Andres walked in, his heavy feet clomping on the floor. Jon was behind him.
“I will take the ship,” Bjarni said, to goad Ulf. “If you don’t want to.”
“Swan
is my ship,” Ulf said. “This is my farm.”
Andres came toward the table. “I agree with Bjarni,” he said loudly.
Ulf and Bjarni stared at one another. Roughly, Ulf said, “Don’t try to give orders on my farm.”
“It should be his farm,” Andres said.
“Andres,” Bjarni said, “I do not need your help.”
Hiyke came into the hall with a basket of bread under her arm. She watched them through the corners of her eyes. Stooping, she put the bread down on the stone of the hearth. The silver cross swung in the air under her chin.
Ulf said, through his teeth, “Do not make me regret that I have let you stay here.”
“I will stay here,” Bjarni said, “if you let me or no.”
Ulf rose and tramped around the table and toward the door. Andres glared across the table at Bjarni.
“There is no being friends with you anymore.”
Bjarni spat over the table into the dust of the floor. “That’s more of a friend than you are.”
Hiyke was taking off her shawl. She said, “Andres, fetch in the milk from the barn.”
Obediently he went off. At the door he glowered back at Bjarni, who pretended not to see him. The door slammed.
“Not even the fire can warm this hall,” Hiyke said. “Have you seen my son?”
“He is with Gifu,” Bjarni said.
She flung up her head. Coming to the edge of the table, she leaned toward him and said, “They went off together?”
“They will come back separately,” he said.
“God throttle him.”
“It is her doing. With her, everything goes by her measure.”
“She is a child,” Hiyke said hotly. “And far from her home.”
“You judge her poorly if you think she cannot mind herself.”
Hiyke sat down on the bench opposite him. She put her elbows on the table and set her chin on her hands.
“She lies, and she steals, which is child’s work.”
“What has she stolen?”
“A trinket of Gudrun’s. Gudrun thinks it is lost—she has not left off nagging me to find it since we came back from Thingvellir.”
He put out his hand to her, and promptly she laid her hand in his. He said, “I will handle Gudrun for you.”
He raised her hand to kiss it, but she drew back. He let her go. She turned half away from him. He thought she was about to speak, but then the door burst open and Kristjan came in.
She sprang up to her feet. “You lazy, lecherous brat,” she cried. She fell on her son, caught him by the nose, and smacked the side of his head so hard Bjarni startled at the sound.
“Mama.” Kristjan escaped from her grip. His nose was red.
“Keep away from her,” Hiyke cried. “Can you not let her learn to be good?”
Bjarni watched Kristjan circle away from her, avoiding her. The boy blushed. Hiyke gave chase to him, calling him names, and cornered him and struck him again.
Gudrun appeared on the steps. She ran down the length of the hall and pulled Hiyke away from Kristjan. “Leave him alone—your own son!” she cried. “You call yourself Christian!”
“He is my son, to chastise as I wish,” Hiyke said.
The two women, one fair and one dark, were nose to nose. Kristjan slid by them out of the corner and ran from the hall. The rest of the family was gathering for supper.
Hiyke cried, “Shall he grow up like you, a slave of pleasure?”
Gudrun crossed herself. “Or like you, passing judgment on others for your own sins?” Straight-backed, she walked away from Hiyke.
Ulf went to his wife and kissed her. Hiyke’s face was suddenly fiery red. She ran up the steps and out of the hall. Bjarni watched her go. Gudrun was near the mark, then.
Ulf slid into the High Seat on Bjarni’s left. He said, “Women fight like geese, over nothing.”
“Unlike us,” Bjarni said.
Ulf grunted. He moved away from Bjarni.
Gifu brought a cheese and a dish of onions into the hall. After her came Hiyke with the meat and fish and the soup. Gudrun sat on the hearth, smoothing down her skirt with her hand. Bjarni had never seen her work. The other women put the meal on the table, and the men sat down to eat.
Gifu sat down beside Bjarni, her hands on the small of her back. She groaned.
“I’m getting fat as a monk.”
“What is that?”
She followed his eyes to the front of her dress. Turning out the top of her bodice, she showed him the amber star clipped to her shift. “Isn’t it pretty?”
Gudrun was sitting down in the High Seat, beside her husband. Hastily Gifu closed her gown.
“Give it back to her,” Bjarni said.
Gifu’s eyes narrowed; she shot an evil look at him. Gudrun leaned past Ulf to see them. Gifu said to Bjarni, “Why should I tell you anything?” She glanced at Gudrun. Reluctantly she unfastened the clip and gave it to Ulf’s wife.
Gudrun cried out. “My clip!” She showed it to Ulf. Everyone in the hall turned to look. Gudrun wheeled on Gifu. She leaned forward across her husband as if he were furniture.
“You went through my things! What else did you steal?”
On the far side of the High Seat, Hiyke said, “Remember you are a Christian, Gudrun.”
Ulf pushed his wife back into her place. “What kind of a woman have you brought here?” he asked Bjarni.
Bjarni turned toward the food. He pulled a platter to him and began to slice the mutton.
The three women were staring at one another. Gifu said hotly, “Sweet, kindly Gudrun, please forgive me, saint of saints—”
Gudrun said, “You foul-mouthed slut.”
“You butterfly-tongue!” Gifu got up from the bench. In a good imitation of Gudrun’s swaying, short-stepping walk, she went off down the room. “Oh, Ulf!” Her voice was a squeak. She stroked her hand over her hair, her eyes half-shut. “Pray, saddle the horse. Pray, Hiyke, bring me the milk so I may wash my face. Pray, Gifu, bring me the face so I may wash my milk.”
Everyone was laughing, except Gudrun. Even Ulf laughed. Gudrun pulled on his arm.
“Stop her!”
Ulf straightened his face. He winked past her at Bjarni.
“Stop her,” Gudrun said, “or sleep with the stock.”
Ulf turned away. Gifu had come to Kristjan, sitting at the end of the table, and she leaned down to whisper in his ear. Kristjan stopped smiling. He pushed her away, so that she staggered.
“Gifu,” Bjarni said.
Her face turned toward him, her eyes wide with malice. Her hair stood out in fuzzy tendrils like an aura. “Gifu! Gifu!” Up and down the hearth she aped a long-legged, heavy walk that set the others laughing again; Bjarni realized that it was he whom she mocked. His ears burned. Yet he had to laugh. In a deep voice she said, “The King of England would have made me his knight, but I came back to my true-love.” She thumped her chest. “The sheep!”
“Be still!” Gudrun shouted at her.
“What offends you?” Hiyke said. “Does she remind you that you are barren?”
Gifu was mimicking Andres now, cajoling and smiling and bowing. Her great belly made her awkward. Ulf turned to Bjarni.
“Stop her. Who knows what she might say?”
Bjarni said, “What are you afraid to hear?”
Another howl of laughter went up from Hiyke and the people watching Gifu. Gudrun stood up in her place. “I will not bear this.” She rushed out of the hall. Ulf swore. He left the High Seat to follow her. Bjarni watched him go.
Gifu watched also; she squared her shoulders the way Ulf did, and her mouth opened, full of words.
Bjarni said, “Gifu!”
She turned; she stuck out her chin. He said, “Come and eat.”
After a time she did as he said.
When the meal was done and the table cleared, Hiyke went to her loom, and the other people of Hrafnfell found things to do. Bjarni sat at the table and watched Gifu.
She was trying to catch Kristjan’s eye. The boy sat with his head bent, his gaze pinned to the ground. Gifu stamped her foot; she cleared her throat, and yet he would not look up. At last she left the hall. As soon as her back was turned, Kristjan raised his eyes to her. But he did not go to seek her. He went to sit by his mother instead.
Ulf had come in again. Bjarni called to him, “Play chess with me.”
His brother threw him a wild, angry look and stamped down the hall toward the door into the little room where he and Gudrun slept.
When night had fallen Bjarni crossed the yard to the sleeping booth. It was set back into the hillside; heavy beams of driftwood supported the sod roof. In the middle of the long room a fire burned. Andres and Jon sat on the bed against the right-hand wall, taking their shoes off, when Bjarni came in.
He said, “I am going out to fish tomorrow, if anyone wants to come with me.”
His half brothers lifted their heads in unison. “In
Swan?”
Andres said.
“Swan
is Ulf’s ship. I will take one of the boats.”
Ulf stalked into the long room. His heavy jaw was thrust out like a codfish’s. He came straight up to Bjarni and said, “You let that happen! You let your English whore tease my wife to tears. She is crying now.”
“I don’t doubt it,” Bjarni said.
He stripped off his coat and threw it across the foot of his bed. Ulf got him by the arm and swung him around.
“My advice to you is to get out of here,” he said to Bjarni. “Take your slut. You have made bad enemies, and you have outworn my hospitality.”
“Your hospitality!” Bjarni shoved him.
“I am warning you,” Ulf said. Andres and Jon came around the fire, one to either side of the hearth, their eyes on Bjarni. With the fire at their backs and their faces in shadow they looked wolfish.
“Well, you have warned me,” Bjarni said, “but against three of you I think I should have the first blow.” He cocked his fist back and drove it forward into Ulf’s stomach.
They rushed on him. Under their weight he was borne back, and his spine hit the edge of the bed. He fell onto the bed, got his feet up, and shoved Ulf back away from him. Andres dove onto him as he lay there, and Bjarni rolled over and knocked him away.
Ulf hit him from the side. Bjarni slipped down to one knee. He folded his arms over his head. They pounded at him, their fists bouncing off his arms. A boot came at his chest. He lunged forward to meet it. With the boot in his hands he pushed the body attached to it back toward the hearth.
He managed to stand up. With a lucky hit he knocked Jon away from him, and for a moment he and Ulf milled at each other, taking and giving the hardest blows they could. Ulf stepped back first, blood running down his face from his nose.
Bjarni gasped for breath. None of his brothers was down; they circled him, wary, their fists raised. Their faces gleamed. There was light in the room, more light than before.
Ulf shouted and rushed at Bjarni again, and Jon and Andres came at his back. Bjarni slid his feet along the floor. He fended off Ulf’s first round arching blows. Getting his back to the wall, he set himself and began to strike at them all.
They hit him, fists and feet thudding on his body and arms and legs. He took that, glad to take it if he could hit them back. He made them stagger. With a hot joy he realized that he could fight them all at once.
“The bed is burning!”
That was Gifu. Bjarni softened Andres with a hard stroke in the stomach and laid him out on the floor. The jumping light of the fire glistened on Ulf’s face. Jon had flinched back. Other people were around them, pulling at them. Bjarni lifted his fists and flung himself on Ulf.
They went down hard. Ulf elbowed him in the throat. He tucked his chin down; he fought for breath. Gifu was screaming his name. The fire blazed down one side of the booth and on the ceiling. She pulled at his arm.
“You will burn—you will burn—”
He lurched to his knees. Ulf rolled onto his back, his face painted with blood that shone brilliant in the firelight. Bjarni got him by the wrist and dragged him toward the door. Ulf got his feet under him. He yanked his arm free and blundered the rest of the way. Bjarni’s knees wobbled. He stepped across the threshold into the mist of the night.
The others were standing around at a distance from the fire, watching. Gifu held Bjarni’s arm against her side. He turned back toward the heat. The walls of the booth were of lava but the wooden beams, the straw beds, and now even the sod roof were burning.
“What happened?” Ulf said.
Jon was doubled over, his hands on his knees. “I guess—when I hit the fire, I knocked something in. A chair. Something.” He snuffled and shook his head, spraying blood around.
Bjarni licked his knuckles. His arms and shoulders hurt.
Hiyke walked in among the men. Her black shawl flapped. She said, “What were you doing, that you did not stop to put out the fire? God’s Love, none of you is fit to live here.”
None of the men spoke. Over her head, Bjarni met Ulf’s eyes. They looked long at one another, until something rueful and friendly passed between them. Together they started toward the shed, for tools to keep the fire from spreading.