Fate's Needle (2 page)

Weaponless and stunned, Ulfrik looked up into the melee. Men dashed everywhere. He could not tell who was who, but he guessed the enemy was in retreat now that their leader was a corpse at Ulfrik’s feet.

Orm leaped up, ready to fight, as if he had never touched the ground. Ulfrik, still straddling Aki before him, nodded to his father. Even as men still swirled in combat, Orm dropped his fighting stance and strode to Ulfrik’s side. Kicking Aki’s body over, he dropped his hand to his son’s shoulder. Breathing heavily, father and son stared down at the corpse at their feet.

“You are a man today,” Orm finally said, patting Ulfrik’s back. “When I’m gone you will be a fine jarl.”

Ulfrik heard no more but his own beating heart. He looked to his father, who was surveying the ebbing tide of the battle, the bloody flotsam of its wake. Ulfrik smiled, and swore he would never forget this day.

***

The raiding party had been destroyed, killed to a man as near as anyone could tell. Once the bodies had been stripped of valuables and the raiders’ ship found and hauled overland to the hall, Ulfrik helped carry away the treasures. Orm made good on his promise to line the coast with the raiders’ heads, supervising a few men performing the grizzly task. Ulfrik was glad he did not have to watch.

Only one of their own had died—the man who had taken a hit from the thrown spears.

“A fool to die like that,” Orm had told Ulfrik privately. But later, when the man’s relatives came to collect their blood price, Orm had praised the man as if he were a hero from a saga. Some of the other men had taken serious injury, but once everyone had cleaned up, they nonetheless prepared to celebrate with a feast.

Ulfrik sat at the high table with his father, his uncle, and their hirdmen. Being a man meant he was to drink like a man, yet he still became drunk like a boy. Orm and Auden were in high spirits, and every time Ulfrik drained his mug it was ordered refilled. Ulfrik was enjoying the glory of the battle and the camaraderie of the warriors. Earlier, he had embellished his own role for the excitement of his cousins, ignoring Grim’s constant interruptions and belittlement. Now, Grim had disappeared, making the feast even more pleasant.

“Listen! Listen to me!” Orm banged on the table as he stood. “By the gods, still your mouths!”

Men laughed and fell silent, turning on their benches to look up to Orm.

“Today, we celebrate not only our victory, but also the making of a man.” Orm gestured to Ulfrik without looking down. Several of the men hammered on the tables and growled their approval. Ulfrik shrank under the attention, not knowing what to do.

“You’ve heard how he sent that rat-turd Aki Geirson to his death,” his father continued. “But you hear it now from me. Ulfrik slew two men today—equal to the head count of any of you. I watched him at work. Not a moment’s hesitation in his thrust. Aki thought Ulfrik was our weakest link, but he is fierce and strong. He is one of us!”

The hall swelled with cheers and roars. All of the mugs were raised to him and Orm snatched up his own.

“Stand up, boy.” Auden smiled and raised his own mug. “Take glory when it shines on you. Hurry!”

So Ulfrik stood, wobbling and taking up his mug. Orm guzzled his mead, and everyone followed. Ulfrik slugged his back, too, although the taste was beginning to make him nauseous. As he sat again, he noticed Orm whisper to Snorri. Something passed between them: an object Orm kept hidden behind his back. Snorri winked and stepped away.

“All men who fight in a battle are entitled to part of the spoils,” Orm said. “Ulfrik was in such a hurry to tell his cousins about his day, he forgot to grab his share.” Laughter rippled through the hall and Ulfrik smiled in embarrassment. He hadn’t thought of looting, even though he had been assigned the task of carrying the goods.

“I have picked the finest of spoils,” Orm said, “and I give it to you now.”

From behind his back, Orm produced Aki’s blade. The green gem inlaid in the pommel glittered and winked in the light of the hall. Orm turned it around and tipped the hilt at Ulfrik. “Take this, Ulfrik,” Orm said softly, and with more feeling than Ulfrik had ever heard from him. “Slay many foes with it. Gather glory with it. You made me proud today, and you have my thanks.”

Ulfrik carefully took the blade into his hands, as if it were an infant. The hilt welcomed him, fitting his hand as if made for him. A sharkskin wrap kept the hilt rough and tight in his grip. The weight felt perfect. He wanted to draw it, but there was no space. Instead, Ulfrik turned to the men and held it out over them. They cheered and clapped. Ulfrik felt his eyes become wet.

Then he saw Grim.

His brother was there after all, huddled in a dark corner. Amid the cheers, Grim stepped out of the shadows, his face taut with jealousy and his fists clenched in anger. Ulfrik felt his guts twist, an immediate reaction to his brother’s petty jealousy, but when he lowered his sword and looked back, Grim was gone. Auden slapped Ulfrik’s back in congratulations, and Ulfrik soon forgot about his brother.

The feasting and drinking continued. Ulfrik tried to keep up with the men, but soon the room began to spin and he slumped forward, his foggy head resting on the table. The laughter of the hall rang in his ears.

***

The next morning, he awoke on the floor beneath the table, surrounded by vomit, urine, and spilled food and drink. Everyone else had passed out in the hall too, including Orm and Auden. He put out a hand for his sword, groping through the mess on the floor, only to find it missing. Frantic, he shook his father and uncle awake.

“Master Ulfrik, I believe this is yours.” Before Orm or Auden understood what was happening, one of the few sober guards bore Ulfrik’s sword inside.

The scabbard was missing. The blade had been snapped. Images of Grim breaking it flashed into Ulfrik’s mind.

Orm appeared to have had the same thought. “Grim!” he growled, as soon as he saw the blade.

Ulfrik’s vision reddened. He wanted to gut his brother with the snapped shard left in the hilt.

“You will stay here and not leave this hall.” His father stayed his hand. “Do you understand?”

“I’m going to kill him!” Ulfrik roared back, but Orm yanked down hard on his arm, nearly throwing him to the floor.

“You will stay here, and I will deal with your brother. Obey me in this.”

So Ulfrik waited with Auden, who did not seem to understand what had happened, even after seeing the shattered blade. Ulfrik slumped at the high table, gazing mournfully at the broken sword on his lap. At least the hilt was still intact.

Next to him, Auden leaned over and stared at the hilt. For a long while neither spoke.

“That boy is a wild one,” Auden eventually said, shaking his head. “Every bit his mother’s temperament. She would’ve done something just like this.”

Ulfrik shook his head. His mother had died when he was just a child, but he didn’t remember any cruelty or spite in her. From Ulfrik’s earliest memories, Grim had been trouble: mean, petty, and jealous.

“I will have a new sword made for you, finer than this one,” Auden said, his voice weak from the night of drinking. “We can probably reuse the hilt. I’ll have the blacksmith look at it. Don’t worry, lad.”

Ulfrik sighed, accepting it was all that could be done. He never got to wield the entire blade, but the hilt, with its dazzling gem, was still a prize. He would treasure whatever Auden could do for him.

Auden took the broken hilt and left Ulfrik alone with his thoughts. Hours passed. He paced the hall as he waited, stepping over men still lost in drunken stupor, wishing his cousins and aunt might return to listen to his complaints. When he felt he could take no more, the hall door opened and Grim appeared. Flanking him on either side were Orm and Auden. Grim’s face was red, puffy as if he had been crying. Ulfrik wanted to pound it into the filth of the floor, but his father must have read that intent and held up his hand.

“Your brother has admitted to stealing and breaking your sword.” Orm nudged Grim forward. With his head bowed, Grim stopped just inside the door. He said nothing, simply wiped the snot from his nose and gazed at the floor.

“He stole a man’s property; worse yet, he stole and destroyed a man’s sword.” Orm turned back to Grim. “I’ve told Grim what that means, how that crime is handled in my lands.”

Orm’s expression was hard. Inscrutable. “But since it was your property, and you are a man now, I will let you decide how to punish your brother.”

Ulfrik sucked in his breath. He hadn’t expected a chance to dole out punishment. His first instinct was to beat Grim’s face in with the hilt of his ruined sword, but despite all of Grim’s trouble, he couldn’t bring himself to do it. He looked at his sniveling brother, who hung his head in shame. The redness of Grim’s face deepened the longer Ulfrik scrutinized him.
Three years younger than myself
, Ulfrik thought,
and he looks a pathetic child
. He hesitated.

Grim stole a look under his brow, snapping his eyes away when Ulfrik’s eyes met his.

“Out with it, Ulfrik.” Orm strode up behind him and placed a hand on his shoulder. “What do we do with your brother?”

“He needs to apologize,” Ulfrik said, surprising himself and apparently everyone else who heard.

Grim looked up now, a furious expression twisting his red and swollen face.

“That’s all I want from him, Father.”

A disapproving scowl bloomed in the crags of his father’s face. Ulfrik expected a rebuke, but none came. Instead, Orm faced Grim, hollering in a voice he reserved for chasing dogs out of his path. “You heard it, boy. Apologize!”

Grim hesitated, the words trembling on his lips. He snarled like a wolf with its leg in a trap. When Orm drew breath to order again, Grim let the words rush out: “I apologize.”

“For what?” Orm snapped.

“For stealing Ulfrik’s sword and breaking it. I am sorry.”

Ulfrik had never heard a more insincere apology. He immediately regretted not taking sterner action, but he merely nodded his acceptance.

“And to make sure you remember your words, you will take three lashes across your back. You’ll get them from me,” Orm said.

Grim’s flush faded to white fear. Even Ulfrik wanted to protest, but the words caught in his throat. Ulfrik had seen his father lash men who had broken the law. He had even seen his father hang a man for something terrible; he could still remember the wails of the man’s family.

“Take him outside!” Orm ordered one of the warriors.

Grim struggled, but the man jerked him around with a curse and dragged him to the exit.

“I’ll not forget this, Ulfrik.” Grim grabbed the door and scowled back at his elder brother. “Neither will you! None of you!”

Orm shook his head as Grim was dragged away. Turning back to Ulfrik, the scowl still in place, he asked, “Do you think mercy will make things easier?”

“I couldn’t think what to do, Father.” Ulfrik winced at his own childish words.

“Your mercy,” Orm said, spitting out the words like they were foul in his mouth, “will only make men despise you, take you for a weakling and fool. Your brother would love you better had you broken his hands.”

Ulfrik recoiled from Orm’s anger. How could his father be right? If the situation were reversed, he would’ve wanted mercy.

“Orm, you know that’s not always the case.” Auden intervened. “Grim is his brother; leniency is understandable.”

Orm gazed over Ulfrik’s head at Auden. Neither spoke for an uncomfortable length of time. When Orm found his words, he spoke evenly. “Get me a lash, Auden. Leniency is intolerable.”

His father and uncle turned away from each other, leaving Ulfrik caught in the draft between them. Eventually, Orm fetched the lash himself.

Grim whimpered as the first lash struck his bare back. On the final two, he screamed like a babe in front of everyone, including all of their cousins. When it was done, he lay face down, rivulets of blood staining the grass beneath him.

Throwing the lash away, Orm then stormed off.

Unable to look any more, Ulfrik turned away. He wanted to vomit; when he was alone, he almost did.

***

Grim sobbed alone at the edge of the trees where the track ran south toward Grenner, his home. He cried for the throbbing, convulsing pain in his back, but he cried more for his desperate confusion and loneliness. He had spent all day in the woods, alone, and no one even cared that he had gone.

Finally mastering his tears, as the last drops streamed down his cheeks he scrubbed the snot from his nose and tried to stand tall. He wanted to appear dignified when he strode from the woods and into his uncle’s hall, wanted to seem as if nothing had happened.

Grim dreaded facing his father and brother again. Ulfrik would try to make things better, but Orm would just find something else wrong with him. They both hated him—Grim had always known that. He worked as hard as he could to change it, but it never worked. It had been Grim who had killed Orm’s wife, and his and Ulfrik’s own mother, in childbirth. Grim tried to imagine the mother he had never met, but even that nearly set him crying again as he arrived outside the hall.

Passersby him gave concerned looks, as if a foreigner had wandered into their midst. One woman, carrying a load of firewood, gave him a weak smile. Unable to match it, Grim kept walking until he stood before the guard outside the main hall.

“Is my father inside?”

The guard nodded soberly.

Grim placed his hand on the door and heaved a sigh before pushing it open.

Inside, the hall yawned black while Grim’s eyes adjusted to the dim light. Servant girls were clustered in a corner and his father was stooped over a mug at the end of the high table. He became of aware of the girls’ chatter only once it stopped. They backed away as he passed them, and then fled, like rabbits before a hound, out of his sight. His father didn’t move. Orm remained a dark lump, hunkered over his mead, black hair hiding his face like a cowl.

Grim cleared his throat. “I’ve returned, Father…” His voice trailed off. He had not thought of what else to say.

Orm stretched out his arm and beckoned his son closer. The boy wavered, hoping to find someone willing to intercede for him, but the hazy, smoke-filled hall was otherwise empty. Grim warily stepped toward Orm’s outstretched hand. His father’s arms were as thick as Grim’s legs, maybe thicker. Beneath the gold bands that encircled Orm’s biceps, white scars snaked over the muscles. Grim stepped up the short rise to the high table, and stopped … just out of reach. His father let his arm drop to his lap, but did not raise his head, or even look at Grim. The scent of mead hung over the jarl as he sat in silence. Finally, he drained his mug and threw it across the hall before speaking.