Against a Darkening Sky

by Lauren B. Davis

  The day is bright and the leaves a garnet and amber canopy above her head. The light flashes and shadows as she steps through the forest. Every muscle in her body aches, and in the places where her secret flesh is torn and raw, blood seeps. She keeps on moving, and at last finds a good place, far from the stink of death and burning. There’s a stream, and two ash trees of similar height and structure, the length of a man apart, and a nearby yew tree. Wilona is no longer interested in holy spaces. She’s interested only in the fact this place is good for building shelter, and the stream will give her water and attract game.

  She cuts eight poles from the yew, and a number of vines. She works like a madwoman, her mind swirling curses. May the souls of the men who hurt me wander in the wastelands forever. May their bones drift along the muddy river bottom forever, unburied, unblessed. With the back of the lean-to facing into the wind, she sets the longest pole in the forks of the two trees. The rest of the poles she sets into the ground, leaning up against this horizontal pole, and lashes them together with vines. She covers the framework with brush, boughs from a pine and a juniper, working her way from bottom to top so that the rain will run off. The scent of the pine needles is so clean she puts a few in her mouth and chews, the sour burst scouring her tongue. She gathers leaves and pine boughs for her bed, covering them with the pelts. When this is done she drives four stakes shoulder-height into the ground and stacks stones and rotting logs on top of one another between them. She fills in the spaces between the logs with twigs, and gathers stones to place in front of this wall for the fire. As night falls the weather turns colder, and this fire-reflector will add to her comfort. She plucks the chicken and roasts it on a spit. While it cooks she heats water in a small pot, brews the smartweed and pennyroyal to ensure the men’s seed does not take hold inside her. She brews it strong and drinks it all. She should drink it for four more days, but there’s only enough for two. When the bird is ready she tears into the meat with her teeth like a wild thing and tosses the bones into the flames, where they blacken and crackle. As darkness falls she builds the fire, then wraps up in furs, lies down, and curls into a ball.

  She watches the fire and grinds her teeth. Every flame is a grasping, reaching hand. Over and over again she closes her eyes, shakes her head to banish the images, until, at last, tears begin to fall. She wipes them away roughly, her broken finger throbbing. The pain in her hand reminds her she’s still not dead, but is this a good thing? She longs for Margawn, in this world or the next, but if she dies, how would she find him in the Christian heaven? She remembers what Margawn told her Ricbert had said: A sparrow flies in through a window at one end, flies the length of the hall, and out through a window at the other end. That is what life is like. She cannot see now why flying into darkness is a bad thing. What’s wrong with that deepest, darkest of slumbers, dreamless, painless, unending? She longs for it.

  She begged the gods to save her, to protect her, and instead they gave her visions she could not change, so she is doubly tortured. Wilona considers the possibility the goddess sent those two beasts to punish her for taking Margawn as a lover. Could the goddess be that jealous, that patient, that cunning and cruel? It seems as likely as anything. Some emotion rips through her—intense, scalding. She writhes and cries out. There it is! She hates the gods now, with a fury that burns away the bonds that tied her to them. She hates them!

  And then, behind the searing fury, comes a wave of clarity, bright as a lightning bolt. Without the gods to answer to, without the gods to please, with only herself to look after and to satisfy, life might become simple. She cannot decide if the gods abandoned her at her hour of greatest need, or if they willed this horror, but either way it’s of little matter, for she now abandons them. There are no owls in the trees, only the sigh of the wind, the sputter of the fire, only the cold and distant silver crescent moon hanging from a ribbon of white cloud. She’s just a woman beneath its clear eye. Just a woman. Seithkona no longer. She falls asleep thinking of Ricbert, wondering if he’s flown into the darkness beyond life’s warm hall. She dreams of fire and screaming and the stench of unwashed men. She wakes and cries for Margawn.

  For seven days and nights she lies in the furs, venturing out only for firewood, water, and food. By the third morning she can relieve her bladder without the pain bringing tears to her eyes. The swelling in her hand has gone down, the bruises have begun to fade, and although the nightmares have not diminished, she’s confident her sanity will hold.

  The weather has turned. The rain is vile, pelting down and extinguishing all but the most roaring blaze. The wood she gathers is wet and nearly impossible to light. She’s damp and cold through to her bones, and the food is gone. The woods are dark and dripping and the days short. The metallic scent of oncoming winter is sharp.

  She considers hanging herself from the nearby oak. She runs her belt through her hands. The leather’s smooth, supple as a snake. She slips it round her neck and pulls it tight. She imagines what it’s like to jerk and kick in the air, to claw at her throat as the world speckles and dims. She imagines her tongue swelling in her mouth, and her bowels releasing. Trapped blood throbs in her ears. The flesh of her cheeks and jaw prickles. The hollows below her eyes begin to puff.

  She coughs and loosens the belt, her eyes watering. No.

  Death will come one day, this or another, without her having to run toward it, although were Hel herself to appear right now Wilona would welcome the goddess. It seems the only things in the woods are creatures as miserable as she is: a droop-necked deer, several frenzied squirrels, a ragged fox. She considers: until death appears, she’s free from the wishes of the gods. Thus, damned or not damned, there’s as much reason to live as not, although the prospect of life would be more attractive if she were somewhere warm and dry. There’s only one place she knows.

  It’s time. She must go back.

  Dagger in one side of her belt. Axe in the other. Spear in her hand. Bundle on her back. Her hood over her head, and the fur cloak over her shoulders, she trudges through the haggard wood back to Ad Gefrin.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  Wilona stops where the path forks. Right leads to the village; straight leads to her cave. Her feet long to keep walking until she arrives back at the cave, profaned though it is, where if she’s lucky she’ll find nothing more than ghosts and mice. She takes two steps in that direction, then stops. No, she must see the village. She walks a little way and stops again. She cannot. No good awaits her there, she feels it. She turns, walks toward her cave, but something nips at her heels with every step. She stops, turns again.

  She pounds her fists against her temples, and snarls through clenched teeth. She considers going back into the woods and letting nature take its course. How strong the lure of oblivion is. If she were a different woman … but she’s not; she’s the one who survives. From the death of her childhood village, to the death of this one, it’s her destiny, her fate to be the one who survives.

  She must know. She must see with her own eyes. She doesn’t know why, for seeing will only replace the monstrous images in her imagination with the monstrous truth. It could be, of course, that the gods lied in the vision they sent her—she wouldn’t put even that past them now. Perhaps not everyone was slaughtered. She might not be alone. She can’t decide if being with others would be a good thing. A kind of numbness has settled into her, as though she’s walking on the bottom of the riverbed, moving against a lethargic current, viewing the world through the distortion of water, everything slippery, heavy, and indistinct.

  She sets her mud-covered feet on the path toward the village and keeps her eyes on them. She doesn’t raise her gaze until she comes to the well. The post has been tossed aside. She peers down into the water. Something’s floating, bloated and black. A dog, she thinks.

  The hut she once shared with Touilt is a seared, collapsed ruin. A grey sludge, a mix of rain, ash, and charcoal, has formed over and around everything. It smells sour and leaves bitterness on her
tongue. Without going closer she knows nothing salvageable remains. In the corner of her eye, something moves, and she swings round, her hand on the dagger.

  Ricbert’s body hangs from the yew tree, a great wound in his side. His neck is elongated, his head crooked. His blackened and swollen tongue fills his gaping mouth. His eye sockets are empty. His face is purple and black, faintly green.

  Ah, Ricbert. Old friend. Heron. Sparrow.

  She drags herself onward, climbing the path. She crosses the defensive ditch and steps over charred logs—all that remains of the stockade walls. Ravens peck and flap and squabble over the dead. They rise and fall like tattered black blankets. It’s difficult to tell who is who, for the elements and the animals have not been kind. Surely, that bloated form is Aelfric the potter; even in death his belly is impressive, as is the gash cleaving his skull in two. And there, the miller’s son, and the woman’s body is that of his mother. Part of a child lies nearby, but its face is gone entirely. Other bodies, farther in, are like coal statues among the shells of the buildings, twisted in the horrible rictus of death by fire, the arms bent, the hands pulled up in front of their faces, the fingers burned away.

  She steps over charred bits of stools and chests emptied of anything valuable. Here and there sodden scraps of cloth wave in the wind, remnants of clothing or bedding. In some spots the destroyed huts and halls block the way. She’s disoriented, a little dizzy, willing herself not to panic. A leather cup in the path here, a shattered loom there, a piece of crockery, iron hinges … the smell of rotting corpses, singed fur, wet ashes … Every place looks much as the next, as though she’s in a dream, some eerily silent landscape out of time, where everything is stitched together with memory and smoke.

  “Get back, demon! Evil spawn!”

  The voice is so shocking Wilona steps back, nearly tripping over a broken bench. A dog runs round the corner of what’s left of a building. Its jaws are open, tongue dangling, blood flecked. It swerves and disappears behind a pile of rubble.

  “Damn you! Damn you!” Egan appears from wherever the dog came from, running, a club in his hand. Seeing Wilona, he halts so quickly he stumbles. Then he becomes very still.

  “Egan,” she says, more whisper than word.

  He draws his lips back, not in a smile. He raises the club over his head, about to hurl it at her. His tonsure is growing in and the hair is as matted as hers. His robe barely hangs on him, revealing scabbed skin, and the fur across his shoulders is bloodied and foul. Healing bruises cover his face, making his leaf-green eyes all the more shocking. Blood stains his hands.

  “Demon! Ghost! Be gone in the name of Jesus Christ, Son of God!”

  He makes the sign of the cross, spits on the ground, and without another word, turns and jogs back from where he came, leaving Wilona to gaze after him, unblinking. His eyes! They glitter with madness. She squats on the ground, trying to gather her wits. If he’s alive, there may be others. She stands and wipes her palm on her tunic, leaving a wide black smudge.

  Cautiously, she edges around the corner and catches sight of him running between the black-bone ruins. She follows. He makes for the plateau where the king’s compound once stood, although she can see even from here that it, too, was destroyed. She loses him as she nears what was the amphitheatre, and then she realizes where he’s going.

  At the graveyard Egan is alone, save for the corpses surrounding him. He’s been digging for a long time, Wilona assumes, for line after line of open pits scar the earth, and more mounds beyond that, where bodies must already have been laid to rest. Two are very large. They’re like full bellies, the holes like hungry mouths. She shudders. The earth has become a pitiless beast. The great cross, though, has not been burned. It stands bizarrely unscathed at the end of the graveyard. Before it are a row and a half of old graves, three and a half more of fresh graves, and now these rows of open pits, waiting. How could he have dragged all those bodies up here? She sees a cart, piled with yet more corpses. There is no oxen, no horse. He must have lashed himself to it. He digs with a ferocity she fears will kill him. Now she understands why his hands have so much blood on them—all that digging with a rough shovel. His palms have split open.

  She could walk away. Clearly he’s lost his mind. He thinks she’s a ghost. He might be right. What more punishing Hel could there be than this? She holds her hands in front of her, looks at the web of dirtgrimed lines criss-crossing her palm, the bluish veins in her wrists, pulsing ever so slightly. She doesn’t think she is dead.

  Egan steps into the grave he’s digging, so his feet are hidden. Wilona steps forward. She doesn’t want to come up behind him, fearing what he might do if startled, and she stops, unsure of how to continue. Why not leave him to his ghosts, his god? She looks past him, to the cart. Roswitha lies there, her tunic rucked up, revealing white thighs smeared with blood.

  “Brother Egan,” Wilona calls, softly, softly. The wind is against her and she tries again, a little more loudly this time. “Brother Egan …”

  He stiffens, the shovel dripping dirt back into the grave, then turns, holding the shovel as a weapon. He stares at her, his eyes sparking fury and terror.

  “It’s Wilona. Wilona.” She holds her hands out so he can see she has no weapon.

  Egan hoists himself from the grave and runs toward her. She steps back, ready to flee if he attacks. She has weapons, but no desire to use them. But he stops. His thin arms and legs stick out from the tatters of his clothing. His feet are bluish-grey, patched red.

  “You look cold, Brother Egan. Have you no shoes?”

  He lowers the shovel slightly and squints. “Are you a spectre? An apparition come to torment me? In the name of Christ, if you’re a spirit, I order you to leave me.”

  “I’m no ghost, Egan. I’m just Wilona.” She shrugs, waves her empty hands. “You see, I’m the woman you know, and I mean you no harm.” She slaps the back of her hands lightly. “Flesh, see? Solid as you.”

  He trembles as though a chill runs through him, and lets the shovel hang. “How can I be sure? I cannot be fooled again.”

  “Will you let me approach?”

  Egan pulls the wooden cross he wears on a thong around his neck from inside his tunic and holds it in front of him. “You cannot approach unless you be flesh and blood.”

  “Then I’ll approach easily.” She walks slowly but steadily toward him. As she nears she catches his scent on the breeze and forces herself not to react. It is the smell of decay and rot and death. She wonders if he sleeps among them, to be so saturated with the stench. A battle rages in him—she sees it in his eyes. She’s no more than five feet from him when his face crumples and he drops to his knees.

  “Thank God. My prayers are answered.” Tears cover his face, leaving streaks through the dirt. “Blessed be God, the Merciful.”

  Wilona squats before him and takes his hands. A wave of unexpected emotion convulses her, and she bursts into tears. They cling to one another, sobbing, their bodies shaking with relief and agony. To feel another’s body, breathing, whole.

  When at last the tears subside, they sit back and gaze at one another. The blood, the scabs, the bruises tell their tale. Rain begins to pelt down in earnest. The icy rivulets wriggling down her neck make Wilona shiver. Egan’s teeth chatter. She waits for him to ask what happened to her. He doesn’t ask, only stares. She decides his mind is too blasted for curiosity.

  “We must find shelter,” she says.

  “I cannot leave the dead.”

  “They’ll wait for us.”

  “They get up and walk the instant I stop working.” Egan’s face comes close to hers. “I don’t want to look. Do it for me.” He jerks his head, indicating she should look behind him, at the cart full of corpses. “Are they crawling yet?” He shudders. “They become so angry. They bite!”

  He has lost his mind.

  “They’re quiet now,” she says. He looks as though he doesn’t believe her. The madness that has overtaken him is making him skepti
cal of her again. “Perhaps with two of us to care for them, they’re appeased.”

  “God sent you,” he says.

  She looks around. “Is nothing left standing?”

  “The beast burned everything.” He reaches out and pats her shoulder as though checking to see if she’s real. “He locked us in the hall and burned us.” His hands pull back into curved little fists. “He laughed. Cadwallon laughed at the screams.”

  “And did no one escape?”

  “No one. No ONE. NO ONE …” He is louder with every word.

  She takes his hand. “Brother Egan, if your god’s sent me, will you trust me, and do as I say?”

  His teeth bang together so forcefully she fears they’ll break. “I must bury the dead.”

  “You can’t bury the dead if you’re dead yourself, isn’t that true? Of course it is. Night is falling. The weather’s hard. If we’re to help the dead—”

  “You will help me, will you not?”

  “Yes, I’ll help you. But first we must find food and shelter, and sleep awhile and renew our strength. Where have you been sleeping?”

  He blinks several times. “I don’t know. I think I went to the mountain.” He rises and begins to walk in that direction.

  “No, Brother Egan. Wait. It’s too far from water and too hard a climb.” And there’s no cover there, nowhere to run to if need be. She takes him by the arm. He comes placidly enough. “Your god sent me to you, yes?”

  “He keeps sending you to me. And you’re not a Christian. Do you not find that odd?” He looks into her eyes, searching for something. His breath is rancid. A body feeding on itself.

  “If he sent me to you, then listen to my counsel. You’ll come with me. We’ll go to my dwelling. Even if Cadwallon’s men looted it, there was little to find, and they can’t tear down the walls of a cave.”