by Tim Leach
We come to hunt upon its shore, for any man may claim what falls upon the common ground of the coast. Driftwood from distant lands, whole trees washed white from their long journey, invaluable in a land where the tall trees grow no more. Seals, lost and sick, who come to the shore to die. Wood and meat; with a little luck, a man may earn a fortune in both from the leavings of the waves.
The drift ice had barely cleared and there would be little offered up by the god of the sea. We were out more to enjoy our freedom than in any hope of finding such a bounty. To walk on grass and not snow, to feel a fragile heat from the sun on our backs and to listen to the sea once more – this was all that we had expected.
Then, a turning of the coast, a cove unseen. There before us, a great black shape so large and so strange that at first I could not name it, sprawled upon the sand and unmoving in the tide so great was its weight. Only the stink of rot – distant, but still sharp in the air – gave me understanding. A whale, washed ashore. Long dead and partly rotted, but still a farmer’s fortune in oil and meat and skin.
Yet no sooner had I seen it than I saw something else beyond: three black dots in the distance, hurrying forward. Some rival party of hunters on the common land, and they too had seen the whale. And then the wind was battering against my ears and the shingle crackling beneath my boots as Gunnar and I began to run.
It was a race, for the coast was land that no man laid claim to except by the oldest right of all: by being there first. Gunnar outpaced me and ran ahead, casting aside his sack as he ran but keeping hold of his hunting spear, for to get to the whale empty-handed would mean nothing: dead as it was, we could only claim it by placing the first mark upon it.
Our chase was a lost cause. The other party was closer than we to begin with, and they had a fast runner with them, a shorter man who ran ahead of his companions. We would not come second by much, but I saw no way that we would make up the ground. Still, we ran as hard as we could, for what else was there? To do anything less would be shameful.
Something changed in the way Gunnar ran. I thought at first he had stumbled or hurt his foot, for he ran side-face, leading with his left foot for a couple of steps. Then I saw his body arc and twist and heard a great shout as he let the spear fly.
I stopped still and watched it go, the point twisting lazily through the air. I heard a cry from the other party, saw their leading man throw his spear in imitation, but though he was a strong runner his arm was weak and his weapon fell well short. A smack of iron into flesh echoed out across the beach; Gunnar’s spear found its mark.
A cry of victory, and Gunnar and I were walking then, grinning like children who have won a race in the fields. We would offer that other party some portion of the whale as tribute to their efforts, for I had seen feuds start over such things before. Honour would be served and each of us would go home with a prize.
But when we reached the whale and looked upon the other men, I saw the smile fall away from Gunnar’s face. The three who came towards us – I could not name them, yet it seemed that I knew some aspects of them all too well. The hooked shape of the nose of one man, the hard edge of the jaw of another, the coarse black hair that crept over the knuckles of the third – all were familiar to me, as though one man that I knew had been split amongst these three that I did not.
The knowledge came to me then and I knew why Gunnar did not smile.
‘A fine throw,’ said Snorri, the small quick man who had almost beaten us to the carcass.
Gunnar licked his dry lips. ‘Thank you.’
‘Your skald should compose a song for it.’ This from Hakon, the eldest. ‘The Saga of the Rotting Whale.’ They laughed. We did not. The largest man – I remembered his name as Björn – noted our silence, and his great black brows came together in a frown.
Snorri, Björn and Hakon. The sons of Harold the Serpent-tongue. Brothers of the man we had killed.
I had heard that they had spent the winter travelling from one man’s house to another, searching for news of their brother. They had never come to Gunnar’s farmstead, for we were too far from Erik’s farm to fall under suspicion. But they had questioned many others in the first month that their brother went missing, leaving only an empty house behind. There had been no feud, no man who stood to gain from his death, no one who could give them any clue as to what had befallen Erik. They were left only with that unknowing, that hollow in the mind when a loss cannot be answered for.
‘I am sorry to hear of your brother,’ Gunnar said.
‘What do you know of it?’ asked Hakon.
‘Only what all men know.’
Björn spoke. ‘They seem to know nothing at all,’ he said.
‘Perhaps it was an outlaw that killed him.’
‘Why would you say that?’
‘It seems the most likely thing.’
‘It is not our place to guess, Gunnar,’ I said. I looked to Hakon. ‘If I hear anything more than rumour, I will tell it to you.’
‘I thank you, Kjaran.’ He clapped me on the shoulder. ‘It is good to talk with you once more. It would be even better to hear you sing again. My wife still speaks of your last visit; you must come to us soon. Gunnar cannot keep you to himself for two winters now, can he? Perhaps you will winter with my family this year?’
‘Perhaps I will. I would like that.’
‘You are always welcome in my home.’ He slapped the flank of the whale and its flesh rippled at his touch. ‘A rich prize. What will you do with it?’
Gunnar said nothing. The brothers looked to one another. Then Björn spoke, a blunt demand: ‘What portion of the whale will you give us?’
‘Björn,’ Snorri said, a warning in his voice. He turned back to us and smiled. ‘But I am sure that so honourable a man as Gunnar will not begrudge us some share of the prize. We did sight it first, after all.’
Still Gunnar did not speak – his face blank, his eyes unseeing, like a seer in a trance. I saw the brothers grow restless, shifting halfway into fighters’ stances, their hands twitching towards their weapons.
‘Gunnar,’ I said, hoping that my voice might shake him from his silence. And at last he did speak – the worst words he could have said.
‘Take it all.’
Björn recoiled as if struck.
‘You insult us,’ said Björn. ‘I will not be in your debt. You think us beggars?’
‘You won it fairly,’ Hakon said. ‘I will not take your prize from you. Come, gift us a tenth, a third if you feel so generous. There is no need for this.’
But Gunnar stood there, staring at the ground and shaking his head, mouthing no over and over again, and he would say no more.
‘Give our share to the gods,’ I said. ‘That is what Gunnar means.’
‘I did not think you both such pious men,’ Hakon said.
‘This bounty is a gift from Ægir,’ I replied. ‘We need his favour more than we need the meat. Take what you will from it and burn the rest for the god.’ And with that I put my hand on Gunnar’s back and led him away as if he were an exhausted child. As we walked down the beach I heard Björn muttering something, and I quickened my step to outpace the words. If we heard the insult, we would have to fight them.
*
‘I did not think the shame would be so much. How do you lie so easily?’
We were far from the beach when he spoke to me. Far from the beach and far from home, sitting beside the shore of the river, trying to find the words that would make sense of it all.
I washed my face in the water, feeling the sharpness of the cold against my eyes.
‘Because I have to,’ I said. ‘There is no breaking from it now. We must fight for this lie as if it were our king. It keeps us safe.’
‘I will not fight for a king. Or for a lie. I fight for my family. I fight for you.’
‘Then lie for us.’
‘I cannot.’
I said nothing more and I let the silence come.
It should not be so difficult a th
ing, to keep a secret in a country like ours. It is a lonely life where one’s family is one’s world, where months can pass before a man spoke to one who was not his wife or child. The farmsteads as scattered as the stars in the sky, distinct and separate. An Icelander with a secret has no priest pleading for his soul or king threatening his body, and yet still he feels the longing to confess.
As we walked back towards the farm, Gunnar moved slowly, weighted with his secret. I thought on the coming summer, when I would leave him and his family behind, to move on and find a new home for the winter. Once I had told myself that I lived as a wanderer because I had to, that a slave’s son had no hope of becoming a landed man. Then for many years I had thought of it as a blessing, to wander the land free and unshackled. And now I wondered if it was the coward’s longing: to stay moving, one step ahead of the feuds that come as inevitably as the winter ice.
‘Home,’ Gunnar said, as we came in sight of the farm once again, a quiet relief in his voice. To return to the dark, like a beast returning to its caves and tunnels. I suppose it is an easier thing to be a murderer in the darkness than to try and stand as one in the light of day.
Gunnar patted the figurehead that hung above his door, the carved dragon’s head that had once been part of his ship, and I touched it too, for I was in need of a little luck. We must both have felt some premonition to have acted so, for when we went inside, we could see an unfamiliar shadow in the darkness. I saw the two small shapes of Gunnar’s children, the flat-nosed profile of Dalla, and one other whom I did not recognise at first. Yet it took only a moment to know who it was, for as the months had passed I had seen that silhouette many times in my memories, and in my dreams.
It was Vigdis, the wife of the ghost.
4
‘Welcome to my home,’ Gunnar said, after a moment’s silence.
‘It is the first day of spring,’ Vigdis said. ‘A good day to visit neighbours.’
‘That it is,’ my friend replied. He sat down and passed me bread. I took my place beside him; I did not take my eyes from Vigdis.
‘It is good to have the company of a woman again,’ Dalla said. ‘Too many men in this house.’ At this her daughter protested and pawed at her. Dalla laughed. ‘And you of course, my love.’
Unappeased, her daughter tottered across the room to Vigdis, sat between the guest’s knees and pouted at her mother. Vigdis’s hands circled Freydis’s neck, wandered back and fell to braiding the child’s hair.
‘Your home is well, I hope?’ Dalla said.
‘As well as can be expected. Olaf Hoskuldsson shall send me servants soon, to help me tend the house.’
Gunnar’s mouth tightened at the name of our chieftain.
‘A generous man,’ Dalla said. ‘It must be lonely, out on the farm with no company.’
‘It is not always so lonely,’ Vigdis replied, and she looked towards Gunnar.
He met her gaze and made no reply. A silence came, like that particular quiet before a duel. Dalla watched them both – the guest and her husband – and I saw the guessing begin in her mind. Who? What? When? I was glad she did not look at me. I do not know if I could have met her gaze.
The children began to fuss. They always feel discord most keenly, like those birds who will swarm in the sky hours before an earthquake, shaken from their roosts by tremors too soft for us to feel. I took Kari on my lap, gripped his hands and tried to get him to wrestle with me. He was a strong boy, and he loved to fight. But not this time. No matter what I did to urge him, he would only twist his head away and look towards his mother.
Gunnar dipped his cup into the barrel of water once more.
‘Well. Have you thought on my proposal?’ he said.
‘I have,’ she said.
‘And what do you think to it?’
‘I say no.’
‘I see.’ His mouth twisted as if he had bitten into rotten meat. ‘Then we have nothing further to discuss.’
‘What proposal is this?’ Dalla said. Gunnar did not reply and she spoke again, asking the question of me.
‘I know nothing of this,’ I said.
Vigdis tilted her head, like a mother speaking to a lazy child.
‘Dalla, your husband thought to marry me to his friend.’
‘Speak no more,’ Gunnar said. ‘It is finished.’
‘You thought to give me to him, the way you would give him a horse to ride or a knife to gut fish with. You think I would marry a man without a piece of silver to his name?’
‘I do not think you will have any better offers. To come and live in your ghost’s home.’
‘And yet the ghost no longer walks.’
‘Gunnar,’ I said. ‘You should not have done this. You should have spoken to me. This is not what I want.’
He cast the cup of water upon the ground. ‘I am sorry that you are content to live as a beggar, trading your songs for scraps of food. It is shameful. And you,’ he said, pointing at Vigdis, ‘You can go now. You have caused trouble enough.’
‘Our business is not finished.’
‘No?’
‘No. I do not wish to marry your friend.’ She stroked the hair of the child who sat beneath her feet. Then she said: ‘I wish to marry you, Gunnar.’
On my lap, Kari went still. He no longer twisted to face his mother or fought against my grip. He sat utterly still for a moment, and then he leaned forward and put his arms around me, and he buried his face into my shoulder.
Gunnar spoke. ‘What did you say?’
‘That is why I have come here. To tell you to divorce your wife and to marry me.’
‘You are mad,’ Dalla said, her voice soft.
‘I bear you no malice, Dalla. But I will not marry a beggar. And your husband is bound to me in ways that he has not told you.’
‘Out,’ he said.
‘Will you test this, Gunnar? Shall I tell her?’
The whispering of the embers, the low and flickering light. Dalla’s mouth tight with anger, and Vigdis at the centre of it all, her hands clasped neatly in her lap, her dead eyes unblinking as she looked upon us.
‘Take the children out of here, Dalla,’ I said.
‘No. I will not go. I will have no more secrets.’
Gunnar leaned forward and in the light of the fire I could see the hate in his eyes as he spoke to Vigdis. ‘Say what you want. Do as you please. But I will not leave my wife for you. For you are a whore. Or a witch. Or both.’
‘As you wish.’ Vigdis stood and smoothed down her dress. ‘But I will not tell your secrets for you. That you will have to do yourself.’ The light flooded in for an instant as she opened the door, harsh and pitiless. Then she was gone, and the darkness returned once more.
I looked up and even in the dim light I could see the timbers of the roof, pitted with salt and warped by water from their previous life as part of a longship’s hull. Gunnar always liked to stare at that ceiling, to remember the man he had once been: a great warrior of the sea. But it always made me uneasy, looking up at that upturned skeleton of a ship. The only man who saw a ship from below was a drowning man.
It fell to me to break the silence. ‘Kari, Freydis. Come with me.’
Kari shook his head. ‘I want to stay.’
‘Go with him,’ Dalla said. ‘Go with Kjaran.’
Kari went to speak again. A look from Gunnar silenced him. I wonder if he had ever seen that look in his father’s eyes before. The eyes of a killer.
I took each of the children by the hand and led them out of that place, out towards light and water and air. I did not move as fast as I should, for before we had left that place we all heard something we should not.
Behind me, I could hear Dalla talking, calm and insistent, though too softly for me to hear the words. And I could hear Gunnar weeping.
*
As soon as we were in the open air Kari shook himself loose from my grip and strode away from me. He snatched up a stick the size of a sword from the wood pile, and on any other day
I would have struck it from his hand. Wood is a precious thing on the island and not a toy to be played with. That day I let him keep it.
He swatted the stick through the air, but it was no random play of an angry child. He held it in a swordsman’s grip the way his father had taught him, and every movement he made had the echo of a lethal purpose. The backhanded cut that will split a head from ear to eye; the quick sideways thrust that passes behind a shield; the low, reaping strike that flays a man’s knee. Only ten summers old, but he knew them all.
I let him lead the way, wandering behind him and guiding his sister’s steps, for she was content to move in a red-eyed silence, sucking silently on her thumb. We went beyond the boundaries of the farm, striking west, following the fjord. I wondered if he would go all the way to the sea if I let him, to fight the waves like Cúchulainn of the old stories.
Freydis looked anxiously over her shoulder, back towards the farm, shrunk to the size of a hand behind us.
‘That’s far enough, Kari,’ I said, but he ignored me. I let go of Freydis’s hand and ran after him. ‘Enough. Stop. It is not safe.’ And he turned on the spot and swung at me with the stick.
No doubt a better fighter would have dodged the blow, a slip of the shoulder to let the weapon go past. But I have never been a quick or skilful man with a blade. A certain brutal directness, a willingness to endure pain – these are what I bring to the fight. And so I did not try to dodge that strike, but instead lifted my forearm to meet it, skin and bone as my only shield.
The pain was so sharp that it stole my sight for a moment, and with the sound of snapping wood in the air I thought at first he had broken my arm. But the pain was useful, it gave me anger. Before he could draw back and strike again, I had his arm in both of mine, twisting his wrist until he shrieked and the stick fell from his hand. I hit him twice about the face, picked him up by the throat and threw him to the ground.