The Tempering of Men (23 page)

The word she used was unfamiliar—Brythoni, he thought—but the sense of it was plain enough. And it startled him into laughter.

She jerked back. “I know I am branded. And a slave. I did not presume—”

“No,” he said. “No.” He cast about for an explanation, something that would make sense to a woman who was not just not heallbred but alien in every way. “Women—women don't—”

The furrow between her brows, the puckers around her brand, were only getting deeper. He wondered if her head hurt as much as his did.

He sighed and tried again. “I am a wolfcarl. But I am also a lover of men.”

For a moment, the squint grew deeper. And then she jerked as if beestung, her hands flying to her mouth. Mar, his head still in her lap, muttered a complaint.

“But you—” She looked from side to side. “You are a
warrior.
”

He spread his hands. “As wolfcarls must be.”

And then she laughed, and shook her head, and put her hands in Mar's ruff again. “Where I am from,” she said, “no man would admit to such a thing, except if he were a minion.”

“Minion?”

“A perfumed lapdog living off the … largesse of his patron.” Her mouth worked as if she were sucking on something bitter. “I should not speak so harshly. I suppose that's what there is for me, as well, if you will not have me.”

She did not sound, in particular, as if she wished him to have her. But rather as if it were the best of a range of bad options. Skjaldwulf stared at her, understanding. When she met his eyes, he remembered himself and glanced down.

“You speak Brythoni,” he said. “And Rhean. And Iskrynder. Have you other skills?”

She rubbed Mar's ears until he moaned—Skjaldwulf thought to busy her hands. “Before the Rheans took me, I did what any woman without family would do. I can drudge and cook and earn a living on my back. I know which end of a horse to put the bucket before, and at which end to wield the shovel. I am not useless.”

She was little more than a child. Some tithe boys came to the heall older. Skjaldwulf had: barely a tithe
boy
at all.

“You saved my life,” he said. “And the life of my wolf. On my honor as a wolfcarl, as I am jarl of Franangford, you will not want for a livelihood. The heall will house and feed you as our own. You are of the Wolfmaegth, the brotherhood of the wolfheall. As far as the pack is concerned, from this day you are my daughter.”

Her hands tightened in Mar's fur, knuckles whitening. But Skjaldwulf could see that she clenched only, and did not yank. Her mouth opened. She closed it again.

More gently, tempering the passion with which he had spoken, he said, “Do you understand me?”

“You mean it.”

“I swear it. An we all live through this, you will have a home.”

Whatever she tried to say next choked her, but Skjaldwulf did not need to hear it. He could read enough truths in the way the tears tracked her cheeks, diverted by the weals and valleys of her brand.

*   *   *

Vethulf felt snappish and tense, as if he might bite anything that drew his attention. For him, it was an unusual reaction to the aftermath of battle, and he did not entirely know what to make of it.

So he bit his tongue instead and allowed Roghvatr to divvy up the remains of the bear in any manner that suited him. Mostly, Vethulf realized, he was eager to get away from the jarl's house and see what could be done to help Isolfr, even though through the pack-sense he knew that Isolfr was fine.

When Sokkolfr came for him and led him into a bed-closet in which he could tend Vethulf's wounds, Viradechtis and Kjaran followed. Upset, they lay pressed close to Vethulf's knees on either side as might any man's dogs. Vethulf could read their fear on behalf of Mar and Skjaldwulf. Surely it was the pack's distress setting him on edge.

The smell of roasting meat already spread through Roghvatr's hall, and a bustle outside the alcove where Sokkolfr worked on Vethulf told Vethulf that preparations were under way to celebrate the combined victory of keep and heall. Sokkolfr dressed and tended Vethulf's wound without fuss, for which Vethulf was grateful.

“I can't afford this,” Vethulf muttered.

Sokkolfr looked up from tying off the end of the bandage. “It's summer,” he said. “And Viradechtis won't mate this year. You'll have time to heal.”

“Roghvatr,” Vethulf said, by way of explanation, “I need to be helping Isolfr, not appeasing the local jarl with a victory feast.”

“Oh,” Sokkolfr said. “Politics.”

“Politics,” Vethulf agreed, putting a snarl in it.

“If Isolfr gets in trouble,” Sokkolfr said, “Viradechtis will let us know, won't she?”

“Hand me my tunic, please?”

Sokkolfr did so, and Vethulf used the time required to struggle into the bloodied garment without tearing open his mauled shoulder to think what to say next. The truth was, he itched to set off southward at a dead run, and not stop running until he had found Skjaldwulf's traveling band and seen for himself that Mar and his brother were safe. Failing that, Vethulf wanted to go haul Kari and Brokkolfr by the ears out of whatever pit they had fallen down and deliver an extensive and scathing tongue-lashing in the process.

Anything—anything—but dinner with the jarl. With Vethulf's rival Eyjolfr on Roghvatr's left hand, as a special gift.

“All right,” Vethulf said. “Let's get this over with.”

Roghvatr's keep, like all the rest of Franangford, was in the process of being resurrected from the rubble. Houses and workshops, stables and barns could be raised with fair speed—they were but lath and thatch and turf and daub and plaster, after all, and there was no great art in their quick construction beyond the labor of many hands—but a keep, like a wolfheall, had to be defensible, and had to house both men and stores in quantity.

Roghvatr, having been the youngest half brother of the Franangford jarl killed by trolls, was as new to his role as jarl as was Vethulf. But Roghvatr was a man of mature years and experience, a warrior and an adventurer who had done his time a-viking. He knew how to command, and Vethulf could only hope Roghvatr was learning how to govern.

If nothing else, he set a good feast.

As promised, Vethulf and Eyjolfr sat on the jarl's right hand and left, and all three shared a trencher. It was meant to be a mark of signal honor, but Vethulf was so busy avoiding eye contact with Eyjolfr that much of it was lost on him. Still, the food was good, the meat of the great bear lean and tough but flavorful, the plates piled high with summer's bounty. The wolves, under the table, did not go hungry, either, as there were trenchers of rare steaming meat for them to dine upon.

Vethulf ate to keep his mouth full, so that his traitor tongue would not say anything scathing and provoke a break in this fragile accord. Eyjolfr seemed more than content to hold up the conversation on behalf of the wolfheall, judging by his boasting.

There was a line, Vethulf thought, between any warrior's healthy blazon of his victories and attributes, and being a blowhard and a bore. At that moment, he was rather glad his mouth was full of trout and lingonberries.

At last, the feast ended with sweetmeats and savories, and with a winding of horns the skin and skull of the bear were paraded through the hall, tented on sticks borne not by thralls but by several of Roghvatr's thanes. Those doughty men laid the pelt across the cleared table between Vethulf and Eyjolfr.

Roghvatr stood, and those in the hall who owed him allegiance stood also. The wolfcarls did not; they did not answer to the jarls of men.

Roghvatr said, “The pelt of the bear must be yours, wolfjarl, for it was your plan and courage that drove him from his shelter unto death. And the skull must be yours, wolfcarl, for your spirited courage in this same venture. All present, charge your cups!”

He held out a hand; a thrall placed a horn in it. Someone was there, too, with a horn for Vethulf and one for Eyjolfr. Vethulf managed to get his hands around it without fumbling.

Roghvatr held up his horn and cried, “To the rebirth of Franangford, town and keep and croft and heall!”

“Hear!” cried the thanes and wolfcarls, and Vethulf with the rest stood and drained his horn.

*   *   *

In the quiet aftermath of the feast, Roghvatr came himself to find Vethulf as Vethulf was assuming his axe and spear, in order to return as swiftly as possible to the heall. Viradechtis and Kjaran paced impatiently beyond the keep's great door; they had told Vethulf that Isolfr was returning in the morning, both of the missing wolfcarls safely recovered, and Vethulf was in a hurry to be there to greet them.

So his patience and interest when Roghvatr stopped before him were feigned. But he was trying.

Roghvatr extended his right hand. Vethulf, abandoning the ties of his axe for a moment, returned the clasp. The jarl cleared his throat.

“I have a proposition for you, wolfjarl.”

Oh, here we go.
But Vethulf forced himself to nod.

“It is said,” Roghvatr began awkwardly, “that the trolls are gone forever.”

Vethulf shrugged.
Save us from the dissembling of wolfless men.
“I would say it is too soon to make such a pronouncement.”

“Still. The heall … If it is true, the heall lacks purpose. What will wolves do, when there are no trolls for the hunting?”

We've been wondering the same damned thing.
Vethulf did not say it, but his silence was an effort.

“You could come in service to me,” Roghvatr said. “We have seen today that trolls are not the only peril from which a wolfcarl and his brother may defend us.”

Vethulf finished with the axe bindings. “No,” he said.

Roghvatr stepped back. He had not been a jarl long, but perhaps it did not take long for a jarl to forget what it was like to be gainsaid. “No?”

“No,” Vethulf said. “Wolves do not fight in men's wars.” He paused, uncertain how to explain himself. “They do not fight for men's reasons.”

Roghvatr stroked his forked beard. “Not to win wealth and fame? Not at their brother's behest?”

They might, that latter at least. Men fought for wealth and fame, it was certain. But wolves—

He imagined taking Kjaran a-viking. His jaw firmed. “No,” he said. “Not wolves.”

*   *   *

When Brokkolfr and his companions returned to the heall at midmorning on the day after Kari had broken his ankle, Hroi lay waiting before the gate. When the old wolf saw them, he stood with a welcoming wag of his tail, and moments later Sokkolfr was there, calmly taking charge. Brokkolfr was almost immediately banished to the sauna, and he was glad to go. Amma followed him, and he took care to choose the bench nearest the door, so that although she could not see him, she would know he was there.

Being properly clean was a tremendous relief. He came out to the discovery that it was dinnertime. He found himself not particularly hungry, and although it was still light, he retreated to his bedding along the wall as soon as he could. He slept restlessly but long, waking and rolling over, only to wake again what felt like mere minutes later. Eventually, he woke in darkness with more men beside him—and finally, at the ragged edge of dawn, he woke and realized Amma wasn't there.

He sat up with a jerk, reaching for her in the pack-sense. He found her immediately and was able to breathe again, but she was not in the finished part of the heall. She was— He got up, shoving his feet into his boots, and followed the feel of her out and to the left and down into the newly dug root cellar, where she had made a nest, half bed, half rampart, out of burlap sacks.

“You couldn't have picked a less comfortable spot?” Brokkolfr said, knowing that the affection in his voice would keep her from thinking it was a real rebuke.

Amma thumped her tail, but she was panting, a whine threading in and out.
Hurts,
she said.

“It's your cubs coming,” Brokkolfr said, settling in beside her. “You remember what it's like.”

He
remembered. The first pup had been breech, and Amma had nearly died, along with her litter, before Othinnsaesc's wolfjarl had reached up into her body and turned the pup with his fingers. The wolfjarl, of course, because even the most amiable of bitches, which Amma surely was, did not want another she-wolf's brother near her newborn pups.

As if the thought had summoned him, Vethulf said from behind Brokkolfr, “Kjaran says Amma is birthing her pups.”

“Yes,” Brokkolfr said, not turning around. “Her water's broken—I think that must be what woke me.”

He heard Vethulf's boots coming closer. “Hmmph. Sokkolfr will not be pleased with you.”

“As her pups are all born healthy, and she does not die in the birthing, I will pay Sokkolfr any penalty he wants,” Brokkolfr said, hearing the tightness in his own voice but unable to ameliorate it. He was scared for Amma, and he was remembering too keenly his last encounter with Vethulf.

There was a silence; then Vethulf knelt beside him. “I meant no rebuke,” he said, his voice gentler. “Sokkolfr knows as well as I do not to argue with a whelping wolf.”

“Sorry,” Brokkolfr said.

Hurts,
Amma said again, and he saw the contraction tighten all the muscles of her belly.

“Comfort your sister, wolfcarl,” Vethulf said, “and I will see what the word is from the front.”

Brokkolfr couldn't bite back a lunatic giggle. “You mean the back.” And he looked up to see Vethulf grinning at him.

“That's better,” Vethulf said. Moving stiffly—Brokkolfr remembered that Vethulf's arm was hurt and felt guilty about the confines of the cellar all over again—he shifted to kneel by Amma's back legs while Brokkolfr moved to her head, stroking her ears, and, when she indicated she wanted to, letting her put her head in his lap.