From the swirling mists and icy realms beyond the edge of the world came the Snow-walker Gudrun – to rule the Jarl’s people with fear and sorcery. No sword is a match for her rune-magic and it seems the land may never be free from her tyranny. But there is a small band of outlaws determined to defeat Gudrun and restore the rightful Jarl. This trilogy follows their quest from the first terrifying journey to meet the mysterious Snow-walker’s son, to the final battle in the land of the soul thieves.
This book includes:
THE SNOW-WALKER’S SON
THE EMPTY HAND
THE SOUL THIEVES
Chapter-head quotations in Book 1 are from ‘The Words of the High One’; those in Book 3 are from ‘Voluspa’ (translated as ‘The Song of the Sybil’); both from Norse Poems, edited and translated by W. H. Auden and Paul B. Taylor (Faber and Faber Ltd, 1983); reprinted by permission of Faber and Faber.
THE BOOK OF THE CROW:
THE RELIC MASTER
THE INTERREX
FLAIN’S CORONET
THE MARGRAVE
CORBENIC
BELIN’S HILL
THE CANDLE MAN
THE CONJUROR’S GAME
FINTAN’S TOWER
Find out more about Catherine Fisher and her books at: www.geocities.com/catherinefisheruk/catherine.html
‘A thrilling, chilling world of magic and menace with a northern flavour and beautiful, haunting images’ Gillian Cross,
Mail on Sunday on The Snow-walker’s Son.
‘A spell-binding story, sure to kindle the imagination’
Times Educational Supplement on The Snow-walker’s Son
‘Treachery and loyalty, courage and fear are at the very heart of this story of good against evil – where the bleak frozen landscape is a force to be reckoned with. This finely spun tale in which poetic language and descriptive imagery are woven into a dramatic whole grips the reader’s imagination right from the start.’
Junior Education on The Empty Hand
‘Brilliant . . . Catherine Fisher has an outstanding capacity for the spinning and weaving of the slenderest threads into a stout and flawless tapestry’
Junior Bookshelf on The Soul Thieves
‘Fisher writes with a deceptive simplicity. Her stories flow as naturally as the running of a brook, but have all the ringing rhythms and sudden dramatic twists and turns of the sagas’
Independent on The Soul Thieves
‘Her Snow-walker’s Son trilogy, exploring Norse myth and the political dangers of being different, is an outstanding piece of fiction’
New Statesman
Young and alone on a long road,
Once I lost my way:
Rich I felt when I found another . . .
THE HALL WAS empty.
Jessa edged inside and began to wander idly about, pulling the thick furred collar of her coat up around her face. She was early.
It had been a bitter night. The snow had blown in under the door and spread across the floor. A pool of wine that someone had spilt under the table was frozen to a red slab. She nudged it with her foot; solid as glass. Even the spiders were dead on their webs; the thin nets shook in the draught.
She walked to the great pillar of oak that grew up through the middle of the hall. It was heavily carved with old runes and magic signs, but over them all, obliterating them, was a newer cutting: a contorted snake that twisted itself down in white spirals. She brushed the frost off it with her gloved fingers. The snake was Gudrun’s sign. A witch’s sign.
She waited, grinding the ice to white powder under her heel.
Light gathered slowly. Corners of tables and tapestries loomed out of the shadows; a cart rumbled by outside, and the carter’s shout echoed in the roof.
Jessa kicked the frozen fire. Why hadn’t she come late – sauntered in sweetly when the Jarl was waiting, just to show him that she didn’t care, that he couldn’t order her as he wanted? It was too late now, though.
Five slow minutes slithered by.
Then, a hanging was flipped back; a house-thrall came in and began to take down the shutters. Frost cracked and fell from the empty windows; a raw wind whipped in and rippled the tapestries.
He hadn’t seen her. Jessa was annoyed. She shuffled, and watched him whirl round, his face white. Then the terror drained out of him. That annoyed her even more.
‘I’m waiting to speak to the Lord Jarl,’ she snapped, in a clear voice. ‘My name is Jessa Horolfsdaughter.’
It was the voice she always used with servants, cold and rather distant. Old Marrika, her nurse, used to say it was the voice of pride. What was Marrika doing now? she wondered.
The man nodded and went out. Jessa scuffed the floor impatiently. She hated this place. Everyone in it was afraid. They were littered with amulets and luckstones; they glanced around before they spoke, as if someone was always listening. Gudrun. The Jarl’s strange wife. The Snow-walker. They said she knew what you thought, even as you stood before her. Jessa shivered.
The man came back and kneeled at the hearth. She saw the welcome flicker of flames and hurried over, warming her hands and rubbing them against her face until her cheeks ached. The thrall propped some logs on the blaze and went out. Jessa did not speak to him. People said all the Jarl’s servants were dumb. Whatever the truth of that, they never spoke.
Crouched over the fire, she looked down the high hall. The trestles and stools were toppled here and there on the straw. At the far end was a raised platform; here the seats were piled with red cushions, the tables littered with half-empty plates. Jessa went over and picked up a pewter jug. The wine in it was frozen. She put it down with a bang.
As she turned, one of the tapestries behind the dais was drawn aside and an elderly man came in, with a boy of her own age behind him. She knew the boy at once. Thorkil Harraldsson was her first cousin; they’d brought him here about three months ago. His clothes were very fine, she thought scornfully. Just like him.
The other was Jarl Ragnar. He was still tall, but his shoulders stooped; the splendid blue quilted robe hung loose on him. He looked like a man dried out, sucked dry of all life, his eyes small and cold.
She made him the most careless bow she could.
‘You have your father’s manners,’ he said wryly.
Silent, she watched Thorkil drag up two stools and the Jarl’s chair; he caught her eye and gave her a brief, wan smile. She thought he seemed uneasy, and very pleased to see her. No wonder. Prison was prison, even with fine clothes.
They sat down. The Jarl stared into the flames. Finally he spoke, without looking at them.
‘Your fathers were two brothers. I had thought they were loyal to me, until they joined that last foolish march of the Wulfings. All my enemies together. It was a pity they both died in the snow.’
Jessa glared at him. ‘Your wife’s sorcery brought the snow. She won your battle for you.’
He was angry, but Jessa didn’t care. ‘The Lord Jarl has always come from the family of the Wulfings. That’s why they fought you. You have no right to be Jarl.’
She caught Thorkil’s nervous, warning look, but it was done now. She had said it. Her face was hot, her hands shook.
Grimly, the Jarl stared at the flames. ‘The family of the Wulfings are almost all gone,’ he said. ‘Those that are left lurk in farms and steads and byres, their women and children disguised as thralls, hurried indoors when riders come by. Gudrun knows. She sees them. One by one, I am hunting them out. The leader, Wulfgar, was taken two days ago; he’s in a room under your feet, with ice and rats for company. And now there’s you.’
His hands rubbed together, dry as paper.
‘I left you alone. I left you on your farms, fed you and let you be, until now. Now, you are old enough to be dangerous.’
Jessa watched his eyes on the leaping flames. She wanted him to turn and look at her, but he would not.
‘Your land will be given to men loyal to me, and you will have somewhere else to live.’
‘Here?’ Thorkil asked.
‘Not here.’ He smiled briefly. ‘Far from here.’
Jessa was glad. She had been here for two days and that was enough. But she didn’t trust that smile.
‘Where then?’
The Jarl moved, as if he was suddenly uneasy. The silver amulets and thorshammers round his neck clicked together.
‘I’m sending you to live with my son,’ he said.
For a moment they couldn’t realize what he meant. Then Jessa felt sick; cold sweat prickled on her back. Slowly her hand sought the amulet Marrika had given her.
Thorkil was white. ‘You can’t send us there,’ he breathed.
‘Hold your tongue and let me finish.’ Ragnar was looking at them now, with a hard, amused stare.
‘Your fathers were traitors; they wanted to bring me down. Many men remember them. Do you expect me to set you up on farms, to give you herds of reindeer and dowries of silver?’
‘Why not?’ Jessa muttered. ‘You took ours.’
He laughed. ‘Call it exile, and think yourselves lucky. At least you’ll have a sort of life. You leave tomorrow for Thrasirshall, at first light. I’ll supply a ship and an escort, at least as far as Trond. I don’t suppose my men will want to go further.’
Jessa saw Thorkil was trembling. She knew he couldn’t believe this; he was terrified. It burst out of him in a wild, despairing cry.
‘I won’t go! You can’t send us out there, not to that creature!’
With one swift movement the Jarl stood and struck him in the face with the full weight of his glove, so that he staggered back on the stool and fell with a crash on the stone floor. Jessa grabbed him, but he shrugged her off. Tears of fury glinted in his eyes as he scrambled up.
‘Take a lesson from your cousin,’ the Jarl said. ‘Look your fate in the eye. I’d thought you were stronger, but I see you’re still a boy.’
Jessa took Thorkil’s wrist and held it tight. Better to keep quiet now.
The Jarl watched them. ‘Gudrun is right,’ he said. ‘Traitors breed traitors.’
Then, slowly, he sat down, and ran one hand wearily down one cheek.
‘There’s something else.’
‘What?’ Jessa asked coldly.
He took something from inside his coat and held it out: a thick piece of sealskin. She saw the blue veins in his skin.
‘It’s a message.’ Ragnar looked at them, almost reluctantly. ‘I want you to take it with you. It’s for Brochael Gunnarsson . . . the man who looks after the creature. Give it to him. Tell no one.’ He looked wearily around the empty hall. ‘Whatever sort of think Kari is, he is my son.’
There was silence. Then he said it, ‘Take it.’
For a long moment Jessa did not move. Then she reached out and took the parcel. The parchment inside it crackled as she slid it into her glove.
The Jarl nodded, and stood up, straightening slowly. He walked a few steps and then stopped. Without looking back he said, ‘Come here tonight, after the lawgiving. Gudrun wishes to speak to you. There’s nothing I can do about it.’
He looked over his shoulder at them. ‘Keep my secret. I can do nothing else for Kari. Maybe, years ago, if I had tried . . . but not now. She would know.’ He smiled at them, a bitter smile. ‘I’ve never seen him. I do not know what he is.’
In the silence after he had shuffled out, a pigeon fluttered in the roof. One glossy feather whirled down through a shaft of light.
‘Why did you take it?’ Thorkil asked.
Jessa was wondering too. ‘Not so loud,’ she murmured.
He went to the fire and kneeled near the dirty hearth; Jessa followed. ‘We must escape.’
‘Where?’
‘Your farm – Horolfstead.’
‘His men have got it.’ She pulled at her glove. ‘Three days ago.’
Thorkil glanced at her. ‘I should have known. Well, why bother to talk? There’s nothing we can do – he’s sending men with us.’
‘To Thrasirshall.’
‘Mmm.’
Jessa was silent for a moment. Then she glanced round. ‘Thorkil . . .’
‘What?’ But he knew what.
‘You’ve been here longer than I have. What do they say here about Kari Ragnarsson?’
‘Nothing. No one dares.’ Thorkil dropped his voice. ‘Besides, no one has ever seen him, except the woman who was there when he was born. She died a few days later. They say Gudrun poisoned her.’
Jessa nodded. ‘Yes, but there are rumours . . .’
‘The same as you’ve heard.’ Thorkil edged nearer to the fire. ‘She kept him locked up here somewhere, in a windowless room. He has a pelt of fur like a troll. He tears his skin with his teeth in his fits. Others say he has eyes like a wolf. There are plenty of stories. Who knows which is true? Now she keeps him in the ruin called Thrasirshall. They say it’s at the edge of the world, far out in the snowfields. No one has ever been there.’
She stood up. ‘Neither will we. We’ll get away. How can they watch us all the time?’
‘Gudrun can. And where can we go in a wilderness of ice?’
But Jessa had crouched suddenly, her gloved fingers on his lips. ‘Quiet!’
Together, they turned their heads. The hanging on the far wall was rippling slightly; the faded bears and hunters stitched on it seemed to move under the dirt.
‘Someone’s there,’ Jessa whispered. ‘Someone’s been listening to us.’
Shun a woman wise in magic.
THEY WAITED, FOR a long minute. Then Thorkil walked over and carefully pushed the musty cloth. It gave under his hand.
‘There’s a space here,’ he muttered. ‘No wall.’
As there was no sound he pulled the deep folds of the hanging apart and slipped inside; after a quick look round Jessa followed. In the dimness they saw a stone archway in the wall, and beyond that a staircase twisting up. Footsteps were climbing it, lightly.
‘I told you,’ Jessa whispered. ‘Who is it?’
‘I don’t know. Probably . . .’ Then he stopped.
Behind them, someone had come into the hall, someone silent, without footsteps, someone who froze the air. Jessa felt sudden crystals harden on her face and mouth; felt a cold numbness that pieced her skin. Thorkil was still; frost glistened on his lips.
‘It’s Gudrun,’ he breathed.
And as if the walker on the stairs had heard him, the footsteps stopped, and began to come back down.
Suddenly, Jessa had never felt so afraid. Her heart thudded; she wanted to run, had to fight to hold herself still, clenching her fingers into fists. Before them the footsteps came closer; behind in the hall some terrible coldness loomed. Grabbing at Thorkil she tugged him between the heavy tapestries and the wall; there was a black slit there, filthy with dust. Something brushed his coat; the tapestry whirled, and a small bent figure, much muffled in cloaks and coats, slipped past them into the hall.
‘Gudrun,’ they heard him say, ‘you move like a ghost.’
‘But you heard me.’
‘I felt you.’
Their voices withdrew into the room. Coldness ebbed, the freezing fear slowly loosened its grip. Jessa heard Thorkil’s shudder of breath; saw his hand was shaking as he gently moved aside a fold of the cloth, so they could see part of the hall.
Someone was sitting in the Jarl’s chair, looking no more than a bundle of rich fabrics. Then he pushed his hood back, and Jessa saw it was a very old man, thin and spry, his hair wisps of white, his look sly and side-long.
‘They leave tomorrow,’ he was saying. ‘As you expected.’
Astonished, Jessa stared at Thorkil.
The woman laughed, a low peal of sound that made a new surge of fear leap in Jessa’s stomach.
The old man chuckled too. ‘And they know all about Thrasirshall, the poor waifs.’
‘What do they know?’ she said.
‘Oh, that the wind howls through it, that it’s a wilderness of trolls and spirits on the edge of the world. Not to speak of what the hall contains.’ He spat, and then grinned.
They could just see the woman’s white hands, and her sleeves. Gently, Thorkil edged the curtain a little wider.
Gudrun stood in the light from the window. She was tall and young, her skin white as a candle; her hair pure blonde and braided in long intricate braids down her back. Her ice-blue dress was edged with fur. Silver glittered at her wrist and throat; she stood straight, her sharp gaze towards them. Jessa felt Thorkil’s instant stillness. Even from here, they could see her eyes had no colour.
‘How did they take their news?’
‘The girl, quietly. Master Thorkil squealed, but Ragnar stopped that.’
Gudrun laughed. ‘Even the Jarl needs his pleasures. I allow him a few.’
‘But there is one thing you may not know.’
Her eyes turned on him. ‘Be careful,’ she said lightly. ‘Even you, Grettir.’
He seemed to shift uneasily in the chair. Then he said, ‘Ragnar gave the girl a letter. It was for Brochael Gunnarsson. It was a warning.’
She laughed again, a murmur of amusement. ‘Is that all? What good will that do? Let them take it, by all means.’ With a rustle of silks she moved to sit by him; Thorkil edged the curtain to keep her in sight.
‘None of it matters.’ She rested her white fingers lightly on the old man’s shoulder. ‘Everything is ready. Ragnar is sending them there because I slid the idea of it into his mind, just as he speaks my words and eats and sleeps as I allow him.’
‘But the letter?’
She shrugged. ‘He has a corner of himself left alive. As for those two, I have my own plans for them.’
She put her lips near his ear; dropped her voice low. Jessa strained to hear ‘I’ll have my hand on them,’ the woman said. Then she whispered something that made the old man grin and shake his head slyly.
‘You have the great powers, Gudrun. Not many can touch you.’
Instantly, he was silent, as if he knew he had made a mistake. She leaned forward and ran the sharp point of one fingernail gently down his cheek. To her horror Jessa saw it leave a trail of white ice that cracked and fell away; a blue scar in the skin as if some intense cold had seared it. The old man moaned, and clutched his face.
Gudrun smiled. ‘Be careful, Grettir. No one can touch me. No one.’
She ran her fingers lightly through his hair. ‘Remember that.’
She got up and wandered to the table, then to the fire. ‘As for the creature in Thrasirshall, you and I know what he is.’
She stretched one hand over the flames; thrust it close. Jessa saw a single drop of clear liquid fall from the white fingers, as if, she thought, they had begun to melt in the heat. As the drop hit the flames they hissed and crackled, leaping into a tower of fire. Smoke drifted round the hall; it hung in long snakes that moved around the woman’s waist and feet, slithering over the flagged floor, blurring sight, so that to Jessa the fire faded to a halo of red, and Gudrun and Grettir were shadows without edges. Staring hard, she thought she saw something form among the flames, the dim outline of a building, a window, a room full of light, and someone sitting there, turning his head . . .
Then the door of the hall slammed open. The thrall that Jessa had met earlier stood in the doorway, his arms full of wood. He stopped, frozen in terror.
Gudrun whirled in the smoke. She was furious; snakes of grey mist coiled and surged around her. ‘Out!’ she hissed, her voice hoarse with rage.
The man stood there, rooted, as if he dared not move. Jessa felt a pang of fear shoot through her – Get out! she thought, but he stayed, staring with horror at Gudrun as she jerked her hand towards him.
Logs cascaded to the floor with hollow smacks of sound. The man crumpled, soundless. He crouched on his knees, sobbing and shaking. Gudrun walked up to him. She stood a moment, looking down, then bent and lifted his chin. Pain convulsed him; he shuddered as she ran her long fingers across his throat. ‘Out,’ she whispered.
He staggered up, and crashed through the door. They could hear the echoes of his flight a long time, hanging in the smoky air.
Jessa breathed out with relief, but at the same time she touched the edge of the tapestry, and it rippled and swished. Instantly, Thorkil dropped it and flattened himself against the wall. There was silence in the hall. Jessa’s heart thumped against her ribs.
Then Gudrun spoke. She was so close that Jessa almost jumped.
‘Kari won’t escape me, either. I’ve let him be far too long, to see what he would become. And yet, Grettir –’ her voice turned away from them – ‘I have almost a desire to see him, to taste him, to use what he has.’
Her hand came round the tapestry. Jessa almost screamed. The white fingers were inches from her face.
‘But they’ll be here tonight, both of those two. That will be my time.’
Grettir must have moved; they heard his chair scrape the flagstones.
‘I will come.’
‘You must please yourself, old man, as ever.’ Then she turned and flashed past them, under the archway and up the stairs, her light steps rising into silence above them.
Thorkil let his breath out in a gasp and clutched Jessa’s arm. They were stifled; both wanted to run out, to breathe clean air, but the old man was still there, standing silently by his chair. Slowly, he crossed to the courtyard door and unlatched it. Cold air rippled the tapestries to a storm of dust. When Jessa had wiped her eyes and peered out, the hall was empty.
They ran straight to the door, squeezed through, and closed it. Smoke coiled out after them, dissipating in the wind. The watchman, half asleep, stared at their backs as they walked, too quickly, between the houses, among the children and the squalling hens. Once Jessa turned, feeling herself watched, but the windows of the Jarlshold were dark and empty.
With a good man it is good to talk,
Make him your fast friend.
‘“I’LL HAVE MY hand on them.” And she meant us.’ Jessa watched Mord Signi stack the slabs of peat carefully onto the back of the fire, and jerk his hand out as the sparks leapt. ‘What do you think she meant?’
‘I don’t think,’ Mord said, straightening. ‘Not about her.’
He was a tall man; his grey hair brushed the low turf roof. He glanced over at his wife, folding Jessa’s clothes into a leather bag. ‘But I can’t let this go. Not without a murmur.’
She put her hand on his shoulder. ‘It’s no use talking to Ragnar,’ she said quietly. ‘Why should he listen?’ Then she bent forward and whispered, so that Jessa only just caught the words. ‘Stay out of it. You have your own children to think of.’
He turned aside, silent. Jessa felt sorry for him. He had been a kinsman of her father; he was a marked man in the Jarlshold. And his wife was right. No pleading would move Ragnar, and anyway, she, Jessa, wouldn’t have it.
Mord came back to the fire. The hearth was a large, square one in the middle of the house, and around the walls were the sleeping booths, with their wooden screens and warm, musty hangings. By now the fire was a hot blaze, licking and spitting over the new peats, throwing glows and shadows around the room, over Thorkil’s face, and Mord’s, worried and upset. Outside, the afternoon sky was darkening with snow. Winter lingered late, as usual, in the Jarlshold.
Thorkil said, ‘Mord, tell us about Gudrun.’
‘Best not to, lad. I’d rather keep my tongue.’
‘But we need to know.’ Thorkil glanced at Mord’s wife, with her youngest daughter pulling at her skirts. ‘We’re going there, after all.’
She turned away from him. ‘He’s right, Mord.’
Mord put down the peat he had been crumbling, got up slowly and locked the door. Coming back, he sat closer to the fire.
‘It’s a stranger story than any skald’s saga. Much of it you’ll know, I’m sure. When Ragnar was a young man the Wulfings were the ruling kin in the north. He was just one of many small landowners; your fathers were two more. But he was ambitious. He bought land where he could, stole it where he couldn’t, ruined his enemies in the Althing (that was the old law court) and gathered ruthless, cruel men about him. Still, he might have stayed as he was, if it hadn’t been for her.’
Mord paused. Then he said, ‘Beyond the Yngvir River and the mountains there’s only ice. It stretches, they say, to the edge of the world, into the endless blackness. Travellers – those that have come back – speak of great cracks that open underfoot, of mountains smooth as glass, of the sky catching fire. Beyond the icebergs even the sea freezes. No animals live there, not even the white bears, though I have heard a tale of a long glistening worm that burrows in the ice. It may not be true. But certainly there are trolls, and ettins, and some sort of spirit that howls in the empty crevasses.
‘In those lands live the White People, the Snow-walkers, a race of wizards. No one knows much about them, except that sometimes they would come to the northern borders and raid. Children would disappear from farms, and it would be said that the White People had taken them. Cattle too, and sometimes dogs.
‘One year the raids were so bad the old Jarl sent Ragnar with a warband to march up there and settle it. They crossed the hills by way of the old giant’s road that passes Thrasirshall, and marched down the other side, straight into a white mist. It was waiting for them there, a solid whiteness that even the wind couldn’t blow away. Fifty men marched into that devil’s trap, and only one came out.’
‘What was it?’ Thorkil asked.
‘Sorcery. Rune-magic.’ Mord shrugged. ‘Who knows? But three months later a ship came into the harbour at Tarva, a strange ship with dark sails and twenty oarsmen – tall white-haired men who spoke a fluid, unknown language. The old man, Grettir, led them – he was younger then, of course. Then Ragnar came out of the ship, and with him a woman, white as ice, cold as steel. To this day no one knows who she is, or what godforsaken agreement he made with them to save his life. But we soon found out what sort of a creature had come among us.’
Jessa glanced at Thorkil. He was listening intently, his fingers working at the laces of his boots, knotting and unknotting, over and over.
‘The first thing,’ Mord went on, ‘was that the old Jarl died one night in a storm. He was hale enough when he went to bed, but in the night he gave a sudden scream, and when they got to him he was dead. There was a mark, they say, like a spread hand, in the skin of his face; it faded away, till in the morning there was nothing left.’
Thorkil’s head jerked up and his eyes met Jessa’s. Mord did not notice. ‘And his fingers – there was a web of ice all over them . . . After that, it was easy. Rumours flew; fear built up. The Jarl had left no son – the Althing should have chosen another of the Wulfings, and there were plenty of good men – but they didn’t. Fear made them fools. They chose Ragnar.
‘Two disagreed, I remember. One was killed by a bear, the other froze in a drift on a dark night. None of his family knew why he’d left the house, but the little boy said a “white lady” had called him through the window . . .’ He looked up. ‘You must have heard much of this.’
Jessa shrugged. ‘Some of it. No one tells you much when you’re small. But what about Kari?’
Mord glanced at the door. His voice was quiet now, barely heard. ‘It happened I was with Ragnar when the news came; we were in the forest, watching them cut timber for the hold.’ “A son,” the messenger said, but there was something about the way he said it. Ragnar noticed too. He asked what was wrong. The man muttered something about the midwife screaming; he seemed too terrified to answer. The Jarl almost knocked me over as he rode off. The gods help me, I’ve never seen a man look so stricken.’
‘Did the messenger see the baby?’ Jessa asked.
‘No, but he didn’t need to. Rumours soon got round – you know them. The child is a monster. For myself I think the High One struck at Ragnar’s pride, and her sorcery. That’s the god’s way. They kept the child here for a while, called it Kari, but no one ever saw it except Gudrun and the old man. Ragnar has never set eyes on him.’
‘So he told us,’ Thorkil muttered.
‘And she hates it. She’ll never even hear its name – Kari. When the creature was about five years old she got Ragnar to send it away, to the ruined hall in the north. I think she hoped it would die of cold. Brochael Gunnarsson was in prison – now he was one of the Wulfings’ men, and he had said something against her, so Ragnar took his land and sent him to be the child’s keeper. It was a hard revenge.’ He sighed. ‘I was fond of Brochael – a good man. He may be long dead. No one has been near them in all this time.’
‘Until now,’ Thorkil said grimly.
There was silence.
‘If no one has seen him,’ Jessa said suddenly, grasping at hope, ‘how do they know he’s so terrible?’
‘Why else would she lock him up?’
It was a good answer.
‘Well,’ Thorkil said, ‘we’ll soon find out.’
Mord frowned at him. ‘Be careful, lad. Be discreet. They say she can bend your mind to her will.’
Thorkil laughed coldly. ‘Not mine.’
Jessa had been thinking. ‘Kari and his Brochael must be dead by now. How can they live up there?’ How will we? she thought.
‘Gudrun would know. She has ways of knowing. That’s why, in these last years, your fathers and the Wulfings stood no chance. She was too much for them.’
Thorkil stared bleakly into the fire. Jessa pulled absently at the ends of her hair. Mord caught his wife’s eye. ‘But that’s enough talk. Now we should eat.’
The food at the Jarlshold was good and plentiful; they had broth, and fish, and honey-cakes. Despite her worries Jessa was hungry. What would they eat, she wondered, at the ruined hall in the mountains? No crops would grow there, no animals would survive. She had never known real hardship; their farm had been a rich one. What would it be like?
When they had finished, Mord rose and pulled on his outdoor coat. ‘Come on. It’s wise not to keep her waiting.’
Outside, the sky was black, frosted with stars glinting in their faint colours. The moon was a low, silvery globe balancing, it seemed, on the very tips of the mountains far off, lighting their frozen summits with an eerie bluish shimmer.
By now the Jarlshold was quiet, and very cold. A few dogs loped past them as they walked between the silent houses; once a rat ran across the frozen mud. Like all the houses Jessa had known, these were low and roofed with turf, boarded and shuttered now to keep the warmth of the fires in. Smoke hung in a faint mist over the settlement.
Only the hall was noisy; they could hear the murmur of sound grow as they walked towards it. The shutters were up again, but a circle of light flickered in the ring-window high up in the wall. Laughter floated out, and voices.
A doorkeeper sat outside, polishing a sword with a whetstone; a great wolf-like mastiff sprawled at his feet. Mord nodded to the man and put his hand on the latch. Then he turned. ‘Don’t eat anything she gives you,’ he breathed. ‘Don’t drink. Avoid her eyes. I don’t know what else to say. If she wants you – she’ll get you.’ Then he opened the door.
Never lift your eyes and look up in battle
Lest the heroes enchant you, who can change warriors
Suddenly into hogs.
IT WAS AS if some rune-master had waved a hand and transformed the place. All the fires were lit, roaring in the hearths, and candles and rushlights glimmered on stands and in corners, filling the hall with a haze of smoke and light. Long hangings, woven of red and green cloths, hung over the shutters, and the trestles were scattered with scraps of food and bones that the dogs pulled down and snarled over in the straw. The hot air stank of smoke and spices.
Mord pushed them both forward through the crowd. Jessa glimpsed rich embroidery on sleeves; the glint of gold; furs; heavy pewter cups. The Jarl’s court was rich, rich on other men’s land. She lifted her chin, remembering suddenly her father’s grin, his raised hand. She had been only six when he rode out. His face was fading from her mind.
And there was Ragnar at the high table with the witch next to him, her face pale as a ghost’s with its long eyes, her gaze wandering the room. Grettir sat beside her, watching Thorkil push through the crowd.
Mord found them seats near one of the fires; a few men stood to make room and some of them nodded slightly at Jessa. So the Jarl still had enemies then, even here. Mord seemed uneasy; she caught him making discreet signals to someone across the room. Then a steward shouted for silence.
Noise hushed. Men settled back with full cups to see what would happen – a skald with some poem, Jessa thought, or a lawsuit, considered entertainment just as good. A tall, very thin man across the room caught her eye; he grinned at her and tugged a bundle of herbs tied with green ribbon from a bag at his feet and held it out. A pedlar. She shook her head quickly; the man laughed and winked. Then he moved out of sight among the crowd thronging the hearth.
Thorkil nudged her.
A prisoner was coming in between two of the Jarl’s men. He was a tall, dark, elegant man in a dirty leather jerkin, with a gleam of gold at his neck. He looked around with cool interest.
‘That’s Wulfgar,’ Thorkil said. ‘They caught him last week up at Hagafell. He’s the last of the Wulfings. If anyone should be Jarl, it’s him.’
As the prisoner came through the crowd the silence grew. Jessa saw how some men looked away, but others held his eye and wished him well. He must be well liked, she thought, for them to risk even that much, with Gudrun watching.
‘Wulfgar Osricsson,’ Ragnar began, but the prisoner interrupted him at once. ‘They all know my name, Ragnar.’
His voice was deliberately lazy. A ripple of amusement stirred in the room.
‘You have plotted and warred,’ Ragnar went on grimly, ‘against the peace of this hold . . .’
‘My own,’ Wulgar said lightly.
‘. . . and against me.’
‘You! A thrall’s son from Hvinir, where all they grow is sulphur and smoke-holes.’
‘Be careful,’ Ragnar snarled.
‘Let him speak!’ someone yelled from the back of the hall. ‘He has a right. Let him speak.’
Other voices joined in. The Jarl waved curtly for silence. ‘He can speak. If he has anything worth hearing.’
The prisoner leaned forward and took an apple from the Jarl’s table and bit into it. A guard moved, but Ragnar waved him back.
‘I’ve nothing to say,’ Wulfgar said, chewing slowly. ‘Nothing that would change things. You’re like a dead tree, Ragnar, smothered with a white, strangling ivy. It’s poisoning you, draining you of yourself. Shake her off now, if you still can.’
Jessa, like everyone else, stared at Gudrun. She was sipping her wine and smiling. Ragnar’s face flushed with rage. His reply was hoarse. ‘That’s enough. Rebellion means death. As you were a landed man it will be quick, with an axe. Tomorrow.’
Men in the smoky hall looked at each other. There was a murmuring that rose to a noise. Gudrun’s eyes moved across their faces as she drank.
‘He can’t do that!’ Thorkil muttered.
Mord’s hands clamped down on his shoulders and stayed there. ‘Wait. Keep still.’ His fingers dug into the soft coat. ‘Don’t draw attention to yourself.’
Wulfgar spat an apple pip onto the floor. At once, with an enormous crash, one of the shutters on the windows suddenly collapsed, flung open in a squall of wind that whipped out half the candles at a stroke. In the darkness someone yelled; Wulfgar twisted and hurled himself through the guards into the crowd of confused shadows. Strange blue smoke was billowing from the fires. Jessa coughed, half choked; in the uproar dogs were barking and Ragnar was shouting orders. Then the doors were open; men were running among the dim houses of the hold, letting the bitter wind stream in and slice through the smoke like a knife.
‘Is he away?’ Thorkil shouted, on his feet.
‘He ought to be. If he was ready.’
‘It was all planned. You knew!’
‘Hush. Keep your voice down.’
Jessa turned; Gudrun’s chair was empty. Then her eye caught sight of something lying half in the fire, smouldering; it was a small bunch of some herb, tied with a green ribbon. The stifling blue smoke was drifting from it. Jessa looked around, but the pedlar was nowhere to be seen. She bent down quickly and pulled the singed bundle out of the ashes, stamped on it and pushed it into the deep pockets of her coat, so no one saw.
‘Will he really escape?’ Thorkil was asking.
‘If he gets out of the hold, there’s every chance. Not many who search will want to find him. He should head south, overseas.’
‘And will he?’
Mord gave her a half-smile. ‘I doubt it. He wants to be Jarl.’ He sighed. ‘There are plenty of others who want it.’
Suddenly it seemed the hall was almost empty. Then Mord stood up. ‘Ah. This is it.’
One of the Gudrun’s men was beckoning them across. As they walked over, talk hushed. Jessa saw Thorkil’s back stiffen.
They followed the man through a wooden archway crawling with twisted snakes. Beyond was a room lit by lamplight. Mord had to stoop under the lintel as he went in; Jessa came last, her fingers clenched tight to stop them shaking.
They were all there: Ragnar, Grettir, a few white-haired men with eyes like chips of ice – and Gudrun. Close to, she was almost beautiful. Her eyes were like water in a shallow pool, totally without colour. Cold came out of her; Jessa felt it against her face.
Outside in the hold the search was going on; they heard running footsteps, shouts, the barking of hounds. Everywhere would be searched. Here the silence seemed intense, as if after some furious argument. Gudrun stood, watching them come; Ragnar barely turned his head. She knows, Jessa thought in a sudden panic; she knows everything. Gudrun smiled at her, a sweet, cold smile.
‘The preparations for the journey are made,’ Ragnar snapped. ‘The ship leaves early, with the tide.’ His hands tapped impatiently on the chair-arm, a smooth wolfshead, worn by many fingers.
As Gudrun moved to the table, Jessa glimpsed a peculiar glistening wisp of stuff around her wrist; she realized it was snakeskin, knotted and braided. The woman took up a jug and poured a trickle of thin red liquid into four brightly enamelled cups. Jessa picked at her glove; Thorkil’s strained look caught her eye. But they would have to drink it – it was the faring-cup, always drunk before a journey. One after another, silent, they picked up the cups. Gudrun lifted hers with slim white fingers and sipped, looking at them over the rim all the while. Playing with us, Jessa thought, and drank immediately, feeling the hot sour taste flame in her throat. Thorkil tossed his off and banged the cup down empty. Mord’s lips barely touched the rim.
‘And we have these for you both.’ She nodded to a thrall; he brought two arm-rings, thin delicate silver snakes, and gave them to Jessa and Thorkil. The silver was icy to touch; it had come from her mines where men died in the ice to find it. Jessa wanted to fling hers in the woman’s face, but Mord caught her eye and she was silent, cold and stiff with anger.
Gudrun turned away. ‘Take them out.’
‘Wait!’
Every eye turned to Thorkil; men who had been talking fell silent. ‘Don’t you mind?’ he asked, his fingers clenched on the ring. ‘That we’ll see? That we’re going there . . .?’ Despite himself he could not finish.
Jessa saw a movement in the corner; it was the old man Grettir. He had turned his head and was watching.
Gudrun stared straight at Thorkil. All she said was, ‘Thrasirshall is the pit where I fling my rubbish.’ She stepped close to him; he shivered in the coldness that came out from her.
‘I want you to see him. I’ll enjoy thinking of it. I’ll enjoy watching your face, because I will see it, however far away you think me. Even in the snows and the wilderness nothing hides from me.’
She glanced down, and his eyes followed hers. He had gripped the ring so tight the serpent’s mouth had cut him. One drop of blood ran down his fingers.
Better gear than good sense
A traveller cannot carry.
THE SHIP LAY low in the water, rocking slightly. In the darkness it was a black shadowy mass, its dragon-prow stark against the stars. Men, muffled into shapelessness by heavy cloaks, tossed the last few bundles aboard.
Jessa turned. From here the Jarlshold was a low huddle of buildings under the hill, the hall rising taller than the rest, its serpent-head gables spitting out at her.
‘Did you sleep?’ Thorkil asked, yawing.
‘Yes.’ She did not tell him about the dreams, though, the dream of walking down those endless corridors full of closed doors; the dream of Gudrun. Or that she had woken and opened a corner of the shutter at midnight, gazing out into the slow, silent snowfall, while Mord’s youngest daughter had sighted and snuggled beside her.
Now Mord was coming over, with the young man called Helgi, who was to be captain of the ship.
‘Well . . .’ Mord kissed her clumsily and thumped Thorkil on the back. ‘At least Wulfgar got away. They won’t find him now. The weather looks good for you . . .’ For a moment he stared out over the water. Then he said, ‘Words are no use so I won’t waste them. I will try and get Ragnar to revoke the exile, but he may not live long, and Gudrun will certainly not change things. You must face it. We all must.’
‘We know that,’ Jessa said quietly. ‘Don’t worry. We’ll manage.’
He gazed down at her. ‘I almost think you will.’
Releasing his gloved hand, she turned to the ship. As an oarsman lifted her over she saw the frosted scum of the water splinter and remake itself on the beach, and felt the splashes on her face harden and crack. The ship swayed as Thorkil sat down beside her, clumsy in his furred coat. The helmsman raised the call, and on each side sixteen oars swivelled up, white with their fur of frost. Then they dipped. At the first slap of wood in water the ship shuddered, and grated slowly off the shingle. The wharvesmen stepped back as she rocked and settled. Mord shouted, ‘Good luck!’
‘He’s relieved to see us go,’ Thorkil muttered.
‘That’s unfair. He’s very bitter about it. Goodbye!’ she yelled, leaping up, and Thorkil scrambled up into the stern and clung to the dragon’s neck. ‘Don’t forget us, Mord! We’ll be back!’
He seemed almost too far off to hear. But he nodded bleakly. Then he turned away.
All the cold morning the ship coasted slowly down the Tarvafjord towards the open sea, carried by the icy, ebbing tide. There was little wind and the oarsmen had to row, their backs bending and knees rising in the long, silent rhythms. Fog rose from the water and froze, leaving delicate crystals of ice on spars and planks. The ship was heavy; cluttered with sea chests and baggage, casks of beer, and cargoes for the distant settlements. All around them the fog drifted, blanking out land and sky, and the only sound it did not swallow was the soft dip and splash of the oars.
Jessa and Thorkil sat huddled up in coats and blankets, slowly getting colder and stiffer. Now there seemed to be nothing to say, and nothing to do but stare out at the drifting grey air and dream and remember. Their fingers ached with cold; Jessa thought Thorkil would have been glad even to row, but no one offered him the chance. She had already noticed how the crew watched them curiously, but rarely spoke.
Gradually the fog rose. By mid-morning they could see the shore, a low rocky line, and behind it hillsides dark with trees, the snow lying among them. Once they passed a little village swathed in the smoke of its fires, but no one ran out from the houses. Only a few goats watched them glide by.
‘Where are they all?’ Thorkil muttered.
‘Hiding.’
‘From us?’
‘From the Jarl. It’s his ship, remember.’
At midday the sun was still low, barely above the hills. Helgi told the helmsman to put in at the next flat stretch of shore.
Slowly, the ship turned, and grazed smoothly into the shallows. As Jessa climbed out she groaned with the stiffness of her legs; the very bones of her face ached. She and Thorkil raced each other up the beach.
The oarsmen lit a fire, and handed round meat and bread, throwing scraps on the wet shingle for the gulls to scream and fight over. Jessa noticed how Helgi kept close. Sudden running would be no use at all.
‘How long will the journey take?’ she asked, stretching out her legs and rubbing them.
Helgi laughed. ‘Three days – longer, if the weather turns. Tonight we travel down to the sea, tomorrow up the coast to Ost, then up the Yngvir River to a village called Trond. After that – over the ice.’
Thorkil pulled a face. ‘Why not go by land?’
‘Because the hills are full of snow and wolves. You’re anxious to arrive, are you?’
Thorkil was silenced. Looking at him, Jessa noticed the glint of silver on his arm. ‘Why are you wearing that?’ she asked, surprised. It was the armring that Gudrun had given him.
He looked down at him, and touched the snake’s smooth head. ‘I don’t know. I hadn’t really meant to. I just put it on . . . It’s valuable, after all. Where’s yours?’
‘In the baggage, but I’ve a good mind to throw it over the side. It’s bad luck. I don’t know how you can wear it.’
Thorkil scowled. ‘I will if I want. It’s mine.’
Jessa shook her head. ‘It’s hers,’ she said, thinking how vain he was.
‘Well, don’t throw yours in the sea,’ Helgi laughed. ‘Throw it to me instead. The sea is rich enough.’
‘I might.’
Thorkil looked up suddenly. ‘Your men. Are they coming with us all the way?’
‘To the very door,’ Helgi said grimly. Behind him the oarsmen’s talk faltered, as if they had listened for his answer.
The ship reached the coast late that evening, the watchman of Tarva challenging them suddenly out of the darkness, his voice ringing across the black water. Jolted awake, Jessa heard the helmsman yell an answer, and saw the lights of the settlement ripple under the bows as the ship edged in among the low wharves.
They spent that night in the house of a merchant named Savik, who knew Helgi well, warm in his hall with three oarsmen sprawling and dicing near the only doorway. Where the rest went to, Jessa did not ask. She managed a brief word with Thorkil at the table.
‘No chances yet.’
He threw her a troubled look. ‘You heard what he said. We won’t have any chances.’
‘Yes, but keep your eyes open. You never know.’
‘I suppose we could always jump overboard,’ he said savagely.
Later, she slept fitfully. In her sleep she felt the rocking of the boat, as if it still carried her down the long, icy fjord, and there at the end of it, floating on the sea, was a great, dark building, the winds howling in its empty passages like wolves.
In the morning they left early as the wind was good, and as soon as they reached open water the sail was dropped with a flapping of furled canvas and the slap of ropes – a single rectangular sheet woven of strong striped cloth. The wind plumped it out into a straining arc; the ship shuddered and plunged through the spray. Jessa climbed up into the prow and watched the white sea birds wheel overhead and scream in the cliffs and crannies. Seals bobbed their heads out and watched her with dark, intelligent eyes; in bays their sluggish shining bodies lay like great pebbles on the shingle.
She turned to the oarsmen squatting in the bottom of the boat out of the wind; some sleeping, others gaming with dice for brooches or metal rings – Thorkil with them, and losing badly, it seemed.
After a while Helgi clambered over and sat beside her.
‘Do you feel well? No sickness?’
‘Not yet.’
He grinned. ‘Yes, it may well come. But we have to put off some cargo at Wormshold this afternoon – that will give you a chance to go ashore. It’s a big, busy settlement, under the Worm’s Head.’
‘Worm’s Head?’
‘Yes. Never seen it? I’ll show you.’ He took out a knife and scratched a few lines into the wooden prow. ‘It’s a spit of land, look, that juts out into the sea. Like this. It looks like a dragon’s head, very rough and rocky – a great hazard. There are small islets here, and skerries at the tip. The Flames, we call them. The currents are fierce around them. That dragon’s eaten many a good ship. But you’ll see it soon.’
And she did, as the ship flew through the morning. At first a grey smudge on the sea; then a rocky shape, growing as they sped towards it into a huge dragon’s head and neck of stone, stretched out chin-deep in the grey waves, its mouth wide in a snarl, dark hollows and caves marking nostrils and eyes. The wind howled as they sailed in under it, the swell crashing and sucking and booming deep in the gashed, treacherous rocks.
Wormshold was squeezed into a small haven in the dragon’s neck. As soon as Jessa saw it, she knew this would be their chance, perhaps their only chance. It was a busy trading place, full of ships, merchants, fishermen, pedlars, skalds, thieves and travelling fraudsters of every kind. Booths and trestle tables full of merchandise crowded the waterfront; the stink of fish and meat and spices hung over the boats.
Here they could be lost, quickly and easily; she had coins sew into the hems of her skirts; help could be bought. She tried to catch Thorkil’s eyes, but he seemed silent and depressed.
‘It’ll never work,’ he said.
‘What’s the matter with you! We can try, can’t we!’ He nodded, unconvinced.
They wandered stiffly about, glad to walk and run, even though two of Helgi’s men, the one called Thrand and the big noisy one, Steinar, trailed around behind them. Jessa felt excitement pulse through her. Only two. It might have been much worse.