Wolfsangel

17

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 shore 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 god of the moon had snatched 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 impassable 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 spaces.

‘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, Tassi, 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 superstition about sorcerers and were not about to allow him to enchant them.

‘Hello, Tassi,’ 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 Tassi. ‘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 Tassi, ‘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: Tassi 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 Tassi, 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 Tassi. He slouched off towards the hall.

Adisla didn’t like to admit it but Tassi 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 passing 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 grass 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.

Still he didn’t speak but she couldn’t shake his gaze. Was this what it was like, she wondered, to be enchanted?

‘You don’t seem too concerned about it.’

‘I am a wolf.’

She thought that he didn’t understand the trouble he was in. Or did death not mean the same to him as it did to her?

‘You are the Fenris Wolf,’ she said, ‘fettered and chained.’

‘Fenrisulfr will break his fetters one day, say the prophecies.’

Adisla felt a chill go through her. She had always found that myth disturbing. The god Loki had had monstrous children, one of which was the gigantic Fenris Wolf. The gods had been so afraid of Fenrisulfr that they tricked it into fetters. Lashed by a cord called Thin to a rock called Scream, a sword thrust into its jaws to keep them open, its saliva ran out to become a river called Hope. The tale said the wolf would lie there until the twilight of the gods — Ragnarok — when it would break its bonds and kill the All-Father Odin. It would usher in a new age, ruled by beautiful, just, fair spirits, not the corrupt, battle-mad, vengeful and deceitful gods they called the Aesir, of which Odin was the chief.

The rhyme from the prophecy went through her head. The fetters shall burst and the wolf run free

Much do I know and more can see.

Her mother had told her the story when she was a child and Adisla had been thrilled and scared.

‘But you are not the Fenris Wolf,’ she said, ‘or you would break your fetters.’

‘No,’ said the wolfman. He seemed very sad.

‘Would you like some food or drink?’ said Adisla.

‘Yes,’ said the wolfman.

Adisla went over to the hall. Everyone was too drunk to notice her, everyone except Vali, who caught her eye and then looked away. She took some bread and butter from the mead bench, along with a cup. On her way back she drew water from the well and dipped the cup into the bucket. Then she approached the wolfman again.

She fed him the bread, pushing it into his mouth, almost afraid he might bite her. He ate it slowly, not gulping it like an animal as she had expected him to do. Still he held her gaze. He’s showing me he’s human, she thought. He says he’s a wolf but that’s not really what he wants me to see. Then she held the cup to his lips.

‘More?’

‘Yes.’

She refilled the cup three or four times. The man did not seem like a savage or a sorcerer. His eyes were not furious; he didn’t spit at her or curse her. Adisla studied him closely. She could see he was very like Vali indeed, although his face was more weather-beaten and leaner. She reached forward and touched his hair — it was like Vali’s too. But he wasn’t exactly the same, only very similar. Did she still think he was a sorcerer? She didn’t know.

‘I didn’t think wolfmen could speak,’ she said.

‘I only know two,’ he said. ‘One doesn’t, but I do, when I must.’

‘When is that?’

‘Not much,’ said the wolfman.

‘Is your mother a wolfwoman. Or a wolf?’ she said.

‘My family are like you. I lost them when I was young.’

‘They died?’

‘No, I lost them, on a hillside. My wolf father looked after me from then.’

He was more like Vali than Adisla had thought. He too had been effectively orphaned at an early age. Why did she feel so sorry for this bandit, so fascinated by him?

‘You were given to a wizard?’

‘Not a wizard, a wolf.’

‘A wolf like you?’

‘Yes.’

They said nothing for a while; she just helped him eat and drink.

Then the wolfman said, ‘Why are you helping me?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Your kinsmen beat me and tied me here. Are you a traitor to them?’

‘I am true to myself,’ said Adisla. ‘I am a free woman and no one commands me.’

The wolfman was watching her very intently now.

‘What is your name?’ she said.

‘I am a wolf.’

‘Don’t wolves have names?’

‘No.’

‘Well, wolf, I am Adisla,’ she said.

For the first time he broke from staring at her to look at the ground.

‘My family called me Feileg,’ he said, ‘but I lost my name when I lost them.’

‘You seem unused to kindness, Feileg.’

‘I am a wolf,’ he said. She found herself looking into his eyes again. They were like Vali’s, without the humour but also without the discomfort that so often radiated from the prince.

She sensed he wanted to ask her something. Was this it? The spell that enchanters work, was it coming over her?

‘What?’ said Adisla.

‘Marry me,’ said the wolfman.

If it was a spell, that broke it. Adisla burst out laughing. ‘I’m afraid, sir, that your prospects seem a little bleak for that right now.’

‘I will escape,’ said the wolfman. ‘Marry me. We have spoken, we have exchanged kindnesses. Then you go to your kin and they arrange it. My mother said this is how it is done. I have many treasures in the hills and I will spread them before you. Go to your kin.’

Adisla stood.

‘I’m afraid it’s a bit more complicated than that,’ she said. ‘I will not marry you, but I’ll stay here and protect you for the night, so you’ll come to no harm until the great harm that awaits you on the full moon. And I shall sing to you.’

And Adisla did sing, not in the discordant way she had used to torment her captors, but as she could, clear and high, a song about a farmer’s boy who risked his life for the love of a princess, and was killed by her brothers as he slept next to his beloved.

‘Do your people allow women to sing such things?’ said the wolfman when she was finished.

‘No,’ said Adisla, ‘but there are none here to hear it. And I am not an enchantress, as you are not a sorcerer.’ She looked down at the cup in her hands. ‘There’s no one here to bewitch anyway, even if we were.’ And then she sat with him and watched the moon climb in the sky.