Wolfskin

by Juliet Marillier

  “It won’t be easy for you. At least you understand that. My people will not forget the slaughter at Ramsbeck, nor the times when Somerled was allowed to act unchecked against us, while your kind stood by. You may spend your whole lifetime atoning for these things, Eyvi. You may never be quite free of the shadow of Somerled’s ill deeds, and of your own failure to restrain him. Back home in Rogaland you would probably be some sort of hero, lauded for your bravery, celebrated for your skills in warfare. Most men would not hesitate to sail away on the next tide.”

  “You do not imagine I would choose—”

  “No, Eyvi. I understand what’s in your heart, dear one, and I have never doubted your loyalty, not since the day you said sweet things that filled me with confusion.” Her hand slipped into his, she laid her head against his shoulder. “I simply want you to know this will be hard for you. Still, you have made a good beginning. They saw you stand against him at the Whaleback. They know you saved my life and Rona’s. They know you spoke the truth at risk of harshest penalty. And they watched what you did this morning, and set their own hands to work alongside yours. There is a quality in you that draws folk to follow you. It’s like a light, pointing the way forward. It is no wonder they say—” She paused again.

  “What, my Bright Star?”

  “They give you a name, I cannot translate it into this tongue, but it is an old name, a deep word of the ancestors. It relates to what you wear on your shoulders, and to the hound that follows you so faithfully, and to what you were in your home country. It is somewhat like dog, and somewhat like golden, and yet it is a name for a man: a man who takes on the garb of the animal to whom he speaks in the night. They know of the skin you wear into battle; they have seen something in you that brings this ancient lore to life, I think. It is a good thing; they will set the highest standard for you, as you do for yourself. Still, I want you to understand how difficult it may be.”

  “Children, you said. A girl and then a boy. Does this mean you would consider lying with a Wolfskin once more, if the opportunity presented itself?”

  “If such a man were my husband,” Nessa said with a crooked smile, “the opportunity might present itself quite often, I should think. But he would need to be prepared to stay on these shores: not to heed the call to join a ship and go a-voyaging. He would need to be farmer and fisherman, arbiter and teacher, leader and guardian as well as warrior. He would have to learn how to be a father.”

  He lifted her hand to his lips; now his own eyes seemed to be full of tears, for the second time today, or perhaps it was the third. He could not form words, but simply bowed his head.

  “It’s good, I think,” Nessa whispered. “It has to be good from now on, doesn’t it, if we both try our hardest?”

  Then he put his arms around her and held on, feeling her warmth flow into him, feeling her heartbeat against his own, not wanting to move beyond the sweetness of this moment. Still, the shadow was there on the edge of the thought. Somerled. She had said, Your own failure to restrain him. That was true. Somerled was his friend, his blood brother, and if it had not been for Somerled, none of this would have happened. There was, therefore, a matter to be attended to before they could move on.

  “He asked to see you,” Nessa said in a small voice, as if she had read his mind. “Your Jarl Magnus said no, you were to be left sleeping. Rona was here then. She won’t let anyone else care for you, says she doesn’t trust them. They called her away to tend to Brother Tadhg’s injuries. For a holy man, he seems quite prone to trouble.”

  “Somerled wanted to see me?” Eyvind took a deep breath. Better sooner than later; better now, while he could still summon the will for it. “Where is he? In his own quarters?”

  “Are you sure you want to do this?” Nessa asked him gently.

  “I owe him this, at least, since we are brothers of a kind,” he said. “The chance to speak to me, to explain, perhaps. What comes after will not be for me to determine. Each of us stands accused. Each must face some judgment, and a penalty. And each shares responsibility for the other’s offense, I think. That’s how it is with brothers. Will you wait here for me? You must rest; I don’t like to see you so pale and weary.”

  “I’m well enough. Go on, then.” She stood on tiptoes, and kissed him softly on his swollen lips, a breath of spring, a whisper of promise. “Go now, Eyvi. I’ll be waiting when you come back.”

  Here there were no shackles, no iron grilles. Even the looming presence of Erlend and Holgar, sword and axe at the ready, was no more than Eyvind had encountered when he had faced his friend as a recaptured fugitive. But this well-armed presence did not protect the king now. Instead, it rendered him a prisoner in his own domain.

  There was a brief altercation. Eyvind saw the awkwardness in their eyes and heard the hesitation in their voices. Everything had turned around. They had misjudged a comrade. Such an error sat uneasily in a Wolfskin’s code of loyalty.

  “Let me in,” Eyvind said. “And leave the two of us together awhile.”

  “Alone? That’s against orders—”

  “Whose orders? Come on, Erlend. I’m completely unarmed. Somerled is in no danger from me, nor I from him. Stand right here by the doorway, if you will. I’ll scream for help if I get into trouble, I promise.”

  Holgar suppressed a snort.

  “All the same—” Erlend began, frowning.

  “You owe me a favor,” Eyvind said quietly. “Come, give me your hand; you, too, Holgar. We must move on from this, all of us. Good. I won’t be long.”

  Somerled was writing. He sat at the small table, an oil lamp to one side, a piece of parchment spread before him. He frowned in concentration as the neat, black script flowed across the pristine surface. His shirt was immaculately clean; above the collar there was a strip of linen tied around his neck. As Eyvind came in he glanced up, his eyes unreadable. The quill ceased its disciplined movement; he laid it down carefully on the table.

  “Eyvind.” The tone gave nothing away.

  “You wanted to see me.” Eyvind came forward into the glow of the lamplight. “I’m not sure what to say to you, save to let you know that if you had touched her, I would have killed you. There is no oath in the world that would have stopped me.”

  “That might have been better,” Somerled observed, rising to his feet and moving to the narrow window, where he stood gazing out into the dusk. “A clean ending. Didn’t you always prefer that?”

  “Must it always be thus?” Eyvind asked him wearily. “That each conversation between us is a kind of battle, a game in which rules are made and broken even as we play? I have not come here for this, Somerled.”

  “Why did you come?” Somerled’s back was still turned, his arms obstinately folded. The stance was familiar; it brought old memories sharply to mind, memories that only made this more difficult.

  “I don’t know.” Eyvind hesitated. “I think, because of…duty, obligation. It felt…necessary.”

  “Duty.” Somerled’s tone was flat. “What duty is that, Eyvind? The duty of a warrior to his chieftain? It cannot be the duty of friend to friend, or brother to brother. That you have already betrayed many times over. You have shown the world quite clearly how little you believe in me.” The shoulders were as tense as those of a wild creature poised for flight. He gazed fiercely away.

  “Odin’s bones, Somerled, I can’t talk to you! You don’t make sense to me anymore. How can you speak of the duty of brother to brother, when—I don’t even know where to begin.”

  There was a brief silence.

  “It was not always thus with the two of us.” There was a somewhat different note in Somerled’s voice now. He had unfolded his arms and was staring down at his hands; the fingers twisted together.

  “I was proud of you once,” Eyvind said quietly. “I confess, when first you came to Hammarsby, I resented the task imposed on me. I thought you would never be able to learn anything, and yet at the same time I admired you. You were so quick-witted, so sure of the
path you would follow. Then, of course, I discovered that I could teach, and that you could learn. You learned far more than I expected. I think, until the time we left Freyrsfjord and sailed for lands unknown, I still believed that I had succeeded in the task Eirik set me. But I have discovered, between last spring and this, that there was something I did not manage to teach you, and without it the rest was worthless. You always considered me stupid, and I don’t suppose that has changed. But it is you whose understanding is lacking, not I. At least I know…at least I comprehend—”

  “What, Eyvind?” Somerled had half-turned, and there was no trace of scorn in his voice now, no supercilious lift of the brows, no amused quirk of the mouth, only wariness. He stood very still, waiting.

  “It is hard to put it into words. The value of a life, I think; I have learned how precious that is, and what it means to take that gift away. I know not a moment must be wasted. And I have learned what love is. If I had been able to teach you those things, your path would have been different. I failed you in that, but I did not let myself see my error until it was too late.”

  “Oh, dear, my old friend! You make an even worse philosopher than you do a lawman. It simply isn’t true.”

  “What do you mean?” Eyvind asked as Somerled stepped forward from the shadows, his eyes now bright with something new, something indefinable.

  “One of these lessons, at least, I did learn at Hammarsby,” Somerled said in a voice no stronger than a whisper. “You just never saw it. Even now you are blind to it. That’s just as well, perhaps.” He cleared his throat. “Eyvind, what will happen here? I find myself weary, and much inclined toward a quick and efficient conclusion. What will Magnus do, do you think?”

  “You’re asking me? I imagine our offenses will be weighed one against the other. You don’t need me to explain the law to you, Somerled. It’s common for both men to pay a fine or receive some other penalty: the forfeiture of lands or office, perhaps banishment. It is my honest opinion that your own crime should be judged more heinous than mine. A man does not kill his brother, not even when that brother is a cruel and dangerous tyrant. And Ulf was not that; he was a fine chieftain, a man of honor. I still can’t understand why you did it.”

  “Cannot a man act decisively in order to comply with a foretelling?” Somerled’s brows lifted now in familiar fashion. “Indeed, I brought not one but two such prophecies to fruition here. That is an achievement, surely.”

  “If that’s a joke,” Eyvind said, his temper growing shorter, “it’s a black and bitter one. You cannot be unaware of what you unleashed on the people of these islands.”

  “Ah.” Somerled was by the table now; his long fingers took up the quill, rolling it absently. “The people of the islands. That is the heart of the matter for you, isn’t it? Or rather, one particular person. I saw how you looked at her, and she at you with those deceptively pure eyes. What happened to you, Wolfskin? Did you get lonely without your pink and gold whore? Did the lusts of the flesh become too pressing to ignore, out there in the wilderness among those benighted natives? How was she? Did she—”

  “Enough.” Eyvind controlled his breathing with some difficulty. He forced his tight-clenched fists to relax. “If your intention is to enrage me to the point where I set my hands around your neck and strangle you, you misjudge my self-control. Such summary justice is not sufficient in this case. You must answer to the Jarl and to Nessa’s people, not to me. This would be too easy.”

  “You disappoint me, Eyvind. You would have killed me last night, you said so yourself. Why not now?”

  “I am not angry now, only disappointed. I saw so much in you. Now I see only the waste of what you could have been.”

  “Indeed. So, in your mind, you have judged me already, and found me gravely wanting. Under my own laws the penalty would be no less than I set for you. I have to say, to die quickly and cleanly at your hands would suit me far better than a lengthy hearing and a penalty determined by those who can never hope to understand me. A merciful, efficient end: the least of creatures deserves that. Isn’t that what you always maintained?”

  “This is not a hunt.”

  “Maybe not; still, I have the uncomfortable sensation of sitting in a snare, waiting.”

  Eyvind made no comment.

  “These folk are not worth your loyalty, Eyvind,” Somerled said, now rolling up the parchment with its tidy, black rows of script and fastening it with a cord. “Nor were they worth the attention Ulf lavished on them. My brother was misguided and soft, two fatal flaws in a leader. He listened too attentively to the opinions of others. The fire that drove him to these shores burned out under an excess of good intentions. Eyvind, these people cannot endure here. Our kind are stronger, abler, in every way fitter to rule. You are blinded by the heat of what you call love. Step back a little and use what intellect you possess. Even you must see that, in time, these islands will be governed by men of Rogaland, and rightly so. The place will be swept clean of these people; it will be as if they had never existed. My only fault, I think, was that I dared to make that decision too early. Now it seems I have been robbed of my chance to achieve the conquest myself. But what I began, others will continue, until the only faces seen on this shore will be those of our own kind. The place provides safe haven for our ships. It is a prime staging post for voyages south and west, and the pickings there are substantial, if travelers’ tales are to be believed. This change is inevitable.”

  He had been wrong, Eyvind thought, to believe Somerled could no longer shock him. “Thor be my witness,” he whispered, “I will stand against such an abomination until the last breath leaves my body. These are an ancient people. There is a strength in them that you have not seen, not even though it stood before you in plain view last night. It is in a king’s decision to hold firm against an attack he knew he could not counter; it is in a girl’s determination to bring the truth before her enemies at risk of her own life. It is in the bruised face and laboring breath of the Christian priest, and the brave smile of a child. You are the one who lacks understanding if you remain blind to that. Odin’s bones, Somerled, you must indeed have loathed and resented your brother, that you stole not only his life but also his life’s vision. In doing that, you came close to destroying what was here before we touched this shore: a fine, courageous people who had tenanted this land peaceably since time before time. For what? Because you feared the uncertainty of an old woman’s auguries, half-seen in a cloud of smoke?”

  “Shut your mouth! You understand nothing!” Somerled’s voice was shaking, the cloak of indifference quite gone. “Do you think Ulf was the only one with hopes and dreams? I’m sorry I have disappointed you, but unfortunately that seems to be what I do. I tried to be—I tried to—” He faltered to a stop, gazing at Eyvind, his eyes cave-dark, his mouth a tight line. Suddenly, the desperate child of Hammarsby was there, holding himself rigidly upright, forbidding himself the words that might have revealed too much, forcing back the tears that might have shown his hurt. Eyvind saw that, and heard the words from long ago. Nobody cares what happens to me. He felt his heart contract. And yet, he could not see that lonely child without the vision of Engus’s ruined hall, and Ulf’s bloodless face pressed close to his own, and Nessa’s tears. He could not pity that lost boy without feeling the warmth of a child’s fingers creeping into his, and seeing the courage in a lad’s face as he watched father, brother, kinsman laid in earth.

  “The error was not yours, Somerled,” Eyvind said quietly, moving to the doorway. “It was mine. I failed to teach you the one lesson you could not do without: how to be a man.”

  In the moment before he turned and went out, he saw the change on Somerled’s face. It was as if a mask, which had hitherto varied only from bloodless calm to mild mockery to scathing disapproval, were now stripped away entirely to show the face that had been present beneath it all along, but skillfully hidden. There was love there, and longing, and self-mockery. There was fierce intelligence and deepest pain. To l
ook on that face too long was to weep hot tears for what might have been. Ducking under the lintel and around the hanging, Eyvind fled.

  In the end there was no lengthy deliberation, no drawing out of testimony, and very little in the way of legal arguments. Magnus had, after all, been their chieftain and leader back home in Rogaland, and the expedition to the Light Isles had depended to no small degree on his patronage and approval. Besides, he was himself kinsman to the dead man, Ulf, and the Wolfskin was still a member of his personal guard, having been granted leave only from spring till autumn. He had heard the story, Magnus informed them. Olaf had told him, with Harald filling in the gaps. He had spoken to Margaret and to the foreign princess. He had had a word with the Christian priest. The one voice he had not heard, he informed all those assembled in the hall that evening, was Somerled’s. And Somerled now faced a charge of murder. It was reasonable that he be allowed to defend himself. Briefly. They were all tired.

  Indeed, he was weary enough himself, Eyvind thought, and he could see the marks of the same exhaustion on many faces gathered in the lamplit hall tonight. Magnus did not believe in the use of shackles, nor in the formal arrangement of arbiters at a table with captives forced to stand before them. This was more like the Thing of Rogaland, with folk grouped by family or faction. Eyvind stood with his brother, Eirik; Thord and Grim had placed themselves close by. Magnus had arranged seats near the hearth for Nessa and Margaret and for Brother Tadhg, and he sat close to them with Olaf Sveinsson standing by his chair. The men from the knarr were no longer present, having seen, perhaps, the wisdom of an unobtrusive return to their duties in Hafnarvagr, followed, with luck, by a quick voyage home with no questions asked.

  Eyvind knew that Nessa had not slept yet, save for that brief respite as she sat by his bedside. After he had left Somerled, Eirik had waylaid him with questions, and with arguments about family and duty and plain common sense. He had spoken at length of Hammarsby and of their mother. By the time that was over, Nessa had been in private conference with the Jarl for some time, and Eyvind had not seen her. Rona now stood behind her student, a grim expression on her face; the dogs flanked her like twin guardians from some ancient tale. As for Nessa herself, she was milk-pale, with purple shadows like bruises under her eyes. It seemed to Eyvind she kept herself sitting so straight by an immense effort of will. Let this be short, he prayed. Let it be as short as Somerled himself wished: brief and merciful. There comes a point where one must say, enough. And then, he told himself, he would see she got into bed, and he would tuck the blankets around her, Rona or no Rona, and hold her hand until she fell asleep. What did Eirik know about duty, anyway?