Erinsong (32 page)

Solveig was seated in the
place of honor on her fa
ther‘s left side.
Clad in a snowy white kyrtle and tunic,
with her golden hair dressed in an elaborate series of
plaits, she looked pure enough to have stepped
from a folio of the Gospels. Her skin was pale as
parch
ment and her eyebrows so blond as to
be invisible at
a distance, giving her the
supremely calm look of the
Madonna
Herself. Everything about her was pallid,
except for her very red mouth. She was quite
beauti
ful, Brenna realized with a
pang.

But when Brenna saw Jorand,
the rest of the room,
including the fiend
named Kolgrim and the lesser
demon
Solveig, dissolved into nothing. Her husband
sat still as stone, a deep frown chiseled between his brows.
But stern-visaged or no, his face was like a
woodcut of such pure line and balance, it hurt
Brenna’s
heart to look at him. Even so,
she drank in the sight of
him as thirstily
as a shipwrecked victim craves sweet
water.

When he turned his head and
saw her, a smile lit his
features. He
stood to welcome her. It was all Brenna could do not to run to him,
arms outstretched.

Aye, what we had was
real,
she thought. But the
men
ace she felt in Thorkill’s hall was
real as well and she
forced herself to
walk sedately at Rika’s side.

“Bjorn, this is Brenna.”
Her new friend motioned
to the dark-haired
man seated near Jorand. Bjorn smiled at her briefly, but his
attention immediately
turned to the
glorious redhead who was his wife.

Brenna took her place at
her husband’s side. Jo
rand settled beside
her and placed a possessive hand
on her
thigh.

“Thank you for coming,” Jorand said softly.
“I feared you wouldn’t.”

“Rika told me ye were
planning to challenge Kol
grim in
the
holmgang
,”
she answered, trying not to
be distracted
by the heat of his palm. “Since I’m the
reason ye are trying to win back the Codex, I wanted
to be here to support ye. Surely Thorkill will
hear me
testimony as well?”

“Testimony?”

“Aye. Ye’ve made a big
stramash about your law
and all,” she
said. “I only hope your
holmgang
court
sees justice
done.”

***

“Whatever she’s saying
about the
holmgang
, tell
her that, as head wife, mine
is the right of first choice
among the
spoils.” Solveig leaned across Jorand to glare at
Brenna.

“She doesn’t know anything
about that,” Jorand said, impatient with Solveig’s greed. “She
doesn’t even realize the
holmgang
is a combat,
not a
trial. Don’t worry, woman. You’ll get your full
due.”

“I should hope so. I
deserve something for the heartache you’ve put me through. First,
I’m told you’re washed overboard and grieve for you as a
wife should. Then I find you’ve turned Irish for
more
than half a year. And now you flaunt
your little con
cubine before the whole of
Dublin,” Solveig said, eyes narrowed at him. Then she lowered her
voice.
“But since you’re intent on
challenging your old cap
tain, they do say
Kolgrim has a stash of hack silver
big as
a two-year-old child hidden under the floor of
his longhouse.”

Jorand studied Solveig’s
flawless face and saw her
clearly for the
first time. Looking back, he realized he’d been enthralled by her
beauty and more than a little dazzled by her father’s power. Now he
understood the emptiness of both. He was a fool to let his cock
and his ambition lead him into marriage with
such a shallow creature. He shuddered to realize that
if he hadn’t met Brenna, Solveig might have
always been enough for him.

Solveig hadn’t changed. He had.

A small hand on his arm
made him turn.
Brenna.
Her name had once more become his talisman, a whispered
prayer to keep him sane. When things had become too trying with
Solveig the past week, Brenna echoed in his mind. He caught himself
chanting it under his breath more than once.

“When will it start?” Brenna asked.

“Soon enough,” he said, covering her hand
with his own and not allowing her to escape. Even though Brenna was
no stranger to hard labor, her smooth palm was still so soft. He
inhaled deeply, taking in the fresh, clean scent of her. Her eyes
were clear when she looked at him, the soul he loved glistening in
their moist depths. The possibility that he could lose her
completely this very night flitted across his mind, but he shoved
it away. No profit in thinking the worst.

As if in response to Brenna’s question,
Thorkill stood and bellowed for quiet.

***

Brenna listened in tense puzzlement, trying
to decipher what Thorkill was saying. Rika leaned in to whisper an
interpretation. “He’s calling all to witness the accusation.”

Brenna nodded. That much made sense.

Jorand rose and began speaking. Even though
he sounded strange in Norse instead of the heavily accented Gaelic
he used when he spoke to her, she let his sonorous voice roll over
her. She wished she could wrap herself in the rich deep sound, go
to sleep and, please God, never wake.

“Jorand says Kolgrim
attacked him during a storm
and knocked
him overboard to drown,” Rika whis
pered.
“That normally wouldn’t be considered so bad,
but Kolgrim struck from behind with no warning.”

Kolgrim leaped to his feet, his face a
snarling mask. Brenna flinched.

“Kolgrim is demanding
the
holmgang
,”
Rika explained. “Jorand wanted to call Kolgrim out this afternoon
when he first arrived back, but Thorkill forbade it. Kolgrim had to
be told Jorand was not dead as he first supposed. No warrior will
stand to
fight a ghost, after all. Jorand
was under orders not to
challenge until
after the feast.”

“So this exchange of
insults is Thorkill’s idea of en
tertainment for his guests?” Brenna asked under her
breath.

“I’m a well-known skald in my own land,” Rika
said with a trace of annoyance. “I’ve not been asked to recite all
week. Thorkill is not interested in sagas or poetry that don’t tout
his own exploits. Alas, I know of none worth retelling.”

Kolgrim lunged at Jorand,
but Thorkill interposed
his own formidable
body between them and pushed the combatants apart. Then he spoke at
length in stentorian tones. When he finished, everyone stood and
pushed toward the open doorway.

Jorand shot Brenna a parting look, then
strode away with purpose.

“What now?” she asked.

“The
holmgang
begins,” Rika said, a grim
tightness about her lips.

“But I thought this was
the
holmgang
court.”

Rika cocked her head at
her. “He didn’t tell you.
The
holmgang
isn’t a court
trial. It is trial by combat,
winner take
all.”

Brenna felt suddenly light-headed.

Solveig brushed past her,
pausing long enough to toss a string of stinging invective toward
her. She looked Brenna up and down, the expression on her
face plainly saying Brenna had been weighed in
the
balance and found sadly wanting. The
beautiful Norse woman made a noise that sounded suspiciously like
a snort and stalked away.

“I’m almost afraid to ask.” Brenna skittered
after Rika as they pushed through the throng toward the doorway.
“What did she say to me?”

“ Pray to your God, Irish,”
Rika repeated verbatim, her prodigious memory able to grasp and
retell the spoken word with exactitude. “May our
hus
band be victorious. If not, we belong
to Kolgrim from
this night
forward.”

“No,” Brenna protested.
“Not even Northmen
could be so barbarous.
Surely a man isn’t allowed to
take
another’s wife.”

Rika put an arm around Brenna’s shoulders and
hurried her along. “It is allowed ... but he must kill the husband
first.”

He
must kill the husband first.

Brenna hoisted her skirt
and dodged in and out among the crowd,
trying to work her way out of the
jarlhof
to find
Jo
rand. She had to stop this
insanity.

“Jorand!” she cried out,
unable to see him over the
sea of taller
bodies.

Rika caught up to her and grabbed her
shoulders, turning her around. “What are you doing?”

“I’m going to stop this,”
Brenna said. “It’s my fault
Jorand is in
danger and the Codex is not worth it.”

“You can’t stop it. It’s
already begun.” Rika gave
her a shake. “He
fights for his honor. Do you want to
shame
him?”

That made her pause. Jorand
wouldn’t thank her
for behaving in a way
that brought him disgrace. But
she never
imagined getting back the Codex would
involve such high stakes. As much as she wanted her
sister’s child in her arms, the possibility that
Jorand could die trying to bring her dream to reality had never
entered her mind. She fought to still her trembling.

“That’s better,” Rika said. “Come. Bjorn will
be his second. He will have saved us space. As Jorand’s wife, you
are expected to watch.”

The two women pushed
through the throng, out of
the
jarlhof
and
into the night. Clouds had blocked the moon’s
light earlier. Now they mushroomed into a full-blown thunderstorm.
Lightning split the sky, illuminating the bustling throng with
flashes that made people’s movement appear macabre and
disjointed.

Rain started to fall, a rustle on the
thatched roofs at first, then a steady dripping that soon plastered
Brenna’s borrowed clothing to her form and impeded her progress.
The wooden planks on the path grew slippery underfoot. A long roll
of thunder rumbled over her. A flicker of hope surged up in her
breast. Perhaps the combat would be halted due to the gathering
storm.

Brenna elbowed her way through the tight knot
of spectators gathered around a roped-off area about twelve long
paces square. Someone was pegging a cloak to the ground in the
center of the square. The reek of burning pitch invaded Brenna’s
nostrils as several men arrived with fresh torches to replace the
old ones, already sputtering in the rain. Rather than dampening the
spirits of the crowd, the foul weather seemed to add
excitement.

A jagged bolt shredded the clouds and the
resounding boom that followed made Brenna jump. “Won’t they stop
because of the storm?” she shouted to Rika.

“Thor favors a good fight,”
Rika said with a glance at the sky. New Christian or not, the Norse
woman seemed to have a healthy respect for her old gods still. “The
Thunderer has come. That makes this
holmgang
even more
propitious.”

Brenna heard several people
bickering amongst themselves and she saw small bags of coin
change
hands. The Northmen laid bets on
the outcome.

In one corner of the roped
area, Jorand and Bjorn
were heads down in
earnest conversation, deep in discussion of fighting strategy,
Brenna supposed. Kolgrim was in the opposite corner, taking
practice cuts with a sword as long as his arm. Lightning
flashed and his wickedly sharp-looking sword
seemed
to glow blue for a
moment.

Solveig joined Brenna at the rope, looking
down on her with disdain. Brenna saw she was holding a sword,
swathed in blood red cloth. When Jorand approached them, Solveig
presented the sword to him, hilt first.

The crowd quieted. Solveig
said something to him,
her voice ringing
clear, without the slightest hint of a
quiver.

“Victory and honor,” Rika
whispered, prompting
Brenna to offer the
correct words of encouragement
to her
husband. Jorand turned from Solveig to look at
Brenna, his face stony and unreadable. Moira had told her
Jorand looked like a different man when he slew the raiders on the
beach. Hard and vicious.
Clearly, he had
already passed into a state that would
allow him to hack into living flesh without
hesitation.

“Live,” she pleaded in Gaelic. “Just
live.”

Thorkill took his position
across the square from
Brenna and gave an
almost imperceptible nod.

At this signal, Kolgrim
opened his mouth wide
and made a noise
like a bull standing at stud. Jorand
answered with a full-throated roar of his own. The two men
flung themselves toward the center of the square and met with a
resounding clang of steel on steel. Sparks flew as the blades
grated along their
sharp edges. Jorand and
Kolgrim grappled with each
other for the
space of several heartbeats. After this
test of strength and will, which neither of them won
decisively, the combatants separated and began
circling, searching for weakness.