An old woman, stooped and toothless, eyes creased from years laboring under the sun, raised a gnarled fist and shouted for blood. Others swarmed forward with her, a maniacal chorus fevered with killing lust. Ulfrik nodded and warned them back with raised hands. He glanced down at Gunnar, who remained with arms folded and face impassive. He then scanned the ring of spearmen keeping the crowd at bay, found Einar staring at him expectantly, and gave the order to him.
"Bring forward the accused that he may face justice for his crimes."
The crowd ejected a ragged man held between two of Ulfrik's armored hirdmen. Coarse hair sprouted from the tears in his shirt, which was spattered with rust colored stains. The man's family followed behind: a son barely in full beard and a pinch-faced wife towing a girl so nondescript Ulfrik mistook her for a child's doll. Their clothing matched the sky for its sodden dreariness. The accused man was shoved onto his knees before the rock. His head sagged, displaying pink skin beneath a thin net of hair. The entire clan was grimy, shiftless rabble hardly worth the time spent on this show of power.
"As Jarl of Ravndal," Ulfrik intoned, his commanding voice bringing quiet to the gathered crowd, "I have summoned the community to pass sentence on this man. Where is his accuser?"
A second group emerged from the crowd: a young woman and her two daughters huddled together as if in a storm at sea. All three combined were hardly the size of one healthy woman. The man at Ulfrik's feet tried to stand when she approached, but his guards shoved him down. The mother's face was swollen and the muddy tracks of tears showed on her cheeks. She pointed at the man on the ground. "I am Sigrid Thorkelsdottir and I accuse Gudmund of murdering my husband, Agnar Erlandson."
Cries for justice renewed and consumed the rest of Sigrid's testimony. Ulfrik acted as though he heard, though the facts of Gudmund's night of drunken madness were common knowledge. He was caught staggering down the boards of the main road with a bloodied knife. His clothes were stained with Agnar's blood. Ulfrik raised his arms for quiet, continuing once he received it.
"Here is my judgment in the murder of Agnar. No fewer than six men have sworn witness to Gudmund's crime. None have stood in Gudmund's defense."
"Not so, Lord Ulfrik!" The son threw himself against the hirdmen baring him with a spear. "My father was at home that night. I swear it. He shared a drink with me, then went to bed."
"It's true, Lord," Gudmund added, his face bright. "I had too much to drink and I don't remember nothing. Someone's trying to blame me, is all. She did it, killed her own husband and took advantage of me while I was drunk. That's the truth of it."
The spearmen shoved back against the enraged crowd. Rotten cabbages and onions catapulted from the crowd to fall among Gudmund and his family. Ulfrik glanced at Gunnar, whose calm seemed shaken by the raw aggression of the crowd.
"I demand order," he roared. "Silence!"
Ulfrik's war-voice struck men with awe on the field of battle, and used on his own people it cowed them into submission. He glowered at the crowd, finally settling upon Gudmund with a sneer.
"You will deny it to the end? Your hands are still flaked with Agnar's dried blood. You were seen entering his home, heard swearing to kill him for whatever insults you had imagined, and then captured not more than twenty paces from his front door. And your bloody footprints tracked back to his body. Gudmund, your guilt is witnessed by six sworn men. There is no more to be said."
"No one saw him do it!" The son reached his arms over the hirdmen restraining him.
"I saw him," Sigrid screamed. "I was in the bed when he attacked. He slashed my leg."
"She's only a woman," the son countered. "It's not right that she give witness."
"What is not right, Throst," Ulfrik growled, finally recollecting the name of Gudmund's son, "is the death of a husband and father for an argument that no one remembers the reason for starting. You've had your say; now I command your silence."
Throst stepped back, a snarl on his lips. He fixed his eyes on Ulfrik, and to his shock the boy mouthed a curse at him before rejoining his cowering sister and mother. Ulfrik stared him down, but Gudmund awaited judgment and so turned to him.
"You are guilty of murder. For this you must die and Agnar's blood price will be paid from your family's belongings. Do you have anything to say?"
Gudmund shook his head. "Allow me to go to Valhalla, Lord. Strike off my head and kill me as a warrior."
The request drew grumbles from the crowd. Even Gunnar dared a glance at Ulfrik for his reaction. He expected nothing less from this man who had served him more like a rat in larder than a warrior in a shieldwall.
"You will die on the hanging tree and are condemned to Nifleheim. Your body will hang until it rots, as a warning to all who carry evil in their hearts. You are a shiftless murderer, Gudmund. Your family is banished from my lands, and I declare them outlaws once they've crossed beyond my borders. This is my judgment."
"No," cried Throst. "You will pay for this!"
The jubilation of the crowd swept over the threat, but Ulfrik marked it with a glare. He jumped off the rock without another thought for Throst and ordered Gudmund taken to the tree and his family held pending collection of the blood price. Einar, Ulfrik's capable second, oversaw the process of securing the rope and directing the men. The gathered crowd flung garbage at Gudmund, just as often hitting a hirdman.
A husky voice over his shoulder whispered in his ear.
"Should've killed the whole family, lad, at least the son for making that threat." Snorri appeared at his side, steadying himself on Ulfrik's shoulder. His leg had been speared in a battle with the Franks and, combined with his age, left him unsteady.
"Sending them over the border to the Franks is the same. Besides, they've done nothing to deserve hanging. I'm glad enough to be rid of them."
At last Gudmund stood beneath the noose with hands bound behind his back. The hirdman in the tree signaled the rope was secure, and two others raised him off the ground and looped the noose over his head.
"Avenge me, Throst! I got a dog's death!"
Einar checked Ulfrik for confirmation, which he provided with a slow nod. The men released Gudmund and stepped back.
The crowd thrilled as Gudmund's weight snapped the noose tight around his neck. He thrashed and kicked, his eyes bulging as the rope strangled him. His body twirled and his head hung to the side. The tree limb sagged and creaked with the weight. More garbage struck him, each hit eliciting a collective jeer. Blood spluttered from his nose, splashing down his beard.
Ulfrik watched, betraying nothing of his thoughts. In days past he merely had to dispense justice and be done. He would have pulled hard on Gudmund's legs to snap his neck and end his suffering. Today his followers would consider such action an insult and a sign of weakness. So he watched and hid his revulsion behind a blank expression. He glanced away to be certain Gunnar did not flinch or show any sign of emotion.
At last Gudmund's struggles slowed to reflexive kicks. His tongue swelled and fell from his mouth, and in final humiliation his crotch bloomed with dark wetness as his bladder loosened in death.
A keening wail went up from the back of the crowd. Ulfrik saw Gudmund's wife and family had been allowed to watch, and the wife had broken down at the moment of his death. Ulfrik's snarl enticed the guards responsible for the family to drag them away before anything else might happen.
"It is done," Ulfrik said, then he addressed the crowd. "Murder is the worst crime a man can commit. All of you look on Gudmund's corpse and be reminded that my justice is sure and swift. By law our land is made and by lawlessness it is undone. I uphold the law fairly for every one of you. In turn, I expect your obedience to the laws of common good. Now return to your lives and let no one touch Gudmund's body while it hangs from this tree."