To Lie with Lions - Dorothy Dunnett [208]
If nothing happened, Glímu-Sveinn said, it was possible – it was just possible – that they would reach Hlídarendi by the following evening. There was the Rangar river to cross, and its tributaries. There was rotten ground under the snow; unseen bogs; and new crevasses sprung by the shocks. There might be more shocks, and more thunder. And there was Hekla to pass, and then the jökull, the glacier which overlaid Katla.
‘The Rangar,’ Kathi said. ‘It means the wrong-running river, because its bed has been distorted by lava.’
‘I know,’ Benecke said. Glímu-Sveinn had gone out to the horses. De Fleury had risen and walked to the back of the church, swinging the jacket. Benecke said, ‘I had the happy idea that if all the rivers dried up, we could cross them. Our friend says that we could, except that the burning lava tends to flow down the river-beds. Is he a magician, or does he just think he is?’
‘M. de Fleury?’ said the girl. ‘He found Sigfús.’
‘So what is he doing now?’ Benecke said. His arm was still sore, but he had got rid of his bandage, which he felt made him look slightly ridiculous. He was remarkably tired.
‘I’m sorry,’ said the girl. ‘It seems to use up his strength. He either had to overdo it, or not get here at all. Tomorrow might be as bad. But we have to hurry.’
‘So he’s divining?’ Benecke said. He began to get up.
The girl pushed him down firmly, on his sore arm. She said, ‘If he’s getting any good advice, I don’t think we should interrupt him.’
‘Advice?’ said Paúel Benecke. Embroiled with lunatics, he was torn between impatience and curiosity. He said, ‘He can get messages from the ships?’
‘In their own argonaut,’ the girl said. ‘Very salty, some of the language.’ She then relented, saying, ‘You’ll get more out of him, really, if you pay no attention. He doesn’t like doing it.’
‘What a pity,’ said Paúel Benecke, his face bland. ‘What else can he reluctantly divine underground? Alum? Silver mines? Diamonds?’
The girl laughed. Her skin was blotched with cold and folded into lines of exhaustion, but her eyes were bright as a monkey’s. Nicholas de Fleury, also smiling, had come to stand beside Benecke. He said, ‘Don’t think of it. My fees are too high, and you haven’t a chance of coercing me. But you may be glad to know that everyone, at the moment, is as you left him.’
The girl looked up. ‘Robin is still on the shore?’
‘Yes,’ said de Fleury. ‘So let’s sleep. We have a race with the demons tomorrow.’
Benecke was sound asleep when, at the hour the Icelanders called ótta, Nicholas de Fleury silently rose and made his way out of the church. A long time elapsed. Kathi, accustomed to the courtesies of travelling, made no effort to follow until, lying there, she realised at last why he had gone. Silently she wrapped herself in her bed-fleece and went out.
First she saw the sky, covered by the stars the Icelanders used to count time. Among them was Sirius, which they called Loki-brenna, Loki’s fire. Below the stars was the dim white of snow, and black against that, the stolid forms of the ponies. The Burgundian was standing beside them, his face turned to the south. She walked to his side and, pausing, looked at the same view: of the jöklar like clouds in the sky, ridge upon ridge, and above the furthest of them a sparkle, as if the fires of Loki were playing about it. The air was so still that the faintest grumble of thunder could be heard, even from such a distance. Katla, not Hekla. And from Katla or Hekla, the thing she had sensed, that had brought her out here in the first place. The faintest odour of sulphur.
She said nothing, but looked up at the singular, well-liked man standing beside her, and after a moment he