Foxmask

by Juliet Marillier

  “It is not his child,” Gudrun said, putting an abrupt end to Creidhe’s speculations. “And he can’t be here in time. The child wasn’t due until summer. He would have been back by then; he could have done what has to be done. They’ll go, but they can’t fetch him here before morning. The infant’s doomed. It can’t survive.”

  Creidhe was seized by sudden anger. “Don’t say that!” she snapped. “How can you utter such nonsense? I told you, I’ve delivered many infants, and I see no reason why this one should not do well, even if it is before its time. We must help Jofrid, not upset her. A man can make no difference, surely.”

  “The child’s cursed.” Helga spoke from her place by the table, where she was folding cloths in readiness. Her tone was resigned.

  “How, cursed? Have you no priests here, no wise women who can cast a circle and speak words of ward?” Creidhe had seen no sign of either during her stay in Brightwater. It had surprised her, but was one of many things she had decided not to ask about, since these folk were ever less than ready with their answers.

  “This is beyond any priest,” Gudrun muttered, but a note of uncertainty had crept into her voice.

  “My mother is a wise woman, my sister too. The simplest of rituals can help at such times,” Creidhe said. “I have no power to summon the spirits myself, but surely there are some here who—?”

  “Not in the village,” Helga said, glancing to left and right as if afraid there were listeners in the shadows. “Besides, Asgrim doesn’t like them to come here. He doesn’t trust them.”

  “Doesn’t trust whom?” Was there no end to the complications here? Why couldn’t they see none of this was doing Jofrid any good? She was moaning now, her face milk-pale, and Creidhe was forced to let her lie down once more, a limp, pathetic figure on the hard pallet, the swelling made by the unborn child round and tight as a ripe fruit.

  “Hermits. Christians. They’d come, if we sent up the hill for them. Streams are in spate; not the easiest of walks. The boys could go. But the Ruler would be angry. He says they do more harm than good. Meddlers.”

  “The Ruler is not here,” Creidhe said firmly. “If Christian prayers will help, then let us summon those who can offer them. How far away are these hermits?”

  Gudrun stared at her a moment, nonplussed, then forced the door open against the harsh wind and whistled shrilly, fingers in mouth. Not long after, the two boys came. They got their instructions, and a sack each to keep off the worst of the rain. It was coming down so hard now the day seemed like dusk, and the pathway outside Gudrun’s cottage was a gurgling, muddy stream. The door was fastened again. The women waited.

  After a morning of hard work and little progress, Jofrid slept. It was a long time since the lads had set out into the storm. The women ate some of the bread, hard and musty-tasting but welcome nonetheless, and a watery fish soup Helga had prepared. Even Gudrun, whose iron features never showed much emotion, looked drained and tired; she sat with her soup bowl in her hands, staring into the hearth where dried cow dung made a sputtering, flaring fire lacking in real warmth. Seal-oil lamps were set on stone shelves around the room, casting gentle light over the form of Jofrid, now mercifully peaceful in her slumber. Creidhe willed her not to wake awhile yet; for all Creidhe’s calm encouragement, Jofrid had endured the morning in a state of what seemed utter terror.

  They had told Creidhe a midwife was coming, named Frida, but her arrival had provided no reassurance. Indeed, it was more the opposite, for the old woman who had arrived at midmorning, swathed in shawls, was none other than the grim ancient who had guarded Creidhe that first night at the unpleasantly named Blood Bay. She’d lifted her brows in apparent disdain at the way Creidhe had arranged things, and would have assumed complete control at once but for the way Jofrid had clung to Creidhe’s hand, her eyes so wide with fear the whites showed all around.

  Now that Jofrid was sleeping, Frida had relaxed a little. She sat by the table, dipping sippets of bread into the soup and sucking them through her gapped and blackened teeth. Her hands were filthy, the nails encrusted with grime. Creidhe drank her own soup and listened to the small crackle and spit of the fire and the relentless drumming of rain outside. After a while, she thought she could discern another sound, a distant, howling cry, as of someone trapped in a deep place with no escape. It set a chill on her heart; she thought instantly of Thorvald. She forced her breathing to slow. It must be the wind, what else? This was indeed a day of winter in spring, and with luck both Thorvald and Sam were snug and secure indoors somewhere, in whatever corner of the islands Asgrim had led them to. Perhaps the hermits would not come after all. The gale tore at the cottage, rattling the shutters. A man would be a fool to walk out on such a day; he’d be blown off those cliff paths like a leaf whipped away by an autumn breeze.

  “Only a madman or a Christian would go abroad in such a storm,” Gudrun observed dryly, rising to her feet with some reluctance.

  “Or one of them,” Helga added in a whisper.

  “Hush!” Frida hissed. “Don’t say it; don’t tempt fate.”

  “She’s awake.” Creidhe had been watching the pallet; she saw Jofrid’s eyes open, at first tranquil with the recollection of good dreams, then on an instant alert, the face blanching to sickly pallor, the terror returned stark and real in her eyes. Jofrid opened her mouth and wailed, a heavy, harsh sound from the depths of the belly, a noise of utter despair that made the blood turn cold. Grasping Jofrid’s hand once more, easing the pillow, it came to Creidhe suddenly that, lost infants or no, Jofrid would give anything not to be having this one; that it was the prospect of a birth of any kind that horrified her. Creidhe dismissed the thought quickly; surely it could not be so. Didn’t every woman want children? She had often imagined what it would be like when she herself bore a son for Thorvald, a little red-headed babe as like his father as two peas in a pod. She knew she would not shiver and whimper as Jofrid did but would handle the process as efficiently as she did everything, with minimal bother to anyone, though it would be good to have Nessa there; a girl needs her mother at such times. She had pictured Thorvald with the infant in his arms, a smile of pride replacing the dark, furious look that so often shadowed his features. Creidhe frowned. It was much harder to capture those images now. If Thorvald was not ready to marry her when at last they got safely home, was it possible he might never be ready?

  By evening, the storm had darkened the sky so heavily that the setting of the sun behind the clouds made little difference, merely layering shadow on shadow. Creidhe had heard it again through the afternoon, that distant, eerie wailing that set the teeth on edge, and she knew the others had, too, though they did not speak of it. She noticed what they did; the first time, Helga built up the fire and checked all the lamps, while Gudrun busied herself with Jofrid, talking loudly and constantly until the howling ceased. When it was over, Gudrun opened the door and called, and men came, some of those who were standing guard in the settlement. Creidhe heard Gudrun’s orders with dismay: keep watch all around the house, storm or no storm, until it was over. On no account were they to leave their posts, no matter what they heard, no matter what they saw.

  The second time, Gudrun went to the windows and put iron bars up across the inside of the shutters, where slots were made in the stone to take them. Frida sat by the fire, watching, silent. Indeed, Frida had scarcely stirred from there; Creidhe suspected the midwife would leave all the work to her, then claim the credit for a safe delivery. No matter. The child must live, Jofrid as well; nothing else was of importance. The third time the strange sound came it was louder, closer.

  “What is it?” Creidhe’s heart was racing; no wind sounded like that, as if there were hungry voices in it. “What is that crying?”

  But they would not answer her. Gudrun looked at Helga, and they both looked at Frida, and all three made a sign together, tips of the fingers against the brow, two-handed, then a crossing of the arms over the breast, a charm of ward, Creidhe judged, though it was un
familiar to her.

  “They’re coming,” Gudrun said.

  A moment later there was a sharp rapping on the door. Jofrid gave a strangled scream, while Creidhe herself could not suppress a gasp of fright. They sat frozen. The knocking came again.

  “We come in God’s name!” a man’s voice called above the storm. “Let us in, if you will!”

  Gudrun moved to open the door, while Helga hastened to screen Jofrid’s pallet from sight. Creidhe rose to her feet as three men came in. One was very young, no more than a youth, his brown hair not yet shaven. The second man wore the tonsure Creidhe had seen on Brother Tadhg and his companions back home; the front of the head bald as a babe’s, the hair at the back trimmed short and neat. This man had ugly, pleasant features and a soft voice with a burr of accent in it; he was, Creidhe guessed, of the same origins as Tadhg himself, and had doubtless made his own perilous sea journey from his home shore of Ulster. The third man stayed by the doorway, a hood covering his head. His cape dripped onto the earthen floor.

  “I did not expect a call,” the second man said, untying his own drenched cloak and passing it into Helga’s willing hands. “Not on such a wild day. God scourges us hard at such times; he reminds us of our weakness, of how small we are before the force of his creation. I hear an infant is expected.”

  Helga had taken the younger fellow’s cape now, and hung the two garments by the fire; rivulets of water trickled from the heavy woolen cloth. The cloaks were much patched; it was just so with Tadhg and his brethren, who lived in utmost frugality. Creidhe felt the unease that had gripped her beginning to abate; perhaps, at last, here was someone she might trust. At home in Hrossey it was unheard of for men to be present at a childbed, but she was learning every day that this place had its own rules.

  “Jofrid’s child is coming before its time,” Gudrun said tightly. “You’ve heard the wind, how it torments us. We thought maybe a prayer or two.” Her tone was diffident now. “It can’t hurt.”

  “Asgrim’s back at the encampment, then.” The hermit’s voice was calm; he showed no sign of offense at Gudrun’s curt manner. “I don’t imagine you would have sought our help if he had been here.”

  “Asgrim’s about his own business,” Gudrun said, hanging the iron kettle over the fire. “Too far to get here in such weather. The girl said to ask you. No real harm in it.”

  “But no good either, you think?” The hermit had come forward now, but not too close; the small screen concealed Jofrid only partially. “There is great power in prayer, Gudrun. Our Lord watches over all his creatures; we need only turn to him. A message that has fallen on deaf ears, unfortunately, in Asgrim’s case. I am glad you summoned us.” He turned his gaze on Creidhe, who stood by the screen. “I am Brother Breccan,” he said. “With me I bring Brother Colm here,” he nodded toward the youth, “and Brother Niall. I do not know your name, though we’ve heard tell of your arrival and that of your companions. A long voyage.”

  “My name is Creidhe, daughter of Nessa.” She answered him almost without thinking, for she was becoming increasingly aware of the silent scrutiny of the hooded figure who still stood quietly by the outer door. She could not see anything of his face, and yet she knew all his attention was fixed on her and her alone. It felt most uncomfortable. “I’m glad you have come,” she managed. “In my home we have a community of holy brothers much like yourselves. Our people hold them in great respect. I hope you can help here.” She would have liked to explain, Jofrid is frightened, they keep speaking of curses and doom and we really should just be getting on with things, but one could not speak thus before Gudrun and the others. Brother Breccan had an honest face; his crooked, bulbous nose and ruddy complexion did not disguise the goodwill in his eyes.

  “I, too,” he said mildly.

  “The girl says she’s a midwife.” Frida’s tone suggested profound distrust.

  “I can deliver the babe safely,” Creidhe said steadily. By all the ancestors, why didn’t that other fellow come into the room properly and stop staring at her? These islands seemed a breeding ground for strangeness. “We were hoping you could offer up a prayer or two, something to banish the ill they all fear. I don’t know what it is, but Jofrid needs to concentrate on what she’s doing, and if you could—”

  Brother Breccan smiled again. “You are of our own faith?” he asked her. The young one, Brother Colm, had sat down at the table, eyes carefully averted from the screen and pallet, and was wrapping his chilled hands around the steaming cup of fish soup Helga had given him. The other had not moved.

  Creidhe shook her head. “My mother is—was—a priestess of the Folk, my sister too,” she said. “We are of an older faith. But we respect yours. The brothers have done nothing but good in the Light Isles. Please help us.”

  “What occurs is God’s will; we will ask for his mercy.” Was it her imagination or was the tone of this equable, smiling priest shadowed with the same color of inevitable doom that had hung over Gudrun’s words, and Helga’s, and Frida’s? Creidhe shivered, and at that moment the man by the door slipped back his hood and took a step forward.

  “Well, well, Gudrun,” he remarked softly, “you do get some interesting items washed up on your doorstep. I never heard the women of the Folk had such heads of hair; aren’t they supposed to be little, dark people?” He doffed his cape in a fluid movement and dropped it on a bench, heedless of Helga’s scurrying move to take it for him.

  Creidhe stared. The fellow’s manner could not have been more different from Breccan’s; his words seemed some sort of challenge. She had forgotten about Somerled. Now, as she looked into a pair of fine, dark eyes of penetrating intensity, Thorvald’s quest sprang back into her mind, and she felt a pang of misgiving. Had she said what she should not have? But no, it was safe after all. The man who walked across the lamplit room to seat himself by Colm at the table was too old by far. At the back of his tonsured head, Brother Niall’s hair was purest white. His brows were of the same snowy hue, incongruous over those black, piercing eyes. The face was fine-boned, thin, and relatively unlined. She had noted the same phenomenon at home; whether it was the simple life they led, toiling in their fields, subsisting on a fish or two, a crust of hard bread, sleeping on ungiving stone, each moment of the day a prayer of joy for their god’s blessings, or whether it was simply the openness of their hearts and minds, the brothers of Holy Island all possessed a serene, untroubled youthfulness in their features, as if their years hung more lightly on them because of their goodness. All three of these men had the same look; it seemed to Creidhe they brought a light to this place that had been sorely lacking.

  “My father came from the snow lands,” she offered, since some kind of reply seemed necessary. “A warrior of considerable note. I think you’d better get on with it.”

  For Jofrid had gripped her hand suddenly with fingers cold and iron-strong, and had uttered a gasping, grunting sound that Creidhe recognized instantly. Soon Jofrid would need to push. There wasn’t much time left.

  This might be the grandest cottage in the settlement, but it allowed little privacy, screen or no screen. She could see how pale young Colm was, as if he would rather be anywhere but here.

  “Do it quickly,” she urged the men as Jofrid howled in pain, her grip like a vise. After that she was so busy she registered only vaguely that Brother Breccan was walking the edges of the room, uttering prayers in a tongue she recognized as Latin but understood none of. Colm, eyes stolidly directed downward, went after the Ulsterman with a little flask of water, from time to time sprinkling a few drops onto the floor, the hearthstone, the table, the door that shivered in the gale as if it would burst from its frame and come crashing down at any moment. Breccan’s voice was steady, clear, infinitely reassuring. The third man, Brother Niall, stood in the shadows by the wall. Glancing over, Creidhe caught the gleam of metal by his side, within the folds of his well-worn brown robe: a knife? Since when did a Christian hermit go armed? As if aware of her scrutiny, the white-haire
d man turned his head a little; he looked at her and a small, droll smile curved his lips. The flash of silver was gone, his hands folded peacefully together. And yet she had not grown up in a Wolfskin’s household for nothing. She recognized his pose, outwardly tranquil but aware in every sinew, in every corner of his body. Ready to move in an instant: ready for trouble. Brother Niall, she sensed, had not always been a man of God.

  Against the howl of the wind and Jofrid’s straining groans, the flow of quiet prayer continued. Gudrun’s hatchet face looked drained and weary, Helga’s softer features flushed and anxious. Frida sat like an ancient, disapproving statue, and that man, Brother Niall, maintained a silent, watchful presence in the shadows. Jofrid was exhausted, her eyes glazed to an unseeing stare, and it seemed futile to bully her, but Creidhe battled on. The child must be born, or both mother and infant would surely die. Try a little harder . . . push . . . keep on pushing . . . Was it Creidhe’s imagination, or were the woman’s efforts growing weaker? Creidhe prayed it were not so; Jofrid must retain enough vigor to expel the child. She had heard of cases where the mother lost her will, and the child must be cut from her body; she knew she could not attempt such a feat. Even if the most skilled of surgeons attended such a childbed, it was unheard of that the woman could survive. The child, sometimes. Usually both expired in a pool of blood.

  “Now,” Creidhe said, “next time, one really good push, and hold it as long as you can. I thought I could see his head a moment ago. Sit her up,” she commanded Gudrun. “You,” nodding at the glum-faced Frida, “help support her back. Helga, fetch a clean cloth; take the babe when it comes, and make sure it’s breathing. Now . . .”

  Then Jofrid screamed, and pushed, and briefly they all worked together, and the child’s tiny head appeared, crowned with sticky, dark hair, the little face blue-white. Creidhe’s heart lurched.

  “Stop pushing!” she snapped.

  “Cord’s around its neck,” Frida observed flatly, peering close, touching a grimy finger to the small, closed features. “Wee bairn’s stone dead.”