Lilith’s Castle. Gill Alderman
and dispersing her lovely face, brittle as an eggshell, across the table. Mouse-Catcher, who had stood by silently, opened his mouth and whimpered so loudly that Gry swung round. The scabbard which belonged to Nandje’s dagger lay on the table in front of Voag whose ruined hand covered it as a spider covers her young.
Touching Byely’s sleeve had woken her. What might Voag do, if his sleep were violated?
Nandje, when he put away the dagger, had always been careful to lodge its sharp tip exactly in the chape, the hollow horsehead of shiny cherrywood which protected it. Gry bent, picked up the dagger and felt its edge and tip: still keen. She must have the scabbard as well. Moving stealthily, she tried to pull it free and did not touch the hideous hand. The copper sheath slid forward, once and again, but the hand came with it, keeping tight hold, and the voice of Voag snapped out at her, a scratchy thorn-snared twig.
‘Aza sent me this! Why should I give anything to Aza’s enemy?’
‘Because I am the daughter of Nandje, the Rider of the Red Horse, and the Lady Byely gave me his dagger.’
‘The vultures stole it from Aza and storm-birds carried it to her, but Aza gave me the scabbard. Why should I part with it?’
‘Because it belongs with the dagger.’
‘Because, because! What has reason to do with the matter? Nandje is like me now, girl, dead as mutton, blind as a granite boulder. He does not need either: dagger or scabbard.’
‘The scabbard protects the blade.’
‘Well, well: common sense too from Nandje’s daughter who was condemned by the Ima, ravished like a captive, forced to flee –’
‘My father’s spirit spoke to me.’
‘That is – not a bad thing –’
‘The Red Horse travels with me.’
‘– and, I was about to say before you interrupted, you are a murderess into the bargain.’
‘I did not kill Heron!’
‘I know you didn’t, quick little fool; but Aza thinks you did and so do Battak and Konik, all the men except your brothers, who do not know what to think. And Leal, of course, but he is blinded by love … that, in your hand, is what killed Heron: Nandje’s dagger, and the grey horsehide which had an old score to settle.’
Gry held the dagger more tightly, moved it about as if she would strike.
‘I’m already dead!’ Voag shrilled.
‘I don’t understand …’ said Gry.
‘Are you a magician? Are you a shaman? No? Well, accept what you are told by one who knows. Go away now, go! I shan’t give you the scabbard: you don’t deserve it. Yet.’ His fingers rattled on the table, reaching for her.
‘Unless you would like to sit beside me,’ he said. ‘This is your seat, next to the one that waits for Aza.’
‘No!’
The Lady Byely lifted her drooping head with broken fingers and began to collect the shattered fragments of her face from the table-top and put them back in place.
The dagger, useless here where the dead stood up and spoke and the living had no defence against them, was in her hand; Gry gripped it and with her other hand the mane of the grey wolf. They ran together, fleeing unsteadily down the steps. The sound of the sea came up to meet them and, from above, rang down the clatter of bone joining with bone and of angry voices skirling. The stair plunged into deep water and only the heavy body of the wolf, pushing her back, stopped Gry from falling in. The Horse – where was he?
She saw him then, a red island rising and falling with the waves, and she leaned down to grasp his trailing mane and slide on to his back. Mouse-Catcher jumped into the sea and struck out, paddling hard.
‘All’s well,’ said the Red Horse, with a smile in his voice. ‘The dead can’t harm you. So welcome, Gry. Have you got it?’
‘My father’s dagger, which should be in his tomb – how did you know?’
‘I guessed.’
Her feet trailed in the water, so high had it risen, but she must sit there, watching the bobbing back of the wolf and the mobile ears of the Horse, which signalled his discomfort and the effort he made to bring her safely to the shore; and she must continually look behind, over her shoulder, for a sight of the angry ancients; for she knew better than the Horse, that dead shamans were not as the common dead. But only the thickening clouds appeared behind them, gathering together in a dense wall of fog. She wanted a clear view – they might all come leaping out of the cloud and fall on her; she was certain they had no need ever to swim but could fly and levitate themselves across any obstacle. The water soaked her and the dampness crept upwards until she felt it reach her waist and, rising still, begin to soak her bodice.
The sound of the Horse’s hooves, striking rock, woke her. She had been dreaming, or daydreaming, of Leal who was lost to her; and it was no longer day but a grey evening as full of moisture and mists as she felt herself to be, cold and nodding on the wet back of the Horse. Were those lights, low down but sparkling, just there? She blinked, and blinked again. He was cantering now, easily.
‘That is the village of Russet Cross. Not to be confused with the tower of rust and bones,’ he said cheerily. ‘Our shepherd lives there. You must dismount and lead me in and it will be wiser, and more polite, if you take that scarf of yours and lead Mouse-Catcher as well. Shepherds and wolves are never the best of friends.’
Seven low houses, built of rocks from the shore, and a large pen of hurdles in which the sheep were confined, was all the village of Russet Cross. Dogs came barking out to defend it, snapping at Mouse-Catcher as he walked subdued by his leash of blue cloth. In her other hand, Gry held a lock of the Red Horse’s mane, to lead him, and she had secured the dagger at her waist so that its hilt, old and damaged as it was, protruded from the skins there and looked workmanlike, not to be trifled with. Doors opened, light spilled, and someone with a tremulous voice called,
‘Traveller, wolf or wight?’
‘No wight,’ Gry answered, ‘but a traveller – with her horse – and her wolf.’
In the pen, the sheep had begun a tumult of bleating; in the houses, men began to shout wildly, as if they were drunk or crazy with fear. Gry shrank into herself, remembering the men of the Ima. A single flame detached itself from the blaze of lights in the nearest house and moved rapidly towards them. It was carried by the shepherd and he, as he came up and saw them, the soaking, fur-clad girl, the grey wolf on her left and the great horse walking docilely on her right, dropped to his knees and lifted his torch on high like a greeting or a gift.
‘I ran from you this morning,’ he said. ‘Trouble us no more, I beg you.’
‘We won’t hurt you, or your sheep. We are gentle creatures.’
‘A wolf – gentle!’ The man almost laughed.
He was the first living man she had been close to since Heron. He was dark and rough-looking with an untidy beard and wild hair and the smells that rose up from him were meat, smoke, beer and boastful maleness. Gry shivered; yet he was one of her kind, a human animal with two legs to walk on and two arms with proper fingers and thumbs; and that long fifth member – vile, dangerous, inevitable! Her eyes filled with the hot darkness of the storehouse in Garsting and she heard Heron’s lustful breaths.
‘Come up,’ said the Red Horse as if he were a man speaking to a disobedient horse. ‘Come out of it, Gry; step away from the shadows of the past.’
‘I am only an outcast woman,’ she said, hoping to waken the shepherd’s sympathy.
He crouched lower. ‘Wild Lady!’ he said, ‘Lady of the Wolves.’
‘Make him get up!’ she cried to the Horse.
‘You can command him. Be a great lady.’