An Apprentice to Elves (27 page)

“I know very little about metalsmithing,” Osmium said. “But the basic principle is the same: you can move the metal—make it thicker in one place, thinner in another. Or you can physically pull it out,” and she nodded to the spiral on Alfgyfa's hand. “But at the end, you will be able to account for all of it. Or you would, if anyone asked.”

“Whatever shape you make the ingot into, it's still the same ingot,” Alfgyfa agreed.

“Yes, like that. Not like this,” and she waved one long arm at the clawed, unbalanced tunnels around them.

They walked a little longer in silence. “Where are we going?” Alfgyfa asked, finally unable to keep the question behind her teeth any longer.

“Not far,” Osmium said, the corners of her mouth rising.

“How do you know what's down here?”

Osmium said, “Alfar secrets,” the way she used to when they were children and Alfgyfa asked a question she should already have known the answer to.

Of course. Aettrynalf apprentices probably snuck in here all the time. Not a thing Tin or anyone else could do had managed to keep Alfgyfa out of the Nidavellir trellwarrens, and she wasn't even a stoneshaper.

“Right,” she said, and nearly broke her toe on another ripple where the trolls had left the world badly folded in their wake.

 

ELEVEN

Fargrimr and his people walked and camped, and left as little trail as possible. They knew through the pack-sense from Viradechtis that the Northern army was still gathering. They suspected from experience—and had discussed through many long nights of strategizing over the past years—that the Rheans would not follow them into the wolf-haunted woods. Skjaldwulf Marsbrother had learned all too vividly of the superstitious dread with which the Rheans regarded their own ancestral wolf-goddess. That, and their belief that men who kept company with wolves were witches, would have sufficed even if no other reasons presented themselves.

And there were, as Otter had been at pains to point out from the wisdom of her cruel experience, so many other reasons. The trees broke up the Rheans' nigh-impenetrable shield-wall turtles. Forests rendered their close-marching tactics untenable. And the taiga gave the Northmen every advantage of ground.

Regrettably, Otter had also been at pains to point out—also from her own experience—that the depths of the taiga would not protect the Northmen forever. You couldn't farm in deep forest, and you couldn't eat pinecones and live on the run for season upon season. Forest could be cut down or burned, and roads built to pierce it.

Still, Fargrimr knew, the forest and the winter were the Northmen's allies as sure as were the wolves. (He was almost moved to regret the loss of trolls. Leading a trellwarren down on the Rheans would have been a neat and satisfying use of natural resources.) His best hope currently was that perhaps the Rheans would decide to salvage Freyasheall—all the wood, he hoped, would have burned, but the stone was still sound—and that the rebuilding operation would delay them through the summer. If they were not in too much of a hurry, if they were willing to consolidate gains rather than pursuing a fleeing enemy into a wilderness that was friendly to that enemy and inimical to them.…

Fargrimr kept company with that hope right until the first Rhean found them.

And found them in a most peculiar fashion, from what Fargrimr could gather as he was being roughly woken to deal with the matter. While he rubbed sleep from his eyes, a wolfcarl messenger told Fargrimr that the captured Rhean had walked right up to a sentry with the green boughs tokening peace in his hands and surrendered himself, saying he wished to parley with Fargrimr Fastarrson.

He must be a messenger from Iunarius,
Fargrimr thought, heaving himself to his feet. He tightened his breast band and pulled on his trews while he tried to think through this new problem. By the time he'd laced his boots, an earthenware mug of hot mint and willow infusion laced with honey had appeared at his side, placed there by a crop-haired, self-effacing thrall.
No more fires,
Fargrimr reminded himself. He must pass the order tonight.

He didn't quite have the strength of character to pour the tisane out, however. Before he drank it down—the warmth of the mug took the morning chill from his fingers, at least—Fargrimr collared a young man who had been stitching up a pair of breeches nearby and sent the youth off: “Tell my brother that I may have need of him and his sister. Tell them to come through the woods in concealment to within sight of the east sentry position, and to be ready. But they are not to come to me until I signal it.”

He fixed his clothes; assembled his weapons; dragged a comb through his hair and suffered it to be braided neatly by a thrall—tight-tugged and painful. Gulped a second cup of boiled mint water and sucked a goose egg. Standing over smokeless, low-flickering coals, he collected his wits. At least whoever had built the cook fires had built them not to smoke, only shimmer.

After a moment or two, Fargrimr decided that any uncollected wits he had left were unlikely to be rounded up with another five seconds' grace. He signaled to the wolfcarl messenger to lead him to their guest.

The men hadn't brought the Rhean into camp, and Fargrimr approved the caution of the sentries. If it was decided to let the Rhean live—and leave—he would be able to report on little except where he had found them. It was best for everyone concerned that troop strength and equipment remain a mystery to him.

The Rhean stood, under guard but at ease, with his shoulder leaned against a spreading beech. He was unarmed and without a breastplate or even a shirt, though he wore the Rhean skirt of crimson leather strips and a red-dyed tunic, with a bright brooch on one shoulder. His chest was all but hairless. His toes were bare in sandals.

I hope they neglected to bring boots for winter,
Fargrimr thought. It was probably a forlorn hope: the Rheans had certainly been occupying Siglufjordhur keep and town long enough to learn the climate. On the other hand, Siglufjordhur was on the coast, and by the standards of the North, quite warm.

“I am Fargrimr,” he said in Rhean, when the man's strange, opaque black eyes rose up to meet his. This Rhean was not so dark as Iunarius, but he was darker-complected than any other Fargrimr had seen. That did not conceal the fact that he was quite shockingly young.

Or maybe Fargrimr was just getting old.

He continued on in his own language, because he had no hope of making himself understood in the Rhean tongue. He needed some people who spoke Rhean—people like Otter, perhaps, who might have reason to chance their luck with the Northmen. “What do you want with me, Rhean?”

The Rhean cleared his throat. He crouched and laid his branches on the ground, which Fargrimr knew for a delaying tactic. When he stood again, he met Fargrimr's gaze and spoke well, if with a strong accent. “I am Marcus Verenius. I come as a messenger from Quintus Verenius Corvus, who is my uncle.” He touched the brooch, which showed a crow. “He would like to proffer to you an alliance.”

Fargrimr had, in the little time it had taken him to organize himself and come here, envisioned many scenarios that might have brought the Rhean to his scraped-out camp. He had inspected and discarded so many different possibilities. This, truly, had not been among them.

“An alliance?” he asked, too startled to scoff properly. He managed to bite his tongue before it slipped the rein completely, and took his time about inspecting the Rhean.

The man had run hard, that much was obvious. Salt crusted white across his cedarwood-colored cheeks and on his uncovered chest. It had taken some courage to leave his armor and weapons behind to lighten his load, Fargrimr thought—even with the knowledge that no shield and sword would avail a single man much in the camp of the enemy. Marcus Verenius' black hair, cropped like a thrall's, was spiked with drying sweat. He was stretching his feet and calves by rocking against his sandal straps. Fargrimr imagined standing still under guard after a hard run wasn't doing the man any favors.

“Let's walk,” he said. He looked at the wolfcarl. “Ulflaf, get this man some water, please, and some bread and salt.”

The wolfcarl blinked at him, but nodded. He trotted off, his lanky amber-colored brother a puff of smoke at his side. The Rhean watched him go so intently that Fargrimr almost saw the hackles of his neck smoothing.

The Rhean sighed when the wolf vanished into the trees.

Fargrimr said, “Your uncle. This Quintus…”

“Verenius Corvus.”

“Quintus Verenius Corvus. You mean he wishes me to turn coat?”

The messenger smiled knowingly, an expression that seemed awkward on his young face—like a child wearing his father's shoes. He held out his now-empty hands as if to demonstrate his harmlessness. “Quite the opposite.”

Ah, there was the scoff. Just a little delayed in travel, apparently. Fargrimr deemed himself reasonably accomplished for limiting it to raised eyebrows and a snort. “That is not how one negotiates from a position of power, boy.”

Marcus Verenius smiled wider—and it seemed more genuine now. “They warned me that you were a hard … man,” he said. Fargrimr noted the unspoken insult and, for the moment, let it go. “So let me speak plainly. There are those from the empire on this expedition whose interests—either their own, or those of their masters—would be best served by seeing the senator disgraced.”

“Senator?” Fargrimr spoke the unfamiliar word carefully.

“Like a—a thane, perhaps. A powerful man in the empire.”

“And who is this senator?”

The messenger gaped for a moment before he recovered himself. “Ah, of course, you could not know. The senator. Iunarius, the legate. The leader of this expedition.”

Fargrimr might have snapped his fingers in sudden comprehension, but he was a better politician than this boy. Or, at least, than this boy was pretending to be. “Your faction would like to see him disgraced for political advantage at home.”

Marcus Verenius' eyebrows twitched. His lips didn't curve, but a dimple deepened in his cheek.

“And you'd betray your empire's interests to help gain that advantage.”

“Not everyone,” Marcus Verenius said carefully, “believes that an expensive, distant war is
in
the empire's best interests currently.”

“You could as easily be a spy,” Fargrimr said.

“It's true,” Marcus Verenius replied. “And you could be a camp follower. But you're not. And I am not a spy, barbarian.”

He spoke evenly, with considerably less heat to his insults, unimaginative though they were, than Fargrimr had expected or intended. Simply answering provocation for provocation to demonstrate spirit, or did he have some further purpose?

The temptation to slam Marcus Verenius up against the nearest tree and explain in small words why you did not call the jarl of Siglufjordhur a camp follower, just as you did not call him a nithling, was there, but distant. It was too obvious that the boy spoke by rote. Fargrimr was spared trying to find a different (better? worse?) response by the return of Ulflaf and his brother. The wolf paused at the edge of the trampled little clearing and dropped his elbows to the pine needles. Ulflaf in his plaid trews and low leather boots continued across the spongy ground, a water skin in one hand and a little bundle of linen in the other. While the wolfless sentries looked on, he handed both items not to the Rhean, who was nervously watching the wolf, but to Fargrimr.

The damp water skin dented heavy and cool against Fargrimr's fingers. He slung the strap on his elbow and unwrapped the bundle.

Inside was a hunk of rye bread, smeared with butter and jam, and a little twist of red flannel with a pinch of coarse gray Siglufjordhur salt. It made Fargrimr homesick just looking at it.

He offered the salt to the Rhean. “I'm offering you guest-right,” he said, in case Marcus Verenius didn't know. “Taste the salt, drink the water, eat the bread. It places you under my protection—and under my obligation. But it is not an alliance. Do you understand?”

Marcus Verenius lifted his chin. “I give you my word I am not a spy, L—Lord Fargrimr. I am not here to betray you. And I trust that you will find no benefit in poisoning me.” He reached out and carefully lifted the flannel from Fargrimr's grasp. He licked one fingertip and tasted the salt, then made a face.

“It will help with the cramps,” Fargrimr said.

Marcus nodded and took a slightly larger taste. He accepted the water skin when Fargrimr extended it, and washed the salt down with cold stream water. Then, too, he took the hunk of bread. It dripped cloudberry and apple preserves across his fingers. He licked them off, then bit down through the bread, leaving the streaks of evenly spaced teeth through the butter.

He chewed and swallowed, then looked at Fargrimr. “Does that suffice?”

“For now,” Fargrimr said. “Come, let us walk. Let me hear your proposal.”

*   *   *

Later that morning, Fargrimr walked beside Randulfr and asked his brother, “Well, what do
you
think of him?”

Randulfr shrugged and frowned and shook his head in that maddening way he had of demonstrating all the emotions and confusions that Fargrimr was busily suppressing so as to seem more authoritative. “You mean, do I think he's been sent to deceive us, or do I think that, as he claims, that it's in his patron's best interests for Iunarius to fail?”

“Yes to all of it,” Fargrimr said.

“They're not exclusive,” Randulfr said. He reached down to smooth Ingrun's ears when she looked up at him with concern. Her eyes narrowed with pleasure at the stroking, reminding Fargrimr of a great smug cat.

“They're not even the only options,” Fargrimr said. “Rheans are sly as weasels. I find that their civilization leaves me pleased to be a barbarian.”

“If only we weren't caught between the Rheans and the svartalfar,” Randulfr said sourly, “they could have each other and be welcome.”