The Black Raven

Raena tossed up her head and took a quick step back. Verrarc laid the scroll onto the table.

‘What be so wrong?’ he said.

‘Oh, naught, naught.’ Yet she laid a hand on her throat, and her face had turned a bit pale. ‘I did forget that you trade among the Mountain Folk.’

‘Every summer, truly.’ Verrarc caught her hand and drew her close. ‘You look frightened.’

‘Be not so foolish!’ Raena laughed, but it was forced. ‘Come, my love, kiss me.’

It was an order he followed gladly, but later, when he had time to think, he wondered why she’d looked so afraid of his going among the Mountain People. Was there something there she didn’t want him to find? Or could it be that she’d sheltered among them during one of her strange disappearances? Her secrets again, her cursed wretched secrets!

All his life Verrarc had craved the witch-knowledge and magical power. When he thought back, it seemed to him that he’d always known that such things existed, even though logically there was no way he could have known. As a child, he’d sought out the tales told in the market place or in the ancient songs, passed down from one scop to another, that told of sorcery and the strange powers of the witch road. When, as an older boy, he’d travelled with his father to Dwarveholt, he’d heard more and learned more in the strange little human villages on the borders of that country. Here and there he asked questions; once he grew into a man, he’d been given a few cautious answers.

The men of Dwarveholt proper professed to know nothing about such things, but the odd folk in the villages always had some tale or bit of lore to pass on. Finally his persistence brought success. On one journey a half-human trader had offered him a leather-bound book, written in the language of the Slavers. It was old, very old, or so the trader said, written by a priest named Cadwallon when the Slavers had first invaded the western lands. The price was steep, the writing faded and hard on the eyes – he’d paid over the jewels demanded without hesitating.

Together he and Raena had studied that book. He would read a passage aloud; they would puzzle over it until they forced some sense out of the lines. Both of them showed a gift for the witch road, as Rhiddaer folk called the dweomer, and together they learned a few tricks and a fair bit of lore. The marriage her parents arranged for her had interrupted them – for a while. On the pretext of visiting her husband, Chief Speaker in the town of Penli, he’d ridden her way often and spent time with her, until their studies revived their love-affair one drowsy summer afternoon. Her husband had discovered the truth and cast her out, setting her free to disappear from the Rhiddaer for two years.

Where had she gone? Verrarc could only wonder. She had never told him. Now and then she would visit him, turning up suddenly from nowhere, it seemed, as on that morning when he’d ensorcelled young Jahdo. She would drop a few hints about strange gods and stranger magicks, then be off once more. Certainly she’d learned more about witchery than he had thought possible. But this knowledge she refused to share.

In the middle of the night Verrarc woke to find Raena gone. On the hearthstone a candle stood burning in a punched tin lantern. He lay awake in their bed, watching the candle-thrown shadows dance on the ceiling. She had gone back to the temple, he supposed, and left the candle burning against her return. She might take all night for her scrying, but try as he might, he could not fall asleep with her gone. Although he tried to convince himself that he worried about her, he knew that in truth he was jealous.

Verrarc got up and dressed. From the stub of the dying candle he lit a fresh taper and placed it in the lantern. Just what was she doing with that Lord Havoc? If he wasn’t truly a god, and Verrarc tended to believe his brother, Lord Harmony, on that point, then he was some sort of powerful spirit, and everyone knew that spirits took a fancy to flesh and blood women on occasion. The thought made Verrarc’s fists clench. He grabbed the lantern and left the house by the back door.

Outside, the winter night lay damp around him. One of his watchdogs roused in its kennel, but he whispered, ‘Good dog, Grey, good dog,’ and the big hound lay back down. He unlatched the gate and left the courtyard, then turned uphill. By lantern light he picked his way across snow-slick cobblestones till he reached the frozen path that led to the ruined temple, directly above his compound on the east side of Citadel. Where the path levelled out, he paused in the shelter of a pair of huge boulders. If Raena should be leaving and see his light, she would throw a raging fit that he’d come spying on her. Let her! He walked on.

At the entrance to the tunnel he hesitated. Although he could hear nothing, he could see a faint silver glow down at the far end. She was working witchery, all right, and hiding it from him yet again. With a soft curse under his breath, he climbed through the narrow entrance. On the packed dry earth inside, his leather boots made no sound. Slowly, a few steps at a time, stopping often to listen, Verrarc crept toward the silver glow, which spilled out of the door to the inner chamber. Although he considered blowing out the candle, he had no way of lighting it again. He set the lantern down and edged forward until he could peer round the broken doorway into the chamber.

Naked to the cold Raena was kneeling on the cold dirt floor and staring at a pool of silver light that seemed to drip from the stone wall like water. All at once she flung her head back and began to chant in some language that he didn’t know. She raised her arms and let her body sway back and forth as her voice sobbed and growled in a long sprung melody. Despite the cold she was sweating; he could see her face glistening in the silver light. Her black hair hung in thick damp strands like snakes. Even though he couldn’t understand her words, he could recognize her tone of voice. She was begging someone or something; now and again she wailed on the edge of tears as if she keened at a wake.

The silver glare filled the corners of the chamber with night-dark shadows, and as Raena’s swaying body blocked the light, her own shadow swayed and flickered on the far wall. Out of the corner of his eye Verrarc saw creatures standing in the dark, small things, half-human and half-beast, all blurred and faint as if they were but shadows themselves. One stepped far enough forward that he saw it clearly: the body of a wizened old woman, all bone and flabby skin, topped with the head of a drooling hound. It knelt down beside Raena’s piled clothing and fingered the edge of her cloak while it watched Raena sway and sob. Involuntarily Verrarc shuddered in disgust. It looked up, saw him, and disappeared. Locked in her chant, Raena never noticed either of them.

Slowly, silently, Verrarc made his way out of the ruins. The air outside had never smelled so sweet, despite its biting cold, and he realized that he had felt close to vomiting, watching Raena plead with her spirits. For some while he stood among the tangled blocks of stone and looked down at the mists rising from the warm lake. Why was he waiting for her, he wondered? She would find her own way home easily enough. With a shrug he picked his way back to the path. By the time he got back to the house, he was tired enough to go back to bed, and this time he slept through till morning.

When he woke, Raena lay next to him, curled up on her side and breathing softly. Around the shutters a gleam of grey light announced dawn. In her sleep she smiled, a curve of her mouth that seemed to hint of secrets. He left their bed without waking her, and when some while later she joined him for breakfast, he said nothing about the night just past.

Dressed in green she sat down across from him at the little table near the fire. For a while they ate porridge in silence.

‘My love?’ Raena said at last. ‘Is it that you must be about council business this afternoon?’

‘It’s not, truly, unless some sort of messenger does come from the Chief Speaker.’

‘That gladdens my heart.’

‘Indeed? Why?’

She shrugged, ate a few more mouthfuls, then laid her spoon down in the bowl.

‘I did wish to walk about the town, tis all,’ Raena said, ‘and I fear to do it alone. The citizens, they do stare at me so, and I know they do whisper about me, too, behind my back.’

‘Well, curse them all! One day soon, Rae, I do promise you, you’ll be my wife, and none will dare say one word.’

‘But till then –’

‘True spoken. It would do me good to get out of this house, too. We’ll have our stroll.’

In winter air Loc Vaedd steamed. From Citadel, the town below round its shore lay hidden in white mists. On the public plaza that graced the peak of the island, the cobbles lay slick and treacherous. Bundled in their winter cloaks, Verrarc and Raena walked slowly, side by side. In the brief daylight a number of other people were about, mostly servants of the wealthy and important souls who lived on Citadel. Some hurried past with buckets of water, drawn from the public well across from the Council House; others had been down in town, judging from the market baskets and bundles they carried.

About halfway through their slow circuit, however, they met Chief Speaker Admi, waddling along wrapped in a streaky scarlet cloak much like Verrarc’s own – a mark of their position on the town council. Admi bobbed his head in Raena’s direction with a pleasant enough smile, but when he spoke, he spoke only to Verrarc.

‘And a good morrow to you, Councilman,’ Admi said. ‘There be luck upon me this morn, to meet up with you like this.’

‘Indeed?’ Verrarc said. ‘Here, if you wish to speak with me, you be most welcome at my house.’

‘Ah well, my thanks, but truly, just a word with you will do. I did speak last night with some of the townsfolk, and they be sore afraid still, due to young Demet’s death. I did wonder if you might have some new understanding of the matter?’

‘Not yet, truly.’ Verrarc licked nervous lips. ‘I did talk most carefully with Sergeant Gart and the men who were on watch that night. Many a time have I returned to the ruins where he were slain, as well, but never have I found a trace that might lead us to his killer. To hear the men talk, Demet had not an enemy in the world, much less in the town. Truly, I do wonder if the townsfolk have the truth of it, when they whisper of evil spirits.’

Admi shuddered, drawing his cloak tighter around his enormous belly. Still, Verrarc was aware of how shrewdly Admi studied him behind this little gesture of fear. Verrarc glanced away, but he made sure he didn’t look at Raena.

‘Tomorrow,’ Admi said finally, ‘I think me we should call a meeting of the council. Tomorrow, say?’

‘Uh well, I’ll not be ready by then. The day after?’

‘Very well. When the sun’s at its highest. There’s a need on the full five of us to go over this matter and see what may be done to lay it to rest.’

‘Well and good, then. Shall I go round to the others and tell them about the meeting?’

‘Oh, I be out for a stroll alone, and it be no trouble for me to stop by their houses.’ Admi patted his belly. ‘My wife, she does say I grow too stout, and so she does turn me out into the cold like a horse into pasture to trot some of the flesh away.’

Admi laughed, but Verrarc found merriment beyond him. Raena stood watching the pair of them with eyes that revealed nothing. Admi nodded her way with another smile.

‘My farewell to you both,’ Admi said. ‘I’ll be off, then.’

For a moment they stood watching him waddle across the plaza, stepping carefully on the slick cobblestones. He turned down the narrow path that led to the western flank of Citadel, where the temple of the local gods and the cottage belonging to Werda, the town’s Spirit Talker, stood close together.

‘My curse upon him!’ Raena snarled. ‘Will no one in this stinking town even speak my name?’

‘Here, he did give you a greeting of a sort. Some weeks past he’d not have done that much. Patience, my love.’

Raena tossed her head in such anger that the hood of her cloak fell back. With a muffled oath she pulled it back up again.

‘Patience!’ she snarled. ‘I be sick of that as well.’

‘Well, no doubt, and I can’t hold it to your blame. I did speak with some of the townswomen and did ask them to intercede for us with the Spirit Talker. If only she’d bless our marriage –’

Raena jerked her head around and spat on the cobbles. Two of the passing servants stopped to consider her, and Verrarc could see the twist of contempt on their faces.

‘Shall we go home?’ Verrarc grabbed Raena’s arm through the muffling cloak.