slumbertale


The brightly inlaid doors of birch nest swung open to show seven tall corundum windows puzzled in many hues, looking onto the moor of swirling heath and a misty blue glimpse of the Minch. A sprawling but tucksomely heaped nest staddle ran far along the sills, littered with deeply embroidered throw pillows. In an airy corner a birch board floated on spare staves where half a dozen girls of sundry heights (and cuts and hues of hair), all alikely longstockinged in flued white linens, stood from wafered birch benches and an utterly skeinish, three flocked game of fox and goose.

Among them was Morfyd who had been at Glas knoll with Giorsal and Geileis. Morfyd's high cheekbones and wide set eyes echoed her twin Morigan's but sharply so. Gormglaith locked looks with Raoghnailt who rushed breathlessly towards her as Morfyd held out a knobby hand, dry as chalk.

"I'm chilled, Gormglaith..."

Gormglaith lurched forward to take it.

"Blighted thithter..."

Morfyd shrieked along with the others as Raoghnailt tugged on Gormglaith's arm.

"Everyone swoons for the pledge lisp," she whispered, "and thou'st got it! Let's hie for the maze!"

Raoghnailt pulled her cloppingly away as steady gazes followed Gormglaith's bottom sheathed in rumpled linen. Birch nest began gabbing all at once but this dwindled as the two darted through a spinel stone maze to a small lair stilled by the hushed cocoon of a sound screen, its single narrow window looking onto heather and sea like the gather hall's.

"Stabbed by the Mab! Is she a trip or what? Thou lookst wonderful! How was tea?"

"Applth!" giggled Gormglaith as they plopped onto a cozy box staddle of wefted birch slats amidst half embroidered throw pillows.

"Gillian pulled mine ear... ith it red?"

Raoghnailt grinned, giving the ear a thorough gander.

"Not! Anyway that's a mossy teach trick. She does it with all the scruds. Truth be told Gillian's shy. Like when, the very evening they plighted, she told the twins, 'Who gives a luzz if Tales of the knotty kindel's a clannin thing? I am out.' So scathing, the only banshee here everyone's heard of's the only one who's kept mum."

"A clannin thing?" asked Gormglaith, nudging back her thatch.

"Oh, Morfyd hatches up the tales and puts in some of her maegden 'n maedchen selfs, us too. Lots of stuff that happens here ends up in runes and the throes of ghosts I guess, one way or another."

"I taut Donovan Tart was writing Tales of the knotty kindel these moons."

"Yeah, she gathers 'n gleans but Sparkenbanes've told 'em from the start. They say it all began as a cozy yarn made up for fidgety sisters one stormy night on Wrath ness and grew unbroken in the telling."

"I didin' doe dat... know that," Gormglaith healed, twirling her eyes.

Raoghnailt smiled and pounced on her. They trundled about, groping kerfuffle.

"Hey!" came a cool silvery tongue like Morigan's.

Morfyd stood in the opening.

"I wath raithed on thy tales," said Gormglaith, pulling herself up.

"Ta!"

"I mutht have read thine each at leatht thrithe!"

"I only blurt 'em out over coffee!" said Morfyd. "Donovan has the knack for scribblin', but I'm still flattered, little sister."

The new nose ring sparkled in Highlands afternoon light streaming through blue, green and pink window panes. Gormglaith flopped back with a thunk upon steadfast cotton and grinned. Glancing from one to the other she thrust her tongue at them, lapping air.

When she awoke the window was dark and Raoghnailt was gazing down at her.

"I saw thee stir. How'dst thou sleep? Art tha hungry? If thou wantst to get up we can still make it to supper with everyone. I don't know about thee but I'm gasping for a gollop!"

Gormglaith tried gangling arms and legs as if finding herself.

"Supper? I guess so..."

"Th'artn't lisping!"

"I'm not?" Gormglaith asked sleepily, pulling up onto her elbows.

"I spun thy ring whilst thou sleptst by the bye."

"Ta. Hey Raoghnailt I was wondering, dost thou know Seosaimhthin Fen by any fluke?"

"Who's Seosaimhthin Fen?!" she asked, eyes crinkled.

"Skip it. Fuck I'm gooped."

"It's the soapy rain then, 'glaithikins..."

Haethwyck's startlingly cozy supper lair had two glassy walls looking onto the garden close and dark moors beyond. There were five latticed longboards of black wood with matching benches on either side.

Gormglaith grinned but her eyebrows knit as Rathyen cast a fluttery wave by the starkly bladed back of Flocklaith, who was weeping with head bowed whilst none of the nine other ash nesters sitting at the board showed her any heed at all. Each but Rathyen had her hair gathered into a single braid down the backbone, skeinishly woven with black ribbons.

More or less than a dozen girls sat at each longboard, scollagyn sheathed in chalky white, scattered shees mostly in black longstockings and everyone tending to clump together towards one end. Creiddyladl and Feegan were side by side among the sixteen from beech nest crowded hip to hip, Morigan in shiny chat with a freckled and red haired, five-braided scollagyn.

Raoghnailt and Gormglaith, their hair still damp, sat down with birch nest to a gabbish gaggle of greetings. Lairlaith Fairly was a seemingly unflappable shee with a handy blond sweep, a freayller witch. Morfyd let slip they'd met as scollagyn at Wrath ness, before any plight. Myghin was a very tall and spindly scollagyn with chin length pumpkin and chestnut hair, leaving in a few moons to read freayll at Margaid house in Lundin. Maevis and Paestin were twin scollagyn who spoke in glassy tongues under blithe overbites, their sly elfenish faces and light blond hair pulled back in tight pony tails. A casperish and wispy scollagyn named Njorthrbiartr had white hair dripping in two braids to scaanish thighs, thick eyebrows to match hovering over keen green eyes. Blodwen was so shy, nearly shee with a bright sway and waist-long, straight sandy blond hair falling by small darkened brims upon a runestone-flat chest. At under five feet and carrying but five and a half stone, the pillywiggin cast of her lithe frame showed much more starkly when she was next to someone else. Blodwen's head seemed to bob happily even when it was still and her mouth wontedly fell into the hint of a dimpled smirk.

Gormglaith watched as Blodwen heaped white and purple popcorn on a torn, jagged shred of bread, poured on a handful of brown cane dust, mashed more bread on top with her palm and took a yawning, crackling crunch of a bite. Catching the banshee's stare she looked back with big dark blue eyes and shook her head as if to ask ...What.

Supper was done up the Highlands way, everyone helping themselves from a wide granite fare shelf tended by gleaming, copper clad kitchen robots. Here Raoghnailt and Gormglaith stood by a twigish scollagyn with short snow white hair and a pushed up nose who was putting a tidy swatch of root and leaf noodyl shives on a wide, frosty cobalt blue dish.

"Raoghnailt! I heard y'all went to Keely's!"

Raoghnailt cast a witchy grin.

"I wanna hear everything... tomorrow, 'k? ...Hey Gormglaith, I'm Ffion. Try the four-cheese dumplings! Someone said they're spun from West meads grass but the cheese is all Wrath ness!" she said, shaking hands then scrunching her nose as she ran back to pine nest's board.

"Ffion grew up in Fetchingkeep..." Raoghnailt said low from the side of her mouth, "...walks on the wanton side. She's thrilling 'n sweet and I like her a lot but she cuts."

They found dumplings, noodyls in many shapes, sundry roots, leaves, chickpeas and summer squashes, roasted, mashed, boiled, souped, or steamed (and some not cooked or peeled at all) along with cheeses from blue to red. A slab of wood carried bloody dice of raw ox thew.

"Now and then I crave it so," Raoghnailt rambled as she took two. "Tha knowst, the ash gobbler thing. So we took a field trip to Guernsey last Eostremonath, to see how they brew the stuff. Wicked craft. Learned a tonne about the toasters and pinks, never mind the weave. Anyway it makes me think of the oxen on Wrath ness and how they graze grass and chew and moo their whole lives through but I want to tell thee something myself before someone else like, blabs it."

"What," said Gormglaith, eyeing a dish of blue cheese potato.

"It's about the cows," said Raoghnailt, one side of her mouth pulled up.

"'k."

"I milk them!" Raoghnailt whispered, eyes wide and pulling air with her balled free hand. "Gormglaith I lust over it and I don't know why. I always have. Sometimes I put on my thrashest klompen and go to this farm nearby to help my friend Huldra. Foonly farm, thou canst come with! She says I'm the keen milker! Oh, I know she only puts up with me for fun but... so? I like it as much as suckin' on a wet shee at Imbolc. I mean is that out there or what?"

"I dairy anyone to dish behind thy back, Raoghnailt..." said Gormglaith, shoving lumps of potato (slathered with bluish green cheese) onto a big dish, then thoroughly drizzling this with golden yellow flaxseed oil from a cold and frosty black spinel jug.

Raoghnailt guffawed, quickly brought hand to mouth and glanced about to see how many looks she'd gotten (a few).

"Ever had Frisian nestleblack?" asked Raoghnailt, waving a hand over a wildly splayed bread loaf, its charred and bitter upper crust thickly coated with purple poppy seeds.

Seated next to Raoghnailt, Gormglaith munched as Gwenhwyfer came and kneeled behind her.

"I see thou tookst the dumplings," she said. "Me too!"

Gormglaith nodded with mouth full.

"Where's Bairrfhionn?" she asked anyway.

"Off at the thorpe, I think... it's Gormglaith's flurt tomorrow, tha knowst!"

"I forgot. I was rather hoping they wouldn't make too much fuss about this."

Gwenhwyfer scrunched her nose.

"So tomorrow, beforehand, there's a thing at one after noon! Wilt thou come?"

Gormglaith stopped the fork halfway to her mouth.

"...Ok."

"Kewl!"

The banshee lit off, hurrying after two lankily thewish, high foreheaded and minch eyed shees, their elbow length blue black hair brindled with blond (one cast a wave at Gormglaith).

Later Gormglaith and Raoghnailt haunted the shelf again, now trolling for spog as Creiddyladl and Feegan showed up.

"I hear you two are doing the Heathering tonight..." Raoghnailt sang to Creiddyladl, full magpie.

"Yep!" said the wispy scollagyn, standing in a huffy cloud of thick white mist as she heedfully poured deeply chilled wet nitrogen into a big earthenware bowl, then sharply eyed what was left behind as the fog dwindled off: Hard packed golden vanilla ice cream speckled with black and blue flecks.

"So Feegan," said Raoghnailt, "didst tha have a cozy first night in the pog bog or what? I mean I'm only askin' since like, thy lips are bruised frickin' purple as dewberries..."

"We played knotty boppin'!" said Feegan, slipping a plaited wrap of apple strudel onto a dish and dropping a scoop of ice cream on top. "So, how 'bout you two little scamps then! Naw, don't bother tellin' me, Rag, it's scrawled stark as the harvest moon across thy henge maedchen face. Thy wonted hooks are set, those weepy, whining, shivering throes, thy tears of happiness raining down upon sweet dreams of bloody handfasted latches in the loch. I'm so sorry, Gormglaith," she put with a lopsided grin, "I might've at least warned thee about her at Cluain house."

Feegan glanced at Creiddyladl who, with the sparest hint of a pucker and eyes crinkily narrowed, flicked Gormlglaith an air kiss as they both skipped off in a flurry of giggles.

"She's rather keen, isn't she?" said Gormglaith.

"Feegan and I go way back," put Raoghnailt, nodding. "We were bairn together at Blairie."

"So shall I call thee Rag now or what?"

"...Thou canst if tha like'st, Gormglaith..."

"I shan't ever then."

Raoghnailt swung her head to answer with a wan smile.

At the board once more, Gormglaith and Raoghnailt cravenly mowed through chocolate cake whilst Blodwen, head down all the while and half hidden behind sandy hair, heedfully cut a slice of pumpkin pye into eight sagging lumps which she then pushed about to make a ring on the dish before eating each as if by ticks and tocks.

"I like the chocolate cake too," Myghin said softly, warding a yellow gooseberry, "but that doesn't mean I'll take some every time it shows up, never mind how untidy some golloping gluttons can be, after all."

Raoghnailt and Gormglaith grinned sheepishly with eyes lowered, wiping the smudges from their mouths but kept on anyway, to the last crumbs. Then everyone flocked back to the nest.

"So what's 'knotty boppin''?" Gormglaith whispered to Raoghnailt as they neared the lobby's blue green wafered lights.

"Thou'st never heard of knotty boppin'?"

"No!"

"'k. Thou knowst those fat foam dice moppets luzz to play mammoth walk and skip scratch ...one red and one white?"

"So?"

"So... each player gets a number, like, one through six and thou throwst the white foamie to know which girl, then luzzest the red one which shows what thou getst to do to her and she can't do anything back... like, one's a hug, both on your knees, two's pog, three's feel her up and so on."

"What's six?"

Raoghnailt threw a stare.

"Oh. What if thou castst thine own number?"

"Thou luzzest again, the white one."

"What if like, only four are playing and thou luzzest a five?"

"Thou rundle'st again. It's more fun if three or six play."

"What if..."

"Gormglaith!?"

They swapped looks and broke out giggling.

In birch nest, lit for evening with tight light beams and smattered smudges of green, blue and ruddy pumpkin, Njorthrbiartr belly flopped onto the staddle to watch ghosts, glassy eyed, chin in hands, legs kicking behind her. Gormglaith and Raoghnailt gaped at a rather lively toon from Rugen of an early yarn pulled from the Eachdraidh. By the time this had spun out everyone was sprawled on the staddle to see Eiric.

"Hi all!" she began. "It's Monaneve, 17 Halegmonath at sunset."

"She looks canny chuffed," said Myghin.

"Gaid, as wonted," Njorthrbiartr put with darting green eyes scanning the cast, "...and Gillian!"

Scattered snickers skirred by granite and corundum, cotton and linen.

"As you've likely heard, Monandaeg through Tiweseve is flurt. We're greeting Gormglaith..."

Her nesties shrieked and applauded.

Gormglaith sank head into hands saying, "Oh come on y'all..."

When she looked up, Maevis and Paestin were gazing at her. She smiled and they smirked wide whilst Raoghnailt's eyes were still on Eiric.

"Flurt begins at noon Monandaeg and goes through Tiweseve so boards on Tiwesdaeg after are naughtsthorpe."

"Faerwin's ash boards had their supper up by the lighthouse last evening only to find... Bryndyl and Brendyl the barn owls have two fallain, fuzzy fat chicks!"

Here came a cast of two white bairn barn owls with big black eyes on heart shaped faces, peering out from a hollow chalkstone wall. The nesties cooed and clapped hands.

"Yay! This Frigeve it's slumber feish in Darby barrow at the teach, to watch the bats come and go all night. As wonted lots of us'll be there so if ya wanna come, do put names on the list straight away so as to skip a fuss on the big night."

"Cracking!" Gormglaith whispered to Raoghnailt, eyes shining and wide.

"Late this afternoon on Grasp green a flock of us had a match with some Skipthorpe lasses. Paestin, birch nest, kicked a blinder."

To Eiric's left was a cast of girls footballing under dark clouds in a driving rain. The black and pumpkin swatched football streaked by a goal keeper in white who slid flat on her belly for five yards on muddy grass.

This stirred nesty cheers as Paestin gave thumbs up with a flashed clunchy smile across her smooth face, footballer legs splayed before her, twin Maevis close beside. Suddenly Gormglaith shuddered, whispering, "They're m7733n..."

"Thrush Kin Dails," Raoghnailt whispered back.

"We saw some at the Ben chee inn... I couldn't tell straight off with their hair pulled back."

"We lost anyway, three to one," Eiric put with a wraithen grin. "Ta!"

Her eyes twirled as the cast dwindled.

"So Gormglaith," said Myghin. "When a new girl lands in birch, we ask her to tell a slumbertale, anything she's read or heard, or had happen to her. If thou still hadst the pledge lisp I'd say it'd help thee get over that but tha already hast."

Gormglaith squirmed.

"Slumbertale, Gormglaith!" Maevis and Paestin squealed together.

"Saveen skeeal!" Njorthrbiartr echoed eagerly.

Blodwen's head bobbed and Morfyd cozily drew up her knees.

"Ok... first, I always wanted a nose ring, ever since I was little."

Gormglaith glanced at Lairlaith who also pulled up her knees under chin to watch craftily.

"Anyway there's this tale in the Eachdraidh, the first time nose rings are ever brought up. I flashed on it when the air witch was giving me mine, if you'd like to hear my dodgy take..."

"Yay!" came all.

"The tiding reaches far back into the mists of early tool craft when the afliae were already swaying sprouts, fowl, hoof and bairn to their notions of need and hope. The first lights of clannin twinkled from a clutch of houses in Newhaven, Sussex but drew little heed in a world beset by thieves and killers called left, right, middle... blue, green, red, whatever. The spinning of mote and braid quickened but even if a clannin daughter did haunt a hale body, her brain bearing over 120 trillion snaps, still the most skeinish thing known anywhere, the first blood witches knew she was still very much the same as others one might meet here and there."

"Her skeletal frame might be reedy and taller than wonted, but this echoed an already lengthy trend. At a middling height of nearly six feet and carrying a bit over eight stone her hips only seemed much narrower. Her breasts were figgish or flat with no dike, not much new there, dodgy tales aside. Some did grow weary of scrapin' themselves with blades so hark, after a thousand years, other than the barest wisps and bated fuzz, the wonted clanniner's only true hair was the thicket on her scalp. Never mind lots more girls took to shaving the sides and backs of their heads! The only thing canny new was neach among the backboned. Early clannin girls braided but a 46, xx bundling so their daughters, being handy and sly, also carried daughters. Many thought they might be building a meed way of life but nobody knew what would happen and what did happen, nobody much foresaw."

"Anyway some took to wearing nose rings and at the time it was seen as more than in thy face. They'd been worn before, but clannin rings were big and bright and they put 'em smack in the middle of the mug," said Gormglaith, warding a finger to hers, "through the faal, since the whole notion was to like, tag fylgjic, x²."

"It's about Elizabeth Sparks, who plighted with her sister Erin and Finncaev Banning at Alderbury, South Wiltshire. They kept it dark for two dozen 'n two moons and when Erin wanted to bring in a daughter they went to a fettle at Newhaven where blood witches spun their braids together and she grasped Linden, who tumbled forth ten moons later."

"At a faere they saw some girls wearin' nose rings, got three, read up, seared needles, took some ice and did the stabbings. Next afternoon Elizabeth woke up early, read a sheaf of Rose Wilder Lane, had a glom in the looking glass 'n got stir to spill. So, with heavy black longstockings hiked up to bare chest, wearing clunky, steel toed black boots tied off by pink laces, bright ginger hair in two big braids and new nose ring glittering in a hazy gloom, Elizabeth Sparks-Banning walked onto Light's lane and into the Eachdraidh nan fylgjic. First off she saw her former root teacher Dee Danvers, about the last person she thought would ever shun her but instead of a chirpy greeting she got a mumbled 'Hello Lizzy' and a withering glare. That's how the saying got started by the way. If you're up to something meed and someone's nettled, it's like, hello lizzy."

A few of the scollagyn nodded, open mouthed.

"At the shops 'n stalls most already knew what the longstockings, boots and bare chest were all about but the nose ring was a bit of a puzzle. Many were cheerful one way or another but others answered with stares or baiting, stuff like, 'Vice is nice but incest is best, huh Lizzy?'"

"Sorry y'all... I forgot. That's mostly old English and it won't reckon since we don't have any of those callers or kinders. Hmm. Someone else said, 'Hi Elizabeth, how's it going? Hey, have you lost your keys then? No? Oh. I don't mean to nag or anything but, uhm, did you know there's an empty key ring hangin' off your nose?'"

Most of the scollagyn cast more empty stares at Gormglaith.

"Oh... keys. They had these scraps of flattened and cut metal about the size of a finger to open latches and they carried them on rings... key rings. So someone teased Elizabeth by asking if she'd lost some keys, as if there was like, this empty key ring hangin' off her nose or something."

"Eeeew!" the scollagyn threw back.

"That kind of talk was wonted. She heard other things but I guess they're too yuck for a slumbertale. She went home, feelings hurt but otherwise ok. Now back then, most folks had to send their offspring off to big day schools which were mostly meant to make them grow up gullible. Meanwhile, what they had for skeeal readers were called bloggers, some of whom made up gripping tales from whole cloth so they could like, stir thousands or even millions to give a bit of heed so they could flog stuff at them and clannin were often played on for that."

Noses crinkled.

"Anyway, straight off one of them got to blabbering and by evening a mob had shown up at their house with bright lights. As Finncaev, Elizabeth and Erin wept, screaming We live in clannin!, Linden was stolen."

A ghastly hush filled the nest.

"After plying all kinds of mean talk, even threats, for weeks, they got Linden back at last but... one evening riding home on a bike Finncaev was waylaid and harrowed by trolls."

Njorthrbiartr and Myghin screamed.

"They fled to Newhaven. Their daughters along with those of many other clannin scattered, pulled and spilled about the world. Then came Tangwen Toreth and her fit in Hastings, our notions of banns, the coming of the shees and at last the Lundin Sundering when clannin almost everywhere gave heed only to the plaits of their own neighbourhoods and thorpes. By then noserings were linked more with the teaches and clanniners began wearing them less."

"Eirianwen Sparks-Banning was a freayller from Fen Glioon. Her clannin brought in four daughters. Two of them, the twins Erin and Eadan, plighted Fennyl Foonly whose kin clannin were threaded with dozens more in the West meads and they took the name Sparkenbane. Erin taught freayll at Woolf house in Fen Glioon where girls found her so thrilling and fetching, they flocked by the thousands to her boards. Erin brought back the spells of the earliest clannin, those canny ways of keeps and swaps which quickly set them free, beholden to nobody and nothing in the wide world but for themselves and Wyrd."

"Later Erin was among a kenning of gweeps who got together at Snotra in the crotch of loch Frigg across the Alps east of Fen Glioon. Their twenty-three year gathering ended on Samhain eve with a wicked hack they called Maiden lane, after the narrow byway one still wontedly takes on walks from Toreth house down to Snotra's inns and shops."

"This spell was so growy, rooty and twiggy, open to share, tweak or cast off as anyone pleased, it spun up into a big docking hit. Thousands came forth in shops, teaches and witch houses, showing off how to get stuff done fit 'n fylgjic, spinning with steadfast Maiden lane. The keenest of them came to be called broom witches because by their gweepy craft, they cleaned up so many worries back then. Within a dozen-dozen years Snotra's hex wended and wove its way into more or less all the world's gadgets, toasters and pinks."

"Meanwhile Erin and Eadan spent a few happy summers and Yules far from tumble and kerfuffle in a cozy croft near the stormy cliffs of Wrath ness, where they grew a great fondness for the way northern Highlands. Later, their twins Folder and Folt were grasped and carried by shees at Woolf house, then taken to the croft at Wrath ness and home schooled. There was no teach nearby and the hope was, when maegden they might plight one to help out the clannin there."

"As it happened, when they were seventeen Folder and Folt went to Blairie, got themselves shee, went home four years later and plighted a new teach clannin at Wrath ness to spill and sway fylgjic. The only hitch was, then as now, along with those in Iceland, far Highlands clannin were among the world's sternest. Having grown up on the heather, Folder and Folt were cheerfully greeted back and most were ok with havin' a teach on the heath, but they needed one like Fen Glioon needs another lake and told them so. That's when Folder and Folt stirred up their notion to loom a teach which might draw the heed of other teaches. To show they meant it, though some say more as a nod to heathen clannin, no bairn would ever be carried there, a very neach teach."

"The first seven scollagyn to pledge Wrath ness came from Blairie and the two teaches have had close links ever since. Likewise, a clutch of tiny teaches on the fields of Frisia has been sending scollagyn here for almost as long. Once upon a chilly fall evening, a flock of Frisian girls showed up in bane white Glen pelyn longstockings which looked pink in the pumpkin-red dusk. These were a canny hit and everybody began wearing them. The little croft slowly grew into the slabs and windows behind which we snuggle tonight and call Haethwyck. The teach wound up in Grasp down the lane, but the ghost of Folder and Folt's home schooling lurks on here Saeturdaegs, with nest swots and a weir board, held these days by Tegan Nichneven which, I hear, can be cool."

"Carried forward through cozy wombs at Blairie and seventeen teach clannin to our own Morfyd and Morigan, the twin daughters of Erin and Eadan have spilled stern fylgjic at Wrath ness and truth be told, the braided blood of Linden Sparks-Banning runs through everyone in this nest."

"So you see, we can laser a beam straight between us tonight and three of the first girls we know of who wore nose rings in clannin."

Cozily entwined with Raoghnailt against a hill of throw pillows, Gormglaith watched the nest spin down, lights dimming ever so slowly. Blodwen fell asleep near them, face hidden by sandy hair flowing to her waist. Maevis and Paestin snuggled crossways on their sides, bane blond-haired heads latched betwixt thewed thighs in a whistly closed loop as Lairlaith and Myghin drifted from the nest. Morfyd burrowed and folded up into a barrow of embroidered pillows. Njorthrbiartr sat knees to chin, lowering her head and staring wraithenly.