“Thank you, lord,” Brand said. He surveyed the Englishmen sprawled on the ground, walking slowly along as he did. Failend wondered if he would take the mail from the man she had killed, but that man, she guessed, was not one of the wealthy ones. He was just a spearman. There would be better mail shirts to be found.
And just as she guessed Brand knelt down beside one of the men at the edge of the battlefield and fingered the hem of his mail shirt. He looked up at Harald, who had joined him, and nodded and the two of them began tugging the shirt off the lifeless figure.
But it turned out he was not as lifeless as he appeared. As they pulled the mail up the man gave a strangled gasp and waved an arm. Failend jumped in surprise, even from a distance, and she saw Harald and Brand do the same.
“Lord Thorgrim!” Brand called. “This one’s just had a knock on the head, I think. Not too hurt.”
“Lucky him,” Thorgrim said.
“But, lord, I think he might have been in command here,” Brand said. “Better sword and mail than the rest. Silver trim on the helmet. Good shoes.”
No wonder it was his mail you wanted, Failend thought, but she would not begrudge Brand the best of the spoils.
Thorgrim walked over to where the man lay on the ground. By the time he got there the man was starting to move a bit. For a moment Thorgrim just looked down at him and said nothing.
“He looks like a man of means,” Thorgrim said. “He might be of value. Information, or ransom. ” He looked up at Brand and Harald. “Get his mail and sword and whatever else you want. Bind his hands. We’ll take him with us.”
The two young men turned to it, and as they did, the others relieved the rest of the English of weapons and mail and the purses that hung from their belts. Several of the men-at-arms were dead, the rest wounded to various degrees, and they moaned and made feeble gestures as their valuables were liberated. The ones who could still ride had ridden off, apparently, leaving these behind.
Finally the Englishmen were dragged through the front door of the inn and deposited on the floor. Failend was happy to see that Thorgrim only meant to leave them to die, not to actively bring about their ends.
By the time they mounted their horses again and continued north, Thorgrim leading them off the road and through the open country, there was little sign that a battle had taken place. They rode through fields planted with oats and barley and across grassy meadows where cattle grazed. They kept a sharp eye out as they made their way north, but they saw no one save for a few farmers who kept their distance.
Failend rode at Thorgrim’s side but she did not try to engage him. Her gaze was fixed on the towers rising up above the fields.
Winchester.
But in her mind she saw the eyes of the man-at-arms, looking at her. And behind that she saw all of her life, stretching back to her girlhood in Ireland. And in particular she saw the last few years. As Louis de Roumois’s lover. Warrior. Thorgrim Night Wolf’s lover. Part heathen, crossing the seas in a Northman’s ship. How very strange it all seemed.
She thought of a moment almost two years ago now, maybe more. She had stood with sword drawn, her husband, bleeding and enraged, standing in front of her. And also in front of her, a choice: drop her blade and her life would go off in one direction, thrust it into her husband’s throat and her life would go off in another.
She had made her choice then. She remembered it well and she thought about it now. Because now it was time to choose again.
Chapter Thirty
It would beseem thee better
thy sword to redden,
than to grant peace
to thy foes.
The Poetic Edda
Thus far, Onund Jonsson had been honest, and he had been correct. Amundi had to admit as much. He hoped Onund would continue to be those things, but he was still wary.
It had been Onund’s suggestion that they might free Odd Thorgrimson, a suggestion made on that dark night, standing by the door of Amundi’s smith’s shop. Amundi had barely heard Onund’s words, and he had understood them even less.
Amundi was still moving in a dream world then, struggling to make sense of what was going on around him. Trying to understand how Halfdan, how any man, could act in the way he had, so utterly brutal, so utterly uncaring. He heard Onund say Odd Thorgrimson and Amundi’s mind was filled with images of the horror he had just witnessed and he could not think beyond that.
“Do you hear me, Amundi?” Onund said, his whisper harsh and as loud as he dared. “If you’ll work with me, we can free Odd from this. But we have to work fast. Odd does not have much time left. No man could live through much more of this.”
Amundi nodded, then realized Onund could not see the gesture in the dark. “Very well,” he said. “But how?”
Onund outlined the plan. He said it would work. Indeed, he said it would not be terribly hard because of the place he held in the hierarchy of Halfdan’s army. There was no one who would question Onund’s orders, no one who could countermand them save for Skorri Thorbrandsson or Halfdan himself, and those two could be avoided.
Amundi listened to the plan, and as he did he started to feel more connected to the things around him, more aware, more able to act, like a man slowly shaking off a deep sleep. He was done drifting on the tide. He was ready to act.
But he could not act immediately. It was another two days before Halfdan left Amundi’s hall. It took Halfdan that long to sufficiently indulge himself at Amundi’s expense, to loot Amundi’s farm for whatever he wished. And all the while Amundi and his household lived in the stable and were fed porridge and water.
Finally the army was ready to move on to the next farm, the next flogging, the next ostentatious plundering. When they left, Onund took one of Amundi’s slaves for his own. He did not hide the fact. Indeed, he made it clear that he, too, was extracting plunder from the traitor Amundi, and Halfdan heartily approved that decision.
The slave, whose name was Oleif, was a smart, active young man, and loyal, and Amundi had chosen him as the one for Onund to take. Oleif, stealthy and quick, had traveled regularly and unseen between Halfdan’s camp and Amundi’s farm, bringing word back and forth, carrying plans as they were crafted: find Signy and some of the others, send Amundi’s people to safety. Wait until Halfdan went into camp near the sea, then come with a fishing boat to carry them to safety. They would need only an hour on a dark night to bring Odd off and spirit him away.
Amundi had been suspicious at first, and Alfdis his wife had been doubly so. But finally they succumb to the simple logic that had led Amundi to meet with Onund in the first place: it was not a trick because Halfdan had no need for subterfuge. If he wanted Amundi dead he would just kill him. If there was one thing Halfdan had proved it was that he did not care in the least about men or laws. And that alone was reason enough to risk setting Odd free, and to risk fighting back against the king.
There was another reason, of course, that Amundi agreed to help Onund, one which Amundi would admit only to himself. He could not continue to live as he was anymore, having seen what had become of Odd, and knowing his own part in it. He would much rather die fighting Halfdan than continue to live with that shame.
It was not more than a week after Halfdan’s army marched away from Amundi’s farm, the horrible wagon bearing Odd creaking along somewhere in the middle of the line, that all the elements of the plan came together. Oleif arrived in the dark of night with word from Onund: it was time to act.
The following day, around midday, Amundi loaded Signy and Alfdis into the fishing boat, along with his overseer, Thord, Oleif, and a dozen of his best hands, his most skilled warriors, who volunteered for the task. They rowed and sailed to the spot where Onund had arranged to meet them. By sundown they were a half a mile from the shore, with most of the men hiding on the bottom of the boat and the rest pretending to haul nets, just in case they were seen, but as far as Amundi could tell they had not been.
They came ashore in the dark, met Onund at t
he beach and followed him up the field to where he told them to wait. In all of their efforts to free Odd, that time was the worst. Amundi and Signy and six of his men stood in silence, with only the sound of a soft breeze in the grass, and they waited. They waited for Onund to return with Odd. They waited for Onund to return with Halfdan and two dozen warriors. They waited for what would happen next, and they had no idea what it might be.
It turned out to be Onund, true to his word, with two of Halfdan’s men and Odd between them. It had worked out just as Onund said it would. Easier, as it happened, since the men guarding Odd had been caught doing something stupid, and as a result they were even less apt to argue when Onund gave them orders. They did as they were told and it cost them their lives.
Amundi’s men half carried Odd down to the water, his arms slung over their shoulders. It was not clear if Odd was even aware of what was happening. They laid him down on the bed they had prepared on the bottom of the boat and waited while Onund and a half dozen others made a false trail to the north, then came splashing back along the water’s edge. They climbed aboard and pushed off and drifted away in the dark.
“We should get the oars out. Row away from the shore,” Onund said. His voice was calm but Amundi wondered how much fear he was hiding. What Halfdan had done to Odd would be a joke compared to what he would do to Onund if he caught him.
“We can,” Amundi said. “But we must row easy. There are ledges and rocks hereabouts. It wouldn’t do to hit one if we were making any speed.” The easiest thing would have been to raise the sail to the breeze, but that would be even more dangerous as they went blundering around in the dark.
Amundi looked up at the sky. It was overcast. Not a star to be seen. They had been drifting for several minutes, the shoreline lost in the dark, the boat probably spinning as it floated away. Amundi no longer had any idea as to which direction they were pointing.
“Very well, get the oars in the tholes. Quiet now,” Amundi said and the men forward, barely visible, lifted the oars and set them down with care between the wooden thole pins. They held the blades just above the water and waited for word. They were warriors and farmers, but there was not a man among them who was not intimately familiar with ships and boats as well.
Amundi cocked his head and listened for any sound that might come out in the night. He heard a soft murmur off the starboard side. The wash of small surf over the pebble beach, perhaps. He felt the breeze on the back of his neck. While they were still ashore he had noted it was blowing out of the north-west. That meant their starboard side was parallel to the shoreline. Most likely.
“Now, give way,” he said softly and the men dipped the oars and pulled back and the boat began to gather way. Amundi held the tiller over, just a bit, turning the boat ninety degrees to larboard. That was the best he could do to set a course. It would have to do until first light gave them a hint as to where they were.
Now what? Amundi thought. Making plans was his problem now. Onund had promised to do no more than free Odd and help them escape as best he could, but once Odd was free their escape would be up to Amundi. Amundi knew that country and he had friends there. Onund had been too long in Halfdan’s service to hope for any help or trust from the folks thereabouts.
The boat pulled carefully through the dark, the only sounds the small creak of the oars in the tholes and the occasional soft moaning from Odd, followed by gentle words from Signy or Alfdis, kneeling beside him. Amundi considered their situation. By first light, or maybe before that, the people in Halfdan’s camp would realize that Odd was gone, and it would be like a rock thrown into a bee hive. They would be able to follow the trail through the grass easily enough, even in the dark. But with luck Onund’s false trail would fool them. In any event, they would not be able to see the boat until the sun was nearly up.
We do not want the boat near shore when the sun comes up, he thought.
His plan had been to grab Odd and head straight out to sea, but the place Onund chose to free him was a more treacherous stretch of water than Amundi had anticipated. They had nearly wrecked the boat several times the day before, even with the sun well up, as they threaded their way through the islands and the rocky hazards that lay just under the surface. He did not dare to go charging seaward in the dark.
Island, Amundi thought next.
There were several islands nearby. If they could get close to one, then at first light they might be able to get around the far side before they were seen from shore. If the false trail on shore worked they could hide on the island for a day or two, then make their way up the coast.
He saw movement in the dark and then Signy was in front of him, kneeling on the floor boards. He could barely see her, but her face appeared drawn and he thought he could see the glimmer of tears on her cheeks.
“Signy?” he said. “How does Odd do?”
“Not good, Amundi,” Signy said, and he could hear the fear and the tension in her voice. “Not good at all. I…it’s hard to see how bad he is, in the dark. And it’s wet on the bottom of the boat. He’s dry now, I think, on the furs, but they’ll soak through. We must get him ashore, Amundi, as soon as we’re able. Get some hot food in him, see to his wounds in the daylight.” The words spilled out of her, carried by her desperation.
“Very well,” Amundi said. That decided it. “We’re going to get as close as we dare to the island to the south, and once we can see something we’ll go ashore there.”
Signy was quiet for a moment. “Thank you,” she said.
Thank me if we live, Amundi thought. Thank me if I don’t order my men to kill us all before Halfdan gets his hands on us. But all he said was, “Of course, my dear.”
They continued to pull in a direction that Amundi guessed was south-east. Every now and again Odd would make a low, moaning sound, and Signy or Alfdis would comfort him and Signy would stifle a sob. Amundi sent one of the men up to the bow to keep a lookout ahead, though he doubted the man would see any rock or ledge until the boat ran up on it. Still, it gave the others some hope.
It was impossible to tell how long they rowed through that netherworld, the men barely putting any effort into pulling the long oars, the hull of the boat making the softest of sounds as it moved through the water. It felt to Amundi as if they had been there for days, though he knew it had been only a small part of the night. He could hardly fathom how much longer this would go on, or if Odd would live, or if they would all go mad before dawn.
Sleep was coming over him as he leaned on the tiller, his eyes starting to close, when he felt a kick to his shin, not hard but insistent. He opened his eyes and sat upright with a twinge of embarrassment.
“Dawn’s coming,” whispered Thord, who was pulling the oar nearest Amundi.
Amundi looked off to the east and saw that the sky was indeed lighter than it had been. It was not dawn yet, but not far from it. He could see the soft glow of the sun lighting up the clouds as it began to make its climb over the horizon beyond the sea.
He looked around in every direction. He could still see nothing but night, but it was a softer night than it had been.
There was still a breeze, and Amundi said, “Unship your oars and get ready to set the sail.” Forward he could hear men moving around, and he could even make out their shapes against the sky. He heard soft grunts of orders passed around as the yard and sail and rigging were straightened out.
Then he looked up and he was startled by what he could see. The dark gray sea stretched away from them in every direction. The shoreline was still hidden from sight but right ahead, and not so far away, the dark hulk of the island stood out against the ever-lighter sky.
“Get the sail on her,” Amundi said, and with those words a glimmer of possibility began to mitigate the despair he had been feeling, in the same way that the rising sun was replacing the night.
Hands pulled on the halyard and the sail went flapping up the mast and soon it was set and drawing. The boat heeled a bit to larboard as it gathered way, and the
sun continued to reveal the sea and the island ahead.
Amundi steered for the west side of the island. They had come that way the day before, and the route had seemed clear of hazards, but that did not mean there were none, just that he hadn’t seen them. He realized he was tensing up, his whole body tight and waiting for that awful sensation of the boat slamming into a rock or a ledge, and he tried to relax.
The sun was up, though hidden behind thick cloud, as they skirted around the point that formed the island’s western end. Amundi ordered the men to scan the horizon and the distant shore, now visible, for any sign of movement, but they could see nothing. The only things moving in those first few moments of the day, beside the boat that carried them, were a few gulls wheeling around in search of dagmál, their morning meal.
They ran the boat ashore on a small beach on the south side of the island, sheltered from the breeze and from sight of the mainland. They built as large a fire as they dared, which was not large at all, and carried Odd ashore. They carefully removed his tunic and Signy fought down the tears and the sobs as she tended to his wounds. Odd groaned at her touch and said a few things that might have been words. Some of the others warmed broth over the fire and Signy spooned it into his mouth.
Amundi and Onund took a few of the men and crossed over the small island, pushing their way through the narrow stand of woods to the granite ledge that made up the north side. From there they could see the shoreline from where they had left, a good mile and a half away, but they could make out no details. If the sun had been out they might have seen more, but under the overcast sky everything was rendered in shades of gray and black and it all seemed to meld together.
“They’ll know by now that Odd’s gone,” Amundi said. “And you gone as well.”
“That they will,” Onund said.
“Will Halfdan himself come looking for us?” Amundi asked.
Onund shook his head. “No. He’ll send Skorri after us. If he goes himself than there’s no one else to blame for failure.”
The Midgard Serpent Page 33
