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Arn freed herself of hauberk and jerkin, padded shirt and linen with swift impatient movements. Her ringmail trousers were likewise set aside upon a large chest bearing the sign of Dun Rithell, my father’s bear and mother’s stag both proudly represented. Muscle flickered in Arn’s limbs as she stretched, then hurried into loose sleeveless nightwear. I was already in my shift and under the covers, every part of me twitching with the leftover day. Normally a single sleepless night is a small matter, but I had lit the bonfire, held it steady, and also taken pain from my brother.
Such things wear upon avolva. Even one with an elementalist’s gift might well feel the weight; it is vital force we spend to work such craft, and mortal things must replenish that stock, albeit imperfectly, with deep rest.
In the women’s sleeping-room, the unmarried girls and thralls settled upon their pallets or spoke in low voices, braiding each other’s hair; soon they would be a murmuring sea of night-breathing, shifting, and other soft noises. One of the younglings was overtired and cried with the peculiar note meaning a child is vexed rather than pained, and I was glad to have some small private space. My closet was not very large, but it was bigger than Astrid’s—maybe only because Arn shared it with me.
We had shared everything since I was ten winters old, and it was familiar as my own breath. Or hers.
Arneior swept the door almost closed; the only light was a stripe from the lamplit hall. A hound passed by with nails clicking, probably brindle Britha, one of Father’s favorites and much given to patrolling the halls at night. Albeig’s youngest lieutenants would be along to douse the horn lanterns as soon as all were settled, before hastening to their own beds, dreaming safely beside a parent or elder sibling.
“The Northerners will certainly return,” Arn finally said, grimly. I arranged my pillow, too tired to care. “Maybe your father should start stripping the roof tonight.”
And appear weak?I made a soft, disparaging noise. “I wonder if they’re camping near the river.” I wondered about that youth, too, and the recipe. Had he been sent forth with it? Was he carrying more rolled bark; was it his hand upon the runes? The small cylinder smelled powerfully sweet and spicy at once; everyone marveled over the delicate details of the carving. It showed a hunt, but the hind which horsed harriers chased was far in the distance with a good chance of escape.
Perhaps that was to be my fate. I yawned hugely; I could not seem to stop. I had not fallen into slumber over my dinner, which was a blessing indeed.
“They are probably wandering the night, making plans to steal some other daughter.” Arn thrust back the covers and clambered in. Then it was time to warm her, so I clasped her close though I was the smaller. “May the snows take them, I say.”
“Traveling in new winter.” I shuddered, my sleeping-braid scratching herb-fragrant pillow. Bjorn could have stayed his hand until better weather, but he was never one to put off an inconvenience to his weirdling sister. “Well, they are Northmen, they must know a trick or two for such conditions.”
“But any worth learning? That is the question.” She rested her chilled hands against my stomach; I quelled the wriggling. When we were younger a wrestling-match would warm us both, but nowadays it was simply easier to let her use me as a hearth-heated brick. “I could challenge them. All of them, at once.”
“Oh, yes, that would be helpful.” I snuggled into the mattress, ready to push her hands away after a decent interval. “I wonder why I did not think of that before.”
“Because you are not a shieldmaid.” She gave up warming her hands and turned upon her other side, the better to do battle with her own pillow. “If one of them touches you, I shall chop his fingers off.” Clearly, she meant to be comforting.
“And no weregild for that.” I turned my back to her as well. Sometimes we fell asleep in each other’s arms, but lately I wanted to spend the few moments after I closed my eyes with myself alone. There was hot water welling traitorously behind my lids again, as there had been at odd moments during the day.
I never have liked weeping. Since Idra’s passing the urge had come upon me more frequently, and weariness will make water, as the proverb says.
The Northerners were simply pressuring my father for some reason; he would take down a portion of roof-gilding and send it forth with them to pay for one war or another. It would take a few more good years of trading downriver to regild, but with two marriages and aseidhrdaughter, that was not an insurmountable challenge. He might even take Bjorn a-trading and marry my brother off somewhere the battle-rage would find an easier outlet.
So I comforted myself, the night after the longest dark of winter. I would not quite call it a lie, for some part of me honestly believed. But theseidhrin my bones knew different and my dreams were restless, as Arn told me later; I did not wake from their heavy anxiety.
The next morning the Northerners appeared again, riding from the west to the door of my father’s hall.
A Fate in This
On the Day of Ash the Black Land’s creatures boiled forth and slew all before them. Much lamentation arose that morn, and the smoke of the fires veiled the Sun. The Elder stood against the onslaught with the Secondborn who loved them, yet not by battle could the Enemy be overcome. Mere defense was all that was achieved, until Lithielle and Bjornwulf braved that far land…
—Arnan the Bard,The Saga of Bjornwulf
My mother’s second-largest trunk held a faint good scent of pine; I left packing to Albeig and Astrid, who enjoyed such things. Many gifts were brought to Dun Rithell early the previous afternoon, for the double pleasure of gawking at a fully provenvolvawith the elementalist’s gift and also at a lord’s daughter surrendered as weregild. Mother’s health continued to wax, and it appeared she would not need another dose of the Northern youth’s ague potion.
I had mixed more just in case, though its potency would linger in a wax-sealed bottle for only about a moon’s turn. Still, it would take her through the worst of new winter’s cold; I could not do more. One of the otherseidhrof Dun Rithell would have to be paid to perform—probably Frestis, who would also earn a handsome fee blessing everyone’s flocks.
Good fortune for him.
The air was softening, the sky had turned grey; Tarnarya’s top was lost in cloud and her black shoulders bore a dusting of snow like scattered lime upon a battle-grave or sacrifice pit. And as the first edge of dawn crept over the river and hills, the Northerners arrived at Dun Rithell’s gate. Flokin, at the end of a cold night-duty there, grumbled to all who would listen that they had simplyappeared, their large white steeds melding with cold fog and their tack oddly quiet.
For now they were mounted, the men of the North, on long-limbed steeds. Only the wolf-marked ones showed, the rest having some other business farther south in the Barrowhills. Eol’s men passed some words with my father, who was at his morning practice in the sparring rounds; soon after, he left with two of his men for Frestis’s house. He and the elderlyseidhrwould sing a lament for my temporary loss and make sacrifice for both my safety and theirs during my absence—and Father would not return to Dun Rithell until certain the Northerners were safely gone, for a weregild must be “stolen” to balance the initial theft of a life.
Such was the custom, and even Eril the Battle-Mad obeyed it. Soon after his hurried departure we were shaken awake by a whey-pale Albeig, who narrowly avoided a clout from Arneior for her pains.
My shieldmaid’s temper is fierce indeed when her rest is disturbed.
My mother, however, was arisen and fully dressed, and it was she who greeted the Northerners formally in the greathall while Astrid hurriedly braided my hair and Bjorn, half-dressed and wild-rumpled, burst into the women’s quarters to find me. Ulfrica was too busy to hiss at first, though he garnered a fair share of slaps and kicks, not to mention a sharp couplet upon his incompetence from Albeig herself, which must have stung sincesheis a mistress of insulting the parts of a man he most hopes are without compare.
Even my mother laughed helplessly at Albeig’s rhymes, whenever the housekeeper was in a mood to give them.
