Odin’s Child (7 page)

†

By the time we got there, the hall was packed with Hoskuld's people—his tenants, his hirelings, his thralls, and an assortment of poor relations, whom he fed from his table. Long boards were set up on trestles and heaped with all the good things his farm provided. There were pickled eggs and bowls of skyr, steaming pans of flatbread, fermented shark, boiled mutton, beef, swan, and, an especial delicacy, the head of the sheep, carefully singed. Hoskuld himself was directing his servants to pour out the mead, made from English honey. At home we drank mead seldom, and this was a treat for us.

“I am not a rich man.” Hoskuld addressed the room in his deep voice. (He was, in fact, a very rich man by our standards.) “Nor a traveled one—being not robust enough for the seafaring life. All the same I know how men live in the wide world. They drink this precious stuff, and so shall you, down to the humblest of you, for neither am I a niggardly man.” From his high-seat he beamed complacently at all the gathered company.

Kalf and I slid onto the wall-bench next to Gunnar and Vigdis.

“Ah.” Hoskuld squinted at us down the table. “Are the young dogs back? And have you had good hunting?” Katla, my dear, pour your kinsman's mead, there's a good girl.”

How utterly different from Kalf was his twin. A hatchet-faced girl, plain as a turnip, and with a sour disposition to boot. Well-dowered though she was, she had no suitors. Tonight she was especially brusque in pouring my drink and raised an arrogant eyebrow at me. What's this about? I wondered, and then it struck me that it was Gudrun's death. As if Katla were saying,
I'm not pretty, but I'm alive
. The wretched girl!

“Thank you, Katla Thin-Hair,” I said coolly, coining her nickname on the spot and seeing her stiffen with anger. Kalf snorted in his cup.

For a while then, there were only the sounds of hungry folk eating—or, in the case of my father, drinking, for I noticed he barely touched the dishes, though he honored the mead cask again and again. At last, when our bellies were full, we washed our soiled hands and Hoskuld signaled for the boards to be cleared and hoisted to the rafters. We settled down now to the evening's real business.

This was the moment I'd been waiting for. With a tremor of nervousness and a prayer to Odin, god of poets, I begged my uncle's permission to recite a poem.

I had labored over this creation of mine during many a long winter's night, saying nothing about it to anyone, intending it for this very gathering. Its title was
The Slaying of Brand Hrutsson
. It's a poor warrior, I told myself, who can't sing his own praises in passable verse, and I've been better taught than most my age.

It was an ambitious affair, done in the high skaldic style that my father was a master of, full of complicated word-play and ornamented with every obscure kenning I could remember or devise. The fight was a
helm-storm
. I, the victor, was
wolf-crammer
and
crow-fattener
. My battered sword was a
wound-snake
, and even the whale around which we fought
made an appearance as
mountain of the sea-god's meadow
.

What a magical thing is poetry that can take a brawl between two clumsy farm boys and clothe it with ancient splendor.

My poem rose to a climax, and died away in a keening lament for Gudrun Night-Sun. I stood still, with my eyes lowered, not daring to breathe.

There was a moment's silence, followed by an explosion of stamping and pounding all across the room, from the hirelings in the back to Kalf and Gunnar at my elbow, who jumped up and let out piercing yells. My mother, too, was deeply moved, sitting silent and erect with a tear stealing from the corner of her eye.

Yet the eyes I wanted most to read were veiled. Had something flashed there for an instant, or was it only a trick of the firelight? My father sat impassive, his hands fooling with his knife and stick. He might have been alone in the room.

My uncle, on the other hand, seemed positively pained.

“I am not a poetical sort of man, nephew, and have nothing to say about wound-snakes and such, all very fine, I'm sure. But I am a legal man, and I tell you plain that the occasion for this poem of yours is very, very much to be regretted.”

“Which brings us,” said Gunnar, “to the subject.”

“So it does.”

Hoskuld Long-Jaws, sallow-skinned and saturnine, leaned back in his seat with his eyes half closed and the tips of his long fingers pressed together under his beaky nose, every inch the lawyer. To me he looked like nothing so much as a large, ancient, and dusty bird.

He continued in this way for a full minute, regarding us solemnly, and ruminating before he spoke again. “The trouble, you see, is that you've killed the wrong man.”

My mother looked at him horror-stricken. Gunnar and I jumped up from our seats. Unperturbed, Hoskuld continued in his precise lawyer's way.

“It isn't simply the lack of witnesses to Gudrun's death—that's to be expected. But has Strife-Hrut, to our knowledge, ever bothered to deny a killing before, even a cowardly one like this? Did he not brag all over the district when he burnt up Illugi the Silent in his house, though women and children died in that fire? And then there's the matter of Brand and
Mord the next day—as young Odd has just been good enough to remind us—miles from home with only a couple of hirelings for protection? Men who are conscious of provoking a feud are surely more careful than that.”

Gunnar shot me a worried look.

“No, my friends,” Hoskuld summed up, “it just won't wash.”

“Who, then, Uncle?” asked Gunnar angrily.

“Upon my soul, nephew, the countryside is full of wandering ruffians. Things like this happen every day. You would have considered it yourselves if you hadn't let this fellow Hrut prey on your minds so.”

“But slaughtering the sheep?” I said. “That was no part of a casual rape and killing.”

Yes, Hoskuld conceded, there was that. We might never know for sure. But it didn't signify against all the rest, and no jury, he pronounced with finality, would believe our charge.

We sank down, crushed, stunned. My beautiful verses lay in ruins.

“Come, come,” he said with a touch of impatience, “it's a lawyer's job to bring out the facts of your case, even those you'd rather not hear.”

My father, who had not said a word up until now, looked up suddenly from his whittling and said, “Brother-in-law, you have spoken my very own thoughts. No doubt they will get a better hearing from your lips than from mine.” There was malice in his eyes.

“Thorvald,” cried Hoskuld with feigned delight, “you've decided to add your voice to our deliberations. I am relieved. I address myself to you, then, as head of the family.” How slyly he said it; it hadn't taken him long to see how matters really stood between my parents.

“Let us come down to cases. Anyone who goes up against Strife-Hrut Ivarsson isn't likely to wear out many new shirts, as the saying goes, unless he's willing to make some slight compromises with his honor. Well now, what is our situation? For the murder of his son and the other fellow, Hrut can demand six marks of silver in blood money. A large sum, no doubt, but it would be the easiest way out for you, Thorvald. I, of course, am ready to put at your disposal….”

“He doesn't want my silver, you fool. He wants my sons!”

This outburst brought no change in Hoskuld's expression, except a slight paling around the nostrils. “Yes, quite. Outlawry. Well, he has the right.”

“Outlawry,” echoed Jorunn, seizing her brother's arm in both her
hands. “But only for three years, is it not, brother?”

“That is the lesser outlawry, my dear, awarded for justifiable homicide. But if the jurors believe Odd's assault on Brand was unprovoked, the plaintiff can demand outlawry for life against both brothers—permanent exile, never to see Iceland again under pain of death.”

“And,” added Thorvald grimly, “if they haven't left the country within two weeks after the verdict, the law allows Hrut to kill us all and seize our land for damages. And that, my dear wife,”—he mimicked her brother's patronizing tone of voice—“that is why he drags us to the Althing. Strife-Hrut will be well repaid for the death of his worthless son by the time he's done with us.”

My mother's shoulders sagged. She looked helplessly from one man to the other.

“But,” said Hoskuld, “all is not lost. What are lawyers for? Evidence and argument aren't everything. Dear me, no. Iceland's laws are complicated and deep—like your poetry, young Odd. There's always an advantage for the man who knows where to look. Why, I've seen suits overthrown by the tiniest flaws—a witness improperly summonsed, a declaration in the wrong form of words. Oh, there are endless possibilities.”

“You waste your breath, lawyer,” sneered my father. “You forget I was a godi once. I
know
how it's done. Money, force, and friends, Hoskuld. Money, force, and friends—without those your piddling lawyer's tricks aren't worth a bite from a mare's backside. Now, Hrut has money, hasn't he? And force is his nature, is it not? And we know, brother-in-law, who his friends are, don't we?”

“Do we?” Hoskuld's eyes narrowed. “Who?”

“Your accursed Christmen, that's who! Those wolves who have circled me these thirty years, contriving against me, waiting for their chance to strike home. Isn't he one of you? Isn't Hrut a Christman? You know he is, brother-in-law. And they'll all come together against me now!”

He hacked so hard at his stick I feared he would take his thumb off.

Now it was out in the open and Hoskuld was so angry he could hardly speak. “And I?” he sputtered, “and your own wife, you sorry man, are we plotting against you? You've driven yourself mad with religion, Thorvald. I swear you spend more hours in the day brooding about Jesus Christ than any of us Christmen do. Yes, Hrut has friends among the godis. He's a merchant, he lends them money when they're short. Only that. But I,
too, have friends, and, if it comes to that, money—which, God help me, I wouldn't spend for your stinking heathen hide but only to save my sister's children. Now say no more to me about religion.”

“But that's the heart of it! Why else does the high-and-mighty Snorri of Helgafel hate me?”

“Hates you, does he? Well, we mustn't be too hard on poor Snorri for that!”

They were both half out of their seats, glaring at each other across the table. Hoskuld, I imagine, couldn't see clearly the expression on my father's face, but I could. And I saw his knuckles whiten on the hilt of his knife.

“Gunnar, sing!” I cried. The gods alone know what put it into my mind.

My brother stared at me perplexed for an instant and then understood. He only knew one song,
Finnbogi's Daughter
, which he always sang with spirit—though without a noticeable melody. He roared out the first line, and I came in on the second, both of us pounding the floor with our feet. Then Kalf added his voice, and so did the others in the back of the hall, stamping and shouting lustily.

Hoskuld and my father looked about, equally astonished.

Jorunn did not lose a second. Snatching up a horn of mead, she abandoned her brother and ran to her husband's side. His shoulders were bunched, and he was snorting like a bull.

“Drink, Husband,” she urged, sitting down by him and putting the flagon to his lips. “Enough gloomy talk for one night. The young'uns are right to be impatient.”

She covered his hand with hers and brought it slowly down to rest on her thigh and as she did so, looked past him and caught my eye.

Every shade and hue of pain was in that look. She understood that this meeting, on which she had fastened all her hopes, was a disaster—that her husband was just possibly not as mad as she had thought, and her brother, perhaps, not as wise. Between these two angry men she did not know where to turn. The only thing certain was that we dared not let them come to blows.

We sang ourselves hoarse. Finnbogi's Daughter has a great many verses, each dirtier than the last, and after a little, you could see the tension begin to go out of Thorvald's shoulders and the fingers uncurl
around the hilt of his knife. Even his foot began to move absently in time to the music. Who would have believed it? Jorunn drew a deep breath and slowly let it out. It would be all right now.

Hoskuld, on his side, had regained a little of his composure. Katla hovered about him in her fawning way, patting his forehead, arranging his ruffled hair until, exasperated, he pushed her away.

When Gunnar's song was done, Kalf brought out his bone whistle, which he always carried on a cord around his neck, and began to pipe. He piped
The Dun Mare
, which, after a few times through, turned into
Old Haakon at the Well
, and so on, without stop through half a dozen more.

Gunnar led Vigdis to the middle of the floor and they danced together, face to face, hands on one another's shoulders, as they used to do in their courting days. And soon others in the hall joined in, mostly men partnered with other men, as sailors do, for there weren't enough women to go round. After a while, my mother prodded me to dance with Katla Thin-Hair, which I did, though she held me at arm's length with the tips of her fingers and gazed steadily over my shoulder with a look of distaste. Kalf doubled over with laughter watching us.

There was one fellow in particular, one of Hoskuld's hired men, who caught my eye with his antics. His face was battered, pockmarked, and villainous, and his close-cropped hair was as spiky as a patch of thorns. I believed he was the ugliest man I'd ever seen. I had noticed him earlier in the evening, sitting well back from the fire, speaking to none nor spoken to by any, with a sort of dreamy look in his eyes. And yet I felt he paid very close attention to everything said and unsaid.