The Smile of the Wolf

by Tim Leach

  We passed through the door, back to the welcoming darkness. And the moment we stepped through, I knew that I had been mistaken. For Dalla came forward, her eyes rolling like a spooked horse, and she gripped her husband by the shoulders.

  ‘Where is Kari?’ she whispered. ‘Is he with you?’

  ‘Why would he be with us?’ Gunnar said.

  Her mouth gaped in grief and she made no reply. She did not need to. We knew it then, without another word being spoken, even as we hunted with our eyes a boy who was not there.

  Kari had gone.

  *

  It was behind the boards of his bed. I found it by passing my hand over the planks, feeling the wind against my skin. I rapped the wood, found it hollow, and lifted up the loose plank. And behind it a tunnel, cut through the turf wall, just big enough for a child to crawl through.

  ‘He said he wished to sleep,’ Dalla said. ‘He went to his bed. When I looked again, he was gone.’

  I saw it all then: a bored child, trapped inside by the long winter, giving himself a project. Turning his home into a place to explore, a world of wood and earth given life by the mind. A child’s secret. An innocent thing, but he had found another use for it now.

  ‘I always thought this house was too cold in winter,’ Gunnar said. He spat in the embers of the fire and I heard it sizzle.

  ‘How could we not see him?’

  ‘He went along the riverbed, upstream or downstream. That is the only way that he could have gotten away without us seeing him.’

  ‘We must go back out.’

  ‘I will go with you,’ Dalla said. ‘If they are out there, they will not hurt a woman.’

  ‘We do not know what they will do,’ Gunnar said. ‘And you must stay here and guard our home.’

  She looked at her daughter, lying in fitful sleep by the fire, and her mouth twisted with anger; a killer’s look stole across her face. She took up an axe and knelt down beside Freydis. One hand stroking the golden hair of her daughter, the other gripping the handle of her weapon, as if she were some kind of loving executioner.

  We left her like that, back into the blue air of the summer night, following the sound of running water down to the riverbed.

  ‘I will go upstream,’ I said. ‘You go down. We return to the farm at first light.’

  Gunnar glanced upstream and shook his head.

  ‘Björn’s farm lies that way.’

  ‘And Vigdis lives downstream. They could be waiting for us either way. Or both.’

  ‘The danger is equal. Very well.’ He paused for a moment. ‘Be lucky, Kjaran.’

  ‘This will be a good time to start.’

  He nodded. ‘Call out if you see them. I will come to you.’

  ‘What signal should I expect from you, if you need my help?’

  He rapped his sword against the boss of his shield. ‘You will hear that, and the sound of the killing.’ With that, he slipped away, swift-footed in the dark and dancing from rock to rock down the shallow river. I watched him go and turned to follow my own path.

  Alone now, I moved up beside the river, feeling the wet ground against my feet where the boots had worn away. I should have been more afraid, but I was not. My life was in my hands, and my life alone. I did not carry the lives of Gunnar or of his family. And so I was a weightless, grinning creature as I ran through the dark, scouring the hills for the shape of a boy. I could not risk calling his name, but I listened for his voice. For I could not think his courage would last long, alone as he was.

  But I heard nothing. The wind, the trees, the river, and nothing more than that. I drew close to the boundaries of Gunnar’s land and had found no further sign or sound of the boy. I told myself that he must have gone downstream in search of the horse – perhaps Gunnar had already found him.

  I turned back – hurrying, and more afraid now that the danger seemed to be passing, for no man wishes to be killed when the end of a battle is in sight. A little longer, a few hundred footsteps, and I would be back to warmth and safety.

  But something was wrong. I knew it, and yet I did not know it. It was as if my mind were screaming a warning at me, but in a language that I could not understand. Nothing had changed: the night was still, no sight or sound of anything amiss. I stopped and listened, trying to understand, but heard nothing but the wind and the creaking of the trees.

  Then I knew what it was. The ghost of a sound, a memory of the spring. For we had cut down that little wood on Gunnar’s land. There were no trees left. I did not know what the creaking was, but it was not the wind against the trees. A slow, dull, wooden creaking, that came and went with the passage of the air.

  I went to my hands and knees. I closed my eyes. I listened again.

  To the west. In a dip in the valley, hidden from view. That was where the sound came from.

  I made my way there. Slowly, as slow as ice spreading over water. Each foot placed where it would make the least noise. Not a single thing left to chance, for there is no patience like that of a man hunted by other men.

  Moment by moment, the sound seemed to change. It sounded like the cawing of a crow, then the groan of a tree, then the turning of an old cartwheel. Even when I was almost on top of it, lying on the grass of the hill with the sound just beyond, I still could not tell what it was.

  I waited there a time. I had always thought that, in such a place, I would feel the touch of a god on my shoulder and know that it was time to fight or die. But I felt no sign. And so I counted ten breaths, then leapt to my feet, shield in front and axe held high behind.

  A monster. That was what stood before me. A shape taller than a man, a distended head that leered, tongue lolling and open mouthed, teeth shining in the darkness.

  That is what I saw for one heartbeat, for two, for three. Then my mind made sense of what my eyes could see. I saw the wooden pole thrust into the ground, black with blood. I saw the horse’s head thrust on top of it, shifting and creaking with the wind. And I saw the runes marked on flesh and wood. A curse. A warning. A promise of the killing to come.

  I turned around, expecting to find the men who had done this behind me. But there was no one. They would be long gone, back to their homes, their curse behind them. They had left their message, written on the body, mounted on the pole. That there would be no forgiveness, no ending of the feud. That what they had done to that horse, they would do to men.

  The wind stilled and I heard another sound. The sound of weeping. And I saw another shape in the dark, knelt at the base of the pole, a worshipper prostrate before a hateful god. It was the boy.

  ‘I thought it was him,’ he said. ‘I saw him. I thought I heard him call to me.’

  ‘I know.’ I sat beside him and put my arm over his shoulder. ‘It is nothing. Nothing but a scorn-pole. The tool of a coward.’

  ‘Will it curse us?’

  ‘No. They think to insult us, and scare us. But we are too brave and clever for that, aren’t we?’

  ‘You will not tell my father I wept?’

  ‘That is not what I saw. You were watching bravely to see if they came back, weren’t you?’

  He nodded dumbly.

  ‘Come on. Let us go home.’

  He got to his feet and walked in front of me, tottering like a child half his age. I followed him, but as I did so I looked back once more at the scorn-pole, looked on that face of the horse. It was as though it was laughing at me.

  I could almost hear it, and I wondered if they were out there too, watching and laughing. I felt the killer’s longing rising in me as I never had before. I had stood beside Gunnar at the holmgang, had looked into the eyes of men who wished me dead and had felt no violence stirring. Yet the thought of that mockery, of being toyed with for sport – that was what brought the murderer’s rage to me. I wanted nothing more than to hunt those hills, to kill every one of them.

  But I did not have enough time. Tomorrow I would be gone.

  16

  ‘It was one of them, was it not?’
/>
  ‘What?

  ‘One of our guests, at the feast. Who took the horse.’

  I did not reply. There was no need to.

  Gunnar and I were sat on the high ground above the farm, looking down upon it. On the sheep wandering in the fields, the high wheat almost ready for the harvest. The place that I would not see again for many years. For that was the day I would leave.

  The guests had gone home at first light. Gunnar had smiled well enough and played the happy host. No one asked why his children sat dead-eyed in the corner of the house, refusing to speak. Or why our flesh was grey from our sleepless night. They had gone and we remained. To speak together and say our goodbyes.

  We had gone out once more in the night, to take down the scorn-pole and burn it. The body we could not find. Perhaps they had butchered it for meat and split it amongst themselves, bloody reward for the hard night’s work. Or left it for scavengers to take.

  At last, Gunnar spoke again. ‘At least now I know that I cannot trust them. Better to know that now.’

  ‘You will find out who it was, soon enough. There are no secrets in this place.’

  ‘As we have both learned.’ He looked back over the dale, towards where the scorn-pole had stood. ‘Do you think it is true what they say? That it is the worst of curses?’

  ‘I do not know.’

  He nodded absently. ‘And who is it you sail with?’

  ‘Ragnar Ragnarsson. The one they call the Keel-farer.’

  ‘His kin call him that. I have heard him nicknamed the Coward.’

  ‘That is what most men call him, yes.’

  ‘I would not trust such a man to captain a boat.’

  ‘Oh, he may tremble on the shore at the first sign of bloodshed, but there is no calmer man on a restless sea. Or so I have been told.’

  ‘And where will you go?’

  ‘I do not know. Dublin, perhaps. I have always wanted to see Ireland. Perhaps I will find kin there. Or Jórvík.’

  ‘You will like Dublin, I think.’ And then he drew his sword and held it flat in both hands, the blade against his palms, a man in prayer to his god. Then he turned and held it out to me. Wordless, perhaps not trusting himself to speak, he gestured for me to take it.

  I said: ‘That is too great a gift. I have no need of it.’

  ‘You have every need of it.’

  ‘They may mistake me for some great warrior. I do not have the skill to fight the men who would be willing to stand against this sword.’

  ‘You will take it or I will cast it into the sea. You may choose.’

  I lifted the sword and held it flat, placed one palm underneath the top of it. I looked down on the blade and saw there the name of some craftsman whose story was long since forgotten. I ran one finger down the centre of the groove that was carved there to make the weapon lighter, to let the blood run freely from the blade, and I thought of how much must have poured down that mark. No mighty river’s worth, but perhaps, somewhere in Iceland, there was some brook or rivulet that had washed the ground with as much water as this blade had seen blood.

  It was beautiful, in the way that killing can be beautiful.

  ‘How did I earn this?’ I said.

  Gunnar thought upon this for a long time. ‘You are kind,’ he said at last. ‘Perhaps it is as simple as that. Most who are kind are cowards. They think to buy with words what they cannot earn with courage. But you are not like that. I think you are the only man I know who has that quality.’

  ‘Another name for me. Kjaran the Kind. If I were to make a song of that, none would listen.’

  ‘I cannot learn it from you. I wish that I could. But I am nothing but a killer. Men love me for it. But it is worthless. I am tired of it.’

  ‘That is not why men love you, Gunnar.’

  ‘What is it, then?’

  ‘Because you are not afraid to die.’

  He looked at me, his eyes disbelieving. ‘You think that such a precious thing?’ he said.

  How much we discover of someone, when we are so close to leaving them. What a cruel trick that is.

  I would have pressed him further, but I saw them then, coming from Hjardarholt. Olaf and his men, a convoy of warriors and horses. My escort to another world. He had business in Borg, family to visit, and had offered to take me to the coast. One last favour. Doubtless it would dishonour him if I were murdered on the road. He would see me safe to a ship and his part in the feud would be ended.

  ‘You go to the ship here?’

  ‘No. South, to Borg. Ragnar has a shipwright there that he trusts.’

  ‘Will you say goodbye? To Dalla and my children?’

  ‘It is better that I do not.’ I looked away. ‘You could come with me,’ I said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Sell your land. Olaf would give you a fair price to be rid of you, rid of the feud. Take your family, find a new home. You have silver enough and no kin to keep you here. I do not know why it is that you stay.’

  I watched him think on this. It is not as they say, that we poets can see into the hearts of men. The world would be a simpler place if we could. There would never be another feud, or a true love that remained unspoken. I cannot see into the hearts of men. But I think that I could see him tempted, in that moment.

  He spoke. ‘Do you know how many places I travelled to, before I settled here?’

  ‘I do not. You never tell me of that time.’

  ‘I have been to lands to the east where there are deserts greater than this whole island. I have been to the courts of kings where even the whores wear gold. Seen wonders that you could not imagine, poet that you are.’ He turned a palm towards the sky, gestured to the valley as if he were toasting it with a cup of wine. ‘But this is the finest land of them all. I would never leave this place. I love my children, my wife. I…’ He fell silent for a moment. Then: ‘But I love this country more than anything else.’

  ‘Then you would have me stay?’

  ‘No. I want you to go. To stay is to die. But I wish that you could.’ He stood and offered his hand to me. ‘I will see you in three years. Promise me that.’

  ‘You have my word.’ I laid my fingers against the sword. ‘I will return this to you.’

  ‘If I am still here.’

  ‘I am the one that they want. They will leave your family in peace,’ I said. And he smiled in such a way that showed he knew that I was lying. But we wanted to believe the lie.

  I made to put the sword in its sheath, but some omen stopped me. I put my free hand against the blade, felt the sharp line against the back of my hand. I pressed it there, until I felt the blood run free. I held forth the sword, and my bloodied hand.

  ‘Would you become my brother?’ I said. ‘Swear an oath in blood with me.’

  It has always been done amongst my people. Where a man finds a brother in battle rather than kinship, and seals the bond in blood. I could not think why we had not done so already.

  There had been no fear in him on the night he hunted the ghost, when we stood accused upon the plain, when he fought in the holmgang. But I think that, for a moment, I did see him afraid. Of what, I could not understand.

  ‘No,’ he said, his voice cold. ‘I will not do that.’

  There was something more that needed to be said, but I could not find the words to say it. I heard the horses come up to us, heard Olaf calling my name.

  That is how I left Gunnar. With words unspoken, a debt unpaid. The worst of partings between friends.

  *

  Two days remained. I would be a man of the people in that time, protected by the spoken laws that bound all of us together. Once that was over, I would be an animal to be hunted for sport or for revenge. But if Olaf and his men thought any differently of me, they did not show it. I did not travel set apart from them, but as just another member of the company. Perhaps even as the last moments were counted away, they would still laugh with me, urge me to sing another song, hand me one last cup of ale. Then, as the sun touched
the horizon, they would take up their blades and murder me without a moment’s hesitation. Such was the power of the law that bound us. And such was the outlaw’s fate.

  We rode down through the valley to the south, passing mountains that held their snow even in the height of summer, listening to the calling of the waterfalls. We came to the open plains, scarred and marked by the black rock where the earth had cracked and bled many years before.

  It was then that I saw them. Always behind us, another group of riders. My second escort, trailing us the way that wolves will trail a deer abandoned by its herd.

  They kept a respectful distance, never close enough to be a threat, always close enough to keep us in sight. They made no attempt to hide, for they did nothing wrong. A band of men, travelling towards the sea. Björn, Snorri and the rest of his kin. I wondered if Vigdis rode with them.

  They were there to see that I truly left the country, that I played no sorcerer’s trick. And if we found ourselves delayed – if a sudden storm trapped us on the land or the tides went against us – they would take their opportunity for revenge.

  Not a man that I rode with spoke of the people who followed us. But from time to time, when they thought my eyes were not on them, I saw them twist in their saddles and glance back. Perhaps gauging the distance, checking that they were not riding any closer to us. Perhaps counting for numbers, to see which side would have the advantage if it came to a fight. Perhaps wishing that they were with that second band, that they rode with the hunters of men. I had no doubt that if I remained in Iceland as an outlaw, there would be plenty amongst Olaf’s men who would come looking for me.

  We left behind the plains, and before us lay the fjord, the harbour, the open sea. The place they called Borg.

  A coffin cast into the open sea had guided the first settlers to this place, and the dead had chosen well. A natural harbour, and farmlands that stretched far inland. We came to that first farm, where Egill Skallagrímsson now lived, and it was there that Olaf parted from us. He strutted and preened himself for the laughter of his men, preparing himself to face the most fearsome of the warrior poets as though he were wooing a lass that he loved. Only when his eyes passed over me did they dim for a moment.