Down the slope and across the indigo dark fields, the golden lights of Nye Grenner's hall blinked. A cool breeze swished the grass in waves hardly visible in the half-light of night. Thrand leaned in the doorway of his house, a horn of dark beer in his trembling hand. The faintest traces of laughter reached him, causing his frown to deepen. A sheep bumped him from behind, the dumb animal wandering to the open door. He goaded it back inside with his foot to rejoin the six other sheep crowded into his home. With winter approaching, he needed their warmth indoors.
"If that's all the drink you have, then I'll be going." Thrand's friend, Kolbyr, spoke from within the house.
"No more for you, you leech. I used my silver to buy this cask for myself. A reward for my troubles." Thrand shoved off the door frame, spit in the direction of the hall, then turned to face Kolbyr. He fixed his friend with his good eye. Men called him Thrand the Looker for his lazy eye, and he had a habit of relying on the good eye to focus. Two fish oil lamps filled the single-room house with wan but clear light. Kolbyr sat at his table, two sheep idly chewing at hay strewn beneath his feet. He was a young man just short of being handsome. A newcomer to Nye Grenner, he was no doubt a fugitive from trouble. He served in Ulfrik's crew with reasonable dedication, though Thrand knew Kolbyr could offer more. After the death of Thrand's brother, Njal, he had no family or friends. Kolbyr was the only man who would drink with him.
"I've got silver too," Kolbyr said, touching his belt pouch as if to ensure he had not lost it. "But it's not as much as yours. Ulfrik likes you for some reason."
"Likes me! Ha!" Thrand pulled the door shut against the night and shambled to the table, wading through his sheep. "He feels sorry for me. Takes pity on me! Like I need it."
Kolbyr raised his eyebrows and guzzled from his mug. The dismissive gesture riled Thrand.
"I risked my life for his family. My brother went to the sea grave for them. But what did it get me? Ruin! Look at this piss hole! Where are my flocks?" He pointed at his sheep. "This is no flock, not even close."
"You drank your flocks," Kolbyr said, dropping his mug on the table with a dull thud. His eyes were clear ice and his hair an enviable blond. Thrand could never exactly place what detracted from his looks, but he suspected his words made him less fair. "Are you listening to me?"
"I don't need to listen to your shit," Thrand said, draining the last of his beer. He placed the horn upside down on the table.
"But you should, since I'm the only one talking to you anymore. You've convinced everyone else to avoid you."
"Well, I'm not keeping you here, am I? Go fall off a cliff, plenty of 'em around."
Kolbyr laughed, pulling the pouch of silver off his belt. He shook the contents onto the table, sharp triangles of silver hacked into bits from plates and rings clinked together on the wood. He stirred the pile with his finger, spinning off flashes of lamplight. "How much do you think Lord Ulfrik holds out for himself? We all risked our lives the same, but he took a slave and a ship, along with a share of silver."
Drunk as he was, Kolbyr's words sobered him. His friend's chill gaze met his from under his brow, finger still pushing bits of silver.
"I know, but he is the jarl. Aren't they all the same? More for them and less for everyone else. He's no better than the rest."
"No need to get so nervous. I was just asking the question."
Thrand sat upright, shocked he had appeared nervous. Kolbyr swept his pile of silver to the table edge and then back into the pouch. Thrand scanned his cramped house, a wreck of disorganization and half-broken relics of an old life. He had fought for Nye Grenner, fought for its people and its jarl, and sacrificed his own brother in its service. Now he was alone, and Jarl Ulfrik would rather he not live here at all.
Kolbyr's pile of silver was not much larger than his own. But had Kolbyr made the same sacrifices? Had he lost family, given up his life in service? Of course he had not, and Thrand felt his stomach tighten at the thought. All he had offered up, all he had lost, and he received maybe three or four scraps of silver more than a man who had not even nicked his skin in service to the same lord. Thrand did not consider himself a great thinker, but this did not make sense to him. If treasure was tight, then Kolbyr should have received much less.
"How can he hoard more?" The question slipped out of Thrand's mouth before he could consider it. "We all saw what was taken."
"I mean, could he have more treasure from before that he's not sharing? The man is holding out, is my guess. But like you said, all jarls do." Kolbyr stood, staggered a few steps, then belched. "I'll be going."
Thrand remained at the table, his fists clenched and his mouth pulled down. Kolbyr pushed past him, bumping through the sheep to the door. When it creaked open, Thrand called him to stop.
"What if Lord Ulfrik is holding out? Do you think you deserve more?"
Staring ahead into the stone bowl of the oil lamp. The grass wick began to gutter against the decreasing oil. A sheep bleated into the silence.
"Maybe I do," Kolbyr admitted. "I came here to get rich. Isn't that why you followed Ulfrik, too?"
Thrand let Kolbyr exit, but did not move to bar the door. He slouched over the table, fists clenched, frown deepening, and the light of his lamp burning out.
CHAPTER FOUR
"Hold it strong," Ulfrik said. Though Gunnar stood taller than other boys his age, he still vanished behind the round wooden shield he braced before him. Ulfrik could no longer afford the luxury of creating a shield in a boy's scale, not with the scarcity of wood. So Gunnar practiced with a grown man's shield.
Ulfrik watched his son dig in his heels and drop his waist. Snorri worked next to him, tugging him down farther and kicking Gunnar's feet wider. "That's more like it, lad. Make yourself a rock by pushing yourself into the earth. Protect yourself and the man at your side and the man behind you will hold you up. That's how the shield wall works."
Gunnar nodded understanding. At nine years, he was already training to be a warrior. Many more years would pass before he could stand in a shield wall, but Ulfrik knew the value of a long apprenticeship. For more than any other reason, he wanted Snorri to pass on his wisdom directly to the next generation. Ulfrik guessed Gunnar would be his only son to learn from the old breed, men who understood glory and honor, men like Snorri and Ulfrik's father. Hakon's illness would prevent him from standing in a shield wall, and the pain of that thought bit at Ulfrik's mind as he watched Gunnar preparing.
Clouds scudded past, carried by the wind, and the scent of Runa's cooking blew across his nose. In the distance, people wandered among buildings attending their daily chores. The happy scene should have raised Ulfrik's spirit, but instead he waited for Snorri to finish his instruction, feeling disheartened. No matter how he tried to distract himself, in idle moments his thoughts wrapped around the seidkona's derision and the worries of coming winter.
"We're ready," Snorri called across the brief distance. Hunkering behind Gunnar, he placed his hands on his back. Gunnar peered out from behind his shield.
"Let's hear your war voice," Ulfrik said as he prepared himself for the run. "Your grandfather was called the Bellower, so do him honor. A strong war shout can stop a man as good as a shield wall."
Gunnar lowered his shield and screeched his war cry. Ulfrik suppressed his laugh, and noticed people in the distance glance toward them. The shrill sound needed age to deepen and fill it out.
"Come get us, you goat turd!" Snorri added his own challenge. "Or go back to sucking your mother's tits!"