Snow-Walker

Nine

Greetings to the host. The guest has arrived.

In which seat shall he sit?

The chair was too big for her, and had once been covered with some embroidery; the firelight glimmered on a patch of trees and a threadbare reindeer. She snuggled back and sipped the soup. It was so hot it scorched her tongue.

They were in a small room, very dark. There was another ragged chair, a table, and in a corner some empty shelves, their shadows jerking in the firelight. By the hearth a stack of cut logs oozed dampness. The window was boarded up, and some torn shreds of green cloth were nailed across it to keep out drafts.

Jessa’s knees were hot; she edged back. Her coat was dripping into a puddle on the floor.

On the table lay two fishing spears and a knife, thrust deep into the timber. Thorkil was trying to pull it out, but couldn’t.

“That’s another thing,” he said, tapping the empty platter. “Enough food for six. Everything prepared. How did he know?”

She shook her head.

Outside, voices approached; the door shuddered open. The big man, Brochael, came in, and Helgi trailed behind him, glancing quickly into the shadows. They had all done that. No one forgot that the creature was here, somewhere.

“We’re going, Jessa,” Helgi said quickly.

She stared at him. “Tonight?”

He shrugged unhappily. “You’ve seen. They won’t stay here. To be frank, neither will I. There’s too much strangeness in this place.” She nodded, wordless.

“I’m just sorry to have to leave you both here.”

“Don’t be.” Brochael planted himself in front of the blaze. “They’ll be safer here than in any hold of Gudrun’s.”

Helgi gave her a wan smile and went to the door. Suddenly Jessa wanted to go with him; she leaped up, spilling the soup, but he caught her eye and she stopped.

“Good luck,” he said. Then he went and closed the door.

In the sudden silence they heard the clink of harness, the muffled scrape of a hoof in snow. After that there was only the wind, howling over the sills and under the doors into all the empty rooms and spaces of the hall.

Brochael sat down. He cleared the table with one sweep of his arm, tugged out the knife and thrust it in his belt, and leaned both elbows on the bare wood. “Now. I already know your names and I’m sure you can guess mine. I am Brochael Gunnarsson, of Hartfell. I knew your fathers, a long time ago. I also know that Ragnar has sent you here into exile.”

“How do you know?” Jessa demanded. “How could you?”

Brochael took down a candle and lit it. “I was told,” he said. There was something in his voice that puzzled her, but she was too tired to think about it now.

She took the letter out of her inner pocket and held it out.

“Were you told about this?”

He took it, looked at her a moment, then put the candle down and tugged open the knots that held the sealskin. A square of parchment fell out; he unfolded it on the table, spreading it flat with his big hands.

They all leaned over it. Spindly brown letters were marked on the rough vellum. Brochael fingered them. “It’s brief enough.”

He read it aloud. “‘From Ragnar, Jarl, to Brochael Gunnarsson, this warning. When I die she will come for the creature. It may be to kill, or it may be for some reason of her own. Take him south, out of these lands. I would not have him suffer as I have suffered.’”

There was silence. Then Brochael folded the parchment. “Does he think I don’t know?” he said roughly. He picked up the candle.

“Come with me,” he said. “All this gossip can wait until morning.”

He led them to a thick curtain in one corner and pulled it back. Beyond it was the usual sleeping booth—it was well paneled in wood, the blankets patched and coarse. “The other is next to it.” Brochael put the candle down. “Not the silks of the Jarlshold, but just as warm. Sleep well, for as long as you like. We’ll talk tomorrow.”

“Where do you sleep?” Thorkil asked, looking at the damp blanket with obvious distaste.

“Elsewhere.” Suddenly the big man turned, his shadow huge in the flame light. “The door will be locked—don’t let that alarm you. If you hear anything—voices, movements—far off in the building, ignore it. You are safe here. No one can get in.”

There was a cold silence.

“Good night,” Brochael said calmly.

The curtain rustled. A moment later the key grated in the lock. “Well,” Thorkil muttered after a moment. “It’s almost as bad as I thought. Dust, fleas, rats.” He rubbed at the soiled red cloth of his jerkin and went off to find his own sleeping place.

Wearily Jessa lay down in her clothes and wrapped herself in the rough, damp-smelling blankets. “But I didn’t expect Brochael,” she muttered quietly.

“What?”

There was no answer. When Thorkil came back and opened the curtain she was already asleep. He watched her for a moment, then reached out and snuffed the candle, and the flames in the eyes of the serpent on his wrist went out.

Jessa threw two crumbling squares of peat on the fire and chewed the stale bannock that seemed to be breakfast. She watched Thorkil stagger in with the empty bucket and drop it with a clang.

“That water froze as I threw it out.” He sat down and looked at her. “We didn’t get many answers last night. No one could have got here before us, could they?”

She was thinking of the peddler. “I don’t know. Who would?”

“And have you seen this?” He tapped the slab of goat’s cheese they had found.

“Cheese,” Jessa said drily.

“Yes, but where did it come from? Where are the goats?”

That surprised her. She shook her head, thinking of the empty outbuildings and the untrodden snow. “Perhaps in some building at the back—”

“They’d freeze. And Kari. Where’s he?”

Jessa swallowed some crumbs. “I don’t want to know that.” She wiped her hand in her skirt. “Locked in some room, I suppose.”

A scrape interrupted them; the key turned and Brochael ducked in under the low doorway. He had snow in his hair. He grinned at them cheerfully. “Awake! Sleep well?”

“Yes, thank you.”

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.”