Catherine Fisher: Snow-Walker

“Until now,” Thorkil said grimly.

There was silence.

“If no one has seen him,” Jessa said suddenly, grasping at hope, “how do they know he’s so terrible?”

“Why else would she lock him up?”

It was a good answer.

“Well,” Thorkil said, “we’ll soon find out.”

Mord frowned at him. “Be careful, lad. Be discreet. They say she can bend your mind to her will.”

Thorkil laughed coldly. “Not mine.”

Jessa had been thinking. “Kari and this Brochael must be dead by now. How can they live up there?” How will we? she thought.

“Gudrun would know. She has ways of knowing. That’s why, in these last years, your fathers and the Wulfings stood no chance. She was too much for them.”

Thorkil stared bleakly into the fire. Jessa pulled absently at the ends of her hair. Mord caught his wife’s eye. “But that’s enough talk. Now we should eat.”

The food at the Jarlshold was good and plentiful; they had broth and fish and honey cakes. Despite her worries Jessa was hungry. What would they eat, she wondered, at the ruined hall in the mountains? No crops would grow there; no animals would survive. She had never known real hardship; their farm had been a rich one. What would it be like?

When they had finished, Mord rose and pulled on his outdoor coat. “Come on. It’s wise not to keep her waiting.”

Outside, the sky was black, frosted with stars glinting in their faint colors. The moon was a low, silvery globe, balancing, it seemed, on the very tips of the mountains far off, lighting their frozen summits with an eerie bluish shimmer.

By now the Jarlshold was quiet, and very cold. A few dogs loped past them as they walked between the silent houses; once a rat ran across the frozen mud. Like all the houses Jessa had known, these were low and roofed with turf, boarded and shuttered now to keep the warmth of the fires in. Smoke hung in a faint mist over the settlement.

Only the hall was noisy; they could hear the murmur of sound grow as they walked toward it. The shutters were up again, but a circle of light flickered in the ring window high up in the wall. Laughter floated out, and voices.

A doorkeeper sat outside, polishing a sword with a whetstone; a great wolflike mastiff sprawled at his feet. Mord nodded to the man and put his hand on the latch. Then he turned. “Don’t eat anything she gives you,” he breathed. “Don’t drink. Avoid her eyes. I don’t know what else to say. If she wants you—she’ll get you.” Then he opened the door.

Four

Never lift your eyes and look up in battle

Lest the heroes enchant you, who can change warriors

Suddenly into hogs.

It was as if some runemaster had waved a hand and transformed the place. All the fires were lit, roaring in the hearths, and candles and rushlights glimmered on stands and in corners, filling the hall with a haze of smoke and light. Long hangings, woven of red and green cloths, hung over the shutters, and the trestles were scattered with scraps of food and bones that the dogs pulled down and snarled over in the straw. The hot air stank of smoke and spices.

Mord pushed them both forward through the crowd. Jessa glimpsed rich embroidery on sleeves, the glint of gold, furs, heavy pewter cups. The Jarl’s court was rich, rich on other men’s land. She lifted her chin, remembering suddenly her father’s grin, his raised hand. She had been only six when he rode out. His face was fading from her mind.

And there was Ragnar at the high table with the witch next to him, her face pale as a ghost’s with its long eyes, her gaze wandering the room. Grettir sat beside her, watching Thorkil push through the crowd.

Mord found them seats near one of the fires; a few men stood to make room and some of them nodded slightly at Jessa. So the Jarl still had enemies then, even here. Mord seemed uneasy; she caught him making discreet signals to someone across the room. Then a steward shouted for silence.

Noise hushed. Men settled back with full cups to see what would happen—a skald with some poem, Jessa thought, or a lawsuit, considered entertainment just as good. A tall, very thin man across the room caught her eye. He grinned at her and tugged a bundle of herbs tied with green ribbon from a bag at his feet and held it out. A peddler. She shook her head quickly; the man laughed and winked. Then he moved out of sight among the crowd thronging the hearth.

Thorkil nudged her.

A prisoner was coming in between two of the Jarl’s men. He was a tall, dark, elegant man in a dirty leather jerkin, with a gleam of gold at his neck. He looked around with cool interest.

“That’s Wulfgar,” Thorkil said. “They caught him last week up at Hagafell. He’s the last of the Wulfings. If anyone should be Jarl, it’s him.”

As the prisoner came through the crowd, the silence grew. Jessa saw how some men looked away, but others held his eye and wished him well. He must be well liked, she thought, for them to risk even that much, with Gudrun watching.

“Wulfgar Osricsson,” Ragnar began, but the prisoner interrupted him at once.

“They all know my name, Ragnar.” His voice was deliberately lazy. A ripple of amusement stirred in the room.

“You have plotted and warred,” Ragnar went on grimly, “against the peace of this hold—”

“My own,” Wulfgar said lightly.

“And against me.”

“You! A thrall’s son from Hvinir, where all they grow is sulphur and smoke holes.”

“Be careful,” Ragnar snarled.

“Let him speak!” someone yelled from the back of the hall. “He has a right. Let him speak.”

Other voices joined in. The Jarl waved curtly for silence. “He can speak. If he has anything worth hearing.”

The prisoner leaned forward and took an apple from the Jarl’s table and bit into it. A guard moved, but Ragnar waved him back.

“I’ve nothing to say,” Wulfgar said, chewing slowly. “Nothing that would change things. You’re like a dead tree, Ragnar, smothered with a white, strangling ivy. It’s poisoning you, draining you of yourself. Shake her off now, if you still can.”

Jessa, like everyone else, stared at Gudrun. She was sipping her wine and smiling. Ragnar’s face flushed with rage. His reply was hoarse. “That’s enough. Rebellion means death. As you were a landed man it will be quick, with an ax. Tomorrow.”

Men in the smoky hall looked at one another. There was a murmuring that rose to a noise. Gudrun’s eyes moved across their faces as she drank.

“He can’t do that!” Thorkil muttered.

Mord’s hands clamped down on his shoulders and stayed there. “Wait. Keep still.” His fingers dug into the soft coat. “Don’t draw attention to yourself.”

Wulfgar spat an apple pip onto the floor. At once, with an enormous crash, one of the shutters on the windows suddenly collapsed, flung open in a squall of wind that whipped out half the candles at a stroke. In the darkness someone yelled; Wulfgar twisted and hurled himself through the guards into the crowd of confused shadows. Strange blue smoke was billowing from the fires. Jessa coughed, half choked; in the uproar dogs were barking and Ragnar was shouting orders. Then the doors were open; men were running among the dim houses of the hold, letting the bitter wind stream in and slice through the smoke like a knife.

“Is he away?” Thorkil shouted, on his feet.

“He ought to be. If he was ready.”

“It was all planned. You knew!”

“Hush. Keep your voice down.”

Jessa turned; Gudrun’s chair was empty. Then her eye caught sight of something lying half in the fire, smoldering; it was a small bunch of some herb, tied with a green ribbon. The stifling blue smoke was drifting from it. Jessa looked around, but the peddler was nowhere to be seen. She bent down quickly and pulled the singed bundle out of the ashes, stamped on it, and pushed it into the deep pockets of her coat so no one saw.