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Fryja grant me patience; I need a triple measure today.“Yes, my shieldmaid. I know.” A stray strand of dark hair was attempting to work free of my braids; I tucked it back in and made another gesture, shooing Albeig upon her way. My feet ached, but that was to be expected; I had doubled socks from Astrid’s needles, slid my heaviest slippers over them, and stolen a few moments after luncheon to laceup my winter buskins. Albeig could send my overboots up to the Stone as night’s cold began to mount, if I did not falter at the lighting. “Albeig, I go, the house is yours.”
“My lady.” The housekeeper nodded, her shoulders stiffening; perhaps Nisman would send her a cup of batter, knowing her likely to drive herself into foundering under the responsibility of arranging Dun Rithell’s hospitality upon this busiest of days. Mother would rest comfortably tonight, though, double-sedated and free of any worry.
I hurried past my shieldmaid, who rolled her eyes and caught my arm. “What did I tell you? Wear your mantle.” She settled a thin undercloak and then the deep green woolen prize-mantle over me, the pelt at its shoulders tickling as it brushed my nape and cheeks. Astrid’s needlework at the cloak’s hem was bright and fine, and Arn herself had hunted the wolf. “There. Now my weirdling will not catch the ague.”
“I would not anyway.” I settled the wide heavy sleeves, and though my lower back immediately prickled with sweat I was glad of both cloakweights after Arn hurried me through the hall and into the courtyard, sweeping her own dun overmantle across mailed shoulders.
Tarnarya’s snow-hood was dyed with brief scarlet sunset. Her timbered bulk was black beneath; I shivered as my father’s hall caught the last hint of sunlight and flamed. I would have thought it an intimation of doom, but it was simply that I never liked when the grand peak dipped her head in blood. She is sacred to a crow-goddess, our mother-mountain of Dun Rithell, and whenthatlady is in sanguinary mood even seasoned warriors might well flinch before turning to the business of battle.
Arn kept her left hand upon my elbow, steady and comforting; I was glad of her foresight, as usual. A clot of the curious or those wishing for a change in their luck lingered at the great gate, and the two warriors upon guard duty set up the cry as soon as they noticed Arn’s ruddiness upon the great steps.
I pulled my great furred hood into position, settling it with a twitch and dropping my gaze. Everything splashed upon the paving had frozen, and the press of bodies in the space where our house’sgate-apron met the road might have buffeted me from my feet if not for Arn’s care.
“Back, back,” the gate-guards shouted, their axes crossed with staves of office. There should have been another double handful of men to take me to the Stone, but perhaps Father had thought Arn and me well capable without such a luxury. “Back, for the burning cometh!”
Arn’s grasp upon my elbow did not gentle. Surefoot is a shieldmaid, as the saying goes, and I walked where she placed me. My breath was a cloud, drifting to catch in the mantle’s wolf-fur, and it was the first time since I rolled from our bed before dawn that I could catch a full lung-draft.
I had deliberately done all I could for the last and greatest feast of the old year myself, to keep hands and head occupied before this moment. Now I had to face the fire.
The thought that it might have been better had I spent some time in quiet meditation was unhelpful indeed.
I watched frozen mud veining across old, worn stone laid well before our people had settled this riverbank, Arn’s boots keeping time with my smaller but no less well-wrapped feet, and when we stepped onto the green at the far end it might as well have been more rock beneath us, for the ground was icebound indeed. Winter-yellowed grass crunched uneasily, and there was singing in the distance with a glimmer of lamps and torches.
They were coming uphill from the riverside fair to see the wonder of the longest night. My heart beat thin and fast within my wrists, thumping in my ribcage and generally making a fool of itself.
It was a fair way to the tabletop Stone, but two greens-marshals with curved ram horns hurried to wind them and the crowd parted before those deep sonorous cries. There should have been yet another cadre of warriors from our house to manage the crowd as well, but none had returned from the fair as yet; it was the first real wrongness in a festival day that had, so far, passed like any other. A few warriors of other folds, halls, or steadings hurried to take the place of an honor-guard, a fortunate accident for them.
Accompanying a full-madevolvaupon this duty would grant them luck and strength for an entire year. Whoever among Eril’smen had not returned when they should would miss the blessing, but that was not my concern. More warriors joined the cortege, keeping the curious at bay with their size, but Arn did not greet any of them as she would those of my father’s hall. Instead, she observed a cold silence, and I exhaled shakily as a faint trace of green showed through dried clumps of grass.
A good omen, clinging to life in the midst of ice. Or so I hoped.
Cart tracks, a drover’s trail, and two footpaths bisected our route; Arn all but lifted me across the last. She still said nothing, and I slowed. The fury of a shieldmaid is almost a living thing, pressing invisibly against heart and lungs; I did not wish to feel it scraping my nerves all night.
“Please,” I murmured. “Don’t brood upon it.”
She leaned close as if I were prophesying. A shieldmaid with a weirdling charge is to weigh every utterance, plumbing for the will of the gods; those without some measure of faith do not last upon their particular path.
Or upon mine.
“The least he could do,” Arn muttered in reply, and shook her head. “And your very first.”
Perhaps Father knows I would be nervous, were he looming here to watch me.“Hopfoot built it, I shall have no trouble lighting it.”
“What says thevolva?” someone wished to know, calling from outside a hard knot of tall, crest-haired warriors in hauberks not nearly so fine as my Arn’s. A few of the guards would no doubt ask Father for a place at his board now, granted a fine opportunity by this protective deed.
“Naught you need worry for,” a harsh male voice replied, a traditionalist scolding the irreligious, and there was a shout of laughter. Upon the far edge of the green, coming from the river, the misty line of bobbing lights doubled back and forth, a snake with gemmed sides. Faint singing rode the cold wind; we were not a moment too soon.
“Mayhap she asks for flint and steel,” someone else called, and my jaw tightened. There was the sound of a blow; it was ill luck to jape so even when avolvain question had not lit her first bonfire.
Especially when she was held to have more than average power,being capable of calling flame instead of mere spark. Most withseidhrmay touch only one of the great natural elements—water, air, earth, wood, metal, and the like—their entire lives. Those who may summon and befriend them all are rare, and their mark is fire itself.
I had lit Idra’s cottage-fire many a time, even with wet fuel. This would be no different, except for the weight of expectation standing ready to crush me. Arn said nothing, simply waited until I moved again. The Stone loomed nearer, nearer; she turned us along its stack-lined face so we could properly climb the stairs cut into its westron side.
All jesting ceased, and everyone who owed a god some service or thanksgiving fell silent as I put my foot to the first step. I did glance at Arn then; I could not help myself.
My shieldmaid’s head was proudly lifted, her spear-tip catching a last bloody sungleam; she did not look to me, her attention upon the crowd wending from the river’s far, slow glitter. A muscle in her pale cheek flickered. Smoke from the trading palisade rose, and normally upon a winter’s eve that pall would be underlit with lamp- and torchlight, not to mention the glow of cooking fires.
Yet while I had been sunk in feast preparations, too busy to think about what awaited me past dark, the houses clinging to the riverside had extinguished hearth, lamp, and candle. Soon my father’s house would quench its fires, too.
