CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

They found the rock cut just as Grimnar described. The horses trudged on to the other side at their usual plod.

‘Sveäland,’ said Kai.

It was the first word either had spoken all morning. The night had thinned into a fine day with the sun dancing through the pine trees on golden shafts.

As far as Erlan was concerned, Kai’s uncharacteristic silence was a welcome change. The air felt crisp in his lungs, and they were making good progress.

It was midday when Kai spoke again. ‘Strange way to spend your days, don’t you reckon?’

Erlan glanced over. ‘Grimnar?’

‘He’s a curious old bird. I mean, what does he actually do with everything he knows? Sitting out there alone.’ He shuffled in his seat. ‘I had the strangest dream last night, too.’

‘Well?’

Kai shrugged. ‘Not exactly easy to describe.’

‘Dreams sometimes slip away as easily as they come.’

‘Not this one.’ Kai narrowed his eyes, remembering. ‘I felt like the fire grew hotter as I slept, and then so hot I opened my eyes. But I wasn’t in his hut any more. I was back where you found me. Tied up and stripped, just as I was. And I looked up and there you were – except you weren’t beyond the fire, but right inside it. And you were burning. I couldn’t hear your voice, but I could see your face. You were screaming. Screaming and screaming, and I couldn’t do a thing about it. I tugged like a bull at the ropes, but couldn’t get loose, my arms were stretched so wide. I wanted to help you, and I cursed and kicked the snow till my feet bled. Then it started raining, light at first, then harder till I was soaked through. And the rain was putting out the fire – you were still screaming but the flames dropped lower. Then I saw the rain on my skin, and it wasn’t rain. It was blood – big fat droplets of blood, like the tears of the valkyries in the songs.’ Erlan turned to look at the boy. Kai’s face had a fey glow about it. His eyes were closed. ‘The blood-rain was soaking me and putting out the fire. And I knew you’d be all right, and the blood was kind of washing me, till I was cleaner than if I’d been licked new by Audumla herself. You stepped out of the fire, which was all ashes now, and suddenly the ropes around my wrists broke, and I fell on my knees, just like when you cut me down.’

He paused.

‘Go on.’

‘That’s it.’ Kai looked up. ‘What do you think it means?’

‘How should I know? I’m no mystic.’ Erlan snorted. ‘Maybe it means you shouldn’t eat pigeon stew.’

Kai chuckled. ‘Maybe.’ Then he seemed to think of something else, and he laughed even harder. ‘I mean – darklings! Really?’

At first, Erlan had been encouraged to reach Sveäland, and felt their journey must soon be over. But as day followed weary day, monotony and hunger began to take their toll, till he thought that they would never reach the end of the forest. His scrawny companion became even scrawnier, if that were possible. Erlan would look over at him and read his own hunger in the boy’s face. His sunken cheeks, the wispish scrub of hair on his chin flecked with ice, his thin slumped shoulders, the dark rings of fatigue circling his now lustreless eyes. He wasn’t exactly a fine specimen of a man. But Erlan feared to think what he must look like himself.

Weeks in the saddle had soiled his clothes beyond recognition, together with the feverish sweats that had soaked them again and again. His hair was matted, hard and stiff as straw, crawling with lice. His skin had broken out in sores all over his body. His joints ached constantly whether in the saddle or leading Idun by foot. And in his mind, the waking nightmares of his guilt and grief that had plagued him for so long began to be overwhelmed by fantasies of food. For hours, he would rock back and forward in his saddle, his eyes too weary to focus, dreaming of mountains of food: of swine-roasts or fresh-baked bread; of cheeses or steaming fish stews; of frothing ale-cups or hot spiced apple wine; of ladles overflowing with honey or dripping hunks of crisp burned beef. But there was precious little promise of anything like that on their horizon.

When a rabbit happened through their camp and Kai managed to brain it with his sword, the two of them danced about like children on a name-day. And again, when Kai spied a jackdaw’s nest and skinned up a tree to find it full of speckled eggs.

Once, they surprised a boar leading a file of piglets across a clearing and gave chase, yelling and bawling loud enough to wake a dead man. But Idun was done in thirty paces, and Kai’s pony had thrown him when the boar turned to defend her brood and charged them. Erlan found Kai flat on his back in the snow, venting foul-mouthed curses upon the lineage of every boar within twenty leagues. It would have been funny, but for the dull, gnawing ache that never left their bellies.

Another time they came across the carcass of a wolverine, its ribs laid open and being picked over by a pair of ravens. The stink was awful, although there was still good meat on the body, and Erlan had to think long and hard before he said they should leave the birds to their feast.

They pushed on through the gloom of their forest prison, listening to the winter winds gathering strength as they howled mournfully through the treetops, groping their way through sepulchral mists. They witnessed dawns pale as draug-spirits and sunsets red as blood, until they lost count of how many days had passed since their strange encounter with the seidman.

And then, one day, they came to the northern edge of the great forest. A wide white plain spread out before them and in the near distance, the first homely trail of smoke wavered up into the sky. Relief washed over Erlan, but disquiet soon took its place. Outlanders could never be certain of a warm reception, least of all a pair who looked at best like beggars, at worst like a couple of thieves. His wits had become dull on the road, blunted by the tumult of painful memories he had carried across that lonely land. The time had come to gather them. Sharpen them to a keen edge. He had a feeling he would need them.

They soon came to the first homestead where they begged a couple of barley-loaves. But even in their state, Erlan was ashamed to linger when he saw how little the family had for themselves.

It wasn’t long before solitary dwellings and lonely little hamlets grew into bigger farmsteads surrounded by low-lying hedgerows that marked fields buried under the snow. The Sveärs were hardly open-hearted folk. But at least the pair had their bellies filled for the first time in a long while, and most folk were willing to direct them on their way towards Sviggar’s Seat. Kai’s good humour returned. ‘You wait till we ride up to the old bastard’s big hall. They’ll welcome us like a pair of bloody heroes!’

Was that what Erlan was? A hero. Not a beggar. Not a runaway. Not a murderer?

They came to a wide lake, which an old cart-driver had told them they could cross if the ice were thick enough.

‘We’ve ’ad some good ’ard frosts by now,’ he’d said, scratching at the dirty cloths swaddling his head against the cold. ‘Reckon there’s ice enough wot’ll save you a day in the saddle, if yer going dead across.’

‘Obliged to you,’ nodded Erlan, his ear getting more attuned to the Sveärs’ lilting way of speaking.

‘If you go fallin’ through, no use coming back to rattle me,’ he’d called after them.

On this less than assuring advice, they had set out onto the lake with some hesitation. Erlan’s heart was in his mouth all the while. His body still carried the memory of the awful cold that had seeped through to his marrow.

But winter had tightened its grip and the ice held.

They were halfway across when horsemen suddenly appeared from the trees on the far side.

‘Riders!’ cried Kai. Erlan swore.

The horsemen turned at once to head them off, approaching at a canter, apparently with none of his qualms about whether the ice would break.

‘Keep your wits about you,’ said Erlan. ‘And let me do the talking.’

He counted five men, all armed. Four carried long-spears on horses sleek and healthy. It was obvious that if they tried to run, they’d get a point in their backs before they’d even made the trees.

They sat motionless, hands on hilts, as the riders circled them, their animals snorting misty breath. The men wore mailshirts under heavy cloaks, and looked like they knew the business end of a spear.

One man stood out: the man without a spear. He had a predatory look, tugging his horse back and forth, never taking his eye off them. His rusty beard was longer than the rest, flecked white under a nose like a broken flint. He glowered with suspicion.

‘Outlanders! What are you doing here?’ he demanded, blunt as a cudgel.

‘Who are you?’ Erlan’s eye darted from face to face.

‘I’ll ask the questions here, churl.’

‘Why should we answer you?’

‘How about because we’re king’s men, and you’re a couple of whoreson beggars?’ snarled the leader. ‘Or because I could have you filled with more pricks than a Yuletide whore before you could scratch your balls?’ The man leaned closer. ‘How about ’cause I’m earl of the land you’re fucking standing on!’

‘Point of fact, we’re standing on a lake,’ said Kai.

‘Jape like that again, boy, and I’ll split that long mouth through the back of your skull.’ The way he talked, Erlan could believe it.

This could turn ugly very quickly. It should’ve been good fortune to run into the king’s men so soon. But somehow this wasn’t feeling lucky. ‘We’ve come from Western Gotarland.’

‘You’re no Gotar with hair that dark.’ He cast a scathing look at Kai. ‘The runt, maybe.’ Kai’s face showed he didn’t much care for the handle. ‘You’re no trappers, nor traders. Hel, you look like someone just dug you up. What’s your business in Sveäland?’

‘We ride to offer service to your king.’

The spearmen rippled with laughter. The earl smiled. ‘I’m sure he’ll be fucking delighted.’ To say the pair of them looked less than impressive was a towering understatement. They hardly looked fit to serve a swineherd, let alone a king.

‘Will you take us to him?’

‘The king’ll want to see you, no doubt about that.’ His men sniggered again. ‘Who are you?’

‘My name is Erlan.’

The earl shrugged. ‘That it?’

‘That’s all I can tell you.’

Kai rolled his eyes.

‘That’s telling me nothing, stranger. Where are you from? Who are your people?’

‘I cannot say. I’ve sworn to it.’

‘That’s a murderer’s oath, stranger, and you know it.’

‘I made it for my own reasons.’

‘They’d better be damn good ones. So happens, we’re looking for a murderer.’

‘We came to Sveäland to serve, not to kill.’ Erlan threw the corner of his cloak over his shoulder. ‘But we will if we must.’ The earl didn’t fail to notice Wrathling’s hilt at his belt. His expression suddenly changed. He brushed his hand over his mouth, thoughtfully.

‘Who sent you here?’

‘No one.’

‘Was it the Wartooth?’ he said, sharply.

‘The Wartooth?’ For a moment, Erlan was thrown. ‘Why—’

‘Or one of his sons?’

‘I don’t know what you mean.’

The earl nodded to himself. ‘Aye – I begin to see it clear. Murder the son, then slither your way into the bosom of the king. A venomous bite for him, too. Is that the old boar’s plan?’

‘What son? Who is murdered?’

The earl chuckled, coldly. ‘It’s plain enough: you’re an outlander by speech, and dark. A Dane, if I had to wager. Riding through lands where the king’s son was killed, dressed like a beggar, but carrying a sword to rival any in the land. Doubtless a gift from the old boar himself. What Dane would come to Sveäland but by the bidding of Harald Wartooth?’

Erlan felt the spearmen bristle at mention of the name of the Danish king. ‘We’re here at no one’s bidding but my own.’

‘We’ll take you to Sviggar right enough. And you’ll answer his questions, oath or none.’ The earl gave a signal and the spearpoints dropped. ‘Throw down your weapons.’

Erlan wheeled Idun, glaring around at the lowered points. These men were of different mettle altogether than Arald and his gang of thieves. Kai was looking nervously for his lead, face white with fear. But his hand stayed steady on his hilt. ‘We’ll come with you if we must,’ offered Erlan. ‘But not as captives. We keep our weapons.’

‘Not a chance.’ The earl gave a brisk nod. ‘Take them.’

His men moved forward. But Erlan was ahead of them.

He threw himself forward over Idun’s shoulder, hitting the ice and snow hard. He rolled, came up at a crouch, Wrathling already in his hand. The earl’s boot dangled only a foot away. He hauled it with all he had. The air was thick with shouting, the earl’s bellow loudest of all as he toppled into the snow.

Erlan was on him at once, snatching his braids, yanking back his head, Wrathling’s razored edge kissing his stubble.

‘Erlan!’ Kai’s voice was raw with fear. He looked up. The blizzard of movement was suddenly over. All seven men were still. Three spears were sticking Kai in the ribs and back. The fourth spearman was poised, arm aloft, point aimed at Erlan’s chest.

‘Back!’ snarled Erlan, dragging the earl backwards. ‘Back or I cut him!’ He guessed these men were vassals to the earl – sworn to do everything in their power to keep the gnarly old bastard alive. It wouldn’t do their reputation much good to see him killed by a pair of scabby outlanders.

The earl growled his defiance. Erlan pressed the edge closer, feeling it bite. The earl stiffened. Kai was pale with terror, his sword halfway unsheathed. Erlan cursed inwardly. He couldn’t just let them kill the boy.

‘Release him – or your lord dies now.’

‘You’re in no position to bargain, outlander,’ rasped the earl.

Erlan snorted. ‘I’d say I’ve a fair opening position, wouldn’t you?’ He squeezed the blade tighter, and the earl gave a yelp. ‘Now – we are going to keep our weapons. And you’re going to drop your spears. Else I start painting the snow with your oath-lord’s blood.’

The earl’s head twisted. ‘Fuck yourself, stranger. Kill the brat and skewer this whoreson next! When you throw his corpse before the king, tell him Bodvar Beriksson found his son’s killer.’ One man grimaced with satisfaction. Erlan watched his knuckles tighten around his spear. Kai must have felt the point prick deeper because he screamed, long and loud.

‘Wait!’ cried Erlan. ‘Wait. . .’ The eager spearman stopped, poised like a dog awaiting his master’s word. ‘Don’t kill him.’

‘Your sword down, now!’

Bitterly, Erlan flung it in the snow. Earl Bodvar was up in a second. In the next, he put a fist into Erlan’s jaw. Pain doubled him over, while the earl snatched Wrathling out of the snow.

‘A fine blade,’ he declared, admiring the hilt’s workmanship. ‘I’m sure King Sviggar will be grateful for it. I hope your boy is as grateful for his life.’

Erlan grunted, nursing his jaw. Next to his sword, the boy’s gratitude was about as much use as a fire on a frozen lake.

A short while later, the companions were slung astride their horses, trussed like a couple of hens for market. Kai looked decidedly glum.

‘At least we’re headed in the right direction,’ muttered Erlan.

‘Your bloody oath,’ spat Kai. ‘Nearly had me stuck like a pig.’

‘If your master pulls a trick like that on the king,’ said Bodvar, overhearing, ‘I promise you, boy – you both will be.’

If their acquaintance with Bodvar had begun on a bad footing, the earl’s prickly disposition did little to improve it. The most the earl would tell them was that Sviggar’s Seat lay two hard days’ ride to the northeast, three with the snow. ‘Four with you two beggars on those things,’ he said, with a scathing look at their mangy mounts.

He was right. It was hard work keeping pace with their escort, and Bodvar boiled with impatience at their slow progress. Each day when evening fell, the party sought refuge from the cold in farmsteads along the way. Under Sviggar’s law, folk were obliged to provide the king’s men with whatever little they had. The scraps that found their way into Erlan’s belly after they’d had their fill were few enough. Even so, he was grateful for the roof overhead and the warmth of a proper hearth. Rest for his road-racked bones.

But his mind gave him little peace.

Perhaps Grimnar was right. Destiny, he thought. The web of destiny. He felt it now. For now it was not only his own past which had led him there, which stretched before him to shape the road he must walk. It seemed the threads of other men’s lives were being woven into his – other pasts and other futures. Debts graven into the bark of the Tree of Worlds.

What must be. . .

The past, unchangeable. The future, inexorable. The debt of every deed, inescapable.

In the darkness, he saw the glint of Kai’s bright eyes, still awake long into the night. Doubtless he too was anxious about the fate awaiting them at the hall of the Sveär king.

Soon, the waiting would be over.

On the fourth day, they rode the final leagues to Sviggar’s Seat. A blazing sun lit up the land.

Along their road, trickles of passers-by swelled to a stream, the stream to a river. Traders with carts laden with pelts; bondsmen with mules labouring under grain-sacks; peasant women, so wrapped up they looked like bales of wool come to life, racks of dried fish propped on their shoulders. Everywhere children played, crunching their feet through icy puddles. Warriors and karls eased along on horseback, chatting and spitting and chuckling, indifferent to the low folk slopping through the slush beside them.

All stared, wide-eyed, as the earl and his riders passed, with the dark stranger and his scrawny companion in their midst.

Hammering rang out from the smithies lining the road. Erlan saw roaring forges, half-wrought blades aglow in coals, piles of leather cuttings, heaps of crude-cut brooches. Women huddled under stalls where wool-stacks awaited spinning on trestles straining under their weight.

The air brimmed with the homely smells of mead and barley-ale from brew-houses, sour milk from dairy-barns, bubbling broths from cookhouses, fresh sawdust from sawmills and carpenters’ booths.

Erlan had never seen so much industry. Could hardly have imagined it.

‘Look there!’ cried Bodvar. ‘The King Barrows of Uppsala.

Sviggar’s halls are beyond.’

Erlan looked. Beyond the bustling craftsmen, three huge earthen mounds rose up into the morning sky, each high as the grandest hall, each covered in snow, perfectly round, perfectly alike.

‘They look like giant tits!’ cried Kai. ‘What are they?’

‘The reason for all this,’ said Bodvar.

‘For what?’ asked Erlan.

‘All you see,’ replied the earl, with a sweep of his hand. ‘Long ago, the rulers of the Sveärs were mere chieftains. But later, the seed of Yng were named kings.’ He nodded at the three mounds. ‘Here three of the mightiest Yngling kings were lain. Since then, this place has been the seat of the Sveär king.’ He leaned over and spat. ‘Whoever holds it holds the right to rule.’

‘Is Sviggar of this Yngling line?’ asked Erlan.

Bodvar shook his head. ‘The last Yngling king perished in the flames of his own hall.’ He grunted. ‘They say folk hated him like a boil on the bollocks by the end. He was mad. Sviggar’s father – Ivar Wide-Realm – took the kingdom from him.’

Erlan was about to ask more, but his words died on his lips. Up ahead, through a grove of trees, he spied a vast structure looming like a mountain of oak.

‘Would you look at that!’ exclaimed Kai.

The hall towered the height of ten men. Each verge-beam alone must have been cut from an entire trunk, the wood now cracked by weather and age. Its gable was alive with carvings: beasts, warriors, weapons, horns, ships, shields, all tossed together in a squall of movement, as if the wood was but a breath away from bursting to life and spilling slaughter onto the yard in front. And above it all a monstrous eagle, wings painted black as midnight, spread for flight. But the figure had a wolf’s head, with cruel fangs and pitiless eyes scanning the horizon – the lupine face of Fenrir, Odin’s Bane.

Below, the great entrance gaped like the gullet of some giant of old.

‘Close your mouth, stranger,’ Bodvar chuckled. ‘Welcome to Sviggar’s Great Hall.’