“Is he?” Vidar pressed him closer. “How much do you really know about him? Really?”
“He drove Gudrun away. Jessa saw it. There was some sorcerous battle of wills. You can’t deny he did that for us.”
“No!” Vidar said eagerly. “He did that for himself! Now that she’s gone he is the most powerful. He’s her son, her image. You saw how he twisted our minds just now—he has her blood, her secret, evil guile. You can’t ignore that. And his father was the Jarl before you—perhaps he feels he should have been chosen. He wants to be Jarl himself!”
Wulfgar shook his head, but slowly. “He had his chance.”
“No, he didn’t. He was too young then, not ready. What has he been doing up there in Thrasirshall for two years but gathering his powers, weaving runes, knotting the forces of air and darkness together? Now he’s ready! And the words of the god mean him. A pale creature, come from the north. Remember that he arrived then, at that moment.”
Barely breathing, Hakon watched the Jarl. He was staring grimly at nothing. “I won’t believe this.”
“You must! You must, Wulfgar, and not let what you see as a debt of honor blind you! Kari is strange, ambiguous, dangerous! And the creature may even be his!”
The priest gripped Wulfgar’s wrist with his hand; the Jarl stared at him. “His?”
“He does not want us to hunt it. Why not? What other reasons can there be but that he brought it here? To kill you. Then he will take over.”
Wulfgar shrugged him off. “And Brochael? What about him?”
The priest spread his hands. “It would be better not to trust either of them.”
“Not Brochael too…” Raising his head wearily, Wulfgar saw Hakon and glared at him. Then he said, “Get out.”
Hakon went to the door quickly.
“Wait!”
Wulfgar stood up slowly, as if a great burden was on him. “You’ve been helpful to me, Hakon, and I thank you for that, but you’ve heard words here you shouldn’t have heard. That should not even have been spoken. I want you to forget them.”
It could have been a threat. With Skuli there would have been a blow, to reinforce it. Not just this uneasy sadness.
You won’t forget them, Hakon thought. But he nodded and went out of the room.
Halfway down the stairs he realized that he was free. Let the Jarl worry about traitors. He had some time without work!
Slipping through the hall, he saw Skuli loudly voicing some slurred opinion, so he edged through the door into the sunlight and wandered into the hold. Freedom washed over him—no one giving him orders, no backbreaking fetching and carrying! In a dream of delight he explored the Jarlshold, watched the boats unload fish and casks and bales of cloth, climbed aboard merchants’ longships and fingered their silks and engraved silver rings. There were swords there he would have given almost anything to own, to be able to use them, to wield them well. As he watched Wulfgar’s picked men whetting their blades and laughing on benches in the sunshine, something moved in him like an ache of hunger. He forced himself not to feel it, and with long practice, almost succeeded. None of that was for him. He was a thrall, a possession, something owned. And seared by a cold sorcery.
As he turned bitterly away he saw the skald again, sitting with his long legs stretched out, touching the strings of the kantele into soft, tuneless notes. Next to him sat the girl Hakon had noticed that morning, her long hair loose, her sharp, clever eyes watching him.
Jessa Horolfsdaughter. The sorcerer’s friend.
She beckoned him over.
For a moment he hesitated; then habit took over and he went.
“How can I serve you?” he asked sullenly.
“I don’t want you to serve me.” She laughed. “We thought you might like some wine.”
Astonished, he watched her pour it. The cup was gilt, with tiny red enameled birds around it, wingtip to wingtip. He picked it up, left-handed, awkward.
“We saw you watching the war band,” the skald muttered, twanging a string near his ear. “A short life, the warrior’s.”
“But a proud one.”
They both looked at him.
Jessa said, “We think you did well, saving the children. Skuli should have been grateful, though by the look of him I doubt that.”
He shrugged.
“Have you always been with him?” Her tone was friendly, and though he resented the question, he answered it. “Not always. I was born a free man. But my parents died and I was no use on my uncle’s farm, not after… Well, I was sold to Skuli to pay off a debt.”
They were both silent. Distaste, he supposed. Good, let them feel it.
“But your hand.” The poet turned his thin sharp face. “You can’t use it?”
“No.” Hakon was used to this curiosity. He lifted it with the other, feeling the cold of the skin. “There’s no feeling, nothing, from the wrist down.”
They didn’t ask, but he told them anyway. “It was done to punish me. For theft.”
Jessa looked startled. “You stole?”
“I was five years old. I took some food from a plate when my uncle had guests. Important guests. I was beaten, but then she said that wasn’t enough. She gave me her own, lasting punishment.”
Skapti sat up. “She? You don’t mean…”
“Yes. The Jarl’s wife. The witch. She touched my hand with one long finger, and it turned to ice. There was no pain, nothing, but I couldn’t open my hand and I never have been able to since. She seared me with her sorcery and she laughed. I remember her, every look of her, and when I saw him today I saw her again.” He stood up. “Your friend’s mother did this, lady.”
Jessa frowned at him. “She did worse to her son. You can’t blame him.”
Hakon nodded calmly. “But he’s still her son. He has her blood, her powers.” Remembering Vidar’s words, he echoed them, deliberately mocking. “You can’t ignore that.”
Seventeen
The fleetness of the serpent
wound itself together.
Jessa knocked on the wooden door and Brochael opened it.
“Come inside,” he said abruptly.
The small room was dark, with only the fire to light it. The shutters hung half open; a few stars glittered in the deepening blue sky.
Kari sat on the floor, his knees drawn up and his thin arms wrapped around them. His eyes were closed.
“Is he asleep?” she whispered.
He looked up at her then and said, “No. Just a bit tired. Sit down, Jessa.”
Brochael had eased his weight down on the bench, so she sat on the floor, leaning back against his knees. In the warm comfort of the room they were all silent for a moment, but there was an underlying unease, as if the two of them had been quarrelling before she came in, though she could hardly believe that.
Kari watched the flames. Their light flickered on the pale edges of his hair.
“Can you see anything?” she asked eagerly.
“Not yet. Give me a while.”
She flicked a satisfied look at Brochael, but it faded instantly as she saw how he was watching Kari, with an unhappiness in his face that shocked her. Then she saw the reason.
Tied around Kari’s wrist, half-hidden by his dark sleeve, was a small, knotted bracelet made of snakeskin.
She recognized it at once, with a kind of horror.
It was the bracelet Gudrun had worn. Two years ago the witch had taken it off as she left and thrown it down on the floor—a reminder of her power, her long tyranny over them all.
“Keep it,” she’d said.
But Kari had thrown it away; he’d locked it in the dungeon far below the hall, the damp cell where he had been a prisoner as a small child; a child without speech, unable to run, not knowing what people were, what the outside air was like. It had been there ever since, she supposed.
And now?
Jessa’s mind raced. He’d obviously been down there. He’d opened the room, picked the snakeskin from the ashes … but why? Why would he? She tried to catch Brochael’s eye, but he wouldn’t look at her. His usual cheerful smile was gone; she had never seen him look so confused, so miserable. She glanced back at the bracelet. Kari must have a reason for this. They shouldn’t start thinking stupid, unforgivable things. He wasn’t Gudrun. He wasn’t.