‘You must call me “mother” now. Haven’t I told you this?’
‘Yes. Mother.’ Lilla had come to hate the word. It was a betrayal. A lie. And yet, I still say it. She was twenty summers old, Saldas hardly twelve summers more. Whatever Saldas was to her, it was not a mother. Yet there was something about her that made Lilla feel small. Something that shrank her will. Made her obey.
She pushed away, with more resolve this time. The queen yielded.
A gust of wind goaded the pyre. The flames roared in reply.
‘Where is Bodvar?’ It was her father again, as if the surging fire had ignited some fresh impulse. He looked about, and Lilla saw his eyes, usually so steady, were filled with grief. And anger. ‘Come – where is he?’
‘Here I am, my Lord Sviggar,’ croaked the voice of the Earl of Vestmanland, separating from the king’s retinue. Earl Bodvar has aged of late. His braids, usually as rusty as his voice, were showing a few threads of silver, and the lines on his face had deepened.
‘I want you to find whoever did this.’
Bodvar hesitated, confused. ‘Forgive me, lord. I understood this was an accident.’
‘An accident?’ scoffed her father. ‘A king’s heir is never killed by accident. Someone is responsible for Staffen’s death.’
Her brother Sigurd answered in Bodvar’s stead. ‘Father, we scoured those woods for days. We found nothing.’
‘Then scour them again! Bodvar – this was your land. You will live in those woods till you find whatever did this. Beast or man – whatever stole my son, you bring them to me!’ His voice dropped to a mutter. ‘His blood will be avenged.’
Lilla noticed the earl’s face bristle. Bodvar was a stubborn one, and not afraid to speak his mind, not even before a king. But he must have thought better of it, instead bowing his head. ‘I will, lord.’
‘Lord, you know this isn’t the only unexplained death in your realm of late,’ said Finn, the amiable young warrior appointed her father’s bodyguard. ‘There are stories—’
‘I know.’ Sviggar’s brooding eyes passed like a ghost over his son’s body, hardly visible now beneath the hungry flames. ‘I know.’
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Darkness. Despair.
The words wrapped him like a cloak.
Ahead he could see almost nothing.
He braced himself against another heave of the boat, the murky swell rolling her salt-scarred belly. Ice-gusts from the north gnawed at the ropes. The cold in his body had dulled to a weary ache.
Dawn was some way off, perhaps another hour. Best he knew, he was still heading east. Gotarland couldn’t be far off. Crossing the Juten Belt was not a long voyage, but could be ugly, even deadly, in an autumn squall.
So now he’d added thievery to his list of crimes. Esbjorn’s skiff had been there for the taking. Hakan had rigged it quickly and set his course due east across the Belt. But he knew no one would come after him. Esbjorn was dead: ashes on the Western Ocean. And dead men have no need of boats. Nor of anything else.
Hakan longed for sleep. The worst of the storm had passed, but with it the sweet distraction of fear. Fear that had choked him. Fear that had coursed through his veins like liquid metal, weighing him down, while the wind lashed his face, tore hungrily at his clothes, and the black sea threw wave after wave over his little craft. He’d clung on doggedly, knowing not east from west, nor north from south, nor even why he should cling to life when all he loved in the world was gone. Only that with each white-topped breaker, he surfed the line between life and death, hardly caring into which the raging sea would cast him, vomiting up every last ounce in his belly, as if the storm would only rest once the last vestige of Vendlagard was purged from his body.
At last the squall had moved on and with it the turmoil out there in the sea’s darkness. But now the turmoil within him surged anew. Now he was free to think again, and every thought cut like a knife.
How? How had he been slung out onto these spiteful waters? How had he become severed from all he’d ever known?
Beauty and love are slaughtered like swine.
Not even a day had passed since. . .
He shuddered, wondering whether he could ever blot out the image of her: floating, lifeless, her warm blood swirled in those cold eddies. He opened and closed his eyes; the image was the same. He saw her clearly as if she were there in front of him. Just as she had been.
He must go far away from that place. Flee from that memory until he was free of it at last. Flee into the darkness ahead wherever it took him. That was the only course.
And yet a colossal sorrow crushed his heart. Why had she been so quick to draw the knife? Why? In a single stroke, she’d killed the world and him with it, and all because of their father’s lie. But for that lie, Inga would be alive. Her songs, her laughter, her earnest eyes – all would be well, even now. He closed his eyes and felt the moan rise in his throat. Why? His happiest moments had been with her. How he had hoped to share with her even happier ones in the years to come!
No. It was all a lie. Every one of his dreams, every one of his memories – all of it, a fucking lie. She was his sister and every day of his life had been leading to this one. A path to an abyss. And now he was falling and falling. . . beyond love, beyond blood and honour, beyond hope.
Anger suddenly surged forward on the wave of his sorrow. If Inga was dead, why should he live? Their love was cursed. The heart that nurtured a love so foul deserved to die. Was better dead.
He gazed out over the sleek black waters. ‘How easy it would be. . .’ he murmured. How easy to slip into their cold embrace. Was that a sweet whisper, bidding him come – a hushed promise of peace? Was it she who called him? It would be but a little thing. A moment’s shock as he hit the water. Life draining from his body, the cold sea enshrouding him, and then. . .
Death would come. His end in this world.
But what awaits me in the next? What if there were no end to this pain? What if the torn bonds of love, the broken promises, the blood staining his hands, the burning rage. . . what if these were his in any world – of the living or the dead? And whither would he go? Self-slaughter was no path to Valhalla. To some other realm of darkness then, from which there was no crossing back, where he would fester, nursing the deformity in his heart he had foolishly called love.
If death brought no relief, what was its purpose?
He scanned the horizon. A north wind licked at his bow. Dawn was coming on, bringing with it a grizzled morning and in the distance a few smudges of land. His skin prickled with the cold. In spite of all that surged in his heart, he pulled his damp cloak tighter around him and resolved to put away dark thoughts for now.
Ahead the land of the Gotars splintered into a thousand islands. He looked up at the sail that had withstood the night’s winds. Esbjorn built his boat well at least. . . Poor bastard.
The day was still new when he spied another sail emerge from an inlet and then swing south. He decided to follow it, feeling little better than a stray dog that might trail any peddler’s cart. The sail continued south until midday when it turned inland again. Hakan followed it between two shallow islands, figuring it must be headed for some kind of haven. The water grew calmer. Hakan settled beside his tiller. At least the terror of the sea was behind him. For now.
He spied a headland and on it a handful of dwellings crowding the shore, dirty twists of smoke rising from their roofs. It looked more like a trade-place than a farmstead or stronghold. A few boats came and went from a wooden jetty. Others were hauled onto the strand. He could see a few figures moving about on the shoreline.
Suddenly the thought pricked him that these were not his people. Did he even have a people any more? He was a stranger. Here. Everywhere. A man owed nothing. Trusted by no one, with no one to trust.
He tried to shake off the morbid daze that still shrouded his mind. He needed his wits sharp and the jetty was barely a stone’s throw off the bow and closing fast.
Qu
ickly he wrapped up his weapons in his cloak, hoping to avoid attention, though he saw he could hardly conceal his shield. Maybe a stranger isn’t so remarkable in this place, he thought. It was the best he could hope for. Besides, the folk on the quayside had the look of traders, not warriors.
He pulled down the sail as the craft eased alongside the jetty.
A man passing sacks out of a small cargo-boat to an underfed boy left off what he was doing and came to grab Hakan’s skiff.
‘Right there, fella!’ he called, catching the rope Hakan threw.
He was a small man with a face so gaunt you could see every line of his skull. Though his eyes were quick enough, darting over Hakan and the contents of his boat in a moment.
‘Not often an empty hold pulls up here.’ The man had a queer high-pitched voice. He frowned. ‘You friend or foe?’
Hakan could only return his question with a blank stare. It was too soon to be answering another man’s questions. Too soon to speak. Too soon to go on. . . As if life had not just ended in a deluge of blood and tears. As if the Tree of Worlds was not burning to ashes about their ears.
. . . As if she wasn’t dead.
‘You understanding me, lad?’ the man repeated. ‘Friend – or – foe?
‘I. . . I need a place to harbour, is all.’ Hakan spoke uncertainly, as if dredging up each word from the bottom of the ocean.
‘So he does speak then!’ cried the other. ‘Took you for a halfwit for a second there. Or an outlander, which is worse!’ He gave a high-pitched giggle and set to chewing on his bristles, considering the stranger. ‘Dane, is it? Or a Jute, maybe?’ Hakan shook his head and forced himself to speak again. ‘I’m of no blood. No place,’ he said, his voice hoarse with salt-spray.
The man picked at the hollow of his cheek. ‘Well, that’s one Hel of an odd answer. But I ain’t one to pry into a man’s business if he don’t want. Wherever you’re from must be a bloody miserable place anyhow.’
‘Huh?’ Hakan looked up.
‘Your face!’ he cried, merrily. But when he saw the stranger didn’t much appreciate his joke, the little man shrugged and dropped it. ‘Well, it’s too bad you didn’t bring nothing from this mysterious place of yours. I’m putting together a cargo to run south to Torsvik. There’s always room for more, as I say.’
‘What is this place?’
‘Freyhamen.’ The man set about tying off the rope. Freyhamen? Torsvik, he’d heard of, but never this place. ‘What you want here anyhow?’ said the other, straightening up.
‘There was a storm. I—’
‘’Course, that’s it – so you said – needed a harbour, didn’t you?’ The man looked Esbjorn’s boat over. ‘Must be a sturdy old girl,’ he said, giving the hull a kick.
‘Finest skiff ever took to water,’ replied Hakan, without thinking. It wasn’t so far from the truth. And then a thought occurred to him. ‘Say, folks round here – are they. . . rich?’
‘Rich? That depends. Rich enough for what?’
‘To trade this.’ Hakan wrapped his knuckles on the gunwale.
‘My, you are in a hurry, ain’t you!’ chuckled the merchant.
‘Well?’ It wasn’t much of an idea. Hardly more than the next step into the darkness. But he’d sooner hang than risk another storm. He had always hated the sea. All sane men did, far as he reckoned.
The merchant eyed the boat up and down. ‘Sure, she’s a nice bit of work. But it ain’t how rich folks are. It’s what you’d take for her counts.’
Hakan shrugged. ‘Silver.’
The merchant sucked his teeth. ‘Not a lot of folk too free with their silver round here. Nope – none too free at all.’
When the merchant offered nothing more, Hakan grew impatient. ‘Well, are you one of ’em or aren’t you?’ The last thing he felt like doing was haggling with this scrawny wretch. How could he be working trades when her body was hardly cold?
‘Me! No, no. Besides, I wouldn’t have no silver till I’m back from Torsvik.’
‘Something else then.’
The merchant scraped at his chin. ‘Suppose I’ve a horse I’d let go.’
Hakan snorted. ‘Have to be some horse to make that a fair trade.’
‘A boat takes some looking after, you know,’ protested the merchant. ‘If you want a horse, you can have one. Otherwise, you’re stuck with your planks and nails there.’
Hakan considered his offer. Was this really what he wanted? The skiff could still carry him home. He could still give up this madness and return to Vendlagard, beg his father’s forgiveness, weep with him. . . Bury her.
No. No! He couldn’t. Wouldn’t. The skiff was a bridge that had to be burned. ‘Is it far?’
The little merchant turned and pointed eagerly up the slope. ‘Halfway up the edge of the village. Be there quick as you like.’
Hakan nodded. ‘I’ll take a look.’ And stepping onto the jetty, he threw his bundle over his shoulder with a clank.
‘Nothing but a bit of worthless tin there, I suppose?’ said the merchant, eyebrow cocked.
‘Nothing worth your bother.’ The warning edge in Hakan’s voice wasn’t missed.
‘If you say so, friend.’ The merchant didn’t seem the type to start trouble, least of all with a man a head taller than him. Instead he led Hakan up the slope, shouting to the boy slouched nearby to watch over the goods on the jetty. Hakan hobbled after him, joints grating like rusted iron, his ankle sorer than ever he remembered.
‘Something up with your leg?’
‘Bit of sea-stiffness is all.’
The merchant grunted and led on.
Other folks went about their business – mending fishing nets, loading up meagre handcarts, stirring fire-pots filled with pitch. No one paid them much attention till a man on a pony rode over, heading them off. The rider’s face was half-hidden under a hood, but his long chin jutted out under a nose sharp enough to crack an oyster.
‘Good day, scrote! Got anything good for me?’ growled the rider.
‘Not today, Arald.’ The merchant gave a servile duck of his head. ‘Might be I’ll have something for you from Torsvik next week.’
‘You’d better.’ The man turned to Hakan. There was the glint of a rheumy eye from under his hood. ‘Who’s this then?’
‘An outlander. Me and him’s working a trade.’
‘Can’t he speak for himself?’ snapped the man called Arald. ‘Well? What’s your name?’
‘It’s not important,’ said Hakan.
‘Listen – I’ll decide what’s important and what ain’t! Who the Hel are you?’
‘No one.’
‘What the fuck kind of answer is that? Where you from?’ ‘Nowhere.’
‘No one from fucking nowhere.’ The man snorted and spat out a gobbet of black phlegm beside his horse. ‘What are you – some kind of ghost?’ he sniggered.
‘Just a man making a trade.’
‘Is it? What we trading then?’
‘That’s between me and him. No business of yours.’
‘Everything round here is my fucking business,’ he snarled, leaning down at the stranger. Hakan caught the reek of his rancid breath on the breeze.
‘It’s nothing, Arald,’ broke in the merchant. ‘Just small beans.’
‘Shut it, Arik! Now what you got in that bundle?’ ‘Nothing worth having.’
‘Everybody’s got something worth having, fella. Even if it’s only the skin off his back.’
Hakan’s hand went to the knife at his belt. ‘You’re welcome to come take a closer look. Can’t promise you’ll like the trade, though,’ he said, loosening the knife in its sheath.
Arald ran a contemplative tongue along his rotten teeth, looking the stranger up and down. Suddenly, he smacked his lips and turned to Arik. ‘You be sure to find me when you’re back from Torsvik. I want first call on the best of it. Understand?’
Arik nodded quickly. Arald spat at their feet. ‘And you, stranger – I hope you know your shit from
your clay. Arik’s a sneaky little scarecrow.’ He sniggered again, tugged on his reins and rode off.
‘My kinsman.’ Arik pulled a sour face. ‘An arsehole, as you doubtless gathered.’ He sighed. ‘Come on, stranger. Ain’t much further.’
They trudged along the edge of the village till Arik trotted ahead towards a modest-looking dwelling with a byre out back. A towering woman with a greasy blonde plait appeared.
Arik’s wife, Hakan guessed, wondering how a man so small kept a woman like that where he wanted her. But the merchant soon dispatched her to prepare some hot food and she went docilely enough.
A boy’s head crept around the doorpost, peering shyly at the stranger through a filthy fringe.
‘Get on in and help your mother,’ snapped Arik. The head vanished. ‘My lad, Haki. The littl’un. T’other’s down there.’ He nodded back towards the jetty. ‘Now, wait till you see my beauty.’
Arik’s ‘beauty’ was a dusty-coated mare that had a pig and a couple of goats for company. Hakan wondered whether he wouldn’t do better riding one of them instead.
‘You actually feed this thing?’
‘Every day,’ crowed Arik. ‘’Course, I’ve seen handsomer animals, but she’s got grit. She ain’t fast, but she’ll get you there.’
Hakan grunted, far from convinced. She was a sorry sight, but he just wanted to be away. Away from the sea. Away from this place. Away from other people. ‘Toss in a bridle, a couple of rye-loaves, five marks of cheese and a skin of ale, and you have a deal.’
Arik pulled at his chin and made a show of weighing up the offer, but they both knew he could have thrown in his son for free, and still been on the better side of the trade. ‘Aye – I reckon I could stretch to that.’
‘And a few hours’ sleep by your fire.’
‘Whatever you wish.’
Hakan ran his palm down the horse’s nose. ‘She have a name?’
‘We named her after the goddess Idun. On account of her love for apples.’ Arik winked.
‘Idun,’ Hakan repeated, the horse’s breath warm against his fingers.
The food Arik’s wife had prepared was little more than gruel mashed up with chunks of salted herring, but it was scalding hot. Hakan devoured it without a word, trying to remember the last hot meal he’d eaten. It was before. . . Before his father, before Inga, before Konur even. Everything good was before. The small merchant sat by, whittling a piece of wood in silence, letting him eat uninterrupted.
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