The Wizard And The Warlord (16 page)

“I don’t think Halfdane concerns himself much with me or with the box,” Sigurd replied. “He’s got more important things to worry about.”

“Ah, that’s what you think.” Jotull sighed, toying with a silver chain around his neck. “He knows he has you frightened of him, so you’ll stop asking about taking that box to Bergthor of Svartafell. When I tried to urge the idea on him, he became furious and warned me not to continue interfering. Interfering, indeed! If it weren’t for me, I’m sure you’d be dead by now. He’s cold and calculating and cruel. Look at that sending he made against you.”

He pointed to the little window, just as a long, pale face glided by, peering in. After assuring itself that Sigurd was within, the sending stationed itself on the roof, peering down through the smoke hole and periodically trying the edges with its teeth.

Sigurd looked up at the sending, and his hand strayed to the fine axe Halfdane had given him. “I find it hard to believe that Halfdane could have conjured such a creature as Hross-Bjorn. Halfdane’s no wizard, except when it comes to warfare.”

Sigurd met Jotull’s gaze briefly, and realized his defense of Halfdane had nettled Jotull exceedingly. “You’ll be sorry if you give that box to Halfdane. I alone know how sorry you’ll be.”

“I’m not ready to hand it over to anyone yet,” Sigurd said. “But if Halfdane were entrusted with something valuable, I don’t think he’d misuse it.”

Jotull rose to pace the floor. “You’ve no idea how it pains me to hear you talking like a fool. I never thought Halfdane could subvert such a clever mind as yours, but I see you’re beginning to fall into his trap. I’d hoped I could help you, Sigurd. I’m the only one who will take you to Svartafell, the only one who has tried to warn you against Halfdane, the only one who is willing to help you. One day you’ll discover by yourself that I am your only true friend.”

Sigurd only shrugged. “I’ve made more than a few friends here. I feel I’m reasonably safe, in spite of the sending. What else can I do, in view of the present circumstances?”

“Escape!” Jotull’s eyes glowed with fervor. “Get out of Hrafnborg, away from Halfdane and his sending! Haven’t we talked about it often enough?”

Rolfr turned to Sigurd, aggrieved. “Sigurd, you wouldn’t leave Hrafnborg without me, would you? You’d have to take me along, and I daresay you wouldn’t like that for long. Besides, after all Halfdane has done for you, it would be a nithling’s deed to run away so ungratefully.”

Jotull whirled to glare at Rolfr, gripping his staff as if he wished to do something with it that would wreak havoc on Rolfr. Sigurd stood up quickly to intervene. “I think our hour is almost over,” he said carefully. “Come on, Mikla, you’d better walk with us, since our old three-headed friend is waiting.”

Jotull leaned on his staff. “You weren’t always in such a hurry. An hour is a relative length of time.”

“Not to Adills,” Sigurd said. “He waits for us and gives us a bloody harangue if we stay too long.”

Jotull coughed contemptuously behind one hand. “Adills might once have been enough protection for you against that sending, but he has grown far too old to be practicing magic. This is a good, stout house with a solid roof and door and it is yours, if you don’t feel safe in that crumbling old tower. I’ve seen a weaker sending tear a stronger house to pieces to get at what it wanted.”

“The old tower is stronger than it looks,” Sigurd replied.

“And so is Adills,” Rolfr interrupted, edging toward the door. “If we need help, we’ll go to Halfdane.”

“Halfdane! Am I the only one who sees him for what he really is?” Jotull demanded. “He’s more clever than most wizards. Go to him then, but I wager you’ll change your mind about him one sad day.”

Sigurd was glad to make his escape. Mikla’s spirits were so elevated by Jotull’s discomfiture that he couldn’t restrain himself from some most uncharacteristic demonstrations of glee and plotted with Rolfr and Sigurd a complete overthrow of his master. For the first time, Sigurd began to regard Mikla as a friend. The three of them swore a great and dreadful oath that they would be friends and comrades forever, united in the cause of the confusion of Jotull and ousting him from Adills’ rightful position as wizard of Hrafnborg.

To Sigurd’s relief, Ragnhild’s health was not impaired by her icy dunking in the lake, and it was not long before she again took her customary inspection of the fortress by walking from one end of the earthworks to the other. Sigurd viewed her first appearance with guilty apprehension, wishing he had someplace to hide, but he could not very well abandon his sentry position, even though he suspected it might be death to remain. Ragnhild, of all those he knew in Hrafnborg, had the keenest appreciation of the art of revenge. Each day that she had kept to her chambers, he had discreetly inquired of one of her thralls or serving women whether she was doing better or worse, partly in an effort to mollify her temper. He knew the servants would instantly tell their mistress he had asked about her health. Most likely she would only be more offended, unless her soaking had somehow softened her haughty pride.

He kept his eyes on her warily as she approached, pretending not to notice him. She was dressed in red, which was an uncomfortable reminder of that unlucky day at the lake.

“What, no Rolfr?” she greeted him, after looking around.

“He’s got a toothache today, and Adills is curing it,” Sigurd replied, still wary. “I suppose you’ve come to avenge yourself on me for that horrible trick we played on you. It was inexcusable.”

Ragnhild turned her face away to hide a slight blush. “Yes, I suppose it made quite a spectacle. My cousin Halfdane assured me I looked like a drowned cat. He still chuckles over it.”

Sigurd winced at the tone of her voice. “I don’t blame you for being angry. You’ve got plenty of cause. I don’t often apologize, but this time I have to say I’m very sorry and I wouldn’t have wanted such a misfortune to befall anybody.”

“The misfortune was intended for you,” she said. “I was of no consequence to whomever it was who wanted to harm you. But I didn’t come out here to hear you apologize to me. I wish to thank you for saving my life, when you probably had little inclination to do so. I was a very unpleasant creature to Rolfr and you, but I’ve resolved to change. I hope you still don’t hate me. I’ve asked Halfdane if you might join us of evenings once a week, if you’d care to. He wasn’t opposed to the idea.”

Sigurd was struck dumb by the honor being offered to him, to visit on equal standing with important people like Halfdane and Ragnhild. “I’m honored, but—”

“Good. Tomorrow night then. I suppose Rolfr will be frightfully offended, so perhaps you’d better bring him, if he wants to come. I know he’s rather in love with me, but I don’t like him very much. He’s made himself silly trying to get my attention. He must realize that I wouldn’t be permitted to make a match with a perfect nobody, such as he is.”

“He’s a good-hearted fellow, though. I suppose Halfdane has a list of jarls’ sons for you to take your pick of.”

“He may, but I have established a long tradition of doing as I please; so if he has a list, he may as well forget about it. How would you like to be told whom to spend the rest of your life with?”

“I don’t suppose I’ll ever have to worry about it, unless I somehow find my way back to my own realm,” Sigurd answered, with more gloom than he really intended.

Ragnhild surveyed him with her cool, blue gaze and sat down on a nearby rock. “Then you’ve never thought of marrying an Alfar woman and staying here to live? It has happened before, you know, and it’s not anything so remarkable. The people who have done it might astonish you, if you only knew.”

Sigurd paused a moment to consider the idea of spending the remainder of his life in the Alfar realm and letting the memories of Thongullsfjord and its inhabitants grow as distant and unreal as the Alfar realm had once seemed to him. “I can’t think it would be a very good thing, if the person from the other realm had left a large family,” he said thoughtfully. “It would be difficult to visit back and forth, and the grandparents would never get to see their grandchildren.”

Ragnhild brushed some ants off her skirt and stamped on them. “Oftentimes grandparents can cause trouble. Perhaps a mother didn’t want her daughter to wed an Alfar, so she made herself disagreeable. I know of one such marriage, which might have been happy if not for a bitter old woman who thought her grandson should be raised as a Scipling, not an Alfar. It was a very sad story, but perhaps I’ll tell it to you sometime. You were very fond of your grandmother, weren’t you?”

Sigurd nodded reluctantly. “She was the only family I had, and I left her dead, with the ghost of a settlement and the ruin of the farm we worked so hard to build. Everything she worked for came to naught. Even I failed at the last, and that was perhaps the most important to her.” He gazed around the earthworks and the neat squares of longhouses inside. Thorarna’s warning about the warlord had certainly done him no good.

Ragnhild folded her hands inside her embroidered sleeves and continued to gaze at him. “Well, she wouldn’t want you left for the trolls and Dokkalfar, I should hope. What else was Halfdane to do with a lone survivor? I’m sure he knew there would be difficulties in transplanting a Scipling to Hrafnborg. As for myself, I can’t see why you’re so unhappy here.”

Sigurd stood up uncomfortably, looking down at the tower and hoping to see Rolfr cured of his toothache and coming to rescue him from Ragnhild’s questions. “It’s not as simple as whether I want to stay here or not,” he said stiffly. “It’s a question of who are my friends and who are my foes. Before she died, my grandmother warned me about certain things and she gave me a box which doesn’t seem to have a key. When I can open it, I’ll know more about myself.”

“I see,” Ragnhild said, rising to her feet and pulling a large bundle of keys from her belt. “Do you think any of these would fit the lock? They’re my housekeeping keys, but many of them are for locks I never use.”

Sigurd looked at them and shook his head. “I’m afraid more is required than a key.”

“Oh! It needs magic, does it? Bring it to me and I’ll make it open then. Adills has taught me magic all my life and he says I’ll be as adept as Mikla, without going to the Guild school.”

Sigurd gazed over the lifeless landscape, where even the birds and hares must have been dozing away the daylight hours. “I was advised to take the box to its maker, a dwarf smith, but unfortunately Halfdane won’t permit it.”

“He won’t? I wonder why not. I think I shall ask him.”

Sigurd started in alarm. “No, I wouldn’t do that if I were you. I suspect he’d get rather angry, mostly at me for talking so much. I shouldn’t have mentioned the box to you.” Angrily he told himself he was a gullible fool, ready to blurt out all his secrets to the first listening ear, expecting sympathy for his complaints and advice he had no intention of taking.

Ragnhild seemed to read his thoughts and smiled. “It shall be a secret, then, if that’s what you want. You ought to beware of those you entrust secrets to, because you oblige yourself to them. Jotull will spare you tomorrow evening, won’t he?”

Sigurd noticed the connection she made between Jotull and entrusting secrets and frowned. “I’m not obliged to Jotull for very much. I can do as I please with my free time.”

She nodded, satisfied, and began to descend the steep slope of the earthworks. “Farewell until tomorrow, then. Do your best to humor Rolfr, if he’s at all disappointed.”

Jealousy was an idea that had never occurred to Rolfr. He rejoined Sigurd on the earthworks shortly, after spending the entire time watching Ragnhild sitting and talking with Sigurd. His eyes went round with amazement when he learned that Ragnhild hadn’t threatened him violence. He had fully expected a fiery, vituperative attack. As to his invitation to Halfdane’s hall, Rolfr whistled and shook his head, declining to accompany Sigurd when he went, assuring him he had no desire for refined society and protesting that, after nearly drowning the object of his love, he had lost interest in the relationship and was quite willing to give Ragnhild to Sigurd. There was another girl, the daughter of Borgill’s brother, who was showing signs of not absolutely detesting him, which was indeed encouraging.

In spite of Rolfr’s predictions to the contrary, Sigurd enjoyed the evenings at Halfdane’s hall, particularly since Halfdane had the unusual courtesy to absent himself each time, if he was not gone on the night patrol. Sigurd was treated to a better supper than he was accustomed to in the main hall, and the evening was spent playing chess to the accompaniment of a very elderly harpist and the busy knitting sounds from several of Ragnhild’s women attendants. When Sigurd had lost enough chess games, they talked and toasted inflated cracklings on long forks over the fire. Mostly they discussed horses and hunting, until one of the duennas politely suggested the hour was getting late. Then Sigurd left the good cheer and order of Halfdane’s hall for the bats and dust of the old tower, which always seemed greatly the worse by comparison.

Before Sigurd could imagine where the time had gone, summer was on the wane and the nights were getting longer and colder. The Alfar cheerfully promised him he would be seeing more Dokkalfar and trolls as winter approached. The most critical time would be the months of darkness when the sun failed to appear. Swords and axes were sharpened with loving care, and new shafts were fitted to spears and arrows. Sigurd waited anxiously for Halfdane to assign him to a patrol where he could expect to do some real fighting, but the first heavy snow of the winter fell, and still he was stuck with old Borgill and the young boys. His skills so far surpassed any of the others’ that he and Rolfr had become the instructors. Rolfr began each day by solemnly observing that it was likely to be the last they would spend in such idle amusements; Halfdane would surely assign them both that very day.

One morning the patrol returned looking more ragged and jaunty than usual and reported that they had engaged with a large number of trolls during the night and had killed most of them. The first successful encounter with the enemy was cause for celebration, but Jotull did his best to sour Sigurd’s hopes by tauntingly predicting that he would be left at home with the old men, women, and children while all the real warriors were defending Hrafnborg—a most ridiculous position, considering his possession of the carven box.