I suspect she ends every sentence with an exclamation and dislike her when Unferth smiles warmly, even though she’s at least Myra Quick’s age. He says, “Patty, here’s my apprentice, Signy. Signy, Patty runs the all-in store down the street.” His tone adds, so be nice to her.
“Signy!” Patty transfers her grip from Unferth’s hand to mine. “Aren’t you all washed up and salty! This one likely hasn’t let you feel like a girl in ages!”
My eyes narrow. “I try not to let him feel like a man, either.”
Unferth’s face tightens and Patty’s lips part as she works out my meaning. Fortunately, we’re saved by two more people who know Unferth. One man in coveralls claps him on the shoulder, and the other is the man’s son, with the sort of too-new haircut his mom probably did with safety scissors. “Go tell the king our poet’s back,” his dad tells him, and the kid scampers off.
Our poet? I mouth at Unferth, but he pretends not to see. He does answer the fisherman with a line from The Viker’s Elegy about returning to home port. Patty and the fisherman stay with us to share a round of local brew and fill Unferth in on the year’s events.
I fill my belly and let the beer warm my blood, leaning back in my chair with a loose neck. The names wash over me, births and deaths and who won the Summer Solstice war games, the lack of seals this year, how many more days of tourists we’ve got before the island is ours for three months of the off-season, yes we’ve got a welding mask so he can fix up the water tank, no Rome probably hasn’t given up on the idea of recruiting him as poet for the feast hall.
I sit up straight. “Who’s Rome?” I ask Patty, ignoring Unferth’s disapproval at my insinuation I don’t know anything. It’s the first thing I’ve said in fifteen minutes and the words smack with the yeasty aftertaste of beer.
Patty nods. “Rome’s the showrunner up at the festival. Mastery in history and preaching, and oh, darling, you wait until Freyrsday and his service. Will be glad you’re Freyan when he lifts your heart to satisfaction!” Suddenly she’s looking past me toward the door.
I shove out of my chair and spin so fast I knock a fork to the floor. It clatters on the wooden slats and I press back against the smooth edge of the table, gripping it hard to support myself.
Rome Summerling is as golden as I remember, even in my dreams. Big and bright, his reddish beard braided with tiny charms still, his hair shaggy around his ears, with thin streaks of gray. Hazel eyes and wide shoulders, hands on his hips, and a smile of greeting that fades into drawn shock when he sees me.
He wears a wool tunic and thick pants wrapped up the leg with more wool. Leather boots. A thick belt. Dark copper torc around his neck. Like he walked out of a painting of Old Scandan farmer kings. It suits him so much more than jeans and jackets and ties ever did.
“Signy.” His voice is as filling as ever, finding all my spikes and smoothing them out. My grip on the table loosens.
I don’t say anything, which is enough agreement for Rome. He’s here in three broad steps and laughing and hugging me in those bear arms, beard soft at my temple. He smells like smoked meat and charcoal. He releases me but cups my elbows to look down at my face. “You’ve got your mama’s eyes still.” His voice is husky with emotion. Deep wrinkles pull at his eyes and vanish into his beard. There in his left iris, like a beacon, I see the rune faith.
My tongue sticks in my mouth and I swallow. I try for anything to say. The inn around us might have vanished. I manage, “Rathi—he looks more like you than he used to.”
Rome chuckles and there’s an answering scatter of happy laughter from the room. My ears buzz. “My little son, Hrothgar, is not so little anymore,” he agrees.
“I saw him, ah, last summer in New Netherland.” That was the last time I was held like this, hugged in relief and also with expectation. As if I owe these men something. Which, of course, I do. And my wish-mother, too.
“He mentioned it. Said you were doing … well.”
I imagine he said quite a bit more than that.
“Want a beer, Rome?” calls someone. My wish-father nods absently, gaze roaming behind me. His eyes snap back to me and his eyebrows lift. “You’re the girl Ned brought? His apprentice?”
I twist around to shoot Unferth a hideous glare. He stands and spreads his hands. “Rome, you likely know better than I how our Signy resists labels like that.” He says it fondly, curse him. Rome laughs and so do all these people who don’t know a thing about me.
Ned Unferth is like a different person here. A good-old-boy poet.
For all the truth in his irises, he certainly is an excellent player. I say, “Ned wants to be part of the feast,” and watch Unferth’s eyes narrow. It goads me into adding, “We have a troll for your show, too.”
Two tiny spots of pink appear at the sharp edges of Unferth’s cheeks, but he doesn’t naysay me.
Patty exclaims and Rome asks for more details, proudly holding me under one arm as I tell them all about our Grendel. I weave a story that’s almost completely a lie about how we tracked and captured him, about the trolls we fought off to get him to safety, finishing with a wide grin just for Unferth. He smiles back at me, and there’s a clear promise of retribution in the pinch of his lips.
The thrill of battle raises elf-kisses up my arms.
Jesca Summerling arrives with a tiny cry like a songbird, and she feathers her hands up and down my arms, touches my tangled braids, and then presses a firm kiss to my lips. She’s small but sturdy, freckles staining her face unevenly. An apron dress as historically accurate as Rome’s tunic and leggings pulls in attractively at her waist. There’s a sheen of tears in her pale green eyes, but what catches my attention, what breaks me and remakes me, is the circle of tiny runes twining themselves like a bracelet around her pupil.
If I had any doubts about the past month, about my riddle or the specifics of the answer, about following Ned Unferth and learning his troll hunting, his bitter, beautiful poetry; if I had any doubts about my destiny finding me, they’re all shattered by that single rune in the eye of my wish-mother.
Home.
SEVEN
IN THE DIM light of a stuffy dressing room, I become Valtheow the Dark.
Black liner drawn thick evokes the eye Odin Alfather gouged out at the Well of Mimir in return for wisdom. Both eyes marked black turns my face into a skull, the death Valkyrie carry in their hearts. Crimson lipstick cuts across my mouth like a mortal wound, but I smile and it becomes a lover’s mouth to speak the Alfather’s words.
I’m glad for this quick moment alone in the dressing room usually reserved for the clowns. Peachtree, the only clown my age, is out leading the audience through a Wild Hunt number, and I can hear the screams and laughter through the thin wooden walls. This afternoon the Viker Festival is a crush of people. Baldur’s Night is the unofficial first day of the season, and they’ve come in droves from New Scotland and mainland Massadchuset to see us perform. To see me, and my troll, for one night only. Come one, come all!