Far After Gold (28 page)

The wind wandered through the branches and dipped to stroke Flane’s cheek with cool fingers. He shivered, but he did not feel guilty when he remembered how close he had come to death today. He looked up at the starry sky above the black branches and touched the pendant at his breast. Thor had looked after him, and he offered humble and heartfelt thanks to the deity.

The slaves quickly dug a boat-shaped grave under the trees and laid Gamel in it, his arms crossed over his chest. In the darkness the features of the dead man were reduced to a pale blur. Skeggi carefully placed several items around the body, all taken earlier from Gamel’s sleeping place. His comb, arm ring and a favourite cup, a good belt found wrapped in soft doeskin. He might need them in the afterlife.

Flane knelt and, mindful of his back, placed Gamel’s sword down the centre line of his body. The dagger he placed with the other goods. The collection of objects was pitifully small to mark a man’s life. He stood and watched the slaves shovel soft earth over the body.

“We are here before the Gods,” he said, tilting his face to the sky, “because one of our steading has fallen. Let Gamel’s name continue with our remembrance of the deeds which he would wish remembered.”

“Oh, well said,” Skeggi muttered. They stood in silence until it was time to roll stones over the earth so that wild creatures would not plunder the grave. Afterwards they walked back toward the steading in silence. Burials were sobering things. Flane laid a hand on Skeggi’s shoulder and turned away to go down to the bathing hut and Emer.

Chapter Nineteen

Friday dawned fair and clear, and began with bathing both bride and groom. “Separately, I hope?” Emer queried brightly. Her aches and pains were subsiding, and she was happier than she had ever been in her life.

“Of course,” Flane reassured her. “I saw Snorri going down earlier. It’s a serious business. Their old lives are symbolically washed away, so they are ready to begin a new life in the marriage.”

Emer lifted her brows in surprise. “What happens in a Viking wedding?”

Flane grimaced. “Strictly, it’s a matter of money. The bride price has to be right before anything else happens.” He listed the items against his fingers. “The
mundr
, the
morgen-gifu
and the
heiman fylgia
. I know you’ve heard of the
morgen-gifu
, but have you heard of the other two?”

Emer shook her head.

“Well, the groom pays
mundr
to the father of the bride and with that, ownership of the bride passes from the father to the husband, and from then on he is obligated to protect her against whatever threatens her. The
heiman fylgia
is the bride’s portion of her father’s wealth. Snorri will handle it on Katla’s behalf, but if they divorce she takes the original sum away with her.”

“It all sounds very…” Emer sought and failed to find the correct word.

Flane saw from her expression that she didn’t care much for it. “It ensures a couple start married life with money and property. The
morgengifu
Snorri gives Katla after he’s bedded her will probably be land. He might give her jewels or livestock but knowing Snorri it is more likely to be lands and estates. It’s all done to protect her and her children.”

“Is that all? Surely there must be some kind of ceremony?”

He shrugged, as if the rest was unimportant. “They’ll be giving each other a sword and a lot of mead will be sprinkled around before we get down to drinking the bridal-ale.” He glanced in her direction. “You’ll be tired of mead before the month is out.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, my little Christian, that we have to keep the bride and groom in mead for a month. Some people call it the Moon of Honey, and you can make what you like out of that.”

Emer decided to ignore the bawdier aspects of his remark. “Where will it take place?”

“The same place where the
hólmgang
was held.”

“Oh.” Emer’s mouth turned down. “Hardly an auspicious place.”

“Lots of things take place there. Look, here’s the bride.”

Emer turned with a curious blend of eagerness and apprehension. A young boy walked out of the steading, washed, scrubbed and wearing his best tunic. He held a sword balanced across his hands, and stared straight ahead as he walked. The bride followed him, with Skuli Grey Cloak walking behind his daughter. He wore the great torque of his chieftainship and the blue of his linen tunic contrasted well with the bride’s elegant crimson gown.

Katla’s long black hair hung loose. Her gown fitted without a wrinkle at her waist, and gold thread work glittered at her throat and the cuffs of the long sleeves. With every step the gown flicked up and revealed a pale, embroidered linen underskirt. Emer sighed with envy and wished she possessed half of Katla’s mother’s skill with a needle. She must talk to Gudrun before they left and ask how she achieved such perfection.

The bride, she realised, did not look happy. At that moment, Katla glanced up at her father. The fall of hip length hair swung gently with the movement. A single white petal fell from her bridal crown, trembled and danced down the shining black strands and floated to the ground. Skuli Grey Cloak’s affectionate smile surprised Emer. He offered his arm to his daughter, and Emer felt the prick of tears behind her eyes, for it was the kind of smile her own father had so often given her.

Skuli’s gesture appeared to comfort Katla, for the girl’s wary, suspicious expression softened as she laid her hand on her father’s arm. A small, tight smile flicked across her face.

“It’s a pity about that bruise on her face,” Emer murmured. “I wonder if Snorri will ask her how she got it.”

“She can hardly hide it. I heard she made the mistake of walking into a door that was closing,” Flane said without the slightest hint of amusement. “We should walk behind them,” he added. They joined the rest of the steading walking slowly toward the open headland by the river mouth.

“She looks frightened,” Emer whispered, leaning close to Flane. The touch of his hand against hers was welcome.

“She has no need.”

Emer tipped her head back and threw a saucy glance his way. “I think I know how she feels. I remember being frightened of you.”

He lifted their linked fingers and kissed her knuckles. “Sorry.”

“Snorri looks almost handsome.” She nodded toward the richly dressed figure of the bridegroom, who waited with his own attendants gathered around him on the flat grassy meadow. “And look at Katla’s bridal-crown—it is so pretty!”

“Another good reason to have weddings in the summer. Lots of flowers to make bridal-crowns.”

“Oh, you — is there no romance in you at all?”

“I thought that was romantic! I’ll soon show you how romantic I can be if we go where we’ll be alone.” He twitched his shoulders experimentally and grimaced.

Emer frowned. “Are you still in pain?” She darted a swift glance at his back. “There is no bleeding.”

Flane tossed his hair out of his eyes. “Oh, it itches more than anything. It’ll be knitting back together.” He smiled down into her worried eyes. “I’ve had worse. Katla would have demanded he whip me, so he had to do it. But I’ve seen him flay men’s backs apart in days gone by.”

“Thank goodness you got off lightly, then. Oh, look, there’s another sword!”

A tall young man stood at Snorri’s shoulder with a sword held flat across both palms. It caught the light as he half-turned to converse with the bridegroom, and Emer blinked in the brief dazzle. “They look alike,” she added, surveying them both. “Is that man Snorri’s brother, do you think? They both have the same look about them. And why on earth is that man sitting at a table with a pair of scales in front of him?”

“Both Longnose’s brothers are here. The other one is holding the silver for the dowry. See—he has a leather bag in his hands. If you wait a little while, you’ll see why the scales are there.”

The young boy leading the bride and her father to the appointed place drew off to one side. Katla and her father moved up, and Katla kept her gaze modestly on the ground as the bridegroom and important witnesses moved closer. Snorri’s sheathed sword, chased and patterned with silver, hung across his broad back.

Surprised by the sight of weapons at a wedding, Emer noted that the brothers wore swords bearing the same design. They also wore jewelled daggers, studded belts and heavy silver armbands, which seemed strange to her eyes and more suitable for a fight than a wedding.

It was possible that men wore their weapons as women wore jewellery; certainly they were ornamental, even beautiful with their gems and silver chasing. The old stories spoke of women’s brooches used as weapons, too. Looking more closely, Emer caught the glint of gold finger rings and necklaces and decided the weapons were more about status than aggression.

“There’s certainly money in the family. Flane? Is that—what are you grinning at?”

Flane put his lips close against her ear. “Snorri’s carrying an axe and a hammer as well as his sword.”

More weapons! Emer stared disbelievingly at Snorri Longnose. Flane was right. There was a hammer slung through Snorri’s broad leather belt and he held the axe loosely by the wooden shaft. “What does that signify?”

“They are symbols of his mastery in the marriage.” Vastly amused, Flane grinned but kept his voice low. “Most folk don’t bother with them. He is saying he means to be her master.”

Emer looked thoughtful. “Katla’s not going to like that.”

Flane snorted. “It is just what she needs, if you ask me. There goes the silver,” he said as the youngest brother handed over the large leather bag to Skuli Grey Cloak. “It’s legal.”

Katla lifted her head as the bulging money bag passed in front of her. Emer thought briefly of the slave market and wondered what Katla’s thoughts were at this moment. “Couldn’t they do that in private?”

“It’s always done out in the open, before witnesses, so that everyone can see that it is done correctly. If it was done privately, someone could claim the dowry hadn’t been paid.”

Emer considered that. “They could still cheat and not pay the proper amount—oh.” As the words left her mouth, Skuli handed the bag to the old man at the table. He promptly untied the leather thong and tipped the silver onto the scales. “Oh, my. He’s weighing the money right there in front of everyone!” She looked up at Flane. “Won’t Snorri be insulted?”

Flane shook his head. “No. He’d expect it, and he’ll do the same in his business deals.”

Snorri did not seem to find anything extraordinary in what was happening. He beckoned the brother with the sword and took it from him. Bearing it aloft across his palms, he turned and presented it to his bride. “He does have a long nose,” Emer said thoughtlessly, and then bit her lip.

Flane rolled his lips inside his mouth to keep from laughing out loud, but his shoulders shook and he wouldn’t look at her.

“Sorry,” she whispered, and focussed on what was happening in front of her. Katla stared at the long length of smooth, polished steel as if she didn’t know what to do with it. Slowly, she reached out and took a ring that Emer hadn’t noticed from the hilt of the sword.

Emer stared open-mouthed as Katla slipped it on her finger and accepted the sword from Snorri. “I will keep and honour this sword for our son,” Katla said, a tinge of colour rising in each pale cheek.

Flane leaned close. “She accepts the ring and him with it. By taking the ancestral sword she accepts and upholds the honour of Snorri and his family, and swears her son will be worthy to receive it when he is of age.” Katla swivelled to retrieve a shiny new sword from her nephew, who had been patiently standing to one side, and slowly turned back to face the bridegroom with the sword held across her two palms. She lifted her chin and looked him straight in the eye.

A long moment went by, then her jaw muscles clenched and she shoved the sword toward Snorri. It wasn’t the most graceful of gestures, and Longnose made no move to take the sword from her. He simply stood there and surveyed her, as if assessing her worth. One eyebrow lifted; he glanced from her to the sword and back again as if he debated the wisdom of taking it from her.

The blood rose beneath Katla’s skin until she was scarlet and the bruise on her cheek showed up starkly, and still Snorri had not moved. Wind skittered across the surface of the loch, lifted strands of Katla’s long black hair and curled them around her arms. When Snorri finally lifted the ring from the sword hilt, Katla’s cheeks were fiery with embarrassment. Emer fancied she saw amusement in Snorri’s face, and there was no doubt about the impotent fury in Katla’s magnificent dark eyes.

“I accept this ring,” Snorri Longnose said quietly as he forced it over his large knuckle. He met Katla’s glare with equanimity, took the sword by the hilt and brandished it in the air. “And with this sword I will honour and protect you,” he cried in a voice so loud that even people at the back of the circle heard him. He smiled at his new bride and held out the sword between them.

Katla did not move by so much as the length of a finger joint, but Snorri gave her no opportunity to exact her revenge for his own delay. He reached for her fisted hand and then, grinning with cheerful audacity, raised it to his mouth.

Her hand unclenched and slowly the glare of temper faded from her eyes. Of her own volition, she joined her hand with his on the sword hilt, their new rings gleaming in the sunshine. They made their vows to each other while the
godi
and families nodded encouragingly.

“I could think the sword was a threat,” Emer murmured.

“It symbolises a threat to either if they should break their oath. And in a sense she is giving him a sword so he can protect her and her children with it.” Flane looked around. “Bride-running comes next. We used to race back to the hall for the wedding feast and whoever got there last had to serve the ale for the rest of the night.” He pulled a comical face. “Now of course we’re much more civilised. We walk back to the hall.”

A spatter of something sticky caught them both, and Emer flinched. “It’s the blessing,” Flane assured her. “Stand still—it’s only honey.” The
godi
dipped his bundle of fir twigs into the wooden bowl and with a flick of his wrist sent another fine spray of honey over everyone.