Wolfsangel by M. D. Lachlan

goat!’

    ‘He’s supposed to be hunting murmuring birds with me but he can’t even find where I am,’ said Vali, looking at the man from a hollow in the ground. He was about thirteen, ready to go to raiding almost, but still laughing like a little child.

    ‘You’ll be beaten,’ said the girl with him. She was the same age, in a full skirt. She was pale, had long blonde plaits and in her hair was a whalebone comb. Next to her was a basket of herbs that she’d been collecting for her mother.

    ‘It’ll be worth it,’ he said, and kissed her. It was the first time, just a peck.

    ‘Get off me!’ said Adisla, standing up. ‘Bragi! Bragi, he’s over here!’

    And the big man had come running.

    ‘Prince Vali,’ he said, ‘you make things very difficult for me at times. Where is your spear? Where is your bow?’

    ‘I’m sure they’re around here somewhere,’ said Vali. ‘I left them down by the stream when I saw Adisla.’

    Bragi, a battle-scarred old warrior of around thirty-five, shook his head.

    ‘Those weapons must never leave your side, you know that. When the time comes for you to go raiding, and it is awful soon, what are you going to do? Leave your shield and sword in the ship as soon as you see a pretty girl?’

    ‘I think that highly likely,’ said Adisla.

    ‘You, young lady, can keep your mouth shut. Look at you, pale as a princess. A farm girl like you should show more signs of honest toil.’

    ‘This conversation could be regarded as toil enough for a lifetime,’ said Adisla.

    ‘I’ve had enough of this,’ said Bragi. ‘I’m going to speak to your mother.’

    The girl shrugged in a do-what-you-like way.

    Bragi pointed his finger at her.

    ‘I make no bones about it,’ he said. ‘I blame you for what has happened to him. Before he started ignoring the court and spending his time with farmers’ daughters, he showed some promise at arms. Now his weapons lie neglected and he spends his days at your mother’s house, whittling away his time in games and talk. The son of Authun the White Wolf a cinder biter!’

    Vali laughed. He had always wondered about that particular expression. Did cinder biters really bite cinders? If so, he wasn’t one. But if it meant he was happiest at the hearth, sitting beside Adisla and listening to the stories of the farmers, then it was true, he was a cinder biter.

    ‘I haven’t cast a spell on him,’ said Adisla.

    ‘No,’ said Bragi, ‘but you may as well have. Come on, we’re going to see your ma.’

    It was a stiff walk up the valley to Adisla’s farm and hot work in the sun. Bragi made Vali carry both packs and all their weapons as punishment for running off while hunting, and when he saw the prince wasn’t encumbered enough added a few rocks to the bags for good measure.

    Adisla’s mother was Disa, a noted healer who lived in a house above the growing port of Eikund in Rogaland, home of the Rygir people. In Vali’s time there it had blossomed from eight to twelve houses and so was considered a large settlement. Vali had been sent to Eikund by his father Authun five years before to guarantee the treaty between the Horda and the Rygir that had ended a bloody war.

    Bragi had been sent with him to see to his training in hunting and swordsmanship but it had become apparent very quickly that the old retainer and the prince were temperamentally unsuited. The only time they seemed to get on was sailing Vali’s little skute around the coast, hunting for seals and fishing. Neither ever said much on these trips. Vali was too engrossed in the sun and the water, the feel of the small boat as it moved with the wind like an animal. Bragi didn’t speak because he had a superstition that it drove the fish away.

    Vali was sweating by the time he reached the house, which was no more than a large hut. He was glad that it was high summer, where time began to lose definition and night was just a sliver of darkness in the broad wash of the