Authors: Brian Bates
Then Wulf led the way downriver and along a deer trail that cut deeper into the forest, collecting and stacking loose firewood on the way for us to pick up on our return to the camp. Eventually we emerged from a coppice of hazel into a long broad meadow. Setting sunlight slanted through the surrounding tree cover like golden javelins and around the perimeter of the meadow, birch, beech and occasional oaks floated in a sea of green and yellow fern.
Suddenly I saw Wulf standing rigidly upright, nostrils flared, sniffing as if for the scent of the wild boar. Nervously I scanned the surrounding trees and shrubs, but saw nothing of consequence. Then I heard, or rather felt, a faint vibration under my feet and stood rooted to the spot as the sensation grew into an ominous rumble. Wulf’s head jerked around and he pointed straight-armed towards the far end of the glade, directly under the shade trees. The ground shimmered with a thick covering of pale blue clover which was undulating like an incoming tide. As I stared at the spot, I realized that the movement was caused by a swarm of bees bustling in and out of the clover, droning just above ground level.
‘The Lord be blessed!’ I blurted out in relief. ‘It was only bees all the...’ Wulf silenced me with a frantic wave of his arm
‘Those bees are the Wyrd Sisters,’ he hissed. ‘Come on!’
Wulf started running towards the tree cover, his body bent double; I scrambled after him, hurling myself into the ferns at the edge of the glade. Wulf swept off his hat and knelt low, watching the bees through waving fern fronds. Craning my neck over his shoulder, I stared unblinking down the glade. The bees were at least fifty paces distant, too far away to see in detail.
‘The Wyrd Sisters have come to loosen your fibres,’ he breathed, his eyes still fixed on the bees. ‘That will make it possible for you to encounter the spirits by travelling along your personal web of power. Brand, you must go to meet them. Show them you are available and that you want to be helped.’
I half stood, determined to leave. ‘Wulf, I don’t want to. I cannot do it. Let us get out of the forest.’
But he gripped my arm in a grasp like an iron clamp.
‘We cannot do that, Brand. It is not possible. If you try to run they will know that you are not sincere in your wish to learn our secrets and they will kill you.’
He opened his mouth to speak again, but then turned away to glance down the meadow once more, keeping his grip on my arm
‘Now listen carefully,’ he commanded, spitting out the words in a hissing whisper. ‘Walk slowly and softly towards them. When you get close, within ten paces, turn your back on them and walk away. If they ignore you, then they are not ready for you! Do you understand?’
I nodded stiffly, my heart pounding.
‘But Wulf, what happens if they are ready for me?’
‘Then the Wyrd Sisters will loosen your fibres.’
‘How?’
Wulf ignored the question. He was again peering over the ferns towards the bees and I did not move.
‘Go!’ Wulf said, pushing me out of the undergrowth. I stepped into the clearing and stood rigidly, staring down the meadow. I had become accustomed to following Wulf’s instructions and, indeed, had accepted this as a necessary part of the arrangements by which I might enter and understand his pagan world. But as I stared at the seething swarm I shivered uncontrollably. I did not know whether I was approaching bees or spirits but, if Wulf did indeed discourse with devils, I could be facing death. I glanced heavenward, but the Lord’s Prayer stuck in my throat. I was approaching devils of my own free will and I had no right to ask for His help. I took a deep breath and began to steal slowly down the glade towards the bees. Twice I faltered and had to force myself to take further steps. Finally I stopped ten paces from the droning swarm, where I waited, holding my breath. Sweat ran freely from my temples and dripped from my chin. I stood for what seemed an age while the swarm rumbled monotonously, the low drone almost soporific. Gradually I began to relax; they sounded like a normal swarm of contentedly foraging bees and I could see nothing unusual in their behaviour. They did not appear to be at all interested in me. Either the spirits were not ready for me or, much more likely, Wulf had been mistaken and the bees were nothing more than they appeared. With a sigh of relief I turned on my heel and strode back up the glade. Immediately the droning grew louder and I darted a glance over my shoulder just in time to see the bees forming a dense cloud a foot above the clover. Simultaneously I felt a strong grip on my left shoulder and found that Wulf was standing beside me.
‘Walk backwards. Slowly,’ he ordered, his voice harsh and commanding cutting across the noise of the swarm. ‘Do not turn your back on them, Brand. Those bees have the power of the Sisters; they have come to loosen your fibres.’
We began to move backwards, Wulf seeming to glide noiselessly over the clover. I slowed my movements to match his and we moved away from the bees almost imperceptibly. But the bees swarmed higher, the drone rising in pitch until it filled the glade with a piercing whine. I was struggling with an almost irresistible urge to turn and run when Wulf signalled for me to halt.
‘Take off your right shoe,’ he ordered, gesturing urgently towards my feet. I stared at him in panic, thinking that I had not heard him correctly. Wulf’s eyes narrowed to slits, his face taut with concentration.
‘Hurry! Do as I say.’
Immediately I dropped to one knee and began to unwrap my shoe. My hands trembled and the leather knots resisted my frantic fingers. With the straps half untied, I tore the shoe from my foot and flung it aside.
Wulf whipped off the thongs around his right leg took off his own shoe and begin pulling hard at the clover near his feet.
‘Clear a patch of earth and put your bare foot on to it. Fast!’
He was now having to shout in order to be heard over the whine.
Desperately I scrabbled at the clover, repeatedly glancing at Wulf and then down the glade towards the bees. He continued digging his fingers into the soil and piling earth next to him, then he slammed his bare foot on to the exposed patch of ground. I placed my own foot on the bare earth I had cleared.
The bees swarmed above head height and Wulf turned to me. ‘They are coming after you, Brand. Get ready.’
I did not know what I was supposed to do. I was rooted to the spot, kneeling on the ground with my bare foot on the earth and quite unable to take any positive action. I began to murmur the Lord’s Prayer, forcing it through clenched teeth, swallowing hard after every line. Then the bees came, moving slowly like a gigantic, deadly cloud. Crouching Wulf snatched up a handful of soil, leaped prodigiously into the air and in the same movement hurled the soil into the swarm. His voice was a hoarse shriek:
Settle, Wyrd Women,
Swoop to the ground.
Unfetter the bonds that lie around Brand.
The bees hurtled towards me like a quiver of screaming arrows. Panic stricken, I whirled around and plunged head long up the meadow, slipping and slithering on grass suddenly wet with pouring rain, running so fast that I could hardly stretch my legs far enough to keep up with my body. Rain arrows bit into the ground all around me and then something hit me hard from behind. I recoiled from the blow, spun around and the ground slammed into me. Rolling over and over, tasting blood, with the roar of the bees all around me, I landed on my back and saw the sky blackened by an enormous rain cloud. As I watched in horror, the cloud twisted and swirled into the shapes of three immense women, spitting flames across the sky. These monster women swooped screaming out of the sky, spectres crowding through the air and heading straight towards me, crackling sheets of arrows pouring from their bellies and flashing into my body. The wind tore a scream from my lips and in desperation I snatched the rune-stick from my neck, grasped it tightly in my right hand and flung it at the women with all of my strength. With a great crack of light, the monsters swept away from me into the swirling sky, churning like some storming ocean. I looked around wildly for the bees, but they had gone. I sank back into the sopping grass, dizzy and sick; then darkness descended and blotted everything out.
When I recovered consciousness it was still dark. I tried to heave my self into a sitting position, but a blinding bolt of pain flashed behind my eyes and scorched down my neck. I lay still, breathing hard, allowing the nightmare to slip away into the soft embrace of darkness. Sweat lay wet on my face and neck. My body felt on fire and a dull pain throbbed down my left side. After a time I realized that my clothes were missing and I was wrapped up in a blanket.
Suddenly a painfully bright light pierced the darkness. I shut my eyes tightly and then felt something cool cover my forehead. Forcing my eyes open, I looked up into Wulf s smiling face. I tried to smile back, but a stabbing pain in my side twisted my expression into a grimace.
‘The Wyrd Sisters have loosened your fibres,’ he said, beaming ‘Your fibres can now move freely according to the tides and currents of wyrd, the positions of the stars, the pattern of the sun and moon and the most insignificant of distant events. With your fibres able to move freely, your soul can travel through your shield-skin to the land of the spirits.’
Although I could hear his words, his voice sounded tiny and muffled like the faint scratching of field-mice in a grain store.
Wulf removed his palm from my forehead and, in silence, peeled back the blanket. Gritting my teeth, I raised my hand and peered into the light to see what was causing the pain in my side. My body was covered with a mass of small red swellings concentrated especially across the stomach where they merged into one streak of red like an open wound.
Wulf gently pushed my head back and then eased me over on to my stomach. I could feel him passing his hands lightly over my back.
‘Your shield-skin had dried to a crust, like the shell of a tortoise,’ he said. ‘It was rigid and unyielding. It is a wonder that the fibres of wyrd could tremble into your body at all. But the Wyrd Sisters have cracked your shield-skin and the first barrier to the spirit world has been broken.’
Periodically Wulf stopped, grunted and explored a particular area of my body, prodding firmly with what felt like the heel of his palm When he pushed into my back I felt a strangely pleasant tingling sensation deep inside my body.
Wulf rolled me over again on to my back and began to run his hands across my chest and stomach. I yelped with pain when he pressed into my left side and I tried to speak, but my mouth was dry and I only mumbled.
‘A strong thread enters your body here,’ he explained. ‘It is vital fibre, trapped until now by your rigid shield-skin. Now that it can move, you will have access to great powers.’
When he had finished he sat up, clucking like a disapproving parent. ‘With your fibres so rigid, the spirits would have ripped apart your threads like the flimsy web of a money spider.’
I gazed up at him, dazed, my mind empty of thoughts. He smiled again, perhaps in encouragement.
‘Now, lie still and let me seal your fibres.’
He pushed the door wide open and stepped out; it was only then that I realized that I was lying in his shelter deep in the forest. Cautiously I raised my self up on one elbow and looked through the open doorway. Across the river, above the trees, the sky was stained lilac by the setting sun; it was possible that I had slept through an entire night and a day. I squinted towards the fire-pit; a fire blazed, sending splinters of blinding firelight into my eyes and I had to look away quickly and blink back the tears. When I turned back I could see the black silhouette of Wulf crouching by the fire-pit, holding a long wooden stake which was stripped clean of twigs and leaves. I watched him with a kind of detached interest as he thrust one end of the stake into the fire, then pulled it out sizzling and steaming and knocked the burning end on the side of a cooking pot set on the stone hob at the back of the fire-pit. Flakes of burning bark showered from the stick and hissed into the bowl.
Wulf returned the smoking stick to the flames and repeated the procedure twice; then he stood up, hooked the stake through the handle of the pot, pulled the pot from the hob and carried it into the shelter. He set the pot on the ground and I leaned forward to see over the rim; the pot was about half-full with a frothy green and white paste.
He squatted on the other side of the pot, took the stake and again stirred the mixture, sniffing and testing its consistency by lifting the stirring stick from the bowl and watching the liquid run slowly back into the pot. My nostrils filled with a powerful aroma faintly reminiscent of sweet ale.
Wulf opened his fist to reveal a small cake of soap, dried and cracked with age. ‘Cup your hands,’ he said, demonstrating what he wanted me to do by interlacing the lingers of his own hands. With his knife he shredded small slivers of the soap into my upturned lingers; then putting the remainder of the soap bar carefully to one side, he picked up the cooking pot.
‘Hold your hands open and still,’ he instructed. He tipped the pot over my hands and the thick liquid crawled slowly from the base of the pot, oozed down the side and dripped on to my fingers, still warm. He counted the drops, then tipped the pot back to an upright position and set it down.
‘Now mix it together,’ he said, again demonstrating with his hands. I ground my palms together in a circular motion, using my interlaced fingers as a pivot, and could feel the soap softening as I mixed it with the oily residue of the paste.
After a brief interval, Wulf tipped another nine drops of the liquid into my cupped lingers. I continued kneading and this time the mixture immediately became soft and sticky. Wulf reached out and gently pulled my hands apart and I saw that my palms and fingers were covered with a greenish-grey frothy lather. Grasping my left wrist, Wulf guided my hands up to my forehead and then held my hair back with one hand while with the other he wiped my fingers over my forehead. He did the same with my other hand and kept rubbing until my forehead was covered with the substance. It dried very quickly, and formed a crust; as it dried, it seemed to shrink and it felt as if a thick band around my head was being steadily tightened.