Snow-Walker

One

Young and alone on a long road,

Once I lost my way:

Rich I felt when I found another…

The hall was empty.

Jessa edged inside and began to wander idly about, pulling the thick furred collar of her coat up around her face. She was early.

It had been a bitter night. The snow had blown in under the door and spread across the floor. A pool of wine that someone had spilled under the table was frozen to a red slab. She nudged it with her foot; solid as glass. Even the spiders were dead on their webs; the thin nets shook in the draft.

She walked to the great pillar of oak that grew up through the middle of the hall. It was heavily carved with old runes and magic signs, but over them all, obliterating them, was a newer cutting: a contorted snake that twisted itself down in white spirals. She brushed the frost off it with her gloved fingers. The snake was Gudrun’s sign. A witch’s sign.

She waited, grinding the ice to white powder under her heel.

Light gathered slowly. Corners of tables and tapestries loomed out of the shadows; a cart rumbled by outside, and the carter’s shout echoed in the roof.

Jessa kicked the frozen fire. Why hadn’t she come late—sauntered in sweetly when the Jarl was waiting, just to show him that she didn’t care, that he couldn’t order her as he wanted? It was too late now, though.

Five slow minutes slithered by.

Then a hanging was flipped back; a house thrall came in and began to take down the shutters. Frost cracked and fell from the empty windows; a raw wind whipped in and rippled the tapestries.

He hadn’t seen her. Jessa was annoyed. She shuffled, and watched him whirl around, his face white. Then the terror drained out of him. That annoyed her even more.

“I’m waiting to speak to the Lord Jarl,” she snapped in a clear voice. “My name is Jessa Horolfsdaughter.”

It was the voice she always used with servants, cold and rather distant. Old Marrika, her nurse, used to say it was the voice of pride. What was Marrika doing now? she wondered.

The man nodded and went out. Jessa scuffed the floor impatiently. She hated this place. Everyone in it was afraid. They were littered with amulets and luckstones; they glanced around before they spoke, as if someone was always listening. Gudrun. The Jarl’s strange wife. The Snow-walker. They said she knew what you thought, even as you stood before her. Jessa shivered.

The man came back and kneeled at the hearth. She saw the welcome flicker of flames and hurried over, warming her hands and rubbing them against her face until her cheeks ached. The thrall propped some logs on the blaze and went out. Jessa did not speak to him. People said all the Jarl’s servants were dumb. Whatever the truth of that, they never spoke.

Crouched over the fire, she looked down the high hall. The trestles and stools were toppled here and there on the straw. At the far end was a raised platform; here the seats were piled with red cushions, the tables littered with half-empty plates. Jessa went over and picked up a pewter jug. The wine in it was frozen. She put it down with a bang.

As she turned, one of the tapestries behind the dais was drawn aside and an elderly man came in, with a boy of her own age behind him. She knew the boy at once. Thorkil Harraldsson was her first cousin; they’d brought him here about three months ago. His clothes were very fine, she thought scornfully. Just like him.

The other was Jarl Ragnar. He was still tall, but his shoulders stooped; the splendid blue quilted robe hung loose on him. He looked like a man dried out, sucked dry of all life, his eyes small and cold.

She made him the most careless bow she could.

“You have your father’s manners,” he said wryly.

Silent, she watched Thorkil drag up two stools and the Jarl’s chair; he caught her eye and gave her a brief, wan smile. She thought he seemed uneasy, and very pleased to see her. No wonder. Prison was prison, even with fine clothes.

They sat down. The Jarl stared into the flames. Finally he spoke, without looking at them.

“Your fathers were two brothers. I had thought they were loyal to me, until they joined that last foolish march of the Wulfings. All my enemies together. It was a pity they both died in the snow.”

Jessa glared at him. “Your wife’s sorcery brought the snow. She won your battle for you.”

He was angry, but Jessa didn’t care. “The Lord Jarl has always come from the family of the Wulfings. That’s why they fought you. You have no right to be Jarl.”

She caught Thorkil’s nervous, warning look, but it was done now. She had said it. Her face was hot; her hands shook.

Grimly the Jarl stared at the flames. “The family of the Wulfings are almost all gone,” he said. “Those that are left lurk in farms and steads and byres, their women and children disguised as thralls, hurried indoors when riders come by. Gudrun knows. She sees them. One by one, I am hunting them out. The leader, Wulfgar, was taken two days ago; he’s in a room under your feet, with ice and rats for company. And now there’s you.”

His hands rubbed together, dry as paper.

“I left you alone. I left you on your farms, fed you and let you be, until now. Now you are old enough to be dangerous.”

Jessa watched his eyes on the leaping flames. She wanted him to turn and look at her, but he would not.

“Your land will be given to men loyal to me, and you will have somewhere else to live.”

“Here?” Thorkil asked.

“Not here.” He smiled briefly. “Far from here.”

Jessa was glad. She had been here for two days and that was enough. But she didn’t trust that smile.

“Where then?”

The Jarl moved, as if he was suddenly uneasy. The silver amulets and thorshammers around his neck clicked together.

“I’m sending you to live with my son,” he said.

For a moment they couldn’t realize what he meant. Then Jessa felt sick; cold sweat prickled on her back. Slowly her hand sought the amulet Marrika had given her.

Thorkil was white. “You can’t send us there,” he breathed.

“Hold your tongue and let me finish.” Ragnar was looking at them now, with a hard, amused stare.

“Your fathers were traitors; they wanted to bring me down. Many men remember them. Do you expect me to set you up on farms, to give you herds of reindeer and dowries of silver?”

“Why not?” Jessa muttered. “You took ours.”

He laughed. “Call it exile, and think yourselves lucky. At least you’ll have a sort of life. You leave tomorrow for Thrasirshall, at first light. I’ll supply a ship and an escort, at least as far as Trond. I don’t suppose my men will want to go farther.”

Jessa saw Thorkil was trembling. She knew he couldn’t believe this; he was terrified. It burst out of him in a wild, despairing cry.

“I won’t go! You can’t send us out there, not to that creature!”

With one swift movement the Jarl stood and struck him in the face with the full weight of his glove, so that he staggered back on the stool and fell with a crash onto the stone floor. Jessa grabbed him, but he shrugged her off. Tears of fury glinted in his eyes as he scrambled up.

“Take a lesson from your cousin,” the Jarl said. “Look your fate in the eye. I’d thought you were stronger, but I see you’re still a boy.”

Jessa took Thorkil’s wrist and held it tight. Better to keep quiet now.

The Jarl watched them. “Gudrun is right,” he said. “Traitors breed traitors.”

Then, slowly, he sat down, and ran one hand wearily down one cheek.

“There’s something else.”

“What?” Jessa asked coldly.

He took something from inside his coat and held it out: a thick piece of sealskin. She saw the blue veins in the Jarl’s hand.

“It’s a message.” Ragnar looked at them almost reluctantly. “I want you to take it with you. It’s for Brochael Gunnarsson … the man who looks after the creature. Give it to him. Tell no one.” He looked wearily around the empty hall. “Whatever sort of thing Kari is, he is my son.”

There was silence. Then he said, “Take it.”

For a long moment Jessa did not move. Then she reached out and took the parcel. The parchment inside it crackled as she slid it into her glove.

The Jarl nodded and stood up, straightening slowly. He walked a few steps and then stopped. Without looking back he said, “Come here tonight, after the lawgiving. Gudrun wishes to speak to you. There’s nothing I can do about it.”

He looked over his shoulder at them. “Keep my secret. I can do nothing else for Kari. Maybe, years ago, if I had tried … but not now. She would know.” He smiled at them, a bitter smile. “I’ve never seen him. I do not know what he is.”

In the silence after he had shuffled out, a pigeon fluttered in the roof. One glossy feather whirled down through a shaft of light.

“Why did you take it?” Thorkil asked.

Jessa was wondering too. “Not so loud,” she murmured.

He went to the fire and kneeled near the dirty hearth; Jessa followed. “We must escape,” he said.

“Where?”

“Your farm—Horolfstead.”

“His men have got it.” She pulled at her glove. “Three days ago.”

Thorkil glanced at her. “I should have known. Well, why bother to talk? There’s nothing we can do—he’s sending men with us.”

“To Thrasirshall.”

“Mmm.”

Jessa was silent for a moment. Then she glanced around. “Thorkil…”

“What?” But he knew what.

“You’ve been here longer than I have. What do they say about Kari Ragnarsson?”

“Nothing. No one dares.” Thorkil dropped his voice. “Besides, no one has ever seen him, except the woman who was there when he was born. She died a few days later. They say Gudrun poisoned her.”

Jessa nodded. “Yes, but there are rumors....”

“The same as you’ve heard.” Thorkil edged nearer to the fire. “She kept him locked up here somewhere, in a windowless room. He has a pelt of fur like a troll. He tears his skin with his teeth in his fits. Others say he has eyes like a wolf. There are plenty of stories. Who knows which is true? Now she keeps him in the ruin called Thrasirshall. They say it’s at the edge of the world, far out in the snowfields. No one has ever been there.”

She stood up. “Neither will we. We’ll get away. How can they watch us all the time?”

“Gudrun can. And where can we go in a wilderness of ice?”

But Jessa had crouched suddenly, her gloved fingers on his lips. “Quiet!”

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.”