Blood Eagle: A riveting historical thriller Page 20

  Still standing, the Law Speaker looked out over the many men and urged them with his steadfast composure to stand up. Soon, the first man stood up. Another joined him, and then one more. Before long, the entire room had gotten to its feet.

  With sympathy like that, it was pointless for the hen-like judge to continue his attempts to obstruct my proposition. And it was impossible for the Jarlabankes to refuse the challenge; if they did, they would come off as not only bad sports, but worse, also as cowards. At last, Loke and Ragnar stood up as well. When they did, all the judges had to allow my suggestion. Legal or not, this was clearly what the people wanted.

  The Law Speaker rapped his gavel. “A Holmganga it will be. The Tva-tur will begin in two Saturdays outside the mead house in Valstad at noon.”

  35

  Orvar was sitting on a big boulder right beside the entrance to our longhouse when we returned back home. While we had gone to the People’s Assembly, he had gone to meet with his wife and kids in the woods. He sprang to his feet at the sight of our wagon coming toward the yard in front of the longhouse.

  “Leif,” he said, an expression of fear mixed with hope coloring his features. “Please tell me that I’ll be able to stay here with my family…”

  When I just looked at him and grinned, the fear disappeared and his face broke into a wide grin. “So I gather you won the retrial then?”

  Jumping off the wagon, I walked up to the sturdy man with the thick neck and placed a hand on his shoulder. “If I still know how to fight, you won’t only be able to stay here as a free man with your family. You will also be a rich man.”

  Orvar’s newly shaven face looked confused. I squeezed his shoulder and continued, “I will meet Loke and Ragnar Jarlabanke in a Tva-tur on Saturday, two weeks from tomorrow. If I win against both, I will get the ownership of all of the Jarlabanke estate, in addition to becoming a free man again.”

  “And if you lose?”

  “If I lose any of the two fights, I will become a forest man again, and the Blackhair farm will go back to being a tenant farm under the Jarlabankes.”

  Orvar stared at me, outraged. “If you lose any of the two fights? Why did you sell yourself so short, Leif? Couldn’t you have offered to become a forest man and lose the farm again if you lost both fights?”

  I shook my head. “If I didn’t bet high enough, I doubt the people would have allowed me to settle the dispute this way. You do know that Holmgangas have been outlawed since almost a hundred years back, don’t you?”

  Orvar’s outraged expression was exchanged for a frown. “Now that you mention it, I think I did know that... I see. Well, but do you think you can beat both Loke and Ragnar? They are very strong—and good fighters.”

  “That may be, but I’m a strong and good fighter, too. And I think my skill with the sword is as good as theirs. I used to train hard every day in preparation for the royal sword fighting tournament when I was a child. And in the months right before I was sentenced, too, as I had planned on participating in the sword fighting tournament that year. At any rate, I don’t really have a choice. I have to win this game. You and my brother and Jerker will have to train me every day up until the fight. You will help me, right?”

  This time it was Orvar who grabbed my shoulder and squeezed it firmly. “My brother: You will never again train as hard as you will these next weeks.”

  Two days later, in the evening, my father finally woke up from his long-lasting delirium. Elsa brought me to his bed when he was about to eat his first fully conscious meal. We hadn’t spoken since the day of my trial—six and a half months earlier.

  I approached his sickbed with mixed feelings: at the one hand I was happy to get a chance to explain that I had not done any of what I had been accused of. On the other, the upcoming meeting made me incredibly nervous. Because my father seemed to get worse, not better like we had first thought, I had decided that I needed to settle a couple of long due scores immediately. Which was why I had chosen not to bring Hilda with me. Our initial meeting had to be with just me and my father present.

  The corner where he lay was so dark I could barely discern that the man was half sitting up on the sleeping bench, and that he was leaning against a stack of goatskin. He smiled weakly when he spotted me and extended a hand.

  “Leif. You are back.” His voice was raspy.

  I took a seat on the oak stump beside the bed and enveloped my father’s sick hand in my healthy ones. I contemplated him for some time, not saying anything. The disease had thoroughly transformed him. His narrow face had shrunken into an even narrower shape, the cheeks so hollow it looked as though there were no teeth in his mouth. The slit, black eyes had grown larger, and his thin lips looked parched and pale. What was left of his black hair had lost its luster. But worst of all was how his already slightly built body had turned into something that looked more like a child than a grown man.

  But despite all of this, there was a glow to him, a glow that meant that he must be on the road to recovery. I felt how every part of my body settled down. There would be plenty of opportunities for us to speak in case we never got all the way through this night.

  “Yes, Father, I am back. I have been back twice already, but this time I have come to stay. How are you feeling?”

  “I am feeling better, much better. I think the worst part is over now. In a few days, you will see how I am back on my legs again. Now tell me all that has happened.”

  I did as I was told, and a long while later I had recited the several past months’ events in their entirety.

  Yakoube closed his eyes as he let all the information sink in. Then he shook his head, morosely. “Of course, that must be how it was all done. It makes sense. I just have a hard time getting over the notion that Ragnar is capable of doing such a horrible thing.”

  “I do, too.” It dawned on me that I actually meant those words. Thinking back to our childhood and all the things Ragnar and I used to do together, play, hunt, laugh, talk, it was nearly impossible to fathom that he, my good friend, was capable of doing what he had done.

  “That’s what The Mighty Passion does to men,” my father mused. “It turns them into mad men.”

  “Yes. That is the only way to justify his actions.”

  “And then Loke… To kill his own father...” Yakoube’s eyes shrank into two black lines as he tried to fully grasp Ragnar’s older brother’s abhorrent deed.

  “Well, that is what must have happened. I doubt Bjorn tripped and fell down the stairs all by himself, like Loke claims.”

  “I agree with you, son. That boy is a bad kind, nothing like his father. I always used to think so, and now we know it is really so.” Considering this for a moment, he said, “So Orvar is really innocent then?”

  I nodded. “Orvar is a hero. He deserves the rewards of one, and I intend to see to it that he gets them.”

  “How will you do that?”

  I explained what had taken place in the Valstad Assembly a couple of days earlier, and about the Holmganga that was scheduled to take place soon.

  My father contemplated me for a long instant. Then he nodded slowly. “You are a brave boy, Leif, as brave as my father and your grandfather. I, on the other hand, am a coward. I never received the gift of audacity from the gods. I didn’t even receive the body of a real man.”

  It was the first time my father had ever brought up our physical differences, and I could tell how humiliating, even painful it was for him to do so. It was the ideal opportunity for me to bring up what I had planned to do, to let my father know that it didn’t matter, that I finally understood that he had done his best with what he had, and that I loved and respected him for it.

  But as I opened my mouth to say this, other words rushed forth. “I don’t care that Ragnar married Thora. I no longer want her. I will marry Hilda instead.”

  A small smile spread over my father’s dry lips, brightening his tired features.

  “I am happy to hear that you got to your senses at last, Le
if. She is a good girl. When will the wedding feast take place?”

  “Well, first we have to see what happens with the Holmganga. If everything goes like we hope, we would like to get married as soon as summer has ended. Hilda is here with me. Why don’t I bring her so that she gets to see you? She has been waiting as eagerly as the rest of us to see you awake again.”

  “Yes, bring her, son. I would love to see her.”

  I nodded and stood up to go fetch my future bride. But before I could get far, my father said, “Leif.”

  I stopped and turned around to face him.

  “Pray for me, Leif. Just to be sure the illness is behind me. Will you do that for me?”

  I nodded again. “Of course, Father. Of course I will.”

  Then I left.

  36

  When the day of the Holmganga finally arrived, I had never been in better shape physically; Orvar and Jerker had worked me as hard as Orvar had promised. From morning till night they took turns attacking me. At first, they took me down repeatedly, especially toward the end of the day when I had gotten tired, or when they attacked me both at the same time. But I soon became better at dodging all their strikes, punches, and kicks. When we were not grappling in the grass outside our barn, I practiced jumping sideways and lunging in all directions. I did pull-ups using the beams in the ceiling of our barn, and push-ups on the floor. I practiced falling without hurting myself. I squatted and went tumbling over; I lay face down on the ground and practiced quickly leaping up to my feet, ready to meet my opponent. We lit tallow candles and opened the door slightly so the breeze that entered disturbed the flame, and then I fought the shadows it created on the walls when my opponents needed a rest. The exercise improved my reflexes and made me faster. Every day we came up with a new way to turn me into a better fighter and swordsman.

  The long, gruesome sessions exhausted me so much that all I wanted was to lie down on the ground and rest after each fight. But I knew I couldn’t afford to waste any time; I needed every waking moment to improve my fighting skills. Whenever it seemed too tough to go on, Orvar and Jerker reminded me that if I didn’t get back to my feet, everything would be over for all of us.

  Toward the end of the first week, I was doing considerably better. I could feel how I was becoming good, really good at every move and sword technique. The intense training Jerker had put me through last year in preparation for the royal sword fighting tournament sure had paid off. My muscles soon remembered all the moves and I began to feel unbeatable. This was an important feeling, as it would not be an easy game to win. Both of the Jarlabanke brothers were strong, in particular Loke, though Ragnar was supposed to be the one more skilled with the sword. According to his own words, Ragnar was so skilled with it that he had taken down two grown men while on an expedition to Kiev three years earlier. I remembered how he had somehow managed to get on this trip, the only one out of all us friends, who had also been trying. The people of the province didn’t approve of boys younger than 15 to go A-viking, but 14-year-old Ragnar had fooled them into believing that he was only saying goodbye to his older brother, but then he stayed on the ship

  Of course, knowing Ragnar, his impressive feat might be partly fabricated. Not only was he a good drinker, but he also had a propensity for exaggeration. I sincerely hoped this was so because I would fight Loke first, and when the fight was over, I was likely to be exhausted. If Ragnar was as good with the sword as he claimed, it would be very tough for me to beat him. The thought of this made me so nervous I found myself rambling incoherent prayers to Thor and Odin over and over. I soon forced myself to stop, however. If I allowed thoughts of failure to enter my mind, I was more likely to be defeated.

  Avoiding negative thoughts worked for me. As I went to bed the night prior to the Holmganga, I had also acquired the mental concentration a fight like the Tva-tur required. Sadly, as suddenly as I had gained this crucial concentration, I lost it soon after Elsa woke me up at dawn.

  The aging mistress of our household stood next to the bench where Hilda and I slept together, looking utterly distraught. I asked her what was wrong, and she said that life seemed to have left my father during the night. Aghast, I flew up and rushed over to the sickbed. Elsa’s assumption was correct: my father had died while asleep. His healthy glow and subsequent energetic manner must have been only one last spurt of life, a bizarre precursor to death.

  That might have been avoided if only I had prayed for him, I thought, feeling terribly guilty.

  I had been so caught up with my preparations for the Holmganga that I had completely forgotten about his request. Then he had been back on his feet sooner than he himself had predicted, prompting me to really forget about it.

  I stared at the still body in front of me. Even though I wanted to cry, I couldn’t. I felt as though I had turned into a wooden doll, without sentiments or heart. How could someone like me have a heart, forgetting a sick man’s simple request? Not only had I failed to do everything in my power to save him, but, what was perhaps even worse, he would head to the afterlife now, thinking that I didn’t love and respect him… Why, why, why didn’t I tell him everything when I had the opportunity that evening? Why had I not forced myself to make peace with him when I had a chance at last? Why had I shunned the subject like a little boy running away from a big, angry dog?

  Why had I not acted like a man?

  “Leif, we have to leave now,” I heard Egin’s voice say beside me, “or we will miss the game. We have to tend to Father when we come back.”

  I turned to look at him and discovered that both he and Hilda were standing there. How long had they been there? When did they come? Well, it didn’t matter. Egin was right; we had to leave. I took one last look at the lifeless body on the bed. Then I steeled myself and said, “Let’s go.”

  Never before had I seen as many people gathered at once as I did when we arrived at the mead house later that morning. Men and women as well as children pushed and shoved against one another. Some of them were already craning their necks to get a good view of the grassy spot where the fights were to take place, even though it was sure to be a while before these would commence.

  I steered our carriage toward the open space behind the squat drinking longhouse, which was situated a fair bit away from the edge of the woods. Like the area in front of the mead house, this part was also crowded but with horses, carts, and wagons. I had to circle the space several times before we found an empty spot on which to park. While doing so, I spotted the Jarlabanke clan’s elaborately decorated wagon parked at the other end of it, and my stomach tensed up. It was the same wagon that Ragnar, Sven, Erik, and I had used when we went to the market in Valstad and saw Thora that first time. Ignoring the uncomfortable sensation, I descended from our carriage and turned around to offer Hilda help down.

  Taking my hand, she smiled gratefully and descended swiftly. Then she asked, “Are you ready, Leif?”

  “I will be when it is time,” I answered with more confidence than I experienced.

  The six of us walked around the mead house and headed toward the spot where the fights would take place. When people saw us coming, they withdrew to the sides and let us pass through. As we reached the circular grass spot, we saw that Loke and Ragnar had already arrived and were standing on the opposite side together with men from their clan who had come to help them get ready. A few steps away from the Jarlabanke members sat two men on high-backed wooden chairs especially brought out for the matches. They, a jarl from northern Ostergotland and another from a farming district in the center of the province, would serve as judges of the Holmganga. Much to my surprise, I couldn’t spot Thora anywhere.

  Since it was only one against two, the rules of the Tva-tur had to be slightly modified. Unlike regular Tva-turs, we would use swords to fight, not bare hands, as in order to settle a Holmganga, a drop of blood had to be shed and the first man to shed it had lost the game. So that the blood was easily visible, a Holmganga was usually performed on top of a whit
e sheet, a standard this Holmganga would adhere to as well. After the blood had touched the sheet, the winner was free to kill his opponent if he so wished. Four men were about to roll out the huge white sheet in the center of the grass circle.

  Our group stopped and made our camp as far away from the Jarlabanke clan as physically possible. I didn’t want to have to see or hear more of either brother than I had to.

  The first fight would start right when the sun had reached zenith on the cloudy sky. It had some ways to go still, which gave me time to warm up my body. I removed the goatskin coat that I had put on when we left the farm —it had been quite chilly outside then—and began walking in place. Then I squatted and stood back up a few times. I noticed that my joints felt stiff, even stiffer than when I woke up in the mornings. I did some more squats, deeper ones now. Walking in place again, I brought my knees up to my chest one at a time, hugging them. I tried lunging forward and to the sides; I swung my arms in big circles.

  I kept moving in different directions, thinking that, eventually, the stiffness must go away. It did, but getting there cost me so much effort the sweat streamed down the sides of my ribcage when I was done. Right about then the judges were standing up from their chairs. Throwing a glance at the increasingly cloudier sky, I saw that the sun was only moments away from reaching zenith.

  I got ready to get into the circle and onto the large white sheet that was now firmly tacked to the ground. Loke was standing by the sheet already, waiting for me. He and I were of similar height and body type, though Loke, having turned twenty now, was fully grown and equipped with an additional layer of muscle. Being seventeen, I had still some ways to go.

  Just before I entered, I turned around and took one more look at Hilda. Realizing that this might be the last time I saw her, I pulled her close. I bent down and kissed her gently, yet with more passion than ever before. As I made myself pull away at last, I could tell from the look on her face that she had long since grasped the gravity of what awaited us. I could also tell that she had faith, more faith than I had that I would make it to the end alive. Forcing myself to let her go, I stepped inside the grass circle and onto the white sheet.