Corpse in the Mead Hall

by Cate Martin

  "Does it matter?" I asked.

  "The other hunting spots tend to get more game," Kara said, her voice as inflectionless as ever. But there was longing in her eyes as she watched Thorge and his hunting party take a northern path out of the clearing. He looked back, saw her watching, and raised a hand in farewell. But she just looked away without responding.

  "This is the best place for Ingrid's first day," Thorbjorn said. "She can get some target practice in before going on a proper hunt." It was only slightly obvious that he was putting a good face on it. I knew he wanted to have a proper hunt today as well. And I was afraid the others had probably assigned locations while he was talking to me.

  As if I didn't feel bad enough, Haraldr's words came back to me, about how I would have little time for rune work, if more than I would claim later. I had responsibilities beyond providing the village with meat.

  "But tomorrow I'm staying here," I reminded Thorbjorn in a low whisper after the others had started towards the southern path.

  "Of course," he said. "But the day after tomorrow, we're going north. And I'm sure you can take a break or two from your magical work to shoot a few targets here at the lodge tomorrow."

  After nearly an hour's worth of walking, we reached the trunk of a massive tree with wide, level branches. Beyond the tree was an open meadow that dipped down below the small hill the tree stood on. Nilda, Kara, Roarr and Sigvin dropped their day packs against the trunk of that tree, then spread out to take positions under the cover of the trees and leafless undergrowth.

  But Thorbjorn tugged my sleeve, and after dropping our packs, we continued on around the meadow to a smaller clearing. Then he handed me Roarr's bow and quickly went over the fundamentals.

  The bow that looked so tiny in Thorbjorn's hands became suddenly massive when I was holding it. It took all my strength to pull back the string, and my arms trembled too much for me to take any time at all aiming it.

  I hit the target more than I expected to, but it was extremely tiring. By the time we joined the others back at the tree for a quick lunch, my shoulders were already aching.

  And by the time we got back to the lodge that afternoon, my whole back was stiff and sore. I regretted every time I had laughed at the commercials for training equipment made to replicate pulling back on a bow. Sure, that equipment looked flimsy, but the real thing? I doubted even rowing on the Viking ship out on the lake would be more of a workout.

  As tired as I was, the others were not in much better spirits. All we had to show for our first day out in the woods were three rabbits that Kara had snared. They'd be added to the stew pot back at the lodge rather than dried and stored for the rest of the year. Fresh meat was always nice to have, but taking down a rabbit was never going to be a tale for around the fire.

  We reached the clearing just as the western group was also returning. Raggi and Báfurr each had a deer slung on their backs, and three of the Freyas rushed towards the open doors of the lodge to tell those inside all about it.

  I was really going to have to make a point of telling the sisters apart. From a distance, they were just a blur of long blonde hair, bluish-green eyes and sturdy bodies, but I was sure they were no more alike in personality than Thorbjorn and his four brothers were to each other.

  Nilda and Kara took the rabbits to the kitchen to butcher them for the pot, and Roarr and Sigvin went to help the other hunting party hang the deer in the shed on the far side of the clearing. I could see other deer already hanging from the rafters through the open doors, but even if the doors had been closed, I would know the other hunts had been successful.

  The coppery smell of fresh blood was almost overwhelming.

  "Ingrid?" Thorbjorn said to me. "Are you all right?"

  "I'm fine," I said. My voice came out all nasal, on account of trying very hard not to breathe through my nose. "I'm not going in there," I added, nodding towards the shed.

  "No, we have nothing to take in there yet," he agreed, although he sounded regretful of that fact. "But what do you want to do first?" he asked.

  "What do you mean?" I felt like I could collapse on my bedroll and sleep for a million years, but I doubted that was an option.

  "Talk to my mother about the stories? Or do that protective spell you mentioned? Do you have to be outside for that?"

  I'd have to raise my arms for that, which didn't feel like something I could do. But that worried line was back between his eyebrows. He wanted to help me with something, if only I would give him a task.

  "I'll do that before I go to sleep," I said as we walked into the lodge together. The fire was almost too hot now that the weather had turned warmer, and I was in no hurry to get closer to it. I looked around at the scattered groups of people throughout the hall, and my eyes fell on Gunna and Jóra hard at work in the kitchen. "And your mother looks like she's got her hands full with dinner. No time for stories, but I'll catch a moment with her tomorrow."

  "So what then?" he asked.

  I looked around the lodge and saw the three Freyas who had been with Raggi and Báfurr sitting together at one of the tables, already drinking ale from huge mugs. Their conversation had reached a lull, but I could see from their rosy cheeks and smiling faces that this was no awkward silence. They would be chatting again the minute any of them started a sentence, and would be laughing together a heartbeat after that.

  "How about you properly introduce me to your cousins?" I asked.

  "Certainly," he said with a grin and led the way towards their table.

  I followed behind, stuffing my hat and mittens into my parka pockets before taking it off and putting that wool scarf down one sleeve. I tossed the whole thing towards my art bag against the wall as we walked past it.

  Then I fluffed up my hat hair as best I could and put on my brightest smile of greeting as I quickened my steps to catch up with Thorbjorn.

  It was time to make some friends.

  8

  "Cousins," Thorbjorn said when he had reached their table, and all three of the youngest Freyas looked up at the two of us with wide smiles. "May I present Villmark's newest volva, Ingrid? And Ingrid, this is Freylaug, Freygunnar and Frigg, the youngest of my cousins."

  Like the Thors, they all had strawberry blonde hair and blue-green eyes. Unlike the Thors, they weren't working to differentiate themselves by any prominent choice of weapons. It was going to take a bit of work to remember who was who.

  Luckily, as an artist, I had an eye for detail.

  "Freylaug," I said to the first young woman. She had the widest smile of the three of them, and her hair was left loose, wildly tangled and yet somehow still attractively arranged.

  "Freygunnar," I said to the second. She had her hair in a thick braid down her back, not a single strand out of place, and had a quieter energy than her sisters. She wasn't wearing glasses, but she felt like the sort of girl who would favor something horn-rimmed, or possibly even cats-eyed if she did.

  "And Frigg," I finished. Frigg was the youngest of the sisters, with her hair in two braids that she then pulled back and fastened on the top of her head, leaving loops around her ears. She looked like she was just out of high school, with a little lingering teen-aged awkwardness.

  "Good to meet you, Ingrid," Freylaug said. "Ale?"

  "None for me, thanks," I said. I seriously doubted I could heft one of those mugs. Reaching a hand up to brush back my hair was almost more than I could manage.

  "Mead?" Thorbjorn offered instead. "We have some around her someplace."

  "Mother has a few bottles in her pack," Freylaug said, and started to get up from the table.

  "No, really, it's fine," I said, catching her arm to keep her from leaving. "I need to stay clear-headed."

  "Oh, right," Thorbjorn said, drawing out the words in a way that announced to everyone at the table that the two of us had some mysterious secret.

  "It's just a small bit of magic," I told them as I sat down on one of the benches. "It's part of my training. Nothing to worry
about."

  "I thought mead helped with magic?" Freygunnar said.

  "Some magic, it does. Mainly divination," I said.

  Thorbjorn started to sit down beside me, but froze halfway as his brother Thorge called out his name from the doorway.

  "Ingrid?" he said to me.

  "I'm fine. Go ahead," I said.

  The three Freyas watched him walk across the hall to join his brother. They spoke together very briefly, then disappeared outside.

  "Oh, dear. I hope this isn't a sign of trouble on the way. It's nearly sunset," I said.

  "No worries. Thormund is just over there, drinking with his father," Frigg said, pointing to a table behind me, closer to the fire. "If it was trouble, he'd be going too."

  "You're right," I said, turning to look where she had pointed. Valki and Thormund were sitting shoulder to shoulder facing the fire, not speaking to each other as they contemplated the flames but occasionally taking long sips from their mugs.

  "He sure looks out for you, doesn't he?" Freylaug asked in a teasing voice.

  "Freylaug," Freygunnar chided her. "Of course he does. He's always considered himself the chief protector of the volva. Now that isn't just Nora, it's also Ingrid here."

  "I miss Nora," Frigg said, frowning down at the ale in her mug.

  "What do you mean?" I asked. It's not like my grandmother had gone anywhere.

  "She used to be around town more," she said. "She would stop in at the school and visit with all of us students. Sometimes she'd teach us the old stories, the ones Haraldr doesn't bother with."

  "Those were always the best stories," Freygunnar agreed.

  "She stopped when I got here?" I asked.

  "No, it wasn't you," Freylaug assured me, even reaching out to squeeze my wrist. "She's been tapering off over time. We've seen less and less of her each year for years now."

  "When you've finished your training, perhaps you can take her place from time to time in that other place, and she can come back into Villmark for more than an hour or two," Frigg said hopefully.

  "I certainly hope so," I said. "At least, that's the plan."

  "Are you going to be like her, then?" Freylaug asked. Her tone was jaunty, but I sensed she was asking a more pointed question than that tone was conveying.

  "What do you mean?" I asked.

  "Are you going to be volva for us Villmarkers, but divide your time between us and the people down there?"

  I didn't know quite how to answer that. I knew the council wanted me to choose to be in Villmark full time, but I wasn't sure I could do that. I loved my Runde friends. More than that, I had grown up in that outside world. I wasn't sure I could give it up forever.

  "It's going to be years and years before Ingrid has to make that choice," Freygunnar said. She was speaking kindly, but when her sister Frigg sputtered out a laugh while taking a sip of ale, her cheeks flushed a deep crimson. "I didn't mean to say it would take you years to finish your training," she rushed to add. "Only that it will be years and years before you are the only volva. Nora will be with us for decades to come, I'm sure."

  "I hope so. I'm in no rush to make any of these big decisions," I said. "I don't understand anywhere near enough about any of it to make those choices now. But I think I could do far worse than to carry on as my grandmother has done." Those last words came out more forcefully than I had intended, especially as I had directed them at Freygunnar. Of the three of them, Freygunnar felt like she was on my side.

  Freylaug, on the other hand, kept not quite meeting my eyes. And she hadn't joined her sisters in praising my grandmother's stories.

  I felt a shadow fall over me and realized someone was standing behind me, someone who didn't feel like Thorbjorn. But before I could turn around to see who it was, he moved around the table to slide onto the bench next to Freylaug. It was Raggi. "You could certainly do far better," he said as he threw an arm around Freylaug's shoulders, then helped himself to half of the ale still in her mug.

  It took me a moment to put his words together with the last ones that had come out of my mouth. Then I felt the blood rush to my cheeks, my indignation clear to all even as I held my tongue.

  He smirked at me. Freygunnar got up to fetch him a mug of his own, then refilled all the mugs from the massive pitcher at the center of the table before sitting back down on the bench beside me. She shot me the smallest of glances, but if she meant for me to understand something in her eyes, I missed catching it.

  "I see your party had better luck than we did at the hunt," I said. There, that was nice neutral territory.

  "Raggi and Báfurr both took down a deer before we even broke for lunch," Freylaug told me. Then she gave Raggi an adoring look. "But Raggi got his first."

  "All that matters is who bags the most in the end," Báfurr said as he too joined us at the table, sliding in between Raggi and Frigg.

  "Did Roarr not shoot anything?" Freygunnar asked me.

  "No, we never saw a sign of anything except those rabbits Kara brought back," I said.

  "It's that southern meadow," Báfurr said between sips of ale. "It's too close to the edge of Villmark's hunting grounds."

  "What's beyond the edge?" I asked. I was imagining trolls or even giants hunting the game before the Villmarkers got here. But the dark scowl that appeared on first Báfurr's and then Raggi's faces told me a different tale. "Oh. The modern world," I guessed.

  "Don't use that word," Frigg said.

  "What word?" I asked.

  "Modern," Freygunnar said to me. "Time has passed here the same as it has out there. We are no less modern than the world where you came from."

  "I suppose that's true," I said. "But you've kept more of your old ways than most."

  "By design," Raggi said. "By deliberate choice. And we shall continue to do so."

  "Oh, let's not argue," Freylaug said. Then she stood up to refill his and Báfurr's ales. Which didn't seem to me to be the optimal way to bypass arguments, but I said nothing.

  Raggi and Báfurr started debating the best place to start hunting the next day, and Frigg and Freylaug joined in with opinions of their own. None of the places or methods of tracking meant anything to me, although I could tell that the Freyas knew as much about it as the men did. And yet I had seen none of them carrying bows when they left this morning or when they had returned.

  I was still puzzling out what that might mean when Freygunnar beside me sucked in a quick breath. It was a small sound, and when I glanced over at her, she was blushing again.

  "Sorry, It's just, there's Roarr," she said, making the smallest of gestures with her chin towards where Roarr was coming in through the open doors. He was hunched over, hands deep in his pockets. I had no idea if that had always been his posture, but it was certainly what I had associated with him in the short time I'd known him. Like he carried an enormous weight everywhere he went.

  But all the time I had known him had been after the murder of his fiancée.

  "And Sigvin," Freygunnar added, considerably less excited to see her. I looked again towards the door. Roarr was clearly waiting for Sigvin to reach his side, then the two together crossed the hall to a table closer to the fire.

  They looked for all the world like two people, both heading to the same destination that just happened to find themselves walking side by side, then sitting on the same bench. They didn't talk or even look at each other. Two people getting off a jet at the airport then heading to the same Starbucks to wait for their connecting flight to board showed more camaraderie.

  And yet, from the look on Freygunnar's face, she was completely heartbroken.

  "They aren't a couple," I told her.

  "Really?" she asked too eagerly. "They've been together since they got here, so I thought maybe I'd already missed my chance."

  "No, they're definitely not together like that," I said. "But I have to tell you, I don't see Roarr being with anyone else for a long, long time. He's still not come to terms with losing his fiancée, Lisa. Did you k
now her?"

  "No," she said. "We five don't mix with anyone from Runde. We don't even mix with the crowd that mixes with the people from Runde. I'm sorry; I hope I don't sound judgmental. I'm sure Nilda and Kara are good people. When we were all kids playing together, they were great friends of ours. But, you know, trying to mix our two societies is a recipe for trouble. Like what happened to Roarr."

  "What happened to Roarr wasn't caused by anyone in Runde," I said.

  "On the face of it, no. But if he hadn't fallen in love with a Runde girl, would he be grieving now?"

  "Probably," I said. I knew my tone was harsh, unkind even. And defending Roarr was not something I'd ever thought I'd be doing. But the truth was the truth. "Halldis would've killed any rival for his affections. If it had been a Villmark girl, it would've likely just been easier."

  "His Runde girl was going to take him away from here. That's why she died," Freygunnar said.

  I opened my mouth to argue, then closed it without saying a word.

  I was here to make friends.

  But they weren't making it easy, were they?

  "It's clear you care about Roarr," Freygunnar said, sending my brain into another overload of fighting off the urge to argue that that was certainly not the case. But she just kept talking. "I know he'll be grieving for some time. But it doesn't matter. I'm in no hurry. I can wait."

  Then she turned away from me, directing her attention back to the conversation happening on the other side of the table. I had less interest in that than ever and got up from the bench.

  I hovered in the middle of the hall for a moment, not sure where I wanted to go. Thorbjorn was still outside with his brother, and the kitchen was crowded with Gunna, Jóra, and the two oldest Freyas hustling through the last of the meal preparation. The smell of roasting potatoes hit me, and my stomach cried out for food with a rumbling roar.

  Then suddenly I was being steered across the room, Nilda holding one of my elbows and Kara the other. The next thing I knew I was sitting at the same table as Roarr and Sigvin, and Nilda and Kara were slamming down frothing mugs they had been carrying in their free hands.