VI – Raise Ravens #2

They sat in silence for a while. She, intent, picked out the tiny glass particles one by one, whilst he, meantime, reread the manuscript with somewhat greater calm.

'I should not fret. Our blood, Alfredo’s, is blessed by Odín himself; the light hath ever been with us, and this time shall be no exception.'

'Doth any of that make thee doubt?' she asked without looking at him.

'Aye—its age,' he replied, holding the leather up to the light to examine the invisible. 'I know not how Halfdan kept this in his possession for so many years without making use of it. At the start of the negotiations with Ubberia and the kingdoms of Moldivar and Korkolat, for instance.'

'Perhaps so, and with that he convinced Jorlaft to lay siege to Old Minister,' Windar mimicked.

Narg withdrew his hands from his grandmother.

Her lack of distress made him hesitate. He found it strange that a woman of her temperament was not cursing Halfdan’s memory and plotting with him how to capture Miar.

For it was clear, at least to him, that the letter addressed to her was intended to slander her good name.

He rose and began to roll the papyrus, as if each turn cleared his mind. He selected one of the keys from the ring at his waist and walked to the chest at the foot of his bed, where he locked it away.

'Do you know Tregor?' he asked, sharpening his senses to gauge her reaction.

He knew her all too well. Narg considered his bond with his grandmother to be special, but it was also one of the points in the manuscript that had caught his attention.

Feeling accused, she raised her head and met a cold, distant, soulless gaze. She knew, in that instant, that if she did not choose her words carefully, given her grandson’s current state of illness and what she had just read, the least severe punishment she could face would be exile.

'Halfdan has always been a stubborn and heartless man. His own people have celebrated his defeat. But he did one thing well: he planted in thy mind the most powerful of poisons, the darkest of seeds, the thorniest of plants: the seed of doubt and betrayal,' replied Windar, looking away.

Narg remained silent, dissatisfied that she was evading his direct question. For the first time in his life, he felt uneasy in his grandmother’s presence.

'Thou hast said it thyself, thou shouldst not fret,' she continued, seeking to dispel the mystery. 'Thou already hast it in thy keeping. Now no one but thou and I shall know what it saith, though I could swear, by the cast of young Gwion’s countenance, that he hath read it as well.'

Narg shook his head from side to side several times. 'Impossible,' he told himself; Gwion could not read Leighill. But then he leaned back and tensed his muscles. 'Gregor,' he thought, 'Gregor Belt,' and he had to take a deep breath to control the dizziness that rocked his insides.

'If only thou couldst see thyself, thou wouldst understand how my heart breaks at the thought of what is running through thy mind, my dear child.'

He tried to call out to them, to Gwion, to Gregor; he had to protect himself from betrayal.

From them, or from his own Windar?, he wondered, and, pale-faced, looked down at her from above.

He traced the thin, whitish line upon his grandmother’s cheek—the scar he used to stroke as a child until sleep took him, now taut against the blankness of her face.

And, desperate to be that child once more, he saw himself in her emerald eyes.

Another sharp, precise twinge in the middle of his forehead, at the scar. And, to endure the pain, he furrowed his eyelids and bit his lip.

'Thou must rest,' quoth Windar. 'Come, my boy, it is meet that thou recover. In a few days’ time shall be the celebration of thy birth; thou wouldst not desire all those who come from afar to honour thee to depart without having had the honour.'

Narg swallowed hard, choking as he heard his own voice echoing in his head: 'Forty years, and Old Minister an empire.'

The coughing echoed throughout the chamber as he stumbled towards the round table laden with drink.

He picked up the glass jug of well water and filled the golden goblet, so gleaming that all the jewels adorning the chamber seemed like rude chunks of brass.

He emptied it down his throat and felt it run cool, from his mouth to his stomach.

It filled him with energy and, with a ragged sigh, filled his lungs.

He raised his head at just the right moment and felt as though the sun itself had slapped him when one of his arms bounced off the mirror hanging in front of him. Another sharp, prolonged twinge knocked him off balance and he had to grab hold of the wooden pillar supporting the canopy of his bed.

Windar came to his aid. She helped him sit upon the soft bedstead covered with a black quilt embroidered with a raven in golden tones. She sat down beside him. Gently, she took his head and rested it upon her shoulder whilst stroking his cheek.

Narg began to feel an overwhelming drowsiness, but before he closed his eyes, the caw of the raven, which was still perched at the window, called out to him.

They made eye contact and, as a black feather fell from the bird’s right wing, clear in his mind, like the murmur of waves in the distance, he heard:

When the shadow looms over the earth. No man shall be able to defeat him; only Perkolon—with the stone of Jotunheim, with the sapphire of Tyr, with Gleipnir’s rope. Bathed in his blood, he shall sleep in Asgard.