1633880583 (F) (19 page)

She prevailed against both impulses. For she was Persimmon Gaunt, and this land would have to kill her if it meant to stop her.

Where am I?
echoed the suddenly comprehensible voice of Floki the slaver in her mind.
What has—

She sheathed the sword and silenced him. He was a problem for later.

She remembered Crowbeard, and Crowbeard’s wife, and the one word she’d said to Gaunt. “Tell me,” she asked Roisin, “what is the meaning of
skjøge
?”

Roisin hesitated. “It means ‘harlot.’ Why?”

Gaunt looked to the heavens. “I . . . will need considerable help, priestess. First. Have you any bows? And perhaps, armor?”

CHAPTER 8

JOKULL

When the sun was seeking its bloody end beyond Oxiland’s main island, and the sky above was like blue-gray slate, Innocence and Huginn came to an estate beside the coast. Seven separate farmhouses stood at various spots around a bay of black sand. Huginn aimed for the largest, one thrice the size of his own, rising within a stone’s throw of a grand building upon the highest hill. The hilltop construction was all of rock, with spires and vast windows of multicolored glass.

“Is that the castle of Loftsson?” Innocence asked.

“What? Ha! That is Saint Kringa’s, greatest Swan-church of Oxiland, bigger even than the cathedral at Smokecoast. No, the farmhouse below is Loftsson’s. Though it’s no accident that the church rises so near. It was Loftsson who paid the largest share. Loftsson himself’s a retired priest, and he himself will read scripture at the Mass.”

“My mother followed the Swan,” Innocence ventured. “Though she didn’t talk about it much.”

“And you do not?”

Paradoxically, honesty seemed best around Huginn, the professional liar. “No. I was raised in far Eastern ways.”

Huginn scrutinized him. “Do those ways forbid courtesy at an alien religious ceremony?”

“No. Quite the contrary.”

“Do those ways include human sacrifice?”

“No!”

“Then we’ll have no problem, lad. Oxiland became Swanling country within living memory. Peacefully, unlike over in Svardmark. There are many here who are still quietly heathen. There is no king here commanding us to swear allegiance to crown and church. We don’t make trouble for our neighbors, as long as they don’t wave tokens of Torden or Orm One-Eye in the priests’ faces.”

“What about you? Are you . . . heathen?”

“Ha! That should be an easy question, shouldn’t it? I am a Swanling raised, and I revere the light that came from the South. But my heart stirs with the winds from the North. Since I was a boy I’ve loved the tales of the Vindir, and the frost giants, and the trolls and uldra, and the brave men who contended with them all. My soul belongs to the Swan and her heavenly father. But that soul is heathen, Swan help me.”

“That does not make a great deal of sense, Huginn.”

“Don’t I know it.”

They descended to a true road, a pathway formed of carefully gathered and cunningly assembled flat stones. Before long a group walked upslope along the road to meet them. An elderly man in a red woolen hat, with a cloak of blue thrown over a robe of black and white, waved at them. Flanking him were a pair of swordsmen in chain byrnies.

The red-hatted man called out, “What news, old foundling?”

“Little enough, old guardian! How fares the hall?”

“We are blessed. We have enough for all and a good feast tomorrow besides. Who do you travel with?”

“This lad’s called Innocence. He will act as my scribe and then is free to find employment.”

“An unusual name. A southerner?”

Innocence wanted to speak, but Huginn raised a hand. “That is a long story, Jokull.”

At that Jokull Loftsson smiled. “A long story from Huginn Sharpspear is a thing worth waiting for. Have you eaten?”

“But little.”

“Come, then.” Jokull nodded to his men. “You’ll not be needed now.” His guards moved at speed back toward the nearest farmhouse.

Huginn and Innocence dismounted and descended at Jokull’s slower pace. For all Walking Stick’s instruction on deference to the old, Innocence was hungry and impatient. It was hard not to fidget. He contented himself with staring out at the gray eastern sea as the two men talked.

“So,” said Huginn. “Why does Jokull Loftsson walk with guards on his own land?”

“Why does he walk with a cane? It is prudent. There are portents. And the road is rocky.”

“If there are certain stones that concern you, I would like to hear of them. A younger man might roll them out of the way.”

Jokull peered intently at Innocence; Innocence pretended not to notice. Jokull sighed and said, “The creatures that folk call Orb Dragons have been sighted in Oxiland. People I know to be truthful have seen them. I do not think they are really dragons, however.”

“That’s good. Lesser dragons become deranged if too long in the presence of the great ones who define our land.”

“It is not good. I would know what to do with a dragon. Even if we had to flee, I would know. These flying puzzles, however, I know nothing about.”

“I promise this, old friend. I will uncover the truth about Orb Dragons.”

“A brave promise! I’m glad to have your pledge, but I’m also glad you didn’t make it at the banquet. I will keep it quiet.”

“I would thunder it from yonder roof, Jokull.”

“You were always too hasty, Huginn. And Torfa doesn’t like anyone playing on the roof.”

“Ha! I think, Innocence, this conversation is not one you need to remember. May he find his lodgings?”

“Of course. Let us speak to Torfa.”

Torfa proved to be a majestic, gray-haired matriarch, sturdier than Jokull, with a voice that could boom through every corner of the farmhouse—and it was a vastly greater farmhouse than Huginn’s.

Even so, she had no place for Innocence. The way she scowled at Huginn, he suspected there’d be no place for Huginn’s servants even if the house were empty and the wind moaning through it. “You will proceed down the path,” Torfa said, after feeding him some porridge, “taking the left-hand bend, to the red barn. That barn is assigned to male servants. You may sleep in the south-side hayloft.” Innocence found all his Eastern and Western instruction at play when he bowed to this mighty woman and departed.

As he entered the smelly lodgings, it occurred to him that all the bleak, fine sentiments one encountered in the sagas were among nobles, priests, warriors, and wealthy landowners. There was little mention of grooms, maids, shepherds, carpenters, scribes. He found himself berthed with three younger servants who weren’t pleased to find their shares of drafty hayloft shrinking. There was a hairy teenager named Rolf and a bald one named Kollr, who occupied opposite corners, and a boy of perhaps ten named Numi, hair cut short, who took the hinterland between. They seemed to have their ancient border disputes worked out, and Innocence was reluctant to disturb the peace.

“How about this?” he said. “I will sleep here, by the ladder.”

“What if we step on you on our way to piss?” said Rolf.

“What if you fall off?” said Numi.

“What if you knock the ladder over?” said Kollr.

“Torfa herself assigned me this loft,” Innocence said, “and here I will stay. The alternative is for me to sleep on a rafter. If so I will choose one above each of you for a week at a time. I believe the Yule festivities will last that long.”

They stared at him. Rolf began laughing. “I must see this! Very well, southerner, bunk over my head if you wish. I sleep with a dirk in hand, so I make no promises for your safety if you fall on me.”

“Sleeps with a dirk in hand?” chuckled Kollr. “Is that a kenning? Perhaps you wouldn’t mind him tumbling onto you in the dark, eh?”

“Have a care,” said Rolf, “my dirk is not made of words but steel.” He raised a dagger for emphasis. “I have hit men farther off, and less fat, than you.”

Innocence coughed. “What is a kenning?”

The boy Numi looked grateful to change the subject, more or less. “It’s a poetic way of talking around a thing. A puzzle in words. The sea is the ‘swan-road.’ A sword is a ‘friend of carrion crows.’ A battle is a ‘banquet of blades.’”

Kollr said, leaning back and patting his belly, “A warrior might be a ‘slayer of eagles’ hunger.’”

When Innocence looked puzzled, Numi explained, “Eagles can be carrion birds too. The kennings can get obscure.”

Rolf sheathed his dagger and relaxed. “Old men make it a game. You could call a kenning a ‘slayer of boredom.’ Armed with kennings, a poet can make a simple story last for hours. What was the one Loftsson told last night? ‘The visage of the something . . .’”

“‘Twice the visage of the father of the axe-thrower,’” Kollr said. “That means ‘blind.’”

“What?” Innocence said, sitting down cross-legged, the crisis apparently passed. (Though he must sleep on a rafter.)

“The axe-thrower is the god Torden,” Kollr said.

“Heathen god, you mean,” Rolf said.

“And his father is the
god
Orm,” Kollr continued, while Rolf fumed and Innocence wondered if he should have sat after all. “He was one-eyed, as was his reputed father, the god Arthane Stormeye. Twice his visage would mean blind in both eyes.”

“You are brave,” Rolf said, “to name these men of old as gods, here in the barn of the good priest Jokull Loftsson.”

Numi broke in, his voice squeaking a bit. “The Swan’s ways,” he said, taking an extra breath, “are ways of peace—”

“Tell that to the shade of Saint Ole,” said Rolf, “who rode throughout Svardmark smashing idols.”

“And look how Saint Ole died,” answered Kollr, “in battle with his own countrymen.”

“I should say—” Numi began.

Rolf was on his feet now. “You’re good at goading, heathen, but how are you at fighting?”

“Now wait—” said Numi.

“Glad to show you,” said Kollr, rising.

Innocence drew upon his chi and leapt onto a rafter.

There was sudden silence in the hayloft.

“I just wanted to see how the air was up here,” said Innocence, keeping his voice relaxed. “Now, I just remembered, when they brought me in here, they told me everyone’s job. I’m a scribe, see, and it’s my business to remember. You, Rolf, are a groom to a fellow named Yl . . . Ylu—”

“Ylur Ymirson,” said Rolf with fierce pride, demonstrating that Innocence had given him something new to be angry about.

“And you, Kollr, are a cook’s assistant—”

“Chief cook’s assistant,” said Kollr.

“Chief cook’s assistant to Styr . . . Surturson. I got that right, yes?”

“Yes, but—”

“And Numi, you are a priest of some sort, right?”

“No!” said the boy, looking around as though afraid someone might have overheard. “I’m a mere novitiate—”

“Novitiate, yes—”

“—of Blizzardmere Monastery. I’m assigned here to Abbot Vatnar’s staff for the holiday, as part of my training. Vatnar is not a monastery abbot, understand, but he earns the title for leading an important church—”

“Of course, indeed, true. Now then, gentlemen, if we are going to argue religion, surely the fellow from the monastery gets as much chance to speak as the groom and the cook. Yes?”

Rolf crossed his arms and nodded. Kollr bowed in Numi’s direction.

“Um,” said Numi. “Yes. Now, Rolf, it says in the Swan’s scripture that a divided house will fall, and a divided kingdom will become desolate. What say you about a divided hayloft?”

Rolf grunted.

“And Kollr, in the sayings of Orm it’s told that a hasty tongue sings its own downfall. Am I right?”

Kollr sighed. “You are right.”

“So it seems to me that we should have no talk of broken idols and fallen saints, but be glad we have a roof over our heads and good food tomorrow.”

“You speak well,” Kollr said.

“Aye,” said Rolf.

“Thank you,” said Numi, looking up at Innocence.

“I believe I will be comfortable up here,” said Innocence, shifting to Rolf’s side of the hayloft as planned, “if there is no fighting down there.”

It was said in the classics of the Garden that the man of virtue spoke slowly and cautiously, but they had little to say of jumping onto rafters.

“He snores,” Rolf groaned in the morning. “Our mystery guest has amazing balance and never once fell from his rafter. But he snores.”

“Good morning,” said Innocence. He dropped himself from the rafter without use of chi, so as not to show off. They all stared anyway.

“I think you owe us some explanation for your talents,” Kollr said, “but not now. Now Rolf and I have to work, and Numi and you have to do whatever it is that acolytes and scribes do.”

“I’m a novitiate—” began Numi.

“Yes,” Kollr laughed at the red-faced Numi, hands raised. “Sorry.”

“Do they feed us?” asked Innocence.

“No,” Rolf said, “we must roam the plains and slay mice for our breakfast. Of course they feed us. Follow me.”

They joined a throng of servants who moved through the Loftsson farmhouse like thread through a garment, and breakfast was a fine thing for all that it nearly happened on the run: bread and berries and bacon. Innocence judged this was fine fare, from the appreciative noises of the servants and thralls.