The Witches’ Kitchen

by Cecelia Holland

  In the course of the hunt they had fought with a band of the Bear People, who had trespassed onto Wolf territory; Anatkwa had taken a prisoner, who walked along at the very end of the parade, a rope around his neck, and his head drooping.

  Among his people Miska was singing and rejoicing; the deer pole wore heavy on his shoulder, but he refused to let anybody else take his place. He followed the men in front of him, and all around the village they wound their course, circling every lodge, every longhouse, to bind everyone into this luck and this meat. Finally they massed together into the gathering place, and broke up two of the deer and cooked them over the firepits, and all the night through they feasted on the fresh meat. The hunters swaggered around, talking about the hunt, and the women sang songs of praise and thanks; the little children ran from lap to lap being fed choice bits.

  The prisoner of the Bear People feasted also, sitting among them as if he were one of them, eating all he wanted. He was special, they told him, he was blessed, and hearing this and with meat in his belly he seemed content and happy.

  But when near midnight they laid hands on him, he began to struggle, knowing what was coming. He could not prevent it; they tied him up to the old tree at the back of the gathering place, and then, singing and laughing and giving praises and thanks, they burned him and cut him until he died. He wept and begged and pleaded, and because he was not brave, they did not accept him, they did not eat his body, but buried it the next morning in the bean field.

  Epashti went through the village, looking for Miska. She had her baby in a sling before her; her hair was braided with yellow feathers, to honor her new motherhood, and sprigs of green leaves, to ward off the evil thoughts of childless, jealous women. Around her forehead she wore the headdress of the medicine woman. She carried a pack of medicines, and if people stopped her, she would listen to their complaints and help them.

  At that, she knew, she was good enough; her mother had taught her herb lore and water charms and healing with her hands, and she knew everybody in the village anyway and what was wrong with them and what would work, or at least what would make them happier. That small magic was within her power.

  It was the rest of it she could not grasp. It astonished her still that she had stood up before them all and spoken on Miska’s side. She wondered where that understanding had come from— little as it was; no matter what anybody said, she had understood nothing significant.

  In front of a shabby little lodge full of young men she found him, sitting on the ground, alone.

  She stopped, keeping her distance a moment, studying him. He seemed deep in thought, his hair loose around his shoulders, his arms on his knees. His father had been her uncle, his mother her cousin. He should have seemed familiar to her, and yet whenever she saw him he seemed utterly new, like a stranger.

  His parents had died in the terrible winter when they were trapped in the mountains, on the long trek away from their homeland. Epashti then had been only a child herself and remembered it more from the stories she heard of it—the endless snow, the hunger, the fighting, the cold blue darkness shutting down over them.

  Miska would remember it better. And after that, with his parents dead, he had clung to his grandmother, and she to him, the two of them close as mother and child. He had carried her on their path, over hills and rivers, fed her and kept her warm and protected her, as much as she needed that, since everybody went in complete fear of her. Everybody but Miska.

  Thinking of Miska’s grandmother, Epashti shivered; that was the power, she thought, the true power, of which she had none. Another thing she knew about Miska’s grandmother, from story, not from seeing but from women’s talk, was how in his green reckless youth Burns-His-Feet had mocked the old woman, and she had caused his feet to blister and curl up, so that for two days he could hardly walk. That had earned him the name he carried now, and so every day he must hate her. Yet Miska clung to her, and from beyond the grave she gave him strength and wisdom. Epashti made herself go forward, toward him, to gather some of what he knew.

  He looked surprised to see her. They exchanged the formal greetings of people related in the middle degree, and Epashti sat down beside him. She said, “Tell me where you went, Miska.”

  He said, “I’ll show you something.” He took the little deerskin bag from around his neck and fished a small stone from it. “What’s this?”

  She took it from his open palm. When she touched it the stone seemed suddenly heavy, as if it would not leave him. She laid it on her hand and looked it over, just a small sharp-edged white stone, not even pretty.

  “Where did you find it?”

  He was staring away across the village, his gaze vacant. His mouth twisted. For a while he said nothing. Then finally he faced her and said, “I cannot tell you.”

  “Ah,” she said, startled.

  He shrugged and stared away again. “There are no good words,” he said. “I saw the white people. I tasted the salt water, I fought against a strange magic that stirred the sea up—”

  She gulped; she saw, in a flash, a long barbeled fish leaping, plated with armor, its eyes red, its eyes like a man’s eyes, red. She made a charm with her fingers, trying to stave it off, and it was gone.

  “And I found that stone,” Miska said. He reached out and took it from her. “There was a woman—” He bit his lips.

  She said, “I want you to tell me—” And then Burns-His-Feet was walking toward them.

  The sachem strutted across the open ground, his tall feathered headdress waving. Behind him came Anatkwa, his sister’s son, who was the bravest man in the village, and would be sachem when he was gone. Epashti stood up, a little flustered; her husband had often hunted with Anatkwa, but she did not know him well. Miska also stood.

  “What’s that?” Burns-His-Feet said, and nodded at Miska’s hand.

  Miska held out the little stone. “I found this, near the world-water.”

  “Pah.” Burns-His-Feet struck out with one hand, knocking Miska’s hand up, and the stone went flying off into the dust. “Can it talk? Can it prove you’re telling the truth?”

  Miska’s teeth were gritted together. Epashti drew off to one side, where she could watch this; she saw Miska cast a quick look around, after the lost stone, and then wheel back to face Burns-His-Feet.

  “Stop calling me a liar. I did what I said—what you ordered me to do.”

  Anatkwa stood up beside Burns-His-Feet. “Speak with some respect to the sachem, boy. You aren’t even topped yet.”

  Miska said nothing, his face set in an ugly, sullen silence. Burns-His-Feet poked his finger at him.

  “I’ve decided to find out for myself. We will take some of the men and go down there and see.” His voice got oily. “If, as you say, these people are evil, why, then, we should deal with them. Since Tisconum won’t.” The poking finger turned into an open hand that palmed Miska’s shoulder. “Can you lead us back there?”

  Miska’s face had smoothed out suddenly. He lifted his right hand up, still fisted, as if he wanted to look at it. But his gaze stayed on Burns-His-Feet. “A war party?” he said.

  The sachem laughed. “Call it what you want. Can you take us?”

  “Yes!” Miska seemed suddenly to grow taller, his eyes flashing. Epashti blinked, startled, at some sudden haze around him. But then it was gone. She had imagined it. He was just an eager boy, not even topped, gaping at his sachem.

  “Good,” Burns-His-Feet said. “We will talk at the gathering tonight.” He nudged Miska with his fist and went off, Anatkwa on his heels.

  Miska let out his breath in a whoosh. He turned, smiling, and saw Epashti, startling, as if he had forgotten she was there.

  He said, “Well. They keep saying I am not topped—they will have to take me now, won’t they. One lodge or another.”

  “I think so,” Epashti said, although it was not women’s doings. The lodges chose whom they would take in, when the boys’ hair was topped. Miska should have gone to one or the other ye
ars ago, but no one would take him. She nodded toward his fist. “What do you have in your hand?”

  He opened his fist, and on his palm was the little white stone. “I felt it come back,” he said. “It struck my hand.”

  Epashti said, “I don’t understand.” Her cheeks felt warm. This was what she should know, this was what she did not have.

  Miska said, “I don’t either.” He stooped and went back into the lodge.

  During the evening gathering the men, after eating, collected together and sat under the big oak by the river with a pipe going around. Burns-His-Feet sat at the middle; Miska sat out along the edge of the cluster of men, and the pipe never came to him. But that would change, soon.

  The pipe smoke rose up into the dark air, and the men murmured, and one said, “Someday we will go back, I know it.”

  All the others grunted out agreement. Someday they would travel back across the forest, over the mountains, and come again to the inland waters, their true home. Miska lowered his eyes, silent. This talk rankled him. His grandmother had said that he would make his people great someday, but in this place, here, by the Great River.

  “When we go back, the sun chief will learn what true men are!” said someone else, and everybody gave another low cry, “hoooo-aaah,” as if they could see this before them, almost in their hands, even now. They began to sway back and forth, and some clapped their hands together softly in an even beat. “We will cast down his four-sided hill and make the blood run through his villages.”

  “We’ll hunt the bison again, and have plenty of meat.”

  “Hoooo-aaah.” The clapping spread. The pipe went from mouth to mouth in the golden firelight, mouths eagerly rounded for the pipestem, eyes glazed with the light.

  “We will make the sun chief eat his own heart! We, the People of the Wolf!”

  “Hoooo-aaah!”

  They clapped and spoke a while longer. Miska got enough of the pipesmoke through the air to make his head muzzy. Then through the fog came the piercing voice of Burns-His-Feet, saying, “There is this matter of these white people.”

  Miska jerked his head up. The other men quieted.

  “Kill them,” Anatkwa said, behind Burns-His-Feet. “They are cursed.”

  Burns-His-Feet lifted his hands, and his voice deepened and swelled. “They live by the world-water, on an island. There are only a few of them. Tisconum, the great Tisconum, is afraid of them! But we can conquer them.”

  “Hoooo-aaahhh!”

  “Then we will be greater than Tisconum and his people. Then we will be the only men!”

  Around him his warriors let out a roar that shook the branches of the oak tree. Up the gathering ground, in the deepening twilight gloom, the women all turned to look at them.

  Burns-His-Feet said, “Your hearts are full of fire, I laugh to see it. When the other people around here see how we sweep to our victory, they will rush to join us.”

  “Hoooo-aaahhh!”

  “Then in such numbers we shall fall on the sun chief and destroy him.”

  The men roared out again. Miska turned to glance at the women and saw them watching, in the darkness. Around him now the other men were clapping and singing out a pounding rhythmic chant, their voices buoyant. The pipe went from hand to hand. Miska wondered how all this had been talked over, and yet Burns-His-Feet had never mentioned his name. His belly turned. His skin thrummed with warning. He remembered the water whirling and whirling around, swallowing him down, and tilted up his face, suddenly hot, to the cool dark night. All around him, and yet apart from him, the men made songs of war.

  C H A P T E R S I X

  Benna went up with Arre to the slope beside their house, above the point of the island. On one side of them lay the cove, where the men were floating the new ship for the first time. They had hauled it down to the shore; most of the cove’s edge was reedy marsh, but at a good approach below the slope from the house Corban over the years had built up a ramp of rushes and sticks. With the boys and several of Ulf’s crew, he was drawing the ship down this easy way into the water. On the grass above them, Senna spread out a blanket, and she and Arre sat down on it.

  Benna was still amazed to find her sister there with her, after so many years; she kept her gaze on her, and every sound she made seemed like an oracle. She had changed, Arre. Over the past many years Benna had drawn her, over and again, but always as she remembered her, a carefree, great-hearted girl in a muddy apron. Now here beside her was that girl, but grown into another person, a woman in her years, steadier, calmer, carefree no more.

  Benna said, “You must miss your children.” Arre had left her two sons with Euan’s mother when they fled.

  Arre’s head bobbed. She was watching the men, her eyes narrowed; she had brought some needlework to do while Benna drew, but it lay idle in her lap. “Look, they are putting up the mast. It’s a pretty little ship, like a dragonfly, as they say.” Her voice dropped a notch. “I miss them, very much, but I wanted to see you, and Euan had to leave. The boys were safer left behind. His mother dotes on them.” She laid her hands together—smooth, pale hands, sunburnt from the sea voyage, but not the hands of a gardener anymore. Needlework was her craft now. And following her husband into exile.

  Arre said, “You’ve changed, too, you know.”

  “I’m certain I have,” Benna said. That was the old Arre: understanding other people’s thoughts. “I’d like to draw you.”

  “Go ahead, then,” Arre said. She leaned forward suddenly, keen, her face shining. “See! Now they’re raising the sail! How beautiful!”

  Benna glanced down toward the sheet of quiet water, ringed in cattails. A thin gray path ran down through the grass to the mucky shoreline. Down on the cove Corban and Ulf, at either end of the new boat, were hauling on ropes, and the new sail mounted up the mast, an empty sack of red and white stripes, drawn upward on its yard above the trim sweep of the hull. The sail hung flat against the mast. The men on the shore gave up a cheer.

  Arre crossed herself. Benna was taking a flat stone and one of her brushes out of her bag; she mixed water into a pot of ink. Aelfu and Miru came down the slope from the direction of the house. Raef had brought them a baby rabbit, and Aelfu had the little thing in her hands; she squatted down near Benna and Arre to set it on the ground. The rabbit hunched down, looking dazed, its ears flat against its back. Miru, crouched next to it, poked it with her finger.

  The men around the boat hushed for a moment, bent on some work; the long flat water of the cove reflected the sky, perfectly clear above and below, as if they floated on the island like a cloud in the blue vault.

  Arre gave a little, uncertain laugh. “There are no church bells. How do you know when to pray?”

  Without thinking, Benna said, “I don’t pray anymore.”

  Arre’s jaw dropped. She signed herself again and pressed her hands together. “Mercy of God on you, what have you done, Benna?”

  Benna lowered her eyes to the stone, and drew. “I suppose it sounds ungodly. Yet I see god everywhere here, or what I think is god—god is here and sees me. I don’t have to pray. Whatever I do, god will know, and that is my prayer.”

  Arre was still looking hard at her, her mouth drooping. “How can you do good, when there are so few other people?”

  On the stone, Benna made her sister’s broad forehead, the strong arched bones of her face. “I can’t answer that. It seems the wrong question to me. I don’t know why.”

  Her sister looked away, toward the cove. After a moment, she said, in a tentative voice, “See, they are sailing.”

  Benna turned her head. Down there, the men had the boat with the wind, and the sail was filling. It swelled out; for a moment the boat seemed stuck where it was, standing on its upside-down reflection. Then imperceptibly it was gliding off, the red and white sail like a bloodstain above the water.

  Arre said, “I don’t mean to judge you.”

  “No,” Benna said, startled. “I didn’t think you were.” She wo
ndered where this crosscurrent had suddenly arisen from. She searched for something easier to talk about. “Where is Gifu? I wonder she didn’t come with you.” Gifu was their younger sister.

  Arre’s head swung toward her. “She married. Did you not hear that? Years ago, she married a man of the new ealdorman’s.”

  Some undertone in her voice told Benna that Arre had fewer qualms about judging Gifu. “Married. That’s amazing. I thought she would run wild, without me. Is he then an Englishman?” The English were Euan’s enemies.

  “No—he’s a stranger. Richard is his name, they call him Longsword. He’s some kind of Frank. He served the ealdorman for money; Waltheof—that’s the ealdorman—is very loath to do much on his own. He sent Richard to Jorvik when Euan—when the first trouble happened.” Her lips pressed together a moment. Benna thought suddenly: Things have gone wrong for her, that’s why she’s unhappy. Euan has gone wrong for her. She contemplated herself, judging. Arre was staring away toward the cove. Her voice came again, quiet, almost idle.

  “Then one day he saw Gifu riding over the moor, and he chased her and couldn’t catch her.” She laughed and was lively again, her good self, unburdened. Now her eyes sparkled; she looked Benna in the face. “She took him on a wild chase, so I hear, and distanced him—she would not speak of it, I know this by gossip. By then she was living as she wished, with her horses and her hunting; I saw her very seldom. But he kept looking for her, and finally, after much chasing, he caught her, and brought her back to Jorvik and married her, that same day. I hear they are very pleased with each other. They have several children.”

  “In Jorvik,” Benna said, amazed. Her youngest sister had always startled her; she remembered her wild nimbus of fair hair and her blazing blue eyes.

  “No, no,” Arre said, as if Benna should know all this. “Richard and the ealdorman got across each other, somehow, and Waltheof threw them out. Now her husband serves the English king.”