Forged in Ice (Viking Odyssey)

by Ken Hagan

  ‘What’s he saying,’ Haldis asks me in a whisper. ‘Is he awake or in a dream?’

  ‘It’s the fever talking.’

  Snorri opens the shutter. A stench of rotting flesh stings our eyes. Svena turns away, stumbles over Bera’s feet; falls to her knees, gulping sickness on the floor. Bera holds the girl’s shoulders till she’s done retching, and pulls her onto the bench at the fire.

  ‘Outside!’ Louder this time.

  Haldis repeats it under her breath. ‘Where outside?’

  ‘Outside in the yard, daughter, can’t you understand? Take me into the air!’

  ‘But Da,’ replies Haldis, ‘it’s freezing and dark: you will catch your death of cold.’

  ‘Take me from here.’ The words are feeble and angry. ‘Is it too much to ask?’

  *

  Father’s voice has broken the silence of the night. Our hounds are whimpering, ears cocked to the master’s presence in the yard. We hear the dogs sniffing wildly to catch a trace of him, but a blustery wind, blowing in-shore from the Os, cheats them of his scent, and throws any smells there might be straight over the roof.

  The loft door opens in the barn and a stock-man sticks his yawning face out into the darkness. An oath from Haldis sends him back into the hay. Bera spreads pelts on a milking stool at the gable door and holds fleeces at the ready. I set Father down gently on the stool. Careful as I am, he cries out in pain. The hounds start barking at the sound of his scream. Haldis comes with sealskins; Bera with her white furs.

  ‘You can’t manage without a fire,’ says Haldis, ‘Snorri, fetch wood, hurry, we will build one on the paves.’

  Father doesn’t answer, but his withering glance directed at Snorri says ‘no’. He screws up his eyes to look into the night. The sky is starless, but lit up grey — not empty of light, the kind of sky that carries snow. ‘Leave me here,’ he cries, ‘get inside and warm by the hearth.’

  ‘We will take turns to sit with you, I will go fetch my fleeces.’

  ‘No, Kregin,’ says he, ‘I bide alone. Go back inside. Lock the gable door; shut out the night.’

  Chapter 39

  The hall smells of fresh-culled mutton boiling on the fire, a familiar smell for slaughter month. Haldis turns her barley muffins on the hearth-stone, and without looking up, fires the same question at me as she did not long before. ‘Uncle will be back before nightfall, won’t he?’ She swallows hard and waits anxiously — as if she hadn’t heard my answer the first time.

  I try to stay calm, as Father would, and not show irritation. ‘Isn’t that why I sent Olaf with a spare horse? He will leave Srelni at Osvik and ride the other to Laxvik. By now, he must be at Klepjarns-stead and he will have broken the news.’ Haldis shakes her head, doubting me — ‘And there is a chance,’ I add impatiently, ‘if Olaf pushes the horses hard, he will meet Uncle and Lar on the way home. Don’t worry, Haldis, we will see them before dark.’

  My sister remains unconvinced. ‘We were thinking — Bera and I — might it be better to put off the burial, until tomorrow? In case Uncle doesn’t reach in time. What do you think?’

  ‘Better keep to what we said, Sister. The word has gone out to Holmur, to Kletturvik, to Laugdale, to Skogurdale. Blot is coming by next tide. Even Karghyll will cross on the ferry.’

  ‘Them fisher folk from Kletturvik is already turned up,’ says Snorri, ‘all of them, mistress, women and bairns. How will you feed them?’

  Haldis lifts the lid off a steaming cauldron of mutton and throws in a handful of salt. Two more cauldrons stand boiled and ready by the hearth. ‘No one will go away hungry,’ she replies, ‘a feast for all-comers after the burial, that’s what we promised and that’s what they will have.’

  Bera tips another batch of muffins in a basket by the hearth. ‘Olaf’s wife was in,’ says she, ‘asking after her husband. I told her that he has ridden to Klepjarns-stead — on your instructions — and to expect him by evening.’

  ‘Our plans have changed since this morning, Bera. I have asked Olaf to do another call. After he has broken the news to Uncle, he will set off for Grisedale — but only if the weather holds. Pils is one of Father’s oldest friends. It is right that he should be told, though I doubt if he will make it in time for the burial. You better let Olaf’s wife know that she won’t see him until tomorrow.’

  Haldis interrupts before Bera can reply. ‘Bera can’t leave the hearth to go chasing after the crofter-woman. Ulph could have gone for us, taken our message to her, but he is nowhere to be seen.’

  At this, Snorri lets out an anguished howl, a howl like a child. Tears flood down his beard. ‘Us were the death of him,’ he sobs, ‘weren’t it for Ulph and me, fire here and fire there, master would be alive. Would it were me gagging dust stead of him. Or that mad rascal, Ulph.’

  Haldis puffs her cheeks in annoyance. ‘Where has Ulph got to? There has been no sign of him since yesterday.’

  Snorri steals a glimpse at me before answering. ‘Him be long gone; us will not see his face again.’

  ‘But where can he find shelter,’ asks Haldis, ‘who will feed him?’

  ‘Let him die of hunger, mistress, that be no concern of ours.’

  *

  Haldis knows, as well as I, that whether Uncle is here or not, we have to get Father’s body in the ground. The burial hole, dug deep and narrow to fit a man’s height standing up, will flood with rainwater, unless it receives the body. The grave needs to be filled in tonight and topped off with stones. And besides, the hounds are out to see their master off. It is bad luck to put a dead man’s dogs back on their chains before he has gone in the earth.

  *

  Karghyll, Snorri and I and the young fisherman Yarg share the burden of the corpse. The shroud reeks of salted lard — a confection lovingly dressed on the body by Haldis. We carry Father’s remains to the new grave beside Njel’s cairn. The hounds run confused at our feet. Women mourners trail behind, as we ascend the brow slowly in mist and rain, skirting the ewes’ fold. Haldis, gripping Father’s crook, is flanked by Bera and Svena, sister’s hand in sister’s hand. Behind them come Olaf’s wife, her little ones, and the young dairy maids; then fishwives from Kletturvik and Holmur — stiff-faced, folded in shawls; their men in grey sealskins, dressed for the sea; after them our farm hands and shearers; Blot and red-beards from Laugdale; Viggi from Skogurdale. Grith had to stay at home with Idris, but he sent a gift of honey to fill the grog-pot: the usual custom to honour a deceased.

  All of us — the hounds too — are dripping wet under a downpour. Seabirds have come inland to shelter from the storm. They squabble noisily, scavenging for pickings off the midden. Fatty smoke off the cooking-hearth rises obliquely from the roof of the hall. Black crows, companions of death, swoop in and out of the wet smoke, shield-beating the wind with their wings above the barns.

  In the fold our ewes are in heat, their winter reek exciting a ram coursing on the other side of the wall. Our wethers are restless too, all a-shiver after their shearing, running sodden-faced in the gorse as far as the brow. No Ulph to console them, to settle them with his soft, sheep-like words. The shepherd has vanished without trace.

  At the opening of the shroud, a wail of grief from Haldis, unloosed from the very depths of her soul, a breathless, endless wail, the bursting at last of her sorrows. I no longer hear the ewes or wethers, or seabirds or crows, hounds, wind or rain. The heart-wrenching sound of the wail encloses my ears.

  Karghyll and I harness a rope to the body and lower Father’s tall frame from the shoulders, feet-first into the flooded hole. Njel’s son stands by his father’s cairn, Leif the Tall of north shore, man of law, late guothie of Osvellir. With his big fisherman’s hands, Yarg spreads the last spade-full of peat on the top of the burial hole. My last sight of my foster father is the crown of his bare head, held in place by a collar of fleece.

  My sister’s wail pulses in my ears. The wind biting my cheeks, eyes dulled, half-closed, I lift the first stone and show it to the
mourners, a token of the new cairn that will be built beside Njel’s.

  It is Karghyll who nudges me. He points to the bridleway, to the gap between birches in the hollow. He points beyond the smoking roof of our hall, beyond the gulls, beyond the circling crows, to a drove of woolbacks, teeming black and thick. The first rush of sheep has flooded into the yard, a running tide of black-nosed wethers, their coats unshorn, breasting the tally wall, hundreds of black muzzles, breaths steaming in the rain.

  Swept along by the wave of blackies, Cuin and Lar on horseback, Olaf leading Srelni by the reins; Pils from Grisedale, four others on foot, among them, Pilson and Bjorn, more riders reaching the yard, one man seated on a high wooden saddle, he wears a feathered bonnet tied under the chin, head bowed against the assault of the Os wind.

  No mistaking the blue bonnet of guothie Klep.

  Chapter 40

  Knara, always out of doors in the morning before Hethrun or Cuin, finds a fish on the stone outside the lodge, a big round-eyed flounder dropped off overnight by a fisherman. Fishing boats are out every day. Sea ice has melted at Klettur Os and Holmur. Here on the shore at Suthyre, salty tides lap the shores on our side of the Os, though up-estuary, beyond Laxvik, the river waters are still frozen at the head of fiord.

  Olafs-daughter — we call her by her father’s name and not as Viggi’s wife — carries the fish, holding up it by its teeth, she runs her hand from gills to tail down the scaly back and fins.

  ‘This will do us proud tonight, a fine fish soup for Vali’s feast.’

  Uncle smiles and winks at her from his morning seat at the fire, and falls back at once in a doze. Hethrun, half awake, has no interest in the fish or in Vali’s feast. She leans forward on her stool and sniffs from a dish of yarrow weed smoking beside the hearth. Knara ignores her and slaps the flounder on the bench beside me and Eyra.

  ‘Never mind old misery,’ she says cheerfully to her baby daughter. ‘We will scoff it, won’t we? It’s a good fleshy fish.’

  Eyra stares wide-eyed at the fish. The child is shaky on her feet, but curious for a closer look. The little one clings to my knee and stretches out a hand to the eye of the flounder. With a dab of the finger — reaching out quickly and back to her mouth — she pokes the fish-eye and licks the salt. The toddler makes a squirming pout of the lips.

  ‘My brave little girl,’ and Knara laughs proudly, ‘to touch a scaly monster. Here, give Mama a kiss.’

  Ice-floes have gone from the Os, but there is no sign of snow melting on the fells. Tonight, by moon reckoning, will be Vali’s feast. The days turn bright, though not yet the green-leafed days of spring. Mud month should have come and gone. We should have seen melt waters rushing through the ghylls, torrents skeltering off the tops, mud-flows flushing into the estuary, but winter snows still block the dales, rivers are brittle under foot and frost grips the trees.

  I had expected to be in Long-fiord by now, but the bridleways are not safe to travel north. Lar has picked out a young stallion and two brood mares as a gift for Asgrim. We can’t risk them going lame or taking a fall on the way to Long-fiord.

  *

  Idris arrives cold and miserable after walking from Laugdale. Grith’s wife is feeling sickly and needs a cure. She shakes her wet furs at Ogg. The goat stands rooted at Hethrun’s hearth, unyielding to his tormentor. The animal has been inside all winter and considers the hearth his domain, but he knows better than to butt his horns at Idris. His teeth gnash in defiance but he remembers a bloodied nose he took from her a year or two back.

  Cuin chases the he-goat into a corner and grabs him one-handed by the beard. The old beast lets out an ear-splitting hoot, baring his teeth. Cuin rifles a parsnip from a bag hanging on the rafters and stuffs it down the animal’s throat.

  ‘Mother Hethrun,’ says Idris, ‘can’t you hear, you deaf old coot? I need you to mix the powders for me, not her!’ She points at Knara.

  Hethrun, glazy-eyed, takes no notice. Knara ignores the snub; she lifts Eyra off the floor, hugs the little one under her shawl. Hethrun had been staring into emptiness, now she points a crooked finger, whether of warning or instruction it is hard to say. All of a sudden, with eyes flickering open and shut, she sits bolt-upright in a trance, deaf to all around her.

  ‘I know what to mix for you, Idris,’ says Knara boldly, ‘unless you want to wait a month for Ma Hethrun to shake out of this mood.’

  Uncle has pushed Ogg outdoors, a kindness to the goat — and not to please the visitor. He motions to his chair by the hearth. ‘Why not hang your furs at the fire, young woman? You will feel the warmth when you leave.’

  Idris hesitates for a moment and that’s enough for Knara. ‘Well, what’s it to be,’ asks Olafs-daughter, not hiding a smile of triumph, ‘will you let me mix powders or are you off, back to Laugdale?’

  Idris knows when she is beaten. She grimaces, shakes off her furs and walks sullenly to Uncle’s seat at the fire.

  *

  Idris has set off to Laugdale while there was still light. The short day darkens at Suthyre. I bring in wood for the fire and stack it on the stones. Bread and fish smoking on the hearth, Knara’s doing. Hethrun has not budged from her stool or meddled in the pots all day — her feet, she says, are killing her.

  Cuin-rua has poured steaming water into a pan. Without a word he sets it by Hethrun’s stool. Knara sprinkles dried flowers in the water, thistle and clover. A fragrance of summer brightens the hall. Other herbs are added, each one sniffed and chosen from the shelf by Knara, who seems to know what she is doing. Ikki — whiskers all aquiver — gives the water a wide berth.

  ‘Off with your boots, Thrunny,’ says Cuin familiarly. ‘I will bathe them for you.’

  Uncle kneels and pulls off Hethrun’s boots, drawing the mud-crusted calf-skins over her twisted toes. He presses her feet into the warmth of water. She offers no resistance. ‘What are you doing, you old fool?’ Cuin smiles up at her grey head, winks at me, at the rafters, at the goat, and carries on tending to her feet.

  *

  Knara undoes breast napkin and shawl, and holds little Eyra to her teat. The baby’s nose and cheek disappear into the flesh of her breast. The fire crackles. Olafs-daughter rocks the infant to sleep, lolling to and fro. ‘Cuin-rua,’ she whispers, shielding Eyra’s ear from her voice, ‘won’t you tell a story?’

  Tonight there are none of the usual protestations from Uncle. Instead he replies softly, ‘I will, little mother, but you must choose. What’s it to be — a song of easterlings, of kings, wars, and the like? Or a tale of dread from the ice lands — something dark of trolls and dwarfs, and the watery caves where they hide their loot under the sea?’

  Knara sighs and looks into the fire. ‘I would rather hear of common folk,’ she says thoughtfully, ‘of folk like us, who eat fish and broth, and live under a turf roof — make it a happy tale, not one that ends sadly.’

  ‘A tall order,’ replies Cuin. ‘Tales of common folk rarely have happy endings.’

  Ogg, from his corner, asleep on the straw, makes a goat-like snore. At the hearth Ikki is wide awake, his eyes flashing.

  ‘I know one story you can tell,’ says Hethrun strangely alert.

  ‘What’s that, Thrunny?’

  ‘The story of this lodge, of the fisherman and his wife who built their home on Suthyre sands — of my mother and father, and what became of them.’

  Uncle shifts on his seat and looks askance at me. ‘I doubt if that old tale is what she is after, Thrunny. It doesn’t have a happy ending.’

  ‘Let young Knara be the judge of that,’ returns Hethrun.

  Ikki, catching Cuin off-guard, jumps to sit on his knee.

  Chapter 41

  Idgar’s hall has been a-buzz since I rode in with news yesterday from Long-fiord. Helga and I are free to marry. ‘Without fear or hindrance,’ were the exact words chosen by Asgrim — the fancy language of a priest-man — when he and Eyjolf said their farewells. A weight is lifted from Idgar’s shoulders. He will face
no accusations for breach of promise, and hear no more threats from Asgrim. Mord must look elsewhere for a bride.

  Helga has been in mourning for her mother. Last night her welcome had to be subdued, her joy understandably muted, but her long, clinging embrace on my shoulder, while Idgar stood by, grinning, told of her relief and gratitude.

  I haven’t seen much of her since I arrived, not till this morning. She was snatched away by Vrekla and Hungrid for a women’s chin-wag in the barn. As for us men, Helga’s father, her brothers and me, we had a night of it, drinking with grandpa Skar, in the old man’s smoky steading.

  Warm ale and helpings of grog from Freyda lasted till dawn, as did the good-natured argument between Idgar and his sons. Idgar would have had me tie the knot with his daughter without delay — he would have celebrated in the old-fashioned way and sealed the vows in return for a simple token of silver. It might have been done and settled there and then, were it not for objections from Olver and Geir.

  His sons accused him of ‘doing it on the cheap’. They want a big do for their sister, ‘a feast to boast of’, planned for later in the year, when the mourning months for their mother are over. Last night, grandpa Skar stuck his oar in, as did Grandma Freyda. She let her son know that she wouldn’t stand for him skimping on his daughter’s wedding.

  ‘You spared no expense for Olver,’ said old Freyda, snatching the pot from her husband, and gulping it down. ‘You did Olver proud with Gridi. Why should it be different for Ynvild?’ Of course, Grandma was drunk and confused — by saying Ynvild she was mistaken — she had meant Helga.

  *

  This morning in the hall it came as no surprise when Vrekla joined forces with Helga’s brothers. My sister is overjoyed at the prospect of a wedding feast in the hall — a chance for her to shine, to play host and show Idgar what she can do for him and his guests.