Wolf Blood Read Free Page B

wolves howl. I don’t blame him. They seem so much closer here. Should I keep walking? I don’t want to run into wolves; I don’t know where I’m going, my legs are trembling from weakness, and it is good to have company. This man is kind. He gave me food. It is a long time since anyone has given me anything besides a beating and I know I could take him in a fight with one arm tied behind my back and both eyes closed. Strange, he is tall and well-built and ought to have what it takes to make a warrior.
    Instead of moving on I find myself helping him bury the corpse of his comrade. We have to cool him down with snow before we can move him.
    ‘Help me take off his shirt,’ I say.
    ‘What?’
    Even in the firelight I can see that Lucius’ mail shirt is a masterful piece of work, linked chains of metal that would protect me like a blessing from the mother. I recognise it. The enemies of my vision wore such shirts, and other shinier things. Wearing one of them would be like wearing a shield, leaving both arms free for fighting.
    ‘I want his shirt, and his helmet too. If I come across any more of you Romans, I want what you have.’
    He helps me reluctantly. He’s very fastidious for a soldier. I doubt he’s seen action yet; I’m not sure he’d survive. It is a grisly job and even I avert my eyes from Lucius’ ruined, melted face.
    The ground is like iron and so we do a poor job, merely heaping snow and stones over his body. I say prayers to Lugh and the triple-faced one and Morcant mumbles something about Mithras. I’m glad to get back to the fire. The night is full of unseen things, creatures of the forest watching us, waiting for us beyond the small circle of light we have made with our fire and unlikely companionship.
    ‘Here, you might as well have this – he doesn’t need it now.’
    He gives me Lucius’ pack full of spare clothes, a goatskin canteen of water, and food. I don’t eat right away but drink deeply of the water then dress myself in Lucius’ tunic and Keltic trews. They are too short of course but much more use to me than my long women’s skirts. I clean off Lucius’ mail shirt too and Morcant watches me struggling into it, while he heats beans over the fire. I feel better for the extra clothes. If I meet the shining men of my vision, it will now be on more equal terms.
    The food is better still. So hot it burns my mouth but I don’t care.
    ‘How long have you been a soldier?’ He has offered me hospitality of sorts and I am bound by old rules to make myself pleasant in the acceptance of it.
    He fingers a new-looking tattoo on his hand – a wolf. I am a little startled by that. I think of the wolf as my own symbol, for my many visions of wolves.
    ‘I’ve been training since the summer.’
    ‘But you’re of the tribes?’ He has that look about him. He reminds me a little of Gwyn, though his features are finer, his eyes greyer and his expression sweeter. In fact he looks nothing like him – it is just that he is handsome. It is not a thought I should be having in the middle of this wilderness when I am on the run from his own compatriots.
    ‘My mother was a slave from Armorica, my father a Roman, an army veteran from Rome itself. He has no other children so he acknowledged me as his heir. I’m a citizen.’
    ‘Will you go back to your . . .’ I search for the right word. ‘Your fighting tribe?’
    ‘My legion? No. I don’t think so. They will blame me for Lucius’ death.’ He scrapes the pot of beans and gives me the last of it. I’m too hungry not to accept.
    ‘I don’t think the life is for me anyway – it feels all wrong.’
    I don’t answer. There is something wrong about him. I don’t know what it is, but something niggles in my marrow, in my seer’s guts.
    ‘What about you?’ He asks the question gently. A seeress is bound to truth but I don’t think an escaped slave is bound by anything.
    ‘I was a warrior once, of one of the Brigante clans. I was captured