The Viking’s Sacrifice

by Julia Knight

  Silence is best, silence is your friend, has kept you and Gudrun and Sigdir alive this long. Keep silent. He held on to that, to the only thing that had kept him alive so long. He missed the silence of his days in the high meadows on the mountain, before Wilda had come, when the only noises were the snorts of Horse-Einar, the snuffle of the pig and the call of the hawk. The homely quiet of his little hut, with little but a mean fire to break it. The silent days when all he’d wanted was company.

  A simple thing to want, an easy thing, not this Norn-weave that left him wanting everything with no hope of getting it. And yet—and yet he couldn’t regret her coming, even if it cost him everything. He could never regret one night of soft comfort and warmth that had, briefly, made him remember what he’d once been, and still was in his head. A warrior, a man of Thor. To everyone else he was a simple coward, and had the ties on his wrists to prove it, for any man would have fought back, would have kicked and bitten and stabbed with the good sword he’d earned, not have stood silent while they tied him.

  He wanted to shout it all out, say all the words through his rusted throat, see what they thought of their beloved jarl when they knew what he was, but he couldn’t. Not even when Sigdir had a sword at his back, because Einar saw a hope there. That Sigdir’s heart was still strong, that he still might see.

  The point of Sigdir’s sword kept him on his path, even if it was kept well back. Three brothers, and the watchers whispered about that too, of the sagas, of Gunnar and his brothers and how that had ended.

  The feasting hall loomed above them, just by the falls, short and fierce here, thundering their spray over everything, turning all soon to slick ice. Einar slipped and fell to his knees without the balance of his arms, dragging a grunt of pain whether he wished it or not. The knee wouldn’t straighten when he tried to stand, too hard used this last day. He had to hobble like an old man, more shame upon his shoulders. More by-names to add to the ones he already owned. Wry-foot, nithing.

  “Wait,” Sigdir said. “Let’s not foul our jarl’s hall with your pig-stink.”

  He prodded Einar toward the falls, to the ledge that jutted out under the thunder of the water. Another prod, and Einar screwed himself to go, to stand under the blast of frigid water, to ignore the laughter above as the force of it almost took him from his feet and he had to grab a rock to keep from falling into the thrashing foam below.

  The wall of water slammed into him, the cold of it stole his breath, the smack of it numbed his skin, left him dripping and quaking like a new lamb when Sigdir yanked him out again. Water froze on his shirt, clanked in his beard as his breath shivered in and out.

  The door to the feasting hall loomed above them, all carved in likeness of the World Tree, with Ratatoskr the squirrel running up one side, carrying his messages from the creatures that lived there. Dvalinn the deer nibbled on the leaves in wooden splendour, Nidhogg chewed on the roots. Between all the carvings, standing like Odin himself before he gave up an eye for wisdom, no doubt forewarned, stood Bausi.

  Sigdir prodded Einar on up the hill, away from the roar of the falls and the eyes of the villagers. Bausi watched him, silent, eyes guarded under his heavy black hair, neatly braided now, tamed for his own wedding tomorrow, for his bride’s arrival today. The distraction Einar had hoped to use, when Bausi’s eyes and thoughts were fixed firmly on what he was about to gain. Now his eyes narrowed in calculation, in disgust.

  “Why are you bringing me this nithing again, Sigdir?” He cast his gaze over the watchers and stood aside to let Sigdir and Einar past.

  Sigdir didn’t answer but pushed Einar through the door and into the hall. The warmth from the fire pit was a blessing and a curse as numb fingers came alive again, and made him clench his hands and mouth to keep the moan inside. Thralls and free women bustled around lighting soapstone lamps, sweetening the air with fresh herbs, making everything glisten as though it were new. Getting ready for a new bride, a new dawn for Raven’s Home Fjord, when its jarl married close to the kingship of Sogn. More power for the already powerful. The only sourness was Bausi’s glance at Einar, and Ragnhilda’s pinched-in face that was a bitter extra twist to Einar’s heart.

  Bausi cleared the hall with a harsh word and a harsher look and took his place on the high seat, set between carved pillars. He leaned forward, making his hair fall over his face, black as crows’ wings and as secretive. One hand crept inside his tunic, under the jarl-torc and reaching for the little leather pouch that held the curse, that hid it from other eyes so only he and Einar knew of it.

  “Found your tongue properly now, I hear, talking many words. Be careful how you wag that tongue, before you lose it.”

  The leather pouch dangled in Bausi’s fingers, loomed large in Einar’s head and he looked to the floor, head bowed against it. Hold all your courage in thoughtful inaction, in silence. Geira’s voice echoed round his head. Odin’s deep thinking, making the wise choice. Now you need the other sort, loud courage, Thor’s courage. Red blood and iron. He raised his head and stared Bausi full in the eye. In his head, his arm was strong and held good steel, and Bausi fell back before him. In his head, Bausi was no longer jarl but dishonoured. In his head, in his heart, he was not the coward they made him. He was Thor’s man, but yet must bide his time, deep think it, as wise as Odin.

  “So, Sigdir, tell me, why do you bring this nithing? I gave you leave to deal with him as you saw fit if he bothered you or that thrall again.”

  Sigdir hesitated and cast a nervous glance at Einar before he spoke. What did Sigdir have to be nervous about? “No thrall now. I freed her.”

  “Freed her?” Bausi sat back, brows knit together in puzzlement, eyes suddenly sharp as arrows and twice as dangerous. “Why do that?”

  Still Sigdir hesitated, cast a quick, furtive glance at Einar before the words came out, halting as though dragged unwilling. “A gift for my jarl, and for myself. She has lands, many acres. I thought to marry her and take them, take some men and settle there, a new longhouse to raid from, closer to the people we raid. Send you tribute.” Sigdir shifted uneasily under Bausi’s look. As well he might. “Only our brother here dishonoured her, and me, took my bride into his bed, took her against her will.”

  Bausi snorted, apparently disbelieving but a quick look at Sigdir’s earnest face sobered him quick enough. “So why isn’t he dead already?”

  “Because she’s asked for a bride price. She’s a freed woman, she’s within her rights to ask, demand a price. The White Christ bids her to forgive him, she says, and she won’t have his blood on her, or on my hands. I came for your counsel.”

  Bausi stroked a hand down his beard thoughtfully. “I’d say you freed her too soon. She sounds a sleekit one, but these Christ followers are peculiar. So this is the surprise, this thrall with many lands? And you thought to marry her yourself?” One eyebrow arched.

  Sigdir stood back a pace and licked dry lips at the hint of a threat in Bausi’s low words. Einar wasn’t sure what game Sigdir thought he was playing, but he knew, none better, that to interfere with any plan of Bausi’s was disaster, and it was clear Bausi wasn’t pleased.

  Sigdir spoke quickly, quietly, his stance defensive as though he readied for a fight. Shoulders tense, hand tight on sword hilt, legs planted just so for balance, ready to lunge forward or dance back from attack. “You’ve wives already, another arriving today, bringing us closer to the king. You can’t leave to take over the running of this Saxon land. You’re a jarl, a warrior, your strong hand is needed here. I can be your right hand over there, raid from that strong place. No wind and water to drown men when they bring the spoils, but good earth under their feet and spears. Maybe get more lands, more cattle, slaves. More everything, for us both.” He stopped his flow of words and waited.

  No fool, Sigdir, then. He knew how to play Bausi, what to offer, when to push, when to stop and wait. It might not be too late for Sigdir. And maybe it wasn’t, but it was too late for Einar, by Bausi’s answer.

  Fin
ally Bausi smiled his twisted smile. “So you have a great prize and you let a nithing like him at it? Makes me wonder who out of the two of you is the simpleton. But your plan, yes, I’ll think on that. Yet first, what to do with this wretch. A thorny problem, one even Odin the wise might balk at. You have to honour the price, but he mustn’t go unpunished for what he’s done. A thorny problem indeed, but I have the answer.”

  He turned cold, dark eyes on Einar, who shrivelled under that gaze. Einar had ever known that if he became a hindrance, any trouble, he’d be dead. Trouble enough he’d caused and too late now to change it, too late to help Wilda. His courage was sucked away by the ice in Bausi’s eyes, by the remembrance of what he’d said on the return from the raid. An accident is an easy thing to arrange.

  “Einvigi,” Bausi said with a lift of his lip that might be amusement. “Let Ullr decide. Don’t ask your little thrall, tell her that’s what will be. She can be in a collar again soon enough, and then the question of bride price flies away. But in deference to her request, the blood will not be on her new husband, but on her new brother-in-law. On me.”

  Sigdir’s shoulders relaxed and he subtly moved stance. No longer looking for Bausi to attack. When had little Sigdir, all scabbed knees and tangled hair, become such a warrior? Yet his answer—Sigdir’s eyebrows pinched down and his eyes began the restless roving that meant he was deep thinking. Questioning Bausi’s answer, Einar hoped, seeing that a threat to thrall her again wasn’t the right way.

  Worse for Einar. Einvigi, a duel. Brother against brother, for blood in front of the god Ullr to decide who had the right of it. Einar, with a wry-leg and not having picked up a weapon other than his scramasax for eight years, against Bausi, who’d been on many raids, killed many men. Who’d bested him before, would have killed him with ease if not for Wilda. As good as a blood price, because it would see Einar dead.

  Sigdir’s eyes flicked Einar’s way and he saw the worry there, the fret that all was not as it seemed, but he nodded to Bausi, accepting what he said.

  “After the weddings.” Bausi’s grin twisted further as he stared at Einar. “The blood can add to the sacrifice, a morning gift for my bride. Now, leave him here with me. I want to keep him under my watchful eye.”

  He leaned down from his high seat and held out his hand for the rope that bound Einar. Sigdir handed it over with a dark, complicated look Einar couldn’t fathom and Bausi yanked him close, making him stumble.

  “Sigdir.” Einar’s voice was hoarse, barely loud enough for him to hear, but Sigdir turned. He looked different somehow, but Einar couldn’t see how or where he’d changed. Only that he need say no more, Sigdir knew what he was going to say, from the short nod, the pitying look. That maybe he’d pulled the right thread.

  Sigdir left and Bausi yanked again on the rope, pulling Einar to the foot of the high seat before he tied the rope tight to a pillar, leaving Einar barely any slack to move. Bear this, the quiet courage. Bear it, and Sigdir will live, will see Bausi for what he is in time. Wilda will live.

  “Talking quite freely now, aren’t you? Be careful of it, little brother. Be very careful. Sigdir is grown, but he’s mine now, twisted in with all I’ve done and he’s done for me. And young Gudrun, ah, well, soon enough it will be time to find a husband for her. And I’m sure you want a good match for her, rather than someone like Rurik, fat and old and ugly, or Orm, who barely has a pot to piss in. Or someone like me.”

  Bausi’s eyes creased at the corners, a true smile from him for once as he thought on this. “Like me, and who will do to her what I did to your Ragnhilda. Dry her up, wear her out, grind her down. Because she was yours, because she only gives me daughters, because after a time she couldn’t bear me near her but pride wouldn’t let her ask the godis for a breaking of our marriage. Because she blamed it all upon you, for not being the man she wanted. She thought she was getting the better deal, no longer to marry a third son but a jarl. I only married her so as not to lose the bride price, but ah, she was greedy and she’s paid for it. So be careful with all these new words, Toki. You’re still the madman simpleton, still the nithing, and one wrong word from you…”

  The curse dangled out of Bausi’s kirtle, taunting Einar with its existence, with its nearness. If his hands weren’t tied, if he had the courage of Thor he was born with, he could end it all, now. Grab the little flake of wood that ruled his life and throw it on the fire. Without the curse he could let free all the words that had built up inside him over the years, lodging in his heart, choking in his throat. Words that would condemn Bausi, and he could not say. A rune he could not take, for the deaths it would cause, his and others. His courage was to stand and bear the unbearable, to watch Bausi twist the wyrd of the whole fjord and be helpless to stop it.

  “I said nothing of it, to anyone.”

  Bausi cuffed him round the head. “I know that! Maybe you really have gone simple. But keep holding that tongue, keep holding it for Sigdir and Gudrun. Face your wyrd, keep silent and all will be well for them. Until the einvigi, when the price will finally be paid, that I should have had from you years since. You’ve given me the perfect opportunity to get you as dead as you should have been then, and finishing that wyrd will give me much pleasure.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  The hasty tongue sings its own mishap

  if it be not bridled in.

  Havamal: 29

  Rowena came into the longhouse, rubbing her fingers to get the warmth back in.

  “Is he back yet?” Wilda couldn’t settle to anything but kept jumping from one task to another, from preparing the day meal ready for Sigdir’s return to combing wool to curing the mutton from the slaughter. She burned the gruel for the thralls, dropped the skyr and honey that was to be Sigdir’s meal, tangled the wool and cut a deep gash in her finger, trying to separate racks of ribs. Her apron dress was an unholy mess of skyr, honey and streaks of both sheep’s blood and hers.

  “Lord have mercy,” Rowena said when she saw. “Here, that cut needs binding better. It’s easier with my two hands than your one.”

  She got Wilda to sit down and bound her finger with quick, efficient wraps of old linen. “No, he’s not back yet, but a ship’s coming up the fjord, and such a ship! Bausi’s new wife, ready for the wedding tomorrow. Kin to the king here, she is. Sigdir will be down there to greet her, most like, show off all the warriors and such. Bausi’s had them all cleaning their armour and braiding their beards.” She looked up at Wilda. “You want to get his answer right now? And, if it’s not a cheek to ask, why did you ask for that, for Toki not to die?”

  Wilda stood up and took off the apron dress but didn’t answer, because she didn’t know how to or even really why. Because he’d saved her once when he needn’t. Because she thought she loved him, and that wasn’t right, not unless he came to God, and she’d seen how he was, seen the faith he had in the Thor’s hammer that dangled from the pin on the apron.

  If he came to God he wouldn’t be the same man, she could see that, could see how they all were with their gods and how it made them see things in a way she never would, and she would see things in a way they never would. Too, it was because she was ashamed that he’d lied to save her honour when it was she who had seduced him, when she had no honour. Yet Rowena was looking at her, curious for the answer, wanting to know. “As I said, because Christ teaches us we should forgive, something these people would do well to learn.”

  It was forgiveness she wanted too. Wilda got to her knees in front of the little altar Rowena had made, that all the Christian thralls prayed at. It wasn’t much, a crude carved cross, but it was theirs, a place for them to believe. Sigdir allowed them that.

  Wilda shut her eyes and tried to remember the prayers the priest often used at home. It wasn’t that prayer that came to mind, but one the goodwife had used, over and over, while Wilda gave birth to a boy who never saw his first dawn.

  Have mercy upon me, O Lord, have mercy upon Thy sinful servant and woeful handmaid, who now,
in my greatest need and distress, do seek Thee.

  She felt no better, no lifting of her shame, no peace running through her. This place was godforsaken, at least by her God. Wilda got to her feet. If Einar died because of her there would be no forgiveness, not in her soul for herself. She couldn’t sit and wait, her nerves were too stretched. “Yes, I do need the answer now, Rowena. Can we go and watch the ship, and I can talk to Sigdir?”

  Rowena patted her hand, almost as though she were talking to an invalid or an old woman. “I was hoping you’d come. It’s always an event when a ship comes in, and this one should be no different. Better even. Come on, it’ll take your mind away.”

  They bundled up in thick cloaks and Wilda took the time to unpin Thor’s hammer from her soiled apron and use it to clasp her cloak at her throat. It was a comfort there, somehow, in a way her crucifix had rarely been.

  The wind had dropped as the sun rose behind banks of grim grey clouds. For once those clouds had receded above the tops of the mountains, and the rock stood over the fjord, dark with trees and a grave splendour.

  Rowena led her down by the path cut through the snow, steps carved out in the steep places. Past snug houses with smoke puffing from their tops, past fields and sleeping orchards choked with snow. Others, free men and women and thralls too, made their way to the lip of the fjord, where the dark, oily waters lapped at the gravelled shore. The women stared at her and talked in gossipy tones as they passed but Rowena refused to repeat what they said so Wilda could understand. The path wound away to the root of the mountain, under a great hanging rock in the shape of a helm.

  “Odin’s Helm they call it, reckon it makes this a lucky place,” Rowena said.

  Underneath the helm, snow had been cleared in a vast space between bare birch trees, so that the yellowed winter grass lay in a ring around a flat-topped grey stone. Dark streaks ran down the stone and into the grass.