A Mighty Dawn

by Theodore Brun

  ‘What difference does it make? He’s going to know soon enough.’

  Maybe – but not now. Not while Hakan isn’t here with me. I need him here. . . ‘He can’t know,’ Inga repeated. ‘Not yet.’

  Softening, Tolla took her by the shoulders, looked at her straight. ‘I want to help you. Do you understand? If you only trusted me. . .’

  Inga said nothing. Everything was flying out of control. But why should Tolla force her into this? Resentment coiled around her throat, choking her, enraging her. If she hated one thing, it was being forced into a corner – especially by someone wearing a smile.

  But if their secret came out. . . What then?

  Tolla shook her head. ‘You leave me no choice. I have to tell him.’ She turned to leave, but before she could, Inga snatched her arm, spinning her around.

  ‘Stay where you are!’ Without thinking, she shoved her,

  hard. Tolla staggered back. ‘You’re nothing and don’t you forget it! My uncle took you in from nothing! You’re no better than a thrall! I am the blood of the Vendlings,’ she cried, beating at her breast. ‘And what are you?’ Tolla shrank from her. Inga saw in her kind eyes that each word struck a wound. ‘You will not do this! I won’t let you.’

  Suddenly, Tolla surged back at her. ‘Don’t come the high lady with me, Inga. I’ve raised you since you were soiling yourself and suckling on these ’ere teats!’ She slapped her chest angrily. ‘You have to wake up, girl! This isn’t a game. Haldan must know. I may be nothing better than a thrall, but you’re my responsibility.’ And then, hearing the hardness in her own voice, she relented a little, laying a hand against Inga’s cheek. ‘You’re my child, Inga.’

  ‘No, I am NOT!’ exploded Inga. ‘I’m no one’s child. My parents are dead – DEAD!’ Her whole body shook with anger. Anger and fear and pain. ‘I’m NO – CHILD – OF YOURS.’

  The two women stared at one another, stunned into silence by the venom in Inga’s voice.

  ‘Piss on it!’ spat Inga. ‘If you won’t help me, I’ll face it myself. All of it. I am a woman now, and my father’s daughter. I’m not scared of my uncle. I’ll do it now! And you, Tolla,’ she pointed an accusing finger at the woman who had loved her since she was a mewling babe. ‘You go walk the road to Hel for all I care.’ She screamed the last words, cold and dark.

  Tolla started weeping. But Inga had gathered up her skirts, and was flying down the slope, furious as a valkyrie on the high road to war. The nurse looked after her, her strong shoulders sinking with her heart.

  And suddenly, she looked very old and wounded and grey.

  Hakan looked up at the grey skies growing darker with every moment. To the east, a dreary rainstorm was on its way in from the sea.

  He was starving, but Vendlagard lay barely a quarter league on. He could see slithers of smoke. Once he’d crested that last ridge, he would be there. There would be food and warmth and shelter. Aside from those, he reckoned on little in the way of comfort.

  The horse walked on while he tried, for the hundredth time, to order what he would tell his father. There was no honey-coating this one. No smoothing the edges; no washing it down with a swig of ale. Haldan would have to force it down – dry, barbed and sour.

  Konur is dead. War is coming.

  And he was the cause. He had killed the Karlung heir, and now all the clans of the Middle Jutes would come against them. Maybe even King Harald Wartooth and his vassal lords, if the Whisperer could talk him round. A war the Northern Jutes could never hope to win.

  He groaned.

  All his father wanted was peace, rest, prosperity; he worked for little else. Yet for all his talk, he had never been far from another tide of blood. One was rising now.

  Konur was dead.

  He wondered what the men at Vindhaven had made of his empty bed. Even now, two days later, they would be ignorant unless they had ridden out and struck upon Konur’s shallow grave. He felt a pang of guilt. There would be no new market harbour now. All that digging in the mud and the slime – all for nothing.

  Maybe Dag at least had seen a black deed coming.

  His thoughts returned to Inga.

  She was his and no one else’s. They both knew it. What did it matter what his father thought anymore, now he had bought Inga with another man’s blood? Or whether Haldan found out now or later? Hakan scowled at the memory of how he had talked her round. Inga was right. She’s always been right. After all, what had his little plan been but the fear to confront his father?

  Pitiful.

  Well, he couldn’t be afraid any more. Soon, he would have far more fearful things to face than what his father thought of their secret. They all would.

  Because now they would have to fight. The Whisperer wouldn’t stop until he was dead. A son for a son. An heir for an heir. He nodded to himself, grimly. The Karlung lord could try.

  Inga. . .

  That doubt again. That poisoned seed. Had she betrayed him? He couldn’t believe it. But why hadn’t she told him if Konur had forced himself on her? Why?

  He would have an answer from her.

  He sucked in deep and sat up straight as his horse trudged slap, slop past the weather-scarred gateposts of Vendlagard.

  He was home.

  He looked about the yard. He saw Einna, working her loom, as usual, under a little slanted shelter. No one else was about. She looked up from her work, without a word.

  That wasn’t like her. He nodded a greeting, but she went back to her weaving with a disgruntled shrug.

  The quiet was uncanny.

  He dismounted, tethered his horse and left it munching a clutch of hay. If only my homecoming were as simple as yours.

  Turning back to the yard, a feeling of estrangement caught in his belly, strange and sudden.

  Nerves, is all. Maybe dread was a better word. Whichever way he cut it, this talk with his father was not going to go well.

  He hobbled towards Einna, who still seemed determined to ignore him. She could at least tell him where everyone was.

  He was about to hail her when a figure appeared at the hall-entrance. He recognized his beloved at once, but as she turned, he saw on her beautiful features an expression he never could have conjured in his most maddening dreams.

  Her eyes were wide with terror, her cheeks bloodless, streaked with tears, her mouth ragged as a witless crone. And her hands. . . Her hands were terrible to look upon: hooked like talons, clawing at her belly.

  ‘Inga!’

  She didn’t answer, something inhuman staring out of her eyes like some dead spirit. Then something shifted and she seemed to recognize him.

  ‘You!’ she cried. He ran to her but she staggered away.

  ‘Get away from me!’

  ‘Inga – what’s wrong?’

  ‘Get away – don’t you touch me!’ She shoved him, reeling away.

  ‘Come back!’ But she wouldn’t stop, so he had to go after her. Her steps were so wayward, he soon caught her, spinning her round. But before he could say a word, she flew at him, fists tearing at his chest, sobbing wildly.

  Hakan held onto her, dogged. Where was Inga, the bright girl he’d known all his life? Who was this raving stranger?

  He got hold of her fists, but she struggled harder, head writhing, frantic to get away. Bewildered, Hakan could only tighten his grip and hope for some kind of calm to settle.

  At last she stopped struggling, but when she looked up, he was afraid.

  He tried to speak – but the naked terror in her face stifled any words.

  ‘Let me go.’ Her voice was strangled with anguish. When he didn’t, she lunged at him, screaming in his face. ‘Let go of me! Don’t you touch me – you mustn’t touch me, you hear – NEVER!’

  ‘What? Why? Inga—’

  ‘You lied to me. You swore – swore an oath. We would be together, you said. All would be well, you said! You’re a liar, Hakan. You lied to me! Now let me go!’ Fear and hatred danced in her eyes.

  Hakan could
hardly grasp her words. Behind him, a woman’s voice called her name. Then a deeper voice bellowed his own. He glanced back. Tolla was emerging from the hall, and behind her the broad frame of his father, looking grim as thunder.

  ‘I don’t understand. What’s going on here?’

  Before anyone answered, Inga seized her chance. With a desperate wrench, she tore free and bolted out of his reach. But immediately, she stopped and turned.

  She tore off her cloak, flinging it down; snatched off shawl and mantle, and threw them in the mud after it. For a moment, she stood, clad only in her crimson dress – the same she had worn the night of his feast. That night she’d had the curves of a fresh and lovely maid. Now the bulge of motherhood swelled her belly. She looked beautiful and wretched.

  ‘You swore to me, Hakan,’ she said. ‘But now I am betrayed.’

  Sobbing, she turned and ran out of the gate. Hakan stood there, mouth agape. As she vanished in a swirl of crimson, Hakan called after her.

  ‘Let her go,’ his father shouted.

  Hakan turned. ‘What’s wrong with her?’

  ‘I think you know, boy,’ grabbing his son by the collar and flinging him towards the hall. ‘Get inside.’

  So it must be now. . . so be it.

  Wordlessly, Hakan stalked ahead of his father past Tolla. They strode through the shadowy hall, sending kitchen thralls scurrying for cover.

  They were soon in Haldan’s chamber, the hide curtain pulled against prying ears. Torches sputtered in iron sconces as Haldan flung himself into his chair. His eyes flared bright under heavy brows.

  Hakan knew that look – furious, threatened, ready to fight.

  He knows our secret. That much was clear. But that didn’t explain Inga’s ravings.

  ‘Sit down.’

  ‘I won’t sit – not till you tell me what’s wrong with Inga.’

  ‘Don’t waste my time, Hakan. I know what’s been going on.’

  ‘Going on? What do you mean?’

  ‘I know. Between you two – I know everything.’

  He felt blood rush to his face, but he said nothing.

  ‘Do you deny it?’

  Shit on this. The Norns wove this long ago. ‘No,’ he said, setting his shoulders defiantly. ‘Who told you?’

  ‘She did.’

  ‘Inga?’ He could scarce believe she would betray their secret.

  ‘She came to me just before you returned—’

  ‘I’m going to marry her, Father. It wasn’t meant to come out this way, but now you must know: I’ll take no other for my wife.’

  ‘You can’t marry her,’ barked his father, hard as granite. ‘I told her the same.’

  ‘You can’t stop us. We love each other.’ His plea sounded so weak he almost choked on it. ‘It’s what we both want.’

  ‘You’re not listening, boy. You cannot.’

  ‘Why not?’ snarled Hakan. Don’t say it. . . Don’t say that bastard’s name.

  ‘Because Inga is your sister.’

  The word rang like a death-knell through his head.

  Sister. . .

  His heart stopped beating. . . Everything stopped. And then, suddenly, a black abyss tore open inside him, sucking all the breath right out of him. His father’s face melted into shapeless shadow.

  ‘What—?’

  ‘Inga is my daughter. And your sister.’

  Hakan’s hands were shaking, his bones crumbling. He slumped forward, catching himself on the table.

  ‘That’s a lie,’ he stammered. ‘She’s my cousin. Inga is my cousin.’ Why would he lie to me like this?

  ‘No, Hakan. She is my daughter.’

  ‘But her parents – her father. . . was your brother. Her mother was Briga. . .’

  ‘Briga was her mother, yes. But I am her father.’ Haldan rubbed wearily at his eyes. ‘Perhaps I should have told you this long ago. But I had my reasons for keeping it from you.’ He raked his fingers through his dark hair. ‘Sit down.’

  Hakan sank onto the bench.

  Inga is my sister. The words rang again and again.

  When his father spoke, his words seeped into Hakan’s mind through some black dream of another world.

  He spoke of a time long ago, when he and his brother Halmarr were young men. Hard days for the Vendlings: the years of the Amunding wars. They had lost many.

  After the last battle was won and Arnalf Crow-King slain at last, they sailed back across the Belt from Raumarika. With them, alas, they carried Halmarr’s body.

  Despite their hard-won victory, Haldan was bitter at his loss. Sorrow suffocated him, and though he had wife and folk around him, that night he felt utterly alone.

  And the grief of Halmarr’s wife, Briga, was terrible to witness. When she saw his body, she raved like one out of her mind. They gave him a warrior’s funeral, and as his body burned, her cries at last dwindled.

  All went to their beds. But Haldan’s bed was a cold one and had been for some years. Sleep was impossible. The night was filled with terrors: ghosts of men he had slain, fallen comrades, his father and now his brother. Haldan had risen, and after hours of aimless wandering, his steps led him near his brother’s dwelling.

  A light flickered inside.

  Opening the door, there she was, sitting alone, carving a groove back and forth in her table. He went in, figuring each might find solace in the other’s words. Or even the other’s silence. ‘But it wasn’t like that,’ Haldan murmured. ‘Instead I saw something I’d never seen before. A beauty kept only for my brother’s eyes.’

  She had talked a great deal. Of her past. . . Of the long drifting summers in her mountain home, far to the south. She had talked of loneliness, of longing. . . for something. Just one good thing that would last. She thought Halmarr was that. But everything was taken from her. Only she remained in this world. And now, she didn’t want to.

  Haldan remembered her talking low in the guttering light. Her soul torn yet soaring; her face so sad yet so lovely. ‘A sight no man could resist. I saw the sun, and I was blinded. I wanted to feel its heat.’

  He had reached out and stopped her knife. She had looked into his eyes, taken his hand and put it to her lips, already wet with tears. And without another word, the bench fell, and he was kissing her.

  The darkness bade them forget their sorrows for a time. ‘And all the while,’ he added bitterly, ‘your mother slept in my bed.’

  He shook his head, remembering. ‘Briga was like no other woman. She was pleasing enough to burn a hole in any man’s soul.’ He had slipped away before dawn, ashamed, his brother’s ashes not yet cold.

  Haldan took a pull at his cup, as if the memory was a flame that needed dousing.

  ‘That’s it?’ Hakan’s head was so laden with thoughts he couldn’t even look up. ‘What of Inga?’ He found he could hardly utter her name.

  ‘I returned to Briga later that day. But she was changed. Her passion vanished. I had come to invite her under my protection, but she wouldn’t hear of it.’

  Instead, Briga was filled with shame. They had dishonoured Halmarr, she said, binding Haldan with an oath: to guard the secret of those stolen hours. ‘And so I have, until this day.’

  ‘What. Of. Inga?’ Hakan repeated in a whisper. He had to know. Had to hear the story to its end.

  Haldan looked up sharply. ‘Not long afterwards Briga’s belly started showing. Between Halmarr’s departure and that night the days were few enough that no one suspected the child wasn’t his. But she knew. Halmarr’s seed was weak, she told me. She knew the child was mine.’

  Haldan was sure this would change her mind. He told her he would talk around Guthrun, that they would look after her. But instead Briga held him to a second oath: that the only way he could make amends for his betrayal was to honour the child as Halmarr’s. ‘If I had any honour, she said, any love for him, I would swear to do this. And only we two should ever know the truth.’

  He had promised, and the child had grown within her. But as the
child grew stronger, Briga grew weaker. Sickness often laid her low, and each time, she cared less and less for living. Her time came on a sudden, earlier than it should, before the break of spring.

  ‘The birth was dreadful. Bad as your mother’s death in its way. She was already so weak. Before it was done, her spirit left her. Tolla had hold of the baby’s head and arms. The rest she pulled from a dead womb.’ Haldan leaned back, expelling a long sigh. ‘That child was Inga.’

  Hakan took a deep breath and then vomited out his rage. ‘Why didn’t you just tell us!’

  ‘I kept my oath. I’d sworn to safeguard my brother’s name and honour.’

  ‘Hel take your fucking oath! She’s your daughter! Your daughter! Didn’t she have a right to know who her real father is? All you gave her was another ghost to haunt her all these years. Do you even care?’

  His father’s voice was a whisper. ‘It sickens me to admit it. I was ashamed of her. I am ashamed of her. Every day, her very life accuses me of my betrayal. Do you know how often I’ve asked myself if I only went to Briga that night with some evil intent? Whether I’d always wanted what was his—’

  ‘You’re still only thinking of yourself! Open your eyes! Look what your lie has led to. . .’ But when his father had no reply, the destruction of everything Hakan had hoped for suddenly broke over him like a wave. He hung his head, crushed. ‘You don’t understand. I love her.’

  ‘You know you can’t marry her. A brother and sister can never lie together. It is against nature. Not even the beasts do such things.’

  ‘But I already have. . .’ he groaned. ‘Don’t you see? It doesn’t feel against nature. It feels good and true and—’

  ‘It doesn’t matter how you feel. Things cannot be as you want them. I told Inga the same. You must forget whatever you feel for each other.’

  As if it were so easy. As if I could cut out the love that fills my heart like a cancer. And the child. . . ‘What of our child? What of the incestuous bastard that your lie has spawned? She carries your grandchild. This is your doing!’

  ‘Then let its blood be on my hands. We will keep her condition a secret until her time is come. And then. . .’