Winter Song

by Colin Harvey

  "Today," Thorir slurred, "it's my turn to play jailer. Ragnar was going to serve you, to ask you whether you'd changed your mind." He grinned slyly, and tapped his nose. "But he's drunk senseless already."

  "If I swear allegiance, he has me where he wants me, I take it?" Karl said.

  Thorir's grin grew even wider, and Karl wondered how much he could trust the son-in-law. At least Karl knew where he stood with the Gothi; Thorir was an unknown.

  "He has you," Thorir said, his hand held open, palm up, "by the balls." His hand clenched.

  Karl was silent for a few minutes, tucking into the food. He'd learned that he could be hungry or he could eat what was in front of him, however he felt about it. He recognised two of the meats as lamb and mutton, and wondered whether they were related – they tasted similar. At last he spoke: "What do you get out of Ragnar not having me by the balls?"

  Thorir's eyes had closed, as if he was dozing. They snapped open. "I get the pleasure of you pissing the old bastard off," he said. "Today, most of us drink ourselves into a stupor. But a few of us remain – well, half-way sober. Tomorrow it's Yngi. But today it's me, so I can't get pissed. Today you even stop me getting drunk. But I get as pissed as I dare, spaceman." His laugh was half-way to a sob. "You turn my wife's face away from me, and you stop me getting properly drunk. Loki, I should hate you."

  "What do you mean?" Karl mumbled round a mouthful of food. He broke the small loaf open and recognised the dark green inside as lichen bread.

  He wondered if his mouth was so full that Thorir hadn't understood the question, but it seemed to be that it had to journey slowly from Thorir's ears to his brain. "Hilda won't kiss me any more," Thorir said. "She doesn't want sex, except when she's been round you, and then she wants it bad: like she's thinking of you when I tup her."

  "I'm sorry," Karl said. Thorir hadn't done anything to him, nor did Karl want Hilda's attention.

  Thorir shrugged. "It would be simpler if you just went."

  Karl finished chewing. "Believe me, we agree about that," he said.

  "Tomorrow," Thorir said. "At first light, the door will be unlocked, and I'll look the other way while you journey south."

  Karl nodded. "Thank you."

  Thorir shrugged. "Don't thank me. That old bastard makes my life hell. I know that it's not me – whoever married his precious Hilda wouldn't be good enough for him. Miserable old bastard. What's that saying? 'My enemy's enemy is my friend.' You, Mister Utlander, are about the best friend I've had since you came, if only 'cause he's got someone to hate more than he hates me."

  "Thank you," Karl said. "Whatever your reason, you're giving me a chance to get back to my wife and baby."

  "Don't mention it," Thorir said. "Anything that hurts the old cunt gives me pleasure." He snickered. "All I have to do is talk Yngi into swapping chores without anyone else knowing, and I'll get double-pleasure – pissing the old man off, and stuffing his pig-shit thick son into trouble."

  "No," Karl said. "Leave Yngi out of this."

  "Can't," Thorir said. "Old Bastard Ragnar drew up the rota. Your best chance is tomorrow – leaving at first light gives you the whole day to get away."

  "Ragnar will be sober," Karl protested.

  Thorir shook his head. "Soon as he wakes up, he'll down another beer or wine. You don't know Norse drinkers; we don't drink to be sociable. We drink to get out of our fucking skulls; Ragnar already has his next drink by his right hand, so that he doesn't even have to move when he surfaces from his stupor."

  "I guess it'll have to be first thing, then," Karl said. It gave him a little time to think, to work out how to steal what he'd need; events had got out of hand. He had hoped that he would be able to gather things together and plan properly, but Ragnar's bloody-mindedness had put paid to that.

  And, Karl realised, his own misreading of a man entirely alien to his civilised Avalon way of life.

  "Take it or leave it, my newest best friend." Thorir pulled the door shut and shot the bolt again.

  Karl slept badly that night, despite it growing properly dark for the first time since he'd arrived. He had a vague memory that Bera had said something about the stars' alignment, so that for a few nights, they had genuine darkness. Clearly this was starting to happen. But every hour or two Karl awoke. Each time he checked the door, but it was still bolted shut.

  Eventually, light began to creep through the shed's windows. A little later Karl heard the squeak of the bolt being drawn back.

  "Wait there for a few minutes," Thorir hissed.

  Karl counted to three hundred, and tiptoed out into the freezing morning, which was brightening by the minute. Deltasol was already up, and the bigger bulk of Gamasol was just breaking the skyline.

  He heard a distant rumble, then almost laughed aloud when he realised that it was snoring coming through the imperfect sound-proofing of the house – that or someone slept with the window open, which he thought unlikely. He crept into the yard, pausing when his boots crunched on a thin rime of ice. He froze when he heard a hiss. He turned slowly, his heart thumping.

  Bera stood with hands on hips, a faint smile playing across her face, and his heart lifted. She scampered across to face him. "Were you going to leave without saying goodbye?" she whispered, and Karl saw that beneath the smile, her face was anxious. "You realise that you'll freeze to death out there?"

  "Maybe," Karl whispered back. "But I'm tougher than I look. As long as I can absorb energy from sunlight, I can keep using it too. It's not very healthy long-term, but I don't think my life expectancy will be that long on Isheimur."

  "Maybe," Bera said. "But at least wait until spring."

  Karl shook his head. "It would be easier for me to travel, but it'll be easier for Ragnar to follow me, if he changes his mind – which I think he will when the time comes. I think that this has more to do with power than honour."

  "You may be right, but how long do you think that you'll survive out there on your own? Think, Karl. This is still early autumn, and it's still comparatively warm compared to mid-winter. You have no idea how cold and inhospitable it is here. If your nose runs, it'll freeze solid on your top lip, and take the skin with it if you rub it off."

  He shook his head. "I agree with everything that you're saying – but I have to try something. I can't just give up and settle back here to die – and waiting until spring would be the first step along that path."

  "Then I'm coming with you."

  "Are you mad?" He forgot to whisper, and she clamped a hand that tasted faintly of wine gone stale across his mouth.

  When she released him, he whispered, "He'll accuse me of kidnapping you!"

  She shrugged. "If anyone stops us, I'll tell them that you're a seer, and I'm your guide on a pilgrimage."

  "Is that legal?"

  "I don't bloody know!" she whispered, then grinned. "Let's find out!"

  Despite his anxiety, he grinned back. Doing something, no matter how insane it was, was better than sitting around counting off the days until Lisane gave birth.

  "Wait there a few moments. I'm going to raid the kitchen," she whispered.

  "Can I do anything?"

  Bera shook her head, then her eyes widened. "I've had an idea! You get the food; I'll grab some bags on the way through the lobby; load as much into them as you can. Come on." She took his hand and led him into the lobby. She pulled his head down, fingers slipping on his still-shiny smooth skull. Her breath was warm against his ear; "Walk really, really slowly. Check every footstep – the last thing we want is you falling over something or someone, and waking these drunken sots."

  The next thirty minutes took on the quality of nightmare. First Bera rummaged in the detritus in the lobby, and triumphantly held aloft a couple of canvas bags. Then they had to walk through the main room; it was cluttered with the bodies of the Thralls and the children, all asleep. The adults – Karl guessed – were in a drunken stupor, which left him exposed to a waking child.

  Bera pulled his head again s
o that her mouth breathed in his ear. "Fill one bag while I get the maps. I'll take the bag out while you fill a second one."

  So he rummaged in the cupboards for dried meat, bread, fruit and vegetables. There were berries that tasted tart before exploding into sweetness, and a lump of cheese. All went in. The farmhouse had antique freezers that broke down all too often, but in this climate food lasted longer anyway. Still, dried and pickled food would be better than food thawing in the bags, so he concentrated on that.

  All the time he was acutely aware of every break in the snoring of both the sleepers downstairs and the stentorian rumbles from above, every movement and sigh of a sleeper adjusting position.

  His nerves were stretched tighter than a trip-wire and he exhaled heavily when Bera finally returned after what seemed like an hour but was only a quarter of that, clutching maps and other papers. "Load the second bag while I take this one outside. I'll be back in a few minutes."

  She took slightly longer and he was already waiting for her in the kitchen doorway, but she held the nowempty bag out to him and whispered, "Fill this while I take the second bag out." Again she returned with it empty, and he wondered what she was doing. He nearly jumped out of the window when one of the Thralls – who seemed oddly familiar, although Karl had never seen him before – shifted on his back and reached for something. The man's arm fell back and Karl relaxed.

  Over and over again they repeated the relay until in filling a bag, Karl's hand brushed a pan lid and knocked it flying. He froze at the rattle, which seemed to reverberate through the house, but no one stirred, even the children. Karl spied the half-finished cup of beer next to one of the boys, and guessed why.

  Bera stood in the doorway, bagless, beckoning him frantically as the Thrall stirred again.

  Somehow he managed to step across the bodystrewn lounge again, even with the bag swinging with each step

  Outside, Bera beckoned him across the yard, and Karl grabbed her arm. "Why are we going to the barn?" he whispered – then stopped dead.

  "Hello," Yngi said, beaming. "Has Pappi let you out?"

  "Sort of," Karl said, still in a whisper. "I thought that you were sleeping in this morning?"

  "I was," Yngi replied, lowering his voice, although it still seemed loud enough to Karl to wake a dead man. With every minute, the risk that we get caught rises, Karl thought. His instincts were screaming run run run, but he fought to stay calm.

  "It was very nice of Thorir to take my shift, but I couldn't sleep," Yngi said. He lifted his right foot, and Karl realised that the young man had been on his way to feed his pet. "I just needed a breath of fresh air," Yngi said, and Karl wondered who had taught the young man the euphemism, and why it was even needed.

  Karl whispered, "We're playing a game." He looked to Bera for inspiration. "Do your children play hideand-seek?"

  Bera nodded. "Yngi, dear brother," she whispered. "We have to hide. But the second part of the game is that we mustn't wake anybody, either. Do you understand?"

  Yngi nodded, though his puzzled frown indicated that he didn't really. "Are you going to hide?" he whispered, still foghorn-loudly it seemed to Karl.

  Bera nodded. "You go on your way."

  "I need to feed Render first," Yngi whispered.

  "Then that, my friend," Karl whispered, "will give us time to hide."

  "After an hour you can start looking for us," Bera whispered. "But remember, this is our private game. It's a secret."

  Yngi's eyes lit up. "Oh, good!" he said, and Karl had to fight the urge to hush him.

  Bera whispered, nudging Karl. "We have a new version, so that there are two winners. The person who finds each hider wins a prize. But also," she said, taking Yngi's hands, "whoever can stay hidden longest each day over the next week from daybreak wins a prize. So if you win, at first light tomorrow, you go and hide!"

  Yngi smiled, comprehension creeping across his face. "So we'll play again tomorrow?"

  "That's right," Bera said. "Now, you go and feed Render, while we hide."

  Yngi turned and lumbered away, and Bera exhaled. "Stay here for two more minutes," she whispered.

  "Now where are you going?" Karl whispered.

  "I've got one last thing to get," Bera whispered back. "I'll be two minutes, no more." She turned and ran into the barn.

  She was gone nearer five.

  When she emerged, she led three ponies laden down with saddlebags.

  "Are you insane?" Karl hissed. "Steal his horses?" He knew enough about primitive cultures to know in many that taking a man's horse was considered worse than murder.

  Each pony was about a metre and a half high, and shaggy. Karl stood rooted to the spot. "They don't look very big," he murmured, leaning close to her as she passed him. He had assumed that the horses roaming the fells had looked so small because they were further away. Truth to tell, he hadn't paid them as much attention as the sheep because other – more skilled – Thralls had had the responsibility of bringing them in from the summer pastures where they roamed wild. Now he realised that they had looked small because they were small.

  Bera said, "These are three pure-bred Icelandic horses, genetically enhanced to be even stronger than the originals, which were tough little brutes. They can carry a couple of hundred kilos." She added, "And they'll go all day. We can cover far more distance than on foot."

  To get to the corner they still had to skirt the cobbled square; Bera had wrapped cloth around the horses' hooves, but still they clunked on the cobbles. Karl had no choice but to follow her, and one of the horses butted him and snorted. Karl jumped back.

  She chuckled. "Come on, let's speed it up." They passed through the gap between the houses. In the turret on the main roof Thorir faced north, his back to them.

  Karl said, "Ragnar will be able to accuse us of horsetheft. It'll be all the excuse he needs to come after us with a gang of men and a length of rope to hang me from the nearest tree; maybe you, too."

  Bera said, "Want to know how to find your way if you get lost in an Isheimuri forest? You stand up."

  "It's no joking matter!"

  She faced him. "I know it isn't. You keep running around blindly, never stopping to think. You decide you're going to march a couple of thousand kilometres in the middle of winter with no clothes, no food and no bloody hope."

  "I know," he said miserably. "But I don't exactly have a choice." He did, if he were honest, but ever since he'd chosen such a bad moment to ask Ragnar for his help, things seemed to have spiralled out of control.

  "But you're still not thinking," Bera said. "Do you really think I wouldn't have considered all of this?"

  "OK," Karl said.

  Bera smiled. "Why do you think I was gone so long?"

  "I don't know," Karl said, recognising his part in the game of catechism.

  Bera said, "I was looking for some papers. When Ragnar agreed to foster me, it wasn't just kindness."

  "Surely not?"

  Bera smiled. "Now, now. No call for sarcasm." She said, "I brought my dowry with me. Three horses."

  "These horses?" A smile slowly transformed Karl's face.

  Bera said, starting to pant as they climbed the slope, "Exactly. You're looking at my horses, not his. You can't steal your own property, and I was looking for the documentation to prove that they're mine, not his. Of course, there were subsequent transfers of title, but I took just the original pieces of paper; if we have these, it'll buy us time if we're stopped – maybe even passage if it's Steinar who stops us. He probably hates Ragnar enough to let us go, even if he's suspicious."

  Karl looked back at Skorradalur. "Thorir's gone. To raise the alarm, perhaps?"

  Bera shook her head. "He wasn't supposed to be on guard at all. He offered to swap with Yngi when he thought they were alone."

  "Skulking again?" he joked.

  Grinning back, she said between gasps, "You're not even panting. You must have lungs like bellows."

  "Nanophytes," he said, determined to be as cryp
tic as she'd been. She didn't play his game but instead clambered onto one of the horses. "We need to speed up now. Climb on."

  Suddenly the nearest horse looked gigantic.

  "I've just thought of something," Karl said. "Surely they'll be able to use the Oracle to warn those people whose lands we'll travel through?"

  "Once we're past the edge of Ragnar's demesne, we're onto Steinar Onundsson's land," Bera said. "They hate each other, and with any luck, Steinar may decide not to let him cross it. But anyway, I removed a tiny circuit. It'll take 'em forever to go through all the possible things that are wrong with the Oracle."

  "Shiva, that's criminal, Bera!"

  "It could be anyone," Bera said, looking guilty for the first time. "They'll never prove it was us."

  "Coincidence, then?"

  "Exactly," Bera said, ignoring his sarcasm.

  Karl said, "No other way they can communicate?"

  "As far as I know, nothing quicker than a fast horse," Bera said. "Meanwhile, once we're past Steinar's land, we're into wilderness." She pulled a face. "The bad news is that that's where Ragnar will have no one to make a claim to, so in effect, he'll be able to act as judge and jury. We'll have to hope that any posse he's raised will stop him going too far."

  Karl gazed up at her with open delight. "You're a bloody marvel, you know that?"

  She smiled. "And that, Mister Foreigner, is why you need me. Not just because I know the way, but because I know the tricks."

  "What do you get out of this?" Karl said.

  "Freedom," Bera said. "Now, come on!"

  As she said this, they crested the hill, Karl on foot, Bera on horseback. Karl looked out over the hills ahead of them.

  "Look," Bera said. "Sunrise."

  Karl gazed at the sun tracking across the lowland meadows that were already covered in the first heavy dusting of snow of the winter. A few tracks spotted it, but apart from that, the fields were pure, unblemished white.