Against a Darkening Sky

by Lauren B. Davis

  “Good day, Roswitha,” she says now.

  Roswitha stands, her hands on her knees. She rises slowly and then arches her back. Although she’s only four months pregnant, she affects the aches and pains of a woman further along. Wilona hides her smile.

  “I brought news, and some honey for Touilt.” She inclines her head toward the dwelling. “She was asleep when I arrived and I didn’t want to disturb her, but I think she’s awake now.”

  Wilona nods and says she’ll check on Touilt. “She’ll want to hear your news.”

  Inside the dwelling the air is close and the light dim. It smells stale, although Wilona changed the bedding just the week before. Touilt’s used the bucket, a sign she’s feeling poorly indeed, not to have made the effort even to leave the house for a trip to the netty. Only one window is open. Flies drone lazily around the waste bucket and over an uncovered jug of milk. Touilt sits on the edge of her bed, pushing her hair under a scarf. She twitches, scratches, and then cracks something between her thumbnails. “Bloody fleas. Are they never sated?”

  “How are you feeling?”

  “Much better. A case of tainted milk perhaps.” Touilt never admits to anything except bad food as the root of any illness she suffers, for she thinks to do otherwise would be to bring into question her powers as a healer.

  Wilona sets her baskets on the table. “I have trout, if you think it might tempt you.”

  “I might be able to eat a little.” She smiles. “Or perhaps a little more than that.”

  “Roswitha’s here. She says there’s news.”

  “News? I’ve heard nothing of news.” Scowling, Touilt wraps a shawl around her shoulders, her movements slow and deliberate.

  Wilona sees nothing to be gained in pointing out that the definition of news is that you haven’t heard it yet. She knows it both rankles and alarms the seithkona to consider her spirits have not sent advance warning.

  Touilt stands and takes up her staff. She steps to the door and opens it. Wilona follows Touilt into the yard.

  “Are you well, Lady Touilt?” says Roswitha.

  “Wilona tells me you have news.”

  Roswitha nods. “A messenger from King Edwin.” Her eyes sparkle with delight at being the bearer of royal tidings.

  Wilona’s stomach jumps. “Is it war again?”

  “No, not war, but the king’s coming. His entire court; the new queen, Ethelburga from Kent; and the baby; the queen’s confessor, Bishop Paulinus; they’re all coming. We’re to prepare with haste.”

  “So soon?”

  “With the new moon in three weeks’ time.”

  “He’s coming early for the tax?” Touilt sits on the bench set in the sun. “Why now and not during Blood-Month? It’s a hardship to hand over animals before the harvest slaughter.”

  “I don’t think he’s coming for tribute alone,” says Roswitha.

  Touilt sniffs. “With kings it’s always either war or tribute.”

  “Ricbert’s all flustered. The king’s ordered an amphitheatre built in the Roman fashion, next to the temple.”

  “What can it mean?” Wilona picks up a basket of beans and begins shelling them, happy to have something to do with her fingers, for the news fills the air with restlessness.

  “Edwin’s always had Roman pretensions,” says Touilt. “Trooping about the countryside with a standard-bearer before him. He caught the Roman disease when he was in exile in Rendlesham with King Raedwald ten years back. Marriage to Ethelburga was meant to bring peace with Kent, where they also drop a knee to Rome. Queen Ethelburga’s priest, the follower of the White Christ, is Roman, is he not?”

  Roswitha glances over her shoulder and fiddles with the belt at her thickening waist. “We must respect the king, Lady Touilt, even you. Edwin’s an honourable king who’s brought security and wealth to Northumbria. The countryside’s safer now. You can travel to Bebbanburgh without fear of brigands.”

  Wilona runs her thumb along a bean pod and splits it. The beans are withered and she tosses them on the ground for the chickens. “And he’s put gold and bronze drinking bowls at all the wells, I’ve heard,” she says. “The traders say no one will steal them out of love of Edwin.”

  “Or fear of Edwin,” Touilt says. “Can a man, even a king, claim the right to water? I thought Frige was goddess of the water.”

  Roswitha ignores this. “There’s no word about what the amphitheatre’s for. I think Ricbert fears the king wants to replace him, and rumour has it he said as much to Lord Caelin, although what he might have done to offend the king he doesn’t know.”

  Wilona considers the possibility of a new priest. Ricbert is a proud and prickly man, jealous of his position next to Caelin, but she’s fond of him nonetheless. He’s always been friendly to her and respectful of Touilt, asking about her health, sending his servant with small pots of thyme-infused honey, or a hen or hare, or a basket of plums or quince. “You say Paulinus, this Christ-priest from Rome, is coming with the king?” Wilona asks.

  “He goes where the queen goes,” Roswitha replies.

  Touilt and Wilona glance at each other.

  “Well, I must get back.” Roswitha rubs her belly. “My husband will be wanting supper, and there’s the patch to be weeded yet.” She embraces Touilt and Wilona. “It’ll be a busy time, so much to do, and as you say, Lady Touilt, out of season. The king cannot catch us unprepared.”

  “Surely not,” says Touilt. “Kings and their court eat triple their own weight.”

  Later that evening, Touilt and Wilona lie in their beds, talking.

  “I’ve paid this new religion little mind,” Wilona says. “What do you know about it?” She props herself up on one elbow, and moves the stone oil lamp to the floor so it doesn’t block her view of Touilt’s face.

  The air in the hut is sticky and Touilt leans back on a pile of furs, with only a light linen over her. “Christ is said to be the son of a god who lives in the sky—a god who cannot come to Middangeard himself but must send his messenger to impregnate a girl. Imagine. They worship a god who can’t even do that himself. Do you know why we call him the White Christ? It’s because he’s a coward, a son with no honour. Aethelfrith the Fierce killed a thousand of his monks before the battle of Legaceaster. They wouldn’t fight, or so I’ve heard. Let themselves be slaughtered like sheep, weaponless. Where’s the honour in that? Where’s the power of their god? This Christ let himself be hung upon a criminal-tree, but not of his own volition, like Woden when he climbed the holy tree as a sacrifice to gain knowledge. They say Christ was ordered there by the Roman chief and hung alongside thieves.” Touilt shudders and draws her wrap tighter. “His followers have been in these lands for longer than my memory tells, but they’ve been few. What could Thunor have to fear from this milky shade? Still, these priests of his are aligned with Rome, and King Edwin is nothing if not ambitious.” She rubs her eyes. “I must think, Wilona. I must think.” And with that she turns to the wall.

  The next afternoon, Wilona and Touilt are working in the field, filling their baskets with white carrots, cabbages, peas, onions, and beans. They bend and pluck and dig with their trowels and short-handled rakes, twisting frequently to ease their muscles, the earth working under their nails and into the creases of their palms. Now and again, Touilt closes her eyes and tilts her head this way and that, as if listening. The distant sound of hammers on wood comes from the great plain where the king’s compound stands; the men are constructing the new amphitheatre. At last, Touilt stands and points to the great hill. Under a grey blanket of cloud, the ancient, long-deserted fort is no longer visible.

  “Good,” she says. “Looks like a nice pelting rain. That’ll keep everyone away from our door.” She picks up her basket. “Come along. It’s time.”

  Wilona follows her across the field. In the pen attached to the house, the chickens squawk and flap. In a somewhat pushy squabble, they rush into their coop. Elba snuffles. Wilona tosses her a few white carrots and pats her, the bristles
on the sow’s back rough against her palm. “Good Elba. You’ll be wallowing in some lovely mud soon.” The air has a greenish, milky quality and Wilona wonders if it’s a trick of the light only or something more. The door of the hut is open and Touilt calls for her to hurry in and close up.

  While Wilona secures the door latch, Touilt uses one of the keys tied to her belt to open her chest, the lid creaking in protest. She pulls out her cushion of hen feathers, and the one she gave to Wilona the year before, shortly after her soul-sickness, when she also gave the girl a fine blue-wool cloak. Touilt hands the garment to Wilona now and reaches for her own cloak. In silence both women put them on. Wilona’s is adorned at the throat by a bronze clasp in the shape of two owls; a pair of wolves’ heads decorates the closing of Touilt’s. The hoods are lined with cat fur, as are the brodekins they slip on their feet. The soft cloth’s feel on Wilona’s shoulders and neck, against the swell of her hip, is so luxurious she cannot help but smile. Touilt clears her throat and Wilona blushes. Touilt wraps her wolf pelt about her shoulders, the animal’s head atop her own. Then the seithkona picks up her staff with rune stones on the knob and retrieves her drum and the tipper from her chest.

  In the far corner of the room, behind a hanging, a ladder leads to a secret, sacred area, a platform high off the ground. All around this alcove the walls are blue, the colour of deep ice, and painted in the centre is the great tree Yggdrasil, surrounded by runes and drawings of wolves, bears, ravens, geese, and salmon.

  When they’ve climbed this ladder before, Wilona has carried up a low bench for Touilt to sit on, so Wilona sat lower, but now Touilt waves her hand, indicating it’s not to be so today. Wilona’s heart thumps. Touilt slowly nods, the faintest upturn to her lips. Today, Wilona ceases to be an apprentice; she shall henceforth be a partner. Now that the long-anticipated moment is here, she feels clumsy and inept. What if she fumbles or says the wrong words? Touilt watches her calmly. If Wilona doubts her abilities, she must trust in Touilt’s.

  Wilona’s throat is tight. All the long hours of study—the names, uses, and habitat of medicinal plants; the sacred stories of the gods and heroes; the endless nights spent honing her skills at visualizing the spirit forms of wind, earth, water, and fire, that she might work with the elemental beings; learning the runes and their applications; memorizing the charms and rituals and songs—whirl like bright moths in her mind. She closes her eyes and listens to the rain hitting the thatch. For an instant she sees the faces of a woman and man, her mother and father. She almost cries out, but they are gone. She opens her eyes and feels not only the binding of all she has learned but also the support of her ancestors. They have watched over her and are proud.

  Touilt climbs the ladder. She hands Wilona the drum and tipper, and Wilona follows. Touilt sits down with her back against the drawing of the great tree Yggdrasil, and it seems as if she’s growing out of the tree itself, or perhaps the tree grows out of her. Touilt points and Wilona puts her cushion down, her hands trembling only slightly, and sits facing Touilt. The seithkona brings out the rune stones while Wilona lights the lamp. The drumming begins, and the singing … the air grows still … all things fall away … the women sing together, focusing their intention on the lamp’s flame. Before long Wilona feels the owl’s presence—the soft sweep of Raedwyn’s wings behind her, lifting her, taking her along the root of the great tree down to the place where future and past and present combine, where things are shown as they are, without the distracting garments of Middangeard … slip-slide, sloping ride, swift and sure, wind and feather, wild and pure …

  The light is dazzling, no colour at all, so bright it isn’t even white. She wants to turn away, but the light is all around. She begins to make out shapes—a hill, a great stone—and in the distance women are wailing, their grief rending the light, so that the ordinary dullness of day seeps in. Blood oozes from a stone. Tree roots wither, black and rotten …

  … More noise. Terrible cracking and the ring of metal against wood. A mist lifts and on the other side a circle of men wield axes. The ground shudders and ripples. The men with axes attack the oaks. Each stroke cuts deeper into the tree-flesh and the limbs quiver, the moss shakes, wood chips fly like scraps of skin.

  … Wilona smells salt, and although she’s never seen the sea, she recognizes the rolling rush of noise as breakers crashing against rocks. She’s in a great hall in a high place. Birds roost in the rafters at either end, away from the hearth-fire’s smoke. Women stand in small groups near the wall, flagons of ale at hand. Men sit at long benches forming a U-shape around the hearth, with a raised dais before them, at which sits King Edwin on his throne. His cloak sparkles with precious stones, and a golden buckle graces his belt. His long, light-brown hair falls straight across his shoulders and his forehead is wide over a pale knot of brow. The whites of his deep-set eyes are visible all round the mousey irises, as though he’s holding his eyes open, trying to see everything at once, convinced perhaps that things are being hidden from him. They are not eyes Wilona wants turned on her. A scraggly beard, which doesn’t cover the hollows beneath his cheekbones, frame his thin lips. Coifi, the king’s Druid priest, stands near the king and addresses a strange man—also a priest in white robes, a tall man with a slight stoop, tonsured oddly, with a ring of black hair all round and a shaved crown, a beardless face, and a narrow, aquiline nose. This man is calm, while Coifi’s agitation is palpable—his arms raised over his head, spittle flying from his lips … no words, just the sound of wind and waves …

  … Something thumps and cracks, rhythmically. Caelin with an enormous axe, chopping at the roots of a great white tree. He stops, turns, sniffs the air like a hound. Wilona knows he’s looking for her, and then he fixes on her and comes toward her, leering, dragging the red-stained axe …

  … From behind her, Raedwyn shrieks, piercing as a dagger. It rattles her heart-cage, as if she’s been struck by the great talons … trying to knock her from the oncoming rush of slaughtering riders, from Lord Caelin’s hungry axe …

  The drum beat slows now and the singing quiets. Raedwyn’s scent, like the heather-strewn moors, dissipates; his presence recedes. Slowly, Wilona returns to herself, her feet dead stones from sitting so long. She unfolds her legs and rubs her ankles to bring the blood back. She winces. The pain is like needles. The night is thick around them and the lamp has burned low. She wonders how many hours have passed. To judge from the silence, the rain has stopped. Her head feels as though elves are hammering on it with sharp stones, right behind her eyes, and she’s faintly nauseated. Her hands tremble. What did the vision mean? At first she feels only a dreadful menace, as when she wakes in the middle of the night from black dreams of dead bodies and a woman’s clawing hands, as still she does sometimes. Then, slowly, the images return to her: the oak grove, the axe, the hall, and the king—the strange cold light, yes, that too. Caelin. The axe. The tree. She frowns and bites her lip. She breathes deeply and looks at Touilt.

  After a few more minutes, Touilt opens her eyes. “Help me, Wilona. My limbs don’t obey as they once did.”

  Wilona rises, not without some stiffness herself, and helps the older woman. It takes a while to get Touilt on her feet. The seithkona’s pulse races beneath Wilona’s fingers and her skin is clammy. “Come, we’ll get you to your bed before we talk.”

  It’s not easy to manoeuvre the ladder, and once Touilt almost falls. At last they have the sacred objects back in their locked chest and Touilt’s in bed, piled high with blankets. In spite of the warm night it’s a while before her teeth stop rattling. She sips an infusion Wilona has brewed.

  “Are you in pain?” Wilona sits on a stool beside the bed.

  “No more than usual after riding the wolf.”

  “The tea will ease it. Shall we wait, then, to talk?”

  Touilt lowers her cup. “We must talk now. But first, tend to the fire.”

  Wilona takes a prickly bough from a basket near the storage area. Soon the sharp, clean scent of
juniper fills the hut, the smoke wafting to the rafters. Outside, a fox yaps in the wood and an owl hoots. Two white moths flit near the flames and at last succeed in immolating themselves with a sharp hiss.

  “Tell me what you saw,” says Touilt.

  Wilona recalls the vision as best she can. “… And I was filled with a nightmare feeling. I saw Lord Caelin with an axe, striking the roots of Yggdrasil.” She shudders. “Have I misread the signs?”

  Touilt presses her thumbs into the hollows above her eyes, near her nose. “No. You didn’t misread them.” Touilt looks up and folds her arms across her chest, rocking slightly. “In your vision, did Caelin see you?”

  Wilona’s mouth is lined with dust. “Yes. He came toward me when my owl called me back.” She pulls at a broken piece of fingernail and it rips too close to the quick. She brushes the blood away with her finger.

  Touilt grunts and a shadow passes over her face. “We’ll talk no more tonight. I must be still. Tomorrow there are charms to make.”

  The older woman is silent after that, although Wilona doesn’t think she’s sleeping. Wilona’s mind keeps circling back to the expression on Lord Caelin’s face as he came for her. Just then, lying there in the dark, Wilona does not want to be a seithkona. She does not want dreams and premonitions, does not want obligations to the gods. It’s ungrateful not to want to repay the gods. They have given her many gifts. She could well have died out on the moors, or she might have died at Caelin’s hand when she arrived here, or become a slave in the hall, subject to the whim and desire of every man. Roswitha pops into her mind, ripe with pregnancy, in love with Dunstan, a simple girl with a simple life. The green worm of envy burrows into her breast. No life is without danger, and life is precarious for everyone, but to go through a single day without the never-ending prodding of the spirits, their demands, their enigmatic omens … Like a child, she wants to cry out, “It isn’t fair!” She runs her hands across her abdomen as a cramp twists inside her. Tomorrow she’ll have her moon-time. She lets the heat of her palms warm her skin. Touilt must still be in pain; she’s restless, moving so the hay in the mattress rustles, and now and again she groans softly. Wilona prays to Eostre that Touilt might be granted rest.