He passed from windy sunshine, through a high wide doorway, into the smoky gloom of a long hall. Light entered through narrow openings under the eaves and the smoke-hole in the middle of the roof. A red fire glowed on the broad hearth-stones, and an iron pot, slung over it from a tall tripod, bubbled lazily. He blinked at the dimness, staring past the fire. There were no high seats facing it on either side of the long room, after the custom of his own people, but looking further he was aware of thronging figures and grim eyes at its far end, where his folk would set the women’s benches.
As he trod over the dry stale rushes, past the fire, his eyes accustomed themselves to the dim light. The high chairs were there, and a man sitting in one, his head a sharp blot of red against the dull blues and greens and browns of a woven hanging behind him. Beside him and before him in a ring other men sat on stools and benches and the floor; obviously he interrupted a meeting of the settlement’s adult males. They gazed at him with hangmen’s eyes, but he was past caring for hard looks and now, guessing at what had befallen, sure of death. He strode forward until he would have trodden upon the nearest man’s legs had he not twisted them aside. The red man opened his mouth to speak, but Niall gave him no opportunity.
“What have you done with my men?” he demanded fiercely. “Are any alive?”
The red man glanced aside at another red head on his right, the freckled girl who had surely no place in this assembly of warriors, and then answered quietly, “None.”
“Holy Saviour! You have murdered all?” Niall choked, reeled slightly as at a physical blow, and then plunged desperately at the red-haired man, to die with his throat in his hands. His own clumsy stiffness betrayed him. He tripped over the trailing blanket, men flung themselves on him, and he was borne down sprawling with a jarring crash. Pinned by arms and legs, with a weighty man sitting on his belly, he blinked up at Eglaf’s spear, hesitating over his breast-bone.
“Give the word, master!”
Niall twisted to glare malevolently at the red man, who had not stirred in his high chair. There were yet two other red-heads, on their feet beside him, as though they multiplied themselves before his distempered gaze. He tightened his lips; he would not utter a word that might be taken for a plea for mercy.
“Let him up,” said the red man calmly. “Hear me before you try again, Dane. Your men are dead, but we did not kill them.”
Niall twisted up into a sitting position as his captors reluctantly released him, staring witlessly at the red man’s grave face. “You mean—that none—that I alone—” he whispered thickly.
“You alone came alive to shore.”
Niall bowed his head upon his arms, on his updrawn knees, his brain whirling in dizzy blackness. Grief and horror rose in his throat and choked him. He had brought all his comrades to death then; Helgi and Gorm, Olaf and Ari and Einar—all his good friends and faithful crew. After a moment he mastered himself enough to lift his head and croak, “None? You are sure?” There was no doubt in him even as he asked; there could be none.
It was the girl who answered. “Sure. We have found nine dead, but the tides are strong.”
He got unsteadily to his feet, pulling the blanket round his shoulders. “I spoke in haste, and I ask your pardon,” he said wearily.
The red man nodded in dismissal. He was young, only two or three years older than Niall himself. The others were plainly his younger brothers and sister; they all shared, beside the hair, the same hawks’ eyebrows, straight nose and hard, steady grey eyes. He leaned back a little in his high-backed chair, his hands closing on the carved wooden arms, and Niall stiffened.
I am Leofric Ethelric’s son, Thane of Brockhurst,” he said. ' Who are you?”
Niall Egil’s son of Waterford in Erin. This is Wessex?”
“You must know it is.”
"Only when I heard your speech.” No Viking need expect mercy from men of Wessex, and he wondered stupidly why he was not already swinging from the tallest tree on the headland as a warning to all others.
"A Dane out of Erin? We have cause to know Irish Danes.” The grey eyes were menacing as steel.
Niall made no answer. A faint impatience stirred in him; what sense was made by these long-drawn preliminaries to the inevitable? He threw up his black head in anticipation of doom, his dark eyes steadfast on the grey ones.
The red man shifted a little in his chair, and tugged gently at his short beard. “When you saw death you kissed the cross.”
“Yes.”
“But all your gear was a heathen pirate’s, and your ship a Danish galley.”
“Hang me and have done,” Niall said curtly.
“I do not hang even Danish raiders out of hand,” answered Leofric Ethelric’s son quietly. “You have this chance to explain yourself.”
Niall’s eyes widened a little; from a Thane of Wessex, in these days of blood, such a statement amounted to a miracle. “I am half-Irish and bred a Christian,” he told him.
“A renegade!” snarled the red-head on Leofric’s right hand. “A forsworn dog serving heathen idols!”
Leofric’s face hardened murderously, and Niall realized that an apostate was surer of a hanging than an unbaptised pagan in his evil ignorance. The spirit that had kept laughter alive among the Raven’s crew until she struck revived in him. He smiled at the red man. “We waste time. That I cannot disprove until all secrets are made known at Christ’s Judgement.”
The red man grimaced as though he had bitten into a sour apple. “So you, bred a Christian, have joined Ubba’s heathen host to kill and rape and plunder?”
“And claim Christian treatment when you come to justice!” the girl supplemented in frank disgust.
“I claimed nothing, and expect nothing but a rope,” Niall said pleasantly. “Nevertheless, I am not of Ubba’s host.”
“You dare deny it?” exclaimed the second red man incredulously.
“I do not glean where other men have reaped!”
The red man half-rose at that stab, his face paling in deadly fury. Then he seized and overpowered his temper to reply. “You will be the first-fruits of our harvest! We have a speedy way with war-scarred Danish warriors who claim to be Christian innocents!”
“I claimed nothing,” Niall reminded him with a wry grin, “and though after five days and nights storm-driven I reckoned myself glad of any shore, this is the first time I tread Wessex earth as well as the last.”
“Are you telling me that you are here only by chance of the storm?” Leofric demanded in frank unbelief. “That you were bound elsewhere?”
“I was bound for Spain. I am Niall Southfarer. If you were a Dane you would know my name and that I speak truth.”
“We are not Danes,” said the red girl flatly, “and have no knowledge of their captains’ ill-fame outside England.”
“He'd look well on yon tall ash above Gull Point, master,” observed Eglaf.
Leofric tugged at his beard again. The youngest brother, who had not yet spoken, said impetuously, “By his gear he must be one of Ubba’s great captains! Should not Odda have his hanging?"
"Niall smiled grimly. “You need not put Odda or me to so much trouble. I am no captain of Ubba’s.” Then suddenly his wits, which had concentrated on the task of speaking lightly in doom’s face, began to work. The last he had heard of Ubba Ragnar’s son, he had been wintering with his fleet in South Wales. Guthrum had been sitting in Chippenham with Wessex helpless before him, waiting for campaigning weather. Spring was come. Probably, he had marched and Ubba sailed to dismember the Kingdom’s carcase between them. He looked over the bitter, desperate gathering and knew it was so. “Ubba has sailed?”
“His fleet passed up the Severn Sea on this morning’s tide. Now have done pretending you know nothing of it!”
“I knew he wintered in South Wales, along with all Erin.”
"And half the Danes in Erin followed him!”
“I would sooner follow the Devil.”
“No difference,” sta
ted the red girl savagely, “save that Ubba is mortal!”
“Oh, have done!” growled the second brother impatiently, and from the ring of villagers came a grim rumble of agreement. Niall tried to stiffen his pithless legs that wavered under his weight. if he should falter they would account him a coward.
“Before you hang me, grant me a priest to confess and shrive me,” requested quietly.
They gaped in shocked silence. “We cannot deny that,” the youngest brother said soberly at last.
“There is no priest inside a day’s ride,” said the second brother in a low voice.
Leofric slapped both hands down on the carved arms of his chair, and sprang up. “Christian or heathen, a wiser than I shall judge you! You go to Odda!”
Niall blinked at him. Hunger and strain and the aching weariness of his battered body made the whole dispute a nightmare. He had been sure of death, and the sudden reprieve left him dazed and stupid.
“Hey, Hild!” called Leofric.
From the smoky shadow beyond the fire came forward a lean old woman, upright as a spear-shaft and striding like a man. Bleached blue eyes appraised Niall with all the enmity he expected, but an odd approval mingled with it.
“A fine tall lad to swing on a rope!”
“Not my rope. If by some marvel he tells the truth, I will not take it on my soul to murder a shipwrecked stranger—no, nor starve him to death either. Bring him food, Hild, and his clothes.”
“It will lie heavy on my soul to feed a Dane,” the old woman retorted sourly, but she lifted the hanging behind the high seat and disappeared into a room beyond. Leofric gestured, and the assembled men rose and straggled to the door. The folkmoot was over. Only the red-heads and vigilant Eglaf remained.
Leofric advanced. Niall, bracing himself to stay upright, found that his red head wavered and blurred in a most unaccountable fashion before his eyes, and the smoky gloom thickened and swirled like dark fog. He had no least idea what was happening to him, and stared at Leofric with wide dark eyes in a face drained of all colour. Out of the mist a hand gripped his elbow, and steered him aside. Something hard took him behind the legs and he sat backward with a jarring thump. His head sank almost onto his knees, cold sweat broke out on his skin, and he gasped for breath.
Slowly his head cleared, and he sat up, furiously ashamed that weakness had mastered him. He tried to stand and sank back, shaking his head as dizziness assailed him again. When he looked up, Leofric was frowning down at him.
The old woman stalked to them with a bundle and tossed it at his feet. He sat still with the blanket fallen from his shoulders, knowing that if he leaned to reach his clothes he would collapse full-length. Leofric made an imperative gesture, and the old woman snorted like a war-horse and went to the fire. The other red-heads stood behind their brother, curiosity warring with hatred in their faces. Then the old woman thrust a bowl of hot pottage, a horn spoon and a piece of bread into his hands, scowling as though she wished they were poison.
He ate slowly, and warmth and vigour started outward from his belly to all his body. Six inimical pairs of eyes followed every move he made, but he ignored them until at last he handed back the well-polished bowl with a courteous word of thanks that won a malevolent glare for answer. He looked from face to face, all grimly watchful. The youngest lad was staring in fascination at the imposing scar that raked his left ribs from hip to collar-bone.
He reached for his clothing, and his bruised, stiff muscles in twanged painfully. The days and nights of storm came vividly back to him, the cold and wet and heart-breaking labour, all for naught. Gay Helgi, paternal Gorm and the others were meat for scavenging crabs and gulls. He looked up at Leofric and asked abruptly, “What did you do with my men?”
“Your dead? Buried on the shore above the high-water line.”
Niall released his breath in a scarcely perceptible sigh. The Englishman asked sharply, “Do you claim Christian burial for them?"
“Only Helgi was baptised—the very fair lad whose face—no. So that they were not left to the crows and fishes, it is enough. I thank you.” He bent his head and fumbled blindly at the bundle.
“An apostate you are, condemned out of your own mouth!” the red girl flared. “You led heathen men against your own faith!”
Niall stared bleakly at her and stood up, clutching the blanket. “They were my dear comrades. We were traders, not Vikings.”
“You are a warrior scarred in battle!”
Niall looked at him in surprise. “But only a fighting man can trade in the Middle Sea and live!”
Leofric appeared disconcerted, and then, recognizing that in argument about commerce in the Middle Sea the disadvantage was entirely his, he shrugged. “Enough! Tomorrow at dawn we join Odda, Ealdorman of Devon. You go with us. If you try to set foot outside that door before then, Eglaf will kill you.”
Niall watched them go, and glanced once at Eglaf. He was a badger-grey man in middle age, and he knew his work; he stood a good six paces distant, beyond reach of a sudden leap and inside deadly sure spear-cast. Niall, stiff and clumsy and still weak from the past six days’ ravages, recognized that he had no hope whatever of passing the doorway. He unrolled his clothing.
The garments had been washed and dried, but the splendid scarlet tunic was shrunken so that it strained over his chest and shoulders, and the colour had run in great blotches. Yet no man could feel aught but ridiculous clutching an insecure blanket about his nakedness; it was a restoration of manhood to don proper attire. That was all he possessed. His arms and ornaments were spoil for those who had stripped him. He stood up, and limped about the hall to work some of the stiffness out of his muscles.
The old woman moved between the fire and the inner room. Eglaf brooded gloomily on a bench by the door, which had been left standing wide. Niall stood a few paces from it, where he could see out into the garth. He had a narrow view of two mud and wattle cottages, each with its byre under the one long roof; a building with a row of windows under its eaves that was probably a weaving-shed; a section of stockade beyond, a tilted field ploughed in stripes, and tall woods climbing a hillside to the cloudy sky.
It was about mid-day. A brisk wind was drying the puddles. A forge nearby filled his ears with clamour. Outside the cottage doors two women were grinding grain; the grate and thud of the querns made a milder background to the smithy’s din, and small children were squealing at a game. Leofric was standing by the weaving-shed, talking earnestly with a rosy, yellow-haired girl, heavy with child and near her time. His lean freckled face was proud and tender, and his hand came instantly and protectively under her arm as she moved to the shed door. She lifted her face to his and said something that set them both laughing as they passed from his sight.
Niall limped back to the bench and sat staring into the fire, absently rubbing his hand up and down his aching thigh. His thoughts were dreary indeed, of all his friends briefly struggling in the icy sea. He said a prayer for them, asking for God’s mercy on their honest heathen souls. He also would be dead soon, but not with them; there would be no place for a Christian in Rana’s cold green halls. Perhaps Helgi would wait for him, he thought crazily, and colour the road to Purgatory with his laughter.
The rushes whispered beside him. “Does your leg pain you?” a woman’s voice asked compassionately.
Startled, he looked up at the pregnant fair girl he had taken for Leofric’s wife. “Why, no—” he began, and broke off, standing in courtesy.
"You grieve for your friends who died? I am sorry.” She looked and sounded sorry, and to his shame Niall felt tears prick at his eyelids.
“I brought them to that end,” he muttered, gazing hard into the fire because it would not do to look into her sympathetic face.
“That is a grief all captains know,” she said gravely, and as he was surprised into meeting her eyes again, she added, flushing, “So my father used to say.”
He smiled warmly down on her from his great height. “My lady, you are very
kind. Believe me, I am not your enemy.”
She flushed. Though her slim body was distorted by her weighted belly, she was the lass every man dreamed would wed him and mother his children, rosy and fair and gentle.
“Elfwyn!” another girl’s voice cried out from the door, and the red vixen came down the long hall at a run. She caught her arm, swung between them, and gently hustled her beyond Niall’s reach. “Would you have the Dane seize you for a shield and a hostage?” she demanded, affection warring with exasperation in her voice.
“I never thought of that!” Niall remarked truthfully, heard an emphatic snort of disbelief behind him and grinned. “Fret not; your spearman did!”
“If he had put out his hand to you,” the red girl declared savagely, “my javelin would have been through him!” And indeed she carried one thrust under the back of her belt, its point slanting over her shoulder.
Niall asked curiously, “What possessed you to bring me here alive instead of throwing me back to the fishes?”
“I twas my Christian duty! You crossed yourself, so how could I guess you were a Dane to be thrown back?”
“That being also your Christian duty?” he demanded, grinning wickedly; her challenge tickled his erratic sense of humour.
"The only good sense!”
The spearman grunted endorsement. Niall glanced over his shoulder at the spear within a hand’s breadth of his shoulder-blades, and said impatiently, “Rest your arm, man! I do not war on women.”
"We know how Danes make war!” the red girl spat savagely.
“Babes tossed on spears, maids ravished, women sold in your Irish markets! ”
“I am not one of Ubba’s wolves, and this is no war of mine,” Niall said flatly.
“But it is our war,” Elfwyn answered soberly.
Niall suddenly saw her bereaved and lost, sold in Dublin market like a heifer in calf to bear her child to slavery. He saw the red girl broken and defiled, desolate in a strange land at the mercy of brutal men. Truly this was their war. A man risked only death. “God keep it from you, noble lady,” he said gravely.
The Price of Blood Page 3
