What came out was a croak, and he felt his throat in surprise. The motion brought sickening pain, but either his croaking or his whimpering caught Sokkolfr's attention, and Sokkolfr was beside him, cradling his head and tilting a leather cup to his mouth.
Isolfr managed a few slow sips before he choked, and Sokkolfr pulled the cup away. “Don't move,” he said. “Be cautious.”
Isolfr nodded, and tried his voice again. This time, the words were recognizable, if harsh. “Is everyoneâ”
“No one's died,” Sokkolfr said, settling beside him. “Ulfrikr's nose set crooked from where you hit him, though. He breathes with a whistle now. I didn't think you'd be upset.” He shaded his mouth with his hand. “No one else is, except his shieldmates, for the snoring.”
Isolfr found a smile somewhere. It hurt his mouth, but he stuck with it, and in a minute it got easier. “I feel awful.”
“You look awful. Want to try some broth?”
Shockingly, his stomach rumbled. “
Please
?”
He didn't miss the relief on Sokkolfr's face, and it warmed him. “I'll fetch it from Jorveig in a minute. Isolfrâ”
“Yes?”
“Are you all right? I mean ⦔ A sigh, and a helpless shrug, and that troubled, watchful spark deep in Sokkolfr's eyes. It surprised and warmed Isolfr to see his friend's care, even as Sokkolfr continued speaking. “I think even Hrolleif was worried, when you wouldn't let Viradechtis near.”
Isolfr thought about it. He turned his head on his aching neck and looked the wolf in her unblinking yellow eyes. She whined low and reached out, tentatively, to nose his cheek. He
could
leave. It wasn't often spoken of, but he
could forswear the wolfheall, forswear the wolf, and leave the pack. It had been done before. Isolfr imagined it would be done again.
But he had chosen this; he had gone into it knowing what sacrifices might be demanded. And he had survived it.
He slid one hand out from under the blankets and fisted it in Viradechtis' ruff, so she whined again and leaned into him. “I'll live,” he said, and shivered. Then he looked at Sokkolfr and reached out and grabbed his hand too. “I'm glad you're back,” he said, and squeezed hard.
Sokkolfr smiled at him, his rare, sweet smile, and said, “Let me fetch that broth.”
But it was Frithulf who brought it, Frithulf who helped him sit, who held the bowl when Isolfr's shaking hands could not manage. Isolfr could not look at Frithulf, his own screams seeming to echo in his ears. Finally, Frithulf set the bowl aside and said, “Is it my face?”
“What?”
“You won't look at me. Is it my face?”
“No!” Isolfr's head came up at that; he turned to look at Frithulf squarely. The scars were ugly, and they were dragging Frithulf's mouth out of true, but they did not matter and Isolfr was horrified that Frithulf would think they did. “How could you think ⦠?”
“You wouldn't be the first,” Frithulf said. “Well, if it isn't my hideous countenance, what is it?”
“You were right,” Isolfr said; his nerve failed him, and he looked away. “Weak as a girl.”
“
Damn
my cursed flapping tongue!” Frithulf said, with such vehemence that even Hroi's ears pricked, and Kothran whined anxiously and licked the scarred side of Frithulf's face. “Isolfr, as you love me, will you
forget
the stupid things I say?”
“Butâ”
“No.” Frithulf was glaring at him, daring him to argue. Isolfr shut his mouth and waited. “Clorulf and Ulfbjorn have told us ⦠what they can. Do you think I'm like Ulfrikr, to mock at you for being in pain?”
“I don't think you're like Ulfrikr,” Isolfr said, shocked.
“Then stop expecting me to behave like him.” Frithulf's face softened, and he reached out, very gently, to touch Isolfr's face, where his own face was scarred. “You knew what was coming, and you did not turn away from it. That's bravery, Isolfr, not weakness.” His smile was crooked with scarring, but it was still Frithulf's smile, still as bright and wicked as a magpie's saucy glance. “And did Sokkolfr tell you, Ulfrikr whistles when he breathes? I don't think he'll be so quick to taunt you as womanish again. Not now that he has a closer acquaintance with your womanish fists.”
Isolfr settled back, surprised to find that Viradechtis had arranged herself as a warm, pillowed chair. Her body eased his aches, and he suspected Jorveig had put some herb or root in the broth; warmth and a sort of numb fuzziness chased through his limbs. He sighed, and leaned his head back on his wolf's warm flank, and asked, “How goes the war?”
And fell asleep while Frithulf was telling him.
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V
iradechtis made herself his shadow, even when he was able to rise from his blankets again and totter to the privy or the bathhouse on his own. She even came
into
the bathhouse with him, and the werthreat laughed and complained, but none of them asked him to make her leave.
Understanding that she was unhappy, he did not try.
It took time for the question to rise from her mind to his, from instinct and scent into words. Three days after he woke clearheaded, when he was sitting with Frithulf rewrapping axe leathers while Kothran dozed belly-up in the weak winter sunlight and Viradechtis paced the courtyard thoughtfully, the words were there, simple words, almost childish words:
mating hurt you.
It was more images than words even then, but it was as close as Viradechtis would ever or could ever come to speaking to him, as a man spoke to his friend.
It startled him. Shocked him. Trellwolves did not speak in words.
But she was Viradechtis, and she was not like other wolves.
Yes,
Isolfr agreed, because there was no point in trying to lie.
She paced the length of the courtyard again, and he felt his answer sinking down into her understanding. Frithulf was telling him tales of Franangford, and he listened with half his mind while the other half waited for his sister's response.
When it came, it shocked him into dropping the axe hilt he was checking for damage:
I hurt you.
“You're lucky I took the blade,” Frithulf said, staring at him. “Isolfr? What's wrong?”
Isolfr held out his hands to Viradechtis, and she came to him willingly, tail wagging, but her ears down. “Sister, no,” he said softly, trying to give it in her language as she had struggled to give her question in his. “I do not fault you.”
Her concern had outstripped her small store of words, but he could feel her love for him with astonishing depth and clarity. He had known that she would die for him, as he would die for her, but he had not realized that she would as willingly die for his happiness as for his life, that her loyalty was so much larger and simpler than anything men's minds could comprehend. She understood that he had been hurt, but she did not understand how, and he could feel behind her that the wolfthreat did not understand either.
“Isolfr?” Frithulf said, and he shook himself awake to the fact that his friend was becoming as anxious as his sister.
“It's all right, Frithulf. I need ⦠I think Viradechtis and I need to walk.”
“And you don't want company.”
“No.” The politics of wolves: say what you mean.
“Don't go far,” Frithulf said, leaning to pick up the
dropped axe haft. “Or we'll have to send Kothran and Tindr to sledge you home.”
Isolfr grinned at the image and got slowly to his feet. “Come, sister,” he said, and Viradechtis followed him.
He had not gone deep into the pack-sense since the rut-madness had died away, but he took a deep breath, clearing head and lungs, and let himself open to it, let himself feel what he had been closing out. Pine-boughs-in-sunlight strongly, and then, with a strange formal feeling, the wolves who had topped Viradechtis: Mar, Glaedir, Ingjaldr, Guthleifr, Nagli, Egill. An honor guard, he thought, dimly understanding that they considered themselves ⦠bound? Was bound the right word? Bound to Viradechtis while she carried their pups. And if they were bound to her, then they were bound to him. To the wolves it was that simple, and he did not look beyond them to their brothers. Not yet. And past Viradechtis' males, the wolfthreat, its great warm awareness enfolding him, and he knew that if he had left the wolfheall he would for the rest of his life have been like a blind man yearning for the sight of sunlight.
With the pack-sense, it was easier to show her, because the wolves were certainly aware of their brothers' couplings with women, with other men, and Vigdis, from the distance of a long patrol circling back home, unexpectedly contributed her memories of Hrolleif and Grimolfr, showing her daughterâperhaps for the last time as mother to daughter rather than konigenwolf to konigenwolfâthe difference for a man between a mating with one other and a mating with many.
Viradechtis listened; he could feel her thinking, feel her sharp mind striving to comprehend something that was entirely outside its ken. Then he blushed scarlet when she put forward her memories of
his
couplings with Hjordis and, previously, the thrall-women. Those encounters had made her uncomfortable, making her groom her sex irritably and sometimes driving her to mount her brother Kothran, although it was not the same and did not appease the itch Isolfr's couplings awoke. But it did not ⦠her comparison
was the bite of a horsefly, and he snorted embarrassed laughter, hoping that Hrolleif had his mind on something other than the pack-sense at the moment.
It took him several tries, but he found a way to show her that men did not rut as wolves did. She gave him a picture, unintentionally brutal: himself, on his knees, begging with every fiber of his body for Skjaldwulf's touch. And he said, as firmly as he could,
wolfbrother
.
Her version of Gunnarr, stringy and bad-smelling and conspicuously without a wolf by his side. And he agreed with her, biting his cheek savagely to keep from laughing, that Gunnarr did not rut. She showed him Grimolfr, whose wolfname Isolfr caught for the first time: the smell of cold black iron. And Isolfr pointed her back to Vigdis' sharing of Hrolleif and Grimolfr. Grimolfr felt rut.
Wolfbrother
, he thought again, not in words, but in the feel of it, what it felt to be a man bonded to a wolf.
He had stopped walking as soon as he was far enough from the wolfheall to be safe from interruptions, stopped and sat down, a little more heavily than he liked, on a fallen tree. The sun was falling down the sky, the wind picking up, but he wanted this clear between them before they headed back. So he sat and shivered and waited while Viradechtis thought.
She laid her head across his knees and gave him another image of himself, this time a younger version, saying,
she is worth it.
He was astonished at her memory, that she could give him the sounds accurately, even though she did not entirely understand what they meant. But the feeling that went with them ⦠there was her question, there was the root of her question, and there was another flash of memory, there and gone, of him turning away from her, refusing her touch, and he understood that he had hurt her as surely as he had been hurt.
But her question was not so easy to answer. He remembered his younger self, discovering that “honor” was not a simple daylight concept, and now he thought he was discovering that “worth” was not, either.
He doubted he would ever say again, so glibly, that she was worth it. But she was
his
, and he was hers, and whatever price he'd paid was paid already. There was no use in demanding it backâand was it any greater cost than Frithulf's scars, when it came right down to it?
“I belong to you,” he said to Viradechtis, knowing that that was truth, that “worth”âwhatever it wasâwas not even the point between them. “I love you.”
Neither of those made any more sense to her than “worth” did. He went deeper into the pack-sense again, trying to find something that she could feel, something that would ease her. And he found it, found it in her own uncomplicated loyalty that did not care what he did or how he treated her. He gave that back to her, as clearly as he could, with as little taint of the overcomplications of his own relentless mind as he could manage.
She pushed her head harder into his stomach. Wolves did not apologize, for it was not their nature, but she was not quite a wolf any longer, just as he was not quite a man. She was sorry he had been hurt, sorryâthough the concepts were as elusive as fishes to herâthat her nature and his did not match. And she loved him, with such joy, such fierceness, that she ended up pushing him backwards off the log, to land with a thump in the dead leaves, the wind half knocked out of him and unable to catch his breath for some minutes because he was laughing so hard.
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I
t wasn't so hard to find tithe-boys after Othinnsaesc. The wolfless men were scared, and the boys, imaginations fired with tales of the campaign in the Iskryne, were eager. Viradechtis was fretful and snappish as her girth increased. Ingrun and Kolgrimna came into heat in quick succession, as if Viradechtis had set them off, which Hrolleif said wasn't unlikely.
This time, Viradechtis got the records-room. The litter was seven pups, all dogs. Isolfr stayed with her as much as he could, but there always seemed to be something demanding his attentionâmessages from Franangford, which Hrolleif insisted he listen to, and understand.
It was nearly spring and Viradechtis was outside, teaching her pups the skills they would need as trellhunters, when Hrolleif pulled Isolfr into the records-room and explained with the simple bluntness of wolves, “Your little girl's next heat will be her last one as second at Nithogsfjoll. She's ready for her own pack, Isolfr, and you must be ready to be her wolfsprechend. Franangford will need strong pack leaders to take the place of the fallen.”
Isolfr nodded, biting his lower lip. His beard was coming
in heavier, a patchy, itching thatch that was long enough to plait, now, and the wolfheall's women had been letting the seams out of his shirts across the shoulders. And Viradechtis was unapologetically ready to be matriarch of her own pack. “We'll have to alert the other wolfheallan,” he said, uncomfortably. “Before the mating. But that's a year or two henceâ”
Hrolleif shrugged. “It could be six months,” he said. “She won't fall neatly into her mother's pattern anymore, Isolfr. Ingrun and Kolgrimna are evidence enough of that.” Isolfr must have blanched visibly, because Hrolleif laughed, and reached out to clap Isolfr's shoulder. “Don't worry. Next time, she'll be choosing her wolfjarl as well as the father of her cubs. It will be different.”
“Different,” Isolfr said, letting his lips twist wryly. “Aye. The strongest and best of eleven wolfheallan will be there, and every arrogant hopeful therein.” He frowned, thinking of the hard way Eyjolfr watched him now, remembering the biting wit of tall Vethulf and Viradechtis' interest in his odd-eyed brother, and then he almost laughed when he realized that the most tolerable outcome would be Skjaldwulf and Mar.
At least they were gentle.
And he knew and trusted them.
He didn't think Mar was the strongest wolf in the Wolfmaegth, though.
Hrolleif seemed content to let him contemplate his future for the time being, but their companionable silence was interrupted by a scratching at the records-room door. “Come,” Hrolleif called.
It was Ulfbjorn, his broad shoulders brushing the door-posts. He glanced from Isolfr to Hrolleif, as if not quite sure where to begin. “There's a man and his brother from Franangford, with news of the war.”
“Who?” Hrolleif dusted his hands on his trews, already moving toward the door.
There was a pause before Ulfbjorn replied, and Hrolleif stopped, his eyebrows rising.
“Kari. And his brother Hrafn,” Ulfbjorn said.
“Well,” said Hrolleif. He shared a glance with Isolfr, and Isolfr remembered where he had heard those names beforeâa bonded pair, and neither name the name of a wolfcarl.
The Wolfmaegth subsisted on gossip. Isolfr's own reputation was his despair, even subsumed as it mostly was in his sister's, and he knew werthreat and wolfthreat alike were waiting with undisguised interest to see what sort of pack Viradechtis would create. But Isolfr and Viradechtis were not the only ones attracting interest this winter; Kari and Hrafn had been the source of some very choice gossip indeed. “The wildlings,” Isolfr said. Hrolleif nodded, preceding him through the door.
As the story went, Kari had been the sole survivor of the troll attack on Jorhus. He had fled to the woods, and when the burning of Jorhus spreadâfor trolls were careless with fireâhe rescued and bonded with a wild half-grown trellwolf, whom he had named Hrafn. The two had lived on their own for the better part of a year before presenting themselves at Franangford, where they had been taken in. Kari, however, had flatly refused to take a wolfcarl's name.
Franangford had lost both konigenwolf and wolfsprechend that winter to a troll sortieâunexpectedly encountered less than five miles from the wolfheallâand had been all but annexed by Arakensberg. Frithulf had had things to say about that, and a wicked gift for acting out the bitter rivalry between Grimolfr and Ulfsvith Iron-Tongue; he'd even made Hrolleif laugh once. So Grimolfr's choice of this
particular
wolfcarl as messenger meant something, and Isolfr wondered just where Kari stood in the uneasy tug-o-war between Arakensberg and Nithogsfjoll.
Then he blinked and had to smile at himself, playing politics as if he'd been born to the Wolfmaegth.
Whatever his father might have done since Isolfr left the manor, Gunnarr had prepared his children well.
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K
ari was neither tall nor stern, and if anything he was a summer or two younger than Isolfr, lightly mustached and not yet showing more than a trace of beard. But he had a wiry, wild sort of dignity, even with his mouse-colored hair worked loose from its braids to straggle into his eyes, sweat plastering stray strands to his cheeks and forehead. The rangy wolf crouched at his side was black, darker even than Mar, marked with a mask like a stippling of hoarfrost, watching the proceedings with pale yellow eyes.
“Hrolleif,” the boy said, and then his eyes flicked curiously to Isolfr.
Hrolleif made no introductions, so Isolfr said his name, which seemed to satisfy the messenger. Around the wolfheall, othersâwolves and wolfcarlsâwere watching, but Kari pitched his voice low, so that it would not carry. “Grimolfr bids you greeting, wolfsprechendâand Isolfr, as well.”
It was obviously Kari's own addendum, but Isolfr found he appreciated the gesture. “The news is ill,” he said, not quite asking, with a glance to Hrolleif for permission. Hrolleif nodded and shifted his weight back, folding his arms.
Kari said, “Franangford is holding, although not comfortably. But we must be ready to push forward in the spring, and retake Othinnsaesc, and the thaw is almost on us.”
Kari looked at Isolfr. Isolfr looked at Hrolleif. “Grimolfr wants us to bring the rest of the pack to Franangford,” Hrolleif said, with a quarter-quirk of a grin for Isolfr's refusal to take the lead.
“All but the cubs,” Kari agreed, “and a home guard to keep Nithogsfjoll safe in your absence.”
“The bitches too?” Isolfr asked.
“Everyone. Messengers have gone to every wolfheall. The wolfjarls think to let the bitches and their brothers defend Franangford, and quartermaster. That way, more of the dogs will be free for Othinnsaesc. And with so many of
the Wolfmaegth ralliedâand so many wolfless menâwe need the konigenwolves on the lines and in the rear.”
Keeping order. It was what konigenwolves did.
Hrolleif uncrossed his arms and frowned. “So it will be. Isolfr, will you and Frithulf see to the comfort of Hrafn and his brother?”
“I will,” Isolfr said, because there was nothing else he could have saidâbut inside, his gut twisted around the undercurrents, the things neither Kari nor Hrolleif were saying about what this new strategy meant.
Kari watched Hrolleif walk away in search of Ulfgeirr and Jorveig, then turned back to Isolfr with a half a shy smile shading his mouth. “They said you killed a trellwitch in the Iskryne,” he offered, as if holding it out for inspection.
“Come on,” Isolfr said, brushing the implied question, with its freight of awe, aside. “Let me introduce you to my shieldmates. You can bed down with us, if you like. And then we shall find you and Hrafn something to eat and some hot wine to drink.”
The shy smile turned blinding. “I'd like that.”
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lfbjorn, Sokkolfr, and Frithulf were gathered beside the central fireâUlfbjorn and Frithulf dicing while Sokkolfr mended leathers, drank wine and offered advice. They glanced up as Isolfr and his guest approached, andâstartlinglyâIsolfr realized that they gained something by association with him. Something that Eyjolfr wanted too, and Yngvulf would not be averse to ⦠Isolfr glanced around the heall, and noticed that Eyjolfr was at the long tables with Randulfr, apparently paying no attentionâbut Skjaldwulf was watching. The singer gave Isolfr a quick sweet grin before glancing away, a moment before Eyjolfr noticed the interaction and very obviously schooled a frown. Viradechtis, who played Mar and Glaedir against each other like a master swordsman practicing against a
post, was not going out of her way to make things easy for Isolfr.
But if she were conciliatory, she would not be a konigenwolf.
Hrafn flopped beside the fire with a groan before Isolfr had even made the introductions. He didn't miss Frithulf's glitter of avarice when he considered Kari, as rich a source of gossip as he could have imagined. “So,” Frithulf said, patting the skins beside himself as Isolfr went to see about more food and wine, “tell us your story.”
Which Kari did, eventually, under the influence of a good deal of wine and Frithulf's skilled prodding. He was clearly uncomfortable talking about himselfâbut grew animated when talking about Hrafn and how they had survived on their own.
“So why did you go to Franangford?” Ulfbjorn asked sometime later, after the horns of mulled wine had made several rounds and Viradechtis had come in, washed Isolfr's face thoroughly, inspected HrafnâIsolfr noticed Kari almost holding his breathâand flopped down with a long-suffering sigh, her head resting across both Isolfr's thighs.
Kari shrugged. “Hrafn wanted a pack. And it seemed likelier that a wolfheall would accept us than a wild pack.”
Isolfr was listening half in the pack-sense, as he found himself doing most of the time these days, and Hrafn said,
Cold
, meaning not just the cold of only having his brother to curl up with to sleep.
“But you didn't take a wolfcarl's name,” Frithulf said, his nose almost twitching with eagerness. Sokkolfr met Isolfr's eyes over his head, and they smiled at each other.
Kari said, “I didn't want to forget who I was.” He made a frustrated gesture. “I'm the only person left who can remember Jorhus. And if I let myself become someone elseâ”
“That's not what it means,” Frithulf argued.
“Of course it is,” Sokkolfr said. “Or are you trying to tell me that you're Brandr Erikson, just as you were before you were tithed?”
“Well, Iâ”
“I'm certainly not Njall Gunnarson,” Isolfr said, and the name felt strange on his tongue, unfamiliar.
“Yes, but your fatherâ” Frithulf stopped so quickly he must have bitten his tongue, flushing red to the roots of his hair.
“Have some more wine, Frithulf,” Ulfbjorn said kindly.
“I'm sure I would have felt differently if I'd been tithed,” Kari said.
Frithulf made a face and pushed the wine away. “Something tells me I've had enough.”
Kari laughedâhe had an easy laugh, at odds with his earlier shynessâand then looked up startled as Jorveig appeared by the fireside. Like Ulfbjorn, she was light on her feet for her size.
“Isolfr,” she said, her hands twitchingâas if she wished to reach out and straighten his hairâbefore knotting in front of her apron. The note in her voice brought both Isolfr and Ulfbjorn to their feet, the other threeâeven Kariâclose behind. “Hjordis sends to tell you the baby is coming.”
Frithulf and Kari stayed by the fire, but the other two came with Isolfr and Jorveig into the cold dark of winter night, walking with a company of ten wolvesâTindr, Hroi, Viradechtis, and all her seven cubsâover the frozen ruts. There was no moon, and the sky was clear. Stars throbbed in an indigo like velvet, and the aurora burned over that rich darkness, bright as amber held to the light. Isolfr caught a breath.
My woman is bearing my child.
It seemed unreal, alien. He slipped his hand through the slit in his mitten and knotted it in Viradechtis' ruff. She moaned low in her throat and leaned her shoulder on his thigh as they walked, all her love and worry in her touch. She thought of newborn cubs, damp and milky, the thick, meaty taste of the afterbirth, and the warmth of straw. Your cubs, my cubs. Ours, our pack, ours to raise and teach. If they live, and are strong.
Yes
, he answered, and she tugged free, then turned her
head quickly and curled a slick muscular tongue into his palm. Ours.
If they live, and are strong.
The night was a blur. It was early, perhaps too early, and despite Isolfr's assurances that he had attended more than one birthing, neither the midwife nor Hjordis' mother nor her sister Angrbotha would permit him in the cottage for her lying-in. He paced outside the door, Viradechtis and her pups swarming around his boots in the frozen late-winter mud, until Jorveig, who had come as the wolfheall's representative at the birth of a heallgot child, told Ulfbjorn and Sokkolfr that the best thing they could do was take Isolfr out, find Angrbotha's husband, and get Isolfr too drunk to stand.