Wolfskin (33 page)

“Nothing,” he growled.

“I want to help you,” Nessa said cautiously. “I can tell something is wrong.”

“Why would you help?” he muttered. “Your folk are killers, destroyers of the innocent. You break your promises.”

Nessa stared at him. “What do you mean?” she asked. “That is not true.”

“First Ulf. He made peace, and your people strung him up to die a slow death. I know; I found him. And a woman was burned with her children, just because she wed one of us. Hakon was a good man. He did not deserve that. If you hate us so much, why shelter me? Why not hand me straight over to King Engus?”

Nessa gaped. “How can you say that? That the widow, Ara, was killed by her own folk? We would never do such a thing, it is against all we believe in. It was your people killed her. A savage, cruel murder, like that of your chieftain, Ulf. How dare you accuse us of such deeds? Would we destroy our own children when we have so few left?”

There was a silence.

“I'm sorry,” she added, watching the play of expressions on his drawn features. “It is the truth. Our people had no hand in this act of evil.”

“You say, then, that it was my kind who lit that fire? I will not believe it.”

“I have no reason to lie to you.”

“Our people would not murder a Wolfskin, with his family by him. I saw their bodies. I helped to bury them. It cannot be so.” There was a note in his voice that belied the words; it came to Nessa that he spoke less to convince her than to deny a truth already known.

“What is this word, Wolfskin?” she asked him. “I don't understand.”

“A special kind of warrior; a man such as I am—was. To pass the test, we battle the wolf. We wear his skin. Thor calls; we answer. Hakon, who was burned, he was such a one in times past. A friend. No man deserves such a death, a death without honor.”

Nessa frowned. She had finished her flatcake; he had eaten only the smallest fragment of his own. “Surely it is not without honor to die protecting your family,” she said. “That was what I heard. It was terrible, but at least they were together. He sheltered them as best he could.”

The young man set the cup down abruptly and put his head in his hands. The dogs moved in on the scattered remnants of the food.

“I'm sorry,” Nessa said again.

“A Wolfskin lives and dies on the field of battle.” His voice was not much more than a whisper. “He is obedient only to Thor's will; that is his sole purpose. If he is slain thus, he is carried straight to the god's right hand, a reward unequalled in life. A Wolfskin charges forward, whatever the odds, armed with his own courage, his own strength of will. If he cannot do that, if he can no longer hear Thor's voice, he is…” His voice faded away altogether.

“Lost?” asked Nessa gently, and when there was no response, she got up and busied herself tidying, and opening the roof slab so they could make a fire, and generally trying to give him a little time. She was not sure she had understood all that he said. He hated his weakness, that was plain. The bleak emptiness in his eyes, the flatness of his voice chilled her. If he had not reached out for her last night, she might have thought he had given up. Still, a man who wants to die does not seek shelter. And there were the dogs, keeping close to him, guarding him almost like—almost like family.

“I do not know
wolf,
” she said. “Is a wolf like a dog, only bigger?”

“He is very brave. Fierce, wild, loyal to his own. A fine hunter. A leader. Such was the chieftain I killed: a king of wolves.”

“Did you kill him with your axe?”

“With my hands.”

“Your
hands?
” Nessa thought of that huge skin hanging now in Rona's cottage, a pelt as big as a pony's, almost. She knelt down beside him and turned his hands over, palms up, wondering how even such a large man could manage such a feat. “When did you do this?”

He shook his head. “Long ago, in another land. When I was a boy. In my fifteenth year.”

“That is very young. How could you kill such a great creature with your bare hands?”

“I don't know,” he said tightly.

“What is this?” Nessa asked him, her fingers moving to touch the scar above his wrist, a long line that scored the forearm deep. She had seen it before, when they changed his clothes, and wondered.

His hands balled themselves into fists. “Nothing,” he snapped, trying to pull away from her.

“That is strange,” Nessa said. “When I touch this, I see—” She broke off. Before her eyes was last night's dream, the climbing, the vista, the cutting, the falling. She shivered.

“What's wrong?” His voice had changed completely. “What's the matter?” His big hand came up over hers, and now it was she who snatched her fingers away, backing up to leave safe space between them.

“Nothing. I–I just wondered. I'm sorry, it is not my business.”

“Why do you ask so many questions? What do you want me to do?”

“I told you, I want to help you. Help you regain your strength, and then…and then go wherever you want to go.”

“You will not want to do that when I tell you…when I tell you…” His voice began to shake.

“You should rest again,” Nessa said. “Lie down. There.”

“It's too much,” he muttered. “You're only a girl…but I can't, I can't even stand up, I'm good for nothing anymore….”

“If that worries you, there is a simple solution. Eat what I give you, rest when I tell you, and get better quickly so you can look after yourself. Even a…even a Wolfskin can't go without food and drink for so many days and expect to be himself. Lie there a while. Do you know Brother Tadhg? The holy man?”

He nodded weakly.

“Tadhg told me something once. He said, no matter what you've done, no matter how terrible it is, as long as you are truly sorry you can be forgiven. That means you can go on, no matter what mistakes you have made. His god is a god of love; he loves all his creatures, no matter what their past may be.”

“Are you a Christian, then?” he asked her. “Is that why you tend to a man whose axe bears the lifeblood of your own folk?”

Nessa shuddered. “No, I am of a far more ancient faith, a darker faith. It is not so easy for me to forgive, and the ancestors do not forget. The shadow of ill deeds lingers in the hollows of the land and darkens the waters. It rustles in the leaves; the wind howls the song of sorrow. It cannot be put aside as if it had never been.”

“Then why do you keep me safe?”

“Because I know I must. I have known it since I first saw you. The signs tell me.”

“Signs? What signs?”

“Shh. You must rest.”

“Will you stay here with me?”

“Only until you fall asleep again. And only if you promise to eat, later. Promise me.”

But he was overtaken by shivering again, and could not answer her. His sleep, when it came, was fitful, brief snatches of slumber ended by sudden, white-faced waking, as if what he saw in his dreams was too terrible to be endured longer. Later, he attempted to eat what she had prepared, but could not hold even the few mouthfuls he took in his stomach long. When he had retched it up into the bowl she held for him, he turned his face away from her.

“Sorry,” he said. “I don't think there's much point, really.”

“Are you telling me I can't do this?” Nessa asked him fiercely, overtaken suddenly with feelings she could not explain: frustration, fear, and something perilously like what had been there, for a moment, when she woke that morning in his arms. “You think we should just—give up?”

“You don't know me,” he whispered. “Once I was a man, a warrior. Now I am nothing, not worth your efforts, not worth your care. Thor has abandoned me. I disgust him. I disgust myself. Why should you bother with me?”

“You could tell me about it if you want to,” Nessa said. “Then I could make up my own mind.”

“I would distress you. I would frighten you away.”

“I'm a priestess,” she reminded him. “I don't frighten so easily. Tomorrow you could tell me. Or the next day. This is a new path; perhaps we must walk it more slowly, until the two of us learn it.”

 

Progress was indeed slow. He nibbled at the food she gave him, eating scarcely enough to keep a vole alive. He drank the teas she brewed. He spoke less and less as the days passed, responding only when she asked him a direct question, and then as briefly as he could. He was wary of Rona, a sentiment the old woman returned.

Because his sleep was fitful and much visited by night terrors, the two women tried to sit with him in turns and keep the little fire going, since the young man seemed to feel the cold so badly.

“That's a chill that's right inside,” Rona observed. “The spirit's frozen; no wonder he can't stop shaking, for all the fire and the dogs and the nice warm cloak that should be on your own shoulders, not his. There's a kind of curse on him, a darkness. He'll never get warm until that's lifted. I don't like it, and I don't like him, child. If you're not careful, this one will take and take until there's nothing left of you to give.”

Nessa only shook her head. Maybe right now this young warrior seemed weak and hopeless, a wreck of a man unable to help himself. But she had seen him before. She had seen and recognized what he was. The ancestors knew him. The dogs had guarded him. It was just a matter of waiting, and taking one step at a time.

He talked to himself sometimes.

“Cursed islands,” Nessa heard him muttering one day as she watched him pretending to eat the soup she had prepared. The dogs were growing fatter, sleek and content, but he was like a pale shadow warrior. “Godforsaken place. There's nothing but loss here, death and loss.”

Nessa put a little more turf on the fire. Outside, the wind scoured the land, whipping sand into a stinging curtain, driving salt spray far into the dunes, so that everything was damp and clammy. Rona had stayed in the cottage. Nessa knew the old woman's joints ached on days like this, though Rona never said so.

“I hate this,” the young man whispered, giving up altogether and putting the soup bowl on the earthen floor, where the bitch soon licked it clean. “I hate this place. These islands set frost in the bones and winter in the heart.”

Nessa stared at him. “Oh, no,” she said softly. “You see from your own pain, and so you do not see truly. The Light Isles are a place of wonder, Eyvi. You need only open your eyes. And you can do it, I've seen you. I've seen you watching the sea and the sky. That's how I know…” She was not sure how to finish this.

“Know what?”

“Know that you have a part to play here. Know that somehow you belong here. If not for that, I would have done Rona's bidding and turned you over to King Engus. Believe me, I do not make a habit of sheltering enemy warriors in this place sacred to the women's mysteries. I did so because I recognize something in you that you have forgotten, or have not yet seen.”

“You say I belong here.” He would not look at her, but she could see the shadow of disbelief in his eyes. “That is not true. This place has destroyed me.”

“You want to go home, then? Back across the ocean? Would that make all well for you?”

He was silent a while; it seemed the effort of maintaining a conversation had exhausted him. “When the wolf becomes too weak to hunt, when he can neither lead nor follow, it is the end for him,” he said eventually. “I belong nowhere.”

“You could become strong again,” Nessa ventured, “if you would eat. This dog came here as weak and damaged as yourself. She's growing well now, see her bright eyes? You could help yourself, Eyvi.”

“Grow strong to what purpose? There is no purpose. Grow strong to face my enemy and hear only Thor's silence? Grow well to find I can no longer do what my whole life has prepared me for? I should not have sheltered here. I should have had the courage to end it. Thor did not want me to come to these islands; he punishes me with a shame that is lifelong.”

Nessa hated the flat, hopeless tone of his voice. “You're making me angry, Eyvi,” she said sternly.

Now he looked at her. “Angry? Why?”

“Because it is such a waste. Unlike the wolf, a man can tread another path. Unlike that wild creature, a man can listen for other calls, can make a choice about his future. I, too, wish winter was over. The time of darkness stretches out; it sets a shadow on every spirit, even the gladdest and most innocent. But we need it. We need it to rest, and reflect, and become open to the mysteries. Waking cannot exist without sleeping.”

He seemed to be listening; his eyes were fixed on her face now. He said nothing.

“If it were spring, I would take you up to the high cliffs south of this bay,” Nessa said, seeing it as she spoke. “There is a little hollow, a grassy cup just below the clifftop where you can sit and look out far over the western sea, so far it seems you might see the edge of the world itself. The sun warms that small, safe place; the earth holds you in a hand more ancient than the oldest stories of the first ancestors. And yet, sitting there is like being poised on the brink of something new: a fresh beginning, clear and strong as the wind from the sea. There are so many birds there, Eyvi, all kinds, wheeling and gliding, coming in and out with fish for the small ones on the ledges. It is an endless dance of wind and feather, balance and brightness. Their cries make a music, a wild song that sounds above the endless roar of the sea, borne on the breath of the west wind. If you were well, and it were spring, I would take you there. To sit there in stillness, to let it unfold around you, is to know the wonder of this place.”

He was silent; his fingers moved to stroke the dog's gray hair behind the ears. Watching Nessa, his eyes were bleak and empty.

“Summer days are long in the Light Isles,” she went on. “The best time then is early in the morning, when the sea shows a thousand colors, pearl, dove gray, silver, duck-egg green, sweet soft blue. At such a time, it
is easy to hear the voices of the ancestors, whispering words of peace, words of belonging. I walk on the shore at those times, but slowly, because there are so many treasures to find: so many wonders to capture the eye. Each little stone is different, its shape and color all its own; each one is lovely and mysterious. Some have patterns, pale lines in a strange tracery like old, old writing in some language lost from memory. Sometimes I sit and hold one in my hand, and wonder if the message flows into me somehow, making me wise in the ways of the earth. The weed washes in and drapes those stones in a feathery cloak; the sand clings to them, and makes small hills and valleys around their curves. There is so much to discover there: tangled fronds of kelp like a puzzle; delicate, secret shells; tiny crabs like bright jewels; shy, creeping plants; long-legged foraging birds whose feet make their own neat script in the sand. So much to see, if only your eyes are open. When the sun is setting, in springtime, the wet beach shines like fire, and the sky glows with an enchantment of colors. These things are part of us, Eyvi; they are our life, and we are theirs. Because of that, we do not give up hope, even in times of terrible darkness. That's why I wish things were different now, so I could walk that way with you, and show you.”