The Tempering of Men (11 page)

The final reason Franangford's situation was unusual this spring was that two of the wolf pups who would be choosing their brothers before the summer solstice were bitches, and one a konigenwolf. Trellwolves threw bitches less often than dog pups, and everyone at Franangford agreed that two bitches in a litter was as great a rarity as a human mother throwing twins. One of the boys or the wolf-widows was about to become a wolfsprechend, and another was about to become a man like Brokkolfr, a bitch's brother.

Brokkolfr was glad enough not to claim the title of wolfsprechend. He couldn't do what Isolfr did, and he didn't think he would have been able to even if Amma were a konigenwolf. But he was, maybe, a wolfsprechend's second, if what the wolfsprechend did was like a holmgang, which it wasn't except on the occasions when it was.

At Othinnsaesc, what that meant had been clear. The wolfsprechend had been Skjaldwulf's age or thereabouts, an old man, for a wolfcarl. He had known his pack and his duties, and Brokkolfr's task was mostly not to get in the way. But Isolfr was only a few seasons older than Brokkolfr, and while his knowledge of his pack was bone-deep, he was uncertain about his duties and uncomfortable about taking some of them up. And even more uncomfortable with the almost worshipful way both boys and men tended to look at him.

And that was one of the reasons Brokkolfr liked him.

When Randulfr had been there, he had taken over that part of the wolfsprechend's duties easily and without fuss, but now that Randulfr was gone, Brokkolfr was the only one left to talk to those Signy and Geirve seemed to favor.

His first instinct when Sokkolfr approached him had been to refuse. If Isolfr felt he was not fit to mentor, then Brokkolfr was surely unimaginably less fit. But Sokkolfr had dropped his gaze and shifted his weight uncomfortably and said, “I'm not sure Isolfr would be the right person in any event.”

Almost inaudibly, Hroi whined.

“What do you mean?” Brokkolfr said.

Sokkolfr brought his chin up then, unhappy but resolute. “Viradechtis has had only one open mating, and it was … bad.”

“Was he hurt?” It did happen, although everybody did their best to prevent it. Men had died; tithe boys and yearling wolfcarls made sick, uneasy jokes about it, and Brokkolfr's wolfsprechend at Othinnsaesc had said, “The ones who die are the ones who fight. So
don't fight.
” It had been good advice, and Brokkolfr had taken it.

“No worse than Randulfr has been a half-dozen times,” Sokkolfr said. “No worse than you were, this last time.”

“Then I don't understand.”

“I don't, either, really,” Sokkolfr said. “He doesn't talk about it. But it was worse than war for him. Worse than … I don't know what. But I don't think he can teach other men how to accept it when he has so much trouble accepting it himself.”

“All right,” Brokkolfr said, and so he'd taken care to be around when the tithe boys and wolf-widows were introduced to the pups, taken care to watch, as the pups grew older and bolder, which of their potential brothers Signy and Geirve seemed to favor. Signy was easy; after a few days of licking everyone's hands indiscriminately, she began to focus her candlelight-yellow eyes more and more steadily on a tall fair boy named Eymundr. The wolf-widows backed off and made the other tithe boys back off, too.

Geirve was more difficult. She had Kjaran's odd eyes, one as deep yellow as Signy's, the other the pale blue of moonlight on snow, and she had something of Kjaran's temperament as well; even in her puppy exuberance, she was more watchful than her littermates, and Brokkolfr and Sokkolfr both thought she was early in developing the sardonic sense of humor common among wolves.

“Konigenwolf, no,” Sokkolfr said, “but she will be a terror nonetheless.”

And Geirve wagged her whole hind end with enthusiasm and tried to lick Sokkolfr's ears off the sides of his head.

She watched all the men and boys who came to be introduced to her and her brothers and sister; she was not unfriendly, but Brokkolfr could almost feel her holding herself back, waiting for something that only she would recognize when it came.

And when it came, it was nothing that anyone but Geirve expected.

One of the wolf-widows was a man from the old Franangford threat named Motholfr; like Isolfr's shieldbrother Frithulf the Half-Burned, Motholfr had been badly injured in fighting the trellish smiths in the Iskryne, the same battle in which his wolf Raskvithr had been killed. But Frithulf's injuries had been to his face and neck; Motholfr had lost two fingers and most of the use of his right hand. Even now, as healed as it would ever be, it was a crippled claw, the skin shiny and gnarled and with only the thumb still moving freely. He had suffered other injuries, but the hand was the worst; the hand was what would keep Motholfr dependent on the wolfheallan for the rest of his life.

He knew it and hated it. Brokkolfr thought that Motholfr was presenting himself to Viradechtis' cubs, which he did more than a fortnight after the others, not so much out of desire—he still mourned Raskvithr, to whom he had been bonded for almost ten years—but out of a bitter determination that he should not be useless.

Neither Brokkolfr nor Sokkolfr thought Motholfr had any chance of attracting one of the pups; he was late, and his presence in the pack-sense was too dark, matching perfectly the wolves' name for him, smoke-blood-burning-fur. He had had a different scent-name before the Iskryne, but it was lost now, along with Raskvithr and Motholfr's right hand.

It was a surprise, therefore, to them as much as to Motholfr when Geirve began to follow him purposefully about. She was not pushy about it—not like Signy, who took over Eymundr's life as shamelessly (Sokkolfr said) as Viradechtis had Isolfr's—simply, wherever Motholfr went, Geirve trotted after him. She did not come close unless invited but watched Motholfr with patient interest; when she
was
invited, she reverted to the puppy she was, wagging her tail wildly and crawling into his lap to lick his face and ears. If he ordered her away—and he was good enough with the pack-sense to tell her to go to her mother—she would go, but she went with ears and tail drooping. And it was never very long before she was back.

Finally, wryly, Motholfr said to Brokkolfr, “I give in. I guess you'd better tell me about being a bitch's brother.”

“Right,” said Brokkolfr, feeling keenly ridiculous. Motholfr was nearly thirty, almost twelve years his senior. But he had never been bonded to a bitch before, and Brokkolfr had. And this was exactly the conversation Sokkolfr had recruited Brokkolfr in order to have.

He had already had a version of it with Eymundr, and that had been uncomfortable in its own way, since Eymundr was not heallbred and had had to be told what he would be facing in another two years. He'd taken it well; in fact, he'd even been relieved. His older brothers and cousins had told him all the worst stories they knew about the unnatural practices and bestial habits of the wolfheallan. An open mating, scary though it could be, was not nearly as bad as the stories wolfless men told.

Motholfr did not need to be told that part; he'd been part of several open matings in the old Franangford heall. But there was another set of things he had no idea of at all.

“It won't be the same bond,” Brokkolfr said. “Bitches are more forceful. They boss the dog wolves around, and they'll boss you around just the same. Geirve's not a konigenwolf, so it won't be
as
bad, but even Amma is—”

Amma grumbled at Brokkolfr, shoving her head against his stomach, and Motholfr was surprised into laughing.

“Well, like that,” Brokkolfr said.

“I had noticed already,” Motholfr said, glancing aside to where Geirve waited. “She's
there,
in a way Raskvithr wasn't.” He said his dead wolf's name steadily, calmly, and looking into his eyes Brokkolfr saw that while the grief was still there, the devouring bitterness was eased.

“Yes,” he said. “That will only get stronger.”

“Come here, wolfling,” Motholfr said, and Geirve threw herself at him instantly. He said around her, “I'm more worried about her mating. I've been on the other side, and, well, it looks a little different now that I'm imagining myself underneath.”

“Yes,” Brokkolfr said. “There are things you can do to make it easier.”

“The salve,” Motholfr said.

“Yes. And, um, if you stretch yourself with your fingers first.” The blood was rushing into his face, but he continued doggedly, “And some men practice beforehand. With, um. Someone they trust.”

“Aye,” Motholfr said noncommittally. Brokkolfr wondered if there was anyone left whom Motholfr trusted or if they were all in Franangford's burying ground or lost to the Iskryne's ice.

Brokkolfr tried to think of something else he could say, but most of it Motholfr would know already. He'd probably been a part of more open matings than Brokkolfr had.

“Ah well,” said Motholfr, gently removing one of his sandy-red braids from Geirve's mouth. “We've time yet. Come along, wolfling.”

He stood up, nodded to Brokkolfr, and strode away.
Oh, well done,
Brokkolfr thought. And since he was already dissatisfied with himself, he got up and went to find Isolfr.

He found Viradechtis first—it was always easy to find Viradechtis in the pack-sense—playing a hunting game with Ottarr, Letta, and Lofi around a woodpile. Three tithe boys and a handful of wolf-widows were nearby, keeping their hands busy with a variety of work; Isolfr was sitting against a half-finished wall in the sun, whittling pegs for the stockade wall. He wasn't watching the wolves' game, but Brokkolfr knew that, had Isolfr been a wolf himself, it would have been easy to watch his ears cock and twitch.

He squinted up at Brokkolfr. “Have a seat if you've a mind to.”

“Thank you.” Brokkolfr sat down facing Isolfr; Amma immediately shoved her head in his lap, closely followed by her front paws and as much of the rest of her as she could manage. “Sister,” he said, “you are not a pup. You won't fit.”

Amma huffed and settled her weight.

“You won't be going anywhere in a hurry.” Isolfr smiled.

“No,” Brokkolfr agreed, and began picking mud out of Amma's coat.

Both men were quiet for a time; Isolfr would not speak first, and Brokkolfr was trying to sort out what he wanted to say from all the things he didn't. Finally, he said, “Signy is going to bond Eymundr.”

“Yes,” Isolfr said. “He's chosen his name: Hreithulfr.”

“Good,” Brokkolfr said. And then, before cowardice could get the better of him, “You have to talk to him.”

Isolfr said nothing.

“Signy is a konigenwolf,” Brokkolfr said. “I talked to him about … about open mating and about the ways of trellwolf bitches”—that got a tiny quirk of a smile, and Brokkolfr was glad of even that much encouragement—“but I can't tell him about being bonded to a konigenwolf or about being a wolfsprechend. No one here can tell him that. Except you.”

“I know,” Isolfr said.

“But you haven't.”

“I don't know what to say.”

“Neither did I,” Brokkolfr said. “And I didn't know what to say to Motholfr just now, either. But saying nothing isn't better than saying something badly.”

“No?”

“If I hadn't said anything to Eymundr”—he corrected himself and finished grimly—“to Hreithulfr, he would still be expecting Vethulf to hold him down over the table in the hall while everyone else in the threat took turns with him.”

Isolfr stared down at the half-finished peg in his lap; his ears were turning red.

“You're his wolfsprechend,” Brokkolfr insisted. “He needs you to talk to him. He needs to know you're not unhappy that Signy chose him.”

“Unhappy? Why would I be unhappy?”

At least his head was up and he was listening. “He asked me if I thought you disliked him. I told him of course not, but he's scared of you, Isolfr.”
I'm scared of you.
“At the least, he needs to know he has your support.”

“Of course he does,” Isolfr said, putting down the knife and rubbing his scars as if they ached.

“He doesn't know that.” Brokkolfr wondered when he'd turned into a nagging wife. “He's only just beginning to feel the pack-sense. He certainly can't read anything in it. And that's the only place you say anything at all.”

“The werthreat is not my responsibility,” Isolfr said. “The wolfthreat is.”

Brokkolfr raised his eyebrows. He didn't need to say it; in Skjaldwulf's absence, the werthreat were Vethulf's responsibility and Vethulf had not yet grown into that role.
And might never,
Brokkolfr thought, before he could force himself to charity.

Surely Viradechtis had chosen Vethulf for some reason. Even if it was not immediately obvious. Or was Vethulf simply an unavoidable drawback that came kit and kindle with Kjaran?

Except Kjaran was a sensible wolf. And so he, too, must have chosen his brother for a purpose.

Isolfr bit his lip. How long had it taken him to forget what it was like, being half-deaf to the pack? Or had Viradechtis simply overwhelmed him with her senses as she overwhelmed the pack with her presence?

“Hrolleif—,” Isolfr said, which was the name of the dead wolfsprechend of Nithogsfjoll. However he might have ended the sentence, however, was lost.

“Are you complaining about your wolfsprechend, Brokkolfr Ammasbrother?” Vethulf, approaching from behind, startled Brokkolfr so badly that he dislodged Amma—which meant he was able to lurch to his feet.

Thanks for the warning,
he told the wolf, and heard only her irritation at being awakened in return.

“No,” he said, wondering if Vethulf really was a spirit who could be conjured with a thought. Before he could stop himself, Brokkolfr added, “I'm trying to help.”