The Viking’s Sacrifice (16 page)

Coward. If you had the courage you were born with, you’d have this dog off your back, even if it meant a blade in the face.

If he could have seen Wilda, he would have done it. If he’d seen her, seen her look at him as though she knew that courage was in him, he might have found what little sinew left to him to throw his attacker off.

But in the sudden chaos in the sacred grove, among the running women, the men with swords out, the shouts and threats, torches held aloft or guttering in the yellowed grass, Wilda was gone.
She ran. Good. Good for all of us.
And it was good, that Bausi would have to search for her, that maybe she’d escape him.

As he lay in the frigid mud with a blade at his face and Bausi striding toward him with a look blacker than midnight and harder than good steel, a part of him died. The secret part of him, where he knew he was truly a man, where Thor’s courage lived unseen, except she’d seen it somehow and given him one night of warmth. It hurt to let her go, hurt worse than Bausi’s sword in his chest, worse than all the years of ridicule since.

Bausi planted his feet in front of Einar’s face. The weight on his back lifted, and so did Einar when Bausi pulled him up by his hair. Einar gathered his nerve—
Thor’s man! Have Thor’s courage
—and looked him in the eye. What he saw was madness, buried deep for long years but now bubbling to the surface for all to see. Bausi’s eyes were very wide, very dark, with only a sliver of white around them, full of wyrd, of seidr magic that seemed to flow from him like black tears. His lips were somehow slack but twisting, trying to force out words that wouldn’t come.

In the end he said nothing but dropped Einar, let him fall to his knees once again, his place in life before Bausi. Then a swift kick to the face, and Einar’s world dwindled to a point of black.

Einar woke to an icy torrent of water over his head that made him cough and splutter. He pushed himself up onto his knees, trying to hold in the grunt of pain as his bad joint protested, hold in the gasp from bruised ribs. His face throbbed from his brow down to his chin, and his lip felt fat and awkward. His wrists were fire where the rope bit in, but his hands were blessedly numb.

He blinked against the torch held too close, blinding him. Then the torch withdrew and after a few moments and a shake of his head that sent water from his hair and beard, he could see where he was.

Bausi’s longhouse—the feasting hall, empty but for two men, him and Bausi. On his knees again before the high seat, with Bausi looking down. His magic-dark eyes met Einar’s gaze and they held there for a time, until Einar remembered to breathe again. Fear shrivelled his belly. They weren’t the eyes of a man, but of a hunting wolf, a hawk circling its prey.

Bausi raised himself slowly from the high seat and came to crouch in front of Einar, sneering when he dared to look his jarl in the eye.

“You’ll not get round the curse that way, Toki. If anyone should find out, through you or otherwise, do you recall?” The whisper was cruel, taunting. Expectant.

Einar almost laughed. How could he not? That was why he’d risked it all to try to get her away, why he’d wanted her to run.

“She’ll be dead by now.” Bausi’s words were casual, almost a caress. “She ran, but she’ll not get away, not from my men, not in this valley.”

“Sigdir—”

Bausi cut him off with a backhanded slap that caught Einar’s already bruised and bleeding lip and he had to clench his teeth not to cry out.

“Sigdir will do as he’s told. He’s sworn to me, as they all are. Oaths of fealty, didn’t I say? Oaths you could have shared, if you’d used the wit Odin gave you. Besides, she’s only a freed thrall he had some whim about. There will be others like her, if I decide he can carry on with his plan. But I like him here, close to me. Where you can see him becoming more my man every day.”

Bausi reached into his tunic and pulled out the pouch, the leather black and smooth from constant contact with his skin.

“Not just the one in there now, no. Not just your curse. I’ve made others, stronger ones, ones to bind men to me, to follow my will, unite all this fjord with me. Ones to curse those who oppose me. You remember young Oddr? A good lad, strong-hearted, strong-willed. Too strong.”

Einar half remembered him, and how he’d opposed some plan of Bausi’s, spoken out against some action. How dead he’d looked when they’d fished him out of the falls.

“I’ll not be crossed, Toki. You know that. She’s dead by now, and soon enough you will be too. Your wretched life no longer amuses me. For now, I will be wed, and then the entertainment.
Einvigi.
More blood to bless my marriage, and the coming season for Winter Nights.”

He slid the pouch back into its place by his heart, got up and left Einar in the dim torchlight of his hall. Bound and helpless, with nothing but hope that Bausi lied as he always lied. That she wasn’t dead. He tried the knots again, cast about uselessly for something in the rope’s reach he could use to cut the ties, but there was nothing. He had to,
had to
get out, had to find Wilda. There must be a way, any way. He no longer cared about the curse, about what it would do to him. He had to find her before Bausi’s men killed her.

A quiet sound behind him, a soft boot and the gentle swish of a cloak. Sigdir. He stared at Einar as though he was an apparition, a fetch already.

“Bausi is out to kill your bride,” Einar said, unable to keep the bitterness from his voice. “Aren’t you going to stop him?”

“Maybe, but only I know which way I sent her.” Sigdir crouched down so that his eyes were on a level with Einar’s. “Why does he want her dead?”

Einar took deeps breaths, trying to steady his heart, his head. Trying to
think.
There might be a way. “You have to get her away, take her and Gudrun and get as far as you can. You have a ship, use it. As far and as fast as you can, leave now, as soon as you can find her. To King Gulskeg, maybe to those lands you want so much. Anywhere but here. If you’re far enough away…” If they were far enough away, then maybe death, the curse wouldn’t find them. “Take Wilda to Harald Gulskeg, tell her she no longer has to keep silent. Run, Sigdir.”

“Run?” Sigdir snorted and he looked at Einar with disgust. “Cowards run, not warriors.”

“Sometimes brave men run and fools remain. You have to, or all this is for nothing, all these years of my silence. All those taunting words I bore, for you and Gudrun. I bore them to keep you alive. Now I’m telling you to run to keep you alive. You have to if you’re to be safe from the curse I brought on us all.”

Einar watched Sigdir as he thought, the restless eyes, the stern set of his face. But no Bausi there, not anymore. Not Bausi’s man. If that was all Einar had done, it might be worth it.

“Wilda knew Bausi. The raid—the raid when Arni died. That was the curse. Is she cursed too?”

Einar’s lips twisted painfully against the swelling. “Yes, and no. She’ll bring the curse on us. But that’s not why I want you to take her—she thinks I’m brave because I once did a good thing, a good thing that led us to this. I don’t want her to see the truth when Bausi comes for the
einvigi.
Leave, or all this time, all these taunts, will mean nothing. Get Gudrun, find Wilda before Bausi’s men do, and go.”

Sigdir stayed a moment more and looked at Einar as if he was brother, something he’d not done for long years. Then he stood and left without a word or backward glance. But that was enough, maybe, to die with. That he had a brother again, that the three of them would be as safe as Einar could make them.

Wilda ran till her breath burned her throat, till her legs were stones, till her heart might burst on the mountain. She wouldn’t have run, would have stayed and faced whatever Einar now faced because of her, if it hadn’t been for Sigdir yanking her aside, for the sound of Einar’s voice calling on her to run,
run!
As though it were his life, too, that depended on it.

Sigdir had shoved her behind him, away from Bausi’s sword, away from his dark eyes and twisted smile. He too had told her to run.

So she ran, through the birches that seemed bleak and drear as the short day began to darken, away from the torches, away from Bausi and his sword, away from Sigdir and his marriage. Away from everything in this God-forsaken place. Yet this running held no pleasure. There was no delight in the snow crunching under her boots, at the wind knifing through her hair, no joy in the sheer freedom of it. All was panic, heart-thudding fear, and a shaft of regret so sharp it made her stumble.

Einar was left behind. She stopped dead. Einar was behind her, with his kind eyes, soft words and quiet courage. Her left hand gripped at the little hammer amulet he’d given her, that she’d dared to add to her wedding gown. All of it had been for her, everything, and she was running from him.

She sank down into the snow, not caring about the frigid wetness that seeped through her dress. If she wasn’t there, he wouldn’t even have the hope of the duel, the
einvigi.
That had been a small concession to her, her bride price. All that courage, all that kindness, gone to waste. Her one night never more than that, never more than memory.

Silence. That was what Einar asked of her. That was what she would give him. Silence on what Bausi had done. If she made it plain she’d not talk of it, if Einar lived…yet she couldn’t trust Bausi to keep his word. Not when she’d seen the way his face had contorted when he knew her, the way madness had taken him. So what
could
she do? The coldness settled in her heart again. What Saxon women always did—what they had to, to survive, and she’d not live out here, not running through the snow with nothing but a dress and a shawl and some boots.

A noise below her interrupted her thoughts. Someone coming up the path she’d made through the snow, their boots crunching and their breath rasping. Making no effort to creep up on her. Because she was trapped—nowhere to go and no way of knowing how to get there, even if there were—was her first thought, when the helm gleamed in a flick of light from a waning sun scudding from behind the clouds. Mail jingled and someone said what sounded like a curse-word in the heathen tongue.

Wilda slid behind a slim birch tree and hoped that would be enough to hide her in the grey light from a wan sun. It was Bausi, Bear Man, she was sure of it. Come to kill her and end it. With her and Einar dead, no one would ever know what he’d done.

“Wilda.” The voice was low and so choked with feeling, for a heartbeat she didn’t recognise it. Then the sun came out, bright and strong now, made shadows into sharply etched charcoal sketches on the dazzling snow. “Wilda, help Einar. Please.”

Sigdir lifted his head and she could see him clearly. The bemused look about his eyes, as though everything he’d been taught was a lie. He held his empty hands out, to show he meant no harm, she supposed. It wasn’t that what decided her. “Wilda, help Einar.”

Sigdir had never called him Einar before, no one but Wilda had. To them he was Toki, the simpleton, name and station in one.

“Please.”

Wilda came out from behind the birch and faced him. She’d been right before. He’d changed, something in him so different, so hard to pin down until she realised that now, his puzzled face turned to her with a soft, sad smile, he reminded her of Einar. He held out a hand to help her down the slope.

“Yes,” she said, and hoped her trust wasn’t misplaced.

Wilda followed Sigdir into the dark of Einar’s little hut, far away from the rest, from the light and noise that drifted up through the frosty air and a deepening snowfall. Sigdir lit a mean rush taper and light flickered over the little that Einar had.

She sat down on the bench and stroked a hand over the tatty furs there, hoping to feel a little of his warmth still on them, but they were long cold. Sigdir watched her closely, though he said nothing before he crouched before her. His eyes flicked about, restless again, across her face, down to where her hand held a palmful of deer fur, then he looked away, as though ashamed. Shamed for her, for coming to Einar? Or shamed for Einar? She couldn’t tell and it didn’t matter.

“Bausi.” The word made her jump, the harshness of it disturbing the hut, as though it had no right to be there. Sigdir’s face worked as he struggled to find some way to talk to her with only the few words she knew of Norse. Finally he shoved up a sleeve of his mail and revealed a gold arm ring carved with flying ravens. Arm rings for oaths. “Sigdir, Bausi.
Odin.
”

An oath to Bausi. All the men here were oath-sworn to him, in front of Odin, chief of their gods. And Sigdir was as devout to his gods as she was to her God. The men wouldn’t go against Bausi, because to do so would be to break oath, to go against their gods.

Sigdir took a deep breath, steeling himself for some great thing, she supposed, slid off the arm ring and gave it to her. It lay heavy in her hands, not just with the weight of gold, but with the weight of the gesture. Sigdir stood and arranged his mail again. He made a sign that could only mean she should stay, and with a last heavy look he left.

The hut lay draped in shadows, in ghosts. Of Einar and one night, of all his years here, alone and silent. Wilda held the arm ring and stared at it for a good while. What could she do? She didn’t know whether to trust Sigdir or not, whether Einar was already dead. Sigdir had made sure of his weapons before he left—wherever he was going, there would be blood, Wilda was sure of that. There was nothing she could do there. Where then, or rather what?

Have mercy on me, O Lord, have mercy upon me, Thy sinful servant and woeful handmaid, who now, in my greatest need and distress, do seek Thee.

Einar kept his head down, away from notice, but he could not hide from this. Bausi had him tied to a main beam in the hall so that all could taunt him during the wedding feast that doubled as Winter Nights.

A platter was shoved in front of him, full of steaming meat. Horse meat. Horse-Einar. He looked up at Bausi, at the towering strength of him. Einar stood no chance, none, come the
einvigi.
No chance to win, but that wasn’t what he’d planned. He couldn’t win—not the fight—but he could do something worse to Bausi than make him lose to a simpleton.

Bausi laughed at him, at the way he turned his head from a platter of good horse meat because of which horse it had been. Another weakness to add to the pile. Bausi moved away, unsteady on his feet, and sat in his high seat with his new bride beside him, surveying the hall, surveying the men in it who were his, oath and heart and curse.

Agnar sat in the shadows that darkened the hall as twilight approached, looking sorrowful but not interfering when other men came and taunted, pushed and shoved and told Einar they’d known that was the only way he could get a woman, by force, because only a simple mind would willingly go to him.

Geira sat in at the far end of the hall, her eyes not leaving Einar for a moment. He could feel the heat of them on his back, the weight of her expectation, but he had no threads left to pull, bar one.

Agnar half got to his feet when the door opened and Sigdir strode in, but sat back down abruptly at the look on his face. Einar risked a look. Sigdir’s face was pale but set, his hands hard knots at his side. He moved to his place by Bausi without a glance in Einar’s direction. Why was he still here? With Sigdir, and he supposed Gudrun and Wilda, still in the fjord, he couldn’t risk his plan. He had no threads left to pull.

“Well?” Bausi said, though he barely glanced Sigdir’s way, too intent on his new bride.

Sigdir finally looked at Einar, but there was nothing there, no emotion. “She’s dead.”

Einar stared at him, at the blank of his face, hoping to find the lie there. She couldn’t be dead, he’d spent all this on keeping her alive. All of it, just for that. No, that was a lie too. He’d done everything because he wanted her, because she saw inside him and thought he had courage. Because she was the only warmth he’d known for long years. He could see no lie in Sigdir’s face, and his world froze over again. For good this time.

Either Sigdir had killed her, or Sigdir was lying and he couldn’t tell which it was. Either way, she was gone, for good. Either way he had to do this, had finally gathered the dregs of his courage to face what he should have faced before. Take the curse and burn it, Geira had said, change the wyrd of the fjord. No way to do that—except in the closeness of
einvigi.
Bausi would expect Einar to try to kill him, not try to take a necklace.

Bausi grinned and clapped Sigdir on the shoulder. “Not to worry, little brother, only a thrall. There’ll be others like her. Or we could take a fort by force and settle. Would that satisfy you and your new hankering for farming over fighting?”

Sigdir stiffened at the insult of the last words, but he said nothing, only shot Einar an apologetic look. “Yes, Jarl Bausi.”

“Good, then wipe that smacked-arse look off your face and help celebrate! Winter Nights, a new bride and a fight in the morning, blood to offer on the occasion of my morning gift to my bride. It doesn’t get much better than that.” Bausi gestured to Ragnhilda, that Sigdir might drink.

Ragnhilda brought the full. As she walked past Einar—no, Toki again now, always Toki, he was only Einar to Wilda and she was gone—she spat on the floor by his knees. Toki stared at it, unseeing, unthinking. The spits, the taunts and jibes, no longer had any power over him. Nothing had any power over him. Not Bausi, not these ropes that held him, not even the curse. He watched Sigdir as he lifted the full to his lips—and saw the flicker of his eyelid. A brief spark of hope, a flame against the ice.

Once Sigdir had finished the full, he gestured to Toki. “You want that in here while you celebrate? Let me take him back to the pig barn, then we can drink in peace while he grovels in the shit.”

Bausi laughed expansively, making his new bride look nervous, though she covered it well, only the clank of her bowl giving away her trembling hand. “Good plan, Sigdir, you were always the one for good plans. He can freeze before I warm him up at the
einvigi.
”

Sigdir’s face was blank as he yanked Toki to his feet and shoved him toward the door. Outside, snow feathered down in great waves, making it difficult to see farther than a few feet ahead in the dying light of the day. Wind blasted Toki, a lazy wind that couldn’t be bothered to go round so it cut through.

“Storm coming. A bad storm, not one to be out in.” Sigdir wouldn’t look at him, but pushed him along the path towards the pig barn. Snow swirled about them, almost blinded Toki, but he could tell where they were headed by the smell.

Inside was at least warm. Not in the shit this time—at the end of the barn where they kept the feed. Sigdir kept his face turned as he tied Toki to a post. “Wilda’s alive. I left her in your hut.”

Alive—all his muscles seemed loose with relief so that he sagged against the wall. If she was alive, then he had to win free, had to do something before Bausi found out she was alive.

“Sometimes a brave man runs and fools remain, eh?” Sigdir said. “Well, I’m the fool then, because I didn’t run.”

“But—” And still, he couldn’t say.
If I leave, then it’s worse, then you and I and Gudrun will be gone, cold in our howes like Arni.
Yet a thought came to him, a plan. First see Wilda safe, see her to the edge of the valley and on. Then take this new courage that she’d given him, that bubbled up now and made itself felt, made it leak out of him like blood from a wound so he could no longer sit still and silent. Use it to end this curse, for good or ill.

Sigdir moved to the door and turned to face him finally, looking bewildered and yet determined. “I’ve lost too many brothers already. Stay alive, Einar Sheen-Mane.”

With that he shut the door, leaving Einar alone. Alone except for the grunt of pigs—and a knife thrust into the post by the rope.
Sometimes a brave man runs
. Wilda was still alive, and so was he. He set to cutting the rope that bound him.