The woman’s mission was suddenly clear, and Ivo cursed whomever it was who had taken compassion on her. The Highest Keeper was not the only one who could bestow a token or pardon. Every keeper spent his days during the tournament healing and calling on the runes. Yet this woman had been brought to him, slipped into his sanctum without introduction, so that he would have to tell her that some ailments could not be righted with a rune. Cowards. He would punish the lot of them.
“Did he ever see?” Ivo asked, impatient, waving toward the boy.
“No, Master. His eyes were thus when he was born.”
“He was not ill?”
“No.”
“Then I cannot heal him. I cannot restore what never was.”
The woman’s shoulders sagged, and he thought for a moment she would collapse.
He cursed the Norns who delighted in tormenting him.
“I will give you both a blessing of strength. Then you will go,” he relented.
He drew a half-hearted rune in the air, mumbling a blessing on the marrow and blood and sinews. He could not be expected to bestow more under the circumstances. The little boy let go of his mother’s hand and cocked his dark head. Then he repeated the blessing, word for word, his voice high and sweet. Ivo’s irritation disintegrated into the dust on the sanctum floor, but the woman was not comforted. Tears had begun to streak her cheeks.
“I fear strength will not be enough, Master,” the woman whispered.
“Why not?” Ivo grumbled. She did not need to know his heart had changed.
“He is a fine boy, Master. But his blindness is a burden no one will shoulder. And I cannot take care of him anymore.”
“Where is his father? What of your clan?”
“I am of Berne, my father is dead, and I have known many men, Master.” Her voice was unapologetic, and he had little doubt she spoke truth, but she withheld something. Most women did when speaking of such matters. Especially to an ancient keeper who they assumed would not understand.
“Take him to Chief Banruud. It is the responsibility of the chieftain to provide for the children—all children—in his clan.”
She was silent, resistant, and for a moment she hung her head, defeated.
He sighed, throwing his hands in the air.
“I cannot heal his eyes . . . but I can heal you so that you might take care of him,” Ivo offered.
Relieved, the woman nodded, and he motioned her to approach him. Her hands shook with fatigue and her skin burned with fever. He would have to draw runes to ward off illness in every corner of the temple, but it was always thus during the tournament.
In his own blood, he drew three runes across her brow: a rune of breath, a rune of strength, and a rune to expel the sickness from her chest. The fates would decide whether or not to grant his request—life and death were not his to control—but already her eyes were clearing and the rattling in her exhalations was gone.
He waited, letting the runes sink beneath her skin before he wiped the residue away. He would not leave a mark for others to see.
“Go now. And take the boy.”
She backed away, bowing gratefully as she did, but his rune had healed more than her body. It had restored her hope, and she made another request.
“There is word that there is a child, a babe, living among the keepers. Living in the temple. That is what I want for my son,” she said in a rush.
“Word, eh?” He snorted.
Word all the way in Berne? He doubted that. But now he knew which keeper had allowed the woman entrance into the sanctum. Keeper Dagmar was a constant thorn in his side. A burr in his shoe. A canker in his mouth. And he had been from the moment Dagmar had come to the mount, a lanky, insistent boy, threatening to throw himself from the cliffs of Shinway if the Highest Keeper did not allow him to become a supplicant in the temple.
The worst part was, somehow Dagmar always got his way. Months ago, he’d brought a newborn babe, his dead sister’s son, Bayr, into the enclave, and Ivo had relented again. Even though it had never been done. Even though it should never be done. Now this woman was here, demanding the same. Ivo had warned Dagmar of this very thing. The moment an exception was made, the rule ceased to exist.
“Can you not train him to be a keeper?” she pled. “He is so smart.”
“A keeper,” the little boy parroted. He stood beneath the altar, his arms extended as high as he could raise them, so the tips of his fingers could trace the carvings in the wood. The runes were all entangled, each figure indistinguishable from the others, except to the trained eye. It was the way they were protected, even in the sanctum. Even on the underside of the altar.
“Runes,” the little boy said, marveling.
Ivo gasped. “He recognizes the runes.”
“He knows naught of runes,” the woman argued, shaking her head. “I know naught of runes. I swear it, Highest Keeper.”
The runes were forbidden to all but the keepers. Her fear was justified, but Ivo did not scold her. He watched the child instead. The boy was entranced by the texture of the carvings beneath his hands. After a moment, the little fellow crouched, and in the dust of the floor, he drew a rune—two half circles, back to back, one that opened to the left and one that opened to the right. An arrow bisected the first crescent, and its shaft penetrated the second through the back. The rune was an exact replica of the one directly above the boy’s head, if he remembered right.
Ivo frowned and then he gaped, dumbfounded. “He draws the rune of Hod.”
The woman’s brow furrowed in confusion.
“He draws the rune of Hod, the blind son of Odin,” Ivo whispered.
“He knows naught, Master. It is what he does. He touches and he . . . draws. It is how he learns,” his mother protested and rushed to erase the figure.
“Leave it!” Ivo hissed. The woman and the child froze.
The Highest Keeper did not believe in happenstance. A blind boy—a boy no more than four summers—had drawn the rune of a blind god.
“Bring him to me,” Ivo said, curling his fingers toward the boy.
The woman hesitated, suddenly fearful, but she prodded the boy forward until they both stood in front of the Highest Keeper’s enormous chair. The little boy reached out, tentative, and set his hands on Ivo’s knees, almost as if he understood what was to come.
Ivo gaped again. No one touched him. Ever. The woman seemed to understand this.
“Baldr,” she warned, drawing his hands back.
“His name is Baldr?” Ivo asked, stunned once more.
“Y-yes, Master,” the woman stammered. “I am of Berne. It is a c-common name . . . in Berne.”
“He is not Baldr . . . He is Hod,” Ivo murmured. But the two names were inextricably tied, and it was just further proof to Ivo of a destined course.
“Turn his hands so I can see his palms,” Ivo insisted. She did, gripping the boy’s wrists and extending his small arms so he stood in a posture of supplication, palms up.
Ivo bent over the boy’s hands.
“Runes hide on the palms of our hands, at each knuckle, in every line and whorl,” Ivo muttered, providing explanation to the nervous mother.
The marks were already there, engraved on the boy’s skin, though they were far more visible on him—particularly the rune of sound and of scent—than on most. The lines would continue to deepen as the boy relied upon them, but Ivo would make them deeper still. A gift to the child who would sorely need his other senses.