Vol.2, Ch.4, P.11
“Lise!” came a call ringing clear through the night. “Is that you there?”
“Berta! You’ve come!” answered Lise, whereupon a pall of mirth bloomed on her cheeks, and with it, a breeziness to her bounding feet as she flew back up the steps. I traced her trail, arriving a moment later.
“How now,” Berta’s brows arched, sighting me over Lise’s shoulder. “What has brought you here of all places?”
“The jarl’s bidding, evidently. He seemed rather intent on showing me the plight of your people,” I explained, before glancing to Lise. “Though meeting his daughter along the way was mere coincidence.”
“Coincidence, you say? Well, scarce queer given the day’s course! Ho ho!” chuckled Berta, patting her belly in good humour.
For her part, Lise looked back and forth between us in wonder. “Ah—acquainted already, I see.”
The chatter carried on as we all wended our way back to the children’s home, during which I learnt that Berta, too, shared in Lise’s worries for this district. Dire amongst them was the dilemma of the children themselves, deprived of parents as they were. It was for that reason that Berta gave much of her time to tend to their troubled abode.
“Rather rare of late, Theo’s symptoms?” Berta asked. “A peek of the sun through grey clouds, were it so from here on.”
“Berta…” Lise greyly began, “…Theo, he’s suffered a spasm earlier.”
A gasp. “He what!? H-how fares he now!?”
The war-chief’s cheer was all but withered at once. In its place: a panicked portance, the first I’d seen sallowing her, and as well, a testament to how dearly she tasked her heart to the little ones.
“The physick proved the fix,” Lise soothed. “He sleeps sound.”
“G-goodness… Oh, goodness…!” Berta freed her bated breaths. But the relief did little to stay her newfound haste as she hurried on inside the home.
Voices of joy soon jumped from the abode’s many mouseholes and hollows.
“A—h! It’s Auntie Berta!”
“Berta! Berta!”
Inside, a single lantern was lit. Shadows once still now danced as the children were roused.
“Now, now, not too loud. Theo needs his rest,” said Berta, before bending down to her knees. “To me, my dears!”
Not a second later and the little ones were lilting and laughing all around the rotund woman. Vivid on all their visages were sunny smiles. A moment of joy against the dreariness, one that well-revealed Berta’s belovedness.
“Auntie, Auntie!” one amongst the children called. “Me and Nora ran errands today! Just the two of us!”
“Well, aren’t you both a dependable pair!” Berta beamed more brightly. “You lost not your way, did you, dear?”
A giggle. “Almost!”
“Auntie! Can I massage your shoulders? Lise said I’m good at it!” a little boy boasted.
“Did she, now? Well then, let’s measure how much of a masseur you be!”
From a little further in rose a rustle.
A boy, once flat on a floormat, slowly awoke to the disquieted air. Curious, he rubbed his eyes and looked about, breaking a great grin upon finding Berta.
“Auntie!” he shouted brightly.
“Theo, dear! You’re up!” Berta returned. “Goodness, forgive the clamour. How fare you, my little champion?”
“Never felt better!”
Amidst the merry commotion, one of the children caught sight of me as I stood beside the doorway. The young pair of eyes sparkled with awe, as though discovering a curio.
“Ah! You’re the mister from before!”
That one pair was now many, as all in the home set their gazes upon me.
“Oh? Is that a Man?” Theo wondered aloud. “First I’ve seen with my eyes.”
“That he is,” Lise assured him, and everyone else next. “A Man—and my friend.”
“Lise has a new friend?” echoed one of the children.
I bowed. “The name’s Rolf. A pleasure.”
“Nice to meet you, mister!”
The home was then aflutter with further greetings from the little ones. A cheery exchange, to be sure, during which I well-learnt one thing: the grown ones here were not wont to teach their young the foe-like fearfulness of Man-folk.
‘…We judge for what a heart beats…
…not what blood courses through it…’
Now more than ever did Volker’s words ring true.
“Auntie, Auntie! Will you stay tonight?”
“Hmm,” Berta gave half a moment’s thought before teasingly half-nodding. “Mayhaps.”
“Ya—y!”
The children then chirped and jumped for joy. After having their fill of frolicking, they gathered once more around the girth of their dear auntie. And what girth indeed, for each of the five children was snug and sound in Bertha’s wide embrace.
The war-chief glowed with the mirth of a mother as she went on lending ear to all the little ones’ words, no matter how incoherent, no matter how trifling.
A sight of precious serenity, which, upon meeting her eyes, earned a soft smile from Lise’s lips.
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The dusky hour fell deeper still, till the little ones were all of them fast asleep, their springtide vitality well-sapped from many an impassioned prattle had with their auntie.
“You seem the mother-tree to these children, were they faeries,” I remarked, as we three adults were all sat anear the waning lantern.
“Oho!” Berta’s shoulders lifted with subdued laughter. “A fair little faerie Lise was, too, in her time.”
“B-Berta!” came Lise’s gust of a whisper. “I-I’m grown now. A frau full-graduated from frolicking ‘round you all day!”
“You are, at that,” Berta’s voice fell. “Ah, the days.”
Words brushed with nostalgia, but warmed by pride beneath. To the war-chief, there was perhaps no joy greater than the growth of the many youths of her charge.
“You’ve long looked after such lost children, I take it?” I asked her.
“You take aright. My body be barren, see,” Berta confessed, hand upon her belly. “I once walked the warrior’s way, but when my heart saw the hurt in our poor children, my feet found another path.”
“Another path, you say…”
I knew anew then, that in this world so awash in blood feuds, there were yet folk who walked the difficult path of dignity. Folk who, with nary a whisper of doubt in their hearts, yet saw immense meaning in defending the meek and miserable. Besides Berta, there was Eva and the matron Irma at the orphanage. Lise, too, bore this weighty lustre no less brightly.
Such knowledge served a great solace.
Thereafter did we mingle further on myriad matters. In its course, I found myself deeply moved by the very moment: sworn enemies sat beside one another, amidst the waxing bellows of war abroad, exchanging not blows and curses, but common interests and concerns. From the weather-whims of this corner of the world, to the histories of both Men and Nafílim—conversations most benign, continuing from one topic to another without wane.
How pleasant they were, Lise and Berta. In spite of all the turmoil exacted upon their people, they yet found reason for friendliness with their foe.
It was then that I revealed myself to be an ungraced—a Man void of the odyl so instilled in all nascent Nafílim. Lise had, for the longest time, wondered why it was that her neck was spared of my sword-strike—not once, but twice—in the fading moments of the Battle of Erbelde. The reason, too, I related to her.
The deed very well bared my mortal flaw. Passing strange that I felt not a hint of hesitation in telling them of it.
“So that’s why!”
“Oh! You poor thing. A trying life you have trod.”
The revelation seemed to stir neither sight nor scent of antipathy from the two. Expected, for the Nafílim were no lambs of Yoná. Still, their lack of scorn was a breath of fresh air.
Berta turned to me as I was aglow in gladness.
“Ah, yes. Your earlier counsel—the jarl heeds it,” she reported. “The west-side folk evacuate as we speak.”
“It’s started, now?” I said with genuine surprise. “Your jarl’s hands are as swift as his ears.”
It was no later than noontide when I entreated the jarl to prepare his people for the Fiefguard’s coming foray. Yet to begin the evacuation before the day has even turned well-betrayed my expectation.
“That he is! Long in his years he may be, but the passing winters only whet further his wits,” Berta nodded. “And your counsel was mete enough for his measure. The evacuation proceeds from the west gate on. Come next morrow, this very district moves, as well.”
“And you came to tell the elders of this, Berta?” Lise asked.
“I did. Only, our words waxed too deep into the dusk; everyone went to sleep before we finished,” the war-chief chuckled. “And so I stay the night here. But at dawn, we move and I lead.”
“That settles it, then. I’ll stay the night, as well,” Lise decided with a smile.
I then thought to bid my goodbyes, seeing as the hour of sleep had set in.
Only…
…a chill next ran down my spine.
“Mm? Rolf?”
The mirth upon Lise’s lips had hardly faded, as faint in the west window behind her…
“What’s wrong?”
…was the hum of an ill-light.
My eyes darted to the children nearby, deep in their safe slumber. The fragile sight sent me shooting up to my feet. Turning my back to Lise’s inquiring voice, I then thundered out of the house, and as soon as I could, set my eyes to the western skies.
The ill-light was no illusion.
For it was red.
And roaring.
The fólkheimr was aflame.
My ears next corroborated the omen—from the distance, the dim din of bellicose howls and hoofbeats. Lise and Berta both were soon beside me, aghast at the grimness. In their wide eyes, too, was the reflection of red-rife skies.
The jarl was quick, but his foes were quicker, for it was evident that the very day I had set off from Balasthea was the same as the Fiefguard’s opening march.
There was no doubt, then.
Londosius’ lions of war were come to hunt.
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Chapter 4 ─ End
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