Winter Song

by Colin Harvey

  Then with a horrid sucking sound, the bog slowly gave up its prisoners.

  First Allman's arm emerged, then his shoulder and head, his torso, and even his other arm – somehow wrapped around the sheep – finally his legs.

  They hauled the utlander and his prize onto firm ground. "Take care of the sheep!" Ragnar shouted at Arnbjorn, and turned to look for the second sheep.

  It was gone.

  Ragnar turned away and took in the sight of both Allman and the ewe struggling to their feet, both coughing and spluttering, Arnbjorn and Bjarney wiping their mouths of the residue of the resuscitations. The ewe staggered, then galloped after the flock.

  "You let the second one go?" Ragnar bellowed at Allman, and as the alien straightened to give the Gothi a mouthful of abuse, Ragnar grinned and winked, and got a smile in return.

  Ragnar turned to Thorir, who was wringing his hands, shoulders hunched. "It wasn't my fault!"

  "You," Ragnar bellowed, "are going to be on firewood duty for the rest of your life! That's how many sheep you've lost? It comes out of your meals! Even Yngi's a better bloody shepherd than you are! You needed an untrained novice to show you how it's done?"

  Pausing for breath, Ragnar saw Bjarney's eyes widen.

  Bjarney opened his mouth and then Ragnar felt a thump in his back, and the world tilted. There was a sound like a buzz-saw, and Ragnar felt the fiery thumps of the snolfur's claws through his clothes, pounding down his back. His head jerked back to scream, and he saw the snolfur's hindquarters as it hurdled him.

  Twisting, despite the agony of his back, Ragnar saw a ball of blue-white fire rolling toward them, and smelled the ozone crackling off the fireball.

  At the last moment it careered into the bog and sank slowly in a wall of steam from the stagnant surface, and a murmur of plops and bubbles.

  Behind him Ragnar heard shouts, and the buzz-saw yowls of the fleeing snolfur, and then the world went black.

  He awoke to a world that pitched and rolled. "Keep still, Pappi," Arnbjorn's voice said. "We're nearly home, now. We turned the shepherd's tent into a stretcher. Bjarney and I will take you home."

  "The others?" Ragnar whispered. His back felt as if he'd been stabbed with hot needles.

  "OK," Arnbjorn said. "The snolfur was gone before we could shoot it. The men are rounding up the last stragglers."

  Ragnar's protests that he should supervise went unheeded, and they insisted on shovelling him into the bed on his return, so that the women could fuss and cluck over him.

  When he got to his feet that afternoon, Allman was waiting for him at the back door.

  After the barest of civilities, Allman said, "I want to travel south, to find the Winter Song, if it exists. If it does, it should have a distress beacon. Maybe I can activate it. I've done loads of digging, and I think I've found the likely location. I'm convinced that there's substance to the story of the Winter Song."

  "So you've been keeping other people off the Oracle?"

  "Absolutely not. I've only used it when it's been quiet, when I've finished my tasks."

  Ragnar's back was giving him grief; it felt as if the snolfur had left its claws in. If Allman had only waited, he often thought afterward, maybe so many men might not have died. Maybe things would have turned out differently.

  Maybe. But his back hurt. This cheeky bastard thinks that fishing one sheep out pays all debts? "Have you indeed?" Ragnar said. "Forgive my ignorance, friend, but what are you going to live on while you make this epic journey south?"

  "I'll live off the land," Allman said, and Ragnar could see that he hadn't thought it through. "Since you attach a price to everything, then I'll work extra over the next few days to buy food."

  "You can only travel during Faradalur. The Moving Days won't be until the spring."

  "That's convenient," Allman said.

  Ragnar tried to keep his temper. "It's not just convenient. It's the law, and it's why I said spring in the first place. Yes, it enables you to pay off your debt, but it's also the law of the land, and as such it's something that a Gothi might just have in the back of his mind." He realised that he was lapsing into sarcasm, and took a deep breath. "When spring comes, you can spend the four days travelling, and under my authority, keep travelling if necessary."

  "Your authority?" Allman said, frowning. "Hold on. You're saying that people can only travel during the Moving Days? But surely that only applies to people tied to one place? You've mentioned seers and other people who are legally beyond the law. The others said that you declared I must be a seer."

  "I said no such thing," Ragnar said, thinking, So, you've been talking to the others, have you?

  "I – I tried to tell him," Bera said, appearing from nowhere. "That you would see his leaving as a breach of a debt of gratitude. An abuse of hospitality."

  "She was right," Ragnar said. "This is monstrous ingratitude." He lifted Bera's chin. "Well said. You may leave us now." Slowly, reluctantly, Bera did as she was told, although Ragnar saw how much the alien had her in thrall and it only fuelled his anger.

  Ragnar could see Allman using the time to compose himself, and to think how to proceed. "While I'm very, very grateful for all your help," Karl said, "I won't be a prisoner to gratitude, especially gratitude that seems to have a price attached to every act."

  "We have to have a price, when we have so little to spare. We only have limited resources and knowing what something is worth stops us wasting it."

  "For pity's sake, man! My wife is expecting!"

  "And women have had babies without needing their men to cut the cord. In fact, it will probably teach her independence. She'll survive without you. No, I'm sorry, Allman, but I must forbid you making such a journey until your debt is paid in full."

  "So, let me see if this is right," Allman said. "You determine how much my bed and board and so-called treatment costs?"

  "So-called?" Ragnar bellowed, feeling his temples tighten.

  "Who treated me? Did you?"

  "I arranged it."

  "Bera did any nursing that was done. Or is she your chattel?"

  "Be careful, utlander," Ragnar said softly. "You are perilously close to insulting your host. Such an insult is tantamount to a crime, and I'm entitled as Gothi to exact punishment."

  "You determine what I owe, at what rate I pay it back, and now you're not only my host, but also responsible for judging your own claim and whether I may have insulted you? Where I come from, we call that a conflict of interest, Mister Helgrimsson…"

  "Homemade advocacy," Ragnar scoffed, "will get you nowhere."

  "Clearly," Karl said. "In fact, I gather that you aren't supposed to act as a judge, simply as an enforcer of the law – claims are settled by jury. Am I not right?"

  "Perhaps I didn't explain myself very well," Ragnar said, choosing each word with care – the man had clearly been talking to the others, and getting their half-educated views, and researching the Oracle. Whoever said that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing was right. The gods preserve us from self-educated men! "You can take your complaint to a court of law, if you wish, and argue it. But it won't be for some time."

  "Sorry," Allman said, sounding anything but. "But I no longer have any faith in what you tell me, Ragnar. It's too clearly fuelled by self-interest."

  "You dare!" Ragnar barely whispered the words, but still Allman stepped back from the look in the Gothi's eyes.

  Still the utlander continued, which either argued for bravery Ragnar hadn't until now suspected, or desperation. "I'm going to do what all prisoners do to their kidnappers, given the chance. I'm going to walk away." He turned and walked out to the barn, where an anxious-looking Bera stood watching them.

  The provocation was too much for Ragnar. He seized a rolling pin from the table and strode out into the snow shower to confront the ingrate. "You!" he roared, placing himself between his foster-daughter and her seducer, "Will get back into that kitchen, and finish your work!"

  "Or what?" Allman said
, and brushed past him.

  "Or," Ragnar said, and brought the pin down on Allman's head with a glancing blow that drew a scream from Bera, "you will face my wrath, boy!"

  As Karl crumpled to the ground and Bera rushed to the prone alien's side, Ragnar turned to find Arnbjorn and Thorir staring at him. "Take this hairless lout," Ragnar said to them, "and lock him up in a shed, until I decide what sentence to pass on him. It's the Harvest Festival tomorrow. He can kick his heels in confinement and learn some patience while we celebrate."

  Bera opened her mouth, and Ragnar said, "Not a word, child, unless you wish to feel the force of my wrath. As he will."

  NINE

  Karl

  "How's your head?" Arnbjorn said, proffering Karl a tray holding a small loaf of bread, a bowl of watery stew and a cup of ale.

  Karl squinted into the light shining into the shed. "Better, thanks. I felt sick all yesterday, but concussion passes in a day or so." He gingerly touched the spot where Ragnar had slugged him, but it was less tender and the lump had shrunk to the size of a hen's egg.

  Arnbjorn nodded from the doorway, fair hair blowing in the breeze. "Pappi's got a fearsome temper, and you made a request at a bad moment – not that he'd have granted it, anyway. When his mind's made up, it's made up." He shrugged, as if his father's opinion was a natural force, like the weather or gravity.

  "You don't seem to have inherited his temper – or his looks," Karl said.

  Arnbjorn grinned. "I take after Mama in both. But I have inherited his brains. You won't drive a wedge between us, utlander." He pronounced the last word with heavy, almost sarcastic emphasis.

  "I didn't think I would." Karl tore chunks off the loaf, and dipped them into the stew.

  Arnbjorn lounged in the doorway to the shed, watching Karl eat with bland good humour.

  Beyond Arnbjorn, Ragnar mock-wrestled with Yngi in the square between the farmhouses, and Karl wondered whether he would ever get a chance to play with his child as Ragnar did with his.

  Arnbjorn followed Karl's gaze and looked over his shoulder. "They don't get much time together any more. But now… Harvest Feast has always been to celebrate getting the crops and animals in. Since the crops have failed more recently, it's been more about bringing the animals in safely before the snolfurs come north nearer to the Equator for the winter. It's quicker than harvesting, so it leaves us more time." He grimaced. "I'd prefer less playtime but more food in our bellies."

  Watching them reminded Karl of Karla, Lisane and the baby; he felt so sick at heart that he couldn't be bothered to pump Arnbjorn for more information. Karl drained the mug and wiped the stew-bowl clean with the last bread. He passed the tray back to Arnbjorn, and jerked his thumb upward. "How long do I stay here?"

  Karl wasn't talking just about the shed, which he was sure Arnbjorn realised, but Ragnar's son chose to take his question literally. "Until Pappi decides to let you out."

  "I suppose he's too scared to tell me that to my face?" It would do no good to provoke Arnbjorn or Ragnar, but he was so sick of these people and their accountants' minds; calculating their good deeds and how to turn a profit from them. Better they'd left me there to die. At least I'd have known nothing.

  Karl was sick, too, of being patient and keeping quiet, when what he wanted to do was to take Ragnar somewhere quiet and beat him senseless with the stick he'd used on Karl. Part of that anger was with himself, for so underestimating the Gothi; he'd assumed that his enhancements made him invulnerable. His head was as much a weak spot as theirs, however many nanophytes swarmed through his veins.

  Arnbjorn had stiffened. "My father isn't scared of anyone," he said quietly, but with a small, fierce pride.

  Almost too late, Karl realised he risked angering a young man who might stay neutral, even if he wouldn't be an ally. "No, I don't suppose he is." He sighed, misery leaching the anger away as quickly as it had come.

  Arnbjorn seemed to recognise the concession for the half-apology it was. "Sometimes I almost wish he was more careful. Most of the time, he's a good man." Arnbjorn stressed the word so violently that Karl wondered who he was trying to convince the most. "When the Black Dog takes him, though–"

  "Black Dog?"

  "Depression," Arnbjorn said. "He fights it, which stops him being miserable but makes him angry instead, with the world, with life, but most of all with himself."

  "I wish I'd known," Karl said. It explained a lot – not that it was an excuse. "But neither of you can have an idea what it's like to spend day after day with time passing and a child you've waited years for, due any time now. If I'd only known what was going to happen, I'd never have left them to go on that last trip." He sighed. "But the colonists at Anderson were so desperate for the neutronium that they paid triple rates and a bonus for quick delivery, which persuaded me to short-cut through the Mizar system." He wiped his face down with his hand, swabbing away the memory.

  "I'll talk to Pappi," Arnbjorn said. "I doubt he'll change his mind, but I'll do my best."

  "Thank you," Karl said the next day. He had to bite his lip not to burst out laughing at Ragnar's costume, but while the man may have looked ludicrous to Karl, Ragnar's Viking armour and helmet were probably near-sacred to the Gothi.

  The tray held the same bread, meat and beer as before, but now there was a sprig of berries draped across the meat, presumably to stave off scurvy.

  "I hear you want out," Ragnar said.

  Karl nodded around a mouthful of chewy mutton.

  "I originally thought after Harvest Feast; that's why you have the beer, by the way. I thought it'd be good for you to share the celebrations even if you don't join us." Ragnar paused. "Of course, if you'll swear an oath of allegiance…"

  Karl's made himself keep eating. He's just trying to provoke you. Rarely had he met a man who was so good at provocation as Ragnar. Karl kept his voice level: "It's not enough that you keep me prisoner here? You want to enslave me as well?"

  "Not enslave, man! Slaves aren't paid – servants are. Call it a contract, if you prefer. Don't you have contracts on your world?"

  Karl finished chewing the meat and said, "We also have laws against making contracts too one-sided."

  Ragnar's nostrils flared. "You've caused me more trouble than an army of trolls, snolfurs and bad neighbours – the least you can do is swear the oath!"

  "Trouble? How? All I've done is crash-land, lie in a coma, then want to go home."

  "You've set the women at each other's throats! I have to spend time I should spend running the farm sorting out their bickering. My sons are unhappy because their wives are dissatisfied–"

  "And it's my fault that your farm's such a claustrophobic environment that an outsider destabilises it? It sounds like I'm a symptom, not the cause."

  "They were perfectly happy before you came!"

  "Then surely the sooner I'm gone, the sooner things will return to normal?"

  "And they'll moan that I sent you to your death, you fool! Swear an oath that you'll stay here until spring and we can get on with our lives."

  It was tempting, but there was something troubling Karl. Ragnar was all too eager to have him swear the oath. It occurred to him that with his uncertain legal status Ragnar couldn't legally hold him – or at least was unsure. But if Karl swore an oath, would breaking it be a criminal offence? He tried to rummage through the miscellany of his memories – it was like feeling for a particular card in the dark. Schrodinger's State, he thought. No laws apply there, but breaking his word can get a man executed by the Status.

  "Would this oath be sworn in public?" Karl said.

  "We'd need witnesses," Ragnar said. "Else it's your word against mine."

  "I'll think about it," Karl said.

  "Don't take too long," Ragnar said. "Or I might lose patience."

  "I feel like I'm a naughty child." Karl adopted an old woman's voice: "You'll stay in there until you're a good boy." He shook his head in wonderment. "Do you really think that treating people like children
is a good way to handle them?"

  "Well," Ragnar said, "if you act like a child, you'll be treated like one." With that, he took the emptied tray and pulled the door shut.

  Karl heard the sound of a bolt being shot.

  The next day it was Thorir who swayed in the doorway. Ragnar's son-in-law reeked of stale beer, but he had brought him his meal so Karl was grateful.

  "Harvest Feast?" Karl said, taking the tray from Thorir before the settler could drop it. It was piled high with a platter of different meats, vegetables, bread, even a cup of astringent red wine.