“Well met, Hedin,” Ulfar said as he rose, finger and cheeks throbbing.
Hedin fixed him with dull, sunken eyes. “What do you want?”
“Passage,” Ulfar said.
“You can’t afford it,” Hedin snapped as he looked him over with a practiced eye.
Ulfar offered his most winsome smile. This was a game he knew. “Not only can I afford it, but my father, Alfgeir Bjorne, would probably be very grateful to anyone who ferried me across.” Behind him, the sailor lowered himself back down onto his rock and muttered a curse, but Hedin’s expression changed immediately as the merchant put on what Ulfar assumed must be his charming face. The effect was not pleasant.
“Of course. And we’ll settle the fare—”
“When I am across. My father didn’t raise a fool.”
“Of course. Of course.” Hedin wrung his hands and squeezed out a sickly smile, and Ulfar’s insides lurched. For a moment he was swimming in sludge, sitting outside himself and watching as he stepped in, grabbed the merchant by the hair, kicked his legs from under him, smashed the man’s nose on the pier, and hammered his head down onto the planks again and again until he stopped screaming, stopped moving, kept bleeding silently. The sensation was so powerful that he had to swallow the vomit rising from the center of him. It felt like something was scraping his insides—something hard and cold.
“—but we can see to that. Maybe a rug or something to keep you warm. Not free, of course. Nothing is, these days. And when would you like to leave?”
Ulfar blinked. “What?”
“When would you like to leave?” Hedin gazed up at him, greed and grease lining his features.
“Early tomorrow morning,” he stammered.
“Of course. Very good. We will meet here,” Hedin said. “That’s my knarr over there,” he added, and pointed to a well-worn trading bucket. Memories of cold, wet journeys washed over Ulfar, and he forced a smile.
“Tomorrow morning. Farewell, Hedin.”
“Of course. Yes.” Hedin saluted and left.
A couple of moments passed.
“Want me to look after the royal mount?” the fisherman said. Ulfar turned to stare at him, but the weathered face remained studiously neutral. “For when you come back this way?”
“Yes . . . Yes, do that. He’s good for decent work,” Ulfar said.
The fisherman’s attention was back on his line. “Tie him up by the shed; I’ll feed him tomorrow morning.”
The road caught up to him. Without a word, Ulfar tethered the horse, patted him down, and wandered off in search of somewhere to sleep.
WEST
COAST
OF
SWEDEN
LATE
OCTOBER,
AD
996
“So where is my silver?” Hedin snapped. They’d beached easily enough after an uneventful day’s sailing, and Ulfar’s heart jumped at the subtle things—the trees were thicker and shorter, the soil richer. They were definitely in Svealand. Home, but he still had a long way to go. The sun was halfway across the sky but the chill in the air spoke of a hard winter to come. “You said you had the means, and what about your father’s reach?”
This was his land, and now, his rules. “Ah, but you see—” Ulfar smiled. “My father, I am afraid, may not be as fatherly as he once was. He might not actually be my father, come to think of it. And my fortune is all on the side we sailed from.” The merchant’s face turned scarlet and he sputtered, struggling to choose the right curse-words. “The horse I left with the fisherman should be payment enough.”
“Th-that old nag is not worth even a day’s rations!”
“That’s no way to speak of your wife, brother Hedin,” Ulfar admonished as he leapt over the side of the boat and set down on the beach. The fat merchant appeared to consider going after him, but Ulfar put his hand on the hilt of his sword and shook his head just a fraction.
Hedin deflated. “You’re a shit,” he spat.
Ulfar just shrugged, turned his back on the merchant, and walked inland, followed by fading curses.
The sun set and somewhere up above, the stars told him where to go.
Soon Hedin’s angry face was nothing but a memory. He found what could charitably be called a road or track of some sort that appeared to go in the right direction, so he followed it. His stomach rumbled, but he paid it no heed; when it started cramping, he chewed on leaves. A brook on the way provided fresh water. Ulfar let his feet lead him and tried not to think about anything.
Some time later, when he saw the lights on the road ahead, he thought long and hard about whether he should avoid people altogether, considering how it had gone so far. Eventually, however, his rumbling stomach settled the matter. He drew a deep breath and walked toward the settlement.
EKARSTAD,
WEST
SWEDEN
LATE
OCTOBER,
AD
996
Make them like you.
The thought echoed in Ulfar’s head along with the coarse laughter, bad singing, and assorted other noises of the
hall.
Make the bastards like you. Lead the lamb to the slaughter.
Something lurched inside, but he pushed it down, held it together, and didn’t let it out. Instead he focused his efforts on looking like his opponent had stunned him with his last move.
It worked, too. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the trader’s friends winking at him. One went so far as to pat the stocky man on the back. Playing along, Ulfar tutted, frowned, and shook his head. “Serves me right,” he mumbled. “I should never have offered you double or nothing. I knew I was lucky in the first game.”
The man, a root-faced Swede from the north, nodded and grinned, revealing rotting teeth. “Maybe you did get lucky,” he said. “Or maybe I was just stringing you along.”
It was all Ulfar could do to keep the smirk off his face.
If that’s the truth, you’re twice as smart as you’re ugly
, he thought. Discarding the easy win, he picked the second-best move. Root-face was still on his way to a slow and painful death on the board, but it would not be as obvious. Ulfar sighed as he pushed his piece away from the other man’s king. “I guess this is the best I can do,” he added.
With barely a moment’s thought, his opponent walked into the trap, smiling while he did so. “That should teach you soft southerners never to play a Northland man in games of smarts,” he crowed.
Ulfar nodded apologetically. The next couple of moves were obvious, but they needed to be played right. He’d purposefully taken small sips of his mead to keep a clear head.
“I know, I know,” he said. “The men of Uppsala always brag about how they’re smarter than the thick moose-fuckers from up north, but we all know that’s just bluster.”
Root-face hawked and spat on the floor. “Only too right, whelp,” he snarled as he pushed his king exactly where Ulfar wanted it. “We see you when we come south with furs, smirking at us when you think we’re not looking.”
“Oh, but I never did,” Ulfar protested meekly as he made his move. “I was always afraid of Northlanders, to be honest. They all looked like they could wrestle a bear.”
“You mean Northlander women,” an onlooker quipped to roars of laughter. Even Root-face seemed happy about this and moved quickly. Mugs of mead clinked around him. “Now come on, boy. Give up and hand over the silver.”
Careful
, Ulfar thought.
Scratch the animal behind the ears before the knife comes out.
“Is it okay if we play a couple more moves . . . ?” he ventured cautiously. “I want to learn as much as I can.”
The Northlander rolled his eyes. “I don’t know what I can teach you, southerner. You’re only”—Ulfar made his move—“putting off the”—Root-face’s voice trailed off, and the last word was just a whisper—“inevitable . . .”
A silence settled around the table as the onlookers comprehended the Northlander’s predicament. Ulfar’s pitifully retreating forces had simply been stepping back to plug all possible escape routes for Root-face’s king. The game was all but over. “You—”
“Oh! Oh, that’s lucky! Loki is smiling on me today. I was absolutely sure I was good and beaten.” Ulfar stifled any hint of smug grin and the urge to reach for the silver. Instead he strained to appear surprised.
Root-face stared at him with murder in his eyes. “You . . . You cheated!” He slammed his grubby hand over the silver on the table.
Ulfar saw his food and drink money disappear, felt the cold, biting touch of hungry sleep outdoors, and within him something snapped. The edge of his mug smashed down on the man’s wrist and everything went blurry inside his head. He spat words about honor and death, grabbed a handful of silver and dodged Root-face’s clumsy swing. Pulling back, his foot went under the table and he
pushed
. The table lifted, Root-face disappeared behind it. Frightened faces retreated, but Ulfar didn’t care. This was too much. He was already out of his seat and on top of the frightened fur trader, swinging with the heavy fistful of silver. There was a crack, a scrape, and a sickening squelch as the man’s face opened up, and then there was blood, and more screams, some from him. He kicked out, connected once. Root-face flailed but didn’t come close. Ulfar’s throat felt thick, almost closing; his cheeks were pulsing.
He reached for the sword and saw how he felt inside reflected in the eyes of the man he was about to kill.
With his hand on the hilt, Ulfar looked around the hall.
Everyone was staring at him, their faces etched with fear and disgust.
“I will . . . I will not have my honor questioned,” he croaked and let go of the hilt, heat rising in his face. “Not by you”—he pointed at the quivering Northman—“or by anyone else.” He looked around the room. “Understood?”
Root-face nodded and inched slowly backward, as if he was retreating from a rabid dog. “Understood. I was wrong.”
“Y-you . . . I’d—” The words would not form. Ulfar scowled and stormed out.
The tears didn’t come until later. He’d veered off the road into the forest and wandered without purpose for a while; now he just sat slumped against a big pine. He was well clear of the town, and he was still hungry, still angry. His fist throbbed inside and out, knuckles aching from the punch, palm sore from squeezing down on the silver.
It took him slowly: a soft touch of the wind on his lips, the smell of cold on the air. With his back against the tree, he remembered Stenvik and the moment they’d had after Geiri’s death. A lump formed in his throat. He tried to clear it away, but it grew despite everything he did until his lips started trembling . . . he blinked rapidly, and finally the grief surfaced. With shaking shoulders he gulped mouthfuls of air at a time, then he bent over double to shield his heart from the world. He coughed through the crying, raw repeated coughs, trying to dislodge and squeeze out the hurt, the pain, everything that had happened since that day by the harbor.
Her name formed on his lips, but nothing came out; instead a fresh wave of grief swept him away, bigger, harder, faster as he wept for his father, for Geiri, and for everything he thought he’d known.
His body was no longer his own. He convulsed on the forest floor, twisting this way and that. He screamed at the world, opened
his mouth, and let everything go for the first time. The heartrending noise lifted a flock of rooks out of the nearby trees, but it didn’t last; a bout of coughing shook him, smashed his insides together, knotted up his stomach, squeezed his neck and the back of his head.
When he had no more to give to grief, sleep took him.
He woke up, and the sky was wrong. He was wrong. Everything was wrong. He tried to remember what he was doing, but it was hard.
He’d fallen asleep in the night, and now it was morning. His throat was dry, and he swayed when he stood. His back ached. Something touched his ribs, and he felt for it: a silver bottle in his tunic. He unstopped it and swallowed its contents in greedy gulps.
Like falling into the freezing sea, suddenly Ulfar knew everything.
The forest rushed at him, into him, he
was
the forest. He was cold and warmth and the grass in the ground. He knew it; he knew everyone. His chest swelled, and he felt like he would burst. He knew the worlds. He rose from his throne and through one eye saw the warriors, his warriors. He walked through the hall under the light of burnished shields—his hall, his shields—and thrust open the doors, stepping into battle. He fought the Jotuns; he grappled with Hel, but all for naught, because wherever he went, Loki’s cape vanished into the shadows before him. He walked the bridge of colors and—
He saw Stenvik.
He saw Lilia.
What little there was left of Ulfar dug its heels in. Geiri’s face flickered into view, and a dark cape swished around a corner.
He saw Lilia in Harald’s arms, saw—
felt
the wooden shard rip and tear into her flesh, was the blood that pumped out of her body, was the ground that caught her when she fell.
Ulfar screamed, drew the sword, and drove it forcefully through his own heart. The vision of Stenvik shattered, exploded into shards that dissolved, revealing the stars around him, the stars in his eyes. Streaks of pain clawed at the black sky, stripping it away, revealing blue behind it, edged with treetops. The world
lurched
, and Ulfar coughed again, once, blood bubbling up out of his mouth, bursting
with a wet
plop
. Now the stars were just dots of bright light in his eyes, pinholes in a picture that was fading around the edges.
He looked down at his chest.
Blood was flowing freely around the remaining inches of the blade, pumping out in ever-weaker spurts. A chill rippled through him like a winter wind; his hands felt numb. After the shuddering came a cloying warmth, a feeling of being wrapped up in woolen blankets, and Ulfar smiled a vacant, tired smile. He could drift to sleep now; just lie down and sleep for a while.
He fell to the ground, face-first.
The sword hit the ground and pushed through him. The pain was impossible; it was bigger than him, bigger than the world. It overwhelmed him, and finally he knew: this was it. This was death. Spasms wracked his body. He would be leveled by this great shield of pain, crushed flat, obliterated. He felt himself fade, felt the life leave him.