The Tempering of Men

by Elizabeth Bear

  Some time later, Brokkolfr and Amma both became aware of a stranger approaching. Amma went from asleep to standing up with no transition. Brokkolfr stood more slowly. He knew he was staring, but he couldn’t help it. The man approaching was not only a stranger but the strangest stranger Brokkolfr had ever seen.

  He was tall and broad, balding except for a gray fringe. Brokkolfr had never seen a wolfcarl so old, and it was obvious this was no wolfcarl. Over his tunic and leggings he wore a caftan that came to his boot tops but left his arms bare. Those arms were blue from knuckles to shoulder with tattoos, and a copper medallion stamped with the intricately decorated image of a sow swung on a leather cord about his neck.

  He stopped a polite distance from Brokkolfr, shifting from side to side as if to ease sore feet. “Hail,” he said. “I am Freyvithr, servant of Freya. Is this the Franangford Wolfheall?”

  From the way he was eyeing Amma, he knew it was. A prickle of something uncomfortable shivered along Brokkolfr’s spine. He knew about monasteries, although there were none within less than a fortnight’s travel of any wolfheall. In the south, there were many strangenessess—isolated farms and crofts, halls where godsmen congregated, places where people did nothing but trade and teach. Not just bondi—tradesmen—and their apprentices, but whole heallan devoted to craft. In the north, one did not group men together except to fight or for self-defense.

  Although that, too, might be changing. Brokkolfr was no wolfsprechend, not like Isolfr, but no one in Franangford could have avoided hearing the ongoing, sometimes bitter, discussion between wolfjarls and wolfsprechend, and every visitor the heall had, about what the wolfheallan would do now that all the trolls were gone. Even men who wanted to think no further than their next meal, or their next fight, knew there was something to worry about.

  “Aye,” Brokkolfr said, “it is. I am Brokkolfr Ammasbrother.” And he tilted his head to let the monk know that the great shaggy creature beside him was Amma. “Can we help you?”

  “She’ll not eat me, then?” Freyvithr said, with a quirk of his eyebrow to let Brokkolfr know it was a joke.

  But a joke, Brokkolfr reckoned, with some genuine disquiet behind it. If the wolfheallan did not see monks, it was just as sure that the monasteries did not see trellwolves. And Isolfr was vehement about the need to teach wolfless men the ways of wolves—that trellwolves were no threat to anyone who did not mean harm to them or their brothers. “Amma? No, if she slays you, it will be with kisses. Offer your hand, as you would to a dog.”

  “Or a pony,” Freyvithr muttered, but he extended his hand, and Amma went forward happily to snuffle and then lick it. Wet wool and old blood, she told Brokkolfr, and he felt it go into the pack-sense as Freyvithr, accepting that the fell beast before him would not take his hand off at the elbow, began to rub her ears.

  “She may knock you down unmeaning,” Brokkolfr warned him. “She’s young yet and doesn’t fully know how big she is. But she means no harm.”

  “I can see that,” Freyvithr said, smiling under his beard.

  Wool and blood? Curiosity in the pack-sense, and odd-eyed Kjaran appeared between the tents on the other side of the courtyard, quickly followed by Kothran and Hroi, because Viradechtis was away from her den and her mate and shieldbrothers were her eyes in her absence. Freyvithr noticed and glanced at Brokkolfr.

  Brokkolfr shrugged. “They want to know what’s going on.”

  “Am I so interesting?”

  “You’re a stranger, and a wolfless man. We don’t see very many such.”

  “Ah,” said Freyvithr, and Amma nudged him to keep rubbing. “I suppose you wouldn’t.”

  Inevitably, the wolves’ curiosity had drawn the men as well. Vethulf strode past his brother, his eyebrows going up as he took in the scene. “Hail, traveler,” he said. “I am Vethulf Kjaransbrother, wolfjarl of Franangford.”

  “Freyvithr, servant of Freya. I had been told the wolfjarl was named Skjaldwulf?” Freyvithr said.

  Brokkolfr winced, but for once Vethulf did not hackle.

  “It is confusing,” he agreed. “There are two of us, Skjaldwulf and myself, and our wolfsprechend, Isolfr.”

  “Ah,” said Freyvithr. “Then I am in the right place. It is your wolfsprechend I have come to speak to.” When Vethulf made a spooling gesture in the air, as if drawing the words off a spindle, the monk continued. “Word has reached Hergilsberg that Isolfr Ice-mad claims he has been spoken to by the lady I serve.”

  “Isolfr Viradechtisbrother,” Vethulf said, “has gone with his wolf to practice hunting with her litter.”

  “She is supposed to have come to him in a dream,” Freyvithr said, a little dreamy himself. “In a dream!”

  Vethulf looked at Brokkolfr. You’re a bitch’s brother. You think of something.

  Brokkolfr looked back. Yes, because I proved just how much that means when Othinnsaesc fell and I saved only the barest scrap of the threat. You’re the wolfjarl. You do it.

  But Vethulf was about as suited to politics with wolfless men as he was to flying. Brokkolfr sighed and pushed a few scraggling strands of black hair out of his eyes. He would have to get one of the women to wash and rebraid it; it was too fine ever to stay plaited for long.

  “Come with me,” he said to Freyvithr. “I’ll show you where you can stow your bag and take you to the sauna. When you’re clean, we can track down the kitchen-mistress and find out what she has on which to feed you.”

  “I’m grateful,” the godsman said, hefting his pack. From his expression, Brokkolfr believed it—though whether for being welcomed or for not being fed to the wolves was a different question.

  * * *

  There were not many wolfcarls in the half-built bluestone halls of Franangford, with their flags not yet worn smooth under the rushes. Maybe thirty of the threat-that-had-been, plus Isolfr and his wolfjarls and his shieldbrothers, a few wolves from Nithogsfjoll like Ingrun and Glaedir who had preferred their chances of advancement under Viradechtis to the established structure of the old pack. And then the odds and ends, wolves and wolf-brothers who had chosen to follow Kjaran or Mar from Arakensberg or Nithogsfjoll, a single wolf here and there from other heallan who had made the same choice for reasons that his brother might or might not understand. And Brokkolfr, traded from Othinnsaesc like an extra daughter sent for fostering.

  Not that he would not have begged to go, away from the rubble and ashes and memories of failure. Away from all the empty places in the pack-sense where his shieldbrothers had been. Away from the dreams. But it had not been necessary. His wolfsprechend had been kind, had asked him if he minded, but Brokkolfr had known that it wouldn’t have mattered if he did mind. Othinnsaesc wanted one of Viradechtis’ daughters; it did not want a bitch who was remarkable only for her complete lack of ambition.

  That evening, after dinner, he watched Isolfr sit between his wolfjarls, his gaze on his hands, while Freyvithr recounted all the news and gossip from the south—as any traveler would, in return for the heall’s hospitality. And Brokkolfr watched from his place along one of the half-empty trestles and told himself, Be glad of it. See what greatness does to Isolfr and be glad you have it not.

  Isolfr looked tired and unhappy, a pinched line between his eyebrows that had nothing to do with the scars from the trellqueen he had slain. He nodded when the godsman addressed him directly, and he picked at the food on the trencher he shared with Vethulf Viper-tongue and Skjaldwulf Snow-soft, but Brokkolfr could not miss that most of the food that found his hand made its way under the table to Viradechtis. Or that Isolfr cast more than one longing glance down the table to his shieldmates, the bond-pairs who had come with him from Nithogsfjoll—gray solid old Hroi and the Stone Sokkolfr, fleet pale Kothran and Frithulf with his fire-scarred face. Randulfr caught Brokkolfr’s eye, and they exchanged the same helpless look they’d been exchanging for months.

  No one in Franangford would accuse Isolfr of deliberate malice, Brokkolfr thought. Not after what he had done against the tr
olls. And those of the old Franangfordthreat, Ulfmundr and his scarred wolf Hlothor, Herrolfr and snake-fast Stigandr their leaders, were so grateful to have a konigenwolf, to be a threat still instead of divided among the other heallan, that they would not speak—or hear—a word against their wolfsprechend.

  But they could resent the former Nithogsfjollthreat and the favor those men found in Isolfr’s eyes.

  Isolfr knew it, Brokkolfr thought—although as brother of Franangford’s third bitch, Brokkolfr lacked both the status and the nerve to breach his cold-eyed wolfsprechend’s silence. But Isolfr was better with wolves than with men; Brokkolfr was awake enough to the pack-sense to feel Isolfr’s unease with men who were strangers to him, his even greater unease with men who thought him a hero.

  And for most of the new Franangfordthreat, that was all they knew. Isolfr Ice-mad, slayer of trellqueens. And so Isolfr, already carrying a heavy burden as wolfsprechend of a new wolfthreat and a new wolfheall, retreated to the men he knew, to Sokkolfr and Frithulf, who had known him before Viradechtis was more than a squirming pup, to Skjaldwulf and Vethulf, who knew him in the deep multilayered bond that Viradechtis had made between her brother and her consorts and their brothers.

  Brokkolfr also knew that he and Randulfr should be doing something, but Randulfr, though friends with every man in the heall, had no taste for leadership, and Brokkolfr himself knew he had no skill for it. He had proved that at Othinnsaesc, when he saved so few from the fire and the trolls. If he had been a true leader, like Isolfr or Skjaldwulf or even sharp-tongued Vethulf, there would not have been so many deaths. With that knowledge heavy about him, Brokkolfr did nothing, fearing that anything he did would only make matters worse.

  And so the conversation faltered on for some time, and Freyvithr—something of a spinner of tales—seemed content to talk about everything except how he had come some thousand miles by longship and shank’s mare to Franangford, of all the Hel-spawned places.

  But travelers did not come to the heall, not without wolves, and finally Isolfr Ice-mad looked up and caught Freyvithr’s eye. The godsman fell silent, and the wolfsprechend said, “I do not understand what you want of me.”

  The godsman rocked back on his heels and folded his ink-marked arms across the breadth of his chest. “I wish to speak with you about your dreams, wolfsprechend,” he said. “Because your adventures are the stuff of sagas. And as I am a follower of Freya, and she sent your dreams and spae unto you, it should be in her house that the memories of your exploits are kept.”

  “My exploits?” Isolfr’s mouth quirked bitterly. “You should ask Skjaldwulf, not me. He is our teller of tales.”

  “But I do not wish the tale,” Freyvithr said patiently. “Tales I may hear anywhere. Only from you can I hear the truth.”

  Isolfr seemed to stiffen, and Viradechtis emerged suddenly from beneath the table. She was the largest wolf in the heall, daughter of Nithogsfjoll’s immense Skald, and although Freyvithr did not flinch, he became wary. She gave him a deceptively lazy sideways look and then butted her brother solidly in the shoulder with a deep grumble that made the werthreat laugh; even Isolfr managed a real smile.

  “My sister,” he started to say to the godsman, but at that moment conversation became impossible, as Viradechtis’ adolescent pups realized their mother was awake and leaped on her, barking at the top of their still shrill puppy voices. There were five pups. Amma adored them, and they her. So Brokkolfr could even tell apart the twin dogs black as Mar, Letta and Lofi. There was also the massive brindle, Ottarr; and two bitches, a rarity in any trellwolf litter: tawny Geirve, odd-eyed like Kjaran, and storm-gray Signy, already a konigenwolf and fearlessly ready to prove it against any wolf in the threat.

  Freyvithr threw his hands up in mock surrender. “I know when I am bested,” he said, pitching his voice to carry over the din. “But I hope you will speak with me later, wolfsprechend. In Freya’s honor, if for no other reason.”

  Isolfr hunched his shoulder in something that could have been either agreement or refusal as his sister and her pups and her consorts herded him out of the great hall. Skjaldwulf and Vethulf looked doubtfully at each other; then Vethulf followed Isolfr, and Skjaldwulf moved to sit next to Freyvithr. Doubtless collecting the tales Freyvithr had spoken of, Brokkolfr thought.

  While other men left the great hall, Brokkolfr toyed with the remains of his dinner. No mere longhouse-and-kitchen, when it was complete the new wolfheall at Franangford would boast a courtyard surrounded on the other three sides by dormitories, workshops, and galleries. All were already ringed by a palisade that also enbailed the kitchens, stables, smokehouse, well, and granaries. There would have been a motte and keep, one day, but the earthworks were still under construction. And might now never be finished, given that peace had broken out.

  Brokkolfr poked his trencher with the knife one last time before a thrall came to clear his leavings for alms. He stood, realizing that he was almost the last one in the hall. Some wolfcarls undoubtedly took their wolves to hunt in the lengthening evening; others might seek work, play at arms, or women.

  As for Brokkolfr, he decided the best thing he could do with himself was sit in the sauna and boil some of this prickly restlessness out of his brain. Amma followed him—which surprised him less when he found Hrafn lying mournfully beside the sauna door.

  Gray-masked black Hrafn had been born a wild wolf; he had found his bond-brother Kari mostly by accident in the aftermath of the sack of Jorhus. They had joined the Franangfordthreat before the old konigenwolf had been killed, but they remained here because of Isolfr. Kari had been with Isolfr when Isolfr slew the trellqueen in the Iskryne—the story Freyvithr Godsman had come to collect.

  Grateful that he would not have to build the fire and heat the stones himself, Brokkolfr nevertheless wondered if Kari was in hiding. Hrafn lifted his head, ears pricked, his tail thumping the boards twice in greeting as Amma flopped down beside him. Brokkolfr shed his clothes and untied his straggling braids, then pushed aside the first of two hanging blankets to enter the sauna.

  “Has the godsman given up, then?” Kari asked as Brokkolfr stepped into bone-deep warmth. Kari was a slight man, wiry and scarred, his yellow-brown beard still ragged as a youth’s.

  “For tonight. That one, I think, does not give up easily.” Brokkolfr hesitated, but Kari waved him over amiably. They were close to the same age—and Amma liked Hrafn. Brokkolfr settled on a sharp-smelling cedar log, his shoulders against warm stone, and cupped a hand across his mouth and nose so he could breathe the cooler air it caught. Water beaded on his face as Kari reached forward and switched soaked spruce branches across the coals. Steam billowed up, and Brokkolfr reached for a scraper. He checked the edge for nicks that could draw blood.

  Kari leaned back, body slack in the heat, licking at beads of sweat and condensation. Brokkolfr stood into dizzying heat and dragged the horn edge of the scraper down his chest, watching as a week’s soot and grit peeled away with the sweat. He flicked the scraper clean and started under his chin once more.

  He almost opened his mouth to say, You and Frithulf went to the Iskryne with him. Do you understand him? And was stupidly grateful that Kari spoke first, before he could make a fool of himself by prying into another man’s business. “We haven’t any shortage of candidates for this litter,” the wildling said. “And the next will be spoiled for choice. But that won’t last more than a couple of summers.”

  Brokkolfr hung the scraper carefully. “What do you mean?”

  Kari’s torso swelled and shrank with deep, slow breaths. He spoke between them. “This year, we’re heroes. We saved all the northlands. We’ll eat well and have all the women we want. Boys will compete to come be wolfcarls—at least they will once there’s food in from the fields, and the memories of the deaths is a little further off, and until then we have wolf-widows to spare. But in two summers’ time, or come a lean winter—gratitude is soon forgotten. And the werthreats will die away and the wolves will go wildi
ng. And why should they not? With the trolls gone, what need is there of the Wolfmaegth?”

  Brokkolfr sat again heavily. The steam lessened, and he took his turn with the branches. It had the sound of something Kari had been thinking about for a long time. “Of course, you’ve spoken of this to the wolfsprechend.”

  Kari shrugged heavily. “To the wolfjarl.”

  Which one? Brokkolfr wondered. “I’m more worried that there will be a need for us.”

  Kari slitted one eye, a pale glimmer behind his lashes. Brokkolfr knew it for encouragement.

  “Isolfr Viradechtisbrother is the treaty with the svartalfar,” Brokkolfr said. “When the ice pushes them out of the Iskryne, like it pushed the trolls before them, and when Isolfr is gone—what then?”

  There was a long pause. Kari sighed and let his eye fall shut again. “Skjaldwulf has thought of that, I’m sure.”

  Yes, Brokkolfr did not say. But has he thought of an answer?

  FOUR

  “You were hardly hospitable to him, were you?” Vethulf said as mildly as he knew how. Isolfr’s head was bent over one of the pups—who was at last tired enough to lie still and be checked for ticks—and his long blond braids shielded his face very well, but Vethulf was becoming something of an expert on Isolfr’s shoulders. Those shoulders said he didn’t want to talk about the godsman, or anything else, and in fact wished Vethulf would go away.

  Sorry to disappoint, Vethulf thought, and settled his own shoulders more comfortably against the door frame. Viradechtis leaning against one leg and Kjaran flopped across his feet told him he was right. Vethulf counted beats of his heart and was at nine when Isolfr’s well-studied shoulders slumped and he muttered, “Hospitality surely doesn’t mean I have to take my heart out of my chest to show him.”

  “Is that what he’s asking you to do?” Vethulf said. “I only heard him asking about a dream.”

  That got him a glare. “Would you feel the same if it were your dreams he wanted to hear?”