The Wizard And The Warlord (17 page)

Despondent and inclined to agree, Sigurd wandered outside the hall to find a quiet place to think. After peering cautiously around for evidences of Hross-Bjorn, he decided that the merry noises of singing and roistering had kept the sending sulking in the old barrow ground beyond the earthworks, which was its favorite haunt. Still vigilant, Sigurd slogged to the tumbledown stable where he kept his horse with several other young fellows’ nags. He was perfectly accustomed to the beams and walls inside the old barn, so he had no need of a lantern. Speaking soothingly to the horses, he slipped into the gray mare’s stall and knelt down to feel the hoof where she had stone-bruised it the day before.

The injury was still warm with fever, but cooler than yesterday, he decided with satisfaction. He was about to stand up to leave when he door opened again and someone came in. He thought it must be some of the boys coming to look at their horses and was meditating some sort of surprise attack to startle them, when he heard Halfdane speak in a low, impatient voice.

“What is it you need to say that requires such privacy, Dagrun?” he demanded.

“Only this: when are you going to do your duty, Halfdane? You know what I’m talking about—and whom.”

“The carven box and Sigurd—yes.” Halfdane’s tone was expressionless. “I knew you’d begin to think of him when the fighting started.”

“Well? Haven’t you delayed long enough in getting that box? I can’t understand your softness in keeping us waiting for so long. Everyone knows he’s got something, but only you and I know what it is. You should have taken charge of it long ago, even before we left Thongullsfjord. The cheeky young devil has been here nearly half a year, and from what I’ve seen of his temper, I’d say he’s not just going to hand it over to you, no matter what you say or do.”

Sigurd steadied himself against the wall, scarcely breathing as he waited for Halfdane’s answer.

Halfdane paused, and Sigurd could hear him honing his knife against his boot, a most unpromising sound. “You needn’t work yourself into such a rage over it, Dagrun. You know 1 could possess that box and its contents at any moment I chose, if I thought Hrafnborg was in any danger. I’ve been biding my time, hoping Sigurd would begin to see the justice of our cause without being told. When I’ve earned his trust, the box will come into our hands without a struggle.”

Dagrun spat into the straw. “Trust! I say take it now and make your excuses later. You’ve got to think about Hrafnborg first, or we may have dreadful problems. What if he runs away with Jotull and falls somehow into Bjarnhardr’s clutches? He could come back against us, and that’s not a pleasant picture to imagine. He was frightfully partial toward Jotull for a while, you remember. When I think of the power being juggled in those treacherous, skillful hands of Jotull’s, it makes my blood turn cold. Jotull is the one who can decide our fate, far more than Sigurd. The longer we wait to get that box, the more chances Jotull will have.”

Halfdane sighed, still stropping the knife. “What an evil star Jotull has been since Sigurd arrived. I knew he was weak in loyalty to Hrafnborg, but Sigurd and this box have awakened Jotull’s avarice. Would that I knew a way to make a malefactoring wizard behave or some way to make old Adills young and fiery again. Jotull’s powers far exceed Adills‘, and it is Jotull who stands between me and Sigurd.”

“Then get rid of Jotull. He’s not working for the best interest of Hrafnborg if he’s trying to get Sigurd away from us. Mikla says very little, but I think he’s afraid of his master. If I had just a bit more of an excuse, I would discover a very bad accident for Jotull.”

“You may be right, Dagrun. Perhaps Jotull must go. But that’s not likely to help us much with Sigurd, if he still admires the wizard. He might think he had lost his only possibility of escape.”

“All to the better for us, then. Sigurd must discover that life is often short and far from ideal when he is playing at holding such a power as that box.”

Halfdane remained silent a moment, and Sigurd counted three icy runnels of sweat trickling down his back. He had no doubt that Dagrun hoped to make his life as short and as far from ideal as an axe or sword could accomplish, if he didn’t give up the box when it was demanded.

“Sigurd is beginning to trust me somewhat, I think,” Halfdane said. “The time is better now than it ever has been, if we are to approach him. It has been an upward struggle, thanks to Jotull, but I’ve done everything I could, short of assigning him to a patrol. I know that would win him over completely—”

“No, no, don’t do it. It’s too risky. Far too many opportunities to pretend to get lost. You don’t know what Jotull might do. Keep Sigurd safe in Hrafnborg where one of us can watch him.”

“That was my inclination also. We can’t lose him now, not after searching twenty years for him. Too much is at stake, Dagrun.”

“I couldn’t agree with you more. That’s why we’ve got to stop wasting time. Enough has been wasted already.” He pulled the door open and they went out, still talking in low voices.

Sigurd waited a long time before straightening his aching knees and darting for the small door on the other side of the barn. After remembering to look for the sending briefly, he dashed across the snowy interval to the old tower, arriving at the door with a slithering plunge. He had hoped to be alone, but Rolfr and Adills both greeted him amiably through a pall of smoke, sitting with their feet almost in the fire and smoking enormous pipes.

“Hallo, Siggi!” Rolfr shouted. “What’s wrong? You came in as if the sending had its teeth in you.”

“You look rather upset,” Adills observed, as Sigurd brushed by to fling himself on his bed without speaking.

“Oh, it’s nothing,” Sigurd replied lightly. “Just a small matter of misplaced trust.”

Rolfr fanned some of the smoke away. “I’ll bet that hairless rat Ari forgot to poultice your horse again, right? You ought to make matchwood of his ribs, Siggi, or he’ll never remember anything.”

Rolfr chattered on about the benefits of punitive aids to the memory, which Sigurd hardly heard over the uproar of his own inner turmoil. If he had never begun to admire and trust Halfdane, the pain of his betrayal would not have been so great. He had considered his trust in Halfdane only a small and rather doubtful thing, but its death left him in blackest misery and resentment. His former anger boiled into new life, more virulent than before, and he renewed his resolution to escape from Hrafnborg before Halfdane and Dagrun had a chance to spring their trap on him. There was nothing he regretted leaving behind. Now that his eyes were opened, he could see that everything was lies and bribery, from Halfdane’s axe to those cozy evenings by Ragnhild’s fire, and even Rolfr’s friendship fell under suspicion. He had been blind and stupid to think that these Alfar valued him for anything except the box.

Sigurd, in his disillusionment, wasted no time in taking refuge in Jotull’s association once more, much to the bafflement of Rolfr and Mikla. Sigurd avoided Ragnhild and Halfdane’s hall to the extent that he missed half of his meals, and he quarreled fiercely with anyone who crossed him. He even quarreled with Jotull, who perversely refused to abandon Hrafnborg instantly at Sigurd’s whim. The wizard knew he had the upper hand again and saw no need to hurry.

Although he knew it was useless, Sigurd decided to approach Halfdane and confront the warlord about his assignment to a patrol. He waylaid Halfdane one snowy morning as Borgill was patiently conducting his untidy troops outside the earthworks. Sigurd knew he looked as much like a warrior as anyone as he halted his horse within speaking distance of Halfdane and waited until the warlord rode closer to him.

“I know what you’re going to ask me,” Halfdane greeted him, looking displeased. “Borgill has told me you’re getting quite too good for his patrol, and I suppose there is a bit of truth in the matter. You have been progressing well, until lately. Rolfr tells me you’ve gone back to Jotull now and he’s afraid of what Jotull may be telling you.”

Sigurd smiled wryly to think that his suspicions about Rolfr’s spying upon him were correct. “I didn’t come here to talk about Jotull. What I want to know is why I haven’t been assigned yet. I can fight as well as almost anyone and I’m getting tired of staying inside the earthworks. Sometimes it’s hard for me to believe I’m not a prisoner here.”

Halfdane’s eyes flicked over Sigurd’s weapons and horse. “We have different ways of treating our prisoners than arming them and teaching them all our ways. I hardly think you’ve been treated badly; if not for the sending, you’d be better off here than you were in Thongullsfjord. It’s partly because of that sending that I won’t assign you to ride out with a patrol. You’re safer from it here within walls, and we have problems enough with the trolls and Dokkalfar without the sending stalking us also.”

“A pity I can’t open that box of my grandmother’s and use whatever is inside to defend myself,” Sigurd said calculatingly.

Halfdane gazed at him a moment, totally arrested, too startled to remember to scowl. “There is a way—perhaps. But no, the time isn’t right, not with Jotull interfering. Has Jotull told you anything he suspects about this box—or yourself?”

“Only that I needn’t be subject to anyone, once I get it open,” Sigurd retorted sharply. “Why, is there some secret that I don’t know? Is that the reason that everyone attempts to deceive me and trick me into giving the box away? I’m no fool; I can see what you’ve been trying to do and I don’t need Jotull to tell me when my trust is being bought.” Sigurd’s poorly controlled temper awakened his mischievous natural power, and it tweaked at the ears of the horses and buzzed around their heels like wasps until they pranced nervously in circles.

“Bought!” Halfdane repeated as his horse snorted and pawed impatiently. “Is that what you call our friendship and our attempts to make you one of the Alfar of Hrafnborg? If anyone else had found you and that box, I daresay you’d be dead by now or far more miserable than you are. You’re weak, Sigurd, and you’re allowing that box to get control of you, instead of your controlling it. You’re further now from seeing what is inside than you were a month ago, and I wouldn’t help you now to open it if you asked me, which you will never do as long as Jotull is here to advise you.”

Sigurd twisted his horse’s neck around unkindly. “I won’t ask, so you don’t need to worry!” He spurred his horse and it leaped away, glad to escape the increasing manifestations of Sigurd’s power. Halfdane rode off in the opposite direction, and neither looked back.

Sigurd caught up with Borgill’s patrol, which was proceeding raggedly across the frosted meadows toward the lake. Rolfr looked at him and wisely said nothing until Sigurd broke the silence.

“Well, if I wait for promotions from Halfdane, I’ll be here until I’m older than Adills,” Sigurd finally said, still seething. “He told me I won’t ride out because of the sending, and I can’t open the box because I’m far too stupid, and he won’t help me open the box because I can’t control it. But if he won’t allow me to open the box, how can I ever get rid of the sending? If I can’t get rid of the sending, I can’t ride out, so it looks as if I’m stuck here until I rot.”

“Good, I shall rot with you,” Rolfr replied.

“I’m in no mood for joking. You don’t really mean it, anyway. I know that all of you are scheming to get the box away from me, and I no longer trust anyone or believe anything you say.”

“Except jotull,” Roifr added. “Jotull, who called that nikur into the lake with you and Ragnhild clinging to it. Jotull, who must have known the sending would be waiting there for you. Jotull, who put a spell on Adills to seize up his back, and Jotull, who has poisoned your mind against Halfdane from the start, while Halfdane has given you food and shelter and protection under his own roof.”

Sigurd rode in silence, struggling to reject what Rolfr had said. “Well, I know Halfdane wants the box. I heard him and Dagrun talking about it and how they would take it away from me once they got me to trust them enough. All this so-called kindness is just bribery,” he declared bitterly.

“Jotull wants the box just as badly as Halfdane does,” Rolfr said. “The only difference is the methods used and your chances of survival afterward. I can see you sharing this hidden power with Halfdane, but Jotull isn’t the kind who likes to share.”

Sigurd shook his head stubbornly. “I don’t want to share my birthright, with either Jotull or Halfdane. I know all this about Jotull, so you don’t need to nag me about it. But I need Jotull to get me away from here and take me to Svartafell so the box can be opened as soon as possible. Halfdane has some notion that I’m not ready to know what the thing is yet.”

“I see. Then all you’ll have to worry about is getting free from Jotull, once you get away from Halfdane,” Rolfr observed. “A nice exchange, Siggi, something like the fire and the frying pan.”

“You’re being disagreeable today, aren’t you?” Sigurd glared at Rolfr and didn’t speak to him for the rest of the day. His own miserable doubts kept him excellent company, with the result that by nightfall he was in the depths of wretched indecision. Roifr’s easy good spirits were unimpeded by scowls and moody silences, and he was whistling cheerfully over a pot of boiled mutton when Adills came in with momentous news. The old wizard thrust the door open with his staff and hobbled in quickly on a gust of wind that blew him along like a dry leaf.

“It’s happened at last!” he exulted, throwing his staff in the comer with a splutter of sparks. “Halfdane has banished Jotull. Ordered him to pack up and leave Hrafnborg before Midwinter or suffer the consequences. I hope he opts for the consequences. I think Halfdane could kill him with his gauntlet.” He collapsed into his favorite chair, cackling appreciatively. “Oh, I’ve waited a long time to see Jotull get his comeuppance. Serves him right for thinking he can flout Halfdane’s rules.”

“Midwinter isn’t soon enough for me,” Rolfr said, with a troubled glance at Sigurd. “I wish he were gone today.”

Sigurd maintained a cold silence, wondering what Jotull’s next action would be. All he knew for certain was the fact that, when Jotull left Hrafnborg, he would go with him. Staying in Hrafnborg was going to get him nowhere. Already many of Borgill’s young troops were returned to wall-watching, and many of their horses had been put on the list for possible emergency rations for the hill fort when the food supplies ran low. Sigurd’s fortunes had turned full circle, and he was again at his low point, perhaps worse off than he had been when he had first arrived at Hrafnborg. The weather was cold and the days almost sunless. Rolfr had told him he could look forward to nothing better than many wretched hours of standing guard on the earthworks, roasting his toes in the coals to keep them from freezing off, with no company more exalted than the most ancient of the fighting men, stout-armed housewives whose ferocity was equal to any troll, and the other members of Borgill’s patrol, if their mothers would let them go.