How could she know about the birds? Had Hinrik told her? Eydis was leaning forward, her face turned towards me. She touched her heart and bowed her head. I knew she was making me a promise. Did she really have the power and knowledge to help me catch the falcons? Time was running out. On my own I could search for days, weeks, months, and even then not catch one. But could I trust her? I had been so suspicious of Vítor, Marcos and Fausto, and they had only ever tried to help me. I had to begin trusting people again, and Eydis might be my only chance. All she wanted me to do was dream.
No, no, I couldn’t. The thought of being sent into a sleep from which I couldn’t rouse myself was terrifying. Suppose the ground started to shake again and I couldn’t wake up. Suppose I became one of those people again … that child, that woman being buried alive. I wouldn’t be able to wake and escape from it. I’d be trapped with them.
‘I can’t. I don’t want to dream … I don’t want to go back to that forest ever.’
‘Help us,’ Hinrik repeated. His voice was heavy with despair.
I glanced over at the others. They were all occupied. Vítor had finally cornered Marcos and they were engrossed in a whispered conversation which, judging by their grim faces, neither was enjoying. Ari was sharpening his knife against a stone, his head jerking up every now and then, listening out for anyone approaching the entrance to the cave.
Unnur and her daughters were preparing a dish of dark grey lichen. In the farm they had soaked it in milk, but they had no milk now, just water, and even they were wrinkling up their noses as they sampled it. I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. I was about to drink a potion to send me into a sleep from which I might never wake and they were simply cooking as if they were back at their own hearth.
‘Help us,’ Hinrik whispered.
Shakily I walked across to Eydis. It was only a few paces, yet somehow I couldn’t think how to move. Sweat was running down my face and my back was soaked with it. I crumpled down on to the rock. Eydis placed the beaker between us. Through her thick veil I could see a glint of her eyes watching me, but I knew she would not force me to drink. She would wait for me to choose.
I was shaking so much I had to grasp the beaker in both hands. I was afraid I would spill it all. I sniffed at it and caught the tang of stale sweat – valerian! I almost smiled; that was the herb Marc0s had picked when poor Fausto had accused him of trying to poison us. But there was something else in this dark liquid too, something I did not recognize.
Hinrik was standing behind Eydis. This time his whisper was so faint, I only saw his lips moving, but I knew what he was begging me to do. Eydis touched her hand again to her heart, swearing. The falcons. She would give me the falcons! I raised the beaker, and without giving myself time to think, I gulped the bitter liquid.
For a moment or two I had to fight to stop myself vomiting, but I managed to master it. The flames in Unnur’s cooking fire were spinning around the dark walls, the floor of the cave tipped sideways, and for a moment I thought the cave must be shaking again, but no one else seemed to notice. I was so dizzy I had to lie down. My eyes closed.
I am standing in the forest. Not a single star pierces the thick blackness. It’s as if all the light in the world and in the heavens above has been snuffed out. The branches of the trees creak in the wind. The dry leaves whirl around me, stinging my skin. But I am alone. No family hurries beside me. I cling to the rough trunk. My eyes ache as I strain into the darkness. My stomach clenches as I wait in terror for the men who will emerge from behind the rough trunks, but they don’t come. I don’t know what to do, where to go. I’m more afraid, now that I am alone, than I had been when I was running from the men. It’s as if I have been severed from life.
‘You have courage. I sensed that the moment I felt you step on to this land. You have courage, but you must find more.’
I spin round, but can see no one.
‘Eydis?’ I ask. ‘Where are you?’
‘Where you are. But you must listen – there is little time. We need to tell you what you must do.’
‘But I can’t do anything to help you. Hinrik is dead. I can’t bring him back to life. I have to leave the cave and find the white falcons. Hinrik said you would give them to me. I need two white falcons to save my father’s life and the lives of others too. Please, if you know where the falcons are, you have to tell me.’
I gaze around desperately trying to see her, but I can see nothing except the trees. Yet her strong voice weaves in and out through the moaning wind and the shivering branches.
‘We know what you seek, but unless you help us, you will not live to help your father. Listen to us, Isabela. The spirit of the dead man who lies in the cave has entered the body of my sister, Valdis. As long as the iron circle remains unbroken around Valdis’s body, the draugr’s spirit cannot leave the cave. But if we are freed from the iron, then the draugr’s spirit will be freed to leave the cave.
‘The mountain of fire is stirring and the water in the pool is answering. You felt the cave shake. The water is heating fast, soon the cave will be filled with scalding steam and every living thing in it will perish. That is why Fannar wants to break the iron hoops, so that Valdis and I can escape before we die.
‘But once outside the cave I will be unable to control the spirit in my sister. If we are released, then we will be dragged by him into malice and evil for generations to come. We will not be able to die. We will be forced to commit acts of terrible vengeance and destruction as he grows ever stronger. The draugr devours men. Birds that fly over him fall dead from the sky. Wherever he passes, humans and animals are driven mad, so that men attack their own wives, swearing they are hideous demons, and mothers drink the blood of their own babes. As the strength of the draugr grows, so he will have the power to turn summer into eternal winter, to turn day into night, a night of terror and destruction that will not end even for those he kills, for they in turn will rise again as draugr themselves. That is why Fannar and Ari must not release us.’
‘But you will die, Eydis … scalded to death,’ I tell her. ‘You can’t mean to do it … it is … a terrible death. And if you do die, what will happen to the spirit of the d … that thing then? What will happen to you?’
The branches of the trees in the dark forest bend lower. The wind rises higher, as if a great storm is running towards us.
‘If we die still bound in iron, neither his spirit nor ours can ever leave the cave. We will be trapped with him for ever.’ Her voice has a terrible icy resolve as if she is a judge pronouncing her own death sentence. ‘He will tear us to pieces. He will devour us. He will pour all his vengeance into our destruction, and each time he does we will become whole again, so that he can torment us anew. But even that I will accept rather than become that monster of hell and hatred.’
My fists clench against the rough bark of the tree. My own terror is forgotten in the horror of what she faces.
‘No, no! You can’t. There must be some other way. There has to be.’
‘You are the only way. You call the dead and you must summon a door-doom of the dead to the cave before it is too late. Only they have the power now to order him to return to his own flesh.’
Hinrik had said the same words. You call the dead.
‘But I don’t understand … I can’t call up the dead. Do you mean Hinrik? Did I call Hinrik? But I didn’t call him … I don’t know how.’
‘You brought Hinrik with the stone. But there are others, those you see here in this forest. They follow you. What do you use to call them?’
‘I don’t call them,’ I protest. ‘I just dream about them, but I don’t know why. I don’t even know who they are.’
‘And you have nothing that belongs to them?’ she presses relentlessly, as if she knows she can force a truth out of me that I don’t even know myself.
I desperately try to think. ‘It was dark in the forest, but I saw something pale and glinting amongst the leaf mould on a grave. I picked it up only to see wh
at it was. I didn’t mean to take it but just as I touched it there was a shriek. It was terrifying. I thought there was some wild beast behind me, so I just ran, without thinking what I was doing. I fell into a gulley and it was only later that I realized I was still clutching it.’
‘Tell me what you took from that grave.’
‘It was a bone, a human finger bone with a ring still on it.’
I feel her sigh like a breath of wind on my cheek. ‘That is the cord that binds them to you. And that is what you must use to summon them to the door-doom. If I can be released from the iron without the draugr knowing, then together you and I can use that bone to summon the dead. But it must be done only when the moment is right. Too late and the pool will erupt before we can be freed from the iron. But if we act too soon and send the spirit back into the corpse, then the draugr will rise up and all of you will be trapped in a cave with a man who possesses the strength of ten and a thirst for vengeance that can never be slaked. He will crush you all as easily as a child smashes an egg shell before you can escape the cave.’
‘But how can we free you without –’
Something catches my eye in the darkness. I turn. A little way off among the trees a pale light is seeping up from the ground, like rising mist. But it isn’t mist. It glows with a pearly light as bright and white as a full moon, though there is no moon to shine on it. It hangs quite still among the distant trees. The wind which is rattling the leaves and lashing the branches doesn’t even stir it. But by its light, I suddenly see that the forest floor beneath it is rising in a great mound as if something is tunnelling up from below.
A huge horned head and neck burst from the ground with a bellow of rage. The rest of the beast erupts and a massive bull stands in the clearing, pawing at the ground. Its hide has been flayed from its body and hangs in tatters from the raw, bleeding flesh. Its eyes are great black holes and its mouth drips with blood. Before I can move, it lowers its great black horns and charges straight towards me.
I am running as fast as I can through the trees, but I know I can’t outrun it. The hooves thunder behind me, shaking the earth beneath me. Its roar explodes in my head. It’s getting closer and closer. I trip and plunge headlong. The beast is so close now, I can feel its foul dank breath, but I can’t move.
Krery-krery-krery!
Something white soars over the top of me. The bull bellows with rage. Sick with fear, I half-turn my head. A great white falcon is hovering above the bull. It flies at its eyes, its talons outstretched, striking with hooked beak, slashing with its claws. The bull is tossing its massive head, trying to impale the bird on its horns, but the falcon is too agile for it. It swoops on the bull again and again, driving it back. With a final bellow of fury, the bull sinks back into the earth that closes over it like a wave on the sea and it is gone. For a moment the falcon hovers above me in the darkness, its wings stretched out over my head. I reach out my hand, but the white falcon vanishes like smoke in the wind.
I woke, breathing hard and soaked with sweat. Eydis’s face was sunk into her hands and her chest heaved as she struggled to regain her breath. Valdis’s head was jerking as if she was in a state of great agitation. She was speaking, but I couldn’t understand what she was saying. First her voice was wheedling, and then sing-song like a child teasing a playmate, then came a harsh, mocking tone. Unnur and her daughters were standing transfixed, staring at her in alarm. Little Lilja ran to her mother, burying her face in Unnur’s skirts.
Valdis’s head swivelled towards me. Through the veil I could just make out two large eyes that seemed to be entirely black. They had no white part at all. It was like staring into a great bottomless pit. I had seen those eyes before as the creature charged towards me in the forest. It was staring out at me from behind her face. If it had the power to follow me into my dream, what was to stop it possessing me, as it had possessed Valdis?
Ricardo
Cadger – the person who carries the cadge, a wooden frame with padded edges, used to convey several hawks at a time out into the field.
‘Just ensure that she does not leave this cave alive!’ Vítor turned away without even bothering to wait for a response from me.
That odious piece of dung made my skin crawl. I know now why women want to scrub themselves clean after a man has forced himself on them. Why do priests think they only have to utter that word heretic for every man to go running for his pitchfork? I don’t care what any man or maid believes, so long as they don’t try to peddle me their cant. As a child I endured years of heaven and hell being rammed down my throat by my sainted mother and the priests, until I felt like a piglet being fattened for the butcher’s knife. I tell you, if you feed a man too much of anything, thereafter the merest whiff of it makes him vomit.
I sank back against the wall of the cave. Isabela was lying on the ground near the twins; she seemed to be asleep, her face buried in her arm, her curly dark hair falling in damp tangles across her slender neck. She looked so young and vulnerable. She reminded me of my poor Silvia sprawled across my bed in the heat of a summer’s afternoon sleeping like a child.
What on earth was I going to do? The only reason I was here was to kill the girl, and God knows I had good enough reasons. It was simple enough; dispatch her and return home to a civilized country where I could live in comfort in my own house, with the priest’s gold jangling in my pockets, or not kill her and face permanent exile or even be tortured to death myself, if that little weasel Vítor had his way. It wasn’t exactly a difficult choice to make now, was it, so why couldn’t I do it? I only knew as I watched her lying there that for some incomprehensible reason I’d never be able to harm her – other women perhaps, but not Isabela.
But if I didn’t, would Vítor kill her anyway? He’d talked about bringing down the rocks to trap her in here. Would Vítor’s hatred of Marranos overcome his distaste of dirtying his own hands? I had to warn her, but the problem was how to tell her who Vítor was, without also revealing that he’d been sent here to watch me commit a murder, her murder. It’s not the kind of thing you can casually walk up and whisper to a girl, is it?
I glanced up at the sound of raised voices. The twin sisters seemed to be having some kind of argument. Whatever it was about, Unnur and her daughters were looking thoroughly alarmed. It couldn’t have been easy for the sisters. I mean, if you quarrelled you couldn’t exactly storm off and leave the other.
I have to admit the twins were a bit of a shock at first. Two women on a single pair of legs, that’s not a sight you see every day. I wondered if any man had ever made love to them, now that would be an interesting threesome. Not that I harboured any ambition in that direction, in case you were wondering. I grant you, one of the pair had a nice firm body, but the other was so withered she looked more like her great-grandmother than her sister. But it did occur to me that if only they could be persuaded to come back to Portugal with me, I could make a fortune exhibiting them. I’d see that they were well rewarded, and surely a few hours each day showing themselves off to the crowd had to be better than a lifetime chained up in a cave, didn’t it? It was a wonder no one here had done it already, but then no man on this island would recognize a business opportunity, even if it was dangling from his own cock.
The twins crossed over to the man lying in the corner and one of them began rubbing more ointment on him. He looked as if someone had given him a thorough beating, but even in the time we’d been here the ointment seemed to be working miracles, and no wonder, given what Isabela had told me was in it. But the poor fellow still wasn’t moving. It was going to be the Devil’s own job getting an unconscious man out of the cave, especially if we had to do it in a hurry.
Isabela had woken and now she clambered unsteadily to her feet. She came towards me, stumbling like a sailor after a night in the tavern. I had to catch her in my arms to stop her tripping over. I lowered her to the floor against the wall of the cave, and crouched down beside her.
‘Anyone’d think you’d been drinki
ng some of the brew the farmer’s wife served us that first night. You haven’t, have you?’ I said hopefully. ‘I could do with a few swigs of it myself – that water doesn’t just smell like bad eggs, it tastes of it too.’
She shook her head, then put her hand to it as if she wished she hadn’t. She sat for a long time leaning against the wall, lost in thought. I half-thought she’d drifted back to sleep, but suddenly she seemed to make up her mind about something, and she gripped my arm.
‘Marcos, would you do something for me?’
‘Ask away,’ I said. ‘What is it? Do you want me to fetch you water?’
‘I … would you try to cut through the iron hoops around the waists of the two sisters? That pool is heating up and we’ll have to leave soon. We can’t leave Eydis here chained up to die. But it’s going to take some time to saw through that iron. I don’t think the sisters have any tools we can use. You’ll have to use something like this, it’s all we have.’ She picked a sharp piece of stone from dozens of fragments littering the floor of the cave. ‘I saw Ari sharpen his knife on one of these earlier, so if you rasp at the metal, you should be able to break the bands in time.’
‘With bits of stone?’ I said. ‘Look, Isabela, I’d be the first to admit I’m no expert at these things. The only sawing I’m in the habit of doing is with my knife on the old horse flesh at my local inn, which the villain of an innkeeper swears is tender veal. But even I can see it’s going to take a lifetime to hack through those iron bands. Much easier to chip away at the rock where the iron ring is embedded. A bit of wriggling and I could probably work it loose and free both of them at once. I’ll make a start now.’
‘No, no, you mustn’t, please don’t do that … promise you won’t do that.’
I was taken aback by the panic in her tone and the look, bordering on fear, that passed across her face. Anyone would think I’d suggested chopping the twins in half to get them out.