Icefall

by Matthew J. Kirby

  “Why did you keep silent?”

  She frowns. “When?”

  “When Hake accused Bera. You said nothing in her defense.”

  “How do you know she didn’t do it?”

  “What?” I sit up in bed. “How can you say that?”

  “You never know what a person is capable of, Solveig. Who knows what’s in Bera’s heart?”

  There is something wrong in her voice. I hear it now that I have learned how to lie. But even though the story I told tonight may not have been true, I didn’t tell it to deceive. Not like Asa’s words.

  “You’re right.” I lie back down. “You never know what a person is capable of.”

  “Exactly.”

  “I would never have thought Per capable of such cowardice.”

  She is silent. I refuse to look at her.

  “Per is no coward.” Her voice is hard.

  “He did nothing to defend Bera, either. He wanted to, but he was afraid to stand up to Hake.”

  “He wasn’t afraid.”

  “Yes, he was. And you were angry with him for it. I saw you.”

  She turns away from me. “That’s not what I was angry about.”

  “Then what were you angry about?”

  “Good night, Solveig.”

  The next day, I go to my thrall. He is sleeping, and I sit beside him to help him eat some oats that Bera has mashed and thinned to a slurry. But when I touch him, he is cold. Rigid. I drop the bowl and scurry backward.

  “What is it?” Bera asks from nearby.

  I say nothing, simply stare at his face. The corners of his mouth are still smiling.

  Bera sweeps over to me. She bends and touches the back of her hand to his cheek. Then she closes her eyes and bows her head. “I’m sorry, child.”

  “He’s dead?” I ask.

  “Yes. I’ll get Hake and Per to take him out.”

  She leaves me with him. I stare, wanting to run, but also feel the urge to touch him again, touch his cheek the way Bera did. To feel the absence of whatever it is that once made him alive. Instead, I take a deep breath and cover his face with the blanket, and I cry over him until Hake and Per come to carry him away.

  This time, I follow them out of the hall, across the yard, and into the shed. They lay him on the ground, their breath-clouds above him as though his spirit is lingering over his body. There are two in here now. Two dead warriors. How many more will die?

  “I’ll be right back,” Hake says. Per and I wait without speaking.

  When the berserker captain returns, he is carrying the sword he took from the thrall three nights ago. Hake kneels and places the weapon on the body. Then he folds the man’s arms across his chest, over the hilt.

  Hake stands and turns to Per and me. Then he is gone.

  Per clears his throat. “I’m sorry.”

  “About what?” I ask.

  He sighs. “Everything. This is not how I … I have not fulfilled my duty to protect you.”

  “Nor my sister.”

  “Solveig, believe me when I tell you that I have done nothing that would dishonor her. But I respect you too much to lie to you. Yes, I love her. I loved her even before we came here. I have done many things out of love for her.”

  The way he says it needles me with a painful doubt. My throat is dry as I ask, “Have you been my friend out of love for her? Just because I’m her sister?”

  “What?” He holds up his hands. “No, no. I am your friend because I admire you. Surely you know that.”

  I bow my head. I want to believe him. I want to see him as I used to, but it is difficult to forget the ways he has disappointed me.

  “Solveig, I —”

  Hake walks back through the door. “Come, Per.” He frowns. “Another has died.”

  Per closes his eyes, defeated. “Who?”

  “One of your men. The wounded one, Egill.”

  Per places a hand on my shoulder. “We must finish talking later.”

  I nod, and he nods, and he and Hake leave. I look around me. In my mind, I see a cowshed full of bodies. Bodies covering the frozen ground, bodies stacked beside and on top of one another. And in that moment, I know that my stories cannot heal, or create, or shape. They are nothing more than words, dead as soon as they’re born, lost as soon as I’ve spoken them. I don’t feel powerful anymore. I feel weak.

  On my way across the yard, I see Hake and Per coming toward me, death-laden. I step aside and let them pass. They make the trip many times through the evening and night. Five before I go to sleep, and then the hall doors open four times during the night, waking me. By morning, there are only nine berserkers still living, and Gunnarr. But we lose him right after we have served the morning meal.

  I sit on a bench with my bowl, the cold contents uneaten, watching them take the body out. Five more soon follow. Later in the day, Ole comes over. He sits next to me and works over the same fishing net he already repaired.

  “You’re a compassionate person, Solveig.”

  I don’t respond. Not because I don’t want to, I just can’t think of what to say.

  Ole leans back. “I think that’s what makes you such a good skald.”

  “I’m not a skald.”

  “Do you want to be?”

  “I think I do.”

  “It seems a hard life.”

  I hadn’t really thought about that before. For the first time, I imagine myself walking the cold and lonely roads from one hall to the next, trying to find a patron and lord. If I’m lucky, a chieftain will keep me on, the way my father has done with Alric. Would my father want me as his skald? And what would happen to Alric?

  “Would you give up your royal life to tell stories?” Ole asks.

  It is a hard question. Telling stories has made me prouder of myself than I have ever been. When I stand up there before the hall with a tale on my lips, I am someone important, and I have something to offer.

  But then I think of all the bodies in the shed. In the lowest of times, as we are now, of what value are all these stories? Are they even worth the sacrifice if they do nothing in the end?

  “I don’t know,” I say.

  Ole nods. He looks around the room, and I do the same.

  Bera and Raudi are sitting on a bench, mother and son. Harald is sleeping, his head in Asa’s lap, perhaps a sign that our older sister is returning to us. Hake crouches in a corner, and I think I hear him crying. Can that be?

  “It’s like the shock after a battle,” Ole says. “And it isn’t over. I fear the worst has yet to fall upon us.”

  “How could it get worse?” I ask.

  He looks at his netting.

  “You were a warrior,” I say, “before you became a thrall. Have you been in many battles?”

  “Many.” His jaw clenches. “But that was another life.”

  Alric approaches us. “Solveig, come with me a moment.” He takes the bowl from my hands and sets it aside. Then he helps me up and leads me off to the edge of the room. “They need a story,” he says.

  I blink at him. “Now?” A story seems so pointless in this devastation.

  “Yes. They need another story from you.”

  “They died.”

  “What?”

  “They died!”

  Alric flinches from me.

  I point at the hall doors through which the eighteen bodies have been carried. “My story did nothing!”

  “I do not think it did nothing.”

  “But it didn’t save them. What good is it?”

  “You brought them peace.”

  “Only for a moment.”

  “When you are in pain, a moment is an eternity.”

  “And when that moment is over, what then?” I am crying now.

  “You tell another story. You fill the moments with them.”

  Endless stories for endless suffering. It feels hopeless to me. “I can’t.”

  Alric looks around the room. “Then I will.”

  When the summer was still
new, trailing cold mornings, Per and Raudi began sparring in the yard. Raudi, you held your spear as if it might somehow turn in your hands and stab you, and Per, you were perhaps a little too rough with him, in the beginning. I know that is the way of things. Boys must become men, but I winced each time you knocked my friend to the ground.

  But each time you said, “Again,” and helped him back up.

  Did you both know I watched you? I watched as you hardened, Raudi, and as you, Per, shaped the form he would settle into.

  I was watching that day when you began to cry, Raudi. Do you remember that? I do not mean to embarrass you. But I saw you drop your weapon and slump to the ground. I wanted to run to you to find out what was wrong. But by that time you and I weren’t speaking much. So I waited, and watched.

  I expected you to berate him, Per. I expected you to curse, and yank him to his feet. To beat the tears out of him.

  But you didn’t.

  You knelt down beside him, put your hand on his shoulder, and you spoke to him. I admired you so much for that. I was too far away to hear what was said, and I don’t want you to tell me now, Raudi. But whatever it was, it helped you.

  You rose to your feet, gripped your spear tighter, and said, “Again.”

  CHAPTER 13

  THAW

  Alric strides to the hearth and stands up tall. He lifts his arms before the fire. “Hear me,” he says. “Listen.” He doesn’t say it loudly. But there is weight in his voice, a force that pulls us to him and binds us there. An iron anchor. When all our eyes are on him, he begins.

  “It has been foretold by the seers of old that the day will come when brothers will fight and kill each other, when war will reign and all loyalties will be forsaken. An axe age. A sword age when shields are riven. A wind age and a wolf age before the Breaking of the World. The great serpent will writhe, sending the oceans surging beyond their bounds, and the mountains will tremble and fall, releasing the giant wolf, Fenrir.”

  I wonder why he has picked this story. Our steading is besieged. We are weak and demoralized, and he speaks to us of the end of the world? I grow angry at him.

  “And Fenrir will devour the sun and the moon. The stars will fall, and the earth will burn with a fire to touch the heavens. Odin will die in battle with Fenrir. The serpent will rise to do battle with Thor, and the Thunderer shall fall as the floods cover the land. And after the gods meet their doom, and all have drowned and perished, the earth-sea will remain in darkness for a time.”

  I want to stand up, to ask Alric what he means by this. Why is he telling us this? But before I can, his voice and demeanor change.

  “But from this great darkness,” he says, “a brilliant new sun will shine, and the skies will clear. The waves will sparkle and peel away from a rising land. Earth shall emerge from the sea, fertile and renewed, and on this land, the surviving gods will gather to create the world again. Mankind will not be lost. New children shall be born. New fields shall be sown and harvested. Skyr and cheese shall be made, ale shall be drunk, marriages performed, kings crowned, the seasons shall pass as they always have. For even though the world may break, and all shall despair at what they’ve lost, life will always return.”

  He bows his head.

  And I feel hope. I mourn for what is lost, for those berserkers who have died or may yet die, but I await that which will come. I search the faces of those around me, my siblings, Raudi and Bera, and Per, and I see that they feel the same. Their tear-washed eyes shine.

  When his story is finished, we do not applaud. We sigh. Alric sits down on a nearby bench, sagging like an exhausted farmer come in from a day of threshing in the field. I move over to him.

  “Can I get you anything?”

  “A drink.”

  I ladle him some water from a bucket of melting snow. He drinks it down, and some trickles into his beard.

  “That was a wonderful story,” I say.

  He smiles. “Thank you.”

  “I don’t know how you found the strength.”

  “You have it, too.”

  I refill his mug, and he gulps it. “Do you know why I told that story?”

  I stop to think. What had the story done for me? “Maybe if people can’t have an end to their suffering, the next thing they seek for is to know why they suffer. Suffering is a part of life in this world, part of a cycle.”

  He closes his eyes. “Stories give you a way to see things. A way to understand the events of your life. Even if you don’t realize it while you’re hearing the tale.”

  The evening passes, and no one else dies. We all take our hope to our beds with us, and though we are still in danger, we sleep a little better. That hope lingers through the night, like the warm fragrance of woodsmoke, and I begin to believe in the power of stories again. It is a different power than I imagined.

  Until now, I thought only of what stories could do in their moment. I was the ploughman, turning the hearts of my audience like soil, thinking I could bend the earth to my will. But stories have a quieter and more subtle power than that. Now I see that I am also the ploughman’s wife walking behind him, dropping seeds into the earth, leaving them to grow in meaning. I realize that every story I have ever heard is a part of me, deeply rooted, whispering behind my thoughts.

  But suspicion lingers there, as well, and fear that the traitor will soon strike again.

  In the morning, we find all of the remaining berserkers alive. I begin to think the poison has worked its way through the men and claimed all the warriors it can, and the rest will be spared. But though they live, they are still not well, and require tending.

  Bera sets me to washing their soiled bedding and clothes. I fill a basin with snow and leave it by the fire to melt and warm before scrubbing the filth from the fabric. When the water is brown, and the laundry is as clean as I can get it, I hang the articles from the rafters. Ole helps me to reach the higher beams.

  “I have an answer for you,” I say.

  “An answer to what?”

  “You asked if I would give up my life to be a skald.”

  “And?”

  “I would.”

  He stops what he’s doing. “Do you truly mean that?”

  “I do.”

  “Then listen to me, Solveig.” His voice changes, hardens. “You must remember what you’ve just told me. Don’t ever forget that you spoke those words, and that you meant them.”

  “But why?”

  “In life, the hardest decisions often have to be made more than once. But each time, it gets easier. Will you remember?”

  My mind is reeling. Is he referring to the time when I will have to ask my father? “I will remember,” I whisper

  He softens. “Good. Now help me with this sheet.”

  We finish, and I take a moment to rest. While the linens are wet, I can see the glow of the hearthfire through them and the shadows of people passing by. But as the laundry dries, it clouds over. There seemed to be something more behind what Ole said to me. What difficult decisions has he had to make more than once?

  The day passes, and Per and Hake never have to make the long journey to the shed. The hope from Alric’s tale combined with these signs of recovery eases some of our despair. Though the mood in the hall is still tense, and we are all wary of one another, there is occasional laughter now. And Harald is hanging about Hake again. The berserker captain is letting my brother attempt to lift his war hammer. I think my brother would struggle with the haft by itself, let alone the anvil of a head at the top. Harald strains and Hake chuckles.

  I walk over to them. “You almost have it, Harald.”

  “I don’t think so,” Harald says through his teeth.

  “One day soon,” Hake says, “little prince.”

  Harald gives up with a gasp and stares at the hammer on the ground. “I am little.”

  Hake picks up the weapon with one hand. “But you are fierce.”

  “And brave,” I say.

  “Yes,” Harald says, out of breat
h. He nods to himself, and then he walks away.

  I turn to Hake. “Thank you for humoring him.”

  “He’s a good boy. Strong-willed. He’ll make a fine king.”

  His statement reminds me of my father, and I worry for his safety. If there is an assassin among us, then might there also be one near him? “I hope things are going well back home.”

  Hake lets the head of the hammer slide to the ground and leans on the handle as though it’s a walking stick. “I wish that I were by your father’s side. Not trapped in this frozen place. But do not trouble yourself with these thoughts. Your father is a fearless warrior and a great strategist. He knows how to win wars. You’ll see when we return home that everything is well.”

  “When we return home,” I say, both fearing and hoping for that day.

  “Yes.”

  “And what of Bera? When we return home.”

  Hake runs his hand over his head. “That is something else.”

  “She didn’t do it. I know you know it.”

  “Yes.” He sighs. “I know she didn’t do it. I was mad with rage.”

  “If she didn’t, then who did?”

  “I don’t know.” He looks over his shoulder. “It is hard to think that any of them are capable of it. Perhaps the meat had turned after all.” But he sounds doubtful.

  I, too, would like to think it was bad meat, but there is something telling me that isn’t so. A feeling like a beehive in my stomach. I know what I saw in my dream. What I saw was no accident, and neither are the frozen bodies out in the cowshed. Someone has been trying to weaken our steading by robbing us of our food and our warriors. Some enemy who shares our hearthfire. Perhaps even the berserker captain standing before me.

  A wolf come ravening.

  That evening, I seek out Raudi. His mood has slipped back into a dark place since the night Hake accused Bera of poisoning the men. But I think I can lift his spirits if I reassure him that Hake no longer suspects his mother.

  “I’m glad,” he says, his voice flat. “Thanks.”

  “I thought you would be relieved,” I say.

  “Well, Hake already talked to me about it. He apologized.”

  “Oh.”

  “But thank you.”

  But this raises a new question. “Then what’s been bothering you?”