I rode among members of my own house, with my greater cousins, and the elder-men of Dingly Dell. Together we made our own fighting band. By choice we rode, not in a close formation, but strung out at a distance; each rider keeping a watch for himself, but in sight of his nearest kin. We preferred having open ground between us – enough to swing a sword arm freely. Fight and flee; hit and run; the quick skirmish was ever our ploy.
If I am to be truly honest, this Rogrig remembers very little of this particular Riding; the first of it that is: the setting out. (It was much like any other.) I can put scant detail to it.
I must have ridden many a fell. Crossed and recrossed the many roots and stems of the River Winding. I must have passed settlements; each almost identical, with their heavy-walled farmhouses; their bastles, ugly and squat. (The men of Graynelore are not builders, not creators by nature. They are all fighters and thieves. What was made was of necessity – if it could not be stolen.) Their wary, weary occupants shut up inside with their few rescued animals. Stone-cold faces, catching the sun, winking at their shutter-less wind-eyes, ever watchful; wanting, hoping, praying – no doubt – that our Riding would pass them by this day.
I must have trodden streams and skirted about the edges of the west marshlands. Or rather, let my hobby-horse lead me stubbornly across its secret paths. My tough little Dandy, who could carry not only her rider, but the whole world upon her back, it seemed. Pots and pans, wooden implements, swords and weaponry, sticks and stones, blanket rolls and stolen booty. She would carry it all, overloading the tiny workhorse; and yet she always stood her ground, made her way without protest.
I must, on occasion, have stopped to relieve myself, or to take a drink of fresh water from an upland stream. I must have done…only afterwards I did not remember it. Not any of it.
Not even the first fierce call of alarm.
Not the first ringing of iron upon iron as swords clattered and clashed. Stones thrown, hitting their target. Riders suddenly taken to the gallop in hot pursuit…The smell of fear – as acrid as a slewed piss pot – distinct, yet oddly indescribable.
Not the first brutal killings. Nor the unmistakable crying…The frantic calling…The pleas, the oaths, the terror…The escaping last breath of a man already dead…The blood…The torn flesh…The shattered bones.
I remember none of it.
How so?
I was a seasoned man. All my senses were taken up from the first. Not numbed, heightened by practice. I had allowed a red shroud to descend upon me, suffocating all else…Nothing was near at hand. Everything was distant…Not indistinct I say, distant. No natural colours. No life. The world was set apart, put aside. No pity. Humanity utterly abandoned. Even fear…Even a pounding heart – there could be no heart, except a stone heart.
What was I thinking? I did not think. There was no place for thinking here. Thinking men got themselves killed. There was instinct. There was violence. There was the bloody act of war. There was the doing of it. Only the doing.
Suddenly Dandy was moving at the gallop beneath me. I might have tried to rein her in, only to have her protest and give her back her head. When she slowed again, it was of her own account.
I must have dismounted.
From somewhere the world was trying to get in, to make contact again…to find me out. One moment, surely, I had been with my close kin, waiting at the Heel Stone. The very next I was standing here, in this strange place, upon this open scrubland, with nothing in between. My sword was in my hand and already notched and running with blood.
And then I became fully aware.
There was a slight movement close by…of all things, a butterfly alighting upon a grass stem.
There was a face in the grass. There was a human face.
And I understood what had passed.
Her eyes; they were a blue that startled, invited, demanded. They caught hold of me, drew me to her like a lover. Still wet, they glistened. Not with tears. Nor fear. There was no stain on her cheeks. Her white cheeks…White skin…She was a beauty yet. The wind was playing lightly across her face, moving a single frond of auburn hair. She had caught it upon her tongue at the edge of her mouth. Open mouth. Red mouth…Surely she was teasing me, smiling, whispering. No…yes.
I tried to put Notyet’s face in the way of hers, only I could not seem to find it. Vague, hidden as if veiled; its image would not come to me.
‘Rogrig,’ she said.
Again.
‘Rogrig…’
Did she really speak my name, then? No…yes. No. It was only the voice of the wind.
‘Rogrig…Rogrig…?’
But this last was not a woman’s voice, nor the wind.
‘Watch this, Rogrig!’ It was a clumsy youth who had spoken: Edbur, my elder-cousin Wolfrid’s whelp; his laughing cry was thin with a disguised fear.
Then there was violence: the sweet scent of fresh blood spilled; the kicking.
I was suddenly released from my stupor, and the woman’s spell was broken. Instinctively I gripped the hilt of my sword, but let it rest at my side. There was no threat here. I recognized the boy’s smell. Edbur, Edbur-the-Widdle – It was a fitting nickname. He was old enough and big enough to fight, but the whelp soiled himself at every skirmish. Still, there had been killings made here, and if wounded pride was the worst of his injuries he had served his surname, his grayne, better than many. The fortunes would soon forgive him for it. And if they did not, well, then I would forgive him in their stead.
The boy’s swinging kick sent the severed head of the dead woman tumbling. Edbur-the-Widdle laughed outrageously as it thumped and thudded between grass and gulley, as it broke heavily upon stone, spilling teeth, spitting blood.
Not a woman now.
Did I wince at the act?…Surely, not I.
The youth was only playing at the Old Game. I had made the same sport myself often enough. Why should it bother me now?
Only, upon this day, and without good reason, it did.
I feigned some trivial act of pillage. I wanted a moment to myself. I was still breathing heavily with the effort of the ride, and the early fight. There were several members of my grayne picking over the remnants on that killing field. Both surnames lay dead there: Elfwych and Wishard, though they were mostly Elfwych. This skirmish had been more a one-sided rout than an equal fight, but then, it was a family matter and you take the advantage where you can. After all, there was a Graynelord to serve. That was reason enough, if you were looking for a reason. It had always been enough.
And yet, upon this day Rogrig was troubled. I was feeling…what was I feeling? I could not place it.
What was this seed of doubt, this nagging intrusion? What had I seen in the face of a dead Elfwych? What had I heard in the calling out of my name? Something here had changed, and upon a moment; something within me, and I suddenly knew it could never be undone. There was no return. I did not like this revelation. Certainly I did not understand it. I felt as if my feet were standing in two different places at once, though neither was planted firmly upon the ground. A field of battle was the wrong place for confusion, and this the wrong time for doubts.
Close to, bodies lay rudely scattered. They had been bludgeoned…hacked…mistreated beyond mere acts of savage violent