The Smile of the Wolf

by Tim Leach

  ‘That is it?’ Dalla said.

  ‘Yes,’ I said. I saw the blood beating beneath the skin of her neck, saw her pale skin whiten to the colour of bone. ‘We may still go back, if you wish.’

  ‘I am afraid,’ she said softly. ‘But no. We cannot go back. Whatever is said, promise that you will not speak. You and Gunnar have done enough already. You must let me try now.’

  ‘As you wish.’

  A farm in peace has a welcoming untidiness to it: pails and tools scattered in the field, animals wandering freely, doors left open and unbarred. In a feud, nothing is left to chance. Animals leashed and tools put away, fences without gaps and horses in the field that are unfamiliar with one another, snorting and circling each other like men in a fist fight. There too, through the mist, I could see a man standing at the door to the longhouse, bored and uneasy.

  By chance or by fate it was a man I had seen on guard for Olaf: Ketil Hakonsson. For a moment he seemed to mistake me for someone else, his face half-breaking into a welcoming smile, still fixed in the habits of peacetime. Then he knew me for who I was.

  I held my hands up and said, ‘Hold. We come to speak, not to fight.’

  ‘It could be a trick,’ he said, half-drawing the axe from his belt, licking lips suddenly struck dry with fear.

  What stories they must have told him of me, I thought. That I was a murderer in the night. A landless wanderer who brought blood and chaos with him. A man who held the shield of Gunnar the Killer. Some kind of monster, and now he stood face to face with me.

  Then Dalla spoke: ‘He would not come with a woman at his side, would he?’

  He started and looked on her as though seeing her for the first time.

  ‘Who are you?’ he said.

  ‘Dalla Egilsdottir. Wife to Gunnar. And I come to speak with Vigdis.’

  ‘Very well,’ he said. ‘I will ask her.’ His eyes danced over the blade at my hip. ‘Will you agree to leave your weapon here, if she says yes?’

  ‘I mean you no harm, friend. But I shall not walk into that house without a weapon. I am sure that you have many men in there. If you choose to murder me, I cannot stop you. But I will die with a blade in my hand. And there will be blood on it, before the end.’

  He shivered a little and I could not help but feel a little pity for him. He had no place in the feud. I hoped that I would never have to fight him.

  ‘But listen,’ I said. ‘I swear to you on my honour that I shall not be the first to draw iron, if it comes to that. We came to talk, not to die.’

  He swallowed and nodded, and went inside. We waited.

  ‘My thanks to you, Kjaran,’ Dalla said.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I see now the risk you took in coming here.’

  The door opened once more and the young warrior appeared to us again. He looked more afraid than he had before. He tried to speak, but could not. He merely beckoned us to enter.

  *

  I pressed one hand to my eye before we entered, giving it a chance to adjust to the dark. With that eye, I counted the men within and marked where they stood. Five, and none of them men I knew well, but if anything it made me more wary than before. Had there been ten of them, they would have had the confidence of their numbers, would have had nothing to fear from me. Five was too many to fight, too few to trust.

  Vigdis sat in the high chair: a queen of her little kingdom, an heir growing thick in her stomach. She kept us waiting there with royal contempt, even as the men eyed us fearfully, lost in that silence.

  Perhaps she thought we would turn to bloodshed for lack of anything else to do; had it been I alone, she might have been right, for men fear the silence. But Dalla was her match in patience. She stood, her weight evenly balanced and her hands clasped in front of her, and waited for her host to speak.

  ‘Dalla,’ Vigdis said at last. ‘Or are you called Flat Nose? Why have you come here to insult me?’

  ‘I did not come to insult you.’

  ‘You come with a murderer at your side.’

  ‘He knew the way. I would have come alone.’

  ‘Your husband knows the way. Why not bring him?’

  ‘I think it is better that he is not here. Don’t you?’

  ‘I suppose that is true. Very well, I give you my hospitality.’

  The low fire hissed at us; the mead was warm and strong against my lips. I heard men moving behind me and fought the urge to turn and watch them. One brushed against me, perhaps hoping I would do something foolish that might justify a killing. I kept my eyes ahead, on Vigdis, and watched her restless hands return again and again to her stomach.

  ‘You have not had a child before?’ Dalla asked.

  ‘It will be my first,’ Vigdis replied.

  ‘It is a wonderful thing.’

  ‘It is the greatest thing. Do you not agree?’

  ‘No. There are other things that make me happier. But I am glad of my children.’

  ‘What can be better than a child?’

  Dalla bit her lip and looked to the table.

  ‘Why have you come here?’ Vigdis said.

  ‘I come to seek peace between our families.’

  ‘Blood has been spilt twice on our side. Erik and Hakon. And you have suffered nothing.’ She pointed to me. ‘This slave’s son will be an outlaw for three years, and you think that justice?’

  ‘The law calls it justice.’ She drank and placed the cup down with a careful motion. ‘But no, I do not call it justice.’

  ‘Then what can you offer me?’

  Dalla looked to me, but only for a moment. I understood then.

  She meant to give me up to them. That was why she had brought me here. She would give me up to save her family. I let my hand wander, slowly, slowly, to the weapon at my side. I would kill one, at least, when she made the offer.

  ‘You asked something of me before,’ Dalla said. ‘Of my husband. That he would cast me aside and marry you.’

  Vigdis cocked her head to the side. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I remember.’

  Dalla faltered for a moment. Unable to hold the other woman’s gaze, she looked to the ground. ‘If that is still what you want. You may have him.’

  She could not look at me either, but she must have sensed my movement. For without looking she raised a hand, palm towards me, telling me to wait.

  Vigdis sat in complete stillness, as if she were a carving of stone. ‘You would do that?’ she said.

  ‘If it would bring an end to the feud. Yes.’

  ‘Gunnar would do it?’

  Dalla raised her head once more, and there was pride in her voice. ‘If I asked him, he would.’

  Vigdis paused for a long time, considering what had been said. The low hum of other men’s talk had ceased entirely, warriors and servants alike looking and listening to our conversation alone. Their faces uncomprehending, for we might have been speaking another tongue entirely: this strange duel was one that they could not understand.

  ‘That time has passed,’ Vigdis said. ‘That is not what I want.’

  ‘What is it you want of me, then?’

  ‘I want you to die.’

  Dalla gave no response – not a flinch, nor even a blink. Not at first. But then her head dipped a little, her shoulders rose a little, as if some iron weight had been hung from her neck. Yet her expression did not change, even as she simply asked: ‘Why?’

  ‘He said that he would kill my child, if he could. What forgiveness can there be for that?’

  ‘A man may say many things when his blood is up.’

  ‘Oh, he meant what he said. I saw it in him. There will be no settlement. No trading of blood for silver. Only of blood for blood.’

  ‘You could end this whenever you wish.’

  ‘Yes, I could. But I do not want to.’

  I have seen men when they are about to die in battle. Cut and wounded, shield broken and no ally to help them. They always come forward, make one last attack. Even if they know that it can do no good,
for there is nothing left for them to do. Many do it smiling, thinking of the glory that waits for them in the next world. Others go with a studied seriousness, focusing only on that moment, that last moment, and thinking of nothing else. And so it was that Dalla raised her head and said: ‘Your first husband, Hrapp. He must have been as evil as they say, to have given you such hate.’

  ‘No,’ Vigdis said. ‘I think it was I who made him that way.’

  *

  We did not speak for a time, after we left the longhouse. We moved fast, to get to the higher ground where we might not be taken by surprise. Before, I would not have thought that they would attack us, that they would dishonour themselves by murdering a woman. After hearing Vigdis speak, I did not know what I believed.

  We pushed hard, lungs burning and legs heavy, until we reached the tarn. There we rested and drank, and soaked water into rags that we held to our skin.

  There was every reason to hurry and none at all to wait. Yet when we had finished, I found that I did not want to leave. It seemed that Dalla felt it too. We lingered. I waited for her to speak.

  I thought of the winter past. Of all the times I had lain awake at night and listened to Gunnar and to Dalla, listened to their lovemaking.

  For there is no privacy in such a place – no privacy except the darkness. In such a home, especially in winter, there is not a thing that one does not know about the other.

  There are some who would have a fascination for listening to the practices of a husband and his wife, or lonely men who might nurse their jealousy and resentment like a man sharpening a spear. It meant nothing to me.

  But I remember once that I wished to look upon them, like those heroes of the old stories who long to look upon that which is forbidden, that I could not help but look. And I remember seeing that she looked back upon me. Just the white of her eyes, glinting like silver in the night. And a thing unspoken passed between us, though I could not say what it was.

  ‘Taking me there cannot have been easy,’ she said.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘You could not feel it?’

  ‘I do not understand.’

  ‘It was not a ghost you killed that night,’ she said, ‘but that house is full of them. You truly did not feel it?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I thought that a poet would see it even better than I. No matter. Perhaps it takes a woman to know it.’

  ‘To know what?’

  She shook her head. ‘I do not want to think of what has happened in that place. What has been said and done there. It is a place of horrors.’ She clasped her hands together. ‘What will we do now?’ she said.

  I did not reply for a time. Then I said: ‘I thought that you meant to offer me up to them. That you thought to buy Gunnar’s life with mine.’

  ‘I would have done, if I thought that it would do any good. Does that surprise you?’

  ‘No. I would not blame you for it. We would both do anything for Gunnar.’

  She nodded. ‘Yes. We have that much in common.’ She rolled a hand through the waters of the tarn and watched the ripples run. ‘May I tell you something?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘I met Gunnar when he had just come to this land,’ she said. ‘A Viking bearing a small hoard of gold and silver, looking for a home. He came to my father’s hall, seeking a wealthy man’s favour. He saw my broken nose and asked what man had done that to me, so that he might avenge the insult. My father said that he was the one who had done it. And Gunnar told my father that he would either marry his daughter or kill him in the holmgang. And so we were married.’

  ‘He never told me that story. You are well matched to Gunnar.’

  ‘Yes, I am. But I would have given Gunnar up to her, to save him. To save our children.’ She put her scarred face into her scarred hands, but still she did not weep.

  ‘You must have loved him from the beginning,’ I said.

  ‘No.’ She shook her head. ‘I wanted to leave my father’s house. I would have married any man who would have taken a flat-nosed girl. I did not love him for many years. I taught myself that art.’ She picked at the grass at her side. ‘Tell me how you met him.’

  ‘I was at Olaf’s hall two winters past. Gunnar came to visit his chieftain. He brought a few grudging gifts, hardly said a word to any man there. I thought him to be just another arrogant troublemaker. A bully with a fine sword. Yet when I sang, I saw him smile. He sat down on the ground and spoke not a word until he was certain that I had finished.’

  ‘And you believed that was who he truly was?’

  ‘Of course. If there is magic in song, it is that. When I sing to them, I see who men truly are. Women too.’

  ‘I remember when he came back from Olaf’s hall and told me of you. Still smiling then, his eyes alive. It was as if you were some woman he had fallen in love with.’ She hesitated. ‘I wish that he had not met you. So much might have been different.’

  ‘You hate me, I think.’

  ‘I do not hate you. I see you carrying my death with you. It is hard not to hate such a man. But I try.’

  I could not think of a word to say to that. She noted this and smiled. ‘A poet struck silent. At least I have seen that in my time.’ She stood. ‘Come. Let us go back. Gunnar will be back soon and I do not wish to answer his questions.’ She paused, then said, ‘I want to forget that I ever spoke to that woman.’

  ‘We will fight.’

  ‘I will get ready to fight. You must be ready to run.’ She smiled then, that same awful, hopeless baring of teeth that I had seen Gunnar give at the Althing. A warrior’s smile. Had she learned it from him or had he learned it from her?

  ‘But first,’ she said, ‘we will have our feast. They will not take that from us.’

  We are in the deepest part of the night now, are we not?

  No moon tonight, and clouds are knotted thick as the rings on a mail shirt. The black air surrounds us. We should be long asleep, but there is much more for me to tell. There will be no sleep for either of us tonight. We shall have to have waking dreams, instead.

  And so now, in this darkness, when we can see so little of our own country – let me tell you of other lands.

  For you have never left Iceland, have you? You have known no place but this. You tell me you never wish to leave. But you are young and the time will come when you tire of this island, when you dream of some other place that might make a better home. Some place where you might be born anew.

  Perhaps you will travel to Norway or Denmark, the old kingdoms of your ancestors. You will see great cities and know what true power looks like in this world. One such as you would catch the eye of the king, and I know you would find favour there. Gold, women, war – all the things that men desire, they would be yours.

  But everywhere you went, you would feel the cold hand of the king on your shoulder. You would come to see the gold you wore as a yoke, as chains. And you would dream of Iceland, where there is no king demanding you kneel before him. Only brave men, demanding that you fight beside them, or against them.

  Perhaps you will not go so far as that. You will travel a little way to the south: to Orkney or Scotland. A little further, to the land of the Irish or to England. You may make your fortune there, with a merchant’s skill or warrior’s sword. But they are not your people. The clans and tribes are no kin to you, and you will find no welcome there. A tolerance, yes, if you bring them gold and iron, but no friendship. You will settle there, hoping that things will change. They never will. And you will die there alone, dreaming of Iceland.

  Or perhaps you will go further still, to the ruins of old empires in distant lands, to lands that burn beneath the sun, cursed by the gods. You will find no quarter there, only desolation and treachery.

  For there is no country as beautiful as this. You must know this. We came to make a new world with all things set right. We failed, for we are weak and foolish and cruel. But there is still something of the dream left here, some power in that s
pell. And there is none of it to be found in the rest of the world.

  Promise me this. That if you decide that you must leave, you will sail not to the south or to east. For there is nothing there for you, no country to match your home. Promise me that you will go to the west instead.

  Do not speak, for I already know your answer. You will tell me there is nothing but endless ocean there for a ship to wander lost upon, for a crew to starve in. Perhaps this is so, and it would be a hero’s death, have no fear of that. The bravery of the sailor in unknown waters is greater than that of the swordsman on the battlefield. But there may be another land out there. And if it is there, it will be a country untouched by men.

  For that is the only country that could be better than our country without kings. A country without men. An empty land, waiting for a new beginning.

  If you must leave, you must go west. To die on the empty sea, like a warrior facing down hopeless odds. Or to find a new land to call your own.

  14

  The night of the feast. The air still, the sky clear. Gunnar’s family stood side by side, washed and anointed like those gone to sacrifice in the old country, Kari holding the reins of the black stallion, the horse a brother to him now. We all stood together and looked to the hills.

  It was the first time that day that we had been still and waiting. The cooking fires had been burning all day, the smoke so thick in the longhouse that one had to crawl across the floor to breathe. Gunnar and I had become things of blood, butchering animals from the herd one after another without pause, our arms and faces marked with gore. Always casting our eyes on the descending sun, worrying that we did not have the time.

  Then we were in the river together, scouring our skin with sand and grit. On the bank, skin drying in the sun – yet still we worked, stitching our torn clothing, braiding hair and beard. It was only when the sun had fallen low, after we had lit the fires and let the torches call silently out into the night, that we could be still. That we could wait, and hope.

  Would any come? More than a dozen had made their promises, some strong, some weak. But there were none whom I could believe in without question. We might stand there waiting all night, with enough meat cooked to feed twenty families and not see a single visitor. No doubt we would lack the heart to eat any of it that night if no one came. Some would be salted and put away, the rest cast out to rot, left as carrion like the dead of a defeated army.