The Fabulous Beast (21 page)

But I rallied.  Was I going to falter at the first fence? No.

I watched keenly as the stallion cantered to a halt.

He was superb. Mist spurted from his nostrils. Up close, his eyes were like the brilliant coals of my furnace. He ambled on his eight legs near to my treetop. I waited with shallow breath, praying he would move nearer, and eventually my prayers were answered. Sleipnir noticed me, smelled the horse on me, and grew curious. Closer and closer he came, until he was near enough to touch. I suddenly took my chance, my heart thumping wildly. I leapt across space onto Sleipnir’s back.

The enchanted stallion shied, stamped, began a gallop over that roof which the Christians call Heaven.

Softly, softly, I whispered in his ear. I knew the words to say, I knew the sounds to make. Clinging to his flowing mane, which in the created wind whipped my face and breast with its long hair, I made my declarations in a low, calm voice. We cleared many a vaporous barrier.  Many a miasma of woven mist. His hooves thundered over flat plains of blue. A monster horse – and I was but a infant child on his back. His wonderful tail lashed the very ceiling of the world: a thousand whips that left white streaks for those below to wonder at.

Gradually, gradually the great steed slowed his gallop, fell into a canter, and thence to a trot, and finally a walk. His nostrils flared as wide as caverns as he smelled the horseness on me. He knew me.

Once in command of the beast, I rode about the sky looking for entrances to Neorxnawang. They were not hard to find. There were many invisible gates, through which we could pass and re-pass, man and steed. We rode over the landscape I knew so well, with the river that flowed below the hoo and its surrounding woodlands. I guided my mount down to the earth and there found myself in that world that exists alongside our own, the world of supernatural beings and spirits. There, where dead men and women roamed, I had to search for my beloved Daegal. I had brought with me a leather bag which I intended to use to carry her back to my world. When I had asked the shaman if this would be enough to hold a dead soul, she had replied, ‘In life our spirits are enclosed and held secure in our bodies by our skin.’

I hobbled Sleipnir with a piece of rope and then entered the forests of the dead. Once inside I became horribly confused, by the strange creatures I saw and by the appearance of dead mortals. The latter were not, of course, in the shapes of living men. They seemed to be fashioned of sparkling mist and floated, bewildered, over the undergrowth of the forest like lost clouds of fireflies. They paid me no heed. I could have been a tree or a bush for all they took notice.

The whole place had an air of sadness and disorientation, though there was no wailing or crying of any kind. These insubstantial beings hardly knew what they were or why they were there. They simply flitted here and there in a kind of frantic dance, seeming to believe that somewhere – under the roots of a hornbeam or in the thick of the brambles – they might rediscover their forgotten identity.

I studied their patterns and surprisingly was able to recognise some of them, even without their early forms. It could have been the way they moved, their individual gestures, fits and starts. I do not know for sure, but I was able to say, ‘There’s Eadlin, her husband killed her with an axe in a drunken rage.’, or ‘Why, it’s old Tredan, who fell down the well!’ They did not know me, of course, nor bothered to study me. They simply drifted around and above me, glinting like diamond dust, darting here and there, hovering, seeking, glowing distress.

Finally, I saw my beloved Daegal, a desperate sprig of mist weaving through the branches of a hawthorn. Close behind her though was another female soul, whose aura completely outshone that of my wife. The brilliance of this second spirit was astonishingly beautiful. She glistened brighter than a night sky crammed with shattered stars. I had to place my hand over my eyes as she passed or I would have been dazzled by her lustre. How amazingly lovely she was, this other sweet spirit. I was stunned by her splendour, her radiance.

Thus began my downfall. I was suddenly overcome by a terrible lust to have this unknown woman. It was pure avarice, a desire to possess something to which I could not have aspired when I had been in the land of the mortals. This was surely a queen, or a princess at the very least, and here was I a common smithy – but with a sack in my hands.

So, instead of netting the soul of my dearest Daegal, I captured the spirit of this unknown stranger. Into the bag she went and there she struggled while I ran through the dark forest to the patiently-waiting magical beast who belonged to Woden. Stripping away the hobble I leapt onto Sleipnir’s back and rode the eight-legged steed back up into the skies above. The weather had changed while I had been in the forest of the dead and the clouds were now grey-turning-black. It looked like a sky in which the Lord of the Wild Hunt would wish to ride. I quickly circled the wood three times, then came to land again, releasing Sleipnir almost on touching down upon the earth of mortals. The great horse of the gods rose quickly, into its blue pastures above my head.

~

That night I went to see the shaman, the leather bag in my hand.

‘Here it is,’ I said, ‘the soul of my wife. Have you made her form?’

The shaman led me out of the hut and down to the river’s edge, where in the moonlight I saw the shape of Daegal in red and yellow clay, still shining with moisture where her thighs had been smoothed to perfection and her lips had been wetted by river water.

‘She almost looks real already,’ I said, with a sigh. ‘How peaceful she appears under this stalking moon.’

‘Give me her spirit,’ murmured the shaman, ‘then turn to show me your back. I have secrets I do not wish to share. You haven’t paid to learn the black arts, only for the restoration of your wife.’

Indeed, I had no wish to watch my captured spirit being stuffed into a clay mouth, or up through the nostrils. I knew it would not be a pleasant operation, getting spangled mist inside a lump of cold clay. That glistening spirit would not like being contained in such a coffer, after being free to flit about a forest in freedom. I turned and tried not to listen, for the creature was now making a noise like an angry wasp. I wondered if it was able to bite or scratch, or even sting?

‘You can look now,’ said the shaman.

I did turned and beheld my wife, live flesh and blood, looking around her with a bemused expression.

‘Where am I?’ she asked.

I stared at her. The apple was back in her cheeks. The lily had returned to her limbs. Her lips looked as soft as hedge-rose petals.

But her eyes . . .

They were not the eyes of my beloved Daegal.

They shocked me to the core.

There was a wickedness in those fiery eyes that had never been owned by my young, innocent wife.

‘Who are you?’ Daegal asked me, sharply.

‘He’s your husband,’ cried the shaman, clearly enjoying my discomfort. ‘He’s brought you back from the dead.’

‘Who said I wanted to come back?’ snapped this young woman, sitting up. But then she added, ‘Of course, it’s better to be alive than wandering around in that dense forest.’ She then stared at me. ‘You’re not bad looking and you’re not an old man, like my first husband. I suppose I could do worse . . .’

I spluttered, ‘Could do worse . . .?’

‘Are you rich?’

I shrugged. ‘Not as lord, but I’m not poor. I am farrier to Raedwald, king of the Eastern Angles.’

‘I’ve heard of him, but I am a Jute, from Kent, below the great river.’

She looked very beautiful, sitting there with her breasts free and firm, and her long dark hair covering her white shoulders.

‘A farrier?’ she wrinkled her pretty nose. ‘Better than a fishmonger, I suppose. Hot iron doesn’t smell as bad as dead herrings. Are you a warrior too? I like strong, brave warriors.’

‘I do go onto the battleground. I’m not afraid of any man, be he Mercian theign or gesith of Wessex.’

‘You’ll do,’ she said, standing up and feeling my arm muscles. ‘Take me home and ravish me.’

The shaman laughed as we left with linked arms.

~

That first love-making was amazing. I never felt such passion and ecstasy. My revived wife was magnificent. She knew tricks in bed that I never knew existed. Her body was as flexible as willow and she was able to bend it in ways that astonished me. She exhausted me, being tireless in her efforts to obtain satisfaction.  Afterwards we lay, holding hands, covered in sweat, talking to each other, saying sweet things, inventing pet names, giggling like children.

‘IS ANYONE THERE?’

The shout came from outside my hut.

It was Scowyrhta.

‘What do you want?’ I called back, but suddenly he was in the hut, staring down at us with a horrified look on his face.

‘Scowyrhta!’ I said, sharply. ‘Who invited you . . .?’

But then he was gone, scuttling through the doorway.

‘Who was that worm?’ asked my new wife.

‘You must remember – oh no, you’re not really Daegal. I keep forgetting. That was Scowyrhta, my best friend.’

‘Daegal,’ she mused. ‘Is that who I am supposed to be? It’s as good a name as any.’ She looked down at herself. ‘And the body isn’t too bad. Not as good as the one I had before, but it’ll do.’

I was affronted. ‘It’s the body of my dear wife.’

‘So I gather. Well, was your wife as good as I am?’

‘I don’t know,’ I replied, purposely misunderstanding her meaning. ‘I haven’t tasted your cooking yet.’

‘And you won’t. I don’t do cooking.’

With that, she threw on a cloak and left the hut. I did likewise and scurried after her, knowing that a dead woman walking through the village would create a good deal of concern. I caught up with her and linked arms with her, telling villagers whose mouths had begun to drop open, ‘It’s Daegal’s cousin. Did you not know she had a cousin? Yes, she was sent away from here at birth, to Kent. When she heard Daegal had died she came to see me – and well,’ I laughed, in truth a little too shrilly, ‘we’ve fallen for each other.’

Scowyrhta pointed and shrieked, ‘She’s a demon!’

I turned on him savagely.

‘Ha, the jealous man, who could never hope to have a beautiful wife, whose green envy spills from his eyes and mouth. One more word from you, you . . .’

‘Worm,’ interjected Daegal.

‘. . . and I’ll tear your head from your shoulders.’

Scowyrhta knew my strength and slid away.

So, whether the people of the village accepted my explanation or not, my Daegal and I began our life anew. It was not the same life, of course, as the one I had previously enjoyed, but those aspects of character which the new Daegal was without, were replaced by others which the earlier Daegal had not. Balances. That, I told myself, was what life was about. Compromises. You couldn’t have everything. No woman could satisfy a man in all things. A woman who is good is bed is not necessarily going to be wonderful at the stove.

One also has to make adjustments, as I soon found out.

I came home one evening from a day at the forge to find Wolfgar in bed with my Daegal.

‘Ah,’ he murmured, ‘the husband is home.’

He got up quietly and left, tucking the hem of a wolfskin cloak into his leather belt.

I was thunderstuck.

‘What’s this?’ I cried. ‘An unfaithful wife?’

‘Pooh,’ replied Daegal, not in the least fazed, ‘I’m not your real wife, I’m just a copy, and if I my needs are greater than you can satisfy, I shall make sure they are fulfilled elsewhere.’ She got up and stroked my chin. ‘You’re a good husband, Aiken. A good provider. And I enjoy our love-making. Don’t spoil it all by being too possessive.’

I went outside and stumbled down to the river’s edge in order to find a quiet place to think. My brain was jangling with emotions. Was I to be cuckolded? Was I to be treated like a creature without a spine? Yet – yet, my hold over this woman was slight. In fact it would take but a few words from her to cause my downfall. If she informed others that she was actually a dead soul which I had stolen from Neorxnawang, I might be banished or executed for profanity. Even worse there are those, like my former best friend, who would be glad to make a sacrifice to Woden, and while the offering was being made, say, ‘Oh and by the way, Aiken borrowed your horse while you weren’t looking.’

I was not on firm ground.

Indeed, as I walked back up the bank from the river, with washerwomen sniggering behind my back, I realised I had to accept this new wife for what she was – a strumpet. I had made my bed and in that straw I had to lie, or suffer the consequences.

Daegal was busy doing her hair when I walked back into the hut. She said nothing. I said nothing. The subject was never raised again. From that point on she was under the bouncing coverlets of almost every warrior in the kingdom. Perhaps even in our lord the king’s bed, though he had a fearsomely jealous wife who would have raised a great stink, so I very much doubt Daegal got between his blankets.

I bore the snorts of laughter and the jibes with equanimity, knowing that at least I had a woman to cook for when I got home from the forge in the evening. She appreciated my efforts in the kitchen too, praising especially my salted venison fillets. Sometimes she stayed in, sometimes went out. When left alone I invented new recipes. There were those who thought my dishes sublime and told me so. It is really quite uplifting to be regarded as a master at something other than one’s chosen profession. Farrier and cook – I was both.

And Daegal always came back to my bed, before the dawn crept over the sleeping hills of our land.

~

Then, one night, everything changed.

I woke up with an unusual sensation of lust. It did not occur to me at the time that the source of this feeling might not be natural. The previous evening I had spent with Scowyrhta. We had just made friends again and he had brought a horn of wine to my hut which we had quaffed until Daegal returned from one of her sexual adventures. Scowyrhta then left quickly, fearful of Daegal’s sharp tongue, for she had never learned to like him. It was only much later that I found myself wondering if Scowyrhta had actually had any of the wine himself, for he seemed to spend most of the evening talking while I did the drinking.