‘Well, there is a place for you here, if you want it. Though I hear Hakon Haroldsson may come courting you. He is building a strong household.’
‘A rival for yours?’
‘Hardly. Though you would break my heart if you chose his hospitality over mine.’
‘Ah, Olaf, but that is the way of the skalds, ever leaving their chieftains unsatisfied. They make for such good songs, do a chieftain’s tears.’
He smiled. ‘Ah, had you been born a slave, my life would have been simpler. To buy and sell the poets as I please and not have to win their favour! It would be an easier world.’
‘I am sure that it would.’
He picked up a piece of bread, tore it in half and handed the bigger piece to me. ‘When I saw you come in, I hoped that Gunnar would be with you.’
‘He is busy with his farm.’
‘He often seems so. It makes a chieftain nervous, to see so little of a man. Especially one such as Gunnar.’
‘He means you no disrespect.’
‘Do not mistake me, I am not a petty king in search of tribute. It is his right to stay away if he wishes. But he is something of a mystery. Men do not like mysteries. There are some who would call him aloof.’
Before I could make a reply, one of the warriors in the hall called on Olaf, asking him to settle some drunken wager or another. He held up his hands in apology to me and stood from the table, a little unsteady on his feet. I watched him speak and wondered if he was quite so drunk as he seemed.
I put down my cup and from the corner of my eye I saw it filled once again. The servant did not go once her task was done, and when I looked upon her in enquiry, she stared back quite openly. A handsome woman; I thought her seventeen or so, with flaxen hair and eyes that seemed to change colour as I looked at them.
‘Do we know one another?’ I said.
‘I have heard you sing. Last winter, when you came here to trade.’
‘Ah, I am sorry for hurting your ears. I was unused to playing for such company.’
‘No need to be modest. It was quite good, you know.’
‘Only quite good?’
She laughed. ‘You belittle yourself and expect to be hailed a master?’
‘The poet’s game. We insult ourselves in hope of praise. An honest response is the last thing we wish for.’
‘I’ll remember that, and lie better in future.’
A man’s voice called to her from across the room. I watched her go and felt Olaf’s hand on my shoulder.
‘I see you have met Sigrid. A princess amongst servants, or so you would think from how she acts.’
‘She’s not afraid to speak her mind, is she?’
‘I do not know how she gets away with it, speaking as bluntly as she does. She does not offend you, I hope.’
‘Quite the opposite. Beauty forgives many things.’
‘Ah, I think now I see why you have left Gunnar for this place. No woman but his wife to look at, and he’s a dangerous man to trifle with.’
‘I do come with another purpose.’
‘Other than to drink my wine and ogle my servants?’
‘Other than that.’
His voice lowered a little. ‘Is it a matter to be spoken of alone?’
‘I need not be exact.’
‘Tell me here, then.’ He raised an eyebrow. ‘Inexactly, if you must.’
I glanced around the hall, the bands of warriors drinking and laughing together. All the life and power of a great chieftain’s home surrounded us. It was a hard thing to think of danger there. ‘Would you back Gunnar,’ I said, ‘if it came to a feud?’
‘That would depend upon the feud.’
‘A careful answer.’
‘I am a careful man.’
‘There is no feud. Not yet. But there are those who envy him. Who would spread lies about him. Gunnar will fight them, if he has to. I want to know if you will let him fight alone.’
He fixed me with a testing look and for a moment all levity was gone from him.
‘I simply ask that you be ready,’ I continued, ‘if trouble comes.’
‘It does not surprise me that trouble would seek him out. He is the kind of man who inspires envy.’
‘I suppose that he is.’
‘Not in gold or wealth, mind you.’ Olaf smiled to himself and looked down, rolling the lees around the bottom of his cup. ‘He is the kind of man all Icelanders wish that they were.’ He drained what remained and placed the cup down carefully. ‘I will stand by your friend, if it comes to that.’
‘Thank you, Olaf.’
‘But it comes at a price. Not of gold, but of loyalty.’
‘He will be a loyal thingman to you.’
‘Not his loyalty. Yours. You must do something for me.’
‘I am not sure what it is that you mean.’
He did not speak for a long time, his fingers dancing through the candle flame in front of him. ‘Do you believe there are visions from the gods, Kjaran?’
‘Of course.’
‘Then believe me: when I think of you and Gunnar together, I see death. Of one or the other, and many more besides. You are ill luck, as a pair. You must stay away from him.’
I thought on that for a long time, Olaf’s unblinking eyes upon me.
‘If that is what it takes. I will come to you after the Althing.’
‘Good, good,’ he said, almost absently, as though he wished to forget what he had asked. ‘You may stay here as long as you wish. Even winter here if you like.’
I looked around the home that he had built, that proud chieftain’s household. I met the eyes of the serving girl across the hall, those strange and shifting eyes, like some witch’s trick. And I knew that I would not stay long.
It was deep into the night when I returned to Gunnar’s home. The fire down to scattered embers, yet even in the dim light I could see the white of open eyes looking back at me.
‘Where have you been?’ Gunnar whispered.
‘I should not tell you that.’
A little gasp, then – almost a sound of pain. ‘I would have thought that you wanted no more secrets.’ A pause in the darkness. ‘Will you stay? Will you stay another year?’
‘I shall stay until the Althing.’
‘So that is where you have been. Finding another hole to crawl into.’
‘Gunnar – ’
‘Enough. Enough of your words. You have said all you need to.’
The white eyes closed and did not open. I waited for a time, to see if he would wake and speak once more. But he did not.
6
Each time before, I had always travelled to the Althing with a delicious anticipation, a warmth in the chest that is more than a little like love. That year, riding a borrowed horse, I felt nothing at all. No joy or dread, just an absent hollow in my heart.
Gunnar rode beside me, though for all the days we travelled we scarce spoke a word to one another. It had been so since that conversation by the fire.
We had passed the month as strangers; I working the fields with Gunnar’s hired help, whilst he hunted or fished or tended the herd. As the sun came down, I would see Gunnar returning home with a net of fish, racing his son back to the house and losing on purpose, Dalla standing halfway out of the doorway, holding a hand palm up to judge the weight of the rain.
I counted down the days, until it was the height of summer. Then, wordless, Gunnar beckoned me to the stables and picked out a horse for me. We mounted and began the journey to the west. He knew that I was to leave his company at the Althing, though he did not know to where, to whom. And he did not ask.
I kept the silence in the days after, as we went through the mountain passes, across the black plains, towards the heart of the country. He made no sign of reconciliation towards me, nor did he try to drive me away or break company with me. He seemed to be waiting for something from me, and so I sang at the fire at night, even as he lay with his back to me. Perhaps, somewhere in one of the old songs, there were the words that would speak to him, but I could not seem to find them. And there was no more time left.