“It looks like another road,” Hakon said.
Brochael nodded. “It is. I know where it begins, but like most of the giant road it’s a ruin, lost under forests. Here and there are stone-built sections, poking through the snow. I’ve never traveled it. I don’t know anyone who has.”
“Now’s your chance,” Hakon said wistfully. “You could follow it north.”
Jessa looked at him sidelong. He was scratching his cheek with his thumbnail and looking strangely at the map; almost a hungry look. She could guess why. Hakon had been a thrall for most of his life, a slave on a greasy little hold, and had never been able to leave it. Now he was free. But he was also Wulfgar’s man, one of his war band. And if Wulfgar wasn’t going…
Sadly she turned back to the map. The road ran north, clearly marked. Mountains and lakes and a large river were shown, but the farther north it went the more empty the map became, until there was nothing but the road, as if whoever had drawn it had no knowledge of what lay up there lost under the snows.
Or perhaps he had heard stories. For at the very top of the map, right across the sealskin, was a great black slash, as if some enormous chasm or crevasse opened there, and the road ran right to its edge, or into it. Some words were scrawled nearby, and Skapti read them out.
“The end of the road is unknown.”
The black chasm also had a word in it, written loosely and untidily.
Gunningagap.
They stared at it in silence. Then Brochael looked up.
“What do the stories say?”
“You know what they say.”
“Remind us. Earn your keep.”
Skapti linked his long fingers together and flexed them. “Gunningagap is a howling emptiness,” he said simply. “It’s the place where the sky comes down to meet the earth. It’s a great chasm that encircles the earth—here in the north its edges are heavy with ice; and eternal wind roars out of it, night and day. Long ago, they say, there was only the gap. Then a creature crawled out of it, a frost giant called Ymir. The gods killed him. From his body they made Middle-earth, the rocks from his bones, the stones from his teeth. His skull is the blue sky—four dwarves sit at the corners to hold it up. So the poets say. But one thing is sure, the gap is still there.” He was silent a moment, then added some lines quietly.
“When Ymir lived, long ago,
Was no sand or sea, no surging waves.
Nowhere was there earth or heaven above,
But a grinning gap, and grass nowhere.”
“So what’s beyond it?” Jessa said.
He stared at her in surprise. “Nothing. That’s what they say. Nothing. It’s the end.”
The thought of it silenced them—the frozen wastes of snow, the howling winter blackness of the world’s brink. Jessa brought her mind back to the warm room with an effort.
“But everyone says the White People live beyond the world’s end. And they come here, from time to time, so…”
“I don’t know!” Skapti said, exasperated. “I’m a mere songster. A lackwit. A plucker of strings. How should I know? Perhaps there are worlds beyond this. No one has ever tried it and come back, that’s the truth.”
She tapped the map, its worn mountains and half-erased rivers. “Then we’ll be the first.”
“Well spoken, Jessa.”
Wulfgar stood in the doorway, his face flushed from the wind, his eyes bright. He came in, brushing the dust from his hair, then tugged off his coat and threw it at Brochael. “You will. We’ll make sure of that. This expedition will come back because none like it will ever have set out before. Sorcery, guile, strength, cleverness. You four have all those things. But I’d like to send one more thing with you. A sword.”
They looked at him, uncertain, but he smiled at them, his old lazy smile. “No, not me. You were right about that.” Sitting down, he leaned back in the chair, gripping the arms. “I am the Jarl,” he said proudly, and a little sadly, “and I won’t desert my people. No, I want you to take Hakon. You’ll need another swordsman.”
Amazed, Hakon gaped at him. “But I’m not… I mean, I’ve been training hard, but my hand is still not as…”
Wulfgar leaned forward. “Hakon Empty-hand, you’ll do as your lord tells you. Someone has to keep an eye on Jessa.”
She glared at him, then laughed. “Five then.”
“Five. And a better five I couldn’t have. Because it all depends on you,” he added softly. “Signi’s life. All of it.” He rubbed his hair again. “I don’t know what I’ll do when you’re all gone.”
In the silence Kari caught her glance. He was watching Wulfgar apprehensively, as if there was something else he had not told him, but when he saw her looking, he smiled and shook his head. She felt awkward. For a moment she had been wondering if Kari had changed Wulfgar’s mind for him.
Five
Silence I ask of the sacred folk.
Jessa walked thoughtfully between the houses, through the noise and bustle of preparation. Outwardly the hold seemed to be back to normal after the bewildering spell storm; the smiths hammered, the fishing boats were out, women gossiped and spun wool in the sun.
And yet she had begun to realize that the dreams were still here.
Twice in the night she had woken from strange, tangled visions. Not only that, but the weather was cold. Too cold. Since midsummer a keen wind had whistled around the hold continuously; made drafts in all the rooms and corridors, moving tapestries, banging doors and shutters, touching the back of her neck like cold fingers.
She went in, past the sacks that were being packed with food, and up the stairs. Skapti was coming down, carrying the kantele, his precious instrument, well wrapped.
“You’re taking that, then?” she asked, passing him.
“Some of us have to work, Jessa.”
They were to leave in two days. Wulfgar and ten of his men were riding with them to the borders of the land, to the giant road. He’d insisted on that. As she ran up the stairs she clenched her fingers in her pockets, puzzled at how cold they were. Then she tapped on the door.
A woman opened it.
“Any change?” Jessa whispered.
Fulla shook her head. She was Signi’s stepmother, an elderly woman. Her iron gray hair was bound in long braids; her dress hung with ivory charms. She let Jessa in, and they both stood by the silken hangings.
Signi lay unmoving, her beautiful corn gold hair brushed smooth. Her eyes were open, blue and clear and empty.
Jessa picked up the cold fingers. “Hear me, Signi,” she said.
Nothing. No flicker, no turn of the head.
Slowly Jessa laid the limp hand down. “She seems cold.”
“She is.” The woman bent to touch the girl’s forehead. “And I’m sure she’s getting colder. I keep the fire well stoked, but the room has a growing chill. I’ve told the Jarl. It worries me.”
Coming out, Jessa went back down the stairs. She was worried too, worried and restless. She went to the outside door and looked out. Wind caught her hair and whipped it up; the chill made her shiver. Something was wrong here. She looked around carefully, noticing other things. Most of the hens were inside, and very quiet. Up on the fellside the goats were huddled together in the shelter of boulders and tall trees. And now she came to realize it, there were no birds about the hold. None but Kari’s ravens, hunched up on the hall roof like black carvings.
On impulse she ran between the houses and up the hillside and kneeled, looking closely. The grass looked shriveled. Small flowers of tormentil and thrift, bright yellow and pink two days ago, were brown wet stems. She picked one; it was rotten down to the heart, the leaves a blackening clot. Rolling it in her fingers she stood, looking over the fellside.
All the flowers were gone. Gudrun’s unseasonal frost had seared the land here, though far off, well up the fjordshore, it was still midsummer, the soft colors flaunting in the meadows. And there were no new green shoots. The raw wind flapped and gusted, but only in the hold; in bewilderment she stared up at the trees behind her; the forest was still, its dark fringe unmoving.