Skarga rolled to face the other way. “Men are disgusting beasts anyway. And I’ll have to escape that smelly old chieftain in the morning.”
Egil curled up behind her, tucking his knees up beneath hers as his arm slipped around her waist. “We’ll be too busy with puke and shit and split ale and squashed turnips. I’m used to cleaning that muck up. You’re not.”
Skarga was already half asleep. “I cleaned your shit when I was little.”
Egil whispered into her ear. “Well, at least you’ll dream sweet, after that man’s silly stories.”
Already the dreams were taking her, tempted into thoughts she had never thought before. Her belly throbbed and her groin ached and she felt a strange shame and a strange excitement. A stranger’s voice caressed at her, and deep insidious eyes, grey glitter like chipped onyx crystals, gazed back. The lids were heavy dipped as though the weight of them was too great to lift, curving clean cut across the intensity of the pupil without fringe of lashes to obscure their watchfulness. The eyes were entrances into other worlds, narrow paths leading into the stories he had told, into the deep magic of his words, and into the circle of his arms.
CHAPTER TWELVE
It was late with the sun already a fading promise below the horizon when they were woken by screams. The sounds came from a little plank lean-to where the sick slave girl had been sent to suffer her bellyaches in silence and die if needs be. The flux was a common fate and there was no cure for a king let alone a slave, but the afflicted eventually recovered alone or died, moaning into their soiled pallets. But this one was making a good deal more noise than most.
“We need to get out of here,” Egil muttered. “We need to go south before that slimy bard guesses who you are.”
Skarga sat up. “He won’t. How could he?”
Egil shook his head. “Lady, believe me, we need to get away. Seems there’s the dysentery rife and this barn stinks.” He pushed open the lopsided door and peered out. The sky was blueing behind the roofs and a faint warmth had slipped over the night’s chill. “There’ll be six hours of swill to clean up in the hall. Why stay and work like pigs where there’s only discomfort and danger?”
The insinuating threads of the dreams which had treacled her night, now tasted rancid and threatening, with maggoty memories like the beginning of the bloody flux. Skarga nodded, pushed the knots of her hair out of her eyes, stumbled up and grabbed her cloak. “Alright. Then we need to be quick before anyone sees.”
Bare toed in the grass, Skarga stopped suddenly. The shadow enveloped her at once. The master’s ruddy face folded into a grin of stale breath. One large palm lifted her chin, the other patted her rump. “A good, hard working girl you are I’m sure, my dear,” he chuckled. “You’re welcome to stay on and I’ll order better rations if you’re obedient. We want girls not afraid to scrub piss, and we’ve just lost a young slave like to die before the sun’s high. But I can offer more than scrubbing, if you’ve a mind to be friendly.”
Skarga gulped. Egil nudged her from behind. “Thank you my lord, but no thank you my lord. I’ve – we’ve - a long journey south. We have to leave at once.”
Vilgeroar began to bluster, discovering objections. Close by, the slave girl’s screams had become whimpers, then coughing, then silent.
“Oh, she’ll stay,” said another voice, very soft, from above and behind. “I believe I know a more persuasive way to detain her.”
Vilgeroar smiled. “Oh, if you’ve a mind to take her yourself -”
Skarga looked up and stared at the bard who called himself Grimr. He gazed back down at her through lazy, half closed eyes.
“Oh, not in that way,” Grimr said. “I don’t find her particularly appealing. I’ve other motives. Take her first, my lord, as you wish, but I know something about her that you cannot, and she is not who you imagine her to be.”
Vilgeroar nodded, confused. “She’s some raggedy girl my house slave found begging in the ditch yesterday. You know her? Thrown out from her last place for thieving? Marked under her shift with the pox? What?”
Grimr answered his host but watched Skarga. His deep dipped lids did not blink and his regard never shifted. “Indeed, it seems the girl is a relative of mine.”
Vilgeroar sniggered. “Ah. One of them.”
“Not some bastard brat of mine from the past,” Grimr sneered. “I did not start - quite that young. She’s Ogot King-wisher’s daughter, and I have a special interest in her.”
Skarga stared back, her heartbeat like hammers at the forge and as loud as his voice. Vilgeroar was perplexed. Although accustomed to a hangover, his headache wasn’t helping. “If she’s a chieftain’s daughter, what the Hel is she doing scrubbing my floors?”
“Oh, hiding from me I imagine,” said Grimr. “A delightful coincidence, coming to the very place I am visiting. It saves me the time and effort of searching for her. And I have the greatest dislike of unnecessary effort.”
Within the hour the jobbing smith, ordered to produce heavy rings for shackling prisoners, worked ten thumbed, saving his care for forging blades.
Vilgeroar was embarrassed. “Hobbled and chained? Not the way I’d choose to treat a chief’s child,” he muttered. “What will the father say, when he learns of it? Will you take responsibility, my lord?”
Grimr had laughed. “Ogot wants his daughter dead. He won’t care what I do to her in the meantime. But I need her safe until I drag her back to him for identification, and for the price he’s paying. Then I’ll finish her off.”
The irons rubbed against raw flesh. There was the humiliation of emptying her bladder where she sat, the racking ache of unnaturally bent limbs and the difficulty of changing position. For most of the day, Skarga and Egil waited, chained together and imprisoned in the shed where they had slept. She had not combed her hair nor washed or changed her clothes for a very long time and even without the chance to glance at her reflection, knew exactly how she looked. She knew how she smelled and felt worse. Beyond the rattle of the swinging door planks the rain dithered in silver, the sun sparkled on wet grass and the world beckoned but was unreachable. Her wrists started to bleed beneath the irons. Egil whispered, “This Grimr isn’t like the other one. We’ll never escape this time.”
“Don’t try to make me feel sorry for myself, for I won’t do it,” said Skarga. “We killed one Grimr. Well, we’ll kill this one too.”
“And what do we do to the third one, once he turns up?” demanded Egil.
“They can’t multiply forever,” objected Skarga. “Two is surely enough. And nothing’s hopeless. I’ll think of something. All men are fools.”
“Cruel,” said Egil, laying his head down against the rigidity of her shoulder, “but not foolish. He worked out who you were, didn’t he?”
Skarga sighed. “My own fault.” She had asked too many questions the evening before. She had spoken out of place, shown a curiosity and manner of speech unexpected from a servant. She’d mentioned Ogot, admitting she’d come from Ogot’s vik. And more. Though barefoot and as bedraggled as any slave or beggar, her torn tunic was fine woven over a pleated linen shift. She wore the remains of embroidery at her cuffs, her belt was good tanned leather linked in polished copper and buckled in steel. Two oval broaches held the tunic to her shoulders, and more telling still for those who had seen it, was the wolf fur cloak of a warrior princeling. Ogot would doubtless have given some description of the daughter he wanted killed, and the cape she wore, being unusual, might have been mentioned too.
At least three days ride, they’d said, to Ogot’s vik and now the cart wheels were squeaking outside. The blonde pony between the shafts shook its mane and showed big yellow teeth, trying to nip them as they were bundled past. Their irons unlocked, they were given a moment to rub their sore wrists and ankles, then tied, facing each other, arms outstretched, wrists chained to the four corners of the planks. Egil had his back to the direction they travelled and his ear to the horse’s flatulence. Skarga curled her legs and b
alanced herself. The goat boy grabbed the pony’s harness and led them to the wider green slopes.
Grimr was already mounted and watching. His hair was bronze sheen in the early light and he was wearing crimson, silk dyed with the little western raspberries, and his shirt was yellow weld. He had so bejewelled himself that the sun glanced and glinted and lit him like a candle. Skarga found she was looking at him, and turned carefully away. She still saw the sarcasm of his smile from the corner of her eyes.
His huskarls who accompanied him were dressed well, though with a little diplomatic reserve. Each man was well armed, elaborately crafted swords and axes slung behind their shoulders. No servant rode the cart or guided the pony, but its reins were loose tied behind the younger huskarl’s saddle.
Grimr and his jarls spent the nights in the farmhouses they passed, but Skarga and Egil were kept confined. Released only briefly in the evening and at dawn to relieve themselves while carefully watched by slaves from the farms, they slept still tied and bruised on the cart’s open boards under the frosty dew.
It was the fourth day that turned bitter cold. “Ice winds. So we’re nearly home,” said Skarga.
The snow streaked peaks were higher, their white crests a brighter crystal. To their left the coastline was a jagged series of inlets, finally curving into the great green breadth of the fjord. The sea lashed at the crags. The wild flowers were sparse and lay flat to the ground as the wind began to bite. There was no longer an easy, welcoming land of smiling sunshine and only the steady roar of the ocean interrupted the huge sad silences.
Egil was looking up. There was an eagle. “Now I know we’re back,” he nodded. He almost managed to smile. “She’s old, that bird. I know every feather. Been nesting on our peaks since I was a child.”
“You’re still a child,” said Skarga. “And it’s probably a different bird.”
Egil smiled, the first smile in four days. “I’d mistake an eagle? No, she’s the one I know.”
They had begun to recognise the pathway too, and rounding a curve saw the slopes that angled down to the sheltered anchorage, then up to the pastures where the sheep grazed. The cart ground on, a pitiful wobble of ditches and mounds already well travelled. Skarga did not bother to tell Egil that she felt sick because she knew he would feel the same. Familiarity brought no sweet nostalgia. An undercurrent of grey dread grew like the incoming tide and felt like black stones in the gut.
One of the huskarls had ridden on ahead so the whole family was waiting, alerted, furious, excited, interested, and warned. They were clustered tight behind Ogot at the grand open door of the longhouse as Grimr rode up. He sat tall before dismounting, staring down at the cousin he had never met before. Ogot was impressed. It was doubtful whether Grimr was.
“By the forty names of Odinn,” spat Ogot, “I’ve been cheated and the slut’s still alive. And who the fuck are you?”
Grimr dismounted. Considerably taller than Ogot, he looked down the narrow length of his nose at his cousin and held up the fingers of both hands. His fingers were long and hard, the knuckles calloused and heavily ringed, gold taken from the western Saxons whose jarls preferred finger rings to armlets. “Ten lodes weight of clean silver, and then I answer questions,” Grimr said. “But I believe you know my reputation and the identity of my captives. I have come to collect what is owed, and I shall claim one further lode for the added inconvenience of finding the wench and carting her back with me.”
Ogot scowled, knitting both eyebrows into one frown. “You’d better come inside,” he said. The dragon wings at the arched lip-coping of the new longhouse doors swung to a sudden wind gust, pointing north east with a wide-mouthed rattle.
Asved had been standing at his father’s shoulder. He moved aside as Grimr followed Ogot indoors, and strode over to the cart. “Well, big sister,” he smiled. “How unexpected to see you again. How interesting.”
“Are you going to untie me?” said Skarga.
Asved shook his head. “Do the ropes hurt? I’m so glad. No, you can stay here until father decides what to do with you. You should already be dead, so what does a little discomfort matter?”
The other brothers came forward quickly, crowding round. Egil slumped down into the cart, looking as small as he might. Skarga sat up. Hakon pushed towards her. “I wasn’t really sure if you made curses, when father said you did. But this proves it.” He glowered through a bedraggled moustache. “I saw Grimr sail off with you. So did he throw you overboard? How did you swim back?”
Banke’s large round forehead bobbed up beside him. Pushing to the front, he leaned on the pony’s rump. The pony, impatient to be unharnessed, kicked out. Banke taking offence, kicked back. Asved said, “But our dear sister can’t swim, can you bitch? Always been frightened of the water. Never played in the surf with me, did you bitch, when we were little.”
“She couldn’t have swum all that way, whether she could swim or not,” objected Hakon. “No one could. Grimr was sailing to the Sheep Islands.”
“He wasn’t Grimr,” Skarga glared. “Or perhaps this one isn’t. This one says he’s Grimr the Skald. But it’s not the same man.”
They stared at her, all grouped around the cart where she was stretched, strung like salt cod drying on the rack. Gunulf stood at a more stubborn distance. “You told me once,” he said, “when Tove beat you for cursing the spring lambs after two were taken by eagles, that you never cursed anyone. You told me you didn’t know any magic. You said you didn’t even know how to brew herbs or conjure Loki or blight crops. You lied.”
Skarga sighed. She felt dirty and crushed and very, very sore. Three days in a cart with small wooden wheels and an irascible pony had bruised her badly. “I didn’t lie. If I could do what you all seem to think I can, I would have killed you all by now and got away free. Wouldn’t I?”
“You gave Banke toothache,” said Asved suddenly.
Startled, Skarga shook her head. “When you paid me with your cloak?” It was still precious around her shoulders and had kept her warm and shielded from splinters. “But I didn’t. That always confused me. Why did you pay me for something I wasn’t able to do?”
Banke was concentrating very carefully, scratching his head. The gift of Asved’s fine cloak to his sister had always puzzled him too. Now quite suddenly he began to roar. He ran straight into Asved’s chest, head low, and the force knocked them both off balance. They rolled together in the dust, swearing heartily. Hakon chewed his lip, ignored his two brothers and looked back at Skarga. “So that toothache was you.”
“In the name of all mercy,” said Skarga, “what toothache?”
“A few years ago,” interrupted Gunulf. “Banke thought he was dying from that stupid toothache,”
Asved and Banke had barrelled some way now and into the far ditch. Banke was biting through Asved’s ear. Skarga mumbled, “I didn’t know.”
“Three teeth at the back rotted away with big green boils up in the gums,” Gunulf went on... “It drove him so mad he nearly jumped off the cliffs. So you did it?”
“Asved asked me to,” said Skarga, holding her breath, “but I didn’t. Of course I didn’t. How could I? And I never even knew Banke ever had a toothache.”
“Well, he wouldn’t have told you,” glowered Hakon. “Little sister giving snooty looks whenever you saw him. You used to call him stupid. Not his favourite word, is it! He kept out of your way while he was sobbing all over the place. But he was in agony until I knocked his rotten teeth out with my axe handle.”
“So I earned Asved’s cloak after all,” said Skarga softly, nudging it closer beneath her cheek.
Hakon had started to unbuckle the pony and the cart shafts bumped to the ground, rebounding briefly and then settled into the ruts. “I’ll let you loose,” said Hakon after a moment, leaning over with his knife. “But I’ll take you into the Althing hall and lock you up there. You can have your brat with you. But don’t try anything. Not curses, nor running away. Not until I see what father says.”
The noise of the fight had already brought Ogot outside. He strode over to his two squabbling sons and kicked them both. Banke had a mouthful of blood and a flap of Asved’s ear between his teeth. Asved, streaming blood from the mangled ear lobe, had ground both fists into Banke’s eyes. Kicked from behind, they both lashed out, then recognised their father’s boots, and sat up meekly.
Untied, shaking and exhausted, Skarga followed her eldest brother off across the dimming slope. The back of the chieftain’s longhouse had always been used as the court of justice and the Althing hall. Its door locked with keys as long as her forearm, and inside it was encircled in benches with clean reeds on the floor. Hakon pushed Skarga inside, Egil scurried behind her, and the key turned, grating like a small storm.
The first time neither roped nor shackled in four days, Skarga neither laughed nor danced. She threw herself flat on the ground and sobbed. Egil crouched over her, rubbing the painful muscles of her neck and shoulders, easing the pains down her back. “Hush, hush, my dear,” he whispered. “You’ve still got the knife.”
Skarga rolled over and took his hand. It was very small and bony and cold and she squeezed it, and then brought it to her face where it became wet with her own tears. She kissed the little palm although it was exceedingly dirty. “Darling brat. Yes, I know. But all we’ve been through! That foul trip to the Sheep Islands and the horrid dreary fear of being there for all that time, wondering about murder in the night, and about how to get away. And then killing that bastard Grimr and you being so good and so brave. And then the storm. But we made it through that terrible sea and got back to land, to the sweet safe land of our birth but down south where the sun shines hotter and the people eat well. We even found work, and that would have kept us going until winter passed again.”
“But like I said, you’ve still got your knife,” said Egil, retrieving his hand. It was very wet and squashed.
“What’s the use?” said Skarga, wiping her eyes. “Not with Banke and Asved and my father watching me. And I’m crying from bloody temper, not misery. Though of course, there’s misery too.”
Stars and a Wind- The Complete Trilogy Page 11