Odin’s Child (2 page)

“One more time, Grani!” I shouted.

Then Mord raised his arm. I saw what he was going to do and I tried to throw myself in his way—too late! The goad went up and came slashing down at Grani's head. My beautiful stallion rose on his hind legs and wheeled round, showing only a red well where his eye had been. In the same motion he struck me on the brow with his fore-hoof, knocking me down, and with a scream of terror and pain plunged through the crowd.

The next thing I remember, Gunnar was holding me up under the arms, wiping the blood from my eyes with a strip of his tunic. Together we stumbled after Grani. A dozen men held him down by his head and legs as he writhed in the dirt. What happened after that comes to my mind now only in sharp splinters of memory: my brother forcing my fingers around the haft of a spear, his mouth working, saying that the horse must not live mutilated, the spear shuddering in my fist, sinking deep, until half its length was buried in Grani's chest, and his hot blood spurting over my hands.

“A good sacrifice,” said someone in the crowd who was of the old religion. “Frey is glad of him.”

I pressed my face against Grani's neck, letting my blood and his run together, until Gunnar pulled me away. “There is a reckoning,” he said.

Followed by the crowd, we walked back to the clearing. There Hrut and his sons with four of their hirelings stood close together, looking truculent and just a little frightened. There was a numbing pain in my forehead over the right eye. My legs barely held me up.

“Stay behind me,” ordered my brother.

He was holding the goad—I suppose he had pried it from my hand—and, without a word, he went straight for Mord. Quick as a cat he swung it, aiming for the eye, and Mord let out a howl and fell to the ground. Instantly, the rest of them had their swords out. We would have died there and then if bystanders hadn't rushed between us, throwing their cloaks over the blades and pushing us in opposite directions.

Next moment, there came a shout to make way. Hjalti the Strong, big and barrel-chested, shouldered his way into our midst and roared for quiet. He was the godi of Tjorsariverdale, a respected and powerful man.

He stamped his foot and glared around him. Devil skin him, he would stand for no brawling at his Thing. If folk couldn't enjoy a simple horse-fight without falling to blows, then damn him if he wouldn't see it all put a stop to!

But Hrut appealed to the crowd to pity his boy that was all bloodied and who knew but what he was blinded for life.

“Hold!” cried Hjalti. “Enough! The harm's equal for both. Mord's wound for the horse's. No blood money owed on either side, nor any more blows to be struck, or you'll have me to deal with. Agreed?” It wasn't a question.

He looked to us. Gunnar, after a long moment, let the goad drop from his hand. “Agreed,” he said between his teeth.

Hjalti looked to Strife-Hrut. Hrut said nothing, but he and his men turned their backs and stalked off, dragging Mord behind them.

“Well if he murders you,” confided Hjalti, watching them go, “it'll be flat against the law.”

Hjalti-godi was renowned for his keen legal mind.

The crowd began to drift away, except for a few who approached us and asked quietly if they might buy a haunch or a side of Grani to take home for their table, the horse having so much strength in him, and bugger the priest that didn't like it.

I walked apart and let them bargain with Gunnar. I hadn't the heart for it.

When he came back he threw an arm around my shoulder. “You want to stay a bit?” he asked. “Watch the wrestling, stone-lifting? Listen to the lawsuits?”

I shook my head, no.

“Not anxious to go home and deal with
him
, are you?”

“He must be told, Gunnar. And maybe he'll see what fate lies ahead of us—the feud, if there is one. He has the gift, you know he does.”

Gunnar spat and ground the spittle into the dirt with his boot. “Much good it does him.”

We spoke little going home. Sullen clouds heavy with rain hid the sun, and a cold mist gathered in the hollows and low places along our way, creeping into our bones, although we huddled deep in our cloaks. The lump from Grani's hoof oozed blood and throbbed. But the real pain was in my heart.
They haven't paid enough
, I thought, not enough for Grani's life, whatever Hjalti-godi says.

We reached the top of the ridge overlooking our home-field. The sun was sinking below the horizon draining the light from the sky. We gazed down at the silver ribbon of the Ranga, swift-flowing with the water of glaciers. Beyond the river rose Hekla's snowy peak, a plume of smoke drifting up from its cone. Between the river and the volcano's barren flank lay our farmstead – good land, although far from the coast and out of the way of travelers.

As we splashed across the ford, our grass-green house came into view. Long and low and walled with turf, it looked not so much built upon the ground as sprouted from it. A cow shed and stable joined the hall at one end, sheep pens ran along one side, and nearby were the smithy, the hay barn, and the thralls' cabins—the sum total of our estate.

Because no freeborn tenant or hired man would stay on the place, we were forced to rely on the grudging labor of thralls. Two of them, idling outside the door, looked up when they heard us coming. If they noticed the absence of Grani, they gave no sign. We gave them our horses to stable
and, stooping through the doorway, passed into the dim space within. The fuggy chill seemed to follow us inside and, as always when the air was damp, a haze of peat smoke filled the room, unable to find its way out through the smoke hole.

Before we took another step, Gunnar's new-wed wife, Vigdis, ran to us, kissed him, and thrust his little son into his arms. While he gave him a squeeze and a toss, she eyed us anxiously.

“Jorunn Ship-Breast,” she called over her shoulder, “there's been trouble. Odd is hurt.”

My mother's head appeared through the doorway of the weaving room. She covered the length of the hall with swift strides.

“Odd, what have you done to yourself?”

She started to put her hand to my head but Gunnar got between us and told her I had been bloodied like a man and needed no women to fuss over me. She took a step back. Gunnar was her darling, he had that sort of influence with her.

“What has happened, Odd?”

“Mother, you'll hear it all when he does. He must be told first.”

Gunnar and I strode down the hall and stopped before the smoke-blackened pillars of his high-seat. Thorvald's rings and chains glowed dully in the pale light of the hearth-fire and his shadow trembled large on the wall behind him. Always he sat so in the evenings: silent, frowning at his knees while the life of the house flowed quietly past him as water in a stream laps the stone.

Only his hands had life. In one he held a knife, in the other a stick of kindling, planed smooth on its sides. For hours at a time he would bend over such a stick, working slowly along its length, carving the runes, which are Odin's gift to men. First, he would cut the long uprights, then add the hooks and cross-strokes until all sixteen letters of the futhark were complete. And always, while he carved, he mumbled in a low singsong their names:
Fe … Ur … Thurs … Ass … Reid … Kaun … Hagall … Nauth … Iss … Ar … Sol … Tyr … Bjarkan … Mathr … Logr … Yr
. When he was done, he would fill up the empty spaces that remained with interlocking spirals and twining serpents until every bit of the stick was minutely covered.

If this was magic, it got him nothing. He neither prayed nor cursed as he carved; only the act itself absorbed him. When he was done, he would throw the thing into the fire, choose another stick, and begin again.

Gunnar and I stood waiting to be noticed until, finally, I spoke his name. Only then did he raise his eyes—dark, deep-set eyes under sweeping black brows like the wings of a raven.

“You've an unlucky look about you, boy.” Ignoring Gunnar, he looked straight at me.

I said, “Grani is dead and we're at feud with Strife-Hrut Ivarsson.” I added the circumstances short and plain. While he listened, the corners of his mouth drew downward and the furrow between his eyes deepened. A vein, like a twisting worm, pulsed at his temple.

I waited, tense with expectation, hoping to hear the words that would send us into battle. His knife-blade bit deep into the stick; a sliver of wood flew at me.

“You!” he snarled. “You would plague me about the horse. O, you brave Stallion-Fighter, don't you know men like Hrut Ivarsson grow fat from feuding with their neighbors? You gave him his opening—I blame you for whatever happens now.”

Gunnar started to defend me.

“Shut up!” Thorvald shouted him down. “You think I haven't seen it? Three nights ago in my sleep—twelve riders approached a desolate house and entered it. Inside were women standing before a loom—the Norns. Men's heads were their loom-weights, guts were their weft and warp, a sword their beater, their shuttle an arrow. While they worked they sang a bloody song.”

He sank back in his seat and passed his hand over his eyes. He had visions often—though never one I could recall as gruesome as this.

“Husband, dreams are sent by the Devil to delude us.” My mother had come up behind us while he spoke.

“D'you think so? Did the foreign priests teach you that? Well …” he began in a truculent tone but seemed to shrink under her steady gaze and an uncertain look crept into his eyes. “… well, anyway, here it ends. We'll not feud with Strife-Hrut. No, not for all the stallions in Iceland. Now leave me in peace.”

My chest ached so I could scarcely breathe. “At least we weren't cowards!”

The word burst from me—I had never dared say it aloud before. There was a long moment's silence. Then the hand that held the rune-stick lashed out and struck me across the forehead where my wound was. My
knees gave way and only Gunnar's grip on my arm kept me from falling.

“Coward?
To me
? Say that again, boy, and I'll have the lungs out of you! If it shames you to live in my hall, then go to sea and earn your bread with your spear as I once did. You'll soon have your belly full of fighting. But while you eat my bread, you'll take my orders. There will be no feud. Just as I have done these thirty years, I'll have naught to do with Strife-Hrut or any of the rest of 'em.” And almost to himself he added, “You know why.”

All the world knew why.

Twenty-nine years before, when Iceland became a Christian country, Black Thorvald, alone of the forty-eight godis, had refused to accept the new faith.

It happened this way. Missionaries came from Norway; in particular a man named Thangbrand of Saxony. At first, the people laughed at him, but Thangbrand frightened them with stories that the world was soon to end in fire and the dead rise from their tombs, for it was nearing the thousandth year, he said, since the birth of the White Christ. This Thangbrand was a fighter, too. He attacked some who disputed him and killed three or four—one, a famous berserker, whom he beat to death with a crucifix.

Then there began to be conversions and the country was deeply rent. At the Althing that summer, open fighting nearly broke out between the new believers and the old until, at the last moment, a compromise—or so they called it—was proposed. In order that the country not be split into warring camps, both sides would let one man decide for all of them and take their oath to uphold his decision.

The story goes that he lay for a night and a day in his tent, his face covered with a cloak, while outside the people waited. When, at last, he came out, he gave his verdict. Let there be one law and one belief for all, he pronounced—and let it be the religion of the White Christ!

My father and a few like-minded friends were stunned, furious. But they had sworn. More than that, they were outnumbered. The godis knew that if they did not lead the way to conversion, others would, and they would soon see their old-time influence usurped. Thus they rushed to lick the Christmen's boots. That, at any rate, was what my father shouted in the face of their leader, the rich and powerful Snorri of Helgafel.

The following day, when people left the Althing, they dipped
themselves in hot springs and let the foreign priests say words over them. All, that is, but Thorvald the Black. He stood apart and railed at them, scorning their new religion and calling it a feeble thing, unbecoming to war-like men. But, though many in their hearts agreed with him, none stood with him, and he left Thingvellir Plain alone.

Within a few years, the exposure of infants was banned as well as the public eating of horseflesh. Soon after that, even private sacrifice to the old gods was forbidden on pain of outlawry. Then old folk, especially old women, who clung to their fathers' faith, were called witches and some were drowned in the deep pool at Law-Rock.

In the end, my father made two concessions. First, he gave up sacrificing to Thor, whose temple had stood on our land for five generations. Not because the law forbade it, but because he was enraged at Old Redbeard for letting this new god make a fool of him. And secondly, he allowed our mother, whom he had lately married, to have herself baptized together with the others of her family. This may seem strange, but he loved her very much. He even allowed her to go to church twice a year and to wear a cross provided she did not expose it near the fresh milk or the beer when it was brewing.

His stubbornness cost him dear. In the year one thousand, Black Thorvald was a vigorous man of two-and-thirty, full of fire and ambition. His voice was heard with respect at the Althing, and men had begun to seek his support in their lawsuits and to promise their allegiance in return. He had made a name for himself as a viking too, spending a part of each year at sea and enjoying the guest-friendship of the great Orkney jarls.

All this he let slip from his hands. He had never made a secret of the fact that he knew rune-lore and that he had the second sight. Now folk began to whisper against him, and the more they whispered, the more he despised them. As the years passed, his thingmen, whose fathers and grandfathers had been dependents of our family, deserted him for happier halls and fewer and fewer sought his help. He, being too proud to seek theirs, turned from them and ceased to attend any of their gatherings. Finally, he let his chieftaincy be purchased for a song, as though it were a thing of no worth.