Raven Speak (9781442402492)

by Wilson, Diane Lee

  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.”

  Even sickly little Engli lifted his head, his mouth widening to an O and his watery eyes dancing.

  “What did this one-eyed woman call herself?” Gunnvor questioned.

  “Wenda.”

  The mysterious exchanges between Tora and Gunnvor now included Ketil. He looked at the knife in his hand and passed it back to Asa.

  “She led me up to her cave by way of a path that I’d not seen before. Rune nearly fell off the cliff, but one of the ravens helped him. Inside the cave were … well, it was a collection of flotsam and jetsam unlike anything I’ve ever seen, something you might find in a giant raven’s nest: fishing nets and baskets and antlers … hides and bones and … all sorts of colorful stones and shells. I don’t think the place had ever been swept!”

  But mushrooming doubt had infiltrated their attention. The youngsters still listened, jaws slack, enraptured, but the adults had pursed their lips, withholding approval. Something had changed.

  “She sent me home with this food,” she added hastily, “the mutton and the fish. Well, actually she sent me home with …”

  “A lot more” is what she wanted to say, but where to go with that part of the story? How could she describe an old woman tossing food into the sea for the purpose of coaxing an imagined whale onto the shore?

  Instead she concluded, “She sent me home with a good portion of what she had to share.” Truthful enough. “And as soon as that mutton is boiled we’ll have the first filling meal we’ve had in a long, long time.”

  Tora peered into the kettle. “The second,” she countered. “Jorgen brought us a dead calf this morning, though he didn’t say how he came by it. Did you know the cow’s wandered off?”

  “I found her nearby,” Asa replied. “She’s back in the byre. With a healthy calf.”

  “Oh, that’s good,” Astrid said, smiling. “She must have birthed two and one died. We’ll go have a look at her tomorrow, won’t we, Pyri?” The little girl on her lap nodded sleepily.

  “Well, the mutton’s not all that much,” Tora grumbled, “but it’ll hold us a couple of days if I stretch some of the ends with broth. Anyway, now that the storms have passed the men should be returning home—what has it been, three … four days?” Ketil held up four fingers. “They’ve surely caught a lot of fish by now. And maybe Jorgen’s off uncovering some more nuts.” She looked pointedly at Asa. “He shared the hazelnuts he found when he was chasing after you.”

  Asa bristled. More likely Jorgen “found” those hazelnuts in his secret cache of food. How dare Tora praise him! She should tell them.

  No. Not yet. Arguments and accusations would only worsen their critical situation. They needed to combine their efforts and find more food. Tora was right about one thing: The mutton would hold them only another day or two. No matter what anyone hoped, it was foolish to believe that the men had survived such severe storms and would return. They were on their own now. The nine of them were completely on their own. She had to help them realize that, and help them survive.

  TUTTUGU OK FJÓRIR

  At first light Asa slipped outside the longhouse and began climbing. Though she’d been up much of the night sharing her adventure and had finally collapsed onto her mattress like a bundle of clothing, she hadn’t been able to sleep soundly for thinking about Wenda. Based on the looks exchanged between Tora, Gunnvor, and Ketil, there was more to her story. She had questions. And the woman did know how to find food. Maybe she would help them.

  Since they’d parted just yesterday, Asa hoped to catch up to her. So, after releasing the cow and her calf to graze around the settlement, and checking on Rune and the other two horses in the outfield—he nickered with renewing spirit—she began retracing their steps to the mountain with the picture-stone.

  The task wasn’t as easy as she had thought. Fog blanketed the mountains most of the morning and she emerged onto an outlook more than once only to discover that she’d hiked in the wrong directi
on. Nor did she find any sign of Wenda.

  As the day wore on, she made her way to the summit of a thinly forested rise and paused to catch her breath and gaze at the foam-edged coastline a dizzying distance below. Again and again the waves rushed the narrow shore and dissolved, darkening the sand in ever-widening ribbons.

  The parts of the mountain that had broken away stood upright in the rhythmic surf, black sentinels against a pale sky. All about them were scattered large boulders, and in the mist they resembled huge slumping creatures, seals or whales perhaps, pointed longingly toward the sea.

  She scanned the coast to the north, then swung her gaze south. No sign of ships, no hunchbacked figure pestered by black birds. She looked northward again and paused.

  Something had changed. She was certain one of the large boulders had moved. But how could that be? She focused on the one spot and squinted. The ocean continued running up the beach and retreating, spattering the rocks with its spray. And, after a while, one of those rocks lifted its tail and embraced the spray, ponderously and almost imperceptibly. Her heart quickened. She looked away, feigning a study of the sea’s horizon but watching out of the corner of her eye and hardly daring to breathe. For the longest time she thought she’d been mistaken. The imagined movement was just a trick of light, the play of water on stone and through shadow. But again, there it was: The ocean rushed in and the black hulk shifted ever so slightly. It wasn’t a rock; it was a beached whale. Food for her clan!

  Her mind went galloping with this good fortune. Her heart thumped ever more rapidly in her chest and she began pacing the cliff’s edge, trying to decide what to do. Seabirds had already begun circling the air above the creature. They, too, anticipated a feast. She had to get the news to her clan as soon as possible. The rising tide could carry the whale back out to sea, or it might die on the shore and rot and then all that precious meat would be wasted. This was a magnificent gift from the gods, the key to survival. She had to tell them now!

  Looking over the edge, she bit her lip. It wasn’t entirely impossible, though the drop was a daunting combination of undulating slope and sheer cliffs. Her pacing carried her back to the path she’d just climbed. That was the easier way, the more sensible route. But it would take three times as long, and this was urgent. Her feet returned her to the cliff’s edge. Again she peered over. She’d made such descents before. Given, she’d not done so since she was a child snatching eggs from nests, but all one had to do to begin was get on one’s belly, wriggle over the edge, and drop onto that flat-topped rock below.

  And even as she was thinking it, she was lowering herself onto that rock and beginning the steep descent. She moved quickly, instinctively, spotting the next foothold and leaping onto it without thinking. Agile as a goat, she sprang across an uneven column of rocks, turned, and jumped down onto a chiseled ledge. Her haste sent her teetering, and for just a moment she felt the mesmerizing pull of empty air. Her breath caught as she acknowledged the perilous height. But in the next instant she gathered herself and lunged for a hold on the cliff face and rebalanced. She took more care with her progress then, though her eagerness to share the good news with her clan moved her along faster and faster.

  About twenty fot over, a wide dry wash, much like a stony river, cut a downward swath through the boulders. Its straight path, relatively clear, offered the tantalizing possibility of a daring but even speedier descent. She could slide down for quite some way, aiming for that big boulder on the left to catch herself, then return to clambering over rocks. Prodded by excitement, she sidestepped across the mountain face until she could squat and carefully extend her heel into the pebble-strewn wash. There was no traction, of course, and immediately the pebbles fell away and she went skidding along with them. Intuitively she made herself small, tucking her chin and trying to stay balanced. As she slid, her skirt and cloak bunched uncomfortably higher until the distant ocean became framed between her bare knees. Although it was painful and nearly useless to do so, she shoved her palms into the pebbles to slow her descent. Her heels dug shallow tracks in the damp gravel.

  For a while the surge and ebb of cascading rock filled her ears. She slid so fast at times that tears came to her eyes; then she’d slow to a near stop and have to push herself onward, wobbling and skidding some more. Without marking it she knew she was rapidly covering a great deal of ground.

  The boulder was rushing up to meet her now, and she leaned her weight a little to the left and thrust out her leg to catch it. But a slick patch at that very spot spun her away, and the boot that jammed into the boulder only served to flip her over and send her spinning down the slippery mountain feet-first on her belly. The pebbles grew to jagged stones that began pummeling her hips and hammering her cheek. Frantically she grabbed at one after another, but her hands only shredded on their points.

  A sharp pain poked her side, eliciting a gasp, and she knew Wenda’s knife was somehow twisting into her. She couldn’t reach for it. She was helpless. Faster and faster it seemed she was being pulled downward, and she envisioned herself a bit of twig carried upon a mountain torrent. She was going to plummet over the next drop-off!

  Her fingers touched a weedy stalk and grasped. They ripped along its length, burning, and came away empty, but that slowed her just enough that she was able to grab another stalk and hang, tight against the mountain, hearing the pebbles ping past and eventually fall away into silent air.

  Helpless as a baby clinging to its mother’s breast, she pressed her cheek against the mountain’s gritty skin and tried to catch her breath. Fear sent uncontrollable tremors coursing through her body. The very magnitude of her situation dizzied her, and the black tide edging her vision seemed to be threatening blindness. The pounding surf became a pounding in her head, and time slowed.

  Gradually, though, she quieted herself. Every last bit of her throbbed, and she took mental note of her injuries: painful welts on her head, forearms, hips, and knees; blood on her hands and, probably, her face. But nothing she wouldn’t survive.

  The patches of raw skin on her cheek and palms suddenly blazed to pinpricking life, and she had to blink away tears. The icy gusts from the ocean delivered no relief.

  When her knees felt as though they would dependably lock into place, she slowly drew them underneath her, wincing. Cautiously she tested her foundation, then sat up. It annoyed her that she couldn’t stop trembling. She brushed the hair from her eyes, combed grit from her brows, and adjusted the cloak around her shoulders. In doing so she discovered that her father’s two childhood gifts—the copper spoon and the horse-headed comb—had broken off and fallen somewhere. That saddened her. She felt for the knife and realized it was missing, too, even as her wandering gaze caught its glint among the scree farther up the wash.

  Was it worth retrieving? Any knife was precious, but she’d stabbed Jorgen with that one, and recalling how the iron handle had bitten her palm when its blade plunged so hungrily into his shoulder (and how much of that was her own hunger?) and then the jolt as metal met bone (she could envision the knife’s bloody point scratching the white bone) sickened her. These were images she didn’t want burdening her the rest of her days.

  Leave it.

  Leave it to the ocean winds to scrub clean. She’d have no more part in killing.

  So she crabbed sideways on her hands and knees until she was safely out of the wash and onto solid rock. Pleased, she glanced up the mountainside and was impressed by the great distance she’d descended—almost halfway—and there lay the knife, the length of three bed sheets apart from her.

  Foolish to leave it. It was a tool as much as a weapon. What if she needed to stab a fish or crack a nut? Her father’s oft-repeated warning to think beyond the moment echoed in her mind and suddenly, maybe because she was this close to the ocean, she felt the insistence coming directly from him. Determined to prove his faith in her, she swallowed a sigh and ever so cautiously crept back onto the slippery, rock-strewn face. For every bit of progress she made climbin
g, she sank nearly as much, but eventually she neared the knife. More pebbles gave way and it skidded into her outstretched hand. The cold iron delivered an odd comfort.

  Below her the surf roared louder, beckoning as well as taunting. The tide was rising. She could see that the whale was still there, but she couldn’t tell if it was alive or not. More and more birds circled it in a screeching cloud.

  She allowed a little shiver of pleasure to ripple through her. How excited everyone would be! They’d all rush to the shore—all except little Engli anyway. Tora would be lumbering behind, shouting orders, no doubt, which was fine. She herself had no memory of how that whale of two summers ago had been butchered, though she recalled standing at its leathery side and staring into its filmy brown eye wider than her two hands. But, oh, how well she remembered the mylja, and at that thought her tongue watered. She’d taste it again soon. And spikihval. And gryn. At last their bellies would be full. And there’d be oil for their lamps, bone for their smoothing boards, and floats for their fishing nets.

  Excitement bubbled within her. Immediately she resumed her clambering. She adjusted her descent to the mountain, sometimes scooting across precarious sections on her butt and sometimes turning to face it. Then she’d pick her way almost blindly, her chest scraping the rocks, her outstretched arms suspending her weight until her toes could search out support.

  She came to a very steep part, so steep that if she even paused to consider how she was going to get across it, she knew she’d freeze in fear. So before her next breath came she eased onto a crevice and kept going. Slowly now, slowly and carefully. She’d seen a sea star once, a large spiny one, clinging to a rock after a storm. That’s how she felt as she pressed her body to the cliff, every pore sucking to the rock like the sea star’s sticky legs. Her cheek measured every granulated imperfection as her body crept sideways. She was going to make it home.

  The surf pounded in her ears, and she wanted to glance downward but couldn’t risk the unbalance of craning her neck until she got through this section. So, without seeing, she extended her leg, blindly tapping the rock until she found the last little ledge. She pushed off with her other foot, leaped, and there, she’d made it.