‘Perhaps you’ll find more favour with my daughter,’ said her father, apparently enjoying this newcomer’s discomfort. He waved Erlan on. The stranger shuffled along with that awkward gait, until he stood in front of her.
For a moment, those dark eyes looked right into her. His gaze was unflinching and yet, unlike other men’s, seemingly without guile. He bowed.
‘Since my father has forgotten to introduce me.’ She held out her hand. ‘My name is Aslif.’ He took it and she felt his lips brush her fingers. The pounding in her head from the smoke of Urtha’s Weed thumped a little faster. She wished it would pass. ‘But you may call me Lilla. Everyone does.’
‘My Lady Lilla,’ he murmured. ‘You have my allegiance also.’
‘You are a man of secrets, my father says.’
‘I made an oath. I intend to keep it.’
‘Even if it costs you your head?’
‘Every oath costs something.’
‘I can see you are very stubborn,’ she said, feeling suddenly uncomfortable under this man’s cold gaze. ‘Very stubborn or very foolish.’
‘Why not both?’ offered her brother with a snigger. ‘Most beggars are.’ She noticed a flicker of heat pass over his features. Perhaps there was a limit to this man’s patience after all.
‘Is that all you are?’ she asked. ‘A beggar?’
‘Is this all you are?’ he returned. ‘A princess?’ She felt her cheeks colour with indignation and heard her father’s ringing laughter. His mirth was easily oiled by a cup or two of wine.
‘Haha! The boy has wit! Very good. Well, that’s enough of you, young Erlan. You have our leave. And eat hearty, boy! By the gods, you need it.’
As Erlan returned to his seat, Lilla wondered how this proud cripple would fare at her father’s court. Whether he would even see out the winter. The life of a warrior didn’t bear much prediction. Then again, nor did the life of a woman. She thought of the childhood playmates who had succumbed to sickness. And her dearest friend Fulla, buried with her half-born child last Yuletide. She wasn’t the only one; there were many. Wisdom taught its lesson again and again. You must hold onto life lightly. The things you love will be taken away.
Why then was it such a hard lesson to learn?
When Erlan resumed his place, food had been served.
‘I’ve been looking after your pig,’ said Einar, nodding at Kai, who was scarfing down his food like a starved sow.
‘The lad’s earned it.’ Nonetheless, Erlan had to lever Kai off his platter to slide between them. Before him sat a steaming plate of salt pork and kale, with barley cakes and garlic mushrooms. It was enough to make him weep.
‘So?’ prompted Einar, as Erlan fell on his food.
‘So what?’
‘You’ve met our lordly family. What do you think?’
Erlan stroked his beard between mouthfuls. Traces of the queen’s perfume curled into his nostrils. He inhaled, savouring the last traces of that sweet, dark scent, recalling the curve of her upper lip.
He shrugged, and went back to his food. ‘Saldas and Sigurd were cold. Lilla. . . I don’t know. The high-born – they’re all the same.’
‘Odin’s stars,’ said Kai, spraying mushrooms everywhere, ‘but the princess is a beauty! Got a chest like a pair of otters wrestling in a sack.’
Erlan shoved him. ‘Just stick to filling your face.’
‘Yep – the Lady Lilla is fine.’ Einar drained his cup. ‘There’s more, you know. The queen’s children. A little easier to win over.’
‘You think?’ Somehow Erlan had his doubts.
‘A pebble for him, a doll for her and they’ll be friends for life.’
Erlan scowled. ‘So I have to win over kidlings now?’
‘The son of a king grows up.’
‘The son of a bastard king.’
Einar nearly choked on his mead. ‘Keep your voice down! Remember whose salt you’re eating, eh?’
‘Sigurd called him that this morning when they spoke of the Wartooth. What does he mean?’
‘Sigurd’s the only one who could say it and keep his tongue.’
‘Is it true?’
Einar sighed. ‘Aye. . . Fact is, it’s where all the bad blood between the Wartooth and Sviggar’s line arises.’ He leaned in. ‘See, Sviggar’s mother was never married to old Ivar. She was his concubine. ’Course, Sviggar’s enemies say she was a whore.’ He winked. ‘Anyway, the only legitimate child that survived was Autha, the Wartooth’s mother. The Deep-Minded, so called; and she was certainly clever. Oh, she’s long dead. She was twenty-odd years older than Sviggar even. But she never gave up her claim to her father’s realm.’
‘If she was older, how did he come by the kingdom?’
‘Ivar named Sviggar his heir, despite being bastard-born. He wanted to spite his daughter, see. Hel’s teeth, there’s a lot more to it! Ivar must’ve been a mean old rascal. He and his daughter finished up hating each other, and many would tell you, she had more cause to hate than him. The feud’s run and run.’
‘Between Sviggar’s line and Autha’s?’
‘Yep. The Wartooth hasn’t given up his mother’s grievances.’
Erlan thought back to his ordeal that morning. Suddenly, the suspicions that he was the Wartooth’s catspaw made more sense. ‘Small wonder Sviggar suspects the Wartooth of his son’s death.’
‘Aye – and it is suspicious. And a heavy loss to lose his heir. Sigurd isn’t the man his brother was.’
‘No? He’s ready to stand up to his father, and knows his own mind, at least.’
‘Bah!’ Einar pulled a face. ‘Did you meet that man yet?’ He jabbed his cup at the platform. ‘See him? At the far end.’
‘With the black hair?’
‘That’s him. If Sigurd has anyone’s mind, it’s his.’
The man was sat on the other side of the hall, obscured in shadow. His hair fell untidily, framing a thin face with dark curls. From that distance, it was hard to perceive more, except that he sat very straight with sloping shoulders and spoke with no one. Almost as if he was invisible.
‘His name is Vargalf. He is Sigurd’s personal liegeman.’
‘Meaning?’
‘He’s taken no oath to the king, so far as anyone knows. Only to Sigurd.’
Erlan considered him a while. ‘How can a master have a servant’s mind?’
‘With remarkable ease!’ laughed Einar. ‘Oh, Sigurd’s no fool, but nor is he as wise as he’d like to think. And Vargalf could put thoughts in a dead man’s head.’
‘You don’t trust him.’
‘Not many do! His heart is cold as the northern frost. But he has names – Merciless and Steel-Storm. Folk do well to keep right with him. Hey, you there!’ cried Einar distractedly to a passing thrall. He bade her fill their cups.
‘It’s a strange old place you’ve come to. You may come to wish Sviggar had let the sword drop, and that be an end to it.’ He laughed, not seeing the shadow pass over Erlan’s face. ‘Meanwhile, at least you can enjoy the finest brews in the land.’
Erlan forced a smile, raised his cup and swallowed down the beer. It tasted warm and earthy. Reassuring. He glanced over his rim towards the darkened corner.
Vargalf was gone.
Erlan stared at the empty space on the bench, and, for some reason, the more he stared, the more the warmth in his belly turned cold and bitter.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
The journey had nursed him like a mother. But he’d been blind to it.
Only with the first days rolling into a week and then another, did he come to realize that even if he voyaged to the ends of the earth, he still had to face himself.
He settled into his duties quick enough. Finn, the king’s bodyguard, saw to that. Affable, quick-witted, confiding, Finn had been a nomad in the far north. He’d stayed south after he won an archery contest and came to the king’s notice.
‘He made me an offer I couldn’t refuse.’ He winked. A fresh young thrall with
a cloud of auburn hair who’d served as Sviggar’s concubine. She and Finn were lately wed, and he was full of bounce at his luck.
Yet something about his easy nature, about his confidence – as if life owed him good fortune and would pay up without the slightest delay – made Erlan sick to his stomach.
Finn found them a place to sleep in one of the smaller halls, and assigned them people to report to, and tasks to complete. Kai was put to work about the hall yards doing odd jobs. He complained it usually involved shovelling shit. ‘Horse shit, sheep shit, pig shit, chicken shit, goat shit. Any kind of shit. I’ve become a regular expert. Ain’t nothing I don’t know about shit!’
Erlan rode long hours escorting earls or thanes or lesser men to one place, or returning with tribute from another. He stood guard or saw to the repair of someone’s war-gear or bridle or some such trifle.
Most days, he joined in the weapons training. As the newest of Sviggar’s karls, he taught the younglings. How to use a shield. How to cut and turn, thrust and parry. How to kill. He recalled his own first lessons. He’d seen hardly seven winters when his father put a short, blunt sword in his hand, saying, ‘A sword and a heart, son – you need both to survive in this world.’
He watched the boys, faces taut with effort, struggling to hold back tears when they took a hit and felt the pain, and found himself wondering what was the use of either.
Something he couldn’t control was creeping like a cancer into his thoughts. Through his bones. His duties were dull. But it wasn’t the dullness he minded. It was the banality of it all. The nausea.
On the road, he’d been forced to think of what lay ahead. To stay alert. To stay alive. But now, here he was. And the black memories of what lay behind at Vendlagard that had followed him across these unknown lands returned to his mind like flies to a rotting corpse.
In his dreams, Inga’s face grew indistinct, but she returned again and again – sometimes loving and sad, sometimes furious and vengeful. And his eyes would flick open with a catch of breath, cheeks wet, heart racing, a relentless pressure inside his head.
He was losing all sense of purpose. The goal of reaching this place – finding a lord – was done. Was this to be his life now? Running errands for the whipping boys of a king. Was he to find a healing love among the Uppland whores? What could they do for him, but mock his memory of Inga’s caresses, of the intimacy that was gone for ever?
Intimacy that never should have been.
Everything he touched dripped with nausea – every hilt, every bridle, every cup. Every laugh was a taunt. He watched folk about their business, saw their smiles and scowls, listened to their talk. But all the while, he was suffocating in a darkness that seemed to smother everything.
How had he not seen it before? What were these pitiful things they all chased after but illusions, ethereal as mist? A piece of land, a healthy son, a beautiful daughter. Loveplay, drink, friendship. Songs of wonder, fine jewellery, a full belly. Even love came to nothing – no more than hate. Whether you were the lowliest pig-thrall or the mighty king himself – what did it matter? Nothing endured. Everyone was blind, going about their lives as if they meant something.
Was he the only one who could see? Why?
He was an outsider here, and always would be. He was an outsider everywhere. He had no home. Perhaps he was an outsider even to himself.
A stranger.
Many times, he longed to be blind again. Just to fit in. To come back, somehow. But perhaps now he never could. Instead, he was condemned to see, and the sight would drive him to madness.
Madness or death.
This life sickened him, and the sweet song of darkness began calling in his dreams.
Kai, however, was happy as a hungry tick on a fat swine. Truth was, he would have done any kind of work going around Sviggar’s Great Hall, and been grateful for it. It’d take more than a few piles of shit to hold him down.
His mouth seldom got a rest. But even those who found him garrulous, and more than a shade annoying at first, were soon won over.
He was an upstart, but one who made folks laugh. For that, he was forgiven a good deal. He had the young stable girls shrieking with laughter, watching him race a pig around the yard. Or if one of the high folk needed something doing, Kai was on it at the instant, and running too, with a smile wide as the horizon.
He had a prodigious talent for gossip, confiding useless tit-bits in exchange for the fattest, juiciest secrets. He knew which maid swooned after which karl; which thane had slept with which merchant’s wife; whose scales were honest and whose crooked. He knew which newborn was the bastard of some drunken tryst; which maid was promised to which old man, and what price her father settled for her, to the very mark. He even knew much that passed in the king’s council. Councillors talked to whores, whores to stable-boys, and stable-boys to him. And so on.
Soon, there was no one who knew more of what went on about the Uppland halls than Kai Askarsson.
All this was very well. A picture of life, common enough when folk dwell together – men and women, thralls and freemen, good wives and scoundrels, kings and beggars. But he heard other tales, too. Tales of a darker shade.
Mud-spattered trappers came to the Uppland halls telling of hearths in the west where many tears fell. A foreshadowing of the Ragnarok, some said – the World Serpent was stirring, snatching souls for the final fight against Odin and his heroes.
Others said it was thieves with a taste for blood. Stories came, of crimson pools upon the ice, or snowdrifts sparkling scarlet with blood, or bones picked clean and white.
And the rivers of tears flowed down from the mountains, drawing closer to the hearth of the king.
Finally, it was her turn.
They all knew it was more fun to be the one hiding, which was why it took all morning before her older brothers let her have a go.
She knew just what to be. A raven.
They were the birds in all the stories – them or eagles. But eagles didn’t sit in trees. Ravens did. And she loved climbing trees.
She left Ref and Raffen by the Shining Lake, skimming stones and counting to a hundred. She’d been scheming which tree was best ever since the game began. The big beech was usually the best, especially in summer. But it was Raffen’s favourite too, and would be the first place he’d look. There was the hollow oak above the quarry. But Papa said it was dangerous and its branches might snap. Also, inside it was dark, and crawling with earwigs.
She’d settled on the old yew tree on the hill behind the lake. It was a bit spooky with its knotted old roots, but she knew a secret way inside its hulking trunk, and up onto the first big branch. Up there, no one could see her from the ground, but she could peep through the needle bushes and see her brothers coming.
She ran, breathless and giggling, snow flying about her heels.
Far behind, she heard one of her brothers shout, ‘Coming, Namma – you’d better be ready!’
She squealed with excitement as she reached the yew tree. Grinning to herself, she crept inside, her short breaths clouding the cramped space. She’d soon picked her way up the footholds, and was inching along the branch. Her tunic had ridden up and the bark was scraping between her thighs. It hurt, but she gripped on tight all the same. She didn’t want to fall.
At last, satisfied, she waited.
Before long she heard noises approaching. Scuffing, shuffling, crunching, cracking, and the murmur of voices. She leaned back against the tree-trunk, peering through the foliage.
Suddenly she saw them and had to clamp her mouth shut to stop herself from squealing again. They were coming quite slowly – criss-crossing each other, peering up into the trees. Ref, the younger one, kept calling her name. But she wasn’t that stupid.
Raffen called Ref over to some rocks. She watched them check the cuttings and under the overhangs till they were sure she wasn’t there.
Sillies – they must think I’m a badger. But I’m never a badger.
They ch
anged direction. She heard Raffen shout, ‘Over there.’
Her heart sank, sure he’d guessed where she was hiding. They were so close. She pressed tighter against the trunk, holding her breath, trying not to make a sound.
And then, unable to bear the suspense, she had another peek.
When she did, her blood froze.
There were her brothers, so close she could see their faces. But behind them, closing in through the trees, were the most terrifying creatures she had ever seen.
Stooped shadows, moving fleet as wolves over the snow, with barely a sound. Suddenly, there were lots of them, popping from behind each tree – as if they were the trees one moment, and these horrible creatures the next. They had arms and legs, like people, but their hands were all crooked; their skin, pale as the snow.
Her brothers hadn’t seen the danger.
She wanted to warn them. Wanted to scream. She knew she should. . . But what if those things heard her? What if they saw?
Her throat was stone. And then, it was too late.
At the last moment, Ref turned and uttered a short, desperate wail before the creatures were on them. She watched, stricken – those hands, those horrible hands. Dozens of them, pulling at her brothers, clawing, crushing.
Her brothers kicked and struggled, their bodies disappearing under the writhing pale figures. And then, there was a horrible snap – like a branch breaking. Raffen stopped fighting.
As the creatures bore him away, Ref fought bravely. He had an arm free, was hitting out at them. But there were too many. He had one by the hair – long, greasy white hair – and pulled, twisting its head towards her, and she saw its face. A hideous sight – cheeks streaked black, eyes bright like white fire, and a ragged maw of a mouth and teeth that, even from that distance, looked sharp and cruel. Then another had a grip on his throat, and began squeezing.
He started shaking. She saw through the mob of white figures his arms quivering wildly. Until he went limp. There was another cracking sound. They threw him on their shoulders, his head jiggling like a broken doll.
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