There it was again, a high, plaintive keening, a dog mourning. I shivered. Conn sighed with relief. "We must be near a farm, a village, some habitation. That dog is tethered, not roaming. Come on." He pulled at Beauty's bridle and started off in the direction of the sound, me trailing miserably behind, damp and cold. Who would have imagined weather like this in high summer?
The howl came again, but apparently from another direction, more to the left. We stopped.
"This damned fog," muttered Conn. "It distorts everything . . ." We listened, and again came the keening. "Left it is," said Conn.
We found the village, if you could call it that, after another half-hour of tripping and stumbling. The fog, if anything, was worse. There were some half-dozen hovels, single-roomed, and a somewhat larger farmhouse. Doors were closed, tallow-dips flared at midday through chinks in the shutters, but no one, not even dog or cat, was abroad. We groped our way towards the gate to the farmyard, for none but funerals or weddings went to the front door, and all the while we heard the keening of the dog grow louder.
"What the hell—!" I stopped behind Conn, fighting to control Beauty, who was doing her best to dislodge his hold, puffing and snorting and stamping her hooves, trying all the while to sidle away from whatever it was that hung threateningly from the tall farm gate. Peering past Conn's shoulder I saw snarling teeth, grey hair— "Thank the Lord!" said Conn. "It's only the skin . . . Still, one of the biggest I've ever seen."
It was a wolf-pelt, torn with rents as if from sword or spear, and those teeth were fighting even in death. "Poor thing," I said. The eyes had gone long since, probably pecked out by birds. I lifted one of the huge, bony feet and the dry claws rattled.
"Poor thing, my arse!" said Conn. "A great brute like that could even take a pony, let alone sheep or pig. Villagers were well rid of him. Shouldn't like to come up against such myself, without weapon."
But still I held the lifeless paw, remembering the wolves at the Castle of Fair Delights, so long, long ago . . . Had he forgotten so easily?
The gate was firmly bolted, and Conn rattled the latch. "Hola! Anyone at home?" For a long while it seemed as though the fog itself held breath, then a door opened and shut and we heard uncertain steps across the yard.
"Who's there?" It was a woman, the voice thin and quavery with a hint of fear beneath.
"Respectable travellers, Ma'am," said Conn in his most reassuring voice. "Me and—" he glanced at me, "—my wife, seeking shelter and a bite to eat. And with pence in their pocket." He jingled his purse.
"Go away!" came the uncompromising reply. "We want no strangers here!"
Conn glanced at me again, a quick frown on his face. "Strange: a poor village that needs no company and no copper . . ." He raised his voice again. "Bring your lantern nearer and see that we pose no threat to you and yours. We have but one sword and two daggers between us."
There was hesitation, the steps retreated then advanced again, and now I could hear clearly the click of dog's claws on the stones. I peered through a knot-hole in the thick wood of the gate and saw a middle-aged woman, some forty years old, advancing across the yard, lantern in one hand, a great bitch-hound on a leash in the other. She was an old dog, with thick curly hair, a long, lean body and small ears, obviously built for speed. I wondered if it were she we had heard howling earlier. They arrived at the gate and the woman thrust aside a looking-panel and gazed out at us.
Conn returned her gaze steadily. "We mean no harm, as you can see. Just shelter for the night, for 'tis miserable cold and dripping out here. And perhaps a bowl of broth and bread and a handful of hay for the horse?"
"There's no hay and no broth neither," said the woman, her eyes fearful in the wavering lantern-light. "And no letting-in of strangers. And hasn't been since that great devil came to the village at the turn of the year." And she indicated the great wolf pelt. The bitch hound reared up, as tall, taller, than the woman, and put her muzzle to the dried pelt. Gently she blew through her nostrils, stirring the skin, making a strange growl-snarl-wail in the back of her throat. Conn started and cursed. The dog turned her brown yellow-flecked eyes on him, considering.
"By the Saints! 'Tis one of the Great Ones!"
"Great Ones?"
"Aye, the Great Dogs of Hirland." As always when he was excited his voice held a singing lilt. "By all that's Holy! Here, girl . . ." and he placed his hands on either side of the great muzzle that poked out through the looking-panel. The woman gasped and dropped the wildly flickering lantern, as the dog growled softly in her throat but did not move her gaze from Conn's nor pull away from his hold.
The woman retrieved the still-burning lantern. "She's supposed to bite!" she whispered, her eyes large with distress. "She's supposed to kill!"
"Not this one," said Conn confidently. "Not with me. She's a princess, this one, and princesses know their own . . ."
The great dog still regarded him steadily, then whined softly and turned to look at me, her muzzle still in Conn's hold.
"She wants something," I said. "More than anything ever before . . . I don't know what it is."
"She's after that pup of hers," said the woman, and I could see by her guilty expression and the hand she clapped to her mouth that she had not intended to speak of it.
Conn released the dog. "What pup? Oh, come on now: you started to tell us."
She hesitated, then made up her mind. "You'd better come in." She unbolted and unlatched the gate. "He's away hunting . . ." She nodded back at the house, and I presumed she was speaking of her husband. She led the way into the yard and Conn looped Beauty's reins over a post, loosened her girths and offloaded the saddle-bags.
Inside the hall a cheerless fire burned fitfully, adding smoke to the fog that curled under the door and through the ill-fitting shutters. "You see? Even the fire won't burn true!"
"Insufficient draught," muttered Conn out of the side of his mouth, then he put some coin on the table, addressing the woman. "Some bread, perhaps?"
She put the coin back in his hand. "What I can give you will be a gift: we have tempted the Gods far enough." From a cupboard she brought stale bread, a rind of cheese, and from the barrel in the corner two horn mugs of sour ale. "'Tis all we have since—" She shivered.
"Since?" Conn prompted, making a face as the liquid touched his tongue.
"Since—What harm can the telling do now?" She was persuading herself. "None, I reckon . . . Well, it was like this . . ."
Like all tales it had grown in the telling and now was so twisted and twined with her own thoughts and local superstitions that it took two or three times as long as it should, but the bare facts were these. It had been a late, cold spring and just before lambing a number of wolves had pestered the village, setting the sheep and cattle to uneasiness and the dogs to singing the night long. This was not unusual, for many outlying villages were used to wintering packs like these, on the scavenge. What was unusual, apparently, was that their leader was a giant wolf, more cunning and ferocious than any seen before, who had led his inferiors in raids of such daring that the villagers had lost three tups and two swine before they had had time to organize themselves.
All efforts to drive the wolves away had failed, until the woman's husband had a bright idea. His hound, now old but still fertile, had come into season and he had staked her out one night and watched from the safety of a tree. It appeared that the giant wolf had not been able to resist this lure, and on the second night the husband had gathered all the able-bodied of the village together and when the wolf returned they had rushed in and slain him on the spot, though he had not given up without a fight. The pelt had been borne home in triumph and nailed to the gate. The village had celebrated, in anticipation of the routing of the wolves and a return to normality. Not so: from that moment the cattle had suffered from a murrain, the ewes had slipped their lambs, the hay crop had been blighted, blossom had not taken, milk went sour between udder and pail and the women had miscarried.
Apparently, the wolves had disappeared, but their presence was still felt. Paw-prints were spotted in the village street, chickens and a goat went missing, yet never was there clear evidence. No one ever
saw
anything . . . Added to this, the hound was now clearly in pup, and her behaviour so peculiar that it was suspected she was suffering from wolf-bite. She was short-tempered, skulked in corners, cried at night and would not hunt anymore. Eventually she whelped, one pup only. The husband and wife were not allowed near her nest in the barn, so it was only after the pup was able to crawl out into the open that they could see what had happened: the pup was part hound, part wolf, and the bitch was so intensely protective that she would still not let anyone near. Twice the husband, fearing the wolf blood, had tried to kill it and twice the bitch had forestalled him. But when the pup was some seven or eight weeks old, he had lured its dam with fresh-killed hare and had tied her up; he was about to hit the pup over the head when thick fog swirled in about them and they had heard the howling of a wolf at noonday. The wife had warned him against shedding the pup's blood in the face of these obvious signs and he had said: "Let his kinfolk have him then." Hurrying across the fields to the great pit where all the village rubbish was dumped, a deep gash in the earth with unscalable sides and a deep pool at the bottom, he had tossed the pup down. He had heard a yelp, a splash, then silence. He wasted no time in making for home, lantern swinging wildly, breaking into a run when he imagined he heard the padding of feet behind him.
This had happened only the night before last. Since then, the bitch had howled constantly, driving all distracted, and the unlifting fog was full of wolves, grey and vengeful.
It was a strange enough story. I looked over at Conn for his reaction, but he was frowning. The hound stood quietly by the door, now and again scratching at the lintel and whining softly. The wife jumped to her feet. "I shouldn't have let her loose! My husband said to hold her fast, lest she go after the pup!" She rose to her feet, but Conn forestalled her.
"Wait a moment . . . Fleur—Thingy dear—what's to do?"
For a moment I was so flummoxed with him calling me "dear" again that I could only stare, then I pulled myself together and went over to the hound. Lifting her chin in my hand I looked into her eyes aslant, avoiding the threat of out-staring, and although I could no longer receive her thoughts in my mind, nor give her mine, yet I could read puzzlement, hatred, yearning. I put my hand on top of her head and my fingers tingled, and all became clear.
I beckoned to Conn and he came to stand beside me, putting his hand over mine on the dog's head, then snatching it back and shaking his fingers. "Like touching iron in a thunderstorm! What is it?"
I kept my voice low, looking over my shoulder at the woman, who had backed away from us. "I don't want her to hear, otherwise they might destroy this one too . . . Somewhere near here is a Place of Power, where the lines cross—Oh, you know!" I said impatiently. "Don't you remember The Ancient saying that power sometimes lies beneath our feet, neither good nor evil, just waiting to be used?" He nodded, his eyes grave, his fingers fiddling with the little silver cross he wore about his neck. "Well, this one, without knowing it, has tapped the power. She grieves for her lost pup, she mourns the great wolf that was its father, and it is she that has cursed the village, albeit without conscious evil . . .
"You said she was a Great One?"
Conn nodded. "In Hirland her line is royal."
"Then would she have the greater power . . . Poor lass!" And I kissed the wide brow while the woman cowered behind us in terror. "You don't know what it's all about, do you?" I whispered softly to the dog. "What's her name?"
"He bought her from traders, ten year back. Deirdre, they called her . . ."
"Deidre of the Sorrows," said Conn. "I'll tell you the story sometime, Fleur."
My heart jumped and I reached for his hand and held it tight, for all the good was suddenly back between us. "Right now this princess is sorrowing for her pup. Coming?"
He nodded and turned back to the woman. "We are—we are going to lift the spell. But we shall need the bitch. All right?" Without waiting for an answer he lifted the latch and we slipped out into the fog, now denser than ever. "Which way?"
"Follow the dog . . ."
Out through the gate, down the narrow street, up on to the downs. I stumbled and fell once but dragged myself to my feet, for the great bitch was outrunning us. Instantly Conn whistled and she turned, ears pricked.
"Wait, girl, wait!"
After that we moved more easily, for she kept turning, to accommodate our slower speed. Behind us the fog closed in and I, too, could hear the pad of paws keeping pace to our right. I looked at Conn, but he had not heard it as clearly as I. "You are going to have to help me."
He misunderstood. "Not far now, I shouldn't think. Here, take my arm: I won't let you fall again, I promise."
I smiled to myself. Darling Conn, so eager to help even if he didn't understand . . . We were panting up a slope now and ahead of us the bitch had stopped and was whining softly. We reached the brink of the pit and gazed down together at the precipitous sides, the jagged boulders, the bushes dinging with precarious roots to the few pockets of earth.
Conn dropped a stone into the depths and counted under his breath before we heard the splash. "It's deep: we'll need a rope."
"You go back for one. I'll stay here."
The instant he had gone I felt the wolf-fog close in about me. "I'm going down," I said steadily into the mist. "He shall be brought up, never fear. Just wait, and do not harm my friends."
Hitching my now-cumbersome skirt into its waistband, longing for the once-despised trews and jacket, I lowered myself over the edge, clinging to a rowan tree as I did. I looked up at the bitch; she whined, and paced the edge of the pit. "It's all right, old girl; stay there. Conn will know where I've gone down. I'll bring your pup back if he's there, never fear." Slowly, cautiously, I lowered myself down, grabbing at whatever prominence or crevice I could for a finger- or toe-hold. It was nearer fifty feet than forty, and looking up, I realized I could never manage the ascent without help. By a miracle, I completed the descent without falling, and at last felt firm ground beneath my feet.