Against a Darkening Sky

by Lauren B. Davis

  “To your left—that looks like a weak spot,” calls Ricbert from his stool below. He points.

  Egan reaches for more bracken from the pouch at his waist.

  The thatch smells sweet. Even though it’s been in the storage shed for months, it still carries the memory of summer. The air is chill, though, even at this time of day, with the sun high above them.

  Below, Ricbert rubs his hands and blows on them.

  “Brother, why not go in and sit by the fire? This won’t take too much longer,” says Egan.

  “You’ll need more straw,” says Ricbert. “I see another place that needs patching.”

  Egan sighs as he watches his living-companion walk to the shed, his feet placed carefully to keep from slipping on the icy patches. He suspects Ricbert simply likes to see him up on the roof and off his knees. The older man has mentioned, more than once, that the villagers will respect him more if he is less inclined to meditation and more inclined to manual labour. And he’s right. Egan has been too focused on his own piety. Didn’t Father Bresal warn him of this? He descends the ladder to help fetch the straw. His hands are chafed and cracked from the finicky work in such cold weather.

  He meets Ricbert coming out of the shed and takes the straw bundles from him. As he does, the older man grunts and gestures with his chin. Egan turns around and isn’t surprised to see two village women—Begila and Wynflaed—rounding the corner of the chapel. Oh, God, he thinks, not the women again. What on earth will it be this time? Charms for the bread, for the hearth, for the cooking pot? He prays over children, over thresholds, over marriage beds, and over sheep. He sees the disappointment in the faces of mothers when he doesn’t leave them with a potion or a charm. There’s hardly an hour when someone doesn’t arrive wanting something, most of which he doesn’t know how to give. “Shall I keep working on the thatch and let you see what they want?” he asks.

  “Oh, it’s not me they want, Brother Egan. Not me at all.”

  Egan senses bitterness behind the words, but a touch of pleasure at Egan’s discomfort as well. “Yes, you’re right. It’s my duty. They want Christ.”

  “Of course they do,” says Ricbert. With that, he turns and walks back to their sleeping quarters.

  “Welcome, Sisters,” says Egan as he places the straw bundles on the stool.

  Begila and Wynflaed, who look alike enough to be sisters, both robust women with round faces, strong arms, and freckles, return his greeting. Begila carries a small basket, which she holds out to him.

  “For me? How kind.” Inside are a slightly wrinkled cabbage and some white carrots.

  “Just something for the pot,” says Begila. She nudges Wynflaed.

  “It’s about my Osric,” says Wynflaed.

  Egan attempts to keep a slight smile on his lips. Wynflaed’s husband is a difficult man, probably of great usefulness on the battlefield, but in times of peace he has no outlet for his violent nature. He drinks too much, and when he drinks he uses his fists on his wife and children, and on the furniture and the animals, and anything else in his way.

  “Is he ill?”

  Begila snorts, and Wynflaed says, “I’ve been praying like you said to do, but nothing changes.”

  “We must have faith.”

  Wynflaed wipes her dripping nose with her cape. “That’s all well and good, but it won’t help much if he breaks my boy’s arm. Almost wrenched it out of the socket last night.”

  “Do you wish me to speak with him?”

  Begila jumps in. “You talk to him and he’s liable to clout you one.” She looks him up and down. “Don’t think you’d stand up as well as young Randulf. Least he’s got the strength to whack his father with a board if he has to and put him to sleep for a bit.”

  Wynflaed’s son, Randulf, is twelve. “We must turn the other cheek, Sisters, and pray that Christ’s love opens Osric’s heart.”

  Wynflaed says, “Touilt used to prepare a draught for him. I slipped it into his drink when I could see he was going to be ructious.”

  He can see it in their faces—they suspect they’ve made a bad choice. And what can he say? That they should go to Touilt for such things when Lord Caelin has expressly forbidden it?

  “What have you got for us?” asks Begila, one eyebrow raised and her lips pulled down.

  “I might have something,” he says. “Can you wait?”

  “Got to be getting back,” says Wynflaed.

  “Just a moment, then. Perhaps you’d like to go into the chapel and pray while you wait?”

  Begila and Wynflaed exchange glances, then Wynflaed shrugs. The women walk into the chapel, although Egan is not convinced they will pray.

  In the sleeping quarters he finds Ricbert sitting by the open door, wrapped in his cloak, close enough to the fire to be warmed by it. “What did they want?”

  “A potion, something to make Osric kind.”

  Ricbert’s laugh is deep. “That one needs to go back to war.”

  Egan rummages on the shelves over a small table. He finds dried chamomile in a little jar.

  He has no knowledge of anything but the most rudimentary herb-lore, nothing more than scraps he remembers from his mother. Chamomile to dispel nightmares, wood crowfoot for catarrhal afflictions, knit-back for bruises and broken bones. For now, chamomile will have to do. He says a prayer over it, blesses it with the sign of Christ.

  He returns to the chapel to find the women outside again. He hands Wynflaed the jar. She opens it and sniffs. “That’s chamomile,” she says. “Like swatting a bear with a willow branch.”

  “It’s been blessed, sister, made holy with the word of Christ. It carries the power of God’s love.”

  “Made holy?” says Wynflaed. She sniffs again. “You said a charm over it?”

  “Yes, the charm of Christ.”

  “Well, thank you then.” She holds her finger up to her nose. “I’m counting on Christ, and on you.”

  “We all rely on Christ, Sister,” he says.

  The women leave and he turns to find Ricbert leaning up against the chapel wall. “You don’t yet understand us,” he says. “We’re loyal to our chiefs, providing they’re good to us, providing they provide, if you catch my meaning.”

  “The one true God provides for all things,” says Egan.

  “Yes, without doubt,” says Ricbert. “In the next world. But it’s this one you have to pay attention to while you’re living in it.”

  Egan is kneeling before the altar, praying through the night. A single candle glows on the stone under the wooden cross. The tiny flame barely holds the surrounding darkness at bay. He focuses on the fragile globe of grace and yet, even as he trusts it, he shudders to think of all the evil slinking in the shadows. His breath forms puffs of mist around his lips and nostrils. His knees send spears of pain up into his thighs and hips. He prays harder. Consecrate my speech, Christ, Lord of the seven heavens! May the gift of precision be granted me, King of the bright sun. He prays for the right words, for the gifts of patience, of understanding. He feels he’s failing at the task God has set before him. His head droops. He pictures himself as a man made of straw, being pulled apart by the villagers’ hands, which want, crave, tear at him. He snaps awake again. He focuses on the wavering flame. There is Christ, even in the darkest corners. He feels Christ with him, but he knows that when the sun rises and once again the people come, wanting this, wanting that, wanting everything, it seems, except what he has to offer, he will lose this feeling. If he doesn’t find a way to be alone with God, to have just a little time to commune with the Holy One … He fears for his own soul.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Wilona sits on a stool near Touilt’s bed and mends her under-tunic, her face close to the material. She cannot waste a candle for the sake of her eyes, and the light from the fire is low. It is just past dawn and Touilt has, at last, fallen into poppy-induced sleep. Wilona longs for someone to talk to about Touilt, but Caelin has called Margawn to accompany him to a meeting of the king’s
army in Bebbanburgh. King Edwin is preparing to invade the Isle of Man and then to do battle with his old rival, King Cadwallon of Gwynedd. Their goodbyes had been hasty and unsatisfying. He left a sack of grain and some dried ham; he stacked wood and held her tight. He pleaded with her, again, to reconsider her stance, and in order to please him, to make their parting less sour, she said she’d think about it.

  Wilona works the bone needle in and out of the cloth. She must seek the guidance of her spirits. The power of the holy well seems to have diminished since its rededication to Christ’s Mary. Wilona stares into the middle distance. Dried herbs hang from the rafters and a bunch of nettle catches her attention. She puts her sewing down, stands on her stool, quietly, so as not to disturb Touilt, and breaks off a handful of dark leaves. She moves to her small wooden chest and uses the key attached to the chatelaine on her belt to unlock it. The lid opens with a slight grinding. From inside she takes the bag of runes, a small stone bowl, and a cat skin. She takes them to the hearth, where she squats and unrolls the skin. The calico fur is soft and crackles with a subtle energy. She invokes the spirits and concentrates, reaching out to feel Raedwyn. With the wooden ash-scoop, she plucks three bright orange embers and puts them in the stone bowl. Over these she crumbles the dried nettle, and the pungent, slightly acrid scent purifies the air. She closes her eyes and softly sings a song of gratitude to the rune spirits, begging for their guidance. Touilt stirs and moans but doesn’t awaken. Wilona reaches into the rune sack and lets her fingers roll and play among the smooth stones until her skin tingles. She curls her fingers around the rune that speaks to her, then rubs it between her palms, telling it she’s grateful for its wisdom and guidance. Only then does she place it on the cat skin.

  The rune mann, face down. Her heart catches. It’s the rune of humankind, of responsibilities to others, signifying kindness and the fellowship of the hall, but also a time of solitude and separation. It means both communication and the possibility of deception. The x at the centre of the symbol is the web of wyrd, a reminder that all things perish and fall away, that change will come and all life is transient.

  Wilona replaces the runes in their bag. It could mean parting from Touilt, but could it also mean Wilona should go into solitude to find the solace of the gods? It’s a message, but unclear. She must go where Touilt has gone, to the sacred mountain. She snared a hare yesterday; it will make a fitting sacrifice.

  She builds the fire so it will burn for a few hours and bundles up, with wool packed inside her thin brodekins. She hates the idea of rousing Touilt, but if the old woman wakes and finds Wilona gone, she may panic. Touilt opens her eyes and nods when Wilona tells her of her plan, but then begins to cough again, and it takes more poppy tincture to calm her.

  Just after sunrise Wilona sets off, her hood up and an over-cloak of sheepskin around her shoulders. She carries a rucksack filled with the hare, juniper twigs, firewood, flint, and two hard-boiled eggs for the walk home. She slips a flagon of cider tied to a strap over her shoulder and takes up her staff. Over the past few weeks she fashioned it from a fallen yew branch, and carved the small figure of an owl on the top. She begins the walk up the sloping path. Although she could walk along the river’s edge, following the upward path from the edge of the village, steering clear of her neighbours, she doesn’t want to give the impression she’s creeping around. She’ll walk alongside the village walls if not through it.

  There’s no snow today, but the granite sky hangs low, scraping the mountain’s top. The ground is frozen and slippery, and the wind plucks at her clothing and hair, nips her cheeks, and causes her eyes to tear. Two squirrels chatter and chase each other, squabbling over some prize. Her mind flashes back to that long-ago day when the red squirrel tried to raid the robin’s nest and was killed by the hawk, just as the spirit-illness fell upon her. So much changed that day, when Raedwyn claimed her. Remembering makes her aware of the great owl’s reassuring presence. Overhead, a flock of fieldfare thrushes swoops down, showing their white underwings, loudly chuckling, warbling, and whistling, in search of a rowan tree to strip of berries. Their energy lifts Wilona’s mood.

  She skirts the dyke and follows the path toward the coppice wood. From the village come the high-pitched, excited voices of children. Wilona imagines them throwing snowballs and making snow-faeries. Now she sees Baldred the woodcutter and one of his sons, their backs piled high with hazel rods, approaching along the path. Baldred is a squat, bandy-legged man, with wide shoulders from years of swinging an axe. Since his wife, Oslafa, died in childbirth, it’s as though he lives under a storm cloud. He has three children to care for, the oldest this boy now with him, Bardolf, who looks like a spider with the bundled sticks on his back, whereas Baldred looks like a grumpy beetle. Wilona’s gait becomes awkward under their gaze. She tries to arrange her features in a pleasant expression. “Good day to you, Baldred.”

  “And to you.”

  “It’s a harsh day for work in the wood.”

  “Fences won’t wait for mending.” He nods as he passes her. “Don’t dawdle, boy.”

  Bardolf ducks his head in a way that might be taken for a nod and Wilona smiles, but when he doesn’t return the courtesy, she wishes she had not. She keeps her eyes resolutely forward. A gust of wind makes her pull her chin in and tighten the cloak at her throat. At least they didn’t make the sign of the cross to ward off evil.

  The path leading to the sacred mountain snakes along the far side of the royal compound. The cold ground beneath her feet makes her bones ache, and every step causes the light snow to fly up and settle in the tops of her brodekins. At this distance she’s able to see beyond the fortification walls to the amphitheatre. The gold carvings on King Edwin’s hall are so rich they glint, even on this cloudy day.

  The path curves around the base of the sacred mountain to the western side, where the climb is easier, and from there leads to the stream running down to the River Glen. Hers are not the only footsteps. Someone has come before her, and not long ago. Someone coming to the stream? Perhaps someone’s hunting for partridge or plover, although it’s easier to find wintering ducks along the riverbank this time of year.

  A gust of wind whips snow in her face. She stops, pulls her scarf over her forehead, and adjusts the ring-brooch at her neck, drawing her hood tighter. She scans the distance to determine where the footprints might turn away. The sun slides from behind a cloud and flashes brilliantly, blindingly, against the snow, as though the field were scattered with crystals. She squints but is loath to close her eyes against such beauty. Overhead a hawk circles, looking for mouse tunnels, and cries, she imagines, in exaltation at being so free, so fast.

  The footprints continue, and if she’s to follow the urgings of her spirits, she has no choice but to do the same. As she ascends, the royal compound and the village below become smaller, although when the wind swirls, it carries sounds—laughter, the rhythmic crack of an axe, dogs barking. The fields are soft as sun-bleached linen. The oxen and cattle in the winter pens look as small as hounds.

  The trees are scrubby, wind-bent and stunted. The way is steeper and her breathing laboured. She relies on her staff. She can’t imagine how Touilt managed this climb, ill as she’s been. The spirits must have carried her. She comes round the far slope, where the sun shines brightest. Had there been a plateau on that side, no doubt the old kings would have built their compound there to benefit from the longer, warmer days, but perhaps the gods jealously guarded that place for themselves.

  Still the footsteps continue on the snow-covered path before her. Here, on the hushed far side of the slope where the commotion of village life cannot reach her, it’s easy to imagine they’ve been sent to guide her. Unless, of course, they were made by darker forces—elves. The thought comes to her with a dropping sensation in her stomach. She halts; her head snaps up and she looks all around. She sets down her bundle and from it takes the juniper bough, rubbing the berries between her palms and over her face for protection. She touch
es the piece of iron in the pouch between her breasts, intoning the words that call the spirits to her defence.

  Touilt’s face floats before her—hollow, ashy, distorted by pain, eyes burning with fever. Wilona rewraps her bundle and ties it over her shoulder. One foot in front of the other, onward until the spirits tell her to stop; onward, in the footsteps of ghosts.

  How much time goes by is hard to tell. She suspects that were the sun to come out again, it would already be near its apex. Her stomach grumbles and growls and she’s light-headed, which is as it should be. Her hunger, like the hare, is a sacrifice. She pictures sowilo before her, rune of the sun, which looks like Thunor’s lightning bolt—rune of safety, health, the achievement of goals. She holds her heart steady and her step confident.

  Glancing up, she sees what looks like a giant beehive. No, not a hive, but something made of stones. Badly made at that. It’s little more than a pile of rocks. It looks as though it might tumble at any moment. The footprints lead directly to it. What evil spirits, trolls, wights, monsters hide here on the far side of the mountain? She lets the wind buffet her. Her ears sting from the cold and her nose runs. The clouds are so low it seems she could reach up and pull them down over her. Her nostrils flare. She inches to the eastern side of the structure and sees an opening. The wind dies down for a moment and a tendril of smoke curls from the chinks between the topmost stones.

  She is reluctant to approach the opening, because whomever or whatever is inside will have the advantage. She will be in light, while they will be hidden by the shadowed interior. She grips her staff, holding it like a club. But wait … a huddled shape by the entrance, a man, thin as an icicle and as pale, shirtless, his arms spread wide …

  Wilona raises her staff, takes a step backwards, nearly tripping over her own feet, and cries out. The figure in the stone hut cries out as well. Wilona crouches, ready to fight or run, as Egan steps into the light, pulling a cloak hastily around his torso. He blinks like a mole, his leaf-coloured eyes cool and otherworldly.