The Falcons of Fire and Ice

by Karen Maitland

  Ari tried to grab him and pull him back down behind the bushes, but Fausto shook him off and the next minute he was running back towards the farmhouse, crouching low, trying to keep to the shadows. The flames from the burning house were now so high that they bathed the whole meadow around it in an eerie red glow. We could feel the heat from it even where we lay. We could see the dark outline of Fausto running towards the back of the building. It looked for a moment as if he was going to reach it, but the Danes must have had men watching.

  A cry went up which carried even over the roar of the flames. Two men came galloping around the side of the building towards Fausto. We saw the glints of their blades, blood-red in the firelight, as they raised them. They drew level with him, one on either side. Fausto raised his staff and swung at one of the riders, but the second rider thrust his sword into his back at full gallop. For a moment Fausto was thrown clean off his feet with the force of the blow, his back arched in agony, and then he crumpled and fell without a cry.

  As Fausto was slain, the farmstead, as if it could bear no more, surrendered itself to the ravenous fire. With a thunderous crash the roof caved in and flames shot high into the air. Red and golden sparks from the burning turfs and hay drifted over us in the dark sky, falling to the earth like rain.

  I stared at the inferno, numb with horror. I couldn’t take it in, but even as I watched, unable to speak or move, I knew that nothing … nothing could remain alive inside that tangle of burning wood and flames.

  Eydis

  Imp – to mend the broken feathers of a hawk. A wooden imping needle, whittled from a piece of twig, is inserted in the hollow shaft of the broken feather, to which a previously moulted feather can be glued, enabling the bird to fly.

  The corpse is healing now. I watched and waited for three days, turning the pot containing the severed head in the embers of the fire, until the flesh and bone were dry enough to pound to pieces. I knew they sat with me in the shadows, the old woman and Valdis. As mourners we waited, we watched not to see life depart, but restored. The draugr watched too, and he is afraid. I can breathe his fear.

  I ground the old woman’s skull into a fine powder in my mortar and pestle. I mixed it with the fox fat, blessing the hunter who had brought me a jar of it as an offering. Dried primrose, burnet, root of bistort and seeds of lupin, these too. And when all was infused into the fat, I spread the ointment on the wounds of the corpse, anointing also his lips and tongue, his nostrils, ears, hands, feet and genitals. Now his skin is flushed with blood and his chest is rising and falling. But he does not open his eyes or stir. How can he? For the spirit which animates the body remains inside my dead sister, mocking me through her lips, watching me through her eyes.

  A spasm of pain shoots through my head, and for a moment I can see nothing. As it subsides, I know it is the girl. I feel her terror. I feel the cold breath of all those who follow her, like a mountain stream running through my fingers. Valdis’s head turns towards me. The black eyes search mine, trying to find a way into my thoughts. The draugr knows that something is wrong. He knows I am losing her.

  I take up my lucet and weave the cord as rapidly as my fingers can move.

  ‘Rowan, protect her. Fern, defend her. Salt, bind her to us!’

  His laughter rolls around the cave, but I will not be silenced.

  Ari is scrambling down the rocks. I know his tread well by now, but he is not alone. Others descend cautiously, cursing in foreign tongues as their feet slip or they bang an elbow on the sharp rocks. I pull the veils over our faces and retreat to the shadow of the far corner of the cave to wait.

  Ari leads two men into the cave. They gaze around them in clear amazement. The taller of the two bends down and touches the rock he is standing on as if to assure himself it really is warm. He is a handsome man, with thick black hair, a straight, elegant nose and eyes of such startlingly deep blue that he might have plucked them from the sea. The smaller of the two is pale beneath his dark stubble, and his dark eyes move restlessly around as if he is trying to memorize every detail of the cave. Like Ari, both men are covered in mud and splattered with blood, though it is not their own.

  I step from the shadow as Ari gestures to me. Looks of utter horror and revulsion pass across the two men’s faces. They gaze open-mouthed at me. A throb of shame runs through me, as if we are girls again being stared at by mocking children. The Icelanders who come to the cave have known us all their lives and their faces no longer betray the disgust they feel. Until a stranger reminds us, it is easy to forget that we are not like other women.

  ‘Eydis, this is Vítor and this is Marcos.’

  The taller of the two, the one named Marcos, makes a gallant effort at a bow, though he cannot tear his gaze away from me. The other, Vítor, makes no effort to acknowledge me, but watches me warily as if I am some loathsome creature who might savage him.

  ‘They’re foreigners, fell foul of the Danes, and Fannar was hiding them. But the Danes raided the farmstead looking for them and burned it to the ground. There was another lad with them, Hinrik, but the Danes caught him and took him off with them. I’m sorry, Eydis … I didn’t know where else to bring them.’

  ‘Does this Hinrik know about the cave?’

  ‘I never told him, and Fannar and Unnur would never speak of you or the cave in front of strangers.’

  ‘And Fannar and Unnur, and the girls, where are they?’

  Ari hangs his head miserably. ‘I don’t know. I thought I saw Fannar running from the house, but I lost track of him in the dark. The women took refuge in the store room, but … the fire …’ He shakes his head as if trying to dislodge the image from his mind. ‘Now that these men are safe, I’ll go back and search for the bodies. Bury them. They deserve that much at least.’ His fists clench. ‘Unnur was a good woman and I’ll not leave her or her children for the foxes and the ravens to pick at.’

  ‘You cannot return yet,’ I tell him as gently as I can. ‘The Danes will question this Hinrik and will show no mercy. It will not take them long to discover who has escaped them. Even now they will be searching for the three of you. If you leave here you will be caught. You might even be seen leaving the cave and lead them straight here. Patience, Ari. You must rest and take some food so that your wits are sharp when you return to the light.’

  ‘I can’t rest! What if Fannar is lying hurt somewhere? He’ll think I’ve abandoned him.’

  ‘He knows you, Ari. He trusts you to protect his guests, even before the lives of his own family. That is the old way, the code of honour he has always lived by.’

  Ari will stay. Like a faithful dog, he will carry out what he knows to be Fannar’s wishes, even if it costs him his life. But he is young and headstrong. The frustration will gnaw at him until he cannot bear it. No matter what the danger, I will not be able to contain him for long.

  We sleep fitfully, eating when we wake, then sleeping again. Though Vítor sleeps soundly, several times I notice Marcos lies awake staring miserably up at the flame of the lamp, the glitter of tears in his eyes. Several times I rise quietly to anoint the corpse of the draugr.

  And each time I rise I knot a few more lengths of the cord. Her footsteps have fallen silent. She is drifting, tossed like a gull on the wind of a storm. Without the girl, the ghosts will not come to help us. The mountain is calling and every day the voice of the pool grows stronger, the monster beneath more restless. The great black beast of death stretches his leather wings.

  I wake again to see Ari returning from the mouth of the cave. He holds up his hand as if swearing an oath.

  ‘I haven’t been out. I just went into the passage to look up at the cave entrance to see if it’s morning or night. It’s dark again. A whole day gone.’ He kicked a stone savagely. ‘How can you bear this? How can you even tell whether it is day or night, or how many days have passed?’

  ‘We sleep when we are weary, eat when we are hungry. We are not governed by the moon or mastered by the sun, schooled by the rain or herded
by the wind. When we first came here we ached to feel the sun again, to see the first snow fall in winter and run in bare feet on the new spring grass, but eventually we came to learn that there is a kind of freedom in being outside the rule of time.’

  ‘Don’t you long to leave this cave? I couldn’t bear to be shut up here alone for days on end, never mind for years. I’d go mad.’

  ‘Madness is an escape which is not as easy to accomplish as you might think, Ari. But you will not be here for years, not even for many more days. We will hide you here for as long as we dare, but there is another danger greater even than the Danes. The pool is –’ I hold up my hand. ‘People are climbing up the mountainside towards the cave.’

  Ari darts towards the two sleeping men and shakes them awake. He gestures to them and they spring up, one grabbing a sword, the other a staff.

  ‘Ari,’ I whisper urgently. ‘Follow the ledge beside the pool. We have not been able to go far along it, because of our chains, but we were told it leads to a second cave. Take care not to slip; the water has grown much hotter since you were last here.’

  Ari nods and beckons to the two foreigners to follow him.

  ‘Eydis, Eydis,’ the dark voice murmurs. ‘You are wasting your time. You can’t hide those men, those Papists. Don’t you think I will sing out and tell the Danes exactly where they are? You can’t silence me. The Danes will kill them and they deserve to die, you know that, Eydis. They’re going to die.’

  I close my eyes and concentrate on trying to sense who is approaching the cave. Feet are scrambling on the stones above. Familiar voices call out softly.

  Fannar comes round the side of the rock carrying his younger daughter, Lilja, in his arms. Three women crowd in behind him, his wife Unnur, their elder daughter Margrét and a girl.

  I know her face. I have seen her standing at the end of the tunnel in the black mirror. The blood pounds in my head. It is the girl I have been waiting for. The cord has drawn her here at last. She has come! She has come to us. I can scarcely take my eyes from her. I see the shock in her face as she catches sight of me, but there is no disgust in the look, only sorrow as she stares at the iron band around my waist.

  Fannar lays his daughter carefully down on the floor of the cave. There is a deep cut to her shin, which is bruised and swollen. Fannar tenderly smoothes her tangled hair. He has suddenly turned into an old man, his face drawn, his hand trembling with fatigue.

  ‘Eydis, we have …’ he begins.

  I shake my head. ‘Save your strength. Ari has told me what happened.’

  Despite his exhaustion, Fannar’s eyes light up with hope. ‘Ari has been here? He is safe? And the three men, the foreigners, did he speak of them?’

  ‘See for yourself, Fannar.’

  I drag my chain to the ledge and call out the news of Fannar’s arrival. Moments later I hear the men edging back along the ledge towards us.

  ‘Slowly, slowly, do not slip!’ I warn.

  Ari is moving far too hastily in his anxiety to see Fannar. My warning goes unheeded. Ari springs from the ledge and grasps Fannar in a great hug, both men clapping each other on the back and swearing that each believed the other dead.

  Marcos, when he steps rather more gingerly from the ledge, stares around in bewilderment, then a look of utter joy fills his face and he runs to the girl, clasps her waist and, lifting her off her feet, whirls her around.

  ‘Isabela, Isabela!’

  She is startled and quickly wriggles from his grasp. So that’s the way of it, he loves her, and she doesn’t know it.

  Vítor steps unhurriedly down. He too is smiling, but the smile does not reach his eyes. It does not take the gift of second sight to tell he is not pleased to see the girl.

  Fannar greets both men warmly in turn. His relief is plain to see. Then his expression turns grave again.

  ‘Where is Hinrik and the other man, Fausto?’

  ‘The Danes arrested Hinrik,’ Ari says. ‘He was alive … when they took him. Maybe they’ll let him go,’ he adds, but there is no conviction is his tone. ‘Fausto is dead. He went back to try to help the women when the fire started. I couldn’t stop him. The Danes cut him down with a sword as he ran across the yard. He would have died instantly from such a blow.’

  Fannar shakes his head sorrowfully and makes the sign of the cross.

  Ari turns to Unnur. ‘But how did you escape the fire?’

  Unnur is as drained and wretched as her husband. Her face and clothes are streaked with mud and soot. But she moves to her husband’s side and pats his arm fondly.

  ‘Fannar taught me what to do, if ever we were attacked. There was always the danger we might be, with Father Jon …’ She hesitates and glances warily at the foreigners, even though from their blank expressions it is plain they cannot understand her.

  ‘There was a place at the back of the store room where the wood which held up the turfs on the roof could be lifted off, like a trap door, but it was hidden from view, unless you knew where it was. Fannar said if ever we were attacked, the girls and I must lock ourselves in the store room. He would try to stop the attackers entering the badstofa. He said that if he appeared anxious they should not go in there, that would be exactly where they would go first. And they did.

  ‘When we heard them smashing up the hall, we broke open the hole in the roof and crawled out, before the fire could take hold and spread to the store room. We had arranged a place long ago where we would go and wait for Fannar to come and find us, if he could. We waited and waited, but he didn’t come. I thought he was …’ She breaks off, unable to bring herself to utter the word.

  Fannar puts his arm about his wife. ‘The Danes were still searching. They were between me and where I knew my wife would be hiding. I was afraid that if I tried to reach her and was seen, I might lead them straight to her. They kept searching for most of the next day. Only once it got dark again did they give up and I was able to go and find her.’

  Unnur suddenly bursts into tears, sobbing on her husband’s shoulder. ‘Our home … everything … all gone … destroyed …’

  Their elder daughter, Margrét, begins to sob too, but little Lilja stares blankly into the flames of the cooking fire, as if her mind has frozen out all that has befallen her.

  Fannar pats his wife’s back awkwardly as if he’s never seen her cry before and doesn’t know how to stop her. Women like Unnur have too much pride to shed tears in their husbands’ presence. But she has suffered much in the last two days, and hungry, frightened and exhausted, she can no longer hold back her grief.

  ‘It’s hard, I know, but homes can be rebuilt, Unnur,’ I tell her gently. ‘Fannar and your daughters are alive and safe, in the end that’s all that matters.’

  She nods and tries to smile through her tears, wiping them away on her torn sleeve.

  ‘Now, Ari, find some spoons and let Fannar and his family eat while I tend to the child. I don’t have eating-vessels for so many, so you must all eat from the common pot, though that will be no hardship if you are hungry.’

  While they eat, I fetch some water I have already set to cool and prepare to wash Lilja’s shin, but though she is normally an obedient child, the terror and shock of the last two nights have made her fearful of everything. She curls up in a ball and will not let me touch her. I sense someone standing beside me. It is the girl, Isabela. She crouches down by the child, holding out her arm to her. There is an angry red line across it, which has blistered badly. She must have been struck by some burning wood as she escaped the house. Isabela takes the bowl of water and the cloth from me and gives them to Lilja, miming that she wants the child to bathe her arm.

  Lilja stares. Slowly she picks up the cloth and dabs at the burn. Isabela does not flinch, though the slightest touch of the cloth must hurt her. She holds her arm steady, smiling encouragingly at the child.

  I fetch some of the mummy ointment and tell Lilja to gently coat the burn with it. It will heal them both as well as it has the draugr. But that is
not why I do it. The bones of the old woman are in that ointment, the first spirit of the door-doom of the dead. I must make a connection, a bond, a cord, between the old woman and the girl. Only then, only if we can all join one to another, will we be strong enough to stand against him.

  Isabela gestures to Lilja’s shin and the child stretches out her leg towards her trustingly, allowing her to tend the cut, which she does with great gentleness and sureness. She is plainly well accustomed to caring for wounded creatures. She sniffs at the ointment, and dips her little finger into it, licking it. She nods to herself as if she recognizes the ingredients and approves of the mixture. As she returns the jar to me, our hands touch.

  In that moment I see a great cloak of white feathers envelop her, like the cloak the goddess Freya used to turn herself into a falcon. It is only there for an instant and then it vanishes. But something remains behind. A host of shadows suddenly crowd at her back. I hear cries, screams, then a silence so deep it is as if every sound in the world has been obliterated. The shadows dissolve.

  Who are these ghosts she has brought here? Evil and terror surround her, like dark water swirling about a rock. The draugr feels it too. Valdis’s head swivels towards her under the veil. The draugr fears this foreign girl. He senses this fragile child holds the power to destroy him, when not even a blacksmith has strength to overcome him.

  But Isabela has felt nothing. She slips an arm around Lilja, pulling her close, so that the child’s head rests on her shoulder. She smiles wearily at me. She does not know what she has brought to us. She does not understand why we have drawn her here. She thinks only of the white falcons, and her hunger for them is so all-consuming she will not listen to the shadows. She will not look at them. But she must, she must.

  Fannar shuffles across to where we are sitting, and squats down next to me. His hands rest limply on his knees.