«Travelling in those light clothes this far north. Those that hunt the red bear» — he made a curious motion of his hand as though tracing the outline of an eyebolt in the air — «need warm hides as well as stout hearts.» Again he gave Shea that curiously intent glance, as though trying to ravel some secret out of him.
Shea asked: «This is May, isn’t it? I understood you’re pretty far north, but you ought to get over this cold snap soon.»
The man Sverre moved his shoulders in a gesture of bafflement. «Mought, and then mought not. Men say this would be the Fimbulwinter. If that’s so, there’ll be little enough of warm till the roaring trumpet blows and the Sons of the Wolf ride from the East, at the Time.»
Shea would have put a question of his own, but Sverre had turned away grumpily. He got rid of his clammy shorts instead, turning to note that Sverre had picked up his wrist watch.
«That’s a watch,» he offered in a friendly voice.
«A thing of power?» Sverre looked at him again, and then a smile of comprehension distended the wide beard as he slapped his knee. «Of course. Mought have known. You came in with the Wanderer. You’re all right. One of those southern warlocks.»
From somewhere he produced a blanket and whisked it around Shea’s nude form. «This way now,» he ordered. Shea followed through a couple of doors to another small room, so full of wood smoke that it made him cough. He started to rub his eyes, then just in time caught at the edge of his blanket. There were two girls standing by the door, neither of them in the least like the Irish colleens he had expected to find. Both were blonde, apple-cheeked, and rather beamy. They reminded him disagreeably of Gertrude Mugler.
Sverre introduced them; «This here’s my daughter Aud. She’s a shield girl; can lick her weight in polar bears.» Shea, observing the brawny miss, silently agreed. «And this is Hallgerda. All right, you go on in. The water’s ready to pour.»
In the centre of the small room was a sunken hearth full of fire. On top of the fire had been laid a lot of stones about the size of potatoes. Two wooden buckets full of water sat by the hearth.
The girls went out, closing the door. Shea, with the odd sensation that he had experienced all this at some previous time — «it must be part of the automatic adjustment one’s mind makes to the pattern of this world,» he told himself — picked up one of the buckets. He threw it rapidly on the fire, then followed it with the other. With a hiss, the room filled with water vapour.
Shea stood it as long as he could, which was about a minute, then groped blindly for the door and gasped out. instantly a bucketful of ice water hit him in the face. As he stood pawing the air and making strangled noises a second bucketful caught him in the chest. He yelped, managing to choke out, «Glup. stop. that’s enough!»
Somewhere in the watery world a couple of girls were giggling. it was not till his eyes cleared that he realized it was they who had drenched him, and that he was standing between them without his protecting blanket.
His first impulse was to dash back into the steam room. But one of the pair was holding out a towel which it seemed only courtesy to accept. Sverre was approaching unconcernedly with a mug of something. Well, he thought, if they can take it, I can. He discovered that after the first horrible moment his embarrassment had vanished. He dried himself calmly while Sverre held out the mug. The girls’ clinical indifference to the physical Shea was more than ever like Gertrude.
«Hot mead,» Sverre explained. «Something you don’t get down south. Aud, get the stranger’s blanket. We don’t want him catching cold.»
Shea took a gulp of the mead, to discover that it tasted something like ale and something like honey. The sticky sweetness of the stuff caught him in the throat at first, but he was more afraid of losing face before these people than of being sick. Down it went, and after the first gulp it wasn’t so bad. He began to feel almost human.
«What’s your name, stranger?» inquired Sverre.
Shea thought a minute. These people probably didn’t use family names, So he said simply, «Harold.»
«Hungh?»
Shea repeated, more distinctly. «Oh,» said Sverre. «Harald.» He made it rhyme with «dolled».
Dressed, except for his boots, Shea took the place on the bench that Sverre indicated. As he waited for food he glanced round the hall. Nearest him was a huge middle-aged man with red hair and beard, whose appearance made Shea’s mind leap to Sverre’s phrase about «the red bear». His dark-red cloak felt back to show a belt with carved gold work on it. Next to him sat another redhead, more on the sandy order, small-boned and foxy-faced, with quick, shifty eyes. Beyond Foxy-face was a blond young man of about Shea’s size and build, with a little golden fuzz on his face.
At the middle of the bench two pillars of black wood rose from floor to ceiling, heavily carved, and so near the table that they almost cut off one seat. It was now occupied by the grey-bearded, one-eyed man Shea had followed in from the road. His floppy hat was on the table before him, and he was half leaning around one of the pillars to talk to another big blond man — a stout chap whose face bore an expression of permanent good nature, overlaid with worry. Leaning against the table at his side was an empty scabbard that could have held a sword as large as the one Shea had noticed on the wall.
The explorer’s eye, roving along the table, caught and was held by that of the slim young man. The latter nodded, then rose and came round the table, grinning bashfully.
«WouId ye like a seat companion?» he asked. «You know how it is, as Hбvamбl says:
Care eats the heart If you cannot speak
To another all your thought.»
He half-chanted the lines, accenting the alliteration in a way that made the rhymeless verse curiously attractive. He went on: «It would help me a lot with the Time coming, to talk to a plain human being. I don’t mind saying I’m scared. My name’s Thjalfi.»
«Mine’s Harald,» said Shea, pronouncing it as Sverre had done.
«You came with the Wanderer, didn’t ye? Are ye one of those outland warlocks?»
It was the second time Shea had been accused of that. «I don’t know what a warlock is, honest,» said he, «and I didn’t come with the Wanderer. I just got lost and followed him here, and ever since I’ve been trying to find out where I am.»
Thjalfi laughed, then took a long drink of mead. As Shea wondered what there was to laugh at, the young man said; «No offence, friend Harald. Only it does seem mighty funny for man to say he’s lost at Crossroads of the World. Ha, ha, I never did hear the like.»
«The where did you say?»
«Sure, the Crossroads of the World. You must come from seven miles beyond the moon not to know that. Hai! You picked a queer time to come, with all of Them here» — he jerked his finger towards the four bearded men. «Well, I’d keep quiet about not having the power, if I was you. Ye know what the Hбvamбl says:
To the silent and sage Does care seldom come
When he goes to a house as guest.
Ye’re likely to be in a jam when the trouble starts if ye don’t have protection from one of Them, but as long as They think ye’re a warlock, Uncle Fox will help you out.»
He jabbed a finger to indicate the small, sharp-featured man among the four, then went on quickly: «Or are ye a hero? If ye are, I can get Redbeard to take ye into his service when the Time comes.»
«What time? Tell me what this is all—» began Shea, but at that moment Aud and another girl appeared with wooden platters loaded with food.
«Hai, sis!» called Thjalfi cheerfully, and tried to grab a chop from the platter carried by the second, a girl Shea had not previously seen. The girl kicked him neatly on the shin and set it before the late-comer.