The Ravens of Falkenau & Other Stories (12 page)

Meri nodded.
 
"Go on.
 
I'll stay here a while until she settles down again."

Neshi went out, and Meri sat down against the door.
 
The cat's eyes were on her, and Meri saw the ripples moving along her side.
 
This kitten was not the only one.

"It's all right, Sister," she said softly.
 
"You are safe.
 
Nothing will bother you here, with me and Neshi watching over you."

The kitten mewed, rooting at the sacking, and the wildcat walked around it twice before she lay down.
 
It burrowed into her and she purred while the next contraction rippled across her brindled fur.

Meri leaned back.
 
She must have dozed, for she dreamed that there were three kittens, gray and tan, with pink ears turned back and little flailing claws.
 
She reached for one, and then looked up.

Their mother was enormous, bigger than a house, a great gray cat sitting on her haunches, and her green eyes glowed in the darkness.
 
Meri was as small as a mouse between her paws.

"Do not fear, Little Sister," the cat said.
 
"You have done a kindness to Me, and in the process have done yourself much good as well.
 
We can help one another, your people and mine.
 
Your grain is safe, and your seeds for the next season as well.
 
You will have enough to plant, because my Daughter and her children will guard it for you, while you give them room to grow and a safe place from the desert vultures.
 
And in time they will come when you call, and let you touch them and hold them, for they will never remember a time when you were not their foster mother.
 
Cats will walk with you all your life, for you are blessed by the Lady of Cats.
 
And when eight times the moon has waxed and waned, you will bear your child in safety and need fear no scorpions in the cradle, for Sister will kill any that are in your house."

Meri bent her head, for she knew she spoke to a goddess.
 
"Gracious Lady, I ask no blessings for me, though I am thankful for your kindness.
 
But the Black Land is parching beneath the sun, and if the river does not rise I do not know what we will do!
 
I do not know what will happen to Neshi and all my family if there is no flood this year.
 
Can you make the river to rise?"

It seemed to her that the great cat purred.
 
"Little Sister," she said, "There is nothing I need to do.
 
Far away, many days and nights journey to the south, the rain is falling.
 
The rain is falling in great sheets, drenching the jungles and overflowing the lakes, rushing in great torrents over the falls.
 
And it is there that the river is born.
 
In a month the flood will rise, and your fields will be covered in life-giving water.
 
You do not need to ask it as a blessing, for it will already happen."

Meri awoke in the clear hour before dawn.
 
Three brindled kittens nursed and wiggled beside their mother.
 
Meri stood up and stretched her cramped body.
 
The wildcat watched her warily, but did not move.

Eight moons.
 
It was possible.
 
When the grain stood green in the fields waiting for the harvest she might hold her own child in her arms.
 
And she would fear no scorpions or rats, for Sister would not let any such live.
 
By then she would be teaching her kittens to hunt in the tall wheat.
 

"Blessings on you, Sister," Meri said.
 
And she went to get a bowl of water.
 
Surely giving birth was thirsty work.
 

The Lady of the Dead has many names in many languages, but there is no place where Her wishes may be disregarded, least of all by a witch who owes her homage.
 
Here, in a distant land at the end of the world, Gull is still bound by old oaths and still fears nothing while under her Lady's protection.
 
In Her service another quest begins.

The dream came to me on the eve of
Samhuinn
, when true dreams come. “Stand up,” she said, “And come with me.” And so I stood and walked with her.

It seemed to me in sleep that I was far from the smell of peat fires and sheep dung, far from the fresh scent of evergreens that grew on the headland, far from the scent of the sea. I followed her in sleep through a room paved with stars, where cold did not reach and the sighing of the waves did not follow.

“Come with me,” she said, and a vast shape of wings stretched around her, black as starless night, black as deep caves. Her eyes were gray, and looking in them was like looking into the heart of the clouds.

“I will obey you, Lady,” I said, for I knew who she was then, the Storm Queen who we do not name, she who rides upon the wind to take the brave men home, avenger and Lady of the Dead.

It seemed we stood in some vast place, in some echoing chamber where high above light fell from holes in the ceiling. The air was close and warm, and all along the walls were rolls of paper, stacked and covered neatly, tagged with long strips of paper and pieces of dyed cloth.

I started. On the floor beside the door a snake curled, waiting.

“Snakes are not death in dreams,” she said, and she sounded amused.

“I’m sorry, Lady,” I said, but I gave the snake a wide berth. It frightened me as much as the rest of this place fascinated me.

“Mac Bethad has killed the King,” she said. “Donnchad is murdered at Dunsinane, and his blood cries out for vengeance. By the oaths you swore him, and your father before you, you must be an instrument to my hand.”

“My Lady,” I said, choosing my words carefully, “It is true that my father swore a mighty oath to Donnchad. If Donnchad were besieged, or if he faced battle with an army of his foes, I have no doubt that my father should lead all his men to his aid, in accordance with his word. But when the news came to us that Donnchad was slain soon after Lammas, and all his kin with him, the deed was already done. Mac Bethad sits upon the throne of Scotland. And though we might wreak vengeance upon him, no good can come of it to the living.”

“No good indeed,” she said, and her voice wakened shadows. Out of the shade of one of the great pillars a boy and girl came forth, talking to each other and playing in some language I did not understand, playing as though they did not see us. They were alike as twin lambs, with long dark hair and dark eyes, seven years old, clad together in tunics of white cloth. My heart leaped, and I felt tears start in my eyes, though I did not know why.

“By sun and moon,” she said. “Your promise binds you.”

The boy looked up and he saw me, smiled as though I were some beloved nurse he recognized, started toward me with his arms outstretched.

“Murdered,” she said, and her voice rang like lightning in the clouds. “While you slept beside the river in the land of the dead. You were vowed to protect him, and you have not been released. Now he calls to you.”

The room spun around me, and it seemed instead that we were outdoors on some great moor. I could smell the frost in the air, see the stars of winter wheeling above me.
 
Horsemen galloped toward us, and I saw the bundle across one of their saddles. He had fair hair and light eyes, but he was the same boy, his hands bound together and his face streaked with dirt, younger than before, perhaps five instead of seven. His frightened eyes met mine. “Help me,” he whispered. “Please.”

I tried to grab for the reins, but my hands were insubstantial as mist.

The horsemen swept past, riding hard, their horses’ breaths steam in the still night.

I closed my eyes. “Who is he?” I whispered.

“Mael, the only son of Donnchad. He lives still, carried away by Mac Bethad’s men to a life of thralldom in some foreign city.”

I opened my eyes. In her dark cloak, she looked less like the Lady of Storms and more like some woman I might know, with her heart shaped face and raven hair, scars upon her white arms. “What must I do?” I asked.

“Find him,” she whispered, and I awoke.

It was dawn on the day of
Samhuinn
, and I lay in my bed. Beside me, my daughter Moirin slept peacefully. I could hear the sound of her breath, and her gold hair spread across the pillow, escaped from braids in sleep. She was ten years old. Her brother had already left to sleep with the fosterlings, since he was made a page to Crinain last spring. Carefully, so as not to wake her, I got up.

It only took a moment to pull on thick stockings, and to get my heavy wool dress on over my tunic. I found my boots beneath the bed and tugged them on, and took my cloak from beside the door.

Above, the watch was changing. Men were stomping toward the kitchens, rubbing their hands together, eager for porridge and whiskey. The night had been long, but we dare not cease watching, even on a holy night, not since the days of Somerled. I knew I should find my brother above.

Erik Thorfinnson stood on the battlements, looking out at the mist rising over Scapa Flow. He stood half a head taller than I, and I was by no means a small woman, with our father’s bulk and broad shoulders. Erik and I did not favor him in other ways. We looked like our mother, Einiad, who had been a chief’s daughter in Iceland, blond and fair, with eyes like ice or the pale sky after a storm at sea. I came and stood beside him, my hands next to his on the stone.

“I have dreamed, brother,” I said.

He looked at me sideways, his mouth quirking a little. “Should that surprise me, sister? Many times you have dreamed, and dreamed true. Did you not tell me of the sinking of the
Swan of Norway
before it happened? Or that our father should return safe from battle when you were no more than a child yourself? What did you dream, Ilona?”

“Things I did not entirely understand,” I said, and it seemed to me in the pure clear daylight with the sea breeze pulling at my hair that some of it was already indistinct. There had been a strange room, and warm sunshine coming in from above, a snake and boy and girl twins… “The son of Donnchad lives,” I said. “He is carried away in to slavery by Mac Bethad’s men, who do not dare to kill him.”

My brother took a long, deep breath. He let it out again. He did not ask me if I were certain. We had no need of such questions. We were the children of Thorfinn alike. “Where is he taken?”

“I don’t know,” I said. So little to go on. A moor, and the smell of bracken. It could be anywhere, anywhere across the highlands. No, not just anywhere. There was no scent of the sea, no sound of running water. And I did not see the familiar shapes of mountains against the sky. Somewhere I had not been, which narrowed it down a bit. In my marriage I had gone far south, and once to the land of Northumbria. It was not some place I knew.

“Away,” I said. “But he lives. And they will want him far from home, where any ploughman might recognize him, or take his child’s words for something. Far away, no one will believe a little boy who claims to be a prince.” I touched my brother’s arm. There was something I didn’t quite remember, some long ago fear of chains and a procession through a great city. They would not kill him, yet. “Erik, he still lives.”

“And where there is life there is hope?” He gave me a sideways glance again. Warrior he might be, but he should call it cowardice to kill a child of five, no matter whose get he was. Erik followed the old ways in his heart, though he wore the cross on his breast as a matter of fact. One can’t be too careful in devotions to the gods, or leave out any whose offense might matter. Besides, Erik had said often enough that some of the angels were doughty fellows.

“Our father has an oath.”

Erik turned and took me by the shoulders. “Is it our father’s oath that moves you, Ilona? Or something else?”

I shifted uncomfortably under his gaze. “I saw her, the Storm Queen. She said I must, or be foresworn of some promise I made ere I was born. That I must obey, and be an instrument in her hand.”

His blue eyes searched my face. Then he turned away. I saw that his hands clenched and unclenched on the battlement. “That is a mighty burden, sister.”

I put my hand on his shoulder. I was the elder by fifteen months, but we had always breathed with one breath, as though we had never been parted, even though the years had carried him over land and sea while I was married far in the south. “Erik, I cannot disobey.” I searched for the words. “And he is a child. You are the father of young sons yourself.”

“He is not our kin,” Erik said.

I said nothing and waited.

At last Erik let out a great sigh. “Where will you go?” he asked.

I had not thought I knew until this moment. “Dunsinane,” I said. “That is where Donnchad was murdered, and where the trail begins.”

“And where Mac Bethad now sits as King of Scotland.”

“That too,” I said, and smiled. “But if I do the Storm Queen’s work, I shall expect her aid. And I am not without resources of my own.”

“They say Mac Bethad’s queen is a black witch,” Erik said.