Wild Wood: A Novel

THE BORDERLANDS, NOVEMBER 1068

I HEAR THEM." The child huddles at the Mother’s feet. She claps her hands twice, imploring attention. But the shining face does not change. Why had she believed it would? Stone is not flesh.

The little girl has watched men on horses, many men, ride into the valley all day. Small as ants from this height, they boil among the trees, shouting to each other. What are they doing? The child wears a cape of rabbit fur and shoes of skin, but she shivers. They come from the direction of her village, and smoke is rising beside the river.

She must have faith. She’s been sent by her grandmother to offer holly berries at the pool outside the Red Door. She was proud to be chosen, but now she is frightened.

Below! A woman. Screaming.

Panicked, the child scrambles to the fissure that guards the entrance to the cave.

Outside is terror. Men swarm on the narrow path.

They will find the pool! The child is shocked. Only women come here.

She hesitates, half in light.

A shout. A man in armor points and spurs his horse to the pool.

Arrête! The animal is rammed through the troops, and men leap away. They might not understand the language, but they know the look.

The hard-faced rider has seen the child. He turns in his saddle. The treasure is here? The knight speaks the bastard Norman-Norse of all Duke William’s followers.

His captain, following behind, is tempted to shrug. But does not. So they said in the village. Night is close. They must make camp soon. The men are restless; there were women in the last village, and like dogs the men scent the captives.

A grunt, and the Norman jumps from his horse. A path clears to the fissure in the cliff face. They have all seen him fight, and he knows they call him the Wolf, or the Devil.

He tears cobwebs with his sword but must bend to find a way through the opening. It’s dark inside the cliff, but there’s something shining and . . .

He stops with a jerk.

And laughs out loud at his fear.

Perhaps, for a breath, he had thought a woman stood there. A silver woman. But it’s a statue, a tall, pagan idol, among pillars of the same glittering rock.

The Norman strides closer. The idol, unseemly in its nakedness, does look like a woman—arms, hips, breasts—though the face has holes for eyes and a mouth. She holds a child in one arm and seems to stare at him. Closer, and he sees she too was once a limestone pillar until someone released her shape from the stone.

A treasure? The Norman snorts. The peasants here must have the minds of children.

He stares around the cave. He cannot see the child, if child there was. The light was dropping outside. And where could she hide? This place is empty.

He turns to go and finds something curious. A thicket of red handprints is pressed on the rock around the entrance. More pagan rubbish. Another reason to despise the hardly human creatures who live in the forest here. The priests will sort them out—save their souls. If they have souls.

Did you find it? The captain holds the stirrup for his leader.

Treasure? No. They lied to you. That was foolish, as they will understand.

And the child?

There was no child. The commander swings a leg over the saddle and has a first clear sight of the crag above, crowned with great oaks. What do you see?

His captain follows the Norman’s finger.

There is the real treasure. The commander waves at the stream falling from the pool to the river below. Water. And a place to build my keep. And timber. Very good timber. The Norman smiles. He actually smiles.

His captain does not know if this is good or bad.

The child hears the men ride away. She has been hiding, in a place that only women know.

The cave is dark now, but the Mother shines. She always shines. A light in the shadows of their lives.

And the little girl kneels. And claps her hands. The Mother will hear her. And she will help. She always helps.

1

LONDON, JUNE 1981

JESSE MARLEY adopts a smile like it’s an orphan. Looked at from the outside, there’s confidence in that long stride as she pushes on through waves and flurries of strangers, anonymous in that happy crush.

In six weeks Prince Charles and Lady Diana will marry, and London is already full and swelling as tides of people glut the streets, the hotels, the theaters, and the pubs. Jesse might be one of them—just another tourist waiting for the wedding, loving all the excitement. But she’s not.

She’s dressed carefully today. There’s the skirt—summery, cut on the bias, floral—and a voile shirt with a Peter Pan collar. A cute denim jacket is slung over the top, and flat pink shoes tone with the skirt. Respectable. Feminine. A nice change, some would say, but are they good enough, are her clothes right?

Nerves.

And, yes, she’s overthinking again, but Jesse can’t escape the feeling that they might be looking for her, just as she’s looking for them. She’s tried not to think that thought ever since she arrived in this sweaty city three days ago; the idea that the two people she wants to meet most in all the world could be in London, could, actually, be among those on this footpath today, is glorious. And strange.

Would it really be so weird to meet by chance? Everything else in these last weeks has been on the far side of odd—why not this too?

Play the game. Just pretend.

So Jesse stops, and the mass of hurrying people divides around her, as if she’s an island in a river. Eyes half closed, she filters faces looking for clues.

That tall woman in the blazer with the shoulder pads? She’s got a good face and the age is right. The man striding beside her is well dressed too. If she’s her, maybe that’s him.

A surge of people sweeps the couple past. They stare at Jesse because she’s smiling at them, but there’s no flicker of recognition—she’s just a face in this place of far too many faces.

Jesse’s disappointed, but she isn’t crushed. There’d be recognition on both sides, so they can’t be the ones.

Ah, London. Too many cars, too many people—scrums marching in lockstep push her to the curb too often—and there’s the smog. She’d thought Sydney was bad, but this? The air has substance.

Jesse doesn’t have a handkerchief, so she wipes sweat from her face with one hand as a woman pushes past. She gets it when the stranger looks through her. She’s been judged. It’s not just what she wears or how she walks; so often it’s as soon as she opens her mouth and they hear the accent.

Hah! She hadn’t meant to shout.

Pin-striped, bowler-hatted, a man stares.

A bowler? Things like that belong in black-and-white movies. But Jesse so longs to stop him and say, It’s okay. I don’t bite. I’m lost, you see, and . . . Lost? In many more ways than one.

Jesse clutches the strap of her shoulder bag as if it’s a rope thrown to the drowning, something that can save her from herself. Maybe that’s the literal truth, because inside the bag is the envelope. She wants to open it, but to think she soon will makes her heart fill her chest.

Washed by fear, strafed by yearning, Jesse ignores the traffic; she just wants to get to the other side of the road.

Bad idea.

Good, though, that the guy on the Norton was just idling past. Well, almost good, because that instant the motorcycle sweeps her away doesn’t actually hurt. Not then.

Heads swivel. Someone screams. Three strangers, two men, one girl, rush to help. Even the guy who’s knocked her down gets up and limps over, leaving all that vintage machinery splayed on the road without a glance.

This is all surreal.

Swatting kind hands away, Jesse levers to her knees, stands, and wobbles as she smooths her skirt,

No, I’m fine. Really. This? Her pretty blouse is a bit ripped at the front. Well, a lot ripped. She pulls the jacket closed, but moving her right arm hurts. No, really, it’s nothing. Thanks. Truthfully, all’s well. I just didn’t see.

The bag! Panicked, she tries to find it. Gutter. Footpath. My shoulder bag? Has anyone seen my—

The guy who took her down looks even more embarrassed. He almost points, but clears his throat instead.

There it is, still on the other shoulder. I just need to be—that is . . . Somewhere, anywhere, out of this.

Jesse takes the piece of paper he offers. The guy’s scribbled an address and his name on the back of, what? A butcher’s bill.

George, is it? Thanks. I mean, that is, you’re very kind. It was my fault. She can feel her face hitch up in a grin.

That confuses the poor man, but Jesse doesn’t offer him her name. And she doesn’t have an address; just the hostel, and she’s only staying there for one more night.

That’s my bus. It isn’t, but it’s stopping and at least she knows the name on the front: Smithfield. Jesse half runs, to the extent she can. And lurches up the steps as the front door sighs open.

Ticket?

What?

Where’s your ticket, love? The black driver is a patient man but it’s lunchtime.

Her right shoulder hurts now, as well as her arm, so Jesse scrabbles with her left hand in the bag. It’s here somewhere. She’s so close to crying when she hands it over.

The man clips her pass, and Jesse stumbles along the deck as the bus takes off. There’s an empty seat by the back door and, wincing, she swings herself into it, left hand on the pole.

Where is she going, really?

Away. That’s all. Away from this place to another one.

But the old bus bumps over a broken road near Smithfield Market, more pothole and rut than street, and Jesse pings the bell. Enough!

She stands alone among another crowd as the bus growls away from the curb.

And starts to walk. There’s a hospital around here; maybe she should get her arm checked. Or, not so much her arm but her shoulder, though it’ll cost money she doesn’t have.

No. Can’t be done.

There’s a secret in this busy street, and Jesse finds it though she doesn’t know she’s looking. Maybe the entrance is deliberately hard to spot and that’s why she almost walks past. Almost. But she stops when she sees the sign to St. Bartholomew the Great. A garden is on the other side of an open, ancient door, a place of green leaves and soft light. And there’s an empty bench to sit on. Maybe she’ll just catch her breath, only for a moment.

Nearly a thousand years old, this church: that’s what the sign says. That’s around how old Jesse feels. Her head’s aching and her right shoulder—well, it doesn’t feel much like a shoulder. It feels like a thing that’s all about misery.

Like an old woman, she walks the path between the graves, makes it to the seat, and sits. She’s not Zen enough to ignore her shoulder; it hit the ground first and the throb in the joint is a half-heard drum.

Can she will the pain away? She tries.

No.

Face it.

Ah. Of course. The inner voice.

But Jesse doesn’t want to face whatever is brewing between her ears. Too much facing of things lately. Way too much.

She shrugs. And almost screams. In that giddy moment, vomit fills her mouth.

Breathe deep! Deeper. Head down. Go on.

As the trees, at last, regain their proper places in the sky, Jesse sighs. Sun is coming from somewhere.

But she can’t allow herself to rest.

Very, very carefully, she opens her bag with the good arm and finds it. She stares at the thing in her hand. It doesn’t look like a bomb. It looks innocent. Public-service beige, her name on the front: Jesse Marley. It’s the one she’s used to. Maybe that’s good.

Is it hard to open an envelope? Sometimes. Today it’s impossible.

Jesse puts it back in the bag.

Wedged into a corner of the cloisters is a café. The Brits would call it a tearoom, wouldn’t they? So, yes, let there be . . .

Tea? The girl behind the counter has a pleasant face. Not especially pretty—in fact, not pretty at all—but her skin is beautiful, clear, bright, and soft. Only the English or the Irish seem to win the skin lottery. All that water in the air? Must be.

But another asset surrounds that plain face: tawny hair that swings in a mass when the girl moves her head.

Can you make an espresso? Jesse smiles without hope.

Those sincerely apologetic eyes. I’m so awfully sorry, we only do instant.

What is this place? Does no one know how to make coffee in London? It’s 1981! Jesse doesn’t let it show; she shakes her head politely. Tea’s fine. Really. She doesn’t ask what it is. There’s no point. Tea’s tea in England.

Help yourself to a table. Would you like something to eat? She has a name badge, this gracious waitress: ALICIA.

Not wanting to stare, Jesse looks away.

Alicia. So English. Such an educated voice too. A class marker, that voice. This girl might be working in a café, but she comes from somewhere, went to a good school. Plainly.

Is that an Eccles cake?

Don’t buy it.

But Alicia provides permission—encouragement, even. I’ll bring it with the tea. Everyone needs a little treat. Her smile matches the skin. Flawless teeth decorate her mouth, and her eyes twinkle nicely. Very un-English.

Jesse warms to Alicia. She might be all class, but she’s also endearing. Does endearing get you further than good legs? Probably not. Maybe. But you’d have to work harder.

Jesse sighs. Once, she’d been so sure of herself, so gregarious. Confident, even. Now all she wants is a table on her own. And she’d like to be invisible while she licks her wounds—the psychic ones—and reads the letter.

A table at the far end of the café has a view of the garden. Jesse sits with great care, her back to the few customers, but it’s hard to take the bag off her shoulder. Somehow she eases out of the jacket too. She’s feeling hot.

Alicia follows her. She puts a small china teapot on the table, a matching cup and saucer, and what might possibly be a silver jug of milk—and even a strainer in its own little bowl. Last, the plate with the treat. Tea and cakes. The British gift to civilization. It looks very nice.

The girl seems pleased. Let me know if I can get you anything else. It’s no trouble. One quick glance from the waitress as she goes back to the counter lets Jesse know her disheveled appearance has been noted. Noted, but perhaps not judged. Not that kind of a girl, Alicia, not toffee-nosed; in fact, she looks kind, full stop.

Jesse stares down at her cup. She sips. Fragrant and really hot. Really delicious as well. And the Eccles cake. As promised, sensational. Currants, sugar, butter. Comprehensive sin. But God is just beyond the cloister, so that’s all right.

Jesse closes her eyes to savor the tastes.

So, feeling better?

Jesse jumps. Sorry?

The waitress is beside her. Pardon? She’s mopping crumbs that somehow leapt off the plate.

Did you say something? Jesse’s confused.

The girl smiles. No. Would you like anything else? She nods at the empty plate.

A new life would be good. Jesse would grin, but her face is hurting. And her head.

You’ve come to the right place, then. A final swipe and that lovely smile.

What? Jesse stares.

Alicia nods. I’d talk to Rahere. He’s a very good listener. The girl tilts her head toward the entrance to the church.

Jesse smiles uncertainly. Oh. Well, might go and introduce myself.

He’s always there, day and night. You’ll find him by the altar.

Rahere. Is that a first name?

Yes. Well, first and last together. The waitress picks up the tray. Finished?

As Jesse’s fingers dance on the tabletop—nerves—she mentally counts through the meager stock of coins and notes in her wallet. She’s still got to pay for the hostel, cheap as it is, and if she’s going north, she’ll use up what’s left; maybe she’ll get a temp job somewhere to cover costs. Absolutely, definitely, she shouldn’t have had the cake. How much do I owe you?

One pound and seventy-five pence.

Jesse scrapes back her chair and goes to the counter. Is Rahere the pastor here—the, um, vicar?

Alicia seems less plain with each smile. No. He’s the founder of the church. And the hospital.

Awkwardly, Jesse counts the coins with her left hand. The founder? She picks up a brochure on the counter. But the church is over nine hundred years old, right?

It’s his tomb you want. Alicia makes little shooing motions.

Jesse doesn’t even blink. Advice from the dead, recommended by a stranger. That fits.

The great church is empty. A tiered rack for votive candles is in a side chapel. It might be blasphemous if you no longer believe, but Jesse puts ten pence in the tin and lights a taper anyway.

The rap of her heels disturbs the hush as she looks for Rahere’s tomb. It lies in a wall niche, and the face and hands of his effigy are glazed a tanned pink while his head rests on a red pillow with gold tassels. His robe, so crisply carved, is shiny black. He has company too—a crowned angel holds up a heraldic shield at his feet.

Favoring her damaged shoulder, Jesse sits in a chair across from the tomb and scans the brochure. It says here you were known to be cheerful, Rahere. That you liked helping people. She stares at the effigy. So, can I ask you for that—just to be cheerful while I sort this mess out? I don’t want to be bitter. I don’t want to be angry. I just want to know.

Jesse’s eyes fill. She sniffs; manages to rub one eye and then the other. As if she’s got something stuck.

She’s avoided grief for some time now, pushed it down, closed the lid on that box and locked it up. Now, like an idiot, she’s allowed misery to jump out and sock her right in the eye.

There’s only one thing to do; she knows it. Reaching into her bag, she takes the envelope out, rips the top, and unfolds the birth certificate.

The details.

Child: female. Name: Jesse Mary. Date of Birth: 1st August 1956.

She stares at Rahere. Does this feel like betrayal to you? It does to me. Her birthday’s always been celebrated on October 3.

Jesse keeps reading. Place of Birth: Jedburgh, Berwickshire.

Mother’s Name: Eva Green.

Date of Birth: 13th March 1940.

Occupation: blank.

Father: unknown.

Something hits in Jesse’s chest, hard as a fist.

No father?

In that moment she’s certain she will choke. But. She doesn’t.

There’s a word, Informant, with a signature beside it.

Jesse makes herself look at it. Anything to avoid the other information. Peering, she can see a woman’s name—it’s hard to read—and there’s an abbreviation at the front of it: Sr. Her finger traces the name. Mary Joseph. And beside the last name—Magdalene?—there’s a cross inscribed.

At least the address is clear: Holly House, Priorsgate, Jedburgh, Berwickshire, Scotland.

Jesse stares. She’s Scottish? She’s been told she was born in Durham.

Date of registration: 23rd October 1956.

In Sydney, when she went to apply for her passport, that registration date was the first clue that something was wrong. She’d handed over what she thought was her birth certificate, the one she’d found in her mother’s—no, her adoptive mother’s—desk in their house in Crows Nest, and they’d queried the date her birth had been registered; turned out, October 1956 was months after she’d actually been born, according to British records. That happened, sometimes, in cases of informal adoption between family members. It was a way of fudging the actual date of birth.

Conclusion? She’d handed over a falsified birth certificate.

The irony was, Jesse was getting her first adult passport as a surprise for her parents. A nice one. She’d saved for two years after university earning crap money and working two jobs—typing for a solicitor during the day, cleaning at night—because she so, so wanted to go to England in the summer and see the place she was born for real. And then Charles and Di got engaged.

Her friends all laughed, but Jesse didn’t care. She just wanted to stand on a London street and see them pass by. Be a part of living history, part of their fairy tale—the prince and his virgin bride.

Her parents had never been keen on Jesse’s traveling by herself, and she thought she’d understood the reason—a girl, all alone, out in the big world. So she’d meant to get her passport and say to Janet and Malcolm, Come with me! Let’s all go home together and be there for the wedding. My treat.

But there’d been no ticket for her mum and dad. Because they weren’t her mum and dad.

In Sydney, the woman Jesse called Mum had slammed her bedroom door and cried all day behind it when Jesse even tried to ask that loaded question: Who am I?

Malcolm, her father, shook his head when she trapped him in the kitchen. I knew this day would come. I warned your mother so.

And he’d walked out of the house. Jesse knew he’d gone to the pub; a nearly silent man, he always went there when her mum asked too much of him. Which was often, in his terms.

When she was past teenage sulking, Jesse had wondered sometimes if her parents’ marriage was actually happy. They organized their lives in the length of the pauses between the careful words they spoke to each other, and in what was not said in Jesse’s hearing. After she was about nine years old, Jesse knew that something was being managed between the two—between all three of them—in that quiet house. And she’d not understood what it was.

Now she does.

And here it is. Her real birth certificate, picked up fresh today on this far side of the world. The actual object. The thing that proves who she is. A bastard child. Jesse stares at the paper in her hand. It feels as if she can see right through to the other side, as if her eyes were scalpels slicing truth to strips of nothing.

She touches the letters on the page.

This is her mother’s name. Her actual mother. Eva Green.

Why did you give me away, Mum?

That does it. Tears drip, and when Jesse bends her head, they’re a torrent she can’t stop.

She tries to stifle the sound but she can’t bear this. The pain. All kinds of pain.

It’s a while before she wipes her face one-handed. Stand up. Come on. Sitting here will solve nothing.

Cruel, but fair. You’re right.

Holding to the back of the chair in front, Jesse stands. She’s done sniveling, she’s done feeling sorry for herself, and she’ll ignore the shoulder too. But she chews her bottom lip. That’s a habit when she worries.

Is it something you do, Mum?

Maybe she’ll skip the hospital, go to a pharmacist and get a painkiller. Then she’ll go back to the hostel and sleep; tomorrow will be better. She’ll make it better because she’ll find a library and scour what they have about Jedburgh. And libraries have telephone books. She can look up everyone called Green in Scotland. And she’ll ring them all.

That’s a decision. And a plan.

There you are.

Jesse has her hand on the door to the outer porch of St. Bartholomew.

You left this? The waitress holds out Jesse’s jacket. Too pretty to lose, but I didn’t want to disturb you in the church. Alicia smiles warmly.

Thanks. Half turned away, Jesse’s hiding her face. But she fumbles the handover and her bag drops to the floor. Out spill far too many things, including the birth certificate.

Let me. The waitress bobs down. Jesse drops too, just as Alicia stands. Their skulls connect.

Jesse’s knocked back on her shoulder as she falls. She can’t breathe and the vault reels above her head.

What a day you’re having. The other girl reaches out a hand.

Sobbing a breath, Jesse takes it. But she can’t control her face, and she can’t stand.

Up you come. Alicia, this surprising girl, helps Jesse to her feet. Alicia’s touch is gentle but her arms are strong. I think you need to rest for a while.

I couldn’t, really. I have to—that is . . .

There’s a door marked STAFF ONLY, and it’s easily opened. Beyond is a room filled with mismatched furniture, but there’s a couch. Alicia fluffs a cushion, places it invitingly. It’s quite comfortable. Why not sleep for a little while?

Jesse stutters, N-no. That is, I do need to go. You’ve been so kind and . . . But she sits anyway. She can’t fall down again. Three times in one morning? Too much.

Put your feet up. Alicia tucks an old picnic rug around Jesse’s legs.

Jesse wants to reply, wants to say thank you, but the rug does it. She just can’t speak.

Pressing a box of tissues into the girl’s hand, Alicia opens the door soundlessly as she leaves.

Jesse’s alone. She cries until her eyes swell shut, head ringing like a bell.

Jesse shifts in her sleep, twitches and sighs. Her eyes open. She struggles to sit up. Pain bites her shoulder like a dog. She screams out, Christ! Shaking, she tries to look at the watch on her right wrist. Past one o’clock!

Jesse fumbles the rug off. She stands. Too fast. Feeling sick, she grasps at a table as Alicia opens the door.

Got it. The waitress catches the lamp before it hits the floor. Somewhere, through the open door, people sing Gregorian plainchant. Calm as a distant sea.

Jesse mutters, What are you, patron saint of people who fall over? She’s trying to keep it light.

That would be the social worker. Comes Mondays and Wednesdays. Alicia picks up the rug and shakes it out, folds it in three. And again. A neat shape. I heard you stir.

Where stirring is blasphemy. In a church. Sorry to have been a nuisance. Jesse picks up her jacket as she tries to flex her shoulder. Gasps.

Sore?

Sweating, Jesse sort of nods. Her head doesn’t want to help. It’s blazing in there; red, black, white—pain of many colors given form.

Um, a friend of mine sings in the choir here. Alicia gestures through the door. They practice at lunchtime. He’s a doctor at Barts and . . .

Please don’t think me rude, Alicia, but I do really have to go. I feel much better. Honestly. Jesse tries not to flinch as she picks up her bag. Must do this again sometime. She makes it to the door. Forgetting, she pushes it open. Her right hand.

Did someone just remove a hunk of bone? Pain explodes and Jesse cannons into the doorjamb, slides to the floor. Four, today. A record.

Alicia? A man’s voice. Legs in the doorway, knees level with Jesse’s nose. A startled pause. Hello. No. Stay put. Don’t try to get up.

She knows she can’t move, not now, but Jesse seems to see the voice that comes out of the man’s face as it looms closer to hers. The sound distorts, slows down, as her eyes drift closed because she’s very, very tired.

Who is she?

I don’t know.

A rustle. Jesse hears breathing close by. A large hand covers her forehead completely. Feels cool.

Can you tell me your name? The male voice, speaking each word really, really slowly.

She manages, Jesse. It’s thick-sounding. What’s her mouth doing?

I think you might be concussed, Jesse.

She winches her eyes open—who knew eyelids weighed so much?—and murmurs, Okay.

He’s smiling at her. Faint, but genuine. So’s Alicia.

Jesse tries to sit up. That doesn’t go well.

We need to get you to the hospital. He’s kneeling beside her. Quite close. Red hair. No. Chestnut. Pale eyes—water-green, water-blue. That English skin. Looks good, even on a man.

A deep breath. If she talks on the out, the pain isn’t as bad. Don’t have insurance. She’d shrug if she could. Her eyelids droop.

Jesse hears two voices. Him. Her. Him again. Then another rustle as Alicia squats down.

Jesse knows Alicia’s smell now. Soap from a morning bath—wouldn’t be a shower—and clean hair.

Jesse, you don’t have to pay.

Then him. You’ll be admitted into emergency. I think you need to be.

Magic words, You don’t have to pay.

Jesse surrenders to the dark.

2

THE SCOTTISH BORDERLANDS, JUNE 1321

MAUGRIS GAVE me the signal, a hand swept across the throat. Death.

I turned in the saddle, repeated my brother’s gesture. Rauf nodded, passed the message to Tamas and John and the others massed behind.

It was the dark of the moon before dawn, and there was nothing to show that we lay so close to our enemies. Maugris, my brother, was a careful leader; he had ordered mud rubbed on each cuirass, so that no surface shone.

Our family knew the worth of fighting men and always had. These past weeks had been blood-soaked as we did what was asked of us, but Rauf and the others understood we would not waste even a single life—not theirs and not ours. The core of our band had survived three years in the service of our overlords, the Percys, and their overlord, Edward, the king in London. But Scotland was a flint-hard country then, and while Robert Bruce had beaten Edward Plantagenet seven years ago at Bannockburn, the Scots were foolish to think us crushed. Their contempt was our best weapon.

Snorting, a horse flung up its head. Maugris glared at the rider. Sound travels at night.

I kneed Helios close to my brother’s roan and pointed at the breach in the high wall. It was hard to see, but it was there—I had found it scouting ahead of the others. The earth ramparts of the fort were not well maintained. Perhaps that spoke of few men and fewer supplies, or poor leaders; perhaps it spoke of arrogance. This place lay far inside Scottish lands. And if the brigands there thought themselves safe, that only friends would approach these walls, they were wrong.

Maugris nodded. Helios had the strength to charge the slope and jump the gap in the wall. The others? We would find out. But we had cut our way into such places before and would not linger. The reivers of the Scots borders used this fort as a base for raids into our English lands. We would destroy it, and them, and run.

I beckoned Rauf, a veteran of the wars of the East March, and the man nudged his horse forward. I made the sign of a bow being drawn and held up two fingers. He nodded and scanned the men. Tamas and John, one young, one old, both steady, had bows slung across their chests; Rauf waved them close. Two to ride, two to cover.

I trusted our lieutenant. Rauf was good with a sword, better with a dirk. And pitiless.

Maugris offered his sword to me and I touched it with my own, blade to blade; Dame Fortune be our friend. All soldiers are superstitious. We were no different.

Do not think.

I pulled the reins short, spurred Helios, and set him running at the breach. I heard Rauf behind, only a pace away, and I could not falter or his horse would run us down.

It was the day of the solstice, and yet the air was bitter; it numbed my face as the stallion sprang the gap. But Fortune kept us safe. Mist had settled inside the walls, a covering as we ran for the gate.

At full gallop, a heavy horse will shake the earth. Perhaps this woke the sentry to his death. The man startled awake as Rauf’s knife slashed a mouth in his throat; he made no sound as he dropped. I flung from the stallion’s back and we heaved aside the bar that held the gate.

And so it began.

Arrows skinned the air, and Maugris, howling, our men behind him, charged the shelters of heather and stone that hid the raiders. Half naked, half armed, they boiled from the doorways, still warm from their last mortal sleep. Faces, open mouths, and women in the shadows, screaming as blood flew from the swords that bit and sliced; we had the force of surprise and would soon be gone.

Burn the huts! Slashing forward, cutting down, I slung the words away. A misplaced slice and a man’s hand fountained through the air—it still held a sword—as I booted Helios through the heaving, howling melee to Rauf’s side; at its center, he cut as neatly as a tailor, eyes no brighter than his blade.

A panicked woman screamed; she had a baby in her arms. I saw a man run to the girl. He stood above her, and his blade dealt death in a red and silver wheel. He fought well for her life, for the child; some men’s faces, in battle, are not easily forgotten.

None to live! My brother had a voice that was always heard. He scythed men like barley as flame bloomed and jumped from thatch to thatch and light flared across bodies, piled in heaps.

Flank beside flank, Rauf and I slashed on, pushing the few defenders away from the open gate, away from freedom. Our horses were scarlet to the hocks, but we, and they, were used to that.

A bellow from Maugris—Fall back. Back!—and the band, man by man, obeyed.

I was the last away. Inside the ring fort, there was no movement, and the only sound was the spit and crack of fire. The man and the girl and the child were nowhere I could see.

Bayard! Rauf lingered by the gate to see I was safe away.

And then we fled to the east, toward the rising light.

Fog moved over the face of the Pentland Hills, a shawl of rags flung across bracken and moor; it slowed us as we rode. But if it hid the track, there was this advantage: sound is trapped by mist. And snow. Though that was yet to come.

I nudged Helios to a trot and rode up beside Maugris. Nothing moved as we left.

My brother grunted. It was my role to search for survivors and dispatch them.

This raid had always been a gamble—a foray to stanch a running wound. Yet Maugris led us and we followed, for his orders came from Henry Percy. And if they were never easy commands and some of the Scots raiders in the fort had lived to pursue us, what was different in that? The Scots believed they had won their country back from the English, yet these small wars still swung across the border, out of England into Scotland, and back again. Territory was bought by death, theirs and ours, as it had always been.

And our own troop? They were accustomed to this work, but their hearts had likely shriveled since the morning. Some will deny it, but to kill a child stays with you. Women also. Those faces, those fragile bodies, were too much like their own babies, their own wives.

It was dangerous to think too much. I hunched deeper in my riding cloak and allowed Helios to fall back until I was in my proper place at the rear of the column.

For some time we rode at a league-eating amble until, ahead, Maugris threw up an arm and stopped. Rauf!

Our lieutenant cantered up the line, and I, along with the others, watched as the two conferred. We all respected my brother’s instincts.

Rauf touched a hand to his helmet. We saw him ride into the mist behind us, saw it swallow him whole. Soon, there was nothing to hear, not even his horse, though the track was wet.

Maugris held up one hand, palm out. Wait.

Time passed—long or short I am not sure. Should I speak to him? His face held no expression, though he inspected the