It?s natural for the old to dwell on the past, Rudi thought.
Her finger traced their path. The low hills gave way to flat land along the water?s edge; it was where the St. Croix-what the Norrheim folk called the Greyflood-gave out onto the ocean; sheltered still, but easy of access, and with islands and a rugged coast of fiords to the southward. ?The land is mostly cleared back a mile from the palisade,? the seeress said.?There are mills outside, here and here, and timber yards. Not much farmed land, just enough for summer pasture and truck gardens. The thorpe?s food mostly comes from the sea, and in trade down the river and from inland.?
Rudi was about to reply when one of the sentries sounded an alarm. They all looked up as the twins came gliding in on their skis, with Asgerd and Edain behind. His teeth showed a little at the sight of a man?s body slung over the younger Mackenzie?s back. ?We found him in the woods. Not long dead, and from his back trail, he came up from the place we?re going,? Edain said, laying the man down.?Arrow in the lung; he kept going until he couldn?t, then lay down and died.? ?He was trying to make Erling Jimsson?s steading, I think,? Asgerd put in.?It?s the closest.?
Thorlind made a sound. ?Olaf!?
She went to her knees beside the young man as she came up and saw his face. She took the stiffening body in her arms, holding the boy?s head against her shoulder, rocking him. Her voice was naked: ?Oh, Olaf, Olaf!?
Heidhveig pushed herself erect, leaning on her staff. ?I know him,? she said quietly to Rudi, underneath the muted sounds of her pupil?s grief.?He?s her nephew Olaf Knutsson, her younger sister?s son and Kalk?s oldest great-grandson, just fourteen. Something terrible must be happening at Kalksthorpe. He is… was. .. a very swift runner, for a boy. They sent him for help, but someone shot him on the way.?
Rudi nodded.?I?m sorry if we?ve brought ill luck upon your folk,? he said.
Thorlind looked up.?You haven?t. Whoever?s attacked us has. If you owe me anything-? ?That I do, lady, and freely I acknowledge it.? ?Then give me blood for my blood! I will raise a nithing -staff and curse whoever did this, but I need a sword to do the work.? ?I will that,? Rudi said gently.?By the Morrigu I swear, and by Macha and Badb Catha, and by the greater One that the Three make.?
Then his voice went hard and brisk.?We need a scouting mission. I?ll lead it.?
Ingolf cocked a brow.?That?s grunt?s work,? he said bluntly. ?Your more-balls-than-brains Majesty,? he added, with a dry tinge to his voice.?Grunts can be idiots. They mostly just get themselves killed. Bossmen… Kings… can?t afford to be stupid. Your life isn?t your own to throw away anymore.?
Rudi looked at him. It was on the tip of his tongue to say if I?m the King, I give the orders. But…
But nobody is less able to indulge a whim than a ruler, if he wants to be a good one. Ingolf has the right of it.
He sighed.?You?ve talked me into letting someone else do the work, you silver-tongued bastard of a man. I can deny you nothin?.?
Then he looked about.?Mary, Ritva, you?re going. And Edain. Are any of you Bjornings familiar with the land here? Fighters only,? he added.
The Norrheimers looked at each other. A few raised hands uncertainly. Asgerd cleared her throat. ?I?ve come here six times… no, seven, but I was a little girl the first time. My father brings hides and wool and butter after the first hard snow to trade for cloth and tools and stockfish. We stay a week or two, and I know the neighborhood a little.?
Rudi flicked his eyes quickly to Edain and his half sisters. They all nodded, quick slight jerks of the chin. ?Good, you?re the fourth,? he said aloud.?You?re also the youngest and least, and don?t forget it. Get me what I need to know, Edain, then get back, and quickly. The rest of us will move forward, but slow and cautious. We?ll sprint the last bit, I expect.? ?I wish we had our destriers,? Odard said.
Rudi grinned.?I doubt there?s room for a charge of knights here, my lord Gervais. Now, Asgerd, show me on the map how we can approach. I?m thinking the main trail is a bad idea the now, until we know exactly who it is has come calling at Kalksthorpe.? ?Be patient with them, Jawara,? Abdou said.
He hunched his shoulders against the cold wind off the sea, and even more against the itching feeling of being immobilized here ashore while his ships swung at anchor. The sea was his element; this continent was alien and hostile. He liked feeling that way. It kept you alive. ?Supposedly they?re some sort of Muslims,? he went on.
Abdou al-Naari was a tall lean man in his thirties, with skin the color of old saddle leather, part-owner and captain for his kin-corporation of the corsair schooner Bou el-Mogdad, named after a fabulous ship of the ancient world. His subordinate Jawara was shorter, a little younger than his thirty-six, thicker-built and ebony black, with three scars like chevrons on each cheek; he had named her sister ship Gisandu -Shark.
Jawara looked over at the men they were now allied with, the core of disciplined ones in the reddish-brown armor with the rayed sun sign on their chests and the rabble of savages around them. When he spat, it was for the benefit of both groups; and perhaps also for the man in the green robe and turban who was standing and talking with them. In the old days that dress would have meant he was a hadji, one who?d made the pilgrimage to Mecca. A few men bold enough or mad enough or lucky enough or all three had made the journey across the length of the Sahel and the Red Sea since the Change and found nothing human left in the Holy City except dry gnawed bones. Now the green cloth merely meant a pilgrimage to Touba, where Cheik Bamba of the Mouride Brotherhood had dwelt.
Jawara?s voice held a sneer as eloquent as the gobbet of spittle: ?If they?re Muslims, I?m the Emir-and I?m not freezing my balls off here. I?m sitting in my palace at Dakar, sipping coffee and smoking good khif this very moment under a screen grown with jasmine, while pretty girls bring me plates of cheb-ou-jen with yete.?
Abdou spat himself, and shivered as it froze on the ground with a slight audible crackle. The thought of good hot coffee and some decent food was enough to make him want to howl. They were both bundled in furs and wool over their armor, and the wind off the estuary was still enough to make a man feel as if he was walking about while three days dead. Gray sky, gray water, dun-colored patches of rock, dark green pine, pale snow; it was all calculated to convince you that you?d become a ghost without noticing it.
The memory of mangroves alive with brightly colored birds beneath cerulean skies, of blue, blue breakers turning to white foam as they went crashing on silver sands beneath rustling palms seemed infinitely distant. He was hungry for it, the sights and the warmth and the very smell of smoked fish and onions and tomatoes cooking in peanut oil. ?The Marabout says they are believers,? Abdou said.?And he?s supposed to be a very holy man.? ?If he?s a holy man, I?m not the Emir. I?m his third wife,? Jawara said.
Abdou grinned.?I thought you were his catamite with a bottom sweet as a ripe mango?? he said innocently.
Jawara made an obscene gesture at him, and they both laughed. Abdou did have his own doubts about the Marabout. Supposedly he was in favor with the new Grand Khalif of the Mourides, and the captain had welcomed him along on this venture when he turned up asking for a place-it reassured the men and made them feel God?s blessing to have a cleric around.
He himself wasn?t so sure. His own family were of the older Tidjiane brotherhood anyway, not the Mouride. And he was an educated man, literate in Wolof and in his native Hassaniya dialect and in the classical Arabic of the Holy Book, and even a little in Francaise, the dead kufr language of the sciences; also he spoke enough English for trade and war. He?d spent time at the Emir?s court, as well, and he inclined to orthodoxy. The brotherhood founded by Cheik Bamba had been powerful in his land for a very long time and more so since the Change, but the reverence the Mourides paid to their hereditary religious leaders struck him as little short of sherk, idolatry.