Kaari concentrated very hard on the patterns she was weaving. She did not in the least like what she was hearing. Normally on such nights, she was able to listen as avidly as the others were, to take it in with a delicious shiver, to feel the danger, and yet know, in her heart of hearts, that it would never affect her. Not tonight. She could not think why, but it felt as if there was some terrible thing out there in the darkness — looming over her, looking at her, and chuckling, coldly, as it slowly tightened its invisible grip about her. She didn't want to hear any more. And yet she did not, could not, stop Ulla from continuing her stories. In the end, it was Rikka, not her, who asked for an end to it, who managed to turn the conversation into more cheerful topics, and who managed to make them all laugh.
Eventually, it grew late enough that Suvi-Marja's parents began coughing pointedly. Taking the hint, the three visitors rolled up their work, stowed it in the baskets they had brought with them, and affectionately took their leave of their friend.
All but Kaari, who felt a reluctance to venture out in the dark, chill night — a night so powerful, it verged on revulsion. Impulsively, she turned to Suvi-Marja, seeking an excuse.
But she didn't have to make up one. It was her friend that put one hand on her arm and looked at her entreatingly. “Can you stay the night?” she begged. “Oh, Kaari…I so want to ask your advice, and mayhap your help, and I did not want to do so around the others — ” She bowed her head and flushed “ — You all have had so many sweethearts, and I have only had the one — ”
Relief made her feel giddy. She often stayed the night with her friends, particularly when they did not have such enormous families as hers. Her mother would not take it amiss that she had done so tonight. “Suvi! Of course I will! But do not hold out too much hope of my being terribly wise, for wisdom you should ask your mother — ”
Even in the dying firelight, Kaari could see her friend blushing. “Oh, I could never ask my mother these things. She thinks that Essa is nice enough, but that I could do much better…I cannot make her understand.”
Whatever Suvi-Marja's mother did or did not understand, in that moment, Kaari understood her very well and what she was trying to say. Poor Suvi! She was not ugly, but she was not as pretty as most of her friends. All her life, she had been in the shadow of the others and had become resigned to that position. And now, there was a young man…and now, she was afraid and a little confused and very conflicted.
So she spent no small amount of time reassuring her. It was true that Essa was not a fabulous catch as a husband, if all you looked at was how prosperous he would be. But he was kind — in his own fashion, he was thoughtful — and he did care for Suvi. And if it was not wild, obsessive, passionate love, the sort of thing that they made songs about — the sort of things that they made songs about was not at all comfortable, nor safe, and Suvi liked comfort and safety.
So they talked for a very long time together by the light of the fire, with Kaari reassuring her friend. And by the time they slept, Suvi was smiling again and Kaari was only a little uneasy about the strange stories out of the North.
Perhaps I was a little overenthusiastic, Annukka thought, looking a bit ruefully, and yet with pardonable pride, at a smokehouse so full of pig and venison sausage that it could not have held another link. She closed the door on it all, sealing the door tightly with wax from her hives. She would not open it again for another three days, by which time the sausages would be cured and ready to hang in the rafters, where they would get a bit more smoke, which would do them no harm.
Now, every year, she sat up all night on the first full moon of Autumn, the first harvest moon, and sang for a full, rich harvest. But this year, something — she was not sure what, a feeling of unease perhaps, or just the small indications that the Winter would be hard, cold and long — had prompted her to put a little more emphasis in her song than usual. She absolutely would not interfere with the weather — be it sent by gods or the winds, it was not hers to meddle with. But there was no harm in singing for enough, even abundance, to carry the village through a bad Winter, if one was to come. If the weather was to be that bad, things would die in the cold anyway, and if a few more birds and fish and animals died now, beneath the hunters' hands, it was a quicker, easier death than starving to death or freezing in the night. It was a good balance. It was also a good balance to ask the crops to be abundant — if the Winter was a hard one, then an abundant crop now meant that there would be seed to plant when Spring came.
So she sat up and sang, for everyone with a Mage rune knew that the most powerful spells were sung, not spoken. There was something about music, and the way it was easy to get lost in it, the way it was easy to call up mental images of what you wanted, that made sung magic, for the Sammi at least, that much more powerful.
Now it seemed that her spells had been very effective indeed. The cellars were full of beets, onions, turnips and cabbage, dried blueberries, lingonberries and cloudberries, dried mushrooms, sacks of rye and barley flour, sacks of whole barley, stacks of dried cheese, waxed wheels of aging cheese, casks of dried and salted fish, potted birds and meat. Hams and sausage hung from every ceiling. Cupboards were full of preserved pots of butter, lard, jam and honey. The entire village had been feasting for days on the traditional foods of Autumn, butchery-time — blood pancakes, blood dumplings, blood soup, fried cracklings, stews and soups rich with meat scraps, and dishes made with various organs that could not be preserved — for nothing, nothing went to waste, not even, or especially, in times of abundance. Fish had almost been leaping into the nets, and game flung itself in the way of the hunters. There were peddlers and traveling entertainers coming through at this time of year, and they generally tried to spend as much time as they could in the villages that had a reputation for generous hospitality. The Sammi did not have harvest fairs of the sort that Annukka had heard of; Autumn was too busy a time for that. But anyone that came through was more than welcome to partake of the ongoing feast of things that could not be stored for the Winter.
One such peddler, very, very fond of Annukka's sausages, had just been through. He had left with some of the first batch of the season stowed in his cart, and she was now the owner of a curious and very beautiful mother-of-pearl comb. That might have seemed a very uneven trade for a couple of strings of sausages, but he had confided in her that no one wanted it once they heard he had traded for it with one of the seal-people.
Now she had no particular aversion for the seal-people, although it was generally held to be bad luck for someone who made his living fishing to have anything of theirs. After all, they might want it back, and their way of getting it back might well be to drown you….
But the peddler, who she knew to be an honest fellow, had sworn he had come by it honorably. And it was a lovely piece, carved with swirling waves and fronds of kelp. She intended to give it to Kaari for her bride's-gift.
As she sealed up the door of the smokehouse, she smiled a little, thinking about that particular peddler. He was the one with the most beautiful pieces of amber, and sweet ambergris for making scents. Suvi-Marja had seen one particular necklace in his store, three big drops like huge drops of honey, suspended from a delicate chain of amber beads, and it was clear to anyone with eyes that she wanted the piece. Between the two of them, she and Kaari had managed to put it into Essa's thick skull that this would be a grand betrothal token for Suvi, and even more cleverly, managed to make him believe that he had thought of it.
I wonder if she has even taken it off to wash, Annukka thought with powerful amusement. Well, at least that was settled. She had known Essa since his birth, and never once had she known him to go back on a thing once he had decided to do it. That girl was as good as married this moment.
But the recollection of the peddler suddenly made her frown, because goods were not the only things that peddlers brought with them. They also brought news. And some of his stories were…disquieting.
There had always been tales of a stran
ge, magical creature that some called the Winter Witch, some the Ice Fairy and others the Snow Queen. She was said to live up so far north — or else, in the mountains — that there was no other season but Winter there. That was not at all disturbing. There were all manner of things in that region that were magical in nature. If she were to concern herself with all of them, she would spend her time constructing defenses and never get anything done. This creature had been up there for generations, it seemed, and most of the stories were about people who had been stupidly or criminally foolish and had essentially gotten their comeuppance.
But these stories were different. The creature had suddenly turned malicious, and rather than sitting in her fortress or castle or ice-cave or whatever it was she lived in, she was extending her domain into places she had never been known to walk before. There were stories now of a Winter come so early that the snow caught apples not yet ripe on the trees, and grapes were frozen on the vine. There were stories of a killing kind of cold that swept down out of nowhere and froze birds and animals in their place. And there were stories of young men just — taken. For no apparent reason.
So far, none of those stories had been about anywhere too near the Sammi “kingdom” of Karelia. But Annukka knew her tales, and she knew that when bad things were on the move, they didn't stop for borders.
She bent down to apply the wax she was warming to the crack where the door met the frame. The rest of the smokehouse was tightly chinked with moss and clay, so this would be the only place where smoke could get out except the vent in the roof. It was taking extra care like this that made her sausages so good. And there was nothing like sausage on a cold morning.
If the Sammi had an enemy, it was Winter. There was not enough in the way of riches here for anyone to want to conquer their land; they were in no way strategic; and the very nature of the people, so dependant on the reindeer herds as they were, made them difficult to confine and fight. Sammi warriors did not make stands. Sammi warriors faded into the forest and the snow, struck from shadows, let the landscape wear the enemy down. Not that they did not, individually, fight valiantly toe-to-toe with the best of them! But as an army, as a force — no. When they organized, it was to divide the enemy, make him come to ground of their choosing and fight him as ghosts in the night.
But they could not do that with Winter. Winter was implacable. Winter's cold sought you out and tried to kill you and could not be hidden from. The only defenses against Winter were food, shelter and warmth. As the days grew shorter and the nights longer, there was always that fear in the back of every mind: what if the sun faded and never returned? What if the night and the cold were forever? What if this was the season when the battle ended and Winter won?
Annukka shivered and walked back to the house. She had another wheel of cheese to coat with wax before she put it down in the cellar.
No one spoke of this fear, although the oldest songs, the strong magic songs, did.
Strong magic had to acknowledge fear in order to conquer it. But that was what all the celebration at MidWinter was about, at bottom. There was the long watch through the darkest night of the year, the hope of driving back the dark with fire, of driving back hardship and privation with feasting, the driving back of the cold with the warmth of fellowship. And in the dawn, when the sun truly did rise again, there was rejoicing and a relief that was the stronger for being unspoken. The people had survived; they would live until Spring.
Of course, people could — and did — die between MidWinter and Spring, but somehow it never seemed as terrible an omen — unless the year had been so bad that stores were scant to begin with. Even then, this village had a most fortunate location. There was good hunting and good fishing, even in the middle of Winter.
But this year, unless the Winter never ended, there would be no need to fear the coming of the snow, even if it began early.
She could not help the thought that followed, as she checked the pot of beeswax beside the fire to see if it had melted yet. And what if Winter never ends?
She banished that thought with another. If there is some great and terrible Magic at work, then the Wonder-smiths, the Warrior-Mages, the Wise and the Shamans will band together and defeat it. It might be difficult to get the Sammi to fight together, but it was not impossible.
That internal voice chuckled a little. Difficult? No more difficult than teaching a cat to herd reindeer.
“Stop that, you!” she said aloud, glad that there was no one about to hear her. Well, other than the cat, who jumped at the sound of her voice and looked guilty, then immediately turned the guilty look to one of nonchalance. “And you may stay out of the cheese!” she scolded, not sure what the cat was getting into before she made it jump, but knowing that the likeliest thing was the cheese it had been eyeing. The cat put his tail in the air and sauntered away, very clearly conveying that he had no interest in the cheese, and she was incredibly rude to think so, and worse to say so. After all, someone might be listening. A cat had his dignity to think of. The nerve!
She was still laughing at the affronted cat when Kaari came flying up the path, face white, something wrapped in cloth in her hands. As she burst through the door, Annukka could see that she was sobbing.
“Mother — Mother!” she wailed. “It is Veikko!” She held out the bundle before Annukka could say anything, her hands shaking. The cloth fell away from it, and Annukka saw a little silver cup had been wrapped in it. “Before he left, we shared a loving-cup!” The girl sobbed. “He knew the spell — he said that it would keep me from worrying if he couldn't find a messenger to bring me letters, that as long as it was polished and shining, I would know he was safe. Last night it was fine, bright silver, not a speck of black. I looked at it just now — and look!”
Annukka, who knew very well what the Loving-Cup spell was, since she had taught it to her son, looked at the silver vessel in mute horror.
It was black from base to top, with only a thin silver line left near the bottom. Annukka knew exactly what this meant.
Veikko was in deadly danger.
Aleksia was back in the throne room, at the ice-mirror. Today, her gown was a sweeping creation of white velvet trimmed in white fox and lined with white mink, with a belt of plaques of silver holding faceted crystals, and a crown to match. Her hair was done up in a severe knot. She was warm and comfortable, but looked chilly and utterly unapproachable. It would take a very brave man indeed to do so. The throne room was especially cold today, because she expected Kay at any moment.
Meanwhile Gerda's second trial, her captivity among the robbers, was coming to a turning point, and Aleksia needed to keep a very sharp eye on it indeed. She was not inclined to trust any of this to luck. The robbers had learned that Gerda was not rich, that her parents were very far away indeed. Since they were all completely illiterate, to reach them and demand a ransom — even if one could be paid — one of their number would have to spend most of a month traveling to her city, and then, when he got there, somehow convince them that the girl he had was her. The rest of the band would have to trust him to bring back the money — and cows would be flying like swallows before that happened. And in his turn, he would have to keep from being captured; pigs would be joining the flying cattle if he managed it. The robbers themselves were not going to trust him with money for his journey out of their own stores, which meant that, to make that trip, he would be resorting to robbery, but doing so alone and out of the forest. The bandit in the forest and the robber in the city were two very different creatures. And neither functioned very well in the environment of the other.
Though illiterate, they weren't fools and had worked all of this out for themselves.
That meant that anything they were going to get from Gerda in the way of material goods, they had already gotten.
Now this group of men were looking at Gerda in an entirely different fashion. There were, after all, only two women here, and the Chief's daughter was not to be touched, or even looked at impertinently. Not ju
st because the Chief would gut the offender, but because Valeri would castrate him, then let her father gut him.
Now, it was true that Valeri had claimed Gerda for her own personal servant. It was also true that Valeri had lost interest in things after a while. The pet rabbit she had once that had escaped, the fawn she had raised that became venison roast when she wearied of trying to keep it in a pen, the various “ladylike” pursuits she had attempted and dropped when she was no good at them. The truth was, Valeri was more at home in breeches than skirts, happier with her hair chopped short than being braided and fussed over, more apt with a knife and a bow than a needle and a pan. She'd had a fancy to play lady and had seized on Gerda to be her lady's maid. But the men knew that, sooner or later, she would tire of the game and, they hoped, of Gerda.
And even if she didn't, the word of the Chief was law even to his daughter. If the men all banded together and demanded the girl, they would get her. They had not yet gotten to the point of banding together — each still hoped to get her for himself alone — but they would.
And soon.
Winter had already come to that forest, and there would be no more travelers coming through to be preyed upon. The band was snowed in; their hideout was part cave and part a stoutly built fortress of stone and massive logs. Aleksia was fairly sure that they didn't know who had built the place originally, and probably would never have dared to use it if they had known.
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