Catherine Fisher: Snow-Walker

Together they turned their heads. The hanging on the far wall was rippling slightly; the faded bears and hunters stitched on it seemed to move under the dirt.

“Someone’s there,” Jessa whispered. “Someone’s been listening to us.”

Two

Shun a woman wise in magic.

They waited for a long minute. Then Thorkil walked over and carefully pushed the musty cloth. It gave under his hand.

“There’s a space here,” he muttered. “No wall.”

As there was no sound, he pulled the deep folds of the hanging apart and slipped inside; after a quick look around, Jessa followed. In the dimness they saw a stone archway in the wall, and beyond that a staircase twisting up. Footsteps were climbing it lightly.

“I told you,” Jessa whispered. “Who is it?”

“I don’t know. Probably…” Then he stopped.

Behind them someone had come into the hall, someone silent, without footsteps, someone who froze the air. Jessa felt sudden crystals harden on her face and mouth, felt a cold numbness that pieced her skin. Thorkil was still; frost glistened on his lips.

“It’s Gudrun,” he breathed.

And as if the walker on the stairs had heard him, the footsteps stopped, and began to come back down.

Suddenly Jessa had never felt so afraid. Her heart thudded; she wanted to run, had to fight to hold herself still, clenching her fingers into fists. Before them the footsteps came closer; behind in the hall some terrible coldness loomed. Grabbing at Thorkil, she tugged him between the heavy tapestries and the wall; there was a black slit there, filthy with dust. Something brushed his coat; the tapestry whirled, and a small bent figure, much muffled in cloaks and coats, slipped past them into the hall.

“Gudrun,” they heard him say, “you move like a ghost.”

“But you heard me.”

“I felt you.”

Their voices withdrew into the room. Coldness ebbed; the freezing fear slowly loosened its grip. Jessa heard Thorkil’s shudder of breath, saw his hand was shaking as he gently moved aside a fold of the cloth so they could see part of the hall.

Someone was sitting in the Jarl’s chair, looking no more than a bundle of rich fabrics. Then he pushed his hood back, and Jessa saw it was a very old man, thin and spry, his hair wisps of white, his look sly and sidelong.

“They leave tomorrow,” he was saying. “As you expected.”

Astonished, Jessa stared at Thorkil.

The woman laughed, a low peal of sound that made a new surge of fear leap in Jessa’s stomach.

The old man chuckled too. “And they know all about Thrasirshall, the poor waifs.”

“What do they know?” she said.

“Oh, that the wind howls through it, that it’s a wilderness of trolls and spirits on the edge of the world. Not to speak of what the hall contains.” He spat, and then grinned.

They could just see the woman’s white hands, and her sleeves. Gently Thorkil edged the curtain a little wider.

Gudrun stood in the light from the window. She was tall and young, her skin white as a candle, her hair pure blond and plaited in long intricate braids down her back. Her ice blue dress was edged with fur. Silver glittered at her wrist and throat; she stood straight, her sharp gaze toward them. Jessa felt Thorkil’s instant stillness. Even from here, they could see her eyes had no color.

“How did they take their news?”

“The girl, quietly. Master Thorkil squealed, but Ragnar stopped that.”

Gudrun laughed. “Even the Jarl needs his pleasures. I allow him a few.”

“But there is one thing you may not know.”

Her eyes turned on him. “Be careful,” she said lightly. “Even you, Grettir.”

He seemed to shift uneasily in the chair. Then he said, “Ragnar gave the girl a letter. It was for Brochael Gunnarsson. It was a warning.”

She laughed again, a murmur of amusement. “Is that all? What good will that do? Let them take it, by all means.” With a rustle of silks she moved to sit by him; Thorkil edged the curtain to keep her in sight.

“None of it matters.” She rested her white fingers lightly on the old man’s shoulder. “Everything is ready. Ragnar is sending them there because I slid the idea of it into his mind, just as he speaks my words and eats and sleeps as I allow him.”

“But the letter?”

She shrugged. “He has a corner of himself left alive. As for those two, I have my own plans for them.”

She put her lips near his ear, dropped her voice low. Jessa strained to hear. “I’ll have my hand on them,” the woman said. Then she whispered something that made the old man grin and shake his head slyly.

“You have the great powers, Gudrun. Not many can touch you.”

Instantly he was silent, as if he knew he had made a mistake. She leaned forward and ran the sharp point of one fingernail gently down his cheek. To her horror Jessa saw it leave a trail of white ice that cracked and fell away, and a blue scar in the skin as if some intense cold had seared it. The old man moaned and clutched his face.

Gudrun smiled. “Be careful, Grettir. No one can touch me. No one.”

She ran her fingers lightly through his hair. “Remember that.”

She got up and wandered to the table, then to the fire. “As for the creature in Thrasirshall, you and I know what he is.”

She stretched one hand over the flames; thrust it close. Jessa saw a single drop of clear liquid fall from the white fingers, as if, she thought, they had begun to melt in the heat. As the drop hit the flames they hissed and crackled, leaping into a tower of fire. Smoke drifted around the hall; it hung in long snakes that moved around the woman’s waist and feet, slithering over the flagged floor, blurring sight, so that to Jessa the fire faded to a halo of red, and Gudrun and Grettir were shadows without edges. Staring hard, she thought she saw something form among the flames, the dim outline of a building, a window, a room full of light, and someone sitting there, turning his head....

Then the door of the hall slammed open. The thrall that Jessa had met earlier stood in the doorway, his arms full of wood. He stopped, frozen in terror.

Gudrun whirled in the smoke. She was furious; snakes of gray mist coiled and surged around her. “Out!” she hissed, her voice hoarse with rage.

The man stood there rooted, as if he dared not move. Jessa felt a pang of fear shoot through her—Get out! she thought, but he stayed, staring with horror at Gudrun as she jerked her hand toward him.

Logs cascaded to the floor with hollow smacks of sound. The man crumpled, soundless. He crouched on his knees, sobbing and shaking. Gudrun walked up to him. She stood a moment, looking down, then bent and lifted his chin. Pain convulsed him; he shuddered as she ran her long fingers across his throat. “Out,” she whispered.

He staggered up and crashed through the door. They could hear the echoes of his flight for a long time, hanging in the smoky air.

Jessa breathed out with relief, but at the same time she touched the edge of the tapestry, and it rippled and swished. Instantly, Thorkil dropped it and flattened himself against the wall. There was silence in the hall. Jessa’s heart thumped against her ribs.

Then Gudrun spoke. She was so close that Jessa almost jumped.

“Kari won’t escape me, either. I’ve let him be far too long, to see what he would become. And yet, Grettir”—her voice turned away from them—“I have almost a desire to see him, to taste him, to use what he has.”

Her hand came around the tapestry. Jessa almost screamed. The white fingers were inches from her face.

“But they’ll be here tonight, both of those two. That will be my time.”

Grettir must have moved; they heard his chair scrape the flagstones.