The Knight of the Red Beard-The Cycle of Oak, Yew, Ash and Rowan 5

by Andre Norton

  The odd little creature roused, blinked, and climbed down out of the chair close to the fire that she customarily occupied. Then she waddled over to Zazar’s worktable, and with an agility belying her plumpness, leaped up onto it. There she sat hunkered on her hindquarters, and crossed her clever little paws over her belly as if to say, “Yes, you need me.”

  Zazar set one of her kettles on the worktable and poured a little water into it. “Some of this, and a little of that,” Zazar told Weyse as she began adding ingredients. “Do you think we need henbane?”

  With the Wysen-wyf consulting Weyse at every addition, eventually they achieved a mixture that suited both of them. Then Zazar set the kettle on the pothook over the fire and took up a paddle. As she stirred the heating mixture, she droned a tuneless song. Weyse squeaked and trilled, as if in counterpoint. Ashen watched and listened, fascinated. Indeed, she had never encountered even a hint of this ritual except in Zazar’s recent, cryptic references.

  The concoction in the kettle began to steam. “Now you can look into it,” Zazar said. She drew her chair close. Then, using a rag to shield her hands from the heat of the fire, she lifted the kettle off the hook and set it on the hearth between them. “Here. Give it a stir yourself.”

  Obediently, Ashen took the paddle with both hands and moved it through the steaming concoction.

  “What do you see?”

  “Streaks of colors. A trace of red. Silver and gold. Strong lines of green, red, purple. But mostly sea-blue green. Two shades, one light and one dark. Both entwined with white.”

  “Good. Now watch closely.”

  With that, Zazar added a few bits of thread from the ball she had taken from a box on one of her high shelves. The mixture in the kettle foamed and a cloud of smoke billowed upward. Startled, Ashen sat back in her chair.

  “What was that?” she cried in alarm.

  “That, my girl,” Zazar replied calmly, “was what happens when you employ castings from the Web of the Weavers. This was what I did when you were carrying Elin.”

  “Yes, but I thought it was—”

  “You seemed to think it was fortune-telling. Well, it is not. Now be still. I still have the last part of the ritual to perform.”

  The Wysen-wyf took the paddle from Ashen. As she stirred, she sang again, a different song, one with words.

  “Youngest child, Nordorn-born, restless in this world.

  Too young yet to seek his fate, yet his fate has sought him out.

  When will he return?

  Where will he find his home?”

  Zazar stared into the kettle. “I should have done this earlier,” she muttered as if to herself. “Perhaps I could have avoided—Well, no matter now. It is interesting. Very interesting.”

  “What? Please tell me.”

  “Look at the pattern. Try to alter it.” She handed the paddle back to Ashen.

  She moved the paddle through the thick mixture. “It won’t change, no matter how I stir it,” Ashen said. “What does it mean?”

  “It means that Mikkel’s fate, once in question, has become almost certain. I do not know what it is; the kettle cannot tell me that.”

  “No!” Ashen cried.

  “There is more. Oh, and you’d better move back.”

  Suiting actions to words, Zazar shifted her chair back to its place beside, but not facing, the hearth. Ashen did likewise just as a muffled explosion erupted from the kettle. An orange glow lit up the entire room and was as quickly extinguished.

  Instinctively, Ashen checked herself for burns, and found nothing. She peered into the kettle. “Everything is gone!” she exclaimed. “And you hadn’t told me all that the Web casting had to say!”

  “Well, don’t you think I have any memory left these days?” Zazar said testily. “Watch your tongue, or I’ll keep the rest to myself.”

  “I apologize. But this is about Mikkel—”

  “Yes, Mikkel and Ysa and Elin and Bjaudin and you and Gaurin and a lot of others, including Royance, Mjaurita, and Einaar, and even young Yngvar and Tjórvi.”

  “So many,” Ashen murmured.

  “Do you know nothing of the Web of the Weavers, girl? All our lives are intertwined—even mine—with others’. Oh, you may think the Weavers are just folktale characters, made up by the superstitious to try to explain what happens in their lives, but this”—Zazar brandished the small ball of threads—“proves otherwise. The dark-handed Weavers rule all, even the Almighty One of whom we do not speak.

  “Each life is a thread in the Web Everlasting. We think we are free to make decisions, free to act as we think fit, but our threads go through the fingers of a Weaver nonetheless. Some live, some die, kingdoms rise and fall and are forgotten. And all, all is recorded in the Web. Therein lies all history from the first glimmers of time.”

  “Then all is foretold?” Ashen asked.

  “Not exactly. Today’s weaving is not yet complete. There is always the possibility of change. You yourself, in case you didn’t know it, were a Changer, and the Change you wrought was great indeed. You brought the entire land of Rendel back from the Darkness. I had thought that ended it, but you had one more Change in you, it would appear, for it was through you that the Nordorn-Land was saved when you slew the Mother Ice Dragon.”

  “Is Mikkel’s fate tied up with that adventure?”

  “No, that has been accomplished and his fate is still forming. Others’ are more settled, true, but nothing is entirely certain until the Weavers are finished and move on to another section of the Web. When I use the castings, I can see the way things are probably going to go. That is all, and often it is enough. The pattern tells me that Mikkel will not die or even be seriously harmed, but it also says that he will not return quickly to the NordornLand. There is much change in store for him.”

  “Ill tidings.”

  “I told you this is no mere fortune-telling. If it were, I would say he would return on the next tide.”

  “How come you by these threads?”

  “Various mysterious ways,” Zazar responded with a trace of a smile. “Do you remember how, when you were little, visitors would come occasionally to my house? It was always in the black of night, and they welcomed my hearth fire.”

  “Yes. They were all heavily cloaked and seemed to walk ever in shadow.”

  “It was from such as these, when I was still living in the Bog, I would buy Web threads with trade-pearls when I could find them, and hoard them carefully until they should be needed. Sometimes others who know earth-magic as I do would share, as Nayla does nowadays. But where do they actually come from? Who knows, maybe the Weavers drop these castings where they can be found and then amuse themselves by watching us try to make sense with our rituals and attempts to peer into the future. But I will say that I am right more often than I am not.”

  “I just wish you could be more specific. I want Mikkel back.”

  “I think that in the coming days you are going to have more than enough here at home to keep you occupied.” Zazar pondered a moment, staring at the now-empty kettle. “I did not see him dead. That was very plain. And I will confess to you, I think I could have avoided this whole sorry adventure if only I had paid heed that night when you welcomed Ysa back to Cyornasberg.”

  “The night Gaurin made you dance with him,” Ashen said, smiling a little in spite of herself.

  “Yes, that one. Well, I came back here, and had a little brandewijn. The castings were, well, calling to me in a way they have, and I paid no attention. I regret that now. I could have seen to it that he and that other boy, Tjórvi, didn’t smuggle themselves onto the GorGull on a lark and go out to sea.”

  Ashen digested this in silence. Finally she spoke. “I could be angry, wish things had turned out differently, but it wouldn’t change the past,” she said. “Mikkel is alive. You have said it, and the kettle has shown it to you. Rohan and Tordenskjold are sailing out from Cyornas Fjord within hours, carrying ransom enough to buy back an emperor. If anyone can br
ing the boy back, he can.”

  Zazar muttered under her breath again. Ashen could not be certain, but it seemed she said, “Perhaps.”

  “What a disaster!” Ysa cried. “All the beautiful wedding plans for naught, and all because a couple of naughty boys ran off for a life of adventure at sea!”

  Elin, not ordinarily given to overfondness for her younger brother, nevertheless rose to his defense. “I’m sure he didn’t deliberately ruin your plans, Granddam. And he is being held captive by barbarians, you know.”

  “Oh, yes, yes, I know. I don’t want to seem insensitive. It is a sad situation all the way around, but I’m sure the Admiral-General and Rohan will set it all to rights once more. In the meantime, we should try to make the best of things. Do you agree?”

  “Oh, yes, of course. But Mother is very upset. And I daresay Father is, too.”

  “That is only natural. They need diversion now, as they never have before. I suggest that you go and entertain them. Sing to them. Or play games with them. They are fond of King’s Soldiers. You might even bring that priest, Esander, to comfort them. Anything to keep their minds off their troubles.”

  “Yes, Granddam.”

  “I worry about the NordornLand. For some time now, neither Gaurin nor Ashen has been truly able to govern, and so the brunt of this work falls on the shoulders of Bjaudin and Einaar. It would be reasonable for Gaurin and Ashen both to step down, but Bjaudin is still too young for such responsibilities to fall on his shoulders.”

  Bjaudin, Elin thought, is anything but too young for this. What is Granddam Ysa getting at this time?

  “Whereas Einaar, while mature enough, is hardheaded and willful. I do not think he would accept much guidance.”

  “At the moment, I don’t think there is much to worry about,” Elin pointed out. “The Aslaugors are peaceful among themselves, or at least not in open warfare, and the Fridians haven’t caused any trouble for, well, for years now. We have good reason to be cautious of the Wykenigs, now that they hold my brother as a hostage, but I’m sure the Aslaugors will be more than ready to turn from fighting each other to battling with them instead. Therefore, where lie the problems that would plague either Bjaudin or Einaar if they should shoulder the responsibility for ruling the Nordorn-Land? This is not to say,” Elin continued carefully, “that the northern tribes are at permanent peace. They are always touchy at best.”

  “How quickly you grasp the political situation, my dear!” Ysa exclaimed. “You really are quite precocious!”

  “Father and Mother deserve peace. They have striven long and hard for the NordornLand. Perhaps, as you say, it would be wise if they relinquished their burden to another, now that they have grown old in their labor.”

  “Ah, yes, but to whom? Duke Einaar is the logical choice, but—”

  “My uncle of Åsåfin has a reputation of being fiercely loyal to my father. He would resist such a suggestion.”

  “Well, my dear, I will tell you something you do not know. Many years ago, before you were born, the Duke approached me with just such a scheme, while your father and mother were off on the adventure that cost them so dearly, the destruction of the Mother Ice Dragon. Should they have not returned—or should they have returned unable to continue ruling—he would have assumed the throne. We talked about it at some length.”

  “No, truly?” Elin was delighted to have this fresh piece of information. So Bjaudin had nearly been supplanted!

  “Then Royance had to come and butt in, and turned Einaar against me. I daresay that he, with me to guide him, would have become the kind of ruler the NordornLand requires. But his notion of ‘honor’ held him back.”

  “I daresay,” Elin murmured. “Lucky would be he—or she—who has you for a mentor.”

  Ysa turned and stared at Elin as if seeing her for the first time. Elin did not quail under the Duchess’s appraisal, but met her gaze unflinchingly.

  “When this celebration is finished and some degree of normalcy regained—well, as normal as it can be with a Prince of the NordornLand missing—you must return with me to Iselin.”

  “Thank you, Granddam,” Elin replied demurely. “I would like that very much. I think we have a lot to talk about.”

  Dragon Blood had moved about a league from the site of the battle lest she be fouled by the wreckage and was now riding at sea anchor. The sails were neatly furled and a blood-red banner now floated free. It bore a device in gold of a fishtailed man armed with a three-pronged spear—Draig the Sea-terror. The Wykenigs were prepared to wait. All but a few of the captives had been thrown into lockers below decks, and the doors secured behind them. Mikkel and Talkin remained on deck under guard.

  Fritji alone of the adults was taken directly to the captain’s cabin, where a meal had been laid out. Large horn cups with silver bases were already full of some unknown liquid. The captain, a big man with wild yellow hair scarcely tamed by forcing some of it into braids, offered him one of the cups. “You look like you could use a good draft of Wykenig björr,” he said. “Better than that un-fermented berry juice you Southerners are so fond of drinking.”

  “Who are you?” Fritji demanded. “The least you can do is give me my captor’s name. Why did you ram my ship without so much as a parley?”

  “Holger den Forferdelig,” the Wykenig captain replied genially. He sat back in his chair. “That means ‘Holger the Terrible.’ You’d do well to remember that I come by the name as a tribute to my own deeds. Dragon Blood is my ship; I have two more. I also have the largest steading in our settlement. I am the Knight King, Ridder of Ridders in the Upplands.”

  “Where is that?”

  “You’ll find out soon enough. As to why we rammed your ship, it was because there was no need to fight or parley. You rode too high in the water; there was no plunder in your hold. Better to remove you from our way, send as many as possible down to the Sea-terror Draig’s lair, and take what captives we could for ransom. Such as the boy. He is interesting. How came you by him?”

  “He stowed away. Other than that, I know nothing.”

  “I don’t believe that, but no matter. We have eight of your men, by the way, in addition to the boy. Would you like to see them, reassure them that Wykenigs don’t eat their captives alive?” Holger laughed hugely. “We are quite a hospitable people, in the right circumstances.”

  “I will stay with my men. I do not wish to have special treatment.”

  Holger laughed again. “Then you should not have been the captain of your ship!” He took a large swallow of björr and glanced out a porthole. “Ah, I see that the Marmel is in sight. Good. Keep your seat, I must go supervise something.”

  With that, Holger left his unwilling guest behind and strode out on deck where some of his men were already preparing to launch one of the ship’s boats, scarcely dry since being put back into its davits.

  “Take the boy and the krigpus to the Marmel and bid Shraig sail with all speed back to Forferdelig Sound. They are not to be harmed, either one of them. I have a premonition that might as well have come out of Old Askepott’s kettle. Move. We can’t be more than a day and a half from Cyornas Fjord, and if ever a man had his war face on, it was the captain of that three-masted wave cutter. He’ll be back as soon as he can dump off the people he fished out of the Icy Sea, mark my words, and then we’ll haggle over the rest.” He surveyed his crew with a hard eye. “Why are you still standing around looking stupid?”

  The men immediately leaped to do their captain’s bidding. Talkin might have given them a fight, but Mikkel soothed him enough so that they could both be put into the boat, and thence into the water to be rowed across the short distance separating the two ships. This one also flaunted a red Draig banner, and on the ground it bore what looked like a crescent moon—a difference, for those learned enough to recognize it.

  Holger returned to his cabin in the aftercastle, where he found Fritji hungrily gnawing on a hunk of bread he had dipped into his bowl of stew. Lacking a little in meat, neve
rtheless it was hot and thick with turnips and tubers.

  “If it makes you feel better, your men are eating the same as us. We don’t bother to starve our captives because they aren’t with us long enough. One more bowl of stew more or less won’t make any difference.”

  So saying, he resumed his chair and pulled the dish closer so he could ladle out a helping for himself.

  “Now, while we wait for your brave rescuers to arrive, would you like to have a game of Hnefa-Tafl? That would be—let’s see . . . King’s Table in your language.”

  “The Nordorners call it ‘King’s Soldiers.’ But Sea-Rovers do not play games,” Fritji said stiffly. He pushed aside his bowl of stew and half-eaten crust of bread.

  It was a futile, defiant lie; Holger knew that Sea-Rovers were very fond of games of all sorts. “Then I’ll teach you.”

  Unperturbed, the Wykenig took an exquisitely carved board from a cupboard and began setting out the men. To Holger’s amusement, Fritji watched, trying to appear not to be watching.

  The pieces were pegged so they would not be dislodged if the ship happened to be in heavy seas. First, Holger placed the King in the center square, the Throne. He was guarded front, back and sides, by twelve warrior women in files of three, Walkyrye, clad in white, the King’s elite Guard. The Guard faced the Dark Attackers, in ranks of six on each of the four sides. The corner squares were marked, but not filled. These were for the King’s use only.

  “‘Who are the maids that fight weaponless around their lord, the fair ever sheltering and the dark ever attacking him?’ ” he murmured. Then, aloud, “Here are the rules. Since you are a beginner, we will cast dice. That shows us who can move, or if we can move. Odd numbers move, evens lose a turn. You move either up, down, or sideways. No diagonal moves, no jumping over pieces. I will give you White. This gives you a slight advantage, despite being outnumbered. You are trying to save the King by getting him to a corner square, one of his Strongholds. If you can manage to get a single clear path to any of these Strongholds, you must say ‘Raichi.’ That’s ‘Check’ in your language. If you manage to get a double clear path, you say ‘Tuichi’ or ‘Checkmate.’ Then you move the King to a corner square and you win. But that won’t happen.”