Raven Speak (9781442402492) (3 page)

Was it the deaths of his sons that had driven her father out into a wintry ocean? Or the grumblings? She'd watched as he'd tried desperately to bolster the clan's spirits with enthusiastic plans for
the coming summer: A new field would be cleared for more hay, a separate cooking house would be built for easier food preparation. Everything would improve. He openly complimented the women on their weavings and urged them to continue. He lapped up the soup that was served to him and pronounced it delicious even though everyone, including herself, could look into their bowls and see it was nothing but dregs.

But his smiles and optimism weren't enough. The cuckoo didn't come; the rains didn't cease; and the wool gave out. And hands couldn't weave hope out of nothing. The grumblings began that this was the chieftain's fault. He hadn't done enough—wasn't doing enough—to feed his clan.

So, thinner and sad-looking at last, he'd taken what few men were well enough and set out under stormy skies to find food or better land or possibly another friendly clan that had foodstuffs to share, though Thor knew they had little to trade. That left behind four women and five children, along with old Ketil, whose broken leg hadn't healed properly after his timber accident, and Jorgen the skald. Asa suspected he'd had a hand—and a tongue—in her father's ill-timed departure. While he'd always been kind to her, telling her stories and taking an interest in Rune and even carving a small likeness of him once as a gift, she seized every opportunity to escape him. There was something about him that made her skin prickle, something that wasn't right. And as she took up the comb to stroke her mother's hair, she warily studied the hunched man smiling to himself across the fire.

Jorgen held the smile on his face because she was looking at him and because it masked his real feelings. They were irritatingly strong feelings, feelings he couldn't quite control, and so he made himself smile while he sat thinking. And listening, always listening. And rocking.

She didn't fear him. That's what annoyed him the most. The others, even her pigeon-chested father, the clan's chieftain, could be made to move aside with a dark glance. It was a precious art, one he'd been polishing for many years now, and he wasn't about to let some child—a girl, no less—shrug that away.

He felt for and found the bear tooth amulet he had tied on a thong around his waist and kept next to his skin, hidden beneath his tunic. His father, the clan's skald before him, had given it to him, relating a belief about the amulet's power. He chuckled, allowing his smile to widen a crease. Funny how his father hadn't realized the heady power of his own position. For all the man's wisdom he'd never noticed how easily people could be influenced by a carefully worded compliment or chastened by a pointed rebuke. But Jorgen had; he'd hung in the shadows and watched people, all the while
waiting for his father to die. And while he was waiting, he'd come to know each weakness and each want—and discovered how one could feed the other—for every member of the clan.

When his father had finally died—a terrible accident, really, bleeding to death all alone in the forest following a mishap with his axe—Jorgen had taken his honored position at the hearth fire. He continued entertaining the clan with the stories of his father and his father before him, but he recrafted the stories here and there to fill the clan's needs and to guide their desires. He told how great men rose up; how peoples came to be conquered; how the gods, in their pleasure, sought to aid humans—or in their anger, turned away from them.

Shaking his head, he released the amulet. They were like children, really, squatting with mouths agape, waiting to be spoon-fed the pabulum that was his stories. He'd nursed them well these many years, and they loved him as children love their father. And feared him, too, as children should a father.

All except one: this copper-headed girl, Asa. And that annoyed him. He reached for the amulet again, raked the bear tooth across the skin above his hip, relishing the prick, and released it. No, it more than annoyed him: It made the blood swell in his veins. The way she refused to step off the path when he approached made his chest hurt. Her stare, too direct, with gray-blue eyes flashing to every color of the ocean, made it hard to breathe. Sometimes she even argued a story's ending, as she had just the other night in front of all the others. It had infuriated him so completely that
he'd lain sleepless till morning. Recalling it now lit a new fire beneath his skin, and he fondled the amulet. It wasn't right.

A torrent of raindrops began hammering the thatched roof, and he watched the dispirited members of the clan look upward. Worry soaked their faces, and he was quick to douse his smile, to look upward as well and be one with their misery.

The unusually foul weather of this past year had presented to him an unexpected opportunity. He'd always craved something more than he had, though up until now he'd not known exactly what that was. But as the nonstop rains rotted friendships, as the cold weakened resolve, he began noticing the chieftain's power eroding just a little. That made him think of things. And carefully, so very carefully, with all the cunning and patience of a wolf, he'd begun guiding the clan's thinking even more. He called up certain age-old stories of his father and embellished them. Or abbreviated them. He spoke ever more often of the gods' vengeance and the reasons behind it. Carefully, almost holding his breath, he deposited a suggestive whisper in one ear and a conflicting rumor in another until the clan members, blinded by misery upon misery, flopped about like fish in a net.

The chieftain had been surprisingly easy to sway. Over the past few weeks it had only taken a few private goads, along with a public appeal to pride and a veiled question of bravery, to send him off to sea in the worst of weather. And he'd taken the men with him, all but himself and old Ketil. Amazing, really, what a few well-placed words could do.

He let his eyes wander from the rafters to the empty looms set against the wall to the two figures directly across the fire. That left the chieftain's wife, leader of the clan in his absence, untended and alone. Her husband wouldn't return. Perhaps she didn't know it yet, but he did. The chieftain and his men would lose their battle with the gnashing teeth of a wintry ocean and find their graves in its depths. Their deaths would be crafted into a saga of bravery and added to the long list of others.

But here again was his problem: the chieftain's daughter, Asa, kneeling at her mother's head. His chest tightened. It seemed this girl was always in his way of late. He wouldn't have it. She'd have to be made to understand.

All that morning winds lunged at the longhouse, raking the corner timbers and pummeling the turf roof. They withdrew, gathered breath, and charged again. Their crescendoing whistles frayed into stormy shrieks.

Asa sat cross-legged at her mother's side, tending to her. With one wary eye on the skald, she wiped a rag across her mother's feverish brow; she pulled the sheepskins off her when she moaned of heat, then tucked them back around her when she shook with cold; she brewed some yarrow tea, held the bowl to her mother's lips, and coaxed her to sip. All the while she tried hard not to think about the storm churning up enormous, violent waves.

But the more she tried
not
to think about them, the more she tried
not
to see her father's ship tossed wildly about by them, the more she envisioned the men's gaunt faces in the haze of smoke drifting beneath the rafters. Their mouths gaped for air as torrents of water washed over them. Fingers groped the blackness for the slippery hold of an oar. Again and again waves slapped them loose and hands flailed blindly for help that wouldn't come.

An icy breath prickled her nape. Her stomach soured. Was
it the awful images, or had the sickness finally wormed its way into her, too? She shook it off, flipped the rag on her mother's forehead to its cool side, and stared into the fire's orange glow.

Everything was going to be fine. The
Sea Dragon
was a good ship—small, yes, but sturdy, already the victor over many a rough sailing. And with her father at the steering oar, the men would be fine, just fine. They had to be.

As if mocking her confidence, the winds doubled the whistling fury they heaved at the longhouse, and somewhere on the mountains above them a loud snap preceded a long, ripping groan that ended in a crash. Mute faces exchanged a shared thought: As sturdy as the
Sea Dragon
was, its mast was no stronger than a tree. Nausea again swept over Asa, and she closed her eyes to mouth a prayerful plea to Odin to please,
please
quell the storm, at least until her father and the others could return home.

When she opened them she saw that Jorgen was inching his way around the fire. He came slowly, casually, speaking a word here, touching a head there, but all the while betraying his intent with half-lidded glances in her direction. She stiffened, understanding at once how the spring lamb must feel when, tucked into the tall grasses by its mother and instructed to remain still, it watches the wolf approach. Her jaw clenched as Jorgen sidled right up to her mother's mattress. It wasn't exactly the chieftain's seat left vacant by her father, but it was closer than he'd have dared if her father were here. She narrowed her eyes and gave him her best warning glare; but he seemed not to notice, or to care. He just sat,
rocking on his heels and rubbing his misshapen knuckles, all the while stealing curious looks at her mother, who lay curled small with her eyes closed. A few of the others watched him with dull interest.

“Thor's hammering the heavens tonight, isn't he?”

He said it to no one in particular, but she found herself nodding. Her mother didn't respond at all, didn't so much as open her eyes. Asa saw that her shoulders were rising and falling with her quick, shallow breathing. Was she sleeping or only pretending? Jorgen wriggled a little closer.

“Or maybe it's Odin and his handmaidens, galloping their horses like our Asa here … only galloping them through the storm clouds to churn them to even greater fury.” He looked around the room and chuckled, which sent a rotten plume of moist air rushing into the small space between them. “I've been thinking that maybe someone needs to prod those two stallions belonging to our absent chieftain into a battle. A good horse fight's been known to turn the weather good.”

He was showing his ignorance. “There's no mare to spirit them,” Asa snapped with more vehemence than she intended. “Besides, they're
starving
. How could they fight?”

Odd that he wasn't taken aback one bit. Odd that he smiled at her, though his lower lip, cracked and thin as it was, got stuck on one tooth and stretched like a slug before slipping free. “You're right, of course,” he said, and when had he ever agreed with her? “I've seen the same with my own eyes.”

He returned to his rocking, now fumbling with a fold of tunic at his waist. He reeked, absolutely reeked, of pee and something else that was both pungent and moldy, and the nausea that was kicking around her belly threatened to climb her throat. She snugged her cloak to her neck and tried to smell the cold sea air that still clung to it.

“Perhaps they have another purpose then.”

That made her skin prickle. She had an instinctive urge to run out to the byre that instant—no, to grab Ketil's sword first and then run out to the byre—and to protect the horses with all the strength her arms could muster. No one was going to harm them.

He leaned even closer, which clamped her throat shut, and spoke in a confiding tone. “I'll have a word with your mother when she awakens, but I'm sure she'll agree that, with this storm so fierce and your father and the other men at sea so helpless, something needs to be done to alter the weather. And if none of the horses can manage to fight, then one of them, at least, can manage to die. The sacrifice of a horse, even this late, might appease the gods.” An eager hammering of rain on the roof seemed to sound approval.

“We're not sacrificing any horses.” Her mother spoke just as quietly as Jorgen yet with the undeniable authority of the chieftain's wife. Those few words, however, set her to coughing again, and as Asa reached out she noticed Tora whispering something to Astrid. The other woman, Gunnvor, silently cradled her sleeping son.

Asa stroked her mother's shoulder with concern and an
aching sense of helplessness. To her surprise, her mother reached up and removed her hand. She did it with a grim smile and gently, choking back another coughing fit. Lifting onto one elbow, her mother brushed the damp hair from her eyes and looked squarely at the skald. “You forget your place,” she said. And even though her voice cracked, he did shrink back a little. “And my husband's wishes. We're not sacrificing any horses.”

Jorgen turned up his palms in exaggerated innocence. “I was only thinking of the others,” he said, loudly enough for everyone to hear. “Of everyone here who is hungry. The sacrifice of one horse, one aged horse, would at least provide some much-needed meat and might encourage the gods to provide good weather … and then good grass would follow so that the remaining animals could eat as well.”

It was all Asa could do not to lunge at him, to clasp her hands around his scrawny throat and throttle him until he stopped twitching.

Her mother pulled herself all the way onto her knees, breathing heavily and looking pale and shaken. For the first time Asa realized the burden her mother carried. Though fever beaded her brow, she was forced by her position to paint on a brave smile. As the chieftain's wife, she had no choice but to fight through sickness and against doubt; whether she wanted to or not, she had to hold her chin steady and lead the clan.

Her hands were not quite as steady as her resolve, though, and Asa noticed her hiding them inside the sleeves of her tunic.
Jorgen did too. “Thank you for your advice, skald.” She didn't speak his name. “But it is unwarranted and impossible. Summer will come; it always has. Asa says the trees are already budding, and I'll have her mount a bough over the door. Our men will be successful even in the face of this storm and will return with food.” Her short speech crumbled into another coughing spasm, and Asa couldn't help but lay a concerned hand on her mother's shoulder again, though once again it was lifted away. “Now then,” her mother continued when she'd composed herself, “Astrid, I'd like you to add another handful of dried peas to the soup cauldron, and an onion or two if there are any left.” The woman rose and headed for the storeroom. “Gunnvor, how is Engli faring? Bring him here, closer to the fire. Ah, you've grown even since yesterday,” she said when the blinking boy had been laid across the foot of her mattress. She bundled one of the sheepskins around his feet. “Such a strong boy. Ketil, there's a draft coming from somewhere over there near the door. Can you do us all the favor of stopping it up somehow? Careful now, mind your leg.” Astrid returned with a small bowl of dried peas and a bruised onion and showed them to her. “Good. Now chop up that onion as fine as you can to spread the flavor. Can we stretch the flour even further with a little more pine bark?” Astrid nodded. “Fine.” She looked across the fire to the woman who'd begun the whispering. “Tora, I have a silver ring pin that would be perfect for that cloak you're near to finishing—and don't you worry, I've told my husband to bring more wool along
with food. Asa, here's the key to the chest, will you fetch it for me? It's the one with the copper inlay.”