Foxmask

by Juliet Marillier

  So, he was first on the stones of the tiny inlet; first by the upturned boat with its cargo tangled limply in the ropes that twisted over the hull; first to stop short, then back away, staring. Keeper, too, was halted by something he could not name: a sense of turning, of changing, which was both wonder and dread. His fingers moved to touch the plaited circle around his neck, faded to the hue of dust; his eyes were on the limp figure that lay sprawled on the curragh. Her hair was darkened with water, tangled and wild; nonetheless, it lay across her face, her shoulders, down her back like a waterfall of sunlight. He swallowed. Sula was dead; she would never come back. He had seen her, little and gray-faced, like a shrunken mockery of his laughing, merry sister. This was someone else, someone who lay still and silent, pale hands twisted in the ropes, clothing sodden and dripping, and one narrow, white foot exposed below the hem of her woolen gown. She bore a small bag on her back; this, too, looked wet through. It was late in the day, the sun three fingers’ breadth above the ocean. Could a goddess drown, or perish from cold? Keeper made himself move forward, past the spot where Small One stood trembling on the shore, right up to the dark form of the beached boat. He took his knife from his belt and began to cut, though he did it carefully: nothing could be wasted here, for they lived on what the sea gave them, and what the hunt left behind. He would use the ropes, the timbers, the tarred covering, everything.

  At a certain point it became necessary to support the weight of that limp figure with his body, and Keeper realized she was a mortal woman. Not long after, the screening curtain of golden hair fell back from her face, and he discovered that she was wondrously fair, and still alive, but only just. He changed what he was doing then. Salvaging the boat could wait for morning; if the tide reclaimed it in the night, perhaps that was only as it should be. Of these unexpected gifts from the sea, it had become quite clear which was the most precious.

  He called to Small One, “Quick! Blankets!” but Small One was being difficult, and had gone to ground among the rocks above the shore. That was not so surprising. When other folk came to their island it was always to hurt, to kill. They came with their iron-tipped spears, their forest of arrows and their angry eyes. Of course Small One was afraid. He could remember only the years of the hunt, nothing of the time before. He had been barely one year old when Keeper brought him here, his mother’s golden hair no more than a faint warmth in his infant mind. In this world, strangers meant terror, blood and death. So he cowered in the shadows, watching, as Keeper took the woman in his arms and carried her up to their safe place.

  It was necessary to be quick. She was moon-pale, her breathing slow and uneven. Keeper felt the chill touch of her skin, observed that she was not shivering: she was close to giving in, then, allowing her spirit to slip away. Still, she breathed. He called to Small One again, but there was no answer. The other would come when he was hungry; there was nobody else to provide for him. Keeper moved with the efficiency of a man who has lived long alone and is used to finding solutions. He raked the embers, made up the fire in the pit within their little shelter. He fetched the blankets; they only had a few, and these were very threadbare now, but there was a store of other things, trophies of the hunt: cloaks, tunics, a jacket of sheepskin. After he got her warm enough, after she woke, he would delve deeper into the items he had laid away. Somewhere among them were two gowns of Sula’s; why he had brought them here he did not know, save that once he had discovered she was dead, it had not seemed right to leave the smallest memory of her among those who had stolen her childhood, her innocence and, eventually, her life. He had her little shoes as well. He would offer those: make a gift of them. But not yet. He’d have to take those wet things off the woman, wrap her in the blankets and let her lie by the fire a while.

  He knew, once he had undressed her, that she would not be able to wear his sister’s clothes. Sula had been frail, slight, scarcely more than a child. This girl was . . . she was . . . his hands shaking, he laid her on a cloak spread by the fire, covered her with two more and then the blankets. He reached to brush the strands of sun-gold hair back from her pale brow. This girl was, quite simply, the loveliest thing he had ever seen in his life, or might hope to see. He sat by her a little, watching her face, willing a touch of rose into her cheeks, a flutter of awareness to her long lashes. She was a miracle of sweet curves and elegant planes, of white and pink and gold; a graceful, tantalizing, terrifying creature whose presence by his fireside filled his heart with a tumult of feelings and his body with a confusing mixture of pleasure and pain. It occurred to him that perhaps he had been right the first time: maybe she really was a goddess. What human woman could wreak such instant havoc simply by lying there?

  The fire was glowing warm now. He could tell Small One was back; the light the flames cast picked out the two bright points of his eyes between the rocks outside the hut. Small One was still frightened; he would not come back to himself until Keeper could convince him it was safe.

  There were the wet clothes to deal with. He spread them out, a gown, an overtunic, a fine shift for underneath. All were ripped and damaged from the sea. He would find her something, make her something; he had become good at that, caring for Small One, who had come away with little. There was the bag she had worn on her shoulders, a precious thing to her, Keeper judged, or she would have shed it in the water. It was completely saturated.

  Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Small One creep in, sidling to the far end of the fire pit. Keeper fetched the night’s fish, ready in its wrapping of weed, and set it by the fire, knowing Small One would find reassurance in this familiar activity. He could not cook it yet, the flames were too high; but he must keep them thus to warm her, to bring her back. What he would do then, he could not imagine.

  The bag: her things would be ruined. He unfastened the strap that held it and began to unpack the contents with careful fingers and lay them out to dry on a flat rock near the fire. Each seemed an object of wonder, secret and magical. A whalebone comb, carven with little sea creatures; there was still a thread of her bright hair in it. Shears made of iron, well sharpened, and a small, businesslike knife. He dried these thoroughly, knowing how quickly rust would dull and blunt them. Small One had moved closer and was watching intently; the iron made him flinch. Keeper, too, felt deep unease at the touch, the smell, but he had made himself grow used to handling this bane, since it was essential to their survival here. A length of strong cloth, which unfolded to show many small pockets holding bone needles, other delicate implements whose names he did not know, and skeins of colored wools, beautiful colors, the hues of his island: evening blue, night sky purple, sunrise gold, seal gray. The magic here was powerful indeed. He set them on the rock, arranged with care, light to dark, dawn to dusk to night. This little bag held a whole world: what was she?

  There were other items here, useful ones: some clothing, a coiled rope, a flint, a jar firmly corked, which he did not open, a shallow vessel of soapstone and a length of wick. There had been herbs, too, in an oiled bag, but the bag had split and they were ruined. Keeper sat a while, simply looking at what lay before him. For a goddess, she had a very practical turn of mind; he could hardly have packed better himself. She lacked only a fishhook, he thought.

  Small One came closer, nudged at Keeper’s arm. His nose was cold.

  “You’re hungry? I know, I will cook the fish soon. Soon. When she wakes—”

  Small One nudged again, making a little sound. He touched his nose to the bag, sniffing. And now that Keeper looked, he could see there was another compartment to it, a pocket on the outside, itself firmly tied with a length of string. One could not have imagined a receptacle that seemed so small could encompass so much. They unfastened it together, and Keeper drew out the roll of fine linen that had been tucked securely inside. It was very strange; where all else was wet through, as was only natural after such a sea journey, this felt completely dry, pale and clean. He made a space on the rock and slowly unrolled it.

  For a l
ong time he only stared, entranced into a deep silence, his eyes moving slowly along the intricate pattern of tiny images and vivid colors, a whole world of mystery and wonder revealed in complex fashioning of fine wool. He could see it moving, evolving, as if the tale it told, the truths it held, were ever-shifting, even as the heart and spirit of man or woman grows and changes and strives toward what is new. He thought that he might sit there forever, as the sun rose and fell above him and the seasons painted new colors on sea and sky, and still never quite see all of it. Her own tale was here, and others, for there was a man at the start of it, a fine warrior with yellow hair like hers, and a mark on his arm. There was a woman, a priestess he thought, for creatures floated in the air around her, an owl, an otter, a dog, and at her feet was a little child, her own Small One. The goddess herself was in this pattern, flying in the sky, touching the moon, her golden hair streaming out behind her. A boat, in a storm; the goddess and her companions were in it . . . and there, the Isle of Clouds . . .

  He became aware, at some point, that Small One had decided it was safe at last and had climbed onto his knee in order to see better. They studied the magical web together. After a while, Keeper began to tell Small One the tale, as he saw it. It was important to use language, to make sure Small One could understand it, even though, so far, he had not seemed to master speech himself. Keeper was young and strong, but he would not always be young. What would become of Small One then? So Keeper tried, as often as he could, to impart to the one he guarded whatever might be useful: to make fire, to find shelter, to speak and be understood. It was not easy. What Small One knew, he knew deep in the bone. What he could do, nobody had needed to teach him. The other things, the skills a man required in order to survive, had so far eluded his grasp.

  “Here is her father,” Keeper said in a whisper so as not to disturb his goddess, “see, a fine man with sun-colored hair, as she has. Here her mother, a wise woman; these creatures are her spirit friends, as the puffins and seals are ours. Here is her little brother—like you—but she had to leave him behind. See where she journeyed, far, far across the sea . . . much farther than we did . . . with two strong companions. One has hair as red as fire, the other is wheaten fair, perhaps her big brother. She came to the islands, but she was hurt, frightened . . . See here, the voices, the faces . . . they scared her, so she ran away . . .”

  Small One had his thumb in his mouth; his eyes were intent on the picture, his body warm and relaxed against Keeper’s. His fear was gone. He mumbled something, not words, just a sound meaning More.

  “You must remember,” Keeper said, “that there are many stories here, countless tales; each time a man looks into this web, he sees another, and another behind it. You could spend a lifetime looking, learning. I tell only one tonight. She climbed a long way, up the hill to a little house where there were friends.” He knew the house, he had been there himself, long ago. Brother Niall he remembered, a white-haired man, and another, younger. They had been kind to him. His father had beaten him for going there. “Friends . . . but . . .” The pattern ended there. The last thing he could see was a hand, reaching out into emptiness. “But in the end, they could not help her,” Keeper said, and he looked up. The goddess still lay by the fire, the curves of her body not quite concealed by the warm covers he had heaped over her. The light from the glowing embers touched the golden sheen of her hair and the faint pink of her cheeks, and showed him a pair of eyes the blue of a summer sky, wide open and watching him.

  EIGHT

  Fair is the prattle of a child

  Fair a woman’s voice, singing

  Fairer still, silence.

  MONK’S MARGIN NOTE

  When she came out of the fever at last, Creidhe wondered if she had imagined it: the young man, tall, lean, scarred, dangerous-looking, with tattered garments and a wildness about him that suggested something less, or more, than human; and the ragged child on his knee, half-asleep, sucking its thumb, held safe by this most improbable of keepers. She recalled the look in their eyes, dazzled, enchanted, caught in the vision, her vision; she could still hear the gentle flow of his voice, telling, extraordinarily, her own story. No one had ever seen the Journey fully unfolded, save herself; no one she knew could have related what it signified as this feral creature had with his soft words and graceful, gesturing hands. She remembered that, and the way he had started, falling abruptly silent, as he had realized she was awake. After that she recalled a few things, his kindness, her fear, not of him so much, for it was plain from the moment she heard his voice that he meant her no harm, but of the island and those others who dwelt there, the ones that held Foxmask captive and, every summer, gave fierce battle to Asgrim’s troops. She had come here because she had sensed it was safe; unfortunately there was little logic to such a decision. The Unspoken could not follow her here; the same could not be said for others. She remembered her alarm at discovering she was naked under the blankets, and the way he had averted his gaze when he needed to come close, as if he knew just how she was feeling. He had fed her with baked fish, morsel by morsel as if she were a chick in the nest; he had held a cup in his long fingers, tilting it for her to drink. Above all, she had noticed that, as soon as the young man knew she was awake, the child had vanished. Simply, it was there, and then instantly not there. She concluded that this, at least, was no more than imagining.

  Soon after that, lying by the fire in the tiny hut, watching through the open doorway as the summer half-dark washed across the sky, she felt fever grip her, seizing her as the sea had not, and she began to shiver and burn, and everything became a blur. That went on for quite some time, and she ceased to worry about such minor details as being thirsty or exposing her nakedness before strangers; these things were no longer of consequence. Her body ached and trembled, her head throbbed, she was running with sweat, she was freezing cold . . . she wanted to die, or if that was not possible, she wanted to go home, oh, so much . . .

  The fever lasted several days, days in which the season continued to advance steadily toward midsummer. If there were other tasks her guardian was supposed to be doing, evidently he had set them aside for now. He sponged her brow, made her swallow water, changed the blankets that covered her, performed the most intimate requirements to keep her body clean. He kept the fire glowing warm; he cooked food that she could not swallow. In her rare moments of lucidity, it became increasingly plain to Creidhe that there was no child here; how could there be? Seeing that little figure on the young man’s knee, she had thought of Foxmask, six years old and apparently captive somewhere on this island. But all she had seen through the mists of fever was a small, wild creature of some kind, perhaps a dog, although it was not so very hound-like, edging its way delicately up to the place where the young man baked supper in the hot coals, snatching a morsel or two, slinking off again into hiding. She thought little of that; the illness had stolen away her sense of what should be. If not for that, she would have felt alone, deserted and afraid. As it was, life existed only of the heat and the cold.

  There was a night when her very bones seemed made of ice and her teeth chattered in a wild dance, and although the young man piled blankets and cloaks around her, still she shivered and trembled as the cold crept deep inside, long fingers probing, reaching to steal the small part of her that clung to life. She saw terror on his hard features that night. In the end he lay down beside her, wrapped his body around hers, arms and legs, held her close, heart to beating heart, and slowly the terrible cold went away and she drifted into a longed-for, dreamless sleep. When she awoke, soon after dawn, he had moved away, but behind the crook of her knees the little doglike creature lay curled asleep, a ball of disheveled gray fur, pointed muzzle tucked under folded tail. She knew that morning that the fever was gone and that she would get well again.

  There hadn’t been much talk. The young man’s words had been restricted to, Eat, Sleep now, Drink this. Creidhe suspected she herself had babbled incessantly through the days and nights of her illne
ss, of what she could not imagine: perhaps of home, or of her worry for Thorvald and Sam, who would not know where she had gone. Now that her head was clear, and the young man sat across the fire doing something to a knife and glancing at her with those odd, luminous eyes, eyes the color of the deepest parts of the sea, it was hard to think what to say to him. Indeed she was not even sure he would understand her. Sometimes he gave the impression of a creature poised for flight. And yet he had told the tale of the Journey: her tale. Perhaps that, too, had been merely some fevered hallucination.

  In the end what she said was entirely practical. “I need some clothes. I think I could get up now, try to look after myself. You must have other things to do.”

  He ducked his head in a sort of nod. “Skirt, tunic, small shoes,” he said. “I have those; I will bring them. A gift.”

  “My own old things will do—” Creidhe began, then stopped herself, for it sounded churlish. When a man’s eyes wore such an expression as this, without a trace of guile in it, one did not shun his kindness. “Thank you,” she said. “I suppose mine were ruined. Anything you can manage will be fine.” She watched him a little longer, the spare, lean planes of his face, a young face but wary and self-contained, the clever, dirt-ingrained hands, the odd eyes. “You saved my life,” she added quietly. “I am grateful.”

  His long mouth softened a little, not quite a smile. “The sea carried you to my shore,” he said. “I am Keeper; this task was given to me. You are safe here.”