Ragnar the Just (Ragnar the Dane #3)

ISBN
             
1480166162

EAN
             
978-1480166165

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'Ragnar the Just
' is published by Taylor Street Publishing, who can be contacted at: http:

http://www.taylorstreetbooks.com

http://ninwriters.ning.com

'Ragnar the Just
' is the copyright of the author, Lily Byrne, 2012. All rights are reserved.

All characters are fictional, and any resemblance to anyone living or dead is accidental.

916 A.D. After the horror of the wolf cult last year, life has settled down in Hallby and Byrnham villages.

Or has it?

The trial

“You are accused of murder. What have you to say for yourself?” The prosecutor glared at the defendant, who avoided his eyes.

The trees surrounding the meeting area were displaying their bright colours in the cool air of autumn. The yellows and oranges of the hazels, the caramel brown oak and the red tipped alder leaves gave the scene warmth entirely contrasting with the serious business of the Danes.

The trial was being held at a special assembly of the Thing. The grassy area was dry but green, watered by the heavy dews of the season and the air was cool, making onlookers pull their cloaks around them tightly.

“It was the most cowardly and needless of murders,” continued the prosecutor, addressing the crowd. “The victim was an upstanding member of our community who performed an important job. I am disappointed that the Huskarls have been involved in the harassment and intimidation that has led to this violence.”

He turned back to the defendant. “But don’t think I haven’t noticed your part in this. You provoked much of the violence with your behaviour.”

The crowd watched avidly, sensing conflict - ploughmen taking a well-earned break, women wanting a change from housework, old folk wondering at the violence of youth, children hoping for a battle with blood spilt.

“Have you still nothing to say?”

The defendant exchanged glances with someone watching the proceedings. They both remembered how this situation had come about.

Four months earlier

As the child inside Mildrith grew, it was harder for her to move around, so Kjartan fetched the carrots she needed for their meal. Most men left their pregnant wives to get on with it, but he wanted to help, to show his former violent ways were now in the past.

As he left their house, he paused to look around the village he had so nearly forsaken. The buildings were situated around the central area used as the training ground for the Huskarls and the gathering place for the village to discuss important matters at the Thing. Furthest away from the corner where he lived, on the north side of the village, was the hall of the Jarl, the most impressive building in the village. Next to this were the barracks for the unmarried Huskarls.  Along the western side, running from the Huskarls’ barracks to the southern corner, was the alehouse, closest to the Huskarls’ hall so that the villagers were not disturbed by the drunken soldiers on their way to bed, then there was the bakery, the houses of the bone and leather workers and the carpenter’s workshop.

The eastern and southern sides of the village contained the houses for families, married Huskarls, farmers and artisans.  A gate was set in the defensive perimeter wall at the centre of the southern side, facing the Jarl’s hall. 

Kjartan’s house was where the southern wall joined the western one, not the most popular spot as it was close to the leather worker’s house, which often gave off foul smells. He considered himself lucky, however, to have been given a house, but in truth it was probably more to do with the general sympathy for his wife who had lost her previous husband so horrifically.

The village was bordered on three sides by fields which everyone helped to tend. To the south a thick wood separated Hallby from the English village of Byrnham.  A path ran through the wood to a well where people from both villages gathered to get water. Another source of water for Hallby was a stream that ran from the escarpment in the west, where a labyrinth of caves had sheltered the wolf cult the previous year, to a lake where the Danes went to bathe.  The woods spread along the edge of the eastern fields and around the lake.

Turning out of Hallby towards the field, Kjartan bumped into two men. Looking up, he recognised Viglund the Stalwart and Lini Fleet Foot. Viglund was the carpenter of the village, Lini the glass and amber smith. He opened his mouth to greet them but they turned away, ignoring him. He was used to being a loner, but for some reason their action hurt and he brooded over it as he dug up the carrots, which were just coming into season. Birds sang nearby, enjoying the summer, but he just wanted them to be quiet.

Last year, he, Ragnar and Bjarni had worked together against the wolf cult who’d terrorised the villages, becoming friends in the face of adversity. But now Ragnar and Bjarni were both busy
with their wives and children and
in their duties as newly promoted Huskarl
s
. They spoke to him
when they could but were often preoccupied with their other responsibilities
. And anyway, Bjarni was away at the moment deputising for the Jarl, surveying his most distant lands.

Ragnar and Bjarni were pillars of society, respected and admired. What was he? Where was his place? He was a disgraced Huskarl, a murderer who had only been accepted back to Hallby because h
e’d helped defeat the wolf cult
and
then married the widowed Mildrith. He’d had his share of gratitude, now everyone had forgotten him.

He pulled up the small purple carrots, shook the ea
rth off them and returned home.

Mildrith was sitting outside, peeling some onions.
“Oh thank you, deorling.” She took the carrots and he hung around, fiddling with his silver-blond plaited hair. “What’s the matter?”

“I don’t know, Milly. I just always feel there’s something missing in my life.”

She paused, inspecting the carrots.
“You’ll feel better
once the baby comes. He
will take up our time and we’ll be a proper family.”

He sighed.

*
 
*
  *

Later that day, as he went to wash the supper plates in the stream, he bumped into someone else. That would teach him to walk with his head down.

It was Lini Fleet Foot ag
ain. He had a slender build – not that of a soldier -
so the collision made him stagger.

“Oh! H -
Hallo.”

“Not ignoring me this time?”

“No. Sorry about that. Viglund is so worried about honour, he can’t accept the fact that you have been forgiven for disgracing the Huskarls. Sorry.”

Kjartan sighed.

“And you think that too?”

“No – yes -
well, it’s in the past now, isn’t it?”

“I kind of wis
h I was still in the Huskarls. A
t least I’d have a place there.” Kjartan rubbed the gravy off th
e first plate. “I’m twenty-one.
I should have status by now.”

His companion thought for a moment.
“What you need is to learn a trade. That would give you a place.”

Kjartan looked up.
“Now that’s an idea. I’m not much good at trades, though.”

“What else are you good at
,
then?”

“Fighting,” he shrugged, “a
nd fucking.”

“Hm … what about some sort of fight training?
Not sure about the fucking.”

They laughed.

An idea dawned and Kjartan’s pale blue eyes lit up.
“Fight training for boys before they join the Huskarls! They don’t
know their arse from their elbow before they’re fourteen. I could teach them the basics, couldn’t I?”

“There you are then!” Lini grinned
through the
slight gap in his front teeth.

“Great. Thanks.” Kjartan slapped him on the back, making him take a step forward. “You could join me
,
if you like?”

“I could.”

“Go on. I’ll need someon
e my own size to demonstrate on
so the boys can learn. I can’t fight them, it’d be unfair.” His mind was full of ideas now.

“Alright.”

“Thanks, friend.”

He gazed at Lini.

“I better go. I haven’t had supper yet and my wife’ll be foaming at the mouth by now. See you around, yes?”

The amber smith left with a wave.

Kjartan’s spirits lifted. He could set up as soon as he wanted. He could make some weapons out of wood for them t
o practis
e with, as real weapons were so precious and scarce.

*
 
*
  *

“Do you think Steinar would mind if I trained boys to fight before they joined the Huskarls?” he asked Ragnar, who was second in command to Steinar now.

“Probably not.”
The auburn-haired Dane considered. “We need more trained men. We’re running out after the latest fights.”

Kjartan nodded. The Norwegian attack had cost a few lives, and the wolf cult many more.

“It’s a good idea.
Best of luck.”
Ragnar slapped his friend on the shoulder and hurried off to his duties.

*
 
*
  *

Kjartan began by asking the neighbours. Nearly every family had sons between ten and fourteen, so he went round
from
house to house to find out who would be willing.

“You’re a murderer. Think I’d trust you
with my son?” said one father.
His wife
was folding
clothes nearby, her eyes suspicious as she looked at the visitor.

“You were thrown out of the Huskarls. How do you know what they teach now?” said another,
his
small children playing round his feet.

“It’s hopeless,” said Kjartan to Lini as they sat drinking ale by his house in the warm summer evening. “They don’t want me to teach their sons.”

“Let me talk to them,” offered his friend.

*
 
*
  *

“He might not be a Huskarl now, but he was one for four years,” said Lini to one concerned father. “So he knows better than anyone what they want.”

“He was punished for the murder. He has a wife now and a child on the way,” he said to another. “He’s a respectable member of the village. If anything, he’ll set an example to the boys and show them what to avoid.”

Kjartan stood next to him, trying not to smirk as the amber smith’s gentle speech and angelic face charmed the parents into agreeing to send their sons along. As long as it was understood it would just be a trial session, no commitments.

“You’re brilliant,” he said to Lini as they strolled back to his house. “Can you talk Viglund into making us some wooden weapons and help me with the actual lessons?”

“Don’t want much, do you?” Lini
sighed, pretending to be annoyed.