Krok struck hard and fast. Geirmund got his shield up to take the blow, but the impact stunned him onto his heels. The warriors around the square began to shout, some for him and some for his enemy, but all at once so that Geirmund couldn’t tell their voices apart, and their words became one roar.
Krok charged again, but this time Geirmund returned a swing with his own blade after blocking the Dane’s. They circled each other, striking and retreating, striking and retreating, searching each other for signs of weakness. Very quickly Geirmund’s shield felt close to breaking, and he signalled for a halt, then went to Skjalgi to fetch his second shield before the first failed at the cost of his arm. Krok watched him and spat.
When they renewed the fight, the Dane struck even harder, three times, but Geirmund dodged the fourth and landed a blow that cracked off the top half of Krok’s shield at the boss. The Dane halted the fight to get another.
When Krok came again, Geirmund chose to leap aside instead of taking the blow with his shield, and the force of the Dane’s empty swing carried him forward, off balance. Geirmund tried to seize the opening with a slice at Krok’s neck, but the Dane got his shield up in time and ducked away.
After that, Krok took more care with his sword-strikes, and Geirmund’s second shield soon splintered apart. Sweat poured down his face, and his chest burned from hard breathing. His legs had strength left, but both his arms felt bruised to the bone. His sword felt heavy, and as he went to fetch his last shield, he worried that he had tired faster than his enemy. His warriors all looked at him as if they shared his fear.
“Hel-hide,” Rafn said, “if you have a plan, I see no cause to hide it.”
“Nor I,” Geirmund said. His mouth tasted of iron.
Skjalgi handed him his third shield. “Do you have a plan?”
“You could always rip that ring out of his nose,” Birna said.
Geirmund wanted to laugh but could not rouse his mirth, for he had no plan, but he wished that he could do as Birna said, if only to injure Krok’s pride. Then it occurred to Geirmund that there were other ways to injure his enemy’s pride, and that to wound his pride might perhaps weaken the warrior.
“Laugh at him,” Geirmund said to his Hel-hides.
“Laugh at him?” Steinólfur asked.
Geirmund did not try to explain but turned to face Krok with all the confidence and strength he could gather, much of it false. “Tell me, ox-shit,” he said as they came back together, “how many warriors have you lost trying to kill me?”
The Dane growled.
“I hope you are not as careless with your bastard children as you are with your war-band.”
“Silence!” Krok shouted.
“Are your little ox-turds as ugly and cowardly as you?”
The Hel-hides laughed behind Geirmund, and so did several warriors from Eivor’s crew, at which Krok looked around, then swung his sword hard, but it was a reckless move, and Geirmund stepped aside of the blow.
“Tell us, ox-shit,” he went on, “were you watching from the alehouse when Birna split open the head of your false blacksmith? Unlike you, she had brains.”
Krok roared and struck again, and again, each time more wildly, as Geirmund landed blows with words against the Dane’s pride instead of a sword against his shield. His plan, to his surprise, seemed to be working.
“What was her name?” he asked. “She is not in Valhalla, and that is your fault. You were the fool who sent her to die without a weapon in her hand.”
That caused Krok to glance at his war-band, perhaps in shame, before he turned back to Geirmund, “Stop your pissing and fight!” Spittle flew from his mouth. “I’ll rip your throat out with my teeth!” He swung hard, missed, and the tip of his sword scraped the ground, flicking cut grass into the air.
“Were you there to see your warriors slain by monks?” Geirmund asked as he circled the Dane, keeping out of reach, searching for the right moment to strike. It was not a plan to be proud of, but unlike Krok he was not fighting with his pride. “We laughed at you behind the wall, you know. Even the Christians laughed at you.”
Krok bellowed, then threw his shield away and took his sword in two hands.
“Think of that,” Geirmund said. “Your name causes monks to laugh.”
The Dane rushed at him with a berserker’s rage, and Geirmund took a gash across his hand as he barely got away.
“Halfdan will know it,” he said, then tossed his shield aside also. “He will know you are a fool among Dane and Christian alike, and that is how you will be remembered.”
“Silence!” Krok charged, eyes bulging, and Geirmund saw his opening.
He spun out of the way, then swung back around and plunged his sword into the Dane’s side, shoving the blade deep with both hands, feeling it tear through different layers of flesh as it went in near Krok’s bare waist and came out higher up, from his back. The thrust staggered the Dane sideways a few steps. Then he looked down at his chest, seeming almost confused, and dropped to his knees with a single, bloody cough.
When Krok’s sword fell from his hands with a ringing against the ground, every warrior there heard it and saw it. They all went silent, waiting to see what Geirmund would do, but in that moment he thought only of Aslef. Geirmund could not bring himself to send his friend’s murderer to Valhalla, but for the sake of peace with Krok’s warriors yet living he waved one of them over.
The man hurried to his commander’s side and put the fallen sword back into his hand. Blood sputtered and bubbled from Krok’s mouth, covering his nose ring, and his head lolled. His warrior eased him backwards onto the ground, but couldn’t lay him flat because of Geirmund’s sword point, and the Dane’s head tipped sideways. A few moments later, Krok was dead.
Geirmund turned slowly to face Eivor and his Hel-hides, utterly spent. “It is over,” he said. “Let this holmgang be an end to–”
“Look out!” Steinólfur shouted.
Before Geirmund could even turn, Eivor had thrown an axe that wheeled towards him with a thumping of the air and sank deep in the chest of Krok’s warrior, who fell only a pace or two from Geirmund, a dagger in his hand. Then the last remnants of Krok’s war-band drew their weapons, but Eivor’s crew and Geirmund’s Hel-hides cut them all down while he stood bewildered and tired in the middle of the holmgang square.
The fight lasted only a few moments, and Eivor walked towards him, then past him. “I thought that might happen,” she said as she bent to pull her axe from the warrior’s chest, after which the Dane groaned, shuddered, and died. “They had that look about them.”
“What look?”
“Warriors whose pride and anger come before their honour. But I did warn them.”
Geirmund still felt out of air, his body drained of all its fire, and a deep chill shivered through his limbs.
“That was not the cleanest of fights, Geirmund Hjörrsson,” she said. “But it was lawful, and I am glad you survived it.”
“So am I,” he said.
She leaned towards him. “I do have questions about some of the insults you gave. But that can wait until we are underway.”
“Underway?”
“Yes, aboard my ship.” She nodded in the direction of the boat moored in the river. “You and your warriors will be my guests, as I was once yours at Avaldsnes.”
“Where are we heading?”
“To my hall,” she said. “We are going to Ravensthorpe.”
23
Geirmund’s sword did not come out of Krok as easily as it had gone in, but after cleaning and oiling the blade Steinólfur clapped him on the back and told him he was feeding it well.
Before leaving that place, they dug a shallow trench under a grey sky and covered the dead with earth, and then the river’s current carried Eivor’s ship north down the river. They glided through a rich low country of fields and pastures,
and where the water slowed the crew dropped oars and rowed to speed the vessel along.
As they travelled, Eivor stood with Geirmund a little apart from his Hel-hides, near the sternpost. They spoke of what he had done since she had last seen him, specifically the killing of Fasti and all that had followed, from that death to the death of Krok and his warriors.
“If Halfdan has set wergild,” she said, “you would be wise to pay it and end this blood feud.”
“I would pay, but he set none. Guthrum would have told me.”
“Guthrum is a cunning man.” She glanced up the ship towards his Hel-hides. “From what I overheard your warriors saying after the holmgang, you also have a reputation for cunning.”
“I make use of every weapon at hand,” he said. “I have found that many of the deadliest weapons do not come from a smith’s forge.”
“I think that is true.”
Geirmund thought she looked stronger than she had at Avaldsnes, and the way she moved suggested that she had gained much hard experience, like a good blade that had been used and sharpened many times. “I am surprised to find you here,” he said. “I would have thought you in Rogaland.”
Her expression darkened with anger, and she looked away, over the river. “I could never bend my knee to Harald.”
“Harald of Sogn?” Geirmund knew of only one reason why Eivor would speak of bending her knee to anyone. “He attacked?”
She returned her gaze to him, frowning. “You do not know?”
“Know what?”
“That Harald–” She stopped, her brow creased. “Have you not spoken to Ljufvina and Hjörr?”
“How could I have spoken with them?” he asked, afraid of the answer he was already starting to guess.
“They are in Jorvik,” she said. “They are in England.”
He knew what that meant, but he still had to ask, “What of Avaldsnes?”
She said nothing for a few moments, and Geirmund listened to the oars stirring the river, and the water splashing and tumbling under the hollow of the boat.
“All the North Way has fallen to Harald of Sogn,” she finally said. “Most kings and jarls willingly accepted his rule to avoid war with him. Those who did not accept either fled or died in defeat. That is how I came to Ravensthorpe, and how Ljufvina and Hjörr came to Jorvik.”
Those words and that knowledge struck Geirmund more deeply than Krok’s weapon ever could have, even had the Dane’s sword run him through. When he thought of Harald in his father’s high seat at Avaldsnes, he trembled with rage, but he could not say who he hated most. Harald had taken the hall that Geirmund’s grandfather had built, but his own father had apparently surrendered it without a fight, and Geirmund had not been there to defend it.
He wondered what might have happened if he had not quarrelled with his parents and disobeyed them by leaving. He wondered if there might have been a different end, had he stayed, and he thought this must surely be the betrayal and surrender in his future that Völund had foretold.
Eivor sighed. “I wish you had heard it first from your kin.”
“The truth is not changed by who speaks it.” Then it was he who looked away at the river, but he was not beset by memories and regret, as Eivor was. He thought of his lost home, and he felt anger and doubt. “When I left Avaldsnes,” he said, “I did not think it would be for the last time.”
“Fate seldom gives such warnings. But would it have changed your decision if you had known?”
“I don’t know.”
“Sometimes that is the only honest answer we can give.”
He brought his gaze and his mind back to the ship. “Have you seen them? Are they well?”
“They are well,” she said, but with a slight hesitation. “Life is not easy in Jorvik, or anywhere in England. There are enemies everywhere. Some of them we see and know well. Others… they move in secret, and they hide their true purposes behind lies, masks, and the robes of Christian priests. It is difficult to know who to trust.”
Geirmund moved his hand to his waist, touching the handle of the bronze knife Bragi had given him.
“Alliances here are fragile and hard won,” Eivor went on. “But you should know I count Ljufvina and Hjörr among my most trusted friends. They have struggled, and they have faced enemies, but they are well. Will you go see them?”
“It seems I must.”
She leaned away from him. “Do you not wish to see them?”
“We did not part on good terms,” he said, remembering his argument with them in his father’s council room. “I spoke in anger, and so did they.”
“The gods know it is not for me to judge such things. But I will say this much. The wounds we ignore seldom heal well. They must be cleaned and bound, or they will fester.” She put a hand on his shoulder and looked into his eyes. “Whatever you choose to do, I am glad to see you.” Then she left him and moved towards the prow of the ship to speak with one of her crew.
Geirmund remained at the sternpost, and Steinólfur soon joined him there. When Geirmund told him what he had just learned, the older warrior seemed little troubled by it, but he was an Egðir, and not of Rogaland.
“It is a great loss for Hjörr,” he said. “But you left that place to seek lands of your own.”
“So I told my father when I turned my back, and yet I have no lands of my own.”
“That need cause you no shame,” Steinólfur said. “You are on the path to your destiny.”
But Geirmund no longer knew that to be true, nor whether it had ever been true, and he felt suddenly lost and adrift, but he spoke no more about it for the rest of their journey downriver.
In the late afternoon the ship came to Ravensthorpe. The settlement’s blue hall rose high in the midst of two dozen buildings or more, all situated in the shelter of a low ridge on a gentle rise above the river, where a wharf reached out to receive ships and trade. It was a fine location for a town, with land to the north for planting.
As Eivor led them from the river towards her hall, Geirmund heard the hammer of a blacksmith somewhere in the town, and the bray of horses. They passed by the houses and workshops of several men, women, and children, who seemed to regard Geirmund with more curiosity than suspicion or fear. Not all of them appeared to be Northmen, and some even looked Saxon. One man even resembled the traders from Syrland that Geirmund had seen in Lunden, with dark skin and hair, and robes in a style neither Saxon, Northman, nor Dane. He stood outside his home, hands clasped behind his back, and he gave Geirmund a nod when their eyes met.
Then Geirmund and his Hel-hides arrived at the hall, with its dragon-prowed keeled roof. Eivor led the way inside, where they were all greeted by a woman whose hair shone with the colour of a red deer’s hide, and though she wore no armour she carried herself as if her body remembered the fit of it well. Eivor introduced her as Randvi, her war-chief, and then Geirmund introduced his warriors in return.
“You must all be hungry and thirsty.” Randvi motioned them towards a long table bearing food, drinking horns, and a pitcher of ale. “Come, sit, eat.”
Eivor led the way, and though her hall was not the largest Geirmund had seen it possessed all the riches and comforts a jarl could desire. It was the sort of hall he wanted for himself one day, if that was to be his fate. “You have done well, Eivor,” he said.
“I have been fortunate in many ways.” Eivor glanced at Randvi. “But we have fought hard for everything you see.”
“I do not doubt it,” Geirmund said.
His warriors sat at the table and helped themselves to all that it offered, and after Rafn had taken a drink of ale he looked down into his horn with a grin.
“Your brewer has skill.”
“I will share your praise with Tekla,” Eivor said.
“Wolf-Kissed!”
Geirmund turned and saw the Syrland man had entered the
hall.
“I come to introduce myself to your guest, if I may?”
“Of course.” She moved towards the man, and Geirmund did the same, leaving his Hel-hides at the table. “This is Geirmund Hjörrsson of Rogaland,” Eivor said. “Geirmund, this is Hytham, one of my advisers.”
“It pleases me to meet you, Geirmund,” the man said, bowing. He looked young to be an adviser, perhaps twenty summers in age, and he wore his dark hair cropped short, with rings in his ears. “Or should I call you Geirmund Hel-hide?”
Eivor looked at Hytham in surprise, then back at Geirmund.
“I answer to that name more favourably than I once did,” Geirmund said. “How do you know it?”
Hytham held his fingertips together before his waist, pointed downward. “It is my duty to know what the Danes and Saxons are doing, and your reputation has reached me, even here at Ravensthorpe.” He spoke in the manner of the other men of Syrland that Geirmund had met in Lunden. “I hear you are very clever,” he added, “and that Guthrum especially owes you his gratitude.”
“You honour me, Hytham,” Geirmund said. “May I ask, are you from Syrland?”
“I am.”
“What brings you to this place, so far from your home country?”
“I am a seeker of knowledge,” he said, “wherever it may be found. Especially knowledge that has been lost or forgotten.”
“Are you a seer?” Geirmund asked. “Or do you speak of books?”
“I am not the seer of Ravensthorpe,” Hytham said, “and there are ways other than books to preserve knowledge and wisdom.”
“But you have a völva here?” If Geirmund were at Avaldsnes, he would have sought Yrsa for wisdom, or perhaps even Bragi, but the seer of Ravensthorpe would do. “I would speak with her,” Geirmund said. “If she will speak to me.”
“She might,” Eivor said. “She lives at the edge of the settlement, if you wish to find out.”
“I can show you the way,” Hytham said, gesturing towards the hall’s door. “Would you go now?”
“I would.” Geirmund looked at his warriors, who seemed content where they were, and then turned towards Eivor.
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