Risa, page 19
It was also occupied by a broad-shouldered man kneeling at the altar rail.
Gawain.
He did not turn at the sound of her footsteps. His prayer held all his attention, bowed before the carved and painted crucifix, with the Lord’s arms stretched out over him in suffering and benediction. His whispers filled the painted room like a soft wind.
“Give me strength,” he prayed. “Father, take this thorn from my side.”
Risa fled in silence, but there was nowhere left to go. Even God’s house was closed to her. She could not stay under this roof. The honest and unguarded night was preferable to these stifling walls. Her breath was already coming in short gasps.
The kitchens had a door to the herb gardens and the animal pens. Ignoring the stares of the servants, Risa ran out that way and down the narrow path, her heedless passage stirring up sleepy complaints from geese and chickens. The wind blew hard against her face, drying her sore cheeks, and loosening her breathing. Her footsteps slowed, and her vision cleared.
Mindful of what had happened the night before, she turned her path away from the stables, although she would have liked to visit Thetis, to take some comfort in a fellow creature. If there was any comfort to be had in this night where the stars shone down placidly on dangers without and within.
I’m so tired.
Perhaps she should not have run away. Perhaps this was all punishment for defying her father, and the fate God had set for her.
No. She could not believe God would be so cruel. Despair was a sin. This was a trial, a trial only. She could stand. She must. There was no one else to stand for her.
There in the yard, Risa knelt. Surely the whole world was God’s house. Surely a prayer could be heard anywhere. She bowed her head and clasped her hands.
“Our Father …” she began the pater noster fervently.
It was then Risa heard a raven’s harsh call.
Her tongue froze to the roof of her mouth, and her skin prickled sharply.
No. That could not be what she heard. Even the birds that feasted on the dead were sated and asleep in the ruined fields.
The call came again, faint but clear on the cold night wind.
God and Christ, I’m losing my mind.
But the call came again, down the gentle slope outside the hall’s defenses, to the west, she thought, although it was hard to tell. Risa hesitated for a handful of heartbeats, and then, murmuring a far different set of prayers, ran back to the chapel.
Gawain was still there, and still kneeling before the altar.
She called his name and he turned on his knees as if he’d heard a sword being drawn.
“Risa …” He went so utterly pale at the sight of her, that had he been a woman she thought he might faint. There was no time to let him speak another word, and Risa found she was secretly glad.
“Gawain. I heard a raven out by the walls.”
The confusion on Gawain’s face quickly cleared, and he leapt to his feet. “Did you see anything?”
“No, but … I do not like it. Will you come with me?”
Risa realized she was placing a trust in Gawain. They had both seen what they had seen, and knew that hidden arts and powers worked around them. He could deny it, though. It would be difficult to explain to Bannain why he was going out in the dark to chase a bird.
But Gawain wasted no time on questioning her eyes or intuitions.
“I will get my arms. Fetch your bow and meet me at the doors.”
Risa nodded and hurried down the corridor. She burst into the sleeping room, sending a flock of women and ladies of the hall fluttering from her path.
“Where are you going, Lady?” asked a sly, cultured voice as Risa caught up her bow and quiver from under her bed.
“Hunting larks,” she answered sharply and left before any other query could follow.
Gawain stood ready by the hall steps, watching the darkness alertly. The sentries moved with steady stride around the inner palisades. Torches and rushlights flared, driving the dark back just a little.
As soon as Risa descended the steps, Gawain nodded, and side by side they crossed the yard.
The guard on the portal beside the inner gate was clearly loath to let them leave, but was, fortunately, even more reluctant to closely question the lord-and-hero Gawain, and they were allowed out with only a minimal delay. Beyond the inner walls, night turned Pen Marhas into a maze. Although the night was clear and the moon was high, there was not enough light to pick out any more than the roughest of shapes. Risa strained her ears. Random noises—the bleating of a sheep, a pig’s grunt— drifted on the wind along with the smells of wood smoke, animal pens and faintly, of the dead still unburied beyond the walls. It was as impossible to tell the direction of any one sound as it was the origin of any one scent. Risa wished in vain that she had her hounds for this strange hunt.
Gawain matched her pace exactly, moving with caution and grace at her side, always taking care not to step in front of her and so always leaving a clear path for her to shoot the arrow she held ready in the string. The torches atop the outer walls grew closer, but only slowly. A man’s voice called out. A dog barked. Nothing more or less than the sounds of a town’s night.
“Did I dream?” muttered Risa.
“We will make sure all is right at the outer walls,” answered Gawain. “I’ll take caution at even a dream of yours.”
Risa felt she should say her thanks for that, but the word did not seem purposeful enough, so she held her tongue and concentrated on the sounds beyond the silver-tinged shadows. A baby’s high, thin wail. A cow’s lowing. A door. Footsteps stumbling on rutted dirt. A long, low creaking, as of something heavy being slowly moved.
Gawain stopped dead. “God on High. The gate. Risa, run, wake the hall!”
The gate. The Saxons were opening the gate. Risa jammed her arrow into her quiver as she took off running, slipping and splashing in mud-rimmed puddles.
“The gate!” she shouted as she ran. “The gate is open! The walls are breached!”
Voices raised around her, calling out from houses. Doors slammed open, and hastily kindled lights bobbed out into the night. Risa did not slow or stop to make any answer. She just sent her warning as far ahead as she could
“The gate is open! The walls are breeched!”
Behind her, the screams began, and the roar of maddened men. It was then she realized she was alone in her flight. Gawain had stayed behind.
As clear as day, her mind’s eye saw him standing in the street, bellowing orders to the sentries, sword in hand, ready to meet the enemy’s tide. Her voice choked off, but her speed redoubled.
The inner walls blocked the way in front of her. The light from blazing torches cascaded down.
“Who … !” began the sentry, his voice tight and uncertain.
“Lady Risa!” she cried back before he could finish his question. “Let me in! The Saxons have breached the gate!”
The sentry overhead did not move. He was nothing but a frightened boy. But someone had some presence of mind, and the little portal beside the gates flung itself open and Risa darted inside.
“Is the thedu awake?” she bawled at the man who stood nearest the door.
“He’s been sent for …”
She did not wait to hear any more. She just ran for the stables, her breath tearing at her lungs like sobs. Around her, men ran as well, for the horses, for the walls, for their weapons or their wives. Their voices blended into an incomprehensible din. Firelight chased back the darkness. Over the walls, the sky began to glow, and a new, ominous roar began under the shouts and clatters.
A woman screamed.
The stable doors were wide-open. Boys and men rushed past her, arms loaded with tack and saddles. Risa waded between them to Thetis’s box. Gringolet might throw her, but Thetis knew her touch from when she was a little girl, and when she was a little girl she had ridden in the oldest style of all. Risa seized Thetis’s mane, hauled herself up onto the mare’s bare back, and dug her knees into the horse’s sides, sending her flying out into the yard. People threw themselves out of her way, and cried out what might have been curses. Risa threw her weight backward to pull Thetis up short when they came to the wall.
The man was the same who let her in, and he did not waste time asking what she thought she was doing.
“My lady, the Saxons … !” he tried to say.
“Lord Gawain is out there alone!” she cut him off. “Open that door and bring who you can behind me!”
Thankfully, the man obeyed. Risa pressed herself flat against Thetis’s back and a lifetime of loyalty caused the mare to respond when Risa with rough heels and hands ordered her through the narrow door and down the twisting street.
In the time it had taken for Risa to run to the hall, the night of Pen Marhas had changed completely. Now it was filled with noise and horror on all sides. Fire clawed at the sky from thatched roofs. Screams blossomed with the flames, women’s and children’s terror mixed together. Men’s impotent shouts. Cruel laughter in answer. The stink of burning flesh and the mindless cries of animals. Bodies swarmed through the street, running in utter desperation for the hall and the inner walls, knowing that they might not make it in time, knowing that they might be trapped between the Saxons and the closed gates.
Thetis balked and bucked. Risa had finally asked too much of her. She knotted her hands in the horse’s mane, but there was no controlling her. She wheeled around, and Risa felt herself begin to slip. It was either jump off or be thrown.
She landed on the rutted ground, stumbling before she found her balance. Relieved of her burden, Thetis bolted into the chaos, leaving Risa to hope she found some kind of safety for herself.
She had no idea where she was. All the walls around her looked identical. Faceless forms ran past her, bumping and jostling. She made her way against their current. Gawain would have headed to the walls. His first priority would have been to try to get the gates closed.
Risa’s hand gripped her bow where it hung on her shoulder. It was useless in this flickering light, these uncertain shadows, but it gave her strength to keep going, hugging the shadows, trying to think clearly, trying to shut out the screams and the heat of the fires.
“Risa!”
Risa’s head jerked up. Without warning, a man’s hands seized her about the waist, jerking her off her feet, hurling her to the ground. Her head slammed against the dirt, and for a moment she saw the Saxon towering over her, firelight turning his knife and helm bloodred. Risa scrabbled at the ground for some weapon, any weapon, and the Saxon swooped down.
Then there was the flash of a blade, and a guttural scream, and the Saxon was gone, replaced by Gawain’s silhouette. He grabbed Risa by the arm, hauling her upright. Before she could find her feet, he dragged her through the nearest doorway.
It was a house, and it had already known the attention of the raiders. The furniture was smashed, the folk fled, the fire flung from the hearth, its flames smoldering in the middle of the dirt floor. Gawain ground them out with the heel of his boot.
“What were you thinking?” he demanded, stamping out the last of the fledgling, fires.
That you were out here alone. But he knew that. How could he not know? She kept her silence and tried to find her breath again. Gawain stared for a moment at the ashes, and then turned to her. His heart was all in his eyes, and Risa felt her heart reach out in answer. All that they had not said, all that they had tried to keep from each other, it passed between them now, with nothing more than that look while Hell opened all around them. They could not lie now, to each other or themselves, as they might have tried to once.
“Forgive me,” he whispered.
Risa swallowed. “There is nothing to forgive.”
“There is. I would tell you if there was time. We need to head for the outer walls. If we stay here, the fire will take us, even if the Saxons don’t.”
She thought about the mad scramble at the hall for men and weapons. “Bannain … ?”
“We cannot help them if we’re burning with his town. The outer gates are still open.”
Fresh screams rose from the chaos. Gawain grabbed Risa’s arm, pulling her out of the doorway. The screams grew closer, accompanied by the sounds of weeping, and of laughter.
It was a cluster of women and children surrounded by Saxons who drove them with kicks and the thrust of axe hafts against their backs. One had a woman by her hair, dragging her behind him so that she had to run to keep from falling. Her captor ignored her screams, or perhaps he enjoyed them. Gawain let go of Risa’s arm at once, and stood before them.
He was going to say something, offer some challenge, for he was a captain and a champion, or perhaps because he couldn’t see straight yet from the smoke. Risa snatched up a piece of wood, some post from a broken fence, and charged like a madwoman for the nearest raider, screaming at the top of her lungs.
Caught off guard, the raider swung around too late and Risa drove her fence post into his belly, knocking him off his feet. The women screamed and scattered. Gawain swung his sword, parrying the raider’s axe, thrusting at throat and belly. Risa swung around in time to see a raider with his knife out bearing down for her, but in the next heartbeat he saw she did not stand alone. There had been no time to tie the women, and they were not going to simply flee. They came back, with sticks and rocks, with bare hands and screams and flaming brands. The raiders fell before them, driven into the mud to be kicked and beaten, or driven back between the burning homes. The children cried and screamed, the youngest huddling behind the oldest. A few picked up stones and threw them after the fleeing Saxons.
Gawain dispatched his man and turned to look for more, but saw only women and children, and Risa standing there, clutching her makeshift weapon, and breathing lungfuls of smoke until each breath was a cough.
“Risa, take them out of here!” he shouted to be heard above the roar.
“There’s no shelter out there!”
“There’s less in here! Get the children away!”
Come with me! she wanted to cry to him, or I won’t leave you! but she did not. He was armed with steel and she with a stick of wood. Her bow was useless in this hideous light and the shifting winds the fires set up. He could do far more in here than she. The poets could fill in the grand gestures later.
“Hold on to each other!” She caught up the hand of the nearest woman. “Keep close! We’re going to the gates!”
They came by ones and twos, mothers carrying babies, clusters of children, old men hoisting their grandchildren onto their bent backs. They clutched at sleeves and hands, stumbling through the Hell their home had become, coughing and retching. Risa tried not to look at any of them, she tried only to see the way out. Her right hand curled tightly around her ridiculous stick, but it was all she had.
At last, the gates of Pen Marhas opened before them like the gates of Paradise itself. A gout of clean, cold wind caught Risa in the face and she thought she would faint from the giddy delight of it. She slogged forward with her charges. There was no one left on the earthworks. There was no one left in the field. The Saxons had all gone in to sack the town. The soldiers had all gone in to defend it.
And here they were this ragged band to watch it burn.
“We should get up above it,” said Risa. Smoke and emotion turned her voice hoarse.
Numbly they followed her, across the valley and up the hillside. One of the women knew where there was a spring, and she led them into the gully where the water ran clean and cold as ice, chattering to itself as if nothing were happening. They all drank. The women washed their children’s faces, and soaked their burns in the icy water, wrapping them in pieces of sleeve and skirt that one of the men cut free with his knife.
Then, because there was nothing else to do, they sat on the hillside, huddled close for what little warmth there was to be had from each other, and watched Pen Marhas burn. Children crawled into their mother’s and grandfather’s laps, or leaned their heads against their knees. Those who had no parent with them crowded together beside those who knew them. Risa wrapped her arms around herself and shivered. She tried to be grateful for her life, for the lives of those around her, for the small blessing that they were upwind from the town, so they did not have to breathe the stench of it into their ravaged lungs. Her skin stung in a dozen places, as if she had been in a swarm of bees, and her throat was raw with smoke and shouting. Despite the heat of the other bodies around her, she was cold.
Down below fire leapt to the sky, but it had not yet moved to the center. The hall itself did not burn, she thought, she hoped, she prayed. She could make herself believe while the hall still stood that there was some haven for Gawain to retreat to. There was some chance for him.
It took Risa a long moment to realize it was not just fire that lit the sky. White sunlight turned the horizon pale. Dawn was coming.
“Look there,” the woman whispered, as if afraid of being overheard.
And maybe she was. A stream of bodies was fleeing Pen Marhas. Caught between fire and dawn light, all were black silhouettes. It was impossible to tell who they were, or whether some chased others, or they all fled the fires in camaraderie. Risa leapt to her feet, straining her eyes and ears for some sign. Then she heard the shouts of triumph from below. They bounced off the hills, harsh, incomprehensible.
Saxon.
Despair clamped onto Risa’s heart. What was she to do now? Where were they to go? Had the Saxons taken the hall or were they just fleeing with their loot? Even so, they’d be combing the hills for the survivors. There was no place to go, and here she was caught with the women and children, with only a handful of arrows, to be pressed into slavery or worse …
She turned to them. They looked at her, some wide-eyed, some skeptical. They knew her rank, but would they listen? Would they help? They had to flee. They had to try. Oh, Gawain.
Before she could open her mouth, a new sound wafted over the hills, so unexpected it took a moment for Risa to understand what it was. A horn, bright and brave rose to meet the dawn. It blew again, its notes winging over the sound of fire and the raiders’ cheers.
