Tim Leach - Smile of the Wolf

‘The duel was your doing.’

‘I know. I wanted to kill him, at first. But when he spoke…’ He looked at me and hesitated. ‘Have you ever killed a man?’

‘I killed Erik.’

He waved a hand at me. ‘Before him.’

‘No,’ I said, and he looked at me in disbelief, as though I had told him that I had never lain with a woman. ‘Who was the first man that you killed?’ I asked.

‘I cannot remember,’ he said.

A killer for as long as he could remember, unable to recall a time before he had been a taker of life. I thought of him as he must have been when it had first happened: a boy who had lied about his age, tricking his way on to the longship of one captain or another. Shivering and vomiting on his first voyage to the west, shamed by the mocking laughter of the other men. In his first battle he would have been kept at the back behind those more skilled or experienced or eager for death, unable to see the fighting, only to hear it.

His first kill would have been finishing a wounded man: some Saxon warrior lying on the ground, wrapped up in his own entrails, whose last sight in the world was a pale-faced boy kneeling beside him, knife in hand. Or it might have been some helpless priest who fell at Gunnar’s knees during the looting, begging for a mercy that could not come. Perhaps that was why he had forgotten the killing. Perhaps it had been a shameful thing.

‘What shall we do now?’ I said.

He turned to the west, where the endless sun guided a way across the land.

‘Let us go home,’ he said.

He insisted that I ride the horse. He would not listen to my protests; having killed for it, he almost seemed to fear to touch it.

No doubt it should have been a miserable journey, and no doubt both of us should have spent it looking on the ruins of our lives. I would soon be an outlaw, exiled from my home, perhaps forever. He was hopelessly caught in the feud; for the rest of his life, he would have to watch for those who would come seeking revenge.

Yet I remember days spent singing songs as we walked and rode, and whenever we saw a farm we would shy around it, stopping only to trade for bread and ale when we had to. It was one of the blessed summers, rainless and clear-skied, that seems like it cannot end.

I wish that it had not. When we came at last to the hill that overlooked Gunnar’s farm, we knew that we were returning to the world of the feud.

‘Do you think they know?’ I asked him.

He stared down at the smoke that rose from the house.

‘She will know,’ he said. ‘Perhaps she has not told the children. But soon they will know too.’

‘Do you want to wait? We can stay here as long as you want.’

‘No.’ He shook his head. ‘We will go now. There is nothing else to do.’

I had thought we would return to anger or to tears. Perhaps Gunnar had, too, for he trod as carefully to his own front door as a man approaching bandit country. But when he stepped through the door into that welcoming darkness, Dalla stood and clasped him by the shoulder, handed him a cup of water and spoke as though she were a chieftain giving orders.

‘Sit and rest,’ she said. ‘Soon we shall have much to do. You shall need your rest.’

And so we sat without a word, and in spite of it all I saw a small smile playing over Gunnar’s lips. We should not have been surprised. She was a woman of the feuds, a warrior’s wife.

It was the children who had changed. No doubt their mother had tried to tell them of the feud, and no doubt they could not understand. They came forward at first, almost to the point of embracing us, and then they shied away from us, huddling in the shadows.

It is a painful thing, to see children run from you. I slipped from my bench and knelt upon the floor, held out my hand to Kari.

‘I have a good story to tell you. Of duels and betrayals. Of exile and of vengeance. You have always liked such stories before. Why should this be any different?’

Uncertain, he looked to his father.

‘There is trouble coming, my son,’ said Gunnar.

‘Will there be killing?

‘I hope not. But it may come to that.’ Gunnar lifted his chin, looked questioningly down at his boy. ‘Will you fight beside us, if it comes to that?’

Kari smiled then and nodded.

‘The cub has fangs,’ Dalla said.

‘Good. He shall need them.’ Gunnar stood.

The boy turned to me. ‘You will fight with us, Kjaran?’

‘I cannot stay.’

Dalla, who had gone to tend the cooking fire, went still. She put her hand against the timber of that house, her fingers tracing along the whorls of the wood. I could see her eyes glittering in the darkness as she looked at me.

‘Where is it that you go?’

‘I am to be an outlaw. Ragnar shall take me from this island.’

She turned her head from me to Gunnar, and returned her eyes to me. ‘You take a heavy burden, Kjaran. I shall not forget this.’

A moment of silence that I could not find the words to break. Then Gunnar clapped his hands.

‘Come, Kari,’ he said. ‘I brought home a gift for you. All of you, come with me.’

Out in the light once more, and looking upon Gunnar’s land I could almost forget the feud. How could any man come to a place like this and think of bloodshed? A simple farm, crops hard fought from stubborn soil. The only sounds that of running water, the occasional faint creak of a few trees against the wind.

Yet I had only to look further to see the feud with my own eyes. The fold of land that marked the borders of Vigdis’s home. The distant coil of smoke that rose from the house of Björn. We were all so close together – nothing but a few miles apart. For when the valley is at peace, one may look through it and see every friend one has in the world. In the time of feud, a man must look on the home of the man who has killed his brother every day as he works his fields and tends his herds. Every day he is reminded of his shame, his dishonour. How can there be peace in such a land? What amount of silver, paid to settle a feud, can hope to buy away that shame?

The horse, new come to this place, only seemed to fix that image more truly. Tied to one of the outbuildings, tall and black and brilliant, the sun on its flanks. No beast of labour, but certainly not one of war. A treasure in flesh, a gift of love, and at the sight of it Kari forgot to pretend to be a man. He was a boy once more, reaching out shyly to take his father’s hand in thanks, in love. Then his sister spoke.

‘A red horse, a red horse!’

I felt the cold touch of a god upon my shoulder. ‘The horse is black, child.’

‘Have you lost your wits?’ Gunnar snapped.

She stammered. ‘It is red to me,’ she said, not yet wise enough to lie.

We said nothing for a time.

‘A trick of the light,’ I said at last, when I saw that no other would break the silence.

‘Yes,’ Dalla said. ‘A trick of the light.’ But her voice was hollow and I could see the clouding of her eyes. Perhaps she knew what her daughter saw. Perhaps she saw it too. ‘And what do we do now?’ she said to Gunnar.

He did not take his eyes from the horse. ‘We will hold a feast,’ he said. ‘For Winter’s Nights. To say farewell to our friend, and to see who will not be afraid to stand beside us.’

‘There is much to consider.’

‘Yes. But there is something else we must do first. Come with me, Kjaran.’

‘Where are we going?’

He did not answer, he simply pointed up to the outcrops above us, back to the high ground. I knew then what he intended.

‘Where will they come from, do you think?’ I said, once we had both caught our breath.

Gunnar’s eyes passed over the shape of the land, looking at it with his raider’s eyes, searching for weaknesses. ‘Not from the hills. They would be exposed as they approach, slowed in retreat.’