Kari scrambled through the smoke to Jessa. As he caught hold of her the weight on her chest seemed to burst; she breathed in, sick and dizzy.
“Where is she?” he yelled, but Jessa shook her head and jerked back as the tapestry fell, a roaring sheet of flame, from the wall.
“This way!” she screamed.
They ran to the door and tugged. It didn’t move. Jessa slammed her palms against it and whirled around. “The windows, then!”
But the windows were shuttered, the hall a closed cage of burning cloth. Smoke stung their eyes; they were coughing and retching. High overhead the roof tree crackled, spilling sparks like blossoms.
Outside, a voice was yelling. Something thumped on the door.
Jessa slammed and kicked at it. “How can we get out?”
“We can’t.”
He dragged her down and they gasped the cold air near the floor. Then she looked at him. To her astonishment she saw he was half smiling. She forced herself to be calm. “What are you going to do?”
“This.”
He kneeled in the smoke, his hands gripped into fists.
And the smoke turned white. It gathered itself together into hard grains and fell silently. It fell from the darkness up there in the rafters; fell as a gentle, relentless snow, onto the flames, onto Jessa’s hair and upturned face. The air grew cold; the water on her cheeks froze. Soot hardened to a black glaze, and the flames sank. Tapestries stiffened into rigid folds and hard, crumpled masses on the flagstones.
Slowly, easily, the snow fell, whitening floor and tables, hanging like frail lace on their clothes, and on Gudrun’s, as she sat in the center of the hall, watching them.
She sat calmly in a great chair, her face expressionless. On a stool at her feet huddled the wizened old man Grettir, looking more ancient than ever. His long eyes watched them both carefully. Jessa stared back. Had they been there all the time, in all that flame and smoke?
Suddenly someone outside yelled. The door shuddered, as if something heavy had struck it.
The witch stood up and came forward. The old man followed her like a dog. She seemed slightly smaller, almost as if something had gone from her. Close up, Jessa saw the faint lines on her face as she kneeled thoughtfully by Kari.
“It seems you’re right,” she said. “There are two of us now.” She smiled at him. “So I will do you the greatest harm I can. I’ll give you what you want.”
“What do you mean?” he muttered.
“I leave it all to you,” she said. “With this curse. They will never love you, never trust you. Power like ours is a terror to them. You’ll see that. Your new Jarl will want to be rid of you as soon as he can.” She touched his shoulder lightly. “And you’ll use them, as I did. It’s what we always do.”
Then she was on her feet, walking to the black folds of tapestry. She tugged them back, and there was the small arch Jessa remembered. The door shuddered again. Gudrun ignored it, and turned and tossed something down that rolled and lay on the stone flags. “Keep this,” she said. “One day I may come back for it.”
As she turned he said, “You’re wrong about me. I’m not like you.”
“We’ll see,” she said. Jessa thought she was smiling. Then she was gone, the old man close behind, into the stone passages behind the curtain.
After a moment Jessa turned and ran to the door. She pulled the latch and it lifted easily; she tugged the heavy door wide. The men outside stared at her, but someone gave a great shout and grabbed her arms. She saw it was Brochael, with a crowd of others at his back.
“Where’s Kari?”
“Inside.”
They surged past her. She saw Gudrun’s men standing uncertain outside, but she left them and followed Thorkil.
“Where’s Gudrun?” he asked.
She shook her head, suddenly tired.
Wulfgar had picked the object off the floor. He gave it to Kari, who fingered the knotted snakeskin.
“Search the hold,” Brochael said, but Kari shook his head.
“You won’t find her. She’s gone.”
“But where?”
“Back. Wherever she came from.”
“For good?” Brochael asked gruffly.
Kari shrugged. “That’s more than I can say.” Suddenly he turned to Wulfgar. “Well. Here we are in your hall. It seems the Wulfings have come home at last.”
The skald went over and kicked the frozen mass of the fire.
“And not a moment too soon,” he remarked.
Twenty-One
Silence becomes the son of a prince.
By morning the whole of the Jarlshold had been searched, but there was no sign of Gudrun or Grettir. How she had vanished from among them no one knew, but it was said later that a man who farmed up on the fells to the east had seen a woman, dressed all in white, walking swiftly and tirelessly over the snow, with a dark figure like a shadow behind her. Terrified, he had hurried indoors to the firelight.
First thing in the morning the men of the Jarlshold and all the surrounding settlements had gathered in the great hall, staring at the travelers curiously. Many of them could not tear their eyes from Kari as he sat quietly talking to Brochael and Wulfgar. Jessa knew that the presence of so many people was making him uneasy; she caught his eye and smiled and he did the same. Wulfgar was voted Jarl with a great roar of approval, no one disagreeing, but afterward, in the crush and excitement, Kari was missing. She searched for him, pushing her way to Thorkil.
“Have you seen Kari?”
He shook his head. “Elsewhere, I suppose. Not used to all these people.”
But when she asked Brochael, he paused for a moment and shrugged a little unhappily. “I have an idea where he might be. Come on.”
As she followed him out of the hall, she heard silence fall behind her, and into it came the skald’s voice, clear and sharp, chanting an old song in praise of the Wulfings, a chain of words, lilting and proud. Looking back, she saw Wulfgar sitting in the Jarl’s chair, relaxing in it lazily, his fingers moving over the worn arms as Ragnar’s had done. Behind him, Thorkil leaned.
She followed Brochael. They went down into a part of the Jarlshold she had never seen: a long dark corridor at the foot of a flight of damp steps. On each side were small rooms, their windows barred, and the stench from them stale and fetid.
“Her prisons,” Brochael growled. “Full, till this morning.”
His voice echoed in the stone tunnel.
She followed him to the very end, deep in the rock under the hold. The door of the last room was ajar, and he pushed it open. They saw a very small cell, long neglected. The walls were dark with grime and soot. Old straw rustled under their feet; one tiny window let in the light.
Kari stood at the far end of the room, looking at something on the wall. Jessa saw it was some faint scrawl of circles and spirals, almost worn away with age. His hair shone pale and clean, and he wore the new clothes that Wulfgar had given them all from the Jarl’s store. He turned around when he heard them.
“Why come here?” Brochael asked gruffly.
“Just to look. To see if I remembered it right.” After a moment he took the snakeskin bracelet from his pocket and fingered it, dropping it silently into the cold ashes in the fireplace. Then he came out and closed the door.
Brochael put an arm around him. “Come on. The lord Jarl will be having his first feast tonight. Everyone will want to stare at you as he loads you with gold and gives us all rings and horses. Asgrim will be here within days, when he hears.”
“I don’t want his gold,” Kari said. “But I would like Thrasirshall—whatever is left of it.”
Brochael nodded. “You’ll get it! Who else would want it?” He grinned at Jessa. “And the new lady of Horolfstead will be wearing her best, I expect?”
“All borrowed.” Jessa laughed.
Kari laughed too. Then he turned and raised his hands, and made a small movement.