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CHAPTER V

Here begins the saga of Hoskuld the Coal-chewer, such as it is:

Now there was a man named Hoskuld, son of Kolli, son of Hnaki, son of Thorstein . . .

And so on.

Hoskuld was not such a man as skalds love to praise, who does his first murder at the age of six, gets outlawed a couple of times in his teens and is burned to death in his house with his friends and family by twenty-seven. Hoskuld was what they call a "coal-chewer"—a wretch who'd rather loaf in the house by the warm hearth than be out in God's nature slaughtering beasts and avenging blood-guilt.

Hoskuld came to Erling Skjalgsson one day in the summer of the year 998. Erling was with Arnor the horse boy that afternoon, and they were arguing. He'd just come back from Nidaros and what was supposed to have been the king's wedding (the bride had tried to stab the groom on their bridal night, as you've doubtless heard) and he was out of sorts. He'd wanted to go raiding in Scotland that summer, but had stayed for the wedding, and now he was home with time on his hands and he chafed. So he was talking about selling off some of the horses, and Arnor pointed out that he needed a varied stock at this stage. Erling gave him a fair hearing, but you could tell he didn't like being naysaid. He answered Hoskuld a tad shortly when he came begging a favor.

"I want you to take over my lawsuit against Thorarin Hranisson," Hoskuld said, humbly. Hoskuld did everything humbly. He was the sort of man there's no proper place for in a pagan land. In Ireland he'd have made a monk, and possibly a good one, and doubtless happier. He was skinny, of middling height, with a large forehead and nose, lank brown hair and a sparse beard. He was prone to pick his nose when nervous, and he was nervous now.

We all knew about his lawsuit of course. Thorarin was Hoskuld's neighbor, and their two farms had shared meadowland since time immemorial. Hoskuld's thralls had seen Thorarin's thralls drive Hoskuld's sheep off the common land and into a bog where they had the devil of a time getting them out again, and this had happened more than once. When Hoskuld sent a thrall to complain to Thorarin, Thorarin had killed the thrall. So Hoskuld went to law.

"Why should I take over your lawsuit?" Erling asked.

"Because I haven't the friends or the strength to win it myself," Hoskuld answered. "Thorarin has lodged a suit of his own now, since I struck him at the Thing, and I know he'll take my farm. He has richer kin than I, and men respect him. As I see it, my farm is lost whatever I do. I'd rather you took the farm and made me your tenant than yield it to Thorarin and have no home at all."

It had the kind of logic Norse lawsuits abound in, but Erling was in a cross-grained mood. "I've land enough," he said. "I've no wish to make free men tenants. I like having freeholders about me—they make for a strong commonwealth. I'll take your lawsuit over and give the land back when all's done."

"No!" cried Hoskuld. Actually it was more like a squeak, but there was real feeling in it, and his eyes goggled. "I'm not a thrall who comes to beg land from you! I have some pride! I take charity from no man! If you'll not take my farm, I'll go elsewhere for help!"

"And whom will you get to help you?" Erling asked.

"I'll send for my brother Baug."

Erling hadn't given Hoskuld his full attention until now, but he turned and fixed his eyes on the man. "Baug is outlawed," he said.

"His outlawry ends this summer."

"As much as I like having freeholders about me, that much I dislike having berserkers."

"He's my kin. If I can't keep my inheritance, and if you won't take it, I'd as soon it stayed in the family."

"As I recall, you've no reason to love your brother."

"Yet he is my blood."

"And your blood is what you're like to see if you bring him back," said Erling.

As Hoskuld slouched away, I moved in and said, "I've heard of berserkers, but what are they really?"

"They're like werewolves," said Erling, grumping, "except they don't change their shapes. They lose their minds, they go into black rages, and they fight with a madman's strength. They're wonderful shock troops if you can control them. I've never gone in for them."

"What sets them off? Drink? Some drug?"

"They don't need drink or drugs. All a berserker needs is permission. Thorliv! Don't you have something useful to do this time of day?"

Erling's sister Thorliv, the older one, had found some excuse to come near and engage Arnor in talk. I'd never marked her as a horse fancier before, but lately she'd taken to hanging about the pens. She gave a start and ran off, giggling.

"I've spoiled those girls," said Erling.

* * *

That night was the first the Night-mare appeared.

We menfolk were all drinking and yarning ourselves sleepy—the usual after-supper entertainment—when Ragna came in and stepped up to Erling's seat and spoke in his ear. I heard what she said, my seat being next to his.

"Thorliv is nowhere to be found," she said. "I went to Asa's house, and Arnor is missing as well."

Erling sighed and braced himself to get up. "It was bound to happen," he said. "Shall I have the men search?"

"Naught may have happened yet. There's no use dishonoring the girl. You and I will go, and Father Aillil, to put the fear of God in them. But let's not tarry."

So Erling bid me come along, and we went out searching. It would be no great problem to find two young people in the steading.

It wasn't yet dark, being high summer, but the skies were cloud-cloaked, and a light rain fell. This would have made it harder to search, except that we could expect to find them under a roof somewhere. I was glad of the gloom because I feared I was blushing. I felt the hypocrisy fathers feel, I suppose, when they're warding their daughters' honor, remembering their own youths. . . .

The scream brought us all up short.

It was like a bird's screech—an eagle's or a gull's perhaps, except that it stretched on and on, as if whatever was making it had no need of breath. It reminded me of something, I couldn't say what.

Erling was looking at me, saying something, but I couldn't hear him. My ears ached. I put my hands over them.

I recalled then what the screaming put me in mind of. I'd heard a pony once, caught in a mire, being sucked under and screeching its terror as it struggled. That sound had been like this, except that this was louder, and there was no fear in it.

Soon there were people all around us. Everyone had come out of the houses, roused from sleep or near sleep by that brain-ripping sound.

And there with us were Thorliv and Arnor. I peered at them, but couldn't spy any embarrassment in their faces, though Thorliv had a couple straws caught in her hair.

Arnor, with the sharp eyes of youth, began to point, and to shout something we could not hear. We looked where he pointed and beheld a light coming from the south, across the flat land. The light was blue and white, and it grew as it approached. And ever as it came, that screaming grew louder and louder, loud enough to drive a man to jam an awl into his ears, just to stop it.

The light became a shape, and the shape became a horse. Such a horse was scarce seen in Norway, and never, I think, anywhere else. I had seen it once, but only once.

It was a horse two men tall, and it had no head. It was the gray horse of the king of the underground folk, come back to torment his displacers.

I reached instinctively for Enda's crucifix, and cursed, not for the first time, to find it missing. With its help I might have had at least a little power in the case; I'd have been able to say, "My lord, this is but a seeming, a trick of the devil."

Or not.

Then Arnor was running toward the horse pens, and I saw what he went for, for Erling's horses were going mad, galloping and rearing and biting one another, and hurting themselves against the stone walls.

I ran with him, and Erling came too, with many of the men, but there was nothing to do. The horses were clean mad, dangerous as wildfire to approach. We could only stand helpless and watch them, screaming, rearing and wide-eyed, expecting to see them kill one another or break loose and be lost.

Then suddenly they went still, each with its ears back and its ribs heaving.

And there among them was the Night-mare.

And the screaming went silent, and there was no sound but the wheezing of the herd.

And the Night-mare stood on its hinders, and reached out its forelegs as a man would, and clutched black Ravn in an embrace, and of a sudden its blue light went dark and there was the sound of hooves galloping away, but naught to see. Only proud, shy Ravn, Erling's treasure horse, was gone as if he had never been. And for a minute the wind whipped around us, blowing the rain in our eyes like a storm. Then it fell back to its wonted nightly peace.

We stood silent, all of us, and the first to speak was Arnor. "It's the great horse of the world," he said. "It's the horse over all horses. If a man could ride that horse, he'd become a god."

"Hush such heathenish talk," said Erling. "You get to your bed, Arnor. Tomorrow morning we search for Ravn."

Instead Arnor went into the pen to check over the animals without even a glance back at Thorliv, who followed him with her eyes.

Sigrid joined her sister, and I tagged behind as they walked to the women's house. I was spying, but for their own good.

"Don't stub your heart on that horse boy," Sigrid said. "He'll always value livestock too much and you too little. Besides which he's poor."

"You loved Halvard Thorfinsson. He wasn't rich."

"The more fool I. I'll not make that mistake again."

"Kind hearts are more than dragon ships, and simple faith than Yngling blood."

"Who said that?"

"Some skald."

"Well, you can tell him from me he's an idiot. I've learned my lesson. I shall marry a man with chests of silver and leagues of land and many thralls. He'll give me everything I want, and I'll rule the estate when he's gone a-viking, and he'll love me to distraction. There's not much time until the end of the world, and I don't want to miss my chance."

* * *

Ravn was not to be found, though Erling and Arnor and many of the bodyguard and thralls searched every yard of the neighborhood. The business put Erling yet more out of sorts, and we all watched our step with him for a couple of weeks.

One evening, while we were at table, a visitor was announced. We turned in our seats to see a tall, broad man dressed in filthy clothing. We could smell him as he approached the high seat. From one hand he swung what looked like a hairy sack with a ball in it, but closer up it proved to be a man's head, dangled by the hair.

"I am Baug Kollasson," the man said. "I come to declare that I have taken over my brother Hoskuld's lawsuit against Thorarin Hranisson, and ended it as well." He let the head go, and it rolled among the rushes on the floor.

"Thorarin?" Erling asked, gesturing at the head.

"Yes."

"Killings don't end lawsuits," said Erling. "Killings only turn them into blood-feuds."

"I'm content with that. Let any who wish to avenge Thorarin come to me."

"Then you've taken over Hoskuld's farm as well?"

"I have."

"You are under my law then, as I am under the king's. Know this, Baug Kollasson—I keep the king's peace, and I do not suffer troublemakers. I also do not like berserkers."

Baug laughed shortly. "I've seen the world and sown my oats," he said. "I've paid my debts. Now I wish to be a bonder like my father, and live my days in peace."

"This head in my hall says otherwise."

"There's no peace under the heavens without a few heads knocked off."

"You turned a lawsuit to manslaughter, Baug. There's no need for that. I know your ilk, and I'll keep my eye on you."

"I am honored by the attention of so great a man as the hersir of Rogaland," said Baug with a courtly bow. Then he turned and walked out, laughing.

* * *

That was the summer Erling began the road to Opprostad. I was pleased with the plan, as roads permit more people to come to church, and the priest to visit his flock more easily. Also it would speed my visits to my friend Helge at Klepp. Erling had those things at heart of course, but he was concerned too with the defense of the land. He wanted closer ties with Opprostad.

Road-building in Norway (as in Ireland, come to think of it) consists chiefly in laying causeways over boggy stretches and streams. There were already a lot of pathways along the seacoast, but they were disconnected and in varying repair, depending on the care of the bonders. Erling used stone, a material richly to be had, and he set thralls to the work, following his usual pattern of paying them for any work beyond a set day's goal. This proved easier said than done in the case of road-building, as each day's work was farther from home than the last. It offered an interesting challenge for the man in charge of the freedom-purchase scheme (that would be me), but at length I worked out a plan that all could live with, and told the thralls I'd take volunteers for a special work crew to toil their way south for a set rate of pay.

The first to volunteer was a thrall called Patrick, born in Norway of Irish stock (or rather his mother was Irish—the father was problematical). I'd wed Patrick to another thrall not many months before, and they were to be parents now. He saw Erling's road as his shortcut to freedom.

"I've no cause to go to Ireland," he told me cheerfully. "I'm Norse-born and Deirdre barely remembers her birthplace. If we can get a bit of land and live as freemen, and raise our children free, what better could we look for?"

I looked over at Deirdre, watching us from the other side of the churchyard. A sturdy, red-cheeked yellow-haired girl she was, born to be a mother and a man's better angel.

I blessed them, well pleased. Those were the moments I loved, when I saw my work bear fruit in human hope.

The labor began the following Monday, and eased south under an overseer, who kept records carved on sticks.

A southbound ship sailed in from Hordaland one day, and a messenger brought news for Erling and Astrid. I was not there to hear it delivered, but afterwards Erling took his best remaining horse without a word and rode south to see how his road was coming. A thrall came to me as I sat outside my house, tallying freedom-silver on a scrap of parchment, and said that Astrid bid me attend her.

A summons from Astrid was a rare thing for me. I changed into my best shirt and went to the hall and up the outside stairway to the loft. I found her on the balcony, doing needlework with Sigrid and Freydis. She sent the girls down.

"Let's go inside," she said to me, and we went in, leaving the door open for light. She sat and bade me do the same.

"You're not overfond of me, are you, Father?" she asked, looking me plain in the eye. She had a formidable gaze—there was much shrewdness in those wide-set blue eyes under the white wife's headcloth.

I sat straighter. "You are one of my parishioners. I love all my flock."

"But you think me cruel."

What use to lie? "Yes, I think you unnatural cruel."

"They say you thought otherwise of Halla Asmundsdatter."

"I admire Halla. She's brave and gentle, and she never hurt a soul."

"Unlike me. Would you think it strange if I were jealous of such a woman in my husband's past?"

"I see no reason why you should begrudge to another what you yourself despise. But Erling always set you above Halla. Speaking plain, I think he was a fool in that."

Astrid smiled a wry smile. "There are even rumors," she said, "that you yourself harbored feelings for Halla beyond the love a priest owes a parishioner."

I went all over sanctimonious then. "If that were so, I can yet say in truth that I never betrayed Erling by doing aught about it."

"That is why I asked you here, Father, that you might hear it from me, under four eyes. Halla is dead."

At those words as it were a shroud fell over me, and I neither heard nor saw for a moment. When I came to myself, Astrid was shaking me.

Dead? Halla dead? Halla of the bright eyes, the liquid laugh, the long-legged girl's grace? Halla, whom I'd held in my arms (to save her life only) in this very loft room? It was not right. Oh God, it could not be— 

"Are you well, Father?" Astrid asked. She stood fanning me with her apron.

"She's dead?" I asked. "How came it to be?"

"She was with child. They'd feared she was barren, but she quickened at last. The carrying went ill, though. The child tried to come beforetime; there was a lot of bleeding, they say. The child is dead also."

"Saints have mercy. I must say a mass for them."

"A messenger came from Aslak. He said Halla's last word was `Erling.' Aslak had bid him most particularly to say this last in my presence."

I pondered that. This looked like bad blood between kinsmen.

"I must go," I said, and turned to the door. "I thank you for your kindness."

"You're weeping, Father."

"Weeping? I?" I put my hand to my face and found it wet. How odd, I thought. I never weep. Not for less than rape and murder before my eyes. 

Astrid put a slim hand on my arm. "I am not hateful, Father, and I bear no grudge against poor Halla. If you can believe it, I neither hate nor despise Erling either. A woman must keep her vows, as a man must. And vows to oneself are second only to vows to God. When you think of me, think of me as you did of Erling, when he kept his word to Halla at the Gula Thing, all against his heart."

I gave her a clumsy blessing and fled. I entered the old hall and went to Halla's tapestry of David and Goliath, on the wall near the high seat. I put a hand on it and stood there long.

 

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Framed


Title: The Year of the Warrior
Author: Lars Walker
ISBN: 0-671-57861-8
Copyright: © 2000 by Lars Walker
Publisher: Baen Books