Catherine Fisher - Snow-Walker

They watched him stand in front of the fire, his clothes steaming.

Thorkil glanced at Jessa. “Look,” he said. “Are we prisoners here? Can we go anywhere we want to?”

Brochael gave a gruff laugh. “We’re all prisoners, lad, but I’m not your keeper, if that’s what you mean. But there’s not much to see here. Empty rooms and snow.”

He watched them for a moment, and they waited for some word of Kari, some warning of one door not to be opened, one corridor not to be explored. But all he said was “This was a palace once, centuries ago. They say a troll king built it of unhewn stone, and the great road that led up here too. Perhaps the world was warmer in those days.”

He turned and began banking up the fire. Jessa couldn’t wait any longer. “What about Kari?”

“Kari’s here,” he said, without turning. “But you won’t see him.”

Afterward they put on coats and went outside. The sky was iron gray; a stiff wind cut into them down the side of the fell. On the white slope they could see the frozen tracks of Helgi’s horses, climbing up into the fringe of trees. And all around, like a white jagged crown, were the mountains.

One courtyard at the back of the building had been swept clear of snow; in the center was a deep well, with faint steam rising from it. As they gazed down they felt warmth on their faces. Thorkil dropped a stone in. “A hot spring. Now that’s useful.”

They tugged open doors and gazed into stables and barns and byres. Everything was held in a web of ice, glistening with a faint film of soot, as if the entire hold had once had its roofs burned. There were no animals, not even a trace of them, but in one storehouse they found a few casks of dried apples and nuts, some cheese, and two hares hanging next to a row of smoked fish. Thorkil looked up at them.

“Fish! But where’s the lake? Where are the fruit trees? Under the snow? I tell you what, Jessa, they should have starved here a long time ago. That’s why she sent them here. And yet somehow they’re getting this food.” He put a finger inside the silver ring on his wrist and eased it around. “Someone must be bringing it.”

Then they went into the hold itself, down a long corridor paved with stone and frost. Icicles hung from every lintel and sill. There were stairs leading up; they led to more corridors and passages, and empty rooms where the wind blew in through the bare windows.

Passing one room, Jessa stopped. This one was very small and dark, with a narrow window opposite the door, through which the gray daylight fell like a wand on the floor.

Something about the window puzzled her. Thorkil was far ahead, rummaging in an old rotting chest, so she stepped in and crossed the floor. Then she put her hand up to the window and touched it.

Glass!

She had only seen it before in tiny pieces, polished, in jewelry; never like this in a thick slab. Brushing the frost from it, she took her glove off and felt the surface, saw the trapped bubbles of air deep inside.

“Jessa?” Thorkil called.

“I’m in here.”

She put her eye to the glass and looked through it. There was a courtyard below her, with trampled snow. A movement caught her eye; someone was walking through the clutter of buildings. Someone smaller than Brochael. As she tried to see, the shape warped and bent in the thick glass, slid into queer contortions. She stepped back suddenly. Had that been Kari?

“What are you looking at?” Thorkil was at her elbow.

“Quick! There’s something out there!”

He looked out, blocking the light with his hands.

“Can you see him?” Jessa asked impatiently.

He shrugged. “Maybe. For a second I thought there was something. Just a flicker.” He looked at her. “Was it Kari?”

“I don’t know. Someone small … it was all bent and twisted.”

They were silent. Then Thorkil said bleakly, “I think I’d rather know than wonder like this.”

That evening, sewing a tear in her sleeve, Jessa said quietly, “How did you know we were coming?”

Brochael looked up from the fire, his face flushed with heat. “My business.” He stirred the oatmeal calmly.

“Someone came before us?” Thorkil ventured.

Brochael grinned. “If you say so. I just knew, that’s all. Ragnar sent you here because of your fathers. His idea of a pleasant exile. And to deliver his guilty little message.”

“Did you know,” Jessa said, biting the thread, “that Gudrun wanted us to come as well?”

That startled him. “She wanted it?”

“We overheard,” Jessa explained. She looked up at him closely. “She not only knew we were coming, she said to the old man that it was her idea—that she’d made the Jarl send us.”

Brochael stared back. “Did she say why?”

“Not really … it was hard to hear. She said she would have her hand on us.... I don’t know what that meant.”

“Don’t you?” His face darkened; he looked older and grimmer. “Did she give you anything to eat or drink?”

“Yes, but she drank it too.”

He shook his head. “She’s a sorceress, Jessa. That means nothing at all.”

She looked at Thorkil. “And when can we see Kari?” she asked, trying to sound calm.

Brochael went back to stirring the porridge. “When you’re ready. When I think you’re ready.” He gave them a strange, sidelong look. “And if you really want to.”

Ten

It’s safe to tell a secret to one,

Risky to tell it to two.

To tell it to three is thoughtless folly,

Everyone else will know.

Time at Thrasirshall passed slowly. Despite the mysterious supplies, food was short and Jessa often felt hungry. After a while she got used to it. The cold was still intense; they were so far north the snow had not begun to melt. The weather made it difficult to get outside, but sometimes she and Thorkil scrambled up the fell and wandered into the silent woods. On one afternoon of pale sunshine they climbed a higher crag and gazed out at the desolate miles of land carved by slow glaciers. Brochael had told them there was nothing more to the north but ice, until the sky came down and touched the earth. Even the road ended here, at the world’s end.

They ran all the way back to keep warm, floundering and giggling through the snow, Jessa in front, so that she struggled across the courtyard and burst into the room without warning. Then she stopped instantly, letting Thorkil thud into her back.

The opposite door was closing; soft footsteps shuffled on the other side, fading to an echo in empty spaces. One chair was pushed back; a knife and a piece of carven wood had been flung on the table.

Brochael leaned back and watched them, as if he was waiting for the questions. After a moment Jessa went to the fire, warming the sudden cold from her back. She watched Thorkil pick up the wood and run his fingers over the skillful carving.

“Is he afraid of us?” he said at last.

Brochael took the wood from him. “In a way. Remember, he’s seen few folk besides me. But it’s more than that. You’re afraid of him.”

And they were. They knew it. They kept together most of the time, never went alone into the dim corridors. They spent time playing chess, mending their clothes, snaring hares, or at the unending task of fetching wood and kindling. Brochael watched them, as if he was biding his time. Some days he would vanish for hours at a time and come back without any explanation, and every night he locked the door with the iron key.

Once late at night, hauling water from the well, they thought they saw candlelight flickering in one window high in the tower, and the two black birds that had startled Helgi always seemed to be flapping and karking up there, wheeling against the greens and golds of the aurora that flickered here every night.