«I’ve wondered… Don’t answer this if you don’t want to. You’ve been through so much.»
«That’s all right,» she said mechanically. «The trouble is over now, isn’t it? I mean, we mustn’t let the past obsess us.»
«Of course. Uh, they tell me Vaynamo hasn’t changed much. The defense effort was bound to affect society somewhat, but they’ve tried to minimize that, and succeeded. Our culture has a built-in stability, you know, a negative feedback. To be sure, we must still take action about the home planet of those devils. Liberate their slave worlds and make certain they can’t ever try afresh. But that shouldn’t be difficult.
«As for you, I inquired very carefully on your behalf. Tervola remains in your family. The land and the people are as you remember.»
She closed her eyes, feeling the first thaw within herself. «Now I can sleep,» she told him.
Remembering, she looked up with a touch of startlement. «But you had a question for me, Ivalo?»
«Yes. All this time, I couldn’t help wondering. Why you stayed with the enemy. You could have escaped. Did you know all the time how great a service you were going to do?»
Her own smile was astonishing to her. «Well, I knew I couldn’t be much use on Vaynamo,» she said. «Could I? There was a chance I could help on Chertkoi. But I wasn’t being brave. The worst had already happened to me. Now I need only wait… a matter of months only, my time… and everything bad would be over. Whereas, well, if I’d escaped from the Second Expedition, I’d have lived most of my life in the shadow of the Third. Please don’t make a fuss about me. I was actually an awful coward.»
His jaw dropped. «You mean you knew we’d win? But you couldn’t have! Everything pointed the other way!»
The nightmare was fading more rapidly than she had dared hope. She shook her head, still smiling, not triumphant but glad to speak the knowledge which had kept her alive. «You’re being unfair to our people. As unfair as the Chertkoians were. They thought that because we preferred social stability and room to breathe, we must be stagnant. They forgot you can have bigger adventures in, well, in the spirit, than in all the physical universe. We really did have a very powerful science and technology. It was oriented toward life, toward beautifying and improving instead of exploiting nature. But it wasn’t less virile for that. Was it?»
«But we had no industry to speak of. We don’t even now.»
«I wasn’t counting on our factories, I said, but on our science. When you told me about that horrible virus weapon being suppressed, you confirmed my hopes. We aren’t saints. Our government wouldn’t have been quite so quick to get rid of the plague—would at least have tried to bluff with it—if there weren’t something better in prospect. Wouldn’t they?
«I couldn’t even guess what our scientists might develop, given two generations which the enemy did not have. I did think they would probably have to use physics rather than biology. And why not? You can’t have an advanced chemical, medical, genetic, ecological technology without knowing all the physics there is to know. Can you? Quantum theory explains mutations. But it also explains atomic reactions, or whatever they used in those new machines.
«Oh, yes, Ivalo, I felt sure we’d win. All I had to do myself was work to get us prisoners—especially me, to be quite honest—get us there at the victory.»
He looked at her with awe. Somehow that brought back the heaviness in her. After all, she thought, sixty-two years. Tervola abides. But who will know me? I am going to be so much alone.
Boots rang on metal. The young squad leader stepped back in. «That’s that,» he said. His bleakness vanished and he edged closer to Elva, softly, almost timidly.
«I trust,» said Ivalo with a rich, growing pleasure in his voice, «that my lady will permit me to visit her from time to time.»
«I hope you will,» she murmured.
«We temporal castaways are bound to be disoriented for a while,» he said. «We must help each other. You, for example, may have some trouble adjusting to the fact that your son Hauki, the Freeholder of Tervola—»
«Hauki!» She sprang to her feet. The cabin blurred around her.
«—is now a vigorous elderly man who looks back on a most successful life,» said Ivalo. «Which includes the begetting of Karlavi here.» Her grandson’s strong hands closed about her own. «Who in turn,» finished Ivalo, «is the recent father of a bouncing baby boy named Hauki. And all your people are waiting to welcome you home.»
THE MAN WHO CAME EARLY
Yes, when a man grows old he has heard so much that is strange there’s little more can surprise him. They say the king in Miklagard has a beast of gold before his high seat, which stands up and roars. I have it from Eilif Eiriksson, who served in the guard down there and he is a steady fellow when not drunk. He has also seen the Greek fire used, it burns on water.
So, priest, I am not unwilling to believe what you say about the White Christ. I have been in England and France myself, and seen how the folks prosper. He must be a very powerful god to ward so many realms… and did you say that everyone who is baptized will be given a white robe? I would like to have one. They mildew, of course, in this cursed wet Iceland weather, but a small sacrifice to the house elves should—No sacrifices? Come now! I’ll give up horseflesh if I must, my teeth not being what they were, but every sensible man knows how much trouble the elves make if they’re not fed.
…Well, let’s have another cup and talk about it. How do you like the beer? It’s my own brew, you know. The cups I got in England, many years back. I was a young man then… time goes, time goes. Afterward I came back and inherited this, my father’s steading, and have not left it since. Well enough to go in viking as a youth, but grown older you see where the real wealth lies: here, in the land and the cattle.
Stoke up the fires, Hjalti. It’s growing cold. Sometimes I think the winters are colder than when I was a boy. Thorbrand of the Salmondale says so, but he believes the gods are angry because so many are turning from them. You’ll have trouble winning Thorbrand over, priest. A stubborn man. Myself I am open-minded, and willing to listen at least.
…Now then. There is one point on which I must correct you. The end of the world is not coming in two years. This I know.
And if you ask me how I know, that’s a very long tale, and in some ways a terrible one. Glad I am to be old, and safely in the earth before that great tomorrow comes. It will be an eldritch time before the frost giants march… oh, very well, before the angel blows his battle horn. One reason I hearken to your preaching is that I know the White Christ will conquer Thor. I know Iceland is going to be Christian erelong, and it seems best to range myself on the winning side.
No, I’ve had no visions. This is a happening of five years ago, which my own household and neighbors can swear to. They mostly did not believe what the stranger told; I do, more or less, if only because I don’t think a liar could wreak so much harm. I loved my daughter, priest, and after it was over I made a good marriage for her. She did not naysay it, but now she sits out on the ness-farm with her husband and never a word to me; and I hear he is ill pleased with her silence and moodiness, and spends his nights with an Irish concubine. For this I cannot blame him, but it grieves me.
Well, I’ve drunk enough to tell the whole truth now and whether you believe it or not makes no odds to me. Here… you, girls!… fill these cups again for I’ll have a dry throat before I finish the telling.
It begins, then, on a day in early summer, five years ago. At that time, my wife Ragnhild and I had only two unwed children still living with us: our youngest son Helgi of seventeen winters, and our daughter Thorgunna, of eighteen. The girl, being fair, had already had suitors. But she refused them, and I am not a man who would compel his daughter. As for Helgi, he was ever a lively one, good with his hands but a breakneck youth. He is now serving in the guard of King Olaf of Norway. Besides these, of course, we had about ten housefolk—two Irish thralls, two girls to help with the women’s work, and half a dozen hired carles. This is not a small steading.