The Bone Thief (30 page)

He was halfway across the graveyard. Wulfgar was sick and dizzy with relief; he still couldn’t believe they’d got away with it.

Fast-moving clouds were running like wolf-packs over the face of the waning moon. It took them what felt like a long time to stumble over the graves and through the wildly tilting crosses of the churchyard, and then the densely growing apple trees. Shadows moved in corners. All the tales Wulfgar had ever heard of the creatures, dead and alive, that haunted barrow-fields and bone-yards were coming back to haunt him now. He tripped and stumbled half a dozen times before they achieved the outer bank, but he held on to his share of the saint somehow. Ronan and Ednoth were a dozen paces ahead of him, muttering about something in anxious voices. In an effort to drive away his fears, Wulfgar forced himself to think about the reception he would get in Gloucester, of the joy on the Lady’s face, of the songs that could be made to celebrate this moment.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

THERE WAS NO
warning. The onslaught seemed to come from all sides at once.

In the dark, Wulfgar couldn’t see how many they were. He stood there on the causeway like a stock of wood, dumb and panicking. Father Ronan and Ednoth had let their bundles fall: he could see they had their swords out and were fighting back to back. Wulfgar couldn’t see Thorvald anywhere. Someone barged into him and he caught the glint of moonlight on a knife blade, but he lost his footing and, still hugging his precious sack, he half-slid, half-fell six feet down the side of the causeway to land rump-first in mud and shallow water. He looked up to see shadows and grappling figures above him.
Who were they?
It was all still strangely silent apart from the clash of blades, the thump of blows, the odd grunt and gasp for breath.

Then there was someone slithering down next to him, hissing, ‘Stand up and put that sack down.’

He clutched his bundle to him for dear life.

‘
Drop it!
’

Strong hands were pulling at it.

He fought for a frantic moment, before he realised they belonged to Gunnvor. Far too slowly, he did as he was told. As he stood again, he felt her move close to him, almost within the folds of his cloak. Was she afraid? Did she expect him to protect her? He could smell that aura of spices she always seemed to carry with her. He felt a sudden tugging at his waist, and then her warm, dry hand grabbed his and pushed something into it. His nerveless fingers recognised the hilt of his own belt-knife.

‘Follow me. Climb. Now.’

He hauled himself after her up the muddy slope. Now he could see Ronan, further along the causeway, black against the moon-bright clouds, fighting two knife-wielding men at once – fighting far too competently for a priest, and Wulfgar, distracted, wondered where and how he had come by his sword-skills.

Then he turned, jumping at a grunt, and realised Ednoth was only feet from them, hard-pressed, being driven back towards them by a half-glimpsed assailant with a long knife in each hand. The lad swung his sword with great force, but even Wulfgar could see there was more power than finesse in his use of it, and he was gasping for breath, great ragged gulps of air. Ednoth had finally got the adventure he craved, and it looked as though it might well kill him.

Oh, Queen of Heaven, Wulfgar thought desperately, what do I do now? I’ve a knife in my hand and a friend in desperate need.

But, even as Wulfgar dithered at his prayers, Gunnvor launched herself at Ednoth’s assailant from behind, her blade in her right hand. Wulfgar saw her twine her fingers in his hair and yank his head back. He turned away in horror.

As he turned he stumbled over another body hunched at his feet. Numb, he bent to heave it over, convinced it would be Thorvald. Or Garmund, heaven help him. But it was a face Wulfgar had never seen before, thin, long-nosed, clean-shaven. There was dark blood everywhere, sticky and strong-smelling, on the man’s chest, on Wulfgar’s hands now. Who had killed him?

Ednoth and Gunnvor were running down to join Ronan.

Where
was
Thorvald? And then he heard a shout.

He looked around wildly.

It came again, from the marsh below the far side of the causeway.

Wulfgar ran across.

Thorvald and another man were grappling frantically. The stranger had a long knife. Thorvald was showing astonishing strength for such a slight man, holding the stranger’s wrists high above his head. He looked to be unarmed.

Thorvald had more to fight for than any of them. But he was not winning. Wulfgar could see his feet skidding under him as he was being forced away from the drier ground. He flung himself headlong down the slope, heedless of the risk of impaling himself on the blade he was still holding.

Thorvald saw him.

‘Wulfgar!’ he yelled.

But the moment’s inattention was enough. The stranger kicked out at Thorvald’s kneecap and his leg betrayed him, crumpling him backwards into the mud, his opponent on top of him. And the stranger shouted, ‘Men of Wessex, to me! To me!’

Wulfgar half-heard the words but they made no sense to him in his feverish state. He hurled himself across the half-a-dozen paces of ground and jabbed his knife down into the stranger’s back.
It
went in, deep, astonishingly easy. He heaved it out and stabbed once more. This time it stuck. He had to jerk it out, and then he stabbed again, over and over and over. He kept seeing Leoba’s strained young face, and that of her tiny, helpless baby.

‘Wulfgar.
Wuffa
.’ A hand fastened on his shoulder. ‘You can stop now.’

The voice came from very far away. It took a while for the sense to filter through into his mind. When it did he went cold. The hand holding the knife loosened its grip as all his sinews disobeyed him. He staggered a few paces away from the body of the man he had been butchering, fell to his knees, and was sick. But, on another plane, he was clear, cold and hard as the moon now sailing free above. This is not the time, that part of him said. It was that part which won. He struggled to his feet and went back to where Ronan was turning the man over.

That answered his first question.

It was not Garmund.

‘Is he dead?’ And a third question he hardly dared ask. ‘Was he a West Saxon?’

‘Oh, yes.’ Father Ronan’s tone was one of bleak satisfaction. ‘And a very dead one at that. Well done, Wulfgar.’

Wulfgar crossed himself slowly. He thought, I am a man of the cloister. Dealing death is not my profession. I have vowed never to hunt animals, not so much as a bird, and now I have killed a fellow human being, the pinnacle of God’s creation. He looked in disbelief at his belt-knife where it lay in the mud, and at his bloody hands.

‘Shit, shit, shit,’ said Father Ronan, looking at Thorvald. The little reeve lay curled on his side. Ronan moved across and turned him over, gentle as a mother. The remorseless moonlight showed
gouts
of blood black across his chest and, more ominous, more blood oozing from the corner of his mouth.

‘Surely we shouldn’t move him,’ Wulfgar said.

‘But what choice do we have?’ Ronan looked up, back in the direction of Bardney. ‘We didn’t kill them all. I missed my stroke, as luck would have it, and my man escaped. And from what you said earlier, there’ll be plenty more to come.’

‘Sixteen, when we met Garmund at Offchurch.’

Ronan crossed himself. ‘And we’ve only dealt with four. And there will be Bardney men to reinforce them. What do we do? Leave him to die? Or take him and chance it?’

Put like that there was no choice. Wulfgar helped Ronan cradle Thorvald and supported the priest as he staggered to his feet.

‘Can you manage?’

‘Ach, he’s no more burden than an empty basket.’

There was a slithering from behind. They both jumped out of their skin. But it was only Ednoth, sliding down the bank.

‘Put your sword back in its sheath,’ Father Ronan said, ‘before you do yourself some damage.’

‘There are three men dead up there! I killed one, and Gunnvor—’ Slowly he took in the tableau in front of him. ‘Oh.’

Wulfgar could see Gunnvor’s dark outline against the moonlight on the bank above them. There was a moment’s silence.

‘Well done, lad,’ Father Ronan said. ‘No point in waiting for their friends, though. The man I let get by me will be raising the cry by now. Let’s see if we can find our way across that stinking marsh without a guide. Pick up your knife, Wuffa.’

Wulfgar looked at it in revulsion.

‘I don’t want it any longer.’

‘That’s as may be. But you might need it.’

They let Gunnvor go first. She was the lightest on her feet and still claiming to be able to see in the dark. Ronan followed with Thorvald across his shoulders. Wulfgar squelched along a pace or two behind him. He had two sacks of bones to carry now and he could feel the difference they made, his feet sinking far more deeply into the mud than they had on the way out.

Always assuming Gunnvor was bringing them the right road.

He was keeping at bay the truth of what he’d just done, bringing the power of every prayer he knew to bear on the limp body in Ronan’s embrace. Thorvald looked unconscious, but every so often a deep rattling moan escaped him and more blood bubbled at his mouth. Ednoth brought up the rear, his sword back in its scabbard now to allow him to carry the third trophy-sack, turning often to look and listen along the near-invisible path behind.

It seemed that Gunnvor had been paying close attention when Wulfgar had asked Thorvald how he knew the way, for she brought them slow but sure-footed all the way back to the lambing pens. As she went, Wulfgar saw her pull up each of the willow staves and cast it aside.

She saw him watching her, and her teeth glinted in the moonlight. ‘No point in helping our pursuers.’

Moonlight shivered and broke on the water. As they drew nearer, and the ground became drier under their feet, his thoughts were caught up less with thoughts of pursuit, more with the picture of Leoba, innocent ahead of them, waiting for her husband to come home.

Thorvald was still alive when they got back to the lambing pens. Ronan laid him down inside the thorn-hedge just as Leoba came out through the hut’s low doorway. She took in the scene at a glance.

‘He’s dead.’ Her voice was flat.

‘Dying,’ Ronan corrected her gently.

She came over and looked down at him for a moment, and then knelt. Just as she did so another great bubbling groan came out of him and a new rush of blood poured over his chin.

‘Lung wound, then,’ the girl said. ‘He’ll not have long.’ She turned to Ronan. ‘Will you see he goes like a Christian?’

‘Has he been baptised?’

She shrugged and turned her head away.

Wulfgar couldn’t bear it any longer. Pushing Ednoth out of the way, he got down on his knees the other side of Thorvald and picked up his arm, moving down to find his hand.

‘Thorvald, don’t move. Don’t try to speak. But if you can, squeeze my hand.’ The secretary looked intently at the dying man’s face. Did he dream it, or had those thin, hard fingers fluttered butterfly-like in his? ‘Thorvald, do you believe that God is Father, Son and Holy Ghost? Do you believe Christ died for you?’ Wulfgar thought, I killed to save this man, and now his life is draining out before my eyes. I can’t let his soul go, too.

Thorvald coughed once more, and even in the moonlight they could see how bright the blood was.

‘Thorvald, if you can hear me, answer. Squeeze my hand, God damn it.’

And he did. No doubt about the pressure this time. Wulfgar’s eyes blurred. He looked up at Ronan. ‘He said yes. He said yes.’

Ronan had to bless the dying man with his left hand as his right hand was supporting Thorvald’s head. He said rapidly, ‘Thorvald. You died a hero in the service of your saint. The angels stand waiting, rejoicing with St Oswald, to lead you through the gates of paradise.’ His voice was steady but Wulfgar could see there were tears running down his face.

Wulfgar pressed Thorvald’s hand but this time there was no response.

‘He’s going,’ he said.

‘Then, Thorvald, I absolve you from all your sins by the powers vested in me, I absolve you in the name of Holy Peter, who guards those gates, who has the power to bind and loose.’ The priest spat on his thumb and made the sign of the cross on Thorvald’s forehead, his eyes, over his breast. As he was doing so a little guttural noise escaped from Thorvald’s mouth. Then he went limp, his hand slipping from Wulfgar’s.

Wulfgar bit hard on his lip.

When he looked up, he saw Gunnvor hunkered next to him.

‘I tried to save him,’ he said. ‘I killed that other man to save him. I thought I had saved him.’ He couldn’t stop shaking.

‘I know,’ she said gently. She reached over to close the dead man’s eyes and used the cuff of her sleeve to wipe away the blood from his mouth. ‘Wulfgar, I know. Here.’ She helped him to his feet, her hand steady below his elbow.

He thought of that moonlit vision he had had of her, back on the causeway, with those same strong, warm hands ready to yank back the head of a fellow human being and jab a knife-tip into his exposed throat.