An Apprentice to Elves by Sarah Monette
Then it was Randulfr who took Fargrimr’s wrist and pulled him away, through the gates and down the rutted dirt road to where the men of keep and heall, the watchful wolves, and the fire-frightened horses stood in wait. It was hard, so hard, walking away from the burning wreck of all they’d built, and in that moment, Fargrimr hated the Rheans with every last ashy spark of his soul.
He didn’t hate them any less as the column of refugees wended north. Without carts that would keep them on the road, they led comically laden mules and ponies over tree-root-raddled trails, and the men and even the wolves wore harness and pack as well. Every time they came to a clearing or a riverbank—they forded the summer-droughted streams easily—Fargrimr glanced back at the brightening sky. It was hours before the column of hot gray smoke shivering there turned charred black, and more hours still before it wavered out of sight.
Randulfr, one hand buried in Ingrun’s ruff, frowned at him. “Regrets?”
“That’s a stupid question,” Fargrimr replied with the easy affection of a sibling. “You?”
Randulfr nodded. He picked something from between his teeth with a thumbnail and spat. “We’ll come take it back someday. And build it even better on the ash.”
“See if we don’t,” Fargrimr agreed, trying to sound more convinced than Randulfr had. Then he reminded himself that he was jarl of Siglufjordhur, whether there was any Siglufjordhur to be jarl of or not. He took a breath and squared his shoulders, and strode away to see what was slowing the men at the head of the column so unacceptably.
TEN
The first problem of the Alfarthing was where it should convene, and it was a problem that nearly foundered the whole undertaking. Lamentably, Tin was not surprised. The aettrynalfar refused to allow the svartalfar in their halls—which merely saved the svartalfar the necessity of refusing to go into those troll-tainted warrens—and neither side was happy about Isolfr’s suggestion of holding any kind of discussion in a hall built by Northmen. But they were even more unhappy about Vethulf’s countersuggestion that they meet under the open sky.
Alfgyfa went back and forth between svartalfar and aettrynalfar with, frankly, more patience than Tin had ever seen in her before. It was encouraging. And certainly it was easier to be talking face-to-face to Isolfr here, among a wolfheall full of Northmen, when she was more pleased with his daughter than otherwise. There were entire seasons of Alfgyfa’s life during which this visit would have been substantially more uncomfortable.
Unfortunately, the substance of those talks with Isolfr were less encouraging. Not because of Isolfr, who remained himself: older, to be sure, and occasionally surprising Tin with his steadiness, to her great pleasure. But essentially Isolfr. And Viradechtis Konigenmother Vigdisdaughter had if anything grown cannier and more devoted both to her pack and to her human brother. But although Isolfr certainly appreciated the need for good relations between alfar and men—he had been Tin’s chief co-conspirator in this for nearly two decades, which was a very long time among men—neither he nor Viradechtis had any better idea than Tin did how to make that alliance less fragile.
Late one particular evening, in the long twilight between sunset and sunrise, while waiting for Alfgyfa to return from yet another messenger mission, Tin realized she had had all of Galfenol and the aettrynalfar and the wolfheall and the waiting she could take. The sun was below the horizon for a while: it would not blind her or burn her skin. She was not, for a change, completely trapped either in the heall or in all-swaddling robes. She charged Pearl with watching Girasol—not that watching Girasol was a particular hardship at the wolfheall, because the alfling chiefly wished to devote his time and energy to camping out with Isolfr’s sister’s-daughter Esja beside the door to the whelping room. Athisla, ever more and more gravid and dripping milk from her engorged nipples onto the stone floors wherever she walked (and she stumped everywhere heavily now, with great put-upon sighs at every exertion)might retire at any moment to her carefully built nest, and Girasol and Esja were determined not to miss it.
Having dealt with her own offspring, she went to find Isolfr.
He might have been asleep—it was summer, after all, and the men had a tendency to sleep where they fell—but she was fortunate enough to find him going over records and tactics and logistics with Skjaldwulf and Sokkolfr and his old shieldmate Frithulf of the fire-scarred face.
Wolves lay heaped at their feet. Mar snored, using young Tryggvi’s rump as a pillow. Viradechtis curled her red-and-black brindled body around her smaller, paler sibling Kothran like a snake around her eggs. The littermates were awake, heads relaxed on paws, eyes open, ears pricked as they watched their human brothers do whatever mysterious things it was that human brothers spent their time upon.
Tin paused in the doorway to watch, half concealed in shadows, sucking her teeth to hide a smile. It was common knowledge that Kothran was the smartest wolf in the pack save Viradechtis. Snow-pale, small, and heavily coated even in summer, he looked like a fluffy, neat-pawed fox beside his giant sister.
She wondered what he and the konigenwolf made of the plans of their human brothers. Indisputably, they understood defending the territory of the pack. Indisputably, they had their own, canny ways of thinking of such things as politics and power. The patterns of thought of wolves, though, were even more alien than the patterns of thought of men.
She stepped out of the shadows of the door, allowing her ornaments to jingle. The wolfcarls looked up as one from their clutter of maps, scraps, and half-empty bowls of wine. The wolves, who had already known she was there, stirred not—except in that Mar opened his eyes and Kothran lazily swiveled an ear in her direction. Tryggvi didn’t even wake. Tin wasn’t sure if that was a compliment or just his youth.
“Am I interrupting?” Tin asked.
Based on the look of relief that flickered over Isolfr’s face, if she was interrupting, the interruption was more than welcome. He stood, visibly stiff, and emptied the dregs of his wine into the low-banked fire. It hissed, sending up a cloud of tannin-sharp steam.
“We were about done, actually,” Frithulf said, with an indulgent glance at his shieldbrother. “Why don’t you take Isolfr for a walk? He needs the exercise.”
Isolfr skimmed the empty horn bowl at Frithulf, hard and accurately, without looking. Frithulf was laughing as he caught it.
Isolfr looked down at the wolves on the reindeer hide rug. “Want to come, Kothran?”
Frithulf laughed again as Kothran’s tail thumped. He stood, gave Frithulf a glance of farewell, and stepped carefully over Viradechtis. The konigenwolf heaved herself up a moment after he was clear and stretched fore and aft like a cat. She and Kothran trotted toward the doorway and Tin, obviously expecting Isolfr to follow.
Tin and her human friend followed the wolves in silence until they were outdoors in the cool of twilight. She had to stretch herself somewhat to keep up, but the exercise felt good after too many days of scuffling about the wolfheall, waiting for this and for that. Her fingers itched for her hammers. She wanted to make something.
Maybe Thorlot would loan Tin her forge for the afternoon tomorrow. In the meantime, though, at least a walk would do something for the restlessness.
Once they had passed beyond the walls of the inner and outer keeps and the bailey, they found themselves among fields and grazing sheep that looked incuriously at the trellwolves through their wickets. The trellwolves looked far more curiously back—but sheep, though tasty, were no challenge. Viradechtis nosed Kothran’s ruff behind his ear and huffed at him. Together, they ambled on.
“How does your daughter?” Isolfr asked out of amiable silence, startling her.
“She sends me messages,” Tin said. “She is well and, I think, happy.” Rhodium had gone to Tin’s mother’s sister’s sister-in-law’s great-great-grandmother’s great-great-granddaughter Cobalt. It had been a political move on Tin’s side—she needed the backing of the Iron Kinship in Deahlhord—and desperation on Cobalt’s. To be one of the smit
“She’ll make journeyman soon,” Isolfr observed.
“Another year or two,” said Tin. “Alfgyfa will make it first.” Absurd—traitorous, even—to value her fosterling’s success over her own daughter’s, but Tin had already gone to lengths for Alfgyfa that she would never have gone for any alf, blood-kin or not.
They were silent again another half length of a field. Have you lost your courage, Mastersmith? she asked herself mockingly, then took a breath and just said it: “One of us is going to have to come up with some kind of an idea soonish.”
Isolfr looked down at her, tilting his head. Even in the shadowy glow of the evening, she could see the puckered lines of scars through his beard. For a moment, she saw him as an alf—a strange, pale, attenuated alf—with an alf’s coiling tattoos. She shook the image off, but something of the sense of kinship remained.
He waved north, which was roughly the direction the wolves were headed. They would jog ahead, shoulder to shoulder, and then one or both of them would break off to nose among the flowers at the edge of the dirt track. Once alf and man had passed, the wolves would trot to overtake them, and the cycle would repeat. “Kari had something, actually,” he said.
Kari and his wolf, Hrafn, were wildlings—a strange human word meaning that they had bonded outside the confines of a wolfheall—two survivors of a troll attack that had destroyed everything they had previously known. Tin knew both of them sometimes chafed in the close confines of the heall—as if being around other people and other wolves set off some deep feeling of defenselessness—and they regularly removed themselves to “explore.” By which they meant, run wild into places nobody usually went and see what they could find there.
So Isolfr’s news was actually quite promising.
“Tell me more.”
“He says there’s a cavern about a day north, up a hillside. He didn’t go deep into the tunnels, but he said it looked natural, and there was a space not too far from the surface that was big enough for a dozen or so alfar to have a conversation.”
“A day’s ride,” she said. “Doable. But the, the aettrynalfar—”
“Oh,” said Isolfr, “I’m sure they have their own ways of getting there.”
Tin huffed. She was sure they did. Ways Galfenol would rather not know about. And moreover, she was sure they knew of the cavern’s existence already and had just omitted mentioning it to the svartalfar for some nonsensical reason.
“That sounds most suitable, and I’ll tell Alfgyfa to ask about it,” she said. “But opening negotiations with the aettrynalfar wasn’t actually what I was talking about.”
Viradechtis was stalking something through the long grass and flowers. Isolfr stopped fifty yards off, holding a hand out to indicate that Tin should stay with him so as not to flush the wolf’s prey before she was ready. As they watched, she bounced forward stiff-legged, came down hard, and plunged with open jaws. Whatever she caught—mouse or shrew or mole—it disappeared down her throat with one toss of her head and a snap.
“The Rheans?” Isolfr asked.
“More than just the Rheans,” she said, with a nod that indicated she nonetheless agreed. “We need more bonds between our peoples.”
He reached out, as if absently, and laid a hand on her shoulder without looking at her. “Right now,” he said sadly, “for me, that’s a problem for another day, Tin. Right now, for me … what I need is to find a way to make sure my people survive.”
She laid her own fingers over his stubby, pale, flat-nailed human ones. “I’ll do what I can.”
“Take Alfgyfa back to the Iskryne with you when you go.”
Tin looked at him crookedly. She hadn’t mentioned Alfgyfa’s apprentice difficulties to him. She wondered if Alfgyfa had. “She’s not happy there.”
“She’s not happy here, either,” Isolfr said bleakly. “And she’s safer with you.”
“About that, I assure you, she does not care.”
He grinned, obviously proud. Humans were all mad. “She was always a wild creature. But if she stays here, the best she can hope for … the best she can hope for is to stay at the heall and take Thorlot’s place, but it’s far more likely that she’ll get in trouble with one of the tithe-boys the way her mother got in trouble with me. And then, it’s not that the heall wouldn’t support her and her child, but I fear…” He held his clenched fist out in front of him, then opened it, as if throwing all Alfgyfa’s potential to the wind.
“She loves the smithing,” Tin said, reaching up to pat him on the shoulder. “If you had meant to choose for her, you chose well.”
“Thorlot didn’t start smithing until she’d borne four children and buried her husband,” Isolfr said.
And your lives are over so quickly, Tin thought, doing horrified math.
Kothran had decided that ambushing Viradechtis was more fun than hunting mice, and the two wolves were rearing up, wrestling, and throwing one another into the meadow plants with great enthusiasm. Kothran crouched over Viradechtis, growling like an angry bear. Teeth as long as an alfling’s finger sparked off one another as they fenced.
“Frey’s balls,” Isolfr said. “They’re in the stick-tights. Frithulf isn’t going to like me much when we get back.”
“What I don’t know is what you imagine the child will do with herself when she’s a human Mastersmith,” Tin said.
“Let’s live till spring first,” he said. He snapped his fingers for the wolves’ attention. They glanced up from their play-fighting, rolled apart, and shook themselves vigorously. Tufts of fur drifted on the breeze. They came gamboling out of the meadow flowers, their coats spiked and matted with dozens of burrs.
“One crisis of existence at a time,” Tin agreed. She nodded to the wolves. “The cavern will be made to work. I do not envy you the brushing.”
* * *
By the time Isolfr’s daughter had returned with the news that Antimony would speak with Tin and Galfenol, Otter was already neck-deep in preparations to send an army south. By the time the svartalfar actually headed out to attend their meeting, she was both neck-deep and fed to her chewing teeth with people who might know as much as they claimed about logistics but mostly knew how to get in everyone else’s way. Or argue everything. Recreationally.
One of these, alas, was Vethulf, and Otter was forced to enlist Skjaldwulf in a conspiracy to keep the redheaded wolfjarl out from underfoot. Skjaldwulf winked at her with great solemnity, and she asked no questions about his methods, just appreciated the peaceable result.
At least the planting was long since finished, and the crops swelling in their furrows. Otter tried not to wonder if they’d get the men back for harvest. A question with too many assumptions behind it, honestly, starting with the assumption that there would be any men coming home at all.
And if the Rheans got past those men, there would be no harvest to wonder about.
Otter and Thorlot both knew this, and it was obvious that so did Kathlin, who would also be remaining behind with her daughters. And they all knew as well that they might find themselves besieged in the heall. They didn’t discuss it—not once, not in so many words. But they all began stockpiling what stores they could. The challenge was increased because Gunnarr had sent many messengers to call men to the town of Franangford—men who had brought some of their own rations and equipment, but must otherwise be provided for—and because wolfcarls kept busy and irritated with managing fields camped full of strange men drank even more ale than usual.
Athisla had whelped her pups—a big litter of seven, all dog-cubs, and that was keeping the tithe-boys a little more occupied and a little less underfoot. Otter allowed herself to hope that Canute and his lumpish friends would be too busy competing with the younger tithe-boys to get
The complements of other heallan were arriving too, which meant stresses among the wolfthreat as well as the werthreat. Sending the wolfcarls out to hunt was a solution of long-standing effectiveness, but it was less useful as a tactic for managing droves and droves of wolfless men, which was irritating, as the wolfcarls—having wolves to keep them in line—were in general better behaved to begin with. But then the wolfcarls could be kept occupied by sending them to maintain order among the commoner soldiers. Still, Otter stayed as far from the camped men as possible, and kept Thorlot’s and Kathlin’s daughters busy about the heall without ever quite forbidding them to stray.
She gave Alfgyfa the warning, though she doubted anyone would lay a hand on Isolfr Ice-Mad’s daughter—and she did look uncannily like him, all ice from head to toe. No wolfcarl would be able to claim he didn’t know who she was. She was glad she’d thought to say something, though, because Alfgyfa frowned at her for several moments before her face cleared, and she nodded slowly. So Otter knew that Alfgyfa hadn’t even thought of the problem.
A drawback to being a woman raised among the alfar: she was not wary enough of human men.
In the midst of all the fuss, Otter tried not to think about what these preparations meant. She tried not to think of Skjaldwulf and Vethulf and Isolfr and—and Sokkolfr, damn his eyes, and Sokkolfr—packing their cloaks and their axes and marching off to kill and die. She looked at old Mar, curled by the fire where Hroi had once lain in his turn, and felt her belly clench.
But that was a problem she could do something about.