The Wolf in the Whale

by Jordanna Max Brodsky

  “I can’t. My leg.” He no longer bothered to whisper.

  “Come,” I urged, reaching out my hand to him. Leaning back and using all my weight, I hauled him to his feet. Standing, he towered over me once more, but his chin rested on his chest, his shoulders slumped. The wolfdogs stood in a loose circle around us, Sweet One and Floppy Eared with tails high, ears swiveling, listening for danger. White Paw looked only at me, waiting for instruction. I glanced behind us. Still no sign of the red men. No sign of the ocean, either. The wolfdogs had led us to safety—I could only hope they hadn’t also gotten us hopelessly lost. We needed rest, a place to hide before the Sun came up.

  A low overhang of rock promised shelter ahead. I beat aside a heavy thicket of undergrowth and urged Brandr forward. He shrugged off his pack and squeezed beneath the ledge. I crawled in behind him. What had seemed a shallow declivity broadened into a small cave, damp and rank. I tried to sit up and smacked my head on the low, sharp ceiling.

  “A’aa!” I wiped a trickle of blood from my forehead.

  “I tried that already,” Brandr muttered. A sliver of gray starlight slipped through the cave entrance, enough for me to see the outline of his form lying a breath away. “The ceiling’s too low. This is the back wall. It doesn’t go any farther.” His Norse words reached me like an echo. First the sound, then, a moment later, the meaning.

  I grunted noncommittally, shifting my pack to form a rough pillow. My head ached from the aftereffects of the dream and my struggles to understand this new language. I just wanted to rest.

  Brandr had other plans.

  “Are you planning to explain to me what in Odin’s name happened back there? Suddenly you can understand everything I say. You know Norse. You’ve been lying to me all this time?”

  “Lying?”

  “Stop pretending, Omat.” He propped himself on an elbow so he could stare down at me, his blue eyes black in the faint light.

  A bitter smile twisted my lips. If only he knew the true extent of my guile. He thought I’d been lying about the one thing I’d been perfectly honest about. A new fear crept unbidden into the pit of my stomach. Or does he think I lied about something besides understanding his words?

  I’d lived his past—had Brandr lived mine? Did he know of my woman’s body?

  “You drank,” I said in careful, hesitant Norse. “Then dreamed?”

  “No, no dreams. I drank that awful stuff and passed out. When I woke up, you were still thrashing around and moaning.”

  I relaxed. My secret was still my own. “I dreamed,” I explained. “I dreamed your life.” The words started to come more easily to me now that I was too tired to fight the strange sounds in my brain. In the vision, I had fallen into the rushing stream of Brandr’s mind, swallowing more of his language than I even realized. “I dreamed of you and many other men. The red men came. You fought. You killed. I heard you. Now I understand.”

  He laughed then, a bark of disbelief. “You came into my head, is that it, kid? You lived my life in a dream, and now you speak Norse as well as any Greenlander?” He settled onto his back once more. I breathed a little easier without his form looming above me.

  “You don’t believe me? Why would I lie?”

  “No skraeling boy could do that.”

  “I didn’t. The old woman had powerful magic. A powerful spirit. And I am not a boy,” I added. “I am a man. A hunter for many winters.”

  “A small, beardless man, then!” he scoffed. “More dwarf than man, more like. Next you’ll be telling me you’re a seer, a priest. You have the ear of the gods? You’re some magic man? Is that why—” He broke off abruptly, swallowing his next thought before it could emerge.

  “Why what?” I demanded.

  “Why… why you seem so familiar. Sometimes, even though I understand so little of what you’re saying, it’s like we can speak. Are you working some magic on me?” His voice had lost its laughter, a note of fear creeping in around the edges like a cold draft.

  “No magic.” I didn’t yet have the words to explain my whole story to him, to tell him just how little magic I now possessed. I’d seen through his eyes, breathed into his lungs, felt the fear and courage in his heart. It felt wrong to lie to him, to hide my past. And now that I knew he bore no love for the tall, yellow-haired Ingharr who’d killed Kidla and Uimaitok and their children, I almost felt he might understand how I, too, had come to be alone in the world. Someday, perhaps, I’d tell him everything. But not now.

  “No magic,” I said again. “You know me because you saw me. When you came in your big boat and killed Patik. Women, children, all dead. I told you before.”

  His breath grew shallow. “You said you were there, but I didn’t realize… that was you, hiding behind the whale,” he said quietly. “I was so worried about Galinn… I let you live.”

  “You think you let me live. I could have killed you. You and your brother. I let you live.”

  “Omat, you haven’t seen me when I’m not dragging this damn leg around. You couldn’t have killed me.” His voice was cold, colder than I’d ever heard it. “I’d never have let you kill Galinn.”

  “And I would never let you kill Kiasik!” I spat his own Norse words back at him, rolling onto my side to face him in the dark.

  Brandr punched the low rock ceiling above his head. Had he been a different man, no doubt he would’ve punched me instead. “Kiasik? That man I killed? I had no choice—he shot my brother!”

  “No,” I said quickly. “Not Patik. Kiasik, my brother.”

  “Your brother? What are you talking about?”

  “You don’t even remember him, do you?” I said, my anger lending fluency to my words. All this time, I’d thought that if I could just explain, Brandr would have the answers I sought. “The last time I saw Kiasik, he was beside you, wounded. When I heard Nua’s screams, I went to her. My brother was gone when I returned. You were all gone by then, fled like cowards from voices on the air.”

  “The skraeling…”

  “Skraeling! What is this word?” I demanded.

  “It means… ‘savage one.’ Dirty. A wretch. Like… you.”

  “I never murdered a child.”

  The silence between us grew thick.

  “I didn’t, either,” Brandr said finally. “Ingharr Ketilsson did that.”

  “Where is my brother?” I demanded once more, impatient with his evasions.

  “Look, kid, once Galinn got hit, I wasn’t in my right mind. I don’t remember much. I remember someone—you—watching us. And I remember Ingharr and the others coming back to the boat. Yes, there was a skrae—a man they’d wounded. They tossed him onto the ship so they could show him to Freydis Eriksdottir and her husband, Thorvard. Ingharr thought they might be interested in seeing what sort of people lived in the north. Your furs were so fine. Caribou and white bear. We thought the man… Kiasik… might eventually lead us to good hunting grounds.”

  “Just tell me if he lives.”

  “He was alive when we got back to Leifsbudir, our settlement. He was alive when I left again, as far as I know. The Greenlanders kept him in their part of the camp. I lived in a different house with the Icelanders and Galinn. We didn’t visit Freydis’s longhouse often. I never saw your brother. They kept him locked up.”

  I didn’t understand what Brandr meant by “locked up,” nor did I care. Kiasik—my milk-brother, my cousin, my sister’s son—still lived.

  “I will get him out.”

  “There are dozens of Norse and one of you. You have no training with a sword.”

  “If I die, then I die trying.”

  I wished it were light enough to see his face more clearly. I was used to understanding him more from his expressions than his words. This new speech of ours sometimes felt like silence. “You are sorry you came?”

  He lay back down, shifting his pack more comfortably against his side, avoiding my gaze. He’ll leave tomorrow, I thought.

  “You saved my life,” he said. “I w
ouldn’t have made it with this leg if you hadn’t killed that cursed bear and sewn me up. If you and your wolves hadn’t kept me fed. Among my people, debts are paid.”

  “So… you will come with me. To find Kiasik?”

  “I never knew why you wanted to go to Leifsbudir, but I knew you’d been traveling as long as I had. I knew you had your reasons to go south. But I have to tell you, this is a fool’s quest.”

  I sighed. “Your brother, Galinn… He is dead, no?”

  Brandr nodded. He’d never spoken of his brother before this night. I could see the bright glimmer of tears in his eyes right before he turned his face away from me, digging awkwardly in his pack.

  “But were he alive, you would search for him. Nothing could stop you. Even if only the smallest chance remained, you would still seek him out. No matter how far you had to travel.”

  He turned back to me for a moment, his breath sharp. Even in the dimness, I could imagine his expression—the same one he’d worn the day his people attacked mine: grief and rage and the fierce protectiveness of a mother bear defending its injured cub.

  “Did he—” I wasn’t sure I wanted the answer to this question. “Did he die from Patik’s arrow? Did my people kill him? If we did, I—”

  “No. You did not.” He offered no further explanation. I nodded wordlessly, a great burden of fear—one I’d barely acknowledged—finally lifted. I need not offer him my apology; I could offer him only my empathy.

  “I will look for Kiasik until I know he is dead. I don’t know why you left your people—and I’m not asking,” I added hurriedly, “but if you come with me… you would be a true friend.” Impulsively, I reached out and placed my hand over his.

  “I…,” he stammered. “I…” Hesitantly, he turned over his hand and threaded his long fingers with mine. “I am no good as a friend. No good as a brother”—he took a shaky breath—“but I’ll help you be a better brother than I ever was.”

  I looked down at our entwined hands, the tall peaks of his knuckles standing like ice-capped mountains among valleys. Suddenly the tiny cave felt more trap than shelter. He was too close.

  “Thank you,” I said, my voice coming out more hoarsely than I’d intended.

  He fell asleep with my hand still clutched in his.

  Only when I carefully loosed my fingers did I, too, find rest.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  That night in the cave was my last peaceful sleep for a long time. Now that Brandr finally understood the urgency of my quest, we continued our travels with renewed haste. Leifsbudir, he explained, was still far to the south; it was already autumn, and if we wanted to reach Kiasik before the snows came and made walking impossible, we needed to hurry.

  I crawled into the tent each night desperate for rest, yet found little. It wasn’t the fear of the painted men that kept me awake at night, or even my worries for Kiasik—but my dreams.

  Every night, Brandr’s memories came to me unbidden. Though I hadn’t touched the potion or dried flowers that I’d stowed in the bottom of my pack, the old woman’s magic had tied a rope from my mind to his. And I couldn’t shake it loose.

  Usually the memories arrived in brief flashes of color and noise. Occasionally whole scenes unfurled in my mind. I woke knowing I’d seen some vitally important moment from his life but unable to remember more than a few stark images: dwellings the size of small hills, four-legged beasts carrying men on their backs, thin, pale-haired women wearing clothing the color of flowers, vast numbers of men with flashing swords and bloodied hands. Things I had no words for, things I knew must be pure fantasy.

  Then, as we traveled, Brandr told me stories. Never the most important ones—never why he’d left his people or how his brother had died—but tales of his adventures across the wide sea. I never told him of my new visions, but he gave me words for them nonetheless: buildings, horses, and cloth—armies, steel, and war.

  A few days after our encounter with the painted men, I woke to find the world outside my tent as unknowable and strange as the one I’d left in my dreams. A thick fog rolled off the ocean, shrouding the shore in white. I peered from the tent entrance but could see nothing beyond the dark shadows of Sweet One and White Paw lying nearby. Floppy Eared whimpered in greeting. I heard his tail thump the ground but couldn’t see his white body in the mist.

  White Paw picked up her head, ears pointed toward a sudden chorus of honking. My heart beat in time to the sound; I could nearly taste the rich goose fat on my tongue. Licking my lips, I ducked back into the tent.

  “Brandr! Come! Before it’s too late!” He groaned and sat up, his long orange hair a tangled mess. “Don’t you want bird meat?” I urged.

  “I want any meat,” he grumbled. I’d been unlucky with my hunting of late. We hadn’t had a real meal since I brought down two reddish, bushy-tailed little creatures—squirrels, Brandr called them—two days before. He moved to strap his sword onto his back.

  “You don’t need that. What good’s a sword against a goose? Come!”

  Barefoot, he followed me from the tent. “Don’t you need a bow or a spear or something? And slow down! I can barely see in this fog. Where in Odin’s name are we going?”

  “You’ll see. Quiet.”

  With the thick mist blocking my view ahead, I watched the ground. Grass turned to rock beneath my feet, and waves crashed nearby.

  “Here, this is good,” I whispered. “Careful now. No sound until I say so. And then—scream as loud as you can.”

  “You’re going to scare the geese to death?” I could hear the smile in his voice.

  The honking grew louder. I’d always wondered where the geese went in the autumn—now I knew. My old friends brought the cold air of the north upon their wings. I longed to speak with them. Did you look down from the sky and see my family? Is Puja angry with me? Did Saartok have a baby? Do they still live?

  The honking was deafening, the flock so close I could hear the slap of wings against air.

  “Now!” I cried. I jumped up and down, waving my arms, screaming at the top of my lungs. Recovering from his momentary surprise, Brandr followed my lead, leaping and shouting like a man with a fish in his trousers.

  A great flutter of wings and panicked honking sounded right above our heads. Then a large bird hurtled from the whiteness, its wide webbed feet swinging desperately as if trying to walk on air. It arced toward us, banking its black-tipped wings to gain height, but to no avail.

  I grabbed it from the air.

  The blood in its throat pulsed for just a moment against my fingers before I quickly broke its long, delicate neck, dropped the bird to the ground, and reached for the next white shape to come careening out of the sky.

  “Don’t just stand there!” I yelled to Brandr, who stood frozen in silent shock. He obeyed, making a mad dash toward another falling bird; he slipped on the rocks and missed. Recovering, he spun toward another goose, but the bird banked away from his outstretched hands just in time, disappearing into the fog.

  With a loud honk of protest, a third goose plummeted toward us, landing on the ground with a scrabble of webbed feet. Brandr dashed toward it. The goose squawked in a most ungooselike way, batted at Brandr’s hands with its wings, and nipped at his bare toes with its sharp orange beak.

  “Skít!” Brandr cursed, kicking the goose roundly in the chest. The bird thrust its neck at him and honked in protest before successfully rising once more into the air. Brandr made a grab for it. A brief struggle, cursing from man and goose both, a shower of feathers. Then the goose was gone, winging disdainfully past us and into the mist. Brandr stood, glowering, with only a fistful of white quills to show for his efforts.

  Standing with three dead geese at my feet, I tried to look sympathetic, but hilarity soon got the best of me. “No wonder you wanted a sword,” I gasped out between peals of laughter. “I didn’t know you were going to battle them!”

  Brandr’s grimace dissolved into a wide grin. “I didn’t really think you were going t
o scare the geese out of the sky—clearly I should never underestimate you.”

  I wiped my eyes with my parka sleeve and carried one of my geese toward him. “You see the water on the wing? The heavy fog makes it hard for them to fly, so if you make them change direction quickly, they fall.”

  He raised his eyebrows in evident admiration. “I’m impressed. What else can you hunt with only your voice and hands?”

  “Not much,” I conceded. “How do your people hunt geese?”

  “Not like that.” He laughed, throwing the other two dead geese over his shoulder and following me back toward our tent. “Although perhaps we should. We get fogs like this, too, and the geese look the same. Greenland’s not so different from where you come from.”

  “Greenland?” I’d heard the name in his dreams, but still didn’t know quite what it meant.

  “Where I was born. What do you call your homeland?”

  “Our winter camp is at the Land of the Great Whale, because of the shape of our mountain. In the summer, we follow the caribou. In the spring, we live on the ice.”

  “But what do you call your whole land? As opposed to the lands claimed by other people?”

  “There are no other people. Or at least… not anymore…” I wasn’t sure what he was even asking. “It’s all just… nuna. Land. What else would we call it?”

  “I don’t know. Something. My people named this Markland, the Land of Forests, when they sailed past. Just north of where I first met you, across the strait, is Helluland, because of the flat stones. Further south, where our camp lies, we call Vinland because Leif said he found grapes when he landed there, although I never saw any.”

  “Grapes?”

  “Fruit. Round, purple, comes in bunches on a vine. We don’t have any in Greenland, but I ate them in Rome. When you bite into them, they squirt juice into your mouth.”