by J P Sayle
Preparing himself, he opened his mind. “Morgana, Morgana, do you know where Christina is? I am unable to sense her spirit.” He stopped speaking when several voices filled his mind, all fighting to talk at once and dish up whatever scandal had occurred while he had been shielding himself with Magnus.
Maximillian bowed his head, scowling at the aching throb behind his eyes as the voices rose. He squeezed them shut, hoping it would help. Feeling only slightly better with them closed, he at least was more able to cope with the noise levels. Remembering too late, he took another deep breath, coughing and gagging into Magnus’s thin shoulder. Small, icy-cold fingers brushed his matted fur coat, trying to comfort him.
Sniffing in despair, Maximillian chuffed. He thanked him for the small gesture of caring, even when the guilt was coiling inside like grass snakes. It slithered around inside him waiting for unsuspecting prey to strike at, leaving him vulnerable and susceptible to Magnus’s misery.
The deluge of information drowned out his internal melancholy, shouting over the top of them once he had closed the link between him and Magnus, first.
“Please one at a time. I can’t hear or think with you all caterwauling at once.” The loud plea had the voices die down a fraction, but it was enough to let him hear Morgana.
“Stop shouting, Maximillian. You are the one who asked for our help, and see, hell did not freeze over.” Her chuckled response had him rolling his eyes.
“Just get to the point, Morgana. I have no time to waste on frivolous conversation.” He chose not to hear the disgruntled meow that followed. Patience never was his strong suit at the best of times with his family. Now, it wore thin, much like Magnus’s threadbare kyrtill. Maximillian shifted on top of Magnus, trying not to sniff up while he attempted to hold his breath.
“Maximillian, are you listening to me?”
The whine grated on his last nerve when he realised he’d missed what she had said. “Sorry, I was trying not to breathe. What did you say?” He could hear the tutting from the others who thought he was being precocious. I suppose I asked for that, but hell, they want to try sitting in squalor, breathing in Goddesses know what and see how they’d cope.
Shaking off his gloomy thoughts, he listened to Morgana. His sense of foreboding coming to the forefront made it difficult to sit still.
“Christina has been summoned back to the otherworld. It would appear your actions created a storm, shifting the proper balance of things. I think, though I am not one hundred per cent sure, that this is your punishment for meddling in things you should know better than to touch with a large longboat oar.” Morgana’s voice trailed off as if she was considering her next words carefully, though he should have known better.
His hackles rose, and the fur on his neck ruffled up in the iced air coming through the cracks in the stone. He shivered into his dingy fur coat waiting for the axe to fall. His neck was already prepared for the blow. It strained forward towards something. What, he didn’t know.
He all but felt his blood freeze in his body when she continued. His heart was bouncing against his ribcage, beating a violent tattoo with the urge to tell her to shut up. Her words rebounded through him. Each blow was more potent than the last, leaving him no place to hide. He sat cringing into Magnus.
“Óláfr has, this very morning, been advised by the bishop to put Magnus to death in the most brutal way. Bestowed with the highest form of punishment, the blood eagle. They are now, as we speak, building the pyre on which he will burn after they cut his lungs from his body, pulling them out his back.”
The macabre conversation seemed to quieten even the most vocal of his guardians. At a loss, he struggled to grasp what was going to happen. Seriously, have my actions caused this? He wished he was going to wake up and find it was all some dreadful nightmare, but the ever-growing gnawing in the pit of his stomach told him otherwise. Morgana continued talking, firing the nails into the coffin within which he sat blocking out the light that kept his soul whole.
“You were warned many times about interfering with the laws, and now your arrogance is going to make that good-looking young man pay the highest price. I hope you can live with this, Maximillian.”
Her words were flung with disdain, making him recall his similar conversation with Óláfr. How little time had passed since that fateful talk, but by the God Njord and Goddess Freyja, everything had shifted, making him totter on the uneven ground he had created with his stupid actions. This surface was more treacherous than the rocky grounds outside the castle.
His mind buzzed with the words. Forcing himself up, he got off Magnus’s frail, chilled body. Not giving himself a chance to rethink his actions, he squeezed back through the rusty metal bars, hardly noticing he managed it with ease. Running as fast as his short legs would carry him, he panted as he ran up the stairwell along the passageway knowing exactly where Óláfr would be.
He didn’t stop until he was outside his sleeping chamber.
“Odin’s Raven.”
Magnus’s confusion pushed past the barrier he’d used to shield him earlier, forgetting to remove the block in his haste to go to Óláfr. He babbled, trying to stem Magnus’s terror at being left alone.
“Magnus, please calm yourself. I will be back, but there has been a turn of events that needs my immediate attention.” He hoped he sounded more positive than he felt.
Magnus’s resigned response left him knowing he had failed miserably.
“There is no need to rush. I will still be here awaiting my fate.”
Maximillian shifted his body uncomfortably as it sagged under the weight of the bubbling despair and anger rushing through him. Blocking Magnus for his own good, Maximillian straightened his spine as he opened his link with Óláfr, bellowing at him to come and open the door. The loud rumble of his stomach distracted him as a whiff of meat met his nose, making his whiskers twitch. He was tempted to seek out the source of the smell. Only the noise of the door creaking opening in front of him had him forgetting his stomach. Instead, he concentrated on the matter at hand.
Moving past Óláfr, he headed towards the stone hearth and the heat of the fire. He sat shivering on the fur pelt left just for him. He tried valiantly not to think about the dirt or the stench coming from his fur and rubbing off on his bed. Instead, he aimed his stony gaze on what appeared to be an unrepentant Óláfr, the blankness in his expression making Maximillian shudder. Am I too late?
His thought barely registered as he took in Óláfr’s slumped shoulders, dark smudges circling his sunken eyes, and deep grooves etched into his grim pinched face. His commanding presence seemed to shrink before his very eyes, causing a wave of sympathy to wash over Maximillian before he could stop it. By the Goddess Freyja, he looks ancient, aged into a withered, old man.
Óláfr’s blank, fathomless eyes seemed to stare through Maximillian, making him think he couldn’t see him, so lost in the misery that seemed to float on the air between them.
Dismissing the ball of fear that stuck in his throat, much like his hair tended to do when he cleaned himself, Maximillian coughed, trying to dislodge it before speaking.
“Óláfr, you need to go to Magnus now while you still have time to redeem yourself. He is losing the will to live.” Hoping the truth would jar some response, he growled in distress when all his urgent pleas had garnered was a shrug of his massive shoulders.
Maximillian felt the light of Magnus’s spirit waver as if Magnus knew what was happening. Please give me a chance?
He rushed on, stumbling over his words. “Please, Óláfr, you need to fix this now, Magnus is meant for you and you alone. He is your one chance at true happiness in this life, your soulmate. He is a gift from Manannán himself.” Maximillian’s teeth bared at Óláfr as he interrupted, shouting over the top of him.
“No, Maximillian, he is no gift, and I choose not to accept. I will handfast Lauon. This will resolve the issues with my brother and give some peace to the Islanders. This is best for everyone.” Óláfr’
s despair had the last words spitting at Maximillian, coating him in oily bitterness. It slid insidiously over his fur, sinking through his skin and settling into his soul, suffocating it.
His body shuddered with apprehension, feeling Óláfr’s resolve become hard and unmovable like the stones in the shell keep that protected them from attack. He watched the resolve lock in Óláfr’s heart as it became hard, cracking his soul. It bled out and infected Maximillian. Cringing towards the fire, Maximillian tried to escape the desolation it caused. He bowed under the strain of watching the crack widen as Óláfr worked on breaking the bond with Magnus, stamping it to death with his will, making sure he couldn’t go back.
Tears seeped down his fur unnoticed as he launched himself up Óláfr’s legs. Digging his claws into his kyrtill, he climbed up, needing to look Óláfr in the eye. The devastation he saw made guilt weigh his body down, and he struggled to maintain his grip under the deluge of grief and pain. Óláfr pushed him away, making him release his claws and dropping back to the floor. Disgusted, Maximillian pivoted away, unable to look at the damage he’d helped cause. The silent chamber mocking him with the knowledge he had no one to blame for what was to come but himself had him leaving.
He was unsure how he was going to break the news to Magnus, and his paws faulted on the stairwell leading down into the depths of the castle. He knew he needed to be the one to deliver the news and not the likes of Arngrim or the bishop, who would take great pride in relaying what was to come. He moved as swiftly as he could in his weakened state. The lack of food combined with the weight of responsibility made him feel sick to his stomach.
The silence followed him. Even the constant chatter that had always seemed present in his mind, was silent. Their judgement slanted his thinking towards the situation only got worse. Not that he could see how, but something just on the edges of his consciousness nagged that it could and that it would before the sun set.
Adjusting his vision to the darkness, if not his nose to the stench, he moved back down the winding passageway. He ignored the guards positioned at the entrance of the dungeons who were teasing their captives. He soundlessly moved around them, heading towards the misery he now felt coming in waves from Magnus.
He could make out Magnus’s sparsely covered body plastered against the cold floor and stone shell behind him. His face was hidden in his thin arms as they hugged his small frame, attempting to keep the icy breeze from his exposed skin while his teeth chattered continuously. He made a pitiful sight as he shifted to try and get into a more comfortable position. Maximillian knew it was impossible, having spent the same amount of time as Magnus on that freezing stone floor.
He released a heartfelt sigh alerting Magnus to his presence. The bright shine of terror that shone in the blue depths of his eyes made him hesitate to enter the cell. Forcing his body back through the bars, he went directly to Magnus, careful not to hurt him as he climbed up, offering what little warmth he could to ease his suffering.
The pain in his soul twisted hard. It gave Maximillian a moment to consider if his death was imminent as well. Pushing aside the thought, he eased closer to Magnus’s face so he was able to see his eyes when he spoke. He needed him to see how sorry he was. How much what he was going to tell him would hurt him, cut at his very being, his soul.
“Magnus, I need to speak about what is going to happen.” He paused, taking a breath when he felt the tiny shivers wrack through him from Magnus. He was pleased when he barely gagged on the smell coming from Magnus. Making himself continue even when he saw the reality wash over Magnus, his eyes shuttered when the pain moved into his heart, piercing it.
Maximillian struggled to get past the amount of blood that again he felt seeping into his soul from Magnus, merging with Óláfr’s. The irony of that was not lost on him as he fought past his pain to continue.
“I know, Maximillian.”
Maximillian’s eyes watered, mewling in distress at the finality in Magnus’s voice as he spoke.
“I felt you trying to shield me, but I knew he wasn’t coming. He doesn’t want the gift of me being his beloved. My soul felt it the moment he rejected me. You do not need to worry yourself. I have accepted my fate.”
The bravery and desolation as Magnus continued speaking had Maximillian cursing under his breath.
Oh by the Goddess Freyja, what can be done to fix this, please tell me?
A whisper barely there uttered one word. “Nothing.” Maximillian’s claws dug into Magnus, oblivious to everything as the one word rang in his weary head as he hung on, pushing aside his own misery and giving Magnus his full attention.
“I cannot change what has happened nor do I regret those few stolen moments we had together. Whether Óláfr does or doesn’t, it is of no consequence now. I will die knowing that I was honoured by Manannán to have found my soulmate. Even if I only got him for a short time, I got to treasure him.”
Magnus’s eyes gleamed with unushered tears, a cloak of dignity surrounding him. The words so heartfelt prevented Maximillian the same luxury. Tears dripped down his fur, plopping onto Magnus’s torn clothing, soaking it. Not breaking eye contact, he let the pain and suffering he felt for what he had done show as he uttered a genuine apology for interfering.
Cold fingers gripped the scruff at the back of his neck, lifting Maximillian up till his wet nose touched Magnus’s. Sky-blue eyes gave him a beseeching look, imploring him to understand as he spoke earnestly.
“You gave me a gift, Maximillian, that I will take with me to my grave and beyond. Stop blaming yourself for the thoughts you put in my mind. You gave me the courage to seek out what I wanted. No matter the outcome, I received something many do not get. The connection to my one true soulmate. I had that, and though my life may be short, I was able to capture one of those bright sparkling stars that you see bursting out in the dark sky that light up everything with its glory. I had that, and no one, not even death, can take or touch the beauty I felt when he loved and cherished me because he did just for a moment. We only had this moment, Maximillian, so I’m treasuring that, and it is unmeasurable. My lifespan is of no matter, nor will my death be because I got those gifts.”
The final choked words unleashed a torrent of tears that ran in rivers down Magnus’s dirt-streaked face. Pushing his fur against Magnus’s face, he wiped at the tears that lay on his cold cheeks. Magnus dropped his head, burying his face into Maximillian’s neck, drenching the fur while freezing, thin fingers gripped on tightly, seeking comfort.
They sat huddled together awaiting their fates. Neither spoke as the time slipped away and reality drew ever closer.
Óláfr hugged his furs to his body, stopping the icy wind penetrating his weary bones. The force of the breeze caught his dark locks, whipping them around his shoulders as he averted his gaze from those who chose to look up at the top of the cap-house, where he stood watching the scene unfold beneath him. The men moved with purpose, shifting large chunks of wood they had cut down from the surrounding trees on the hill overlooking the castle.
The hill looked bereft with giant gaping holes where once stood proud trees sheltering the smaller saplings from the storms. Much as he felt, had he not done the same to Magnus, leaving his beloved weak and exposed to the storms of feelings rising in his men to wreak havoc. Even now he could feel the tide of emotions swirling around him, their utter glee sickening him. The cramps in his stomach were making it impossible to forget the atrocity that was about to happen, even if he could block the noise below.
He knew Maximillian thought he had hardened his heart, his soul to his beloved, but nothing allowed him to hide from this pain, nothing. Clutching his chest, the silky feel of the fur under his roughened palms mocked his memories of the moments he’d spent treasuring his beloved.
His thoughts never strayed too far from what he had done. He rubbed at the growing ache, wishing it was him sentenced to death, but the fates, it seemed, wanted differently, giving him a different kind of suffering for being such a
coward.
How many times had he wondered if Magnus had stayed put, had not attended his chamber, would they be in this position?
His mind mocked him. It was too late for second-guessing when his beloved was about to be murdered in front of him, slain by the preaching’s of a Christian God he didn’t know or understand. His own weakness and fear stopped him from preventing this debacle from going any further.
No. Here he was hiding out from his reality, watching over his men as they chopped and sawed. Each piece of wood carefully prepared to burn his soul, leaving him with what? Ashes and nothing but a gaping hole just like the hill with no hope of ever recovering what he’d lost.
His thoughts dragged at him while his gaze moved back to the hillside. Blinking, he leant closer to the keep shell, unsure if his eyes were playing tricks when he caught a shadowy movement next to the church. His eyes narrowed, picking out the cloister his men had informed him was empty. The woman who resided there had left several sunrises ago. Squinting into the darkness, feeling the tiny hairs on his arms lift, Óláfr scratched at the itch at the back of his neck.
He looked as he moved closer to the cold stone. His breath clouded the air as he searched for the shadowy figure. No smoke rose from the hearth. Assuming he was mistaken, he gazed back towards his men. Unsure why his gaze kept wandering back, he scratched the back of his neck again. The itch was unrelenting, making his stomach clench with apprehension.
Dark energy seemed to coat his skin, brushing against his swirling emotions as the sounds of loud crackling drew his eyes back to his men who were watching the flames lick and dance at the bottom of the pyre.
So it begins.
Óláfr shuddered. Turning away, he strolled towards the stairwell, shuttering his eyes, lowering his lids so those around him could not see the bleakness that ate at him. They scuttled about him like mice fleeing from the oncoming slaughter for fear of being caught and killed themselves. He felt their fear as real as his as he moved past them. He almost scoffed at them. They did not understand the true meaning of dread. Had he not lived with it? Felt it course through his veins, reminding him with every breath he took that his life was about to change forever as he faced the consequences of his actions.