The Falcons of Fire and Ice

by Karen Maitland

  ‘Look,’ I said, ‘I know it’s going to be awkward for the sisters clambering about with those chains still attached, but don’t worry, we can help carry them. The main thing is to get them out. Then we can find a proper file or cutters and have them free quicker than a thief can cut a purse.’

  Isabela gripped my sleeve again. ‘Please, you mustn’t, Eydis doesn’t want you to. She knows the clanging of the chains would carry for miles in these mountains, and the Danes are still searching for us. No, we have to get the hoops off. They must have rusted a little in the damp of the cave over the years, so I’m sure you can do it. Ari is already trying to free Eydis; please could you work on Valdis?’

  I looked over. Ari had taken up his position behind Eydis and, judging by the way he was frowning, was already hard at work. I shrugged and lumbered towards the sisters, but Isabela seized the hem of my shirt.

  ‘One thing more … this is hard to explain … Don’t cut all the way through Valdis’s hoop, nearly through, so it can be broken quickly, but don’t break it, not yet. It’s important … really important.’

  ‘I thought getting the hoops off them was the whole idea,’ I said irritably.

  ‘Valdis doesn’t want the hoop removed until the very last minute, because … because … it’s the custom,’ Isabela said. ‘Swear you won’t until I tell you to?’

  ‘How do you know what Valdis wants?’

  ‘I told you, I can’t explain … but I know. Please trust me, Marcos.’

  If I live as long as old Methuselah himself, I will never understand women. They are all as crazy as Icelandic horses. I resolved there and then that if I did ever manage to escape this country of lunatics with their slimy food and rabbit-burrow houses, boiling rivers and icy sun, I would never in my life again set foot in any foreign land.

  I gathered up a few of the sharpest stones I could find and took up my position next to Ari, behind the two women. Eydis pulled her sister upright, clasping her tightly so that I could tackle the band around her waist. Have you ever tried to grate away at an iron hoop with a bit of stone, especially when someone is wearing it? I tried to do it without touching Valdis’s skin. I told myself it was out of respect for a woman, but the truth was, her skin looked so wrinkled and brown that I couldn’t bring myself to touch it. But the stone slipped off Valdis’s iron band and grazed her sister’s arm, a few drops of blood ran down the stone and on to my fingers, but she barely flinched.

  Isabela had followed me over and now was sitting close by, watching me intently.

  ‘Don’t be afraid to touch Valdis. You’ll have to grasp the hoop firmly, like Ari’s doing.’

  Though I was, of course, flattered that she wanted to watch me work, I was somewhat affronted by the suggestion that Ari was more competent than I was.

  ‘Ari has probably been sawing through iron hoops all his life,’ I said. ‘I imagine it’s all they can think of to amuse themselves on a winter evening round here. They find themselves a nice stout hoop and saw through it. They probably even lay wagers on it. My hands were never created for manual work.’

  ‘I know … but please try your best,’ Isabela said.

  Gritting my teeth, I grasped the hoop and started pulling it away from her loose skin. Despite the heat of the cave I was shocked to find her body was as cold as the grave. I shuddered and pulled the band as far away from her back as I could. I knew I must be making it cut into her belly, but didn’t want to feel that flesh against my hand. The sooner I got this band off her the better. I sawed vigorously at the rim of it with the sharp edge of the stone.

  Beneath her band I could see a thickened strip of skin, hard and rough as the sole of my foot. How long had she worn this thing? I knew only too intimately how iron bruises the flesh, how it cuts in deeper and deeper with each little movement. I remembered the raw burning of sores around my own wrists and ankles from those few weeks in the tower of Belém. The long sleeves on my doublet had hidden the scars on the ship until they healed, but they were still there.

  I rasped more furiously, swearing, but not stopping, even when the stone slipped from the iron and skinned the knuckles of my other hand. The stone was still stained with Eydis’s blood and now it was supping mine too.

  Without warning, Silvia’s face floated into my head, and my hands were not grasping stone and metal, but something soft and warm. Silva was laughing at me, taunting me, daring me. Then the laughter changed to another sound, one I’d never heard her make before, not even when she was shrieking in passion. Her eyes were wide open, but they were not mocking me any more. For a moment, only a moment, I saw something that might have been shock in those liquid dark eyes, shock and then nothing. There was nothing at all in those eyes, not even life.

  ‘Why have you stopped?’ Isabela asked anxiously. ‘What’s wrong? You look frightened.’

  I shook my head and, breathing hard, picked up the stone which had slipped out of my wet fingers and attacked the iron again. I don’t know how long we were working. Fannar returned to eat, then went out again. Several times Ari and I were forced to rest. The sweat was pouring down our bodies. There was no relief to be had even in drinking, for though water was drawn from the pool and put aside to cool, it barely seemed to get any colder and the taste was worse than the smell.

  I glanced over to see how Ari was doing, just in time to see the last little fragment break on Eydis’s hoop. It sprang open by no more than a baby’s-finger breadth. Eydis must have felt it give, but if she did, she gave not the smallest sign of it. It would take a couple of us, one pulling on either side, to bend it wide enough for her to slip out, but that could be done quickly now that the hoop was broken. Ari went to fetch himself some more water and wipe the sweat from his streaming face. Only a few more moments and I would be joining him. Valdis’s hoop was almost at the point where a few more rasps would break through it, but before I could finish, Isabela frantically beckoned me away and led me over to the far side of the cave on the pretext of finding me a cloth to wipe the stinging sweat from my eyes.

  ‘You’ve almost cut through the band, Marcos. You must leave it now.’

  ‘It won’t take much more,’ I said, massaging my bruised and cut hands. ‘The iron has rusted on the edges. Just as well, or I think I’d never have made a dent in it. Ari has broken through Eydis’s band. I’ll do the same for Valdis, then it will just be a matter of pulling the hoops wide enough apart for them to slip out.’

  ‘No, no, you must leave Valdis now, please. We can easily break the band when the time comes, but not yet. Promise you’ll leave it.’

  Valdis’s head swivelled in my direction. She was calling out, and it didn’t sound to me as if she was thanking me. In fact, she sounded more than a little angry.

  ‘Are you sure that’s what she wants? She doesn’t sound too happy.’

  Isabela bit her lip. ‘Eydis wants it this way. She knows what she’s doing. You have to trust her … you should rest now. You must be exhausted.’

  These Icelanders were crazier than a rabid dog at the full moon, but I wasn’t going to argue. My fingers were swelling up like sausages and, to be honest, I wasn’t at all sure I could have managed to saw any more, even if she’d begged me to. Stretching my back, I made my way across the steamy cave towards the pail of hot water.

  I staggered backwards as a sudden rumbling filled the cave and jets of stinking steam burst out of the pool, filling the cave with a dense white fog. Someone was screaming, but I couldn’t see whom. The dripping cave walls seemed to cool the steam a little as it rolled towards me, but it was almost impossible to breathe in it. Ari was shouting. I could scarcely see anything in the hot steam, except the smudged shapes of people moving as they loomed in and out of the fog.

  ‘Marcos, help me get the hoops off them!’ Isabela yelled.

  I stumbled blindly across the cave, slipping on the wet stones, but I couldn’t see where Isabela was, never mind the sisters. Everyone was shouting. Shapes were forming and disappearing again in th
e steam.

  I was terrified I was blundering in the wrong direction and might end up falling into the boiling pool. All I actually wanted to do was to get the hell out of that inferno as quickly as I could. If it had just been a matter of saving those two mad sisters, frankly I would have made straight for the passage and the way out, but Vítor was somewhere in this maelstrom, and I was damned if I was going to leave Isabela to his tender mercies.

  I dropped to my knees, crawling over the rock. I discovered it was just a fraction easier to breathe closer to the ground. Then I saw them. Ari was crouching behind Valdis who was writhing and twisting. Isabela was frantically trying to pull open the iron hoop about Eydis’s waist.

  ‘Help me, Marcos!’ Isabela looked terrified, as well she might.

  ‘Can’t you get the sisters to sit still?’ I yelled in exasperation as the iron band slipped for the third time out of my sweating hands. ‘We’ll never get anywhere if they keep wriggling about. What the hell is Eydis trying to do, anyway?’

  I was suffocating in the steam. My fingers were so wet I couldn’t grip the metal. Isabela crawled away, and for a moment I thought she had given up, then she returned with a blanket pulled from the sisters’ sleeping pallet.

  ‘Use this to hold it,’ she said, pushing the sodden cloth into my hands.

  I wrapped my fingers in the edge of the blanket and seized the hoop in both hands, and as I pulled I felt the iron band begin to bend.

  ‘Here,’ I said to Isabela, ‘take the other side, now brace your feet against my legs and pull backwards.’

  We strained against each other as the hoop slowly widened, and then it shattered. The force of its breaking was so unexpected we tumbled over. There was a bellow of rage which cut over all the other screams and shouts in the cave. Beside me, Isabela had struggled to her feet, and she was staring out into the cave, her eyes wide and frozen with terror.

  Eydis

  Ramage or rammish – a hawk or falcon which is wild and hard to catch, or an escaped bird that has fully returned to the wild and is extremely difficult to reclaim.

  The draugr is fighting to break the iron band around Valdis’s waist. But he only has her hands to use. Bound by the iron, his strength is only her strength and her hands are weak, atrophied. But if Ari or the foreigner helps to break that iron before I can drive him out of Valdis, his strength will surge and I will not be able to prevent it. I must pull Isabela out of this time and take her to the place of the dead, before her iron circle is broken.

  I catch Isabela’s arm. ‘Isabela, listen to me now as you listened in the forest.’

  But I can see from her eyes she is too afraid to let me in. I will have to do this without her consent, and hope that she will understand and not fight me. I drag my lucet upwards and the long cord follows. Swiftly, before Isabela can move away, I wrap the cord around the three of us – Valdis, Isabela and me.

  The black thread of death to call the spirits from their graves. The green thread of spring to give them hope. The red thread of blood to lend them our strength.

  Instantly the white mist hangs still and cool. The shouts and screams are severed and there is silence. The three of us are alone. Isabela’s eyes are wide with alarm. She turns her head, trying to see something beyond the white curtain of mist, but there is nothing to see.

  ‘Where are we? Are we still in the cave? Am I dreaming again?’

  I cannot afford to explain. We must act quickly.

  ‘Isabela, the bone you took from the grave, hold it and use it to summon the door-doom.’

  ‘I don’t know how … what to do. I can’t.’

  I try to calm her. ‘You can. They are all bound to you now. Hinrik through the stone he gave you, the old woman whose mummy heals your burn, those shadows who followed you from the forest. I called you to me, and now you must bring them to us. It is time.’

  ‘You don’t have the power to call up the dead, little Isabela, Isabela,’ the dark voice snarls from my sister’s lips. ‘You know you don’t. You don’t even know how to begin.’

  I try to make Isabela listen to me. I can see she is terrified of the creature which speaks through my sister, and fear makes us listen to fear.

  ‘You called Hinrik to you,’ I tell her gently. ‘He told you that you had called him. Take out the bone, then turn and look at them. They are already here. They are the shadows you are afraid to face. Face them now and let them come to you.’

  ‘This is just a trick to keep you here,’ the dark voice snaps. ‘She wants you to die in the cave with her, so that she’ll always have you with her. She is dangerous. She is wicked. Why do you think they chained her up in a cave? They don’t chain up good people, only evil ones. Only the wicked are punished. Only the mad are chained up. You know that, don’t you, little Isabela, Isabela?’

  Isabela stiffens, her expression hardens. She rubs her wrist as if remembering something she has felt. He has made a mistake, something he has said to her has made her angry, and anger drives out fear. Her fingers move towards the leather pouch about her neck, and she pulls out a small yellowing bone, encircled by an iron ring.

  ‘Don’t do it, Isabela, Isabela,’ the draugr shrieks. ‘Don’t bring the dead here. They followed you because they are angry. You stole from them. You robbed their graves and disturbed their rest. Now they want to punish you for what you did. If you bring the dead here, they will drag you back into the grave with them. You will be buried alive. They will never let you escape.’

  ‘Silence!’ I command. ‘Turn, Isabela, turn and look at them. The dead are nothing to fear. You know them, you know what they have suffered. Welcome them and let them speak.’

  She is trembling. Her eyes are closed. I know she is terrified, but I know too that she is willing herself to turn.

  All around us the white mist hangs in the air, still and soft as if we were encased in snow. I cannot see them, but I sense they are there in the mist, waiting, just waiting for her to call them forth. Slowly she turns and lifts her head. She holds out the bone, gripping it so hard in her fingers that the knuckles blanch to the colour of the bone she holds.

  ‘Come,’ she whispers, her voice shaking.

  ‘Do not turn away,’ I tell her. ‘See them, know them.’

  The mist stirs and Hinrik steps through it. His face is bloody and the noose hangs heavy from his neck. He stands, his hollow eyes fixed on her face. Isabela gives the smallest nod of greeting to him

  The old woman, her cheeks hollow with hunger, shuffles out of the mist.

  Valdis’s lips part beneath her veil. ‘Go back, Mother, Mother. I told you. I warned you. I will take you down into the grave with me. I will make you suffer without end. You too, boy, go back while you can or I promise you will die a thousand deaths and still live to die again.’

  Both Hinrik and the old woman shrink back in dread. They will not stand against him, but just as I fear they are slipping back into the mist, another figure emerges from the mist. She too is old. Her head streams with blood, but she raises her chin defiantly.

  ‘I stood against men of evil while I lived, I will stand against them in death.’

  Hinrik and the old woman edge back out from the mist. I know now that they will stay.

  Others are stepping into the space. A man carrying a little boy, both covered with savage slashes. A little girl follows, with blue-black marks about her neck, then a woman holding a baby that has been almost hacked in two. The woman’s mouth is gaping, stuffed with earth, as are her eyes. She has been rendered blind and dumb. Two more men and a woman join them. They too are slashed and mutilated. Their clothes are faded and ragged, smeared with soil. Their eyes are dark, hollow pits. They say nothing, but silently join the circle of the dead around us.

  Then, when I think there are no more to come, one last figure emerges from the mist. He is an old man. His clothes are burned almost away. His face and limbs are charred and blistered, the blackened skin cracked, the flesh gaping red-raw to the white bone beneath. His
mouth is sealed with a leather gag. Isabela gasps in horror. Throwing her arms up as a shield, she backs away from the ghastly phantasm that is hobbling towards her. But he holds out his hand, palm upwards. And there are hundreds of words written upon it, in blue and scarlet, green and gold. Words that scurry across his hand and tumble from the tips of his burnt fingers to lie in heaps around his blistered feet.

  ‘Jorge!’ Isabela breathes.

  He nods solemnly and takes his place in the circle.

  Valdis’s head swivels round to look at each of the dead in turn. I feel the draugr’s agitation, but I feel something else too. Someone is trying to cut through Valdis’s band. The draugr knows it. We must make haste.

  ‘I bid you welcome,’ I say. ‘You have been summoned as the door-doom, the court which must pass judgment upon one of your own. Your word is law. Your decision is binding. This is the complaint I bring against him. That he has entered the body of my sister without her consent. I have healed his own corpse, but he refuses to leave and return to it. I ask the door-doom to order him to leave my sister’s body and return to his own.’

  The grandmother from the forest lifts her battered arm and points at Valdis.

  ‘Speak, draugr, what have you to say in your defence?’

  ‘Valdis is dead. She has no need of her corpse, but I have great need of it. I have every right to it, since I was called out of my grave by one who is living. If I return to my corpse, Eydis will destroy it. She will destroy me. She will send me back into the grave. You know how we suffer in the grave, our bodies rotting in the darkness, our loneliness, our despair. I was called out, and now I have tasted life again I will not return. You cannot order me to my own destruction. You are my brothers and sisters in death, you will not suffer the living to destroy us.’

  The grandmother nods. ‘We have listened to you. And you, Eydis, you who are of the living, what do you say?’

  ‘If he remains in Valdis, he will make a draugr of us both, for if he is freed from the iron, he will gather such strength to him that I will not be able to fight against it. Valdis and I are joined, as we have been since we were in our mother’s womb. What he does in her body, he does also in mine. He will rampage throughout the land, bringing terror and destruction, he will make draugar of those he kills and he will torment those already in their graves. All this he will do, in a body that he does not own.’