Raven Speak (9781442402492) Read Free Page A

depending on what mushy vegetable was scrounged from the storeroom or what bony rodent was trapped, pounded to a paste, and stirred into it.
    Asa hurried over to where her mother lay on a straw mattress pulled close to the fire. As wife of the chieftain, she’d be in charge of the clan until the men returned. So she’d left her private bed-closet at the south end of the longhouse and set up commandby the fire’s meager warmth. Secretly Asa wondered if it was all a mistake. Her mother, wrapped in a feather quilt overlaid with two sheepskins, could barely lift her head. How was she going to lead a restless clan?
    As if sensing her worries, her mother reached out an arm to caress her daughter’s cheek. “How is Rune today?”
    Nothing about her husband leaving, nothing about every one of the able-bodied men leaving in a desperate venture to provide food. No, her mother would set aside her own worries to be a leader, strong in the face of the disaster that was engulfing them. “I found some rockweed for him and the others,” Asa responded, “though we had to ride a long way. But when I carried water from the stream it looked like some of the spruce trees were beginning to bud. There were purple knobs on the ends of the branches.”
    With a weak smile, her mother tucked her arm back under her feather quilt and closed her eyes. “Tell me about your ride. What did you see?”
    That was her way of asking for a story. In the monotonous, housebound months of winter, even insignificant events had to be told and retold, with ever more interesting details embroidered onto them, to help pass the time.
    Asa recounted her ride around each finger of the mountain range, describing the ocean’s changing colors, the ancient picture-stone that sprouted from the whale-nosed bluff, the weighty shapes of clouds in the sky, and ending with the raven and the strange figure. “I saw it land on a man’s arm, but I didn’t see avillage anywhere. Does Father know about the people living there? Maybe they have food.”
    Her mother spoke with her eyes still closed. “I’ve never heard him speak of another village nearer than a day’s sail away. Are you sure of what you saw?”
    She thought. The fjord had been very shadowy, but yes, she’d seen the raven alight upon something that had to have been a person. She nodded. “Yes, I’m sure.”
    That brought her mother’s eyes open. “Did he look evil—a raider or a pirate? Did you see his ship?” She lifted onto one elbow. “With the men gone we’re easily taken. I’ll have to do something, prepare… . I wonder if they saw your father and the others leave.”
    Ill as she was, her mother didn’t need more worries. “Maybe it was just my imagination,” Asa soothed. “The fjord was in shadow, and when the raven swooped into the shadows it looked like he landed on the arm of a person, but it was probably just a tree.”
    â€œYou’re sure?”
    Her mother’s eyes begged the answer, and so she gave it. “Yes,” she replied, “I’m sure we don’t have to worry about raiders.”
    And that, in essence, was also true. Why should they worry about raiders when they had nothing to be raided? The brutal weather had already stripped them of everything.
    The months of late summer and early winter had been the harshest anyone could remember. Rain had fallen in torrents and the crops had become moldy. Then, almost without pause, the rain turned to hail and flattened the blackened stalks. What hay thatcould be salvaged from the mold was put up in the byre, but it was only a third of what was needed. Cabbages were stunted, pea pods mostly empty. The deer and elk climbed into the shelter of the high mountain forests, and even the gulls seemed to have flown to more temperate shores. In hard times the ocean had always provided plenty of food, but when the