Wolfsangel

48

At first Saitada had gone north by mistake, through deserted farmsteads, past houses where now only rats sheltered from the cold. She had picked up some things of use to her there — two mouldy blankets which provided some warmth, enough rags to cover her face, bind her feet and wrap the sword, and a cup in which to melt snow for water.

It had been three days before she had seen smoke from a hut, and when she had spoken the name Authun and gestured to ask if he was there, the people had laughed and pointed to the south past the Troll Wall. They thought she was a simpleton but still poured their advice into her ears. It was not safe to travel to the south. The land around those mountains was cursed. Nightmares of death and torture had come down from the slopes and now no one could stand to live there. The witches, it was said, were dying and their magic had poisoned the land. Saitada listened and said nothing more. She could understand them, though she didn’t know how.

That night the son of the house decided to have a look at what the old beggar had in her bundle, but as he went to prise it from Saitada’s fingers he caught a glimpse of that burn on the side of her face and went back to his bed. In the morning, ashamed by his actions the night before, he gave her a warm cloak, some old boots and a rough tunic that the dog had been using for a bed. Saitada bowed to thank them for their hospitality and turned for the long journey south.

Authun’s people had not forgotten him, and at the farms and among the flocks they told her where she needed to go. The snow was lighter in the south, though the wind was cruel. Still, the people kept to the tradition of welcome for travellers that existed throughout that land, took her in by night and pointed her on her way the next morning. She found him two days’ walk into the Iron Woods.

A hunter took her half the way in out of pity for her face and showed her the direction she needed to take — to keep among the birches and come down if the woods turned to only firs, to keep the slope to her left, the Pole Star to her right and to trust to luck for the rest. After so long in the dark the night made her dizzy and her head felt open to the sky. And what a sky. It was shot with fire, swirls of green and red that seemed to her as if the gods had lit their beacons to rejoice in what she was doing. She didn’t stop to stare. Her purpose and her need for warmth drove her on.

It was the following evening and the moon was full when she met him. He was sitting on a rock looking into a pool. Much of it was frozen, but where the pool was fed by a small waterfall the water was still free. His long silver hair shone in the moonlight like water itself, or like a prophecy of how the waterfall would look when the cold finally took it. He did not look at her but remained focused on the pool. Without turning his head, he said, ‘Do not look to me for battle, stranger; there are enough widows screaming in my dreams.’

Saitada did not reply. The king had no fire and no cloak and was so still that the plumes of steam that came from his freezing breath made her think of a mountain wreathed in mist. Eventually he looked up.

No spearman or berserk could have made him stand, but Saitada did.

‘Lady, I have thought of you,’ he said.

She bowed her head.

The king went on. ‘That thought drew me here.’ He pointed to the pool. ‘He is in here, the man you saw me send to the ocean floor, and the other kinsmen I threw away. It seems to me that this is a magic pool, fed not by the hills but by the tears of the widows and orphans I have made.’

He turned to look at the waterfall and then back to her. No enemy could have put him in such a state of agitation.

‘I am sorry,’ he said. ‘I am sorry for what I did to you. Your face haunts my dreams. I took your children and left you to monsters. And for what? To influence fate when we know all fates are set at birth. The child will not bring everlasting fame to the Horda, or if he will, in no way that I can see. And if he does, what of it?’

Still Saitada said nothing. She did not hate the king. He had done no more than move her from one place to another, she thought, as she had been moved from the smith to the farmer to the priests. It was her fate in life to be a slave. He had not, as the witch had done, parted her from her children.

Authun did not see it that way and felt the shame build further in him. Already that shame had taken him from his kingdom, from his family and his battles to sit in the freezing woods, listening to the voice of the waters for year upon year and going to war on the person he had been. And yet, when robbers came, when bears struck at him or the winter bit, he could not let himself go, could not die, and fought always for life. He hunted when he would rather have starved, drank when he would have died of thirst. Saitada had been wrong. Authun couldn’t kill anyone at all. He couldn’t kill himself. He couldn’t step over the threshold he had pushed so many others across. The dishonour of that hovered above him like a mighty fist that could smash him at any instant.

‘What would you have me do, lady?’

Saitada pointed to the north.

‘You want me to go with you? For what? You gave me pity and despair. What other gifts do you have for me?’

Saitada stared into his eyes and said the first word she had ever spoken in his language other than his name, the word she had heard whispered through the witch caves on the trembling lips of the boys, on the hushed breath of the girls.

‘Death,’ she said. She walked forward and put the bundle she was carrying into his arms. He opened it and in the pale light of the woodland night saw the scabbard of the Moonsword. He drew the sword and watched the cold spark of the moon run the length of the blade.

‘Then I will follow you,’ he said.

Saitada turned and began to walk out of the forest.