The men raised their fists and shouted their agreement. Thorfast began shouting over them, but Yngvar could not hear his complaint.
Bregthor turned to the three of them, sneering at Thorfast. "You've got something to say to this?"
"You just swore to protect us," Thorfast said. "And to take us home. Yet you're taking us miles out of the way and possibly endangering us as well."
Bregthor leaned back and laughed, joined by almost all the crew. He had both hands over his gut as he recovered. "Weren't you just crying in Jarl Gunnar's hall about going on a raid? Well, here's your chance and you're afraid of getting hurt. Don't worry, little boys, I will keep you safe at my side if you're that cowardly."
"We're not afraid," Bjorn said, his brow drawing tight. "You've sworn to take us home, that's all."
"And I will," Bregthor said, spreading his arms wide. "I'm not an oath-breaker. I just never said when I'd take you home, and you never specified a time."
"I said to go directly home," Yngvar said. He now stood between Thorfast and Bjorn, his heart beating faster. He had left Bregthor a crack to slip through. He should've realized such a worm would have no troubles using such a low gap to flee. "You are twisting words."
"That did not mean time, but the path to take. When the day comes to return to Frankia, I will go directly there. Never fear, Bregthor keeps his word."
Yngvar and Thorfast looked at each other, then to Ander Red-Scar. He shrugged as if this were no longer his problem. Not all of the crew seemed at ease with the indefinite plans. Some leaned into each other to speak hushed words. It did nothing for Yngvar now. The majority of the crew had been raised to the prospect of plunder once more, and Bregthor fanned that enthusiasm.
"Come now, boys," he slapped Bjorn on the back, who yanked back with a snarl. "You were so brave the other day. Surely you want a taste of raiding before going home to hide behind your fathers once more. We will not leave those islands without the riches we deserve. There are good churches there, I'll wager. Where there are churches there is gold, plenty of gold for all."
The men cheered and Bregthor dismissed Yngvar with a wave of his hand.
Blood still seeped from his cut brow, and Yngvar wiped it away with the back of his arm. Thorfast and Bjorn folded in with him, the three of them huddling together.
"I thought it was a great plan," Bjorn said. "Until he gave us that shit about not picking a time to return."
"It's my fault," Yngvar said. "I should not have left him the room I did."
Thorfast clucked his tongue. "He's bending your words like a hot iron rod. Besides, he can't keep us at sea forever. We're not provisioned for it, and we're not strong enough to stay at sea alone. He has to keep moving or someone will learn a lone ship is operating nearby, then we'll become prey."
"He'll have to take us home," Yngvar said. "Or he'll be an oath-breaker, and no man will follow him then. I just wish I had been more direct. What's my problem? I say too much when I should say little and then say half as much as I should when more is needed."
His companions looked at each other, then Bjorn smiled. "I guess that means you're stupid. Try to be smarter."
They all laughed, putting their arms around each other's shoulders. Yngvar hung his head in shame. "I swear to you, I will be. Until then, I'll rely on you two to carry us through my mistakes."
"It seems your resigned to marrying Jarl Flosi's daughter," Thorfast said.
"I'll worry about that later. We must escape Bregthor's grasp as soon as possible. Getting home without slit necks is the goal now."
Thorfast shrugged as if the possibility was a detail. "We did want to raid. Our leader is a deceitful, murderous snake, but otherwise this was what we have been seeking."
Yngvar thought of Bresi dying under hacking, bloodied swords. He gave a wan smile. "We've no choice but to go along. Once we find enough plunder to satisfy the crew, we will push hard to return home."
"Comforting your friend after his loss?"
Bregthor appeared with his wiry second and fish-eyed Davin. All of them wore smug smiles and pushed into their midst with careless ease.
"Get axes from the ship and collect us firewood for tonight," he said. "We're making camp here and sailing at dawn. You three are going to stay close to me, since I've got to protect you."
Yngvar glanced around. The rest of the crew were dispersing to their tasks or in conversation. He narrowed his eyes at Bregthor. "All of us know you murdered Brandr. I expect you've got a dagger planned to slip between all our ribs. But unless you kill everyone on this ship, word will get back to my father and you'll have nowhere to hide."
Bregthor chuckled. "Again with your father. You've made your point, boy. And I didn't kill Brandr, no matter what you say. I'll take you home, as I promised. But until then you and I are going to be close, and you're going to work hard."
He leaned in, turning his head like hawk sizing up its prey so that one of his eyes met Yngvar's. "You're going to work hard enough to wish you were dead."
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Yngvar kicked the door open with the heel of his foot. The bar gave way with a crack and the flimsy boards shattered. The gray wood collapsed into the darkness of the shack. He didn't hesitate to charge inside, sword and shield at the ready. All around him women were screaming. Such a small village yet they raised a noise like an army being drowned in a thunder storm.
More screams met him inside the house.
"Did all the men run off and leave the women to defend the village?"
He lowered his sword, but not his shield. A thin woman with dark circles under sunken eyes and fly-away brown hair stood before her young daughter. She flung something at him, which he knocked aside with his shield. The shack was so small that whatever struck his shield thumped into the packed dirt wall to his left.
"Come on out," he said. He was not screaming like everyone else. The rest of Bregthor's crew ran through the village as if assaulting the walls of Paris, shouting and waving their swords. There could not have been more than a dozen buildings here, and one had collapsed long ago into a mushy pile of rotted thatch and earth.
The woman screamed something in her strange language, then picked up something from the table at her side. She flung it at him, an earthenware mug. It broke over his shield again, probably her most priceless possession.
"What's taking so long?" Davin poked his sweaty face inside. His bulging eyes roamed the small space until he saw the woman, and then he smiled. "Thought to have something for yourself, did you? Well, no taking prizes until we've all seen the loot."
He barged past Yngvar toward the woman. She slapped at him wildly, but he bashed her on the head with the hilt of his sword. The girl behind her screamed as the mother crumpled, either dead or unconscious.
"Take the brat," Davin said. "We've got everything else collected outside. We're waiting for you."
Yngvar stared at the girl, as thin as a wilting blade of grass with a dirty face dominated by owl-wide eyes. There was nowhere to let the girl escape. Davin turned in the doorway, the mother slung over his shoulder like a sack of grain.
"She's too young for what you're thinking," he said. "Not as fun as a grown woman. But every man has his tastes, I guess. Now come on!"
The thought of raping a child made Yngvar feel sick. Never once had something so revolting ever been made into a song. None of what had happened this morning had ever been made into a song. This was murder and robbery. Just like his father had warned him.
"Come, girl," he said. "You're not going to be hurt."
The girl either did not understand or did not believe him. He didn't believe himself. Taking the girl by the arm, he dragged her outside. He took a quick look, and no one was facing them. Davin was directly before him, and the woman swayed lifelessly across his back as he carried her toward a group at the village center.
He let the girl free. "Run. Or you'll die or worse. Go."
The girl stared after her mother, shaking her head. She had lig
ht hair that reminded him of the serving girls in his father's hall. When she didn't run, he shoved her away. She stumbled, got to her feet, then began to flee.
Then he bit his wrist and screamed, more from frustration than pain.
"Here, what's this?" Davin asked, turning around. "Where's the girl?"
"She bit me and ran off."
Davin's fish-eyes stared into his, but he said nothing. They joined the group at the village center, where Davin plopped down the mother with no more care than he'd spare for a sack of rocks. "I hope I didn't kill her. She put up a spirited fight."
Bregthor stood triumphantly amid the pathetic village. Thorfast and Bjorn had both already been gathered up. Both looked as if they had seen their own mothers killed, which said much for Bjorn who had never known his mother. They refused to meet his eye but looked at the ground.
The village, a sorry collection of mud and thatch homes huddling on an endless grass plain broken by lonely stands of spruce trees, had been ransacked. Eight men had offered resistance, and all had died beneath Bregthor's better-armed men. Yngvar had faced on such defender, a gray-bearded wildman wearing an animal skin and waving a notched sword that looked as if it had not been sharpened in the man's long lifetime. Knocking the man flat with his shield was an embarrassment. He was prepared to bypass the defender in search of a better foe. But the man behind Yngvar followed up with a spear thrust to the defender's gut. The seven other men were now corpses around the small village, all having met the same merciless demise.
Gathered in the center were twelve women of various ages, all clinging together. An old man was evidently blind and shouting in his strange language. A number of children were in the center of the women. The few dogs of the village had been killed, and now someone threw two protesting chickens into the center. Other so-called treasures included cooking pots, striking steels, half-filled sacks, and a single shield that seemed it might have once been painted green.
Glorious treasure.
This was what they had rowed two days to find. Bregthor's promise of nearby islands were the Nordreyar, the islands that clustered north of Scotland. Yngvar had thought the Norse had settled these islands, and perhaps they had, but these folk were clearly something else.
Bregthor shouted, holding up something he had pulled from the old man's neck. Others strained to see it. The morning light flashed off metal as the old man jumped at his stolen necklace.
"A cross of silver," Bregthor said. "These are Christians, my friends. So there must be a church nearby. And where there is a church, there is gold."
Davin wasted no time and started pulling women from the group. Bregthor showed them the cross and gestured at the wide plain surrounding them, then pointed the cross toward the land.
When the woman stared at him as if he had gone mad, Bregthor backhanded her. "Tell me where the church is, you sow."
This process repeated until they decided the woman was too dumb. Yngvar watched in mute anger as Davin dragged another woman before Bregthor who then beat her to the ground. It wasn't until the fourth woman that they began to understand what Bregthor wanted to know. The woman started to prattle in her language, mixing in Norse words that were of no use. They started scratching lines in the grass and others joined. Soon everyone was pointing out the church location. At last Bregthor smiled.
"We know where to go now, men." He looked over the women. "None of these are to my taste, the rest of you take your turns with whomever you want. Then it's back to the ship. I want to sack this church before sundown."
Bregthor drew a dagger and plunged it into the old blind man's neck. It did not kill him immediately, being an ill-laid strike, and the man gurgled on the ground while his blood poured through his fingers. Bregthor ignored his death, as did most others who were busy selecting their women.
"I'll go ready the ship," Yngvar said, not wanting to watch the rape. He understood this is what happened on raids. He was not surprised that Bregthor would do this. Yet he could not watch the defiling of these simple, desperate women who had awakened to the madness of attackers out of the dawn that killed their men and destroyed their homes. Both Thorfast and Bjorn joined him, as did a few others. Yngvar was disappointed Ander Red-Scar was not among those returning to the ship.
"Carry some of this loot back," Bregthor said. "I had no idea you all enjoyed men better than women."
He laughed at his own joke then ignored them. As Yngvar bent to gather the shield and a small sack, Davin seized his arm. He pulled his wrist up to examine the bite.
"Little girl had big teeth," he said. He smelled like leather and sweat and his bulging eyes narrowed in accusation.
Yngvar ripped his hand away. "Like horse's teeth. Now get away from me, you fish-eyed dog-fucker."
"More fight now, I see." But Davin did not take up the insult and slunk back toward the group of men surrounding the women. Their shrill screams and squeals set Yngvar to hurrying back toward the ship.
He flung the shield and sack onto the deck with a thud, then pulled himself aboard. He found his sea chest and sat on it, Thorfast and Bjorn gathered around him. They sat quietly, flinching occasionally at the scream of a woman who had not resigned herself to her fate.
"Well, we would've done this to that Frankish farmer, right? I mean, that was a raid," Bjorn said at last. His cheeks were bright red, as if he had been slapped.
Yngvar slowly shook his head. "That was three drunk boys acting half their age. My father was right. I'd never do anything like I've just seen done. Good thing we didn't all get killed that day. This is nothing like the stories of my grandfather. Where are the lines of warriors? The mail coats and thickets of spears? There's no enemy banner to tear down. No arrow storm to shelter from. What is this? What songs will be written from this?"
"I think we took the stories too much to heart," Thorfast said. "My father said I had no idea of what really happened, and that skalds always made everything brighter and bigger than reality. He was right, of course."
They remained in tense silence. Yngvar discovered the others who had passed on the rape had done so not from any sense of humanity but because they "could never have a woman after another man had used her." He sensed Bjorn wished he could join in. He seemed to gaze overlong at the village and covered his mouth as if trying not to speak. Thorfast at best seemed indifferent to the screams and laughter wafting across the distance. Yngvar slumped forward on his knees, thinking. Was he not a man, then? Were his friends just following him to ease his awkwardness?
The doubts shattered when the men returned with Bregthor in the lead. A younger woman was hauled aboard, her torn skirt revealing a white patch of belly and a good portion of leg. Yngvar certainly felt like a man at that moment. One of the men grabbed the woman by her waist and shoved her down to the gunwale. No other woman came aboard, and the village was eerily silent.
Bregthor plucked Yngvar's shoulder. "Sitting on your ass does not ready the ship to sail. Get out and help shove us off. Come now, all three of you."
Yngvar did not look at Bregthor's eyes, noticing instead all of the blood splattered across his feet and pants.
He jumped onto the sand with the others and joined three more men to shove the ship back into the cold waves. He waded through the water, letting it slap him side to side as he reached for the railing. He half expected to be left behind, but Ander Red-Scar and his friends helped them aboard. Yngvar pulled off his boots to dump the sea water, not speaking to anyone. Bregthor was not done with him.
"Here's your share," he said, sticking out his palm. Two bits of silver no bigger than a fingernail glimmered on his hand. Yngvar noted the dried blood gathered in the lines of Bregthor's palm.
"I'll not take anything from the man who murdered my kin."
Bjorn and Thorfast now joined them, leaning over to see the silver.
Bregthor snorted. "Come now. It's only fair you take your part of the spoils. Most of it was in goods to trade later. So I'm paying you hacksilver now. Take it."
>
"I don't want it."
"You're part of my crew while aboard this ship, so you've earned it. I want you to have it."
Yngvar finally looked up, and Bregthor had an earnest almost worried expression. The absurdity left him speechless. He could commit murder without flinching, but worry for the fairness of his gold-giving.
"You two get the same." Bregthor turned his extended palm to Bjorn and Thorfast.
Bjorn gave Yngvar a sheepish look, but then tilted back is head. "Don't want it either, murderer."
"But you must take it." The exasperation in Bregthor's voice turned the heads of other nearby. "You've earned it."
"How about you two award your shares to me?" Thorfast asked, extending his opened palms to Bregthor. "I'll have mine and theirs, unless they disagree."
Yngvar shrugged and Bjorn walked away. Bregthor grunted and dumped the bits into Thorfast's palms. He retrieved the other shares from a pouch and pressed them neatly in Thorfast's hands.
"Fair is fair, boys," he said, regaining his swagger. "Now we're off for greater treasures than this."
After Bregthor abandoned them, Thorfast shook his head at Yngvar. "Don't look at me like that. Refusing silver won't change what happened today. Besides, we're not home yet. Having a little silver in our pouches might be useful."
Thorfast cocked his eyebrow, his pale hair blowing across his face as the wind raced over the deck. The sail unfurled above them with a boom.
Descendants of the Wolf (Descendants Saga Book 1) Page 10
