Foxmask

by Juliet Marillier

  Sam was slurring his words. Thorvald realized he had entirely forgotten his friend’s injury. “Went out fishing, got blown off course, dumped the catch when it started to stink,” he said succinctly. “Now we ask for shelter while we repair the boat. Easy.”

  “And Creidhe? Why is she here?”

  “Your sister? Your wife?”

  Sam’s features tightened a little. “You’re very ready with your answers, Thorvald. I won’t mention Somerled, if that’s the way you want it, but there’s no need for more lies. Now come on, the two of you. I’m soaked through, my head’s killing me, and my belly’s complaining again. Let’s find out what kind of folk choose to settle at the end of the world.”

  “Brona!” The name rang through the lamplit chambers of the longhouse like a battle cry, as the door slammed shut behind Eyvind. An instant later, Ingigerd began to whimper, roused abruptly from her sleep. It was the first time she had ever heard her father’s voice raised in anger.

  “You got the message then.” Nessa was seated by the fire, hands relaxed in her lap, gray eyes wide as she regarded the big, furious form of her husband, axe on his back, sword by his side, wolfskin cloak long and shaggy across his massive shoulders. His face was a picture of distress. “Don’t be angry with Brona. She’s shed enough tears over this already. And she was just keeping a promise. You’ve taught them to keep their promises.” At that moment Brona herself appeared in the hallway, carrying her weeping small sister. She gave them a look; her eyes were swollen, her expression quite wretched.

  “It’s all right, daughter.” Nessa’s tone was calm. “Take Ingigerd back to bed now, tell her a story. Your father will talk to you in the morning.” She turned back to Eyvind. “Come, sit down, and I’ll pour you a cup of ale. You’ve journeyed fast, dear one; this has driven you hard. Come now. Sit down a while. Perhaps things are not as bad as they seem.”

  “How can that be? Our daughter, our good, dutiful girl, running off with a couple of irresponsible young men, out on a coastal fishing boat into waters unknown? What can Creidhe have been thinking of?” He paced restlessly as he divested himself of cloak and weaponry. “This is quite unlike her, quite out of character. I blame Thorvald. The boy’s unpredictable and unreliable. We should have sent her away.”

  “Sit down, Eyvind.” Nessa used the tone her husband could not refuse. He sat; she placed a cupful of ale in his hand and reached to tuck a stray curl back behind his ear. “Now listen to me.”

  “I should not stay here—I should go north, find a boat, head off after them. They can’t have got far—”

  “Eyvind. Listen to me.”

  He was silent.

  “It’s possible this was meant to be. I saw something of it in the fire; I could not avoid the vision the ancestors granted me. There is a strange pathway ahead for our daughter, dear one. Strange and perilous.”

  “You saw this? Saw it and did not tell me?”

  “I could not tell you. You know how these portents are; they can be imprecise, misleading. I saw Creidhe on a long and arduous journey, and I saw signs and symbols—a little, ragged child; a creature like a fox . . . no, I will not tell all.”

  “There’s worse than this?”

  Nessa saw the look in Eyvind’s eyes and took his hand in hers. “Worse, and better,” she said. “Our daughter will have a wondrous tale to tell, if she comes through this. You ask why she would do such a thing, why she would run away. Creidhe has not run away. She seeks only to aid her friend. She will sacrifice much for Thorvald. You know she loves him.”

  Eyvind frowned ferociously. Such a look had often turned his enemies’ bowels to water. Nessa waited, expression tranquil.

  “I thought we agreed Thorvald was the last man we wanted for her,” her husband said. “The boy is clever, I acknowledge that, but the legacy he carries is a dark one, and he has few of the qualities I would seek in a husband for my girls. The lad is selfish and volatile, and quite lacking in kindness. How can you say—?”

  Nessa smiled. “Thorvald will need her help before this journey is done. You should pray for the two of them, and for Sam. They will suffer and become wiser, all three, before this is over.”

  Eyvind shifted restlessly. He had not touched the ale. “I must go after them. Those waters are wild and unfamiliar; even Sam would be hard put to find the place they seek, that’s supposing it’s more than a madman’s vision. No father worth his salt just lets his daughter go on such a foolhardy quest. I must try to find her—”

  “No, Eyvind.” Nessa put a hand up to his face, laying it softly against his cheek, and looked him straight in the eye. “You will not go. You cannot. I’m going to need you here.”

  He blinked in confusion. Nessa was wise and resourceful; she ordered the household effortlessly and played a confident part in the councils and dealings of the islands, as befitted her royal status. “But—” he began.

  “Eyvi, dear one, I have some news for you. I have waited to tell you until I was quite sure.” Her voice had become suddenly quiet, hesitant. Her fingers stroked his temple; he took her hand and pressed it to his lips. She saw the alarm in his eyes, and spoke quickly. “I’m going to have another child. It surprised me; I thought there would be no more chances. I think, if I can carry it safely, this one will be a boy. I hope . . . I hope so much . . .” Her lip trembled; the tears that began to roll down her pale cheeks were mirrored by those in her husband’s eyes. He gathered her close, stroking the long, soft fall of her hair.

  “Oh, Nessa,” he whispered. “Oh, my dove. Of course I will stay, of course, but—”

  “Creidhe will get through this,” Nessa said shakily. “Our daughter is strong and capable; this may seem a foolish escapade to you, but she would not have gone without sound reasons. Brona said her sister hated the need to lie to us. Brona is very sorry, Eyvi. Don’t be too harsh on her. They are good girls, the two of them.”

  “A son,” Eyvind murmured. “I did not believe we would be so blessed, after the sea took our little one from us. But . . . will this be safe for you? You must rest, perhaps you should be in bed now—”

  “Hush,” Nessa told him, smiling even as she wept. The loss of Kinart had cut him deeply; he would bear that wound within him forever. His small son had been the light of his life for four summers, until the morning the Seal Tribe had snatched him away. She had always thought that was a kind of payment, a reckoning those strange sea dwellers exacted in return for the aid they had once given her. If it were so, the price had indeed been high. “I may be a little past the best age for this, but I am well and healthy, and I know how to prepare for it. Creidhe has good hands for midwifery; she’ll help me when the time comes. Don’t look so anxious, dear one. Be glad of this wonderful gift.”

  “I am glad. Glad but concerned, for you, for him,” he laid a gentle hand on her stomach, which was barely rounded with the new life she bore, “terribly worried for Creidhe, despite your reassurances. And there’s the treaty; I don’t trust this princeling of the Caitt people, and nor does Ash. We’ll be much occupied.”

  “So you see, you could not sail off into the west on a foolish quest of your own,” Nessa told him. “Trust your daughter. She will surprise you.”

  “That she’s done already,” he said grimly. “Tell me, when will this child be born? How soon?”

  “In autumn, by my reckoning. Perhaps two cycles of the moon before the time of the women’s ceremony. Creidhe will be home long before then, and your worries set at rest. Now drink that ale, husband, and then go and bid your daughters goodnight. Tell Brona you’ve forgiven her. We must not let the moon rise on our anger.”

  Later, as Nessa slept in his arms, Eyvind stared out through the narrow window into the pale silver sky of the spring night. He thought of his bright-haired girl, out there somewhere on the wild sea, or washed up on some strange shore, with only her courage and common sense to aid her. By all the gods, a lovely young woman of sixteen set suddenly amidst whatever wild and desperate men might ma
ke their home in those distant islands—the very idea appalled him. Nessa could not see how dangerous it would be; Nessa did not think the way a man thought. A cold shiver went down his spine. Somerled. Somerled might be there. If the man had survived that perilous journey, who knew what he might have become through the long years of exile? Perhaps he would have changed, as Eyvind had charged him to, and grown to be wise, good, a man of peace. Or perhaps he would merely have built on the qualities that had won him kingship here in the Light Isles: ruthless ambition and a complete disregard for the welfare of others. Somerled had no respect for women; he believed a man should take what he wanted. He had much cause for bitterness against Eyvind and Eyvind’s kin. It must be hoped, then, that they did not find the isles; that Thorvald never located his father. And yet, they must find them. There was nothing else out there but a slow death on empty seas. Gods protect Creidhe, and gods protect this little son now growing inside Nessa’s belly. Let Creidhe be home in time to deliver the child safely, for if she were not, he did not know what he would do. There were no other hands he trusted so well to undertake this task. Let them not lose another child; he could not well survive that. Not a day went by without images of Kinart in his mind, not a night without dreams: his son learning to walk, sturdy legs moving in confident, uneven gait; fair hair sticking up in an unruly halo; infant features wreathed in a huge, triumphant grin. Kinart riding before him, a proud, small warrior sitting very upright in his father’s arms as the old horse ambled across the gentle pasturelands. Kinart sleeping on Nessa’s lap, worn out by a long day out of doors, and the firelight gentle on the two of them, his dear ones. Kinart lying on the shore, limp and white, and a terrible howl of anguish that must have come from his own lips, though he had felt his heart stilled by terror. There had been losses before, but none like this. I will give anything, he vowed silently, scarcely knowing to what god he spoke, only that this was a plea from the very depths of his being, anything you want, if you let this one live.

  THREE

  Brightwater bell tolls

  Which does it mark

  the birth of a child

  the sighting of whales

  or the coming of strangers?

  MONK’S MARGIN NOTE

  There was a bell ringing somewhere, its note dull and regular. There were men coming down from the settlement. Creidhe could hear their voices. She could tell from Thorvald’s face that he had one of his headaches; nothing else could give him that sickly pallor, that grim tightness of jaw. Beyond that, everything was starting to blur. She was managing to walk, her feet seemed to keep going, but her legs were half numb and she couldn’t stop shivering. In the teeth of death, cold and hunger had been forgotten for a while. Now she knew a chill like winter’s harshest frost, deep in the marrow; her clothing was soaked through, and although she walked on solid ground, her head reeled and her belly churned with nausea. Sam was grasping her by the arm, helping her to keep going, and Thorvald, face white as chalk, was walking forward with commendable steadiness as the reception party of three men came down the path toward them.

  “Good day to you.” Thorvald’s voice was firm; evidently his teeth were not chattering uncontrollably as hers seemed to insist on doing. “I hope you can help us. As you see, we are cast ashore here and our boat is damaged. We seek food, water, shelter. Can you help?”

  The three men had halted in a line across the path. They took no notice of Thorvald; each of them had his eyes fixed intently on Creidhe. They said nothing. Through the haze of dizziness, Creidhe observed that they wore thick clothing of dark-dyed wool and boots of sheepskin. There was a certain hardness of countenance common to the three of them, two young, one older, perhaps their leader. There was no telling what race they were, nor what tongue might be spoken here. The oldest man had gray hair and was clean-shaven; the others were fair and bearded. How they stared; did she really present such a spectacle, disheveled and sick as she was? One might expect such folk to be surprised at the unexpected arrival: shocked, even. But this silent scrutiny went beyond that; she felt she was being examined, somehow measured, and she did not like it. One man had front teeth missing, and one a torn ear. Each man bore scars on his right cheek: neatly incised parallel lines, four or five of them. No aftermath of combat, these, but ritual markings. Two carried spears; all three wore knives. If Thorvald and Sam had brought weapons, they were still on the boat.

  “I hope you can help us,” Thorvald said again, more slowly. He spread out his hands, palms open. “We mean you no harm. There are just the three of us, my friend here,” nodding at Sam, “and—the girl. As you see, she is sick and cold, and my friend has an injury to his head. Can you offer a night’s shelter?”

  Now the eyes of the three men turned to take in tall, blond Sam, who stood stolid under their searching gaze, and then moved back to the shivering Creidhe who leaned on his arm. She felt the force of that stare through all her misery, felt it like a blade scraping away her surface to lay bare what was within. They could hardly have been impressed; she was aware of how bedraggled she must appear. Their eyes traveled over her once more, assessing, calculating; it seemed to her they made some decision with not a word spoken. The silence became uncomfortable. Sam shuffled his feet.

  “They can’t understand you,” he hissed to Thorvald. “Use signs. Sleep, eat, you know. Keep it simple.”

  “My name is Einar.” It seemed that, after all, they did understand; the older man spoke now in a barely accented form of the Norse tongue. His eyes were deep-set, their expression guarded. “The woman,” he went on, gazing at Thorvald. “Your wife? Your sister?”

  Thorvald blinked; perhaps the answer to this had been ready, but it evaded him now.

  “Our friend and kinswoman,” Sam put in. “Under our protection. We want to mend the boat and sail back home. That’s all. Got blown off course, heavy storm to the southeast.”

  “You have wood for this mending?” one of the younger men asked bluntly.

  “Perhaps you didn’t understand,” Thorvald said. “The young lady needs rest and dry clothes—”

  It was at that moment Creidhe felt the world spinning before her eyes, and for a while darkness overtook her. She awoke to find herself naked under woolen blankets, which was somewhat alarming, though it was blissful beyond description to be dry and warm. She lay still, aware of the aches and pains in her hands, her arms, her back; the stint at the Sea Dove’s steering oar had punished her body sorely. By all the ancestors, if she hurt this much, how must the others be feeling after rowing all that way? Creidhe rolled over cautiously, opening her eyes. She was lying on a rough pallet; whatever filled the mattress, it did not make the softest of beds. Above her were the low roof supports of a cottage or hut, poles of driftwood holding up a latticework of withies overlaid by turf. The place was dark. She turned her head. This was a small sleeping chamber; there were several bed spaces crudely marked off by slabs of stone, but the only occupant other than herself was an old woman sitting on a high stool by the cloth-hung doorway, plying distaff and spindle by the light of a simple seal-oil lamp, no more than a shallow bowl with a floating wick. The lamp’s glow accentuated the crone’s deep wrinkles, her gnarled hands steady at their work, her dark hooded eyes. Creidhe cleared her throat.

  “Excuse me—where are my clothes?”

  The woman turned toward her; her hands did not halt the movement of the spindle, the twist of the wool. Her expression was blank, uncomprehending.

  “Clothes,” Creidhe repeated, sitting up carefully with the blankets clutched across her chest. “Tunic, trousers, shoes? My things?” She tried to illustrate what she meant with one hand, while gripping the blankets with the other.

  The spindle twirled slowly down. The old woman jerked her head toward the foot of the bed, then looked away.

  “Oh,” said Creidhe, somewhat disconcerted. There was a little heap of clothing there, certainly, but it was not her own, neither the old ones of Thorvald’s she’d been wearing nor the others she had c
arried in her bag. Indeed, her bag was nowhere to be seen; as far as she knew, it was still tucked into a dark corner under the decking of the Sea Dove. A shiver ran through her. “I need my bag! Where are my things?”

  There was no reaction at all. Very well, she’d have to scramble into these garments, whatever they were, and go out there in search of her belongings. There was no way she’d let these dour individuals get their hands on the Journey.

  Abandoning the attempt at modesty, Creidhe got up and dressed herself, aware of the biting cold raising goosepimples on her exposed flesh, and conscious of the old woman’s sunken eyes scrutinizing every move. You’d think they’d never seen a girl before, the way they looked at her. Well, it was a different land; one must allow for different customs, different manners. There was a shift here, and a gown of coarse gray cloth, not elegant but warm at least, and a thick woolen shawl. The sheepskin boots were too big, but they would have to serve for now.

  “Comb?” she inquired without much confidence, running her hands over the damp, salty tangle of her hair. The ribbon that had held the single, thick braid in place was gone in the storm; only a thorough washing with soap, followed by lengthy, painful combing could restore her hair to its usual well-kept state. One might as well go about with a haystack on one’s head. “Wash? Soap?”

  The old woman grunted disapprovingly and jerked her head again. This was becoming irritating. There was a length of gray cloth on the bed, finer and softer than the gown’s fabric. At Creidhe’s blank look, the crone ceased her spinning and gestured, making it clear what was intended. Take, wrap, cover your hair. She was frowning; it was not possible to tell why.

  “Comb?” Creidhe mimicked the action, doing her best to look polite and friendly. “Please?”

  The old woman glared. She spat out a single incomprehensible word with such intensity that Creidhe flinched. Very well; she had a comb in her bag, if indeed her bag had not been washed into the sea in those last days of storm. She hoped very much that it had not, for to lose the Journey would be a cruel thing indeed.