Wolfsangel. Part 12

He pulled the wolfman down from his horse and tied him to a birch tree near Forkbeard's hall. He called out in a loud voice, declaring the man his prisoner and warning that no one should do him any harm until Forkbeard had seen him. More mead was offered to him. He accepted. Then Adisla was there, running down the hillside, calling out his name. She was laughing, almost jumping with joy. Vali couldn't help but start laughing himself, the sort of laugh that comes from someone who bends to tie his shoe and feels a rock whizz past his head.

She fell on him and hugged him, and he kissed her as she clung to him.

'I have to say,' she said, 'I didn't have a great deal of faith you would make it back.'

'We're so alike,' said Vali. 'Neither did I.'

She laughed again, although when he looked down at her he could see she was crying.

'How did you do it?'

'I don't know. I'm waiting to hear what the skalds come up with. I'm going to say I challenged him to three compet.i.tions, eating, drinking and fighting, and made him so drunk with the drinking that I tied him up. What do you think?'

'They'll say you fought him.'

'Well,' said Vali, 'let them then. Who knows, maybe I did. I would have fought a score of wolfmen for you.'

'Only a score?' said Adisla.

'There has to be a limit,' said Vali, 'and a score is mine. One more than that and you'd be on your own.'

This joking and teasing was familiar to them but there was more to it now, something more insistent. Vali felt that his only way forward was with this girl, the only way he could see the future. He had to tell her what had been between them since the moment they met but neither of them had ever quite managed to say.

'I love you.'

She looked into his eyes. 'Yes.'

'You don't say you love me.'

'Because the feeling is too strong. If I speak it I would never be able to deny it.'

She hardly managed to get the end of the sentence out, stammering into sobs and putting her hand to her face to disguise her tears.

'Do you intend to deny it?'

She said nothing and turned her face away.

'You cannot forget me, Adisla.'

'I'll never forget you.' She threw her arms around him and wept into his shoulder.

'Will you marry him?'

Adisla stepped back from him, composed herself and looked directly into Vali's eyes. Even through her tears she looked so pretty, thought Vali. He wanted to stop her crying, to make it all all right for her, to see her smile and hear her laugh, but he knew that he was the cause of all her miseries. He was a hair's breadth from everything he had ever wanted - the girl he loved, a beautiful summer afternoon, the sun warm beneath the fresh breeze - but it may as well all have been an ocean away.

'You will?' he said.

'Vali, I will not be your concubine and I cannot be your wife. What choice do I have?'

Vali nodded. 'Drengi is a fine man. He's been a good friend to all of us. I wish you could have picked someone who I could have consoled myself by hating.'

'I didn't pick him, Vali. How many men are there to choose from? Five farmers' sons in the whole area, and three of those wouldn't look at me because I have such a skinny dowry. And I am old, Vali, three summers past the time most girls are married. Fate put us together.'

'No,' said Vali. 'Fate put us together. Our skein is woven into one cloth. The wolfman was given to me - I didn't need to lift a finger. The G.o.ds were on my side.'

'I've never heard you mention the G.o.ds before.'

'I've never needed them before. I swear, Lord Odin, give me this girl or I will move against you in whatever way I can.'

On a tree behind the hall two ravens alighted.

Adisla's eyes widened. 'Well,' she said, stroking Vali's cheek, 'he's heard you now.'

Vali felt tears come into his own eyes, though he chuckled. 'Well, listen to this then, you couple of mangy chickens. Tell your master that if I don't get what I want then I'm coming for him. He should keep his spear by his side because if he defies me the G.o.ds' final day starts here!' He tapped his sword.

The ravens took off again, moving low across the buildings, their black shapes rising up and over the hill like forgetful little pieces of the night flapping out of the day.

'Sshhh!' said Adisla, almost ducking. 'What if those are his intelligencers?' She laughed but Vali could see that she meant what she said.

He smiled. 'Let's hope they are,' he said, 'because I want him to hear the message.'

Vali wasn't sure at first if the blow had caught him on his chest or his back. It was so hard that it nearly knocked him into Adisla. He turned to see Bragi, the old man's face glowing and his arms wide.

'You did it, boy, you did it. I never had a moment's doubt. How could you fail with the training you've had? You did it.'

'Thank you, Bragi,' said Vali. 'I couldn't have done it without you.'

The old man almost danced a jig.

'Let me see the old girl,' he said, taking the sword from Vali's scabbard. 'I bet you had a good sup of wolf blood, didn't you, my lady?'

Vali looked at Adisla. There was the destiny he wanted - home, hearth and love - ready to walk away from him. He looked at Bragi, the destiny that had been thrust upon him, and for the first time saw it was useless to resist.

'I killed three of them,' said Vali. 'It was the crafty pommel strike you drilled into me that did for two.'

'Good lad, good lad! More mead, more mead!' said Bragi. 'This is a king, didn't I tell you, this is a king!'

17 Strange Meeting.

Vali stayed in the hall, drinking away the raw emotions that were in him. Adisla did not join the party. She had said what she had to say and could see that her presence was causing him torment.

Vali collapsed with the others who had celebrated his return - a collection of old warriors, youths and the handful of un-favoured jarls who had stayed behind when Forkbeard sailed east. He became drunker and more unhappy with every sip he took. Eventually - he couldn't remember how it happened - he was fighting someone. His opponent was worse for wear than he was and collapsed on the floor under his blows, cold unconscious. All Vali could focus on was Bragi's face, red and roaring, holding up his arm and saying what a mighty man he had raised. The acclaim of the hall rang in his ears. He could drink no more and crawled beneath a bench, where he slept, his body restless but his mind dead.

Adisla, however, did not sleep. She returned to her mother and told her to accept the offer of marriage from Drengi. Disa, who had not been able to leave her bed since she was burned, hugged her daughter to her.

'You're sure. You'll leave your prince behind?'

'This is the fate that has been woven for me. The sh.o.r.e may as well wish to be the sea as I to marry him.'

Disa held the sobbing girl to her.

'Go on,' said Adisla. 'Let it be done quickly.' Disa let her go and sent Manni up to the hill farms.

Adisla could not sleep that night - though it wasn't the enduring sun that kept her awake but her thoughts. It was no use, her bed might have been made of nettles for all the chance she had of sleeping in it. She got up and wandered down to the sea. It was as near to night as the midsummer had to offer, a pale washed-out light like that of the pre-dawn rather than true deep darkness. She found herself by the hall, listening to the sounds of drunken laughter from inside. It was late but the drinking showed no signs of stopping.

Adisla couldn't bring herself to share in the fun, even though she had the most to celebrate. She felt hollow with misery but knew she had done the right thing. Her thoughts were like trolls, reaching at her from the darkness of her mind. She tried to lose herself in the beauty of the moon, low and huge against the sky of smoky silver. It was nearly full. For a month or more her destiny had been tied to it. Now, in days, she thought, Forkbeard would be home. She thought of the story of how the G.o.d of the moon had s.n.a.t.c.hed two children while they drew water at a well, and how those children now rode with him in his chariot in the sky, pursued by a dreadful wolf called hate, who snapped at their heels. She had a wolf following her, one that had been set on her at birth - her station, her rank. She had seen what she wanted as if from across an impa.s.sable river.

Suddenly she felt very cold. She was, she noticed, sitting in the shadow of a pale birch tree. The darkness there seemed unnaturally deep and the air around her was very still, as if it had a weight to it, one that she would struggle to push away. And behind her she felt a presence, something quite unlike anything she had felt before, something that seemed born of cold waters and dark, damp s.p.a.ces.

'Is there someone there?' She felt ridiculous saying this.

She stood and looked around. Like an arrow storm, starlings broke across the moon, wheeling in a shifting black cloud that turned and darted as one. The sudden changes in the birds' direction made Adisla think of a thousand tiny gates opening and closing in the sky and of a story Vali had told her, one he'd got from Arab merchants, of a djinn, a demon of smoke, towering over her.

As quickly as they had come the birds were gone and with them the cold and oppressive feeling in the air. It was then she thought of the wolfman. She looked up past the last of the houses to the single birch where he was tied.

She was curious to see this strange bandit who had been forced to trade his life for hers, so she made her way up the hill. When she got to the birch, Ta.s.si, the fat old man who had been charged with guarding him, was sitting on a low three-legged stool and looking very unhappy. Next to him was the wolfman, seated on the ground, leaning against the tree with his hands tied to it behind his back. He still had the bag on his head. The people of Eikund shared Vali's superst.i.tion about sorcerers and were not about to allow him to enchant them.

'h.e.l.lo, Ta.s.si,' said Adisla.

'You're not about to start singing, are you? He might be a wolfman but he doesn't deserve that. We draw the line at hanging 'em round here.'

'No,' said Adisla.

She looked at the wolfman. He was naked apart from a wolf pelt around his back and his body was smeared in a grey substance that she took to be chalk dust. The only places free of the grey were two red sores on his stomach and chest.

His muscles were remarkable, even to a farm girl who lived among people strong through toil. Even the berserks, with their potions and their constant drilling with weapons, their wrestling and their tests of strength, were not made like that. The man's muscles seemed almost twisted onto his bones, like willow roots around stone.

She was almost inclined to check he was securely tied - she wondered that a normal rope could hold him.

'Quite a specimen, isn't he?' said Ta.s.si. 'Although I got tired of looking at him after about ten breaths and now I wouldn't mind just getting slaughtered.'

Adisla didn't reply. She was scared of the wolfman but intrigued by him. Was it true what people said - that he had the head of a wolf, or that only the best steel could cut him? The man didn't look dangerous now. He was clearly exhausted and breathing heavily.

'I said,' said Ta.s.si, 'that I wouldn't mind the chance to take a cup of ale.'

'So?'

'Well, if you are going to be here for a while, couldn't you watch him and if he tries to get away just come and get me?'

'Couldn't you have paid one of the children to do that?' Then she remembered: Ta.s.si was notoriously mean. He didn't pay for anything if he could help it.

He shrugged as if she had made a ludicrous suggestion.

'Go and have a drink,' she said, 'but don't be too long, I want to go home to bed soon.'

'Make sure you don't take him with you,' said Ta.s.si, smiling and getting up.

'What?'

'I see the way you look at him,' he said. 'He's out of bounds but, should you be in the mood . . .'

'Go and have your drink,' said Adisla.

'As you like,' said Ta.s.si. He slouched off towards the hall.

Adisla didn't like to admit it but Ta.s.si had been right to a point. She did find the wolfman fascinating, but she couldn't find a man like that attractive. He stank for a start, a musty smell more animal than human. She sat down on the stool. She wanted to say something sympathetic, something to make him feel better, but couldn't think of anything. Instead, she heard herself ask: 'Are you sorry for your crimes now?'

The wolfman said nothing. A shadow flitted across her and Adisla looked up to see what it was. There was nothing there, though the speed of its pa.s.sing made her think of the starlings. She was possessed by a sudden urge to see what he looked like. She thought that if he tried to enchant her then she would just look away.

There was no one about and the riotous sounds from the hall were as loud as ever. She leaned forward and touched his arm. It was just as it looked, hard as a tree. Some of the grey came off on her fingers. She licked at it. As she had thought, it was some sort of chalk. The wolfman had not flinched when she touched him and this made her bolder. She lifted up the hood on his head. Now he did move, his head lolling forward. At first she thought he really did have an animal's head. Then she realised it was the pelt of a large wolf, which had slipped down to cover his face. He coughed, and stretched his neck. Gingerly she lifted the pelt and was so surprised she sat back down on the stool. Vali was looking straight at her.

'You are a sorcerer!' The implications of what she saw began to sink in. If this was a shape-shifter, if he could appear exactly as Vali, then - if he got free - he could take the prince's place, eat with them, play and who knows what more? Perhaps they would have climbed the hills and lain kissing on the gra.s.s together. Perhaps they would have gone out in the little boat, as she and Vali often did. And then what? Murder, as wolves always murdered.

The man blinked at her. He cleared his throat and said slowly, 'Not a sorcerer.' His voice was low and cracked, with a strange accent. He produced his words carefully, as if they were fragile things that might break if he let them out too quickly. It was as if he was unused to speaking.

'Then what are you?'

'I am a wolf.'

Adisla was careful not to look at him directly for too long, in case he cast a spell on her.

'You've stolen the face of the prince.'

'This face was given me by a brother. I am proud to wear it. I look through his eyes and he sees again through me. I wear his fur and he runs again, through me.'

Adisla realised he was talking about the wolf pelt.

'You are a fetch,' she said, 'a subtle, scheming shape-changer. Who sent you here?'

'I stole the food of a black-hued man. He enchanted me and brought me to this place.'

Now Adisla did laugh. Vali, she well knew, was more interested in playing king's table and mooning about the hills than he was in magic.

'You're black-hued yourself, no need for insults.'

'It is true,' he said. 'I am a wolf.'

'And now what is to happen to you, wolf?'

He said nothing, just looked into her eyes.

'They will hang you,' she said.