Odd hoped very much that the gods would look on him with favor, because he knew that his wife, Signy, most certainly would not. It was one of the reasons that he had spent so long sitting by the fire: he dreaded the thought of going to his sleeping closet and confronting her.
She had only learned of his decision to go to Halfdan when he had told the others. She had raised no objections in front of their important company, but in private she would voice her concerns, and most vehemently.
It was the duty of any man to face his enemies without hesitation. This was a truth that Odd had been taught from the time he was old enough to learn. And he would never do anything less. But facing one’s wife was a different matter. That was something he was very hesitant to do. Nor was he afraid to admit as much, and he doubted that any man would be.
Still, he could not put it off forever. So when Amundi retired at last, Odd did the same. He stripped down, crawled in bed with Signy, hoping that she was asleep. But even before he was settled she rolled over and faced him, and he could see her eyes gleaming in the dark.
Their discussion went much as he thought it would—sharp words spoken in hushed tones. Signy, incredulous that Odd would trade away his life and his family and his farm for his honor. That he would not plead with Halfdan for mercy, and offer anything short of his life and his children’s lives to be forgiven his transgression. That he could be so utterly selfish.
And Odd, trying to make her see that doing such a thing would leave him unmanned, a pathetic and pitiable creature. A man not worthy of being called a man, and certainly not worthy of being her husband. Stripped of everything that made him who he was: master, husband, father. Warrior. He would be none of those things and so he would be nothing.
He assured her he would not risk her life or the lives of his children. He would send them someplace safe until this was over, one way or another. She was not mollified. By the time they were done talking, with dawn in the offing, nothing was resolved, but there was nothing left to say.
Odd was up not long after that, having not really slept much at all. He pulled on his clothes and washed his face, then stepped out into the cool of the early morning. Some of the servants and farmhands were already moving about, preparing for the day. Signy, too, would normally have been up at that hour, but she was not, and Odd guessed that she was shunning him and his company.
Though Odd was not eager to make the ride to Halfdan the Black’s hall in Grømstad, and suffer whatever would come next, he was eager to get it over with. Still, he could not leave without seeing his guests off, and his guests seemed none too eager to rise, being each in varying states of pain from the debauchery of the night before. The morning was well along when they finally began to stumble from their beds and call for water and ale and for their horses and their men to be made ready. They each had long rides ahead of them as they returned to their respective farms, and most were not much looking forward to it.
The boys from the stable brought Odd’s horse around, saddled, bit and bridle in place. Odd stepped out of the long hall, adjusting the hang of Blood-letter, working his shoulders to settle the mail shirt. Behind him, silent, came Signy and the children.
Amundi, sober and clear-headed, was already up and getting his men mounted for the ride back. He greeted Odd with a quick hug and pat on the back. He glanced over Odd’s shoulder and then looked back at him.
“Signy is not so happy about this,” he said in a soft voice.
“No,” Odd said.
Amundi nodded. “A woman’s chief concern is very different than a man’s,” he said. “A woman thinks of her children, her family. A man thinks of his honor. Even if he says he’s thinking of his family, he’s really thinking of his honor.”
Odd smiled. “You’re right,” he said. “And now I must say goodbye to Signy and my children and they’ll be mad at me, and if I never see them again that will be the last image I have of them.” Those words had been meant mostly as a joke, but as he spoke them, Odd felt a sense of despair sweep over him.
He took a breath, turned toward Signy. Their eyes met and Odd heard someone yell from somewhere beyond the hall and he and Signy both looked off in that direction. There were three riders coming from the north, and even from a few hundred yards away Odd could see their mounts were tired. They were riding three abreast, and the man on the middle horse seemed barely able to hold himself upright. As they drew closer Odd could see his head was bound with a bandage and the light-colored fabric of his tunic was stained dark in great patches of what Odd took to be blood.
All eyes were on the riders now. They drew up to the long hall and Odd saw that the one in the middle was a man named Frodi who lived in the shielding, the small house in the hills, with the others who tended the herds there in the summer months. His clothes were torn, his face battered, the bandage on his head was soaked with blood on either side of his head. His ears had been cut off, Odd was sure of it. The men on either side were also herdsmen in Odd’s employ, but they seemed unharmed.
“Frodi!” Odd shouted. “What…who did this?” Even as he spoke Odd could see Frodi was in no condition to give an answer.
The man to Frodi’s left, whose name was Valgerd, answered instead. “He doesn’t know. We don’t know. We were out looking for a stray, and when we came back, they were dead. All dead, or carried off. Except Frodi. And he…well, you can see for yourself.”
Frodi gasped and shook his head, sucked in air and spoke. “Don’t know who. They drove off the herds. Men on horseback. Don’t know who.”
But Odd did know, or he had a very good idea. He felt the fury building in him. And he felt relief as well. Because he would not be riding to Halfdan’s fortress after all.
Chapter Twenty
[S]pear spilled
rivers of blood,
and it ran from
wound red on sword.
The Poetic Edda
Whatever evil had happened at the shielding, it would have to be met with warriors under arms, but Odd had no men under arms.
Odd had meant to ride alone into the storm of Halfdan’s fury. He would not make any of his people join him in that. It was entirely possible that Halfdan would punish not just Odd but anyone in his company for the crime of loyalty to the king’s enemy.
As a result, all of the men who would normally take up arms, such as Ari and Vermund, were scattered around at their various tasks. They were certainly not ready to ride into a fight, but when the alarm was raised and the call to turn out with weapons and shields came echoing around the yard and the fields, turn out they did, and quickly.
Odd watched with forced patience as the stable boys brought the horses out into the yard and his men mounted. Amundi stepped up beside him. “I have some of my men with me, of course, and we’ll ride with you,” he said. “The others, they’ll all come as well.”
Odd nodded. He had hoped the others would choose to ride with him, but he would not put them on the spot by asking. Still, he knew that no man would want to be seen riding off in one direction when there was a fight to be had in the other.
The sun had not reached its noontime height by the time they rode out, a formidable line of warriors, the wealthy landowners leading their own columns of armed men. They would be more than enough to deal with the raiders, if the raiders could be found, unless Halfdan had sent a genuine army. And no one would send an army to kill unarmed herdsmen and drive off cattle.
Odd led the way, riding at a fast trot while the others fell in just behind him, until there was nothing to be heard save for the pounding of the hooves and the breathing of the mounts. He had made this trip to the shielding many, many times. The distance was about fifteen miles and he knew just how hard he could push his horse along the uphill path to arrive as quickly as possible without exhausting the animal. Even then the afternoon would be well on by the time they arrived.
They were a few miles away when they saw the smoke, a weak column rising up from the last of an unseen fire somewhere up
ahead. But Odd did not need to see the fire to know what was burning. He felt his stomach twist up.
He held up his hand and slowed his horse to a walk and heard the other horses behind him slow as well. Amundi came up on his left side and Ulfkel Ospaksson on his right and they rode in silence, side by side. At that pace they would have been able to hear anything there was to hear, such as the raiding party still at work, but there was nothing.
“This fire,” Ulfkel said, nodding ahead. “This is your shielding?”
“Yes,” Odd said. “And the sheep, they’re usually kept in the fields here.” There were no sheep to be seen now.
“Bastard,” Ulfkel said.
Odd looked over at the man and he was surprised by what he saw. Aging and corpulent, but there was an alertness, even eagerness, in Ulfkel’s manner now. He sat more upright in the saddle, eyes fixed ahead, the reins held with purpose. It was as if the raider in him, long asleep, was waking up.
They rode on, and finally they could see the blackened heap of charred wood where the small house had once stood, the last gasps of smoke roiling up from it like the remnants of a funeral pyre. Odd felt his stomach turn further. It was not because of the house, the house meant nothing. But strewn around he could see bodies, motionless on the summer grass.
The riders approached, slow and hesitant. The first of the dead men was splayed out on the grass, his bearded face pale and yellow, eyes open. There was a gash in the back of his tunic, torn flesh visible through the rent, gleaming in a wash of fresh blood. A foot from his hand was the splitting ax he had been using as a weapon. Odd was glad to see he had died fighting. The gods would look with favor on that. It was the smallest of consolations, but it was something.
They continued along the wide path toward the burned-out wreckage of the shielding, passing more dead men scattered about. They all had weapons of some sort: axes or clubs or staffs. Spears. One man even had a sword. But no shields, no helmets, nothing to indicate they had had warning enough to do any more than grab what was on hand.
Odd stopped his horse and climbed down from the saddle. He looked around. He said nothing. He did not know what to say. The others climbed down as well and stretched sore limbs. It was very quiet. Odd was accustomed to the sounds of the sheep, and the cattle if they were nearby, the shouts of the herdsmen, but now there was nothing.
“Livestock’s gone?” Amundi asked.
Odd nodded. “The sheep were kept nearby here. They’re gone. Cattle were usually in a field about a mile up from here, but I have no doubt they’re gone as well.” But Odd was no more worried about the livestock than he was the house. It was not the livestock that was making his stomach churn to the point where he feared he might vomit.
For a long moment they all stood in silence and Odd studied the scene around him with growing anger and disgust. When at last he trusted himself to speak he said, “There’s no women.”
“Women?” Amundi said.
“Most of these men,” Odd said, making a sweeping gesture to indicate the dead lying scattered around the grounds, “had their wives with them. There were half a dozen women. More.”
Amundi said nothing, and neither did anyone else. They all understood the implications. Halfdan’s men had carried the women off. Halfdan might keep them as slaves or sell them as slaves or give them to his men.
Ulfkel spoke next. “We had better bury these ones,” he said. “Then we’ll figure what we’ll do about this. It was a brave thing you intended, Odd, going to Halfdan. But I don’t know if it will answer now. Not after this.”
Odd nodded, a noncommittal gesture. None of the others seconded Ulfkel’s words. Enthusiasm for joining in Odd’s feud with the king was by no means universal.
“Ulfkel’s right, we’d best bury these men,” Odd said. He wanted to change the subject before each man was forced to declare where he stood. Odd felt sick enough at having dragged these men as far into his fight as he had already. At having done things that had resulted in the slaughter of his shepherds, the enslavement of their women. He did not intend to allow anyone to involve himself further.
Vermund and Ari, well familiar with the shielding, headed off to the small outbuilding where the picks and shovels would be found. Odd’s other men, and his neighbors’ men as well, spread out and began to carry the dead to a place near the burned-out building where they might be interred. Odd watched them work, but his mind was far afield.
Ragi Oleifsson broke the silence. “This was a cowardly thing,” he said. “Kill shepherds. Steal cattle and women. This sort of thing is not worthy of a king, that’s for certain.”
“We’re all assuming Halfdan did this,” Vifil said. “But we don’t know that. Like Ragi said, this isn’t the kind of war you’d expect from a king.”
Odd frowned. He had been thinking along those same lines. It was no surprise that Halfdan would have his revenge for what Odd had done, that he would strike out, hurt Odd as badly as he could. But this was hardly it. Stealing cattle? Killing hired men and thralls? It was a terrible thing, but far from the worst that Halfdan might do.
“I think Halfdan’s sending a warning here,” Ulfkel said. “He doesn’t want a war. Doesn’t want to do something so bad that we’ll all turn on him. So he did this.”
Heads were nodding, but not Odd’s. That did not seem right to him either. Halfdan was many things, but measured was not one of them. He might not want a war, but he certainly would not stand for any threat to his rule.
“I think Ulfkel’s right,” Ragi said. “That’s why the men who did this, they left the one alive, just cut his ears off. They wanted word to get to Odd.”
There was nodding again, but still this did not ring true to Odd. There was no need to leave Frodi alive to bring word of the raid. The slaughter. Odd would have found out about it soon enough. There were always men going between the farm and the shielding, and that was true of any shielding in that country. Halfdan would have known that. But still he made certain that Odd knew of the attack immediately after it had happened. Why?
Because Halfdan knew that Odd would lead his men up to the shielding in hope of catching the raiders. That he would leave his farm unprotected.
He looked up, the motion so fast and sharp that everyone turned to him. “This is a distraction,” he said and he could not keep the urgency, the mounting panic, from his voice. “Halfdan wanted us gone from my farm.”
That was met with silence. They all understood why that might be.
“If Halfdan wants his revenge on you,” Ragi said, “why would he want you gone from the farm? Wouldn’t he want to catch you there? Isn’t it you he wants?”
Amundi spoke before Odd could answer. “Halfdan knew we were all gathered at Odd’s. Of course he has men watching. And Ulfkel is right about him not wanting a war. He does not want to attack Odd’s farm when we all are there.”
“But that doesn’t answer why he would trick us to leave,” Ragi replied. “Why not wait until Odd’s alone?”
Ulfkel spoke next. “Because Halfdan does not want Odd dead. If he attacks when Odd’s there, then Odd dies fighting. A hero’s death, sword in hand. Too easy. Halfdan wants Odd to suffer more than that.”
There was no denying the logic in that, and no other explanation that seemed more probable. They had been led away. And that meant that something was happening at Odd’s farm that was far worse than the destruction that had been visited on the shielding. And in that instant of realization, the solemn and necessary work of burying the dead was forgotten in a rush of anxiety and panic.
“Everyone! Mount up! Mount up!” Odd shouted, again trying and failing to keep the fear from his voice. “Leave off what you’re doing, just leave it! We have to get back to the farm.”
Everyone stopped, motionless, like that moment when something thrown up in the air pauses before falling back to earth. Then they all broke at once, dropping the corpses they were carrying, tossing shovels and picks aside. None of them had any idea what this new emergency
was about, but they were disciplined enough to not ask, just act.
Odd was back on his horse, had put the spurs to its flanks and was pounding off, back the way they had come, before most of the other men were even mounted. The animal under him was running hard, but it had just completed a fast run, fifteen miles uphill, and it was worn. Odd considered kicking it with the spurs again but he held off.
The others were right behind him now, galloping on, downhill at least, but still their mounts were tired and quickly growing more tired still. Odd grit his teeth, breathed deep, trying to keep the terror down. They covered a mile, then two, then in the corner of his eye Odd saw Amundi pulling up beside him.
“We have to slow down!” Amundi shouted. “We’ll blow the horses, and then they’ll be of no use at all!”
Odd wanted to argue. He wanted to refuse. But he knew Amundi was right. He did not reply because he did not trust his voice, but he eased the reins and brought his horse to a walk. He heard the others do the same. He heard sighs of relief.
It was the longest and most agonizing ride of Odd’s life. They alternated between trotting and galloping and walking, and when they were walking it was everything Odd could do to keep himself from dropping to the ground and running, flat out.
Odd came up over the last hill between him and the farm and he could see it all below him: men and horses swirling around the grounds, one of the storehouses on fire, his people on foot running in all directions. He heard little pinpricks of sound, shouting and screaming and metal clashing on metal.
He kicked his horse to a full-on gallop, pushing the beast as hard as it could go. He did not care now if the horse dropped dead under him. Now he was close enough to run the rest of the way.
Not too late… Odd thought, and with that came a huge wave of relief. No matter what had happened, or what would happen, he would be in the middle of it, blooded sword in hand, and not standing around miles away, dumb, unaware and impotent.
Kings and Pawns Page 20