The Tempering of Men (31 page)

They did seem surprised to discover that he was literate, which made him laugh. Who did they think kept the records of breedings for a wolfheall, and who kept the accounts? Admittedly, not every wolfcarl could read or cipher, but in any heall it was good if one wolfheofodman or two could manage his runes and figures.

At Franangford, that meant Isolfr and Skjaldwulf, though Sokkolfr was learning—housecarls often lasting longer in that role than wolfjarls did in theirs.

Strangely, the godsmen seemed interested in those details, too. It made Skjaldwulf understand, a little, how foreign wolfcarls and their ways were to these southerners. (He almost thought,
Soft southerners,
but that was unfair: they might spend all their days hunched over books, but he found it pressed him to the limit of his endurance to keep up with their questioning all the hours between sunrise and sunset. Historians, he concluded, did not sleep.)

By the third day, he had had enough, and the need to complete the song he'd promised the godheofodman was pressing at him. He made his excuses to the priests, took his leave of Mar, pulled on his tattered boots, retrieved some coin from the packs left piled where the wolves slept, and made his way down to the docks. A few inquiries led him to the Hergilsberg ferry, where he bought passage and buns for his breakfast. Some of the more heavily accented individuals seemed to have a hard time with Skjaldwulf's speech, but he used the painstakingly learned skald's dialect of his apprenticeship and managed to get through to them. And honestly, it wasn't like it was such a large marina that he could get lost in it.

Unlike the one he could see across the water, on the big island.

The crossing was no worse than the first, and briefer. As the ferryman and his 'prentice rowed with ropy arms, Skjaldwulf sat, arms crossed, already missing his wolf. But the problem of bringing Mar into a city not accustomed to wolfcarls and wolves was not a wyvern he was prepared to battle. Not this morning, anyway.

Today he meant to write a song. And buy a pair of boots.

The Hergilsberg market square was hard by the docks, a sensible coincidence for which Skjaldwulf thanked his gods. The houses here were of stone or plastered timber and some were three stories tall—like little keeps. It seemed the tradesmen's stalls were in the ground floors of those houses, behind wide, low shuttered windows that opened over a bench or counter directly onto the street. In half an hour's time, Skjaldwulf had located no fewer than three cobblers.

Wary of the sort of tricks a dishonest tradesman might play on a foreigner, he spent some time politely accosting comfortable-looking passersby and asking after the source of their footwear. A few were taken aback, but in general the denizens of Hergilsberg seemed unfazed by weary and tattered-looking travelers, and eager to discuss the merits of various local shops and craftsmen.

In many cases, once they realized who and what he was they were eager to ask him questions of their own, and Skjaldwulf had to prevent two men from all but bodily standing him a drink.

Just walking the street in Hergilsberg was exhausting. Every street was paved in cobbles, and while the civic wealth it indicated was impressive (and the foot and horse traffic heavy enough that he did not wonder at the need), they wore hard on the bones of his feet through his thin soles. And there were so many people! He'd left his axe and buckler behind—somehow, they did not seem like the sort of thing one carried through a town on a shopping expedition—and wore only the dagger at his belt. Nevertheless, it was an effort of will to keep his hand from the hilt each time someone jostled him, or just because of the press of people on every side, as if the whole
world
had gone to market.

None too soon, Skjaldwulf found the shop recommended by four local men as the best available for a moderate price, and set about haggling with the proprietor. He wound up paying twice what he would have in Franangford, but by the deftness with which his feet were measured, and with the boots promised for the next day, he felt like he'd gotten a fairly good deal.

As he turned away from the cobbler's window-bench, he became aware that the general sense of
too many people
had resolved into a specific awareness of being watched. And indeed, there was a thane—obviously a thane, though he wore no more weapons than Skjaldwulf did and no armor—with a heavy gold ring on his thumb, and his blue-worked arms bare to the shoulder. He was a great barrel-chested man, brown-bearded, his cheeks above the hair also banded with runewards needled into the skin so long ago the lines had softened and blurred.

“Are you the wolfcarl?” he asked.

“I am,” Skjaldwulf said, and gave his name and styling.

“I am Ethvarthr, thane in the service of Dromundr Dros.”

Dromundr the Fat.
The jarl of Hergilsberg.

“I am at your service,” Skjaldwulf said. “Except insomuch as it may contradict my prior allegiances.”

“I did not know,” Ethvarthr said, uncrossing his arms, “that wolfcarls were so politically spoken.”

He said it pleasantly, gesturing Skjaldwulf to fall in beside him as he turned. Skjaldwulf chose to interpret the comment in the most agreeable fashion possible and therefore walked with him, limping a little on sore feet.

“I see you were buying boots.”

“It was a long journey,” Skjaldwulf said, as if it were a confession.

The thane laughed. His arms were thick, but more of that thickness was muscle than flesh. “The jarl would know what causes a man to come so far, so fast, that he walks his shoes off.”

Skjaldwulf glanced from side to side. Though they were surrounded by people, there was a sense that they walked alone. Perhaps in an eternal crowd such as this, each person must create his own bubble of private space. Abruptly, sharply, Skjaldwulf longed for the deep, piney woods of home. “How can I be sure you are the jarl's man? Forgive my suspicion, but as you noted, I am a stranger here.”

Ethvarthr extended his hand. That gold signet pinched his thumb, shoved on a hand too large. But there was a callus beside it, such as a man might get from ill-fitting jewelry worn too long. “This mark of his service,” Ethvarthr said. “It is the image of the signet he wears on his right hand.”

Skjaldwulf studied the ring and the thane's meaty, bearded face. “I think you have lied to me.”

The man stopped in his tracks. When Skjaldwulf stopped, too, and turned, Ethvarthr frowned at the wolfjarl's face. “If every man serves himself, in the end, is it a lie to claim so?”

“And the name?”

Ethvarthr shrugged. “Mine by birth, though I have not been known by it for many years.”

“My lord jarl,” Skjaldwulf said, but softly, so the people on the street with them would not hear. He imagined there were guardsmen nearby. What city was so large that the townsfolk did not know their own jarl by sight?

Dromundr smiled. It folded up creases at the corners of his eyes until they almost disappeared. “My lord wolfjarl,” he replied. “I admit, some rumors of your presence here have reached me. Why would a warrior speak first to priests, I wonder, and then come to my city so quietly, without thought of seeking an audience with me? Your renown comes before you; we have heard of the fall of Othinnsaesc, even here, and also of its reclamation. But it's almost as if you sought to avoid me.”

“The godsmen have kept me busy,” Skjaldwulf said. “So answer me this: if I told you that foreign warriors were striking at villages in the very heart of the North, what would you say?”

“I would say,” Dromundr mused, “that those who would raid may in turn be raided and I have a city to defend.”

“And if I said these were no raiders but an army? Not the actions of warlords seeking plunder but of an empire seeking conquest?”

“I would say that was a serious allegation, deserving of study.”

“And not one deserving to be put before a Thing?”

“In time,” Dromundr said slowly. “In time.”

Skjaldwulf nodded. “We are not enemies,” he said. “And I mean no threat to your power or your steading, Jarl of Hergilsberg. But I do not believe that there is time now to study.”

Dromundr stepped back, opening a space between them. A townsman or two walked through it, as oblivious to their presence as a deer slipping between trees.
Townsmen,
Skjaldwulf thought, with wonder.

“May your actions bear out your words, wolfjarl,” Dromundr said. “I would not care to be any man's enemy.”

He stepped back and turned away, broader than most but no taller than many, until the crowd swallowed up even the width of his massive shoulders. Skjaldwulf watched a moment longer, then turned and limped away.

When he came back the next day to pick up his boots, the cobbler said someone had paid the bill. And left him a pair of woolen socks as well. In the ferry on the way back to the monastery, he finally composed his song.

It was simple and repetitive and had a naggingly insistent rhythm that should worm its way into the memory of anyone who heard it.

As the ferry docked, Skjaldwulf tipped the ferryman handsomely and stomped ashore in his soft new boots. He turned to look back at the big island and smiled. Finally, he had a good feeling about this.

Freyvithr Godsman, waiting for him at the monastery gates, seemed less sanguine.

“Problems?” Skjaldwulf asked, and the sunburnt godsman nodded.

“The godheofodman spoke with the jarl.”

“The jarl said no?” Skjaldwulf hazarded.

The priest nodded.

So did Skjaldwulf. “It's no matter,” he said. “Wolfcarls are accustomed to defending people who would rather ignore the fact that there is even a fight.”

*   *   *

It took the first moon of her pups' new lives to convince Amma to leave the root cellar. She was as stubborn about it as Brokkolfr had ever seen her about anything; though it made no sense to him, he slept out there with her until the afternoon when all four puppies' eyes were at last open. Then she stood, shook herself, and picked up the smallest pup with her mouth.

New den,
she said to Brokkolfr, with a very clear image of the room the wolfcarls had built especially for their bitches to whelp in. She indicated that he would be permitted to help carry the puppies, and so Brokkolfr walked back into the main hall with his arms full of squirming wolflings, Amma trotting ahead of him carrying the fourth pup like a viking's treasure.

“Welcome back,” said Ulfmundr, with the warmest smile Brokkolfr had yet seen on his face, and Brokkolfr smiled in return.

The whelping room was the most carefully finished room in the heall, and would be, most likely, for years to come. The plaster was smooth and clean, the floor was generously strewn with rushes, and every fur or blanket that was too worn for sleeping—and some that were still soft and bright with newness—had found its way here. Amma put the pup down in the pen built against one corner with carefully smoothed wood and began transporting furs to build a new and better nest with.

The pup squeaked, and Brokkolfr knelt to let his brothers join him. Then Brokkolfr sat back out of the way and watched Amma work.

A shadow in the doorway made him look up. It was Vethulf, looking very white and drawn. “Should you be out of bed?” said Brokkolfr.

“Probably not,” said Vethulf, “but I can rest here as well as there, if Amma will have me.”

“It's her choice,” Brokkolfr said. “Sister?”

Amma tidied a stray pup into the corner, then came across to sniff, and then lick, Vethulf's hands.

“I guess I'll do,” Vethulf said with a crooked smile.

Brokkolfr said, “Share some floor with me. There's plenty to go around.”

They did not talk much, beyond a few mild reminiscences of Kjaran's and Amma's respective puppyhoods. Brokkolfr was not surprised when, after a long peaceful silence, he looked over and found that Vethulf had fallen asleep where he sat. It did not look comfortable, but—on the other hand—he was resting, and Brokkolfr knew, from the pack-sense and from the talk of the werthreat at mealtimes, that getting Vethulf to rest had been a task nearly beyond even Isolfr's abilities. Brokkolfr did not disturb his wolfjarl, but sat beside him for the rest of the honey-warm afternoon. When Amma had the nest arranged to her satisfaction, she and her family napped, and Brokkolfr watched her sleeping with profound satisfaction.

At sundown, Amma woke, and her pups with her, squeaking their hunger. She arranged herself to let them nurse, but her attention was on the doorway.
Konigenwolf,
she said—a warning, a greeting, too many things tangled in that one scent-image-feeling for Brokkolfr to sort them. He got up and stepped into the hallway, hearing Vethulf wake as he did so.

Viradechtis was sitting a polite three bodylengths back, her eyes averted in a show of submission.
Mother,
she said respectfully. She glanced at Brokkolfr, acknowledging him as Amma's brother, and then turned her head as her own brother came into the hall.

“Wolfsprechend,” Brokkolfr said, much as Amma had said,
Konigenwolf.
“Your wolfjarl is within, but he has been sleeping all afternoon.”

“Then I won't flay him before dinner,” Isolfr said with his shy quirk of a smile. “But it was you I came to find.”

“Me?”

“You are a wolfheofodman of this heall,” Isolfr said, “as I think you have asked me to remember before this. And with Skjaldwulf and Randulfr gone, and Vethulf ill—”

“I'm fine,” Vethulf said irritably, appearing in the doorway.

“Are you still feverish?”

Vethulf gave his wolfsprechend a sour look. “Yes.”

“Then you are ill, and Sokkolfr will agree with me if you try to argue. Which means,” Isolfr said, returning firmly to his point, “that Brokkolfr, Sokkolfr, and I are the wolfheofodmenn making decisions right now, and there is a decision that needs to be made.”