Four

The feast flew. Soared into the night like a ravening bird, like a fire flame, like the spread of a plague, a party as wild as the night outside was long.

*   *   *

It seemed to go on for days.

It felt like the longhouse had never been empty, not all those many months when the men were away on the knarrs.

Suddenly, in an evening, it was a place of firelight and joy and warmth; a small ship of life, making ready to sail through the dark and snow of winter, winter that was prowling outside, just on the other side of the smoky thatch.

Not one, but two pigs were slaughtered, and the smell of their roasting filled the highest corner of the longhouse.

Flower beer flowed like the streams from the hill, the bread was warm, and there were even apples from the western isle, stored in barrels against the winter.

Father sat at the middle of the long table, with Mother at his elbow.

We sat with the other children, to the side, but we did not mind.

Father was home! And we could see everyone and everything.

I looked at him again, closely. There was something in his eyes, I knew, something in his heart.

“Eirik,” I whispered. “What is wrong with Father?”

But Eirik! Oh, he knew nothing. Eirik was always for doing, not for thinking.

Faced with a runaway dog, Eirik would spend ages happily chasing it around the meadows, whereas I … I would have found a bone and let the dog come to me.

That was Eirik and me.

So he saw nothing.

“What?” he said. “Wrong? Nothing is wrong. Look!”

And maybe he was right. The hall was the happiest I had ever seen it, and it glowed with all the good colors; browns and reds and earths and yellows.

Father stood up, a skull of pig blood in his hand. He turned to the room.

“Our strength was great!” he cried. “And we are with you again! Yet we lost six men, and this feast we honor to those six. Hakon! Kar! Magnus! Sigurd! Björn! Gilli!”

With each name, there was a roar, and cups were clattered and skulls were scattered, and father drank the name of each of his fallen men, in blood.

Yet, there was still no mention of the newcomer, this Tor. And even I, as a child, knew this was wrong.

Father waved a hand for silence.

“Where,” he said, and I can see him doing it now, his voice dropping to a whisper, “is Leif Longfoot?”

Then, pointing across the room, he cried, “Leif! Our skald! We must have words! Give us words to remember our long voyage, and our great deeds, and to remember those who we lost.”

There was Leif, walking into the center of the longhouse, to stand by the firelight, to give us his words.

He was a beautiful man, tall and thin, not one for fighting, though he fought with the others when it was needed so. But his tools were words; those mysterious gifts from the gods, and while most men merely learned how to use them, Leif was one of the wizards who had learned the secret of how to make magic with them.

He stood by the fire, and waited for silence.

Then, he cried.

“Hwaet!”

And so, we all knew his words were about to begin, and wonderful they were to hear.

On a good day

is born that great-souled lord

who hath a heart like his;

aye will his times

be told of on earth,

and men will speak of his might.

Unfettered will fare

the Fenriswolf,

and fall on the fields of men,

ere that there cometh

a kingly lord

as good, to stand in his stead.

Cattle die

and kinsmen die,

land and lieges are whelmed;

when Wulf

to the wide waters went,

many a host was harried.

His poem told us all of the fears and fates that had beset Father and his men since we had last seen them, at the rushing start of the summer.

As we listened, I fingered the necklace at my throat, that one that Eirik had made for me from bone, a leaping hare.

I saw Tor rise from his place.

I also saw that Father had seen, and was carefully watching him as he stalked around the longhouse, behind the tables. He had been sitting opposite us, and somehow I knew where he was heading.

By the time he stood behind Eirik and me, rubbing his hands through our hair, the whole room was silent.

Leif’s last words died and floated away like just another spark from the fire, and then there was a terrible time of nothing.

Father did not rise, but spoke from where he sat. “Tor. What do you mean by this?”

We could feel his hands in our hair, and I felt for Eirik’s hand, and he felt for mine, as we did not understand what was happening.

Then Tor’s voice rang out, flew above our heads, back toward Father, toward the whole longhouse.

“These children,” he said, “are mine.”