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CHAPTER XIV

The second ship was a knarr, brought along to convey Olaf's tribute to the storehouses at Agvaldsness. No friend of ships at their best, I especially mislike knarrs, because it was in one such that Maeve and I were taken from Ireland. Which is unjust I suppose, since the knarr is at bottom a merchant's ship. But I don't reproach myself much over injustices to seacraft.

The crew was made up mostly of men I didn't know well, new to the household since Erling had become a king's man. In fact the only friend (if that's the right word) I had on board was Astrid Trygvesdatter, who'd come along for no reason other than her whim.

I was sick of course. We had to wait at the mouth of the Kormt Sound for a favorable wind, and the one we got was only favorable in that it wasn't actually against us. The clouds hung low, sculpted in strange scallop shapes that put me, let alone the sailors with any weather sense, in nettle shirts. Our trip involved a great deal of tacking and some rowing.

"Who was the Wanderer?" Astrid asked me, standing by me in the stern, wrapped in a sable cloak.

"I can't say exactly, but I'll stake my head he came from God, whatever the bishop thinks."

"A saint? An angel?"

"Perhaps. Perhaps more."

"You don't mean . . ."

"I dare not say. But whoever he is, to call him Odin is a great wrong, as great as that of the men who called the Beloved Beelzebub. I fear for your brother, and for the bishop. They did not know the day of their visitation."

Tacking is a frustrating exercise at best, but when the weather bears down on you, bringing the cobwebby cloud-roof lower and lower, boiling like a kettle, it tightens the muscles of your back so you're stiff afterwards, if you're lucky enough to have an afterwards to be stiff in.

I stood near the steersman, a man named Haakon, and he kept muttering to himself. Sometimes I could make out what he said, though he kept it down, knowing that it's unlucky to share your fears with a shipmate. "Too dark," I heard him say. "Too dark too quickly. It's playing with us, this wind. Letting us make enough way to hope, then pushing us back . . . It's holding us here for the storm, like a goat tethered for sacrifice."

The east wind smacked us in the face without warning, a ship-murdering wind; a wind to peel the hair off your head; and suddenly all was black, and there was sideways rain and lightning and thunder that rattled the planks, as I helped the hands loosen the backstay and drop the ripping sail, taking the skin off my hands. I jumped down in the hold, knee-deep, and helped pass up the everlasting leather bailing buckets.

I was too frightened even to be weary.

We ran westward, into the night and the open sea. "Men have survived worse blows," I told myself. "At least we're headed west. With luck we can go far without running onto anything."

But luck had been niggling on this trip so far.

There's little to do in a blow like that, if you're not steering or bailing. So when I stumbled and fell facedown in the bilge and couldn't get up again, strong hands pulled me out and passed me to somebody who laid me out on the deck with a sleeping bag over me, and I suppose somebody else took my place. I slept the kind of sleep you sleep in a fever, or after someone has snapped your jaw shut for you with his knuckles. I woke only when someone shook me.

"Look, Father!" cried the man. "We're saved!"

The first thing I saw was golden light that painted us on all sides, leaving no shadows in any direction. I pulled myself up where I could see over the rail.

The whole world was shining and motionless, like a frozen winter landscape, but sun-colored. The ship had seized up on a starboard pitch, so that the rail on that side, where I stood, was on the downslope. The waves were still. The wind and the clouds had stiffened and set like potter's clay.

And there on the sea, in a wreath of light brighter than the rest, stood the figure of a man at least twenty feet tall. It was shaped like a man, but thin, as if stretched. The hair and beard were golden, the ankle-length robe blinding white, girdled in yet more gold. The face was pale and sad, with great blue eyes under downward-arching brows.

The long man beckoned with his right arm. "Come to me, come to me, weary seamen," he said, in a voice high and melodious.

"It is the Lord," said the captain, a seaman named Thorbjorn. "We must go to Him."

"No!" I cried.

"What do you mean?" asked Thorbjorn.

"It is not the Lord."

"It looks like the Lord. It looks just like a crucifix I saw in England once."

"The Lord is not an Englishman."

"Surely He can appear any way He likes," said Astrid Trygvesdatter, who'd slid down beside me.

I supposed that was true, but didn't want to argue it.

"I know Him when I see Him," I said, pulling my rank (quite unfairly) as priest. "That's not He."

Unfortunately everyone knew my reputation. "You've been wrong before," said Thorbjorn.

"Satan appears as an angel of light," said I. "This is too much what we'd expect. He never comes in the way we expect."

"Do not listen to the priest," came the singing voice of the golden man. "I came once before, and was not received, and great was the guilt of the men who turned me away. Bring not such guilt on yourselves."

"I'm coming!" cried one man, and he clambered over the side and began to run over the serried waves.

Others followed quickly. I put my hand on Astrid's arm and said, "Don't go. Trust me in this."

"I never thought to go," Astrid said coolly. "I've great respect for you, Father. If you say that's not the Lord, I believe you."

"You frighten me, lady," said I, as the golden man's light brightened and the entire crew disappeared into it.

"So here we stand, alone on a ship in a storm," she went on. "I wonder what comes next."

She had nerve, that one. I could have wished she'd been a man, and ruled instead of Olaf.

What came next was that the unnatural light faded, but not into the storm we'd had before. Instead we stood on a deserted ship in a workaday seasonal west wind under a pale winter sky. Grappled to our starboard side was a warship; a hundred berserkers were boarding us. Observing all from a place by the mainmast of the new ship was Eyvind Kellda, and Baug Kollasson stood at his side.

"We meet again, Astrid and Aillil!" he cried. "You've not disappointed me—I never looked for you to be taken in by that mannikin show, drowning yourselves like those witling sea-rats. So all is well—I've great plans for you. Men, bind this pair, and make sail for Hafrsfjord."

* * *

They'd made Sola their own already, and without bloodshed from what I could tell. Astrid and I entered the steading on foot, with our hands bound behind us and ropes about our necks, led by a mounted Eyvind.

"I've a special place for you," he said, getting down from his horse lightly as a boy. All around us were berserkers. I saw few proper Sola-folk, except for thralls. Asa came out of the old hall and stared as us, but said no word.

"Have you marked how often the Old Ones dwell under storehouses, like rats?" Eyvind asked as he tugged at our ropes and led us toward the southeast corner of the steading. "Whatever you call them—elves or fair folk, or good neighbors—I call them anything I like, they've no power against me—they like storehouses and barns. Depending on their dignity, of course, some like treasure stores and some like granaries, and some like animal byres. But the great ones—so great as remain since you've evicted them—they love the treasure. Here at Sola you've a very old treasure house, and the moment I came near it I could feel the power of its guests."

We came then to the old treasure house, built by Ogmund Karisson, heavy-walled and heavy-doored and leaning just a bit on rotten foundations.

"This house isn't even used nowadays," I said.

"That means naught to the Old Ones. They savor the smell of gold long gone; the odor of silver spent. That you make no use of the house is all to the good, from their point of view."

At Eyvind's word a berserker unlocked the great oak door and led us up the two steps into the building. He himself stood on the threshold and pushed us in. The floorboards groaned beneath us and we could smell their sweet decay. We moved back near the wall.

"Let me go too," said a woman's voice, and I recognized it for Asa's. I looked out and saw her facing Eyvind.

"You're no Christian," said Eyvind. "I can see it in your soul-flame."

"Nevertheless I'd go with Aillil."

"Why should I do you kindness?"

"You do me no kindnesses. Do you think me a fool?"

"Yes, as a matter of fact. But then that's my chief pleasure in life, watching fools. So go and be one, with my blessing."

Asa climbed the steps and came in to stand by me. The floorboards screamed their outrage beneath her added weight.

"And now the key," said Eyvind, and another berserker came up the steps, carrying one of the smaller anvils from the forge. He tossed it in amongst us.

With a crash and a snapping the floor collapsed. We fell and we fell, screaming, into a misty void that seemed to have no bottom.

* * *

The next I knew we all stood in a circular room of stone, no more than two men's height across, with three arched doorways in the wall, one for each of us. A silver cresset hanging above gave out a flickering light. I moved to the nearest archway. It was open, but all was blackness beyond, and as I drew near I felt bitter cold. I reached my hand through and pulled it swiftly back, tucking it under my armpit to warm it again. I feared for a moment I'd frozen it solid.

"What place is this?" asked Asa. "Is this Hel?"

"I think not," said I, blowing on my fingers. "If I've learned anything from my dealings with Eyvind, this is but another seeming. Where we really are I cannot say, but 'tis not where we think."

"Supposing that's so," said Eyvind's voice from no direction in particular. "Granting that all this is happening inside your heads—is not the inside of your heads a place of terror and wonder enough? Who could bear to have revealed the secrets he hides within his skull-walls? Whose courage and faith are strong enough to brave such final shame?"

"You're forever missing the point, Eyvind," I cried. " 'Tis nothing to do with my courage and faith."

"Is it not indeed?" he asked. "Let us see—"

A light began to glow through the archway before me, and it shone at last on the figure of a young girl. I gasped. 'Twas my sister Maeve, as she'd been when she was five. She looked up at me with great, weeping blue eyes.

"You broke my dolly, Aillil! 'Tis the only one I have, and you broke it!"

It struck me like a club to the belly, and my legs went all nerveless and dropped me. A childhood cruelty, forgotten till now, but back of a sudden in all its acid and bile. I remembered the feeling of triumph as I'd torn the head off the thing, and how my mother'd beaten me and asked why, and how I'd tried to think of a reason.

"Be a man, priest!" said Astrid sharply. "I'd thought better of you than this! To be struck down by such a common deed—something any real man has done at least once—"

"You don't ken," I said, moaning on my knees. " 'Tis all one, you see—all of it—"

"Oh she shall see," said Eyvind's voice, "and presently. I should thank you all—all you moral, decent folk—for the power you give me. Without your weakness I should have no strength. Behold your own weakness, Astrid Trygvesdatter."

A young man appeared in the archway before her, lean, brown-haired and pale.

"Edgar!" she cried.

"Sweet Astrid," said the wraith. "Sweet Astrid of the golden hair. Why did you come to England? Why did you enter my life? And having come, why did you deny me?"

"I did not know," she said, and there was a sob in her voice. "How could I have known? I was a refugee, a penniless guest."

"You flew into my soul like a golden bird into a hall—coming out of the sunshine and bringing light with you. I never knew joy until I kissed you. You'd have been my wife, and for you I'd have been a hero and made a name to live in songs forever."

"You could have. You should have. You were so fine, Edgar—I've never known a man as fine. Or perhaps one."

"Yet you broke our betrothal."

"Olaf broke it, will I, nill I! I'd never have done such were I free! But out of Russia he comes, loaded with silver and furs, and he goes to King Ethelred and says, `Give me ships and gold and I'll make myself king of Norway, and get Svein Forkbeard the Dane out of your hair.' And he sets me on his lap and says, `We must make a high marriage for her, if she's to be a king's sister,' and Ethelred says, `She's already betrothed, but I see what you mean. I'll buy off the family.' "

"You could have run with me, golden Astrid. I came to you and begged it. We'd have taken ship for Ireland, or France, or Sarras, or the Isles of the West. It would have made a deed and a song, and we'd have never been forgotten."

"They'd have found us and killed you. The world is a pond to Northmen. We have kin and friends everywhere."

"Better to have died thus than as I did."

Astrid brought up a despairing sigh.

"I went on a raid to Wales. I was killed in our first fight there."

"They told me this. I wept for you, my Edgar, and prayed for your soul through many nights."

"Do you know how I died, my sweet, lovely Astrid?"

"An arrowshot—"

"I went to a place in the fight where no man could go and live. I went willingly, almost without thinking to. I went because life was more cruel than death. I went because I could not live without my pearl."

Astrid fell to her knees, head against the stone wall, and purged her soul of salt tears.

"I suppose my Thorstein will be next to appear," said Asa. "That is, if Eyvind thinks me worthy of torment."

"More than worthy," said Eyvind's voice. "But you underrate my wisdom."

Within the archway a tiny figure appeared—a babe, less than a year old, naked and weeping and waving arms and legs like a turtle on its back.

"My Thora! My sweet, perfect Thora!" Asa cried, rushing into the archway only to be thrust back, shivering and white, with rime on her hair.

"Your child?" I asked.

"My daughter—" her voice caught "—whom we gave to the gods, to be strangled and hung up like a pig carcass!"

I went to her and held her, knowing naught else to do. Even Eyvind seemed to have found nothing more to say on this score, nor needed he.

"Quite a show, Eyvind Kellda," I said. "You've proved that all men are sinners, and worthy of Hell. When did I ever deny it? Or are you pleased with cruelty only for its own sake?"

"If need be," came his voice, and another figure appeared in my archway.

It was a woman—a woman not fat and not thin, neither young nor old, neither fair nor ugly, with pale hair and brown eyes, whose name I did not know, but whom I could never forget.

"Do you know me, Aillil the priest?"

"I know you," I said, shuddering. "You're an Englishwoman."

"You Irish came in your ships and raided our village. You killed our men, all you could, and you raped us women."

"I killed no one," said I, as if that somehow justified me. "I was too young to do any real fighting. But I wanted to prove myself man enough . . . in one way or another."

"So you shamed me, a woman who'd never done you harm; who'd gladly have given you, or anyone, bread and soup to eat and a warm place by the fire, if you'd shown up hungry at her doorstep."

I hung my head. "I did that thing," said I. "I hope it gives you comfort to know I saw my own sister raped, and taken off to slavery. You've your revenge, at least."

"I want no revenge, man of Ireland. I'm not a vengeful soul. You did not know this, nor did you care to know—and that is the benchmark of your sin."

I fell then like a spent berserk, and laid on my back looking at the cresset, and the darkness beyond.

You've wondered, perhaps, how I learned English, so that I picked up its cousin, Norse, so quickly?

You've wondered why I could not forgive Ulf?

I could not forgive Ulf because I was Ulf.

A child's cruelty—an adult's rape or murder—a king's massacre—they're all the same thing at bottom. A working out of some need to prove our strength through the weakness of others. It has naught to do with right—that thing we say we want; everything to do with power—that thing we really want.

I wept loud then, and I wept long. I was shamed to weep before women, but my grief came out with its own voice, like a mandrake pulled up.

" 'Tis an illusion," I said at last, when my tears were spent. "All a seeming."

"A seeming in truth," said Eyvind's voice. "For all these things that trouble you so, that have the power to suck your marrow slowly or strike you down at once like a hammer blow—they are all but dreams within your mind. They are stories concocted by old women to scare children into bed. I no longer believe such stories; I no longer carry such a burden of guilt. For I know I am God; that right is whatever I make it. Thus I do not age, and I cannot be hurt, for my only weakness is gone. Understand this, and you too will be free!"

"If I'm God, why should I listen to you?" I asked, breathing hard.

"Perhaps I'm your creation, brought up by your deepest self to teach you what you need to know."

We sat silent for a while, the three of us, wrestling each with our own devils.

At last Astrid said, "I heard a learned clerk once, who told the words of an old-time wise man. It went like this—`I know more than he; for neither of us knows everything, but he thinks he knows everything, while I know that I do not. Therefore I know one more thing than he.' "

"Yes," said Asa. "Eyvind thinks he's wise because he's forgotten his own foolishness—like a man who boasts that he's outgrown the need for food, because he's cut out his stomach."

God bless the women. When they're good they're better than us. We men fight and strive and buy and sell and build and tear down, and do all the things that get written on parchment in chronicles, only so the women can carry on the real work of the world, which we'll never fully know.

There was a change in the light then; the color went from yellow to white; we looked up and there above us was the white bear I'd seen before, shedding light down into our dungeon as a tree sheds leaves in autumn.

"Climb up to me," said the bear.

"My lord, we've no ladder," said I.

"Climb the scarlet cord."

And I looked, and there was a thick, scarlet cord, made of some soft, tough stuff like silk, hanging down from the top where the bear waited, in easy reach.

"He'll eat us, surely," said Asa.

"I can't say he won't," I answered. "But if that's his will, I think 'tis better to go and be eaten than not."

"Yes, we must obey," said Astrid, and she set her hand on the cord. "I'll go up first."

We watched her climb. She went easily.

"I cannot," said Asa, putting her hand on my arm.

"You must. I'm certain there's no other way."

" 'Tis different for you. You look at the heavens, and you see love behind them. I do not see that."

"You're a brave woman," I said. "Be brave in this. Believe that God exists, and is a rewarder of those who seek Him."

"That He exists I've no doubt. But I think he's as likely to be a destroyer of those who seek Him. I spent my own child on that belief. I cannot climb, Aillil. Will you stay with me?"

"How can I? I'm called."

"I can't come with you."

"Yes, you can. If you can't trust God's bear, trust me. You trust me, don't you? There are things I know—places I've been. If you care for me, can't you trust me?"

She looked up. "Are you well, Lady Astrid?" she called.

"I'm perfectly well. The bear's gone, if that's what's troubling you. I wish you'd both come and not leave me alone up here. I keep having to hide myself from the berserkers."

Asa took a deep breath and grasped the cord. She walked her way up steadily, feet braced on the wall. She was much stronger than she looked.

I came up after. It seemed a marvelously easy climb—almost as if I were being reeled in. But when I rested at it I made no progress.

We emerged through the rotten floorboards into the storehouse. It was no brighter up there than down below, which was all to the good for people who wanted to keep out of sight. We tried not to move around too much, as the boards creaked, and we kept well back from the open door, as Eyvind's wild men came past from time to time. I looked back down into the hole and saw only dirt and wood trash.

"We're little better off now than before," whispered Astrid. "Do you think we can get away to some friendly farm with all these stink-men about?"

"Berserkers aren't known for discipline," I said. "I expect they'll all drink themselves to sleep ere long. But I wonder—I wonder if the bear didn't bring us out for something bigger than an escape."

"What's happened to Eyvind?" asked Asa. "He was everywhere one moment, now he doesn't seem to know what we're doing."

"I think the bear scared him off. In his world, the bear must not exist, so he dare not face it."

"That may be true," she replied. "Or perhaps the bear was another trick of his. How can you be sure?"

"I can't be sure I'm right," I said. "A man who never questions himself becomes an Eyvind Kellda in the end. But I can be sure of the One I know. I can be sure that I've met Him, and that He's spoken to me. Knowledge is thinking and feeling—both, not one or the other."

"Thinking and feeling have naught to do with one another. One is Odin, the other Thor."

"The Word became flesh, Asa. That's how we can know God."

"Flesh is all words and thoughts. Spirit is all feelings and dreams. They don't walk together, Aillil. I know. I've tried. Hasn't everyone?"

"We must go to Somme," said Astrid suddenly.

"What?" I asked.

"Olaf and Erling were following shortly. How soon depends on the winds they get. And we don't know how long we were in the pit, do we? It could have been days for all we can tell. If we can be at Somme when they come, we can warn them that Eyvind and the berserkers hold Sola."

"Eyvind must have men at Somme, too," I said.

"Still, there are bound to be fewer there. And we must try to warn our people."

"It makes sense," said Asa. "When things grow quieter, we must go."

I said to Astrid, "Asa doesn't know why they come."

Astrid said nothing.

"The king is coming, with the bishop and the priests, to baptize every soul here. Every soul. By Thangbrand's means."

"And Erling cannot stop him?"

"He had to agree. But he sent me to warn you all. For all the good it did."

She said, "Still, we must go. Perhaps Olaf will change his thinking if I help you warn him."

"I wouldn't count on it."

"All men honor friendship and service."

"Olaf, yes, I think so. But Thangbrand, and the bishop as he's becoming—they think that to be swayed by friendship is disloyalty to God."

"How can you believe something that makes men act so shamefully?"

"The higher a thing is, the it smells when rotten. A bad man is worse than a bad rat."

"Well, we must go, whatever happens."

"You could run now. Astrid and I can warn them."

"Hmm—I can run into the arms of the king, or into the arms of the berserkers. I might as well stay with you two."

We waited a little longer, and things continued quiet. We made our way carefully between the buildings and over the meadow wall, then around and northward, down the hill and onto the path to Somme. The wind blew cold and we pulled our cloaks tight around us.

"The balefire," I said.

"What?" asked Astrid.

"We should light the balefire."

"One of Erling's fires?"

"No. The king's fire. At Tjora."

"That's only for attacks that touch the safety of the land."

"They're lying in wait for the king. Back in Ireland, we call that an attack on the land."

"You're right of course."

We skirted Somme. It was nearing dawn when we reached Tjora, footsore and tired, not to mention hungry. We crept up the hill and peered at the two men who guarded it, crouched around a small campfire. We'd circled them and come from downwind, and the smell alone was enough to tell us they were berserkers.

We moved back a bit and thought out our strategy. Astrid moved around to the upwind side, which was where they were turned in any case. "Friends, have you anything to eat?" she asked, playing the part of a beautiful woman in distress (and very well). When she could see us moving up from our side she feigned a swoon, and the two berserkers scrambled forward to help her (and likely to use their hands a bit). As they bent down to her, Asa and I ran up and smashed them over their heads with stones. Of course braining men with stones is no exact art—one of them required three or four blows—we may have killed him—I never cared to learn. I took a faggot from the campfire and set fire to the twigs and dried heather piled around the base of the great cone of tarred rails, set upright and stacked against one another. It took a few minutes because of the damp, but the wood caught at last and went up in a blaze and a cloud of black, choking smoke. We moved away quickly then, in case some more of Eyvind's men were about. I thought they'd have trouble dousing it soon even if they were, but I didn't want to be around.

Before we went we pillaged the guards' food bag. We got some cheese and bread, which we wolfed down with more pleasure than we'd gotten from the Jul feast.

"Someone will see the fire," said Astrid, blowing on her fingers to warm them. "One way or another, Olaf will know there's trouble. And all the way up the coast they'll be be raising levies."

 

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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