Fenrir

16

Aelis went to the mule and led it to where the confessor lay. It came quietly and without complaint. She didn’t know how to get the monk to stay on its back — it was a pack animal and had no saddle. She glanced across the clearing. The low drone of chanting from the shelter in the woods went on. The torturers were still in their den. Aelis looked at the smouldering fire the Vikings had left. She had a powerful urge to take up its embers and use them to burn the horrible pair in the middle of their sorceries.

She knew that she could not succeed, though. All she would do was get them to come out.

The monk’s eyes were glassy and he was scarcely conscious. She spoke to the mule in a low voice, telling it to be quiet and hold still, summoning that shape in her thoughts, the one that said horse to her. There it was — she felt it, shivering and stamping in her head. For a moment the strangeness of that struck her, but she was too scared of the Raven and his awful sister to dwell on it for long. She picked up the confessor. He exhaled heavily as she lifted him. He was not heavy, his body wasted by his paralysis, but still she struggled to get him up. She spoke again to the mule, wedging the confessor against the animal’s flank. Her kaftan was wet with Jehan’s blood as she slumped him over the mule’s back. He gave a short cry, more like someone dreaming than in pain, as he fell into position.

The chanting in the shelter stopped and Aelis froze. The chanting did not start again but she heard no other noise from that direction, just the sounds of the Viking camp drifting up through the night. She led the mule forward but the confessor started to slide off its back. She caught him beneath the armpits just before he fell and shoved him back up.

The monk would not remain on the mule by himself. She put one hand out to steady him and took the halter with the other. She was having to escape by edging sideways, nearly backwards. There was no immediately obvious track through the woods, other than the one that had been beaten down by the Raven to get to his den.

Which way to go? Should she follow the merchant’s instructions? She didn’t trust him but she had no other protector. She would go to the ford. Where was it? Over the hill. In her panic she couldn’t even remember if the woods thinned on the top of the hill to allow her a view of the river. Never mind. The grass was long and there were many brambles but she chose what looked like the easiest way and pulled the animal on. It responded to her, stepping forward into the darkness beneath the trees. She hadn’t gone five paces when the monk slipped again. This time he let out a loud cry.

She heaved the monk back up and went on. Beneath the trees the dark was shot with a web of moonbeams that sparkled and teemed with insects. Fireflies flashed green against the blackness and the moon frosted the trunks of the great oaks. It was like a trap though, the whole wood. She couldn’t move forward without snaring her feet, without the mule blowing and snorting enough to wake a thousand Vikings, without the monk falling.

From down towards the Viking camp she heard voices. Someone was coming up the hill. She breathed in. She could not continue as she was. Almost without thinking, she shoved the confessor forward and jumped up behind him onto the mule’s back. The animal gave a sigh of complaint but didn’t buck or shy. She gently kicked it in the ribs to encourage it forward. It didn’t move. Then she realised: the mule hadn’t been trained for riding. It was a good pack animal but it had spent all its life in a train.

Again, that shape came into her head, the one that steamed and whickered. She thought of it and the animal moved, finding its feet easily in the dark.

They went through the wood, the mule more confident than she was. To her, every shadow was the Raven, every tree at the limit of her vision a Dane. Aelis thought she heard something and stopped. There was something coming after her. She could hear its tread behind her, fast and light, moving quickly where she was forced to plod. She knew that any further movement would give her away, so she drew the mule into the shadow of a big tree. She could not make it be quiet, so she tied it to a branch and hauled the confessor fifty paces to a brook and lay flat against its bank.

Aelis was quiet for some time. She heard nothing but the breeze in the trees. She returned to the mule and untied it. Then they were on her, two of them, taking her to the ground at the leap. She saw their knives gleam and heard words.

‘Where is he?’ It was her own Roman tongue. ‘Where is the confessor?’

‘I am Lady Aelis of the line of Robert the Strong,’ she gasped out the words as quickly as she could speak.

‘Lady?’ A man was squinting at her through the dark. He was wearing a stiff leather jerkin. She didn’t recognise him. His companion was more lightly dressed, though he had two small axes in his belt. There were noises from her left. She looked around. Other faces were looking at her from the trees. Her mind took a few moments to adjust. The men were warrior-monks, she realised, their hair cut short and shaved on the crown. There were ten of them. The two nearest her were clearly puzzled, so Aelis spoke quickly to explain herself, to tell them what had happened.

‘We are from Saint-Germain,’ said the monk who had attacked her. ‘We’re trying to capture a Dane and find out what has happened to the confessor.’

Aelis bowed her head. ‘He’s here,’ she said, and led them, along with the mule, back to the little brook. There was a gasp as the monks looked down at the saint.

‘What have they done to him?’

‘A foul abuse,’ said Aelis.

‘Lady, we need to get him around the back of the hill and across the ford to the monastery.’

‘Then secure him on the mule.’

The monks worked quickly. They had rope with them, brought for the purposes of tying a captive. Now they used it for the confessor. He was in a bad way, his skin cold, his breath no more than a flutter. Aelis prayed for him and the monks led the mule across the brook.

‘We will stay inside the trees as far as we can,’ said the monk, ‘then we drop down to the river and away from our goal to the crossing. From there, the way is easier and less fraught with danger as we double back to the monastery. There are northerners everywhere, lady; we must be careful.’

There was more noise through the trees. Horses. One of the monks crouched. The others went for their weapons. There was a skittering movement to Aelis’s left. What was that? She had assumed it was the monks when she had heard it before. No. Now it seemed to be to her right.

Then it was as if the air fell apart. A scream cut through the shadows. She saw her, the terrible woman in the bloody robes, fifty paces away, her white shift almost glowing in the moonlight, her hands down by her sides, her body rigid but her ruined face emotionless. Aelis realised that the scream was not one of pain, or of anguish, but one of summoning.

There was a stutter of hooves from deep in the trees. Then there was quiet. Whoever had heard the scream was listening to see if it was repeated. It was, so loud it was almost unbearable to hear. From much further off came an answering call splitting the night. The hooves turned towards Aelis, the horses moving slowly through the trees.

‘We need to go before they see us,’ said Aelis. ‘Kill her.’

‘I will not strike down an unarmed woman,’ said the monk.

‘Then give me that,’ said Aelis, pulling a knife from his belt.

She ran towards the woman but it was as if a shadow had gone over the moon. The witch, and Aelis was sure she was a witch, was nowhere. She peered through the columns of trees, looking for her. She saw something glint. A sword. Every Frankish sword was in Paris, defending the city. It was the Norsemen, she knew.

Aelis ran back to the monks. ‘We need to go, now, before we’re found.’

‘No.’ The monk shook his head and spoke in a low whisper. ‘Our movements must either be quick or quiet, and either way we will be discovered. Brother Abram, Brother Marellus, take the lady and the confessor back to the monastery. We still might surprise whoever is here if we act now. Brothers, we are Christ’s men, we are pagan-killers; let’s take the fight to them.’

The monks nodded and crept away through the trees, crouching low and saying nothing. One of the remaining monks took her by the arm while the other led the mule.

‘Lady, the river crossing. We must be quick,’ he said.

They moved away up the hill and she followed them through the dark of the trees.