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CHAPTER XXI

They bore Soti to his house in a blanket to die, and his burial was the following day. I watched from a distance. That night when I came in from the hall I found Caedwy sitting beneath the lamp in my house, staring into a small basket he held on his knees.

"Tell him to stop it," said Steinbjorg from the bed. "He makes my skin prickle."

"What are you doing?" I asked.

"Telling our fortunes, master."

"What's that mess in the basket?"

"The guts of a pig. I got them from the kitchen."

"You're divining from pig guts?"

"A horse's or a man's would be better, or a black cat's best of all, but we make do." He blinked his large brown eyes up at me.

I sat down on the bench, weary and not a little drunk. "And what do your guts tell you?" I asked.

"You will live long and see great things," said Caedwy.

"I'd prefer to live long and see little things. Great things have a way of coming out bloody and bitter."

"You'll be offered your heart's desire. But you'll cast it away."

"That sounds like me. And what of you?"

"You'll set me free."

"Not if you keep up this soothsaying. It's devil's work, and puts both our souls in danger. Get rid of those guts. I want to go to bed."

"He said I'd die," said Steinbjorg.

I reached over and grabbed the man by his shirt and shook him. "What did you tell her?"

"I didn't say she'd die. I said I see darkness before her and darkness within her."

"If I ever catch you playing this Hell's game again, I'll twist your head off. Do you understand me?"

Caedwy threw the mess to his dog, who attacked it with relish.

"He tells the truth," said a voice at the door. I jerked my head up in fright. My door usually squeaked loudly on its leather hinges when opened. How Ulvig got through it in silence I'll never know.

"What do you want?" I asked.

For a reply she walked to me and slapped me across the face. I leaped up, raised my hand, then stood poised.

"If I were a man, you'd strike me," she said.

"So?"

"You think you're safe now that you've killed my Soti. Think you I don't see your hand behind it? But you've missed the mark by a long span. You'll find that of the two of us, Soti was the gentle one."

She left, leaving the door open to the bitter wind. Caedwy and his cur huddled in a corner, whimpering, and the guttering light made the room sway like the sea.

 

Ragna came to me one day and said, "You must go and speak to Halla."

"What's wrong?"

"She's gone mad. I've tried to talk to her, and so have all the women, and she's raving. It must be a devil."

I put on my cloak and followed her to the hall. As I started up the stairs to the loft, I looked back to see Ragna still standing below.

"Aren't you coming along?" I asked.

She shook her head. "The old gods speak through madness. It's not right I should see their faces. I'm too lately out of their worship."

"She's a fair woman and I'm a priest. It's not right we should be alone in a sleeping chamber."

"Just go to her before she does herself harm. We've taken all the steel from the loft, but the mad can always find ways."

"Call your daughters or a serving woman then."

"They won't come near."

A scream from above decided me. I clattered up to the balcony and in to Halla.

Loft rooms are always smoky, but my first thought as I entered was that the place had caught fire. I couldn't see anything, and my nose and mouth clogged with something that stopped my breath. I staggered out the door and found I was covered in down. Halla had slaughtered a cushion. When I went back in I found her laughing at me in a swirl of drifting feathers.

"It's snowing inside!" she cried. "It's Fimbul Winter, the end of the world!" She wore an everyday overdress and shift, and they were disarranged, besides which she was covered from head to foot in feathers.

"What's the matter with you, lass?" I asked.

"What's the matter with you, Father Aillil?" She shook her long hair in a spray around her head.

"Ah well, we haven't time enough for that, and you're the one making a fuss."

"I'll be good," she said. She sat down on a chest and folded her hands on her knees. She blew a feather off her nose and giggled. "I always do what's expected of me, and I never, never, never make a fuss. When my father says `You'll go with Lord Erling and be his leman,' I go. When Erling takes a wife, I'll welcome her and not make a squeak, or go home to my father if he sends me. I'm a good girl. Aren't I a good girl, Father?"

"You're a rare girl, my daughter, but I fear you're making a fuss nevertheless."

She looked around at the settling feathers. "It's my cushion. I sewed it with my own hands. Why shouldn't I set it free? I want to see it fly away!" She ran to the door, opened it, and stood trying to shoo the feathers out into the breeze.

I got up and closed the door to keep her off the balcony, and she sighed. "They won't go," she said. "They like it here. They love me, and now they can't understand why I tried to send them away. I'll gather them up and sew them a new cushion if that's what they want. I didn't know. I thought they might like a change."

"Did something happen to trouble you?" I asked.

She knelt at my feet and took my hands. "Do you think me fair, Father?" she asked.

There was a bench behind me and I sat on it, still holding her hands. "I think you're as fair as a summer morning with the sun rising over Lough Erne. The grass is dewy and fat, so a man could live on it, and the flowers open their mouths and praise God with a song of sweet odor, and the birds raise a hymn they learned from Solomon two thousands of years since, and have passed on in secret to their children ever after. And far across the water you can see swans swimming, and the sunrise tints them pink, and the breeze is so mild and gentle it's like the hand of your mother on your forehead when you're a child, and sick, and she fears to lose you." Unfit words for a priest, but they came out of me like the feathers from her cushion, as easy lost and as hopeless to recall, once the fabric was torn.

She pulled away from me. "How am I like a lough?" she asked, shaking her head. "Am I flat as water? Do I make waves when I move? How am I like grass? Am I green?" She began to struggle out of her overdress, then lifted her shift saying, "Where am I green? Tell me where I'm green!" I covered my eyes, sweating with the hunger to look on her.

"Why do you stop your eyes?" Halla asked. "Am I so ugly—flat like the water, green like the grass? Perhaps I have legs like those swans. Perhaps I am a swan. If I could fly away, I'd know better what to do than a lot of stupid feathers—"

I had to open my eyes then, for I could hear her footsteps toward the door, and I feared she might run out on the balcony and leap. I caught her as she worked the latch, and held her naked in my arms. Her skin was very smooth, her bones very small.

"Put your clothes back on, Halla," I said.

"Why?" Her eyes were wide and innocent.

"Because your clothes love you, and it hurts them that you cast them off."

"I wouldn't want to hurt them. I wouldn't want to cast anyone off." I let her go and she got her shift and slipped it on again, unashamed as a child. I couldn't take my eyes off her. Then she put on her overdress and sat on the chest. I sat across from her.

"You look at me with angry eyes, Father," she said.

"I'm not angry, daughter. I just wonder what brought you to this."

"You mustn't wonder about things. When you wonder about things you think about the future, and when you think about the future it makes you sad, but you can't help anything. I'm never going to wonder about anything again."

"The future shouldn't make you sad. God holds you in His hands."

"There's much road to walk between today and Heaven. It's what I'll meet on the road that frightens me. I wish I could fly to Heaven this moment. If I ran out and jumped from the balcony, maybe—"

"You'd probably only break some bones. And if you died you'd be a suicide, and God wouldn't have you."

"I don't think God's fair."

"You're not the first nor the last He'll hear that from."

"You have something on your face."

"What?"

She laughed. "You have something on your face. It looks funny."

"Where?" I rubbed my nose and cheeks.

"Not there."

"Where then?"

She got up and came toward me. She leaned down near my face and peered closely. "Right there," she said, and kissed me quickly on the lips.

I couldn't move. She put her hands on my shoulders and kissed me again. "If I lay with you," she said, "and I had a child, we'd never know if it was yours or Erling's. Wouldn't that be funny?"

I stood up and pulled away. "Don't say such things."

"Don't you like me?"

"I'm a priest!"

"You lie with Steinbjorg."

"Steinbjorg isn't Erling's woman."

She plumped down on the floor. "Yes, it should be Erling's child. I want it to be Erling's child. That's why I went to Ulvig. I'm getting sleepy, Father."

I gaped at her. "You went to Ulvig?"

"I know it's wrong. To go to a witch. But I want to have Erling's child, and she can give you drinks to open the womb."

"Is that what she gave you? A drink to open your womb?"

"Yes."

"And when did you take it?"

"This morning. Before breakfast." Her head was nodding now.

"Don't go to sleep," I said.

"I can't—I can't keep my eyes open."

I took her in my arms and half carried her outside and down the steps to find Ragna. "Ulvig gave her a potion for barrenness," I said. "God knows what was in it. Get your daughters and some of the women and we'll keep her walking in the snow until it wears off."

And that's what we did through the rest of the day, and long into the night. She was sweaty and pale, and she shivered and screamed, but I loved walking her about when my turn came, and I could not forget the sight of her body in the loft, or the curve of her back under my hands.

 

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Framed


Title: The Year of the Warrior
Author: Lars Walker
ISBN: 0-671-57861-8
Copyright: © 2000 by Lars Walker
Publisher: Baen Books