Village of Linjør, south of Northgate
Spring of 217
On the day the swan soldiers came to Linjør, as most days in spring, Vanja and her youngest brother went to check the new-planted trees, armed with twine and bracing poles. This had once been their father’s job, but now it was Vanja’s. It was her responsibility to teach Aric what to do - how to ensure the tree is growing straight, so that the boards will be strong. How to check for weather damage, or insects, or rot. By the time they return to the village, it is mid afternoon and this far north, the sun has already set. Spring snow is falling, muffling Vanja’s senses. As Vanja and her brother approach their village, she can only hear the soft crunch of her own boots in the snow, and her brother complaining about the wet in his gloves.
Vanja slows. Stops at the edge of the wood. From here, it is still 50 yards before the first turf-carved home. But something is wrong. The town doesn’t look right. Fewer homes are lit than they should be. Even with the snowfall, it is too quiet. It is still early, but there is no one about.
“I smell horses,” says Aric. Vanja nods to him. She smells it too. Uncommon in this small village. It meant visitors from the south. Taking a few careful steps, past the edge of the treeline, Vanja can see the animals, now. Tall Isendelian horses, their reins tied to posts sunk deep into the snow. A cart with iron sides stands next to them. There is a banner - a golden swan on a dark field. Driven into the snow bank, fluttering in the north wind. The swan is the same as the one on the southerner from that morning, the man who had been looking for a healer, who Vanja had directed toward their mother. But no one man travelling alone needs six horses, or a cart.
Next to her, Aric takes a step forward. Vanja presses her arm against her brother’s chest, stopping him. Better to wait.
Quiet, Vanja releases the strap of an axe. She removes her glove, and feels the cold hardwood of the handle against her skin. It is a compromise. Cold hands, but she would rather have a better grip. She hefts the axe in her hand. Her brother sees, and does the same. Aric’s weapon is a seax, a broken-back knife, the blade as long as his forearm. They wait. Vanja’s brother looks at her. He has just seen his 13th winter. In the light of the River Aurora, his face seems hollow. Fearsick.
Then, a splash of yellow light from the nearest home. At the farmost edge of the village, closest to where Vanja and her brother stand, hesitating, but still 30 yards away. A voice calls out - quietly, but it is the only sound, and Vanja hears it clearly. “Hei! Skau Vanja!”
Vanja doesn’t move. She knows the voice of course. She knows everyone in the village.
It is Olev Hafdverg. Olev had not been born in Linjør, he had settled here, during the same summer as Vanja’s parents. Unlike her parents, though, he came from Isendel, from one of the great southern cities, where he had worked as a smith and armorer. By the time he settled here, he was already old, and prone to deep lows of melancholy. Vanja’s mother had attempted to heal him several times, but Sigruid had said that it was a headsickness. If there was a medicine for it, Sigruid didn’t know it. Instead, Sigruid sometimes visited Olev to let him talk, to give him a person to be melancholy with. During his good days, Olev had fashioned weapons for all of Sigruid’s children. Vanja’s axes, balanced for her height, and her hand, and the strength of her arm; Aric’s seax; and the greatsword and halberd favored by their elder brothers. Vanja and her brothers were kind to Olev. Out of respect for his skill, and his age, and out of kindness for their mother’s care.
Even so, Vanja is cautious. Olev was often drunk, and sometimes angry from it. Vanja had healed Olev herself, a fortnight past. He had poisoned himself with drink, and she had purged him. Pulled the toxin out of his liver and through the pores of his skin. She had left him with a rune to encourage healing, and another for good judgment. Her mother had given him one herself, for good dreams, and left him with a basket of bread.
Now, Aric echoes her worries of Olev. “He’s drunk,” says Aric, “Pretend you don’t hear.”
Vanja nods to her brother and takes another few steps toward town. Then, Olev’s voice again, yelling in Dwarvish. “Fy fane!” Then, in common, “Fool girl, come inside, for your mother’s sake!”
This catches Vanja. She glances once more at the village proper, at the strange, tall horses. At the banner, and its golden swan. She nods to Aric, “Let’s see what he needs.”
Aric shifts. Uncomfortable. Spinning his seax in his hand for a moment before returning it to his belt. It is obvious that he doesn’t want to go, but Vanja is his elder sister, and so he listens.
Olev waves to them, black in silhouette against the light of his doorway. Vanja and her brother duck inside. Olev’s home, like most in Linjør, is warm and bright inside, lit with a fire in hearths at either end of a long room. His smith’s workbench is near one of the hearths. A dining table near the other. A woven, woolen curtain separates the main room from others, further back. Vanja has been here before, with her mother, and she feels safe enough. She returns her axe to its strap at her waist. She shifts her weight to accommodate it, feeling more balanced now, with an axe on each side, and two more crossed over her back, strapped to her day-pack.
“What is it?” Vanja asks, once she and her brother are inside, and the door shut behind them. “What’s wrong. What do you mean, for our mother’s sake?”
Olev looks up at the siblings. He is a hand-span shorter than Vanja, and even shorter than Aric, who has grown tall over the last season. Dark eyes twitch from one to the other, and finally settle on Vanja as he speaks. “There is a man in town, who is looking for you, Skau Vanja.”
Vanja blinks, “The southerner. I saw him this morning. He was looking for my mother, not for me.”
“You’re wrong,” says Olev. “He, and his soldiers, are looking for you. They were asking, at the tavern—”
Aric scoffs, “I told you. He’s drunk,” he says. He shifts, and indicates the outside with a tilt of his head, “You can come back with mother in the morning, see to his drink-sickness.”
Vanja looks down at Olev. His face is pale, without the flush of drink. His dark eyes are clear. “No. We’ll wait,” she says to Aric.
There is a soft “pah” noise as Aric leans against the wall near the door, as close to leaving as possible. He throws his hands up, gesturing for Vanja to do what she must. Vanja smiles at him. He is a good brother.
She looks at Olev again, now, “What did soldiers want of me?” She hesitates, “There was only the one man, before.”
“That’s true, but the soldiers were not far behind. After you left,” he indicated Vanja and her brother, “the southerner, that first man you saw, went to your home.”
Vanja feels her stomach drop, and a taste of bile in her mouth, “I told him to go there. He saw us, on the way to the wood, and said he needed a healer, so I told him our healer was Sigruid, and I told him how to…”
“Sigruid will be fine, gods willing,” says Olev, “And you likely saved yourself.”
“How do you know this?” says Vanja.
“Because your mother, unlike the two of you, is not a fool!” says Olev. “Because I know she listens to me, when I talk of Isendel, and what I saw there. Because she knows why I had to flee, when the old Baron died. Because when your own father died, and when you, Vanja, showed that you could heal with a touch, we knew there had to be a plan to keep you safe.”
“Safe from what?” asks Vanja, her voice measured, calm.
“From what has come here today. From an Inquisition.”
Vanja shakes her head. She doesn’t recognize the word, not in this context. “What is that?”
Olev takes a breath, and tries to keep his voice calm. Steady. “It means these southerners, the Inquisitor, from earlier, and his soldiers, they want to take you with them. And when you are far enough outside of town, they’ll kill you for a witch.”
Vanja recoils, taking a few steps back, next to Aric now. Nearer to the door. Away from this man, who has called her a witch. From outside, there is the whinny of a horse.
Olev’s voice is low and urgent now. He has his hands up, palms toward Vanja, the way one might calm a scared animal. He speaks more quickly, in Dwarvish, in the language of Jorung, “You have been sheltered here, Skau Vanya, in this little pocket, this nowhere village, where everyone pretends it’s Jorung. But it isn’t. This isn’t some nomadic clan that has settled for the winter. We are in Isendel. We are on the Baroness’ land and subject to her laws, and the Baroness does not abide a witch.”
“I am no witch,” says Vanja, in Dwarvish, matching Olev’s tone.
“She is a healer,” says Aric. “It’s River magic, from the Aurora. It’s not witchcraft.” Aric has his seax in his hand again, “Stop saying these things. You are just scaring her.”
Vanja is still against the wall. Her own hands are empty, flat, and with her ungloved hand she can feel the rough edges of the pine logs. Wind breaks through the cracks between the logs, where the peat has fallen away, dried from the winter. She can smell the horses again, and now she hears voices, too. Loud, but close. Whoever is speaking isn’t hiding, as she is now. She moves quickly, away from the wall and the sound of foreign soldiers. She grabs the braided rug from in front of the kitchen hearth and throws it at the base of the door, blocking any light from seeping out into the snow beyond. The windows are already covered in thick, embroidered hangings, still sealed from winter.
Aric locks eyes with Vanja, and through his bravado, she can see the same fearsick look that he had outside. Vanja tries to smile at her brother. She doesn’t like to show this kind of fear. Her brother needs to see her as strong.
Olev pulls anxiously at his beard. It is long, mostly black, but with wiry curls of white and steel grey. The sides are braided in the Jorungun style. “How can I make you understand…there is no magic in Isendel. Something happened, years ago, before my memories begin, and long past the memories of any living human. There are the blessings of the Harvest, and the Torch, but not the sort of true magic as in Jorung.” He pauses, judging her reaction.
Aric nods, “It is because it’s too far south. You can’t see the River, so there is no source.” Vanja can hear the panic rising in his tone. She knows he heard the voices outside, too.
“I don’t know,” says Olev, “and it hardly matters. But what is important is that you,” he sticks his finger into Vanja’s chest, “would be special even in Jorung, with your rune-magic. With the light of the River. But there, you would be revered. Hailed as chosen.” He pauses, and lowers his voice, suddenly more conscientious of the people they know are outside. “But we are not in Jorung. Here you are an unknown. And you are powerful, and therefore dangerous. And in Isendel, when people see someone who may be a threat, someone like you, they kill them.”
Vanja feels as if a blade of ice has gone into her chest. A sudden, piercing dread.
“I know it is much to accept at once, but there is a plan,” says Olev, “Your mother is smart, and she will deny you to protect you, and the rest of Linjør will do the same. There is some girl, yes. A witch, yes. But we will say she is gone, that we discovered her already, and drove her away. And we will offer to help these soldiers, and look for this other girl. This girl who is not you. And so if you go to your mother, and these soldiers find out that Sigruid has been lying for you, trying to protect you, then she is dead. And right now, the best thing for you to do, is to leave.”
“What?” Vanja laughs in her surprise, “No. I can’t just leave. The village needs me here. Last week alone I helped repair the roof on Herr Gunderssen’s home. I broke two fevers, and healed a skull-crack, and I pulled the rot from old Frida’s tooth, and yesterday—”
“Your mother will do the healing alone, as she has before, because you no longer exist. Because all that happened to some other girl. A witch who we drove out of town.”
“No!” says Vanja, “Stop saying that! I can help and so I have to. It’s dunjasånd! It’s my responsibility. My obligation!”
“Fane!” Olev curses. “That fool Jorungun belief. One for all. Sometimes one is more important than the all, more special.”
“Don’t say that,” says Vanja, “No one is more important than another.”
“You can say that?” says Olev, “You don’t believe you are important? Destined for something greater? You don’t think there is something special about you, Skau Vanja, that sets you away from the others? With the River’s glow that flows through your hands?”
“This is so I can help the others. It is for the good of all!”
“Those soldiers won’t see it that way,” Olev says. He looks Vanja, flat in the eyes. “If they find you, they will kill you. And then you won’t be able to help anyone, anymore.”
To Vanja, Olev’s words have the uncomfortable, painful feeling of a true thing.
“What about my mother,” she says, quiet. “This man, the inquisitor, he is in our home. What if he hurts her, or the soldiers do?”
“Uf da,” says Olev, “That is a hard thing. They might. But to go to her now would only endanger her. And even if she is dead there is nothing you can do. Even you can’t pull someone back from the River if they have already crossed it.” He pulls at his beard again. “What you need to do is leave this village,” he says, finally. “Go north. Talk to no one. Get out of Isendel.”
“Not now,” says Aric, still against the wall. He has used the thin blade of the seax to separate the yarn of the curtain, and he is peering through. “There are Isendel soldiers here. Outside.”
Vanja nods. There was no decision then. She would fight. In two swift movements, her axes are no longer at her hips, but in her hands.
“Wait,” says Olev, “If you go out there now, you’ll only be dead faster.”
“I can’t leave. If there are Isendel soldiers here, if they are a threat to the town, to our mother, I have to fight,” says Vanja.
“Then you will be killed,” says Olev.
“No, we are strong,” says Aric, “Vanja and me, and our brothers. The rest of the town, fah, but we are blisterkere.” Vanja’s brother smiles and hefts his seax. The blade is wide against Aric’s skinny arm. A child’s arm, Vanja sees, suddenly. No. Not Aric. No one so young should fight for more than sport.
Olev blows air from his mouth, “Do what you like.” He shakes his head, “If you go out there now, though, and you are killed, Vanja, how many more will die because you aren’t there to heal them? Is it worth it? To fight now? To die? To waste this gift you have? Surely dunjasånd is the good of all, not the pride of Skau Vanja.”
Vanja looks at her brother. He is waiting to follow her lead. When she returns her axes to their straps over her hips, Aric replaces the seax in his belt. They would not fight. Not this time.
Olev was right. If she fought now, and lost, she would die. Either run through by one of the southern soldier’s longswords, or later executed as a witch; and as long as she was in Linjør, everyone in the village was under threat. If she died, that would help no one. She looks once more at Aric. If she stayed, her brothers would fight. Of course they would. And if her older brothers died, her nephews would be orphans. And Aric…Aric was still a child. He should be home with their mother. And maybe Sigruid could teach him, in Vanja’s place. Maybe Aric could be the next healer.
“Fine,” says Vanja, “I’ll run.” She swallows, her mouth suddenly dry. “I’ll go north,” she says, “To Northgate. Maybe Jorung.”
Aric opens his mouth, but Vanja interrupts him before he has the chance to say he’ll go with her. “Aric will stay and make sure our mother is safe.”
Olev nods, “It is a good thing,” he says in common. Then, he speaks in Dwarven once more. And Vanja knows he is going to speak something into truth. There is a kind of magic in words. The language of creation. It is the power that is in runes, in the prayers that Vanja learned at her mother’s knee. There is power in those words. In that belief.
Olev speaks. “There was a girl. A witch. But she is gone. She was not Sigruid’s daughter. Sigruid the healer has only sons.”
Vanja nods, but she can’t say the words. Her mouth has no saliva, and now there is a lump caught in her throat, and she cannot force the words around it. Aric speaks instead. It will be good enough.
“Sigruid has only sons,” says Aric.
Vanja repacks her day-pack, condensing Aric’s supplies into hers. Olev wraps some food in oilcloth, and refills Vanja’s waterskin. Vanja checks her weapons, taking a few moments to oil the leather of the straps, to keep them from cracking in the cold. It is fully night now, and below freezing. Vanja wishes she could embrace her elder brothers, and her toddler nephew, named in her honor. She wants to say goodbye to her mother. But it is impossible, and so she doesn’t give it voice.
It is less than half an hour after Vanja’s decision to leave Linjør that she is ready to go. If not in her heart, then at least in her back, and her legs, ready to carry her pack, her kit of herbs and medicines, her axes. Everything she has, now.
Aric keeps watch, through the small slit in the curtain. Eventually, the soldiers leave their horses. Leaving to eat, perhaps, or to search for the girl-who-is-not-Vanja. There is a boy, younger than Aric, standing watch by the horses. One of the soldiers has given the boy his tabard, and the boy has draped it over himself so that it is too long behind him. Aric mentions this to Olev, and the man scoffs. “The boy will be a Swan himself, soon enough. It’s a tempting job.”
Vanja peers out of the curtain. She recognizes the boy, of course. She would recognize anyone in Linjør. She had never needed to treat him, but he had siblings, and once she had mended a broken arm that she suspected this boy had caused. “He will know me,” she says. Maybe he wouldn’t identify her to the soldiers. If Olev was right, everyone in the town would follow the lie. Would pretend that Vanja never existed. But if not, if this boy was soon to be a Swan, as Olev had said, then the whole fiction may come crashing down. Vanja tries to push these thoughts from her head. They were unhelpful.
Olev takes a turn at the curtain, then steps back, and looks Vanja up and down. “Wait here a moment,” he says. Vanja watches the man disappear behind the knit hanging that separates the two rooms of his home. When he reemerges, he has a thick bundle of folded, blue-grey cloth in his hands. He holds it out to Vanja.
Vanja takes the bundle, and unfolds the cloth. It is a cloak. It is fur-lined, and the fabric is thick, woven tightly, with good, woolen yarn. All along the edge is a carefully embroidered pattern of intertwining knots. As Vanja looks closer, she can see that the knots form the shape of plants and animals, of weapons and human faces, all laced together in one continuous line. She holds the cloak up, and it is short—the hem only comes to Vanja’s mid thigh.
Vanja looks at Olev. He answers the question before she can ask. “It was my mother’s, once. When she came to Isendel from Jorung. Back then, oh, it must have been three hundred years, plus or less a decade, things like this were everywhere. They are rare things now.”
“It’s lovely,” says Vanja, “Thank you.” She shifts her pack to sit lower on her back, so that the cloak, short as it is, will still flow over it. The cloak covers two of her axes, now, but it is thick, and warm, and it wraps around her fully. She will need it in the cold of the night. Vanja pulls the hood over her head.
Beside her, Aric lets out a small exclamation. Vanja pulls the hood back down, startled by her brother’s reaction.
Olev allows himself to laugh, just a little. “It’s enchanted,” he says. “My mother and father were an uncommon pair, and sometimes… unwelcome in Isendel. When they went out, my mother would pull up the hood, like so,” he reaches up and pulls the edge of the hood back over Vanja’s face, “and she would be… forgettable.” Olev smiles, the edges of his mustache turning upward. “Of course you are not trying to hide a beard.”
“She can use this,” says Aric, and his voice cracks in his relief. “Vanja, you don’t have to run. You can stay here, wear the cloak, until the soldiers leave.” He looks over at Olev, and Aric is smiling at this sudden change of fate. “Why did you keep this until now? If it will hide her so well.”
Olev takes a sharp breath. “It is not so easy,” he says, not unkindly. “An Inquisitor comes to Linjør. Even this will not hide you here for long.” He pulls gently at the short hem of the cloak. With the fabric taut, Vanja can see a series of long slashes, repaired with blue embroidery thread. The threads of the repairs stand out against the smooth fabric of the cloak, as scars on skin. Olev smooths the cloak again, adjusting it so that the damaged areas fall within the folds. “It may just be enough to help you escape.”
Aric looks at Vanja, his hands on her shoulders. Vanja realizes that, with the cloak’s enchantment, she is slightly taller. She looks down, and notices the cloak itself is changing subtly. Now more blue. Now more gray. Now almost white. The threads where it has been repaired stay blue. Aric nods at her. For a moment, they embrace. Vanja knows it is time to leave. To run. It is the only option. The only way there is a chance to keep the town safe. She knows she will not see Linjør, or her brother again.
“It’s good,” Aric says, simply. He reaches over to Vanja, but not down. Gradually the cloak’s magic has made them the same height. He tucks the end of her braid into her hood, and Vanja notices the braid is brown. Even as she watches, the color shifts closer toward black. “You don’t look like yourself. Like my sister.”
“I’m not your sister,” says Vanja, finally adding her voice to the ritual. “Because Sigruid the healer has only sons.”
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