Wolfsangel Read Online Free PDF Page B

through the farmer’s mind. He felt as though he was frying in the juice of all his boasts, all his pretensions and weaknesses. He did as he was bid. The pale fellow stretched out his hand to Saitada and it seemed to her that little points of light began to dance around her, tiny silver orbs no bigger than seeds, glinting in a shimmering web. He put on the cloak she had made, drew it around him and began to sing.

    Half beautiful is she, like the moon

    And from her shall spring the moon taker

    Oh the sun it grows dark at the noon

    And the wolf in his dreams is a waker

    This last line seemed to amuse the fellow no end and he burst out in giggles, which Saitada could only share, as if she was a child learning some naughty secret. Her giggling seemed to grow and grow in her until she thought it might never stop.

    And then it did stop and the night was silent. Everything had changed and for ever. It seemed to Saitada that she stood in the middle of a glade that was bathed in the silvery light of a flaming moon.

    ‘See the beauty of the garment you have made,’ said the man.

    He was in front of her, but the cloak was not her cloak but a cloak of feathers that might not have been feathers but silvery flames or just points of light. It engulfed him and lifted him so he seemed to hover a stool’s height above the ground. The farmer and his wife were nowhere to be seen.

    ‘You have never been loved,’ said the traveller.

    ‘Sir, I have not,’ she said.

    ‘And you have not known until this moment that you could be loved,’ he said.

    ‘I have not.’

    ‘I can only love your kind,’ he said. ‘Who could love the princes and the heroes with their murders and their wars?’

    ‘I know no princes or heroes, sir.’

    ‘Bide your time,’ he said. ‘You’ll be sick to your back teeth of them before you’re done.’ He smiled at her. ‘You, my dear, are perfect.’

    ‘My face is not, sir.’

    ‘You chose imperfection - what could be more perfect? You saw your imperfection was perfection and therefore remedied it by imposing an imperfection on yourself thereby becoming perfect again. The logic is imperfectly flawless.’

    He descended to the earth, and the cloak he had been wearing became a carpet of white feathers that covered the glade, deep as midwinter snow. She lay down upon it and, having only ever known straw before, was overwhelmed by its comfort.

    The stranger spoke. ‘To strive to be the best, to excel and have the skalds sing your praises. They’re all at it. What better than to spit at what the gods gave you and spite your fate?’

    ‘I did it because I would not give them a moment’s more pleasure from me.’

    ‘They will have no pleasure ever again. Would you know their fate?’

    ‘If it is a bad one.’

    ‘I have repaid them,’ said the burning beautiful god, for now Saitada was sure this was not a mortal before her. ‘You should have seen the smith’s face when I spoke to him from the fire and he knocked that smelting pot onto his bollocks. He’s got his cock out of his breeks for a different reason now, I can tell you. Are you grateful?’

    ‘It is not enough,’ said Saitada.

    He stretched out his hand and she saw the smith asleep in his bed. He was drawn and pale but something obscured her vision. It was smoke. The thatch was on fire. The smith woke and tried to move but his wounds wouldn’t allow him to. She saw him panic as the fire took hold.

    Saitada smiled as she watched.

    ‘You are a power, lady, a power,’ said the god. ‘The elves sing your fame and the dwarfs of the earth despair for they know that in all their art they will never make anything to compare to your depthless beauty.’

    ‘I would know your name, sir,’ said Saitada. She felt something strange sweeping over her, something she had never felt from a man before: love as more than an idea, as something present and intense, like her forgotten mother might have cherished her baby girl.

    ‘My