Two Ravens

by Cecelia Holland

  He let her go on the bank. Before she was dry she scrambled back into her rags of shift and dress and hose. Bjarni sat down on the grass to let the wind dry him.

  “You bastard,” she shouted. “You whore’s son. I hope a snake eats you. Let the Great Snake eat you! I hope you drown. I hope you hang.”

  “If you are coming with me, Gifu, stay clean.”

  She called him more names and gave him more wishes for his death. Running out of wind, she stood staring at him. Her skin was like milk; her drying hair gleamed. Under her gaze he put his clothes on.

  “You are not going to do anything,” she said.

  He started back along the stream toward the road. She ran ahead of him to the horse and climbed into the saddle. He watched the river; among the mossy stones something gleamed at him, faded and gleamed again, a fish. Gifu’s horse crashed through the high grass after him.

  “I’m sorry. I thought you were going to. You know.”

  “What?”

  “You know.”

  The brambles tore at his clothes, his bare forearms. They reached the road, higher than the land around it.

  “Why don’t you want me?” she said. “Am I too ugly?”

  “I love someone else,” he said.

  The horse clopped along beside him, its head lowered. She held the reins in her fists. Bjarni put one hand on the thick mane of the horse.

  “The road is good here. I’ll run until I get tired, and you can ride along.”

  “Who is she? Is she of Fenby?”

  He broke into a run. The horse loped heavily along beside him. They went at his best pace along the road, through the shade of the trees.

  THEY CAME TO A TOWN on a height of land above a little river. The plain below the town was busy with swarms of people. Booths of stone and turf stood here and there on the meadow, and people were unloading wagons and talking and making games.

  Curious, Bjarni went around the field, stopping before each of the booths to look over what was happening there. He kept his hand on his wallet. In crowds there were always thieves. A boy passed him, trailing a stink of goat. The meadow grass turned swampy under Bjarni’s feet, and he veered back toward higher ground.

  The stone and turf walls of the booths reminded him of the booths at Thingvellir in Iceland, where the Althing was held; but here the booths had been spread with goods for sale and show. There were stacks of cloth, and pots, iron, cheese, trays of fragrant bread, jewelry and hides and bunches of herbs, and an ale-shop. After the quiet of the road he enjoyed the noise and the jostling crowds, and here at least he understood the speech. He passed a man and a woman on horseback talking in a language he did not know, maybe Norman French. Beside an empty wagon, three young men lounged in the grass, tootling on pipes, patting a little drum. Bjarni paused to listen. A girl rushed by him, laughing, flowers wound in her dark hair.

  Other young people joined them. Bjarni moved out of their way. They danced, the boys in a ring facing in, their hands joined, and the girls in a ring in the middle facing out. The dance was simple, three steps, a few kicks, and a turn; then they stopped and everyone kissed. Bjarni laughed. He went off toward the ale-shop.

  Gifu reappeared beside him on her horse. He walked slowly around the field, his hand on his wallet. She followed him, her reins slack.

  “See what I found.” She held out a length of green ribbon.

  “Found or stole?”

  She shrugged, admiring the ribbon in her hand. “I will put my hair in it. Here. Help me.” She gave him the ribbon and slid down from her saddle. Gathering her hair in her hand, she turned her back to him.

  While he was fastening the ribbon around her hair, three or four horsemen rode by, shouting in French. They wore their hair long as women’s, and ribbons fluttered on their hats and full sleeves.

  “Normans,” Gifu said. She patted her hair down. “They say the Jarl of Lincoln is here. Maybe the king, even.”

  Bjarni was looking back at the ale-shop. The tankard he had drunk there was making him thirsty. He said, “Don’t steal anymore. You will get yourself in trouble.” He went back toward the booth, swarming with people.

  Gifu led her horse after him, and he bought her a tankard as well, and two loaves. They sat on the grass watching the crowd. Normans studded it, riding, their gaudy clothes and the harness of their horses chiming with bells.

  In the afternoon a sudden storm turned the plain to a mire. The last daylight dried off enough of the ground to let a dust cloud rise. Hoarding his money, Bjarni stopped drinking, fell sober, and got a headache. Night came. The people lit bonfires and danced around them. They made noisy love in the grass. Gifu left her horse with Bjarni, making him promise to watch over it, and went to join in the dancing, the drinking, the laughing. Bjarni tethered the horse to a tree and fell asleep beside it.

  He woke in the deep night. Girls were singing nearby him. He sat up. A line of boys and girls was snaking around the field, holding torches and singing; the boys answered the girls. They danced off into the wood. Bjarni sat watching until they returned a few moments later. The two girls leading the parade bore a birch tree over their heads. All the branches had been cut off save a few at the top. They carried the tree all over the field and at last put it on end in the ground and fixed it fast with stones.

  Bjarni slept again. When he woke, Gifu was sitting beside him, yawning. She smelled of flowers.

  “Look there,” she said.

  Arm in arm, a dozen young men and girls were crossing the plain toward them. They sang at the top of their lungs. After them came a creature made of leaves, strutting from side to side. Green boughs covered it from its pointed head to the ground. It wore a red cloak and a wooden crown, and as it went along it waved its leafy arms solemnly from side to side.

  “The King of the Green,” Gifu cried. “Let’s go get his blessing.”

  She towed Bjarni by the hand in the wake of the procession. The King of the Green circled the field behind his singing court. They passed two Normans on tall horses, who trotted forward to block the leaf-king’s way. They were laughing. The King of the Green bowed so deeply that his wickerwork frame tipped and Bjarni, behind him, saw his muddy stockings. One of the Norman knights swept off his belled hat in answer. His shining hair slid down over his shoulders. Laughing, he turned his horse and cantered away. The King of the Green did not move; he looked uncertain, sapped of his royalty. Gifu swung around, her hand on her stomach.

  “I am hungry.” She glanced at Bjarni, sly, over her shoulder.

  Bjarni’s stomach was empty. He touched his wallet, reluctant to spend more money. He turned the back of his head to her, saying nothing. She skipped away. The King of the Green moved off again, heralded by singers.

  Gifu returned. Her sleeves bulged.

  “Do you know who that was? Who met the May-King? It was the real king! It was Red William.”

  Bjarni scanned the crowd. The long-haired Norman was far across the plain. He had heard odd talk of him, even away in Iceland. Gifu poked a long cake into his hand.

  “Eat.”

  He let her feed him. They walked past a woman selling milk from a bucket. Gifu’s cheeks bulged with sweet cakes.

  “He went up to the May-King for a blessing, neat as a monk selling pardons.” She shook her head. “As if he deserved it. Such as him. By rights not a seed should sprout in England while he is king.”

  It was true, then, what he had heard of Red William. Ahead were several shouting boys. Bjarni swerved his course to look beyond them. In the midst of boisterous people were two men sitting on a bench with their feet and hands and heads in stocks. The little mob around them pelted them with dirt and stones. He took Gifu by the arm and pulled her away.

  “Where are you going?” she asked.

  “I should not let you steal.”

  She laughed. Squirming out of his grip, she ran away across the plain toward her horse.

  Near the ale-shop there was a grey wolf chained to a tree. A loose rin
g of men stood watching it. A stout stick was bound between its jaws. The wolf lay with its head on its paws, its back to the tree. Every few moments it snarled in a low rumble like stones rolled in a keg.

  “That’s the biggest wolf in England,” said a man nearby.

  Bjarni had never seen a wolf before. “It looks of an ordinary size to me.”

  The man strode up to him. “That wolf could take down a horse.” He was drunk, and head and shoulders shorter than Bjarni.

  “I could take down a horse,” Bjarni said. “I could take down that wolf.”

  “You’re mad.”

  Bjarni took his wallet from his belt and jangled it.

  “Mad.” The Englishman wheeled. “Hear! Listen to this—this fool says he will fight my wolf.”

  The other men pressed around them. The Englishman who claimed the wolf sneered up at Bjarni.

  “Now shake your purse at me.”

  Bjarni opened his wallet, took out six shillings, and passed them under the Englishman’s nose.

  “By yourself,” the Englishman said. “With no weapon.”

  The others began to argue if it could be done. The Englishman stuck out his hand to Bjarni and they shook on the wager.

  More men were crowding around the tree. Gifu had ridden her horse over behind them to watch him. The Englishman called for help. He and two others used a heavy staff with a fork at one end to pin the wolf to the ground and took the stick from between its jaws.

  The wolf lunged up, throwing its weight against the staff, and knocked it aside, and the Englishmen scurried out of the way. The wolf reared against its chain. Its growls made the watching women shriek.

  Smiling, the Englishman strutted over to Bjarni again. “Think once more, big man.”

  Bjarni tossed his wallet over the heads of the crowd to Gifu. He hitched his belt up with his thumbs. To the Englishmen, he said, “After I go within the chain’s length of the tree, if I leave again without winning, the bet’s lost.”

  “You are mad.”

  “What are you doing?” Gifu cried.

  Bjarni walked up to the wolf. It crouched back, baring its teeth. Its yellow eyes were like beacons. When he came within its range it flew at him. He ran past it, jumped across the swinging chain, and as the wolf wheeled to meet him gripped its fur with one hand, behind the ear.

  The beast snapped at him. Its breath reeked. He lifted it off the ground at arm’s length. It was much heavier than he had expected. He seized its tail with his free hand and laid the wolf down on its side between two roots of the tree and put his knee on its shoulder. With the other hand he held its head to the ground.

  “Enough?” he said to the Englishman.

  The little man was wagging his head from side to side. “Enough,” he said. “You have won.”

  They put the stick between the beast’s jaws again and tied it, and Bjarni let it go. The Englishman paid him. The watching crowd boomed with deafening cheers. A fat woman plowed through the fringe of people and kissed him.

  “Come into the bushes, dear, I want a taste of that myself!”

  Gifu clutched his arm. He got the wallet back from her and put the money into it. Fists pounded on his back and shoulders and hands waved around him, trying to touch him, and passing tankards up to him. He drank off three cups of ale as they came to him. A horseman wedged his way through the crowd and shouted at him in French.

  Bjarni tucked his wallet into his belt. He turned away from the rider, whom he could not understand. Another woman gave him ale and he drank.

  “Bear,” Gifu cried. “Didn’t you hear him?” Her face was pink. “He’s from the king. He has a message from the king, Bear!”

  He lowered the flagon of ale. Beyond the waving arms and heads, the fair-haired Norman king was watching him from the back of his horse. Their eyes met. King William smiled. Bjarni gulped down the rest of the ale.

  DRUNKEN, LAUGHING, the flower-decked boys and girls hauled the King of the Green by his hands down to the river and threw him in. They cheered.

  “When will you see the king?” Gifu asked. She turned her horse away from the river.

  “At sunset.”

  “I’ll go with you.”

  “No.”

  “Oh, you must. You must let me go. Please?” Leaping down from the saddle she clutched his arm and hung on him. “Please?”

  He pushed her away.

  “It isn’t fair!” she cried.

  The King of the Green was trying to swim across the river. The wickerwork costume buoyed him up so high he could not make headway across the current. His court jeered at him from the bank. Bjarni started along the plain toward the road. He had not decided yet if he wanted to meet the king.

  Gifu trotted after him, towing the horse. “Are you going there like that?”

  He looked down at his hide coat. “I am covered,” he said.

  “You look like a common lout,” she said. “A serf.”

  “What would you have me do? Twist some branches together?”

  “Come with me,” she said.

  He followed her up a narrow track in the hill toward the town on its summit. Bjarni could not remember its name; Gifu knew the town as if she had always lived there. She took him through the wooden gate into the city and led him down the streets that wound along the hilltop until she came to an inn. While he stood in the doorway of the common room, she went around the place demanding to speak with the innkeeper.

  Fat and bald, the innkeeper came into the common room. “Who are you?”

  Gifu put her hands on her hips and stuck out her chin. “Now, mark me, I shall say this only once. The king has summoned—has asked my master to wait upon him. You see him there. Probably you saw his deed today with the wolf. We are far from home—strangers here. We shall need your best bed. In a room. And a fair meal, when we have seen the king.”

  Bjarni slid his thumbs under his belt. At the heavy tables around the room, the men had lifted their chins out of their alebowls to stare at him. The innkeeper blinked at him.

  Gifu clapped her hands together. She stalked past the innkeeper to shout at him again. “Hurry! The king waits even now to speak to him. We have great news for him—signs, omens. We must make ready.”

  The innkeeper bustled to his work. “This way.” Bowing, he led Bjarni up the plank stairs and took him along the corridor at the top to a small room with a bed and a window. Gifu strutted around it.

  “Well. This will do, for the while.” She returned to the innkeeper, whose bulk filled the doorway. “Now. He will need fit clothing.” She tugged on the innkeeper’s brown coat. “This will serve.”

  The innkeeper hesitated only a moment. He said, “The king.” Stripping off his coat, he held it out to Bjarni, who put it on. The coat caught him under the arms. He stretched his shoulders carefully.

  “We are of a size,” the innkeeper said, smiling, to Gifu.

  She gestured vaguely under his nose. “If you say so. We want a good meal, now, remember. A roast, and a soup, and a stew—pies—”

  Bjarni went past the innkeeper to the door. “Make the bed,” he told her. He left the room.

  THE KING OF THE ENGLISH was in his middle age, and spoke only French. His chair was carved with dancing lions. At his right hand was a Norse priest in a black gown, who translated what was said.

  “His grace the king welcomes you to his kingdom, to his city of Lincoln, and to his court.”

  Bjarni thanked him.

  “His grace asks your name and your lord’s name.”

  “I am Bjarni Hoskuldsson, and I am Icelandic. We are all equals in my country; I have no lord.”

  The king fondled his shining yellow hair. His pale eyes bulged, set wide apart, intelligent. He spoke.

  “His grace asks how you came to England.”

  Bjarni did not want to tell him that. He said, “I was shipwrecked.”

  The king sat back in the deep chair. He put one foot on a stool before him. The boot was caked with yellow mud. He
and the priest talked back and forth in French. The king seized eagerly on something the priest said.

  “His grace wishes to know if you play chess.”

  “I play chess,” Bjarni said.

  “Then his grace will have a game with you.”

  Pages brought in a table with a checkerboard top and a box of men. Bjarni and the king played a game of some twenty-five moves, and Bjarni won.

  The king looked angry. The high color rose in his cheeks. It was for that he was named the Red, not for his hair.

  “His grace says you play excellently well.”

  Bjarni said, “Chess is our delight, in Iceland. Chess and law. The king plays a good game.”

  “He seldom loses.”

  “He is the king.” Bjarni began to put away the chessmen in their box. They were carved of stone, and even the pawns had faces. He had never seen so fine a set, not even Eirik Arnarson’s.

  “His grace asks if you have a king in Iceland.”

  “No. As I said, we are free men there.”

  The Norse priest frowned at him. “The King of Norway is your rightful ruler.”

  “Is he?” Bjarni shut the lid of the chess box. “I have never met him.”

  The king tapped the priest impatiently on the arm. The priest listened to a flight of words in French.

  “His grace wishes you to join his court.”

  “I am on my way home to Iceland.”

  “You could serve no greater prince than King William. He is king of England, duke in all but name of Normandy, overlord of Scotland and Ireland. Soon he will overmaster France. There will be a new Emperor in Europe, with no Pope to share his honor and his power.”

  Bjarni bowed his head slightly to the Norman on the throne. “Then I wish him good fortune.”

  To his surprise the king laughed. He made some remarks to the priest.

  “You will stay at least awhile. His grace will see that you are lodged and kept. You and your lady wife. Perhaps he will help you on your way home again. You are dismissed—he will expect you at court tomorrow.”

  Bjarni stood silent before the king; he had intended to take the road again that evening. Yet his fate had brought him here for some purpose. He nodded to the king.