The whole place had an air of sadness and disorientation, though there was no wailing or crying of any kind. These insubstantial beings hardly knew what they were or why they were there. They simply flitted here and there in a kind of frantic dance, seeming to believe that somewhere – under the roots of a hornbeam or in the thick of the brambles – they might rediscover their forgotten identity.
I studied their patterns and surprisingly was able to recognise some of them, even without their early forms. It could have been the way they moved, their individual gestures, fits and starts. I do not know for sure, but I was able to say, ‘There’s Eadlin, her husband killed her with an axe in a drunken rage.’, or ‘Why, it’s old Tredan, who fell down the well!’ They did not know me, of course, nor bothered to study me. They simply drifted around and above me, glinting like diamond dust, darting here and there, hovering, seeking, glowing distress.
Finally, I saw my beloved Daegal, a desperate sprig of mist weaving through the branches of a hawthorn. Close behind her though was another female soul, whose aura completely outshone that of my wife. The brilliance of this second spirit was astonishingly beautiful. She glistened brighter than a night sky crammed with shattered stars. I had to place my hand over my eyes as she passed or I would have been dazzled by her lustre. How amazingly lovely she was, this other sweet spirit. I was stunned by her splendour, her radiance.
Thus began my downfall. I was suddenly overcome by a terrible lust to have this unknown woman. It was pure avarice, a desire to possess something to which I could not have aspired when I had been in the land of the mortals. This was surely a queen, or a princess at the very least, and here was I a common smithy – but with a sack in my hands.
So, instead of netting the soul of my dearest Daegal, I captured the spirit of this unknown stranger. Into the bag she went and there she struggled while I ran through the dark forest to the patiently-waiting magical beast who belonged to Woden. Stripping away the hobble I leapt onto Sleipnir’s back and rode the eight-legged steed back up into the skies above. The weather had changed while I had been in the forest of the dead and the clouds were now grey-turning-black. It looked like a sky in which the Lord of the Wild Hunt would wish to ride. I quickly circled the wood three times, then came to land again, releasing Sleipnir almost on touching down upon the earth of mortals. The great horse of the gods rose quickly, into its blue pastures above my head.
~
That night I went to see the shaman, the leather bag in my hand.
‘Here it is,’ I said, ‘the soul of my wife. Have you made her form?’
The shaman led me out of the hut and down to the river’s edge, where in the moonlight I saw the shape of Daegal in red and yellow clay, still shining with moisture where her thighs had been smoothed to perfection and her lips had been wetted by river water.
‘She almost looks real already,’ I said, with a sigh. ‘How peaceful she appears under this stalking moon.’
‘Give me her spirit,’ murmured the shaman, ‘then turn to show me your back. I have secrets I do not wish to share. You haven’t paid to learn the black arts, only for the restoration of your wife.’
Indeed, I had no wish to watch my captured spirit being stuffed into a clay mouth, or up through the nostrils. I knew it would not be a pleasant operation, getting spangled mist inside a lump of cold clay. That glistening spirit would not like being contained in such a coffer, after being free to flit about a forest in freedom. I turned and tried not to listen, for the creature was now making a noise like an angry wasp. I wondered if it was able to bite or scratch, or even sting?
‘You can look now,’ said the shaman.
I did turned and beheld my wife, live flesh and blood, looking around her with a bemused expression.
‘Where am I?’ she asked.
I stared at her. The apple was back in her cheeks. The lily had returned to her limbs. Her lips looked as soft as hedge-rose petals.
But her eyes . . .
They were not the eyes of my beloved Daegal.
They shocked me to the core.
There was a wickedness in those fiery eyes that had never been owned by my young, innocent wife.
‘Who are you?’ Daegal asked me, sharply.
‘He’s your husband,’ cried the shaman, clearly enjoying my discomfort. ‘He’s brought you back from the dead.’
‘Who said I wanted to come back?’ snapped this young woman, sitting up. But then she added, ‘Of course, it’s better to be alive than wandering around in that dense forest.’ She then stared at me. ‘You’re not bad looking and you’re not an old man, like my first husband. I suppose I could do worse . . .’
I spluttered, ‘Could do worse . . .?’
‘Are you rich?’
I shrugged. ‘Not as lord, but I’m not poor. I am farrier to Raedwald, king of the Eastern Angles.’
‘I’ve heard of him, but I am a Jute, from Kent, below the great river.’
She looked very beautiful, sitting there with her breasts free and firm, and her long dark hair covering her white shoulders.
‘A farrier?’ she wrinkled her pretty nose. ‘Better than a fishmonger, I suppose. Hot iron doesn’t smell as bad as dead herrings. Are you a warrior too? I like strong, brave warriors.’
‘I do go onto the battleground. I’m not afraid of any man, be he Mercian theign or gesith of Wessex.’
‘You’ll do,’ she said, standing up and feeling my arm muscles. ‘Take me home and ravish me.’
The shaman laughed as we left with linked arms.
~
That first love-making was amazing. I never felt such passion and ecstasy. My revived wife was magnificent. She knew tricks in bed that I never knew existed. Her body was as flexible as willow and she was able to bend it in ways that astonished me. She exhausted me, being tireless in her efforts to obtain satisfaction. Afterwards we lay, holding hands, covered in sweat, talking to each other, saying sweet things, inventing pet names, giggling like children.
‘IS ANYONE THERE?’
The shout came from outside my hut.
It was Scowyrhta.
‘What do you want?’ I called back, but suddenly he was in the hut, staring down at us with a horrified look on his face.
‘Scowyrhta!’ I said, sharply. ‘Who invited you . . .?’
But then he was gone, scuttling through the doorway.
‘Who was that worm?’ asked my new wife.
‘You must remember – oh no, you’re not really Daegal. I keep forgetting. That was Scowyrhta, my best friend.’
‘Daegal,’ she mused. ‘Is that who I am supposed to be? It’s as good a name as any.’ She looked down at herself. ‘And the body isn’t too bad. Not as good as the one I had before, but it’ll do.’
I was affronted. ‘It’s the body of my dear wife.’
‘So I gather. Well, was your wife as good as I am?’
‘I don’t know,’ I replied, purposely misunderstanding her meaning. ‘I haven’t tasted your cooking yet.’
‘And you won’t. I don’t do cooking.’
With that, she threw on a cloak and left the hut. I did likewise and scurried after her, knowing that a dead woman walking through the village would create a good deal of concern. I caught up with her and linked arms with her, telling villagers whose mouths had begun to drop open, ‘It’s Daegal’s cousin. Did you not know she had a cousin? Yes, she was sent away from here at birth, to Kent. When she heard Daegal had died she came to see me – and well,’ I laughed, in truth a little too shrilly, ‘we’ve fallen for each other.’
Scowyrhta pointed and shrieked, ‘She’s a demon!’
I turned on him savagely.
‘Ha, the jealous man, who could never hope to have a beautiful wife, whose green envy spills from his eyes and mouth. One more word from you, you . . .’
‘Worm,’ interjected Daegal.
‘. . . and I’ll tear your head from your shoulders.’
Scowyrhta knew my strength and slid away.<
br />
So, whether the people of the village accepted my explanation or not, my Daegal and I began our life anew. It was not the same life, of course, as the one I had previously enjoyed, but those aspects of character which the new Daegal was without, were replaced by others which the earlier Daegal had not. Balances. That, I told myself, was what life was about. Compromises. You couldn’t have everything. No woman could satisfy a man in all things. A woman who is good is bed is not necessarily going to be wonderful at the stove.
One also has to make adjustments, as I soon found out.
I came home one evening from a day at the forge to find Wolfgar in bed with my Daegal.
‘Ah,’ he murmured, ‘the husband is home.’
He got up quietly and left, tucking the hem of a wolfskin cloak into his leather belt.
I was thunderstuck.
‘What’s this?’ I cried. ‘An unfaithful wife?’
‘Pooh,’ replied Daegal, not in the least fazed, ‘I’m not your real wife, I’m just a copy, and if I my needs are greater than you can satisfy, I shall make sure they are fulfilled elsewhere.’ She got up and stroked my chin. ‘You’re a good husband, Aiken. A good provider. And I enjoy our love-making. Don’t spoil it all by being too possessive.’
I went outside and stumbled down to the river’s edge in order to find a quiet place to think. My brain was jangling with emotions. Was I to be cuckolded? Was I to be treated like a creature without a spine? Yet – yet, my hold over this woman was slight. In fact it would take but a few words from her to cause my downfall. If she informed others that she was actually a dead soul which I had stolen from Neorxnawang, I might be banished or executed for profanity. Even worse there are those, like my former best friend, who would be glad to make a sacrifice to Woden, and while the offering was being made, say, ‘Oh and by the way, Aiken borrowed your horse while you weren’t looking.’
I was not on firm ground.
Indeed, as I walked back up the bank from the river, with washerwomen sniggering behind my back, I realised I had to accept this new wife for what she was – a strumpet. I had made my bed and in that straw I had to lie, or suffer the consequences.
Daegal was busy doing her hair when I walked back into the hut. She said nothing. I said nothing. The subject was never raised again. From that point on she was under the bouncing coverlets of almost every warrior in the kingdom. Perhaps even in our lord the king’s bed, though he had a fearsomely jealous wife who would have raised a great stink, so I very much doubt Daegal got between his blankets.
I bore the snorts of laughter and the jibes with equanimity, knowing that at least I had a woman to cook for when I got home from the forge in the evening. She appreciated my efforts in the kitchen too, praising especially my salted venison fillets. Sometimes she stayed in, sometimes went out. When left alone I invented new recipes. There were those who thought my dishes sublime and told me so. It is really quite uplifting to be regarded as a master at something other than one’s chosen profession. Farrier and cook – I was both.
And Daegal always came back to my bed, before the dawn crept over the sleeping hills of our land.
~
Then, one night, everything changed.
I woke up with an unusual sensation of lust. It did not occur to me at the time that the source of this feeling might not be natural. The previous evening I had spent with Scowyrhta. We had just made friends again and he had brought a horn of wine to my hut which we had quaffed until Daegal returned from one of her sexual adventures. Scowyrhta then left quickly, fearful of Daegal’s sharp tongue, for she had never learned to like him. It was only much later that I found myself wondering if Scowyrhta had actually had any of the wine himself, for he seemed to spend most of the evening talking while I did the drinking.
So, a powerful desire had overcome me, while I slept.
I turned to Daegal lying next to me, hoping to surprise her with midnight love. This time I would satisfy her beyond all her expectations. She would needed no dull, dense warriors. I took her in my arms and began caressing her breasts, kissing her lips with great fervour, stroking her, wanting to rouse her from her dreams and make warm silky love, something she liked to do.
Her kiss was cold and clammy.
Other parts of her body felt strangely unyielding.
Horrified, I leapt up.
Rushing out of the hut I fetched a brand from one of the night fires and returned to view her.
There in the lit interior the horror increased. Daegal had returned to clay. The top half of her was still damp and yielding, and bore the imprints of my midnight attentions. Other parts were dry and beginning to crack with shrinkage. The lips which I had kissed had still been soft and moist and were now spread over her chin and under her nose. The nose itself was bent and flattened. Her distorted features were ghastly. Two of her fingers had become detached and lay in the bed-straw. Her long, lovely hair was turning to ribbons of red dust.
I took one of my smithy hammers and before anyone could come and discover this figure of dried mud in my bed I smashed it to pieces, crushing every last toe, every recognisable body part, until it was indeed in small fragments. Then I swept up the pieces and scattered them down by the river, while it was still dark, before anyone was about.
The next day, while I worked at shoeing a horse, Scowyrhta passed by outside and sang a song to the rhythm of my ringing hammer.
‘Oh how the fertile earth receives my gift of love,’ he crooned softly, so that only I should hear, ‘deep in the night when all are sleeping with the moon above . . .’
It was Scowyrhta.
Scowyrhta! He had done this to me. He had sucked the spirit of Daegal from her body, no doubt with the help of the shaman. I guessed she was now back in the land of the dead. My best friend had become my worst enemy. He had drugged me in the evening, with some potion which aroused my carnal desires. It was he who had schemed against me and spent all his energy visiting revenge for ignoring him. For choosing the love of a woman over the friendship of a clansman.
~
Scowyrhta was trampled to death two weeks later by Wulfgar’s big chestnut mare, who bolted from its owner in the marketplace. The warhorse was apparently incensed by the startling hue of Scowyrhta’s bright red cloak, a gift to the sandal-maker from an ‘unknown’ admirer.
I expected to feel triumphant on the death of this man who had betrayed me, but to my shock and surprise I felt nothing but sorrow. In the past Scowyrhta had been a friend, a good friend. We had grown up together and had seen each other through various troubles. Yes, he had done me a wrong in the end, but what was one slight against the many times he had supported me?
It was sadness, not elation, that filled my breast – along with the guilt and regret.
~
One raw night, deep in a winterland bound by cold iron hoops, when heavy snow was forcing tree-boughs to touch earth and thick ice bridged the opposite banks of the river, I felt someone warm and smelling of desire crawl into my bed.
‘Make love to me, Aiken, as you used to do? I have missed your muscled, wiry arms around my body.’
I did as I was bid though terrified that this woman was the wife of some great warrior or even a king.
In the morning, finding no one there, I wondered if the event had actually occurred – or was the result of one of those charcoal-fired dreams that are occasionally burned into me from the heart of the forge, an affliction common to farriers and blacksmiths alike.
Acknowledgements
Phoenix Man, first published in 2005, ‘Don’t Turn Out The Light’ anthology edited by Stephen Jones, PS Publishing.
Gifts, first broadcast 2005 on BBC Radio 4.
Murders in the White Garden, first published 2006 in Postscripts Magazine edited by Peter Crowther.
12 Men Born of Woman, first published in 2006, Postscripts Magazine edited by Peter Crowther.
The Human’s Child first published in 2006, Humdrumming Books.
Sacrificial Anode firs
t published in 2006, The First Humdrumming Book of Horror Stories, edited by Ian Alexander Martin.
Atlantic Crossing first published in 2008, Postcripts Magazine, edited by Peter Crowther.
La Belle Dame Sans Grâce first published in 2009 in the British Fantasy Society Yearbook edited by Guy Adams.
Out Back first published in 2010 in the British Fantasy Society Yearbook, edited by Guy Adams.
Moretta first published in 2011 in House of Fear anthology, edited by Jonathan Oliver, Solaris.
The Fabulous Beast first published in 2012 in the British Fantasy Society Yearbook, edited by Guy Adams.
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