Blood Eagle: A riveting historical thriller Page 3

  While Stina’s accusation had horrified me, my father’s looks at me in the days that followed had been worse. He never said so out loud, but I could tell that he was one of those people who didn’t believe that I was entirely innocent. I could easily tell that, despite Stina having recanted, he was convinced that I had done something bad. The expression on his face told me everything I needed to know: “You are just like your mother, always doing stupid, reckless things, never considering the impact they have on others.”

  And it was true, at least the first part of his silent chides. I knew people used to think I was my father’s son, quiet and diplomatic, because of my tendency to let others talk first, not to mention talk more than me. Like him, I never got involved in fights. But really, I was more like my feisty mother, which everyone discovered after she passed.

  Well, I thought, as I sat there on the cell’s wooden stump, deep in thought. I supposed that, in the end, my father had been right about that second part, too. Not only was I just like my mother, but I also did stupid, reckless things, much worse than my mother.

  Things that were sure to have a terrible impact on others.

  4

  The following day I sat on a different wooden stump. This stump was situated behind the coarse wool curtains hiding the criminals on trial at the People’s Assembly. The sound of the two Assembly guards’ heavy steps as they came to get me made me stop staring down at my dirty gray trousers. I got to my feet as they entered the secluded area I shared with three other men. The guards grabbed my arms and escorted me toward the brown curtains. I had a feeling the Assembly would be filled with more people than normal, as for sure my crimes had been the talk of the town for a while. Everyone was eager to see what would happen to me.

  I was right—twice as many men pushed and shoved amongst each other in order to secure the best possible view of the court square where proceedings took place. At the sight of me, they all fell silent. I turned my eyes back toward the ground, focusing on keeping even pace with the surly men at my sides. They led me through the aisle that parted the insides of the Assembly building in two.

  I could feel all the men sizing me up, trying to get a glimpse of my face and the state of my mind. I could only imagine how terribly filthy I must look, having spent all those days in that smelly little rat hole with nowhere else to sleep but on the dirty ground. I knew that my long black curls, still tied back in a ponytail, were tangled and unkempt, and I suspected that my face was streaked with dirt. Surely, my green tunic and brown cloak were as rumpled and stained as my trousers, reminding people yet again that I was the son of a former slave. Someone who was likely to rape and strangle his own foster sister.

  Only when the guards stopped me before the Law Speaker’s podium did I dare looking up, just in time to catch my father shaking his head. He, Egin, and my youngest brother Petter sat together on a wooden bench close to the court square. Even though I looked away almost immediately, I didn’t fail to notice how harried my father looked. His narrow face was shrunken and pale, and the wrinkles around his black eyes had deepened. His thin lips were pressed together so hard they had disappeared. He must have aged years since the last time I saw him. A sharp sting of pain pierced my heart at the thought of what I must have put him through.

  “Leif Blackhair,” said the Law Speaker. I turned around and met the eyes of the old man with the long white beard seated behind a table on the podium. “You are accused of committing one of the worst crimes this People’s Assembly has ever been forced to deal with. You are accused of having raped and then strangled the daughter of a man whose family is greatly responsible for the prominent state of your own family today—a man who is also your foster father. You were caught lying on top of the dead victim with your pants down, your hands around her throat, and your seed flecking her dress and the insides of her thighs. I think therefore it is fair to say that you were caught red-handed. Am I right, Leif?”

  “I reckon it looks like that,” I mumbled, surprised that I was able to talk at all.

  “Speak up, son. The Assembly can barely hear you.”

  I repeated what I had just said and the Law Speaker continued. “Though the circumstances certainly are damning, from what I understand there isn’t an eyewitness to either the rape or the strangulation. And I am not sure about the motive.” The Law Speaker peered at me for a moment before saying, “So I am asking you yourself now, for you should know. Did you commit the crimes you are accused of, Leif?”

  “This is what I have been told, sir Law Speaker, but I cannot remember having done so myself.”

  Talking erupted at my answer, so the Law Speaker rapped his gavel impatiently and yelled, “Quiet in the Assembly!” Then he looked over at his assistant, Johan, whose hair was so flaming red ignorant people threw water on him from time to time so he would not burn up. “Bring up Ragnar Jarlabanke, Johan.”

  Johan went over to the first bench that outlined the court square. The many members of the large Jarlabanke clan sat there, all of them erect and cross-faced, glaring at me. I turned my head away from their hate-filled eyes, not able to stand it, and saw only how Ragnar got to his feet. He followed the skinny boy with the burning hair into the court square.

  I stole a glance of Ragnar’s face. It was tight and expressionless except for his nostrils, which had flared up to twice their regular size. Unlike the rest of his family, he avoided looking at me and instead fixed his stare on the Law Speaker’s table. A large vein pulsated on his low forehead, and sweat contoured his cheeks and square jaw so characteristic of the Jarlabanke members. As I looked back down, I couldn’t help but wonder what made him sweat so profusely when he was not even wearing a fur-lined cloak. Also, it was unusually chilly inside the Assembly today. He stopped before the Law Speaker, a couple steps away from me.

  “Ragnar Jarlabanke,” the Law Speaker said. “You were together with Sven of Karlsby and Leif’s wife Thora when you discovered Leif lying on your sister. In your opinion, did Leif commit these crimes?”

  “Yes, sir Law Speaker,” Ragnar said, his voice filled with disgust. “Leif Blackhair brutally raped and strangled my sister. Judging from how the three of us found him, there can be no doubt about that. I have also been told from more than one respectable villager that Leif was conducting a secret affair with my sister behind his wife’s back.”

  I turned my head and stared at Ragnar right as a hum went through parts of the audience, an affirmative hum, as though they had known all along.

  What is Ragnar talking about? I wondered. I may not remember having raped and strangled Hilda, but I knew full well that I hadn’t been conducting a secret affair with her behind Thora’s back.

  Ragnar’s eyes were on a man and a woman seated among the people. They were dressed in expensive clothing and had the confident look of people who don’t ever have to worry about where their next meal will come from. I recognized them from somewhere, but I couldn’t determine who they were. The man stood up.

  “My wife and I were at the ironsmith’s in Valstad a couple of weeks ago,” he said while looking at me grimly. “We saw Leif and Hilda hugging and kissing each other as if no one else was around. And then we heard Leif say that nothing had to change between them now just because he had gotten married. They could keep seeing each other anyway, continue their relationship like before.”

  “Is that all?” the Law Speaker said with a stern face.

  “Well,” the man said, harrumphing. “I must add that Ragnar Jarlabanke’s self-control was impressive that day. To find this despicable lad’s hands all over his sister like that. The nerve of him!” The man snorted and glared at me. “Most men would have lost their temper and picked a fight.”

  “So Ragnar was there as well?” the Law Speaker asked.

  “Yes, he came by.”

  “Thank you. You can sit down.”

  The man nodded and took a seat. I remembered him and his wife now. The couple had been standing behind me and Hilda as we were lining up outside
the smith the day after the wrestling match when Ragnar was acting so strange. But what is he talking about? I wondered. The hugs between me and Hilda had been friendly ones and the kiss had been an innocent peck on the cheek. Had they not? I remembered then how I had felt like Hilda and I were doing something that we shouldn’t that morning, something that could be interpreted the wrong way. The man must have come to Ragnar afterward and told him. I knew as well as anyone else how people loved to gossip.

  This must be why Ragnar thought that Hilda and I had an affair, I thought.

  “Do you have anything to add, Ragnar?” The Law Speaker asked.

  “Yes, sir Law Speaker, I have one more witness. It was confirmed to both her and me in the evening of the crimes that Leif was indeed involved with my sister. The witness is Thora, Leif’s wife.”

  At first I wasn’t sure if I had heard Ragnar correctly, but the racket that went through the masses this time, so loud it sounded like a bear roaring, confirmed that I must have. The Law Speaker pounded frenetically with his gavel to make them settle down. An avid fan of mead, he reached for the tall cup Johan had placed on the table and emptied it. Then he said, “If Thora is here today, will she please stand up?” The old man looked toward the area where the few members of my family sat. Feeling like I had turned into a statue of stone, I forced myself to turn my head in that direction. Thora wasn’t seated there. She sat a couple benches away, together with the rest of the Asveds, her own family, just like I had thought.

  Struggling, she made herself stand up, not meeting the old Law Speaker’s glance. Instead, she was staring at me, her beautiful eyes welling over with hate. And then she opened her lingonberry-red lips to speak.

  5

  “Yes, sir Law Speaker,” Thora said in a trembling voice. “I am here and I wish to speak. The night my husband violated Hilda Jarlabanke, I understood that he had been unfaithful to me all along. I saw with my own eyes then that he and she were having an affair. He did not even try to hide it for me.” She swallowed hard and the hate in her stare mixed with tears, making her big eyes shine.

  The Law Speaker nodded and motioned for her to sit down. “Thank you, Thora, for being so brave and speaking up today. I am sure it could not have been easy.” He turned to Ragnar and asked him if there was anything else that Ragnar wished to add. There was not, so Ragnar joined the rest of the Jarlabanke clan.

  Having a sip from his refilled cup of mead, the Law Speaker cleared his throat. “Well, it looks like we have all we need to send out the judges for a decision.”

  He turned to the chief judge and asked him if they were ready to take a decision. They were. Somberly, the twelve judges— an assortment of nobles, royal servants, and warriors—filed out and disappeared behind the red silk partition that separated the mobs from the judges’ quarters.

  The same two sour-looking Assembly guards who had brought me out earlier entered the court square and led me behind the brown partition on the other side of the Law Speaker’s table. They ordered me to sit down on one of the oak stumps provided there.

  Sitting there, I sweated heavily despite the chilly winds that entered the open door a few steps away, biting the skin on my scruffy cheeks. One of the guards had positioned himself beside the door to make sure I could not escape. My heart pounded so hard and fast I feared that it would burst inside my chest. I could feel my nails digging deep, crescent-shaped sores into my palms.

  I took long breaths through my nostrils in an attempt to control myself. I could suddenly feel, see, hear, smell everything around me with twice the intensity. That living dead state I had entered the moment I was thrown into the cell a week ago was gone, all because of what Thora had just done.

  Her testifying against me had shaken me to the core, making me hyperaware of my surroundings.

  I fully understood that my beloved wife would no longer want to have anything to do with me considering my crimes. But that she would take it one step further and help getting me convicted... Never, not even in my wildest imagination, had I been able to foresee that happening. When I heard the cold, embittered tone of her voice, saw, felt, how her love for me had turned into disgust, I realized that my feelings for her remained as strong as ever. I thought they might have died during my time in the cell together with everything else meaningful in my life, that I would no longer be able to feel much of anything. But when she sat back down on that bench in the Assembly, I wanted to cry out loud, tell the entire room that, yes, I had done it! Could they please get on with it and give me the death penalty? But before that could happen, I had been removed from the court square.

  The breathing helped. Soon, I had forced my emotions back to their earlier, depressed state, the one that made my constant pain manageable. It occurred to me that, even if hearing Thora’s misguided testimony had been terrible, it shouldn’t have surprised me so. In fact, maybe I had misread her. Maybe she had not stopped loving me, but was just furious with me.

  Images of how I had hung onto Hilda the evening of Bjorn Jarlabanke’s birthday feast came back to me. How I had clung to her in ways that were inappropriate between a foster brother and sister. I remembered Thora’s cross stares during the feast and how I had finally realized that she was jealous. As she should have been… The way I had acted, continuously spending time with Hilda—insisting on spending time with her—would make any girl jealous. My behavior, together with the whispers that traveled Karlsby, our district, about Hilda and my imaginary love story, must have convinced her that I was two-timing her.

  Yes, I nodded to myself. Yes. For sure Thora still loved me!

  Suddenly, the two guards were back. They grabbed me by the arms and pulled me up to my feet, and, swiftly, I was brought back to the center of the court square. There seemed to be even more people inside the Assembly now, and all the judges had returned to their seats on the long bench situated to the right of the Law Speaker’s podium. The Law Speaker turned to the judge who sat closest to him.

  “Chief Judge, have you and your fellow judges arrived at a verdict for Leif Blackhair?”

  The man, big and crooked with a face so stoic he appeared to be half asleep, stood up and nodded solemnly.

  “Well, let’s hear it then,” the Law Speaker said.

  “The judges of Valstad People’s Assembly find Leif Blackhair guilty of raping and strangling Hilda Jarlabanke, daughter of Jarl Bjorn Jarlabanke.”

  The many different voices in the crowds clashed. The Law Speaker banged his gavel on the table repeatedly. “Quiet in the People’s Assembly!” he yelled. Daring the men to disobey him, he proceeded, “If anyone in here objects to this verdict, may he speak up now.”

  All the spectators stole glances of one another, but mostly of my father and my brothers, who sat still like scarecrows with eyes that stared without seeing. No one seemed to want to say anything.

  The Law Speaker’s eyes found mine. The old man contemplated me for a while before saying, “Leif Blackhair. I have known you and your father and even your grandfather. It saddens me to see you stand here in front of me, found guilty of such a horrible deed. But your crimes warrant the harshest punishment the People’s Assembly can issue, and the punishment for rape and strangulation is clearly spelled out in the Ostgota People’s Assembly Law. Your sentence will be in two parts: First, your family will have to give the Jarlabanke clan the ownership of its farm in order to repay the Jarlabanke family’s loss and the immense assault on their honor. From now on, the Blackhairs will be tenant farmers under the Jarlabankes. The second part would be to have your life taken, but because you have never before been tried in the People’s Assembly, and because no one saw you commit the actual crimes, the fairest punishment is to sentence you to become a forest man in all of Ostergotland instead. As a forest man, anyone who wishes has the right to kill you and you will have no legal rights. However, I will give your father, the head of the Blackhairs, the ultimate say in this sentence. I am giving him the option of having you sentenced to die a blood eagle. If he ch
ooses that, he will only have to give up half the Blackhair farm to the Jarlabanke clan. But first I must ask the Jarlabankes whether they feel properly avenged with either of the options.”

  The Law Speaker glanced over at where Bjorn Jarlabanke sat in the midst of his large family. He normally served as one of the twelve judges, but, for obvious reasons, he did not serve during today’s Assembly gathering.

  The large man with the thick mustache and same reddish-blond torrent of hair as Ragnar got to his feet and looked at me. His face a stony gray, he said, “Only because Leif used to be my foster son will we, the Jarlabankes, accept this verdict. Had it been anyone else, he would have had to die. But since I myself was involved in raising him, I cannot demand his death, for I am part to blame that he turned out this way. I will leave it up to his blood father to make the final decision.”

  The Law Speaker glanced at my father now, his gaze without expression, and the rest of the hall followed his example. My father pushed himself up into a standing position. His shrunken posture combined with the slightness of his short stature made him appear smaller and more beaten down than ever.

  “I…” he began. “I…” Trailing off, he turned and looked at me for a long moment. I hoped he could read in my eyes that I wanted him to save himself, save our family, opt for me to die a blood eagle. It was the only logical choice, the best one for everyone involved. Taking a breath, he spoke at last. “I choose to give the Jarlabankes the ownership of the Blackhair farm.”

  Then he took a seat and the Law Speaker rapped his gavel, declaring the case closed.

  I stared at my father, not sure that I had heard him right at first. I was going to live…? He must have misspoken. I felt the same confusion spread like wildfire over dry meadows a hot day in late summer among the many spectators, how they were thinking what I was. But as my eyes met those of my father, I knew that I had heard him right.