by Peter Fox
Helga let out one of her disapproving little clucks but clearly had decided to leave it be.
At breakfast the following morning, however, she took the matter up again. ‘When was the last time we heard from Thorvald?’
‘Thorvald? What’s he got to do with this?’ Sigvald held a lump of bread poised above his stew.
‘Perhaps we should go and see if they’re all right,’ Helga suggested. ‘They are ill-equipped for these conditions.’
‘Oh yes, can we please?’ Ingrith said a little too enthusiastically, then flushed and went back to her bread.
Sigvald gave her a long look. ‘Actually, I wasn’t intending taking you.’ He turned back to his wife. ‘It’s snowing flakes the size of cows out there. Let’s wait and see. It was only a little vision, anyway.’ Sigvald plunged his bread back into his stew and changed the subject. ‘Where’s Alrik?’
Helga looked at him darkly. ‘Something’s wrong, and I know you feel it too.’
‘They’ll be fine, Helga, but if it makes you feel any better, I promise that as soon as we’re able, we’ll make a visit.’
It had been easy to say, but in truth, Sigvald had become quite concerned about his friend and his foster-son, and he too knew that the dream was no mere coincidence. For most of the night, Sigvald had found himself troubled by the image of the snow, and now that Helga had made the connection with Thorvald and Rathulf, his feelings of unease grew. Throughout the morning he paced the house, pausing every so often to peer out at the ever-present snow. By late afternoon, his anxiety had not lessened. He stood down by the shore of the fjord, trying to convince himself that even if he had wanted to sail to Thorvald’s, the conditions had prevented him from doing so.
‘Aunt Helga says you should come in now.’
The chieftain turned to find Alrik standing behind him, the boy’s handsome young face glowing in the flickering light of his torch. ‘Hmm,’ Sigvald muttered, noticing that the snowfall seemed to be thinning.
‘You think something has happened to them, don’t you?’ Alrik asked.
‘No,’ Sigvald lied.
‘Uncle, who is Rathulf?’
Sigvald turned to his nephew, surprised. Where had that come from? ‘You know who he is. He’s your best friend.’
‘I don’t mean that. Who is he really?’
‘Rathulf: son of Tegen the Frail and Thorvald Wayfinder; foster son of Sigvald Jötunn-slayer and Helga Troll-tamer. I don’t understand what you’re getting at.’
Alrik looked at his uncle disbelievingly. ‘Why don’t you want him to have his trunk?’
Sigvald nearly choked on that question. Alrik beamed up at him triumphantly.
‘Who told you about that?’ the jarl demanded, abandoning all pretence of ignorance.
Alrik looked sheepish. ‘I heard Father and Eirik talking about it, then you and Helga were talking about it again, so I figured it must be important.’
‘I locked the door!’ Sigvald said, disgusted.
Alrik shrugged. ‘This isn’t the first time you’ve argued about it.’
‘By the Hounds of Hel!’ Sigvald swore. ‘Some secret this has turned out to be. What else do you know?’
Alrik hesitated, then he went on. ‘Jarl Eirik said something about a ring and a sword.’
‘He what?’ Sigvald exploded. ‘How long have you known all this?’
Alrik winced. ‘Since the Winternight’s Feast.’
‘But that’s ages ago,’ Sigvald blurted. His face hardened. Perhaps he was too late. ‘What have you told him? What does Rathulf know of this?’
‘Nothing! I haven’t had a chance, have I?’
Sigvald glowered at his nephew, but as far as he could tell, Alrik spoke the truth. Rathulf and Thorvald had not attended the autumn feast for the weather had already turned by then, and since that time, Alrik had been stuck at home like everyone else.
Alrik frowned back. ‘Where is it, uncle?’
Sigvald laughed. ‘I’m not about to tell you, am I?’ Suddenly it occurred to him that Alrik had been missing most of the day. ‘Where have you been?’ he asked suspiciously.
Alrik dropped his eyes. ‘Nowhere,’ he said.
‘You’ve been looking for it, haven’t you?’ Sigvald said, astonished at the boy’s gall.
‘Rathulf should have it,’ Alrik contested.
‘Well it isn’t here,’ Sigvald said, ‘so you can stop wasting your time looking.’
‘So it is at Thorvald’s then?’
‘Enough!’ Sigvald roared. ‘You will say nothing, do you hear? You will keep your mouth shut about this.’
Alrik crossed his arms, his green eyes gleaming defiantly. ‘You and Thorvald have no right to keep whatever it is you are keeping from him.’
‘Enough of this nonsense, Alrik,’ Sigvald growled. ‘This is none of your business, and you will keep your nose out of it. If you give him even a hint of the existence of the trunk, I will personally cut out your tongue. I want you to swear by the blood of Odin that you will say nothing to him.’
‘That’s not fair.’
‘Life can be like that sometimes, can’t it? Promise me.’
Alrik let out a long sigh. ‘Oh very well. I promise not to say anything to Rathulf. Satisfied?’
No, I’m not, Sigvald thought, noting the obstinate set of Alrik’s jaw.
Alrik looked away, turning his face to the darkening walls of the fjord. ‘It’s stopped snowing,’ he said.
Sigvald looked up at the sky. Heavy cloud still hung over the valley, but the snow had indeed withdrawn. Was it his imagination, or was the air growing chillier? He noticed that ice had begun to form on the edges of the fjord. How long has that been there? he wondered. ‘I should have gone,’ he muttered to himself.
Alrik shook his head. ‘How? You said yourself that you couldn’t sail because of the weather. Besides, it’s too late now.’ He smiled. ‘Your problem is that you’re too superstitious. You always see things that aren’t there. You didn’t actually see them, did you?’
‘No,’ Sigvald replied, not really hearing. He stared out over the water, a bleak sense of despair settling on his heart. Was it due to his vision or the conversation he had just had with Alrik? He clapped his gloved hands together and turned back to the path. ‘Let’s go inside,’ he said. ‘It’s too cold out here.’
✽ ✽ ✽
Leif lay face-down on the floor, his mind shrouded in a murky, grey fog. Slowly he became aware of the pungent odour of earth mingled with spilt tallow from the lamps, and behind it lingered the harsher scent of peat-smoke. Cold was there too; a damp chill had settled in his bones. His head throbbed painfully, and his left arm had gone to sleep.
Why am I lying on the ground? he wondered, confused. His last memory was of warm blankets and a glowing hearth fire. Then he remembered waking to Thorvald shouting something. Somehow, this had led to the house disintegrating in a deafening explosion that had thrown him from his bedplace.
He tried opening his eyes, but he was met with blackness. In a flash of panic, he thought he had been blinded, but gradually his eyes registered a barely perceptible glow emanating from somewhere to his left. Could it be the hearth fire? He blinked. What had happened? He moved to sit up, but as soon as he lifted his face, his vision erupted into a dazzling shower of flickering lights and his stomach cramped with nausea. He fell back to the floor, gasping at the intense pain that pounded in his skull behind his eyes. He raised his hand to his forehead and found a bulging welt that stung when he touched it.
What in Odin’s name is going on? he wondered, trying to remain calm. He reached tentatively out to his left, but his hand knocked into something hard and cold. He tried stretching his legs behind him, but they too found something blocking their way. A rush of terror overcame him as he pushed outwards with his right hand only to find that side enclosed by a jumble of timbers and something that felt and smelt like turf. Turf? That should be on the outside of the roof. What is it doing in here?
; The realisation hit him like a slap in the face. Avalanche! That’s what Thorvald had shouted.
He called out hesitantly, barely whispering for fear of bringing whatever lay above down onto him. No reply came. He called again, this time more boldly, but again no one answered. He was met instead by an oppressive, dead stillness that held for Leif all the possibilities of his impending fate: the ominous groan of straining timbers, the steady drip of water somewhere in the darkness, and the sound of his own breathing coming loud and harsh in his ears. Leif closed his eyes and lay his face back down onto the cold earth, struggling to stave off the pall of dread that threatened to overwhelm him. I am alone, he thought, trapped in a tiny space no bigger than me.
His mind reeled at the memory of another small, dark space. The grain pit lay at the far end of the storehouse on his father’s farm. At first, Leif had used it as a secret hiding place, a refuge from whose confines he could listen to his father’s drunken ranting in safety. For once he had been thankful for his puny frame which his father had poured scorn upon so often. But one day Horik had found Leif in his little hole, and in a fit of rage, he had sealed it, locking the boy in without food, water or light for two days. Leif would probably be there still if it weren’t for Horik’s maidservant, who had let him out while Horik had lain unconscious after a bout of drinking.
And now Leif found the world closing in on him again. He drew in long, deep breaths, but the air grew thinner and staler with each gulp until he felt he could no longer breathe. An irrational panic took hold of him, and he sprang up, knowing that he must escape. Fallen beams lay in his way, and he crashed heavily back to the floor, his head swimming in a fresh shower of dizzying lights.
‘No,’ he whimpered, holding his hands over his head. ‘This isn’t fair. You can’t do this to me.’ He thought of all the times he had wanted to die; of the beatings when he had pleaded in vain with the Gods to take him; of all the occasions they had looked upon his torment through uncaring eyes. Why, after ignoring all his pleas in the past, had they contrived this cruel fate for him? He drew his legs up beneath him and curled into a ball, waiting for the coldness to take him.
✽ ✽ ✽
Sigvald turned from the shore to make his way back up to the house, but as he passed the boatshed, he paused. His three favourite ships sat on their wooden skids above the waterline: his ornate karve to the left, its extravagantly carved dragon-headed prow snarling at him from the gloom; Helga’s equally magnificent Drakkar – the Vixen – in the middle, its thin, sweeping strakes notched and marked by battle; and beside it the very first ship he had owned, a twelve-oared longship that his father had given to him upon his taking the Leap. It was the ship that he and Thorvald had first sailed in, although it had never made it to the rich isles to the south. That was to happen many summers later, in larger, faster ships. Sigvald sighed. It had been a good life, that of a Viking raider. Trading was less dangerous and offered more reliable returns, but it held none of the excitement and daring of those snatch-and-grab forays of his youth. He shook his head, his thoughts turning inevitably to the rift that had opened between himself and Thorvald in those early days. If only he had managed to convince his friend to stay on, how different would Thorvald’s life be now? But the fact remained that Thorvald had lacked the stomach for the killing, hard as it was to accept. So Sigvald had turned his hand to trading instead, with Thorvald standing beside him as his navigator. The alliance had begun well, but their disagreements over Rathulf’s upbringing soon drove a wedge between them, eventually leading to Thorvald abandoning the partnership. Instead, he had chosen a life of solitude, somehow thinking that by withdrawing from the world he might protect Rathulf from his inevitable fate.
Ah well, Sigvald thought, I have responsibilities now; children to feed, a farm to upkeep and business to run. He turned back to the house.
Alrik waited for him on the boardwalk. ‘It’s not too late,’ he said hopefully. ‘We can always take my ship.’
Sigvald shook his head. ‘What’s that you’re carrying in your hand, Alrik? A torch. It will be dark soon.’ It annoyed Sigvald that although it was barely past noon, night would soon be upon them. Curse these short winter days.
Two dark-haired slaves busily cleared the boardwalk of snow, and they bowed in deference as the chieftain passed. Sigvald nodded and moved on. The sense of foreboding that had settled upon his shoulders with the coming of his vision refused to shift. He shivered, trying to shake off the disquieting sensation. He walked on, hurrying to catch up with his nephew, but he found that with each step the sense of alarm grew in intensity. It was as though an invisible tie bound him to the shore and the further away he moved, the greater was its pull. What is the matter with me? he wondered. The house stood barely ten paces away, yet he found it almost impossible to move any nearer to it. He shut his eyes. The snow-covered valley was there again, and although some part of him knew that place, and knew it well, still he recognised none of its landmarks. ‘What are you trying to tell me?’ Sigvald demanded aloud. ‘What good are you if you don’t show me anything?’
‘Show you what?’ Helga said from the doorway of the house.
The chieftain opened his eyes and looked at her self-consciously. ‘This vision. This image. It’s been with me all day, but I don’t understand what the accursed thing means.’
Helga held a hand out to her husband. ‘You should come inside,’ she said gently. ‘There’s nothing you can do about it now.’
Helga’s words carried in them a terrible finality that reverberated in Sigvald’s heart. “There is nothing you can do,” the voice echoed. Sigvald closed his eyes again, the glimmer of a distant realisation forming somewhere in the depths of his mind. Nothing; the valley contained nothing. It was this very fact that had disturbed him from the moment he had first dreamed it. The valley was missing something, and whatever it was, it had to do with Thorvald.
‘Sigvald?’ Helga was still holding out her hand.
The jarl ignored his wife, and instead turned and strode back down towards the shore, determined to put this unsettling feeling to rest. He arrived at the boathouse and frowned at the three ships. He peered into the darkness, but all he saw was the shimmering reflection of the water on the prow of Helga’s Drakkar. I must be going mad, he decided. I’m a superstitious old fool, just like Alrik says. Muttering an oath, he turned away from the ships, intent on going back inside to find himself a mug of good warm mead and a bowl of hot stew. But as he turned away he noticed a movement out of the corner of his eye. The hairs prickled on Sigvald’s neck and he peered into the darkness. His heart stopped, and he drew in a sharp breath. Sitting quietly on the prow of the Vixen was a large grey wolf. It looked at Sigvald through sad, golden eyes, then it stood up, stepped out of sight and disappeared.
✽ ✽ ✽
The chill entered Leif’s body through his hands and face, burning his skin with its icy touch. It started as a mild shiver in his chest, but as time wore on, his teeth began to chatter, and his body shook in long, violent spasms. He closed his eyes, but his father’s face was there again, sneering at him with contempt. ‘You’re an insult to the Gods, boy. Why didn’t you perish in place of your mother?’
‘Let me die,’ Leif begged. ‘Please let me die.’
A low moan from somewhere to his left shook Leif from his reverie. He turned his head and listened intently, wondering if the sound had been his imagination. For a while nothing happened, then he heard something scrape on the earth nearby. Someone is alive!
‘Rathulf?’ he whispered urgently.
No answer came. Leif called out again, but the eerie stillness had returned.
Leif’s heart pounded in his chest. His friend lay so near, but how could he get to him? Curse you, Odin, he thought angrily. Curse you for your treachery and false heart. He thumped his fist repeatedly on the plank beside him, wanting to hurt himself, to inflict a physical injury to take away some of this pain.
The wood suddenly gave way with a lou
d crack, and Leif snatched his hand back, startled. After a few breathless moments, he reached out to the place where the plank had been. He expected to find the way blocked by another obstruction, but his arm extended into the blackness unhindered. Slowly, cautiously, Leif drew himself up and moved forward, at first dragging himself along on his elbows and testing his progress with an outstretched hand. After a while, he tried the space above him and found open air. He lifted himself to his hands and knees and crawled towards the source of the moan. His head beat in painful rhythm to his pounding heart, and flashes of light danced before his eyes as he moved. He pushed on, reminding himself that he had suffered much greater pain than this in the past and had survived. And I will probably survive this too, he thought bitterly, except that I’ll have killed my only friends in the process.
‘Leif?’ Rathulf’s hoarse whisper penetrated the silence. ‘Is that you?’
‘Ra!’ Leif scrambled over to where the sound had come from. ‘Where are you?’ He felt about urgently in the space in front of him, finding a confusing mess of splintered timbers, scattered pieces of stone and clods of turf. Then his hand found torn cloth, and finally, it came to rest upon the smooth skin of Rathulf’s arm. ‘Rathulf? Can you hear me?’
He was answered by a harsh cough, then he heard movement as his friend tried to change position. ‘I can’t move,’ came a muffled voice. ‘Leif, where are you?’ Rathulf’s words held a hint of panic and Leif answered quickly.
‘I’m right here, Ra. I’ll try to find out what’s in the way.’ Leif began to investigate, but without any light, he could make no sense of the puzzle that lay before him.
‘What’s happening, Leif? Why can’t I see anything? Where’s father?’
‘An avalanche hit us, I think, but I’m not really sure. I don’t know where Thorvald is yet.’
Rathulf swore, obviously trying to move something out of his way. More swearing came from amid the wreckage. ‘Leif, something’s lying on top of me. See if you can move any of this, will you?’