She smiled. “What could they possibly expect?”
Egil pulled a face. “Most everyone here’s been hunted at some time. Hurt by humans. I’ve said you’re different, special, but, well, no one takes much notice of me. I don’t even know many of them yet. But there’s been twenty or more out hunting and Lodver’s got the cooking organised, with the spits brought out and twenty barrels of wine carried up from under the ice.”
She felt suddenly hungry. “But if no one wants me there, perhaps you could bring something back to me here after you’ve finished.”
Egil grinned. “My lady’s a coward? You’ll never want to hide away? This is the most magical place in the whole world, not that I’ve seen the world but I’d challenge anyone to argue it. And you want to hide away? And let everyone know you’re frightened?” But she would never have suspected Egil of reading her thoughts, until he said suddenly, “Besides, it seems Lord Thoddun wants you now.”
Skarga became interested in something on the opposite wall. “Obnoxious boy,” she muttered. “What would you know? I’m here because he feels duty bound, and besides, he’s looking after me just for you.”
“Seems old age doesn’t help after all.” Egil stifled a snigger “You old people make as much sense as pissing into the wind.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
The tips of both crutches were sealed with hemp and did not slip but unpractised, Skarga struggled through the short stretch of passageway to the main hall. Thoddun had not come, either to invite, advise or carry her, so it was Egil who guided. He supported her, trotting from one side to the other, a quick hand behind her back or to her elbow when she wobbled. He chattered all the way. “It’s so exciting having you here. It’s exciting just being here. Just finding out who I am – well, you wouldn’t understand about all that and I can’t explain – but I’ve never felt like this before. I never thought I could.”
Keeping her balance took most of her breath, but she said, “Just slow down a bit. And why can’t you explain?”
Egil continued to skip. “Maybe when I know more about it myself – but you will stay won’t you?”
“Thoddun’s implied,” she smiled with resolution, “a short visit.”
“Oh, I don’t believe that,” between bounces, “Odin’s bones, the lord’s never allowed anyone to sleep in his room before. I mean, he never even lets anyone peep in there, it’s like some sort of secret retreat – but he’s just given it to you and moved into the heap with the rest of us.”
“He has?” said Skarga with a sudden glimmer of interest. “But I expect he has to spend all his time with the men anyway.”
“Hmph,” sniffed Egil. “If his time’s so precious, why did he waste it? Took enough time getting here, doing it the slow way. He could have got Orm to look after you, dragging along with the sled. Or Lodver, who likes organising things like that, and trudges for days if he’s asked. Thoddun could have got any one of the crew. He didn’t.”
“Good leaders,” said Skarga wanly, “always take the worst jobs themselves.”
“And what would you know about good leaders,” scoffed Egil. “Besides, he wouldn’t be so busy now if he’d stayed before and looked after everything, instead of dancing around in the snow looking after you.”
“Well he certainly wasn’t dancing.” She stopped a moment, catching her breath and her balance. The doorway of the great hall stood open and the noise travelled far beyond. Skarga said, “Thoddun told me I wouldn’t see masses of courtiers, but it sounds as though joining the feast is more important than avoiding me.”
At first it was movement through smoke, the raucous insubstantiality of argument and laughter, noises of man and animal merging, heavy feet and clanking iron. The fire was huge. The hearth was hooded in copper, a barrier where flames rose, then flared, hovering beneath the canopy. Through the haze Skarga saw very little. The smoke, thick in twilight blue, blurred contours, leaving no division between shapes. There were several hundred in the hall, but they were not all men. Oil lamps swung from beams above but there were no candles and the tight knit throng was dark. The faces that loomed were tanned leather and grainy, all watching her entrance; the attention, surreptitious or direct, of every eye. Most were men, simple enough, like every man she’d known from her father’s halls or elsewhere. A few she recognised from her stay in the southern tunnels, or from Thoddun’s langskip. She thought she heard Halfdan’s high laugh. Orm was drinking heavily, pale eyes half closed, belly bursting from his belt. Safn, half the size, dark and morose, was drinking deeply too. They knew the human female and took little notice, but strangers stared with open curiosity and open hostility.
One, sitting huddled far back in the hall and speaking to no one, his huge bulbous nose in a beaker and a haunch of meat in his fist, seemed more giant than man. From the distance he watched her, eyes squinting through the smoke, small pig-angry red. Beside him, keeping back and uncertain, were the animals. Sled dogs, tails wagging, scrummaging for dropped meat and grease, begging for their share. But into the darker corners where the shadows turned opaque, a surly mill of bears paced, a suggestion of others more tentative, less clear, coats darker, identity merging into the gloom. A black wolf bared its teeth, snarling at one of the sled dogs which yelped and fled.
Embarrassed on her crutches, Skarga stood shy, hoping to discover a place to sit alone. The crowds were too close. Then she felt a hand firm at her back and swirled, losing balance. Thoddun held her. “Well, child. You’ve dared to face us, and I’ve challenged many to face you. Will you sit with me?”
He brought her, half lifted, to his place beside the fire. No high chair of state, but a heap of furs raised only to the height of the hearth. Egil took her crutches as Thoddun cradled her. He sat her low amongst the sealskins and lounged back on one elbow, the other hand protective to her waist. Egil was sent to fetch food and drink. Skarga sat forward and gazed where the huge fire’s outer rim smouldered, the scattering flames spread before her feet. “I was thinking of running away,” she said.
He nodded. “I heard you. I know your courage, but remember, there are others in this hall who can read your thoughts, though few as clearly as I. For them, your timidity seems wise. They’ll appreciate nerves, rather than arrogance.”
The spits already dismantled, the roasted meat was heaped along the stones, thick and moist on reed, platter and bowl, seeping juice sizzling in the ashes and dripping to the ice. Egil brought her a full bowl and Skarga ate. It was simple, rare, flavours intense, a predator’s fare, meat with little else but flat bread and berries baked in syrup. But the wine was luxurious, heady and extravagant. The ale was hot and spiced, or dark and very cold. Every man drank deep. Without slaves or servants, the transanima called on the younger ones and Egil served many. There was another boy Egil’s age and they shared such duties, laughing to each other.
Skarga drank too, sensing the animosity and the crowd’s resentment. She was watched, not acknowledged. Men passed purposefully close as they approached the hearth to refill bowls, and then closer, open curiosity, scowling, staring, unconcealed dislike, nervous irritability, crossing over her, suddenly blotting out the fire, striding directly across her place; a silent drunken challenge. Over the rim of her cup she watched a hundred angry eyes, when, slowly, in groups or pairs, the animals came to look at her too. Thoddun’s hand remained almost constantly on her shoulder, a claim or statement, and while he held her, no one came too close. He did not speak to her, leaving her to absorb and learn alone, to cope with her own discomfort and understand the difficulty of acceptance, or otherwise. He interfered only once. A grey wolf, its muzzle twisted in a careful snarl, loped in decreasing circles. It crossed again and again past the bursting heat of the hearth, not taking food but watching the human woman and his king beside her. Finally one paw, claws extended, scraped her toes where her injured ankle stretched out on the furs. She drew back her foot abruptly. Thoddun was instantly aware and looked up, eyes direct and intent, the stare of the eagle b
efore the plunge. The wolf slunk away, head down, its tail tucked in surrender.
Behind Thoddun, stretched on the welter of cushions and furs, was Orm, back on his elbows, and noisy. Orm’s belching obscured Thoddun’s conversation. They spoke together but Skarga, even sitting in silence, heard little of what was said. Thoddun had turned away, though clearly aware of what passed before her. Others came. Lodver bent briefly to Thoddun’s ear, murmured, nodded, and left. Then a tall man with elegant fingers came to Thoddun’s side as if summoned, speaking quietly, an impression of reluctant obedience. Thoddun was brisk. “Now,” he said.
The man unbent, emerged from the smoky shadows, and bowed to Skarga. She looked up in surprise. He was the first stranger to acknowledge her. “Lady, greetings.” The usual welcome, polite and meaningless. “I am the Althing Leader. I am Ragnar. I uphold law here, and any disturbance is reported to me. I am at your service, should you need assistance or justice.”
Skarga said the usual things in reply. “Thank you. I’m honoured. I expect no trouble and naturally, I’ll cause none.” The man bowed again and walked quickly away. He was elderly, experienced, soft voiced. She felt his dislike and lack of sincerity. Thoddun’s fingers tightened on her shoulder but he said nothing.
Egil brought his friend to her. A young man and bright faced with the hair of an owl, almost feathered, shaggy to the neck and grey as an ancient, yet close to Egil’s age. “Erik’s like me,” Egil said, tumbling onto the thick skins beside her. “We learned to fly on the same day. Are you enjoying yourself?”
Skarga felt her neck muscles cramp. “No, not in the slightest. But it’s interesting. And I have to know, don’t I, what it’s like. And if I’m going to stay, I have to face it, and not hide away.”
Erik wriggled up beside Egil, keeping his distance from the raging heat of the fire. “Oh, we’re all shy when we first get here. I was petrified. Not any more of course. This is nicer than home ever was. No judgements. No beatings from my father.”
The rich red wine was bringing its own comfort. Skarga lowered her voice. “I can understand why most of you don’t like humans. But can’t they understand what it’s like for me too? Being the only one – the only human. The only woman.”
Erik said, “We’re all the only one.”
“And how many are listening in on my thoughts? Reading my mind?” She felt almost as exposed as when Grimr marched her naked through his halls.
But Egil shook his head and Erik said, “I can’t. No good at it at all.”
“Maybe the birds have fewer mind skills,” said Egil. “Safn doesn’t hear much either, he’s the raven. Birds speak aloud, make more noise. Is that the difference?”
“The wolves read thoughts,” said Erik. “Pack animals have stronger intuition. But not in this noisy squash. Every man’s thoughts all jumbled, one on top of the other? Thoddun does. A few others. Not many.”
Skarga was reassured. “Anyway, that’s what I like here,” said Egil. “We don’t have to hide anything.”
“We don’t have to reveal it all either.” Skarga hoped Thoddun was engrossed in his own discussions with Orm. “I don’t want to shout my private feelings to the mountains.”
Egil sniggered. “You’ve been travelling with Lord Thoddun. I suppose that was difficult sometimes. After all, he’s a Fourfold. He hears everyone’s thoughts. No one else gets it clear like him.”
The crush in the hall was opening. Men had slumped, fallen insensible against the far walls, or left. Many of the larger animals had gone. Having seen her, judged her, and disliked her, they went, returning to their beds or the wild beauty of the snows beyond the castle, hunting under the stars, wind in their fur.
Erik lowered his voice. “You haven’t heard the talk from the back of the hall. Just as well you can’t read minds.”
Skarga was immediately uncomfortable and hung her head, whispering. “There’s one that keeps staring. He looks like a troll. Huge and ugly and angry. One of the dark ones I suppose, who hate humans.”
Egil turned his head. The giant from across the shadows glared back. Egil muttered, “That’s Kjeld. He’s all right.”
“And Kjeld does read minds,” said Erik.
“I’ll fill the cups,” said Egil quickly, grabbing and running.
Thoddun had refocused his attention. Skarga turned to him as the boys scurried off. His hand had not shifted from her shoulder, but now he looked at her and frowned. “I forget sometimes,” he said softly, “how much humans do not know. So there are circumstances I should have warned you about, but did not. There are, for instance, no trolls here, because there are no trolls anywhere. They are the invention of the bards.”
“Was I impolite? But you were talking with Orm and I didn’t think you’d hear.”
Thoddun smiled. “Many in the hall heard you,” he said. “You were not to know. Kjeld is a good man but a little tired of humanity’s censure. Later on he will search you out, but is timid in company. You can trust him, if it interests you to do so.”
“I’m sorry. But I didn’t expect to be overheard. How can they hear?”
“Because we are transanima child,” he answered her. “The children are untrained, but the rest of us are not. From the clouds an owl hears the breathing of a mouse in its hole beneath the ground. The wolf hears the deer’s cough for a hundred flights of the arrow. The dolphin can call to his pod across the ocean’s tides.”
Skarga sniffed. “And – of course – the bear?”
He laughed. “The bear hears each small sniff, even over the storm. And he smells the discomfort of a female, even as she hibernates in her den, far away.”
“So I can’t talk in private. I can’t even think in private.”
“I warned you,” Thoddun said. “Each man in this hall is concentrated on you. You cannot see it, but I assure you they are. Under these circumstances, they will hear your thoughts, even through the noise of the crowd. Even those whose skills are small, will hear you, because they wish it. They are listening to us now.”
“I’m being judged,” she said. “That’s something even I can feel.”
“If you feel that, then you are learning transanima instincts child,” he said. “Even if true, like most students just beginning, your assumptions are usually wrong.”
Skarga took the full wine cup that Egil brought her. “I’m trying not to be judgemental myself,” she said. “But I’m very outnumbered.”
“That is how all of us have felt in the past,” said Thoddun.
She sipped her wine wished her thoughts could be hers alone. Egil and Erik, tactfully absent while Thoddun had talked with her, sidled back, but spoke to each other over their own wine, voices increasingly slurred. She hoped her own words did not sound so tipsy, turning in the direction of sudden noise, aimlessly watching the distant scuffle. Sudden fury, one punch, a drawn knife, pulled apart by friends, threats and then the sentimental clasp of friendship. The usual diversions of any feast. But no drunken fumblings, one man to another man’s wife or a slave girl dragged squealing into a corner. If these men found her strange, a curiosity, even threatening, it meant they had nothing to do with humans of either sex.
And if they had no women of their own – but not a subject for overheard thoughts. Distracting herself, she wondered how long Thoddun would accept her presence in a place where she had no right. She wondered if his new found fondness for her would survive the difficulties of protecting her from an entire population of his own people, and if he would soon begin to dislike her once more. Drinking for solace, she became maudlin, deciding that if Thoddun grew to dislike her again she would end up crying the night through, alone in his bed.
Then to all the other emotions she added fury when Thoddun laughed out loud, turned to her and said, “Then you’ll make my nice warm bed very damp and spoil it for both of us.” She glared at him which did not seem to quieten him at all. “And,” he continued, “I do not dislike you, and doubt if I should ever be able to do so again. We’ve got pas
t that stage, I think.”
“You cheat,” she accused, managing not to sniff, “you listen to me on purpose. And if you keep telling me off like a naughty child, then of course I feel disliked.”
“Do I do that? How objectionable.”
“You know you do. You mean to,” said Skarga.
“Remember, little one, that I am predator,” he said, very softly, so that it sounded like the beginnings of a song. The hand on her shoulder slipped upwards, his fingers playing in her hair. “Perhaps sometimes I’m unkind. I do not easily empathise with another’s sensitivities. Vulnerability urges me to attack, not sympathise.” Then his other hand reached around beneath her breasts and pulled her back so that he part cradled her, and she turned her cheek to the little hollow at the base of his neck where his shirt was open, and his skin was warm. “Hush now,” he said, “and I will make amends.”
Muffled at first, like rain outside a window, the crowd had begun to chant. Thoddun’s heartbeat became the rhythm. This time he also sang, a vibration so deep that it pulsed through her from his body. A low wordless humming, and then murmured words, and into the language she did not understand: all the sounds of nature, the wind between the trees and the blizzard across the open snows, the tides rushing in on the sands and the flutter of a bird’s wing overhead.
His voice held her as tightly as his hands. She blinked, unwilling to close her eyes, as if she might lose herself entirely. She saw Egil singing, and Erik too, eyes shining. The music swelled. Skarga looked around and saw Kjeld, huge and happy, across the room. His big lipless gape mouthed the sounds and he drummed on his upturned bowl. Skarga turned back to Thoddun and peeped up at him. She could just see the intense blue glitter of his eyes beneath lowered lids. She wondered if he would feel the urgency of her own heartbeat, and would guess what it meant.
Stars and a Wind- The Complete Trilogy Page 37