The guards bristled and fingered the shafts of their broad-bladed spears. Heidhveig braced herself upright on her staff and Thorlind let the light shine on her, so the Eriksgarth men could see clearly even with the storm in their faces. ? One comes who saw you all in your cradles, and crawling and squalling butt-naked beneath the benches,? Heidhveig said tartly. ?You, Roderic Karlsson, and you, Thorolf Pierresson, and you too, Olaf Davesson!? ?Ah… sorry,? Roderic said, and sounded as if he was, or at least embarrassed.?Ah… welcome, welcome, holy seidhkona. The Chief will be pleased and honored; we didn?t think you?d be here this Yule!? ?If I?ve made it every Yule Eve for twenty-four years, I can do it once more,? she said.?This is the godwoman Thorlind Williamsdottir. And these are men of Kalk the Shipwright?s garth, Sven Jacobsson and Ingmar Marcellesson, who swore to see me safe here for the festival.? ?Come, come, lady Heidhveig,? Roderic said.?And all of you. Let?s get you inside, and a guest cup inside you, and your beasts fed and stabled!?
She started to nod-right now a cup of hot cider or mead sounded very attractive-when she felt a sudden sense of pressure, no, of Presence. They stopped, staring, as she flung out her hand to silence them. The wind blew louder, the low throbbing rising to a screech, and for an instant it tugged at her cloak until the ends flew forward like wings. The cold cut like a knife, a white pain that seemed to light the land around her. She could see every flake of snow and dead leaf and pine needle, hear the very thoughts of the martins and mink and the bears curled sleeping in their dens.
No, not sleeping-they too were stirring, waking to awareness of a power greater than the storm. Snow muffled all sound but the wind?s scream now, yet she could hear hoofbeats, or perhaps it was the thudding of her heart. ?Can?t you hear them?? she heard herself say.?Can?t you feel them??
She twitched as energy surged through her, the old familiar thrill of ecstasy that had won her allegiance long before the Change made all the old stories real. ?What?? Roderic said; Thorlind stepped forward silently and took her arm, lending her strength.
Her eyes sought to pierce the swirling darkness.?The Hunt rides tonight,? she whispered, feeling her voice alter cadence as if she were already in trance.? He rides the wind, and the dead thunder behind Him over the rainbow bridge. The foam that flies from their horses? bits will bless the land. I feel His eye upon us, I hear the crying of His hounds.?
Old Man, she continued silently. What are you up to now? What hero will you invite this night to join that ride?
Roderic took a step back. One of his companions clutched at his chest, probably at an amulet; the other drew the Hammer. Heidhveig took a deep breath, feeling the intensity of that awareness fade, and her mouth quirked. Her folk gave the Allfather His due… and most of them were just as pleased not to attract His particular attention; Thor was a lot more popular.
The one-eyed Wanderer, the God of wolf and raven, the Terrible One who sent the madness of battle and the mead of poetry to men… had his own purposes. She believed those purposes served the ultimate good of the world and of humankind, but she knew that to achieve them He would spare neither Himself nor His chosen ones.
After that she saw little of the garth and its buildings except a blur of lighted windows and folk greeting her. The shock of warmth as they left their outer clothing in the vestibule brought her fully back to herself, and to her aches and pains as that warmth gradually eased them.
The chieftain?s hall of Eriksgarth was L-shaped, the shorter end a large frame house built long before the Change as the core of a farm; the longer wing was the hall proper, added afterwards as time and resources permitted. Bjarni and his wife Harberga Janetsdottir greeted her, friendly as always-she?d been an unofficial grandmother to them both from their childhoods-but with a trace of tension that told her Roderic had repeated her words. ?You shouldn?t travel in weather like this!? Harberga scolded. ?What if you?d been caught in a real storm, coming up from the coast??
She was tall and fair, her braided hair up beneath a kerchief, and a six-month belly stretching out the blue wool of her hanging skirt and the embroidered linen panel of her apron, held by silver brooches at her shoulders. ?You?ll catch your death!? she went on. ?When you?re past eighty that?s not something that can be avoided,? she said.
But she let them fuss her into a deep chair beside one of the two stone hearths on either side of the hall; the area before it was the honor seat, where the chief and his lady and important guests were placed. Some purists had wanted to use a firepit down the center, and she remembered Erik roaring out what he thought of that with an epic vocabulary that he hadn?t gotten from the Eddas.
More like the 82nd Airborne, she thought reminiscently as she sank into the cushions with a sigh. It had started with you shit-for-brains dickweeds, do you think the Gods want morons for followers and finished with freeze your own balls off, you don?t have any use for them!
Fire boomed amid a sweet scent of burning pine in the fireplace of rough granite, on andirons whose ends rose into wrought dragons; the slanted iron plate at the rear helped cast the heat into the long room. Tapestries fluttered on the walls; the bare logs between were carved in sinuous patterns, hung with round painted shields and racked spears, bow and sword and ax, and mail byrnies that glittered darkly in the wavering light. More carvings ran on the railed gallery that ran around it at second-story height. Two rows of pillars made from the trunks of whole white pines and wrought into figures of gods and heroes ran the length of the stone-flagged floor, reaching up into the dimness of the rafters; some carried rings of lanterns at twice head-height on iron wheels.
Bjarni poured her cider with his own hands, into a big ceramic mug with New Sweden Midsomar Festival 1997 printed on it. He was only a little taller than his wife, but broad-shouldered and barrel-chested, his cropped beard and shoulder-length hair as brick red as his father?s had been, his eyes blue and steady. The drink hissed and steamed as he plunged a glowing poker into it. ?Ahhh, that?s good!? she said, cradling the mug in knotted hands and breathing in fragrant steam like a memory of blossom time. As the heat eased aching joints she lifted it, murmuring softly: ?Hail the hall and the master of this hall,
Hail the mistress and the household she rules,
Hail the wight that wards the holy hearth,
And the spirits that bring life to the land.?
By the time she had finished the blessing, the cider was cool enough for drinking. She let the hot sweet liquid run down her throat and get to work on the last of the chill.
The hall was thronged with scores of people, burly bearded men in tunic and breeks, women in long gowns-or sometimes practical traveling trousers themselves; the cloth a mixture of carefully preserved pre-Change brightness brought out for the festival and the more subtle colors of modern vegetable dyes. Either sex might wear an arm ring of gold or silver or steel. Her host had two pushed up on his thick biceps over the cloth of his tunic, the one that bore witness to his deeds and the oath ring he wore when leading rituals. Long weapons were left in the cloakroom or hung on the wall, but nearly every belt bore a fighting knife of the kind called a seax.