Odin’s Child (28 page)

There was an instant of pure panic before my mind began to work. “The king is dead, God help his soul,” I said, crossing my breast.

“That's as may be. Stand up and turn around.”

There were four of them. Three stood back where I could barely make them out against the dark trunks of the trees, but the one who had spoken lowered his point and leaned close, staring into my face. I stared back.

I got the impression of a large, rough-hewn fellow with heavy brows and a pushed-in nose, who was dressed all in sheepskins, like a farmer.

“Where were you going?” the hoarse voice asked.

“Nidaros, comrade, and—”

“Nidaros? You haven't got the Tronder speech.

“I'm an Icelander, but….”

“But you fought for our king?”

“My friend and I have nearly died for him.”

“What friend is that?” His eyes darted nervously. I pointed to Kalf on the ground.

“Well, your friend may yet have to die. Our cargo is more precious than yours, and there isn't room for both. If the boat we're waiting for ever comes, tell them Thorgils said to take you where you want to go.”

“And if it never comes?”

“Too bad—”

Before he could raise his blade, I had him by the arm and stepped in close with my knife, pressing just above his belt buckle.

“You must kill me first, and before you do I'll make enough noise to bring down every heathen within a mile of here.”

His companions leapt forward with their swords drawn. I saw the glint of their helmets and mail coats, well-equipped warriors, all three. But then, who was this shaggy farmer to speak so bold?

With my sword arm useless for a fight, I hadn't a chance against them. I drew a breath to carry out my threat, even if it cost us all our lives. But they stopped short.

Th-Th-Thorgils,” said one. “Leave him be. We c-c-can't risk it.”

“Listen to your thick-tongued friend, Thorgils.”

The farmer's arm muscle bunched under my fingers. He was no weakling.

I must win them over now. “Show me this precious cargo of yours,” I said, standing back from him and speaking in an easy voice. “Short of leaving my comrade to die, I'm at your service.”

“So,” he grunted after a moment's rumination. “But you'll do our business first, damn you, before you do your own. Understood? Bring him.” This, to the three companions.

They disappeared among the trees and returned in a moment, laboring under the weight of a body wrapped head and foot with blankets, obviously dead.

“This is the precious cargo—a useless corpse?”

“Shut up,” Thorgils snarled. “You'll never launch this boat without our help, brave boy, and you know it. We'll put in her what we please, and you'll ask no questions.”

Pushing altogether then, we got the dinghy up out of the hollow and into the water, and laid the two bodies in the bottom. With this bulky, shrouded carcass wedged in next to Kalf, it was plain that there was not room enough for all the rest of us.

Tense looks went round until the man with the stammer said, “Y-Y-You must go, Thorgils. You know the place. We'll f-find our way back.”

The farmer turned on me angrily. “All right, get in and rig your sail, brave boy. Then sit forward, keep quiet, and pray.”

When all was ready, the three warriors, standing thigh-deep in the
water, steadied the boat as he climbed in after me and settled himself by the tiller stick. A night breeze rocked us and carried us slowly out on the dark waters of the fjord.

“G-Go with God, Thorgils,” came the stammerer's voice from far away.

†

We drifted through the grey night in the shadow of the trees with only a faint moon above us. Though I struggled to stay awake, the monotonous slap of water against the bow, the exhaustion of battle, and the giddiness of hunger soon put me in a kind of trance. But farmer Thorgils, though he must have been as tired as I, seemed immune to sleepiness. Throughout the whole long night, I never saw him yawn or shake himself—or move at all except to push the tiller stick and swing the boom around to catch the wind.

Once he spoke, when Kalf stirred and moaned—jarring me from restless sleep.

“Your friend makes too much noise. Sounds travel on the water.”

“Your friend's quiet enough,” I said.

“Quiet? One day, by God, you'll hear him shout.”

“What sort of riddle is that, Thorgils?”

But he would say no more.

Just before dawn he brought us in to shore, dropping the sail and sculling the dinghy to a shallow place where a lightning-cleft tree leaned out over the water. Reaching up, he threw a line around one of its branches.

“Get out.”

“Where are we?”

“Five miles or so above the town.” Pushed by a breeze that blew steadily from the northeast, we had covered in a few hours nearly the same distance that had cost us more than two days going up. “I need you for half an hour, then go your way.”

“My friend won't live another half hour.”

“That matters not to me.”

I made a lunge for him, but pain made me clumsy. His sword flashed out and pointed at Kalf's throat.

“Cause me trouble and I promise you, this one'll stay here till the
wolves find him. That's better. Now lift my man out, while I steady us, and lay him on the bank … gently.”

Shivering in the icy water, I pulled and tugged at the lifeless thing. “He's too heavy for me. Lend a hand, can't you?”

“Oh no, brave boy, I've seen your tricks with a knife, you'll do it.”

I strained again and got him halfway over the side when the blanket that covered his head and shoulders slipped, and I saw his face. I glanced away as quickly as I could and fumbled the cover back over him, but I was certain Thorgils had seen it.

With a final heave, I slung him up onto the bank.

“Well done, brave boy. Now, just you take his shoulders and I will hold him round the knees. Go where I tell you.”

We trudged with our burden up a wooded slope. As we emerged from the trees, I heard the sound of water, and Thorgils said, “Lay him down.”

We were on the sandy bank of the Nid, where it flows down from the hills and bends toward Nidaros.

“Why couldn't you have buried him at Stiklestad?”

“Because this bit of land is on my property. Here I can watch over him. Start digging.”

“What with, dammit?”

“With your helmet, your fingernails—the sand is soft, the grave needn't be deep.”

“I'll dig with my sword.”

But again he was too quick for me. “Keep it in its scabbard, brave boy.” He allowed himself a half-smile and thrust his own blade into the ground. “I'll dig with mine.”

So we set to work—Thorgils loosening the soil and I, on hands and knees, scooping it into the river.

The man was a puzzle to me, and I can't resist a puzzle.

“I suppose you're not a popular man with your neighbors, Farmer Thorgils.”

“My woman and I keep to ourselves. I've a strong arm so the others give us no trouble.”

“And what makes you wiser than they?”

He looked at me in surprise. “That's a funny thing for a Christman to say. We're not wiser than the others, only more blessed.”

“Of course, I only meant—”

“It was seven years ago it happened. At the midsummer sacrifice.” I had set off some train of memory in him; I think he got few chances to tell his story. “We were standing in the grove where the sacrificed men hang from the trees,”—he crossed himself and spat to avert the bad luck of naming those evils—“when, all of a sudden, my woman fell down and rolled in the dirt, scratching her cheeks and puking. Later, when the fit passed off, she couldn't tell us why. After that, she never knew a peaceful day. I took her to the priest of Thor. I took her to a witch—nothing gave her ease.

“At last, I carried her in my wagon to Nidaros, she struggling all the while and biting her lips till they bled. I was at my wit's end. I marched right into his hall—he was hearing petitions that day and a great crowd had gathered—and laid her at his feet. ‘King,' I said, ‘some say you have the touch. Prove it on my poor woman's body.'

“He didn't want to, at first, but after he'd prayed a while, he put out his hand and touched her forehead. My woman began to scream that she was on fire—it was the demon in her that screamed, of course, burnt by his touch. She thrashed and threw herself about, but he kept his hands on her until she fainted. When she woke up she was herself again, and wondered how she came to be in a strange lord's hall. There and then I swore to repay him if ever I could. Now I keep my promise.”

“King Olaf really did that, Thorgils?”

“He did.”

“It's too bad then, that most of your countrymen give him no credit for it.”

He shrugged. “God has his time for everything. Meantime, we wait and keep his precious body safe. Heaven forbid that that head should hang on Thorir Hound's wall and that flesh feed his dogs.”

I replied with a hearty “Amen.”

“But, I wonder,” I said, “that the wicked heathens didn't take him when they had the chance. I saw him fall, you know, just before we ran.”

“Before
you
ran. Some of us were knocked down where we stood, and some of us lay still until the enemy were past.”

“But the jarls?”

“Rode off to drink each other's health. They expect to find him in the morning.”

“I see. Well, you're a brave man, Thorgils, and that's the truth.”

“Enough talk. It's deep enough.”

Together we laid the corpse in its shallow grave, heaped up the sand, and set a heavy stone pried from the bank on top of the little mound for a marker.

“Now I will know where to find him when the day of reckoning comes,” Thorgils said with satisfaction.

“So will I, you forget.”

“I haven't forgotten.”

If he meant to kill me he would do it now. I was as ready as I could be.

“If I knew you,” he said, kneeling on the grave to scratch a cross on the marker with a bit of flint, “or, at least, your kin. But I don't.”

I wasn't prepared for the handful of sand in my face. He followed with a lunge at my knees, taking me down hard. A stab of pain seared my injured shoulder. His hands closed on my throat, the thumbs pressing against my windpipe. I felt like a child in the grip of his strength—my head ready to burst, the light going black.

My knee jerked in a final spasm. He grunted and rolled away, clutching his privates. I swung my fist hard against his chin and fell on him with my knife. The blade grated against a rib going in. When he stopped moving, I pushed him off the bank and stayed long enough to see his head slip under the water.

“Go to Valhalla with your precious king, brave Thorgils,” I whispered.

†

Along the Nidaros wharf the shopkeepers were just giving each other good morning as they threw open their wooden shutters and set out their bolts of sailcloth, their ships' tackle, and their trinkets for the day's trade.

Only a handful of other folk were up and about: a fresh-faced country lass with her egg basket on her arm; a stout ship's captain hunting up his crew; a sailor, stinking of last night's beer, propped in the doorway of the tavern where he'd slept; and a solitary dog that trotted, sniffing hopefully, along a row of sacks.

When they saw me step onto the pier with Kalf's body in my arms, his head falling backward and one arm hanging down, they ran over to me—first the lass, who was nearest, then one, then two, then a dozen of the shop men and their wives.

“From the battle?”

“Yes.”

“You're the first. Ain't he the first?”

“Yes, the first.”

“Let me pass. My friend—” Friend no longer, but I must call him something.

“Best get another friend. That one's gone.”

“Hush. What a thing to say,” one of the wives chided. “Give ‘im room there, he's ready to fall down himself.”

“But who won? Where's the king? Come on, lad, can't you tell us?”

“Dead. The king is dead.”

“Dead!” They said the word in hushed voices. “Olaf?” The sound of their voices followed me as I mounted up the winding street to the inn. “Wake up! Wake up! The king is dead!”

The inn door was still locked. I kicked it until feet scuffled within and the bolt slid back. Young Thyri, peeping out, put her fist up to her mouth. Instantly, hands surrounded me—reaching out to take Kalf from me, helping me to a bench.

They laid Kalf on a table, and Stig peeled away the crusted bandages to examine the wound with his practiced eye. Blood still oozed from it, and the flesh all around was black and swollen.

“Should have been washed with wine hours ago. Bergthora, fetch all the wine you have. Send a girl for more, and get me clean cloths and a pair of shears.” She ran to get these articles.

“You there, Ketil, blow on the coals and stick a poker in 'em. The wound must be seared before he loses any more blood. Dammit, Odd Tangle-Hair, how
did
it happen?” I heard a tightness in his throat—Stig, whom nothing ever upset.

How did it happen? How had I let it come to this? I sank back on the bench and let the story run out at my lips, only leaving out our quarrel. I couldn't bring myself to speak of that, and said nothing about the business with Thorgils and his mysterious corpse. I felt too weary for that pathetic tale.

“Poor puppy,” Bergthora sighed when I told about Ogmund PotBelly.

“A bloody shambles,” said Stig, shaking his head. “You did what you could, no one could have done more.”

Stig thrust the poker into Kalf's wound with a hiss and a smell of
burning flesh. Kalf writhed and shrieked and began to shake in all his limbs. Snatching the flagon from Bergthora's hands, Stig splashed wine all over the wound. “Cut me a strip of bandage,” he ordered, “and make it well soaked with wine.”