Alys Clare - The Way Between the Worlds

There were usually a handful of dispirited men hanging around and sometimes more; Rollo had once counted fifty. It appeared that not all of Hawksclaw’s fighting force were permanently billeted with him, which made sense because, for one thing, the lord would not have to feed them all if they did not live with him, and, for another, if they were spread out, there was less danger that every one of them would be wiped out in a single attack. Sometimes Rollo had seen a group of woman, huddled together, one of them looking fearfully over her shoulder and another sporting a swollen, weeping black eye.

It was clear from the demeanour of Hawksclaw and his men that they felt sufficiently secure in their lonely stronghold not to fear attack. The place was minimally guarded, and it was easy for a man of Rollo’s experience to slip in and out unseen by the pair of young men — little more than boys — who habitually leaned against the gates and bragged to each other of their prowess in the saddle, in the field of combat and, most frequently, in the bed of whichever of the women they claimed to have most recently forced themselves on.

On that last night visit, the two young guards had been replaced by an old veteran with a huge beard and a long scar through one eye. He had made himself comfortable, slumped down in a corner out of the wind, and appeared to be fast asleep. Passing him silently, Rollo slipped through one of the wider breaches in the walls and, for a few moments, stood in the deep shadows looking out across the yard. There was not a soul, human or animal, to be seen. He made his soft-footed way up to the chamber where Hawksclaw slept. There was a gaping hole in the stone wall, inadequately covered by a torn piece of leather, and sufficient moonlight came through for Rollo to see quite clearly. He approached the pile of animal skins that served the lord for a bed and stood for a moment looking down at the sleeping man under his thick blanket. Even in the relaxation of sleep, the face was cruel and hard. His mind cool and detached, Rollo killed Hawksclaw as he slept.

He was on his way out of the room when he heard a faint sound. Spinning round, he saw a girl spring up from the floor on the far side of Hawksclaw’s bed, where she must have been hidden from view, curled up and asleep. She was naked, her body sinewy and slim, her small breasts firm and high. Long black hair flowed down her back, and her dark eyes were blazing. She sprang at Rollo, and he felt a searing, burning pain in his chest, about a hand’s breadth above his heart.

He grabbed the handle of the knife and pulled it from her hand, biting his lips against the cry of agony as the steel was wrested out of his flesh. Instantly, her hands were at him, her fingers scrabbling for his eyes, and he grabbed her wrists, forcing her hands away. She tried to kick him in the groin, but he sensed the attack coming and, grasping her around the waist, flung her to one side so that her flying feet found only empty air. He knew she would kill him if she could.

Among his victims, no woman yet featured. He did not wish to kill one now, even a wild demon like her. Bunching his right hand into a fist, he hit her on the side of her head, and she went limp. He carried her across to the bed and laid her beside her dead lord. The night was cold, so he was careful to cover her well with the heavy woollen blanket.

For a moment he stood staring down at her. He had not hit her hard, and already she was stirring. He turned and left.

The wound in his chest became inflamed, and he believed he would die.

While he was still able to travel, he’d put many miles between himself and Hawksclaw’s stronghold. He did not believe the dead man’s followers posed any serious threat to the king’s plans to take the area, but they were more than capable of taking lengthy and agonizing revenge on the man who had killed their leader. If Rollo were to be caught, death, when it at last came, would be nothing but a relief.

He had made his way to the most desolate of his refuges, a mystifying ruined building like nothing he had ever seen before. It was rectangular in shape, not very large, and at one end were three squat pillars. The site was overgrown, and chunks of stone lay all over it. There were the remains of a hearth, and, beside it, a pit dug into the earth. The building must once have been underground, for even now, although open to the wide sky, it lay beneath the surface of the surrounding land. It was reasonably safe to have a fire there — by day at least — and by using dry fuel it was possible to keep the smoke to a barely visible minimum. Rollo had adopted the pit as a sleeping place, lining it with dry leaves and dead grass and building up the earth in front of it so that, once within, he was sheltered from the wind and the rain. He took to setting many of the stones that littered the site into the fire during the day, and then placing them in his pit when he extinguished the fire at nightfall. Some nights, when the temperature did not fall too dramatically, he was quite warm.

In the depths of his sickness he cried out to her. But she did not come.

He realized, as slowly he began to recover, that it was his own careful preparations that had saved him. His refuge was too far away from Hawksclaw’s stronghold for any of the dead man’s men to have hunted him down, even if they had tried. And his foresight in making ready a safe, sheltered place to lie up in had kept him from freezing to death when, helpless and wracked with fever, he had lain in his pit and longed for Lassair.

In time, he had begun to understand that he would live.

Now, he knew he could not go on hiding. His wound was healing — though in the absence of any professional attention it had closed in a ragged, bumpy line that itched and prickled. It should have been stitched, he knew; he had other scars on his body that, although the result of far graver wounds, had mended cleanly thanks to careful stitching. But he had baulked at sewing up his own flesh. His only remedy had been a small bottle of lavender oil; Lassair had told him it helped fight infectious humours. He wondered now if it had saved his life, reflecting that if so, it was the second time she had held him back from death.

Now that his strength was returning, he knew he must hasten to send word secretly to the king, to inform him that the potential threat in the north-west no longer existed. Hawksclaw was dead and, without his leadership, Rollo did not believe that wretched, ragged band of old men in their lonely, tumbledown compound stood much of a chance of stopping a man like William.

And then, after he had located one of his network of reliable men and dispatched his message, there was the matter of the other command that William had issued to him. .

Rollo had deliberately not thought about it until now. It was so different in kind from any challenge he had faced before that he was wary of it, to the point of being fearful. He was used to flesh and blood men — or women, he thought ruefully, remembering the girl in Hawksclaw’s bed — who came running at him with sharp steel in their hands trying to kill him. His world was a fighter’s world, and he was content that his talent for the silent, secret work of the killer spy had been recognized by his king, and that William was putting him to good use. But this other business was nothing like either a clean, open battle or a clandestine assignment.

In his heart, Rollo knew that he did not want to do this job. It was so far outside his experience that he was not sure even how to begin, never mind bring it to a successful conclusion. And the whisper of the unknown force that seemed to be involved frightened him; he would not have said that he was superstitious, but for this terrible thing to have been achieved, the power involved must be awesome indeed. .