4. Einarr's Youngest

Jorunn looked up at him, her dark eyes full of quietness that envelops a woman close to her birthing time. She pushed her fingers through the clotted fur on his jerkin and grounded it between her fingers to clear away the dried up dirt: "You are the greatest warrior among the Raven, my husband. Do not shame your wife." Einarr laughed, embracing her, cautious, she thought, of the swell of her belly.

"The Shaman told me that the son you carry would grow to be a mightyman, a chief between the chiefs, a raven between the crows," he said with pride. Jorunn placed a palm where she could feel the child kicking: "I cannot wait for him to see the light of day and hunt in the mountains. He has already chased and killed every beast that there was in my womb."

"Let it be the last worry our third son gives you, Jorunn," her husband said. A shade came over Jorunn's face, as it always did when something reminded her of her first son, who had thought himself a man grown before the Tribe had granted him the title of a man.

Einarr shifted uncomfortably: "I should go." Jorunn, clutched his hand: "My husband," she said quickly, "My husband, it is not our sons that worry me. It is our daughters." Involuntarily Einarr looked into the yurt, where two girls were seated with sewing, listening to Hallveig's voice, their faces upturned to her. The blind priestess' hand clutched a pestle, and she grounded and grounded corn into meal. A spell of giggles came from that corner just then, and Dalla, the youngest, clapped her hands.

Einarr moved looked up at Jorunn, wonderingly: "So, my wife, what is wrong with our daughters?" Jorunn frowned: "You are not home often, my husband, hunting or holding counsel with your father's father. I… I watched. Einarr, your sister is telling them tales, fanciful tales about magic and power that Auril grants to a man… or a woman. Their little hearts long for such things. I…"

Einarr, patted her comfortingly: "So, she told them a few tales. My father's father tells of the dragons and Alfor the First Chief and plenty more things besides." Jorunn lifted her chin stubbornly: "Do not tell me that you have not seen the power of the tales. You, whose first son went to make war before entering manhood!"

"My first son never lived as a man, but he died a man's death, in the fighting with the Tribe of the Wolf, woman," Einarr replied, "War and glory attracts every boy who is worthy of becoming a man, tales or not. If you think that your daughters show you less respect than they should, then remind them of their duties. I would rather have peace in my yurt than quarrelling women. Be grateful that your daughters do not shy away from my sister, who was sent into my yurt by the Elder's will, like other children in the village." Jorunn shook her head: "You are not paying attention, husband. Nobody shies away from your blind sister any more. She is called The Wise among the women, and to her they go for advice, and ask to mind younglings."

Einarr sighed impatiently: "Wisdom is the only thing that she can find comfort in, Jorunn. She is ugly and blind, and will never be a woman to a man."

"I wish," Jorunn said quietly, "I wish she was not ugly and blind, and no woman at all. Then someone would have taken her as a wife and she would have been spinning her tales to her own brood."

That very night, Jorunn woke him: "It's time," she rasped, "Go for the Shaman, Einarr."

Groggily, Einarr eased his wife back, and noticed that she was burning with fever. Hallveig rose from her pallet and without saying a single word, started making a fire, and heating the water. "You know… how?" Einarr asked, half-way to the doors. The blind woman smiled: "I am a woman, after all." Jorunn stirred on the bed: "No. No. Not her. Bring the Shaman. Bring the Shaman, Einarr," and moaned in relief, as Hallveig put a wet cloth on her forehead.

"Bring the Shaman, Einarr," Hallveig repeated after Jorrun, "Have not you heard her? Or your son will come on his own." Einarr backed away from the former priestess. There was a faint smile on her lips, a knowing smile that went beyond the simple amusement of a woman over a man's helplessness in the childbirth room. Or perhaps those were the shadows of the night and the oil lamp.

Einarr ran to Otkell's yurt, and entered it without a traditional greeting, stumbling over something - it was dark inside, and sweet smoke of herbs filled the air. Einarr kneeled where he stood and felt for the obstacle that tripped him. It was Otkell's leg. For a split moment, Einarr thought that the man was dead, but when he placed his palm on the older man's chest, he felt its rhythmic if slow raising and falling, similar to the times when the shaman entered one of his trances. Hopelessly, Einarr called to him – and to no avail – as he knew it would be. The shaman could only waken himself. On the way back, Einarr prayed that Hallveig did not boast about her ability.

She did not.

It was his youngest's weeping that greeted him when he entered his yurt. That was all he could do, to step through the doors, before a faint chant froze him in place. "You are too hasty, Einarr of the Ravens, my mother's son and my mother's seed," Hallveig hissed, "I thought you would have attended with more care to your father's father. Rest a while." She took the childwrapped in the shawl of snowflakesfrom her breast, and lifted her head. Lifted her eyes… Jorunn's eyes onto him.

"Jorunn," he called unsteadily, "Jorunn…" A lump of blankets on their pallet was still. "Save your voice for the mourning days," Hallveig told him with a chuckle. Then, turning away: "Finna, is Dalla ready?" His eldest daughter came, leading Dalla by her hand. "Yes, Mother."

"This is not your mother!" Einarr raged, "How dare you to name this woman your mother?"

"A High Priestess is called 'mother' by the acolytes, Father," Finna said, "and the Forstmaiden wants me, so I shall be an acolyte as soon as we pass under the Ice Gate."

"This woman is lying to you, daughter, " Einarr screamed, "she has no power, no station in the Temple, since I took Auril's Eyes!"

"Then why don't you come and stop us, father?" Finna asked and tilted her head to one side. She looked curiously as he tried to break the invisible bonds that held him in place. "I thought not. A Priestess, Father, always remains a Priestess, a wielder of power. And power is not only in what you can do. It is also in knowing when to show your skill, and when to conceal it, as Otkell just learned."

Hallveig placed her hand on Finna's head approvingly, and looked around the yurt, her glance that of a proper mistress. "Go ahead," she told Dalla and Finna, "We have forgotten nothing." The girls scampered out of the yurt, their cloaks tickling his paralyzed legs. Hallveig, in turn, brushed past Einarr, then stopped, and turned back with a smile: "You have a fine daughter, Einarr." She flipped the corner of the shawl, to reveal the child's face. The baby's eyes, too large for her wrinkled red face, were covered by white phlegm and glinted softly.

"Auril looks with those eyes, Einarr," Otkell the Shaman had said. "Well, let her look at me," Einarr thought bitterly. "Let her..."

"Did you think of a name for a daughter, Einarr? I do not think that Ulf would fit her very well." The name of his first son, cut painfully into Einarr's heart. "I am going to call her Vigdis, for my mother, I think," Hallveig smiled one last time, and was gone. He was left to stand on the threshold of his own yurt, looking at the pile of blankets. When the spell expired, he still stood awhile, before coming to the corner where his wife lay dead. He took the blankets away, and dropped bodily to the floor. Under the blankets there was a snow bank, shaped like a woman. Einarr buried his face in the snow, and his tears ran with the melting water.

And there he was, the following day, looking over the forested hills at the sparkling glacier, high in its mountain seat. In front of him stood the Elders and his father's father, the Shaman. "I forbid you," Otkell said. "I forbid you," Sigurdr repeated.

"My second son has a yurt of his own, and Auril has the rest of my kin," Einarr said simply, "There is none for it, but for her to have me too.If she would have me."

Sigurdr took Otkell by the shoulder: "Your loss is great, but your son's son is one man. Let him go." Still feeble from Hallveig's spell that assaulted him on the night of Vigdis, the Eyes of Auril's birthing, Otkell replied in a voice of one who beheld the future: "It is not one man that I mourn for leaving the path of his forbearers; it is the sign of the things to come."

Einarr whistled for his sallow dog and skied onward, unchallenged.