The Tempering of Men (27 page)

Let's try this again.

“Look,” Vethulf said, lowering his voice so that the boy had to lean toward him to hear. “Do you really want to marry somebody who hates you? It's not a receipt for domestic peace, my lad. Better you find a girl who wants you. She'll be less likely to wash your shirts in nettles, don't you think?”

As he said it, he tried to imagine how Skjaldwulf would deliver the advice. Softly, he thought, but with certainty, and he tried to make his voice go that way.

It surprised him when he found the boy nodding. “You have some wisdom, wolfjarl,” he said. “I did not think of it that way.”

Vethulf caught himself just short of rolling his eyes at the girl. “And it does you no harm,” he added, “to be seen an openhanded and forgiving man. No one likes a man who polishes his grudges.”

Heed your own advice,
he thought wryly, but the boy looked astonished. “Would they say that of me?”

“Yes,” Jorhildr said, with relish, and for a moment Vethulf thought he'd lost control of the thing again, but Leikfrothr made a great show of ignoring her and said, “Thank you, Lord Wolfjarl. Your counsel is sage.” He bowed and turned away, shouldering a path through the gathered villagers. It clearly didn't occur to him that he might owe his erstwhile betrothed, or her father, an apology.

“He is young yet,” Guthbrandr said, and Vethulf was glad to see he was making an effort to recover his temper. “He will gain wisdom with the years.”

Vethulf snorted. “Unless he first gets eaten by a bear.”

FOURTEEN

Skjaldwulf didn't mind being excluded from Randulfr's first conference with his brother and father. He knew as well as if he had been instructed that there would be another council after supper and his chance to speak would come then. He used the time seeing that his men and wolves were fed and watered and bedded down warmly. He would have seen to the same for himself, but by the time he came back to Mar, the big wolf was sprawled snoring on Skjaldwulf's open bedroll, a scoured-clean plate and a half-empty water bucket beside him.

Otter had apparently made herself useful in Skjaldwulf's absence.

Skjaldwulf suspected she had gone to get clean, and in that assumption he made his own way to the bathhouse before dinner. It was not as luxurious as the one they were building at Franangford, but some thrall or member of the household had kept the coals stoked, and there was water and fresh green branches.

The heat of the steam was harder to bear in summer than in winter, when it was one of the few things that could take the chill out of a man's bones after a long night patrol. But Skjaldwulf still scrubbed thoroughly, letting the heat soothe knotted muscles.

There were worse things, and if he was light-headed when he came out, it would clear. The headaches were passing, and with them the sleepiness—he hoped with no long-term harm done. His clothes—fouled with blood and the dirt of the trail—were too filthy to put on again, so he bundled them up, intending to walk back to his things and find the clean shirt he had put aside for returning to civilization.

He was not, however, expecting to all but trip over Otter as he emerged from the sauna.

“Oh, dear,” she said. “I was looking for you.”

She seemed unfazed by his nudity, which he supposed was only natural for a woman accustomed to army camps. She held up a cloth bundle of her own. “Fargrimr was kind enough to give me some of her—of his mother's things. I was looking for a place to wash.”

“The sauna is right through there,” Skjaldwulf said. “Scrapers and branches inside.”

“Sauna?”

“Steam bath?”

She looked blank. He wondered if Rheans and Brythoni just scrubbed themselves in streams with handfuls of sand. Obviously, they scrubbed themselves somehow, because neither Otter nor the tribune had been particularly filthy even by Skjaldwulf's heall-refined standards. He said, “I'm sure you'll figure it out. Flick water on the stones to make steam; use the scrapers to get the dirt off. If you feel sick, drink water or step outside.”

“Oh.”

He smiled. “Leave your old clothes outside, and I'll take them to the laundress with my own.”

She blinked, then nodded. “All right then. I'll see you at dinner.”

“You, too.”

*   *   *

Fargrimr and his father fed them well that night, though not elaborately. There was game, baked slowly over coals until it fell off the bone, and rounds of harsh rye cracker to soak up the juices with. Skjaldwulf shared a trencher with Otter. It being summer, there were also fruits and onions and handfuls of wild greens. Better than the food of the trail, anyway, and Skjaldwulf—with his first appetite in days—stuffed himself.

The old jarl sat at the head of the table and made conversation, and though the jarl wore blue tattoos down both arms and up his throat to the jawline, it was the same comforting conversation one found in any hall. Boasts of prowess, complaints about the harvest, discussion of the merits of women and of hounds.

Afterwards, the tables were cleared. When Fargrimr and Randulfr came to fetch him for that anticipated council, Skjaldwulf brought Otter along. “After all,” he pointed out, “she knows the Rheans better than any of us.”

And what she knew, she did not hesitate to share.

She told them of the vastness of the Rhean empire. Of its resources, its ambition, and how the Brythoni had fought it for their independence for a decade or more before coming under its wing, driven in part by the depredations of the Iskryners. She spoke eloquently and with passion, and her words left no doubt in Skjaldwulf's mind that the Rheans had every intent of setting a governor over his scattered people and making of them vassals and tributaries.

He thought of the Rhean tribune's gold teeth and his confessions of age and wisdom, and frowned.

“The man I met—,” he said. “Caius Iunarius—”

“The southerner,” Otter said.

“He said his land was a thousand leagues away, and still under the control of the Rhean emperor.”

Otter nodded. “They have—they have a senate,” she said. “A council of learned and powerful men who advise their emperor, who come from all over his empire. They say that in the farthest reaches of the Rhean domains the sun is setting while it rises here. I don't imagine—”

“If there is to be a war,” Randulfr said, his hand automatically reaching toward his absent wolf for comfort, “there will have to be a Thing. And a konungur. We will need unity.”

Freyvithr Godsman said, “The monks will fight.”

Randulfr bit his lip and did not hide his smile. “That would be a godsend.”

Otter threw her hands up and sighed. “You do not understand. How can you fight the Rheans?”

Fargrimr clasped his left wrist in his right hand and laid both fists on the table before him. “How can we fail to?” He looked at his father; his father was looking steadily back at him.

The old man nodded. “You will set out for Hergilsberg, then. On the morrow.”

*   *   *

But on the morrow they could not go. Ingrun was coming into heat.

Skjaldwulf was woken in the coldest, darkest hours of the night by a combination of things: distress in the pack-sense, a burst of arousal from Mar and a throbbing in his own groin, and the mutter of Randulfr cursing under his breath.

Skjaldwulf came up on his elbows in his bedroll. “Randulfr?” No need to ask what was happening; no need, either, to ask what was wrong: of all the dreadful times for Ingrun to choose—not that it was her choice, either—this was … Well, it wasn't the worst, because Skjaldwulf could think of worse times, but it certainly wasn't the best. But that still didn't explain.

But by the same token, he didn't have to ask. “My father lies sleeping not fifty yards from here,” Randulfr said. “My
father,
Skjaldwulf. He has mellowed these last years, and he is appeased, I know, because Fargrimr is a better son and heir to him than I could ever have been, but he still has not forgiven me for finding my wyrd elsewhere than Siglufjordhur. And he…”

Ingrun whined, and Randulfr murmured, “No, my heart, it is no blame of yours. I am not angered with you.”

“I could send you and Ingrun from the keep—,” Skjaldwulf began, and Randulfr finished: “But the woods may be crawling with Rheans.”

On Skjaldwulf's other side, Frithulf said, “What can we do? Randulfr could find us a place to go, no doubt, but we cannot leave the keep safely as a group for this purpose any more than we can send Randulfr out alone.”

You wanted to be wolfjarl,
Skjaldwulf said to himself, and while that wasn't strictly true, it was close enough. He pressed the heels of his palms to his eyes, and oddly, it seemed to help. He said, “There are no other wolves here, nor bonded men to feel our mating. This arena is clean and warm and we have everything we would need.”

“But—,” Ulfhoss said.

“Otter,” Skjaldwulf said before Ulfhoss could voice his objection.

“Yes?” said Otter. She did not pretend she had not been awake and listening, and Skjaldwulf was grateful.

“I need you—
we
need you—to go to the keep and tell Fargrimr that everyone must be kept out of here until one of us emerges and says that it is safe.”

“Sh—he will want a reason,” Otter said.

“Randulfr?” Skjaldwulf said. He might be wolfjarl, but the old man in that keep was not his father.

“Tell Fargrimr that Ingrun's season has come upon her. Tell him he may decide what to tell our father, so long as he ensures that no man, woman, or child trespasses on us.”

“How long will it be?” Otter said; she sounded frightened, for which Skjaldwulf couldn't blame her.

“Not long,” Randulfr said. “Ingrun has never stretched matters out. It should be over by sundown. But if it is not—Otter, please be sure Fargrimr understands—
no one must come near.
We will be fine. There is no danger.”

“And tell him we'll all be ravenous,” Frithulf said, sounding reassuringly cheerful. “Cold food is fine, as long as there's lots of it.”

“All right,” Otter said. “I will tell him.” Skjaldwulf heard her getting up, the rustle of cloth as she dragged on her kirtle over her shift, and then the pad of her feet across the arena floor. She was silhouetted for a moment, a black shape against the scarcely lighter oblong of the doorway, and then she was gone.

“Frithulf, Geirulfr, make sure all the doors are barred and the windows shuttered. Ulfhoss, kindle lights. Randulfr, what do you need?”

A shaky laugh from Randulfr. “Oh, wolfjarl, I could recite you a list. But truly, all I need is the salve and a little time.”

As Ulfhoss lit the torches, the wolves became visible: Mar, Dyrvyr, Afi, Kothran, couched in a neat semicircle around Randulfr's bedroll, where Ingrun was standing, her head swinging as she tried to keep them all in view.

“I would judge that you have a little time,” Skjaldwulf said. As the best bonesetter of their traveling threat, Skjaldwulf carried their few medical supplies. He dug quickly through his pack and found the small clay pot of salve. It was soothing for skin chapped or rubbed raw, but its slickness also made it a great boon to any she-wolf's brother when her time was on him. He tossed it to Randulfr.

“A little,” Randulfr said, “but probably not much.” He stood up, stripping his shirt and trews off, making no effort to hide the fact that his sex was engorged. He looked at the circle of dog wolves, looked at Ingrun's half-raised lip and tightly tucked tail. He reached a torch down from the wall and said, “Sister, come.” They disappeared together into one of the small storage rooms around the arena. The dog wolves whined, but did not move.

Skjaldwulf looked at his small pack. Frithulf, Geirulfr, Ulfhoss. Geirulfr was a veteran and could be relied on to keep his head. Though Kothran was too small and submissive ever to win the bitch in an open mating, Frithulf was Isolfr's shieldbrother, and Skjaldwulf knew he would be mindful for Isolfr's sake, despite his inexperience. Ulfhoss, though, he had witnessed Amma's open mating, which was all to the good, but he was young and Dyrver was young. Dyrver, Skjaldwulf rather thought, might one day make his brother a wolfjarl—which was all the more reason to be sure they went carefully now.

Skjaldwulf said, ostensibly to all of them, though he knew Geirulfr and Frithulf would know it was for Ulfhoss' sake, “Remember that the man you couple with is your werthreatbrother. Remember that though he is strong, he has not his sister's body, just as you have not your brother's. Follow your wolf, as always, but follow him as a man, not as a wolf.”

Frithulf said, “Do you think there will be fighting?” He was watching Kothran, and Skjaldwulf remembered that Frithulf had witnessed the mating in which a wolf of Nithogsfjoll had lost his life. And it was, moreover, a good question. They were in an unusual situation, more like Viradechtis' mating with her two consorts than a proper open mating, and it was hard to say how matters might proceed.

Skjaldwulf opened himself to Mar and the pack-sense and found the turmoil he expected. Mar was clearly head-wolf, and no one seemed inclined to argue about that, but Afi, Dyrver, and Kothran were eyeing each other sidelong. Kothran usually had no chance at mating and was eager to make the most of this opportunity, and Dyrver had been shouldered ignominiously aside as a mere youngster when Amma bred and was equally eager to prove himself now. Afi, perceiving challenge on both sides, was all too clearly willing to fight anyone who offered.

“I hope not,” Skjaldwulf said to Frithulf, and had not time for anything more, as Ingrun emerged from the storage room before her brother, and Mar and Skjaldwulf stood up together.

*   *   *

Skjaldwulf had thought more than once that Franangford had been blessedly lucky in its bitches: Viradechtis was a marvel and had been from birth, and Ingrun and Amma were sensible and kind as she-wolves went. Ingrun did not have Amma's indiscriminate love for the young of all creatures, being far more a warrior at heart, but she was a good mother to her cubs, and unlike some bitches, she never went out of her way to encourage fighting when she was in season.