Storm Wolf (14 page)

“It cannot be tolerated. Can it,
vilkatis
?” The Master leaned down to whisper in Alexei’s ear. “I gave one of my wolves permission to eat this man and this man killed the wolf. So now you will eat him,
vilkatis
.”

Alexei reared up and pulled away in disgust from the Master, his cries of dismay sounding like the yowling of a sick or injured wolf. The man cowered in the corner of the stall, gibbering in fear.

“No!” shouted Spīdala, stumbling back from the Master. “You cannot think—”

“Oh, but I do, my child.” the Master stood again and resumed puffing on his pipe. “The werewolf is hungry, so very hungry now. Are you not,
vilkatis
? So very hungry. And this man has dared to lift his hand against one of my forest children. So now, I give the
vilkatis
permission to eat the farmer. Nay, not simply my permission. I order the werewolf to eat this man.”

“Even you would not be so cruel!” Spīdala covered her mouth with her palm, choking on the thought of what the Master wanted of Alexei. Then farmer continued to weep, struggling to press himself even further away from them into the corner of the stall. Alexei stood rooted to the floor, his yowls of dismay gradually becoming growls of anger.

“Cruel?” mocked the Master. “Not cruel. Just. It is justice for the wolf this man slew.” The Master puffed on the pipe and then stepped away from the stall, turning his back to them. “If the
vilkatis
does as I say, I will allow you both to go free. If he does not, then you can expect to remain with me for another several seasons. At least. Maybe more. But this man will die, in any case. Our friend
vilkatis
may at least be the one to do it and win you both the freedom that you have seemed so hungry for these past weeks.”

“I did nothing but try to protect my family!” cried the farmer.

“No freedom is worth that price!” insisted Spīdala, still aghast with her palm covering her mouth.

Snarling, Alexi leaped through the air at the Master of Wolves, landing on the Master’s shoulders and knocking the Master to the ground as he sank his fangs into the Master’s throat. Blood spurted and splattered. The pipe flew through the air, scattering the burning tobacco like fiery snowflakes atop the hay strewn about the barn floor and causing a dozen small fires to erupt in the dry stalks. The Master roared and turned, sweeping his crutch and throwing Alexei against the wall of the stall. Bones? Wood? Something crunched as the werewolf struck the wall and slid to the floor, dazed by the impact. Then he was up and attacking the Master again, lunging and snapping his great teeth as the Master cracked his crutch over Alexei’s shoulders again and again and again.

Alexei caught the straps of the Master’s satchel in his teeth and shredded the leather as he tore it from the Master and threw it to one side. The Master roared again in fury in words Alexei did not understand. The farmer was screaming in terror, sure that the snarling, snapping werewolf would turn to devour him next.

As Alexei and the Master rolled about on the floor, the Master’s cloak flapping in the air, a shocked Spīdala, coughing from the smoke from the burning straw, took advantage of the opportunity. She caught hold of the Master’s cloak and tugged it aside as she pulled out the frothy-budded fennel that she had found in the forest so many weeks ago and drove the crumpled stalk into the side of the Master of Wolves. He howled in agony.

“Run,
vilkatis
! Go! Escape!” she cried to Alexei. She pulled the fennel back and drove into the Master again, provoking another howl. Alexei, only aware that Spīdala was thrusting something at the Master, knew he could not abandon her. He lunged again at the Master’s throat and felt his teeth sink into flesh once more. Again blood spurted and splashed around them. The Master swung his arm and knocked Alexei across the barn. Alexei hit the far wall and slumped to the floor, dazed and confused.

But suddenly there was a pack of wolves howling and running in through the barn door, coming to the defense of the Master. They came leaping through the flames, barking and roaring as teeth snapped. One caught Spīdala’s arm in its teeth and pulled her from the Master as others swarmed atop her, howling and barking. Others wrapped their jaws around the Master’s arms to pull him to his feet. One more jumped into the stall and the farmer’s wails were silenced as the wolf tore the man’s throat out.

Smoke and fire made it difficult for Alexei to see and breathe. He felt as if his head were swimming in the flames and smoke. He coughed and retched. Was that the Master he saw stumbling out the barn door, assisted by the pack of wolves who were half-pulling and half-pushing him? Sparks and smoke swirled about, flickering shadows obscuring his vision.

He heard a creak and a rumble as a support for the hayloft gave way. The hayloft shuddered, dropping more fuel into the flames. The barn shuddered again and another support gave away, crashing into the wall beside Alexei and knocking open a large gash in the wood. Air rushed in and the flames danced higher.

Half-aware that Spīdala was dead and there was nothing he could do for her now, Alexei felt the air tumble past him through the opening in the wall. He pulled himself up from the floor and shook his head, gagging on the smoke. Was he about to die? Maybe. But in one last attempt to escape the misery inflicted by the Master of Wolves, he threw himself at the open gash in the burning wall and the beams gave way beneath him. He fell out into the farmyard.

Tumbling head over heels away from the burning barn, he gasped and choked and, as he did so, felt the familiar tremors of the wolf magic retreating from his body. A moment later he was sitting naked in the farmyard, clutching the great wolf pelt, his chest heaving as he panted and gulped great lungfuls of air and cried for joy at having finally escaped from, having been forgotten by, the Master of Wolves.

And he wept for his friend Spīdala.

Chapter 4:
Vilkolakis

Alexei

(Lithuania, Christmas 1889 to Epiphany 1890)

Alexei stood shivering in the snow, blowing on his fists as he peered at the weathered cross behind the hanging lantern.

The cross had been beautiful once, he could tell that much. It had been painted with an image of Christ crucified beneath the placard that read “INRI,” with a halo of gold leaf. But the waist-high wooden image had been standing in the weather for years—decades, most likely. It was weathered and worn, the paint peeling and all but a few flakes of gold long gone. The lantern hung before it, suspended from a slender rod of twisted iron that extended from above the INRI placard. The lantern hung so that the light from the oil lamp within the shelter of its smoky panes illuminated the worn and weather-beaten face of Christ, slumped down so the divine cheek rested against his left shoulder.

But now Alexei stood peering at this cross in the dusk, his feet in deep drifts. New flakes gently shivered in the air as they descended from the clouds. He had come to a crossroads, marked by this cross and its lantern, and he was unsure which way to go. Fields stretched out along one of the roads, empty now, but they would be full of grain during the growing season. The other road was hemmed in by woods, the trees a mix of evergreens and linden as well as birch trees, their branches naked in the winter cold. The wind tugged at Alexei’s scarf and he shivered again.

“Which way to go? Which way to go?” he asked himself in the deepening gloom. He stamped his feet and turned about, crossing his arms across his chest and wedging his hands into his armpits for warmth.

“I can’t sleep outside again tonight,” he muttered. “I’ll freeze by morning! There must be a village—or at least a farmhouse—somewhere nearby! But where?” He peered into the snowy gloom.

There! A flicker of light across one of the fields. Then another, not far from it. And a third. “A village!” He sighed with relief. “I will surely be able to get out of the cold there! One of the households will surely take pity on me and give me shelter!” He shook himself, stamping his feet again, and turned to follow the road toward the homes he had glimpsed in the distance.

But as he turned, he knocked his hip into one of the arms of the cross and set the lantern swinging. The oil lamp winked out.

“Will anyone miss the crossroads in the dark if the lamp is not lit?” Alexei wondered. But he had no way to light the wick again, even if the oil was not all splattered on the inside of the lantern’s glass panes. The snow began to come down more thickly, and by the time he reached the first houses along the edge of the village, his beard was crusted with icicles.

After Spīdala’s death and his own escape from the Master of Wolves, Alexei had been discovered by a farmer who had taken the naked man clutching the great wolf skin and able to speak little Latvian for a simpleton. The farmer had given him clothes and work in his fields for the remainder of the harvest season. Alexei had remained there and worked diligently, happy to be taken for a simpleton if he could earn food and shelter as he mourned the death of Spīdala, his only friend since he had killed his wife and children. But the farmer had no work for him once the harvest was done, and so, after the last of the harvest celebrations on St. Martin’s Day in November, Alexei had set out on the road again. He walked south and west, always south and west, as his grandfather’s ghost had suggested. He had a few coins in his pocket and a coat he had been given as well as a leather satchel he had purchased to carry the wolf pelt in. He would stop each evening to beg for a few scraps to eat and a warm place in a barn to sleep.

But the farms and estates had become more and more isolated as he made his way south and west. He knew that he must have crossed into Lithuania at some point but was unsure of exactly when that might have happened. As a result, his meals had become irregular and he sometimes had to sleep outdoors in the cold. But the winter was growing steadily more bitter and the snowdrifts were growing deeper. He needed to find someone that would take him in and give him shelter and maybe some work until the spring. He had found a few farmers willing to take him in for a night or two, but none who had a place or work for him until the spring.

But he had hopes as he approached this village in the early night that he might find a place here until the spring.

“Come in! Come in!” exclaimed the elderly grandmother of the first household he had come across. She had opened to the door to his knocking and spoken a few words to him that he did not understand, but had then spoken to him in Russian, and he was glad to obey her exclamations.

“Thank you!” he answered in his faulty Russian. He shook the snow from his shoulders and stepped into the warm and colorful household as the stooped grandmother took his coat and satchel and pushed him towards the hearth, where a cheerful fire was burning.

“Amalija! Dovydas! Edita!” she called into the back of the house. “We have a guest! A guest that walks in our door when it’s almost Christmas! Such a blessing is that!” Three children came tumbling out into the parlor. The eldest, a girl, was nearly as tall as her grandmother. The next eldest, a boy, also nearly as tall as the old woman, had cheeks of peach fuzz, while the youngest, another girl, was clearly much younger and was clutching a worn doll to her chest.

“Come! Come! Sit!” the old woman cajoled Alexei, a twinkle in her eye as she ushered him to a chair before the fire. “We will shortly be having our
Kūčios
supper for Christmas and are honored that you will be our guest, sir…?”

“Alexei,” he answered, bashful at the lavish attention she was giving him. “Truly, a place in the barn for the night and some food,” he began.

“Nonsense!” she exclaimed. “It would be a shameful disgrace if we turned away a guest or made him sleep in the barn—especially at this time of year!”

Edita, the youngest, came over to Alexei and took his hand as he stood beside the chair in front of the hearth. “Come, sir. Sit.” She smiled up at him and Alexei could not refuse the little girl. He sat.

The grandmother gave his coat and satchel to Dovydas, the boy, who took them away. He smiled at Alexei, wishing him “Happy Christmas, sir. We are glad to have you!”

Amalija darted out of the room and hurried back with a steaming cup of tea that she pressed into his cold hands. “Drink, sir. Happy Christmas! Warm yourself!” Then she was gone again and Edita, without waiting for an invitation, climbed onto his lap. He caught his breath sharply. It had been a long time since he had known the weight of a child on his lap. He sipped the tea, trying not to show the grief mixing with the warm recollections.

“I can tell from your accent that you are not from any region of our Lithuania,” the old woman said, pulling another chair alongside Alexei. “Where is it that you come from, sir?”

“I was a farmer in Estonia,” he answered her. “My wife and children—they took ill and died. I could not bear to remain alone there with my memories,” he explained, hoping that she would believe the half-truth.

She nodded gravely, never taking her eyes from his. “I understand, sir. Grief is a sharp goad to drive a man forward.”

Alexei nodded, pulling his eyes from hers and looking into the depths of the hot tea he wrapped his hands around. He remembered drinking tea with Grete, his own children sitting on his lap, the contentment that always brought. Edita swung her legs and held up her doll for his inspection, saying something in Lithuanian, and he could not stop his wan smile that bloomed in response.

“Much of your Estonia and most of our Lithuania have been under the thumb of the tsar in Moscow,” the old woman went on. “Our Lithuanian tongue was even forbidden by the tsar during the 1860s,” she told him, “but Polish and some German were tolerated, especially in Vilnius and the cities, because of our markets and business with Prussia. I hear that they have recently been allowed in Vilnius to print some few books in Lithuanian again, although the tsar is not happy with that. But out here among the farmers, we speak only Lithuanian and Russian—and my little Edita here is only just beginning to learn the Russian. You must forgive her, friend.”

Edita insisted Alexei kiss her doll and then, apparently bored by the conversation between the adults, she slid down from his lap and wished him a “Happy Christmas!” as she tumbled from the room.

“I am afraid it is she that must forgive me, Grandmother,” Alexei answered. “I am sorry that Estonian and Lithuanian are so unlike each other that we must use the tsar’s Russian to speak to each other.”

She reached over and patted his arm. “But you have a place with us, good sir. You have come as our Christmas guest and we are happy to have you with us for as long as you choose to stay.” Leaning in as if to share a secret, she added, her eyes twinkling, “Even if we must use the tsar’s Russian to converse!”

After finishing his cup of tea, Alexei had been taken into the back parts of the house, and he realized that the family must be well-to-do farmers, indeed. There was a maid and a cook in the kitchen, and the children’s mother, daughter-in-law of the grandmother who had opened the door, was arranging straw on the dining table in another room.

“Christmas straw!” Alexei exclaimed when he saw it. “Back home, in Estonia, we also use the Christmas straw on the table to celebrate the holiday!”

The mother, who was introduced to him as Aušrinė, smiled and spread the linen tablecloth over the straw. “We shall be glad to have you join us at our
Kūčios
supper!” she told him. “In your Estonia, it must take days to prepare the table for
Kūčios
supper, just as we do here in Lithuania. But do we also share the tradition of the Christmas bath?”

“We have a Christmas sauna,” Alexei told her. “Very important. Everyone must wash in the sauna before sunset and the beginning of the Christmas dinner.”

“Yes! But we have no sauna here,” Aušrinė told him. “But please, we have hot water and towels! No one can come to Christmas unwashed! You can wash now and wash again on Christmas Eve!” Alexei laughed with them all, despite his ache to be home with Grete and their children for even one more Christmas. He allowed them to usher him into the washing room, where he was happy to indulge himself in the steaming water and wash away the pain and dirt of his flight from home before donning the new clothes Aušrinė had sent Dovydas to bring him.

Over the next few days Alexei helped the farmer Adomas, the son of the old woman, whose name Alexei learned was Vakarė, with the daily chores of the farm that continued even throughout the winter. Together they fed and milked the cows, shoveled out the manure, fed the pigs and horses as Adomas’s three children fed the chickens and gathered eggs. The family ate their meals at a small table in the kitchen, as the large table in the dining room was being prepared for the grand supper of Christmas Eve. They welcomed Alexei at the kitchen table to eat meals with them and treated him as if he were a cousin or uncle newly returned from a long journey. They spoke in Russian as much as they could so as to include him in their conversations.

It was early in the morning almost a week later that Alexei was awake much earlier than the family and, feeling restless, made his way out of the house and across the farmyard into the barn. He had thought he might start the morning chores and took the pail to fill with chicken feed for the hens. He scooped feed from the sack slumped against a post supporting the hayloft and leisurely strolled about the barn, casting the feed about. The hens were beginning to cluck and stir, but in the predawn darkness, many were silent, their beaks still tucked under a wing. Alexei made his way between the rows of stalls, hearing the cattle rousing themselves as well. The chicken feed splattered against the worn posts dividing the stalls and bounced along the floor. He knew the chickens would find it.

He turned a corner to make his way along the second row of stalls.

A voice cried out and pushed him in the chest. Alexei lifted up the pail to strike whatever thief he had surprised in the dark.

The voice said something again, words this time, though Alexei could not understand any of them. The figure struck a flint and sparks flashed. A candle was lit and gleamed in shadows dancing around the barn. A candle held by a short man who stood before Alexei.

The man was hunched over, apparently old enough to be a grandfather. Wild tufts of gray hair poked out from beneath the red cap he wore, and white stubble covered his wrinkled cheeks. The candlelight revealed that he was wearing an old, patched jacket and breeches, similar to what a poor farmhand might wear. Old-fashioned shoes of birch bark covered his feet.

“Who are you? What are you doing here?” demanded Alexei, knowing that the old man could not understand him even as the words spilled from his lips. He repeated himself in Russian, thinking the old man might understand that.

The man held the candle up higher and studied Alexei’s face. He said something that Alexei couldn’t understand. The two men stood staring at each other. Alexei wasn’t sure what to do. He slowly lowered the pail, thinking the old man did not look especially dangerous.

“You are a
vilkolakis
, are you not?” the old man asked him.