Gwalch recovered his jug and went into the house. He found Sigarni sitting at the table, a dagger before her. Her hair was unwashed, her face drawn, her eyes tired. Gwalch gathered two clay cups and filled them both with mead, pushing one towards her. She shook her head. ‘Drink it, girl,’ he said sitting opposite her. ‘It’ll do you no harm.’
‘Read my mind,’ she commanded.
‘No. You’ll remember when you are ready.’
‘Damn you, Gwalch! you’re quick to tell everyone’s fortune but mine. What happened that night when my parents were butchered? Tell me!’
‘You know what happened. Your … father and his wife were lulled. You survived. What else is there to know?’
‘Why did my hair turn white? Why were the bodies buried so swiftly? I didn’t even see them.’
‘Tell me about last night.’
‘Why should I? You already know. Bernt’s ghost came to me at the pool.”
‘No,’ he said, ‘that wasn’t Bernt. Poor, sad Bernt is gone from the world. The spirit who spoke to you was from another time. Why did you run?’
‘I was … frightened.’ Her pale eyes locked to his, daring him to criticize her.
Gwalch smiled. ‘Not easy to admit, is it? Not when you are Sigarni the Huntress, the woman who needs no one. Did you know this is my birthday? Seventy-eight years ago today I made my first cry. Killed my first man fourteen years later, a cattle raider. Tracked him for three days. He took my father’s prize bull. It’s been a long life, Sigarni. Long and irritatingly eventful.’ Pouring the last of the mead, he drained it in a single swallow, then gazed longingly at the empty jug.
‘Who was the ghost?’ she asked
‘Go and ask him, woman. Call for him.’ She shivered and looked away.
‘I can’t.’
Gwalch chuckled. ‘There is nothing you cannot do, Sigarni. Nothing.’
Reaching across the table she took his hand, stroking it tenderly. ‘Oh,come on, Gwalch, are we not friends? Why won’t you help me?’
‘I am helping you. I am giving you good advice. You don’t remember the night of the Slaughter. You will, when the time is right. I helped take the memory from you when I found you by the pool. Madness had come upon you, girl. You were sitting in a puddle ofyour own urine. Your eyes were blank, and you were slack-jawed. I had a friend with me; his name was Taliesen. It was he – and another – who slew the Slaughterers. Taliesen told me we were going to lock away the memory and bring you back to the world of the living. We did exactly that. The door will open one day, when you are strong enough to turn the key. That’s what he told me.’
‘So,’ she said, snatching back her hand, ‘your only advice is for me to return to the pool and face the ghost? Yes?’
‘Yes,’ he agreed.
‘Well, I won’t do it.’
‘That is your choice, Sigarni. And perhaps it is the right one. Time will show. Are you angry with me?’
‘Yes.’
‘Too angry to fetch me the flagon of honey mead you have in the kitchen?’
Sigarni smiled then, and fetched the flagon. ‘You are an old reprobate, and I don’t know why you’ve lived so long. I think maybe you are just too stubborn to die.’ Leaning forward she proffered the flagon, but as he reached for it she drew it back. ‘One question you mustanswer. The Slaughterers were not human, were they?’ He licked his lips, buthis eyes remained fixed on the flagon. ‘Were they?’ she persisted.
‘No,’ he admitted. ‘They were birthed in die Dark, Hollow-tooths sent to kill you.’
‘Why me?’
‘You said one question,’ he reminded her, ‘but I’ll answer it. They came for you because of who you are. And that is all I will say now. But I promise you we will speak again soon.’
She handed him the flagon and sat down.
‘I cannot go to the pool, Gwal. I cannot.’
Gwalchmai did not answer her. The mead was beginning to work its magic, and his mind swam.
The Baron Ranulph Gottasson ran a bony finger down the line on the map. ‘And this represents what?’ he asked the blond young man shivering before him. Leofric rubbed his cold hands together, thankful that he had had the common sense to wear a woollen undershirt below his tunic, and two pairs of thick socks. His fleece-lined gloves were in his pocket, and he wished he had the nerve to wear them. The Baron’s study at the top of the Citadel was always cold, though a fire was permanently laid, as if to mock the Baron’s servants. ‘Are you listening, boy?’ snarled the Baron.