Icefall

by Matthew J. Kirby

  “What cave?” I ask again.

  Per turns to Raudi. “Are you better trained with a sword or a spear?”

  Raudi stands up tall, and I notice how much he has grown. He stares at Per. He doesn’t blink, and he doesn’t answer, and I know he is afraid. He is too young to fight, but too old to admit it. My heart falls at the thought of anything happening to him.

  “Spear,” he finally says.

  Per nods, but then Bera comes out of the hall shaking her head. “Asa won’t come.”

  Ole curses, and Bera takes my arm. “Solveig, you need to go in and get your sister.”

  I shake my head. “I don’t think she’ll listen to me.”

  “You must bring her,” Ole says.

  But I know Asa. I believe she does have some love for me in her heart. She used to show it, and I miss her affection, the bond we shared. But she grew distant in the months before coming here, and now she doesn’t speak to me at all. Yet I nod to Bera and agree to try to talk with her.

  “Good girl,” Bera says. “We’ll wait for you, but be quick.”

  Ole points up into the mountains. “The cave’s a place where we can hide you. It’s up the ravine, at the base of the glacier.”

  “I’ll hurry,” I say, and run inside the hall.

  Asa sits on the ground near the hearth, her legs bent, head resting on her knees. I approach her with as much gentleness in my voice as I can, but the urgency in my arms and my legs makes it difficult.

  “Sister,” I say. “We must go.”

  She says nothing.

  “Asa, please. They are waiting.”

  “Leave without me,” she says.

  She must know how ridiculous that sounds. “You know we can’t do that. I won’t do that.” I sit down on the ground next to her.

  She turns on me. “Leave!”

  Her eyes are wide with anger, more emotion than I have seen from her in weeks, and it surprises me into a moment of silence. Then I whisper, “No. We all go together.”

  She looks away.

  “Why will you not come?”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  I hear pain in her voice, something she is carrying inside, and it hurts me that she hasn’t felt able to share it. “It matters to me. It matters to Harald. He needs you.”

  She looks into my eyes. Hers are cold, watery, and empty, like an ice cave in the spring.

  I stand and offer my hand. “I need you. Please come, Asa.”

  She stares at my hand for a moment, and then she takes it.

  I sigh in relief, then lift her to her feet, and we walk from the hall leaning against each other. Out in the yard, the mood has changed. No one is running about, and everyone watches the gate.

  “We can leave now,” I say to Ole.

  “It’s too late,” he says.

  I hear voices outside the safety of the steading, and heavy marching. Per stands on the wall, and a moment later he looks down at Asa. In his face, in the creases around his eyes, there are signs of fear, the first I have ever seen in him. And that causes a different kind of chill. He leaps down from the wall.

  “Who is out there?” I ask Ole, but the old man ignores me.

  The noises grow louder and closer. I hear coughing, deep rumbling voices.

  Per positions himself before the gate. He stands tall, hands behind his back. “Open,” he commands.

  Egill and Gunnarr look at each other, and then follow the order. They lift the bar and pull the doors wide. I hold my breath for a moment, craning my neck to see what waits on the other side.

  A moment later, an army of bears and wolves marches through the open gate. Berserkers. The sight of them hollows out my stomach with dread and weakens my legs. They are Odin’s men. Warriors who refuse armor and go to battle wearing animal skins. Men who fight in a rage with the strength of wild boars, feeling neither fire nor blade. They are all of them giants, the shortest standing almost a head taller than Per. They are my father’s personal guard, and they terrify me. They are too untamed and unpredictable. Their presence here is almost as frightening to me as the thought of my father’s enemies.

  They come forward into the yard as a wall of pelts and beards, axes and shields, but Per stands his ground before them.

  “Halt,” he says, and they do.

  One of them steps forward. He wears the fur of an enormous brown bear, the snarling maw over the warrior’s head like a helmet. His chest is broad and covered with gray hair, and there is a scar down one of his arms. Across his back is a heavy war hammer I doubt I could even lift. He speaks, and his words tumble like falling boulders.

  “Greetings to you, Per.”

  “Greetings, Hake,” Per says.

  The mountain nods. “The king has sent us to guard his heir.”

  Everyone turns to look at Harald.

  Per clears his throat. “We do not have enough provisions for you and your men. We were not expecting —”

  “We have brought food. And supplies,” the berserker says.

  Per is silent. He does not blink, and then he swallows. “The hall is not large enough —”

  “It will do.”

  “We do not need you to protect the king’s son.”

  “You refuse us?” Hake takes another step forward. “Who are you?” He looks over Per’s head at all of us standing back. “We are staying. By my king’s order.”

  “So you say,” Per says, “but I am the one who —”

  “If I may,” someone says from behind the berserkers. The giants look down as Alric, my father’s skald, slides out from among them. Per appears surprised, as am I, to see Alric with them. The skald is the poet of the living past, bearer of our ancestors’ history, their tales of sacrifice and valor. He approaches the two men, and Hake narrows his eyes.

  “I believe, Captain,” Alric says, “that Per would simply like some assurance that the presence of your warriors will not disrupt this steading. And, Per, it would be wise to acknowledge the authority of your king’s war chief.”

  Alric looks back and forth between them, the expression on his face mild and unconcerned. He is a small man, with a sharp black beard and hair cropped short. Light snow floats around and between the three of them.

  “What are you doing here, Alric?” Per asks.

  “The king ordered me here.”

  Hake grunts. “Liar. Coward. You asked to come, even though your place is at your king’s side. It is where we all should be, fighting the warlord, Gunnlaug.”

  Beside me, Raudi swallows.

  Alric shrugs. “Can your sword grant immortality? Because my voice can. You would defend the king’s body, an honorable endeavor, but I would defend his legend. Which do you think will outlast the other, Captain?”

  Hake stares and says nothing.

  “What I do,” Alric says, “I do best when my body still has breath.”

  Per regards the skald and then turns to Hake. “Welcome, Captain. I’m sure the king’s heir will feel much safer knowing your warriors are here to protect him.”

  And what about protecting Asa? And me? Do we not matter to these men? Are we not also in danger?

  Hake nods. “We will not be a strain or burden. The king sent enough food with us to last this steading through the winter and beyond.”

  “Let us hope we will not be here beyond winter,” Ole says to me.

  But now I chew my lip and worry over new thoughts. Why would Father send unnecessary provisions when he needs every resource for his war? And why would he send his most feared and trusted warriors here to protect Harald when he needs them on the battlefield?

  It seems there is something my father fears even more. A danger coming our way, though no one has yet spoken of it. Instead of reassuring me, the presence of these berserkers has brought on an even greater apprehension of what’s to come.

  The evening is spent unloading the ship. Bera stands with her hands on her hips, pointing and ordering, empress of her larder. When the ship’s hold is empty, we all reti
re to the hall for a feast. And unlike meals during the past several weeks, there is plenty of food. The berserkers brought with them pork, salted and smoked; dried stockfish; and a few chickens for fresh eggs. The grain and flour sacks are free of weevils, and there are several pots of amber honey, which might as well be gold for the way Harald’s eyes widen when he sees them. But most important, they brought two cows and plenty of hay, so we’ll have milk for cheese and skyr, and beef if it becomes necessary to slaughter them.

  The crowded hall is filled with smoke, the sour smells of sweat and wet fur, the flicker and shadow of firelight. The berserkers laugh and curse and brag and challenge one another with tongues drowned in mead.

  Per, Egill, and Gunnarr do not join them, but stay with the rest of us in a corner of the room. Asa and I huddle together like rabbits, wary of these wolfish invaders. Even Harald is quiet.

  Alric moves among the newcomers. He pats their backs and tries to jest with them, but gets scowls in return, and through it all he smiles. Then he moves toward us. Ole slides down his bench to make room, and Alric gives him a grateful nod and sits next to him.

  The skald leans forward, hands on his knees. “The price of an army, I suppose, is living with it when you’re not at war.”

  “But we are at war,” Bera says.

  “Not here,” Alric says. “The war cannot reach you here, which is why the king chose it.”

  “If it cannot reach us here, then why send Hake with his men?” Bera asks.

  I listen for the answer.

  Alric rubs his chin. “An abundance of caution.”

  I raise an eyebrow at that. My father is not given to anxiety or fears that have no basis. He often seems without emotion at all. When he acts, it is with deliberation and purpose.

  “How fares the king?” Ole asks.

  “Very well, the last I saw him. Towering as a tree, strong as a rushing river, with eyes of the raven from which no man can hide.” Alric pauses. “But the outcome is far from certain.”

  “Far be it from me to complain,” Bera says, “but I notice the king didn’t send along another cook. Who is it that’ll be feeding all these men?”

  Alric nods. “They do eat prodigiously.” He leans toward Bera with a conspiratorial hand in front of his mouth. “But I doubt they would notice if you were to simply serve them their food raw.”

  A crash causes me to jump. Nearby, one of the berserkers has fallen from his bench. The men around him laugh and point at him, and as he gets to his feet, he swings his fist at one of them, which knocks him off balance and to the floor again. This time, he stays there.

  Alric laughs out loud, but none of us do.

  The skald notices and drops his gaze to the floor. “I have been too long with these men, I think.”

  But I think it would not matter how long he spent with anyone. The skald seems able to reshape himself into whatever form he wishes. A flattering tongue and a storyteller’s flair might mold him to his audience’s desires, but I wonder what is there when the audience has left? Does he have a true form underneath all his layers?

  Alric is looking at me. I smile and nod, and he lifts his cup toward me.

  I want to go to bed, but the berserkers do not. And the night is long.

  I wake in the dark to the sound of bleating and a man cursing. I leave the bedcloset and peer out into the hall, where lumps of sleeping warriors cluster around the hearth in the middle of the room. I squint in the dim ember-light and see two glowing eyes peering back at me.

  “What’s that goat doing in here?” one of the lumps asks.

  Hilda bleats again.

  “Shh,” I say to her, and she comes toward me. Even though she has the two cows for company in the shed now, she has grown used to sleeping in the hall with us. But these new men are strange to her, and since she cannot sleep inside the bedcloset with Asa and me, I settle her down near my door where she will be out of the way. “Good night,” I say to her and climb back into bed. I pull the door closed and fall asleep to the sound of the glacier groaning above us.

  There are men everywhere.

  A week ago, in the span of a single day, our steading went from a household to a garrison. It doesn’t help that the fjord has finally frozen over, and we are sealed in with them. There are twenty. Twelve wolves and eight bears, and all of them rough and wild. I do not care to learn their names, and they barely look at me. Perhaps, like Raudi, they resent being sent to a prison when they have done nothing wrong. Well, I resent them, too.

  No matter where I go, they are there. Standing at the cliff. Snoring in the hall. Laughing in the yard. They cease speaking with one another when they see me and resume when I move on. I feel unwelcome in a place that is already unwelcoming enough.

  I decide to go down to the shore to see if I can find a moment of solitude there, and leave through the gates. The path descends a steep hill through a grove of tall pines. The sweet spice of their fragrance clears my head. We have had our first snowfall, and the trees look black against the fresh white. The snow crunches and creaks under my feet.

  The drekar has been dragged up on the shore, a feat I can believe of the berserkers. If it had been left in the water, the movement of the ice over the course of winter would have crushed it. The dragon head at the tall prow snarls down at me, and I look away from it.

  “An impressive ship, yes?”

  I turn, and Alric is sitting on a rock behind me. I can’t help but feel nervous around him. He speaks too carefully, his words too well-chosen, and so I never know what he’s really thinking.

  “Yes, it is impressive,” I say. “Now I think I know what the Irish feel when they see our people on the horizon, come to invade.”

  Alric has his mouth open to say something, but doesn’t for a moment. “Indeed.”

  I won’t find peace down here with Alric around, so I start for the path.

  “Wait, Solveig,” Alric says. “Can we talk?”

  I have nowhere I truly want to go and can think of no reason to offer for leaving. “I suppose.” I sit next to him on a log polished smooth by the sand and the waves, and stare out over the fjord turned still and white between the steep mountains on either side.

  “Have you noticed that ice is the only thing that can tame the sea?” Alric asks.

  “Perhaps. But is it truly tamed if you can’t see what’s going on under the surface?”

  Alric has his mouth open again, the same speechless expression. “Indeed.”

  It is an odd thing to be by the water, and yet hear nothing. An occasional crackle, the wind, and that is all.

  “I watch you, you know,” Alric says. “As you watch others.”

  I keep my eyes on the ice and squirm a little at the thought of his eyes on me when I wasn’t aware of it.

  “You are very observant, Solveig. And you are intelligent. You would make a fine skald.”

  That turns my head. “What?”

  Alric holds up two fingers. “Memory and sight are all that is required. Memory and sight. Everything beyond that, a pretty voice and commanding visage, is honey for the curd.”

  “Sight?” I ask.

  “Yes. A skald must watch people. You must recognize the changes in their mood before they become of aware of it themselves. Your father is angry for a day before he ever raises his voice.”

  “How can you know?” I ask.

  “He walks around with his right hand in a fist, as if he holds his sword.”

  I think about that for a moment, and then I widen my eyes in surprise. “You’re right.”

  “When you know what to look for in your audience, you know what is required. The moment may call for you to entertain, to flatter, to reverence, to encourage, or to soothe. So long as you have learned and can recall the appropriate story, song, or poem, you can deliver it.” Again he holds up two fingers. “Memory and sight.”

  “And you think I have them?”

  He nods. “I do.”

  I swell a little at his praise, though i
t is tempered by the fact of who it comes from. But I realize I have always liked telling stories. To Harald mostly, and I used to tell stories to Raudi when we were younger. But I never thought of it as being like a skald. My stories have always been light and silly things, a way to fill the cold, long spaces of winter. “Are there many women skalds?”

  “Not many, but there are some.”

  “My father would never allow it.”

  “Why not? What other purpose does he have for you?”

  I snap my gaze back out over the fjord. So still, on the surface.

  “I don’t know,” I say.

  In the weeks before slaughtering season, when the whole kingdom took stock of grain and counted flocks and heads of cattle, my uncle, whom I had never met, came to stay.

  It was a time of reunion, with feasting and drinking, a time to make men laugh and render Alric’s voice raw. My father brought us forth, his children, to boast and proclaim his good fortune. But I held back among the shadows and watched.

  “Here is my son, Harald,” said Father. “You’ll not find a more spirited boy in any hall.”

  You were but three winters old, Harald. You bent and pulled on the tail of one of the hunting dogs. The hound got up to move away, and you, giggling, tumbled after it. Father and his brother both laughed.

  “And this,” said Father, “is my daughter Asa.”

  “She is beautiful,” said our uncle. “Much like her mother.”

  “Very much like,” said Father. “It is a source of comfort to me in my grief to see my wife live on through her.”

  He sat back down then, having forgotten me.

  My uncle looked around. “Do you not have another daughter?”

  “Oh. Yes, I do,” said Father. “Solveig. The quiet one. Where is she?” And he searched the room until he found me hiding. He pulled me forward and placed me before my uncle. “Say hello, Solveig.”

  “Hello, Uncle,” I said.

  He nodded to me, and smiled on me with pity. Then he turned to Father. “Well, at least when she speaks, she has a pleasant voice.”

  My father sighed. “At least she has that.”