The Wizard And The Warlord (3 page)

Two families packed their boats and departed for the south, barely in time to miss the winter freeze-up of the fjord. The long, dark winter found many settlements with half enough wood and peat, a fraction of the usual food laid by, and hard knots of fear in the hearts of those who listened to the trolls in the fells mocking their desperation with assorted depraved roars and screams.

In the spring, the survivors made note of the grim toll taken by winter and the trolls and packed their boats or begged the unwilling sea traders to carry them south. Desolately, Sigurd watched them go, finding Thorarna’s vindication a hollow consolation. His only comfort was the loss of old Grelod, who had had enough of scratchings at the door and unfamiliar tracks in the snow.

Thorarna to the last refused to be cajoled into a ship and berated Sigurd daily for staying with her. Bleakly, he watched the ships sailing out of the harbor, pelted as often as not by the unseen watchers in the cliffs on either side. His sword never left his side and he longed for a clean shot with his bow at one of the lurking marauders. He knew they were hiding in the lava flows, waiting for their opportunity, especially after sundown. He began to feel that he and the other busy Sciplings were the intruders on Skarpsey’s ancient soil, and it was not a pleasant experience at dusk with shadows filling all the ravines and creases in the fells.

By midsummer, all the farms of Thongullsfjord were deserted except for Sigurd’s and those of two other families who had waited to see if the situation improved. The trolls and sendings rampaged with greater tenacity than ever. Sigurd urged the others to stay, despite the fact that they possessed only a handful of sheep, cows, and horses, and that no traders dared risk the capricious wrath of the trolls guarding the cliffs that overlooked the fjord.

“We have to go if we want to stay alive,” Bogmoddr declared; he was not quite as fat and red and complacent these days. Sigurd knew he’d hoped to take up all the deserted holdings for himself, but he’d lost his courage. “We can’t survive another winter like the last one. I’ve learned to hate this unnatural, cursed place.” He glared around at the rotting hay and his pitiful, sad-eyed sheep.

Snjolfr grunted in agreement, twitching his shoulder toward the fells. “Well, they can have it. I’ve lost everything I’ve worked for and all my fathers gained before me. The trolls won in the end. Always knew they were here, just waiting.” He blinked at Sigurd half apologetically and added, “You and your grandmother are welcome in my boat. We can’t go off and leave you here to die.”

Sigurd nodded and sighed, not even bothering to point out, as he usually did, that the land to the south was all taken up and they would be tilling other men’s fields for them instead of their own. All he said was: “You’ll regret leaving your farms behind, one day.”

“Not if I live to see my children grown, which I won’t do here,” Snjolfr retorted, seconded by a sharp sniff from his wife. “I don’t know how you and Thorarna have survived as long as you have, alone up there so near the trolls. Not to say she has spells to keep them off,” he added hastily as Sigurd suddenly bristled with anger. “That’s all bygones, I hope. I never thought it was her, really. This misfortune is something much more—” He spread his hands to encompass all of the island, and left off what he was going to say with a depressed sigh. “You and Thorarna be at the boatstands tomorrow. We’re setting sail at evening with the tide.”

“We won’t keep you waiting,” Sigurd said, prodding at the baskets and bundles the women were resolutely packing with their household goods. He knew he and his grandmother couldn’t survive alone, not with the trolls openly prowling the deserted pasturelands and ransacking the empty houses. “It’s my grandmother there’s no convincing. She wants me to leave her behind to die.”

“We can’t do that,” Bogmoddr declared. “She always was too stubborn for her own best interest. But you’ll have to be more stubborn, Sigurd. You must bring her to the boatstands tomorrow if you have to carry her all the way, kicking and struggling, I have no doubt.”

The women shook their heads and shuddered. “Imagine being left here alone to die!” one exclaimed.

Sigurd strode homeward well before dark with the flour he had traded for, but the watched feeling made him uncomfortable until he was safely at home. As he approached the barn, the two remaining geese came to meet him, cackling hungrily, as if Thorarna hadn’t already fed them. The penned sheep blattered demandingly, wanting the scanty hay left in the barn. Sigurd fed the animals and stepped into the house with a greeting, but it was empty. With mounting alarm, he looked from the dead fire to the bread and cheese drying on the table and on to the empty peg where Thorarna’s cloak usually hung. With a shout, he plunged outside to search for her. Pausing a moment to listen, he heard a faint cry from the hillside above the house.

He found her where she had lain on the hillside all day in the rain and wind, unable to muster the strength to rise.

“That wretched spotted lamb got away from me this morning,” she said, very pale and weak. “I fell down and couldn’t get up. The trolls will have it before dawn.”

“Hush,” he said, trying to stop the quiver in his voice. “Let the trolls have all the stupid sheep. You shouldn’t have come up here alone. What if you’ve broken something?”

Ignoring her protests, he picked her up in his arms and carried her to the house. He was horrified to feel her bones so fragile and birdlike beneath her skin. She had once been stout enough to carry huge loads of hay on her back after working all day, and easily able to lift a sheep and throw it down for shearing. Scarcely anything was left of his grandmother, and suddenly he felt terribly alone with the darkness of the fell pressing hungrily at his back.

When he had locked the door, started the fire again, and lighted the whale-oil lamp, he told her about Snjolfr’s offer to take them to safety. “We have to go, Grandmother,” he finished firmly. “You’re not well, and the southlands are far more pleasant in the winter, they say. After you’re strong and fat again, we’ll come back to this little house. We can live like the foxes themselves on the berries and birds and hares and whatever else nature offers, and I can go with the vikings in the summers.”

Thorarna was shaking her head with great weariness, pulling her eider up under her chin. “Not I, Sigurd. You can see I’m dying, can’t you? This is the place where I intend to molder away, and the time is not far distant. Something happened to me this morning—half my body seems to be dead already, and I can’t seem to think.” She sighed and closed her eyes. “So sleepy. There’s something I have to tell you, as soon as I remember what it is. But I do know that you must go with Bogmoddr and Snjolfr. Go south with them. Now, tomorrow.”

Sigurd sat down and folded his arms. “I won’t go without you. Grandmother, and that’s the end of it.”

She shook her head, as if it were very heavy, and her eyes opened. “I think it is finally time I told you about your father and your mother. Your history—a sad story.”

“No, no, you’re far too tired,” Sigurd said hastily. “You don’t need to tell me about it now. You’ve had a fall and you’re chilled. It’s nothing serious, Grandmother.”

“Silence, child. I know what I know. Today I saw an old sheep dying—my fetch. This time Grelod isn’t here to hold me back with her spells and charms. She’ll be angry that I cheated her so, the moment her back was turned. Hah—she was a true friend, Siggi. If I leave you anything, I hope it’s the ability to know a true friend from a false. But to the meat of the matter—before this old husk is too tired. Your mother—I wronged her, Sigurd. She was my daughter, and her name was Ashildr.” The name brought a spasm of pain, and Thorarna fell back, gray-faced and gasping. “I renounced her for marrying—as she did. I haven’t spoken her name for more than twenty years—but now I must forgive her.”

Sigurd knelt beside her in alarm, seeing that her condition was indeed serious. “Grandmother, can’t I do something for you?” he whispered. “Are you in pain?”

She opened her eyes reluctantly. “Yes, pain—jealousy. He took her away from me—but not you, if I can help it. Two of them—I can’t remember which married her and which killed her—but I hate them both.” Her faint voice dwindled into senseless mutterings.

“Go on, Grandmother,” Sigurd encouraged her. “Tell me about my father.” He could scarcely speak.

“Father—the man on the fell—yesterday. Or was it last year? I told him—no son, you’d died in the fire. You’ll forgive me one day, Sigurd. Couldn’t let him take you to that other place. The other one watched you, too—he’s the one—trolls, sendings. I told him—no son. He didn’t believe me. Mustn’t let him take away Ashildr’s carved box—Ashildr’s wedding present from—from—he took Ashildr—she died—in the fire—”

Sigurd struggled to understand; but his wits were already benumbed by the fear of her dying. “Then my father came here? He sent for me?”

“Sent for you! Sendings! He’ll kill you, Sigurd!” She clutched his arm in her cold little claw of a hand, glaring past his shoulder wildly. “Keep Ashildr’s box away—the warlord wants it—evil, evil man—burned your mother—”

“My father did, or this other? Do you remember his name?”

“Name—name—” Her eyelids fluttered, and her breathing was so faint that Sigurd feared it had stopped. “Ashildr—Ashildr, oh forgive me! I tried to keep him safe—keep the box away from them—wizards and warlords both. Ashildr, are you still here? Let me take your hand.”

Sigurd held her hand gently in his own, letting her murmur on to Ashildr, mostly nonsense, until she fell quietly asleep, breathing small, shallow draughts—but still it was breathing. He hoped she would be strong enough to tell him more tomorrow in a more connected fashion. He still knew almost nothing about his father and mother; and, of course, he remembered nothing useful except some childhood nightmares about fire. Sadly, he thought these might have been a veiled memory of the fire which had killed his mother. Thorarna had told him it was a sad story, and he began to suspect that she was right.

He sat beside her watchfully all through the night. She slept quietly, except for a few querulous calls for Ashildr, but he was able to reassure her and soothe her back to sleep. Near dawn, which came early in the north country, she opened her eyes with perfect clarity and exclaimed, “Ashildr, fetch my best apron and brooches, your father is home!” She moved as if to rise and collapsed softly in Sigurd’s arms, breathing her last.

By the time Sigurd had torn enough wood from the house and barn for his grandmother’s pyre, the day was far advanced. With a numb feeling, he watched the tremendous fire leaping high into the gray sky. At midday it still burned, lifting a column of black smoke into the sky like a banner.

At last he gathered a few possessions, remembering Bogmoddr and Snjolfr waiting at the boatstands. Knowing he was probably too late, he hurried anyway, hoping they had seen the smoke and guessed that Thorarna had died. Leaving her unburned and unburied would have been unthinkable. But perhaps they had thought trolls had burned the house.

After hurrying the four miles to the harbor, he found his hopes were dashed when he reached the empty boatstands. Bogmoddr and his boats were gone, leaving nothing behind except an old basket which had burst. The thrifty housewife had transferred the contents to another container, wasting only one seed cake that had fallen in the wet sand. Sigurd turned away with an effort, knowing he was not likely ever to see another trace of human occupation on the grim shores of Thongullsfjord. As he gazed out to sea in bitterest desolation, he Heard the voices from the cliffs begin a chorus of hoarse chuckles, as if they possessed a great secret, warning Sigurd that the day would soon be spent. He looked around in sudden uneasiness at the familiar scene, which was now deserted and somehow menacing. The hopelessness of his fate staggered him. He turned away from the vast emptiness of the sea, which only reminded him what a trifling speck he was in such an overwhelmingly huge and desolate scheme.