Rudi shivered slightly, staring into the fire where white flames danced over the red glow of the coals. ?I?ve had… visions. Some, I think, of what the world might have been if the Change had not come. Some of what might yet be, if the CUT triumphs. Both… bad. Very bad indeed. And their common feature that men no longer walk the earth, though in some of them things in our shape do. In others, the very soil and air are dead.? ?I?ve seen those too,? Ingolf said, his battered hands clenching on his knees.?Only on Nantucket, though. God… Gods… that was weird! But I saw things in Corwin while I was a prisoner there that were enough to turn your stomach; and things that would make your hair crawl, things that just shouldn?t be. They?ve got plans for the world and I wouldn?t want them to come true. Those breeding pits-? He shuddered. ?Then we must see that they don?t come true,? Mathilda put in.
Bjarni?s big capable hands gripped the arms of his chair. ?I know that the seidhkona?s vision was the truth. Thor?s Hammer, I heard it! I?m a true man; I?ll stand with the Gods-which means with you, Rudi-with all my main and my might. But I can?t call on every fighting man in Norrheim to march a thousand miles and more to battle an enemy they?ve never heard of. They?d hoot me off the Thingstone! And-?
He looked at his wife again; love and pain were at war in the glance they shared.
Rudi nodded.?You can?t leave your steadings and families unguarded. I wouldn?t expect you to.?
Bjarni?s mouth quirked.?The Wanderer is at home everywhere and nowhere; he has all the world of Midgard to ward and all the sons and daughters of Ash and Embla to guide, and more besides. But this?-his gesture took in the hall, and the lands beyond-?is my world, my tribe and folk, the world my father built, the one I want to hand on to my children when I lay my bones beneath the howe. Yes, and watch over afterwards.?
His fist pounded the arm of his chair.?But what does it matter if I guard the borders of Norrheim now, and in a generation or two or three etin-craft and troll-men flood over us like a tide!?
Rudi tapped a finger on his chin:?I think there was more than one message in the seeing you made, lady Heidhveig; and more than one meaning to every message. A certain One we?ve both met is crafty and subtle. You may not have noticed, Bjarni, but the… Old Man?s.. . word was not the only part of the vision you need to ponder.?
At Bjarni?s surprised look he went on:?That unfortunate honey-haired lass who lost her man north of here? Well, that?s the way we?ve come, and the Cutters have been at work there too; hence the man in the red robe with the sun sign on it. That was an adept, an evil magus…? ?A trollkjerring, we would say,? Heidhveig said.
Rudi nodded:?Stirring up the wild bands, those you deem troll-men, so. They?ll move those against you, I would guess. What other dwellers there are in that country are few and weak, and the Prophet?s ambitions are not limited to Montival. Corwin aims to bring all of humankind under their sway in the end.?
Bjarni had looked… not fearful, but apprehensive, before. Now his face firmed into a thing of slabs and angles; that was a threat he could understand in gut and bone. ?You see as clearly as Heimdall! That I can tell the Althing, and be believed!? ?And that will serve our common cause,? Rudi said.?Otherwise those men will fall on allies of ours, and enemies of the Enemy, further west.? ?But as for us, we need to get to Nantucket,? Mathilda said. ?Your, ah, High One himself said it. Without the Sword of the Lady, we?ll surely lose. Mary, intercede for us!? ?The old tales have a number of such swords in them,? Ignatius said, half as if to himself.?Many were born by paladins of the Light. Arthur?s Excalibur, of course. Durendal, that Roland bore at Roncevalles against the infidel. Perhaps they were less metaphorical and more substantial than my teachers thought. I don?t think the pagan elements matter, in the end.? ?Tyrfing,? Harberga said.?Though I?m glad it?s not that blade.? ?Getting to Nantucket… there I can help you,? Heidhveig said. ?I came out here with my family before the Change because of a… feeling you might say; and because Kalk told me he foresaw a great troubling of the world while I was dickering with him over a harp.?
Rudi couldn?t quite hold back a blink of surprise. Heidhveig smiled and stroked one knotted hand over another. ?Yes, I made music once. I stayed with Kalk and his people at the coast through the first month after the Change, before Erik Waltersson arrived; Kalk was pagan too, and a student of the old crafts, and I put them in touch with each other when I heard the Bjornings had come.? ?From which meeting many deeds came in turn,? Bjarni said.
Heidhveig nodded.?I stay there still when I?m not traveling between garths working seidh… or just visiting the great-grandchildren, nowadays.? ?He?s called Kalk the Shipwright,? Bjarni said.?He makes ships and much else, at the garth he built by the sea after the Change.?
His hand indicated the carved pillars of the hall, and the grim magnificence on the walls; by implication, the dragonheads that reared proud from rafter and roof-tree outside. ?All the finest woodworkers in Norrheim trained with him and his folk. They?ve cunning smiths and fine weavers there too, and wise in many other arts. Kalk collects craft skill, as some men do gold or horses or fine weapons; and his sons and grandsons are the same.?
Heidhveig took up the tale.?The Shipwright?s men are great traders and fishermen, and often in viking…?
Rudi?s eyebrows went up, and she chuckled. ?Oh, that?s changed meaning here. They go to the dead cities and hunt for goods they can use or barter. As far as New York, sometimes.? ?Hmmm.? Ingolf rubbed his short-cropped beard.?I was in the same trade, though overland; I think we were the only Midwesterners to reach the east coast and survive. So far, at least. Vikings? You?d need something like that. Salvage work?s… well, there are treasures, right enough, but yah, they?re hard to get at. I can see why you used that word.?
Bjarni shrugged.?We trade in peace with the Isle of the Prince, and with the English Empire and the Norrlanders. And the Icelander folk. Those of them who stayed there and didn?t go back to the ancient homelands-to Norrland, it?s called now-or to England, offer to the Aesir now too. Not much trade in any one year, but it?s welcome.?
He scowled.?And besides the troll-men who haunt the ruins, our folk fight with the blaumenn sometimes, southward, over salvage rights.? ?Blue-men?? Rudi said. ?The English call them Moors,? Heidhveig said.?They?re from Senegal, really. They?re numerous but their lands are metal poor, not having as many cities from before the Change for mining and salvage.? ?My foster father, Sir Nigel Loring, helped keep the Isle of Wight alive through the Change, and was a leader in the resettlement of England before he had to flee from Mad King Charles,? Rudi said thoughtfully.?He mentioned trouble with them.? ?No, they?re not friendly to outsiders at all, though I suppose they have their own reasons which seem good to them,? Heidhveig said.
Bjarni inclined his head towards Fred Thurston, sitting astraddle a bench among the group around Odard. He was laughing, his head thrown back, with a mug of the dark Bjorning ale in his hand, and Virgina stood with her arm around his shoulders and his around her waist. ?I thought he might be one, from his looks, but he seems a fine young fellow, and I?d judge him a good man of his hands already.? ?Few better, none braver,? Rudi said crisply.?No lord could want a better… gesith, you say?? ? Gesith -companion? Yes, or hirdman.? ?And no warrior a better comrade,? Rudi finished. ?He?d better be a strong man, to keep up with that she-cat,? Harberga said.?She?s a wild one, if I?ve ever seen any.? ?She has reason to face the world like a drawn blade,? Rudi said soberly.?They?re well matched; Virginia?s shrewder than you might think from her manner, and Fred uses his head for more than a helmet rest, too. And doesn?t lose it when the steel?s out.?