by Sandi Layne
Then he was there. He saw a pale face, a bloodied apron, and a look that spoke as eloquently to Cowan as an entire saga. Charis had not expected to see him alive again. More importantly, though, was that she was pleased that he was still among the living.
“Get him inside,” she snapped in Norse, “before he falls on his face.”
With a dry laugh that escaped from somewhere, Cowan stumbled inside.
Chapter 20
“He’s finally waking up,” Agnarr heard, as a wet cloth made contact with his forehead.
“Good. He has to make some decisions,” came another voice. Deeper. Scratchy.
Agnarr pushed the cloth away impatiently and sat up. “What happened?” He remembered fighting Vigaldr. “Did I kill him?” He was not in Valhalla, Agnarr knew. He had not reached the Golden Halls. He was in his own home, being tended to by his own surgeon. “Eir. Did I kill Vigaldr?”
Eir rolled the wet cloth into a ball. “No. He knocked you on the head and you fell. That’s why you ache. Let me get you some willow tea.”
Agnarr grabbed her wrist before she rose, ignoring the shooting arrows of pain in his skull. “Is Vigaldr dead? Does our village belong to us?”
The blue bird on his healer’s face seemed to flutter as she smiled a little. “Ja and ja,” she said. “Now, let me get your tea.” The smile left her lips. “Els and your mother need to spend time with you.”
Agnarr watched her rise gracefully to her feet and cross the floor to where the central fire burned under a cauldron. He heard his mother’s voice, low and halting, on the next bed bench, but he could not lift his head to see her. It hurt too much. Across his home, he saw another patient lying prone under furs. The smell of herbs, the lingering essence of mint, wafted over his head. Wind whistled outside and he had to wonder how long he had been unconscious. Vigaldr could have killed him.
Why hadn’t he? What had happened?
“Bjørn!” he called out, certain that this brother would give him a straight answer. The shout sent another knife through his brain, but Agnarr made himself ignore that.
“Hush,” Eir called, sounding annoyed. “You need your tea, and I won’t have you making your headache worse.”
Agnarr ignored her. He beckoned again to his brother. Bjørn walked slowly from the end of the longhouse to stand by Agnarr’s bed.
He knelt stiffly, his face grim. “Your medicine woman says there is nothing broken, brother. The invaders have been defeated. The women have tended to the wounded and your slave had to take one patient into your home, but I approved it. He has earned the right.”
Agnarr strained his neck trying to see around his brother. “Who? Olaf? Sigurd?”
Bjørn shook his head. “It is not important. But I do have to tell you the names of the fallen who have gone on to Valhalla.”
Agnarr grabbed instinctively at Thor’s Hammer, which still hung about his neck. “Tell me.”
A sudden hush blanketed the longhouse and Agnarr felt his stomach sink with unaccustomed dread.
The longships that carried those who went to Valhalla’s halls floated gently in the harbor. Gerda stood with staunch fortitude next to Agnarr, with Bjørn on the other side. The snow had stopped late on the night of the battle, and the wind had blown it into drifts all over Balestrand. The way to the harbor was clear, though, and the fjørd was free of ice. All those who could stand unassisted were lined up on the shore, bundled in furs and colorful cloaks that swirled with the frigid breeze. There was only a short period of light at this time of the year, so all who could be there appreciated it.
Arknell was on the ship in a place of honor. Several men of Balestrand accompanied him. The dead men who had fought under Vigaldr deserved no such treatment and had been left outside the village for their own kinsman to carry home. No fires waited for them. No welcoming cup hereafter. But Agnarr believed his brother had earned a cup. Arknell had saved his life, had died in a brave and worthy manner, and would surely be greeted with pleasure in the Golden Hall.
“We should have buried him with the ship,” Gerda rasped. “His father was buried with his ship. It would have been right.”
Agnarr clenched his jaw. They had been over this already. “There were so many who deserve honor, Mother. It is right that we send them to Valhalla together. They will join Halvard and the others with honor.”
Magda touched him on the arm. He glanced down to see the faint sparkle in her eyes before she lowered her lashes. “They’re wanting you to fire the boat, Agnarr. It is your right.”
He grunted. It was his right, his duty, and his privilege to send the warriors on their way, yes. But he was still reluctant to do so. Arknell was his brother. It was not easy to set his ship on fire, no matter the honor that was garnered in so doing.
Nevertheless, he strode confidently to where Tuirgeis waited with the torch. The ship had been soaked with oil and now it only remained to set it alight. Magda stayed at his side, but Agnarr didn’t mind her. He was focused on the ship. Torch in hand, he waded into the icy water for three paces.
In older times, wives of the slain warriors would sometimes perish with their men. It was done to honor the dead, to provide their company in the Hall of Honor. That day, no women traveled with the men on the skipniu. Agnarr was grateful for that. Not all traditions needed to be observed.
These funeral rites were kept and Agnarr tossed the flaming torch to the deck of the ship. It landed in a pool of fish oil and ignited instantly, sending flames racing, crackling up the mast, dancing along the ropes, and searing the handles of weapons and clothing worn by honored warriors. Behind Agnarr, several men with long, thick staves pushed the funeral ship out from the shallows so that it would catch a current and leave the fjørd.
The men would taste the mead of Valhalla. It was right, but Agnarr knew he would miss his brother.
The walk back to the langhús was quiet. Magda walked on his right, Bjørn on his left. Agnarr went first through the door, and his gaze went immediately to Eir and her resident patient: Kingson. Agnarr beckoned to her; she was his trell still, and obeyed him in all things. She crossed to him, and he shrugged off his furred cloak.
She shook it out. “So. You have sent your brother on his way?”
“Ja.” He did not wish to discuss it.
Eir hung up his cloak while Magda and her family circled the fire to get warm. The healer returned with a cup of tea. “I prepared this for you. To help warm you.”
“I want mead, woman, not tea.”
Magda had tossed her woolen cloak off as well. She approached them, her plaited hair gleaming darkly in the firelight. “Hear him? He wants mead, slave. Get it. Now.”
Agnarr did not intervene in Magda’s officious command. She would be living in this house soon enough and he supposed there would have to come a time for Eir to learn to obey the woman who would be his wife.
However, Eir didn’t move from where she stood, still with a cup of steaming tea in her hands. As if she had not heard his betrothed, the healer asked, “You said mead? But the tea will strengthen you and keep you healthy.”
“Then give it to your patient, not to me!” he told her, pushing her away from him.
She stumbled, but managed not to spill her cup. “As you wish,” she said, loudly enough to be heard by all in the house. “For my patient, then.”
Her unbound hair whipped around her like an angry cloud as she turned to bring the tea to Kingson. Meanwhile, Magda pressed Agnarr’s arm and whispered, “I’ll get your mead, Agnarr. You should sit down. I’ll take off your boots for you and see to your meal.”
Such consideration was appealing and Agnarr did as his betrothed suggested, getting himself comfortable on his own bed and leaning his head back against the wall, hearing the winds outside and the people within, thinking of the changes he had seen and the changes still to come.
“Halvardson. Good. I wanted a chance to speak with you before I left.”
Agnarr pushed his shoulders off the wall and move
d a bit to make room for Tuirgeis. He had wealth, land and sons to hold it. Agnarr did not want to alienate him.
Magda brought them mead and left quietly. Agnarr appreciated her discretion but did not allow himself to be distracted from this guest. “What is it, Tuirgeis?” he inquired without much inflection.
“It has to do with your guest there. My slave.”
Agnarr nodded. “He is a fine interpreter. I will see to it that Eir has him ready to rejoin you soon.”
“That’s what I wanted to talk to you about.”
Agnarr lifted one brow, staring at Tuirgeis without one suspicion about the other man’s concern.
“Here’s some tea,” Charis said, her voice strained. Agnarr had no sense as to what was good for him. Mead, indeed. Foolish man. She brought her wavering attention to her patient. “It’s made with chamomile. It won’t disturb your stomach.”
Cowan’s stomach was the least of her concerns.
She had seen some of his fighting. It was as if Cu Chulainn himself had returned out of the old tales and fought for the Northmen in their own village. But Cowan was not a hero of the legends. He was a mortal man, like all her patients, and had not escaped from the battle without injury. His body was striped with gashes. He had fought unshielded, and Charis was utterly baffled as to how he had managed not to get himself killed. Another finger’s breadth there and his kidney would have been punctured. Another hand’s width there and his neck would have taken the hurt done to his shoulder. A spear or flying knife scraped his head, just over the ear. It could have taken his eye. She had had to cut away his beard and part of his hair to stitch him up, and he looked . . . alien. Not like himself or anyone she knew.
Her fellow countryman smiled weakly. She helped him to recline and held the cup to his lips. His body was warm from the fire, furs, and the soup she’d given him earlier. He could not move his hands well at all, so she was still feeding him.
“I thank you for the tea,” he said, also speaking in Gaeilge. They weren’t supposed to do so, Charis knew, but she did not feel like obeying Agnarr just now. “I have news for you,” he said after he had taken a couple of sips and handed the cup back.
“What news?” Careful not to disturb his dressings, she eased him back down on the bench bed. “Good, I hope?”
“Tuirgeis spoke to me about my fighting,” Cowan told her.
She checked the stitches on his jaw. “Careful. Don’t pull these,” she cautioned. “What did he say? I heard that it was death for a slave to use a weapon.”
“That’s what he told me, aye.”
Charis paused, feeling as if snow had been ladled directly into her chest. What if Cowan were to be put to death? Her mind fought against the idea, but she kept her voice calm. If she did not, she might be punished for speaking in Gaeilge. “And?”
Cowan darted a glance around her and she refrained from following it. She had become, all at once, very cautious. Cowan tried to smile at her, she saw, but the expression was mostly evident in his eyes. “And he said that if I lived, he wasn’t going to anger my god by killing me.”
Charis was amazed, but she snorted. “Your god? What does he know of your god?”
The translator was silent for a moment. Behind Charis, the fire crackled, men spoke, and she could hear Magda laughing in a false, fragile way. It made Charis’s hackles rise, as if she herself were a wild creature. She made herself get past that. Magda was a worry for a future time. Right now there was the problem of Cowan—who hissed lightly to get her attention. She blinked.
“I told Tuirgeis of my god,” Cowan informed her, his voice still quiet and his words still slow, if they were intense. “He believes, now, that God, Jesu the Christ, kept me alive in the battle.”
Charis shook that off with a shrug. “Well, he didn’t keep you whole, Cowan. You’re a proper mess, you are.” She ran her fingers lightly over the linen strips that bandaged him. “I don’t see your god getting you out of here either.”
To her complete surprise, Cowan laughed. It was a soft sound and ended with a gasp of pain, but it was a chuckle.
“Careful!” she admonished him. “You’ll shake off the poultice on your chest. Hush now, and let me see to it.” She tugged back the furs to expose his chest. A poultice of comfrey and moistened garlic—to heal the wound and keep it free from infection—dominated the skin over the lower ribs. Two of Cowan’s ribs had been cracked, but apparently not shattered. Charis still did not know why.
“Well, lass, you don’t have to see God to see him working. I’m still alive, and that’s really more than I expected.”
She tossed her head, clamped her lips shut, and lifted the edge of the fur to check the wounds on his right thigh. “That’s enough, then, out of you, Cowan. You’ll be pulling your stitches out if you’re not careful, that you will. Shame on you for undoing all my work.”
“Na, lass, I’m fine, no need to go on.” He managed to move his hand enough to stop her from uncovering him entirely.
Amused, she glanced up at him. “Oh? And who do you think stitched you up when you were passed out here, not so long ago?” She laughed softly when his green eyes widened in shock. “Did you think it was Agnarr, maybe? Or your Lord Tuirgeis?”
“By all the saints,” he said, and then he laughed at himself. “Serves me right. Well, not now then, eh, lass? I’ve had enough of your healing. I have news, I told you.”
Behind her, just then, she could hear Agnarr’s feet land heavily on the floor. “What?” he blurted loudly. “You did what?”
Afraid she had somehow done something to displease the man, Charis bounced to her feet and turned in a flowing movement. The whole langhús went still, since Agnarr’s displeasure could affect them all.
Agnarr crossed the house in two or three long strides to come towering over Cowan. “You freed him? I can’t believe it.”
Charis gasped and dropped the cup with the tea. She did not even notice. “You’re free?” she repeated. In her relief, she spoke in the language she and Cowan had been using.
Agnarr growled, low in his chest and turned on her. “You will speak my language!” he roared. He raised his fist, as if to strike her, and Charis braced herself. But then, to her surprise, he cursed and dropped his arm. “Heed me, or it will be the worse for you.” Without another word, he turned and stalked away, going to join his betrothed and her father by the fire.
Charis bent to clean up the mess of tea on the floor. “So, you’re free?” she asked Cowan softly in Norse.
“Ja,” he answered. “I am.”
She rose to her feet and drew in a deep breath, smelling smoke, roasting meat, and mead. “You’re free to go?” she went on, bending slightly over him.
He met her eyes, but his own were deadly serious and she wondered why he was not happier. Perhaps he was in pain? She asked, but he said it was nothing he could not handle. “No, it’s just . . . no, don’t concern yourself about it, Charis.”
“Will you be leaving then?” She swept a glance over his body. “I mean, when you’re healed?”
He was slow in answering, but his gaze never left her face. It felt, to her, as if he were trying to communicate without benefit of words. But she had never pulled anyone’s thoughts from their heads, so that was no help. “I should return to my people.”
“I should return to mine,” she whispered quickly, her heart suddenly pounding in hope. “Would you take me?”
His mouth opened. Shut. Opened again. “Healer. I—are you sure you wish to go?” His dark red brows lifted high into his forehead as if to question her motives.
She almost laughed at him. “Sure? Sure?” she said again, incredulous that he would even ask. She dropped her voice to the barest whisper as she deftly brushed hair from his forehead. “Cowan, I will leave in the spring, and be damned to that man there.” She stood and shook her apron out with one hand. “I will have my revenge, and then I will leave.”
Chapter 21
“So,” Tuirgeis said, “I plan on h
aving the full adoption ceremony when you are healed enough to stand it.” The leader leaned against the sturdy walls of Agnarr’s house. Cowan watched him, still confused.
“Let me see if I am understanding you,” he said. Each word pulled at the stitches that held his flesh together at jaw and cheek, but he had to get some clarification. What Tuirgeis had told him was almost unbelievable. “You want to adopt me? Into your family?”
Tuirgeis nodded then swallowed a long draught of beer.
Cowan looked around, thinking hard. The longhouse was mostly empty at present. Agnarr and his brother, Bjørn, were fishing with most of the men from the village of Balestrand. Charis had been instructed to go from house to house, helping where she could. Agnarr had seen to it that she was escorted. Gerda Grindesdottir was the only one left in the longhouse, to see to Tuirgeis’s needs, Cowan supposed.
He carefully raised his beer to his lips and sipped. “What about running fast and far?” he finally said. “Isn’t that what you expected of me?”
The Northman smiled thinly. “Yes, but it’s winter. Almost time for the midvinterblót. You won’t be running anywhere, fast or slow. And who knows?” he went on. “You might find yourself a wife while you are here. There are young women who found you worthy, after the battle. They would wed you if they could.” Tuirgeis shrugged dismissively. “You are not just a freedman, you know, Kingson. You will be my brother when the ceremony is over.”
Cowan almost choked on his beer. His brother! “You honor me,” he managed to gurgle without spilling.
“Yes,” Tuirgeis responded without apology. “But you are a proven fighter, you have excellent language skills, and I could use your help in the coming years. You are a worthy brother, with all that you offer.”
“You see yourself as needing me, then?” What did the older man have in mind?