Odin’s Child by Bruce MacBain Read Free Book Online

heads in their bloody wrapping at her feet. At the sight of it her eyes caught fire.
    â€œYour sister will have joy of it,” she said. “She died in the night. Her grave is dug. We’ve waited for you.”
    The words she spoke were plain, but black hate and battle joy rang in her voice.
    I felt it, too. Round and round in my head ran the words,
You are a warrior. Never mind the fear and the pain, nothing that a man does is better than this
.
    That night we busied ourselves with preparations for the coming of Hrut. By dawn the weapons had been sharpened, the thralls armed, lookouts posted.
    But when Strife-Hrut Ivarsson came, it was with no army of killers at his back. He came instead with nine farmers as witnesses, as the law prescribes, and from his saddle screamed at us the formula of summons to the next summer’s Althing on a charge of murder.
    In amazement we watched them wheel their mounts and gallop off.
    â€œMurder!” I exploded. “It’s not murder, it’s manslaughter, rightful killing in feud. We declared it so at his neighbor’s farm.”
    Gunnar shot me a worried look. “Odd, did you not recognize that selfsame neighbor just now among the nine witnesses? Either bribed or frightened, it makes no difference, he’ll swear to Hrut’s version of the facts, not ours.”
    â€œOh wife, oh sons of mine,” said Thorvald in a voice like doom. “D’you begin to see now what you have done?”
    He had come back from his wandering just after Gunnar and I reached home. I had expected him to be furious at us, but as so often happened with him, his frenzy had given way to dumb resignation. After his daughter’s burial, he had taken to his high-seat again, and from there, all night, he watched us—not helping, but at least, not hindering our preparations for battle.
    â€œYou may cry to the mountains that Hrut murdered your sister, but you have no proof. Instead it is
you
now who face trial for murder.”
    â€œBut the law—” protested Gunnar.
    â€œBugger the law, you fool. You’ve tossed a sword at Hrut’s feet—for law is the sharpest sword of all. And he is not the man to let it lie. He will go away from the Althing with our lives, our land, with everything that is ours, and the law will smile on him.”
    There was a deep silence in the room. For this sounded to us not like a madman’s ravings, but the hard-earned wisdom of a man who had once sat among the forty-eight godis of Iceland. Vigdis moved closer to Gunnar and put her hand in his. The thralls traded tense, stealthy glances.
    â€œNo, Husband,” cried Jorunn, “you are wrong. Whether you like to admit it or not, there
is
one who can save us, for nothing is beyond his wit.”
    â€œShut your mouth, woman, a troll has twisted your tongue! Even if he could do what you say, I would not beg my life of that man.”
    â€œNo, but
I
will, and he’ll do it for me and his nephews—and because it’s his Christian duty. Thank God for my brother, Hoskuld Long-Jaws!”
    â€ 
    Soon after this, black night came down on us like a cover on a kettle. It was a brief and pale light that drifted down the smoke hole when the feeble sun got his head up over the horizon, only to sink back at once, exhausted, into the sea. Snow piled high against the door, sealing us inour smoky tomb. We huddled with the animals for warmth, drank much, but without cheer, and thought our own gloomy thoughts. Yuletide came, but we, holding neither to the old religion nor the new, scarcely knew how to keep it.
    Winter wore on. And then one day, the Ranga loosened in its icy sleeve, the sun grew stronger, and the rains came. Thorvald would not sow the barley seed that spring, for he said he did not expect to reap the crop. But, under our mother’s eye, Gunnar and I took his place.
    Our neighbors took their fighting-stallions to the South Quarter Thing, and no doubt,