Snow-Walker

by Catherine Fisher

  “That’s Wulfgar,” Thorkil said. “They caught him last week up at Hagafell. He’s the last of the Wulfings. If anyone should be Jarl, it’s him.”

  As the prisoner came through the crowd, the silence grew. Jessa saw how some men looked away, but others held his eye and wished him well. He must be well liked, she thought, for them to risk even that much, with Gudrun watching.

  “Wulfgar Osricsson,” Ragnar began, but the prisoner interrupted him at once.

  “They all know my name, Ragnar.” His voice was deliberately lazy. A ripple of amusement stirred in the room.

  “You have plotted and warred,” Ragnar went on grimly, “against the peace of this hold—”

  “My own,” Wulfgar said lightly.

  “And against me.”

  “You! A thrall’s son from Hvinir, where all they grow is sulphur and smoke holes.”

  “Be careful,” Ragnar snarled.

  “Let him speak!” someone yelled from the back of the hall. “He has a right. Let him speak.”

  Other voices joined in. The Jarl waved curtly for silence. “He can speak. If he has anything worth hearing.”

  The prisoner leaned forward and took an apple from the Jarl’s table and bit into it. A guard moved, but Ragnar waved him back.

  “I’ve nothing to say,” Wulfgar said, chewing slowly. “Nothing that would change things. You’re like a dead tree, Ragnar, smothered with a white, strangling ivy. It’s poisoning you, draining you of yourself. Shake her off now, if you still can.”

  Jessa, like everyone else, stared at Gudrun. She was sipping her wine and smiling. Ragnar’s face flushed with rage. His reply was hoarse. “That’s enough. Rebellion means death. As you were a landed man it will be quick, with an ax. Tomorrow.”

  Men in the smoky hall looked at one another. There was a murmuring that rose to a noise. Gudrun’s eyes moved across their faces as she drank.

  “He can’t do that!” Thorkil muttered.

  Mord’s hands clamped down on his shoulders and stayed there. “Wait. Keep still.” His fingers dug into the soft coat. “Don’t draw attention to yourself.”

  Wulfgar spat an apple pip onto the floor. At once, with an enormous crash, one of the shutters on the windows suddenly collapsed, flung open in a squall of wind that whipped out half the candles at a stroke. In the darkness someone yelled; Wulfgar twisted and hurled himself through the guards into the crowd of confused shadows. Strange blue smoke was billowing from the fires. Jessa coughed, half choked; in the uproar dogs were barking and Ragnar was shouting orders. Then the doors were open; men were running among the dim houses of the hold, letting the bitter wind stream in and slice through the smoke like a knife.

  “Is he away?” Thorkil shouted, on his feet.

  “He ought to be. If he was ready.”

  “It was all planned. You knew!”

  “Hush. Keep your voice down.”

  Jessa turned; Gudrun’s chair was empty. Then her eye caught sight of something lying half in the fire, smoldering; it was a small bunch of some herb, tied with a green ribbon. The stifling blue smoke was drifting from it. Jessa looked around, but the peddler was nowhere to be seen. She bent down quickly and pulled the singed bundle out of the ashes, stamped on it, and pushed it into the deep pockets of her coat so no one saw.

  “Will he really escape?” Thorkil was asking.

  “If he gets out of the hold, there’s every chance. Not many who search will want to find him. He should head south, overseas.”

  “And will he?”

  Mord gave her a half smile. “I doubt it. He wants to be Jarl.” He sighed. “There are plenty of others who want it.”

  Suddenly it seemed the hall was almost empty. Then Mord stood up. “Ah. This is it.”

  One of Gudrun’s men was beckoning them across. As they walked over, talk hushed. Jessa saw Thorkil’s back stiffen.

  They followed the man through a wooden archway crawling with twisted snakes. Beyond was a room lit by lamplight. Mord had to stoop under the lintel as he went in; Jessa came last, her fingers clenched tight to stop them shaking.

  They were all there: Ragnar, Grettir, a few white-haired men with eyes like chips of ice—and Gudrun. Close to, she was almost beautiful. Her eyes were like water in a shallow pool, totally without color. Cold came out of her; Jessa felt it against her face.

  Outside in the hold the search was going on; they heard running footsteps, shouts, the barking of hounds. Everywhere would be searched. Here the silence seemed intense, as if after some furious argument. Gudrun stood, watching them come; Ragnar barely turned his head. She knows, Jessa thought in a sudden panic; she knows everything. Gudrun smiled at her, a sweet, cold smile.

  “The preparations for the journey are made,” Ragnar snapped. “The ship leaves early, with the tide.” His hands tapped impatiently on the chair arm, a smooth wolfshead, worn by many fingers.

  As Gudrun moved to the table, Jessa glimpsed a peculiar glistening wisp of stuff around her wrist; she realized it was snakeskin, knotted and braided. The woman took up a jug and poured a trickle of thin red liquid into four brightly enameled cups. Jessa picked at her glove; Thorkil’s strained look caught her eye. But they would have to drink it—it was the faring cup, always drunk before a journey. One after another, silent, they picked up the cups. Gudrun lifted hers with slim white fingers and sipped, looking at them over the rim all the while. Playing with us, Jessa thought, and drank immediately, feeling the hot sour taste flame in her throat. Thorkil tossed his off and banged the cup down empty. Mord’s lips barely touched the rim.

  “And we have these for you both.” She nodded to a thrall; he brought two arm rings, thin delicate silver snakes, and gave them to Jessa and Thorkil. The silver was icy to touch; it had come from her mines where men died in the ice to find it. Jessa wanted to fling hers in the woman’s face, but Mord caught her eye and she was silent, cold and stiff with anger.

  Gudrun turned away. “Take them out.”

  “Wait!”

  Every eye turned to Thorkil; men who had been talking fell silent. “Don’t you mind?” he asked, his fingers clenched on the ring. “That we’ll see? That we’re going there…?” Despite himself he could not finish.

  Jessa saw a movement in the corner; it was the old man Grettir. He had turned his head and was watching.

  Gudrun stared straight at Thorkil. All she said was “Thrasirshall is the pit where I fling my rubbish.” She stepped close to him; he shivered in the coldness that came out from her.

  “I want you to see him. I’ll enjoy thinking of it. I’ll enjoy watching your face, because I will see it, however far away you think me. Even in the snows and the wilderness nothing hides from me.”

  She glanced down, and his eyes followed hers. He had gripped the ring so tight the serpent’s mouth had cut him. One drop of blood ran down his fingers.

  Five

  Better gear than good sense

  A traveler cannot carry.

  The ship lay low in the water, rocking slightly. In the darkness it was a black shadowy mass, its dragon prow stark against the stars. Men, muffled into shapelessness by heavy cloaks, tossed the last few bundles aboard.

  Jessa turned. From here the Jarlshold was a low huddle of buildings under the hill, the hall rising taller than the rest, its serpent-head gables spitting out at her.

  “Did you sleep?” Thorkil asked, yawning.

  “Yes.” She did not tell him about the dreams, though; the dream of walking down those endless corridors full of closed doors, the dream of Gudrun. Or that she had woken and opened a corner of the shutter at midnight, gazing out into the slow, silent snowfall, while Mord’s youngest daughter had sighed and snuggled beside her.

  Now Mord was coming over, with the young man called Helgi, who was to be captain of the ship.

  “Well…” Mord kissed her clumsily and thumped Thorkil on the back. “At least Wulfgar got away. They won’t find him now. The weather looks good for you....” For a moment he stared
out over the water. Then he said, “Words are no use, so I won’t waste them. I will try and get Ragnar to revoke the exile, but he may not live long, and Gudrun will certainly not change things. You must face it. We all must.”

  “We know that,” Jessa said quietly. “Don’t worry. We’ll manage.”

  He gazed down at her. “I almost think you will.”

  Releasing his gloved hand, she turned to the ship. As an oarsman lifted her over she saw the frosted scum of the water splinter and remake itself on the beach, and felt the splashes on her face harden and crack. The ship swayed as Thorkil sat down beside her, clumsy in his furred coat. The helmsman raised the call, and on each side sixteen oars swiveled up, white with their fur of frost. Then they dipped. At the first slap of wood in water, the ship shuddered and grated slowly off the shingle. The wharvesmen stepped back as she rocked and settled. Mord shouted, “Good luck!”

  “He’s relieved to see us go,” Thorkil muttered.

  “That’s unfair. He’s very bitter about it. Good-bye!” she yelled, leaping up, and Thorkil scrambled up into the stern and clung to the dragon’s neck. “Don’t forget us, Mord! We’ll be back!”

  He seemed almost too far off to hear. But he nodded bleakly. Then he turned away.

  All the cold morning the ship coasted slowly down the Tarvafjord toward the open sea, carried by the icy, ebbing tide. There was little wind and the oarsmen had to row, their backs bending and knees rising in the long, silent rhythms. Fog rose from the water and froze, leaving delicate crystals of ice on spars and planks. The ship was heavy; cluttered with sea chests and baggage, casks of beer, and cargoes for the distant settlements. All around them the fog drifted, blanking out land and sky, and the only sound it did not swallow was the soft dip and splash of the oars.

  Jessa and Thorkil sat huddled up in coats and blankets, slowly getting colder and stiffer. Now there seemed to be nothing to say, and nothing to do but stare out at the drifting gray air and dream and remember. Their fingers ached with cold; Jessa thought Thorkil would have been glad even to row, but no one offered him the chance. She had already noticed how the crew watched them curiously, but rarely spoke.

  Gradually the fog rose. By midmorning they could see the shore, a low rocky line, and behind it hillsides dark with trees, the snow lying among them. Once they passed a little village swathed in the smoke of its fires, but no one ran out from the houses. Only a few goats watched them glide by.

  “Where are they all?” Thorkil muttered.

  “Hiding.”

  “From us?”

  “From the Jarl. It’s his ship, remember.”

  At midday the sun was still low, barely above the hills. Helgi told the helmsman to put in at the next flat stretch of shore.

  Slowly the ship turned and grazed smoothly into the shallows. As Jessa climbed out, she groaned with the stiffness of her legs; the very bones of her face ached. She and Thorkil raced each other up the beach.

  The oarsmen lit a fire and handed around meat and bread, throwing scraps on the wet shingle for the gulls to scream and fight over. Jessa noticed how Helgi kept close. Sudden running would be no use at all.

  “How long will the journey take?” she asked, stretching out her legs and rubbing them.

  Helgi laughed. “Three days—longer, if the weather turns. Tonight we travel down to the sea, tomorrow up the coast to Ost, then up the Yngvir River to a village called Trond. After that—over the ice.”

  Thorkil pulled a face. “Why not go by land?”

  “Because the hills are full of snow and wolves. You’re anxious to arrive, are you?”

  Thorkil was silenced. Looking at him, Jessa noticed the glint of silver on his arm. “Why are you wearing that?” she asked, surprised. It was the arm ring that Gudrun had given him.

  He looked down at it and touched the snake’s smooth head. “I don’t know. I hadn’t really meant to. I just put it on.... It’s valuable, after all. Where’s yours?”

  “In the baggage, but I’ve a good mind to throw it over the side. It’s bad luck. I don’t know how you can wear it.”

  Thorkil scowled. “I will if I want. It’s mine.”

  Jessa shook her head. “It’s hers,” she said, thinking how vain he was.

  “Well, don’t throw yours in the sea.” Helgi laughed. “Throw it to me instead. The sea is rich enough.”

  “I might.”

  Thorkil looked up suddenly. “Your men. Are they coming with us all the way?”

  “To the very door,” Helgi said grimly. Behind him the oarsmen’s talk faltered, as if they had listened for his answer.

  The ship reached the coast late that evening, the watchman of Tarva challenging them suddenly out of the darkness, his voice ringing across the black water. Jolted awake, Jessa heard the helmsman yell an answer, and saw the lights of the settlement ripple under the bows as the ship edged in among the low wharves.

  They spent that night in the house of a merchant named Savik, who knew Helgi well, warm in his hall with three oarsmen sprawling and dicing near the only doorway. Where the rest went to, Jessa did not ask. She managed a brief word with Thorkil at the table.

  “No chances yet.”

  He threw her a troubled look. “You heard what he said. We won’t have any chances.”

  “Yes, but keep your eyes open. You never know.”

  “I suppose we could always jump overboard,” he said savagely.

  Later she slept fitfully. In her sleep she felt the rocking of the boat, as if it still carried her down the long, icy fjord, and there at the end of it, floating on the sea, was a great, dark building, the winds howling in its empty passages like wolves.

  In the morning they left early, as the wind was good, and as soon as they reached open water the sail was dropped with a flapping of furled canvas and the slap of ropes—a single rectangular sheet woven of strong striped cloth. The wind plumped it out into a straining arc; the ship shuddered and plunged through the spray. Jessa climbed up into the prow and watched the white seabirds wheel overhead and scream in the cliffs and crannies. Seals bobbed their heads out and watched her with dark, intelligent eyes; in bays their sluggish shining bodies lay like great pebbles on the shingle.

  She turned to the oarsmen squatting in the bottom of the boat out of the wind; some sleeping, others gaming with dice for brooches or metal rings—Thorkil with them, and losing badly it seemed.

  After a while Helgi clambered over and sat beside her.

  “Do you feel well? No sickness?”

  “Not yet.”

  He grinned. “Yes, it may well come. But we have to put off some cargo at Wormshold this afternoon—that will give you a chance to go ashore. It’s a big, busy settlement, under the Worm’s Head.”

  “Worm’s Head?”

  “Yes. Never seen it? I’ll show you.” He took out a knife and scratched a few lines into the wooden prow. “It’s a spit of land, look, that juts out into the sea. Like this. It looks like a dragon’s head, very rough and rocky—a great hazard. There are small islets here, and skerries at the tip. The Flames, we call them. The currents are fierce around them. That dragon’s eaten many a good ship. But you’ll see it soon.”

  And she did, as the ship flew through the morning. At first a gray smudge on the sea; then a rocky shape, growing as they sped toward it into a huge dragon’s head and neck of stone, stretched out chin-deep in the gray waves, its mouth wide in a snarl, dark hollows and caves marking nostrils and eyes. The wind howled as they sailed in under it, the swell crashing and sucking and booming deep in the gashed, treacherous rocks.

  Wormshold was squeezed into a small haven in the dragon’s neck. As soon as Jessa saw it, she knew this would be their chance, perhaps their only chance. It was a busy trading place, full of ships, merchants, fishermen, peddlers, skalds, thieves, and traveling fraudsters of every kind. Booths and trestle tables full of merchandise crowded the waterfront; the stink of fish and meat and spices hung over the boats.

  Here they could
be lost, quickly and easily; she had coins sewn into the hems of her skirts; help could be bought. She tried to catch Thorkil’s eyes, but he seemed silent and depressed.

  “It’ll never work,” he said.

  “What’s the matter with you! We can try, can’t we!” He nodded, unconvinced.

  They wandered stiffly about, glad to walk and run, even though two of Helgi’s men, the one called Thrand and the big noisy one, Steinar, trailed around behind them. Jessa felt excitement pulse through her. Only two. It might have been much worse.

  They stared at the goods for sale. Strange stuff, most of it, from the warmer lands to the south: wrinkled fruits, fabrics in bales and bolts, shawls, belts, buckles, fine woolen cloaks flapping in the sea wind. Rows of stiff hides creaked and swung; there were furs, colored beads, bangles, and trinkets of amber and whalebone and jet. One booth sold only rings, hundreds of them strung in rows; rings for fingers, neck, arms, of all metals, chased or plain or intricately engraved.

  With a word to Steinar, Thrand stepped into the crowd, pushing his way to a man sharpening knives. Jessa saw him pull his own out and hand it over. So that left one.

  She bought some sweetmeats from a farmwife and she and Thorkil ate them, watching a blacksmith hammer out a spearhead and plunge it with a hiss into a bucket of water. As Thorkil fingered the hanging weapons enviously, someone jolted gently against Jessa’s shoulder.

  “A thousand apologies,” murmured a low voice.

  A thin, lanky man stood beside her, his coat patched and ragged. He winked slyly. Astonished, she stared at him, then glanced carefully around. Steinar was a good way back, trying to buy ale.

  “You travel fast down the whale’s road,” the peddler said quietly, examining a brooch on a stall.

  “So do you.” Jessa gasped. “Where is Wulfgar? Is he with you?”

  “That outlaw?” He grinned at her. “That prince of the torn coat? What makes you think I would know?”

  She took the fragments of herbs out of her pocket and rubbed them thoughtfully between her fingers, until their faint scent reached him.