Peaceweaver (26 page)

She looked around her. A shaft of sunlight reached toward her but she couldn’t feel its heat. The woods that surrounded them seemed dark and impenetrable, not a place that welcomed people. A small animal scuttled through the leaves, disappearing too quickly for her to identify it.

When the Geats finished, Thialfi and Wake returned to their horses and remounted quickly, while the Shylfings still rested on the ground. Mord leapt into his saddle, but he was too late. Thialfi had taken the lead down the narrow trail through the dark woods. He stopped to wait for the rest of them, turning his horse to block anyone from passing him.

Hild couldn’t stop herself from smiling at his tactics.

“My lady?” Wulf said at her side.

She nodded, accepting his help back into her saddle. “Forgive me,” she mumbled, coloring, as her sheathed sword hit his head.

“It’s why I’m wearing my helmet, my lady,” he said, and grinned at her before returning to his own horse.

•   •   •

Thialfi kept the lead for the rest of the day, both on the narrow paths through the woods and in the wide-open places they rode through. They splashed through streams and climbed rocky hills. The farther they went, the colder it got. The wind increased and low clouds blocked the sun. By afternoon, Hild’s clothes were dry, but her teeth were chattering. She would have liked to stop to get out her hood and her mittens and to pull on her woolen leggings, but Thialfi pushed them hard. She knew he must have a campsite in mind, but knowing so didn’t make her ears or her fingers any warmer.

By the time they finally stopped, she was so stiff with cold that she stumbled her way down from the horse, then fumbled trying to open the pony’s saddlebags to find her winter gear. It was too dark to see what she was doing, anyway, Thialfi had kept them going so long. Unwen would have been able to find the hood immediately, but Hild couldn’t even get the leather cords untied. She shouldn’t have to do this to begin with—she was King Ragnar’s sister-daughter.
“Goat’s breath!” she whispered, tears of frustration stinging her eyes.

She laid her cheek against the pony’s warm flank and ran her frozen fingers over its coarse hair. In her mind, she could hear Unwen
tsk
ing at her for her tantrum. She could see the slave shaking her head and giving her that twist of her lips that counted for a smile. She shook her own head at her foolishness. Then, more calmly, she tried again. This time, the cords came loose, and in the light of a newly built fire, she sifted through the saddlebag’s contents until she found what she was looking for.

TWENTY-SEVEN

H
ILD WOKE TO THE SOUNDS OF MORNING IN THE CAMP
, but she snuggled back under her blanket without opening her eyes. She was deliciously warm.

“My lady,” she heard Mord say as she was slipping into a dream of summer and laughter.

“My lady,” he said again, more loudly this time. She opened her eyes and blinked. No wonder she was warm. A thick layer of snow covered her blanket. Above her, the bare branches were lined with snow. As she watched, a little shower of it sifted off the end of a twig and fell in a clump to the ground.

“We need to leave soon,” Mord said.

Hild sat up and saw that the men had already broken camp. She and the fire were the only things left. “Why didn’t you wake me sooner?” she said, but Mord had already walked away.

Irritably, she shook the snow off her blanket and rolled it, then gathered her belongings, not bothering to comb her hair. She’d do without food until later, too. She wouldn’t have them waiting for her.

Despite her hurry, all of them, even Hadding, sat astride their horses by the time she was ready. All of them except for Wulf, that is, who stood beside her horse, waiting to help her into the saddle. She wanted to refuse his help, but she knew that would make things even worse.

By midday they had left the deep woods behind them, and a snowy, rock-strewn plain lay before them. A single mountain rose far in the distance, its summit lost in clouds. A fierce wind knifed around them and Hild pulled her furred hood close to her face.

As they crossed the plain, she began to see what looked like farmland, and perhaps a farmstead, but it was still too far away for her to see clearly. The light was fading as they drew nearer, making Hild distrust her eyes. Yet the closer they got, the clearer things became—and the more bewildering. It was a farmstead, but not the large, prosperous sort of place she was accustomed to. Only three small buildings, one of them a mere hut, sat amid meager fields. The farmhouse itself was blackened, its walls crumbling, its thatch burned off. Even the fields seemed to have been scorched.

The dragon must have done this. She shivered.

She saw no people as they passed, nor any animals. Had they all died in the flames?

Thialfi clucked to his horse, hurrying them along, and Hild was glad to follow.

The next farmstead they came to had been spared the flames—but it was just as poor and ramshackle as the last, a few small structures in the center of tiny fields.

This
was the kingdom of the Geats? Hild glanced at Mord and saw that he looked just as shocked as she was. They would hardly need an army to conquer these people. In fact, she thought, maybe Mord and Gizzur and Hadding should just take care of it now and be done with it.

They rode a distance before they passed another farm. This one, at least, seemed more prosperous, and she wondered if it was only the outlying farms that were in such bad shape. Yet as they drew closer, she could see that the snow was hiding the truth; this farm, too, had been scorched by the dragon. Its blackened timbers lay open to the winter sky. There could be no inhabitants.

A movement against the snow made her turn to see a dead goat on the ground, a dark object on top of it. A raven pulling at the goat’s entrails.

She swallowed and looked away.

“We can stay in the barn if it hasn’t been too badly damaged,” Thialfi said, his voice scarcely audible over the wind.

Hild looked toward the building Thialfi pointed at, and turned her horse. Even Fire-eyes seemed dispirited, his gait weary and plodding.

At least the barn still had a roof to stop the snow and
even enough hay for the horses. The dragon must have struck at harvest time, when the people who had lived here had just finished their haying. What had become of them? She wrapped herself in her blanket and burrowed into the straw for warmth. As she drifted toward sleep, she tried to keep the dragon out of her dreams, but it flew through them, spewing fire, destroying fields and people with indiscriminate malice, always accompanied by the smell of smoke, bitter in her throat.

In the morning, as she brushed the straw from her cloak and combed it out of her hair, the dragon still hovered in the back of her mind. Even though she knew it was dead, seeing the evidence of its violence put her on edge.

More snow had fallen in the night, which slowed their progress. Thialfi led them down tree-lined valleys, where they splashed through fast-running streams, and up through farmland, the dwellings no more impressive than the ones they had seen the previous day. Some of them were built into hills or had sod walls, while others were rickety wooden structures. Her uncle would have had them torn down.

Mord caught her eye and gave her a look she couldn’t decipher. Sympathy?

At least the wind had died down. It was a bright, crisp day, the sun shining on the snow and on the mountain that loomed in the distance. People watched them as they passed farmhouses now, sometimes raising their arms
in greeting. Thialfi waved back with his good arm, but Hild just watched. She felt as if the scene were unreal, as if she weren’t a part of it. She knew she wasn’t dreaming it, but she wished she were.

They came to a wooded place where the path narrowed and they had to ride single file. When they emerged from the trees, Hild could see another group of buildings in the distance. It didn’t look like a farmstead. She squinted at it and then saw Thialfi turning in his saddle. “The king’s stronghold,” he called out.

She kept her mouth from dropping open. That tumbledown collection of buildings was the king’s stronghold? It didn’t even have a defensive wall surrounding it. And where was the hall?

She stared, trying to make out the details. She could see a structure in the shape of a hall, but it was far too small to be the king’s hall. Yet when she scanned the stronghold, she saw no other.

This was to be her home. This was her uncle’s vengeance on her—for daring to act without his permission. For saving his son’s life. She blinked back angry tears.

Thialfi led them forward, and as they approached the first structure, a tall thin guard stepped out from it, a spear in his hand. Thialfi dismounted and the two men greeted each other with an embrace.

Hild sat watching, not bothering to listen, while they talked, Thialfi occasionally gesturing back at the rest of
them. When he mounted his horse again, she followed dutifully, doing her best to keep her emotions in check.

But it wasn’t easy. The ugliness of the place overwhelmed her, and the smell. Didn’t they ever clean the ashes from their fires? An acrid odor made her nose wrinkle, and the narrow dirt lanes through falling-down houses made her want to look away.

As they rode, a young warrior who was still pinning on his cloak came running toward them, grinning. “Thialfi! You’re back!” he said, and Hild saw how misshapen his nose was, as if it had been broken. When he added, “Come this way,” Hild didn’t miss the look he gave Thialfi, who nodded. She wondered what had passed between them.

Though the stronghold was small, it seemed to take them a long time to get to the hall. When they finally approached it, she saw that she had been right. It was as puny as it had seemed from a distance.

Wulf was immediately at her side, helping her dismount. “The dragon burned the old hall,” he said, and she knew he must have seen her expression of disdain.

She made her face blank and followed the men.

In the antechamber, they stamped the snow from their shoes and laid aside their weapons. Hild could smell how new the wood was; the walls were as blond as the Geats themselves, not yet darkened by smoke and age like her uncle’s hall.

They arranged themselves to march in, Mord and
Hadding leading the way, Thialfi and the young Geatish warrior with the misshapen nose on either side of them. Hild walked behind them, alone, followed by the others. Not until they had begun to move through the hall did she realize she still had her hood up, but she was glad of it if it hid her dismay at the hall’s plainness. Where were the bright banners, the beams carved and painted by skillful hands, the embroidered tapestries hanging from the walls? Bare wood met her gaze, along with a single fire so small it hardly cast any light into the shadowy corners. Worst of all, the floor was packed dirt, not just in the antechamber but in the hall itself. Even if the old hall had burned down, it was hard to believe the Geats lived this way.

And where were they all? Only a handful of people were gathered in the hall—a few warriors near the fire, some slave girls by a door. Hild’s group stopped in front of the dais. Three people faced them. One was a man with a close-cropped beard, wearing the finest clothing she’d seen so far in the kingdom. He had only one eye. A woman wearing a plain gown stood near him, her eyes flicking from warrior to warrior. Between them stood a dark-haired youth. His cloak swished around his legs as if he had just run in from outside. Where was the king?

Mord didn’t wait. “Hail, Wiglaf, son of Weohstan,” he called out in his strong voice.

Hild scowled in irritation. Why wasn’t Mord waiting for the king? Was this part of some plan she wasn’t privy to?

The young man with the dark hair stepped forward. “You are welcome to the land of the Geats,” he said, as if he were some kind of spokesman, perhaps a skald in training. She wondered briefly why he wasn’t fair-haired, like the other Geats, but she didn’t have time to think about it before Mord spoke again.

“Our king sends you greeting.”

Hild watched warily, trying to interpret Mord’s actions. Hadding had made no movement that she could discern. What was Mord up to?

The young man spoke again. “You have journeyed far and returned our valued thanes, free from harm. We thank you.”

We
thank you? The words caught Hild by surprise and she shifted her attention from Mord to the youth. “
Our
valued thanes,” he’d said. She stared at him—at his plain mail shirt hanging a little too low on his legs, his ordinary sword belt and scabbard, his bare head—and felt a prickling sensation, like a warning, as comprehension began to dawn.

“Past hostilities have divided our people,” Mord was saying. “My king asks that they be forgotten.”

“Your lord speaks wisely,” the young man answered.

Thialfi had told her that the new Geatish king was a powerful warrior, that he had killed a dragon. She had thought of Thialfi as an honorable man, as someone she could trust. What else had she been wrong about?

There was a pause, and then she heard Mord say, “We thought we would find a king.”