Wolfskin (9 page)

Eyvind shook his head.

“Speak up,” said Karl.

“No, I'm not.”

“Can you speak thus for yourself? Have you conducted yourself as you should at all times?”

Eyvind felt a twinge of anger. “Of course I have!”

“I accept your word,” said Karl gravely. “I did not doubt you. But this must be fair in all respects. What I ask the others, I must also ask you. In fact, you are already cleared of any suspicion, for I have several accounts
that you spent all day away hunting yesterday, and could not have been involved in what has occurred. The quarry you brought back last night proved that. Now tell me. Has there been any talk among these lads of—any talk that might suggest someone was thinking of mischief, of breaking the rules in some way?”

Eyvind swallowed. “It would help,” he ventured, “if you could tell me what has happened. Has someone been hurt? Insulted? Where are the girls?”

Karl's mouth tightened. “Oksana has taken the girls home. No more need be said. Now answer the question, Eyvind. If you know anything, you should tell me.”

“No,” Eyvind said. “I don't believe anyone would break the rules. Sometimes, at night, we do talk about…about girls, and that sort of thing—but all the lads want to stay up here; they wouldn't be stupid enough to try anything that would get them in trouble.” He remembered Sigurd, and the fury of those axe strokes. “Karl?”

“It's not a matter for public airing. I've given these lads instructions not to talk about it. Tell me, have you seen any strangers here these last few days, any men who do not belong on our land? Perhaps when you were out hunting? Think carefully, Eyvind.”

“Nobody. You know as well as I do, we're the only ones who hunt up here. I wish you would tell me—”

“That would serve no purpose. As I said, you boys are not to discuss this. Now, you'd best bring in what you've caught for the day and make up the fire, for we still have to eat. I have not got to the bottom of this, for you all tell the same tale of innocence, and there's not a shred of evidence. I don't like it; but I've enough work on the farms, and cannot take more time now to delve further for the truth. Call the other lads in, do what you can for supper.”

“Are the girls coming back?” Eyvind ventured.

There was a brief silence.

“No,” said Karl heavily. “We'll send a couple of women up to do the milking and prepare the cheeses. You'll have a particular job here, Eyvind, one you're well suited to, and that's keeping your friends out of trouble. Some of us will come up before harvest and help you bring the stock down. Perhaps this matter is best left to sort itself out.”

They all had an idea what had happened. But as to who had done it, that remained a mystery. The boys obeyed Karl's orders; nobody put the
thing into words. Without evidence there is no crime. No man accuses another without witnesses and without proof, for such a charge cannot stand when it is brought before worthy men for consideration. Indeed, if one tried to bring such a charge, one might well attract talk of vexatious litigation. You didn't have to be a law speaker to know that. But the matter that was unspoken hung heavy among them. It was in Sigurd's sudden, violent rages, and in Eyvind's dark dreams. It was in Somerled's crooked smiles and narrowed eyes, and it was there every evening when they sat by the fire and felt the absence of the girls, of shapely Halla and giggling Thorgerd and sweet, blushing Ragna with her hair like ripe corn. One day Eyvind found Sigurd with his hands around Somerled's neck, and the other boy backed against a tree trunk, purple-faced and gasping. Eyvind wrenched them apart, gripping the wild-eyed Sigurd by the arms, forcing him away.

“In Thor's name, what do you think you're doing? You could have killed him!”

“I'm all right,” Somerled croaked, fingers gingerly exploring the red collar of bruising on the pale skin of his throat. “Leave it, will you?”

“Leave it? How can I leave it? What if he tries it again? Sigurd, I don't know what's come over you. Now come on, walk with me to the hut and tell me what the trouble is. And promise me you'll leave Somerled alone. He's no warrior, and he's a guest here. Besides, you're twice his size.”

Sigurd spat in the dirt at Somerled's feet.

“If you've got something to say, best say it plainly.” Eyvind kept his voice calm.

“Huh!” Sigurd snarled. “Blood brothers, aren't you? You'll always be blind to what he is.”

After that, Eyvind's misgivings began to plague him so badly that he broke his brother's orders and asked Somerled outright, one morning when the two of them were alone together.

“About Ragna, what was done to her—was it you?” The question was bald; there was no other way to ask such a thing.

Somerled's brows shot up in astonishment. “Me? Hardly. Why would a fellow mess about with children when he could have a real woman? The idea's laughable.”

Eyvind did not like his friend's manner, but he accepted his words as truth, and slept a little more easily. Somerled would not lie to him. The oath they had sworn in blood made that impossible.

Sigurd grew more and more aloof as the summer drew to its close. He
ceased to help with the sheep, and seemed instead to be practicing axe hurling and spear throws, and sharpening knives. For a boy who had never wanted to be other than a housecarl like his father, this was surprising behavior. Eyvind suggested if he felt the need to strangle somebody, he might try it on him, since a Wolfskin could never have too much combat practice.

The summer passed, still sunny and warm, but no longer bathed in that glorious sense of innocent freedom with which it had begun. They did their work, and the days went by, and at length they drove the flocks and herds back down to the farm, for it was haymaking month. All were pressed into service, even Eirik who was back from the spring viking looking bigger and wilder than ever, his full beard and long plaited hair a match for the bright gold of the corn ripening in its sheltered field behind the longhouse. With some ceremony, they mowed the lush grasses of the homefield, where the best of the season's hay was grown. The homefield boar, sole tenant of this verdant domain, stood in a corner watching, his small eyes thoughtful.

Ulf came, and Somerled went back to court. Whether the events of the summer were discussed, Eyvind did not know, and he did not ask. Ragna was very quiet these days; she stayed close by the other women, solemn and pale, and she no longer spoke to Eyvind or to any of the boys. There were no secrets by the fire, no gifts of flowers or whispered words in quiet corners. Indeed, it seemed to be Sigurd she avoided most of all; she would not even look him in the eye. And Sigurd was still angry. Somerled's departure had, if anything, fueled whatever burned inside him, and he seemed compelled to violent activity, as if his rage must be made into action lest it break him apart. Ingi set him to scything, but it was Eyvind who slaughtered the homefield boar when it was time, for he had the steadiest hand. Nobody liked this job. While they were careful not to give this pampered creature a name, for all knew his destiny was to provide ham and bacon, bristles and soup bones, it was hard not to befriend him over the growing months, with a scratch behind the ear here, and a kind word there. Eyvind understood that drawing the knife across the pig's throat was, in its way, another test. Before long it would be a man who screamed and shuddered thus under his hands, and he must think of it no differently, or he could never do Thor's work. He made the killing an act of mercy: swift, clean and final.

In corn-cutting month, the weather turned foul. They managed to get the crop in, and then rain bucketed down and the stream flooded
almost up over the bridge. Somebody left a gate open and the chickens got out. During a lull in the downpour, the girls, cloaked in sacking and wearing their heaviest boots, ventured out to find them and herd them back. Grip, the old dog, followed creakily after. Some time passed, and the rain started again. Eyvind was up to the elbows in blood, cutting up a sheep carcass for salting, when he heard Grip barking. The note of it spoke alarm. Outside, Halla stood shivering in the rain while Thorgerd hustled the last of the bedraggled chickens into their coop and fastened the gate.

Ragna was missing. She had gone down the track toward the stream and they had lost sight of her. They'd called but there had been no reply. Now they were back and so were the chickens, but there was no sign of Ragna.

Sensing disaster, Eyvind shrugged on a cloak and yelled for help. Many went out to search; all the men and boys of the household and some of the women as well. Dark-haired Oksana walked beside Eirik, her face tight-lipped and anxious. Halla and Thorgerd had simply exchanged their wet sacks for dry ones and plunged out into the downpour in search of their friend. Not that there was any reason to think Ragna had not simply sheltered awhile in a cave somewhere, or under the trees, until the rain abated. Perhaps she would appear soon, a small, blond figure making her way back up the muddy track to home and warmth, with a lone chicken tucked under an arm. It would be easy to think that, if not for the dog. Grip would never leave a girl out of doors alone in such a storm. Grip had run home and raised the alarm. Besides, there was the thing that everyone knew, and did not say.

It was some time before she was found. Grip led them first to the bridge, where the water now brimmed over the wooden slats, but Ragna was not there. They made their way downstream on either side, and before dusk they saw her between rocks, lying calm and still with her blue eyes gazing skywards, and the water washing clear and swift over her small face. It was Sigurd who lifted her out and carried her home. His face was ashen, his eyes ferocious. Ragna's mother, widowed early, wept for the loss of her only daughter. Ingi was strong as always, comforting the girls, making arrangements. Eyvind thought Sigurd might weep at last that night. But Sigurd shed no tears. Instead he stood silent, gazing at the still figure laid out in her snowy linen, the flaxen hair now neatly combed and plaited, the features at peace. The only part of Sigurd that moved was his hands; they
opened and closed, opened and closed by his sides. He stared at Ragna as if to burn her image into his mind. If he had been angry before, now there was a darkness on his face that boded ill for the future.

An accident: that was what they said. But Eyvind heard Eirik and Oksana talking, late at night, when the household had at last settled into an exhausted sleep. They were in the hallway, and they were whispering, but he could hear parts of it, for Oksana's voice was harsh with weeping.

“It's my fault,” she sobbed. “It's all my fault, your mother trusted me! How could I let such a thing happen? And now Ragna's dead!”

“Hush.” Eirik's voice was soft; there was a note in it Eyvind had never heard before. “Hush, now. Nobody blames you; you did your best to watch over them.”

“She was only little, a child herself. I'm guilty, Eirik.”

“It was a man did this evil,” Eirik said heavily, “and a man who should bear the blame, and suffer the punishment.”

“He will escape both,” said Oksana. “Ragna takes that secret to her grave. She would not tell who it was; even her mother could not discover it. This man has threatened her, I think; why else keep silent?”

“In time, the truth might have been plain to see. But this sad accident has removed any chance of proof,” Eirik said.

“Accident?” Oksana echoed, and Eyvind felt his heart grow cold.

“You don't think…?” began Eirik.

“That child went out today with no intention of coming home again. She was terrified: so small and so hurt, too young for what was to come. Oh, Eirik, I should have stopped her, I should have—”

“Hush, sweetheart. There now, there now. Come, it's late; you must sleep. Don't weep so.”

And they moved away down the passage, until Eyvind could hear them no longer. His astonishment at hearing his brother, a man of such high standing, speaking to a thrall-woman as if she were not only his intimate companion but also his equal, was brief enough. It was what they had said that really shocked him. Their words forced him to recognize a truth he had tried hard not to see. What had happened up at the shieling had been a sentence of death for Ragna. It had snatched away all chance of the life Sigurd had predicted with blithe confidence in the days of their childhood. And so she had stepped off the bridge and let the storm decide the future for her. A man had done that; a man had started it. But Ragna was the only witness, and Ragna could never tell now. Her short tale was over. And
although Eyvind had done nothing wrong, nothing at all, still he felt guilty, as if he were somehow responsible for what had happened.

 

Not long after, Sigurd went away. He took an axe and a bow and a few provisions, but he did not say where he was going, and nobody asked. Truth to tell, things were much easier on the farm without him, for his behavior had grown quite odd, swinging between sudden bursts of rage and long periods of moody silence. Indeed, he had seemed a different person entirely after what happened, and some said that in itself was a sure sign of guilt.

In the time of the first frost, Eyvind dreamed of blood and of fire. He saw bright eyes in the darkness, watching; he heard the whisper of the god. The next day they came for him.

It is not a sight granted to many, to watch a full team of Wolfskins ride by. A lesser nobleman such as Ulf, brother of Somerled, might hope to assemble a force of six to spearhead his sea battles and protect him against treachery on land. Jarl Magnus had eleven. Eirik led them; Hakon was by his side, and following grim and silent rode an assembly of warriors who seemed the stuff of some fantastic dream. Their hair was long and wild, or cut to mere stubble on the naked scalp. Their faces were fierce and scarred. Each wore the short cloak of shaggy wolf pelt, fastened at the shoulder with a clasp of bronze or silver. But this garment was no uniform, no sign of a particular allegiance. Each man was himself. At the moment of ultimate test, each went forth alone. And they bore the signs of it; one had an ear missing, and one a deep seam across temple and cheek, where the skin puckered around the old mark of some adversary's blade. This same scarred man had many teeth gone; his grin was an alarming sight, but even more worrying was his shield rim, which was splintered and worn down all around its upper edge. The children whispered as they watched him; maybe the stories they had heard were true. There were no old men among the Wolfskins, no men of middle years. Eyvind's own uncles had died nobly in Thor's service, and it was expected a similar fate awaited any who joined this band. To complete four years or five was considered a remarkable feat of survival. Such a calling was not for a man who wanted a wife and sons and a farm, and to die comfortably in his bed.