A black wolf trotted down the path toward us, out of the south. When its uncannily golden eyes met mine, I knew it was some manner of kin. The wolf flicked a look over its shoulder and loped into the trees. A chittering bird fell silent. Tremors brushed the soles of my booted feet. A metallic jingle chimed.
“There’s someone coming,” I said. “Horses and men.”
Where the path dipped, curving to the right, nine men came into view. Four riders had spears braced in their stirrups, with bowcases slung from their saddles and primed with arrows. One carried a musket. Five men walked alongside lugging packs and traps. They wore sturdy winter clothing and fur hats. Some had the white skin of northern Celts, while others had mixed coloring. Seeing us, they halted in surprise.
Vai touched my arm. “Be ready to hit the ground. I will stun them all.”
The man with the musket gave a curt command. The horsemen dismounted, and all knelt submissively. The leader handed his musket to a comrade. With hands open and extended in supplication, he walked forward. He was an older man with a dusky, weathered face and a beard streaked with gray. Something in the shape of his blue eyes and the cut of his cheekbones struck me as familiar, although I had never seen him before.
Where I had grown up, young people showed respect to their elders by never looking them directly in the eye. Although we were younger than he was, the man kept his gaze lowered subserviently. Twenty paces from us he pulled off his hat to reveal a thick head of dark red hair, veined with white and pulled back into a braid. Ten paces from us he dropped to both knees.
“Salve, my lord.” He enunciated each word carefully. “Of your presence, we know nothing before we are coming upon you. We would not be displaying our spears in your face if we knew. To us, grant forgiveness, at your pleasure. To our households, your coming brings honor. What do you desire?”
“Who are you?” Vai demanded.
The man glanced up as if to gauge how angry Vai was. In that moment, his gaze skipped to take me in. He ducked his head, hands clenching into fists.
“My lord, I am of the people called the Belgae. I am Devyn, son of the priest Mad Kirwyn, he who is beloved of Carnonos the god.” He studied me. “Your pardon I ask, my lord. How is this beast come to be walking beside you? Have you caught a spirit woman on the ice? She wears the black hair and golden eyes of the hunter. But the face she wears is the face of my dead sister.”
Vai looked from the man to me and back to the man. The shape of Devyn’s face was familiar because it was the same as my own.
24
Vai knew he could hammer them into the dirt, and because he knew it, they believed it.
“I am a magister of rare potency and considerable influence. My wife and I washed ashore north of here under unexpected circumstances. We seek shelter and assistance in continuing our journey south.”
“Your wife?” Devyn glanced at me with a puzzled frown. The other men cast surreptitious looks at me. “My lord, if you say so, but no shame is there to a man who is capturing a wild beast to burnish his standing in his House.”
Vai stared down the man until Devyn opened both hands and bent his head. “I expect my wife to be shown the same courtesy as you show to me.”
“Your pardon, my lord. My duty it is, to be escorting you.” He spoke to the others in a lilting run of words I could not really understand. To judge from Vai’s look of concentration, he was having a better time picking out meaning from the heavy dialect, and it didn’t appear he liked what they were saying.
Nevertheless, he handed over the food supplies we had taken from the cabin. In exchange they gave us all four horses, one for our gear. The two groups separated: We and Devyn rode south, while the village men continued north.
“How can they know you’re a cold mage just by looking at you?” I said in a low voice. “It can’t just be your good looks. Not every handsome man is a cold mage.”
“You can be sure I am wondering that myself.”
“Why every handsome man is not a cold mage?”
He smiled but did not take the bait. “We’re fortunate they were headed out to trap.”
“I thought with the horses and bows they might be hunting the wolf.”
“They consider the wolf to be the servant of their god, Carnonos. The god’s servant cannot be hunted. They’re troubled by you.”
“That wolf could be my half-sibling,” I muttered. “Blessed Tanit, Vai. Are these my mother’s people?” I glanced toward Devyn to find him watching us.
“The resemblance is remarkable.”
“If this is her village, and the channels we crossed are part of the Baltic Ice Sea, then it makes sense that the expedition she and Daniel were part of used her home as a staging point.”
“An interesting consideration. I will ask.”
But Devyn put off Vai’s questions by insisting only the priest could answer. We rode with little conversation for the rest of the day and well into the evening.
Night wrapped the world in silence. A full moon bathed the trees and the snow-clad earth in a glamour, painting the world in contrasts: the white shine of birch bark and the heavy branches of dark spruce. I felt like a forgotten ghost drawn back to an unremembered grave. It was so cold. Vai wrapped the fur blanket around me.