I must have been no more than six winters when I asked my grandmama about women fighting alongside their men. I had seen a party of riders cross the fields, heading for Edoras, and for the first time they had a woman among them. She was riding to the fore, not relegated to the back. Her burnished armour gleamed in the afternoon sun, her helm was crowned with a cream coloured horsetail plume. She carried a green shield on her saddle, and save for her face, and the curves that even her mail and leathers could not hide, she was one of the Riders.
“A Shieldmaiden,” My grandmama replied, while she was cleaning out the scullery, and I trying to hold a bucket of water for her. “That was a Shieldmaiden you saw. There used to be more when I was a girl. It’s a rare sighting now.”
“They actually fight?”
My grandmama chuckled as she mopped down the walls. “Sometimes, Yllfa. They can be as deadly as any man. Maybe more so?”
I could shudder at my naivety then. The next question from the six wintered me was obvious.
“Can I be a Shieldmaiden when I am tall enough?”
“Women are not expected to fight in battles,” she replied as kindly as she could. “And those few who do are the daughters of Lords or Thanes and taught from young to ride and wield sword and shield. They are not farmer’s daughters, dear.”
I sit alone in the large and comfortable bed. The blanket rests over my legs, keeping me warm, keeping me grounded. The windows are closed against the pale morning sun. I think about what my grandmama said, and know she spoke true.
I was given training by both my papa and grandpapa in the use of a staff, that being a fitting weapon for one such as me. I was taught to dodge and duck and weave, to evade a blow. But I was not a warrior, nor did I grow to hold that expectation. In truth, that was part of my reason for encouraging Ethel with her bow as much as I now did. She would have honesty from me regarding our way of life, but no limitations on what she could do.
I was no Shieldmaiden, but I had a growing suspicion I could fight in my own way, and that not just with herb-cunning. It was a matter of bloodline, not something I could give to my adopted cub, but I would use it once I knew how, to the best of my ability. The Dunlending’s attack had made that necessity clear.
Laying back on the bed then, I pulled the blanket with me to close under my chin. I wasn’t cold. I needed to shut out the sounds and sights and smells of the waking world. I needed to go within. In my mind the blanket became his cloak, changing in hue from grey to green. I pulled it further up, but made sure I could easily breathe. My right hand moved to the amber necklace about my neck, to the small wolf’s head pendent he had given me. Slowly, I steadied my breath...I yawned…
‘Isa,’ I whispered, ‘I have need of you.’
My grandmama had seen my disappointment. So she told me a tale that same day, when we had gone to set the table for the late meal, and the expectations of my parent’s and grandpapa’s return from the fields.
“There is another way a few women have fought with their men. A myth, from the times of the Eotheod, perhaps. But it has been passed through my family for several generations.
It seems, if true, that a few of our women could send forth part of their spirit, in the form of an animal, to watch over and perhaps keep safe their men. I do not understand it all myself, but know of rumours of one taking the form of a hawk, and another of a large cat. Then there was Eacnung...bear’s daughter you understand?”
I had nodded keenly, imagining myself soaring in the sky to watch over my papa and grandpapa if needed.
“Eacnung was my own great grandmama. She is said to have flown in a rage in the form of a she-bear at the enemy when her husband was wounded. She drew away the one who would have slain him just long enough for him to be rescued.”
I had almost dropped the pitcher I was carrying at her words. “Why does no one speak of this, gamma? I have never heard anyone say such a thing.”
My grandmama smiled, a small secret smile I recall. “Some things are best left unsaid, my dear. That does not mean you should not know of them.”
So I called her, Isa, that part of me who was as a wolf and who had protected me in times when I could not protect myself. I did not know if she would come, as she had always decided upon the time of her visitation. I was not in danger, I was not in great pain. It might be that I had no way of summoning her while I was alone. But I would try….aye, for there may come a time when my need of her was dire.
I slowed my breath, focusing on the pendant in my hand...I yawned…
The sparkling mists of that place between worlds writhed around us, as, swift and soft pawed we ran, past shadow images of trees and streams, over fields and grasslands.
‘Where do we go?’ asked Isa in her low voice.
“To Floodwend” I replied. “Or from there to the path to Grimslade”
If a wolf could laugh, she was laughing at me then. “See,’ she yowled. “I did not lead us false”
The mist thickened almost to a steel coloured wall as we coursed out of the otherworld and onto a slope rather near the main gate of Floodwend.
There were folk by that gate, busy with wagons and horses, a well guarded cavalcade ready to be underway.
‘Ware the wolf!” one of the guards called out, his spear ready to hurl at me. It would not have found its mark had he done so.
Others turned momentarily, but none would be feared by a solitary wolf. He turned too, and I think he saw me, for he seemed to grin....a silver furred she-wolf with silver grey eyes that appeared almost blue, before Isa and I turned back into the mist.
