He dug with mounting vigor as the edge of the blocking stone emerged. Unable to lift it out yet, he worked along its edges, hoping it would not disappear beneath ground he had not yet cleared. His fingers plowed under the lip and he puffed his cheeks as he pulled up. Nothing shifted. He fell back on his rump and stared at the hole beneath the grate.
On the other side of it, a boy of ten or twelve years stood holding a wooden tray that held a steaming bowl and mug.
They stared at each other.
Ulfrik leapt, slamming into the bars. His arms shot forward to grab the boy, but he was too fast. The wooden tray clattered to the ground, soup and ale sloshing into the ground and a wedge of bread and cheese rolling into the dirt. Ulfrik roared at him. “What are you doing here?”
The boy turned and fled. Ulfrik cried out for him to stay, but the boy dashed over a crest of black rock and disappeared.
“It’s not time yet!” Ulfrik had to get free now or his chance to escape would forever be ruined. He stretched for the bread and cheese, dragged them beneath the grate, then stuffed them into his mouth. The iron taste of dirt mingled with the food, but he needed all the strength he could muster. Grabbing the digging rock, he renewed his attack on the blocking stone.
The harder he dug the less progress he made. He flung dirt under his legs like a dog searching for a bone. Every few moments he dove into the hole and tested the gap. His head still caught. He tried to push through, but the bars dug into his skull with unrelenting pressure. He backed out, dug until he could wedge more of his hand under the stone. When he pulled, he felt it shift.
He shouted with joy, strength flowing back into his limbs. He pulled up again and the wide flat rock broke out of its earthen moorings. Dragging it into the cave, Ulfrik flung it aside and slid back into the hole again. His head fit.
Barely.
Dirt pressed into his face as he kicked and scrabbled beneath. The bars scored above his ear, drawing blood as he pushed. His hair and beard rolled up with earth as he pushed. His head was through but he had not cleared enough ground on the other side of the bars. It was soft and free of rocks, perfect ground for digging. Yet he had no time. He pushed again, but it was his face shoving against the world. With his free hand he clawed at the dirt to make space.
As he scrambled, he heard a boy’s voice approaching. Before he could back out, he heard it right over his head.
“Be careful. He’ll grab your leg.” The boy’s voice was filled with worry. Ulfrik, unable to turn toward the boy, tried to withdraw but his clothing caught again.
Then he felt a cold, hard touch of wood on his temple.
“He’ll do no such thing. He’ll pull back behind the bars. You’ll see.”
Ulfrik slumped in the ditch. The voice was calmer and clearer than usual, but unmistakable.
Eldrid had arrived.
Chapter 39
Eldrid and Ulfrik faced each other through the bars. The boy who had caught him hid behind her dirty skirt, his small pink hand bright against the gray wool and a single wide eye peeking out at him. Ulfrik snarled at the boy and he ducked out of sight.
“Don’t frighten the boy,” she said. “He did you a good turn fetching me.” Eldrid probed the hole with her staff, banging the edges and then tapping the iron bars. The dull iron ping was a tolling bell in Ulfrik’s head. Her thin lips pressed in a smile as she estimated the size of the hole. “You almost made it.”
“Get down in it and feel for yourself. I’ll be happy to pull you through so you can experience life as an animal.” Ulfrik wished his waste bucket were full. He would douse Eldrid with the contents. “Does your magical nose bring you the ripe smell of piss? Your goats don’t even live like this.”
He expected mad cackling, a string of invectives, or senseless babble. So when she sighed and nodded, all his words fled. Her thin, trembling hand gripped the iron bars as she searched with her staff for a place to sit. Finding a low rock by the cave mouth, she settled down. The boy guided her, shooting terrorized looks to Ulfrik. Eldrid shooed him after she settled. “Go, but stay near. Tell no one what you saw here.” When the boy paused she smacked his leg with her staff. “Go or I’ll turn you into a toad.”
The boy flitted back over the rise, Eldrid watching him even through her blindfold.
Ulfrik retreated to the rear of the cave, hunching low. He feared Eldrid planned to kill him with poison, and standing too close to the grate would make such a murder too easy. If he hung to the rear, she would have to enter and he would be ready. He had piled up the sharpest and heaviest stones to be used for weapons.
“It’s time you and I spoke,” she said. “Everything is wrong. This was not supposed to happen.”
Her voice held a rough edge, but it was clearer and smoother than Ulfrik had ever heard it. It was as if she had swallowed honey to soothe a hoarse throat. She set her staff aside and folded both hands in her lap, head bowed and her thin hair flowing across it. For a moment, she resembled her sister, Audhild.
“What was supposed to happen? Break my legs instead? But you tried that once, didn’t you?” Ulfrik remained crouched at the rear of the cave. The sun lowered in the sky, casting Eldrid into a pale gold light. She almost appeared normal. All her bluster and posturing had vanished, leaving only a frail girl slouching on a rock.
She shook her head. “I know what I have done and regret it.”
“What does that mean? You tortured me when I was helpless and dogged my every step since I could walk. Now I’m locked up like a pig, and just waiting for you to tire of me. How much longer before that day? How much longer before the people can’t support a prisoner who contributes nothing? Will you be sorry when I’m abandoned to die of starvation? That’s how you cowards will kill me. You don’t think I know?”
“No, no, no!” She touched one hand to her eyes and raised the other in a gesture for him to stop. “I am not your enemy. I am not the mad one. Audhild is all that and more. You must know it by now.”
The words were so cogent, so uncharacteristic, that Ulfrik had to pause. Audhild was controlling and jealous, but he had not seen madness in her. “Is this your new game? Are the gods speaking to you now? Telling you how to turn my mind upside down so that my torment grows? You and your people are sick. Worse than trolls.”
“You understand so little,” Eldrid said, then smiled. Her lips trembled as if she were either about to laugh or cry, and she covered them with the back of her hand. “You are as blind as I am, maybe worse.”
Ulfrik finally stood. He held onto his digging rock and approached the bars. She turned to him and smiled.
“You appear to see well enough through the blindfold.”
“After I lost my eyes, the gods sharpened my other senses. I can hear ants crawling over the floor. My nose rivals a hound for scenting a man. With my hands, I can see whatever I touch. It is part of the curse and the gift the gods have made for me.”
“Along with the gift of song?”
Her smile turned sweet. “I was happy to let you catch me singing. Did you like it?”
“I’ve heard better from a dying walrus.” He had found her voice charming, but a compliment for Eldrid was like complimenting an executioner.
Her smile fell and head turned aside. “I want to tell you the truth. I want to set this right.”
“Then pull down this grate and let me go.”
“No, it’s not what the gods have decreed. Your life for the good of our people. You are a living sacrifice, but you did not need to suffer. Only give up your old life for the new.” Her hand balled into a fist and she bit her knuckle. At last she tore it out and pounded the rock she sat on. “But you are too stubborn. You resist and fight and make everyone suffer.”
“I thought I made everyone prosper?”
“You make me suffer!” She shot to her feet, face pulled into hateful lines. She stabbed a twig-like finger at him. “You are why I am this way. You made me Eldrid the Ugly! It wasn’t supposed to be that way.”
&nb
sp; Ulfrik shook his head, but realized she could not see it. “I hardly believe that is possible.”
She hung her head with her finger pointed accusingly and her teeth bared, then slowly she melted back onto her rock seat. She remained with her head lowered, then heaved a sigh. “I will tell you everything from the beginning. From the time Audhild and I were only girls. Then you will see Audhild’s madness. Then you will know how you have hurt me every day of every season we have spent together.”
Chapter 40
“Audhild is my younger sister, though we are only a year apart. My trials have aged me to what you see now, but I was beautiful once. More beautiful than Audhild was. She was a plain-faced child, more like a boy than a girl. We had two older brothers that I don’t remember. They died when we still lived in Hedemark, shortly after Harald Finehair proclaimed himself king. Norway doesn’t seem like a real place to me now. Frankia was my home, and I hated to leave it. Oh, yes, do not be surprised at that truth.
“We lived a good life on the edge of Gunnolfsvik. My father built and repaired ships for Jarl Gunnolf among others. The Franks had called it Gerville, for the trees in the surrounding forests were straight as spears. I was happy there, until the gods began to show me things.
“It started one night with a dream. I saw a young girl riding a white horse through town. I did not recognize her but her eyes were black and jaw slack. When I woke, I knew I had seen a terrible omen. I told Audhild and she calmed me back to sleep. The next day, one of the village girls startled a horse from behind and was kicked in the head. She died. My first vision had been of death. Audhild was amazed at what I had seen. She wanted to do it too, but only summoned nightmares. I continued to see things, like where a lost lamb had wandered to, and where my father’s ax had been misplaced. They came as dreams and were always of small things. No more visions of deaths came to me.
“My parents did not want to talk about my sight. I was twelve winters old, and my parents had planned for me to marry within a few years. If the gods truly gifted me with sight, then I would forever be alone. So I shared only with Audhild. She was ever eager to push the limit of my dreams and though I did as she bade, it greatly disturbed me. Finally, one night, she had a plan that would change everything.
“I remember it to the finest detail, like all the horrors of that time. My parents slept opposite us on the other side of a partial wall. It was little more than a board screen to obscure my parents’ private moments. Though that night Audhild and I pulled blankets overhead to make a tent. We kept only a flap open to allow in air and wavering candlelight. We were two conspirators, leaning our heads together in grave secrecy.
“‘Tonight you’re going to have a great vision,’ Audhild said. ‘Demand the gods show you something grand. Something that will prove to Da that you’re a true seidkona.’
“‘I don’t want to be a seidkona,’ I had told her, and it was true. Such a life seemed more of a curse than something to desire. But Audhild never relents on what she wants.
“‘Fate cannot be changed. So embrace it,’ she told me. I agreed and we touched heads together, as if that would increase my power. I think actually Audhild hoped it would steal my sight. We kicked off our tent and giggled, probably the last time we ever would enjoy being sisters. My father hushed us from the other side of the wall and warned us Mother needed her rest, then I was asleep. And I dreamed.
“I dreamed something horrible. My mother had been impaled upon a spear, pinning her to the bed. Blood rushed out of her stomach, from her mouth, and her hands struggled with the spear. I could do nothing but watch. Her twisting stopped and her legs kicked out like a boy killed in a play-battle. It would have been funny if not for the blood. The gods showed me my mother’s death.
“The next morning Audhild begged for the details. I wouldn’t tell her, but could not resist her persistence. When she heard my dream, she cursed and slapped me. I made her cry and she left me alone on the bed. The same morning my father said Mother still needed rest. She never again rose from the bed. Blood vomited from her mouth and her bowels let go. A fever consumed her and she died within two days of my dream.
“Audhild blamed me for it. I tried to tell her I only saw what the gods decided to show, but she refused to accept it. Audhild was our mother’s favorite. They spent hours together at the loom and if there was ever any extra food, Mother always spooned it into her dish. I think Mother knew Da was sweeter on me, and so she made up for him. When she died, Audhild lost her source of joy.
“I continued to dream, though most of the time nothing grew from it. The gods denied me visions in the weeks following our mother’s death. I didn’t care, but Audhild obsessed over it.
“‘You let an evil spirit into the house,’ she finally said to me. ‘You killed our mother with a curse. Don’t dream anything again, or you will regret it.’
“But I did dream again, and when she confronted me I angered. I threatened to dream that her tongue shriveled up so I would not need to hear her any longer. I had no idea she took me literally.
“She tackled me on the bed where we had giggled and made plans for my great visions. I was helpless and she was choking me. I think she realized I was about to die and stopped. I squirmed underneath her, trying to catch my breath. I thought she was going to let me go. Instead, she plunged her thumbs into my eyes. I don’t remember much else. Hot blood covered my face, everything went white. I screamed, that I remember. The pain has vanished with the years.
“I gave Audhild a memory of that day as well. My thumbnail gouged her brow and the scar remains to this day. It is a hard and cold thing when I touch her face and it shames her to know it marks her madness so boldly.
“It took a long time for me to recover, and one eye was crushed to nothing. The other was ruined. I see only vague light and dark from it. Audhild had wanted to destroy my sight, and took the most direct approach she could imagine.
“Father hired a wise woman to live with us and heal me. It took years. That was how Audhild learned the healing arts, from the wise woman. It might have been the only good to come of all this blood. Though we both learned other things less fair. You’ve tasted much of those bitter lessons in the draughts we’ve fed you or the powders that blinded you.
“My father remarried no long after Mother died. Reidun was her name. Audhild told me of her beauty and her voice was high and her touch gentle. She was good for my father, but Audhild hated her. For years after blinding me, she did not ask for my visions, though I still had them. When Reidun joined our household, her interest renewed. I was fifteen and should have been married, but now I was useless as a wife. I determined if my dreams had cost me my eyes, then I might as well embrace them. Audhild wanted me to have visions of evil befalling Reidun. When these would not come, Audhild tormented me. She moved furniture to confuse me, tripped me, threw hot water on my face, anything she could think of until I began to have dreams that suited her. In my blindness I was helpless to do anything in my defense.
“I told my horrible visions to our father, but he rebuked me. Audhild decided to shift the dreams from evil befalling her to evil done by Reidun’s hand. Audhild told me what to tell father I dreamed and she would ensure these visions came true. It was simple things at first, minor visions easily arranged like missing tools found among Reidun’s things, a snake placed in their bed, milk left to curdle. Audhild wanted to drive Reidun away. The poor woman did not know how to fight with Audhild, and I frightened her. She also believed in my visions. And why not? I had the sight and what I dreamed came true.
“Reidun had spirit, though, and braved the run of bad luck. My father believed me as well, but stood by his new wife. This infuriated Audhild. We had to cook up something bigger if Reidun was to be driven out. Audhild told me to dream that Reidun would try to kill me out of fear. We made a careful plan of my waking in the middle of the night soaked in sweat. It was water hid in a bowl under my sheets. I screamed, begged for my father. Then told him I had dreamed of a woman li
ke Reidun smothering me while I slept. It was the first time I had to act as if mad, and I would never stop from that day. My act was so convincing that Father confronted Reidun straight away.
“Though I was blind, I could see Reidun sitting up in bed still sleepy and confused. I heard my father drag her to the floor with a squeal, heard Audhild stifle a laugh. He confronted her and they argued. Reidun called me a blind hag and Audhild the village whore. My father strangled her where she sat. We had set him so on edge, filled his every day with visions of doom, that I believe we drove him to madness. I heard Reidun’s last breath rattle and my father sob.
“I don’t know how he destroyed Reidun’s body. At first he told everyone she went to visit family north of the Seine. When months passed, he said she had to care for her sick mother. Then her brother visited. He figured out Reidun’s fate and drove a shard of broken plate through my father’s neck. We girls were spared. Our uncle came to handle the business and see to our care. He stayed for a year, but when he tried to find a husband for Audhild, he suddenly left. Whatever she did kept him away until the time we left for Iceland. She did not want marriage.
“Audhild wanted to rule Gerville. By the time our uncle fled, she was seventeen and a full woman. With me as her authority, she began manipulating the people. I had the visions she instructed, and made the predictions she wanted. She ensured they came true. People believe anything they are told. At some point she began to believe these visions herself. Madness had ever stalked her since Mother’s death, but now it bloomed. She beat me, burned me, threatened to kill me if I ever reminded her that my visions were on her instruction. To save myself, I learned to predict the visions she most desired. I learned to listen to what people told me and then predict something from it. It’s a skill that grew with time and practice. By now I’ve no belief that gods grant gifts or take any interest in our lives. We are to them as worms are to us.
“People had respect for Audhild, and for years she ruled Gerville and discouraged suitors with both guile and threat. Gudrod has been the most persistent, starting from the days my father still lived. But he is too frightened to court her and too stubborn to give up. I get ahead of myself. When the Franks crossed our borders and the protection of Gunnolfsvik faltered, Audhild decided we needed to leave. She wanted to hold onto what she had built with Gerville. Most of the people were bondsmen of our father or a few other families; escaped slaves learned they could shelter among us. Audhild promised freedom to all slaves and bondsmen and choice property to all freemen who would follow her to a new land. This was a strong draw, and you know how they decided and how rushed the exit from Gerville had been.
The Storm God's Gift (Ulfrik Ormsson's Saga Book 5) Page 23