Raven Speak (9781442402492) (20 page)

A shiver rattled through Asa, punching prickles in her skin. If Wenda was right, all those years they'd been living cheek by jowl with a murderer—and not only that, the worst kind of murderer, someone who could willfully turn his back on that most sacred of blood ties. She gazed upon the skald's bloodied and mud-splattered face with new disdain.

“I'm sorry,” she murmured.

Wenda shrugged, feigning dispassion. “It was a long time ago.”

A meditative silence embraced them. The cool breeze stirred the needled branches of the pine trees; the ravens' gluttony created small tearing sounds. Asa's thoughts kept returning to the white mare. She hated to ask it, but couldn't stop herself. “How … ,” she ventured hesitatingly, “why … did he kill your horse?”

“Because I was what he was not; I had what he'd never have.” A vague smile crossed the woman's lips.

Asa waited for more, but Wenda just stared at her birds, working her lips again, and … was she humming now?

Rune stood with the other two horses, his head drooping, his badly injured leg hitched and balanced on the toe of his hoof. Asa walked over and laid a hand on his sweaty neck, steaming in the cold air. His nostrils still fluttered with his rapid breathing. Mourning the bloody gashes to his shoulder and chest, she slipped off the bridle. The fight had cost him so much.

She returned the bridle to Wenda, who took it wordlessly and stuffed it in her satchel. Then Asa unfastened the blue
cloak, folded it, and handed it over as well. The one eye fastened upon Asa, blinking enigmatically. Was the woman waiting for something more? Expecting something else? Time passed, and then Wenda smiled—a little—and bowed her head, just slightly. Her version of a thank-you, subtly shaded with arrogance. Then she turned and, in her birdlike manner, stalked uphill toward the forest. The ravens flapped lazily around her head like summer's thunderclouds.

Asa!”

“We thought you were dead!”

“Jorgen said a bear …”

The members of her dwindling clan surrounded her with astonished but happy faces.

Dusk was falling by the time she'd settled Rune and the other two horses in an outfield—at least they could search for nibblings there—and then she'd heard a familiar bawling. She had climbed wearily through the mountainside brush to find the wayward cow and her calf, and this time she had managed to coax them back into the safety of the byre. So stars glittered in the night sky by the time she'd approached the longhouse with hesitant steps. What would they say about her unexplained absence? What tales had Jorgen spun? Would they mark her a murderer?

But here they were, welcoming her return with eager hands: hands that lifted the bags from her shoulders, hands that guided her toward the fire, hands—Pyri's stubby-fingered ones specifically—offering up a lukewarm bowl of half-consumed veal stew. So they'd found the calf.

Well, nearly everyone was welcoming. She felt Tora's critical stare even before she saw the slitted green eyes.

“Where have you been all this time?” Ketil asked as they seated themselves around the fire.

She had to withhold her answer because everyone was watching Gunnvor hurriedly shoo little Engli aside and lift the mattress that had belonged to Asa off his smaller, thinner one. Flushing, and with her chin pinned to her chest, she returned the mattress, at the same time mouthing an apology.

Of course Asa nodded acceptance. But that carried her attention to the spot where her mother's mattress had last lain (she suspected it had been burned, as was the custom), a spot now half-covered with Tora's extra-wide one. How quickly one's place in the world could change. Breathing one moment, dead the next. Stretched beside a fire one night and sprawled in the mud by the middle of the following day. Gunnvor sensed her thoughts. “Your mother … ,” she began gently, placing a hand on her shoulder, “is no longer with us.”

The words needled fresh hurt but, aware that all the faces had returned to hers, Asa allowed herself nothing more than another nod of acknowledgment and a solemn blink. She would remain emotionless, strong. As the stew held no more appeal, though, she lowered the bowl to the floor. Her obedient hands did not tremble.

“She's in the byre with the others,” Ketil added, “and well seen to. Gunnvor and Astrid made the preparations—”

“We used the madder-red blanket,” Astrid interrupted, “and her favorite brooch, the one with the two beasts—”

“—and Jorgen and I carried her out,” Ketil concluded. “You can have a look if you want.”

“No!” Thidrick protested. “Jorgen says no one can go in that byre. He says there's
draugrs
.”

“Well, Jorgen's not here, is he?” scolded his mother, Gunnvor. And then to Asa, “Missing since morning. We have no idea what might have happened to him.”

But no one had touched
his
mattress. They expected his return. Should she tell them?

“It's the sickness that's finally got to him,” Tora jeered. Around her fingers she was winding and unwinding a short string of yarn. “It's put worms in his skull. You've all seen how he's been acting.” She scanned the room for agreement. “He thinks we're putting dirt in the soup, and he's been rambling on about some ravens laughing at him and
draugrs
stalking him and—what was he saying yesterday?—something about having to wrestle the dead for smelly cheeses.”

Cheeses—food! She had more food to share! “I forgot,” Asa said, reaching for the bags Wenda had given her. “I have some food here.” A ripple of hopeful gasps ran through the small group. She pulled out the unspoiled remnants from Jorgen's cache, the nuts and barley, then dragged out the weighty mutton loin and held it up. “This will take some time to boil—”

Clapping hands and excited chatter nearly drowned Thidrick's
enthusiastic voice. “It's been months since we've had this much meat! First veal today and now mutton tomorrow. I'll fetch the water right now because my belly's getting used to this.” He jumped to his feet and rubbed his stomach to everyone's laughter, then pointed at Helgi. “You get that fire stirred to a bone-cracking blaze before I get back, promise?” And he was through the door with a gush of wind and an energetic
bang
.

Asa reached for the other bag.

“Where did you get that?” Gunnvor asked, pointing. “It looks like—”

“It certainly does,” said Tora. She leaned in.

“There's some fish here too,” Asa announced, frowning. What was so interesting about this bag? It was what was inside that mattered. “Can you pass me a bowl?” She began pulling out flaky shards of dried fish and plopping the broken pieces into the shallow bowl, which she then passed.

Tora, meanwhile, had eased the empty bag onto her own lap and, along with Gunnvor, was studying its woven design. As Asa licked the oil from her fingers and watched the fish disappear, she thought she heard the name “Wenda” arise from the whispered discussion between the two women. That prickled her skin momentarily, though not long enough to repel the unexpected wave of exhaustion that washed over her. Warmth oozed into her hands and her face and across her chest. Her vision blurred, and the sparks that shot from the fire became pulsing orange stars that floated in a smoky sky. She felt her head begin to nod. It
sagged again and again, a weight too unmanageably heavy for her ropy neck, and she fought futilely to keep it upright. As the contented chatter surged and faded, her eyelids fluttered, and she found herself swimming between two worlds, one day and one night, one real and one dreamed. Had she and Rune really battled Jorgen and won? She remembered stabbing him until he'd collapsed, and that's when Rune had … but where was the triumph, the invigorating sensation of blood pounding through her, the notion of invincibility? Gone now.

She shook herself awake and gave a sigh. She felt drained, utterly drained and empty and nothing more. And as she gazed bleary-eyed at Jorgen's mattress, lying empty in the shadowy corner from which he'd concocted so much fear, she questioned if it had been someone else who'd shown such bravery.

Sleepily, she watched the others talking and eating, their drawn faces lit by the fire's glow and the food she'd supplied. The longhouse felt safer than it had for many seasons. It was sparser, yes, and missing many, many faces, but ever so much safer.

“There's blood on your neck.” Pyri's high-pitched voice, always overloud, drew Gunnvor's attention.

“So there is. Asa, are you injured? Asa?”

In the same instant that her head snapped back and her eyes shot open, she reached for her neck. Motherly Gunnvor scooted over for a closer look.

“Where did you come by that knife?” Ketil's voice pierced her fog.

She shook herself awake once more, dully realizing that her cloak must have swung open. While Gunnvor probed the neck wound, discovering as well her bruised cheek and still-swollen lips, Asa fumbled for and found the knife. She held it off to one side. It seemed that she'd never even seen it before. Was it the one she'd used? Yes, blood still stained the blade. But the cold metal felt abhorrent to her now, and without answering Ketil's question, she tossed it, clattering, in his direction. Gunnvor was saying something about an onion poultice, which she'd make come morning.

Thidrick returned just then, lugging two splashing pails. One after the other he dumped them into a large kettle while Helgi continued to encourage the flames. “Was it a very large bear?” he asked over his shoulder.

“What?” She pinched herself to attention.

“The bear that chased you off. Jorgen told us about it.”

“No, there wasn't a bear.”

Heads turned in unison. Now she was awake.

“Then what happened to you?” Ketil asked.

“Where, exactly, have you been?” demanded Tora, holding up the bag. “And in whose company?”

Now that the food was consumed, it seemed, suspicion prodded new appetites. How much should she tell?

And in even considering that question she felt herself nose to nose with Jorgen in the mud. “I … I left to search for food,” she stammered. That was the truth, wasn't it? That is what she'd done.

“But you left in the middle of the night,” Tora said, deliberate accusation in her voice.

The middle of the night. Is that when she'd left? Oh, yes. She'd awakened to find Jorgen gone and had battled him that first time in the byre. The silvery image of his knife came slashing through her mind. She relived the bone-jarring thud of being knocked to the byre floor and, strangely enough, hard on that memory came the
whump
of Wenda forcing her to the ground outside her cave. Was everyone a threat? Covetously, she eyed the knife Ketil now held; he was running his thumb along the short blade while watching her.

“I awoke to check on the horses—”

“They're up in the forest,” Thidrick said. “Jorgen's been trying to get them back into the byre for days, but they won't come.”

“You'll get them back,” Helgi stated with a confident grin.

“They are back,” she said. “They're in the far outfield. I found them on the way home.” A truth, a half-truth? The muddy current in which she floundered grew stickier.

Tora pressed her attack. “So what happened after you checked on the horses?”

It had all been Jorgen's doing, her galloping away. She should tell them. Tell them that they'd been living with a murderer. Cheek by jowl. A liar, a hoarder, a murderer.
Just tell them.

And then tell them what happened to him
. Admit that she, too, was a murderer.

“I decided to ride out on Rune looking for food.”

“Why in the dark?” Gunnvor asked, poking through the bowl that now contained only shreds of tails and fins and feathery fish bones sucked clean.

“The moon was bright. And there was daylight soon enough.”

“Then why do you suppose Jorgen told us you'd been carried off by a bear?” Astrid mused.

“He said he tried to save you from it.” In his innocent curiosity even Thidrick sounded incriminating. “He had scratches all over his face.”

Her fingertips tingled and her nails got a greasy, dirty feeling.

“We saw the scratches,” Tora said, “each and every one of us. And he had a badly injured shoulder, too. He couldn't lift his arm to his head.”

Adopting her stern but motherly voice, Gunnvor asked, “Just what happened to you, Asa, before you rode off that night, leaving us all to worry, leaving your mother to grieve and to die alone? You must tell us.”

One by one she looked into their faces: hungry, suspicious, leaderless. So eager to accuse. She squared her shoulders and accepted the blame for their worry. And she put off telling them about Jorgen's evildoings. There would be a time for that. But he was no longer a threat. He couldn't force her to act rashly. Nor could they.

“I rode out looking for food,” she repeated. And the way she
said it made Astrid sit back on her mattress. The young woman gathered Pyri onto her lap and listened. “Yes, it was still dark when I began,” she admitted, “but I couldn't sleep and so I rode northward along the coast. I went around each of the next three fingers of land until I got to a steep-sided fjord where I couldn't go any farther. At least, I couldn't see a way to go any farther.”

Gunnvor let the woven sack rest on her knee. Helgi paused from his fire play. Only Tora kept her eyes narrowed, her arms crossed.

“That's where I met the strangest woman,” she continued, “a woman who'd seen so many winters she had snow-white hair. And … only one eye.”

At that Gunnvor slid a knowing glance toward Tora.

“You don't have to believe me, of course,” she said, “but I'm telling you the truth. And this woman kept two tame ravens that she talked to … and they talked back. Well, not in human words,” she explained, “but in some sort of raven speak that this woman could understand.”