Chapter Seventeen
Battles breed legends—of cowardice and heroism, and things in between, small in themselves, growing large with the retelling. As well as the warriors’ tales, the battle for Din Guardi generated a short-lived ghost story.
It was Guy who first said that he and the men had heard children’s voices coming through the walls. From anyone else, Art might have dismissed such a story, but Guy was completely and comfortably without imagination, and so he set out with his brother and Lance to investigate.
They made their way along the seaward terrace, listening to the wind and the surf. It was Lance’s first venture outside in ten days, and the world seemed impossibly bright to him, the salty air intoxicating. He paused to lean on the parapet. Guy and Art stopped too, and took up their places—a pair of ill-matched, considerate bookends—on either side of him. “A little more to the left, Guy,” Lance said.
“What?”
“A little to the left. Then you’ll be shielding me properly from the wind.”
“Insolent,” Guy said happily, shifting to do as he was told. “It’s good to have you up and about again, Lance. Still, if you weren’t the heir to this place, I’d chuck you off this wall to feed the fish.”
Down on the plain far below, feverish activity was taking place. A dozen or so Anglian farmers in crimson tunics were sawing the branches and roots off an enormous trunk of oak. “What are they up to?” Lance asked dubiously. “Is that their new battering ram?”
“Oh, not a bit of it,” Arthur said, resting his elbows on the wall to watch. “Guy and I were busy while you were lazing about. We took a deputation into the nearest villages—on foot this time, so we wouldn’t look so Roman and stuck up. Even Coel came with us. We talked to some of the elders.”
“Wasn’t that a bit risky?”
“Oesa’s rebellion didn’t go far. Most of the people down there are happy enough with the treaties and trade arrangements we set up. We talked to the fellow who’s taken Oesa’s place asked about their daily lives and customs—and that, my dear Lance, is aJollog. They all seem to call it different names depending on where they come from, but the idea is that they haul it with oxen right into their chieftain’s hut, place one end in the hearth, light it from the remains of last year’s log and burn it with great feasting and rejoicing over the next few days, to help bring back the sun.”
“Sounds like a good time. Perhaps we should get one.”
“You underestimate me. In Coel’s great hall right now—the sweetest fruits of my diplomacy so far, I think—is a trunk even bigger than that one, ceremoniously delivered last night with good wishes from the new chieftain himself. Coel wanted to saw it open and check no Anglians were hiding inside, but he accepted graciously, on the whole. He wants to leave you a peaceful kingdom.”
Lance made a sidelong study of his king. Strands of hair were escaping his braid and catching scarlet in the low sun. A smile was curling the corner of his mouth, and he looked much happier with his Jol log than with the results of all the hacking and slaying he’d done. “That was noble,” Lance said quietly. “To go down to them like that and talk.”
Art cleared his throat in embarrassment. “I thought it would please you. There’s something catching about their festivities, isn’t there, Guy? Even old Coel’s been infected. He wants us to have our own Jol-tide feast tomorrow night, which is the longest one, according to the cunning-women in the villages.”
“They’re right.” Lance didn’t question the deep conviction in his bones. “We used to celebrate that night too, with a great fire and feasting and an exchange of gifts.”
Arthur’s eyes kindled. “Gifts? What kind?”
“Modest ones,” Lance said hastily, afraid of what his generous lover might do. “Remember I’m already getting a castle this year.”
“If you live to inherit. You’re still looking peaked—we should get you indoors out of this blistering cold.” He straightened up, smiling. “As for you, brother, I think you and your soldiers have been at that barley rotgut you brew up in the camp. I can’t hear any children, inside the walls or out of them.”
They were turning away when the faint, eerie laughter rang out. Guy’s mouth fell open. “I told you,” he said. “It came from that direction. Come on!”
They searched all along the eastern wall, went inside and followed the line of it through the granary and store rooms. The sounds came again and again—laughter, and a wild, high chatter, somewhere between teasing and terror. But all they saw was an occasional rat, efficiently pursued through the barrels and bales by one of Coel’s brindled cats. Lance was glad to emerge into the sun. He still couldn’t quite catch his breath with ease, and hiding this from Art’s quick perceptions was taking him all his time.
At least he wasn’t alone in breathless pallor. Even Guy was looking around him, clearly unnerved. He said, faintly, “It’s surely just the village brats, playing tricks.”
“Must be,” Art agreed, and they stood disconcerted in the crystalline sea light, unwillingly hearing the inhuman babble continue.
Lance hesitated. Then, because it was a question he had to ask, he looked squarely at his king. “Art, what happened to Oesa’s children?”
“I don’t know. I thought they’d just run off during the battle.” Suddenly he too went white, in a mix of denial and anger. “I never laid a hand on them, Lance. And nor would any of my men.”
“I know that,” Lance returned quietly. He waited, meeting Art’s eyes without challenge, until Art gave a shamefaced nod and looked away.
The high-pitched chatter faded off into the sound of the wind. Guy shrugged. “We’re all imagining things, if you ask me.”
Lance reached out a hand to still him. “Wait. Look!”
Two small ragged children had darted out of the granary’s far door. They were filthy and skeletally thin. They froze for an instant in the sunshine, staring directly at Art, Lance and Guy, and then before any of them could move or draw breath, melted like fish into shadowy water and disappeared.
Despite seeing them, Lance wondered if he was chasing ghosts. By the time he and the others had found the gap in the parapet wall, there was no sign of them, only a trace in the air—a fading whisper, the patter of bare soles on stone. There was barely space for a grown man to fit into the moss-lined hole. Art managed it, at the cost of some grazing. Lance, stripped down by illness, followed more easily, but burly Guy, who had never liked tight spaces, shook his head. “You must be joking.”
