Blood Eagle: A riveting historical thriller Page 17

  “But it wasn’t just a youthful caprice?” I asked.

  Hilda shook her head. “No, it wasn’t. He just stopped talking about it to everyone. But I knew he still thought about it, for I heard him rant about it on occasion, several years later, with Ingvar when they were drinking. Ingvar was somewhere in the middle, neither completely on Loke’s nor on our father’s side. I think Loke tried to make our brother see matters his way. It would be much easier to convince Father that our family must overtake the current royal family if not only his second oldest but his oldest son, too, agreed it was necessary. And Ragnar would do whatever Loke wanted, so that would make three of them.” She smirked. “As you know, Loke is Ragnar’s hero. Loke kept saying that our family would lose everything we had worked so hard for unless we took charge of the country—our position, fortune, well respected name, everything. We absolutely had to do something what with all the changes taking place in the country. To be exact, what with Christianity gaining foothold.”

  I nodded, silently urging Hilda to keep going with her story. She did.

  “Even though our family doesn’t like Christianity and has no plans of ever converting, more and more families in Ostergotland do like it, as you also know. Powerful and influential families, such as the Estrid clan in the north and the Magnussons in the west. Over the course of only a few years these families have grown tremendously, having become almost as rich as we are.”

  “Yes, they have indeed. Shoe-making is a most lucrative trade. We should all consider it.” I was referring to the colorful Estrid clan that had spent decades perfecting their trade. These days they were known all over southern Sweden for their well-made, original shoes. They had become so popular some people traveled days to get a hold of an Estrid-made ankle boot with blue goatskin uppers, their signature shoe. Paying so much attention to shoes, it was only to be expected that the Estrids would be dandies in other areas, too, which they were, always appearing at the Assembly in well-matched outfits and their hair in the latest continental fashion. Once they had come with clean-shaven necks and bangs so long they could barely see anything, looking so ridiculous Egin and I had laughed until our stomachs began to ache.

  “Anyway, according to Loke,” Hilda continued, “if we didn’t watch out, the families would soon merge forces and try taking over everything, the entire province. Together, they would be stronger than we are. Apparently, both families have tried hard to convert other families during gatherings at the Assembly. Is that so?” Hilda gazed at me questioningly.

  “Yes, they have,” I confirmed. “Once the Magnusson family brought a preacher that went on and on about how we would end up in a place called Heaven if only we converted. A lot of people paid attention and thought it sounded like a fine place to rest. But I’m not sure they were willing to pay the price to get there. For example, they would have to give up their slaves and start paying them instead. Not a popular notion.”

  Hilda chuckled. “I can imagine. Well, Loke told Ingvar that it was only a question of time until the majority of people had converted and turned against those who didn’t. So, we had to do something before that happened. I think Loke would have convinced Ingvar in the end.”

  “Yes, he can be very convincing. He certainly has more leadership qualities than his dead big brother ever did.”

  “I should have told Father about all of this before we parted ways yesterday.” Hilda looked away, her eyes glazing over. Then she said, more to herself than to me, “Surely he would have been alive today if I had.”

  I put an arm around her shoulders and moved her close to me. “Maybe. But it’s too late now. It does no good blaming yourself for your father’s death. You couldn’t have known how heartless your brother truly is.”

  Sadly, I understood Hilda’s guilt better than she could imagine. I could have mentioned how I had worried more about what Loke would do than Ragnar. Of course, it probably would have been too late when we got home yesterday. By then, there was nothing we could have done to save Bjorn anyway.

  Hilda wiped at her tears with her fingertips and blinked away the rest.

  “You are right, Leif. I couldn’t have known.” She put the cutting board aside and stood up. “Well, we don’t have time to ponder this further. We must focus on what is at hand, save what can be saved. Let’s gather everyone and talk.” She glanced over at Elsa, who had stopped stirring the cauldron’s steaming contents. “It looks like Elsa’s stew is ready.”

  I nodded and got up as well. I told Anna to go tell the field hands and Petter in the barn that it was time to eat and talk. She took off instantly. When she returned with the men, the rest of us sat down around the hearth, and Elsa and Hilda began serving us food. I waited to speak until everybody was seated and had received their ration of food. Then I said, “We have to decide who will be the one to demand a retrial.”

  “I think I should do it,” Hilda said. “If I go with Fjodor and Mikail, I have protection and everybody at the People’s Assembly will see for themselves that I’m alive. When people know that, I should be safe from any more attempts on my life by Loke. He wouldn’t gain anything by killing me then. And since I’m there already, I might as well announce that the Blackhairs deserve a retrial. I could let the people know right then and there that Ragnar, not you, was the one who tried to kill me.”

  “Yes,” Egin said, “and then I can stand up and demand that our family gets a retrial as soon as possible. The judges will surely grant it and the people, too, when they have seen and heard what Hilda has to say.” He turned to me. “It will be easy then to ask for your sentence to be reversed.”

  I thought about Egin’s words, and then I nodded. “Yes, you are right, Egin. The judges and the people will surely grant both a retrial and a reversal of my sentence after that.” But I must have looked conflicted because Hilda asked, “What is it, Leif?”

  I turned and looked at her. “I just wish that you wouldn’t have to be the one to tell all on Friday. It might get real rowdy in there. Maybe Loke goes mad when he sees you and attacks you. Who knows what he might try next? After last night, I believe that one is capable of anything. Or Ragnar might do something.” I thought about what I had just said. “Yes, the one we should fear going mad at the Assembly is Ragnar, not Loke. Loke is much too composed.”

  Hilda smiled. “I appreciate your concern, Leif, but, unfortunately, I think this is the only way. And I truly think that this time I will be safe.”

  “Yes, I think you will be safe with Mikail and Fjodor, too,” I said, then sighed. “And it is true; we have no other choice... Well, I think the Law Speaker will help you make your point should anyone object to you interrupting the meeting.”

  Hilda looked at me. “Why do you think he will help me?”

  “I think he might have overheard when Ragnar told me the truth after the trial.”

  Hilda’s eyes widened. “Really?”

  “Yes. So it’s settled then. You will be the one to demand a retrial, Hilda.”

  30

  When the day the gathering at the People’s Assembly arrived, we had made some adjustments to Hilda’s plan. In addition to the Russian brothers and Egin, I was to come to the Assembly, disguised as a slouching old man with a long white beard in a hooded cape so no one recognized me. It was a risky decision, but I simply couldn’t let Hilda stand in front of everyone with her murderous brothers so close by and not be there to defend her if need be. I remained nervous about what Ragnar would do when he saw Hilda. Given how close he and the rest of the Jarlabanke clan were to the court square where Hilda would make her announcement, he could reach her in a matter of moments and stick a dagger in her chest if he wanted to. He may be fat, but he was strong and surprisingly quick, which made him a good fighter. While the Russian brothers were both rather large men, who knew if they would react fast enough to defend Hilda? If Ragnar tried to kill Hilda a second time and succeeded, I would never forgive myself. So I would position myself as close to where Ragnar always sat and be rea
dy to throw myself over him. If we came early enough, I should manage to get a spot mere steps away from him.

  “Remember to position yourself as far away from your family as possible when you walk to the court square,” I instructed Hilda as I got ready to descend our wagon. It must have been the tenth or so time that I did this since we had left our farm. We were only a short distance away from Valstad and the People’s Assembly now. I would cover the rest of it on foot, crossing the woods that grew around Valstad. Like me, Hilda wore a hooded cape so that no one would be able to recognize her without looking closely. This way no one would know who she was until she had reached the court square and removed the hood.

  “I will, I will,” she humored me. As I was about to ask her if she was sure, truly sure, she smiled and rubbed my arm. “Don’t worry so much, Leif! I will be fine. I know I will. I can feel it in here.” She tapped the left side of her chest. “Now go or you will be late, and then you won’t be there in time to see just how far away from my family I’ll position myself.”

  I nodded and reluctantly turned around, heading for the trees that rose on either side of the dirt road that we had travelled for the better part of the morning.

  It didn’t take me long to get to the other side of the forest despite my uncomfortable cloak and the long woolen beard Elsa had made for me. The beard kept getting stuck in all the needles of the close-growing firs. Fortunately, it was easy to untangle the beard from the sharp branches whenever this happened—except when I was about to leave the woods. The harder I tried to unhook the beard from the branch’s many needles now, the more it seemed determined to stay there instead.

  As I kept trying and trying to free myself, my heart picked up speed in my chest. I couldn’t afford to stay much longer if I wanted to be sure to get a spot close to Ragnar; the Assembly filled up quickly when big cases were on the agenda as they were today. From what Egin had told me, among others a 25-year-old feud between the Gudmundson family and the Ingemar clan was to be solved today, in addition to determining the ownership of a farm lost in gamble.

  It seemed my beard was determined to remain stuck in the fir. Frustrated, I pondered whether to just leave the beard behind or not. Maybe the cloak’s hood was sufficient disguise. I could just keep staring into the ground like the hunchback I was supposed to be and avoid meeting the eyes of anyone. But I soon decided that doing so was too dangerous. I was still tall, so someone shorter who got a glimpse of my face might recognize me and inform everyone else who the old hunchback in the cloak really was. In the end, I cut off half the beard with the knife in my boot. While the beard now barely reached below my chin, it still covered most of my face.

  Making sure I kept my head down and that my shoulders slouched, I left the woods. I made my way as quickly as I could through the sparsely populated gravel yard in front of the Assembly building, pretending to take a rest every now and then on my birch cane. Before long I had entered the double doors and was heading toward the left side of the court square where the Jarlabanke clan sat. The insides of the Assembly were filling up. I picked up my speed, hoping there was still some standing space left near the Jarlabanke bench. I was in luck. A couple of spots remained, spots granted first to elderly men like myself. I went over and planted myself firmly against the cool stone wall, right next to the bench, and allowed myself to relax a little, having at least made it this far. I could only pray that Ragnar would stay put so I could leave as inconspicuously as I had arrived.

  Shortly thereafter the Law Speaker and the judges arrived. Having made his way up to the table on the podium, the old man looked out over the sea of men before him in the deep hall. Then he rapped his gavel and declared the People’s Assembly open for business. Taking a sip of mead, he explained that today’s Assembly gathering had a full agenda. The first case to be settled was the ownership of the Odenson farm in northwestern Ostergotland.

  Egin had given me the details of this dispute that had begun months earlier, while I was gone. Apparently, Jona Odenson and Sverker Holmare had played a board game over bets and, while playing, they had been drinking beer, lots of beer. As the night moved along, they got drunker and drunker, and the bets got wilder and more outrageous. Cheered on by the other men around the table, they went from waging silver coins and bracelets to slaves and animals. After a long winning streak, Jona suddenly found himself beginning to lose. And lose. And lose.

  Determined to turn the game around—and very, very drunk—Jona kept going. Finally, furious over his continuous bad luck, he thought in his drunken mind that if he betted something really big—as in everything he owned—the gods would give him back his good luck for displaying such tremendous bravery. But the gods didn’t. Right as the sun appeared over the tree tops outside the mead house, Jona found himself one entire farm short. At the time, Jona was too drunk to realize the extent of his loss. But when he woke up the next afternoon and found Sverker and his brothers outside his home, having come to collect Sverker’s prize, reality came tumbling down on him like a heap of stones falling from a cliff. He told them that he wouldn’t give them anything because he couldn’t remember ever having betted his farm. So Sverker made a complaint at the local People’s Assembly up in northwestern Ostergotland. The community was too evenly split between the two parties, so the case couldn’t be settled. This was why Sverker had brought the case to the provincial Assembly in Valstad.

  The Law Speaker turned to his assistant and asked him to bring up Sverker Holmare first, since he had made the complaint against Odenson. Sverker was to state before all men present the exact nature of his complaint. The moment he was called, Sverker entered the court square. He was a sallow-faced, blond man with an upper body so hugely muscular his legs looked like sticks in comparison. He walked with a cocky swagger, confident of his winning finally at this Assembly. When he reached the middle of the court square, he stopped and turned around so that he faced the people. He calmly recited the facts of the case to the people and proceeded to explain why he should be awarded the right to the Odenson farm. “For I am a man of my word and have always been so. All real men should stand by their words. I believe that it doesn’t matter whether you are drunk or not. If you are so drunk that you lose your mind that is your problem, not mine. A word given is a word given. This is—”

  No longer talking, Sverker stared toward the entrance of the Assembly. One after the other, all the men in the great hall turned their heads and looked in the direction in which Sverker stared. Knowing that everyone’s attention was elsewhere now, I straightened my hunched-over body considerably to get a glimpse of the aisle between the two long rows of benches. I was just in time to catch sight of Hilda, flanked by Fjodor and Mikail, walking briskly toward the court square and Sverker. Soon, the little group had reached the court square. Much to my relief, Hilda positioned herself as far away from Ragnar and the rest of the Jarlabankes as physically possible, just as I had advised her.

  I looked at Sverker again. His face had twisted in anger, and it remained angry-looking even after Hilda had removed her hood. He must not know who she is, I thought. The majority of the men inside the hall did, however. They gasped as one at the sight of who had been hiding under the hooded cloak, the person who’d had the gall to interrupt an Assembly-meeting. I could only imagine the thoughts going through their minds upon seeing Hilda standing there, back from the dead. They must believe, just like I had done, that she was some kind of apparition.

  I turned to Ragnar and Loke, contracting my muscles to pounce either of them were they to try something. But neither moved. Instead, they seemed as though they were glued to their benches.

  31

  “What do you think you are doing?” Sverker snapped, glaring at Hilda.

  “Please go to your seat,” Hilda said, looking at him calmly. “I have an important announcement to make.”

  Sverker looked like he couldn’t believe what he had just heard. “The hell I am! You wait your turn like everyone else! Who do you think you—”r />
  “Sverker, be quiet and let Hilda speak.” At first, Sverker didn’t seem to know that the Law Speaker had spoken, for he turned around, looking in every direction except for toward the podium. But when he finally realized who had spoken and noted the look on the old man’s face, Sverker stepped aside without a word, letting Hilda move to the middle with her two friends.

  I, too, moved closer to the middle of the court square, my eyes resting firmly on Ragnar and Loke. Just like I had suspected, Ragnar’s face turned red, as it always did when he got emotional. But, to my relief, I discovered that Loke had grabbed a hold of Ragnar’s arm, holding it tightly. He knew his younger brother’s temper as well as anyone else of course, and surely didn’t want him to do something that he would regret later.

  I exhaled, realizing that I had been holding my breath for quite some time. It was completely quiet in the People’s Assembly when Hilda turned around and faced all the men. As she opened her mouth to speak, I prayed silently that she wouldn’t lose her train of thought this time.

  “No, it is not a spirit that you are looking at,” she began. “It is me, the living Hilda Jarlabanke. My murderer never succeeded to kill me. I only looked like I was dead to my family, and that was why they buried me. But the woman preparing me for my grave—the Angel of Death—saw that I wasn’t dead. She and her family rescued me the night of my funeral.” Looking more confident than I could remember ever having seen her, Hilda paused briefly as she let her words sink in. “The reason I have come here today is not just to show you that I am still alive. It is also to tell you that Leif Blackhair was not the man who tried to kill me. Leif didn’t do anything at all. He is innocent of all that he was accused of. The man who tried to kill me was Ragnar Jarlabanke—my own brother.”