A glimmer of light as they lead the horses down the muddy, crumbling path towards the river. The very sky aflame. The clouds lit from below in searing orange, on top as black as charcoal. A sea of marsh mist. Hills rise as islands out of the thick murk. Lost amid those swirling wispy veils is the sun’s feeble disc, too craven and timid to show itself fully.
Tova slips off her shoes and puts them inside her pack and tucks her skirts into her belt, where they’ll be out of her way. The last thing she needs is to get them wet. She curses as she tests the water with her toes, but there is nothing for it. Beorn and Oslac are beckoning her on, and behind her Merewyn and Guthred are waiting. The river is high and swift-coursing, rising more than halfway to Tova’s knees. She tugs on Winter’s reins, urging her on. The riverbed is thick with mud which sucks at her soles, forcing her to tread carefully. She grits her teeth against the biting cold. One step, then another, then another. By the time she reaches the other side she can hardly feel her legs, they’re so numb; it’s a wonder her toes haven’t dropped off. She’s seen it happen: a decrepit pedlar that ?lfric found out by the crossroads after a blizzard. Barely alive when they brought him into the hall, his lips were blue and his fingers and toes purple, turning soon to black as they withered away. He lived, but he was lucky.
They pause on the north bank to dry themselves off and let the feeling return to their limbs, but they don’t dare tarry for long. By the time they’re on their way the sun has disappeared again into the grey. Tova wonders how many more dawns she’ll get the chance to see.
*
Three more days, maybe four. That’s how long Beorn reckons it will take them to reach Hagustaldesham. If they move quickly. And they’re going to have to.
‘The wind’s changing,’ he says as he pauses to look up at the sky. ‘Colder weather to come. There could be snow on the way.’
‘How soon?’ Guthred asks.
‘Your guess is as good as mine. Tomorrow, maybe, or the day after. It’s a feeling I have, that’s all. Just as in summer you can sense a storm in the air. You can feel it on your skin long before it arrives. It’s like that. If you spend any time at sea, as I’ve done, you learn to recognise the signs.’
‘You didn’t tell us you’d been to sea,’ Tova says.
‘I’ve been to lots of places.’
She has only seen the sea once in her life, although of course she has heard many songs and stories about ships and the beasts of the deep, and the lands that lie across the water, and the strange and wonderful creatures that live there. What it must be like to be out there on the vast, open whale road, she can’t begin to imagine.
‘Have you been to Miklagard?’
‘Not Miklagard, no. Never that far.’
‘Where, then?’
She wants to know more about these faraway places she’s heard of, but this time from someone who has actually seen them with his own eyes.
‘Yrland and Ysland. Orkaneya. The kingdom of the Danes. Sometimes to the lands of the Moors.’
‘They say that the Moors have skin that’s as black as coal,’ she says. ‘Is that true?’
‘Not quite. Not the ones I’ve seen, anyway. But dark. Much darker than you or I or anyone living in England.’
‘What about the Yslanders? I’ve heard they live without a king, and instead they rule themselves through councils, and that the earth itself spits fire, and there are giants living in the mountains.’
‘That’s right. Everything except for the giants, anyway.’
Oslac looks doubtfully at him. ‘The earth spits fire?’
‘Spits it high into the sky, and spews it over the land, too. Rivers of flame, flowing like water from crevices in the hills. Towering black clouds, higher than you can imagine. Ash raining from the sky. Sometimes at night, high above the clouds, strange lights. Curtains of green and orange, brighter than the moon. Dancing and swirling like dragons’ breath. Like the heavens themselves are on fire.’
‘Really?’ Tova asks.
Beorn nods. ‘I’ve seen it.’
There’s so much of the world she doesn’t know about. So many things she never knew existed. So much strangeness, so many wonders. So many places she would go, if she could.
‘What else have you seen?’ she says excitedly. ‘Is it true there are whole islands made of ice, just floating adrift on the waves? And there are snow bears living on them?’
‘I never saw a snow bear myself, but I know men whose word I trust who say that they have. Where did you learn about such things, anyway?’
‘In stories. I didn’t know they were real.’
‘I don’t doubt that they are.’
‘And the ice islands?’
‘Those I know about. In the northern seas you have to be always on the lookout for them. They drift with the currents across your course, rising like white cliffs out of the dark water. At night they can be hard to spot, especially if the moon is new. You need a good crew and a good steersman. Folk you can trust with your life.’
Merewyn asks, ‘What were you doing in Ysland?’
‘Trading.’
‘Trading what?’
‘Wool cloth for furs. Quernstones for walrus ivory. Things like that.’
‘Slaves?’ Tova asks.