A Companion to Wolves (25 page)

Read A Companion to Wolves Online

Authors: Elizabeth Bear

BOOK: A Companion to Wolves
2.94Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
Isolfr fixed her with a look that he knew made the worst of his icy pale stare, and even Jorveig backed down enough to allow the three wolfcarls into Angrbotha's cottage. Not into the close-screened corner where Hjordis lay, where she moaned and occasionally shouted curses—and Isolfr felt pride on her behalf; his woman was no screamer—but by the fire, where Sokkolfr and Ulfbjorn stirred coals and kept the water hot, and Isolfr paced.
Hroi, canny old creature—
he
crept behind the screen and lay against the wall near the head of the bedstead, out of the way and almost forgotten. “Hroi says there's not much blood,” Sokkolfr said softly, when Isolfr glanced at him. “Hroi says her heart is strong.”
Hroi did not need to tell them when the child was born. The baby's piercing shriek managed that. Viradechtis whined and glanced about anxiously, counting her pups, until Isolfr soothed her with the information that human babies were supposed to wail that way.
She thought it was foolish to attract predators with such noise. Isolfr could not help but agree.
He rose from his crouch by her head when Angrbotha and Jorveig came toward him, a mite wrapped in white swaddling in Angrbotha's arms, Hroi padding behind. “Your daughter,” Jorveig said, and took the child to give her to Isolfr.
He almost felt his werthreatbrothers hold their breaths as he extended his hands. The baby was light, light as a wolf cub, surely smaller than Kathlin or Jonak had been—or was it just that he was so much larger now? He looked at his own hands on the baby's tiny body, their coarseness pale over bone and rough and red with callus and chilblains and scars, and shivered, cold to his heart.
Cub
, Viradechtis thought clearly, standing beside him with her long nose straining toward the babe. The child's face was a wrinkled red winter apple, her arms squirming under the swaddling cloths. “Is she—I mean, will she—”
“She's small,” Angrbotha said. “But made of stern stuff, I warrant.”
“And her mother?” He couldn't bring himself to say Hjordis' name.
“Fine,” Jorveig said, Angrbotha nodding agreement. Isolfr sighed.
“My daughter,” he said, very quietly, and almost glanced over his shoulder to look for Sokkolfr and see if it was real. But Viradechtis nudged his hand again, and Jorveig caught Angrbotha's arm to restrain her as Isolfr crouched beside the wolf so she could sniff the baby's face.
The babe didn't cry. She opened hazy unfocused eyes when the wolf's whiskers brushed her, her lips working as if she sought a nipple. Jorveig cleared her throat. “What's her name, Isolfr?” she said, as Viradechtis sat on her haunches and flipped her tail neatly over her toes.
Of course, she had to have a name. He rose again, cuddling the baby against his chest. He looked into the little red face, suspecting the babe couldn't see him any more than a puppy could, and breathed deep to fix her scent. “Water, I need water,” he said, and Angrbotha already had the dipper at his elbow. He laced his fingers through it and let a few drops fall on his daughter's head, which made her wail like a siren—the more so when he marked Thor's hammer between her brows with a wet thumb.
“Alfgyfa,” he said, thinking of Tin and her spear and her baubles, giving him back his life so he could be here, now,
holding his child in his arms. Then he looked up at Jorveig, and quirked an eyebrow at her, trying for Ulfgeirr's rakish charm. “May I see Hjordis?”
 
 
I
n the morning, Sokkolfr paid a boy to take a message to the keep—“to my mother,” Isolfr corrected, and the boy nodded eagerly—while Ulfbjorn, Tindr and the pups hiked back to the wolfheall to share the news with the werthreat. Isolfr expected silence from his mother, or at best a discreet return message memorized by the same boy. But Halfrid appeared at Angrbotha's door when the sun was no more than a span above the horizon, a basket of swaddling cloths in her hand and Kathlin and a maidservant flanking her.
Isolfr, sitting beside Hjordis on the bench before the fire, laughed as Halfrid swept past Angrbotha and took command of the house. His laughter startled Alfgyfa into wailing, and Halfrid shushed him with a frown as Kathlin—so tall now, a woman herself, but with her blond hair still falling free around her shoulders—came forward to claim her hug.
“Father allowed you to come?” he asked.
She blew hair out of her eyes. “Father's in Franangford, and with my betrothed husband there as well, there is no one to say us nay.” She smiled at him. “Jonak says to say he sends congratulations and well-wishes and all the things he ought—he was so pleased with himself for being an uncle he couldn't sit still to think them out.”
And Isolfr laughed with her.
He introduced Hjordis to his family, surprised at her uncharacteristic shyness. But by the time Hrolleif sent a messenger to summon Isolfr to the wolfheall, they were laughing and talking together, and Halfrid and Kathlin stayed behind when he and Sokkolfr had to go.
It was an uncomfortable leavetaking. They all knew that within the fortnight the Wolfmaegth would travel to
Franangford, and the push to reclaim Othinnsaesc. And it was unavoidable that Viradechtis, a konigenwolf whose pups were half-grown and no longer needed her milk, would travel with them.
But necessity was what it was, and by sunset Isolfr had kissed his mother, and his sister, and his lover, and his daughter farewell, and had followed his wolf back to war.
Hrolleif didn't even bother to take him aside. He just congratulated Isolfr on the birth of the girlchild, told him they would be leaving for Franangford two days hence, and sent him to bed along with Viradechtis and her pups in the dark of the records-room. “You'll not have slept,” he said, with a hard squeeze to Isolfr's shoulder. “And I need you fresh.”
Isolfr didn't want to sleep. He didn't want to journey to Franangford, either, or face his father once he got there. But it was what it was. Still.
“Yes, wolfsprechend,” he said.
Surprising himself, he slept.
 
 
T
he march to Franangford remained in Isolfr's memory as a record writ in mud. Thick, gluey mud that caked trellwolf paws and legs and weighed down his boots until it felt as if he was trying to lift the world with each step. Thin oily mud, slick as ice, that brought men down like felled trees. Mud in his hair, mud under his fingernails; everything he ate tasted of mud, and the water they boiled left a fine layer of silt in the pot.
Their fourth evening out, once camp was set and Frithulf and Sokkolfr were arguing amiably about whose turn it was to clean and cook the rabbits that Kothran had brought them, Isolfr took Viradechtis down to the river and, despite the early-spring cold, insisted that they both wash. Otherwise, he'd have to listen to her trying to worry the mud out of her fur all night, which would mean that neither of them slept.
She grumbled but acquiesced, and even indulged him in a silly, splashy game of chase like a puppy. Then, cleaner and warm with exertion, he put his boots on and started for camp. Glaedir appeared at the top of the hill as they were climbing; with a glance at Isolfr—not so much for permission as acknowledgment—Viradechtis took off toward the big wolf at a run.
So much for the bath, Isolfr thought—and nearly ran into Eyjolfr halfway up the deep gully the river had dug for itself.
“Isolfr,” Eyjolfr said and put out a hand to steady him, the gleam of his teeth in the dusk not reassuring. “Do you make a habit of wandering away from camp by yourself?”
“I'm not by myself any more than you are,” Isolfr said steadily. Eyjolfr had not let go of his arm.
“The companionship of a wolf is not the same.”
“I don't know what you're talking about.”
“Don't you?” Eyjolfr's free hand came up to trace the line of his jaw. “I think you do.”
“Eyjolfr—”
“There's no need to be shy, Isolfr. We both know we've been here before.”
Isolfr stepped back, only to find himself pinned against a tree. He cast into the pack-sense; Viradechtis and Glaedir were hunting, coursing a spring-skinny deer.
“Will you always hide behind your wolf?” Eyjolfr said, both hands on Isolfr's upper arms now, his body pressed against Isolfr's. “If you do not want me, Isolfr, you should say so. Don't lead me on and then make a mockery of me in front of the entire werthreat.”
“I didn't—”
“Why else would you let Skjaldwulf have you first?” Eyjolfr hissed, and his mouth came down hard, a bruising, punishing kiss.
Isolfr twisted his head away. “It was Viradechtis' choice.”
“Do you really think I will believe that Viradechtis would do
anything
against your wishes?”
“Eyjolfr, please. She is konigenwolf. And I would not—”
Eyjolfr kissed him again, using his weight and leverage to hold Isolfr where he wanted him, using the tree to keep Isolfr from being able to plant his feet. He could feel Eyjolfr's sex hard against his hip, and the pack-sense was nothing but deer blood and triumph. He couldn't get enough air, and he tasted blood where Eyjolfr's teeth had caught his lip. He made a desperate, convulsive effort and wrenched free, only to fall over his own feet.
He landed hard, awkwardly. Eyjolfr said coldly, “I do not appreciate being toyed with, Isolfr.”
“
Please
. I didn't. I swear to you.”
“No? You don't find your power heady?”
Eyjolfr advanced toward him, and Isolfr scrabbled backwards, unable to find his feet or catch his breath. He could—he could fight, with fists or the knife at his belt. He could. And with the fear and fury he felt now, Viradechtis would think him truly endangered, even through the taste of her kill, and she might savage Glaedir where he stood. The big silver wolf would not defend himself against a konigenwolf.
“You don't enjoy watching the men of the werthreat make fools of themselves over you?”
“Viradechtis—”
“That's always your answer, isn't it?”
“What other answer would you have him give, werthreatbrother?”
Skjaldwulf's voice. Eyjolfr whipped around like a startled cat; Isolfr fell back into the leaves, panting. Skjaldwulf stood at the head of the gully, black Mar at his side.
“Skjaldwulf,” Eyjolfr said, breathing hard but composed.
“This is no concern of yours. Isolfr and I were merely talking.”
Skjaldwulf started down, picking his way. Mar bounded past him, shoved by Eyjolfr hard enough to stagger him, and came to snuffle gently at Isolfr's face and hair.
“And your ‘talking,'” Skjaldwulf said, “looks very much
like something else—something which will get your throat torn out, Eyjolfr, and don't think otherwise. You are lucky Viradechtis and Glaedir have found that deer, and I suggest you go butcher it. The camp will appreciate fresh meat.”
“I would not have—”
“Wouldn't you?” Skjaldwulf said with terrible mildness.
It hung there, unbearably. Isolfr shut his eyes, let Mar lick his ear and neck.
Skjaldwulf said, “He's not some wench to be wedded and bedded. And he is brother to a konigenwolf and not to a bitch like Ingrun. If you don't understand the difference, I suggest you ask Randulfr to explain it to you. Now, go on with you. That deer's waiting.”
Eyjolfr went, in a slither of mud and dead leaves.
Silence. He could not lie there all night. Viradechtis would find him. Sokkolfr would worry. He picked himself up, pushing Mar gently aside. Swallowed hard against shame and said, “Thank you.”
“Did he hurt you?” Skjaldwulf said.
“Bruises,” Isolfr said and managed a shrug. Swallowed hard again. “I should have hit him back.”
“Isolfr.” It was too dark now to see Skjaldwulf's face, and Isolfr was glad. “It is not your fault.”
“No? I did, you know. I let him … .” He couldn't finish the sentence, couldn't speak past the shame knotted in his chest.
“Isolfr.” Skjaldwulf's hand touched his shoulder—gently, but Isolfr couldn't control his flinch, and Skjaldwulf drew away again. “Eyjolfr is wrong. A mating is not a
wedding
, and permission once is not permission twice. Please don't—”
Then Viradechtis was there, with impeccably awful timing, nearly knocking both of them over. Her thoughts were full of anxiety—though no real understanding of what had happened, and Isolfr breathed again—and she began nudging Isolfr back toward camp in a no-nonsense fashion. If he'd been small enough, she would have picked him up by his scruff and carried him like one of her pups.
“Thank you,” he said to Skjaldwulf again, and let Viradechtis have her way.

Other books

For You by Mimi Strong
Imaginative Experience by Mary Wesley
It's a Guy Thing by David Deida
Farrah in Fairyland by B.R. Stranges
Take Me (Power Play #1) by Kelly Harper
The Corporal's Wife (2013) by Gerald Seymour
Serenity Valley by Rocky Bills
Fireman Dad by Betsy St. Amant
The Marrying Game by Kate Saunders
American Quest by Sienna Skyy