A Sacred Storm

by Theodore Brun

  ‘Sure, sure. We’re happy to wait.’ Kai gave a courteous nod and winked at Einar who stood by, red-faced.

  ‘Oh gods, very well,’ Sletti scowled. ‘So what are you?’ He peered down a long straight nose at Kai. Only then did Kai notice the rope necklace tied tight round his neck: the mark of a thrall. ‘Let me guess. Another brace of swords for Lord Ringast?’ He raised a sardonic eyebrow. ‘Impressive ones too, I see.’

  ‘Not us, Master Sletti! We need a roof for a night or two, then we’ll be moving on.’

  ‘On where?’

  ‘I’m off to inherit my uncle’s farm beside the Lake of the Two Forests,’ Kai beamed proudly.

  ‘How wonderful for you,’ Sletti replied drily. ‘And you?’

  ‘He’s my protection. Not that I can’t look after myself, mind, but my father’s always been a cautious man. And you can’t be too careful these days.’

  ‘Can’t he speak for himself?’

  ‘Happens, no. Poor bugger! Not so much as a whisper comes out of those fat chops, alas. But as you can see,’ he gave Einar’s belly a slap, ‘plenty goes in.’

  Sletti looked doubtful. ‘What makes you think we have food to spare for his belly? Or yours?’

  ‘We’re reasonable men. We’re happy to work for our supper.’

  ‘Hmm. Very well. Two nights for two days’ work.’

  ‘Much obliged. Ain’t we, fat man?’ Einar grunted his assent, after a jab in the stomach.

  ‘Gerutha, come here.’ Sletti signalled to a tall woman who stepped out from the crowd of hall-folk waiting to see the steward. Kai tipped her a friendly nod which she didn’t return. ‘Take them to the Back Barn and show them where they can leave their horses and stow their gear.’ Sletti eyed Kai up and down. ‘After that, the boy can help Snorri. The mute can go to the tannery.’ He looked at Einar. ‘And not a word of complaint, you hear?’ he added, with a feathery snigger.

  Einar bristled, though he could hardly raise an objection now. The tall woman gestured to follow.

  ‘What’s his story then?’ Kai asked when they were clear of the steward’s earshot.

  ‘I don’t gossip about folks that give me orders,’ she replied. She had a warm husk to her voice, and though she had a fair few years on him, she wasn’t that old. Kai guessed a couple of summers shy of forty.

  ‘Go on, you must know something. He’s a queer fish to look at – that’s for sure.’

  She turned her head and for the first time he noticed the shock of white that ran down the middle of her rust-brown hair. ‘Truth is, I ha’n’t been here so long myself. But I gather his mother was one of King Harald’s women in Leithra. A bed-slave from the south shores of the Black Sea, someone said.’

  ‘That explains the skin. And if he’s a king’s bastard that explains the rod up his backside.’

  ‘I didn’t say that.’

  ‘You didn’t have to. Anyhow, what about you?’

  ‘What about me?’

  ‘You said you’re new yourself.’

  ‘You’re a curious one, ain’t you?’

  ‘Nothing wrong with that.’

  ‘H’m.’ She walked on a bit, apparently deliberating whether she would give him an answer or not. ‘There was some trouble,’ she said at length. ‘Along the edge of the Kolmark. Nearly every village has been burned to ashes, or ha’n’t you heard?’

  This was news to Kai. ‘Not us. We came up from Skania,’ he lied.

  ‘Aye, well, the stories have spread far enough. There’s been a heap of raiding these last days. Sveär wolves.’ Her nose wrinkled. ‘My village was... well, there wasn’t much to stick around for. Afterwards. So I came here. Lord Ringast took me in when he heard what I was.’

  ‘What are you?’

  ‘A survivor. A witness.’ She pointed to her eyes. ‘I saw ’em.’ Kai noticed they were the colour of ripe corn, dotted with dark flecks. Pretty, in their way. Though just then they looked a bit alarming.

  ‘Saw who?’

  ‘The White and the Black.’ From the look on her she expected him to be impressed.

  He shrugged. ‘Never heard of ’em.’

  ‘A pair of Sveär butchers. And two faces I couldn’t have conjured in my worst nightmare.’ Her hand rose absently to the white streak in her hair. ‘Anyhow, my luck was better than plenty other folks so I ain’t complaining.’

  They happened to be passing a crew of karls sprawled in various states of indolence over a pair of benches and the back of the hay-cart. A couple were crouched over a tafl board, intent on their game. Another pair were chatting over a skin of ale. The fifth man was lazing on the hay. It was him who sprang to life.

  ‘Hey, porky! Hold up there!’

  His friends looked up. The man was a sinewy bastard with malice in his eye and doubtless not a little ale in his belly. Kai suddenly had a bad feeling. He would have kept walking but the man leaped off the cart with surprising agility and blocked their path.

  ‘I’m talking to you, butterbelly.’

  Einar had halted and was staring the man down.

  ‘Nice piece you’re carrying,’ said the karl, gesturing at Einar’s hilt. ‘Mind if I take a look?’

  ‘Let him be, Geir,’ said one of the tafl-players in a bored voice, as though this scene had been played out a hundred times before.

  ‘Nah. I don’t think so.’ The man called Geir chuckled and reached for Einar’s hilt. But Einar was quicker, gripping his blade and shoving him. Geir stumbled backwards.

  ‘Hohoooaa!’ crowed one of the drinkers. ‘You shouldn’t have done that, friend!’

  In an eye-blink Geir was back in their faces. ‘No one fucking pushes me.’

  ‘Not quite true that,’ Kai chuckled nervously. ‘Still, no harm done, eh? We’ll be on our way.’

  ‘Shut your mouth, worm. I’m talking to this fat fuck.’

  ‘Sadly this particular fat fuck can’t say a word.’

  ‘What’s wrong with him?’

  ‘Mute from a lad. It’s a tragic tale.’

  Einar was standing like a stone pillar, his face a few inches from the karl’s. Geir looked him up and down, licking his teeth. ‘Is he simple or something?’

  ‘Hmmm,’ mused Kai. Einar shot him a thunderous look. ‘I mean, no. No! Far from it!’

  ‘Bet he’s a coward. Soft as he is flabby. He looks like a coward.’ Geir sucked on his nostrils. ‘Smells like a coward.’ He leaned in closer. ‘Is that what you are? A piss-breech yellow-livered coward?’

  ‘Oh, no,’ cried Kai, ‘brave as Baldur, this one. Now we’ll just leave you to your ale, shall we?’ He tried to pull Einar away but the fat man wasn’t budging.

  ‘Prove it,’ Geir said.

  The ale-drinker clapped his hands with glee. Einar shrugged and glanced at Kai, who supposed the flick of his eyebrow was meant to be reassuring.

  Geir beckoned him forward from his horse. ‘We have a little test we do round here. We use it to see whether a man’s got the backbone to stand in the ’wall.’

  Einar reached for his hilt.

  ‘Nah.’ Geir shook his head. ‘You don’t need to do a thing. Just stand there.’

  ‘Hang on, cousin,’ said the tafl-player languidly, getting to his feet. ‘You have to show him how it’s done first. Fair’s fair.’

  ‘As you like, Grim. Who’s going to go then? You?’

  ‘Sure.’

  Geir went and pulled out his sword from under the pile of hay. Grim stood. The blade was drawn. The cousins stood facing each other.

  ‘This is what happens when men have too much time on their hands,’ Gerutha muttered.

  Geir lifted his sword, straight-armed, to eye level. Grim came closer, so close the point was hovering hardly the length of a fingernail from the bridge of his nose.

  ‘Ready?’

  ‘Ready.’

  Kai barely had time to blink before Geir had wheeled the blade and slashed it with full force at his cousin’s head. The point shot past Grim’s face faster than a whip-
crack, passing a hair’s breadth from his eye. But he didn’t flinch. Didn’t move a muscle.

  Kai released his breath. The five karls fell about laughing.

  ‘Your turn, butterbelly,’ Geir growled.

  The other tafl-player stood up to pull Einar into position, but the fat man shook his head and stepped forward. This was all a bit alarming to Kai’s mind. He was pretty sure this wasn’t what Erlan had meant when he had told them to keep a low profile.

  A few other karls had gathered now, taking bets on whether the fat man would flinch. Meanwhile Einar took his position. Geir held out his sword again, measuring the distance so the tip was barely a whisker from his eye. Kai thought he noticed something – Geir’s arm wasn’t quite as extended as the first time. But before he could say anything, Geir drew it back and grinned. ‘All set?’

  Einar nodded.

  Geir gave a chuckle and his blade whirled. Kai watched the point snap past. Einar stood still as death. At once, there were groans and cheers as bets were won and lost. Geir was looking mighty peeved – as if something had gone wrong.

  ‘Look – he’s bleeding!’ someone yelled suddenly.

  It was true. Einar still hadn’t moved but a red seam of blood appeared across one eyebrow.

  ‘By the hanged! He’s cut and didn’t move a bloody muscle!’ cried the ale-drinker. Einar, of course, said nothing, only touched his brow and examined his fingers. They were wet with blood. He looked up, grinned, then flicked his thumbnail. The others watched in stunned silence as a single drop of blood arced high through the air and landed square between Geir’s eyes.

  The other karls broke into gales of laughter. Geir slowly wiped the spot, leaving a red smear across the bridge of his nose. ‘Why, you cheeky son of a whore,’ he snarled, raising his sword.

  But Grim stepped in and held him. ‘Think the game’s over, don’t you, cousin?’

  Einar turned back to his horse as the rest of them crowded round Geir, laughing and joking and joshing him till they had bundled him back into his hay-cart.

  Gerutha shook her head. ‘I can see you two are going to fit right in.’

  She led them to the Back Barn, a small building stood behind the main hall that was gloomier than a barrow-grave and smelled of dung. A row of animal stalls ran along one side and above them a bower strewn with old hay.

  ‘You can sleep up there,’ said Gerutha, leaving Kai to wonder how the Hel they were supposed to discover Lord Ringast’s or indeed his father’s plans if they were lodged with the farmhands. Still, he resolved to stay hopeful. Something would turn up. It usually did.

  However, once Gerutha had showed him where he was to work for the next two days, his confidence dwindled some.

  Snorri the smith looked like a bird, squawked like a bird, walked like a bird and, Kai was fairly sure, didn’t have much more brain than a bird rattling inside his skull. The stream of meaningless blather out of his mouth never seemed to stop. Kai began to think the smith was suffering from some kind of brain-rot, or madness even.

  When Kai managed to get a word in and asked who all the warriors were and what was their business, Snorri replied: ‘If a man comes and says, “Make me a sword,” I make him a sword. If he asks for a knife, I make him a knife. He might use it to skin a weasel or slit his brother’s throat. It ain’t my business. I just make ’em strong and sharp. Now you get on with polishing that axe till you can see your face in it and never mind what it’s for.’

  Thereby demonstrating an unforgivable lack of curiosity, at least in Kai’s opinion.

  Worse, Snorri worked him damned hard. By mid-afternoon, his arms ached with hours of scrubbing newly tempered blades till they shone like silver.

  Still, he had it better than Einar. Gerutha had taken him to the tannery where, unable to offer any protest, he had been given the very worst tasks: plunging hides into a barrel of urine to loosen the hair, so he could scrape them clean and then bate them – a hideous process involving squelching around in a vat of liquid dog-dung, kneading the hides with his feet till they were good and supple. Needless to say, the fat man’s mood hadn’t improved much.

  A grey afternoon darkened towards a gloomy dusk. Kai’s belly was grumbling and he was cursing himself for not choosing a better cover story – one involving more drinking with house-karls and less muscle-wringing labour – when there was a commotion at the gate.

  Men were shouting. There was a sound of hoofbeats and suddenly a troop of riders burst into the yard.

  More cheers, more shouts. Folks were leaving their work, curious to know what was afoot. The brewer’s boy ran past Snorri’s forge, face beaming with excitement.

  ‘Hey, kid! What’s all the racket?’

  ‘They’ve caught ’emselves a Sveär!’ he cried.

  He ran on. Kai followed him, deaf to Snorri’s bleating protests. People were streaming towards the riders who’d halted in front of the main hall. They were a grim-looking crew – sweat-stained and covered in dust. Looked like they’d been in a fight too, judging from a few cut faces.

  But the hall-folk’s attention was focused mainly on the man slung across the rump of a chestnut horse. He was trussed up like a sheep for market, stripped to his waist with his hands bound at his back. But that didn’t stop him lifting his head to look about.

  Kai shoved and slithered his way through the crowd till he was quite close and could see the man’s face. He was a fierce-looking bastard – a lot fiercer than Kai would have looked in the same predicament. His hair was black as pitch and his eyes sunken, and he’d taken a beating or two. But he wasn’t broken yet.

  ‘Fetch Lord Ringast,’ yelled one of the riders.

  ‘We’ve brought him a little gift,’ cackled another. ‘Eh, Sveär pig?’ He rode alongside and gave the man a kick. The prisoner didn’t make a sound. The bolder ones in the crowd scuttled forward, spat at him, then retreated. But nothing seemed to dim the scorn in the man’s eyes.

  Another rider dismounted and drew a knife. Moments later the rope was cut and the prisoner was sprawling on the ground. He tried to get up, but the rider pulled the rope binding his neck, hands and feet, and he fell back down.

  ‘Stay in the dirt where you belong, dog!’

  ‘Make way! Make way!’ cried a new voice. The crowd parted to reveal three men striding down from the hall.

  From their dress, Kai marked them highborn – embroidered shirts, silver cuffs, studded belts. From the bowing and scraping of the crowd, he figured them lords even. They were strikingly different in appearance, though. The one nearest was slim and surely the youngest – russet-haired with barely a whisker, almost girlishly handsome. He hung back from the other two – one a bear of a man, the other an eagle. At least, that was Kai’s impression.

  ‘Silence!’ cried the eagle. The insults and curses ceased at once. Kai judged this must be Ringast, the Lord of Dannerborg and the Wartooth’s heir. His blood prickled with excitement. ‘Put him there.’ Two of the riders hefted the prisoner onto his knees.

  Ringast circled around him. ‘Who is he?’

  ‘The Black, my lord,’ answered a rider, with evident pride. A gasp rose from the crowd, followed quickly by a cheer. The rider’s soiled face fairly glowed.

  ‘Silence!’ Ringast shouted again, irritated by the interruption. ‘Where did you find him?’

  ‘We surprised his shieldband in the woods west of Ravenstorp.’

  ‘Aye,’ added another, ‘before the whoresons torched the place!’

  Ringast grunted. ‘Well done. If he is the Black, he has burned enough.’

  ‘What do you mean, if he’s the Black, brother?’ roared the bear. ‘Who else could he be?’

  ‘Peace, Thrand.’ Ringast raised a hand – apparently enough to check his brother’s tongue and the murmurs of the crowd. ‘You’re all of you in such a hurry to tear him apart. But every man deserves justice.’

  ‘Justice for this one is a knife in his throat,’ growled Thrand.

  ‘We’ll see.’ Ringas
t turned to the rider standing over the prisoner. ‘Where’s the other?’

  The man exchanged glances with his companions. ‘The White broke clear with a few of his men. Last we saw they were heading north into the Kolmark.’

  The Black sniggered. It was an ugly laugh. Ugly and irritating. Something about it jogged Kai’s memory. But before he could fix on it, Thrand had put a boot in the man’s chest. The Black went sprawling in the mud. ‘We should just kill him now. Those bastard twins have butchered half the folk along the Kolmark. He deserves the same fate he dealt them.’

  At the mention of twins, Kai suddenly recognized who this was. The Black and the White. Two brothers, the twin sons of Huldir, the Earl of Nairka – as malicious a pair as any living north of the Kolmark, although they didn’t often show their faces at Uppsala. This one’s name was Gettir.

  Ringast shoved Thrand back. ‘If we do this, we do it according to our father’s law.’

  ‘Fenrir take the law!’ snapped his brother. ‘This man needs killing and that’s an end to it.’

  ‘No. We have someone who has seen what the Black has done. If indeed this is him. Where’s the witness?’ Ringast cried abruptly. ‘The woman Gerutha – where is she?’

  At Gerutha’s name, Kai’s ears pricked up. He scanned the faces for the servant with the white streak of hair. Then he saw her being half-dragged almost through the eager crowd. Her face was composed but he could see she was steeling herself, too.

  ‘My lord,’ she said huskily.

  ‘Is this one of them?’

  She looked at the prisoner. Gettir looked back. A smile crept over his face, almost as if he were recognizing an old friend. A kind of shudder passed through her. Suddenly the prisoner jerked his head at her and she fell back a step. He laughed – that irritating snigger again.

  ‘That’s him. That’s the Black,’ she said. A cacophony of jeers swallowed up her last words, but Ringast waved the crowd to silence. His voice was calm. ‘What did he do?’

  ‘It was just as I told you, my lord.’

  ‘Tell it again so all may hear.’

  And so she did, in all its gruesome horror, her description punctuated with gasps from her audience. Of course, they’d heard it all before, doubtless a dozen times or more. But Kai had to admit, it was a tale to put a man off his supper. When she was finished, Ringast thanked her and let her escape into the crowd.