The Wheel of Osheim

We chose a table outside. It pays to take advantage of the last warm days of a year when and where you find them. And autumn days, when the sun shines, are made for outdoor dining. Once a few cold snaps have wielded the scythe through the ranks of the bugs that traditionally try to add themselves to your meal, the pleasure in taking your fill beneath the roof of the sky increases immeasurably. And of course the thing that really puts the “great” in the Great Outdoors . . . practically any direction you care to run off in is an escape route.

“So, you led Count Isen right to me?” I gave Kara an accusing look and rubbed my jaw, possibly on the side she slapped me—my face had been so battered of late I couldn’t tell any more.

“Why should I not?” Kara returned my accusatory stare with one of her own. She was better at it. “You had never mentioned the man in my hearing and he’s a noble who swears fealty to your grandmother. Also, he was holding us prisoner and intended to do so until he found you.”

“Well . . .” I took a gulp of wine to buy time in which to think of a riposte. “It’s . . . disloyal! Not the sort of thing friends are supposed to do.”

“But stealing from them is fine?” Kara tore a chunk from the crusty loaf, using the same violence that someone might throttle a chicken with.

“That’s rich coming from a woman who spent three months trying to steal Loki’s key off Snorri!”

“I was trying to stop the key going into Hel. You think what happened to your city was bad? If the Dead King got hold of that key he could do the same to a hundred cities in a year!”

“And how did you lead him to me?” I turned the conversation in a less damning direction.

“Loki’s key leads all sorts of people to it.” Kara turned her angry stare from me to her bread and soup. “Particularly once it settles in one place.”

The speed with which she looked away caught my attention. A practised liar gets good at noticing the failings of those with less practice. I glanced at Snorri, then back at Kara. “Snorri put his blood on the key to bind it to him. That’s why when I used it to open the door there he was standing on the other side.” I rested my chin in my hand, noticing how stubbly it was. A day in Snorri’s company and I was already starting a beard. “But originally it was you who was supposed to help him return, you who tied your piece of string to his toe . . . or whatever it is witches do when they want to find something. And I’ve been in Vermillion for the best part of a month . . .” I pointed a finger at her. “It was Snorri turning up that made you get old Isen to abandon his post, wasn’t it?”

She looked up, scowling and without an answer, but the colour in her cheeks said enough. I looked back at Snorri but he was concentrating on his food and I couldn’t see what expression he wore. “Well.” I paused to finish my wine and wave at the table-boy for some more. “It’s been lovely. And it was nice to see you again, young Hennan. But Snorri and I are on a very dangerous mission where speed is of the essence, so we will have to take our leave.” I snagged a leg from the cold roast chicken set at the middle of the table. “Once we’ve finished our meal.” I let the table-boy fill my goblet. The local red proved highly palatable. “So we must bid you adieu and let you make your own way to your destination.”

“Where are you going?” Hennan asked. It had been less than half a year but he’d sprung up like a summer weed, his face taking on the longer, more angular shape it would keep as a grown man, providing the world didn’t fall to pieces first. “We could come too.”

“Absolutely not,” I said. “I’m not taking a child into mortal danger.”

“But where are you going?” Kara repeated the boy with the same lack of decorum.

“That, I’m afraid to say, is a state secret.” I gave her my best princely smile.

“Osheim,” Snorri said.

“That’s where I was taking Hennan,” Kara replied, not missing a beat. “He has relatives not far from the Wheel.” She nodded to where I’d tied up Murder and Squire. “You have four horses.”

“You don’t know how to ride.” It seemed easier than “no.”

“We’ve spent a rather tedious summer as Count Isen’s prisoners. Though he did insist on referring to us as guests and allowed us some freedoms. Sir Thant taught us both to ride.”

I looked over at Snorri, not expecting any support after his rapid and treacherous disclosure of our destination. “You see? It’s the Wheel. It even gets to völvas in the end. She even thinks it’s her idea . . .” I faced Kara again. “No. You’d slow us down. Besides, we may be hunted—you’d be much safer on your own.”