“Brochael says take as little as you can,” she said. “We’ll have to carry everything ourselves, remember.”
He muttered something and sat down. She turned her head.
“What’s wrong?”
Thorkil laughed briefly. “Nothing! We’re leaving this place, for a start. That makes me happy enough.”
“Does it?” She threaded the laces of the bag swiftly. “I didn’t want to come here either—I think I was more frightened than you even—but since I’ve been here, I’ve been happy, in an odd sort of way. And now we know Kari’s not…”
“Yes!” Thorkil breathed a sigh of exasperation. “Kari! Thinking he was some sort of deformed creature was bad, but I’m not sure the truth isn’t worse. He’s her, Jessa. Every time he looks at me I shiver.”
“No,” she said, shaking her head. “He’s not her. He just looks the same. But that doesn’t mean they are the same.”
For a moment they both sat side by side, thinking.
Then she pulled his hair playfully. “Worrier. Be a warrior. And I see you’re still wearing the lady’s present, anyway.”
He shrugged, and touched the arm ring. “That’s because it won’t come off.”
Surprised, Jessa looked at it. “I thought it was loose enough before.”
“A bit looser. Perhaps the cold here has made it shrink. Anyway, it won’t come off, and it doesn’t matter. No one can steal it this way.”
She put her hand on the smooth snake and tugged at it, but he was right. It gripped his wrist without a gap.
“Perhaps it’s swallowed a bit more of its tail.” He laughed.
There was something in his voice for a moment that was new to her; a strange tone. But when she looked at him he laughed and stood up, his longish brown hair brushing the collar of the red jerkin. “Don’t worry, Jessa, I won’t bring much. I may like fine things, but I’m too lazy to carry them far!”
And they both laughed in the cold room.
That evening, around the fire in the darkness downstairs, they made their plans.
“We’ll go south,” Brochael said. “After all, it’s the only way you can go from this godforsaken place. To the north is nothing but ice, mountains and seas of it, and mists. Beyond that, Gunningagap, the rift into blackness. Only sorcerers could live up there.”
Jessa flicked a glance at Kari; he sat curled up against Brochael’s knees, his face a shifting mask of firelight and shadows.
“And then where?” Thorkil asked. “A ship?”
“No ship would take us,” Brochael said curtly. “And I don’t intend to try. The weather’s beginning to turn milder. Spring is coming. We’ll go overland—it will be hard, but safer. And there’s a place—an old hall, one of the Wulfings’ hunting halls in the mountains. That’s the place we’re going.”
“Will we be safe there?” Jessa asked, surprised.
Brochael shrugged. “As anywhere. But that’s the meeting place. It’s all been arranged, long ago. The Jarl’s death will bring them.”
Kari shifted, as if the fire scorched him. One of the ravens gave a low croak; the flames crackled and hissed over damp wood.
“And after?” Thorkil insisted. “What then? Will these mysterious allies of yours have swordsmen, horses, axmen? Will they fight against Gudrun?”
“We’ll see.” Brochael gave his rich laugh. “You’re very curious, aren’t you, lad.”
Thorkil shrugged. “Wary, that’s all.”
And then Kari said, very quietly, “We should start tomorrow.”
Brochael looked at him.
After a moment he said, “What is it?”
“A ship.” Kari watched the flames; his voice was quiet. “A ship with a dragon prow. She’s beached, on a rocky shore.”
“Can you show us?” Brochael kept his voice low.
Kari did not answer. His gaze seemed to be on something deep in the fire; Jessa stared too, trying to see.
And then, in the shifting of a burned log, the ship was there. She saw it through the flames, as if it was behind them, a little beyond. Horses were being led off, down a steep ramp into the water that swirled and sank through the shingle. Men stood about, some holding torches that guttered and spat. She could smell pitch and resin, the salt tang of the fjord, hear a gull crying, far off.
“That’s Trond.” Thorkil’s voice came out of the darkness. Jessa nodded. She had already recognized the steep cliffs, and among a group of men, Sigmund Graycloak, his hair swept across his face by the night wind.
But the men coming from the boat were some she had seen about the Jarlshold; silent, rough men, each with a serpent mark tattooed down his cheek—Gudrun’s own choice. She counted ten or more. An ashen shield was flung down, then spears, heavy packs. Then the flames flickered in the draft, and there was only darkness behind the fire.
She looked at Brochael. “How can they have gotten so far already? It’s impossible. It took us three days to reach Trond....”
His bleak expression answered her; she caught her breath as the thought leaped into her mind. “She sent them out before? Before Ragnar was dead?”
Brochael nodded silently, rubbing his beard. For a while no one spoke, each of them thinking. Jessa felt again that sudden urge of panic that she had known so long ago in the Jarlshall; could almost think she smelled Gudrun’s sweet scent, hear the drift and rustle of her movements.
Raising her head, she stared at the flames.
Gudrun looked back at her.
The sorceress was surrounded by candles; a halo of light that lit the sharpness of her smile, the eager glint of her eyes.
Transfixed with fear, Jessa hardly breathed, but Kari stretched out his foot and nudged a log. It shifted with a shower of sparks. Wood fell, settled. The fire leaped up; it showed Jessa the dark room, Kari’s face with a bleak pain in it, Brochael’s grim and angry.
“Did she see us?” Thorkil whispered.
“No.” Kari’s fingers shook; he clenched them. “She tries—often. But I won’t let her. Not anymore.”
Behind him something shuffled in the darkness. The raven, with a hop and a flutter, perched on the chair behind Brochael’s shoulder. Its eyes were tiny red sparks in the flame light.
Thirteen
Odin, they said, swore an oath on his ring;
Who from now on will trust him?
They left at midmorning. Brochael had food ready. They ate it quickly, in a tense silence. Jessa watched Kari until he glanced at her with his sharp look, then she smiled. Doubtfully he smiled back.
When everything was ready Brochael flung water on the fire and hauled a heavy pack onto his back. He picked up an ax and shoved it into his belt. “Well, I brought little; I’m taking away less.” He grinned at Jessa. “It will be interesting to see how the world has changed.”
Outside they wrapped themselves in cloaks and hoods and thick gloves. The wind was cold; it was coming from the north and brought flecks of snow. Overhead the two ravens flapped against the clouds.
“They’ll miss you,” Jessa said.
Kari looked up. “They’re coming. They go where I go.”
He turned and looked back at the hall, at the black walls trapped in their gleaming coats of ice. “It’s strange,” he whispered. “I feel as if I’m stepping out of myself, like a snake out of its skin.”
“Come on.” Brochael caught his arm. “If her men catch us here, that’s just what we’ll all be doing.”
Kari pulled a dark, ragged scarf up around his face. Then Brochael led them across the courtyard and under the broken archway, out into the snow.
All that long afternoon they walked, one in the footsteps of the other, up the long slopes of the mountain. The wind whistled against them, as if it would push them back; the snow underfoot was soft under the top layer of thin, crunchy ice. They crossed the glacier carefully, slithering on the flat snow swirls, watching for cracks and crevasses, moving swiftly on the scree and tumbled stones. Once over, they climbed again, along the sheer side of the fell, heading south, floundering through the soft, wetter snow. By the time they reached the top, the sky was dark purple, with a few stars scattered across it, faint as dust. Far off in the north, a pale aurora flickered over the mountain peaks.