Kragthong tugged his beard with two hands. Then he straightened and his great harsh voice boomed out. “I am Kragthong, Nordland ambassador to Dwanish, and I come in peace to this hall. Your enemies are mine, Thane.”
“By law, all ambassadors are admitted.” Without looking up, Drakkor carved a slab of meat and handed it to Afgirk. Kragthong glanced around and then spoke out again, louder than ever. “I travel to Nintor on business, Thane.”
Now Drakkor did look up, and he cocked a silver eyebrow. “What business?”
“In view of my advancing years, I have decided to resign my ambassadorship.”
The assembled Garkians murmured excitedly. Drakkor rose slowly to his feet, eyes gleaming.
Kragthong’s shoulders slumped. “And my thanedom, also!” The flash of triumph on Drakkor’s boyish face seemed to light up the hall. “Your successor as thane of Spithfrith?”
“My oldest son having declined the honor, I am minded to offer it to yourself, kinsman.”
Whatever was said next was drowned out in the roar. Vork moaned and rose uncertainly to his knees.
“Good luck!” Gath whispered, glad he was not in Vork’s breeches. Vork himself would be lucky if he managed to stay in them in the immediate future or sit in them afterward.
Then Gath thought that he would be more than happy to pay that price if he could be reunited with his dad.
Beaming, Drakkor filled a horn, passed it across to the ambassador, and filled another. He seemed about to offer a toast, and the excited tumult faded away. But the visitor had not raised the horn to his lips.
“I believe I have a younger son around here somewhere?”
“That is not impossible.” Drakkor’s eyes raked the hall, seeking that red hair.
Vork tottered to his feet and stumbled forward through the seated groundlings until he reached his father. He hung his head and waited. Kragthong looked him up and down, checking for damage.
Then he turned to his host. “A favor, Thane?”
“Name it!”
“I need borrow a whip for a couple of hours.”
The onlookers bellowed with laughter as the two thanes drank. Then Drakkor vaulted over the table to embrace his former foe and the Garkians sprang to their feet to cheer in deafening clamor. The future of the world hung in the balance, Gath mused, and these ruffians were interested only in who ruled the middle of a barren little island.
As he was about to rise, someone tapped his shoulder. He looked around and discovered the contorted figure of Twist sitting in an awkward heap behind him, showing all his angled teeth. Everyone else was standing now, so that the two of them were alone in a forest of legs.
“There is a sorcerer in Raven Feast’s crew,” came the whisper “With a votary spell on him?”
The skald nodded, fog-gray eyes agleam. “Come.” He accepted help to stand, and he leaned heavily on his crutch as he hobbled toward the door. At times he could move faster than a cat, but he would give himself away if he used power in the presence of the Covin.
In Dwanish Gath had been a giant. In Nordland he was a youth with promise. Unseen amid all the blond heads, he followed the cripple out. He had been feeling a little hurt that Kragthong had not inquired after his health as well as Vork’s, but that might be a good thing under the circumstances, and perhaps a deliberate precaution, for the fat man was much shrewder than he liked to pretend.
Twist hurried toward his house with his wildly rocking gait, showing no desire to talk on the way. When he reached the cool dimness of the hovel, he flopped on his chair, panting. Gath went and sat on the chest wearily. Red-hot hammers thundered inside his head.
“You are being a reckless, suicidal idiot!” the cripple gasped
“It’s the jotunn in me.”
“My brother was right—no one normally takes passengers to the moot. Skalds, or priests, but not boys.”
“There’s a law?”
“No, but you don’t want to be attracting attention.”
“I can row,” Gath said grimly. Three days to Nintor—it would kill him if the wind failed.
“Fill the kettle.” The wood-ash eyes followed Gath as he rose and moved to obey. “For what you did today, he may maim you for life. Pray he uses his belt, not his fists. If I tell him to, though, he will take you to the moot. He may even leave you wearing half your hide. But I need a reason. What use are you, stripling, tell me?”
Gath dropped the kettle and clutched his head to calm its echoes. “The stronger a sorcerer, the better his spells, right?” he said hoarsely.
“Is correct.” The skald frowned suspiciously. “And the Covin is enormously powerful.”
“Is also correct.”
“Much stronger than just you alone, Atheling Twist.” Gath looked around blearily. “But you tell me there is a sorcerer spy among Raven Feast’s crew. How are you able to see the votary spell on him?”
The skald’s fog-pale eyes glittered. He drew in breath with a hiss. “I am being meant to see this?”
Gath felt a little better. “Maybe. Maybe there are decoy votaries—and also real votaries. Or else the Covin is strong enough to watch you from Hub and does not even need spies. Before you and your friends hold your secret moot, you will deal with the decoys? Then you will feel safe?”
Twist fingered his tangle of teeth. “This is not honest thinking like a jotunn’s!” he said angrily. “This is sneaking!”
“I’m not all jotunn. You said yourself I know a lot about sorcery. I know dwarves, too. They think they’re straightforward, but they’re canny—a dwarf’s first offer is never the final price.”
That remark made the sorcerer look almost as nauseated as Gath felt. “I am sorry, Atheling. You just may be useful. But I want to know what you plan to do. I want to know what the Almighty’s trap is. And don’t try to lie to me.”
Gath stooped to dip the kettle. His brain seemed to swell inside his head and he straightened up again. If he told everything he might be left behind anyway. But that did not really matter—his own feelings were not important. The snappish little sorcerer was being surprisingly scrupulous in not just pulling the thoughts out of his head regardless. All that really mattered was Dad’s war.
“’The trap is simple. Zinixo’s pulled back legions everywhere on the excuse of fighting the goblins. It won’t just be Urgaxox. Jotnar, gnomes, djinns—everyone’s going to attack. War everywhere. He’ll let the Impire bleed and let the wardens take the blame for not stopping it—ordinary people don’t know there aren’t any wardens anymore. You said yourself that only sorcerers know what’s been really happening.”
“Ah! And then?”
“Then he’ll step forward as the Almighty, smash the invaders, and declare the wardens overthrown.”
Twist tutted angrily. “Of course! If I wasn’t a simpleminded jotunn I’d have seen that, too! But what do you think you can do about it? There is no way to stop the moot from launching a war, Atheling Gath! None! You must have heard the thanes who came here—they’re spitting blood already. The only argument left now is who shall be leader.”
“The rules have changed, Twist. The Protocol is ended. No warden of the north protects the raiders now. They may win to start with, but then they’ll be massacred like the goblins.”
The cripple thumped his crutch on the floor. “But I just told you! Nobody will listen to you or believe you. If they did believe you, they’d go anyway. They smell blood!”
Gath saw his victory and grinned in glee, headache forgotten. “I don’t expect them to listen. Only the other moot, the secret moot. Forget the old songs, minstrel! They’ve trapped your mind in the old ways, and no matter who wins, those ways are gone forever! How many sorcerers will be there?”
Twist made the clumsy movement that seemed as if his hump was shrugging. ”Fifty, perhaps.”
A longship crew exactly.”
“What?” The fog-pale eyes widened. “But we stay home and guard the thorps! Always!”
“Not anymore! The rules have changed! This time the skalds go to battle—and we’d better get them there before the main army arrives!”
Twist’s mouth hung open. Then he gulped. “Skalds? Priests? Women?”
“The lot!” Gath yelled. “All the sorcerers in Nordland. As many as we can get, anyway. The enemy is the Covin, remember? You want the jotnar to suffer what happened to the goblins? You’re going to go to war, sonny. To help my dad.”
Minstrel boy:
The minstrel boy to the war is gone,
In the ranks of death you’ll find him,
His father’s sword he has girded on,
And his wild harp slung behind him.
Thomas Moore, The Minstrel
NINE
Manly foe
1
On a muggy afternoon five days before midsummer, Rap emerged from the Way and strolled across the clearing toward Thaile’s cottage. Before he reached the steps, the pixie came around the side of the house, carrying a bundle of washing. She advanced to meet him, so he stopped where he was and waited for her.