That winter was the coldest I can remember. Sheep froze in the high pastures. Deer were driven so desperate with hunger that they straggled down, skeleton–thin and blind from starvation, all the way to the shepherds' winter folds, where they presented themselves for slaughter, point–blank before the herdsmen's bows. We slept in dugouts that shepherds had abandoned. I begged Halvadyr to abandon me, let me die in peace in the cold. I hated myself for the shameless way I had cried out, and could not make myself stop, during the hours I was put to the trial. I had seen my own heart and it was the heart of a coward. I despised myself with a blistering, pitiless scorn. The tales I had cherished of the riders only made me loathe myself more. None of them would beg for his life as I had, absent every scrap of dignity. The dishonor of my father's murder continued to torment me. Where was I in their hour of desperation? I was not there when he needed me. In my mind I imagined his slaughter again and again, and always myself absent. I wanted to die. The only thought that lent me solace was the certainty that I would die, soon, and thereby exit this hell of my own dishonored existence.
At nights, bouts of fever alternated with fits of teeth–rattling ague. I curled contorted in Halvadyr's arms. One fever–racked night, perhaps ten days after the incident at the farmstead, Halvadyr wrapped me in skins and set off foraging. It had begun to snow and she hoped to use the silence, perhaps
with luck to take unawares a hare or a gone–to–ground covey of grouse.
This was my chance. I resolved to take it. I waited till Halvadyr had moved off beyond sight and sound. Leaving cloak and furs and foot wraps behind for her, I set out barefoot into the storm. I climbed for what seemed like hours but was probably no more than five minutes. The fever had me in its grip. I was blind like the deer, yet guided by an infallible sense of direction. I found a place amid a stand of pines and knew this was my spot. A profound sense of decorum possessed me. I wanted to do this properly and, above all, to be no trouble to Halvadyr. I picked out a tree and settled my back against it so that its spirit, which touched both earth and sky, would conduct mine safely out of this world. Yes, this was the tree. I could feel Sleep, brother of Death, advancing up from the toes. Feeling ebbed from my loins and midsection. When the numbness reaches the heart, I imagined, I will pass over.
And then, I heard my name being called from below and knew it was my sister, in alarm, scouring the hillside for me. I felt warmth returning to my midsection and the blood surging like a tide into my legs and feet.
Halvadyr reached me, scrabbling over the snowy crest and lurching into the grove of pines. "What are you doing up here all alone?" I could feel her slapping my cheeks, hard, as if to bring me around from a vision or transport; she was crying, clutching and hugging me, tearing off her cloak to wrap about me.
"I'm all right," I heard my voice assuring her. She slapped me again and then, weeping, cursed me for being such a fool and scaring her so to death.
"It's all right, Hal," I heard my voice repeating. "I'm all right."
