Sorcery Rising

by Jude Fisher

  Katla looked away. ‘He asked father for my hand, you know—’

  ‘I was there,’ Fent reminded her flatly.

  ‘—to try to save me from Finn Larson.’ She paused. ‘Will Da go through with it, after all this, do you think?’

  Fent looked puzzled. ‘With what?’

  ‘The marriage – to Finn.’

  Some indecipherable expression crossed her twin’s face. ‘I doubt it,’ he said. He looked uncomfortable.

  Katla, who could usually read her brother’s thoughts as if they were her own, frowned. ‘What? Why? There’s something you’re not telling me. Out with it, fox-boy.’

  ‘He’s . . . dead. Finn Larson.’

  ‘Dead?’ Her mind worked swiftly. There had been an extraordinary mêlée as the guards had dragged her to the burning, and fighting had broken out all around the edges of the pyre as they bound her there and lit it, but she could not remember seeing the portly shipbuilder amongst the combatants, try as hard as she might. Apart from which, she could not ever imagine him fighting the Istrians for her—

  ‘I killed him.’

  Katla stared at him, dumbfounded. Her brother, her little brother, as she liked to think of him, had killed a man. And not just any man – not even an enemy – but the man with whom their father had struck a marriage-deal, Eyra’s finest shipmaker; Jenna’s father.

  ‘But how – why? Not for me, surely?’

  Fent, unable to help himself, barked out a laugh. ‘The entire world does not revolve around you, you know.’ And then he told her what he had overheard of the conversation in the Istrian lord’s tent, and how he had taken the big mercenary by surprise and borrowed his sword. ‘It seemed right at the time,’ he said. ‘To take the Dragon of Wen, you know, since you made it, it seemed almost mine . . . and it fit my hand so well: it felt almost that it was singing to me as I plunged it into him: the traitor.’

  Katla watched with astonishment a mad blue light enter her twin brother’s eyes. He feels no remorse for it, she thought. None at all.

  ‘But we aren’t at war with Istria,’ she said carefully, ‘and our King might even have taken one of theirs to wife; where’s the harm in Finn selling the southerners a few ships? I’m sure he fleeced them well—’

  Two deep red spots appeared in the centre of Fent’s cheekbones. ‘Do you understand nothing of the history between our races?’ he said, and his tone was as cold and cutting as one of her blades. ‘They have stolen our land and murdered our folk for hundreds of years, driving us ever northward, until all we have left are a few poxy, inhospitable lumps of rock in the middle of a treacherous ocean and the skill to make ships and sail them. And now war looms and you would just sit back and let them take that as well? You would have done well as a traitor’s wife.’ And with that he shot to his feet and stalked the length of the ship to sit at the helm, face pressed fiercely into the wind like one of the avenging Fates.

  She watched him till it was clear he would not turn and give her the satisfaction of meeting her gaze. Then, exhausted, she fell asleep again.

  Early the next morning, Katla felt the old familiar draw of the blood in her veins, pulsing and buzzing beneath her skin. Land. I can feel the land, calling me. It was stronger this time than it had ever been before. She could even feel the reefs below the keel as they passed through the deep, dark waters of the Westman Sea; a counterpoint to the more tenacious song of the islands. On unsteady feet, she made her way forward to the helm, where Kotil Gorson stood with her father, staring away to the long grey horizon, as yet unbroken by any hint of Eyra.

  Rain spattered down out of an overcast sky. Fitting weather, Katla thought, for our not-so-glorious homecoming. At that moment, the Fulmar’s Gift caught a big roller of a wave – another sign that land was close now – and all three of them had to grab the gunwale to save their balance.

  ‘Whoa!’ The roller passed. Removing her hands from the gunwale, she turned to Kotil and her father. ‘Did you feel that?’

  They regarded her blankly.

  ‘Big wave,’ Kotil remarked in his usual taciturn fashion.

  ‘No,’ Katla said quickly. ‘Not that—’ She stopped, then gingerly replaced one hand on the top plank.

  Beneath her palm, the oak of the ship thrummed with energy, a powerful ripple of reaction that spoke of more than the simple aftershock of the impact between sea and planks. ‘That,’ she said forcefully. She took one of Aran’s hands and pressed it down flat onto the same surface. ‘Can you feel it? It’s almost as if it’s humming, as if it has a pulse—’

  Aran gave her an odd look. His fingers closed over the wood, then unclenched. ‘I can feel the pull of the sea, the knock of the waves . . .’ he started. He frowned. ‘Should you be up, Katla? You look pale. Why don’t you go lie down until we make land? It won’t be long now, hours at most.’

  ‘I know,’ Katla said distractedly. ‘I can . . . feel it . . .’

  Shakily, she turned from them and struggled back amidships, unaware of their puzzled eyes on her back, unaware of anything now that she had made the connection except the trembling of the wood beneath her feet, and the answering call it seemed to receive from the land from whence that wood had come, a call that was conveyed and amplified by the cold grey water through which they travelled. It was as if more life had somehow – in the time she had slept on this voyage – been invested in every part of the living world, and that life was speaking to her, Katla: making itself known to her, and only her.

  They came into view of the Westman Islands at mid-afternoon: Long Man first of all, its north-south axis presenting to them a strangely curtailed sight as they skinned its western coast. Once into the channel between Long Man and Rockfall, Katla could see smoke rising from the settlements surrounding the Great Hall even from five miles or more out: drifting peacefully eastwards with the prevailing wind, and the sudden sharp nostalgia she felt for her home took her by surprise. Minutes later, Aran was striding about the deck issuing orders with the clear, deep voice she identified as that of a man happy and sure in his task, for ships were what Aran knew best: sailing the ocean on a following wind, reading the weather and the run of the sea, making delicate manoeuvres into port. The big square sail was lowered and furled and the long yard was dismantled and stowed away lengthways down the deck. With six of the crew manning the stays, down came the great, thick mast – a tricky procedure even with an experienced team – out of the mast-fish and onto the deck with barely a thud. Katla, impressed, watched it all closely. One day, she thought, one day I may have a ship of my own to sail where I will. It came out of nowhere, this notion, so that it felt almost like someone else’s thought, foreign and improbable; but somewhere at the root of her soul, the idea had taken seed.

  Soon the men had taken their rowing places and unshipped the sculls, and within minutes the ship – riding high and light in the water without the burden of cargo – was into the calmer sea of the Rockfall Sound and the blurred mass of grey and green began to resolve itself into the myriad details of the island she called home. Out to the west, stark against the pale-blue sky, the sea-stack known as Sur’s Needle rose like a great white tower, crowned by circling gulls and guillemots. Inland from the Needle, the little bays of the southern coastline dipped in and out of the surf, some guarded by foaming reefs, others open to the winds and the tides, their pale sands visible as crescents of gold before giving way to the tangles of gorse and bramble that marked their landward boundaries. From here, the cliffs began to rise steeply towards the awesome overhangs of the far eastern coast, the furthest visible point topped by the impressive Hound’s Tooth. They’ll have a watchman up there, Katla thought. He’ll have spent a good hour climbing to the apex to watch for sails. And the palms of her hands began to itch and burn, almost as if she could feel the rough-grained granite, its sharp mica crystals pressing painfully into her skin. They always kept a look-out at Rockfall: Aran had insisted on this discipline since returning from the war. Often, Katla had volunteered for
the duty, for the climb she favoured as her route to the top was a delight: not difficult if you took the southern corridor, where two columns of the rock folded into one another to make a wide corner you could bridge comfortably and in perfect balance; and Katla also preferred this route for the added thrill of the open sea at her back and the glorious exposure of three hundred feet of sun-warmed granite beneath her feet. She would sit up there in the summer with her feet dangling over the edge, entirely unfazed by the dizzying descent below her, looking down on the backs of the dark-winged gulls as they slipped by below her, and the bright orange patches of lichen that bloomed like marigolds on the shelves and ledges.

  Sure enough, as they ghosted in towards the shore, she could make out the silhouette of a tiny figure atop the Tooth – one of the lads they had left behind when they sailed: Vigli, most like, or his cousin Jam; for both were nimble climbers – and her heart leapt. I’ll climb to the top first thing tomorrow morning, she promised herself, before the sun comes up so that I can watch the shadows of the fish shoals moving round the coast before the boats go out. And then, with a dull thud in the pit of her stomach, she realised that climbing the Hound’s Tooth would be the last thing she did the next morning – or for many mornings to come – and the disappointment of it all made her eyes sting and her throat swell as if she had swallowed half a turnip. I won’t weep, she told herself fiercely. I won’t have any of them see me weep. It was my own choice; my own fault, and I must bear it bravely. She brushed the club of her bandaged arm across her face and stared furiously into the wind, lids narrowed to prevent the escape of her tears.

  The Fulmar’s Gift rounded the headland and was at once engulfed by the cold shadow first of the Hound’s Tooth, then by the looming Raven’s Ness as it sailed beneath that chill curtain of rock. At last, the natural harbour at Rockfall opened itself to them like an embrace and suddenly they could see the pastures and crags, the enclosures and barleyfields; and then the longhouse and outbuildings, the turf roofs of the cottagers’ dwellings, the sandy lanes leading up through the furze and bracken to the quarries; and people everywhere, running like insects. Too far away to make out identity, still it was possible to trace their paths as they ran down towards the harbour – all the natural dyes of the islands on display at once in their garments: blues and heathers, greens and browns, ochres and dusky pinks. A great knot of them had gathered on the seawall built by Aran’s grandfather when he had settled Rockfall a hundred and more years ago; more were arriving on the strand behind it.

  As the ship sailed around the breakwater, Katla began to make out individual faces in the crowd: on the seawall as they passed – waving and shouting – were Uncle Margan and Kar Treefoot; Bran Mattson and his daughters Ferra and Suna; Fellin Grey Ship and his wife Otter, Forna Stensen and Gunnil Larson. A sheepdog – a great grey hairy beast with a tongue half as long as its head – ran neurotically up and down in front of the assembled group, its tail lashing the air in a paroxysm of delight. Small children were hoisted onto shoulders. For many of them, Katla thought, it will be the first time they’ve seen a big ship like ours come in from the Allfair; pray Sur it won’t be the last. Fent’s talk of war had unnerved her, truth to tell.

  In the lee of the seawall, a few small fishing craft bobbed at anchor. Most would still be at sea completing their day’s catch; and those that remained were likely owned by crewmembers of the Fulmar’s Gift, or the other ships that trailed them.

  On the strand, faces now became distinct. The Erlingsons – all four in their fifties now, all identically clad, with the same iron-grey beards and vast noses – stood a little aside from the main assembly, amongst which Katla could make out Stein Garson and old Rolf Finnson, Ma Hallasen and her friend Tian; Fotur Kerilson and the old women of the Seal Rock clan – they must have picked up their skirts and run like rabbits to have got here ahead of the others, Katla thought, her lips quirking at the image thus conjured. Fat Breta, Kit Farsen and Thin Hildi were fighting over a basket. Pies for the lads, no doubt; it had become something of a tradition, trying to bribe one of the returning seafarers to your bed with some home-cooked food in the hopes of a piece of nice jewellery or a pretty shawl. No one thought the worse of them for it, and one or two girls had even married their sailors in the end and no harm done.

  At the end of the front row she could make out Ella Stensen, Tor’s mother, anxiously searching the ship for a sight of her ne’er-do-well son, and her heart contracted. Tearing her eyes from that ravaged face (for Ma Stensen had lost husband, brother and another son in the last year – to the sea; a drunken fight and a throw from a horse respectively), she scanned the eager faces for a sight of her mother and grandmother, but to no avail. Incongruously, she was suddenly gripped by dread. But what could happen to them here in Rockfall? she reasoned. The worst that had touched these shores had been odd, isolated acts of nature, freaks of wind and tide, like the great storms that had ripped up off the sea a dozen years ago, stripping the turf off the roofs of the steadings, demolishing the stockade and the plantation that Halli had planted as a zealous thirteen-year-old, determined to grow his own trees and build his own ships. Katla remembered how he had so proudly brought the saplings back from the mainland and dug them in with loving care, against all advice, on the hill behind the longhouse. He’d told the family in great detail about the beautiful ship he would build from the oaks – until Gramma Rolfsen had taken him by the hand and led him down into the valley where the oldest trees on the island grew, the ones that had been preserved as a sacred grove to Feya, and showed him a mark on one particularly fine specimen that his grandfather had carved on the day they had been betrothed. ‘Fifty years ago, that was,’ she’d cackled, pointing to the twining love-knot a few feet above her head. ‘Fifty years, my lad, and you might just have enough tree for a rowing-boat; but you’ll have to live as long as the Snowland Wolf before you’ll grow a longship from these twigs!’ But when the great wind came and flattened them like grass beneath a giant’s hand, Halli had wept like a child and Katla, at barely seven years of age, had thought the end of the world – that apocalyptic event she had heard about in stories from her earliest childhood – must surely have come at last. Then, a few days after the storm had blown itself out, the bodies of five men had been washed up at Seal Point. No one recognised them: they were not Westman Islanders; indeed, from their odd clothing and dark and strangely marked skin, they appeared not to be Eyrans at all. Many said they must be Istrians from the far south of their country whose ship had been caught in the storm and blown northwards way off their course, but no wreckage from the stricken vessel had ever been found. They had dug a firepit for the bodies on the beach where the sea had brought them ashore and had sent them to their Goddess in fire, rather than returning them to the ocean in the northern way. Within a week, two of the women and four of the men who had arranged the disposal of the bodies fell ill with rashes across their skin; rashes that were then followed by high fevers and a sudden wasting. Three of the six died; and within a month half of Rockfall had been afflicted by the mysterious sickness and everyone was terrified. Katla remembered being swaddled in cloths soaked in tinctures of pungent herbs by her grandmother; but despite all such precautions the whole family had caught the disease and been covered in fiery rashes from head to toe. Their fevers broke early, and the wasting never set in: they were lucky, but others were not. Thirty-five people – hale men, strong women, lively children – died in that mysterious blast; then, as quickly as it had struck, the plague passed, leaving weakness and exhaustion in its wake; but no further deaths. Has the sickness come again? Katla wondered. Or had some other misfortune kept her mother and grandmother away from the homecoming crowds? But even as the thought crystallised the crowd parted and she caught a sudden glimpse of her mother’s bright red hair, and the redoubtable Gramma Rolfsen, belabouring those in her way with her trusty knobkerry, and Katla let out a huge sigh of relief.

  With a great splash a dozen or more of the crew leapt out in
to the chest-deep water of the harbour, exclaiming at the cold, and hauled ashore the great ropes they would use for drawing the Fulmar’s Gift up onto the strand, where it could be recaulked and refitted for its next voyage. Faerings were let down over the side and people began to clamber down into them eagerly. Katla glanced down at her bandaged arm; felt the pain and stiffness in her legs. It wouldn’t be easy lowering herself into a boat, but she was damned if she was going to return home after her first Allfair as a useless invalid. When her father and brothers approached, their faces set in identical expressions of concern, she waved them away like bothersome gnats.

  ‘Leave me be! I’ll see to myself’

  Used to the ways of his headstrong daughter, Aran shrugged and turned away.

  ‘Been missing the chilly kiss of the Northern Sea, have you, sister?’ Fent teased.

  Katla stiffened, more determined than ever to prove her point. Hobbling like a lame goose, she made her way across to the gunwale above the nearest boat.

  Halli followed her. ‘You could wait, you know,’ he said, pitching his voice so low that no one else could hear. ‘They’ll fetch the rollers and haul the ship ashore soon enough and you can just step out onto dry land. No one will think any the less of you.’

  ‘No!’ Katla was adamant: her eyes flashed dangerously.

  Without another word, she bent and held the gunwale tight with her good hand, then swung her right leg grimly over the side, wincing despite herself at the burst of fire that shot up through her spine. It was a long way down to the faering, with the Fulmar’s Gift sitting unaccustomedly high in the water, and so she set her jaw, shut her eyes and dropped.

  Willing hands broke her fall. The little boat rocked precariously, but she was safely aboard. A pair of the crew unshipped the oars and pulled vigorously for the shore.