An Apprentice to Elves

by Sarah Monette

  She also sensed Isolfr and Viradechtis, waiting for her at the outer ring of the still unfinished earthworks. She paused when she spotted them, unprepared for the strong well of emotion somewhere behind her breastbone. She had forgotten—or perhaps not forgotten so much as chosen not to think about—how lonely she had been when she had first gone to the svartalfar. How her chest had physically ached with the pain of being away from the wolves and her father.

  She didn’t remember when she had first come to the heall—she didn’t remember her birth mother at all, though she knew that Hjordis was her name and that she lived in Nithogsfjoll. Her earliest memories were of Amma, which only seemed right and proper. Sokkolfr and Brokkolfr both had told her that when she first came to Franangford, Amma had been the only one who could console her if Isolfr was not to be found.

  What if she never managed to behave for long enough to convince the Smiths and Mothers that she should be a journeyman? Was she doomed to keep leaving and leaving places she had come to think of as home?

  That made her think about the still-sore absence of Hroi in the pack-sense, and what it would be like when Amma, too, was gone. Or Mar, whose tired aches worried her when she reached out to him. She wondered how it was that anyone could bear to live with wolves, when wolves did not live as long as men—and then she thought, Is this what it’s like for Tin with my father and me?

  Viradechtis inquired if Alfgyfa was going to stand there until she took root.

  Alfgyfa squared her shoulders and limped, sore-calved, up to the breastwork. Viradechtis awaited her, as befitted a queen (although her tail and eyes were laughing), rising to her feet as Alfgyfa approached. The sunlight caught black and red gleams off her brindle-striped sides as she stretched fore and aft and waved her plumed tail just a little too fast to be called regally. Isolfr stood beside her, tall and broad-shouldered with muscle, still lean to the point of it being a bit worrisome. He folded his arms over a linen shirt, his grin stretching the scarred side of his face into parallel striations.

  Alfgyfa grinned back and decided that she did not care if she was a grown woman of fifteen. Ignoring the protests from her thighs, she sprinted up the artificial hill, her braid slapping against her shoulders. Isolfr stepped forward and wrapped his arms around her. He swung her off her feet—

  And promptly set her down again, laughing and saying, “Oof.”

  She laughed with him, knowing that there wasn’t any lack of strength. “I’m not seven anymore, Father.”

  He hadn’t let go of her. He squeezed her shoulders and shook his head admiringly. “You’ve muscles like a plow horse.”

  “Hammer and bellows,” she answered, and hugged him again for good measure, trying not to count the bones beneath her hands.

  It didn’t last; Viradechtis lowered her great shaggy head and slid her pointed nose between them. The rest of her followed until she was wedged, leaning her shoulders on Isolfr and the side of her head on Alfgyfa. Alfgyfa laughed and let go of her father so she could drop to a crouch and hug the wolf.

  Viradechtis leaned on her, hard, tail swishing, and groaned.

  “Noble beast,” Isolfr said dryly.

  “The noblest,” Alfgyfa agreed, meaning it. She gave Viradechtis an extra squeeze, burying her face in thick fur that smelled of leaf mold and wood smoke, then stood. It being summer, and shedding season, half the wolf came with her in the form of tufts of undercoat.

  Isolfr picked a handful off her jerkin with the soft one-sided smile she remembered best from her childhood. “Want a job brushing wolves?”

  She shook her head. All around, she noticed, wolfcarls and alfar and villagers were going about their morning business, but giving Alfgyfa and her father the gift of a wide skirting—the privacy of being ignored in public. It made her heart swell with gratitude.

  “Walk with me?” she said. “I need to stretch my legs after that run, or I’m going to hate myself come sundown.”

  He nodded, but first dug in his pouch and offered her a rye loaf big as her fist, split and smeared with lingonberry jam, and a crumbly lump of cheese.

  “Bless you,” she said, accepting the offering. Viradechtis swiveled her ears meaningfully in the direction of the cheese. “Actually, I’m more thirsty than hungry.”

  Wordlessly, he held out a skin. She drank—small beer, malty and sour—and handed it back. The bread went down easier, after.

  Isolfr was eating one of last year’s apples, the skin wrinkled and the flesh slightly rubbery. They fell into step together, heading out toward the sheep pasture under Viradechtis’ direction, since she sauntered ten easy paces ahead of them. Viradechtis, of course, never bothered to look back. Being a queen, she knew that where she led, they would follow.

  They got out into the sunshine along the willow fences, the strangely angular and slack-skinned shapes of freshly sheared, dirty gray sheep following them hopefully along the other side of the hurdles. They seemed entirely unafraid of Viradechtis. Alfgyfa looked at Isolfr questioningly.

  He grinned. “Vethulf comes out here with Kjaran and hand-feeds them mushy apples and the like, so they’re not afraid of trellwolves, which is handy. But they’ve turned into little freeloaders.”

  She swallowed a mouthful of cheese and jam and bread. “Vethulf’s a sucker for big, sad eyes.”

  “Don’t tell him you know.” He hesitated. “Brokkolfr’s gone to talk to the aettrynalfar and warn them about Tin and the others, by the way.”

  “Good,” she said. “They like him.”

  Isolfr snorted and swigged beer, then gave her the skin. “I haven’t mentioned it to anyone,” he said. “But a pack is following you.”

  The politeness of wolves. “Viradechtis knew.” This was her territory, after all. And if she saw fit to let the wild konigenwolf travel through, who might gainsay her?

  “Viradechtis,” he said wryly, “knows everything. Kari and Hrafn know, too. How did you happen to become adopted by a pack of wolves of the Iskryne, and why did you bring them with you?”

  “I didn’t bring them with me. The konigenwolf decided to come.”

  His eyebrows shot up.

  “She’s curious. About the lands south of the Iskryne, I think. Maybe about where these strange, pale, tall creatures come from.”

  She felt him looking at her, considering. Felt his knowingness through the pack-sense, though she couldn’t quite have said what it was he thought he knew that she didn’t.

  “How did you meet?”

  So she told him about Mouse and the pit. She left out the dressing-down she’d gotten from Tin, but touched lightly on the architecture of the trellwarrens. He’d seen the inside of one or two such himself.

  “Reminds me of Kari and Hrafn,” he replied, when she’d wound down. “Except it’s the konigenwolf whose attention you caught, more than the wolf you rescued.”

  “Wait,” she said. “What?”

  “She waited seven years,” he said, “and then she followed you halfway across the world.”

  Viradechtis turned and looked at them, her eyes catching light like polished amber. Alfgyfa felt her warm approval.

  “But…” She felt like she was scrambling to pick up her wits, as if they were stones she’d dropped and scattered across her bedroom floor. “I’m a girl.”

  He gave her a severely skeptical look. “You don’t think that matters, do you? Not if she’s made up her mind.”

  “No,” Alfgyfa said.

  “And it’s not as if … Wolf-sister or not, you won’t be fighting trolls. We’ve taken care of that problem.” He touched his cheek. Alfgyfa didn’t think he knew he did it.

  His expression was complicated, leading Alfgyfa to think on what wolfsprechends endured. He bit into the apple and chewed thoughtfully. It was too withered to crunch.

  “There’s nothing wrong here. I merely wish to give you warning. Be careful how close you get to her and her pack, Mushroom. It’s a knot you can unpick, once it’s tied—but it’d be like unpicking the knot in
your own navel.”

  The childhood nickname hit her like the butt-end of a staff to the belly. She blinked at him, then looked down. “I shall heed your advice, Father.”

  He cuffed her on the shoulder with wolfish love. “I do not fear for you. But tell me of these trellwarrens. I would have thought the svartalfar would have reshaped them all to their own liking.”

  “They have, many of them. But there aren’t enough svartalfar to fill them all. So some linger as they were.”

  “They were terrifying to fight in.”

  She wondered if she would ever have the self-confidence to speak so matter-of-factly about being afraid. “Have you been in one since?”

  He tossed his head so his braids flipped off his shoulders. He touched his face again, but this time caught himself and turned it into a scratch. His beard was redder—much redder—than their hair.

  “I don’t even like going into the aettrynalfar warrens,” he admitted. “Or the root cellar, for that matter. That’s the real legacy of the trellwars. Two or three hundred wolfcarls who have to send a boy after apples and beets when they want them.”

  She laughed, though it wasn’t really funny. “Did you ever see a troll work stone?”

  He handed her the skin, then twisted his freed hands together. “Have you ever molded warm wax? From the edge of a candle, say?”

  She nodded.

  “So stone was to them. Now I’ve a question for you: why is Tin’s other apprentice named Pearl? That’s not a mineral. They grow in oysters.”

  “Oysters!”

  “Laugh, but I have it from Brokkolfr and Randulfr both. And they’re seafarers by blood. They ought to know what oysters do.”

  “No, no,” she said. “I mean, yes. I mean … Oh, bother.”

  He grinned. “Take your time.”

  “I was laughing because it is a mineral—though it does grow in oysters—and so is bone. Ivory, coal, jet. Coral. All minerals, all born of life. I know, or know of, alfar named for all those things. Pearl is…” She searched for a word, failed, sang the svartalf one. Felt pride at the impressed nod Isolfr gave her when she sang a harmonic with it, and didn’t tell him that was only half the word, all told.

  “What does that mean?”

  She took an instant’s counsel to decide not to try to explain svartalf pronouns and merely searched for a translation. “It means he’s a … ‘facilitator’ isn’t the right word, but it’ll do. He’s not male or female, but one of the less common alfar who make the females fertile, when they wish to conceive.”

  Isolfr stopped walking. “I did not know there was such a thing.”

  “They’re not men. They’re luckier in some ways. The mothers bear only when they want to, with whom they choose.”

  “Huh,” he said. She could feel him thinking about it. He offered his apple core over the withy to the nearest sheep, who accepted it with pleasure. Alfgyfa did not comment that Vethulf might not be the only wolfheofodman spoiling the livestock. “Something to bear in mind,” he said. “Is there any change in protocol? I’d not offend … him? If I can avoid it.”

  “Treat him as any apprentice,” she said. “I’ll be happy to give you diplomatic tips, as long as you accept that Master Galfenol already thinks I’m a barbarian.”

  “Alfar think all men are barbarians,” Isolfr said cheerfully, unbothered. “I try to consider it a trade advantage.”

  * * *

  Sokkolfr had given the svartalfar a series of rooms along the hall’s east side; in one of them Idocrase was simultaneously minding Girasol and making notes about the structure of the Franangfordthreat. He looked up when Alfgyfa came in and smiled brilliantly, even as Girasol flung himself across the room to cling to her legs.

  “Girasol, don’t knock me down,” she said.

  “You were gone,” Girasol said.

  “You were out all night,” said Idocrase. Unlike Girasol, he didn’t sound accusing, merely curious.

  Her cheeks heated, although she had nothing to be embarrassed about. “The wild wolves,” she said awkwardly. “They…”

  “You were out with the wolves?” Girasol said, his entire face bright with excitement. “Will you tell us about them?”

  “Will you?” Idocrase said, more quietly, but when she looked, she saw the same excitement. And something else that she didn’t have a name for, but that made her face even hotter.

  “Well, if Girasol will let me sit down,” she said, “I will tell you what I can.”

  Idocrase’s answering smile, she thought, would be enough to keep a woman warm for weeks.

  SEVEN

  Otter found Alfgyfa exactly where she would have expected—leaning shoulder to shoulder with Thorlot over Thorlot’s sand table, sketching in the damp earth of the tray with twigs. “This,” Alfgyfa said, “is a kind of bindrune, you see. That it reflects itself makes the magic stronger. I was thinking it could work as an inlay—”

  Otter cleared her throat.

  They both jumped, so deep had they been in conversation. Then Thorlot sat back and began rolling one sleeve up her sinewy forearm. “Council?” she asked.

  “Alfgyfa’s presence is requested in the Quiet Chamber,” Otter said.

  “And I should be back to the forge,” Thorlot replied. “Well, go on, girls. You know the men will drink all the ale if you dawdle.”

  “Council?” Alfgyfa asked, when they had walked a few steps.

  “Brokkolfr is back from the aettrynalfar,” Otter replied. “Between that and the Rheans, apparently everybody’s decided that now would be a good time to kill a few hours in drink and talk.”

  Alfgyfa laughed with her mouth closed. “But why me?”

  “You were a child, but you knew the aettrynalfar as well as anyone before you left,” Otter said. “And now you know the svartalfar even better. Who else should be there?”

  “Oh,” Alfgyfa said. And Otter recognized the expression on her face. It was the discomfort and itchy uncertain pride that went with the realization that you were becoming the sort of person who had skills and value when you had never been that person before.

  The Quiet Chamber had been named that as a joke, given Vethulf’s temper. But the name, however ironic, had stuck, and now Otter wondered what future generations would make of it. If they got the chance; if the Rheans let them.

  We should pay their damned tribute and be done, Otter thought as she opened the door and held it wide for Alfgyfa.

  When she walked into the airy stone room, closed the oaken door behind her, and saw what passed for the assembled might of the Northlands, Otter felt worse rather than better. One-eyed Erik Godheofodman perched on a stool in the corner, without his bear-cloak in deference to summer’s warmth. The space under the table was filled with wolves—wolves for once silent and lamp-eyed, rather than snoring. And around that table were arrayed Isolfr, Randulfr, Brokkolfr, Vethulf, Skjaldwulf, Sokkolfr, Gunnarr, Kathlin, and Tin. Behind Tin, in the corner opposite Erik Godheofodman, was another svartalf, who was apparently making a record of their talk.

  There were chairs in place for Otter and Alfgyfa, too, which made Otter feel pride and warmth and a horrible gutted hollowness, all at once.

  The men—and Kathlin and Tin—were already engaged in soft-spoken conversation, but nodded to acknowledge the new arrivals. Alfgyfa seemed to have frozen just inside the door. Otter gave her a nudge in the direction of the seat beside her father.

  When Alfgyfa was moving, Otter twisted her hands in the apron of her overdress and took her own seat between Skjaldwulf and Sokkolfr. Sokkolfr snaked a hand out under the table and caught hers. She squeezed back gratefully and leaned in to whisper, “Is it obvious?”

  “Only to one who knows your moods,” he said. “We have two problems today—oh, Brokkolfr will speak.”

  He hushed himself as Brokkolfr leaned forward on his elbows and looked directly at Tin. “My news is not what you would have wished to hear, Mastersmith. So I shall be direct. The aettrynalfar council are unwilling
to hear your suit. They feel that the svartalfar have done them no kindnesses in the past, and they do not trust that any proposal you make will be beneficial to them. Bluntly, they do not trust you to intend good to them, rather than evil.”

  Tin, surprising Otter, took it without fuss. Her face was like a black wood sculpture chased with deep lines and inlaid with jet. Seen in profile, the angled nose stretched out before her, making a moon-arc with her chin. Her tattoos made subtle, complex curls across her face. They were not unlike the knotted borders and brooches of the long-lost land of Otter’s birth.

  Tin rustled inside her concealing robes and said, “That is as I anticipated. Will they accept me as a sole emissary, only long enough to hear and consider my suit? Or will they consider at least the possibility of trade between our alfhames, perhaps with the men of Franangford serving as intermediaries?”

  “I can ask,” Brokkolfr said dubiously.

  Tin glanced over at Alfgyfa. Otter did not think Isolfr’s daughter noticed the flicker of attention when it fell on her, because Alfgyfa was frowning at the thumbnails of her interlaced hands.

  Tin said, “I will speak freely here. Master Galfenol, Journeyman Idocrase, and I have come for more reasons than a pleasant family visit.”

  “Shocking,” Vethulf murmured, only just loud enough to be heard.

  Tin shot him a look, but it was a tolerant one. She continued, “This affects us all. You—men and wolves of Franangford—know that your wolfsprechend and I have not always had an easy time of it creating and maintaining the alliance between our people.”

  “That,” Isolfr said, after a considering pause, “is something of an understatement.”

  Vethulf snorted. But when everyone looked at him, he raised the palm of his hand and held his peace.

  Skjaldwulf straightened his bony shoulders and said, “You want to bring the aettrynalfar into the alliance?”