And she’ll sail the brine another day
An orphan will find her, a bear-cub will bind her
And the wolf will lead them astray.
And hand in hand they’ll come whistling home
The maiden, the bear, and the girl in gray
Through the shining white foam,
The red ship will roam
And the wolf shall lead them astray.
And the wolf will lead her astray.
The Sigrid’s voice was rough and low, like an oar pulling through dark water. When she opened her eyes, there seemed to be an odd light glimmering there, gentle and sad. I understood then that this Sigrid was a secret heretic, and I smiled to myself. But then, too, I began to believe the heresy, and worse, I began to believe that I was the one destined to find her—did not The Book of Carrion contain the same lines, and did not the dog-men whisper them as though they must refer to me?
Nothing in my life has birthed more pain than the faith I conceived in that moment.
There was no light left, then, and the Sigrid was silently replaced by another woman, as slender as she was muscular, but equally bald. The guard thus changed, the spice-skinned Sigrid took my hand in her huge palm, and I entered the Tower of St. Sigrid for the first time.
I did not leave it again for seven years.
“AND THAT IS ALL I CAN TELL YOU OF MY FIRST years in Al-a-Nur,” Sigrid said, fingering dark patterns on the tavern table where decades of mugs had left their marks. “The rest is secret, the province of the Sigrids, and I could no more tell an uninitiated soul of the joys I suffered and the terrors I adored wit
hin those walls than I could tell a deaf woman how the sea sounds before a storm. I was accepted into the Sainthood—I received a name. We are all Sigrids, but we have our own titles. The Saint who is the Mother of us all is Saint Sigrid of the Nest. The woman who told me that tale on the steps of the Tower was Saint Sigrid of the Shallow Keel. I am Saint Sigrid of the Ways.”
“Wait!” cried Snow. “That cannot be the end of the story! What about the Black Papess? How did you leave the city? Did you truly not see Bagdemagus for seven years? How can you stop a tale when so much of it remains, a meal half-eaten?” She was almost out of her chair with excitement—Snow had never known so many words laid next to each other at once, and all laid out for her. Sigrid laughed her languid, rough-hewn laugh.
“No, no, you’re right. How impolite of me—there is a bit more to tell. But when I speak of the Mother and the Mast, I tend to drown in her story until I forget all the others. It is the way of religion. But Eyvind must fill up our cups again, and give us a plate of sweet bread and blackberry jam to strengthen the tale. I am not a small woman, and the stringing of stories like pearls on fishing line is not a task for the faint of belly.”
Eyvind appeared more gracefully and with less commotion than Snow would have thought possible for a man of his size, and furnished them with fresh food and drink. To her surprise, he then dragged a heavy chair to the table and sat down himself to hear Sigrid speak, fixing her with his tired, drooping eyes. She seemed suddenly discomfited, like a bear caught scooping honey from a hive. But she drank deeply and swallowed a few mouthfuls of bread, and, eyes darting like fireflies between Eyvind and Snow, began again.
“It is the custom for novices, once their hair is shorn, not to leave the Tower for a full seven years. When they step outside it for the first time, it is not onto the soft grass but onto the deck of a small boat, and the acolyte then spends a circuit of seasons plying the river with her craft, never walking on dry land. Only after this is she allowed to venture into the Dreaming City itself. But I was not in seclusion for more than a few months when Bags begged an exception for me. I was not allowed to cross the threshold of the Tower, but he came to the gate, and I sat within it, my skull newly bare, and we talked, like old friends in need of succor. For the Black Papess had entered the Gates of Al-a-Nur…”
“I SUPPOSE IT’S SIGRID NOW, IS IT?” BAGS ASKED, scratching his great furry ear.
I sat, legs crossed serenely, determined to act every inch the devout novice. “Of course,” I intoned, as sagely as I could manage.
Bags smiled at me, his grin all teeth and silky muzzle. He leaned over the threshold and whispered huskily: “I’ve always thought it was a beautiful name.”
I giggled, and held out my arms to be embraced over the awkward liminal law of the door I could not exit and he could not enter. He clapped me on the back several times and rubbed my shorn head gently where all my lovely hair had once been.
“And the sea-dog look suits you!”
“Oh, Bags, I’ve missed you!”
“No fear, lass, we’ve all missed you. We’d have looked after you in our own Tower, but we are glad for you here—sometimes a woman needs to be with her own. But I haven’t come to tell you how pretty you look or dote on you like an old wolf nosing one of his favorite pups! Great things are afoot in the City, things you couldn’t know about, cloistered away in your sail-slung Tower. I came to tell you how things fared with the Papess!”
“Fared? I’ve missed the battle?” I was furious, of course.
“In a manner of speaking.” Bags nodded, suppressing a giggle himself. “But don’t worry yourself, little whelp—I’ve come to tell you of the great contest, the great duel that Yashna fought with Ragnhild in the center of the City.”
I remembered myself then, and took a step backward into the familiar shadows of my Tower. “But why should I know these things, Bags, when the other girls are at their studies and not called to the door like a princess to meet her suitor? If I am to know it, oughtn’t I to wait until the Saints tell me in their own way, in their own time?” I dropped my voice to a whisper. “I’m a good girl; I don’t want them to think I’m not.”
Bags’s brown eyes glittered. “You are a good girl, my young Sigrid. I would never doubt it. I have spoken to Shallow Keel and you are mine for the afternoon. And as for your right to know above all the other girls—if you were a worse student, you would likely know already, for the story has spread through the Towers like fire through a village of thatched roofs. But you earn the right to hear it firsthand because you came to the City with us, on the wings of our terrible errand. You are already part of this story—and you will be a part of its ending, before long.”