The Sword of the Lady (60 page)

″Hrolf Homersson gives you best, shield-maiden! I give you best. What a pity you′re wedded already!″

Mary simply snorted as she rose and helped him untangle himself. Ritva sauntered over and put her hands on her hips as she watched.

″I′m not,″
she pointed out with cheerful helpfulness. ″Are you, Hrolf Homersson? Not that I′m proposing, you understand.″

Ingolf came back from his task, working his shoulders. He spoke to Mary in the elven tongue, slowly and a bit clumsily:

″Herves″—
wife
—″you can throw me on my back and leap upon me when you will, but I may grow resentful if you do it to other men . . . unless there′s a dagger in your hand.″

″Herven″
—husband—
″with you I will use not the dagger of war for your eye, but the feather-duster of tickling for your man parts!″

Virginia Kane was demonstrating what you could do with a lariat from horseback; seeing one of their dodging, running number caught and dragged a few yards was another way to tickle the Bjorning funny bone, evidently.

″Their sense of a jest is something . . . robust, here,″ Rudi observed.

″I like it well enough,″ Edain said.

″
That′s
no surprise. You near killed yourself laughing that time the cow I was milking caught me in the face with a well-beshatted tail.″

Edain snickered at the memory. ″Chief, a man in his eightieth summer would have thought that funny, and him dead also, much less a boy! The expression on you!
And
you rubbed dung in my hair, as I remember, and we were both covered head to foot by the time we′d stopped scuffling like a pair of puppies.″

Rudi sighed reminiscently. ″And then your da came out and took us by the ears and pitched us both into the pond,″ he said. ″Lucky it was that was a warm day and we weren′t wearing anything but old kilts.″

Edain shuddered. ″Lucky indeed, Chief.
You
ran back up the hill to Dun Juniper.
I
had to face me mother!″

Just then Harberga came back out the door and called, smiling:

″If the children are finished their play, the meal is ready!″

A herald more formal came out of the main doors of the hall and blew the summoning horn, a long harsh
huuuuuuuuuu
through the cold air.

The twin doors were twice man-height, thick oak slabs strapped with iron on either side of a framework of beams, and at the end of the long rectangular structure. The roof above towered high and steep-pitched; the gable beams crossed in snarling dragonheads above the snowy shingles, and a steady trickle of smoke came from the mortared fieldstone chimneys. Pillars on either side of the entranceway were carved in a strong stylized style.

The shapes were a red-bearded man who bore a hammer and a woman with a distaff and hair of bright gold; gold covered the elk antlers above. Within was a square stone-flagged chamber ringed with benches, trunks, pegs and racks where outer clothes and weapons could be left. Rudi was wearing his good kilt and plaid beneath his winter gear today—a kilt wasn′t as warm as trousers, but it was more than enough for a while, if you had drawers on beneath.

He offered his arm to Mathilda as they went through the inner doors to the hall proper, and she took it.

″Father Ignatius is going to duck out later,″ she said.

″And you′re not, my heart?″

″No. I . . . want to see. It isn′t like
participating
, after all.″

Is it not?
he thought, but kept his silence.
Well, that′s between him and you at your next confession.

Bjarni had seated Rudi at his right, and Mathilda at the Mackenzie′s side; those were positions of honor, and let him talk to the Bjorning chieftain. Evergreen boughs in wreaths on walls and rafters scented the air, and a decorated fir tree stood tall in the center. The feast was to be long and leisurely. Rudi enjoyed it—potato soup, roast pork, braised red cabbage, more potatoes prepared in half a dozen ways, a meat pie not quite like anything he′d tasted before—

″Now that′s not beef, nor venison either, I think,″ he said thoughtfully after he′d chewed and swallowed; the ground meat was mixed with minced onion and some herbs, and it had a musky undertone, not exactly rank but strong. ″Though it′s more
like
venison or elk than any tame beast I′ve had.″

He plied his fork again: ″Tasty!″

″Moosemeat tortiere,″ Harberga said, smiling at his enthusiasm. ″Most households here take a moose in the fall, when the frosts set in; we make all the pies then and freeze them in the cold pantry for use all winter. There′s near half a ton of meat on a big moose, and the bones and sinew and hide are all useful too, but they take a good deal of killing.″

Bjarni′s eyes lit and went to one of the spears on the wall; it was a long hunter′s weapon, with wings forged into the base of the head to prevent an irate beast from running up it to express one last opinion of the human who′d stuck it.

″Yes, that′s fine sport,″ he said enthusiastically. ″None better, except bear or tiger—and the stripe-cats are still rare here. There weren′t any at all in this country when my father founded Norrheim; they came up later from the troll-lands.″

A scowl: ″And too many of them are man-eaters by choice. Bears leave humans alone, usually, and so do wolves—though they′ll both eat our stock, ayuh! But the tigers are a menace, and there are more every year.″

″They′re common in Montival, unpleasantly so sometimes,″ Rudi replied.

Mathilda leaned across and touched the tip of Rudi′s nose; there was a tiny, barely visible fleck of scar there.

″I was there when a tiger did that to Rudi with the very end of one claw,″ she said proudly. ″He held it away on a spear until it died.″

″It was already wounded,″ Rudi said lightly.

Then a faraway look came into his eyes. ″Remember those lions we came across in the Sioux country?″

″Lions?″ Bjarni asked, intrigued. ″I′ve heard of them, but there are none here. Too cold in winter, I suppose.″

″Probably too many trees, as well; the beasts don′t like close forest. They′re spreading north from the desert countries, from the Rio Grande. We were being chased at the time, and sort of ran into them, and through them, at a gallop. It was lucky, in the event—they′d just had time to get good and angry when our foemen arrived expecting to cut our throats and found the lions instead . . .″

Bjarni and his wife chuckled, and so did the rest of the Bjornings within hearing; evidently
that
appealed to the Norrheimer sense of humor too.

″What′s an angry lion like?″ he asked.

″Every bit as nasty as an angered tiger, and they run in packs like wolves. You″—he pointed his fork at Mathilda—″wanted to keep that cub as a pet!″

″It was
cute
,″ Mathilda said.

″It was
young
. I′ve had many a shrewd scratch from ordinary moggies who meant no real harm. One that weighed three hundred pounds, with claws like knives . . .″

They spoke more and pleasantly, of hunting and then local lore; evidently Norrheim was a loose federation of quasi-independent chieftain-ships, each heading a tribe comprised of
bondar
—yeomen—who pledged allegiance to a
godhi
of their choice, who lead them in war and sacrifice and presided at assembly. The farmers changed the allegiance if it suited them; Mathilda looked faintly scandalized at that, but held her peace about it. Local folkmoots called
things
met each spring to hear cases and vote on laws, and an
Althing
in the summer did the same for the whole. Eriksgarth was the senior chieftainship, its master head of the Bjornings, and home of the
Althing′s
meeting ground.

They didn′t take a census here, but Rudi estimated from what his host said that the Norrheim folk were about as numerous as the Clan Mackenzie; threescore thousand or a little more, and growing fast, more by births now than by outsiders joining.

″My father made us a people,″ Bjarni said proudly. ″He knew what must be done—when to speak, when to show an example, and when to break heads. Folk who were cast adrift in a world made strange saw it. Others of his Bjorning kindred who came north with him became
godhi
of their own tribes too, as he set them here or there to help put the land in order. I remember a little of the beginning of it; I was six when the Change came, and we left Springfield. That was a thorpe near Boston.″

″Boston!″ Ingolf said, from the other side of the chieftain. ″I′ve been to Boston . . . if your father made his escape from
there
, and took his people with him, then he was some sort of a man.″

The lamps were lit on their iron wheels and hoisted up the pillars as the evening proceeded; there was unstinted food, drink, song—Rudi came to keenest attention as a harper performed—stories sad or merry or moving—and chanted ancestral epic:

″There was a man named Orm the Strong, a son of Ketil Asmundsson who was a yeoman in the north of Jutland; and this was before the Dane-lands were one kingdom. The folk of Ketil had dwelt there as long as men remembered, and held broad acres. The wife of Ketil was Asgerd, who was a leman-child of Ragnar Lothbrok. Thus Orm came of good stock on both spear and distaff sides, but as he was the fifth living son of his father he could look for no great inheritance. So Orm was a seafarer, and from his youth spent most of his summers in viking
—
″

The ways and arts here didn′t have Dun Juniper′s quick bright shifting glitter, with its ever-present tang of the Otherworld. But there was a deep steady sonorous music to it all, one that had its own harsh magic and strong-boned beauty and spoke to his blood.

Eventually, Bjarni rose—for the first time since the feast started, except once when he′d darted over to quiet two half-drunken brawlers by the simple expedient of grabbing their necks and banging their heads together hard enough to make Rudi wince. Their friends had laid them out under the tables, and the rest had gone on unconcerned with the fallen serving as footstools. Now he hammered the hilt of his seax on the table, and silence fell, more or less; he spoke into it.

″Bjornings, and guests come from far lands! Tonight our luck is strong. The
seidhkona
Heidhveig has come to Eriksgarth and will take the High Seat of prophecy and speak. Let all here behave in seemly wise, as do true men and true women.″

Men moved the table before them, and placed a high carved chair with arms on the dais before the hearth. Heidhveig entered from the door that led to the house; Rudi had seen little of her until now, and his hosts had merely said that she rested and felt out the wights—which was what the Norrheim folk called the spirits of place. Now she paced slowly through the hall, an old woman in a midnight-blue cloak and gown with a cap of black lambskin. Her wrought staff went
thunk
. . .
thunk
. . . as she walked down the row of pillars, helped by a stern-faced middle-aged woman and several others who were younger but nearly as serious.

″Who′s the other woman with a staff?″ Rudi murmured.

″Thorlind Williamsdottir—she really runs the
seidh
group these days. She was one of the first ones Heidhveig trained as a
gydhja
, a godwoman.″

Mathilda started to cross herself, then refrained; it would be impolite, under the circumstances. Instead she touched the place on her tunic where the crucifix rested below. The helpers set another box on the dais so that the old woman could climb onto the elevated seat; it had a cushion embroidered with ravens, and two carved from wood stood on the seat back. The younger
gydhja
sat on a low stool next to the tall
seidhjallr
, the Chair of Magic. Heidhveig held her staff between her knees, gripping it with both gnarled hands as if it were an anchor planted in the ground.

Bjarni′s sister Gudrun took a basin of water and moved around the great room, sprinkling each one with drops flicked from a twig and murmuring:

The younger godwoman took a drum and began to beat it; a walrus-ivory ring skittered across the taut surface, making the beat throb with a burring tone that filled the hall. She spoke from her stool, her voice low and hieratic:

″I will,″ Heidhveig said.

The seeress′ voice was hoarse but strong. Rudi felt the skin prickle on his neck and between his shoulders as she pulled the thin veil draped around her shoulders over her head, so that it hid her face. When Thorlind spoke again, her words seemed to come from a depth—from a cave, perhaps, or a wildwood, or simply from the deeps of time:

″Sink down, then, and be at ease. You know the road well, the way through the Wood between the Worlds, and the plain of Midgard that lies within. Fare onward, wise one, down and around beneath the root of the Tree . . .″

Rudi found his own eyes closing, images forming behind them as the woman went on, leading them from world to world and depth to depth, to the very walls of Hella′s kingdom, that he had never expected to see as a living man.

″Down and around we fare, until we come to the Eastern Gate. Here we must wait. For one and one only the gate will open . . .″

Rudi sighed, resisting the unexpected attraction of that passage to the Otherworld. He could feel Matti sitting stiff beside him, and squeezed her hand, as much to keep himself firmly grounded as to comfort her.

Thorlind spoke again: