Behind the longhouse and behind the farm, its barns and fields and neighbours, the grass on the lower slopes of the hills turned to heather, to scrub and to moss. Here the grazier’s sons slept over the summer months while guarding their flocks from wolves and eagles, taking their own night’s shelter in the saetr huts they built there.
In the highest of all these saetr, Egil was singing. It was a song he had made up himself, as were all his songs, and the song was mournful because that was the way he was feeling. Across the stubby straw bale of mattress, Skarga was curled, listening in silence. There was no window but the door was wedged open to the beauty of the stars, while the wind rattled the timbers and played bass rhythm. Egil had lost the tune and seemed to be falling asleep when Skarga interrupted him. “Tell me again about the man.”
Egil blinked. “Grimr the Bard?”
“Of course Grimr the Bard. I’ve been told he’s a brute. He likes to hurt women. He’s a killer, not in battle, but for cold hard business. So he’s cruel and calculating and heartless. But he’s a skilled poet and that doesn’t make sense to me.”
“And he saved my life,” said Egil.
“I don’t like people I can’t understand,” said Skarga to her knees.
“You’re not supposed to like him. He’s going to kill you,” said Egil. “You’re supposed to hate him.”
“Oh well,” said Skarga, laying her cheek back against the rough unplastered walls of the hut, “perhaps dying doesn’t matter so much after all. Everyone does it, don’t they, sooner or later. Maybe sometimes sooner is better than later.”
“Don’t be stupid,” said Egil.
Skarga stretched her toes and smiled. “I could have died at my birth when my mother did. Instead I’ve had nineteen years of total pissing boring slog. So let it end. I need to tell this Grimr I’ll cooperate if he makes it quick and painless”
“He’s cruel,” said Egil with a sneer. “So he’ll want something really bloody.”
“Then perhaps I’ll just swallow my own knife first,” said Skarga, “or jump off the cliffs.”
“You’re just so irritating sometimes,” sighed Egil.
Skarga turned away, resting her chin back on her knees. “Why would a cruel man save a flea bitten slave brat, just for the fun of it? Perhaps he wanted to boot my stupid brother, but he could have done that anyway if he just fancied a brawl. Did he say anything to you, after he knocked Banke down?”
Egil shook his head. “I’d spewed over his feet.”
“But you overheard him agree to take me away and kill me?”
“And he argued over the price.”
“Oh well. I hope I’m worth a reasonable one.”
“Listen, stop talking all silly and female,” said Egil. “You’ve never been weak before.”
“Stupid boy. I’m being practical, not weak.”
“I don’t like you being practical either,” complained Egil. “You’re bad at it.”
Skarga curled tight inside her wolf pelt cloak. “We could run away,” she sighed, “but you’ve holes in your shoes and the nights are cold. We wouldn’t even get as far as Helmsby. You’d be dead in a ditch and I’d be dying beside you.”
“We’ll steal the cart.”
“We wouldn’t get much farther by cart. And where would we aim for? Helmsby is the first place they’d look. I’ve neither silver nor jewellery to barter for food and no one’d risk giving me board, not with Ogot after me. Besides, they’d find us before we even had time to notice we were starving to death anyway. Then they’d beat me before giving me to Grimr. As a runaway slave, you’d either be killed or sold on.”
Egil chewed his lip. “We don’t go to Helmsby. The days are get longer and warmer. I’ll find work.”
“Asved would never give up. He’d find us and kill us and so would my father.”
“They’re all pissed off their heads so they’ll sleep past sun up tomorrow,” insisted Egil... “And it’s an odd crowd, this crew, and their captain’s even odder. Hides his name, yet Grimr’s a bard who needs to spread his reputation to make his fortune. A cruel man who saves a slave brat’s life.”
“But he’s not going to save my life, is he,” muttered Skarga.
“Listen,” Egil insisted. “The crew was saying they were blown off course after a storm, so they never even meant to come here. Yet we know Grimr the Skald was called for and expected. One said their home port was far north, but others said as they’d been blown north after originally heading further south. Then Grimr says as how they plan on shipping back west.”
“Never believe sailor’s stories,” said Skarga. “They all lie. Now go to bed, brat. And shut the door behind you.”
There was an owl, calling through the shadows. As Egil raced down the slopes, wide downy wings passed above him, brushing his head with sudden cold warning. He heard whispered words, didn’t understand, shook his head and ran quicker. The owl was hunting between the trees, turned its head, blinked huge golden eyes, and flew on. Egil remembered the eagle vision from the water barrel, and shivered.
CHAPTER FIVE
Long before dawn they clambered into the barrow, heading not inland towards Helmsby, but along the coast to the far end of the bay. At first the narrow path, beaten by hoof, foot and many years of rolling carts, followed the cliff edge. It was barren and tree voided by wind. But then, as the line of the fjord narrowed out towards the open sea and became as intricately twisted as the knot work on a wooden carving, so the bushes grew taller and thornier and hid the lopsided rumble of the wheels. The land began to slope down, then up again.
Egil was singing again. The pony quickened as the hour warmed and the light rose up from the horizon like a lit candle below a window ledge. Then the cart took the wide turning past the dead seidrmann’s cave, and rounded the cape to face the full wind blast of the open ocean.
Skarga was watching the sudden dazzle of the sea before them, Egil the pale expanse of the sky above. He pointed, squinting upwards. “Look, the eagle. Early hunting. A sea eagle. One of the biggest I’ve ever seen. It’s hovering, look.”
But her gaze to the ocean, Skarga said, “There’s a boat. Down there. There’s a serpent’s head at the prow. It’s a longship.”
The man was sitting, lounging back against the bent tree trunk, his sword balanced at rest across his knees. The pony blanched and stopped suddenly. Both Skarga and Egil snapped their heads back to the path.
“It’s a good morning,” said the man, “both for hunting and for sailing. And the ship’s mine.”
He was blocking the way. Skarga clenched her teeth and said, “If you’re him, then you’re stupid being alone,” and Egil, who knew it was him, reached for the knife no slave was supposed to be carrying.
“Alone,” nodded the man, “and so to stop you, I’d have to kill you or the horse. I intend neither. Travel on if you wish. But some of my men and most of your family are waiting further down the path. Unless you drive over the cliff edge, it’s me or them. I offer myself as the more courteous alternative.”
High above in dawn’s grazed pastels, the eagle was hovering, one single sail beat to counter the breeze, spread stationary before the stoop.
“I know what you’ve been paid to do,” said Skarga, though her voice sounded small in her own ears. “Why don’t you just do it now and get it over with.”
“I spoke of courtesy not crudity,” said the man, unmoving. “Make your choice. I’ve made mine.” He carried a curious stillness with him, as if, like the eagle, he hovered on the rising thermals, one single wing dip to centre position, waiting keen eyed before the plunge.
Egil grabbed her sleeve, tugging at her. “Lady, I can do it. Tell me, give me permission. I’m ready.”
The man smiled. “Your knife would never reach me, child. You did me more damage when you tried to ruin my boots yesterday. Some lame slave woman spent half the night scrubbing to get out the stain and the stench from the leather. I gave her some of your father’s silver so she did
n’t complain as much as I did”
Skarga clasped Egil’s hand, tugging it from the knife hilt. “If I go with you,” she said to the man Grimr, “will you let the child go?”
He shook his head. “Your brothers would catch him and kill him before the day’s out. He’s safer with me and he’ll want to stay with you.”
“I do,” Egil said at once.
“There’s a way down the crags to the sea from here,” the man Grimr nodded. “I’ll send the pony on to where the others are waiting. They’ll get the message. My men will explain to your brothers, and you need never see your family again.”
Skarga nodded. “They don’t want to see me. I don’t want to see them. But I don’t see how you knew I’d come this way. You must have all been here before I even took the reins. It doesn’t make sense.”
His smile hovered unblinking. “Sense? What is sense? A blunt tool for simple men without vision. I saw your direction from above.”
Skarga instinctively looked up. The eagle had gone. “You like riddles.”
“You can have no idea what I like.” He began to stand, unbending slowly from the ground and resheathing his sword. Then he came forward and took the pony’s bridle. It jerked, shaking its mane and then stood obedient, head lowered.
Skarga wrapped her cloak tighter and climbed carefully from the cart. She beckoned for Egil to follow. Back on the narrow path, she found Grimr was so much taller that she came only to his shoulder, yet she had always thought herself tall. She had to tilt her head to look up at him. “They say you like to be cruel,” she said, making sure her voice did not tremble. “But you saved my boy’s life yesterday. Now you’ve been hired to murder a woman. And the boy you saved, you’ll have to kill him too.”
Grimr continued smiling. “Have you ever been to sea?” he asked. It seemed a pointless question and a prevarication. She shook her head. “It’s a sensation beyond comparison,” he said. “It challenges our small concept of free spirit and teaches the timelessness of beauty. Everyone should go to sea once, before they die.”
He turned away and bent to the pony’s muzzle, murmuring something she could not hear. Then he slapped its rump and it trotted forwards at once, its reins dragging, pulling the rattle of the cart along behind it.
They stood for a moment, the three of them, watching each other. To one side the land slanted up scrubby with three stunted trees, wind battered and twisted back from the savagery of the salt winds. To the other, below the cliff drop the sea stretched beneath an increasing glaze of sunlight, stripes of depth coloured the surface in a rippled fluting of black and lapis. The serpent ship slumbered and cast little shadow.
Grimr nodded towards the edge. “Down there,” he said.
“You expect me to jump?”
“You might damage my ship. No, take the path. It’s a little steep but if you slip I’ll catch you.”
Skarga walked to the cliff drop and peered down. There was a way, with steps hewn into places where heather and grass replaced pebbled rock. It was not an easy climb. Skarga held up her skirts, inhaled with a gulp and began to tap for the first firm footing. It seemed less strange than she might have imagined, groping for the path leading to her death. She had spent most of the night accepting the imminent end of her life, for she had never believed her escape would succeed. She knew her father too well. But Grimr the Bard was not as she had expected.
His voice was steady at her back. “Your child climbs behind me,” he said. “I can catch either of you if the need comes. Or I can carry you.”
“I can do it on my own.” It seemed a very long way down but the wind flattened her back against the cliff. She concentrated on every step until it was solid, not thinking about the next until each had been achieved. The roll of the waves rose closer and finally she felt the iced slap of spray against her skin. She was almost down when she fell.
Even before she fell, it seemed his arms had caught her, hard across her breasts and tight around her ribs. Pulling or struggling would have taken her to a quicker death. She could not hear his breathing but she heard her own, sounding shamefully pathetic like the whimpering of a frightened puppy. Then he set her back on her feet, waited while she steadied, and removed his arms without speaking. Skarga readjusted her breath and clothing and continued climbing downwards.
At the bottom a scrape of flat ground nursed a salt puddle and a wet slope to the waves. There was a boat, little more than a coracle with a sea-worn paddle, tied tight to a point of rock. “The child first,” said Grimr.
Egil scrambled in and bobbed there, holding out his hand to Skarga. She took it and climbed in beside him. Grimr was holding the little boat steady, then stepped in, sat on the low central bench, took the oars and at once began to row towards the serpent ship whose shadow already engulfed them.
The ship’s clinkered sides rose up within its own reflection, further darkened by the greater shade of the cliffs upon the waters. Shallow keeled with stowage bare spaced for little more than pirate treasure and salt bacon, it dipped like a floating seabird at its anchor, the mast lowered from within the kjerringa and the sail rolled like a huge dead swan tied for the pot. At the stern the snake’s tail curled down to the keel. At the prow the serpent soared ornate, its eyes glittering from the shadows.
Brought tight alongside, Grimr stood and threw the rope. Caught by large hands from above, the coracle steadied on its tether. Grimr turned to Egil and nodded, bending and holding out linked hands. Egil was hoisted to the gunwales and pulled quickly aboard. Skarga was wondering how she would manage her skirts without stumbling back into the waves, when Grimr caught her from behind as he had before. This time he flung her over his shoulder where she bounced like a sack of flour and saw nothing but a broad back of chain mail over a leather jerkin, the cascade of her own hair tumbling upside down, and beyond them all the dark pulse of a slumbering sea. Then she was jerked suddenly right way up and back onto her feet. She slipped, lurching backwards. The wet timbers of the deck heaved with the uneven tug and tilt of the ocean’s current. The ground had never moved beneath her like that before. Someone sniggered.
“You’ll get used to it,” said Grimr’s voice, but Skarga was hanging onto the ship’s sides without attempting to turn around. “Keep out of the way,” he said, “at least until we set sail. If you have to vomit, do it overboard. Then get to one of the chests roped amidships and sit down and stay there.”
Then he was back amongst his men, laughing and shouting orders. The mast was raised like a corpse from its grave, and with eight men hauling on the rigging, leechlines and tacklines, the yard was swung out and the great sail loosened, its reinforced wadmal slapping against the timber. Skarga crouched at the stern, part blown by the sudden lurch of the ship as the wind rushed to fill the sail. She was pushed aside by a man reaching for the tiller, and hurried forward again. There the reefing lines threatened to entrap her and she moved away once more, swallowing back nausea. She watched Egil eagerly dancing beside the men and obeying orders with exuberance. Skarga felt thoroughly betrayed.
The sea wind took, the one huge white sheet billowed, flattened back with a crack, and billowed again. The ship swung slowly, its planks dipping to the pull, its snake eyes staring out to the thin cut of horizon, its hull into the churning waves. Skarga, barely missing the interweaving men, rushed straight to the side, bent over, stared at the black waters that swelled to meet her, and hung desperately on. She was sick again and again until her head spun, her eyes smarted from the slash of salt spray and her belly felt kicked. The noise of the sea was an alien thing which rose out of the depths like a roaring beast, as if Jormundgandr itself was rising in fury. A high whistle strained through the rigging and the sail, which had at first seemed beautiful, became a monster of battering fury. Yet small boys found this torture exciting.
Then a voice directly behind her said, “Perhaps you are not going to enjoy sailing quite as much as I thought.”
For the third time the arms surrounded her, balanc
ing her, then led her aside. He took her to a central block of smooth humped wood slotted to brace the mast, where he sat her and held a beaker of water for her to drink.
“Breathe deep,” he said. “Face the way we’re heading, look ahead and not down at the waves, drink slowly, and be still. I’ll send your boy to you shortly.”
“He’s enjoying himself,” Skarga gulped. “Let him be.” She looked up to say something else, but Grimr had gone.
Carefully unmoving, her stomach reluctantly settled. She closed her mouth and her mind, squinting defiantly forwards into the blast of the wind. Although holding her cloak tight, she remained cold for the iced spray danced high and the waters slapped hard against the ship’s sides, slopping across the deck. She was miserable and damp but the fresh sharp cold helped cleanse her nausea. Then behind her, Egil’s voice. “The captain says you’ve been sick. He says I have to look after you.”
“The captain? All of a sudden he’s a man of respect instead of the bastard who means to kill us? And you’re obeying his orders.”
“Well,” Egil’s smile sank, “he is the captain. And I’m used to obeying orders.”
She saw little of Grimr throughout the day and few of the men took any notice of their involuntary guests. The ship briefly docked in the vik to collect the rest of the crew left with Ogot, but Skarga stayed part covered by the clinched sail which, once docked, was furled around the mast into a small damp canopy over the kjerringa.
Then they headed once more out to sea. At first the coast was always in sight like a dull distant stripe, but then the waves swept huge and the ship tacked, catching speed. So Grimr’s serpent left the safe coastal shallows and swung straight towards the opening horizon. The cold, already intense, now suddenly increased. The wind rushed at them with awful ferocity and caught, slamming against the sail with a crack. With ten men or more to the ropes and the orders shouted over the roar of wind and water, their direction adjusted, and they sailed directly into the dipping hollow of the waves.
Stars and a Wind- The Complete Trilogy Page 5