Against a Darkening Sky

by Lauren B. Davis

“Do you want to be admitted to the paradise of Christ?” he says.

  Touilt nods.

  “What do you ask of the Church of God?”

  Wilona says, “She cannot answer you, fool.” Ever so slightly, Ricbert’s hand tightens on her shoulder.

  Egan glances at her and nods. “Touilt, do you ask for faith?”

  Touilt nods and closes her eyes. Wilona thinks perhaps it will be over then, that wyrd has snatched the seithkona from the edge of the abyss. But no, she opens her eyes.

  “Do you accept that faith offers life everlasting?”

  At these words Touilt’s face relaxes; she looks upward. Wilona follows her gaze, longing to see what the broken, dying woman sees, praying it is her wolf come to take her. There’s nothing but the rafters, the cobwebs, the thatch.

  The sound of Touilt’s voice startles them all. “Life everlasting,” she says. Her voice is shredded, ragged. Still, the words are clear.

  Wilona drops her head and tears fall on her tunic. How can Touilt, who has walked between worlds, be so afraid of dying? What is there to fear? Is death not the end of pain, the beginning of rest, when one is reunited with the ancestors, when all work, save that of blessing the living, is done? Surely she can’t believe her beloved dead have become traitors and crossed to the Christian heaven? She curses herself for giving Touilt so much of the dream-inducing tincture. It’s the pain. It’s the potion. There’s no other explanation.

  “If then,” Egan says, “you desire to enter into life, keep the commandments, thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart and with thy whole soul and with thy whole mind, and thy neighbour as thyself.” He brings his mouth close to Touilt and breathes over her, three times, forming a cross on her body with his breath each time. “Go forth from her, unclean spirit, and give place to the Holy Ghost.”

  “There is nothing unclean about Touilt!” Wilona cries.

  “Hush,” says Ricbert. “The words are the same for everyone. Hush.”

  “You are calling for ghosts to possess her! Ricbert! Think!”

  “Be at peace, Wilona. Only good shall come of this.”

  Ah. She sees the truth in his eyes. This is a great coup, the deathbed conversion of the seithkona. Power will shift hands as lightly as a drinking horn. Oh, Touilt, what have you done? Her stomach churns.

  “Receive the sign of the cross both upon your forehead,” Egan says, as with his thumb he marks Touilt, “and also upon your heart. Take to you the faith of the heavenly precepts; and so order your life as to be, from henceforth, the temple of God.”

  Order her life from henceforth? Wilona almost wants to laugh. Touilt will not see the dawn. It’s a farce.

  “Let us pray,” Egan continues.

  His strange mumbling language means nothing to Wilona. The monk lays his hands on her head and Ricbert replies, “Amen.” Now Egan takes a tiny silver locket from a pocket inside his habit, removes something from it, and puts it in Touilt’s mouth. She hardly seems to notice, though her eyes are fixed on his. Touilt can’t close her mouth, just moves her tongue a little. He then takes the small glass vial and pours the clear liquid on Touilt’s brow three times, saying as he does, “Ego te baptizo in nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti.” He rests his hand on her head and says some words, too softly to hear. He turns from the dying woman, his work done. “She is saved. Her soul is saved. May she die in peace and find her eternal rest with Christ.”

  Touilt’s eyes close. Her breathing is so shallow and slow that with each deflation of her chest, Wilona fears it will not rise again. Ricbert, with one final gentle squeeze, removes his hand from her shoulder and bends down in front of her. “I don’t think it will be long now. Do you want me to stay?”

  She shakes her head, her throat too tight for words to pass through, her entire being a single throb of regret. What made these men come now, this night, and why had she let them in? She feels as though she’s plunged a dagger into Touilt’s heart. She’s failed her foster mother, her teacher, her guardian. She has failed.

  “If you need me, send for me. We’ll send a boy to wait at the door.”

  Egan clears his throat. “Wilona, sweet sister, I ask you now, at this sacred, blessed moment when the veils between the worlds are thin. Won’t you join your foster mother? Won’t you also accept the promise of everlasting life offered you by Christ the Lord?”

  “You’ve a bold nerve, priest.” She’s on her feet and trembling. She takes Touilt’s cold hand in hers. Memory flashes—she’s sat this way before, by the bed of another dying mother, in a village long ago, when she was the only one left alive. Touilt’s eyes open briefly and try to focus, but close again. “Leave us. Send no boy. I’ll not call.”

  Wilona holds Touilt’s hand in both of hers and lets her tears fall. In a moment she hears the latch fall into place as the door closes.

  Then she’s alone with Touilt, whose chest still moves, though barely. All that was strong and robust about her is gone. The fire in Touilt’s eyes has been doused, replaced by a glassy stare.

  Wilona tries to feel Raedwyn, tries to call him to her, but there’s nothing, just shadow and the thickness of night on the other side of the wall. It presses in. The walls bend and creak. There are no words to say, for Touilt has placed herself outside the pattern of wyrd. There’s nothing now but the strange unknown, a hollow shaft leading up into a starless night, a sucking hole through which Touilt’s soul is doomed to disappear. “Come back to me, little mother, just for a moment.” Tell me it was all a fevered mistake. She looks at Touilt and knows it’s a vain hope, for the mist of death surrounds her now, the eerie vapour-like matter she’s seen around the dead before. Touilt’s spirit, her energy, is seeping outward now, leaving, preparing itself for the journey to … to where? To where? Wilona groans. It is too much! Too much!

  Wilona sings the song for the dying, chants the runes eihwaz and raidho, knowing it’s useless; the gods will refuse to come to the aid of someone who has denied them. Wilona prays the gods may forgive Touilt, understand she was seduced by pain and fear and by the White Christ’s enchantments. And then Wilona realizes Touilt’s chest no longer moves, and the smoky vapour around her head is gone, and the eyes are still, and the jaw is slack, and the hand no longer cares who holds it. Wilona opens her mouth and releases into the uncaring night the scream of a heart broken and alone.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  The next day, something scratches at the door. The hair on Wilona’s arms stands up.

  “Bana, stop that. Wilona, are you there?”

  And so, Caelin and his army have returned. Would she have had the strength to keep the Christian out if Margawn had stood beside her? Too late.

  She longs to crawl inside his arms and sleep there forever, but she can’t bring herself to let him in; to do so would mean one thing has ended and another will begin. “Go away.”

  “I’ve spoken with Ricbert.”

  She wants him to stop talking. She can’t say goodbye to Touilt yet. Wilona presses her palms to the rough door. “Understand, love, and grant me this little time.”

  She hears Margawn building a fire outside. He and the hound will wait.

  All through that day and night, Wilona watches over the body, singing the sacred songs. She brushes Touilt’s hair and washes her, arranging her limbs, wrapping her chin so her mouth will not gape. All tension has left her face, and the lines have softened. Wilona draws runes upon her chest, not caring what the Christians will think. She dresses her in her blue tunic and lays the wolf-tooth necklace at her throat. She weights her eyes with pieces of rowan. She lights a candle and scents the air with amber resin.

  She sits with her back against the door, knowing Margawn is sitting on the other side. Shadows flicker on the walls, scratching and tapping in the rafters, shimmering in the corners—spirits, restless and confused, fill the dwelling, but Raedwyn is not among them.

  Perhaps she dozed, or perhaps time moved on without her, but when the knock comes at the
door, morning’s light slips through the cracks between the shutters. She lies on the ground beside Touilt’s bed. She’s as cold as if she were in the grave herself.

  “Wilona, you must open the door now. It’s time.” Margawn’s voice, deep and soft.

  Every muscle and bone in her body aches, and her eyes feel filled with sand. She looks down. Her hands tremble. Even with the amber and the sage, the room is saturated with the thick, sickly sweet scent of decay. She kisses her foster mother’s cheek, already tinged faintly green. Margawn is right. It is time.

  She opens the door and blinks, blinded. She shields her eyes. What a sight she must be. She doesn’t care. Margawn stands before her, so alive and vibrant, he looks more god than man. Bana stands next to him, his nose quivering. He whimpers and she scratches the dog’s ear. He licks her hand.

  There, behind Margawn, wrapped in furs, is Lady Elfhild, her golden hair glinting, her eyes the colour of the sky, her expression part distress, part compassion. Brother Egan, too, looking pious and pale, and Ricbert, the old heron. Two slaves shift from foot to foot, ordered to carry the body, no doubt, their eyes wide, clearly unhappy at the prospect of entering the house of a seithkona and touching her discarded husk. Margawn reaches for her, but she holds her hands up, knowing if he touches her she’ll dissolve.

  “Dear Wilona,” says Lady Elfhild, stepping forward. “What a terrible time, and your grief must be agony. Will you let us in? Will you let us offer you assistance and comfort?”

  “You’ve come for her body?”

  “She must be buried,” says Ricbert. “With all honour.”

  Wilona nods and steps outside, away from the door. A draft passes her face as the spirits of the house, Touilt’s spirits, rush into the ether. Although she sees nothing, she watches their path all the same. Then Margawn’s hand is on her shoulder, and her face is in his chest, and his arms are round her. She doesn’t see them take the body.

  Half a dozen graves, dug in the new graveyard during autumn, before the ground became hard and unyielding, gape like hollow eye sockets. A hurriedly nailed together wooden cross stands at the head of Touilt’s earthen bed, held in place with stones, and the Irish monk mutters his Latin incantations, shivering in his thin cloak. The day is bone-chilling, and the sun on the mountain snow so bright it hurts Wilona’s eyes. It should be raining, she thinks. There should be a thunderclap of rage, a deluge of tears from the forsaken gods. Wilona finds herself wondering if there’s any point to serving the old gods, or the new one, for that matter, if it all comes to this.

  Wilona stands with Margawn and Bana at the back of the crowd that has come to see the old seithkona buried as a new Christian. Even Lord Caelin has come. He caught Wilona’s eyes just once. Only Margawn’s arm round her waist stopped her from rushing to him and slapping the smugness right off his face. She fights not to look at him again, knowing she won’t be able to control herself. Dunstan and Roswitha stand near her, their friendship seemingly returned in the face of her grief. They don’t know how to comfort her, for she pulls away from every human touch except Margawn’s. It’s in their eyes: they think she’ll join the flock now that Touilt has, now that her mother-ewe is gone.

  Everything seems strangely defined, as if some membrane has fallen from her sight. It’s terrible, this clarity. Each stalk poking up through the snow trembles in anticipation of a heavy foot; each seam on every garment seems about to split, each thread ready to unravel. The leafless trees seem flayed and shrinking. Six crows walk near the fence as though banished. Now and again one or another stretches its neck and caws indignantly.

  “I’ll make her a finer marker,” says Dunstan. “As soon as I can.”

  “Cineres cineribus,” Egan says. “Pulverem pulveri …”

  “Yes,” says Roswitha, her voice low. “One with a circle round the cross, and a wolf carved in the stem.” She reaches out as though to touch Wilona, but Bana stands and fixes his eyes on her and she draws back. Roswitha chews her lower lip and shrugs at Dunstan.

  The monk holds up a handful of earth and drops it into the pit where Touilt’s body lies, wrapped in a plain linen cloth, with only a bronze crucifix, a small bowl, and a comb, from Lady Elfhild, in the grave with her. The clod of frozen earth hits the body like a stone. He invites others to do the same, but few take him up on the offer. Wilona thinks they have no wish to look upon a grave so ill-stocked for this supposed afterlife.

  The service finishes. People begin to wander off, but elfish Egan comes toward her, Lady Elfhild and Lord Caelin with him. Something like fury slithers up Wilona’s throat. She clamps her mouth shut. Lord Caelin has more swagger in his step than ever before, whereas Lady Elfhild retains her calm composure. Wilona’s muscles tense. Margawn takes her firmly by the elbow.

  Before she can stop him, Egan takes her hand in both of his. “I cannot imagine your grief,” he says.

  “No, you cannot.” His hands are cold as stone.

  “Won’t you let us come back with you and talk awhile?” says Lady Elfhild. There, too, in the lady’s eye, as in Roswitha’s and Dunstan’s, the hunger, the eagerness, to bring her in, to claim her, the last holdout, as one of Christ’s own.

  The desire to leap into their embrace, away from her solitude, stabs her. But it’s not her they want. They only want another Christian. They only want obedience. She will not look at Caelin. “You are most kind, Lady, but you’ll forgive me if I’m not strong enough to talk.” She slides her fingers from Egan’s grip and, crossing her arms, tucks them inside her sleeves.

  “I’ll see her home,” says Margawn. “With my lord’s permission?”

  Caelin nods and says something about what a loss Touilt’s death is. “But at least in the end she was saved—isn’t that so, Brother Egan?”

  “We must be joyful she rests with Christ.”

  “Hopefully she taught you enough of the healing arts to serve us,” he says to Wilona. “She was loyal, if occasionally too proud. I trust you’ll not make the same mistakes. Perhaps her lack of civility can be traced to her illness. Now that’s done with, I trust you’ll feel free to show your gratitude for our hospitality.”

  Margawn’s fingers are a vice on her arm. “My foster mother trained me well,” she says.

  Egan looks up at Margawn. “Take good care of our friend, Margawn. And Sister, if you need anything, anything at all, you must send word. Nothing will be denied you.”

  Does he mean to drown her in his compassion? “I’m grateful for your concern. We all grieve Lady Touilt’s passing.”

  “Indeed,” they mutter. “Such a sad loss.” “A life of honour.” And so on.

  And with that, the groups separate, leaving Wilona and Margawn and the dog on the path away from the village. The sun dips behind the great hill, and within seconds the light changes from gold to silver, and the wind picks up. Wilona imagines it is the spirit-wind carrying the dead to the land of the ancestors, but then remembers Touilt will not be carried there. There’s no way to know where, if anywhere, she will be carried. For the first time, Wilona considers the possibility that there is nothing but a great chasm in the world of the dead. If there are no gods, no ancestors to catch the soul, one just keeps falling. She starts at the terror of it.

  “Are you faint?” says Margawn.

  She pulls away. “I must go back.”

  With a feeling in her chest like a cloth being wrung tighter and tighter, she returns to the graveside. The earth has been filled in, mounded slightly, raw as a wound, and the plain cross stands like a splinter in the frozen flesh of earth. Part of her wants to fall on the ground, dig with her bare hands until she meets Touilt again, and then cover both their bodies with the same hard earth. The other part of her wants to spit on the grave.

  Yes, there it is, the white-hot coal inside Wilona’s head, making it pound and burn as she grinds her jaw. How could you do it? How could you leave me here and put yourself beyond even the reach of our gods? It’s all well and good to say pain and potion swayed a gre
at woman in the midst of her weakness, but Touilt should have chosen pain and clarity over poppy-dreams. The old woman broke faith, and if Wilona failed her, Touilt returned the favour.

  She remembers that first night, when she lay in a strange bed, a broken child blistered by grief, come from the-gods-know-where, her memory blasted by whatever had happened. She reached up and took Touilt’s hand, then woke in the morning with the seithkona’s arms around her. That wild smell of the wolf pelt, thyme, and Touilt’s own tangy sweat is in her nostrils even now. She thought then perhaps Touilt had claimed her out of affection, or at least pity, but now it seems she only used her for her own purpose. Used and then discarded. For it appears Wilona has been tossed into a new world where the things Touilt taught her are useless. Touilt apparently gave no thought to what might happen to Wilona if she chose the new god. Even had she survived, been miraculously healed by the White Christ, Wilona would have had to make the same choice she’s faced with now, for there’s no ambiguity: she must either convert or be cast aside; join the flock or be culled.

  Sounds from the village drift on the air: the laughter of children, the bark of dogs, and the rough voices of men. She imagines the slaves turning the roasting spits, stirring the stews, lighting the lamps. If she were a mere slave, a bondswoman with no influence, she would be safer than she is now. She nudges the soft dirt at the grave’s edge. Then she kicks it, sending a spray of earth onto the cross.

  “Wilona!” Margawn grips her arm and will not be shrugged off. “Stop this now. I can imagine how you feel, but if you value your hide you’ll stop.”

  She sucks in air. He’s right, of course. Caelin has cut off the lips of those whose words displeased him, cut off the hands of those whose deeds displeased him, and severed the heads of his enemies in war, impaling them on posts around the hall as signs of his might and his right to wield it. She must control herself.

  Margawn turns her to face him. “I don’t mean to be cruel, Wilona, but you must remember you’re not here by blood tie.”