Two Ravens (20 page)

Bjarni swung the axe around and struck the weapon from Jon’s hand. Ulf lunged at him and the glittering knife passed between his arm and his body and sliced the shirt on both sides. Bjarni’s fingers closed on his brother’s wrist. Ulf twisted; he drove the knife into Bjarni’s arm. Going down on one knee, Bjarni freed him, and he and Jon ran out of the woodshed.

Bjarni sat down heavily; his hand was running dark with blood pouring down his arm under his sleeve. His head whirled. He dragged the air deep into his lungs. When he was steady again, he put his feet under him and went out of the shed.

The rain had stopped. Low clouds still hid the sky and pressed down over the mountains. Taking the axe in his hand, he went down the slope to the farmyard and let himself into the barn.

Hiyke put her head over the edge of the loft. “Bjarni?”

“I am here,” he said, breathless.

She climbed down the ladder, her skirt flapping around her feet. “What happened?” She grasped his arm and held it so that she could pull his sleeve open.

“Ulf and Jon,” he said.

“Did you kill them?”

“They ran away.”

She bent his arm up to slow the bleeding and climbed the ladder again. Within a moment she was back, a sheet of linen over her arm and a jar in her hand.

“Where did they go?”

He shook his head. The shock of the wound was passing and he felt stronger. She pushed his sleeve up and bathed the long wound in the potion from the jar and wrapped it with the linen.

“I will help you,” she said. “You can’t fight them all at once.”

“Stay here and keep out of this,” he said. He turned her face up, his hand on her chin, and kissed her. A sound from the door startled them both.

Kristjan came through the door. He said, “Jon and Ulf are in the hall—Ulf has the sword down off the wall.”

Bjarni took the axe by the throat. “Stay here with him,” he said to Hiyke, and went out of the barn.

The geese were spread across the yard, grubbing in the mud. Bjarni stood a moment in the doorway of the barn. The door to the hall was open. Within it was no sound, and nothing moved. Bjarni went around the hall to the far side and climbed onto the roof above the bedchamber behind the hall.

He slit the gutskin window with his knife and dropped down through it into the darkened room where Gudrun lay. Quietly he went out to the hall.

Ulf and Jon framed the doorway. Ulf had the broadsword their grandfather had carried and Jon had the hayfork. They did not see Bjarni behind them. He went to the High Seat and sat down in it; he threw the axe onto the table before him.

His half-brothers jumped like hares. They sprang away from the door, spinning to face him. When he saw Bjarni there, Jon cried out.

Bjarni looked from Ulf to Jon. He said, “The rain is past. We will sail out tomorrow to fish.” He stared at Jon. “Go down the valley and bring back as many as will sail with us.”

Jon glanced at Ulf, who said nothing.

“Put away the hayfork,” Bjarni said, “before you drop it on your foot, and go.”

Silently Jon leaned the fork up against the wall and went out of the hall. Bjarni sat back in the High Seat. He had never sat in it before. Now Hiyke and he would share it. Ulf was watching him. His head was lowered, like a hostile dog.

“Go make the ship ready,” Bjarni said. He lifted his voice. “Andres! Go with him.”

From the back of the room came Andres, stoop-shouldered, who passed by Ulf close enough to touch him before climbing the three steps to the door. As he went out, Hiyke appeared on the threshold.

Ulf sank down slowly onto his heels and laid the sword on the floor. He backed away from it. He said, “I want to stay with Gudrun.”

“Do as I told you,” Bjarni said.

Ulf raised his hands. “She is dying!” He shook his hands at Bjarni. “You did that to her, didn’t you.”

“She killed Gifu,” Bjarni said. Hiyke was watching them from the doorway.

“I killed Gifu!” Ulf said. “I meant to poison you—I poisoned the mead. She drank it, the greedy slut—”

Bjarni stood up out of the High Seat; he put one foot in the middle of the table and leapt on his brother. He bore Ulf down under him on the floor.

“Stop!” Hiyke pulled his arm. Her strength was nothing, a feather against him. With his hands on Ulf’s throat, he let her draw him away. Ulf choked and gasped on the floor.

“You heard him,” Hiyke said. “She was innocent! She was innocent—”

Bjarni kicked at Ulf, who scuttled away toward the door.

“She was innocent,” Hiyke said. “We killed an innocent woman—”

The door slammed. They were alone in the hall. Bjarni grasped her hands tight in his.

“Listen to me. No one knows you had anything to do with it. Keep still, and no one ever will.”

Her eyes widened. “Do you think that is all that matters? I know—I am guilty before God.” She scrubbed the back of her hand over her mouth. “You did this to me,” she said.

“Ulf will suffer—that is what matters to me. For the rest, keep still.”

The sword was lying on the floor a little way from him. He picked it up and carried it to its place on the wall behind the High Seat. He pulled the bearskin off the back of the High Seat.

Hiyke watched him; her face was slack.

He ran his hand over the carved back of the High Seat. The thousands of coils of the Midgard Serpent circled around and around the two posts and the sides. In the middle of the back was carved a scene in relief of two men fishing from a boat. It was Thor, fishing for the World Snake. The flat surfaces of the wood were polished from the skin that had hidden them so long. He ran his fingertips over them, pleased to have uncovered them again. When he looked up Hiyke was gone.

GUDRUN DIED in the night. Bjarni sent Kristjan around the bay to the church to bring back the priest so that Gudrun could be buried. The day passed, and Kristjan did not return.

Bjarni was sitting in the High Seat. Hiyke came to him.

“Where is my son?”

“Probably he spent the night with Eirik,” Bjarni said. “There is no hurry.”

She seemed much older, and as beautiful as a Norn who kept the world young. He put out his hand to her, where she stood beside his chair.

“Come sit beside me.”

“No,” she said, loudly.

“You made a bargain with me. I have taken the High Seat, and now you must give me what I desire.”

“It was a bargain made in Hell,” she said. “I will not honor it, now or ever.”

“You are talking out of fear,” he said. “If Gudrun did not poison Gifu, certainly she knew.”

She took the silver cross in her hand. “My choice is between you and God. After what I have done, only God can save me.”

He pinned her with his gaze. “I am giving you no choice,” he said. “I will have what I want, no matter what the cost.”

“Damn you,” she said, “and damn the devil in you.”

She looked at him like an enemy. He rubbed his hand over the arm of the serpent chair. That made it easy: he could master enemies.

He said, “Is there any left of that poison?”

“Yes,” she said.

He stretched out his hand. “Give it to me.”

Her face tightened.

“Give it to me!”

She took the vial from her apron and put it into his hand. He sat back in the High Seat, and she walked out of the hall.

KRISTJAN DID NOT COME BACK the following day, either, but on the day after that, he appeared on the road to Hrafnfell. Two men were riding with him, the priest and Eirik Arnarson himself.

Bjarni saw them from the yard. Going into the hall, he found his brothers sitting in a pack beside the hearth. He stood looking down on them, and none of them would meet his look.

“Kristjan is bringing Eirik Arnarson,” he said. “He clearly has been this long telling him what has been happening here and convincing him to interfere. You must all do as I say, or we will be in great trouble.”

“You are the cause of it,” said Ulf, in a ragged voice.

“I will cause enough for us all if you do not do as I say. You must tell Eirik that you have considered and you are giving up your claim to Hrafnfell to me.”

Ulf swiveled his head away. At the far end of the hall the steps creaked.

Hiyke called, “Here is Kristjan.”

Bjarni nudged Ulf with his foot. “We will meet them in the yard.”

None of his brothers moved. Their shoulders stooped, their heads bowed, they sat like stones on the hearth. Bjarni kicked Ulf, and all three of them sprang up. They went hastily toward the yard.

Hiyke stood on the threshold. She stepped aside to let them pass. Ulf and Jon and Andres went by her. Bjarni took her arm and held her still.

“What will you say to Eirik Arnarson?” he asked.

She swept him with a look as blank as if she were blind. He saw she meant to escape from him if she could.

He tightened his grip on her arm. Low, he said into her ear, “If you are tempted to betray me again, just remember, it was you who poisoned Gudrun Sigurdsdottir.”

She gave a violent start. He went away from her, across the yard, to meet Eirik Arnarson.

The chieftain wore a strained smile. He did not offer Bjarni his hand. He said, “Kristjan here speaks of bad feeling among you, he says you are all fighting.”

Kristjan watched from the back of his horse, his face impassive.

“No longer,” Bjarni said. “Ulf will tell you.”

Ulf raised his head. He pushed back his shaggy fair hair. Flatly he said, “Bjarni is master here. I have given my place in the inheritance to him.”

“This is interesting news,” Eirik said. He looked from one to the next of the Hoskuldssons. “Is it of your own will?”

Ulf muttered, “Yes.”

Now Eirik was staring at Bjarni. “Yet Kristjan here would have it there was force used.”

“He is set against me,” Bjarni said. “He hates me because I am to marry his mother.”

Eirik rubbed his jaw. His eyes glided back toward Kristjan.

“He is lying,” the boy said.

The chieftain said, “Hiyke, what is the truth?”

She did not respond.

Kristjan said, “Mother, tell them the truth.”

Still she was silent. Her face was like bone, her eyes like two holes burned into bone.

“Mother,” Kristjan said. “He will send me away.”

Bjarni went to stand by Kristjan’s horse. He said, “Answer them, Hiyke.”

She raised her glittering eyes. “It is as Bjarni says.” She went down into the hall, and the door shut behind her.

Eirik’s pent breath exploded from him in a grunt. He said, “I see there is no work for me here.” He lifted his reins to go.

Bjarni said to Kristjan, “Get out. If you ever come back, I will give you to the ravens.”

Kristjan turned his horse and trotted away after Eirik Arnarson.

LATE IN THE DAY Bjarni went out to the cliff above the sea, where he had carved runes before. In the soft volcanic rock he cut Gifu’s name in letters as large as his hand.

Ringbearer-no-wife

Thief of my peace

He could not finish the poem.

In the stone he found runes of Hoskuld’s, charms for fishing, charms against ghosts. He found a love-charm with Hiyke’s name inside it. He touched the edge of her name. Since she had broken faith with him, he could not think of her without anger.

He sat remembering his father, who had loved no one and trusted no one.

He walked back toward Hrafnfell with the light of the setting sun streaming at his back. His shadow stretched a hundred feet ahead of him over the grass. The grass rippled in waves all across the hillside. Two ravens circled in the sky above the hall of Hrafnfell. He foresaw his doom there, as his father had been doomed. Yet he would not turn aside. Already his shadow had reached the hall. He went into the hall and sat down in the High Seat.