The Tempering of Men

by Elizabeth Bear

  Wary of the sort of tricks a dishonest tradesman might play on a foreigner, he spent some time politely accosting comfortable-looking passersby and asking after the source of their footwear. A few were taken aback, but in general the denizens of Hergilsberg seemed unfazed by weary and tattered-looking travelers, and eager to discuss the merits of various local shops and craftsmen.

  In many cases, once they realized who and what he was they were eager to ask him questions of their own, and Skjaldwulf had to prevent two men from all but bodily standing him a drink.

  Just walking the street in Hergilsberg was exhausting. Every street was paved in cobbles, and while the civic wealth it indicated was impressive (and the foot and horse traffic heavy enough that he did not wonder at the need), they wore hard on the bones of his feet through his thin soles. And there were so many people! He’d left his axe and buckler behind—somehow, they did not seem like the sort of thing one carried through a town on a shopping expedition—and wore only the dagger at his belt. Nevertheless, it was an effort of will to keep his hand from the hilt each time someone jostled him, or just because of the press of people on every side, as if the whole world had gone to market.

  None too soon, Skjaldwulf found the shop recommended by four local men as the best available for a moderate price, and set about haggling with the proprietor. He wound up paying twice what he would have in Franangford, but by the deftness with which his feet were measured, and with the boots promised for the next day, he felt like he’d gotten a fairly good deal.

  As he turned away from the cobbler’s window-bench, he became aware that the general sense of too many people had resolved into a specific awareness of being watched. And indeed, there was a thane—obviously a thane, though he wore no more weapons than Skjaldwulf did and no armor—with a heavy gold ring on his thumb, and his blue-worked arms bare to the shoulder. He was a great barrel-chested man, brown-bearded, his cheeks above the hair also banded with runewards needled into the skin so long ago the lines had softened and blurred.

  “Are you the wolfcarl?” he asked.

  “I am,” Skjaldwulf said, and gave his name and styling.

  “I am Ethvarthr, thane in the service of Dromundr Dros.”

  Dromundr the Fat. The jarl of Hergilsberg.

  “I am at your service,” Skjaldwulf said. “Except insomuch as it may contradict my prior allegiances.”

  “I did not know,” Ethvarthr said, uncrossing his arms, “that wolfcarls were so politically spoken.”

  He said it pleasantly, gesturing Skjaldwulf to fall in beside him as he turned. Skjaldwulf chose to interpret the comment in the most agreeable fashion possible and therefore walked with him, limping a little on sore feet.

  “I see you were buying boots.”

  “It was a long journey,” Skjaldwulf said, as if it were a confession.

  The thane laughed. His arms were thick, but more of that thickness was muscle than flesh. “The jarl would know what causes a man to come so far, so fast, that he walks his shoes off.”

  Skjaldwulf glanced from side to side. Though they were surrounded by people, there was a sense that they walked alone. Perhaps in an eternal crowd such as this, each person must create his own bubble of private space. Abruptly, sharply, Skjaldwulf longed for the deep, piney woods of home. “How can I be sure you are the jarl’s man? Forgive my suspicion, but as you noted, I am a stranger here.”

  Ethvarthr extended his hand. That gold signet pinched his thumb, shoved on a hand too large. But there was a callus beside it, such as a man might get from ill-fitting jewelry worn too long. “This mark of his service,” Ethvarthr said. “It is the image of the signet he wears on his right hand.”

  Skjaldwulf studied the ring and the thane’s meaty, bearded face. “I think you have lied to me.”

  The man stopped in his tracks. When Skjaldwulf stopped, too, and turned, Ethvarthr frowned at the wolfjarl’s face. “If every man serves himself, in the end, is it a lie to claim so?”

  “And the name?”

  Ethvarthr shrugged. “Mine by birth, though I have not been known by it for many years.”

  “My lord jarl,” Skjaldwulf said, but softly, so the people on the street with them would not hear. He imagined there were guardsmen nearby. What city was so large that the townsfolk did not know their own jarl by sight?

  Dromundr smiled. It folded up creases at the corners of his eyes until they almost disappeared. “My lord wolfjarl,” he replied. “I admit, some rumors of your presence here have reached me. Why would a warrior speak first to priests, I wonder, and then come to my city so quietly, without thought of seeking an audience with me? Your renown comes before you; we have heard of the fall of Othinnsaesc, even here, and also of its reclamation. But it’s almost as if you sought to avoid me.”

  “The godsmen have kept me busy,” Skjaldwulf said. “So answer me this: if I told you that foreign warriors were striking at villages in the very heart of the North, what would you say?”

  “I would say,” Dromundr mused, “that those who would raid may in turn be raided and I have a city to defend.”

  “And if I said these were no raiders but an army? Not the actions of warlords seeking plunder but of an empire seeking conquest?”

  “I would say that was a serious allegation, deserving of study.”

  “And not one deserving to be put before a Thing?”

  “In time,” Dromundr said slowly. “In time.”

  Skjaldwulf nodded. “We are not enemies,” he said. “And I mean no threat to your power or your steading, Jarl of Hergilsberg. But I do not believe that there is time now to study.”

  Dromundr stepped back, opening a space between them. A townsman or two walked through it, as oblivious to their presence as a deer slipping between trees. Townsmen, Skjaldwulf thought, with wonder.

  “May your actions bear out your words, wolfjarl,” Dromundr said. “I would not care to be any man’s enemy.”

  He stepped back and turned away, broader than most but no taller than many, until the crowd swallowed up even the width of his massive shoulders. Skjaldwulf watched a moment longer, then turned and limped away.

  When he came back the next day to pick up his boots, the cobbler said someone had paid the bill. And left him a pair of woolen socks as well. In the ferry on the way back to the monastery, he finally composed his song.

  It was simple and repetitive and had a naggingly insistent rhythm that should worm its way into the memory of anyone who heard it.

  As the ferry docked, Skjaldwulf tipped the ferryman handsomely and stomped ashore in his soft new boots. He turned to look back at the big island and smiled. Finally, he had a good feeling about this.

  Freyvithr Godsman, waiting for him at the monastery gates, seemed less sanguine.

  “Problems?” Skjaldwulf asked, and the sunburnt godsman nodded.

  “The godheofodman spoke with the jarl.”

  “The jarl said no?” Skjaldwulf hazarded.

  The priest nodded.

  So did Skjaldwulf. “It’s no matter,” he said. “Wolfcarls are accustomed to defending people who would rather ignore the fact that there is even a fight.”

  * * *

  It took the first moon of her pups’ new lives to convince Amma to leave the root cellar. She was as stubborn about it as Brokkolfr had ever seen her about anything; though it made no sense to him, he slept out there with her until the afternoon when all four puppies’ eyes were at last open. Then she stood, shook herself, and picked up the smallest pup with her mouth.

  New den, she said to Brokkolfr, with a very clear image of the room the wolfcarls had built especially for their bitches to whelp in. She indicated that he would be permitted to help carry the puppies, and so Brokkolfr walked back into the main hall with his arms full of squirming wolflings, Amma trotting ahead of him carrying the fourth pup like a viking’s treasure.

  “Welcome back,” said Ulfmundr, with the warmest smile Brokkolfr had yet seen on his face, and Brokkolfr smiled in r
eturn.

  The whelping room was the most carefully finished room in the heall, and would be, most likely, for years to come. The plaster was smooth and clean, the floor was generously strewn with rushes, and every fur or blanket that was too worn for sleeping—and some that were still soft and bright with newness—had found its way here. Amma put the pup down in the pen built against one corner with carefully smoothed wood and began transporting furs to build a new and better nest with.

  The pup squeaked, and Brokkolfr knelt to let his brothers join him. Then Brokkolfr sat back out of the way and watched Amma work.

  A shadow in the doorway made him look up. It was Vethulf, looking very white and drawn. “Should you be out of bed?” said Brokkolfr.

  “Probably not,” said Vethulf, “but I can rest here as well as there, if Amma will have me.”

  “It’s her choice,” Brokkolfr said. “Sister?”

  Amma tidied a stray pup into the corner, then came across to sniff, and then lick, Vethulf’s hands.

  “I guess I’ll do,” Vethulf said with a crooked smile.

  Brokkolfr said, “Share some floor with me. There’s plenty to go around.”

  They did not talk much, beyond a few mild reminiscences of Kjaran’s and Amma’s respective puppyhoods. Brokkolfr was not surprised when, after a long peaceful silence, he looked over and found that Vethulf had fallen asleep where he sat. It did not look comfortable, but—on the other hand—he was resting, and Brokkolfr knew, from the pack-sense and from the talk of the werthreat at mealtimes, that getting Vethulf to rest had been a task nearly beyond even Isolfr’s abilities. Brokkolfr did not disturb his wolfjarl, but sat beside him for the rest of the honey-warm afternoon. When Amma had the nest arranged to her satisfaction, she and her family napped, and Brokkolfr watched her sleeping with profound satisfaction.

  At sundown, Amma woke, and her pups with her, squeaking their hunger. She arranged herself to let them nurse, but her attention was on the doorway. Konigenwolf, she said—a warning, a greeting, too many things tangled in that one scent-image-feeling for Brokkolfr to sort them. He got up and stepped into the hallway, hearing Vethulf wake as he did so.

  Viradechtis was sitting a polite three bodylengths back, her eyes averted in a show of submission. Mother, she said respectfully. She glanced at Brokkolfr, acknowledging him as Amma’s brother, and then turned her head as her own brother came into the hall.

  “Wolfsprechend,” Brokkolfr said, much as Amma had said, Konigenwolf. “Your wolfjarl is within, but he has been sleeping all afternoon.”

  “Then I won’t flay him before dinner,” Isolfr said with his shy quirk of a smile. “But it was you I came to find.”

  “Me?”

  “You are a wolfheofodman of this heall,” Isolfr said, “as I think you have asked me to remember before this. And with Skjaldwulf and Randulfr gone, and Vethulf ill—”

  “I’m fine,” Vethulf said irritably, appearing in the doorway.

  “Are you still feverish?”

  Vethulf gave his wolfsprechend a sour look. “Yes.”

  “Then you are ill, and Sokkolfr will agree with me if you try to argue. Which means,” Isolfr said, returning firmly to his point, “that Brokkolfr, Sokkolfr, and I are the wolfheofodmenn making decisions right now, and there is a decision that needs to be made.”

  “There is?” Vethulf said.

  Isolfr coughed, looking a little sheepish. “It seems that our absent wolfjarl has called an AllThing.”

  * * *

  It was impossible to keep Vethulf out of the council, and Brokkolfr was sure Isolfr had known it would be. But it was also impossible for Vethulf to keep himself awake, especially with Kjaran all but draped over him, and so by the time the news was told and the messenger from Arakensberg—a former threatbrother of Vethulf’s—had been closely questioned to wring out every last detail, Vethulf was asleep, as quietly and neatly as a cat, and Kjaran was looking smug.

  “Is he all right, truly?” the messenger asked.

  “He will be,” Sokkolfr said. “He kept pushing himself, even when he knew the wound was inflamed. If he will but rest, he will be well again by the time we can travel.”

  “And if that doesn’t make him rest, nothing will,” Isolfr said.

  The messenger bowed and left, and the three wolfheofodmenn looked at each other.

  “Franangford must go,” Sokkolfr said.

  “Oh, undoubtedly,” Isolfr said at once. “We would go even if it were not our wolfjarl who had called the Thing. But it worries me, how we seem to be bleeding wolfheofodmenn. First Skjaldwulf and Randulfr, and now I do not see any way around the fact that Vethulf and I must go to Arakensberg.”

  “Which leaves Brokkolfr and me,” Sokkolfr said. “Do you doubt our ability, wolfsprechend?”

  Isolfr smiled at his friend, and at the almost indignant snort from Hroi. “Not a bit. I’m leaving you in charge of Alfgyfa, am I not?”

  Brokkolfr felt the warmth of Isolfr’s appreciation, unexpectedly, and bit back a smile.

  Isolfr continued, “But I do not like placing such a large burden on your shoulders, when it is properly mine.”

  Sokkolfr rolled his eyes, and Brokkolfr guessed that this was a discussion they had had before. “Your burden is representing Franangford at the AllThing. I assure you, I would not swap if you begged me.”

  “Why do you think Skjaldwulf has called an AllThing?” Brokkolfr asked.

  “I would guess that the danger facing Siglufjordhur is much greater than the messenger knew to tell us,” Sokkolfr said.

  “And jarls are…” Isolfr’s mouth twisted. “It is much easier to get many jarls to do what you want than it is to get one jarl even to agree that something ought to be done.”

  Brokkolfr suspected he knew who that one jarl was, but it would be both unkind and unprudent to say so. Rather, he said, “Sokkolfr is right. I wouldn’t swap if you begged me, either.”

  He won a crack of laughter from Isolfr loud enough to wake Vethulf—who was most indignant to discover he’d slept through the whole decision.

  SIXTEEN

  Skjaldwulf was beginning to feel as if his life were an endless round of rushing from place to place, scarcely in advance of bad news. His new boots galled his feet for a day or two before they settled in. By the second week out, though, he was glad of them, because brief summer was coming to its close already, and as they walked northward they went to meet the fall.

  It was more than a month’s travel to Arakensberg, although the wolves and wolfcarls traveling alone could have done it faster. But they had Otter with them, and the contingent from the monastery—though Erik and Skjaldwulf had decided between them to travel in advance of whatever party the jarl would—or would not—field. If Skjaldwulf was calling the AllThing, it behooved him to be one of the earliest in attendance.

  Still, the Arakensberg road was a good one—the town the heall defended was a hub of trade and textile production, its swift, smooth river lined with mills—and if monks couldn’t travel like wolves, they kept up well enough. And Otter either had been hardened by life on the march with the Rheans or simply possessed a good deal of native toughness. Skjaldwulf and his party arrived in Arakensberg only three days behind the messengers bearing word of the AllThing.

  The town, keep, and heall were in uproar already. The messenger would have given the wolfsprechend of Arakensberg, Aesulf Aegileifsbrother—a green-eyed blond with a pitted, ruddy face as broad across as a barn door—some advance warning of what was about to descend upon them. Also, if Aegileif were deep enough in the pack-sense, she might have told her brother when and where to expect the arrival of the Franangford pack and their companions.

  It was possible. Skjaldwulf had heard a bit of Aegileif from Vethulf, and Vethulf thought her a konigenwolf the match of any—including Nithogsfjoll’s Vigdis, their own Viradechtis’ legendary dam. Aesulf was her third brother, and neither of the other two had died particularly young.

  Not particularly young as wol
fcarls go, anyway, Skjaldwulf thought, ironically, and did his best to keep the thought from Mar and the rest of the wolves. The Rheans had done him no favors holding up the specter of an easier life.

  As the old konigenwolf came out to greet the travelers, Skjaldwulf could see in her the source of Vethulf’s awe. Where Viradechtis was still a young bitch, as playful and irreverent in peace as she was terrible in war, Aegileif was the very countenance of a queen.

  Big as a boar, she dwarfed even Mar. Her coat was the gray of smoke, the black-tipped gray that showed in ripples when she moved. Skjaldwulf knew from experience that it would make her even more invisible than a black wolf in the darkness, because she’d show no solid outline against bare earth or snow. She was silver to the ears, her muzzle laced with the pink and white lines of many battles, and as she lifted her head and raised her tail to show her dominance over the small pack arriving, both Mar and Ingrun unhesitatingly showed her their throats.

  It was a triumph of intelligence over instinct. In the wild, a wolf pack would not suffer mature wolves of another lineage in its territory, and a konigenwolf’s pack would consist of her mates, her daughters, and her male pups, until those pups grew old enough to seek out their own packs. Theirs was a society of great queens, and Skjaldwulf had no doubt that the konigenwolf who now regarded him with old green eyes was a very great queen indeed.

  Her brother, younger and more brash, nevertheless seemed perfectly at home arranging food, baths, and housing for wolves and men. Otter was found a place with the heallbred women, though not a private chamber—Arakensberg was one of the older healls, and like Nithoggsfjoll, its compound was a log longhouse and outbuildings, not a stone keep as they were building in Franangford. Freyvithr and Erik and their party were housed here and there about the town. Arakensberg, it turned out, even boasted a pair of small inns and one larger one.