“Ragnar,” Flokki said, “is below. In the ice caves. In chains.”
The persistent disagreement troubled the court. They mumbled, wobbling benches, lesser members wriggling, the elders scratching their beards. Several stood, several argued. Protocol and precedence suspect, situations without clear validity, the impossibility of upholding a law incapable of covering new circumstances. Thoddun’s orders had been clear. Now alone again, they wavered. Flokki was central in a grey swaying throng of disturbed and nervous uncertainty. “I’ve had enough. Any of you want to judge in favour of the damned wolf-woman, and I’m resigning my office.”
The mumbling became louder. “Call Thoddun,” Karr insisted from the back row. “He’s the one to decide after all.”
“Since there’s no precedence,” Mandegga squealed, “Thoddun can’t decide validity until the claim against him is decided. What if Orm kills him? Thoddun might not end up leader at all. Until then, his own authority’s under dispute.”
The second elder sniggered. “We all know the outcome.”
“Irrelevant,” said Mandegga, flaring nostrils. “Leaders have to uphold the legalities. Even Thoddun insists things are done properly, according to law.”
“How can we make decisions without guidance?”
“It’s the difficulty of the human,” said another. “No one’s ever brought humans amongst us before. We’ve no way of judging the legality.”
“And admit our law inflexible?” Flokki scowled at the squash of body to body, breath to breath, scuffling of boots. “We’ve always ignored humanity. So we simply ignore this one too. Lord Thoddun says she holds no position. Neither dominant nor subservient. Then we act as though she isn’t here. Indeed, she isn’t here. So, the Lady Mandegga could have claimed dominance, being the only female present, remembering the human doesn’t officially exist. But the bitch is all pride and no sense. She demanded mating rights and wanted reinstating in the king’s quarters. Thoddun refused. That’s his choice. Who can deny it? He’s a man, like the rest of us, and can fuck who he likes. He’s not obliged to mate with any female, not of any rank.”
“It’s his prick,” Karr shouted from the back. “He can stick it where he wants.”
A short plump elder clapped vigorously. “That’s it. The man doesn’t like the bitch. Fair enough. I don’t like her either.” Nodding heads filled the surrounding shadows like dark, disconnected ripples.
Another shrugged, despondent. “But why not? There’s no females anywhere anymore. When we find one, we should take her. Pass her around perhaps.”
A tall slim man stood and coughed loudly for attention. “The lord’s choice is certainly his own,” he said. “That’s the law too. Alright, we don’t often get females here, let alone two of them, but it’s years I’ve studied precedence for the Althing. Lord Thoddun knows it all anyway, he’s a skald and singer and he calls the sagas, human and transanima both. I say the lead male isn’t obligated to mate with the lead female. He’s not obligated to mate or breed at all. In such a case, any dominant female is relegated to lead only the other females, with no power over the males. The top bitch only rules the bitches, as it were. Shall we offer that alternative?”
“Pompous fools,” Mandegga glared to both sides and all around. “Why should I be content to lead only females, when there are none? I could battle half the men here, and leave them as crow’s pickings.”
Flokki stepped forwards. “Is that a challenge?”
Aroused, the wolf shape-shimmer gleamed behind her eyes. It excited the packed benches. Each man stared back, aware of old desires. “Yes, if you like,” smiled Mandegga. “But first I challenge the human female.”
The elder sighed and stepped back. “How absurd. Haven’t we already covered this pissing nonsensical argument a hundred times?”
Mandegga stood directly below torch flare. She licked her lips and the light gleamed wet across her mouth. “Not at all. You’ve ruled I can’t challenge the human for any claim on position. I can’t be dominant. The human isn’t dominant. No dominant female can exist here. Very well, it’s ridiculous, but I accept it. I accept I can’t make any claim through her or in spite of her. So I challenge her as an equal. A legal spar, unarmed, before witnesses.” Nodding of heads, shaking of heads. Mandegga raised both arms, triumph or supplication, and the torch light turned her torn sleeves pure gold.
“For what purpose and on what grounds?” demanded one elder. “There’s no ruling for wergild. The human’s taken nothing from you and done you no harm. She’d have more claims against you, if she chose to press them. Why challenge her?”
Mandegga said, “On the contrary.” Her stridency commanded attention. “She’s taken everything from me. My bed. My rightful place. You can’t dispute I once lived there. She’s taken my husband. He refuses to admit mating with her, but every man of you knows that’s a lie. He brought her north across land after the collapse of the southern tunnels, an arduous journey in man-form, which he had no need to make. He visits her in his own chambers often and at length. Is he a castrate, to deny copulation?”
Orm had been standing beside Mandegga, watching carefully. His wrists were still bruised by the marks of the chains, but he stood at ease. Where the serpent had been struck over and over by the birds, the sides of his clothes were striped with old cracked blood. But he seemed pleased, even gleeful, as he waited in silence.
Mandegga paused, watching the court’s faces and their reactions, smiling triumphant. “Lastly,” she continued, “she’s taken my chance of position. Her very presence has created unprecedented circumstances, where, according to your ruling, in spite of the castle being inhabited by two females, neither of them can be judged dominant. All these conditions are to my detriment. I can challenge the woman on these grounds. Whether she is guest or otherwise makes no difference. I can claim wergild, and challenge her for first blood. When I beat her I gain no dominance and I get no prize, but I shall get a deal of satisfaction. I have that right.” She turned to the man who had announced himself an expert on Althing precedence. “You, Skallagrim,” she said. “Dare deny me! You know it’s just. It stands within precedence, and it stands within the law.”
“Perhaps,” muttered Skallagrim. “You could challenge the human. But she doesn’t have to accept.”
Mandegga, exchanging smiles with Orm, answered at once. “Of course. But if she refuses, she must leave. Exile. That’s also law.”
“How can you exile a guest?” snorted the elder. “You think we’re beasts, who don’t know about normal hospitality?”
“We need to see what the human says,” answered Skallagrim.
Flokki bowed to disruption. He doubted his king would be pleased, but authority and the law were not always compatible. “Then call for the human,” he said. “At least she should answer with her own arguments in front of the court.”
Skallagrim and several others shook their heads. “Thoddun insisted the human shouldn’t be involved,” said Karr. “He won’t be pleased.”
“I shall call on him too,” said Flokki. “This court must decide once and for all. And the king must be present for that.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Safn stared through the shadows. Bright raven eyes see well in the dark. Wolf eyes stared back.
“You’re no elder,” growled Mandegga. “You’ve no right here. I deny you.”
“Well, lady,” Safn cocked his head to one side, “since you’re locked in chains and I’m not, there’s not a great deal you can deny me. I’ll talk. You don’t have to answer.”
The door was between them, but the door was iron barred, and made only a partial barrier. Beyond the door, bedraggled in the dank grime of the cell, Mandegga’s silks trailed and stank. Her chains rubbed and rattled with the chill clank of surrender. But the wolf eyes showed no glint of surrender, and Mandegga’s voice was strident.
“You’ve come to gloat then. When I’m awarded the dominance that’s mine by right, I shall tear the feathers from your
skinny bones, bird.”
“So defiant. So defensive.” Safn paused, watching the woman half crouched before him. “Is it,” he asked eventually, “because of being the only one? Feeling isolated and therefore misunderstood? But in truth, we all feel that. We are all the only one. There are, at least, more wolves than any other creature.”
Mandegga’s eyes turned huge and golden haloed around their bright black centres. “You want to understand me, scavenger? Come closer then, little bird. I shall Shift, and eat you up. Then you’ll understand me well enough.”
Safn smiled. He merged into the shadows, and the smile was visible only in his thoughts. “I remember you from before,” he nodded. “As dominant female you were never a leader. You took no risk on behalf of your people, not even for the benefit of the wolves. I’m no pack animal, but I know the pride of a group leader. It comes from the willingness to fight on the group’s behalf, to think of their need as your own need, and their comfort should come first. If none of that is attempted, the followers have no desire to follow and no respect for the creature they are told is above them. Forgive me, lady, but when you were dominant female, you served no purpose and such was spoken loud.”
“Fool.” Mandegga stood, rising up from the midst of her torn squalor, stamping both small fee though her shoes were cracked and leaking. Her plump shoulders hunched abruptly. Safn regarded her and took a thoughtful step backwards.
“If you Change here,” he said, “you will still be chained. But the chain will prove too tight and cut your flesh.”
“The wolf,” she answered him, “never tires. She fears neither pain nor injury. The pack is loyal to the leader, as my wolves are still loyal to me. Loyalty is not confined by self-interest, but by the knowledge of one greater than themselves. My blood and my flesh call for the right I was born with, to be dominant female and bed the king. I will accept no less. I –,” she slumped momentarily and Safn fleetingly read her thoughts before she shut them tight within her, and continued, “I cannot accept less. It is not how I breathe. It is not how I piss. It is not how I live.”
“It is not how you want to live.” Safn leaned against the iced rock wall, narrowing his eyes and crossing his arms. “You’re hungry. Nothing more. Hungry for adoration and supplication. But you’ll never get that from Lord Thoddun.”
“I don’t want anything from the old fool except his bed.”
“Why that?” Safn was momentarily diverted. “Is he such a grand lover? The bear to the puny wolf? Does that excite you?”
He watched Mandegga’s hands twitch and curl, the tips of her fingers catching the gleam from the ice as they turned to claws, then flicked back to a woman’s pale flesh again. She fisted them, spitting. “The man’s of no use to me. His bed means dominance. Nothing more.”
“Which is why you showed him none of that loyalty you speak of, when you did share his bed? Which is why he whipped you, exiled you, and threw you from the hall?” Safn turned, once again part of the drifting shadows. “You had the dominance you craved. But that brought you neither peace nor satisfaction. You abused your position. Even the wolves despised you.”
Mandegga reared, and would have sprung had there been space. She pulled herself back, trembling with fury, and glared at her unwanted visitor. “You lowly bone bag. Scrawny midden-picker. Not enough feathers to fill a pillow. How dare you lecture me, who have been your leader and am above criticism. Who sent you?”
Safn’s smile was smug and he paused, allowing her to see his thoughts. But the thoughts he allowed her to see were those he had already woven with care. Finally he said, “Why did you bother to come back?”
He turned then, strutting off with a click of shoes on ice, until he climbed the great stone stairs back into the busy realm of the transanima above ground.
Mandegga waited until he had left, He was too far away to hear either voice or thoughts when she hissed, “For revenge,” and slunk back to the corner of her cell.
There for a moment she stayed. Then her shoulders shivered, as if sinking downwards into something warmer and more comfortable. Her wide lipless smile grew over bright golden eyes. The anger faded and her face slid peacefully into happiness. The wolf fur sprang down her arms in small wiry tufts, barely breaking through the plump skin as the muscles rose up beneath, bursting from the ripped silks.
She stretched her legs and the little cracked leather shoes turned to soft paws with the sickle gleam of clawed nails. Her Shift was slow, relishing the escape from smaller confines, delighting in the release of the itch, fulfilling the greater need. The wolf fur lengthened, springing up along the backbone as the woman dropped to her hands and arched her back. Her claws grew longer. The snap of her canine teeth pleased her, the pleasure of power after the small crunch of a woman’s bite. Mandegga shook her head as the dog ears sprouted, sprang forwards, listening, and stayed alert. She shook herself as a dog shakes rain from its coat, and then she faced the door and sat, fully wolf.
The Change achieved without hindrance, was always a satisfaction beyond any other, and when the urge was great, its fulfilment became an inner beauty, a thrill of mastership and utter joy. But this time there was a hindrance. The iron fetters around her ankles chaffed and rubbed, slicing into Mandegga’s flesh, both wolf and woman. She began to lick her wounds. She had many, though none were serious. But she worried at the knotted grey fur and the bleeding grazes, grooming and caring, until each small wound closed, clean, less angry and less painful. Before she returned to woman, she would nourish a calm confidence she had not felt before.
“Intelligent? I think not,” Safn said. He spoke to Karr, and Egil sat at his side, watching. Leaning.
“The rules of the Althing don’t cover what goes on between court hearings, then?” Egil asked. “Visiting prisoners, for instance?”
“Not your concern,” Safn turned back to Karr. “She assumed Lord Thoddun had sent me. She was pleased. I saw the smug satisfaction in her mind before she blocked it.”
“So Thoddun didn’t send you?”
“Of course not. He has no interest, and if he wanted to know something of her, he’s have gone down to her himself.”
Karr frowned. “So what point did you have in going? What did you gain?”
“I went for myself,” Safn said.
“Ravens,” sighed Karr, “are always aggravated by curiosity. Picking over discarded scraps. Turning rubbish over and over until the threads are worn, and there’s nothing left to pick at.”
Safn laughed. “The wolf-woman was once my queen. My king’s mate. I bowed to her. But I always despised her, as most of us did, even some of the wolves. So now I wanted to know what had happened, if she’d suffered, why she wished to return. It’s not the natural behaviour of a wolf – of any pack animal – to challenge and challenge again.”
“It’s the nature of any exiled pack animal to attempt a return to the pack.”
“Then I am glad not to belong to a pack,” Safn raised his chin.
“The fool always disgraces himself, loses the respect of the group and is thrown out. Then cringes, and attempts to creep back in.”
“I’ve never seen Mandegga cringing,” murmured Egil.
Safn was smiling again. “She thought I’d been sent by Lord Thoddun and now she’s convinced he secretly wants her back. Cares for her. She’ll be shocked to find he loathes her as always.”
“She wants revenge,” said Karr softly. “I doubt if anything else would interest her.”
“Exactly. She’s been setting something up. She has a plan.”
“Of course she does.” Karr shrugged. “Don’t we know it? It’s under our noses. Even a raven can smell a plan that obvious. We can smell the plan from an ocean off.”
“Another plan,” Saf said. “Something else. Something hidden.”
“If there’s another plan, nasty no doubt, however much she thinks to keep it secret, then you can wager Thoddun knows about it already.”
Safn scratched his nose, beak-like. �
�Most probably. Lord Thoddun always seems to know everything. And if she thinks to use him, then her shock will be all the merrier.”
“She’s used Orm. I liked Orm. Revenge is one thing. Spoiling a good man’s future is another.”
“Is Orm a good man?”
“But doesn’t everyone like him?” asked Egil.
Safn and Karr turned quickly. “You shouldn’t be her,” Karr told Egil. “And don’t you go repeating any of this. It isn’t for children.” He paused. “But it’s one way to learn. At least – to learn how never to behave once you’re a flyer and accepted as adult.”
Egil sniggered. “Challenge the leader and try to make myself dominant? Oh yes – I’m bound to have a go at that sometime soon.”
Safn leaned out and gently cuffed Egil’s ear. “Fledglings don’t answer back. Amongst all the rest, learn your place. And your place is downwind.” He nodded to Karr, and turned to leave. “We all liked Orm, it’s true. But he was bound to push forward one day. You could see it in his eyes. You could smell it on his breath.”
“And the damned frustration,” Karr said, voice soft, “of no female and no relief.” His voice shrank further into a muttered whisper. “The rest of us swive once we’ve Shifted. No transanima woman to share our beds? Then we mate as bear, as bird, as lynx, dolphin or wolf. But not Orm. There’s no serpent in the world to match him, neither male nor female.”
“Any more like him? I doubt it. They talk of the great serpents of the deep, but I’ve either sailed or flown all my life, and only ever seen Orm.”
“And if there are, they won’t be females.” Egil was imagining the twining of golden scales, and rubbed his eyes. “At least, not nice willing cuddly females. Does that make a difference?”
“Nothing you should be thinking about, boy.” Karr said. “Master the flying and master the Shift. The other stuff comes much later in our world.”
“Speaking of our world, Orm was cheerful enough with the women of the Sheep Islands.”
Stars and a Wind- The Complete Trilogy Page 44