Yngvild and the Forest of Dreams

The Troll's Head

It was still dark when Alfinna shook me awake.
'Don't get up until you've changed.' She whispered in my ear. 'The cavalry bosses all seem to be outside.'
I felt down and kicked my feet free from the shoes that were too big for me in my usual body. It was getting easier to imagine myself as a dark skinned young man having spent almost two whole waking days in that form. When my clothes fitted me again I sat up and put my shoes back on.
'You might want to look like you need a shave.' Alfinna said. 'Check out Erik if you need to see.'
I put my hands to my face, and it was as smooth as always. Erik had two days of dark stubble colouring his lower face. I imagined mine being the same, and felt the furze appear under my fingers.
'Maybe not. Or maybe you should just shave.' Alfinna said.
'What's wrong with it?'
'It looks too soft.' Alfinna ran a finger along my jawline. 'It needs to be a bit scratchier.'
'Maybe I'll stay clean shaven for now.' I thought about how smooth my face was, and willed that to be the case. The fluff on my chin disappeared.
'That's better. If anyone asks, you're still 15, so your beard doesn't grow fast.'
'Do I look like a 15 year old?'
'One of the bigger ones.'

#

Outside there were even more tents with the cavalry headquarters. The traffic was less than it had been, but there were still plenty of signs of life. The mobile kitchens were still cooking, only now the smell of fresh bread scented the air.
Our fire was still burning, Olaf had a kettle on it, and there was some porridge in a pot on the grass.
'Eat something. We can't start until first light.' Olaf said.
I looked over to the East, where we'd just been. The sky was slightly brighter on the horizon than it was to the West, although maybe only because I was better in low light.
'Will they be suspicious if we move too early?' I ladled some porridge into a bowl.
'Not if we wait until it's light enough to see well.' Alfinna sat on the ground near the fire.
I passed the steaming bowl to her, and filled another. 'Maybe if we all eat first it might look better?'
'Good idea.' Olaf accepted a bowl from me.
I filled others and passed them round. We sat round the fire and ate in silence. The porridge was creamy, and whoever made it had added honey to it, so it was sweet as well. By the time I'd finished my bowl it was definitely first light. Everything was a monochrome grey, but distinct.
Noren and I sorted out the fire, and cleaned the cooking pot and bowls with hot water from the kettle. While we did that Jerre, Erik, Inibrakeme and Olaf saddled all the horses, and Alfinna packed away the shelter. Before the sun was visible over the horizon we were all packed up and ready to leave. As the top of the sun appeared, and the day become coloured, we rode off with it at our back. We started at a walk and moved to a canter when the cavalry headquarters was out of sight.

We stopped twice to rest the horses on the way, they needed a break more than we did. Unlike the previous two days we didn't try to cook meals. We ate the bread, cheese and ham that we'd brought with us in the cart. The road was easy, and we passed several caravans going the same way as us, and more cavalry went the other way. We counted over three hundred.
No-one said anything, but none of us wanted to stop longer than we had to. Even the horses seemed to sense that, although it might have been my imagination, but it felt like they cantered faster and for longer. A couple of hours after noon we saw a small village ahead, clustered around an Inn. The open grassland started to turn into farmed fields. Mostly standing crops that I didn't recognise, and orchards with old gnarled trees with small dark fruit. I saw sheep, goats, and cows. The Inn had a painting of a person with a golden circle behind them. Not the Troll's Head.
A couple of miles down the road was another small hamlet, this one had the coat of arms of Cottalem on a board above the door. Over the farmland to the north and south we could see other buildings. Some of them were farms, or barns, but there were smoke stacks on a few too, signalling a forge, or perhaps a pottery.
Before long we started to be aware of traffic moving from north to south in front of us. When we got to the junction our road turned south to join the other road. We went straight across, in the near distance was another small hamlet, nestled in the loop of a wide stream that looked easy to ford. A low wooden bridge, with a stone ramp on each bank, spanned the stream.
The Troll's Head was mounted on a pole on the near side of the bridge. The pole was thicker than my wrist, but the same length as a long spear, with the severed head jammed on the top. The other end was firmly embedded in the ground. A wire fence, with waist high posts and four strands of wire, started on the bridge and went all the way round the buildings that served as the Troll's Head inn. A large three storey steep roofed building dominated the centre of the space. There were a forge, two open sided wood stores, four terraced cottages, stabling, and an assortment of other outbuildings, including what I was sure were some privies at the downstream end of the stream that went round the hamlet.
We were met at the entrance by a white haired but clean shaven man. He was wearing a farrier's apron, which was well worn, and holding a hammer in his right hand. It looked like he'd just stepped away from the anvil on the stone flagged area, but there were no horses in sight other than ours.
Alfinna, who had been leading, dismounted just before the bridge.
The rest of us came to a stop behind her.
'Eskil!' Alfinna threw her hands up and moved quickly onto the bridge.
Eskil squinted at her, half twisting.
Alfinna changed when she was half-way over the bridge, her clothes got baggier as she walked.
'Alfinna!' Eskil ran forwards and swept Alfinna off her feet in an enormous hug, spinning her round.
He set her back down when he'd completed the circle. 'Who have you got with you?'
'One old friend, and several new ones. Can I bring them in?'
'Of course.' Eskil turned back to the forge. 'Dagmar! Jorge! Ketil! Albrecht!'
Eskil waved us to come forwards, as four people came out from the Inn and the forge to help us unload the horses and stable them. Several others joined in when we got round the back to the stables. I noticed that Inibrakeme had returned to her usual self when we passed the bridge, so I changed back too when I dismounted, and nudged Noren while I was taking my shoes off.
Eskil said to leave the stabling to his team, and that we should join him inside. The ground floor of the Troll's Head was a maze of linked rooms joined by dark wood panelled corridors. It reminded me like a darker version of Straven, although with several stone chimney breasts that the house on Straven lacked. Eskil brought us into a room with three windows that looked out to the side of the main building. There were two doors on opposite ends of the room, and a third in the middle wall surrounded by a waist high bar. A stone chimney breast took up most of one wall, the fireplace was set but not lit. Under each of the windows was a table with bench seating under the window and on both sides. Wood dividers separated the tables, with fretwork on the upper parts so that the light could spread.
No-one else was in the room, and with an extra seat on the fourth side we were all able to sit at the same table. While we were shuffling round the table onto the benches Dagmar appeared with a tray full of tankards of ale. She put it down and went back through a gap in the bar and through the middle door.
'So Alfinna, are you going to introduce your friends?'
'Everyone, this is Eskil. Eskil owns the Troll's Head—'
'—co-owner. I share it with Arinhildr.'
'I stand corrected, Eskil is one of the owners of the Troll's Head, I'm sure we'll meet Arinhildr later. Eskil apprenticed me for a bit in my youth.'
'Olaf and Erik joined us a couple of weeks ago to help us to escape from Rojden. They've organised most of this trip.'
'Well met.' Eskil nodded at both Olaf and Erik.
'Jerre is a former cavalry trooper, without his help Yngvild and Noren wouldn't have got away.'
'My house is your house, Jerre.' Eskil said.
'I shall treat it well' Jerre bowed as well as he could with a table in the way.
'This young lady is Yngvild Helgasdotir, also known as Yngvild the Fierce. She carries Jafnadr, and she broke a geas.'
Eskil's eyes went wide. 'You carry Jafnadr?'
In answer I drew Jafnadr and laid her on the table between us. 'I do.'
Eskil put his hands behind his back, as if to resist the temptation to take the sword. 'I've only seen her once before, in your grandfather's time. Leif used to put it on the table facing the accused when he sat in judgement.'
'You met my grandfather?'
'Only once, and briefly at that. I was a small boy, and sent away on an errand. When I got back he was long since gone.'
'Inibrakeme you know.'
'Indeed I do.'
'So that leaves my brother Noren. He grew up with Yngvild on Straven under the watchful eye of Old Bjorn. He's the reason we're all here. His father is chasing us to get him back.'
'Your brother?' Eskil's eyebrows were practically in his hairline.
'Alfinna is most definitely my sister.' Noren said. 'Even if you find it hard to believe.'
'That would certainly explain all the excitment these last few days.'
'We could do with some help on that regard.' Alfinna said.
'If it's putting one in Rojden's eye, then I'm glad to help.' Eskil said. 'What can I do?'
'We want to leave some things with you so that we can travel lighter tomorrow.'
'I might want some help strengthening my skold in return.'
'I'll help with that after dinner, Noren and Inibrakemi will too.'
'So what are you leaving behind?'
'Nothing dangerous, just the cart, and some of the horses, and the provisions we can't carry. You can dispose of them as you like. Put it on our account.'
'I will be happy to do that.' Eskil finished off his tankard. 'Would you like something to eat?'

Eskil took his leave of us and we stayed at the table to wait for dinner to be served. It wasn't long before Dagmar and another dark haired young woman came through the middle door with bread, olives and oil. More ale followed swiftly on, and then a steady stream of small dishes appeared. Some were highly spiced, others read, orange, or green. There were baked eggs, chicken, fish, and other things I hadn't seen before, including some very chewy fish, and rather more garlic than I was used to. It tasted great though, better than the food we could have had on the road, and someone else was both cooking it and cleaning up afterwards.
I was fit to burst, and ready for an early night. It was just as well I was wearing the wrong clothes, these were baggy around me, I think if I'd had my skirts on then my belly would have been under too much strain.
Alfinna leant over and whispered in my ear. 'When we're helping Eskil, get Dagmar to show you the bath house. You'll enjoy it.'
'Can you get Noren to come over too when you're done?'
'I'll see what I can do.'

#

Alfinna was right. The bath house was amazing. It was right next to the forge, and the water was brought up from the stream by a wheel into a pipe that wrapped round the forge's chimney and then flowed into a tank that was against the fire in the forge. So the water was flowed in hot to fill an azure tiled pool set in the floor. Steam gently floated on the surface of the water. The pool was stepped, so you could sit in it comfortably, or move into the centre to submerge your whole body. There were shutters on the roof, when they were open the sky was visible when you lay in the hot pool.
A second pool was cooler, fed directly from the stream, with wire filters to stop flotsam from filling the cold pool. Dagmar left me with a towel and a clean shift. I hung them on the pegs on the opposite wall, opened the ceiling shutters, and then stripped off. I started in the cold pool, using the soap and washcloth to clean my body. Then I soaked myself in the hot pool until my skin flushed pink all over.
Just as I was about to give up on Noren there was a knock on the door. I got out of the water and went over to unlatch it. Opening it a little I saw Noren outside. I opened it up just enough to put my arm through and grab him by the belt.
Pulling him in I kissed him. 'You need a wash, let me help you.'
I closed the bath house door behind us and latched it.

#

I got a good night's sleep, in a proper bed, and dressed in my own clothes for breakfast. Noren had shared that we were gonig to make a dash for the coast, and that Alfinna believed we'd be past the area that Rojden's army was searching.
There were only six of us at breakfast though.
'Where's Inibrakeme?' I asked Alfinna when we'd finished eating.
'Something came up last night. She had to leave in a hurry.'
'What sort of thing?'
'One of her children on the Summer Isles is in difficulty. Inibrakeme was needed to help.'
'Oh.'
'We think it might be related to what we're doing, but it's hard to be sure.'

#

The best horses were saddled and ready for us. One mount, and one spare each. All the pack horses and the cart were staying behind. Both sets of horses were saddled for riding, and we cantered as far as we could, and then switched horses, walking for a mile or so before cantering some more. By the time we stopped for lunch we were only a few miles short, but the horses were lathered with sweat, and they needed to rest before we could go any further.

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