VIII
The next morning, Thalo sorted through the contents of Asfoa’s house and gathered all he wished to take from it—food and clothes and other useful things to keep him well, but also a helmet and a spear, each of which he had only recently come to possess. Last of all, Thalo took up his mother’s sword, Sleme, old and faithful, and fixed it on his belt, where it would long remain. So armed did he stride down the valley to Gaylodho’s stable.
Gaylodho came to meet him. ‘What are you doing here, walking about my town, and so decked in warlike fashions? Have you come to disturb the peace? To start something?’
Thalo walked past Gaylodho and found the best-looking horse in the stable, a young colt with a fine brown coat and good manners, solid but not too big for it, rather like Thalo himself. He found also a saddle and bridle hanging from a post and prepared the horse for riding.
‘What are you playing at?’ said Gaylodho, miffed. ‘Let me tell you this, ninny: if you do not remove your miserable self from my stable and get back up to that damnable little house of yours, I will have to trade my harsh words for even harsher blows.’
But Thalo did not intend to abide Gaylodho any longer. He pushed him backwards into the hay and pointed his spear at him, spread upon the floor.
‘I am taking this horse,’ he said. ‘As payment, you can have your life.’
Then he climbed upon the horse and rode back up the valley.
Gaylodho arose and brushed the straw from his shirt. He summoned to his side a gang of his friends, all hastily armed, and took them off to reclaim his property and his pride. Among them went Gaymono, his elder son, diligently following his father as he ever did. When Gaylodho’s troop arrived at Asfoa’s house, they found the horse by the door, but Thalo came to them before they could seize it.
‘What are you doing here?’ said Thalo.
‘I have come,’ said Gaylodho, ‘for justice’s sake. I will not allow you to go about unpunished after abusing me as you have today, after stealing from me my valuable things and threatening my life. That you would disrespect me so is intolerable.’
‘I have treated you with more respect than you deserve.’
‘Pigswill! There is no man more respectable than glorious me! And there is no boy more contemptible than paltry you, horse-thief!’
‘You have plenty of horses. You can spare me one.’
‘I will spare you nothing! This matter goes beyond property alone, and I have had quite enough of it—quite enough of you!’
Gaylodho drew his sword from its glamorous sheath, decked in flourishes of gold and gems of all colours. The sword itself boasted a finely gilded hilt and a blade long and slender, forged with an exquisite pattern running up the fuller. That was Ograme, once wielded by his grandfather, a marvellous sword. To see it unsheathed, flashing in the sun, Gaylodho’s posse all bowed their heads in reverence. Blood would surely be spilt that day.
‘Asfoa!’ Gaylodho cried. ‘Asfoa, you witch! Come out! Come watch your wild wolf die!’
But Asfoa did not appear.
‘She is dead,’ said Thalo.
‘Oh? Dead at last, eh? Young for a witch, I think. In any case, today truly is an excellent day indeed, that mother and son will both go at once. As it should have been.’ Gaylodho paused briefly, and then he continued, ‘Tell me this: you are Klage’s son, are you not?’
Thalo said nothing.
‘Sulk if you wish. Whether you care to believe it or not, we both know the truth. Did she ever tell you what became of your birth parents?’
Thalo knew well enough what Gaylodho meant to say next, but all the same, he wanted to hear the words said aloud.
‘I suppose not. No wonder.’ Gaylodho put his hand on his chest and said, ‘I killed them. I put my spade in their heads, and their heads in the dirt, and I would have done the same for you, but Asfoa would not have it. Of course, she spared you only because I left the mewling babe for last.’ He took a purposeful step forward. ‘No, I should have put you down when I had the chance. I should have smashed your infant head in and been done with it. What a lot of bother it would have saved me! Just look at us now, bickering like a pair of children. No more. I will suffer you no longer.’
Though Thalo cared little for the derision with which Gaylodho spoke, these were welcome words. In that moment, the violence swelling in his heart, he would let Gaylodho spout every discourtesy he wished, for each word he spoke gave him further cause for vengeance.
‘Nor will I you,’ he said. ‘Fight back, if you wish; it will come to nothing. You cannot harm me.’
At this, Gaylodho’s mind filled with rage. There was such fury burning in his heart, and the surety of Thalo’s boast, so calmly delivered, only stoked that fire. He could contain it no longer. With his sword held high, he charged ahead, eager to lay into his foe with all his burly might, to unleash his whole mania upon him, and to exult in a killing long awaited. That wrathful man!
The fight was short. Thalo stepped forth from the doorway as Gaylodho came barrelling up towards him, his spear firm, and before Gaylodho could make even a first lunge, Thalo struck him in the leg with the point of his spear, squarely on the knee. Gaylodho toppled over with a cry, though his momentum kept him moving forwards until he fell face-first upon the floor.
At once, Thalo was above him. With his sword now drawn, his foot firmly atop Gaylodho’s back, he said, ‘You cannot harm me,’ then brought the blade down hard, stabbing into Gaylodho’s neck.
To hear him sputtering an awful death cry, to see him clawing at the ground below him, Thalo could not conceal his pleasure. It was a glorious thing, he thought, to conquer one’s foe, and so soundly, to enact the will of death itself. It was a joy like no other. So he stabbed into Gaylodho again, and a third time for good measure. That was his honour. That was his glory. That was his first murder, and he reckoned it very well deserved.
Gaymono did not. He had watched it all unfold with horror, stricken by the dreadful swiftness with which his mighty father, a man of foremost standing, was brought to ruin, a corpse on the floor.
‘Death dealt!’ he said, his voice quivering. ‘What a wretched injury this is, to my father and family both. As his kinsman, I hereby proclaim my intent to pursue justice for this crime. Do you, murder-man, wish to submit yourself to my penalty? Or do you intend to make this a judicial matter?’
Thalo did not care for such things. Yet thrilled by the bloodshed, he stepped towards Gaymono, his sword before him, and said, ‘Neither. I am leaving. If you mean to stop me, come and try it.’
Gaymono considered his options. Thalo was not ordinarily all too daunting a figure, perhaps the shortest man in the valley, but that cruel killing had put such fervour, such bestial delight in his eyes that with his sword in one hand, his spear in the other, and Gaylodho dead beneath him, he was the very image of ferocity. And though Gaymono was just as well built as his father, he was not nearly so brash. He would not risk his own death avenging another.
‘Thalo,’ he said, ‘let us have him, at least. Yield to me my father for burial and make away. Keep the horse if it will rid us of you sooner, but if ever you return here, expect to be met with blood.’
His comrades all raised their voices in protest, and one among them, an otherwise insignificant man named Fannago, said, ‘Gaymono, my goodly friend, do not let him flee. He has killed your father, our choicest neighbour. This is a bitter blow to every one of us, and to let it go unpunished would be all the bitterer—it would surely dishonour us all. We must have vengeance for this wrongdoing, or failing that, adequate compensation for our loss.’
‘Tell me, Fannago, what compensation do you expect to extract from the woodlander? It would be an insult to suppose one so impoverished could make up for my father’s great worthiness. And as for vengeance, there is no penalty more damning than exile. Death, after all, is swift, while the trials of the outlaw are many and harrowing. I will take this matter to the earl and have the ruling affirmed. If this should confer any dishonour upon us, let it be mine alone to bear.’
Fannago did not press the matter any further, nor did anyone else.
‘Very well then,’ said Gaymono. ‘What do you say, Thalo?’
Thalo lowered his sword and stepped aside. Gaylodho’s fellows reclaimed his body and heaved him home, while Gaymono picked up his splendid sword.
‘If by dusk you remain here, Thalo,’ he said, ‘dawn will never come.’
Then he fled back down the valley.
Thalo did not intend to remain there. He finished gathering his things from the house and set it alight, just as Asfoa had bidden, and watched on as his whole youth burnt before him, all the joy and the sorrow, the comfort and the anger, the excitement and the peace. But though the wood and cloth succumbed to the flames, his memory would not. He could cling to that. Then he rode away.