He threw the rod on the floor and walked off. Asa picked it up and watched him walk out of the hall. Once he was through the door, she dropped the rod on a table and turned to Acton, putting an arm around him to support him. He pushed her gently away.
“I can walk.”
He made it to a table in four faltering steps and sat down on a bench. Ragni was at his side immediately, with a warm bowl of water and soft rags for cleaning his blood away, but the deep injuries she could do nothing about. A woman passed Asa a drinking horn smelling of mead and she held it to Acton’s lips. The mead brought a little color back to his cheeks.
He smiled ruefully. “I didn’t expect him to be back so soon.”
“That’s why he’s in a foul temper,” Asa said. “The boats never sailed. First they had to fight their way through to the coast, past parties of raiders from the north, and then, when they got there, the bays were still iced over. In mid-summer. They couldn’t get the boats out.”
“It’s the King,” Baluch said. “He brings winter with him.”
“Tell me,” Asa said. The others crowded around to hear, but before he could speak a man ran into the hall. Tall, with wiry hair the same color as Sebbi’s. Perhaps three or four years older. His face was pale, with tears running freely down his cheeks.
“You killed my brother!” he accused Acton.
Baluch intervened. “No, Asgarn. Sebbi was chosen by the gods to die a man’s death. A great death, which shall be told in song and story for all the generations of our people.”
Asgarn hesitated, and looked at Acton, who began to describe what they had found in the valley of the Ice King.
When Acton described Sebbi’s death, Ragni said, “His mother should know of this, that he had a hero’s death,” and she hobbled out of the hall, looking as old as time itself.
After Acton had finished speaking, the hall was silent. Asgarn turned away, his shoulders hunched.
“He was only a boy,” he whispered, but the hall was so silent that his words echoed.
“He died a man,” Acton reassured him.
“For nothing! You say the ice will still keep coming.” He walked out of the hall with his fists clenched. They watched him go silently.
“The Ice King takes everything,” Baluch said. “Those from whom he takes must go elsewhere.”
That brought a babble of talk, but one question kept recurring. Acton put it into words for them all.
“We can defend ourselves against the invaders, but if the sea lanes are blocked all year round, how can we trade? Without trade, we’ll starve.”
Asa considered. “There is a path over the mountains,” she said finally. “People live there. Where there are people, there can be trade.” She looked into Acton’s face and smiled wryly. “I think it’s time you met your uncle.”
Bramble was beginning to get a sense of what the gods were showing her. Not just Acton’s life, but its turning points. The moments of destiny. She wondered again if she should try to change the events she witnessed, but again the gods rose in her with immense pressure. What has happened must happen, they insisted, and she surrendered to their surety with something like relief, as the waters rose gently and floated her away. So, she thought, we go to meet the uncle.
“Cast!” someone yelled, and she felt her body draw back its right arm and throw something. Then again. This time, she could feel the smooth shaft of a spear in her hand, and her eyes took in the light just in time to follow its flight. The spear soared high, in a perfect arc, and came to earth in a man’s neck. Blood spurted.
Suddenly she was aware of the noise: men were yelling, screaming defiance at the approaching war party. Those who had cast their spears rattled their swords on their shields. The band of men was below them on a slope, and although they threw their own spears they didn’t have the same heft as the one thrown by — Baluch, was it? No, there was no music in this head. It was someone else who danced on the rock’s edge and shook his sword in the air. The war party was made up of red-headed warriors who reminded her of the men who had cut Sebbi to pieces.
She saw Acton and Baluch out of the corner of the man’s eye. Acton was shouting and thumping his sword. Baluch was quiet, but he hefted his sword more comfortably in his hand and set his feet to give him the surest footing. Acton gave a whoop of exhilaration and the man turned to grin at him, his cheeks drawn back wide in enjoyment.
“That’s it, lad!” he bellowed to Acton. “Get your heart up!”
Acton grinned. “It’s a good day for a fight, Eddil!” he shouted back.
There was no doubt that he was genuinely having fun. Wait until the fighting really starts, Bramble thought. This lot won’t retreat because of a few spears.
Nor did they. The war party, thirty strong, forged up the hill and came to grips with the defenders. Eddil yowled and swung his sword; not, as Bramble had expected, at the man’s head, but at his legs. The blow was blocked and the shock of that ran up Eddil’s arm and made his fingers numb. He held on and swung his sword again. His blood was running light in his veins and his breath came easily. They had been training, then, Bramble thought, trying to hold on to her own mind in a deafening flurry of blows and counterblows, any one of which could have killed. She was not prepared for the clamor of battle. Or the smell of sweat.
Although she could not hear Eddil’s thoughts, she could sense his feelings, as she had with the girl on the mountainside. He was exalted, feeling intensely alive, as she had felt during a chase. She concentrated on the man Eddil was fighting, trying not to think of him as her own enemy. He was around forty, she estimated, thin, and his eyes were deep-set, as though he had gone without sleep for some time. Every sword swing tired him more, and Eddil pressed forward harder, changing his grip so that as the man’s sword drooped for a moment, he could use the sword like a dagger unexpectedly, piercing the man’s side. The red-head gasped and sank as his knees buckled. Eddil pulled out the sword and ignored the fountain of blood that sprayed him. He leapt away to meet the next warrior, shouting, “Harald! Harald!” Then something — sword, spear, a block of wood was what it felt like — came down on his head and he stumbled. As his sight darkened and the waters rose up to carry Bramble away, she heard again Acton’s whoop of delight and then his laughter. The old songs are true, she thought, he really did laugh as he killed.
A larger body, and older, was her first thought. She was squinting in bright light, looking west into the sunset, hand coming up to shade her eyes. She knew that hand. She searched her memory for the name. Yes, she was sure it was Gris. So, she thought, now comes the first meeting with the uncle.
Gris was watching a curve in a path that came from over the western hills into the valley. The hills were so close that when, sure enough, horses appeared, it took them only a few minutes to reach him.
Asa was in the lead, followed by Acton with a string of four laden ponies. Bramble realized with a shock that Acton was some years older — perhaps seventeen or eighteen. This was clearly not their first meeting. Gris shouted, “Welcome!” to them as soon as they appeared and called back to the steading, “They’re here!”
As Asa and Acton dismounted from the stocky little horses, Gris embraced them both in turn while his people rushed to take the horses to the stable. Acton delayed long enough to lift his saddlebag from his pony and then allowed Gris to put an arm around his shoulders and usher him into the hall.
The hall was smaller than Harald’s and had no shields or spears as decoration. Instead, antlers and animal skins were nailed to the wall: boar’s tusks, a bear’s jaw, even an eagle’s talons. Bramble did not like to see trophies of death flaunted. On the other hand, these were people who valued hunting above fighting, as she did. That thought made her pause for a moment, remembering moments when she had hunted to live or to feed her family, and so she did not hear the first few words of conversation. When her attention returned, Acton, Asa and Gris were sitting by the fire pit in the middle of the hall, sipping beer and talking abou
t the weather. Bramble almost laughed. The weather! The gods had brought her here to listen to weather talk!
“Yes, it’s cold for this time of year,” Gris said.
“Too cold,” Asa replied. “The Ice king’s talons reach further every year. We are hard pressed.”
“The people unlanded by the king are seeking new lands, and they don’t care who they take them from. Old friends are become enemies,” Acton said. “Even the chiefs at the Moot look askance at each other.”
“When your children are starving, you don’t care who owns the bread, you just steal it,” Asa said.
“Mmm.” Gris drank, barely tasting the sharp beer. Bramble could not see into Gris’s mind as she had Baluch’s and it unsettled her. “Does it come so fast?” he asked.
“So fast and so far,” Acton answered. “In a few more winters he will reach us.”
Gris sat back in surprise. “Surely it will not come so far south!”
Acton shrugged. “Nothing has stopped him so far. Not summer, nor prayers nor… sacrifice.” His voice roughened a little. “He comes, and we can’t stop him.”
“It’s just ice,” Gris said, determinedly practical.
“Perhaps. But what feeds the ice?” Acton asked. “If the old stories are true, and the Ice Giants will come to devour the earth… it may be that we are in the last days. Or,” he paused, “it may be that he cannot cross these mountains. They are much higher than the northern hills.”
His uncle was silent, turning the horn in his hands, avoiding their eyes.
“There was a day,” Asa said gently, “when you named Acton your heir.”
Gris’s head came back up as though he heard a warning shout. His heart beat faster.
“I thought, as you know, that I would never have a son. But since then,” he said, “I have married and I have two sons, Tal and Garlock. They are my true heirs.”
Asa looked questioningly at him. “It was thought,” she said carefully, “that you would never marry.”
Gris smiled without humor. “It’s astonishing what you can do when people expect it of you.”
She raised her brows and nodded, then flicked her hand as though dismissing the subject. “This valley is large,” she said. “Would you have room for others here?”
Gris got up and began pacing around the fire, breathing a little hard through strong emotion.
“I am not a man who fears,” he said. “Any more than my brother was. But I tell you: I fear this. You are the only ones to know the way over the mountain. Thus we stay protected from the Ice King’s people. But if I took your people in, many would know. Sooner or later, someone would tell, and our protection would be gone.”
Asa nodded. “That is a fair statement, and I honor it. But my people are being pressed from all sides, and we have no escape but this!”
Acton, curiously, said nothing. He just looked at the fire. Had he expected to be his uncle’s heir?
Gris stopped pacing. “I knew this was coming. From Acton’s first visit, I knew this choice would be made. I have found another way.”
Acton rose slowly to face him, but Asa stayed seated, looking up calmly. “Tell us.”
Gris licked his lips. “There is another route through the mountains, through to the land beyond, which is as much larger than your country as your country is larger than this valley. We have raided there, from time to time. You remember, Asa, after you came here Hard-hand did not raid your people, and after you left I continued to respect your wishes.”
“Why raid anywhere?” Acton asked.
Gris frowned, then smiled, his mouth twisted. “To keep our young men from killing each other, mostly. It’s a small valley, and we needed thralls, goods. We have no access to the dragon’s road, to trade with the Wind Cities. We had to have some way to build wealth.”
Acton was frowning, as though familiar with these arguments and not convinced by them. “Thralls are slaves,” he said.
“Your grandfather keeps slaves,” Asa said impatiently.
“Yes,” Acton said. “I know.”
Asa gestured him quiet. “The way through . . .” she prompted.
“It’s dangerous, even in summer,” Gris said. “The pass is narrow. It’s between two high peaks, Fang and Tooth, and they carry snow all year around. It’s not unknown to have an avalanche there in mid-summer. But it leads through, and the entrance is outside this valley. Our people could be left in peace.”
“And once we were through?” Asa asked.
Gris shrugged. “That’s up to you. There is a lot of land unsettled, beyond the mountains. The people there may let you pass.”
Asa thought it over. “We will need to send emissaries. A treaty . . .”
“The chieftains will need to approve it,” Acton cautioned. He seemed more unsure than Bramble had ever seen him. Was it the experience of battle that had sobered him? She doubted it. He was watching his mother closely. Perhaps it was something to do with Asa.
“Yes. Perhaps. But for our own people — we will do what we need to do to survive.”
“My grandfather won’t like it.”
Asa laughed. “That is certain. We must leave tomorrow,” she said with decision. “The All Moot will still be in session if we ride quickly. We will put the plan to the chieftains.”
“You mean I will put the plan to the chieftain,” Acton said. He didn’t sound enthusiastic. “You are not allowed to speak.”
Asa frowned. “There are laws which need to be re-examined,” she said. “All should have the right to speak. Perhaps in the new land . . .”
“All?” Acton asked. “Even slaves?”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Asa said. Gris laughed and she turned to him with mock severity.
“Don’t you encourage him. He keeps making friends with the wrong people.”
Gris smiled. Bramble could feel his body relaxing as the difficult part of the conversation ended. This was just family talk. “All boys do,” he said.
“Acton is not a boy any longer. He is a man, and should act like one,” Asa said, but she smiled as she said it and smoothed Acton’s hair as though he were five summers old.
The waters this time were a river, sweeping her across country as well as time, moving her faster than she had gone before.
The smell was definitely male and definitely unwashed. It rose up around Bramble but didn’t envelop her. As her sight cleared she seemed to see through a dozen pairs of eyes in turn; quick glimpses of the same scene from different positions, but without sound, as though she had gone deaf. Too many! she thought, fighting dizziness and nausea. Each pair of eyes saw the world differently. Color was brighter in one, perhaps a younger pair of eyes. For another person, color was less important but somehow the way people stood in particular groups had significance, and those eyes sorted the crowd that way. She paused there for a moment, as though the gods were testing whether this was the right observer, and in that moment saw a sea of men, filling a huge dip in the ground, one of the craters that the larger pieces of black rock had made when the gods sent it to earth. On one side of the crater a natural ledge held the men officiating. Acton was there, looking tall and strong.
The All Moot, Asa had said. They had Moot Halls where the ruling councils of the free towns met, like in Turvite and Carlion… her thoughts faltered at the memory that called up: Maryrose and Merrick showing her where his mother, the town clerk of Carlion, worked. In an office at the back of the Moot Hall. Maryrose had been so happy that day, two days before her wedding… The worst thing about living in someone else’s body was that you could not weep when you needed to.
Bramble lost track of the switches from one pair of eyes to the next. Finally, she found herself looking out of the eyes of a man standing on the ledge. One of the chieftains, she presumed. An older man, then, but his body still felt strong and his eyes were sharp. He could see a feather stuck into the cap of a man in the very last group on the edge of the crater. A good archer, he would make, Bramble thought.
All this time, her hearing had been clouded, but now it sharpened and she could understand what was being said. The oldest man on the ledge, whose long beard was white streaked with gray, was speaking. He held a stick with eagle feathers bound to its top.
“Does the youngling Acton speak with the voice of his chieftain, Harald?” Though he was old, his voice rang out clearly across the Moot.
Harald was standing behind Acton. As the question was asked he stepped forward, shouldering Acton aside. The old man handed him the stick.
“He does not!” Harald declared. A murmur ran through the Moot. Harald handed the stick back to the old man.
“Then Acton, son of Asa, cannot be heard.”
Bramble saw Acton’s face harden. He wasn’t surprised, and he had prepared for this.
“So, Oddi, you will let your people die rather than break a rule of precedence?” he said loudly.
The crowd and the men on the ledge burst into shouting, some saying, “Let him speak!” and others calling shame on him for speaking without the Mootstaff. Bramble felt the heart of her chieftain speed up, but he kept silent.
The old man held up his hands for quiet and her chieftain looked up, tensing.
“It is true these are desperate times,” he said. “But should we thus forsake the ways of our ancestors, we risk becoming men without honor, without ties, without land, as our enemies are.”
Bramble felt the chieftain clear his throat.
“Swef?” the old man inquired.
Swef stepped forward in boots of a distinctive red leather. She knew that leather — it was traded up from the Wind Cities and even in her time it was expensive. He took the staff. “Acton. I know what you would say here, and I say this: the youngling Acton speaks with my voice, if he wishes.”
Silence fell over the Moot. Bramble realized that this was more than just a way around the rules. If she understood correctly, Swef was asking Acton to transfer his allegiance from his grandfather to him, in return for being allowed to speak.
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