The Short Knife Read online

  We heard the door slam open, it shook the front wall. ‘Haf!’ the man shouted.

  He knew her name, sure certain.

  She must have told him. She was stupid as soup.

  ‘Haf!’ He stepped away from the hall, spun around in the yard. We shrank back, but he saw us. He spread his arms and smiled. ‘You are here. You quickly left.’ He looked all at Haf, as if I wasn’t taking breaths. ‘Come sit. Eat. We’re not bad men. And you are Freya herself.’

  At the name of one of their heathen gods, I felt my spine stiffen. My sister was no pagan. Though it was sure she was no angel either.

  Haf dropped her knee towards the ground in curtsy. ‘Syr, my tad sent me to do the work he’s been called away from. I can’t disobey my father.’

  The man stepped closer, his hands in fists, his kindness hanging by the thinnest thread. He looked goat-eyed at Haf. ‘Why not? You want not to sit with Saxons?’

  I was shocked to see her blush to her crown.

  ‘No, syr,’ she said, ‘of course not! But when there’s guests, there’s work. My sister and I must see to the farm and the fields.’

  She gave another curtsy for good measure. She was being too sweet. Like glutting honey that sticks teeth shut. I kept my eyes to the ground and sensed that Haf was doing the same. The man was close enough to smell now. Mostly sweat and days spent walking, but also lakes and rivers, otter-scented. He smelled of free things, wild creatures. With his strange British, he was like no man we’d seen before.

  I felt my blood beat again, my heart in my throat. This is how deer must feel, I thought, when they know there are arrows flying. I willed him to step back, to leave us be.

  But Haf lifted her head and smiled like the lollin that she was. ‘Syr, we can’t come inside,’ Haf said, ‘but when our chores are done, we eat together in the evening. You will still be with us?’

  The Saxon smiled, idle-mawed. ‘It’s certain,’ he said. ‘Keep your word. Yes? Yes.’

  I looked up from under my scowl at Haf as the man turned and re-entered the hall.

  ‘Why did you say that?’ I muttered. ‘I don’t want to eat with them.’

  She shrugged. ‘Neither do I.’

  ‘Then why did you say we would?’

  ‘To keep the dish steady. He went in happy, didn’t he? And we’re out here safe.’

  ‘But you said we’d go inside.’

  ‘I said we’d go inside late or later. Those men will sleep and scratch the day away and will have long forgotten about us by the time the next meal rolls around. You’ll see.’

  I hoped she was right. It was Haf who had all the ideas for our games, who thought of things to cheer Tad. She seemed to know, often, what was for the best. So, I let her pull me away from the hall to the byre.

  Haf could remember the last beast that lived here. I had only flashes of memory, brown, coarse hair, her black nose bigger than my head. She had got too old for milking and Tad had hoped to make Mam better with strong stew, Haf said. But it hadn’t worked. I was three when we lost the cow and Mam.

  Haf climbed to the top of the low wooden wall that marked the stall, then pulled herself into the roof rafters. It was her favourite spot to hide from chores. She’d fold herself, igam-ogam into the space and stay quiet, unnoticed. I followed her up, grasping the rough wood beneath my fingertips.

  ‘Don’t fret, Mai,’ she told me. ‘They won’t be taking everything. See?’ Haf reached for the pouch that hung at her belt next to her eating knife, and pulled out something small. Something the colour of water droplets or moonlight. I recognised it. The silver cross that Mam had worn, when she was with us. It was meant to be pinned to draped tunics, to hold them in place. It had belonged to her mam before her, Haf said.

  I had no memory of Mam wearing it. My few memories of her were fleeting. But I did have memories of Haf, curled up close in the bed we shared as infants, holding it up to the light and telling me about Moses on the mountain and Iesu in his crib and all the power he had to make the sick well. Magic tales she’d heard from Tad, when he had time, in the late sun of summer.

  She’d taken the cross from her wooden cist in the hall, without the men seeing.

  Haf reached up into the thatch of the roof and pressed the cross into the hollow she kept there for her secrets.

  It made me feel better to know that they couldn’t take that little bit of Mam away, even if they took everything else.

  Slow as ivy grows, the spine of the day bent into evening, with no sign of Tad or the men. We brought the three hens into the byre. Then we just waited.

  ‘You told them we’d go in when it got late,’ I said.

  ‘I know.’

  ‘It’s late now.’

  ‘I know, Mai.’

  I crossed my arms tight as though I were holding Rat-cat. ‘We shouldn’t go in. Tad wouldn’t want us to.’

  ‘It’s up to me,’ she said, almost to the wind. ‘It’s up to me what I do.’

  It wasn’t true. We both knew it. Tad was in charge. Then Haf. And she only had me and Rat-cat at her feet.

  ‘Tad hasn’t given me orders,’ she said. ‘He didn’t say I wasn’t to go in, did he? You just think that’s what he wants.’

  ‘He’d want us to stay away.’

  But she had found narrow council for herself, thin enough for doubt to slip through at any rate. I could see it in the way she pulled her spine straight. She wasn’t going against his wishes, because she hadn’t heard those wishes. The tale was untidy, but she could ignore that in the telling.

  ‘What will you do?’ I asked. I walked to her side, both of us jammed into the open doorway. She was only two summers older, but she was taller than I was and I had to look up to see her face. Now shadows swaddled the roundness of her cheeks, making her look much older still.

  She pressed her nails into the wood of the doorframe, picking splinters free. ‘Tad needs us.’

  ‘You can’t know that.’

  ‘We haven’t seen him come in or out. They might have—’ Whatever it was she was going to say she bit back behind her teeth.

  ‘What?’ I asked. ‘What might they have done?’

  ‘Nothing. They’re just guests. Just boring old men. But Tad might be tired of looking after them alone.’

  I thought of the walking sticks the men carried.

  ‘Right,’ she said. ‘I’ll go inside, with cider. I’ll pour the bottle until stupor takes them.’

  This was nonsense that passed for planning. Three men full of drink was worse than three men without. It was obvious.

  ‘The plan is lollin,’ I said with scorn.

  ‘Noah drank after the flood and fell straight to sleep,’ she said.

  ‘They aren’t prophets, we already decided that. We should fight them with crosses painted on our shields and fire in our hearts, like the Emperor Constantine.’

  Her only answer was to stare at me.

  She was right. If we ran in, would we two fight three grown men? With what, the knives we used for eating and stones found on the farmyard floor?

  My plan was as weak as hers. ‘But you can’t go in there, you can’t.’ I hated the whine that found its way into my voice.

  ‘We have to do something. It’s been too long since we’ve seen Tad,’ Haf said.

  ‘You think they’ve hurt him,’ I accused.

  ‘No! But I want to see him, just in case.’

  ‘But they’re more dangerous drunk,’ I whispered.

  She stepped so close we were sharing the same breath. ‘Don’t fret, Mai, please. I’ve seen drunk men at the market. The Noah story is right. They sing, then they sleep. We can slip out as soon as their eyes close, with Tad too.’

  Was she right?

  She stepped past me and back into the yard. Headed to the shut barn.

  I followed. She was the cow to my wet calf as I bleated behind.

  ‘Go back, Mai,’ she said. ‘Go and sing somewhere else! It
’s best I do this by myself.’

  ‘If they aren’t dangerous, then there’s nothing to stop me coming too.’

  She tutted. I had her cornered. ‘Fine.’

  Her skirt trailed in the dust behind her. Her arms swung with her stride as she crossed the farmyard. She reached the barn and lifted the heavy wooden bar. We both went inside. It was cool as lake water and the smell of old onions and turnips made soup of the air. Wooden tubs lined one wall. Most full; not all. Beside them were old sacks. Haf clambered around them, sending apples drumming to the ground in her impatience. Then she sighed grimly as she found what she was looking for – the cider.

  It was kept in one of the few clay jars we had left. It was black earthenware with faces pinched into it by the ancient potter. Tad said it had once been used for wine, back when the Roman army had tramped the road and merchants and traders had followed behind. In those days, Tad said, every fine table would have had one. I’d never tasted wine, though I imagined it was sweet like hedge brambles. The cider was not. That I had tried, once, when I fell into the swampy waters by the river, and had to be pulled out gasping. Tad had poured it down my throat and I coughed up the murky weeds as it burned its way down.

  Now wine was gone, Tad bought the strong cider from the dunmen of the woods. It never sat on our table, but he drank it alone sometimes, late at night when the embers glowed. He never sang.

  Haf tucked the jar under her arm, then grabbed the bruised apples from the floor. Armed with weapons that seemed worse than useless to me, she left the barn. I followed and lifted the heavy bar back into its sockets.

  We marched, me still the calf, back to the farmyard. She stopped beside the shuttered window. She pressed her eye against the crack and watched.

  ‘What can you see?’

  ‘Nothing,’ she said.

  ‘True as true?’

  She stepped back and blocked me from looking too. ‘Go to the byre.’

  I shook my head. ‘If you’re going in, so am I.’

  ‘No, you’re not. Go, now.’

  I didn’t move.

  Haf leaned forward, her eyes so close to mine I could see my own shape reflected, despite the dark. ‘You have nothing between your two ears. Don’t you know I’m doing this to keep you and Tad safe?’ she hissed, cat-angry. ‘You need to stay out of the way.’

  I folded my arms across my chest, but didn’t reply.

  Haf held my glare with her own. Then, seeing that she was ploughing sand, she gave up. Huffing, she headed to the door and went inside.

  3

  I almost let the door close behind Haf, leaving me behind on the worn patch of earth by the threshold of the hall. Cold starlight threw shadows across the farmyard. For one moment, I was alone with worry about my head.

  No.

  I needed Haf. And Tad. I couldn’t get through this night without them.

  So I pushed on the door and followed her inside.

  It didn’t feel like our hall any more. It smelled wrong. The men had stained it with their breathing bodies. Not the sweet sweat that came with hard toil and effort. This was sour with long-laid grime.

  I looked around, cautious. No one watched me come in.

  Haf was the centre of their notice, standing near the fire, in the middle of the hall, smiling and shield-holding the jar before her. The firepit was big, with rocks all around to catch stray sparks or hold warming flatbreads. Instead of good food, the embers warmed the feet of the three men. One sat upright on the floor. Another looked half-asleep, rolling on his own roadpack. The last, the one who had spoken earlier, had dragged the settle from the long wall – the settle our own grandfather had made lifetimes ago – and pushed it right next to the heat. He sat on it as if it were his throne. He barked harsh laughter as Haf swirled the cider jar.

  Where was Tad?

  My eyes searched for him.

  And found him at the back of the hall. Was he hurt? Did he need us? The wicker hurdle that shielded his bed space from the main room had fallen, somehow, to the ground. The ladder that led up to the wide shelf where Haf and I slept was on the ground too. Tad sat on his low box-bed, wide enough for two, with his head in his hands, his hair in cockscombs between his fingers. His eyes were on Haf. I was too far away to guess his thoughts. I could see no bruises or blood, though.

  He hadn’t been hurt. Haf had told the truth, they were just wild guests. Relief flowed through me like floodwater. Still, I wanted to feel the weight of his arms about me, all the same.

  I edged around the wall, eyes down, heading for Tad.

  The man on the settle noticed me.

  ‘The second girl!’ he yelled in British. Louder than was right for our quiet home. I didn’t think the other two understood what he said. They didn’t react.

  Tad, though, shifted his eyes. He saw me. His cheeks wan-white as winter outside, his eyes grey-shaded. I saw his face change to horror that I had come.

  His look said everything I had feared. The men were dangerous. We should have stayed hidden in the byre, or run to the woods, and waited until the locusts ate their way onward.

  But it was too late.

  ‘New girl. What are you called?’ the nut-tanned man on the settle asked. ‘Hey, girl. Answer me.’

  ‘Mai.’

  ‘Mai. Fresh as spring! Mai, I’m named Algar. That one’s named Nyle. The sleeping one is named Ware the Tall.’ He pointed to his road companions as he spoke.

  My breath was shallow and quick. The beat of my blood fluttered too fast.

  ‘Come join us!’ Algar said.

  I was too scared to do anything but step nearer to him. Up close, I saw that all the men were thin as winter hens. The folds of their clothes hid the worst ravages of hunger, but their cheeks were bruised pools, their eyes lost in shadow. Their hair was lank, tied back in loose tails.

  I reddened. Under his eyes I felt the comfortable flesh on my bones, filling the fabric of my tunic. I could feel the roundness of my cheeks, apple-rosy. We didn’t eat well, but we ate. Tad made sure of it. We traded no longer, now that the road to market had become so dangerous. So there were never any treats, no honey, or dried fruits or spices. But there were roots and fresh-grown herbs, there was clean water and our own grain. As long as there was no blight, or bad weather, we ate.

  This man knew it, just by looking. I trembled like new chicks in the fist of the farmwife.

  Haf held up the earthenware jar. ‘I brought good spirits,’ she said. ‘To spread good spirits.’ She laughed at her own weak joke. Her voice was one I barely recognised.

  Algar grinned. ‘We were right to walk up the path. The smoke from your roof was gods-sent. Praise Woden!’

  Pagans. Worshippers of devils, sure certain.

  The cork slid out of the jar with the most gentle pop.

  Algar emptied his wooden beaker of water into the fire, sending steam hissing. Haf poured the cider, golden glinting, into the empty cup. Algar slammed it down the red road of his throat and reached for another. Haf poured again, smiling. Then, she moved around the fire, pouring and simpering at all the dirt-smeared wanderers.

  ‘And Mai. Will Mai share the cup with us?’ Algar was looking at me.

  I felt like prey frozen to the ground. The arrow of his eyes pinned me still.

  ‘Well?’ He held his drink out towards me.

  Haf looked out from under her scowl at me. I couldn’t tell whether she was telling me to drink or forbidding me to move. I couldn’t tell what she wanted and I couldn’t decide for myself. So I stood post-dumb and mud-stuck.

  Algar laughed and swilled back the drink himself. Then he grabbed my arm and pulled me onto the settle beside him. I gripped the edge of the seat, my nails sank into the wood, my arms were sapling-straight and clamped to my sides.

  ‘How old are you?’ he asked. Fumes from the cider spread like mist as he spoke.

  ‘Thirteen,’ I said. Grown, I was meant to be, but the day had made me feel
infant-small again. I wanted to turn and look at Tad, ask for his help, hide my face in the crook of his knee like the babe I used to be. But some shocked piece of me knew that I had to keep Tad safe now, not the other way around. I could keep their attention off him.

  ‘Thirteen summers,’ Algar laughed. ‘Thirteen summers with your nose near your own fire.’ He paused and held his cup for more. Haf obeyed.

  ‘Do you know what I was doing these past thirteen years?’ Algar asked.

  I shook my head.

  ‘Keeping myself alive.’ He took another slug, banging the lip of the cup against his front teeth. ‘Have you seen the country outside your hall, Mai?’

  I hadn’t, not for eons. Tad had kept us close to the farm, mostly. We went into the woods to gather and hunt, sometimes. But we hadn’t seen the market in Cwmnant for three years. There was nothing to trade that made the dangerous journey worth it.

  Algar leaned in. ‘I came here,’ he said. ‘I came from over the sea. They said the land was empty.’

  I had nothing to say, so was silent.

  He pulled at my arm, dragging my ear close to his mouth. ‘They said it was empty. But it wasn’t. Saxons and Angles and Jutes fight for land. And the Britons, the bloody Britons, they look like rabbits, but they bite like...’ he searched for the right word, spun the dregs in his cup, ‘. . . like weasels. They hide up on their hilltops and raid real men at night.’

  I tried not to breathe in his breath. I didn’t want to share my island with him, let alone my air.

  ‘Pitiful. Pity full. Pity.’ Algar was playing with his words, testing the taste of them on his tongue. I wondered if the cider had gone to his head. He bark-laughed and I jumped. ‘I’d go home if I could,’ he said.

  ‘Why don’t you?’ I dared to whisper.

  ‘We all answer to someone,’ he said.

  I crouched lower, wishing I’d never spoken. I wished I could sink into the wood of the bench and scuttle like his rabbits, away from the light. Was Haf all right? I tried to see, but Algar sat square in the way. I couldn’t move without drawing his attention.