I sat for a moment, unnerved by the lack of motion. Thor let out a grunt and shifted on the bench, still passed out. I stood and made my way forward to the prow. The sun had not yet risen and the light was the same dim gray. Despite my many layers of clothing, I was shivering again. I lowered a plank from the side of the knorr. Using it as a bridge I descended to the beach.
I stood by the hull for a moment, swaying dizzily after such a long time at sea. But then I heard a noise coming from the beach. I turned and saw the strange shapes I had thought to be stones moving across the beach toward me, their feet making quiet crunching sounds in the snow. The one closest to me raised a hand and all the others stopped, but the small figure with the raised hand kept moving toward me. I stayed very still, my heart beating fast.
It was a woman with dark, creased skin and narrow bright-black eyes. She was dressed from head to toe in various animal skins. She wore a hood with silver-gray fur around her face. The fur obscured her features, save for those penetrating black eyes.
She stepped forward until our noses were almost touching, and stared directly into my eyes. I stared back, which turned out to be the right thing to do, for I found out later that she was the local shaman and was then reading my soul with her eyes. Had I looked down or away from her, the shaman would have deemed that I had things to hide—and I most likely would have been killed.
As it was, the shaman apparently found my soul to be satisfactory, or at least harmless, for she smiled at me and then spoke. I didn't understand her, though the language was vaguely familiar to me, with a faint echo of Njorden.
I said, "I am from Njord."
"Ah, Njord." She nodded, then gestured at the knorr, taking several steps toward it.
Assuming that meant she wished to board the ship, I led her to the makeshift gangplank. She followed me aboard and slowly made her way from fore to aft, her eyes sweeping the battered knorr. She came to a stop in front of Thor, who was still sprawled in a drunken stupor. Leaning over his prostrate body, she reached out and held up the tarnished hammer necklace he wore, inspecting it closely. Then she took her thumb and raised his eyelid, revealing the bloodshot white of one eye.
Looking at me she said something that sounded like the Njorden word for illness. I shook my head and pantomimed drinking a mug of ale.
A slow smile creased her face and she nodded in understanding. Then she crossed to the prow and called out to the figures standing on the shore.
They responded by gathering around the knorr and pulling the vessel far up onto the beach. I clung to the mast to keep my footing.
The woman gestured for me to follow her as she disembarked. "I am Malmo," she said as she stood facing me on the beach.
"My name is Rose," I replied, wondering if we should shake hands. But she did not offer her hand.
Instead she said, "You will come with Malmo." She then set out across the beach, away from the knorr.
"But my friend..."
"We bring him, too," Malmo said.
And I followed her. For some reason I trusted Malmo. Perhaps I had inadvertently looked into her soul as she was inspecting mine; I sensed that she meant me no harm.
She led me away from the water until we came to a cluster of stone buildings. Malmo directed me to one of the larger buildings and opened the flap of animal skin that served as a door, gesturing for me to enter.
"Malmo home," the shaman said by way of explanation. The building was a small structure made of stone, clay, and dried grass. It had two rooms, both small; one was for cooking and eating, the other for sleeping.
Malmo gestured for me to sit, handing me a fur-skin for warmth. Then she went outside again, leaving me alone briefly. She soon reappeared with several of her people, who were carrying Thor. He was still unconscious and they laid him on a raised sleeping platform, then covered him with fur-skins.
Two women entered the home, bearing bowls of stew and steaming cups of mead. Malmo smiled at me, saying, "Eat, rest." And once again she departed.
Hungrily I ate, then bundled myself into the furs. I sat there, Thor snoring softly nearby, and thought about all that had happened since I'd left the castle. And for the first time I found I could think about the white bear with some kind of hope. I was getting close to where he was. Warmed by those thoughts, and by the stew and hot mead in my belly, I drifted into sleep.
Book Four
North
She traveled on the back of the North Wind to the very end of the world.
Rose
WE HAD COME TO the village of Neyak on the northeastern coast of Gronland. Malmo showed it to me on the map. She and her people were Inuit and had lived on that land since Sedna, the Mother of Sea Beasts, came to guard the oceans. Malmo knew the Njorden language because whale hunters from Njord had come to their land before. She had nothing good to say about them, though. Her opinion of the Vikings was even lower. They had been the first to come in their longboats—with their hammers of the thunder god Thor around their necks—bringing devastation and fear to the Inuit, whom the Vikings called Skraelings, or "the ugly ones." It had taken the Inuit years to get rid of the marauding invaders, and there remained a distrust that had been passed down through the generations. Still, it was clear that my particular "Viking," with his broken limbs and giant hangover, did not exactly inspire fear.
Thor remained in his ale-induced sleep while Malmo and I talked. She knew enough Njorden that we were able to understand each other fairly well. I told her of the deadly storm we had encountered and of the loss of Gest and Goran. She asked where I was bound.
"North," I said. "Can you tell me about the lands that lie north of here?"
Malmo nodded gravely. "There is a land north of Gronland that forms the ice sky of the earth. There are tales from Inuit who lived long ago about an ice bridge that connects Gronland to the ice sky, but there is no one living now who has found the ice bridge—or at least who has returned to tell the tale."
"I will find it," I said.
"You? Find the ice bridge?" She chuckled, eyeing my clothing.
Pulling my cloak tighter around me, for I was cold even inside Malmo's home, I replied with a rueful look, "I know. But I am set on traveling north. I will do whatever I must."
"Why?" Malmo asked.
And I told her the entire story, just as I had told it to Thor—and to Sofi and Estelle before him.
She listened closely, her bright eyes intent on my face.
"Seku nanoa," she said, with a note of reverence in her voice. She took a stick from the fire and, using only a few, strokes, deftly drew the exact likeness of a white bear.
Then she looked at Thor in his near comatose state. "What will you do with the Viking?"
I was silent. I was ashamed to realize I hadn't thought about Thor at all, not when it came to my journey north. I gazed sideways at him, his beard and hair matted and wild, an arm and leg still wrapped in cloth that was stained with seawater, blood, and ale. And his ship was in little better shape than he.
The shaman looked from one to the other of us, then she leaned forward, gazing into my eyes.
"You journey on," she said, "and the old Viking will stay. There is healing here, if he will be healed. If not, he will find his own journey."