An Apprentice to Elves (18 page)

“You were gone,” Girasol said.

“You were out all night,” said Idocrase. Unlike Girasol, he didn't sound accusing, merely curious.

Her cheeks heated, although she had nothing to be embarrassed about. “The wild wolves,” she said awkwardly. “They…”

“You were out with the
wolves
?” Girasol said, his entire face bright with excitement. “Will you tell us about them?”

“Will you?” Idocrase said, more quietly, but when she looked, she saw the same excitement. And something else that she didn't have a name for, but that made her face even hotter.

“Well, if Girasol will let me sit down,” she said, “I will tell you what I can.”

Idocrase's answering smile, she thought, would be enough to keep a woman warm for weeks.

 

SEVEN

Otter found Alfgyfa exactly where she would have expected—leaning shoulder to shoulder with Thorlot over Thorlot's sand table, sketching in the damp earth of the tray with twigs. “This,” Alfgyfa said, “is a kind of bindrune, you see. That it reflects itself makes the magic stronger. I was thinking it could work as an inlay—”

Otter cleared her throat.

They both jumped, so deep had they been in conversation. Then Thorlot sat back and began rolling one sleeve up her sinewy forearm. “Council?” she asked.

“Alfgyfa's presence is requested in the Quiet Chamber,” Otter said.

“And I should be back to the forge,” Thorlot replied. “Well, go on, girls. You know the men will drink all the ale if you dawdle.”

“Council?” Alfgyfa asked, when they had walked a few steps.

“Brokkolfr is back from the aettrynalfar,” Otter replied. “Between that and the Rheans, apparently everybody's decided that now would be a good time to kill a few hours in drink and talk.”

Alfgyfa laughed with her mouth closed. “But why me?”

“You were a child, but you knew the aettrynalfar as well as anyone before you left,” Otter said. “And now you know the svartalfar even better. Who else should be there?”

“Oh,” Alfgyfa said. And Otter recognized the expression on her face. It was the discomfort and itchy uncertain pride that went with the realization that you were becoming the sort of person who had skills and value when you had never been that person before.

The Quiet Chamber had been named that as a joke, given Vethulf's temper. But the name, however ironic, had stuck, and now Otter wondered what future generations would make of it. If they got the chance; if the Rheans let them.

We should pay their damned tribute and be done,
Otter thought as she opened the door and held it wide for Alfgyfa.

When she walked into the airy stone room, closed the oaken door behind her, and saw what passed for the assembled might of the Northlands, Otter felt worse rather than better. One-eyed Erik Godheofodman perched on a stool in the corner, without his bear-cloak in deference to summer's warmth. The space under the table was filled with wolves—wolves for once silent and lamp-eyed, rather than snoring. And around that table were arrayed Isolfr, Randulfr, Brokkolfr, Vethulf, Skjaldwulf, Sokkolfr, Gunnarr, Kathlin, and Tin. Behind Tin, in the corner opposite Erik Godheofodman, was another svartalf, who was apparently making a record of their talk.

There were chairs in place for Otter and Alfgyfa, too, which made Otter feel pride and warmth and a horrible gutted hollowness, all at once.

The men—and Kathlin and Tin—were already engaged in soft-spoken conversation, but nodded to acknowledge the new arrivals. Alfgyfa seemed to have frozen just inside the door. Otter gave her a nudge in the direction of the seat beside her father.

When Alfgyfa was moving, Otter twisted her hands in the apron of her overdress and took her own seat between Skjaldwulf and Sokkolfr. Sokkolfr snaked a hand out under the table and caught hers. She squeezed back gratefully and leaned in to whisper, “Is it obvious?”

“Only to one who knows your moods,” he said. “We have two problems today—oh, Brokkolfr will speak.”

He hushed himself as Brokkolfr leaned forward on his elbows and looked directly at Tin. “My news is not what you would have wished to hear, Mastersmith. So I shall be direct. The aettrynalfar council are unwilling to hear your suit. They feel that the svartalfar have done them no kindnesses in the past, and they do not trust that any proposal you make will be beneficial to them. Bluntly, they do not trust you to intend good to them, rather than evil.”

Tin, surprising Otter, took it without fuss. Her face was like a black wood sculpture chased with deep lines and inlaid with jet. Seen in profile, the angled nose stretched out before her, making a moon-arc with her chin. Her tattoos made subtle, complex curls across her face. They were not unlike the knotted borders and brooches of the long-lost land of Otter's birth.

Tin rustled inside her concealing robes and said, “That is as I anticipated. Will they accept me as a sole emissary, only long enough to hear and consider my suit? Or will they consider at least the possibility of trade between our alfhames, perhaps with the men of Franangford serving as intermediaries?”

“I can ask,” Brokkolfr said dubiously.

Tin glanced over at Alfgyfa. Otter did not think Isolfr's daughter noticed the flicker of attention when it fell on her, because Alfgyfa was frowning at the thumbnails of her interlaced hands.

Tin said, “I will speak freely here. Master Galfenol, Journeyman Idocrase, and I have come for more reasons than a pleasant family visit.”

“Shocking,” Vethulf murmured, only just loud enough to be heard.

Tin shot him a look, but it was a tolerant one. She continued, “This affects us all. You—men and wolves of Franangford—know that your wolfsprechend and I have not always had an easy time of it creating and maintaining the alliance between our people.”

“That,” Isolfr said, after a considering pause, “is something of an understatement.”

Vethulf snorted. But when everyone looked at him, he raised the palm of his hand and held his peace.

Skjaldwulf straightened his bony shoulders and said, “You want to bring the aettrynalfar into the alliance?”

“A stool is more stable with three legs,” Tin said. “Of course, the problem is that my people have long lives and longer memories. We will not forget the bad blood between the … the aettrynalfar and the svartalfar for centuries hence. And it will take us those same centuries to get used to thinking of men as allies and friends. But for exactly that reason, now is the time to forge connections—links woven of as many threads as possible, so that when a few inevitably snap, the rope stays strong. War—”

“War with the Rheans is a more immediate concern,” Vethulf said. “Is there any chance the alfar will assist us?”

“We must assist you, in my estimation,” Tin said. “Or fight you, when the Rheans push you back into the mountains in much the same way we once pushed the trellkin down on you. But I am having some difficulty in convincing the Smiths and Mothers of the truth of that.”

She looked at Brokkolfr. “You did not answer my question. Do you think the aettrynalfar would accept me as a sole emissary? Or even as a private person coming on my own behalf?”

Whatever Brokkolfr might have been about to say was interrupted by Alfgyfa. “They would accept me,” she said.

In the silence, the scritch and scrabble of the alfar scribe's pen was clearly audible.

Alfgyfa was red-faced, but she said doggedly, “I have grown up in both alfhames. I have friends in both. I believe the aettrynalfar will see me.”

“Alfgyfa—” Isolfr began, but Tin raised a hand. The bullion at her cuff rustled stiffly.

“It could work,” she said.

Otter didn't miss the speculative way in which Gunnarr regarded his granddaughter. Kathlin nudged him, and he averted his eyes, but not without a little smile.

Isolfr nodded, at first stiffly. Then he must have thought things through, or reminded himself that his daughter was fifteen, not seven, because he nodded again with better grace. He said, “If Alfgyfa thinks she can do it, then I support her.”

Wolfjarls, heofodmenn, and konungur might put things to a vote if it suited them, but in this case there seemed little reason for it. Gunnarr glanced around the table and nodded. “Good luck, then, granddaughter. And while we are on the subject of alliances—”

Skjaldwulf cleared his throat. “Then on to the other problem. Do we advise Fargrimr to hold Freyasheall, and mobilize to relieve him when the inevitable siege descends? Or do we advise him to withdraw and let the Rheans have the heall as well as the keep they already hold?”

Isolfr slid his hand forward on the table. Skjaldwulf nodded to him. Isolfr said, “Viradechtis can reach Signy, even from here. She will tell her daughter what must be done.”

Skjaldwulf acknowledged Randulfr. “Pack-sense and wolf-mind,” Randulfr said—Otter thought, for the benefit of those in the room who were neither heallbred nor wolfcarls. “That doesn't give us a lot of precision.”

“No,” Isolfr said. “But she can let her know whether to hold fast or to flee, and that we are coming.”

Otter's head was crowded with all the things she wanted to counsel and was too damned shy to speak about. Still, she admired the matter-of-factness with which he made that statement, even as she worried at its foolishness. There was absolutely no doubt in Isolfr's mind that the heallan and keeps
were
going south. The only question was what tactics they would apply once they arrived, and what Fargrimr was to do in the meantime.

The wolf is the pack,
she heard clearly, but not with her ears. She glanced around, startled, and saw Viradechtis gazing up at her from between chair legs. Otter flinched in surprise.

But she understood. If she could possibly help it, Viradechtis would leave none of her pack to face their enemies alone.

“Siglufjordhur is my home,” Randulfr said. “Home of my youth, and den of my pack. Once we have decided, I would bring a more detailed message than Viradechtis can send.”

Around the table, nods. Randulfr could run south, alone except for Ingrun, and quickly, just as he had run north, and the army could follow.

“It is your home. What do you think of defending Freyasheall?” Gunnarr asked.

Randulfr shook his head. “I have seen the Rheans, and I do not think we can hold it against so many.”

Otter's throat tightened with everything she wanted to say. She tried to make her hand slide forward on the tabletop. It had just started to budge when a thump on the wood made her flinch and jerk right back.

“We should at least try!” Vethulf said. He hadn't been acknowledged—hadn't even put his hand forward—but that was no surprise.

The one-eyed godheofodman Erik bestirred himself on his observer's stool. “The word from Hergilsberg is this: that many boats have passed. They have not tried the city itself, but the city has been able to do nothing to stop them coming. And Freyasheall, held strongly, would serve them as a fine staging ground for an assault on Hergilsberg.”

“If we can turn the Rheans back at Freyasheall, that won't be a problem,” Kathlin said, and there were nods of agreement.

You have to say something. You have to say something now.
Otter put her hand forward on the table, though her heart thumped painfully to do it. When Skjaldwulf acknowledged her, she gathered herself and said, “There's an option we haven't considered, that might save many lives.” She swallowed hard. “We can't attack them directly. They are too many. When they conquer a country, they make the children of that country theirs, eventually. They make them serve in the army to become citizens instead of thralls. Their legions are bigger than all of us. They will just keep coming from over the water until they fill up the space, and we are gone.”

“You think we should pay tribute,” Vethulf said, although he did not sound angry.

“I think we
will
pay tribute,” Otter said; she heard her voice shake, but there was nothing to be done about that. “The question is only whether first we grease their palms with blood.”

“All the men in the North—” Alfgyfa began.

Randulfr did not interrupt her, but he shook his head, and she silenced herself. Then he said, “There are not so many men in the North as all that. It may not be enough.”

“Then we can't break a siege?” Skjaldwulf asked, his voice neutral.

Everyone looked at Gunnarr.

“Given what Randulfr and Erik report as their numbers?” Gunnarr shook his head. “We have not the strength of arms to win this fight. So we must, somehow, be smarter.”

Otter closed her eyes against a swell of preemptive grief. Smarter at defeating conquest than Rheans were at forging it, when that was all they lived for.

When she opened her eyes again, no one at the table was still looking at her. But she could feel the weight where their gazes had been.

*   *   *

Alfgyfa sat quiet through the rest of the council, struggling to follow the conversation as it devolved into strategies and logistics—which were apparently different things, given how Erik, Gunnarr, and Vethulf in particular were talking, but both of which seemed to revolve rather strongly around supply lines and getting large amounts of food from one place to another, at least based on what Erik, Kathlin, and Otter had to say. As for Alfgyfa, she listened, and watched, and tried desperately to learn the nuances as the others drew in sand trays and spread polished stones across a map Erik produced and unrolled. It showed the whole of the inhabited North from the Iskryne's ragged crown across the top to Hergilsberg at the bottom of the southern peninsula, and was on such a grand scale that it had been drawn on two complete hides of vellum scraped translucent and stitched together along an edge sliced true. During one of the breaks Brokkolfr and Isolfr enforced, Idocrase crept out of his corner to stare at it, and he and Alfgyfa shared an awed and covetous glance.