The Wizard And The Warlord (10 page)

Halfdane nodded, turned, and stalked into his adjoining quarters, where he took a stance before the hearth, bending his dark, lordly gaze upon his visitors. “When I give an order, I expect no abrogation from anyone, and the order stands in its entirety until I declare otherwise. The Scipling is not to leave the confines of the hill fort under any circumstances, except a total rout if we were under attack. Perhaps you did not know of my wishes, Jotull. I prefer to think you were merely ignorant, rather than willfully insubordinate.” His voice and his expression were scornful as he added, “I don’t see the need for Sigurd to be taught much magic. Your time is better invested elsewhere. Let your apprentice show him a few tricks, if he can learn them.”

Jotull knit his brows and came a step closer. “As you wish, of course, but Sigurd has a natural power which plagues him with its capriciousness. It is only a matter of time until it becomes dangerous to him and perhaps even to the rest of us. I would like to capture it and get rid of it.”

“You’ll do nothing of the sort,” Halfdane replied, turning sharply to look at Jotull. “Leave his training to me and attend to your own business of wizarding us away from extinction at the hands of the Dokkalfar. There will be no more of your lessons. You may depart, Jotull. I’m finished with you.”

Jotull clasped his hands around his staff and darted a look at Sigurd. “My lord, I think you are making a mistake. Consider the might and power of Bjarnhardr for a moment and how small our chance of repelling his winter campaign again this year. I happen to know the secret you’re keeping from Sigurd and I think you should tell him at once what you know.”

“Wizard! Keep your silence!” Half dane commanded in a tone that made everyone flinch.

“I shan’t,” Jotull replied earnestly. “It’s in the best interest of Hrafnborg that Sigurd knows who—”

Halfdane had listened with his hands clasped behind his back, but suddenly he brought one hand forward and pointed at Jotull. Sigurd staggered back as a great force thrust against him in passing, catching Jotull off guard and flattening him with a heavy crash. Gasping, the wizard recovered his dignity quickly, making a quick plunge to retrieve his staff, but Halfdane blasted it across the room with a flick of his finger. Sigurd stared at the black gauntlet he wore, remembering Mikla’s mention of it. The cuff was heavily embroidered with gold and silver thread and studded with silver nails.

“You may leave, Jotull,” Halfdane continued steadily. “I shall send a boy up later with your staff.”

For a moment, Jotull’s face was a mask of rage and humiliation; then he composed himself to his customary steely grace. “Very well, I shall thank you for it. I won’t soon forget your kindness.” With a slight, stiff nod he departed.

Sigurd and Rolfr gazed at each other in silent amazement. Sigurd was transfixed by the utter hatred he had glimpsed in Jotull’s eyes. He knew better than to inquire what secret Halfdane withheld from him, but he was certain it concerned the box.

Halfdane removed the gauntlet and put it under his belt. “I trust that you neither one will hasten to carry tales to the men that Halfdane and Jotull have quarreled. For your own assurance, I shall tell you that Jotull and I frequently disapprove of one another and engage in matches of wits that uninformed observers might construe as battles.” He beckoned to Jotull’s staff and brought it to his hand, examining it with minute interest. “The only way to win the respect of a powerful and haughty wizard is to frighten him periodically. He overreaches as a matter of course, which brings us to you, Sigurd.”

Sigurd eyed Halfdane, disliking him more than ever for humiliating Jotull in front of him and Rolfr. “I suppose you mean to say that learning magic is forbidden to me now?‘’

Halfdane glared at him from under a hedge of beetling brows. “Mikia can show you what you need to know for everyday purposes. What I have in mind for you is something quite different. You’ve been wasting too much time with the Alfar—very good fellows, all of them, but they’d be lost in a day without someone to tell them what to do almost every minute of their lives. So I’ve decided to forbid you to the hall beyond an hour after the evening meal. It won’t be of any consequence to you; you’ll be far too tired after your daily schedule of lessons in weaponry. I also think it expedient to assign you to a daily stint of guard duty. That should keep you busy and out of mischief, as well as out of Jotull’s way.”

Rolfr shot Sigurd a commiserating giance. Assignment to the day watch was a great disgrace for a warrior. Old women and young lads usually watched in the daylight hours, and often it was hot and always it was dull. The worst part about it was the fact that one could not stand watch all day long and expect to hobnob with his cronies at night or to ride patrol. No punishment affected the lighthearted Alfar more adversely than the curtailment of their social life.

“Then I’ll take the day shift also,” Rolfr said, after only a slight hesitation. “Don’t worry, Siggi, I won’t mind it.”

“It was good of you to volunteer, Rolfr,” Halfdane said. “It spares me the necessity of ordering you to do it. You’ll spend your mornings with your instructors and your afternoons on the earthworks. One day in ten for liberty and one hour every night after the meal. Sigurd, I won’t expressly forbid your friendship with Jotull, but neither will I encourage it, understand? If so, you may go to Skefill now for your first lesson.”

Rolfr’s mouth fell open. “But—you mean for us to begin right now, after only a few hours’ sleep?”

Sigurd nudged him sharply and said in a bitter tone, “Why not, Rolfr? We’re not children and we won’t complain.”

“Not half as much as old Skefill will,” Rolfr muttered as they left the hall. Sigurd looked back at Halfdane, who glowered after them in his own peculiarly disagreeable manner.

Nothing matched the dreariness of the day schedule of Hrafnborg. Once their lessons with Skefill were over, there was nothing to do but watch the shepherd boys tending their sheep on the neighboring fells, the hobbled horses grazing around the earthworks, and a little girl whose job it was to tend a flock of geese. Sigurd learned to beguile the time by practicing his limited knowledge of magic. Much against the better wishes of Rolfr, Sigurd spent his free hour at night with Jotull, who taught him a short lesson in power each night. As a result, Sigurd was plagued more than ever by the malicious ill luck that followed him. Whenever he was uncomfortable or near someone he didn’t like, such as Halfdane, straps and strings had a way of breaking, hanging objects fell to the ground, flies made the horses kick, and anything in his hands seemed to leap away on a mission of destruction and embarrassment to Sigurd.

Ragnhild was as good as a magnet for untoward occurrences. She began to take notice of Sigurd the day after Halfdane’s chastisement and subsequent assignment to the day shift. She walked past Sigurd on the earthworks each day as part of her constitutional. For eight days, she only looked at him coldly and marched on, like a queen looking at a low specimen of bog creature. After withering him with her silent scorn, she walked to the stable, where her particularly fine horse awaited her. With the attendance of three archers, she left the hill fort for a ride to the end of the valley. Bees seldom failed to appear, making her horse skittish, or small rocks pelted her or her horse or the attendants. At the very least, a wicked little gust of wind buffeted her hair and tumbled her cloak. Sigurd didn’t particularly wish it, but he couldn’t help feeling flustered and uneasy when she made such a point of presenting herself to his notice. He couldn’t imagine any attachment on her side, and he had no delusions about trying to win the kinswoman of Halfdane, even if Rolfr hadn’t already claimed that dubious privilege. But she was handsome in her arrogant fashion, he had to admit.

On the ninth day, she stopped to glare at him and Rolfr. “I know it’s you that annoys me every day when I ride out,” she said to Sigurd. “I want you to stop it immediately or I shall tell my cousin Halfdane you’re being a nuisance.”

Sigurd felt his hackles rising at her commanding tone. He tried to stare her down, but she only lifted her chin and looked down her nose with freezing disdain. “It has nothing to do with Sigurd,” Rolfr declared. “Your difficulties probably arise from your own deficiencies. Jotull says that a naturally evil personage attracts misfortune the way a lodestone attracts iron.”

Ragnhild scowled at Rolfr, then reached out and pinched his nose hard enough to make him shriek. “You’ve a long nose, Rolfr. Next time I might twist it off if you dare to grin at my expense again.” With that, she turned and stalked away, leaving Rolfr to rub his afflicted nose and blink his watering eyes. Sigurd leaped up to look after her, marveling at her casual audacity.

“You see, Siggi? She’s a villainous little witch,” Rolfr said with a wry smile. “We’ve got to get even with her somehow. Wouldn’t I love to see her embarrassed and all that arrogant pride mortified almost to death? What I want most of all is just to laugh and laugh and laugh at her. I want something that will humiliate her for the rest of her life. I rather think that would improve her character markedly.”

Sigurd began to smile. “I think I know how we can do it.” He hesitated, looking after Ragnhild as she advanced upon the horse paddock but relishing Rolfr’s impatient exclamations. “I’ll ask Jotull for his advice.”

Rolfr’s expression changed. “Jotull? Do you think you should? I mean, do you think you dare?”

“Certainly. He’s a very amiable fellow once you get to know him. I think he’d do almost anything I asked him.”

Rolfr frowned and rubbed his chin, where young whiskers grew in untidy tuffets. “Well, it can’t be anything too hard on her. She’s Halfdane’s cousin, after all, and I am supposed to be in love with her.” He felt the end of his sore nose cautiously. “When will you speak to Jotull?”

“Tonight after we eat.”

Jotull did not laugh scornfully, nor did he get angry, as Rolfr had predicted. The wizard looked thoughtfully into the fire and puffed at his pipe, which had a carved face on it that either sneered or laughed in the flickering firelight.

“I think I can help you humble the arrogant creature,” he said finally. “The only way to do it is to frighten her somehow, although there will be no real danger. The little minx has a birthday in another ten days. Someone is going to give her an amazing present.”

“Who?” Rolfr inquired with interest.

“You, stupid, but she won’t know that, or I’m sure she’d suspect a trick. She’ll think it’s from Halfdane and thus be totally unsuspecting.” Jotull gazed into the fire with a mirthless chuckle, and his eyes flashed when he mentioned Halfdane. “Leave me now to think about it. Take Mikla with you.”

Mikla gaped in amazement at the idea of Jotull granting him some free time. Quickly he put away the spells he was working on and hastened Rolfr and Sigurd out the door, before the wizard had time to change his mind. Exulting, they tumbled down the steep path in the dark. Rolfr busily described their plans to mortify Ragnhild, and Mikla gave but faint approval to them.

“You shouldn’t have involved Jotull,” he said seriously. “He has a grudge against Halfdane, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see him do some harm to Ragnhild to get even.”