Raven Speak (9781442402492)

by Wilson, Diane Lee

  “Nor am I,” Asa mused, mostly to herself. “But I’ve killed now.” Something in her stomach dislodged as she watched the ravens savage Jorgen’s face.

  “Yes, well, that was different.”

  “How?”

  “Eh?”

  “How was it different? How does one killing earn applause and another death? I’d like to know.”

  The lone eye appraised her with some indignation, then lingered, softening. “Jorgen would have gone on killing; he’s spent his lifetime killing.” The wrinkly eyelid blinked. And blinked again. Moisture seemed to glisten along the spare white lashes. “In his greedy, grasping, lascivious pursuit,” she continued, “he nearly took what is rightfully yours. Years ago he did take what was mine.” She sucked in a sudden breath, seeming almost to tremble with a rush of anger. “He took my soul’s companion, Asa, the man who was heart to my heart.” She thrust her face skyward, closing her eye to the sun’s glare, and gathered herself. The ravens left off their gobbling to watch.

  Asa was expecting more, but in the next instant Wenda was busying herself with Rune. She ran her hands along his neck and back, and gently probed his leg, now crusting with dried blood. Pausing, fingers hovered above a hock wound, she added, “And he took from me my other love: my second treasure, my horse.” She was purposely keeping her face hidden, it seemed, as she went on probing. Stiffly she bent to re-examine the wound in his groin and patted the moss pack approvingly. She was certainly taking her time. Working herself up to some other announcement? “He”—there was a pause for emphasis as she straightened—“killed them both. But now you,” she said, turning toward Asa, “have killed him.”

  A piercing look followed, one that gradually expanded into a conspiratorial grin. How eerily similar it was to Jorgen’s, the one he used when he leaned close to give a compliment, all the while wrapping that compliment around a coaxing—a coaxing so subtle that no one suspected him of twisting them to his bidding, of whispering his words into their ears so he could turn them this way and that with invisible hands.

  Wenda’s brow rose, and the one eye slowly blinked, nay winked. Something in Asa’s stomach lurched violently as a sickness flooded her.

  So … she’d been nothing more than a game piece in some longstanding dispute. Half-wit that she was, she’d allowed herself to be carefully dressed—beauteously dressed, even—and pushed into battle just as easily as her father had been pushed out to sea. To his death.

  Had her own life been gambled for Wenda’s vengeance? The sick feeling ate through her; she shook, caught up in the web of a violent chill. And what about Rune? She considered her selfless companion. Had the woman gambled Rune’s life as well? He’d given everything for her when she’d not even asked. Her own anger surged. “So this was all your doing,” she managed to say between teeth she clenched to keep from chattering. “You sent me … us … to do your work.”

  Wenda threw back her head and laughed. “Whose work was it to battle him?”

  A biting comeback crossed Asa’s tongue, but she choked it down. Confusion muddied her mind. Whose work was it, indeed? Hadn’t she always known she’d someday have to confront Jorgen? Surely she couldn’t sidestep him forever, lingering in the byre, dawdling at her chores. But she’d never envisioned killing him.

  Her eyes spotted the knife on the ground, its blade a darkened red. She didn’t remember dropping it. Well, it belonged to Wenda—in more ways than one—and so she bent to pick it up and hand it over. “This is yours.” And she glared straight into the ice-blue eye.

  Wenda waved it away with an annoying nonchalance. “You’re not done with it, I suspect. It’s no weapon, anyway, so keep it.”

  Asa was left standing, filled with twisted feelings of anger, self-doubt, and resentful curiosity.

  As if she could hear Asa’s very thoughts, Wenda said, “He was an evil man. Evil to his marrow.” Asa remained stubbornly silent. “He tried to kill your horse, too, remember? And more than once. He did kill mine.”

  “I … I didn’t know that you’d had a horse,” Asa stammered at last.

  Wenda laid a gnarled hand on Rune’s withers and moved her stroking fingers in small circles. Her gaze clouded as she revisited fond memories. “I did. A white mare, as white as goose down and with a mane just as soft, and I loved her. One of the finest creatures I’ve ever known. She would have done anything for me—anything at all. And I for her.”

  A bold image of Rune, dreadfully wounded yet pummeling the skald with his hooves, brought a nod of understanding. “He”—she indicated Jorgen, unable to speak his name—“often mentioned a white horse in his stories. In the last wandering man story he told, a white horse ordered the man to kill him. None of us had heard that one before, and I didn’t like it. Was he talking about your horse? Was Jorgen the wandering man?”

  Wenda spoke from some distant reverie. “I haven’t heard Jorgen’s stories, only his father’s. But I wonder if he had his father’s magical skills—could he spin the stars from the skies and set them to dancing among the smoke-clouded rafters?” A honeyed smile lit her face. “That man, he could sing the fish out of the sea. He could sit at my hearth, and just by opening his hands”—and at this she parted her cupped hands and turned them palms up—“fill the room with the delicious fragrance of summer tansy, even with a winter storm gnashing its teeth at the door.” Her memories overtook her then, and she fell silent. She returned to the moment with a decisive snort. “No, the man in the story—no matter what Jorgen said—was not himself but his father, a man I cared for more than any other.” Nodding to the north, she said, “We kept a house beyond the next fjord after his wife, Jorgen’s mother, died. For some of the year he lived with your clan and for some of the year he lived with me. We were, for the most part, happy.”

  “I never heard any of this.”

  “It was before your time, long before your time.” Wenda shrugged. “Many didn’t approve.”

  In the slanting glow of the afternoon light, they both found themselves staring at the skald and the ravens’ diligent mutilation of him. Asa’s mind was churning, trying to sift the truth from the tales. She didn’t completely trust Wenda, never would. Finally she focused on the introduction common to all of his stories. “Jorgen always said that the wandering man in his stories wasn’t happy. He said the man was searching for something but didn’t know what.”

  “Now that does sound like Jorgen,” Wenda replied. “He always breathed unhappiness and poison—though he did so through grinning teeth—at most everyone around him: his father, me, your father. His mother died when he was still a boy, you know, and better that she had, for no mother should have to claim a son such as him. It was the poison that ran swift inside him that managed to kill her, I think, and later did kill his father.”

  That wasn’t true. “No, his father died chopping down a tree. It was an accident. My own father told me that.”

  The old woman glowered and Asa drew back. “It was no accident. A tree fell on him, crushing his leg. But that didn’t kill him; Jorgen did. He found his father, my lifelong beloved, trapped under that tree, helpless and at anyone’s mercy, and he walked away without a word. Jorgen left his father to die.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Because I also found him.” Wenda’s face clouded with dark memories. “It was late in the winter—very late—and, while we’d had some mild weather, the cold yet clung so stubbornly. The most fitful wind had been blowing all morning—I’d urged him not to go—and when all of a sudden it stopped, I knew something was wrong. I knew it at once; I could sense it. It was that dead calm that makes even the buck lift his head and hold his breath, and so I sent out Flap and Fancy to search for him while I followed on foot.” She gazed into the horizon, her mind traveling backward. “He was taking his last breaths when I reached his side, in more pain than any human could bear.” Vestiges of that pain contorted her voice. “For all my talents I couldn’t save him, though I tried everything. I begged him not to
leave me, begged him and cried. Ach! How I cried. But he was too thoroughly crushed, in body and in spirit also, because his own son had refused to help him.”

  A shiver rattled through Asa, punching prickles in her skin. If Wenda was right, all those years they’d been living cheek by jowl with a murderer—and not only that, the worst kind of murderer, someone who could willfully turn his back on that most sacred of blood ties. She gazed upon the skald’s bloodied and mud-splattered face with new disdain.

  “I’m sorry,” she murmured.

  Wenda shrugged, feigning dispassion. “It was a long time ago.”

  A meditative silence embraced them. The cool breeze stirred the needled branches of the pine trees; the ravens’ gluttony created small tearing sounds. Asa’s thoughts kept returning to the white mare. She hated to ask it, but couldn’t stop herself. “How … ,” she ventured hesitatingly, “why … did he kill your horse?”

  “Because I was what he was not; I had what he’d never have.” A vague smile crossed the woman’s lips.

  Asa waited for more, but Wenda just stared at her birds, working her lips again, and … was she humming now?

  Rune stood with the other two horses, his head drooping, his badly injured leg hitched and balanced on the toe of his hoof. Asa walked over and laid a hand on his sweaty neck, steaming in the cold air. His nostrils still fluttered with his rapid breathing. Mourning the bloody gashes to his shoulder and chest, she slipped off the bridle. The fight had cost him so much.

  She returned the bridle to Wenda, who took it wordlessly and stuffed it in her satchel. Then Asa unfastened the blue cloak, folded it, and handed it over as well. The one eye fastened upon Asa, blinking enigmatically. Was the woman waiting for something more? Expecting something else? Time passed, and then Wenda smiled—a little—and bowed her head, just slightly. Her version of a thank-you, subtly shaded with arrogance. Then she turned and, in her birdlike manner, stalked uphill toward the forest. The ravens flapped lazily around her head like summer’s thunderclouds.

  TUTTUGU OK PRúR

  Asa!”

  “We thought you were dead!”

  “Jorgen said a bear …”

  The members of her dwindling clan surrounded her with astonished but happy faces.

  Dusk was falling by the time she’d settled Rune and the other two horses in an outfield—at least they could search for nibblings there—and then she’d heard a familiar bawling. She had climbed wearily through the mountainside brush to find the wayward cow and her calf, and this time she had managed to coax them back into the safety of the byre. So stars glittered in the night sky by the time she’d approached the longhouse with hesitant steps. What would they say about her unexplained absence? What tales had Jorgen spun? Would they mark her a murderer?

  But here they were, welcoming her return with eager hands: hands that lifted the bags from her shoulders, hands that guided her toward the fire, hands—Pyri’s stubby-fingered ones specifically—offering up a lukewarm bowl of half-consumed veal stew. So they’d found the calf.

  Well, nearly everyone was welcoming. She felt Tora’s critical stare even before she saw the slitted green eyes.

  “Where have you been all this time?” Ketil asked as they seated themselves around the fire.

  She had to withhold her answer because everyone was watching Gunnvor hurriedly shoo little Engli aside and lift the mattress that had belonged to Asa off his smaller, thinner one. Flushing, and with her chin pinned to her chest, she returned the mattress, at the same time mouthing an apology.

  Of course Asa nodded acceptance. But that carried her attention to the spot where her mother’s mattress had last lain (she suspected it had been burned, as was the custom), a spot now half-covered with Tora’s extra-wide one. How quickly one’s place in the world could change. Breathing one moment, dead the next. Stretched beside a fire one night and sprawled in the mud by the middle of the following day. Gunnvor sensed her thoughts. “Your mother … ,” she began gently, placing a hand on her shoulder, “is no longer with us.”

  The words needled fresh hurt but, aware that all the faces had returned to hers, Asa allowed herself nothing more than another nod of acknowledgment and a solemn blink. She would remain emotionless, strong. As the stew held no more appeal, though, she lowered the bowl to the floor. Her obedient hands did not tremble.

  “She’s in the byre with the others,” Ketil added, “and well seen to. Gunnvor and Astrid made the preparations—”

  “We used the madder-red blanket,” Astrid interrupted, “and her favorite brooch, the one with the two beasts—”

  “—and Jorgen and I carried her out,” Ketil concluded. “You can have a look if you want.”

  “No!” Thidrick protested. “Jorgen says no one can go in that byre. He says there’s draugrs.”

  “Well, Jorgen’s not here, is he?” scolded his mother, Gunnvor. And then to Asa, “Missing since morning. We have no idea what might have happened to him.”

  But no one had touched his mattress. They expected his return. Should she tell them?

  “It’s the sickness that’s finally got to him,” Tora jeered. Around her fingers she was winding and unwinding a short string of yarn. “It’s put worms in his skull. You’ve all seen how he’s been acting.” She scanned the room for agreement. “He thinks we’re putting dirt in the soup, and he’s been rambling on about some ravens laughing at him and draugrs stalking him and—what was he saying yesterday?—something about having to wrestle the dead for smelly cheeses.”

  Cheeses—food! She had more food to share! “I forgot,” Asa said, reaching for the bags Wenda had given her. “I have some food here.” A ripple of hopeful gasps ran through the small group. She pulled out the unspoiled remnants from Jorgen’s cache, the nuts and barley, then dragged out the weighty mutton loin and held it up. “This will take some time to boil—”

  Clapping hands and excited chatter nearly drowned Thidrick’s enthusiastic voice. “It’s been months since we’ve had this much meat! First veal today and now mutton tomorrow. I’ll fetch the water right now because my belly’s getting used to this.” He jumped to his feet and rubbed his stomach to everyone’s laughter, then pointed at Helgi. “You get that fire stirred to a bone-cracking blaze before I get back, promise?” And he was through the door with a gush of wind and an energetic bang.

  Asa reached for the other bag.

  “Where did you get that?” Gunnvor asked, pointing. “It looks like—”

  “It certainly does,” said Tora. She leaned in.

  “There’s some fish here too,” Asa announced, frowning. What was so interesting about this bag? It was what was inside that mattered. “Can you pass me a bowl?” She began pulling out flaky shards of dried fish and plopping the broken pieces into the shallow bowl, which she then passed.

  Tora, meanwhile, had eased the empty bag onto her own lap and, along with Gunnvor, was studying its woven design. As Asa licked the oil from her fingers and watched the fish disappear, she thought she heard the name “Wenda” arise from the whispered discussion between the two women. That prickled her skin momentarily, though not long enough to repel the unexpected wave of exhaustion that washed over her. Warmth oozed into her hands and her face and across her chest. Her vision blurred, and the sparks that shot from the fire became pulsing orange stars that floated in a smoky sky. She felt her head begin to nod. It sagged again and again, a weight too unmanageably heavy for her ropy neck, and she fought futilely to keep it upright. As the contented chatter surged and faded, her eyelids fluttered, and she found herself swimming between two worlds, one day and one night, one real and one dreamed. Had she and Rune really battled Jorgen and won? She remembered stabbing him until he’d collapsed, and that’s when Rune had … but where was the triumph, the invigorating sensation of blood pounding through her, the notion of invincibility? Gone now.

  She shook herself awake and gave a sigh. She felt drained, utterly drained and empty and nothing more. And as she gazed bleary-eyed at
Jorgen’s mattress, lying empty in the shadowy corner from which he’d concocted so much fear, she questioned if it had been someone else who’d shown such bravery.

  Sleepily, she watched the others talking and eating, their drawn faces lit by the fire’s glow and the food she’d supplied. The longhouse felt safer than it had for many seasons. It was sparser, yes, and missing many, many faces, but ever so much safer.

  “There’s blood on your neck.” Pyri’s high-pitched voice, always overloud, drew Gunnvor’s attention.

  “So there is. Asa, are you injured? Asa?”

  In the same instant that her head snapped back and her eyes shot open, she reached for her neck. Motherly Gunnvor scooted over for a closer look.

  “Where did you come by that knife?” Ketil’s voice pierced her fog.

  She shook herself awake once more, dully realizing that her cloak must have swung open. While Gunnvor probed the neck wound, discovering as well her bruised cheek and still-swollen lips, Asa fumbled for and found the knife. She held it off to one side. It seemed that she’d never even seen it before. Was it the one she’d used? Yes, blood still stained the blade. But the cold metal felt abhorrent to her now, and without answering Ketil’s question, she tossed it, clattering, in his direction. Gunnvor was saying something about an onion poultice, which she’d make come morning.

  Thidrick returned just then, lugging two splashing pails. One after the other he dumped them into a large kettle while Helgi continued to encourage the flames. “Was it a very large bear?” he asked over his shoulder.

  “What?” She pinched herself to attention.

  “The bear that chased you off. Jorgen told us about it.”

  “No, there wasn’t a bear.”

  Heads turned in unison. Now she was awake.

  “Then what happened to you?” Ketil asked.

  “Where, exactly, have you been?” demanded Tora, holding up the bag. “And in whose company?”