Snow-Walker

Seventeen

The fleetness of the serpent

wound itself together.

Jessa knocked on the wooden door and Brochael opened it.

“Come inside,” he said abruptly.

The small room was dark, with only the fire to light it. The shutters hung half open; a few stars glittered in the deepening blue sky.

Kari sat on the floor, his knees drawn up and his thin arms wrapped around them. His eyes were closed.

“Is he asleep?” she whispered.

He looked up at her then and said, “No. Just a bit tired. Sit down, Jessa.”

Brochael had eased his weight down on the bench, so she sat on the floor, leaning back against his knees. In the warm comfort of the room they were all silent for a moment, but there was an underlying unease, as if the two of them had been quarrelling before she came in, though she could hardly believe that.

Kari watched the flames. Their light flickered on the pale edges of his hair.

“Can you see anything?” she asked eagerly.

“Not yet. Give me a while.”

She flicked a satisfied look at Brochael, but it faded instantly as she saw how he was watching Kari, with an unhappiness in his face that shocked her. Then she saw the reason.

Tied around Kari’s wrist, half-hidden by his dark sleeve, was a small, knotted bracelet made of snakeskin.

She recognized it at once, with a kind of horror.

It was the bracelet Gudrun had worn. Two years ago the witch had taken it off as she left and thrown it down on the floor—a reminder of her power, her long tyranny over them all.

“Keep it,” she’d said.

But Kari had thrown it away; he’d locked it in the dungeon far below the hall, the damp cell where he had been a prisoner as a small child; a child without speech, unable to run, not knowing what people were, what the outside air was like. It had been there ever since, she supposed.

And now?

Jessa’s mind raced. He’d obviously been down there. He’d opened the room, picked the snakeskin from the ashes … but why? Why would he? She tried to catch Brochael’s eye, but he wouldn’t look at her. His usual cheerful smile was gone; she had never seen him look so confused, so miserable. She glanced back at the bracelet. Kari must have a reason for this. They shouldn’t start thinking stupid, unforgivable things. He wasn’t Gudrun. He wasn’t.

“Look!” he said to her suddenly, and she jerked her bewildered gaze back to the flames and saw there was something there. It drifted and blurred; became shapes that moved behind the peats and black, smoldering chars of wood, but she couldn’t see it clearly. And then suddenly, it was Gudrun.

The sorceress was looking out at them, as if reflected in a pool or a lake, the water rippling over her face, her silvery hair, the ice blue dress she wore glinting with crystals and snow shards. She was speaking, and Jessa heard the words close, almost inside her ear, so that she put up her hand and scratched at it.

There are plans working here. And not only mine. And each one thinks he plans for himself and is unseen. But I see.

Jessa looked at Brochael and saw that he heard it too; his lips were tight with distaste. Kari sat silent, knees bent, looking away. Then the image dissolved into flame light and the ripple of heat over wood, but her voice still hung and echoed as if from somewhere far distant.

Feast yourself. Take the dark one if you want, the Jarl, the arrogant one. But leave my son alone.

Kari looked up at that. He looked so much like Gudrun that Jessa almost thought it was he who had spoken.

“Who’s she talking to?” Brochael asked gruffly.

Kari shrugged. “Perhaps this beast of hers.”

“So it’s Wulfgar she wants dead. I’d have thought it would have been you.”

Kari watched him sidelong. “So would I. We may have missed something. She may be keeping something worse for me.” He twisted the laces of his shirt around his fingers. There was silence a moment, then he said, “And is this your thief, Jessa?”

Vidar sat among the flames. It was some dark, shadowy place, and he was leaning forward, and her heart leaped as she saw the thin rat-faced man drinking opposite.

“That’s him!”

“Looks a skulking little cutthroat,” Brochael observed.

“He tried to cut mine. Where is he?”

“I don’t know.” Kari watched the men. “I think he’s near, in the hold or not far outside, but I can’t tell. I do know this is happening now, right now.”

“Vidar’s got his sword,” Brochael growled. “He doesn’t wear that in the hold.”

“But he can’t be far because he was here an hour ago.”

“One of the farms then. It’s fair to think he’d get this scum away, if he thought you’d seen him. What are they planning?”

But the images spluttered, became burned wood. Kari shook his head wearily. “I’ve lost it.”

Brochael looked at Jessa. “Will you tell the Jarl?”

“No!” It was Kari who answered quickly.

“Why not?”

“Because he trusts Vidar. He doesn’t trust me. And we have no proof.”

Surprised and uneasy, Jessa said, “Of course Wulfgar trusts you.”

“No, Jessa.” He gripped his fingers tight together. “Vidar is turning him against me. I know that, I can see it, the fine threads of mistrust that he’s spinning, like a web over this hold. It began long ago, before you came, before we came.”

“That’s nonsense,” Brochael said gruffly.

“No, it isn’t. Think about it, Brochael! To Vidar, I’m the pale approaching danger. I’m Gudrun’s son. I was the last Jarl’s son. He wants Wulfgar to see me as a threat.”

Jessa clenched her fists without noticing. “But Wulfgar knows you!”

“Does he?” He turned his strange, colorless eyes fiercely on her. “None of you know me, really! Sometimes I don’t think I know myself, what I might do. This is her curse, remember, that you’ll never quite trust me, that I might turn on you as she did.” He looked away bleakly. “And I might! I can feel it in myself.”

“We can all do evil—”

“Not like I could!” He gripped her fingers suddenly; she felt him trembling, as if he suppressed fear.

“Power, Jessa. Feel it? It’s burning in me. Sometimes I want to cry out with the strength of it, let it rage in a crackle of light and flame. Things call to me out of the snow, out of the endless wastes—wandering things, spirits, elements. And people—I can’t be near them because I want to change them, to move them, to slide into their minds and make them do what I want them to do. And I could, and they’d never know! But I daren’t, because that’s how she started....”

Numb, she stared at him. “We trust you.”

Brochael gripped his shoulder. “I know you better than you know yourself. I taught you to speak, boy. Carried you out of her prisons myself. You’ll never be like her.”

Kari watched them a moment, calming himself. “So why didn’t you ask me about this?”

He slipped the snakeskin band off, held it up on one long finger. “Why not, Jessa? Because you weren’t sure?”

In all honesty, she couldn’t answer him. No words would come.