by Paul Finch
“And as such can be bought. And if my uncle will sell you to me, I intend to remove this revolting thing.” He fingered the leather collar. “And make you my bride. And we’ll live here, in Greenland … where Christians at least are tolerated.”
She regarded him as if he was mad, but there was hope in her eyes. “Don’t you have a home elsewhere?”
“I can never go back to Norway. And I’ve no regrets about that. Not if I can set up my own house here.”
“You would want to? In this place, where a demon stalks us?”
“Demons can be dealt with, Theora. Of course that won’t happen if we stand here mooning in the cowshed. Say nothing of what we’ve just discussed. Go about your duties. I’ll approach my uncle when the time is right.”
“There is one thing, lord.” A flush crept into her cheek. “I’ve lain with many of your uncle’s thegns. Would that not shame you?”
He smiled. “No more than the many slave-girls I myself have lain with. Don’t worry, Theora, we’re two of a kind.”
He kissed her on the forehead before taking his leave.
6
The rest of the day Ljot could do little more than loiter around the stead, watching and listening.
The menials went about their usual tasks. Assbjorn supervised the repairing of some storm-damaged outbuildings, though Jarl Sigfurth sat in his high seat and fooled with his chessmen, his eyes hooded. In the recesses of the hall, his drengir sharpened their blades, or toyed with knuckle-bones, each man waiting tensely for the next outrage. As the hours passed, and the drunken revelry of the night before was forgotten, a sense of dread came to pervade the long-hall. At last, in the middle of the afternoon, there was a piercing shriek from outside. It was Ljot who reacted first. He leaped to his feet, grabbing his broadsword and scabbard, and dashing out into the snow.
After the firelight within, the outer blackness was almost blinding; he came to a sliding halt. Only slowly did the the torches on the stockade start glimmering from the ice, and then another chilling scream ripped through the frigid air. It came from the eastern side of the compound – where the cowshed stood.
Ljot scrambled towards it, but a small band had already gathered by its doorway: the gate-keeper and his watchmen, and thralls who had been working outside. In their midst, Marta, the red-headed Irish girl, had sunk to her knees. She yowled like a wounded cat, tears springing from eyes once green but now red with grief. Weak firelight flickered on the wattle of the byre’s interior walls. She had staggered out of there, before collapsing.
Sword drawn, Ljot went in.
Theora was seated at the back of an empty stall, her head to one side. Strands of hair were plastered across her face, stuck in the glutinous rivers of blood that had spilled from the empty sockets where her eyes had once been.
Ljot felt his stomach clench.
The twin streams of blood had gushed down over the front of Theora’s shawl, and now coated her two cupped hands, in each one of which rested an eyeball.
Ljot could look no longer; could think no longer – not in a reasoned way.
“Sacrilege!” he roared, blundering back outside. “Which one of you did this?”
“What has happened?” Sigfurth said, pushing his way through. “Shut your caterwaul, girl!” He hauled Marta from the door so that he could go through and look for himself.
Then he too backed out, his face white.
“It’s only a slave-girl,” one of his thegns said, a tall, sinewy fellow, with a stony face and red, bush-like beard.
“Still a human!” Ljot snapped. “I ask again … which one of you heathen dogs did this?”
They turned to look at him. His uncle seemed more surprised than angered. “You accuse us?”
“She died in our midst!” Ljot retorted. “Maybe as soon as I left her! I warrant she’s been here all day, undiscovered! Curse you all, I should have seen this before! It must have been one of you!”
“It’s a fylgja,” someone argued, “a demon.”
“But why would it take her eyes?” another asked.
“It’s taken her eyes because she had the special sight,” Ljot said. “It’s mocking the gift that God gave her.”
Sigfurth looked puzzled. “What do you mean?”
“She saw things others didn’t,” Ljot replied. “Strange things, things yet to be.”
“I doubt anyone here knew that,” Assbjorn said, having just arrived.
Ljot laughed darkly. “Small wonder, if you’ve never treated her as a human being, just ordered her around all day like a dog …”
“What else should we do?” the red-bearded thegn wondered. “She was a thrall. A kitchen-harlot.”
“You heathen bastard!” Ljot snarled.
“Ljot, what goes on here?” Sigfurth demanded. “Was there some connection between you and this girl?”
“She was a Christian,” the red-bearded thegn said with contempt. “Like he is. They say they love everyone, but actually they love their own more.”
“Whoever did this used Theora’s gift to torture her,” Ljot spat. “To hurt her in the one way she felt most vulnerable, to kill her by taking the thing she prized most.”
“Then whoever did this clearly knew about that gift,” Assbjorn argued.
“Of course.”
“Then think, you oaf,” Sigfurth said. “It couldn’t have been one of us.”
Ljot’s gaze shifted from one to the other, and slowly the heat of his rage ebbed. He only had their word that they hadn’t known about Theora’s second-sight, but they’d seemed genuinely bewildered by the manner of her death. And in any case, what would anyone here gain by the slaying of a thrall?
He pondered the agonies the girl must have suffered in her final moment. His head dropped onto his breast. He gestured with his broadsword, trying to release it, but his muscles were still so taut that he could barely unlock his fingers.
The red-bearded thegn spoke again. “Don’t put your weapon aside yet, Christian.”
Ljot saw through a haze of tears that the fellow had now drawn his own broadsword.
“That’s the second time one of you Christ-lovers has called us out. Challenged our beliefs, jeered at our gods. Guest or no guest, it won’t do.”
At first Ljot was so distracted by shock and sorrow that he wasn’t sure what was happening. When the truth dawned on him, he looked at his uncle, at Assbjorn. Neither said a word, but regarded him with faces cut from flint. Along with the rest of the crowd, they moved backwards several paces, allowing sufficient space for the holmgang to occur.
Sigfurth might not wish their numbers to be reduced any more than was necessary – yet there were certain rules of Scanian tradition that simply had to be obeyed. Ljot had insulted them; he had threatened them, and in their own house. Such a thing could not be endured. Besides, if the jarl was to intervene again, it might be deemed that he was over-protecting his nephew, and that would serve neither of them.
The red-beard advanced across the trampled snow; it already looked bloody in the torchlight. Neither of them were mailed, but that was another rule of holmgang. The fight occurred where the grievance was caused. The opponents fought with whatever weapons they had to hand, and neither party could yield – it was strictly to the death.
“I advise against this,” Ljot said.
“You advise?” the red-beard replied. “I think not!”
And he leaped forward, swinging his heavy blade in a smashing downwards arc. Ljot parried the blow with a flash of sparks. He made no immediate counter-strike, though the red-beard fleetingly left himself wide open, but fended off three more such attacks. And then, disaster – his foot slid from beneath him, throwing him off balance. He hurled himself forward, diving under his assailant’s arm, to tumble across the snow like an acrobat. The red-beard adjusted his stance and slashed down as Ljot rolled past, catching him on the left flank – to grunts of applause from the watching household.
When Ljot found his feet again, he felt the
wind bite through his sliced-open shirt. There was a stripe of fire down the side of his back. When he touched with his hand and brought it away again, it was dripping blood.
“All this over a slave-girl,” the red-beard scoffed, his hot breath emerging in plumes. “Your so-called god was killed because of his love for the downtrodden. At least in that respect, you’ll be following his example.”
He lunged again, striking at Ljot’s chin. Ljot now knew that he was fighting for his life. A moment ago he’d been so numbed by Theora’s death that nothing else had mattered; the confrontation had been a sideshow, a meaningless charade that he’d gone through in reflexes. Not any more. He’d been cut badly, and if the blood-flow continued unstaunched, it would sap him of strength. So he went on the offensive himself.
He parried the thrust, and drove his own blade at the red-beard’s abdomen. The red-beard leaped backwards and evaded it. They circled each other, their blades ringing, more sparks flying. At one point they came chest-to-chest, swords crossed at their throats. Ljot crashed an elbow into the side of the red-beard’s head and sent him reeling.
The red-beard charged back, yelling in a bare-sark rage. Ljot met him head-on. Another flurry of blows was exchanged, before Ljot slammed his pommel down on his opponent’s collar-bone, and heard it crack. The red-beard turned ashen. He staggered backwards, Ljot following with a succession of furious, two-handed swipes. The red-beard fended them off, but was weakening. When Ljot kicked him low and hard, catching his left knee, causing his whole leg to buckle, the red-beard went down. The next thing, he was lying on his back, the tip of Ljot’s sword at his pulsing, sweat-slicked throat.
Ljot glanced up and around. The spectators’ faces shimmered with torchlight. The entire household, it seemed, even the thralls, had come out to watch. He saw the slave-girl, Marta, staring with frightened, tearful eyes. Assbjorn and Sigfurth regarded him strangely, perhaps surprised by the outcome of the clash.
Ljot peered down at his opponent. It would be easy to lean on his sword, to feel it slide through flesh and muscle, and grate on bone as it severed the spinal column. He’d done that more times than he could remember. The horrors of Stiklestad flooded back: the stink of blood and bones and ripped-out bowels, the clangour of blades on splintered shields, the kicked-up mud, the flying sweat, the men falling on each other like rabid dogs, hacking, stabbing, tearing heads from shoulders, limbs from torsos, grovelling in gore and shit …
“Having an interesting time, brother?” came a voice to his left.
Ljot turned, and was surprised, if not a little relieved, to see Radnar, still clad in his furs and fleeces, his huge arms folded across his barrel-chest.
Sigfurth saw Radnar too, and instantly the holmgang was forgotten.
“My flock? Where’s my flock?” he demanded.
Radnar arched a bushy eyebrow. “Where else? In the fold. I didn’t lose a single one.”
One by one, the other thegns approached, laying disbelieving hands on Radnar, partly in congratulation but also to check that he was real and not some apparition.
“It’s incredible,” Assbjorn said.
“Not as incredible as this,” Radnar replied. “Mild-mannered Ljot set to put steel into one of our hosts. That’s one sure way to end our welcome here.”
Ljot’s sweat was now turning to ice. He glanced down again at the red-beard. The fellow glared up with baleful defiance. However, the rest of the drengir – having seen one brother triumph in holmgang, and another return safely from an apparent suicide-mission – sensed that these strangers were of a different breed, and had switched their allegiance.
“Kill him!” one of them urged. “You’ve won!”
There were growls of approval.
Ljot’s hand tensed on the leather-bound hilt. One push was all it would take, one quick thrust. But would Christ approve? He knew the answer to that. A second passed, before he withdrew the blade and sheathed it – to groans of disappointment.
“We Christians don’t need to kill to win.” He leaned down, took the fallen thegn by the bristles of his beard, and dragged him up onto his knees. “That’s another example our God set us.” Then he slammed a rock-hard fist into the red-beard’s jaw, knocking him out cold.
“Impressive,” Assbjorn said quietly to Radnar. “Rudgang is one of our best fighters, yet your brother took him with relative ease. I always had you down as the fierce one?”
“And you were right,” Radnar said. He turned to his brother. “What happened?”
Ljot took a cloak from one of the thralls, and threw it over his shoulders. Briefly, with pain in his face, he described events, telling his brother about Theora’s gift, and the diabolical way that it had been snatched. Radnar glanced at the cowshed, a gaunt outline in the gloom. It wasn’t a difficult decision not to go in there and see for himself.
Their uncle approached. He was as grim-faced as he’d been at any time since their arrival. “Where have you two been all these years?”
“Where do you think?” Radnar said.
“With Olaf Haraldson? I ought to have guessed. It can’t have been easy in the war-band of a claimant to the throne of Norway who was also a Christian.”
“He wasn’t just a claimant,” Ljot replied firmly. “He was the king.”
Sigfurth pondered this. “When you first came here, you said you might be able to help us. Now I’m thinking that you can.” He moved away. “Come with me. There are things you should know.”
7
Sigfurth led them into a rear portion of the long-hall, which was divided into two separate rooms, a bedroom and a private chamber. They entered the latter and closed the door behind them.
This was a small room, decked with tapestries. Most bore the familiar imagery of the Aesir and the Vanir: Odin’s eight-legged horse, Sleipnir; Heimdall and Loki gripped in their undersea struggle in the guise of man-seals. But others had clearly been stolen from the lands of the Franks, for they portrayed monks in cloister-cells and helmetted horsemen riding to battle with lances and kite-shaped shields. The room was lit by beeswax candles fitted into iron wall-brackets.
Sigfurth settled into a chair, chin in hand. His nephews stood in silence, watching him. A servant girl entered, carrying wadded cloths and a bowl of warm water. She tended to the wound on Ljot’s back, dabbing it clean and applying sutures. He winced, but otherwise held his tongue. Only when she’d helped him put his bloodied shirt back on, and left the room, did Sigfurth speak.
“Many of my thegns have been a-Viking in their time,” he said gravely. “But raid and slaughter is no substitute for real warfare. Not if a man is to know himself. There are some here who stood against Canute at the Holy River, but only a handful. And those old enough to remember Clontarf are like me … past their prime.”
“You’re saying there’s a fight coming?” Radnar said.
Sigfurth nodded. “There has to be. These killings can’t go on.”
“But how do we fight a spirit?” Ljot wondered.
Sigfurth shook his head. “It isn’t a spirit that we face.”
“You know more about it than you’ve said?”
The aged jarl again paused to think, his lips taut, white. “It’s my own overweening pride that’s come to visit us here. When I was a young man, I served with Sihtric, sailing out of Dublin. It was a good time … profitable. When we weren’t raiding, we were selling our swords, fighting for one side then the other in the internal Irish wars. At Clontarf, of course, we were defeated, but not without earning renown for the damage we wreaked on the Gaedhil. Brian Boruma, their high-king, was slain. His son, Murchad, suffered the same fate.”
A hint of fire ignited Sigfurth’s eyes. “I rose through the ranks that day … became a fully fledged war-captain. Of course, what is it to be a captain with no war to fight? After Clontarf, Ireland was closed to us, as were other places. Forkbeard was in England. Duke Richard defended the Normandy coast with a fist of steel. Pious Robert did the same in the Frankish lands. So �
�I joined the fleet that sailed west. Father west even than here, to Vinland.”
“That place exists?” Ljot said, surprised.
“Oh, it exists … and if you think Greenland is ripe for the picking, you ought to see that domain: mountains, grassland, forests that run forever and abound with game. It’s magnificent. But to get there is an ordeal the like of which you can’t imagine. Even following the paths of the whales, as Bjarni Herjolfsson did, the Poison Sea is barely navigable. Out of thirty-six longships, we finally touched land with four. The rest foundered. Hundreds of men drowned.”
His words petered out; his eyes seemed to glaze.
“What did you find when you got there?” Radnar asked.
“The Skraeling.”
“Surely they are a myth?” Ljot said.
“They exist too,” Sigfurth assured him. “In multitudes. Whole tribes cover that coast … and a wild, strange breed they are. In summer they run naked; in the winter they wear deerskins. All year round they are ready to fight, with spears and stone axes. The ones we saw shave their heads apart from a central tuft, which they decorate with feathers. They also paint themselves. All over their bodies: arms, legs, faces.”
“And they attacked you?” Radnar said.
“Not at first.” Sigfurth put fingertips to his temple, as though trying to remember. “At first we sailed north along that coast, until we came to a sound between two headlands. From there, we rowed inland, making camp at a point where the river forked. There, we plotted raids. We had to make the journey worthwhile. I had four whole crews to pay.”
“The Skraeling had gold?” Ljot asked.
“No gold. They had women, though. And children. If we could carry our weight in slaves, and perhaps take weapons and hides, we felt it might be worth the effort. So we marched inland, where we attacked a cluster of their villages. The men were few and far between, and we overwhelmed them with ease. Those we didn’t kill, fled. It was too easy. We sacked and slew all that afternoon, loading ourselves with spoils … we took only the comeliest lasses, the strongest and fittest lads. We felt we had a worthwhile cargo.”