by Paul Freeman
“Taken?”
“Yes, snatched from its crib as it slept. The mother is distraught, all of the men are gathering in the village square. They say it must be wolves come from the Great Wood. They are going after them. We need your help.”
“Wolves?” Tomas tried to process the information coming at him in waves of hysteria from Comal Bakersonn. “Has the magistrate been sent for?”
“Yes, yes, but there is no time. We need to go after them if the child is to have any hope.”
“Okay. Give me a minute. I’ll follow you down to the square.” Tomas collected his thoughts as he closed the door on Comal.
He sighed with regret, as he thought of his wife waiting for him in the bedroom. Instead of returning to her, he removed the bar from the back door and walked out into the cold night air, and out to his workshop. He put the crossbow down on a workbench and then heaved the bench away from the wall.
“What is going on?” Aliss came out covered in a woollen blanket.
“A child has been snatched from its bed by wolves. A hunting party is going after them,” he answered. He wiped away a thin covering of dust on the stone floor, to reveal a square wooden door, barely visible in the flickering torchlight. Sliding his fingers into the creases at the edge he lifted the hatch, and sat back on his heels as he regarded a wooden chest concealed there.
“Why do you need that?” she asked, as he hauled the chest out. “You made a promise to me.”
“Because wolves do not come into villages and take children from their beds,” he answered.
“Please,” she pleaded. Tears glistened in her eyes.
“This is different,” he said.
“Not if you open that box. Once it’s open you will never close it again.” Beads of moisture leaked from her eyes. “You swore to me…” She trailed off as he stood and pulled her into his broad chest.
“Okay,” he said, running his fingers through her cascading, golden curls. He let her go, and slid the chest back into the slot in the floor, covered it again, then pulled the workbench back over it.
“When will you be back?” she asked, as they stood in the front doorway of their small stone cottage. The earthy perfume of the overhead thatch filled the air, along with the other night smells – the peaty aroma of the nearby forest, the icy touch of an early morning frost.
He slung a pack onto his back and the crossbow over his shoulder. “I’m not sure. It shouldn’t take long.”
“Be careful,” she said. He could see concern written on her face in worry lines across her eyes.
“Don’t worry. I should be back before supper.” He smiled reassuringly. “We have some unfinished business to attend to.” His smile turned into a wicked grin. Aliss blushed and returned a shy smile. It was enough to send renewed fire washing over him. “Go back inside out of the cold and bar the door until my return.” He kissed her hard before turning away and walking the short distance from his cottage and workshop at the edge of town to the village square.
“Tomas!” a man called to him as he approached the gathered group. He could hear the hoarse sobs of a woman drifting on the night breeze. Dark shapes congregated around the well at the centre of town, elongated shadows made from orange torchlight stretching out from each of them.
“Daved,” Tomas greeted the man, as he approached the group. The moment the blacksmith arrived he became the focal point of the gathering. Men spoke in hurried tones, talking over one another to give him the news. He stood a head taller than the tallest man there. His broad chest and powerful arms giving a hint to the power contained in his wide frame. Dark brown hair tumbled down to his shoulders, a beard of the same colour covered his face.
“My baby! My baby!” a woman wailed in the background. “Who will save my baby?”
“A bad business,” Daved said, offering his hand to the big blacksmith.
“I’m told wolves snatched the child from its bed,” Tomas said.
“Aye,” Daved answered. “Morten here has spoken of a large pack taking several of his sheep in the last few days. They must have come from the Great Wood.”
“We’ll see,” Tomas answered, unable to keep the doubt from his words.
A group of twelve men filed from the village, with a round yellow moon and the torches they bore to light their way. They were armed with an array of weapons, from axes normally used to fell trees, to clubs and hoes. And the crossbow Tomas slung over his shoulder. Morten led the way. He would take them to where he had caught a glimpse of the pack, two days previously, at the edge of his land, where it bordered the Great Wood.
When they arrived they found more evidence of the wolves’ presence. Half-eaten remains of sheep lay scattered about, barely visible in the silver glow of the moon. In the background the Great Wood loomed, a wall of darkness bordering the valley. A wolf howled, sending a shiver down Tomas’s spine.
“Curse their flea-bitten hides. They have feasted royally on my livestock,” Morten grumbled.
“So it would seem,” Tomas agreed, as he toe-pocked a woolly carcass. “So why risk coming into the village to take a child?”
“Because they are savage beasts who do not think like men,” Morten spat. “They should all be hunted down and skinned. We must rid the valley of their scourge once and for all.”
“All beasts understand fear, and all are wary of man,” the big blacksmith said.
A second wolf answered the call of the first followed by many more until the dark forest seemed to ring with the sound of their cries. The men shuffled nervously.
“They are close. Now is our chance to rid the valley of their curse,” Morten said.
“Do we enter the forest in the dark? The Great Wood is not such a good place to become lost in at night. The stories…” one of the villagers began.
“Pah! Stories? Are you afraid of tall tales told by your grandma, while you bounced on her knee? I have lived on the forest’s edge all my life. There are no spirits and sprites of the forest, only beasts who kill sheep, and snatch babes from their beds,” Morten raged.
“Enough!” Tomas interjected. “Let’s get this done and return to our homes.”
They marched, in single file, into the gloom of the Great Wood, all eyeing their dark surroundings nervously, each of them with a feeling of being watched. The wolves were not happy with the beasts who walked on two legs encroaching on their territory. They put up a display of defiance, and a show of strength, unsettling the men at first. But when Tomas fired two crossbow bolts in quick succession, taking down the big alpha male and one other, the men calmed, and the beasts learned to be warier of man.
They hunted and they killed more wolves, as the sun crept higher into the sky. They heaped the carcasses in a big pile to be skinned later, but found no sign of a babe. Although none voiced it, they all thought the same thought, the child was surely dead by now. Silence prevailed now that man had found his quarry, and all other beasts remained hidden and out of sight.
“If the babe was taken by wolves, it was not by this pack,” Tomas finally said. Tired men bowed their heads, none disagreed.
Although it had not been their reason for journeying into the forest, they collected a fine haul of wolf skins. Three of the men were left to the dirty work of skinning and butchering the beasts, while the rest set out for home, to replenish supplies and head out in another direction in search of the missing infant. They were tired and hungry when they finally emerged from the forest. Already the sun was beginning to slip below the tree line. One of the men suddenly stopped and sniffed loudly. Tomas got it too, a faint smell of smoke, drifting on the breeze.
“There! Look!” Daved suddenly said. Tomas followed the direction he was pointing, towards the village. A thin line of dark smoke drifted into the air.
Princess Rosinnio: Wind Isle
Princess Rosinnio could feel tears well in her eyes. She squeezed them shut lest the man grinding on top of her should see them and mark it as a sign of weakness. She may have lost many things in
the past weeks, but her pride she would keep. The beast of a man finished with a loud grunt and a shudder. It was not the pain that had her wanting to cry, although that was enough reason in itself. She had been warned the first time would be painful, and she would bleed. Had she known at the time that her first experience of love making would be with a bear of a man, a Nortman, she would probably have run away and hid herself. No, she thought, she would not, she was her father’s daughter and she knew her duty, even if she did not understand it.
Her new husband, Jarl Crawulf rolled off her and lay on his back gulping down breaths. Soon his chest rose and dipped rhythmically as a deep rumbling sound rattled in his throat. Now the tears came. She pulled the silk sheet up to her neck, a wedding gift she had carried across the sea with her. She was surprised the man had even been capable, he had drunk so much at the wedding feast. Rosinnio had sat, stiff-backed by his side, barely touching her food. She doubted she would have had the stomach for the great hunks of half-cooked meat put in front of her, even if she were not fretting over the activities to come. Or contemplating the rest of her life marooned in Nortland, as the wife of a jarl. How could you, father? The words tumbled through her mind. She remembered when she voiced them to the emperor, ‘you will be a queen, my sweet,’ he had said, and that was that, she was dismissed. When it came to affairs of state, and the running of the empire, there was no room for sentimentality. She, as a princess, was a commodity to be traded. What did her father receive in return? A powerful ally in the north, potentially the king of Nortland. All those pirate ships and sea wolves at his beck and call. He had done the same to her older sister, Brioni, who he had married off to a desert nomad to ensure peace on his southern border. She had not been heard from since. At least she will feel the heat of the sun on her face, Rosinnio thought, as wind howled beyond her window, rattling the wooden shutters.
Crawulf snored loudly before turning over and flopping a huge muscular arm onto her thin frame. In time sleep finally came to her, it was not a restful one. She tossed and woke on several occasions, as dark shapes chased her through her dreams. Giant wolves with flesh-ripping teeth and jaws hunted her. She dreamt she could feel the hotness of their breath on the back of her neck. In the distance the wind howled as it bore other terrors towards her, huge winged creatures swooping at her from above. Each time she woke she could hear the wind outside rattling the wooden shutters. She could hear the sea crashing against the rocks below the castle. Each time she woke she could feel the wetness of her cheeks. The dreams were not new to Rosinnio. Ever since she’d been a child she’d suffered night terrors and premonitions. She had hoped they would not follow her to the ends of the world. It seemed they had.
In the morning, Crawulf leered at her like a wolf from her dream, and without so much as a word he flipped her over and lifted her nightgown. He stank of grease and stale beer. She endured in silence, thankful she, at least, did not have to look upon his face. She felt him spill his seed inside her, and could not help but wonder how long it would be before she was with child.
How much worse can life become?
“Gods, girl, the very sight of you stirs my loins every time I look at you. No man has ever had to withstand such torture as I, while I waited to do that.”
“You are too kind, my lord. I am happy I please you,” she answered as she pulled the hem of her nightgown back over olive-skinned thighs. The oaf has forgotten last night already, she thought.
“I am a jarl not a lord. It is time you saw some of your new country. My people are anxious to greet you. You have been hidden away behind these walls for too long now. It is many weeks since your arrival. Later I will take you on a tour.” His voice sounded harsh and coarse to her ear, as he stumbled over the words of the common trading tongue. The language of Nortland sounded more like guttural barks, harsh to her ears and utterly incomprehensible.
“And I am anxious to meet them, my lord… my jarl. It is taking me time to adjust to the climate, the weather is not so damp or cold in Sunsai,” she replied, dropping her gaze as his eyes bored into her.
“Aye, the winds are likely a little brisker than you are used to. You may call me Jarl, or simply Crawulf. Have no fear, my princess, a few days aboard my ship and you will feel at home here as if you were born and raised on one of the isles.” He grinned.
To Rosinnio his smile was more of a feral snarl. She had to bite back a protest at the thought of going to sea again. Her stomach lurched at the memory of her last voyage, three weeks of sickness on raging seas, and that in one of her father’s great warships, where she was provided with her own living quarters, a large, triple mast vessel designed for long ocean voyages. Her heart sunk into a cold pit in her stomach at the thought of setting out to sea on the much smaller longboats the Nortmen used for pirating and raiding the coastal towns of their near neighbours. “My lord… jarl… Jarl Crawulf,” words caught in her throat.
“Get some sea air into those lungs.” He grinned. “For now though, come. My men are still below in the feasting hall. They have celebrated our wedding throughout the night. The feast will continue for the next three days.”
“My lord!” Rosinnio exclaimed. “I cannot possibly just go out in public. A lady must prepare first. My handmaiden will need to dress me, style my hair…”
Crawulf shook his head. “Women and their secret rituals. I will have your girl sent to you. Do not keep me waiting too long.”
Rosinnio nodded and forced a smile for the benefit of her new lord and husband… jarl. Once Crawulf had closed the heavy wooden door behind him, she finally gave free rein to her tears. She ran to the window and threw open the shutters. Far below the tower the grey sea boiled, crashing against the cliff. If only it would wash the cursed castle and all of Nortland away with it, she thought. She imagined climbing out and up onto the uppermost battlements. Giving herself to the wind, arms outstretched, a sacrifice to the harsh northern gods. Would they embrace her and wrap her in a blanket of snow and ice, or would they spit her back onto the shore? What would her father think if she were to truly give her life to the Nortmen? She pictured his kindly face, and saw it quickly clouding with anger. Just as she had seen it transform from beauty to ugliness a thousand, thousand times before. She dismissed the image and gently closed the shutters. Did you really believe this was in my own interest, father?
“Highness.” A young woman bowed before her. Rosinnio smiled and raised her handmaiden to her full height. A familiar face in a land of strangers, a land of monsters and demons.
“Marta,” she squeaked her servant’s name, resisting the urge to fall into her arms and cry on her shoulder.
“Your husband, highness, he bade me come to you with haste…”
Rosinnio suddenly straightened her own back, and her lip, as she gazed upon the girl who was strikingly similar in appearance to herself. Both had long dark hair and olive skin. Both had dark brown eyes and full lips. They were of an age, Rosinnio was fifteen, and Marta had served the princess since she was a young girl. If not for the difference in bearing, and the silver chain worn around the maidservant’s neck, a mark of bondage, they could easily pass as sisters. “Do not call me highness. You will address me as, my lady. I am no longer a princess of Sunsai, no longer a daughter of the emperor. Henceforth I am the wife of a jarl, a lady of Nortland.” Her stare was cold and hard making the servant dip her head to avoid the determined gaze of her mistress.
“As you wish, high… my lady.”
“My husband requires us to return to the wedding feast. I wish to be dressed in the pale blue silk gown, with the lace trim, and decorate my hair with the pearls my father gifted me on my fifteenth birthday.” Rosinnio sat in a hard wooden chair, and waited, stiff-backed, while her servant readied her gown and accessories.
“They were very noisy. They drank all night, and I’m sure I heard the sounds of fighting,” Marta said, as she dragged a comb through Rosinnio’s hair. “They scare me. When they talk they sound like dogs barking, and when th
ey look at me it makes me feel like they want me to be their next meal.”
Rosinnio took her servant’s hand in her own, stopping the languid strokes with the comb. “They scare me too, Marta, but this is our home now. We must be brave, both of us.”
“Yes, my lady,” the servant girl answered and then continued. “Did you see the statue of the hideous creature at the entrance to the castle?”
“The one sculpted from wood, taller than a man, at the main gate?”
“Yes, my lady, the very one. I asked one of the kitchen slaves about it. It is supposed to depict the goddess Boda, Mistress of their Underworld. They call it the Nacht Realm or Shadow World. One side of her face is fair and beautiful, the other a horror of dead and rotting flesh. She was once queen of the gods, wife of Alweise, The All Wise. She was famed for her beauty and gentle nature, but she was seduced by the warrior Ronawn the Swift who used his great speed to flee the wrath of the gods and the vengeance of Alweise. Boda was not so lucky. He cursed her, leaving one side of her face and body hideous to behold, but he left the other side untainted to forever remind her of what she had lost when she betrayed him. Then he banished her to a desolate place filled with the lost souls of the diseased and the cowardly.”
“Why would they worship such a god and place an image of her for all to see when they enter the castle gates?” Rosinnio asked.
“Out of fear, my lady. They worry that if they do not worship her and give her due respect she will inflict a great pestilence on them.”
“They are a strange people,” Rosinnio answered and then said, “I have a task for you. Find an apothecary somewhere in the town, but be discreet. If anyone asks, what you purchase is meant for you and you alone. Do you understand?”
“Yes, my lady.” Marta began the fluid motion of combing her mistress’s hair once again.
“In time I will bear my husband the sons he no doubt craves, but I am not ready for that at this moment.”
“I understand, my lady.” Marta tied up the princess’s hair in ribbons and curls before threading a string of pearls through the creation.