He clapped his hands together in delight, still grinning like a madman.
‘That love you have for other men’s secrets,’ I said. ‘It will get you killed, one day.’
‘I doubt it not,’ he said. ‘But not today.’
‘What will you do now?’ I said.
‘I go back to Norway. They will hunt me for this. They will hunt you, too.’ He kissed the cross around his neck and held out a hand. ‘Come with me. We will preach together, fight together.’
‘No.’
‘No?’
‘I will never leave this island.’
He waited a moment longer to see if I would change my mind. He stood and he clasped my arm, and I watched him disappear into the snowfall, singing quietly to himself. A happy man.
I reached down and I touched my side beneath the cloak, felt the hot wetness there within. There was no pain to the wound – only a cold, absent feeling. The pain would come later, I was sure. Nausea passed through me and I thought I would retch. But the feeling went.
The sun was falling from the sky as I walked back into the valley. The snow heavier, and I left little drops of blood behind in it, like red berries falling from a poorly woven basket.
It was fully dark before long and the clouds covered the moon and the stars. Yet still I found that I knew the way. Had I been blinded and cast adrift in that valley, still I could have found my way to that place.
It was before me, then. A longhouse, like any other. Smoke rising from the chimney hole, the smell of cooking in the air. No sound from within, but I knew there to be life there. And death as well, perhaps.
I reached the door and I knocked upon it. A woman answered. She stared at me, and for the first time that I could recall I saw fear in her eyes. But only for a moment.
‘Come in,’ Vigdis said. ‘It is cold.’
33
There was no trap inside. No kinsman waiting for me with blade in hand. In one corner of the room, bundled tight in blankets, I could see a child sleeping. Other than that, we were alone.
She gestured for me to sit and I did so. We sat across the fire and we did not speak at first. Perhaps, in that silence, we knew each other truly for the first time. There was a stillness to her, as though she were a piece of forged iron rather than flesh. A strength that she had been born with or that she had learned, and there was not a mark of fear on her face. Nor in her voice, when she spoke.
‘They are dead, then.’
I nodded and watched her for any sign of sadness. There was none.
‘And now you are here for me,’ she said.
‘Yes.’
‘A shameful thing, to kill a woman.’
‘Dalla was killed, was she not? And Freydis. Why should not you answer for that?’
‘But it was I who killed them. Women may kill women. Men may kill men. But we must not kill one another. It is a blasphemy.’
‘You have killed men too, I think.’
‘I did not wield the blade.’
‘But you have killed them. And I will know why.’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘You shall. You have earned that much.’
She poured herself a cup of water, her hand almost steady; there was a slight tremor there, the way a swordsman’s hand will quiver before the holmgang. In spite of myself, I could feel a touch of fear. I had looked upon great warriors before: Gunnar, Björn and others besides. I looked upon another now.
‘Did you know my husband, Hrapp?’ she said.
‘Little. I saw him once or twice.’
‘What did you think of him?’
‘A cruel man. And stupid.’
‘Yes, he was. But strong as well. All men feared him.’
‘And you?’
‘Yes. I feared him too.’ She paused and looked into the fire. I wonder if she still saw him there. For the tremor in her hand went still – just the way a man’s does, when the first blow is struck.
‘He wanted no children. I do not know why. But he was not barren, and neither was I. I had many children.’
By instinct, I looked about the room for some evidence of what she said. But other than the child in the corner, there was none.
‘We exposed them,’ she said. ‘No one ever knew.’
The unwanted bastard that shames a family, the slave’s child that will only starve if it is left to live – these are the children that are abandoned in the darkness. Had my father not been freed from slavery, no doubt that is where I would have met my death: scant hours after my birth, crying in the night as the snow fell upon me. But it was something secret, something shameful. A coldness stole over me, to hear her speak of it so calmly.
‘But I am grateful for it,’ she said, one hand toying with the knotted braid of her hair. ‘The first time, I thought that I would die from sadness. But I did not. And there is a strength to be found there. I think you understand that. You must, to have done all that you have done.’
‘Why speak of Hrapp? You think that I shall pity you?’
She did not seem to hear me. ‘I thought I would die a long time ago,’ she said. ‘There was a time when Hrapp was angrier than usual. I was certain he meant to kill me, after that.’
‘You could have divorced him. Gone back to your family.’
‘There was no leaving a man like Hrapp. Except in death. And I did not want to.’
‘Why?’
‘Because I loved him.’
I listened to the crackle of the fire, and I tried to understand. ‘You thought that he would kill you.’
‘To love is to die for what we love. Gunnar loved you, did he not? And he died for you. I learned to love Hrapp. For he taught me the truth of the world.’
‘And what is that?’
She leaned forward, close to the flames, and I could see the light reflected in her dead eyes. ‘Men like you came to this place, thinking to be free,’ she said. ‘But you will never be free. You will always be a slave to men like Hrapp.’
‘And to women such as you?’ I said. ‘That is what you believe.’
‘I do not fear to die,’ she said. ‘Perhaps I am even like you.’
‘How so?’
‘Perhaps I want to die,’ she said. She looked to the wooden cross I wore on my neck. ‘You wear the mark of Christ.’
‘What do you know of him?’
‘I know that he forgives.’
‘Yes, he does, in the next life. But he is a god of revenge, more than anything else.’
‘What will you do?’
I thought on this for a time. Wound-weary and with the heat of the fire there, I could have slept. I wanted to. But I knew that there was more left for me to do.
‘I will not kill you,’ I said. ‘But I will take your child.’
Her mouth worked silently, the entreaties of a mute. And at last there was fear in her eyes.
‘Please,’ she said. She made to stop me then, but I held up the knife.
‘Sit down. Or I shall kill him before you. Would you have that?’
‘Please,’ she said.
She went to her knees and she spoke more words, but I did not listen.
I went over to the blankets in the corner. A child of three, as old as the feud, sleeping by the heat of the fire. A boy with a smile playing across his lips. What was his dream? Was it of his mother? The father he had never known? Games in the fields and upon the ice? Many are the joys of the child, and how quickly the man forgets them. A mercy, to end a life so soon, when it knows only joy – that is what I thought. That is what I thought, as I picked you up in my arms.
‘What is his name?’ I said.
And she whispered, so soft that I could hardly hear it over the sound of the fire: ‘Sumardil.’
You were still sleeping as I picked you from your blankets, but awoke for a moment when I took you. I looked into your eyes and you stared at me without fear or recognition, before you fell back into your dreams.