She brought the ale to Sokkolfr and sat down beside him. He’d already dipped soup into a bowl for her.
The others filed in while she and Sokkolfr were already eating. Mjoll gave the young wolfcarls what-for when they came in dripping rain, and made them hang up their cloaks and towel off their wolves before they settled in to eat. “If she hadn’t said it, I would have,” Sokkolfr said, when some of them seemed disposed to grumble, and that silenced them.
Idocrase, the last remaining alf—or the alf returned, as the case might be—took a place beside Alfgyfa at the women’s table. Otter liked him. He was unfailingly polite; he made very little extra work (and did much of it himself); sometimes, when she was stuck with a long task that left her mind too free to wander, he would come sit with her and ask questions in his careful Iskryner. He asked questions about everything—the heall, the preservation of meat, her homeland, the Rheans, the fruits she chose to put up as preserves—and he never minded if she wouldn’t answer one, just asked another. It was better than the places her mind wandered to when left to itself.
And he worshipped the ground Alfgyfa walked on. Otter thought maybe Alfgyfa had noticed—as she hadn’t noticed the crushes being nursed by more than one of the new wolfcarls—and she couldn’t help watching, just out of the corner of her eye, just for a moment, as Alfgyfa greeted him, her clear body language: I saved you a seat.
Otter rebuked herself for being nosy in exactly the way she most hated and turned resolutely to her own table.
Thorlot served out soup to the children while Mjoll guarded her place at the women’s table from all comers. The young wolfcarls sat with Brokkolfr and Amma. Otter kept one eye on them, most of her attention on the food—which was worth it—and was paying just enough heed to the conversation to hear Sokkolfr saying, “Mar says Viradechtis and Kjaran have found Signy.”
The spike of relief was so huge that at first Otter forced herself to disbelieve it. “Say that again.”
Sokkolfr smiled at her. “Mar says his mates have found the Freyasthreat. They’re reunited. Apparently just in time, because a Rhean regiment had the Freyasthreat at bay against a river. At least, I think that’s what he’s telling me. There’s a lot of water smells and blood smells, but no grief. Or not much, anyway.”
“So they didn’t suffer losses?”
“Some,” Sokkolfr said. He glanced over at the new wolfcarls, but the young men were distracted by two puppies wrestling. One of them was that little gray Feigr, who was outmassed by a third again by his brother and still somehow kept winding up on top. He must have bitten too hard, because the other pup yelped and suddenly Amma was standing over them, her great nose in between. Athisla was a second behind her, but didn’t seem to mind the older bitch’s intervention.
“Grandma’s on the job,” Sokkolfr said softly, sharing a smile with Otter for a moment before he hid it behind his ale-horn.
Amma wasn’t actually the pups’ grandmother—well, possibly the grandmother of one or two of them, depending on which of the dog wolves that had covered Athisla had sired which pup—but Otter knew exactly what Sokkolfr meant.
They watched while the new Varghoss got up, setting his bread aside on the rim of his soup bowl. He crossed to his cub and picked the young wolf up—“He won’t be able to do that for much longer,” said Sokkolfr—and gave it a gentle shake. Feigr yipped to show surrender, and he hugged it close while Athisla watched intently, her ears pricked and her elbows hovering just above the straw-strewn flags. She didn’t rise, though, and when the cub snuggled in and began to lick Varghoss’ neck and ear, she relaxed again.
Otter went back to her soup. She surprised herself by finding an appetite. You can in fact get used to anything, I guess.
It was less than ten minutes later, though, that the cub was at it again. Varghoss seemed to be distracted whispering something in the ear of one of the other new wolfcarls. When that boy pushed Varghoss away—a playful shove, boyish horseplay, and nothing serious—Varghoss dropped a slice of boiled carrot down his tunic. The boy squealed and every wolf in the heall looked up.
In the silence that followed, the squealing tithe-boy stared at his knees under the table edge, and Varghoss attempted to look innocent. The only sound was the play-growling of wrestling cubs.
Brokkolfr, however, was not so easily misled by wolfcarls, especially not wolfcarls who had been tithe-boys before the turning of the moon. He didn’t stand. Instead, he glowered. And punctuated his glower by dusting his hands on the front of his doeskin jerkin. And said, “Varghoss. Perhaps you and Feigr should continue your dinner elsewhere until at least one of you learns how to act at table.”
“But—” Varghoss looked to his friends for support, but they were all busy studying their knees under the table edge as well. He looked back at Brokkolfr, who had not budged, and said, “Yes, wolfcarl.”
Then he stood, collected Feigr—he was not rough with the cub, at least, Otter noted approvingly—and headed for the stairs at the back of the hall. His cloak he left hanging on the rack beside the fire, but if he wasn’t going out again tonight, it would not be needed.
Yes, Otter thought. He definitely needed something to keep him out of trouble.
The thought kept her occupied through the rest of dinner, and through the sweet—bread baked in custard—and through the cleaning up as well. She left the dishes to several thralls working under Mjoll’s supervision, found her cloak, and took herself out for a walk around the darkened yard.
The rain had turned to a freezing mist, and all around the corners of things, rime was starting. She placed her feet carefully on the stones, breathing in air that chilled and soothed her. It was such balm on her eyes and throat that she would have suspected she was crying, had there been evidence of tears.
Out in the distance beyond the wall, Alfgyfa’s wild wolves raised their voices in exultation or lament; it was impossible for human ears to tell. Within the heall, Franangford’s wolfthreat answered. It was the most peace she had felt in days. So she walked, and thought.
When she finally went inside again, the fire was banked, the heall was asleep, she was chilled to the bone. The ends of her hair dripped water as the ice that had frozen it into a stiff point melted. Her skin was cold to the touch, and her clothes felt clammy.
She turned toward her room over the kitchen and paused with a foot hovering. It would be cold, her room. Without a fire, unless someone had noticed her missing and thought to start one for her, but that rarely happened when they were as understaffed and busy as they were currently. She did, however, know one place where she could get warm.
She turned the other way, and picked her way up a curving stair that led to the wolfheofodmenn’s quarters.
There was Vethulf and Skjaldwulf’s room, the door closed so that the unused room would not steal heat from the rest of the building. There was Isolfr’s room, the door likewise shut, and the draft-curtain drawn close across it. And there was Sokkolfr’s room, sealed against cold by a heavy tapestry.
She pushed the rug enough aside to slip behind it. Sokkolfr had not shut his door. Now Otter did so, silently. When she turned back, though, she saw Mar’s eyes luminescent in the night, catching and concentrating what little light was cast by the coals on the hearth. She paused to let the old wolf identify her; sometimes she thought his hearing and sense of smell were not so keen as they had been. And though she hated to admit it, the ripple of light reflected from the membrane in his eyes seemed dimmed, somehow, as if somebody had dragged an oily thumb over polished stone.
He made no sound, however, except his tail thumping once softly against the flags near the hearth. Otter decided that was as good as an invitation and forced herself to take a few more shy steps into the room.
Sokkolfr rolled over in his blankets and lifted his head from the warm nest of his bed. He blinked groggily. Mar reached out and put his white-frosted paw on Otter’s foot, flexing his claws as he stretched so that she felt it through the leather. She winced but
kept her foot still. It was affection, and also a bit of a practical joke or a test, though you would have to be a wolf to find it funny.
“I wanted to talk to you about Varghoss,” she said.
“Feigr’s new brother?” He sounded dopey and sleep-dazed. She refused to find it sweet, or in any manner charming.
She bit her lip.
“He needs responsibility,” she said. “Right now, he’s got authority. He’s the oldest tithe-boy—”
Sokkolfr hitched himself up on his elbows, bewildered but game. “Not a tithe-boy anymore.”
“His problem exactly,” Otter said. Carefully, she extricated her foot from under Mar’s.
The old wolf laughed at her.
“You need me to give him something to do? Right now? At dark moonset on a rain-frozen night?”
“No, of course not. I meant in the morning.” She took a step back toward the door, suddenly feeling shyness, confusion. But Mar was there, leaning on her thighs, and she’d have to push the old wolf out of the way to get any farther.
Sokkolfr struggled further upright. The blankets slid down his unclothed chest. “But you had to come tell me now.” He didn’t sound annoyed. If anything, he sounded hopeful.
“I didn’t realize how late it had gotten.”
“Otter, it’s pitch-black.”
“I didn’t want to go back to my room,” she blurted and felt her ears go hot with mortification.
“Then you don’t have to,” he said, as if it were no more difficult than that. He lifted the blankets in invitation.
“I’m cold,” she warned, stepping toward him.
“That’s all right,” he said. “I’m warm.”
She dropped her overdress on the bedside stool, stepped out of her shoes, and slid in beside him, hesitant but also drawn by the warmth. He curled around her immediately, but he didn’t take any liberties. She almost wished he would.
She thought of a story she’d heard many times and loved as a child, and smiled suddenly, into the dark. Maybe the wild doe has tamed herself to the hand.
He pulled the blankets up. “Othinn’s one good eye, woman, you weren’t exaggerating!”
Somewhere in the room, Mar was laughing at them both.
She took a breath. But she knew what she wanted. She caught his hand and slid it under the top of her kirtle. “Warm me up,” she ordered.
So he did.
* * *
Alfgyfa sat at breakfast, wrapped in her gold-patched cloak and trying to work out in her head why the steel and the bindrunes seemed to be inimical to each other. She’d been through five different fully articulated and highly plausible theories and was now working on her sixth—and remained baffled and infuriated in equal measure.
Idocrase, beside her, sipped mint tea and nibbled on a leftover raisin-studded saffron bun from the night before. He’d toasted it over the coals, and the butter and jam he’d spread it with dripped temptingly over his fingers. He didn’t seem to be paying it the sort of attention one ought, however, as his nose was nearly touching the pages of his record book as he bent over them, squinting at variations on a bindrune he was puzzling out. Alfgyfa knew he used spectacles when he was scribing, and she wondered why he wasn’t wearing them. Or maybe it was the inherent nature of bindrunes to be difficult to see.
She reached out and snagged the other half of his bun off the tin plate at his elbow. He didn’t even flick his eyelashes in her direction when she stuffed the corner into her mouth and took a big bite.
“You’re welcome.”
She swallowed, licked jammy butter off her fingers, and smiled. Idocrase met her gaze and smiled back.
At that moment, Sokkolfr stood up from where he had been sitting with Otter. He raised his hand for attention and got it, not the least because Mar limped up beside him and leaned a shoulder on Sokkolfr’s thigh.
“Congratulations, wolfcarls!” Sokkolfr said. “And don’t get too comfortable. Because in order to practice his leadership skills, Varghoss will be taking us on a hunt today.”
Varghoss looked up, shock and surprise quickly replaced with a small glow of pleasure. Brokkolfr and Amma shared a look, and Brokkolfr offered her the remains of cold shoulder and scrambled egg on his plate. She accepted daintily, washing the pewter with a thick pink tongue while Athisla watched enviously.
Alfgyfa stood up. “May I come on the hunt, wolfcarl? I know how to handle a spear.”
“Oh,” Idocrase said. He didn’t stand, but raised one hand. “I should also like to assist, if it is possible?”
Sokkolfr pursed his lips. He glanced at Brokkolfr—not, Alfgyfa noted, at Athisla’s brother Ulfhundr—and Brokkolfr must have given him some tiny gesture of agreement. Or perhaps it passed wolf to wolf, because when Sokkolfr looked back at them, it was obvious that the answer was yes even before he said, “Get your boots on.”
They set out not much later—seven new wolfcarls, seven pups bouncing at everything, two mature and more-or-less sensible bitches and their brothers, Mar, Sokkolfr, Alfgyfa, and Idocrase. Otter had had to give Sokkolfr an extra hug before she let him go, and Alfgyfa wondered if that meant what she thought it did. The air was raw but not unpleasantly so. The earth was moist underfoot, but rain had given way to curling mist and condensation.
Varghoss seemed at first uncertain with his sudden elevation to authority. He fussed so much, in fact, that Alfgyfa reached out to Mar and sent the crafty old wolf an image of a harried mother duck fussing over her ducklings. Mar turned to her and laughed, and Sokkolfr shot Alfgyfa such a look of mock-horror that she knew Mar had passed it on to his temporary brother. Alfgyfa winked and kept some approximation of a straight face.
When they had reached the edge of the wood, Varghoss turned to Sokkolfr and said, “What, then, should we hunt?”
“You’re the master,” Sokkolfr said. “What do you feel your pack has the strength to manage?”
Varghoss looked from one to the next of them. Alfgyfa felt his eye skim over her appreciatively, though not in an offensively lingering manner. She stopped herself from reflexively stepping closer to Idocrase.
“Or what can we possibly sneak up on?” Varghoss asked.
Sokkolfr twitched a quick smile.
“I’m of a mind to say venison,” Varghoss said. “But I can’t imagine these pups being ready to run down a deer yet.” He looked down at the wolf cubs. “Squirrels? How do we feel about squirrels?”
Pups bounced and yipped and knocked one another rolling in the leaf piles. Two of the bigger pups slammed into Alfgyfa’s ankle while wrestling. They hit hard enough that she had to steady herself on a spruce, and she drew back sap-sticky fingers.
At least Varghoss was showing some discipline. And some sense. She’d have expected this particular cocky young man to take after the biggest game available.
Not that squirrels were going to be easy with the spear resting on her shoulder. She wished she’d brought a bow.
She was lousy with a bow, but she wished she’d brought one anyway.
* * *
There were very few squirrels this close to the heall, for some unfathomable reason. And the ones who did venture into the den of wolves were wary and very, very fast. But as the little hunting party ventured deeper into the wood, they got beyond the range foraged by wolves and pigs and village children. More acorns crunched underfoot, and squirrels were so thick in the trees they almost seemed to move in flocks, like birds. They chattered and scolded, too, and hurled acorns—which did nothing to endear them to the cubs.
“Well,” Sokkolfr said in a low voice, watching fat little Feigr stand on his hind legs and bark up the trunk of a pine, “at least they’re well on their way to confirming the traditional enmity of their people and squirrelkind.”
“We should have brought terriers,” Alfgyfa replied, equally softly.
That got a smirk. “They’ve had enough practice ratting in the basements. It’s time they got to stalk something that can climb.”
Varghoss
finally got the cubs and wolfcarls to spread out over a broader area, each one just visible to the next through the open space beneath the ancient trees. That seemed to work slightly better. The cubs still didn’t catch anything, but they got closer. And the squirrels seemed more intimidated. One of the bigger cubs even got a mouthful of tail fur and a nasty little bite on the nose for his troubles.
Athisla, who had been hanging back with Mar and Amma to let the younglings practice, went over to comfort him. After a brief inspection, she licked the dab of blood off his face, nosed him hard, and wandered back over to the adults with her tail waving lazily.
They’d set a harder task for the cubs than maybe they meant to—the mist hugged scents close and blocked the lines of sight. But, as Brokkolfr pointed out to Idocrase when the alf began asking interested questions—alfar were always interested in things, and Idocrase more so than most—it didn’t do a cub any harm to learn that some things in life were frustrating and would have to be outsmarted rather than being charged through.
They still hadn’t caught a single squirrel by midday, when they snapped out their cloaks over damp logs in a convenient clearing and settled in for lunch. Athisla lay down so the pups could nurse. Amma, who was early in her pregnancy but an experienced mother, already had some milk, and flopped down beside her. A litter this large was a burden on the mother, even when the pups were old enough—as these were—to take quite a bit of solid food as well.
The humans dined on bread, fresh apples, dried plums, potted meat, and wedges of cheese.
Alfgyfa felt Greensmoke’s trickle of envy and grief inside her as she thought about the cubs. Listening—feeling—Alfgyfa understood that the largest litter Greensmoke had raised to adulthood was three dog pups, and she had started with five, one a konigenwolf.
Not all of ours survive either, Alfgyfa replied, wrapping the phrase in consolation and shared sorrow. Only after she’d sent it did she realize that she had thought of the wolfheall as hers.