Tasters 22

I saw that the men at the ramp had divided and a strange procession was coming from the dark. There was a stallion, a ram, a dog, a goose, a bull and a boar, each animal led by one of Ragnar's warriors, and at the back was an English prisoner, a man condemned for moving a field marker, and he, like the beasts, had a rope about his neck.

I knew the stallion. It was Ragnar's finest, a great black horse called Flame-Stepper, a horse Ragnar loved. Yet Flame-Stepper, like all the other beasts, was to be given to Odin that night. Ragnar did it. Stripped to his waist, his scarred chest broad in the flamelight, he used a war axe to kill the beasts one by one, and Flame-Stepper was the last animal to die and the great horse's eyes were white as it was forced down the ramp. It struggled, terrified by the stench of blood that had splashed the sides of the pit, and Ragnar went to the horse and there were tears on his face as he kissed Flame-Stepper's muzzle, and then he killed him, one blow between the eyes, straight and true, so that the stallion fell, hooves thrashing, but dead within a heart-beat. The man died last, and that was not so distressing as the horse's death, and then Ragnar stood in the mess of blood-matted fur and raised his gore-smothered axe to the sky. 'Odin!' he shouted.

'Odin!' Every man echoed the shout, and they held their swords or spears or axes towards the steaming pit.

Merewyn slept quietly for hours while the short December day brightened and then vanished again. After his evening meal, Sigurd went to see her, and found her wide awake, her face flushed, her dilated pupils staring at the birch rafters. 'The pains are beginning once more,' she said. 'Our baby wants to be born, but then again it does not. There is something strange about our baby. That Freydis has done something because Freydis is a bad woman, and she hates me because I have you, and she hates women too.'

'Nonsense, wife!' said Sigurd vigorously. 'Freydis Eriksdottir hasn't seen you in months.'

'Freydis,' said Merewyn dreamily, though pausing to wince, and go limp after a moment, 'is a shape-changer. She has often come here to Ketilvik, I know. As the fierce white bear you saw running away one day, and there was the white fox too.'

Sigurd could find nothing to say. His mother believed in shape-changers, all Norsemen did, as they believed in giants and trolls, and the gods. The age-old Asa faith.

'I hear something outside ' he said with relief. 'Perhaps they've brought Astrid.'

'They change, don't they? The humans, I mean.'

'They don't do anything else,'Maeniel said. 'And have been ringing changes since they came into existence. Who can say what they will one day be.'

'Dugald says ... '

'Don't quote Dugald to me. Not if you value your hide.'

Black Leg gave his father a very nasty but very wolf look. It said as clearly as if he had spoken, 'You are my father and pack leader. Therefore, I respect you. But that's not a good reason to take advantage of another who has not yet reached the fullness of his strength.'

Maeniel looked away, somewhat abashed. Good manners were important in a wolf pack, and between senior and cub. He had been guilty of a breach of etiquette.

'Very well. Dugald says ...' Maeniel stated.

Black Leg continued, 'That you hang around with humans because their strange ways fascinate you.'

'That's one reason, yes.' Maeniel poked the fire. 'This is another. No other creature can do this.'

'Make a fire?' Black Leg asked.

'Yes. And this.' Maeniel took a stick and began to write in the dirt