Against a Darkening Sky

by Lauren B. Davis

  Egan prostrates himself on the freezing ground, rubbing snow all over his body. He welcomes the bite of it. Let the wind chew on his skin. He begs the angels to flog him with icy starlight until no trace of his sinful doubts is left. He wills himself to accept everything, even the pain, even the misery. It burns him, the frozen earth. It burns.

  He loses track of time, then hears a sound. Low. Animal. Egan raises his head and there, just a few feet away, are two shaggy, grey wolves, their eyes yellow. One sits on its haunches and scratches its ear with a hind leg. One is lying down, head on its paws. It rears up a little and opens its jaws, steamy breath in grey puffs. Egan’s heart pounds. Were his limbs not turned to stone with the cold, he might try to flee. As it is, he moves slowly, every muscle screaming. He puts his hands beneath his shoulders and pushes up, expecting the animals to attack. He prays only that they be quick. The sitting wolf, seeing him move, stops scratching and growls low. Egan is on all fours now. He slowly sits back on his heels and faces the beasts. The second wolf stretches backwards, hind quarters in the air, front paws stretched out. It yawns hugely, teeth flashing in the moonlight. Egan wonders how long they watched him, and why they didn’t simply tear him to pieces.

  He wishes he could put on his cloak. His teeth are chattering. The noise is very loud in his head and the wolves must hear it as well, for they flick their ears and look quizzical. He shivers. His belly shakes, his arms shake, beyond his control. The wolves will strike now, he is sure of it. They stand and nip at each other as though preparing for the feast. He closes his eyes. Pater noster, qui es in caelis, sanctificetur nomen tuum …

  A series of yips and barks and Egan opens his eyes. The wolves run off across the land, kicking up clumps of snow, disappearing into the shadowed side of the hill. It is only then he remembers Touilt and her wolf pelt, remembers she’s said to be a gandrieth, one who shape-shifts and rides the wolf-spirit.

  The next day, Touilt’s mood still hasn’t softened. She is sitting on a stool by the fire, ripping the skin off a hare, while Wilona puts on her cloak. “Roswitha chose the monk and dismissed us like servants. So be it. If you go, you go alone.”

  “She’s my friend.”

  Touilt spits into the embers. “A seithkona has no friends.”

  “I won’t be long.”

  Wilona walks up the slope to the village. She disagrees with Touilt. She has friends. Dunstan is her friend, and Touilt’s, too. So is Roswitha. And even Ricbert cares for them, although he let them down the day the vision-platform was destroyed. Then there’s Margawn. What is he, if not a friend? Heart friend. Wilona sighs. Touilt has reason to be hurt, but it’s the hurt talking. Roswitha was weary and in shock last night. Today will be different.

  She finds Dunstan talking outside his hut with several people. Women, all friends of Roswitha, wrapped in warm cloaks and holding their hoods against the biting wind. Begila carries the baby Wilona and Touilt brought into the world six moons ago, when the meadows had been full of wildflowers and the sky full of swallows and swifts. Wynflaed blows on her chapped hands, and Saewara is thinner than ever, her skin muddy. Wilona fears she won’t see the next summer. Two men, also: Dunstan’s brother, Deneheard, who unlike Dunstan is a member of Caelin’s army and tends his plot and his six children when he’s not fighting; and Cynric, who can skin a deer faster than any other man in the village. Wilona notes, as she always does when she sees Deneheard, that he’s inordinately fond of strutting, puffing his chest out, and showing off his scars. It’s as though he swallowed his brother’s measure of swagger. Just then, Cynric elbows Deneheard and the talking comes to an abrupt halt as they turn to her.

  Her heart skips. “What’s happened? Is Roswitha worse?”

  “No, no, she’s better this morning.” Dunstan tries to smile but fails.

  “Thank the goddess.” Something, though, is wrong. Not that the death of an infant is not enough to make the gathering a solemn one, but there’s more here. Wilona is suddenly as alert as a hare sensing a hawk’s passing shadow. “I’ve brought her a tea that should help.”

  Dunstan, standing in front of the door, looks absurdly sheepish. “She’s sleeping now.”

  “Is she?”

  “She is,” says Deneheard, “and when she wakes, the women will care for her.”

  “I’m glad to hear it,” says Wilona. No one but this burly warrior, with the same wild hair as his brother, will meet her eyes, and what she sees in them sends ice down her spine. “Why would you be so unfriendly, Deneheard? I’m sure you don’t wish to make me feel unwelcome.” She’s careful to put no threat behind the words, and to keep an open smile. Let him think her chiding is a joke.

  “You may feel what you like.”

  “I must get my baby out of the wind.” Begila turns and fairly jogs away. “You should come too, Saewara,” she tosses over her shoulder.

  “Aye, excuse me. I’ll be back to see Roswitha when she wakes.” Saewara follows, more slowly.

  “Will you let me in to see my friend?”

  Dunstan shuffles his feet and finally raises his eyes. “I don’t think it’s wise just now.”

  “He doesn’t think it wise now or later,” says Deneheard.

  “Doesn’t he?” Wilona keeps her eyes on Dunstan, who studies his feet again. “Oh, Dunstan, you hurt me.”

  “I’m sorry for that,” he says.

  “If you change your mind, you know where I am.” As she walks away, tears sting her eyes. She should have listened to Touilt.

  Wynflaed, who has in the past sought her out many times, looking for charms to make her drunken husband a kinder man, or to heal a child’s croup, or to ease the cramps of her moon-time, hisses, “Sorceress.”

  It’s all Wilona can do not to run from the blade of that spear.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  And so the talk begins, coming like the first snows, beginning with a certain tinge of pewter in the air, pale grey clouds sitting low, and then a flake or two, falling but not lasting, melting into the ground. The baby died because the seithkonas refuse the Christ. And then more snow, until it fills the air and obscures vision. The child was born with a devil’s mark. It’s impossible to catch every snowflake, to swat away the coming wall of white. Who is Wilona, after all? A stranger under a black cloud, with no family. Perhaps the seithkonas killed the baby, or cursed it, in their rage against the Christ.

  Wilona and Touilt hear their fear, their murmurs riffling the thatch when the wind blows, their harsh words in the crackle of the hearth-flames. They rise up in Wilona’s dreams: Caelin and Elfhild, Begila, Aelfric the potter, Maccus the bone-worker, making the sign of the cross with a dagger in their hands. In the waking world, when they pass her, people clutch their crosses, although this happens rarely now since they avoid the seithkonas, and choose the other path to the river.

  Touilt wraps herself in heavy furs and spends more nights riding the spirits on the sacred mountain, while Wilona clings to Margawn when she can, in a way that gives her pleasure but does little for her pride. And no one comes to the seithkonas for help. No one asks for herbs, for dream-interpretation, for prophecy. No one pays them for their services, and were it not for Margawn, their stores of grain and fat and milk would be dangerously low.

  Touilt draws away even from Wilona and, moreover, she has developed a cough. Wilona begs her not to go to the mountain so often, for surely if they burn the sacred herbs and gaze into the smoke and water, the spirits will visit them just as well in the warm hut, but Touilt says that without a drum, she needs the summit, the ruins, the open air. “I’ll get you a hide; we’ll make a new drum,” Wilona says, but Touilt simply shakes her head.

  Margawn is rarely able to get away, and Caelin seems to send him on errands at the far ends of the estate more and more often. On the nights Touilt rides the spirits and Wilona is left alone, she sleeps with a dagger beside the bed. It’s unnatural to sleep without the sound and comfort of someone else’s breathing near. She tells herself the spirits are wit
h her here as much as anywhere, but there are times it doesn’t feel that way. When the owl hoots from the yew, it’s as soothing as a mother’s voice.

  As the days turn to weeks, Yule passes with more new rituals in Caelin’s hall, and again the women refuse the invitation, this one more tersely worded. Lord Caelin says you are to come. Elfhild sends them a goose, though, and Touilt weeps, saying she suspects Caelin has no knowledge of the gift. Touilt, no longer the lean and sizzling force she once was, weeps more often. Her stomach is bloated, her bowels loose, the stool bloody. They try every remedy—wood betony, knotgrass, lousewort, plantain, pennyroyal, comfrey, and sow-thistle. They sing the sacred songs, cast the runes, gaze into the flames, and toss the bones, but the will of wyrd is inscrutable, and Wilona fears her foster mother is living with one foot inside the other world. Finally, Touilt stops going to the mountain.

  Coming back from the river one day, Wilona proudly holds up the pike she’s caught, stamping snow from her brodekins.

  Touilt doesn’t rise from the bed. “I might be able to eat a little. I feel stronger today.”

  Wilona tries to look cheerful as she stirs the smouldering coals in the hearth. Touilt peeks out from the pile of furs, her skin yellowish and her lips pale. “Did I let the fire go out? I can’t be expected to do everything, with you not here for hours.”

  She must have been deep asleep, Wilona thinks, not to notice how cold it is. “No matter, the embers are still glowing.” She adds twigs to the fire and blows until it flares. Whatever elf-shot sickness is eating through Touilt, the pain makes her carnaptious, quick to take offence. It frustrates Wilona that she can do so little to soothe it. As she nurses the fire into life, Touilt, scowling, wraps a shawl around her shoulders.

  Late that afternoon, when she’s given Touilt poppy tincture for the pain and trusts she’s resting as comfortable as is possible, Wilona meets Margawn at the small cave near the river, the one she’s long thought of as her place. Her place, yes, but she’s happy to make it their place. They’ve made it snug—they’ve packed earth and moss into the chinks in between the rocks on the natural walls and roof, woven a vented door at the entrance, so they have privacy but won’t asphyxiate from the fire’s smoke. Margawn has brought piles of only slightly ratty furs from the hall, a pair of stone cressets in which wicks float in oil, and even a pot for cooking. Along a wall, they formed a platform of earth for a bed and covered it with straw and furs. Bana usually claims a place near the hearth by the cave entrance. With the fire blazing and their bodies close, it’s warm enough.

  As darkness falls they burrow under furs after making love. He holds her in his arms, barely waiting for their breathing to slow before he says, “We can’t ignore this, Wilona. It’s serious. Lord Caelin won’t be pacified much longer.”

  “I know.”

  “There’s only one thing to do, as I think you realize.”

  “We have to hold on until spring. Listen to that wind! I fear we’ve missed our opportunity.”

  “You don’t have to wait until spring; you can take instruction now. The baptism can wait. It’s the intention you need to make clear.”

  She sits up and turns away from him, showing him her knotty spine. “I meant we have to move away from the village.”

  “Where did you get a crack-pated idea like that? Where would you go? No other village will have you.”

  Wilona bristles. “We’ll go farther into the wood then. Live with the spirits, where we belong.” Margawn’s sudden, explosive laugh makes her want to slap him. “We’ll not bow to the Christian god! Not now, not ever.”

  He puts his arms around her, and though she’s stiff with indignation he draws her close. “Live alone in the wild? Don’t be absurd. You wouldn’t last a winter.”

  She pushes at him with her knees and elbows until he releases her. “The gods have guided me through the wilderness before.”

  “You’re too stubborn! There’s only so much I can do, Wilona.” He pauses and she senses him gathering like a wave before it breaks. “I want to marry you,” he says.

  “Oh, Margawn. You mustn’t harbour dreams of changing me.”

  “Marry me.”

  “That’s not my wyrd, my bear, and you know it.”

  He says, “You make me feel like a poor excuse for a man.”

  “How can you say that to me? When I give myself to you and only you!”

  He runs his hand along her back. “I can count your ribs. I’ve been bringing you what I can, but I’m under Caelin’s eye. Dunstan’s child’s only part of it. He left the door of his hall open to you and Touilt during Yule and you refused to come. It’s a serious insult.” His hand goes still. “Lord Caelin hasn’t abandoned his interest in you.”

  The hungry, violent expression on Caelin’s face that day at the amphitheatre returns to her. “I don’t want your charity, Margawn, only your friendship.”

  “You’re too proud by half. It puts us both at risk.”

  “Would you rather I encouraged Caelin’s—how did you put it—interest in me?”

  “Careful.”

  Smoke trails along the lines of rock and root above her. He’s risked much for her sake. He’s right. She’s too proud. “Forgive me. It was a stupid thing to say.”

  Margawn takes her by the shoulders and turns her to meet his eyes. “Seek out Brother Egan, Wilona.”

  “And what can the monk do for me?”

  “He has influence. Caelin listens to him more than Ricbert now. I pray you’ll not find yourself without Touilt for many seasons yet, but we must face facts. You must befriend Brother Egan.”

  She sits with her leg tucked under her, the glow of the fire on her skin. “There’s no point approaching him, unless I wish to be saved.” She laughs, bitterly. “And in the saving I’m lost.”

  “You’re more clever with words than I am, but it’ll bring you only harm. I think you misjudge the man.”

  “He’s a Christian. Enemy of the goddess. What more is there?”

  “I’ve heard him speak on your behalf.”

  “Nonsense.”

  “Truth, Wilona.”

  “Why should he?” This throws an even more sinister cast on the situation. If her enemy has had to defend her to her neighbours, to Lord Caelin, what must they be calling for?

  “You know the rumours. Take care Caelin has no reason to call you and Touilt to defend yourselves.”

  “They’ve called us witches outright then?” Her stomach roils.

  Margawn adjusts himself so he’s sitting behind her, her body between his legs. His sex nestles against her buttocks, stirs gently. He draws the furs around them both. “You’ve heard it,” he says softly in her ear.

  “Soon they’ll say I’ve set a charm upon you.”

  “Oh, they already say that. Godfred has some opinion on your charms, it seems.”

  She blushes and is grateful her face is turned away from him. “And what do you think?”

  “I think Godfred will miss that tooth.” He chuckles and so does she. He smells of sweat and leather, like the good clean smell of a horse. “But it was Brother Egan who said he sees no evil in you and Touilt. He said your heart’s kind, that there’s no danger in you, only …”

  “Only what? Come on. You’ve come this far.”

  “Well, I believe the word he used was ‘ignorance.’ We are to pray for you, that you might see the light of Christ.”

  “I don’t need his milky prayers.”

  “You’re missing the point. He had the opportunity to wield the talk like a sword and cut you out forever, but he didn’t. He even said he thought your knowledge of herbs was formidable.”

  “I’m flattered.”

  “Think about it. That’s all I ask. For both our sakes.”

  She parts his lips with her tongue to silence him.

  Some hours later, she returns to the hut, and Margawn and Bana return to the warriors’ hall. Wilona stands with her ear to the door. There’s no sound from inside, and when she open
s it the reek of sickness assails her. Wilona rushes to her guardian and finds Touilt’s skin clammy and her hands trembling. The floor beside the bed is spattered with pink-tinged vomit. Guilt burns Wilona’s gut. “What can I do?” she says, for there must be something, there must be.

  “What haven’t we twice tried?” The voice is weak. “I long for sleep.”

  She mixes the herbs and roots as Touilt taught her. She makes the signs of the runes over the mixture. She sings the songs. She stokes the fire with juniper. She brings the cup to the sick woman and cradles her as she drinks, as Touilt taught her to hold the sick. She opens Touilt’s tunic and there, upon the leaf-thin skin, grey as that of a shelled snail, she paints the sacred signs and moves her hands, as Touilt taught her, over the great, unnatural bulge, full not of life but of the vermin of death. She prays and sings, and sings and prays, and feels Raedwyn, feather and wing, above and all around her, feels the ripples of his strength and warmth run through her shoulders, down her hands, spreading over the body of the woman who is as much a mother as she is ever likely to have, over the soft, fragile, pain-racked body. She keens softly, breathes in the decay from the old woman’s body and the wild-thyme and star-clear-night scent of her fetch, and sings and rocks and prays, and keeps watch with the presence of the great owl behind her and around her. She has kept the shutter cracked a bit, so that as she drives the evil out with prayers and the power of the runes, it will have a path back to where it belongs. When the moon is past its zenith, casting a silver sliver of light across the floor, Touilt stops moaning, her breathing softens, the muscles in her face relax, her hands stop twitching. Finally, she rests.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  A.D. 628, Returning Sun-Month

  Perched on the roof, Egan stuffs bracken into the small holes that Ricbert noticed a few days ago. Under his knee he holds the new straw, and once each hole is plugged, he places a bundle on top. He pulls a hazel spar from the basket on his back and secures it to the underlying thatch with a willow rod tied in a rose knot.