“O-o-oh-“ The girl stood moveless for a space. Her breath fogged the crackling cold, till it lost itself in a sky the color of her eyes. Smoke had dulled her hair, which she wore now in a knot, Inuit fashion. But she stood straight and healthy, in furs a queen might covet. “Oh, Father, I never dreamed—“ She wept. Eyjan hugged and comforted her.
Minik had followed the talk. Clumsily, he patted her shoulder. “Excuse her,” he said in his own speech. “She is . . . not as well versed in right ways. . . as one hopes she will become in due course. Kuyapikasit, my first wife, will make food and roll out bedding for you.” He smiled, shy through sorrow on her behalf.
Panigpak the angakok came likewise from the ring of staring folk. Trouble touched his worn features. “Somebody thinks he heard something about a tupilak,” he forced out. However Tauno loomed above him, his gaze and his stance were steady.
“You heard aright,” the halfling replied. He and Eyjan had worked out beforehand what to say in the Inuit. Thus he told of the battle in swift strokes of speech.
The people buzzed their horror. Panigpak was worst hit. “I am a fool,” he groaned. “I brought that danger on you, who never harmed us.”
“Who could have foreseen?” Tauno consoled. “And, hark, there is more.
“When we returned, Jonas Haakonsson sent his carls to sum-mon the men of the Vestri Bygd to a Thing, a meeting where decisions are made. My sister-he listened to her, and spoke as she counseled him. The rest listened to me. We frightened them, you understand, although they did suppose we had been sent for their rescue by the Great Nature.” That was as close as Inuit could come to “God.”
Tauno went on: “We soon saw that little but the masterfulness of Haakon had kept them where they are. They heeded our wam-ing, what wise sea dwellers had told us, that this land will grow less and less fit for them until those who remain must starve.
“They voted to depart for the south. The lot of them. First they need to be sure nothing will set on their boats. That is my sister’s errand and mine-to get your promise of safe passage come sum-mer. Thereafter the whole north country is yours.”
The people yelled, danced, surged about; yet they seemed more excited than joyful, and joyful more because the feud had ended than because the victory was theirs. “I will, I will!” Panigpak sobbed. “Yes, my sending will go forth as soon as can be, to bargain with Sedna for calm weather and many fish. And my sending will likewise ask if she who rules the deeps knows aught of your folk.”
“Then, Bengta,” Eyjan said low, “you must decide your own tomorrows, and your child’s.”
Haakon’s daughter drew free. Tears had made runnels through the soot on her face; the skin shone hawthorn blossom fair. But she wept no more, her head was aloft, her Norse rang: “That I did last year, when I chose Minik for us twain.”
The visitors gave her an astonished regard. She clenched her fists and met it. Silence dropped over the Inuit.
“Yes,” she said. “Did you think he took me away out of lust? Never would he force a woman, or deceive her; he knows not how to. And we were playmates once. He would have brought Hallfrid and me to my father. I begged him otherwise, and in charity he yielded. Charity. He had a good and able wife- who has also made me welcome. Few Inuit want two, when at need they can borrow; I think you of Faerie can see how clean a help that is between friends. I? I knew not an art of the many an Inuk woman must know. I could only swear I would try to learn. Give me time, and I hope to be no longer a burden on him.”
“So you love him?” Eyjan murmured.
“Not as I loved Sven,” Bengta said. “But for what Minik is,
yes, I do.”
It was not clear how well her husband had followed her wa-terfall of words. He did flush and, in an abashed way, looked pleased.