‘Well if he is at Hinderå for the wedding we will kill him then and be done with it,’ Svein said, and the others laughed at that despite their aching muscles and sore bones. But Sigurd shared a look with Olaf because they both hoped that King Gorm would not be at Hinderå. Dealing with Jarl Randver and all his thegns would be hard enough, but if the king was there with his retinue then Sigurd’s ambition would be sluiced away in his own blood and that of those now oath-tied to him.
‘He won’t be there,’ Olaf had assured him when they were weaving their plan and Sigurd had brought up the possibility of it, thinking that Randver would see the value of having the king there as a guest at his son’s wedding. ‘The king holds his own Haust Blót feast and you can imagine what a mead-soaked night that is.’ Olaf had shaken his head. ‘Biflindi will not sit in another man’s seat in another man’s hall when his own people expect to raise their horns to him and stuff themselves with the wealth of his table.’
Sigurd hoped now he was right, as they laboured with too few oars in the water, gulls wheeling and shrieking above them, and Karmøy slid slowly past.
Through sweat-stung eyes they watched the sun fall over the edge of the western sea and Olaf barked at them to row even harder until by the last of the light still clinging to the day Karsten threaded them between the islands off Karmøy’s ragged south coast and they came to Skudeneshavn.
Sigurd murmured a curse when he twisted round to see that there was only one ship tied up to the jetty and that was Sea-Sow.
‘Óðin’s arse!’ Olaf said, ‘where has that damned skald got to? He should have been here by now.’
‘Maybe he means to make a big thing of it by coming across the Boknafjord at the prow of some jarl’s longship so we can all see him and cheer,’ Aslak suggested through a wry smile.
‘Aye, he’d like that,’ Olaf agreed.
‘I would like it too,’ Sigurd said, ‘the jarl part of it anyway.’
In moments those on the port side had pulled in their oars, whilst on the other side they backed water and Karsten brought Sea-Urchin up to the mooring with the tenderness of a father’s kiss on his child’s cheek. Then Agnar Hunter and Bodvar were throwing ropes to Solveig and Valgerd as the others came down the hill to greet them.
Sigurd could not help but picture his mother standing there on the grass-tufted rocks and his stomach lurched at the memory, the pain of it drowning the ache in muscle and bone.
‘There is Crow-Song,’ Svein said, grimacing as he pushed his big hands into the small of his back trying to get his bones right after all that rowing. ‘And that is not the way you told it, Aslak.’
For Hagal was stumbling down the worn track in the least heroic way and there was no torc-wearing jarl with him. Though there were two men Sigurd had never seen before.
‘Who are they, I wonder,’ Olaf murmured, standing on the jetty and offering Sigurd his hand. Sigurd grabbed hold and Olaf hauled him up out of Sea-Urchin and put out his arm for the next man.
‘Hagal, I am glad to see you,’ Sigurd said as the skald came up and they clasped each other’s arms in greeting.
‘And I am relieved to see you, Sigurd,’ Hagal said, frowning as he looked over Sigurd’s shoulder at the men coming ashore. ‘But it is a shame what happened up there at Osøyro. I heard it some days ago.’
Sigurd pursed his lips. ‘Yes and no,’ he said. ‘Every man has a brynja now, which is like having twice as many men.’
‘Three times as many,’ Olaf put in.
Hagal nodded, unconvinced, then turned to the two men waiting behind him. Both were big men and fighters by the looks, and Hagal seemed wary of them the way a man is wary of another man’s hunting hounds.
‘This is Kætil Ivarsson whom men call Kartr,’ he said as the one with the thatch of fair hair and ruddy cheeks stepped forward and nodded at Sigurd respectfully.
‘Why are you called Kartr then?’ Sigurd asked.
‘I am a blacksmith but in my life I have moved around from place to place,’ he said, and the man’s trade did not surprise Sigurd because he had a smith’s brawny arms and big shoulders. He shrugged those big shoulders now. ‘I would push my tools before me in a cart,’ he said, which was answer enough.
‘And I am Bram whom men call Bear,’ the other said, keeping his feet rooted to the spot as though he expected Sigurd to come to him. He was a beast of a man, not as tall as Svein but broad and solid-looking with a face that was all beard and a nose that looked to have been broken a dozen times.
‘Hagal tells me you are a fighter, Sigurd Haraldarson,’ Bram said before Sigurd had the chance to ask him why he had come to Skudeneshavn with Hagal.
Sigurd looked at both men and nodded. ‘I am going to kill Jarl Randver of Hinderå. And then I am going to kill King Gorm,’ he said, seeing no point in watering the thing down. ‘I expect I’ll have to do some fighting to get these things done.’
Bram nodded. ‘I was up in Steinvik for the last three winters and the jarl whose mead I soaked my beard in had forgotten how to be a raiding man. Like an overfed hound he was happy to sit by his fire, farting the days away. I could stay amongst him and his sheep no more.’
‘He released you from your oath?’ Sigurd said.
‘I never swore to him. He was not worth my oath.’ He stared at Sigurd, his teeth dragging beard bristles over his bottom lip as he appraised the younger man.
‘I was at Tysvær in Jarl Leiknir’s hall when Bram came to the place asking if the jarl would raid again before winter,’ Hagal said, then grinned. ‘I told him to forget about Jarl Leiknir and that I knew a man who was weaving a great saga tale.’
‘You will swear an oath to me, Bram Bear,’ Sigurd said, then gestured at the mail-clad warriors around them. ‘All of them have done it.’
‘Three things,’ Bram said. ‘For three things I will oath-bind myself to you.’
‘Three things for one oath?’ Sigurd said. ‘To my ears that does not sound like a fair trade.’
The big man smiled at that. ‘If you had seen me fight you would be scratching your head wondering why I ask for only three things.’ He jerked his bushy beard in Svein’s direction. ‘Want me to turn that big ox inside out? What about him?’ he was pointing at Olaf who was making sure that Sea-Urchin was secure. ‘I’ll put him on his arse if you like.’
Sigurd batted the offer away with a hand. ‘Ha, that is easy, I have done it myself,’ he said. Bram cocked an eyebrow at that, for Olaf looked like a god of war in his brynja, its rings straining across those shoulders of his. ‘So what three things do you ask in return for your sword?’ Sigurd asked.
‘Fame, silver, mead,’ Bram said. ‘Give me those and I will cut your enemies down like barley before the scythe.’
He was a boaster this one, and yet there was something about him that made Sigurd believe it was more than just bluster. There was a bristling violence about him, not as dark as that which welled in Floki, but no less dangerous for that, Sigurd suspected. And then Sigurd recalled his ordeal and the visions that had come to him as he hung between worlds in that stinking fen. He had met a proud bear and that king of the beasts had gone for some honey even though it sat within a black cloud of angry bees. Perhaps they will kill you, Sigurd had told the bear. And the bear had laughed.
‘And you, Kætil Kartr?’ Sigurd said, turning to the other man. ‘Do you want fame, silver and mead?’
The blacksmith scratched his fair beard, frowning. ‘When I am dead my name will live on in the blades I have forged. That is enough fame for me. As for silver, I am tired of going from place to place and would put my roots down before I am too old to swing my hammer.’
‘Kætil happened to be passing through Tysvær,’ Hagal said. ‘You would be impressed with his work.’
‘I will find a good anvil stone and set up a proper smithy,’ Kætil said. ‘Hagal tells me there is bog iron around here running down in the streams.’
Sigurd glanced at Hagal who gave a slight shrug and Sigurd nodded,
deciding it was Kætil’s own fault if he believed what a skald told him.
‘I will need silver,’ Kætil said. ‘And forging blades is thirsty work, so I will never turn down ale and mead.’
‘And are you a good fighter?’ Sigurd asked. ‘For those big arms of yours make you slow, I’d wager.’
‘I have had my share of fights,’ the blacksmith said. ‘Why else do you think I move from place to place?’ He shook his head. ‘There is usually some argument about payment for a knife or spear head.’ His lip curled in his fair beard. ‘It is funny how men easily forget what they agreed to pay.’
‘And you’ll swear an oath to me, Kætil Kartr?’ Sigurd said.
The man nodded. ‘I will,’ he said.
‘Who else have you brought me, Crow-Song?’ Sigurd asked, making a show of looking around and up towards where his father’s hall used to stand.
The skald flushed red. ‘I tried, Sigurd,’ he said. ‘But—’
‘But you could not find a jarl drunk enough to join me in this fight,’ Sigurd finished for him.
‘It is hard to find raven-feeders these days,’ Bram muttered.
But Sigurd was still coming to terms with the hard truth that he had just twenty men and no time to find more, for in two days Runa would marry Jarl Randver’s son Amleth.
‘It will make a better tale, anyhow,’ Hagal said, ‘the fewer of us there are.’
‘I will not deny it,’ Sigurd said. ‘Let us just hope one of us is left at the end to tell it.’
Bram Bear was grinning, his cracked lips spread within the great mass of his beard, which Sigurd thought was strange given what he had just said.
‘I think I am going to like you, Sigurd Haraldarson,’ Bram said.
‘We’ll see about that,’ Sigurd said.
Then he drew Troll-Tickler and laid it hilt first across his left forearm.
‘My father would have paid your brother the mundr,’ Amleth said, ‘and twice as much as the usual bride-price. Twenty-four aurar, the worth of ten cows. As well as oxen and a horse and bridle, or a good sword and a shield if that was what he preferred, which I suspect he would.’ A thin veil of rain was falling and Runa clenched the cloak tighter at her neck as they watched two of Jarl Randver’s men untying the small boat. ‘Sigurd was a fool to turn this down.’
Across the fjord from the tree-thronged island upon which they waited she could see Jarl Randver’s guests lining the stony beach and gathered on the wharf against which three of the jarl’s longships, including Reinen and Sea-Eagle, her father’s ships, sat at their moorings. In accordance with local tradition Amleth would row her across the water in an act symbolizing their journey as husband and wife from this day forward. She knew those guests across the water were eagerly awaiting them so that the ceremony could begin and the festivities could follow in a wash of mead and feasting. Perhaps they did not know that their host had planned another spectacle for their enjoyment, though this one would be drenched not in mead but in blood.
‘As for your morning-gift, you will find me very generous,’ Amleth said, looking west across the sound and then towards the bigger of the two islands between them and the mainland, behind which four more of his father’s warships waited hidden from the sound. ‘Beautiful clothes, jewellery, slaves. Whatever you want, I will give it if I can.’ He smiled but it was stiff as a new scabbard.
Runa tried to swallow but felt as if she had something caught in her throat. Talk of the morning-gift filled her with dread, for what was it if not the price of her maidenhood? All too soon the night would come, her brother would be dead and she would be lying beneath the man standing with her now. Perhaps he would put his seed in her belly and she would be trapped, doomed to spend her life amongst those who had killed her mother and her brother. Those who had their hands bloody up to the elbow in the ruin of her former life and all that her father had built.
Her other brothers would not bear it were they alive. Sigurd would not bear it, which was why he would come for her this very day, as Hagal had betrayed to Jarl Randver. And when he came, those ships waiting behind yonder island would swoop like an owl from a branch and Sigurd would die.
I could throw myself into the fjord, she thought. I could end it now. But Sigurd would still come, she knew. Even if Amleth did not row them across the water, Sigurd would come. Crow-Song had told the jarl that Runa’s brother meant to have his revenge that day, a feast of blood before the dark months. And though Runa knew her brother could not win against so many and with them expecting him, perhaps he might see her jump into the cold water and know that she died still holding her honour. Perhaps he would see this before they cut him down.
‘It is time, Amleth,’ one of the men called up from the slick rocks that bristled with mussels and slippery red weed. He was on his haunches holding the boat which was rocking gently on the calm sea.
Amleth nodded, offering Runa his arm so that they might walk down to the boat together, but Runa did not take it and so he began to walk down alone.
Runa did not move. She looked up at the dark clouds, letting the rain fall softly on her face. This was not the wedding day she had talked about with her mother. As a jarl’s daughter she had always known she would be a peace-weaver, but even her father, ever with one eye on strengthening alliances, had promised her that she would not marry any man she did not think she could come to love.
She clenched her teeth together at these memories of her parents. Their words had been of no more substance than the misty air. They had left her alone. All of her kin had abandoned her. All except for Sigurd.
‘Come, Runa,’ Amleth called up to her, an edge to his voice now. He was nervous, too. It was all over him. His father had set him up as the bait on the trap, for all that he was getting a bride out of it, and his eyes were up and down that rain-murked sound like shearwaters across the waves.
‘My brother will kill you, Amleth,’ Runa said, wanting to twist the knife in his fear. Wanting him to know that it was not over yet.
He looked past her up towards the rocks and trees of the deserted island, as if he expected Sigurd to suddenly appear there, as if the last of Jarl Harald’s sons had moored unseen on the other side of the island and was coming to kill him.
‘Sigurd is Óðin-favoured,’ she said. ‘Your father was a fool to make an enemy of him. He is coming and he will not be stopped.’
She watched him fiddling with the silver mjöllnir at his neck, the little hammer glinting between finger and thumb. Perhaps he would not dare climb into that boat with her and row them to the shore where some two hundred guests waited, no doubt slick-mouthed at the thought of the beasts their host had slaughtered for the celebration.
‘I will pick you up and put you in that boat if you do not come now,’ he said, a flash of tooth in his beard that reminded her of his father the jarl and his brother Hrani. Hrani who was waiting now in his ship Hildiríðr – War-Rider – for Sigurd to appear from behind one of those islands, and that thought sent a shiver through Runa because Hrani was a killer and wore it like a cloak.
‘Come,’ Amleth said, ‘let us be done with it,’ and with that he walked back up the rock, grabbed Runa’s arm and hauled her down to the boat.
‘The wind and current will take you that way,’ the man not holding the boat said, nodding south-westward, ‘so you’ll want to aim at that naust.’ He was pointing at a boathouse on the water’s edge a good arrow-shot along the shore from Jarl Randver’s wharf.
Amleth nodded. ‘I will be happy to get to the other side, Thorgest,’ he said.
Thorgest grinned. ‘But tonight will be a feast to shake your father’s hall, hey.’
Amleth pushed Runa into the boat and she stumbled over the row bench, falling down into the forward thwart at the bow. Amleth sat himself down with his back to her, and picked up the oars, putting them into the rowlocks. Then the man holding the stern pushed off and Amleth began the stroke, his broad shoulders and back swelling with the effort.
Her
ring gulls shrieked and tumbled through the misty grey above them. A guttural croak drew Runa’s eye to a cormorant flying eastward, low across the water and black as a shadow. She lifted the thin leather thong with its silver pendant of Freyja over her head and held the precious thing in her hand, her fist closed so tightly around it that it would take more than death to wrest it from her. And she invoked the goddess.
But whereas most women on their wedding day would seek Freyja’s help in the begetting of a child, for one of the goddess’s names is Gefn which means Giver, it was to Freyja’s darker side that Runa now appealed. For Freyja was also called Skjálf: Shaker. She was a goddess of battle and Runa asked her to ride into this fight beside her brother. But if the gods abandoned them now as they had abandoned her father and her mother and her brothers, then Runa would throw herself over the side and drown in the sound. Let Rán Mother of the Waves have her. Rather that than live here amongst these men, with the furs and jewels of a jarl’s daughter but the honour of a slave.
Amleth looked over his shoulder and growled a curse. Thorgest had been right about the current. The little boat was being borne west into Sandsundet, which was not where Amleth wanted to be, Runa knew. Because if Sigurd was coming, that was the direction he would be coming from, having put himself behind an island or one of the bluffs or promontories along the mainland’s ragged coast.
‘The gods do not want this marriage,’ Runa said. ‘Oðin has commanded Njörd to stop us reaching the other side. You cannot deny that we have barely made any progress at all, even with your strength.’
‘Hold your tongue, girl,’ Amleth snapped over his shoulder, putting more effort into the pull, his oar blades plunging and dragging the sea past.
‘You will have to row harder, Amleth!’ Thorgest called from the shore, which was advice that Amleth needed like a sprung strake.
He was puffing with the effort but at last it was paying off and they seemed to be getting somewhere, though Amleth was still having to put more muscle into the left oar to counter the tide.
A peal of thunder rolled across the northern sky and Runa chose not to say anything about that because Amleth could hear it for himself and had enough fear in him to take some bad omen from it. Instead she looked out across the channel, cinching the cloak tighter around her shoulders and pulling it across her legs to keep the rain off. Then she smiled bitterly in spite of herself for worrying about staying warm and dry when she had already decided to drown herself in the cold dark if things went as they surely must.
God of Vengeance Page 38