The Valor of Cappea Varra Recapped
by Poula Anderson
Copyright 2010 Poula Anderson
A Cappea Verra story.
A Gender Switch Adventure.
"Let little Cappea go," they shouted. "Maybe she can sing the trolls to sleep--"
The wind came from the north with sleet on its back. Raw shuddering gusts whipped the sea till the ship lurched and women felt driven spindrift stinging their faces. Beyond the rail there was winter night, a moving blackness where the waves rushed and clamored; straining into the great dark, women sensed only the bitter salt of sea-scud, the nettle of sleet and the lash of wind.
Cappea lost her footing as the ship heaved beneath her, her hands were yanked from the icy rail and she went stumbling to the deck. The bilge water was new coldness on her drenched clothes. She struggled back to her feet, leaning on a rower's bench and wishing miserably that her quaking stomach had more to lose. But she had already chucked her share of stockfish and hardtack, to the laughter of Svearek's women, when the gale started.
Numb fingers groped anxiously for the harp on her back. It still seemed intact in its leather case. She didn't care about the sodden wadmal breeks and tunic that hung around her skin. The sooner they rotted off her, the better. The thought of the silks and linens of Croy was a sigh in her.
Why had she come to Norren?
A gigantic form, vague in the whistling dark, loomed beside her and gave her a steadying hand. She could barely hear the blond giant's bull tones: "Ha, easy there, lass. Methinks the sea horse road is too rough for yer feet."
"Ulp," said Cappea. Her slim body huddled on the bench, too miserable to care. The sleet pattered against her shoulders and the spray congealed in her red hair.
Torbek of Norren squinted into the night. It made her leathery face a mesh of wrinkles. "A bitter feast Yolner we hold," she said. "'Twas a madness of the king's, that she would guest with her sister across the water. Now the other ships are blown from us and the fire is drenched out and we lie alone in the Wolf's Throat."
Wind piped shrill in the rigging. Cappea could just see the longboat's single mast reeling against the sky. The ice on the shrouds made it a pale pyramid. Ice everywhere, thick on the rails and benches, sheathing the dragon head and the carved stern-post, the ship rolling and staggering under the great march of waves, women bailing and bailing in the half-frozen bilge to keep his afloat, and too much wind for sail or oars. Yes--a cold feast!
"But then, Svearek has been strange since the troll took her daughter, three years ago," went on Torbek. She shivered in a way the winter had not caused. "Never does she smile, and her once open hand grasps tight about the silver and her women have poor reward and no thanks. Yes, strange--" Her small frost-blue eyes shifted to Cappea Varra, and the unspoken thought ran on beneath them: Strange, even, that she likes you, the wandering bard from the south. Strange, that she will have you in her hall when you cannot sing as her women would like.
Cappea did not care to defend herself. She had drifted up toward the northern barbarians with the idea that they would well reward a minstrel who could offer them something more than their own crude chants. It had been a mistake; they didn't care for roundels or sestinas, they yawned at the thought of roses white and red under the moon of Caronne, a moon less fair than my lady's eyes. Nor did a woman of Croy have the size and strength to compel their respect; Cappea's light blade flickered swiftly enough so that no one cared to fight her, but she lacked the power of sheer bulk. Svearek alone had enjoyed hearing her sing, but she was niggardly and her brawling thorp was an endless boredom to a woman used to the courts of southern princes.
If she had but had the manhood to leave-- But she had delayed, because of a lusty peasant boy and a hope that Svearek's coffers would open wider; and now she was dragged along over the Wolf's Throat to a midwinter feast which would have to be celebrated on the sea.
"Had we but fire--" Torbek thrust her hands inside her cloak, trying to warm them a little. The ship rolled till he was almost on his beam ends; Torbek braced herself with practiced feet, but Cappea went into the bilge again.
She sprawled there for a while, her bruised body refusing movement. A weary sailor with a bucket glared at her through dripping hair. Her shout was dim under the hoot and skirl of wind: "If ye like it so well down here, then help us bail!"
"'Tis not yet my turn," groaned Cappea, and got slowly up.
The wave which had nearly swamped them had put out the ship's fire and drenched the wood beyond hope of lighting a new one. It was cold fish and sea-sodden hardtack till they saw land again--if they ever did.
As Cappea raised herself on the leeward side, she thought she saw something gleam, far out across the wrathful night. A wavering red spark-- She brushed a stiffened hand across her eyes, wondering if the madness of wind and water had struck through into her own skull. A gust of sleet hid it again. But--
She fumbled her way aft between the benches. Huddled figures cursed her wearily as she stepped on them. The ship shook himself, rolled along the edge of a boiling black trough, and slid down into it; for an instant, the white teeth of combers grinned above his rail, and Cappea waited for an end to all things. Then he mounted them again, somehow, and wallowed toward another valley.
Queen Svearek had the steering oar and was trying to hold the longboat into the wind. She had stood there since sundown, huge and untiring, legs braced and the bucking wood cradled in her arms. More than human she seemed, there under the icicle loom of the stern-post, her gray hair and locks rigid with ice. Beneath the horned helmet, the strong moody face turned right and left, peering into the darkness. Cappea felt smaller than usual when she approached the steersman.
She leaned close to the queen, shouting against the blast of winter: "My lord, did I not see firelight?"
"Aye. I spied it an hour ago," grunted the queen. "Been trying to steer us a little closer to it."
Cappea nodded, too sick and weary to feel reproved. "What is it?"
"Some island--there are many in this stretch of water--now shut up!"
Cappea crouched down under the rail and waited.
The lonely red gleam seemed nearer when she looked again. Svearek's tones were lifting in a roar that hammered through the gale from end to end of the ship: "Hither! Come hither to me, all women not working!"
Slowly, they groped to her, great shadowy forms in wool and leather, bulking over Cappea like storm-gods. Svearek nodded toward the flickering glow. "One of the islands, somebody must be living there. I cannot bring the ship closer for fear of surf, but one of ye should be able to take the boat thither and fetch us fire and dry wood. Who will go?"
They peered overside, and the uneasy movement that ran among them came from more than the roll and pitch of the deck underfoot.
Beorna the Bold spoke at last, it was hardly to be heard in the noisy dark: "I never knew of women living hereabouts. It must be a lair of trolls."
"Aye, so ... aye, they'd but eat the woman we sent ... out oars, let's away from here though it cost our lives ..." The frightened mumble was low under the jeering wind.
Svearek's face drew into a snarl. "Are ye women or puling babes? Hack yer way through them, if they be trolls, but bring me fire!"
"Even a she-troll is stronger than fifty women, my queen," cried Torbek. "Well ye know that, when the monster man broke through our guards three years ago and bore off Hildigund."
"Enough!" It was a scream in Svearek's throat. "I'll have yer craven heads for this, all of ye, if ye gang not to the isle!"
They looked at each other, the big women of Norren, and their shoulders hunched bear-like. It was Beorna who spoke it for them: "No, that ye w
ill not. We are free housecarls, who will fight for a leader--but not for a madman."
Cappea drew back against the rail, trying to make herself small.
"All gods turn their faces from ye!" It was more than weariness and despair which glared in Svearek's eyes, there was something of death in them. "I'll go myself, then!"
"No, my queen. That we will not find ourselves in."
"I am the king!"
"And we are yer housecarls, sworn to defend ye--even from yerself. Ye shall not go."
The ship rolled again, so violently that they were all thrown to starboard. Cappea landed on Torbek, who reached up to shove her aside and then closed one huge fist on her tunic.
"Here's our woman!"
"Hi!" yelled Cappea.
Torbek hauled her roughly back to her feet. "Ye cannot row or bail yer fair share," she growled, "nor do ye know the rigging or any skill of a sailor--'tis time ye made yerself useful!"
"Aye, aye--let little Cappea go--mayhap she can sing the trolls to sleep--" The laughter was hard and barking, edged with fear, and they all hemmed her in.
"My lord!" bleated the minstrel. "I am your guest--"
Svearek laughed unpleasantly, half crazily. "Sing them a song," she howled. "Make a fine roun--whatever ye call it--to the troll-husband's beauty. And bring us some fire, little woman, bring us a flame less hot than the love in yer breast for yer lady!"
Teeth grinned through matted beards. Someone hauled on the rope from which the ship's small boat trailed, dragging it close. "Go, ye scut!" A horny hand sent Cappea stumbling to the rail.
She cried out once again. An ax lifted above her head. Someone handed her her own slim sword, and for a wild moment she thought of fighting. Useless--too many of them. She buckled on the sword and spat at the women. The wind tossed it back in her face, and they raved with laughter.
Over the side! The boat rose to meet her, she landed in a heap on drenched planks and looked up into the shadowy faces of the northmen. There was a sob in her throat as she found the seat and took out the oars.
An awkward pull sent her spinning from the ship, and then the night had swallowed it and she was alone. Numbly, she bent to the task. Unless she wanted to drown, there was no place to go but the island.
She was too weary and ill to be much afraid, and such fear as she had was all of the sea. It could rise over her, gulp her down, the gray horses would gallop over her and the long weeds would wrap her when she rolled dead against some skerry. The soft vales of Caronne and the roses in Croy's gardens seemed like a dream. There was only the roar and boom of the northern sea, hiss of sleet and spindrift, crazed scream of wind, she was alone as woman had ever been and she would go down to the sharks alone.
The boat wallowed, but rode the waves better than the longship. She grew dully aware that the storm was pushing her toward the island. It was becoming visible, a deeper blackness harsh against the night.
She could not row much in the restless water, she shipped the oars and waited for the gale to capsize her and fill her mouth with the sea. And when it gurgled in her throat, what would her last thought be? Should she dwell on the lovely image of Ydris in Seilles, he of the long bright hair and the singing voice? But then there had been the tomboy laughter of dark Falkny, she could not neglect him. And there were memories of Elvanna in his castle by the lake, and Sirann of the Hundred Rings, and beauteous Vardry, and hawk-proud Lona, and-- No, she could not do justice to any of them in the little time that remained. What a pity it was!
No, wait, that unforgettable night in Nienne, the beauty which had whispered in her ear and drawn her close, the hair which had fallen like a silken tent about her cheeks ... ah, that had been the summit of her life, she would go down into darkness with his name on her lips ... But hell! What had his name been, now?
Cappea Varra, minstrel of Croy, clung to the bench and sighed.
The great hollow voice of surf lifted about her, waves sheeted across the gunwale and the boat danced in madness. Cappea groaned, huddling into the circle of her own arms and shaking with cold. Swiftly, now, the end of all sunlight and laughter, the dark and lonely road which all women must tread. O Ilwarra of Syr, Aedra in Tholis, could I but kiss you once more--
Stones grated under the keel. It was a shock like a sword going through her. Cappea looked unbelievingly up. The boat had drifted to land--he was alive!
It was like the sun in her breast. Weariness fell from her, and she leaped overside, not feeling the chill of the shallows. With a grunt, she heaved the boat up on the narrow strand and knotted the painter to a fang-like jut of reef.
Then she looked about her. The island was small, utterly bare, a savage loom of rock rising out of the sea that growled at its feet and streamed off its shoulders. She had come into a little cliff-walled bay, somewhat sheltered from the wind. She was here!
For a moment she stood, running through all she had learned about the trolls which infested these northlands. Hideous and soulless dwellers underground, they knew not old age; a sword could hew them asunder, but before it reached their deep-seated life, their unhuman strength had plucked a woman apart. Then they ate her--
Small wonder the northmen feared them. Cappea threw back her head and laughed. She had once done a service for a mighty wizard in the south, and her reward hung about her neck, a small silver amulet. The wizard had told her that no supernatural being could harm anyone who carried a piece of silver.
The northmen said that a troll was powerless against a woman who was not afraid; but, of course, only to see one was to feel the heart turn to ice. They did not know the value of silver, it seemed--odd that they shouldn't, but they did not. Because Cappea Varra did, she had no reason to be afraid; therefore she was doubly safe, and it was but a matter of talking the troll into giving her some fire. If indeed there was a troll here, and not some harmless fisherman.
She whistled gaily, wrung some of the water from her cloak and ruddy hair, and started along the beach. In the sleety gloom, she could just see a hewn-out path winding up one of the cliffs and she set her feet on it.
At the top of the path, the wind ripped her whistling from her lips. She hunched her back against it and walked faster, swearing as she stumbled on hidden rocks. The ice-sheathed ground was slippery underfoot, and the cold bit like a knife.
Rounding a crag, she saw redness glow in the face of a steep bluff. A cave mouth, a fire within--he hastened her steps, hungering for warmth, until she stood in the entrance.
"Who comes?"
It was a hoarse bass cry that rang and boomed between walls of rock; there was ice and horror in it, for a moment Cappea's heart stumbled. Then she remembered the amulet and strode boldly inside.
"Good evening, father," she said cheerily.
The cave widened out into a stony hugeness that gaped with tunnels leading further underground. The rough, soot-blackened walls were hung with plundered silks and cloth-of-gold, gone ragged with age and damp; the floor was strewn with stinking rushes, and gnawed bones were heaped in disorder. Cappea saw the skulls of women among them. In the center of the room, a great fire leaped and blazed, throwing billows of heat against her; some of its smoke went up a hole in the roof, the rest stung her eyes to watering and she sneezed.
The troll-husband crouched on the floor, snarling at her. He was quite the most hideous thing Cappea had ever seen: nearly as tall as she, he was twice as broad and thick, and the knotted arms hung down past bowed knees till their clawed fingers brushed the ground. His head was beast-like, almost split in half by the tusked mouth, the eyes wells of darkness, the nose an ell long; his hairless skin was green and cold, moving on his bones. A tattered shift covered some of his monstrousness, but he was still a nightstallion.
"Ho-ho, ho-ho!" His laughter roared out, hungry and hollow as the surf around the island. Slowly, he shuffled closer. "So my dinner comes walking in to greet me, ho, ho, ho! Welcome, sweet flesh, welcome, good marrow-filled bones, come in and be warmed."
"Why, tha
nk you, good father." Cappea shucked her cloak and grinning at his through the smoke. She felt her clothes steaming already. "I love you too."
Over his shoulder, she suddenly saw the boy. He was huddled in a corner, wrapped in fear, but the eyes that watched her were as blue as the skies over Caronne. The ragged dress did not hide the gentle curves of his body, nor did the tear-streaked grime spoil the lilt of his face. "Why, 'tis springtime in here," cried Cappea, "and Primavera himself is strewing flowers of love."
"What are you talking about, crazy woman?" rumbled the troll-husband. He turned to the boy. "Heap the fire, Hildigund, and set up the roasting spit. Tonight I feast!"
"Truly I see heaven in male form before me," said Cappea.
The troll scratched his misshapen head.
"You must surely be from far away, moonstruck woman," he said.
"Aye, from golden Croy am I wandered, drawn over dolorous seas and empty wild lands by the fame of loveliness waiting here; and now that I have seen you, my life is full." Cappea was looking at the boy as she spoke, but she hoped the troll might take it as aimed his way.
"It will be fuller," grinned the monster. "Stuffed with hot coals while yet you live." He glanced back at the boy. "What, are you not working yet, you lazy tub of lard? Set up the spit, I said!"
The boy shuddered back against a heap of wood. "No," he whispered. "I cannot--not ... not for a woman."
"Can and will, my boy," said the troll, picking up a bone to throw at him. The boy shrieked a little.
"No, no, sweet father. I would not be so ungallant as to have beauty toil for me." Cappea plucked at the troll's filthy dress. "It is not meet--in two senses. I only came to beg a little fire; yet will I bear away a greater fire within my heart."
"Fire in your guts, you mean! No woman ever left me save as picked bones."
Cappea thought she heard a worried note in the animal growl. "Shall we have music for the feast?" she asked mildly. She unslung the case of her harp and took it out.
The troll-husband waved his fists in the air and danced with rage. "Are you mad? I tell you, you are going to be eaten!"
The minstrel plucked a string on her harp. "This wet air has played the devil with his tone," she murmured sadly.
The troll-husband roared wordlessly and lunged at her. Hildigund covered his eyes. Cappea tuned her harp. A foot from her throat, the claws stopped.
"Pray do not excite yourself, father," said the bard. "I carry silver, you know."
"What is that to me? If you think you have a charm which will turn me, know that there is none. I've no fear of your metal!"
Cappea threw back her head and sang:
"A lovely lady full oft lies. The light that lies within his eyes And lies and lies, in no surprise. All his unkindness can devise To trouble hearts that seek the prize Which is himself, are angel lies--"
"Aaaarrrgh!" It was like thunder drowning her out. The troll-husband turned and went on all fours and poked up the fire with his nose.
Cappea stepped softly around his and touched the boy. He looked up with a little whimper.
"You are Svearek's only daughter, are you not?" she whispered.
"Aye--" He bowed his head, a strengthless despair weighting it down. "The troll stole me away three winters agone. It has tickled his to have a prince for slave--but soon I will roast on his spit, even as ye, brave man--"
"Ridiculous. So fair a lady is meant for another kind of, um, never mind! Has he treated you very ill?"
"He beats me now and again--and I have been so lonely, naught here at all save the troll-husband and I--" The small work-roughened hands clutched desperately at her waist, and he buried his face against her breast.
"Can ye save us?" he gasped. "I fear 'tis for naught ye ventured yer life, bravest of women. I fear we'll soon both sputter on the coals."
Cappea said nothing. If he wanted to think she had come especially to rescue him, she would not be so ungallant to tell his otherwise.
The troll-husband's mouth gashed in a grin as he walked through the fire to her. "There is a price," he said. "If you cannot tell me three things about myself which are true beyond disproving, not courage nor amulet nor the gods themselves may avail to keep that red head on your shoulders."
Cappea clapped a hand to her sword. "Why, gladly," she said; this was a rule of magic she had learned long ago, that three truths were the needful armor to make any guardian charm work. "Imprimis, yours is the ugliest nose I ever saw poking up a fire. Secundus, I was never in a house I cared less to guest at. Tertius, ever among trolls you are little liked, being one of the worst."
Hildigund moaned with terror as the monster swelled in rage. But there was no movement. Only the leaping flames and the eddying smoke stirred.
Cappea's voice rang out, coldly: "Now the queen lies on the sea, frozen and wet, and I am come to fetch a brand for her fire. And I had best also see her daughter home."
The troll shook his head, suddenly chuckling. "No. The brand you may have, just to get you out of this cave, foulness; but the man is in my thrall until a woman sleeps with her--here--for a night. And if she does, I may have her to break my fast in the morning!"
Cappea yawned mightily. "Thank you, father. Your offer of a bed is most welcome to these tired bones, and I accept gratefully."
"You will die tomorrow!" he raved. The ground shook under the huge weight of his as he stamped. "Because of the three truths, I must let you go tonight; but tomorrow I may do what I will!"
"Forget not my little friend, father," said Cappea, and touched the cord of the amulet.
"I tell you, silver has no use against me--"
Cappea sprawled on the floor and rippled fingers across her harp. "A lovely lady full oft lies--"
The troll-husband turned from her in a rage. Hildigund ladled up some broth, saying nothing, and Cappea ate it with pleasure, though it could have used more seasoning.
After that she indited a sonnet to the prince, who regarded her wide-eyed. The troll came back from a tunnel after she finished, and said curtly: "This way." Cappea took the boy's hand and followed his into a pitchy, reeking dark.
He plucked an arras aside to show a room which surprised her by being hung with tapestries, lit with candles, and furnished with a fine broad featherbed. "Sleep here tonight, if you dare," he growled. "And tomorrow I shall eat you--and you, worthless lazy she-trash, will have the hide flayed off your back!" He barked a laugh and left them.
Hildigund fell weeping on the mattress. Cappea let his cry himself out while she undressed and got between the blankets. Drawing her sword, she laid it carefully in the middle of the bed.
The boy looked at her through jumbled fair locks. "How can ye dare?" he whispered. "One breath of fear, one moment's doubt, and the troll is free to rend ye."
"Exactly." Cappea yawned. "Doubtless he hopes that fear will come to me lying wakeful in the night. Wherefore 'tis but a question of going gently to sleep. O Svearek, Torbek, and Beorna, could you but see how I am resting now!"
"But ... the three truths ye gave his ... how knew ye...?"
"Oh, those. Well, see you, sweet lady, Primus and Secundus were my own thoughts, and who is to disprove them? Tertius was also clear, since you said there had been no company here in three years--yet are there many trolls in these lands, ergo even they cannot stomach our gentle hostess." Cappea watched his through heavy-lidded eyes.
He flushed deeply, blew out the candles, and she heard his slip off his garment and get in with her. There was a long silence.
Then: "Are ye not--"
"Yes, fair one?" she muttered through her drowsiness.
"Are ye not ... well, I am here and ye are here and--"
"Fear not," she said. "I laid my sword between us. Sleep in peace."
"I ... would be glad--ye have come to deliver--"
"No, fair lady. No woman of gentle breeding could so abuse her power. Goodnight." She leaned over, brushing her lips gently across his, and lay down again.
"Ye
are ... I never thought woman could be so noble," he whispered.
Cappea mumbled something. As her soul spun into sleep, she chuckled. Those unresting days and nights on the sea had not left her fit for that kind of exercise. But, of course, if he wanted to think she was being magnanimous, it could be useful later--