Burly Tales

by Steve Berman

  “My lord,” said the man, bowing. “Your brother is delayed. I am Gullscope, one of his aides—is there aught I can help you with?”

  So sad was Justinian feeling that he poured out the tale of the curse, though with less of his heart contained in the telling.

  “A tragedy indeed,” said the man at the end. “Although ...”

  “You know something?”

  Gullscope hesitated. “It is only, my lord, that your brother keeps many scrolls of antiquity, and I believe I saw once a reference to such a curse—a young sea-captain ....”

  “A bear-shifter?”

  “No, not quite, my lord. In that tale, the victim was trapped as a bull-seal by day and a man by night. But I dare say the principle is much the same.”

  “And was there some way to be freed of that burden?” asked Justinian, eager.

  “I would have to find the scroll, and—”

  “Do that, I beg you,” said Justinian, and swept away in awkward passion.

  Later that same day, after dogs were at their hearths and men in their cups, Gullscope came to Justinian’s quarters. The young aide shuffled, his eyes lowered.

  “The old tongues are hard to read, my lord,” said Gullscope in his thin tones, “but they tell that a friend of the sea-captain stole into his room one night, and took the pelt to burn it—for the deed cannot be known nor done by the one ensorcelled. A man cannot act against his own curse.”

  “And ...”

  “Thereafter, the man was hale and untroubled, for all the evil resided within the pelt; the shore-witch who formed the doom was thwarted, and died soon after.”

  Justinian had little to cling to but this strand of hope. “You believe that if I did this, Leif Thurlasson might be freed?”

  “Who can be sure, my lord? Not all old tales are wholly true, and ...”

  But other words were lost on the air, for Justinian was away to the queen.

  “Dearest mother, I must haste away, back to the mead-hall of Norroway. I beg you give my love to my brothers, and take twice that for yourself.”

  The old woman looked down at the son whose favours most mirrored her in her own youth, with tousled, corn-gold hair and those same, gold-flecked eyes that marked the ancient line.

  “You will be uncle soon, for an heir has been born to Andrys and Aisha. Is this prince truly your heart’s desire? A duchy would still be yours.”

  Justinian’s head bowed to his mother’s knee. “The realm does not tremble in the night, nor bead itself with tears; if it is not mine to free my prince from his doom, then who else will?”

  Then the queen knew her son’s great heart was truly set, and she reached to the chest of rosewood and brass which stood always by her seat of state.

  “Justinian, take then these tokens which have lain forgotten, unneeded in our peace.”

  And she drew out, one by one, treasures of the line—a knife of black obsidian from the burning isles; a silver brooch, shaped as a tumbling rook, and last, the finest spider-silk, wound upon a bobbin.

  “You will know their use when you have need, though I pray you do not. Go well, my son.”

  The purple of sunset brushed the mountains as Justinian took himself to his bed, and in the embrace of his quilts, held his mother’s gifts close to his breast. He had supped deep of the ruby wine, and eaten three men’s meals—the first for pleasure, the second to be sure that his belly did not complain—and the third to be sure of sleep, which was not long in coming .…

  True to Leif’s word, when Justinian awoke, he lay in the small, musty chamber from whence he had come, back in Norroway. The cock had not yet crowed; the household drowsed. Unable to hold back, he rushed to the bedchamber of Leif Thurlasson, treading barefoot so as not to wake the prince. In the corner, under a shuttered window, lay the hated pelt, a thick, shaggy mass of reddish fur and hide.

  Justinian took it up and bore it out of the mead-hall, bore it to the fire-pit where sometimes oxen were roasted. A pot of coals glowed by the pit, and it was no hard matter to get a small blaze going. It went against his nature to act without speaking to his love, but if Gullscope were correct, the deed must be done without the cursed one being aware, lest it rebound on him.

  “Let my prince be freed,” he murmured, and threw the pelt upon the fire.

  The flames which came were thick and oily, and they came so quick that Justinian was filled with wonder—this was no simple blaze. The thick fur charred and spat; the heavy hide beneath embraced its fate with unnatural speed .…

  “No!” cried a figure from the door of the hall. Wrapped only in a linen sheet, Leif Thurlasson ran forward and made to drag the pelt from the fire, but the smoke billowed and choked him, driving him back.

  “My prince, I—”

  “Fool of a man!” Leif wiped tear-filled eyes. “Now you have completed the curse—as the Red Bear, I could at least keep my place here. Without the pelt, I am thralled to the warlock, and have no choice but to go to him and share his bed forever.”

  And Justinian, stunned, watched as the man he loved ran off into the growing dawn, as fleet as the hill-goat or the wild deer ....

  DARK WERE THE DAYS WHICH followed. The holding woke in wonder at what had occurred, and those around Justinian were split between sorrow and relief—for they had love for their prince, but feared him also. Some spoke of sending to one of the Kings of Norroway, that another might order the settlement; others held that Justinian should carry the burden of rule, being as near a consort to the Red Bear of Norroway as they might ever have.

  “For you have lost us our prince, and thus owe us duty; besides, you are well-favoured by many here,” said a one-eyed elder.

  “I have done a terrible thing, for love, and shown I have not the wisdom to rule,” said Justinian, wracked with regret. Seeing that they still waited for his word, he caught at what his brother Erys might say. “Form you a council of those sound in judgement, and not too young. Let them be your voice. For I have proved that youth’s passion, untempered, is folly!”

  Inside the hall, they served him mead and slabs of roasted sheep; mushrooms, gathered from the forest and baked, and the thick dark bread of their land. He would not touch a morsel, but sat in sorrowful thought. Each hour he called for one or other from the older men and women, to ask where the warlock might be found, and sought word from the cunning-folk of the prince’s land, but only at dusk did one come who gave slender hope.

  “East of the sun and west of the moon, far beyond the pastures and the lands we know,” said a wizened ancient, his large head almost too heavy to be held aloft. “He who caused the Red Bear of Norroway came from there, and I heard him speak, in those days when he sought to catch the prince in his arms. He talked as those who dwell between our people and the Finns; moreover, his magicks sang of Finnish cunning.”

  The old man had little else to offer, but said that the way was hard—perhaps too hard for a man of Justinian’s youth, girth and appetite, one who had lived comfortably in fine halls all his life.

  “Then I must die upon that trail,” said Justinian without anger, for the man’s words were not unwarranted.

  He slept, turning uneasy in the bed that he had shared with Leif Thurlasson, and in the morning, he ate well once more. The people saw his face was set, and they brought him a huge hide cloak against the cold; dried fruits and strips of deer, and with them the prince’s spear and harness for combat.

  “I am no warrior,” said Justinian, refusing weapons and armour. A staff of yew he did accept, to help where the footing was poor, and in this way he set himself upon the path to find his prince .…

  3

  THERE WERE EASY DAYS AT first—his stride was long, and he had muscle as well as girth. Farmsteads and small villages gladly gave him sustenance when they knew his purpose; those who might have wished the prince to take a wife instead were consoled by knowledge of Justinian’s fair and kindly nature. They felt they could have done far worse—“Better a lord of good heart, than a la
dy with cold ambition,” had been said more than once in the time Leif and Justinian had been together.

  But winter was not far ahead, and with each league he came to lands less farmed and with fewer and fewer roads or tracks. One beldam in a cottage thought she had seen a lean figure stride past, unspeaking, a week before; two snot-nosed children thought the same, but none could have named the man. This was no longer the princedom of the Red Bear of Norroway.

  Justinian did not relent. He learned to forage, and paid coin for what folk could spare, pushing himself ever eastwards and higher. Hills gloomed around him; birds stared, unsure at the purpose of the great figure who passed them without glancing. And at last he came to a lone farmstead, the only chimney in all the land around him. The air was harsh, the fields mostly stones and wiry grass, and only a lone rook moved, its head tilted as it watched him approach the farm.

  “Ho the household!” he called, standing near the open door.

  After some moments, a cautious face appeared above a lean body.

  “We have nothing to steal,” said the man, doleful.

  “I am no thief,” said Justinian. “But if you have peat or logs a-burning, I would lie quiet by your hearth.”

  The farmer assented, and let him enter. At a rickety table sat a thin-faced girl with downcast eyes.

  “My daughter cannot speak,” said the farmer. “A warlock stole her words, a week and more past now.”

  Justinian started. “A warlock?”

  “Aye, one who visited unasked for. Gyttha must have angered him or showed him fear—thus he served her, in return.”

  “Of what did he speak?”

  “I do not know. I was returning with logs, and caught only the shadow of him as he swirled past me and went ever east. I fear … I fear my child will not speak again in this life.”

  Troubled, Justinian asked the farmer if he had seen such a man as the prince, but he had not.

  “My daughter may have, but none shall ever know.”

  Justinian’s reply was lost to the harsh caw of the rook outside, and he went to the doorway. Now there were three black birds, perched on a broken fence, and each was looking at him .…

  From within his meagre pack, he brought out the silver brooch of a rook that his mother had given him. Without knowing quite why, he went to the mute girl, and pinned the brooch in her shawl. Wide eyes, she wondered at his act.

  “All creatures should have a voice,” he said. “Try to speak.”

  She parted her lips, but all they heard was the caw of a rook outside.

  “Go on,” he encouraged her.

  A cough, a caw from the yard—and then a word from her lips.

  “Father!”

  The farmer ran to her side, nodding that she try again, and Justinian saw that more of the birds had gathered around the farm, not four, not five, but dozens. With each opening of the girl’s mouth, a rook cawed, and gave her back a word.

  Home. Hearth. Grass. Sheep. Arm. Stranger. Warlock ....

  “He came at dawn,” said the girl, stroking her mended throat with pleasure. “I asked idly if he knew the man who had passed the day before, the sorrow-eyed one who strode towards the wild places. He said it was not my business, and when I asked more—for I did not like him—he raised his hand and snapped his fingers.

  “‘Questions are knives, in other’s lives,’ he said, and pressed his thumb to my neck. ‘No more questions for you, girl.’ And then he left, and I could not form the smallest word … until now.”

  The farmer and his daughter brought roots from their stores, and salted meat, setting these in a cauldron on the fire and insisting that Justinian eat until he could eat no more. Over many helpings of the stew, he told them of his search for the missing prince.

  “The sad man must have been the one you seek,” said the girl. “But my lord, he trod the path to stony Trolldal, where only death lies.”

  They both urged that he go back, but Justinian would hear none of it. He was only two, perhaps three days behind, and he set his face for the narrow gorge they had called Trolldal.

  Now, Justinian was no hillsman, and these were not the gentle slopes where he had ridden in his youth. Such trees as stood were wind-slanted and bare of leaf or fruit; even the grass found little comfort on the rocky scree. Cliffs of dull grey stone rose on either side of the way, stealing the light and leading him—along a dry stream-bed—into a gloomy ravine. Not bird, nor beast, nor smallest insect moved in the silence around him, and he knew fear—but his heart remembered Leif Thurlasson in his arms; the scent of his lover was on the clothes he wore.

  “Bright is the day we die with honour,” he said, without entirely being enthused by the saying, and stepped forth into the ravine.

  Each step echoed; he would have been bolder had he not seen that sometimes what crunched beneath his boots was not loose rock but the bleached remains of men. A broken skull lay here; a shattered leg-bone there. His only comfort was that none of these were fresh, and he trudged on for an hour and more, until at last he saw a glimmer of daylight from the far end of the gorge.

  And then there came another sound, a heavy, grinding which did not delight the ears. Justinian held up his staff in readiness, but he was not ready in his mind for what gathered shape ahead—a troll, and a troll such as only his distant ancestors had fought. It seemed to haul itself from the rock face, looming over Justinian, and it stank of death. Its eyes were wide and sickly green; its mouth a savage cut across its ash-coloured face.

  “I would pass without harm to any!” called out Justinian, but the troll spread its arms from wall to wall to make its intention obvious.

  A slight youth or maiden might have dodged beneath those arms; Justinian was neither, and so he charged, driving the end of his staff at the creature’s eyes and hoping his weight might make it stumble. The troll, surprised, gave ground a pace; it lashed out and scarred the ravine wall with its claws. Justinian pressed himself to a shallow cleft, but that was no true shelter, and all seemed ill. He thought of the knife his mother had given him but, strange to his own mind, he brought out the bobbin from his pack instead.

  As the troll lunged, the little spindle danced from his hands and described its own curious movements in the air, the spider-silk gleaming silver as it unreeled. It tangled first between the troll’s talons, then down its lanky arms, and at last from ugly head to crooked feet, wrapping all in a gossamer stronger than iron chains, until the thing could scarce move.

  When the creature’s angry bellows subsided, Justinian came forward.

  “I seek a comely, sorrow-eyed prince, and the warlock who has bound him. Tell me if they passed, and whence they went.”

  The troll ground its yellow teeth, but said nothing.

  “Very well,” said Justinian and, taking hold of an end of spider-silk, he pulled with all his might, dragging the bound troll towards the end of the ravine, nearer and nearer the light.

  At this the creature moaned, for the touch of the sun would finish it.

  “The warlock has me thralled,” it cried, “and I must bend my knee to him and his.”

  “Neither knee nor any part of you will bend, when yonder clean sun shines on you,” said Justinian, and set his shoulders to move his burden another pace.

  “Enough! The man-thing has no choice; his master no mercy. Both will be found far east of Trolldal, in the warlock’s hold beyond the Weeping Plain.”

  Justinian stopped hauling.

  “With time you may free yourself,” he said, “but not before I return to seal your fate, should you speak falsely.”

  “On my father’s twisted gut I swear!” said the troll.

  So Justinian left him there, and scrambled to the welcome light.

  Beyond lay a flat, drear marsh, pocked with pools of foetid water. Tussocks of thin grass stood in places; others were rank with weed and dying moss.

  “The Weeping Plain,” he said, low in spirits, and took up his staff to test the ground before him. It was well that he d
id, for there was no straight path. A boot placed here might find firm purchase; elsewhere, the staff could find no bottom to the mire. In this place and that could been seen, half-submerged, a finger-bone with ring upon it, or a rotting leather helm.

  Slow and difficult was the journey, which took all of two days and more, Justinian resting an hour here, an hour there, on some meagre hillock of land between the chill pools. As his eyes could tell little of the danger, it was no worse to travel at night, the end of his staff ever poking at the footing before him.

  By the third morn that followed, he trod little but noisome mud, and could see the dry, featureless land that lay beyond. Featureless, except for the single low building which crouched a league away, unattended by tree, or bush, or other sign of nature’s blessing.

  Justinian halted, for he had neither Andrys’s wit and lore, nor Erys’s cunning, and was without a plan. It came to him that warm heart and earnest will did not always win the day, yet what else did he have? So he stretched out and slept a while in a dry gully, that he might face the warlock with as much vigour as he could.

  When the sun was full, he arose, and casting aside his staff of yew-wood—for its virtues were too weak to trouble the warlock—he made for the hold. The closer he came, the more he feared the place, for it was uncommon wrought, and did not look clean of purpose. A stone’s throw, and he could see how the split pines were made fast with human hair and yellowed dead men’s nails; the doorposts were of bones bound in dark patterns, and there was no door.

  “Ho the household! I would have word with the master here.”

  “Come in, come in, and be welcome,” replied a reedy voice—one which Justinian seemed to recognise.

  He stepped into the light of tapers and oily candles, which revealed a single chamber barely high enough for Justinian to stand. His first gasp was at the sight of Leif Thurlasson, huddled in misery at the back of the hold, by a wide and soiled bed; his second was when he saw the man who sat on a stool in the middle of the chamber.