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Wenda thanked Willem for his offer, and joined him and Goody at table. She smiled to herself as Willem battled with himself over the last morsel of cheese.
"You're wanting to hear news?" she asked. Encouraged by her two table mates, Wenda went on. "It's best such tales as I have to tell, be told while the sun's on the snow."
Carr Dagnysson came up and placed a hot mug of mulled cider on the table before Wenda. She thanked him well for it, and asked after some eggs and bread and rashers of hogflesh.
"I've no coin, as you might suspect, but I've furs that might serve in their stead, if you take my meaning, Master Dagnysson." Carr tipped his head, considering, and told her he'd talk business later.
If he'd rather have me earn my keep by scullery or some such, so be it as long as I've a roof over my head and walls to keep the unwights out, she said to herself. The howling wind made the walls moan and crack, and Wenda suppressed a shiver.
"I go far north of here where the sun shines not for days and days uncounted, where I get me the white fur from bears, seals, and hares, or the harsh matting of the big tusker. Nay, I never have brought one down alone. I follow the wolf packs and scare them from their kill long enough to cut away the fur. They like it not and threaten my hide or that of my deers often enough, but they like not the taste of my spear and arrows and keep their distance.
"Anyway, it came on dusk and I was still working the skin off a tusker, when the growling of the wolves changed to whimpers of fear and they slunk away. What, I ask myself, might put fear into the wolves more than me? I looked around thinking I might find a hungry bear or worse."
Wenda stopped to take a sip from her mulled cider.
"Worse it was, and the hairs on my neck hackled. It was there and it wasn't, this shadow, as if it was made of the dusk and the wind. No troll nor warg nor orc was this, and I thought I was dead or soon to be. I ran, leaving the skin uncut, pulling my deers along with me. Once I got me under some firs, I looked back. The shadow had settle itself over the felled beast. And I saw it rise, a fell light in its eyes, its skin hanging off it where I'd cut, and it started walking toward me. I fled."
Wenda broke off and looked at the door, as if making sure it was closed, as she sipped more of her cider.
"When did this happen?" asked Willem.
"Four nights back," Wenda replied. "To this place I fled, straight. May it keep fell beasts without."
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