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Posted by
Paul M November 16, 2014 -
589 views
Izlanda had never been wilful like her older sister Makalda. But then Izlanda had always known she was not her mother's favourite child, and known that she would not be afforded the same latitudes. So Izlanda had done as she was told, and taken to her role in the family as the reliable hard working wallflower, earning her keep until the day her father could find a suitable husband to marry her.
When her younger brother was born in the cattle shed that had served as nursery for three generations of the Brightrun farmers, it did not improve her position. For Makalda their father's diminishing affections now he had an heir was a boon, allowing her freedom to exploit her blossoming adolescent beauty and impulses. Izlanda for her part was at least able to fully endulge her talent for passing her time with a minimum of attention. She saw to the milk cows of a morning, and then tended the crops to sell to the meaderies in the autumn, before folding and mending the clothes and linen her sister had washed on dry mornings down by the White River.
Izlanda knew how to disappear when no one was looking for her, and while unwatched learnt how to spy upon her family and read their minds and hearts. She saw the renewed respect her father felt towards his wife now that she had given him a son, and the distracted fatigue in everything her mother did around the house. Izlanda was perhaps the only one who knew when Makalda's body was found face down in the river that she had not drowned by accident. But she knew better than to turn her father's mild grief into a wild animal rage by telling him of the flour miller's son who had been sneaking through the wooded corner of their land for the three weeks prior to that black day.
Izlanda had tolerated her sister, and had at least appreciated that some of the routine burden of their farming life had been alleviated by her labours. Without her hands to wash and cook and tidy, life for the Brightrun ladies became much tougher, and it wasn't long before her mother's exhaustion overcame her. It was Izlanda who cleaned the body and wrapped it in tough undyed cloth for her father to bury. Her younger brother picked the flowers that were placed upon both mounds of earth, dug on the patch of their land that caught the least sun, and therefore grew the least part of their livelihood.
A matriarch before her time, Izlanda toiled for three cycles of the moon, from before the cock crowed to well after her father and brother had fallen into a deep and unearned sleep. She knew it couldn't last, but it was the beating given by her father that finally kindled a spark of independence within her. That evening after putting her brother to bed she took some of the burnt bread that had earned her the unjust punishment, wrapped up with some coins she had found while collecting fresh water from the river, and headed out into the night. Freezing on the hard ground, it was the first time she had slept somewhere other than her home in all her fifteen years of life.
The farming life had at least given her the skills to survive on the produce of the unclaimed wilds of Skyrim, even as the world turned to frozen winter. To her skills she added knowledge of the wild creatures around her, and from her quiet observation she saw what plants could be eaten and which were to be reserved for her more exotic hobbies. After a year she had found a travelling farm hand camping in the woods who would trade her pelts and potions for bread and cloths she could find from no other source. She would not tolerate his company, having made her mind up that men were either like useless children, lazy brutes, or simple murderers.
Izlanda's existence in the woods soon became the stuff of whispered rumours amongst the surrounding mills and farms. Her name and origins were lost in superstitious gossip, and the tale of the witch dressed in plain black cloth, mixing poisons and sacrificing beasts to some dark lord eventually grew to fill any gaps in the knowledge of her neighbors. Izlanda welcomed the solitude that came from her fearful reputation, and perhaps even came to believe it herself before the end. Perhaps it was the need to have a strong identity when fighting against the frozen, harsh land that blinded her to the risk that came from the ignorance of the mob. Or maybe it was some sort of pride that her hard toil and formidable knowledge were recognised, even as a whispered terror, which made her stay and face the fury of the local townsfolk.
A herdsman found five of his cows slaughtered and clumsily butchered as darkness began to fall one spring night. Although the most obvious suspect might have been the small troop of soldiers who had passed through the town the day before, the rising of a red moon instead provided proof that the witch of the woods was to blame. They came to Izlanda's campfire with torches and swords, with accusations and murder, and with their ears closed to anything but their own furious judgements.
Izlanda uttered no curse, and offered no defence. She knew that to do so would have been a futile effort. Her final act was to drink a small vial of poison that she had prepared some years before, when the thought of another day among the brutes and wild beasts of Skyrim had seemed at its most hopeless. As the knotted rope was passed over her head Izlanda left the plain of toil and hardship, taking with her a gentle spirit that had caused no harm to even her greatest persecutors. The final mark of her skills as a herb mixer was the death twitch that the poison brought to her slender corpse while it dangled from the high branch the townsfolk had chosen. For three days her legs twitched and kicked and her hands clawed at the passing breezes of spring.
The mob dared not touch the body, nor the rope that held it, and distrusted even the pine which Izlanda's remains hung from. Eventually a fire was set at the base of the tree so that the witch and all she tainted would be wiped from the face of the earth. A final torch in the darkness, a monument to the injustice that comes from ignorance, and an end to a fair and true daughter of the Pale.
