Authors: Giles Kristian
Sigurd gestured to the empty bench across from him and Ofeig Scowler nodded and went to take his seat, slamming the cup down on Guthorm’s rough-hewn table.
‘What do you want, Ofeig Grettir?’ Sigurd said.
‘I wanted to thank you for winning today,’ Scowler said. ‘I had already lost four men to that Hel-spawn boy,’ he said, nodding to the thrall chained in the dark corner, ‘and things were as bad as they could be. But at least I won some silver on you.’ The scar that gouged across his forehead and down over his right eye was even more terrible close up but the man seemed quite used to it. ‘Though if I am to tell the truth, for a moment out there I thought Lame-Leg’s man had the better of you.’ He grinned. Or at least it was what passed for a grin on that face. ‘That was a Loki trick with the shield, hey. I must get myself some greaves like yours. You’d have cracked a shin otherwise.’
‘Do you find yourself in many fights then?’ Sigurd asked.
‘Look at me,’ Scowler said.
Sigurd nodded and could not help but smile.
‘But I choose my fights carefully,’ Ofeig went on. There was a glint in his right eye then, telling Sigurd that he still saw out of it despite the gash. ‘Unlike you, Sigurd Haraldarson. And I’m not talking about your little brawl up at the Weeping Stone today. Kings and jarls is a different thing. A heavy thing, lad.’
‘I did not choose this fight,’ Sigurd said. ‘It lies before me like the sea before a ship’s bow. Those who betrayed my father and slaughtered my mother, my brothers and my friends, they wove their own deaths when they did not kill me.’
‘That’s as may be,’ Scowler said, ‘but you might as well fight a troll with a toothpick. Still, I can see you are a young man of purpose, Sigurd, and from the looks of it you have some good spear arms to call on, friends who will follow where you lead, and that’s to your credit. Though you will need many more than this,’ he said, gesturing towards Olaf and Svein where they sat talking to a knot of local folk.
‘Will you join me then, Ofeig Grettir?’ Sigurd asked.
‘Me? Ha! No,’ he said, biting off a hunk of cheese. ‘The only decent fighters I could bring to a disagreement lie dead in Guthorm’s barn. As for me, I have little affection for Jarl Randver or King Gorm, but neither do I have any great desire to get a spear in my belly for helping you.’
‘There will be plunder in it,’ Sigurd said. ‘Even Jarl Randver is as rich as Fáfnir these days.’
‘Silver is little good to a dead man,’ Scowler pointed out. ‘But I do know of two men who would walk through dragon’s fire to join a crew that had the balls to take on Jarl Randver of Hinderå. And not for the silver either but just for the blood of it.’ He washed the cheese down with ale and wiped his mouth with his hand. ‘These two are brothers who were stupid enough to get themselves outlawed for killing a man and refusing to pay the weregeld to the dead man’s kin.’ He wafted a hand through the smoke. ‘Some fight over a woman, I heard, and what with brothers being brothers once one was in the mire the other soon followed. Jarl Randver had their father thrown from a cliff.’
‘Why did Randver care so much about it?’ Sigurd asked.
Scowler pursed his lips, scratching the thick bristles of his beard. ‘Something to do with the man whom the brothers skewered being married to Randver’s sister. These boys did not concern themselves with the details of the thing,’ he said, sharing a look with Asgot that said
You know what young men are like these days
. Then he shrugged. ‘But they were very fond of their father from what I could see.’
‘And why would I want two trouble-makers in my crew?’ Sigurd asked, though the truth was he already liked these two brothers from the sound of them.
‘Because when Jarl Randver sent six men to their stead to bring them to trial those men came back dead. Stiff-limbed and corpse-pale as my fighters in Guthorm’s barn.’ He shook his head. ‘Óðin’s arse but you took your time killing that proud fool today.’ Then his eyes lit. ‘Bjarni and Bjorn. Yes, that’s the lads, if memory serves.’ He barked at Guthorm’s serving girl to bring more ale. ‘The brothers have gone to ground now of course, like a couple of foxes, what with the jarl’s men sniffing all over for them.’ The man tapped his nose with a thick finger, looking from Asgot to Sigurd. ‘But I know where they can be found.’
‘I am listening,’ Sigurd said.
Scowler held out his cup and the girl filled it to the brim. ‘First let me have another look at those greaves of yours, lad,’ he said.
The last thing Sigurd remembered before he fell asleep amongst the reeds of Guthorm’s floor was a sad tune worming from the bone flute into his ear and wondering if he had just been a fool to give Ofeig Grettir his greaves in exchange for the whereabouts of two brothers who hated Jarl Randver. A greave per brother. He hoped they would be worth it. If they could be found.
The first thing he
heard
when he woke in the heart of the night was the shrieks of the dying.
‘Get up, Sigurd,’ Asgot rasped, his face much too close, ‘the wolf is in the sheep pen.’ Sigurd blinked his eyes, trying to make sense of the shapes whirling in the gloom around them. Women were screaming and men were roaring to each other to arm themselves and get more lamps lit. The door was flung open onto the night and folk were spilling out of Guthorm’s longhouse.
‘Here,’ Svein said, offering Sigurd a spear which he had got from somewhere. Sigurd took it, standing and kicking off the furs he’d slept in.
‘What’s happening?’ It was Olaf beside them in the murk, long knife in one hand, the other rubbing the sleep from the bags of his eyes. ‘Who is attacking us?’ Somewhere a man was dying, the life gurgling from his throat as a blade ripped up into the precious meat behind his ribs.
‘Jarl Randver?’ Loker suggested, handing a shield to Hendil who was only just climbing to his feet. Aslak and Hagal were there too, meaning they were all accounted for which was a relief, for the stench of open bowels had hit Sigurd’s nose now and death was tainting the thick fug.
‘Doubt it,’ Solveig said, coming up behind them. ‘We’d be halfway to Valhöll on a plume of smoke if it were Randver. Jarls like a good hall-burning.’
And suddenly Sigurd knew who this death in the darkness was.
He muscled his way through the chaos to Guthorm’s hearth, Svein at his shoulder, and there threw two handfuls of kindling into the glowing, flame-licked ashes. After a moment light bloomed and they looked across the hall and saw the thrall with the crow-black hair cut a man’s throat with a scramasax. The scream died on the man’s lips and Guthorm’s thrall leapt back from a sword swing that would have cut him in half at the waist. It was Æskil In-Halti and he all but tripped over his lame leg as he tried to regain his balance, but the thrall stepped in and clasped Æskil round the throat then drove him back against the wall, punching the scramasax up into his belly.
The thrall turned, snarling in the flamelight that chased the shadows from the place, as Lame-Leg slid down the wall behind him, hands pressed to his death wound.
‘I’ll put a spear through him,’ Svein said.
‘No, Svein.’ Sigurd clutched his friend’s shoulder. ‘Not yet.’
Fastvi was wailing and Sigurd saw that she cradled her husband in her arms, the two of them down in the ale-soaked rushes. Guthorm had been skewered through the stomach with his own sword, so that over a foot of bloody blade stuck from his back. That had taken muscle, to get through so much fat.
‘We’ll get no more horse piss ale from Guthorm then,’ Svein said.
Most of those who had been sleeping in that place had vanished into the night by now, though a knot of armed men were closing in on Guthorm’s thrall, Eid, Alver and Ingel amongst them.
‘How did the lad get free?’ Olaf asked but no one could answer that and then the thrall’s blade streaked out, cutting the arm that was scything an axe towards his face and he caught the axe before it hit the ground, sweeping it up to hack into the man’s groin. The man shrieked and fell away, scrambling off and leaving a wake of blood in the rushes. Then the thrall caught Ingel’s blade between the axe’s beard and haft, twisted the sword out of Ingel’s hand and slashed open his neck with the scramasax and turned to face the last two.
Alver backed away, his own hand axe raised, then turned and fled leaving his friend Eid to his inevitable death.
‘Well, Sigurd,’ Eid called over his shoulder. ‘Are you going to help me send this Hel-spawn back into the freezing fog?’ His eyes were locked on the thrall’s and he seemed reluctant to make the first move for he might have known it would also be his last, and it seemed the young man was content to spin the thing out a little longer. ‘There are nine of you standing there. Do you not owe it to your host Guthorm to kill this animal?’ There was an edge of fear in his voice but his sword arm was steady enough.
Sigurd lifted his spear in an overarm grip.
‘Kill him, Sigurd!’ Eid called. ‘I will pay you with Guthorm’s silver. Kill him now!’
Sigurd looked at Asgot and noticed that there was a small key hanging from a thong around his neck. It was the kind of key that fit a set of slave irons. Asgot’s lip curled and Sigurd pulled back his arm. The spear cut through the smoke of Guthorm’s hall and plunged into Eid’s back between his shoulder blades and he staggered forward with the impact of it, right into the thrall who sank the scramasax up into his gut then shoved him off.
‘I never liked him,’ Olaf muttered.
‘He’s more dangerous than winter that one,’ Solveig said as they stood staring at the thrall, who stood with his own eyes riveted to Sigurd. There were shouts outside in the night and you didn’t need too much clever in you to know that whoever came in now might think that Sigurd and his Skudeneshavn men had had some hand in this slaughter. Eight men lay dead or dying amongst the floor rushes and the only other living person was Fastvi, who was insensible now anyhow, rocking over Guthorm’s body like some moon-mad crone.
‘What now then?’ Sigurd said to the thrall.
The beardless lad grinned. ‘Now we leave,’ he said.
‘It talks,’ Hagal muttered.
‘How do we know you’re not going to put that axe in our heads the first chance you get?’ Sigurd asked him.
‘There’ll be no chance of that if we gut the lad here and now,’ Olaf suggested. ‘Wouldn’t want him on the row bench behind me.’
‘This young man is good for your saga, Sigurd,’ Hagal said.
‘It’s all gone!’ Aslak said, having gone outside to fetch their own weapons from the racks outside the hall. ‘Someone’s pilfered it all.’
‘This is turning into a strange night,’ Olaf said.
‘You can blame that horse piss ale we’ve been rinsing our guts with,’ Solveig said, ‘for nothing good comes of drinking bad ale.’
‘Why would they take our gear?’ Olaf growled.
‘Because they were going to murder you for all that silver you won up at the Weeping Stone,’ Guthorm’s thrall said, ‘and for whatever else they might find on you.’ He shrugged. ‘They are not used to good swords but they like the idea of them.’ He gestured to Olaf with the hand axe. ‘Mail too.’
‘Guthorm was going to murder us in our sleep?’ Olaf asked. ‘Pah! He didn’t have the balls, that one.’
‘How do you know this?’ Sigurd asked the blood-spattered, black-haired thrall.
‘I saw him spinning it with Æskil In-Halti,’ he said, then turned those wolf eyes on Olaf. ‘They chained me. They did not poke out my eyes or cut off my ears.’
‘Aye, well I’m thinking they wish they had now,’ Olaf said, still bristling with the promise of violence, which was hardly surprising given what they had just seen. They had gone from sleep to slaughter in the blink of an ale-blurred eye and were all sharp with the shock of it.
‘But this is not our mess,’ Solveig said.
Loker nodded. ‘We should be gone before daybreak for they are bound to fetch some loudmouth and his crew to deal with it.’
‘Aye, this place is one of Jarl Randver’s piss posts,’ Olaf said, ‘and he’s sure to send men to find out how Guthorm and all these nithings got themselves cut up.’ He turned to Sigurd and gestured to Guthorm’s thrall. ‘If it’s true about them planning to kill us in our sleep then this lad has done us a favour.’ He scratched his bearded cheek. ‘Maybe it would be ungrateful to spear him.’
‘Don’t let that stop you trying, Olaf,’ the thrall said, throwing out his arms as an invitation to them all to go and kill him. Or to try at least.
But Sigurd remembered seeing Guthorm and Lame-Leg in each other’s ear holes earlier like maggots in old flesh. Recalled the look of Fastvi’s face too, when their eyes had met through the smoke. And given what kind of man her husband was, Sigurd was beginning to get a grip on it all. He considered walking over to Fastvi, who still sat in the reeds with her skewered husband, and putting a knife to her throat to make her spill the truth. But what difference would it make? He was not going to kill this thrall now. Not even if the lad’s story about Guthorm and Lame-Leg’s intended treachery had all the truth of one of Hagal Crow-Song’s taller tales.
‘I’d like to know how he slipped out of those irons,’ Svein said, nodding towards the dark corner in which the young man had been chained. Sigurd glanced at Asgot but the godi seemed to have his lips sewn on that matter and so Sigurd did not mention the key around his neck.
‘It seems to me you could have killed Guthorm and his friends any time you wanted,’ he said to the thrall, who was no longer a thrall really. ‘Why did you wait until now?’
The young man tucked the axe into his belt then bent and pulled his scramasax’s blade through a fistful of Æskil In-Halti’s tunic. As for Lame-Leg he was as dead as a man could be though his eyes and mouth were open. ‘It seemed like a good night to do it, Sigurd son of Harald,’ he said. ‘Besides, if Guthorm had cut your throat I would have nothing better to do than stay under this roof eating his food and killing the fools who come to the Weeping Stone.’ He sheathed the knife and swept the black hair back from his face to reveal hollow cheeks and bones as sharp as the scramasax. His eyes bored into Sigurd’s. ‘You knew I would leave this farm with you one way or another,’ he said. ‘We both knew it up at the stone.’