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The rekindling of Dun Rithell’s heat—and life itself—would be mine alone.
Hush deepened, enfolding both Stone and green as Arn’s fingers loosened. Her dark gaze roved far afield, searching for physical danger and leaving me to handle aught else, from weirding to negotiation—that is the compact between shieldmaid andvolva, and well have we come to know it. Though I did not need her strength at that particular moment, it was pleasant to see her certainty.
She, at least, did not doubt me.
My shieldmaid’s fingers gave a last squeeze; I gathered my skirts and the mantle. Slipping upon the steps would be a bad omen, but they had been brushed and sanded well. I climbed one at a time, Arn following close, and as I mounted the Stone, the silence became absolute except for far singing upon the cold breeze.
A bulk of oiled wood crouched over me, a wave frozen by Lokji’s kenning or Hel’s amused glance, and the wicker sacrifice-cages were now part of its towering. The mountain’s snowy head paled as I pushed my hood slightly back, and yet a third procession approached from the ancient standing stones at the eastron edge of safe pasturage, their ring full of chill murmuring even during midsummer. Frestis led that cortege, the flint knife at his belt unsheathed and still damp-smeared.
The wind freshened, tugging at my skirts, threatening to slip a blade-edge through the mantle’s folds. I settled my chin in wolf-fur and watched Mother Tarnarya fall under night’s shadow, stars glimmering through veils both of cloud and dusk. The last dregs of the old sun swirled in the west; the air bore an entire smithy’s worth of iron-taste to my tongue, now clearly speaking since the sun had ceased to pull at its laces.
Snow within a fiveday. Anyone raised near Dun Rithell could tell as much; we know the winter as one of our own families. Sheltered by the two mothers of peak and shore, we were blessèd children even in hard years. What our own efforts could not wring from field or flock the river brought to us in trade or fish, news or coin.
A shape swelled in the failing dusk, climbing the stairs I had used. Frestis’s white robe glowed; his grey head nodded. His stave tapped at the Stone’s floor, for his right leg dragged worse each winter. Still, his beard was full and apprentices reported his grasp was iron yet. And he wielded the flint knife so adroitly as to cause no pain at the standing stones.
Corag—the most senior of his apprentices—carried the yellow lantern. His dark eyebrows were raised and he studied me curiously in its swinging, fitful glow. I turned my chin slightly, counting the stars as they strengthened.
Idra should have been here, but she had loosened her grasp upon life at the dark of the first harvest moon.When I am no longer here, she said often enough, but I had not truly thought such a time would come any more than I could compass Mother’s illness or that soon Bjorn would be married and leave the hall.
Or even that Astrid would bring a husband in to take up Father’s greataxe, if he could.
There were other shapes in unbleached robes over their winter festival dresses and bulky undercloaks—Molveig, Isolca, Kolle, and Yannei, all crowned with glossy green spike-leaf holly and their lips reddened as blood-fed spirits’. Kolle, her matron-hipped solidity comforting, carried the other lantern, the one said to be of Elder make. It was a fine, beautiful thing, its decorative metal so thin and well-wrought it seemed spring vines had been dipped in steel to make it.
Kolle was the seniorseidhrnow, carrying the ancient distaff, but she did not have much of the weirding. Her bandings were only three upon her right wrist and the one upon her left. The rest bore one upon the right wrist and one upon the left, even young Isolca. Of course anyone who had discharged their first debt to a god had a single bracelet, and there would be many a banding tomorrow as those who had taken a year-vow last winter solstice could consider it fulfilled.
Last year, Idra’s torch—the only fire remaining that night, and blessed by her keening song as we watched its flicker, willing the flame to stay—had lit the holy fire.
Kolle took her place upon my right, barely glancing at me. The crowd at the Stone began to hum as the first walkers from the riverside arrived, torches quenched and other lights doused as they halted upon the green.
It took a long while for the crowd to reach its proper size, but I did not shiver, using the deepest of warming breaths to fan the body’s inner flame. I stared at the stars as if I could hear their high crystalline singing, to avoid any possible pitying looks from Isolca or Molveig.Don’t worry, Isolca had confided once.I’m sure someone will marry you eventually.
She meant it kindly. I could have answered that avolvaseldom weds even if one with lessseidhrmight, but had merely smiled instead. True, the expression was somewhat pained, but Idra had labored long and hard to teach me that a sharp tongue, while oftenuseful, is not alwaysbest.
Night had truly fallen by the time Corag stepped forward. A susurration went through the assembly, their breath rising as white vapor and no few among them stamping to force warmer blood intofeet and legs. Kolle paused, but only to glance at me as she had each year at Idra.
Just like Idra, I nodded.I wish you were here, I thought, and had I heard my teacher’s familiar, pained cackle-laugh riding the wind, I would not have been surprised.
Though I might have flinched at the sound. I do not deny it; my courage has only ever been barely equal to circumstances.
Kolle glided forward too, and the two lifted their lanterns high. The stragglers coming up the long slope to the green would notice the twin lights like eyes upon the Stone, one wavering candle-gold and the other a hard bluish glitter because the flame was held in an Elder-crafted cage.
A mismatched gaze, but it served its purpose. Those it fell upon hurried to snuff or at least muffle their lights. The wind gained fresh strength, tugging at my hood and attempting to lift my skirts. The mantle did its work, though, and I was chilled only by the enormity of what I was about to attempt.
Corag lifted his lantern. His face was turned into an ill spirit’s by the shadows; his cheeks puffed as he blew, and the light went out.
A small child began to cry, deep in the crowd. More restless mutters raced through the assembly; Kolle lifted the Elder lantern. There was a trick to handling it, and I hoped she would teach Isolca before much longer.
The blue light guttered, dying slowly. Starshine limned flying clouds; a bright festival day means a cold night. Yet many would be the children born ten moons from now, lucky infants blessed with the return of sunlight.
Find warmth where you can, Odynn says;even the Allmother knows what a misery cold is.
I had to face the dark wooden pile, my hands aching because they were fists inside fur-edged sleeves. Spending an entire day too busy to dread this meant I did not have even a moment to brace my shield, as the saying goes.
My gaze unfocused. I tried to imagine Idra’s voice.You know what to do, Solveig.
From the dark breast of Tarnarya, a single voice lifted. It was awolf-cry, and my mantle-hood turned heavier. Perhaps beast or spirit was singing the tale of how a brightspear shieldmaid had hunted a beast to end depredations upon a river people’s livestock, and brought the pelt home to adorn a youngvolva’s mantle.
Idra would be singing over one last remaining torch before she swung it skyward to purge the old year. I merely had to call the flame from where it lived when unsummoned, that was all.
