The red-hatted man called out, “What news, old foundling?”
“Little enough, old guardian! How fares the hall?”
“We are blessed. We have enough for all and a good feast tomorrow besides. Who do you travel with?”
“This lad’s called Innocence. He will act as my scribe and then is free to find employment.”
“An unusual name. A southerner?”
Innocence wanted to speak, but Huginn raised a hand. “That is a long story, Jokull.”
At that Jokull Loftsson smiled. “A long story from Huginn Sharpspear is a thing worth waiting for. Have you eaten?”
“But little.”
“Come, then.” Jokull nodded to his men. “You’ll not be needed now.” His guards moved at speed back toward the nearest farmhouse.
Huginn and Innocence dismounted and descended at Jokull’s slower pace. For all Walking Stick’s instruction on deference to the old, Innocence was hungry and impatient. It was hard not to fidget. He contented himself with staring out at the gray eastern sea as the two men talked.
“So,” said Huginn. “Why does Jokull Loftsson walk with guards on his own land?”
“Why does he walk with a cane? It is prudent. There are portents. And the road is rocky.”
“If there are certain stones that concern you, I would like to hear of them. A younger man might roll them out of the way.”
Jokull peered intently at Innocence; Innocence pretended not to notice. Jokull sighed and said, “The creatures that folk call Orb Dragons have been sighted in Oxiland. People I know to be truthful have seen them. I do not think they are really dragons, however.”
“That’s good. Lesser dragons become deranged if too long in the presence of the great ones who define our land.”
“It is not good. I would know what to do with a dragon. Even if we had to flee, I would know. These flying puzzles, however, I know nothing about.”
“I promise this, old friend. I will uncover the truth about Orb Dragons.”
“A brave promise! I’m glad to have your pledge, but I’m also glad you didn’t make it at the banquet. I will keep it quiet.”
“I would thunder it from yonder roof, Jokull.”
“You were always too hasty, Huginn. And Torfa doesn’t like anyone playing on the roof.”
“Ha! I think, Innocence, this conversation is not one you need to remember. May he find his lodgings?”
“Of course. Let us speak to Torfa.”
Torfa proved to be a majestic, gray-haired matriarch, sturdier than Jokull, with a voice that could boom through every corner of the farmhouse—and it was a vastly greater farmhouse than Huginn’s.
Even so, she had no place for Innocence. The way she scowled at Huginn, he suspected there’d be no place for Huginn’s servants even if the house were empty and the wind moaning through it. “You will proceed down the path,” Torfa said, after feeding him some porridge, “taking the left-hand bend, to the red barn. That barn is assigned to male servants. You may sleep in the south-side hayloft.” Innocence found all his Eastern and Western instruction at play when he bowed to this mighty woman and departed.
As he entered the smelly lodgings, it occurred to him that all the bleak, fine sentiments one encountered in the sagas were among nobles, priests, warriors, and wealthy landowners. There was little mention of grooms, maids, shepherds, carpenters, scribes. He found himself berthed with three younger servants who weren’t pleased to find their shares of drafty hayloft shrinking. There was a hairy teenager named Rolf and a bald one named Kollr, who occupied opposite corners, and a boy of perhaps ten named Numi, hair cut short, who took the hinterland between. They seemed to have their ancient border disputes worked out, and Innocence was reluctant to disturb the peace.
“How about this?” he said. “I will sleep here, by the ladder.”
“What if we step on you on our way to piss?” said Rolf.
“What if you fall off?” said Numi.
“What if you knock the ladder over?” said Kollr.
“Torfa herself assigned me this loft,” Innocence said, “and here I will stay. The alternative is for me to sleep on a rafter. If so I will choose one above each of you for a week at a time. I believe the Yule festivities will last that long.”
They stared at him. Rolf began laughing. “I must see this! Very well, southerner, bunk over my head if you wish. I sleep with a dirk in hand, so I make no promises for your safety if you fall on me.”
“Sleeps with a dirk in hand?” chuckled Kollr. “Is that a kenning? Perhaps you wouldn’t mind him tumbling onto you in the dark, eh?”
“Have a care,” said Rolf, “my dirk is not made of words but steel.” He raised a dagger for emphasis. “I have hit men farther off, and less fat, than you.”
Innocence coughed. “What is a kenning?”
The boy Numi looked grateful to change the subject, more or less. “It’s a poetic way of talking around a thing. A puzzle in words. The sea is the ‘swan-road.’ A sword is a ‘friend of carrion crows.’ A battle is a ‘banquet of blades.’”
Kollr said, leaning back and patting his belly, “A warrior might be a ‘slayer of eagles’ hunger.’”
When Innocence looked puzzled, Numi explained, “Eagles can be carrion birds too. The kennings can get obscure.”
Rolf sheathed his dagger and relaxed. “Old men make it a game. You could call a kenning a ‘slayer of boredom.’ Armed with kennings, a poet can make a simple story last for hours. What was the one Loftsson told last night? ‘The visage of the something . . .’”
“‘Twice the visage of the father of the axe-thrower,’” Kollr said. “That means ‘blind.’”
“What?” Innocence said, sitting down cross-legged, the crisis apparently passed. (Though he must sleep on a rafter.)
“The axe-thrower is the god Torden,” Kollr said.
“Heathen god, you mean,” Rolf said.
“And his father is the god Orm,” Kollr continued, while Rolf fumed and Innocence wondered if he should have sat after all. “He was one-eyed, as was his reputed father, the god Arthane Stormeye. Twice his visage would mean blind in both eyes.”
“You are brave,” Rolf said, “to name these men of old as gods, here in the barn of the good priest Jokull Loftsson.”
Numi broke in, his voice squeaking a bit. “The Swan’s ways,” he said, taking an extra breath, “are ways of peace—”
“Tell that to the shade of Saint Ole,” said Rolf, “who rode throughout Svardmark smashing idols.”
“And look how Saint Ole died,” answered Kollr, “in battle with his own countrymen.”
“I should say—” Numi began.
Rolf was on his feet now. “You’re good at goading, heathen, but how are you at fighting?”
“Now wait—” said Numi.
“Glad to show you,” said Kollr, rising.
Innocence drew upon his chi and leapt onto a rafter.
There was sudden silence in the hayloft.
“I just wanted to see how the air was up here,” said Innocence, keeping his voice relaxed. “Now, I just remembered, when they brought me in here, they told me everyone’s job. I’m a scribe, see, and it’s my business to remember. You, Rolf, are a groom to a fellow named Yl . . . Ylu—”
“Ylur Ymirson,” said Rolf with fierce pride, demonstrating that Innocence had given him something new to be angry about.
“And you, Kollr, are a cook’s assistant—”
“Chief cook’s assistant,” said Kollr.
“Chief cook’s assistant to Styr . . . Surturson. I got that right, yes?”
“Yes, but—”
“And Numi, you are a priest of some sort, right?”
“No!” said the boy, looking around as though afraid someone might have overheard. “I’m a mere novitiate—”
“Novitiate, yes—”
“—of Blizzardmere Monastery. I’m assigned here to Abbot Vatnar’s staff for the holiday, as part of my training. Vatnar is not a m
onastery abbot, understand, but he earns the title for leading an important church—”
“Of course, indeed, true. Now then, gentlemen, if we are going to argue religion, surely the fellow from the monastery gets as much chance to speak as the groom and the cook. Yes?”
Rolf crossed his arms and nodded. Kollr bowed in Numi’s direction.
“Um,” said Numi. “Yes. Now, Rolf, it says in the Swan’s scripture that a divided house will fall, and a divided kingdom will become desolate. What say you about a divided hayloft?”
Rolf grunted.
“And Kollr, in the sayings of Orm it’s told that a hasty tongue sings its own downfall. Am I right?”
Kollr sighed. “You are right.”
“So it seems to me that we should have no talk of broken idols and fallen saints, but be glad we have a roof over our heads and good food tomorrow.”
“You speak well,” Kollr said.
“Aye,” said Rolf.
“Thank you,” said Numi, looking up at Innocence.
“I believe I will be comfortable up here,” said Innocence, shifting to Rolf’s side of the hayloft as planned, “if there is no fighting down there.”
It was said in the classics of the Garden that the man of virtue spoke slowly and cautiously, but they had little to say of jumping onto rafters.
“He snores,” Rolf groaned in the morning. “Our mystery guest has amazing balance and never once fell from his rafter. But he snores.”
“Good morning,” said Innocence. He dropped himself from the rafter without use of chi, so as not to show off. They all stared anyway.
“I think you owe us some explanation for your talents,” Kollr said, “but not now. Now Rolf and I have to work, and Numi and you have to do whatever it is that acolytes and scribes do.”
“I’m a novitiate—” began Numi.
“Yes,” Kollr laughed at the red-faced Numi, hands raised. “Sorry.”
“Do they feed us?” asked Innocence.
“No,” Rolf said, “we must roam the plains and slay mice for our breakfast. Of course they feed us. Follow me.”
They joined a throng of servants who moved through the Loftsson farmhouse like thread through a garment, and breakfast was a fine thing for all that it nearly happened on the run: bread and berries and bacon. Innocence judged this was fine fare, from the appreciative noises of the servants and thralls.
It took time for Innocence to recognize that some of the servants were not in fact free people. As the eaters dispersed to their tasks, talking and laughing, some were followed and supervised with harsher words and occasional slaps. The thralls were generally indistinguishable from the free Kantenings, but the speech of some hinted of southern lands, like his mother’s.
Rolf and Kollr had already departed for their tasks in the stable and kitchen. Numi said, “Does something trouble you?”
“Are those Swanislanders?” Innocence said, gesturing toward the slaves.
“I suppose so,” Numi said. An uncomfortable silence passed. “They are hard workers. I have always liked Swanislanders. Simple, honest people, close to the Earthe. With a gift for music—”
“I should find Huginn. Good-day to you.”
“Wait . . . did I offend? I do not much understand you, Innocence. But I’m grateful for how you handled Rolf and Kollr.”
“It was your words that did it.”
“And yours. If you want employment in the church, I will vouch for you.”
Despite the compliment to his speech, Innocence was full of anger that he couldn’t find words for. “Thank you. I will think about that.”
Numi hurried off as though he’d said something much sterner. Innocence stalked off to find Huginn, his mind grim as the volcano far off on Oxiland’s main island. He found his patron laughing and jesting with two other chieftains, whom Innocence soon learned were Ylur Ymirson and Styr Surturson. “Ah!” said Huginn. “Here is my scribe, Innocence.”
“How well named!” Ylur said. He was old but still fierce, with a full white beard. “For if our words are to be recorded, we’d best leave off our talk of the fine women gathered here!”
“Where is your paper and pen, boy?” Huginn said.
“I, ah . . .” Innocence said.
“It seems we have a reprieve!” said Styr, a huge red-bearded fellow with a bull-deep voice. The other men laughed, and Innocence was sent to Torfa with an affectionate slap across the shoulders from Huginn. At least, Innocence supposed, it was affectionate. He ran. He did not understand Oxilanders, or Kantenings. They seemed civilized one moment, animals the next. The Sage Emperor once said, One cannot discourse with birds and beasts, as if they were human. Humans may be imperfect, but it is with them I must associate. But had the Sage Emperor ever encountered men like these?
Torfa, pen and paper, Huginn, all proved to be elusive quarry, but at last he succeeded and caught up with the professional liar at a collection of boulders where Huginn regaled a group of five chieftains, now including Loftsson and a twentyish blond chieftain named Gissur Mimurson who had recently arrived. They quieted a bit when Innocence ran up, panting in the cold air, but only a bit. He sat down and arranged pen, paper, and ink. If only Walking Stick could see him now.
Innocence could not record everything, but Huginn would sometimes nod to him and say, “Please make a note of that” and “That is worth a mention,” until Innocence soon was acquainted with a certain bushy-eyebrowed look that said the pen needed dipping. The discussion swirled around such matters as wine and women, funny anecdotes of the winter, and the health of family. But it also stepped upon the hard rock of border disputes between farmers, inheritance arguments, the building of new churches, the introduction of new crops. Nothing was settled, but much was weighed.
At one point Gissur Mimurson said, “Be careful, Jokull. This feast has the feel of a Spring Assembly, held before spring’s even had a chance to rise and rub her hands.”
“Or even an Althing,” Styr Surturson agreed. “We’ve spoken of matters far beyond our little sphere. Others might object we’re getting ahead of ourselves.”
“I confess,” Jokull said, “I didn’t expect Huginn to bring a scribe.” Here Innocence felt the regard of the Kantenings, and he did his best to imitate the great stone he wrote upon.
It had occurred to Innocence that Huginn had done him a great favor. He might have been set to work tending pigs or worse. Instead he’d been treated as an honored, educated visitor and given a post that displayed to these important folk that Innocence was worthy of employment. He didn’t like thinking about this truth, for it made him feel vulnerable—he who’d once burst with the power of the Heavenwalls, who’d overflown the West on a magic carpet. But the carpet was gone, and the energies he’d once commanded were bottled within him. He must stopper his pride as well.
For now.
“But,” Jokull was saying, “I did tell him in advance I wanted to plan ahead. I foresee troubled times.”
Ylur Ymirson laughed at that. “You always foresee troubled times, Jokull! And yet you always swell in wealth and status.”
Huginn chuckled. “There is something to be said for caution, friends. In truth, I wanted a scribe because I want a record for the assembly and the Althing. There’ll be those who call us a cabal.”
“We’re not?” Styr said.
“No.”
“No?” said Gissur.
“No,” repeated Huginn. “We’re looking ahead, not hatching schemes. There is much to consider this year. We haven’t touched on the crazy things yet, eh, Jokull?”
Jokull said, “No.” He counted on his fingers. “Orb Dragons. Earthquakes. Troll sightings. The peasant uprisings in Svardmark. The Nine Wolves. A hand’s worth of worry.”
Discussions of strange matters continued through the morning. Innocence heard of peculiar flying blobs, ominous shakings and eruptions, stony marauders, angry commoners, and murderous highwaymen until the shadows grew long again. Innocence was fascinated. He wracked his bra
ins wondering what the Orb Dragons might be, whether the mountain in the distance would spout fire, whether trolls really froze in the sunlight, whom the great organizer of the rebellious peasants might be, and what made nine cruel men waylay travelers on the roads.
At last Jokull excused himself. “I must head to the church in advance of the service. Ylur, as ever I welcome you to the church, but you are welcome to the feast regardless.”
Ylur nodded and clapped his hand over the axe-charm of Torden around his neck. “As ever you warm my heart, friend. I’ll see you at the feast.”
Jokull made a similar gesture and was off. The chieftains talked of more trifling things and began wandering off.
Huginn looked at Innocence’s penmanship. “You did well . . . what is that?” He pointed at a signature Innocence had made in the upper left.
“It is a rendition of the sounds of my name,” Innocence said, “in the official language of Qiangguo.”
“It seems just a squiggle to me, but no matter.”
“Master Huginn, I had a thought.”
“Yes?”
“On the continent I have seen a flying craft that might, if one did not understand it for a human work, be taken for a strange creature.”
“Indeed?”
“Yes. It is a sort of bladder filled with heated air, rising with enough determination to carry a large basket beneath.”
“There are indeed many wonders in the world.”
“I thought perhaps this might be the origin of the Orb Dragon stories.”
“For that to be true, would that not imply visitors from the East?”
“I suppose it would.”
“And you . . . you say you were raised in the East.”
There was now nobody else around the boulders, though a group of travelers was descending the stone road. Innocence said, “I have no knowledge of these visitations, except what I saw long ago.”
“I believe you. But it seems too great a coincidence that you arrive now.”
“That is as it may be, but I have nothing to do with Orb Dragons.”
Huginn stroked his beard. “We are done for now,” he said, his voice deeper and more ominous than at any time before. “Go to the service and the feast, Innocence, and speak of this to no one. Be prepared to record what is said and done. I have my own thoughts on this matter.”
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