The Witchwood Crown
“We come for a bride,” said Drojan, slurring his words a little. “Are we welcome?”
“You are welcome in this camp,” said the chief of the callers, and then the three hornblowers led the groom and the thane toward the tent. They stopped under the canopy that had been erected in front of the tent door. Fremur envied them even that small patch of shade.
The shaman appeared from the tent so quickly and noiselessly that it was hard to believe he had lived almost eighty summers. He still wore his leather mask. Other than his eyes, the hanging mask revealed only the bottom of his almost toothless mouth.
“Who comes to this place?” the old man asked in a voice that seemed to have grown considerably stronger since the last time Fremur had heard him speak.
“A bridegroom, seeking his bride,” said Drojan. He whispered something to Odrig, but the thane did not respond, looking out across the gathered clansfolk as if searching for something or someone.
“And has the bride-price been paid?” asked Burtan.
“Seven fine horses,” Drojan said. “Damn fine horses, isn’t that right?”
Again, Odrig seemed not to be paying attention, but he nodded.
The old shaman began to chant in a tongue that none of the other clansfolk understood, a tongue that some said had been given to the first clansmen when the First Spirit had made them. As he did, Kulva was led from the tent by the women, out under the canopy. They were singing, a counterpoint to the shaman’s chant, with words that women had sung at grassland weddings since the sun was young.
May you have a son in front of you
May you have a daughter beside you,
May your hand be dipped in oil
May your hand be dipped in flour
May you hold your tongue
May you not blame your husband’s mother,
May you respect your clan elders
May you yield to younger ones in time
May you be modest and keep your wagon clean.
As the shaman finished, a breeze came up, the first one Fremur had felt all day, making the canopy and the walls of the tent flutter. Guests turned to each other with smiles at this sign of the spirits’ favor, and even Fremur felt himself relax a little as the shaman sprinkled more salt and ash in a circle around the canopy.
Drojan pushed himself in beside Kulva, jostling one of her older female relatives as he passed and earning a look that would have curled the hair of anyone less oblivious. “Is it not time yet to get to the binding, old man?” the groom asked loudly. “The day is hot, and I am waiting for my beer . . . and my bed.”
A few of the guests laughed, although enough looked on with flat expressions that it was clear Drojan was not the most beloved member of Clan Kragni. But before the irritated shaman could answer him, another voice spoke up.
“You do not need a bed, Drojan the Foul—you need a sty!”
Even as Drojan peered out into the surrounding crowd of guests in reddening fury, Fremur’s heart sank from behind his ribs down into his gut, then lay there heavy as an ancestor stone. He knew the voice. It was Unver’s, and worse, Unver sounded very drunk.
The tall man stepped out of the throng, the wedding guests parting before him. Unver’s garments were muddy and ragged, as if he had slept several days out of doors; but, as if in some horrible jest, he wore over them the long, spotlessly clean vest of a suitor, covered with bright stitchery of birds and flowers. Fremur was relieved to see that at least Unver’s long, curved sword still hung in its scabbard on his belt.
“What do you want?” Drojan cried, sounding genuinely surprised in his drunkenness. “You have no place here, halfbreed. Go away. This is my wedding day.”
Odrig laughed loudly. “There! You heard the bridegroom. You are not wanted at this feast, no matter how hungry you are.”
“I am hungry for what is mine,” Unver said, peering out from underneath an oily tangle of black hair. “It is you, Odrig, who must answer.”
Odrig put on a look of mock-astonishment. “Me? You blame me? For what?”
“You did not call the vitmaers—did not proclaim the betrothal to the clans,” said Unver in a deep, cold voice, although he stumbled a little in his words. “That is against our law!”
“Against our law?” Odrig laughed again. “You, outsider, would tell me about our law? Begone, before I make an example of you.”
“I too have the horses! I have seven horses for Kulva’s bride-price.”
“Offal!” shouted Drojan, and lurched forward to grab Unver by the collar. Unver dealt him a blow to the head that sent Drojan stumbling and reeling. The groom tripped and fell to the ground, muddying his garments. A few watchers laughed, and Fremur saw that the crowd was not entirely against Unver.
“You have seven horses?” said Odrig, watching Drojan struggling to regain his feet. “That is amusing, since your stepfather Zhakar also had seven fine horses which he traded to me only yesterday for several cows and my second-best wagon. He is quite a wealthy man now, your stepfather!”
For a moment Unver only stood, for the first time seeming to realize that something was happening here beyond a drunken argument. “Those . . . no, those horses are mine. He had no right . . .”
“Take it up with the old man, not me,” Odrig began, but even as he spoke Fremur saw that Drojan had regained his feet, eyes and face both red with rage. He stumbled toward Unver with a long dagger in his hand. Fremur opened his mouth to call a warning, but someone else spoke first.
“Unver!” cried Kulva. “‘Ware!”
The sound of her voice startled him, but he turned in time to catch Drojan’s arm, then twisted it so hard the bridegroom cried out in pain as Unver threw him to the ground. Drojan was shorter but powerfully muscled, and not such a coward that he would only strike from behind; within a moment he climbed back onto his feet and lunged toward his enemy once more. Unver still had not drawn his own sword or dagger, and this time Drojan almost managed to drive the blade into his guts before he could stop him. They wrestled, first on their feet like two shambling bears, the knife pressing against the birds stitched on Unver’s breast, then their feet went out from under them and they rolled together on the ground.
“No! Stop them!” Kulva tried to run forward, but Odrig caught her and yanked her back, knocking her tall headdress askew. She hung helpless in his powerful grip, her feet barely touching the ground.
“Let them settle it, woman,” growled Odrig. “Let your husband finish with your lover. If Drojan is willing to take you spoiled, then vengeance is his right.”
At first it seemed vengeance might be swift in coming: on the ground, Unver’s greater height was no advantage, and Drojan had the knife. Also, Fremur could almost believe that Unver was not fighting as hard as he could, as if somehow death were merely one more way the day might end for him. Then Drojan found a momentary opening and tried to stab at Unver’s face, swiping the blade along his cheek and jaw, opening a terrible cut that immediately began sheeting blood down the tall man’s face and neck.
A strange sound arose then, a low rumble that for a panicky moment Fremur thought might be the gods themselves shaking the ground in rage at this sacrilegious display. Then he realized it was no tremor, but Unver growling deep in his chest as he fought with bare hands to keep Drojan’s knife away from his body.
As the crowd leaned forward to watch, some shouting, many more in silent fear, Unver wrapped one hand around the wrist of Drojan’s knife-hand, then put his other hand under the bridegroom’s chin and pushed until Drojan’s head tipped back at a painful angle. Unver then brought a knee up and threw the other man over onto his side. Mud and torn grass were flung in all directions as they struggled together, then a strained, gurgling cry rose from the confused tangle of limbs. A moment later both men fell back and lay still.
Before anyone dared to move closer, Unver slid himself out of
his enemy’s grasp. Drojan did not move, but lay face down as his lifeblood pooled beneath him, painting the bright grass. But it was not Drojan for whom the bride cried out.
“Unver!” she cried. “Oh, Unver, why . . . ?”
“Dead on . . . his own . . . cursed blade.” Unver sat up, his once spotless vest now smeared and spattered with blood, his face a red mask, then slowly got to his feet, tottering a little and struggling for breath. “You saw,” he said to the wide-eyed onlookers. “I fought only to defend myself.”
Odrig had gone as pale as the frost that dusted the long grass in winter. He grabbed his sister around the waist and lifted her off her feet, holding her against his chest as easily as if she were a child, though she struggled to get free. “You!” he shouted at Unver, his voice hoarse with fury. “Do you think you can come onto the thane’s land, into my own paddock, kill my friend and bondsman, and be suffered to live?”
“Give me Kulva.” Unver’s outstretched arms were wet with blood to the elbows. “I seek no other quarrel. We will go away. The Crane Clan will not see us again.”
“The Crane Clan will not see you because you will be buried beneath the pen where the pigs shit,” said Odrig. “Do you think I would give my sister to you even if you had paid the bride-price? You, a castoff of the Stallion Clan, the whelp of a coward and a whore? My father was a fool to take you in.”
“Your father . . . was a good man before he lost his wits,” said Unver. He let his hand stray to his own sword and its muddied hilt. “You are nothing like him.”
Odrig pulled Kulva close, clenched his hand in her hair and pulled tight, so that the bridal headdress tore free and fell to the ground in a tumble of ribbons and bright pins. “She will never be yours, outsider. I would see her dead first. I will see her dead first.” And then, in a swift, terrible instant, Odrig’s knife was out and in his hand. He dragged it across Kulva’s throat below the chin, freeing a leaping spray of red. Women and even some men shouted out in horror. Kulva’s hands came up as if to close the dreadful wound, but then the thane released her and she dropped to all fours, blood gurgling out onto the ground.
Fremur felt himself grow faint. The world darkened to a great tunnel around that cataract of red. His sister. Their sister. Odrig had killed their sister.
Unver yanked at his sword so hard that he half-pulled the scabbard from his belt, then leaped toward the thane with a bellow of helpless, furious pain. Odrig drew his own blade, calm as a man sitting down to eat supper, and stepped over dying Kulva as though she were nothing but a rock or a tuft of grass. The two swords clashed and rebounded. Guests screamed and cursed as they threw themselves back from the fighters.
Unver’s struggle with Drojan had been a thing of dirt and grunting silence, two drunken, angry men rolling on the ground, fighting over a single knife. This was something entirely different, a flicker of shining blades, a dance of clanging metal. Within moments the grass around the pair had been torn away or stamped down into the black mud. Unver, Fremur could see, was still slowed by drunkenness, but his eyes blazed with a fury Fremur had never seen, even in battle against the men of the cities. Odrig was even larger than Unver, the biggest man in the clan, but he recognized the power of his opponent’s anger and did not waste any more breath on taunts or curses.
Fremur could no more prevent this fight than catch lightning in his hands. He knew it would only end when someone died, and Fremur could not make himself believe that Unver might win. He ran to Kulva’s side and kneeled beside her, but the blood was running out of her too fast to be stanched. He tried to hold the wound closed, but blood pulsed out between his fingers. It all seemed like a terrible dream—his own helplessness, the clanfolk’s shouts and shocked faces, his sister’s dying noises.
Odrig and Unver circled each other, and their curved swords flew back and forth like the beaks of birds, neither man able to get past the other’s guard, neither foolish enough to engage too closely too soon. Unver, still hot with rage, took a swipe at Odrig’s face; then, when the thane blocked him with his blade, he tried to score Odrig’s face with his sword’s point. He missed by the length of a fingernail, but Odrig’s eyes widened and he redoubled his efforts, hammering away with blow after clanging blow so that Unver could do nothing but defend himself and slowly give ground. The circle of trampled grass and pitted mud widened beneath them, wedding guests now stumbling over each other in their hurry to get out of the way.
The sun was high in the sky. Both men were sweating heavily, and Unver Long Legs was covered with blood, much of it his own. He lost his grip on his sword for a moment and Odrig almost flicked the weapon out of his hand, but although he had to throw himself to the ground and roll away to avoid Odrig’s slashing attack, he managed to hang on to his weapon and direct away another strike that had been intended as a killing blow, but this time the sharp edge of Odrig’s sword bit into his left shoulder before he could knock it away.
Now that his enemy was bleeding from his shoulder as well, Odrig backed off a step and took a slower, more deliberate approach, fighting mostly to keep Unver moving and the blood flowing from his wound until it exhausted him. It seemed like a strategy that could not fail, and indeed, after several more rattling flurries of blows, it became apparent that Unver was slowing down. He ceased making attacks, concentrating instead on keeping Odrig’s long, probing blade away. Odrig responded by changing his tactics to slash at Unver’s legs and exposed arms whenever possible, and by doing this gave him several more small, but bloody wounds.
Unver misstepped, barely avoided a blow to his head, then stumbled again, his free hand clutching his belly. It seemed plain that the fight was nearly over. Sickened, Fremur turned Kulva closer to his chest, as if to shield her from the sight of Unver’s imminent death, but could not look at her face for more than an instant: Her eyes were open, as if she looked at him in accusation.
“I did nothing,” he said quietly, but a black, hopeless rage boiled inside him. “I could do nothing.”
At the sound of several loud clangs in succession he looked up. Unver was in a half-crouch, doing his best to slip Odrig’s heavy strokes. Clearly, the thane meant to end this. The sun beat down, and the grass sparkled with wet scarlet: Unver had several more wounds, so many that it was hard to count them in the general mire of his bloodied clothing.
Then, just as Odrig drew back for a better killing angle, Unver leaped up at him with what must have been his final strength and swung at his head. Odrig guided the blow away easily with his own blade and then turned his sword over, trapping Unver’s weapon, but the sound of their two weapons striking each other seemed so odd and muffled that even Odrig, the path of his death-stroke now open, hesitated for a moment to glance at the blade he had turned aside.
It was not Unver’s sword that had swung toward the thane’s head, and was now imprisoned by the grip of Odrig’s own blade. It was Unver’s scabbard, torn loose from his belt. His sword was still in his other hand.
Odrig had only a moment to gape; then, even as the realization of what he was seeing drained the blood from his face, Unver plunged his own curved blade into Odrig’s belly so hard that its point tented the back of his feast-day garment.
The ending came so suddenly and so surprisingly that none of the guests even cried out. Odrig’s knees went limp. He collapsed onto Unver, who held him up for a moment, his own legs shaking, then stepped out of the way and let the thane fall into the mud.
Unver, bloody and silent, walked toward Fremur. The guests between them nearly flew in their hurry to get out of his way, but the tall man did not seem to see them, as though he passed living through the Land of Shadows. When he reached Fremur he said nothing, but only bent and lifted Kulva’s body out of her brother’s grasp. Unver was exhausted, and the dead weight of her made him stagger, but he managed to put her over his shoulder. Then, still without a word, he turned and walked across the paddock, two bodies left lying in the g
rass behind him and the clan guests shrinking back as from a leper. He walked unsteadily toward the gate that led out of the paddock, Kulva bouncing on his shoulder, her hair unbound now and waving behind him like a horse’s tail. For long moments, no one around the wedding tent said anything, but only watched Unver’s diminishing figure.
“Don’t let him go!” someone shouted at last. “He killed the thane!”
“Murderer!” someone else cried, and there was a general roar of agreement, mostly from the men.
A few guests near Fremur drew their swords to go after Unver, startling Fremur as though from a sudden dream. The anger that had bubbled inside him was still hot, but now felt hard as stone. He pulled his own blade and slapped the nearest man on the arm with it, hard enough to make him drop his weapon.
“What are you doing?” the man snarled. It was Gezdahn Baldhead, one of the friends who had been drinking with Drojan and Odrig only an hour before, his face bright pink with astonishment and thwarted anger. “We must catch the halfblood before he gets to his horse!”
“No.” Fremur held his sword out sideways in front of Gezdahn and the others, like a paddock gate. He felt curiously clear-headed, as if he alone had stood soberly by while everyone else had drunk themselves into madness.
“Get out of my way, Fremur-mouse,” Gezdahn snarled, “or you’ll get the same thing.”
Fremur placed the point of his own curved sword against the man’s chest. “You will do nothing. Odrig is dead. My brother the thane is dead. That means I am thane of the Crane Clan until we choose another at the next clan moot. Do you deny the law?”
Gezdahn stared at him, anger fighting surprise as if the Fremur he knew had disappeared and been replaced by some strange demon from another world. “You?”
“I am eldest male of Odrig’s house. That means I am thane.”
“But he stole your sister’s body!” cried another man. “He will shame her.”