CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

 

GANDHÓLM

 

With good weather and the wind in their sail, the majority of the crew suddenly found themselves bereft of purpose. For the first time in what seemed an age, there was nothing that demanded to be done - nothing to guard, no one to fight, no threat of death.

It was, Bjólf knew, the calm before the storm. Something for them to savour. He sat with Haldís near the stern, his shipmates scattered about them, but while others relaxed, his mind was still working, running ahead to the challenge that lay before them. It was no more than a series of practical problems to which solutions needed to be found - problems that could be broken down, worked out, ultimately solved. The only issue was, these problems would cost lives.

"Tell me," he said to Halldís, "who are these mysterious masters who Skalla serves?"

Halldís sighed, looked out across the water. "No one knows," she said. "We have had dealings with them, of course. My husband, Hunding - he went there, negotiated with them, brokered the first truce." She fingered the black and red braided bracelet upon her wrist. "That is where this came from." She looked downcast for a moment, then gathered herself. "But even he did not see the masters themselves. Skalla is their only intermediary. Some say they are gods."

Gunnar looked at Bjólf, but Bjólf gave no response.

"You have said little of Skalla himself," he said after a pause.

"There is little to say," said Halldís. "Little that I wish to think about."

"But you spoke of a score that you have to settle," said Bjólf. "This is personal for you."

Halldís stared down at the deck again. "Because of him, my husband is lost." She looked Bjólf in the eye, shrugged with feigned indifference. "Don't worry - I know full well he is dead, although for months I held out hope. But that is not the main reason. Skalla murdered my father."

Gunnar raised his eyebrows. "You kept that one quiet."

"Can you blame me? Do you know what it's like to live with the shame of your father having been killed by his slave?"

Gunnar puffed out his cheeks in amazement. "Skalla was a slave! This just gets better and better."

Bjólf glared at him. Sometimes he thought the big man spent too much time on board ship and not nearly enough among regular people.

Halldís took it in her stride. "It is what made him so dangerous. He had nothing to lose. No rule to follow but his own."

"Tell me of this island fortress - the island Skalla's masters inhabit," said Bjólf.

"We've always called it Gandhólm - the island of sorcerors."

"You say you've always called it that?"

"Of course," said Halldís with a frown.

"What are the odds?" said Njáll with a laugh. "An island called 'the island of sorcerors' which becomes a home to sorcerors."

"It's fate," nodded Gunnar. Bjólf glared at him again.

"Maybe Skalla's masters chose it because they liked the name," chipped in Godwin.

"No, no..." said Halldís, frowning more deeply, her expression one of confusion. "Do you not know? Did no one tell you?"

All looked blankly at each other, then back at Halldís.

"There was no island before the masters."

It was left to Bjólf to speak. "Perhaps you'd better explain what you mean by that."

Halldís looked about at the puzzled, expectant faces, cleared her throat, then began.

 

 

"It was five years ago, about this time of year. Things were quite normal then, as they had been for generations. Then, one night, without warning, all the animals about Björnheim began to bleat and whinny and crow as if some terrible disaster were about to befall. They kicked and bit at their stalls, and just as suddenly fell silent again. The sky lit up, as bright as daytime, but white, like lightning. The ground shook with a terrible roar, as if the earth were turning itself inside out.

"Then the flood came. A great wave, surging along the river. Our dwellings in the village are upon a hill; they survived. But the other farms in the lowlands were not so lucky. Those who lived to tell the tale said the water was hot, as if boiled in a cauldron. That it brought with it strange things. Within days the floodwater had abated, but from that night, Hössfjord had a new island."

"What?" exclaimed Gunnar. "It just rose up one night, right out of the water?"

"Or fell from above," said Halldís.

"An island that fell from the sky? This is madness! A story of a rock thrown by a giant is one thing. But this..."

"I have no explanation for it," said Halldís. "I can only tell things as they have happened."

Gunnar stared at the ground. "I know what you will say, Bjólf, but it certainly sounds like sorcery to me."

"I do not believe it," said Bjólf. "Will not believe it. Where is the evidence?"

Gunnar, still staring at the deck, spoke in a low, quiet voice. "Berserker warriors, raised from the dead?"

"If they are sorcerors, why not destroy us with a wave of the hand? Turn us into toads? And why does the pestilence also afflict Skalla's men? They are no sorcerors, Gunnar - or, if they are, they are very bad ones."

Gunnar fell silent.

Bjólf questioned Halldís further about the fortress - its strengths and weaknesses - but her knowledge was soon exhausted. It remained an enigma, even to her; a mystery that left Bjólf troubled by the multitude of unanswerable questions it raised. Suddenly it had struck him that he was rushing into battle against an enemy of completely unknown powers, and unknown potential - something his uncle had always warned him against. But what choice did he have? Their future, whatever it was, now hurtled towards them with an unstoppable momentum; a confrontation in which all questions would ultimately be answered, everything finally revealed.

 

 

When the afternoon sun was in the sky, Halldís went and stood up on the prow, her attention focused intently upon the left bank of the fjord. She had told Thorvald to keep in close to that shore - only that way, she said, could their approach remain hidden from the ever-watchful eyes of Gandhólm. Then, up ahead, the fjord seemed to bend sharply to the left, its further reaches obscured by a long, projecting spur of land off their port bow. When she recognised the place, Halldís jumped down from the prow, her disposition suddenly agitated.

"Put in here," she said, pointing to a thin, sandy strip in the crook of the promontory. "The island lies immediately beyond this spur."

At the signal from Bjólf, Thorvald leaned on the tiller. The sail was dropped, the mooring lines thrown ashore.

"We reach the far side overland, through the trees," said Halldís as the gangplank was hastily extended. "Then you will see it for yourself."