The Dark Sow

By Lars Schwed Nygård

Portia was her name, the daughter of a fussing mother called Agnes and a father who two days earlier had fallen down Geldingmane Crag to crack his skull and probably every other bone in his body as well. Some said he had tended his sheep drunk, some that he had stumbled while saving a lamb's life, some that he had jumped to end his own. Portia didn't know what to believe, just prayed the fault wasn't hers.

Time came to put the old man to ground, so Portia dried the tears from her face and set off to the graveyard with her arm around her mother's shoulders. “Who'll take care of us now?” Agnes wailed, and Portia answered: “I will, mother. I will.”

Ashes to ashes and dust to dust. Once it was all done, the congregation lined up and filed by the grieving pair, offering their so-very-sorries and their great-man-he-weres and sometimes in between a quiet clasp of hands more kindly than words could hope to be. Portia's father was a man much beloved, by peasants and by village folk alike. Among them stood a tall and grimy fellow, broad of shoulder with the night in his eyes.

“That there's Wilbur Pig-Farmer, who should know to leave us well alone,” Portia's mother whispered. “Quick now, glove your hand before he shakes it!”

Portia obeyed, but even through the tight leather, Wilbur's grip was dirty and hard. He muttered his sympathies with a hungry glance, and Portia said nothing, just held her breath until he had moved on.

Next among the mourners came old Vilya the miller-crone. She needed no words to know what weighed a person's heart, and some said she knew the hearts of beasts as well. Vilya offered her condolences in silence, and Portia took her hand with earnest thanks. Agnes, though, waved the old woman off and whispered to her daughter: “When next you get our flour, you stay away from that nosy old witch!”

Portia's cheeks grew warm, and she looked down to hide their flush. When she again lifted her eyes, they fell upon a gentle, half-remembered face. She had seen him last as a bookish little boy, but now here he stood as a man.

Agnes had recognised him as well. “Sivan, dear child,” she cut in, “how fares now your father?”

“Well, thank you, and kindly take his sympathies with my own. He's with our flock in the pastures today, in part so as I can be here,” said Sivan, shooting Portia a brief glance. “Well. I'd best be on,” he declared, through a blush.

Agnes clasped both of Sivan's hands in hers. “Call upon us sometime, Sivan. Portia gets so lonely up by Homely Ridge. Don't you, girl?”

“Yes, mother. I do.”

The next morning Portia took the flock to pasture on Moonshimmer Mound. Tending the sheep was grateful work, and Portia was sat in the shade of a rock musing on the previous day's affairs when a dark and grungy whiff rode in on the southerly wind. It gave her some unease, and she opened her eyes to make an account of the sheep. They were all there, but so was someone else: Beyond the grazing throng she saw a man approach, carrying in his hand a shepherd's crook like her own. Portia got to her feet and straightened out her skirt. “Hello there, Portia,” cried the fellow and waved.

“Hello yourself, Sivan o' Drybrook,” she returned. “Why're you not with your flock?”

“Oh, they're all safe under father's eye, so he gave me leave to call on you.”

“Lucky you are, then, for picking just this hill among the nine!”

“Ah, I knocked first upon your cottage door, and from there your mother pointed the way.”

“As she would,” said Portia, and again the musky smell teased her nose. “What's that there in your bindle?”

“Oh, I brought you cheese and bread and cow's milk in the hope you'd share it with me here,” said Sivan, untying the cloth and spreading it upon the grass like a blanket. It was neither the food nor the drink that stank, so when Sivan invited her to sit down, she accepted.

They broke their bread and ate awhile, though Sivan barely nibbled. He shifted time and again, as if his bones could find no rest.

“Sivan, friend, what troubles you?” she asked, and Sivan broke into a cough.

“It ain't no trouble, sweet Portia, it's just I've a thing to ask. For ever since I saw you last, I've thought of naught but you. Your father's gone, and woe for that, for I'd proper have posed my question first to him.”

He rose to his feet, then fell to a knee. “I, Sivan of Drybrook, would like your –”

His eyes widened, and he stared past the rock to the south. “What on God's green Earth is that?” he said, horror writ across his face.

Portia turned to follow Sivan's pointing finger, and as she turned she smelled it again. And then she saw.

In the distance stood a foul and bloated sow, clad in black, greasy fur, and fat beyond belief. Its snout and eyes were dark and deep, and its udders scraped the ground. With its every breath, its bulk expanded and contracted like some diseased heart. The animal was twice as large as any pig she had seen, yet a pig it was nonetheless.

“It's just an ugly sow, Sivan,” she said and turned back around. Sivan was on his feet again, his face pale and his manner distant.

“All the same, my question's better asked outwith the presence of such things.”

“Pay it no mind, and I'm sure it'll leave us be,” she said.

“I – I'd rather come calling again some other decent time. The moment's gone, now, and so best be I,” said Sivan. He spilled some milk as he wrapped the food back up in his bindle, then mumbled a good-bye and hurried down the hill.

Portia bid him farewell with a shrug, then counted her sheep. She wasn't even halfway through when the whole flock broke out in loud, shrill bleating. At first Portia couldn't guess what had caused the commotion, but then the sow's stink stung her nostrils once more. She turned her head to see the pig standing halfway closer now. Its eyes were locked with hers, staring into her soul with the patience of the grave.

Portia gathered up the flock and drove it down the hill. She crossed the dale to the foot of Homely Ridge, wedging miles between herself and the dark beast. Only when she spied the chimney smoke of her family cottage did Portia venture a glance over her shoulder. There behind her, stood not twenty paces off, the sow returned her glare.

“Shoo! Get gone from here,” Portia cried, though not so loud as to trouble her mother. But the pig stood fast as a tree, and its murky stare bored right into Portia's gut. She wished she had a dog to sic on it, but had to settle for waving her crook and repeating her shout. This time the beast did take a step, but one that only brought it closer.

Sweat chilled Portia's back. She closed up the sheep in their pen and hurried through the cottage door.

There by the fire sat Agnes, humming to herself as she worked the spinning-wheel, steadfast and gentle. “Ah, Portia, child,” she smiled, her feet still pumping the treadles. “Have you news for your mother from the pastures today?”

“I–I have, mother.”

“So go on then, tell! Will he be makin' of you an honest–” Agnes stopped the wheel and curled up her nose. “What's that devilish malodor your lettin' in through the door?”

“There . . . There's a sow, mother. A black sow. It followed me all the way down from Moonshimmer Mound.”

“A sow? And you're content to leave it out there to sicken your old mother with such pestilential stench? Go on, lass! Shoo it out of here!”

“I tried, mother, but . . . I was hoping y–”

“Were you hopin' I'd take my death from it? Then who d'you reckon's gonna weave your wedding dress, girl? Yer father's buried bones? Get the thing gone from here!”

“I . . . I will, mother. I will,” said Portia, and hurried back outside.

It stood not fifteen paces off, all fat and sticky fur. Portia reached for her shepherd's crook, but as soon as she grasped it, the sow-smell sapped the strength from her knees and the will from her heart. The dark beast's stare swallowed Portia's. All sound drowned in the bellows of its breath, pumping steady, dirty, and hard.

Dirty and hard.

“Ha. I know where you belong, now,” Portia said. She turned her back on the sow, and set her feet to walking.

Sunset had drawn a blanket of shadow across the valley as Portia came in sight of the village. It lay nestled up a slope across past Churning Stream, and its fifty-some chimneys shot proud, white smoke into the dusk. A bridge spanned the Churning and at its edge a strange trepidation stilled Portia's foot. Up there ahead, on a crag jutting out high above the river, stood the pig farm.

Portia felt the sow's hot breath at her neck. She turned, but the animal was nowhere to be seen. Still the fancy lingered, and it prodded her on across the bridge, then up the steep hill, then out onto the crag.

She saw him first stood in the sty, his back like a wall, pouring grain and offal in the trough. She could hear him whistling through the pigs' squeals, and smelled his work-sweat through their droppings. Then Wilbur Pig-Farmer stiffened, and turned his head to look at her. He flashed her a wink and a smile, then bounded across the sty fence as though it wasn't even there.

“Evenin', young Portia. Ye've come a ways to see me,” he said, and offered her a calloused hand. Portia pretended not to see it, opting instead to look past him at the pigs in the pen.

“Aye. I have.”

Through the corner of her eye she saw Wilbur shrug to himself and set to stroking his beard. He caught her stare, then, and she flicked it back to the sty like a hare in fright. Her cheeks warmed.

“So. See one ye like?” he asked.

“I don't, and that ain't my errand.”

“Hah. What'd ye say is yer errand, then?”

“Would . . . would you be missing one?”

“Missing one? Let's see,” he chuckled, and grimaced like a dunce. “One . . . two . . . three . . . four . . . 'Scuse, miss, which 'un's after four again?”

His face broke into a jester's grin, and his laughter shook her bones. He'd surely earned a proper scolding, but Portia's wits lost out.

“It ain't no joke, Wilbur Pig-Farmer! A big black sow put a fright in my flock up Moonshimmer Mound and followed me all the way home. Might still be there, skulking 'round the cottage causing worry for my mother.”

Wilbur leaned back against the fence, chuckling still. “Got yerself a fine useful oinker, then. All the same, though, she ain't one of mine.”

“But there ain't no other pig farm this side of Friar's Ridge! It's got to be yours!”

“No, miss Portia. Ain't a sow, what I'm missin'.” The swine round the trough grunted and slopped. Again Wilbur grinned, and Portia turned and hurried back down to the bridge.

The way was long and cold, and night had already fallen when Portia spied the wispy rope of hearth-smoke that marked her home. She knew all too well that she wouldn't be allowed indoors until she had chased off the beast. Coming up to the cottage she sniffed for its stink, but the air carried nothing but the smell of her mother's mutton stew.

The hour was late, however, and Portia was weary, so she didn't dare to trust the witness of her nose. Twice she circled the sheep pen and the cottage, peering and listening. Satisfied at last that the pig was gone, she unlocked the door and slipped inside, famished, cold, and with shivering hands.

She found her mother asleep in the rocking chair. The pot of stew stood near the fire for heat. The floor creaked as Portia crossed, rousing Agnes from her slumber. “Where've you been, girl? An' what time is this to be returnin'?”

“Sorry, mother. I've been out to rid us of that foul sow, if you recall.”

“Well, fine way to waste your hours! That beast's long since gone, least the stench wafted off soon after you did. Now get you to bed. You'll call upon young Sivan in the mornin' to make amends for your disgrace up Moonshimmer Mound. Look here, I even cooked you mutton stew to take him! Ain't that a sight more than you've earned.”

Portia nodded, and with thanks on her lips and a growl in her stomach she padded off to her room. She fell asleep, and dreamed a feverish ride on a stallion's back across a tempest-tossed ocean, until a tinny clanc-clanc sounded from behind a darkness that covered everything and she felt the blankets of her bed all twined round her limbs and she opened her eyes and was awake.

The sound came from the window. Through it she saw young Sivan, gently rapping on one of its panes, as if taking great care to wake only Portia and leave her mother asleep. Portia's body still ached with the day's cold pains, and her dream's hot storm still dizzied her mind. She raised her head from the pillow so as to grant Sivan leave to rest his knuckles, but again he knocked. Then Portia saw that despite using the window to signal for her attention, the lad wasn't even looking through it. For a moment she wondered why, but then the answer crept as a chill from her toe to her thigh. Her leg lay naked to the moonlight and the air.

Portia gathered a blanket around her and shoved her feet in sheepskin slippers. She shuffled across the floor and unlatched the window.

“Sivan o' Drybrook. Fine hour to come calling,” she said.

Sivan doffed his hat and bowed, revealing a bouquet of tormentils held behind his back. “My dear miss Portia . . . I–I apologise, I knocked on your door two hours back, but was told by your mother you'd set off on an errand. If my visit is ill-timed–”

“Those there meant for me?” Portia said, nodding at the golden flowers.

“Ah . . . Aye, and they've a fragrance more in tune with your comeliness than that beastly smell what reigned when last we spoke.”

At his words something stirred in Portia's chest, a yearning or unease.

“I recall you were interrupted, friend Sivan?” she said.

“Aye. And I would, with your permission, bring our colloquy to fitting conclusion.”

“Go on, then. I'm listening.”

“Well . . . The ground's somewhat sodden, and my breeches my finest. I'd rather take a drier knee, if you'll allow.”

“Oh, would you now? Well Sivan o' Drybrook, I'll grant you passage once your toll is paid.”

Sivan smiled and handed her the flowers, then grabbed the sill to hoist himself inside. Portia brought the blossoms to her face and stole a quick, sweet whiff. Through the blur of yellow petals she saw Sivan in the window, stopped half in and half out, as if arrested by fear. He was staring at something behind Portia's back. A note of rot and filth trailed in beneath the sweet. She turned.

It stood there at her the foot of her bed, its stare like thunder in her bones. The door behind it was still shut and locked. The tormentils fell from Portia's hand. The breath through its snout kept a steady rhythm, and Portia felt it echoed in her heart. She had no mind to count the beats, though, and could have stood staring at the filthy monstrosity for a moment or a day.

Sivan's hiss broke the spell. “The pig! The god-damnable pig! What the almighty God are you doing, Portia?” He dropped back out the window and Portia rushed after him. “No, Sivan! Don't go! Leave me not with this thing!” she cried, but not too loudly.

As she watched him stride off down the path, she knew all too well who bore the blame. Turning to the sow once more, she saw it standing on the blankets of her bed as if they were some hog pen's dirt.

“What do you want of me?”

The sow breathed and snorted. Its stink rose bile in Portia's throat.

Hoping to drive the beast out in silence, she opened her bedroom door. She shooed it with a whisper and prodded it with a broom, but the pig stood its ground, impassive. Portia looked across at the door to her mother's room, and wished for a moment that it was her father who slept behind it.

The scent of mutton stew lingered in the room, and the pot still stood by the smoldering fire. The stew would doubtless make for a far more savory meal than the grain and offal in Wilbur's trough, and thus well suited to lure the beast out the door. Portia grabbed the pot and lugged it outside, and she almost smiled when she saw that the sow came trudging after.

The pot was heavy, but the pig's reek lit an angry strength in Portia's body. It drove her up the side of Homely Ridge until she finally, with muscles burning, could set the pot down atop the crest.

“There! Now eat, and leave us be,” Portia said. She turned her back on the stew and the sow, and set off back down the hill.

She was barely halfway to the cottage when the stink overcame her once again, black and fierce and stronger than before. Portia wept as she turned, then fell to her knees and let her hands tear at her hair.

“What do you want of me?” she pleaded. The sow did nothing but breathe, stink, and stare. Its black eyes demanded a surrender, but of what? Portia could bear it no longer, and her gaze sank to the ground.

There before here lay a rock, big as a newborn lamb. Portia lifted her eyes. Her limbs shook with weariness and fear, yet she stood up, and despite the pain that pumped through her body, she lifted the rock. Her knees buckled under its weight, but she carried it step by step towards the sow, until she stood close enough to touch. She felt the wet, hot exhalations of the beast's greasy snout, smelled its foulness and its dirt, and in the mirrors of its black eyes, she saw herself.

She jerked back to lift the rock above the pig's head, but the weight of the rock tipped her too far. She fell like a freshly cut tree, and the ground knocked the air from her lungs.

Portia clambered to her feet, her nightgown soiled with dirt and her face washed with tears. She ran down the hill, through ripping briars and lashing grass, until her hand at last closed on the cottage doorknob. She heaved, caught her breath, and turned.

Three steps behind her it stood, as if it had never been anywhere else. Its eyes held the patience of Hell.

Portia stumbled to the woodshed, unlatched its door, and yanked the axe free of its block. She walked up to the creature, aimed the blade at its skull, and readied herself for the blow. But as soon as she swung, a cough shook her body, and the axe-head drove into the ground.

Portia lifted the axe again, aimed it, and swung, but the handle slipped like a salmon through her sweaty palms. She dried them on her nightgown, picked the axe back up, and steadied herself once more. The beast hadn't moved, and Portia was ready. She breathed, lifted her weapon, aimed, and just as she was about to let it fall, a night owl swooped in and knocked the axe from her hands.

“No. No. No,” she whispered.

The sow still breathed, still stared, still stank, and with Portia's every breath, its putrid airs filled her lungs.

“What do you want of me?” Portia cried. The sow stepped closer, and a rummage sounded from a behind one of the cottage windows. Agnes threw the shutters open, saw the sow, and screamed.

“Fie! That there's your pestilential pig? And you've gone and brought it back? You damned fool lass! And all drenched in filth, you are, I can barely tell the pair a' you apart!”

“Pardon, mother, I tried to chase it off, I did, and lure it away with food! And when all that failed I tried to end its life, but some dark magic shields it from my blows,” said Portia, her voice quivering like an autumn leaf.

Her mother stared ice and terror. “You gave it food?”

Portia faltered. “I . . . Aye, I . . .”

“What food?”

“F– . . . Forgive me, mother, I'd no choice but . . .”

Agnes sank her head in her hands and started wailing. “Why've I been cursed with such a thankless daughter, content not to wallow with the swine herself, but yearning so to see her sole livin' parent equally shamed as well?”

“M–mother, I–”

“You'd feed my stew to this monstrosity? The stew that I slaved over for you, so as to have Sivan forgive you and raise you out of your squalor? And you thank me thus? Well, I have you know: For as long as you turn your back on Sivan to slosh around in shit with this beast, you're no child of mine, and you've no place beneath my roof!”

Agnes slammed the shutters, and Portia fell to the dirt, wet, filthy, and shivering. Little tremors stirred the ground as the she-pig trod closer. She hoped the beast was poised to trample her, but instead its hooves came to rest all around Portia. Above her head she heard its wheezing snout, and on her back she felt its slack, heavy udders.

“What do you . . . want of me,” whispered Portia, to no answer but the creature's stink.

“Would that I knew your desire . . . that I could grant it, and for once and all be rid of you,” whispered Portia, to no answer but the weight of its teets.

“Would that you had words to–” whispered Portia, and stopped.

Morning cast its fire across the sky.

She crawled out from beneath the sow, rose to her feet, and met its eyes. From hunger, hope, or madness her face broke into a grin. Leaning on her shepherd's crook, Portia hobbled down the slope.

Dawn's lazy light bathed the hilltops as Portia walked. She rested her eyes and her thoughts on the sun-washed summits as if the beast no longer trailed her heels. Churning Stream ran strong at her side, but Portia yielded neither to her thirst nor to her weariness. On and on she walked, then trudged, then hobbled, and then at last she heard the mill wheel's creak. Old Vilya's house looked as if painted gold by the sunlight flickering through the leaves of the crone's ancient willow.

Portia recalled her mother's words: “When next you get our flour, don't you go near that old nosy witch!” But she had come here with a pressing purpose, and flour wasn't it. She limped to the mill house door and knocked upon it with her shepherd's crook. After a moment, Vilya opened.

“Portia the shepherd's girl,” said Vilya and smiled, “come all this way for counsel, yet your need's for bread and bed.”

“I've . . . I've this sow here that's been following, and I cannot . . .” said Portia, but weariness and hunger stilled her tongue.

“That you have, young Portia, and we'll attend to her when time allows, but now let's get you fed and rested. Come on in, the both of you,” said Vilya, and stepped aside so Portia and the pig could cross her threshold.

“I have no proper bed to spare, but rest upon these skins by my hearth,” said Vilya. She led Portia past a door upon which hung a garland of avens. From behind it Portia thought she heard an old woman's feeble cough, but she had no strength to ask who the ailing person might be. Once Vilya had fed her she lay on the skins, and sleep bid her welcome as well.

And she dreamed a stallion between her thighs, the cracking of its hooves like thunder through an ocean of flames, and she smelled the flames and knew they were an oven and she awoke to find her hand held in the hand of another, the hand of someone with skin like old leather. She opened her eyes and saw Vilya's.

“There now. Are you rested, young Portia?”

“I am,” said Portia, and shook the sleep from her head. The sow's foul smell hung in the air. It stood at Portia's feet, its dark eyes like hungry holes. “Why . . . why'd you take it in?”

“Can't have one of you here and not the other,” said Vilya.

In spite of the skins and the crackling fire, a chill came over Portia.

“I tried chasing it off, but it just followed closer! Then I tried to take its life, but . . . but instead I lost my own!”

“Oh, come now. You're still breathing, ain't you? And young, with scores and scores of years in store?”

“Aye, but . . . I must be rid of it, or my mother'll never again let me near Homely Ridge. I know not what it wants of me. Please, Vilya. There's those who say you know the hearts of beasts. Will you not look into that dark sow's and tell me its desire?”

“I've no need to look into your sow's heart, Portia. I know well what she wants of you.”

“What is it?”

“Same as she wanted of me, back when I was young as you are now.”

The world fell away. Portia's eyes and ears knew only Vilya. “What?”

“Aye,” the miller-crone said, “she comes to us all, in that form or some other. She'll go wherever you go, forever at your back, till you run no longer and do the thing she wills you to.”

“What, Vilya? What is the thing she wills?”

“That you ride her.”

The beast's exhalations moistened Portia's cheek.

“B-but where to?”

Vilya glanced at the garlanded door, then closed her eyes and smiled. “Wherever she'd have you go,” she said, and Portia spied a tear among her wrinkles. “Ride her, now, young Portia. Ride her, and trust her.”

The sun stood low in the west as Portia, bathed and clothed in a dress from Vilya's youth, bid the old miller-crone farewell. She held her breath as she climbed upon the sow's dirt-caked back and laid her crook across its shoulders. Its fur greased her skirt and was slick to the touch, but Portia dug her knees into its flesh and sat up as straight as she was able. Then, needing neither urging nor guidance from Portia, the beast waddled off up along the Churning's bank.

The sow carried her first past a fisherman and his pile of silver salmon, then past a farmer's daughter astride a mare as golden as her own hair. Neither spoke a word to Portia, but turned from her with noses pinched. At Drybrook Crossing Portia feared the sow would turn and take her to young Sivan's pastures, but instead the sow lumbered on along its way.

Daylight surrendered to darkness above. Ahead the village's brash chimneys rose. Unlike Portia's feet, the pig's hooves didn't falter at the old stone bridge, but plodded across it like Death through a war. It trudged on up towards the crag above the river. Portia shivered as the beast bore her onto the pig farm's yard. Finally it stopped and Portia wished her heart would as well.

She saw him sitting there on the fence of his sty, chewing an apple as his swine chewed their offals. His shirt hung from a post by his side, and sweat clung dark hair to his chest. He eyed her, huffed a laugh and took a bite, then looked away and chewed.

“So ye found 'er,” he said, after forever. “Still ain't mine, though.”

Portia's thighs ached from the ride. She slid off the sow, the shepherd's crook firm in her hand.

“I . . . I truthfully don't know why I'm here,” said Portia.

“I'll wager ye do.”

“Would you . . . would you take her?”

He grinned, then, his eyes like cloudless nights. “Which one?”

A fierce hatred sparked in Portia's chest. “Would you take this filthy beast from me, Wilbur Pig-Farmer, and lock it up among its kind?”

“Yet a mouth to feed, ye'd give me? I fear I'd best decline.”

“You could have her just for meat,” said Portia. Her cheeks suddenly burned. Wilbur grinned and bored his eyes right through her.

“Ho-ho-ho, little miss Portia,” he said, dropping down off the fence. He bit his apple, then tossed its core back over the crag's edge. “A hard bargain you drive,” he said between chewing. Out of sight below, the apple core plopped into the river.

“Please, have some decency. It'll leave neither me nor . . . nor my mother alone.”

Wilbur snorted and his eyes darkened. “Rides you as she did yer father, does she? Careful, lass. That's a woman needs no hands to push her kin too far.” His hands went to his buckle and started working loose his belt. “As fer decency,” he started, and Portia knew she ought to turn away. Wilbur spun on a heel and sauntered to the crag's edge. He stood there, legs apart, with his trousers dropped an inch or more. “. . . ye'd best avert yer gaze.”

She heard the gurgle of his spray below, mingling with the river. Portia resolved again to turn around, but at that very moment she felt a moist and insistent push from behind. With all its bulk's might the sow was pressing its snout against her back. Portia leaned her weight against it, but the sow pushed again and Portia stumbled on ahead. It was forcing her towards the crag's edge, and panic seized Portia. She struck the pig, but her fist glanced off its slick fur. She braced her crook against the ground, but the sow pressed on until it snapped. She swung her splintered staff at the animal, but missed and fell headlong in the grime. The sow kept pushing, and rolling her through the mud. Like a flood-trapped doe she struggled for footing, but found it only at the price of stumbling closer to the edge, and to Wilbur. Her last hope she staked on a sideways dart, but again she slipped and tasted mud, and the sow pushed her all the way to the brink of the crag.

Far below ran Churning River, foaming white and strong. Wilbur's boot stood planted next to her head. She could see his trousers still hanging loosely around his muscled thighs. The sow had stopped pushing, but its stench tore through her lungs.

“Little miss Portia, lass. I'll help ye to yer feet,” said Wilbur, and reached his dirty hand towards her.

She turned her head up and saw him, then, and rammed the crook through Wilbur's throat.

Wilbur's eyes rolled in their sockets and he gurgled as his hands tried to staunch the blood that pumped from his neck. And he fell, and he kept falling, falling until the river claimed him. Limp as an autumn twig, dead as yesterday, the Churning washed him downstream towards the endless ocean.

Portia drew a deep, sharp breath. She smelled tormentils. And village chimney smoke, and notes of elm and rowan. She rose first to her hands and knees, then to her feet, and she looked about and smiled.

She stood alone upon the crag. The sow and its filthy darkness were gone.

When summer came, Portia stood with Sivan at altar, and her mother wept with joy. Sivan's father looked on, proud and strong, with a light in his eyes like stars. Once it was all done, the congregation lined up and filed by the happy couple. They all wished the pair all manner of plenty, but Vilya was not among them. Portia saw her only at a distance, tending a freshly dug grave that was hung with a garland of avens.

Autumn fell, then winter, and spring rose with its promise of life. Nine months had passed since the night of the wedding, and time had come for Portia to give birth. She writhed in tearing pain upon House Drybrook's furs, her shoulders held tight by her mother. Through a door she heard Sivan's fidgety voice, and the deep, steady tones of his father.

“Breathe and push, my daughter, and think of the joy of your husband,” said Agnes, and between each pang of agony Portia replied: “I will, mother, I will.”

She pushed and she screamed to Heaven for mercy, until the midwife called out that she saw crowning, and again Portia pushed with the last of her will, and then everything tore and was emptied.

The midwife whimpered and stumbled back, her eyes wide in terror. Portia felt her mother's grip slip off her shoulder.

A dark and grungy whiff grew stronger, and Portia sat up to see.

And there between her legs on the blood-soaked skins squealed a she-piglet clad in black, greasy fur.