The Hills of Home (The Song of the Ash Tree Book 2) (19 page)

Hoyvik did not seem surprised to see Raef and he did not hurry to greet him. Hoyvik never hurried and Raef was content to wait, hovering just outside the heat of the forge until Hoyvik came to him.

“A new sword, for a new king.” This was spoken without reverence or much emotion at all.

Raef remembered the borrowed sword that had taken him from prisoner to the burning lake. He remembered the blow that had shattered it, the cruel eyes in the face of the Valkyrie who had wielded a sword of sunlight. Raef handed the smith the broken hilt of his old sword.

“Use this, if you can.”

The smith took the hilt and turned it between his fingers, nodding to himself. “Five days. No more.”

Raef frowned, knowing the smith could not make a blade of quality and still do other work in that time. “But your other work.”

“Five days, and hope I am not too late. I think soon you will have need of a good sword.”

Raef could not deny this and he thanked the smith, promising double in payment. At this, Hoyvik shook his head.

“The same payment as the last sword I made for your father, no more, no less. I will not have people call me greedy.”

Raef agreed, then walked through the village, one more destination in mind before he returned to the hall.

The house of Finnolf’s sister sat at the base of the gentle slope, close to the edge of the fjord and the docks where the timber walls protruded into the water. Her husband, a fisherman, was outside, so bent on his task of mending nets that he did not at first notice Raef watching him. When he did, he scrambled to his feet and stammered for words.

“I understand you have given the hospitality of your home to a stranger called Gudrik,” Raef said.

“We have, lord.”

Raef smiled. “I am glad of it. You have my thanks. I wish to see him.”

The interior of the house was warm and cheerful. Finnolf’s sister tended a pot over the fire but it was the figure resting in a corner, his nimble fingers carving a shaft of wood, who drew Raef’s gaze.

“Gudrik.”

The poet smiled and got to his feet. Raef could see he did it with difficulty and kept his weight off the healing leg. “I had heard of your safe return. The gods have smiled on you, Raef Skallagrim.”

Raef smiled in return, but he could not agree. “Forgive me for not visiting sooner.” The smile drifted away. “I was not well.”

“A king has more important things to do than visit a crippled poet.” It was said with ease but Raef could hear a hint of bitterness in Gudrik’s voice. With the aid of a crutch, Gudrik limped from the house. They walked to the water, and Gudrik settled onto a log that had washed up on the pebbled beach.

“How is your leg?”

“As you see it.” The bitterness was still there.

“You have seen Aldrif?”

“Yes. But far too much time had passed between the injury and when she got her hands on me. There was little she could do.” Gudrik tried to smile, but there was no truth in it.

Raef realized he had hoped to find Gudrik in good spirits, had sought the poet’s calm nature to sooth his own troubled mind. To find Gudrik shadowed in melancholy was unexpected and Raef did not know how to make it right. “You will have a chamber in my hall, if you desire it. We need music, good music.”

Gudrik was quiet, staring out across the fjord. “I will never stand in a shield wall again. I will never know the joy of victory, feel the tremor of battle fill my limbs, or wield a sword again. I will never shout the battle cry alongside my brothers and face death with a laughing heart.”

“You have words and music, Gudrik. These are gifts given only to a few, granted by the Allfather himself.”

Gudrik turned his head to look up at Raef, his eyes burdened with tears. “I was a warrior, Raef. It is not enough to sing the songs of ancient battles. I have lost a part of myself, lost the part that matters most.”

“Gudrik, I always valued your mind more than your sword. One warrior is much like another. But one poet, who can weave words and draw the hearts of men into their throats, who can bring tears to the eyes of the gruffest warrior with a simple song, this poet is worth so much more.” Gudrik stared at the grey stones beneath his feet, unresponsive. “You are the bones of the land, Gudrik. You give life to our history. You keep the gods close to us. You bring people together as no warrior, no matter how strong and skilled, can.” Raef held out his hand. “My hall awaits and I need you there.” After a long moment, Gudrik met Raef’s gaze, and though his eyes were troubled and full of guilt and longing, he took Raef’s hand and was pulled to his feet.

Together they climbed to the Vestrhall and Raef instructed servants to show Gudrik to an empty chamber and fetch his few belongings from the house of Finnolf’s sister.

“Rest, friend, and make this place your home,” Raef said, glad to see Gudrik muster a smile that reached his eyes. “Then join us this night.” Raef left Gudrik in the care of the servants and then sought out his father’s vacant chamber.

It was as Einarr had left it. The heavy curtains hung askew, casting slanted shadows across the floor and the massive bed draped with furs. A pair of boots rested by a trunk, one standing upright, the other toppled as though it had been tossed to the floor in a hurry. Mud, dry and crusty now, stained the leather. A candle, stubby, well-used, sat on Einarr’s table, the drips of its last use long hardened on the wood. Raef picked at the wax until it loosened.

There was dust, though not as much as Raef had expected. He blew a coating off the papers on his father’s table and it hung in the sunlight for a moment before drifting to the floorboards. The papers were dry and brittle under Raef’s touch so he looked with his eyes and used his hands only a little.

The papers were mundane. Lists of goods traded, inventories of the hall’s warehouses and valuables, receipts of coin spent and gained. Raef searched a small wooden chest filled to the brim but found only more of the same. Sighing, Raef sat in his father’s chair and massaged his fingers against his temples. He had hoped for something that might point to a conspiracy against his father, whether a direct threat or a warning from a third party. If Einarr had received any such correspondence in the days before they traveled to Balmoran for the gathering, he had destroyed it.

Raef sat in the half-lit chamber for a long moment, plucking idly at a cushion until he had extracted a downy white feather from the stuffing. He ran one finger along the feather’s edge, then blew it across the room and watched it drift to the furs that covered the bed. He closed his eyes, acutely aware that this chamber and the sword in the armory were the last things of his father left to him. Raef inhaled but there was nothing, not the scent of good, worn leather, not stale ale, not a hint of beeswax soap, or anything else Raef remembered lingering about his father. He felt tears prick at the back of his eyeballs, itching to spring forth, and for a moment his vision grew watery. But not a single salty tear fell and the indulgence in self-pity passed. It would do no good wishing a king’s burden had fallen on his father’s shoulders instead of his own. Tears would not alter the past.

Raef sealed his hurt inside his father’s chamber and sought out the hall’s steward, finding him deep inside one of the underground storehouses, on his tiptoes on a rickety stool, counting withered winter apples. He started at Raef’s appearance, knocking his head against a hanging side of beef.

“Lord, have you come for a report?” His inky fingers reached for his scroll even as he lost his footing on the stool. Raef caught him by the sleeve and steadied him.

“No, Ulli, I am sure the numbers are in order. I come on other business. I owe a debt to a fisherman and it is time I paid it.” Raef ordered three fine pigs and a strong horse to be sent to the small house near the seashore where Brunn and Sigrid had given him life. “Send them at once by cart. I want two warriors to accompany the driver. Under no circumstances are the pigs to be left with anyone but Brunn,” Raef added, his thoughts straying to Skarfi, Brunn’s vindictive brother. Ulli took the order and the directions to Brunn’s home without blinking, but before he scurried off to find a man to drive the cart, Raef stopped him, a question half-formed on his tongue. “My cousin, when he arrived, what was he like?”

“Courteous, lord, in every way. Respectful. They fed themselves from the forest and the fjord, making no claim to our winter stores. There were no demands, no threats.” Guilt flashed across the steward’s face. “When some of us began to lose hope, it was your cousin who insisted you were yet alive and gave us the will to believe.”

“And when word came that Rudrak Red-beard and Snorren Thoken were of a mind to take the Vestrhall?”

The little steward’s face was very grave. “Even then he spoke only of keeping Vannheim safe for you.”

Raef nodded, glad he had asked. “Thank you, Ulli.”

Raef returned to the hall. The vestiges of the previous night’s kingmaking revelry were being scrubbed from the floor but a stale smell still hung in the air. Raef watched the servants go about their business, heads bent, only quiet murmurs passing between them. He ordered the doors be kept open to freshen the air and a large fire was soon blazing in the first of two fire pits in the floor, both to keep the hall from growing too cold and in hopes that the smoke might drive away the unpleasant odors. Raef lingered at the high seat, the chair his father had occupied with such ease. He had yet to sit in it, choosing instead among the stools and benches even during the kingmaking, and he traced his fingers over the carved wood. The chair was decorated with many scenes of old, all telling the first days of Vannheim’s history. It was a bloody history and Raef knew the stories well.

His fingers had just found a particularly gruesome depiction of brothers mauling each other to a grisly ruin when Isolf appeared at his shoulder.

“This chair was born in blood,” Raef said.

“As are kings.”

“This story,” Raef tapped the wood with one finger, “one of the more violent ones, which is saying something.” He bent down behind the chair and gestured for Isolf to do the same. “Here,” Raef pointed to one of the brothers, “Ulflaug has set his brother’s hair on fire. Kell-thor responds by chopping Ulflaug’s balls off.”

“I would say Kell-thor got the better end of it.”

“Perhaps. Unless you knew that in the end Kell-thor was murdered by his nephew who was in truth his own son. The boy knew nothing of his parentage but Kell-thor,” Raef looked at the carving of the wild-haired warrior drowning in his own blood as a boy looked on in triumph, “Kell-thor knew.” Raef rose and bit back a grimace of pain. His knee ached. “The mother killed herself for grief. The boy is remembered for nothing but wielding the blade that slew his father.”

Isolf seemed unperturbed by the glum story. “And yet he endures, carved into a chair that will seat a king. That is something, is it not?”

Perhaps it was, perhaps not. Raef no longer wished to dwell on the brothers Kell-thor and Ulflaug.

EIGHTEEN

F
or four days
Raef received warriors in his hall. Men, fresh from the battles in Gornhald and Solheim, were eager to show themselves to their new king and pledged their oaths with solemn words and faces. One by one they knelt before Raef and he acknowledged them with his thanks and gave them promises of renown. The village and the Vestrhall were overflowing but the warriors kept coming, making camp outside the walls despite the cold and snow. It was an encouraging sight, those makeshift shelters, fires dotting the land at night, horses gathered in a circle against the wind. Each night, a portion of the warriors were feasted in Raef’s hall and each morning, he sent most of them home again to await further word. He kept some of those with horses outside the walls as deterrence against an attack from Red-beard or Thoken.

As the numbers grew, Raef sent Finnolf and another captain, Yorkell, to scout further afield so that they might know where the traitorous warriors gathered. One went north, the other south, with strict orders to engage only if necessary, and with numbers great enough to discourage an ambush. And so Raef waited, Isolf and Gudrik at his side, Vakre and Siv nowhere to be found, as the warriors of Vannheim, young and old, man and woman, brought him their spears.

Not all came. There were absences Raef could not help but notice, men he had thought loyal to his father. He said as much to Isolf, but his cousin did not seem concerned.

“They will see the error of their ways when we rout Red-beard and Thoken in battle. And they will crawl back to you and beg to join your shield wall.”

Raef was not convinced. The men he looked for were battle-hardened and not likely to crawl or beg.

It was twilight on the fourth day when Raef received a final group of warriors who had made the last push to the hall before night fell. They were weary but no less proud and each received a cup of ale and a place by the fires. As the men fell away, eager to eat and drink, a single boy, slight and skinny-armed, remained in the center, unnoticed in the crowd but now alone and exposed. The boy kept his gaze down, his arms straight at his sides.

“Your name, boy?” Raef’s voice carried over the murmurs of the warriors and all eyes turned to middle of the hall.

The boy looked up but did not yet meet Raef’s stare. He swallowed. “Ergil.”

Raef smiled a little. Nerves had stilled the boy’s tongue and he not given his father’s name. “Come closer, Ergil.” The boy did as he was told and Raef could see that his hair, shorn at the back of his head but longer at the front, was damp with sweat. He stopped perhaps five paces from the base of the stairs leading to Raef’s chair and the high table.

Isolf stepped forward, his orange hair wild, his gaze fierce. The boy seemed to shrink within his skin. “What brings you before the king?”

“I wish,” Ergil began, his voice so quiet Raef had to strain to hear him, “to give my oath.”

“How old are you, Ergil?” Raef asked.

The boy’s chin came up just a hair, a shred of defiance working its way to the surface. “Fifteen.”

He was older than he looked, then, for Raef had thought him scarcely more than twelve. Either that or he lied.

“Ergil,” Isolf said, “look around you. This hall boasts a hundred warriors and all have watched men die next to them in the shield wall. Their strength is great, their chests broad, their arms thick. The king has no need of you.” It was unkindly said and not entirely true for there was more than one young warrior who had not yet seen battle. Raef saw Gudrik, leaning on his crutch just to the left of the high table, flinch. Raef frowned at his cousin and rose from his seat.

“What I need, Ergil, is for you to hone yourself into a weapon of war until your skills are unmatched and your strength is legendary. Then, when you are ready, return to me and I will place you by my side in the shield wall.”

Ergil looked to the floor again and sucked in his bottom lip. “May I still give you my oath?”

“If you wish.” Raef took his seat again and Ergil approached the steps. He paused before the first but did not kneel, instead continuing on, nearly tripping on the third step.

“That is far enough, boy,” Isolf said, his voice a low growl. Raef raised a hand to silence him, but still Ergil came on. When he mounted the top step, he looked straight at Raef and then launched himself through the air between them, a snarl on his face and a knife, flashing suddenly from his sleeve, in his hand.

Raef and Isolf moved as one, Raef twisting from the chair and his cousin tackling Ergil to the ground. It was over in an instant, the boy pinned beneath Isolf, the knife out of his hand and out of reach, Gudrik lurching forward and falling to his knees in an effort to reach Raef, before the hall full of warriors could react, but then they were on their feet and calling for death.

“Silence,” Raef called. “Silence.” The noise quieted and Raef looked down at the would-be assassin, wrestled now to a seated position, his arms held behind his back. Ergil seethed, his eyes ripe with hatred, a far cry from the timid boy. He nearly looked a man, but his fury was useless against Isolf’s strong arms.

Raef turned first to Gudrik, helping him rise to his feet. The skald accepted Raef’s arm, but his face burned with shame and Raef, aware of all the watching eyes, could say nothing, could only grip Gudrik’s hand and know it meant little.

Leaving Gudrik, Raef gestured for Isolf to bring the boy to his feet and then stepped close, forcing Ergil to accept his stare, though Raef towered above the boy.

“Let me deal with him,” Isolf said through gritted teeth, a knife of his own now pressed to Ergil’s ribs. “He is beneath you.”

Raef did not answer his cousin. “What offense have I done you, boy?” His voice was soft but saturated with menace. He grasped Ergil’s neck with one hand, his thumb pressing hard against the boy’s throat. “Answer me.”

Ergil tried to spit but the phlegm only trickled down his hairless chin. The warriors rumbled with laughter and Ergil’s cheeks flushed with embarrassment. “You killed my father,” he shouted. “And I have come to avenge him.” The laughter ceased and the hall was quiet.

“I have killed many men in battle. If we all sought reparation for such deaths, we would walk this earth no more.”

“I am Ergil Thrainson, and Jarl Thrainson was my father.” The boy’s words washed over Raef and for a moment he was looking at Jarl in his dying moment, not the son. “You robbed him of Valhalla,” Ergil cried, near to tears. Raef was back in the Great-Belly’s hall, the hilt of his knife slick with blood, the blood of Jarl Thrainson, who fell to the floor, staining it red. Jarl’s last act had been to reach for his weapon, to secure a hope of Valhalla, but Raef had denied it. And the whole world knew it.

“He deserved it,” Raef said, his voice a snarl of rage, the words passing through clenched teeth. The two sons of murdered fathers stared at each other, and Raef saw his own hatred and guilt burning back at him from the depths of Ergil’s eyes. Raef thrust the boy away and took a step back. He gave a nod to Isolf, who dragged Ergil, cursing, from the hall.

In a matter of moments, it was as if Ergil had never been there. The men returned to their food and drink, their voices low at first, and then rising. Laughter burst forth from one corner, then more, and all was as it had been. Except Raef. His chair, the one carved with the bloody stories of Vannheim, was removed, pushed to one side of the raised platform, and Raef took a seat among his captains at the high table. Food was brought, quail, fish, mutton, venison, steaming bread, and roasted root vegetables, but he only picked at his portions. The ale he drank greedily and his cup was never empty. At length, Isolf returned to the hall and joined the high table. Raef did not catch his eye, did not ask what he had done with the boy, did nothing but swallow down more ale and watch the warriors below.

When he rose from the table, the hour was late and his head was thick with ale and mead. Music had broken out and the men sang a lurid song, their voices rising to the rafters in disjointed melody. Raef blinked and steadied himself, then, with four of Isolf’s men at his back, strode from the hall. The cold air in the rear passage served to wipe away some of the haze in Raef’s head, but it was with unsteady steps that he sought his chamber. Isolf had stumbled after him and caught up at Raef’s door, his cheeks ale-bright.

“Does my king want for anything? A woman to warm his bed?”

Raef thought of soft skin, long hair, and a warm body to share the night with. Someone tender, smooth, and lacking Eira’s sharp edges. But then he felt a surge of nausea, his belly heavy with liquid. “No.” He waved a hand at Isolf. “No, nothing.”

Isolf grinned. “All the more for me, then.” He grasped Raef with brotherly affection and then they parted ways, the guards remaining outside Raef’s door. In the darkness and silence of his chamber, Raef sprawled on the bed and let his thoughts ebb away on the tide of drunken sleep.

The morning came roaring upon Raef, the sunlight screaming through the glass of his window, his tongue thick, his throat fuzzy, and his stomach heaving. He tried to lie still, eyes shut to ward off the light, but such concentration only set off a hammer in his head. Groaning, Raef lurched to his feet, eyes only squinting open, splashed water from his basin onto his face, and then vomited clear liquid into the basin. Clenching the edge of the table, Raef felt his stomach heave again, but nothing further came up, leaving Raef panting and dizzy.

Dropping slowly to the floor, Raef leaned back against his bed and stared up at the ceiling, his head pounding and his rebellious stomach threatening further turmoil. He had been a fool to drink such quantities without eating a morsel of food, but the fault was his alone, even if he would rather blame the boy, Ergil. And in his heart Raef knew he had wanted the oblivion of drink to take him, to shut out Jarl Thrainson and the blood on his hands.

A servant, a boy of nine, stepped silently into the chamber. He paid his king no mind, avoiding Raef’s outstretched feet as he took the soiled washbasin and emptied the contents into a bucket. He straightened the blankets and furs on Raef’s bed, set a new candle on the table, and then raked the cold ashes from yesterday’s fire into the same bucket. Darting out into the hallway, he returned with a new washbasin and then disappeared as quickly as he had come. All the while, Raef kept his eyes fixed on the ceiling, partially out of embarrassment, partially to keep the world around him from spinning.

At length, the sunlight seemed less violent and Raef ventured to his feet, pleased to find that his stomach had given up its protests. In return, though, his skull was thumping, his knee was cramped with stiffness, and it was a slow march to the hall with fresh, clear-eyed guards on his heels.

The hall was much as he had last seen it, only with more eyes closed than open. Men slept, faces in the remains of their meals, slumped on the shoulders of their comrades. So great was the disarray, the servants had not yet attempted to begin to clean. A rustling in one corner drew Raef’s attention and he turned to see a blonde woman, a shieldmaiden whose name had slipped under the hammer in his brain, stretch and disentangle herself from the sleepy embrace of a black-bearded warrior. She was naked but for a pair of old boots and she squinted at Raef, no shame in her nakedness or drunkenness. With a yawn, she tugged a cloak over her shoulders, exposing the bare chest of her unconscious companion in the process, and went back to sleep.

Raef surveyed the disaster that was his hall, found he could not stomach it, and went out the wide wooden doors. Only there, under the blue winter sky, did he feel he could speak and he turned to one of the guards.

“Find Ulli,” Raef said, keeping his voice quiet for the sake of his own head. “I want this,” he nodded back at the hall, “taken care of by the time the sun reaches its peak. And tell him there will be no feast this night.” The guard scurried off and Raef turned to another. “Bring bread and water.”

“Here, lord?”

“Yes, I will eat out here.” Raef did not much feel like consuming anything, but he knew he had to. Within the span of twenty slow, deep breaths, the second guard had returned, bearing a tray and Raef sat down on the stone steps and convinced himself to nibble on the loaf of bread. The guards withdrew to the doors, leaving him to eat in peace.

It was there that Eira found him. He spotted her as she approached the Vestrhall on foot but he continued to gnaw on the loaf, sipping water here and there, until she stood before him, their eyes nearly level.

“What do you want?” The sun was behind her but Raef was trying hard not to squint.

“To make my oath, of course.”

“I think I have had my fill of oaths.”

“You do not wish to be king? It has only been five days.” If it was an attempt to make him smile, it did not succeed.

“You would know what I wished if you had been here.”

She said nothing at first, gave no explanation for her absence, as though daring him to demand an answer. Then she came close and sat sideways on the step below him. “Forgive me,” she said. Her hair fell away from her face as she looked up at him. He looked into her eyes and took a deep breath, for she smelled of green grass and heather on the moors and pine trees in high summer. All of which was impossible under the shroud of winter, and yet he breathed it in, his eyes drawn to the wildness in hers, tempered, it seemed, by a promise of spring. And Raef found himself taking her hand in his, the loaf of bread forgotten, the pounding in his head reduced to a gentle swell of the ocean tide.