‘What did you say?’
‘There is no shame in what she did. The woman that you loved.’
He said: ‘I thank you.’ Then he was away, striding back up the slope of the hill, towards his cave.
Thorvaldur clasped his shoulder as he passed, whispered words that I could not hear. The Christian came forward and took my hand, smiled that terrible, half-toothed smile of his.
‘Good fortune, Kjaran.’ He looked back at Thoris. ‘It was kind, what you said to him.’
‘It was what he wished to hear,’ I said. ‘Just as what you speak to him, with those stories of your God.’
He shrugged, caught.
‘Perhaps we shall meet in better times,’ I said.
‘I do not wish for better times. I am where I should be.’
‘I cannot believe that.’
‘You are jealous, I think. That he cares more for my words than your songs.’
‘You came here to find desperate men. Desperate men who would need your God.’
He did not seem insulted by my words. He cocked his head, considered the thought.
‘It does not seem so wrong to bring God first to those who need Him most. I thought to bring the word of God to the chieftains of this country. But I think that is not the way. The shaming I received, this exile – God is telling me that it is not the way.’
‘And so you bring your God to men who will soon be dead. Men who will father no children. Your word will die with them.’
‘Perhaps. But I say that it is time well spent. Two years spent saving a single soul, and I do not regret it.’
‘You truly think that he will join your God?’
‘He is close to it.’
‘Yes. He wants to be forgiven.’
‘And what of you?’
‘I do not. I have nothing to forgive.’
‘My God will love you.’
‘I have a woman who loves me. What need have I of the love of a god?’
‘That will change, in time. When it does, come back to me.’
‘It will not change.’
‘Then I hope we do not meet again,’ he said.
There was a coldness to his eyes, where before there had been nothing but merriment. I wondered if this was what those men had seen in him, those men who had mocked him at the Althing, all those years ago. Had they seen that look in his eyes, before they died?
‘Do not mistake me,’ he said. ‘I will make you a Christian, or give you a warrior’s death. There can be nothing else between us.’ He raised his hands, gesturing to the valley. ‘There is a truce between us here. You sheltered me and I thank you for it. I like your company well enough and think you a good man. But I am a warrior in a feud. A feud of gods. And beyond this valley, you are my enemy.’ He brought both hands to rest upon his heart. ‘But I hope that you will be my friend, one day.’
‘Be kind to Thoris,’ I said.
‘My God will be kind,’ he replied. And then he was gone.
I watched them walk away, one behind the other. The slow, clumsy steps of Thoris and the careless stride of Thorvaldur. Like an old man close to death and the son who will succeed him.
I came back to the free lands as a traveller from another world. I stood tall and walked in daylight, wandering the high ground with no fear, the warmth of the sun against my skin. Let me be seen by every man and woman and I would not have cared. The law was once again my friend and I felt as though every man on the island walked at my side.
I had no horse, no silver that I would spare to buy one, no friend in that place who might lend me one. And so I walked from one farm to the next, out towards the west, striding towards the sea. As the sun sank low I would seek out the closest longhouse, follow the rising smoke like a sailor chasing a star. I knocked on those doors and asked for a place to sleep at night.
Most did not know my name, but they knew me for what I was. There was no mistaking the ragged clothes that I wore, the hollow body of a half-starved man. For the outlaw ages as a cursed man does, old before his time. Those three years in the mountains had stolen my youth.
There were some who looked on me with fear; they would let me in and give me bread, and let me sing a song or two, but they would not speak a word to me and sent me on my way the moment the sun rose. But most greeted me with kindness, gifting me old clothes to replace my outlaw rags, sharing unwatered ale with me. And at night they and their children gathered around the fire and listened to my stories. For all love to hear tales of the outlaws.
So I told them that a giant lived in the valley and a dragon slept beneath it. That we never saw the sun, that we fought monsters and sorcerers. And all of it was a lie, and all of it was true.
I asked them to tell me their stories. And I asked them to tell me stories of Gunnar the Killer.
Most had never heard the name. Some had heard of him and of the feud. A few even claimed to have been at the Althing when I had been outlawed. None could speak anything of use to me, for we were still a long way from the Salmon River Valley. Yet in their silence I found a comfort. If some disaster had struck, if blood had been spilt, surely they would have heard it.
One of them gave me a horse – half-blind and he twitched and shivered uncontrollably, but he still had a little life left in him. Enough, perhaps, to see me home.
I came to Borg on that horse and looked once more upon the mountains that had made me wish to stay, listened to the calling of the sea for the first time in three years. I looked for Ragnar’s ship in the dock, but I could not find it. He was out at sea or was further north along the coast.
North, then. Through the deep valley, past cliff face and waterfall, rising up and up towards the Salmon River Valley. More carefully now, for I came close to the lands of men who might know me. I was an outlaw no longer, but that might matter little to Björn and his kin. They would risk outlawry themselves if it would see me dead. Only once I was with Gunnar would I be safe. The hills broke open and before me was the sea, the valley, my home. The great arcing curve of the bay, the great mountain of Helgafell behind me, the rolling land of the dales in front. I told myself that I would not leave it again, that nothing could compel me to do so. Not the lure of the Althing, the whisper of the sea. Not a sentence of outlawry or any curse or witchcraft. I would live and die in that place.
And suddenly, I was afraid.
Do not ask me how, but I could smell it, taste it, long before that could have been possible. And I was hurrying then, stirring that old, dying horse to one last great chase. And he was brave beneath me. He lifted his head and for the last time he seemed almost to break into flight.
We rode across the farmlands, past the grazing cattle, the remnants of the harvest. Until that smell, that taste returned, stronger than ever. The fire in my nostrils, the ash on my tongue. And I could see the smoke rising.
I did not want to believe, at first. I whispered to myself that it must have been some other place, some other feud in the valley. That Olaf the Peacock had angered some neighbouring chieftain and the great hall of Hjardarholt now lay in ashes. That Bolli’s long dispute over grazing lands with Bjarni had finally been settled in blood and fire. There were so many feuds and disputes it did not have to be the one I knew all too well. Yet somewhere deep within, where men feel hate and love and all things true, already I knew what must have happened.
I came over the rise of the ground beside Gunnar’s farm and looked down upon what remained.
It was the little things that I saw first. The fragments of burning wood that danced in the wind like fireflies. The ground, marked with the passage of half a hundred footsteps, that carved a great circle around the farm. The little slivers of iron, chipped from sword struck against sword, that glittered on the earth under the light of the low sun.