The Sea Thy Mistress (24 page)

Cahey drew a breath in slowly, tasting how the air moved over his numb tongue. “Absolution.”

Aethelred toyed with his own drink. “Heh. Drink more, kid. It’s gonna be a long night, and I’ve got a riot act to read you.” He toasted Cahey with his bowl.

Cahey leaned back in his chair, let the feeling of relaxation from the liquor spread up his neck. He wanted a shower, but wasn’t certain it would help any more than the last one had. Despite hot water and soap, he thought he could feel Gullveig’s touch all over him, grubby handprints on his crawling skin. His stomach heaved, and it wasn’t from the booze. “I think I’ve heard it.”

“Well, unless you wanna throw me out, you’re gonna hear it again.”

Another sip of whisky burned his throat. “I’ll listen,” was all he said.

Aethelred let a low, grumbling sound collect in his throat. “Cahey, this is becoming an addiction.
Has
become an addiction, Hel. This Imogen thing.”

Cahey decided not to tell him that the Imogen had nothing to do with his bruises. “Selene?”

“Kid—Selene. Cathmar. Everybody who cares about you sees it.” He shook his bald head, chrome shining in the light from the kitchen.

“She … fuck, Aethelred. She
needs
me.”

“She needs you to find a way to free her!”

Silence. “Free her?”

Aethelred nodded. “You need to be back out in the world again, doing good. Trying to make things up to Cathmar…”

Cahey stiffened, whisky slopping onto his hand. “Don’t you dare throw Cathmar in my face.”

The old priest chuckled. “That’s the last thing I’d ever do, kid. I raised enough children to know.” He met Cahey’s eyes, and his gaze said it plainly:
You were one of them.

Cahey took a breath. “Snakerot. How the Hel do you propose I do that, Aethelred?”

Aethelred, pouring liquor with a practiced hand, shrugged. “If I knew that, Cahey, I’d be the einherjar and you’d be the priest. And we all know I’m not cut out to do your job. Now when are you going to let go of your grieving and get started changing the world?”

The words made sense. Cahey knew they made sense. He could feel the shape of the sense they made hanging in his mind.

The shape and the sense didn’t fill up the hole, however. The hole where people had been who weren’t there anymore.

“To the ones who didn’t make it,” he said, and raised his drink before he finished it.

There was no point in arguing. And no point in fixing what you were only going to throw away.

50 A.R.
On the Twenty-seventh Day of Autumn

Selene was waiting in Borje’s already-crowded cottage early the following morning when Aethelred walked in. She had been lying on her back, studying the roof beams and the plaster between them, but when the door banged wide she rolled to her knees on the brown pile rug to examine his face. Her ears flattened when he shook his head.

“Didn’t make a damn dent,” he snarled, taking a red stoneware bowl of tea from Borje with a nod.

Selene rose from her place by the banked fire in the brick fireplace. Aithne, rubbing sleep out of the corner of her eye, sat up on the threadbare sofa. She was the first to reply.

“How bad is it?”

The chrome-faced priest looked as if he wanted a place to spit. “Hel, Aith, I’ve seen a lot of drunks. I’ve seen a lot of drunks with worse reasons to be drunks than Cahey has for … whatever it is you call what he’s doing. You can’t save him. I think you shouldn’t see him right now. You’ll … it’s not a good time, is all.”

“So who can save him?” Selene interjected.

Aethelred downed half of his tea. It must have been hot: she watched him flinch. Or maybe it was her question. “Nobody,” he answered. “He’s the only one who can save himself. And he doesn’t want to. He’s got—he didn’t say, but I know Cahey, and he thinks whatever he’s doing serves whatever damnfool knight-in-shining-armor purpose he’s picked out for himself this week.”

Aithne rolled to her feet, tugging at her tangled hair. She took a few steps to the side and fetched up against a window ledge, curling herself onto it as she dug around in her pockets. She produced a comb and a tube of conditioner and started working one though her tangles with the help of the other. “Should he have been left alone?”

Aethelred shrugged as Borje got him more tea. “We can’t babysit him. All we can do is take turns yelling at him.” Selene got him a chair and the old priest sat down stiffly. “And I can all but guarantee it won’t work. And another thing. That girl?”

From the connecting passageway to the bedroom Mingan entered, booted feet silent on the chocolate-colored rug. He nodded to Aethelred to keep talking.

“Not the Imogen. The one Borje saw.”

Borje gave a curt, mean nod that could have been a threatening toss of his horns.

Aethelred tapped the side of his fist against his chin. “She’s hurting him. Whatever she’s got on him, Borje, you’re right. He’s not doing it willingly. And … he’s got bruises, ligature marks”—Selene heard Aithne’s sudden sharp intake of breath—“and looks bad as I’ve ever seen him. Which is saying something. Looked like he spent a long time crying before I got there.” Aethelred rolled his bowl between his fingers and sipped at the tea.

Mingan caught Selene’s eye, gave her a smile so slight she thought none of the others noticed, and spoke. “Selene must go to him again,” he said. “After Heythe leaves. Comfort him. Remind him that he is not forsaken. While he is in your company, the Imogen will not come to him. Lead him up to the chapel before you take your leave of him.”

“Heythe? Is that the same as Mardoll? And then?” A wary glance from Aethelred, still seated near the door.

The Grey Wolf showed teeth. “I will deal with the rest.”

Selene’s ears swiveled at Aithne’s sharp intake of breath. “Will you harm him?” the freckled woman said in a small voice.

His silver-limned eyes flicked toward her. “Nay, child. He shall come to no further hurt at my hands.”

Something in his tone stood Selene’s fur on end.

“Master Wolf.” Aethelred’s voice expressed infinite courtesy. “You understand that he’s been fighting all his life. He’s found an excuse to stop fighting. And an excuse is all it takes. I doubt … threats … will have any effect on him.”

Mingan folded gloved hands one into the other and frowned slightly. “Master Priest,” he replied, in a tone that frightened her. Not for Aethelred, or Cahey. For the Wolf. “I never …
threaten
. Meanwhile, may I suggest?”

Aethelred finished his second bowl of tea, nodding. “Yes. I’m heading into the city tonight, to talk to Cathmar.”

The old Wolf laughed, or perhaps snarled. Selene thought none of the others caught the agony in his expression, the pinch of it around his eyes. “An excellent idea. But in the meantime, Priest: you, and the lady”—a nod to Aithne, still trying to work the wooden comb through her hair—“will you accept our kiss? Selene’s, and mine?”

Confused, Aithne looked up. “I don’t understand.”

Aethelred sucked in air. “He wants to know if you want to be an angel, girl.”

“Angel?” A long pause. “Waelcyrge, you mean?” Her green eye focused on Mingan.

He nodded, a slight inclination of his head.

“You can do that?”

Again, the incremental nod.

“What’s it cost me?”

“Everything,” Mingan said. “Everything. And worth it at twice the cost.” There was no coaxing in his voice, no cajolery. Selene had only ever heard him sound so cold once before, and that time there had been death on his lips.

Aithne looked at Aethelred, who set his teacup aside on a small table. “I’m going to pass,” he said. “I’m old. I’ve got plans for the next world already.” A significant glance passed between him and Mingan. “And I already explained once tonight that I’m not cut out for an einherjar.”

Mingan nodded. “Borje, will you join us? You’ve half the kiss already.”

The bull put down his teapot. “I’m not all that sure I’m worthy, sir.”

“I’m qualified to judge,” Mingan replied, lips twitching in a little half-smile.

The bull sighed, indicating acquiescence. Mingan’s intent regard traveled back to Aithne, who had not moved. Her thumbnail worried the comb. “Decision,” Mingan said, gently.

She quivered. Caught a breath. “Yes,” she said. “Everything I’ve got isn’t much, so if that’s all it takes … Yes.”

BOOK THREE

Breaking

50 A.R.
On the Twenty-seventh Day of Autumn

Not too many pleasant days left,
Cathmar thought, but the truth was he enjoyed the winter. He lounged against the dry stone wall of an apartment building, dark-clad in the sunlight, watching the foot traffic pass. A familiar voice in his ear jerked his head around.

“Remember me, kid?”

The speaker must have been enormous when he was younger: an old man in wheaten robes, autumn sunlight gleaming off his half-chromed head. He grinned like a scorched jack-o’-lantern.

Cathmar’s lips twitched. “Uncle … Aethelred?”

The big man grabbed the boy around the shoulders and gave him a squeeze that belied any apparent age. “Cathmar. You look real good.”

“Where have you been all this time? We got your letters.…”

“Been out and about, going up and down in the world. You know. Come on; let’s find somewhere to talk.”

Cathmar took a breath. “I’m in for a lecture, aren’t I?”

Shaking his massive head, Aethelred took Cathmar’s arm. “You’re too old for lectures. You’re in for a conversation if you’re not careful, though.”

Cathmar saw that Aethelred still knew his way around the city, although a lot of it must have looked different from when he lived here, before the Rekindling. It wasn’t long before the old priest was pulling him into a café he’d never entered. “Your mom used to like to come here,” Aethelred said, pulling a long, wide bench out across the flagstone floor.

The serving area was in a glassed-in patio, racks of herbs growing in glass bowls against the windows. Cathmar seated himself opposite while a server brought them tea. He worried at the scars on the heavy wood table with his thumbnail. “Am I supposed to believe this is a chance meeting, Uncle?”

“Nah,” Aethelred chuckled. “I’ve been stalking you all morning. Want something to eat?”

Cathmar shook his head. Aethelred caught the server’s eye again and ordered sandwiches while the boy stared out through the big windows, watching the pedestrians go by.

“I’ve been talking to Selene,” Aethelred said when the food got there. “And Master Wolf. You want to tell me what this spat you’re having with
him
is over?”

Swallowing a mouthful of tea, Cathmar tried to find some resentment at the question. It didn’t rise, and he wasn’t sure why. “Why should I answer that?” he asked.

“Because I’m a priest who used to be a bartender, and I introduced your parents. So you owe me.”

The level smile and dry tone provoked Cathmar into a chuckle. “Well … he didn’t approve of my girlfriend. I didn’t like it.”

“And now?”

He found himself fussing with his bowl and set it aside with a sigh. “I still don’t like it. But I’m starting to suspect he might be right.”

“Huh. How come?” Aethelred poured more tea for both of them, into Cathmar’s ivory-colored horn bowl and his own enamel one.

Cathmar frowned, warming his palm around the small container. “Little things. She always seems to want to know stuff about Dad … about Mom. But never talks about herself and doesn’t tell me much of anything. She vanishes for hours on end and won’t tell me where she’s been. And every time I ask a question she doesn’t feel like answering…” he felt himself blush “… she trips me into bed.”

Aethelred must have caught his expression, because the old priest grinned. “Look,” he said, “women—men, too—some you can trust; some you can’t. It’s no reflection on you, kid. You have to learn which are which the hard way.”

Cathmar grunted and drank his tea. He knew the old priest was waiting him out. “Yeah,” he finally said. “I’ve been an idiot.”

“Nah,” Aethelred answered. “You’ve been a kid. Look, why don’t you go talk to Borje sometime soon? When your girlfriend isn’t around. The old bull’s got a level head on his shoulders. Maybe he can help you sort things out.”

“Yeah,” Cathmar answered, noticing the twinkle in Aethelred’s eye.
I’m being set up for something.
For some reason, he didn’t mind. “Oh, another thing. I just remembered.”

“Yeah?”

“Well, she knew what I was right off. Recognized Nathr … and lately she’s been pumping me for lots of information on how you make angels.” Cathmar looked away, glanced up at the massive roof beams, black with age. The ceiling plaster between them had yellowed past ivory and into parchment.

“Huh.” Aethelred chewed his lip. “You didn’t tell her about Selene kissing the moreaux to break their bindings, did you?”