When we were exhausted, sitting in the snow and drunk on the memory of that music, I said: ‘We shall have another fire tonight.’
‘We shall.’ Thoris scratched at his mutilated ear. ‘Do you still wish that you had taken your place on that ship? Was it not worth the suffering, for this?’
I hesitated, considering the lie, but already it was too late. He saw the truth of it in my face. He stood and struck the snow from his clothes with rough, chopping blows of the hands.
‘Come,’ he said. ‘We must go back to the cave.’ He began to walk away, but he had not gone far when he turned back to speak once more. ‘I will have a song tonight,’ he said.
He did not speak it as a request: it was a command.
22
‘Do you see him?’ I said.
‘Yes.’
‘What shall we do?’
‘I cannot say.’
I lifted my hand to shield my eyes from the sun and looked again down the valley. The day was clear, the sun was high, and yet still I could not believe what it was that I saw. There was a man walking through the valley. One man alone, coming towards where we lay in the snow.
It was spring – my first spring as an outlaw, and we had been going to tend the sheep that morning. Our new herd, for we had stolen some pregnant ewes whilst the nights were still long enough. And as we went to tend them, we had seen movement at the edge of the valley.
We thought him one of the other outlaws at first, one of those shadows we saw on the high mountains from time to time, and kept well away from. A thief who had come to take from us the cattle we had stolen.
But this man was different. Even from a distance we could see that he was well clothed. He walked like a warrior, not the shambling, exhausted steps of the outlaw who is always hungry, always exhausted. And he carried something in his hands, something long and slender. A staff, perhaps, though he did not use it to help him walk.
‘One of the men who hunts you?’ I said.
‘Fool,’ he snapped. ‘Who would come here alone?’
‘Another outlaw, then.’
‘Perhaps.’
He was going towards the herd; soon he would see them. Half a dozen sheep, all marked with a different man’s brand. There would be no mistaking them for anything other than the work of a thief.
‘If he takes the cattle, we die,’ I said.
‘It does not matter if he takes them, if he has seen where they graze. He cannot leave. We cannot let him go.’
We lay still, our bellies against the ground, and watched him walk towards his death.
He saw the herd, the first sign of life he must have seen in the mountains for days. I thought the sight might make him flee or scour the hillsides for the shepherds who watched over this thieves’ flock. He paused for only a moment, his head cocked to the side, before he went towards the animals in the valley.
We waited until he passed our position, until he was deep within the dale. There was only one way in and out of this place; that is why we had chosen it to keep our herd. If he went deeper into the valley we would have him trapped, for it ended in impassable cliffs. If he tried to go back the way he had come we would have to close the distance quickly, to cut him off before he could escape.
Yet the moment we stood, he seemed to hear us. For he turned to face us and he did not run. He greeted us with a wave, as though he were hailing friends from another valley, and came towards us.
We stood, irresolute. We would have been ready for him to take flight, to draw a weapon. This courtesy was one we did not know how to answer.
‘We should welcome him,’ Thoris said. ‘Let him relax. Then we can take him by surprise.’
‘I will not murder a man like that. If he must die, he will die fighting.’
He cursed me. ‘A fool’s honour,’ he said. ‘You still speak as a free man. But we shall kill him your way.’
I had almost forgotten how free men looked: soft cheeks, clean tunic, silver rings on his arms. We must have seemed a desperate pair to his eyes, I half-handed, Thoris ragged from seven years in the mountains. More akin to wolves than men.
He carried a beautiful weapon, a sword too large to wear slung from his belt, and so he carried its scabbard in his hands like a staff, picking his way through the rocks with the sheathed point. Now he placed that point against the ground and rested his chin on the pommel. He smiled at us and I saw that half his teeth were gone, all on one side. The side of a shield, the flat edge of a sword, a wild horse’s flailing hoof – something had marked him with a monster’s smile.
‘This is your herd?’ he said.
‘It is,’ Thoris replied.
‘I do not think so. They bear the marks of many different men.’
‘They are ours now.’
He covered his mouth with his hand. ‘So I see,’ he said, his shoulders shaking.
‘Who are you?’ I asked.
‘My name is Thorvaldur.’
‘Why have you come here?’
‘I am an outlaw, as you are.’
‘Then go, and find another place.’
He raised an eyebrow. ‘You would let me leave?’ And he covered his mouth again.
I put my hand to the hilt of my sword. ‘We cannot. But we will give you a warrior’s death.’
‘I thank you for speaking the truth.’ He paused, then said: ‘If I cannot leave, perhaps I may join you.’
‘I have no need of another man eating my sheep and grain,’ Thoris said and levelled a finger at me. ‘One parasite is enough.’
‘Oh, I may be of use to you,’ said the stranger.
‘How?’ I said, and I remembered the words that Thoris had spoken to me in the storm. ‘What can you do?’
‘What can I do?’
‘Why should we save you?’
He laughed out loud now, as though at some joke that only he had heard. ‘I can tell you of God,’ he said. ‘Of the true God.’
‘The White Christ?’
‘He is called that by some.’
‘We have gods enough of our own,’ I said. ‘We have no need of yours.’
‘Fool,’ Thoris said. ‘The gods are no friends of ours.’ He looked back on the stranger. ‘But your God will be no different. We have no need of him.’
‘Very well. May I have the names of those who will kill me?’
‘I am Thoris Kin-slayer. And this is Kjaran the Luckless. Tell them to your God, when you see him.’
He cocked his head again. ‘I have heard your story,’ he said. ‘You killed your brother.’
‘Aye. That I did.’
‘My God has a story of such a thing. You shall want to hear it.’ He looked to me next. ‘I do not know your crime. But perhaps I have a story for you as well. I would be happy to share them with you.’ He tightened his grip on the sword. ‘Or we may kill each other. It does not matter to me.’
I have heard many men make such a boast. Our gods honour none but the battle dead, and so we should hold no fear of death at the edge of a blade. Yet for all the boasts I had heard, I believed it from only two men: Gunnar, and the man who stood before us in that valley.
I had heard that Christians were unmanly, that their God was a coward. For that was what the White Christ meant: the Coward Christ. And yet here he was before us, ready to die.
‘Wait,’ Thoris said.
The silence grew. Perhaps he was thinking of the danger of a fight. We were two, but we were weak. He might only have to wound us to kill us: a fever or starvation would finish what he began. Perhaps Thoris merely thought of the odds, and that they were not in our favour.
But I do not think it was that.