Old Dark Things

CHAPTER THE FIFTH

  Ofrah lived in a little cottage at the edge of the Hamlet of Veld. She thought of herself as a sound sleeper, but tonight lay restless. Her sleep, when it came, was shallow. When she woke suddenly, she sat bolt upright in bed, not knowing why. She rubbed a hand over her flabby, wrinkle-trenched cheeks and squinted into the shadows. The bedroom of her house was as black as any tin-mine, except for one thin knife of moonlight, let in by a knot in the shutters. At the foot of the bed two growls thrummed. Trotter and Waggen were snarling, and though Ofrah could not see them, she could imagine their black muzzles all wrinkled up and their canines bared.

  "Good dogs," murmured Ofrah. "Is there a fox outside?" The low rumbles continued and Ofrah lay down, shutting her eyes, trying to drift herself back to sleep. Having been alone since her husband died, the two dogs were her closest family. "There, there," whispered Ofrah as she let her breathing slow. "Only a fox."

  The shriek that split the night sounded like a devil. Ofrah's eyes opened wide. She clutched the edge of her quilt to her chin. Trotter and Waggen were pacing about the room now, their yelps and snarls were becoming frantic. It took a moment to think what the sound could possibly have been. Then the squabbling and clucking began. The henhouse... someone had torn the iron bolt from the henhouse and now they were in with the chickens.

  Ofrah cursed and climbed out of bed. She wrapped the quilt about her shoulder and went to the window. The floor beneath her bare feet was icy cold. Trotter and Waggen were barking. Leaning up to the bar of silver light, peeping through the hole, it was hard to see much more than shapeless shadows and the ghostly outlines of flapping chickens.

  Must be a chook-thief. Anger flushed her face. How dare they? How dare someone prey on a poor widow? With trembling fingers Ofrah undid the window catch and opened it a little. The beam of moonlight widened like a spreading fan.

  "You there! Hoy! I've two big pig-hounds here! Halloo! Get away! I've got me dogs here and I'll let them at you. Hoy!"

  Just as she finished saying this a horse came into view. It looked at her. No. Not a horse. Ofrah stumbled backwards.

  She tried to shut the window but was too slow and was knocked off her feet by something heavy. It took her a moment to realise that Waggen had leapt out the window. A moment later a second shape followed.

  "No, no, no..." Ofrah crawled up to the windowsill. Peeking over it she watched as Trotter and Waggen went at the beast. Trotter's neck made a sickening crunch as the creature's jaws closed on it. Waggen was barking and barking as Ofrah slammed the shutters. A moment later and the barking ending with a high-pitched yelp.

  On hands and knees Ofrah crawled across the floor. She was looking at everything at once. Breathing hard and erratic, she crawled under her bed. With the quilt still bunched up, now cocooning her, she lay there trembling.

  The window shutters thudded as something violent struck them from the outside. They shook again, and Ofrah retreated a little further under the bed.

  As the windows thudded with a third time Ofrah began to cry.

  -oOo-

  Kveldulf rose earlier than usual. He splashed cold water from a wooden basin over his face and chest, and then set about trimming his beard with a pair of shears. Before leaving the room, Kveldulf put the feather back around his neck and hid it under his shirt.

  The fortress was hushed throughout. A lot of people would be feeling under the weather. He saw no one as he walked, though heard now and again a scuffle, or cough, or closing door--small signs of a household beginning the day. In the great hall, most of the revellers were still asleep, the few who moved about were groggy and silent.

  Though Kveldulf blinked against the brighter light outside, the sun was little more than an orange orb above distant mountains. The morning half-glow lent everything a jewel-like quality. It was too early. He yawned and thought about how his eyes felt as if they were packed with sand.

  A crowd of early-risers were gathered by the shattered door, staring and pointing. Kveldulf walked up to them.

  "Look at the grooves, there and there, those are claw marks."

  "What would break the door from the inside?"

  "A bear?"

  "What about Toothless Bertha, has anyone checked to see if she hasn't gone and escaped?"

  "She's almost too old for baiting now, let alone knocking down doors. And she's locked by bolt and chain in the east tower."

  "All the same, someone ought to check."

  Kveldulf added nothing and waited only long enough to look over the door. It was a heap of kindling.

  As he walked away the voices faded to a murmur. At the gates three guards in their tabards of deep red stood in a knot, whispering to one another.

  "Good morning," said Kveldulf as he passed.

  Once out the gate, he ambled, stopped and rested his hands on the low wall that snaked like an endless grey caterpillar beside the cliff-cut road. From here he could take in a fine view of the forest, fields, and distant hills of the Veld. The air was still warming, and mist hung in the deeper hollows and gullies. The hamlet below was just beginning to wake.

  It would be a long walk to the pool. At least two hours. And then what? Kveldulf traced his gaze from the tranquil millpond to the stream that fed it, and then the wispy pennants of fog that marked a river's course through the woods.

  He would find the pool first, fish up the curse and have a good look at it. It may be something he had seen before. A simple charm. Something he could counterspell. But the reek of sorcery had been very strong. It was more probably a thing of more than moderate power. Something born of old magic. Care would be needed.

  He decided to cross that bridge when he came to it.

  Farther away, some distance from the road that cut through the autumnal canopy, a pale minaret of chimney smoke threaded the air. Kveldulf remembered the small cottage, and an old woman who could set the air on fire with yellow light.

  Adjusting his doeskin cloak, and checking over the pouches and scabbards that hung from his belt one last time, Kveldulf set off.

  -oOo-

  If anything, the pool was deeper in the forest than Kveldulf remembered. His memory of the dreams was always hazy, sometimes he recalled only a sense of exquisite freedom, on other nights he recalled nothing at all. The stretch of water was wide, but shallow. It formed a mirror for the autumn canopy above. Rubbing grit and moss from his hands, Kveldulf crouched at the edge of the pool.

  He rolled up a sleeve and reached into the icy water. Ripples spread through the reflections. His fingers glanced over smooth rocks and slick mud. Grit and pebbles. An old rotten branch.

  And something sharp.

  A rock. He felt it again. The edges were all jagged and split. It was new to the river. He overturned the stone and touched something fragile and slippery that had been pinioned beneath it. Immediately he withdrew his hand. Cold water ran down his arm.

  That slight brush of his finger had allowed a whisper of magic to leap and crawl along his skin. It was bleak magic. Cold. Clammy. Rotten.

  Gingerly, Kveldulf reached back into the water, grit his teeth and lifted the soft thing out of the water. He laid it on a dry flat stone. It did not look like much. A manikin, no larger than a child's doll and crudely made from clay, moss and twigs. Tufts of grey hair stuck out of the head at all angles and what looked like half-moon fingernails jutted from the torso.

  Kveldulf pressed a cold, wet hand to his beard and wondered what to do. A witching doll was a common enough curse, but a dangerous thing to simply destroy. The violence of the destruction could convey harm to the victim. And this one stank of magic something powerful. The spells that bound the doll and man wasn't familiar to him. When he thought about it, the sorcery didn't quite smell human.

  Too wet to be moved for now, the manikin would have to dry in the sunlight. Kveldulf, still tired from the night, looked about. A nearby aspen looked like an inviting place to rest. He sat down and made himself comfortable. His eyelids drooped. Reassured by the so
und of wind and water he began to doze. When Kvedulf slept by day he did not dream. His sleep was peaceful. When the dreams had first come to him, he had tried to stay awake at night, sleeping by day. But that had only lasted a year or so.

  He woke slowly.

  Stretching, yawning, he sat upright. How long had he been asleep? The sun was sitting more or less at noon and the shadows of the forest were all short and stubby.

  He sat upright, and feeling a twinge of stiffness in his left leg, began kneading the sore muscles. As he was doing this Kveldulf looked at the manikin.

  It was gone.

  He leapt to his feet, and cursing himself he prowled about the stony riverbank. There were no footsteps in the marshy soil, no traces at all in the leaf-litter.

  Then he looked up.

  "You."

  "Me." The raven flapped its glossy wings, and craned its head to one side, fixing Kveldulf with one golden eye. Beside the raven, resting in a crook of a branch, was a small clayey lump. Grey hair fluttered in the wind.

  "If you do not return that to me..."

  "You will do what?" The raven's voice was taunting. "Yell curses? Throw sticks and acorns? Chatter like an angry squirrel?"

  "I'm going to turn you into a feather collar for my cloak."

  "Oh. Well, in that case here you are." The raven stooped down, and plucked up the clay doll up.

  Kveldulf looked at the distance. "No! Don't drop it."

  "Mwhat?" mumbled the raven. He put the manikin down. "Now he wants it, now he doesn't want it. Make up your mind."

  "I am going to wring your neck."

  "I doubt it."

  "So what do you want?" said Kveldulf.

  "A nice nest, a witty talkative wife, two chicks, a..."

  "From me."

  "Ahhhh," said Gnissa, "the question." He ruffled his feathers, and quirked his head to one side. "You know, I had not really considered it. It just seemed like a good idea at the time. Tell you what, promise me a favour, and I'll give you back the clay toy."

  "A favour? That is always the worst sort of bargain. I'll end up married to your sister."

  The raven croaked and flapped his wings. "If I had a sister she would have better taste than the likes of you. Take it or leave it. Me? I don't care one way or another."

  Kveldulf brow darkened. "Very well, then."

  Gnissa scooped up the manikin, spread his wings, and fell from the branch. He swept in a low, swift arc and beat his wings furiously as he neared the ground. At the point where he was a few feet above Kveldulf he dropped the clay manikin.

  Kveldulf watched it tumble towards him and cupping his hands, he caught it. Touching the doll caused a chill to itch across his skin. The magic tingled and pricked. Night-begotten bird." In the cloud-streaked sky a black blotch was already vanishing. "Damned creature."

  It was early afternoon by the time Kveldulf arrived at the cottage in the woods. Smoke was still leaking from the chimney, and he could also hear the clattering of a pot and spoon and mingled with that a woman's voice shambling through a folksy song.

  He went to the door and raised his hand to knock, but Helg's voice called out, "Come in," before he had a chance to. Not really knowing what to expect, he pushed open the door.

  The place was more spacious than most cottages. The walls were daubed with white plaster and the rafters dripped with dried herbs, flowers and cuts of meat, all airing in the smoky space.

  Helg was crouched over a pot by the hearth. Fixing her one eye on Kveldulf she said, "Ah, come to visit already have you? Here sit yourself down. I've pottage on the boil, and eggs frying in goose fat. Get some food into you--that's what you needs after a long night in the woods, I 'spect?"

  As he sat at the table, Kveldulf noticed knife scores and bloodstains on the wood. A moment later they were covered up as Helg laid a trencher down and heaped it with old bread, pottage and greasy eggs.

  "Eat up, eat up. It only gets colder." She laid out a something for herself and sat down. "You know," she said as she poked at a yolk with a hank of bread, "Don't believe that I've ever met anyone with your particular, um, talent. I was hoping you'd come back with your skin on. The other you, the nocturnal you, it gives me the creeps, so to speak, so to speak."

  "I did not mean to scare you."

  "No harm done. Now, I've been thinking about your particular problem. I presume that is why you're here. Try the eggs. They're good and fresh." She sat back and cleared her throat, "Now where was I? Yes. I was trying to dredge up all the odd bits and pieces I know. There is a belief that some are born accursed--you know them by the membranous caul they are born in, or a blood clot held in their fist, or their long fingernails--sharp and unnatural for a babe."

  "Indeed? I was born quite normal, so far as my mother ever mentioned. Yourself?"

  "Quite normal. Thank you for asking. Such courtesy. Such courtesy. It is of course just what they say. And you cannot really trust them at all, not at all, not at all."

  "Who?"

  "Oh," she waved a hand, "all of them really. There is also a belief that any curse can be lifted by flogging the poor person with a rod made of nine new birch twigs, and then scrubbing all over in a tub of year-old whey, then a tub of butter-milk, then a tub of new milk."

  "Does it work?"

  She shrugged her shawl-wrapped shoulders, "Don't know. Don't know. Never tried it. An awful lot of scrubbing if you ask me. And expensive. I 'spect it's one of those curse-cures that were invented for the amusement of observers. Or to increase sales of milch-cows. Hmmm, now some say there are charms that can be whispered to calm a wolf. Wolves teach the words to their wives so that the wife can command the wolf to not kill her in a rage. I have also heard of a man of the south, in a city called Rjenburg who makes his entire living going from house to house and whispering mysterious words to horses and kine to protect them from wolves." Helg blew on the pottage and smacked her old, puckered lips before tasting it and smiling. "Ah the rhubarb makes the difference. Always make pottage with rhubarb. That being what my mother used to say, so she did. Have you considered drinking rainwater from the paw prints of a hundred wolves?"

  "No, I hadn't thought of it."

  "Or if you were given a girdle of wolf-skin leather by the Winter King, you could burn it. Some say that will do away with the curse."

  "I wasn't. Who would put on such a belt?"

  "True, true. I suppose the Goddesses of Night and her children are a little after your time anyway, eh?" She tched. "I don't know enough about the very oldest gods: those who walked the earth before the gods who were before the gods. I suppose you must remember them though, with their bloodstained groves and their hanging trees?" She slurped up some pottage. "You need an old fix for an old ailment. How old are you, if a rude woman may ask?"

  "Older than you and younger than the Clay-o-the-Green." Kveldulf stirred the pottage and tasted it. "Old enough to have grown a little tired of living."

  She nodded. When her one good eye blinked the flesh around the other scarred socket twitched. "Lay it on the table then. That present you've brought me. I can feel it from here. It has a greasy, slimy power to it. You couldn't have just come by to say hello could you?" She sighed. "No one ever just stops by to have tea with one-eyed Helg. Always have to have to bring something nasty for me to fix."

  Kveldulf laid the bundle of linen, now muddied and stained, on the table. He unfolded it corner-by-corner, until the whole crumbling doll lay supine on the table. Helg leaned forward and licked her withered lips.

  "Humph," she said, "an old charm and an ugly one. There's hair and blood and nails of the victim bound up in the clay and moss. It's a man yes? The Eorl? I think there may be semen in this too." She sat back and waved a swollen-knuckled hand over the manikin. "Ugly, ugly magic."

  "It was hidden in the river."

  "As the water eats away at it, devouring it a smidgen at a time, the victim rots away just the same, just the same. Until the doll withers away to a skeleton of twigs and the victim
..."

  "Can you undo it?"

  "Yes. I can remove the sorcery in a gentle fashion. Hum and humph, but someone is playing with fire, they are. Putting curses on Eorls is a dangerous hobby. There may well be necks stretched."

  "Perhaps. Can you tell whose work it is?"

  "I can guess. Snoro, most likely. He traffics in this sort of thing, petty charms and simples and cantrips which he calls his great magic."

  "Why would he want the Eorl dead?"

  A shrug. "Gold, probably. Someone's put him up to it no doubt. That creature does nothing for nothing."

  "That raven that was lurking about last night, Gnissa, you saw him in the trees, I think. Is Snoro his the owner?"

  "Owner?" A trickle of pottage ran out of the corner of her lips as she laughed. She wiped it away. "Excuse me. By the two great goddesses, no. No one owns old Gnissa. I suppose you could call them friends, if such creatures have friends. They are odd sorts. Snoro is among the last of the Nibelung, the heirs of the malformed and hunchbacked king Alberich. There are rumours Snoro was banished from his homeland in the north because of some crime. Me? I prefer not to make guesses about his sort. In the old legends, his kind were born from maggots in the flesh of the earth. Who can fathom the mind of a maggot?" She cleared her throat. "But as for his little charm? I will grind it to dust and cast the filth into the night wind to scatter and cleanse. And no fee, either. I won't take a copper gawn, not for this. "Helg smiled. "Let him stamp his feet and curse me for a has-been whore. I'm not afraid of that one. It's time he learnt that there are deeper magics than his. Mine are the secrets taught from mother to daughter since thrice-born, thrice-burned Gullveig. My arts are stronger than anything that shall ever be written in sorcerer's books. Harumph. Books? Whoever heard of learning sorcery from a book?"

  Kveldulf's walk back took him through woods thick with autumn russet. The track he followed was narrow and overgrown. It was used by no one except Helg and her occasional visitors.

  When he returned to the village, he found an air of worry there. People were going about their errands quickly. The guards on the gate had been doubled, and were now armed with boar-spears, sturdy weapons with a crossbar to prevent a skewered animal from struggling up the shaft. Milling about in the cobbled enclosure of the fortress courtyard more armed men stood by, while carpenters worked on a new ironbound door.

  Kveldulf entered the keep. He wondered who had gathered the hair, nails and blood necessary for the curse. Or had the corpora been taken innocently but fallen into the hands of ill-wishers? His footsteps changed from thin stony patters to resounding echoes that went deeper ahead of him.

  All of a sudden Kveldulf turned a corner and found that his way was blocked by a small crowd. Above the rise and fall of conversation there was a shriller wail; a middling-to-old woman was leaning and sobbing, into the arms of a plumper, younger one. The two bore enough of a resemblance to suggest to Kveldulf that they were blood relations.

  Among the onlookers was the old matron who'd gone after Lilia last night. The Eorl's sister, according to Sigurd. Kveldulf edged around the crowd, then approached her. "Excuse me? Lady Ermengarde?"

  Only glancing at him briefly, she replied, "That's right. Though I've only the faintest idea who you are. Some hireling of Sigurd isn't it? What's your trade? Hunting?"

  "Hunting, yes. I am Kveldulf Kaldulfsson, huntsman and hireling to Sigurd."

  "Strange accent you have. Northern?"

  "I was born in the far north and a long way west." He paused. It might not be what he was afraid of. "Has something happened here?"

  "In Sorthe?" she asked, suspiciously.

  "Beyond Sorthe actually. The name won't mean anything to you, but I was born in the town of Lithrasir." He nodded towards the small gathered crowd. "Has there been a death?"

  "No." She smiled, wryly, sadly. "Well, not quite." She spoke a little quieter. "It was a wolf. Seems that last night Ofrah woke to a terrible din. She peeked out her window and saw a great, black wolf in her yard. It tore up her coop and slaughtered every last hen. Killed her two dogs, too. Poor things. They were her children." Shaking her head slowly she said, "She was always spoiling them. Well, the wolf bit through both their necks as easily as that." She snapped her fingers. "Ofrah hid under her bed the rest of the night, and most of the morning too. She came tottering in the gate a little while ago, all teary and dirty, looking for her sister."

  "A wolf," said Kveldulf. He would have to move on if she was growing bold again. Soon.

  "Yes. You're a huntsman, you say? Well, your timing is good. Mareschal Alaric has called a hunt for this afternoon. This wolf will have to be found and killed. I'm sure you would be much appreciated."

  "Yes. Perhaps. Sigurd. I ought to find Sigurd. Is he about?"

  "Sigurd will be in the yards somewhere. Helping with the harness or hounds, I expect."

  "Thank you."

  He found Sigurd in the stables, working a bristly brush over the pelt of a slightly skittish, very lively gelding the colour of smouldered oil. His crisp blond hair was sweaty and dusty.

  "Good afternoon," said Kveldulf.

  Sigurd looked up. "Good afternoon to you. You must have been out since dawn. No one could find you anywhere. If you hadn't left things in your room I might of thought you'd run off." He wiped sweat from his brow. The tunic he wore was damp and covered with fine dark horsehairs. "Have you heard about the wolf? The hunt should be something."

  Kveldulf nodded. "I'm afraid I do not think I will be joining you. There is something else I must attend to." Sigurd was about to protest when Kveldulf cut him off. "We should talk. Alone."

  Sigurd nodded and they went a little farther into the stables.

  "I have found the root of Eorl's curse. The sickness should be lifted soon."

  Sigurd's mouth twitched into a smile. He laughed out loud, throwing his head back, and laid a hand on Kveldulf's shoulder. "But that is wonderful. We should tell Rosa at once. She will be delighted. We should tell the whole of the Toren Vaunt."

  "No." Kveldulf lowered his voice. " What matters now is this: the charm needed blood, hair and nails of the victim. It was a powerful hex and the would be murderer must have a powerful reason to want Eorl Fainvant dead. This won't be the end of it."

  "But... whoever fashioned the curse must have taken those things from his body."

  "And so the murderer is close to the Eorl. Possibly very close. And with the curse broken, the assassin may well fall to less subtle methods. Does the Eorl have any bastard children? Disowned cousins? Unhappy kinsmen? Mistresses?"

  "Most lords leaves a litter of bastards. He's had his share of young things to warm his bed, I wager, but he has treated each fairly, far as I know. I'll ask the chancellor quietly, but I believe there's coin set aside to provide a little here and there for any of his, er... begotten. Displeased cousins then? Jealous kinsmen?" Sigurd made a show of shrugging. "There may be. I don't pay a lot of attention to the gossips."

  They stood in silence then. Kveldulf looked at his feet, in thought.

  "Is Rosa in danger do you think?" said Sigurd.

  Kveldulf shrugged and attempted something like a reassuring smile, though suspected that he only managed an uncertain sort of expression.