An Apprentice to Elves (23 page)

“Is it a problem for her?” Orpiment asked, archly. As if idly.

Alfgyfa huffed instead of laughing. “Its failure could be. Or rather, if it fails, it will be a problem for us all. Svartalfar and men alike.” She studied her nails. “We are no longer united against the trolls. And there are those in any group who are always spoiling for a fight. Or just out for their own advantage and unable to consider a compromise for the common good.”

It was a weak blow, but it struck home. The aettrynalfar were far less hidebound than the svartalfar, but they were still deeply cautious compared to Alfgyfa's people. The aettrynalfar would never have discovered the Northmen by
exploring,
as Brokkolfr and Kari had discovered them. And she suspected, although she had learned enough caution herself not to ask, that the aettrynalfar were still, if not afraid of the Northmen, then nervous about what their volatile neighbors might wake up one morning and decide to do.

She knew the wolfheofodmenn felt much the same way, trying to keep on top of their wolfcarls and the jarl of Franangford and the crofters who kept creeping farther and farther out from the protection of the keep.
We are tired of war,
Isolfr had said to her,
but we are not certain how to do anything else.

“It is true,” Orpiment said, as if he were edging out onto ice of dubious thickness, testing each step before he slid his foot forward, “that there are things that perhaps we could discuss from a perspective, not of alliance, for that I fear is not to be thought of, but of
cooperation.
”

“Cooperation is better than the alternative,” Alfgyfa said. “I don't think the svartalfar imagine for a moment that there is any hope of alliance between…” She stumbled over her words:
our two peoples
was certainly wrong, but
your two peoples
almost sounded worse. “Between svartalfar and aettrynalfar, but Mastersmith Tin hopes that there is yet the possibility for change.”

Osmium considered Alfgyfa for a long moment, her dark face and bright bead eyes unreadable, then looked at Orpiment. There was a silent discussion that Alfgyfa had no hope of interpreting; then Osmium looked back at her and said, “As you are my friend and you vouch for your master, I will speak to my dama about the possibility of a meeting. But I cannot say what his answer will be.”

“That you speak to him is all I ask,” Alfgyfa said and picked up her cup to hide a sigh of relief.

 

NINE

When the message came from Viradechtis, by way of Signy, by way of Hreithulfr and then Blarwulf and finally a young wolfcarl whose name Fargrimr couldn't think of, Fargrimr was in one part saddened, in one part rebellious, and in one part relieved. For sorrow, he would lose his new home as he had lost the old. For relief, he would not be left to defend a sacrificial keep and delay the Rheans in a siege that might last through winter and would surely end in defeat. And for rebellion, he wanted more than anything to kill the Rheans despoiling his home and his lands and his people, and for a few moments considered sending back a refusal as specific as could be managed by wolf-to-wolf relay. Which was, judging by the message passed along to him, not too damned specific.

That message, at least as it came to Fargrimr, was:
We are coming but not fast enough. Evacuate.

Later, when he had fallen back to Freyasheall and could consult with Blarwulf and Hreithulfr, they were able to tell him at least a little more, gleaned from several rounds of back-and-forth between Signy and her mother (and Hreithulfr and Isolfr behind them). When the Rheans came (Franangford said), the Freyasthreat, wolves, wolfcarls, and wolfless men, should flee before them rather than choosing to stand and defend the heall; that Randulfr and Ingrun were returning (one hoped with better information); that reinforcements were coming, though not quickly enough to save the heall; and that Viradechtis and Signy would bring the two armies together when the time came for their reunion.

Fargrimr phrased it to himself in words he could give his thanes, trying to leach the bitterness out of them:
Let the Rheans have the heall, take as much as you can, destroy what you cannot take. Fall back, regroup, and save yourselves to fight for another day. Help is coming. We are not defeated.

He could even appreciate the wisdom of Franangford's plan. But it rankled like a deep-festering thorn.

“Great,” Fargrimr muttered to Blarwulf. “We're the bait.”

“It's how you hunt wyverns,” Blarwulf said. “One wolf and one man lure the head out, and the rest of the pack attacks the flank. I suppose Rheans are also a sort of snake.”

“True,” said Fargrimr.

So it was from that point that they began their preparations.

Fargrimr hoped that Randulfr would reach them before the Rheans, but he could not rely on it. And so he and the wolfheofodmenn very quietly began sending north the supplies they would not be able to carry with them. Perhaps they would be of use if they could make it to Franangford by mule-pack in time to help supply the army gathering there. They would most certainly not be of any use left here to be appropriated by the Rheans.

For the time being, Fargrimr, Blarwulf, and Hreithulfr did not make it widely known that they would be abandoning Freyasheall. It was always possible that someone in the ranks might see a way to ingratiate himself with a superior force—or just earn a little coin—by selling information. And there were children, the frail, and the old, those who would be dead weight in retreat but who could not be abandoned. Something would have to be done to protect them before the heall and keep as a whole took to the war, and that problem was easier to manage the fewer people there were taking part in the discussion.

Those who were able for travel, if not able for war, went north with the pack mules. The remainder Fargrimr brought down to the shore in a wagon and put on a boat north to Esternholm with three of his most experienced sailors; he stood by, fretting with uselessness, while Freyvithr said a quick, impassioned prayer over them.

Fargrimr, the priest, the teamster, and the teamster's four men stood on the sandy shore and watched the boat they had helped push into the water move through the twilight out onto the calm summer seas. Before long, the striped square sail billowed up the mast and snapped taut. The boat skipped away, running before the breeze.

The wind was favorable. The moon was full and rising. With any luck, they would be out of the reach of the slower Rhean ships by dawn. With better luck, the Rheans would never even see them.

Fargrimr glanced at Freyvithr. “Do you think we will ever find out the end of that story?”

Freyvithr gave him a wry, understanding smile. “Maybe the gods will see fit to have a skald sing it for us in Valhalla.”

By the time Fargrimr and the others returned to Freyasheall, it was long past midnight, and when Fargrimr walked into the great hall, he found Randulfr and Ingrun waiting by the fire, Signy sprawled companionably beside them. Randulfr was nursing spiced wine. Ingrun's paws were bound up in pungent liniment and linen. She was fussing with them in preference to the reindeer bone she might have been chewing, and every few seconds Randulfr reached out with a gentle, sock-clad toe and nudged her nose away from her feet.

The teamster had gone with his cart, in order to see to the animals. Freyvithr excused himself with some comment about finding ale, and Fargrimr strode forward to embrace his brother. It was late enough that this, the social center of the wolfheall, was nearly deserted—Freyasheall was a modern-built heall, and men and wolves slept in more private chambers elsewhere—so once they had made their greetings, Fargrimr just dropped down on the bench beside Randulfr and lowered his voice. “Signy passed along her mother's advice.”

Randulfr nodded and glanced around. “Have you told them yet?”

Fargrimr shook his head. “Better quick and sharp, like any amputation.” He took a steadying breath. “We can't leave this for the Rheans either.”

Randulfr gave him a look as comfortless as charity. “I know it.”

*   *   *

One more long day passed in quiet planning. Then the brief night was spent in hasty but organized packing, and Fargrimr didn't explain why. It was fine for the wolfcarls of the heall to know the truth, but he could not exactly tell his men that the order to withdraw had been delivered by a wolf some days before being confirmed by Fargrimr's own wolf-bound brother.

Still, he gave the orders, and the orders were followed. Nothing of use was to be left behind. Nothing alive was to be suffered to remain within the walls of Freyasheall. New, bright, pride-of-the-seacoast wolfheall Freyasheall. Then, when every scrap of food and fodder, every weapon, every living beast was out of the heall, he sent his people and their worldly wealth outside the walls a furlong or so and bade them wait. Some argued. Some went peaceably. In every eye, he thought he saw suspicion and condemnation. Whether it was printed there to be seen or whether he read it there himself, he could not be sure and could not ask.

In the coming of the cool gray dawn, it was Fargrimr himself who poured the oil and kindled the torch. It was Randulfr, though, who set that torch to the oil-soaked thatch of the roof and lit the spark that would burn Freyasheall to the ground.

There was a pause—a sort of momentary hesitation, as if the flames could not believe their luck. And then a roar, and an enormous wash of heat that stung Fargrimr's face as a wall of fire leapt joyously up the roof and spat and showered sparks, towering over the brothers. Fargrimr gripped Randulfr's free arm to draw his brother back. But Randulfr paused long enough to cock his right arm and hurl the torch in a great looping arc, tumbling end over end to describe a glaring orange spiral against the misty sky. It guttered and smoked, but still burned as it fell somewhere among the outbuildings, and Fargrimr knew that they, too, would burn pitilessly.

Then it was Randulfr who took Fargrimr's wrist and pulled him away, through the gates and down the rutted dirt road to where the men of keep and heall, the watchful wolves, and the fire-frightened horses stood in wait. It was hard, so hard, walking away from the burning wreck of all they'd built, and in that moment, Fargrimr hated the Rheans with every last ashy spark of his soul.

He didn't hate them any less as the column of refugees wended north. Without carts that would keep them on the road, they led comically laden mules and ponies over tree-root-raddled trails, and the men and even the wolves wore harness and pack as well. Every time they came to a clearing or a riverbank—they forded the summer-droughted streams easily—Fargrimr glanced back at the brightening sky. It was hours before the column of hot gray smoke shivering there turned charred black, and more hours still before it wavered out of sight.

Randulfr, one hand buried in Ingrun's ruff, frowned at him. “Regrets?”

“That's a stupid question,” Fargrimr replied with the easy affection of a sibling. “You?”

Randulfr nodded. He picked something from between his teeth with a thumbnail and spat. “We'll come take it back someday. And build it even better on the ash.”

“See if we don't,” Fargrimr agreed, trying to sound more convinced than Randulfr had. Then he reminded himself that he was jarl of Siglufjordhur, whether there was any Siglufjordhur to be jarl of or not. He took a breath and squared his shoulders, and strode away to see what was slowing the men at the head of the column so unacceptably.

 

TEN

The first problem of the Alfarthing was where it should convene, and it was a problem that nearly foundered the whole undertaking. Lamentably, Tin was not surprised. The aettrynalfar refused to allow the svartalfar in their halls—which merely saved the svartalfar the necessity of refusing to go into those troll-tainted warrens—and neither side was happy about Isolfr's suggestion of holding any kind of discussion in a hall built by Northmen. But they were even more unhappy about Vethulf's countersuggestion that they meet under the open sky.

Alfgyfa went back and forth between svartalfar and aettrynalfar with, frankly, more patience than Tin had ever seen in her before. It was encouraging. And certainly it was easier to be talking face-to-face to Isolfr here, among a wolfheall full of Northmen, when she was more pleased with his daughter than otherwise. There were entire seasons of Alfgyfa's life during which this visit would have been substantially more uncomfortable.

Unfortunately, the substance of those talks with Isolfr were less encouraging. Not because of Isolfr, who remained himself: older, to be sure, and occasionally surprising Tin with his steadiness, to her great pleasure. But essentially Isolfr. And Viradechtis Konigenmother Vigdisdaughter had if anything grown cannier and more devoted both to her pack and to her human brother. But although Isolfr certainly appreciated the need for good relations between alfar and men—he had been Tin's chief co-conspirator in this for nearly two decades, which was a very long time among men—neither he nor Viradechtis had any better idea than Tin did how to make that alliance less fragile.

Late one particular evening, in the long twilight between sunset and sunrise, while waiting for Alfgyfa to return from yet another messenger mission, Tin realized she had had all of Galfenol and the aettrynalfar and the wolfheall and the waiting she could take. The sun was below the horizon for a while: it would not blind her or burn her skin. She was not, for a change, completely trapped either in the heall or in all-swaddling robes. She charged Pearl with watching Girasol—not that watching Girasol was a particular hardship at the wolfheall, because the alfling chiefly wished to devote his time and energy to camping out with Isolfr's sister's-daughter Esja beside the door to the whelping room. Athisla, ever more and more gravid and dripping milk from her engorged nipples onto the stone floors wherever she walked (and she stumped everywhere heavily now, with great put-upon sighs at every exertion)might retire at any moment to her carefully built nest, and Girasol and Esja were determined not to miss it.