Magnus

by Joanna Bell

  The thought appeared in my mind and became fact at the same time. I wasn't going home. I was twenty-two. I already had a job and a few friends. Judy shared a small apartment with her older sister – surely she would let me crash on her couch for a few days while I asked Jerry for more hours and looked around for someone who had a spare room and needed a roommate?

  The details could wait, though. The important thing was that I definitely wasn't going back to L.A. As I stood in Bill and Brenda Renner's kitchen, looking into my aunt's ungrateful, totally compassionless eyes, something inside me snapped like a twig. Not only wasn't I going home, I wasn't going to spend one more second in that house. Without a word, I strode out of the kitchen and took the stairs that led to my bedroom two at a time.

  Brenda followed me, getting right up in my face and whispering sharply so she wouldn't wake Brad. "What do you think you're doing? We still need you to help with Brad in the morning, Heather! We haven't had time to arrange for a replacement to –"

  "Fuck you!" I hissed, jerking my arm away when she tried to grab my wrist. That got her attention. She took a step back, he eyes wide with angry surprise, and I just kept throwing my few belongings into the small suitcase I'd traveled to New York with.

  Brenda got over her surprise soon enough, and went to grab me again. That time, I shoved her away. Not hard, just enough to let her know I wasn't playing.

  My adrenaline was up again, I wasn't thinking about where I was going – I just knew I was going. Not in the morning, but right then, right that moment. I pushed past my aunt just as my uncle started up the stairs, asking what was going on, and then I slid past him, too, and through the kitchen and out the door that led into the backyard.

  I ran down across the lawn in the dark, praying I wouldn't trip on anything, and only paused to look back at the house when I'd slipped out through the gate. The outside light came on and I saw the silhouette of my uncle standing in the doorway, peering out into the night. He had a flashlight in his hand, which he aimed in my direction. I ducked.

  I could hear them talking – their voices angry, offended – but I could not hear what they were saying. Bill took a few steps into the yard but gave up soon enough, and a few minutes later my eyes had begun to adjust to the darkness.

  Now that I was alone, I began to cry quietly, because I understood the break that had just been made. There would be no going back now, no apologies to my aunt and uncle. I'd pushed Brenda, sworn at her. There was no way they would take me back in. And why would I even want them to? They didn't care about me. So it was true – I wasn't going home. And I wasn't going back to the house I'd just fled, either.

  Where was I going?

  The evening was warm – almost hot – and I knew that beyond the woods lay the road into town, which I could walk down until I got to the gas station with the pay phone I could use to call Judy.

  Once more, I glanced back at the house. Not to see if I was being pursued (I wasn't) and not out of sorrow (there was nothing like sorrow in my heart to be leaving that place) but just as a kind of reassurance to myself, a definitive and final goodbye.

  And then I turned towards the dark woods and began to carefully make my way down the gentle slope towards them, my suitcase clutched in one hand.

  Chapter Six

  Magnus

  When the camp had been set up for the night, Asger and the Jarl returned, and I could see from their body language as they approached the fire that they had put the acrimony between them to rest. There had never been a fight between them, never weapons drawn – not until that day. And witnessed by some of the men, too. How was that going to be handled? Jarl or not, if a Northman loses the respect of his men – and allowing his firstborn son to take up arms against him is something that could lead to a Jarl losing his warriors' respect – there is little that can be done to regain it.

  Those who had been sent to hunt found themselves blessed by Ullr, for they came back with not one but two deer, their sides pierced with arrows and red with blood. It was a good thing for my father, for he knew as well as anyone that men with full bellies are less prone to upset than those who go hungry.

  It was just after the meat, roasted on spits over a bed of glowing coals, had been consumed, as the men lolled near the fire, laughing and drowsy, that the Jarl suddenly stood up and called for their attention.

  "It won't have gone unnoticed that there was a confrontation earlier today," he said, looking around at the warriors one by one. "Don't bother to look surprised, I know men are as prone to gossip as house-thralls! But I come before you to ask who among you has proven a master at a skill the first time he makes an attempt at it? Who of you hit a target dead-on the first time he picked up a bow? Who didn't find himself stumbling under the weight of his sword the first few times he picked it up? And why, I ask myself, would I try to pretend that it would be any different for the son of the Jarl?"

  I kept my expression serious, because the situation was serious – my father knew he had to make a case for Asger. But I saw at once the false nature of that case – Asger was neither a boy, nor inexperienced in the ways of combat. The men, as my father was telling them, were no doubt recalling their youthful mistakes – indeed I caught a few of them running their fingers over old scars and wounds, their minds cast back to a time when they were not so sure of themselves as they were now.

  Surely, I thought, they would see through their Jarl's obvious interest in convincing them that all Asger – a grown man – needed was another chance, further lessons, more experience? Surely they would not miss the truth that stood in front of their eyes – that no matter what words were used to soften the situation, my brother was not up to the task of Jarldom, whether the time should come the next day or not for ten winters.

  But they began to nod as my father spoke further, even going to so far as to compare Asger to an older warrior in our village – Waldrun – who was as famous for his skills with a bow as he was for taking years longer than everyone else to learn them.

  "What must the people have thought of Waldrun at ten and ten and five?" The Jarl beseeched his warriors. "What laughter must they have held in their chests when another of his arrows sailed straight into the dirt, well short of its target? And what do they think of him now, and the fact that his arrows never miss? Do you see how a man's skill is not fixed? And how an unfixed skill can, as the winters pass, be more of a boon than not?"

  My brother did not even have the decency to look ashamed. He sat on a tree stump at my father's right side, his back straight and his demeanor haughty, as if it were his accomplishments our father spoke of, and not those of an old man back in Apvik. It was all so ridiculous. So embarrassing – for all of them. I wanted to leap to my feet, take each of the men by their leathers and shake them.

  "How can you believe this?!" I imagined myself yelling. "When you see the truth of Asger's 'skill' in front of your eyes? He is ten and ten and five – not ten and five – how long must we wait for him to acquire this mysterious skill that somehow we ourselves have managed to acquire at a younger age?!"

  But no one said a thing – including me – and soon enough heavy eyelids were falling, and heads were nodding, and the whole company of us fell asleep, lulled by our Jarl's reassurances and the roasted venison in our bellies.

  At dawn, we headed south along the coast, taking what goods we had managed to procure from the tiny village and the Angle monks. At the head of the procession – for the path south was narrow, and we had to walk almost in single file – my father and brother walked proudly together, showing no sign of the crossed blades of the previous day. A stinging fire burned in my belly towards Asger, made all the hotter by the fact that it contained my revulsion at the Jarl's acts as well as his own. It is not an easy thing for a son to feel scorn for his own father, and as such I heaped it all onto my brother so as to avoid facing who it was really directed towards.

  When the sun was high in the sky, its light pale and diffused through the thin layer of high cl
oud that was so common in the land of the Angles, a shout came from up ahead. I lifted my head, my senses immediately sharp and focused, my eyes sensitive to any signs of movement.

  There seemed to be none. I stepped off the path and began to run past the warriors on my way to the Jarl, to find out what was happening. As I got closer, I could hear voices – angry voices, although held back somehow, not loud enough to carry.

  "What is it?" I asked, panting, when I caught up with them.

  At once, I saw that the tension was once again between Asger and my father.

  "We must return to the ships," my father was whispering angrily, leaning in close to his son so the warriors would not hear the argument. "We've already wasted more than a day on foot, Asger, we cannot –"

  "Wasted?!" My brother shot back, not bothering to keep his own voice down. "Wasted, Father? What of the silver I found? What of the –"

  "Luck," the Jarl interjected – correctly so. It was luck that brought us to the monk's dwelling – nothing more. I knew it because I had been on many raids by then, and I had learned from experience that raiding tiny hamlets was generally a waste of time and strength – even if the odd one did throw up a treasure or two. "Asger, don't you see it was luck that brought us the silver? And what do you think the odds are of us finding it again now, in another such place?"

  My eye caught something then, to my right. Smoke rising into the air and, when I looked closer, the sight of a couple of straw huts in the woods. Another hamlet. Another place that was not going to be worth our time. And my brother, again insisting that we spend ourselves on his foolish notions. I closed my eyes and took a slow breath, trying to will my anger away.

  "Another village!" Asger suddenly shouted, turning towards the men as my father stood behind him, not quite managing to keep the defeated slope in his shoulders concealed. "We are almost returned to our ships, surely another fight won't finish us off?!"

  He was grinning, waving his sword in the air, completely unaware of the tension in the air.

  The Jarl was not as unaware. The moment he sensed hesitation in the men he made his decision, stepping forward with a scowl on his face and bellowing at them:

  "What did I speak of last night, you dull-wits?! Who among you dares to look away when my son – your future Jarl – speaks? Draw your swords now, before I take them from you and drive them through your cowardly hearts myself!"

  It worked. Of course it worked. The men were fighters, not thinkers, trained by many moons of experience never to question their Jarl.

  A great feeling of fatigue washed over me like a wave as we entered the area where the huts stood, so unprotected it did not even have a lookout. A small child spotted us coming and, apparently knowing nothing of the fearsome men of the North, smiled happily at my brother. It was at the very same moment that a woman appeared at the child's side, her arms full of vegetable detritus, and showed herself more wary than her offspring. She screamed loudly and it was that scream that started the fight.

  If it could be called a fight. My legs, suddenly heavy and weak as if in a dream, almost gave out underneath me and I moved off to the side, stepping into the woods at the edge of the village. I wasn't needed – we outnumbered the peasants three or four to one – and I found, in the moment, that I was less interested in murdering people on Asger's whim than I was in anything else in the world.

  It was a new perspective, watching a raid rather than participating in it. I sensed a kind of obligation on the part of the warriors, who surely knew they were in no real danger, and that there were no real spoils to be had. Sure, they bellowed and stomped and dragged people from their homes. They put the torch to a couple of storage huts, and then to a dwelling. But I didn't see anyone killed – not even any of the fighting-age men. What a strange scene.

  It got even stranger as I looked up and spotted Asger, still grinning widely, marching down between two huts with his un-bloodied blade held at the ready. And then, behind him, one of the peasants rushing towards him. It wasn't until the very last second that I saw the Angle had an axe in his hand, and that he was raising it over his head. My brother hadn't heard a thing.

  "As–" I began to shout, only to realize that it wasn't going to be quick enough. I leapt to my feet and fair flew towards Asger, whose expression, upon seeing his younger sibling coming at him, turned to confusion.

  I managed to get my arm in the way of the peasant's arm, blocking the axe – which in all truth was probably far too dull to pierce the Jarl-to-be's skull – and knocking him back against one of the huts where he sat panting and yelling about his grain.

  My brother, only working out what had just happened after it was over, flew into a rage. Brandishing his sword, red-faced with fury, he stood over the Angle.

  "I am from the North!" He yelled in the man's face. "Do you know what we do in the North when someone tries to kill a Jarl's son? Do you?!"

  The peasant, braver than most of his kind, met Asger's eyes even as he trembled. "Aye, I know it. But that's my grain you've taken and without it my children will starve."

  I knew the Angle had made a mistake before he did.

  "Children?" Asger asked, standing up and looking around at his men, who had surrounded him to see what gruesome fate was going to befall the man with the blunt axe. "What children? Where are they? Men – bring the children to me!"

  "Brother," I said quietly, stepping towards him as his men dispersed. "Surely it would be best to see that this man is punished and get back to the sh–"

  "Coward!" Asger sneered, looking back at me scornfully. "We have nothing to fear from these people, Magnus, and you urge caution? What will it do to kill this wretch if his bloodline lives on? Do you rid your dwelling of rats by leaving the babies in their nests, is that what you think?"

  I held up my hands in submission, not wishing to inflame him further. The peasants – Angle or otherwise – were generally quick to flee, and I hoped that that was what they had done this time. And most of them had. Unfortunately, most is not all. Soon enough there were about seven of them, ranging in age from barely-walking to about ten, all standing in a row in their filthy rags.

  "Which of them is yours?" Asger demanded of the peasant, who did what any fair-witted man would do and denied that any of the little ones were his own.

  "I'll ask you again," my brother continued, and I could see now in his eyes that he was enjoying the feeling of power he had over the Angle and the children, after the previous day's humiliation. "Which of them are your own?"

  The man made a show of glancing up at the dirt-smeared lot in front of him, making sure not to show any flicker of recognition at any of them, although surely he knew them all – even the ones he had not fathered.

  "I swear it," he addressed Asger respectfully. "None are mine, sir. Mine have fled into the woods, as I taught them to do when threatened."

  Asger roared with anger and reached out, taking a child of about five by the hair and dragging him towards us. I watched as the men behind him exchanged quiet glances. Killing is not a thing that gives men of the North pause, but it tends to happen only in certain circumstances. In the heat of a raid or a battle, when one's blood is up, any living thing within reach is fair game. A man can lose himself in the frenzy. But we were not in the midst of a battle, nor even a raid, as the fight – if it could be called such a thing – was over by then. Asger's men eyed each other because they wondered if he was really about to do what it seemed he was.

  "How about this one?" My brother asked the Angle, yanking the child's head to the side, exposing the pale neck and holding his blade close to the skin. "Is this one yours, pig?"

  The man set his teeth, but I saw that his lips were wobbling. Still, he held his nerve. "I've never seen him in my life, sir. Please, the boy has nothing to do with –"

  I saw it at the same time as the men – and the Angle – saw it. Asger raised his sword quickly, the blade flashing in the weak sunlight, and then brought it down.

  The sound of meta
l screeching against metal filled the small clearing in the woods as I, at the last moment, placed my own sword between my brother's and the child's neck.

  "No!" I yelled, not even aware that I was speaking. "Asger! No!"

  At once, my brother forgot about the child and the Angle and turned his rage to me. I used my sword to block his, nothing further. I did not attack, I did not try to land any blows. The men stood aside. Well, they stood aside until the Jarl appeared and roared as loud as I had ever heard him roar before.

  I dropped my sword. Asger dropped his as well, if a second later and not before 'accidentally' allowing it to slice a shallow leaving present on my right shoulder.

  "What are you doing?" My father addressed me, his words sounding like they were coming from a throat so constricted with emotion that they barely made it out. "WHAT ARE YOU DOING, MAGNUS?! Again?! He is your brother! He is your future Jarl, boy! He is –"

  "He was about to kill an infant," I said softly, in the pause my father took to suck a great deal of air into his lungs in order to continue his tirade.

  "A child," I continued, as eyes widened around me – not least the Jarl's. "Not in battle, Father, but in all calm. He was about to kill an infant not half-ten. I ask you – I ask all of you – is that an act of courage? Of necessity? Is that an enemy the needs to be slain, lest he turn around and take your own head off, quick as a wolf?"

  Looking down, I saw my father's hand tighten on the pommel of his sword and a feeling of already having gone too, too far came over me. He had spared me the previous day – surely his patience would run out sometime? But instead of bringing calm to my heart the thought brought more defiance, and hotter. What is one more foot of water underneath a drowning man if he is already drowning?

  "Look at the men, Father!" I said. "Look at their faces!" At this exhortation, the men all dropped their eyes to the ground, which had suddenly become fascinating to them. "Do you think they do not see what I know you already see? What I know you've seen for years?! Do you think they do not know that Asger is not made to be a Jarl, whether he be your oldest son or –"