But the terror still hugged her close, a simple childish fear of pain. Odberht ordered the others to stand near, but not too near; she heard his gloating words as if from a great distance. Then she stood alone with him in the bleak moonlight, among angelica weeds, shrubs of white willow, and the urgent warning calls of frogs.
Fria, I do not feel you close. You watch, but you do not care. Why has my heavenly mother become a judge?
Odberht examined her, one hand under her chin, savoring her helplessness. She watched him, eyes brilliant, chest heaving with her ragged breaths. His eagerness was bestial and horrible—she felt herself a choice cut of meat ready to be bolted down by a hungry hound.
Fria, give me back the smallest portion of my mother wit, and I promise you a sacrifice of milk and mead richer than any you’ve yet seen at midsummer.
“If you please me,” Odberht said softly, “I won’t give you afterwards to them.” He indicated his fellows with a broad wave of the hand.
“That is well,” she managed in a voice free of trembling. “After you, they would be disappointing as a bowl of nettle soup after a boar feast.”
This was a pleasurable slap that threw him faintly off balance. He looked closely at her. That timorousness—was there not something slyly passionate in it? Was that fear…or closely bridled desire?
He tried to shrug the moment off, but was not entirely successful; her words subtly altered her in his sight, and this undermined him even as he refused to acknowledge it. With great contempt, he ripped her cloak from her shoulders and flung it to the ground. He wanted her to suffer the shame he felt on the day Baldemar treacherously pulled him from his horse. All whom Baldemar loved would pay him well for that crime.
As the cloak fell, Auriane felt Ullrik’s horn drop near her foot.
“You count me and the whole of my kin thick-witted and coarse,” he said loudly, legs planted apart. “But no matter. Whatever we are, you soon will be also.”
“Coarse, perhaps. But can it be entirely laid to your account?” She braced herself for a perilous chance. “How could the child of two guest-murderers be anything but coarse?”
She felt a start of relief. The notion seemed to agree with him; he evidently loathed both parents enough to want to be seen as above—and apart—from them.
“You’ve a scrap of good sense, considering you yourself are the spawn of a night crawler,” Odberht said. “It is true…I slay only my enemies.”
He took his dagger, made a cut in her tunic, and began roughly tearing it.
“That betrays whose child you are!”
He paused, irritated by the rebuke, but intrigued.
“It is evident no one ever taught you that love can be as a musician’s art,” she went on quickly, “and that the strings make a finer music when lightly struck.”
“Musicians are not men,” he replied, assessing her warily. “If you want a blow across the face, liken me to them.”
“Tread softly when you mock, for it was Ramis who taught the love-arts to me.”
“She does not teach such things.” It was as much a question as a statement.
“Oh, but she does. She teaches of all of life. Her apprentices must be skilled in the rites that give new life to the plants and raise the sap in the trees. Of me, she said I had skill enough to coax a barren patch of waste ground into feeding a village for a year.” She saw a jump of interest in his eyes. “And it is vexatious when one is schooled, and not given a chance to use one’s skill…. A warrior in time of peace must know this.”
Ranulf called out, prodded by his fear of will-o’-the-wisps—“Odberht! Are you going to bandy words all night? The bold warrior attacks and retreats quickly.” His fellows laughed nervously.
“Ranulf, you couple like a dog. I at least am a man.”
“Well spoken,” Auriane said softly. She moved closer until there was but a hand’s breadth between their faces. Odberht marveled at the power of those eyes to numb good sense, to make him want to follow, to believe, to drown in them.
“On some other night,” she whispered, “I might teach you…”
“You’ll show me now.” As he spoke, he began swiftly shedding clothing, tossing his sword and sword belt well out of her reach.
“But…I cannot.”
“You will, or you’ll not draw breath long enough to cross me again.”
“My hands are bound. In love, hands must speak—”
“Slippery wench. As though I were fool enough to unbind your hands.” But she heard a trace of angry regret in his voice.
“Well, no matter, for Ramis has laid a death curse on anyone who reveals it to anyone outside her circle of holy sisters…”
From his face she knew curiosity and lust had finally trampled caution.
“You’re cursed already, you’ve little to lose,” he said then, “and if the curse spreads to your night-crawling family, so much the better. I’ll loosen one hand.” He adjusted the cord so that one hand was bound, and secured the cord’s trailing end to a tree. “And if this be some sly trick, your blood will soak the ground.”
Then he cut the rope that secured her riding breeches, and they fell into a heap at her feet. For a moment he stared in wonder at her naked form in the wan moonlight; she was eerily white, an idol in luminous bone. He could scarce believe this lofty nymph was entirely his, to use as he pleased. Roughly he dragged her toward him, crushing her breasts against his chest. Then he regarded her expectantly. She fought vainly for calm.
After a moment of hesitation, she snaked her free hand about his neck, moving delicately over skin that felt like aurochs’ hide. She improvised caresses, attempting to touch cleverly, knowingly, making a complicated progress down his back toward his buttocks, that hand a desperate actress playing a role it was never taught. Fighting revulsion, she made a naive attempt at a lingering kiss of promise, while that fugitive hand made awkward crab-walking progress round to the front of him, ready to make a game and pitiful attempt at caressing his sex. But all at once—she never knew whether it was because he loathed to have her touch him there, or some more obscure cause—it seemed a demon was released in him.
He seized her shoulders, pushed her roughly back, then threw her down onto her cloak. She struck a rock and cried out in pain. Her cry seemed to excite him more than her caresses had; he collapsed on top of her, breathing heavily, pinning her beneath his bulk, attacking her face with fierce, biting kisses that bruised her lips. Once he drew blood and lapped it like a beast. She gave up all attempts to feign knowledge—he had lost himself in a rutting haze and no longer seemed to remember she was to teach him the love-arts. She fought desperately to push him off before he cracked her ribs, feeling black bog water close over her head; this then, she thought, is what it is like to drown in mud.
With her free hand she grappled about in the mud and leaves, searching frantically for the glass horn, snaking beneath his leaden weight, evading him as he tried to enter her. Her struggling only fanned his ferocity.
“Too good for us, are you?” he said between heaving breaths. “I will show you what you’re good for.” He pinned her unbound hand and struck her hard across the face. She saw white light. The hand slipped free, lubricated by the sweat of his palm. This time she found Ullrik’s horn.
She struck it hard against the ground, hoping it would strike stone and break, but suddenly there seemed to be no stones anywhere. Then in her struggles her left hand worked free of its noose, and at last both hands were free.
Battering ram knees drove her thighs apart. She lay limp and defenseless; she had exhausted herself with struggling.
Mother, she thought wildly, why should I escape what you suffered? You were the innocent one, I the one cursed at birth by the Fates.
He moved over her with the top-heavy grace of the bull mounting the cow. Then he forced himself inside her with one brutish thrust, and she felt a flare of pain in her loins that flashed out all through her body; she was afire, burning as Hertha burned, twisting
in agony. She stifled a scream.
His movement within her had the manic vigor of beasts. She felt herself not so much a woman as a morsel of food—who considered the feelings of the bread when taking the first hungry bite?
Triumphantly he studied her face. The shame and suffering he saw pleased him greatly.
She was his. He had put out that proud light in her eye. And she would remain his. He would make certain his brother never bedded her at all; the children she bore would be sired by him. All that kept him from perfect ecstasy was that he would be denied the sight of Baldemar’s face when he learned of this, because Baldemar would soon be dead.
Auriane summoned a last reserve of strength, and once more struck the horn against the ground. This time she struck stone. The glass cracked and broke, leaving a jagged edge sharp as any dagger.
His whole body shuddered with pleasure; a series of pig grunts came from him.
“At last,” Ranulf called out from his post. “All nature would perish, were all creatures as slow to couple as Odberht.”
She struck out at the only place she could reach—the side of that bull neck. He did not realize at first that the warm liquid trickling down his neck was his own blood.
Then he felt the pain, dull at first, then terrifying when he realized what she had done.
“She-viper!” he breathed, heaving himself up. He clamped his hands onto the wound to staunch the flow of blood. “I’ll see you trampled under horses! Ranulf! Ethred! She has not had enough. Come and take her!”
Auriane took swift advantage of the situation, throwing herself into a sitting position, shifting his weight off her so that she was able to fight her way to her feet. Then she sprang forward blindly as a hare in a net, ignoring the white hot pain in her loins; she struck Ranulf and knocked him down. Then she bolted off through the willow thickets.
“Troll woman! Get her!” came Odberht’s shout.
“Spawn of a loon! You unbound her!”
The five young men gave chase, following the sound of her crashing through the undergrowth. She burst into an open path and ran quietly for a time; then she startled a doe with two spring fawns. They bounded in three directions, making their own crashing sounds, confusing her pursuers. Unknowingly, Odberht followed one of the fawns. After a short pursuit the fawn stopped into a glade and peered back at him, immobilized with fear. Limpid eyes looked at him piteously.
The other four caught up. They demanded to know what was wrong.
“Shapeshifter,” Odberht whispered in spirit-terror, edging away from the fawn. “Foul sorceress. Vile witchery. She transformed herself into a fawn. But those are her eyes. Look!”
Not far off, Auriane slipped quietly into the pond. She swam as long as she could beneath the shallow water, hating the muddy bottom with its treacherous branches like so many slimy fingers struggling to snare her and drag her down. She surfaced amid reeds and rolled onto her back, allowing only her face to break the water.
Terrified of the horrors that lurked by night in a marsh, she imagined herself some water plant that belonged there, drifting gently, her face a night bloom turned to the moon. She heard Odberht and his fellows thrashing around for a time, and then there was silence. She whispered a prayer of thanksgiving to Fria for sending the deer. She did not move until smears of purple and orange above the birch trees signaled a sad dawn.
As she rocked slowly and the breeze of day began ruffling the water, she cried inside: Give me back the old world! It was more a throbbing in the heart than a thought. Where is my home? It is a fiery furnace. Where is Baldemar? Lying broken somewhere. And who am I? A fouled maiden covered with slime who should have followed Hertha into the flames.
She felt rotted through with shame; it lived in her like a grinning serpent. Odberht’s violence was her own evil made visible. The animal in her wanted never to be touched by a man’s hands again, but her reasoning self replied, no, it is not that simple. That was not a man at all, but a large and dangerous child.
But I escaped from him. Is it of importance how?
Only the Assembly was of importance now—if she did not reach it before this day’s eve came, she would have to wait another year to marry the god and take the warrior’s oath. And Baldemar could not wait that long for vengeance.
Gradually a strengthening anger came, buoying her up. Slowly she crept back to the scene of last night’s struggle, wearing nothing but the earth amulet Ramis gave her, listening for signs of human life. She heard none. There were her clothes, and the bloody, broken horn. Only her cloak escaped Odberht’s dagger; gratefully she took it and wrapped herself in its warmth.
She found the stream that fed the pond and followed it south, feeling herself more deer than woman.
You are an animal alone. To the world, show only claws.
CHAPTER VII
THE FULL MOON OF MIDSUMMER BRIMMED with magic. It shed so much light at midnight this might have been an eerie day, a colorless noon of bare hills gently rolling, broken by occasional groves painted in shadow and light.
The Midsummer Assembly was the greatest of the year; all who could ride or walk flocked to its hallowed promontory. It lay in the hill country, far in the southern reaches of their lands, close enough to Wido’s fast-growing camp that sentries would have been posted except none could imagine that anyone of the tribal blood would violate the sanctity of the holiest full moon of the year.
The hill was crowned by a lone oak of fearsome magnificence. Some said that if all the land’s oaks formed up in battle, this one would be their chief. It was a sapling before the Romans came, and now it was a stubborn old god, grand enough to shelter hundreds. Bitter roots clenched the earth; a massive trunk split into serpent branches spiraling in every direction, to peter out eventually into anguished fingers that scratched at the sky. This oak was believed a bridge between heaven and earth, uniting the spirits underground with the sylphs of the air. When the cold, potent light of the midsummer moon fell on that oak, the people believed no judgment given beneath its branches could be false.
Set about it was a ring of torches; within this ring the twelve priestesses and priests of Wodan stood in hooded cloaks of midnight hue, the skins of wolves draped across their shoulders, long ceremonial spears upright in their hands. The people camped all over the open land, up to the edge of the beech and oak forest where night hovered close. None strayed off alone into the wood—on midsummer night the fissures leading to down to the lightless hall of Hel yawned open and multitudes of unholy things with cloven hooves and glittering eyes ventured forth to frolic about, couple, or keep still, quietly watching.
It was the first Assembly in the memory of most that was not overshadowed by the presence of Baldemar—the medicine women insisted he not be moved from his tent in the war camp. His battle companions sat in a place of honor in the forepart of the throng, nearest the oak. Baldemar’s place was represented by an empty bench on which his sword was placed. Sigwulf and Thorgild sat at the head of his Companions.
On the day before, the Companions who had accompanied Auriane arrived with the news of the ambush and her capture. And so the measure of hope the people gained when Baldemar drove off Wido was lost. This was a blow that surely Baldemar would never survive. The tale of the Ash Grove slaying also spread rapidly, and was known to everyone at the Assembly, but now it only brought looks of puzzlement. “How was an omen fit for a battle-hero given to one with the life-luck of a thrall?” it was asked.
During the opening ceremonies, Sigreda slaughtered and offered up a white mare and a black stallion. The flesh was passed among the Holy Ones and eaten. The beasts’ heads were hung in the low branches of the oak.
Then a bronze bell was struck to summon silence. The tone was soft but long-lived, a dark, purplish sound that shivered out until it melted finally into the honey-musk smells of night, leaving a quiet so vast many could hear the tap-tap of blood dripping from the horses’ heads onto the muddy ground.
Geisar and Sigreda performed the c
ursing ritual: The priest placed a figure of straw that represented Wido into the sacrificial fire while Sigreda spoke the words that swore the betrayer of kin out of the tribe. Then, as the folk came forward one by one, judgments were given on various matters—the disputed ownership of a strip of prime farmland, of thirty head of cattle that had wandered from their home pasture; the occasional case of murder to be settled by payment in rings rather than by blood vengeance.
When the last judgment was given, the priestesses and priests began the mass rite of receiving new warriors into the tribal army. Two dozen wild boars caught for this purpose had been given to the god of the earth. A candidate came forward and offered proof he had slain an enemy with an honorable weapon of war—usually a witness, or some token taken from the fallen man. If he were accepted by the people, he ate a small portion of boar’s heart and took the oath. As night progressed, the tribal army was increased by one hundred thirty-nine men—mostly warriors’ sons—and three women, all daughters of the groves. The number was pathetically few, many feared, when they considered Wido’s steady supply of seasoned foreign soldiers.
Well into the night Sigreda’s bell-clear voice proclaimed: “Now we summon Wodan to lay a hand on the head of the one who must lead us out to destroy the betrayer. Who shall carry our standard?”
Sigwulf leaned close to Thorgild. “Watch well,” he whispered. Thorgild nodded. They were certain Geisar and Sigreda were Wido’s pawns, and they suspected the priest would try to put forward the name of a man in Wido’s pay. Among themselves they planned to call out only Sigwulf’s name; if the name of more than one man of Baldemar’s Companions were put in, it might cause division among the people and give Geisar the chance to break the stalemate by putting in a name of his own.
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