Her eyes met Mary′s single one, and they nodded slightly. The man curled in the shadow of the rock was unmoving, and snow had collected on his thin sparse beard. Edain came in from the other direction, and waved them forward.
″Garbh found his back track,″ he said. ″Only one, and hours old. Blood spoor, too.″ He looked down at the corpse and pointed a toe.
″Arrow,″ he said succinctly.
The fletching had broken off, and a stub of it stood from the body′s ribs, two hands down from the left armpit and a third of the way in towards his spine.
Ritva nodded. ″Someone got him while he ran. And he kept going longer than I′d have expected, with that in him.″
People did, sometimes, when great need or a very strong will drove them. She and Mary dragged the man into the light. The body was slight, less than their own weight; a very young man, just old enough to raise a brown peach fuzz of beard, and long in the legs. Even beneath the winter gear his gawky coltishness was obvious. The open eyes were hazel. Ritva paused to close them, before she continued her examination.
Poor lad, she thought, with the slightly abstract pity you felt towards an unlucky stranger. You didn′t get many years, did you? But Earth must be fed, soon or late. Dread Lord, be kind; Lady Mother-of-All, comfort him. Return him from the Halls of Mandos to a better fate.
″He′s been here a while, but he only died a little while ago,″ she said. ″See, he′s not very stiff yet. Blood on his face and under this leather armor—″
Ritva rubbed some between thumb and finger, before she scrubbed with snow and put her glove back on:
″Some has dried, but some of it′s still tacky. The arrow nicked a lung, I′d say.″
Asgerd spoke, alarmed: ″That′s a war sark of the kind they make at Kalksthorpe! He′s a Norrheimer, but not a Bjorning. He must be one of Kalk′s folk. But I′ve never seen an arrow like that. It′s some sort of cane, not ash or cedar.″
″The unfortunate fellow was headed out of Kalksthorpe, and kept going as long as he could though he must have known he was dying, the sorrow and black pity of it,″ Edain said thoughtfully.
Asgerd pointed north and west. ″There′s a steading that way. About ten miles. We didn′t go near it but anyone coming inland without supplies would head there first. Or if he bore a word of war for others to spread.″
″Rudi needs to know about this,″ Ritva said with conviction. ″Now.″
″Yes, yes, I′m ready,″ Heidhveig said. ″But—″
Rudi looked at her with concern; the journey had been hard on her, despite taking it by easy stages and the well-made sled, and her getting the indoor bed when they stopped at some lonely farmstead. Her wrinkled face was a little gray, though she′d made no complaints.
Sure, and I′ve gotten well used to traveling only with those young and very strong, he thought. Even armies would have trouble matching the pace we′ve often set. And I need her to talk to this Kalk.
″But it′s odd . . . someone should have met us by now,″ she went on. ″There are always hunters out, and winter is the best time for traveling.″
His glance turned keen, but she shrugged beneath the bearskin rug. ″No, no, nothing definite. Just a feeling.″
Thorlind paused: ″She doesn′t just have feelings!″
″My thoughts exactly, good lady,″ Rudi said.
She′s a fussbudget, is Thorlind, he thought silently, while most of his mind mulled distances and numbers. But a fussbudget of considerable wit. And no mean worker of her craft, either.
Thorlind pulled a precious pre-Change thermos out of a box beneath the driver′s seat of the sled and poured steaming hot rosehip tea into a cup. Heidhveig took it meekly, which made him a little more worried about the old Norrheimer seeress, but there was a prickle down his spine that hinted at more immediate problems.
I haven′t seen my unfriend Graber of late, nor the red-robe. Too much to hope for that they both drowned when the ice broke. I don′t see how they could know where I was heading, much less get there first . . . but then, they′ve done things I don′t understand before.
Rudi′s head went up and down the trail of sleds. The little portable stove on one was smoking beneath a cauldron. The Bjornings made endless pots of stew in early winter, boiling it thick and then freezing it in blocks to store in their cold pantries. The travelers had brought a good many of those bricks along from Ericksgarth; it meant a great saving in time and effort since you need only throw in some snow for extra water and put the pot over the fire until it was hot enough to be served.
Virginia oversaw the distribution of the results today. Rudi accepted a bowl, a spoon and a slab of rye bread, stale but with some sharp hard yellow cheese melted onto it. The stew was ground moosemeat again, with potatoes and peas and onions and carrots and turnip in it too, plain food but good fuel for the furnace. He′d put far worse things past his lips at need.
″I′ll be glad to get out of these trees,″ the woman from Wyoming said, and looked around with a slight shiver. ″Gol-durn, but it′s bleak country here!″
Rudi nodded gravely, though he had a flash of what it had been like in the Valley of the Sun amidst the Tetons last winter. It would be worse out on the High Plains, in the Powder River country where the Skywater Ranch of the Kane family had been before the armies of the Prophet overran them. There a wind could travel a thousand miles without a wood to break the hard teeth of it; they called that a lazy wind, too idle to go around a man—so it went right through like a spear instead. Riding after herds in a blizzard there . . . the very thought was enough to make a man′s stones ache and his nose feel frostbite. Not to mention that the commonest fuel in those parts was dried cowpats.
It′s all where you′re raised, I suppose, he thought. I don′t think it′s the cold that oppresses you, Virginia, but the strangeness.
Then he looked around at dark pines, pale snow, leafless maple and birch, low clouds the color of frosted lead. And remembered blossoming orchards below Mt. Hood, with drifts of cherry pink and apple-blossom white flying free amid a scent to make a man drunk; or lying in a clover mead near Dun Juniper with the bees humming beneath a sky of cloudless blue so deep a man could lose his soul in it and the High Cascades hovering on the horizon like banners of green topped with silver; or riding across the Horse Heaven Hills with the sun on his back and mustang herds running with the wind in their manes . . .
No doubt this place had its own loveliness; even now there was a stern majesty to it. He′d never seen it in the short bright nights of its summertime, or the quick flowering spring, or the gold and scarlet beauty of its fall plumage. Still and all—
″I′m tired of this,″ Mathilda said quietly from beside him. ″I want to go home. I want to be home. I want to be at a garden masque in Castle Todenangst and bored out of my mind.″
Rudi′s mouth quirked. ″And it′s precisely my thought you′ve just given voice,″ he said. ″Though I might call it sitting in judgment at Dun Juniper, listening to a pair of stubborn crofters quarreling over a cow until I yearned to smack their thick skulls together. Yet then again, a chuisle mo chroi, darling treasure of my heart, where you are, home is. For there my heart dwells.″
A brilliant smile rewarded him, the smile that turned her strong face beautiful for an instant.
Heidhveig gave a slight snort, and Rudi pulled out a map Bjarni Eriksson had given him and spread it before her, a new one on fine white calfskin parchment, but based on an ancient guide for wayfarers called Rand Mc-Nally . He thought the blue and scarlet and golden border of writhing dragons and curl-tusked trolls was probably modern work, along with the bearded faces puffing wind from the corners. The trail they were following came down from a lake—frozen now—and debouched onto the shore where Kalksthorpe stood, its little harbor sheltered by a nook of land.
″Robbinston,″ he murmured, reading the other name in brackets below Kalksthorpe.
Heidhveig nodded, revived by the drink and hot food. ″That was
the name before Kalk′s folk came . . . myself among them. Right after the Change; we knew we had to leave Houlton. All my family and friends I′d talked into coming east, and Kalk′s followers, and a bunch of others who thought we knew what we were doing. There was this barge full of canned goods—″
It′s natural for the old to dwell on the past, Rudi thought.
Her finger traced their path. The low hills gave way to flat land along the water′s edge; it was where the St. Croix—what the Norrheim folk called the Greyflood—gave out onto the ocean; sheltered still, but easy of access, and with islands and a rugged coast of fiords to the southward.
″The land is mostly cleared back a mile from the palisade,″ the seeress said. ″There are mills outside, here and here, and timber yards. Not much farmed land, just enough for summer pasture and truck gardens. The thorpe′s food mostly comes from the sea, and in trade down the river and from inland.″
Rudi was about to reply when one of the sentries sounded an alarm. They all looked up as the twins came gliding in on their skis, with Asgerd and Edain behind. His teeth showed a little at the sight of a man′s body slung over the younger Mackenzie′s back.
″We found him in the woods. Not long dead, and from his back trail, he came up from the place we′re going,″ Edain said, laying the man down. ″Arrow in the lung; he kept going until he couldn′t, then lay down and died.″
″He was trying to make Erling Jimsson′s steading, I think,″ Asgerd put in. ″It′s the closest.″
Thorlind made a sound.
″Olaf!″
She went to her knees beside the young man as she came up and saw his face. She took the stiffening body in her arms, holding the boy′s head against her shoulder, rocking him. Her voice was naked:
″Oh, Olaf, Olaf!″
Heidhveig pushed herself erect, leaning on her staff.
″I know him,″ she said quietly to Rudi, underneath the muted sounds of her pupil′s grief. ″He′s her nephew Olaf Knutsson, her younger sister′s son and Kalk′s oldest great-grandson, just fourteen. Something terrible must be happening at Kalksthorpe. He is . . . was . . . a very swift runner, for a boy. They sent him for help, but someone shot him on the way.″
Rudi nodded. ″I′m sorry if we′ve brought ill luck upon your folk,″ he said.
Thorlind looked up. ″You haven′t. Whoever′s attacked us has. If you owe me anything—″
″That I do, lady, and freely I acknowledge it.″
″Then give me blood for my blood! I will raise a nithing-staff and curse whoever did this, but I need a sword to do the work.″
″I will that,″ Rudi said gently. ″By the Morrigú I swear, and by Macha and Badb Catha, and by the greater One that the Three make.″
Then his voice went hard and brisk. ″We need a scouting mission. I′ll lead it.″
Ingolf cocked a brow. ″That′s grunt′s work,″ he said bluntly. ″Your more-balls-than-brains Majesty,″ he added, with a dry tinge to his voice. ″Grunts can be idiots. They mostly just get themselves killed. Bossmen . . . Kings . . . can′t afford to be stupid. Your life isn′t your own to throw away anymore.″
Rudi looked at him. It was on the tip of his tongue to say if I′m the King, I give the orders. But . . .
But nobody is less able to indulge a whim than a ruler, if he wants to be a good one. Ingolf has the right of it.
He sighed. ″You′ve talked me into letting someone else do the work, you silver-tongued bastard of a man. I can deny you nothin′.″
Then he looked about. ″Mary, Ritva, you′re going. And Edain. Are any of you Bjornings familiar with the land here? Fighters only,″ he added.
The Norrheimers looked at each other. A few raised hands uncertainly. Asgerd cleared her throat.
″I′ve come here six times . . . no, seven, but I was a little girl the first time. My father brings hides and wool and butter after the first hard snow to trade for cloth and tools and stockfish. We stay a week or two, and I know the neighborhood a little.″
Rudi flicked his eyes quickly to Edain and his half sisters. They all nodded, quick slight jerks of the chin.
″Good, you′re the fourth,″ he said aloud. ″You′re also the youngest and least, and don′t forget it. Get me what I need to know, Edain, then get back, and quickly. The rest of us will move forward, but slow and cautious. We′ll sprint the last bit, I expect.″
″I wish we had our destriers,″ Odard said.
Rudi grinned. ″I doubt there′s room for a charge of knights here, my lord Gervais. Now, Asgerd, show me on the map how we can approach. I′m thinking the main trail is a bad idea the now, until we know exactly who it is has come calling at Kalksthorpe.″
″Be patient with them, Jawara,″ Abdou said.
He hunched his shoulders against the cold wind off the sea, and even more against the itching feeling of being immobilized here ashore while his ships swung at anchor. The sea was his element; this continent was alien and hostile. He liked feeling that way. It kept you alive.
″Supposedly they′re some sort of Muslims,″ he went on.
Abdou al-Naari was a tall lean man in his thirties, with skin the color of old saddle leather, part-owner and captain for his kin-corporation of the corsair schooner Bou el-Mogdad, named after a fabulous ship of the ancient world. His subordinate Jawara was shorter, a little younger than his thirty-six, thicker-built and ebony black, with three scars like chevrons on each cheek; he had named her sister ship Gisandu—Shark.
Jawara looked over at the men they were now allied with, the core of disciplined ones in the reddish-brown armor with the rayed sun sign on their chests and the rabble of savages around them. When he spat, it was for the benefit of both groups; and perhaps also for the man in the green robe and turban who was standing and talking with them. In the old days that dress would have meant he was a hadji, one who′d made the pilgrimage to Mecca. A few men bold enough or mad enough or lucky enough or all three had made the journey across the length of the Sahel and the Red Sea since the Change and found nothing human left in the Holy City except dry gnawed bones. Now the green cloth merely meant a pilgrimage to Touba, where Cheik Bamba of the Mouride Brotherhood had dwelt.
Jawara′s voice held a sneer as eloquent as the gobbet of spittle:
″If they′re Muslims, I′m the Emir—and I′m not freezing my balls off here. I′m sitting in my palace at Dakar, sipping coffee and smoking good khif this very moment under a screen grown with jasmine, while pretty girls bring me plates of cheb-ou-jen with yète.″
Abdou spat himself, and shivered as it froze on the ground with a slight audible crackle. The thought of good hot coffee and some decent food was enough to make him want to howl. They were both bundled in furs and wool over their armor, and the wind off the estuary was still enough to make a man feel as if he was walking about while three days dead. Gray sky, gray water, dun-colored patches of rock, dark green pine, pale snow; it was all calculated to convince you that you′d become a ghost without noticing it.
The memory of mangroves alive with brightly colored birds beneath cerulean skies, of blue, blue breakers turning to white foam as they went crashing on silver sands beneath rustling palms seemed infinitely distant. He was hungry for it, the sights and the warmth and the very smell of smoked fish and onions and tomatoes cooking in peanut oil.
″The Marabout says they are believers,″ Abdou said. ″And he′s supposed to be a very holy man.″
″If he′s a holy man, I′m not the Emir. I′m his third wife,″ Jawara said.
Abdou grinned. ″I thought you were his catamite with a bottom sweet as a ripe mango?″ he said innocently.
Jawara made an obscene gesture at him, and they both laughed. Abdou did have his own doubts about the Marabout. Supposedly he was in favor with the new Grand Khalif of the Mourides, and the captain had welcomed him along on this venture when he turned up asking for a place—it reassured the men and made them feel God′s blessing to have a cleric around.
&n
bsp; He himself wasn′t so sure. His own family were of the older Tidjiane brotherhood anyway, not the Mouride. And he was an educated man, literate in Wolof and in his native Hassaniya dialect and in the classical Arabic of the Holy Book, and even a little in Française, the dead kufr language of the sciences; also he spoke enough English for trade and war. He′d spent time at the Emir′s court, as well, and he inclined to orthodoxy. The brotherhood founded by Cheik Bamba had been powerful in his land for a very long time and more so since the Change, but the reverence the Mourides paid to their hereditary religious leaders struck him as little short of sherk, idolatry.
What need of intermediaries? There is the word of God, and God; that is enough for a believer. But you had better not say that where one of the Mourides can hear you, especially if it′s a Baye Fall madman.
There were two of them always with the Marabout, wild-looking men with their hair in plaits and great brass-bound ebony clubs in their hands. Both loomed like giants, and Abdou was not a small man.
And . . . how did he know where to find these so-called Muslims? It was as if they were waiting for him here on this begotten-of-Shaitan wilderness shore.
″Well, at least the plunder should be good,″ Jawara said, working his hands in his gloves; one dropped caressingly to the pearl-encrusted hilt of his scimitar. ″This nest of pagans has been scouring the God-smitten cities on these coasts longer than we have. And they make some very clever things themselves.″
″And they′re a nuisance when they clash with our people,″ Abdou said. ″Yes, we′ll probably get a richer cargo than we could scavenging the ruins ourselves. But I hate losing good men getting it. This will cost us more than fighting a few ignorant cannibal savages in the dead lands. These Norrheimers may be pagans, but they know too cursed much how to make good armor and war engines and fight in ranks, for instance. Bad as fighting the Ashanti.″
The Sword of the Lady Page 50
