The Last Light of the Sun Read online

  Someone laughed.

  “Is it?” someone else said.

  The gates had opened. A man was riding out. There were murmurs, and then more laughter, at the girl’s expense. People were fools sometimes. You couldn’t pity them. You tried to gain from it. Those who hadn’t been quick enough to be part of the wager were cursing themselves.

  “Give over the money now,” a pockmarked sailmaker named Stermi said to the blacksmith, elbowing him. “This farmer’s a dead man.”

  Seabirds wheeled, dove into the waves, rose again, crying.

  “Ingavin’s eye!” exclaimed the girl named Thira, shaken. The crowd eyed her with raucous pleasure. “Why’d he do this?”

  “Oh? Thought you said you knew him,” the other whore said, cackling.

  They watched, a largish, buzzing group of people, as Gurd Thollson—a captain for two years now, excused from having to do this any more unless he chose to—rode out in glorious chain mail from the open gates of Jormsvik and moved past them, unsmiling, eyes hidden under helm and above bright yellow beard, towards the farmboy waiting on the stony strand astride a grey horse.

  HE HAD PRAYED. Had no farewells to make. There was no one who would lose anything at all if he died. This was a choice. You made choices, in the sea and on land, or somewhere between the two, on the margins.

  Bern backed Gyllir up a little as the mercenary who had drawn the battle lot approached. He knew what he wanted to do here, had no idea if he could. This was a trained warrior. He wore an iron helm, chain-mail armour, a round shield hooked on the saddle of his horse. Why would he take any kind of chance? Though this was where Bern saw his own chance lying, small as it might be.

  The Jormsvik fighter came nearer; Bern retreated a little more along the stony beach, as if flinching backwards. Edge of the surf now, shallow water.

  “Where’d you hide last night, goatboy?”

  This time, the retreat back into the water was genuine, instinctive. He knew the voice. Hadn’t known which man in the alehouse last night was Gurd. Now he did: the big, yellow-haired dice player at the next table over, who had seen him pay and hurry out.

  “Answer me, cowshit. You’re dying here anyhow.” Gurd drew his sword. There came a sound from those watching outside the walls.

  Something rare came into Bern Thorkellson in that moment, with the deriding, confident voice and a memory of this man the night before. It actually took Bern a moment to identify the feeling. Normally he was controlled, careful, only son of a man too well known for his temper. But a shield wall broke inside him on that strand before Jormsvik, with the sea lapping at the fetters of his horse. He danced Gyllir a little farther backwards into the water—deliberately this time—and he felt, within, the heat of an unexpected fury.

  “You’re a sorry excuse for an Erling, you know that?” he snapped. “If I’m supposed to be a shit-smeared farmhand, why couldn’t you find me last night, Gurd? I didn’t go far, you know. Why’s it take a captain to kill a goatboy today? Or be killed by one? I beat you last night, I’ll beat you now. In fact, I like that sword of yours. I’ll enjoy using it.”

  A silence; a man stunned. Then a stream of obscenity. “You beat no one, you lump of dung,” the big man snarled, edging his horse forward in the water. “You just hid, and wet yourself.”

  “Not hiding now, am I?” Bern raised his voice to be heard. “Come on, little Gurd. Everyone’s watching.”

  Again he backed up. His boots in the stirrups were in the water now. He could feel the horse reach for footing. The shelf sloped here. Gyllir was calm. Gyllir was a glory. Bern drew his stolen sword.

  Gurd followed, farther into the sea. His horse danced and shifted. Most Erling warriors fought on foot, riding to battle if they had a horse and dismounting there. Bern was counting on that. For one thing, Gurd couldn’t use the shield and sword and control his mount.

  “Get down and fight!” the captain rasped.

  “I’m here, little Gurd. Not hiding. Or is this Erling afraid of the sea? Is that why you’re not raiding? Will they even let you back in when they see it? Come get me, mighty captain!”

  Again he shouted it, to let those watching on the grass hear him. Some of them had begun drifting nearer the strand. He was surprised at how little fear he felt, now that it had come to this. And the anger in him was fierce and warming, a blaze. He thought of the girl last night: this massive, bearded captain stealing a coin from her out of sheer malice. It shouldn’t matter—he’d told her that—but it did. He couldn’t say why, didn’t have time to decide why.

  Gurd pointed with his blade. “I’m going to hurt you before I let you die,” he said.

  “No you aren’t,” said Bern, quietly this time, for no one else’s ears but their own—and the gods’, if they were listening. “Ingavin and Thünir led me through the sea on this horse in the dark of a night. They are watching over me. You die here, little Gurd. You’re in the way of my destiny.” He surprised himself, again—hadn’t any idea he would say that, or what it meant.

  Gurd rapped his helm down hard, roared something wordless, and charged. More or less.

  It is difficult to charge in surf at the best of times. Things are not as one expects, or as one’s horse expects. Movements slow, there is resistance, footing shifts—and then, where sand and stones slide away, it disappears entirely, and one is swimming, or the horse is, wild-eyed. One cannot charge at all, swimming, wearing armour, heavy and unbalanced.

  But this, on the other hand, was a Jormsvik fighter, a captain, and he was not—taunting aside—afraid of the sea, after all. He was quick, and his horse was good. The first angled blow was heavy as a battle-hammer and Bern barely got his own blade across his body and in front of it. His entire right side was jarred by the impact; Gyllir rocked with it, Bern gasped with the force, pulled the horse back to his right in the sea, by reflex, more than anything.

  Gurd pushed farther forward, still roaring, took another huge downward swing. This one missed, badly. They were deeper now, both of them. Gurd nearly unhorsed himself in the waves, rocking wildly as his mount, legs thrashing, struggled beneath him.

  Bern felt an improbable mixture of ice and fire within him: fury and a cold precision. He thought of his father. Ten years of lessons with all the weapons Thorkell knew. How to block a downward forearm slash. His inheritance?

  He said, watching the other man struggle and then right himself, “If it makes you feel better, dying here, I’m not a farmboy, little Gurd. My father rowed with the Volgan for years. Thorkell Einarson. Siggur’s companion. Know it. Won’t get you to Ingavin’s halls this morning, though.” He paused; locked eyes with the other man. “The gods will have seen you steal that coin last night.”

  If he died now, the girl did too, because he’d said that. He wasn’t going to die. He waited, saw awareness—of many things—flicker and ripple in the other man’s blue eyes. Then he steered Gyllir forward at an angle with his knees and he stabbed Gurd’s horse with a leaning, upward thrust just above the waterline.

  Gurd cried out, pulled at reins uselessly, waved his sword—for balance more than anything—slipped from the tilting saddle.

  Bern saw him, weighted with chain mail, up to his chest in water, fighting to stand. His dying horse thrashed again, kicked him. Bern actually had a moment to think about pitying the man. He waited until Gurd, fighting the weight of his armour, was almost upright in the waves, then he angled Gyllir again, smoothly in the sea, and he drove his sword straight into the captain’s handsome, bearded face just below the nosepiece. The blade went through mouth and skull bone, banged hard against the metal of the helm at the back. Bern jerked it out, saw blood, sudden and vivid, in the water. He watched the other man topple into white, foaming surf. Dead already. Another angry ghost.

  He dismounted. Grabbed for the drifting sword, better by far than his own. He took hold of Gurd by the ringed neckpiece of his armour and pulled him from the sea, blood trailing from the smashed-in face. He threw the two swords ahead of
him, used both hands to drag the heavy body up on the strand. He stood above it, dripping, breathing hard. Gyllir followed. The other horse did not, a carcass now, in the shallow water. Bern looked at it a moment, then walked back into the sea. He bent and claimed the dead man’s shield from the saddle. Walked back out onto the stones again.

  He looked over at the crowd gathered between sea and walls, and then up at the soldiers on the ramparts above the open gates. Many of them up there this sunlit summer morning. A captain riding out, claiming the fight: worth watching, to see what he did to the challenger who’d offended him. They’d seen.

  Two men were walking out through the gates. One lifted a hand in greeting. Bern felt the anger still within him, making a home, not ready to leave.

  “This man’s armour,” he called, lifting his voice over the deeper voice of the tumbling sea behind him, “is mine, in Ingavin’s name.”

  It wouldn’t fit him but could be altered, or sold. That’s what mercenaries did. That’s what he was now.

  At the margins of any tale there are lives that come into it only for a moment. Or, put another way, there are those who run quickly through a story and then out, along their paths. For these figures, living their own sagas, the tale they intersect is the peripheral thing. A moment in the drama of their own living and dying.

  The metalsmith, Ralf Erlickson, elected to return to his birthplace on Rabady Isle at the end of that same summer after ten years on the Vinmark mainland, the last four of which had been spent in the town outside the walls of Jormsvik. He’d made (and saved) a decent sum, because the mercenaries had needed his services regularly. He’d finally decided it was time to go home, buy some land, choose a wife, beget sons for his old age.

  His parents were dead, his brothers gone elsewhere—he wasn’t certain where any more, after ten years. There were other changes on the isle, of course, but not so many, really. Some taverns had closed, some opened, people dead, people born. The harbour was bigger, room for more ships. Two governors had succeeded each other since he’d left. The new one—Sturla One-hand, of all people—had just begun serving. Ralf had a drink or three with One-hand just after arriving. They traded stories of a shared childhood and divergent lives after. Ralf had never gone raiding; Sturla had lost a hand overseas … and made a small fortune.

  A hand was a fair trade for a fortune, in Ralf’s estimation. Sturla had a big house, a wife, land, access to other women, and power. It was … unexpected. He kept quiet about that thought, though, even after several cups. He was coming home to live, and Sturla was the governor. You wanted to be careful. He asked about unmarried women, smiled at the predictable jests, made a mental note of the two names Sturla did mention.

  Next morning he went out from the walls, walking through remembered fields to the women’s compound. There was an errand he’d promised to do. No need to ask directions. The place wouldn’t have moved.

  It was in better repair than he recalled. Sturla had told him a bit about that: the stoning of the old volur, emergence of a new one. Relations, the governor had allowed, were good. The witch-women had even taken to bringing food and ale for the harvesters at end of day. They never spoke, Sturla had told him, shaking his head. Not a word. Just walked out, in procession, a line of them, carrying cheese or meat and drink, then walked back. In procession.

  Ralf Erlickson had spat into the rushes on the governor’s floor. “Women,” he’d said. “Just their games.”

  One-hand had shrugged. “Less than before, maybe.” Ralf got the feeling he was taking credit for it.

  The details of the town’s reciprocation were evident as he approached the compound. The fence was in good condition; the buildings looked sturdy, doors hanging properly; wood was stacked high already, well before winter. There were signs of construction, a new outbuilding of some kind going up.

  A woman in a grey, calf-length tunic watched him approach, standing by the gate.

  “Ingavin’s peace on all here,” Ralf said, routinely. “I have a message for one of you.”

  “All peace upon you,” she replied, and waited. Didn’t open the gate.

  Ralf shifted his feet. He didn’t like these women. He vaguely regretted accepting the errand, but he’d been paid, and it wasn’t a difficult task.

  “I am to speak with someone whose name I don’t know,” he said.

  She laughed, surprisingly. “Well, you don’t know mine.”

  He wasn’t used to laughter in the seer’s compound. He’d come twice in his youth, both times to offer support to friends seeking a seithr spell from the volur. There’d been no amusement, on either occasion.

  “Were you ever bit by a snake?” he asked, and was pleased to see her startle.

  “Is that the one you need to see?”

  He nodded. After a moment, she opened the gate.

  “Wait here,” she said, and left him in the yard as she went into one of the buildings.

  He looked around. A warm day, end of summer. He saw beehives, an herb garden, the locked brewhouse. Heard birdsong from the trees. No sign of any other women. He wondered, idly, where they were.

  A door opened and someone else came out, alone: wearing blue. He knew what that meant. Under his breath he cursed. He hadn’t expected to deal with the volur herself. She was young, he saw. One-hand had told him that, but it was disconcerting.

  “You have a message for me,” she murmured. She was hooded, but he saw wide-set blue eyes and pulledback yellow hair. You might even have called her pretty, though that was a dangerous thought with respect to a volur.

  “Ingavin’s peace,” he said.

  “And Fulla’s upon you.” She waited.

  “You … the snake … ?”

  “I was bitten, yes. In the spring.” She put a hand inside her robe and withdrew it, gripping something. Erlickson stepped back quickly. She wrapped the creature around her neck. It coiled there, head up, looking at him from above her shoulder, then flicked an evil tongue. “We have made our peace, the serpent and I.”

  Ralf Erlickson cleared his throat. Time, he thought, to be gone from here. “Your kinsman sends greetings. From Jormsvik.”

  He’d surprised her greatly, he realized, had no idea why. She clasped her hands at her waist.

  “That is all? The message?”

  He nodded. Cleared his throat again. “He … is well, I can say that.”

  “And working for the mercenaries?”

  Ralf shook his head, pleased. They didn’t know everything, these women. “He killed a captain in a challenge, midsummer. He’s inside Jormsvik, one of them now. Well, in truth, he isn’t inside, at the moment.”

  “Why?” She was holding herself very still.

  “Off raiding. Anglcyn coast. Five ships, near two hundred men. A big party, that. Left just before I did.” He’d seen them go. It was late in the season, but they could winter over if they needed to. He had made and mended weapons and armour for many of them.

  “Anglcyn coast,” she repeated.

  “Yes,” he said.

  There was a silence. He heard the bees.

  “Thank you for your tidings. Ingavin and the goddesses shield you,” she said, turning away, the serpent still about her neck and shoulders. “Wait here. Sigla will bring you something.”

  Sigla did. Generous enough. He spent some of it at an inn that night, on ale and a girl. Went looking for property the next morning. Not that there was so much of it on the isle. Rabady was small, everyone knew everyone. It might have helped if his parents had still been living, instead of buried here, but that was a waste of a wish. One of the names Sturla had given him was that of a widow, no children, young enough to still bear, he’d been told, some land in her own name, west end of the isle. He brushed his clothes and boots before going to call.

  His son was born the next summer. His wife died in the birthing. He buried her back of the house, hired a wet nurse, went looking for another wife. Found one, and younger this time: he was a man with a bit of land now. He fel
t fortunate, as if he’d made good choices in life. There was an oak tree standing by itself near the south end of his land. He left it untouched, consecrated it to Ingavin, made offerings there, lit fires, midsummer, midwinter.

  His son, fourteen years later, cut it down one night after a bad, drunken fight the two of them had. Ralf Erlickson, still drunk in the morning, killed the boy in his bed with a hammer when he found out, smashed in his skull. A father could deal with his family as he chose, that was the way of it.

  Or it had been once. Sturla One-hand, still governor, convened the island’s thring. They exiled Ralf Erlickson from Rabady for murder, because the lad had been asleep when killed, or so the stepmother said. And since when had the word of a woman been accepted by Erlings in a thring?

  No matter. It was a done thing. He left, or they’d have killed him. Well on in years by then, Ralf Erlickson found himself on a small boat heading back to the mainland, landless (One-hand had claimed the exile’s property for the town, of course).

  Eventually, he made his way back down to Jormsvik, for want of a better thought. Worked at his old trade, but his hand and eye weren’t what they had been. Not surprising, really, it had been a long time. He died there a little while after. Was laid in the earth outside the walls in the usual fashion. He wasn’t a warrior, no pyre. One friend and two of the whores saw him buried.

  Life, for all men under the gods, was uncertain as weather or winter seas: the only truth worth calling true, as the ending of one of the sagas had it.

  PART TWO

  CHAPTER VI

  When the king’s fever took him in the night there was not enough love—or mercy—in the world to keep him from the fens and swamps again.

  Drenched with sweat upon the royal bed (or pallet, if they were travelling), Aeldred of the Anglcyn would cry out in the dark, not even aware he was doing it, so piteously it hurt the hearts of those who loved him to know where he was going.