Raven Speak (9781442402492) (11 page)

The woman only mumbled an unintelligible response, busy as she was with stabbing at a slippery mussel in her own bowl. She finally plucked up one blue-black disc with her fingers, critically eyed the partially opened shell, and flung it toward the cave's mouth. Asa expected its clatter to bring the two ravens' flapping descent, but the stone entry remained silent. Where had they
flown off to?

The woman seemed to have no interest in her birds now; her focus was her meal. She held her head tilted so that her one eyeball looked straight down on the bowl, much like a gull targeting a surf-washed tidbit. After a few more stabbing motions she carefully lifted her spoon to her mouth, lips puckered eagerly. She sucked in the small lump of meat with a drawn-out burble and ignored the broth that trickled down her fuzzed chin. Then she tilted her head, aimed her spoon at another mussel, and returned to her stabbing.

The woman was truly odd, Asa thought, and as changeable as the weather: friendly and generous one moment, then aloof and temperamental the next. Well, she was here for the night, so she might as well make the best of it. “I still don't know your name,” she said in a second effort to make conversation.

Engrossed in chasing a mussel around her bowl, the woman answered absently: “Wenda.”

“And you don't have any clan?” Asa asked, searching the room once more for evidence of others.

The woman, Wenda, had her spoon with its glistening glob of mussel halfway to her seeking lips, but there she checked it to ponder the question. A moment passed; she shook her head and popped the mussel into her mouth.

Asa responded with the incredulity of a person who'd never lived a day unaccompanied. “Aren't you lonely?”

A wistful smile formed at the corners of Wenda's mouth as she chewed and gazed dreamily into the fire. Even after she'd
swallowed and was resting her spoon inside her bowl, she kept staring glassy-eyed at the low flames, the smile fixed upon her face.

Had the old woman lost her way? Or was she purposely being secretive?

Behind her Asa heard Rune sigh with deep contentment and flop onto his side. She glanced over her shoulder to see him stretch his neck long and rub his cheek against the stone floor in short jabs, finding just the right spot. He heaved another sigh and went still.

At least her horse was untroubled. She, however, was becoming ever more vexed. Pursing her lips, she turned back and leveled a glare at the bemused old woman. Didn't Wenda care about being a good host? Why was her
guest
having to make all the conversation? It had been easier, she thought, to coax words from a feverish toddler.

As a nudge, she rattled her spoon inside her bowl. Nothing. She coughed, held her hand to her stomach, and coughed again, violently. The woman didn't so much as blink. Well, that was it; she was done trying. Then and there she vowed not to speak again unless spoken to, even if that meant passing the entire night in silence; lifting her bowl to her chin, she methodically sipped the yellowish broth with feigned concentration.

“I've not been lonely a single day of my life.”

Asa peered across the bowl's rim to find Wenda smiling to herself with great pride.

“In fact, I can't even imagine being lonely,” the woman went on. “I've loved and been loved, for a season at least. Now I have Flap and Fancy, and every day they bring me stories from the far corners of the world, the like of which you've never imagined. Through their eyes I've seen a people who can walk on water; I know of men who live in stone bee hives, as well as the immense distance to a land where the birds stand taller than children and yet not a one of them can fly.” She began rocking forward and back in a pensive rhythm. “You may have two good eyes, child, but you'll never see these things.”

The unexpected flood of words took Asa by surprise; the topic irritated like nettles. It was that talk again: of the two ravens acting like people, speaking like people. The talk of fools. She glanced toward the dark entry, but the two birds must have settled into their nest.

Wenda was awaiting her response, she sensed, but for a noticeably long stretch—while the fire crackled and spit, while the wind outside the cave paused to listen—Asa dragged her spoon through her bowl. What was she supposed to say?
How does a man walk on water? How can a raven tell you such a thing?
Well, she wasn't going to demean herself with such nonsensical talk.

Hunching her shoulders and keeping her gaze fixed firmly downward, she tried to wait out the awkwardness. But gradually, ever so gradually—and this, too, was odd—she began to feel Wenda's one blue eye boring through her. She felt it tapping on her skull at first, softly, insistently, demanding her to look up and
then forcibly raising her chin by a will more powerful than her own … until she found herself staring directly into the hooded orb. Words in her mind swirled as if through a hailstorm. A question formed. No, she wasn't going to ask it. But the solemn gaze demanded that she ask, and although she tried to resist, although she tightened her jaw and felt the cords in her neck grow taut, she heard the words come spilling out of her mouth in a rush: “How did you lose your eye?”

There was a slight sense of satisfaction in the cave, an aura of success, before the retort was emphatically spat: “I didn't
lose
it.” Wenda ratcheted her curving spine a
tomme
straighter. “Losing is an accident,” she pronounced, “the result of brutality or coincidence. Losing requires no thought. I, however, gave a great deal of thought to the value of my eye and, after much thought, I decided to trade it.”

Trade it! Willingly? Asa squirmed. She glanced toward the cave's mouth with new longing.

“I
thoughtfully
traded my eye for something that I hold more dearly than life itself.”

The hiss of rain couldn't mask the insistent tapping Asa felt on her skull again: ask—ask!
What was more dear than life itself?
But this time she anchored her spoon in her bowl, pressed her lips together, and appeared fascinated with a green half-moon of leek floating in her broth.

“I've not had a moment's regret,” Wenda said, speaking over the loudening rain. “You, with your child's fascination with appearances,
may find me hideous, but I'm happy—mostly happy.”

A deafening
whoosh
curtained the cave, thankfully drowning further conversation for the present. Wenda set down her bowl to snug her cloak tighter around her neck, and for the first time Asa noticed how thin the wrist was that extended from the sleeve of her tunic, how bluish the veins that webbed both hands. Was the woman ill? Maybe that explained the feverish talk. After all, she was incredibly old; who knew how many winters she'd seen? It was admirable, really, considering her age and frail health, how she held herself so erect. Even now she sat bolt upright, staring past Asa, waiting out the roar, her one eye blinking patiently.

The rain pounded and the wind blew, and when a handful of fat drops were hurled into the cave, Rune woke with a snort. As suddenly as the storm had started though, it exhaled and grew quiet. And as if she'd been merely waiting for that moment, Wenda directed her pale, one-eyed gaze upon Asa.

“Any more questions?”

She had more questions. Her head buzzed with them, in fact. Or maybe it buzzed with exhaustion. She watched Rune collapse full-out again. Firelight tipped the fur on his hipbone a pale gold and danced across his arching cage of ribs. Dried blood still matted his neck and chest; she'd have to attend to that come morning. From the shadows beyond him, the blue cloak shimmered faintly.
All right
… she indicated the cloak with a nod. “Where did that come from?”

Wenda picked at the fraying hem of her sleeve and, as if simply to aggravate her, replied, “Why do you ask?”

“Because I think I've seen it before.” No, she hadn't really. “I mean, I heard a story told by our skald, Jorgen …” She was becoming ever more irritated with the woman's games. “But you must know of him, because you knew his name … ?”

The woman lifted her bowl to her lips, quenching her enigmatic smile, though she watched Asa steadily across its rim.

“Or I thought you mentioned him.” Asa faltered. Her memories seemed to cloud. Why couldn't she think straight tonight? “But anyway, he told a story—I remember this much—about a woman who wore a blue cloak trimmed with crystals and glass beads. She was a seer, and”—she indicated the garment again—“that is exactly as I pictured it in my head.”

The woman slowly sipped the broth from the bowl. She licked her thin lips then, deliberately and thoughtfully, and said, “Tell me about your skald. Has he served your clan well?”

The rotting odor of Jorgen's breath suddenly filmed Asa's face. The stench was as nauseatingly strong as if he knelt nose-to-nose with her at that very moment, proffering his yellow-toothed grin. She remembered how he'd eyed her father's empty seat, recalled how he'd edged his way around the fire toward it, pausing to share a word and thus disguise his true intentions, but all the while hungering for it as blatantly as a dog does the hunter's bloody prize. And of course there was that story he'd told the other day, the one meant to coax the clan into killing the horses. “No.”

“No?”

“No,” she repeated adamantly. Her insides twisted with a nagging discomfort: She shouldn't have galloped off and left her clan so vulnerable to his schemes.

“If your father was the clan's chieftain, as you've said, why didn't he act?”

“He didn't have a chance.” She'd always defend him. “It was only after he sailed off with the other men that Jorgen tried to take control.” Or was it? Something brought her father's frowning face to mind, a rare expression for his buoyant personality. His hands were clasped beneath his beard, his index finger stroking the crease of his lip. She knew he was bridling his anger. Oh, yes. It was the day they'd played the memory game, a stormy afternoon not so long ago. He'd suggested it as a way to pass the time, to take their minds off their grumbling stomachs and their whimpering children.

She remembered now. “I have a game of interest,” he'd said with enthusiasm. A fierce, whistling wind sent straight from Odin mocked his small human voice, forcing him to repeat himself. “I have a game of interest,” he said louder, and everyone looked up. “We shall imagine we are going
a-viking
, all of us, even the little ones.” And at that, two of the younger boys had sat up from their mattresses. “I will name one item,” he said, “that I will pack for our voyage, and then the person to my right will repeat that item and name an item that they wish to bring, and then the next person will repeat both items and add a third, and so on. Do you
understand?” Heads nodded, some weakly but all willingly—all except Jorgen's. She remembered that also. For some reason she'd been watching him, over there in his corner whittling another of his spooky, bulbous-eyed creatures. He seemed to laugh to himself and shake his head derisively. He scratched his ribs, she remembered, and pointedly refused to join the circle forming around the fire.

“Good,” her father had said, either oblivious to the skald's insolence or ignoring it. “Then I shall begin. On our seafaring voyage of good fortune, I shall bring a fearsome sword.” He addressed Asa's mother, who was bent over a pair of breeches, needle in hand. “And you, dear?”

“I'll bring my fearsome needle,” she said, “or this mending will never get done.” A few of the women laughed at that.

“No, no, no. You have to repeat what I said—a fearsome sword—and then add yours.”

“Oh, all right. I'll bring—”

“On our seafaring voyage of good fortune … ,” he prompted.

Asa's mother sighed. “On our seafaring voyage of good fortune,” she repeated, “I will bring a fearsome sword and three sharp needles.”

“Good! And you?” Asa's father nodded toward Thorald.

“On our seafaring voyage of good fortune,” Thorald recited, “I will bring a fearsome sword, three sharp needles, and a haunch of elk, well-browned and juicy.” Laughter rippled around the room and the game picked up speed, some stumbling as the list
grew longer and others helping complete the recollection. When it came to Jorgen's turn, he didn't even pause. Without error he rattled off the items named by the others, though pointedly omitting the opening phrase. Then he closed his mouth without adding his own article.

Her father, ever the peacekeeper, overlooked the defiance. “Well done,” he said, and he meant it. “And what will you bring on our voyage?”

“Not a thing,” Jorgen replied.

Her father sat taller. He watched the skald with new care. “And why is that?”

“Because I wouldn't join you on a voyage. Any boat you send out is bound for the bottom of the sea.” He was referring to the fishing boat that had left ten days earlier and not returned. The two men on it, Olaf and Ari, were the clan's best fishermen, and they'd asked to take the boat out alone, not wanting to risk other lives. Asa's father had protested that the seas were too rough, the winter storms too unpredictable, but eventually he'd given in to the clan's mutinous mutterings that he was hoarding food for his precious horses while forbidding them to feed themselves.

“Olaf and Ari wanted to go,” her father argued. “They were brave men who well understood the dangers.”

“And now their wives have no one to feed them,” Jorgen shot back. “Their children are left rudderless. As clan chieftain you should have stopped them.”

All during this temperamental exchange the clan members
who'd swayed Asa's father with their grumblings held their mouths clamped shut to watch the spectacle with childlike interest.

“I was doing what the clan wanted,” her father stated.

For the first time Asa recognized the backward logic in that, and it gave her a distinctly uneasy feeling, like balancing against an outgoing tide while the surf rocked your knees and the sand washed away between your toes.