Hawk Quest

XIX

They scraped north for two more days and late on the second afternoon they nosed into the mouth of a wide firth, rounding a great plug of basalt almost hidden behind a blizzard of seabirds. Shearwater sailed through the birds’ fishing grounds. Boobies sheared the sky in their thousands, folding back their wings and plummeting like darts into the waves. Emerging from the storm, the company found themselves in a busy sea-lane. Edinburgh was only a short run down the southern shore of the firth. Vallon told Snorri to hold a northward course.

‘Ain’t we putting in at the capital?’ Raul asked. ‘We won’t find a better place to take on trade goods.’

‘The Normans will have an embassy there. If they find out we’ve landed, they’ll demand our arrest. With invasion threatening, the Scots won’t refuse them.’

‘Handing us over to the Normans ain’t going to stop them invading.’

‘I know, but the Scots will want to avoid any provocation,’ said Vallon. ‘Giving us up would be a sop that costs nothing.’

Raul wasn’t happy and vented his discontent to Wayland. ‘We ain’t going to make our fortunes by ducking every hazard.’

Although Wayland refused to be drawn, his own attitude to the voyage was beginning to sour. All they had left for food was bread and enough water for two cups daily. Conversation had dried up and Syth no longer sang as she worked. His skin itched and burned with saltwater sores.

By midnight they’d passed the firth’s northern point. On they sailed, steering by the light of a pared down moon. Early next morning, under a pastel sky, the weary crew rowed into the bishopric of St Andrews and tied up inside a breakwater.

Wayland had expected something grander and Raul was disgusted, complaining that the town didn’t even have a proper harbour. On a promontory north of the city, masons were at work on a church tower; otherwise, the only buildings more than one storey high were a few shingled houses on the waterfront. The rest of the settlement was a muddle of shaggy hovels.

Vallon and Raul rowed ashore with Snorri to find lodgings and sound out the prospects for trade. Wayland mooched on deck, watching the comings and goings on the quay. The port was used by traders from across northern Europe, and Shearwater’s arrival attracted little attention. Among the groups of Scots dressed in plaid were swaggering Norsemen wearing baggy breeches gathered at the knee.

It was afternoon before the shore party returned. They’d met with a representative of the civic governor who’d arranged accommodation for them in a house reserved for merchants. Vallon told the company that the governor had invited him to dine on the morrow, and that the outlook for trade was limited. At this season of the year there was little grain to be had. They might find some malt, and there was a sawmill five miles out of town where they could buy timber. Raul and Wayland would go there the day after tomorrow, when they’d rested.

The company transferred ashore, leaving Snorri and Garrick on board. Worn out by their voyage, the crew retired to bed early. Vallon had a room to himself at the top of the house. The others paired up according to ties of friendship or habit. Syth and the dog were segregated in the kitchen, a place overrun by rats that scrabbled in the straw and fought over the greasy cook pots. On the morning Wayland left for the sawmill, he found her curled asleep in the passage. Light from the door fell on her face. He studied it more closely than he’d dared do when she was awake, pulled her blanket over her shoulders, and joined Raul in the morning sunshine.

The sawmill was in a forest clearing that sloped down to a shallow loch. Raul knew his timber and proved a shrewd bargainer, rejecting the trees that the mill owner tried to fob off on him. This one had been felled too hard and had the shakes. That one was too knotty. Another was marred by a vein of soft brown pith. ‘It’s foxy,’ said Raul, and stared disgustedly at the surrounding pines. ‘Truth is, compared with Baltic wainscot, none of this wood’s fit for anything but burning.’

When Raul had made his selection, Wayland helped lever the squared trunks on to a sledge. Bullocks dragged the load to a wagon waiting on the road. With time on his hands, he found a log of straight-grained ash and cleft it with a handaxe to make arrows. A boy approached and offered to sell him a creel of trout caught in the lochan that morning. They weighed three or four to a pound and Wayland wrapped them in moss and cooked them in embers for the midday meal. He and Raul ate them with bannocks by the waterside, then they just sat with their thoughts. A breeze swished through the treetops. Fish dimpled the surface of the loch. Across the water a lime-washed steading stood seated on its reflection. A man was chopping wood outside it, the sound of each blow not carrying until he’d raised the axe for the next stroke. Blue hills footed in shadow far to the west.

Raul nodded towards the cottage. ‘Think you and Syth would be happy there?’

‘Hm?’

‘You’ll be planning to settle down. Raise a family.’

Wayland was shocked. ‘It never crossed my mind.’

Raul gave his leftovers to the dog. ‘I wasn’t much older than you when I left home. Never stopped travelling since, never been to the same place twice. You get weary after a while.’

‘You’ll be able to settle with your share of the profits.’

‘Aye, I’ll find a resting place sooner or later.’ Raul stood up, clasped both hands above his head and stretched. ‘Ah, well. Mustn’t weaken.’

Wayland took a last look at the hills and followed him back to work.

They hiked into town under a benign sunset and picked their way down alleys that were little more than open drains. Ahead of them a lean sow and her litter of striped piglets slurped at a trickle of effluent. She raised her head and flared her snout. Wayland stopped and put his hand across Raul’s chest.

‘It’s only a piggy-wiggy,’ said Raul.

A moment later both of them were quick-stepping backwards before the sow’s grunting charge. They took a turn at random and went down the next lane.

‘What a shit-hole,’ Raul said when they reached the next muddy crossroads. He looked around him like a man planning an escape. ‘Where do you reckon a fellow might find a drink in this dump?’

‘Forget it. Vallon told us to return in good time.’

‘Just a cup to wash the sawdust from our throats.’

‘Not me.’

A man came out of a house and went off down the street. Raul ran after him, calling. Turning, he trotted backwards. ‘Sure you won’t come?’

Wayland shook his head and returned to the lodgings.

That evening Syth paused by his seat when she served him supper. He looked up. Their eyes met and held. She moved on and Wayland glanced around, certain that the others must have sensed the current that had passed between them.

Vallon returned very late from his appointment with the governor. The meeting had been cordial. The governor knew that the Normans were mustering on the border, and he was grateful for the intelligence that Vallon was able to provide about Norman tactics.

‘Will the Scots fight?’ Hero asked.

‘The governor doubts it. They’re too busy fighting each other.’

Vallon gave reassuring news about the state of affairs in the earldom of Orkney. After generations of blood feuding, the title had passed to two brothers called Thorfinnson. They’d been captured at Stamford Bridge, but had been well treated and harboured no animosity against the English or foreigners in general.

When he’d finished, Vallon looked around the company. ‘Where’s Raul?’

Wayland kept his eyes down.

‘I asked a question.’

‘We parted in the town at sunset.’

Vallon’s expression darkened but he said nothing more.

In the small hours Wayland was woken by drunken shouts. He raised himself on to his elbows. He heard a thud, followed by slurred oaths. Cursing, he got up and felt his way down to the street. Raul lay on his back outside the door. His drinking companions lurched away down the waterfront, their discordant song fading into the night. Wayland dragged Raul inside and propped him against the wall.

‘Ish’at you, Wayland? Why don’t you come and have a little drink with Raul?’

‘Vallon will skin you.’

Raul squinted up. ‘Fuck him.’

Wayland left him there and went back to bed. Next morning he woke him by hurling a bucket of water into his face. Raul lunged at the falconer, spluttering. Wayland stood his ground.

‘Vallon’s waiting for you on board.’

Raul tottered to the ship. Vallon stood on deck, his face stony, the rest of the company arraigned to hear his verdict. Raul, still besotted, brought himself to attention, chest out, head up, glazed and blood-veined eyes staring into space. Swaying slightly.

Vallon stepped up to him. ‘I’d flog you if your hide wasn’t thicker than your wits.’

‘Yes, Captain.’

‘Shut up. Now I know why you’ve served in half the armies of Europe. You’re a disgrace. Shut up and listen because I won’t tell you again. One more lapse and I’ll discharge you without a penny. You can find your own way home.’ Vallon stepped back. ‘That’s a solemn oath. Understood?’

‘Yes, Captain.’

‘You can sweat off your hangover at the sawmill. Now get out of my sight.’

As Raul weaved away, Vallon took Wayland’s arm. ‘Look out for him. Make sure he’s back by sunset.’

Out at the timberyard, Raul seized the top handle of the pit saw and set to like a man possessed, sawing away until the woodman in the pit cried mercy and another replaced him. Raul bared his gap-toothed grin at Wayland. ‘Work hard, live hard. You’re a long time dead.’

The day had started warm and grew increasingly oppressive. The air stilled and the trees fell motionless to the tips of their branches. The loch settled into a sheet as flat as tin and not a single fish rose to kiss its surface. Southwards, the sky dulled and took on a coppery tinge.

Raul came over, wiping his brow on his sleeve. ‘We’d better knock off. If it storms like it’s fixing to storm, the road will be a mire by dark.’

Lightning quaked over the southern horizon as they lashed down the load. Thunder rolled, spooking the bullocks. Their driver had to goad them to keep them headed down the track. Wayland and Raul rode on top of the wagon, estimating their progress against the stain creeping across the sky. By the time the town came in sight, everything had taken on the spectral tones of a world in eclipse.

They’d reached the outskirts when a bolt of lightning blinded Wayland and a crash of thunder jangled his senses. The skies opened, the deluge falling plumb and the downpour so heavy that it obliterated the ground under a carpet of spray. The bullocks went mad and bucked off the road, dragging the cart into a field already turning into a lake. The waggoner jumped off to disentangle the traces. Wayland slid down to give a hand. The lightning was almost continuous, everything searing white between blinks of darkness.

The bullocks had made a cat’s cradle of their harness. Raul appeared at Wayland’s side and cut the beasts loose with half a dozen slashes of his knife. Off they careered, bucking into the storm with the waggoner in hopeless pursuit.

Raul laughed like a madman. ‘I know the place for us,’ he shouted, and ran sloshing through the flooded alleys.

Wayland caught up with him outside a hall hung with a taverner’s sign. ‘Don’t you ever learn?’

Raul held up both palms as a pledge of good behaviour. Runoff from the thatch cascaded onto their heads. Water swilled around their ankles. ‘We’ll leave as soon as the rain stops. My oath.’

He dived through the door. Another barb sparked to earth with an ear-splitting crackle. Wayland dashed water from his eyes and crossed the step into a dark and tranquil dive. An elderly dogsbody seated by the door rose and took their weapons, down to the knife in Raul’s hat. ‘Rules of the house,’ the German said. ‘Some rough customers cross this threshold.’ Wayland followed him closely, looking out for possible trouble. The devil’s chapels — that’s what his mother called ale houses. This den was large and reeked with peat smoke from a huge central hearth. By the light of tallow candles, Wayland made out a surprisingly large number of drinkers.

They called out greetings and grinned as Raul bellied up to the counter. The taverner was already setting up drinks with an expression of resignation. ‘I’ll say one thing for the Scots,’ Raul said. ‘They brew a good ale.’

They took their drinks to a bench by the fire. Wayland heeled off his shoes and stretched out his feet. His leggings began to steam. He felt pleasantly tired. The dog stretched out to toast its flanks.

‘That fire burns all year round,’ said Raul. ‘Ain’t gone out for a hundred years.’

‘I suppose this is where you got sozzled last night.’

Raul looked about to refresh his memory. He raised his cup to a group playing dice over by the wall. ‘See that Pictish galoot with the red hair? Goes by the name of Malcolm.’

Wayland saw a wild-looking individual who responded to Raul’s gesture by placing a protective hand over his drinking vessel. His companions laughed and slapped the table.

‘I wouldn’t want to cross that one,’ said Wayland.

‘I did just that. Him and me had a fearful stramash. He insulted me dreadful, called me a son of a whore, dog breath, pig’s pizzle. On and on, scarcely drawing breath and never repeating himself. Oh, he’s a fine bletherskate. Not that I understood his words exactly, but I got his meaning. Especially at the end when he hiked up his skirt and waggled his filthy hairy arse at me.’

Wayland goggled. ‘What did you do to upset him?’

‘A bet, and one that I won. You’d have been proud of me.’

Wayland blinked. ‘It’s a miracle we didn’t find you on a midden with your throat cut.’

‘I’d taken just enough ale to give my tongue wings. Every insult and slight that he dealt, I topped it. I won’t give you my speech word by word because I’ve forgotten it, but you’d have admired the way I capped my performance.’

‘How?’

‘I walked over, undid my breeks and pissed into his ale cup.’

‘Oh lord,’ Wayland groaned. He stole a look at Malcolm and his cronies. ‘What did he do? What did his friends do?’

‘Bought me drinks. Clapped me on the back and said I was a champion slanderer.’ Raul spluttered with laughter. ‘See your face,’ he said, his head sinking to the table. He cocked his eyes up like an evil toad. ‘Don’t you see? It was a game. Insulting people is a sport around here. Flyting, they call it.’ Raul drained his ale and pointed at Wayland’s cup. ‘Same again?’

‘No,’ Wayland said faintly. He jumped up with his hands clenched by his side. ‘Absolutely not.’

‘It’s still pissing down.’

‘We’re out of here.’

But as Wayland turned to go, the door wrenched open to a peal of thunder and three laughing gallants entered, shaking rain from their cloaks. The doorman bowed and scraped before them, making no attempt to relieve them of their swords. Customers on all sides hoisted their cups with cries of welcome. The arrivals were men of consequence. Their leader, tall and swarthily handsome, wore his long black hair dressed in oiled ringlets. Down his back hung a cape of indigo wool hemmed with gilt brocade and fastened at the neck with a clasp, beautifully worked, depicting serpents eating their tails. Gold ringed his fingers and silver bangles as big as quoits dangled on his wrists. His sword hilt was of carved ivory wrapped with silver wire, its pommel fashioned into the shape of a beaked monster. His arrival was a signal for celebration. Conversations grew livelier and a fiddler who played for drinks took up his rebeck and began to saw away.

‘A Scottish chieftain?’ Wayland whispered.

‘Irish swells. Don’t rush away just yet. Let’s find out what brings them to this burgh.’

On his progress to the bar, the dashing leader noticed Wayland’s dog and drew his companions’ attention to it. When the taverner had served them, they leaned with their backs against the counter, reviewing the clientele as if it were a troupe recruited for their entertainment. The leader drank from his silver-mounted beaker and looked Wayland and Raul over with insolent intensity. He wiped suds from his lip and flashed square white teeth. ‘Lachlan’s the name,’ he said. ‘And these bucks are my associates, O’Neil and Regan. You’ll be the traders from England.’

‘Aye,’ Raul said. ‘We’re nearly done in this port. There’s precious little worth buying.’

Lachlan strolled over. ‘I’m a merchant myself. Headed for London.’

‘Oh yes?’ Raul said. ‘What goods do you trade in?’

‘Slaves. Mainly slaves.’

Raul made a stealthy survey of the drinkers. ‘You sell Scottish slaves to the English?’

Lachlan parked himself at the end of their bench and smiled. ‘The very opposite. I sell English slaves to the Scots and Norwegians, but I save the best for the mart in Dublin.’ He clicked his fingers. ‘Taverner, two cups of corn ale for my English friends.’

‘Thank you,’ Wayland said. ‘We were just leaving.’ His dog heaved up and shook itself.

Lachlan waved in its direction. ‘That’s a fine hound you’ve got.’

Wayland dipped his head in acknowledgement.

Lachlan sauntered towards the dog. It looked to Wayland for instruction and stood still, its eyes following Lachlan as he circled it, assessing its points and passing on his appraisal to his companions.

‘There’s wolf in that hound. And Irish, too, if I’m not mistaken. Where did you come by it?’

‘My father bred it in Northumberland.’

‘What do you call him?’

‘He doesn’t have a name.’

Lachlan spluttered into his ale. ‘You must value your dog very low if he’s not worth a name.’

Raul stepped in. ‘Wayland couldn’t name the dog because he lost his tongue, and when he found it again, it had learned to do his bidding without a word being spoken.’

‘You’re jesting.’

‘Cross my heart. It’s uncanny.’

Lachlan regarded Wayland. ‘Do you pit it?’

‘What?’

Lachlan enunciated as if addressing a half-wit. ‘Does it fight other dogs for wagers?’

‘No.’

‘Nor with bears or bulls or other beasts?’

‘No, it doesn’t fight.’

The news saddened Lachlan. ‘That’s a good dog going to waste,’ he told O’Neil and Regan. He turned back to Wayland. ‘How much will you take for it?’

‘It’s not for sale.’

Lachlan clucked his tongue. ‘Everything’s for sale, lad. You’ll find that out when you’re better acquainted with life.’

‘I don’t want to sell it.’

‘I won’t even haggle. Name your price.’

Wayland swallowed and shook his head.

‘You’re called “Wayland” if I heard a’right.’

‘Yes, sir.’ Wayland hated that craven ‘sir’, but there was something about the rich Irish slaver that made him feel like a bumpkin.

‘Well, Wayland, you’ll find that when Lachlan takes a fancy to something, he won’t be shaken loose.’ He opened a silver-mesh purse and laid pennies on the table coin by coin until Wayland stopped counting and looked away as if he were being shown something obscene. Lachlan sprinkled another few coins for good measure. ‘No man can say I’m a stinter. That’s as much as I’d pay for a slave.’

Wayland stood mute and miserable.

‘Go on, lad, pick it up.’

‘You’d be wasting your money. The dog won’t go with you.’

Lachlan’s voice was soothing. ‘I don’t want it for a pet. I won’t gentle it. Just give me care of it for a week and I swear it will know me for its master. By god, there’s not a dog whelped that I can’t man.’ He raised his beaker. ‘Am I right, boys?’

The dog clacked its teeth and made for Wayland.

Lachlan laughed. ‘I fancy he’d like to sink his chops into me.’ He struck his thigh. ‘Damn, it’s a crime to have such a game beast and not make sport with it.’

‘Come on,’ Wayland told Raul. ‘Vallon will be wondering what’s keeping us.’

‘Is Vallon your master?’

Wayland kept going and was halfway to the door when Lachlan said his name again. Wayland stopped.

Lachlan’s hand fell on his shoulder. He spoke into Wayland’s ear. ‘I’ve bought virgins from their mothers who fell to their knees and kissed my hand in gratitude. You can’t argue with silver. If I were to go to your master Vallon, I guarantee that by midnight you and your dog would be my legal property.’

Wayland could see the gold gleaming on Lachlan’s fingers. ‘I told you. The dog’s not for sale.’

Lachlan flicked Wayland’s scalp. ‘Away with you then, and take your nameless cur with you. I was being over-generous. The glim flattered it. Now it stands in clearer light, I can see it’s too long-boned to make a fighting dog.’

They would have left unscathed if Raul hadn’t tried to get in the last word. ‘That dog’s no cur.’

Lachlan had already turned away and seemed to have dismissed the matter. ‘What else do you call a dog that’s too gutless to fight?’

‘It doesn’t fight because it doesn’t need to.’

‘Shut up,’ Wayland hissed.

Lachlan appealed to his friends. ‘A pair of riddlers. A dog that does what it’s told without being told and doesn’t fight because it doesn’t have to.’

Raul’s face was flushed. ‘The dog kills whatever stands in its way. It doesn’t fight them. It just kills them.’

Wayland groaned.

Lachlan caressed his jaw. ‘Does that go for dogs?’

Raul shrugged. ‘I ain’t seen one yet that would stand up to it.’

Lachlan grinned. ‘Fetch Dormarth,’ he said, and Regan hurried out. ‘Do you know that name?’ he asked Wayland. ‘In Ireland’s old religion, Dormarth is the hound that guards the gate of hell.’

Lachlan picked up a coin and let it drop back on to the pile. ‘My offer still stands. Your dog won’t be worth a penny dead.’

Wayland’s breath shuddered in his throat. ‘Nor yours.’

Lachlan cocked a brow. ‘If you fancy it that highly, you’ll want to wager on the outcome.’

‘I don’t have any money to gamble.’

Lachlan laughed. ‘Hazard your own person. A lad as comely as you would fetch a pot of silver in Dublin town.’ He reached out to pat Wayland’s face.

Raul pushed between them. ‘What odds are you offering?’

‘Three to one suit you?’

‘Done.’

Raul shook out the few coins left over from his debauches. Lachlan eyed them with contempt. He made a showman’s gesture to the rest of the room. ‘Step up and place your bets.’

A few tipplers impressed by the size of Wayland’s dog chanced a penny on it, but Lachlan’s reputation as a connoisseur of fighting dogs was generally known, and he had to double the odds before people began to unbelt their purses.

‘Why are you so miffed?’ Raul muttered to Wayland. ‘We ain’t going to wriggle out of it, so we might as well make some money.’

Wayland shoved him away. ‘I’ve had it with you.’

News of the contest had spread and citizens were flooding into the alehouse. Lachlan told the taverner to broach a keg at his own expense and the atmosphere in the hall grew rowdy. A pair of prostitutes linked at the elbow circled the crowd like overblown roses. Over by the door the taverner was charging a farthing admission, his assistant laying pennies on a block and chopping them in quarters with a cleaver. Lachlan presided over the festivities, glad-handing the new arrivals and encouraging them to bet. Wayland laid a soothing hand on his dog. Both of them hated crushes. More and more people pressed in, until only the space cleared for the fight was empty and even the rafters had been occupied. The table holding the stakes was heaped with coins minted in every country in Europe and principalities far beyond.

Lachlan came over to Wayland. ‘Leash your dog. Do you know how to scratch?’

‘The dog has never felt a leash and doesn’t care for rules.’

‘Fair play. We’ll let them scrap until only one of them’s left standing.’

‘Wayland!’

The cry had come from the entrance. The taverner and his assistant were trying to force the door shut against a mob of latecomers. Wayland glimpsed Syth’s face bobbing up and down behind the scrum.

‘Get Vallon!’

Lachlan heard the exchange and took a step forward, but Syth had already gone and the taverner was shoving the door shut.

The room quietened in anticipation. Wayland’s dog panted in distress. ‘Let’s have some air in here,’ said Lachlan. His order was relayed through the crowd until shutters were opened and a sluggish draught flowed through the hall. Thunder trundled away in the distance.

Wayland heard strangulated grunts and the sound of scrabbling feet.

‘Unbar the door,’ Regan shouted from outside. ‘I can hardly hold him.’

Lachlan smiled at Wayland. ‘Open up,’ he called. ‘Make way. Watch yourselves. This one bites.’

Wayland and his dog exchanged looks. The door barged open and the crowd in front of it shrank away on each side. Down the aisle charged a pale block of bone and muscle, towing Regan on his heels. Everyone cringed from such unbridled ferocity. As Lachlan turned to view the arena, Wayland’s dog disappeared into the startled spectators.

Amid the buzz of disappointment, Dormarth tore loose and went rampaging round the pit, whimpering as he sucked up the smell of his vanished opponent. Wayland had never countenanced such a hideous brute. It was smaller than a mastiff in height, yet it carried on its squat limbs and bull neck a skull as large as the head of his own giant hound. With its high-set slitted eyes, ears cropped to the bone, and huge teeth curving up from underslung bottom jaw, it reminded him of some monster fished up from depths where sunlight never reached. Ropes of scar tissue braided its muzzle and from its rump twirled a rat-like tail that seemed to have been added as an obscene joke. Dormarth picked up the scent of his dog on him and lunged against his waist with unhinged jaws. Wayland could determine the minds of dogs as well as other men could fathom their fellows, but there was nothing to plumb in this beast’s brain except an insane lust to kill its own kind.

Lachlan gave Dormarth a kick that would have crippled gentler breeds and walked up to Wayland. ‘Did you order your dog to turn tail?’

‘I told you it doesn’t fight.’

‘Call it back.’

‘I will not.’

‘Your dog wins by forfeit,’ Raul said, with a reproachful look at Wayland.

Lachlan stood with legs akimbo, his hand on his sword. ‘We agreed on a contest and you defaulted. I never overlook a broken contract.’

‘I agreed nothing.’

Blood rose in a tide up Lachlan’s face. He appealed to the crowd. ‘What say you? You paid to see a fight. Say aye if you want your money’s worth.’

The mob bayed and pounded tables.

‘Give him your sword,’ Lachlan told Regan. Wayland took it. He had no choice. Raul had realised where things were heading and his face was drawn in the rictus of a man contemplating a disaster of his own making. Lachlan wandered to the other side of the circle and began swishing his sword as if trying to unstick it from his hand. Wayland heard the engorged breathing of the spectators. A breath of night air wafted through the open windows. He whistled.

As Lachlan sank into a combat stance, the spectators against one wall shuddered. Two standing at the front toppled like skittles and the dog hurtled past them into the arena. Before anyone had registered its return, it smashed into Dormarth, bowling him over like a keg. Dormarth rolled into the fire and sizzled in the coals before springing up in a stench of singed hair. While he was still unsighted, Wayland’s dog seized him by a front haunch and swung him against the table holding the stake money. Silver sprayed across the room. Dormarth arched as if double-jointed and buried his teeth in the dog’s left shoulder. He clung like a horrible parasite as Wayland’s dog whirled. Both dogs let go simultaneously and went for each other’s muzzles, their teeth meeting with a clash. The dog reared on its hind legs, forcing Dormarth up, and they went steepling around the arena in a stiff-legged gavotte until the dog imposed its greater height and weight and forced Dormarth over. Dormarth released his hold and lunged for the dog’s throat, but the dog was quicker and knew no rules. It barged Dormarth’s head away, followed up with the full weight of its body and clamped its jaws across Dormarth’s spine. It lifted him like a sack and swung him to the ground with a ‘whumph’ that drew sickened groans from the spectators. Again and again the dog smashed its opponent to the floor, Lachlan dancing from foot to foot around the battle.

‘Call your dog off!’

Even when Wayland had dragged it away, Dormarth wouldn’t give up. Spine broken, innards ruptured, he dragged himself on his front legs, his useless rear trailing the contents of bowel and bladder.

‘Don’t just stand there!’ Lachlan shouted. ‘Kill him.’

Regan lifted his sword in both hands and Dormarth swallowed the blade as if it were a reward. The crowd moaned with ecstatic revulsion.

The dog sat before Wayland, its lungs whooping and blood splashing from its torn muzzle. But for those sounds, you could have parcelled out the silence.

‘By God, I never saw anything like it.’

Someone swung down from a roof beam to claim his winnings. Lachlan wafted his sword as if to ward off a catastrophe he hadn’t yet got the measure of.

A rap sounded on the door. It came again, louder.

Lachlan’s cheek muscles knotted and unknotted. He waved a hand. ‘See who’s there.’

Bolts were hammered open. The mob by the door gave way and Vallon and Garrick entered with drawn swords. Raul snatched Regan’s sword from Wayland.

‘We heard there was a riot,’ Vallon said. ‘Are my men acting rowdy? Have they disturbed the peace?’

Lachlan looked at the remains of Dormarth. He looked at Wayland. He looked at Wayland’s bloodied dog. He looked at Raul hefting Regan’s sword. In the end he didn’t know where to fasten his gaze.

Raul began picking coins from the straw. ‘Captain, there was a wager on who had the best fighting dog.’

Someone hauled Dormarth’s mutilated corpse past Vallon. ‘An evening’s harmless sport,’ he said. ‘Good. Well, I’m sorry to drag my company away, but it looks like the entertainment is over.’

Lachlan took a step towards him. Vallon raised his chin. ‘Yes?’

Lachlan put on a brave face. ‘You’ll be Wayland’s master. Stay and share a cup before parting.’

Vallon spurned the handshake. ‘We have a long day ahead of us. I’ll bid you goodnight.’

Outside, he grabbed Wayland and Raul by their thrapples and hoisted them on tiptoe.

‘It wasn’t our fault,’ Raul wheezed. ‘The Irishman was determined to see a fight.’

Vallon glared at Wayland for corroboration.

‘It’s true. The man wanted revenge because I wouldn’t sell him my dog.’

Vallon growled, then dropped them and strode off towards the harbour. Raul rubbed his throat and grinned at Wayland.

‘Ain’t you glad I fixed things the way I did?’

Wayland punched him so hard that he trotted several steps backwards before falling flat in the mud. He lay dabbing his pulpy nose.

‘God’s teeth, there wasn’t no cause for that.’

Wayland stood over him. ‘I could kill you.’

Raul wrenched himself out of the quagmire with a great sucking sound and fished around for his hat. He pulled it on, mud and all, and blinked at Wayland.

‘You’re the only man I’d take that from,’ he said, and went sploshing down the street.

Someone laughed softly. Syth was standing on the other side of the lane. He managed a wan smile and she came towards him. They looked at each other without speaking and then walked side by side to the harbour, their glances never quite coinciding. She put her hand around his waist. By chance, her hand slipped under the hem of his tunic and she rubbed her fingers quickly up and down his back, and then withdrew her hand as if she hoped he hadn’t noticed. Wayland stopped, rooted by the sensation of her warm hand on his bare skin. He reached for her but she dodged aside.

‘Oh,’ she cried. ‘The dog’s hurt.’

The dog licked her once, its attention fixed on the empty street behind them. The storm growled far to the north. She looked up at Wayland.

‘It’s not right that he doesn’t have a name.’

‘You choose one.’

‘Really?’

‘Really.’