An Apprentice to Elves (15 page)

“Fit for a konungur, even,” she agreed, smiling lopsidedly back. “I'll get the tithe-boys gathering fuel for the bathhouse, too. And we'll cook something that keeps, in case he shows up for breakfast instead.”

*   *   *

It was coming on high summer, and the nights were white. While this occasioned some suffering for the svartalfar, it made life significantly easier for Alfgyfa, who did not have to sleep in the snow or ride in the dark. They continued to rest through the brightest hours of day—at first under canopies and then, as they reached the taiga, under the broad bowers of spruce and pine. In one small blessing, they were past the worst of the mosquito season—the puddles of meltwater had largely dried—and Alfgyfa slept strangely well in the open air, though she had almost forgotten what it felt like.

She did dream. And once they came within the range of the pack of Franangford, what she dreamed of was wolves. She dreamed of running with them. Of being
of
them, part of the pack-sense, sleek and shadowy, slipping through the pines like so many ghosts. Of the careful, intentional ignoring it took for one pack to move through the territory of another without conflict. Without meeting. By communicating without so much as acknowledging one another's existence, for such was the politeness of wolves.

But she wasn't dreaming of Viradechtis, or the Franangford wolfthreat. It was three days' dreaming before she realized that she was dreaming what green-wood-burning was showing her.

(
Greensmoke,
she had named her in the long hours and days and years that she had thought about the wild wolves after that single meeting as a child. It was not her place to name a wild wolf, but humans were lazy, as Tin was always telling her, and she knew, from growing up around tattletale packmates, how to keep the thought inside the walls of her own private-mind.)

Perhaps she merely dreamed what Greensmoke was experiencing; the wild konigenwolf might not have enough experience with wolfcarls to know that the focus of her attention was causing her to whisper into the back of Alfgyfa's mind.

The wolves were following.

Idocrase, Girasol, and Tin all noticed her nervousness, and each responded to it differently, Tin by giving her more work, Girasol by sticking close as a burr.

Idocrase wondered whether they were, as he put it,
trespassing
and so Alfgyfa explained about
allemansratten,
every man's right. He was fascinated to discover that humans had a custom permitting others to pass over and through meadow and forest and stream, to fish or to forage for wild food or to hunt game, to sleep for a night in a field—so long as no crops were harmed and no property was damaged.

“And we have guest-right,” she said. “Although it would be a bit much to expect any crofter to house and feed this many. A keep, though, or a heall—that would be a reasonable boon to ask of a larger settlement.”

He was watching her curiously. She looked back, head cocked, and he reached out and picked a sap-sticky pine twig from her hair. “Your people
do
have traditions,” he said, “not just stories,” and she remembered the conversation they'd had after the alfmoot.

She was surprised by the warmth she felt at his touch. “I didn't say we didn't. But they aren't the same.”

“No, I can see that,” he agreed, spinning the twig gently between his fingers. “Would many of your people agree that your customs should apply to the svartalfar? That we should have guest-right?”

“Humans and svartalfar are not enemies.”

“Are we friends?” His face was oddly intent.

“I hope that we are,” she said cautiously.

It was, at least, not the wrong answer. “I hope so, too,” he said, and then Galfenol was yelling for him and he gave her an odd duck of the head and scuttled away.

*   *   *

Gunnarr Konungur was in fact in time for supper. There was nothing startling about that: he had the reputation of a trencherman. Much as he liked his food, the traveling required of his role as konungur kept him lean—or possibly it was the need developed by traveling that put so much will in his appetite. Gunnarr was up and down the country most of the time, less the sort of royal progress Otter had learned to anticipate as a girl in Brython and more the wearing of a shepherd dog making sure his flocks were well guarded and in order. He often brought men and materials to help with building, weapons for those who needed them, warriors to assist in the drills, women to weave cloth for warm winter clothing. The konungur's people helped with the harvest and required that a certain amount of food be set aside against need.

It was, to put it mildly, a different system.

Gunnarr did not much resemble his son. He was darker, though not dark, and his seamed face bristled with gray and auburn stubble. He let a beard grow long on his chin, however, and wore the sort of mustache that trailed off to either side in spikes.

Unexpectedly, among his usual retinue of men at arms and weaving women, however, Gunnarr traveled in the company of a godheofodman. Erik of Hergilsberg was the leader of the priesthood and a great supporter of the efforts against the Rheans. They had met before, Erik and Otter, and she respected him no less now. Even now, in his age, he wore a bear-cloak, with the scarred face and body to show he had earned it in battle. His gray hair trailed woolly and long around a bald pate and his nose had been broken so often it seemed to have been mashed into his beard. He had a hug for Otter, when he saw her, that was surprising in its delicacy and care, and his smile split his beard.

The true surprise, though, was that along with the rest of his entourage, Gunnarr traveled with his daughter. Kathlin Sun-belit, Kathlin Gunnarrsdaughter, was renowned for her honey-colored beauty—said to be the image of her mother, Halfrid, when Halfrid had been young, though Halfrid was even paler. Otter, who had always been small and dark and felt even smaller and darker among the tall, fair Northmen, was almost flattened by Gunnarr's daughter. Kathlin had broad shoulders and a straight, narrow nose that matched her handsome mouth. Her long neck rose like a swan's from the neckline of her kirtle, which was dyed a deep, appealing blue that sparked the color in her eyes. Her smock was dark red and pleated, the straps pinned before the shoulders with the oval brass tortoise brooches these Northerners called
dwarves.
Three strands of amber and one of water-sapphire dangled between them.

Otter envied the dress, and the road-stained red leather boots Kathlin wore beneath it. Marriage had apparently not been unkind to Kathlin, who was also renowned for her husband Ole.
He
was a farship trader, one of the intrepid souls who plied the seas from Hergilsberg and other Southern ports to bring spices, silk, smoke, and stranger things home from the wide world. Otter guessed the water-sapphires would have been from him; the traders used them to find the sun on cloudy days, and so navigate across open water far from any sight of land. Otter wondered if Kathlin missed him when he traveled, away for months or more, or if she took his absence as a relief from the burdens of marriage and maintaining a man.

Whatever the status of Kathlin's marriage, Otter thought she had never seen anyone so happy to greet anyone as Isolfr was to greet Kathlin. Her presence even seemed to mellow his discomfort at being confronted with his father. Which was saying something, because Isolfr and Gunnarr generally got along like two porcupines trying to share a branch in a spruce tree.

Kathlin had brought along three of her five daughters—the ones in the middle, aged twelve, nine, and six, which range (Otter thought) spoke of good planning. Or surprisingly consistent luck. She had not brought her husband, however, as he was away trading, seeking supplies to help fortify the Northlands against invasion. Gunnarr was clearly as much protection as his daughter needed—and Kathlin as canny a leader as her father: she had Skjaldwulf charmed before Mjoll so much as brought bread and butter to the table, and Skjaldwulf had no interest in women as bed partners and every reason, some twenty years or more in the holding, to dislike and distrust Isolfr's family. Even on short acquaintance, Kathlin reminded Otter even more of Isolfr than of Gunnarr—though she seemed outgoing where he was shy. She watched them together, the tiny fragments of personal conversation they managed between Kathlin's daughters on the one hand and the rowdy werthreat on the other, and she wondered, though she knew she would
never
ask, what the householder thought of the wolfsprechend, if Kathlin saw the likeness between her work and his. Otter also watched Gunnarr watching his children's reunion, caught the slight smile ruffling his beard, and thought that the clever old bastard had planned exactly this. Kathlin was there to mediate between Gunnarr and Isolfr, to keep the waters tranquil.

And she was already well started to manage it. Otter couldn't tell if Kathlin knew her father's plan or if she was just as happy to see Isolfr as Isolfr was to see her.

As chatelaine of Franangford—or as near as anyone was ever going to get—Otter was well aware of the power she had either to support the peace Kathlin was brokering between Gunnarr and Isolfr, or to undercut it (for a chatelaine could do either, and have surprisingly widespread effect). She did not like Gunnarr and she was not entirely sure she trusted Kathlin, but she knew how miserable it made Isolfr to be fighting with his father, and she could see—anyone could see, unusally for Isolfr who kept most of what he felt off his face—how happy he was at this reunion with his sister. Otter decided to support rather than undercut; she mentioned as much to Sokkolfr, who laughed in that way he had, like a wolf—no sound, all something about the eyes.

“Every one of us would be immensely grateful,” was all he said.

*   *   *

The last three miles to the Franangfordheall seemed to take far longer than all the rest of the journey put together. Alfgyfa could feel each beat of her heart up in her throat, taste it thick and coppery in her mouth.

The wolfthreat was waiting for her. She could feel them all—the eagerness and welcome of those who knew her, and the curiosity of the young wolves born since she went away. There was Viradechtis first, konigenwolf, Father's sister, then Mar and Kjaran right behind her. Kothran and Hrafn and Glaedir, Hlothor, Stigandr … Ingrun? Ingrun had been in Siglufjordhur when Alfgyfa left, and although that had been a very long time ago, she couldn't quite imagine that the invaders from the south had simply packed up and left.

But she got distracted by Amma, out in front of all the others, Amma, whom Alfgyfa remembered though she had no memory of her own mother, strong and loving and kind. Alfgyfa felt her there, so present and eager, and felt all the apprehension inside her burst like a winter log-jam when the spring freshet rose behind it.

Alfgyfa had been at the front of the group, the ponies walking single file. She couldn't recall afterward if she had lifted the reins, or if her shaggy little mount—a huge draft horse by svartalf standards—had simply felt the excitement surging through her. But he snorted and flicked his white-daubed heels and, with a toss of his braided mane, broke into a canter.

The gelding would have been the color of soot, except he looked as if someone had splashed whitewash on all four of his legs to above the knee, and there was a single patch of white on his rump that made his tail streaked like a storm cloud. He had a white star like a thumb-smudge between his eyes and one final ragged patch of white no bigger than Alfgyfa's hand under the fall of his mane.

His name was Lampblack.

His harness-bells jingled, madcap, as he rocked forward, tidy feet tucked up to jump when a branch or trunk lay across their path. All around, the wood was pleasant and bright with flickering rays of sun and the songs of wood pigeon, warbler, oriole, curlew. Lampblack's amber-colored hooves thumped in cushioning pine; two magpies darted overhead.

Wolves,
Alfgyfa realized an instant too late, reaching to take up the reins just as she and her pony burst into the edge of the fields near Franangford and Lampblack spotted Brokkolfr and Amma standing by the roadside, a hundred yards distant.

Amma was no Viradechtis, but she was two thirds the size of even a big svartalf pony. She was chiefly tawny in color, a honey-amber, her guard hairs tipped in sooty gray so she seemed to wear a silver mask and cape in the sunlight. Brokkolfr stood beside her—a man still young, with fine black hair that would never stay in a braid and eyes so bright a blue they showed even over this distance.

To Alfgyfa, Brokkolfr and Amma looked like home and safety and a platter of jam tarts all rolled into one.

Lampblack had a slightly different impression.

He didn't spook—bless a sturdy pony. But he did drop his haunches and set his forelegs and stop so short that Alfgyfa thumped against his neck, taking the pommel of her saddle right below the navel. She gagged, but somehow kept her wits about her and drew in the reins while Lampblack's head was still tucked against his chest, so that when he had finished his snorting assessment of the situation and was finally prepared to bolt, she had him far enough under wraps that he just danced around in a circle, back feet replacing his front feet in a series of discomfited hops.

The reins twisted her fingers together, bringing tears to her eyes, but the gelding pulled so hard she couldn't have unwound them anyway. She held on, locked her elbows, set her feet in the stirrups and waited it out. Lampblack being an essentially sensible beast, it was over quickly. If she wouldn't let him run from the giant predator, he wasn't going to waste his strength fighting. He eased on the reins and settled, staring directly at the wolf with his tail whisking about like an irritated cat's. His flat ears and the tension thrilling through him told Alfgyfa exactly what he thought of both her and Amma.

Amma, for her part, looked at them—laughing—and dropped down on her belly in the long grass, tail thumping and ears pricked. Brokkolfr gave her a warning look—
stay put, you
—and started forward. His slow approach seemed to reassure Lampblack—and so too, probably, did the jingle of other harnesses approaching behind. He might have outrun his herd, but that didn't mean he didn't want them around to watch his back for him.