East

Rose

DURING THE NEXT FEW days the weather stayed fair. Thor continued to lie where he was while I brought him food and ale—mostly ale. He finally had me roll the cask over and set it beside him so that he could refill his own cup.

I had my doubts that ale, especially in the amounts he was consuming, was a particularly healing drink. But at least he had decided to live, and he had the constitution of an ox. Each day he gained in strength. The gray pallor was gone and the wound on his forehead was healing.

Thor was soon sitting up and, on the second day, even stood for a few minutes, leaning on a makeshift crutch I had fashioned from a splintered deck board.

As he lowered himself back into a sitting position, I asked, "Do you think it possible that Gest and Goran could have survived?"

Thor snorted, then took a long draught of ale.

"But they might have gotten hold of something to float on. They were good swimmers, and perhaps there was land..." I gazed out over the endless expanse of water. "Well, isn't it possible?"

"Anything's possible," Thor said. After refilling his cup he leaned back, eyes closed.

"I had a son once," I heard him say.

"You did?" I said stupidly. I had never pictured Thor as having any kind of life outside the ship, especially not a family.

"Egil was his name. Died at the hands of a band of thieves and murderers. Along with his mother. My wife." His voice had softened slightly as he said wife.

When he opened his eyes, they were laced with bitterness. "It is possible they would have lived if I had been there to protect them. But they died. Like Gest and Goran. And like I would have if you'd left me alone."

"Well, I couldn't leave you alone. And you saved my life, sticking me under the deck boards the way you did. 'Twas only common courtesy to return the favor."

Thor suddenly threw his head back and laughed. It was a full-throated reckless sound, and I liked the sound of it, even though I knew he was drunk.

"May I commend you on your manners?" he said.

I laughed, too, and there was some sort of softening between us. After that, if we were not exactly friends, at least Thor did not act as though I were not there.

Later that day I asked Thor if he had any idea where we were.

He finished the ale at the bottom of his cup, then looked up at me with something like a smile on his face. I thought he might even laugh again. "Hafvilla, "he said.

"Where?"

"Hafvilla. 'Tis a word in the old language," he explained. "The Vikings used it when they found they were hopelessly lost."

"I think we have been heading mostly west, since the storm," I said, attempting to be helpful.

With a shrug he refilled his cup.

"Is there any way we can rig up a new mast?" I asked, trying a different tack. "I mended the sail."

"Well, aren't you the clever seamstress?" he responded unpleasantly.

"Thor..."

He shrugged again, gazing critically around the knorr. "We might fix something up—not as tall, of course, but enough to catch a little wind."

"If you tell me what to do ... I am stronger than I look."

"Are you indeed?" Thor replied with a trace of skepticism, looking me up and down.

"And I want to learn, all that you know—about sailing the knorr, how to navigate, everything..." I said in a rush.

He was silent for a time, then he turned and stared at me, as though considering me in a new light. "You don't fancy floating around on the sea forever with a drunken old sot, eh? Well, maybe I will teach you. I'm not much good as a captain, am I?" he said, gesturing at his bound-up leg and arm. "And my ale supply will run out sooner or later."

"Sooner, I should think," I retorted.

"You'll need to pay close attention. I'll not say things twice. And I am not a patient man."

That was an understatement. Thor was ill mannered and ill tempered, and how much of either depended on where he was in his drinking. If he'd had too little, he was impossible; if too much, he was careless and impossible.

Still, he managed to cram a great deal of information into a short span of time. His knowledge of the ship and of the sea was impressive, and it was obvious how much he loved it all, which made up for his gruffness. He instructed me as I repaired the steering oar and then rigged up a short mast from deck boards. He taught me about the rigging, and even explained to me the smallest details of how the knorr had been built.

Finally he launched into the subject of navigation.

"There are as many ways to find your way as there are sailors. Smell the different flavors of a stretch of coast, listen for the curve of the shore, taste the air," he said to me.

He explained how to read the stars, the sun and moon, the tides, the weather, fish and bird life, and even water temperature, color, and texture. And then with great solemnity, he showed me how to use his highly prized leidarstein.

Much of what he taught me had a practical simplicity to it, but taken altogether it was overwhelming, and there were times that I despaired of remembering it all.

By the end of the first two days of Thor's instruction, my hands were raw from handling the rigging, my back was sore, and my head ached from all I'd been trying to absorb. I recalled my previous ocean crossing—the simple, dreamlike trip through the sea, wrapped in a sealskin and carried like a baby in the mouth of a white bear. And I realized how much more complicated life is without the benefit of magic. Rubbing linseed oil into my blistered hands, I thought wistfully of how magic lets you skip over the steps of things. That is what makes it so appealing.

But, I thought, the steps of things are where life is truly found, in doing the day-to-day tasks. Caught up in the world of enchantment as I had been at the castle, it had been the routine things I had missed most, which was why I had set up that laundry room and insisted on doing my own washing. But I had missed so much. Sitting at the table back home and peeling potatoes with my mother and sisters in a companionable silence. Feeding the chickens, their urgent feathery bodies crowding my legs, and looking up to see Neddy coming back from the fields. Going on one of my long exploring walks, having a blister come up on my heel but at the same time stumbling upon a fox den and catching a brief glimpse of a mother fox nursing a brand-new litter of kits. And though I might have wished away the blister, slowing down to favor the pain in my heel was part of how I came to see the kits.

And I knew, without ever having been told, that the white bear would have gladly traded the comfortable magic life in the castle in exchange for a whole horde of blisters on his feet.

Finished with the linseed oil, I took up some rigging that needed repair, and I had a memory, clear as day, of the face of the stranger who had been the white bear—and of the hopelessness in his eyes. I could not help the hot tears that smeared my vision.

"Work too much for you, eh?" I heard Thor say.

I quickly blinked away the tears and looked over at him, a cup of ale in his hand and a sneering look on his face. "Of course not," I retorted.

"A little too much sun in the eyes then?" he asked sarcastically.

"I was remembering something," I replied stiffly, and focused on the length of rope in my hand. "Someone."

There was a silence. Then, "Forgive me. 'Twas ill spoken," came the unexpected words from Thor.

I looked at him, amazed.

"Why do you go to Suroy?" he suddenly asked. It was the first time he had ever asked me a question about myself.

I looked at him and for some reason I told him the truth. I think it was because of his eyes. They reminded me, for just a moment, of Neddy's.

I spoke for a long, long time, telling the whole story. I expected at any moment he would interrupt me with a shout of laughter or disbelief. But he did not.

When I came to the end, I took a deep breath, my fingers unknowingly twisting the ring on my thumb.

Thor was silent. Then he said, "'Tis a strange tale." There was a pause. "And so you go north, to make things right with this white bear. Or the man that was the white bear."

I nodded.

"My grandfather said once that a white wolf spoke to him. But then, he was overfond of mead." Thor grinned. "An appetite that runs in the family." I did not return his smile, and his faded, too.

"I have traveled north," Thor said, a far look in his eyes. "Well beyond Njord. Saw a white land way off in the distance, but I had to turn back because of the ice. If something remains of magic in the world, I believe it would lie in the far north, in the places where people cannot go."

We fell silent.

Thor broke the silence at last, and it was the first time he called me by name. "Well, Rose," he said, "once we get that sail raised, the knorr shall take you north. After all, you did save my life. And 'tis only common courtesy to take you where I said I would."

We both laughed then.