Life and Death of the She-Wolf

It's so cold beneath her hill. Cold and dark. She doesn't know how long she's been here, but long enough that warmth is just a memory. Or a memory of a memory. She can still remember sunlight, but its warmth is so distant that she can no longer conjure up the feeling of it touching her skin. She just knows that such a feeling once existed.

In death, her life is a series of images. Scenes that have become so familiar that thinking about them makes them unreal. She sometimes wonders whether they are her own memories, or simply stories she once heard, like the songs sung by the skald at the high table.

Strangely, the memories she's surest of are of gazing up her father, seated at the high table with his lord. He was a magnificent sight, the gold bands on his arms shining no brighter than his hair and beard. His rich laugh rolled down into the hall, lightening the mood even in the darkest of winter, the harshest of days.

The embroidery on his tunic always fascinated her. Patterns of birds and beasts winding up his arms and crossing his broad chest. When she was young she spent hours tracing them with her finger, listening with half an ear as her father spoke to his lord, or to his wife, or to his slaves.

She remembers his patience as he instructed her with spear and blade. You'll never wield an axe with the same force as a man, he told her when she became frustrated. That's only a weakness if you're not aware of it, if you don't fight to your strengths instead.

So speed and accuracy, of body, eye and mind. She spent endless hours practising with her weapons and her body, until her body became a weapon, until her weapons were part of her body. She learned to place the point of her spear where her eye wanted it. She taught her eye to find what her mind looked for. She trained her body to act before her mind was aware of what it wanted.

And when her father was slain, after the raiders had been fought back by the people he'd died protecting, the lord chose her to fill his seat at the high table. She'd earned it by then. No-one doubted her skill as a warrior, and any who questioned it backed down as soon as she challenged them. She had enough battle brothers to back up her boasts, bound to her with ties stronger than blood, by the exchange of weapons after the fight.

Her wisdom was also valued, although she sometimes wondered what made her so wise. Once she asked Eimar the wizard. They had a comfortable relationship, both of them bridging the gap between man and woman, living in that fluid area where woman was man and man was woman.

When you look both ways, he told her, you see twice as much. The men who fight and tend the farms, the women who tend the houses and the children, they know only their own world. You and I, we've been part of both. We understand two perspectives. That makes us strong. He gave a secret smile. Others call it wisdom, but it's actually strength.

He was right, of course. As a wizard, dealing with women's magic and wearing women's garments, he should have been shunned and made outcast. And he would have been, if he'd shown any sign of weakness, of doubt.

Instead, he moved boldly through life in full acceptance of who he was and what he did. When she herself worried -- faced with the prospect of taking her place in the shieldwall, or once when Gunnar the Bear challenged her for her seat at the high table -- Eimar's example filled her with confidence and strength.

It was that same confidence that swept aside her doubts when she pursued Fulk. Fulk, the most beautiful man she ever saw. Tall, lean, strong. Wolfish when he moved, fierce when he spoke, warm when he laughed. Even now the memories sometimes come back sharp and clear, carrying with them a sense of warmth that even the thought of sunlight can't bring.

Fulk came to the lord's hall from overseas, already a war-leader. At first he mocked her. A girl playing at being a man, he said. Go play with your doll, milk the goats and be ready to spread your legs for me tonight.

His people had no women-warriors or magic-men. It was populated only by men and women, though how anyone could tell the difference she often wondered. Both wore drab clothes, unadorned by stitching or colours. Maybe it was because they never bathed. That was the first habit Fulk learned, and the lesson came the hard way.

It was the day after a raid up the coast. Three ships sailed out at dawn to seize a pair of traders passing by the mouth of the fjord. She led the attack, first into the fight. Her spear sang that day as it fed the sea with blood. None could touch her, moving through the press like death itself, killing wherever she went.

Fulk was on the other trading vessel. She saw him, cut off from his warriors, back to the mast, holding off four men with his shield and sword. The sail above him had caught fire, and he stood tall while the flames cast shadows around him. He knew no fear, no doubt, only his blade and the flesh it sought.

During the feast, while the songs were sung, she sat beside him. He stank, of smoke and blood and dried sweat. She told him so. He had respect for her now, but he laughed at her words.

She herself led the gang that dragged him from his blankets after the feast and threw him in the fjord. She and the other warriors laughed as he sputtered in the icy water, pointing their spears at him until he stripped and washed himself.

Afterwards she sniffed him again, then dragged him -- still naked -- to the closest barn. His shrivelled cock soon came back to life in her hand. She lay back in the hay, spreading her legs for him, waiting for him to enter her.

Instead, he lowered himself onto his knees and kissed the furry mound where her thighs met. Instead of his hard cock, it was his hot tongue that penetrated her.

Even now she remembers that first time. The hay tickling her neck and ear. A cow looming nearby, watching with bovine curiosity as she writhed and gasped. The fire that shivered through her from head to toe, the fear and anxiety and sudden ecstasy.

She has no lips to smile, no eyes to close in remembered pleasure. But a sensation like a cat's purr runs through her spirit.

Fulk's mouth and chin were wet after, and she kissed his face all over as she dragged him down on top of her. This time he did enter her. When they were done, a loud cheer went up outside the barn, where the warriors had gathered to listen to them.

It took Fulk only a moon to learn that he had to bathe every week if he wanted to enjoy her.

He was from the lands of the Frisians. A strange people, with strange customs. He told of settlements built on mounds to protect them from the sea. She laughed at that, incredulous. Why not simply move to higher ground? What about the spirits living in the mounds, didn't they curse the dwellers living above them?

He painted a picture with his words, of sea and land sharing the same space, and of a folk caught between the two. She looked around as she listened, imagining a world where the fjords and the mountains were lovers instead of strangers. She wondered whether it gave Fulk the same wisdom, the same strength, that she shared with Eimar.

Whether or not because of how his land had shaped him, Fulk was wise enough and strong enough to become her mate. He had a ship of his own, with a crew of warriors, and when they were raiding she was first among those warriors.

First onto the beach. First across the waves onto the enemy ship. First to draw blood, first to pursue the defeated. The first to sing her boasts at the fire after, and the first to praise her fellows for their deeds.

It was a sweet time. The years she spent with Fulk were like an endless summer. Even the cold winters -- the cold is a memory she has no difficulty conjuring up -- seem nothing but hearthfires, furs and Fulk's naked body, clear night skies and warm mead, laughter and song and Fulk's naked body again.

She has no difficulty picturing him then. Shaggy hair, grey eyes and cruel lips that could make her scream. Pale skin marked with pink scars. Hard muscle underneath, and that harder muscle below, standing forward like the prow of his ship, eager to plough into her soft shore.

Was she this sentimental in life? She doesn't remember thinking of fucking like that. It was just fucking, hot and wild fucking. Sweaty flesh pressed together. Grunts and smells. Fire and passion and urgency. His tongue in her folds, his lips on her shield-boss. Her legs wrapping around him, his cock thrusting into her.

She becomes aware of a moaning, keening sound, and realises she's making it. Her spirit yearns for Fulk like her body once did. The loneliness is like a hungry wolf gnawing away at her, filling the hollowness inside her with cold and despair.

She has no way of telling how long she's been here. The soil of her hill is frozen, so it must be winter. Her time here feels like an age, but so did the night Fulk lay dying. The memory brings more moans, but of pain and sorrow now. They remind her of Fulk's cries that night, of her own the following morning when he went silent.

They buried him on that foreign shore, in a corner of a field that resembled his cherished Frisia. The men wanted to raise a small barrow and sail on. The season was young, and they were eager to find new lands to raid.

But she insisted they do it the right way. A war-leader deserved a true mound. They tore down a farmstead -- the people who'd built it didn't need it anymore -- and used the stone, wood and turf to build a chamber for Fulk's cold body. Three other warriors who'd died in the same ill-fated skirmish were placed before him. Their weapons and all the loot were added, then the door was sealed and the survivors covered the structure with stone, sand and soil.

She led the crew for the rest of the raiding season. The images in her mind were blurred, but the songs the skalds sang after were clear. Blood and fire, savagery and slaughter. She took them further than any ship had raided before, to where the sun burned the land and its people. She wanted to explore that land, to find fire giants, but her crew insisted they go home.

When they returned it was well after the first winter storms. Fulk's ship was loaded with gold, silver and slaves. His skald had forged the lines of his song during the months of raiding, and their homecoming was greeted with joy.

There was a great feast. Fires roared, warriors roared. The wind howled, and slaves howled. A pair of old men and a grey-haired woman. The moon was still high when they succumbed to the spears thrown at them. The bodies were tossed on the fires.

How many winters followed? She doesn't remember. It was another confused time, but this one was cold and dark. Men and women alike came to fear her. Her crew gained a reputation for savagery, a willingness to spill blood over any slight. Feuds followed her, and she settled them with fire and steel.

In the end the lord spoke to her. He was older by then, with grey hair and grey skin. Eimar was gone, otherwise she might have listened sooner. Remember Fulk, the lord said. Remember your father. What would they say if they saw you like this? Cool your temper, he told her, or leave.

She laughed in his face. The she gathered her crew and left on the tide.

They returned in the stillness before dawn and burned the hall. The screams rose behind her as she led her crew back to the boat before the warriors of the settlement could gather and stop them. The fire threw a red glow on the black water of the fjord. She laughed and laughed until she screamed, and even her most loyal men looked worried.

Things come into focus after that. Realisation of what she'd done. No contrition, no remorse, but an awareness that she needed to leave, go far away.

A handful of women were whimpering in the ship's belly. They'd fled the burning hall, and her men had seized them to enjoy later.

There was a pretty thing among them. Hilde, the lord's daughter. Her man was dead in the flames, and her eyes were wide with fear.

Come here, she told the woman as she unbuckled her belt. Earn your life.

The tongue and lips were softer than Fulk's, but unpractised, unskilled. Unwilling. It felt nice, but didn't satisfy her. She slapped the girl across the face and sent her away. Tomorrow you'll do better, she said.

All that day they fled to the mouth of the fjord, flying before the ships they knew would be pursuing them. Once they reached the open sea no-one could catch them.

The ship was gliding on the wind when she called Hilde to her again. Do better this time, she said, and the woman did.

Afterwards she fell into a deep sleep. A witch's spell, one of her men said later, and perhaps she believed it then. She knows better now. She sees more clearly in death, without eyes, than she ever did in life.

It was a healing sleep, a sleep to wipe away the blackness and coldness inside her. A sleep like a baby's before it's born.

She woke refreshed, like a new woman. The girl was dead already. The crew had nailed her hands to the prow while they sailed.

It was the autumn of her life, she realises. She knew it then too, perhaps. Her body needed more rest. Her scars ached. Her hunger for excitement stilled.

Two more seasons she led her crew on raids, then she decided to stay at home. Her own hall, on a low hill overlooking the sea on a small island. Puffins made their home on the tall cliffs and seals watched from the shelter of the bay. She wondered whether Fulk's home resembled the place. Somehow she didn't think so. Even so, she walked the green meadows as if he was by her side still.

It was high summer when the ship appeared on the horizon. She knew immediately that her doom had arrived.

Olov, he called himself. Grandson of the old lord, kinsman of the drowned girl, come for vengeance.

They met on the beach, with the waves lapping around their ankles and the sand shifting underfoot.

Olov came at her with axe and shield, swinging hard and pushing her back. She let him come, wily as an old she-wolf. Her limbs might be stiff, but her will was iron and she'd been killing men in battle long before this pup was born.

A slash to the back of his leg decided the fight. Blood spurted, eager to be free. He stumbled and she moved in for the kill. As her spearhead sank into his side, she felt cold fingers seize her foot and drag her towards the sea.

Startled, she glanced down. A clump of seaweed had tangled around her ankle. It resembled the blackened limb of dead Hilde nailed to the prow of her ship.

A sudden blow in her side forced the air out of her, smashed her back and knocked her off her feet. Sitting with her arse in the water, trying to breathe and watching the sea turn red around her, she realised that Olov's axe had finally caught her.

He died before she did. She willed her eyes to stay open so she could watch his spirit leave his body. Their blood mingled in the water and sand while her crew and his looked on with wide eyes. At last she pushed herself upright. Everything hurt, but she knew it would be over in moments.

Her legs were heavy from the water and sand clinging to her boots. The weed had let go its grip. She dragged her feet forward, leaving deep grooves behind her. When she reached Olov's body she spat on it. It was more blood than saliva, and it stood out red on his pallid skin.

Then she raised her arms towards the sky and turned to face the sun. "Fulk," she

remembers whispering. That's all, no more after that.

No more, until this endless cold blackness. She longs for spring, for the thaw. Will the cold go away then? Will she be warm in summer, when the sun warms the ground above her?

Her body is here, the clothes stiff from the salt that permeates everything so close to the shore. Her skin feels like leather. She has no fingers, but she can trace the outlines of every object in her chamber.

The great seat from her hall, with its gold and silver bosses and the patterns carved in the wood that remind her of the patterns on her father's tunic. Her spear across her lap. The pair of heavy daggers she always carried on her belt. A chest by her feet, holding gold and silver coins that she can feel through the wood.

She's surrounded by baskets and boxes holding the loot of a lifetime. Furs, fine cloth, helms and hauberks, blades of all shapes and sizes, including Olov's axe with her own blood still on it.

No other warriors are buried with her. Sometimes she wishes she'd gone to look for Fulk's mound, brought him back and made a new mound for him by her hall. Would he be here with her then? She doesn't know, and the thought of his empty shell makes her glad she's alone.

Alone in the cold and the dark. Alone with her memories, waiting for spring.