Wolfskin

by Juliet Marillier

  Then she took the boat and rowed away southward to the shore near the women’s place. The sun was high, but veiled by heavy cloud now; she had tarried long in that place of death, too long maybe. Nowhere was safe; it was a time for flight and concealment. Somerled understood what Nessa was; he knew what she stood for. She must move quickly, and stay ahead of him. There was a task to be completed, and she must find the strength to do it, and do it alone. Once it was accomplished, it would be the time to step forward and confront him, though the thought of that filled her with dread. She had clung to hopes of Rona, but when she stumbled into the grassy hollow of the women’s place, she found the cottage burned to the ground, and her old friend gone. It was clear men had been here; the earth still bore the traces of their boots. She did not see how the wise woman could have survived such an attack. Even then Nessa could not weep; this sorrow was beyond that. It was a thing of bone and shadow, dark and deep; it had laid its hand heavily over these fair isles, so heavily it seemed beyond the strength of any priestess to lift it, be she skilled in lore and steeped in wisdom, be she brave as a hero of the old tales. She would not give in to weakness; she would not lie here in the dim quiet of the tower in the earth, huddled under an old cloak that once had sheltered a damaged warrior, she would not release the tears that built and built inside her.

  Her little bag had been carefully packed, ready for just such a flight as this. Engus had known, as she had, how slender their hope of survival would be once Somerled had his grip on the land. She could make fire; she could feed herself for a day or two. She had a tiny lamp, and oil in a corked jar. She could cast the bones in augury; she could burn herbs and sing prayers for the dead. She could perform the duties that had been set out for her since the day long ago when she ventured a little too far into the dunes and first met the wise woman.

  Nessa did not sleep that night. Guard curled up on the cloak, alert enough to warn of intruders, yet not his old self; perhaps he had hoped to find his mate here, or the man he had helped watch over, for there was something in the droop of his tail and the sadness of his eyes that touched her deeply. He did not go to hunt; he ate a scrap of hard bread from Nessa’s small store, and settled by the entry to watch.

  She sat between lamps in the bottom chamber, and told the tale of the dead: so many names, so many farewells. She sang the story of the Folk in the islands, generation by generation: how they had worked the land and fished the seas, how they had borne bold sons and brave daughters, how their kings had ruled justly, how their wise women had brought them the lore of earth and sky, had woven the rituals of fire and water, bone and moonlight. She told of her mother, her sisters, King Engus and his son Kinart, a fine fisherman, a valiant fighter. The darkness gathered around her in the small, round space; shadows were close. Above her on their shelf, seven small skulls watched with somber attention.

  “I have lost two more this day,” whispered Nessa into the silence of the underground chamber. “My friend and mentor all these years, Rona, priestess of the mysteries. Mother and teacher she was to me, a wise woman indeed. It seems to me she met an unkind end, yet I know she faced it tranquilly, with courage, for if ever one were ready to move on, it was she. And I have lost another: my faithful warrior, slain in a valiant fight for truth. But for me, Eyvind would still live, and could still return across the sea to his own people. I sent him forth to do my work; I sent him to his death.” Her voice wobbled; this was no good, she would be strong, she must be strong. “I don’t understand why I had to do that, why your words told me he must fall in one last battle. That seems nothing but waste, since all his efforts could not stop the slaughter of our people. And to die just when he was starting to see his way forward—did you seek to teach me that a priestess cannot entertain such feelings as I did for him? It was a harsh lesson, and I bear it in my heart along with all the others I have learned today. I did not know how dear this man was to me until I saw him fall.” She would not weep, not over this, not when so many losses must be endured. And yet, this seemed the cruellest, as she sat here alone. The knowledge that she would never again sit by him as she had that night, sharing the warmth of a single blanket, speaking as if to another part of herself, so close-attuned were they each to the other—to know that would never come again seemed unendurable. “It is hard to be faithful at such a time,” she whispered fiercely. “Very hard. Have you taken him from me for this reason alone, that if he had lived, perhaps I could not have remained your priestess? Have you robbed him of his future solely so that I can remain your conduit? It is very hard; so hard I don’t know if I have the strength to go on.”

  There was no reply; the ancestors had no answers to her questions. So, when the long farewells were ended, Nessa sat in silent meditation, for one could not command this voice if it would not come. Upright she sat, cross-legged, straight-backed, eyes open but unseeing, and made her mind still, empty, ready for what might come to her before another dawn sent its first fingers of light into the upper chamber. For a long time there was nothing. Perhaps even the ancient powers were silenced on a night of such loss; perhaps it was beyond even them to find a meaning in such sorrow and waste. On some level, Nessa understood that the night was well past, that light would come soon. Her ears registered the little sounds of the dog shifting about in the upper chamber, snuffling, sighing, settling again to rest and watch. And at last came a fragment of thought.

  Bone and ash…bone and ash…in bone and ash shall you find truth…how strong are you, Nessa?

  Strong enough, came her answer. I must be.

  Are you sure of that?

  How can I not be sure? There is nobody else to do what must be done.

  You are not quite alone, Daughter. Summon your strength. Find your path now. Time runs short for the Folk. In bone and ash, find the true way…

  Morning came. As the light filtered into the chamber above her, Nessa withdrew from her trance, slowly this time, careful of her weary body and shattered spirit, until she could move fingers and toes, stretch her back, rise at last to make her way up the crumbling steps to be greeted ecstatically by a licking, whining Guard. She went out into the day. The air was warmer; the sky was a sweet, mild blue, the color of her warrior’s eyes, but she would not think of that, she would not think of him. She must make a plan and go from here. If Somerled suspected she still lived, surely this was the first place he would look for her.

  She shared a crust with the dog. “Let me tell you a story, Guard. It’s an old one, about two sisters; a king’s daughters, they were. They both loved the same man, but they couldn’t both have him. He wanted the younger one, her name was Dervla. One day, the elder sister pushed the younger into the river, and Dervla drowned. She floated a long way downstream in her white gown, until she came to a place where a mill wheel turned in the water. The miller thought it was a beautiful bird he saw swimming there, and then he looked closer at the lovely dead maiden, and drew her in to the bank. Poor girl, he thought, so sweet and so sad: I wonder what her tale was? And because he had a fancy to do it, he turned her body into a little harp, white bones for the frame of it, golden hair the shimmering strings. There was no need to touch fingers to this delicate instrument, for the instant he set the last peg in place the harp began to sing all by itself, and such was its song, the miller knew it for a thing of wonder and enchantment, and he bore it forth to the king’s hall. A little abashed, for many grand folk sat there, the king’s elder daughter and her new husband among them, the miller set his harp on the board before the king and took a step back. Then the harp began to play, Guard; oh, such a tune it played:

  “Oh my father, hearken here

  Hearken to me, mother dear

  By you my false sister stands

  Who drowned me with her own two hands

  For the love of Conall sweet

  Dervla swam in river deep

  I, your daughter, now come home

  Voice of truth in harp of bone.”

  Guard looked up at Nessa. He lick
ed her hand.

  “Everyone knows that story,” Nessa said, “or another like it. A bone harp always speaks truth; it draws its voice from the deep well of earth, from the very core of being. I think that’s what it means, ash and bone. Somerled did not listen to Eyvi, nobody did, that much was plain. With no evidence, no witnesses, he had nothing but his axe and his courage. That wasn’t enough, and so he died.”

  Guard whined and laid his muzzle on her knee; Nessa stroked his head. “And so, you see,” she whispered, “you see what we must do. You understand where we must go.” A deep shudder ran through her. “I cannot do as my uncle bade me. I cannot run away, seek shelter, go into hiding. There is no point in that. I will not rally the last of my people only to see Somerled cut them down once more, to see him make a show of their remains in some perverted parade of conquest. That must not be allowed to happen. Somerled must be stopped. Now that Eyvind is gone, the one man who might have made him listen, this quest has fallen to me: to summon the voice that cannot be denied, the only true witness to that man’s evil deeds. I must make it known to his own folk just what Somerled is, and where he will lead them if he is not curbed. Will you go with me, Guard? We must cross Somerled’s land: go right to the heart of his realm unseen, and quickly, for there are women and children of the Folk held prisoner in his settlement, I think, and we must do this in time to save them. Will you go?”

  Guard’s eyes were steadfast as only a good dog’s can be; he wagged his long tail.

  “Right, then,” said Nessa, trying not to think too hard of the details, now that she knew what must be done. “I suppose we’ll need a shovel, and…and a sack or bag, and a sharp knife—I have that already. We’d best look over in the rubble there and see if anything escaped the fire.”

  She moved across the empty land like a shadow, and Guard moved by her, her last loyal companion. Slipping silently from rock to bank, from standing stone to desolate barn, she made her way southeastward as the sun edged across a pale spring sky. There were early lambs in the fields, frisking and playing in their pristine white, as if there were no such thing as sorrow.

  She rested in the shade of a tall stone close by the lake, recognizing that its huge form had wandered somewhat since last she came this way, in a long-ago summer in a faraway world. It was well known that the stones moved, though nobody ever saw them do it. Seeking water, seeking warmth, seeking wisdom: who could say what was in their ancient hearts, save the earth herself? This one had shifted closer to the lake, and now it sheltered Nessa’s rest. She felt its warmth at her back, saw without needing to look the complex pattern of lichen that crusted its rough surface, gold, red, gray, yellow-green, a whole small world of subtle, mysterious growth.

  She leaned back against the monolith, eyes closed, and knew in an instant that there was one image she could not put aside, one loss that stayed starkly foremost in her thoughts. Gold, red, the sun glinted on the waterfall fringe of his helm; silver, gold, the light caught the fire in his axe and flashed it like a beacon. He fell. Boots trampled his limp body. Gold, red, his blood-soaked hair curled gently around his solemn, pale features; blue met blue, his empty eyes gazing up on empty sky, seeking answers where there were none. She had sent him before her to die. She had sacrificed him for nothing. She had squandered what she had not known was precious. This was a small loss beside the slaughter of the Folk, a little thing beside the death of their king. The priestess understood that. But the woman felt it like a heart wound, she knew in this hurt her own frailty, her own longing, her own mortality. He was hers, and she had killed him.

  “Come,” Nessa said to Guard, and he rose obediently from where he lay panting on the grass by the ancient stone. “Time’s passing. We must find our way there before dusk.” She shouldered the bag, picked up the shovel, moved forward. The dog stepped by her lightly; he disregarded grazing sheep and hovering meadow birds and tantalizing rustlings in the bushes. The two of them went together with a single path and a single purpose.

  They had come a long way, and now there were people about, Somerled’s people, soldiers, sentries, and Nessa knew she could not go where she must without passing them. Down the hill, below her, she could see the settlement Ulf had built in those first days of bright hope and purpose. There were several buildings, long and low, made of neat-laid stones and heather thatch over a frame of pale timbers, gifts from the sea. Men and women were walking about there, and a child ran, chasing a ball. A dog barked and Guard tensed, hair rising, teeth bared. Nessa quieted him with a look, a gesture. Standing still by an outhouse wall, she gazed down the hill, seeking clues. Were any of her people captive there? The child she had seen was stocky, fair-haired, pink-cheeked: one of theirs. Where were the young women of the Folk, the infants, the grandmothers? Perhaps it was already too late for them.

  Now there were guards coming through the gateway from the settlement, a group of them clad in leather-belted tunics and short woolen cloaks, with caplike iron helms on their heads and short swords by their sides. They were walking straight up the track toward her. Nessa shrank back into the shadow by the old building, her heart sounding a fast music of alarm. Guard growled; she moved her hand, hushing him. The men came closer; she could hear them talking, she could hear them laughing about what they had done at the Whaleback, about how easy it had been. Panic gave way to fury; something in her was desperate to step out in the open and confront them, to scream her outrage, to awaken some semblance of shame in their complacent eyes. She stood still as if she were herself part of this stone wall, as if she could melt invisibly into its cracked surface, become one with the mosses and fine-leaved creepers that had made their home here. Guard was struggling to hold back his instinctive fanfare of challenge. Nessa kept her hand on the dog’s neck, made her touch gentle and reassuring for all her own tumult of feelings. The men passed by not five paces from them, seeing nothing. Their voices rose and fell, joking, jubilant, unthinking. They walked on up the hill and were lost from sight.

  “Come,” Nessa whispered, and the two of them moved on again. Lone tree to solitary stone, small hollow to crumbling sheep pen, broken wall to clump of tattered grasses, they passed to the south of the settlement, and before the sun went down they reached a gentle hill amidst meadowland, a place of immense quiet, whose stillness was broken only by the peep and trill of inland birds, the mellow call of ewe to lamb, the soft rustle of a spring wind. Atop the hillock, a cairn had been raised; grasses were already creeping over its surface, where earth had been laid on the stones that formed its structure. Small flowers showed here and there, yellow, purple, white, a delicate quilt to shelter a good man’s slumber. There was a long view to the west. From this resting place, the dreamer of dreams could see as far as the world’s end. Nessa had heard it said Ulf’s wife had chosen this spot. If that were so, it seemed Margaret had understood her husband well.

  Nessa waited until it was quite dark, forcing down a cup of water, a crust of dry bread. When rabbits came out to forage in the dusk, Guard disappeared for a little and came back licking his lips. Both of them would need their strength, Guard to stay alert and keep watch for her, Nessa to dig.

  Over the years of Rona’s tutelage, growing from child to young woman, she had learned many rituals. There were high ceremonies for the year’s great turning times, the stepping forward into light or darkness. There were those that acknowledged a man’s or woman’s journey in the world, birth, handfasting, death. There were observances to honor the powers that sustained life, the elements, the ancestors, the deep eternal beings. There were prayers for the hunt, prayers for the fishing boats, prayers for harvest. And there were the most secret, the most enclosed and guarded rites, such as the Calling of an ancient voice, the summoning of one who might be woken only in times of direst need. Bone Mother, deep as the core of hard stone that held the earth’s heart, old as the world itself and older, dark as the shadows of a prophetic dream, she was the one who had spoken. It was she who had sent Nessa here to this place of death alone
. But Rona had taught no ritual for what must be done now. Nessa must pluck the words from moon and darkness, from mounded earth and the ash of memory, from her torn heart and the knowledge that truth is the sharpest knife of all. With her small voice in the darkness, with her faltering steps on the sward, she must speak the words and pace the circle to make this an act of power. With the strength of her own hands she must wrench bone from earth and make a new voice, sound a new song that could not be disregarded. It was dark and cold, and she was weary and heartsick beyond belief. She was the priestess of the Folk, the last of the royal line in the Light Isles. She would be strong.

  Nessa loosed her hair from its binding to flow across her shoulders and down her back. From her little bag she took the tiny pot that held her ceremonial clay, blue as sea shadows. She sprinkled the powdery stuff into her cupped hand, damping it with moisture from the grass, and made the spiral on her brow, the spirit tracks of owl and otter on her cheeks. She made the bone-lines on her hands. No need for clear water or shining metal; this was a practice perfected through long seasons of discipline. The eye of the spirit needs no reflection; the hand of the priestess writes truth, even in darkness. Her ritual knife was of bronze, its handle finely carved bone patterned with animals of many kinds, her own signs of otter and owl, with dog, hare, and sea serpent. This had been Rona’s gift at the time of her student’s first bleeding, when she had become a woman: a reminder, perhaps, of where her true path must lie. Now the knife’s point traced the circle widdershins, for this was a ritual of darkness. Under a waxing moon, Nessa acknowledged the spirits of the quarters and stood awhile in silent meditation, knowing this night to be a turning point, not just for herself, but for the islands and all who dwelt there. One way hatred, blood, and sacrifice: the other struggle, healing, hope.