1367 AD
The winter months were by far my least favorite of all the seasons. The perpetual darkness and arctic winds, that consequently claimed the life of one of the small kitchen boys my second year, confined me to the castle more often as not and I found myself, rather than relishing my childhood with gamboling gaiety, becoming an avid student and a quick study.
Godwin was so much pleased with my accelerated progress that he promised me a very costly gift if I continued my excellent academic development. By the following Christmas, having proven myself worthy of Godwin's almost unattainable approval, he bade me follow him to the courtyard.
"I promised you a gift, Ariana. This way, if you please," said he in the mysterious manner I was now so accustomed to; though I spent hardly any time in the man's presence except at mass and meal times.
He led me through the courtyard and to the mews where the falcons were roosting. There he presented me to the head falconer.
"Master Gavin has something to show you."
I nodded and followed the falconer in somewhat of a daze. I was incapable of speech, unable to breathe for the excitement coursing through me, for I was almost certain I had guessed at the valuable gift Godwin was now bestowing on me.
I came to a stop beside Gavin as he gently transferred a little merlin from her perch, where she had been tied with a leather cord, and onto his thick wrist. She was a compact little thing compared to some of the other neighboring ladies who were ruffling their feathers in annoyance at being disturbed.
"Every lady should have a falcon, Ariana. Happy Christmas," said Godwin.
He had no sooner confirmed my suspicions when I practically flung myself into him as frenzied elation overwhelmed me with its intensity. I had caught him in a tight embrace and I did this without thought, so thrilled was I with his generosity, but before my misgivings had time to emerge and before I could castigate myself for my capricious reaction, Godwin placed a large hand over my head with a patient smile, as if I were no more than a mere kitten given to queer fancies.
Blushing, I unwound my arms from Godwin's robes and moved to face a bemused Gavin. The little merlin, thankfully, had not witnessed my arbitrary performance for her head was covered by a leather hood so that only her beak was visible. I longed to see the color of her eyes, but satisfied myself instead with admiring her bright yellow, dainty claws.
"Gavin will train with you both in the afternoons and perhaps you will be hunting together as early as the spring. Till then, I suggest you think of a worthy name for this noble creature."
"Thank you, my lord! Verily, I cannot thank you enough!" I was practically gushing.
Godwin inclined his head in acknowledgment of my profuse gratitude and then left me to get better acquainted with my falcon. I named her for Diana: the goddess of the hunt; a perfectly pagan name. It suited her beautifully for was she not also an inmate of Nørrdragor — the most pagan of any place I had ever been.
Christian doctrines were certainly the common practice here, but there seemed to be a tinge of old world mythology that was subtle, yet palpable. I had become more aware of these strange, eerie manifestations the older I became and the more I chose to see. The hand-fasting itself had been a pagan rite. Even some of the tapestries depicted the old gods, like the one in Godwin's solar: the giant wolf, Fenris, biting off the hand of another god, Tyr.
It was everywhere I chose to look, from the runes and poems that decorated the great hall to the little silver necklace, from which hung the sacred World Tree pendant, that Anne wore around her neck. Yggdrasil, the mythical ash tree, was also rife within Nørrdragor — whether on tapestries, carvings, or pendants — and at first, in the early days just after my arrival, I had thought it represented the apple tree in the garden of Eden, but — having since read enough to know better — I now knew that that too held no Christian meaning.
Yes, Diana was the perfect name for my little merlin.
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It was almost exactly three years and a day since Thomas and I had discovered the secret door, but we had not used it again in all this time. I had sought to gain Anne's trust and she, true to her word, had not revealed my indiscretion to Godwin. She had soon forgotten her disappointment — in truth, almost immediately — and all had continued as it had before.
In fact, from that day hence, life within Nørrdragor had become — or rather continued to be — a series of lectures that were given by either Anne or Sir Henry, who was the master's steward and father to Thomas. Ofttimes, if neither of the former tutors were available, one of Henry's clerks would serve in their stead, Magnus being the usual choice.
In most cases my schooling was attended by Thomas and, on occasion, by Godwin's squire, Frederick, who informed me one day, rather pompously, that he was the son of the great Lord Penwardyn himself, a neighboring Baron, as though that might impress me: which it did not in the least, and I told him so with about as much apathy as I could muster.
Thomas and I had long since become inseparable; if you saw one of us then you were almost assured of seeing the other trailing close behind for we were always about some mischief. At first our burgeoning friendship was largely ignored, almost encouraged in fact, but by the year of my fourteenth birthday, Anne's perspective vacillated between skepticism and outright disapproval and Thomas, who was now a young man of ten and six, was kept employed with constant, lengthy assignments that left no time for our usual romping antics.
I too was occupied throughout the daylight hours and most days were no different than any other except that today she was taking me to Norrsvall, the little market town to the north, also nestled beside the Istyrr Sea. She rarely left Nørrdragor, and I was therefore happy to accompany her thence for a change of scenery.
Anne, her maid, Luella, two servant boys, Carac, Henry and I were taking a relaxed excursion along the country roads, passing inns, rectories, a manor house and vast farmlands en route to Norrsvall, which was situated a mere eight miles away. Henry, I had gleaned, was to meet with the bailiff and the reeve to survey a new shipment of wine, salt, rice and other merchandise that had arrived from Istyrr, while Anne was of a mind to procure a few rare herbs from the apothecary for her medicine chest.
Erelong we arrived at a crossroads, not far from town, where there stood a set of sturdy gallows from which yet hung the decomposing remains of two moldering corpses.
Death was a mundane fact of life and to witness death was no more prosaic than watching a gongfermor shovel shit from the latrine cesspit. I watched impassively, my horse nickering in disgust, as the flies suckled rapturously at the putrid flesh of one body and the maggots crawled contentedly beneath the shriveled, leathery skin of the other. Even the crows partook of this convenient fare, plucking grimly at the sockets of the empty, sightless skulls.
By midday we reached the town gates; a pair of blackened, severed heads, each staked on an iron spike, dominated the gatehouse — greeting us as we passed. Carac eyed the putrid heads with malignancy.
"Too many bloody criminals and traitors of late," I overheard him grumble tersely, and yet the look in his eye implied he was not altogether appalled with the fact; there was a hint of excitement that oddly lit his glare as he drank in the awful prospect.
I had not been thither, to Norrsvall, since last year. It looked as I remembered it — like a spartan, and very miniature, version of Heathersea, but for the absence of the aforementioned city's surrounding walls. This was only a minor town and its houses and garden walls marked the perimeter to the west, and the parish church marked its eastern borders. The quaint buildings within the perimeter surrounded the market cross, whither we were headed.
Carac remained with us as Henry bid us adieu and disappeared in the direction of the busy port, which I knew to be another few miles away; he would not be returning with us, I gathered, and we would only just make it home before dark, so I assumed he meant to stay the night.
On a distant ridge at the southern fringe of the Drakkentörn Ranges, overlooking the town, I could see the mighty, walled-off gates of the abbey; it was practically a fortress in its own right. It was some twenty miles north west of Norrsvall and unequivocally the largest structure the region.
Albeit not as large as Nørrdragor, I thought smugly.
I had learned much by way of geography in four years and now spoke Norn even better than I did the language of my birth. Anne turned to me and, as it happened, observed my interest in that far off building, Novrikken Abbey.
"You shall meet the abbot soon enough. He will most likely be a guest at your wedding." She did not seem altogether pleased with the idea of the Abbot's visit and I wondered what calibre of man had cloistered himself within those conspicuously high walls. "He does not travel often," she commenced, "for he is plagued with grotesquely swollen limbs and canker sores, so does not leave the abbey often."
I thought I heard her say, 'thanks be to God', but she spoke the last through clenched teeth so I could not be certain I had heard her aright. At length we came upon the swarming market stalls and shops. I screwed my nose in distaste on seeing a bloated pig's carcass lying in the ditch nearby; blocking most of the foul detritus so that it lay stagnant and unable to drain away. How long it had been there, I neither knew nor cared to guess at, but it was not fresh and perhaps had died some time last night.
Later, when we passed that way again, the hog was conspicuously absent. It did nothing to allay my suspicions when a vendor emerged from the pie shop nearby and began advertising the pies he now carried on his tray.
"Fresh pork pies!" he cried, "still warm from the fire!"
I doubt that! I smirked at the thought then turned my attention to the hullabaloo taking place ahead of us.
A young cleric stood atop a small platform preaching fire and brimstone, lest the sinners repent. He paused in his sermonizing as Carac passed his podium and I observed his eyes shrinking into gimlet slits as they followed Carac's progress through the crowd that parted like the Red Sea; each peasant eagerly deflecting Carac's notice.
It always surprised me anew when I happened to notice the way Carac and Godwin unnerved the populace in general. Anne's intimidating brother — his giant height in paradoxical contrast to his sister's slight frame — approached the pie vendor and reached into his pocket for his money pouch.
Anne, meanwhile, had ducked into a rickety old shop on the ground floor of a three story building that bore a painted sign of a mortar and pestle hanging from a bracket over the door; sign that suggested, to the illiterate peasantry that walked these dusty streets, that this was where one might find the apothecary.
I entered the congested little store. Anne stood at the counter, already bartering with the apothecary, as I walked the length of the many shelves that were stuffed full of earthenware pots, wicker baskets of questionable content, tall jugs, brass vessels and pewter jars in varying sizes. I lifted the lid of one clay jar, but slammed it down as soon as the malodorous fume escaped enough to sting my nostrils; its noxious effluvium so intense that it wrenched immediate tears from my eyes.
I deliberated a moment before lifting another lid and peeking into a bronze pot on a neighboring shelf. I discerned a greenish, congealed sort of liquid that held, within its gelatinous folds, a tragic-looking fetus of some indeterminate animal; a rodent of some kind perhaps. Feeling the bile rise up to drain the color from my cheeks, I closed the lid and vowed to subdue my curiosity; cost what it may.
"Hello, miss. Ye be welcome here today," said a wizened, little voice. I looked down to find a frail, hoary old woman gently tugging on my gown, the better to get my attention.
"Thank you, madam," I replied to her greeting.
My smile was tepid for my cheeks had yet to attain some of the color that had been there afore I started poking my nose where I should not have.
"Oh, but you do look tired, my dear! Come into the back with old Aislin and I'll fix you a stiff brew."
I angled my head around the shelves, locating Anne immediately, and having ascertained that she was as yet far from done with her mulish haggling, followed the old woman into a back room.
"Here you go, miss." She placed a wooden bowl of strong aromatic tea in my hands. When I had swallowed all but the leafy dregs, she took it back from me and studied the patterns the leaves had created along the bottom and sides — as if reading them. Aislin, who had been sallow and pallid to begin with, seemed to turn a lurid, deathless white and dropped the cup. It shattered loudly; the brown leaves spilling over the floor and onto my boots.
"Are you unwell, madam?" I thought she might now be succumbing to apoplexy or some such affliction, but she slowly lifted her eyes to me, scrutinizing me carefully as if I were a specimen in one of those nasty jars.
"Let me see your palms, dearie!" she whispered gravely.
I hesitated, itching to be away, but gave her both my hands which she grasped immediately with her rough claws. I became of a sudden very leery and tried to close my fingers as well as pull my hands away, but she held firm with a relentless grip unnatural in a beldame of her ancient dotage. One moment I was struggling to pull away and the next the old hag threw me from her, screeching from the top of her lungs as if I had stuck her with cleaver.
"Devil! Away from me you devil!" She had by this time grasped an iron pan and was wielding it defensively before me with surprising strength. "What are you?!" She cried.
I held my hands out to shield myself, lest she thought to hurl the pan at me and heard the apothecary come pounding into the little, corner room. Anne entered almost as soon as he, right at his heels in fact. Taking one look at the old woman, the apothecary restrained her and betook her to sit in one of the stools.
"What are you?" She yelled again.
"Egad, mother, what ails you?" The man looked terrified for his mother, flinching fearfully and stroking her bewimpled head as she continued her caterwauling, but she would not be calmed.
"Begone, creature! Get it away from me!" On and on she screamed.
I myself was now horrified and traumatized. Anne took me in her arms and glared viciously at the old hag. Her fulminating hatred was so acute that I became afeared for the silly, old witch, despite myself. Anne threw her purchases at the man's feet and, grabbing her little leather purse back from him, stalked back outside with me in tow.
"I did naught, Anne, I swear it!" I cried.
"Hush, child," she crooned in my ear as she clutched me close. "Pay no heed to that foolish old goat. She's barmier than a bat in a belfry and no mistake!"
I wiped the tears roughly from my eyes as Carac, who had been eating pork pies outside, came thundering over with a murderous glint in his eyes. Anne caught his sleeve as he made to enter the open door where we could still hear the hag's shrill squalling.
"Leave it be, Carac. Take us home."
He shot another last, ominous look at the apothecary, but appeased Anne and followed us silently as we made our way back to where we'd left the horses and servants.
Anne made every effort to keep a merry conversation alive throughout our hasty return to Nørrdragor, but I was mute and Carac taciturn so she finally gave up and watched me pensively.
I could not forget that scene in the Apothecary, despite every endeavor to the contrary.
'What are you?' she had asked, with the look of someone staring at the devil himself. What had she read in the teacup and what had she seen on my palms?
What am I indeed?
Mildred had always inferred that I was special, but what if the circumstances were a little more sinister than that?
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