Tim Leach - Smile of the Wolf

‘Come, then,’ Thoris said. ‘Amuse us with your stories.’

‘And if I do not amuse you? Will you kill me?’

Thoris shrugged. The question not worthy of an answer.

‘At least I shall die well fed,’ Thorvaldur said, and I could see the light of the fire shining on his teeth as he smiled. ‘It is a long story. It will take much time.’

‘We are wealthy in time, if in nothing else.’

‘Very well,’ Thorvaldur said, and he crossed his legs and straightened his back. ‘Let me tell you how the world was made.’

And he began to speak, with words that were not his.

At first, little that he said seemed new to me. He spoke of the crafting of the world; we had a story much like it. He spoke of a sacred tree of knowledge, much like Yggdrasil, the tree from which Odin was hung in pursuit of knowledge. He told stories of a trickster god who took the form of a snake – Thorvaldur called him Satan, but I knew him for Loki. I began to grow bored as he spoke. From what little I had heard of the White Christ, he expected men to be willing to die for him. It did not seem like much of a faith to die for.

But then he spoke of a man and woman cast out from a paradise. Exiles – perhaps you could even call them outlaws. And I felt a coldness run up my spine, for that is where a story leaves its mark, when we know it to be true.

Thorvaldur spoke of two brothers. Of their rivalry and how, in jealousy, one murdered another. A feud between brothers, a feud between a man and his God. And even in the darkness I saw Thoris tremble a little.

Thorvaldur paused. His voice changed, and he no longer spoke with a God’s words but with his own.

‘I think this story is familiar to you, is it not?’ he said.

Movement in the dark. Hands reaching, finding. One shadow on top of another, and the light of the fire on the blade of a knife. And Thoris pressing his face close to that of Thorvaldur, while that man of God stared back at him impassively, a trickle of blood running from his throat.

‘Do you mock me?’ Thoris said.

‘I told you that my God had such a story. I mean no mockery.’

‘And what does your God say happened to him?’

‘He was cursed to wander the earth. Cast out from his people.’ Thorvaldur’s eyes flickered over Thoris’s ruined ear. ‘And he was marked, so that every man knew him for what he was.’

‘I know this story already. What use is it to me?’

‘But you do not know how it ends.’

Thoris sat back, the blade still in his hand. ‘Tell me.’

‘He was branded for his whole life,’ Thorvaldur said. ‘Hated by the people of the world. He suffered, but God forgave him.’

‘Why?’

‘God forgives the evil that men do.’

‘At what price?’

‘There is no price but faith. For mine is a God of love.’

Silence followed. What answer was there to that?

Odin, Thor, Freyr – our gods are our chieftains, our kings. We honour them and they protect us. We anger them and they destroy us. We die well and they reward us. But how could a God love a man?

Thoris’s lips curled – anger, perhaps even disgust. The knife still lay in his hand, gripped weakly.

‘Enough of this,’ I said. ‘I will sing, if you want.’

‘No,’ Thoris said. ‘I do not want your songs.’ He pointed to Thorvaldur. ‘Speak. Tell me your story. Tell me how it ends.’

What do the seasons matter in a place such as that outlaw’s valley? What does summer count for in a land where nothing grows and there is no end to the ice and snow? Where the coming and going of the winter is marked by the birds and the sun, but by no other man or woman?

I dreamed sometimes that there was some second, secret world within those dead valleys. A gathering of the outlaws, perhaps even a shadow of the Althing. A place where, at the height of a frozen summer, we outcast men would meet in a frozen valley, beside a dead lake. There we could trade and share our stories, feel ourselves to be part of something greater.

Our people had come to this country a century before, forged a new people in an empty land. Could we retreat once more, found a country within a country?

But there was no such thing. This was not some second society, hidden away from the people of the coast. We were not pioneers, settlers of the ice. There were no women, no children. We were not men. We were ghosts.

We passed the seasons shivering in the cave, working in fragments of daylight. On some of the long nights, I still sang – more for Thorvaldur now, for he clapped and cheered each song as though we were in a chieftain’s hall. Thoris half-listened, scratching at the floor of the cave with the blade of his knife. He was waiting for something else. For on the days that I did not sing, Thorvaldur continued the story of his God.

I listened as a child will to the ramblings of an angry old man: all attention, but with little interest. I had the gods of two people already – from the Icelanders and the Irish, Odin and the White Lady, the father and mother of my poetry. I needed nothing from him.

Or so I believed, at first.

There came a day in late summer when Thorvaldur and I sat by a small fire, preparing a rare hot meal. Thoris was away – tending the herd or collecting water, I cannot remember which. But I was alone with the Christian, for a time at least.

‘Will you speak of your God again tonight?’ I said. ‘Or shall I sing?’

‘It will be as our chieftain wishes it.’

‘Then I think that we will have your stories. I would lay a wager, had I anything of my own to gamble with.’

‘You do not care for my tales of Christ?’

‘I do not mind them. Some of them make for good stories.’

‘But they do not move you.’

‘I have enough gods at my side already. I have no need for another.’

‘Perhaps I may tell you other things. What is it that you wish to hear?’

I hesitated. ‘There is a man that I would hear news of,’ I said. ‘A woman, too, though I doubt you will have heard of her.’

‘Name them. Perhaps I do know them.’

‘Gunnar Karlsson.’

He thought for a time – recalling a memory or stitching together a lie. But I would know it if he lied. I wonder if I would have cut his throat for the lie. But at last he nodded slowly. And when he spoke, I believed him.

‘I saw him at the Althing,’ he said. ‘I did not speak to him myself. But there were others who spoke of him.’

I felt an aching in my chest. ‘He was well?’

‘Well enough. Though he seemed to quarrel with many men.’

‘That is his way.’

He considered me for a moment. ‘I saw him go to the poets,’ he said. ‘To hear them sing. Thinking of you, I suppose?’

‘He always liked to hear the poets sing,’ I said. ‘I am but one of many.’

A smile played across his lips. ‘There was a woman there that he spoke to.’

I closed my eyes. ‘Describe her to me,’ I said.

‘Tall, pale-skinned. Too thin. But I think you know of whom I speak.’

One more year , I thought. Wait for just one more year . Please .

‘So,’ he said. ‘This is a woman that you love.’

‘Yes, it is. Tell me more of the Althing.’

‘What is it that you wish to know?’

‘Everything.’

He laughed and would have spoken again. But we heard the heavy tread of Thoris returning to the cave.

He stood in the entrance of the cave, his hands resting on the stone above his head. He leaned forward, peering in, and looking from one of us to the other.

‘What is it that you speak of?’ he said.

‘Nothing of consequence.’

‘That is a lie. You speak about me, don’t you?’