The Sword Song of Bjarni Sigurdson (10 page)

And so the thing was done.

After, bride and groom and closest kin, having drunk the sacred juice that made the gods’ fire come into the priest’s head in time of sacrifice, went out to the God-House in its dark sacred wood, where Asmund the Priest waited with the black ram and the white ewe; and when they returned, walking behind Asmund, whose own robes were spattered, both Onund and Aesa had a streak of blood on their foreheads. But that was to do with seeking the favour of the gods on the marriage that was already made.

After that it was the time for feasting. The kegs of bride-ale were brought out and the huge bride-cake was broken up and given to all corners. And the rest of the day went by in feasting and harping, while
bride and groom and priest and chieftains sat beside the chieftain’s fire in the Hall and the young men of the settlement wrestled and raced against each other, between fresh attacks on the little dark carcasses of hill mutton, the seal meat and cod and great dishes of bannock and ewes’-milk curds and honey.

Evening came at last, with the tawny light of the feast fires beginning to draw men’s faces out of the gathering dark, and the sound of the sea growing louder as it always seemed to do at dusk. Bjarni, pleasantly weary after a day spent enjoying himself, full with much feasting and in a pleasant haze of bride-ale, had cast himself down beside Heriolf on the comfortable fringe of things, their backs propped against the pigsty wall.

‘Thunder coming,’ said the merchant, sniffing the air like a hound. ‘Aye well, ’twill come in the night and be cleared by morning.’ He had a personal interest in the weather for, having done good trading through the past few days, he was for the seaways again next morning.

‘And what sea-road this time? Or are you reckoning to be making for a haven and laying
Sea Cow
up for the winter?’

Heriolf shrugged. ‘The Misty Isle, maybe, or further south to Mull. Thorstein the Red is generally worth a visit before the winter closes in.’

‘Any bride-ales there?’ Bjarni asked idly.

‘Three daughters the man has, all too young for their bride-ales as yet. But I’ve an enamelled cup set with river pearls might please his mother – the Lady Aud has an eye for beautiful things and money of her own to pay for them.’

‘That would be her they call Aud the Deep-Minded?’ Bjarni said after a moment.

The merchant laughed. ‘Aye, that would be her. But she has the wisdom not to let it show too much . . .’

Out in the clear centre of the garth someone was playing a pipe, and some of the men and older women had begun to sway and stamp and clap their hands for dancing. The hunter’s moon was up, broad as a buckler and yellow as corn sheaves, among the tumble of cloud and clear, its quiet light mingling with the fierce flare of fires and torches; and thrusting through the crowd in answer to the piping, Bjarni saw that in the clear space in the midst of it all, the girls had formed themselves into a ring-dance facing outward, laughing, arms linked and feet moving in little neatly braided steps under them. The young men had gathered also and stood idly looking on, pretending not to be much interested, passing the ale-jack from hand to hand. The clapping women had taken up the pipe tune and begun to make the quick lilting mouth-music that has no words but set the feet jigging and the blood to dance, and the young men drew closer and forgot the ale-jacks.

Bjarni, watching the girls circling by, saw Thara’s pretty, stupid little face go by with bursts of coloured silk twisted into the pale bright braids of her hair. Three times he saw her go by. Then, circling still, the girls slipped their arms free of each other and the steps became wider and looser, the circle swifter and more ragged as each girl darted out from it to catch whichever of the young men caught her fancy and swung him back with her into the dance. Bjarni found Thara’s face close to him, flushed and foolish, and next moment she had flung herself upon his chest, her arms round him, laughing, trying to kiss him wetly, trying to drag him into the jigging, bounding circle behind her.

If he had been stone-cold sober he would not have
done it. He would have had too much sense, or maybe too much kindness. But the bride-ale was strong and he had drunk a good deal of it, and he did not want to find himself caught up with Thara Priestsdaughter, who seemed to be forever hanging round him. He pulled her arms away and thrust her cheerfully into the arms of the man next beside him, and himself grabbed the next girl to spin by and swung her off her feet as he pranced out with her into the ring of dancers. He scarcely knew the girl, but she came willingly, squealing with laughter, and they danced together in the ragged spinning circle. The whole night was spinning, swimming and circling under the yellow moon to the lilt of the pipes and the fog of ale and the nearing scent of thunder in the air.

Once he caught sight of Thara in the swirl of the dance, her head turned over her shoulder to watch him, her face without its prettiness, her big blue eyes seeming turned to splinters of ice as they met his and with a look in them that reached him through the torchlight and the ale, and for the moment almost sobered him. Then the pattern of the dance closed over between them and he almost forgot about it – almost, but not quite.

The thunder-clouds were coming up against the wind in the unchancy way of thunder, banking thick behind the hills, soon to swallow up the moon. And at the same time the men of
Sea Witch,
Onund’s ship-carles and hearth companions, were beginning to gather also, knowing that their lord would be wanting to get his bride back beneath his own roof before the storm broke. It was then that Bjarni found Hugin missing. He whistled, the shrill two-note call that at most times brought the great hound leaping back from wherever he might be. But this time no black shape answered the call. Always, when
Sea Witch
was in
harbour, Hugin slept at his feet, and there was just enough of the old uneasiness left in the back of his neck – maybe it was the low mutter of the nearing thunder and nothing more – made him unwilling to leave the dog here and go back to Onund’s house without him tonight. He knew Hugin’s ways and the good friends that he had among the kitchen thralls, and headed for the cookhouse, fairly sure of finding him.

In the lea of the kitchen peat-stack he sensed rather than saw, two figures, one of them clinging to the other. There would be many such couples among the outbuildings of Aflaeg’s Hall tonight. He took no notice of them and, among all of the comings and goings, Bjarni’s feet in his lightest brogues for dancing made scarcely any sound, so they remained unaware of him. Then the man spoke, ‘It was for this that you brought me out here?’

And the girl answered, ‘Oh my father, I could not have speech with you in Aflaeg’s Hall.’

And Bjarni knew the voices, Asmund the Priest and his daughter. And something, some unreasoning sense of danger, made him check and freeze.

‘Surely this is a woman’s matter, and you should be making your plaint to the goddess who protects women, the Lady Frigga herself,’ Asmund said. ‘She should listen kindly, having had her own sacrifice this feast day.’

Thara was almost sobbing. ‘Nay, but you do not understand – it is not kindness that I seek –’

‘And that’s true enough. For I’m minded that it’s revenge, my daughter.’

‘And should I not? – Shaming me before the whole settlement –’ Thara was almost whimpering. ‘He has used me so ill – I could show you the bruises on my arms –’

Well, she couldn’t be talking about him anyway. He hadn’t used enough force on her to raise a bruise the size of a finger-tip.

The thunder muttered again, nearer this time, and the girl seemed to seize upon it with a kind of triumph. ‘Do you not hear? It’s Thor! It is the Lord of Thunder, who grows angry for lack of a sacrifice on his altar. Tell that to the chieftains and the people and they will not dare gainsay you –’

The thunder rolled closer, swallowing the last of her words, and when it had muttered away into the stillness, the two shadows had moved on.

Bjarni stood where he was for a few moments. What he had overheard made very little sense to him; except that Thara wanted revenge on somebody who had used her roughly – a revenge that her father as the Priest could work for her. And likely, in one way or another, she would get her own way. He was glad that whoever the man was, it wasn’t him.

After a moment he moved on, kicking a stone out of his way and cursing, to make sure that anyone could hear him coming, and whistling for Hugin as he went.

Almost at once there was a scuttering of paws from the direction of the kitchen midden, and the great hound’s muzzle was thrust into his hand.

‘Come, greedy one,’ Bjarni said, twisting a hand in his collar as they turned back towards the Hall.

The thunder muttered again and there was a distant flicker of lighting over Ben Harr; the storm was circling to the north and seemingly no nearer than before, as they rejoined the others who were gathering in a cheerful and jostling crowd before the Hall. Onund had come out to them and in the broad foreporch doorway Aesa stood with all her bridal finery muffled in the folds of a thick hooded cloak, and her
mother and all the women of the household fussing about her.

‘Let you bide until the storm be passed,’ said the chieftains, but Onund said, ‘Nay, the way it’s travelling ’twill be half the night before it breaks this side of the ben,’ and he laughed, reaching out to slip Aesa against his side. ‘And I’m minded to have the lass under my roof before then.’

Aesa said nothing at all.

And so they set off, with torches to light their way, singing and a little unsteady in the way of wedding parties, to bring home the bride. But it is not easy in coast and mountain country to judge the speed and pattern of thunder coming up against the wind; and Onund, though agile as a goat on his wooden leg, was less swift than he had been in his younger and two-legged days; and always forgot to allow for that.

The thing became a race and they had only just reached the edge of his own in-take land, when the storm broke over them with great booming crashes of thunder that rolled and re-echoed from the hills to the sea, and flash on flash of lightning that set the whole sky a-flicker. Then, driven before the wind that came upon them with the speed of a galloping horse, came the streaking rain.

It drove hissing against their faces and quenched the torches. Onund flung his cloak over Aesa, and Bjarni heard her laughter skirling like a curlew as he dragged her close. And ahead of them the light of the steading fires glimmered ragged through the swathing rain, swelling on the sight as they pelted towards it.

They plunged in through the house door at last, laughing and cursing, gasping, half-drowned. Warmth and light met them. The house thralls had kindled the wall-torches and the drift-wood fire down the centre of the hall burned high. The last bride-cup was
brought, and Onund and Aesa drank together, their hands meeting on the sides of the gilded cup, and then disappeared together through the heavy painted curtain of the bridal chamber,
Sea Witch
’s crew cheering them on their way with wishes for many sons.

And when they were gone, Bjarni and the rest flung off drenched cloaks and settled down among the dogs in the rushes along the fire, with a keg of ale to keep the night from going flat, while the storm hurled itself across the roof and the lightning sent flash on blue-white flash through the chinks in the wicker shutters.

Bjarni was half-asleep, sprawling with his feet to the fire and Hugin’s black flank pressed companionably against his thigh, when the storm-curtain over the foreporch was wrenched back. The storm seemed to leap into the hall, and three figures appeared in the doorway with the flickering lightning behind them. The hounds sprang up snarling, and in upon the startled men around the fire strode Asmund the Priest, and his two huge God-House thralls behind him, naked save for their blood-stained leather aprons.

The men round the fire were scrambling to their feet, Bjarni with the rest, his hand twisted in Hugin’s collar. There seemed to be a quietness all around him, a core of quietness in the midst of the raving storm. He saw the tall drenched figure in the firelight, Asmund, Thara’s father, swallowed up in Asmund the Priest of the High Gods. He saw the widened pupils of his eyes and the flecks of spittle in his beard and knew that he had drunk again of the sacred juice that brought the gods’ fire into his head in times of sacrifice. As he looked into those widened eyes, the understanding leapt in him with the speed of the lightning flash, and made sense of the talk that he heard behind the peat-stack. He knew that it had been
him they spoke of, after all, and Thara was quite capable of making the needful bruises herself. Fool that he had been not to think of that . . .

‘Seize the black dog,’ Asmund commanded. ‘Thor demands the black dog!’ and the thralls dived forward to do his bidding.

In the same instant Bjarni took his hand from Hugin’s collar and dealt him a stinging blow on the rump, shouting, ‘Off with you! Go!’

The door was unguarded to the storm, and if the dog was fast enough he might get clear. But Hugin was bewildered, knowing only that his lord was in trouble, and crouched for a moment unsure what he was to do, and in that moment the God-House thralls were up, snaring with their ropes. He was struggling like a wild thing for his freedom, his black face become a snarling wolf-fanged mask. ‘Let him go! Let my dog free!’ and in the same instant Bjarni hurled himself against them, his dirk in his hand. Everything had the confusion of an evil dream.

Hands were on him, friendly hands of men who had rowed and fought with him through two sea-faring summers, but dragging him back, twisting the dirk from his grasp. Voices shouting in his ears not to be a fool, not to call down upon himself the wrath of the Lord of Thunder.

Hugin had all but broken free, leaving one of the thralls with a fang-slashed forearm running red, before he was seized again, and in the same instant Bjarni had torn himself free and, unarmed as he was now, hurled himself into battle. The smell of blood had come into the back of his nose and the leaping flame-light made a red mist before his eyes. And he was not aware of the baying crowd around him, of the hands again on his arms, of anything but the faces of the men who were dragging Hugin away . . .