The Enchantment (40 page)

“I want the high seat . . . but I want the fighting to stop even more. As long as anyone living in the village can remember, our people have been fighting Jarl Vermud's and Jarl Thorvald's and especially Jarl Gunnar's people. But some of the old ones, now dead, told of a time when our peoples were part of the same large clan. We once married and traded and prospered together . . . now we war and prey on each other like rogue wolves. There must be another way to live and to rule a clan . . . besides with a sword.”

“But, Jorund, a clan must defend itself. Why just recently, Jarl Gunnar tried to steal—”

“Gunnar was not stealing . . . at least he hadn't yet, when Borger rode to the attack,” Jorund protested. “Borger has never tried to live peaceably. If he has no cause to fight, he will make one. He came back from his voyage early this season with the battle-itch still strong in his blood. And when the herdsmen brought word of a dispute over the ear-notches of some of the sheep brought down from the high country, he bellowed like a gored ox and mounted a raid to reclaim his property.”

“Well . . . it is important that a jarl assert his property rights,” she said, pausing, scowling. Jorund halted beside her and searched her doubtful look.

“Less than a score of sheep . . . and a small planting of grain. Is that worth risking and possibly squandering threescore lives to redeem?”

She drew a huge breath and let it out in a disgusted huff. “I suppose not. Not when you lay it out side by side like that.”

They walked on in silence until they came to another small clearing. Jorund slowed and looked around him, his senses roused by something. Aaren slowed as well, searching the trees for a sign of what had alerted him.

“What is it?” she whispered.

“Do you not recall this place?” he asked, turning to her. The confused look on her face said she did not. “It is where we exchanged last blows . . . where you were wounded.” He dropped his bundle of limbs and strode across the clearing, looking for something on the ground. When he stopped, she emptied her arms and joined him . . . and gasped.

There, half hidden by leaves, lay her sword, Singer. She snatched it up and wiped away the dirt and leaves with her cold fingers. Some of the spots stayed . . . they were rust. Fully five different emotions flickered through her face as she stroked the tarnished silver handle and clasped it to her breast. But foremost in her reeling heart was anguish at the thought that in the days since their battle she had not missed her sword . . . or even thought of it. Her precious weapon, which had been like an extension of her very arm . . . she had lost and forgotten it. She raised a troubled gaze to Jorund.

“Father Serrick traded Leone's fine silver beads and two seasons' bounty of furs for this blade. I lived with it, slept with it, defended myself from animals and plunged into blade-fights with it. . . . How could I have not even thought of it?”

He struggled to respond to her distress, but could offer only one comfort. “Perhaps because you found something more precious to you?”

His thought settled in her mind like a warm, soothing presence and she recognized the truth in it. But she still felt a keen sense of loss, a displacing of something precious and familiar in the core of her. Her throat was constricted and her word-well seemed completely dry.

Only another warrior could have understood her sense of loss in the passage she was making in that moment. And only Jorund was both warrior enough and woman-heart enough to make that passage with her. From this time on, the woman, more than the warrior in her, would direct her course along her life's path. It was a passage ordained for her . . . inevitable, but painful all the same. He put his arms around her and held her, sheltering her with his warmth, lending her his certainty.

When she looked up and nodded, he understood she was ready to go on, and he picked up her bundle as well as his, balancing one under each of his big arms. He indicated their direction with a nod, sensing that she did not need words at this moment, and she struck off ahead of him.

A short way into the trees, she stopped dead, her eyes widening.

“Aaren, what is it?” But his gaze struck the handle of his own sword in the same instant the words left his mouth. He stood, dumbstruck, staring at the blade, which was embedded in the trunk of a birch sapling. A dim memory flooded back, dragging with it a feeling . . . pain.

“Jorund, your sword! How could it have? . . .” The turbulence in his face when she turned to him made her realize it had to do with their fight.

“I flung it away after you were wounded,” he confessed. “I saw you lying there . . . covered with blood.” The depth of the blade's bite into the tree was a chilling measure of the fury with which he had hurled it and of a pain that had approached madness in him. Moved beyond bearing, she hurried to the tree to seize the handle and draw out his sword.

“
Nej,
Aaren, leave it!” he called out, halting her just as she grasped it.

She turned with her hands on it, astonished by both the words and the vehemence with which they were spoken. “But your blade, Jorund—”

“Leave it, Aaren. I will not need it.”

“But, Jorund, your heart may change. You cannot just leave it here.”

“My heart will not change,” he declared, his voice thick as he turned his face from the sight of it. There was a lump in his throat, and he had to strain to speak around it. “I have made a vow to the White Christ that I will never raise a blade to another man as long as I live. And I will not be tempted to break that vow if I have no sword to raise.”

The horror of it slammed through her. “A vow. But, Jorund . . . a vow is sacred . . . you cannot take it back!” Her hands fell, empty, to her sides.

“I do not intend to take it back. Ever.” As he said it, his eyes were pained and leaden.

Not to fight . . . not to wield a blade ever again . . . it was his choice alone to make, she realized. And she understood too well his reasons, his fear of slaughtering others, his sense of guilt for having fought and wounded her. Still, she could not accept that a warrior could willingly lay down his weapon, the fierce companion of his struggles, and turn his back on the bond of pride and honor that adversity had wrought between them.

“It is just as well, Aaren,” he said in a constricted voice. “Someone must be the first to say enough to the killing. There must be a way to forge peace among our clans . . . and I will now have to find it.” The finality in his voice and manner sent a chill through her shoulders.

“Jorund, you speak of peace and an end to killing, but what of the other jarls and clans? They do not share your god or your vision . . . most of your own clansmen do not even share it. And until such a time as all lay down their blades, we must be ready to defend ourselves and our people. The surest way to ward off an attack is to be strong . . . to make others fear your might.”

“As long as all carry swords, then swords will always be wielded,” he said, trembling. “It must stop somewhere.” The full impact of his vow was borne in on him as he confronted the pained disbelief in Aaren's eyes.

“I am trying to understand, Jorund. . . . I do understand your loathing for the reddening of spears. But sometimes swords must be wielded, victory must be won. Some things are worth fighting for . . . to secure or to defend. Surely you can see that.” She clutched her own blade to her chest as she came to him. “Jorund . . . you had to fight for me, for our love.” But even as she said it, she knew that it was the tumult that fighting and wounding her had stirred in him which had caused that grim and difficult vow. And she felt great remorse that she had forced him to do something so painful for him that he would make such a drastic vow.

His gaze flew back to the handle of the blade that had shielded him on near and distant shores . . . had been his companion, his livelihood, his honor, and ultimately, his shame. He clenched his teeth and his eyes reddened.

The decision of whether or not to rescue his blade was almost physically painful for him. Only another warrior, one who knew the value, the honor, and the piece of his spirit that resided in a warrior's battle-blade, could have understood the magnitude of the decision Jorund was making in that moment. And only Aaren, who loved him, could have shared that pain so keenly with him.

He wheeled and moved off quickly through the trees, his decision made. Aaren blinked to clear the blur of tears in her eyes and followed him.

“And what of the high seat, Jorund?” she whispered. “What of your people?”

I
T WAS QUIET
that evening in the lodge. There was a new tension between them as they went about tending the horses, stringing a rope line from the lodge to the nearby shed, and preparing an evening meal. After they had eaten and laid in a store of water and dry wood and meat for the snow that was already beginning to fall, there came a long silence as they sat before the fire. Each eyed the sleeping shelf and contemplated meeting the other in the furs.

“I . . . I will go to bathe,” Jorund announced, rising. “If the snow is deep, it may drift in and block the door. It may be a while before we can get out.” He grabbed up his warm tunic and glanced at Aaren, who nodded and focused her interest on feeding the cat.

Later, she banked the fire and transferred the dozing cat baby to a nest of hay lined with a marten pelt. More than once she went to the door, intending to join Jorund in the bathing house and dispel the tension between them. But each time she halted and drew back, thinking that he needed time to sort out his thoughts. So did she. It was well into the night hours when she donned her warm tunic to make her final trip for the night down the slope into the woods.

Instead of going straight into the trees nearest the cabin, she climbed up the slope toward the bathing house and stood for a moment, studying the smoky glow from the hole in the roof. She wanted to bang on the door, to tell Jorund she understood his decision never to fight again . . . except that she still hadn't fully accepted it.

All evening she had come back again and again to the uncertainty it cast over their future. Without a weapon, how could Jorund ever hope to take the high seat? How could he expect to lead his people without ever wielding a blade? And what would his decision mean to their place in the village and to their future children?

Sending a cold hand beneath her fur-lined tunic to her belly, she drew a long, troubled breath. Then she turned aside and climbed around the slope and into the trees beyond the bathing house for her nightly duties. She had finished and was just starting back to the lodge when a movement in the undergrowth nearby startled her. She froze, her mind racing from one possibility to another as she slowly turned.

Against the snow-whitened ground, despite the dimness, she glimpsed a dark, crouching blur of movement. An animal—large, but not deer- or elk-sized—she determined as she began to run for all she was worth, back through the trees and around the slope. She could hear its panting as it gained on her, and she knew instantly: It was a wolf.

“Jorund!” she called out, racing for the nearest shelter—the bathing house. “Jorund—wolf—
wolf!
”

The door was flung open and he burst outside in a billow of steam, his body taut. He spotted her just as she called his name again, and without hesitation he bolted around the hillside, straight for her. But when he reached for her hand and turned to run back to the bathing house, his bare foot slipped on a loose rock and slid from beneath him. He scrambled on the rocky slope as he went down, and shoved Aaren ahead of him.

“Go—go on!” he yelled. The next instant the wolf sprang through the air and pounced on him, pinning him on his back and barking wildly.

“Jorund!”
Aaren screamed, stumbling to a halt and reversing to rush back and help him. For a heart-stopping moment she saw it all in stark relief: Jorund's big, naked body sprawled on the snow-dusted slope, the dark, bowed shape of the wolf atop him. As she reached them, she sensed something odd happening . . . and it slowed her frantic response. Jorund wasn't struggling and the beast wasn't growling or twisting! She charged in and seized the beast's fur, and it yiped and clawed before lunging from her grip, terrified.

“Aaren—look!” Jorund's voice penetrated her confusion. “It's Rika!”

It was some time later that Jorund and Rika poked their heads through the lodge door and located Aaren kneeling before a fire she had stoked so high the flames almost singed the roof beams. She turned a dark glare on the pair of them, then gave them a shoulder and continued feeding the blaze. Jorund bent near Rika's head and whispered, “I think I'd better go in first.”

“Aaren,” he said coaxingly, slipping through the door and closing it partway behind him. He didn't see Rika's ears perk up . . . or her nose thrust into the opening, quivering with excitement. “I know you are angry. But when you think about it . . . it was enough to make the Devil himself laugh . . . Rika cowering, you chasing her . . .”