"Ah. He is so secretive and his appearance so sinister, I thought he might be a servant of Baalzebub, given to the king to influence him without the king knowing it."
Imre laughed. "Civilization must seem strange to someone from the wild north. No, Nils, Ahmed is not secretive, only shy. And as for sinister, others feel the same about that as you do. But it is only his blackness, for which he can thank a scorching eastern sun."
A strong gust of wind rattled the bare branches above them. "Look, snowflakes!" Nils said. In a few moments the air was swirling with them, and Nils and Imre spurred their horses to a trot, where trails permitted, until they came out of the forest. Then, faces glowing from exhilaration and wet snow, they galloped down the road to Pest.
And from that time Nils was prepared for a trip down the Duna, possibly in chains, unless of course, he was murdered. For Ahmed would certainly read Imre, and Kazi would either want to examine this barbarian psi himself or have him dead.
Within weeks the message came to Janos by a courier in livery richer than the people of Pest had even seen, along with a troop of tall, swarthy horsemen on animals that awed even the great Magyar horse breeders. Kazi sent it this way instead of through Ahmed in order to keep the psi tuner secret from Janos.
"Ahmed," Janos said, "I won't stand for it. Why does he want me to send the boy to him?"
Ahmed looked thoughtfully at the soft bleached parchment as if he hadn't already known what would be written there or why. "Perhaps he doesn't trust you."
"But that's nonsense. Why shouldn't he trust me? I've done nothing to earn his distrust."
"I don't know that he distrusts you, but that would explain his request. Remember, you are hundreds of kilometers away from him, and so he has no way of looking into your mind. He is used to knowing the minds of everyone around him, and is impatient when he doesn't."
"So he wants the boy as a hostage, then," Janos snapped. "He can't have him."
"Why not?" Ahmed asked. "You know he'll treat him like a prince, for he depends on you, and youth enjoys the adventure of strange lands. You could send the giant barbarian with him as bodyguard and companion, for they are close friends."
Janos sat quietly for a few minutes, his face still angry at first, then gradually grim, and finally thoughtful. "All right," he said at last. "I'll do it. Imre and the barbarian on my royal barge, and a detail from my guard. I will also provide a barge for the courier troop and they can leave their horses with me as a gift." He looked at Ahmed, thin-lipped. "But I do not like this hostage business, for I gave him my word and I am not used to being treated like this."
12.
While a man was chief of the Svear, his home village would be known as Hovdingeby, the Chief's Village. During the chieftainship of Axel Stornave, Hovdingeby was in perhaps the greatest farm clearing in Svealann, called Kornmark for the barley that once was grown there. Now barley could not be relied on to mature its grain, and it was rye that filled the bins after harvest.
Kornmark covered a somewhat irregular area of about two by five kilometers, broken here and there by birch groves, swales, and heaps of stones that had been picked from the fields. There were three villages in Kornmark, one near each end and one near the center, each covering a few hectares. Each was a rough broken circle of log buildings-the homes, barns and outbuildings of the farmers-surrounding a common ground. In the middle of the common was the longhouse, which contained a feasting hall, guest lodgings, and the communal steam bath.
It was late May, when the daylight lasts for more than eighteen hours. Normally in that season cattle would have been in the fields, fattening on new grass, and the air would have been pungent with smoke as the boys and women burned off last year's dead grass in the surrounding pasture woods. But this year the fields were still soft brown mud, while along the leeward sides of the stone fences there still lay broad, low drifts of granular snow.
A thin, cold rain drove out of the west against the backs of two warriors who were walking across the clearing on the cart road. Their leather breeches were dark with rain, and the fur of their jackets was wet and draggled. In the forest, where spruce and pine shaded the trails, they had run on skis. Now each carried his skis on one wide shoulder, with his boots slung over the other, and the deep tracks of their tough bare feet filled at once with icy water.
Big flakes of snow began to come with the rain.
Near the east end of the clearing, above the high bank of a river, was Hovdingeby, which also was called Vargby because it was the original home of the Wolf Clan and its major village. The long-house there measured thirty meters, and many men could sleep in its steep-roofed loft. Its logs had been squared with broad ax and adze so that they fitted almost perfectly, and even the stones of its smoking chimneys had been squared. At each end the ridgepole thrust out three meters beyond the overhanging roof, curving upward, scrolled and bearing the carven likeness of a wolf. Hides covered its windows, scraped thin to pass more light, but on the westward side the shutters were closed against the rain.
The two warriors walked up its split-log steps and scraped their muddy feet on the stoop. One rapped sharply on the plank door with the hilt of his knife, and a stout thrall woman let them in. It was cold and gloomy in the entry room. Though Svear, the two warriors were not of the Wolf Clan, so they waited there with the silence of men who had nothing new to say to each other and were disinclined to talk for the sake of breaking silence. Shortly a tall old man, Axel Stornave himself, came out to them wearing a loose cloak of white hare skins. "You are the last to arrive," he said. "I'm sorry my messenger took so long to find you." The hands that gripped could have crushed necks.
"We are often gone from our homes," one answered. "Reindeer are not cattle. The herds must range far for forage."
The old man ushered them into the hall. "We have dry clothes for you," he said. "I'll have food warmed, and the stones are hot in the bath house. When you have bathed and eaten, I suggest you rest. We will meet together at the evening meal, and it may be late before the talking ends."
The men at the evening meal were the chiefs of the three tribes, with their counselors, and the clan chieftains of the Svear, each with his lieutenant. They ate roast pig, that most savory of flesh, smoked salmon, and blood pudding thickened with barley and sweetened with honey that had found its way there from southern Jotmark. And there was fermented milk, and ale, but no brannvin, for these men were sometimes enemies who had put aside their feuds to meet together. Axel Stornave did not want the blood to run too warm in their veins.
When the platters were taken away, Stornave rose, the oldest man of them, and they all listened, for warriors and raid leaders did not live as long as he had without skill and luck and cunning.
"Some in my clan," he said, "and in all the clans of the Svear, have talked in recent years of leaving our land. They have heard of lands where the summers are longer and warmer. And I have heard it is the same among the Jotar and Norskar." He turned toward the bull-like form of Tjur Blodyxa, chief of the Jotar. "I have heard that in Jotmark the Sea Eagle Clan began last summer to build large boats, ships in which to send strong war parties to find a better land. It was also told at the last ting of the Svear"-here he turned grimly to Jaavklo of the Gluttons-"that our own northern clans whisper of breaking the bans and trying to take away land from the clans to the south, unless we willingly make room for them.