Swan's Path

by Asotir

  * * *

  IN THE YARD Olaf greeted Ulf and gave him a horn. That Ulf took thankfully and drank off at a swallow.

  ‘Now,’ said Olaf, ‘what is the word you bear, and is it well or ill?’

  ‘I see little enough of cheer in it,’ answered Ulf. ‘Njal Thoroldsson has granted shelter to Killer-Hrap. He vowed his help in the lawsuit, gave him a silver ring and has betrothed him to one of his cousins, Alof. Hrap grew drunk with this. He boasted then of his ill-will for this hall. And Njal sat there across from him, and nodded, and said never a word against him.’

  Olaf went up and down before the halls, twisting at his beard. He had heard already of Hrap’s coming to his hall. ‘What time was this?’

  ‘Only this forenoon.’

  ‘Yet maybe Njal knew not my wife had thrown this fellow out.’

  ‘That I deem unlikely: Hrap himself told the tale, and Njal nodded when he heard. I know not how Hrap could have reached the Breidamerk so swiftly. I rode as hard as ever I might to give you warning. But sure enough, Njal was no slower with his favors than Hrap or I with a horse.’

  Olaf nodded. There were no wet gleams from his eyes now, but they glinted from beneath his brows, like two swords whose peace-strings have burst. ‘Tell me then, what the priests at Breidamerk had to say of this.’

  ‘What should they say? Hrap holds to the cross, and Njal says he granted him mercy. The tale is, Hrap turned Christ-man grieving over all his slayings. But no necklet changes such a man.’

  ‘There we are of a mind.’

  They went back into the hall. Olaf crossed through the folk and sat again in the carven highseat beside his bride. The dark woolen cloak fell across Olaf when he sat there, his face dark like night over the white shirt. Gudruda watched him with worry in her eyes. Olaf did not look at her.

  ‘Well,’ he said at length. ‘Now Njal has taken on Killer-Hrap as one of his kinsmen, the very day after we vowed there should be peace between us.’

  ‘You see, father?’ asked Swanhild. Some would have said she laughed.

  Olaf scowled. For a space his waxing rage took the years from him: his eyes flashed like copper mallets now, and his face fell dark as blood. ‘Was this what you prayed for, daughter?’ he asked.

  She said nought: but there was for a twinkling a spark of fear in her eyes, and she looked away. Then she looked back and gave her father stare for stare, until at last it was Olaf who looked away. Then the black-haired girl shrugged and stood and walked to the women’s door. She put a mantle about her shoulders, and went out once more into the night.

  Swan-Shift

  Editor’s Note

  There comes a gap now in the manuscript, covering the events of early Summer of that year. This matter may now be lost forever.

  From other accounts, however, and reasoning backward from what is told of in the later pages, it seems Swanhild went that summer to the Althing with her father—though Gudruda stayed home. The Althing was the annual gathering of chiefs and free steaders of Iceland, during which all national lawsuits would be argued and settled. And since this was the great coming-together of all Icelanders, the only one of its kind, the political parliament served also as a sort of fair, during which horses were raced, trades were made, old friends met, and marriages were settled.

  Again Njal meets with Olaf, and Olaf tries to delve into just what the younger man’s intentions are, and why he has taken Killer-Hrap into his following. Njal meanwhile again seeks Swanhild’s hand in marriage, and Swanhild insults him and laughs at his anger and his pain; little she cares this time!

  This year the Althing buzzes, for the outlaw Skarphedin has found passage home, and walks above the herders like a red-handed ghost of a grim past. He meets his foster-brother Njal heartily, and Njal seems almost embarrassed to feel also glad to see Skarphedin. Several chieftains call to Skarphedin across a gap in the ridges that overlook the Althing rift, and ask if he means harm in coming back, and whether he will not go back abroad in peace. Skarphedin says he wants peace, but that he will abide awhile in Iceland. None can guess at why he came back, and what he looks for.

  When the chieftains, the godar, depart, little liking the answers they get, Swanhild watches Skarphedin across the gap. She likes the look of him, though he is nowise a handsome man, but big in body, with long arms that bear the marks of many scars, a weathered, battered face, and a skeptical sour turn of the mouth. But his eyes twinkle brightly whenas he answers the godar’s questions. And he seems to like the look of Swanhild in her blue dress with the silver belt. Skarphedin knows that belt, and the two talk somewhat on her mother, whom Skarphedin admired above all the other women in Iceland.

  Also are told the first tales of Skarphedin’s wanderings and deeds abroad during his outlawry. Skarphedin had several run-ins with Jarl Haakon the mighty, and those two were foes; Skarphedin never wins a home, but he does wed Ingebjorg the Fair, and she bears him a son. But that goes bad, and mother and child both die, but the why of that is lost now. And Skarphedin had a brother-at-arms, Glam, who was a berserk, and died somewhere. Skarphedin in the end goes to Miklagarth, that was what the old Norse called Constantinople, and joins the Emperor (or King, as the vikings called him) of the Greeks as part of the Emperor’s Varangian Guard guard, antedating the famous Bolli Bollason.

  Late that night Swanhild goes apart, and bathes in one of the hot springs that dot the region: for the Althing plain sits atop the rift that splits the Atlantic. It is very late, but midsummer in Iceland has no dark; the sun but dips below the horizon for an hour, then dusk brightens into dawn. Skarphedin finds her there, for he has kept an eye on this bold-eyed maid and followed her. He takes up her dress on his pike, and makes comment on how swan-maidens whose shifts are stolen, are beholden to the man who takes them, and must do as he bids them.

  She tries to protest and send him away, but he has none of it, and rapes her in the bath. The rape is brutal, and she seriously fights against him, but he masters her.

  The next morning she appears at her father’s booth, and he is at first cross, but when he sees her belt with the silver buckle broken, and the bruises on her cheek and wrist, he is concerned, and even angry. She relishes his anger for a moment, but then tells him who it was, and it shocks him. She asks her father if he is willing to fight and kill Skarphedin for the affront, but it seems clear Olaf is unwilling—mayhap even afraid. He seems then shocked when, next moment, she asks him to let Skarphedin have her in marriage. ‘Has he made an offer?’ he asks. She answers, ‘No, but it is in my mind that is likely.’ ‘We must hope he never does,’ Olaf says. ‘For that would be the worst of turns.’

  That day the godar meet and talk over this matter of Skarphedin. Njal urges that his foster-brother be forgiven. Olaf seems grudging, but supports Njal. Others side with them, mostly for peace. Still there are those outspoken against Skarphedin, chief of them Sturla, the Speaker of the Law. But just when matters seem to be dividing evenly, and tempers rising, Sturla seems to change his mind. He proposes a middle course: let the judgment against Skarphedin stand to one side, for a space of three summers. If Skarphedin lives peacefully in that time, and does no man harm, then on the third Althing hence, the judgment against him will be undone, and he will be allowed to live in Iceland just as if Hoskuld still lived. Olaf wonders at this change of heart in Sturla, and suspects something; Njal likely sees the catch, but takes the deal—perhaps he would not seem hard-hearted. This way he has done his best, and much for Skarphedin, and the popular esteem for Njal will grow; and should Skarphedin play the bully and undo the agreement by violence, that will be lain on Skarphedin’s fate, and Njal will not be blamed.

  Skarphedin meets with Njal, thanks him for what he has done, and asks him a further favor: to go with him to Olaf, and bargain for Swanhild as Skarphedin’s wife.

  Meanwhile Hallgerd sits and stews. She is Hoskuld’s widow, and can never forget or forgive Skarphedin for killing her husband. In all these years she has lost no edge to her anger. Now
she goes from booth to booth, seeking vengeance on Skarphedin. But no man seems eager to face him, unless it be Killer-Hrap, the only one who claims not to be cowed by the looks of the outlaw.

  Swanhild meets with her father, and bullies him into accepting Skarphedin’s suit. Olaf is hard against it, for he knows it will bring only trouble, and maybe even ruin upon them all. But he cannot deny his daughter this thing, for he sees in her eyes such gladness as he has not beheld in all her grown-up nights, not since she was a girl. And he knows that, however perilous it might prove, this wedding is his daughter’s only chance at happiness.

  And so Skarphedin arrives at Olaf’s booth, leading Njal behind. Njal has let his foster-brother talk him into suing for the hand of the girl he wanted to win himself; and clear enough is Njal’s hope that Olaf will turn down the suit. But Olaf agrees. And though Njal speaks gently, this turn of events clearly galls him. Now Olaf’s fears of a bad end rise accordingly. But Swanhild only laughs, for she has what she wanted, or thinks that she does…

  Thief’s Thrall

  One

  SWANHILD AND SKARPHEDIN were wed in the long hall at Hof later that summer. Sixty guests were bidden there, and there was mead flowing with curds and meat and fish and cakes aplenty. Skarphedin sat across from Olaf, but Swanhild sat in a high seat on the cross-bench on the dais, amidst the other women. Gudruda, redfaced and muttering, served them. That was a handfast wedding: Swanhild took the Hammer on her knees and was blessed; and in the waxing strength of the mead, she almost felt the hand of the god upon her. There was gift-giving then, and Thorgrim’s bawdy jests and poor Erik’s pale whey-face. But to Swanhild the long hall stretching before her seemed shrouded in ice and snow through her veils; wherefore all at once she shuddered and asked for more mead.

  Nine nights ran that feast. Mostly Swanhild and Skarphedin lay abed in the sleeping-booth set up for them hard by the hall; nor did Swanhild wear more than a bed-shift and flowers in all that time, and then but to steal out to the cook-room to gather them food. It was empty when she crept there, save for once: then she fell on Gudruda and Njal Thorold’s son, and Gudruda was saying something of the stuff they used to kill the hall-mice, of mushroom-dust Olaf had learnt from Swanhild’s mother. Those two fell still when they saw her, and just as softly she took up bread and meat and cheese, laughing aloud only when she fastened the booth-flaps shut behind her and tumbled again into the outlaw’s bed.

  But when Skarphedin slept, then Swanhild lay wakeful beside him. She held up her hand and turned it. There was his bed-gift to her: that old ring of Thorold Skeggi’s son, that was said to grant good luck or long life. Fair was that ring upon her hand. Swanhild lay still and glanced up at the bowed-in canvas walls, her eyes all but shutting. And it seemed to Swanhild then that she might see outside the walls out to the long hall, to the hay-piles and swine-sty and sheep-cote, and all those places in the garth where she had seen all the winters of her life till then rise up and fall away. Then all at once she sat up and looked on the great tun of her husband’s warmarked body. She looked at him fiercely, with long narrowed eyes, so that for a while her mother’s seeming was strong upon her. Then she lay back against him, held him, and slept.

  Olaf let flit their goods up to the shieling on the Skaftafell, on a grass-ridge over the Skeidar. There in that turf hut they would stay that summer, but in the winter move into a hall nearer the sea, that was yet a-building. Swanhild and some of the carlines made of that hut a fit home. Skarphedin set up an old waraxe of his over the door: Swanhild did not let him clean it even though he said its stains were nought but rust.

  Beyond the hut their sheep grazed in a mead between the mountain-walls. Kol saw to them: his kin had a small stead below the fell, and Olaf paid his wages through that winter and the two after. Kol helped Skarphedin mend the roof; Swanhild watched them. Then she saw how Kol looked on Skarphedin, warily and with some fear. That pleased her better than if he had loved him.

  And on their first morning there, Swanhild rose early, for that night she had not slept; and when she went out to fill the water-bucket, then a hawk was perched over the gable, and it screeched and rode the winds down out over the dun-hued hay-fields far below. From that she named the place Haukshofn, Hawk’s-Haven.

  Skarphedin went east to fell wood in the Breidamerk. Swanhild milked the ewes; in that she had help from some girls from neighboring steads, but their names are not remembered. Swanhild too saw to bringing up the driftage and fish and meal. Some days Swanhild went down off the fell to help with the hay-mowing. There they made their hands rough with mowing and tying up the stacks; but the end of it was this, that the fields were smooth and wide and strewn with whitish hay-piles fair to behold. But Swanhild did not linger there long, but rode back up the Skaftafell when the sun swung to the north.

  Some days Swanhild left the door open and looked out often down the fell. She went out into the rain, and came back in wet through, and spoke sharp words to Kol.

  Then Gisli, that was Kol’s younger brother, ran one day up the fell and told Swanhild these tidings: that Skarphedin was come back from the Breidamerk and his guesting at Njal’s, and was then at their stead. Swanhild did not wait but rode down after him: found him by the door a-talking with Kjartan and some other carles. They laughed together as if they had been bairn-brothers, and Skarphedin seemed at home there. Swanhild scowled and spoke scathing words to him, and they rode to the shieling in silence.

  Then for some nights Skarphedin abode at Haukshofn. Days he spent overseeing the building of their hall; nights they spent together. Swanhild bade Skarphedin tell her all there was to tell of his long farings: of his quarreling with Jarl Haakon the Mighty, of his fighting in Tyrkland for the King of the Greeks, and of poor Glam the Berserk and his end. Swanhild greatly loved these tales. All of them but greatened her wonder at those lands across the sea.

  ‘How I hate this little land,’ she said. ‘Anywhere else would be better.’

  ‘So your mother would say to Olaf, and in much the same way. But she had traveled far, and you have never been anywhere else.’

  She answered, ‘Even so, I know my mind in this. And you must vow to me that one day you will take me away, and we will leave Iceland behind forever.’ But he would say nought to that, and there the matter lay.

  Things still did not run all smoothly between the men of Hof and the Breidamerkurs. More sheep were missing; and Skarphedin had seen too much fleece caught in the bushes in the Breidamerk.

  ‘And if you found the thief, what then?’ Swanhild asked him.

  ‘Then I would see. But I would go to Njal first.’

  ‘Kill him,’ Swanhild answered. ‘Vow to me that you will kill him, Skarphedin, no matter what man it turns out has done it. Scatter his blood-mark about on the ground, and let me watch you do it.’ She spoke these words laughingly, but with a shortness of breath.

  At that Skarphedin frowned. ‘Did you ever see a man slain? Then I would not be the one who shows you first.’

  ‘Then let the deed be hidden from my eyes, so long as you tell me all about it afterward.’

  Then she took his beard in hand and kissed him deeply, and that was all they said about it.

  Two

  ONE DAY OF a forenoon there came a knock on the shieling door, and the war-axe over the door leapt in its place.

  Swanhild was then alone, and churning butter. She called out,

  ‘Skarphedin my husband is not to home, but has gone east to buy ponies. What will you of him?’

  ‘Not with your husband but with you, house-freyja, would I deal,’ said a voice from without. ‘I am a pedlar and have a cartload of goods.’

  ‘Go to another stead, old man: there is nought of yours I will buy today.’

  ‘You know not even what I have in hand,’ he answered. ‘What then if I buy goods of yours?’

  ‘I will sell nought that is mine,’ she said. ‘We have little enough here, old one: go down to Hof, and Gudruda will deal well with you.’

>   Thereupon she heard him laugh. ‘That is not the tale that I have heard,’ he said. ‘Well then, house-freyja, if you will not, then you will not. But will you give me no drink on this thirsty day?’

  But now Swanhild chafed at the old man’s wheedling tone, though she had lost none of her misgivings, and she answered somewhat shortly, ‘That the water of the Skeidar is cold and good, and there is a bucket on the peg by the door.’

  ‘O woman, you know me ill,’ he answered, laughing still. ‘I will drink nought but mead. But I have tidings for your husband.’

  ‘What will you tell me, then?’

  ‘This: that you should tell Skarphedin Kalf-back’s son that there are some men that are awaiting him, and that they will welcome him well.’

  ‘What men are those?’ she asked sharply; but the old man answered only, ‘He knows them well enough; but good go with you, house-freyja, even if you will not go with it.’

  Swanhild left off churning for awhile: heard the sound of wheels go creaking up the path. She looked to the door mistrustfully, but went back to churning. Soon enough that was done, and she set out the butter to shape it; but she took up a stave and unbarred the door and stepped out.

  There was no one about. Bright was that day and blinding. Then down far below her on the path Swanhild saw three figures mounted on ponies. They did not ride but were still. On the midmost of the three the sunlight gleamed.

  Swanhild did not call Kol but took up a bridle, caught her pony in the mead and saddled it with sheepskin. Then she rode down. She rode slowly, that her pony might be seen to go fairly down the path. Those others still stood waiting.

  Now the middle one kicked horse and rode alone up the path toward Swanhild, and they met at a turn where there was a little break in the woods and the flowers sprang forth. She wore her long fair hair ungirt, and had on a new dress of white and scarlet, that shimmered in the sun; but Swanhild’s hair was bound in her wimple, and at her hip she had her bunch of house-keys, and she wore her daily dress and an apron, dusty and sweat-marked.

  ‘That was not my wish, that I should be seen upon this fell,’ said the woman: ‘but ‘luck will seldom be trained to hand.’ But now you have caught me, I guess you will have some words for me.’

  Swanhild answered, ‘Only this would I know, Hallgerd: why it is you come through our lands by the high paths like a thief.’

  ‘My road led me hither. But I had no mind to take the hospitality of law-breakers. And you seem ill-turned out to greet any guests, welcome or not.’

  Now Swanhild’s cheeks went red, then white. She answered, ‘Whither then are you bound? For it could be none too soon for me to learn that you had reached there.’

  ‘Yet a ways farther on than here.’ Hallgerd tossed her head. She was older than Swanhild by almost ten years, but even so had lost no whit of her loveliness, that had smitten hard so many men. ‘I was bound for the Breidamerk, but maybe now I will not get so far: I have heard tell there are murderers hereabouts, hall-burners and the like, and dirty cross-men besides; now I have met the daughter of one and the concubine of the other, and I think maybe my road will not be easy.’

  Thereupon Swanhild smiled and answered her, ‘That I knew your errand lay not with us, for that you brought only two with you, and those dull fellows besides. I have heard that Hallgerd Vemund’s daughter is much sought-after: now I well believe it, for with so sharp a tongue you will make a fine fishwife. But so it seems to me, that when our men have met, mine had not the worse of it either time. What seek you at Breidamerk?’

  Hallgerd laughed shortly, and she said, ‘That was ever the way of concubines and bed-thralls, that they ask after what is none of their business.’

  ‘This is surely my business, for my husband is Njal Thorold’s son’s foster-brother.’

  ‘I had not heard you were wedded,’ Hallgerd said. ‘Only that you were wish-wife to an outlaw. But you pester me and I have no fear to tell you: I am bound for Njal, and I will ask him to loose his hound Hrap, and rid this land of a wicked man. Oh, that man may sleep soundly henceforth, for if I have my will, then soon he will have a warmer bed by far.’

  ‘Burning folk will bring greater outlawry.’

  ‘That seems no longer true. But that was never the law, that any man should be held to account if he slay an outlaw.’

  ‘Njal will never work so against Skarphedin,’ Swanhild said. ‘This is an empty errand of yours, and you were better off at home weaving.’

  ‘That I shall see. But maybe Hrap is man more than hound, and needs not Njal’s unleashing. Then I shall see if I cannot offer him something that will please him.’

  ‘Go back westaway and take again your wimple, Hallgerd: get you some other dull husband and grow fat. You will not soon find a man on this land to match my husband. Nor will it be tomorrow when Hoskuld will make you love-songs and follow you with his lamb’s-eyes.’

  ‘I think instead I will go on, unless you will bar my way with weightier things than your beseechings. I have still a ways to go, and would not sleep this night without walls and men between my back and all hall-burners.’

  ‘Go then, Hogni’s-freyja, but first I will give you a last word, and it is this: that had Hoskuld lived, then it seems likelier to me that he should have been called a “cunt-coward” before ever your husband. And it seems unlikely to me that you will get much good out of all your wanderings; but I think the worst we will have to fear is that you will put on gored breeches, like a man’s, and do a bit of Aud of Saurby’s work. Now that is all I have to say to you.’ But Swanhild laughed out loud, seeing the look that came over Hallgerd’s face.

  Now Hallgerd sat in silence, but not for want of trying to speak. Sweat broke out on her brow, and red flecks showed on her cheeks; her eyes bulged out and her tongue stuck out of her mouth; and she was not so lovely then. She cast a glance down the hill, to where her men waited; then at length she was able to say,

  ‘That maybe was one word too many, concubine: for that, time will tell. But at any rate, I wish that you will not forget it soon, for I never will.’

  Thereat she pulled hard on the leads and rode down and away eastaways so swiftly that her men might scarcely overtake her. Swanhild watched them go until they were out of sight. Then she sat down on a stone and leaned against her knees. Her eyes were wide and her mouth open, and her flanks heaved as if she had had a hard run.

  After some while she bethought herself of the butter and led her pony back up the path. Above her, through the trees on either hand, she could see the walls of Vatnajokull gleaming.

  Three

  SKARPHEDIN CAME BACK that even from fishing with the men of Hof. Swanhild told him of those words of the pedlar’s, but she spoke no word to him about Hallgerd. She did ask quietly of the carles and carlines whether any of them had met with Vemund’s daughter. No one had seen her, but the word from the east was unsure.

  Then it was toward the end of middle-summer, when Skarphedin went once more to fell wood in the Breidamerk. It was not long before he came back. There was then a hard look in his eyes. He grinned to Swanhild’s greeting and set to sharpening his waraxe on a stone beside the doorway. Kol happened to be nearby. He went to the shieling’s corner and leaned against it, but said no word.

  ‘What does this mean?’ Swanhild asked.

  ‘An end to sheep-stealing,’ quoth Skarphedin.

  ‘Do you call to mind my words on it?’ he asked. She nodded. ‘Yesterday too I saw the marks: a trail of them, and it led where none of our sheep should rightly go. I followed it up into the Breidamerk, far from where I was felling wood.

  ‘There is a mead there between the glacier-tongues: that was sheep-full, and those sheep bore your father’s mark on their horns. There were no men thereabouts. I fared down into the wood again and came upon a clearing, and there was the greatest reek in the air: some men were making charcoal.

  ‘I went to them all mildly and asked them what they knew of the sheep. They pale then and mutter, and one sa
ys it was no business of mine, for none of my sheep had been taken. Then he would give me their friendship and a share if I would keep still: “for we know of that settlement about you, that the godar made,” he said: “for three winters you have no rights, and will get them in the end only if you be good. So you must take what any man will give you, though once men spoke big words of your briskness.”

  ‘I answered, that I knew the law over me as well as any man, but that they need not press it on me so sharply. At that they laughed, and that is the way with foolish boys and sheep-drivers. But it was none of my mind to be cross with them, for I would know what man stood behind them. This they took wrongly, and did not hold back their taunts: then my face waxed hot and cold and I heard a roaring in my ears. But for all that I held my peace, though that was the hardest task.’

  ‘What then?’ Swanhild asked.

  Skarphedin shook his head. ‘It will not please you.’

  ‘Speak on,’ she said. ‘Would you have others tell me what you will not?’

  He would not tell her at first. But she bade him to it again, so that at length he said, ‘they fell next to praising me, and told me what a good match I had made.’

  ‘What then did they ask you, Skarphedin?’

  ‘Kol should not be here,’ he said.

  ‘No, but I will not hide it from any man,’ Swanhild answered, reddening, ‘so let Kol stay and hear it all.’

  Skarphedin took up the axe and turned it in his hand. ‘Well then, one said to me how he had heard tell of the ways of Finn-women; and some men claim that all things run true in close kin and among women most of all. Then he bade me tell him the truth, since I should know, being now bedwise both of the mother and the daughter.’

  Swanhild held her tongue awhile. Then, ‘What was your answer?’ she asked.

  Then Skarphedin grinned. ‘Why, then it seemed easier to me. I took up a stone that was neither light nor dull, and weighed it in hand. I said then I might not end their quarrel, but held their friendship in high measure, as they knew I must, since they knew so well the godar’s’ words. “So I will not scathe you as I ought for your filthiness, but rather I will honor you above common men, as I would Thor himself.” Thereupon I threw the stone so that it drove into his brow and he fell down dead. The others took fright and fled fast away; but one I caught and killed. I put out the fire and went to the nearest neighbor and gave notice of the killings. So here I am.’

  Then Swanhild looked over to where the Skeidar leapt whitely: and it seemed to her her heart leapt likewise, and she all but laughed. ‘And did you tell Njal of this?’

  ‘No,’ he answered: ‘that went clean out of my head; all I thought of was to come back so we may gather men to take back the sheep.’

  ‘But were they not Njal’s men?’

  ‘That is my mind. Now I will go to Hof and lay this out before your father, for he is godi here and they are his sheep.’

  Swanhild took off her apron. ‘I will go too: Kol, you will see to matters hereabouts. Maybe this will rouse him at last!’

  They went to Hof, and found there many men in the garth. Thorgrim was there too, and greeted Swanhild thankfully. ‘It’s good you come now,’ he said. ‘If anyone might bring us back the old Olaf, it will be you. Else our choice of godi this year will not be so simple as it has been.’

  ‘Why, who else seeks it?’ Swanhild asked.

  ‘There is no one yet so bold, or else it might be his already.’

  ‘You would not forsake him, Thorgrim?’

  ‘Didn’t he forsake us? What of his seaborne god, then? It would be one thing if he upheld it strongly himself. But how are we to take up a thing that has made such a woman out of him? Gudruda and the Westerling rule Hof now. And what about our sheep?’

  ‘We come about those sheep,’ Skarphedin said. ‘They are found.’

  ‘Rare is good tidings! Where are they?’

  ‘In the Breidamerk.’

  Thorgrim scowled. ‘But that was no more than I looked for.’

  ‘I will take the doom-ring and vow Njal knew nought of this.’

  ‘There is no doom-ring hereabouts, Skarphedin, nor at Breidamerk either. That was cast out and broken when they tore down and burnt the temple. And what is Hof without a temple? No blood-offering has been made since winter’s end. Now the catches are less this summer; and I am not the first to say so.’

  ‘How bad are those catches?’ Swanhild asked. ‘Do any starve hereabouts? Is the hay less this year, or more? Thorgrim, I took you for a wiser man than that.’

  ‘Well, but it was ever my mind that all things else were fitter than this, to come to utter worthlessness and lie bed-ridden. And Swanhild, I didn’t think you were a Christ-lover.’

  ‘Then you thought rightly. Now this much needs to be done: you must gather men, go to the Breidamerk and bring back the sheep. Appoint witnesses to show that you find them on Njal’s lands; bear your weapons and be unsparing in your blows. So all may yet turn out well.’

  ‘If we are lucky, maybe we will find the stuff to make your offering, Thorgrim,’ said Skarphedin; and he grinned.

  Now all those men rode off eastaways, following after Skarphedin. But Swanhild went apart from them up to the long hall. That seemed very big to her than. Home it had been; now it was odd. Up over Hardbein Oxen-Hand’s old scarred door a new-wrought rood-cross had been set upon the gable. The door opened wide and the Irish priest stepped out: smiled to her and greeted her and held the door for her. Somewhat less mild Skarphedin had been when he had picked up the stone in the Breidamerk.

  It was gloomridden in the hall, hushed and nearly empty. Daylight shone through the gable window and the smoke-hole, on the smoke that was whitish. Therein the highseat stood, still and barren save for its old carvings. All the window-slits beneath the roof-beams were shut up and dark. Most of the folk were out in the fields, on errands or gone fishing. An old woman, Thorkatla, sat weaving on a loom in the back. Orvar-Odd sat with some children by the door. He looked on Swanhild as she went in. Swanhild halted on the fire-stones, turned and looked him in the eye.

  Then one of the children ran in and whispered to the others: they clapped their hands, whooped, and went out to see the war-party set forth.

  At the sound Gudruda came out from behind the highseat. She was frowning and fingering her house-keys. She saw Swanhild, and her frown shifted. ‘Weary and weak is your father,’ she said. There was weariness in her voice as well. ‘Can’t this errand of yours wait?’

  ‘No.’ Swanhild stood fair and hard before the older woman. ‘Where is he?’

  Shouts and hoofbeats sounded through the open doorway, and the boys’ high shouts. Gudruda scowled and shut the door.

  ‘My husband lies abed.’ She went into the hall, beyond the highseat, toward the cook-room. ‘Mind you be still in this hall, and don’t upset him with wicked talk.’

  Swanhild’s eyes flashed, but she said nought. She went behind the highseat to her father’s shutbed. The hangings were drawn to. It was black beyond. Swanhild stood agape at it, until Gudruda came back beside her.

  ‘How long has he been like this?’ Swanhild’s words were almost a whisper.

  ‘Nine nights now,’ Gudruda answered. ‘It isn’t a big thing, but it isn’t quick to leave. I don’t think he has been fully well since that night when he came back from the Breidamerk. He sat up all the night long, his trousers all wet and his shoes muddy. Ah, I should have seen to it that he put on dry garb. And he waxes old.’

  ‘He is fifty-three,’ Swanhild said angrily.

  ‘I know,’ Gudruda agreed, fingering her keys. She took up a lamp and lighted it with a straw. Beyond the open hangings little could be seen. ‘Olaf, my dear,’ Gudruda murmured. ‘Are you awake?’

  Warily she thrust the lamp in deeper. Over the bed a mound of blankets rose in great lumps. The shadows of the roof-roots moved weirdly with the lamplight. Something gleamed brightly on the wall over the bed. Beneath that, at one end of the blanket-mound, was
a wan face, that bore little seeming to Olaf Sigurd’s son’s. The lamplight shone off two eyes and the spittle that ran out of one end of the mouth. The old man looked up then, and greeted his daughter.

  Swanhild stepped in before him. She looked up, away, down and back. But she said no word.

  ‘Yes, I’m me,’ he said. He smiled. ‘this is where Gudruda has put me. Wife, will you warm fish-broth for me? That I think should help.’ The light shone off his upper lip below the nose-holes: his nose was runny.

  ‘Swanhild, mind you don’t upset him.’ Gudruda went out, and those two listened to the sound of her keys jangling. Then all at once Swanhild stooped and put out the lamp. She moved again as though to sit, or leave: awkwardly she stayed standing.

  ‘Father,’ she said, but her voice fell away dismally.

  ‘Now,’ Olaf said; his tone was almost his own. ‘What tidings do you bear?’

  She shook her head: lifted her hands and did off her wimple and the copper pins binding her hair. That she shook out free; but still she stood oddly, like a guest in an odd unfriendly hall. ‘It seems years since I was last here,’ she said softly.

  ‘Swan,’ the old man said, ‘what has befallen you?’

  ‘Oh,’ she answered, ‘I know of nought newer than this, that the Breidamerkurs have stolen many of your flocks.’

  Then Olaf was still. ‘A hard thing to prove,’ he said.

  ‘Skarphedin found sheep up beyond the woods, and they bore your marks on their horns. Nearby men made charcoal: Skarphedin went and asked them what they knew.’

  ‘What answer did they give? And what did Skarphedin do then?’

  Swanhild told him.

  Olaf mulled the matter over in his mind. Then he said, ‘Tell me of that first man Skarphedin slew.’

  ‘Skarphedin tells that he was short, with a wry black beard: his arms were knotty, and one eye was bigger than the other. Over his shoulders he wore a cloak, that was brown and lined with red. His shoes were sealskin.’

  ‘That might be many a man,’ said Olaf.

  ‘Father, you know that man well: that was Trygvi Kari’s son, and Njal’s own grieve. Now, he did not come to my wedding, when all men were here: and I wonder why?’

  ‘Well, that is what I thought,’ Olaf said after a bit. ‘Did Skarphedin give notice for the killings?’

  ‘Straightway, to the nearest neighbor, all in line with the law.’

  ‘Then he will never have his rights again. Old Sturla is clever enough, I ween. Njal will ask no small atonement for Trygvi, and I must pay it. Your husband has cost me money now.’

  Just then Gudruda came back in: sat on the bedside and spooned the fish-broth into her husband’s open mouth. When that was done, Olaf thanked her, and said, ‘Now I would sleep once more.’ He coughed, and spat up stuff.

  Swanhild stood at the door as if she would go. Her breath came and went in quick little gasps, and her hands shook: it was as if she might not go, neither might she stay. Then she cast up her eyes toward that thing gleaming over the bed: that was Olaf’s old sword. He had won that sword and used it in his youth across the sea, and it was said that Swanhild’s mother had sung a spell into that iron, that it should sing out when foes were near or death close at hand. Now Swanhild pushed past Gudruda, took down the sword, drew off its scabbard and thrust it into the blankets near Olaf’s face, so that he must reach up and take its handle in his hand.

  ‘Now,’ said Swanhild, ‘do a man’s work.’

  Gudruda stood back against the wall. Outrage leapt in her eyes; her mouth was gaping. Olaf frowned at Swanhild, but said no word and did nothing.

  Swanhild fell back to the doorway. Pale was her face, and she might not keep still. She laughed shortly. Then she left.

  ‘I can’t believe the child!’ Gudruda said.

  ‘Her birth lies behind it,’ Olaf said. ‘Make your peace with her, Gudruda: that is my will. But I think she dreams no true dreams.’

  Now Gudruda straightened the blankets and kissed Olaf’s brow. She asked if there were aught else he wished of her: he answered, no. So she took up the bowl and the sword and scabbard and went out. She pulled the hangings shut behind her. She gave the bowl to Thorkatla, but the sword and scabbard she locked up in the back of the highseat, hastily, as if they burned her hands. Softly then she crept back into the shutbed and sat in silence on a chest by the bed. The blackness there closed round her like a hand, and she shuddered.

  Gudruda ran the farm now, as well as the household; and this was the busiest time of the year. Harder than any thrall she worked, all day long and long into the night. It was starting to show in her face and eyes. She had lost weight and her skin was slack. Willfully, almost endlessly, would she pray for the farm, for Olaf and for her faith; she was hard-hearted to any show of pagan ways; and yet all seemed to be slipping backward out of her grasp. Kjartan the priest was now her only strength, and the sight of the new church they were building.

  When the carles had first told her of the missing sheep, she had flatly forbade them the roughness they had used against the Breidamerkurs last winter. But she had sent Kjartan to Njal with her words, spoken as if they came from Olaf. The priest had come back with this word: that Njal knew of no stealing but should find out the truth, and grant Olaf all the untrouble Olaf had granted him aforetime. That had soothed her somewhat, but not fully. In truth she did not know what to make of Njal, whether to trust him or not, even though he was so worshipful a follower of the Christ and Kjartan spoke highly of him.

  Now in the smoky shutbed her eyes were closing, and she could feel herself sliding wonderfully off to sleep—then she started guiltfully and stood. There was no time for her to be resting, there was still work. As she shut the curtains behind her, she noticed Olaf’s daughter sitting on the edge of the fire-pit with Orvar-Odd. Gudruda thought to herself then, that she ought to go to the girl and soothe her. She wanted to do as Olaf had asked; and it was her duty to put down all unfriendliness she felt for others. But something held her back for a moment; and then fear of Swanhild’s sharp tongue, as she told herself, made it seem a task unbearable. She turned away, and told herself she would give Erik a message for the girl later.

  The thought of Erik helped uphold her. He grew up a goodly young man, and was foremost in learning. Now he was out fishing with the other young men. Gudruda touched the cross around her neck as she went out through the women’s-door into the bright cloudy day, and gave another little prayer for her son’s good luck.