The Smile of the Wolf

by Tim Leach

  ‘You must invite Olaf,’ I said.

  ‘The Peacock? He will not come. He wishes nothing more to do with us.’

  ‘But you must invite him. He is a proud man. You do not need him at your side, but he must not turn against you. Invite him and let him say no.’

  Gunnar thought on this for a time, rubbing the knuckles of one hand with the dirty palm of the other.

  ‘We do not have many who will stand with us, do we?’

  ‘No. And they have the chieftain, Hallstein.’

  ‘Vigdis’s father.’ He shook his head. ‘It disgusts me. Begging for favours from cousins and cowards. And this is what it comes to, does it not? They have a powerful friend and I do not. Björn, Snorri, none of them could face me in the holmgang.’

  ‘But you cannot fight them all.’ I paused, then said: ‘I will go to Olaf. He may favour me a little more than he does you.’

  ‘I doubt that.’ I saw the white of Gunnar’s teeth shining in the light of the fire. ‘But I think there is someone else there that you wish to see.’

  ‘Of course.’

  At this, Dalla spoke: ‘Who is that?’

  ‘A woman,’ Gunnar said. ‘A servant of Olaf.’

  ‘A lover?’ she said, her tone carefully neutral. ‘You will go tomorrow?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I do not know what gifts we have…’

  ‘We will offer none,’ I said. ‘There is nothing we could give to Olaf that would not insult him.’

  ‘Very well.’ She stood and struck the dust from her dress, and went to tend the fire. When she had gone to the other side of the long house, the children at her side, Gunnar leaned forward and whispered to me. ‘Be careful when you travel.’

  ‘They have been watching you?’

  ‘I cannot be certain. But I think so.’

  ‘How many?’

  ‘Only ever one or two. And they could be farmers from another valley. But I do not think so.’

  ‘You believe they mean to strike at us this summer?’

  ‘No, they only mean to watch us, for now. But if they get a chance…’

  I raised a hand to silence him. ‘Then I will not give them that chance.’

  *

  I kept to the high ground, following the ridgelines and staying away from the narrow defiles below. If one knows it well enough, ours is not a country that suits thieves and murderers, aside from the maze of valleys farther to the north. In the daylight, up on the hills, I would see any band of men long before they could come for me. If only the sun would never set – for when the darkness comes, ghosts and killers alike may walk free.

  The great longhouse was before me soon enough, the sweet smoke of cooking fires rising from it, the servants working in the fields, the fat cattle wandering, content. The kind of home that all who came to Iceland dreamed of, had been promised, and yet so few would ever have.

  I took a moment to measure the point of the sun in the sky, to see how much time I had before the killer’s darkness fell across the land. Long enough. I took a breath, put a hand to the axe at my hip, and stepped inside.

  There was silence as I entered. It took my eyes time to match the darkness, and no words were spoken. I stood, sightless and soundless, waiting. And when at last I could see, every man’s eyes were on me.

  There were those who looked upon me as if I were an outlaw, with a hungry, murderous gaze. They must have not been counting the days, and did not know that I had a little time left. I saw one man lay a hand to the weapon at his side and half-rise, but then he looked to his unmoving companions and realised his mistake. I was not yet a man outside of the law.

  There were others who stared at me with a kind of pity, as they might favour a dying man. Others simply seemed curious, glad of the entertainment I might provide, for it is good sport to watch the feuds if one lies outside them. But there was only one there who looked on me with hatred. A woman’s eyes, for Vigdis sat at the table beside Olaf, her belly heavy with child.

  She stood as I looked at her, and a pair of men whom I did not know rose with her. Her kin or those of Björn, perhaps. She walked past me, her head high. And the silence held after she had left, until Olaf broke it.

  ‘What is this?’ he said to his men. ‘Are you dumb beasts? Talk! Sing! And offer greetings to our guest.’ He came forward and clasped my arm. ‘For all men are welcome here,’ he said, as the men around us began to talk once more.

  ‘My thanks, Olaf.’

  ‘Will you stay to eat?’

  ‘I must return before dark.’

  ‘Of course,’ he said, guiding me to a seat. ‘Then what brings you to me?’

  ‘Gunnar holds a feast a week from now, to celebrate the coming of the harvest. He invites you to join him.’

  He said nothing for a time. His fingers drummed upon the table.

  ‘I thank you for your courtesy,’ he said. ‘But I will not trouble Gunnar’s patience. The man has little love for me.’

  ‘What matters his love? You would do him great honour to attend.’

  ‘I do not care to honour him.’

  ‘But you honour Vigdis?’

  He looked at me levelly and made no reply.

  ‘Will you stand with them, Olaf?’

  ‘I will not stand with them. Or with you. I take no side in this petty feud.’

  ‘Then why was she here?’

  ‘A matter of business. She wishes to sell her farm to me.’

  ‘And what did you tell her?’

  ‘What does that matter to you?’

  ‘I wish to know what she does.’

  ‘It matters not to you. Your feud is with the brothers, not with her.’

  ‘You are not a fool, Olaf. Do not talk as one.’

  A nearby warrior stood, his hand to his weapon. But Olaf waved him back. ‘Sit down,’ he said. ‘And do not listen so closely to the talk of other men.’ He turned back to me. ‘You are right. But you must forget her. There is nothing you can do against her.’

  ‘She has learned that, hasn’t she? That is what makes her so dangerous.’

  Olaf nodded. ‘My sister, Hallgerd… she has learned it too. Two husbands dead and nothing that any man will do against her. There is only one thing that you can do against one like that.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Leave her no weapon to use against you. Kill every man in her life,’ he said, simply and plainly, and took a sip of his mead. I drank, too, and we did not speak for a time. What Olaf thought of, I cannot say.

  ‘It will be your farewell, this feast?’ Olaf said, after a time.

  ‘It shall.’

  ‘You should have begun with that. It tempts me more to honour you than it does to honour Gunnar.’

  ‘But you still will not come?’

  ‘No. And I think that it was not I who you truly came to talk to.’

  I knew she was there, but I did not look at her once. I wanted to savour the feeling of her eyes upon me. When I turned to look at Sigrid, she met my gaze openly, glanced at Olaf, and returned to her work.

  When I looked back on the chieftain, his face held a weary sadness. ‘Will you let her go?’ he said. ‘She is a handsome woman. There are many who might wed her.’

  ‘Better men?’

  ‘Richer men. Men who are not outlaws.’

  ‘It is not my choice to make.’

  ‘You could free her if you chose to. Drive her from you. Some would call it mercy.’

  ‘I will come back for her. We will be poor and we will be happy. I do not expect you to understand.’

  ‘You will not come back.’

  ‘Another of your prophecies?’

  ‘One does not need such a gift to see that.’

  ‘I will come back. I will marry her. I swear to both of those things.’

  ‘In time you will regret that oath, I think. But as you wish.’ He clasped my hand. ‘Go now. I wish that things had been otherwise.’

  I stood, but I did not leave at once. I lingered a moment
longer in the hall of the great chieftain, thinking that it might be the last time I stood in such a place. For the first time that I could remember I wished that I might have been such a chieftain as Olaf.

  It was not for the food piled high on the tables, the scarlet clothes of Olaf, the tracts of farmland that stretched outside, the great horde of gold and silver that was locked away in wooden chests. It was not for his fame or prestige. It was for the men he had there. The warriors who would stand at his side in any feud.

  Had Gunnar and I but half those warriors sworn to us, we would have nothing to fear. When you see a man wearing gold rings and scarlet cloth – what does that matter, so long as one is warm? Why envy a farmer with three hundred head in cattle if one has food enough, or one who owns half a valley if one has a small farm to call one’s own? But I understood too late why one might crave wealth and power. For in the feud, they count for everything.

  *

  When Sigrid came outside the longhouse, she carried a pail in her hands – her excuse, no doubt, for she cast it to the ground as soon as she was past the threshold.

  ‘There is no need for pretence,’ I told her. ‘Olaf knows and he will not stand in our way.’

  ‘Oh, I know that well enough.’

  I went to speak, but found that I could not.

  She cocked her head to the side and said, ‘What is it you see, when you look on me?’

  ‘Your eyes. I had not noticed before.’ For there was a circle of green within the blue of her eyes that I had not seen. Too faint to see in the darkness inside, and when we met by daylight I had not dared to look so closely, it had not seemed right. Yet now we would be married I could look upon her as I wished.

  ‘A touch of the fey, they call it,’ she said.

  ‘I can well believe it.’

  ‘You should not have come here,’ she said. ‘It angers him to see you. Or it saddens him, I cannot tell.’

  ‘I do not care what Olaf thinks or feels. I came to see you.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I am afraid.’

  ‘Of what are you afraid?’

  ‘I am afraid you will change your mind.’

  She laughed. ‘There is no need. You will keep your promise?’

  ‘I will keep my promise. I will come back.’

  ‘Then you have nothing to fear.’ She must have seen some doubt or fear in my face, for she gave a tolerant smile. ‘I keep my word,’ she said. ‘Have no doubt of that.’

  ‘You will wait for me?’

  ‘Yes. I will wait.’

  And she stood up on her toes, put her arms around my neck. Her grip was strong, as if she were some warrior, and she stopped my breath with one patient kiss after another.

  I knew that there were no others like her. If I lost her, I would not find another woman to take her place.

  These are the kinds of thoughts that young men speak and old men admonish. But I am old myself now, as I tell this story, and I can tell you that it is the old men who lie. They have made themselves forget what it is to love, have found a way to lie to themselves, to settle for some marriage of politics or swiftly dulling lust.

  But I will not lie to myself. And I will not lie to you. There is love and there are few who truly taste of it. It is spilt once and lost forever.

  13

  I had seen feuds before this one: petty things, squabbles over cattle, a horse-fight, a wager. Yet I had never been at the heart of one myself, had never known what it was to be hunted. I learned that feeling then as I came back from Olaf’s home, the taste of a woman still upon my lips.

  As I retraced my steps along the high path I saw the signs of another man’s passage. A branch bent back beyond the power of the wind, the shallow hollow in the stream bed that marked where a booted foot had pressed into it.

  At first I tried to tell myself that it was some stray animal that had disturbed the ground, some trick of the mind or a wandering spirit of the hidden people that was toying with me. I would rather it had been some faerie than a man, for I feared flesh and iron more than magic. But I knew it was not true. Man and animal are alike in one way at least. They both know when they are being pursued.

  It was not long before I saw the men who followed. Moving shadows on the neighbouring hills that froze still when I looked upon them. And I heard them too, the wind bringing whispers and voices of men who did not know they could be overheard.

  I looked to the sun and saw that I had less time left than I had thought. Yet I could not hurry, be reckless. I have never been so careful with every step that I made, for it would take so little to leave me lame. A knee wrenched from a slipping patch of mud and earth, an ankle shattered by a misplaced step upon a rocking stone. They would see me fall and I would have to wait for them to come to me like an animal in a pit trap, hearing the heavy footfall of the farmer who comes to take its life.

  Every so often I would stop and look back on those shadows in the distance, but they never drew any closer. They went still when I looked upon them. Perhaps they did not know my eyes to be as keen as they were, and thought they might have some chance to surprise me. But I think it was that they felt no hurry. I would be an outlawed man in a few weeks’ time, free to be hunted with no consequence.

  For now, they were content to watch.

  *

  Gunnar must have been running one errand or another – watching the herd, building walls, sharpening weapons, with his children at his side and the sun on his back – for he was not within the longhouse. I was glad that he was not there, would not ask what I had seen. Only Dalla sat there, tending the cooking fire.

  If I hoped to keep my secrets to myself, it was an empty hope, soon cast aside. The story must have been written on my face, for as she looked at me Dalla’s smile flickered and faded. She gestured for me to sit with a slight motion of her hands, and we shared the silence for a time.

  ‘Gunnar was right, then,’ she said. ‘They are out there, watching.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Did they try to catch you?’

  ‘No. Only to watch.’ I looked at my hands. ‘And Vigdis was there. At Olaf’s home.’

  ‘I see. On what matter?’

  ‘He says that she wishes to sell her farm to him.’

  ‘Do you believe him?’

  ‘I believe him. Still, it is an ill omen.’

  She turned her head slowly and looked about her home, placed her palm against the wall and leaned gently against it. ‘I always knew that I would die in this place,’ she said. ‘But I thought that I would have more time.’

  ‘It will not come to that.’

  ‘Perhaps.’ She busied herself about the longhouse and I tended to myself, drinking a horn of water and washing the dirt from my hands and face. I was careful not to wipe my lips, to not lose any remnant of the kiss Sigrid had given me. I wondered how long into exile years that memory, that taste, might last. How long before I would forget.

  ‘Will you do something for me, Kjaran?’

  I started a little at her words. ‘Anything that I can.’

  ‘Will you take me to see Vigdis tomorrow?’

  I did not answer for a time. I stared at her, waiting for her to withdraw the suggestion, to say that she had misspoken. But she held my gaze and did not say a word. Her courage was greater than mine.

  ‘Gunnar would not agree to that,’ I said.

  ‘Gunnar will not know.’ She leaned forward and said: ‘I know you do not wish to keep secrets from him. But there is a chance that I can end this feud.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘A woman’s words can matter more than a man’s. Has not the feud so far proved this? She is the heart of it, is she not?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You cannot kill her. I may speak with her.’

  ‘It will be no use.’

  ‘Perhaps. But think of Olaf. You had to ask, even though you knew he would say no? It is no different.’

  I opened my mouth to speak again, to find some new argument agains
t what she suggested. But it did not come, for there was no case against it, except one: I was afraid to go back to that place. I was afraid of Vigdis.

  ‘I will do it,’ I said. ‘When do we go?’

  ‘Tomorrow. After midday. Gunnar and the children will be out with the herd. We shall have time enough.’

  The silence returned and we listened together to the burning of wood, the wind against the walls, the bubbling of stew in the pot. We sat together and I let myself dare to hope a little.

  *

  The mist came from the sea like an invading army, a relentless advance in close formation, covering the land in every direction. And so when Dalla and I made to leave there were no landmarks for us to navigate by. We travelled by our instincts, our luck, and my memories of the way.

  ‘An ill omen,’ I said to her as we set out.

  ‘Perhaps,’ she said, but she did not seem troubled by it. ‘Or a protection from those who might hunt us.’

  I felt the chill that any man may feel at the chance of witchcraft. ‘Is this your doing?’

  She laughed at me. ‘No. I do not have the art.’

  ‘It would not surprise me if Vigdis does, for all the trouble she has made.’

  ‘No. If she did, she would have no need of men to do her bidding, would she? Her curses alone would be enough.’ The smile fell away from her face. ‘Come. We must hurry.’

  The rolling of the wind, the patter of the rain; these sounds kept us company as we travelled. When we began our journey I doubted that I would find the way; perhaps I hoped I would not be able to. That we would wander lost in the mist until it was time to return home.

  But though I had not travelled to Vigdis’s house since the night of Erik’s killing, the way seemed clearly marked in my mind as though we had left a trail only I could see. I remembered the little pyramid of stones Gunnar and I had passed in moonlight, laughing and singing together early in the journey. I remembered the rippled hillside, where we had waited for the clouds to clear from the moon and light our way once more. And I remembered the still tarn on high ground, where we had washed the blood and dirt from our hands after the killing. Soon enough there was a shadow in the mist ahead, a brooding black shape like a whale swimming beneath the waves.