Mid-September in Norway brings what they call Autumn-month. With it comes a Thing. Erling summoned Soti for manslaughter and arson by witchcraft.
"I care nothing for Soti," I said to Steinbjorg in bed one night, "but it seems a weak case to me. The laws against witchcraft in Norway can't be very strict. Of course I know nothing of heathen law."
Steinbjorg laughed. "That's not the point." Her arm lay across my chest and her hair tickled my face. The nights were colder now, and we lay curled in the box-bed, her warmth a comfort. "The law is in how you use it, like any other weapon. Lord Erling has friends and kinsmen, and he's hersir of the district. No one will deny his suit. Soti isn't even a Jaederer by birthhe comes from Halogaland. Some say he's part Lapp."
"Why doesn't he flee?"
"Soti has never fled anything."
I believed her.
I said, "I can't see Soti as a folded-hand martyr. He's planning something."
"Of course he's planning something. He's always planning something. But you have the great god, so what is there to fear? Now pay attention to me. I don't want to think about Soti. I have something to tell you."
"What?"
"I'm going to have a baby."
I wept then, as if a baby myself. All I could say was, "If it's a girl, her name is Maeve."
Soon folk began to come in, by ship or boat or riding, and set up tents in the Thing-meadow, near Soti's shrine. Erling set up tables loaded with food for everyone twice a day. When I said mass I was surprised at the number of strangers who partook. I hadn't known there were so many Christians in Jaeder, if any Norseman could be truly called a Christian (saving my Lord Erling, of course).
On the other hand there were men, especially the older ones, who looked quickly away when I came near, and did something with their hands behind their backs. Often Soti could be found deep in talk with such men.
On the first morning of the Thing some men went to the meadow with hazel poles and set them in the earth in a large ring around several rows of benches near the shrine. To these they knotted a rope, called the "Peace Rope," and made a barrier within which the twelve judges took their seats.
After saying mass I followed Lord Erling, carrying the crucifix as I'd been instructed, from the church out to the Thing-stead.
Erling stood near the Peace Rope and cried, "In the Name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, I declare the Peace of the Thing. Any man who breaks this holy peace, let him be outlawed, turned away from God and good men; outcast as far as wolves run, or fire burns, or earth gives grain, or children call to mothers, or ships sail, or shields shine, or the sun rises, or snow falls, or Lapps skate, or fir trees grow, or hawks fly"
A voice cried, "Unlawful! The Thing is unlawful and the Peace is unlawful! I appeal to the judgesis this the law of Sola-district?"
And there was Soti, dressed all in black, coming from the shrine, and in his hand he waved a great gold ring of twisted strands.
The oldest of the judges cried, "What business is this, smith?"
"Since the law first stood, the Thing has begun when the hersir sets the ring of Thor on his arm and proclaims the Thing-peace! Never has the peace been declared under the sign of the White Christ!"
The old man scratched his beard and said, "What say you, Lord Erling?"
"The gods of the lord are the gods of the land," said Erling. "One lord holds by Thor, and cries peace in his name. Another holds by Odin, another by Frey. I worship the White Christ. I've told no man whom his god should be. No man will force me to take up Thor's ring."
"So spoke King Haakon the Good, when the times for sacrifice came," said Soti. "He would not honor custom, for he'd picked up the Christ-worship in England. But the bonders and lords, who loved him, would not be satisfied, and in the end he sacrificed, and there were good harvests and good fishing all the years of his reign. And after him came the sons of Erik Bloodaxe, and they too called on the White Christ, but they would not be persuaded, and stiffened their necks, and all the time of their rule there was foul weather and bad harvests, and unpeace in the land. And I say to you that the same will follow here if Lord Erling calls not on Thor!"
"The true God rules earth and sky and sea, and gives or takes their bounty at his pleasure," said Erling. "You all know what has occurred here at Sola these last months. In all my dangers, I have had beside me the priest of the White Christ, Father Aillil" here he pointed to me and my crucifix "and neither man nor devil has overcome me. At the same time the priest of Thor here has given twisted counsels and caused much death and loss, of which I shall say more later."
"I am no priest," cried Soti, "only a poor smith, who must care for the holy fires since the proper ward, our hersir, will not do so. But even in my weakness, I dare risk the iron-ordeal. Does the Irish priest, who came here as a thrall, dare so much? I challenge him!"
Erling looked at me then, and everyone looked at me, and what could I say? I said, "I accept!"
The crowd broke into excited shouting, and I whispered to Erling, "What's this iron-ordeal?"
The abbot had often told me that rashness would be my downfall.
This is the iron-ordeal:
Everyone goes to the forge, where the smith takes an old iron kettle or whatever lies to hand, and heats it red-hot. Then he takes an axe and chops the iron into bits, which are dumped in another kettle (in our case, as we were having a sort of competition, there was a kettle with scraps for each of us). Then the one being judged washes his hand and plunges it into the kettle, takes up a handful of the scraps, and carries them twelve paces to a trough, where he must toss them in. A mitten is bound on the hand, and four days later the judges examine the burns and judge his truthfulness.
We stood there, Soti and me, side by side before the judges, arms outstretched, and waited for the word to start.
Erling said, "Wait! The smith has hands like a turtle's back from years with hammer and tongs. My priest has hands like a child's. This is not an equal test."
"We will bear that in mind when we view the burns," said the chief judge. "Prepare yourselves."
"I am ready," said Soti.
"Any time," said I (I should have stuck my tongue in the kettle).
"Proceed," he said.
I looked into the kettle, where the air swam like water, and thought, No man can do this, and then I was reaching down and taking up the iron.
There is no pain like burning. I wanted to watch Soti and hold the iron at least as long as he, though my fingers be singed away, but I couldn't see him. I couldn't think of him. There was room in the world for nothing but burning, blistering, biting, boiling, melting pain, and the need to walk my twelve steps as quickly as ever I could. The one thing I remember seeing in the crowd is a very fair, pale-haired woman with great, wide-set green eyes, a stranger. I don't know how long I held the iron. It can't have been long. I made it to the trough after a journey of a thousand miles and dropped my torment, and I was surprised to see that my hand still had its shape, though the skin was not whole. I heard the shouting of the crowd as if through three inches of wool, and there was a not unpleasant smell of roasted meat in the air. Someone grabbed my arm and jammed the mitten on, tying it tight.
I swayed, and Erling caught me. I whispered, "Get me away from here. I'm going to faint."
When I came to myself I lay in my bed, and my hand was singing to me, and an unfriendly song it was. I looked at the mitten. Its ties had been sealed with wax. Ragna sat on the edge of the bed, looking at me. Halla and Steinbjorg peered in over her shoulder.
"You're quite mad, you know," Ragna said.
"That is very clear to me just now," I answered. "Give me something to drink."
She put an arm around my shoulders and lifted a cup of something foul-smelling to my lips. "Get it past your nose and all will be well. You'll sleep a long time. And have no fear for your hand. God wouldn't let an honest man's burns mortify."
What a cruel thought to sleep on. . . .
I dreamed of the fair woman in the crowd. I can't have seen her more than a few seconds, but I remembered each pore of her skin, and where each lock of hair hung, framing her face and tumbling to her shoulders. I also dreamed of things I had not seenbreasts and thighs and long, shining length of leg, and I dreamed of doing with her everything a man can do with a woman, and everything beasts do with one another, and sometimes she enjoyed it, and sometimes she cried out in fear or pain, but I didn't care, because all I did only filled me with a starved-wolf hunger to do yet more and more to her.
Do you understand me when I say that that dream filled me with fear when I woke to find its memory in bed with me? Or that I laid penance on myself for it greater than ever I had for lying with Steinbjorg?
The wait for a decision on the iron-ordeal didn't delay the regular business of the Thing. There were cases to try, and fines to be decided, and taxes to be paid, and wares to be bought and sold, and wrestling matches and horse fights to watch and wager on.
I had a pastime of my ownsitting alone and staring at my mitten, imagining the foulness inside. The pain was such when I tried to flex my fingers that I wondered whether I'd lost their use for good.
I didn't stay in bed after the first night. The pain was just as bad in bed or out, except when I bumped the hand against things, which I seemed to do every minute or so. And gradually the pain got better, at least while I kept my fingers still, and I took more interest in the goings-on around me.
I couldn't help looking for the woman I'd seen. She would have been hard to miss, but I did miss her. Since she wasn't from the Sola neighborhood, she must have come with some party or other, which made it unlikely she'd just gone home. I even asked Lord Erling whom she was, but he said he'd never seen such a woman, and would have remembered if he had.
"Perhaps she has a jealous husband," he said, "and he's keeping her shut up in the tent."
I said, "She wore her hair loose."
"A protective father then. What concern is she to you?"
"Just curiosity."
"I don't like to criticize, Father Aillil, but I've noticed in you an interest in the women I hadn't looked for in a priest."
I sighed and said, "Well, I'm Irish after all."
The day came for the examination, and Soti and I stood before the Peace Rope, bare-handed at last, while the judges paraded past us and studied our hands. I sneaked a glance at Soti's, and it looked as if he'd handled nothing less gentle than a baby. My own looked like something the ravens would be interested in.
"Have either of you anything to say before we pass judgment?" the chief judge asked.
Soti said, "I am Thor's man. Anyone can see how he has guarded me from harm for his own honor."
I opened my mouth to say something, but heard Erling's voice break in.
He stepped up beside me and said, "It is customary for men to bring witnesses to attest to their truthfulness. I challenge Soti to bring forward any free man who will call him true. Father Aillil, though, has many to vouch for his wordlook! Here are men of Sola to speak for him!"
And we looked about us, and there were something like two hundred men in a circle around the meadow, fully armed.
Soti cried, "Unjust! He tries to sway the court by force! Thor has force too, my neighborsdon't think he'll forget what you do today!"
Erling said, "My men have done no violence here, nor will they if good order is kept. As hersir, it falls to me to keep a guard. Carry on, judges, and don't even think about these men."
The judges mumbled among themselves, but it didn't take them long to judge in my favor. "It is doubtful," said the chief judge, "that any man could hold the iron as long as Soti did, unburned, except by black witchcraft."
Soti bellowed and threw himself upon me, but many hands pulled him off, and I was only a little bruised.
"Now," said Erling, "I wish to bring my suit against Soti for the deaths of my father and brother by witchcraft. I have witnesses to bring in this case."
And Erling told his tale, and many men vouched for his honesty, and Soti got his turn, and spoke bitterly.
"Well I see that I'll get no fair hearing today," he said. "Therefore I beg Lord Erling to accept self-judgment in this matter. I will pay whatever fine or penalty he lays on me, even up to outlawry."
"This is the penalty I demand," said Erling. "I wish Soti to be given into my hands for torture, until he shall receive the true Faith."
"THOR!" Soti shouted, face to the sky.
Title: | The Year of the Warrior |
Author: | Lars Walker |
ISBN: | 0-671-57861-8 |
Copyright: | © 2000 by Lars Walker |
Publisher: | Baen Books |