Against a Darkening Sky

by Lauren B. Davis

  This surprises her, coming from the monk. “And isn’t Cadwallon a Christian? Yet you agree he’s to be feared?”

  Egan looks at his feet. “Yes, that’s true,” he says. “Surely a Christian king wouldn’t harm us … but … I don’t know …”

  “What choice do we have?” says Ricbert. “Given Wilona’s dream, and the fact there are, what, perhaps ten men in the village—Lady Elfhild’s housecarls—who are capable of fighting?”

  “And so,” says Wilona, “after all the blood spilled to combine Deira and Bernicia into Northumbria, Edwin’s great vision, everything will go back to the way it was. Kings!” She spits. “What madness their ambition is!” She says nothing of her own plans. Let them think she’ll go with them, if they like. She will not. She desires nothing more than to find her spirits, to seek knowledge of Margawn. No army will pay attention to a solitary woman living in a cave, and if they recognize her as seithkona and have any respect for the old gods, they’ll not harm her. Even Christians fear the wrath of the forest gods, and the gods will protect her. The dream is evidence they’re with her still. A small twinkle of hope flashes in her heart, though. If the people were granted refuge in the great fortress at Bebbanburgh, perhaps the vision could be altered even yet.

  After consulting with Lady Elfhild, Ricbert and Egan call the people together that night. Rumours have already spread through the village like a blight. Inside the hall, the fires are low and the women, children, and old men huddle in the centre like nervous cattle. When Lady Elfhild appears from her private chambers, the women moan and wail.

  “The kingdom is lost!”

  “Our men are dead!”

  “The gods have abandoned us!”

  This is a needle in Egan’s heart, but there’s no time for that now. He waves his hands and shouts to quiet them. “Your men may be gone to paradise, it’s true, for the battle has gone against us. If they’re gone to heaven before us, they watch over you, but who knows, some may have escaped—”

  “Our men are not cowards to run from the field of battle!” says Sunild, the tanner’s wife.

  Ricbert takes Egan’s arm and says, “Brother Egan only meant they may be regrouping, on their way to save us. But we cannot wait. For the sake of your children, we must go to Bebbanburgh.”

  At first there is silence. To leave one’s home, to be a refugee on the roads, at the mercy of strangers and a burden on kin, is a terrifying prospect.

  “We must protect our homes,” a young boy says, a threshing fork in his fist.

  The women begin to wail anew and clasp their children tighter. The faces of the old men shine with battle-memory and blistering rage.

  Lady Elfhild, dressed in her finest indigo robe, with a golden torque at her throat, raises her hand. “You are a brave and noble lad, and you do your family proud. But we must face this. I, too, fear I must now be a widow.” She hangs her head until the wave of protest stills. Her eyes glitter with tears, but with a fierce pride as well. “We’re an honourable people. We’re a loyal people. We do not run from battle. However, as loyal wife to my husband, as mother to his children, my responsibility lies in their protection, as does yours to your children. The messengers tell us the dog Cadwallon is laying waste to the country. If he comes here, and we think he will, we’ll not be spared. I want my son to live to avenge his father! As your sons will avenge theirs. We will go to Bebbanburgh and seek sanctuary in the fortress. We will grow strong again and we will live to see Cadwallon torn apart by our vengeance!”

  There are cheers at this, and Egan unclenches his jaw. The people will go. He would have used a different argument, but even he sees this is not the time for talk of turning the other cheek.

  All through the night and the next day, the village women, children, and old men make preparations, piling wagons, and packing supplies: tools, trunks, clothing, and anything that might be used as a weapon. Daggers are sharpened; clubs are fashioned from knotted branches. The boys will drive the cattle and the sheep and the pigs. The final harvest must be done early, so there are stores to keep them through the winter, but much, unripe, will be left behind. Still, they can’t arrive in Bebbanburgh empty-handed. If they appear looking like no more than hungry mouths to be fed over the cold months, they may well be turned away.

  They scan the horizon constantly, praying they’ll see only earth and sky, and not weapon-glint, not the cloud of dust that signals an approaching army. They pray the rain will stay away, for they’ll need a dry road. The village echoes with the sound of clanking pots and crying children and sharp-voiced women.

  Brother Egan has little to pack, save for the holy objects—the cross and altar cloth, and the items he uses for communion. He wraps the communion chalice and the silver pyx, inscribed with the words Ecce Panis Angelorum. May the angels protect the innocent, prays Egan. He goes from family to family, helping where he can, stuffing hens into wicker baskets, tying loads onto wagons, and blessing the heads of many children. He goes out with the shepherds, their eyes on the distant roads, and gathers in the sheep from the hills.

  At last, the next night, when the village is resting for an hour or two before taking to the road with dawn’s first light, he prostrates himself on the church’s hard-packed earth floor, and prays, and prays, and prays. His head fills with terrible images, of axes and torn flesh, of babies on the end of swords. Begone, you devils! I banish you in the name of Christ! The Adversary seeks to drive him mad with terror, so he’ll be of no use to these people. Cadwallon is a Christian. Surely even if he comes here, he’ll not harm defenceless women and children. Surely he’ll show mercy. To kill on the field of battle is one thing, but to harm innocents is another. His head spins with the tales of war—monks whose hearts had been cut out, still beating; who had been burned at the stake, boiled in oil—and he cries out, “No! No! Devil! Do not torment me so! Christ save me! Father save me!” He sobs, shuddering. He’s a child again, wanting to be back on his shining isle. Did not the sea creatures bring him there? It was a mistake for him to leave. He wants his old cell back, the chanted prayers, solitude and peace. He digs his fingers in the ground beneath him, dampened by his weak and pointless tears.

  He weeps and prays until he falls into a kind of unconsciousness. He feels the roll and ripple of deep water beneath him, as though the small church were a coracle on a restless sea. He smells salt. Egan’s heart slows to match the rhythm of the unseen waves, and a sensation of warmth comes over him. He raises his forehead from the ground, and there before him is a great shimmering light.

  He gasps.

  She is there.

  He tries to rise completely but cannot. It’s as though his limbs are sewn to the earth. Still, she is there. All white and gold, with fire round her head and birds hovering above her, beckoning him, a smile on her ruby lips. Her wings are like sails of finest linen, held in a gentle wind. Placid waves lap at her fine-boned feet. He’s a boy again, and he will follow her anywhere, even to the gates of death.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  Month of the Hunter’s Moon

  Wilona works every protection charm she knows. She barely sleeps, and when she does her dreams are full of fire and death, and Margawn, always Margawn. Margawn in the mud. Margawn with a thousand wounds, his blood seeping into the thirsty earth. Margawn’s hair stained with gore. Margawn’s eyes dull as dry stone, crawling with ants, staring sightless into the unending sky. She pictures it, smells it, tastes it, and yet her very blood rejects the idea. Every time she wakes after drifting off, she calls out his name, the smell of his skin in her nostrils, the taste of him in her mouth. He cannot be dead. I would feel it. She weeps and weeps some more and chides herself. There’s no time. She must work the charms.

  Wilona reads the signs. A swarm of bees settles on a dead log, meaning the hive keeper will not live long. The candlewicks spark, many times, meaning strangers approach. A hen crows, a nightjar settles in a branch near the cave’s entrance, and a raven croaks to her left. Whatever’s coming is
coming quickly. As the second night falls, a large, ragged wolf appears near the river, sending Bana into paroxysms. It takes all Wilona’s strength to hold him back. The wolf throws back its head and howls before it disappears in an enveloping fog. Touilt, surely, come to warn her.

  This night, Wilona can’t sleep, but rather moves from one mist-filled vision to the next, while Bana watches from the hearth. She sits on her hen-feather pillow, the blue cloak around her shoulders, the owl talons at her neck, owl feathers in her hair, yew staff in her hand. The pillow rests on a round, flat rock hauled from the river. Around the rock is a circle of red string, tied with twelve knots, and inside the circle the ground is scattered with cedar boughs and struck with runes. She’s pulled bramble bushes, mistletoe, and yew in front of the cave entrance. Only a madman would cross such potent protections, and if he did, he’d find Bana waiting.

  Owls gather in the trees—how many, she cannot tell, but there must be four or even five perhaps, judging from their calls. It occurs to her she should run from this place, but run where? How many homes does she have to lose? No. This is her place. Her place, and she will keep it. She tells herself to be calm, to trust the gods who have sent such powerful guardians.

  It’s hard to tell when it occurs to her what she’s hearing are not the normal noises of the night. First, she notes the absence of those familiar noises. Silence like a cloak, thick and heavy. The owls have stopped hooting. Bana is on his feet, growling, eyes fixed on the entrance. She fears he’ll bark and give them away. She softly calls him, makes him sit next to her, and holds her hand over his muzzle. Then: Snap! Crack! Something farther off—voices? Is that a shout? A scream? Ghostly, carried on the pre-dawn breeze. Wilona’s heart thuds painfully in her chest. It begins. Bana whines and she makes him lie down. The shadows from the solitary candle flicker like reaching fingers. Come, Raedwyn, come. Come, Eostre, goddess of life, come. Come, Tiw, god of war. She cannot hear the owls. Her mouth is dust-lined. Where have the owls gone?

  More noises in the distance now, cries and shouts. Some magic must surely be carrying them to her ears, for it’s too far for normal sound to travel from the village. She wonders if she is imagining it. The smell of burning fills the cave, filling her nostrils, thick, pungent, and sticky. She sits cross-legged and the stone digs painfully into her ankle where it rests off the pillow. She’s here, in the cave, but the cries are everywhere, flying around the cave like bats. She chants the song of protection, softly, and wills herself to be invisible, no more than a little fox in its den, a mouse in its burrow, an owl in its nest.

  Another snap. Men’s voices.

  She blows the candle out, holds Bana tight, her fingers over his snout. The language the men speak is unknown to her. They laugh, in a careless way.

  Pass. Pass by. Pass. A bead of sweat trickles into her eye and her breath catches. She opens her mouth, trying to suck air into her lungs without making a sound. Her feet prickle, the circulation gone. She wiggles her toes and the sensation is intense, burning, like a million hot needles. She moves her legs, putting her feet on the ground but still within the circle. The men are at the river’s edge now. Their voices are louder.

  In the darkness, she bares her teeth.

  The rooster crows. Once, and then again.

  In the darkness, her hands are talons. Bana vibrates, needing to bite, to tear, to rend.

  Two men. Voices more serious now. The brambles at the door shake.

  In the darkness, her throat fills with stifled screams.

  The brambles are thrown aside. A large hand breaks through the woven door as though it were stitched from fog. She sees a torch.

  She releases Bana.

  The dog lunges, silent as a spear, all teeth and fur and fury. Man and beast disappear in an explosion of cursing and flailing arms and legs. Wilona prays they’ll think they’ve stumbled on a monster’s den and will run before they’re torn to shreds. Kill, Bana, kill them! She reaches for her dagger. Her mind spins even as her eyes are pinned to the entrance—only jerking shadows, the flash of steel, of fang. She must fight next to Bana; she must sink in a blade beside his teeth … She must stay within the protection of the circle, of the gods. And then, a terrible yelping, silence, and then, it cannot be—Frige protect us—a splash as something heavy lands in the water. Only curses after—no bark, no snarl, no growl. In the darkness, she fills her eyes with fire, and hisses. She rattles the owl talons and shakes the yew staff.

  A face then, visible in the red glow from the fire’s embers. Wide, meaty. Yellow-grey hair and beard. Nose like a turnip. A black cap on his head, a spear in one hand, a shield decorated with white dragons on a red field. The man blinks at her, says something, and another head appears. This one is younger, with a black thrice-braided beard. A helmet with a flat nosepiece, glinting in the torch flame. There is blood on him. Bana’s blood.

  Black-beard smiles.

  Wilona stands, although her feet are dead and her knees weak as water. She shakes the talons, she shakes the staff, she utters words of great power and gnashes her teeth, pressing her arms out like owl’s wings.

  Black-beard laughs.

  Urine runs down the inside of Wilona’s leg, staining the ground. The men push aside what’s left of the door, step through the hearth ashes, and reach for her. She jumps from the rock, but where will she go? Wilona screams for the goddess and she screams for Raedwyn and she screams for Touilt, and when she is done screaming, still the two men stand before her. She pulls the dagger from her belt.

  This time both men laugh, and then hands are upon her and her tunic is torn from her body, and the stench of them is in her nostrils and the taste of them in her mouth, and when her flesh rips she tries hard not to scream, but fails.

  Dawn’s birdsong breaks through the crow-black night. Wilona pries open an eye. Sprawled on the ground, the two men snore and sputter in drunken sleep. It occurs to her she may be dead, a wraith yet to wander from the place of her murder. With some effort she moves an eye, and the wrenching agony in her head tells her she’s still alive. Her hands and feet are bound. It doesn’t matter what agony is in her bones, her muscles, her torn flesh—she spies a dagger hilted with silver, stained with the blood, no doubt, of the villagers of Ad Gefrin, lying next to the younger man. Oh, sweet dagger.

  She hardly knows she’s moving until her fingers wrap round the hilt. How cool it is. How accommodating to her shredded palm, her broken finger. It takes no strength at all. And it’s so sharp the ropes on her wrists and ankles are no more than silken string. The black-bearded man’s throat is soft as fresh-churned butter, the blood as warm as milk straight from the udder. She sits on his chest. He gurgles but cannot speak. His eyes fill first with fury and then plead for mercy, and she watches as the light dwindles and dies. The older man snores right up until the moment she sinks the dagger between his ribs, and then bucks like a slaughtered sheep and is still.

  It takes a long time to drag the bodies to the river. She pulls and pushes and rolls them to the flat rock and then tumbles one in after the other. They land with a splash, as Bana’s body did. Brave Bana, gone to be with Margawn again. The bodies float downstream, headfirst, face down, legs and arms spread on the mud-brown water, leaving trails of red. The older one’s shoulder snags a drifting branch and it seems he wears it like a thorny crown. She spits in the river after them. They are not the only bodies there. A man and a swollen sheep drift by. And something else, smaller, in a red tunic. She does not look closely. She catches a chicken and wrings its neck; she’ll need the meat. The rest of the chickens and the pigs and the sheep she sets free. The animals are wild from the scent of human blood and burning, and run into the forest. Ordinarily she’d send a protection charm after them, but now the idea makes her laugh. She picks up a large stone and hurls it at the tree where the owl nests. It hits the trunk with a dull thud and then falls to the ground, as impotent as Raedwyn, as the gods, any gods. The air’s acrid with smoke. Above the trees, it still billows, black as plague.<
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  She knows what she’ll find if she climbs the hill to the village. What she doesn’t know is whether Cadwallon’s army—for surely that’s who’s come—is still there, or if they’ve completed their destruction and moved on to the next village. She doesn’t know if her attackers were scouts or renegades or stragglers. She only knows she must take herself away. If she’s to survive, and she’s not entirely sure that’s what she wants, she cannot stay here.

  She wipes the hair from her eyes, tears the owl feathers from her hair and the pouch from her neck. She squats by the river and washes away all trace of the runes from her hands. The baby finger of her right hand is swollen and hangs at an odd angle. She slips into the cold river with her clothing dangling in scraps from her. She hugs the shore and keeps her gaze upriver, imagining the horror of a body bumping into her … Roswitha. Dunstan. Ricbert. She lets the current strip her bare, trying not to think of the men’s hands on her. It’s river current, only river current. She rubs hard between her legs, rinses her mouth again and again.

  Her skin is a tapestry detailing her ordeal—scratches, teeth marks, purple and green and red bruises in the shape of fingers and knees, on the inside of her thighs, the inside of her arms, across her breasts, her stomach, a gouge where her left breast seams into her ribs. She’d use the dagger and skin herself to erase every trace if she could.

  She doesn’t stay in the river long, for the air is cold and she has little reserve strength. Her breath fogs before her face. She finds two stubby twigs and binds them to her broken finger with strips from her under-tunic. She scrambles into the cave. The men have made a mess, breaking jars and scattering herbs under their filthy feet. She dresses in layers and searches for the herbs Touilt taught her will ensure she doesn’t carry a child. The jar of smartweed is smashed. So little left. But enough, surely. She scrapes up as much as she can. Pennyroyal, too. She fashions a bundle to sling over her shoulder, stuffed with what food she can carry, including the chicken—enough for a few days. She tucks a dagger and an axe in her belt, throws an otter-pelt cloak around her shoulders and another few pelts in her bundle, tosses her yew-staff into the river, but takes up the warrior’s spear.