Tim Leach - Smile of the Wolf

It did not take long. When he was still once more, Thorvaldur spoke some words to me, but I could not seem to hear them. I found myself back beside Kari, the Christian trailing behind me. I sat and he sat beside me, but he knew not to speak first.

There was blood on Thorvaldur’s teeth, dribbling from his mouth and on to his chin. But he smiled at me and I knew he was not badly hurt. The boss of a shield or the haft of an axe had struck him in the mouth, but it was no killing wound.

‘What will happen to him?’ I said.

‘Kari?’

‘Yes.’

‘He died a warrior of Christ. His sins forgiven. He is in heaven now.’

‘And what of his parents?’

‘They died as pagans. He will never see them again.’

‘A hard kind of justice, that our God offers.’

‘It is a hard time we live in. A war for men’s souls. A war we must win.’

I took the sword from where it lay on the ground beside Kari, and with my cloak I began to wipe the blood from it.

‘Do you still wish to kill me?’ said Thorvaldur.

‘No. It was not you that killed the boy.’ I sheathed the sword, the slap of metal against leather. ‘I did. I should have taken him far from this place.’

‘It is done, now. The spirits of the dead rest easy. You should be thankful.’

‘I am not thankful.’

‘It was a good fight. You fought well. I had not thought you to be a berserker, but I have heard that the poets often fight in such a way.’ He grinned that awful, broken-toothed smile at me. ‘A good fight,’ he said once more.

My shield lay nearby and I took it up and placed it over the boy’s face, so that I would not need to look on it any longer.

‘He stood against Björn for as long as he could,’ Thorvaldur said. ‘He would not fall.’ He spat blood upon the snow. ‘It was a good death.’

I did not answer. I took the boy’s hand in mine, as I had once held his father’s.

When I looked up again, I found the Christian watching me, his head cocked to the side, a smile dancing on his lips.

‘What amuses you?’ I said.

‘It was for the boy, wasn’t it?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘All of this. The feud. You did this for him, didn’t you? You would have run, but you fought for him.’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘It was for him.’

He clapped his hands together in delight, still grinning like a madman.

‘That love you have for other men’s secrets,’ I said. ‘It will get you killed, one day.’

‘I doubt it not,’ he said. ‘But not today.’

‘What will you do now?’ I said.

‘I go back to Norway. They will hunt me for this. They will hunt you, too.’ He kissed the cross around his neck and held out a hand. ‘Come with me. We will preach together, fight together.’

‘No.’

‘No?’

‘I will never leave this island.’

He waited a moment longer to see if I would change my mind. He stood and he clasped my arm, and I watched him disappear into the snowfall, singing quietly to himself. A happy man.

I reached down and I touched my side beneath the cloak, felt the hot wetness there within. There was no pain to the wound – only a cold, absent feeling. The pain would come later, I was sure. Nausea passed through me and I thought I would retch. But the feeling went.

The sun was falling from the sky as I walked back into the valley. The snow heavier, and I left little drops of blood behind in it, like red berries falling from a poorly woven basket.

It was fully dark before long and the clouds covered the moon and the stars. Yet still I found that I knew the way. Had I been blinded and cast adrift in that valley, still I could have found my way to that place.

It was before me, then. A longhouse, like any other. Smoke rising from the chimney hole, the smell of cooking in the air. No sound from within, but I knew there to be life there. And death as well, perhaps.

I reached the door and I knocked upon it. A woman answered. She stared at me, and for the first time that I could recall I saw fear in her eyes. But only for a moment.

‘Come in,’ Vigdis said. ‘It is cold.’

There was no trap inside. No kinsman waiting for me with blade in hand. In one corner of the room, bundled tight in blankets, I could see a child sleeping. Other than that, we were alone.

She gestured for me to sit and I did so. We sat across the fire and we did not speak at first. Perhaps, in that silence, we knew each other truly for the first time. There was a stillness to her, as though she were a piece of forged iron rather than flesh. A strength that she had been born with or that she had learned, and there was not a mark of fear on her face. Nor in her voice, when she spoke.

‘They are dead, then.’

I nodded and watched her for any sign of sadness. There was none.

‘And now you are here for me,’ she said.

‘Yes.’

‘A shameful thing, to kill a woman.’

‘Dalla was killed, was she not? And Freydis. Why should not you answer for that?’

‘But it was I who killed them. Women may kill women. Men may kill men. But we must not kill one another. It is a blasphemy.’

‘You have killed men too, I think.’

‘I did not wield the blade.’

‘But you have killed them. And I will know why.’

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘You shall. You have earned that much.’

She poured herself a cup of water, her hand almost steady; there was a slight tremor there, the way a swordsman’s hand will quiver before the holmgang . In spite of myself, I could feel a touch of fear. I had looked upon great warriors before: Gunnar, Björn and others besides. I looked upon another now.

‘Did you know my husband, Hrapp?’ she said.

‘Little. I saw him once or twice.’

‘What did you think of him?’

‘A cruel man. And stupid.’

‘Yes, he was. But strong as well. All men feared him.’

‘And you?’

‘Yes. I feared him too.’ She paused and looked into the fire. I wonder if she still saw him there. For the tremor in her hand went still – just the way a man’s does, when the first blow is struck.

‘He wanted no children. I do not know why. But he was not barren, and neither was I. I had many children.’

By instinct, I looked about the room for some evidence of what she said. But other than the child in the corner, there was none.

‘We exposed them,’ she said. ‘No one ever knew.’

The unwanted bastard that shames a family, the slave’s child that will only starve if it is left to live – these are the children that are abandoned in the darkness. Had my father not been freed from slavery, no doubt that is where I would have met my death: scant hours after my birth, crying in the night as the snow fell upon me. But it was something secret, something shameful. A coldness stole over me, to hear her speak of it so calmly.

‘But I am grateful for it,’ she said, one hand toying with the knotted braid of her hair. ‘The first time, I thought that I would die from sadness. But I did not. And there is a strength to be found there. I think you understand that. You must, to have done all that you have done.’

‘Why speak of Hrapp? You think that I shall pity you?’

She did not seem to hear me. ‘I thought I would die a long time ago,’ she said. ‘There was a time when Hrapp was angrier than usual. I was certain he meant to kill me, after that.’

‘You could have divorced him. Gone back to your family.’

‘There was no leaving a man like Hrapp. Except in death. And I did not want to.’

‘Why?’

‘Because I loved him.’

I listened to the crackle of the fire, and I tried to understand. ‘You thought that he would kill you.’