, and a decent supply of firewood.

The garrison that had supposedly been left to defend the place had buckled easily once the Scots overran the town. Malcolm had stripped them of horses and arms and let them go. They were on the road to Newcastle the last anyone saw, trudging glumly in the rain.

Connall's commentary on the supernatural came in the midst of a council. To stay in the castle and hold it, or go on raiding along the river—that was the decision Malcolm had to make. He was inclined toward the raid, but too many of his captains found the lure of warmth and walls too tempting to resist.

Connall was not helping it. “Haunted?” said Rhodry, who was superstitious at the best of times. “What do you mean, haunted?”

Connall shrugged. “We've had company since All Hallows. Things watching us. Other things hunting our trail. We're not raiding alone.”

Rhodry shuddered and crossed himself. Dougal the Huntsman, who happened to be his brother, cuffed him until he reeled. “Idiot! Stop your quaking. It's no more than Norman spies sniffing our arses. I'm for leaving a garrison here and storing our loot, and seeing what else there is to raid.”

Now that, thought Malcolm, was what he wanted to hear. But Rhodry was no coward when it came to facing down his brother, whatever else he might be afraid of. “If there is something out there,” he said hotly, “whether it's a mortal ambush or the Wild Hunt its very self, then I say we stay here where the walls are more or less solid and we can hold off whatever it is.”

Dougal snorted. “What, be caught in a siege with winter coming on and barely enough provisions for a week? If you have to die, wouldn't you rather do it fast than slow?”

“I'd rather not die at all,” muttered Rhodry.

“Nor would any of us,” said Malcolm's son Edward, entering the fray somewhat late but with welcome good sense. “If I'm to be listened to, we'll ride out tomorrow, and trust in God and our wits. If anything is following us, I'd rather meet it under the sky, in a clean fight.”

Of the dozen of them, less than half even troubled to nod. The rest were frowning or shaking their heads. The men in the hall, who could see and hear them on the dais, grumbled in response.

They were getting out of hand—and they were all blinded by comfort to Edward's eminent logic. Malcolm slammed his cup down on the rough planks that passed for a table, spraying bad ale over half the captains. “Damn your eyes! If it's death in bed you're wanting, don't you think we can find beds with a smaller stock of vermin? There's bigger castles upriver, and downriver, too—with more loot and better beds, and by God, women to warm them.”

That raised a shout. This castle had presented one vast disappointment: not a female to be found, except for the mangy cow in the stable—and she was dry. But for the rain and the wind, Malcolm had no doubt that a good portion of his army would have crept off to the town in search of consolation.

Tonight they were all here. He felt the strain in them, the resistance that came to armies when they had lost the fire and begun to think too much of home.

He was not ready yet. His rage against the English king was still hot. These raids had drawn out a few defenders, but nothing notable yet. He wanted William's notice—and William's fear.

But a king was only as strong as the people who followed him, and these were losing heart. They had fought a winter campaign last year and lost. None of them was eager to do it again.

Bad luck to them, then, he thought. He was king, and he had suffered enough insults. This war he was going to win.

He bent his head to his son. “We're riding in the morning,” he said. “And now I'm for bed. Sleep while you can. I'll draw Red William out, and then we'll have a battle that will get our blood running.”

“Inside our skins rather than out on the ground, one would hope,” someone muttered. Malcolm's glance darted, but whoever it was had hidden himself well.

No matter. These men were still his. They would obey. And he would give them a battle, if he had to take them all the way to Winchester and break down the gate.

Temper was a fire to keep him warm. He needed it that night. The air was colder than it had a right to be, even on the threshold of winter. He would never give Connall the satisfaction, but lying in his conquered bed, with no conquered woman to bear him company, he knew that Connall had told the truth. There was a haunting on them.

Tonight it was quiet, like watchful eyes. He could not help but think of a cat stalking prey, crouched outside its door, waiting for it to come out.

A mouse did not boast an army. Malcolm took that thought to sleep with him, dropping off like the soldier he was. No fighting man worth his weapons let himself lie awake fretting when there was a battle to be won.

 
There was bright sun come morning, with clouds blowing away toward the sea. The roads were muddy but passable, and Malcolm's men were in much the same condition. They were still his, in spite of their evening's lapse.

The fine weather roused them somewhat. Malcolm had in mind to take the next market town as he had the last, and hope the loot was better and the accommodations less drafty. If that did not draw out the king's men, he would have to gamble for higher stakes: attack a castle and hope the siege was not too long. Not too likely a prospect at this time of year, with the harvest just in, but if the gods of luck were with him, who knew? He might carry it off.

He was in a surprisingly cheerful mood, all things considered. Whatever had been haunting him had drawn back, if it had ever been there at all. He shook off the brief suspicion that it was hovering, watching and waiting for something that he, idiot mortal that he was, could not foresee.

He grinned at the sky. If there was a battle ahead of him, so much the better.

To be prudent, because after all he meant to win, he sent scouts down the river. The day passed and the army advanced, but the scouts did not come back.

He was not alarmed, not yet, but he gave the order to ready weapons. The line had drawn out somewhat; it came together in something more like battle ranks.

There was no warning. Crows had been cawing, and were suddenly still. That was all.

Edward was riding beside Malcolm, having just come up from the rear, where nothing had been happening or seemed likely to. “River's high,” he said, nodding toward the flood that nearly lapped the road. “Let's hope the bridge isn't out, or we won't be getting across this week.”

“Then we'll raid on this side till there's a ford we can use,” Malcolm said.

Edward opened his mouth to answer. For a blank instant Malcolm wondered why the boy suddenly had a mouthful of feathers. Then the wide eyes and the sudden passage of life from the body brought the world back into focus: sharp as the arrow's point, fiercely bright as the sunlight on a thousand spears.

Malcolm had done it. He had brought out the king's men. A whole army of them lay in ambush at the river's bend, where a copse of trees and the steep hillside had hidden them. They had the heads of Malcolm's scouts on spears, and banners of great lords of the north: Mowbray and Bamburgh, earl and baron, come to drive the Scots back across the border.

Malcolm snatched at his son as he fell, but their horses shied away from one another, and Edward's body tumbled under the hooves of the men behind. There was no grief yet. No time for it. Malcolm's heart had gone cold as it always did in a fight.

The arrows were as thick as rain. The enemy had archers on the hilltops, admirably placed.

Malcolm took an instant to admire them. Normans always had known how to use a good troop of archers. It had won England for them, and might win this battle, too.

Or it might not. Malcolm was old and wily and he had a fire in his belly. He wanted Red William's head on his spear. He felt the rage building, rising up to fill his body, until it burst out in a great bull-bellow.

His ranks drew in, weapons flashing to the defense. The Normans had chosen a fine place for an archers' ambush, but a wretched one for that other and most potent weapon of theirs: the charge of armored knights. With steep slope on one side and river's flood on the other, the heavy horses had no room to maneuver.

Malcolm's smaller, lighter, faster cavalry, even here, could dart from the line in twos and threes and dozens, hack their way through the line of attackers, then draw back to charge again. His knights, such of them as there were, made a wall around him, while his foot resorted to the shieldwall that they had learned, not from the late-come Saxons, but from old Rome itself.

The enemy kept coming, and kept coming—ahead and behind. It was a trap, and beautifully laid. There was no escape to either side—only forward or back, against two armies.

Flights of arrows were not limitless. Quivers emptied; archers gave way to spearmen and swordsmen fighting in close. The shieldwall bristled with spent arrows as it pressed forward step by step. When a man fell, his mates closed in, and the ranks behind stepped over him, steady and relentless.

The Normans had no need to drive from behind. The Scots advanced of their own will. They would break through the ranks ahead—or they would not. That was in God's hands.

Malcolm had no more use for despair than he had for grief. He should have been more wary, chosen another road, given himself more room to maneuver. He had not done those things. And the Hunt, swirling above him, laughed the wild laughter of the Old Things gone mad.

He howled back at them. They might be great powers of air, but he was a king of the Gael, and long before his ancestors had been kings, they had been gods. He swept out his sword and spurred his horse through a gap in the wall that defended him, and set to work slaughtering Normans.