“But someone has to die, for another to live.”
“That is true for me, as well. The difference is, I can. . . only make that sacrifice of myself. Not of some other, third party.” Sigrun rubbed a thumb against her sternum, under her leather bodice, without explanation. “Baldur and the Evening Star gave you the power, and the Odinhall was meant to teach you . . . but it was Loki who trained you.”
“Radulfr . . . Loki. Yes.” Her throat hurt.
“And what did he tell you about using this power?”
“Not to use it lightly. To be sure I had the willing consent of the . . . donor. To be sure I explained it, completely. And never to glorify it.”
Sigrun’s fingers tightened on her shoulder. “Then it sounds to me, Fritti, as if you did precisely as you were trained.”
Fritti leaned her head against Sigrun’s knees like a child. “You’re sure?”
“Do you accept my judgment?”
“Yes.”
“You have done the best you can. If you do not trust your judgment in a matter, in the future . . . weigh it for a day, if you can. However, in this case, I am not sure that you could have. Not and have had it mistaken for a doctor’s error.” Sigrun’s fingers tucked Fritti’s long hair behind one ear. She still wore it loose, like a maiden’s, when she wasn’t at the hospital, in spite of having a son. “But be careful with this power, Fritti. People may come to expect miracles of you. And making such decisions takes a toll out of the human soul.”
Fritti nodded against Sigrun’s knee, relieved. The words tallied with what she’d already thought on the matter. Use the power sparingly, or not at all. To relieve an injustice of circumstance. “Thank you,” she said, her voice muffled.
“For what?” Sigrun’s voice was puzzled.
“For being here. For listening. I couldn’t call my mother and ask her about this. I haven’t even . . . .” Fritti winced. “I haven’t even called her to tell her where I am. I told her when I moved in with . . . Radulfr.” She closed her eyes. Loki. “I told her that I was pregnant. But I was too ashamed to tell her anything after Rig was born.”
Sigrun sighed. “You’ve been out of contact with your parents since 1963?”
Put that way . . . . “Almost nine years, yes.”
“They almost lost you when you were thirteen, Fritti. They do not deserve to lose you a second time.” Sigrun sounded agitated. “I had no idea you hadn’t contacted them.” A bleak expression crossed her face. “You are singularly fortunate to have two parents, both of whom love you, Fritti. They’ll forgive you. And Rig should probably have them in his life, too.” She gave Fritti one more look. “Call them, Fritti. Please. Before it’s too late to try.”
Fritti nodded, and then, asked, hesitantly, because it was on her mind, “Radulfr . . . Loki . . . once told me that every god-born found something that anchored their identity through their lives. If they survived, anyway.” She looked up at Sigrun. “He said that Eir had persisted for so long, because she made healing everyone she could, her identity. She was a valkyrie before she became a goddess, correct?”
Sigrun had gone very still. “Yes. She is almost two thousand years old. I have only met her once.” Her expression was tight.
Fritti closed her eyes on a wave of grief. “He told me, that almost every god-born centers themselves around a personal tragedy. Something that they decide must never happen again.”
“And yet, for you, that’s not so, is it?” Sigrun’s voice was gentle. “You could have centered yourself around the kidnapping. You didn’t. You went on with your life. That’s a very good thing, Fritti. A very healthy thing, really. It speaks well of you.”
Fritti held up a hand to stop Sigrun. “I didn’t center myself around Ponca and the Morning Star. I didn’t want to give them that power. Even though the gods gave me my powers, in recognition of that day, I didn’t want to be about that.” She swallowed. “Why, then, can I not . . . leave him behind? I thought I had. I thought I had when Rig was born.” Why am I frozen, in the moment in time when Sigrun told me of his last words and thoughts? Why do I remember, suddenly, all the good moments before Rig’s birth? Cradled under the sheets, whispers in the dark. Words I discounted as lies for years. How grateful he was, that we could finally meet as . . . peers. In lives so long, being teacher and student, a decade in the past, or half a century in the past, should mean nothing. I knew then that he was ageless. But not eternal. Why do I remember laughter now, and why has the anger that sustained me . . . just burned itself out?
Sigrun’s hand touched her hair, very lightly. “You dwell, because it is unfinished business, I think. You believe you were unjust, because you did not have . . . all the information.”
“I didn’t listen,” Fritti said, sharply.
“And will you punish yourself forever for that?” Sigrun asked, quietly. “Or will you turn your energies to something more profitable?”
“Like what?”
“Set yourself a task.” Sigrun shrugged. “Find a way to make recompense.”
“But he . . . he’s dead. Or lost in the Veil.”
Sigrun smiled, faintly. “You are the one with the gift of renewal, Fritti. You are spring-time and redemption and resurrection. If anyone can find a way . . . I think it is you. That is . . . perhaps the fundamental reason he chose you at first. And then, I think, he loved you for who you are, not just for what. How could he not have loved you?”
Fritti marveled at how clearly those cool gray eyes seemed to see her. But it wasn’t until she reached her own rooms again, that she realized that she’d forgotten to ask one of her intended questions, and wondered if she’d ever be able to get Sigrun to answer it. What’s the central truth of your existence, Sigrun? What’s your tragedy?
Maius 5, 1973 AC
“Here’s the bottom-line. The refugee crisis has become an economic crisis. Many of them are competing with former slaves for low-income jobs in Rome, Egypt, Iberia, and Asia Minor. Many are hired in preference to former slaves, because they will accept lower wages, but maintain a solid work ethic. This means that hundreds of thousands of former slaves in the more southerly provinces of the Roman Empire, are completely out of work. Bread lines are long in most major cities, and fights periodically break out between the locals in the food lines—often Hellene and other foreign slaves who have integrated to the dominant culture around them—and the Goths and Jutes and gods-only-know-what-else—in line beside them. The best, and indeed, only way to manage this crisis is to have a solid plan for dealing with the northern countries. Take them over, make them provinces, subject kingdoms of the Empire, and send the legions in. Do a proper job, since the few remaining bastions of civilization up there obviously can’t manage the war on their own. And then, once the area is cleared, send the refugees back. Their taxes will repay the Empire for its investment.”
Adam turned off the radio news with a decisive turn of the knob. The fact that educated people bought into this bullshit boggled his mind. “Oh, yes, send in the legions,” he muttered. “That’ll work. The fact that we’ve had squadrons of fighters, helicopters, and ornithopters up there for three years totally escapes people’s minds. The fact that people have already been fighting and dying up there for three years . . . that’s inconsequential.” He chopped the onions rapidly on the cutting board, listening to the meat sizzle in the pan on the stove, forming a brown crust. It was dies Veneris, or Frigedæg. He would put the beef, onions, spices, potatoes, and the locally-grown chickpeas all in the same pot together, add beef stock, and then set it all in the low-heat oven and let it cook until dinner tomorrow night, when he’d have his parents and Fritti and Rig over for the Shabbat meal. Sigrun might be home by then, too. He hoped, anyway. The war in the north had ground to a stalemate. The jotun, reclaimed fenris, nieten, and humans held the cities and the farmlands directly outside each town; the ettin, grendels, lindworms, and wild fenris held the wilderness. The only safe methods of travel were by air, or in massive, jotun-guarded convo
ys.
But it was stable, and he really wanted her to stay home now. Three years was . . . enough, wasn’t it? Enough so that she’d helped Saraid rewire the sanity of . . . well, not nearly enough fenris. The numbers were painful. Over seven million wolves were up there, roaming the wilderness. They’d need to see around six hundred and ninety wolves a day for twenty-nine years to take care of all of them, and that, as Saraid liked to point out, didn’t count the puppies. Even if they could fix twenty-eight of them an hour . . . even Saraid needed breaks, to come home. See Trennus. Enter the Veil and renew herself.
Adam couldn’t get Sigrun to admit to a real number, but she’d finally indicated that she thought she’d helped somewhere around three thousand of the fenris. I don’t keep a running tally, Adam. Saraid helps far more of them without me. That’s why they’re all starting to believe in her. Even so, I think she’s only been able to help about twenty-one thousand or so, total, either by bending them into lycanthropes, or awakening their voices, in the past three years. There are about twenty-one hundred shifters now. That sounds . . . about right. She might be able to do more, as more of them believe in her. She might start being able to do multiples at once. I . . . don’t think I can, Adam. I’m human, not a spirit.
It had been glorious, really, to hear her voice on the phone last week, though god only knew when the ettin or grendels would sever the phone cables again. But at the same time, she’d sounded so utterly defeated, and he thought he knew why. Sigrun cared. More than anything else he knew about his wife, he knew this. The shyness and reserve and distance were all things that kept other people from realizing this. But if she didn’t care as much as she did, she wouldn’t have thrown herself into her tasks the way she did. They’re burning you out, neshama, he thought, and transferred all the food into the required pot. Or you’re burning yourself out. And I don’t understand why. You like to call yourself a tool for the hands of your gods. Even if that were true, which I don’t grant . . . why would any workman misuse a tool? You want to keep them in good repair, for the next job.
She hadn’t arrived by lunch or even by dinner the next day, and at first, Adam thought this might have been a good thing. His brother showed up at the door after sundown, after Shabbat ended, parked his car in front of the drive, and walked up to ring the bell. Adam hadn’t actually realized who was there until his mother admitted Mikayel, much to Adam’s quiet annoyance. “So, I hear you’re buying Aba and Imah’s house?” Mikayel began, on entering the living room.
Adam grimaced. “Yes.”
Maor had intervened at that point, raising a hand. “Specifically, your mother and I are moving in with Adam and his wife. They’ve had that upstairs suite ready for us for some time. It’s time we both accepted that we . . . need a little more help than we once did.” The last, with a smile at Abigayil, whose white hair was hidden under her green tichel. Maor took his wife’s hand, lightly, and added, “It’s not much of a move for us, and selling the house means it stays in the family, but we have a larger nest egg in case of medical bills.”
Mikayel looked irritated. “The house was supposed to come to me.”
Maor’s dark eyes narrowed. “You could have offered to buy it, as your brother did. I thought it was uncommonly generous of him to do so.”
“And what are you going to do with the house?” his brother demanded, as Fritti and Rig became unnoticeable, and retreated from the room. Adam noted this solely because Rig waved at him just before they receded from his perceptions. Smart boy, Adam thought. I’d have given a lot for that talent, a few times in my life.
“What I do with it, once the paperwork clears, will be entirely my business,” Adam informed his brother. “However, I plan to rent it out.” To Fritti, in its entirety, now that she was making a living wage as a refugee coordinator and part-time nurse.
Mikayel grimaced. “To some heathen, I’m sure. So, not only will you be raking in rent, but you’ll be turning this neighborhood into even more of a slum than it’s already becoming. And then you can sell it later, at a profit. And not an assarius goes to the rest of the family.”
Adam took a slow step towards his brother, but halted as his father put a hand on his arm. “The money from the sale will go towards our medical expenses, our funeral costs, and to whomever we damned well please to give it as an inheritance!” Maor was finally irritated enough to snap at Mikayel, and then had to pause and cough into his hand.
Adam heard the front door open and close, probably as Fritti and Rig left, diplomatically. Mikayel, however, turned and shouted back at their father, “I will not be cut out of my inheritance!”
“For god’s sake,” Adam finally snapped. “You are not Esau and I am not Jacob. I am not here to cheat you of anything. I’m just taking care of my family—”
“It’s not your place, brother! I offered to take them into my house—”
“You offered after your brother had already set up an entire suite for us.” Maor’s voice was highly annoyed. “Admittedly, Adam probably thought he was going to have his in-laws in residence, first, but his wife’s father passed.” Maor shrugged. “Their loss is our gain.”
“We’ll still visit,” Abigayil cut in, obviously trying to soothe ruffled feathers. “I still want to see my grandchildren. Yours, Rivkah’s, Chani’s. All of them.”
Adam kept his face expressionless on that topic, which never failed, somehow, to come up. “This is all a ploy,” Mikayel said, visibly seething. “He’s just getting over on you. Again.”
“How?” Adam shouted, finally pushed too far. “In god’s name, how am I getting over on anyone? How am I doing anything but a service by giving our parents a place to live where they always will have people that they love at hand—and in the same neighborhood, where they’ve lived for forty years? How am I getting over on anyone by renting their old house to a single mother and her son, and for a lower rate than they’d get anywhere else in the city? How am I stealing anything, from anyone?” He was right up in his brother’s face at this point, years of frustration finally coming to a boil.
“A single mother and her son? Probably that northern slut and her bastard. Is she your concubine, brother? You do have a thing for unbelievers. Is he yours, that you couldn’t get on your wife?” Mikayel was clearly baiting him at this point. Getting in his hits, because Adam had ignored or let the comments fly past him, for years.
Not this time, however, as Adam’s fist slammed into his brother’s jaw with . . . really rather satisfying force, and Mikayel staggered backwards, spitting blood. A trained fighter never punches just once, however, and the first right cross was followed, thought-fast, by a left hook that was aimed just under Mikayel’s right ribs, a punishing hit that Adam barely remembered to pull in time. Hit an unprepared, unconditioned person in the liver, and you could cause massive internal damage. Instinct and training both said follow through, step past him, catch the head, bring it down, there’s a table edge right there . . . but he fought both back, instead following Mikayel to the floor, spinning him around, and putting him in a pin, one knee solidly on his brother’s back, and pulling one of his hands up and to between his own shoulder blades, torquing fingers and thumb to ensure . . . docility.
And that was when the house shook a bit, and an enormous white-silver eye peered in a window at them—a window that frosted over, instantly. Sig’s home.
Mikayel lifted his head just enough to stare at that search-light like eye, as the front door slammed, and Sigrun walked in, looking tumbled and windblown as usual after one of her stints in the north. Frost dripped off the fur that lined her cloak’s hood, and from her hair, as well. Fresh wounds on her face, already starting to close over and heal, though they’d surely been gashes, an hour or two ago. But her spear was still in her hand, and rune-light poured out of her, as she was clearly ready and keyed for battle. “Adam,” she said, looking around, and let the rune-light die. “I thought there was a Persian assassination squad in the house, from the way Fritti was waving
me in.”
“No, no. Mikayel just heard we were moving my parents in, that’s all.” Adam maintained his position precisely where he was, even though Mikayel strained to buck him off.
“Ah. Same thing, then.” She moved over as if Mikayel weren’t even there, dropped down to give Adam a quick, decorous kiss, before greeting his wide-eyed, shocked parents, politely. And then turned towards the window. “Thank you, Nith,” she told the dragon, with grave courtesy. “Though if you wouldn’t mind moving that car that’s in the drive, I would appreciate it.”
Scraping sounds from outside as the dragon apparently kicked Mikayel’s automobile out of the way. “I am going upstairs and taking my first hot shower in three months,” she told Adam, her expression tired. “When I come back down, all I want to do is curl up on the couch, listen to some music, and let the world take care of itself for a while.”
Adam grinned at her. She was making his point for him, and wasn’t even probably aware of it.
Maius 15, 1973 AC
Latirian Matrugena held the white-haired baby in her arms with a certain amount of skill, looking down at the jade-green eyes curiously. She did, after all, have seven younger brothers and sisters, and Mama was pregnant again. “She’s a lot different than the rest of my brothers and sisters,” she told her father, solemnly, as baby Vorvena closed her eyes and yawned up at her..
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