The Star Mangrove - Part 1
The Star Mangrove - Part 1
The Star Mangrove - Part 1
___________________
Volume I
CONCERNING SMUDGE
1 Maev’s words
2I.e., Norway
Thus planets close to homeworld Nirevvy are successively found and
colonized. Orkev, Shaltain, Kuda, Innis Chila,3 Talaglas—on each new
world the Wanderers establish settlements before launching off again, into
the Unknown.
4 I.e., America
5 Comparatively speaking
7 Here begins Snorri Sturlsson’s record of the first Wanderer colony on Affelgard.
Snorri is writing in the year Ár. 3019, more than a century before Smudge was born.
most wayward petals into my cousin Affner’s hat and send it sailing up
the lane and over the hedge into the neighbor’s pigsty. That prank got me
a chuckle from my uncle and a slap from my aunt. It was Affner’s only
hat, and my aunt had made it herself with a wooden frame and a bone
hook.
I don’t know how the star mangrove fruit can escape the mighty grasp
of planets, who bend the very light of suns around them. When I asked my
uncle, he told me each starfruit has a cranshee—a tree-spirit—imprisoned
in it, and the tree-spirit is flying home to a mangrove forest in the stars.
In summer the starfruit grow straight upward; oblong and smooth with
a tough, gray-green hull. Then the tree must be firmly anchored in the
right sort of ground or the headstrong fruit can tear it up roots and all.
Dense clay soil is best, or a craggy place where the roots can dig into the
rock. A starfruit grows to about the size of a man’s head before it breaks
free with a sudden snap. Sometimes our mothertree would let go its fruit
all at once, making a terrible racket, and then we’d all run out to watch,
shading our eyes as the greenish specks went shooting up into the clouds.
No tree is more solitary than the star mangrove. Each starfruit wants to
find a planet of its own—a planet where the folaworms lie sleeping in the
ground.
A folaworm is not (rightly speaking) a worm at all, but rather an insect
like a sort of longish ant with a shiny black carapace and delicate brown
legs. Through eons of time the folaworm larvae lie curled up in the right
sort of ground, waiting for the starfruit to find them. We don’t know what
brings the fruit and the folaworm together. As a starfruit wanders the
cosmos it is inexorably drawn to the larvae, until a planet’s fiery kiss
burns away its hull and reveals the black, fist-shaped seed within. Like a
meteorite, the hissing seed drives itself into the ground. Then the
folaworms begin to stir, drawn to its heat.
The roots burrow into the soil; the folaworms burrow into the roots;
insect and tree begin the slow dance of growth and destruction that will
last for all the long ages of the star mangrove’s life.
I remember the day our starship left for Affelgard. It was on a rare
summertime. I’d never seen starfruit like that before—prodigiously round;
pulling up so hard that little hollows were starting to form where our
mothertree’s roots were lifted out of the ground. She was groaning—six
days overripe, we reckoned. We were all in commotion; we thought she
was going to slip8 her fruit with every breeze. Teams were working with
saws and axes to cut through the trunk. The first deck was lying in pieces
on the ground. I got into the core by climbing a ladder from the third
deck, high above the housetops.
Stowing was overseen by the Elders. It is of the greatest importance, to
cushion us when we land. Tools and weapons on bottom, then sacks of
seeds, then clothes and blankets, with rolls of wool-felt over them.
Next came animals: four just-weaned calves, four lambs, four piglets
—breeding pairs, male and female, bawling and thrashing in rope slings.
Then we starsailors were strung up like the animals. Only strong men and
women are chosen: thirteen of us. (Fourteen is unlucky.) We were mated
pairs too, except for Kollam Kíli. Children hardly ever sail—only if their
parents come with them, and they themselves are of age. Little ones must
stay behind. It is a time of both joy and loss. The village loses its very
heart: the sacred tree.
The cutters helped me climb inside. I still shudder to remember that
suffocation! The core was only just wide enough for a man to hang flat in
it. They hung me in a hammock. Then they hung my cousin Affner’s
mate, flax-haired Kariwyn, directly on top of me, with rolls of felt packed
in between us. Kariwyn’s weight pressed down on me. I had to put my
head on one side just to breathe. My arms were wrapped in my coat, as his
Cold, cold,
How cold is Lugh’s great plain this night.
10 Norse: year
CHAPTER ONE
_____________________________
AFFELGARD
The gray box on the wall was shouting Smudge’s name again.
It wasn’t shouting Smudge’s usual name; the name everyone called
her. The gray box was shouting ‘Private Dana Finn’. That was never a
good sign.
“You mean Private Smudge,” thought Smudge.
‘Private Dana Finn,’ the gray box shouted, ‘third Marine unit! Report
to lieutenant!’
“You mean Private Smudge report to Shaky Stieg,” thought Smudge.
Smudge got up from her usual chair with her usual nervous cough. She
smoothed down her shirtfront with her usual sick, fluttery feeling in her
usual knot of a stomach. Smudge walked down the long aisle between the
tables. The other marines pretended not to see her, heads bent over their
work, pink ears bristling over their stiff green collars. Behind the big
desk, corporal Tyr sat up and smirked at her as she went out.
“Good luck,” said corporal Tyr.
Smudge walked back down the lower hallway. It was almost dark
outside. A cold summer rain was starting to drum against the windows.
“Private Smudge report to Shiny Stieg,” thought Smudge, “They could
have just said that.”
Smudge plodded up the stairs.
“—could have just said that on the box. Why make me go to Shaky
Stieg first?”
Smudge slogged slowly down the second-floor hallway.
“Why are so many nervies11 named ‘Stieg’?”
At the end of the hallway the commander’s door was open. Stiegmud
“Shiny Stieg” Goff looked just like Shaky Stieg, only older and balder.
Shiny Stieg’s huge shoulders sagged as he hunched over his desk. Stieg
wore an old-fashioned moustache which drooped at both ends. His shiny
head practically mirrored his ceiling light, which also buzzed faintly.
Smudge coughed.
“H-Herra commander? I was told to repor—”
“ ‘Ten-SHUN!” Shiny Stieg honked. Smudge went stiff.
“Ease,” Shiny Stieg grunted. He waved toward the one empty chair.
Smudge sat down.
Shiny Stieg stuck out his thick, pink tongue. He licked his thick, pink
thumb and forefinger with a wet noise. Then he pinched out a dossier
from somewhere and put his eyeglasses on. Shiny Stieg scowled into the
dossier.
Smudge squirmed.
Shiny Stieg made a rumbling noise in his throat.
Smudge squirmed.
“If it’s about Old Norsk—” Smudge blurted.
“ ‘Ten-SHUN!” Shiny Stieg honked. Smudge jerked up in the chair,
wondering if she was supposed to stand again. Shiny Stieg eyed her
sideways with a growl. He went back to glaring into the dossier.
“You’ve got the klotho,” Shiny Stieg said eventually.
“Sir?” said Smudge.
“You’ve got the KLOTHO!” Shiny Stieg yelled like she was deaf.
“You’ve got the KL-VS gene variant. The klotho. The one-eyes can tell
you all about it.”
“The scholars, sir?”
“Scholars?” Shiny Stieg snorted, “Scholars pah! Chicken-necks!” (He
puffed out his thick neck like a bullfrog.)
“Sir?” said Smudge.
Shiny Stieg sighed. “It’s your blood sample,” he said wearily. “Plus-
klotho means you belong out there in the bush, not up here in the
scriptorium. You don’t catch bush-disease.”
13 Norse: yes
***
17 Aliens
“—and that’s why they’re sending me.” (Smudge wasn’t listening)
“Nirevvy needs ursk— hem!” she coughed. Maev growled and made a fist
again.
“—Nirevvy needs Gaelic interpreters.” (Smudge dropped a little
curtsy.) “They reckon we won’t get sick when we make contact. Just
imagine! I’m going to meet real-live new ancient starsailors from a
faraway planet just like in a story—”
“Harrumph!” Maev stared into the fire. Smudge undid her hair and
hung her coat up on the wall. “And besides,” Smudge pursued (as if Maev
were arguing) “no one knows exactly how long a reach it is. Could be six
years; could be less.” Smudge was trying to sound matter-of-fact although
suddenly there was an awkward lump in her throat. “But that’s alright,
Ma. They pay the wífgild18 before we go. Ten years’ salary! Think about
it! You’ll practically be rich. You could move out of the Hestad. Go back
to planet Orkev where we were born—”
“I don’t want to go back to Orkev!” Maev corralled Smudge in her
arms. Maev’s hair was an absolute nest. She smelled like she always
smelled: black tea and jurt-smoke. Maev’s shawl had at least six patches,
and needed at least six patches, each in a different color.
“I don’t want to go back to Orkev! I want my baby! Oh, my Dana, my
little innuving!”
“Now Mama,” Smudge chided, “no sense getting weepy.”
“But we have rights!” (Maev got weepy.) “They can’t do this!”
“The nervies can do whatever they want,” Smudge observed. “We lost
the war. They won.”
Maev let go of her and stomped over to the window. “We never lost
the war!” Maev retorted, “The war isn’t over! Our brave Gaelic separatists
are still bleeding for mother Orkev. They’re still raising Hel for the
nervies— oh, don’t you give me that look! Of course the nervies won’t
tell you about it. But it’s true, Dana. Our patriots are hiding in every forest
and fen. They strike when those fat nervies are sleeping. The Norsk may
have overrun Orkev,” Maev concluded, “but we fought with more spirit!”
“We fought with spears, Ma.”
Maev put her forehead on the dirty glass. It was dark now. Evening
lights hung in the sky where the Hestad—the ursky ghetto—crowded up
21 Aodach; “cloth”
now it was dark. The bare floor was cold. Maev was using the Sacred Fire
to warm her tea.
“Oh, mama!” Smudge protested, but Maev already had her by the
wrist and was pulling her into the tent singing Esht shinya! Esht shinya!
like she always did. As she dragged her feet it occurred to Smudge that
this might be the last time she ever had to sit through one of Maev’s
Unveilings. So with a martyred sigh Smudge settled onto the floor—
“Ouch!” Smudge yelped, “It’s cold!” She frantically tucked her skirts
in under her legs. “Tsssst!” Maev hissed. “The goddess hears you!”
“Oh, Mother, really—”
“Tsssst!” Maev hissed. Maev took her tea away from the flame, then
she dropped a few lumps of scented wax where the wick was floating in
the oil. Smudge coughed.
“Tsssst!” Maev hissed. “Now. Throw the shells!”
Smudge held her hand out apprehensively. Maev put something in it.
“Ai! They’re wet!” Smudge dropped several eggshells on the board
and frantically wiped her hand on her skirt. Mm—hey? Maev mumbled
through her pipe. (She’d just lit it on the Sacred Flame.) Smudge coughed.
“Must you?”
“Aye. Must.”
“Were those duck eggs?”
“Aye,” Maev returned placidly, “any eggs’ll do. The goddess—she
foreseen I’d give ya’ duck eggs. AND she foreseen you’d throw ‘em down
just so. AND she foreseen how I, her only priestess, should unveil—”
“Can we get ON with it?” Smudge wailed, “I’m cold!”
“Alright, alright!” Maev scooted her knees up under the board. “Hush
ya’ now while I have a read of them.” Maev hovered her hands over the
eggshells, eyes closed, fingers outspread. She was mumbling out of one
corner of her mouth while her pipe-stem bobbed in the other.
“I SEE,” Maev intoned, “A TREE.”
Smudge yawned.
“You always see a tree.”
“I SEE,” Maev intoned, “A TALKING TREE.”
“You always see a talk—”
“Hush!” snapped Maev. “And I see two crows.”
Smudge heaved a weary sigh. “Mama you alway—
“MAMA!” Smudge screamed.
Maev’s eyes were dead white.
The pipe fell out of Maev’s trembling lips. Sparks and ash scattered
across the board. MAMA! Smudge screamed as Maev fell backward,
clawing at her eyes.
“My ghitcha!” Maev shrieked, “It burns!” And then in a blink they
were both tangled up in the Temple. The lamp got knocked off the board.
Fire started up Maev’s shawl.
“The Sacred Fire!” Maev shrieked. “It burns!” Maev frantically
stripped off her shawl and flung it into the open stove. She squawked Oh
my, and then Smudge soaked her from behind with the entire contents of
the washtub.
“The washtub!” Maev shrieked. “It’s freezing!” Maev spun around.
“Damn it all!” she added. Maev and Smudge stood face-to-face, panting.
“Mama!”
“I saw—”
“Mama!”
“I saw—
“Mama!”
“I saw a tree!” Maev breathed.
“Mama, what—”
“No, I saw a tree, Dana! A talking tree! I really saw it! With my
ghitcha—oh!” Maev dug her knuckles into her eyes, “it’s like fire!”
“Mama, let me see!”
Maev fluttered her eyes open. Smudge lifted her chin. “I can’t tell.”
Smudge squinted at her. “It’s too dark. Your eyes look normal.”
“I saw a tree!” Maev chortled. She pulled away and went skipping
around the room. “I did I did I really did! She just—unveiled it to me.”
“Who?” Smudge demanded. “Who unveiled?”
“Branwen! Oh, Branwen! Branwen, of course!”
“Mother?” (Smudge was sincerely worried.) “You’re not well!”
“Well?” Maev gloated, “ho ho!” She rubbed her wrinkled hands
together. “Well, d’ya’ say? Why, I’ve never been better! Branwen finally
unveiled something to me. Come!” Maev cried, “We have to go.” She was
taking her heavy old éddak off the wall with a mad grin on her face.
“Go?” (Smudge was aghast.) “Go where?”
“Go to the talking tree of course! I know what it looks like now.
Hurry!”
“MAW-ma!” Smudge wailed, “Have you lost your mind? It’s nearly
midnight! It’s black outside! It’s raining!”
“So dress warm!” Maev retorted. “We’re going now.”
“You don’t even know where this ‘tree’ is!”
“Yes-a-do!” Maev stuck her chin out obstinately.
“Then where is it?”
“Oh, up the mountain somewhere. Doesn’t matter. Branwen’s sending
two crows. Crows’ll show us the way.”
Smudge involuntarily choked. “You’re going out,” (Smudge almost
screamed) “to find crows,” (Smudge did scream) “in the DARK?”
But Maev was already inside her éddak, lashing her scarf around her
chin like it was the only thing keeping her head on. “You can stay if you
like,” Maev said in a curt, muffled voice.
“Fine!” Smudge stomped her foot. “I will stay.”
“Fine!” Maev snapped. “You just leave me to stumble around all alone
out there in the dark. Your own mother. Just a helpless old—”
“I’m not coming, Mother.”
“—helpless old woman with a bad hip. Just leave me for the wolves
—”
“There aren’t any wolves, Mother.”
“—just leave me for the wolves and the—er—the spiders—”
Smudge put her hands on her hips.
“Ha ha!” (Smudge couldn’t suppress it) “Spiders, Mother? Really?”
“Well,” Maev said innocently, “there might be spiders.”
“Hee hee,” Smudge tittered, “Spiders! They’d be drowned!”
“So you’re coming?” Maev asked hopefully.
“All right,” Smudge groaned. “Let me get my coat on.”
***
23 Fatherland
“I don’t want Freya!” (Elska started to cry again.) “I want my thane!
And my castchal!24 And a baby! Why must you go? Magnes ought to be
the one—”
“Magnes?” Rafe almost spat. “What’s Magnes going to do on
Affelgard? Ha ha,” he laughed maliciously, “they haven’t got fancy little
hedges there!”
“But Magnes is eldest!”
Rafe went white.
“Ye-esss—” (Rafe was trembling) “—keen observation, lady Caladar.
I’m told Magnes is eldest.” Rafe stood up abruptly. “And I’m cleverest!
I’m sorry if you don’t see the honor in it. If it’s Magnes you want, well,
you’re welcome to him; why not ask? He’s traditional. He might take an
extra wife while I’m off dying for Nirevvy.”
“No, no—” (Tears ran down Elska’s perfect face.) “I’m sorry, Rafe! I
can’t believe I’m already losing you!” She clutched Rafe’s hand. Rafe
gently lifted her chin.
“I need you to be brave for me,” Rafe said quietly. “Won’t you? Be my
brave little shieldmaiden?”
Elska closed her eyes. She took a breath, then she nodded.
“Good!” Rafe said crisply, letting go her chin. “Now I’ve got to go,
dearest. My father wants to see me.”
There was a knock outside. Elska snuffled and wiped her nose. Rafe
shouted Enter! The door swung open on a chilly parlor. A smartly-dressed
naval officer stalked in. He was older than Rafe—maybe forty—tall and
broad-shouldered. His wavy reddish hair was speckled with gray. A sabre
hung from his belt: not a ceremonial sword, a real one. Its hilt and
scabbard were tarnished from long use. The naval officer clicked his heels
and saluted.
“Ease, Herrick,” Rafe grunted.
Herrick bowed. “Admiral wants to see you, my thane.”
“I know,” Rafe sighed. “Tell the old man I’m on my way.”
Herrick bowed again. He turned to leave.
“No—Herrick—wait!” Rafe called, “I’m coming with you.”
25 Norse: baby
Rafe strode past the arches, to where the bay ended in a stone wall. A
little wrought-iron gate was set deep in it. Water from some unseen gutter
trickled out underneath and chattered down a covered drain. Rafe stepped
over the drain. He took an intricate-looking key out of his pocket.
Distant footsteps echoed down the passageways, coming from the
street. Rafe paused and looked over his shoulder. When it was quiet again,
he pushed on the gate. It swung silently. Rafe locked it behind them, and
they went up a steep flight of steps carved into the stone. Beyond it, a
crack of friendly light betrayed a door.
Herrick gently raised the latch and stuck his head inside. He looked
right, then left, bathed in yellow light. Rafe motioned to Herrick.
Together they slipped through the discreet back-entrance of a tavern
known as The Valkyrie.
“She wouldn’t!”
Herrick leaned across the table. Rafe lowered his glass. “She
wouldn’t,” Herrick repeated. “Elska marry your brother? What gave you
that idea, sir?”
Rafe sagged against the table. They were sitting in a little nook beside
the fire (blazing merrily in spite of it being summer). The tavern was
dimly lit. Talk echoed from the vaulted ceiling, punctuated by the steady
clink of glasses. Rafe ran his fingers through his damp hair.
“She would marry my brother.”
“Magnes is already married, sir.”
“She’ll settle for sister-wife.”
“She will not, sir!”
“Oh yes she will!” Rafe showed his teeth. “Elska’s twenty-two. She’s
got ambition. She’ll marry Magnes while I’m—”
“Sirrr—” Herrick chided.
“—while I’m— how d’ya say— ‘hibernated-presumed-dead’.”
“Sirrr—” Herrick chided, “no she—”
“—and Elska thought she was getting a castle out of me, dear gods!”
Rafe rolled his eyes. “Plus,” he added, “you know these colony girls
always remarry. They’re traditional. The instant we hit the three-year
mark—” Rafe shook his finger at Herrick—“you can bet your arse she’ll
have me officially presumed dead, if signals don’t find the Dreki. And
signals won’t find the Dreki.” Rafe stuck his face in his drink. Herrick
drew back in shock. “No,” Herrick insisted, “no she would never marry
Magnes! Elska is— I beg your pardon, my lord: your noble wife is Lady
Caladar now, whether you’re on Affelgard or not. She wouldn’t—”
“She WOULD!” Rafe gave the table a sluggish thump. “She thinks
about it, Herrick, and she would!”
Herrick folded his arms. “She thinks Magnes ought to be the one
going to Affelgard,” he observed. “You just told me that, sir.”
“Nofe,” Rafe slurred, “ ‘s not that. She said Magguh— Manguh— she
said his name, Herrick! I tell her I’ve been picked for Affelgard, longest
reach in history—great honor for us both—first thing pops into her head
is—hic!—my brother’s name! Oh, she’ll settle for sister-wife.” He gave
Herrick a sloppy smile. “That’s traditional too, if you’re norsk.”
Herrick nodded. Rafe slumped down on his elbows. “Husband sails
away,” he droned, “no word from him after three years? Snap!” (Rafe
snapped his fingers) “husband is officially presumed dead.”
Herrick smoothed his down moustache with his thumb and forefinger.
“Yes,” he said blandly, “that’s the chance we take, in our way of life.”
Rafe snorted.
“Our way of life?”
“Sir?” Herrick scraped his chair closer to the table. Rafe curled his lip.
“Our way of life?” Rafe repeated, “no, that’s the chance I take in MY way
of life. I’m norsk.”
“I meant the navy.”
“You’re ursky.” (Rafe was making horns out of his fingers and holding
them against his head.) “Your way of life is dancing around in a goat
mask.”
“My father was norsk, sir.” Herrick smiled wearily. “My father died on
the third Kuda reach. My mother was—”
“I know.”
“—was beautiful,” Herrick muttered into his mug. Rafe wasn’t
listening. “Eldest brother has first rights to his younger brother’s widow,”
he rambled, eyes wandering the room. “Widow has her sacred duty to
remarry. Got to make more little norskmen, haven’t we? Like I said, that’s
traditional.”
“That may be traditional,” Herrick grunted, “but that doesn’t mean
Elska will do it. Sister-wife to duchess Astrid? Never! And Magnes
wouldn’t stand for it either.”
“Oh, Herrick,” Rafe waggled his head with a condescending smile.
“Poor, naïf Herrick! Of course Magnes would stand for it! Why, it’s
practically the only thing he would stand for. Magnes isn’t a navy man.
He has no honor-sense.”
Herrick scowled at the table. “Well he has common sense,” Herrick
countered. “What would Astrid say? Can you imagine that argument? And
Sven? And Elyen? And besides—” Herrick looked up at Rafe—“marrying
Elska wouldn’t get Magnes any more children. Elska can’t—”
Herrick stopped. He coughed into his fist. “Elska can’t what?” Rafe
demanded, with a venomous look. Herrick reddened. “I—I was under the
impression,” Herrick stammered, “I’d thought your lady wife can’t—”
“Can’t bear children!” Rafe cut him off, “yes, yes— Elska’s a
godsdamned iceberg! Everybody knows that!” Herrick dropped his gaze.
“Forgive me, m’lord,” he said humbly. “Of course your noble line will
always endure. There are many ways a thane can—”
“Já, já,” Rafe brushed him off, “stop fawning, Herrick. You think I
don’t know how to mend my luck? Oh, everything’s always easy for
Magnes.” He swirled his glass morosely. “Magnes already has Sven to
carry on his name.”
“Precisely!” Herrick nodded hard. “Magnes already has an heir, so
why would Elska want—”
Rafe banged the glass down. “Why would Elska want to marry
Magnes?” he crowed. “Because Magnes is rich, that’s why! Because
Magnes could be king, Herrick—after my father, I mean. Olaf’s barely
breathing. My father is Olaf’s half-brother; he’ll be next in line. How long
do you reckon his venerable arse will fill the throne? I swear to gods,”
Rafe growled, “I don’t care if I’m a light year away, I won’t live under the
reign of a king Maggots the First and—”
Rafe made a face like there was something stuck in his throat.
“—and queen Elska.”
Herrick frowned (which made the forks of his moustache jut down).
“But Elska could never be queen,” he countered, “not as any sister-wife to
Astrid! Sister-wives don’t take title; you know that. If Magnes were king,
then Astrid would be queen.”
“Oh, would she?” Rafe drawled.
“And Elska would still be Lady Caladar.”
“Oh, would she?” Rafe drawled. “And what if Elska doesn’t like being
lonely Lady Caladar? Ever seen a widow with a body like that? You know
she’s decked like a— don’t shake your head like you don’t notice! She’s
decked like a gunship,” (Rafe hovered his hands over his chest) “she’s got
the estate on Orkev, she’s got the money her father left her. Elska isn’t
clever,” Rafe sneered, “but she knows what she’s worth. What d’you
reckon Magnes is going to say three years from now, when Olaf’s dead
and I’m drifting somewhere out in space? First time Elska shakes her
vyrts at him, I reckon Magnes says something on the order of ‘come
aboard’—just see if he doesn’t.” Rafe went back to his drink. “Sir—”
Herrick whispered cautioningly.
Rafe belched. “No, you listen to me, lieutenant!” he said louder. “Old
Astrid’s no gunship, that’s for sure. She must be at least forty-five.”
“Sir!” Herrick hissed. He glanced around the table. The tavern seemed
to have suddenly gone quiet. Rafe barreled on anyway. “Magnes already
got Astrid’s pups,” he babbled, “so what’s he keeping the old tík around
for? He’ll put her back in the kennels. Astrid’ll hate Elska for it; Elska
same. Maybe—” Rafe chuckled knowingly— “maybe little Elska gets
jealous, já? Sister-wives tend to get jealous, don’t they Herrick? Maybe—
I don’t know— maybe one day Astrid trips and falls down some stairs—
entirely by accident, of course!” Rafe winked. “Maybe she drowns in her
bath. Maybe somebody drops a pill in her soup. Maybe—poof!—young
Sven gets a pretty new mummy—my Elska—playing cork-th’-bottle with
Magnes while I’m off catching plagues on some godsforsaken—”
“Sir!” (Herrick was halfway out of his chair) “Don’t talk so loud!” He
managed to catch Rafe’s glassy eyes. Rafe growled and subsided. “And
besides,” (Herrick settled back again) “Elska’s just a girl anyway. She’s
barely out of her teens—”
“Shut up!” Rafe barked. Herrick froze.
“Shut up! You’re— forget your PLACE, lieutenant, ‘s my wife!”
“Pardon, pardon,” Herrick soothed, glancing around again. “I beg your
pardon, sir. I only meant: Lady Caladar isn’t a murderess. Nor unfaithful
either. She simply hasn’t got it in her.”
Rafe gave a patronizing laugh. “O—oh,” he drawled, “you might be
surprised what people got in ‘em, Herrick. You—might—be—surprised. I
have a plan.”
“M’lord?”
“I have a plan!” Rafe hissed. “A plan for a funeral.”
“Well of course you can request a funeral,” Herrick said matter-of-
factly. “They’ll grant you a full navy funeral before the reach. And that’s
the other thing, sir: you’ll register your Will and Testament. You can keep
your rights to Elska’s estate.”
“Nofe—” Rafe shook his head—“not my funeral.”
“Then whose funeral?”
“Can’t you guess?”
“I—” Herrick looked bewildered. He glanced down at the two empty
glasses on the table, standing next to Rafe’s half-full one.
“Old norsk funeral!” Rafe winked. “You know: burn—hic!—burning
ship?”26
Herrick stared at Rafe.
Rafe stared at Herrick.
“No-o!” Herrick drew back, aghast. Rafe grinned.
“No, my lord!” Herrick pushed his chair away from the table. “That
simply isn’t done!”
Rafe smiled cruelly. “It might not be the fashion,” he remarked, “but
it’s still the law. Elska is my property. I can have any sort of funeral I
choose, and I choose the mare-fire. I will win my fame on Affelgard.
Elska will wait for me in Valhalla.”27
“But—but the admiral!” Herrick spluttered—“Your father adores
Elska. He won’t stand for—”
“My father!” Rafe scoffed. “My decrepit father won’t know!”
He stopped.
“—unless you tell him, lieutenant.” Rafe looked Herrick in the eyes.
“Si-irrr!” Herrick pleaded, “M’lord, please, I daresay—” he shook his
head sadly—“daresay I’ve proven where my loyalty lies. I’ve never once
been untrue to the thane of Caladar. Not since Sigurd—”
“Good,” Rafe interrupted, “because I’m sending Elska home to Orkev
and I want you to pilot the old karvi.”
“The old karvi?” (Herrick looked uneasy.) “Why the old karvi?”
26 Some historical sources tell of viking funerals where a chieftain’s wife would be put
to sea in a burning ship along with the body of her husband.
27 Valhalla: the afterlife of the honorable warrior; a place of eternal feasting, combat,
and bliss.
“Because it’s got the old lifeboat.”
They looked at each other, not speaking. The fireplace crackled louder
in the silence.
“Oh.” Herrick lowered his eyes. “I understand.”
Rafe sniggered. “Do you, my good vassal?” he said. “Já, the old karvis
weren’t built for space; not really. Climb her past the two-league mark—
heh! So let’s just say—” Rafe tipped back in his chair, hands behind his
head “—just hypothetically, you know: let’s say there happened to be
some emergency on the way to Orkev—some serious trouble, já? Why,
you’d be duty-bound to protect your lady Elska! Who’d blame you for
it?”
Herrick didn’t answer. His eyes were on the sticky table.
“So you launch Elska off in the old lifeboat,” Rafe pursued. “Standard
procedure, right? Orkev’s gravity will pull it in. Lifeboat touches
atmosphere—poof!” Rafe blossomed his fingers. “Old norsk funeral!
Clever, right?”
Herrick said nothing. Underneath the table his sword clinked slightly.
“And I’ll need you to leave for Orkev day after tomorrow.” Rafe
landed the front legs of his chair with a bang.
“Day after tomorrow?”
Herrick’s breath made a little whistle through his teeth.
“That soon, sir?”
“That soon!” Rafe slapped the table. “It’s imperative they leave in the
afternoon watch. Four bells at the latest.”
“Four—” Herrick’s face went white. Rafe hoisted his glass and
drained it. “I’ve already made arrangements,” he said, wiping his mouth.
“Don’t expect smooth sailing—heh!—there’s going to be a bit of fun on
the way.”
“I see.” Herrick’s voice was calm. Under the table his sword clinked
again. “Well?” Rafe demanded.
“Well what, sir?”
“Well you haven’t asked about yourself!”
“I wasn’t thinking about myself, sir.”
“Co-ome!” Rafe reached across the table and clapped Herrick on the
shoulder. “Of course I’m taking care of you, my good vassal! Don’t you—
hic!—worry about a godsdamn thing! Take Elska and that, that wench of
hers— wuzz’er name?— Frida?”
“Freya.”
“Já, you just steer the karvi. Stop and refuel at Lünhofn. Press on
toward Orkev. First sign of any trouble, you stuff Elska and her wench in
the lifeboat and cut them loose. I’ll handle the rest. Didn’t I say I’m taking
care of you? Didn’t I, Herrick?”
“You did, m’lord.”
Rafe got up unsteadily. “Now I’m ready for the admiral,” he chuckled.
“Old man goes better with mead. Herrick?”
“My lord?” Herrick’s eyes were on the floor.
“Cape, Herrick!”
“Right, m’lord!” Herrick got out of his chair. He held up Rafe’s cape.
Rafe fastened its gold chain across his chest. “And how is Sigurd?” he
asked casually. Herrick reddened.
“My lord?”
Rafe laughed. “Skaal!” 28 he said. Then he went out.
***
***
***
32 Norse: rooster
34 Norse: houseman
“Your Grace?”
Magnes nodded significantly.
“Y-your Grace?” Sigurd stared at the duke wide-eyed. “Your Grace,
surely you don’t mean—”
“Hah!” Magnes went back to snipping at the rooster. “So not
everything has leaked, now has it? Heh heh! Maybe we won’t hang you
after all. Yes, a courier came by this morning. New orders for (Do hand
me that brush, Sigurd!) for one húsman Sigurdsson. We’ll see if YOU turn
out to be— how did you put it?— a ‘credit to Nirevvy’.” The duke turned
to Sigurd again.
“You’re going to Affelgard.”
Sigurd took off his hat. His eyes were on the path, where the white
gravel cut through the green like a razor.
“My lord,” Sigurd said quietly, “I won’t be serving Your Grace then,
will I?”
“No, you—” Magnes stopped. “And why d’you ask?” he demanded
suspiciously.
“I saw the courier. Caladar livery.”
“Brav-O!” Magnes patted his plump hands together, “Shrewd guess,
Sigurd. Já, that footpad of Rafe’s— Garrick? That his name? Biggish
villain. Half-ursky—”
“Herrick, Your Grace.”
“—he just got promoted. Here.” Magnes dug into his apron pocket.
“I’m supposed to give you this.” The duke handed something to Sigurd.
Sigurd looked down at his palm. One copper star glinted in the sunlight.
“You’re an ensign,” Magnes grunted. “Consider yourself
commissioned. Rafe is your commanding officer; you’re his new orderly.
You’ll report to him at once.”
He turned back to the rooster.
“Welcome to the nervy navy.”
Sigurd didn’t answer. For a while the only sound was the snip snip of
Magnes’ shears. At last Magnes turn around with an annoyed look. “Well
go on!” He jerked his thumb at the villa. “You’re not in service any more.
Rafe’s your new thane. To the Burg with you!”
Sigurd didn’t stir.
“What IS the matter?” Magnes snapped, getting up.
Sigurd’s hat made a nervous circle between his hands. A light breeze
stirred the waves of auburn hair that framed his pale forehead. Sigurd was
a young man—about twenty-five—slender and refined-looking except for
something vaguely hard-sprung about him. He lifted his eyes, so light
blue they were almost white.
“I don’t want to leave Sumarhús, my lord.”
“Gods!” Magnes groaned, “Rafe’s not so bad as all that! He’s no wet-
nurse, I’ll grant you. He’s no worse than I am, certainly. There’s nothing I
can do about it. My hands are tied.” He held his palms out resignedly.
Sigurd stared at the ground.
“I don’t want to leave Sven and Elyen.”
Magnes laughed. “So it’s not my charm holding you back,” he said
drily. “What are you acting so costive for, Sigurd? It’s not like you’ll
never see them again.”
“Six years’ hibernation, Your Grace.” Sigurd stared at the ground. “Six
years each way.”
“Oh, you’re young,” Magnes growled. “You’ll survive! It’s the
duchess and the ungbörn35 I’m worried about. Sven is strong enough, but
Elyen’s too little for hibernation, in my opinion.” The duke stuck his
hands in his trouser pockets. Sigurd looked up sharply.
“Elyen, Your Grace?”
“Of course Elyen!” Magnes brayed. “And Sven! And their mother!
Prince Stegvard’s exiled the lot of us! All this—” he kicked the pot—“this
godsdamned disorder, just to stop the Longbards getting another onion-
patch!” Magnes rattled Hani angrily, sending down a shower of tiny
leaves.
“I can’t imagine how Sven and Elyen will get on,” he pursued, “out
there in an untamed world.” Magnes bit his lip. “I suppose Dreki’s big
enough to keep them,” he said thoughtfully. “Safe enough, too—”
Sigurd was bobbing from foot to foot with a thrilled expression. “My
lord,” he cried, “this is wonderf—”
“Ha! Feel better, do you? Já, já— I’m sure you’ll get a chance to
berate young Sven about those harp lessons, hey? And little Elyen about
her fencing?—ha ha!—so long as Rafe doesn’t—”
The duke’s face fell.
***
The trail doubled back for the hundredth time. In the hollow of the
bend Smudge could see a patch of dirty snow, and, poking out of it, one
defiant little saxifrage blossom like a white star against the gray. Smudge
stopped to look at it. Maev turned around. “We have that on Orkev,”
Maev said diffidently. “Nervies brought it over. It runs rampant now.”
“It’s pretty.”
Smudge felt a little spark inside. On an impulse she plucked off the
saxifrage. Then she took Maev’s hand and held it tight. Together they
started off again, hand-in-hand, like children picking wildflowers.
There was a whiff of smoke in the air. Off to their right a track, barely
visible, fell abruptly down the slope. At the bottom was a little dell, and in
the dell was a little squatter’s cabin with green turf growing on its roof.
Some poor ursky trying to escape the charms of the Hestad, Smudge
reckoned. Nervies never came up this high. Smudge could hear chickens
squawking in the dooryard.
Krá! A rooster crowed. Maev stopped. She turned her head to listen.
Krá! The rooster crowed again. Maev gazed into the distance. There
was a thoughtful look in her eyes.
“HA HA HA!” Maev exploded. (Smudge screamed Ai! and nearly
jumped off the trail.) “Ha ha! Two crows!36 Branwen sent two crows, just
like she said she would! Come on! We’ll look here.”
Smudge glanced around. “And we’re looking for a talking tree?” she
said loftily, “I don’t think they keep one here. Why don’t you climb down
and ask?—heh!— “Beg your pardon, felagi,” (she brogued) “we’re from
the goddess Branwen. Has your firewood been screaming at you?—hee
hee!” Smudge tittered. Maev only shook her head.
“Let’s go a bit higher.”
They tramped around another switchback. The toothy ridge that fenced
off their left-hand side began to taper down. Then another track, fainter
than the first, broke off the main trail and climbed up the ridge. Fog came
spilling over the rim. The air had a sulphurous smell.
“Here!” Maev announced.
The path was steep; just stepping-stones in the mud. A cold wind
flowed down from the snowy heights. Smudge shivered and tried not to
look at the fall behind her. Maev had already topped the ridge and
vanished into the fog.
Smudge heard Maev shout.
“Mother!” Smudge called, “Wait!”
“Hurry, child!”
Smudge sidled between two mossy boulders. Then over the crest. She
was picking her way down through fog that smelled like a burnt match
36 Norse: krákar: crow, i.e., the bird. Norse: krá: crow, i.e., the call of a bird, esp. the
call of a crow. The words are onomatopoetic in Norse as they are in English. Both the
English crow and the Norse krá are descended from the same Proto-Indo-European
source word.
and hung so heavy she could hardly see her feet in front of her. “Hurry!
Maev shouted again. “You have to come feel this!”
“Feel wha—”
Then all at once the path dropped beneath the layer of fog. Smudge
was in a ravine between sheer rock walls. And there was Maev, leaning
against a boulder with a smug expression on her face. Smudge came up
panting.
“Feel wha—o-oh!” Smudge said wonderingly. Maev grinned.
“Its warm!”
Maev chuckled. Her wet éddak and scarf were already draped over the
boulder. They were standing in a little dale that lay hidden under a fog
ceiling. Flat-topped rocks made a floor like flagstones. From between the
rocks, steam rose from a hundred cracks and fissures. Smudge could hear
the chatter of running water.
“A hot spring!”
“Aye! And something more!” Maev pointed. Up against the ravine, so
close that its roots bit into the cliff, there stood a thick, gray-green tree.
“A star what?”
“Mangrove! A star mangrove!”
Smudge yawned. “How is that a star-man grove?” she asked (not very
interested). Maev gaped at her in disbelief. “You really don’t know?”
Maev squawked. Smudge shook her head. She was sitting with her bare
feet and ankles in the bubbling water, a placid expression on her speckly
face.
“Gods!”
Maev sat down on the rocks next to Smudge. She stuck her own feet
into the water.
“What have the nervies been teaching you?”
“Well—” Smudge hesitated—“not much.”
Maev closed her eyes. “The star mangrove!” she said dreamily, “The
star mangrove! It’s Branwen’s own starship, Dana. A living, growing
aerbád.37 Star mangroves are what brought speaking peoples to the Near
Worlds.”
“Are they?” Smudge raised an eyebrow.
37 Air-boat (Irish)
“They are,” said Maev.
“I thought the Norsk just kept building bigger and bigger ships.”
“They did,” said Maev, “but they weren’t the first. First came our
ancestors, the Wanderers, birthed onto each new world by the sacred tree.
Orkev, Shalthain, Kuda, Innis Chila, Talaglas. On every world Branwen
planted her star mangrove. When the time was right, she called her people
onward again.
“But on Nirevvy, the old country,” (Maev rubbed her ankles) “the
Norsk got rich and forgot the old ways. When the first fireship landed on
Orkev we Gaels welcomed it with singing. We’d always kept the memory
of our motherworld alive.”
Maev sighed and put her feet back in the water. “But after a thousand
years,” she said, “our motherworld had changed. The nervies landed on
Orkev with their guns and their diseases. Half the Gaels died from nervy
plagues. Our chiefs fell to fighting amongst themselves. By the time the
nervies started taking our farms we were already a broken people. When
we fought back they enslaved us. They did the same thing on Shaltain.
Then on Kuda. Then on the rest.
“And now—” Maev looked hard at Smudge—“you tell me the nervies
sniffed out a new settlement on Affelgard, eh, child? So you’re off to help
them enslave another world while Gaels beg nervies for the food they
took from us.”
Smudge squirmed uneasily. “But we aren’t slaves now,” she
countered. Maev snorted.
“Why did you enlist?”
“So we could eat.”
“And who tells you what to do?”
“Sergeant Stieg.”
“Who decided you must go Affelgard?”
“I don’t know.”
“Can you refuse?”
For a moment Smudge met her mother’s gaze. Then she lowered her
eyes.
“No,” Smudge said quietly.
Maev rubbed her knees. “Then how are we not slaves?” she asked.
“They call us thralls because we are.”
Smudge and Maev fell silent, listening to the voice of the water.
“And— that’s a talking tree?” (Smudge said it somewhat respectfully.
She’d never taken her mother seriously before, but now Maev seemed so
purposeful and calm.)
“Aye.” Maev got up wearily. “Aye, that’s a talking tree. Come—ugh!
My aching bones!” Maev clumped over to the cliff wall. Smudge
followed, stepping from rock to rock. They stopped in front of the twisted
tree. Smudge studied it a while.
“It doesn’t look like a starship.”
“Well it IS one.”
Smudge shaded her eyes. The trunk was about four feet wide—rather
too thick for the canopy. It looked bottom-heavy, like a fat old woman
with scraggly hair. Roots like claws split the rock, groping away from the
slimy water. Coming closer, Smudge could see the tree was bent out
crescent-shaped from the cliff.
“Funny how the fruit grow straight up.”
“Funny how the fruit grow at all!” Maev retorted. “A thousand years
ago Nirevvy was warmer.” She glanced back at the steaming spring.
Smudge touched the tree. “Yow!” Smudge yelped. “There’s bugs on it!”
“ARE there?” Maev shoved Smudge aside. She stuck her nose next to
the bark and stood there a while, screwing up her eyes.
“Folaworms!” Maev practically shrieked. (Smudge gave a squawk.)
“Folaworms! It’s amazing!”
“What?” cried Smudge, “What’s amazing?”
“Holy gods, the blood-worms!” Maev shouted. “They’re swarming!
Oh, this is miraculous!” Maev skipped sideways around the tree, glancing
frantically up and down. “Folaworms!” she sang, “Folaworms! They’re
everywhere! And look: it’s got an open core!” Maev was hopping up and
down, pointing at a cleft where the trunk almost parted. Inside the cleft
was a big oblong hole. Smudge shaded her eyes.
“That’s a hole?”
“Yes that’s hole!”
“Is that unusual?”
“Unusual?” Maev screamed, “It’s incredible! Folaworms seal the
breach when they’re swarming. Gods only know why they haven’t done.”
“Swarming?” (Smudge sounded dubious.) “But they’re hardly
moving.”
“That’s because it’s cold!” snapped Maev. “This tree is barely hanging
on to life—see!” (she pointed) “the folaworms are on the breach. They
just aren’t moving very fast.”
“It smells awful!”
“That’s resin. Hush! I can hear her talking.”
“Hear who talking?”
“The tree!” cried Maev. “It’s— she’s singing something.”
Maev pressed her ear against the trunk. She stood there quivering, bits
of bark in her tangled gray hair. Several minutes passed. The hot spring
gurgled drowsily. Smudge yawned.
“I don’t hear anything,” said Smudge. “What’s she singing?”
“I— don’t know—”
Maev pulled away from the tree. “She isn’t singing to me,” Maev said.
“To someone else, maybe— wait!” She touched the trunk. “Do you hear
that?”
Smudge shook her head. Everything was quiet.
“Hear wha—”
Crack.
“Ai!” Smudge screamed. She jumped backward. Small stones were
spilling off the cliff, piling up between the mangrove’s roots.
Crack.
“Mama!” Smudge screamed. She stared up in horror. A fissure was
racing sideways across the cliff wall. Rocks yawned apart, then crumbled.
An avalanche of dirt flowed down. “Careful, Mama!” Smudge screamed,
“It’s coming—”
BOOM.
Water and steam exploded out of the fissure. Hot spray covered
Smudge; covered Maev; covered the star mangrove too, running off its
leathery leaves like rain. Instantly a throbbing hum echoed through the
ravine. Thousands upon thousands of folaworms were beating the air with
damp wings.
“Mama?”
Smudge spun around. Old Maev had just thrown her soggy arms
around Smudge’s neck. Foul-smelling water ran off her sleeves. “Mama,”
Smudge tremored, “why are you hugging me?”
“Goodbye, Dana.”
Maev’s dripping hair was pressed against Smudge’s cheek. “Goodbye,
my love,” she said.
“Goodbye?” Smudge quailed, “What do you mea—”
Maev leaped.
Smudge rubbed her wet eyes. Old Maev had jumped so high it was
like she was a girl again. She caught the bottom lip of the breach and
scrambled up, hoisting herself inside.
“A-ah!” Maev pulled her knees in. The folaworms made a fuzzy fringe
around the opening. Yellowish resin was swelling inward on all sides like
mushrooms coming up.
“Mama?” Smudge choked. She watched in horror as the backside of
Maev—baggy underwear and all—disappeared inside the tree
“No, Mama!” Smudge shrieked, “No!”
The breach was closing fast. Maev’s wrinkled arm shot through the
opening.
“Goodbye, innuving—”
Maev fluttered her hand. Her muffled voice came through the trunk.
“Goodbye, my Dana! Gods protect you, my love. I’ll see you on
Affelgard.”
Maev pulled her arm back quick. The folaworms were closing in.
Smudge screamed Mama! one last time, and then Crack!—a big root
popped out of the rocks and knocked her over. Smudge lay on her back,
shielding her eyes and weeping. Like a giant weed, the star mangrove tore
itself free from ground. It rose up into the air, dirt and rocks pouring off
its roots. The tree banged once against the cliff, then it disappeared into
the fog.
Esht shinya!
Esht shinya!
For a moment, Dana Finn thought she could hear her mother singing.
CHAPTER TWO
_____________________________
THE WHITE LADY
We’d have all been dead things if not for Greta. We landed hard. A
starsail sheet38 came loose on entry. Our ship spun and dragged air. I was
just beginning to wake up, too feeble to move. The first thing I can
remember thinking was ‘there’s ice in my beard.’ Then I heard Kollam
Kíli suck in a lungful of air.
The dragon! Kollam shrieked, The dragon cometh!
Then Kollam passed out and we struck ground. Affner’s hammock
broke. He rolled over me and tumbled down into the bottom of the hold.
The ship was like an oven. I couldn’t feel the heat, but I could smell it.
Above me Greta was saying something. I heard fear in her voice. Greta’s
hammock creaked. It creaked again. Then I heard a steady creak-creak,
like Greta swinging herself forward and back.
Forward.
One by one we pulled each other out. Kariwyn was still asleep. One
calf was dead and one lamb, crushed under Affner when he fell. But the
women and men all survived. We lay the dead animals on the smouldering
trunk and ate them half raw. Eydís had two broken ribs and she could
barely breathe. She was too cold to move, so we dragged her back inside
the tree and gave her what water we could soak up in a blanket. The
waterskins we’d brought with us were solid ice.
I was near blind, but I thought Affelgard might be a good land. It
smelled fertile. I could hear the wind rushing through many trees. I lay on
the wet ground and listened to the rain fall; listened to Eydís moaning
faintly inside the tree.
Greta crawled into the tree next to Eydís. She put a bundle in Eydís’
lap. The bundle squirmed.
Eydís stopped crying and opened her eyes.
Two beautiful little puppies wriggled out and began to lick her sooty
face. It was old Madri’s bundle, laid on Greta’s lap just before we slipped
Talaglas. Eydís laughed—the first laugh there ever was on Affelgard. The
little dogs were as fresh as if they’d just had a nap.
“O Meri, my love,
Your eyes are like starlight,
Like wheat in the summer
Your wavering hair.
He stopped abruptly and looked down. From underneath the tree came
the crunch of breaking twigs.
“—feet are like—” Broer trailed off. He leaned out cautiously, trying
to look between his knees without falling.
“Feet are like what?” asked a voice.
Broer’s face went red. He quickly put down the harp. “Who’s that?”
Broer demanded.
An old bearded face looked up.
“It is I,” said the face, “Kollam Kíli, the prophet.”
“Oh!” Broer sighed. “It’s just you, Herra Kíli. You startled me!”
Another crunch, and then Kollam Kíli came puffing up the ladder.
Wide steps, smooth and shiny with age, had been cut directly into the
deep bark of the tree. Broer was looking down on Kollam’s grey top-knot
as it bobbed closer.
“A-ah—!”
Kollam hauled himself out onto the limb, wheezing a bit as he settled
in beside Broer. “I don’t remember it being so high!” He took off his
patchwork coat. The first mighty fork of Yost—the Fathertree—was big
enough to comfortably hold them both. Kollam patted the trunk. “Seems
like yesterday I was helping Snorri and Olev carve out those steps!” he
remarked. “Snorri Sturluson was your great-great-great-great grandfather,
Broer. He was the first skald40 on Affelgard—dear gods—has it already
been two hundred years?” Kollam twisted his beard with his odd inward
gaze. “They did good work,” (he peered over the edge admiringly). “Old
Yost was always happy to hide a boy.”
“I’m not a boy!” Broer said testily. He picked up the harp and started
plucking at it again.
“So what are her feet like?”
Broer stopped playing. “Whose feet?” he demanded.
“Meri’s feet!” cried Kollam. “You were praising bits of her just now.
So what about her feet?”
Broer blushed furiously.
“How did you know that song was about Meri?”
“Because I’m a prophet,” Kollam answered matter-of-factly. “And
also,” he added, “you were singing oh-Meri-oh-Meri. ”
Broer smiled sheepishly. “Well I guess I don’t mind you knowing,” he
said (with a touch of pride). Broer heaved a sigh. “I love Meri Vínber,” he
said with emotion. “I’ve loved Meri Vínber since—since—”
“Since Midsummer,” Kollam interrupted. “That was a month ago.
Meri had herself a wash and a comb and suddenly you fell in love with
her.”
“Ye-es—” Broer said dreamily, “I’ve loved Meri since Midsummer.
How did you—”
“Prophet!” Kollam interrupted. “And also, everyone in the village
knows you’re in love with her.”
“What?” Broer gaped at him. “What makes you say—”
“Prophet!” Kollam interrupted, “And also Bròc told me. And Bròc is
deaf. And he lives alone. In a cave. So if Bròc knows—”
Kollam settled back against the tree and clasped his hands together
primly. “Alright, alright!” Broer smirked. “Well at least Meri knows, then.
Or she ought to know. That’s fine. I’m glad about that. I’m getting ready
to disclose my heart to her, Herra Kíli, before any of the other boys do.”
40 Bard, storyteller
“Are you!” Kollam cried warmly. “Disclose your heart! Why, I did the
same myself once, centuries ago. Back then we called it hjartað er gefið
—‘the heart is given’—heh heh!” Kollam chuckled, “Funny how some
things never change! I gave Hjelgi my heart. Hjelgi gave me her fist—”
Broer yawned. “Yes,” he said, “I’m going to do it with a song.” (Like
most people in Fion-lis, Broer thought Kollam Kíli was insane. Kollam
claimed to have sailed on the ancestral mangrove störnskip41 that first
brought people to Affelgard. Kollam maintained he was hundreds of years
old, and he’d been awake and conscious for the entire seven-score reach
from Talaglas to Affelgard.)
“I’m going to do it with a song,” Broer said. He plucked a big leaf and
fanned himself with it. “That’s what I was working on just now.”
Kollam tugged his beard.
“Does Meri like songs?”
“I don’t know,” said Broer. “I hope so.”
“Well don’t sing about her feet, at any rate,” Kollam advised. “Men
who love feet tend to be— strange.”
(Broer wasn’t listening.) “Oh Meri!” Broer sighed, “my Meri! My
heart is yours alone.
Broer plucked the harp and started singing again. Kollam wadded up
his cloak and stuffed it between the tree trunk and his back. “Ahem!” he
cleared his throat, “Yes. Fine young ungfrú, that Meri! Why do you love
her so?”
“Why do I—”
Broer stopped plucking the harp. He stared at Kollam wide-eyed.
“I love her because she’s beautiful, of course!” Broer cried. “She’s tall
and, and wavy-shaped, and she’s got golden hair and her face is—”
“True, true,” Kollam interrupted. “A remarkable beauty I’m sure. And
if she weren’t beautiful?” (he glanced sideways at Broer) “Would you still
love her then?”
“Gods!” Kollam muttered, “Truly was it said: young men love with
their eyes, not with their hearts.” He rubbed his eyes with a chuckle.
Broer stopped singing.
“I do love Meri with my heart,” Broer protested. “I love Meri with all
my heart!”
“Of course, of course.” Kollam patted Broer’s shoulder soothingly. “I
wish you joy. Now where’s our chief—our Lafdi?42 That’s what I came to
ask you in the first place.”
“Where’s my mother?” (Broer narrowed his eyes suspiciously.) “Why
are you looking for my mother, Herra Kíli?”
“Because I have something important to tell her.” Kollam said
seriously. “The folaworms are swarming and they’re coming to kill us.”
They stared at each other.
“The folaworms?” Broer said eventually.
Kollam nodded.
“The magic termites?”
Kollam nodded.
“That no one’s ever seen before?”
“I’ve seen them before!” Kollam declared. “I lay in a cloud of their
stench for a hundred and thirty years, Broer Rathurskegg!”
“Right. And you say,” Broer pursued, “you say they’re coming to kill
us?”
“That’s right!” Kollam nodded vigorously. “And soon! We haven’t got
much time.”
Broer picked up his harp again. “I think mother’s in Great-Hall,” Broer
said. He plunked the strings. Kollam Kíli got up carefully, holding onto
the trunk.
As he made his way down the ladder, Kollam could hear Broer
singing.
***
43 Norse: Hjarta Regins. Regin is one of the dwarven smiths in the legends of Sigurd
the Volsung, capable of crafting marvelous devices.
“Ursky bricklayer—hee hee!” Qarl’s vast shoulders jiggled. “What
was he in the ‘Fang for anyway?” Vítur took his spectacles off with a
smug look. “Ursky Separatist,” he answered, polishing the lenses on his
sleeve. “Sneaky little Hestad rat trying to play the spy. Of course we
intercepted him. Deluded thralls! It’s madness we let them read
nowadays. In my day,” Vítur puffed out his bony chest, “that ursky would
have been chained up to a grist-mill, not running sedition back and forth
on a mineral barge.”
“So now Olaf’s got his heart?” Qarl looked gleeful. “Will it last him
fourteen years? So he can taste that first fig from Affelgard, hey?”
Vítur sank back into his cushioned chair. “I spoke with the healers just
yesterday.” (He folded his papery hands together.) “They advise me that
all of His Majesty’s artifice is failing— lung, liver, kidneys. Yes, even his
new heart.”
Qarl sniggered.
“Then why— skaal, Uncle.” Qarl sloshed his mug at Vítur. Vítur
raised a tiny crystal glass with the ghost of a nod.
“—then why is Olaf obsessed with Afflegard? I mean, he can’t exactly
sail there.”
“He thinks he can sail there.”
“What?” Qarl looked stupefied. “But Olaf wouldn’t live through one
day in hibernation! And that’s a damned unlucky thing to have on board, a
dead king.” Qarl stared off into the sky. Seabirds were circling like paper
kites against the blue. “I suppose we could rig up a special hibernation
locker,” Qarl said musingly. “Make it shoot him out a porthole once his
blood freezes.”
“He’s not that senile!” Vítur returned sourly. “Olaf wouldn’t set foot in
your ugly knarr anyway. He wants to follow the Dreki on his yacht. The
ursky witch has him convinced—”
“Ursky witch? You mean Marabreith?”
“Marabreith!” Vítur scoffed. “Her real name is Helgi and she used to
sell codfish on the Strand. Nowadays she sells delusion to our thane-of-
thanes. She’s convinced Olaf there’s a star mangrove somewhere on
Orkev that—”
“A star mangrove?” Qarl raised both eyebrows. Qarl’s bull neck made
his face look smaller than it really was. His black stubble hair, shaved all
over, bristled low on his low forehead.
“A star mangrove?” Qarl repeated. “Like in a fairy tale?”
“Já.” Vítur sank his chin on his hand with a gloomy expression. “Já,
fairy tales are what Olaf believes in now. The witch says there’s one
ancestral star mangrove growing on each of the near worlds. Each world
the Wanderers found.”
“Wanderers?” Qarl was beginning to look bored. Vítur noticed Qarl
was beginning to look bored. “Yes! Wanderers!” he said tartly. “The
Ansthapani. First speaking peoples in the Gríyan system. Nirevvy,
Orkev,” (Vítur counted on his bony fingers) “Kuda, Shalthain, Innis Chila
—one star mangrove tree growing on each habitable world. That’s what
the witch whispers to Olaf. She says there’s a star mangrove tree growing
on Orkev and she says it can—I don’t know—prolong his life or
somesuch nonsense. Long enough for him to get to Affelgard, or so he
fancies, anyway.”
“But—heh heh,” Qarl chuckled, “weren’t the Firstfolk supposed to be
flying around inside their magic trees? Shouldn’t that star mangrove be
drifting through the whale nebula by now?”
Vítur took a miniscule sip from his glass. “The Wanderers didn’t sail
the entire tree,” he retorted. “They only sailed the canopy and the trunk.
The roots could still be alive somewhere.”
“And what would Olaf even do on Affelgard?” Qarl pursued. “Other
than die, I mean? He’s barely alive as it is.”
“Hu-uush!” Vítur growled, “Listen to me! Evidently there’s a whole
forest of star mangroves—thus saith the witch—growing on Afflegard,
and all His Majesty has to do is waltz lirrah lirrah lee—” (Vítur fluttered
his fingers) “—to and fro among the magical trees, getting younger and
younger with every step.”
“Younger?” Qarl interrupted. “Hibernation never made me any
younger.”
“No, you heimskur!” 44 snapped Vítur, “that’s not the—”
“I woke up from Kuda,” (Qarl folded his thick arms) “looking like a
godsdamn corpse. I just hope I’m fit for command after they ice me for
six and a half—”
“Forget it!” Vítur waved his hand dismissively. “You’ll be fit enough,”
he added, “If you don’t do anything stupid.”
44 Norse: fool
“Ho hum!” (Qarl ignored him.) “How could Olaf possibly believe her
anyway, this Marabreith, if she’s just some mooney old hag from the
Strand?”
Vítur rubbed his eyebrow left to right. “Oh, I don’t know,” he sighed,
“She’s not entirely stupid. She claims to be a priestess of the bandia-an-
bháis: the White Lady of the Gaels.”45
“Eh-h?” Qarl stuck his hand in the fruit bowl and fished around.
“What’s a white lady of the Gaels?”
“I don’t know,” Vítur shrugged, “Some sort of ursky death-goddess. A
white dryad46 guarding a black tree.”
Qarl came up with another cherry. “A dryad?” he said, “That’s not so
bad. Heh heh!—she might be good-looking. Better than Hel,47 anyway.”
“Better than Marabreith!” Vítur sniffed. “That crone’s not a day less
than seventy. I suppose she might seem young to His Majest—”
“Haw haw!” Qarl guffawed, “So it’s as simple as that, eh? Just go to
Orkev. Find a magic tree stump. Let me call Björn, Uncle. I’ll have him
send a squadron out looking.”
“Olaf’s already looking.”
“Is he really?” Qarl raised his eyebrows, looking amused. Vítur
nodded hard. “His Majesty has urskies out combing the bush. Quietly, you
know? The witch prophesies Olaf will survive the long reach, but only if
he’s ventilating on resin fumes.”
“Ventilating on what fumes?”
“On resin fumes!” cried Vítur. “Resin from the folaworms!”
Qarl gave him a blank stare.
“Oh, gods give me patience!” Vítur pressed his knuckles into his eyes.
“The blood-worms. You know? Little termites that burrow in the sacred
tree? Supposedly their resin has marvelous properties. It’s how the
Wanderers survived—”
“But Uncle,” Qarl interrupted, “surely you don’t believe—”
46 Tree spirit
47 Loki’s daughter Hel. Norse goddess of the underworld, and of the ignoble dead. Hel
was described as half beautiful woman, half rotting corpse.
“Of course I don’t!” Vítur snapped. He stared down at his glass,
swirling it a bit. “Still,” he added thoughtfully, “truth is the mother of
legend; that’s what the scholars say. Centuries ago we Norsk learned how
to extract spíramar from the common spruce-beetle. Spíramar is what
keeps the beetle’s blood from freezing in the long winter.”
“I know,” Qarl grunted.
“Our alchemists replicate it. We breathe it during reach-hibernation.
The heart beats slow, but it doesn’t stop. The blood gets thick, but it
doesn’t freeze.”
“I know,” Qarl grunted.
“Maybe—who knows?—another insect could do the same thing.
Preserve life.” Vítur trailed off, a detached look on his face. Qarl’s face
was back in his mug. “Mmm—” Qarl slurped—“well he’d better find his
magic termites quick. We’re ready to sail in ten days. Maybe less.”
Vítur's face fell. “Yes, and I’m beside myself, Qarl. Our Dreki needs to
embark; our thane-of-thanes needs to make a public appearance at the
Embarking. Olaf hasn’t seen sunlight in two years; he looks like
something you’d find in a cave. People whisper, you know. ‘Olaf’s lost
his wits,’ or ‘Olaf’s died and the Hadors are secretly running the
kingdom.’ Rule navy, rule Nirevvy—that’s the way people see things. I’ve
got to put Olaf on display at the Embarking, which means moving him
from Kattering to Trondhjem without him coming apart— kæru guðir!”48
Vítur sighed, “When Olaf does come apart, the Hadors will have the run
of the Gríyan system. Did you know Prince Stegvard is next in line for the
throne?”
“I knew,” Qarl grunted.
“A king Stegvard will have us tossed out on our ear before Olaf’s
ashes are cold!” Vítur wrung his hands.
“But we’ve got the treasury,” returned Qarl. “And I’m commanding
the Afflegard mission. Longest reach in— ever.”
“Yes, and what will I do,” Vítur whined, “while you’re asleep amongst
the stars? I fattened purses for you, Qarl. I threatened dukes to get you the
mission. Dukes Qarl!” Vítur tugged his sparse white beard. “Maybe I wish
I hadn’t.”
48 Dear gods!
Qarl’s round eyes went rounder. “Wish you hadn’t?” he crowed,
“What would you wish that for? Affelgard strengthens our hand, Uncle!
The Hadors can’t take it away.”
Vítur made a sort of whimper. “But I can’t carry the shield once you’re
gone,” he said. “You’re taking all our best allies with you, Qarl. Oh, how I
wish I weren’t Olaf’s only cousin! I’m old, Qarl. I’m knocking on Odin’s
doors myself.”
Qarl sniggered into his mug.
“We’ll just have to get you an ursky heart, Uncle!”
Vítur coughed to hide a laugh. “I’m not afraid to die!” he retorted.
“You’ll forgive me, Qarl. Maybe I’m just Olaf’s glorified húsman, but I
still fancy myself a Norsk!”
“SKAAL!” Qarl boomed. He pounded his mug on the dainty table.
“Stop that!” cried Vítur, catching his glass before it toppled over. Ale was
dripping through the wicker onto his slippers. “Stop that, you svín!49
“And skaal,” Vítur added. “I’m proud of you, sister-son.” 50 He clinked
Qarl’s mug. For once his smile looked sincere.
“Proud of me?” Qarl eyed his uncle suspiciously. “Why?”
“Wh— because you’re my nephew!” Vítur spluttered. “Because
you’re my heir, you ignorant—”
“U-uncle—” soothed Qarl.
“—because you’re leading the greatest mission in Norsk history!
Because I’ll be long dead by the time you—”
“U-uncle—” soothed Qarl.
“Because you’re like a son to me.”
Swarthy, barrel-chested Qarl Longbard blushed like a schoolboy.
Surging over the table he gathered up old Vítur and crushed the skinny
baron in his arms.
“Northstar!” Qarl bellowed. “Skaal!”
“Skaal,” said Vítur quietly. He was wiping his eyes.
***
49 Swine
***
“RAFE, I’M SO HAPPY!”
Elska stuck her blonde head out the karvi’s portside window, smiling
radiantly. Rafe put his boot on the running board. It was Wodensday
afternoon. The hangar at Skýhöfn Station was abuzz with byrdings and
karvis and other small vessels queuing up for acceleration toward
Lunhöfn Station on Great Moon. Four magnetic tracks cut through the
platform. Four towering lifts squatted over the tracks, loading and
unloading ships. Rafe’s karvi hung in the departure queue, looking like a
gnat skewered on a pin. High overhead, gray clouds brooded above the
glass ceiling, cut up into squares by the roofbeams.
Rafe leaned an elbow on the window. “I’m so happy too!” he called
over the screech of the cranes. “I’m just thrilled, Elska!”
“Can you believe it?” (Elska dabbed her eyes.) “Can you believe we’re
going to Affelgard together?”
“I can’t.” Rafe gave her a tense smile. “In the whole history of
Nirevvy they’ve never allowed—”
“Oh, I simply adore your father just now!” (Elska fanned her face
with her hat.) “Dear old Stegvard! Did I tell you I saw him in the Burg?”
“You told me.”
“Did I tell you I saw him in his—”
“You told me.”
“—saw him in his bureau, and he called me ‘my child’—can you
imagine? Stegvard called me ‘my child’ and he said we’re getting silver-
star quarters on the eighth deck. The eighth deck, Rafe! That’s as good as
Magnes!”
Elska stopped for breath. Rafe grunted ‘very generous’, and kicked the
running board.
“Oh, I’m going to be so proud!” Elska gushed. “And you’re going to
be so handsome, in your new fighting-káppa! I’ve never seen you in blues
before. My own commander Rae-rae!” (She patted Rafe’s cheek. Rafe
winced.) “—commander Rae-rae on deck! I know duchess Astrid is
jealous of me. Can you imagine fat old Magnes next to you? Tee hee! I’m
sure Astrid wants to die just now.”
Rafe nodded and tried to say something. Elska burbled on.
“I know you’ll be busy, Rae-rae, but I do mean to peek in on you every
now and then. JUST to make sure you’re— not— getting— in— to—
mischief!” Elska made a pretty little pout. Rafe doggedly clung to his
smile.
“I can’t wait to see you commanding drills,” Elska chirped. “Oh,
you’ll make those sailors jump! (She bounced her yellow curls.) “You’ll
be positively brutal, won’t you Rae-rae? And you’ll never have to spend a
night alone, and you’ll never have to eat dinner with anyone but me, and
you’ll never have to—”
“Hah,” Rafe laughed stiffly, “já, it’ll be marvelous. Just marvelous.
My father loves you—”
“Dear old Stegvard!” (Elska clasped her hands.) “Dear old prince
Steggie! But I can’t stand all these goodbyes, Rae-rae. I just can’t stand
them.”
“Indeed,” Rafe said through clenched teeth. “So many goodbyes.”
“Oh, I’ll miss Steggie so!” Tears gathered in Elska’s baby eyes. “Do
signals even go all the way to Affelgard? Oh, I’ll die for sadness, Rae-rae;
I know I will. I’m going to be in such a state, when we have to tell prince
Steggie goodbye at last.”
“Já,” Rafe croaked, “Last. Last assembly. Last review. Last
everything.” With a sort of twitch Rafe pulled Elska’s hand through the
window and pressed it to his lips.
“Last—trip—to—Orkev—” (Rafe pouted at Elska over her hand.
Elska tittered.)
“Rafe, that tickles!”
Rafe let go. Elska squinted at her reflection in the karvi’s fin. “Are you
sure this trip is really necessary?” she fretted, poking at her hair. “I mean,
I hardly know anyone on Orkev anymore.”
“My dear!” (Rafe pretended to be shocked.) “What about your
relatives? We could be gone forever! What about your nephew
Moorhen?”
“Maewyn. My nephew Maewyn.”
“And your old home, Gliffin?”
“Glasvain.”
“And your old home Glasvain? Don’t you want to see your father’s
house one last time before we sail off into— into the starry Unknown?”
Elska looked at the ground. “I don’t know if I want to see my father’s
house again,” she said quietly.
“Good girl!” (Rafe wasn’t listening.) “Then it’s settled! You spend a
day or two saying goodbye to Orkev; I’ll keep an eye on those urskies
packing up our rooms. Don’t be away too long.” Rafe playfully pinched
Elska’s nose. “Ai!” Elska squeaked, “Stop it, Rafe— Freya?” she called
into the cabin, “Freya, fetch my fiothur-brush!”51
Rafe stiffened up. “I beg your pardon,” he said woodenly, “I thought
your vikona hadn’t come yet.”
“Yes,” Elska heaved a martyred sigh, “Freya was all I could find to
carry my things. When does Herrick get here?”
Rafe looked at his watch.
“I’m expecting him any minute.”
“Couldn’t we—” (Elska blinked up timidly at Rafe) “—couldn’t we
maybe wait a bit before we go? We could say goodbye this evening, Rae-
rae, or—”
She hesitated.
“—or you might come with me.”
“I am sorry, my love.” Rafe kissed her gallantly on the cheek. “I’m
afraid I’m an active commander now. They’ve assigned me a destroyer
already—” he smirked—“Snekke52 class. But one of the newer ones!”
Rafe added quickly. Elska beamed.
“I’m so proud of you, Rae—”
“And high time, too!” Rafe cut her off. “I must have flown forty
missions against those ursky rebels. The urskies even have a name for me
—did I tell you? They call me “The Bowman”—ha ha! It’s because I can
hit a rabbit from two leagues off the ground—”
“You did tell me—”
“—and the navy would have given me a command long ago,” Rafe
said airily, “if only the admiral wasn’t my father. We officers can’t have a
whiff of favoritism. ‘Men rise by bravery, not by birth’— that’s our code
in the navy. Dreadful responsibility, though.” Rafe sighed. “I wish to gods
I didn’t have to review sixty men just now. And a woman! Heh! Would
you believe? They’re putting an ursky girl in my squad.” Rafe laughed
incredulously. “She can’t get sick, apparently.”
52 Snake
“That one gets sick!” Elska pointed at Freya. “Hah!” said Rafe,
“Indeed? Oh, and here comes Herrick. Herrick old boy!” Rafe waved his
hat above his head. Herrick was walking slowly down the platform, eyes
on the ground. As soon as he was near enough Rafe lunged forward a step
and gripped Herrick’s arm. He looked Herrick in the eyes.
“Skaal, húsman!” Rafe jerked his head toward the back of the karvi.
“Come to the stern53 with me. I want you to check the rudders.” Rafe
strode off and Herrick followed. As soon as they were out of earshot Rafe
grabbed Herrick’s arm and pulled him in close.”
“Why the long face?”
“M’lord?” said Herrick.
“Why the long face?” Rafe snapped. “You weren’t about to lose your
nerve, were you Herrick?”
“M—my lord?” Herrick laughed nervously, “Of course you’ve
changed your mind, my lord? I mean, what with your lady wife coming
—”
“I haven’t!”
“My lord?”
“I haven’t changed my mind!”
“But— but Regimental,” (Herrick looked sick) “Regimental just
announced— they just said select officers were permitted to bring—”
“Shut up!” Rafe snapped. “That’s even worse! I am NOT taking that
idiot child,” (he jabbed his finger at the cabin) “halfway across the Gríyan
system just so she can dog after me and ruin everything. I have plans,
Herrick. Here!” Rafe slapped a letter into Herrick’s hand. Herrick
unfolded it. His face fell as he began to read.
“I see,” Herrick said softly. He handed the letter back.
“DO you see?” Rafe stuck his finger on the paper. “Look, Sigurd says
— he says ‘I am honored to accept my commision as Ensign, and I will
honor Nirevvy with my service as Your Lordship’s new orderly,’ signed S.
Sigurdsson— hah!” (Rafe stuffed it back in his pocket) “Sigurd’s my new
orderly, Herrick!”
“I see,” Herrick said softly.
“Just thought I’d keep the job in the family.”
“I see,” Herrick said softly.
53 The rear of a vessel is the stern. The front is the bow. (Pronounce bough)
“Be a bloody shame if S. Sigurdsson and I didn’t get along. I’d hate
for something—unnecessary to happen.”
“I see,” Herrick said softly.
“You see?” Rafe mimicked, “You see? Then see it through, Herrick!
Get the karvi above the atmosphere. First sign of anything strange, you
stuff Elska and that thrall of hers inside the lifeboat and you launch them
straight back down. Leave the rest to me. Take care of your thane,
Herrick, and your thane will take care of—”
Rafe smiled.
“—will take care of your Sigurd.”
He stalked off, not waiting for an answer.
The five-minute bell rang. Rafe and Elska bade each other goodbye.
Elska’s tears were on the glass when the window sealed with a hiss and
click. Freya sat facing Elska, holding Elska’s purse. Bumps and clangs
came from the gangplank outside. Then Herrick’s tall frame came
shuffling backward through the mainhatch. Freya heard an unexpected
rustle like branches scraping on a stanchion. She turned and saw Herrick
in the gangway, lugging Magnes’ beloved boska tree. The prancing green
rooster looked a bit disheveled now, replanted in a big brass tub. Herrick
carefully lowered it to the floor. Elska wrinkled up her nose.
“A present from His Grace the duke,” Herrick panted, bowing to
Elska.
“I’m not blind,” said Elska.
“No, my lady.” Herrick bowed to her again. He brushed a shower of
tiny leaves off his coat, then he pulled out a yellow courier-card. “I have a
message from His Grace,” Herrick announced. “He writes—um
—” (Herrick squinted at the card) ‘To our noble sister Elska, I entrust my
precious Háni. May he bloom forever in your ancestral halls at Glasvain,
as a symbol of our house and of the royal order for which it—’
“I’m not illiterate either!” Elska snatched the card out of Herrick’s
hand. “Gods!” she groaned, scanning the card, “He says he wants it in a
glasshouse. We haven’t got a glasshouse.”
“No trouble at all, my lady,” Herrick said urbanely. “I’ll take care of it
when we—”
Herrick hesitated. Suddenly his face looked grave. Elska glanced up at
him sharply. “What are you smirking about?” she demanded.
Herrick shook his head slightly. “Just thinking about a glasshouse, my
lady.” Herrick forced a smile. “Not to worry. I’ll take care of it when we
— when we arrive on Orkev.”
Elska snorted. “Get that bush off the gangway.” She tore up the yellow
card and threw the scraps onto Freya’s lap. “You’re spilling dirt
everywhere.”
Herrick bowed briskly. Crossing the gangway, Herrick took a key out
of his coat and opened up a big locker which stood bolted to the
bulkhead.54 It was a monster of a locker; solid steel, with airtight double
doors taller than Herrick’s head. Inside the locker’s dim recess Freya
could see deep velvet padding: a relic of times past, when bringing a ship
down to land was a bumpier affair. Herrick came back and sidled around
the brass tub, trying not to come into contact with Elska (who had stuck
her foot into the gangway). Bending down, Herrick wrapped his arms
around the tub and lifted it with a grimace. “Don’t drop it!” Elska barked.
She was in a particularly foul mood, having just parted with Rafe and not
expecting to see him again for a few days. “Don’t drop it! It’s worth more
than—”
Elska pursed her pretty lips, trying to think up an insult.
“—than all the thræll-huts on Orkev put together!”
Freya flushed angrily. Thræll was a gross insult, even by Elska’s
standards. The nobles didn’t use the norsk word for ‘slave’ any more—not
ostensibly, at least. Certainly not to an officer of Herrick’s rank. Freya
couldn’t see Herrick’s face as he shuffled forward with the tub. “Please
don’t worry,” Herrick called back, “This strongbox was made for the most
precious cargo.” Setting down the tub, Herrick pulled out the two ends of
a wide leather strap and buckled them firmly. He stood up and banged the
heavy doors shut. Then he slowly climbed the ladder up to the bridge.
From where she sat, all Freya could see of Herrick was his feet
underneath the pilot’s chair. There was a click of switches. A gurgling
noise answered from the hull—Herrick was distributing the water in the
ballast tanks. Elska snuffled and wiped her nose.
“Restraints, my lady!” Herrick called down from the bridge. A heavy
harness like a cage folded out of the ceiling and locked itself over Elska’s
body. “Agh!” she wailed, “It’s too tight! Take it off!”
Cold, cold,
How cold is Lugh’s great plain—
Just then the pumps idled. The airlock opened with a screech. They
were dangling over the mouth of Skýhöfn Accelerator: a vacuum tube
fifty miles long that bored under the Hestad, under the Strand, under the
mainland plate, and thirty miles out under the surface of Mythia-só, the
middle sea. A red light shone down on the rails. Red lights, equally
spaced, faded like heartbeats into the distance.
“Brace!” called Herrick.
Freya didn’t feel any movement. The red light grew bigger, coming
toward them. It slid silently past. Then the next light, a bit faster.
The next light a bit faster.
The next light a bit faster—
And then with a shriek the karvi’s fins lifted off the rails and Freya felt
the blood drain out of her head as the red lights melted into one
continuous smear. Her stomach was creeping back against her spine.
Elska’s face was a white mask. I hate it! Elska screamed, to no one in
particular.
“Just one more minute, Your Ladyship!” called Herrick. They’d
covered more than half the distance already, faster than a bullet through
the frictionless void. The last ten miles of tube were a rising curve, as the
magnetic track gradually came back to the sea surface. Freya could tell
from the drag in her guts that now they were going up.
And up. (Freya dug her fingers into her harness.)
And up. The track was almost vertical now. “Brace!” Herrick shouted.
“Air!”
BOOM. The windows lit up as the karvi shot out of the tube, hitting
the atmosphere with a shock that flattened the waves. A flash of gray; then
they were hanging motionless while the cloud-roof of Middle Sea fell
away beneath them. All the world was silent. The karvi was a silver speck
in a perfect sky. Herrick looked down.
It’s always sunny up here, thought Herrick.
Then he flicked a switch. The thruster fired. Elska screamed Eee! and
squeezed her eyes shut. In a few moments the blue faded to black.
Nirevvy’s bent horizon rolled beneath them. In front of them, Gríyan
burned white as torment in trackless space.
Herrick switched off the thruster. “Restraints up!” Herrick called.
“No, leave mine on!” squeaked Elska, who was starting to float.
“Freya,” she ordered, “come pin down my hair.” In zero gravity, Elska’s
hair—painstakingly arranged for Rafe—was slithering off her head like
wood shavings. Freya bobbed obediently out of her seat with Elska’s
purse under her arm. “Ungfrú55 Freya?” Herrick called down, “Would you
come sit with me in the bridge?”
“Why?” demanded Elska.
55 Miss
“Balance,” Herrick replied, as if that explained everything. Elska
snorted derisively.
“No.”
“We’ll get to Lunhöfn quicker that way,” Herrick coaxed.
“Oh, all right!” Elska puffed. “Freya smells like fish anyway,” she
muttered, not quite under her breath. Freya pushed off her chair and sailed
toward the bridge; body in a neat sitting posture, smoothing down her
dress as she went. Elska was frantically sticking pins into her hair. Freya
swam up through the hatch and strapped in next to Herrick. She looked
out through the canopy.
“It’s beautiful!” There was a trace of wonder in Freya’s voice. “I
haven’t seen space in so long.” Freya glanced down at the karvi’s old-
fashioned instruments with a skeptical look. “How can you tell if we’re
even moving?” she asked. Herrick gave a nervous laugh. “I can’t!” he
said, “speaking of which: could you help me keep watch, ungfrú Freya?”
“Watch?” Freya looked doubtful. “What are we watching for?”
“Oh—” Herrick was fumbling around overhead “—anything that
moves.” He cranked down an old periscope on a fat brass pipe. Wooden
handles stuck out like a pair of ears. Freya put her forehead against the
eyepiece. “Anything that moves?” she asked.
“Anything.”
“Well, there’s Great Moon.” Freya clicked back and forth between
lenses. “That moves.”
“Good, good.” (Herrick sounded distracted.) “Have a look behind us,
will you?” Freya turned a silver dial with compass points engraved on it.
From the cabin she could hear Elska snarling as she tried to keep
everything inside her purse. “What are you two whispering about?” Elska
shouted. “If you’re talking ursky up there, swear to gods I’ll tell Lord
Caladar, and he’ll find a pig-whip and—”
“Debris, my lady!” Herrick called down. “Sometimes there’s debris
orbiting around the—”
“Fascinating!” Elska burrowed into her pink pillow and pretended to
sleep. For a moment the karvi was silent.
Click. Click.
Freya cycled through the lenses on the periscope.
Click.
“I see something.”
“What?” Herrick jumped and grabbed the periscope. Freya grabbed it
right back again. “You let go!” she snapped, “My eyes are better than
yours!”
“Fine!” Herrick snared his hat, which had floated off his head.
“Enlighten us,” he said, “What do you see?”
“Er—”
Click.
“Well?” Herrick demanded.
Click.
“Well it’s not debris—”
“Come ON!” Herrick moaned, “How do you know it’s not debris?”
Click.
“Because it just tacked.”56
“Oh dear gods,” Herrick rubbed his eyes, “already?”
“Why ‘already’?” demanded Freya.
“What’s that?” Elska came to life in the cabin. “Freya, what did he just
say?”
“It definitely tacked.” (Freya ignored her) “It’s green—”
Click.
“—looks like an old merchant brig. Maybe a cutter.”
“Will you let me have a look?” Herrick implored. “Look all you want,”
Freya said tartly. She swivelled the eyepiece around to him. Herrick
nudged the dial.
Herrick nudged the dial again.
“Are they ursk— are they Gaelic, I mean?” Freya asked (a bit
hopefully). Herrick shook his head.
“They’re norsk.”
“Tá? And how do you know that?”
Click.
Herrick squinted into the periscope. “I know that,” Herrick said
through his teeth, “because they just opened their gunport. I’m looking at
a norsk fálki57 drone.”
56 In water, a sailing vessel tacks when it turns across a headwind. A vessel jibes
when it turns across a tailwind.
57 Norse: falcon
Freya shrugged. “Lots of brigs carry drones,” she returned. “What’s so
special about that?”
“I said falki drone. One single falki costs more than that brig. I think
the navy built less than a hundred of them.”
“Then I think you’re probably just looking at an old cargo tug.”
“I certainly hope so— kæri Baldr!”58 Herrick breathed, “the wing
stays are off! They’re getting ready to launch.”
“Can I look?” Freya asked. “They must be doing a drill. I’ve never
seen a drone take off.”
Herrick didn’t move. Something about his manner made Freya uneasy.
The cockpit seemed to have gone eerily quiet. In the stillness Freya could
hear Herrick breathing hard.
“Herrick?” Freya asked uncertainly.
Herrick jerked his face off the eyepiece. “Chilly Hel!” he cried, “there
it goes! They’ve launched it.”
“Oh please!” Freya scoffed, “What are you yelling about? We’re in a
flagged Hador vessel. It’s got to be a drill.”
Herrick turned to Freya. Freya started and drew back. Herrick’s face
was dead white.
“It’s not a drill,” said Herrick.
“Yes it must—”
“It’s not a drill!”
“So why are they doing that?” Freya shrilled.
“They’re doing that, ungfrú Freya, because they mean to shoot us
down.”
Freya opened her mouth.
Freya closed her mouth.
“So hail them!” Freya cried. She was bouncing in her seat, trying to
see out the cockpit window. “Light up the semaphores!59 Tell them we’re
Hador!”
“Freya?”
“They’d never dare—”
“Freya?”
58 Norse: “sweet Baldr.” Baldr (Balder) was a Germanic god associated with bravery
and light; identified as a “shining one” much like the celtic Lugh.
61 Monday
Affner and Olev left the farming to the rest of us. They took our felled
saplings and made lavvu huts for everyone to sleep in, and then Affner
and Olev and Égil Smithursson started building a great-hall. The three of
them worked at it for weeks, Affner in charge. They bored timber-holes
and stacked up drystane68 walls, but in the meanwhile the lavvus leaked
rain and the nights started getting colder.
Our crops shot out leaves. Heddi, Kollam Kíli and I dug a root cellar,
thinking of harvest. It wasn’t easy. We had to cut a path up into the woods
above the water line, where the cellar wouldn’t flood. We chose a cleft
between two boulders and we made a cutting back into the hillside— and
if ever there wasn’t a tree root under our shovels, it was only because
there were rocks in the mould.69 We were racing against the weather. On
the first morning of harvest I went out to our field and I saw frost on the
kál greens.
65 I.e., wheat
66 I.e., barley
67 Gift
71 Elks
Róm and the bitch72 we named Norn,73 because she understood Kollam’s
voice and knew what he was thinking. They were fine, strong animals—
mottled brown; heavy in the shoulder. Kollam slanted the loft-ladder and
taught Róm and Norn to climb up and down on it. The dogs slept with
Kollam at night. (We have three dogs, Affner said, and they all have
fleas.) But I don’t think they had any fleas. Kollam spent hours talking
softly to them and grooming their fur with a fine-tooth comb.
It was never day nor night inside the cellar; just endless, smoky dark
and the sour stench of animals. Outside the door we shoveled a channel
through the snow and we took the animals outside when we could. The
animals suffered from the confinement—we all did. One of the grown
sows birthed a litter. Varda said it was a blessing from Branwen, the birth-
goddess, and she said she would burn her precious liathweb scarf as a
sacrifice. It was an exquisite scarf, woven nine generations ago on Innis
Chila. That scarf won’t burn! I told Varda. You couldn’t burn liathweb if
you dragged it from a mast on entry! Varda only smiled (she was sitting
on a stool next to the hearth). She looked down at her beautiful scarf—
shimmering gray with the edges broidered in gold wire. Then with a laugh
she threw it into the fire. The flames leapt up, blue and scarlet. In a
moment the spider-cloth was gone. Only the gold lay melting on the coals.
Branwen hears us, Varda said.
Storms raged outside. Our food and our firewood began to run out.
Needles of icy wind crept in everywhere. We burned the hurdles and let
the animals cluster around the hearth. The cellar floor was a stinking mire.
When there was daylight we trudged out into the gale and stripped pettu74
and dry branches from the pines. We mixed pettu with the animals’
silage,75 but we knew it couldn’t last. The creatures were starving.
72 Male and female dogs are called dog and bitch respectively, when not used for
breeding.
73 Witch
74 Finnish: edible treebark phloem, usually stripped from pines. Phloem has low
nutritional value. It was used to supplement flour in times of famine.
Then one day the silage ran out and the sow stopped giving milk. Two
piglets sickened and died—we ate them from nose to tail. The animals
were living on grass hay. Their ribs stood out like frames76 in a shipyard.
Then at last the wind fell and the sky cleared. We let the animals out, to
paw for branches under the snow. I was sick from starving. All my joints
were swollen. I said How are you so hardy, Affner?
It’s lucky for you I am, Affner retorted, I’m going out hunting for us.
Affner took his bow and his spearthrower77 and he floundered off through
the deep snow, into the woods.
Night fell. The sky was clear as glass. Greta and I stood outside,
looking up at the blazing stars. I leaned on Greta.
How long, ástin mín?78 I asked.
I can’t make winter go away! Greta snapped. She was as hungry as I
was, holding me up with her shoulder. Kæli the Reaper was just starting to
rise in the east. His burning sickle came up first, arching over the horizon.
Then tígli and rós came up: the bright stars on Kæli’s crown, and
suddenly I let go of Greta and I stood up straight. I gazed up at the black
sky in wonder.
Talaglas? I asked.
77 A short rod, notched at one end, which gives a thrower considerable leverage in
hurling a spear. Inuit spearthrowers (sometimes called nuqaq) have been known to
skewer a caribou from tail to mouth.
78 Norse: my love
Talaglas, Greta answered.
There, in the middle of Kæli’s crown, a green jewel glittered: it was
our old home, one hundred and thirty years away. Then it came over me,
the thought which I had been trying to push out: that everyone I’d ever
known on Talaglas was dead.
I felt Greta’s shoulder against mine, thin like a whetstone. Tears
streamed down her hollow cheeks. I took Greta in my arms and held her.
It’s so cold, was all Greta would say.
We held each other and cried; we didn’t care if anyone heard us. Then
Varda came outside. Then Wulf came out, and Olev. Then Heddi and
Kollam and all the rest. We stood there, the twelve of us, and we watched
that green teardrop sail through heaven. Varda took Kollam’s bony right
hand with her left hand, and she took Heddi’s bony left hand with her
right hand. The three of them stood side by side. Then Wulf took Heddi’s
hand.
Then Olev took Kollam’s hand (with a bit of a chuckle).
Then Greta took Olev’s hand, and I took Greta’s, and then we were all
holding hands in one great circle, singing Esht Shinya! Esht Shinya! in
praise of Branwen and the high gods. We remembered how we were all
friends, and how we’d survived the long reach together.
Skaal! There was a shout in the forest. We stopped singing.
Skaal!
Kollam bowed his head. You’d have starved, kind sister, Kollam said,
We praise thy life. (I don’t know what he meant.)
Skaal!
Affner! I shouted. Affner had returned. He’d killed a hart.
79 Norse: oak
The creature’s face slowly revolved left. Then right. Then its face
turned toward Meri. Meri’s throat went shut. The creature was looking for
something, though its dead eyes didn’t move. For the first time, Meri
knew the fright of a hunted thing. She didn’t want the creature to find her.
Bit by tiny bit Meri settled her head down, clawing her fingertips into the
rock.
The creature’s face tilted slowly, deliberately up. Eyes like spears
slid across the saplings, across the little thicket of ferns in between, rising
steadily to the bottom of the bluff. Then up the bluff. Meri gently let her
breath out and held it. She knew her heartbeat was making her shoulders
pulse. The creature’s eyes crossed Meri’s; huge; pure black like a bird’s.
And something else, too—something in the center. It stopped. Meri heard
a crik and a faint chirr, like an insect.
For a moment the creature seemed to hesitate. Then the eyes moved
on again, over the bluff and into the treetops beyond. The creature bent its
limbs. It’s head revolved back again, then it glided silently off toward the
south. In a few seconds it was gone.
Meri lay there for a long while, shaking. When at last she got the
courage to stand, Meri ran. Stumbling, careless flight; north toward the
village.
Mother Makka guard my life, Mother Makka guard my life, Meri
repeated over and over in her mind.
***
80 Crowns (currency)
“And our king?” (Björn changed the subject.) “You said he was
presentable at the Embarking?”
Aye.” Qarl put his beret back on. “Uncle Vítur covered up that neck
gadget Olaf wears—the one that keeps his head on.” He shot Björn a
sideways glance. Björn tried not to smile.
“You mean the tubes, Cousin?”
“Right! Uncle Vítur had ‘em under Olaf’s cape. Big furry collar.” Qarl
waved his hands over his massive shoulders.
“But his voice—”
“Oh, Vítur fixed that too. Gods, how I’ll miss uncle Vítur!” Qarl
rubbed his eyes. “There’s none like old Vítur. Olaf didn’t have to say
much anyway. Boxes were all squeaky. You could ‘a thought it was just a
bad mouthpiece. Sons of Nirevvy—that was half his speech right there. Of
course he had the witch standing up next to him.”
“Really?” Björn raised his eyebrows. Björn was a man of about forty.
He looked like Qarl, only slimmer and less troll-ish. Björn’s black hair
went a bit coppery around the ears, a thing he tried to hide by cutting it
high. Björn took a chair in front of Qarl and crossed his ankle over his
knee.
“Já,” Qarl sighed, “Really. Godsdamn disgrace—an ursky witch up on
the royal dais! I couldn’t believe it. She never lets Olaf out of her sight
anymore. Practically chews his food for him. It gets worse, Cousin. She
went and boarded the Svanur81 with him.”
“No! She didn’t! The royal yacht?”
Qarl nodded. “The royal yacht! With the crowd all singing Hail, hail
the Northstar and everything. Olaf takes his carriage down the gangplank
—I don’t know if he can walk, Cousin—and he’s got the Ringlord Guard
in parade blues all around him, and then there’s the ursky witch right in
the middle, all smug. They raise anchor and cast off the lines. the Svanur’s
a seaship too, you know?”
“I know.”
“—so they shove out into the harbor, shooting off the guns and all.
Traditional Norsk send-off. Svanur was supposed to represent the Dreki or
some customary skít. They sailed her out to the Middle-Sea tube like Olaf
was going to join the mission.”
81 Norse: swan
Björn folded his arms. “But how could Olaf even survive
acceleration?” he demanded. “Able-bodied mariners pass out in the
Middle-Sea tube!”
“I don’t know—” Qarl turned back to the window “—I don’t know
how Olaf made it through acceleration. But I reckon he did. Haven’t heard
another word about him.”
Björn shook his head mournfully.
“Godsdamn disgrace.”
“My guess—uff!” Qarl got up heavily “—my guess is they’re lurking
around Orkev somewhere, Olaf and his witch, looking for your—”
Qarl grinned through his stubby gray teeth.
“—looking for your ‘state secret.’ ”
“Olaf still thinks he can follow us?” Björn tipped back his chair. “How
fast can the Svanur even go?”
“It don’t matter.” Qarl was fiddling with the pistol. “If Olaf shows up a
few years behind us—alive, presumably—and we’ve already got the
planet all sorted out for him, all the natives wearing pants, plowing Olaf’s
new farms—suits him just fine.”
Björn sighed and stood up. “So we’re getting iced day after tomorrow?
I’ve got a million things to do. Make sure you digest that!” He pointed at
the empty bowl.”
“Bah! Tastes like maggots.”
“Ha ha! It might be maggots. It’s nutritious. You’ll be needing it.”
“I’ll be needing this!” Qarl turned and stooped down. He pulled a
clutch of dusty books out of the bookcase and thumped them down on
top.
“You’ll be needing books? Ah!” Björn laughed. Behind the books Qarl
had hidden a brown bottle. He took it out and sat down again.
“Have a drop?” Qarl held out the bottle. Björn laughed and shook his
head.
“Not ‘til the sun is over the yardarm.” 82
“Goo’ man!” Qarl gurgled, bottle on his lips. A pad-pad of footsteps
came from the corridor outside. Qarl hastily stuffed the bottle back into
the bookcase and spun around. A navy lieutenant walked in.
82 In times past, navies had strict rules as to when sailors could drink, sometimes
according to the position of the sun in the sky.
“Rear Admiral, sir! The lieutenant saluted. Qarl frowned. “What now,
Brönur?” he barked, irritated.
“Er, sir, we have a report, sir.”
“We have two thousand reports!” Qarl thumped his desk. “What’s so
godsdamn special about this one?”
“It’s—ah—” the lieutenant shifted from foot to foot “—this one’s from
stowage, sir. Fourth deck. They— they say—”
“Spit it out, sailor!” Qarl snapped the pistol back together without
even looking at it. “We’re busy! Commander Geldring here is drunk on
his watch and we have men to ice!”
The lieutenant reddened.
“It’s a tree, sir.”
Silence.
“What in the chilly teats of Hel—” Qarl bellowed. The lieutenant took
a brisk step backward. “In—in the loading bay!” he squeaked. “Stowage
sergeant says there’s a tree stuck outside the hull. Just stuck there in
space. Big frozen tree.” He glanced up and down from his report. “Roots
caught in the exterior manifold— ah— hatches already sealed— don’t
know what to do about it— please advise—”
Silence.
“A TREE?”
The lieutenant nodded hard. “An entire tree, sir,” he said earnestly.
“Roots, branches and all. They can’t imagine how it got out there.
Might’ve been the urskies up to mischief. Might’ve been debris pulled in
by our gravity—” the lieutenant trailed off. He glanced up at Qarl
apprehensively. Björn, was leaning back in his chair with an amused look.
“Well—” Björn straightened up “—I’ve got six thousand men to ice.” He
picked up his beret from off the desk. Qarl stuck his fat finger at the
lieutenant’s face. “Get ooout—” he rumbled. The lieutenant saluted,
obviously relieved. He turned on his heel and was almost out the door
when Qarl said halt! The lieutenant spun around with a dismayed look.
“Ice that sergeant.”
“Sir?”
“Ice that stowage sergeant. The one who wrote the report. Give it
here.” Qarl snatched the paper out of the lieutenant’s hand.
“Sir?” The lieutenant looked mystified, “We haven’t issued
hibernation cloaks, sir.”
“Don’t bother with his hibernation cloak! Just stuff him in his locker
and ice him.”
The lieutenant saluted, looking pale. He clicked his heels and
vanished. Qarl chuckled. He nodded at Björn.
“Dismissed.”
Björn saluted, and went out.
***
83 Aliens
“Do I hear TALKING?” Tyr squealed. “Do I truly hear talking? Hey,
Kutz-rat,” he jabbed his finger at Dinny, “you’ve sailed before, já? Do
you know what a brig is?”
Dinny smiled. “Já, herra liðþjálfi minn,”84 she answered sweetly.
Dinny’s Old Norsk was flawless. Her accent could have shamed a
valkyrie. “Já, herra liðþjálfi minn, I know what a brig is.”
Tyr’s face went white. He opened and closed his mouth like a fish
on a line. “And do you know what they’re going to do to you in the brig?”
Tyr eventually shrieked. “Oh, they don’t see many girls down there!” he
smiled evilly, “Or anywhere. You’ll be a bit of fun, you tíks. I’ll tell them
I’m sending you as a gift.”
“You can tell them I was giving a helpful word to a geimvera,”
Dinny trilled. “How’s your stomach, Herra sergeant,” she added
recklessly. Tyr started to scream something, but just then there came a
racket from down below. Hundreds of voices shouted Northstar! all at
once, and then the cables started grinding again. Dinny poked Smudge.
“Helmet on! For real this time!”
There was a long screech, then up came shaky Stieg and shiny Stieg,
each with an arm hooked around the cable (as the lift had no guardrail).
Shiny Stieg looked even bigger on his feet than he did behind his desk. He
puffed out his chest and tried not to look terrified as the little platform
swayed over the void. Shaky Stieg hung on with one hand and rubbed his
bushy eyebrow left to right with the other.
“Sons of Nirevvy!” Shiny Stieg shouted into a trumpet-shaped
mouthpiece. His voice rang out from the walls, after a squawk and a slight
delay. “Sons of Nirevvy!”
“And daughters,” Dinny whispered.
“And daughters of Kuda and Orkev,” Dinny whispered. Smudge
smiled weakly.
“Sons of Nirevvy! Hail the Northstar!”
Northstar! everyone shouted reflexively.
Shiny Stieg paused. He glanced at Shaky Stieg, then with a massive
shrug he banged his fist twice on the cable. A distant shout answered from
down below. There was a long screech, and then the platform went
grinding up again. The Stiegs disappeared into the gloom. There was a
“OUR LAST PIGLET died. I came down the ladder and found the
boar eating it whole. I let him eat.
The big strip of wool-felt that Kollam Kíli had nailed to our cellar
door came loose on bottom. Kollam was too sick to get out of his bed in
the loft, so Affner and I went down to nail up another felt on the outside
of the door. An awful gale was clawing the forest. The ground trembled.
Do you feel that? I asked Affner.
Já, said Affner.
Do you know what it is?
Já, said Affner, it’s the tree roots getting pulled up.
Then we’re lucky to be underground, I said.
Affner turned on me. Lucky? Affner shouted, with a red face. You think
we’re lucky to be starving like rabbits down inside this skít-hole? The roof
is going to tear off!
Varda poked her head out over the edge of the loft. What’s happening?
Varda croaked. Her throat was so swollen she could barely swallow.
Affner snapped It’s nothing! Men are talking! He grabbed my collar with
both fists and he pulled me under the loft, where Varda couldn’t see us.
Let go, Affner, I said, you’ll tear my coat!
Call us lucky again, Affner whispered, and I’ll tear off your beard.
Affner? I said, what’s the matter with you? His face looked strange. I
hardly recognized him. I tried to unhook his hands, but Affner was strong;
he wasn’t sick like the rest of us. Affner called me a heimskur and let go,
but I was angry at him. We’d be worse off up there, I said, and I pointed at
the roof.
Affner stopped short. I saw his lip curl back under his shaggy red
moustache. You shut your ugly kúttgat,85 Snorri, Affner chirred, soft and
low so the others wouldn’t hear it. His eyes were like a snake. It startled
me. I said Come on, cousin, and I tried to walk around him, but Affner
took a step backward and blocked my way.
You never wanted Great-hall, did you? Affner whispered. Why,
cousin? Did you think Greta might scold you? Was she keeping you out of
bed?
At that I got too angry to think (thinking was hard enough in those
black days). I shook my fist under Affner’s nose. Do you DARE insult— I
began. Affner looked down at my bony fist. He laughed. I guess you and
your tík are happy here, Affner said. Wolves love the hunt, dogs love the
kennel.
There was a rustle in the straw. Snorri? Greta called down to me,
Snorri, what are you about?
We’re opening the door, Greta! I called back, cover up! I turned to
Affner. If you’re a wolf, I said, then go hunt in the forest. You eat too
much. Then I walked around him and went to the door. It was guttering
hard against the bar. New cracks showed between the planks where
Kollam’s felt—black from all the smoke—was billowing in like a sail.
Affner and I both put our shoulders to the door and we pushed it open
against the wind. Affner carried the new felt rolled up under his arm. He
tried to hold it flat against the door while I nailed it in place, but the felt
whipped and lashed in the storm. Bits of sleet got in my eyes. I couldn’t
stop my hands from shaking. Then I dropped the hammer. Affner cursed
me and finished the job himself. By the time we went back inside, my
right thumb was dead white.
The next day my thumb turned purple. Varda, Greta and I were
huddled beside our tiny fire. I don’t know how many days it was since
we’d started burning the hurdles. Now they were gone. There was nothing
85 Vulgar
to keep the animals from crowding around the hearth. The animals made a
ghostly circle around us, silent, their dead eyes giving back the flames.
We were burning dung and pine bark mixed together. It made more smoke
than fire. My eyes stung. Greta coughed weakly.
Show us your hand, said Greta.
I took my hand out of my cloak and slowly unwound the strip of cloth
I’d put around it. I showed Greta my purple thumb. Greta cried Ach! and
covered her eyes. Varda took my hand in hers and gently turned it over.
What’s to be done? I asked. You’re the healer.
Varda looked up. She made a wry smile. What’s to be done with an
apple tree, Varda asked, if it has a dead limb on it?
I thought a moment. Then I said Ah! and I laughed bitterly. Varda let
go of my hand. Olev? she called up to her mate.
Já?
The loft creaked as Olev slowly got up.
Get your knife, Varda called, and come down.
Olev bent low over the fire. His knees were on the hearthstones; they
stuck straight out through the holes in his breeches. How thin Olev’s legs
are, I thought absently. He laid his knife on the coals. The coals turned
from red to black under the blade. More smoke spouted up. It’s a beautiful
knife, I thought. The blade was a foot long, three inches broad by the hilt,
sharp as a razor. Olev turned it over. What are you doing, Olev? I asked.
Olev didn’t answer. His right hand shook, so he braced his arm against the
hearthstones. After a long time the blade began to glow dull red.
Bring me your hand, said Olev.
I edged closer. Olev sat down beside me. He clamped his arm over
mine.
Don’t move, said Olev.
Then Olev cut through my thumb on the inside, where the knuckle
meets the hand. The blade sizzled. I could smell my own skin burning.
Greta closed her eyes. Olev made one clean slice, downward, toward his
chest. The blade split my knuckle bones through and through. Something
dropped onto the hearthstones. Greta snatched it up. Olev pressed the
blade hard against my wound. My blood was thick like sap. It sputtered
and popped.
Then Olev let go of my hand. Greta and Varda sat down. Greta was
breathing hard. There was an odd little creak in her lungs. For a long time
no one spoke. Then,
Thank gods the blade was hot enough, said Olev. He laid his knife on
the hearth and slowly got up.
Outside, trees were breaking in the storm. One tree fell across our
roof. A branch came through the turf and broke our chimney. We lay in
the gathering smoke and watched thick icicles grow slowly down from a
new hole. Olev put our wooden washbucket underneath the drips to
collect water. Affner sat hunched up next to our tiny fire, muttering to
himself. I lay under a blanket in the loft with Norn beside me. Norn
whimpered and licked the stump of my thumb. Hearing her whimper,
Affner looked up sharply. He paused a moment, as if he was considering
something.
It’s time we ate the bitch, Affner announced.
Égil Smithursson was sitting up in the loft. He dropped his whetstone
and the spear he’d been sharpening. Yes! Égil cried excitedly, let’s eat her!
Eydís wailed No! and started crying. Kollam Kíli was sitting with his
back against the dirt wall. He jumped up and threw off his blanket. Ekki
gera það! Kollam screamed, You’ll do no such thing! That creature is
holy!
Affner only smiled. He took up Olev’s knife from where it was still
lying on the hearthstone, brown from my burnt blood. No? Affner
answered, not eat the bitch? Then what about YOU, Kollam, you helvíti
lunatic? You’re not a breeder! Maybe there’s some fat left in your liver,
aye?
Kollam didn’t answer. Then he made a strange sound. It took me a
moment to realize Kollam was laughing—his old, cheerful laugh.
Truth be told, Kollam said pleasantly, that’s not a half bad idea.
Greta? Kollam turned to Greta. Greta was propped up on her arm, next to
Eydís. She winced as she sat up, but she smiled.
No, Kollam, our prophet, Greta said. We forbid it.
And who made YOU chief? Affner snarled. Bitches are no chiefs! We
could all be feasting in Great-Hall, if it weren’t for you. We could have
been hunting all summer, curing hart-flesh. YOU made us grub after
roots! Affner waved his hand around the stinking cellar. Witch! he
shouted, I won’t starve here in my own skít!
Affner stuck Olev’s knife between his teeth. Slowly he began climbing
up the ladder. Sometimes in my dreams I hear the creak creak of the pine
rungs under Affner’s boots.
Affner’s face and arms came over the edge. His face wore a crazed,
greedy look. The knife rattled in his teeth. He started panting and
fumbling with my blanket, pulling it off Norn and me. Affner’s scalp had
grown back; I saw his red hair bristling in the gloom as I clutched the
blanket. Affner took the knife out from between his teeth. He grinned at
Kollam.
We have three dogs, said Affner. That’s ten legs all together. We can
eat them one at a time.
Then big Olev got up. He had to bend his head to stand under the low
ceiling. Olev was shaking all over, but not from the cold. Why can’t you
die like a man, Affner? Olev boomed. What are you scared of? We don’t
keep our gods waiting!
Affner spat at Olev and sprang to the wall. I think he was afraid Olev
would knock him off the platform. He moved fast. Affner’s gone mad—
those were the words in my mind. Affner gripped the knife in his right
hand, watching Olev’s eyes.
Olev looked around desperately. Reaching into the washbucket, he
grabbed the big wooden ladle he’d been using to help us drink. Olev and
Affner faced each other. The dull ladle faced the razor knife: cold edges
glinting in the firelight.
Then YOU’LL do! Affner shouted. Why not? If you only mean to die
anyway! Why waste you?
Olev coughed. Women eat first, he said thickly. We don’t need six
studs86 on Affelgard.
Kariwyn, Affner’s mate, cried Put down the knife, Affner, and we’ll
talk!
Shut your snout! Affner snarled at her. I fed you on elgs. Now I’ll feed
you on worthless dogs.
Olev’s mate Varda screamed Sit down, you idiots! Olev didn’t hear her.
He took a step forward. He started to say The gods forbid— but Affner
87 Lady
***
88 Warrior
Stegvard came nearer. His military bearing was gone—back bent,
shoulders sagging. He raised his head. Dried blood made dark lines down
Stegvard’s face. The lines parted over the bridge of Stegvard’s nose and
ran down the corners of his mouth. Blood was matted in his white beard.
Astrid gasped and said oh my gods! Magnes only nodded
understandingly. As he approached, they could see Stegvard had slashed
his own forehead: the old-fashioned Norsk emblem of grief. He’d cut
himself deep, as though he meant the scars to remain. For the first time,
Stegvard looked very old. He was holding something in his hands.
Everyone stood silent. Stegvard walked past them. He took a torch
from one of the húsmen, and, without looking at anyone, walked to the
edge of the pier. They knew what he was carrying now: the precious little
sailship he’d crafted when he was young; the one that had always stood
on his tidy desk in the Burg. There was an acrid smell on Stegvard’s
hands. The little ship was soaked in lamp oil, sails dripping.
Coming to the edge of the pier, Stegvard dropped to his knees. The
family had never seen him wearing his full dress kápa before. Stegvard’s
chest was a rainbow of medals and insignia from ribs to collar. Three
medallions, emblems of royal blood, clanked together as they swung from
his bowed neck: the high norskarna, the navy star, the crest of Hador, with
its prancing black rooster.
Reaching down, Stegvard set the little boat tenderly onto the water. It
floated with perfect balance, just like a real ship under weigh.89 Jeweled
drops of oil clung to its web of rigging, fine as thread. Elyen let go of her
ringlet. She wrinkled up her eyebrows, looking thoughtful. Rafe looked
uneasy. He took off his beret and held it in both hands.
The little ship rolled gently in the light swells. Stegvard gave it a push.
The breeze caught the sails; the sails dipped slightly. Then the ship began
to move away from the pier.
Stegvard held out his torch. With a quiet puff, the little ship wreathed
itself in flames. In a moment its masts and sails were gone. Still it moved
away from them. The ancient wood, dry as dust, popped and scattered
sparks. Now the miniature foredeck was ash. A spire of white smoke
billowed up and spread out on the wind.
90 A Norse curse.
Freya clapped her hand over her mouth and gagged. Herrick was, in
fact, waving a cloth net on a frame. He was catching little globes of
Freya’s vomit, which were drifting around the cockpit like bubbles. Freya
heaved a few times.
“Godsdamn,” Freya observed.
Freya tied off her sick-bag with the strap. “Where are we— oh!” Freya
pressed her palms over her ears, half-deaf from the incessant ringing.
Herrick said something unintelligible.
“What?” Freya shouted.
Herrick said something else unintelligible.
“What?” Freya shouted.
Herrick said something else unintelligible, only considerably louder
this time. Freya took her hands off her ears and stared at him.
“What’s a wipe-ass grape moon?” Freya demanded.
“I said we’re past Great Moon.
“Oh.”
“We’re past Minna-Moon, too,” said Herrick. “We’re halfway to
Orkev.”
“Half—” Freya dug her knuckles into her eyes. Then she looked out
the cockpit window. “So where’s Orkev now?” Freya asked. Herrick
tapped on the glass. Far off, a blurry green disk was drifting slightly
sideways.
“There’s Orkev now.”
Freya coughed. “And Elska?” She wiped her sleeve across her mouth.
Herrick smirked. “Elska’s still in her restraint. She came around before
you did, matter’fact. Don’t go back there!” Herrick warned, seeing Freya
start to turn. “I haven’t— er— tidied things up yet.” He held up the cloth
net, which was quite slimy. The cockpit reeked of vomit. Freya made a
face. “Why are you so fresh?” Freya demanded. Herrick looked smug. “I
never passed out,” said Herrick. He gingerly stowed the net in a drawer
and closed it. “In pilot training they called me herra Kylfa—The Bat.”
“Charming.” Freya eased her body off the bulkhead. “Why the bat?”
“Bats don’t get dizzy.” Herrick grinned. “I’ve got the magic ears.” He
pointed at his ears. Freya muttered they’re as BIG as bat ears, and gods,
it’s like a hammer inside my skull. She squeezed her head between her
hands. Freya felt like she was going to get sick again, and now Herrick
had stowed away her sick-bag too. “Why are we even alive?” Freya asked
piteously.
Herrick grinned even wider.
“Because you killed it.”
“I whuh?”
“You killed it! You killed the brig! Ho ho!” Herrick rubbed his palms
together. “Pirates! Reavers! A whole shipful of ‘em, armed up to their
armpits. You just exploded them in space! And with this?” Herrick
thumped the wheel jubilantly—“with this old canoe? Oh, you were
brilliant Freya, just—”
“I was brilliant?”
“How did you even get your hand on the lifeboat lever?” Herrick
crowed. “You were ten feet away!” He waved at the big brass handle on
the panel, now in the launch position. Freya stuck a finger in each ear and
worked her jaw up and down. “I can’t remember anything,” she said.
“What happened?”
Herrick’s eyebrows went up halfway to his hat. “You can’t— you
deployed our lifeboat!” Herrick squawked. “Right at the perfect instant! It
scrambled their drone. That fálki—”
“I remember that.”
“—and it lost us! It locked onto the lifeboat. Lifeboat shoots straight
into their signal deck—boom!” Herrick mimed the explosion with his
fingers. He gave a little whoop and commenced turning somersaults in the
air, knees against his chest. Freya was starting to smile weakly. “Really?”
Freya asked.
“Really!” Herrick uncurled himself. “Ha ha!—blown up by their own
drone! Oh, Rafe’s going to be—”
“Kæri Baldr!” Freya breathed. She’d already forgotten about her head.
“That’s— that’s just miraculous!”
“Miraculous? No! That’s just instinct. Pure instinct. You’re a wolf,
captaen Freya.” Herrick sighed happily. “I only wish I could have
watched them burn. I caught a few seconds of it. Their fuel tanks ignited.
I think it blew their generator right through their hull.”
“And the explosion spun us?”
“No,” Herrick shook his head, “not them exploding. Things are
different in space. It was actually our lifeboat firing off that spun us.”
Herrick revolved his fingers demonstratively. “It shoots out like a
torpedo.”
Freya nodded.
“So it launches, what, over the portside thruster?”
“Oh, Rafe’s got to be frantic right now!” (Herrick wasn’t interested in
the lifeboat.) “Rafe’s running scared, if he’s got any brains at all.”
“He hasn’t got any brains at all. Hélviti murderer.”
“Já, he’s a devil,” Herrick sighed. “I’ve known him since his riddarvis,
when he turned fifteen. He never had any sense of honor, much as he
blathers on about it. Ha ha—he’s sweating now, I promise you! This sort
of thing is hard to cover up. Harder than he imagines.”
“So how did you stop us spinning?”
“Oh, that’s an old pilot trick.” Herrick leaned back and put his hands
behind his head, obviously pleased with himself. “But I had to vent all our
water ballast to do it—see,” Herrick touched a switch on the instrument
panel—“you just extend the fins all the way out, and then you give the
ballast tanks a little jet on port, little jet on starboard, little jet on port—
like that.” (He flicked the switch back and forth.) “But the ballast’s all
gone now,” Herrick finished. “Fuel’s almost gone too. We’re drifting.”
“Drifting,” Freya sniffed. “And breathing. What shall we breathe
whilst we’re drifting, herra captain?”
“Oh,” said Herrick diffidently, “Nothing. We’re going to die. For a
million different reasons.”
“Hmph!” Freya grunted. “Well at least we took out the brig.”
“Damned right!” (Herrick pounded the wheel again.) “And it’s not a
bad way to go, considering. We could try moving around less, but it won’t
make any difference.” He shrugged. “We don’t keep our gods waiting.”
“Our gods—” Freya said thoughtfully “—no. No we don’t keep our
gods waiting.”
“Why are you staring at that chair?” Herrick demanded.
“Wha?” Freya looked up blankly. She’d been studying the empty
copilot seat, with the old wooden chart box next to it.
“The copilot chair! Did it sprout antlers?”
Freya looked down at the chair again. An odd memory was coming
back to her: a tall, pale woman with strange eyes. “Gods!” said Freya, “I
think she called me a halfwit!”
“She called?” Herrick stared at Freya dumbfoundedly. Freya looked
confused.
“So you didn’t see—”
Silence. Then Herrick shook his head with a concerned expression. “I
guess we’re low on air already,” he observed, looking narrowly at Freya.
“I’ve seen this before. Are you pale? Maybe you ought to get back in your
restraint, já? Just to make yourself comfortable?” Herrick reached out as
if to steady her. “No, no,” said Freya, “I’m alright. It’s nothing. You
know,” Freya brightened, “I don’t think we are going to die. Not one bit.”
“And why’s that?” Herrick folded his arms with a scowl. “You aren’t
deluding yourself? You know the proverb: ‘hope is slow poison’.”
Freya looked up at Herrick. Her lips wore a bit of a smile.
“Our gods will protect us.”
“Our gods!” Herrick snorted, “Now I know the air’s gone. Suddenly
you're a priestess, eh? Well, priestess, you’ve got a lot of velkom-hymns
to sing. That was at least forty souls you unceremoniously departed.”
Freya ignored him. “Let’s talk about how we survive,” she said
seriously. “How long is the air going to last?”
“A few more hours.” (Herrick swiped a stray globe of vomit out of the
air with a rag. Freya looked embarrassed.) “Four hours, possibly. I was
thinking maybe we could seal off the bridge and pump all the air through
to our side. Everything in the hold, I mean.”
“Would that work?”
Herrick shrugged. “It might make a small difference,” he said, “but it
would take every last drop of our fuel to run the pumps.” He glanced
around the antiquated cockpit. “We got badly shaken up. We’re leaking air
from a dozen places, probably. ”
“Yes, probably.” Freya pushed herself off the bulkhead. Nautical bric-
a-brac was drifting everywhere. Herrick brushed an old relic of a sextant
away from his shoulder, where it was gently revolving. “But we can run
the pumps?” Freya asked.
Herrick nodded.
“Then we’ll have to try.”
“Alright,” Herrick sighed. He bobbed off the pilot seat. “Ack!” he
winced, “I got badly shaken up. You’re not the only one.”
“We’ll have to turn Elska loose now,” Freya said. “Let’s move her up
here to the bridge.” She punched Elska’s harness release without
bothering to ask. Herrick watched her indifferently.
“Elska!” Freya shouted down the hatch.
They waited. No sound came from the cabin. “What’s she doing?”
Freya demanded. “I don’t hear anything.”
“No idea,” said Herrick. “I already stuck my head down there a while
ago and she was just sitting. Don’t expect her to be clean. It looks like she
ate a big meal before she came.”
“Idiot!”
“Já, I’m not keen on touching her.”
“I’m not keen on sharing air with her,” Freya rejoined. “Rafe’s her vile
husband. In fact—” Freya raised one eyebrow, like she’d just had an idea.
“In fact what?” Herrick demanded. Freya smiled sheepishly. “Could we
maybe just—you know—shoot her into space? I mean, she’s dead
anyway, right? If Rafe wants her dead. And it would mean more air for us
—”
“No!” Herrick exclaimed, looking shocked, “That’s barbaric!— well—
that’s tempting—” He smiled reluctantly. “But no!” Herrick shook his
head. “Elska might be an idiot, I grant you, but she’s not to blame for this.
Rafe kept her like a pet.”
“Pets die,” Freya said icily.
“And air’s only half the problem,” Herrick pursued. “This ship is a
tinderbox. Orkev has a deeper atmosphere than Nirevvy. We’ll be fifty
leagues high when the hull plate burns through—hah!—and then we’ve
got to stick the landing. No tube, no rails, no steering— ”
“So how do you land it ordinarily?” Freya demanded. “Don’t you
reverse thrusters?”
“Ordinarily I would. That’s how you do it: long orbital descent and
reverse thrusters, but—”
“But we’re out of fuel.”
“Yes. No fuel. No ballast. Orbital descent is just more time on less air.
Like I said,” Herrick held his palms out resignedly, “a million different
reasons we’re going to die.”
Freya twisted her long hair into a knot. She pinned the knot behind her
head with a decided expression. “We’re not going to die,” Freya said. “We
just have to do our best and see what happens—so! Talk less, breathe less,
sail on!”
“Before you sail on,” Herrick put in, “I do have this.” He unlatched a
cabinet and took out a little green bottle with a cork in it. “What’s that?”
asked Freya.
“Spíramar spirits. It’s practically ancient. I don’t know if it still
works.”
“What’s it do?”
“Not much. It slows your body down a bit. Slows your brain down as
well—that’s the problem. We won’t be worth much if we take it.”
“But we’ll breath less?”
Herrick nodded. “Somewhat less. It might add up to another half-hour.
It’s nothing like ventilating in an ice locker.”
Freya sighed. “Well, I’d better check on Elska,” she said distastefully.
“I wish I could put her in an ice—”
Freya stopped. She turned around and looked at Herrick.
“—locker.”
“What’s that now?” Herrick eyed her suspiciously.
“Locker!” cried Freya.
Herrick gave her a puzzled look, then:
“Ah!” said Herrick.
“Do you think?” cried Freya.
Herrick chuckled. “Captaen Freya,” said Herrick, “you are a marvel.
I’ll get the umbrellas.”
“Umbrellas? Whatever for?”
Herrick laughed grimly.
“You’ll see.”
To be continued.
Stay tuned for The Star Mangrove part II, coming Christmas 2020.
Stay safe and carry on!
Twitter.com/franktmorgan
www.morganpublishers.com
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
TK.