The Black Raven

by Katharine Kerr

  “Rae?” he whispered.

  Her head turned toward the sound, but her eyes—he’d never seen eyes so blank and dead. It seemed to him that her soul had fled, yet left her body still alive to move about and breathe like some mindless animal.

  “Master!” Young Harl came running into the room. “What—Ye gods! Your lady!”

  Raena’s head turned toward the sound of his voice, but her eyes stayed dead-seeming. Her mouth flopped open, and she began to make noises, first a sputter, then a gurgling ugly rumble in her throat that nonetheless had the cadence of words. Harl gasped and stepped back fast.

  “Run get the herbwoman!” Verrarc snapped. “I’ll tend my lady.”

  Harl nodded and raced out of the room. Verrarc squeezed Raena’s hand hard.

  “Rae, Rae,” he whispered. “Come back!”

  Her head flopped back with a long moist sigh. Verrarc stood, then picked her up, settling her head against his shoulder. Once she’d been a solid young woman, but now—he was shocked at how light she seemed. Without much difficulty he carried her into their bedchamber and laid her down on the bed. In the small hearth, wood and kindling stood stacked and ready. Verrarc hurried back into the reception chamber and grabbed a long splint from the woodpile.

  “Master?” Old Korla came shuffling in. “Has Harl gone daft? He did come into my kitchen babbling of evil spirits.”

  “Not daft in the least.” Verrarc heard his voice shaking. “Did he go fetch Gwira as I asked him?”

  “He did, truly.”

  “Good. My lady does lie in our chamber. Go sit with her whilst I take some of this fire.”

  When Verrarc came in with the blazing splint, he saw that Korla had spread a blanket over Raena, who lay un-moving, her open eyes staring at the ceiling. For a horrible moment he thought her dead, but she moaned and stirred. He knelt by the hearth and touched the splint to the kindling, blew on the tentative flames, and tossed the splint into the fire as it blazed up.

  “Well, Korla?” Verrarc got up and walked over to the bedside. “What might this be but evil spirits?”

  “Ah, gods protect!” She crossed her fingers in the sign of warding off witchcraft and stepped back from the bedside. “I fear me you be right, unless Gwira does ken some other thing it might be.”

  But the herbwoman had no other explanation to offer when she at last arrived. With Harl right behind, Gwira bustled in, carrying a big market basket crammed with little packets of medicaments. She took off her cloak and tossed it over a chair.

  “Does she live?” Gwira snapped.

  “She does,” Verrarc said. “I did hold my hand in front of her mouth, and I did feel her breath.”

  Gwira set the basket down on the floor, then wrapped one hand around her chin and considered Raena, who lay

  unmoving, her pale face and her hair soaked in sweat. After a moment she walked over to the side of the bed.

  “Harl did tell me that this came on all of a sudden, like.” Gwira laid a hand on Raena’s face. “Huh, I like not how cold she be.”

  She leaned over and pried open the lids of Raena’s right eye. For a moment more Raena lay wrapped in her faint, but the fire crackled, a log burned through and dropped, and a brief flood of light leapt up and washed the room. Raena suddenly moaned. Gwira let her go and stepped back just as she woke, twisting under the blanket and moaning again. When she opened her eyes, Verrarc nearly wept with relief at seeing her soul look out of them. When he held out his hand, she worked hers free of the blanket and laid it in his grasp. It felt as cold and wet as if she’d grasped snow.

  “The light upon the eye, it do work wonders,” Gwira said. “It does drive the spirit away.”

  “Here!” Verrarc said. “You too think her possessed!”

  “I ken naught else that it might be.” Gwira glanced at Korla. “Fetch me water, if you please. I can brew her up somewhat with a bit of strength in it, but after that, this be a matter for our Spirit Talker, not me.”

  Korla shuddered and crossed her fingers again.

  “So,” Verrarc whispered. “So! I wonder, then, if it truly were a spirit who did kill our Demet.”

  “It may be,” Gwira said. “And if so, then it does threaten the town still.”

  “Harl?” Verrarc turned to find him trembling in the doorway. “Go fetch Mistress Werda. It were best she knew of this and now.”

  “Evil spirits,” Kiel said. “Councilman Verrarc did say that he be as sure as sure that evil spirits murdered your man. They did try to possess his lady last night, says he.”

  Niffa snorted and rolled her eyes heavenward.

  “Gwira does say it be true,” Kiel went on, “and Harl and Korla, too. You see, the councilman came to my squad on the wall this dawn, and he did tell us all about it.”

  “That be hogwash!” Niffa snarled. “I did see her, I tell you, laughing and prancing over Demet’s body.”

  “Ah, but did you see her slay him? Mayhap she did call up these spirits, but they did the murdering, not her. Or even, what if they did possess her that night, so she kenned not what she did?”

  Niffa felt like slapping him. The whole family had gathered round the table in their main room, Dera in the chair at the head, Lael on one bench, Niffa and Kiel on the other. Dera sat twisting and untwisting a bit of rag with both hands. Lael leaned forward, elbows on the table. The fire in the hearth crackled and flared, sending a wash of light over Lael’s worn face. Niffa realized that she and Kiel both were waiting for their father to speak.

  “Did the Council of Five believe Verrarc?” Lael said at last.

  “They did. Gwira did speak before them, but truly, what did make up their minds, it were the silver light that Gart and the watch saw that night. I mean, who but a spirit could have made that light glow on Citadel? The sergeant, he did see it clear as clear, and he be not a fanciful man.”

  “That be true a thousand times.” Lael glanced her way. “Niffa, you do look as angry as a balked weasel!”

  “Well, if they do think it were a murdering spirit, never will they try Raena under our laws. Huh, if I did speak of visions and such, who would believe me?”

  “No one,” Lael said. “And so you’d best not say one word.”

  “Da! How can you—”

  “Hush!” Lael held up a broad hand for silence. “Think you I be happy with this whole thing? Demet’s mother and I, we did speak together but the other morn, and both of our hearts ache to see Demet’s death lawfully avenged. Yet would it gladden our hearts to lose you too? I’ve no heart to see you turned out of the town because the citizens, they do think you the worst sort of witch.”

  Niffa opened her mouth and shut it again. When Dera made a little sound, the family turned toward her.

  “Your father be right.” Dera wiped her eyes on the rag.

  “Of course I be so,” Lael snapped. “Niffa, think! You be sure as sure the woman’s a murderer, when the whole town, it does think the opposite. Why?”

  Niffa opened her mouth to answer only to have her words desert her. But a moment before she had known deep in her soul that Raena had murdered Demet and a host of other persons as well. She poisoned them. The words rang in her mind, but faced with Lael’s rational question, her mind refused to say more.

  “I know not,” Niffa stammered. “I just do.”

  “Here, lass.” Lael made his voice gentle. “Grief does put strange fancies in our minds. We all ken how well you loved your Demet. To lose him with not even a soul to blame—well, now.”

  Niffa felt tears burn her eyes. She tried to wipe them away, but they spilled over and ran. Kiel flung one arm around her shoulders and pulled her close.

  “Hush, hush!” he said. “Even if Raena did hang in the market square, would it bring our Demet back? Here, here, little sister! It aches my heart to see you so sad.”

  Slowly the tears stopped. Niffa wiped her face on her sleeve and grabbed a twist of straw from the floor to blow her nose. She tossed the twist into the fire and watch
ed it flare. May Raena burn with shame just as the straw burns! She looked up to find Lael watching her, one eyebrow raised, as if he knew she worked a wishing charm.

  “I do wonder one thing,” Dera said. “What does Werda think of all this talk of spirits?”

  “I know not,” Kiel said. “A fair bit, I should think.”

  Later that same day Niffa learned Werda’s opinions on the matter. Lael and Niffa were sitting by their fire, while Dera lay tucked up in the big bed across the room to rest. Kiel had already gone to sleep in the other room, since he would be standing watch on the town walls again that night. At the door someone knocked in a loud quick drumming. Niffa ran to open it and found Werda, followed by her apprentice. She was a tall woman, Werda, and lean as well, all long bones and sharp angles, muffled up that morning in her white ceremonial cloak. Athra, her apprentice, wore an ordinary grey cloak, splashed here and there with whitewash, doubtless from the large bucket of the stuff that she was carrying. Athra’s face gleamed with ointment, thick smears of lard flecked with some sort of herb from the smell of it. Blonde and round, Athra had the sort of rosy skin that chaps from a wrong look.

  “Come in quick,” Niffa said. “Do take of the warmth of our fire.”

  “My thanks,” Werda said. “It be powerful cold still.”

  All three of them trooped in. Athra set herself and her bucket down by the fire, but Lael insisted that Werda take their only chair. She sat and for a moment busied herself with untying the hood of her cloak and pulling it back.

  “How do you all fare?” Werda said finally.

  “We all be well at long last,” Lael said, glancing Dera’s way. “Thanks to the gods and to Gwira’s herbs.”

  Werda nodded unsmiling. For a moment the silence held as she sat looking back and forth twixt Lael and Niffa.

  “There be no use in polite chatter,” Werda said finally. “I did come to see you, young Niffa. No doubt you’ve heard of the evil spirit loose in town?”

  “I have,” Niffa said. “They say it did kill my Demet.”

  “Is it that you believe this?”

  Niffa hesitated, gauging the black look on her father’s face. She was aware of Athra watching her from one side and Werda from the other.

  “I know not if I believe or disbelieve,” Niffa said. “Think you it be the case?”

  “I do. I did see that woman of the councilman’s with my own eyes, and I talked a long time with Gwira and Korla about her faint. Truly, naught else could have caused her trouble but spirit possession. And then I did walk about the councilman’s house and compound, and there be spirits there, sure enough. I did feel them like a tingling in the air round the walls. With the witchvision the gods give me, I did see an evil thing: a creature much like a stork, but it had the arms and face of a man.”

  Lael swore under his breath. Niffa clasped her hands together so hard they ached.

  “Huh!” Werda said. “You’ve gone pale, lass, and I blame you not, quite frankly. I did come to ask if these spirits, they’ve been a—troubling you.”

  “They’ve not.”

  “Good.” Werda rose, gathering her cloak around her. “If you do feel the slightest alarum, then come to me straightaway. I care not if it be in the middle of the night, young Niffa. You find yourself a lantern, Lael, and bring your daughter to my house. Do you understand me?”

  “I do,” Lael said.

  “But I don’t understand,” Niffa said. “Why would they come plaguing me?”

  Werda merely looked at her with a twist to her mouth, as if she were wondering how Niffa could be so stupid. Lael sat like stone, but Niffa knew he was watching her. Her mouth went so dry she couldn’t force out one word.

  “Ah well,” Werda said at last. “The time will come when you’ll not be able to deny the truth. When it does, you come to me, and we shall talk.” She turned to Lael. “Master Lael, I wish to paint a warding on the outside of your door. I do trust you’ll not object.”

  “Of course not.” Lael got up and bowed to her. “If there be aught I can do—”

  “Nah nah nah. Today we’ll do naught but prepare the door.” Werda nodded at Athra and the bucket. “On the morrow we’ll be back to work the charm, once the whitewash does dry.”

  “Well and good, then. Will you be painting such on the entire town?”

  “We won’t.” Werda paused for a significant look Niffa’s way. “Only on the public places, the Council House and suchlike, and then on those few homes that I do deem vulnerable.”

  They went out, and Lael closed the door and latched it against the wind while Niffa mended up the fire again. They could hear Werda through the door, instructing Athra, and the soft whisk of the brush. Until the holy woman and her apprentice had finished, no one said a word. At the sound of their leaving, Dera sat up in bed and ran her hands through her hair to push it back from her face.

  “You did well, lass,” Lael said to Niffa.

  Dera nodded her agreement. Niffa managed a brief smile and stood up.

  “I be weary again,” Niffa said. “I’d best go lie down.”

  “Ai, my poor lass!” Dera said. “It does seem that all you do is sleep.”

  “Mayhap. But this news—whose heart wouldn’t it weary?”

  In the long weeks since Demet’s death, Niffa had indeed been hiding from her grief in the refuge of her dreams. Since childhood she had spent her nights in many-colored kingdoms of sleep, had longed for sleep and dreams and treasured those she remembered upon waking. Now, however, the dreams had become more urgent than the doings of the day. While her parents talked in the great room, she crawled into her blankets across the room from Kiel, who was snoring worse than the wind in the chimney. In their wooden pen the ferrets chirped to her, but she lacked the strength to say a word to them.

  As soon as she lay down, she felt as if she’d stepped into a boat and glided effortlessly out into a strange lake, huge and rippled with waves. She dreamt, as she often had, of Demet. Today she saw him standing on the far shore of the pale turquoise water. Her boat sailed steadily forward, but the shore just as steadily receded. At last she saw him turn and walk away into the white mists, and her dream faded.

  In the middle of the night she suddenly woke. Kiel’s bed lay empty. She could guess that the noise he’d made leaving to go on watch had wakened her. She got up, went to the tiny window, and pulled back the thick hide that kept the wind out. By craning her neck she could just see over the rooftops of Citadel, falling away down to the lake. A sliver of moon hung over the town, and she realized that soon the moon would go into its dark time. It had been full when they’d laid Demet’s dead body out in the forest for the wild things. A half turn of the moon gone, she thought, and my grief rules me still.

  All at once she heard someone come into the room. She turned, smiling, expecting to see Kiel, returned for some forgotten bit of his gear. No one was there. The cold draught from the window ran down her back and made her gasp, but she held the hide up nonetheless for the little light the moon gave her. In their pens the ferrets suddenly began rustling the straw. She could recognize Ambo’s chuckle of warning; as their hob he would defend his pack. Someone, something stood in the doorway across the room. She was sure of it, could see nothing—but Ambo must have smelled it, whatever it was. He began to hiss in little moist bursts of sound like sucked-in breaths. Her danger-warning grew stronger. His hissing turned into one long threat. She could hear him rushing around the pen and scattering straw as he searched for this unseen intruder.

  Suddenly the presence vanished. Ambo stopped hissing. The other ferrets chuckled, then fell silent; she could hear them all moving in the straw again. The icy air from the window was making her shiver so badly that she let the ox hide fall. In the dark she made her way back to bed and lay down, huddling and shivering under the blankets. She knew that she should wake the house and run to Werda, but the cold had got into her bones, or so she felt, and she couldn’t make herself get out of the warm wrap of her bed.

/>   “The jeopard, it be gone.” The voice was Werda’s, but Niffa heard it only in her mind. “You may sleep, child.”

  Niffa sobbed once. Slowly the ferrets quieted. For a long while she lay shivering, sure that she would stay awake the entire night.

  But suddenly she woke to morning and the sound of her mother and father talking in the room just beyond her door. She sat up and looked around. The ferrets lay piled on top of each other, asleep in the straw. Had she dreamt their ghostly visitor and Ambo’s hiss?

  “I do dream so many strange things,” she muttered to herself.

  But Werda’s voice, she knew, had been real, no matter how hard she tried to explain it away. She said nothing to her kinfolk, but all that morning she noticed them watching her as she sat in her corner by the hearth with one or another of the ferrets in her lap.

  Werda returned near midday, her arms full of bundles wrapped in rough sacking. Athra trailed after, carrying a big covered kettle. The kettle went by the fire to warm, whilst the bundles got set down carefully on the plank table.

  “The warding black, it does contain pitch,” Werda said, pointing at the kettle. “In this cold weather, it does grow too stiff to use after a bit.” She considered the bundles for a moment, then picked one up and handed it to Niffa. “This be for you. Set it at the head of your bed.”

  The bundle contained what at first glance seemed to be an ordinary pottery bowl. When Niffa took it, she could see that in truth it was a pair of bowls, the outer stuck to the inner with more pitch. A thin black line of squiggly decoration covered the inner bowl, starting at the middle of the flat bottom, then winding in a tight spiral out to the rim.

  “It does confuse the spirits,” Werda said. “That line of writing be a spell, and their curiosity does drive them into the bowl to read it, and then they slip between the bowls and cannot find their way out again. Once every some days Athra will fetch the trap away and leave another, that we may deal with the spirits in it once and for all.”

  “My thanks,” Niffa said, stammering a little. “I do ken that I need such.”

  “Indeed?” Werda looked at her with a twist to her mouth. “It gladdens my heart that you do.”