Swan's Path

by Asotir

  * * *

  THAT SAME MORNING at Breidamerk Ragnhild stayed long abed. She was then very old: she had looked after Thorold when he was still a babe. Now men went out of the hall soon after the morn meal, for none could abide Ragnhild’s groanings. But Njal Thorold’s son went to her shutbed. He stood by the curtains and watched her.

  Now Ragnhild shrieked and straightway sat up in bed.

  ‘What will you have seen,’ asks Njal.

  ‘More then enough to please you,’ she answered, ‘but less, maybe, than is right. Now it seems to me you will be the happiest of men: Skarphedin Kalfback’s son is dead, and Hrap too, and two of the others.’

  Then Njal nodded and made as though to go, but her fingers clawed at his sleeve, and he did not go.

  ‘What gift will you give me for these tidings?’ Ragnhild asked. But Njal said never a word.

  ‘A winter too early you bade men come feast with you,’ Ragnhild said: ‘for it seems to me only now, that the time has come for you to hold your arvel-feast.’

  ‘Now you will shut up that foul mouth, hel-hag,’ Njal said shortly. ‘What went on between my foster-brother and me was outside your understanding. Had Skarphedin won here, then I would have greeted him with both hands; but it was God’s will that he be given a final trial, and God doomed that he should die there.’

  ‘Does he weep then, the milkbeard?’ she asked. ‘Then will men see wondrous tears from you soon enough, for this day’s deeds are not all told, and it may be you will smart for them.’

  Thereat Njal went out of the hall. His face was white as milk. He went to his church. There the mass was sung, for it was Sunday, and a holy day as well. All that day Njal abode in church and knelt at prayer; nor would he let any man go near him, nor touched he any bit of food. And it was strong on all men’s tongues, how holy Njal was, and how that should soon bring God’s blessings over them all.

  Then they praised God.

  But late in that day Swanhild went up from the strand, but she did not get her horse at Holmstein Codcatcher’s. Instead she walked up across the sands, away from Dyraholae.