Wolfskin Page 8

  The summer passed, still sunny and warm, but no longer bathed in that glorious sense of innocent freedom with which it had begun. They did their work, and the days went by, and at length they drove the flocks and herds back down to the farm, for it was haymaking month. All were pressed into service, even Eirik who was back from the spring viking looking bigger and wilder than ever, his full beard and long plaited hair a match for the bright gold of the corn ripening in its sheltered field behind the longhouse. With some ceremony, they mowed the lush grasses of the homefield, where the best of the season’s hay was grown. The homefield boar, sole tenant of this verdant domain, stood in a corner watching, his small eyes thoughtful.

  Ulf came, and Somerled went back to court. Whether the events of the summer were discussed, Eyvind did not know, and he did not ask. Ragna was very quiet these days; she stayed close by the other women, solemn and pale, and she no longer spoke to Eyvind or to any of the boys. There were no secrets by the fire, no gifts of flowers or whispered words in quiet corners. Indeed, it seemed to be Sigurd she avoided most of all; she would not even look him in the eye. And Sigurd was still angry. Somerled’s departure had, if anything, fueled whatever burned inside him, and he seemed compelled to violent activity, as if his rage must be made into action lest it break him apart. Ingi set him to scything, but it was Eyvind who slaughtered the homefield boar when it was time, for he had the steadiest hand. Nobody liked this job. While they were careful not to give this pampered creature a name, for all knew his destiny was to provide ham and bacon, bristles and soup bones, it was hard not to befriend him over the growing months, with a scratch behind the ear here, and a kind word there. Eyvind understood that drawing the knife across the pig’s throat was, in its way, another test. Before long it would be a man who screamed and shuddered thus under his hands, and he must think of it no differently, or he could never do Thor’s work. He made the killing an act of mercy: swift, clean and final.

  In corn-cutting month, the weather turned foul. They managed to get the crop in, and then rain bucketed down and the stream flooded almost up over the bridge. Somebody left a gate open and the chickens got out. During a lull in the downpour, the girls, cloaked in sacking and wearing their heaviest boots, ventured out to find them and herd them back. Grip, the old dog, followed creakily after. Some time passed, and the rain started again. Eyvind was up to the elbows in blood, cutting up a sheep carcass for salting, when he heard Grip barking. The note of it spoke alarm. Outside, Halla stood shivering in the rain while Thorgerd hustled the last of the bedraggled chickens into their coop and fastened the gate.

  Ragna was missing. She had gone down the track toward the stream and they had lost sight of her. They’d called but there had been no reply. Now they were back and so were the chickens, but there was no sign of Ragna.

  Sensing disaster, Eyvind shrugged on a cloak and yelled for help. Many went out to search; all the men and boys of the household and some of the women as well. Dark-haired Oksana walked beside Eirik, her face tight-lipped and anxious. Halla and Thorgerd had simply exchanged their wet sacks for dry ones and plunged out into the downpour in search of their friend. Not that there was any reason to think Ragna had not simply sheltered awhile in a cave somewhere, or under the trees, until the rain abated. Perhaps she would appear soon, a small, blond figure making her way back up the muddy track to home and warmth, with a lone chicken tucked under an arm. It would be easy to think that, if not for the dog. Grip would never leave a girl out of doors alone in such a storm. Grip had run home and raised the alarm. Besides, there was the thing that everyone knew, and did not say.

  It was some time before she was found. Grip led them first to the bridge, where the water now brimmed over the wooden slats, but Ragna was not there. They made their way downstream on either side, and before dusk they saw her between rocks, lying calm and still with her blue eyes gazing skywards, and the water washing clear and swift over her small face. It was Sigurd who lifted her out and carried her home. His face was ashen, his eyes ferocious. Ragna’s mother, widowed early, wept for the loss of her only daughter. Ingi was strong as always, comforting the girls, making arrangements. Eyvind thought Sigurd might weep at last that night. But Sigurd shed no tears. Instead he stood silent, gazing at the still figure laid out in her snowy linen, the flaxen hair now neatly combed and plaited, the features at peace. The only part of Sigurd that moved was his hands; they opened and closed, opened and closed by his sides. He stared at Ragna as if to burn her image into his mind. If he had been angry before, now there was a darkness on his face that boded ill for the future.

  An accident: that was what they said. But Eyvind heard Eirik and Oksana talking, late at night, when the household had at last settled into an exhausted sleep. They were in the hallway, and they were whispering, but he could hear parts of it, for Oksana’s voice was harsh with weeping.

  “It’s my fault,” she sobbed. “It’s all my fault, your mother trusted me! How could I let such a thing happen? And now Ragna’s dead!”

  “Hush.” Eirik’s voice was soft; there was a note in it Eyvind had never heard before. “Hush, now. Nobody blames you; you did your best to watch over them.”

  “She was only little, a child herself. I’m guilty, Eirik.”

  “It was a man did this evil,” Eirik said heavily, “and a man who should bear the blame, and suffer the punishment.”

  “He will escape both,” said Oksana. “Ragna takes that secret to her grave. She would not tell who it was; even her mother could not discover it. This man has threatened her, I think; why else keep silent?”

  “In time, the truth might have been plain to see. But this sad accident has removed any chance of proof,” Eirik said.

  “Accident?” Oksana echoed, and Eyvind felt his heart grow cold.

  “You don’t think…?” began Eirik.

  “That child went out today with no intention of coming home again. She was terrified: so small and so hurt, too young for what was to come. Oh, Eirik, I should have stopped her, I should have—”

  “Hush, sweetheart. There now, there now. Come, it’s late; you must sleep. Don’t weep so.”

  And they moved away down the passage, until Eyvind could hear them no longer. His astonishment at hearing his brother, a man of such high standing, speaking to a thrall-woman as if she were not only his intimate companion but also his equal, was brief enough. It was what they had said that really shocked him. Their words forced him to recognize a truth he had tried hard not to see. What had happened up at the shieling had been a sentence of death for Ragna. It had snatched away all chance of the life Sigurd had predicted with blithe confidence in the days of their childhood. And so she had stepped off the bridge and let the storm decide the future for her. A man had done that; a man had started it. But Ragna was the only witness, and Ragna could never tell now. Her short tale was over. And although Eyvind had done nothing wrong, nothing at all, still he felt guilty, as if he were somehow responsible for what had happened.

  Not long after, Sigurd went away. He took an axe and a bow and a few provisions, but he did not say where he was going, and nobody asked. Truth to tell, things were much easier on the farm without him, for his behavior had grown quite odd, swinging between sudden bursts of rage and long periods of moody silence. Indeed, he had seemed a different person entirely after what happened, and some said that in itself was a sure sign of guilt.

  In the time of the first frost, Eyvind dreamed of blood and of fire. He saw bright eyes in the darkness, watching; he heard the whisper of the god. The next day they came for him.

  It is not a sight granted to many, to watch a full team of Wolfskins ride by. A lesser nobleman such as Ulf, brother of Somerled, might hope to assemble a force of six to spearhead his sea battles and protect him against treachery on land. Jarl Magnus had eleven. Eirik led them; Hakon was by his side, and following grim and silent rode an assembly of warriors who seemed the stuff of some fantastic dream. Their hair was long and wild, or cut to mere stubb
le on the naked scalp. Their faces were fierce and scarred. Each wore the short cloak of shaggy wolf pelt, fastened at the shoulder with a clasp of bronze or silver. But this garment was no uniform, no sign of a particular allegiance. Each man was himself. At the moment of ultimate test, each went forth alone. And they bore the signs of it; one had an ear missing, and one a deep seam across temple and cheek, where the skin puckered around the old mark of some adversary’s blade. This same scarred man had many teeth gone; his grin was an alarming sight, but even more worrying was his shield rim, which was splintered and worn down all around its upper edge. The children whispered as they watched him; maybe the stories they had heard were true. There were no old men among the Wolfskins, no men of middle years. Eyvind’s own uncles had died nobly in Thor’s service, and it was expected a similar fate awaited any who joined this band. To complete four years or five was considered a remarkable feat of survival. Such a calling was not for a man who wanted a wife and sons and a farm, and to die comfortably in his bed.

  Eyvind’s heart was drumming as he swung up onto the riderless horse Eirik led. He was not afraid; it was the thrill of anticipation that made his blood run swift in his veins. He had his axe and his broadsword and a knife or two, but no shield. Eirik looked him over swiftly, gave a nod, unsmiling, and in an instant the horsemen wheeled around and set off northward with Eyvind in their midst. Not one of them looked back. The farm was gone, and the longhouse, and the days of childhood. The god summoned them; if Eyvind passed the test, he would not come home again before seeding time.

  They rode a great distance that day, farther than Eyvind had traveled before. At dusk they halted deep in the woods, on a high flat stretch of ground circled by tall firs. A fire was made, a ring of torches placed well out toward the trees. With nightfall came a bone-chilling cold that crept into every corner of the body, numbing fingers and toes, freezing nose and ears and making each breath a burden. Eyvind was hungry, for they had not stopped to eat and there was now no sign of supper. He did not ask.

  The men sat in a circle around the fire. One or two of them were humming under their breath, a strange, monotonous sort of tune that rose and fell, rose and fell. He could not understand the words. A third man had a little drum, cowhide stretched across a wooden frame, and his fingers tapped in time with the chant. Nobody spoke. Above and around them the forest was still, as if listening. The sound was like a tiny whisper in the vastness of the chill autumn night, no more significant than the chirp of a single cricket in a whole field of corn.

  Eyvind sat cross-legged. He wanted to ask, What must I do? When can I start? Mindful of Thor’s presence, he kept silent. In time, no doubt, the answers would become clear. Still, this was not at all what he had expected. Combat, challenges, hunting: all these things he excelled at. When would they allow him to show his strength?

  “Here.” Hakon was passing a drinking horn; Eyvind took it and swallowed gratefully. The ale was very cold and very strong. He passed it to the man on his left.

  “Eyvind?”

  Eirik was giving him something now, a wad of some kind of gum or resin, sticky and pungent-smelling.

  “What…?”

  “You must chew this. And drink more ale. Pass the horn around again, men.”

  Eyvind eyed the lump of gray matter dubiously. It seemed more the kind of substance one might use to plug a hole in a bucket, or mend a wall, than an item of foodstuff. He might be hungry, but he wasn’t sure he was as hungry as that.

  “Chew slowly,” Eirik said. “Don’t swallow it. The ale should help.”

  “What’s in it?”

  Hakon grinned. “It won’t poison you. Look.” He reached out, pinched off a corner of the insalubrious-looking mess, and put it in his own mouth. “Herbs, mushrooms, pine gum. Harmless. Good for you. Drink some more ale; you’re a man now.”

  Eyvind put the lump in his mouth and chewed. It tasted worse than it smelled; still, they were right, the ale took the worst of the bitterness away, and soon he was feeling much better—quite warm in fact, and at ease in the warriors’ company. The drum beat on, keeping time with his heart; the odd little chant ebbed and flowed, ebbed and flowed like his own breath, in and out, in and out. It was dark. Beyond the ring of torches was a profound deep blackness that even the moonlight could not penetrate. It was a darkness of between: the instant of nothingness before outward breath becomes inward, the point of balance between life and death. What was it Somerled had once said? The moment…the moment when it all turns to shadow.

  “You must sleep now.” It was his brother’s voice, and Eirik’s hand easing him down to lie on a blanket near the fire.

  “Sleep?” Eyvind was dismayed, though indeed he could not stop the convulsive yawning that suddenly overtook him. “But—”

  “Sleep now,” said Eirik firmly, and as Eyvind’s lids closed over his eyes he seemed to see his brother’s image doubled and tripled, a fantastic beast with six, eight, ten blue eyes and a crown of wild golden fur, and beyond it a tumbling mass of jewel-bright stars.

  The chant went on; the drum passed from hand to hand with never a beat astray. Eyvind slept in the circle of men, in the ring of fire. The dark firs, the star-filled sky, the earth on which he lay made another circle, encompassing all, and in his sleep he understood this. Then, abruptly, he was more awake than he had ever been before. It was still night, still dark, still cold enough to turn the marrow to ice. There was no song now, no drumming. The torches lit a pathway across the clearing toward the deep blackness of the forest’s margin. Beyond the torches there were faces—strange, watchful faces that were neither human nor animal: empty eyes, painted brows, pelts that were not hair nor feathers nor fur, but something between. Beyond the fire there were bodies, shifting, moving, changing. What were they? Surely these were no warriors, but some forest spirits conjured from shadow and moonlight. Perhaps his companions were gone, swallowed up by some evil enchantment.

  “It is time.”

  Eyvind whirled around. Behind him a dark-robed figure stood, perhaps his brother, but maybe not, for the face was masked, the body quite concealed by the long garments.

  “Undress. Naked the wolf comes to face you; naked you go in challenge. Fire is your only cloak: your weapons, only those he himself possesses. On equal terms you confront him, for to know him is to defeat him, to defeat him is to become him. I will guide you, but I will not stand by you at the end. This battle is yours alone.”

  Perhaps the guide was Thor himself. The god wore many guises; even so did he delight in walking among mortals. Eyvind stripped off his clothes, wondering vaguely if he might die of cold before he got anywhere near any wolf. The axe: he would take that, surely Thor would approve—or maybe a spear, for at least that allowed the security of striking from a distance. But no. Your weapons, only those that he himself possesses. Teeth; claws. A sharpened stick. A little knife. No choice but to hold one in each hand, since he hadn’t even a belt to decorate his nakedness.

  By the very edge, beyond the glowing coals, the ashes had lost their heat. Fire is your only cloak. He smeared the fine powder on chest and arms, on brow and buttocks. It would mask his scent, if not quite smother it. Then, small weapons in hand and blood racing, he set off up the hill along the line of torches. The robed man followed, silent. And beyond the light, the others came, others that now seemed to move on scampering paw and prancing hoof and slithering belly, that seemed to merge and emerge, part substance, part shadow. Their eyes shone red in the firelight, and yet when he glanced across they seemed no more than holes of blackness in the blank masks of their faces. It was so quiet he could hear the cautious progress of his bare feet on the carpet of needles beneath the firs, beyond the farthest torch now, under the trees, into the darkness.

  “Go forward,” his guide murmured. “Go onward, Eyvind. A blind man does not fear the setting of the sun. Hear with the creature’s ears; scent your prey as he does. Be of the earth; be of the night. You have learned to hunt. Learn now to be hunted.”r />
  The path led upward, narrow between great rocks, precipitous and quite without light. The blind man…he does not fear the dark because he knows the dark, thought Eyvind; he finds his way not by sight but by hearing, and smell, and something else, the something else that sends a forest creature into hiding before ever the man’s foot cracks a twig, or his alien scent is borne across the hillside by the wind. Step by step Eyvind moved forward, balancing his body to keep safe footing yet maintain silence, counting his breathing to make it slow and quiet, listening in a way he already knew. He had been a hunter many seasons, for all he was but barely a man.

  The forest creatures had been silent: not a chirrup, not a rustle. Now, sudden in the dark, an owl hooted and he heard the beat of its wings passing high overhead. And behind it, in the same instant, another cry: a howl, a summons, a challenge surely meant only for his ears. He had never hunted a wolf before. Rabbits and hares were easy prey, deer and boar stronger, yet readily taken if you knew what you were doing. But a wolf was clever. And if he understood right, this was not a hunt, but a kind of combat.

  Gripping his simple weapons, Eyvind moved forward up the path. The cry had not come again, but he had fixed its direction and thought he knew its distance: three hundred paces maybe, beyond the tree line, on the rocks to the southeast. It would be lighter there, under the moon: advantage and disadvantage.

  The track came to an abrupt end, and it was necessary to use his hands to climb. Very well, stick and knife must be held between clenched teeth, and a careful progress made up over the rock face. He could see the moon now beyond the ridge above, fir branches brushing its cold pale visage. His fingers were growing numb; he hauled himself atop the outcrop, wincing as the stones caught his body unprotected and left their mark. He sat, eyes shut. A blind man in the darkness. No sound: his quarry would not call him forth, not now. He must find him in silence. No sound: no sight. But…there it was, he thought he had it…no, gone again. He made his breath slower. Forget the cold, forget the bruises; fill your senses with him, with the one you seek. Yes, there it was, a scent, faint but sharp, the edgy, acrid smell that was not boar, nor deer, nor bear, that was not dog either, but something far more subtle, and far more dangerous. He was there, not far ahead, waiting. Perhaps a whole pack of them waited. And Eyvind was alone. No choice. It was like the moment on the longship’s prow, when it locks with the enemy’s fleet and you charge forward, be there ten or twenty men against you. You see only victory, you hear only Thor’s voice, and in that moment nothing in the whole world can touch you.