Catherine Fisher: Snow-Walker

“I will come.”

“You must please yourself, old man, as ever.” Then she turned and flashed past them, under the archway and up the stairs, her light steps rising into silence above them.

Thorkil let his breath out in a gasp and clutched Jessa’s arm. They were stifled; both wanted to run out, to breathe clean air, but the old man was still there, standing silently by his chair. Slowly he crossed to the courtyard door and unlatched it. Cold air rippled the tapestries to a storm of dust. When Jessa had wiped her eyes and peered out, the hall was empty.

They ran straight to the door, squeezed through, and closed it. Smoke coiled out after them, dissipating in the wind. The watchman, half asleep, stared at their backs as they walked, too quickly, between the houses, among the children and the squalling hens. Once Jessa turned, feeling herself watched, but the windows of the Jarlshold were dark and empty.

Three

With a good man it is good to talk,

Make him your fast friend.

“‘I’ll have my hand on them.’ And she meant us.” Jessa watched Mord Signi stack the slabs of peat carefully onto the back of the fire, and jerk his hand out as the sparks leaped. “What do you think she meant?”

“I don’t think,” Mord said, straightening. “Not about her.”

He was a tall man; his gray hair brushed the low turf roof. He glanced over at his wife, folding Jessa’s clothes into a leather bag. “But I can’t let this go. Not without a murmur.”

His wife put her hand on his shoulder. “It’s no use talking to Ragnar,” she said quietly. “Why should he listen?” Then she bent forward and whispered, so that Jessa only just caught the words. “Stay out of it. You have your own children to think of.”

He turned aside, silent. Jessa felt sorry for him. He had been a kinsman of her father; he was a marked man in the Jarlshold. And his wife was right. No pleading would move Ragnar, and anyway, she, Jessa, wouldn’t have it.

Mord came back to the fire. The hearth was a large, square one in the middle of the house, and around the walls were the sleeping booths, with their wooden screens and warm, musty hangings. By now the fire was a hot blaze, licking and spitting over the new peats, throwing glows and shadows around the room, over Thorkil’s face, and Mord’s, worried and upset. Outside, the afternoon sky was darkening with snow. Winter lingered late, as usual, in the Jarlshold.

Thorkil said, “Mord, tell us about Gudrun.”

“Best not to, lad. I’d rather keep my tongue.”

“But we need to know.” Thorkil glanced at Mord’s wife, with her youngest daughter pulling at her skirts. “We’re going there, after all.”

She turned away from him. “He’s right, Mord.”

Mord put down the peat he had been crumbling, got up slowly, and locked the door. Coming back, he sat closer to the fire.

“It’s a stranger story than any skald’s saga. Much of it you’ll know, I’m sure. When Ragnar was a young man, the Wulfings were the ruling kin in the north. He was just one of many small landowners; your fathers were two more. But he was ambitious. He bought land where he could, stole it where he couldn’t, ruined his enemies in the Althing—that was the old law court—and gathered ruthless, cruel men about him. Still, he might have stayed as he was, if it hadn’t been for her.”

Mord paused. Then he said, “Beyond the Yngvir River and the mountains, there’s only ice. It stretches, they say, to the edge of the world, into the endless blackness. Travelers—those that have come back—speak of great cracks that open underfoot, of mountains smooth as glass, of the sky catching fire. Beyond the icebergs even the sea freezes. No animals live there, not even the white bears, though I have heard a tale of a long glistening worm that burrows in the ice. It may not be true. But certainly there are trolls, and ettins, and some sort of spirit that howls in the empty crevasses.

“In those lands live the White People, the Snow-walkers, a race of wizards. No one knows much about them, except that sometimes they would come to the northern borders and raid. Children would disappear from farms, and it would be said that the White People had taken them. Cattle too, and sometimes dogs.

“One year the raids were so bad, the old Jarl sent Ragnar with a war band to march up there and settle it. They crossed the hills by way of the old giant’s road that passes Thrasirshall, and marched down the other side, straight into a white mist. It was waiting for them there, a solid whiteness that even the wind couldn’t blow away. Fifty men marched into that devil’s trap, and only one came out.”

“What was it?” Thorkil asked.

“Sorcery. Rune magic.” Mord shrugged. “Who knows? But three months later a ship came into the harbor at Tarva, a strange ship with dark sails and twenty oarsmen—tall white-haired men who spoke a fluid, unknown language. The old man, Grettir, led them—he was younger then, of course. Then Ragnar came out of the ship, and with him a woman, white as ice, cold as steel. To this day no one knows who she is, or what godforsaken agreement he made with them to save his life. But we soon found out what sort of a creature had come among us.”

Jessa glanced at Thorkil. He was listening intently, his fingers working at the laces of his boots, knotting and unknotting, over and over.

“The first thing,” Mord went on, “was that the old Jarl died one night in a storm. He was hale enough when he went to bed, but in the night he gave a sudden scream, and when they got to him he was dead. There was a mark, they say, like a spread hand, in the skin of his face; it faded away, till in the morning there was nothing left.”

Thorkil’s head jerked up and his eyes met Jessa’s. Mord did not notice. “And his fingers—there was a web of ice all over them.... After that, it was easy. Rumors flew; fear built up. The Jarl had left no son. The Althing should have chosen another of the Wulfings, and there were plenty of good men—but they didn’t. Fear made them fools. They chose Ragnar.

“Two disagreed, I remember. One was killed by a bear, the other froze in a drift on a dark night. None of his family knew why he’d left the house, but the little boy said a ‘white lady’ had called him through the window....” He looked up. “You must have heard much of this.”

Jessa shrugged. “Some of it. No one tells you much when you’re small. But what about Kari?”

Mord glanced at the door. His voice was quiet now, barely heard. “It happened I was with Ragnar when the news came; we were in the forest, watching them cut timber for the hold. ‘A son,’ the messenger said, but there was something about the way he said it. Ragnar noticed too. He asked what was wrong. The man muttered something about the midwife screaming; he seemed too terrified to answer. The Jarl almost knocked me over as he rode off. The gods help me, I’ve never seen a man look so stricken.”

“Did the messenger see the baby?” Jessa asked.

“No, but he didn’t need to. Rumors soon got around—you know them. The child is a monster. For myself I think the High One struck at Ragnar’s pride, and her sorcery. That’s the god’s way. They kept the child here for a while, called it Kari, but no one ever saw it except Gudrun and the old man. Ragnar has never set eyes on him.”

“So he told us,” Thorkil muttered.

“And she hates it. She’ll never even hear its name—Kari. When the creature was about five years old she got Ragnar to send it away, to the ruined hall in the north. I think she hoped it would die of cold. Brochael Gunnarsson was in prison—now he was one of the Wulfings’ men, and he had said something against her—so Ragnar took his land and sent him to be the child’s keeper. It was a hard revenge.” He sighed. “I was fond of Brochael—a good man. He may be long dead. No one has been near them in all this time.”