The young men looked at each other, grinning. ‘We will fight anyone you want us to fight, lord,’ one of them said as if it were all the same to him.
Olaf scowled and nodded at Sigurd as if to say They are willing, man! So by Thór’s arse get on with it before they grow brains! So Sigurd got on with it.
The kaupang at Skíringssalr seemed a different place than the one Sigurd remembered from when they had come to it in the deep of winter. It had been a silent land sleeping under a blanket of white. A place pressed upon by the low, dark sky and choked with the smoke from the hearthfires around which folk gathered and spent their days.
Now the bay was full of fishing boats, the sky was filled with the shriek and whirl of gulls and the marketplace was buzzing with trade. Beyond the market the nearest slopes bristled with barley and rye and the far-off hills were dotted with cows and sheep between the many burial mounds, and Sigurd knew what Olaf was thinking as they dropped the sail and took the oars out to row up to the jetty.
‘We will make him a generous offer, Uncle,’ Sigurd said.
‘We’ll have to,’ Olaf said, for he was thinking that this trading place and all this good farming land rich in beasts and milk and crops would be earning King Thorir plenty of silver. Tempting such a rich man away from a comfortable life would not be easy. But Sigurd wanted Thorir. Wanted the king’s Spear-Danes to join his raging host against King Gorm’s army.
‘A prosperous place then,’ Jarl Hrani said, viewing it through a raider’s eye. The store houses and workshops which had been boarded up in winter were all open to the world and busy as women’s mouths round a loom, as Moldof put it. ‘Maybe we will come back here one day, boy,’ he said to little Randver who gave his wolf grin, and Sigurd could not help but think what a fine thing it must be to have a son.
‘Well let me give you some advice if you do come back here,’ Sigurd said, even now thinking how strange it was to be talking to Jarl Hrani whom he still hated, oath or no. ‘If King Thorir challenges you to a wrestling bout, say you have a crick in your back or the shits or a splitting skull from too much ale, but do not accept.’
‘Jarls and kings do not roll around in the rushes, Haraldarson,’ Hrani said through a twist of lips.
‘Jarls are not supposed to break their oaths to kings and swear to outlaws either,’ Sigurd said, ‘and yet you have done both these things, Hrani Randversson.’
There was nothing Hrani could say to that and so he turned his gaze back to the shining hall for which Skíringssalr was named. He, his son Randver Hranisson, Sigurd and Olaf were standing on the wharf admiring the place and enjoying the sun’s warmth on their faces. They were waiting for Thorbiorn who had gone up the hill to his father’s hall along with several Danes who had been watching the ships turn into the bay, scattering the færings. Some had already run off up to the hall at the first sighting, their warning calls echoing out across the bay, and one man was still hammering a piece of iron which hung on a gibbet and made a clamour like the smith god Völund working in his forge. But the Danes who had stayed by the jetty had recognized Thorbiorn standing up on Reinen’s sheer strake, hanging on to the stem post now that the prow beast had been stowed to show they came in peace, and they had waved to him as if he were a long-lost hero returned from doing heroic things. Which was of course how young Thorbiorn thought of himself anyway.
Now the young man strode back down to the wharf and invited the others up to speak with his father the king. For all his hatred of Hrani, Sigurd wanted to watch the jarl’s face to see what he made of King Thorir’s blazing, golden hall as they were ushered into the place. They left their weapons with the king’s steward outside, but for the Óðin spear, which Sigurd had not offered up and which the steward had not tried to take from him.
‘Skíringssalr,’ Jarl Hrani muttered, looking up. The shining hall.
The hearth was lit but it was only a small fire now, not the great flapping flame that had greeted them last time when they had stepped out of a white world into a golden one. But the thralls had been busy lighting lamps and candles again by the looks and there seemed as many small flames flickering as there were stars in the night sky. These little flames did not so much light the darkness as banish it so that the golden cloths hanging from the roof beams, fine as a goddess’s breath and shimmering in the draughts, were wondrous to behold.
‘They are silks, Jarl Hrani Randversson of Hinderå,’ King Thorir boomed from his high seat, as proud as ever of his possessions and as thrilled as ever to see their effect on new guests. Beside him sat his wife the queen and behind them stood four burly, spear-armed, mail-clad Danes. ‘From lands you can only dream about,’ the king said.
There were some two dozen of the king’s hirðmen in the hall, half watching, half playing dice or tafl, most drinking. A cat curled round Sigurd’s leg and many more sat or lay here and there, preening or sleeping. One lay in Queen Halla’s lap, being fussed to death and purring.
King Thorir swept an arm across his hall and his men. ‘We are friends with the Goddess here, Jarl Hrani,’ he said, as if that explained everything, including all the cats. ‘Well then, Sigurd, we meet again.’ The king stood from his seat and held out his hand and Sigurd stepped forward to grip him arm in arm, the warrior’s way.
‘It is good to see you again, lord king,’ Sigurd said, the smile on his face as genuine as his words. There was something about this Danish king that he liked. ‘And you also, Queen Halla,’ he added, dipping his head at her, and the queen smiled with her eyes because she liked Sigurd. If she could she would have Sigurd in her lap instead of that cat, he knew.
‘Sigurd jarl-killer,’ she said, those dark eyes of hers shining like the fist-sized gold brooches which boasted of their position on the swell of her bosom. ‘I thank you for bringing our son safe home with all his limbs still attached.’
‘Aye, we thank you for that,’ added King Thorir, appraising the young man beside him, ‘but it seems to me you might have made a man of him too.’ He grabbed Thorbiorn by the shoulder and shook him. ‘I swear you’ve put on a bit of muscle, lad. See here, wife! The boy might be on his way to growing a set of shoulders to have the women dewy.’
‘Father!’ Thorbiorn said, no more embarrassed than he should have been.
‘He’s fought then?’ the king asked, looking from Sigurd to Olaf. ‘And I mean properly. In the shieldwall or out of it.’
Sigurd nodded. ‘In the blood-fray, lord,’ he said.
‘Some of the men have started calling him Thorbiorn Fleet-Foot,’ Olaf said, recalling the lad’s grabbing of little Randver Hranisson.
The king frowned at that because it could easily be the byname of a man who runs from a fight. ‘Fast-Blade is better,’ he said.
Olaf’s lips pursed and he nodded.
‘He has fought well and bravely, lord king,’ Sigurd said and Thorir’s grin was almost as wide as the one which had earned him his own byname of Gapthrosnir, which meant one gaping in fury.
He punched his son’s shoulder this time and there was enough muscle behind it to knock Thorbiorn back a step. ‘So you’ve been wetting your sword instead of your cock for a change. Good lad!’
‘I’ve killed six men, Father.’
‘Six! You hear that, wife? Six!’ The king winked at Olaf. ‘And I’d wager at least one of them was a full-grown man too.’
Thorbiorn scowled at that but said nothing.
‘And my sister?’ Sigurd said, unable to hold the question back any longer. Gods but he missed Runa now. He thought of her often, it was true, but this shining hall, this beautiful place, put her in his mind like a stone in a plum.
‘Young Runa is thriving with the Freyja Maidens,’ King Thorir said, ‘so I am told. I can tell you no more because as you know we have little to do with the warrior women and they have even less to do with us.’
Relieved, Sigurd nodded, taking what he could even from that threadbare news.
‘But what I want to know is how come you are f
riends with Jarl Hrani here? For if my memory serves, the jarl you killed was this man’s father.’ He looked at Hrani suspiciously, clearly wondering how a man could seem to be contentedly standing beside someone he ought to have killed if he were any sort of son at all.
‘All that is behind us now, like bubbles in a ship’s wake,’ Sigurd said, making less of it than how it really felt in his chest. ‘Jarl Hrani is going to help me kill the oath-breaker. In return I will support his claim to King Gorm’s high seat at his estate in Avaldsnes.’
‘And what claim is that?’ King Thorir asked, knowing full well that it was ambition and not kinship that was the fuel in the flames. Sigurd did not see any reason to go into how the agreement had come about. King Thorir might not like that he had threatened to kill the handsome boy who stood there now in his golden hall as though he had seen it all before. As though he were born to be the ring-giver of just such a place.
‘I will make a good king,’ Jarl Hrani said, knowing that was hardly justification for turning on an oath but not really caring either.
King Thorir raised an eyebrow at him. Sigurd dreaded to think what Runa would say when she learnt of this alliance with Hrani. She had been in Skudeneshavn when Hrani, no jarl then, had brought death to the village. But she would have to understand how things were. How they had to be.
‘Let’s have a proper look at it then,’ Thorir said with a flap of his hand, and Sigurd knew Thorbiorn must have already told his father about Gungnir. He stepped forward and handed the great spear to the king, who gripped it in both hands as though he would run them all through.
‘Suits me, don’t you think?’ the king said, admiring its weight in his hands and its rune-carved blade, and for a terrible moment Sigurd thought Thorir meant to take the spear for himself. But then the king laughed and handed it back to him and Sigurd’s fingers curled round that smooth ash shaft as though they would never let it go again. ‘The Goddess would only be jealous were I to make too much of a fuss about the Allfather’s spear,’ Thorir said. ‘Now give me a horn full of Freyja’s golden tears or a feather from her cloak and I will light a fire such as your people or mine have never seen and pay a hundred skalds to sing the tale of it.’ His brow furrowed then. ‘But tell me, Sigurd jarl-killer …’
Better if he does not call me that in this company, Sigurd thought, seeing the frown on little Randver’s face.
‘… tell me why you are back here again so soon. For I will not believe you have made a hero of Thorbiorn already. Even a good meal takes time to prepare, as any woman will tell you.’ He pointed through the beeswax-scented air towards the hall’s door. ‘Last time you came with barely half a crew, puffed up and arrogant standing there on my jetty, but half a crew all the same. Now you come with three ships and two hundred spears. It seems to me that even an eagle cannot rise so high so fast.’
‘I want you to join me in this fight,’ Sigurd said. ‘Many others have, as you can see from looking down into the bay.’
But the king waved a hand and shook his head. ‘I have already told you that I am comfortable here and do not need a slice of the glory you have your heart set on.’
‘Sigurd is rich, Father,’ Thorbiorn said, grinning. ‘Very rich.’
‘Is he now?’ the king said, that long beard rope of his polishing his brynja’s rings.
Queen Halla’s lips curled like the cat in her lap. ‘Just think, husband, we would no longer have to feast those wretched men who come trying to win us for their king Karl and his white god.’ She would have spat were she a man. ‘I am sick of playing their games.’
‘You could buy candles to light the night sky,’ Olaf said, ‘and tell this king Karl and his god to sail off over the world’s edge together.’
‘You could have a statue made of the Goddess,’ Sigurd said, ‘but not like the ones in Ubsola which are of wood,’ or were of wood, he thought, imagining them burning, ‘but of silver, which would be the envy of jarls and kings and would earn you Freyja’s favour for long enough to see your sons and their sons become great men.’
‘I do not know you, King Thorir,’ Hrani said while the king pulled his silver beard rope through his fist, ‘but you do not strike me as a man who is over the hill of his own greatness yet. Or a man who means to die a straw death with no good songs about his own war glory filling his ears.’
The king was thinking and thinking hard. It was all over his flame-washed face and in his small grey eyes.
‘We do have many untested young men here,’ he said. ‘Lads who have yet to wet their spears or know what it is to stand in the skjaldborg against other men who are trying to spill their guts in the grass.’ He looked at Olaf. ‘We have had peace in these parts for years now,’ he said, as if he felt guilty about it. He thumbed behind him, then pointed out several of the hirðmen around the hall, who were all listening now that there was talk of war. ‘Many of these men have sons who, like my own, have much to learn,’ he said. There were some ayes and grunts of agreement at that. ‘But I do not want to tie myself to a sinking ship. I will only fight if we cannot lose.’
Sigurd smiled and lifted Gungnir. ‘The Allfather has given me his own spear. We have the Lord of War on our side, King Thorir. How can we lose?’
The king went over to a knot of men who from their arm rings and general bearing looked like they had done their fair share of fighting over the years, though perhaps not for a while judging by their paunches and lack of fresh scars. For a while these men talked with their lord but there were enough nods for Sigurd to be hopeful when Thorir walked back up to his high seat and sat down facing his guests. ‘My men and I still have some talking to do, Sigurd Haraldarson,’ he said, ‘and of course we would have to agree exactly how much silver my help is worth to you. Good Spear-Danes come at a price,’ he added, nodding at his men, who grunted their approval at that. ‘But if you stay here tonight and drink my mead I will have my answer for you in the morning. I will have food and drink taken to your men at the wharf. You understand I cannot feast them all here.’
‘Of course,’ Sigurd said. ‘We would be honoured to share your mead and your hall.’ He flashed a smile at Queen Halla because it could not hurt. And she smiled again, wise enough to know his game but vain enough to let him play it.
‘And I’ll tell you what, Jarl Hrani Randversson,’ the square-shouldered king added, thumping the arm of his chair. ‘If you can beat me in a wrestling bout I will fight beside you even if the rest of my men do not.’
Jarl Hrani looked at Sigurd. Sigurd shrugged.
‘I have a bad leg, lord king,’ the jarl said, touching his right thigh. ‘I fell. From my horse.’
The king’s grin vanished like mist and a frown took its place. ‘That is a shame,’ he said, clearly unimpressed. Then he looked at Sigurd. ‘It seems as though we will just have to drink, Norseman,’ he said, and even in that there was a challenge.
And so they drank.
The boar was not even fully grown. A juvenile, its stripes still clear enough to see by the dimming light.
‘And that is how we know that the gods love you, my king,’ Hreidar said as they strode up to the skewered beast, around which the flies were buzzing. ‘You still have a throw that Thór himself would raise a horn to.’ The champion was grinning. ‘Just as well, too, for he was about to come at you like a lightning bolt.’
King Gorm said nothing. He took hold of the shaft and pulled it from the creature’s chest just inside the left foreleg. It took some pulling too. Just a youngen though, he thought. A squeaker no more than three moons ago. That he had brought the creature down with a good throw was nothing to boast about, for he knew, just as Hreidar knew, that the boar had been about to run, not towards him but away. It had been a heartbeat from turning and tearing off into the forest, screeching in terror at being caught by a hunting party that had managed to get down wind of him. But that did not make for a good story to tell when they got back to the king’s hearth and Hreidar knew it.
‘Ah, wel
l done! A fine boar! But I am sorry I missed the kill.’ Jarl Arnstein Arngrimsson of Bokn, whom men called Twigbelly on account of his massive stomach, came puffing out of the pines behind them, his own spear blade as clean as it had been when they had set out that morning. Truth be told Gorm had been trying to shake the jarl off all day, but Twigbelly was surprisingly – and annoyingly – determined and seemed to have the vigour of a man half his size.
‘I should have let him go,’ Gorm rumbled. ‘He is barely worth the effort of carrying and skinning.’ Not that he had done either of those things himself for many years.
‘You get them while you can, lord king,’ Twigbelly said, dragging an arm across his sweaty face. ‘Let them grow too big and you risk things not going so well when you next meet.’
Gorm turned to the man, searching his face for a sign that Twigbelly was mocking him, bringing up this whole Sigurd business when he should know better. But the jarl just looked hot and out of breath, bent over now, fat hands on his shapeless legs as some of the hunting party caught up. At least I can still out-hunt the rest of them, Gorm thought, proud of himself, or ashamed of the others, or both. To be king you had to have iron in your bones and Óðin’s mead for blood. Start letting other jarls and ambitious hersirs beat you to the prey and you might as well give up the high seat and drink yourself to death. A king must not show any weakness, for other men are like wolves sniffing for blood or disease amongst a herd of deer and they will be upon you before you know it.
Deer. Those were the days. When in these very woods you could sometimes bring down a monstrously big bull elk, a creature so magnificent that it made your breath catch in your chest just to behold it. The sort that skalds put in their tales to make their heroes sound even bigger. You could hunt such creatures with worthy men, too, not just catch-fart jarls and hersirs who only accepted the king’s invitation because they feared offending him. Feared the flat rocks in the strait below the royal manor at Avaldsnes upon which Gorm chained his enemies and watched them slowly swallowed by the rising tide. Upon which he had chained his beautiful young wife Aesa years ago because she had made a fool of him. So he had made a crab-picked corpse of her.
Wings of the Storm: (The Rise of Sigurd 3) Page 22
