Éire’s Captive Moon (29 page)

“This man’s adoption ceremony will be at the
blót
. We will have him live with me and you will not be burdened with his board as soon as the healer says it is safe.” Tuirgeis accepted another mug of beer and waited until Gerda left. A pointed dismissal, Cowan thought.

After Gerda had resumed shaping cheeses from the goats’ curd, Tuirgeis spoke again. “I will give you what you need for the ceremony, do not be concerned.” And abruptly, Tuirgeis set his mug down with a muffled thud on the bed, rose to his feet, and left the building.

Cowan was still in a state of surprise and had nothing to say as his future “brother” left.

“Well, Loki, being the mischief-maker that he is, cut off Sif’s long, golden hair all in one night.” Gerda eyed the crowd around her crackling cook-fire. The faces pressed in, the nearest dripping sweat in spite of the howling midwinter winds that buffeted the walls of the
langhús.

“Was Thor mad?” young Ilda asked, her round face peering between Els’s and Tuirgeis’s shoulders.

“Hush,” Els hissed. “Let the storyteller speak.”

Cowan smiled at the young girl. He was now healed enough for the adoption ceremony that would take place this evening. Remembering that he would be joining the Northmen, Charis had to swallow hard against rising bile. She was pressed against the farthest wall from the fire, and could still hear Gerda’s voice over the wind. Unlike those in favored positions, she and other slaves were shivering. The wooden walls protected against the wind, but the cold was everywhere. She had to push her hair back from her ears, though, to hear the story of Loki. It would almost be welcome to have tasks to do, to stay away from the bitter edges that cut through wood and wool, but for the story, all were at rest.

“Thor was furious, of course, but he didn’t yet have
Mjøllnir
to smite the troublesome god,” Gerda said to Ilda. “He wanted to punish him anyway.” The older woman paused and took a sip of ale, watching her audience. “Loki groveled before Thor. ‘No, don’t hurt me,’ he begged pitifully. ‘Don’t. I swear to get Sif new hair, Thor. I swear it!’

“Thor tossed small, skinny Loki aside as if he wanted to throw him to the Underworld.” Gerda’s eyes narrowed and she leaned forward so her braid was in danger of catching fire. “Thor promised dire consequences if Loki did not fulfill his vow and Loki slunk off to find new hair for Sif. Hair so fine that it would make Thor forget his anger. So, he went to the dwarves. Though lowly folk, the dwarves were known for their fine craftsmanship and Loki explained his dilemma to them.

“Dvalin, their chief, said that of course the dwarves could make beautiful hair, and they did. As soon as the golden strands were touched to Sif’s bare head, they attached themselves and grew!”

“And then what happened?” Ilda asked, breathlessly disobedient. No one hushed her this time.

Instead, a ripple of laughter and the soft shiftings of fabric rustled among the throng of listeners inside Agnarr’s home. Charis edged away from the wall as much as possible, as the monk moved closer to her, his lean face oily and pale in the firelight. She grimaced in distaste and sought out Cowan.

Her countryman was seated with the honored guests, since he was to be adopted this evening. The sight made the healer frown. What if he chose to stay? She needed his help to get home.

Gerda waved her hands to gather attention once again to herself. “What happened? Well, Thor was pleased and so was Sif, his wife. But that’s not all! The dwarves found this idea of creating things to be so interesting that they started making new items all day long. They invented a hammer that would return to the hand that threw it—”

“
Mjøllnir
!” Ilda blurted.

Gerda smiled at the energetic girl. “Yes,
Mjøllnir
. And they made Thor’s belt and his gloves, and oh, so many things.” She stopped and nodded in satisfaction. “So you see, Loki meant to cause trouble with his mischief, but the influence of a powerful god like Thor turned that mischief to benefit another.”

The storytelling of the
midvinterblót
was over for another evening, and the gathered crowd moved about in the confines of the long, wooden dwelling. Benches creaked as men and women stood and stretched and children climbed the poles to see over the heads of the adults. The lingering aroma of the roasted sheep floated over the moving people.

Called nearer the fire to serve the guests, Charis could only feel relief to escape the wind skating around her ankles and up her heavy woven dress. Bran folded his arms and tried to look as if he were not merely a slave, edging forward until he seemed to almost blend with the Northmen. Charis’s lip curled in disgust.

She had to withhold a more obvious expression of disgust when she walked past Cowan. He appeared to be less comfortable than the monk, for all that he was about to join the men of Balestrand. He was dressed in the manner of the Northmen, in a new tunic that Tuirgeis had procured for him. Red-dyed wool with a yellow band at the collar and hem, worn over blue trousers. He was clean-shaven along the jaw, but wore a mustache much like the men of the village normally did. He was not the only one with blond hair and a red mustache.

Then Tuirgeis clapped his hands once, sharply, commanding everyone’s attention. While Charis had been observing other slaves, Gerda had set out the meat for the feast. Normally Charis would have been responsible for some of this, but tonight was a special ceremony: The adoption of a
trell
into the family of a local lord.

“Men of Balestrand, hear me!” Lord Tuirgeis said, his voice commanding as it rang off the shining shields and roof beams of the long house. “Tonight, I am pleased to take my slave, Cowan Kingson, as my brother in the bond of adoption.” Shocked sounds exploded quietly, making Charis hide a smile behind her hand. What had they expected? It had been all over the village that Kingson was to be adopted. Did they expect him to be a servant still?

Cowan bore it all with a stoic expression on his scarred face. Charis’s eyes narrowed in suspicion. What was he thinking?

Once the room had quieted again, Tuirgeis beckoned for Cowan to come stand beside him. “He has proven his worth in service to me as a learned man and an honest one. He has proven his worth to the people of our land in battle, where he fought the enemy who would have seen us slain. He has proven that he is a trustworthy man by having stayed in this house for a period of weeks and not having insulted the master of the house nor having stolen from him. He has slain the sheep provided for this feast, to show that he is no longer a servant.” He nudged Cowan just a little.

The interpreter stepped a bit forward. “I serve Lord Tuirgeis now out of gratitude for having thought well enough of me to make me his brother. For giving me my freedom, and for making me part of his family by right.” He bowed to Tuirgeis and went to retrieve a wooden platter of mutton and a flagon of ale. With what Charis perceived as minimal ceremony, Cowan brought the food to Lord Tuirgeis, who speared the mutton with his knife before taking the mug of ale and downing half of it in one draught.

After he wiped his lips, the wealthy man ate the meat while all watched, as the ceremony dictated. When Tuirgeis had swallowed a mouthful of the roasted meat, he nodded that Cowan could take the dish and cup away.

“Hear this,” Lord Tuirgeis said, clasping Cowan so that they gripped each other’s forearms. “This man who is Kingson among us will have a name of our people. He will be called Geirmundr, from the powerful way he caught and threw a spear in the battle. His
wergild
is set at fifty pieces of silver, and I name him a free man.”

Like the other servants, Charis had been watching this ceremony from a spot near the wall again. She nudged the woman next to her, a slave of one of the guests. “What is this
wergild
?” she whispered.

Quickly, looking a little irritated, the woman snapped, “The gold that has to be paid to a man when he’s hurt or killed.”

“When he’s killed? He’s dead,” Charis muttered in return.

With a tone of the much-aggrieved, the other
trell
spoke more slowly. “A man’s worth is seen in the price that is paid if he’s hurt. To him or to his family.” She paused and Charis urged her to go on. “And if the one who killed him can’t come up with the money, then the dead man’s family is allowed to kill a man from the guilty man’s family.”

Shock held Charis’s jaw open. “He is a valuable man.”

The other slave snorted and smoothed the linen cover on her head. “
Ja.
Outsider, too. Still, he is a berserker and they are not born every year.”

The buzz of surprised conversation had continued in the background, but it stopped all at once, and Charis waited to see what came next.

Agnarr was the first to greet the newly named man with the grip of an equal. “
Skøl,
” Agnarr said loudly, as if to show that he approved as much as anyone. The other men followed suit, followed by the women in the house, in order of the ranking they held in Balestrand.

Two of the women were young and single, barely out of their girlhood, and Charis’s eyes opened wide with somewhat suspicious humor when the young women came away from greeting Cowan looking a little flushed and starry-eyed.

Charis scowled.
You’ve got to help me escape,
she thought hard at the newly adopted Northman. Though he had shown no proficiency at doing so, to be sure.

As if he heard her, Cowan looked across the room, almost weaving a line of their sight-paths between the crowd of well-wishers. His bright green eyes smiled gently at her, as if to tell her not to worry.

She snorted and turned from him, gut churning. How dare he act that way? Were they not of the same island? The same race? Perhaps she would have to plan an escape on her own. Her hand slipped to her ever-present pouch of special herbs, and her smile was thin.

Chapter 22

“I still think you should have been married at the harvest,” Gerda told Agnarr, sounding disgruntled as she did her part to ready their longhouse for the feast that would be held that night. It was Frig’s Day, the day when weddings were held in
Nordweg
, but that was about the only traditional aspect to the whole business, which disgusted the matron of the house. She set up a plank table at the far end of the house, nearest to where her bed had been since she had married Halvard many years before.

Agnarr heard his mother sigh heavily. He smiled a little and went to her, since it was just the two of them in the house at present, Eir having gone to the bathhouse to provide herbs for the ceremonial cleansing of the bride. “Mother, you know I was out on the raid. I brought home gold enough to pay handsomely for Elsdottir’s dowry without touching the family gold, with more beside. You have had new clothes this winter, our house is sturdier, and we have been able to afford to purchase extra food for even a midwinter feasting. Our sheep are faring well in the shed, since we had enough fodder stored. Bjørn did well during the harvest.”

“When you should have been getting married. I’d be expecting a grandchild by now if you’d stayed home,” Gerda retorted, slapping the cold wood.

Agnarr chuckled. His mother had gone over all this before. “Ma—”

“And what about the ceremony with your father’s sword?”

Agnarr sighed and bundled up his wedding clothes to take to the bathhouse for when it was his turn. “It makes no sense to do that, Ma. I told you. I’ve had his sword for years and hiding it just so you can bring it out again is foolish in this weather.”

Gerda sniffed. “Well, at least the wind’s died down.”

The door opened then and Agnarr turned to see who it was, relief trickling through his insides. His mother’s constant complaints today were annoying him and he didn’t want to lose his temper, not today. Then his relief twisted a little.

“Eir,” he said shortly, turning abruptly toward the healer. “Come here.”

His mother made a sound of audible discontent before making a huge show of wrapping her blue cloak around herself and leaving the longhouse. Eir didn’t even watch the older woman leave. She just stood there, staring at him in that disconcerting way she had done shortly after he had captured her, so many months ago.

Agnarr crossed to her. “What, disobeying me on my wedding day?”

She blinked then and brought her focus to rest tangibly upon his face. It was unnerving that she could still have this effect on him, unnerving that he could almost see her in the traditional floral crown of a Balestrand bride. Ridiculous. Just because some people wanted to free their slaves didn’t mean a son of Halvard would do so.