The Wheel of Osheim

Black hair plastered his brow, the face beneath gaunt, teeth bared in exhaustion or threat.

“No,” I said. “Which cardinal? What are they doing out here?” The man ignored me, pulling his hood down and turning his horse back to the road. Perhaps the “out here” offended him. I keep forgetting people not from Red March tend to regard their own country as the centre of empire.

“Which cardinal?” I shouted.

“Hemmalung.” A shout across his shoulder, almost lost amid the rain andhoof-beats.

“Why does it matter what his name is?” Hennan asked. “Her name,” I said. An idea had started to intrude, an idea so big that only a corner of it had managed to poke through my skull so far. “Hemmalung is Charland’s second city.” The truth was I couldn’t name the first city, or any others, or any single fact about the kingdom—but I knew Hemmalung was a city because I knew the cardinal that kept her see there.

“And her name is?” Snorri leaned in to hear, drawing a hand down across the short black thicket of his beard as if to squeeze the rain out. “Gertrude.” I remembered her as a thickset woman in her late fifties, thin lipped, deep-sunken eyes, greying curls. She had visited Father at Roma Hall on more than one occasion. “I’m going to ride on ahead and reintroduce myself to the good cardinal.”

“Why?” Kara looked as bedraggled as her horse, the rain dripping off the ends of both their noses. “We could find an inn. Take shelter for the night. Chances are they’ll be out of our way come tomorrow.”

“There’s something she has that I need. Snorri can tell you what it is.”

“I can’t,” he said.

“We were told about it in Hel . . .” I cocked my head expectantly, and finding Snorri still looking blank, and my ear filling with cold water, I cycled my hand. “By a dark soul deservingly nailed to a rather big tree . . .”

“Marco?” Snorri threw up his hands in exasperation. “You shouldn’t believe anything he had to say!” He turned to Kara. “Jal thinks a cardinal’s seal will split his sister from the lichkin that brought her out of Hel.”

“It will!” I felt sure of it. “The dead can’t lie.” Then less sure. “Can they?”

“It’s nonsense anyway.” Snorri kicked his horse into motion. “If a cardinal’s seal is so holy a thing then how do you expect to part Cardinal Gertrude from hers?”

“I’ll steal it.” I glanced toward Hennan. “I’m as god-fearing as the next prince, and scrupulously honest, but desperate times—”

“You stole Loki’s key from Kara,” the boy said.

“Ah, well . . . that was mine in the first place. Anyhow—stop confusing the issue. I’ll take it.”

“You’ll ‘take it’?” Snorri raised a brow. I’ve spent several hours trying to learn the knack of elevating a single eyebrow, but the talent eludes me. It’s probably some inbred northern thing.

“How?” Kara asked. “You’re not making sense.”

“Post-coitally.” Sitting there on a wet horse in the rain it didn’t sound very appetizing. Remembering the last time didn’t whet my appetite either. “You slept with a cardinal?” Snorri leaned in, surprise and amusement warring for control of his features.

“Well, technically there was no sleeping involved.” I aimed for the right tone of reserved nonchalance. I’m not sure I hit it. “But we knew each other in the biblical sense, yes.”

“Aren’t your cardinals . . . old people?” Hennan asked. “How long ago was this?” Kara asked.

I nudged Murder to a faster pace, trying to shake off the curious Norse pressing me on all sides. “A long time ago.”

“How long?” Snorri caught up. “Not long ago you were twelve. You weren’t twelve were you?”

“Of course not. Much older than that.”

“He’s lying.” Kara, back on my left.

“A little older.” I could hear Snorri sniggering above the rain. “If you must know, Gertrude was my first. She was very gentle—” Laughter from both sides cut me off.

“Damn you, heathens!” I spurred Murder into a canter. “I’ll be back with the seal by morning. And if the guards catch you hanging around I’ll recommend you’re burned as witches.”

I let Murder have his head. Rain and murk kept visibility to thirty yards or less but I’ve never known a road run so straight, and the locals kept it well surfaced, shingle in the main but in some stretches cobbles or even paved. There’s something about galloping a horse that I’ll never tire of. It’s a sort of union that puts you in control of a power much greater than your own . . . control is too strong a word for it—if it were control much of the joy would go out of it—you’re a guide, a conduit. I think it’s as close to understanding sorcery as I’ve come.