To Cast an Iron Arrow

R.C. Smith builds a world that earns belief one detail at a time. The premise is a parallel Earth where Vikings still sail and the world is flat, and the Fourth Era's Vlaanderen and Skandar are drawn with a mapmaker's care and a folklorist's patience. Smith knows what a believable culture needs. The Ollandic/Yuran/Lenskur language tiers mean something in the plot. Kit's study of the Futhark, one sound per glyph, is not window dressing. Patronymic naming against Vlaanderen's fixed house name becomes a real conversation in the garden. Selja's account of Skathi and Njörthr, who "could not bear" each other's element, and the long telling of Baldr, Höthr and Loki's mistletoe dart, are woven into an April earthquake scene instead of recited as lore. The two religions are set against each other without a winner: Eloham, Shahdaan and the Pass of Souls on one side, Yggdrasil and Valhalla on the other, with Sarreaux, the defrocked Gallic cleric, living between them.

The world also does thematic work. The question of an iron arrow, "dedication and trueness to purpose," turns into the sculpture Selja gives Kit and the arm ring Gunnar hands him. Kit's quiet reckoning with desire sits inside a court that forbids it, and the book handles it with patience: Master Lodewijk's counsel, Rögnvar's casual offer, the dizzy moment over the proclamation with Stefaan, the prayer for a sign. Kit's fixation on schooling the poor, and Stefaan's illiterate yet gifted musicianship, give the book a social conscience as well.

The pacing is leisurely and the dialogue sometimes explains more than it needs to. But the reader leaves knowing Lehj, its stairwells, its feast days and its quarrels, as a place they have almost been.