‘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.
18
Vali woke with a jolt as if on a beaching ship. At first he wondered where he was and then he remembered — Forkbeard’s hall. He had a thick tongue and a thicker head. He needed desperately to puke. He looked around him. Everywhere people were slumped at the benches, some with drinks still in their hands. He wanted to piss, to be sick, to do everything to get rid of the tight humming feeling in his head.
‘Ale, boss?’ said Bragi, proffering him a horn. The man was still awake, still drinking, despite the fact that everyone around him had collapsed.
‘I’ll take my next one in Valhalla,’ said Vali. Just looking at the drink made him want to be ill. He staggered outside the hall and down to the moorings, where he did what he had to do.
It was hot. The sun was high and felt like it was boiling his head. He had to get cooler so he waded deep into the water and then just lay back. The cold seemed to restore him and by the time he came out of the sea he felt better. He looked around. No one. He went to the well, drew up the bucket and poured it over himself, drinking as he did so. He glanced over to the wolfman. Someone had spread a cloth over him to protect him from the sun. Who would have done that? There was someone sleeping on the ground behind him, almost completely wrapped up in a cloak. Vali’s eyes were full of sleep and moisture, and he could neither make them focus nor force his befouled brain think about anything beyond his thirst.
He took another drink and looked out to sea. On the horizon he saw a smudge of grey in the sky. At first he didn’t recognise it for what it was. He rubbed his eyes. He was hungry and thought he’d return to the hall to see if there were any leftovers from the night before.
And then it dawned on him. That smudge was smoke. It was the fire on a ship. Longships carried rock ballast for stability, and it was possible to cook on top of it. Someone, just over the horizon, was cooking something. Why cook so close to land? Merchants could be in the village in no time, where they could ingratiate themselves with their hosts by buying food, along with the ale to wash it down. Then he remembered the raid on the abbey. Berserks cooked before they went into battle, stewing up their herbs and their frenzying mushrooms.