The Islands of the Blessed (23 page)

Jack stifled a laugh of his own. How could anyone feel lighthearted after being told he was lower than a louse crawling on a dog's belly? “Doesn't fasting weaken you?” he said, looking at the line of mournful monks.

“Don't be ridiculous,” scoffed Father Severus. “I've gone a month on seaweed and water alone. Those men's bodies may
be lean, but their souls are as fit as greyhounds. Or soon will be,” he said.

Jack dipped his bread into the nettle soup to make it soft enough to chew. “I'm curious about Sister Wulfhilda's hand. Did she undergo a trial by ordeal?” he asked.

“You always were an observant lad,” the abbot said, not entirely pleased. “Wulfhilda fixed her husband a dish of forest mushrooms, and he died. She was accused of poisoning him.”

“It could have been an accident.”

“That's why we have trials by ordeal, to sort accidents from evil,” said Father Severus. “I ordered the iron heated— using the large-size metal bar because of the seriousness of the charge—and Wulfhilda carried it the required nine steps.”

“You
ordered it?” Jack said, horrified.

“You can't think Brutus did,” said Father Severus. “That sorry excuse for a king couldn't discipline a puppy for piddling on his foot.”

“But—” Jack was about to say,
But you aren't king
when he remembered the Bard had said that Father Severus was the ruler in all but name. “It was so cruel.”

The abbot laughed cheerlessly. Apparently, laughter wasn't forbidden for him. “Murder is cruel. Some of these monks are felons of the worst order, pardoned by the grace of God. If I relaxed my hold over them, they'd be at one another's throats in no time. As it happens, Wulfhilda's hand didn't fester and she was proven innocent. I admitted her as a nun because she had nowhere else to go.”

And perhaps she could no longer earn a living
, Jack thought.
He'd become aware of the restrictions such an injury caused from watching Thorgil. You couldn't milk a cow or sew. You couldn't spin thread, shuck peas, or braid hair. Much of what you did became slower and clumsier. It seemed insane that an innocent person had to maim herself just to prove she'd picked the wrong mushroom in the woods.

When they returned to the chapel, Jack saw Thorgil and Sister Wulfhilda laughing and talking in the distance. The abbot's eyes narrowed, but by the time he got closer, all laughter had stopped. The nun's head was bowed and her eyes were respectfully fixed on the ground. Thorgil perched on a bench, swinging her foot.

Father Severus produced a bag of silver from his sleeve and handed it to Jack. “You may tell Dragon Tongue I've fulfilled his conditions. Now he must fulfill mine. He must never ask to see Ethne again. Give me the key to her door, Sister Wulfhilda, and when you return to the convent, tell Sister Hedwigga to give you six strokes with the light cane. You know why.” With that, he turned and strode away.

“Pig,” said Thorgil under her breath. “You come with us, Wulfie. You'll have much more fun.”

The nun shook her head. “I couldn't go off with Northmen, not after what they did to the Holy Isle. But I'll keep an eye on Ethne for you.”

The knights brought out Thorgil's palfrey. The shield maiden rode away from the monastery looking as dignified as a court lady, until they reached the top of the hill. Then she hitched up her skirts and screamed, “Go for it!” The palfrey
broke into a gallop and thundered down the other side. Jack had all he could do to keep up with her. The knights on their larger horses almost collided with the trees, but Thorgil zigged and zagged through them with ease. She pulled up at a crossroad where one road led to town and the other to Din Guardi. A noisy stream flowed along one side.

“Oh, Freya! What an awful place!” she cried, and then she screamed at the top of her lungs, making the palfrey dance sideways with alarm. “There! I feel better.” She leaped to the ground. “You can't imagine how bad it is, Jack. Ethne's body is crawling with lice, and her hair looks like a bramble bush. She's so thin, I didn't even recognize her. Her skin is covered in sores. I know I'm not the cleanest person around, but I would never, ever, allow myself to get into such a state. And she thinks it's good for her soul!”

“Perhaps it is. She has to try harder than the rest of us,” Jack said.

“I don't know what it takes to make a soul, but I'm sure it's not providing a free lunch for lice,” Thorgil said passionately. “And Wulfie! Do you know what they did to her?”

“I heard about the trial by ordeal,” said Jack.

“The monastery confiscated her husband's land, and when she was proven innocent, they didn't give it back. I'm so glad we pillaged the Holy Isle.”

“Be quiet,” Jack said, glancing at the knights, but they were busy sharing a skin of wine by the stream. “The Holy Isle wasn't like St. Filian's,” he said in a low voice. “They were gentle folk who helped all who came to them. St. Filian's was
always stocked with renegades who were hardly better than pirates.”

“I know,” Thorgil said. “Brother Aiden is so decent, he makes even me feel sorry for burning the place down.” She took off her shoes and cooled her feet in the rushing stream. “What I don't understand is why Father Severus is so changed.”

“The Bard says that power has corrupted him,” said Jack.

“Wulfie says he goes out during the dark of the moon,” the shield maiden said. “He walks in the forest, and when he returns, he locks himself in his cell and flogs himself with a whip.”

Jack went cold. He remembered the Bugaboo's mother speaking about the Man in the Moon.
He's one of the old gods
, she said.
He's doomed to ride the night sky alone, and being with him is like being lost on an endless sea with no star to guide you. He visits the green world only during the dark of the moon, and his conversation is both cheerless and disturbing.
It was the Man in the Moon who had made an ally of Unlife.

But Father Severus didn't believe in the old gods. He would surely ignore any voices he heard on his walks.

“Not only that, someone died in the infirmary and Father Severus ordered the monk who cared for him flogged. That's his cure for everything.”

“There's nothing we can do about it. We'd better go on to Din Guardi,” Jack said.

The Bard was sitting in the Swan Room, writing on a wax-coated tablet of wood with a metal stylus. It was a method Brother Aiden had shown him for organizing tasks. When the
Bard had finished the list of chores, he smoothed out the wax so he could make another list.

King Brutus had been correct. The walls and curtains of the Swan Room were so white, the old man's robes almost disappeared against them. Only his ruddy face and hands were clearly visible. He looked up expectantly.

“It's as bad as you thought,” Thorgil told him. “Filthy, depressing, and dark. But Ethne still refuses to leave. I
was
able to smuggle everything in.”

“Smuggle?” said Jack.

The shield maiden grinned. “You'd be surprised by how much you can hide under a skirt—packets of dried meat, cheeses, the rest of Pega's special scones, a knife, a small mirror, a comb. With all the buckets of water Ethne has stored at the back of her cell, she could withstand a siege. The nun Wulfhilda has promised to check up on her.”

“Excellent work!” the Bard complimented her. “Ethne may not want to leave now, but by the time we return from Notland, she'll be ready. And if we don't survive Notland, Skakki has promised to free her. I don't think Father Severus will enjoy how he does it, and I don't much care.”

Jack looked from one to the other, annoyed that they hadn't included him in the plan. “How do you know Ethne will be ready?”

“We Northmen have much experience with hunger, especially during winter,” Thorgil explained. “At first you crave food all the time. You can't think of anything else. But after a while you fall into a kind of trance and feel nothing at all.
At the end of winter Olaf used to go around to the farms and wake people up. That's what's wrong with Ethne. She's been eating that wretched monastery food for so long, her spirits are in a deep sleep.”

“The comb and mirror?”

“Those were my idea,” said the Bard. “My daughter isn't the most imaginative creature alive, and I'm fairly certain she has no idea how much her beauty has faded. When she looks into the mirror, she's going to get the shock of her life.”

“She already has.” Thorgil chuckled. “She was running her fingers through that rat's nest of hair when I left.”

That evening King Brutus threw one of his parties. The central courtyard was filled with lanterns, and musicians played sweet music from bowers around the edge. Tables were set with roast salmon, suckling pig, green peas flavored with mint, apples cooked with honey, and many other delights. Jack thought of Ethne and wished he could send something to her.

Much of the entertainment was provided by Nimue, the Lady of the Lake, whose tall figure sent a memory of pain down Jack's spine. She had paralyzed him with elf-shot at their first meeting. The Lady danced with her nymphs around a fountain, she in shimmering white robes with her pale gold hair floating like a mist, the nymphs in glittering scales. Afterward they twined around the king's throne, and Nimue insisted on feeding bits of marzipan “to her dear Brutie-Wootie.”

“I think I'm going to throw up,” said Thorgil.

“If she keeps feeding Brutie-Wootie that gooey stuff,
he's
going to throw up,” Jack said. They both laughed.

The air was soft and warm. Unseen flowers wafted perfume over the courtyard, knights danced with ladies, pages went around with trays of sweets, and as the daylight faded in the west, a full yellow moon rose over the fortress wall. Jack suddenly came alert.

“The moon was only half full last night,” he said.

“That means this courtyard is full of glamour,” said Thorgil, wrinkling her nose. “I told you those floors were unsafe. All Nimue has to do is turn the glamour off, and everything falls into the cellar.”

“I think—hope—most of this is real.” Jack looked around for the Bard and found him sitting against a far wall, observing the festivities. He was shadowy, as though he were sitting under a half-moon rather than a full one. The old man wouldn't be taken in by glamour, the boy thought. He'd know what was real and what wasn't.

“I hated this place when it was in the grip of Unlife,” Jack said, “but I don't like it much now, either. Why can't people enjoy things as they are?”

“We'll soon have a ship under our feet and a wind at our backs. You can't get realer than that,” said Thorgil. For the first time Jack felt a stir of interest in the adventure they were about to have. Up till then he'd been eaten up with chores—selling potions, bartering, packing, feeding horses, running errands. Now they were about to turn their backs on the safe, predictable world and go off into the blue. Who wouldn't be happy about that?

But first they had to settle the problem of the Tanners.

“You like Mrs. Tanner, don't you?” said Skakki for the fifth time.

Schlaup shuffled nervously from foot to foot. “Sure,” he said, also for the fifth time. The Bard, Jack, Thorgil, and Skakki were meeting with him in a secluded corner of the secret Northman harbor.

“And you've said you want her for a wife,” prompted Skakki. Jack closed his eyes. This had to be the most insane idea ever, trying to get a declaration of marriage out of a tongue-tied lout, but the Bard had said it was their best option. Troll males fell in love only once, and it was clear that Schlaup was besotted with Mrs. Tanner.

“Sure, I want to marry her, but …” The giant wrinkled his browridge in perplexity.

“Well, what?” demanded Jack. They'd been going at this for an hour, trying to extract a response from the bashful lout. If it were up to him, he'd dump the Tanners on a lonely beach and make them walk back to Bebba's Town. But Thorgil had pointed out that they knew the location of the secret Northman harbor. They would most certainly sell that information.

“It wouldn't be decent,” Schlaup mumbled.

“Of course it isn't decent! We're talking about the Tanners here,” cried Jack, losing his temper.

“Now, lad, we don't have a lot of choices,” said the Bard. “We can't free them and we can't kill them. The only other possibility is to take them along.”

“I know a man in Edwin's Town who'd buy them as slaves,” offered Skakki.

“Never!” roared Schlaup with more energy than he'd shown so far.

“Then you have to make a decision, big brother,” said Thorgil. “I don't know what you're so worried about. If one wife doesn't work out, you can always get more. Olaf had three—four, if we include your mother.”

“I know how these things are done,” Schlaup burst out suddenly. “Just because I'm not smart doesn't mean I don't know how marriages happen. First, the troll-maiden asks you to dance. She brings you presents: elks, bears, that sort of thing. Then she weaves you a cloak out of spidersilk, which she has pulled herself from the spinnerets of a giant spider.
Lastly”—he blushed deeply, turning a bright orange—”she drags you into her cave. The next morning everyone looks to see how many scratches she's left on your browridge.”

Everyone stared openmouthed at the giant. They had never heard him talk so much.

“So
that's
the problem,” exclaimed Skakki. “I don't know why I didn't think of it before. Schlaup, my brother, humans don't get wives the same way. That's why your sisters handed you over to us. You couldn't talk with your mind, and the troll-maidens ignored you.”

“You don't have to rub it in,” the giant said.