by Julia Knight
He would swear it to all the gods, make sacrifice on it and swear in blood. Get her away so she could find the man who deserved her, who could give her all she could wish for. Because he knew, one way or another, he’d not make it to the next valley with her. She’d saved him again, given him what he’d lost, his courage, the nerve to face what he should have faced long since.
He’d face it all, because of her and what she’d given him, just as soon as she was safe, so that if he failed and all came to nought, he would still have this one thing, before Odin.
The wind still howled around them, through the cracks in the makeshift shelter, bringing flurries of snow and biting cold. Bausi would not come on in this. They had a little time, and in the furs they were warm, warmer than he could ever recall in his frozen waste of a life.
This time, he took his time, kissed her slowly and with care, let his hands discover all of her. Discovered too what his hands could do. A sweep of finger here that made her gasp, a caress there that brought a moan and at last, one final stroke just there, that made her whole body stiffen as she pressed against him with a cry.
He would have carried on all night, finding what he could do, but she pulled at his back, guided him in. He was lost in her, in the scent of her hair, the salty taste of her skin, the feel of her under him, around him. Each thrust brought a ragged gasp from him, a sweating moan from her until she cried out again, the whole of her holding him, gripping him, pulling him in, and he could last no longer and came with his own harsh shout.
They lay together in a sweating tangle, her lips on his neck, whispering sweet nonsense words until they slept. Strange images danced across his eyelids as he dreamed, of other darkness, sent by Bausi and his seidr magic, of what would happen if he left the valley. Sigdir’s younger face withered before him, Gudrun shrank into herself and disappeared, Wilda ran across the mountain with a faint, sad wave, and all that was left was Einar, alone and cold in the silent dark.
Silence jerked him awake, and he slid from the furs to peer outside. Still dark, but the storm had blown itself out, left its mark over the mountain and gone. With its passing, Bausi would come on as soon as it was light.
He woke Wilda gently with a kiss, but they had no time to waste. Einar dressed in a rush and pushed his way out through the snow to check on the horse and look down the mountain. Wilda wasn’t far behind, and they stared down the gorge to where it opened out onto a steep open place that was a high pasture in summer.
The snow was dark with horsemen.
Wilda clung to Einar’s back as he pushed the horse on, faster now they’d reached the open mountaintop. A scouring wind drove the snow before it, leaving bare rock in places, so the horse didn’t need to push a path. The poor beast stumbled nonetheless—the weight of them both had taken its toll, the exhaustion from the previous day only slightly dulled by rest. Einar slid down and walked, pulling at the bridle to urge the horse on. The looks he cast over his shoulder grew more frequent, more urgent, the set of his face harder each time. Wilda didn’t need to look to know—the horsemen, Bausi’s men, were gaining.
Somewhere behind the clouds, the sun shone. Mist and blown snow shrouded its pale disc, but the light made grey shapes of what had been utter dark and brought a shred of hope.
Finally they neared a forlorn stand of trees, black claws of branches bowed down with snow. At its edge stood a great grey stone, cut about with some sort of writing, seeming to warn of entering. Einar let the horse stand and looked over his shoulder again, panting from the effort. Wilda looked with him.
Two dozen riders, Bausi at their head, his bright sword already unsheathed. Sigdir rode behind him, his face dark and unreadable. When a raven cawed behind her, Wilda almost fell from the saddle. The bird settled on the stone and seemed to watch with interest.
“Einar, up. Up!” If they could get into the trees, maybe they had a chance, but not with Einar limping, worse the last mile as the pace took its toll. Wilda leaned down for his hand, to pull him up.
He didn’t mount or let her pull him but stood, hard and solid as the mountain under them. He lifted her hand and planted a soft kiss on the back of the wrappings that kept it warm. His gaze never left hers, even as he put her hand back on the reins and spoke, soft and sad.
“Wilda renn. Renn…” He frowned, perhaps trying to think how to phrase it so she could understand. Then he put his fingers to her lips and shook his head. No silence. Her lips tingled where he’d touched them.
“Einar renn too. Please, get up.” She couldn’t understand what he was doing. Bausi got closer with every passing heartbeat. She reached for his hand again, but he stepped back to avoid it, his smile no longer shy, but as soft and sad as his voice had been. He was staying. She refused to believe it, or to let him. “Please, get up. You can’t—”
He brought his hand down in a great slap across the horse’s rump, making the poor beast start and almost unseating Wilda. Again he slapped, this time with a shout that had the horse into a canter before Wilda could even cry out. The horse bolted for the trees. Wilda barely had time to look back before all her attention was on not being knocked from the saddle, and the arrow that whistled past her and sank into the trunk of a tree.
Her last sight of Einar as the horse plunged deeper into the wood was of his outline, black against the grey of the sky, with one hand half raised in goodbye. Then he was gone.
Chapter Twenty
When some thane would harm me
in runes on a moist tree’s root,
on his head alone shall light the ills
of the curse that he called upon mine.
Havamal: 151
Einar watched as Bausi came on, his eyes dark and gleeful, his dark crow’s-wing hair escaping its braids, free ends plastered to his face. Wilda had been free once, a wild thing in the dunes caught and cooped and chained, and he’d meant to free her again. That he’d done, a second thing to say before Odin, and now was the time to pay for all else. He had to fight now to keep her free, to free himself and Sigdir and Gudrun, the whole fjord, and now he had the courage that she’d shown him. Not Odin’s deep thinking, but Thor’s courage in his blood and in his head, as it had always been in his dreams. Now was the time to stop them being dreams, time for the loud courage, the shout and battle cry. Time for blood and bone and steel.
He had no weapon but a rusty knife, against archers and Bausi’s bright sword, but he would fight, die if need be. At least he would die with a blade in his hand and have that chance at Valholl.
Odin, give me wisdom, Thor, give me strength to my arm. Tyr, one-handed god of battles, give me him to face, and a sword in my hand, and I’ll do what I should have done long since. Let me take my wyrd and batter it on his, and see whose thread the Norns have cut shorter. And may Frigg find Wilda a good man, even if he is a Christian.
He looked up at Bausi, no keeping his head down now, not when the fire of it was in his belly. A fire she’d given him just by believing it was there, that Sigdir had flamed by staying, by helping a brother he’d thought lost. No matter how this ended, there was a good chance they’d all end up dead.
Einar didn’t care. Silence had been a cloak he’d worn, a false safety. Now words tumbled like the falls outside the feasting hall that had once been his home. “Ready for the einvigi now, Bausi? Blood to bless your wedding?” He stood square and tall, as he had all those years in his dreams. “Or don’t you have the courage you were born with?”
There was no one, nothing, not a man or mountain or snowfall that could move him. He was empty of everything, nothing, less than nothing, and with nothing left to lose—except his one thing to speak before Odin, that he’d saved a girl from dying, had stood and fought when he had no chance to win.
Bausi held up his hand and the archers stopped, though two riders peeled away round Einar, after Wilda. There was nothing he could do to stop them except trust to Odin. He looked sideways at the raven perched on the stone. He would have sworn on his life the bird winked
at him.
Bausi jumped down from his horse, threw the reins to one of his men and approached. Another two men fell in behind him, and Sigdir. His face was blank of anything. Waiting, watching.
“Always the simpleton, eh, Toki?” Bausi said. “Why didn’t you keep running, like the coward you are?”
Einar shifted at that, an uncomfortable feeling in the pit of his stomach, before he stood straighter. “Einar. My name’s Einar. And I both cannot and didn’t need to. Wilda is safe from you.”
“Einar is dead,” Bausi snapped, but his look was sly. Even now talking in riddles and weaves that only he and Einar could understand. “And cannot? So simple of mind you can’t pass a marker stone?”
Einar didn’t answer, only shifted his grip on the paltry knife, rusted and half-blunt. It would be enough for what he wanted.
“You stole Sigdir’s bride, and yet you stand and face us as though you have no shame.”
“I have no shame for Wilda. Einvigi, you promised me that.”
Bausi stared at him as though he truly now believed Einar was mad, but at the end he laughed. “Einvigi, yes. See, even Odin’s bird comes to watch me kill you.”
The raven flew off in a clatter of wing feathers, but it didn’t go far. As far as Geira, who sat atop a sled, watching them with the same beady eyes as the raven.
Wilda kept low over the horse’s neck as he bolted headlong into the trees. Never much of a rider, she was hard put to stay on his back and avoid low branches. She tried to pull him round, to go back to Einar, but he was stubborn. Other hoofbeats joined his. A quick glance showed two of Bausi’s men coming into the woods behind her. She stopped trying to turn the horse and concentrated on staying on—and alive.
The trees grew thicker, blotting out the weak sun, making a dark tunnel of boughs sifted with snow. The hoofbeats behind grew muffled as they passed from rock to pine needles. There was no way to escape them, not that she could see. They were gaining, Einar’s horse flagging with exhaustion.
She burst out of the trees onto a plateau of pristine snow. Her horse stumbled, almost fell and ran on. Please Lord, I know I have sinned, lain with a heathen and a man not my husband, but please, let me live. Let us both live, if You would extend Your Grace to those who have yet to see Your light. She hoped He would listen, and that there were enough Hail Marys in the world to atone for that sin. Yet she couldn’t bring herself to repent this one, to repent for Einar.
They were still gaining—the breath of the lead rider’s horse seemed almost at her back, yet she didn’t dare turn. The plateau ended ahead, but she couldn’t see whether in a slope or a drop. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death.
This time when the horse stumbled, he didn’t recover but pecked forward, pitching Wilda off, into the snow—and straight into the hands of Bausi’s men. She struggled, slapped, kicked, bit, but they just laughed and one hoisted her onto his horse in front of him.
Bausi’s men marked out the area, built a good fire there on the mountaintop, and the godi came forward to speak words, of the god Ullr and rings and the rules. More people came, from the fjord, snug on their sleds, tall on their horses. The heads of each toft and house. Gudrun, wrapped in furs next to Geira, her face pale and pinched. All come to watch Einar’s final fall, bear witness to it. At Bausi’s nod, Sigdir came to call Einar forward. Maybe he thought Einar didn’t have the nerve to come on his own.
“What are you doing?” Sigdir murmured. “You’ve no chance, none, not against him, not as you are, with numb hands and a gimp leg, rags against his good mail, and not even a sword to call your own. Why hasten your own death? Why didn’t you go with her? Maybe you could have escaped.”
“Because fools remain. There is no escape except this. The longer he’s here, the farther away Wilda gets. His men aren’t back yet. They haven’t found her. But I’ve something to do here. Something I should have done long since.”
Sigdir turned away, his face full of grief, his voice gravel-rough with it. “Die? That’s all you will do here. You can’t win and he’ll show no mercy.”
Einar rubbed feeling back into his frozen hands. “It’s not winning I’m after. Wait, watch. And if I do as I hope, then listen. You—and them.” He nodded at the small crowd of fjordsmen that had gathered.
Sigdir turned away. He didn’t take two steps before he turned back, took his sword out and held it toward Einar. “This would have been yours, if—if things had turned out otherwise.”
Einar took it with a solemn nod, hefted the weight of it and hoped he could do the sword justice.
Across the space, Bausi snorted a derisive laugh and eyed the watching men. “A noble gesture, Sigdir. But useless. A coward doesn’t need a sword for his heart to crumble.”
Einar swung the blade, watched the glitter of light along it. A good sword, too. Sigdir stepped back and, for a heartbeat, Einar could see it. Bausi’s net, seidr magic. The shimmer that Geira had spoken of, a black weaving across his face. What Einar was here to destroy, at last.
“I have been a coward, you’re right about that. For too long, I was too afraid. I aim to right that, the long years when I should have acted, or spoken. Look to the Sky-Father one last time, Bausi. Call his name before you die. It will be your last, however this ends.”
Bausi laughed but for once no one joined him. The ring of faces was silent, watchful. The wyrd in the air made it hard to breathe, a thickness that lay heavy on Einar’s skin and made goose bumps prickle at the back of his neck. The Norns stood ready to snip a thread here today. Einar could almost feel them at his shoulder, watching, waiting.
Bausi’s laugh died on his lips and he strode forward, sword ready. “It’s time I saw you safely to Hel, as I should have done a long time since.”
Einar was outmatched, and he knew it. Bausi was bigger, stronger, more practised with his sword. He stepped up to Bausi’s challenge, with only one advantage.
He wasn’t Bausi and he didn’t look to kill a brother by his sword. He wasn’t going for the heart or for the slice of the throat. His aim was for the curse that hung there, and his only way out, its destruction all he could do. No more threads to pull. If he couldn’t get it, then at least the einvigi might have given Wilda more time to get away.
Bausi inclined his head and, with that signal, it was started. Without a heartbeat’s pause, he came for Einar, sword scything for the throat, looking to end this quickly.
Einar staggered back, the force of the blow along his arm as he parried shaking his precarious balance. The blows came one after another, no pause for breath until they were both panting like dogs, sending plumes of steam to lick round their beards. Einar’s hand and arm were cut, not badly but enough to seep blood onto his ragged tunic in small blooms of colour, to drip into the snow like tears. His bad knee was the worst, where Bausi planted a well-aimed kick that sent Einar rolling in the snow before he lurched back to his feet. He couldn’t do this—he was only still alive because Bausi was playing with him, he was sure. The twist of a smile was there, half-hidden in the beard. Einar couldn’t do this, but he had to.
Bausi kicked his knee out from under him again and paused for breath, or maybe to gloat. Einar sucked in great lungfuls of frigid air. It would come now, the death stroke, while he lay winded and gritting his teeth against the fire in his leg. Not before a final word, it seemed. Bausi leaned forward and smacked the sword from Einar’s hand with the hilt of his.
Lying at Bausi’s mercy, Einar half expected to hear the crackle of flames, half expected that, if he looked, he’d be in a Saxon town and Wilda would be readying a scramasax to throw, to save him.
But he’d sent her away, and now there was no one to save him. Except himself. Bausi leaned down farther, and the smile stretched. His eyes were darker than night and Einar could smell the seidr, it seemed to him, a thick vicious scent that sent waves of fear through him. The curse slid free to dangle from Bausi’s neck, so close but farther away than stars. If he reache
d for it, the sword that dangled above him would fall before he could grab it.
It seemed that Bausi grasped his thoughts—maybe more of his seidr magic—and he set the leather bag that held the curse to spinning. So small, that thing that had shaped so many lives. So small and fragile. Just a pull and Einar would have it, could crush it in his hand or throw it to the fire at the edge of the einvigi ring.
Bausi’s sword slid over Einar’s skin, a whisper of steel against the throat. He was going to die without a blade in his hand, no chance now of any glory, of speaking to Odin about what he’d done. And still he could not speak it—at the first word, that blade would slice his throat, and it would all be for naught.
His handed twitched, thinking that at the least he should try for it, that someone—Sigdir at least—would see that this thing meant more than it appeared. Bausi leaned upon the sword, thin-slicing blood from Einar’s skin. Slow then, he meant this death to be. A murmur began, whispering through the crowd, through those born here in the fjord. Not Bausi’s paid men, who had spent their lives raiding and plundering, who knew death and blood as Einar knew silence.
Sudden sound made Bausi jerk his face away. The jingle of mail, the crunch of feet in snow, the snort of a horse. A woman’s voice crying “Einar!”
A voice Einar knew. Wilda.
It took Wilda everything she had not to run, to grab Bausi and pull him from Einar. His men behind her muttered among themselves at the scene before them, their grip on her loosened now. Einar lying on his back, blood blooming along his tunic, Bausi kneeling over him.
The ring of faces only watched. None spoke out. There’s poison in this village, Bebba had said once, what seemed like a lifetime ago. Poison enough that even when they held it a dishonour, that thing they held so dearly, none would stand against Bausi.
