Andrew Offutt - When Death Birds Fly

Cathula said, “The one-eared Frank is your enemy?”

“Enemy!” Cormac snarled. “When I catch him, I’ll tear out his throat-or Wulfhere there will! Now be telling us how it is ye know this, Cathula.”

“Sigebert told her, and sent her here,” Wulfhere said, doggedly holding to his belief that she was an agent of the Frank’s.

Cathula said simply, “No.”

“Then how were ye able to escape such as that man?”

“Because he has greater matters to think on than a girl he carried off to spice up a day’s bad hunting. I heard him speak of you. Was’t truly you what tried to slay him in Nantes, a se’enight since?”

“Aye. Blood of the gods! A pity it is we didn’t succeed! The tale of it was all over the city no doubt, and discussed loudest in Sigebert’s own house. So. It is reasonable that ye’d have heard our names. But how knew ye where to find us? And how are ye after coming here?”

“Oh,” Cathula said with strange indifference, “you and them Danes came to the city in an Armorican ship. I listened to Sigebert hisself, talking on it.”

“Spied on him, ye mean?”

“Aye.”

“That demanded courage,” Cormac observed. “Still, Bro Erech is not the only Armorican princedom.”

“The nearest,” Cathula said, and Cormac couldn’t forbear a bleak grin.

“And then ye made escape. How?”

“Oh, the hardest part was slipping out of the mansion and its grounds. The next hardest was sneaking clear of the city. One dark night I let myself down the wall by a rope. Then I walked. I went hungry, hid in ponds; I stole food… twice I cadged rides in farm carts.”

Wulfhere demanded “How,” and she said in a perfectly equable tone, “By giving them drivers what a girl has to offer.”

She said it with the same detached indifference as she’d spoken all else. Although plainly exhausted she had not asked if she might sit; and judging by what was almost the pertness approaching impertinence of some of her utterances, fear did not restrain her. It was as if, since she happened to be standing, she would remain so until she fell. Nor was pertness a true description of her manner. She seemed quietly obsessed with what she had to tell, so that nothing mattered but the telling. Cormac had the eerie feeling that were she taken out and beheaded once they had heard her out, she would not care.

“Can ye be proving all ye’ve said, Cathula? It’s strong proof I’ll be requiring. It’s a careful man I’ve been since I was young and people I knew not were trying to kill me for reasons I knew not.”

“You talk funny,” Cathula murmured, as if to herself. She thought for a time, twisting her hands in agitation. “There be the village I lived in,” she said, and named it. “When the Frank came there he… he set his hunting hounds on my mother. They rent her in pieces, and et on her.”

Morfydd moved rustling to the girl’s side. Taking Cathula gently by the shoulders, she caused her to sit. Both women were pale. Cathula spoke without emphasis, in one tone only.

“She was arunning for our hut. She mighta got there, too, but my father barred the door on her. He knowed if he tried to save her he’d get tore and et, too. I know now that Frank woulda made him come out if he’d let mother in and then barred the door-that, or Sigebert woulda burned ’em both in our house. He barred her out and the dogs was all over her like that. I tried to beat them off with a hoe. I didn’t even know what I was about. The Frank stopped me and paid my father money and carried me away. Big black horse. The priest seen it all-he watched and did naught.” She said priest as mac Art might have done.

Cormac believed that. Morfydd was clutching the girl, staring at him, and her face was as if she’d looked on maggots and child-corpses.

“I passed through there, on my way here,” Cathula went on. She might have been talking of things that had happened to folk dead a thousand years. “It was night. Nobody saw me and I went to my h-my father’s hut. It stank of wine and he was laying drunk and senseless by the hearth. I tied ’im fast to the wall whiles he snored. Then I burnt the hut with him in it.”

“Enough,” Prince Howel said hoarsely. “Oh, enough!”

“Enough,” Morfydd said, ashy-faced, “but not all.”

“They’s more to tell!” Cathula said with vehemence. “Sigebert One-ear’s got a wizard in his manse. He obeys Sigebert and commands a demon, too! I have saw it-a thing like a huge black bird-”

Wulfhere’s wine-cup crashed on the floor. “Ye say so, girl! Ah! By Loki and all his get! Cormac-that’s a likely thing! Had Sigebert a demon in his service, who but you and me would he send it to attack?”

Mayhap several people, the Gael thought; the Frank was richly endowed with enemies. This, though, was surely proof that Sigebert had something to do with that fell owl. Now Cormac realized that it had attacked not long after their attempt on Sigebert. Sent!

“So Sigebert has a wizard in his foul employ,” Cormac mused, low of voice. “Tell me of him, girl.”

“I’ve not saw him but once or twice. Got a thin nose, in a fleshy face. Scary dark eyes, and he’s real dark. Name is Lucanor of… Atyok?”

“Annnn-tiochhh…” Cormac breathed.

“Lucanor!” Wulfhere roared, starting from the wall. “Now that’s too much! Surely that cur-son abides leagues to the south-or more likely dead at the hands of angered Basques. The wench lies, Cormac!”

The girl turned to stare at him from a face gone all ugly.

“She knows his name,” Cormac pointed out. “ How , an he be not somewhere in these parts? He could be after escaping the Basques and coming north, you know. By his sorcery he could discover that Sigebert is our deadly enemy. Lucanor and Sigebert! By the gods, Wulf, there is a partnership to make a man dream ill dreams!”

“That black owl that struck at you and smote Wulfhere-it must be a sending of this Lucanor’s!” Prince Howel nigh shouted. “Surely, if any man knows the remedy for Wulfhere’s hurts, it will be him! He,” he corrected, with a glance at Morfydd.

“A good thought,” Wulfhere rumbled. “Aye, a very good thought, Prince. We must capture the eastern cur alive and force him to tell us. Since he now dwells in Sigebert’s manse, why, we’ll have to slay Sigebert in order to get him!” The Danish giant grinned ferociously. “I feel better even now, Just thinking on’t.” A knifing spasm of pain twisted his face to give him the lie. Cormac saw his fingers twitch and start to curl.

“The cure may be such that your Lucanor will be loath to speak of it, even under torture,” Morfydd said, and all looked to her. “I have been thinking, Captain. Cathula here calls the black owl a demon.” Her hand remained firm and motherly on the girl’s far shoulder. “I had supposed as much myself, for lack of knowledge. The creature may still be a demon-or it may be a sending. An emanation of the wizard’s owl soul. An that be so, the remedy for your pain is simple. Ye need only to do death on this Lucanor. The effects of his work will vanish with his life.”

“Ha!” Wulfhere growled. “Lady Morfydd, it is sentence of death ye have pronounced on that eastern weasel!”

“Be very sure ere you strike,” she said, using the personal pronoun. “Should the black owl be some being independent of Lucanor’s soul, after all, you will lose your only link with it.”

Cormac felt this woman’s warmth, and depth. “First we must lay hands on the misbegot dog,” he said, moving swiftly to pragmatism.

“Aye!” Wulfhere’s unremitting suffering made him even more tactless than usual, and he glowered at Cathula. “Very well, wench. Ye’ve explained all save why ye be here, telling us these things. Is it reward?”