Fate's Needle

by Jerry Autieri

  His brother was there after all, huddled in a dark corner. Amid the cheers, Grim stepped out of the shadows, his face taut with jealousy and his fists clenched in anger. Ulfrik felt his guts twist, an immediate reaction to his brother’s petty jealousy, but when he lowered his sword and looked back, Grim was gone. Auden slapped Ulfrik’s back in congratulations, and Ulfrik soon forgot about his brother.

  The feasting and drinking continued. Ulfrik tried to keep up with the men, but soon the room began to spin and he slumped forward, his foggy head resting on the table. The laughter of the hall rang in his ears.

  ***

  The next morning, he awoke on the floor beneath the table, surrounded by vomit, urine, and spilled food and drink. Everyone else had passed out in the hall too, including Orm and Auden. He put out a hand for his sword, groping through the mess on the floor, only to find it missing. Frantic, he shook his father and uncle awake.

  “Master Ulfrik, I believe this is yours.” Before Orm or Auden understood what was happening, one of the few sober guards bore Ulfrik’s sword inside.

  The scabbard was missing. The blade had been snapped. Images of Grim breaking it flashed into Ulfrik’s mind.

  Orm appeared to have had the same thought. “Grim!” he growled, as soon as he saw the blade.

  Ulfrik’s vision reddened. He wanted to gut his brother with the snapped shard left in the hilt.

  “You will stay here and not leave this hall.” His father stayed his hand. “Do you understand?”

  “I’m going to kill him!” Ulfrik roared back, but Orm yanked down hard on his arm, nearly throwing him to the floor.

  “You will stay here, and I will deal with your brother. Obey me in this.”

  So Ulfrik waited with Auden, who did not seem to understand what had happened, even after seeing the shattered blade. Ulfrik slumped at the high table, gazing mournfully at the broken sword on his lap. At least the hilt was still intact.

  Next to him, Auden leaned over and stared at the hilt. For a long while neither spoke.

  “That boy is a wild one,” Auden eventually said, shaking his head. “Every bit his mother’s temperament. She would’ve done something just like this.”

  Ulfrik shook his head. His mother had died when he was just a child, but he didn’t remember any cruelty or spite in her. From Ulfrik’s earliest memories, Grim had been trouble: mean, petty, and jealous.

  “I will have a new sword made for you, finer than this one,” Auden said, his voice weak from the night of drinking. “We can probably reuse the hilt. I’ll have the blacksmith look at it. Don’t worry, lad.”

  Ulfrik sighed, accepting it was all that could be done. He never got to wield the entire blade, but the hilt, with its dazzling gem, was still a prize. He would treasure whatever Auden could do for him.

  Auden took the broken hilt and left Ulfrik alone with his thoughts. Hours passed. He paced the hall as he waited, stepping over men still lost in drunken stupor, wishing his cousins and aunt might return to listen to his complaints. When he felt he could take no more, the hall door opened and Grim appeared. Flanking him on either side were Orm and Auden. Grim’s face was red, puffy as if he had been crying. Ulfrik wanted to pound it into the filth of the floor, but his father must have read that intent and held up his hand.

  “Your brother has admitted to stealing and breaking your sword.” Orm nudged Grim forward. With his head bowed, Grim stopped just inside the door. He said nothing, simply wiped the snot from his nose and gazed at the floor.

  “He stole a man’s property; worse yet, he stole and destroyed a man’s sword.” Orm turned back to Grim. “I’ve told Grim what that means, how that crime is handled in my lands.”

  Orm’s expression was hard. Inscrutable. “But since it was your property, and you are a man now, I will let you decide how to punish your brother.”

  Ulfrik sucked in his breath. He hadn’t expected a chance to dole out punishment. His first instinct was to beat Grim’s face in with the hilt of his ruined sword, but despite all of Grim’s trouble, he couldn’t bring himself to do it. He looked at his sniveling brother, who hung his head in shame. The redness of Grim’s face deepened the longer Ulfrik scrutinized him. Three years younger than myself, Ulfrik thought, and he looks a pathetic child. He hesitated.

  Grim stole a look under his brow, snapping his eyes away when Ulfrik’s eyes met his.

  “Out with it, Ulfrik.” Orm strode up behind him and placed a hand on his shoulder. “What do we do with your brother?”

  “He needs to apologize,” Ulfrik said, surprising himself and apparently everyone else who heard.

  Grim looked up now, a furious expression twisting his red and swollen face.

  “That’s all I want from him, Father.”

  A disapproving scowl bloomed in the crags of his father’s face. Ulfrik expected a rebuke, but none came. Instead, Orm faced Grim, hollering in a voice he reserved for chasing dogs out of his path. “You heard it, boy. Apologize!”

  Grim hesitated, the words trembling on his lips. He snarled like a wolf with its leg in a trap. When Orm drew breath to order again, Grim let the words rush out: “I apologize.”

  “For what?” Orm snapped.

  “For stealing Ulfrik’s sword and breaking it. I am sorry.”

  Ulfrik had never heard a more insincere apology. He immediately regretted not taking sterner action, but he merely nodded his acceptance.

  “And to make sure you remember your words, you will take three lashes across your back. You’ll get them from me,” Orm said.

  Grim’s flush faded to white fear. Even Ulfrik wanted to protest, but the words caught in his throat. Ulfrik had seen his father lash men who had broken the law. He had even seen his father hang a man for something terrible; he could still remember the wails of the man’s family.

  “Take him outside!” Orm ordered one of the warriors.

  Grim struggled, but the man jerked him around with a curse and dragged him to the exit.

  “I’ll not forget this, Ulfrik.” Grim grabbed the door and scowled back at his elder brother. “Neither will you! None of you!”

  Orm shook his head as Grim was dragged away. Turning back to Ulfrik, the scowl still in place, he asked, “Do you think mercy will make things easier?”

  “I couldn’t think what to do, Father.” Ulfrik winced at his own childish words.

  “Your mercy,” Orm said, spitting out the words like they were foul in his mouth, “will only make men despise you, take you for a weakling and fool. Your brother would love you better had you broken his hands.”

  Ulfrik recoiled from Orm’s anger. How could his father be right? If the situation were reversed, he would’ve wanted mercy.

  “Orm, you know that’s not always the case.” Auden intervened. “Grim is his brother; leniency is understandable.”

  Orm gazed over Ulfrik’s head at Auden. Neither spoke for an uncomfortable length of time. When Orm found his words, he spoke evenly. “Get me a lash, Auden. Leniency is intolerable.”

  His father and uncle turned away from each other, leaving Ulfrik caught in the draft between them. Eventually, Orm fetched the lash himself.

  Grim whimpered as the first lash struck his bare back. On the final two, he screamed like a babe in front of everyone, including all of their cousins. When it was done, he lay face down, rivulets of blood staining the grass beneath him.

  Throwing the lash away, Orm then stormed off.

  Unable to look any more, Ulfrik turned away. He wanted to vomit; when he was alone, he almost did.

  ***

  Grim sobbed alone at the edge of the trees where the track ran south toward Grenner, his home. He cried for the throbbing, convulsing pain in his back, but he cried more for his desperate confusion and loneliness. He had spent all day in the woods, alone, and no one even cared that he had gone.

  Finally mastering his tears, as the last drops streamed down his cheeks he scrubbed the snot from his nose and tried to stand tall. He wanted to appear
dignified when he strode from the woods and into his uncle’s hall, wanted to seem as if nothing had happened.

  Grim dreaded facing his father and brother again. Ulfrik would try to make things better, but Orm would just find something else wrong with him. They both hated him—Grim had always known that. He worked as hard as he could to change it, but it never worked. It had been Grim who had killed Orm’s wife, and his and Ulfrik’s own mother, in childbirth. Grim tried to imagine the mother he had never met, but even that nearly set him crying again as he arrived outside the hall.

  Passersby him gave concerned looks, as if a foreigner had wandered into their midst. One woman, carrying a load of firewood, gave him a weak smile. Unable to match it, Grim kept walking until he stood before the guard outside the main hall.

  “Is my father inside?”

  The guard nodded soberly.

  Grim placed his hand on the door and heaved a sigh before pushing it open.

  Inside, the hall yawned black while Grim’s eyes adjusted to the dim light. Servant girls were clustered in a corner and his father was stooped over a mug at the end of the high table. He became of aware of the girls’ chatter only once it stopped. They backed away as he passed them, and then fled, like rabbits before a hound, out of his sight. His father didn’t move. Orm remained a dark lump, hunkered over his mead, black hair hiding his face like a cowl.

  Grim cleared his throat. “I’ve returned, Father…” His voice trailed off. He had not thought of what else to say.

  Orm stretched out his arm and beckoned his son closer. The boy wavered, hoping to find someone willing to intercede for him, but the hazy, smoke-filled hall was otherwise empty. Grim warily stepped toward Orm’s outstretched hand. His father’s arms were as thick as Grim’s legs, maybe thicker. Beneath the gold bands that encircled Orm’s biceps, white scars snaked over the muscles. Grim stepped up the short rise to the high table, and stopped … just out of reach. His father let his arm drop to his lap, but did not raise his head, or even look at Grim. The scent of mead hung over the jarl as he sat in silence. Finally, he drained his mug and threw it across the hall before speaking.

  “How is your back healing?”

  “Like nothing ever happened.” Grim tried to infuse his voice with power and dignity, but even to his own ears he sounded like a child.

  “Like nothing happened,” Orm repeated, then returned to his silence.

  Orm sprang up, his arm shooting out like a thrown spear. The chair skittered away from him as he leaped from the table and seized his youngest son by the throat, shoving him against the wall. Grim grabbed his father’s arm, flailing against its iron grasp. Agony exploded across his back, and sharp pain shot through his ears and neck.

  “Like nothing happened!” Orm roared into his face, following with a sour belch of mead. “Maybe I need to repeat the lesson until you notice something happened?”

  “N-no,” Grim managed.

  His father’s bloodshot eyes bulged with rage as he thrust Grim against the wall.

  “Something is always happening with you, Boy. Do you know that? Ill luck follows you like a lost dog—from the day you were born! Do you think I want that in my army, in my hall? With you at my side I can’t fail to lose, can I?”

  Orm’s grip tightened on his throat, and Grim’s vision hazed brown. He kicked and grunted, his eyes rolling back in his head. Then his father released him. Grim slumped against the wall and gasped, his hands reflexively clutching his wounded neck.

  His father stood over him, heaving as if he were the one nearly strangled. Grim glared up at him, as defiantly as he could manage, but Orm just pushed his hair from his face and walked back to his fallen chair.

  “I married your mother in this hall, on a day like today, sixteen years ago. Not a finer woman in the whole circle of the world. Until you pulled out her guts, killed her. Why did the gods trade her life for yours?”

  Grim staggered to his feet, unable to contain his tears. Wanting to be manly, he tried, at least, to suppress the largest sobs, yet even they escaped. “It wasn’t my fault! I didn’t ask to be born!” he cried, like the child he was.

  “I’d lash you to ribbons if it would bring her back.” Orm picked up his chair, but kept his back to his son. Drunken anger still quavered in his voice. “Just get away from me! Go find your brother. He’ll deal with you now that he’s a man.”

  Grim fled, all pretence of dignity and manliness choked from him. He exploded out the front door, wailing like a baby, and nearly careened directly into Auden and Ulfrik. Not daring to look at them, he threw his arm over his face and ran blindly, wishing the gods had killed him instead of his mother. His life was a torment to everyone, including himself.

  ***

  They remained at Auden’s hall after the attack to ensure no other raiders followed. None came. Ulfrik mingled with the men, enjoying being treated as an equal. Snorri trained him to throw axes and shoot arrows.

  “When you go to battle, always keep a throwing ax in your belt,” Snorri, who was renowned for his martial skills both in the shield wall and at a distance, advised. “A good throw can split a man’s skull at thirty paces. It can mean the difference between fighting one enemy or two.”

  When he wasn’t hurling axes or sparring, Ulfrik spent time with his uncle and cousins. Only Grim stayed apart. Ulfrik did not care at first. He was not eagerly anticipating seeing his brother again, but after witnessing him flee the hall, and learning what had happened, Ulfrik knew that making peace would become his responsibility.

  Torn between resenting his brother for denying him a mother he could no longer remember and protecting his younger sibling, Ulfrik had always felt bad that Grim bore the blame for something he had no control over. Orm, on the other hand, had no trouble blaming him, and never seemed to care if Grim disappeared. When Grim had not shown for several days, Ulfrik sought him in the woods.

  He and Grim always took to the woods when they needed time alone. It was dangerous— wolves prowled its depths—but it felt natural. The solitude was comforting. Ulfrik had no trouble locating his brother. Grim had left signs everywhere, pointing to where he could be found. Ulfrik located him hunkered against a tree, a small black shape in a brown cloak. He was scratching something in the dirt with a stick when Ulfrik approached.

  “Come home now, Grim. Are you trying to starve yourself to death?”

  Grim continued to slash and scratch the dirt. Ulfrik looked down at the muddy ground, but could make no sense of the violent scribbles.

  “I heard Father was hard on you, and I’m sorry for that. Uncle Auden tore him down for it too, called him a beast. I think Father regrets what he did. Why don’t you come back now?”

  Grim tossed his stick away, and pulled his hands back under his cloak. He finally looked up, his face dirty, streaked with dried tears. Ulfrik spotted the bruises on his neck, but averted his eyes.

  “You just want to be the big hero again, bringing me back. Why don’t you go fall on a sword.”

  Ulfrik stiffened and his fists balled. “Seems you’ve taken care of my sword, Grim. Now, I’m done fooling around. I told you to get home. Your going to starve out here, or wolves will scent you. Let’s go.”

  “So you’re a man now! You’re the big warrior? A killer. Well, I could’ve done what you did. I bet Father did all the work and let you take the glory, just because you’re his favorite.”

  “Shut your mouth, Grim! I did all my own fighting. I saved Father’s life!”

  “That’s even worse! I wish the both of you died!”

  The words froze the air between them.

  Grim glared out from beneath his shock of black hair. Glaring back, Ulfrik grit his teeth and stepped back. His eyes felt hot. His arm drew back and snapped forward before even he understood what he intended, slamming his backhand into Grim’s cheek, his knuckles dragging across his brother’s face. Grim sprawled out, facedown in the dirt.

  “You dare to speak to me like that! If Father heard you, I don’t know
what he would do. You are a child—a brat! I’m sick of you feeling sorry for yourself all the time. I’m sick of chasing after you whenever you act like a baby. I’m the only one to come for you, and that’s what you say to me? That’s my thanks? Now get up. You’re coming with me.”

  “I hate you!” Grim screamed into the dirt. “You take all of father’s attention, all of his praise! I get nothing!”

  Ulfrik paused at the accusation, knowing Grim was right. He shrugged. Then he stooped to help his brother up.

  In an instant, Grim flipped over and his arm arced out.

  Ulfrik’s vision flared white and pain burst in his head. What had happened? The salt-sourness of blood leaked into his mouth and Grim’s face, muddy with dirt and fresh tears, hovered in the milky blue sky above him. Grim’s eyes bulged and his brows knitted together. Ulfrik could see his brother’s lips move, but the words were as if spoken through a wall. Whatever Grim said, Ulfrik did not understand. His brother backed up and flung a rock at Ulfrik. Then he turned and ran, leaving Ulfrik lying on his back, staring at the sky.

  ***

  Ulfrik stood beneath the high table where Orm and Auden sat. The two men looked cold and fierce—expressions Ulfrik seldom saw, and never for anything good. The hearth fire crackled behind him, and mumbled voices came from outside the hall. Everyone else had been urged out when Ulfrik had staggered back with a bloodied head.

  Orm had grabbed Ulfrik’s face in one giant hand and twisted it back and forth, contenting himself the wound was not serious, but Ulfrik still felt about to vomit. Then, Orm had sent a man to find Grim. But Grim had not been found; instead, he had actually surrendered himself. He now stood beside Ulfrik, staring down at his feet.

  The silence continued until Ulfrik could stand it no longer. At last, Orm’s gravelly voice broke the quiet. “You could’ve killed your brother, do you understand that?”

  “He didn’t mean…”

  “Silence, Ulfrik! Not a word from either of you, unless I ask for it!”

  Ulfrik lowered his head, chastened.

  “Did you want to kill your brother?”

  Grim nodded without hesitation. “But I’m sorry now. I was just angry. I didn’t think…”