The Year's Best Australian Fantasy and Horror 2013

by Angela Slatter

  The Ways of the Wyrding Women

  Rowena Cory Daniells

  “Come here, Sun-fire.” Druaric offered his hand, helping me off the bed, strangely gentle now the deed was done. Sun-fire was what they called me because I would not give them my true-name. They might have power over my body, but I wasn’t giving them power over my soul. As a Wyrding-woman in training, I knew that much.

  The three brothers escorted me to the great hall. Lohnan, the eldest took my right arm, Murtahg took my left and Druaric limped along behind. He was the youngest, the clever one who listened when their Wyrding-woman spoke. Marked by a clubfoot, if he’d been born a girl, he would have walked the Wyrding-ways.

  First we passed the slaves and the household servants who all gawked at me, the captive who had the honour of housing their dead Warlord’s spirit. Next we passed the sons’ cousins and sisters, with their warrior husbands and children. Finally we passed the two eldest sons’ wives and children. Clutching their toddlers and babes, the women watched me with barely concealed loathing. If the Warlord’s soul cleaved to my unborn babe, my child would outrank theirs, so naturally they hated me.

  I made the sign to ward off the evil-eye.

  As the sons urged me on toward the clan’s ancient Wyrding-woman my steps faltered and my stomach churned. I’d only been close to her once before, when she’d touched my belly to sense the new life-force quickening. Then I had been too frightened to move.

  Now, her wizened face glowed with satisfaction. Incredibly old, mother to the Warlord himself, she had outlived all her children, had lived long enough to see her grandchildren produce children. Truly, she was so powerful that even her apprentices would be stronger than me.

  When the sons had first captured me, I’d looked for girls with the Wyrding-signs but couldn’t find them. Maybe they were like me, born with a caul. My Wyrding-sign was safely hidden under the hearthstone of my village’s Wyrding-cottage. But I mustn’t think about my home, or the way the sons had led their raiders into my highland valley, grabbing me because my red-gold hair caught their eye.

  “Here is Sun-fire.” Lohnan, the eldest, presented me to his Wyrding grandmother. “Wild-cat, more like. It took all three of us to hold her down but she did it, she inhaled our Warlord’s dying breath.”

  And vile it was too.

  Triumph gleamed in the Wyrding-woman’s sunken eyes.

  It was too much for me.

  I sprang forward, slashing her forehead with my fingernails, drawing blood above her breath-line. It was the best way to protect myself from her power. The granddaughters screamed in outrage. Lohnan caught me and swung me around, holding my arms. Murtahg lifted his hand. I braced for the blow.

  “No!” The Wyrding-woman’s sharp voice stopped him in mid-swing. She looked pleased. I didn’t understand. Then my skin went cold with fear as I realised I’d given myself away. She wiped the blood from her eyes with a smile. Her last three teeth stood like standing stones in the mounds of her gums. “An adept of the Wyrding-ways. This, I did not foresee.”

  I shook my head, but denial was useless.

  The Wyrding-woman pointed to the long table. As Lohnan shoved me I looked down, unable to meet her penetrating gaze. Quick as a snake, she clawed my forehead. I gasped and bent double in shock.

  “Lift her face,” the Wyrding-woman ordered.

  I had to blink blood from my eyes. She smiled and I knew she had negated any advantage I’d achieved by drawing blood above her breath-line. At every step I was outmanoeuvred. But I would not despair.

  I would wait and take my revenge on all of them. It was the only thing that had kept me going. If we hill-people are good at one thing, it’s holding a grudge.

  “Behold the vessel of the Warlord-reborn,” the Wyrding-woman cried as Lohnan lifted me onto the long table. A shout went up, a genuine cheer of triumph. They loved the old Warlord and why shouldn’t they? He’d protected them from the other clans, making theirs the wealthiest and strongest in all the Wild Isles.

  The Wyrding-woman nodded to Lohnan. “She must be naked when I fix his soul in the babe.”

  He was only too eager to strip me. Then she also clambered up onto the table. No apprentice came to help her as she produced her Wyrding tools from the deep pockets of her leather apron. Saying her chants, she made signs on the flesh of my naked belly and breasts with her oils. I recognised the protectors, rosemary and sage, by their scent.

  With elaborate symbols to ensure my health and that of my babe, she stroked my flesh with her sacred feathers. I did not know the birds these feathers had come from. The customs of the coast-people were different from us hill-people, yet so similar it made me shudder, just as their language was the same, yet peppered with unfamiliar words.

  Closing my heart and mind, I invoked the Wyrding-mother, begging her to make the babe shrivel and die or better yet, make it a girl with the Wyrding-sign.

  When the ritual was over the Wyrding-woman stepped back and, with great respect so different from our ungainly struggle over the Warlord’s deathbed, the sons helped me down from the massive table.

  Of the Warlord’s seven sons only these three had survived the raids. Lohnan, nearing forty, still waited for his chance to lead. Murtahg, ten years younger, seemed older because his face was set in a perpetual scowl, and Druaric. The raid on my village had made him a man at seventeen, late to this rite of passage because of his crippled foot.

  Lohnan leered as he looked on my nakedness. Druaric swung a cloak around my shoulders. I felt strangely numb and feared the Wyrding-woman’s powers were already at work, sapping my will.

  She nodded to Druaric who sent a servant to fetch a zither. Everyone waited. Murtahg chewed on his pipe stem, all nervous energy. Ever practical, Lohnan’s wife ordered servants to see to the Warlord’s body.

  Ensuring the Warlord’s soul took root in my babe was only part of this day’s work. They still had to send his old body to the next world. The Wyrding-woman watched her people, pale blue eyes sharp despite her age. Her clan boasted she’d seen nearly a hundred years of life and, looking at her, I believed them.

  Averting my eyes with a shudder, I saw the servant return to give Druaric a beautifully made wooden box. There was a small hole in the middle and across this hole were strings of varying lengths. Sitting cross-legged, he placed the thing on his lap. I thought it odd looking, but when he plucked the strings I heard the Wyrding-mother’s sweet voice and it brought tears to my eyes.

  He sang of how the clan’s Wyrding-woman had sent the Warlord’s sons on a noble quest to win me—a raid that split the skulls of our valley’s defenders and stole our sheep. He sung of how they had lain with me—raped me. It was no more or less than I’d expected. I was no shrinking virgin—we hill clans-people are a tough breed.

  As I lay under the Warlord’s sons I’d planned how I would kill each one. Slowly. Even the youngest one with the clubfoot, who had whispered that he was sorry.

  He sang of how they had succeeded in saving their Warlord’s soul—they had pinned me down on the bed and squeezed the air from my ribs just as the fierce old fire-brand rattled his last.

  Then Druaric went on to sing of how I would deliver a healthy boy babe who would grow up to lead their clan to greatness. I felt their belief like a physical thing and that was when I sensed Druaric’s power. He was willing events to come to pass. My gaze flew to the Wyrding-woman. She nodded knowingly. She might not have an apprentice but she had a grandson who could shape the world with his words.

  The song finished and Druaric stood up, slinging his zither over his shoulder. It hung from a leather strap, impressed with symbols of power.

  My heart sank. How could I defeat these two?

  The clan moved out of the hall, across the yard, through the palisade and outer gate, down to the shore of the narrow, steep sided bay. As if in a trance, I followed, and watched as they placed the Warlord on his ship, along with weapons and food.

  “Why . . . ?” I began then bit my t
ongue.

  But the Wyrding-woman guessed my question. “If his soul does not take root in your babe we don’t want him wandering between the worlds. His place in death’s realm will be prepared just in case.”

  Three old slaves volunteered to go into the afterlife to serve him. Lohnan, Murtahg and Druaric strangled them while everyone looked on. They dealt so casually in death, it sickened me. At my old Wyrding-teacher’s side I had dedicated myself to saving life. And, although I had survived so far, I was dying a thousand small deaths, losing my true-self. Standing there on the pebbly beach, I felt as if I was an empty shell.

  Beyond the headlands, the sea was molten gold, lit by the dying sun. At a signal from Lohnan, the sail was set so that ship’s prow faced west. I considered running out onto the wooden jetty, throwing myself into deep water. But it would do no good. Being born with a caul meant I could not drown. One of them was sure to jump in and drag me out. Then they would watch me even more closely. Instead, I would pretend to be filled with despair and choose my moment for revenge. I would find the killing herbs and then I would ensure the Warlord’s last three sons joined him in death.

  If the Wyrding-woman didn’t realise what I was planning.

  I tensed as Druaric approached, but he only sat on a wharf stone beside me with his zither. Hands that had just strangled the life from an old man plucked power from the strings. The clan took up the song, their voices rising and falling in an eerie dirge. I hated it, but I had to admit it was beautiful. Flames engulfed the ship as the outgoing tide carried it through the headlands. A bottomless well of sadness filled me. How could people who created such fierce beauty be so cruel?

  Why had the Wyrding-mother forsaken me? The only explanation was that this clan’s Wyrding-woman had a more powerful call on her.

  When the song finished, Druaric sat with the zither on his lap. “You will be honoured, Sun-fire. You won’t have to work until the baby is born. You’ll have plenty of food and somewhere warm to sleep. If you use your wits, you can be the babe’s wet nurse. Your position will be nearly equal to that of my sisters and my brothers’ wives—”

  “I will still be a captive.” I glared over my shoulder at him. His eyes were the same severe, ice-blue as the old Warlord’s. “Still a slave.”

  “What were you before?” he countered. “A wild savage scraping your food from the unforgiving hills, living in a single-roomed sod hut, lucky if you got enough to eat. Which is better?”

  “Freedom!”

  His gaze narrowed and he studied me thoughtfully.

  I realised I’d revealed my true nature and I cursed my impulsive tongue. Like my true-name, a glimpse of my true nature gave him power over me.

  * * *

  They locked me in the tower again. It was the only building made of stone in the stronghold. Five floors high with narrow windows, it was their last place to make a stand if the palisade’s gate was breached. The door had barely closed on the sons’ backs, when Lohnan’s wife set me to work, mending her clothes. This was a calculated insult, for Wyrding-women do not toil like other women. Even if I had not been one of the Wyrding-mother’s daughters, they should not have made me work; I carried the Warlord-reborn.

  So I refused to do the mending. I refused to eat. For seven days I sat and brooded, growing pale and thin. In truth, I was plagued by constant sickness so going without food was no great hardship.

  The Wyrding-woman was consulted. She had them plough a field that was lying fallow and told them I must walk it barefoot to draw strength from the earth. The brothers debated who should make me walk the field. Lohnan was eager to get his hands on me but his motives were impure. Murtahg wanted nothing to do with me since he’d learned that I followed the Wyrding-way, so it fell to Druaric.

  I resisted every step of the way. Under the Wyrding-woman’s watchful eye we trudged, me lurching and balking, him struggling with me and his clubfoot.

  “Why do you make it hard for yourself?” he muttered, out of breath.

  I refused to speak.

  “You are not as strong as our Wyrding-woman.”

  It was true, but I wouldn’t give up. I couldn’t. We hill-people are a tough breed, we never give up.

  Neither would he. He kept on doggedly, dragging me over the freshly turned soil so that in the end I had to walk or be dragged in the dirt. I chose to walk. But with each step an idea formed in my mind. Since my Wyrding-ways had been revealed I had seen respect in Lohnan’s eyes and fear in Murtahg’s.

  “Each day as the babe grows, I grow in power,” I told Druaric.

  He looked away. Good.

  And it was true, as far as it went. With this babe I was growing in power. A Wyrding apprentice could not learn the deep lore until she had birthed her own daughter. Was my babe a girl? Perhaps this was the Wyrding-mother’s plan.

  * * *

  Druaric must have spoken with the Wyrding-woman for she came to see me that evening. His uneven steps and her cane echoed on the stairs. By the time the door opened I was ready to face them.

  “You think you are clever, Sun-fire.” Her shrewd old eyes studied me. “But your knowledge of the Wyrding-ways is only a fraction of mine.”

  She produced an amulet from her apron, holding it in front of me. It had been made from familiar material, clothing that belonged to me. The cloth had been woven by my village and now it was stained with the blood of my struggles, which gave it power.

  “This will counteract any spells or curses you might use to stop the Warlord’s soul taking hold in your babe,” she told me as she hung the amulet around her neck, tucking it inside her bodice next to her skin with a satisfied smile. “I have your measure, Sun-fire. You should fear me. In birthing a woman is at her most vulnerable. You’ll need me to see you through it.”

  She was right. Terror cinched my stomach even as I raged at my impotence. How was I to settle my score with their clan? Revenge was the only thing that sustained me.

  “You hate me,” she said.

  I did not deny it.

  “I can live with that.” She stroked the silver head of her cane, staring into its polished surface. “I have seen what the Warlord’s death will do to our clan. By capturing his soul in your babe I have averted a battle for leadership. Without this babe our clan would be divided and tear itself apart. One day my children’s children would have been slaves. Instead, with the Warlord-reborn our clan will become the greatest in the Wild Isles.” She held my eye with the force of her will. “I will not be thwarted by a half-trained hill-brat!”

  I refused to blink even though my eyes burned. We glared at each other. I fought to hold her gaze. She faltered and blinked before I did. Furious, she flung past me.

  I smiled. It was a small victory, but it was mine.

  She brushed by Druaric, forcing him to move out of the way. He bumped the mending basket.

  “What’s this?” His tone made her stop and turn on the top step by the door. He picked up a finely embroidered gown and his eyes narrowed as he recognised it. “Sun-fire is a Wyrding-woman, not a slave.” He waved the dress at his grandmother. “You know how to stop this.”

  And he limped off with the basket, presumably to give Lohnan’s wife a piece of his mind.

  As his uneven steps echoed on the stairs, the Wyrding-woman’s shrewd eyes returned to me. After a moment she beckoned. “Come.”

  I hesitated, but I was fed up with being shut away so despite my trepidation, I followed her. She led me down the tower steps, past another chamber and into the one below.

  One look told me this was her Wyrding workroom. Filled with her tools, I felt its power close around me, cloying and oppressive. Much was familiar. Jugs and chests lined the walls, dried herbs hung from the rafters. There was a string of blue beads to protect against the evil eye and a snakeskin, fine as spiderwebs, to cure the bone-ache.

  “Close the door, Sun-fire,” the Wyrding-woman ordered and I did, torn between curiosity and fear. She thrust feathers under my nose. “What’s this
?”

  I blinked. I could have pretended ignorance but pride would not let me. “Eagle feathers. To renew youth. You must have used them many a time.”

  She turned away, smiling her secretive smile. Taking a jar from the bench, she opened it to reveal dried foxglove. “And this?”

  “Foxglove, also called dead-men’s-bells, a poison.”

  She showed me another. “And this?”

  “Fleabane, useful for putting in mattresses to kill bed mites.”

  She closed the jar and gnawed on her bottom lip. Then her expression cleared and she shoved something into my hands. “What does this tell you?”

  I turned the child’s leather ball over and over. She had not asked what it was, but what it told me. I cleared my mind and a vision came. “Blue bells.”

  With a hiss, she snatched the ball from me. I thought I saw fear in her eyes but the expression was gone too quickly to be sure.

  She studied her shelves then sent me a sly look before handing me a small drum. “What child did this toy belong to?”

  I held the drum, sensing great power. “This is no toy.”

  “Ha! Only half right. It is my Watcher,” she revealed. “A faithful servant volunteered to die so I could have this drum made from his skin. If anyone tries to steal from me, the drum will sound.”

  I returned it with a shudder, which made her smile. How could the Wyrding-mother countenance power sourced from death?

  “You are impressed with my Watcher,” she said.

  “I am surprised that you do not trust your own people. Our people would never have stolen from their Wyrding-woman.”

  “Slaves steal.”

  “We do not keep slaves.”

  “More fool you.”

  Again she studied the shelves, then shuffled over to get a jar. Without her cane her limp was much more pronounced and I realised she had a clubfoot like Druaric, though not as malformed as his. She unstoppered the jar to show me a fine powder. “What is it and what does it do?”

  I sniffed. No scent. It could be anything.