He was a jarl’s son. He had been raised to lead men.
Surely he could learn to lead wolves as well.
He fell onto his pallet beside Sokkolfr’s in dull exhaustion every night, and it was half a day’s length before he learned that Brandr Quick-Tongue had bonded the gray-mantled ivory dog-cub Kothran and become Frithulf—he only found out, in fact, because the new Frithulf Quick-Tongue pitched his pallet next to Isolfr’s, grinning at the startled look on Isolfr’s face.
Blood and determination did not matter. A fortnight was not enough time; he was not ready to stand in Hrolleif’s boots when the Old Wolf and his sister made ready to go. It was high summer; the woods were full of game. The wolfsprechend need not carry much beyond his axe, a knife, his tinder and dry socks.
Still, Hrolleif clasped Isolfr about the shoulders before he went, and Vigdis pinned Viradechtis with a halfway playful growl. “Keep care of my pack, cub,” the wolfsprechend said, and squeezed a little harder before he stepped back.
Isolfr’s fear tightened his throat; he knew better than to wish them luck. “Keep an eye out for tithe-boys,” he said, as if he wasn’t a bare finger’s breadth removed from a tithe-boy himself. “Ulfgeirr says Asny’s packed with pups. He can feel six heads, maybe seven.”
“Fall litters are always larger,” Hrolleif said, and clouted Isolfr’s shoulder before he went. Isolfr closed his eyes and turned his head away, so there was no way he could accidentally watch Hrolleif out of sight.
It was unlucky.
Within hours of Hrolleif’s departure, Isolfr discovered the difference between a wolfsprechend and a boy pretending to be a wolfsprechend. He had no authority with either wolfthreat or werthreat, and wolves and men were more or less polite about letting him know it. He had Grimolfr and Skald to back him up, but he was painfully aware that Hrolleif didn’t need that, that it was Hrolleif who backed up Grimolfr.
That became more and more apparent as the days crawled past, and Isolfr began to notice certain men in the werthreat eyeing Grimolfr with a hard, speculative look that he did not like at all. And their brothers began scuffling with Skald more and more often, in encounters that sometimes looked like play and sometimes did not.
And Isolfr had not the first idea what to do about it.
He kept remembering, miserably, what Hrolleif had said: Keep care of my pack, cub. He was failing; he knew he was failing, and it was only made worse by the fact that Grimolfr was not looking to him for help. He didn’t want to be indebted to a boy, and Isolfr understood that, but he also understood that by not relying on him, Grimolfr was showing the werthreat that he, Isolfr, was not wolfsprechend and did not have to be regarded.
He lay awake most of one night, listening to Viradechtis’ contented snuffling breathing on one side and the twinned snores of Frithulf and Kothran on the other, and came to a reluctant but inescapable conclusion. He had to talk to Grimolfr. Privately.
He had paid careful attention all that day, noticing which wolves seemed to be intent on turning play-fighting with Skald into the real thing, and admiring the way that Skald kept sidestepping the point where that would have to happen. They would gang up on him if given the excuse, and even the massive Skald couldn’t hold his own against three or four or five wolves. But if he could keep them from making it serious … . Isolfr wondered despairingly what Grimolfr imagined he was going to do. Were the wolfjarl and his brother just planning to play a waiting game until Hrolleif and Vigdis returned?
While the discipline of wolfthreat and werthreat crumble to nothing around them.
Arngrimr seemed to be the most aggressive of the lot. His brother Yngvulf, called the Black, was a man Isolfr did not know particularly well. Although the werthreat was the werthreat, there were definite factions within it, and Yngvulf was one of the men who looked to Kolgrimna’s brother Hringolfr Left-Hand. And no matter what Hrolleif said about the wolfthreat giving license to pups, Isolfr would have had to be blind and deaf to the pack-sense not to know that Kolgrimna disliked Viradechtis intensely. Isolfr was not welcome in Hringolfr’s circle.
Kolgrimna was a means to an end; Arngrimr had designs on Skald’s place as Vigdis’ mate, and a number of the lesser wolves backed him. And Glaedir—a great yellow-eyed silver creature with a mask and shoulder-mantle like smudged charcoal, not yet grown into his adult bone and muscle—was not ready to tackle Skald on his own yet, but if Arngrimr moved, Glaedir would back him. And if Glaedir moved, black Mar would fight him, in part to support Skald, and in part because Mar, Skjaldwulf Snow-Soft’s brother, was ambitious, and Glaedir and Mar were jockeying for the same space among Kolgrimna’s suitors. And if Mar moved against Glaedir, Isolfr knew which wolves would follow him, which wolves would see their own chances. One of his father’s vassals had shown him once the trick to building walls without mortar, how the stones fit together—and how, if you moved one stone, the whole wall came down. The wall was the threat, and the stones were men and wolves.
Although Isolfr knew it was stupid, he was hurt by Glaedir’s eagerness. Glaedir’s brother Eyjolfr was Randulfr’s lover, Glaedir one of the sires of Ingrun’s litter, and it seemed wrong that he and Glaedir should move against Grimolfr and Skald, when neither Randulfr nor Ingrun would dream of doing such a thing.
But that was thinking like a wolfless man, and useless besides. He thought Randulfr might step in if things got too unpleasant, but watching the wolves had taught him that Ingrun and Kolgrimna had only an uneasy truce; if Randulfr tried to intervene between Eyjolfr and Yngvulf the Black, he might as easily precipitate a fight between the bitches as prevent a fight between the males.
This is what the wolfsprechend is for, Isolfr thought, rising in the early-morning quiet and making his way to the bathhouse, Viradechtis padding sleepily at his heels. And this is why the wolfheall must have a wolfsprechend. Because the politics of the wolfthreat were the politics of the werthreat as well, and Isolfr could not believe that he had taken so long to understand it.
He bathed with grim thoroughness. A few wolfcarls were beginning to come in as he finished, rubbing the sleep from their eyes and making the sort of early-morning conversation that Isolfr usually found comforting and now found almost unbearable. He knew that Grimolfr would be awake and in the records-room, making his plans for the day.
He left the bathhouse, let Viradechtis lick the moisture off his back as she loved to do, dried himself, dressed. Plaited his hair as befitted a man of the werthreat. And went, not happily, to talk to Grimolfr.
Grimolfr was waiting for him. Isolfr wasn’t sure how he knew that Grimolfr was waiting—the headache tingle of the pack-sense, his own awareness of Skald’s awareness of his presence in the passageway before he opened the hide-hung door—but he was unsurprised to find both Grimolfr’s dark eyes and Skald’s sun-orange ones already trained on him as he came through the door, Viradechtis at his side.
Urging him, in fact: she was already a bit of a bully, and she nudged the door out of his hand and swung it closed herself while Grimolfr watched with his brows crawling up his forehead.
And then that gaze switched back to Isolfr, and Isolfr froze like a rabbit under the shadow of a hawk, waiting for Grimolfr to speak. The silence twisted between them, and Isolfr clenched his hands together behind his back. It was how he would have stood before his father when expecting punishment, and as soon as he realized that, he forced his hands to fall naturally at his thighs, squared his shoulders, and drew a calming breath. Grimolfr still did not speak, but waited expectantly, patient as a wolf.
Patient as any wolf except Viradechtis, that was; the bitch puppy yawned sharply in the continued silence and plopped into a sit, curling her brush around Isolfr’s ankles and leaning heavily against his calf and thigh.
Chagrined, Isolfr glanced down at her, and caught her sharp eyes laughing up at him out of her ruddy, black-masked face. She shook her striped ruff into a semblance of order, and leaned more heavily, her every gesture betraying profound boredom. Isolfr snorted
, and when he looked back at Grimolfr, was comforted to find one corner of the wolfjarl’s mouth twitching upward. “She makes her opinion known,” Isolfr said, apologetically, and Grimolfr rewarded his feeble effort with a chuckle.
“She wouldn’t be a konigenwolf-in-waiting if she didn’t. Sit, Isolfr. The tale in your eyes looks a long one in the telling.”
Blushing, Isolfr hooked a three-legged stool away from the wall and sat. That it was Hrolleif’s usual chair only made him feel smaller and less prepared. He took a deep breath, Viradechtis’ head draped heavily across his knee, and busied his hands on her ears as she groaned and leaned into him. “I’m worried about the wolfthreat.”
Grimolfr chewed his lip and, when it became evident that Isolfr couldn’t make his voice heard without prompting, nodded and said, “Continue.”
It took less time to spill the whole slippery tale than Isolfr had realized it would, and when he stopped, he was embarrassed by the paucity of his information. “ … I’m sorry,” he finished. “I don’t know any more. But I think they’ll move against Skald soon. Arngrimr and Glaedir are both ambitious, and I don’t think he can stand against both of them—”
Skald shook out his ruff and dropped to his elbows, ears pricked. Isolfr looked at the big wolf and spread his hands apologetically.
“What do you think set this off, Isolfr?”
For a moment, he could fantasize it was Skald talking. Certainly, the gray wolf’s quizzical expression fit the question. Isolfr sighed and looked back at Grimolfr. “Hrolleif and Vigdis being away for so long.”
Grimolfr frowned. “They’ve been on long patrols before.”
“But not—oh.” He bit his tongue, and then, knowing the rule of the werthreat, forced himself to continue before Grimolfr could gesture him impatiently on. “But not with a new konigenwolf in the wolfheall.”
Grimolfr’s lip curled up again. “Correct. So what are you going to do about it?”
“That’s the problem, Grimolfr.” Still an effort to say the name. “I don’t know what to do, or—”
“You would have done it.”
“Aye.”
“You will need to know this,” Grimolfr said, stretching out his legs, “because someday you will have a wolfjarl of your own to contend with, and it is unlikely that you will be so fortunate as Hrolleif and I are. We were boys together and shield-brothers; we are both heall-bred. I know Hrolleif, and Vigdis knows Skald, as you will not have the luxury of knowing your wolfjarl. Am I plain?”
Isolfr swallowed. He is telling me I will have to lie down for a stranger, and support him even if I find him repulsive. “You are plain, wolfjarl.”
Grimolfr nodded, and continued. “Vigdis has mated elsewhere in her time, and if Skald were not strong enough to keep her, she might very well again—but it is, you understand, not like men squabbling over a maid when wolves compete for a bitch. A bitch has teeth, and a bitch with a will like Vigdis—or Viradechtis—will not hesitate to put them to a wolf she does not care for, even in her heat.”
“Oh.” Then he glanced up, eyes wide. “Oh. You’re saying I should let Viradechtis handle it. Since it’s her, as much as her mother, that they—”
“Hope to impress. Yes. Kolgrimna will not like it.”
“No,” Isolfr said, as much to himself as to Grimolfr. “Kolgrimna won’t. But Kolgrimna is not a konigenwolf. What does she hope to gain?”
“Status in the pack, the same as any wolf. She’s not a konigenwolf, but that does not stop her from wishing to be one, and Viradechtis threatens her place as second among the bitches. Kolgrimna is top bitch when Vigdis is not here.”
“Viradechtis is a puppy.”
“Viradechtis”—and Isolfr did not miss Grimolfr’s fond glance at the puppy, who had flopped onto her side and was unceremoniously chewing the webbing between her toes, moaning and mumbling under her breath—“is a very unusual puppy.”
Isolfr rocked back on the stool, but his wolf had his foot pinned under her shoulder. “You’re saying Viradechtis leads a faction, as surely as Kolgrimna or Skald.”
“I’m saying that if it is obvious that Viradechtis favors her sire, the wolves will understand that there is nothing to be gained by attempting to unseat him. And the ambitious males will be content to bide their time until she is older, because when Viradechtis founds her own pack, she will look favorably on the dogs who have impressed her.” Grimolfr coughed against the back of his hand. “So, you see, it’s not what you do, so much, as what Viradechtis does. Or doesn’t do. But she’s inexperienced, and she needs your help to read the werthreat and the wolfthreat. You must teach her, as your father taught you.”
They sat silently a time, Isolfr looking thoughtfully at Skald, who looked back at him steadily. Then he said, “I am afraid that if I fail …”
“Skald did not make me wolfjarl only because Vigdis favors him,” Grimolfr said, resting one hand on his brother’s massive head. “But the problem is between Kolgrimna and Viradechtis. It is not of Skald’s making, and it is not of his solving.”
“Why did you say nothing to me? If I had not come to you, would you have spoken at all?”
“You are not wolfsprechend for this wolfheall,” Grimolfr said. “It is not your place to question the wolfjarl.” The small room was close with hostility, something that was not quite a growl threading the air between Skald and Viradechtis.
“Then how can I do the wolfsprechend’s job?” Isolfr demanded. “They see that you think me only a boy, wolfjarl, that I have no true authority. Hringolfr thinks me as much a puppy as Viradechtis.”
“You are a puppy.” And Isolfr supposed that to a man of Grimolfr’s age, a boy who had only just seen his seventeenth summer seemed no older than Viradechtis.
“I am asked to do a grown man’s job.” He did not look away from Grimolfr, no matter how much he wanted to drop his eyes. The trellwolves’ hackles were up, and the growl was getting clearer. Part of Isolfr’s mind was coldly aware that if it came to a fight, Viradechtis would lose and might be hurt badly. But he also knew he had to hold his ground, that if he was to be the brother to a konigenwolf, he would have to learn to face down wolfjarls. “I cannot support you if you do not support me. Grimolfr.”
For a moment, it hung in the balance, both wolves showing their teeth, Grimolfr’s face stony, unreadable. And then the wolfjarl looked away and Skald’s ears came up.
“I do not look to take Hrolleif’s place,” Isolfr said. “But he asked me to look after the pack in his absence, and I wish to be worthy of his trust.”
“And I begin to see that you are,” Grimolfr said with a reluctant quirk of a smile. Skald yawned alarmingly and Viradechtis came to lick fondly at her sire’s face. “Very well, Isolfr Viradechtisbrother. Do you deal with this problem among the wolfthreat, and I will not treat you as the pup your face shows you.”
He stood, rolling tightness out of his shoulders, and said, “Let’s go, brother. We’ve work to do.” He stalked out, Skald pacing him.
In the silence after their departure, Isolfr looked at Viradechtis and felt an absurd, helpless surge of love. “We must work too, little sister,” he said. “You have learning to do.”
She cocked her head at him. He was not perfectly sure how much human conversation she—or any of the wolves—understood, but she thought of Kolgrimna, and he knew she’d followed at least a little.
He had to work slowly, showing her what she was too young to see for herself. He suspected darkly that a mature bitch who had felt the madness of rut would have understood instantly. But Viradechtis was a little girl—for all that she showed promise to match her sire’s size—and it was hard for her to understand why Kolgrimna should be jealous of Vigdis or why Glaedir should wish to replace Skald. She thought of Vigdis and Skald, he realized, not merely as konigenwolf and consort, but as the parents of the wolfthreat, and that was the surest sign of how close she still was to her babyhood. He’d watched Asny with Vigdis, watched Ingrun and her pups, who were only h
alf a year older than Viradechtis, and knew that this was something that would be changing, and soon. Had maybe begun to change today, even, because Viradechtis would have fought Skald if Isolfr had asked it of her. Fought and lost.
It was easier to make her understand that Kolgrimna was jealous of her. That was only natural, Viradechtis said, and laughed at him with her great gold eyes. And he managed to lead her backwards from that to at least a dim grasp of why Kolgrimna did not like Vigdis.
She understood, more keenly than he had expected, the factions among the wolfthreat, although for her it was a simple matter of which wolves would play with her and which would warn her off. Glaedir played with her willingly—she had vivid, delighted memories of the silver wolf playing keepaway with her in the rain—and Isolfr thought that with him, it would only be a matter of making it plain that Viradechtis did not wish her sire challenged.
But Arngrimr and his wolves would have to be dealt with through Kolgrimna, because it was in large part Kolgrimna’s enmity to Viradechtis that made those males restive. Nothing like an absence to teach the value of something, Isolfr thought, for he could see plainly, although it was not something he could explain, how Vigdis’ absence had caused this upheaval.
Well, that and Kolgrimna being a silly bitch.
Viradechtis agreed with him, which made him laugh, and he said fondly, “Let’s find some breakfast.”