The Wife of Dark-Blue, Chapter 3

The Pale Ring

I awoke to the hum of that house, and its incredible smells, for that house was always pungent.

All homes are, this is why we move, and Dark-Blue had not moved his home I think for time out of mind, but it had not sickened as most still places will, but only burnished and deepened, like my mothers rare cup which had been held by many hands and was by the years of fingers and the bottom browned by the years of tea, but at the same time, clean and smooth from the polishing and beloved for it made the tea taste better.

Woodsmoke, beast furs, meat cooking somewhere. Sometimes Hirmo tried to make bread from Rye, though Dark-Blue would not eat it till we had dipped it in honey. In the Winter Hirmo and I would make bread, though it was always black bread or nut-bread for Dark-Blue cared little for fields.

Honey, something frying, something cooking or bubbling, fresh wood scent, Hirmo whittling, or Dark-Blue or both. Oils and waxes, the rafters full of polished wooden things left to cure or dry or season or forgotten about; wooden clubs, knife handles, spindles, spear shafts, bows, (many of those), wooden cages, strange charms, one thing which fell down with a thump and not I nor Hirmo not Ormo nor Dark-Blue himself could tell what it was or what it intended.

"I carved it I am sure, for it has the feel of my hand, but what for? What were you thinking Ala?" he said, and put it in his pocket. I never saw it again.

Houses are dark, and Dark-Blues house was too, but less than might be thought. Faint light crept through cracks between the logs and was stained green. A fire was always burning, the smoke never stopped and Hirmo was always chopping wood. The door was often open and dogs went in and out. Fireflies scattered in the warm interior, bats hunted them in the dark.Glow worms here and there in the roof, candles of animal fat and, when it was very dark, a stone which gave light, its nature unknown to me, likely the work of foul andun golg, but it lit gently with a word and a touch from Dark-Blue, which he taught me, though I would not use it for its witchery, (unless it was very dark).

Everything was smooth in that home, from the corners of its great table to the bedposts to the handles, either carved and polished and oiled or just used for an infinite time, so everything shone, even if but a little in the dim combination of gleams. Most of the fabrics were furs, though Dark-Blue had a loom which Hirmo would rarely let me at.

No beast fouled the house, not dogs or moles, birds or bugs. Wasps did not come inside except once and Dark-Blue looked at the wasp and said "Now, I  have told you." and so it left.

So I woke as I said for the first time in that dim, warm, shining, smooth and smelly place, quite comfortable, in darkness, naked under furs

I breathed in and wondered what would happen tomorrow, then remembered I was due to die, then one-two-three I remembered in a flash all I have to you told.

"Deep you have dreamed, gift of darkness." said the voice of Dark Blue.

I think he could hear my heart beating. I wondered at times if he could hear the thoughts in my head. Upon a while I think he could for in some time I could almost hear those in his.

I was in a bed close to the rafters. The house was on two levels. A floor of brushed and smoothed planks with stone flags around the fire, and at the rear from the door, a raised platform with a bed, or a pile of soft furs at least. (It is this I was on, and in.)

Planks ran around the walls of the house on this upper level, held in place by strong wooden pegs, five or six feet off the ground, making a kind of narrow walkway, and things were hung from the walls; tools and furs and skulls, bones and wonders, even some boxes of scrolls I later found.

I turned my head and had to raise up a little to peek over the lip of the platform, down into the house, (I held the furs close). Dark-Blue sat at his great table, perhaps the only uncarved place except for the floor. He was holding a bow as if to string it, but sat in a chair the arms and feet of which were apes all carved together, (a horrid thing I never liked), and sat foolishly as men do when they would break something, the chair tipped back on two rear feet, one leg under the table holding him in place, flexing the leg a little to bounce him back and forth, and staring down at the table. I could not help but look where he looked, I think he was staring at line of ants crossing the great plain of his table.

His voice was quiet and low, but he never needed to shout to be heard.

"Tell me Nikhavukfal, do you hold still faith with He you call Lord of this World?"

"Where are my clothes?" I said "and who took them off?"

"There is a robe for you" he said, and pointed with his chin at a shift of blue wool which hung just under the bed, in reach of my arm, "and as for the second, is there any answer that would please you?"

"..... No." (I ran my hands about myself. I know enough of men and women to know what to look for, though I did not know myself, but he had not treated me as a husband has a right to. They had stripped me (bolg Gazat!) and put me to bed.

"You mock me!" said Dark-Blue, and stood up in a rage. "Begone! And be not slow in your going lest you have my curse upon you and on your Queen and her line!"

I froze. A winter-minute passed. I think I nearly wept. Dark-Blue was standing with his back to me, a shadow, his head bent down. Then;

"hm.. hmm?" he turned round and looked at me, "ah.. ah ha! No, no my apologies. I was talking to the ants."

He gestured at the table where the line of ants had formed a perfect carpenters corner and was now marching directly away from Dark Blue and.. down? Down off the table to who-knows where..

"They are murderers and tyrants all of them," he said, "(which is how they were made of course, and all well), but they have frustrated me once too many times and I shall have them here no more, or not for an age at least. You are pale around the eyes Nikhavukfal. I have worried you... Well?"

I met his eyes and hated him for a second, not as a myth or a monster, but as a wife might hate a husband, for I do not think anything he did or said was accidental and the more so it seemed, the less it was. (Ants!). I would not be mocked or made fool of by this self-pleasing man.

Another long moment passed.

I got out of bed, naked. (I had never been naked before a man before). I did not fish for the shift of blue wool but threw back the furs, took the short ladder down. (I tried not to show fear, though he must have seen everything.) The planks were warm and smooth on my bare feet. I reached for the shift, turned directly to Dark-Blue and met his eyes. There. Look, if you wish to play with me. As I did these things I said;

"I do hold faith with the King of this World, as my father, and my fathers father did before me, for in Him is our only hope for release from the pains of this life, and when I die, though delayed by you, I will meet him there in his black gate beyond the cursing stars and my father also, and this shall be whether you will it or no, for mark me or murder me, you cannot murder death, stop time, or change my heart."

There, dog, see how you like that. The world turned blue as the wool went over my eyes. It was as soft as air against my skin.

Dark-Blue looked...not abashed for he was never so or ever doubted anything he did, but his chair was on all four feet and his face had the silence and slight sadness that passed in him for modesty or shame.

"But you have asked of me, my husband," I said, "yet I would ask also of you."

"Your words are winged, O gift of darkness." He said. (He had his airs about him once more.)

"Are you a man?" I said.

"I live as a man," he replied, "I breathe and I eat, I can sleep".

I saw the vague shape of his words and I saw him see that I saw.

"Do you desire as a man then?" I asked. "Can you love as a man? Would you know women as a man?"

"As I am made as a man I am sure I can do all those things, should I wish."

Another shadowed insult to me.

"How shall I live here with you?" I said. What shall I do and how? Who shall I know as your friends and who as your foes? If I am yours, are the bolg Gazat your slaves and so who shall rule them? and who shall rule your house when you are gone?"

And how do you live and why and what for and how old are you and what are you truly - these other things I thought but did not ask but I think he knew. And who do you serve, I thought.

"Blood and bone woman you speak as a river runs! I asked only one thing!"

"Thus is marriage." I said. "Which was your choice, not mine."

"What a bother.." he said, and scratched his brows. "Well! (I need only say it once)" he smiled at this, "to answer your asking; I serve my father and his maker before all, and should my brother, or my .. my cousins call me, I should be happy to serve them."

"Are you then the child of some distant king?" I said, "and who, and where is their kingdom?"

"Those kin to me ruled long ago,” he said, “and far to the west was their land, and now it is a little further off."

"And does then your grandfather live in some distant land and how does he live so long less he be Golg and godless?"

"I.. ", he laughed.. "rare is a fresh turn for a mind such as mine. My... Father is far from 'Godless' as you would understand it, though often troubled by his prayers. My ... Grandfather.. well, who knows.. there is a deep one, he speaks little but by deed, and those both great and rare.”

"That is wise with kin such as you", I replied, "I doubt not that he fears your treason and hence has banished you so far from friendly fields.”

"It would worry me if that were so." He said. (I noticed he did not say it was not so)

"But I am no exile. I have gone. One day I shall return."

"And how shall I know your kin if they come upon us here and you be not here to say yea or nay?" I said.

"My .. brother and my cousins you shall know for they are alike unto me, yet not. Similar in observable age, yet cast in different colours, one sky-blue, one grey, one brown, one white, and my father and his Father, if you should run into them, I would say you shall have no doubts."

"And how shall they know me?"

"Know you?"

"How shall they know I am your wife and not a slave or servant to be made with as they like?"

"Truly I had not considered it. Blood and bone, this marriage business is deeper than I thought. I had thought it settled with the moon-pelt, is that not how your people trade in wives?"

"That is the bride price," I replied, "there is also a marriage," (and the first night, another thing I thought but did not say), "and in the marriage rings are given and promises made"

"RINGS!" He stood up, almost astounded, and began to walk in circles about the place.

"Rings rings rings! Where did all this ring business start anyway? No I know that but still, but still.. So I must give you a ring must I? And that will serve well for you to be known as the wife of Dark-Blue… A ring that only Dark-Blue could give... hmm.."

He sat and tugged his beard, though I think his mind was poking about his house, looking into certain places and turning over certain things

"And" I said, "I must give you a ring which you must wear, and be seen and known as my husband and Lord."

"Mmm" Dark-Blue jumped up, though his mind was on his searching, not on me, and as he spoke his body followed where his mind had looked before, as I have seen men look for things they think they had last year but have not thought of since.

"I do not think you have one." Said Dark-Blue.

He balanced on a rafter and jumbled something in a box. But I sat down at his chair and took up the knife he had been not-whittling with and cut a lock of my hair and by the time he came back with his thoughts and his body harnessed together once more, fixed on the ring he held in his hand, I had nearly done weaving my own. It was a slave-ring, as an owned girl might make and give to one she wished for and hope she might have a protector, though I had seen that end many ways, but it was a ring, black as night, a small hoop of three braids and that doubled, made of my own hair, which was all that I had.

Dark-Blue held a ring of white bone.

"There!" He was standing behind me as I sat on his monkey-carved chair and his beard tickled my ear as he placed the pale ring on the time-polished surface with a 'tap' so the two rings, once shining black, one the colour of clean teeth, sat beside each other, with the oaken grain showing through them like round windows into waving grass.

I reached out to touch the ring of bone. It was very old I thought and very plain, yet he had hid it deeply and well. What power might it have, and what enchantment cause, I wondered.

"It gives the power of a husband, which is power enough over any woman" said Dark-Blue, "and as for enchantment; little, though it is made to find and be found, which is not much of a magic, though a useful one. Do not wear it yet though. There are vows are there not? I will call Ormo."

There were not. At least not to wives. To be married was to be owned and if the treatment too harsh then hope for strong brothers to avenge any dishonour. Any promises were made between families.  But I did not say this.

“Ormo!” Dark-Blue was at the wide-open door, “Ormo! Come sing a marriage-song!”

“There is more”, he said, and span around the chair so I stared up at him. Then he knelt before me so those wild-blue eyes were level with my own.

“And in this” he said, “I will give you a choice, for the work I would ask of a Wife is not what many men would need.”

Here it comes, I though, finally.

“A horses choice?” I asked, “or a Hawks?”

He looked, not confused, for he never did, but that river-look as if he thoughts were racing under a still surface.

“Wait.” He said. “I nearly have it. Ha! Steppe-Riders! What bloody poetry you make! It is a kenning of sorts is it not? For a Hawk may fly free or be bound to little use, but a horse can be useful or food. Is that the meat of it?”

“It is.” I said.

“Well, more of a half-way choice.” He stroked his beard. Though there was no half-way, ever, and if he had been of the People he would know but here, and for the first time, was something I think he did not know, or not understand as we understood. But it was what it was.

“Here is the Vow I shall ask of you O Gift of Darkness; you must journey with me to the dark of the world, were fear dwells, and.. well.. “

“And what do you hunt there under the earth?”

“Hmm.. I did not say it was under the earth, though it is. Did you guess it?”

“I think there is little you fear under star, sky, or bough, so if we are to go where fear dwells then it must be under something else.”

“Sharp. ..” he looked at me,  “knife-sharp maybe.”  he thought to himself for a moment, “ah! Embers perhaps, let’s say embers. You have been a fire-keeper have you not? And do you turn the embers, bank them and bury them and mark where they lie? for even when they seem cold, cold as the night, now and then, a little spark, it only takes one in the wrong place, an ember in the hay, a spark in summer grass hmm?”

“Only a fool forgets his fire.” I said. “No matter how old.”

“Ha ha! true!” he clapped his hands, then took mine in his, “Now, Nikhavukfal, will you vow to come hunting embers in the dark with me?”

I did not ask what he would do with such embers if he found them, or what or how long or how old the fire. I knew he spoke riddling and half-true. I would not chase his words like a hare in the dusk

but wait, and see what came.

“I will.” I said.

“And what Vow would you ask of me in return?” he said. “For it is rare I make a promise.”

“That you use me not ill, and be kind.” I said.

He stood up, his face dark.

“A hard vow. A vague and general vow. A hard promise to keep.”

“But easy to claim you have kept.” I replied. “And hard to prove you have not.”

“Truly it is said” glowered Dark-Blue, “that trust is a heavy chain. The few I answer to, deal not in half-words but only in the whole, and they are not lied to. Hmm. Very well. I so vow.”

And he placed the pale ring upon my finger and I the black ring upon his. And then came Ormo, and all was song.