‘You have a woman?’ he said.
‘Yes.’
‘I see. That is why you did not run.’
‘No. She wanted me to leave. I promised her that I would.’
‘Then why?’
I thought for a time. ‘I have a friend,’ I said. ‘He too is in the feud. While they hunt me, they shall not hunt him.’
He spat on the ground. ‘I doubt that. They will think you dead now.’ He looked at me closely and I saw a coldness settling into his eyes. ‘I will have the truth from you or I will not have you stay here.’
I rested my dead hand upon the sword at my side. I felt for the markings of the runes, for the patterned whorls of the iron. I knew it was there, but I could feel none of it.
‘I did not want to leave,’ I said. ‘I could not leave. There must be a world beyond this island, but I cannot seem to believe it. I would be taking a ship to nothing. To be with the dead. And it is not my time to die.’
He nodded to himself. ‘You speak the truth, I think.’ He placed his hands on his thighs and sat upright, like a chieftain on the high seat. ‘Now,’ he said, ‘you will sing.’
I was afraid, then – more afraid than I had been in the storm, or when Gunnar and I had hunted the ghost, or at any time that I had stood with blade and shield in battle. I thought of the stories I had heard, of the skalds who saved themselves with song. Egill Skallagrímsson, the greatest of my people, had ransomed his head from a king with a poem. This cave was no kingly court, but Thoris was ruler of it just the same. He had no headsman to execute me if I failed, but he did not need one. The ice and snow would be his executioners, if he chose to cast me out.
I sat upright in my blanket, took water for a throat raw from coughing, daubed my face with a wet rag to still my restless mind.
It had been so long since last I had sung that I was certain I had lost my gift. That the words would not come. That the poet in me had died out in the storm. Perhaps the White Lady, too, obeys the word of the law. Perhaps it is that an outlaw cannot sing.
But after only a moment, I felt the touch of the White Lady on my shoulder and knew that she was with me still. The words came, as they always had, and I could feel the warmth building in my heart and my throat, could feel the poet’s longing, and knew, at that moment, that I could not have remained silent even if I had tried.
And so I lifted my head and closed my eyes. And I sang.
He had let his head tip forward and that iron-grey hair had fallen about his face. He had been still, silent for the length of the song, and it was not a silence that had spoken to me.
My voice had cracked many times, my rhythm had been uneven, my breathing weak. Yet even so, somehow I did not think that I had ever sung so well.
At last he reached out a hand, placed the tips of his fingers to my shoulder. He let it rest there for a time.
‘Well performed,’ he said, his voice soft. ‘I thank you.’ He swallowed. ‘You can stay.’
‘It has been some time since you heard a poet sing, I think.’
‘Gudrun. My wife. She used to sing. But not like that. Who was he, this Cúchulainn that you spoke of?’
‘The great Irish hero. You have not heard of him before?’
‘No. I have never heard an Irishman sing.’
‘I know many songs of him. How he lived and fought. How he died.’
‘You will sing of him more?’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘But first, you must do something for me.’ I lifted my left hand and showed him my fingers.
He hesitated. ‘We should wait,’ he said. ‘You are still weak.’
I shook my head. ‘There is no time,’ I said. ‘Let it be now.’
His mouth worked, but he did not speak. I think he was afraid – afraid that he would kill me, even as he sought to save me. That he would have nothing but the memory of song to keep him company.
He took a knife from his belt. My knife, the sharpest blade that we had, for his axe and seax were long since dull and rusted. He tested the edge with his thumb, nodded.
‘Give me your hand,’ he said.
I lay flat on my stomach and laid my left hand down on the stone, black fingers on grey stone. The other hand I kept curled up close beneath my body, as if to protect it from him.
He touched the knife to my thumb, to the bottom of the black skin. He might have been holding the blade to another man’s hand, for all that I knew of it.
‘There,’ I said. ‘I feel nothing.’
‘No,’ he said. ‘We must be certain.’ And he moved the blade down further, until it rested upon the white flesh and not the black. I felt the cold metal against my skin. Every nick and mark in the blade, I felt it perfectly.
‘There,’ I said.
‘Do not move,’ he said, and he placed both hands on the hilt of the knife, ready to press down.
‘Wait,’ I said.
I looked on that hand one more time. It had carried a shield, it had born crops from the harvest, it had cupped the face of the woman I loved as I kissed her. And with it, I had killed a man.
‘Now?’ he asked.
I took a filthy rag, balled it up ready to be bitten. I turned my head away.
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Now.’
And he began to cut.
I tried to think of myself as a prisoner, bound with irons. And that Thoris was a friend who had come to free me, each strike of the knife breaking the link on a chain.
I tried to believe that a spell had been laid upon me – that Thoris was a priest come to cleanse my body of the curse.
I tried to believe many things as I listened to the sound of the cutting, as I shook and trembled against the ground. And none of them could still the pain.
It was only after, as I cradled my mutilated hand close against my chest as though it were a child of mine, rocking backwards and forwards, the taste of bile on my lips, willing the pain to end – it was then that there was a great and terrible joy. The joy that I would live. And there is no agony that cannot be overcome with that joy.
I forced myself to look on it – five wet stumps daubed in blood. And I made myself smile, as I knew Thoris would want from me.
‘Another nickname earned,’ I whispered. ‘Kjaran the Half-hand.’
‘There are worse names to have.’
I lay down and thought of all the gods who had been maimed. I thought of my God Odin: he had given up one of his eyes for the gift of wisdom. What gift would be granted to me, in return for what I had sacrificed?
I felt Thoris’s hand on my shoulder. Almost tender.
‘Rest,’ he said. ‘You bore it well.’
‘Tomorrow I will help you,’ I said. ‘I will not lie in this cave like an old man any more.’
‘As you wish. But tomorrow.’
I lay down and let sleep take me.
I dreamed of miraculous healing, of my fingers sewn back and living once again. I dreamed of being tied down and being cut upon by all who I knew, of bleeding and screaming, but being unable to die.
Then I did not dream of Sigrid or of Gunnar.
I dreamed of revenge.
It was three days before I was strong enough to rise. I woke alone in the cave and it took me a long time to fight my way to my feet. But once I had stood, I felt no longing to lie back down. I leaned against the wall of the cave and breathed, and felt the strength flow through me.
When Thoris returned, he said nothing at first. Merely watched me with a warrior’s eyes, looking for weakness. When he was satisfied, he said: ‘We must go to work. We do not have much time before the winter comes.’
I looked beyond him, out of the cave and into that land of stone and snow. It seemed impossible that this could still be called summer. I could not imagine what a winter here would be like. Of how a man could hope to live in this place.