Council, p.1
Council, page 1
Council
Also By
Also by Snorri Kristjansson
The Valhalla Saga
Swords of Good Men
Blood Will Follow
Path of Gods
Helga Finnsdottir
Kin
Title
Copyright
This ebook edition first published in 2019 by
Jo Fletcher Books
an imprint of
Quercus Editions Ltd
Carmelite House
50 Victoria Embankment
London EC4Y 0DZ
An Hachette UK company
Copyright © 2019 Snorri Kristjansson
The moral right of Snorri Kristjansson to be
identified as the author of this work has been
asserted in accordance with the Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act, 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication
may be reproduced or transmitted in any form
or by any means, electronic or mechanical,
including photocopy, recording, or any
information storage and retrieval system,
without permission in writing from the publisher.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available
from the British Library
TPB ISBN 978 1 78429 810 4
EBOOK ISBN 978 1 78429 812 8
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters,
businesses, organizations, places and events are
either the product of the author’s imagination
or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to
actual persons, living or dead, events or
locales is entirely coincidental.
Ebook by CC Book Production
Cover design © 2019 Ghost
www.quercusbooks.co.uk
Dedication
For Morag.
Contents
Chapter 1: Boy
Chapter 2: Guests
Chapter 3: Gathering
Chapter 4: Feast
Chapter 5: Council
Chapter 6: Fire
Chapter 7: Fight
Chapter 8: Sunrise
Chapter 9: Journey
Chapter 10: Questions
Chapter 11: Answers
Acknowledgements
Chapter 1
Boy
The girl, seven winters of age, pressed her slight frame up against the wooden fence and peered past it in horrified fascination, caught between curiosity and fear.
‘What is she doing?’
The boy next to her rolled his eyes and made a face. ‘My father says something’s wrong in her head. She thinks she’s an animal.’ Everyone knew Mad Ida was just that: mad. Gone. Away with the trolls and the fairies.
The girl didn’t even spare him a glance. ‘It looks pretty uncomfortable.’
The clucking grew louder.
‘Probably is. Beaks are much better for pecking with. Won’t last long, though.’
‘Why not?’
His voice had the hard-earned wisdom of all of his nine winters. ‘She’s scaring the hens and Auntie won’t have it.’
The girl opened her mouth to speak, but a woman’s loud voice drowned whatever she’d started to say.
‘Shoo! Shoo! Get out!’ The formidable woman who came striding from behind a nearby shack barrelled past the children and stormed into the chicken pen. She stopped and stood in front of the scrawny figure, not much bigger than a child, who was flapping her arms within oversized, scrappy clothing and squawking back at her. ‘Ida, get out!’
The woman called Ida squawked angrily at the intruder and squeezed all her features into the middle of her face, as if she could form a beak through willpower alone. She pecked once in Auntie’s direction, then flapped away, scattering chickens as she went.
The big woman groaned with frustration. ‘Get OUT, Ida! You’re scaring my animals!’ Happily ignoring her, Ida just kept flapping around the yard, jerking her head this way and that in her poor imitation of the chickens’ walk. But the chickens clearly weren’t impressed; every time she tried to get close, they moved off in a flurry of feathers to another corner.
Snorting like an angry bull, Auntie stormed off, slamming the gate shut after her.
‘Where is she going?’ the girl whispered, shrinking back.
‘She’s probably gone to fetch—’ He stopped as voices drifted towards them from the direction in which Auntie had disappeared.
One was loud and rapid, the other slow and rumbling. The first voice spoke a lot more than the second.
Auntie rounded the corner again, this time with a big, broad man in tow.
‘Is that your uncle?’
‘Absolutely,’ the boy said with no small satisfaction. ‘He sailed with Greybeard, you know.’
‘Wow,’ the girl said. ‘Who’s that?’
The boy caught his breath. ‘You don’t even know who Greybeard is?’
‘Is he the man who came two days ago to ask about the council?’
The boy was indignant. ‘No! That was just some dumb traveller. And he wasn’t even old. Greybeard is the scariest raider there ever was! He sailed to the Southern lands where they have people with ash-black skin and he took all their gold – everyone knows he was the biggest, meanest—’ He stopped. His audience of one had lost interest, because Auntie and Uncle were now in the pen with Ida.
‘You go right and I’ll try to shoo her to you,’ Auntie said, and this time she stepped gently towards Ida and almost cooing, said, ‘Ida, we’re going to go into the house and have some stew. Would you like some stew?’
‘SQUAWK!’
‘I don’t think she wants stew,’ the girl whispered.
Inside the chicken pen, the chase was on: Auntie dashed, Uncle shuffled – and Ida darted with surprising speed between the two, squawking madly as she went. Twenty chickens getting underfoot did not help the pursuers’ cause.
After a couple of rounds Uncle roared in frustration, ‘Enough of this!’ The big man spread his arms and approached Ida, slowly but deliberately. ‘Out!’ he ordered firmly.
Ida stopped, looked at him and blinked. ‘Squawk,’ she said, reproachfully as the farmer caught and embraced her, none too kindly. The girl on the fence shifted out of the way as the big man lumbered out, carrying the old woman, and made for the longhouse.
‘Nils!’ Auntie shouted after him, hurrying to keep up, ‘don’t—!’
‘If she wants to be a chicken—’ the farmer shouted over his shoulder.
‘What’s he going to do?’ the girl whispered, shaking.
‘NO!’ Auntie was running now.
The boy and the girl watched them disappear into the barn but they could still hear the shouted argument, interspersed with increasingly frightened squawking.
The girl’s brow furrowed and she pursed her lips. ‘They’re really angry.’
‘Look,’ the boy hissed suddenly, staring over her shoulder and pointing at the path leading down to the farm. ‘In the woods—’
‘What is it?’ The girl turned.
‘A rider!’
Sure enough, where the trees thinned out they could see a figure on a horse making its way towards them at a leisurely pace.
*
Nils scowled. ‘I will have no more of this.’
‘You can’t just snap her neck!’ Hertha was standing in front of the rust-stained block, broad forearms crossed, scowling back at her husband. Ida was squirming in his arms, her head twisting backwards and forwards, but with less and less fervour; she’d noticed the well-worn axe resting by his feet.
‘She’ll be the end of us—’
‘No, she won’t – look at her . . . what could she do to us?’
‘She’ll open the gates and let out the cows,’ Nils snapped. ‘Or she’ll decide she’s a fox and eat the chickens. Or she’ll vanish off into the woods with the children and drive you crazy trying to find her. The gods don’t like her, Hertha.’ He inched closer to the block.
Hertha’s scowl turned to a sneer. ‘“The gods don’t like her” – listen to yourself! Just because my mother’s sister is a little strange, you want to end her life? What’s next, Nils? Do I have to send the girl home to her own farm just because she might say something wrong?’ The big woman mimed a troll snapping a neck. ‘And don’t you dare think about picking up that axe.’
‘You’re twisting my words,’ Nils snarled. ‘And anyway, you know I’m right. She can’t stay here.’
‘Anyone home?’
The voice from the other side of the barn door was followed by a very polite knock on the wall. Hertha’s eyes widened and Nils strengthened his grip on Ida’s neck.
‘Is that—?’
‘Yes, it’s me.’
Hertha smiled suddenly. ‘Oh, but you can pick a moment, girl.’
A young woman stepped around the corner and smiled at the assembled group, then swiftly slapped her cheek and looked at the flattened sting-fly in her palm. A satisfied grin lit her face. ‘Got him! This bastard’s been buzzing around my head ever since I passed the pond.’ She wiped the corpse off on the leather pouch tied to her belt next to bags of various sizes. ‘Hello, Nils!’ Smiling at the big Viking, she reached back to r
e-tie the rider’s knot in her black hair.
‘Well met, Helga,’ Nils muttered, looking at his fidgeting captive with a hint of embarrassment.
‘And hello to you, Ida.’ The old woman muttered something, shaking her head this way and that.
Helga looked at Nils, smiled and raised her eyebrows a fraction. ‘Can I—?’
As if he’d suddenly realised he was holding a burning log, Nils let go of Ida and almost pushed her towards the tall young woman. ‘Of course,’ he stammered. ‘I was never – I – anything you could—’
‘You’ve done the right thing.’ Helga held Nils’ eye and after a few moments his heart stopped pounding and his shoulders lowered.
‘She will be fine.’ Helga’s voice was calm as she reached out slowly to the old woman. Ida’s frantic head movements slowed as Helga talked to her in a low, rhythmic voice, the words only half-heard by the interested onlookers. She clasped the old woman’s bony shoulders before stroking her arms, the movements deliberate, firm, moving her hands down to the wrists, then holding the fingers. She let go and rested the back of her hand on Ida’s forehead, swept her fingers down the cheek to the chin, then repeated the action on her other cheek. Finally, tipping Ida’s head upwards, she looked into the old woman’s eyes. ‘Hertha?’ she said softly without taking her attention off Ida.
‘Yes?’ The big farmwife snapped to attention. Behind her, her husband watched intently but silently.
‘Do you have any daisies nearby?
Glancing at Nils and smiling nervously, Hertha said, ‘Yes indeed. Whole field of ’em, out by the treeline.’
‘Very good,’ Helga muttered, almost as if she was talking to herself, stroking Ida’s arm again, not losing contact with her for a moment. ‘Very good indeed. Perhaps we should have some tea?’
*
The sun had not moved far at all when the children came sprinting back, each with their small bag full of daisies. ‘Thank you.’ Helga beamed at them. ‘You are fantastic workers.’
‘Thank you,’ the girl said solemnly, proffering the bag.
The boy muttered something and looked at his feet.
‘And fantastic workers get paid for their efforts,’ Helga said, mirroring the girl’s serious voice. Reaching into one of the small pouches by her hip, she pulled out two amber-coloured pebbles. ‘I think you might like this. And I have a very special request, which I could only ask of someone really trustworthy, like you two are: would you take care of Grundle for me?’
Their eyes widened and the boy put his hand forward, eager and nervous. The girl, after a quick glance at him, followed his lead. As Helga handed over the payment, she murmured, ‘I am sure you have many things you need to do.’ The children didn’t need to be told twice; she’d barely finished speaking before they were bolting off to see to her horse.
Helga turned to Hertha and Nils. ‘Honey sweets with a little bit of dried ground beet. Good for busy bees. Now for Ida. You know how daisy tea calms the mind?’
Hertha crossed her arms. ‘We’ve tried that.’
‘I would expect nothing less of you and Nils,’ Helga said. ‘For most, that would have been perfectly effective.’
‘What do you mean, “most”?’ There was hesitation in Nils’ voice; he still wasn’t sure he wanted to be involved in this discussion, but the young woman wasn’t giving him much choice.
She looked at them briefly before turning her attention back to Ida, who was almost drowsing in her arms. ‘You are very lucky: Ida has been touched by the gods. She will bring great fortune to your farm if you show them the respect they are owed.’
‘How?’ Hertha’s arms remained crossed and at her belligerent tone, Ida’s mutterings grew ever so slightly louder. Behind them, Nils tensed up again.
Helga’s smile was not remotely shaken. She pulled out a small but sharp-looking blade, a carving knife with a wicked point, and produced a tile from another of her bags. ‘The gods . . . well, sometimes they’re a little hard of hearing,’ she said conspiratorially. ‘And sometimes we need to shout in different ways. Pour the tea.’ The command in the young woman’s voice had Hertha moving before she’d quite decided whether she was going to.
It wasn’t long before she was back, clutching a rough-hewn tree-bowl filled with steaming tea.
The knife made a scritching sound as it lanced into the thumb-sized tile in Helga’s hand, quick, deft movements sending blink-thin slivers of wood drifting to the ground until a rune appeared. Gently, she reached out and took the bowl from Hertha, passing her the tile in return.
‘Is that – magic?’
Hertha shushed her husband, none too gently. ‘What do we do with it?’ she said, respect in her voice.
‘You keep it on you,’ Helga said, ‘and touch it when you are making the tea.’
‘I don’t know this one,’ Hertha said, turning it around in her fingers and studying the mark.
‘I would be surprised if you did. I learned it some years ago from my m— It came from a family I stayed with when I was younger.’
‘And this works?’ Nils said hopefully.
Helga looked him straight in the eye. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘And if the gods change their minds and it stops working, you come and find me immediately. There are other things that we can do as well.’ She turned back to Hertha. ‘Meanwhile, set Ida to simple tasks, preferably with counting – things she can actually do – and make sure she eats her food. Four flowers to each bowl, like I did; when you’re down to one flower in a footprint you need to move on and find a new patch. If you run out, come and see me – I always have some dried at home.’
‘I usually put two in the bowl when she’s bad . . .’
Helga smiled. ‘I think she’s worth four, don’t you?’ She reached into her bag and produced a handful of the honey sweets. ‘I’ll leave these here to bribe your workforce.’ She winked at Hertha.
Ida shook her head forcefully, her breathing quickening. ‘Nnnaah!’ she muttered more loudly.
‘Now,’ Helga said, her voice still level but the words coming out more quickly, ‘you have the rune, and the gods are watching. What do you need to do?’
Hertha stiffened. ‘I, uh—’
A large, callused hand appeared and plucked the bowl out of Helga’s hands.
Nils kneeled down in front of the woman and spoke softly. ‘You are going to have some tea, Ida,’ he intoned, with the calm voice of someone who had dealt with skittish horses all his life. Ida’s eyes darted from him to Hertha, then back to the farmer. ‘There’s a good girl,’ he murmured softly, raising the bowl to Ida’s lips.
‘Nnnh!’ Ida shook her head.
‘No,’ the Viking said, unmoving, ‘drink.’ He tilted the bowl slightly, Ida’s head stayed still, then she tasted the tea with her tongue. Nils tilted the bowl again and this time the old woman’s lips started moving. Before long the bowl was drained.
‘Now what?’ Hertha asked.
‘Just wait.’ Helga smiled and reached for Ida’s hands, feeling with her thumbs past the old woman’s gnarled knuckles to the sinewy wrists. Her eyes closed slowly.
‘. . . hungry,’ Ida whispered.
‘No wonder,’ Helga said, opening her eyes.
Hertha stared at them both for a moment, then she disappeared through the door.
‘How are you feeling?’ Helga scanned the frail old woman as she talked. ‘Headache? How is your stomach?’
‘I just said I was hungry, stripling,’ came the tart reply.
‘Oho! She’s better,’ Nils said, a smile breaking out on his bearded face, as Hertha emerged from the longhouse with two fist-sized rolls of bread, a dollop of butter and some quartered plums on a plank.
‘Here,’ she all but barked, handing it over to Ida, ‘eat.’
Helga glanced over at Nils, who was looking at the two women with affection. ‘The shrews of Rowan Glade,’ he said. ‘Never a kind word to each other, no one more true.’
He smiled as Hertha fussed over her old aunt. ‘This is good,’ he told Helga, and grabbing a hand-axe, left the women to it.
The farmwife turned from her aunt and looked Helga up and down, almost as if sizing her up. ‘You know, for a Norsewoman you’re not bad.’
