Wolf Blood by N. M. Browne

doorway. I don’t scream: I haven’t enough air. Blackness, stone walls, a small room. I panic. My sword is out and ready.
    ‘Stop it, child.’ Who would speak to me in my own language and call me child? I am ready to fight. ‘Hush!’ It is a woman’s voice. A plump hand finds my mouth and covers it. It smells of foreign perfumes, but I obey. I bite back all my questions and my urge to stick her with my sword. I am panting, my rasping breath echoes.
    ‘That’s it. Just take your time. Here, take off your armour and put this on.’ Her lips are close to my ear. She pulls me deeper inside the chamber. It is stiflingly hot. She thrusts something soft into my hand – fabric. ‘They are looking for a man, cariad. Here, give me that sword.’
    I hesitate. Would an enemy disarm me in this way? I don’t know. ‘Do you want help or not? The men are looking for a soldier. You can’t escape them if you stay a soldier.’
    She makes sense. I give her my sword. It is hard to let it go. I have to force my fingers to uncurl and release it. A door clicks shut and I almost cry out and then I hear her fumble with flint. I resist the urge to help. A pinprick of orange flame flickers and flares to lighten the darkness. It is the Brigante whore.
    ‘Trista?’ she says and I feel myself sway and falter as the blackness comes.
    I don’t think I’ve been out long. When I open my eyes, she is leaning over me. Her skin sags slackly. She is old. Her eyes are outlined with black lines and her eyelids shimmer blue like a dragonfly’s wings. Even so there is something familiar about her.
    ‘I didn’t mean to shock you,’ she says, still whispering. ‘I almost didn’t recognise you until I saw your reaction to this.’ She pulls something from a thong round her neck and holds it in front of me. It is the wolf’s-head ring. ‘I thought you were dead. I thought all of you were dead.’
    I still don’t know who she is. And maybe the doubt shows in my face.
    ‘Have I changed so much? Trista, it’s me, Cassie, Gwyn’s sister.’
    I take the ring and peer at the inner surface where it is marked by a scratched design – the same mark as could be found on a hundred or so well-kept sheep in the hills of home – Gwyn’s. I slip it on to my thumb. Gwyn was a big man, with hands the size of the hams we hung to smoke in the roundhouse rafters; he wore it on his forefinger. I gave it to him.
    ‘How did you come by it?’ I might be crying.
    ‘That Parisi pedlar. I was going to buy it back from him later. When I saw you looking at it, I knew it was you even after all this time and I had to get it back for you.’
    She is weeping openly now, my would-be sister. Her tears are stained black from the dark stuff round her eyes.
    ‘He fought well, Cassie, but we were outnumbered. They took me. I didn’t abandon him.’ I show her my brand and try not to flinch as she presses her long-nailed finger into it.
    I don’t ask how she came to be here, consorting with these foreigners. I don’t care to know. We embrace and I let her help me remove my soldier’s clothes. She washes me with warm water from a bowl and gently dresses me. She puts a thin veil over my ravaged hair and paints my eyes as she has painted hers and still I don’t ask her how she has come to this.
    ‘You can’t stay here for long,’ she says. ‘I’ll be busy later but you could hide in here till morning and then we could see about getting you away.’
    There is a knock on the door and I start groping around, hunting for my hidden sword.
    ‘Stop that! Sit down there on the couch and leave me to sort this out.’ She opens the door and I fight the urge to cover my entire face with my veil.
    Two soldiers are at the door. They push past Cassie. They say something to her that I don’t understand and she simpers. Sitting still is one of the hardest things I’ve ever done, but to stand would be to reveal my height.
    The men speak to me. I don’t like their tone of voice.