the bale-fire goes out, to call on the advice of a king and a commander. You have heard our words, King Olaf Elf- of-Geirstath. What wisdom do you have for us?”
The figure in the carved chair rose to his feet and walked forward to the very perimeter of the corded circle. His face was grave, lined with care. In it there was something of the air of majesty: none, though, of the air of instant decision seen in every Viking jarl or skipper, let alone king. His eyes seemed to look through what was in front of them, to some event or chance beyond.
“Have I leave to speak?” asked Olaf. He waited for the growled assent of the conclave. “Then I have this to say, having heard all that has been said here on both sides.
“All of you know, I think, though you may not wish to say it to my face, that I am a man who has lost his luck. The luck of his family. I can tell you that I did not lose it, nor give it away. I only knew that it would go, and then that it had gone. I am different from other men only that I knew it, instead of finding out much later, or never. I know a great deal about luck.
“Some men will tell you that the luck of a family, the
“What I felt was like the feeling in the air before the lightning-flash. I knew the flash would come, I knew it would go from me to another. I knew that that other was of the line of my brother. When I was young I thought it was my brother Halvdan. Now I know it was not. Till a few days ago I thought it was my brother's son Harald, whom they call Fairhair.
“Now I am not sure again. For again I have the feeling, the feeling before the flash. It comes to me that luck is going to shift again, to pass out of my line altogether—and maybe to the young man Shef.”
The listeners stirred, and Valgrim's faction eyed each other doubtfully.
“Yet I was wrong before, over Halvdan. Maybe I am wrong again. But not, I think, wholly. As I grow old it seems to me more and more that luck is not a thing that one has or has not, like youth or strength. It is more like light, where a lesser light remains what it was, but cannot be seen any longer when a greater light outshines it. Like a candle still burning in a sunlit room. Except that maybe the greater light steals light from the lesser even, even puts it out.
“I have heard the history of the young man Shef. He brought bad luck to his own king Jatmund. He did not quail before the luck of Ivar. He was rescued, they tell me, by one of the god-born, the king Alfred, descended from Othin. Soon after the rescue that king was a beggar, to be rescued in his turn. I think this young man draws the luck from others. Where he comes, luck goes. He may take it even from my own blood, where I thought the luck of Norway rested—where it did rest, till you brought him here to challenge it.”
“All this is mere talk,” rumbled Valgrim. “We must have proof.”
“Proof comes from a test. Let us test his luck against the luck of Harald and Halvdan, against the queens Asa and Ragnhild.”
“How do we do that?”
“Agree to the test and I will tell you. But agree quickly, before the bale-fire goes out.”
The forty priests looked at the tiny glowing spark that was all that was left, muttered together. Then, slowly, both Thorvin and Valgrim nodded their agreement. As a Tyr-priest knelt down and blew gently on the last remaining ember, King Olaf began to speak. Before he had finished, Valgrim was already shaking his head in dissatisfaction.
“Too unsure,” he growled. “I need a clearer sign.”
“You may get a clearer sign than you wish, Valgrim. I spoke of light and luck. There is another way to see it. Some of you believe that all our lives are spun by the three spinners, Urth, Verthandi and Skuld. But they spin not single threads, rather a great web, the threads crossing over each other. Where the threads cross each other, they fray! Beware the man with a strong life-thread, Valgrim. Especially if that thread crosses yours.”
Vigleik stirred himself to speak. “I have seen the Spinners,” he said. “Their loom-weights are skulls, their shuttles are swords and spears, their web is human gut.”
“That is in the Skuld-world,” said Thorvin flatly. “That is what we mean to change.”
Chapter Twelve
The two men crept cautiously through the dark woods to the edge of the ice. The snow had hampered them badly, lying in uneven drifts in the hollows and forcing them to push through the tangled fir-branches. Yet they had not dared to use the paths through the woods—anyone who saw them might have challenged them, and while they were not forbidden to move around at night, they had no wish to cause stir or comment. Karli had grumbled steadily at first as snow fell from the trees and crawled down his neck, repeating that he knew plenty of places where they could find friendly women without all this trouble. But as Shef pushed on Karli had fallen silent, accepting the expedition as one of the strange preferences for a particular woman that even the sanest of men might have. It would be an exploit, after all, he told himself, to seduce a queen. Maybe there would even be a princess for himself.
Where the wood ran down to the ice, the snow stopped, brushed away by the wind, or melted by the sunlight that got through the fringes of the fir-trees during the lengthening days. Shef and Karli walked forward more easily and stood for a few moments looking out at the scene, considering their course.
They had made a circle away from the college and the town behind it, and were now on the end of a long point jutting out on the western side of the bay. On the far side of the bay, maybe a quarter-mile off, were the chain of islands that led to Drottningsholm. There was no moon, and the sky was covered by thick cloud driven on by a strong wind from the south-west, but even so they could see the tree-covered island nearest the shore standing out black against the murk of the sea and sky. Just visible as a black streak was the long line of logs which led from mainland to island. They could not see the guard-posts at either end, but there was no doubt they were there. The question was, could the guards see two men silhouetted against the ice?
“The wind has swept the snow off,” Shef whispered to Karli. “We won't stand out against the white.”
“But why isn't the ice white too?” Karli replied.
Both men knelt and looked closely at the ice-cover in front of them. It seemed black and forbidding, yet still thick as cathedral walls. There was no give in it, clearly frozen still all the way down to the mud at the bottom. Shef stepped out cautiously, jumped up and down in his leather-soled boots. Both men had tied rawhide round their footwear for better grip and less noise.
“It's solid. We can do it. And if the ice is black, better for us.”
Cautiously, both stepped out and began to walk gingerly across the ice to the center of the island before them. Both crouched, as if that would make them harder to see. At each step they planted their feet carefully and delicately, as if the ice might shatter beneath them at a sudden shock. Every now and then one or the other would tense, thinking he felt the first shiver that would mean thin ice. Then they plodded on again. Shef had his spear in one hand, the point carefully beaten and filed out once again to needle-sharpness. Karli had taken the wooden sword-scabbard from his belt, frightened to trip over it, and now held sword and scabbard together in both hands, as if it were a balance-pole.
As the island drew nearer both men began to breathe more freely. At the same time the sense of exposure grew on them. The trees ahead were a dark menace, they themselves out on the flat without a vestige of cover. Sense told them that the black night and low clouds covered them, that there was no light in the sky to pick them out. Nevertheless, if they could see the island, surely the island could see them. As they came up to the shore, they both accelerated their pace, darted instantly into the shadow of the trees.
They sat for a while, hearts thumping, waiting for noise of movement or challenge. Nothing came. Only the steady hiss of the wind in the trees.
Shef turned to Karli, muttered, “We'll go round the edge of this island, keeping to the ice by the shore. When we see the next bridge ahead of us we'll decide what to do about it.”
For some minutes they shuffled warily round the edge of the island. Once they caught a whiff of wood-smoke and stood stock-still. But the trees remained unbroken, not even a cottager's landing-stage jutting out into the
