Deep Water (20 page)

Friede took in a long breath. “The gods talk to you?” Her voice was full of wonderment and she looked at Baluch with a simple
admiration which was clearly unusual in her.

“Sometimes,” Baluch mumbled, head down.

“
So,
” Acton recalled them back to business, “we’d better go up rather than down.”

“I can’t climb up,” Friede reminded him impatiently, back to her usual self.

“You can’t climb down, either,” Acton said. “If we have to carry you all the way home, I’d rather do it down a nice soft slope
instead of the way we came, through the rocks.”

“But to get to the slope . . .”

“Come on,” Acton said, cheerful as though they were off for a picnic. “Climb aboard.”

“Get her past the boulder first,” Baluch advised. “The climb isn’t as steep further down the ledge.”

“Fine. Let’s go.”

They went back past the boulder, Acton leading, Friede edging along cautiously, Baluch behind ready to catch her if necessary.
Once they were through, Baluch got the extra coat out of Acton’s pack and helped Friede put it on. She sighed as she felt
the warmth envelop her.

The ledge went back for another forty paces before it petered out, and the cliff was definitely at a less worrying slope at
that end. Still, over the next half-hour Bramble wished that she could just withdraw from Baluch’s mind altogether. She didn’t
understand why she had to live through this part of Acton’s life.

Friede climbed on Acton’s back without a word, as though she were used to this particular indignity. Baluch had to find their
way up the ridge, and clear any loose rock or pebbles from their path. Acton stayed well back so that Friede wouldn’t be hit
by the debris, but followed Baluch’s path faithfully. Baluch’s hands were bleeding inside his gloves and only the warmth of
the blood kept them from freezing, but Bramble knew that as soon as the blood stopped flowing it would freeze and cause frostbite.
Baluch knew it too. He kept muttering, “Spare gloves, I should have known we’d need spare gloves,” all the way up. Bramble
could feel the burn and tremble of his legs and arms, the deep exhaustion which he kept back purely by will. She could only
imagine how hard Acton was finding it with Friede on his back.

The climb didn’t end suddenly, but slowly. The ridge folded back in a series of small summits, so that it seemed Baluch had
reached the top several times before he actually did. Each time his heart leapt as the ground leveled out, and each time he
set his mouth and kept going as he realized that the top was still above him. Finally he took three steps on level ground;
four steps; five, and collapsed in gratitude. A moment later, Acton and Friede collapsed next to him.

They sat shoulder to shoulder, breathing hard.

“Well,” Acton said. “At least that warmed me up.”

Baluch choked with laughter and punched him on the arm. Friede stood, hoisting herself on her crutch.

“We’d better go,” she said.

They were standing, Bramble saw, at the top of the ridge. On the other side, the ground sloped gently away, in a long hill
that seemed endless in the darkness. She had no sense of direction without her own body to orient her, but Baluch seemed confident
that they could find their way home.

“It’s further, but at least we won’t get lost,” he said.

The snow was not so deep on the summit of the ridge, but as they moved down the long slope it lay thicker, and further down
it had already shifted into drifts. On the upland, Friede had struggled with the crutch. Here, she had no chance. She fell
three times before she would admit she couldn’t cope.

“Told you we’d have to carry her,” Baluch said. He presented his back to Friede and she climbed on with much less resignation
than she had shown at the cliff face. She was slight, but any extra weight at all was a burden in these conditions. Baluch
set his teeth and struggled on, with Acton going ahead to break the snow where it lay thickly, using Friede’s crutch as a
shovel where he could. The snow was falling more thickly now, the wind not as strong but still cutting.

Their exhaustion had moved past the point of physical pain. Bramble could feel that Baluch’s arms and legs were protesting
at each movement, but he seemed unaware of it, and unaware, too, of the music coursing through his mind, horns and fifes playing
marching music, a steady, insistent beat. He and Acton both had settled into an unthinking, deliberate plodding that was like
sleepwalking. Bramble worried that they would become lost through sheer inattention, but Acton seemed to be heading toward
a particular goal. Often they had to skirt boulders or cracks in the rock, but always he would turn back to the same direction,
like a sunflower turns toward sunlight.

The snow fell even more heavily, so they paused to tie themselves together with Friede’s neck piece. She hid her face in Baluch’s
back and he could feel her breath, warm in the middle but cold on the edges, on the back of his neck. He couldn’t feel his
hands anymore, although Bramble knew they still supported Friede’s legs.

After an interval that seemed to go on forever, they stopped to swap positions, with Acton taking Friede and Baluch going
forward to tramp down the snow. Although Friede had been heavy, this was the more difficult task, requiring sheer dogged strength.
Baluch couldn’t sustain it as long as Acton, and they swapped twice more before, finally, they saw lights in the distance
through the falling snow.

The snow was lying chest-deep and it needed both of them working together to force a way. But the sight of home filled them
with energy and Baluch’s steps were lighter even as he struggled through drifts.

They came back to exactly where they had started from, the back entrance to the hall. Acton banged on the door with a fist
and Asa opened immediately, calling out loudly.

“Marte, she’s here, she’s here, they’ve brought her back!”

The woman who had been rocking by the fire, her face red and blotchy with crying, pulled Friede from Baluch’s back, sinking
down to the floor and stroking her hair, laughing and crying and shaking her. Baluch’s legs shook. His face burned in the
sudden warmth. His father, Elric, rushed over to support him. Baluch gladly grabbed on to his arm and tried to smile.

Acton unwrapped his face and shook himself free of snow, as energetic as if he had never left the room. He threw his hat and
gloves onto a bench and hugged his mother with one arm.

“I need something warm to drink!” he declared. “It’s as cold as the hells out there.”

Asa laughed. Baluch was watching his father, whose eyes rested on Asa with appreciation, but without longing. He’s given up
trying to win her, then, Bramble thought, and wondered if his empty sleeve was to blame for Asa’s lack of interest.

“I should beat you for this,” Elric said, returning his attention to Baluch, but it was clear from his smile that he didn’t
intend to.

Other people crowded around them, exclaiming and shouting to others in the hall. Baluch felt overwhelmed by the noise. He
tried to fumble his gloves off, but they were stuck to his hands by blood.

Acton noticed. He reached out and stopped Baluch. “You’ll have to soak them off in warm water,” he said gently. Elric took
Baluch by the arm to lead him into the hall. As they turned toward the door, the chieftain appeared in it, rubbing his eyes.

“What in all the hells is going on?”

Silence fell, except for Friede’s mother’s quiet scolding. The chieftain looked at them for a long moment. Friede looked up
and met his gaze.

“You are in trouble,” he said. “I’ll deal with you tomorrow.” She nodded and yawned, which sent her mother and several of
the other women into a scurry, saying, “Let’s get her to bed, she’s exhausted, tomorrow’s soon enough to worry about tomorrow . . .”
They took her out into the hall, leaving the chieftain staring at Acton and Baluch. Mostly, Bramble noted, at Acton. Elric
tensed as though getting ready to resist any attempt to punish his son.

“It wasn’t the gods, Grandfather,” Acton said. “It was a friendly spirit.”

“Hmph,” his grandfather said. He turned to Baluch. “Is that so?” Baluch nodded silently. “No more to be said, then.”

Elric relaxed, and so did Baluch. Moving back into the hall, Harald spoke over his shoulder, seemingly casual. “But you’d
better have mulled wine to warm you. It’s a man’s drink, I know, but just this once . . .”

Acton smiled blindingly and slapped Baluch on the back. “Told you it’d be all right,” he said. “Swith, I’m hungry! Mother,
any meat left from dinner?”

Baluch followed him into the hall smiling, his internal music changing to triumphant horn blasts as the waters rose up and
Bramble floated on their tide.

T
HE WOMEN STAY
in the women’s quarters. Yes, of course. So the men think, if they think about it at all. But when the men venture away after
the spring sowing, what do they think the women do? The ewes must be milked, the cows tended as they calve, the wheat weeded,
the vegetables hoed, the barley malted and the ale brewed, and the women do it as they always do. But the sheep must be shepherded
too, and the birds kept off the crops, and the horse yoked and the cart loaded for market. The wool is mostly spun in winter
so the looms can be busy all through the long evenings of summer — but with the men away the wood must be chopped and the
animals slaughtered and the meat butchered — yes, and the wolves chased away from the young lambs, too. The boys do some,
of course, but without the women the men would find a cold hearth and an empty steading when they returned with their wounds
and their tales and their glory.

So the women stay in the women’s quarters, of course. But in the soft summer evenings after the light has faded too much to
use the looms and the children are asleep, the women sit in the long hall and sing and laugh and drink small ale and make
jokes about the men. As women always have.

So it was in our steading until the raiders came. For our men had sailed off, as they always did in summer, taking the pelts
and the hides and the precious inkstone to the trading towns down south, sometimes all the way to the Wind Cities, and there
was no one to protect us from the raiders.

The men came not from the sea, where we had a lookout placed, but over the mountains from the east. Not in the morning, when
mostly they attack, but in the cool evening. So it was that the women were in the long hall, and that was the saving of us,
because Eddi, Gudrun’s son, called out loud enough from the stable before they killed him so that we had warning, and we could
bar the doors and drag the tables across them. I thought they might burn us out, but it had been a long march and they wanted
beer, and knew there would be barrels in the hall. So they battered the doors down. But we had time, Haena my mother, Gudrun
and Ragni and I, to take down the ancestral shields that hung along the walls, and the spears that went with them.

My mother Haena was the oldest, white-haired and bent, but she straightened herself and faced them first, as she should, being
our chieftain Harald’s wife. The rest of us lined up behind her, hoping that by fighting we were dooming ourselves to die,
and a quick death was what we prayed for, the best we could have, we thought.

They burst through the doors and came at us, but stopped in surprise when they realized it was only women facing them. Their
leader was a tall strong man, sandy-haired and green-eyed, so green I saw it even in that moment of dread. I will not say
his name in case his ghost seeks me out and takes revenge, but his use-name was Hard-hand, for indeed his hand was very hard
on those he punished. He looked at us — and no doubt we looked ridiculous enough to his eyes — and laughed so hard he brought
tears to his eyes. His men began to grin, then laugh, and lowered their weapons. Then Haena threw her spear and got one of
them in the arm. He swore and pulled the spear out. The rest laughed even louder. Their leader had to prop himself up against
the wall.

“Serve you right, Os!” he howled.

“Pierced by love’s arrow!” said another, who looked to be the most intelligent of them. I found out later that he was their
skald, their poet, and his name was Gris the Open-handed, for he was the most generous of men, even to strangers and women.
He was Hard-hand’s brother.

Then Gudrun heard her son Eddi’s death cry come from the stable and grief took her and made her berserk. She ran screaming
and struck at the leader. He swiped her aside with a casual blow with his sword, but such was his strength that the single
blow near cut her in two and she fell, her scream turned to pain and then to silence before she lay full-length on the ground.

Hard-hand smiled, still, but his eyes were cold as he looked us over. He looked longest at me, and lingeringly. I knew that
look and I hefted my spear higher. My mother Haena took a step back and rested her hand on my shoulder, giving me strength,
because she knew that look too. Athel, my cousin, who was younger than I but had the Sight, dropped both spear and shield
and put up a hand.

“Remember the strength of women,” was what the men heard her say, but the women heard her voice, or perhaps the voice of the
goddess, speaking under her words, saying, “Remember the strength of Haena’s line.”

We all remembered that the women of my mother’s line had a power over men, only one kind of power, and only to be used once
in a woman’s life. My mother had used it to bind the man of her choice to her and so married my father Harald, and he was
faithful to her lifelong. My grandmother had done the same with my grandfather, Sigur. So it went back for generations, and
for the men concerned there was no shame, for to be chosen by a woman of our line was an honor-gift, and the power bound the
woman as much as the man, to be faithful forever. We remembered that now, and I began to shake as I understood what was needed
of me.

To bind this green-eyed man to me for life, for his life or mine, and to have no other man. I was very young and had not even
exchanged courting glances at the Summer Gatherings. It seemed hard to me, too hard, to give away all that: all the possibilities
of love and marriage and children and happiness. I felt I would rather die. But then I looked around the hall. There were
nine of us, counting Gudrun, and I had the lives of seven other women in my hand. Women of our steading, for whom my family
was responsible. My mother’s hand on my shoulder tightened and then dropped as she left me to make the choice alone. I thought,
I will make this choice, but my life will be short.