by M J Porter
“Of course my Jarl. It would be most welcome to have my own mother see me officially acknowledged as the Lady of the Eastern Quarter. I don’t know why I didn’t think of it myself. Perhaps we could ensure that she publicly steps down from her position at the same time?”
Rankil liked that idea, Erann could tell from the way his chuckles became hearty. He did not like that idea, and his face tightened as a consequence of her words. He only hoped that she would be able to prevent their mother from having to attend the council and that it would not be because she was already dead.
Rankil had decided that the conversation was now at an end and made his way out of the common room, chuckling to himself but leaving Erann alone with Aras. He looked at her with relief but did not speak a word, not yet. Rankil’s men had all paid attention to their public conversation and were now opening staring at the pair of them. He was unsure what to do now. He wanted to continue to speak to his sister but obviously could not do so here.
With relief he saw Anya rejoin them. With her as companion, they moved to a smaller room which was spotlessly clean, and filled with fragrant candles. There was even a small fire burning to warm the immaculate space. Erann knew instantly that this was Aras’s refuge from Rankil and that here she spent most of her time. He helped himself to another small wooden stall before finally removing his many fur layers. Anya placed his cloak near the fire and he sank down grateful for the heat and the warm tea that she handed to him. Aras smiled at him tightly before making abrupt excuses to depart now that she knew he was comfortable. They must at all costs maintain the façade of hatred between the two of them. As she swept from the room she bent and whispered, ‘I will be back later, I must pack for now, and stay apart from you’. Anya stayed with him for some time asking pointed questions about his mother’s health and then she too left him alone; to see to the herbs she needed to take with her. Her face was concerned as she realised how ill she was. As she left she squeezed his shoulder in comfort.
“I will do what I can. I fear she is ill of a broken heart and they are always the hardest to mend. I will think about how best to treat her”.
Her words filled him with a small hope, and he relaxed for the first time in days in the peace and comfort of his sister’s small sitting room.
He slept that night, curled up in his fur on one of the benches that surrounded the common room. He was not close to the fire and had a near constant drip falling down his back that kept him awake and overly aware of the other people around him who also slept in the room. He almost felt it would have been warmer and more comfortable to sleep outside. It was a stark change from the comfort of his sister’s own sitting room and yet her realised he could not have spent the night there. It would have been interpreted as a sign of respect from his sister towards him, and they could not let their new-found friendship be known by Rankil. He was grateful for the time he had spent within there. It had restored him better than a full nights sleep.
The other men within the room were all large and burly with an assortment of scars and weaponry that worried Erann more than he thought possible with everything else that was going on. Few of his people carried weapons; their society did not tolerate unplanned violence, preferring everything to be highly regulated, even when it came to blood feuds. Rankil worked outside of the societal norms, as his treatment of Erann’s father had shown, and Erann couldn’t help wondering where he had found such dregs of the earth.
Rankil had returned to the common room for his evening meal, and had pointedly ignored Erann this time. Erann had not minded in the least. He found the man odious and to be in his company any more would have pushed his resolve to breaking point. Rankil had spent the entire long, dreary evening, making quiet comments to the men who looked to him and watching Erann closely. It had made Erann pleased that his sister had sought him out earlier after she had packed for her journey to their Uncle’s. He asked her about the serving girl, and realised that it was indeed Sereh who had escaped from Rankil and was now presumed dead by him. He did not inform his sister of her survival. The less she knew the better. It had made him wonder why he felt the urge to protect Sereh. He had shrugged the thought aside. He hoped that she would have done the same for him, regardless of his despicable behaviour towards her.
As he watched Rankil and the other men he couldn’t help thinking that he had stumbled into something more than a little dangerous and that it somehow involved him. All night he thought about it, as sleep defied him, and by the first rays of sunlight he was out of the common hall and pulling on his furs and cloaks. He wanted to say goodbye to his sister but realised there was not enough time. However, Anya happened upon him as he was sneaking out the entrance tunnel. She promised to let Aras know he had left so abruptly and wished him a good journey.
He was going home, quickly. His fears at leaving his steading unprotected had intensified over the night he had spent at Rankil’s and the conspiratorial looks that Rankil had shared with his men. He had an idea of what Rankil’s intentions might now be.
Quietly, Anya let him out of the entrance tunnel and he glanced about him. The sun was not yet risen but the dark was lessoning and sunrise would not be far away as the purple streak on the horizon testified. It was bitterly cold and his breath froze in the still air before him. He pulled his fur closer to his throat and wrapped his mouth and nose tightly. He knew it was early morning, but surely it should not be so cold. Without a backwards glance he strode purposefully forwards, not towards Vatna Jokull, but to the side of it, and back towards the coast. Hopefully he would arrive home before full dark fell.
As he walked he worried and he agonised about Sereh, his mother, his sister, his brother; what his future held for him, the weather and his father. He could not believe the burdens he carried with him. He now had responsibilities to so many people, and he feared he would be able to help none of them. He had even failed to inform Rankil about the burnt steading.
He stopped at points to drink from the water bag he carried which Anya had thrust into his hand as he left. He had nothing else as he had not wanted to wait whilst she sorted out food for him and as he had realised last night, he had lost his backpack with its small supply of travel food within it. He would be hungry today. Last nights evening meal had been a dismal affair, little better than the peat-cakes and coagulated blood he had been surviving on since he had left his Uncle. Why did Rankil tolerate it?
It was only as he had lain awake last night listening to the constant drips of the water and the snores of the other men that he’d realised that he had lost his backpack, and with it his father’s journal. It was a heavy blow. He had left it in the cave with Sereh and he wondered why he had not realised that sooner. His desire to be away from her and at Rankil’s had made him so single minded he had forgotten both his manners and his backpack. Now that he had spoken to his sister about Sereh he understood her motivations for escaping and could not fault her for taking the opportunity when it presented itself to her. He admired her courage.
Throughout the long walk, his thoughts continually returned to Sereh, hoping that she had found what she was looking for, and if nothing else, that she managed to evade detection by Rankil. All that she really needed to do was to enter another of the three Quarters and then she would be under that Jarl’s protection. He hoped she remembered that fact, but feared that she did not, and that he may have dredged it from his childhood reading and that it may not even be common knowledge any more. Maybe he should find her and tell her. Then he would get to see her again and see with his own eyes that she was safe and well. The thought was comforting but he knew he would not do it for all that he found himself remembering the way her hair had reflected the dim sunlight as she had stooped over him, checking he was breathing. He also remembered her dazzling deep blue eyes. They were so deep he wondered idly if he would be able to swim in them.
His thoughts troubled him and he wrenched himself back to the reality of what he was doing. He was going to his home, alone, to re
trieve his families archive because he feared that Rankil’s loyal men were following him and not far behind. He felt as though he was being chased without ever seeing anyone in the distance. In fact, there were no prints in the pristine blue tinged snow at all. No one else had yet ventured far from their own steading in the continuing atrocious conditions. He hoped he would not happen upon another steading which contained only the dead. He feared that with the weather so unpredictable the farmhouse he had found had only been the first of many.
The distance between his own steading and Rankil’s was little more than a day’s walk in good weather. Now, as the scant sunshine deserted the sky, Erann found himself pushing himself onwards. He would not stop or rest until he arrived home, and he would walk all through the long, dark night, if need be.
The silence was all engulfing as full dark fell, a deep purple. Erann stopped to catch his breath on an exposed rocky outcropping, and to turn to his left to admire the view before him. Vatna Jokull, over which he had originally traversed to get to Rankil’s, stood dark and foreboding in the deep violet. Yet it held an awe-inspiring majesty as the stars began to sparkle in their glory. The sapphire planet came into view abruptly as the clouds scudded across the sky and he gasped in wonder at the beautiful sight before him. Thousands of tiny gems sparkled in the deepening blue sky and they were reflected by the forbidding ice locked in the glacier. Behind him he heard a sharp snap, and turned in fear.
He could see nothing outlined against the skyline back the way he had come for it was already swathed in thick twilight. At one point, as he squinted, his eyes glanced upwards and it looked as though Frey had disappeared from its position in the sky. He stood for some few moments, barely breathing, intently listening and straining his eyes, until he eventually convinced himself it was nothing and turned back to his journey, happy that Frey was still there, and must always have been. Turning, he resumed his journey home. He caught a glimpse of his steading nestled in the next valley and increased his pace. He had made it. He was nearly home and against his worst fears, his home was still standing.
* * *
Again he felt a presence searching for his mind. It was irritating as he slept and he restlessly battered at whatever it was with his hands. He wanted to be left alone. His dreams were consuming him as he replayed the events of the last few days. He was beginning to make connections that had so far eluded him. With a deep sign, the presence fled him and he sunk ever more deeply into his recent past.
* * *
Erann and Sereh watched the men approach the steading, unseen, from their supine position atop the overhang that had protected his home for generation upon generation. Erann was unsure as to why he felt the compulsion to watch. He knew what the men were here to do – burn down his home and remove the last physical trace of the previous Jarl of the Eastern Quarter, and he knew that this should forever crush him. He had come to the realisation as he slept last night, for the last time, in his own home. After his day of fleeing an invisible enemy he had come to the conclusion that the men would not have expected him to return home, they would have thought him gone back to his Uncle’s. As such there was no need for them to rush to complete their task. Yesterday, he had simply been chased by shadows that meant him no harm.
He felt oddly relieved to be proved right about Rankil’s character. He had spent the last seven rotations hating the man who had exiled his father, and he experienced relief that Rankil truly was as evil as he had thought him to be. He lay as flat as possible on the uneven snow and ice encrusted overhang. Sereh was quiet besides him. He didn’t know her well enough to ascertain if this was because she knew that words would not help or if she simply did not know what to say. Whatever the reason he was glad of the silence whilst appreciating the company of another person to witness this atrocity.
The day was still enough that the loud talking and shouting going on between the eight men could be distinctly heard even before they came into view, climbing the steep hill on which his steading nestled. Erann found it implausible that after all his forebears had done for their people, it was only going to take the efforts of eight men to bring it all to a crashing end. The flip side was that perhaps Rankil could only rely on a few men to carry out his instructions. The thought slightly cheered him.
The people of the Eastern Quarter, for all their outward acceptance of Rankil, were disturbed by his recent actions. As secluded as his family had become, they were not without friends, and their friends had ensured that the information they had about Rankil always stayed as up to date as it could in a harsh land where transportation was slow and actions normally even slower. Erann felt sure that this act of wanton destruction would only serve to make him even more unpopular. It was a pity that so many had thought to profit when Rankil had usurped his father’s role. Perhaps with a little more thought on the part of the other farmers, Rankil’s quest for power could have been stopped before it had begun. Erann was sure that people had only gone along with Rankil’s ousting of his father through sheer boredom. His people were not known for being particularly dynamic. Their society had formed and solidified so many generations ago that few questioned anything. That was until Rankil came along and questioned everything.
The men had now reached the steading and after shouting a few derisory comments through the entrance tunnel and after a fair bit of jostling over who was going to go first, had managed to push a large heavyset man inside. Erann wondered bitterly what they expected to find inside. They were more than aware that his mother and brother were visiting his uncle, and that he had probably returned there. In a matter of moments the man returned shaking his head and they all rushed indoors, no doubt to steal what they could. They wouldn’t find much. His family barely survived on a subsistence level and any family heirlooms were only of value as keepsakes and reminders.
Erann felt suddenly that he should leave. He told himself that he really didn’t need to see what was going to happen next. Yet his body stayed firmly in place and he didn’t know if he had the strength to move away. He felt weak and frustrated, emotions he had come to know far too well since his father’s exile.
Luckily for him Sereh made a move to leave, and feeling that he should follow her, he shuffled back down the overhang and retrieved his backpack. As silent tears streamed down his face he turned his back resolutely on everything that had gone before and looking questioningly at Sereh. He didn’t want to risk talking in case the sound travelled back to the men on the still day. She shrugged her shoulders at him unsure which way to go. He nodded in understanding and began walking down the hill towards the valley bottom, on the opposite side of the hill to his old home, back towards Vatna Jokull.
They walked in companionable silence. The sun was warm on his back and his bulky shadow followed him down the mountain. In the far distance he could see the sun reflecting off Vatna Jokull in an array of every shade of blue imaginable. The glacier was timeless. He knew it had always been there but equally knew that other, smaller glaciers had in the past melted under the sun’s heat and drained away into the sea which surrounded his land, in much the same way as his family’s place and honour had. Would Vatna Jokull itself one day fall prey to the same fate? Was it really as immutable as he had always thought his family was?
The wind picked up slightly as he walked and he felt his hair rise and then lower on the top of his head. It jostled him from his internal thoughts and made him look around in surprise. There was no wind. Even Sereh a mere few steps in front of him had not been buffeted by it. A cool chill ran down his back. He had felt this sensation before. He remembered now. It was on the glacier when he had collapsed after his horrifying night spent at the Sweinssons farm where he had nearly fallen prey to the wolf attack.
His eyes strayed back up the hill in confusion. He saw no one, and no thing. Turning back round in confusion he couldn’t stop himself from crying out in surprise.
He glanced straight at the fantastical sight in front of him, before blinking quickly and looking
away. When he refocused on the spot the huge winged golden creature, with enormous whirling green eyes he had glimpsed hovering in the air was gone. He let out a huge sigh of relief, only realising as he did so that he had even been holding his breath. He knew that hallucinations were a sign of snow blindness and he had no time for a debilitating illness now.
Sereh glanced at him in concern but Erann kept his face blank, making her think that his cry had been a figment of her imagination and not caused by his. They continued to walk towards Vatna Jokull in companionable silence and it was only when they turned to face the already sinking pale yellow sun that Sereh spoke in a quiet voice,
“Are you all right Erann? What you’ve just seen must have been incredibly upsetting?”
Erann considered his answer thoughtfully for a few moments and then replied,
“Honestly, I thought I would feel devastated. Even when I was up there watching them, I felt devastated. But now. Now I don’t, which is odd. However I do feel determined to make Rankil pay for his crimes against my family. After we’ve been to the Librarian I plan on trying to rally some support from amongst the people of the south-west of this Quarter, near my uncle’s steading. He mentioned when I took my mother to him that there were mutterings amongst the farmers. Hopefully I’ll be able to exploit them and get people to speak out about Rankil at the next Full Council meeting.”
Sereh turned her face towards him and he saw her slight smile in the rays of the dying sun,
“Just as long as you have a plan. I was a bit worried that you might end up being as aimless as me. It’s one thing to be out from under his control but quite another for someone like me to get some justice”.
Erann looked at her with surprise,
“Are you telling me that you have no plan?”
“I did have a plan, sort of. I don’t any more. The people I was hoping would help me have perished during the Long Night”, she tried to keep the pain out of her voice but it broke through and her voice caught as she finished the sentence.