Ursus of Ultima Thule (9 page)

Boys had grown to men, passed through ordeal and initiation, learned which was their witchery-beast, dreamed medicine dreams, had found women and knew the milk of life to be within them. The hunt had ceased to be play and often man had fought with man, not for proving or for pleasure but for very life; and some had taken life and some had lost it. Some of all that company of boykin had died young beneath the feet or claws or within the jaws of wild beasts or had been dragged down beneath the waves by waterkelpies or by fierce hippotames. Others had made themselves house-holders and gotten children while still barely bearded. Some had sought a name and fame by captaining pursuits of whalefish or were-whales, tree-tigers, or had gone north into the snows to hunt the wild leopard. One had been lured by the bewitchments of the Painted Men (whose skin must not be seen).

“There was a certain great tree whose wide-spreading branches we all climbed as boys. It became our gathering place and remained so even when we were men and gathered there more seldom. But whenever we so returned, there we went and there we looked to meet with our comrades and our kin of our age. I had been away and gone a full handful of years, and I returned and sat beneath the tree upon a seat made by an out-thrust of rootburl. There I sat and long I sat and many passed but none were of our old company. And then came one whose shape I knew, whose walk I knew, even before I kenned his face.

“It was Orfas.

“He came and I remembered it was right that I should rise because he was my father’s brother of the half-blood, and so we at some length stood and faced each other. He had the slight semblance of a smile on his face. For a while we said no word. And then I said, ‘It seems, then, that of all, only we two remain in this corner of the Land of Thule.’

“And he said, ‘It seems that this be one too many,’ and although I did not deeply consider on his words, still, a particle of them must have touched upon a particle in me — at once I said, ‘Then let us both be gone and let us make a compact and both be gone together.’ We made our compact and prepared a boat and formed an alliance with others, gathered our gear and store and had the witcherers discover the best day to depart. South-south across the all-encircling sea we went, to the barbar-lands we made our course, sometimes along the coast and sometimes up the great rivers. Betimes we traded and betimes we sold the service of our swords and spears, fighting now for one town or tribe or chieftain, now for another; and betimes we shared the plunder-spoil or betimes we kept it all, as it had been agreed, or as it fell out. And then for a while we went a-roving and a-robbing as we would and as we willed, until the durance of our compact fell away to expire, and there was only a handful of day-sticks left in the tallybag. One of us had a dream to take a certain course with our three vessels (as by then they were) and reach on the third day an island all suitable for our needs, which was done, and the day we broke the third stick we made our landfall and the island was as had been seen.”

• • •

Everyone has in his mind the image presented by story and by song, of all the troves and treasures piled in one great glittery heap, “dragon-high, dragon-bright, sparkling while its seekers fight — ” but it is not always thus in fact, nor was it so this time.

Said he who had dreamed the dream, “Think it clearly for yourselves. Will he who lives alone to claim it be wanting to lug it all back to the ships again?” There was a burst of laughter in which was no sound of love or warmth. It was done so, that the wealth was divided between two ships, which were dismasted, and the third was broken up at once to make a deck for the complete vessel, which was a double-hulled raft of sorts with a single mast. Then each man set to sharpening his weapons and mostly he sat alone, with no more than now and then a sideways glance to estimate the strength or calculate the skill of another; and sometimes the other, on whom his direct look might fall had been his near-comrade; and some seemed to repent greatly of this compact and to wish themselves away.

But only one would live to go away.

The fighting field was laid out and deeply trenched around, and then the lots were drawn to select the two for the first combat. Orfas drew one of the black pebbles and a younger man, often a singer of merry songs, drew the other. He sang no song now but muttered charms as they stepped to the center of the field, but Orfas did not open his mouth as they faced each other. Then all the rest shouted
Ho!
and in that instant Orfas spat in his opponent’s eye and as he blinked, dumbstruck, Orfas rushed him from the side of that eye and with his axe he split through his collarbone. The man fell backward with a great croaking cry. Orfas kicked up the fallen one’s kilt and again he spat, now upon his foe’s manhood, saying, “That is for the wench you stole of me a two months’ since!” and then he brought the axe down once again.

And went and took his rest across the trench until every other man should have fought once — and then he would again be subject to the lots.

Not every victor lived to draw a second lot.

“Now,” said Arntat, “I had killed my man and had killed my second man. And as I sat resting and waiting I chanced to feel an eye strong upon me and I looked up and around and I saw that it was the eye of Orfas. It came to me that I had felt it heavy upon me before but had not fully thought about it. And now all at once I recollected what had been said that time we met after long apart, under the tree of meeting; I saying,
It seems that only we two remain
, and he saying,
This be one too many
. It came to me so late as then that he had long hated me, and I suppose that inside me that one particle must have returned his feeling or I would not have answered as I did.

“Well! So be it! I knew then that we two would be the last to stand upon our feet and fight for life and for treasure, winner take all. It was our weird. I do not know at what point in our lives he had begun to hate me — or why. Perhaps he himself did not know it till he saw me there under the tree of meeting. Perhaps until then he had thought I would not come back, that I was dead; it may be that the deaths of others of our line had gradually or suddenly given him hope that he would be chief over all our line — and, as our line has always been a line high in Thule, he may have bethought him that he might some day be highest of all in Thule.

“If I were not.”

• • •

The fire barely lived at all. Then someone blew briefly on the dull embers and someone placed an armful of bracken on it. “Eh, ah, Bear,” an older nain said. “Well I remember when the old asking began to be heard again.
By what three things is a king made?
and answered,
By strength, by magic, and by fortune
. He who paid the nain-fee then, I shall say plain, was not the worst as ever paid it. But even kings live not forever. And in all that struggle which came. Bear, some say thee helped the Orfas, he being near of kin. Some say thee befoed him and would have been king instead. I ask not and care I not. Thee has ever been the friend of nains, as nains have ever been the friends of thee. The Orfas winned the kingship and was made king as kings be made and he paid the nain-fee —
then
— full and fair. But the nains be feed to work in iron, not to set snares for bears — or men. We saw thee in the wildwood dwelling where never manfolk dwell at all, we told it to each other and we told it to the forge, but never did we tell it to the king.”

“I know.”

“Such rewards he offered, and such afflictions he threatened as never did we hear before.”

“I know.”

“That bitter winter when the birds fell frozen from the sky and the all-circling sea itself was turned to ice, far as ever eye could see, when no track nor trace could be concealed upon the snowy ground and no snow fell more from the fast frozen sky, then the Orfas came for thee, for Witch Mered did plot it out for him.”

“I know.”

“Corby Mered. Mered Crow.”

“His witcheries espied thee out, we knew and said nought, he saw and said all. With many troops of men they came for thee, and circled around where thee had gone. Where could thee hide? We thought it woe, we whispered low, we told it to the forge, but nains mix not in the affairs of manfolk — would that man would mix as little in the life of nainfolk! They circled all about where thee had gone, they scanned the still, unbroken snow, they drew their lines inward as wading fishermen draw their nets, they met face to face and arm to arm in the center; but
Arn
they never met.”

“I know.”

He said, “I know. I know.” Crouching in the darkness marred by feeble flicks of flames, he said, “I cannot forget.” A prisoner, he remembered himself a fugitive; though it had seemed bitter then, now long later it revealed its sweetnesses. And he could not forget.

The nains sighed and they sighed for him, not for themselves. The king had sought him then and found him not, and hunted him again and found him not. King and kingsmen hunted a man, but he whom they hunted was a man no more. He had become a bear.

Day followed day and toil followed toil and slowly the great rust increased. Its pace was not steady. At times it had seemed to leap onward like a dread grass fire in the dry season, at times it had seemed to pause as though tired. Now for some long while, the red-sickness had gone at so slow a step that some did not perceive that it still continued until, perhaps, an axhead crumbled as it met the wood it could not cleave, or an arrowhead collapsed into a pinch of russet dust when the quiver was moved. And many still had not realized that the pest pursued its course.

But the king was not among the many.

It was not only that he asked or caused to be asked, “How goes it with iron?” of those who came from far off. He asked always, in hope of hearing what he would hear; but he was not content only to ask. The king had great store of iron, not in the armories alone, but in his own chambers, very near to him. Several times a day, if he did not go to iron things, he had iron things come to him. He looked, he tested, poked, probed, he scraped iron with his fingernails and he scaled with instruments which were not of iron. The king knew the rate each day at which the plague pursued. He knew it and he sickened from his knowing.

“Will you not leave off?” the queen asked him with a sigh.

“How can I?” he asked, with a sick and sidelong look.

There was almost a proverb in those days:
The queen grows not old
. Some had grown up hearing it and thought it a saying applied to all queens; that women who held the queenly seat, by virtue of the power of that office did not age. But in truth it was a saying which had not been heard before — although likely enough that any woman spared the labors of hoeing and bark-beating and preparing hides and all such toilsome work, who had but to put on her clothes and jewelry and suckle her children (and sometimes not even such slight, light tasks as that) likely enough that thus a woman, queen or not, would not grow old so soon and certain as the generality of her sex.

Still, the saying was a new one, as sayings go. Here lies the truth: quite early had her hair turned the color of a winter’s sky, quite early and quite suddenly. Therefore most of Thule became aware of her when she in some measure already wore the mantle of more years than she had. And also her manner had already become grave and withdrawn. Since the mass of folk did not observe her slowly losing what were common tokens of youth, gradually the saying came to be heard:
The queen grows not old
.

Some held this to be due to her command of witchery-wisdom. Only a few, and they not often and never openly, were lately beginning to whisper that she sipped the cup of the king’s own years, that she stayed one age while he aged swiftly. And at least the very last part of this was true.

“You can leave off by leaving off.” she said. Only a very few lines were to be seen upon her face — about the eyes, and about the corners of the mouth — but none at all upon her upper lip. “Rest upon your cot or couch and let others examine iron while you watch. And watch not too closely, that is to say, too nearly. Iron is sorely ill. And you are not too well.”

A slight snarl moved his mouth, but did not move it much; his next words and the inclination of his head showed how little the snarl was meant for her. “You are ever gentle of me in word and deed — but I know well what they say out
there —
that I have caught the iron-rot. Perhaps I have. But if I have caught it, I have it — so what good then be distance? Or any precaution?” He moved nonetheless to his couch. Muttered, “If iron die, then I die. If I die, let iron die. But let we not die, either, nor the barbar folk come swarming — savages from over the circling sea — ” He let himself down on his couch and leaned on the pile of prime pelts sewn in bags and stuffed with the downy breast feathers of swans. His eyes were sunken and closed. A long breath shuddered and sighed in his throat and fluttered his cracked and blistered lips.

Suddenly his eyes flew open. Those of the queen were fixed upon his. “Why do you think he came back alone? Or did he?” Without giving her time to reply he rolled his head back and forth and clenched his hands. “Only because Mered-delfin feels that this traitor may somehow prove the key to the cure of iron do I spare his life.” His teeth showed and sounded. “I should never have spared it before.” Another thought worked its way across his ravaged face and the queen drew near and kneeled beside him. “Mered-delfin — he said that you must prepare to wear many masks and to make many journeys.” She gave a slow, single nod. The king said, “Wear one mask now. Make one short journey.”

• • •

From time to time word came, presumably from the king, to switch the mining from the open pit to the tunnels or from the tunnels to the open pit. Evidently neither change had perceptibly improved the fate of iron, but from time to time still came directions —
Change
.

Thus on this day the mattocks swung up and down upon the encircling path which went around and around about the great deep pit, up from its narrow center to its wider rim, digging deeper into the walls of ruddy ore.
Up
the tools went, paused, still scattering dust;
down
they fell, a grunt, a thud, and some were of bone and some were of stone, but none were of iron. Arnten had been detailed to carry the yoke with its brace of leathern water buckets and a drinking horn slung about his neck on a thong. For the most part he kept his eyes on the uneven footing of the circling path, but when he paused to allow one of the nain-thralls to drink he allowed himself to look up. The yoke had bitten into his flesh, but he preferred it out here in the open pit. He thought they all must. It was like being inside a great clay pot, one only partly made; the pot-woman had rolled the strip of red clay between her palms and coiled it into the rough shape of the pot-to-be, but she had not yet taken up her shell or shard to smooth it. The pit was like a great clay pot and they were inside it, small as mandrakes.