Heroes of the Valley

by Jonathan Stroud

  Halli grunted. 'I suppose. Your argument sounds a bit technical. I'm not sure the Council would agree.'

  'Listen to me, Halli,' Aud said. She shuffled forward, stretched out her hand to touch him, and withdrew it abruptly. 'Actually I won't if you don't mind. I must get you some water. Listen, Halli – when I heard what the Hakonssons said, I didn't know what to think. It sounded . . . Well, I needed to hear it from you, what happened. It's just that if you had killed Olaf like you planned, I would have—' She shrugged, her face suddenly quiet, serious. 'But you didn't. I didn't think you had. And I'm glad of it, that's all.'

  For a brief silence they looked at one another, then Halli found himself staring at uninvolving portions of the loft floor. He cleared his throat. 'You're very kind, but it's just that—'

  'Shh.' She had a finger to her lips.

  Halli frowned. 'Well, don't you think it's my turn—'

  She shook her head furiously and got to her feet, pointing behind him at the slanting lattice roof. Pinpricks of light showed through the old thatch and between the beams. Down there was the road they had come in on, the way to Arne's hall. He heard horses, metal jingling, the coughing of weary men approaching.

  Halli was on his feet in an instant, his aches and stiffness forgotten.

  He stood beside Aud, silent and wary in the darkness of the loft.

  Surely they would go past. They were on their way back to the forest. Surely— The noises slowed, halted. A voice sounded – a deep voice, a familiar voice, abrupt and condescending. 'And this, Ulfar?'

  In his mind's eye, Halli saw Aud's white-haired father, emollient, placating, scuttling up the track, keeping pace behind Hord's steed. 'It is the old hay barn, not much used, except in years of plenty which. Arne save us. we shall shortly have again.' Ulfar sounded anxious, strained.

  'We can look here too?' Hord said. It was more a statement than a question.

  Halli and Aud stared at one other, faces white as ghosts. They stared across at the open loft hatch, at the haze of light spilling up from below.

  'Of course! Check the loft, check its darkest corners! If he is here you may hang him in my yard outside my window! And if anyone of my House has helped him, they shall dance alongside! Yes, they will indeed! I will string them up myself.'

  'Yes, yes, Ulfar. You are very good. All right. Bork, Einar – take a look inside.'

  Bits rattled, leather creaked, heavy boots landed on the road. They crunched across stones towards the doors below.

  16

  SVEIN BECAME DISSATISFIED WITH the appearance of his House, which was little more than a few dilapidated cottages set amid the fields. 'We can do better than this,' he said.

  He had his men drag pine trees down from the forests and set them quarrying stone, but when they began the hall, they ran into problems. The walls kept tumbling down.

  There was an old woman up by Lank Mere who was said to be a witch. Most people avoided her but Svein got on with her well enough. He went to ask about the walls.

  'That's easy,' she said. 'You need someone to guard the foundations.'

  'Anyone in particular?'

  'Young, handsome, strong. That sort of thing.'

  So Svein went back and chose a youth from the prisoners taken during the raids. He was killed and buried in the foundations and after that the hall rose high and strong.

  For several heartbeats Halli and Aud stood utterly transfixed as – separated from them by only a few feet of air and a narrow thickness of wood – two men entered the barn. They listened to the scrabbling of footsteps on the earthen floor, to other indefinable fragments of sound that told of steady, purposeful movement to left and right across the space below.

  The men would be checking the stalls, the old animal partitions; looking in hay piles too, if such there were. It wouldn't take them long to exhaust the possibilities.

  Then they would climb the ladder.

  Halli cast his eyes wildly about the loft space, at the sparse clumps and rills of straw that covered the flooring, at the sloping roof beams choked with webs.

  Blank. Bare. Nowhere to go.

  Except— He grasped Aud's sleeve, distantly surprised at the slimness of the arm beneath the wool; when she looked up, he jerked his head, pointed away to the rear of the barn, to where a ragged oval of light shone through.

  The hole in the thatch.

  Her face showed no acknowledgement, but she must have understood, because she was away from him instantly. moving across the loft with rapid steps that were at the same time soundless. Halli, following, found he could not go at anything like the speed without risking fatal noise. With ponderous care he negotiated the beams, expecting at any moment to hear a shouted challenge from the hatch behind him.

  At the far corner Aud waited with an expression of aghast impatience; ignoring this as best he could, Halli leaned through the hole as he had done earlier that day. He scanned the fields cursorily, saw no one near and, grasping the rough dry thatch on either side, pulled himself forward and out into the open air.

  The roof was layered with thick straw sheaves, originally tightly bound, but now old, worn and ragged. Its pitch was steep and ended altogether not far below the hole with a long drop to a pile of building stones, wood spars and tangled thorn.

  Breathing hard, Halli drew himself out until his knees rested on the lip of the hole. His fingers scrabbled for purchase on either side. To his consternation the straw was loose; rough hanks came free in his grasp.

  A frantic whisper came from behind. 'For Arne's sake don't make such a meal of it. Shift your bum.'

  Halli twisted, seized straw above and to the right of the hole and swung himself out. His toes found a hold; now he clung safely to the outside of the roof.

  Somewhere distant, away and below in the barn's lower space, a voice spoke. He couldn't hear what it said.

  Aud plunged forward through the hole. Halli stretched out a hand.

  As she grasped it, a look of horror spread across her face. The two actions were unconnected; she mouthed something and at the selfsame instant Halli realized what they had forgotten.

  They had left the bags.

  Before Halli could react Aud had ripped her hand from his and ducked back out of sight.

  Halli cursed under his breath. Clinging to the thatch one-handed, he craned his head over the hole, squinting in at the darkness.

  There was Aud flitting away across the loft. There was the ladder. Its ends were shaking. Boots sounded on rungs.

  With rapid steps Aud passed close behind the loft hatch. She scooped up Halli's bag from the straw, then crossed to where her cloth bag lay, open and empty. Taking it in one hand, she turned to go, then bent, and with the flat palm of the other, made violent brushing motions among the straw.

  Halli stared in disbelief. Then he recalled the speed and ferocity of his meal – all the crumbs he'd scattered.

  The ladder quivered. Aud looked up.

  Halli gesticulated furiously at her. Come on.

  Aud stopped brushing; without straightening, back bent low, she sped across the loft space, hopping between beams. Still she made no noise.

  Now she was at the hole again, shoving the bags into Halli's waiting hand. Grasping the straw on both sides, she raised a knee, wedged a foot into the gap and thrust herself through, up and out – onto the roof. She was significantly faster than Halli had been, her momentum much greater. And she had not secured a handhold.

  Out onto the lip of the hole she sprang, reached for the straw, lost her balance, fell forward—

  Halli shot out a hand, grabbed her passing pigtail and swung her around so that she fell against him. Flailing arms scratched at his tunic; fingers found Svein's belt. Halli clung one-handed to the roof. Bracing her feet against the bottom of the roof thatch, Aud hung from Halli, suspended by hair and belt.

  Someone jumped from the ladder into the hayloft.

  Floorboards squeaked, boots scuffed through straw. A cough sounded, followed by a loud thu
d, possibly of head on beam, and a vehement curse. The noises moved close, then retreated. Above them, in the autumn sunlight, pink-white doves fluttered on the roof crest. Aud swung gently to and fro. Halli didn't move. His fingers, locked into the straw, grew slippery with sweat.

  The search was neither long nor rigorous, but for Halli it seemed to go on for ever – an endless sequence of silences and sudden footfalls, seemingly right beside the hole. His arm ached, his shoulder shook. His teeth pressed hard against his bottom lip.

  Then: steps once more upon the ladder. Distant voices. Hooves moving away down the track on the other side of the barn.

  Halli let out his pent-up breath. Aud pulled herself forward to grip the thatch beside him. They perched a while in silence.

  'Close,' Halli said.

  'Yes. 'A grin. Then, 'Halli?'

  'What?'

  'You can let go of my hair now.'

  Back in the safety of the loft, the exertion of the event caught up with Halli. His legs shook, his heart beat fast; he sat abruptly and rubbed his face with his hands.

  Aud, by contrast, seemed energized by her experience. If she had been excited before, she was now almost radiant with agitation. She paced about the loft, arms swinging, feet kicking at the straw, marvelling at the closeness of their escape.

  'You'll be all right now,' she said. 'Safe. No one'll come back here now. No one ever does usually. My bloody father! Can you believe him? "Oh yes, great Hord, I'll do anything you ask. I'll kill my own people if you tell me to. Look anywhere you like, trample our crops, pry into every corner of our House." I'm surprised he didn't put on a saddle and bit and invite Hord to ride him across the fields. I hate my father! I hate him.'

  Halli, suddenly weary, shrugged. 'Maybe he has no choice. They're his neighbours. He knows how powerful they are. How can he refuse them?'

  'Huh.' Aud was scathing. 'My mother would have had no truck with Hord. One step out of place, she'd have sent him packing with a broom handle up . . .' Her voice was lost as she rounded a roof strut. 'I reckon he'd have had trouble with his swagger then.'

  'She sounds a fine woman,' Halli said.

  'She was of Ketil's House. They're bluntly spoken.'

  'You take after your mother, at a guess.'

  'I have nothing of my father in me, that's for sure. We have little joy in each other's company.' For a moment the light went out of her face. 'In fact he's made no secret of his intention to marry me off as quickly as possible. Every chance he gets he touts me as if I were a nice plump bullock at the fair. But enough of boring stuff like that.' She grinned again. 'Halli – that was such a close one! You were so clever to think of the roof – I'd never have dared on my own. Now I understand how you survived everything you did.'

  Halli scowled. 'Survived, yes. Achieved, nothing. What was it all for? Brodir's still dead and I'm no better off than when I started. Worse off, in fact, since I suppose I'll have to go back to my House now – to the usual round of beatings and abuse. Svein knows what my parents'll do to me when I reappear.'

  Aud flopped down in the straw beside him. 'You'll go back home?'

  'Well, what else can I do? Wander about as a man without a House? No one would welcome me. I've seen enough of the valley to know that. I'll be treated as a beggar or a thief. Admittedly it doesn't help that I did actually rob people in half the Houses between here and the gorge. The Eirikssons in particular would delight in finding the man who killed their trader.' He sighed. 'No, I'll be going home.'

  'At least you won't have to make some marriage of convenience to satisfy your father,' Aud said bitterly. 'Being a second son you're spared all that. I'll be hitched to some fool to shore up the fortunes of this House, then have to sit beside him on Arne's Law Seats for years, deliberating about who stole which sheep, who put the dark eye on whose pig, and how many chickens they get in compensation. A world of fascinating adventure. My aunt's been teaching me the Law for six months now, and I've already nearly throttled her with boredom.'

  'Sorry, that's better than what's in store for me,' Halli said. 'You get the Law Seats. I get the remote farm up in the hills, where I'll work as tenant to my brother all my life.'

  'Oh, come on. That can't be too bad.'

  'You reckon? Know the farm's name? Far Bogside. The last incumbent died of marsh foot. You don't get any wolves round there, but only because they drown.'

  Aud let out her short, barking laugh. Halli laughed too. It was the first time he had done so in weeks.

  'I didn't hurt you, did I?' he said. 'When I got you by the hair?'

  'Oh yes. It was excruciating. Thanks for that, by the way.'

  'Well done on getting the bags.'

  'Yes, that nearly did for us. What's in yours? Felt light.'

  'Nothing much any more. That fake Trow claw the trader tried to kill me with.'

  'You know, Halli,' Aud said, 'I knew you were different when we met that day at your House. When you tricked Ragnar with that foul keg of beer . . . You're not afraid of things, are you?'

  Halli's brow furrowed. 'Not in the way my parents are – or your father is, maybe. But I do get afraid. It's just that fear makes me sort of . . . angry and resentful, and I bite back at it. It's hard to describe.'

  'It isn't hard to describe, you idiot,' Aud said. 'It's called courage.'

  'No.' He frowned then. 'No. I told you what happened when I got to Olaf. That was the key moment, and I failed.'

  Aud threw back her head and groaned. 'Not this again! Your mistake, Halli Sveinsson, is that you aspire to the wrong thing. You did a hundred brave acts during your trip down here, but they weren't the ones you were expecting. You kept waiting to find a sword somewhere so you could fight outlaws and monsters, and finally lop off Olaf 's head. None of that happened, did it? So you're disappointed. But you shouldn't be, Halli, because it's nonsense, all that. It's just stuff that happens in the stories. None of it's real.'

  Halli looked at her in some perplexity. '"Stories"? You've said this before. You mean the heroes?'

  'The heroes, the Trows – the stories that bind us, Halli. The stories we all live by, that dictate what we do and where we go. The stories that give us our names, our identities, the places we belong, the people we hate. All of it.'

  'You don't believe them?'

  'No. Do you?'

  'Well, yes, I mean . . .' He pulled at his nose, looked all about him. 'You don't think the heroes lived? Or fought the Trows? What about the Battle of the Rock? Do you deny all that?'

  'Oh, something happened maybe. Men with the names Arne and Svein and Hakon and the rest lived, I don't doubt. Their bones are in the cairns, unless they've all rotted away. But did they do everything the stories say? No.'

  'But—'

  'Think about it, Halli,' she said. 'Think how the stories overlap and contradict each other, how they're told differently up and down the valley. Think of what the heroes are supposed to have done. Take Arne, dear Founder of this House. He could throw boulders the size of cowsheds and leap over rivers in full spate. He once climbed the cataracts holding a baby in one hand, though precisely why he did so I forget.'

  'Perhaps there's some exaggeration crept in over the years,' Halli began, 'but—'

  'What else? He took on ten men with his hands tied behind his back, though what he fought with in that instance I don't dare guess. Oh, and he went into the hill and killed the Trow king before coming home for breakfast.'

  'No,' Halli put in, 'it was supper. And I think you'll find Svein did that.'

  Aud gave a cry of frustration. 'No, he didn't, Halli. Svein didn't do it, and neither did Arne. You, above everyone, should be able to vouch for this. What have you tried to be, these last few weeks? Well? You've tried to be like Svein, haven't you? How did it work out? How many boulders did you toss? How many rivers did you leap? How many outlaws' heads did you bring home in a little string bag?'

  'A little string bag?' Halli frowned. 'Sounds a bit girly. Who did that? Arne?'

  Aud had f
lushed slightly. 'No, no, I think it was Gest, or one of the other rubbish ones. Concentrate on what I'm saying. You went on this journey because you believed all those old wives' tales and wanted to spin one about yourself. Didn't you?'

  'No, it was my uncle—'

  'Only in part. Admit it.'

  'Well . . .'

  'It's true you're a bit extreme, but you're not the only one at it. Everyone's fixated on the tales. Remember Brodir and Hord swapping insults about each other's heroes during the feast? Say something rude about someone's Founder and it's like you've struck them in the face. It's pathetic. And you know what? Deep down it's all about rules, all about keeping everyone in their place.'

  Aud had got to her feet while saying this, and was circling the loft space, taking small, delicate steps over raised beams and ducking swiftly round the struts and jambs, talking animatedly, indifferent to the webs that caught in her hair and the must and grime that rubbed upon her kirtle. Her eyes burned bright in the darkened space, her face shone. Halli found he was staring at her open-mouthed.

  'Are you all right?' she asked suddenly, swinging outwards from a post. Her braid had come undone, and her hair hung loose.

  'Yes. Yes. I was just going to say . . . I don't know what I was going to say.'

  'The worst of it is the cairns,' Aud went on. 'That stuff about the Trows. We suckle in our dread of them with our mothers' milk. But no one ever sees them. No one ever hears them. No one—'

  'Well, that's because no one crosses the boundary.'

  'Exactly! No one dares. Because the heroes set the boundaries, and their old rules still apply. Even though there's good grazing up there! And who knows what else. When I sit by Mother's cairn, it gets me so angry. Arne's House could do with that extra land, as I expect Svein's could. But no. A Trow will eat you. The heroes made the rules and that's that.'

  'You know what I don't like about the cairns?' Halli said, watching the patterns of her movement across the far side of the loft. 'It's the look of them. The look of them up on the brow of the hill. It's like they get between me and the sun.'