The Smile of the Wolf

by Tim Leach

  A sound came to me as I trudged through the snow. A soft, fragile sound, like the first note struck by an unpractised musician. I thought it a phantom of the mind at first, for in the sleepless darkness of the winter I had grown used to hearing voices and sounds that were not there. I heard it again and could not make sense of it. Again and again it came, soft still but insistent, for the musician was growing more confident, was remembering what it was to play.

  I turned back to face Thoris to see if he heard it too. He had stopped walking, stood in the snow with his head tilted shut and his eyes closed. I knew that he heard it too. I knew then what it was.

  I needed to see it. I would not believe unless I saw it. And though until that moment I had not known if I had the strength even to walk, suddenly I was stumbling and running through the snow, casting my head about. I clapped my hands, yelled curses, hoping to scare out the source of the sound.

  There! A moment of brown motion, an angry cry, and I saw it. A little brown bird, rising from skeletal brush exhumed by the sun. It circled me, scolded me, twitched its wings and was off.

  He was the first, but others would follow. The birds had returned and spring would follow them.

  I sank to my knees in the snow and gave my thanks to any gods who might hear me. I looked to Thoris and found him grinning at me. A child I must have seemed to him, for he had known this moment would come. To be at the worst point of winter, where no hope is left, and to hear the birds sing.

  We laughed together like madmen, howling and screaming with joy, wrestling in the snow like children at play. If a god had spoken to me at that moment and told me that I would die the next day, it would not have mattered to me. To live to hear birdsong again, it was enough.

  When we were exhausted, sitting in the snow and drunk on the memory of that music, I said: ‘We shall have another fire tonight.’

  ‘We shall.’ Thoris scratched at his mutilated ear. ‘Do you still wish that you had taken your place on that ship? Was it not worth the suffering, for this?’

  I hesitated, considering the lie, but already it was too late. He saw the truth of it in my face. He stood and struck the snow from his clothes with rough, chopping blows of the hands.

  ‘Come,’ he said. ‘We must go back to the cave.’ He began to walk away, but he had not gone far when he turned back to speak once more. ‘I will have a song tonight,’ he said.

  He did not speak it as a request: it was a command.

  22

  ‘Do you see him?’ I said.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What shall we do?’

  ‘I cannot say.’

  I lifted my hand to shield my eyes from the sun and looked again down the valley. The day was clear, the sun was high, and yet still I could not believe what it was that I saw. There was a man walking through the valley. One man alone, coming towards where we lay in the snow.

  It was spring – my first spring as an outlaw, and we had been going to tend the sheep that morning. Our new herd, for we had stolen some pregnant ewes whilst the nights were still long enough. And as we went to tend them, we had seen movement at the edge of the valley.

  We thought him one of the other outlaws at first, one of those shadows we saw on the high mountains from time to time, and kept well away from. A thief who had come to take from us the cattle we had stolen.

  But this man was different. Even from a distance we could see that he was well clothed. He walked like a warrior, not the shambling, exhausted steps of the outlaw who is always hungry, always exhausted. And he carried something in his hands, something long and slender. A staff, perhaps, though he did not use it to help him walk.

  ‘One of the men who hunts you?’ I said.

  ‘Fool,’ he snapped. ‘Who would come here alone?’

  ‘Another outlaw, then.’

  ‘Perhaps.’

  He was going towards the herd; soon he would see them. Half a dozen sheep, all marked with a different man’s brand. There would be no mistaking them for anything other than the work of a thief.

  ‘If he takes the cattle, we die,’ I said.

  ‘It does not matter if he takes them, if he has seen where they graze. He cannot leave. We cannot let him go.’

  We lay still, our bellies against the ground, and watched him walk towards his death.

  He saw the herd, the first sign of life he must have seen in the mountains for days. I thought the sight might make him flee or scour the hillsides for the shepherds who watched over this thieves’ flock. He paused for only a moment, his head cocked to the side, before he went towards the animals in the valley.

  We waited until he passed our position, until he was deep within the dale. There was only one way in and out of this place; that is why we had chosen it to keep our herd. If he went deeper into the valley we would have him trapped, for it ended in impassable cliffs. If he tried to go back the way he had come we would have to close the distance quickly, to cut him off before he could escape.

  Yet the moment we stood, he seemed to hear us. For he turned to face us and he did not run. He greeted us with a wave, as though he were hailing friends from another valley, and came towards us.

  We stood, irresolute. We would have been ready for him to take flight, to draw a weapon. This courtesy was one we did not know how to answer.

  ‘We should welcome him,’ Thoris said. ‘Let him relax. Then we can take him by surprise.’

  ‘I will not murder a man like that. If he must die, he will die fighting.’

  He cursed me. ‘A fool’s honour,’ he said. ‘You still speak as a free man. But we shall kill him your way.’

  I had almost forgotten how free men looked: soft cheeks, clean tunic, silver rings on his arms. We must have seemed a desperate pair to his eyes, I half-handed, Thoris ragged from seven years in the mountains. More akin to wolves than men.

  He carried a beautiful weapon, a sword too large to wear slung from his belt, and so he carried its scabbard in his hands like a staff, picking his way through the rocks with the sheathed point. Now he placed that point against the ground and rested his chin on the pommel. He smiled at us and I saw that half his teeth were gone, all on one side. The side of a shield, the flat edge of a sword, a wild horse’s flailing hoof – something had marked him with a monster’s smile.

  ‘This is your herd?’ he said.

  ‘It is,’ Thoris replied.

  ‘I do not think so. They bear the marks of many different men.’

  ‘They are ours now.’

  He covered his mouth with his hand. ‘So I see,’ he said, his shoulders shaking.

  ‘Who are you?’ I asked.

  ‘My name is Thorvaldur.’

  ‘Why have you come here?’

  ‘I am an outlaw, as you are.’

  ‘Then go, and find another place.’

  He raised an eyebrow. ‘You would let me leave?’ And he covered his mouth again.

  I put my hand to the hilt of my sword. ‘We cannot. But we will give you a warrior’s death.’

  ‘I thank you for speaking the truth.’ He paused, then said: ‘If I cannot leave, perhaps I may join you.’

  ‘I have no need of another man eating my sheep and grain,’ Thoris said and levelled a finger at me. ‘One parasite is enough.’

  ‘Oh, I may be of use to you,’ said the stranger.

  ‘How?’ I said, and I remembered the words that Thoris had spoken to me in the storm. ‘What can you do?’

  ‘What can I do?’

  ‘Why should we save you?’

  He laughed out loud now, as though at some joke that only he had heard. ‘I can tell you of God,’ he said. ‘Of the true God.’

  ‘The White Christ?’

  ‘He is called that by some.’

  ‘We have gods enough of our own,’ I said. ‘We have no need of yours.’

  ‘Fool,’ Thoris said. ‘The gods are no friends of ours.’ He looked back on the stranger. ‘But your God will be no different. We have no need of him.’

>   ‘Very well. May I have the names of those who will kill me?’

  ‘I am Thoris Kin-slayer. And this is Kjaran the Luckless. Tell them to your God, when you see him.’

  He cocked his head again. ‘I have heard your story,’ he said. ‘You killed your brother.’

  ‘Aye. That I did.’

  ‘My God has a story of such a thing. You shall want to hear it.’ He looked to me next. ‘I do not know your crime. But perhaps I have a story for you as well. I would be happy to share them with you.’ He tightened his grip on the sword. ‘Or we may kill each other. It does not matter to me.’

  I have heard many men make such a boast. Our gods honour none but the battle dead, and so we should hold no fear of death at the edge of a blade. Yet for all the boasts I had heard, I believed it from only two men: Gunnar, and the man who stood before us in that valley.

  I had heard that Christians were unmanly, that their God was a coward. For that was what the White Christ meant: the Coward Christ. And yet here he was before us, ready to die.

  ‘Wait,’ Thoris said.

  The silence grew. Perhaps he was thinking of the danger of a fight. We were two, but we were weak. He might only have to wound us to kill us: a fever or starvation would finish what he began. Perhaps Thoris merely thought of the odds, and that they were not in our favour.

  But I do not think it was that.

  ‘Your name is Thorvaldur, you say?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Thorvaldur,’ Thoris repeated, as though there were some spell in the word. Perhaps there was, for I could not have expected what he next said. ‘You may come with us. I will hear stories of your God.’

  At once, the stranger relaxed. He thrust the point of the sword into the snow and came forward to embrace us, as though we were his brothers.

  We could have cut him down then; perhaps it would have been better if we had. But he knew that we would not. Already, we were under the strange spell he seemed to cast.

  *

  And so we were three. A farmer, a poet, a priest.

  We took him back to the cave and lit a fire, our first in many days. It amused me to see Thoris light it. Even out here he wanted to impress his guest, as if he were an impoverished chieftain gifting his last silver ring to a visitor rather than confess his poverty. For it is better to starve than to be shamed.

  We ate, shared a little of that mead that Thoris kept on the flask around his neck, and sat together in silence. I waited for Thorvaldur to speak, to share the words of his God, but he seemed to feel no haste. He waited for us to ask.

  ‘How did you come to be outlawed?’ I said.

  Thoris’s mouth twisted in scorn. I knew how he hated to speak of a world outside these mountains.

  ‘I travelled with a bishop,’ the Christian said.

  ‘What is that?’

  ‘A great man of God, from across the sea. We travelled together, visiting one chieftain after another. Then we went to the Althing, to speak the word of God.’ He fell silent. It was the first time that I had seen him hesitate, seem doubtful.

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘They laughed at us. Called him unmanly.’ He smiled at me. ‘And so I killed two of them. It was a fair fight.’

  ‘And yet you were outlawed.’

  ‘They think to cow us Christians. Any other man would have been made to pay the blood-price for answering such an insult. But they thought to get rid of me.’

  Thoris spoke at this. ‘They have succeeded, it seems.’

  Thorvaldur shrugged. ‘For three years. And then I shall return.’

  ‘Why not go abroad?’ He pointed to me. ‘This fool had the chance, but gave it up. Were you too proud to leave, too? Or too poor?’

  ‘Neither. I came here to find men like you.’

  ‘Why would you do such a thing?’

  ‘The men out there. They are not ready to hear the word of God. Perhaps you are.’

  ‘What do we matter to you?’

  ‘Every soul matters to me. But that is a story for another time.’ He spread his hands wide and said, ‘Now, I will speak to you of my God.’

  ‘Come, then,’ Thoris said. ‘Amuse us with your stories.’

  ‘And if I do not amuse you? Will you kill me?’

  Thoris shrugged. The question not worthy of an answer.

  ‘At least I shall die well fed,’ Thorvaldur said, and I could see the light of the fire shining on his teeth as he smiled. ‘It is a long story. It will take much time.’

  ‘We are wealthy in time, if in nothing else.’

  ‘Very well,’ Thorvaldur said, and he crossed his legs and straightened his back. ‘Let me tell you how the world was made.’

  And he began to speak, with words that were not his.

  At first, little that he said seemed new to me. He spoke of the crafting of the world; we had a story much like it. He spoke of a sacred tree of knowledge, much like Yggdrasil, the tree from which Odin was hung in pursuit of knowledge. He told stories of a trickster god who took the form of a snake – Thorvaldur called him Satan, but I knew him for Loki. I began to grow bored as he spoke. From what little I had heard of the White Christ, he expected men to be willing to die for him. It did not seem like much of a faith to die for.

  But then he spoke of a man and woman cast out from a paradise. Exiles – perhaps you could even call them outlaws. And I felt a coldness run up my spine, for that is where a story leaves its mark, when we know it to be true.

  Thorvaldur spoke of two brothers. Of their rivalry and how, in jealousy, one murdered another. A feud between brothers, a feud between a man and his God. And even in the darkness I saw Thoris tremble a little.

  Thorvaldur paused. His voice changed, and he no longer spoke with a God’s words but with his own.

  ‘I think this story is familiar to you, is it not?’ he said.

  Movement in the dark. Hands reaching, finding. One shadow on top of another, and the light of the fire on the blade of a knife. And Thoris pressing his face close to that of Thorvaldur, while that man of God stared back at him impassively, a trickle of blood running from his throat.

  ‘Do you mock me?’ Thoris said.

  ‘I told you that my God had such a story. I mean no mockery.’

  ‘And what does your God say happened to him?’

  ‘He was cursed to wander the earth. Cast out from his people.’ Thorvaldur’s eyes flickered over Thoris’s ruined ear. ‘And he was marked, so that every man knew him for what he was.’

  ‘I know this story already. What use is it to me?’

  ‘But you do not know how it ends.’

  Thoris sat back, the blade still in his hand. ‘Tell me.’

  ‘He was branded for his whole life,’ Thorvaldur said. ‘Hated by the people of the world. He suffered, but God forgave him.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘God forgives the evil that men do.’

  ‘At what price?’

  ‘There is no price but faith. For mine is a God of love.’

  Silence followed. What answer was there to that?

  Odin, Thor, Freyr – our gods are our chieftains, our kings. We honour them and they protect us. We anger them and they destroy us. We die well and they reward us. But how could a God love a man?

  Thoris’s lips curled – anger, perhaps even disgust. The knife still lay in his hand, gripped weakly.

  ‘Enough of this,’ I said. ‘I will sing, if you want.’

  ‘No,’ Thoris said. ‘I do not want your songs.’ He pointed to Thorvaldur. ‘Speak. Tell me your story. Tell me how it ends.’

  23

  What do the seasons matter in a place such as that outlaw’s valley? What does summer count for in a land where nothing grows and there is no end to the ice and snow? Where the coming and going of the winter is marked by the birds and the sun, but by no other man or woman?

  I dreamed sometimes that there was some second, secret world within those dead valleys. A gathering of the outlaws, perhaps even a shadow of t
he Althing. A place where, at the height of a frozen summer, we outcast men would meet in a frozen valley, beside a dead lake. There we could trade and share our stories, feel ourselves to be part of something greater.

  Our people had come to this country a century before, forged a new people in an empty land. Could we retreat once more, found a country within a country?

  But there was no such thing. This was not some second society, hidden away from the people of the coast. We were not pioneers, settlers of the ice. There were no women, no children. We were not men. We were ghosts.

  We passed the seasons shivering in the cave, working in fragments of daylight. On some of the long nights, I still sang – more for Thorvaldur now, for he clapped and cheered each song as though we were in a chieftain’s hall. Thoris half-listened, scratching at the floor of the cave with the blade of his knife. He was waiting for something else. For on the days that I did not sing, Thorvaldur continued the story of his God.

  I listened as a child will to the ramblings of an angry old man: all attention, but with little interest. I had the gods of two people already – from the Icelanders and the Irish, Odin and the White Lady, the father and mother of my poetry. I needed nothing from him.

  Or so I believed, at first.

  *

  There came a day in late summer when Thorvaldur and I sat by a small fire, preparing a rare hot meal. Thoris was away – tending the herd or collecting water, I cannot remember which. But I was alone with the Christian, for a time at least.

  ‘Will you speak of your God again tonight?’ I said. ‘Or shall I sing?’

  ‘It will be as our chieftain wishes it.’

  ‘Then I think that we will have your stories. I would lay a wager, had I anything of my own to gamble with.’

  ‘You do not care for my tales of Christ?’

  ‘I do not mind them. Some of them make for good stories.’

  ‘But they do not move you.’

  ‘I have enough gods at my side already. I have no need for another.’

  ‘Perhaps I may tell you other things. What is it that you wish to hear?’

  I hesitated. ‘There is a man that I would hear news of,’ I said. ‘A woman, too, though I doubt you will have heard of her.’