This dramatic short story collection contains eight stories based on a figurative, or literal, interpretation of wet, nasty weather. At turns spooky, frightening or funny, these tales are guaranteed not to disappoint.
Ice : "Vernon Wilson" (Paranor...
The Jarl stood up from the high-backed, ornate chair at the front of the hall and lifted a ringed finger, gesturing for silence.
One by one, the mouths of shouting kinsmen and women closed, as if a hand had reached out and laid itself over them. Only the fires in the hearths continued to speak, crackling and casting their dancing light over the embroidery and gold.
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"We shall side with Norway in this dispute," said the Jarl. "From this moment on, the king of Sweden is no longer our king. The men of Sunnar will term this treason and come to harry us into submission. Sweden will offer them gold, no doubt. Therefore, every homestead must arm itself and prepare to fight. This is my decision. May Odin protect us and lead us to victory."
Hrothgar's eyes closed, and his head lowered onto his chest as cheers were screamed and cups drummed onto table tops in approval.
Who was he to speak against the Jarl's decision? The second son of a minor warrior who held his chin too high, fancying himself a man of rank and importance. A boy, a farmer.
The Jarl and the kinsmen of his clan were misguided and arrogant in their decision -- Hrothgar knew it in his bones. Greed, that was the sole motivation, and he saw it shimmering through the fancy words and the inflated talk like a silver river through the trunks and branches of winter-bare trees.
Norway was giving land to those who sided with her. Land with forests full of animals to hunt, fields to plant, homesteads to found, slaves to trade and gold to be given to men brave enough to stand on, and hold, the side of traitors. Land their clan could expand out on and take for themselves, to increase their power and influence in the kingdom. Land that would carry the name of the Jarl to the gates of Asgard itself.
Odin would not protect them. Even now, Hrothgar could feel the sacred ravens winging their course back to the All Father, carrying the news of their treachery in their craws. But who was he to say so? His tongue was useless. His thoughts even more so.
Hrothgar rose from the shadowy corner in which he'd crouched, listening to the arguments, to the rush of opinion as it tumbled from consideration into fantasies of wealth, land and power, and filed towards the open doors with the rest of the less important.
He had not heard one single genuinely dissenting voice during the entire audience with the Jarl. Only his own steadily repeating rhythm had spoken against the tribe: wrong, wrong, wrong, you are all so very wrong.
Neither wit nor cunning was in his possession, his father never seemed to tire of grumbling. And, much worse, he was bad at riddles. He would stay a farmer it had been concluded, nothing more. He lacked the attributes for anything better. Farming was his future. A future his father saw for him swimming in the mead that floated at the bottom of the drinking horn when he peered into it long enough, and Hrothgar knew it could have been a more bitter one.
