“Well, I’ve got a plan,” said Egil, curling closer and whispering again.
“You always have plans. Usually they don’t work.” She blinked, looking away. “Nor do mine.”
“This one will work,” Egil said at once. ““And you won’t need the knife. Keep it hidden for another day. Now listen.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Skarga accepted the cup of water. “So exactly where we started,” she whispered, “back in the same place and still under threat of death. But worse.”
“Well, you’re still alive my dear,” Tovhilda said. “And blessings come from unexpected hands, they say.”
“Not this man’s hands.” Skarga gave back the empty cup. “I’ve passed a long summer running from one place to another. And I’ve still arrived back exactly where I began.”
The dusk gathered its shadows close and the men of the vik came trudging back for the evening’s meal, interested to see strangers, fine horses and a chance for news, gossip and feasting. From across the fields and the darkening farms, heavy now with sweet high grain almost ready for harvesting, the tenants and lease holders heard the rumour of guests and plodded in, their wives trailing behind, still tucking up their curls beneath hurriedly pinned caps.
The small hall where the Althing gathered backed the longhouse, and shouting now over each other, the voices from that place could be clearly heard. Skarga heard too the spit of the fire on the hearth, smelled the roasting of a boar or the hapless sow now too old to breed, and a wrenching hunger dragged her closer to the wall. There were cracks between the log planks. She squinted through, but the scrum of bodies allowed little light. She recognised the voices that interested her most and although their conversation occasionally lapsed into the general murmur of the crowd, much was distinct. With some interruption from two of her brothers, she was listening to an argument between her father and the man who called himself Grimr the Bard. “But the other lying bastard said he was my cousin too,” complained Ogot. “He claimed kinship. He claimed your name. Bugger it, he was a bard alright, and good stories he told too.”
“You clearly know nothing of poetry,” murmured Grimr, his voice softly insulting. “A sea captain? A sweating ugly brute of a salt grimed sailor, and you took this creature for a skald?”
Ogot was blustering. “And how was I to know? He took my silver and said he’d finish her. That was at the beginning of summer, and now even before harvest’s in, the girl’s back under my roof again.”
“Not for long,” Grimr’s voice smiled. “But I want full pay, and extra weight - as I told you. Find that, and I’ll deal with her and give you a guarantee. If you want it, I’ll bring you back her head. A leg, perhaps? Take your pick. I’ll cut the slattern in pieces and salt her in a barrel. I’ll bring it to you after winter when the passes melt.”
Skarga imagined Ogot’s expression. “Well, yes, very generous, but I don’t need any of that. Though after being cheated once -”
Asved’s voice. “It’s a good idea. Chop the bitch up, packer her in brine and bring the keg back here. I’ll drink the water and turn the pieces on the spit. I’ll have her tits for supper.”
Grimr said, “I see you harbour another poet in your family, cousin. But we could dispense, I believe, with his colourful presence.”
“Fuck off,” said Ogot quickly, presumably to Asved. There was a pause and the sound of a scuffle. Then Ogot continued. “My sons were never close to the girl. Cursed, of course, makes the skin crawl. Well, she’s caused nothing but trouble and we want free of her. You can name your price, but I’ll pay the major part after the job’s done.” Another pause. “No need to look that way. I’ve been cheated once, and lost a good amount of silver. But you can trust me. After all, we’re cousins.”
An interruption, Hakon’s voice... “But we don’t want to see it done. Take her far away somewhere.”
Grimr’s smile was audible. “Frightened of the curse, cousin?”
“Certainly not,” said Hakon. “But I was fond of her once. Used to take her on my knee. Pretty thing she was, toddling around with her big baby eyes and fat little fingers. Still pretty, come to think of it.”
Ogot spoke over him. “Not that I care about all that,” he said. “Do what you like to the girl. Far as I’m concerned, she’s no longer my daughter. Get her well away from here and kill her quick. Or slow. Whatever takes your fancy. Rape her, don’t rape her, I don’t give a fuck.”
“Rape? There is no such thing as rape.” Grimr’s voice remained soft. “Perhaps you assume a woman has the right to refuse a man, and to be willing or unwilling. But she has no such right. All female creatures are simply receptacles, and as such, open to any man’s whim. But I do not have whims. I make only disciplined decisions, and I shall make my choices accordingly. What I do will be my business alone once I am paid, but I give you my guarantee this particular female will never survive the autumn.”
“Well then,” said Ogot, “that’s alright then. I believe we understand each other.”
“I doubt it,” said Grimr before moving away. “Your understanding is unlikely to stretch so far. But that hardly matters. Find sufficient silver, and I will take the girl away tomorrow. The boy would cost extra.”
“Oh never mind about him,” said Hakon. “We can deal with the brat ourselves.”
A more orderly feast, the local bondi impressed with the richly dressed strangers, echoed into the final twilight, summer’s days still longer than the stubby black nights. It was Egil’s plan that he and Skarga were discussing in whispers, barely breaking the shadows, when through their own concentration and the wooden walls between them, they heard the Skald speaking. The hush in the feasting hall intensified as Grimr’s voice swelled rich and strong.
There was no lantern in the little Althing hall, and no candle. It was the bard’s songs which brought shimmering light and the thread-fine voice became the silk twined spindle for a tapestry of starspun visions. Some were the same stories that Skarga had heard him tell before. Others were new.
There was a girl who loved a dolphin, and clung to it and rode with the great sea creature into the wild darkness. Every word swam as seductively harmonious as the encroaching waves themselves. Grimr described the girl’s loving, her need and her desperation. He told how the dolphin came to her when she sang to it, and how she climbed its back and rode it, clasping its neck, quivering with her own desire. He described how her mouth filled first with declarations of adoration and yearning for her lover’s great black tear filled eyes and the smooth steel of its arching body. But the love making of a sea breathing creature is a tumultuous rapture which will snap the body of a human, and so denies life. Instead of kisses the girl’s mouth was filled with the ocean’s cold black water and so, broken and bleeding, she drowned in the dolphin’s embrace.
Skarga went to sleep crying.
She dreamed not of the sea but of the sky. She was drowning in air too wild to breathe. Something carried her onwards and up. She called to be released, that she could not aim so high, but the wings beneath her flew on. She was lost and frightened and turned, to cling, desperately, to the thing that bore her. She heard Egil’s voice singing somewhere close and turned to find him, but instead saw the huge golden globe that blazed like fire, and thought it was the sun. It touched but did not burn her and then she knew it was an eye.
When she woke up, she was still weeping. Egil had crawled beside her again. “Listen, bad dreams don’t matter. I have them all the time. Just remember the plan we made last evening.”
Skarga rubbed her eyes and nodded. “Yes, of course. I cry too much these days, don’t I? I never used to.”
“Just remember the plan,” said Egil. He had put his cloak around her in the night. The huge weight of bearskin was like the body of a lover. She pushed it off.
“Keep this yourself. You get colder than I do.” As she folded it away, her hand touched the hard dried blood where each small fibre stood stiff and black amongst the fluid white. “Be
sides,” she said very softly, “we still don’t know where it came from. But it was given to you.” Egil pulled it around himself again. “I won’t let them kill you,” she said, not looking at him. “You believe that, don’t you?”
“I won’t let them kill you either,” mumbled Egil. “But we need more than one little knife this time. If we get our new plan right, it’ll work.”
“This Grimr is even stranger than the other one,” said Skarga, folding herself into the far corner where the draughts missed. She wrapped her arms around her knees, and rested her forehead on them. The bard had told Ogot that no woman had the right to refuse a man. Even her willingness was irrelevant. She served man’s purpose and that was all her value. But he sang songs passionate with emotion, rich with knowledge of those most feminine of a woman’s feelings and of smouldering, ardent need. He repeated words of love so often that his stories whispered of a magic beyond male understanding. Stories told in the dark, lit brighter than any candle, then extinguished in bitterness. From the beginning Grimr had been two men in two places, and now it seemed that even within the same body, he was two men again, once soft, one cruel. “I don’t like my family,” Skarga said. “But they’re simple and straightforward and dull. I used to think all men were like that.”
“Most men are,” said Egil.
“Well, the farmers and lease men are mostly brutal and stupid,” said Skarga to her toes. “The jarls are too. The law-complier, for a man who spends so much time whipping women, well, he’s not too bad. Sometimes he tried to be careful, you know – and not hurt too much.”
“Nice,” smiled Egil. “The kindest man you know is the one who flogged you.”
Skarga sniffed. “But Grimr – both first and second - they’re not only bastards, there’s something unpleasant – contradictory - something not right.”
Egil lost his smile. “I don’t want to talk about the real Grimr. But this one, this one’s nasty. He enjoys humiliating us. He’d enjoy killing us too. Which means we have to get away, so remember the plan.”
“Your plan’s very clever,” Skarga said. “I think it’ll work with my father. It’ll work with Hakon and Gunulf and even maybe with Asved. And Banke doesn’t matter anyway. But the plan won’t work with Grimr. You know that, don’t you?”
“I’m going to kill Grimr,” said Egil very quietly. “I killed the other one, when I didn’t want to. This one, I want to.”
It was when Skarga was called out to face Ogot that the plan began to breathe. Ogot was pacing. He did not look at Skarga directly and instead fiddled with his hair, brushing it back from his face with a patient interest in grooming rarely demonstrated before. He also seemed to find his boots unusually interesting. “Well, it’s no good pissing against the wind,” he said. “You’ve guessed it all now anyway, so I’ll say it straight out.”
“You’ve had me kidnapped, taken across the world under threat of death, then brought back here as a prisoner,” smiled Skarga sweetly to the top of her father’s head. “Yes, I think I’ve guessed by now.”
“Well, it was never decided by the Althing,” Ogot admitted, an unusual concession to truth. “I made my own decision.” He stopped pacing. “You’re my daughter and I’m the chief. I’ve a right to make my own decisions if I want to.”
Skarga, making full use of her extra height, had positioned herself with the sun, what little there was of it, behind her back. “Well none of the jarls around here are going to take my side against you, are they?” she said. “And since I’m your own family and have neither mother nor mother’s father, there’ll be no vendetta to bother you after I’m gone. So I’m already dead. And you think you’ll be safe.”
“Safe?” Ogot squinted up into the sun, eyes watering. “I’m not worried about safe, stupid girl.”
Skarga smiled. “Really? I thought it was my curses you were frightened of. I imagined you were seriously worried about being - safe.”
Ogot turned his back on her and stared into the distance. He was controlling the sudden urge to slap her hard. “Punishment. Not safety. You’ve spread curses since you were nine or ten and I want rid of you. Simple as that. It’s up to me as your chief and your father, and I’ve decided.”
“Well,” said Skarga to his back, “I appreciate the nice clear explanation. That makes it easier for me too.”
Ogot turned around again and looked at her with suspicion. “It does?”
“Oh yes,” smiled Skarga. “I’d hate to practise all my most interesting curses without full cause. I mean, I’m sure you appreciate I want justice for myself. But I wouldn’t want to make you all suffer unfairly. Now I’m quite clear, so I can go ahead without holding back. Don’t worry. You’re my father and I know my duty, so I’ll make yours quick.”
Ogot’s face was changing colour. A wild infusion of blood was pumping upwards behind his eyes. “Quick what?”
Skarga’s smile, held vice-like with some considerable effort, widened. “Oh, I’m sure you can guess.”
He knocked her down, which she had expected, and it hurt only because her entire body was already bruised and stiff. He then stomped off, nodding to one of the hovering slaves to take his daughter back into custody. The slaves were wary too. Skarga struggled up, brushed herself down, and marched again to the door of the little hall. Back inside she grinned at Egil, who had been listening at the keyhole. “Well?”
“Not bad,” said Egil. “It’ll be interesting to see what happens next.”
Skarga’s smile diminished. “You do know, don’t you,” she said, “that I can’t actually do anything. There won’t be any helpful accidents. We’re just going to have to rely on threats.”
“I know that,” frowned Egil, “but there’s luck too. Not that I think we’ve ever been particularly lucky, but things do happen sometimes. Like Banke’s toothache. The longhouse burning. Things like that.”
“Nothing like that’ll happen again,” said Skarga. “But I don’t think father can afford Grimr’s price yet, so he won’t drag us off too soon. I’ve got time to try and frighten them all. And if Asved just decides to kill us himself, well, I’ve got my knife and I’ll do my best.”
Tovhilda spread the sun bleached cloth on the bench and squatted wide hipped beside Skarga, patting her hand. “Your father has lost his wits,” she said.
Skarga shook her head. “He never had any wits. He’s no different to always and never will be.”
Tovhilda grinned. “I’ve brought you extra porridge with shredded herring too, and it’s a fine mead, one I made myself last summer, full fermented. It comes of the wild honey from the buttercup slopes. Not as sickly sweet as some.”
“Your mead is the best. Tove would spit if she knew you’d wasted it on me.”
In the evening, Skarga was despondent. Egil had both the gripe and the sulks. They had seen no one else for the day’s full length. Then Tovhilda came again.
“I’d expected some word from my father or brothers before this,” Skarga told her step-aunt. “Or from the bard Grimr.”
“Well you won’t,” Tovhilda clanked the cups down with a smirk. “Not today. First with scandal from the widow Gudrun. My dear, the woman’s husband is three years dead with his head cleaved in two when boar hunting, but she claims she’s with child, and swears it’s his. Delayed seed, she says, and no one to deny her. Well, I told her, if you’ve had that man’s seed tucked between your legs all this time, it certainly means you’ve washed very little. No doubt the babe will be three years grown when it’s born, and will walk upright from the womb.”
“I don’t quite see -” murmured Skarga.
“Gudrun blames you, says you’ve cursed her,” nodded Tovhilda, slopping down the bowls of hot cabbage soup. “But there’s even better news. Our dearest Tove has gone down with the pox, and the household’s in glorious chaos. You’d think it was Ragnarok. There’s so many spots, she sucks on them inside her mouth and all across the tongue. Screeching, she is, which doesn’t help your father’s nerves, nor t
he wretched woman’s spots either. When I combed her hair this midday and scraped the top off a pustule, well she well nigh yelled the roof off. Spat her break-fast in my face.”
Skarga blinked. “The pox? It might please a few, since Tove’s so unpopular amongst the other women, but the pox always spreads. The children, the old - . “
“And Ollaf’s poor wretched wife,” Tovhilda nodded. “Hope Ollaf gets it, nasty bugger. If he wasn’t the best archer in town, well! But lets off ten to a count of fifty he does, I’ve seen him, and your father thinks he’s next to a god. Anyway I hope the slimy bastard gets sick and dies.”
“If his wife dies, they should throw him into the burial mound with her like they used to do with the women.”
“Your precious bard’s keeping a careful distance and most of his retinue have left.” Tovhilda nodded, setting the beaker of ale beside the soup bowl. “Galloped back to their holes like mice chased by hawks, they did. Being shut up here has done you a favour after all. Who knows how many of the rest of us will get the itch, though I’ll warrant it’s the lesser pox, not the fierce yellow. I just hope I don’t get it myself.”
“I certainly hope not. And you’re being so kind.” For late summer and the season of the small famine before the harvest was fully ripe, Tovhilda was generous with her rations. “Does father know how much you bring me?”
“Oh, of course not, and why should he be interested in a prisoner’s rations?” said Tovhilda, leaning against the door jam and taking the weight from her deformed foot. “Shame it’s too early before the wheat’s brought in, or I’d have made you the best frumenty in the vik. For now, with Tove safe tucked away, I can do what I like. Well smeared with blisters, she is, and will be suffering for some days to come.”
“Now that,” said Egil, passing the soup bowl, “is mighty interesting.”
Stars and a Wind- The Complete Trilogy Page 12