and when he does, he will take revenge on Jónas and all his kin.’
This is exactly the outcome I had dreaded. If Pétur took revenge, then Jónas and his family would retaliate. Such blood feuds have been known to last for generations and involve even distant relatives and hired help from both farmsteads.
‘I tried to stop Jónas,’ I tell her. ‘But he would not listen.’
Heidrun’s expression is grim. ‘You had the power to stop him, but you didn’t. For as long as you and Valdis spoke with one voice, you needed no more than words to control the people. Even a gentle shower of rain if it continues long enough will persuade a man to cover his head, so you let your words fall softly on them and they hurried off in the direction you sent them. You had grown used to that and thought nothing more was needed. So you’ve let the power you were born with shrivel up like an unused limb. But now you must fight to make your words heard.’
My sister’s black eyes stare up at Heidrun. Her peeling lips part as the voice speaks through them.
‘Eydis can’t fight me. I tell the people what they want to hear, and so they will do it. Prince or pauper, priest or pagan, a man will always listen to the words that echo the desires of his own soul, and he will act on them.’
‘Who is it that speaks through my sister’s mouth, Heidrun?’ I ask her, trying desperately to ignore the mocking voice. ‘You above all must know.’
‘He was not born on this isle. Every man, woman and child whose birth blood has fed this land is known to me by name, but not those who come from over the water. The boy, Ari, knows where he comes from, I think, but he will not speak of it. He is afraid.’
‘And so he should be,’ the dark voice says with pride.
Heidrun ignores him. ‘But though I don’t know his name, I know what he is. He is a draugr, a nightstalker.’
A cackle of mocking laughter pours from my dead sister’s lips and echoes from the walls of the cave as if the man has a hundred brothers hovering behind him in the shadows.
A deathly fear grips me. I sensed from the moment they brought him to me that his life was not of this world. But I refused to trust my own gift. As long as I could convince myself he was only a man, I could go on believing that if only I could make his body live, then his spirit would leave my sister and possess its earthly home once more, but now I know it will take far more than that to force him out of her.
‘Heidrun, tell me what to do. Tell me how to save Valdis.’
She walks across to the pool of bubbling water and for a long time says nothing as she gazes into its clear depths. The palms of her long hands move over each other as if she is grinding something between them.
I wait in silence. Valdis’s head swivels round in the direction of the pool. The draugr is waiting too.
At last Heidrun turns back to face us. ‘You know already the man’s body must be kept alive, if his soul is to leave your sister, for only when his body and spirit are reunited can the wrong which has been done to this man be undone and he can be freed. But his body can’t live long without his spirit inside it. Soon it will be past the point where the spirit can re-enter it. You must heal the physical wounds, and you can. You possess that knowledge and skill, if you will use it.’
Once again she makes the grinding motion with her palms. ‘But, Eydis, you must know that only those who are themselves dead can force his spirit to return to the body, only they can control him for he comes from the realm of the dead. You must summon a door-doom, a door-doom of the dead who walk. They shall pass sentence upon him. Only their judgment can rule him. I cannot help you bring their spirits here. I don’t have the power over them, but you do.’
‘But I do not. You above all people know that I do not!’ I seize my chain and strike it furiously against the iron hoop about my waist. The clang echoes from the walls of the cave. ‘Have