Cobert threw his ax down onto the snow, heading straight for the trees. “I want to see what she looks like if she sings like that,” he called, running off.
“Stay where you are!” his father ordered, leaping down from the sledge. “There’s work to do.” But he understood his son all too well. “Wait!” he called, pursuing his elder son as he disappeared among the trees. It was good that he had an excuse now to follow the song without having to face his wife’s disapproval. “Ortram, you stay here. I’m going to get your brother.”
He could see Cobert’s patchwork coat flitting between the tree trunks in the distance. As if possessed, the boy forged onwards, drawing his father ever deeper into the forest after him. Soon the woodsman was perspiring under his heavy coat.
The shadows were darker here and it seemed the sun was becoming fainter the further he got from home. Hindrek grew uneasy.
“Cobert!” he called. “Don’t go any further!” The father stopped, leaning on a Palandiell pine to get his breath back. “Something’s not right. It must be the spirits of the forest playing tricks on us. Can’t you hear me?” He listened hard.
There were those tones again.
All his cautiousness melted at the sound of that glass-clear singing voice. He knew only the desire to see the face of the singer. To admire her and hear her song. She must sing for him alone. No one else must have this pleasure!
Raging jealousy flamed up in his heart and, without realizing it, he pulled out his hunting knife. The heavy blade threw off a faint gleam.
Hindrek followed the melody; it was coming from close by now.
His swift steps turned into a run, a driven stumbling race forward, not stopping at any obstacle. The forester wanted to see the woman whose voice gave him such ecstasy of delights.
He fought his way through thickets, through snow, past banks of tearing thorns, over fallen trees, feeling no pain, his mouth set in a beatific smile, his eyes glinting feverishly. On, ever onward!
Then he stopped in his tracks, finding himself unexpectedly two paces away from his elder son. Bareheaded, Cobert was kneeling at the feet of a woman dressed in a black mantle decorated with silver thread. A song was issuing from her lips and the boy was listening spellbound. She had placed her right hand on his blond curls, stroking his head as if he were a lover.
Her countenance was full of grace; even the most beautiful woman Hindrek had ever met would have appeared ugly in comparison. In his mind nothing else existed except for this perfect figure. Her long black hair was moving gently in the breeze and framing her lovely face. On her brow a dark diadem made of tionium, silver and gold bore two large sparkling diamonds.
Hindrek felt a red-hot surge of jealousy that even the gentle song could not soften. It should be him there at her feet, not his son! Her delicate fingers should be stroking his head. What did the boy know of love and emotions?
His ill-will grew. When Cobert laid his cheek on the woman’s hand and planted a kiss, Hindrek launched himself at his son’s back with a roar and drove his hunting knife in through the ribs to the heart.
The singing stopped.
“Get away from her!” he screamed, hurling the corpse aside as if it were a sack of grain. “She is mine,” he continued, his voice turning to a whisper. “I heard her first,” and he sank onto his knees in the blood-soaked snow. He dropped his arms and gazed longingly at the silent, smiling woman. He waited for her to touch him as she had touched Cobert. He raised his head and closed his eyes in anticipation. “Please, goddess, sing for me,” he begged.
“What will you do for me, Hindrek?” she asked, reaching out to touch his cheek. “If I am to sing for you there is a price to pay.”
“Anything,” he answered at once through quivering lips. His body was racked with the pain of intense longing to hear those tones again, to hear them constantly until the end of his days. The voice must never stop. She must sing for him alone.
“Go back to your cabin and bring me the heads of your wife and child,” said the beauty seductively. “Then I shall sing for you again.” He opened his eyes and saw her bending over him. Her lips so nearly touched his own. “I shall sing you the song of lust.”
Hindrek jumped up and ran off. He ran back the way he had come, hearing her voice, the sounds of her song, urging him ever faster, giving him untold energy; he raced home like the wind.
It had grown dark. Lamps were burning inside the cabin and smoke rose from the chimney. The horses had been unharnessed and there was a small pile of firewood by the chopping block.
The woodsman marched up to the house gasping for breath; with both hands he pulled the chopper out of the block. It would serve well to sever heads from shoulders. He did not want to make the singer, whose voice he heard in his head, wait any longer. The song of lust-he shivered in anticipation.
The door was pulled open and Ortram, on the threshold, called out in relief, “Mother, he’s back. But where is Cobert?” The boy’s eyes grew wide as he noted the blood on his father’s coat. “What’s happened?”
Qelda appeared in the doorway, looking at her husband in concern. “Hindrek? What’s wrong? Where is the boy?”
The familiar sound of her voice ruined the memory of the woman’s song and the man stood there, his ax half raised. He blinked and saw the faces of his wife and son before him.
“I…” Try as he might he could not explain what had happened. “I was on the sledge…” Hindrek turned to the barn. “There was a voice, a song…” He attempted to hum the melody but in his mouth it sounded awful. “I followed her…”
Horror on her face, Qelda came up to him and gripped the handle of the ax. “Hindrek, where is Cobert? And whose is the blood on your coat?”
Her voice sounded discordant and shrill to his ears, so ugly in comparison with the enchanting singer’s tones. It hurt. His face brightened. “The woman! In the forest… she sang for me.”
“Mama,” wept Ortram, running up and clasping his mother’s waist. “What’s wrong with father?”
Then they heard the strange melody again.
Silkily, it drifted out from the edges of the forest to their ears, taking their minds in thrall.
“Mama, there it is again!” the boy whispered.
“Be quiet!” shouted Hindrek, glaring at the boy in fury. “You sound like a rat squealing!”
His wife retreated in horror, pulling the boy with her. “Get back in the house,” she said quickly, giving her husband a wide berth. There was only one explanation: “Your father is possessed by the forest spirits.”
Hindrek’s features darkened in distaste. “Silence! Stop that terrible screeching!” He lifted the ax, remembering the beauty’s words to him. The promise of the song of lust. The price he had to pay.
Before Qelda could speak, he struck out.
The blade went through her neck; Hindrek was strong enough to sever it completely. The decapitated body fell at his side, the head landing in a snowdrift.
Ortram screamed out and stared at his mother’s corpse, clutching himself, fists clenched, in shock and anger.
Without hesitation Hindrek stormed up to stop the terrible noise that was destroying the beautiful song. Four steps and he was in front of his son, wielding his ax, ready to strike. Soon, any moment now, he would be receiving his reward.
Something hit his right leg and he faltered. The ax blade whizzed harmlessly over the head of his son and the force of the follow-through made Hindrek overbalance. A crossbow bolt stuck out from his knee. He heard the sound of hooves. On the path that led to the village came four riders in brown leather armor and long light-colored surcoats. One of them held a crossbow that had just been fired.
“Get away from the child!” shouted the archer, reloading.
“The song of lust!” croaked Hindrek, using the ax as a crutch. He knew these men, Wislaf, Gerobert, Vlatin and Diederich, henchmen of Duke Pawald. They must have heard that divine singing as well and have come to deprive him of it!