“It’s fitting you came tonight,” the woman was saying. “Tomorrow is the feast of giving; the opening of the darkness. We’d be honored if you would join us.”
“If the food is as good as this,” Skapti said drily, “I’m sure we will.”
They all laughed, and there was an awkward silence.
Then the Speaker leaned forward. “So you’re traveling. From beyond the wood, by the look of you. And where do you travel to, may we know?”
Skapti shot a look at Brochael, who shrugged.
“A long way,” the poet said carefully.
“To my country.” Kari’s voice was unexpected; the shaman turned to him. A strange look passed between them.
Then the Speaker nodded. “A long way indeed, to the land of the soul thieves.”
Jessa caught her breath. So he knew, at least.
Kari nodded but said nothing. He drank from his cup.
A woman came in and spoke to the chieftain; he turned to Skapti. “A guest hall is ready for you all; Sif will show you the way. Sleep well, sleep late. Rest and eat well. Tomorrow we will talk.”
“Tomorrow we should leave,” Brochael said uneasily. “We have an urgent errand.”
The old man shook his head. “I fear the weather will keep you here. But the choice is yours. Do exactly as you wish. We will sell you food and ale and grain, as much as you want.”
Awkwardly Brochael stood and nodded. “We appreciate that.”
The guest hall was a copy of the eating hall, but smaller. Equally smoky, Jessa thought irritably. “It’s a wonder these people can breathe,” she said aloud.
Hakon fingered the brightly woven hangings and lifted one aside. “Furs!” He flung himself down with a groan of comfort.
Jessa crawled scornfully into the next booth and dumped her bag. She lay down, just for a moment, to try out the bed.
In seconds she was asleep.
Kari lay in the darkness. Slowly the absence of feeling came to him. He saw nothing, heard nothing.
But there was a tightness about his neck; he put his hands up and felt for it, and touched rope, a great noose of frayed, damp rope. Desperately he pulled at it, but it was coiled and cabled with heavy knots, and something crisp, like feathers, were stuck and threaded into its skeins.
He spread his hands out into the darkness, fighting down fear. This was no dream, he knew that. It was a vision. But of what? Terror touched him; he tried to sit up, and couldn’t, and then he knew the darkness on top of him was heavy, wet with peat and matted lichens and the seeds and spores of generations. It weighed on him, suffocating him like a dark hand over his mouth and nose, and though he writhed and struggled and flung his head from side to side, she would not let go of him; she was drowning him in soil, her hand forcing him down and down.
He choked and retched and the darkness broke; it shattered into glints of candle flame and a fire red roof, and Jessa and Moongarm bending over him.
“Are you all right?” Jessa whispered anxiously. She pulled him up, knowing he wasn’t; he was white, his lips a strange blue; he struggled to breathe, bent over, dragging in long, painful, choking breaths.
“Shall I call Brochael?”
He shook his head. After a moment he managed, “No… I’m … all right.”
“You don’t look it.”
“I … will be.” He looked at Moongarm.
“You seemed to be stifling in your sleep,” the gray man said somberly.
“He woke me,” Jessa whispered. “He was worried. Was it a nightmare?”
“I hope so.”
“A warning?”
Kari shrugged, rubbing his throat with thin fingers. “I don’t know. They seem friendly.”
“Very friendly,” Moongarm muttered.
Jessa glanced at him. “You don’t trust that?”
“I’m wary. The comfort here will be hard to leave. And if your errand is so urgent, you should beware of that.”
Kari looked up at them suddenly. “There’s one thing I do know about them, and that’s strange enough.”
“What?”
He coughed and swallowed painfully. Then he said, “They were expecting us. They knew we were coming.”
Sixteen
Chess in the court and cheerful.
The old man had been right.
They woke late, to a blizzard that howled around the village all morning, blotting out even the wall of the nearest house in a storm of white driven flakes. Travel was impossible. Hakon took one look outside and went back to sleep. He had a lot to catch up on, he said.
Jessa and Kari played Hunt the King on a board made by scratching out the squares with a knife. Kari did it; he was clever at carving. For counters they used some of Brochael’s coins. The chieftain’s daughter Lenna, who brought breakfast, stayed in the house to watch, fascinated. Jessa explained the rules.
Brochael had nothing to do. His shoulder no longer bothered him; he prowled restlessly for a while, and then pulled on his bearskin coat and went out into the flying snow.
“Where’s he gone?” Skapti muttered absently.
“To look at the horses. What else is there?” Moongarm was sharpening his sword with a long whetstone borrowed from the villagers. He gazed curiously across at the poet, who lay on a bench, wrapped in his blue cloak. Skapti had the kantele out and had tuned it carefully, adjusting the harpstrings and checking the birchwood frame for damage. Now he plucked notes with his supple fingers.
Jessa looked up from the board. “Out of practice?”
He grinned at her. “A feast needs a song. Even from visitors.” He looked at Lenna. “You must have poets of your own. Storytellers? Rememberers?”
She looked confused, her long black hair swinging. “The Speaker. He knows the past.”
“Is he a shaman?”
The girl nodded, reluctant. She pushed back her hair nervously and gathered the dishes. Skapti let the notes fade. Then he said, “I have a good song of thanks for hospitality. Would they let me sing it tonight?”
Lenna paused, her head bent. “I don’t know.... It’s not that sort of feast.” Kari raised his head and looked at her quickly, and she scrambled up. “I’d better go. My mother will want me.”
They watched her hurry across the hazy room, the brilliant reds and blues of her dress delighting their eyes. She pulled on her coat and went out.
“She was scared,” Jessa said. “Now why was that?”
Kari moved a piece. “Skapti’s song. The prospect of hearing it.”
Jessa giggled, but wondered what he really thought.
The skald ignored them. He wrapped his cloak tight around him and leaned back against the wall. “Don’t disturb me. I’ll be working.”
Then he closed his eyes and was still.
Jessa had seen him do this before. Making the song; fitting the words and notes and kennings together, knotting them into intricate lines and rhythms, charging them with power, memorizing them—it was an intense, concentrated process. He would lie there now as if in a sleep for hours, with just the soft touch of a finger on a string now and then to remind them he was alive; later he would begin the music, working out patterns of sound to weave with the words.
For a long time the room was quiet. Just the click of the moving coins, the whirr of the whetstone.
Then Brochael stormed in, scattering snow. He stamped it from his boots, looking more cheerful. “It’s clearing up. I’ve been buying supplies from the old man—they’re surprisingly generous.” He dumped three sacks in a corner. “We should be able to leave tomorrow.”
From his bed, Hakon groaned.
Jessa laughed; she knew what he meant. The warmth, the food, the chance to rest were enticing. And just being indoors without having the eternal wind and sleet in her face, chapping her skin, stinging her eyes, without the constant stumble of the horses, the stiff, freezing nights. But they had to keep on. Signi was depending on them. She thought suddenly of the slim girl asleep in the dim room, her hair spread. Wulfgar too; by now he must be aching with worry.