To Lie with Lions - Dorothy Dunnett [194]
After they had been riding for some little while, they were surprised by a brief fall of snow; a shower so fine that it sparkled like dust in the sunshine. When it ceased, the distant landscape vanished, white as a veil, and then returned bit by bit, in coins of picturesque detail. In places, the sky was pewter and purple, flat as a plate, with the cones and glaciers dazzling below it. The wind strengthened. Presently Glímu-Sveinn stopped.
‘What?’ said Benecke.
‘They have doubled back to the north. They have gone to look for a ferry to recross the Hvita.’
‘Oh?’ said Benecke. ‘Where are their prints?’
‘After the snow?’ the Icelander said. ‘But if you look, there is the mark of a horse-shoe, in the lee of that boulder.’
Nicholas said, ‘It could be last week’s. Are you sure about this? We have seen no sign of bear. Even the dog has stopped barking.’
‘He was excited,’ the Icelander said.
‘He was excited every time we diverged to the south. I think the bear and the bear-cub are there.’ Nicholas spoke harshly, with reason. Every time he looked to the south, his nape pricked like the ruff of the dog, and he wanted to cringe. He repeated, ‘The bear is in the south.’
‘You know this land?’ said Glímu-Sveinn. ‘No? Then listen. There are no fish south of here, and no ptarmigan. If this bear has a cub, then I know where she is going. So will Sigfús. So do the foxes: I have seen the prints. Perhaps the foreigners will abandon the hunt; we cannot tell. The only sure way is to track down the white bear and kill it, so that we may all go back safely to Skálholt. I am going north.’
‘The danger is in the south,’ Nicholas said.
‘Then it is another danger,’ said Glímu-Sveinn.
‘Listen,’ said Paúel Benecke.
The sound came from the north and the east, fragmented by the increasing interference of the wind. Not a scream or a roar, but the high nasal yapping of falcons, mingled with another call, powerful and barking.
‘I hear it,’ said Glímu-Sveinn. ‘You wished to see more of our fine eagles, nei? There they are.’
Nicholas and Benecke stared at them: a cluster of specks to the north, circling and swooping. Benecke said, ‘That is a sad sight. I am sorry, my good man. We should change horses, and hurry.’
They hardly spoke after that, but followed Glímu-Sveinn’s hammering heels as he thrust his little beast forward, never ceasing except over the bogs and the lava, where he let the animal pick its own way. Once, when the footing was good and the pace swift, Benecke said, ‘Tell me about the girl.’
‘She is Adorne’s niece,’ Nicholas said.
‘And therefore intelligent, I should suppose? She wanted you to follow?’
‘She knows me well enough to expect it. She enjoys novelty: so do I. She is not,’ Nicholas said, ‘playing at maidens and dragons.’
‘You reassure me,’ said Benecke. ‘I always preferred the dragon to that simpleton George. You are lovers? Or she wants you to be?’
‘For the last time –’ began Nicholas.
‘– you are like brother and sister.’
‘Not even that. We are, if anything, brothers,’ said Nicholas. He stopped, surprised to think how true it was. He added, ‘She is like a young brother.’
‘Indeed?’ said Benecke. ‘And you think that is reassuring?’
Then they got to the river. They dismounted. This stretch of the Hvita was wide, with snow powdering the slush at the edges, and whitening the wide banks of sand which divided the fast, thrusting currents. There was no snow on the outcrops of rock which also stood in the path of the flow, with spume dashing man-high, and shards of ice sliding round them like salmon. The water was white and heavy with discoloured debris, but there was no pumice that he could see. He had been told (by Robin, in tutor/grandfather mode) that pumice was the froth of the lava, and sometimes covered the sea so that ships couldn’t sail.