by Leah Swann
‘Run!’ he cried again.
The bear noticed Irina and made a lunging sideswipe at her. Durrell leapt again, hurling his strong young body with all his might against the beast. They became a blurred mass of brown and grey fur, teeth, claws, groans and shrieks. Irina crouched low, her head back, like a wolf with its ears flattened against its head.
‘Run!’ howled Durrell and a hot fear coursed through Irina. On all fours she ran blindly into the forest. Her knees and palms hurt and she struggled to stay upright. Her tough, bare feet moved swiftly. The grunts and snarls and teeth-gnashing of the wolf and the bear echoed in her ears, along with the terrible yelps from the pups. She was aware of Amicus flying above as she raced on and on.
Irina ran beyond the forest, into an unfamiliar, open place with no trees, covered in green grass. A meadow. She kept running past grazing goats and sheep, till she came to a road. In the distance she heard a galloping sound over the dirt. Irina knew what horses were; she had seen the humans riding them through the forest. Like the wolves, she was frightened of humans. She tried to hide herself behind a grassy hillock on the roadside. Hoof beats came louder and louder. The sound was deafening. It seemed to be coming over, almost upon her, and then it passed.
Irina looked up and saw a group of men dressed in clothes as red as geraniums, each holding a long branch with a bright flap of material attached to it. Their bags were loaded with sticks edged with feathers. She'd seen those before. Arrows. The farmers used them to strike down animals. Irina was mesmerised by the shimmering gold fabric of one man's cloak. It seemed to have been made from the sun. Accompanying the men was a boy.
Cautiously, Irina raised her head to get a better look. The boy was staring right at her. Irina's mouth went dry with fear. She stayed very still, wishing she could turn herself into grass or a rock. The boy seemed fascinated by her. She'd never looked directly at a human before. How round and flat his face was, compared with a wolf's. Irina trembled. Would he tell the other humans that she was there? The boy made a curious shape with his mouth, curving his lips upwards. It looked like he was waiting for something from her. She glared, her fingernails digging into the rock. The strange curve left the boy's mouth. His head drooped and he turned away. Sadness. She had seen that gesture with the wolves.
The boy gave his horse a gentle kick. Irina waited, frightened the men and horses would swing back around and come to get her. When they didn't, she relaxed a little. The only thing that touched her was a small yellow butterfly resting on her hand.
She was thirsty. Fluttering above was the friendly shape of Amicus and she trailed after him, knowing he would lead her to water. The pain in her feet made her cry as she swayed wearily through fields of goats and cows to a small brook. She knelt at the water's edge, under the shade of a soft green willow. The shade was welcome and the brook made a sweet, bubbling noise. She lowered her face to the cool water and saw the pretty undines beneath the surface. Irina drank and drank, then fell into a deep exhausted sleep, her cheek pressed against a small mound of moss at the brook's edge.
Chapter Ten
Taming the Wolf-girl
Early the next morning, while milking his cow in the stable, William noticed the sylvan sitting in the eaves. The bird's feathers gleamed in the darkness. William had never seen a sylvan inside a building before – he'd rarely seen one in the forest. He shrugged and continued until the pail was full of frothy warm milk to take to Octavia for breakfast. Even in the stable, William could smell the oatmeal cooking and the day's bread baking in the oven.
‘Good girl,’ he said to his cow, slapping her rump affectionately. He carried the heavy bucket to the kitchen door, where Octavia stood.
The sylvan flew to the apple tree. The farmer's wife took one look at the bird and said to her husband, matter-of-factly, ‘That bird wants to tell you something. You'd better follow him, William.’
‘Follow him? Nonsense,’ said her husband, whose stomach was rumbling.
The sylvan flew up into the air and hovered. William took an uncertain step in his direction. The sylvan flew to the next tree and waited.
‘Go on, William,’ said Octavia. She lifted the milk pail and took it into the kitchen, closing the door behind her.
William followed the bird to the edge of the little yard, beyond the chicken coop and the pigpen. Every time he paused the sylvan paused, landing on a branch or fence post with its head to one side and looking at him intently. The rising sun flushed the silvery fields with a reddish glow. The farmer forgot the smell of oatmeal and strode through the grass after the magical bird, a crisp white shape against a sky full of pale stars vanishing into daylight.
They came to the brook. And there, lying in a small, crumpled mound, was a little girl. William gasped. He knelt beside her. She was somewhere between five and six years old, no more. Her bare feet were covered with half-dry scabs, her nails were broken and her skin was ingrained with dirt. Tenderly, he moved the mass of matted hair aside and saw the delicate face.
‘Little one,’ he whispered. ‘Little wolf-girl.’
‘Whose child is she, I wonder?’ said Octavia, hanging the kettle over the fire. The girl lay motionless on the bed, still unconscious. Octavia squeezed drops of warm chamomile tea between her dry lips.
‘This is the girl I saw on the wolf's back. I'm sure of it.’
‘I’ve heard that wolves adopt children,’ said Octavia. ‘Yet it seems too strange to be true.’
Octavia sat next to her and with nimble fingers began to pull out pieces of grass, burrs and brambles, hay and twigs from Irina's bushy thickets of hair. Much of it she had to cut away. She found clods of earth and matted clumps of soft, greyish fur.
‘Wolf fur?’ she said to her husband, holding it up to him.
‘Must be.’
From the windowsill, Amicus watched as the farmer's wife spent hours over Irina's limp body, cleaning her and feeding her drops of tea and vegetable broth. During the night the child developed a raging fever and tossed and turned, making wolfish shrieks and whimpers. Sometimes she would hammer at Octavia's hands with her fists. The farmer's wife let the fever build until the girl's body was blazing with inner fire and calmly wrapped her feet in bandages soaked with lemon juice.
‘This will draw the fever out through your feet, little one,’ she whispered.
The next day Irina's skin broke out in raised spots. Octavia mixed a soothing creamy solution and dressed the spots and Irina's wounded feet, too. Over the next few days, she soaked the child's hair in oil and smoothed it with an antler-comb. She clipped the ragged fingernails and toenails and sponged away the dirt.
‘When will she be well?’ asked William one evening, eating his supper of barley bread and toasted cheese and ale.
‘She will be well when she is well.’
William worried that his wife would not leave the child's side during the night.
‘Octavia, come and rest, my dear. You'll get unwell yourself.’
‘We weren't blessed with children of our own. Now a miracle drops a little one at my door and you tell me to go to bed? Jun, give me strength.’
A kindly force streamed through Octavia's limbs as she managed to do her daily tasks and tend the wolf-girl. As the days passed, Irina's feet healed and all her blemishes, bruises and cuts gradually disappeared. Sometimes the child opened her eyes and they saw a flash of colour before she drifted off to sleep again.
One day when William was threshing corn, he heard a scream. He ran back to the cottage and found Irina crouched in a corner, snarling at Octavia. William went to restrain the girl but Octavia lifted her hand.
‘Go, William. Leave this to me. She's wild, remember? I have to tame her.’
That night, Octavia told William to only speak in whispers. ‘Don’t look her in the eyes. Be quiet and slow in all your movements.’
In the morning William was surprised to see the girl on her hands and knees on the earth floor, eating oatmeal from a bowl like a dog.
&n
bsp; ‘She calmed down when the sylvan sang,’ said Octavia.
‘I don't want a dog for a child.’
‘She’s not as tame as a dog. She probably never will be.’
‘You mean she'll always be like this?’
‘Be patient, William. She must learn to trust us.’ Octavia paused for a moment, looking at her husband's doubtful face, then said, ‘It may not be as hard as we think. Wolves have families, like we do. All I have to do is show her what her place is – not with wolves, but humans.’
She looked down at the little girl fondly.
‘We’ll call her Irina, in memory of the Princess.’
Not far away, in Ragnor Castle, Queen Chloe was nursing her baby daughter, Julene. Unlike Irina and the Queen's second-born, Mahila, this third baby girl was frail and feather-light and difficult to feed. The Queen held her tenderly. Her husband was standing by the window. He rarely sat. He preferred to stand or pace about. Over the past few years he'd become more restless than ever.
‘I dreamed of Irina last night,’ said Chloe.
‘Pray that she is in the realm of Jun and the Shining One,’ said Harmon, unwilling to look at his wife. Although he never spoke of it, Chloe knew how ashamed Harmon was that he hadn't been able to save their firstborn.
‘I dreamed she was being fed oatmeal with a spoon. Perhaps she'll meet her little sisters one day.’ Chloe gazed lovingly at the baby and the strong, chubby Mahila sitting at her feet.
‘A beautiful dream, but a dream nonetheless,’ said King Harmon. Before she could say anything else, he bowed his head and left the room, his woven cloak sweeping the wooden tiles beneath his heels.
Chapter Eleven
Vilmos at Pavel
Vilmos spent seven long, lonely years in Usi Cave, learning whatever Iniko was prepared to teach him of Knartesc's magic. Vilmos believed Irina was dead, as did Iniko; the powerful aura of the wolves protected the wolf-girl from the sorcerer's far-seeing magic.
‘When will I be able to go home?’ Vilmos asked one day, during one of Iniko's visits from the Narrowlands. The spell he'd been practising had gone wrong for the fourth time.
‘You fool,’ Iniko said with undisguised contempt. ‘You can never go back to that miserable hovel you call home. Don't you know King Harmon will keep on looking for you until he finds you? He's got three bags of gold on your head. And when he finds you, he will kill you.’
‘If he finds me,’ said Vilmos in a trembling voice. ‘If.’
‘I’ve had just about enough of coming to visit this uncomfortable cave,’ said Iniko. ‘I want to go back to my underground palace for good. You don't seem very grateful.’
‘Oh I am, I am,’ said Vilmos, hurriedly. ‘Can I come with you?’
‘Certainly not,’ said Iniko. ‘I’ve wasted enough time on you already. The Dragon wants war. But the combined armies of Pavel and Ragnor are too strong for the Narrowlands army at present.’
‘So what are we going to do?’ said Vilmos.
‘We? We?’ sneered Iniko. ‘Who do you think you are? A way must be found to divide their armies. It may take a few years, but the Dragon is prepared to wait, as long as we pinch a little boy or girl here and there.’
‘A little boy or girl? What do you mean?’
‘The Dragon must eat, you idiot; he prefers to eat the children of the south, naturally enough – Narrowlands children will one day be his warriors. Had you succeeded in bringing Irina to us, that would have been a most delightful gift. A pity you failed.’
‘I will not fail in my next task,’ said Vilmos. ‘You told me you had work for me to do.’
‘Yes,’ said Iniko. His eyes narrowed in their doughy flaps. ‘If you succeed this time we will make you a Wizard of Knartesc, answerable to me and the Dragon. You'll get all the spells you want. Loads of gold. King Harmon wouldn't dare taunt you; he'll be afraid of you. Why, we might even kidnap Chloe for your wife.’
‘That would be…’ Vilmos couldn't find words to express how satisfying he found these ideas. He thought rapidly. ‘A disguise,’ he said. ‘I’m good at disguises.’
‘Yes,’ said Iniko, flaring his nostrils like a horse. ‘Go on.’
‘I could disguise myself, pose as a wise magician. Of the Junsong, even…No one would suspect who I really am.’
‘You would have to go to Pavel Castle,’ said Iniko. ‘You’d give yourself away at Ragnor, you're so ridiculously lovesick for that silly Queen.’
‘She’s not –’
‘Don’t defend her,’ said Iniko. ‘I’ll say what I like.’
The next day, Iniko and Vilmos parted ways. As soon as he returned to his stone lodge, Vilmos shaved off his beard and dyed his hair acid yellow using a pigment made from canola flowers. Bad thoughts had given him a pinched, unattractive look no matter how much he scrubbed his skin with oats and honey, so he cast a magic glamour over himself that made him appear younger and sweeter. When the glamour faded in the evenings he would have to hide.
A few days later, bearing a crystal ball that Iniko had given him, and posing as a good magician, he presented himself to King Niklas's court at Pavel.
King Niklas was surprised to hear there was a wise-man of the Junsong who wished an audience with him.
‘Very well,’ he said to his servant. ‘Disarm him, and show him in.’
The King was sitting in his private den. It was a comfortable room with rare, stained-glass windows, unlike the roof-holes that allowed light into peasant huts. The wooden floor was covered with a hand-woven rug, stitched with colourful flowers, that his wife had given him as a wedding gift.
Young Prince Andor often hid inside the window seat in the den, to be close to his father. He was there now, peeking through a crack in the wood and breathing softly. King Niklas didn't know his son was there, but his bodyguard, a wolf called Seeley, sometimes looked straight at Andor through the crack. Although Seeley knew where Andor was hiding, he never alerted his master.
Andor heard footsteps and a stranger's voice speaking. ‘Trayton at your service, Your Majesty.’
‘What business do you have here, Trayton?’ Andor heard his father say.
‘I’ve studied the laws of the Junsong for many long years,’ said the stranger. ‘And I have come to offer my services as a magician and wise-man.’
‘And what makes you think I need a wise-man? Am I not wise enough to rule Pavel on my own?’ Unlike Andor, King Niklas could see the wise-man's face. This Trayton, with his blond prettiness and funny smell, seemed too young to have acquired real wisdom.
‘Pavel’s old wise-man, Baruch, travelled beyond the Crystal Sea some decades ago. Perhaps it's time for a new advisor?’ Vilmos watched Seeley pacing protectively backward and forward in front of the window seat.
‘How do I know you are wise?’ said Niklas.
‘I have a crystal ball. What would you like to see most of all?’
Niklas was startled; he'd heard of crystal balls but never seen one. ‘My wife,’ he said quietly.
Vilmos drew the silk cloth away from the beautiful glassy sphere, which glowed with swirling colours. Niklas leaned forward and gasped when he saw, in a haze of golden light, the slender figure of Queen Emmaline with her hands raised.
‘She is on the other side,’ whispered Vilmos. ‘In the Shining Realm.’
‘Does she speak? Can you hear her?’ asked the King. Inside the window seat, Andor could hear something very tender and sad in his father's voice, and it made him want to cry.
‘Yes. She says she loves you,’ said Vilmos slyly. ‘And that she wants to see her son.’
Andor's heart thudded in his chest.
‘I’ll have him sent for,’ said King Niklas.
‘No need, Your Majesty,’ said Vilmos. ‘He’s right here.’
Seeley looked at Andor through the crack. Andor put a hand over his mouth.
‘What do you mean?’ said the King, still staring entranced by the vision of Emmaline.
Vilmos strode to the window seat
and raised the lid, hoping his guess was correct. Andor wriggled, frightened of his father's anger, and found the magician's face looking down at him with a delighted grin. Like most children, Andor saw more than grown-ups: this handsome face with blond hair seemed to be hiding another face within it.
‘What are you doing there, boy?’ asked Niklas, as Vilmos hauled Andor out.
Vilmos was thankful for Iniko's magic mirror, which had shown him Andor's secret hiding place. ‘Don’t be angry with him,’ said the wily magician. ‘He just wants to be close to you.’
Andor ran to his father's side. The King put his arm around his son. ‘Look,’ he said. ‘There she is, your mother. Isn't she lovely?’
Andor stared at the image of Queen Emmaline inside the crystal ball. He felt something very tight in his chest and he grasped hold of his father's hand. ‘May I look closer?’ he whispered.
‘Yes, son.’
Andor knelt by the crystal ball. He barely remembered his mother, but how he missed her! Tears welled in his eyes. The Queen was not smiling. Why wouldn't she smile at him? She shook her head, mouthing some words. All over, Andor's skin prickled into gooseflesh.
‘What’s she saying?’ he asked.
Vilmos dropped the cloth over the ball. ‘That she loves you, of course,’ he said. ‘We have to cover it up now; too much exposure to this world is not good for those in the Shining Realm.’
Andor looked up at his father, who was smiling gently. He hadn't seen anything to worry about. And Andor wasn't sure what he had seen. Was the woman in the glass really his mother? He looked at the magician, who lifted his brows at him creepily. Yes, the magician saw, thought Andor.
King Niklas was so affected by the vision of Emmaline in the crystal ball that he wanted to see Trayton again immediately. As for her warning, when Andor tried to explain what he had seen, Niklas dismissed it.
‘All I feel, when I see her there, is love,’ he told his son. ‘What could she possibly be shaking her head about?’
