Ragnar was cutting dried turf in the yard. His ropy, scarred back did not suggest that he had weakened. I halted Magni well clear of the gate and whistled, then dismounted once he turned. He would have heard the hooves, but it was polite to let a man know you were not a raider.
As I walked up, leading my gelding, Ragnar’s eyes flicked from me to Magni and back again. His face went through a couple dozen expressions before settling on incredulity.
“Auga Hacksilver, you old bastard. Making friends already, I imagine?”
I shrugged, and in attempting to brush some ash off Magni’s flaxen mane merely ground it in.
Ragnar shook his head at me. “I’d wish I’d known you were coming. I would have laid odds that you’d turn folk against yourself in the first half-day, and I would have cleaned up. I’ve never met a man like you for going to a new town and finding somebody who’s already mad at you there. It’s almost as if you make enemies on purpose.”
“Some would say that those who spread the tales make the enemies,” I answered easily.
“A man’s earned fame shall never die,” Ragnar replied.
I snorted loudly enough that I could have blamed it on Magni. It’s a comforting thing to tell ourselves, that the name lives on. And in my experience, it’s nonsense.
He continued, “Speaking of death, what are the odds that you’re still breathing?”
I laid my fingers on my throat. “Two to one,” I offered. “I’ll give you a better spread on it this time tomorrow.”
“Isn’t there some sort of ill-considered decision-making process regarding other people’s spouses you could be engaging in right now?”
“Hey, your wife came to me, Ragnar.” I waggled my hand noncommittally. “She wasn’t so great that I’d think it would be hard to keep her at home if you put in a little effort, though.”
He cursed like a piked bear, and I wondered if I’d overplayed. I’ve never had the skill of knowing when to walk away from a flyting.
It was safer to take the punch than to look at him. You had to seem like you didn’t care. Like you didn’t fear.
Nobody ever won a flyting by seeming a coward.
He surprised me, though. He didn’t swing. He glowered, and then he said, “What the hell brings you to the ass end of Ormsfjoll?”
“One thing and then another.”
Ragnar’s lips worked. “Stay in my hall tonight. Turn your horse in with mine. The wife won’t thank me if I let you pass without paying your respects.”
Does he have a new wife? I wondered.
I did learn a few things from the time I spent with Ragnar. One was that if you’re going to fuck a man, and fuck his wife, it’s better for domestic harmony if you make sure everybody involved is on board with the plan right from the beginning. Another was that no one ever got anything out of Ragnar Wound-Rain without paying for it—one way or another.
I untacked Magni and sent him off to the herd with a pat. Then I knocked the ash off my hat and followed Ragnar up the steps to the door.
The fire on the long hearth was banked low, to not overwarm the house in summer. The food was rye bread and ewe’s butter with stewed fish and onions. Ragnar still had the same wife, Aerndis, and somehow she’d kept everything from tasting of sulfur and ashfall. I was surprised at how warmly she greeted me. Perhaps Ragnar’s irritation was not without basis.
I sat at the trestle and washed my hands in the bowl she brought, drank her ale, and bantered with Ragnar while Ragnar’s tenant farmers filed in and found their places along the board. There was plenty of food, and Aerndis served me again before the bondi ate. Then she sat at Ragnar’s right hand, and a couple of women who might have been wives of the farmers present brought them their bowls and their ale. All three of us were stretching uncomfortably to ease our fullness by the time the tenants were fed and filing back out again for the work of the afternoon.
I watched them go, and watched the women clear the table, and thought that there should have been children about: grown and near-grown sons and daughters. I didn’t ask after their absence. It might have been that girls were married into nearby farms. It might have been that sons were away viking, or trading, or a little of both, but in that case you’d expect a young wife or two carding and spinning and tying off leading-strings to keep the babies out of the fire. You’d expect them in silks with silver brooches to hold their gowns up—or even gold, like the ones Aerndis wore—and not like the wives of the bondi with their bronze and pewter.
It might have been that they’d had ill luck conceiving, or ill luck in keeping children alive. But it’s hard on a couple my age to run a farm all on their own, even with tenants. Tenants have to be supervised, and thralls have to be driven.
Under most circumstances, Ragnar and Aerndis would have taken on a few oath-sons and oath-daughters, to everyone’s benefit. They might have elevated the best of their bondi, or they might have taken in the children of dead companions of the war-band.
Curiosity might seem insolent, and I take care never to seem insolent unless I mean to. It might cause grief, and that’s another response I do not seek to provoke unintentionally.
Ragnar had, it seemed, no such bounds on his inquisitiveness. He looked at me rubbing my belly and laughed at me. “So. What are you doing up in the bright country, so far between good meals? Running from a weregild yourself?”
“Might be looking for a place to settle,” I said noncommittally. My fingertips automatically reached for the spindle in my pocket. I eased them away again.
He’d taken me in and given me guest right. I knew, based on our history, that that probably meant he wanted something. We hadn’t parted on such warm terms that I would expect him to put me out in the ashfall. But… farm me out to one of the cottages of his bondi, maybe.
His giving me guest right in his own home meant he couldn’t take a physical poke at me. Nor could any of his men.
Perhaps it was unkind of me to provoke him with the threat of my continued presence. But kindness has never been a fault that much afflicted me.
“Can you buy land?” he asked.
I shrugged. Ragnar had to know that I had money unless I’d lost it—and he knew that by preference I diced with fate rather than for silver. My years of viking had been several and my needs while traveling were few. A path for my gelding; a mossy rock to lay my head on.
I could buy land. “It remains to be seen if I want to. It seems you’ve been spreading a great many rumors about me.”
“Your rumors spread themselves.”
I refrained from provoking him further. It took an effort when he handed me straight lines like that, however.
“I could just kill you for your money. Your brother being absent, there’s no one to pay a weregild to, and it’s not as if anyone who knows you would complain.”
“If I were fool enough to carry my money with me.” The money was in a bank twenty days’ ride south, or five by boat if the wind were favorable. “If I filled up my saddlebags with gold, Magni would waddle. And it would be bad for his back. And there would be no room for my food.”
Aerndis had always been a quiet one, but clever with it. She gave me a sly look. “As I judge from the crumbs in your beard, there’s been little enough room for that as there is.”
“Your cooking outshines mine, it’s true.” Especially when I was cooking up boiled soup-cake thickened with shreds of wind-dried fish.