Avalon (36 page)

Rumon lifted his head, and looked straight up at Merewyn. "We came here so that I might find your daughter," he said.

Ketil's jaw dropped, and the ensuing spark in his blue eyes made Jorund glance nervously towards the battle-axes which were rusty, and the great sword, which was not — since it was frequently rubbed with whale oil.

"And why did you want to find my daughter?" Ketil rose from his seat and towered over them.

Rumon also got up, his dark gaze was somber. "Because she once loved me, and I love her now and have tried to reach her since before the day you captured her at Padstow, in Cornwall."

Ketil took this in gradually, and heard Merewyn make a strangled sound. Ketil sat down. "Loz?e/" he snorted. He turned to Merewyn. "What is all this nonsense about, dottir.? Did you know this man?"

"Yes," she said, staring at the rafters across the Hall. "He is a prince in England, an atheling — and there was a time when —for a long time —" She stopped. In the shadow of the beams across the Hall, she saw pictures — of King Edgar's Coronation at Bath, where she sat by her Aunt Merwinna and watched Rumon; of a lane in Corfe when she had pleaded with him; of the night on the Tor when he had kissed her so disdainfully, and said that he could not marry a low-born creature. And yet he had followed her, it seemed, to the end of the world and back.

"Do you mean that he dishonored you?" Ketil cried. He leapt on the seat to grab down "Bloodletter." "You were not a virgin when you went to Sigurd? This is for Sigurd to avenge! We shall have a holmgang—" He ran his finger down the sword blade.

"No, Father —" She put her hand on Ketil's. "I was not dishonored and I was a virgin when I came to Sigurd. There's no reason for a duel."

She shut her eyes, so that there might be no more pictures forming in the smoke across the Hall.

There was another silence, during which Rumon sat down;

Ketil tested the sword point, scowling; and Jorund was about to make a tactful offer of a saga, or edda, or even an original poem when Orm, who had been trailing Brigid at her sluggish household chores, gave out a happy cry of "Papa!"

Sigurd walked in. He already knew that they had visitors since he had talked to Grim, and seen the strange horses. But as he greeted Jorund and Rumon cordially, it occured to him that his wife and Ketil, together on the High Seat, were both looking odd, and that there was something uncomfortable in the air.

"I found the ewe," he said, taking his place beside Ketil as Merewyn vacated it. "Doubtless you gentlemen are not poor farmers, and don't know how important this is." He looked from Jorund to Rumon, puzzled by them, waiting pohtely for explanations. Merewyn brought him food.

He was yet more puzzled as Merewyn, handing up the wooden plateful of meat and the drinking horn, suddenly whispered to him, "Sigurd, I love you."

He stared a moment at her flushed face, her trembling lips. "What ails you, elsknan min," said Sigurd, picking up Orm who had swarmed up to the High Seat and was trying to climb on his father's leg. "Here, son — you shall have a bone to suck."

"You may well ask what ails my daughter!" cried Ketil. "And I don't feel like mincing matters. This Christian foreigner," he stabbed his eating knife toward Rumon, "says he has been after her for three years, and finally tracked her to Langarfoss."

"Oh?" said Sigurd. "Indeed?" He hfted Orm down off his knee and folded his arms. "Are you from England?" he said evenly to Rumon.

"Yes." Rumon turned his head, forced to look up towards the huge blond fellow whose bright blue eyes were expressionless.

"You knew my wife in England?"

"Yes," said Rumon through his teeth, and sprang to his feet, so that he need not look upward at these Vikings who had abducted Merewyn, and done so many murders. "She's not your

wife!" he cried. "Heathen folderol before an idol doesn't make her your wife!"

"Rumon!" murmured Jorund anxiously. "Be careful" — for the dark blood had rushed up into his friend's face, and the look he gave Sigurd was one of hatred. Jorund had never seen that look on Rumon, and he marveled what jealousy could do.

Ketil growled, but Sigurd's steady eyes remained coldly appraising. "Since you consider Merewyn to be only my concubine," he said, "what do you propose? That we fight for her?"

Merewyn, who stood by the Cross Bench, gasped and cried, "No!"

Jorund interrupted hastily. "We are both unarmed, Sigurd, and we are your guests," at which Ketil laughed and said, "True, so we must go out of Langarfoss, have a proper holmgang observing, of course, our Icelandic rules." He rubbed "Blood-letter" gleefully, knowing that with Sigurd wielding it, that slight, dark foreigner would never stand a chance, no matter what sword he could find.

"Not so fast, Ketil," said Sigurd. "The Englishman has not answered my question, and I see that it upsets him. I think that fighting is not what he wants."

"It isn't," cried Jorund jumping up beside his friend. "His religion is against violence, he himself has a horror of it. We came here in good faith, and after many hardships, having no idea that Merewyn was anything but a thrall — and if Rumon still continues to think her so — I do wc^."

Sigurd spoke after a moment. "I see, and shall prove to you that my wife is not a thrall. Come here, Merewyn."

She walked unsteadily to the base of the High Seat. "You never told me about this man to whom you must have given some encouragement. Did you love him?"

Merewyn lifted her chin, and answered slowly, "I have never talked about my life before — before that day in Padstow, nor wished to mention this man whom I did love once, and who I thought repudiated me."

Rumon glanced at her, and made a sound in his throat. "I was a haughty fool," he said. *'Do not three years of trying to find you prove my penitence?"

All three Icelanders were astonished by his speech, which sounded abject, not the way one handled women. Ketil was annoyed, for the prospects of a rousing duel were obviously lessening. Jorund was half ashamed for his friend, remembering how Rumon had wept in the Merrimac country when they murdered the skraeling who was guarding their ship. Into Sigurd's eyes there came a quizzical light, for this was, after all, no worthy rival to consider. And he laughed, saying with assurance to Merewyn, "And do you still love this man, who will not even fight for you?"

"No," she said. "I love you^ Sigurd. And I think that Rumon will always be wanting what he cannot find, and that if he finds what he thought he wanted he will be disappointed. As he is now." She tried to smile, but tears came into her eyes, and she retreated to the Cross Bench.

"Tcha!" said Ketil. "What a pother about nothing! Thor and Odin be thanked, dottir, that you were never close to this man."

No, I was never close to him, she thought, nor ever could be after having belonged to Sigurd. But she felt pity and gratitude. For he had kept the secret of her true paternity all these years that she had been so childishly proud of "descent" from King Arthur. And having in some strange way come at last to love her, he had tried his best to reach her. No woman could be entirely unmoved by that. "I'm sorry, Rumon," she said, slowly. "Have you at least found Avalon, the Island of the Blest?"

"No," said Rumon, after a moment. "Nor do I know where else to search." His voice like his words held such a bleak futility that the Icelanders, though in varying degree contemptuous, nevertheless recognized sympathetically something of the melancholy which often afflicted themselves in the long black wintertime.

"Well," said Ketil, returning "Bloodletter" regretfully to its

pegs. "No use being dismal, and since Jorund is a skald, perhaps he'll amuse us with a poem about the adventures of the Thorgerd?'^

Jorund hesitated. He felt deeply for his friend, and tried to respect his refusal to fight for Merewyn, even though he did not quite understand it. "No poem has come to me," he said slowly, "nor even a drapa in honor of our hosts, but I can remember, I think, the saga of 'Ragnar Lodbrok,' will that do?"

Ketil and Sigurd assented heartily. Merewyn sat tight and withdrawn on the Cross Bench.

chapter eleven

A FORTNIGHT after Rumon's visit, the little cavalcade from Langarfoss approached ThingvelHr — the wide plain east of Reykjavik, where the Althing was held annually.

Ketil led the group, and had made himself as fine as possible. He wore his old horned helmet, brightly poHshed, as befitted a Viking chief, and "Bloodletter" had a new leather scabbard. The sword dangled against the horse's left flank — its thumpings often caused the beast to shy — but no matter; Ketil was dressed according to his erstwhile rank. He had even produced a bracelet with gold bosses which had been left him by his father.

Sigurd followed along the winding lava road, and was not as dressy as Ketil. Sigurd wore his conical brass helmet, from which the nosepiece had long been removed, a red jerkin and mantle of foreign weave picked up years ago on some raid, but no jewelry. Orm was tied to Sigurd's pommel, clinging to the horse's rough mane, but his father was gratified to see that the child scarcely needed these precautions. Orm was by nature fearless, and had instinctive balance.

Merewyn followed her men. She wore the green dress and

mantle she had been captured in at Padstow, and which was still her best clothing. She had on her new folded linen headdress, and her mantle was held by the silver-gilt brooch Sigurd had given her in Limerick three years ago. She knew that they were a presentable lot, and need not be shamed, but they could not compete with the rich bondis and chieftains whom they had seen on the way.

Grim, their ablest thrall, ended the procession. One could hardly appear at the Althing without some servant. Brigid and the other two men had been left home to care for the live stock; in any case there were no more horses for them to ride.

During the trip Merev^yn had seen many marvels. In the Bay of Whales two of the monsters had been towed in and were being flensed. After that came boiling springs, and a geyser. Then there were piled masses of black lava which Ketil at least could identify as images of giants, trolls, or even the gods — Thor with his hammer, Odin and his ravens, and Freyr, the obscene little god of fertility. There were beautiful flowers to be seen sometimes, a purple drift of arctic fireweed, the modest angelica, and there were streams all silvery with salmon — which they caught and ate. Above and behind all these was the stark magnificence of snowy mountains, volcanoes, and glaciers, under the changing clouds.

The interest of the three-day journey had eased the pain and unrest Merewyn felt, most unwillingly, after Rumon's departure with Jorund.

While the visit lasted, she had been numb, remote, listening absently to Jorund's chanted sagas, never speaking to Rumon except for the barest civilities. Then at night in the box bed she had clung to Sigurd, showing a passion which had amused as well as delighted him.

"So come now, my heart," he said once. "You will exhaust even me, and you don't need to prove so hard your love. I don't doubt it, and also know that that foreigner could never satisfy you in the way a man does a woman."

Which was true. She also thought so. Yet, once, on the last morning she had not been able to avoid Rumon's sorrowing, reproachful look. Nor to avoid answering when he said, "Mere-wyn, I am going back to England, and I had thought to take you with me. As it is, have you no message for anyone there?"

She said, "No," angrily, to which he returned, "I will pray for you nonetheless."

And after Rumon left, making stiffly courteous farewells, she had watched him disappear down the road to Borg, then fled to Langarfoss — the waterfall. She crouched on its brink, listening to its roar, and watched the tumbling snow waters through a sudden mist of anguish.

Then she had turned capricious towards Sigurd, no longer eager for his embrace, refusing him on pretexts which he accepted because he thought her with child. Though she was not. A dismaying fact. She longed for another child, and was sad to be so slow at conceiving one.

During that miserable week, she had her first quarrel with Sigurd. It had to do with Christianity and was incoherent on Merewyn's side. She said that she had heard Jorund say there was an Irish missionary priest in Reykjavik, so they must go there to see him on the way to the Althing, that Sigurd should be baptized, and then they could be married properly. Sigurd, patient at first, finally got angry at her unreason. He said that he had stopped going a-viking for love of her, but there were limits to any man's tolerance. That he believed in the gods of his fathers, and certainly had no interest in a god who turned men into weak timid women, and the whole subject was ridiculous.

Whereupon she slapped him, and his immediate retaliatory blow was so violent that it threw her head against the wall; lights exploded behind her eyes and her cheek puff^ed up scarlet.

She tottered from bed and went into the Hall, where she sobbed away the long gray-lit hours. Sigurd remained snoring in the bed-closet.

In the morning, Ketil came in wanting his breakfast, and laughed when he saw her swollen cheek and half-closed eye. " 'Twas high time for that, dottir," he said. "I wonder Sigurd did not do it sooner. You and your mingy Christian suitor were enough to try any man, though I must say —" Ketil took a long draft of ale, and judged fairly, "I did not see you give the foreigner any encouragement, and Jorund the skald much pleased us with his sagas. We'U forget the whole business."

So it was. Neither Sigurd nor Merewyn referred to their quarrel, and by the time they left for the Althing, Merewyn's cheek and painful emotions had alike subsided. They did not go to Reykjavik.

Now they plodded along the rough lava trail, which wound monotonously, and was shut in by hillocks. Mere^vyn began to wonder what could possibly be attractive about the valley they called ThingveUir — whenever they reached it. Occasionally in view ahead of them was the huge company following Thor-stein Egilson, their landlord. You could just see Thorstein's moon-white head in the vanguard of his household — his children, retainers, and thralls — and the golden tissue headdress of Jofrid, Thorstein's haughty wife.