The silver wolf, p.20
The Silver Wolf, page 20
And now Paola at last lifts herself from the bed, the glove covering her face, her face as if seeking refuge in it, her hand gathering the bedclothes to her breast. And she says, ‘Magda, he’s theirs.’
What? ‘Who is theirs? Who is they?’
‘Jean and that English mouse he wed. Jag is their boy.’
HE WAKES AND knows he is without her. He wakes, and it’s late, the sun full on the bed, and the kitchen noise seems oddly muted too, and both of those might be a warning, now he thinks of it, to watch himself, to take heed as he steps into the day. He swings his feet to the floor and stands there, naked, taking the measure of the silence. He knows this, this sense of time suspended, knows what it means. It means there’ll be a price to pay, that it’s out there, waiting. Have a care…
He looks down at himself. Squares his shoulders. But, he thinks, smiling, but, that was me then.
He’s something different now.
In the kitchen there’s no-one but Jo-Jo, the usual brimming bowl before him. A dip of the head in greeting. Jack nods his own head in reply. ‘Magda still abed?’ he asks, as lightly as he can.
‘Both,’ Jo-Jo answers. He dips a hunk of bread into the bowl, and sucks it dry. A light comes into his eye. ‘Like what you were,’ he adds. A sound comes from him, like the noise a dog makes in its sleep. Unf-unf-unf. Jo-Jo, it seems, is laughing.
Horrified, he makes to respond, although respond with what he can’t think, beyond Jo-Jo, you ain’t to say a word of that, not ever, understand? when he hears the stairs squeak behind him. He spins around, and there’s Ilse – a little swollen round the eyes, a tad lopsided in the face, and the minute she sees him, she goes to him, wraps her arms about his waist and puts her head upon his breast. There is the usual surge as Jo-Jo gets to his feet (the room instantly seeming half the size it had before), then Jo-Jo is there as well, arm laid across his shoulders, and Jo-Jo is saying, ‘You’re all right, you are, Jag.’
He’d been ready for anything but praise. ‘I’m not, Jo-Jo,’ he hears himself begin. For some ridiculous reason his eyes are filling. ‘Truly, I’m not.’ He tries to think of a reason why. There’s any number of them: I’ve took life (twice. Twice). I’ve thieved (Zoot’s purse, untended laundry, henhouse eggs). I bedded Paola.
I was a bad son. And so my mother –
I was a bad son, and so –
The pressure from the arm increases. Jo-Jo, it seems, is adding his embrace to his sister’s. ‘You are, Jag. I sez you’re all right.’
And there he is, caught in their hug, the orphan, the outcast and the oddity, when there is another tread upon the stairs and there is Magda. Magda arrayed like an empress in velvet and gold. Magda with jewels in her ears; and then coming down the stairs behind her and walking as if she’s being led to the scaffold, there is Paola too. He dares to shoot a glance at her. Her eyes come up. Every meaning hid behind them.
‘Jo-Jo, Ilse,’ says Magda, magisterially, ‘find some other place to be.’ She flaps her hands, like she was shooing birds. ‘Paola and I, we need to talk with Jag.’
‘Right you are,’ says Jo-Jo, without rancour. He takes Ilse by the arm. ‘Come along, little sis.’
The door from the kitchen to the dining hall is chiselled round its border with a pattern of stars. Against one of these, on the dining-hall side of the door, Jo-Jo has placed an ear. ‘Can you hear, little sis?’ he whispers, and crouched below him, sees Ilse nod her head.
On the other side of the door a great, young, strong male shout of disbelief.
‘He’s angered,’ Ilse whispers.
‘No, he ain’t angered, little sis. Not for real. He’s just took by surprise. There’s a deal about himself as Jag don’t know, but that he should.’
‘How’d you know there is?’ Ilse asks.
‘Rufus told me,’ Jo-Jo says, grandly. It’s wrong to be prideful, he knows, but hang that. There was old Peter and his tricks, but Jo-Jo has never been a part of a secret like this before. ‘There’s been folk looking for Jag for I don’t know how long. But they all got it arsewise, Rufus says. It’s not who Jag is as matters, it’s who he’s going to be.’ He listens for a moment more with great attention, then eases the door closed that last half-inch. ‘Come along, little sis,’ he tells her. There’s no point Ilse hearing more, it’ll only fright her. ‘Let’s you and me go get some air.’
He looks from one woman to the other. The echo of his shout is still in the room. ‘You knew him?’ he asks. ‘You knew my father?’
‘I knew him,’ says Magda, firmly. A little glance at Paola, to her side, sat so her very stillness pulls your eye. ‘He was here in his recruiting days,’ Magda goes on. ‘He told me of your mother, and of you…’ She reaches for his hand. ‘We are so very sorry, lad.’
His face is working, he can feel it. Still nothing from Paola. He drops his eyes. ‘He just never came home,’ he says.
‘I know, sweetling, I know.’ Another glance at Paola, and a sigh. ‘We know. But we can help you, Jag, and there are others too. We weren’t your father’s only friends. You’re not on your own in the world, not at all.’
And then Paola at last lifts her head. She lifts, with the glove, the curtain of hair that had fallen across her face, and she looks directly at him, and she says, ‘So was it your father, gave your silver wolf to you?’
‘What silver wolf?’ Magda asks.
‘Show her,’ Paola commands.
So he lifts it from around his neck, and places it on the table, and Magda, with a little gasp, takes her hand away. ‘Is that–?’
‘Did it come from him?’ Paola is asking. ‘This matters, Jag. Did it come from him?’
‘No,’ he tells her, baffled, unprepared. But no, no, it did not.
‘Are you certain?’ Paola persists, and then, ‘Good God,’ she says. ‘You don’t even know what it is, do you?’
Not so. He knows what it is to him; it’s all he has. It’s all he has left of anyone. But he thinks none of this is what Paola means, so once again he shakes his head.
She reaches out, and with the glove, nudges it. ‘It’s a badge,’ she says. ‘It’s what the hard men wear.’
‘The hard men?’ he repeats.
‘The ones who say they’re proof against anything. Any weapon made of lead, or iron or steel. They make a pact with the Devil, a covenant, and after that they’re hard, they can’t be killed. That’s what it is. It’s the badge of a hard man. And that’s why you have to keep it hid. Because whosever it was, he sold his soul for it, and whoever he is, he will kill to get it back.’
She stops, and looks into his face. ‘And you’re still not about to tell us how you came by it, are you?’
CHAPTER TEN
The King of Swords
‘… let them remember that War follows Peace, as naturally as Night does follow Day; and that after a sweet calm, a dreadful storm is to be looked for…’
Sir James Turner, Pallas Armata
BETRAYED, that’s what he is. Betrayed and deserted. Jo-Jo’s not coming back.
Now even the town is closed to him. Last time he’d limped his way over the bridge, two watchmen had marched him back across it, thrown him down. ‘You stay there!’ one had said, grinding the toe of his boot upon the copper spike to make the point. ‘You stay that side of it, y’ragged arse.’
The skin of his hands is cracking open with the cold. There used to be Jo-Jo, to warm himself upon, Jo-Jo to help him beg – they were a team, they were as one. Now what is he? Abandoned. Helpless. And betrayed. Even the men of his own regiment won’t let him scrounge off them no more, drive him away with kicks and blows, like a dog. He’s got to find some allies in this camp. He’ll wake (or rather won’t) froze, like them little birds he gleans from the foreshore. Little toe-claws all curled up, little eyes all sunk – and once you’ve sizzled ’em on a stick, by God there ain’t no more’n a bite on each.
Even his fellow outcasts don’t want to know him. There they are, all gathered about that flag with the upreared wolf, and all of ’em seemingly shunned, out on the edge of the camp, just like he, but these, these don’t seem to care. Don’t have to. They have those fine warm tents to sleep in. They got provisions. Will they take pity? Not a chance.
He spies upon them as the afternoons grow dark. Listens to them talking, their odd accents, listens to their music-making, too. Fife and a drum they got, and a fat-bellied guitar. A musical people, clearly. Misjudged, like as not. Just as he.
With his courage in his hands, he singles one out – one who must’ve took a sad battering not so long ago, for his nose looks like someone flattened it with a spade. He starts by coming up beside the man to pee, it being Peter’s experience that a man with his cock out will hesitate before thumping you, and that the making of water together is in any case a comradely act.
‘I’d ’ate to see the other fellow,’ he begins.
The man does nothing more than grunt.
‘I mean, I bet he’s in worse shape than you.’
The man shakes himself off, and walks away, without a word.
Still, it’s a start.
What he needs now is some little gift. Can’t teach Peter much about the etiquette of making friends, dear me no.
He watches and waits. As it gets darker, he creeps deeper into the camp. He has a good big stone in his satchel, stuffed down inside a sock. It makes a decent weapon.
A little later and he’s creeping back; a bottle of schnapps where the stone had been.
Works like a charm. Here he is, sat round the fire with ’em, all friends together. Bit of music going on behind them and the bottle coming his way again. Peter is drunk; when he moves his head it seems to him the stars are moving too. ‘Tilly!’ he cries, raising the bottle high. ‘Gen’ral Tilly, bless his name! Who’s with me?’ Now if only one of ’em ’ud offer him a little food, to go with the schnapps… he turns to the man on his right. ‘What this needs,’ he begins, ‘is a little bit of meat to go with it. Meat and a little bit of bread.’
The man smiles. His pale jowls crease. He says, over Peter’s shoulder, to the man with the broken nose, ‘He was watching us?’, and when the answer comes back, smiles again. He pats the satchel at Peter’s side. ‘You haf secrets here?’ he enquires.
Peter had stuffed the satchel with leaves. ‘Secrets?’ Peter gives a laugh. ‘Don’t ask, for you wouldn’t want to know.’ He taps his nose. ‘It’s why I pick my company, my friend. Why you find me out here. Now, as I was saying – if there was summat here to eat, wun’t that round the day off well?’
Now that’s a shame, the guitar has stopped. Sounds like the player is shuffling closer. After the bottle, no doubt. And here’s his neighbour again, leaning forward, them little fingers at the satchel’s straps. ‘I said leave –’ Peter begins, and then, ‘Here! Look at that!’ He sits back in astonishment. ‘Why, I’ve seen one of those afore! I’ve seen one of those and none too long ago, neither.’
The man has put his hand across it now, almost protectively, but no mistaking what Peter saw, there on the fellow’s jacket, the firelight caught it plain as day. The warmth now running through him, it’s not schnapps, it’s the glow of revenge.
‘You lost one then?’ he asks, grinning into the man’s pale face. ‘You got a runaway? For if you have, then I know where he is. And he’s a thing like that, just like to that, upon a cord about his neck. A silver wolf!’
A REMARKABLE SKY. Rufus tilts his head back to admire it. Each star as sharp as if it had been drilled, the moon so clear you can count the silver freckles on her face. The cry of an owl, the sift of its wings, and look! – one single star goes streaking to her end across the firmament. A remarkable sky, full of portent, so what might it bring?
Ah.
Turning his head, Rufus sees Benedicte, surer in the dark than in the light of day, making his way toward him. ‘Are they coming?’
Benedicte, in that husk of a voice of his, answers, ‘Are we ready?’
‘Always,’ Rufus replies. He rises, stretches his back, claps his hands three times above his head. Without hurry, from around the camp-fires, figures also making ready, rising up. As Rufus walks through the camp, his foot-soldiers fall silently into line behind him.
Yuna, with Emilian on her lap, watches from the doorway of her tent as they pass. Well, she thinks. They will not be expecting us, at least.
A cough, delicately stifled. Emilian twists his head around, peering behind his mother into the tent’s interior. Yuna’s tent is bigger than the rest; there is plenty of room for the man sat there behind them, leaning his chin on the knop of his stick. And he? Emilian asks.
I don’t like him and I don’t trust him, his mother replies. The soft churr of their own tongue, its unexpected changes of direction (to keep the gadjo mystified). And he is polluted with sickness too. When he is gone, we burn his seat. But Jag is at least as important to him as he is to your father, and tonight Jag is all that matters.
She kisses her son on his forehead. A little music from her necklaces, slipping across each other. ‘Go now,’ she says. ‘You know what you are to do. And be sure they bring the horse as well. Jag will never be happy without it.’
‘Ilse? Little sis?’ He has his instructions, Jo-Jo does, and they are most particular as to timing. ‘Ilse?’
She looks up. She’d been on her knees before the fireplace in the kitchen, drawing out the ashes. ‘Leave that now,’ he tells her. ‘You got to come along with me. Here’s your cloak.’
He holds it out for her. ‘Put it on now, sis. You’re a-going down to the camp with Emilian, you are. We got bad souls coming here.’
She clutches the cloak to her breast. ‘Like before?’
‘Aye, them,’ Jo-Jo replies.
‘Are they coming for me?’
‘No, baby girl. They’re coming for Jag.’
TWELVE OF THE CLOCK, or almost. The mermaid clock has just begun its carillon. Jack sits in his room on the dog-leg of the stairs, in such confusion that it feels as if his thoughts are playing tug-o-war. In one hand he holds the silver wolf. Can Paola be right? Can that be what this is?
But that would make no sense –
You know, he thinks, looking down at it, there in his palm. Those hard red eyes, they know it all.
Give me something. Tell me something.
His mother had held this in her hand, too. She had it with her as she closed her eyes. As she stepped forward. As she plummeted away from everything –
Maman has a secret, Petit Jacques.
Downstairs, he might have spoken. He might have said –
No, he might not. Because speaking of it would mean speaking of his mother, and that he cannot do.
He lifts the silver wolf back over his head. Whatever you are, he thinks.
And then from out there on the stairs, there’s movement. A shift in the air. He feels it, he looks up. He says, ‘Paola?’ He moves forward.
And walks into darkness made solid. Darkness that both envelops and smothers him. He feels himself being pinioned, lifted off his feet; something thick and stifling pressed against his face. It’s cloth, it’s fustian – it’s a blanket. He’s trapped in a blanket. He fights with his elbows, scissors his legs; as he struggles his boots bang into someone’s legs. Someone is carrying him across the room. Then a squeak of metal, and through the frozen air the sound of the mermaid clock; the ending of its carillon and then the clearing of its throat. The window has been opened. A grunt, some repositioning taking place, and he struggles anew, kicking, jerking his head left to right, and a voice through the blanket, a mouth by his ear, muffled but unmistakable:
‘I don’wanna hurt’oo, Jag.’
‘Jo-Jo!’ They’re tilting backwards. ‘Jo-Jo! The hell are you doing? What are you at?’
Coldness, all about him. The angle of the tilt is now extreme, and with it, a terrifying sense of weight within weightlessness, of complete disorientation. We’re going through the window!
‘JO-JO!’
Clutched in Jo-Jo’s embrace, he is tipped backward through the window to the sound of midnight, falling across the town.
Oh, but it’s late. The mermaid clock has finished its carillon, the last notes dying away, the last few souls been chivvied from the dining hall; and here is Magda, on her knees before the kitchen fireplace, raking the ashes to the front of the hearth, a task that Ilse, for some mysterious reason, seems to have abandoned halfway through. But then let’s face it, Magda thinks, we’ve all been somewhat distracted in our doings here today.
She hears the door from the dining hall open, then Paola’s step. Outside the mermaid clock begins to sound. One –
An arm comes round her. Paola is helping her to her feet.
‘It’s I should be wearing the ashes,’ Paola says, ‘not you.’
‘Well, yes,’ Magda answers. ‘Yes. You should.’ She takes a breath, pauses, tilts her head. Some noise upstairs. No, it was nothing. Magda knows the sounds of her house as well as she knows the syllables of her own name. Two –
She steels herself. ‘Paola,’ she begins, ‘you’re going to have to decide.’
‘I know,’ Paola answers, oddly humble. Three –
‘You have to decide if you’re part of this place or no. If you’re part of us, or no. One way or the other. Because the way things are –’
Now that wasn’t the clock. But was it upstairs, or outside?
‘– people will be hurt. You not least of all.’
Four. She stops again. Is there something going on out there? She pushes on. ‘And I can’t tell you. You have to sort this for yourself.’
Five, goes the mermaid clock. Scuffle-scuffle, go the sounds outside. It is outside. ‘Did you—’ she begins again, and then, ‘Oh, Paola!’ because now with no warning the kitchen door is open; now with no warning there are armed men in her kitchen, shouldering their way in from the yard.
There is that little pause, as there so often is when opposing forces meet. Ridiculous, but Magda’s impulse (finest woman landlord, and all that) is to urge the men toward the empty dining hall. What stops her is the voice exclaiming, ‘I said, a’right, a’right, I’m getting in there, ain’t I?’ and then there is Peter, being shoved into the room by a man whose face is spectacled with bruises. Then she understands. Them. This is them.
