The Islands of the Blessed (43 page)

The road took them into town, and they saw another group of watchmen patrolling the market square. When anyone appeared, he was stopped and escorted to his destination. People were still being allowed to trade, but their movements were controlled.
What incredible authority Father Severus must have
, Jack thought,
to make the townsfolk so obedient.

They walked past houses with gardens and chicken pens. Farther on, the dwellings were humbler, but the farms were more extensive. All was orderly, if very, very subdued.

The fortress of Din Guardi sat on its stone shelf over the sea, but there was little about it to strike fear into the heart of enemies. No army of berserkers would be dismayed by the pretty pink towers or stonework carved to resemble vines. Still, it was solidly built and the gate was closed. You couldn't just walk in, as the Bard had before.

Jack felt the light around them drift away. He took a deep breath.

“Now will you tell me what happened?” demanded Thorgil. “You cast a spell in a strange language and turned us invisible. I didn't know you had that kind of magic.”

“Neither did I,” admitted Jack. “I think that was a
lorica
, a warding-spell. I saw the Bard do it, but he couldn't teach it to me. He said that the words came when needed and that you couldn't remember them afterward.”

“
I
could,” boasted Thorgil, and then stopped. “By the Aesir, I can't! What good is a spell you can't call up at will?”

“I think it's something you can't own,” said Jack. “Anyhow, we're visible now, and we should ask for help from King Brutus. I'm very worried about Ethne.”

Not only was the gate closed, but the windows on the landward side appeared to have been bricked up. A sheer cliff prevented them from looking on the seaward side. “Do you think they're dead?” said Thorgil.

“Listen,” Jack said. Above the waves they heard singing and laughter. A breeze brought them the smell of roasting meat.

“Nidhogg's fangs!” swore the shield maiden, naming the dragon that gnawed at the roots of Yggdrassil. “Brutus is feasting while his people suffer! No Northman king would sink so low. Even Ivar at his most foolish looked after his folk in winter.”

“I wonder if Brutus even knows what's going on out here,” Jack said.

“Can you use your new powers to knock down the gate?”

“Perhaps,” Jack said doubtfully. He stood in front of the massive wooden doors and tried to draw up fire, but nothing happened. Only the sounds of merriment floated out to mock him. “I don't know how to use St. Columba's staff,” he
admitted. “Sometimes it obeys me, but mostly it does things I don't expect.”

“We'll have to go on to the monastery,” Thorgil said.

“I had hoped …” Jack trailed off as he gazed unhappily at the lovely green stonework at the top of the wall. The Lady of the Lake had decorated it with jeweled flowers. How much of the fortress was real and how much was glamour he couldn't tell. It was still a barrier he couldn't cross. “I had hoped to find Ethne inside. The Bard wanted King Brutus to rescue her and make her his queen.”

“I don't think there's much chance of that.” Thorgil hefted her pack, and they set off in the direction of St. Filian's. Jack resigned himself to a long walk, but when they passed a field containing a few stray ponies, the shield maiden whistled sharply. Two of the ponies looked up and cantered toward them.

“How did you do that?” Jack said with admiration.

Thorgil shrugged. “It's like the
lorica
, I guess. It just happens.”

The shield maiden's pony accepted her gladly, but Jack's danced around so much, she had to calm it by whispering into its ear. Even so, it hunched its back and made every effort to make the ride uncomfortable. “Let's stop for a few minutes,” said Jack when they got to the pine forest overlooking St. Filian's. “I need to think.” He gratefully slid off his pony and found a comfortable patch of grass.

The walls below were beautifully whitewashed, but Jack thought the gardens and orchards looked neglected. The lake
had invaded some of the fields, and a long tongue of water lapped at the monastery door. To one side was the small white convent. “We should go there if we can't get into St. Filian's,” Jack said. “Perhaps the nuns weren't infected.”

“Or they might all be dead.” Thorgil, as was her way, faced the possibility directly. “We don't know how long the disease has been raging.”

Jack felt a dull anger at Father Severus. If he hadn't been so pigheaded, none of this would have happened. If he'd shown pity for the mermaid, the Bard would still be alive. If he'd had even a tenth of Brother Aiden's kindness, he would never have allowed Ethne to wall herself up. If, if, if! One thing led to the next, and now all had fallen apart.

“I hate to admit it, but I'm afraid to go down there,” said Thorgil. “Eventually, flying venom burns itself out like a fire, but until then we might easily catch it. Northmen who die such honorless deaths go to the icy halls of Hel. They are forever condemned to wander in darkness with thralls and oath-breakers.”

“Northman religion is so cheerful,” said Jack. “The best you can expect is Ragnarok. Odin was positively gleeful about Garm being let off his leash and the ship of death bringing destruction to the living.”

“What did you say?”

Too late Jack remembered he hadn't told Thorgil about the encounter with the war god. “Oh, bedbugs,” he muttered. “I saw Odin on Grim's Island. He was sitting on a huge throne with Olaf at his feet. We didn't hit it off.”

“You saw Odin and I didn't?”

“You wouldn't have liked him. He would have made you fetch him a horn of mead.”

Thorgil looked ready to throw herself into a fight when she suddenly stopped. She began to laugh, a real, heartfelt laugh that Jack hadn't heard from her in a long time. “Oh! Oh, that feels good! Of course he would have ordered me around. And I would have obeyed him. You don't say no to a god. But I would have felt rotten afterward.” She laughed until the tears ran down her face, and Jack watched her with surprise and admiration.

When she had finished, she wiped her eyes with her sleeve. “I feel all light inside,” she said, “as though someone had thrown open a window.”

Jack leaned over and took her hand. “You are Jill Allyson's Daughter,” he said, using the name Thorgil's dead mother had given her at birth. “You are not meant for Ragnarok.”

They gazed at each other seriously for a moment. A breeze rustled the branches of the pines and the smell of apples came to them from the orchards down below. Then Thorgil stood up. “We must go to rescue Ethne,” she said. “May the gods grant that we find her alive.”

They dismounted close to the walls. The apple orchard had been deserted for some time, for the branches were heavy with ripe fruit. It seemed to Jack that he had never smelled apples so fine. He picked one and held it to his nose.

“This alone tells us the nuns haven't prospered,” said Thorgil. She, too, plucked one and began to eat. She stuffed several into her backpack.

They walked around the monastery walls, wading through areas where the lake had invaded. All the doors were bolted and the windows bricked up, but unlike Din Guardi, no sounds came from inside. “Curse Father Severus for being thorough,” said Jack, trying to force his shoulder against a
door. Even the lych-gate that led to the monks' cemetery had been reinforced. The walls were very high, like those of a fortress, and plastered so well that there was not a single foothold.

They shouted repeatedly. No one answered. Jack tried to raise fire to burn open the main gate. Nothing happened. “Why can't I get this thing to work?” he fumed. “I've drawn up fire before. Why not now?”

“Fate,” Thorgil said simply. “It seems our path has been laid out for us. We were shown the entrance to St. Columba's cave, but you couldn't find it a second time. When it was time to leave Grim's Island, Seafarer appeared. When you needed the
lorica
, it came to your mind. But when we wished to enter Din Guardi, we were turned away. Also here. I think we should go on to the convent.”

They found the gate open. Dry leaves blew across a small courtyard lined with doors. These, too, were open, showing small nuns' cells with little in them except bedding. At the far end was a chapel. A table was covered with a cloth and a pewter cross. A single window was made of small panes of glass fastened together by lead strips. The panes were milky white except for one in the middle, a triangular shard of ruby red. It hung in the middle like a drop of blood, and the sun shone through it with a glory that made Jack catch his breath.

“That must have come from the Holy Isle,” he said quietly. “When the window there was shattered, the surviving pieces were fitted together at St. Filian's. One must have been left over.” He didn't say—what was the use?—that berserkers had
been responsible. Olaf One-Brow, Sven the Vengeful, Rune. Thorgil.

Someone groaned not far away. Jack and Thorgil ran from the chapel and looked into the cells they had believed empty. In the third one they found a woman lying in a heap of filthy straw. “Wulfie!” cried Thorgil.

Jack could hardly recognize the large, healthy nun he'd seen before. She had wasted away, and her skin was gray with illness and dirt. “Water,” whispered Sister Wulfhilda. Thorgil grabbed her cider bag and dribbled a few drops into the woman's mouth.

Sister Wulfhilda coughed but managed to swallow. Thorgil gave her more. “We'll build a fire and cook you something,” the shield maiden said. “All we have is dried fish, but if I can find a pot, I can make soup.”

“Pots,” croaked the nun. “Storeroom.”

Jack and Thorgil pulled away the filthy straw and substituted fresh from the other cells. Thorgil cut an apple into thin slices and placed it in Sister Wulfhilda's hands. “Eat if you can. We'll be back.”

They found the storeroom. It was an impressive structure made of stone with a thick wooden door that took both Jack and Thorgil to drag it open. Pots, cups, and wooden trenchers were stored on shelves. Firewood was stacked by the door. High on a platform were bags of grain and beans, while beneath were chests full of cheese wheels, bacon, and smoked fish. Crocks of honey and oil as well as a good supply of candles were in a side chamber. Eggs were stored in buckets
of fine ash. A trapdoor led down to a cellar where they found onions, turnips, and kegs of ale and cider.

“Imagine!” cried Thorgil. “All this food and poor Wulfie was too weak to reach it.”

“Where are the other nuns?” Jack said uneasily.

“One step at a time,” the shield maiden said. “First, we have to get her strong enough to talk.” They built a fire in an outside hearth, and Thorgil fetched water from a stream running into the lake. “I'll cook,” she said. “You feed Wulfie cider mixed with honey. Not too much at a time. After famines in the Northland, people had to eat slowly or they would die.”

Jack sat beside the nun and felt her head. It was cool. If she had suffered from flying venom, she no longer had it. He moistened her lips with the sweetened cider. “Good,” Sister Wulfhilda whispered. She hadn't touched her apple slices. They had fallen into the straw.

Jack gave her cider until Thorgil returned with a cup of soup. She had boiled bacon in water to make a fragrant, salty broth with beads of oil on top. Sister Wulfhilda accepted this new dish with enthusiasm. “Goooood,” she crooned.

Little by little they fed her, and little by little her strength returned, until she was able to speak. “Flying venom. All are dying or dead.”

“All?” said Jack, fear quickening his heart.

“Father Severus ordered the nuns into the monastery,” said Sister Wulfhilda. “He said we were doomed, but if we kept to ourselves, we could save the town from the disease.
God would see our sacrifice and forgive our sins.” She had to rest a moment before continuing. “He made everyone fast.”

“The idiot,” said Thorgil. “Everyone knows starvation is the brother of death.”

“What about Ethne?” Jack said.

“I wasn't allowed to go near her. I tried.” Tears began to roll down Sister Wulfhilda's cheeks. Gradually, the story came out. As Thorgil had guessed, the first case of flying venom had been Mrs. Tanner's brother. He had fled to the monastery for help, and when Father Severus realized what a dangerous disease the man had, he sent monks to burn the tanner's hovel down.

First, the infirmary monks became ill and then the men who had contact with them. That was when the abbot brought the nuns in, for they had been exposed when they washed the monastery's clothes. To add to everyone's torment, fleas multiplied in the late-summer heat. It was much worse than the usual lice and fleas that pious people welcomed in order to offer their sufferings to Christ. Fleas infested everything, making everyone itch so much, their robes were spotted with blood from scratching.

That was when Father Severus had ordered the fast. After three days one of the monks, Brother Sylvus, came to Sister Wulfhilda and told her to bring food from the storehouse.

“Brother Sylvus is a good man,” said Sister Wulfhilda, “not like most of the scum in there. He's genuinely kind, and it hurt him to see the weaker monks and nuns suffer. He let me out of the lych-gate and I ran here. I loaded up with as much as I could carry, but by the time I returned, the door had been
locked.” The nun wept silently for a moment. “I went round and round, begging to be let in. No one answered. Day after day I tried. Then my head began to hurt.”

Sister Wulfhilda had come down with the flying venom. She had no idea how long she had been ill. At first she'd had the strength to crawl to the stream to fill her pitcher. Later her thoughts became too confused.