The Witches’ Kitchen Read online

  “Your help is what I need! These are what I have to fight with! But you—” His hand shot out to snatch Corban’s knife from his belt. He jerked the blade up between them, so that the firelight glanced off the steel.

  “You have this. And other things of magic shape and power. I have seen them. I saw you strike down Burnt Feet with one such.” He swung his arm out wide toward the other men. “There are many of you now. Let more of you come. We will let you have the whole of this island, and every other island in the waterland, if you will destroy the Wolves.”

  Corban bit his teeth together. He looked over at Euan and Ulf and the others, and saw that Benna had gone, and Arre also. Nobody else could understand this, he realized, but everybody was staring at him, waiting for some conclusion.

  Tisconum gripped his arm. His voice hissed in Corban’s ears; his free hand made shapes in the air. “I want to tear them. I want to find their villages and burn them down, and kill them all, and drag their women and babies away here to work for us, to live on the leavings of our children.” He cupped his hand to Corban. “I beg you this. You can give me this.”

  Corban swallowed; he could not keep his mind off the idea that if he had never come here, none of this would have happened. He met Tisconum’s eyes, and touched his own head. “I will think on it. My son—” Conn was sitting on the ground, just behind him, and at a nod came leaping up onto his feet. “My son will serve you. I need to think about all this.”

  Conn said, “Pap, what should I do?”

  “See he has the best meats to eat, and something good to drink. Stay with him, keep these others off.” Corban nodded to the headman and waved to his son, then turned and went off away from the fire.

  In the cool darkness he turned his steps up toward the ridge. After the glare of the fire and the insistent looks of all those people, he was glad to be alone and in the dark. He went up through the trodden grass toward the foot of the great rock.

  In the space of a few days his life here had come apart in his hands. Yet in the very disassembling he saw some order. It was his fault, all of it. He thought again of the shark, rising from the sea to take him.

  Maybe not a warning. Maybe a summons.

  Before he had gone past the side of his house, Benna had joined him, walking along beside him; her hand touched his, and he took hold of it. She said, “Did you think I would let you decide this by yourself?”

  “You never have before,” he said. He squeezed her hand. “What does Euan want? Tisconum is asking me for revenge.”

  “Ah, please,” she said. “Against what? Who are these enemies?”

  “Some people to the west he calls the Wolves.” He caught himself making the gesture Tisconum had used, two pointing fingers and a cocked thumb, a wolf’s head.

  They climbed to the rock and sat down with their backs to it, looking south and east over the narrow water. Benna beside him was silent. He put his arm around her and she snuggled in against him, her head against his shoulder. Some of the heat of the day still lingered in the stone against his back. The grass around him was just blooming. Out there beyond the low dark shape of the land, the stars were pricking through the darkness. The moon, almost full, stood a couple of fists above the horizon; lower, away to the left of it, was a brilliant blazing blue star that he thought was one of the wanderers.

  She said, “I will not go back to Jorvik. I’m happy here. Or was, until these people came. But—”

  She stopped. He thought, again, if he had not come here, none of this would have happened. None of the good either, but the good seemed so frail, so uncertain, against the spreading evil.

  She was holding his hand; he could feel the thin bones of her fingers that made the world around him.

  He said, “What if I went back? Just for a while.”

  “What,” she said, pushing away from him. “To bring back a few ships full of Vikings? No.” Her eyes searched his face. “What is it?”

  He said, “Well, I think I have something still to do back there.”

  “This is all happening because of what I did back there. It’s followed us, it will forever follow us, until I make it better. Pay what I owe, level things with those whom I hurt. Then we will be free.”

  She said nothing. Finally, she said, “I did it also.”

  “You did only good, as you ever do, and you did it for my sake.” He gave her what he knew would bend her to him.

  “I will bring no Vikings back, Benna. Maybe some more food, to keep these people here through the winter, but then in the spring your sister and Euan, damn him, can go home again, and everything will be as it was. You and I will help Tisconum defend himself.”

  Her breath hissed between her teeth. She said, “There’s no other way?”

  “We could go back with them, all of us, now. Leave Tisconum to his fate. He says they’ll come back.”

  She rubbed her face against him. Her hand was cool in his fingers. Eventually, she said, “No.”

  “Then what else?”

  “You could stay here.”

  “Then I think she will follow me, everywhere. Everything I try to do will come apart in my hands.”

  “She.”

  “You know who I mean.”

  She was quiet again, and he waited, letting her sort it all out; she often saw things clearer than he did, but this time he knew he was right.

  She said, “How could you go?”

  “In the new ship,” he said.

  “Alone,” she said. Her fingers curled around his hand.

  He laid his cheek down against her hair. The stars twinkled at him. In the evenings he often sat here and watched them, his mind struggling with their order, startled at their waywardness; surely there was some symmetry in them, some gigantic way of knowing, but he had never found it.

  All he had was his plodding inadequate wit. He said, “I could take the boys. It’s not such a hard trip, going east.”

  He felt her move slightly against him and tightened his arm around her. She was silent a while. He guessed she was far ahead of him, had seen this coming before he said it, before he himself reached it; he thought of May.

  As if she heard him, she said, “Mav may not let you take him.”

  “I’ll ask her,” he said. He brushed his lips over her hair. “Euan and Ulf can do the men’s work here until I get back. Hunt, and fish, and keep guard. And with the big ship, and Ulf and his crew here, if anything happens—” He stopped. He knew she would never board the big ship to sail back to Jorvik. He said anyway, uselessly, “You could escape.”

  She said nothing for a moment. In the black of the sky the wandering star shone blue-white, steady as a beacon.

  “Conn wants to go,” she said. “He would have left with Ulf, when Ulf went back, if you let him, even if this had not happened. And taken Raef with him. But she will not let Raef go, unless . . .”

  He sat still, holding her, his eyes filled with the erratic light of the stars, waiting. At last she went on. “Unless she thinks it should be. She will know. If she agrees, then let it be.”

  He sighed. He was holding her tight against him, and now she laughed, a little breathless, and stirred, and he eased his grip. He kissed her hair again. He said, “I can’t live long without you, Benna. I’ll be back before the first snow.”

  “lf she says . . .”

  Her voice faded. Warm and strong in his arms, she laid her head against his chest and was still. Down along the rumpled horizon another bright little dot was poking up into the sky; he recognized one more of the wanderers, fainter, red like an old fire. The wanderers seldom came so close together; he wondered if that meant something. He had spent a lifetime wondering what things meant.

  The stars would be the same in Jorvik. He had taken comfort from that, when they first came here, that the stars were the same, the sky. Now that he was going back, they gave him comfort again. He held his wife close against him, his face against her hair, and gathered himself for what was to come.

  T
isconum sat beside Corban’s son, whom he had seen often before, a chunky, muscular boy who smiled too much. The boy gave him a piece of meat from the deer—the best part, from along the spine—but as the boy sat beside him at the fire, every now and then he gave him a sideways look, and the look was not as good as the meat.

  Anyway Tisconum could barely eat. The weight of what had happened lay over him like a fall of earth. He drew his deerskin coat around him. Slowly he grew aware of the other men around him.

  Like Corban’s son they were watching him, not steadily, but from the corners of their eyes, and over their hands, and through their hair. All the while, they chattered to one another, and some of them were wrestling. The boy, Corban’s son, stood up once, eager to join that, but then looked down at Tisconum and sat down quietly again.

  Tisconum looked sideways back at these strangers. He could not understand their words, but he understood what their bodies said. They shoved back and forth at each other, laughing. Those shaggy faces, like animals. A creeping fear edged its way over him. The meat was like charcoal in his mouth. He gathered his deerskin up close around him.

  The boy turned and held out a cup to him, a hollow carved of wood. He took it, saw them all watching him, all of their eyes like arrow points glinting in the firelight, and was warned, and let his lips only touch the water in the cup.

  The stuff burned. He thrust the cup away so hard it flew from his hand and the liquid splashed into the fire, which whooshed up; Tisconum’s hair stood on end at that sight. Some of the men burst out laughing, openly, not hiding their mirth behind their hands even before him, a chief of his people. Rigid, only half breathing, he saw how some of them growled, angry that he had thrown aside their offering.

  He knew it was poison. He sat straight, sure they were about to kill him, and the boy sat beside him and said something, and the whole mob laughed and went to something else.

  The cup came back, filled again, and he watched the strange white men drinking of it. They paid less attention to him, except now and then to yell something at him, as if he would understand what they said if they only made it loud enough. They staggered when they stood up, and fell flat, and fell asleep on the ground.

  All the while, they thrust and struck at each other, and wrestled, and fought.

  He thought, they are like the Wolves. I have given the heartland of the world to people like wolves.

  He stood up, his knees shaking. Corban’s son stood with him, watching him, and Tisconum turned and went stiffly away, down toward the shore.

  The fire was banked down, glinting red eyes under the dark ash; the men had fallen asleep by the fire or gone to their beds in the striped tents on the grass. Tisconum was gone. Corban went to the door of his house and looked in; a pine knot burned in the little lane between the rooms, and he could see the boys in their side, pretending to sleep, and on the other side, in his bed, Arre, lying on her back, with Aelfu wrapped in one arm and Mint in the other.

  He went out again, on down toward the water. The wind rumpled the striped cloth over Ulf’s men; their feet stuck out under the edges of the makeshift tents.

  He had walked along this land for years and yet now it suddenly seemed new to him, new and strange. Mav was nowhere. He went down to the bank above the shore, thinking how he would talk to her. She no longer bothered with the speech of ordinary people, but he always managed somehow to talk to her. He was thinking what he should do, if she refused to let Raef go, and then, as if she condensed out of the air, she was walking along beside him, his old red and blue cloak wrapped around her.

  He drew in a deep ragged breath. They went along the shore together, not speaking, up to the point where the island bent away sharply south again, and there he stopped. He could still smell the smoke of the burnt village. The night lay cool around them, murmurous with the wind.

  He faced her, collecting words. In spite of the dark he saw her clearly; the wind blew her hair wild around her, a great cloud, and her eyes were like skies. She smiled at him. Reaching out she took hold of his hands. Her hands were hard and cold, and she gripped him tight.

  “Take him,” she said. Her voice was harsh and low. She smiled at him. “Come back. You and Raef.” Her hands tightened painfully on his a moment before she let him go. She swung the red and blue cloak from her shoulders and put it around him, and kissed him, her cheek against his, and looked deeply into his eyes for a moment. Then she let him go, and turned, and walked away.

  “Mav,” he said.

  She ignored him, walking on. He watched her go down along the shore, her feet silent on the pebbles. He wondered how she crossed the water. Aelfu had said once she had seen her fly. He did not doubt it. His heart wrenched in his chest, wanting to follow her; all their lives, she had led him, but now she had grown too strong and wild for him, leaving him always farther behind. His eyes ached, trying to see her in the dark, but she was gone.

  He was alone. He gripped the cloak in his fists, glad of it, and went back up to his house, to his bed, to his wife and children.

  Ulf took Conn off to one side and gave him a cloak of red wool. “Here, You’re going to be laughed at enough, you should have something respectable.” The old captain put his hands on the boy’s shoulders and looked into his face. Conn flushed under the look, wondering. Then Ulf sighed.

  “Ah, you’re going off to see the world, off to a hero’s life. Well, it’s on me to give you advice, since you have no uncle.” Ulf nodded gravely at him, his lips pursed. Conn waited. He gave a quick glance down the shore, where Raef and Corban were standing by the little ship, and faced Ulf again. Finally the old man shook his head.

  “Damn it, how can this be, that after all these years, I really don’t know much? I’ll tell you this, though, Conn—never back down from a fight. And make sure you follow the right man.” He clasped Conn’s shoulder tight. “Go on, then, son.” Quickly he turned away.

  “Conn!”

  “Thanks, Ulf. I’ll remember.” He waited a moment, thinking there should be more to this, and then tucked the cloak under his arm. “Good-bye.”

  He went on down toward the shore. His mother was there, his sisters, his aunt, the whole crew. His father and Raef were already pushing the little ship out onto the glittering water. The tide was ebbing fast, dragging him off, away from the island, out into the world. He could not walk; he broke into a run down the slope, kissed his mother almost without stopping, called to the rest of them, and ran out into the shallow water after the ship.

  Miru was crying, and Arre stooped and lifted her up into her arms. Aelfu pressed against her. Their own mother could not comfort them; she stood down at the edge of the water, not crying, not wailing, not even moving, except her eyes, following the little ship away.

  Ulf and his men had long since gone up the hill, to do their daily round of ordinary things. Euan was shouting at them; Arre could hear him behind her, bellowing orders.

  Her eyes burned. The child nestled warm and heavy in her arms, and she hugged her tight against her. Down on the shore her sister stood rigid, watching the little ship take her husband and her sons away, and now the tiny red and white sail was skirting the tree-covered headland; in a moment it would be gone entirely.

  “Benna,” Arre said.

  Benna did not turn. Arre licked her lips. The sail was gone now, nothing under her eyes but the rumpled blue water and the green slope of the headland. She turned and swept her gaze across the little house yard, the sloppy tents, the dead fire, the men clustered around Euan who would give them orders, who would make everything neat and bustling.

  Corban would walk here again, she felt that certainly. Yet her mind quaked, thinking it, thinking of Benna.

  Down there, at last, her sister turned. Her face was long and thin, her mouth sad. Her eyes were dull. She came up toward Arre, and Aelfu ran to her and Benna stooped and put her arms around the little girl and kissed her.

  Arre said, “They will come back.”

  Benna wiped her wrist
over her face. “What if something happens to him?” She stopped, her lips trembling. Miru in Arre’s arms stretched out her hands to her mother. Arre brought them all together, one arm around Benna’s shoulders. Under her arm she felt Benna quivering, as if she longed so to go with Corban her body tried to lift itself across the space between them. Benna whispered, “I should have gone with him.”

  Arre gave a little unhappy laugh. “But your girls are here. And I’m here.” She held her tighter. “I love you.” And now they had to make a life in this wild place, with nothing but stones and sand and wind. Benna stumbled, walking beside her, and she held her sister on her feet. They went up the slope, toward the snug little house.

  Tisconum stood on the shore where the bay met the edge of the world-water; he could still see the red stripes of Corban’s sail, far down the waves to the east. His belly twisted. This had begun so simply, and now it was spreading away from him like a bad fire.

  Everybody in his village was saying he had brought this on them. They said he should have killed Corban, the first time he saw him, and then none of this would have happened, the fighting, his nephew’s death, the deaths of so many others of his village, still dying, a few more every day, as they gave in to their wounds. Worse, they were leaving. That morning, two of the lodges had collected their tools and hides and baskets and children and walked out, to go with the Turtle People on the far side of the bay, who were of a kindred lineage.

  Those who stayed behind were huddled in the ruins of their houses. Nobody tried to rebuild anything. Nobody went hunting, and he himself had not the heart to bring the hunt together. They were eating up their stores. Soon they would have nothing left. His mind flinched from imagining what would happen then.

  Tisconum, their headman, walked along the shore, wishing for wisdom. The sea was calm, and the waves broke tamely along the white rim of the land. Out there a billowing cloud rose enormously into the sky, its upper reaches blazing white. Below its gray underbelly the sail was a speck of red, and then gone.