Post by Aleydis on Mar 15, 2009 14:55:15 GMT -5
The young eagle looked dangerous, even in death. It lay at her feet, wings stretched wide and beak agape in a silent scream. Aleydis' father had told her that an eagle's eyes were gold, for they carried the heart of the sun within them, fierce and bright, but this bird's eyes were black and shiny, without the film of decay to dull them. She crouched beside it and touched its feathered back, feeling the sleek and the soft of its body. It weighed less than she thought it would when she pushed it up onto its side and compared the size of its hooked talons with her own slender fingers. When an ant emerged from its plumage and crawled across her knuckles, she let the eagle rest on the ground again and stood up to study the sky.
Against the clouds, two other large birds circled, too distant for Aleydis to tell if they were the fledgling's parents. Closer, in the ragged evergreens that sprouted from the hard, rocky soil of her tribe's winter camp, three ravens were perched. They had been watching her as she studied the dead eagle, and they continued to watch as she returned their regard. Their unnatural silence, the intensity of their gaze, stiffened her spine. Their presence told her what she already knew; the day of her dreams had finally come.
It had begun ten months previous, when Agrid, the sachem's wife had come to her. "I must have his child. His seed has never quickened, but I must have his son, or he'll kill me," she had told the young midwife. Agrid was a lean, life-worn woman already, though she was fifteen years her husband's junior. A yellow bruise smudged the blade of her cheek as she sat with Aleydis, avoiding the other female's eyes. A year before that, she might have sought out Aleydis' mother but a fever had taken Devi the previous winter. Her cures had been nothing to the fits and purging of that deadly illness. Aleydis wondered if Agrid would have hidden from the elder midwife's gaze, as she did now before the daughter. People had seemed easier with her mother and she hadn't yet decided why that might be. Her own cures had a power that old Devi's never possessed, though she was still counted amongst the tribe as a girl.
"Oleg's seed has never taken root, in your belly or that of any other woman," Aleydis said, more sharply than she intended. Her dreams had been heavier, then. Darker. They weighed on her and made her spit taste like copper. Already she knew what she must do for Agrid, and what the outcome would be. The birds had told her, and when they'd finished, their laughter had been a shrill chorus chasing her from a restless slumber.
Agrid hadn't argued. She'd bowed her head until Aleydis wondered how she could breathe with her chin pressed so tightly against her throat. She'd said, "Help me." And Aleydis had.
The medicine and charms were prepared, the symbols Agrid must paint on her own body sketched on a piece of pale bark. Aleydis had passed these things to the woman with strict instructions. The dark of the moon. No witnesses. The spirals of life, and a matching dance. Tell no one. Then she'd shut herself away in her hut for three days, as if that might protect her from the dreams that would come. As if that might protect her from the birds.
She'd seen it all in spite of her solitude, the images burned to the inside of her eyelids and the sounds-- the sounds of the thing that had come to couple with Agrid, in the dark, on the empty steppes. Worse, she saw the shadows that hollowed Agrid's eyes as her much longed for pregnancy progressed. What lives inside of her now? Aleydis cried out in her dreams. She hurts! You said I would have the power to keep my people from hurting! Not inflict that pain on them!
This must be. There was no light but that which came from their feathers, no air but their breath, and when their massed bodies rubbed against hers, she felt scaly toes and sharp claws score her skin. When they had first come to her, it had been a comfort to feel them so close. They were warm and strong, and the gifts they granted were beyond measure. But in that moment, one she remembered with shame for having been so weak, their bodies were cold and she ached to be away from them. This child must be. We have given you all you hoped for. All you wanted. Would you deny us this, in return? One child, a few months of a woman's life. She begged you to give her this gift, as you begged us...
What else could she choose?
Aleydis was returned to the present by the high, thin wail of a woman in pain. She looked over her shoulder at the distant collection of hide-draped huts, the milling horses, the people whose lives she had purchased at so dear a price, then crouched beside the dead eagle again. It was a simple matter to open its body with her knife and remove its cold liver. She only needed a few slivers of the orgam. Its dark and rubbery flesh were added to the horsehide phial that hung from her belt long before she heard the running footsteps behind her that told her that her presence was needed. Rising once more, the girl spared a last look at the ravens before turning to face the summons of her destiny.
Two more of the dark birds had joined the original three. All watched in silence as the young midwife was hurried away by an anxiously babbling child.
***
Agrid was dying. Aleydis knew that she had delayed summoning the midwife, overriding her husband's wishes with the delirium of a woman scarred by something worse than fear of death. But Aleydis also knew, while she had waited with the birds both living and dead for company, that eventually Oleg would send for her. He was not a man to tolerate his wife's demands for long, especially when she labored to bring his much-desired son into the world. The furs beneath Agrid's pale hips were dark with her life's blood and the pulse of her body had grown weak. Aleydis looked up from where she crouched between the woman's knees and pushed away a sweat-drenched lock of hair with the back of her hand, leaving a smear of brown across her forehead. Her calm eyes met Oleg's.
The ravens had told her what to say, had told her how this baby must be born and the words that would provoke the chieftain into providing that birth. "If the mother dies, the child dies with her. You must choose."
Had this been another man, she might have pitied him for laying this choice at his feet. He had regarded with her with suspicion as others in their family band had begun to seek her out for answers to questions that he considered his by right to answer. No one had sought her mother out for such things. Were this not the last day of his life, she supposed he might have eventually driven her out to die alone on the steppes. But the man who stared back at her, bearded face pinched with dread and longing, was doomed. She could find no pity in her heart for one such as that.
He wasted little time in providing her the answer the birds had known he'd give. "Save the child."
Aleydis nodded, and once again removed the knife from its sheath at her belt. It was still stained with the eagle's blood, and sharp enough that Agrid only whimpered once as the girl parted the skin and muscle of her taut belly to retrieve the god's child and bring him into the world. As the pale, slippery infant squirmed within her hands, body swelling with the first scream of its life, his deliverer imagined that she felt the ground tremble beneath her feet. He was perfect and the world hushed to hear him bellow.
"My son!" Oleg shouted his triumph but Aleydis hardly heard him as she cradled the newly born child to her body, sharing her warmth with him. Clasping him securely in one arm, she fumbled for the phial at her waist with the other. Neither of them spared a glance for the ruined body of its mother, slowly spending the last of its fluids onto her bed. "My boy! Listen to him! Give him to me, girl!"
"No." The murmured dismissal shocked and silenced Oleg long enough that the girl had time to achieve her last task-- the phial uncorked, she held its lip to the baby's toothless mouth and tipped the dark, fragrant contents down his throat. He sputtered and raged anew. Aleydis smiled, tenderly as any mother might, and bit down hard on the fleshy part of her thumb. Then she pressed that bloody pad to the child's forehead, prompting higher shrieks. He was strong, by the gods he was strong, squirming in the crook of her arm but she held him and turned to face the chieftain. A wisp of steam escaped from beneath her thumb. It was done.
"No," she said again, lifting her chin to meet his slack-jawed stare. "He is not yours. He comes with me."
She might have died then, for Oleg's hands were clenching and unclenching, clawed fingers then fists and back again as he advanced on her. She might have died with the promised child in her arms, but for the battle horns that chose that minute to shrill high and clear across the steppes. The sound broke through the man's brief madness. He bared his teeth at her, as a dog might, then snatched his great axe from its place by the fire and pushed through the hide door.
Crooning a love song to the whimpering baby, Aleydis slowly followed.
***
They came with a great wind at their heels, dark riders under a living banner of ravens. The birds' screams joined with those of her people as the men and horses bore down on their camp. Aleydis walked through the panic, untouched by the running women or the mounted men who rode out to face their foe. Her head remained down, bowed over the child. She didn't see Oleg fall, or the deaths of his bondsmen. She didn't see the riders that streamed by her to slaughter the families whose lines her people had guarded for so many years. Her eyes were on the boy's eyes, lost in their bright newborn blue. She sang softly to the child, and somewhere in her mind, he sang back to her. The midwife stopped only when she felt hard packed earth give way to the springiness of yellow grass. It sank beneath her felt boots, and she lifted her face to the wind, and the ravens.
A man sat astride a black horse before her, his hands loose on the reins. She couldn't see his eyes beneath his dull iron helm but his nod was unmistakable. He offered a pale hand and without looking back, Aleydis reached to take it.
Against the clouds, two other large birds circled, too distant for Aleydis to tell if they were the fledgling's parents. Closer, in the ragged evergreens that sprouted from the hard, rocky soil of her tribe's winter camp, three ravens were perched. They had been watching her as she studied the dead eagle, and they continued to watch as she returned their regard. Their unnatural silence, the intensity of their gaze, stiffened her spine. Their presence told her what she already knew; the day of her dreams had finally come.
It had begun ten months previous, when Agrid, the sachem's wife had come to her. "I must have his child. His seed has never quickened, but I must have his son, or he'll kill me," she had told the young midwife. Agrid was a lean, life-worn woman already, though she was fifteen years her husband's junior. A yellow bruise smudged the blade of her cheek as she sat with Aleydis, avoiding the other female's eyes. A year before that, she might have sought out Aleydis' mother but a fever had taken Devi the previous winter. Her cures had been nothing to the fits and purging of that deadly illness. Aleydis wondered if Agrid would have hidden from the elder midwife's gaze, as she did now before the daughter. People had seemed easier with her mother and she hadn't yet decided why that might be. Her own cures had a power that old Devi's never possessed, though she was still counted amongst the tribe as a girl.
"Oleg's seed has never taken root, in your belly or that of any other woman," Aleydis said, more sharply than she intended. Her dreams had been heavier, then. Darker. They weighed on her and made her spit taste like copper. Already she knew what she must do for Agrid, and what the outcome would be. The birds had told her, and when they'd finished, their laughter had been a shrill chorus chasing her from a restless slumber.
Agrid hadn't argued. She'd bowed her head until Aleydis wondered how she could breathe with her chin pressed so tightly against her throat. She'd said, "Help me." And Aleydis had.
The medicine and charms were prepared, the symbols Agrid must paint on her own body sketched on a piece of pale bark. Aleydis had passed these things to the woman with strict instructions. The dark of the moon. No witnesses. The spirals of life, and a matching dance. Tell no one. Then she'd shut herself away in her hut for three days, as if that might protect her from the dreams that would come. As if that might protect her from the birds.
She'd seen it all in spite of her solitude, the images burned to the inside of her eyelids and the sounds-- the sounds of the thing that had come to couple with Agrid, in the dark, on the empty steppes. Worse, she saw the shadows that hollowed Agrid's eyes as her much longed for pregnancy progressed. What lives inside of her now? Aleydis cried out in her dreams. She hurts! You said I would have the power to keep my people from hurting! Not inflict that pain on them!
This must be. There was no light but that which came from their feathers, no air but their breath, and when their massed bodies rubbed against hers, she felt scaly toes and sharp claws score her skin. When they had first come to her, it had been a comfort to feel them so close. They were warm and strong, and the gifts they granted were beyond measure. But in that moment, one she remembered with shame for having been so weak, their bodies were cold and she ached to be away from them. This child must be. We have given you all you hoped for. All you wanted. Would you deny us this, in return? One child, a few months of a woman's life. She begged you to give her this gift, as you begged us...
What else could she choose?
Aleydis was returned to the present by the high, thin wail of a woman in pain. She looked over her shoulder at the distant collection of hide-draped huts, the milling horses, the people whose lives she had purchased at so dear a price, then crouched beside the dead eagle again. It was a simple matter to open its body with her knife and remove its cold liver. She only needed a few slivers of the orgam. Its dark and rubbery flesh were added to the horsehide phial that hung from her belt long before she heard the running footsteps behind her that told her that her presence was needed. Rising once more, the girl spared a last look at the ravens before turning to face the summons of her destiny.
Two more of the dark birds had joined the original three. All watched in silence as the young midwife was hurried away by an anxiously babbling child.
***
Agrid was dying. Aleydis knew that she had delayed summoning the midwife, overriding her husband's wishes with the delirium of a woman scarred by something worse than fear of death. But Aleydis also knew, while she had waited with the birds both living and dead for company, that eventually Oleg would send for her. He was not a man to tolerate his wife's demands for long, especially when she labored to bring his much-desired son into the world. The furs beneath Agrid's pale hips were dark with her life's blood and the pulse of her body had grown weak. Aleydis looked up from where she crouched between the woman's knees and pushed away a sweat-drenched lock of hair with the back of her hand, leaving a smear of brown across her forehead. Her calm eyes met Oleg's.
The ravens had told her what to say, had told her how this baby must be born and the words that would provoke the chieftain into providing that birth. "If the mother dies, the child dies with her. You must choose."
Had this been another man, she might have pitied him for laying this choice at his feet. He had regarded with her with suspicion as others in their family band had begun to seek her out for answers to questions that he considered his by right to answer. No one had sought her mother out for such things. Were this not the last day of his life, she supposed he might have eventually driven her out to die alone on the steppes. But the man who stared back at her, bearded face pinched with dread and longing, was doomed. She could find no pity in her heart for one such as that.
He wasted little time in providing her the answer the birds had known he'd give. "Save the child."
Aleydis nodded, and once again removed the knife from its sheath at her belt. It was still stained with the eagle's blood, and sharp enough that Agrid only whimpered once as the girl parted the skin and muscle of her taut belly to retrieve the god's child and bring him into the world. As the pale, slippery infant squirmed within her hands, body swelling with the first scream of its life, his deliverer imagined that she felt the ground tremble beneath her feet. He was perfect and the world hushed to hear him bellow.
"My son!" Oleg shouted his triumph but Aleydis hardly heard him as she cradled the newly born child to her body, sharing her warmth with him. Clasping him securely in one arm, she fumbled for the phial at her waist with the other. Neither of them spared a glance for the ruined body of its mother, slowly spending the last of its fluids onto her bed. "My boy! Listen to him! Give him to me, girl!"
"No." The murmured dismissal shocked and silenced Oleg long enough that the girl had time to achieve her last task-- the phial uncorked, she held its lip to the baby's toothless mouth and tipped the dark, fragrant contents down his throat. He sputtered and raged anew. Aleydis smiled, tenderly as any mother might, and bit down hard on the fleshy part of her thumb. Then she pressed that bloody pad to the child's forehead, prompting higher shrieks. He was strong, by the gods he was strong, squirming in the crook of her arm but she held him and turned to face the chieftain. A wisp of steam escaped from beneath her thumb. It was done.
"No," she said again, lifting her chin to meet his slack-jawed stare. "He is not yours. He comes with me."
She might have died then, for Oleg's hands were clenching and unclenching, clawed fingers then fists and back again as he advanced on her. She might have died with the promised child in her arms, but for the battle horns that chose that minute to shrill high and clear across the steppes. The sound broke through the man's brief madness. He bared his teeth at her, as a dog might, then snatched his great axe from its place by the fire and pushed through the hide door.
Crooning a love song to the whimpering baby, Aleydis slowly followed.
***
They came with a great wind at their heels, dark riders under a living banner of ravens. The birds' screams joined with those of her people as the men and horses bore down on their camp. Aleydis walked through the panic, untouched by the running women or the mounted men who rode out to face their foe. Her head remained down, bowed over the child. She didn't see Oleg fall, or the deaths of his bondsmen. She didn't see the riders that streamed by her to slaughter the families whose lines her people had guarded for so many years. Her eyes were on the boy's eyes, lost in their bright newborn blue. She sang softly to the child, and somewhere in her mind, he sang back to her. The midwife stopped only when she felt hard packed earth give way to the springiness of yellow grass. It sank beneath her felt boots, and she lifted her face to the wind, and the ravens.
A man sat astride a black horse before her, his hands loose on the reins. She couldn't see his eyes beneath his dull iron helm but his nod was unmistakable. He offered a pale hand and without looking back, Aleydis reached to take it.