“That is sad news indeed,” said King Harald. “How did she die?”
“She took it amiss,” said Styrbjörn, “because I found myself a Wendish concubine. She became so wrathful that she began to spit blood; then she languished and, after a time, died. In all other respects she was an excellent wife.”
“I have noticed of late,” said King Harald, “that young people cling less keenly to life than old people. But we must not allow this grief to weigh down our spirits during the Yule feast; and in any case I have more daughters left than I know what to do with. They are a fine-spirited bunch and will not marry any man who is not of noble birth and high renown; so that you need not remain a widower for long if you should find any girl among them who takes your fancy. You shall see them all—though I fear that, when they hear that you are single again, they may have some difficulty in keeping the Yule peace.”
“Something other than marriage is uppermost in my mind just now,” said Styrbjörn, “but we can speak of that later.”
Many glances were cast at Styrbjörn from doorways and loopholes, as he went with his men to the bathhouse; for he rarely accepted hospitality, and was held to be the greatest warrior that had been seen in the north since the days of the sons of Ragnar Hairy-Breeks. He had a short, fair beard and pale blue eyes, and men who had not seen him before murmured with surprise at finding him so slim-built and narrow-waisted. For they all knew that his strength was such that he cleft shields like loaves of bread and split armed men from the neck to the crotch with his sword, which was called Cradle-Song. Wise men said that the ancient luck of the Uppsala kings was his, and that it was this that gave him his strength and success in every enterprise he undertook. But it was also known that the curse of his family and their ancient ill luck had in part descended on him, and that it was because of this that he was a chieftain without a country; and that it was for this reason, too, that he was often afflicted with a great heaviness and melancholy. When the fit attacked him, he would shut himself away from all company and sit sighing and mumbling darkly to himself for days on end, unable to endure the presence of any of his fellow beings, save for a woman to comb his hair and an old harpist to give him ale and play him sad music. But so soon as the fit passed from him, he would be eager to go to sea again, and to battle, and then he would bring the strongest of his men to weariness and despair by his recklessness and his bad weather-luck.
So he was feared as no other chieftain in the north was feared, almost as though something of the power and majesty of the gods dwelt in him; and there were those who believed that some time in the future, when he reached the zenith of his might, he would sail to Miklagard and crown himself emperor there, and voyage in triumph along the round edge of the earth with his terrible navies.
But there were others who claimed that they could see it written in his eyes that he would die young and unlucky.
At length everything was ready in King Harald’s great dining-hall for the Yule feast, and all the men were assembled there in their numbers, seated on benches. No women were allowed to be present at so tremendous a drinking-bout, for it was difficult enough, King Harald thought, to keep the peace when men were by themselves, and it would be many times harder if they had women to brag to in their cups. When everyone was in his place, the groom of the bedchamber announced in a gigantic voice that the peace of Christ and of King Harald reigned in the hall, and that no edged implements might be used except for the purpose of cutting up food; any cut, thrust, or open wound caused by weapon, ale-tankard, meat-bone, wooden platter, ladle, or clenched fist would be reckoned as plain murder, and would be regarded as sacrilege against Christ and as an unpardonable crime, and the miscreant would have a stone tied round his neck and be drowned in deep water. All weapons apart from eating-knives had been left by order in the vestibules, and only the exalted personages who sat at King Harald’s own table were allowed to retain their swords; for it was felt that they would be able to control themselves even when drunk.
The hall was built to hold a good six hundred men without crowding, and in the middle stood King Harald’s own table, with the thirty most eminent of the company seated at it. The tables for the other guests stretched down the length of the hall from one end to the other. Styrbjörn sat on King Harald’s right hand, and Bishop Poppo on his left; opposite them King Sven had Thorkel the Tall on his right, and a red-faced, bald old jarl from the Small Islands called Sibbe on his left. The others sat according to their rank, King Harald himself having settled each man’s place personally. Orm, though he could not be reckoned as one of the great chieftains, had yet been allotted a better place than he could have expected, and Toke likewise, for King Harald was grateful to them for their gift of the great bell, and was an admirer of Toke’s poetry. So Orm sat three places from the Bishop, and Toke four; for Orm had told King Harald that he would like, if possible, to sit next to Toke, in case the latter became troublesome through drink. Facing them across the table were men of King Sven’s company.
The Bishop read grace, King Harald having commanded him to be brief about it, and then they drank three toasts: to the honor of Christ, to the luck of King Harald, and to the return of the sun. Even those of the company who were not Christians joined in the toast to Christ, for it was the first of the toasts and they were thirsty for their ale; some of them, however, made the sign of the hammer over their tankards and murmured the name of Thor before they drank. When the toast to King Harald’s luck was drunk, King Sven got ale in his windpipe and had a coughing fit, causing Styrbjörn to ask whether the brew was too strong for his taste.
Then the Yule pork was brought in, and warriors and chieftains alike fell silent when they saw it appear, and took a deep breath and sighed with joyous anticipation; many loosened their belts, to save doing so later. For though there were those who whispered that King Harald was in his old age less openhanded with gold and silver than he had been of yore, this accusation had never been leveled at him in the matter of meat and drink, and certainly never by anyone who had celebrated Yule in his palace.
Forty-eight acorn hogs, well fattened, were slaughtered for his pleasure every Yule; and it was his custom to say that if this did not see them through the whole feast-tide, it would at any rate be sufficient to provide a tasty entrée for every guest, and that they could then fill up with beef and mutton. The kitchen servants entered in a long line, two by two, each pair bearing a great smoking pot, except for some who carried troughs of blood-sausage. They were accompanied by boys armed with long forked spits, which, once the pots had been set beside the tables, they plunged into the stew, fishing out large hunks of meat, which they gave to the guests in order of precedence, so that each had his fair share; in addition to which, every man received a good ell’s length of blood-sausage, or more if he wanted it. There were bread cakes and fried turnips set out on clay plates, and at the foot of each table there stood a butt of ale, so that no man’s horn or tankard need ever be empty.
As the pork approached Orm and Toke, they sat quite still, with their faces turned toward the pot, watching the boy closely as he fished for the meat. They sighed blissfully as he lifted out fine pieces of shoulder pork to put on their plates, reminding each other how long it was since they had last eaten such a dinner, and marveling that they had managed to survive so many years in a country where no pork was allowed to be eaten. But when the blood-sausage arrived, tears came into their eyes, and they declared that they had never eaten a meal worthy of the name since the day they had sailed away with Krok.