‘Do not worry about what you heard today,’ I said. ‘All things will be well.’
‘What about her?’ Freydis said softly.
‘Stay away from Vigdis. She is a liar and a thief.’
‘I do not think she was lying today,’ Kari said.
I cursed the cunning of children.
‘Will our father leave us?’ Freydis said. ‘To go with her?’
‘Of course not. Do you know how well he speaks of you all? His family is all he speaks of to me. You are everything to him.’
‘But she will cause trouble for us?’ the boy asked.
‘Nothing that your father cannot contend with.’
The children were quiet for a time. Then Kari said: ‘Once you told me the story of Wulf, who tried to rescue the woman he loved from Eadwacer. And he tried to get his friends to help him and they would not. He had to fight alone in the end. They killed him.’
‘Will you stay with us?’ Freydis asked. ‘I am afraid.’
I did not reply at first, and Kari repeated his sister’s question: ‘Will you stay?’
‘I do not know if I can,’ I said.
They looked beyond me then and I turned my head to follow their gaze. Gunnar and Dalla, walking towards us, she in front of him and neither of them speaking. I sat cross-legged on the ground amidst the children, as if I were an overgrown infant myself.
When they came to us, they did not speak. I looked upon Dalla, to gain some sense of what she knew, what she thought.
‘I wish you had not lied to me, Kjaran,’ she said. ‘That I had nothing to fear.’
‘I thought it true when I spoke it.’
She nodded to me, but what that gesture meant I could not say. I have seen warriors give that nod to worthy opponents, fathers make such a gesture to sons they never wish to see again.
She reached out for her children. They went to her and she turned back towards the farm without another word.
‘So,’ I said, looking towards my friend. ‘That was your plan?’
He nodded.
‘It wasn’t a very good plan,’ I said.
He almost laughed – his mouth open, his lips twitching to a smile – but the sound would not come. ‘I am not so clever as you,’ he said. ‘Or that bitch Vigdis.’ He fell silent and began to pick at his fingernails; blood or dirt lay under them, I could not tell which. ‘I should never have come to this place,’ he said, after a moment. ‘I understand the sword and the sea. And my wife. Some of the time, at least. But I am a simple man. This seems to be an island of schemers. Women goading men to do their bidding. Men bullying and tricking each other for land. Chieftains growing fat and rich from all the squabbling.’
‘I have cunning enough for us both, Gunnar, and you’re a match for two men with a blade in your hand. We have nothing to fear together.’
‘I do not know what trouble this woman will bring down.’
‘I am not one to back down from a fight.’
‘I would not see you harmed over this.’
‘That is for me to decide, is it not?’ I got to my feet and struck the dirt from my shirt. ‘Did you speak to Dalla?’
‘I told her everything.’
‘What…’ I said no more than that. The look he gave stopped me.
‘And what do we do now?’ he asked.
‘We can do nothing but wait.’
‘That is your plan? It seems little better than mine.’
‘A woman cannot bring a charge against us. She cannot act as a witness. She has no power under the law. She can spread nothing but empty rumours.’
‘And what of the brothers? Men have killed for rumours before.’
‘They have. We must hope that they won’t.’ I hesitated, and then I said: ‘Will you answer me something, Gunnar?’
He set his jaw and said, ‘Ask.’
‘You wanted me to marry her. So that I would stay and be your neighbour.’
‘That is so.’
‘Why did you want me to stay so much?’
He did not speak for a time. He looked out across the open land, the scattered farms in the distance, the black rock of the mountains and the deep green of the valley.
‘I think I will be lonely if you go,’ he said at last. ‘I never met a man I liked so well as you.’ And, as if he had spoken some terrible, shameful thing, he leapt to his feet and strode away. I watched him go, and I did not speak to call him back.
I looked up towards the sun and knew that I did not have much time. The days are so short that early in the year. I took my bearings from the hills and the water and I struck out across the valley, away from Gunnar’s farm.
5
The home of a chieftain is not like any other. It is not a place of darkness and quiet, but of noise and heat and light. Everywhere one looks, servants tread on dogs, warriors boast and wrestle with one another, children scurry in packs. I have always hated such places, yet it was to there that I went – taking the long path around the home of Vigdis, for Hjardarholt, the home of my chieftain, lay just beyond those borders, and I would not set foot upon those lands again.
The sun hung low by the time that Hjardarholt loomed before me. The turf walls of Gunnar’s longhouse might be thought a curve in the land or a little hill, but there was no mistaking this place for what it was. Bigger than a longship, smoke pouring from a pair of chimneys at all hours of the day and night. We have no castles or great halls on our island, but Hjardarholt was as great a longhouse as any Icelander might hope to see.
A thingman, Ketil Hakonsson, sat at the entrance – a merry sentry, who offered me a skin of mead as I came forward.
‘Kjaran! I am glad of your company. Olaf shall be too, no doubt.’
‘The Peacock is within?’
‘That he is. We have not had a skald in the hall for a long time. You will stay, I hope?’
‘Perhaps.’
It was not a moment after I entered the longhouse that I felt the embrace of my host. Such was always the way of the man they called Olaf the Peacock: every traveller greeted to his home as a long-lost friend. But then, a man of his wealth and stature could well afford the generosity.
‘You should not be travelling so late,’ he said as he guided me to my place at the table. ‘You must have been walking in the dark for hours. Ghosts, trolls, who knows what else might be plaguing the hills.’
‘It is good to see you again, Olaf.’
‘What brings you here? More than my good company, I suspect. But we shall come to that in time. Come along and make yourself comfortable. Perhaps you’ll give us a song, if you are not too tired.’
‘Anything to please the Peacock.’
He laughed at the sounding of his nickname. He had earned it from the bronze torc at his neck, the well-wrought rings on his fingers and the gold bands upon his arms, as well as the rich red clothes that he wore, for he was not afraid to show the wealth he had won in his adventures abroad. Quite a sight to look upon, and there were some who whispered womanly rumours about him. But though there was always gold on his arms and a smile on his lips, there was iron in his eyes, a steady sword hand and a strong arm to back it. There were many who had underestimated the Peacock. Some had paid a price in honour and silver when they had tried to cross him. Some had paid with their lives.
‘So,’ Olaf said once we were seated, ‘Gunnar has finally let you go, has he? I thought he was going to hoard you to himself for many summers to come.’
‘A traveller like myself must put in a good summer’s work to earn his winter home.’
‘You would not stay with Gunnar for another winter?’
‘No. It would be ill luck.’