… but then, they?ve done things I don?t understand before.

Rudi?s head went up and down the trail of sleds. The little portable stove on one was smoking beneath a cauldron. The Bjornings made endless pots of stew in early winter, boiling it thick and then freezing it in blocks to store in their cold pantries. The travelers had brought a good many of those bricks along from Ericksgarth; it meant a great saving in time and effort since you need only throw in some snow for extra water and put the pot over the fire until it was hot enough to be served.

Virginia oversaw the distribution of the results today. Rudi accepted a bowl, a spoon and a slab of rye bread, stale but with some sharp hard yellow cheese melted onto it. The stew was ground moosemeat again, with potatoes and peas and onions and carrots and turnip in it too, plain food but good fuel for the furnace. He?d put far worse things past his lips at need. ?I?ll be glad to get out of these trees,? the woman from Wyoming said, and looked around with a slight shiver.?Gol-durn, but it?s bleak country here!?

Rudi nodded gravely, though he had a flash of what it had been like in the Valley of the Sun amidst the Tetons last winter. It would be worse out on the High Plains, in the Powder River country where the Skywater Ranch of the Kane family had been before the armies of the Prophet overran them. There a wind could travel a thousand miles without a wood to break the hard teeth of it; they called that a lazy wind, too idle to go around a man-so it went right through like a spear instead. Riding after herds in a blizzard there… the very thought was enough to make a man?s stones ache and his nose feel frostbite. Not to mention that the commonest fuel in those parts was dried cowpats.

It?s all where you?re raised, I suppose, he thought. I don?t think it?s the cold that oppresses you, Virginia, but the strangeness.

Then he looked around at dark pines, pale snow, leafless maple and birch, low clouds the color of frosted lead. And remembered blossoming orchards below Mt. Hood, with drifts of cherry pink and apple-blossom white flying free amid a scent to make a man drunk; or lying in a clover mead near Dun Juniper with the bees humming beneath a sky of cloudless blue so deep a man could lose his soul in it and the High Cascades hovering on the horizon like banners of green topped with silver; or riding across the Horse Heaven Hills with the sun on his back and mustang herds running with the wind in their manes…

No doubt this place had its own loveliness; even now there was a stern majesty to it. He?d never seen it in the short bright nights of its summertime, or the quick flowering spring, or the gold and scarlet beauty of its fall plumage. Still and all?I?m tired of this,? Mathilda said quietly from beside him.?I want to go home. I want to be home. I want to be at a garden masque in Castle Todenangst and bored out of my mind.?

Rudi?s mouth quirked.?And it?s precisely my thought you?ve just given voice,? he said.?Though I might call it sitting in judgment at Dun Juniper, listening to a pair of stubborn crofters quarreling over a cow until I yearned to smack their thick skulls together. Yet then again, a chuisle mo chroi, darling treasure of my heart, where you are, home is. For there my heart dwells.?

A brilliant smile rewarded him, the smile that turned her strong face beautiful for an instant.

Heidhveig gave a slight snort, and Rudi pulled out a map Bjarni Eriksson had given him and spread it before her, a new one on fine white calfskin parchment, but based on an ancient guide for wayfarers called Rand Mc-Nally. He thought the blue and scarlet and golden border of writhing dragons and curl-tusked trolls was probably modern work, along with the bearded faces puffing wind from the corners. The trail they were following came down from a lake-frozen now-and debouched onto the shore where Kalksthorpe stood, its little harbor sheltered by a nook of land. ?Robbinston,? he murmured, reading the other name in brackets below Kalksthorpe.

Heidhveig nodded, revived by the drink and hot food.?That was the name before Kalk?s folk came… myself among them. Right after the Change; we knew we had to leave Houlton. All my family and friends I?d talked into coming east, and Kalk?s followers, and a bunch of others who thought we knew what we were doing. There was this barge full of canned goods-?

It?s natural for the old to dwell on the past, Rudi thought.

Her finger traced their path. The low hills gave way to flat land along the water?s edge; it was where the St. Croix-what the Norrheim folk called the Greyflood-gave out onto the ocean; sheltered still, but easy of access, and with islands and a rugged coast of fiords to the southward. ?The land is mostly cleared back a mile from the palisade,? the seeress said.?There are mills outside, here and here, and timber yards. Not much farmed land, just enough for summer pasture and truck gardens. The thorpe?s food mostly comes from the sea, and in trade down the river and from inland.?

Rudi was about to reply when one of the sentries sounded an alarm. They all looked up as the twins came gliding in on their skis, with Asgerd and Edain behind. His teeth showed a little at the sight of a man?s body slung over the younger Mackenzie?s back. ?We found him in the woods. Not long dead, and from his back trail, he came up from the place we?re going,? Edain said, laying the man down.?Arrow in the lung; he kept going until he couldn?t, then lay down and died.? ?He was trying to make Erling Jimsson?s steading, I think,? Asgerd put in.?It?s the closest.?

Thorlind made a sound. ?Olaf!?

She went to her knees beside the young man as she came up and saw his face. She took the stiffening body in her arms, holding the boy?s head against her shoulder, rocking him. Her voice was naked: ?Oh, Olaf, Olaf!?

Heidhveig pushed herself erect, leaning on her staff. ?I know him,? she said quietly to Rudi, underneath the muted sounds of her pupil?s grief.?He?s her nephew Olaf Knutsson, her younger sister?s son and Kalk?s oldest great-grandson, just fourteen. Something terrible must be happening at Kalksthorpe. He is… was. .. a very swift runner, for a boy. They sent him for help, but someone shot him on the way.?

Rudi nodded.?I?m sorry if we?ve brought ill luck upon your folk,? he said.

Thorlind looked up.?You haven?t. Whoever?s attacked us has. If you owe me anything-? ?That I do, lady, and freely I acknowledge it.? ?Then give me blood for my blood! I will raise a nithing -staff and curse whoever did this, but I need a sword to do the work.? ?I will that,? Rudi said gently.?By the Morrigu I swear, and by Macha and Badb Catha, and by the greater One that the Three make.?

Then his voice went hard and brisk.?We need a scouting mission. I?ll lead it.?

Ingolf cocked a brow.?That?s grunt?s work,? he said bluntly. ?Your more-balls-than-brains Majesty,? he added, with a dry tinge to his voice.?Grunts can be idiots. They mostly just get themselves killed. Bossmen… Kings… can?t afford to be stupid. Your life isn?t your own to throw away anymore.?

Rudi looked at him. It was on the tip of his tongue to say if I?m the King, I give the orders. But…

But nobody is less able to indulge a whim than a ruler, if he wants to be a good one. Ingolf has the right of it.

He sighed.?You?ve talked me into letting someone else do the work, you silver-tongued bastard of a man. I can deny you nothin?.?

Then he looked about.?Mary, Ritva, you?re going. And Edain. Are any of you Bjornings familiar with the land here? Fighters only,? he added.

The Norrheimers looked at each other. A few raised hands uncertainly. Asgerd cleared her throat. ?I?ve come here six times… no, seven, but I was a little girl the first time. My father brings hides and wool and butter after the first hard snow to trade for cloth and tools and stockfish. We stay a week or two, and I know the neighborhood a little.?