“Beware!” Svein screamed at the top of his lungs. Suddenly the snowy practice ground was filled with gangly boys wielding pot-iron swords. Ragnvald counted fifteen at least, but none looked to be above the age of majority.
“Don’t kill them if you can help it,” Ragnvald yelled above the fray. These were the sons of local farmers; he would want them on his side when he ruled here.
He saw Dagvith take one of the boys by the wrists and shake him until he dropped his sword. Ragnvald fought one of the more skilled for a minute or two before getting close enough to smash him in the face with the hilt of his sword. The boy’s nose exploded in blood, and he fell over on his rear. He held his hand to his nose and looked up at Ragnvald balefully.
Ragnvald glanced around to see if he might be under any other threat, but Oddi and the other men seemed to have the boys well in hand. Ragnvald hit the boy on the head, and he slouched to the ground.
“You, you, and you,” said Ragnvald, pointing to three of his men at random. “Take these”—he gestured at the fallen boys with his sword—“to the barn and bind their hands. I wait for Olaf.”
“Is this your stepbrother?” called out Oddi. They stood in the shadow of the barn, where Ragnvald could see only Oddi’s dark shape and Sigurd’s bright hair.
“Yes,” said Ragnvald. “Bind him securely. I do not wish to kill him.”
He had expected some show of defiance from Sigurd, but he went docilely with Oddi and seemed content to be bound hand and foot and placed in the barn with the other farm boys, trussed up like a fowl for the cooking.
Looking around for someone else to fight, Ragnvald saw that almost all of the boys had been disarmed. One held a broken arm carefully with his other hand. Another’s head lolled at an odd angle—probably dead, but by accident. Ragnvald would pay the boy’s father the wergild owed for him.
He rested against a wall, as the excitement of battle left him. If only Olaf had been here: then Ragnvald could have killed him while he was still fresh. Now he must wait and fret.
Ragnvald’s mother emerged from the kitchen door, followed by Vigdis. His mother’s hands were covered with flour; Vigdis looked fine and golden, as if she were dressed for a feast.
“Ragnvald,” said his mother, running to him, her arms wide. “It is dangerous for you to be here.”
“You should get inside, Mother,” he said. “Olaf could return, and I mean to kill him.”
She gave him one blazing look—of pride, he thought, pride he had rarely seen from her—then grabbed Vigdis’s arm and wrenched her back. “My son is going to kill your husband,” he heard her say to Vigdis, triumphant. “You come with me.”
Ragnvald smiled at the thought of what Ascrida might do to Vigdis when she had the upper hand. She would at least keep Vigdis from warning Olaf. Perhaps she would serve Vigdis as Vigdis had Svanhild, tying her up and stopping her mouth.
The clamor drew the notice of the servants and thralls who stood watching over the wall. Oddi flung one of the unconscious boys over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes.
“Don’t just stand there watching, bring me some water,” Ragnvald said to one of the gaping thralls.
The sun reached its zenith. A wind began, chilling Ragnvald in his leather armor. His sword grew heavy in his hand. He cleaned it on the snow and sheathed it again. He continued scanning the horizon for the silhouette of Olaf a-horse, come to meet his doom.
It was Einar who came instead, rushing toward Ragnvald from the door of his smithy. He screamed and waved his sword overhead, sounding more frightened than threatening. Some of his men laughed at Einar’s limping gait. Later, Ragnvald wondered how long Einar had sat inside the smithy, listening to the battle, listening to Ragnvald say that he would kill Olaf. He must have spent some time weighing his friendship for Ragnvald against his duty to Olaf before he gathered his courage and charged out.
Ragnvald scrambled to his feet and met Einar on the muddy ground of the practice yard where the two of them had sparred as boys. Ragnvald parried him easily. Einar had the advantage of years and smithy-built muscle, but he was lame, and he had never been on a raid, never been to war. He had never killed a man.
“Don’t do this, Einar,” said Ragnvald. “Olaf tried to kill me. You know this. You must have heard.” Einar’s wild slashes scared him more than a controlled enemy’s would, for Einar’s sword might touch him where a better swordsman would be more careful of his own skin. Ragnvald darted a thrust under Einar’s raised arm. A line of red parted Einar’s shirtsleeve. He wore no armor.
“I must defend Olaf,” said Einar. “I must.”
Ragnvald tried to get inside Einar’s guard enough to hit him in the head as he had the boy. Perhaps when Einar had calmed, he would consent to live, and let Ragnvald live as well.
“He attacked me in the dark at the ting,” Ragnvald said desperately. “Did you not hear?” Einar’s breath wheezed. Ragnvald, though his heart hammered, still breathed easily.
“I heard,” said Einar.
“Then you know he has no honor.”
“You must have deserved it,” Einar cried, backing away from Ragnvald. “He is my foster father, the only father I’ve ever known.”
“He’s my stepfather as well, but he is a man of no honor.” Einar would put down his sword, Ragnvald thought, and they would be friends again.
But he kept the tip up and advanced at Ragnvald again. His footwork looked like what Olaf had taught them as boys. Ragnvald knew how to defend against this. He brushed Einar’s sword away with his own.
“He never betrayed me. I will defend him,” said Einar again.
He rushed Ragnvald headlong. Ragnvald stepped out of the way, but not before Einar made a shallow wound on his upper arm. This would not do. Ragnvald needed to be rested and unwounded if he meant to kill Olaf. That would be a harder battle, one he must fight on his own.
Einar would never forgive him this. Ragnvald jerked his chin up at Oddi and Dagvith. “Help me disarm him.”
“No!” screamed Einar. He ran at Ragnvald again, his sword raised high, as though it were an ax and he meant to cleave Ragnvald in half. Ragnvald raised his sword to defend himself, and Einar ran upon it, driving the point up through his shoulder. Blood covered Ragnvald’s blade and his arms. Einar collapsed to the ground.
“Tend him,” Ragnvald yelled. He ran forward and pressed his hand over Einar’s wound. Blood flowed between his fingers. Why did no one come? “Please, someone help!”
He heard a struggle behind him, and then Vigdis came forward.
“Let me,” she said. Ragnvald stood. Vigdis pressed Einar’s shoulder with her wimple. It went instantly red with blood. Ragnvald watched as her long golden hair, freed from its covering, trailed in the dirt and turned dark with Einar’s blood. She looked like the goddess Freya, ministering the fallen, as she tried to stanch the blood. Einar was her nephew, Ragnvald recalled.