The Dark Horse Read Free

was still speaking, down in the center, by the fire, but as Horn held up his hand she stopped.
    The entire community of Storn was staring at Mouse.
    “Well, girl, what is it? What is it that is more important to you and Olaf the Weakling’s son than the Spell-making?”
    Horn spoke quietly, his voice only just audible over the crackle of the fire, but there was an edge to it that made it clear.
    Mouse trembled.
    “I’m sorry, Horn. We were talking of the poor fishing and the poor finds to be had on the shore. That’s all. I’m sorry.”
    “You. Olaf ’s boy,” said Horn to Sigurd, though he was still staring at Mouse, “what do you say?”
    “That’s all, Horn, just the poor finds along the beach. And the fishing—”
    “They’re lying!”
    Sif. Horn’s daughter.
    Mouse shuddered, fearful of what Sif would do.
    Horn turned and strode to the center of the circle. As he stood by the fire the flames lit his face with an orange glow. He looked terrifying.
    “Well?” he said, staring at his daughter.
    Sif stood up, a little nervously. She hid behind her long black hair. Nevertheless, Mouse could see one of her slate gray eyes fixed right on her.
    Sif knew she was risking embarrassing her father, but she wasn’t going to miss the chance to humiliate Sigurd and Mouse. She disliked them, maybe even hated them. She hated their closeness.
    As she looked at them now, standing next to each other, practically clinging to each other for comfort, the envy rose in her again.
    “Father . . . ,” she began, then remembered where they were. “Lawspeaker . . . they found something on the beach. I saw them.”
    “Go on,” said Horn. Something in his voice indicated he was scared his daughter might embarrass him if she was not careful.
    “They hid it. Sigurd hid it from his own father.
She
pretended to fall, and he hid it outside the broch.”
    “What was it? Food?”
    A muttering rose from those gathered at the assembly. Sigurd looked toward his parents. Freya, his mother, tried to smile at her son, but then Olaf caught his eye. His father’s face raged with a mixture of shame and anger.
    “No,” said Sif, “it was this.”
    She turned and knelt down. From underneath the blanket she’d been sitting on she produced the box.
    She held it up for everyone to see, and there was silence.

6

    Of course, she wasn’t called Mouse then.
    When we found her, four summers before
she
found the box, she wasn’t called anything. She was just a girl we found in a cave full of wolves.
    After a while others noticed what I was looking at. They turned and saw the naked girl, standing in the cave mouth. Still she did not move. Her hair was long and unkempt. She was filthy. She was perhaps seven or eight summers old, but it was hard to tell.
    “What’s this?” asked my father. He came and stood by my side.
    “Look!” I said. “She’s crying!”
    “Poor thing,” said Selva, one of the few women who’d come with us on the war party.
    “It’s a miracle she’s still alive,” said someone else.
    There was confusion. Still the girl stood staring at us, crying quietly. And then I remember very clearly, though I don’t remember who said it:
    “How could a little mouse like that have survived in there? With those animals?”
    A little mouse.
    “They must have been saving her. You know, to eat later.”
    A little mouse. I can’t remember much after that. How we took her home to the village. There was a lot of debate, that I do remember. Argument while we were still on the hill.
    It was obvious we had to take her. Obvious to everyone apart from Horn, that is.
    “Another mouth to feed, that’s all she is,” he said.
    “But we can’t just leave her!” I cried.
    Olaf put his hand over my mouth, but Horn hadn’t even heard me.
    “You don’t have to worry about feeding her,” he said, “I do. I have to see you’re all fed. . . .”
    No one spoke for a while. There was a standoff. Then Father stepped forward.
    “What’s