Bloodsong

  It was a wet day, late morning. A tower of gas rose high into the air behind them, stirring the mist and shaking the trees even at that distance. The wet pasture heaved around Slipper’s legs. There were cows watching, there were trees, hedgerows of twisted hawthorns.

  Gradually the roaring died down, the wind dropped, and the day returned slowly to its original stillness. The cows dropped their heads again to the grass, the birds began singing in the hawthorns. The clone took a deep breath. How sweet, how fresh, how full of life the wind was after the thick, smoggy air below ground. And now at last, there was a memory, something perhaps that Grimhild had missed.

  He had ridden before through fire and out of the ground. He had come out into a wet day just like this one. On that occasion he had not been surrounded by pasture and trees, but by bare and broken rock.

  He had been to Crayley before. But he had no memory of it, only of his escape.

  The clone dismounted. He had no idea where he was, he knew they had moved HQ away from the maw in case of such explosions, but Gunar would be able to track him down soon enough. He did not have much time alone.

  He stood by the side of the horse and drew his sword.

  It would be easy. He could plunge the sword stub into Slipper’s side and through her. Slipper would be unharmed. She would never even know.

  The clone stared intently at the side of the horse, once again burned clean of all flesh. Slipper stamped and snorted, but did not move even though he knew his master planned to stab him. The clone could sense exactly where she was, as if his senses were attuned to hers. There, she crouched just there, he could almost see her image. One stab, one thrust, it would all be over. But she was so sweet, so delicious—not like death at all. And her fierce spirit, the way she moved and thought and felt. She was his! But what possible good could come of bringing her up here?

  Unwilling to finish his task, the clone crouched down and put his ear to Slipper’s side where he knew the girl to be. Without thinking, he spread his arms and embraced the side of the horse as if he could touch her. Inside, Bryony, who had felt the journey end, and was listening intently to see what would happen to her next, did the same thing. Open armed, cheek to cheek, chest to chest, separated only by a titanium skin and a few inches of insulation, they unknowingly embraced. Two pairs of hands clenched as if they could hold hands. Two pairs of arms pressed, as if they could embrace, two faces pressed together. Love and loss, love and loss. They were tearing themselves in two. No one ever loved like these two. They could give their hearts away a hundred times, they could betray and even forget, but theirs was a love that could not end.

  Bryony wept. The lost lover, the dead child. Loss, loss, loss. The clone wept. The child with his face! He did not even know what his losses were.

  Filled for the first time in his life with a conviction he was unable to carry out, Sigurd’s knelt in the grass and sobbed. That was how he was when Gunar found him, so lost to his unhappiness that he did not hear him come, and started round at a hand on his shoulder, to see himself.

  How to explain Bryony’s feelings when the hold opened and she tumbled out into the damp air, the smells of earth and vegetation, cows and rain. There was the grass at last. A hand touched her shoulder but she shrugged it off angrily. The light blinded her at first and she had to lie with her hands over her face for a long time before she could bear to look. Gradually she took them away, taking little peeps before she could open her eyes fully—and there it all was: the world. The enormous sky, the trees hissing softly in the rain, and green, green, green as far as she could see. Gunar stood nearby, smiling anxiously at her. She gestured with her hand—it was too much.

  “Has it been w-worth it?” he asked. Bryony had no answer. It was enormous and endless, it was everything she ever wanted but there were ashes in her heart now and the terrifying feeling, something she had never dreamed would happen to her, that the world was not enough.

  From the hedgerow, a tiny dot dashed rapidly across and landed on Bryony’s hair. She put up her hand and Jenny Wren stepped onto her finger. The little bird had hidden back in Crayley while the clone had been around. Bryony hadn’t even thought of her since but now she was delighted.

  “You got out!” She raised her to her lips and kissed her tiny head. “She was my only friend,” she told Gunar. Gunar nodded anxiously. Sigurd had not mentioned a tame wren.

  In her beak, Jenny had a tiny bunch of pretty red berries. Bryony took them and smiled.

  “Still making presents,” she said.

  “Over there,” said Gunar. He pointed across to where an old hawthorn tree grew by a ditch. It was a gnarled old thing, but it stood draped in berries from head to toe, hundreds of thousands, millions of them, a hopeless abundance. Bryony looked from her little gift to the fountain of berries. She began to cry. For Jenny’s sake she thanked her, kissed her beak, and tucked the gift in her hair, brushing away the tears. She had gained everything she wanted and lost everything she had. What worth has the sun and the sky, the world and all its wonders, without love?

  At the same time, in a room not far off, Sigurd was trying to explain himself to Gudrun. He sat by the window twiddling with the ring on his finger that he had stolen from Bryony.

  This ring. The child with his face. Slipper knowing the way through the fire. Those feelings of the familiar, of knowing when he did not know, of sorrow and loss and love. The memory of arriving on the surface when he had never been underground before. What did it all mean?

  But he said nothing to Gudrun about how he had felt for Bryony.

  “If it was Hel, you’ve destroyed it now,” she said.

  “A Hel made by man,” said Sigurd.

  “Why not? People say the gods are man-made too. What does it matter?”

  “Maybe.” The clone chewed his nail, trying to work it out. “What if there’s more than one of me?” he demanded suddenly.

  “More than one of you? God help us!” said Gudrun, rolling her eyes, trying to make a joke of it. She hadn’t seen Sigurd like this since his breakdown.

  “How do I know things I never knew? Do you think that when I died, maybe Odin made another one of me?”

  Gudrun stood up. “This is nonsense, Sigurd. You’ve been through a lot. You need to look after yourself, that’s all. Rest. Think about it—if there was another Sigurd we would have heard about it—everyone would have heard about it. Look at you!”

  Sigurd was wonderful, his golden tawny hair flowing round his wide face and down his shoulders and back. Beautiful! But it scared her. She was so scared of losing him—to madness, to another woman, to life.

  “I don’t know myself anymore. I feel . . . like there’s another life somehow, that I haven’t even lived.”

  Gudrun laughed nervously. “Sigurd! If you could hear yourself . . .” She went to take his hand and saw, there on his finger, a band of gold.

  “That’s pretty,” she said. “Where did you get it?”

  Sigurd glanced down at the ring. He meant to give it to Gunar to give back to Bryony.

  “Bryony gave it to me when I was in Gunar’s shape,” he said, and wondered even as the words left his lips why he lied.

  “Give it to me.” Gudrun smiled at him, watching his reaction.

  Sigurd frowned. “It’s hers. I should give it to Gunar. He can decide what to do with it.”

  “No, give it to me. You can tell him the ring was lost on the journey back up. It could easily happen.”

  “Why should you have it? It’s not mine to give.”

  She pulled a face. “I’m a jealous bird. If she gave it to you and you love me, it should be mine now, by rights.”

  The clone let her ease it off his finger. “That’s better,” she said. “You can’t wear any ring but one I give you,” she scolded.

  “If you want it,” he said, although he didn’t want her to have it. “But you can’t wear it. If Bryony ever sees it, god knows.”

  Gudrun put it on her finger. “It’s still warm,
” she said. She rubbed it against her lips. “I’ll put it away somewhere safe.”

  The clone went to the window to look out. Somewhere out there, Gunar and Bryony were walking together. He was showing her all the good things of the world.

  It should be me with her, he thought, then shook his head. Why was he troubled by such thoughts? He had Gudrun; he loved her with all his heart. But he was aware that the world used to be more wonderful for him than it now was and it seemed to him that somehow he could regain his love for it by showing it to Bryony himself.

  “She should die. We should kill her,” he called over his shoulder to Gudrun. “What have I done? What have I brought back?”

  Gudrun paused. “I’ll speak to Gunar, see what he thinks of her. Don’t worry. You’ve been under a strain, that’s all. This deception—it’s not you, Sigurd. You should never have agreed to it.” She left the room and stood awhile in thought. She needed to talk to someone about this. What was it about this girl? Was he right about her, or was he on the edge of another breakdown?

  It happened like that. Don’t ask to understand why it was so cruel. There are events so wedded to the shape of time that nothing else can happen. It was cruel in this way, as gravity flies away from the sky. There was God in these things unfolding.

  The clone had done for his friend Gunar what was alien to his nature, something he could never do on his own behalf: an act of betrayal. Just as everyone had to live in the truths Sigurd made, now they had to live in his lie. At last, he was hunted by that enemy of life, regret—a snake that threatens and never will bite, but always has bitten. We remember, we look into the future uncertainly, and we feel the poison working.

  The clone had done what he set out to do. He had killed Crayley and won a bride for Gunar. He had given him someone to love. Such a gift! Gudrun told him to be happy with that. But far from making him happy, strange thoughts gnawed at his insides. Yes, he was happy for Gunar, but why did a part of his heart rage against him? Jealousy, envy, was that it? He had never been prey to such feelings before. Why now? And how could the thought of Bryony shine around him like a light when he loved Gudrun so much? Grimhild’s trick had worked and worked well, but even she could not change the shape of things. The love between Sigurd and Bryony was something in the architecture of time. They would have missed each other even if they’d never met.

  Bryony did not meet the other Niberlins straight away. Hoping to put off the day when she had to meet Sigurd, she told Gunar she wanted to see something of the world they lived in first so that she would at least have that in common with them. They spent a couple of weeks alone at the Old House on their own before leaving to explore the country.

  Before they left, the clone had to debrief Gunar about the time he had spent with Bryony in Crayley. They’d had an hour together when he first came back, talking in the grass while she waited in the hold, wondering what was going on, but Gunar wanted to be certain that he had memorized every second of their time together and made it his own.

  There was a dispute about Bryony’s ring. Gunar wanted it back but Gudrun refused to let it go. It was uncharacteristic of her and she did not understand it herself, but she felt that somehow, since her man had courted Bryony for her brother, something was owed her. If there were any love tokens in this strange affair, they were going to be hers. Gunar was angry; he expected her to respect his feelings in this. But Gudrun was unmovable and so he’d had to explain to Bryony that he had lost her ring somewhere on the journey back up. He apologized for taking it off her, explaining that he thought it had been given her by another man and was jealous. It rankled with Bryony, but too much was happening for her to think too hard about it yet.

  Then they went away. So much to see! Gunar wanted to show her everything. It was a holiday, an exploration, an education—a lifetime to fit in. And perhaps, it would be a honeymoon, too. Both of them wanted love. If you yearn for it and reach for it, surely you can make it yours. Six weeks, a couple of months—they would know by then. Does it matter so much that they began their courtship before love was there? They looked for love and perhaps, in those first few weeks, they found it. It was the same adventure of body and soul; two people together. They became lovers after the first week. It made Gunar so happy that Bryony couldn’t help but feel that something special was happening. She wondered if it was enough that he loved her, that she might learn to love him in the light of his love. He wanted to nurture her, and she could not help but respond.

  The trees and hedgerows, the clouds. Towns. There were houses and shops and a sickening whirl of people. It was endless. The cinema, rivers, sports, the ocean, insects, birds, airplanes. Bryony was intoxicated, fascinated, terrified of missing anything or everything. The act of betrayal was always there, but the world was hers now. She refused to let anything spoil that for her. At the back of her mind she supposed there would be a reckoning, an explanation that might or might not seem adequate. Perhaps love itself was shallow, a trick of nature. Perhaps the worms are as intense swallowing the earth underneath us as a lover is. What did she know about the value of feelings? In that first riot of her senses, she hoped that they were small change.

  Her moods swung so violently from passion to rage that sometimes Gunar felt that she was swinging him around her head like a weight on the end of a piece of string. But this was what he had wanted, wasn’t it? Passion, brightness; an adventure. Bryony was the real thing. Who could imagine what it was like to see all this after a lifetime under the ground? Of course she was tired, upset, depressed, happy, angry— whatever she said. Gunar was exhausted, but delighted. After just a few weeks, he was already telling her that he was in love.

  By the time they were due to go home and meet the family, Bryony had decided too. She could promise nothing—it was too early to speak of love. But Gunar was a good man, she liked him and she wanted to learn how to love him, if he was willing to take the risk.

  Gunar kissed her fingers and smiled. “That’s all I could ever ask,” he said, and she was amazed at how happy this seemed to make him.

  They arrived back at the Old House a few days before the others. It was a chance to relax and settle down after the whirl of the previous weeks, before day-to-day life began. That evening and the following day the rest of the family arrived one by one. Bryony met them as they came, kissed, embraced, was made welcome. When Gudrun came she felt nothing. That surprised her. Perhaps it was going to be all right. Maybe it was only broken memories stirring up inside her when she thought of Sigurd making love to this woman.

  As the evening meal approached, Sigurd had still not arrived. Upstairs in her room, Bryony stared into the mirror as she did her face. It was wonderful what this paint did but she wasn’t sure that she liked it. On her shoulder Jenny Wren piped and bent down to peer in the mirror.

  “Pretty, aren’t I, Jenny?” Bryony asked. The wren stared back at with her bright black eyes.

  “Maybe I’m another person now,” said Bryony. She stared hard at her face as if it would suddenly twist into a new set of features to suit her new self. “I’ll know when I see him, won’t I?” she begged the wren suddenly and hid her face in her hands. This had to end. She had forgotten in the glory of the world but she knew now: It was not possible to live like this. She had locked him away somewhere deep inside, emasculated, love in chains, but now she was going to have to meet him and she felt as unequal before her feelings as a child under the treads of a tank.

  The clone was frightened too. When he had gone down to Crayley disguised as Gunar, it had been more to fool the spectators—playing politics to show them that the king was able to do the hero job as well as Sigurd. But the deception had taken root in their lives. The clone had convinced himself that this was why he felt so uncomfortable about meeting Bryony. Away from her, he had been able to forget the hold she had over him and dismiss the confused feelings he’d had down in Crayley—the passion, the desire, the need, the sense of loss. No doubt Crayley had developed the same sort of machi
nes that Fafnir once had. Some version of Fear had been at work. It was over now. But as soon as he got near to her again, the fear began again. He had no idea what would happen when he saw her, but he wished with all his heart that he’d left her underground where he found her.

  As the Niberlins gathered for the evening meal, the tension grew. Everyone except Bryony knew about the deception they were perpetrating on her. Nobody liked it, but nobody stopped it. Somehow, they hoped, it would come out all right. Bryony would be told one day after she had grown to love Gunar and was able to forgive him.

  Gunar came to take her for a walk in the garden at dusk before they ate, but the rain had started and they had to go inside to the conservatory where the table was laid out and waiting for them. Grimhild was there in her dog basket. Her tongue lolled out and she stared steadily into Bryony’s eyes as Gunar rubbed her ears. It was quiet; rain pattered on the glass above their heads. There was a vine spreading under the roof, where Jenny had hidden herself away. Bryony was looking up to see if she could spot her when the clone walked in.

  Her eyes caught him. He was prepared and smiled encouragingly at her, but inside his heart cracked. He did not understand how he could keep his face so still. Gudrun had advised him that it would be all right once he had begun the lie. Once he got used to it, she said, it would become a kind of truth of its own.

  “ . . . and this big boy is Sigurd,” said Gunar. Bryony, who had averted her face for fear of showing how much she felt, turned and looked coolly at him; but she had to grip her sleeve to stop her hand from shaking. She would show him nothing, not even that she recognized him, until he acknowledged her.

  The clone smiled his pleasant smile and bent to kiss her cheek. As he did so, there was a movement in the vine above. A tiny head looked out from Bryony’s breast.

  “Oh!” exclaimed the clone. “Jenny Wren!” As he spoke the name he looked at her in wonder that he knew it.