Soti was awhile in bed, but he came to me in the yard one bright October morning, halting and leaning on a stick, grinning and peering at me with one unbandaged eye.
"Good morning, god-man," he said.
"Good morning," said I.
"Have you heard the news? Erling offered me a mark of silver to move away from Sola."
"I heard. When do you go?"
"Oh, I wouldn't leave here. After all I've been through to serve my gods here, how could I? No, I'll stay close at hand, and be ever in your sight. You've made mewhat is your word?a martyr."
"You denied your gods."
"That's your story. I don't recall it that way at all. As I remember it, when the pain grew fiercest and I was all but on the point of death, Thor himself appeared in the smithy and commanded Erling to set me free, and Erling fell on his knees in fear and did as he bade. At least that's the story people tell in the countryside."
"You'd serve your gods with lies?"
"Why not? Do you actually believe the stories you tell? Virgin births, and rising from the dead, and walking on water?"
I tried to think of an answer that wouldn't be a lie.
"Come," he said, "I'm not a man who bears a grudge. We've scored off one another, back and return, since you came. Why be enemies? I'll make you an offerwe'll set up an image of your Christ in my shrine, and we'll worship all together. We've seen that we believe in the same thingswhy should we be fenced by the names we call the great powers? We'll join forces!"
"When pigs play pipes," I said, turning away. Whatever I thought of Christ, I knew He didn't belong in the same shrine with Frey.
"You couldn't have killed me, you know!" he shouted to my back. "I'll tell you a secret! I am not as other men! I have no heart in my body! If you put your ear to my chest you'd hear never a beat! I keep my heart in a locked casket, and the casket is in a secret cave, and the cave is in a magic mountain, high up in Lappland, and no man may come to it but by the death of his firstborn!"
Soti laughed then, and he laughed a long time. Ulvig came at last and led him home.
I went into the weaving house and watched Halla standing at the loom, working with the beater and colored yarn, building her tapestry of David and Goliath.
"Tell me of this David," she said. "Did he have a wife?"
"He had many wives, for he was a great king," I said.
"Did he have a leman?"
"Quite a few, truth to tell."
"The Jews must have been much like us."
"I suppose they were, in many ways."
"Did King David have one wife he loved best?"
"Well, there was one named Bathsheba"
"That's a funny name."
"I fancy they'd have laughed at our names too."
"What about this Baththis woman? Why did he love her more than the others? Did he pay a high bride-price for her? Was she more beautiful than any other woman? Did he have to fight her father and brothers to take her?"
"Ah, the price he paid was high indeed. And I have to think he must have loved her more than the others, because he chose her son to succeed him, though he wasn't the oldest. And if he loved her most, it must have been because they suffered most together.
"It was like this. The king stayed home while his armies went to war, and one night he stood in a high place and saw this Bathsheba, a warrior's wife, in her bath. He sent for her and lay with her. We aren't told what she thought about it. Then, when she told him she was with child, he tried to get her husband to come home and lie with her; and failing that he made shift to have him killed in battle. Then he wed the widow.
"The child was born, but the Lord slew it, although David wept for mercy. And the Lord laid a curse on David's house, so that there was rape and murder among the children. But another of Bathsheba's sons inherited."
Halla's hands were swift with the beater. "The Lord is very hard on those who sin, is He not?"
"II suppose. But then David was pretty hard on Bathsheba's husband."
"And this thing David didthis is what you priests call `evil'?"
"One kind of evil, yes."
"Are there not stories of God closing a woman's womb because he was displeased? I think Father Ethelbald said something such."
"Well, yes, but it's not always because"
"I think I'm barren, Father." Her hands did not pause.
"Have you talked to the older women about it?"
"Yes. They think I'm barren too. I've been with Erling two years. There have been times when I thought there was a baby, but it came to nothing. Is God angry at me because I'm with Erling and not his wife? Am I evil?"
Of all questions she could have asked, that was the one I was worst fitted to answer. I opened and shut my mouth a few times and tried to think.
"Why don't you speak? Is the answer so terrible?"
"I just don't know what to say," I said. "The Church teaches that men and women should be married or celibate, one or the other. But as it works out, we don't usually make much fuss if a manespecially a great man like Lord Erlingtakes a leman. And here in Norway it's thought highly honorable. I haven't noticed that lemans are more often barren than other women"
She stopped her work then, and covered her face with her hands. "He'll never marry me. Not if I can't give him sons."
I put a helpless hand on her shoulder, and she turned and wept against my chest.
"When are you going to marry Halla?" I asked Lord Erling a few minutes later. It was an impertinent question, but I felt impertinent. I had found him standing amid the stubble in the home-field, exercising his best falcon. He squinted as he stared into the blue, watching its trackless path, living in faith. A gaggle of bullyboys stood around to lend moral support. Everyone wore heavy cloaks, and the sun was no match for the breeze.
He answered in a voice that told me Halla was not foremost on his mind just then. "Marry her?" he asked, still staring upward. "When did I ever say I'd marry her?"
"Well, why don't you? What better wife could you find?"
"Excuse me a moment, Father. Whitefoot's stooping."
The bird fell like a hailstone and strangled a hare.
All the men whooped and cheered, and we ran together, leaping a fence, to the kill. Erling retrieved the bird, and one of the men set to dressing the hare, making sure that Whitefoot got his share.
"Now what was this about Halla?" Erling asked as he hooded the bird.
"You ought to marry her. She wants to be married, and God would be pleased."
"Pardon me, Father, but did I promise to marry her? I don't recall that I did."
"I haven't heard of any promise."
"And have I treated her in any way shamefully, or failed to give her the respect due a lawful leman?"
"Of course not."
"And did she bid you come to me and ask for marriage?"
"No. She knows nothing of this."
"Then I fail to see why I should marry her."
"My God, she's the fairest woman in Norway! She loves you more than her life! What else do you want?"
"She's not the fairest woman in Norway," said Erling with a smile. "The fairest is Astrid Trygvesdatter, whom I saw once and can never forget. I fear she'll never have me though, since I slew her fish-wit cousin Aki. But even so, fairness has little to do with it. Walk with me, Father, and I'll tell you how I mean to marry." He strode away from the bullyboys, bearing the falcon on his arm as if it were no heavier than a poor man's lunch.
"The sons of Horda-Kari have been hersirs for generations," he said. "We take pride in the title. We like to say that a hersir out of Kari is worth any jarl and most kings. You've heard of Klypp who slew King Sigurd Sleva?"
"Oh, aye."
"It's a fine story. But I think the time for our kind of pride is over. Norway isn't what it was. Like it or not, we'll be one land under one king in the end, like the southern lands and Denmark. Then there'll be a long tug-of-war between the lords and the king. And we lords will have to gather all the power we can under his rule. That will be a time for jarls, and I fear no hersir will be left with enough turves to roof his house.
"I need to get the name of jarl, Father. The best way I can figure to do that is to make a high marriage. Maybe I'll never have Astrid Trygvesdatter, and maybe the woman I get will have a walleye and a humpback, but be a jarl I will, and I cannot look lower, even to comfort Halla.
"I know she dreams of marrying me, Father. I'm not blind. And it pains me to disappoint her. But it cannot be. More than her happiness, or mine, is at stake."
It was mightily sensible, and I hated the sound of it. I muttered, "I see," and shambled off.
"By the way, Father," Erling called after me. "When are you going to marry Steinbjorg?"
I wondered how much mansbot would be laid on a priest who strangled his lord.
I stomped around the steading and thought, and the more I thought the angrier I grew. Soti was sure he had a hook in my mouth. Erling judged me of little account, it seemed, and comical to boot. Halla looked to me for help, but I could do nothing for her.
I needed to put my hands to something, something I could break, or I might kill somebody. Then I thought of one thing I could do, a thing that would give me joy and remind people who was priest around here.
I got an axe from the toolshed and laid it on my shoulder, then ambled down the path to the shrine of the old gods.
Inside, it looked as I remembered it. I marched to the dais, laid the axe on it, spit on my hands and took the axe up again.
Frey first, I thought. I swung the axe back over my shoulder . . .
"Stop!"
I knew that voice. Where had I heard it? I turned around
And there was the fair woman I'd seen at the Thing, of whom I'd dreamt shameful things. Have you ever seen a beauty that is almost deformitythe eyes too great and wide-set, the mouth too large and soft, the figure too lush? Almost a kind of jest? And yet desirablea thing"thing" seems the right wordto lust after?
She walked toward me, the sway of her hips rousing me in a moment, as if I were a stallion with the mares in heat. Did I smell something? I seem to remember that I did.
"There are pleasanter things to do, Aillil," she said.
Then I knew the voice.
It was the same voice I'd heard speaking from Big Melhaugthe voice of the dragon.
I fled, leaving the axe behind.
'Tis a fearful thing to meet the gods on their own ground.
Title: | The Year of the Warrior |
Author: | Lars Walker |
ISBN: | 0-671-57861-8 |
Copyright: | © 2000 by Lars Walker |
Publisher: | Baen Books |