The Smile of the Wolf

by Tim Leach

  I wrapped the fur cloak around my shoulders, struggling to tie the clasp one-handed – three years of practice, yet still I had not mastered this. The knife went into my belt, my killer’s weapon, its edge almost dull. Last of all, I settled the sword at my hip. Gunnar’s sword, a weapon of heroes, that had not left its sheath for all the time I had been exiled. That blade was still sharp.

  ‘It is time, then?’ Thorvaldur said.

  ‘It is.’

  Thorvaldur nodded.

  ‘We shall walk with you. For some of the way at least. Come, Thoris. We must see him out of the valley.’

  I did not think that he would follow. He had barely spoken a word to me for months, for the sooner we drew to the day of my freedom, the less he wished to speak to me. He counted the days more than any of us, though their passage could bring him no reprieve. And sometimes I awoke in the night to find him watching me, his eyes cold.

  But he rose without a word, and the three of us walked out together.

  Down into the valley, the place that I knew as I would know a lover. The tall smooth rock that curves and hollows like the body of a woman. The place where the winter ice was thinnest on the river, where we had broken it open a hundred times for gulps of the piercing water. The rock wall that looked like a giant’s face; the hidden hole in the moor that threatened to twist and snap an ankle.

  We went to where the valley opened out, where the free lands of Iceland lay stretched before us. Distant, the movement of the herds, the dancing of crops in the wind. A different world, that I could enter and they could not.

  ‘This is as far as we may go,’ Thoris said.

  For a moment I did not dare look back on them. For I wondered if they meant to let me taste freedom for a moment before they cut my throat. We held no bond of kinship, of loyalty. I might earn great renown, bringing back the heads of those two outlaws. Perhaps they could not take the chance of letting a free man go, knowing that valley as I did.

  But when I turned back to face them, they greeted me with silver, not with iron.

  Thoris stepped forward and handed me a silver arm-ring, the double of the one I had traded away in Borg. In the three years we had spent together I had never seen him wear it. He must have kept it hidden away, one last treasure. A relic from his lost life. Perhaps a gift from a friend, as mine had been.

  ‘Take it,’ he said. ‘You shall have more need of this than I.’

  ‘I cannot take this from you.’

  ‘What use have I for silver? I shall never spend it.’

  In that cave he had been a tyrant and I had learned to hate him. I was free of him now, could nurture my hatred freely. And yet I felt no need for it.

  ‘Why have you given this to me?’ I asked.

  ‘You sing well,’ he said. He seemed to want to say more, but he could not find the words.

  I turned from him and looked out on the frozen valley that I had called home. The prison which he could not leave.

  ‘This will make a good song,’ I said.

  ‘Three years in this place and you think it will make a good song?’

  ‘All men love to hear of outlaws.’

  You will sing of me?’

  ‘I shall.’

  ‘What kind of a song?’ he said, and I think there was fear in his voice. Perhaps he feared a flyting song, strange as that seemed. This man who would be forever exiled from his people, and yet he still feared to be mocked behind his back. Perhaps that was all he heard when he closed his eyes at night. Men laughing at him, a fool who had killed his brother for love.

  ‘You have lived out here longer than any other outlaw. What is there to mock in that?’

  He turned from me and began to walk away, slow and purposeless, like an old man who has forgotten himself.

  ‘It was not a shameful thing,’ I said, and he looked back to face me.

  ‘What did you say?’

  ‘There is no shame in what she did. The woman that you loved.’

  He said: ‘I thank you.’ Then he was away, striding back up the slope of the hill, towards his cave.

  Thorvaldur clasped his shoulder as he passed, whispered words that I could not hear. The Christian came forward and took my hand, smiled that terrible, half-toothed smile of his.

  ‘Good fortune, Kjaran.’ He looked back at Thoris. ‘It was kind, what you said to him.’

  ‘It was what he wished to hear,’ I said. ‘Just as what you speak to him, with those stories of your God.’

  He shrugged, caught.

  ‘Perhaps we shall meet in better times,’ I said.

  ‘I do not wish for better times. I am where I should be.’

  ‘I cannot believe that.’

  ‘You are jealous, I think. That he cares more for my words than your songs.’

  ‘You came here to find desperate men. Desperate men who would need your God.’

  He did not seem insulted by my words. He cocked his head, considered the thought.

  ‘It does not seem so wrong to bring God first to those who need Him most. I thought to bring the word of God to the chieftains of this country. But I think that is not the way. The shaming I received, this exile – God is telling me that it is not the way.’

  ‘And so you bring your God to men who will soon be dead. Men who will father no children. Your word will die with them.’

  ‘Perhaps. But I say that it is time well spent. Two years spent saving a single soul, and I do not regret it.’

  ‘You truly think that he will join your God?’

  ‘He is close to it.’

  ‘Yes. He wants to be forgiven.’

  ‘And what of you?’

  ‘I do not. I have nothing to forgive.’

  ‘My God will love you.’

  ‘I have a woman who loves me. What need have I of the love of a god?’

  ‘That will change, in time. When it does, come back to me.’

  ‘It will not change.’

  ‘Then I hope we do not meet again,’ he said.

  There was a coldness to his eyes, where before there had been nothing but merriment. I wondered if this was what those men had seen in him, those men who had mocked him at the Althing, all those years ago. Had they seen that look in his eyes, before they died?

  ‘Do not mistake me,’ he said. ‘I will make you a Christian, or give you a warrior’s death. There can be nothing else between us.’ He raised his hands, gesturing to the valley. ‘There is a truce between us here. You sheltered me and I thank you for it. I like your company well enough and think you a good man. But I am a warrior in a feud. A feud of gods. And beyond this valley, you are my enemy.’ He brought both hands to rest upon his heart. ‘But I hope that you will be my friend, one day.’

  ‘Be kind to Thoris,’ I said.

  ‘My God will be kind,’ he replied. And then he was gone.

  I watched them walk away, one behind the other. The slow, clumsy steps of Thoris and the careless stride of Thorvaldur. Like an old man close to death and the son who will succeed him.

  *

  I came back to the free lands as a traveller from another world. I stood tall and walked in daylight, wandering the high ground with no fear, the warmth of the sun against my skin. Let me be seen by every man and woman and I would not have cared. The law was once again my friend and I felt as though every man on the island walked at my side.

  I had no horse, no silver that I would spare to buy one, no friend in that place who might lend me one. And so I walked from one farm to the next, out towards the west, striding towards the sea. As the sun sank low I would seek out the closest longhouse, follow the rising smoke like a sailor chasing a star. I knocked on those doors and asked for a place to sleep at night.

  Most did not know my name, but they knew me for what I was. There was no mistaking the ragged clothes that I wore, the hollow body of a half-starved man. For the outlaw ages as a cursed man does, old before his time. Those three years in the mountains had stolen my youth.

  There were so
me who looked on me with fear; they would let me in and give me bread, and let me sing a song or two, but they would not speak a word to me and sent me on my way the moment the sun rose. But most greeted me with kindness, gifting me old clothes to replace my outlaw rags, sharing unwatered ale with me. And at night they and their children gathered around the fire and listened to my stories. For all love to hear tales of the outlaws.

  So I told them that a giant lived in the valley and a dragon slept beneath it. That we never saw the sun, that we fought monsters and sorcerers. And all of it was a lie, and all of it was true.

  I asked them to tell me their stories. And I asked them to tell me stories of Gunnar the Killer.

  Most had never heard the name. Some had heard of him and of the feud. A few even claimed to have been at the Althing when I had been outlawed. None could speak anything of use to me, for we were still a long way from the Salmon River Valley. Yet in their silence I found a comfort. If some disaster had struck, if blood had been spilt, surely they would have heard it.

  One of them gave me a horse – half-blind and he twitched and shivered uncontrollably, but he still had a little life left in him. Enough, perhaps, to see me home.

  I came to Borg on that horse and looked once more upon the mountains that had made me wish to stay, listened to the calling of the sea for the first time in three years. I looked for Ragnar’s ship in the dock, but I could not find it. He was out at sea or was further north along the coast.

  North, then. Through the deep valley, past cliff face and waterfall, rising up and up towards the Salmon River Valley. More carefully now, for I came close to the lands of men who might know me. I was an outlaw no longer, but that might matter little to Björn and his kin. They would risk outlawry themselves if it would see me dead. Only once I was with Gunnar would I be safe. The hills broke open and before me was the sea, the valley, my home. The great arcing curve of the bay, the great mountain of Helgafell behind me, the rolling land of the dales in front. I told myself that I would not leave it again, that nothing could compel me to do so. Not the lure of the Althing, the whisper of the sea. Not a sentence of outlawry or any curse or witchcraft. I would live and die in that place.

  And suddenly, I was afraid.

  Do not ask me how, but I could smell it, taste it, long before that could have been possible. And I was hurrying then, stirring that old, dying horse to one last great chase. And he was brave beneath me. He lifted his head and for the last time he seemed almost to break into flight.

  We rode across the farmlands, past the grazing cattle, the remnants of the harvest. Until that smell, that taste returned, stronger than ever. The fire in my nostrils, the ash on my tongue. And I could see the smoke rising.

  I did not want to believe, at first. I whispered to myself that it must have been some other place, some other feud in the valley. That Olaf the Peacock had angered some neighbouring chieftain and the great hall of Hjardarholt now lay in ashes. That Bolli’s long dispute over grazing lands with Bjarni had finally been settled in blood and fire. There were so many feuds and disputes it did not have to be the one I knew all too well. Yet somewhere deep within, where men feel hate and love and all things true, already I knew what must have happened.

  I came over the rise of the ground beside Gunnar’s farm and looked down upon what remained.

  It was the little things that I saw first. The fragments of burning wood that danced in the wind like fireflies. The ground, marked with the passage of half a hundred footsteps, that carved a great circle around the farm. The little slivers of iron, chipped from sword struck against sword, that glittered on the earth under the light of the low sun.

  Then I was ready to look upon the rest. The longhouse, black from fire and open to the sky. The wind shifting the great pile of ashes, so that it looked as if some great and monstrous creature were stirring unseen beneath them. And the blood upon the ground. So much it was as though a giant had been slain there.

  But it had not. No giant had died there, no great beast slain. Only a man and his family.

  I held my maimed hand out towards the gutted longhouse and felt a little heat rising from it. It had been burned the night before. I had returned a day too late.

  Revenge

  No. Stop. Wait a moment and let me think.

  Yes, you are right, I am tired. And yes, the ale has touched my mind a little. And yes, perhaps I do not wish to speak of this. This is a memory that I have interred as deep as though it were the body of a great king, whose tombs are like cities. But this is a memory like a ghost. Again and again I cut the ground for its grave and cover it with heavy earth. Still it rises, still it walks.

  I will tell it to you. I am afraid if I do not speak it tonight, I will never have the courage to do so again. I would not live a coward.

  But first, let me tell you a different story. Another story of Gunnar.

  Many of them I have told you already. Of how we met in the home of Olaf the Peacock, how I charmed him with a song. Soon I will tell you the story of how it was that he died.

  But now, let me remember this.

  It was the Day of Movement in early summer, when wanderers like me must go on to their new homes. There was a rare sun that day, a heat falling from the sky that seemed to caress the skin. We sat side by side in front of the door, the earthen wall of the longhouse against our backs, and we basked in that sun, passing a cup of water between us.

  ‘A good winter,’ he said.

  ‘Is there such a thing?’

  ‘I had not thought it, but there is.’ He paused. ‘You sing well.’

  ‘Well enough.’

  ‘Better than that.’

  ‘You have been kind to me.’

  ‘Kind enough,’ he said, echoing my tone, a little smile on his lips. ‘Where will you go now?’

  ‘To find some other place. Perhaps Olaf the Peacock will show me favour. He has a weakness for the songs of an Irishman.’

  ‘You are only half an Irishman,’ he said.

  ‘Oh, I do not think there is an Irish singer in the whole of Laxdæla. He may settle for a half-breed like me.’

  He ran his thumb around the rim of the horn cup, the nail catching on the nicks and whorls. ‘What if you cannot find a place to take you in?’ he said.

  ‘There is always a place for a poet.’

  ‘But what if you could not?’ he persisted.

  ‘I would die, I suppose. If I could not find a home for winter.’

  He stared out across the fields, towards the distant sea. ‘I would not want to rely on the kindness of others.’

  ‘It is good to keep moving,’ I said. But I felt that ache in the heart, where one must leave the place that one is meant to be, or leave the woman one is meant to love. When fate and desire do not meet, as they rarely do, and we must leave behind what matters most to us.

  I stood and yawned under the heat of the sun. I turned to Gunnar, offered my hand and said, ‘Good fortune, Gunnar. I shall see you at the Althing.’

  He did not answer me. He simply stared into that cup as though he had been ensorcelled by it, and I thought at first that I had offended him. He blinked and looked up at me, and he said: ‘Will you stay for the winter?’

  ‘I did not think that you would ask.’

  ‘Did you want me to ask?’

  ‘Yes.’ I thought for a time. ‘For one year. I cannot do more than that.’

  He reached out and took my hand in his for a moment, and there was a gentleness there that I did not understand. Then he remembered to clap his other hand to it, sharp and martial, and led me back to his home.

  There, that is all. A little story, but it matters greatly to me.

  Now, I shall tell you the rest. I will tell it quickly, for the sun will not sleep much longer. And when it rises, there is much for us to do.

  25

  Had the killers known? Had they waited for the day that I would return? To welcome me home with blood and still-warm ashes?

  They could not hav
e done. It was some god who had whispered to them, calling out to them on that night.

  In those years of exile I might have spoken a word against Odin or Thor. I could have made a silent wish that Loki had twisted against me, as is his nature. Or had it been long before, when I was a boy – some curse or challenge thrown at one of them? How long had that god been waiting, to take revenge upon me? For the gods cannot forget. And our gods, the old gods, they do not know how to forgive.

  I moved slowly, for there seemed to be no hurry. The stillness was complete, save for the dance of the smoke on the wind. I moved over the wet ground – for it had rained the night before – marked with many footprints. The circling, dragging steps of men in battle. The longhouse burned open, four black walls beneath an open sky.

  I could see them there, lying on the ground, but it took me a long time to come forward to where he lay. I went first to the entrance of the longhouse, where the head of a dragon had once marked a doorway.

  Two black shapes, curled on the ground, buried in one another. They did not seem like people, not at first. Fire plays strange tricks upon skin. Yet after a moment, I could see the curve of a foot, the white of teeth, and above all, there was no mistaking the way in which one held the other. Dalla and Freydis, curled up together in the ashes of their home. I could not see Kari, but I was certain that he was in there, too. I could not think why they had not run.

  Then I came back, walking slowly, so slowly, to where Gunnar lay on the ground.

  I sat beside him for a time and waited for him to rise. For cut skin to knit back, the blood to seep up from the ground and return to his body, for the terrible wounds to close. I waited for a miracle and it would not come.

  I lifted his head from the ground and saw what they had done to his face. How they had marked him and left him unburied.

  He was barefoot and shirtless. There was a broken axe at his side, and I touched the sword at my hip, useless in its sheath. What could he have done with that hero’s weapon at his side? Not enough to save his life. But a better death would have been his. One that he could have been proud of.