By the Mountain Bound (15 page)

“Oh.”

I had not expected—
regret
? “Thou art troubled?”

A brave smile as she turns back toward me. “I had hoped . . . to see my mother here.”

“Ah.” A long silence. Her bare feet curl into hooks on
cinder-studded snow, so her weight rests on the sides and not the soles. I lift her off them, set her feet on my boots as if teaching her to dance. “What became of thy mother?”

She huddles. I fold my arms about her, for once grateful of the acid fire at my heart. “Childbed fever. My brother, too. A waelcyrge healer came, but she could do nothing.”

Because there was nothing to be done
, I thought. Shy of asking for a marvel, and those came not free of risk.
So fragile, these candle-flickers.
Rannveig’s father’s wrath comes plain before me. We have gifts men cannot fathom. Is it a wonder they wit not our frailties, either?

“I regret it.” I must set her on her feet again to lead her to the edge of the shadows, but when we have gone as far as we must, I let her step onto my boots again. She balances against my sleeve, leaning forward to peer through worlds into the hall of my brothers.

“Oh,” she breathes. “Oh!”

Yrenbend and Muire have brought forth their flute and fiddle, and Ulfgar the blacksmith has a drum between his knees. Others have formed lines, face-to-face, and they dance through the flames of the fire trench while Brynhilde chants. Music casts light over the whole of it, her words and the mead-hall.

Sigrdrifa is not to be seen, but Heythe sits at the end of the hall, and laughing converses with Herfjotur. My cloak is thrown over the arm and the back of the Lady’s chair. She leans back on it, unbound hair spread across gray wool as if her pillow.

I turn away and seek out Muire, bending into her fiddle, sparks of light flickering blue at her fingertips and the cap of her bow. Her face is alight. The music is a river to her, and
Yrenbend’s flute skates over the fiddle as if on that river’s ice. I draw a long, frosty breath.

“Is this where you live?” The girl’s eyes shine.

“Nay. But these are my brethren. Was it any here?”

She takes care on the faces, staring each to each. But then sighs “no” at last. Her shiver is all but a palsy, her cheeks frigid when I lean my face to hers. Despite the loan of my stolen heat. And yet I need her eye.

“Canst withstand the cold a little longer?”

She presses close. “Aye, Master Wolf.”

We seek Sigrdrifa. Her trail is easy, scent distinct and sharp with anger. In Northerholm she stalks a vacant pier, hurling shells into the sea.

“Her?”

The girl is chill not just at hands and face now, but her flesh cold under her gown. “Aye,” she murmurs, a long moment after. “Her.”

I hurry her to her bed.

Too cold. Even in the half-warmth of the loft, her teeth chatter. I catch her eiderdown up and wrap us in it, draw her against my chest, sun-hot beneath my shirt. “Thou didst well. Brave lass.”

The nonsense one murmurs to a horse or a child.
Kenaz
, I sketch against her forehead, for warmth.

In time, she relaxes in my arm, the tops of her ears pinkening. I would step back along the narrow ledge and leave her by the bed, but as my arms unfold— “Master Wolf,” she whispers, and kisses me softly on the mouth. Shivering anew.

Candle-flicker
, I sorrow, and endure the kiss a moment.

“Nay, lass,” I say. “Better a mortal husband for thee.”

“One like Carter?” Her step forward matches mine back. I am halted by the edge of the loft. She comes up. “Your world is bright, Master Wolf.” She reaches to my face, the eiderdown falling from her shoulders.

An outraged shout rises from thrashing bedclothes by the fire. We have awakened the woodcutter. “Not my world, lass.”

I toss her—half-gently—into her little bed. And walk through the shadows, away.

The Historian

I
set my fiddle in the case and smoothed the foreign red silk cloth over the eight-stringed fretboard—four for the melody and four to resonate. The face of my fiddle was dark red wood, inlaid with mother-of-pearl and ivory, and the neck and peg-board were intricately carved.

I closed the case and secured the latch with a click as footsteps rustled through the pine boughs toward me.

“Bright one, may I speak with you?”

I looked up to Heythe’s translucent blue eyes and her open smile. She spread her hands and smiled wider.

“Lady, of course,” I said.

“Walk with me?”

I followed. She linked her arm through mine and led me from the hall, along the cliff above the ocean, our twin trails dark through the frost-kissed grass. Heavy clouds hung high; a pale glimmer of moon shone through. Songbirds had fled; insects were dead with the frost. The dark and silence were complete, and I saw the path ahead by the reflected light of my own eyes.

We walked awhile in stillness before she stopped in place and turned to me, releasing my arm. “Muire. Skeold told me what you did. It was a brave thing.”

“Pardon, Lady?”

There was no light in
her
eyes, but her necklace shone in the dark. I could not see if it caught my glow, or held its own. “Calling out Sigrdrifa. Very bold. I am impressed.”

Impressed
would not be what I would have expected. “Doesn’t she support your proposal?”

Beyond the darkness of the cliff, I heard and smelled the ocean although it was invisible below.

Heythe flicked her fingers, arrogant dismissal. “I certainly didn’t ask her to do what you think she did. That’s what I want to talk to you about, actually.”

“Oh?”

The waves sang into her silence, but she seemed at last to gather her thoughts. “Tonight has proved I need wiser counsel,” she said, making a small helpless gesture. “If Sigrdrifa did this thing, then I will deal with her as she has earned. In the meantime . . .”

Fat white flakes began to drift between us. They struck the frost-silvered grass and clung. Their hush trailed between us while we watched. Childlike, Heythe caught a flake on her tongue and ate it; we burst out laughing.

“Winter is here.” She spread wide her white-kirtled arms, the Grey Wolf’s gray cloak swinging slack from her shoulders. “Better yet, after it will come spring.”

I didn’t understand her excitement, so I glanced down. The snow collected, only a patina on the soil so far. “In the meantime, Lady?”

She shook flakes from her hair. “I want you to consider your counsel, for it could shape policy. You have a good reputation with your sisters, Muire”—
I do?
—“and more, I like your courage and discretion.”

“I see.”
Discretion.

I thought of what I had told Yrenbend I overheard between Mingan and Strifbjorn. I had been truthful when I said I walked away quickly. Our kind do not lie, but . . . we are not constrained to tell everything.

It should matter that he loves another
, I thought.
It should matter that that other is the Wolf.
I wasn’t sure if it did, if Strifbjorn would nonetheless consider me.

I made a show of my defiance, though, fists by my thighs and chin lifted. The rising wind brought the faraway cry of a wolf, and a bitter smile across my lips. Heythe raised an eyebrow at my expression, but waited quietly.

“My first advice would be to find whoever committed the abomination—Sigrdrifa or another—and punish her.”

“Death?”

“Would you have her pay a weregild?”

“I will do this,” she says. “How may it be prevented from happening again?”

“We are not accustomed to being called upon to make ethical choices, my Lady. We are accustomed to being guided by the moral compass of the Light. Punishment will serve as a warning to most. The rest—you must simply forbid them. Which would help you also to heal the rift between yourself and the war-leader, and reunite the children of the Light.”

“I’d first thought to marry him,” she said with a widening grin. “To cement things. But I suspect we would make better
allies than bedmates. The Wolf, now—what do you think of him?”

“For marrying?”

She nodded. “What else?”

I swallowed. “He has . . . a demon consort. A weapon. He feeds her on . . . something. His soul, his grief, though I little understand it. In return, she serves. To marry him would be . . .”

“To share him with his de mon ess? Ah well.” Heythe scuffed the toe of her blue kidskin boot through the gathering snow. “I’ve shared with worse. Thank you, Muire. You have been invaluable, and I hope . . . we can speak again?”

“Yes, Lady.”

Strifbjorn
, I thought. If Mingan married, then Strifbjorn could, too . . . and then perhaps Heythe was not so uncompromising as she had been painted.

And perhaps I was being manipulated. Of course, that was a possibility, too.

Wolf weaned on red war’s carrion

Sanguine smears the seats of gods

Sun scarred black storms follow after

Would you know more?

                  
—Völuspá

The Wolf

B
are branches lace dark against moon-smeared clouds. I perch in the fork of an apple tree, remnant of a homestead long abandoned. The wind knifes through my shirt, tugging fabric. I must reclaim my cloak.

But later. After Strifbjorn.

And until he comes to me, I entertain my not-brothers.

They come to my call, wary and restive. The red bitch and her mate prowl circles around my tree. I swing to the ground and crouch, and the pale cub creeps to me, curls against me, his back pressing my knees. My glove between my teeth, I stroke his ears, scratching through winter-harsh coat.
Why such fear, cub?

What I give is not words exactly; what he gives back is not words at all. A river of scents and sights, sounds and textures—the world, wolf-witted. He stands, whines, presses his nose into the crook of my arm.

And gives me the scent, the outline of two men, as from a
low angle and tilted crazily. They might tumble forward or back at any moment. So frail are we.

Two men. The woodcutter and Hagrim the Baker, whose name Rannveig gave me. His arm is in a sling.

The cub catches my snarl.
Trespassing in my wood.

No. No wrath, no rage for territory. That is not a safe thought, for the wolves or the men. An they do no harm, they may walk where they list. And there is kindling to gather against winter, game to slay and smoke. But still. This is my wood. My pack.
Cub, the pack must stay in the summer range as long as the snow does not fall. They must not wander the sheltered valleys.

He sniffs my face, his tail wagging lazy agreement. He turns and trots away, leaving me with a chill that draws no heat from my swallowed fire.

Men should not wander where wolves are, when wolves are where wolves belong.

S
trifbjorn’s scent vanguards him, and my pack become mist and shadows before he strides into sight. His head is bowed, broad shoulders slumping. I await him, one shadow that does not melt into the trees. The light kindling in his eyes when he sees me cannot conceal his grief and worry.

“Mingan.” He closes the distance between us with three quick steps. “What news?”

“Sigrdrifa.” I force a smile through my frown of concern. Ungloved, I clasp his hand. His hurt and thought and love spark across the touch.

Jealousy.
And more. Lost, he feels, and stretched like a cord ready to snap.

“Ah,” he says. “The provocation?”

I shake my head, my fingers closing tighter on his wrist.
Not enough.

Could it ever be enough?

I know the answer he expects. It is not an answer I can offer him. I am thinking of the girl in the loft, her cold, dark life and how the bright mead-hall called her.

There are cities in the south—Freimarc, Drusban, Eiledon, Ayrie, peopled with tens of thousands. I wonder how a mortal girl of courage might make her way in those cities, and what such a girl could become. I understand such things but little.

But I know the face of one who is shown her chains.

I could rescue that girl from the muddy village of Dale.

Could it ever be enough?
Strifbjorn asks twice. I withdraw my hand and pull up straight.

“Perhaps.”

His brow furrows. He reaches out once more, laying his hand—this time—on my shoulder, where the cloth of my shirt comes between us. “Mingan . . .”