Icefall (6 page)

Hake is lonely. He is vulnerable to pain, like me, and trapped by that pelt as surely as I am trapped by the order of my birth. And then I realize that same birth order traps Harald. And Asa, too, sitting silent across the room. Bera and Raudi are trapped by their servitude. We are all prisoners, bound with shackles at birth that only tighten as we live and grow. Only Alric seems free, laughing at the rest of us. Harald leans back with his arms folded. “It’s not fair.”

“And neither are the seas,” Hake says. “But what mortal man can change their course?”

A
few days later, Hake comes to me in the yard with something large and square in his arms, wrapped in a sack. Everyone watches him, and he shifts back and forth on the heels of his boots in front of me. He is so rough, and yet it was he who thought to protect me when Per did not.

“I have something for you, Solveig,” he says. “It is a gift.”

I manage a nod.

“Can we go inside?”

I nod again. We turn and approach the hall. There is an awkward moment standing before the door when Hake clearly wants to open it for me, but he looks at the bundle in his arms. “Let me,” I say, and open it.

He steps through, sheepish, and looks around as if to make sure we are alone. It seems we are. Bera and Raudi are out
milking the cows in the shed. Asa may be hidden away in our bedcloset, but I’m not sure.

Hake sets the bundle on the ground, and I hear a flutter inside. “First, I must confess something to you.”

I wait.

He clears his throat. “It was I who killed your goat.”

I know that, or had guessed it, but his integrity touches me. His voice becomes quieter. “I am sorry for that. I had no idea you had become so fond of the animal. So in recompense for what I did, I wanted to give you something. Something else you might be fond of.” He looks at me as though waiting for me to reply, and when I don’t, he kneels on the ground. “Here is your gift,” he says, and whips off the sack.

It is a cage made of sticks and fastened with leather cords. A young raven sits inside the cage, flicking its black-jewel eyes at me. Its feathers are glossy as pitch, almost blue. The bird makes a few halfhearted caws and hops around the cage. Its head is plucked bald in patches, as though someone had started preparing it to eat, and I can see its pink, wrinkled skin. Its wings are short, the flight feathers clipped, and one of them is bent at an odd angle.

Hake notices me looking at it. “That wing made it easy to catch him, as he can’t truly fly. It looks like it got broken some time ago, and you can see where the other birds have pecked him. I’m surprised he’s survived.”

“Poor thing,” I say. He’s an outsider, which is how I often feel.

“Ravens are smart. I once saw a man who had trained his raven to fetch things about the steading for him. They can even learn to talk. This one is young, and after he’s bonded to you, he’ll ride your shoulder.”

I am nervous about having this bird for a pet, but out of politeness I thank him.

“He’ll eat anything,” Hake says. “Your table and kitchen scraps. They’re scavengers.”

“Thank you,” I say again, wishing I could think of something more.

He hovers, hands behind his back, looking back and forth between the bird and me. “Do you like him?” he asks.

The bird hops toward me in the cage, looks up at me, and makes a clicking sound. I imitate the sound back at him, and the raven cocks his head and makes the clicking sound again, as if we’re talking to each other.

“I do like him,” I say. “Thank you, Hake.”

“You’re welcome. Will you name him?”

“Yes, but I don’t know what.” And then I remember that the god Odin has two ravens that whisper to him what they see in their flights across the land. Their names are Huginn and Muninn. Thought and Memory. “I think I’ll name him Muninn.”

Hake’s smile says he is pleased. “A good name.”

I crouch down near the cage, and Hake lingers a moment longer.

“Well,” he says. “Good afternoon.”

“Good afternoon, Hake.”

He marches out the door, a different sort of man to me now than he was but minutes before. As brutal and violent as berserkers can be, Hake can also be thoughtful. And caring.

I look into the eyes of my bird, my new friend, and he looks back at me. “Hello, Muninn,” I whisper. Now that I have memory, all I need is sight.

After the night meal, Harald tries poking Muninn with a stick through the bars of his cage. Muninn flaps his bent wing, trying to get away, and I snatch the stick from Harald’s hands. “Leave him alone.”

“Look at that ugly bird.” Harald laughs. “Why’s it bald?”

“He’s not ugly,” I say. “He’s picked on and bullied. His feathers will grow back.”

Harald laughs again, and Per comes over.

“Leave the bird alone, lad,” he says. “It was a gift from Hake.”

Harald wrinkles his nose. “I’d give it right back.”

Per smiles at me with a slight shrug, and I give my eyes a little roll.

Other than Harald, everyone admires Muninn. Raudi continues to smile at me. The berserkers worship Odin and they nod to the cage in respect and appreciation. Ravens mean something different to them. The berserkers call ravens swans
of blood, because they feed on the bodies after a fierce battle. Hake probably thought it was a noble gift, but my Muninn doesn’t look very noble half-bald, and I don’t like to think of him eating anything but bugs and berries.

I try to feed him from my hand. At first he is wary, and jabs his beak at me as if he wants me to just drop the food on the ground for him. But I am stubborn. And patient. He must learn to take the food from me, so he will trust me. As the evening passes, he begins to come closer to my fingers, and his beak becomes gentler. Before long, he is feeding right out of my palm.

Hake comes over and watches me pass Muninn bits of food. “He’s already taken to you.”

“I hope so,” I say. “But I don’t think he’s ready to ride my shoulder.”

“No. But he will be.” Hake smiles and moves off to be with his men.

Asa joins me after he has left, and we sit together, wordlessly. I pass her a bit of bread, and she holds it just inside the bars of the cage. Muninn makes a grab, and Asa flinches, dropping the crumbs. The raven snatches them with a caw that sounds like a laugh, as though he has won some victory. Asa laughs, too, a sound I haven’t heard from her in a long while.

“Your bird reminds me of Gunnlaug,” she says. “You remember what he was like when he came to our hall? Before the war?” Asa sits up. “Gunnlaug’s head is just as bald and pink.”

I remember him at Father’s table, after he’d drunk too much mead. “And he laughs like Muninn, too.”

Asa nods, but the smile falls from her lips. She reaches for another bread crumb and doesn’t bother to hand it to my bird. She just tosses it inside the cage.

“He wanted to marry me,” she says.

I stare at her. “I didn’t know that.” Then I think about Asa leaving our hall to be Gunnlaug’s wife and I don’t know what to say.

“Father refused him,” she says. “That’s why we are at war. Because of me.”

No. That’s not right. “It isn’t your fault,” I say. “Nor Father’s. Gunnlaug is the one who declared war.” And I begin to feel the burden that Asa has been carrying. This is what has driven her into silence and sadness.

She stares at something across the room, and I follow her gaze. She is watching Per, as he laughs with Hake. Asa’s eyebrows are sloped in worry, and she stays that way for some time without moving.

At last she rises. “I’m tired. I think I’ll go to bed.”

“Good night, then.”

“I envy you, Solveig,” she says over her shoulder as she walks away.

I am stunned. What is there in me to envy? Asa is everything to our father, and I am nothing.

Muninn flutters and draws my attention. I give him a bite
of turnip and watch him swallow it down. The more I think about it, the more I realize he does resemble Gunnlaug. Wrinkled skin, sparse black hair. I stare at him, seeing not my bird but that old chieftain in my cage.

I know I’ve told myself that I would gladly marry for Father, but I’ve never considered that such a pledge might mean marriage to an old man who resembles a scraggly raven. I feel foolish for never having thought of it. I am sad for Asa, and for the first time see her beauty as a burden instead of a blessing. And I feel the guilt-weight she has been carrying this whole time.

She is asleep when I climb into the bedcloset later that night. I nestle down next to her, trying to think of how I can help, but my thoughts are like snowflakes drifting away from me, or melting on my skin as soon as I catch them.

The next several weeks bring the fullness of winter’s cold weight. The pale sun is too weak to warm us for the few hours that we have its light, and the nights seem to swell, filling the world with stars and endlessness. The glacier has slowly settled into its season-sleep and fallen silent, and the fjord is a narrow white road to the sea.

We spend more of our time indoors, and the fires in the long hearth are never allowed to burn out. The berserkers have stopped complaining, but that frightens me even more than when they bluster and fight. If they’re pacing the hall like
chained dogs, I at least know how they feel. Silence makes them even more unpredictable.

Ole sits with his bone knife in the corner, showing Harald how to repair the frayed ropes and holes in one of his fishing nets. His movements are practiced and almost loving, like an old woman braiding a granddaughter’s hair. Harald yawns and gets his fingers tangled.

Muninn hops around his cage, cawing at me, his head feathers still a little sparse. But his flight feathers have lengthened. I have never let him out since Hake gave him to me. I felt that I had to shrink his world before I could trust him to not fly off. But perhaps it has been long enough, and I can let the walls loose just a little.

“Raudi,” I say. “Will you watch the doors for me?”

Raudi gets to his feet. “Watch the doors?”

“I’m going to let Muninn out of his cage.”

Raudi looks at my bird, nods, and walks over to the doors. He stands in front of them, arms crossed. Those in the hall with us, including several berserkers, are watching me now.

I take a deep breath and look right into my raven’s eye. “I’m going to let you around the hall for a bit. But only for a short while. And I’d like it if you perched on my shoulder for at least a moment.”

Muninn shakes, ruffling his neck feathers.

I pull one of the cage sticks free, and then another, and then a whole side falls open. Muninn cocks his head and
hops right out. He looks back at the outside of his cage for the first time. Then he launches himself into wobbly flight, hampered by his bent wing. But he manages to flutter up to one of the rafters, where he caws in delight and proceeds to preen.

I go and sit under him, my head bowed, a bit of food in my hand. At first I hold the food in my lap, then up at my neck. I tap my shoulder.

“Patience, miss,” one of the berserkers says. “He’s looking right at you.”

I call to him. “Come to me, bird of Odin.”

“He’s cocking his head,” Harald whispers. “He’s got one eye on you.”

I whistle. “Come, Muninn, my memory.”

His talons click on the wooden rafter.

I smile and look up. He shuffles his little rear end out over the beam. And he squats. His droppings fall right in my hair. I let out a little yelp; everyone laughs. Raudi looks like he’s trying not to laugh, and covers his mouth with his hands. He is distracted when the hall doors open. A blast of frozen wind pushes into the room and sends Muninn flapping and cawing. He staggers into the air and flies straight for the opening, that strip of free sky.

“Raudi!” I shout.

He slams the doors just as Muninn reaches them, and my bird thumps against the wood. Then he turns in the air to find a new perch, frantic wings beating, unable to keep him aloft.

He slowly descends to the floor, where I’m able to scoop him up and drop him back into his cage. I close the side and slide the sticks back in place. Muninn hops and screeches, as if I’m trapping him for the first time.

“I’m so sorry,” Raudi says.

He’s still holding the doors shut, but now lets them go. In walks Per. He glares at Raudi, confused. Then he sees me at the cage.

“You had him out?” he asks me.

I nod. “I think he almost came to my shoulder.”

Harald laughs. “And then he pooped on her head!”

I grimace and raise my hand to hide my hair. I’ll have to brush the droppings out later, after they’ve dried.

Per grins. “He must still be trying to figure if he can trust you.”

“That’s not it,” Ole says. The old man is still sitting in his corner, the net spread over his lap and around his feet. He looks up at me. “You’re the one trying to figure if you can trust
him
. It’s you that needs the cage, not that bird.”

“What do you mean?” I ask.

“Once you’ve trapped a wild animal, he’ll always want out. So you always have to keep him locked up, or else wonder every time you open those bars if this’ll be the day he turns on you and flies away.”

“He’ll come to me,” I say. “I trust him.” But even as I say it, I know I won’t let Muninn go flying around again anytime soon. Perhaps in the hall, but not outside.