“How old?” I asked, not really knowing if I meant him or the boy.
“We must have been fourteen summers. She died bringing him into the world. He died just stepping into his fifteenth year.” The wind changed and shrouded us in thicker smoke. Snorri sat without motion, head bowed over his knees. When the air cleared, he spoke again. “I rushed to him. I should have been cautious. A necromancer could have left his corpse to waylay anyone trailing them. But no father has that caution in him. And as I came closer I saw the arrow between his shoulders.”
“He escaped, then?” I asked, to let him take his pride in that at least.
“Broke free.” Snorri nodded. “A big lad, like me in that, but more of a thinker. People always said he thought too much, said I’d always be the better Viking however strong he grew. I said he’d always be the better man, and that mattered more. Though I never said it to him, and I wish now that I had. They’d had them in iron shackles, but he broke free.”
“He was alive? He told you?” I asked.
“He had a breath left in him. He didn’t use it to tell me how he escaped, but I could see the iron marks on him and his hands were broken. You can’t escape slave shackles without breaking bones. He only had four words for me. Four words and a smile. The smile first, though I saw it through tears, biting down on my curses so I could hear him. I could have been there quicker, I could have run, found him hours earlier. Instead I’d gathered my belongings, my weapons, as if I were going on a hunt. I should have run them down the moment the snowbank gave up its hold. I—” Snorri’s voice had grown thick with emotion and now broke. He bit the word off and ground his jaw, face twitching. He lowered his head, defeated.
“What did Karl say?” I couldn’t tell you where along the way I’d started to care about the Norseman’s story. Caring was never my strong suit. Perhaps it was the weeks together on the road that had done it, or more likely some side effect of the curse that chained us together, but I found myself hurting with him, and I didn’t like it one bit.
“They want the key.” Spoken to the ground.
“What?”
“That’s what he said. He used his last breath to tell me that. I sat with him but he hadn’t any more words. He lasted another hour, less than that maybe. He waited for me and then he died.”
“A key? What key? That’s madness—who would do all that for a key?”
Snorri shook his head and held up a hand as if begging quarter. “Not tonight, Jal.”
I pursed my lips, looked at him hunched before me, and swallowed all the questions bubbling on my tongue. Snorri would tell me or he wouldn’t. Perhaps he didn’t even know. Either way, it was of no great consequence for me. The North sounded more terrible by the minute, and whilst I was sorry for Snorri’s losses I had no intention of chasing dead men across the snow. Sven Broke-Oar had taken Freja and Egil to the Bitter Ice. And Snorri seemed to think his wife and son were still alive there now—and perhaps they were. Either way, that was a matter between Snorri and the Broke-Oar. Somewhere between us and the northern ice would be a means to unlock the two of us, at which point I’d be off before the G of Good-bye had cleared the Norseman’s beard.
We sat in silence. Or almost silence, for it seemed as if Baraqel’s voice spoke just beyond the edge of hearing, gentle and full of music. After a time I lay down and set my head on my pack. Sleep took me quick enough, and as it caught hold the voice came more clearly so that in the moments before dreaming washed over both me and the voice, I could almost make out the words. Something about honour, about being brave, about helping Snorri find his peace . . .
“Bugger that,” I replied. Words muttered half-asleep over slack lips—but heartfelt nonetheless.
SIXTEEN
We came to Ancrath along the border roads between Rhone and Gelleth. Snorri travelled with a native caution that kept us safe on several occasions, holding us back amidst a wood as battle-ragged troops marched south, taking us into the corn when brigands rode by in search of wickedness. I was keener to avoid such encounters than Snorri, but my senses were better honed to detecting the approach of trouble across a crowded feast hall or through the smokes of an opium parlour than on horseback across open country.