Blood Feud (21 page)
Authors: Rosemary Sutcliff
‘Maybe one day,’ my master said, straightening from the bed, ‘we shall find stronger weapons against this sickness. Now, there is little we can do but accept defeat, and give him what peace we can for his dying.’ He turned away; and once again I was alone with Anders in the cell-like room with the lamp on the wall throwing the shadow of the crucifix up towards the ceiling.
The night passed much as the first had done, until a little before dawn. Anders roused from his poppy-drink, and came back to himself and began to talk. His voice was so dry and weak that I had to lean close to catch what he said, but the
words made sense again. At first it was only that he wanted water, but when I had given him a few sips and laid him down again, he held on to my wrist. ‘Did Thormod ever tell you how he and Herulf and I – how the three of us listened to travellers’ tales and planned to make our fortunes – see the – Golden City of Miklagard?’
‘He told me,’ I said.
There was a grim shadow of a smile on his mouth, as I wiped away a trickle of blood. ‘He would, of course . . . We never made our fortunes, but – three of us have seen the splendours of Miklagard, though not – quite the same three.’
He seemed to doze again for a little while, then he opened his eyes wide, fixing them full on my face. ‘When I missed my stroke, two nights ago. Is it only two nights ago? I thought that you would kill me. That was – the way it should be, and – I was ready. Why did you not?’
‘I don’t know,’ I said.
‘You and – the old man with the grey beard – you have fought to keep the – life in me – as though it mattered, as though the old wolves had never died in – Svendale. Why, Jestyn?’
‘I don’t know,’ I said again. ‘Before your God and mine, Anders, I don’t know.’
‘You’ve gone soft,’ he jibed. ‘Softer than you always were under your battle sark.’
‘Maybe.’
He was silent again; and I could see that beneath the jibing, there was some deep trouble in him. After a short while, he said, ‘It would have been better if you had ended it, there – in the doorway. I’m – dying anyway, and now I shall die a straw death – a cow’s death – I never thought I’d come to that. But – maybe that’s why you held your hand. You have a fine vengeance, but – the dagger would have been cleaner . . .’
He seemed to be finding it harder to breathe; and I raised
him and held him against my shoulder. The smell of his breath was like the smell of something already dead. I don’t think he believed it of me, even while he gasped out the bitter words, for he turned his head on my shoulder, as on the shoulder of a friend. But whether or no, I saw that there was no time to waste in protesting my innocence. ‘No straw death!’ I said. ‘Listen! Listen to me, Anders! Thormod’s bee-sting has been slow to kill, but time does not make a straw death. If ever one of the Viking Kind died of his wound, taken in war or feud, Anders Herulfson can claim his company!’
I was speaking loud and fast, trying to reach him before it was too late; speaking – it was a strange thing – not as the Jestyn I had become, but as the Jestyn of the
Red Witch
and the Kiev marshes and the Barbarian Guard. ‘Speak my name to Thormod when you meet him. Tell him both the Old Wolves may sit with their heads high in Valhalla, for the Killing Time is finished with honour; and both their sons are worthy of them!’
I think he heard me. I hope he did, but he had begun to cough, and a wave of bright blood came out of his mouth.
A great shudder ran through him, and there was a sudden stillness in the room. No more the rasp of painful breathing. And I was once more the Jestyn I had become in the House of the Physician. I felt for his heart, and it was still; and I laid him down. It was near dawn; the rain that had been falling all night had stopped, and the first light was green beyond the small high window. And somewhere in the rain-wet garden a bird was singing.
I stood looking down at Anders Herulfson, hearing the silence in the room, and the bird singing, and feeling the strange cool emptiness in my heart. I was free of the old feud, the old bondage, and more alone than I had ever been in my life.
The faintest sound behind me made me turn. Alexia stood in the doorway. She stood on the edge of the lamplight, and her hair hung loose and soft on her shoulders. It was the first time I had ever seen it like that; and for the first time, looking at her, I did not think of the dim silver-framed Madonna; only that I needed her and she had come.
She said, ‘There will be those among his own kind, who will say that you killed him; and those who will say that it was your right, and your duty.’
And I said, ‘I have failed Thormod. But I couldn’t kill him.’
‘I knew you could not. That is why I left him to you. I did not even tell Father – I knew you could not; but you had to find it out for yourself.’
‘How if you had been wrong?’
‘Then I think I should have died, too,’ Alexia said.
And she came across the narrow room and put up her two hands, and took my face cupped between them, so lightly that I hardly felt the touch of her fingers. ‘Listen to that thrush,’ she said. ‘It is a new day, Jestyn Englishman, a new day.’
I have never been sure whether I did the right thing, or the wrong one, after all. What is wrong in one world is right in another. I failed Thormod, my blood brother; and I do not forget it. But it is all so long ago, now. So long ago . . .
I went to Demetriades, later that day, and said, ‘I am free of the old bondage. Does your offer still hold?’
‘It holds,’ he said. ‘I shall work you as never a master worked his slave, but in the end you will be a better physician than I am.’
It was certainly true, as to the work.
The last light of evening has deepened to a moth-wing dusk, behind the dome of St Mary of the Barbarians. Alexia is late with the candles this evening. Some crisis in the household, I
suppose. But now I hear her feet on the stair, and the light is spilling up before her, yellow as the gorse that will be in full flower now along the English headlands.
I can hear in her footsteps that she is hurrying a little; anxious still? She need not be. I have been sitting here in the twilight, remembering, as old men remember the days when they were young, and the men who were young with them.
But I would not turn back and take another road to another harbouring place. This is where I belong.
Rosemary Sutcliff was born in 1920 in West Clanden, Surrey.
With over 40 books to her credit, Rosemary Sutcliff is now universally considered one of the finest writers of historical novels for children. Her first novel,
The Queen Elizabeth Story
was published in 1950. In 1959 her book
The Lantern Bearers
won the Carnegie Medal. In 1974 she was highly commended for the Hans Christian Andersen Award and in 1978 her book,
Song for a Dark Queen
was commended for the Other Award.
In 1975, Rosemary was awarded the OBE for services to Children’s Literature and the CBE in 1992. Unfortunately Rosemary passed away in July 1992 and will be much missed by her many fans.
The Mark of the Horse Lord
Flame-Coloured Taffeta
Bonnie Dundee
Frontier Wolf
Knight’s Fee
Simon
Song for a Dark Queen
Tristan and Iseult
Warrior Scarlet
The Witch’s Brat
Beowulf: Dragonslayer
Brother Dusty Feet
The Armourer’s House
Sun Horse, Moon Horse
Sword Song
The Hound of Ulster
The Capricorn Bracelet
The High Deeds of Finn MacCool
The Shining Company
The Light Beyond the Forest
The Road to Camlann
The Sword and the Circle
BLOOD FEUD
AN RHCP DIGITAL EBOOK 978 1 448 17301 3
Published in Great Britain by RHCP Digital,
an imprint of Random House Children’s Publishers UK
A Random House Group Company
This ebook edition published 2013
Copyright © Rosemary Sutcliff, 1976
First Published in Great Britain by Oxford University Press 1976
The right of Rosemary Sutcliff to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorized distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.
RANDOM HOUSE CHILDREN’S PUBLISHERS UK
61–63 Uxbridge Road, London W5 5SA
www.randomhousechildrens.co.uk
Addresses for companies within The Random House Group Limited can be found at:
www.randomhouse.co.uk/offices.htm
THE RANDOM HOUSE GROUP Limited Reg. No. 954009
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
