Heroes of the Valley

by Jonathan Stroud

  'Anyone see Halli today?' Arnkel growled as the men gathered in the yard, hot and straw-strewn, for their day's-end ale. 'He did not work my field.'

  'Nor mine,' Leif said. 'He should have been helping the women rake hay.'

  Bolli the bread-maker came waddling across the flagstones.

  'I'll tell you exactly where he was! Back here, stealing my oatcakes!'

  'You caught him at it?'

  'I as good as saw him! As I laboured at my oven, I heard a horrid screeching outside my door. I hurried out to find a cat tied by the tail to the door latch; it took me much effort to work the string loose. When I returned inside, what did I see? A hook on the end of a pole retreating through my window, with five fine cakes impaled upon its point! I ran to the window – but too late! The villain was gone.'

  Arnkel scowled. 'You're sure this was Halli?'

  'Who else would it be?'

  A murmur of weary agreement rose amongst the men. 'All year it has been like this!' Grim the smith said. 'A series of jokes and thefts and escapades at the expense of others! He contrives one after the other with the speed of one possessed.'

  Unn the tanner nodded. 'My goat stolen and tethered up beside the crags! Do you recall it? He said he wished to lure a wolf !'

  'What about those snares he left in the orchard?' Leif said. 'Allegedly so that he could "catch an imp". Who did he catch instead? Me! My ankles throb even now!'

  'Remember those thistles wedged inside the privy?'

  'My leggings hung upon the flagpole!'

  'No punishment seems to bother him. He is impervious to threats!'

  Arnkel's brother Brodir had been listening in silence. Now he put down his cup and wiped his hand across his ragged beard. 'You take it all too seriously,' he said. 'Where is the harm in any of this? The boy is imaginative and bored, that's all. He wants adventure – a little stimulation.'

  'Oh, stimulation I can help him with,' Arnkel said. 'Someone find Halli and bring him to me.'

  Despite repeated beatings, complaints about Halli's behaviour continued through the summer. In desperation Arnkel put his son in the daily care of Eyjolf, head servant of the House.

  One evening, when Katla was pulling the nightshirt over Halli's head, he was summoned into the hall. His father, who had just finished the day's arbitrations, sat in his Law Seat, his horse-strap in his hand. Halli blinked at it, and then at Eyjolf grinning beside the dais.

  'Halli,' Arnkel said slowly, 'Eyjolf seeks arbitration on your behaviour today.'

  Halli stared bleakly about him. The hall was empty; golden light drifted through the western window and glinted on the hero's treasures. The fire had not been lit and the air was growing chill. The Seat next to his father's was empty.

  'Shouldn't Mother be here, if it's an arbitration?'

  Arnkel's face darkened. 'I feel sure I can make this judgement without her help. No detailed knowledge of the Law will be necessary to comprehend your deeds. So then, Eyjolf – make your charge.'

  The head servant was almost as old as Katla. Stooped, cadaverous and of somewhat sour disposition, he looked on Halli without affection. 'Great Arnkel, as you requested I have been putting Halli to good constructive work, mainly in the latrines, the middens and the tanning vats. For three days he has been giving me the run-around, vexing me with impudence. At last, today, as I took him to muck out the stables, he gave me the slip and ran into the servants' quarters. As I followed, a set of booby traps waylaid me. I was tripped by a concealed wire, spread-eagled by butter on the flagstones, frightened by a makeshift ghost hidden round a corner, and finally, when I tottered into my own small room, soundly drenched by a bucket of slops balanced on the open door. I was forced to duck my head repeatedly in the horse trough, to the amusement of people in the yard. Then, when I looked up, what did I see? Halli smirking down at me from atop the roof of Grim's forge! He claimed to be watching the ridge for signs of Trows.'

  As he pronounced the final word, Eyjolf made a complex series of careful signs. Halli, who had been listening with a show of unconcern, took a sudden interest.

  'What are you doing, old Eyjolf ? Does every entrance to your body have to be protected when you talk of Trows?'

  'Insolent child! I am stoppering myself against their unclean power. Be silent! Arnkel, it took me an age to get him down from that roof. He might have fallen and broken his neck, which would have been a shame for you, if not for me. These are the facts, and the truth of it. I request arbitration and a thrashing for Halli.'

  Arnkel spoke in the deep tones he used as Arbiter. 'Halli,' he said, 'this is a grim catalogue. It sorrows me that you should display, in such short order, wanton disrespect to a valued servant, disregard for your own safety, and blithe irreverence to the supernatural dangers that surround us. Do you have anything to say?'

  Halli nodded. 'Father, I draw attention to Eyjolf 's misconduct. He has neglected to mention that he gave his solemn word not to report any of this to you. In return for his oath I climbed down from the roof promptly and spent the whole day mucking out the stables.'

  Halli's father scratched at his beard. 'Maybe, but that does not negate your crimes.'

  'Those are easily answered,' Halli said. 'As to my own wellbeing, I was in no danger. I am as spry as a goat, as you have often observed. I made no damage to the fabric of Grim's roof. My interest in the Trows is born from a desire to more fully comprehend the dangers that beset us and is not in the least irreverent. As for my disrespect to Eyjolf, it appears well-founded, since he is an oath-breaker and should be strung up by the heels from the flag-mast in the yard.'

  At this Eyjolf made a shrill interjection, but Halli's father shushed him.

  Arnkel tapped the horse-strap with his fingers and stared at his son. 'Halli, your argument is tenuous, but since it hinges on a question of personal honour I feel I have to pause. Above all things we must maintain the honour of ourselves and of our House, and this extends to bargains made between men. Eyjolf, did you in fact agree to keep quiet about events today?'

  The old man huffed and blew and sucked in his cheeks but had to admit it was so.

  'Then in all conscience I cannot beat Halli in this instance.'

  'Thank you, Father! Will Eyjolf be punished for his lack of faith?'

  'His disappointment in your acquittal will suffice. See how his face sags. Wait! Do not leave so readily. I have said I will not punish you, but I have not yet finished.'

  Halli paused on his way to the door. 'Oh?'

  'It is clear that you are bored of your tasks here,' Arnkel said. 'Very well, I have another for you. The near flock needs moving to the high pastures above the House for the last few weeks of summer. Do you know the spot? It is a lonely place, close to the boundary where the Trows walk at night. There is danger of wolves too, even this season. To protect the flock a shepherd must be quick-witted and nimble, brave and enterprising . . . But you rejoice in such qualities, do you not?' Arnkel smiled thinly at his son. 'Who knows? Perhaps you will at last see a Trow.'

  Halli hesitated, then shrugged as if the matter were of no consequence. 'Shall I be back for the Gathering?'

  'I will send someone for you in good time. Not another word! You may go.'

  The high pasture was little more than an hour's walk from Svein's House if a certain winding track were used to scale the ridge, but its location felt considerably more remote. It was a place of boulders, clefts and deep blue shadow, where the only sounds were the breeze and birdsong. The sheep wandered near and far, growing fat on grass and sedge. Halli found a ruined stone hut on a grass spur in the centre of the pasture; he camped there, eating cloudberries, drinking goat's milk and taking water from a spring. Every few days a boy brought up cheese, bread, fruits and meat. Otherwise he was alone.

  Not for anything would Halli have admitted to his father any nervousness at the prospect of his solitude, but that nervousness existed, for the line of cairns loomed close upon the skyline.

  Across the top end of the pa
sture a stone wall had been built, straddling the contour of the hill. It was there to prevent the sheep straying close to the summit of the ridge, where the cairns were. It was there to prevent people straying too. Halli stood at the wall often, gazing up towards the tooth-shaped stacks of stone that were just visible on the hump of the hill. Some were tall and thin, some broad, others sloughed or crooked. Each one hid the body of an ancestor; all were there to help Svein guard the boundary against the wicked Trows. Even in full sunlight they remained dark, a sombre, watchful presence; on grey days their proximity cast a pall on Halli's mood. In late afternoons, he was careful lest their long low shadows should touch him and he was Trow-stricken.

  Each night he lay in the hut's black silence, nostrils filled with the smell of earth and the sour wool of his blanket, and imagined the Trows shuffling on the moors above, straining against the boundary, hungry for his flesh . . . At such times the boundary seemed scant protection. He whispered thanks to the ancestors for their vigilance and hid his head until sleep came.

  If Halli's nights were troublesome, the days were pleasant and eased the frustrations of his heart. For the first time that he could remember he was free to do as he saw fit. No one gave him orders; no one beat him. His parents' disapproving eyes were far away. He was not required to carry out dull jobs in House or field.

  Instead, he lay in the grass and dreamed great deeds – those that Svein had accomplished in the distant past, and those that he one day intended to perform.

  While the sheep grazed peaceably, Halli would survey the scene below, following the brown-green slabs of Svein's fields as they fell towards the valley's central fold, where he had never been. Here, he knew, the great road ran beside the river, away east to the cataracts and beyond. On the opposite side of the river, the wooded slopes rose steeply. These belonged to Rurik's House. He could see smoke from its chimneys sometimes, hanging over distant trees. Rurik's ridge, like Svein's, was topped with cairns; beyond hung the grey slopes and white crests of the mountains, part of the great unbroken wall that swung round north, west and south, hemming in the valley.

  Long ago, great Svein had explored all this. Sword in hand, he had journeyed up and down the valley from High Stones to the sea, fighting Trows, killing outlaws, gaining renown . . . Each morning Halli would gaze towards the rising sun, to the jagged silhouette of the Snag, the granite spur that hid the lower valley. One day he too would go that way – below the Snag, down through the gorge, in search of adventure – just as Svein had done.

  In the meantime, he had some sheep to tend to.

  Halli had nothing against the sheep, a hardy mountain breed with black faces and wiry wool. Most of the time they took care of themselves. Once a yearling lamb fell into a crack between two boulders and had to be pulled free. On another occasion a ewe broke a foreleg in a tumble from a crag – Halli fashioned a crude splint from a wood stave and the fabric of his tunic, and sent her hobbling on her way. But as the weeks went by, their company began to pall and Halli grew tired of his duties. He spent more and more time staring uphill – towards the cairns.

  No one he knew had ever seen a Trow. No one could tell him anything about them. How many of them were there? What did they eat, with humans out of reach? What would the moor look like, over the brow of the hill? Would he see their burrow holes, the bones of their past victims?

  Halli had many questions, but he never thought to approach the cairns.

  At one end of the pasture, perhaps in the gales of the previous winter, a section of the guard wall had fallen down. Its stones littered the long grass over a wide area. On his arrival Halli had realized that he should attempt to rebuild it, and had in fact made an attempt to do so, but had discovered the job to be arduous and backbreaking. He soon gave up, and since the sheep never ventured to that end of the meadow anyway, he quickly forgot about the matter.

  The weeks passed. One afternoon, when the first tints of brown and amber were showing in the trees of the valley far below, Halli woke from a doze to discover that the flock, with ovine caprice, had for the first time migrated to the far end of the field. No fewer than eight sheep had strayed across the scattered stones of the fallen wall and were cropping the grass on the far side.

  Uttering an exclamation of dismay, Halli seized his stick and hurried across the field. Shouting, waving, gesticulating, he drove the main flock away from the tumbled stretch; one of the stray sheep jumped back over the stones to join them, but the other seven made no move.

  Halli returned to the hole in the wall and, making a protective gesture – much as he had seen Eyjolf do – scrambled over the stones onto the forbidden slope.

  The seven sheep regarded him narrowly from various positions near and far.

  Halli employed all his shepherd's wiles. He moved slowly so as not to frighten the strays; he made a series of soothing chirrups in his throat; he kept the stick low, motioning gently in the direction of the wall as he circled round to drive them steadily, subtly, inexorably towards the hole.

  As one, the sheep bolted in seven different directions across the hill.

  Halli cursed and swore; he charged after the nearest sheep and succeeded only in driving it another few yards up the slope. Scampering at another, he slipped, lost his balance and tumbled head over heels to land upside-down upon a muddy tussock. Such was the pattern of the afternoon.

  After a long time and much exertion Halli had managed to coerce six of the sheep back through the hole. He was mud-stained, sweating and out of breath; his stick had snapped in two.

  One sheep only remained.

  She was a young ewe, skittish and swift, and she had climbed higher up the slope than any of the others. She was almost at the cairns.

  Halli took a deep breath, moistened his lips and began to climb, angling his path so as to approach the ewe tail-on. He kept a weather eye on the nearest cairns – tumbledown columns of mossy rock showing stark against the sky. Luck was with him in one sense: it was a cloudy day and the cairns projected no shadows. But the ewe was wary, turning and starting at every gust of wind. She saw him when he was still six feet from her.

  Halli stopped dead. The sheep gazed at him. She was in the lee of a cairn, right on the boundary of the valley, cropping the long grass that grew around the ancient stones. Behind her he glimpsed a green expanse – the high moors, where the heroes had walked long ago, and only the Trows lived now. His mouth was dry, his eyes staring. He saw no movement; heard nothing but the wind.

  Slowly, slowly, Halli tore up a long clutch of grass. Slowly he held it out towards the ewe. Slowly he backed away, with a smile of supplication.

  The ewe turned her head, cropped grass. She was no longer looking in Halli's direction.

  Halli hesitated. Then he made a desperate lunge.

  The ewe's legs kicked: she was away, past the cairn, onto the moors.

  Halli fell to his knees, tears breaking in his eyes. He watched the ewe dance away across the grass. She came to rest again, not far distant. Not far – but she was out of reach now. Gone. He could not follow her.

  A few feet from him, the cairn rose dark and silent. If he had stretched out a hand he could have touched it. The thought made the hairs rise on the back of his neck.

  Stumbling, gasping, he backed away down the slope towards the safety of the wall.

  For the rest of the day he watched the skyline, but the ewe did not reappear. Dusk came; Halli crouched uneasily in the darkness of his hut. Sometime in the depths of the night he heard a high-pitched screaming, a sound of animal terror and pain. It ceased abruptly. Halli stared into blackness, every muscle cringing; he did not sleep until dawn.

  Next morning he climbed the slope again and, from a wary distance, looked beyond the cairns.

  The ewe was gone, but here and there, scattered in an outflung arc, he saw red and tattered strips of wool, a bloody raggedness on the ground.

  3

  WHEN EGIL LIKENED Svein's old mother to a she-toad, Svein soon got to hear about i
t. He set straight off to Egil's hall and nailed a wolf pelt to the door. Egil came rushing out.

  'What's this? A challenge? Where do you want to fight?'

  'Right here, or anywhere, it's your decision.'

  'We'll do it on Dove Crag.'

  Up on high they wrestled, each trying to push the other off. Svein was confident; his iron limbs had never failed him. But Egil matched his strength. The sun went down, the sun came up; there they were, still locked together. Neither would budge. They were fixed so still that birds began roosting on their heads.

  'They'll be nesting here soon,' said Svein. 'That one's brought a twig.'

  'One of yours is laying an egg.'

  With that they parleyed and became blood-kinsmen. Years later, they stood together at the Battle of the Rock.

  'It was the Trows for sure,' Uncle Brodir said. 'They only emerge at night. Why do you doubt it?'

  Halli shook his head. 'I did not say I doubted it, just . . . What do they eat most of the time, when no boys or sheep come their way?'

  Uncle Brodir cuffed him good-naturedly around the head. 'As always, you ask too many questions. Here is one in return. You're sure you did not pass the cairns?'

  'No, Uncle. Certainly not!'

  'Good. Because that would bring ruin upon us all, or so the stories have it. Now then, forget the ewe. Tell your father she broke her neck in a fall. We cannot move the flock tonight. Let's build up the fire. I have fresh meat with me.'

  A day after the loss of the sheep, Halli had seen Brodir, beard resplendent, stout staff in one hand, clambering up the hill to bring him home. They had made a joyful greeting.

  Brodir said: 'Your exile has done you good. I have never seen you look so hale and sinewy. No doubt you will cause even more trouble when you return home.'