Half a King

Sumael would have made a fine minister. She had been thinking clearly enough on her way off the ship to grab two of Shadikshirram’s abandoned wine bottles, and now they packed them with snow and took turns to carry them inside their clothes. Yarvi soon learned only to sip the results, since unwrapping to piss in that cold was an act of heroism that earned grunted congratulations from the others, all the more heartfelt since everyone knew sooner or later they would have to present their own nethers to the searing wind.

For all it felt like a month of torture the day was short, and as evening came the heavens blazed with stars, glittering swirls and burning trails, bright as the eyes of the gods. Sumael pointed out strange constellations, for every one of which she had a name-the Bald Weaver, the Crooked Way, Stranger-Come-Knocking, the Eater of Dreams-and as she spoke them steaming into the dark she smiled, a happiness in her voice that he had never heard from her before, and made him smile too.

“How many steps to Vansterland, now?” he asked.

“Some.” She looked back to the horizon, happiness swiftly snuffed out, and upped the pace.

He toiled on after her. “I haven’t thanked you.”

“You can do it when we don’t end up a pair of frozen corpses.”

“Since I might not get that chance … thank you. You could’ve let Trigg kill me.”

“If I’d taken a moment to think about it, I would have.”

He could hardly complain at that. He wondered what he would have done if she had been the one Trigg throttled, and did not like the answer. “I’m glad you didn’t think, then.”

There was a long pause, with just the crunching of their boots in the snow. Then he saw her frown over her shoulder at him, and away. “So am I.”

THE SECOND DAY THEY JOKED to keep their spirits up.

“You’re being stingy with the stores again, Ankran! Pass back the roast pig!” And they laughed.

“I’ll race you to Vulsgard! Last one through the gate gets sold to pay for ale!” And they chuckled.

“I hope Shadikshirram brings some wine when she comes for us.” Not so much as a smile.

When they slithered from their wretched tent at dawn on the third day, if you could call that watery gloom a dawn, they were all grumbling.

“I do not care for this old blunderer in front,” croaked Nothing, after tripping over Rulf’s heels for a third time.

“I’m not sure I like this madman’s sword at my back,” snapped Rulf over his shoulder.

“You could have it through your back instead.”

“How many years between you and still you act like children?” Yarvi pushed his way into step between them. “We need to help each other or the winter will kill us all.”

Faintly, just ahead, he heard Sumael say, “More than likely it will kill us all anyway.”

He did not disagree.

By the fourth day, the freezing fog lying over the white land like a shroud, they were silent. Just a grunt now as one or another stumbled, just a grunt as one or another helped them up and on to nowhere. Six silent figures in the great emptiness, in the great, cold void, each struggling under their own burden of chill misery, under their own chafing thrall-collar and ever heavier chain, each with their own pain, and hunger, and fear.

At first Yarvi thought about the men drowned on the ship. How many dead? The planks cracking and the sea pouring in. So that he could save himself? The slaves straining at their chains for one more gasp before Mother Sea dragged them down, down, down.

But his mother had always said, never worry about what has been done. Only about what will be.

There was no changing it, and guilt over the past and worry about the future began both to fade, leaving only taunting memories of food. The four dozen pigs roasted for the visit of the High King, so much for such a little, gray-haired man and his hard-eyed minister. The feast when Yarvi’s brother passed his warrior’s test that Yarvi had done no more than pick at, knowing he could never pass himself. The beach before his ill-fated raid, men cooking the meal that might be their last, meat turning above a hundred fires, heat like a hand on your face, a ring of hungry grins lit by flame, fat sizzling and the crackling blackened-

“Freedom!” roared Rulf, opening his arms wide to hold the vast expanse of empty white. “Freedom to freeze where you please! Freedom to starve where you like! Freedom to walk ’til you drop!”

His voice died quickly in that thin sharp air.

“Finished?” asked Nothing.

Rulf let his arms flop down. “Yes.” And they slogged on.

It was not the thought of his mother that kept Yarvi going, step after floundering step, stride after aching stride, fall after chilling fall, dogged in the tracks of the others. It was not the thought of his betrothed, or his dead father, or even his stool beside Mother Gundring’s fire. It was the thought of Odem, smiling with his hand on Yarvi’s shoulder. Of Odem, promising to be his shoulder-man. Of Odem, asking gently as the spring rain if a cripple should be King of Gettland.