He really didn’t know much at all. Why else come to ask of women’s magic what a man ought to do for himself?
Taking a deep breath he looked around by firelight, and the lamps at both windows, and over against the far wall on a long table. It was warmer than he’d expected. He saw his vest lying on a second table in the middle of the room, among a clutter of objects: conjuring bones, a stone dagger, a small hammer, a carving of Thünir, a tree branch, twigs, soapstone pots of various sizes. There were herbs strewn everywhere, lying on the table, others in pots and bags on the other long surface against the wall. There was a chair on top of that table at the back, and two blocks of wood in front of it, for steps. He had no idea what that meant. He saw a skull on the nearer table. Kept his face impassive.
“Why take a dead man’s horse, Bern Thorkellson?”
Bern jumped, no chance of concealing it. His heart hammered. The voice came from the most shadowed corner of the room, near the back, to his right. Smoke drifted from a candle, recently extinguished. A bed there, a woman sitting upon it. They said she drank blood, the volur, that her spirit could leave her body and converse with spirits. That her curse killed. That she was past a hundred years old and knew where the Volgan’s sword was.
“How … how do you know what I …?” he stammered. Foolish question. She even knew his name.
She laughed at him. A cold laughter. He could have been in his straw right now, Bern thought, a little desperately. Sleeping. Not here.
“What power could I claim, Bern Thorkellson, if I didn’t know that much of someone come in the night?”
He swallowed.
She said, “You hated him so much? Thinshank?”
Bern nodded. What point denying?
“I had cause,” he said.
“Indeed,” said the seer. “Many had cause. He married your mother, did he not?”
“That isn’t why,” Bern said.
She laughed again. “No? Do you hate your father also?”
He swallowed again. He felt himself beginning to sweat.
“A clever man, Thorkell Einarson.”
Bern snorted bitterly, couldn’t help it. “Oh, very. Exiled himself, ruined his family, lost his land.”
“A temper when he drank. But a shrewd man, as I recall. Is his son?”
He still couldn’t see her clearly, a shadow on a bed. Had she been asleep? They said she didn’t sleep.
“You will be killed for this,” she said. Her voice held a dry amusement more than anything else. “They will fear an angry ghost.”
“I know that,” said Bern. “It is why I have come. I need … counsel.” He paused. “Is it clever to know that much, at least?”
“Take the horse back,” she said, blunt as a hammer.
He shook his head. “I wouldn’t need magic to do that. I need counsel for how to live. And not go back.”
He saw her shift on the bed then. She stood up. Came forward. The light fell upon her, finally. She wasn’t a hundred years old.
She was very tall, thin and bony, his mother’s age, perhaps more. Her hair was long and plaited and fell on either side of her head like a maiden’s, but grey. Her eyes were a bright, icy blue, her face lined, long, no beauty in it, a hard authority. Cruelty. A raider’s face, had she been a man. She wore a heavy robe, dyed the colour of old blood. An expensive colour. He looked at her and was afraid. Her fingers were very long.
“You think a bearskin vest, badly made, buys you access to seithr?” she said. Her name was Iord, he suddenly remembered. Forgot who had told him that, long ago. In daylight.
Bern cleared his throat. “It isn’t badly made,” he protested.
She didn’t bother responding, stood waiting.
He said, “I have no other gifts to give. I am a servant to Arni Kjellson now.” He looked at her, standing as straight as he could. “You said … many had reason to hate Halldr. Was he … generous to you and the women here?”
A guess, a gamble, a throw of dice on a tavern table among beakers of ale. He hadn’t known he would say that. Had no idea whence the question had come.
She laughed again. A different tone this time. Then she was silent, looking at him with those hard eyes. Bern waited, his heart still pounding.
She came abruptly forward, moved past him to the table in the middle of the room, long-striding for a woman. He caught a scent about her as she went: pine resin, something else, an animal smell. She picked up some of the herbs, threw them in a bowl, took that and crossed to the back table for something beside the raised chair, put that in the bowl, too. He couldn’t see what. With the hammer she began pounding and grinding, her back to him.
Still working, her movements decisive, she said suddenly, “You had no thought of what you might do, son of Thorkell, son of Frigga? You just stole a horse. On an island. Is that it?”
Stung, Bern said, “Shouldn’t your magic tell you my thoughts—or lack of them?”
She laughed again. Glanced at him briefly then, over her shoulder. The eyes were bright. “If I could read a mind and future just from a man entering my room, I’d not be by the woods on Rabady Isle in a cabin with a leaking roof. I’d be at Kjarten Vidurson’s hall in Hlegest, or in Ferrieres, or even with the Emperor in Sarantium.”
“Jaddites? They’d burn you for pagan magic.”
She was still amused, still crushing herbs in the stone bowl. “Not if I told their future truly,” she said. “Sun god or no, kings want to know what will be. Even Aeldred would welcome me, could I look at any man and know all of him.”
“Aeldred? No he wouldn’t.”
She glanced back at him again. “You are wrong. His hunger is for knowledge, as much as for anything. Your father may even know that by now, if he’s gone raiding among the Anglcyn.”
“Has he? Gone raiding there?” He asked before he could stop himself.
He heard her laughing; she didn’t even look back at him this time.
She came again to the near table and took a flask of something. Poured a thick, pasty liquid into the bowl, stirred it, then poured it all back into the flask. Bern felt afraid still, watching her. This was magic. He was entangling himself with it. Witchery. Seithr. Dark as the night was, as the way of women in the dark. His own choice, though. He had come for this. And it seemed she was doing something.
There was a movement, from over by the fire. He looked quickly. Took an involuntary step backwards, an oath escaping him. Something slithered across the floor and beneath the far table. It disappeared behind a chest against that wall.
The seer followed his gaze, smiled. “Ah. You see my new friend? They brought me a serpent today, the ship from the south. They said his poison was gone. I had him bite one of the girls, to be sure. I need a serpent. They change worlds when they change skin, did you know that?”
He hadn’t known that. Of course he hadn’t known that. He kept his gaze on the wooden chest. Nothing moved, but it was there, coiled, behind. He felt much too warm now, smelled his own sweat.
He