Icefall (10 page)

“You should have Muninn with you from now on. Never perform without him.”

“Really?” That is a comforting thought, actually.

“You can build a reputation on this kind of thing.”

After Alric goes to find a place to sleep, I put Muninn away in his cage. I lean close and whisper a thank-you to him, and as I do, I catch a glimpse of something dark in the straw beneath his feet.

“What is that?” I ask, and reach in.

He flutters out of the way, and I pull out an iron key. The larder key that Bera normally keeps at her brooch.

“Where did you get this?” I ask, but he says nothing as I steal back his treasure.

Bera is surprised when I return it to her.

“But how did he …?”

“I don’t know,” I say. “It was just there in his cage.”

“What a mischievous little fellow,” she says. “You’ll have to keep an eye on him. Things go missing around the steading, I’ll know right where to look.” She winks at me, and we say good night.

I climb into bed, burrow into the blankets, and feel contented. I am so grateful to Hake for his gift to me, for my mischievous little fellow, my story-whisperer, my key-stealer, my courage-giver, my friend.

W
hen all the pork is gone, they eat Hilda. Bera warns me, and I look away from the meat steaming on plates all around me. Some of the others refrain from eating out of respect for me. Bera, Raudi, Ole, my brother and sister, and Per. Alric, too, and I am surprised to see Hake sitting quietly, fingering his empty bowl. I know he must be hungry, how he must crave the taste of meat, and a feeling of gratitude toward the berserker captain swells in me. Before long, I have to leave the hall. I can’t bear the smell, and I wait outside in the cold night alone.

Ole hasn’t been able to catch any fish through the ice. After Hilda is gone, there will be no more meat.

Another day passes, and I begin to regret giving Raudi and Ole my skyr. All I want is a taste of its deliciously sour flavor, the feel of its creaminess on my tongue. If I had the only bowl of it left in the world, I don’t think I would share a single bite with anyone. But the last of the milk and butter are long gone from the steading.

The hunger is making everyone more irritable, and an irritated berserker is a frightening thing. Fights break out more frequently and are met with harsher punishments. There have already been two today: one this morning in the hall that then spilled out into a second fight in the yard. So far, no one has been seriously hurt, for the drawing of weapons within the steading walls has been expressly forbidden. I hope we can at least enjoy the night meal in peace.

I sit next to Alric, Muninn on my shoulder, as we discuss which story we will tell tonight.

“You choose,” Alric says.

“I wouldn’t know which one.”

“Yes, you do.”

“I don’t.”

“But you did before. Better than I did.”

“That was different. And I’m not sure I want to tell stories anymore.”

Alric frowns. “When will you learn to trust yourself? You keep yourself captive, Solveig. You could throw off the fetters at any time, for you hold both ends.”

I am speechless. And angry. I did not choose my birth order. I did not choose to be plain. I did not choose to be born without any qualities of worth. And this skald sits here and taunts me. Throw off my fetters? What would he have me do, wash away my face? Does he think I’ve been hiding my charm and beauty, strength and bravery? I want to shove him away from me.

But instead, I speak in a low and even tone. “I am who I am, sir.” Muninn stirs on my shoulder. Perhaps he can feel my anger through his feet.

“If that is what you believe, then that is the problem.”

“What is?”

“You don’t really know yourself.” He rubs his thighs and then stands. “I will tell the tale tonight. You needn’t worry.”

I am still glowering long after he has walked away. And I am not worrying about any tale. I am poking at his words, stirring embers, raising sparks. Who could I know better than myself? If I don’t know myself, then I don’t know anyone.

A shout and clamor rouses me back to the room. Two angry men face each other, Egill and one of the berserkers, their noses almost touching. The berserker bares his teeth. In that instant, Egill strikes a blow to the berserker’s mouth, and he goes down.

The room erupts.

Curses, shouts, and fists tear free, the sounds of splintered wood and shattered crockery. Enraged berserkers battle Egill
and Gunnarr, and battle with one another, as if they don’t care whose jaw they crack or whose face they bloody. And then, above it all, I hear the metallic ring of a sword pulled free of its scabbard, its whisper through the air, and then a grunt. I want to run and hide.

“Stop!” I barely hear Hake above the roar. “Stop!” he shouts again, but the room doesn’t slow. So he charges into the middle of it.

He isn’t armed. But he doesn’t need any weapon. He swings his war-hammer fists, a giant crashing through a wood, breaking trees. One blow and men fall before him. And as the brawlers become aware of him, they scatter out of the way like gulls.

And then, for no reason I can tell, Hake halts. His eyes roll back and his face turns an angry red. He begins to shiver and tremble, his teeth chatter. Something is happening to him. There is a moment of pause in which everyone notices the berserker captain, and then his men shout alarms. They rush to him, calling his name as though trying to reach him across a great distance.

Alric hurries up to me and pulls me back. “You must come away.”

“What is happening?” I ask, stumbling.

“The
berserkergang
is coming upon him.”

My eyes widen. I look back at Hake. He is breathing hard, his head and shoulders heaving above the chanting wall his
men have formed around him. I have never seen the battle fury take a berserker, and I am both curious and terrified.

“Come away, Solveig,” Alric whispers. “He won’t know you. Please.”

I let him guide me to a far corner, where Bera and Raudi shield Harald. I crane my neck, watch, and wait. Across the room, a low growl rumbles from the midst of the berserkers. They raise their voices and press in tighter.

“What’s wrong with Hake?” Harald asks.

“He isn’t himself,” Bera says, stroking my brother’s hair.

I listen to the berserkers chant. They pray to Odin, calling on him to draw the fury out of Hake, to calm the bear.

“He could kill us all,” Raudi says.

Harald’s eyes dart up, and Bera slaps her son.

“Quiet,” she hisses.

I add my own silent plea to the chanting, which has begun to swell. The berserkers are in their own kind of trance around Hake, rising, rising like a rushing wave. The rhythm of their chant thunders through my chest, terrible and consuming. And then at the moment when I fear it will overwhelm me, it breaks and begins a slow retreat. The beating of my heart seems to fall in step with it, calming me. Hake’s shoulders sag, his breath comes easier. And when the other berserkers are silent, he lifts his head. He looks around, blinking, and when we make eye contact, I see that he recognizes me. The wall of berserkers tumbles away from him.

Hake straightens his back, his face pale and sweaty.

He sweeps the room with his gaze and immediately stops on Egill. Hake’s eyes widen, and then I see the blood on Egill’s shoulder.

“A blade has been drawn,” Hake says. “Raise it if you have any honor.”

Across the room, a berserker lifts his sword.

Hake motions to him. “Bring it here.”

The berserker marches over, kneels, and offers up his weapon. Hake takes it, and for a moment I fear he will execute the berserker with his own sword on the spot. But he doesn’t.

“You are no longer of my company,” Hake says. “From this moment forward, none of my men will share a fire with you. None shall feed you. None shall defend you. None shall remember you.”

The berserker is still kneeling.

“Rise and be no more.”

The berserker stands, and as one, every other berserker in the hall turns their back on him. The act takes my breath with its coldness. The only eyes remaining on the lone berserker are mine, Alric’s, and Harald’s. Even Bera and Raudi look away.

The forgotten one seems to me a man drowning. Weak, sliding beneath the waves, resigned to his death, bereft of the soul that gave him buoyancy. He bows his head and backs away, and a part of me wants to reach out to him.

At the doors, he bumps into Per, who is just coming in from outside. And I see that Asa is with him. The forgotten one doesn’t lift his eyes, but slips past them both into the night.

“What is going on?” Per asks.

Asa slinks away from him, as though she is trying not to be noticed.

“Discipline,” Hake says. “Your man is injured.”

“What?”

Several berserkers and Gunnarr are already addressing the wound. From what I can see, it appears serious, but not fatal if treated with care.

“What happened?” Per demands.

“Your man started a brawl. One of my men lifted his sword, so I banished him.”

“Banished him where?” Per asks. “There’s nowhere for him to go.”

“There is the forest,” Hake says.

“That’s a death sentence,” Per says.

Hake says nothing.

Per turns to his warriors. “What started this?”

Egill winces and speaks. “I was late for my watch. The berserker accused me of being a traitor for leaving the gate unguarded.”

“That’s all?” Per asks. “So it has become an act of treason to be late?”

“No more an act of treason than seducing the daughter of the king,” Hake says.

I gasp.

Per appears stunned at first, mouth open. Then he snaps it shut. “Do you have an accusation to bring before the steading, Hake?”

The berserker captain chuckles. “No. No, I don’t. Your own eyes accuse you.”

Ole clears his throat. “And would it be treason for a berserker to blindly kill the children of his king?”

Per spins around. “What?”

Ole gestures toward Hake. “The
berserkergang
nearly took him in the brawl.”

“He is right,” Hake says and then lowers his voice. “The fault is mine. It will not happen again.”

“You’re an animal,” Per says. “You and your kind have no place among us.”

Hake nods. “Perhaps not. But the king has made one for us. And we are honest about who and what we are. Can you say the same?”

“Listen to me,” Per says. “All of you! There is nothing in my conduct that would compromise the virtue of the king’s daughter. Do you understand? I love her only as I love her father.”

“Of course you do,” Hake says.

Per is trembling with anger, but he turns away from the
berserkers to help his wounded warrior. I know Per is lying about his feelings, but I feel sorry for him. He does love my sister, but it seems cruel to mock that love so openly. And apparently the entire steading knew about it before I did.

If so, then Per and Asa are crossing a treacherous ice floe, one where the snow could swallow them into a chasm without warning. It would take only the whisper of an accusation for my father to execute Per. For his sake and Asa’s, I hope that Per was being truthful about his honorable conduct. But at the very least, he has brought suspicion down on my sister, and I am angry at him for so selfishly jeopardizing her reputation.

I watch him now as I would a stranger. He is not the man I thought he was. I’ve imagined trolls coming down from the mountains for my sister, but perhaps the troll has been in our steading all along.

Asa and I lie awake together, without talking. I worry for the berserker wandering out in the woods. Where will he go? Perhaps he is trying to climb out of the fjord, but that would be impossible. During winter, the mountain pass is closed, sealed shut, rendering our steading accessible only from the sea. Has he already frozen to death? We have not seen or heard the wolves for some time, but perhaps he has met one of them. And Hake took his sword.

When I think of the berserker captain now, he frightens me more than he ever did before. I have caught a glimpse of the
animal inside him, waiting just on the other side of its den-shadow. The others in the steading seem to have forgotten quickly about the incident. To them, it is just a part of being a berserker, and the risk my father took when he brought them into his hall.

“Did you know?” Asa asks, scattering my thoughts.

“What?”

“Did you know about Per and me?”

“I did.” But I feel guilty for not saying something to her before now, so I add, “But not for very long.”

Asa sighs. “Father will banish me just like that berserker.”

“Not if he doesn’t find out.”

“How could he not? Everyone knows.”

“But you haven’t really done anything wrong.” I drop my voice to a whisper. “Have you?”

“No, I haven’t.”

“Then you’ll be all right.”

“All right?” Her voice is so loud and angry, I worry she’ll wake those sleeping out in the hall. “How could you possibly think I’ll be all right? Per and I … I don’t know what to do.”

I think of the two of them walking into the hall together and feel a stab of betrayal. “Well, you could start by not going off alone with Per anymore. That way —”

“Oh, shut up, Solveig. You don’t know anything.”

Tears spring to my eyes. “I’m sorry.”

A moment later, she reaches out for me and takes my arm. “No, I’m sorry. It’s not your fault.”

I rub my eyes with my sleeve.

She lets me go. “I’m just so confused. Sometimes I want to run away.”

“How would you escape the fjord?”

“Not from here. From every thing. Away from Father’s kingdom.”