The Wife of Dark-Blue, chapter one

(This is an experiment. Let me know if this is or is not the kind of thing you would want to see on the substack. This is fiction, its the first chapter of a story I am working on set essentially in a version of Tolkiens Middle-Earth.)

One - Nikhavukfal and The Fire

It came about that, barren as I am, and old and ill-seeming, yet the child of a great man who I served all my life, and loved greatly, for none would take a marriage price for me, when came his death it was seen and said by the watchers in darkness that I should burn, and go with him to stand before the Lord of the World in his black cell beyond the sky and so lighten the soul of my father or stand in his place to be a servant there, as I was here, and so he should be given freedom from the black cell and be allowed to pass into the forests of the stars.

And this seemed to me right, for I had no place or peace in this world, and without my father, none to defend me and am a woman of no value, yet I would stand before the Lord of the World at my Fathers side and be allowed this and to do this service as I did all my life, and be honoured at least in this as I had not been before.

And my sisters son who would be King beneath a new star and who had spoken to me words not more than ten all the years of my life, came to me and said; is this your wish, and I said it was, and three times he asked, and so perhaps doubled his words yet thrice said I yes I would burn and go to God.

So on the third night the Watchers of Darkness said to the tribes now is the time and the star undying is hidden - for we do not burn beneath that star, and a pyre was built and a flame made ready. Seventy two horses and three witches were sacrificed - and a great pit made and a great mound made to go over it, and fifteen-and-three slaves died in the making of it yet their bones were not thought fit to lie within. So you know I do not lie when I say my Father was a great man.

A Watcher came masked before me and gave me a drink, which I had seen before made men silly - I said to myself that I will not drink it but hold it only. Yet the fire was lit, the horses and the witches screamed and the tribes cried out and women tore their hair and in all this I was anointed in oil, and a woman who had never spoken to me before, very old, whispered in my ear and said; breathe in the smoke, put your head low and breath in smoke though it choke you and the pain shall be less.

And in this I think I must have drank the mushroom drink, though I did not remember doing so - for the cup was empty and in the darkness my kin became wolves and beasts and the clouds bled and the Lord of this World appeared to me in the fire of my father, for He loves fire above all things, and I thought the Lord of this World beckoned to me and called for me to come into the fire with him before my time.

And a horn blew in the darkness, and the questing of wild hounds in the night. Yet none hunt by Night except the seekers of slaves and Burz Kaf, who’s name is is Dark-Blue, and behold it was he.

And he appeared there before the fire, black against it on his fine cloud-grey horse with his catskin boots, wide-brimmed hat, his bow of cursed wood, made by Golg they said, stung with a golden cord, and sheafs of arrows fletched with the feathers of of the steppe, his cloak of pigeon feathers and sleek coat of black fur, and beneath it his ever-blue robes, such dark and stainless blue that they seemed to tinge all of him blue from his black beard in bone rings to the cloak to the furs and even his horse, and his wild blue gemlike eyes which glittered only blue, though the only light was red.

Dark-Blue was a hunter and the son of a hunter and he came from the west and went where he would. Some said he had a brother, long passed, others said he only pretended so to account for his lies, and others that the two, so similar, swapped places as they would to play tricks and make fools, and some said he served dark powers and was a murderer, but no-one had seen him do murder or his brother either, or knew his age or remembered his beginnings except old tales that he came from the setting sun - and the stories were old indeed, and could not be about the same man, unless he be Golg, a godless immortal, which I am sure he was not for he was hairy and wide and stank of animals.

And most men hated Dark-Blue a little, for his tricks and his lies; discord-bringer, and Trickster were his names also, but they feared him more. Never was there such a hunter as Dark-Blue, who was a hunters son and a hunters brother too. He could hunt a snowflake in a storm and could hide like a shadow under a stone, he could smell eggs and hear ants dancing. When he came he came with furs and meat men gave good gold for what he held, (for he would not take slaves nor beasts), and such furs as they were from creatures of wonder, like things of Eld. And nothing could kill him they said

for those who tried did not come back.

Now Dark-Blue stood black before the fire while his wildish dogs sniffed and quested like a wave beneath him, and he circled the fire slowly where my father burned, and looked on us. To him we would be firelit and sweating and our breath steaming.

This was not the place or the time for him if there was such, as all there knew. Yet in a passing way it was, for Dark-Blue came always at strange times, slantways, like a hunter for prey, from edges and eyeblinks, not seen till he chose.

I thought we could tear him apart, we could tear him apart and what would he do? An hundred or more of us and one of him and only dogs with him. But none did.

My Sisters-Son of the twenty words, who was becoming chief, went forth and stood forth.

"What, then?" said my Sisters-son.

And Dark-Blue cried; "A wife!"

All were silent and still and felt fooled. A wife? A wife, never had Dark Blue had a wife or any women known in tale or song, yet still he must have one, for who sewed his shoes or waxed his bow or cooked his food, if he even had a home.

"Begone!" a woman staggered forward, nosed by the hounds.

It was I.

"A King goes to his maker! A daughter goes with him! Begone! Go hunt the dark till day and catch it if you can! Begone!" I was above myself and could not see my own face but the woman, who was I, was staggering towards Dark-Blue while his milky hounds sniffed and nosed her palms all unafraid.

"His maker..." said Dark Blue and looked at me and I froze.

I was within myself again, and cold, shaking, childless, barren and useless, a weak woman, more than threescore years old, standing in the firelight, surrounded by dogs while her father crackled and turned to smoke and flew into a starless sky.

For none had come forth with me, for none dared.

That man was death I then knew. He was a whetted blade, barely held back.

"his maker..." he muttered as his horse rove and circled but his eyes never left mine.

I saw then he could kill me in a moment, he could kill us all. It would be like a man shooting down children or an old wolf taking yearling foals. We lived because he allowed it. He was not the stranger here; we were. He was an arrow in the wind. All this I saw in his blue eyes and I who had expected death knew fear

"Ha HA!" roared Dark-Blue and grinned, "this one!" he said, and pointed with his chin, and he rode towards me

"Hold!"

My Sisters-Son was by me then, "what will you do with her? Will she be harmed?"

"Harmed? ... she is for the fire is she not?"

"She is for the Lord of this World and Her Fathers side!"

"Well, I shall make better use of her than that one. I want a wife and I shall treat her as a wife. She will go with me and neither starve nor burn.... Nor shall she die by my hand. Nor suffer much.."

"What bride-price."

"Nay!" No no, I pulled and pulled away, I turned to the fire and the Lord of this World was within it and gazed upon me and was wrathful for I saw He hated Dark Blue.

I could have leapt then. They could not have stopped me. But even mazed by the drink in my shame I feared to burn and meet the Demiurge.

"A bride price.. hmmm.. hmm.. here!"

A fur white as the moon, as bright as snow, it gleamed like silver beneath cold water.

"There! Such a thing has no lord of these lands or any land about! Ye shall be the one!  It is worth more to you than a womans burnt bones!"

"Aye! I will trade a hags bones for a kings cope!" said my Sisters-Son.

But I do not think he meant it. It was a story for the crowd and the start of a lords legend but it was not written in his eyes or in his face when he looked at me.

“Take her then!"

Dark-Blue rode through the ocean of his dogs who yowled and cried out. He came like Aurochs through head-high summer grass, black and fierce, and reached out for me and took me. His hand, at once old and young, weathered as wood and tough as trees.

"Now!" he said "you are mine!"

He took me, hauled me like a sow, lifted me like a stolen girl. I felt his beard against my face and it was as soft as down. And threw me across his pillion. I moaned my face bounced off the horses grey flank and my own weight burst the air from my lungs, I wept and my drool and tears mixed on my face like a child’s.

"A wife!" he shouted, and laughed, "a wife for Dark-Blue ah ha!"

And we rode.