Infinite Sacrifice (20 page)

“I feel I can’t be truly Christian
until I have one of those”—he rolls his hand, looking for the
word—“things on my heathen chest.”

Gunhilda tries to hide her laughter
with her hand and looks off to the side. Ansgar stares at Toke
flatly, blows out slowly, then begrudgingly removes the thick gold
chain from his thin neck and hands it gently into Toke’s
battle-scarred, padded hands.

He smiles wide, throws it over his
head, and proclaims, “I feel the power of Cross now upon
me.”

“Christ,” Ansgar corrects. “The
power of Christ.”

“Yes, that’s what I said.” Toke
smiles and motions his people to come forward.

Many from the circle line up for
Ansgar to bless them, and Toke grows tired of the scene and takes
Dalla into the house.

The feast begins without the
chieftain, and the Great Hall looks magical, with its long tables
set up with chairs, dishes, and many lit candles. The Great Hall is
only for the royal and hauld classes, while the peasant class and
the thralls have to eat with their hands around campfires in the
street. Hela sees us and coaxes us to her with a wave of her
withered hand. She’s sitting with the freemen and tells us it is
fine to sit beside her as her guests. As I eat the tender
horsemeat, the fatty juices drip down my chin and arms. Turning my
head to lick them off, I notice the sword of the fellow to my
right. I recognize it immediately as my da’s, the same one my
mother brandished the last time I saw her.

I glance up and see the two dark
spots on the jaw of the man who dangled me from his arms almost
four years ago. The man looks down at me quickly, and I dart my
eyes away. I wish I could’ve pulled that sword from his sheath and
stuck it in his greedy, murdering belly. I stop eating and stare
into the fire as I think about all the different ways one could
kill a man.

He speaks as I’m imagining his guts
spilled out all over the wooden planks beneath us. “I’ll soon have
enough to afford my own thrall.”

Most of the circle couldn’t care
less about what this warrior said, so he has to repeat himself
louder.

The man with the ice-blue eyes, who
had captured Gunhilda years ago, speaks. “You can’t possibly afford
a thrall. I’m still working my plot alone with my lazy brother. You
can’t afford it, Ragnar.” He sweeps the hair from his widow’s peak
back behind his ear.

“You calling me a liar, Konr?” He
throws down his plate.

“No, simply wondering if someone
found that hoard I’d buried about a month ago near your farm line,
is all.” He sucks the juice from his fingers, one by one. “Strange
thing is, it’s empty now.”

Ragnar stares back. “Maybe your
dimwitted brother here forgot where he buried it.”

Orm puts his filthy, greasy hands
up. “Calm down, boys. We’re friends here.” Ragnar picks his plate
back up as Orm finishes, “Besides, maybe he found one of them elf
hoards!”

He throws his head back and brays
like a mule. I can’t tell if everyone erupts in laughter from his
joke or the way he laughs.

Ragnar says, “Well, elf hoard or
not, I’ve almost got enough, and I know just the thrall I’m going
to offer on.” He looks directly at Una.

I freeze beside him and watch out
of the corner of my eye as he removes a comb from his belt and
begins taming his long mustache.

Orm itches low at his crotch with
an irritated look. “You’re in league with the elves and dwarves and
such, being the Angel and all?”

Hela looks up from her plate, and
when she sees him referring to her, she nods, like she has done all
her years as a thrall.

“Well then, tell me what happens
when you pee in an elf circle again?”

His brother nudges him with his
elbow. “Why did you go an’ piss in a circle for?”

He brings his hands up. “Didn’t
notice until I was half through, and you know how you can’t stop
once your start, so…”

Hela clears her old throat and
speaks so quietly everyone has to lean in slightly. “It will
burn.”

Orm says with his nose scrunched,
“What will burn?”

Ragnar jumps in happily, “Your piss
will burn like you’ve laid with a sick whore.”

“You probably got it from that wife
of yours with the beard,” Konr jokes.

“She’s from the north! They all
have beards up there,” Orm says.

Hela begins to gather her things
like she’s trying to get away, but Orm puts his dirty hand up and
stays her to ask, “Hold on there, then, what gives you whip
worms?”

Hela turns around steadily with her
long, white hair cascading and replies, “Eating shite.”

The circle erupts in laughter as
she walks away, and another warrior starts itching his underarm,
saying, “I’ve been hit with an elfin blow. Rash all the way from my
arm to my waist.”

We say our good-nights, and Una and
I agree we’ll follow some of the wagons leaving, since wolves come
out in large packs under this moon. As we’re nearing the towers,
something flashes by us, hooting like a loon. I recognize the
strange shape immediately as Gunhilda. She’s sprinting twice as
fast as any man could run but only half as fast as Toke’s horses.
We stop and watch as she zigzags in the road with nine warriors in
pursuit. She is enjoying every minute, darting and stopping and
starting again.

All who are on their way out on the
road stops and watches the game as the warriors keep trying to get
off their horses at a run and catch her once they come upon her.
She runs off the road and leaps over the high fence of a farm. She
runs like a wild stag, bounding over the dried winter grasses. More
and more warriors are sent out after her as she brings two
unfortunate ones down in the grass and keeps running. Halfway out
in the pasture, two warriors spread a net between them while riding
their horses. They bear down on her as she ducks once, avoiding the
net completely, but when she gets back up, another net is thrown on
her.

We wait to watch how they drag her
back, and she keeps shaking her legs like she’s still dancing,
kicking them up in the tangled net, humming the tunes of the
night.

Una and I continue walking home,
replaying the whole crazy night, until we reach our fences, where
we can still hear Borga honking.

Chapter 7

Months pass and Rolf leaves again
with the warm weather. Saturday comes and I’m asked to bring Thora
and Erna into the village again. We pass by the immense church
Ansgar received permission to build, right between the two sacred
temples. They’ve recently finished constructing the bell tower, and
I stop the wagon to listen. Boys pull on ropes that send them
leaping up into the air, and the massive bells chime so loudly Toke
comes bursting out of his hall.

“What is that noise?” he yells as
he covers his ears.

Ansgar announces over the
cacophony, “Those are the blessed bells that sing Christ’s
praises!”

Toke looks up, eyes squinted in
pain. “Can they praise less excruciatingly?”

Baffled, Ansgar shakes his head,
and Toke stomps away across to the bathhouse as he’s brought in
first. By the time we leave the bathhouse, there’s a mob forming.
Many are yelling; some go and seek Toke out.

“What is this all about now?” he
asks.

Konr raises his fist and shouts,
“He murdered my brother this very morning! Ragnar! Struck Orm down
before he could even draw his sword!”

Some of the villagers have Ragnar’s
hands behind his back and push him toward the chieftain.

Toke asks, “Is this
true?”

Ragnar nods. “The squab provoked
me. Accused me of stealing their hoard for the second
time.”

Konr shouts as two others hold him
back, “He did take our hoard! We found it dug up on our shared
property line, and there’s no one else on our farm. Orm only went
to ask him to show him his trunk to prove he didn’t have our
property. And he”—his voice breaks—” he pulled out his sword and
sliced his neck half through!”

Ragnar fights those who hold him
and yells, “No one can demand to check another man’s locked
chests!”

Toke nods. “True. What lies in a
man’s locked chest is his own business.” His seriousness dissolves
immediately into chuckles. “That is, after they have paid their
taxes and levies to me, of course.”

Just then, the bells ring again,
causing Toke and many others to jump. “Damn bells!” He curses up at
them, “First they tell us to stop eating horses. Then they tell us
how we should marry. How to pray. We can’t even abandon our own
wretched children in the woods anymore! But now this. These
deafening gongs and pings! It’ll make a man go crazy.”

He grinds his teeth, and I realize
this is no time to be deciding such an important matter.

Toke shouts, “Ragnar, you were
wrong to take another life without allowing Orm to raise his own
sword. Pay him his worth and future worth to his brother, in
addition to all surviving dependents, and this matter will be
over.”

Ragnar shakes his head defiantly.
“I will not pay, Chieftain. I feel I was justified, and that would
take all my savings.”

Toke draws in a frustrated breath
as he brings his hands up. “A fight to the death it is, then.
Ragnar and Konr, right now in the square.”

Ragnar looks pleased, and Konr
fills with rage. Both men go to their armor and weapons. Chieftain
Toke holds his arms up as Ragnar and Konr stares across with their
arms at the ready.

Toke speaks, “No rules except one.
Once your blood spills and lands on these stones beneath your feet,
the match is done. The wounded has a chance to pay to be released
before his life is taken.” He waits for each man to nod to him;
then he brings his hands down and yells, “Fight!”

Thora turns Erna’s eyes away and
walks out of the circle away from the fight. I look on as each
draws his sword and I’m praying that Da’s sword is made poorly and
will shatter into shiny pieces. Nevertheless, it is a mighty sword,
and Ragnar wields it like it’s weightless. Konr catches all of his
blows but seems more on the defensive, moving around, trying to
keep Ragnar on his good arm. One powerful blow splits Konr’s
red-and-black shield, forcing him to pitch it. As he tries to turn
to grab his axe, Ragnar’s sword comes down on his outstretched hand
and lops it off in one smooth motion. The hand falls, curled like
Ansgar’s wax glove, as Konr spills his bright blood onto the
stones. Konr screams in agony and grabs the stub.

Toke steps in. “Konr, will you pay
to be released, or will you fight to the death?”

Konr doesn’t answer but stares
blankly at Ragnar in thick rage.

Ansgar speaks from the circle and
says in a calm voice, “‘The halt can manage a horse, the handless a
flock, the deaf be a doughty fighter, to be blind is better than to
burn on a pyre: there is nothing the dead can do.’”

Konr hears his words and, with his
face drawn in pain, says, “I will pay the murderer.”

The medicine woman steps out from
the crowd, ties linen around his wound, and escorts him away. One
of Konr’s relatives hands a bag of silver to the chieftain, and he
spits when Ragnar reaches his clenched hand up to take
it.

The crowd begins to dissolve as
Ragnar holds up the bag and proclaims, “I hadn’t the money for a
thrall before but I’ve sure got it now!”

They burn Orm on the pyre in the
square that night, and I can see the smoke spiraling up to the
heavens from our farm. As soon as Rolf returns, Ragnar appears at
our farm. I rush to find Una milking our brown cow.

“He’s here!” I huff.

“Who is here?” She glances up,
moving the bucket so the cow can’t kick it.

“Ragnar! He’s speaking with Rolf,
and he brought his bag of coins!”

Una looks down into the frothy
milk.

“Una, you should hide!” I say,
trying to delay the inevitable.

She shakes her head. “No, if he
must buy me, I can’t change that.”

She lifts the two full buckets and
walks out trying not to spill them.