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“The storerooms, where else? Tell Albeig to salt them well, some of the fabric will have to wait for next Midwinter. Oh, and do not hit anyone.” I could not resist an ill-tempered farewell.
“I won’t.” He glowered at me, but I stuck my tongue out and he laughed, performing a sharp turn before setting off upon what had been my errand.
“Too kind by far,” Arn muttered, stepping close and eyeing me. “You’re pale, my weirdling. Ale and an early dinner?” The musicfrom within altered, becoming Vanya’s plaintive reply to the fisherman, with Astrid once again taking the higher melody.
She did so love to sing.
I surprised myself with another deep sigh. I sounded, in fact, very much like Mother. “If I sot myself before dusk I shall not sleep past moonrise.” I pressed my knuckles into my back, stretching catlike, and nodded as Rigertha passed. The thrallgirl squeaked and hurried along, still overwhelmed at being given to a greathall. “Perhaps they will ask for gilt instead at the last moment. Father might have to strip the roof.”
“Small price if it keeps his eldest daughter home.” Arn’s spear leaned against the wall, her fingertips but lightly upon it. No shieldmaid ever lets her weapon roam truly free. “Iam hungry.”
“Then go to the kitchens and beg something of Ilveig, small one.” Albeig’s under-captain was much easier to win a mouthful between tables from. I remained leaning against the wall, now rubbing at my forehead with my fingertips. The headache would not leave me, and I had made it worse by taking Bjorn’s pain. “I must see to the candles.”
“Let someone else. Come.” She beckoned, picking up her spear. “We have not spoken yet, and we must.”
I had been dreading just this. “You do not have to come with me.”
“Oh, I do not?” Her dark gaze kindled; Arneior still had not changed out of her hauberk. A shieldmaid is ever ready, and perhaps she hoped for a battle of some kind today. Few were those of Dun Rithell who would meet her in the training-yard, but strangers arriving for trade-fairs and great festivals were not nearly so reluctant. Even when she bested them all. “You are my charge, Solveig. And what would I do with my weirdling gone, my lady? I think you seek to keep all the adventure for yourself.”
“As if I have ever wanted any adventure beyond a new couplet or two.” Which was not quite the truth; when younger I had oft chafed at Dun Rithell’s borders, longing for the horizon as Northerners or those with the sea-longing are said to. I pushed myself upright, letting go of the wall. “I should have madeyoucarry cloth to the storerooms.”
“Praise to the Wingéd Ones, that is no task for a shieldmaid.” Hersmile was as ready as ever, though her forehead wrinkled. The blue woad-stripe upon her face had been refreshed yet again.
I had to admit it made some manner of sense for me to be the one; Arn was good protection for a traveling lord’s daughter and was sworn to me besides. Yet if Bjorn had not struck a man I would be at leisure to bask in some small inner glow, knowing I had done well and could sleep without care for at least one night.
We might have had this conversation somewhere more private, but Arn did not care to. Besides, seeking any seclusion in a large hall is a fool’s game. There are always eyes watching and tongues ready to wag.
I wondered if it would be the same in the North. If the black-clad men returned, and if they were not simply after the roof-gilding, I might yet see what lay over distant hills and have my fill of travel.
It still did not seem possible, even that afternoon. Certainly the old ways saida child for a child, but… these were modern times.
“I should have foreseen this,” I said quietly, and Arn’s face changed.
My shieldmaid looked stern indeed, instead of simply amused at the world’s many follies and the weakness of those unblessed by guidance from the Wingéd Ones. “Idra would tell you not to doubt theseidhr.”
“Idra is gone.” My shoulders sought to hunch, very like Bjorn’s. “And in this case there was noseidhrto doubt. The Northerners have their own; perhaps it overmatched mine.”
“Or perhaps ’tis fate.” So easily, Arn consigned such questions to the realm ofuninteresting to pursue. “In either case, I go with you, and that is final. But for this afternoon I have an empty belly, and you must sit for a moment. Will you come, or shall I drag you?”
“Let me simply catch a glimpse of Mother—”
But Arn took my arm, and in this one case, she was serious about dragging where I would not walk.
I did not gainsay her, for in those days my shieldmaid rarely sounded so worried, and this novelty disturbed me as much as the other new things crowding upon Dun Rithell.
Stripping the Roof
Many crafts hath the Elder perfected, for their lives are long and the Blessed themselves their tutors. And yet it is mortals who hold the Allmother’s greatest gifts—or so it is said by the Elder themselves.
—Scroll of Naethron One-hand,seidhrof Ancisus in the Barrowhills
The Northern youth who had mixed Mother such a powerful draught left his recipe inscribed on a piece of fine-woven bark, southron runes carefully inked though many were joined in odd places. The bark was rolled and slid into a cunningly carved scentwood tube; the scrap even held a notation for the specific word to be chanted into the liquid. Even a warrior could use such a formula and not suffer any loss of virtue from handling weirding instead of his proper weapons.
It was a simple enough medicine, and I could not argue with its effects. Mother was weak but upright, and there was a fire to her summersky glance I had not seen in some while.
Still, she retired early, and so did I, still mulling upon the boy and his craft—I could not bear to think upon the next morning. Which meant my shieldmaid was abed early as well, though she might not have felt much weariness.
Sleepless nights are common among those the Wingéd Onesbreathe upon, and her excitement at the prospect of a journey was well-banked but still glowing evident. And though I would not have admitted it aloud I felt the same, except for the exhaustion of an all-night vigil; I bore such things less easily despite my youth.
