Snow-Walker

Sixteen

Chess in the court and cheerful.

The old man had been right.

They woke late, to a blizzard that howled around the village all morning, blotting out even the wall of the nearest house in a storm of white driven flakes. Travel was impossible. Hakon took one look outside and went back to sleep. He had a lot to catch up on, he said.

Jessa and Kari played Hunt the King on a board made by scratching out the squares with a knife. Kari did it; he was clever at carving. For counters they used some of Brochael’s coins. The chieftain’s daughter Lenna, who brought breakfast, stayed in the house to watch, fascinated. Jessa explained the rules.

Brochael had nothing to do. His shoulder no longer bothered him; he prowled restlessly for a while, and then pulled on his bearskin coat and went out into the flying snow.

“Where’s he gone?” Skapti muttered absently.

“To look at the horses. What else is there?” Moongarm was sharpening his sword with a long whetstone borrowed from the villagers. He gazed curiously across at the poet, who lay on a bench, wrapped in his blue cloak. Skapti had the kantele out and had tuned it carefully, adjusting the harpstrings and checking the birchwood frame for damage. Now he plucked notes with his supple fingers.

Jessa looked up from the board. “Out of practice?”

He grinned at her. “A feast needs a song. Even from visitors.” He looked at Lenna. “You must have poets of your own. Storytellers? Rememberers?”

She looked confused, her long black hair swinging. “The Speaker. He knows the past.”

“Is he a shaman?”

The girl nodded, reluctant. She pushed back her hair nervously and gathered the dishes. Skapti let the notes fade. Then he said, “I have a good song of thanks for hospitality. Would they let me sing it tonight?”

Lenna paused, her head bent. “I don’t know.... It’s not that sort of feast.” Kari raised his head and looked at her quickly, and she scrambled up. “I’d better go. My mother will want me.”

They watched her hurry across the hazy room, the brilliant reds and blues of her dress delighting their eyes. She pulled on her coat and went out.

“She was scared,” Jessa said. “Now why was that?”

Kari moved a piece. “Skapti’s song. The prospect of hearing it.”

Jessa giggled, but wondered what he really thought.

The skald ignored them. He wrapped his cloak tight around him and leaned back against the wall. “Don’t disturb me. I’ll be working.”

Then he closed his eyes and was still.

Jessa had seen him do this before. Making the song; fitting the words and notes and kennings together, knotting them into intricate lines and rhythms, charging them with power, memorizing them—it was an intense, concentrated process. He would lie there now as if in a sleep for hours, with just the soft touch of a finger on a string now and then to remind them he was alive; later he would begin the music, working out patterns of sound to weave with the words.

For a long time the room was quiet. Just the click of the moving coins, the whirr of the whetstone.

Then Brochael stormed in, scattering snow. He stamped it from his boots, looking more cheerful. “It’s clearing up. I’ve been buying supplies from the old man—they’re surprisingly generous.” He dumped three sacks in a corner. “We should be able to leave tomorrow.”

From his bed, Hakon groaned.

Jessa laughed; she knew what he meant. The warmth, the food, the chance to rest were enticing. And just being indoors without having the eternal wind and sleet in her face, chapping her skin, stinging her eyes, without the constant stumble of the horses, the stiff, freezing nights. But they had to keep on. Signi was depending on them. She thought suddenly of the slim girl asleep in the dim room, her hair spread. Wulfgar too; by now he must be aching with worry.

“I could show you how things are there,” a voice said. “If you want.”

She looked up at Kari, startled and furious. “Don’t do that to me!”

He looked down. “I’m sorry, Jessa.”

“It’s too dangerous....”

He shook his head bitterly. “You don’t need to tell me. But sometimes, I can’t help it. That picture of Signi was so strong.”

Something in his look calmed her down. Grudgingly she said, “Show me then.”

He cleared the pieces from the table and carefully poured water from the jug the girl had left. It spread, making a thin pool.

After only a moment Jessa saw images drift on its surface. She saw the Jarlshold; it looked quiet, eerily empty. Smoke came from only two—no, three—houses, and from the hall where glimmers of light showed in the high windows. Snow lay everywhere, blanketing the roof, piled high against the doors, almost untrodden, as if no one was there to venture out. On the fjord shore the ships bobbed in a line. Deserted.

Then the water seeped through the cracks of the table and drained away.

“Where are they all?” asked Jessa.

“Inside. Those that are left.” He looked up at her strangely. “Did you see anyone?”

“No. That’s what’s worrying.”

For a moment he didn’t reply. Then he said, “I did. I saw their souls, Jessa. Almost half the people now. Wandering between the houses, wrapped in their dreams like mist. They’re lost. Her spell has them—even here I can feel it, feel her.”

She nodded grimly. “She knows we’re coming.”

“Of course she knows. She wants us … me. The closer we come to her the more I can feel her delight. And the more scared I am.”

“Why?” she asked quietly.

“Because I don’t know what to do.” His voice was low, strained. “You’re all depending on me to release Signi, but I don’t know how. And I don’t want to see her… Gudrun. I don’t want to see her.”

He looked so distraught that Brochael had come over and was listening.

“We’ll worry about that when we get there,” he said gruffly. “If I find the witch I’ll know what to do.”

Kari shook his head. “Swords are useless. You know that.”

In the afternoon the snow stopped. Jessa and Hakon went outside and explored the settlement; no one seemed to mind.

The sky was iron gray, the lake frozen hard. They skittered flat stones across it, watching them ring and rattle and slither to a stop far out on the ice. Already the sun was low, a sullen red circle. Geese flew across it, honking.

“A good bow would get one,” Hakon muttered, staring up.

The village was busy with its secret preparations. It was also very well defended, Jessa thought. The timber wall around it was higher than a man, and only two wharves jutted out, where several frail wicker and skin boats were drawn up out of the ice grip. The only other way in was the causeway, and that was guarded at both ends.

They wandered out onto it, slipping on the frozen logs. In the marsh, men were bending. They saw the shaman rise from among the bulrushes and see them. He came over, smiling.

“What are you doing?” Jessa asked, curious.

“Preparing.” He waved the carved wand at the sky and its bells chinked. “The weather is better. Tomorrow you’ll be able to leave, if you want.”

“We will,” Jessa said firmly. “Though you’ve been very kind to us. It was a godsend, finding you.”

He looked at her, his eyes amused. “For us too, lady, it was a godsend. The dark mother brought you.”

He touched his lip in that strange way they did, and walked along the causeway. Then he turned abruptly.

“One question. Your friend, with the pale hair. He’s a sorcerer?”

They gazed at each other. Jessa said, “Not exactly. He … can do certain things.”

The Speaker nodded, smiling. “I knew it. He and I have that in common. He has the look of one who speaks to the dark.”

The feast began when the last edge of the sun closed up and died; darkness came instantly. The villagers and their guests, all unarmed, watched it from the wharf, then they all walked in silence to the hall. There was no music, no singing.

Inside, the room was cold. They sat around the walls on benches; the hearth in the center dark and unlit, stacked with fresh logs.

No one spoke.

Jessa glanced at Brochael, who raised his eyebrows at her; this was like no feast she had ever seen. Uneasy, she became aware of a sound, a low humming, and realized the people were making it; it grew, slow and ominous, and then they began to beat their hands, pounding out one rhythm.

The Speaker came forward. He wore a green shirt open at the neck; she saw the coiling tattoos that covered his chest and forearms, and now he cupped his hands together and crouched low, whispering and rocking to himself.

The beating rose to a climax, then stopped instantly.

A flame had appeared within the man’s hands; the people murmured in awe. He carried it carefully through the silence to the kindling; a fire grew, steadying to red. Around her the people began to sing, a high, excited chant, with words she didn’t know.

Kari can do this, she thought. But she was beginning to feel uneasy; the ritual was unfamiliar, and unnerving.

The fire grew. Red light and smoke gathered in the hall. It lit eyes and faces and hands. Blood light, she thought.

Servers came quickly and brought everyone bowls, small wooden bowls. All empty.

“Hardly a feast,” Skapti muttered.

“I don’t like this,” she said. “Something’s wrong.”

“It’s too late to get out now.”

They were passing around a great board, and on the board was a cake, a huge round thing, cut into thin wedges, one for everyone. The people took a slice each, gravely, almost reluctantly, placing it in their bowl. No one ate it. The travelers, puzzled, did the same.

The room was full of strange, unspoken tension.

When everyone had been served, the Speaker stood by the new fire, wand in hand. He raised it slightly, and the crystals and bells glinted with fiery hearts.

“Dark one,” he said, his voice low, “you give and you take. Now, in the time of the sun’s death, choose the one you will have.”

He nodded.

The people, reluctantly, began to eat.

Uneasy, Jessa looked at the others. Suddenly she felt afraid. She did not want to touch the cake—a rich crumbling mass of oat flour and berries and fruits—but everyone else was, so she picked it up and nibbled a corner. It tasted good. Rich and honey sweet; delicious. She ate more.

People were looking around, watching their neighbors. Beside her, Skapti coughed; then he coughed again, almost choking. Hastily she slapped his back; he retched and spit something into his hand.

It was a large hazelnut, baked hard as stone.

They stared at it, astonished.

And in that moment everyone moved. Jessa was grabbed, forced still. The Speaker had a sharp knife at Skapti’s chest—two other men held him from the back.

“So it’s you,” the Speaker breathed, his eyes bright. “She’s chosen you, poet.”

Hakon was struggling; Moongarm and Brochael held tight. No one touched Kari, but they surrounded him where he sat, white with shock.

“Do something!” Jessa screamed, struggling. “Kari!”

“I’d be grateful,” Skapti breathed, trying to smile.

“I can’t.” Kari was amazed. “I can’t reach him.”

The Speaker grinned at her. “I have a spell about me, lady. I told you he and I had things in common.”