Wolfsangel (30 page)
Authors: M. D. Lachlan
‘Bastards,’ said Bragi. Vali shoved the old man off him and he rolled away, cursing. ‘I have demanded a trial,’ said Bragi. He was fuming. He was indifferent to anything but the injustice he had suffered and, it seemed to Vali, had been complaining of it almost as he fell.
Vali glanced up at the square of stars above him and looked around him at the walls of the pit. He swallowed. There was an awful ache in his throat and one in his head to keep it company. He remembered how he had once stood on Bragi’s shoulders to gain access to the church. That was their way out of the pit. He was sure he could reach the lip to pull himself up. Did he have enough strength, though? A face appeared against the moonlit sky, almost as if on cue to render his question meaningless. There were guards. All he would get for trying to climb out was the butt of a spear in his face.
‘A trial is the least I am owed.’ Bragi was actually thumping the walls.
‘A trial?’ said Vali. His voice was rough and it was painful to speak.
‘Not that thing in the hall,’ said Bragi. ‘A trial by combat - holmgang, the proper way.’
‘You can’t challenge the king to fight. The assembly has decided.’ The prince spoke slowly and quietly to save his throat.
‘I have challenged him and he will provide a champion,’ said Bragi.
Vali leaned back against the wall. There was an acrid scent in his nostrils. He recognised it. Down on the beach they were burning the dead. Glimpses of what he had done came back to him.
‘I killed Orri,’ he said.
‘Yes.’
‘Then I am a kinslayer.’
‘You were bewitched by the mire. And he attacked you, remember. He was coming for you with a knife at the time.’
‘You would make a good advocate before the lawspeaker,’ said Vali. ‘I killed him. He was my kin.’
They sat for a while. Vali tried to come to terms with his crime. He couldn’t. He deserved to die for that alone. Then he said, ‘If you win, you’ll be free. I suppose it’s as logical a way out of this mess as any.’
‘I knew you would see it that way, lord,’ said Bragi, ‘and I am pleased to say I have issued a challenge on your behalf, as your trusted vassal.’
Vali almost laughed but the effort hurt.
‘Which of the king’s champions am I to face?’
‘Leikr,’ said Bragi. Vali swallowed. Forkbeard knew his business. He meant him to fight Adisla’s brother.
‘And you?’
‘The berserk in the pay of the Danes.’
‘He lived then?’
‘Yes. Forkbeard has promised him his freedom if he defeats me.’
Vali looked at Bragi. He was an old man, really, still useful in a shield wall or on a raid because of his experience; in personal combat he would be no match for the berserk. Bragi had his tricks, his skills and his willpower. The berserk was in his prime, a giant and a war leader. Still, Vali was pleased for Bragi. He would die the way he would have wanted.
Bragi read what was on Vali’s mind.
‘It was the best I could do. Better this way than the rope, eh?’
‘I won’t fight Adisla’s brother,’ said Vali.
‘Then he’ll kill you.’
‘Yes. I deserve that for what I’ve done.’
‘And she?’
‘He’ll look for her.’
‘No. Forkbeard won’t let him. He’s declared her nithing, a sorceress and a force for evil, for the bad luck she has brought.’
‘Adisla is no more a sorceress than I am.’
‘Forkbeard says she is, that she was so envious of his daughter that she bewitched you and turned you against the people who have been your hosts for so many years. Do you know she killed her mother? It was seen, as the Danes approached their farm. She cut her mother’s throat.’
Vali breathed out and leaned back. What must it have taken for Adisla to do that? Her mother must have asked her to do it to deny the Danes the satisfaction of her rape and murder. Again Vali felt no tears, just that hollow empty feeling that he knew he could only fill with Danish blood. He imagined little Manni with his seax at the door, trying to defend his mother and sister, struck down by people who could easily have disarmed him and sent him on his way with a kick up the backside. Vali had never known such a cold fury inside him.
‘Ma Disa couldn’t be moved and Adisla looked to spare her,’ said Vali.
‘That’s not how Forkbeard sees it. Or her brothers. They’ve forsworn her and are pledged to kill her, if ever she’s found. The girl’s hopes rest with you, which is to say she has none at all.’
Vali nodded. ‘Then I,’ he said, ‘must find a way to live.’
25 Escape
It was the brief night and the lonely voice of a wolf was in the hills, far away over the dark valleys, its howl testing the emptiness. It was almost as if Vali could understand what it was saying. ‘I am here,’ it said. ‘Where are you?’ A bright full moon lit the night sky, turning Vali’s skin to silver, even in the pit.
‘They sound hungry, don’t they? Don’t worry, little wolf, you won’t starve for long. We’ve got two juicy hunks of traitor flesh here in the pit for you.’
It was the voice of Ageirr, the rider who had taken Adisla, come to taunt him. Her brothers had come before of course, but they had said nothing. Leikr had looked down at him, and Vali had felt his friend’s anger and pain. He’d tried to talk to him, not to defend himself but to tell him his little brother had died a heroic death, but Leikr had just walked away.
Ageirr was not angry; he was there for fun. He pulled down his trousers and took a heavy piss into the dark of the pit. Neither Bragi nor Vali gave him the satisfaction of complaining.
‘I did it with your little girl, you know, Vali. She asked me to. She said you couldn’t do it properly and would a real man please her.’
‘You’ll have the same pox as me then,’ said Vali with difficulty. ‘I thought your piss smelled like mine.’
Bragi laughed like he might shake something loose. The old man’s arm-thumping appreciation of Vali’s wit almost made the prince wish he hadn’t bothered.
Ageirr chuckled under his breath. There was movement beside him. He had someone with him, it seemed, most likely some of his cronies from Forkbeard’s bodyguard. He poked his head over the side of the pit.
‘You don’t seem bothered by what I did. Is she such a slut?’
‘Adisla wouldn’t look at you, Jarl Ageirr; she prefers high-born men.’
Ageirr set his jaw. ‘I am a jarl and the same as you,’ he said.
‘Is a jarl the same as a prince of the line of Odin? Tell me, did your father grant your mother her freedom before or after he knocked her up with you? Or is it true what they say, that she loved the thrall Kobbi and that you are his child?’
‘Which Danish pig’s bastard will Adisla be fathering?’ said Ageirr. ‘She’ll have been ridden from here to Haithabyr by now, and when they sell her on she’ll be ridden from there to wherever she’s going.’
Vali had been trying to keep Adisla’s likely fate from his mind since she had been taken.
‘If you’ve anything behind those words, step into the pit and let’s debate them in the old-fashioned way,’ said Bragi.
‘Oh, do be quiet,’ said Ageirr. ‘I wouldn’t want you alerting anyone to the little present we’ve brought for you. No no, you’re far enough away that no one will hear.’
‘Where are the guards?’
‘We are the guards.’
There was a sound of dragging and then some conversation between Ageirr and the other man at the top.
‘Take the bag off its head as you throw it in. No, you idiot. Cut the ties on the legs but hold the muzzle, I don’t want the thing biting me.’
There was a low note of distress that Vali had heard before. He knew what they had. It was a wolf.
‘Forkbeard will want to know how that got in with us,’ said Vali.
‘It just fell in, I suppose. You know what wolves are like,’ said Ageirr. ‘They sneak up on even the most vigilant guards. If you kill it, we’ll just say it fell in. He’s hardly likely to believe a kinslayer.’
The word felt sharp as a spear to Vali. Ageirr could try to humiliate him in any way and he would ignore it as the spiteful rantings of a fool, but nothing was more bitter to him than the truth that he had murdered one of his own.
Vali heard a scrabbling at the side of the pit, saw a flicker as something moved across the sky above him, and then a body hit him, hard. Instinctively he flinched back, throwing up his hands to defend his face from the attack of the wolf, but nothing came.
He heard a shout and the sound of a sword coming free from a scabbard.
‘Who’s there? Who’s there? No, no! No!’
Something else, wetter, hit him.
The light was dim in the pit but Vali could see perfectly well. It was just that his mind was having difficulty coming to terms with what was in front of him. Across his legs was the body of Ageirr. He was dead.
With them in the pit was another body. It was Signiuti, one of Forkbeard’s bodyguards, pulsing blood from a huge wound at his neck. He had fallen flat on his back onto Bragi, his sword still in his hand. Vali saw he had no throat; it had been torn clean away. Vali pushed Aegirr’s corpse off him, the blood black and shiny on the white of his hands, light on darkness, life on death.
Then Bragi was on his feet, taking the sword from the corpse’s hand. A face looked down at them. At first Vali thought it was a wolf. Then his eyes adjusted to the light. It was his own face, framed by a wolf’s pelt.
‘Do you mind stopping throwing bodies at us?’ said Bragi, ‘second thoughts, chuck a few more down and we’ll climb out on ’em.’
A ladder was lowered into the pit and neither man needed a second invitation. Bragi was up first. Vali untied Signiuti’s sword from his belt and followed.
When he put his head over the lip of the pit, he could see Bragi looking uncertainly at the wolfman. Feileg was freeing the wolf. He untied the animal’s front paws, then took off the bag. The wolf snapped and bit but Feileg made a low noise, inclined his head and scratched at the dirt. The animal became calmer. It looked about it, first at Feileg, then at Bragi and Vali. Then it ran and was gone.
Vali pulled himself up to face the wolfman in the moonlight. His instinct was to attack him but he had seen where that had got Aegirr and Signiuti. The bandit’s hands and face were covered with blood and Vali didn’t need to be told where it had come from.
The wolfman fixed him with a stare. His eyes seemed to go right into Vali. The prince recognised the look - cold murder.
‘Where is she?’ said the wolfman.
‘Who?’
‘The girl. Adisla.’
‘I don’t know. I want to find her. Why does it concern you?’
‘I love her.’
‘What?’
‘I love her. She was kind to me. It means she loves me too.’
This was too much for Vali to take in, so he concentrated on more immediate concerns. ‘We have to leave. Now,’ he said.
‘You do what you like,’ said Bragi. ‘I’m going to find the berserk. To back down is to admit my guilt.’
Vali looked up at the stars. He couldn’t believe what Bragi was saying. ‘Who to? Forkbeard? You know he plans to make war on my father. That is your enemy, down there in those farms. The gods have proved you right by rescuing you from this pit. Don’t spite your fate by throwing your life away. I’ll need your sword where we are going, old friend.’
Vali’s reasoning did nothing to sway Bragi, but the declaration of friendship was unexpected. He had wanted that from the prince ever since they had been together.
‘Very well,’ said Bragi. He went to the ladder and started to climb back into the pit.
‘What are you doing?’
‘Getting us some clothes for wherever we’re going,’ he said. ‘We don’t want to freeze to death and I think we’d cause a stir if we turn up in Haithabyr on market day naked.’
Ageirr and Signiuti had a good deal of gear on them. Since his return Forkbeard had insisted on his warriors being fully armed at all times in case of another Danish attack. Aegirr, the richest man in the area after Forkbeard, had a good byrnie over a padded jacket, a helmet, sword, shield and axe. The poorer but still affluent Signiuti had no byrnie but a good coat, a fine knife with a whalebone handle, the sword Bragi had already taken and also a shield. Vali let Bragi take the byrnie. The old man also took Aegirr’s helmet and his other weapons. Vali took Signiuti’s stuff. He wasn’t sure how useful the shield would be but he knew its value as a shelter from the wind at sea. And it was to sea that he was going.
‘Old Brunn has a faering on the coast just a vika from here,’ said Vali. ‘It’s half a morning to get there, maybe more as we’ll have to be careful.’
‘That’s our surest way home,’ said Bragi. ‘We could be at Hordaheim within the week.’
Vali shook his head. ‘Forkbeard’s longships would run us down long before that,’ he said. ‘We’re going in another direction entirely.’ He turned to the wolfman. ‘Thank you. I don’t really see how I can pay you but, should you come to the court of my father, tell this story and say Vali the Swordless bids them receive you as they would himself.’
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