THE YNGLING AND THE CIRCLE OF POWER by John Dalmas

Baver had learned to cook Northman style, sort of. In the village, he lived in a bachelor house with two young, still unmarried warriors. An old widow came in twice a day, morning and evening, to cook for them, and he’d watched what she did. Watching, listening, and recording were his principal activities. En route to the ting, a six-day trek on horseback from the principal village of the Salmon Clan, he’d not only had his first experience in all-day riding on horseback, a genuine ordeal, but his first experience in cooking, and in eating what he’d cooked. It hadn’t been so bad. By New Home standards, he’d never cared a whole lot what he ate, as long as he was decently nourished.

That night he dreamed of cooking. People kept ap­pearing in his cook fire—which in the dream was much

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larger than ordinary—or over it in a big cauldron. The first time it wakened him, he’d been quite upset. After building up his fire a bit, and adding greenery to thicken the smoke, he’d gone out among the mosquitoes to one of the campground’s straddle-trenches, to relieve himself. Before he fell asleep again, the thought had come to him that in his dreams, the persons being cooked had all seemed to be there at their own insistence. And when he slept again, though the dreams recurred, they didn’t upset him as they had earlier.

It was the noise of boys playing that woke him to the day. When he got up, many of the adults had already eaten, and gone to the broad ting ground to talk or trade; wrestle or shoot or watch those who did; or watch the council. Baver relieved himself again; filled his waterskin at the stream; ate jerky, strong cheese, and hardtack; and tried once more to reach Matthew and Nikko, with no more success than the first time.

When he finished eating, his watch read 0806. He left his tent to go to Nils’s and ask when, that day, the North­man planned to leave.

Nils’s tent was gone, leaving the fire hole and a circle of pressed-down grass. While Baver stood staring, not knowing what to do, a boy came loping up, one he’d never seen before, tallish and gangling, with a narrow, hawk-like face and orange-red hair. He guessed his age at possibly fifteen years. On one shoulder the boy carried a bridle and light saddle; on his belt he wore a shortsword and knife. “Is he gone already then?!” the boy asked.

“It appears so.”

“Do you know where?”

“No. I wish I did. Were you going with him?”

The boy nodded absently, staring at the trampled grass of the tent site.

“Can you track him?” Baver asked.

“If the horse guards tell me what direction he started in.”

Abruptly the boy left, trotting briskly, and Baver fol-

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lowed him down grassy avenues separating clan camps, to the large rope corral of the Wolf Clan. It was guarded by a one-eyed old warrior with a rough scar bisecting his face, and by two boys about the age of Baver’s guide but somewhat huskier. The youth questioned the old man, who pointed down the stream. The Yngling, he said, had left an hour earlier with his horses: a single saddle mount and a pack horse. The Northmen were not rich in horses.

An hour, Baver thought. Not very explicit. To the Neo-vikings, an hour was only a concept, carried down through the centuries from pre-plague days when they’d had clocks; now it referred to an interval somewhat shorter than half a day, but somewhat longer than “a little while.”

The boy put down his saddle but kept his bridle. “What are you going to do?” Baver asked.

The question brought a stare before an answer. “Get my horse, of course.” Then bridle in hand, the boy strode in among the horses. Baver stood feeling foolish for a moment, then turned to the one-eyed horse tender. “Do you think he can? Catch up with Nils Järnhann?”

The old man grunted. “Probably. He will be hurrying, and the Yngling probably won’t be.”

“Why does he want to go with him?”

“Hans is apprenticed to Algott Skalden, and has under­taken to complete the Järnhann Saga. He composed a number of the existing kantos, and people agree they are virtually as good as his master’s. I suppose he feels he must follow Nils to know what happens with him. Though to follow the Yngling can easily mean he’ll never live to recite it in the longhouse.”

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