Chapter Text
Jack’s brown eyes surveyed the vast emptiness of the heath in front of him. Heather and gorse for leagues and leagues, as far as the eye could see. And it could see far; the day was hot and clear, and gnats were out in force. He batted them away with a callused hand and continued to search the landscape for a yellow head and maybe a pony or two. Thorgil had been absent for a long time, since right after their breakfast. The moors were alive with the droning of bugs and the pipit, pipit of the small brown birds that populated the moorland around them. Amongst the general useless chatter of the diminutive birds around her, earlier that day Thorgil had heard a pair of peet larks prattling along about a herd of “hoof-pounding four legged beasts” that were disturbing the grubs in the area that they were attempting to eat.
After a few years on the Islands of the Blessed, with all its teachings, along with Thorgil’s tutoring, Jack found he could understand much of what the bobbing birds were saying if he concentrated hard enough. As they munched on rather hard travelling scones, Jack looked up from his meager meal and saw that the shield maiden’s grey eyes were already trained on him.
Her eyes took on the color of the heather they had decided to rest upon to eat, they flashed purple at him as she spoke with a hunk of pastry rolling around in her mouth.
“Hear that, Jack?”
“Hm?”
Jack had heard it. He knew exactly what Thorgil was thinking. But, it was hot, and it was early, and would it be so bad to just lay around for a few hours before they started to move along once more?
“You heard it, you veslingr! You looked into my eyes as those pea brains chattered away about them!”
“Did I? All I heard was beautiful bird song.”
He didn’t even flinch as the bedroll hit him in the chest. Jack calmly sipped from his waterskin, watching and smiling as Thorgil’s face got increasingly red. Whether she was mad that throwing something at him hadn’t deterred him, or the fact that he wouldn’t acknowledge what the peet larks had said, it was unclear. Perhaps she had been mad at him for a while, and his little bout of teasing brought her snit to culmination. From the neck up, her skin was flushed, making the little nicks from swordplay on her face grow whiter, and her scars from the troll bear flare up in scarlet. She tore up a handful of heather and threw it at Jack’s head.
“Stop teasing me!” she cried out.
Jack stopped smiling and attempted to get most of the purple plant out of his curling hair. “Yes, I heard it,” he said. “But what is the point of going out of our way to find some ponies? Walking is fine.”
“It will shorten our journey. We have walked for weeks and weeks through forests and tiny Gaelic villages and I am through with it. Do you wish to walk the whole way to Niðavellir?”
“You are the only one who enjoys riding, princess,” Jack reminded her. He decided not to mention that they couldn’t walk to Niðavellir at all, as it was across the sea. “Besides, who knows what is out on this moor? All these flies, won’t there be a fen or a mire near? Having ponies would just hinder us.”
“Hladhǫnd,” Thorgil sneered. “Dragon Tongue’s heir, scared off by spongy ground. I will leave my things here. You watch, and I’ll search for these ponies.”
She stomped off, leather boots flattening the defenseless heather, her now long blonde hair swinging with the momentum of her angry movements.
Jack let out a sigh. The only thing to do then was wait.
And wait.
Around midday is when he started to worry. There really was the danger of a fen in the land around them. Jack had not forgotten the fate that had nearly befallen Lucy. He plucked nervously at a loose string on his tunic, trying to banish images of Thorgil being swallowed up by the land from his head. He gnawed on a bit of smoked fish to distract himself. This little adventure he was on was part of his studies, and certainly, he should have had St. Columba’s staff in his hands, should have been trying to glean some knowledge from the slender piece of wood. But the boy could not focus on the life force with the thought of Thorgil distracting him. And besides, there were too many flies buzzing around to clear his mind completely.
As the midday meal approached , Jack finally spotted a cloaked figure on the back of a stout grey pony. Another pony was close behind, probably being led by nothing more than Thorgil’s word.
Jack stood up from his spot in the heather, and let out a mild curse at the prickly feeling up and down his legs. He stamped around to get the feeling back into his limbs, all the while waving at Thorgil, in case she wasn’t sure where they had camped.
“You look ridiculous,” she said, as soon as she was within earshot.
“Aye,” Jack replied. “But I wanted to be sure that you would see me.” He wasn’t sure if she was still mad, so he decided to go with a more peaceful branch of conversation. “I see you found the ponies.”
“They were rather close, but I just led these two around for a little while just to make you wait.” Thorgil gave him a wicked smile. She began to gather all their bags, pulling a piece of rope out of Jack’s pack to bundle everything together. “Now that we have them, we best get moving while there is still light. I’d like to get to the coast before winter sets in.”
“Thorgil, it is not even Midsummer.”
She laughed. “At the rate you wish to go, we won’t get to my homeland until my hair is white.”
Jack huffed. “We have plenty of time. But it would be nice to get to the Northland before the winter storms begin.”
“Yes. That’s why you must get on the pony, and not complain about sore buttocks as always.”
The boy gathered his belongings, making especially sure that St. Columba’s staff was safely secured to his back with a leather strap. He swung himself onto the stout grey beast’s back, silently bemoaning the lack of a saddle. He was sure to have riding sores.
“I am sure that you purposefully pick mounts that are set against me riding them,” Jack complained.
“Not true,” Thorgil told him. “The beasts I pick are simply good judges of character. They know a cowardly, suckling baby rides their back, and they’re not too happy about it.”
Jack bit back the obvious reply that he was not a brjostabarn, and simply said, “Let’s move along, then. While the sun is still up. We shall eat while we ride.”
The ponies Thorgil had found were surely feral, but they bore him as well as any pony (not well). They plodded along through the rolling moor at a steady pace. For a while, Jack wondered silently why the beasts were so good natured. He asked Thorgil.
“I just asked them,” Thorgil said. “The ponies are Gaelic, but they still honor Hengist’s line. I told them of our quest, and they agreed to carry us for a while.”
“A while?”
“Yes.”
“Surely they gave you a specified time?”
“You’ll never know.”
Jack tried not to throw the handful of nuts in his hand at her blonde head.
The pair of them rode until it was too dark to spot dips in the land, or the pools of water that were located around the heath. Thorgil softly whispered to the two horses as Jack set up camp. It wasn’t much of a camp; they slept under the stars. He just set their packs on the dirt, and laid St. Columba’s spotless white cloak on a springy patch of heather.
The ponies wandered off into the dark, and Thorgil walked up to Jack, who had already laid down on his cloak.
“They’ll be back by first light,” she said. She laid her shabbier cloak next to Jack’s nicer one. “You get first watch tonight.”
“And why is that?” Jack asked. He had had first watch the night before.
“I had a very tiring day of searching for ponies, while you frolicked through fields of gorse, singing Anglo-Saxon ditties. I get to sleep first.”
“That is not true!” Jack protested. “I worked.”
“Did you?”
“I practiced with my staff.” That was a lie. But he had thought about practicing.
“Not work,” Thorgil said. “You sit around for that. For all I know, you were making daisy crowns.”
“There are no daisies around here,” he pointed out.
“First watch,” she repeated.
“Fine,” Jack said, sitting up. “But you can go fill up the water skins. Shall I start up a fire?”
“No, it is too warm. Besides, the heather is dry around here. It may well all blaze up. We can just eat some of the salted meat.”
She held out her hand for Jack’s water skin, which he handed to her. She wandered off, and he rifled through his pack for some food. He decided to save the travelling scones, and pulled out a few pieces of salted pork.
By the time Thorgil got back, Jack took his refilled waterskin gratefully. Salted meat had a way of drying your mouth out. The shield maiden sat down on her cloak and looked into one of her packs for her provisions. She had a strip of salted pork as well, and a handful of pignuts as well. Like most Northmen, she gave all her attention to eating, ignoring Jack’s attempts at conversation.
Once she had eaten and drunken her fill, she looked at Jack.
“How are you faring?” she asked.
Jack gave her a disbelieving look. “Are you truly curious, or are you asking to fill the silence?”
“Perhaps I am speaking to hear my own voice. How are you faring?”
“I am fine,” Jack said. “I wish we were on the Horse Islands already.”
“I feel the same. I would like to see Skakki, and perhaps Egil.”
“We will be there soon enough,” Jack watched Thorgil as she laid down on her cloak. She curled up on her side, her now-healed right hand held protectively against her chest. “Has Schlaup made his move to the mainland yet?”
“Aye, he should have by now. I have not had news from either of my brothers for many a month. But I am sure he is at his own hall, which Ygdith will be ruling with an iron fist.”
“I am sure. In a few weeks time we will surely have more than enough of your brothers.”
“You can never have enough of my brothers! And why do you care? You will be spending all your time with Rune and Heide, yes?”
“Most likely,” Jack agreed.
They were silent for a few minutes. Jack thought Thorgil had fallen asleep, until she spoke again.
“What about your family?”
“Hm?”
“And Pega? How are they?”
“I…” Jack trailed off. “Well, I am sure they are doing well.”
"You don't know?"
Jack twisted the edge of his tunic, and kept his eyes on the moor in front of him. He didn't even glance at Thorgil. "The last time I foresaw, Brigid showed me a thriving farm, and my old house had an extra wing. But that was... some time ago."
"Some time?"
"Seven moons ago. At least."
Thorgil was silent for a second. "Do you not care?" she asked.
"I care!" Jack told her. "Its just that I know that they are fine, I don't need to check up on them all the time. They can take care of themselves."
"But do you not want to see them?"
"Well, of course."
"Then why do you not try to?"
Jack took his eyes off of the landscape and looked at Thorgil. Her eyebrows were knitted together, and she did not look too pleased about what Jack was saying.
"Do you ever miss something so much that its just painful to think about?" Thorgil didn't say anything, so Jack continued. "When you think about your brothers, bloodhound or otherwise, do you sometimes miss them so much that your heart aches?"
Thorgil wasn't one to admit that she had feelings besides rage and rapture, but she still said, "Yes."
"That's what I feel when I see Giles, or Mother. When I see Hazel stomping after our geese."
"I see."
"And, when I see Pega, all I can think about is that I told her we would be back by spring. Spring! It has been four years. It hurts to look upon her."
"You don't have to explain yourself," she said softly. Jack offhandedly wondered why she was being so kind.
"Well, you asked," Jack said shortly. "I do care, the problem is that I care about them too much."
Thorgil didn't say anything. After a while, Jack figured she had fallen asleep. It would not be the first time she dropped off in the middle of a conversation. She had a habit of working until exhaustion took her. He listened to her slow, steady breathing for a while before adding quietly, "I care about you, too."
She lay there quietly, not daring to make a sound. The shieldmaiden kept her soft smile to herself.
Jack was up early in the morning, woken by the chirping of birds and Thorgil's slender hand jabbing into the soft flesh of his stomach.
"Up," she commanded. "We will eat as we ride."
Jack let out a rather unbecoming whine. "Can't we rest a bit longer? Surely you're tired from your watch?"
"I'll be tired on the pony. Up you get."
Jack stood up, stretching as he did. He picked up St. Columba's cloak from the ground, not even surprised that it wasn't dirty after its night on the ground. He pinned the cloak over his right shoulder.The day before, he hadn't needed the added warmth of a cloak, but the morning was chilly. The sun was not up yet, and the heath was covered in rolling fog.
The boy walked a little ways off into the mist to take a quick piss. By the time he was back, Thorgil was already perched on the back of her grey pony.
"Everything come out fine?" she called. In response, Jack gave her a rude hand gesture. The shieldmaiden just laughed. Then, she said, "I'm not entirely sure how much longer we will be in this moor. But I figured that we will ride until its dark--" she was interrupted by a whinny from her pony. "Or p'raps we shall let our mounts guide us."
"What did she say?"
"She said that she shall guide us to the edge of the heath, and then we will only be three days away from the next village." Thorgil gave her mount an appreciative pat on the nose.
"Very well," Jack said. "Which direction will that be in? And how long will it take us?"
Thorgil whispered in the pony's ear, and was given a series of whinnies and blustery noises in response.
"South," she translated. "And two days, or so."
"Better get moving, then. Could you ask her," Jack patted his pony's head. "If she could make the ride a bit more comfortable?"
"No," Thorgil said.
The two companions rode all through the day, which luckily, had good weather. The sun was bright, but shrouded partially by some innocent white clouds. By midmorning, Jack had shed his cloak. Thorgil, with none of Jack’s Saxon modesty, had taken off her tunic, clad in nothing but a thin linen undershirt. The young bard kept his eyes fixed directly in front of him.
The good weather held until the edge of the heath, when the first signs of civilization popped up. A path marked by stones led the two riders to the edge of some kind of bean. There were slightly even rows of some kind of bean, judging from the poles stuck into the dark earth every few handbreadths. Despite the order of the field, the tilt of the beanpoles and the abundance of weeds made Jack think the farm had been abandoned for a while.
The two ponies did not care whether or not the farm was inhabited. After about five days of riding, they had finally reached the end of the moorland. Their job was over.
Thorgil thanked them, and they each gave her rather horsey kisses. Jack called "God be with you!" from a safe distance.
Both of the teenagers shouldered their packs and began to walk.
"Do you think the ponies appreciated your Christian sentiments?" Thorgil asked Jack.
"No. P'raps I should have asked the life force to hold them in the hollow of its hand."
"P'raps," Thorgil mused. "They do not care either way."
Though the farm they encountered was not inhabited, they quickly found where the tenants may have moved. A village. It was hard to see the expanse of it, from the lack of elevation and abundance of fields and pens of animals and such. The homes they could see were made of sod, looking rather like little hills with holes in the side.
"Shall we ask for aid?" Thorgil asked. "Surely they have some sort of preserved food to offer to a pair of strangers."
"Strangers like us?" Jack countered. "One carrying a wizard staff, the other with battle scars and Northman tattoos?"
"We can intimidate them into giving us supplies," she said brightly. "And none can see my tattoos, hidden as they are."
Jack shifted the pack on his back and tightened his grip on St. Columba's staff. "I suppose we can try. Intimidating, that is."
Thorgil smiled. She was in a bright mood that morning. "You almost sound like a Northman." She pointed her slender hand towards the largest of the sod houses in sight. "Would that be the chief's house?"
"We can check."
It was. As soon as the two began to approach the sod house, a man stepped out. He was wearing a mostly plain tunic and leggings, the only sign of his standing being an elaborate braid embroidered around the neckline of his tunic, and a rather splendid blue cloak. It was a bit warm for such a heavy cloak, but Jack thought he might have put it on to meet with the intimidating prospect of a young man with a wizard's staff and a scarred warrior with a sword in her belt. The blue cloak made his sun-browned face and snarled beard look almost regal. Almost.
The effect was a bit tarnished when the man stuttered out a few sentences in Gaelic.
"Er..." Jack trailed off. "What do we do?"
"Do you speak Saxon?" Thorgil asked the man, in Saxon. When he just looked at them helplessly, Thorgil shrugged. "There's no way he speaks my language. Don't you have a spell for this sort of thing?"
"Don't you? We go to the same school, Thorgil."
"Aye, but you have St. Columba's staff."
"Well, I don't think he feels like helping me right now."
Thorgil punched the boy in the arm, as if it was his fault that the staff wasn't helping. She shrugged off her pack, and pulled out a strip of salted pork. She waved it at the man, and spoke very slowly. "Do you... have... any food?"
The man just stared at them helplessly. Thorgil let out a low noise of frustration.
"Should we just pass through the village?" Jack suggested. He placed his hand on the small of Thorgil's back, thinking to guide her. She did not budge. "We can just keep walking until we get to Edwin's Town. It cannot be too f--"
"Edwin's Town," the village's chieftain said. The Saxon boy looked up at him, a little shocked at the sound of his own language. "Dùn Eidyn?"
"Er... yes," Jack replied. "We would like to go there." It was then that Jack missed Pega quite strongly. The missing thing was a bit of a constant ache, but occasionally it would just flare up. All he could think about was that Pega had lived in Edwin's Town; she could speak the language of the Scots. She could be a lot of help. And she could stop Thorgil from pulling out her golden hair in frustration.
The chieftain let out a stream of Gaelic, accompanied by a lot of bobbing and waving his hands.
“What is he saying?” Thorgil whispered under her breath.
Jack thought of responding, but thought better of it when the man turned towards the turf house he came out of, and shouted a few words. He then held up his hand in a gesture that could be interpreted as “wait here”. With that, he turned and walked quickly back into the house.
“Well,” Jack said. “Suppose we should wait.”
“Suppose you should have better grasp on that staff of yours,” Thorgil retorted. “For then we could have actually known what was going on.”
“Aye,” Jack agreed. “But would that not take the surprise out of things?”
The young bard turned to Thorgil with a grin when the man came out of the turf abode, accompanied by a boy around Jack’s age, perhaps the chieftain’s son. Each had a bundle in their arms, whatever it was was wrapped in thick blankets and tied with cord. The two Scots passed the wrapped goods to Jack and Thorgil with a smile, and then immediately turned and walked quickly into the turf house.
“That was easier than expected,” Jack stated, looking down at the bundle in his hands. “What do you suppose they gave us?”
Thorgil tucked hers underneath her arm, and started walking east, the direction they had been heading for weeks, now. “We can see later. They obviously want to be rid of us. I feel we make them…” she trailed off with a wicked smile. ”Uncomfortable.”
Jack followed her lead, the bundle under one arm, and his staff in the other. “When did you begin to care whether or not people were uncomfortable in your presence? I would think that the Jill I know would want to intimidate some sniveling Scots as long as possible.”
“Don’t call me Jill,” Thorgil said, reflex at this point. “I wish to save my energy to intimidate some sniveling Scots in Edwin’s Town, by your leave,” she added sarcastically.
As the two continued along their path, they passed along a few farms, growing barley waving in the breeze, and tendrils slowly going up bean poles. The folk working the farms reminded Jack of the people living in his village, many leagues to the south. They were browned by the sun, their dark hair and eyes gazing upon a young wizard and his warrior companion with distrust. The clothes they wore were simple and homespun, of homely colors like brown and grey. The men had short beards, and the women stooped over the plants had their hair covered in modest white. Many of the villagers spat or crossed themselves when the two strange youths passed, which Jack noted with a smile. Yes, definitely like his village.
Eventually, they again left all civilization behind. There were a few farms here and there, on their journey, but not nearly enough to constitute as a village or hamlet. As the weeks wore on, and Jack’s feet complained from the many leagues walked, moorland gave way to green, rolling farmland. The pleasant lay of the land was interrupted periodically by mass outcroppings of stone, with carvings of old gods that Jack could not name inscribed on some of them. The boy wondered if the Bard would know their names, and then quickly answered himself: yes, of course he would know. He would ask the old man the next time he visited the isles.
From the passing of the moon, Jack guessed that it had been about two months since he and Thorgil had first landed in the land of the Scots. He marked that length of time in his head, to look after in his later travels. From the rocky beach they had touched down on, two and a half moons to get to Edwin's Town.
He and Thorgil sat on a rocky outcropping, half a day's walk from the bulk of Edwin's Town. As it was, they could see down to the wharf to the East. The hulking fortress, the twin to Din Guardi, laid upon a hill an hour or two to the north. Jack tried to keep his eyes off of the great castle, and cleared his thoughts of the Pictish stone that almost claimed his life.
"Good to be back?" Thorgil asked, in between gnaws on a particularly chewy piece of salted pork. They would soon be able to eat fresher food, and the shield maiden thought to get rid of the last of the preserved food in her pack. "I imagine this place is much kinder without a slave collar on your neck."
"It would be even better without an insufferable shield maiden tagging along," Jack told her, rolling away from the kick Thorgil aimed at his side. He kept any remarks that Thorgil had also been a slave within, because there is no way he would avoid that kick. "I figure that we should go into town tomorrow, and search for passage to the Northland. Do you think we have enough coin?"
"We need not coin," Thorgil said. "You can just threaten to blow on a wisp of straw, and we shall get whatever we ask for. And why not go into town today?"
"From the lack of bustle, I assume today is the Sabbath," Jack said. "There will be no one to threaten at the docks."
Thorgil gave him a small smile at his last statement. "And you don't wish to go up to the castle, to seek a bed for the night?"
"We can sleep on the ground one more night. I have no need to approach that place again."
"That is wise," Thorgil agreed. "We have none of my brothers to save you if you decide to take a nap again."
"I did not take a nap!" Jack protested. "There is Unlife near that place."
"Still, you just laid down on that rock."
"The haar made me drowsy."
"Your conversation makes me drowsy," Thorgil said, in her best imitation of Jack's voice. Which is to say, a whiney and high pitched Saxon accent. In Jack's opinion, not accurate at all.
"I'm sure it does," he said, trying to ignore the teasing. He failed. "And I don't sound like that!"