'It's best to be prepared.'
'Well, you're carrying them.'
In the late evenings, when the House was quiet, they talked long with Katla, mining her for details about the lands beyond the boundary. The old nurse approved of Aud, and was garrulous and cheerful, particularly with a hot posset of wine and milk in her ample lap. She would sit close by the hearth, her wrinkled face shining, bright eyes flicking from Aud to Halli and back again.
'Of course,' she'd say, 'I knew Halli when he was even smaller than he is now. When he was nothing but a chubby fat babe, squalling naked by the fire! Ah, you should have seen his little bottom, smiling up from the rug! All pink and dimpled, it was. I'd pat it dry with—'
'Oh, I don't think Aud wants to hear all that,' Halli said hastily. 'Tell us one of your old tales, why don't you? About Svein or the Trows or something.'
'Yes, tell me, dear Katla,' Aud said. She was sitting below Katla in a posture of the utmost familiarity, nestling close against her knees; Halli, who sat in a chair opposite, was mildly irritated by the sight. 'Tell me of the founding of the House again,' Aud went on. 'It is such a fascinating story.'
Outside, the winter storm shook against the doors and windows. The fire leaped in the grate. The old nurse simpered. 'How can I resist your pretty face? Well, they say that when Svein was but a babe – rather less chubby than Halli, I don't doubt – his parents brought him over the mountains. A good many other settlers were with them. The valley was heavily forested then. They arrived in a pleasant glade, where—'
Halli snorted. 'Oh, this is the old one about Svein and the snake.'
Katla scowled at him across the hearth. 'If you know it so well, tell it yourself!'
'Oh, but he's terrible at storytelling,' Aud said. 'So tedious it's impossible to believe. We'd be asleep in moments. Please, Katla.'
But Katla was affronted, her face corrugated with annoyance. She took a long drink from her cup and wiped a milky moustache from her upper lip with a vigorous hand. 'No, no. Halli might be bored. We wouldn't want that.'
Halli gave a shrug. 'Why mind me? Repetition's never stopped you before.'
'You wouldn't think he was a killer, would you?' Katla remarked to Aud. 'He seems so inconsequential.'
With a glare at Halli, Aud said, 'Don't be so cross, dear Katla. If you don't want to tell it, that's all right. But I was wondering about one thing. When you told me the other night, you said this was the very first House to be settled in the valley.'
A curt nod, a sip of posset. 'Yes, yes, that's true.'
'All the other settlers dispersed after Svein's parents chose this site?'
'So the story goes, as Halli will remember, since he's heard it so very often.'
Aud wriggled coyly where she sat. 'Oh, forget about Halli; he's just a churl. How I love these old tales! So that means the way the settlers came across the mountains must be somewhere close, above this House.'
The old nurse cocked her head. 'It must be so. The details have been forgotten long ago. It's said great Svein discouraged talk of the old days before his time. He liked tales to be about himself – and who can blame him, when he was so above the ordinary? His story began here in the valley and we're his people, so that's where our story begins too.'
'Even so, I wonder if there's still a path up there,' Aud said, smiling. 'A high pass, a way to the world beyond. I wonder where it might go, what's over there . . .'
But now Katla's features had darkened. 'What an odd fancy, sweetness. What makes you ask such foolish things?'
Aud's smile faltered. 'Um . . . Halli was talking about it the other day, and I just wondered. But setting his stupidity aside, it's funny to think there might be a path up there that we'll never see. Would you like some more wine, Katla?'
'Fill it up and fill it high. Well, you can thank your lucky stars, girl, that you'll never see that path. If you did, it would be while running for your life with a big fat Trow slavering at your heels. Ah, what they'd do to an innocent like you . . .' The old woman broke off wistfully for a few moments. 'No, it's not a pretty thought. Good job Svein's up there with his sword, warding them off. That's what they're scared of – that matchless sword. With that in hand, and his silver belt around his waist, Svein never lost a battle. Not for him a sly garrotting or a treacherous stab in the back, like some people we could mention.' She winked across at Halli, who scowled. 'No, if you displeased him, he'd lop off your head in an honest, straightforward manner. Harsh, perhaps, but you knew where you were with him. Ah . . . those were the days.'
'His sword was forged before the settlement, the tales say,' Halli ventured. 'Impossibly hard and sharp; could cut through anything.'
Katla nodded. 'Yes, it's a pity we haven't swords like that now, for when Hord Hakonsson comes a-calling. Who in the kitchen's fault is that, I wonder. Not yours, sweetness,' Katla said, ruffling Aud's fair hair. 'Not mine, either.'
Spurred on by a surge of indignation, and perhaps by the posset in his cup, Halli leaned forward in his chair. 'Say what you like about the Trows, Katla,' he said, 'but they just come out at night, don't they? So why shouldn't people go beyond the cairns by day? Like Svein and the heroes did.'
Katla gave a hoot of mirth. 'I should think the Trows would be enough deterrent for anyone. Even the heroes were careful of their claws! But if that's not enough for you, breaking Svein's boundary brings disaster on your House – and on your person, more's the point.'
'What kind of disaster?' Halli persisted. 'What if a foolish, headstrong girl, say, should step beyond the cairns?'
Katla's expression became one of dark satisfaction. 'Such a girl would go barren that same instant. She'd be a husk, as arid as a poor old maid like me.'
'Well now,' Halli said, glancing at Aud. 'What sensible girl would risk that?'
Aud grinned lazily back. 'What if the miscreant was a boy, dear Katla?'
'A boy? Oh, for him the consequences would be even more fearful. But I don't know as I like to mention the details in such delicate company.'
'Oh, Halli can take it.'
'No, dear, I couldn't possibly say.'
'Oh, go o—'
'Well, if you must know,' Katla went on, almost in the same breath, 'if you force me to mention it, for a man the curse would work as follows. First his privy parts would suffer a sudden dramatic dwindling; then they'd curl up like a dying woodlouse; then all at once they'd fall off, plop.' The old woman drank deep from her posset and smacked her lips. 'So who in their right mind would dare?'
'Who indeed?' Aud stepped near the fire and took down the jug. 'Another drop, Halli? Your mouth looks rather dry.'
* * *
Little by little the winter waned. Snow stopped falling; the weather improved. Beyond the Trow walls the old snow was piled across the fields in undulating waves of crisp, etched dunes, sculpted and scoured by winds. One morning, with wan sunlight breaking through the cloudbanks, Halli noticed that the dunes seemed a little lower. Next day their crests began to sag and gape. When he stood in the porch he could hear the stir of water moving; the air swelled with the rush of dripping, the sound of the coming thaw.
'Good,' Aud said. 'Shall we head off ?'
'Not till we see grass all the way to the top.'
A week passed. Men went out into the block-hard fields. With each day the snow on the ridge behind the House retreated further into hollows, pits and shaded strips in the lee of walls. The slopes were patterned with dirty white streaks. Green stripes stretched to the cairns.
'All right,' Halli said. 'Let's go.'
The morning was still young, the pale sun clambering through the south-eastern sky, in and out of wisps of cloud. The wind that tumbled down from the heights held more than a trace of winter, but it was already the warmest day of the thaw so far. Sweat stippled their foreheads as they climbed.
They were halfway up the ridge.
Halli, somewhat out of breath, turned to look back. The House was still just visible away to the right beyond the h
ill's fold. Svein's road showed beyond like a length of dark cord, winding off amid the mess of snow-sodden fields. One or two people worked there breaking earth, striking it with soundless strokes; they seemed very far away.
His gaze rested on the steepled roof of the hall, which his father would never leave again until – very soon now – his final journey to his cairn. For a moment a pain pierced him, but he shook it off, drawing sharp air into his lungs. He adjusted his pack then, feeling the muscles in his calves and buttocks jar and tingle as he resumed his climb. It felt good to be alive and active again after so long. With a quick movement he scanned the sky.
'Think it'll stay fine?' he said.
'Yes. Not scared, are you? Holding back?' Aud was braced against the slope of the hill above him, looking down. Her hair was tucked into her hood, and this, together with the tunic and leggings Halli had lent her, gave her an oddly masculine appearance. She was finding the climb easier than Halli; several times she had sat ostentatiously on a stone while he struggled to catch up.
'Not in the slightest.' He drew level with three ploughing strides. 'It's a bit steep, that's all.'
'Well, you would go this way. Why not there, where the track is?' She pointed east along the curve of the hill. 'That's much more gentle.'
'Also more exposed,' Halli said. 'Our way takes us out of sight of the House soon. Just in case someone looks up, not that they ever do.'
'Do you want me to take the pack for a bit?'
Halli pursed his lips indignantly. 'No, thank you.'
'Just because I'm a girl? Fine by me. You deserve to carry it, anyway. It's your fault it's so heavy.'
He shifted the pack upon his shoulders. 'We might need them.'
'No, we won't. It's daytime. Well, come on, then. Where's this broken wall of yours?'
'Not much further. We'll see it when we clear that brow.'
The summer before, when he had spent time in the high pasture, the grass had been threaded with blue and yellow flowers; bees had hummed amid the drifting grasses, and the proximity of the boundary had – by day at least – been easy to ignore. Now, however, as they cleared the brow and found the little plateau before them, still half choked with weathered, crispy snow, the sight was altogether drearier. The hut hunched like a beggar against the slope of the hill; wind fretted against its stones. Beyond lay a ragged, undulating line – the broken sheep wall running between little spars of rock projecting from the snow. Still further off, and higher, crimping the blank horizon beneath the grey-white sky, rose the line of cairns.
All of a sudden they were very close.
Both Halli and Aud's pace slowed a little, though the ground was almost flat. Neither one looked at the other.
The cairns were grey-backed, moss-flecked, their stones interlaced with snow. Most were widely spaced, but some leaned close towards each other as if in secret confidence.
Halli and Aud stood quite still. Wind blew against their faces. There was no other sound.
The cairns were right on the ridge crest and the moors could not be seen. To glimpse them, it would be necessary to walk right up among the cairns.
It was easy enough. Twenty steps or so, thirty maximum. All they had to do was walk.
They didn't move.
Halli said, 'So, nothing's stopping us, is it?'
'No.'
'So we should do it, then.'
'That's right.'
'We've been talking about it long enough, haven't we? Why wait another moment?'
'Exactly.'
'Exactly . . .' Halli blew out his cheeks, took a deep breath. 'Do you want a snack or something? We could sit in the hut, have a breather, think about how—'
'I think,' Aud said, cutting over him, 'we should run at it, not walk. Get it over with quickly. Do you know what I mean? Halli?'
Halli, who had been remembering the fate of his ewe the summer before, and also Katla's tale of the half-eaten boy, shook his mind clear. 'What? Oh, yes. Run. All right, we can do that. And we should carry this too.' He shrugged off his pack, reached inside and brought out a hedger's billhook, wooden-handled with a thick, curved blade. The metal was spotted with rust and broken at the tip, but the edge was sharp. He hefted it in his right hand. 'Just in case. You want one?'
'No! Like I've said a thousand times, nothing's going to happen. The Trows do not exist, Halli. Stories and lies. That's all.'
'I hope you're right.'
'Well, if you want me to go alone,' she said tartly, 'you can scurry home. I'm going on.'
'Who said I was going back? Let's get on with it.' In anger, he slung his pack over his shoulder and seized her hand. It was colder than his and (he thought) shaking a little. 'Together, then?'
'Together.'
Then they turned their heads to the sky and ran straight up towards the line of cairns.
21
UNDER SVEIN'S RULE THE outlaws, thieves, footpads and brigands that had once plagued the land were driven down-valley or left to kick their heels upon the gallows in the yard. But the menace of the Trows persisted and, despite Svein's training, most men were reluctant to fight them. Their claws were sharp enough to slice through flesh and bone and pierce the strongest armour; their teeth were like needles; their skin was hard enough to resist puncturing by all but the finest swords. At night, provided they kept to the soft earth, they had an eerie strength in their thin, thin arms; only when drawn onto rock or wood did this power grow brittle and a chance come for their victim to break free. While the sun was up they hid in holes or in the Trow king's hall high on the moors; at night they scurried forth, seeking human blood.
Snow flew high against their faces; grass threshed their shins. Faster, ever faster up the slope they went. Eight steps, nine . . . They leaped across the old sheep wall. Halli's pack clinked and jarred upon his back. Eighteen, nineteen . . . Up the final rise. He saw in his mind the fragments of the ewe, the scattered pieces of flesh among the stones . . . But it was too late to draw back; he could not have halted even had he wished to. Twenty-three steps, twenty-four, and before them now, the nearest cairns, low-slung, ancient, tilted, further apart than they seemed from below. They jerked and jumped in his vision as if they were alive.
Thirty-one steps, thirty-two . . .
Aud gripped him tight; he felt her nails against his skin.
On either side of the first cairn they went, and their linked hands passed over the top of it. Three steps more, stumbling on the bumpy ground, Halli's mouth open in a soundless shout, fingers holding Aud's as hard as he could, her nails digging into him.
They ran, ran, and then the second cairn was passed on Halli's side and they were through, over the ridge crest and down a little way, out onto the forbidden moors, still running.
'Halli—' A tug came on his arm. 'Halli, we can – we can stop now.'
He glanced at her, wild-eyed. Yes. Yes, it was done. He forced his body to ease, and slowed, halting at last in unison with Aud. A final step . . . Stillness. Their hands remained linked for a moment before dropping free.
It was silent. Their chests rose and fell. Aud was half doubled over, palms on thighs. Halli still had the billhook raised; little by little he lowered it to his side.
They stood in a broad sea of grass and melting snow. A great green-white expanse stretched out on either side. Scattered here and there were strange black outcrops, sheer crags of rock rising like buildings; otherwise the moor was lonely, desolate, gently undulating. Ahead it dropped away, before rising again to a little conical hill in the middle distance. Beyond the hill was a gulf, then – seemingly no nearer than he had always known them – the familiar grey-white mass of the mountains.
Halli looked back. The cairns seemed lower than they had done, a double line of dark grey shrugs on the lip of the slope, guarding a bluish vagueness – the valley that they had suddenly, and so easily, left behind them.
Aud, straightening, gave her little barking laugh. 'Done it!' she said, gulping with relief. 'Oh, Halli! What were we
afraid of ?'
The grass by her feet erupted; something dark rose up. Aud screamed.
A small dun bird rose into the sky and, with a high, piping cry, looped away across the hill.
Halli had jumped back, billhook raised; now he was laughing. 'Corncrake,' he said. 'Just a corncrake. Don't worry, if she'd pecked your nose I'd have rescued you.'
'I notice you jumped away,' Aud said when she'd finished swearing.
'Sorry, sorry.' He was still laughing, conscious of a mild hysteria; he felt light-headed, thrown out of kilter by their sudden act. He knew he was grinning foolishly. 'I never thought,' he said, 'it would be so simple. I thought—'
'You thought a great big Trow would leap out from the ground and get you. Like this . . . !' Shoulders high, fingers bent like claws, a hideous expression on her face, she leaped at him, swiping left and right. He ducked away, grinning. 'It's nonsense, Halli, the whole thing. Where do we explore first, then? I vote for that little hill. We'd get a view of the moors there; it's not too far.'
But Halli had noticed something else. 'In a moment,' he said. 'Come and look at this.'
He set off, snow flicking from his boot caps, following the line of the boundary. Not far away rose a great mound. It was set amid a cluster of cairns, many tall and grandiose, yet all cowering in its shadow. It was sow-backed, humped and tapering east–west, and was positioned right upon the hill crest so that it could be seen far off across the valley. Where the sun had lingered, green grass showed under the snow.
Aud caught up with Halli as he stood beside the mound, his face suddenly still.
'This is . . . ?'
'Svein's. Of course. Look there, though. There's been a collapse.'
Not far from them, halfway along the southern flank of the mound, the soil had fallen away, exposing the bare stones of the cairn beneath. Some of these had shifted too, fallen from their old positions. The snow below was humped with scattered stones, and the rocks in the gash looked precariously balanced.
Halli's eyes were wide. 'Look at the size of the thing. It's almost like a hall.'
'Why are we whispering?' Aud said. She scuffed in the snow, located a stone and tossed it irreverently at the gash in the mound, where it chinked against a rock and lay still.