CHAPTER THE TWENTY-SECOND
It was the sort of wet, miserable dawn in which even the wren, who sings all winter long, sits silent amongst rain-beaded leaves. The rain had turned to a grey, awful mist that lay in the gullies and hollows of the heath.
From the chiselled terrace of Snoro's hermitage, Kveldulf gazed out over wild scrub and rocks, the forest beyond, and the leaden sky above. There was blood on his hands, and he could feel the stickiness of it smeared on his brow where he had held his head as he sat alone in that rocky place. Twisted on the ground before him was a filthy, tangle-haired man, his skin slightly blue, his eyes filmy slits, his nerveless fingers clutched at a hunting knife protruding from his chest. A little further down the hill was another corpse, half hidden by tussock. The stone, the bodies, even the blades of grass were limned with soot. The door, the entrance, the cave itself, all guttered by a fire that still smoked, and throbbed with warmth. Ash stung his eyes, and clogged his nostrils, and covered his skin in wet off-white streaks. An ashen axe lay forgotten among charred splinters of the once strong door.
He stretched his fingers now, and felt tingling blood slug through the flesh. They were healing. By evening there would be no trace of blisters or scorched flesh.
He closed his eyes and heard again Snoro's shrill, panic stricken voice, over and over: Kveldulf, murderer, murderer. Help me.
So, Snoro was dead, and the bottle of hope, Snoro's nostrum, lay where it fell and shattered during the brief struggle. Its wine-dark blood formed a sticky pool over the rock. Of Snoro's remains there was not even a trace among the rubble. He thought about Rosa and Lilia too, and the Toren Vaunt. If he had not been distracted by Snoro waving a potion in front of his nose, then maybe the attackers would not have surprised them both. Maybe, Kveldulf thought, he would have some answers about the witchcraft and murder at the fortress. But not now.
"Death-bringer, nest-robber, egg-snatcher!"
Kveldulf looked up in time to shield his eyes. Something swift, black and rife with sharp points fell from the sky. It beat and flurried at his face.
"Home-burner, friend-slayer, murderer!" shrieked the voice.
Kveldulf flailed a hand and batted at the heavy mass of feathers and beak and claws.
"What have you done with Snoro!" cried Gnissa, "Where is he? Where is my friend? Killer, fox, ferret, hawk, bloody-beaked eagle! Chick-eater. Mate-killer. Wolf," cried the raven, "Wolf, wolf, wolf, wolf."
The last of his self control boiled away. Kveldulf felt his legs stiffen and stretch, and he leapt up. He drew a knife, he didn't care which, and struck wildly at the raven. Blindly, he cut and hacked at the air. One cut must have come too close. The black wings flapped away and vanished from his ash-stung sight. For a moment there was silence, then from up high, on a sharp finger of craggy rock where Kveldulf could not reach him Gnissa's voice hissed, "Kill me too then will you? That is all you are. All you all ever will be. Killer. Egg-eater. Friend-hunter. Monster."
"No," his fingers felt numb now, and the knife fell and clattered on the rock. "No. I tried. I tried." He stretched his hands out and stared at them. "My fingers are burnt. Burnt black and cracked with blood. Look at the burns! I swear it. I tried to pull him out of the flames."
Gnissa sat silent for a moment, twitching now and again, and fixing Kveldulf with one bright amber eye.
"This makes no sense." Kveldulf hung his head. "Who are these men, and why did they come with knives and axes and murder in their hearts?
"Dead?" said Gnissa.
Kveldulf nodded, but said nothing more.
"Dead. My friend is dead?" With a snap of the beak Gnissa threw back his head and croaked out one long, low, mournful hiss. "Ravens do not live as long as Nibelung," he said. "I always thought... always knew Snoro would be the one to find me dead, and pathetic and bedraggled one day stretched on the earth. Always knew." He shook his head unhappily, "Always thought I knew"
Kveldulf's muscles gave up then, he sank slowly to the earth. Again he hung his head, and said nothing.
The raven ruffled his feathers and shook off some beads of rain. "He was my friend. Poor Snoro. He will never see his homeland again. He used to get drunk on mead, and tell me about distant lands. Crisp, snowy mountains, marbled with veins of gold, and tunnelled with halls hung with wreaths of gems like liquid fire. He used to tell me all about his homeland... I used to mock him for a liar. “You're making it all up,” I'd say, but I think he told the truth when he drank himself into a talking mood. Really."
Distant winds howled.
"In mead there is truth," mumbled Kveldulf.
"Last night upon the storm I thought I heard violent voices," croaked the raven, "and clashes of steel. I spied a blossom a flame in the night. Now, I find ashes and smell bones and, and, you tell me I have lost my only friend." He shook his wings and beat against the cold wind. "But what am I to do? A little black bird. Am I to rage and spit and mourn like a human? Ravens do not mourn the dead." He said this quite sadly, and not altogether convincingly. "Ravens eat the dead. We all must die," he hissed, "we are all mortal, that is our particular lot. And ravens accept it."
And with those words something peculiar wormed its way into Kveldulf's thoughts. His chest felt heavy and cold. He felt a shuddering in the pit of his stomach, and began to gasp and choke, and then to laugh. He threw his head back and his laughter rode the air.
"We are all mortal?" cried Kveldulf between fits of laughter, "We are all doomed to die? We are nothing of the sort." He raised tremulously to his feet, and began to pace to and fro, like a wild animal kept too long in the confines of rusted old cage. Back and forth. Back and forth. We do not die. We live on." He was shaking his head now, a little too violently. "Our father dies. He died in his bed a long time back, and we wept and cried because we were just a boy. Our mother dies of the winter blight and we try to be more stoic because we are older, but in the end we weep a little. Our wife and children die. Poor loving Yrsa, she loved little Kalv, and Joar, and pretty, bright-eyed Dotta. But they... they were all killed by a wild animal. And did we weep for them? I don't even remember. Were we already running out of tears so long ago." He laughed again, "Killed by a wolf, you see. A Wolf. Only I was not there to save them. Or was I? Now I wonder. Was I both murderer and mourner? And when they died we left, and walked the world, and it seemed that the wolf followed after me. Others died around me. Some of old age, of sickness, but others, others were killed by that wolf." He tilted his head to the sky and bitterness crept into his voice. "And did we weep? I do not know. Always, it was that wolf that has followed us, the whole of our unending life." He began to rub his face as if it burned or itched.
With an intent, unblinking stare he looked up at Gnissa, "These long years we have wandered the earth, beseeching the white wings of arch-spirits in the halls of the priest-kings of Leth. At Sorcery Tor where the wizards meet and haggle. Even in the shadow lands of Sorthe, where there are more necromancers than wizards." His eyes shot wide and staring. "But, but, it is not the white wings of the sun-blessed that have come to me, but the black. We see now, we know you now: what name is yours? Which raven are you, Sorrow or Memory, Dream or Thought, or Inkling or Desire? Which messenger-spy of the old bloodstained gods are you?" He shuddered with a half-laughing, half-sobbing, choking on it. "We had forsaken the old, old gods, but, now, now we see they have not forsaken us. One of those ancient name-lost ones has sent you to remind us of ourselves. I think you are either Memory or Thought... let us think... Every dawn Memory and Thought fly over the wide world. The gods seldom worry that Thought will not return come dusk, but they worry more, more for that other one, Memory."
"How do you know I am not Sorrow or Dream?"
"Sorrow and Dream fly at midnight. Inkling and Desire fly at dusk. Only Memory and Thought come in the morning, and you are a morning raven."
"Kveldulf," hissed Gnissa, "You are babbling like a stream in flood. I am a bird. I eat grubs and worms. I pick flesh from rotting, dead lambs. I am no messenger of f
orsaken gods. Or any gods for that matter. Forsaken or otherwise."
Kveldulf laughed at that, laughed and laughed till tears began to mark the ash-and-blood mask on his face "You are Memory then, though you admit it not for Thought would be honest and return to his master. Memory, Memory is a less reliable servant."
"As mad as a magpie."
"No, no, no... I... I understand now, I think." He bowed low to Gnissa. "Memory, I greet you as the wolf greets the raven. Here waits for you a sacrifice," he waved a hand at the dead bodies. "May the blue-black Memory sip blood from the wounds of the sacrificed."
"Mad," hissed the raven, "mad, as a rabid, a rabid..."
"A rabid what o' messenger of dead gods?"
"Nothing."
"A wolf, for that is what we are, no?" He began to cry it out. "And a wolf, a wolf, a wolf we are..."
Gnissa ruffled his feathers, hopped a little way down the perch, and said, "Keep your bodies, Kveldulf, they stink of poison. I will not touch them, and keep your madness. You know, Snoro said there was a way to end you life lying about somewhere in that grim grey fortress. I don't know what it is, exactly, but maybe you should go and look for it. I think I will go find a wild, silent place, where the ivy and holly grow thick and glossy and green all year round, and there I will sing some songs for my only friend." He flapped his wings and stirred up a tiny storm. "Though ravens have not fair voices. Farewell, Kveldulf. I know not if we will meet again. Birds often die in harsh winters. And madmen too, sometimes."
As the raven beat his wings and glided away over the wet earth, beneath the washed out, rained out sky, Kveldulf leapt after him, scrabbling down the slope stumbling, laughing, crying and yelling, "We thank you Memory, we thank you. We had forgotten ourselves for so long, but Memory has reminded us. We thank you."
Soon the raven was no more than a black speck drifting on high winds, turning with each gust, and sailing into the dawn-grey forest.
Kveldulf sunk to his knees and knelt for some time, trembling and mumbling under his breath. "O' a wolf, a wolf, a wolf we are, we are... a wolf, a wolf, we are..."
-oOo-
Even in death an Eorl makes life hard for his subjects.
This was the opinion Snoro formed as he stood in the same grey dawn some distance away. He was wet through, his toes were swollen and wrinkled in his boots. The cloak he wore lay heavy over his back, wrapped tight over his head like a shawl. Everything was rank with the smell of sodden wool.
He stood ankle deep in mud, near the rushy millpond, and watched the funerary preparations. Barrows of food were being hauled up the narrow path to the Toren Vaunt. Men and women tramped this way and that, carrying heavy loads past the stone and daub cottages. Here and there, older, wrinkled, sour-mouthed men, who perhaps had known the Eorl in youth, gave one another grim, dismal nods and muttered quiet things.
Snoro shrugged his shoulders and rubbed his arms with stiff fingers, cold to the point of being white and bloodless. He hunched himself up a little more, pulled his hood as far forward as it would go, then stooped his spine, and mock-hobbled towards the outer gate of the Vaunt.
"Might a humble man pay respects to a beloved lord?"
One of the spear-guards gave Snoro a distasteful glance up and down, and frowned.
"Get off with yer. The kin of the Eorl want no beggars in the great hall. Not today."
Snoro rubbed his hands together, forming nervous, twitching knots of fingers. "Please, have some kindness on me." He coughed and hacked, then spat into the mud. "For I may be telling the Eorl how his servants treat the meek and luckless in person, soon enough."
The man stared impassively for a moment. In the end he seemed to decide that he didn't care. "Mind you go about the business of paying respects only. No begging."
"That I will, that I will."
With a nod and a shrug, the spear-guard motioned Snoro through the gate. "In with you then, and watch your manners around the begrieved."
Snoro nodded and shuffled on.
The great hall was hung with the deathly white of gauze, last summer's dried lilies and sprays of silver birch, satinwort and whitethorn. At the head of the hall, upon the dais where the throne normally rested, lay instead an open casket of polished ivywood, wrought about with bearded faces in bronze. In the casket lay a lifeless corpse, and though the lips were waxen and the flesh a little sunken, the face expressed that pretence of peace and enlightenment that sometimes seems to take over the faces of the dead.
All about the casket a crowd of servants, subjects and thanes knelt and cried and whispered prayers. But, though this ugly, shabbily dressed crowd moved a vision of beauty, a young woman like a creature from a finer world.
Rosa.
Snoro limped forward, shambling between sniffling cow-maids, and wide-eyed children, pushing past a brawny, pot-bellied tradesman who smelled of sawdust, and finally to the feet of this tall, regal lady in her dress of delicate ash and frost, trimmed with red.
"M'lady, have pity on your most humble of subjects."
She looked down at him with beautiful eyes filled with exquisite disdain. There was, he thought, something new there, some emotion or fire he had never perceived before.
Raising her head, and calling quietly, "Guards", she stopped suddenly and looked a second, longer time at Snoro.
"M'lady," he hissed.
"You have need of us?" A spear-guard, dressed in burnished mail, and resting a hand meaningfully upon the hilt of a dagger, now stood by her side.
"No," she waved a hand, "I have had a change of heart. Wait." There was that light in her eyes again, but was it playful, or plotting? "Mercy has moved me. Take this beggar to a servant's chamber and treat him to food and warm woollen garb. There are plenty of empty rooms near my father's chamber still."
"Just a small bit of stale bread would do me," Snoro hacked a cough. "Just a nip of last year's worst ale."
"On no," said Rosa and her voice sounded smooth and cool as ivory, "Only the best for you. You who are no doubt my most... humble... and loyal... and trustworthy of subjects."
Good, thought Snoro as he was led away, Rosa will protect me. She is the Lady of Veld after all, and she has me to thank for that. She must be most grateful. Most grateful.
He dimly wondered how Rosa had dealt with her older sister, the pale sad one, but decided it might be better not to ask.
-oOo-
A while later, Snoro sat lounging in a chair pulled close to a small, but warmth-giving hearth. Hours had passed in this small, dusty, unused room. There was very little here. A cot with straw, a pauper's tin lamp, a shabby old chair, and a table on which Snoro had left his now-meagre possessions. The only nod to decoration was one small, rug of woven reeds beside the fireplace. There was not even a window. It felt as if no one had lived in this servant's room for years, and all the rooms on either side were silent.
The door opened softly.
"Are you well rested, Snoro?"
"My lady." She was wearing over her dress of ashen white and red thread a thick cloak of a darker, almost black material. Her mouth moved into a smile as she stepped lightly into the room.
"Why have you come here?"
"I wished to pay my respects to the Lady of Veld."
"Indeed?" She moved closer. "You have brought a small satchel I see. Do you plan to stay with the Lady of Veld long?"
"Ah... yes, a few paltry possessions, things I would rather not be without, even for a few hours." Then added more harshly, as Rosa began to reach out an idle hand for the satchel. "Dangerous things, best not meddled with."
She withdrew her fingers only slowly, and her eyes shone with that peculiar, proud, curious expression again. Snoro bit his lip as he watched her now step closer to him, letting his eyes linger over her throat, graceful as the curve of any flower. Her hand stretched out and brushed his neck. It felt just as gentle.
"You had no trouble getting here?"
"No trouble at all."
Her expression darkened, but
then as she looked squarely at him she smiled and stepped closer. "Poor Snoro you have had a harsh night, I think. You put a brave face on it, but... there has been trouble for you."
He sighed, "I try to protect you from worrying, but you see so clearly through my artless lies. There has."
"Tell me."
"That troublesome witch-hunter, Kveldulf, him and some friends of his came a knock-knock-knocking at my door last night. All threatening, and brandishing unkind weapons." He paused and looked up at her dark eyes. "I had to kill one of them, of course."
"Kveldulf?" she said, and Snoro thought she sounded almost hopeful.
"No, another." He shrugged, "and here I was about to make Kveldulf a bargain, a deal to be rid of some of his demons, but now? No, now I have a better plan for him."
"Do tell."
"He has sorcery in his veins, and I know how to get it for myself. An old trick. One of the oldest." Rosa's fingers seemed to tense a little as they stroked the hair over his left ear. "No rituals. No talismans. No spells or words or runes. No messing about. I will just kill him and eat his roasted, filthy heart. It is an old way to thieve power. The gods of old did it to steal magic from still older gods."
"How will you kill him?"
"Oh, that's easily done. Your damned fool of a Freer has the key to that, and no one even knows it." Harsh shallow breathing gave way to a tense sigh on his part. "Ah, but I forget my delicate company. My apologies." He breathed deeper still, taking in the scent of her.
"Thank you." She spoke in an odd distracted tone. "And yes, I almost forgot I have a present for you, Snoro." Her toned was making him edgy. Nagging worries were starting to gather.
She fished something small out of a purse at her belt. She held it for him to take, and reaching out he took a small, wooden vial between his clawed thumb and forefinger.
"One of mine." He said feeling a twinge of confusion. His nostrils flared as he sniffed it. "But, this is..."
"Lilia's. Yes."
Snoro has a sudden sensation of being a confused, like a trapped animal. He wanted to get up from the stool and back away, but made no sudden movements. She didn't know anything really. She couldn't know anything, not really.
"Why are you showing this to me?" he asked, keeping his voice calm and incurious.
"You must have laughed yourself to sleep so many nights, dear Snoro." She stroked his hair. "Selling one daughter the poison, and the other daughter the antidote. Oh, my father grew ill, but he lingered, never quite dying. I should have seen through you. Lilia should have seen through you. But, we were both fools. You played with us both." Her lovely, dark eyes were wide and trembling, and her sensual mouth was twisted into a cold smile. "Did she cry when you named the price, Snoro? I never let you see me shed a tear. Tell me, did she cry?"
Snoro swallowed hard, and began to search his heart for the runes of elder and harmful things. "No," he said, "No, she refused, and refused, and refused. She said she loved another. In the end I satisfied myself with mere gold from your sister."
"I see." Her voice sounded dangerously unstable.
"But that is over with." He felt his expression squirming about, his lips smiling too hard. "All done with. This petty little potive I sold you sister. It was never very powerful. It would never have saved the Eorl in the end--just prolonged things a little. Rosa. Beautiful Lady Rosa. I was always on your side in this. The Eorl is dead, is he not? It has worked out for the best."
He could see hatred in her stare now, "Yes. Yes, I suppose it did."
He cast his eyes wildly around as he reached inside for sorcery. The sound of words, gurgling, charmed and inhuman, began to well in his throat. Something gleamed in her hand. His eyes set on it, and he saw it clearly: a long, vicious knife. He squirmed to get up, and opened his mouth to pour out accursed and powerful sorcery.
But he was too late.
He felt the force of it dig into the side of his throat; felt it slice through muscle, and a vein; felt the heat and the wetness flow all down his neck, his shoulder and belly; felt himself choking on his own blood. She stabbed again and again, but by now he felt no pain. He felt dizzy, as if he were floating adrift from his own body.
And then he felt nothing at all.
-oOo-
There was no sound now but a steady, drip, drip, drip on the cold floor.
Her hand still clutched the knife, though it trembled. Possessed by a sudden urge to be rid of it she threw it upon the table next to Snoro's bag. It skittered and left a scarlet streak on the wood.
The remains of his last meal still sat on the table. A pewter mug of ale, half empty, and some crumbs on a trencher. She poured some of the beer over her hands and the blood diluted a little, and trickled away. The dress and cloak? Those, she would have to burn.
But then another, darker thought entered her mind. Screwing up both fists, and taking harsh, short breaths she forced herself to look at the thing hunched in the chair. Its long arms were stretched grotesquely out, and the ugly swollen mouth was parted as if it were about to offer a kiss.
She took two steps to the table, pressed her own lips into a thin line and kissed the corpse lightly on the forehead. "One last kiss for Snoro," she said. Then, turning to the table and extending a shivering hand, she took up the knife again. As she stood over him she looked at the fingers and eyes for any familiar twitch of life. It was over so much faster than she had imagined. One moment he was alive, and talking, and thinking his awful, lecherous thoughts... and the next...
Crouching over the body she dragged it from the stool, and let it fall to the floor, which it struck with a muffled thud. At least now the dripping stopped. She suppressed a shudder as the tip of the knife slid under the fastenings of his jerkin, snapping each. She steeled herself, and cut deeper into his chest.
She had seen chooks butchered and gutted, sheep too, and even once a steer. But it was harder than it looked. There were ribs to break and cut through, and the blood, there was so much of it.
At least when she was done the clotted black pool had stopped spreading on the floor.
Cutting out the red lump, she laid it upon Snoro's trencher. It looked little different from a pig's heart... maybe somewhat smaller, but not much. No one who looked at it would suspect.
That drained the last of her self-control. She stumbled to the far corner of the room and retched. Her eyes stung with tears. She knelt there for some time alone, frightened and afraid to turn back and look at the remains on the floor. Time slowed and distorted. It might have been minutes or hours that she spent sitting and watching fantastic fire-cast shadows play on the wall. She imagined she saw faces in them, laughing, jeering, and staring at her.
When she stood it was on unsteady feet. She walked around the thing on the floor, careful not to look at it. Taking up the satchel and the trencher she stopped at the door. It would be impossible to walk the halls of the Toren Vaunt covered in scarlet stains and carrying a heart on a platter.
Concentrating, steadying her mind she cast her thoughts back to the small tricks that Snoro had taught her for amusement. She searched around and gathered a little illusion from the air, wove it about her like a cloak and let it hang there obscuring the crimson and black. The bag and the heart? She could explain those if need be. No need to expend herself too much on too much sorcery.
When she was done, she looked at herself and realised that she looked clean but was leaving bloody footprints inside the room. She could not fix the footprints with magic, so, carefully, she took off her shoes. The hose underneath was not bloodied. Good.
A little additional weave of magic hid the shoes in her hands, and concealed the fact that she was now only wearing hose on her feet. Ready, she left the room.
Having closed the door behind her, she locked it, and ghosted down the hall. The narrow, ill-smelling corridors of the Vaunt were all but silent. Somewhere far away, an echo of chanting stirred the air. The Freer and his monks singing a dirge for their dead lord.
On
ce, she paused, hearing the slow, heavy tread of a guard scuffing along on his patrol. The sound receded, and she pressed on.
There was no guard on her door. She had sent them away as soon as she anticipated the need to come and go unseen tonight.
She slipped back into her warm, safe room, threw the bolt and let out a small wincing sigh. The bag she dropped by the door. She would look in that later. The heart she could cook now or later. There was a spit over the hearth in the chamber.
"Rosa."
She shrieked and nearly dropped the platter.
Sigurd rose from the chair he had been resting in.
"There was no guard on your door, and no one could tell me where you were. I was worried, Rosa." He crossed the floor quickly. "With so much death and suspicion." He held out his hand to her.
"Do not touch me." The spell she had used was the thinnest of illusions, a mere spiderweb of trickery. If his hand brushed hers it would come away red. The near-screaming pitch of her own voice startled even herself.
Sigurd was taken aback. His mouth fell open a little, and he blinked his frank blue eyes. "I... I am sorry. My apologies. I should have waited outside your door. I presumed too much."
"No," said Rosa backing away, "I mean only that... that..."
Sigurd's expression turned into a curious frown, as he glanced for the first time at the trencher.
"Rosa, why do you have a cut of raw meat with you?"
"I..." she was about to say that she had been hungry. That the scullions were all busy or in mourning, and this was all she could find to cook, but she licked her lips and said instead, "You have often said fine words to me, but I must be sure, not hope but know, and now: do you love me, Sigurd?"
He stepped a little closer and brushed away a rogue strand of her dark hair. She took the risk that there was no blood spattered there. The illusion held.
His face was pained. "Rosa? Need you even ask? I love you. I love you with all my soul, heart and being. With my everything. How can you possibly ask me that and not know the answer?"
"And you would do whatever you could to prevent me... coming to harm?"
"I... yes." He sounded puzzled. "Of course. Yes. Rosa, why?"
"Swear to it. Vow an oath upon your own life, or else I shall send you from my chamber now, and you will never set foot in here again."
He looked hurt, and those clear blue eyes were perhaps a little frightened now too. "I swear it."
"No, say it all. Swear all of it."
"I swear upon my honour, upon my life, that I will allow nothing to harm you, Rosa. No danger will visit you while there is breath in my body." He added, "I love you."
She nodded, and felt her eyes threatening to cry. "There has been an accident Sigurd." She breathed deeply. "No, I lie. A murder. The hedge-wizard of the hills, the ugly little hunchback, Snoro came to the Toren Vaunt this very morning in disguise. He came to me and gloated that he and Lilia worked together to murder my father. He threatened me. He said horrible, horrible things. Things I will never repeat. I... I tried to call for help. He attacked me and we struggled. I killed him Sigurd. I stabbed him again and again, with his own knife." She held the trencher at arm's length as if she were afraid of it. "But, then I panicked. He was a witch, and witches, it is said, can work harm from beyond the grave. Everyone knows that if a witch's heart is cut out and burned, then what power they had to do harm by curse and ghost burns too. So..."
"The hunchback's heart," said Sigurd grimly. He seemed less shocked than Rosa expected. Was this the sort of thing that men did to one another on the field of battle?
She nodded.
He took a purposeful step towards her. "I know nothing of witchcraft or warlockry, but if it eases your troubled mind I will throw it upon the hearth now, and heap burning logs upon it."
"Yes, yes, soon enough" she held up a hand, to stop him coming closer. "But I can do that. There is a larger problem. We must be rid of the body. Secretly. Quietly. No one can know. That filthy Snoro must be taken to the crossroads, south out of the village, and buried there. Then his accursed soul will be unable to find its way back here to work vengeance even if the burning of the heart to cinders is of no avail. And we must never speak of it again."
His face was now pale and drawn looking. His eyes were more watery than bright or lively. "I can call on at least two men who I trust, and will ask no questions. I will go and fetch them." His eyes turned thoughtful. "A pale of water, some rags to wrap the witch-corpse in. We can be done with it tonight."
"Yes," said Rosa, "Yes, yes. And chains to bind the body. The room is the third down the hall where my father's chambers were. A small servant's room, it has a grey painted door. Fishing around, she took out the key. "Here. The mess is terrible. It is quite frightful." She laid the platter down, seemingly forgotten, on a table.
"I am sure I have seen worse."
"I forget myself. You are no craven." She showed him a coy smile. "You are my protector, my sworn hero, my paladin."
With that, he took the key, said once more, "I love you, Rosa. Do not ever wonder if I am true." And he left the room.
Rosa was left alone, her shoulders sagging. She barred the door again. Now what? "Heart and spit and fire," she said to herself. "Heart, spit, fire."
-oOo-
"Open the gates." Sigurd's voice rung clear in the late afternoon air, out-thundering even the clatter of hooves on slate. A yawning spear-guard ambled out of the squat gatehouse. His eyes were red and weary, and he rubbed his neck as if it were sore and stiff.
"Who goes there?"
"Thane Sigurd, on business of the Lady of Veld." It had taken all morning and most of the afternoon to clean up the body, fetch chains and blankets and iron pinions.
The guard looked at him, and then at the two other riders, one young, one old, both stern-faced men, armed with bows, and bearing smoking, pitch torches. Between their restive horses was a pony loaded with a heavy bundle of white rags and gauze, bound with thick hemp cord and iron chains. There were mattocks and spades strapped to the pack frame too.
Sigurd narrowed his eyes. "Fedor, is it not?"
The guardsman nodded, "Yes, Thane Sigurd."
"Fedor, I have urgent business on Her Lady's command. We will return before the midnight hour. Have a hot kettle of spiced wine ready, will you? Now, by my command, raise the portcullis. We must make haste."
Fedor said, rather quietly, "I was expecting there to be a trial."
"What?" said Sigurd.
"For the Lady Lilia. I was expecting a trial."
Sigurd let out a small bark of a laugh without meaning to. "This is not Lady Lilia." Then after a momentary pause, he added, "It is a thing that was aiding her. But it is dead now, and we must be rid of it."
"I see," said Fedor. "Then go swiftly, Thane Sigurd, and with my blessing."
"Do not speak a word of this to anyone. There is no reason to make people more afraid than they already are."
"Of course." Fedor stood aside, and gave the order to men in the room above the gate to open the gates.
The three riders went swiftly out as the grinding, clanking portcullis heaved up, not even waiting for it to fully open. They looked as grim and black as phantoms, the ghosts of the dead themselves, bearing away a soul of the newly slain.
Sigurd clutched his reins tighter, and leaning forward in his saddle, he dug in his spurs.
Turf flung up from the rain of hooves, the cold air, now wet with half-frozen sleet, stung their skin as it swirled about them. The night forest rolled away on either side, an endless mass of dancing black trunks and branches. They rode hard, the horses began to wheeze and falter, the pony kicked and protested, and they pressed on. They rode and rode. Until the flanks of their horses were slick with foam from the bit and blood from the spurs. They rode until the wending highway widened and sprawled into a meeting of ways.
As they cantered to the crossroads, a bitter wintry bluster stirred the air and churned the mouldy smelling leaf litter int
o small dancing whirls.
Sigurd leapt from his horse, and tethered the reins to a low branch. Together he, Radewin and Radulf took up their sharp mattocks and cut into the cold earth by the wavering fiery light of the torches. They dug with frantic determination. The air was soon thick with the scent of wet earth and hot sweat.
Sigurd stopped, held his breath, and looked about. "Did you hear that?"
The old man, Radewin, wiping beads of moisture from his face and smearing earth across his brow at the same time, glanced up. "A noise in the night?" He shook his head. "Let us be done with this and gone. I've had enough of darksome terrors for a lifetime."
His son, Radulf, who was resting for a moment, and holding a torch over them, seemed even less certain. He held the torch up higher, and began to walk a circle about the makeshift grave, peering into the shadows. In the seething wind it would be near impossible to hear the subtle, creeping things of the night.
Sigurd climbed out of the grave. "Deep enough," he said, and cast his eyes about. He stared hard at the black canopy, at the weird twisted fingers of branches, at the shadows beneath. "I swear, I heard something again."
"Yes. I did too. Hopefully nothing but wind and badgers," said Radewin as he also climbed out of the hole. "Be quick. Be fast. And let us be done with this."
Together Sigurd and Radewin heaved the body down from the trembling, jittery pony, and laid it on the ground. Clots of red were now visibly streaked the white gauze and linen.
Radulf had walked back over to them now. "More chains," he said, as he handed Sigurd a jangling loop of blackened iron. "And the pinions."
Radewin rubbed his fingers over his old wrinkled chin. "This witch-corpse is restless, I can feel it. Hammer it down quick."
The was another, closer and louder noise in the gathering gloom of evening.
"There again." Sigurd dropped the chains and stood up. His sword slid from his side, and gleamed dully in the fickle light.
"Sigurd," hissed Radewin in his low, base voice, "We are a long way from the weird woods here. Most likely, there is nothing out there but small wild creatures and leaves and wind. It is the hex of the corpse already working on us."
"No," Sigurd raised his hand, "Quiet, listen..." Leaves stirred and skipped through the air, branches tossed back and forth and creaked. "Wrap the corpse in chains quickly and fasten it tight. Here, Radulf, give me your torch." He moved a few steps away into the darkness. "Quickly," he yelled.
They hammered the chains tight over the body in the grave, fastening it down, then heaped dirt back on the body like men possessed. Sigurd stood with his sword tense in one hand and the torch held up high in the other, guttering in the wind.
No sooner had they piled one last heap of leafy sods onto the grave than there arose a sudden clamour of whinnies and scuffs. The horses and pony were rolling their eyes, snorting, prancing in place and kicking wildly. It was a good thing they were tied up, or they would have bolted.
"Calm them," yelled Sigurd, "Calm them!" Tightening his fingers about the smooth hilt of his sword Sigurd began walking towards the beshadowed scrub and trees. They were a long way from the wild woods, here on the main south road, over millpond and past the village. His eyes were wide, yet he moved on, as if he were being drawn to see the presence he was now sure was stalking the night.
He was at least twenty paces away when one of the horses began to scream as if it were in a barn-fire.
"Sigurd."
He spun towards the point in the blackness from which the voice had arisen. Nothing stirred. Irrationally, Sigurd noticed a pungent aroma on the air, like lavender and crushed cinnamon.
"Know this and beware," he said. "I am a thane of Vaunt, my sword is sharp, my honour true. Keep to the shadows, fell ghaist." As he said this he brandished his sword and the now distant torchlight turned its edges to a molten glow.
"Please, Sigurd, let us talk awhile. I have been hunting all day and all night and I am lonely. What are you digging in the dark? It smells ill."
"Back demon, back. I will not let you pass."
The voice was lazy. "You could not stop me."
"My courage will protect me. My vows will protect me. Blessed of Goddesses, Lady in Brightness, deliver me from shadows and the chaos-things of old night." As he said this, a voice, vague and diminished by the storm, called out, "Sigurd." It was Radewin. "We are done. Your horse, here, take your horse."
Quickly he made a decision. Turning, he ran through the heaps of leaves, and sheathed his sword. Without hardly a glance back, he clambered into the saddle. His charger was fidgeting, dancing in place. The pony, held by Radulf, was almost crazed with fear now, and the other horses were little better.
"There is a voice in the night," cried Sigurd.
"I hear nothing but the winds," said Radewin struggling to control his mount, "But I think the horses have more wits than you or me. Let us flee! You are right about one thing. This is an ill-haunted place."
Radewin and Radulf had to do little more than stop holding back the reins. They were at once off at a gallop up the dark, dark road, beneath the tunnel of branches with the pony kicking and galloping behind them. Sigurd paused only a moment longer. He was about to kick his heels, just as something huge, featureless and swift jumped out of the trees, and landed right in the road in front of him. It barred his way.
"I would have a word with you, Sigurd."
Barely controlling the panicking horse, Sigurd screamed back, "I will not listen to your lying, worming tongue, ghaist. I know you for what you are. Shadow of the dead hex-worker. You are buried under chains. Your heart will already be burned to ash. You cannot hurt me."
It laughed. It laughed. Its maw, when opened, was so bloody a red it almost looked like it was on fire.
"You think I am a ghost? No. My words are full of truth now. I am no longer denying myself, Sigurd. I am wild, and free, and... and... perhaps I am no more, nor less, than a wild demon." It laughed again. "A raven told me so."
Squinting through the darkness and a few spits of dribbling rain, Sigurd stared at the heap of shadows with its two burning eyes. "You... you are the great wolf," said Sigurd his voice still holding steady. "The beast that has been slaughtering goats and chooks and dogs."
"Yes, slaughtering," agreed the wolf, but with an ironic hint to its answer that defied Sigurd's understanding. You are right though: there is also a ghost with you, Sigurd. A feeble, moaning, unhappy soul, and though it is thin as mist, I can see it. It cries out for revenge, but you hear only the wind whispering in the trees. It weeps and moans, and you hear only the distant call of an owl. I know it though, I can hear those things that you do not."
"The warlock's shade," said Sigurd.
"Snoro. And here, I thought he was burned to ashes in his own house, but no. No. Do you know what he wails, Sigurd?"
"Kill me or be gone. Trouble me not with your poisonous lies."
"No, but a fine guess. He would say something like that." The wolf smiled and showed sharp, glistening teeth. "But no. He cries this: beware of Rosa, beware, for she has murdered me in cold blood." The wolf-shadow snarled. "Oh, he wails so."
"No," said Sigurd, "you lie... the warlock attacked her. She was lucky with a knife."
Again the monstrous wolf laughed and the air pricked with the sound of it.
"You are blinded, dear Sigurd. Why did she cut out the heart then? The ghost knows. Even now he shrieks in pain."
That made Sigurd pause. The wolfish thing couldn't have known that Rosa had cut out the dwarf's heart unless... well... unless he actually could hear Snoro's dead voice. Sigurd managed to say, eventually, "To burn it. To put an end to the curses of a bedevilled old curse-wright."
"No. She plans to eat it, Sigurd, so the shade says. Why? So that she may devour his sorcery too. And become him. So to speak."
"Lies," yelled Sigurd. He was having more trouble controlling his mount now. The horse's nostrils were flaring, and there was a stink of lathered sweat, and horse urin
e in the air as it pissed in fear.
"Lies? Perhaps. Snoro never had a truthful tongue when alive. Perhaps dead he is just as bad. All the same, you are a good man, Sigurd. I thought I should warn you. There is an old saying in the lands of my birth: Apples and beauty, both may have a worm in them. I see that now. I hope that you can bring yourself to see it."
Just then Sigurd's horse gave up being controlled. It stepped jerkily sideways and snorted. Sigurd looked left, and caught another dark shape stirring in the shadows.
"Goddess of Brightness," he cried, "there are two of you."
"What?" The wolf swung its heavy head around and peered with blazing, gleaming eyes at the dark woods. The other shadowy wolf, which had been lurking in the woods with its glowing eyes, was watching intently. As soon as it realised it had been seen, it turned and fled. With no more than a whisper of sound the first wolf bounded off the road and was gone after it.
The horse needed no more prompting than relaxing the reins. He flew headlong over the road surface, hooves pummelling the earth. As darkness, and cold spits of rain eddied about, Sigurd's mind began to calm a little, and all of a sudden, he was struck with a strange question. How did the wolf know his name?
-oOo-
At the gate, Radewin and Radulf were already off their horses and drinking steaming hot wine from mugs, held tight in trembling hands. They both looked up when Sigurd rode under the gate. Radewin smiled and called out, "Ho there. We were worried we might have to go back for you. Thought you might have fallen from your horse."
He barely glanced at them. His eyes were intent and staring and blurred by cold and wet. His poor horse, Rauthus heaved, and dug his hooves into the hard stone, and stumbled weakly past the upper gatehouse and into the courtyard.
"I am fine," said Sigurd. "I was delayed, that is all. He turned to the stables. "You," he yelled.
Two boys were sheltering from the endless thin rains under the eves of the stables. They looked at him with sudden resigned expressions.
"Take my horse, and see he is well groomed and rested." He swung out of the saddle, and impatiently handed the reins to the first boy, before taking himself up the stairs and through the grand entrance of the keep.
He lost count of how many men and women had to step aside to let him pass. They were all a blur, just as the stairs and ceaseless plaster walls were soon a blur.
"Rosa, Rosa." He hammered at the door, and it swung open on oiled hinges. Sigurd stepped breathless into an empty room. It took him a moment to remember that Rosa had locked the door when he left. Why was it unlocked now? The hearth was bright with coals and there was the now empty platter, and the knife beside it on the largest table in the room. Sigurd stepped gingerly towards it, almost fearing to make a sound. The platter was smeared with the grease and juices of cooked meat. He could smell the rich, persistent aroma.
"Rosa," he called out, more softly.
"She is gone, Thane Sigurd."
"What?" He spun quickly on his heel. It was the chambermaid, the one who limped about like an old woman. The one who Rosa had taken a liking too. "Where?"
"Gone to the north tower, she said. Now, don't yell at me. I tried to tell her that a storm's not a good hour to be wandering about high places, but well, the Lady can be stubborn at times. She got in an odd mood after she was done with her supper, too."
His voice was low, flat, more a demand than a question.
"And what was supper?"
"A pig's heart, Thane Sigurd." She must have seen a crawl of horror on his face. "Hey now," she stammered, "What are you looking so stricken for? There's naught peculiar in that. A little tough, mind, heart-meat, but they say it's good for one's strength."
But she might as well have been chattering to herself for all that Sigurd heard her. The world began to feel distant. The maid's voice was a suffocated whisper, and Sigurd found his throat constricting, as sharp, short breaths struggled through his windpipe. Out the door, and running, running, running. He nearly knocked over an old washerwoman carrying a heap of laundry as he careered down the hall.
There were one hundred and forty two narrow, treacherous steps to be climbed by anyone who had an urge to see the view from the north tower. Sigurd had counted them as a boy, long ago on a visit to the Toren from his family home. Now he scrambled up them faster than he had ever done, his legs straining, his lungs threatening to burst.
Slamming the oaken door open he stumbling out, barely able to wheeze, "Rosa, Rosa? Are you here?"
"Sigurd. You have come to me?"
She was standing by the lichen and bird-stained parapets. She had changed clothing since he last saw her, and a long, velvety dress of midnight red, danced and fluttered around her. Through her hair ran beads of sleet and rain, and her face was white with cold.
"Rosa," he stumbled forward. "The witch-corpse is buried, but... but... we met a creature there. A shadow. It said some things. Troubling things."
She turned back to the storm, tilting her face up into the wind.
"You should not believe words spoken by apparitions of the forest, Sigurd. They are fibbing spirits. I know that now. I understand that and so much else."
"Rosa?"
"I understand the patterns in the flight of crows. See there below us," she pointed a graceful hand at the darkness below. "They fly for me on the wind. I called them. They would not normally fly in the night. I understand the weave of clouds, and the wheel of stars, even the dance of cold rain on the wind. I see it all, all the mystery of night, day and earth is laid bare for me, Sigurd." She began to cry. "It is beautiful. I wish you could know."
Opening his mouth to speak, Sigurd found he had no words, and fell back to silence.
"Father is here too, Sigurd." She paused and turned her glistening eyes to the empty air. "No father, he cannot see you. You are nothing but mist to him." Then she turned slightly towards Sigurd and smiled over her shoulder. "He will not leave me alone. He loves me, you know. Too much. Always too much. I wonder if we should bury him at the crossroads too."
"Rosa?"
Hanging her head she looked suddenly weak. "Sigurd," she whispered, "I never imagined it would be like this." Then drawing a deep breath she turned, and walked towards him. Her dark eyes were wet now. "Hold me."
Stepping forward a few swift paces he met her half way. She clung to him so close he could smell her perfume, and when she breathed deeply he could detect something else: something warm and roasted lingering on her breath. Her hands and face were cold, chilled through, and she was trembling. He put his arms tighter around her, unsure.
"It will all be different now, Sigurd. We will live in laughter, and we will be together. I will make the court a place of wonder and beauty. I will have jugglers and troubadours and tumblers. We will feast every day. The hall will be hung with gold and fiery lights."
He nodded. Lightning flashed in a pale, distant blaze, and a few heartbeats latter thunder rolled in like a stormy wave upon the air. The foggy clouds and rain soaked them, and water trickled over clothing, skin and hair.
"Say you love me, Sigurd. I just want to hear it."
"I do." His voice trembled, "I have already sworn that once tonight: I love you."
"I know." She clung a little closer. "I just needed to hear it. I am scared of what is to come. There are others, you know. I understand now. I was such a fool. They knew what was happening. They knew about father and his attentions. Did they not, father?" The wind moaned low and whispery around the tower. "He says that they did not, but that is his pride." She tilted her chin up, and frowned, whispering as if someone else were there with them, on the tower, eavesdropping. "He thought he was being secretive. But they all suspected at least. And they let it happen. Mother suspected, and she did nothing." That last word was a violent hiss. "But I knew about her. I knew all about her tremulous, weeping inability to protect me, long ago. There is nothing so poisonous as the betrayal of one's own parents." All of a sudden she laughed, and throwing her head back she smile
d bitterly.
"Father says that a daughter's betrayal is just as poisonous." She kept clinging to Sigurd. Of course, they will have to be dealt with, all of those who knew and did nothing." She smiled almost slyly. "But the Freer. Of his fate, I am still unsure. He was not trying to keep you and I apart, he was trying to keep me apart from father. So, now I am unsure. He acted wrongly, but perhaps the Freer's heart was in the right place after all. I will have to think on it, make up my mind, but for now--"
"I do not understand."
"Of course you would not." She smiled and brushed his lips with her fingers. "You are such a sweet, good man, Sigurd." She hugged him. "So simple, in your way. For you, the world is full of plain-speaking, dull, happy things. In your world, no problem is too sinewy for your sword. That is why you do not understand. If you were a wicked man, then you would guess."
"But, I--"
"Hush," and she raised a finger to his mouth, "hush. I will take care of everything. No need for your strong sword. I have means of my own now, Sigurd. There will be only a little more suffering, and then everything will be beautiful. But now... I am so weary. So tired. The art drains so much out of the blood you know. Saps you of warmth and life and wakefulness. Snoro said once that a person needs to draw on something--a spirit, a demon, object of power, place of enchantment--or working sorcery will kill you. Sooner or later. I think Snoro drew on his book somehow. It is an object of power. I will have to understand how he used it."
She said nothing more, but they stood for how long? Sigurd could not know. The rain grew in intensity until it lashed around them. The moss-encrusted eves of the slate roof dripped like a waterfall. He wondered if he had ever been so thoroughly soaked by rain. It was some time before he realised that she had fallen half-asleep in his arms.
She murmured happily as he lifted her up. For a brief moment he stood there with her cradled in his arms staring out at the tumbling darkness beyond the parapets where the rain-winds howled. Then, slowly, he turned about and began the long, dark descent down one hundred and forty two stairs.
-oOo-
Kveldulf sped through the night on dream-made paws, a silent shadow with hunting, searching eyes. There: a crack of lightning rent the skies, and in that brief moment he saw it: a huge, sleek shape, outlined in silver-white against the stormy air. Pausing gracefully in mid-step, she stared back at him, and her eyes were lit like two reflective moons.
Branches snapped and thrashed aside as he sped through the forest. Now a hint of lavender came to him on the wind, now a muddy print stood out in a shimmer of storm-lit puddles, and now a tangle of underbrush rustled farther up the slope.
He was gaining on her.
"I have seen you," he cried out to her, "I know," he screamed and wondered if he was losing not only his last shreds of humanity, but also his last dregs of sanity.
He sprang out into an open glade. Through the curtains of pouring rain he glimpsed a shadow of something black ghost away deeper into the farthest knot of undergrowth.
He leapt in pursuit, and the cold, wet air crashed about him. Into the dark tangle, he bounded, over fallen logs and under heavy, wet branches. Waiting for him, in the next glen, unexpectedly, there she was: Sitting poised on the bole of a huge mossy, tumbled oak watching the clouds churn above them both. She was like a portrait of shadows, barred here and there with darker inks of black.
"I know you," he said, and padded forward. Wind turned her fur to tassels. Her amber eyes, which slowly, languidly lit upon him, were rich with secrets and answers.
With a voice that shivered and caught in his throat he spoke. "I have hunted you since that day when first we met. I have doubted you, and then doubted myself." A hundred years ago, when he had not quite given up all hope of this moment, he had practised the words in his head every night, "You murdered my wife, my children, and now... now, I..."
"And now?"
He shook his head exhausted, "Why? Answer me that. Why?"
Her expression filled with a strange kindness, and her voice grew almost motherly. "At first? Because, you are my death. I knew it then, years and years ago in the snow. I know it now. When I tire of this existence, then it will be pleasant to know I have a death to call upon. What would you give to have a death of your own?"
He was silent. Stunned. Wordless. He shook his head and said, "For that, you have done this to me?"
"Do you not crave death too, my lovely child? Would you not treasure an end to the eternal hunt? You, if anyone, should understand. You know this is true. You have lived, as I have lived. You know."
"No. No matter how deeply I might desire death, no matter how long I have sought an eventual end, I would not, would never do this to another."
"You would not? Brave words. Fine words." Her voice turned rich with tempting, knowing tones. "But do not speak those words too soon. I can show you how to find your own death, if you wish." Those eyes of storm-lit gold narrowed. "What price would you pay for it? What price might you make another pay, so that you might have an end to the everlasting hunt, ready and waiting for when you want it? Ready for the moment you grow tired of this existence?" She breathed out a whisper of a sigh. "But has it not been interesting? We have wandered the world together, you and I. We have shared in so much. You always forget--always make yourself forget--but this is not the first time we have spoken. We have hunted together, run together, loved together in the wild." A silence. "So many times. And you always forget. I might, in time, feel slighted, dear one."
He swallowed hard. Hesitated. "I..." but finding no answer said instead, "Lies."
"I speak only the truth." That voice was so self-sure now. "You are fun when you run feral and wild. And you have been pleasant, and convenient. But I am not yet weary of the great and endless hunt--though I think you are." She shook her head, blinked her amber-gold eyes. "I can find another death, given time. I know that now. Fate is not so immutable as I once supposed. I can find another one to be my lover and my killer."
"No."
"Come with me, my hunting wolf. Run with me. Let us sprint wild in the night, hunt and tear and rend. And then, in the morning, you can make yourself forget again. Give into the call of the wolf."
"No."
She narrowed her eyes. "Then say the word, and I will teach you how to find your own death. The arts and secrets needed to find it. Release... my fine, would-be death... release." She paused. "If you want it." She was enjoying this. He could hear it in her velvety voice, and smell it in the scent of breath.
"Finally, again. No. I will not run wild with you. I will not be with the creature who murdered everyone I ever loved."
Licking her red tongue over waxy lips she shook her silver-black fur. "How long will you cling that particular falsehood? How long will you imagine me to be the root of all your evil? Dear heart and beloved," her voice turned poisonous, "I never touched your family."
Stepping forward, a low shudder of anger rumbled in his throat.
Jerking her nose up, she blinked twice: "Too late, my death" she whispered, "I wake."
It was as if in one moment a net, which had held her in shape, was let loose and the wind, finding a new plaything, took her away. Fur like old silver, eyes like gold and amber, teeth like ivory, all of it turned to spidersilk and smoke, and blew away on the air.
Kveldulf threw himself upon the oaken bole, thrashing and biting. He tore at the silken mist in vain. Anger swelled in him. His skull was pounding with it.
There were watchmen upon the gates of the Toren Vaunt who heard the howl as it rolled through the endless night, and their eyes widened, and their voices dropped. Men and women in warm beds were awoken by it. Babes, shaken from sleep, in their cots. And more than one soul wondered if the Night Queen's children themselves had come to the Veld.