Stars and a Wind- The Complete Trilogy

by Barbara Gaskell Denvil

  Skarga sat still. “I don’t understand.”

  He frowned. “I am already well aware that you are stupid,” he said, “but I believe my instruction was sufficiently simple. I ordered you to raise one leg, and show me your foot.” Very stiff, thighs squeezed together, Skarga did as she was told. Grimr regarded her hovering heel and his frown deepened. “Your feet are not clean,” he said, “and the skin is coarse. In the morning before you come to me, you will wash thoroughly. I’ll order a whetstone sent with the water. You will buff the soles of your feet until they are smooth. Are these instructions clear enough?”

  Skarga sniffed. “Yes.”

  “Even your limited understanding has grasped the salient facts? Very well. Now, I shall show you how to dress properly in men’s clothes without ruining them.”

  And he did. Skarga sat very quietly and let him dress her, flinching when he touched her intimately, He pulled the britches up and began to loop the ties alternatively to the links on the waist band. “Do you see?” he said. It was, she supposed, quite simple once he showed her. The front opening was folded right over left, and kept in place with the top loops. He concentrated only on the material, the strapping of the trouser leg around the turn of the stockings, straightening the shirt so that the collar lay symmetrically. The scar on her breast, being quite healed, no longer interested him. The back of his hand brushed against her naked skin but it was never seductive, never calculated. Once she was covered, he ordered her to raise her arms and then slipped the thick tunic over her head. “Normally of course,” he said, “you would now use your belt, but not buckled too tightly since there’s no need. Your clothes will no longer fall, nor trip you, nor fly open. Tomorrow I expect to see you properly dressed.”

  She slept well and when she woke she obeyed Grimr’s orders, first washing and then dressing with considerable care. She was ridiculously excited.

  Outside she found not Grimr, but Ingmar, and was immediately disappointed. Ingmar held the wolfhound Bram on a tight leash while the dog strained against its restriction, growling low. Ingmar smiled, though the leather appeared to be cutting his palms. “The lord Grimr has asked me to keep you company until he arrives. He went hunting early, but I doubt he’ll be long.” The dog pulled again, snapping. Skarga moved away and walked slowly over to the archery target. She was free. Ingmar made no attempt to stop her. She wondered if he’d loose the dog if she started to run, and she decided he would. Instead she stood by the sad wooden stag. “I think,” she told it, “your conversation will be slightly more interesting than Ingmar’s.”

  The stag continued to squint. “I gather,” said the voice behind her, “you have no particular liking for my senior huskarl?”

  She hadn’t heard his approach over the spring of grass. She’d expected him to be on horseback. Pivoting one footed, she turned quickly, seeing the sudden flash of sun on steel. Instinctively she raised her hand. The knife was thrown so the hilt spun directly to her fingers and she caught it, clasping the weight of it, perfectly balanced and snug in her palm. She found she was out of breath. “Can I keep it?” she said.

  “It is Ingmar’s knife,” smiled Grimr. “Ask him. Now, take a deep breath and attack me.”

  Skarga blinked. “What if I kill you?” she said.

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” said Grimr. “Now, you have two options. Attack either with maximum force and violence, or with some element of surprise. Since it is highly unlikely that you can surprise me under these circumstances, you should choose force.”

  “Well I’m not going to get very far with that either, am I?” scowled Skarga.

  “Try,” he said. She ran first towards him but then darted to his right. The knife in his right hand swung quickly to intercept her but as he moved, she thrust out her foot and tripped him. He kicked back and sent her tumbling, but she rolled and sprang up with the knife to his chest. He slapped the blade away with his own and grabbed her other arm, flinging her to the ground again. He held his knife point forward but made no thrust. Skarga rebounded and swung her own knife half circle, aiming up for his face. Avoiding it easily, he threw her once more. She cracked her knee against the obdurate stag and it crashed backwards. Skarga turned to face Grimr again and rushed him, head into the chest. Instead of holding her off, he grabbed her hair, forcing her head downwards so she stumbled onto her knees. He had defended without attacking, but she was quickly breathless and sore. She jumped up, stabbing sideways with the blade point. He caught her wrist and flung it away. She stepped back, gasping, regaining control of body and breath. Then she ran again. She thought, this time, she might hit him at least, only a glancing blow perhaps, but enough. It was only as the knife edge touched the fold of his tunic that he stepped aside, so quickly that she fell forwards, unable to break her impetus. Frustrated, still on the ground, she turned and threw the knife directly at his groin.

  He laughed, smoothly catching the hilt, tossed it high, catching it this time by the blade, then presented it back to her, hilt first. “Good,” he said. “You are a better fighter than an archer. These will be more rewarding lessons.”

  They fought each day after Grimr had returned from early morning hunting. Once Asved was with him. From the back of his horse, her brother looked down at her with some curiosity. Skarga saw him most evenings but he stayed close within the company of the jarls and ignored her while she avoided being anywhere near him. She knew he went hunting most mornings with Grimr. Now they sat together, Asved’s mount, a coastal pony from Ogot’s vik, a little smaller, Grimr’s own horse taller, the contrast between the black and the blonde. Asved’s black hair had grown long but he kept the dark beard short. His eyes were as black, said Skarga, as his heart and his eyebrows met across the thick bridge of his nose, a solid cross tee like the religious symbols of the Saxon monks. Grimr, grey eyed, was russet gold like the dying fire as he looked from Asved to Skarga, then turned back to Asved. “Give her your cloak,” he said.

  Asved jumped as though scalded. “My lord? Why should I?”

  Grimr sighed. “This monotonous determination to question my requests! Do I need a unanimous decision from the Althing? Did you not tell me that the cloak belonged to your sister and that it was payment for a service she did you? Did she not arrive here still wearing it?”

  Beneath the scrub of his beard, Asved was blushing. Skarga had certainly never seen him do such a thing before. “I paid her for something she said she’d never done,” said Asved, stumbling over the words. “That is, it was done but she admitted she didn’t do it. I heard her. So I took it back. I’ve every right.”

  “Your explanation is becoming confused,” said Grimr. “And you are forgetting one very important thing. I am your host and have asked you to do this.”

  “My host, yes,” grumbled Asved. “But not my lord. I only answer to my father.”

  “Oh dear,” said Grimr. “How unfortunate to have to remind you of the laws of hospitality. You arrived here as my guest but brought no gift, which is quite unacceptable in civilised society. I have fed and wined you for two full turns of the moon. I should hate to have to point out that you are considerably outnumbered and will only add that my request is within the normal traditions of host to guest.”

  Asved wrenched the brooch from the right shoulder of the wolf pelt, and flung the cloak at Skarga. It enveloped her and she disappeared beneath it. Blinded, she heard the horses ride off and the faint echo of Grimr’s chuckle.

  That night Asved was excessively drunk but once again cheerful. Ingmar, following instructions, was telling him what a fine hunter he was. Skarga kept the cloak at the end of Grimr’s bed, where it added to the swelter of covers.

  The next day it rained. Winter was drawing its strings tighter and soon the rain would turn to blizzard and the blizzard to snow. The days were shorter, the scramble to restrict work to the daylight hours becoming harder. Skarga expected Grimr to cancel lessons but he did not. On his return from hunting he dismounted, dripping a curtain of water from his
cape. He read her surprise. “Would you refuse to follow your king to war unless you considered the weather sufficiently placid?”

  “I wouldn’t follow anyone to war at any time,” said Skarga, the rain scrimping her hair into ringlets.

  “War,” nodded Grimr, “is a fool’s greed. If you are attacked, however, defence is advisable, even when it rains. But it is not sufficient to suffer, resist or reconcile. You must learn to turn disadvantage to advantage.”

  He turned and Skarga saw behind him the pale boy astride a small blonde pony, sitting patiently, expressionless. The rain had darkened his hair, and had soaked his clothes. He made no attempt to brush the pouring wet from his face, or lift the hood of his cloak over his head. He sat, and waited.

  Grimr lifted his knife and with a curving feint, abruptly attacked the boy. Skarga gasped. The boy lifted one boot and kicked the knife directly from Grimr’s hand. It spun, its arc dulled by the force of the rain. Then he slid quickly from the pony’s back and drew his short sword, facing the man. Grimr grinned, drew his own long sword, and attacked again. Skarga darted back. Grimr swung the sword at the boy’s neck, aiming low. The boy ducked and ran, head down, sword point at Grimr’s crotch. Grimr twisted, grabbed the boy’s hair and swung him. The boy threw up his right hand and sliced Grimr’s attacking wrist, a neat cut straight below the thumb. Grimr grinned and spun the boy by his hair, wrenching him into the mud. The boy sprang up, feet slipping in the mud, but sprang again. The two swords clashed, the rain danced in an explosion of droplets, Grimr struck out with his boot and the boy tripped. As he fell, he dragged his sword down, cutting Grimr’s leg across the knee. Grimr was bleeding from knee and wrist. The boy was unharmed, but flat on his face in the puddle.

  “Now get up,” said Grimr pleasantly, “and fight the girl.”

  The boy wedged himself up bottom first, and sat cross-legged on the ground, coughing and wiping the mud from his eyes. He glared up at the man. “No,” he said.

  “But you lost,” Grimr pointed out.

  “That’s a matter of opinion,” said the boy, staying down. “I drew first blood.”

  “Tiresome child,” Grimr sighed. “Those are not my rules, which you know full well, and it is my rules which count. I can hardly draw first blood, since I refuse to draw your blood at all. Now, do as I say. Get up and fight the girl.”

  “No,” said the boy, staying in the mud. He looked sulky. The rain, which was relentless, had washed his face. “I don’t like being touched. I won’t touch her.”

  Grimr’s eyes narrowed, the heavy lashless lids small clouds across their grey suns. “If you disobey,” Grimr said quietly, “I will strip off your britches and spank you in front of her. And I will not use my hand, as I did last time, but the flat of my blade. I expect obedience, and your absurd rebellions tire me.”

  The boy folded his arms and glared up. “She doesn’t want to fight me either. She’s wondering if she could get her own knife into your back while you’re busy being boring with me.”

  Since it was exactly what Skarga was thinking, she was momentarily startled, and dropped her knife with a damp thud.

  Grimr sighed. “Will you rid yourself of the habit of believing I don’t know these things,” he said with exaggerated patience. “Now, do I beat you, or do you obey me? It seems a fair choice.”

  The boy unbent in one leap, heels to standing, and raised his sword. He stood before Skarga and stared morosely into her eyes, shuddering slightly, though not from the cold. He was considerably shorter, and she was diverted by the soft infant roundness of his cheek, the long flutter of eyelashes and the angry blue blink of his eyes. The boy immediately flung his sword into the mud at her feet, swept around and stalked off. “I can’t fight someone who thinks I’m a baby,” he said over his shoulder, and disappeared into the sluice of blinding rain, back towards the longhouse.

  Grimr watched for a moment and then turned suddenly. He bent, retrieving Skarga’s knife from the mud pool.

  “Now -” And with no warning, he threw her knife at her feet, and swung his own, edge arching, down the length of her leg. It bit through the tough flax of her britches and into flesh. Bleeding heavily, she stumbled back and reached for her own knife where he had thrown it. Then she sprang directly towards him. He had not expected it.

  Her knife sliced into his lower arm, near the point where she had first wounded him, a long time gone, along his wrist and hand and across the deep wound the boy had already given. Immediately below the open bleeding gash where the old scar lay pale, the flesh opened. Since they had been fighting together, it was the only time he had attempted to hurt her and it was also her first hit. Her thigh was pouring blood but she almost danced.

  “I got you,” she said gleefully.

  The cut from her knife was as deep as the wound the boy had caused. The rain was reducing the evidence but Grimr was generous. “Indeed. Not enough to disarm me, but certainly enough to gain some respect from an adversary. I had expected you to fall back and recover from your own wound, but you did not. It was well done.”

  She was absurdly flattered. “If I kill you tomorrow,” she said, “will you order your people to let me go?”

  “If I am dead,” he said, “it will be a little difficult to give the order.”

  “Then give the order now,” she said.

  He seemed amused. His wrist continued to bleed, and so did his knee. Her leg was still pumping and the blood was black down her torn britches. He took no interest in either. “Unfortunately,” he said, “I believe you have learned quite enough. You have proved you fight well. Your use of the knife is now more than adequate. You understand the imperatives, you accept the inevitability of pain and you do not surrender at first failure. Tomorrow I shall teach you something quite different.”

  She was disappointed. “That’s not fair. Just because I hurt you.”

  “Ah yes,” said Grimr, turning away, “an appropriately absurd accusation. But you see, as it happens I intend letting you go anyway, in a few weeks perhaps. It depends.”

  She stared. “A few weeks? Letting me go?”

  “Oh dear, repetitions again,” he said, taking her knife back as he did at the end of each lesson. “A great deal depends on how you behave from now on. Strive to be worthy of the future I am offering you.”

  She had never felt so grateful. Imprisonment had changed her. She knew it, resented it, and yet had been beaten into accepting it. “Thank you. I will,” she said. The intensity of her smile shone through the rain.

  CHAPTER TWENTY ONE

  That night Grimr pointed to the untreated wound in her leg, and the torn, stained ruin of her britches. “Take them off,” he said.

  He had never raped her. She had expected it - prepared herself and dreamed the nightmare. But although he often hurt her, he had neither raped nor attempted to kill her and now he had promised her freedom. So she obeyed willingly. Grimr took the bundle of spoiled cloth, slid open the closet door and threw it out. “Show me,” he said. She stretched out her leg. The blood had dried into a black rivulet. “It hurts?”

  “Yes,” said Skarga.

  He traced the outline, smoothing his finger tip down its length. Finally he leaned back, slid the door open once again, and called for a slave. “Get someone skilled at nursing,” he said. “This must be washed and treated with herbs. But not bandaged. I want it left open.” While it was done, he watched. His own shallow cuts were already forgotten, untreated, no longer bleeding.

  The slave woman had brought bandages. “My lord.”

  Grimr shook his head. “I ordered no bandaging.”

  “Lord,” whispered the woman, “this is a deep wound. If it isn’t bandaged, it won’t close. Then the scar will grow ugly and wide.”

  “I know,” said Grimr.

  In the morning women’s clothing was again brought to her and Skarga was disappointed. On top of the pile were two huge brooches, each solid silver and carved in swirls like whirlpools in the ocean. When dressed, she w
ent outside. It was still raining and had not stopped all night. Grimr was leaning against the trunk of a great pine. She went over to him.

  “Thank you,” she said. “The brooches are beautiful. The clothes are too. But they’ll be ruined in the rain.”

  “The tree behind me,” said Grimr. “Climb it.”

  “In skirts?” said Skarga in surprise.

  He didn’t smile. “You must learn a woman’s habits again. I shall give you the initial hoist upwards, but you will then climb as high as you can.”

  She had learned not to ask why. “It seems a remarkably odd request,” she said.

  “It is not a request,” said Grimr.

  Skarga walked around the base of the tree and stared upwards, taking account of each of the lower branches. It would not be easy in britches, certainly not in a long tunic and shift. She said, “I don’t think I can do it. Can I have my boy’s clothes back?”

  Grimr said, “If you are concerned about me looking up your skirts, then remind yourself that I have only to order you to take them off entirely. It would hardly be the first time. Would you prefer to climb naked? You would then be less hampered. I should find the resulting scratches interesting.”

  Skarga sniffed and circled the tree again. Then she sat on the ground and removed her boots. Finally she went over to Grimr and put one stockinged foot onto the clasped hands her held out to her. He swung her up and she grabbed the lowest branch. The pine needles were in her face but she pushed past them. The rain momentarily blinded her but she continued climbing, judging each hold before reaching for it, hauling herself as high as she dared. Her soaked skirts slunk around her ankles but she clung to each branch until she trusted the next. Finally she could go no further. The upper branches were too fragile and she knew they could never support her weight. She looked down. For once Grimr seemed quite small. “I’ve finished,” she called. “There’s no more way up.”