The Smile of the Wolf

by Tim Leach

  ‘What will you do now?’ I said.

  ‘I go back to Norway. They will hunt me for this. They will hunt you, too.’ He kissed the cross around his neck and held out a hand. ‘Come with me. We will preach together, fight together.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘I will never leave this island.’

  He waited a moment longer to see if I would change my mind. He stood and he clasped my arm, and I watched him disappear into the snowfall, singing quietly to himself. A happy man.

  I reached down and I touched my side beneath the cloak, felt the hot wetness there within. There was no pain to the wound – only a cold, absent feeling. The pain would come later, I was sure. Nausea passed through me and I thought I would retch. But the feeling went.

  The sun was falling from the sky as I walked back into the valley. The snow heavier, and I left little drops of blood behind in it, like red berries falling from a poorly woven basket.

  It was fully dark before long and the clouds covered the moon and the stars. Yet still I found that I knew the way. Had I been blinded and cast adrift in that valley, still I could have found my way to that place.

  It was before me, then. A longhouse, like any other. Smoke rising from the chimney hole, the smell of cooking in the air. No sound from within, but I knew there to be life there. And death as well, perhaps.

  I reached the door and I knocked upon it. A woman answered. She stared at me, and for the first time that I could recall I saw fear in her eyes. But only for a moment.

  ‘Come in,’ Vigdis said. ‘It is cold.’

  33

  There was no trap inside. No kinsman waiting for me with blade in hand. In one corner of the room, bundled tight in blankets, I could see a child sleeping. Other than that, we were alone.

  She gestured for me to sit and I did so. We sat across the fire and we did not speak at first. Perhaps, in that silence, we knew each other truly for the first time. There was a stillness to her, as though she were a piece of forged iron rather than flesh. A strength that she had been born with or that she had learned, and there was not a mark of fear on her face. Nor in her voice, when she spoke.

  ‘They are dead, then.’

  I nodded and watched her for any sign of sadness. There was none.

  ‘And now you are here for me,’ she said.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘A shameful thing, to kill a woman.’

  ‘Dalla was killed, was she not? And Freydis. Why should not you answer for that?’

  ‘But it was I who killed them. Women may kill women. Men may kill men. But we must not kill one another. It is a blasphemy.’

  ‘You have killed men too, I think.’

  ‘I did not wield the blade.’

  ‘But you have killed them. And I will know why.’

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘You shall. You have earned that much.’

  She poured herself a cup of water, her hand almost steady; there was a slight tremor there, the way a swordsman’s hand will quiver before the holmgang. In spite of myself, I could feel a touch of fear. I had looked upon great warriors before: Gunnar, Björn and others besides. I looked upon another now.

  ‘Did you know my husband, Hrapp?’ she said.

  ‘Little. I saw him once or twice.’

  ‘What did you think of him?’

  ‘A cruel man. And stupid.’

  ‘Yes, he was. But strong as well. All men feared him.’

  ‘And you?’

  ‘Yes. I feared him too.’ She paused and looked into the fire. I wonder if she still saw him there. For the tremor in her hand went still – just the way a man’s does, when the first blow is struck.

  ‘He wanted no children. I do not know why. But he was not barren, and neither was I. I had many children.’

  By instinct, I looked about the room for some evidence of what she said. But other than the child in the corner, there was none.

  ‘We exposed them,’ she said. ‘No one ever knew.’

  The unwanted bastard that shames a family, the slave’s child that will only starve if it is left to live – these are the children that are abandoned in the darkness. Had my father not been freed from slavery, no doubt that is where I would have met my death: scant hours after my birth, crying in the night as the snow fell upon me. But it was something secret, something shameful. A coldness stole over me, to hear her speak of it so calmly.

  ‘But I am grateful for it,’ she said, one hand toying with the knotted braid of her hair. ‘The first time, I thought that I would die from sadness. But I did not. And there is a strength to be found there. I think you understand that. You must, to have done all that you have done.’

  ‘Why speak of Hrapp? You think that I shall pity you?’

  She did not seem to hear me. ‘I thought I would die a long time ago,’ she said. ‘There was a time when Hrapp was angrier than usual. I was certain he meant to kill me, after that.’

  ‘You could have divorced him. Gone back to your family.’

  ‘There was no leaving a man like Hrapp. Except in death. And I did not want to.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because I loved him.’

  I listened to the crackle of the fire, and I tried to understand. ‘You thought that he would kill you.’

  ‘To love is to die for what we love. Gunnar loved you, did he not? And he died for you. I learned to love Hrapp. For he taught me the truth of the world.’

  ‘And what is that?’

  She leaned forward, close to the flames, and I could see the light reflected in her dead eyes. ‘Men like you came to this place, thinking to be free,’ she said. ‘But you will never be free. You will always be a slave to men like Hrapp.’

  ‘And to women such as you?’ I said. ‘That is what you believe.’

  ‘I do not fear to die,’ she said. ‘Perhaps I am even like you.’

  ‘How so?’

  ‘Perhaps I want to die,’ she said. She looked to the wooden cross I wore on my neck. ‘You wear the mark of Christ.’

  ‘What do you know of him?’

  ‘I know that he forgives.’

  ‘Yes, he does, in the next life. But he is a god of revenge, more than anything else.’

  ‘What will you do?’

  I thought on this for a time. Wound-weary and with the heat of the fire there, I could have slept. I wanted to. But I knew that there was more left for me to do.

  ‘I will not kill you,’ I said. ‘But I will take your child.’

  Her mouth worked silently, the entreaties of a mute. And at last there was fear in her eyes.

  ‘Please,’ she said. She made to stop me then, but I held up the knife.

  ‘Sit down. Or I shall kill him before you. Would you have that?’

  ‘Please,’ she said.

  She went to her knees and she spoke more words, but I did not listen.

  I went over to the blankets in the corner. A child of three, as old as the feud, sleeping by the heat of the fire. A boy with a smile playing across his lips. What was his dream? Was it of his mother? The father he had never known? Games in the fields and upon the ice? Many are the joys of the child, and how quickly the man forgets them. A mercy, to end a life so soon, when it knows only joy – that is what I thought. That is what I thought, as I picked you up in my arms.

  ‘What is his name?’ I said.

  And she whispered, so soft that I could hardly hear it over the sound of the fire: ‘Sumardil.’

  You were still sleeping as I picked you from your blankets, but awoke for a moment when I took you. I looked into your eyes and you stared at me without fear or recognition, before you fell back into your dreams.

  That was the first time that we looked upon one another, Sumardil. That was you, my child.

  *

  I was to take you to some quiet place and open your throat, for I would not have left you to wander lost and frightened on the snow. Your killing was a payment, a settling of a debt, not an act to be relished. And I thought
I would die out there with you, that I would lie down on the cold ground beside you and let myself sleep. There seemed to be nothing else left for me to do.

  Yet there seemed no need to hurry, if that night was all that I was to have left. And so I wandered in the cold, looking for a fine place to die. I was weeping, though it shames me to admit it, for the life that could have lived. I could feel your hot breath against my neck as I walked around and around those empty fields, up the rolling hills and back down towards the whisper of the sea.

  I could not find the place, for that country held too many memories for me. A curve beside the river seemed as though it would do, but as I drew my knife I saw that we were too close to where Sigrid and I had made love. I wandered further, up towards the high ground, so you might see all of that beautiful valley one more time before I cut your throat. But now we were close to the stone and the tarn where Dalla and I had spoken together, and left no secrets untold. I could not do it there.

  Again and again I thought I had found a place of killing, only to be halted by a memory. Like those great heroes of the old stories who have grown tired of life – their friends all dead, their women lost to them. And so they wander the battlefield, looking for the warrior brave enough to give them peace. But none will stand against them, for their reputation is so fierce, and so it is that they cannot die. I was no great hero, but perhaps that was my gift, too.

  At last, I found myself at Gunnar’s longhouse, or what remained of it. As I sat on the blackened ground, leaning against one of the broken pillars, I thought to hear their bodies beneath the ground calling to me, begging for your blood to be spilt. But there was only silence from the dead.

  You had not woken. You pressed your face close against my neck, huddled under my cloak, and you did not stir or cry out. I held you close and I thought to join you in sleep, a sleep we would not wake from. I thought to let the cold take us both to the next world.

  Yet the sleep did not come to me. You did not wake. At some time in the night I found myself singing.

  Soft, so as not to wake you, for I wished my words to find their way into your dreaming. My throat raw with weeping, dry and unpractised. Yet still I tried to sing, some of the old songs returning to me. Not the high, great songs of heroes and kings and gods, but the little songs I gave to children. Foolish rhymes, tales of tricksters and elves. I knew then that I did not want to die.

  The night drew on and the sky began to lighten. I stood at last, my muscles aching from the trembling, stumbling on my numb legs. I no longer felt any pain from the wound in my side.

  As we moved, you woke. You looked on me and there was no fear in you. You found yourself waking beneath the stars, in the arms of a stranger, and you were not afraid. You rubbed at your eyes and you said: ‘I am hungry.’

  I was hurrying then, running across the dale, laughing and singing to you so that you would not see my fear. I went back then, to the house you were born in.

  I would give you back to your mother – that is what I told myself. And I would give myself up for judgement for the killings. They would outlaw me again and there would be none to give me passage this time. I would die upon this land and my death would end the feud at last.

  At the longhouse once more, the door swinging open against my hand. And the fire reduced to embers in the hearth, the back door swinging open with every stroke of the wind.

  I had returned too late. She was already gone.

  34

  Do you remember those days of waiting?

  One day passed, then a second, a third, as we waited for Vigdis to return. She would come back in the company of what kin remained to her, seeking revenge. I would give it to her without a battle. All that I wished was for you and her to be reunited, that I might undo what I had done.

  You asked me when she was coming back and I told you that I did not know. But you did not weep – I did, but you did not. There was such strength in you, it made me humble to see it.

  Was it Vigdis who gave that to you? It must have been. Do you remember those days that you spent with her? You do not? Her holding your hands and pacing you around the longhouse as she taught you how to walk, even as she plotted my murder. Her carving a wooden horse for you, tears springing to her eyes at your smile, before she spoke the words that goaded those men to burn my friends alive.

  She destroyed all that I loved – almost all, at least. Yet with you she became what she was meant to be. And I took that from her.

  Now I see your eyes asking what your words will not, Sumardil. You want to know what became of her. And that, I cannot tell you.

  She was lost in the storm or she cast herself from some cliff into the sea. Perhaps she fled to some other part of the island or a distant land far from these shores. None know, and you must believe what you will.

  But there came a time when we both knew that she would not return. I asked you if you had any other kin in the valley and you named the men that I had killed.

  I knew not what I should do. I only thought to wait a little longer, for some visitor to come to that longhouse. They would know where to take you. They would take you from me and then they would take my life. And in time, that man did come.

  I woke in the night, my arms about you. For though you were brave in the day, you were afraid at night and you would not sleep outside of my embrace. I woke and I saw a man watching me from the doorway.

  I thought him a ghost at first. It was only once the sleep had truly left me that I recognised him, a man I had not seen for many years. Olaf Hoskuldsson, the man they called The Peacock.

  ‘Kjaran,’ he said. He wore none of his finery, had none of his thingmen at his back. He looked not like the chieftain he was, but a simple traveller – an outlaw, even.

  I held a finger to my lips. I looked down at you, but you did not wake. I broke away from you carefully, wrapping you tight in the blankets.

  Olaf and I sat together by the embers of the fire and we spoke in whispers.

  ‘They speak in the valley of a ghost in this place. A fire lit, but no man seen coming or going, except by night. I came to see if it were true.’

  ‘It is true enough,’ I said.

  ‘We buried the dead many days ago. Björn and his kin.’ He looked around the longhouse. ‘Vigdis is gone?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes.’

  He nodded. ‘So only you and the boy remain.’

  ‘That is so.’

  ‘There is much I could have done to prevent this. I should have had them outlawed for the burning. I wish…’ Olaf’s voice trailed away.

  ‘This is not your burden to bear. It is mine.’

  ‘Perhaps. But I think that the gods will remember this. And there will come a time when I shall pay for what I did not do.’

  ‘Another vision of yours?’

  He tried to smile – I saw the firelight upon his teeth for a moment. But what I said to him next stole that smile from him.

  ‘You must take in the boy,’ I said.

  He shook his head. ‘I cannot take in Sumardil. There will be too much talk. You shall not survive, if it is known that you live.’

  ‘I care not.’

  ‘I do.’ He hesitated. ‘Why do you not return to Ragnar? And Sigrid?’

  ‘They cannot protect me. And it is better that they think me gone,’ I said.

  He put a hand to my shoulder and he looked on me in silence for a long time. I remembered how I had looked upon Sigrid, when I had fixed her in my mind for the very last time. And then he was gone.

  Gifts came, in the days that followed. Grain, salted fish, brought to us in the arms of a tongueless slave – a man of Olaf’s household, who could not speak of what he saw. Perhaps it would not matter if he had, for there would be few who would believe him.

  That was how we lived, that first year. And all the years afterwards, until you were old enough to work the fields yourself.

  I struck a bargain with you, in those first days. That I would raise you and protect you, as best I could.
That you might think of me as a father if you wished, but that I expected no love or kindness from you, though I offered both freely to you. But as a boy, you looked me in the eye and you accepted that bargain.

  You remember that, don’t you?

  *

  It is a hard life I have given you, but you have lived it well. You have grown into a man and I have grown old.

  There is safety in solitude and so I have taught you to wander as a ghost on the haunted lands that are your birthright. The other men of the valley shun you and call you mad: the mad son of a ghost, wandering restlessly. And in that madness is your safety. You have grown up almost wordless, wild blue eyes like a wolf.

  The Wolf, I call you, for there is no other beast that could live as you have lived. And so I think you must be half a wolf at least. Not as fast or as strong as other hunting beasts, nor as crafty. But you endure. You would die for your pack. You are like me, are you not?

  You have never asked about your past. Does the wolf question its ancestry? Does it inherit revenge, as we do? It does not, and neither have you. I raised you to be free of the feuds. In this place, in our own way, we have been living as the first settlers thought we might. We live alone on the land, free from kings, free from the feud, sharing the love of a father and his son. Waiting for the rest of the Icelanders to join us. For the people to learn how to live as we have.

  At night I tell you stories. Endless stories and songs, of heroes and gods and monsters. But I have never told you this story before, and you have never asked.

  You wonder why I tell this story to you now. It is because there is something that I need from you. It is because there is something that you must do.

  35

  Go now and look outside the door. My old eyes may be playing tricks on me. But I think I see the sun creeping there: fingers of light crawling beneath the door, beckoning to us. Go, and see if I am right.

  The sun has risen? Good, good. Let the fire die, then. No need to waste wood now. We shall finish just in time.

  *

  I have told you many stories, have I not? And you are kind, for you listen in patience and thank me for the telling. But perhaps you have bested me in this, as you seem to in all things. For the story that you have told me – that I think I cannot match. I would not believe it, from any other than you.