A few days ago he would have told himself that at least the party was staying united. The ability of the ex-slaves to endure hardship had been a great asset. Where proud warriors would have argued and fought and blamed each other, making something out of every blister or bellyache, Shef’s party had behaved to each other like—well, like women, Shef had to say. When Martha got the gripes one morning and might have delayed their start, it was Wilfi who acted the fool and distracted attention. When Udd, the weakest of the party, began to limp and go whiter and whiter in the face trying to disguise it, afraid that he would be abandoned, it was Ceolwulf who halted the march, dressed Udd’s sore heel with his own ration of sealfat, and walked by his side to encourage him.
Yet the strain was starting to tell, showing in bickerings. Cuthred, especially, was getting worse again. The day before Karli, still irrepressible when it came to women, had caught up with Edith as she walked ahead, and fondled her buttock for a moment. He and Edith had been bed-partners since Drottningsholm, when the chance came, and she had not protested. But Cuthred, walking behind, had said nothing, merely caught Karli a great sweeping blow on the ear. For a second Karli had squared off to him. Then he saw Cuthred’s ostentatious openness to the punch, knew that the counter would be lethal, dropped his shoulders and turned away. Now Karli was humiliated. Not as much as Cuthred had been, but there was enmity there now, and spreading as people took sides.
Shef tucked the stick back in his belt, looked up at the stars coming out in the frosty air. “Sleep now,” he said. “March at dawn. We’ve nothing better to do. We’ll find wood tomorrow, and Cuthred’s lake.”
When the leader weakens, then the army is hindered, so goes the proverb. When the leader has to joke, then the army is weak already.
Somewhere above, a mind was watching. Looking down at the little comfortless party, nipped by the cold and by the belly-pinch, one of them at least sobbing silently with an internal pain. It watched with satisfaction, tempered only by caution.
He survived my whales, it thought. He survived my disciple’s test. He carried my spear and he still bears my mark, but he does me no honor. Has never done me honor. But what is honor? The important thing is, he weakens me and mine for the day of Ragnarök.
Yes, thought the Othin-mind, I have slept little since the death of my son. Since they took Balder from me, and the best of my men, my Einheriar, failed to bring him back from Hel. Since then the world has been gray and dull, and so it will stay till the day of Ragnarök. And if we do not conquer on that day, what hope is there? But this creature, this manling born in a bed, wants to make the world better as it is, to give men happy lives before Ragnarök comes. If that belief spreads, where will my Einheriar come from?
He must die here and his thoughts die with him. And his followers too. And yet there is a loss there, a loss there as well. For the creature with my one-eye has a kind of wisdom—I wonder who put it there? Sometimes he reminds me of one of my other sons. In any case, he sent me a great champion for the day of Ragnarök, Ivar Slayer-of-Kings, who now fights daily in Valhalla with his fellows. And the one he takes with him, he is a great champion too, the mutilated one. There are no women in Valhalla to irk him, he would be welcome. Baptized to the White Christ he may have been, but there is no belief there now, he could be mine, come to me for my collection. But to do that he must die with weapon in hand.
It would be a pity to lose him. Even the one-eye, he has a kind of cunning, and that is scarce enough in the fields round Valhalla. What shall I send them? Shall I send my wolves? No. If the wolves ate them, that might be well enough. But just now they would eat the wolves and find them tasty. No, the whales failed and Valgrim failed, and the old iötunn was never mine but rather the brood of Loki. The wolves would fail too. So I will send them snow. And in the snow, my Finns.