Council, p.6
Council, page 6
Breki dragged his mind back to the negotiations. Even though he was bored, he had decided he would force himself to watch and listen and remember. After all, Rolf had promised him all manner of punishments if he got so much as a word wrong and Rolf was, generally, a man of his word.
‘And the bridge?’ the king asked. ‘Who’ll be providing the materials?’
‘You will, of course.’
The king scoffed and went to speak, but a different voice cut across his and he shut up.
‘Who benefits most from the bridge?’ The Lawspeaker’s voice was reedy, but it carried surprisingly well.
Ingileif frowned. ‘What do you mean?’
‘If the bridge gets built, who profits more?’
‘You do,’ Big Rolf chimed in for the first time. ‘We bring metals from the north—’
‘—for which you are handsomely paid,’ Thorgnyr interrupted. ‘And if the bridge isn’t there, how will you get your metals to market?’
‘The usual way,’ Ingileif said, ‘as we do now: we go down the valley and cross at the ford.’
‘And who feeds your horses? And who feeds your men?’ Thorgnyr was still looking faintly bored, and almost as if he felt sad that no one else had thought to bring this up. ‘The bridge would save you two days’ travel, would it not? Which is two days’ worth of food that would go to your wives and your children. Unless things have changed – which, last I checked, they hadn’t – the north doesn’t do so well when Freyr doesn’t sneeze on your crops.’
‘How we do in the north is our business,’ Big Rolf snarled.
‘And it will continue to be, unless you build a bridge,’ Thorgnyr said. ‘A bridge that opens up a path straight to us, a bridge which makes it easier for you to get your wares to the biggest market in the land, a bridge which saves you travel – a bridge which makes it much easier for us to send fifteen strong men up your way come harvest-time.’
The silence swirled around Ingileif for a long time. ‘Twenty-five.’
For a moment it looked like Thorgnyr had forgotten what they were talking about, but then his face slid back into boredom. ‘Twenty sounds about right to me. They’ll meet twenty of yours midway and we’ll build the bridge together. And we’ll leave the feed to be traded as and when. With all the money you’ll make off the bridge I’m sure you’ll be able to pay us a sensible amount for every bag you need.’
Breki thought Big Rolf’s head might explode, so furious was he. ‘You want us to— And with no guarantee—’
Ingileif’s massive paw rose and he stopped talking.
‘This can be done,’ she rumbled. Then she eyed the king. ‘Eirik’s generosity is noted.’
‘As is the North Wind’s cunning,’ Eirik said.
Breki might have caught the briefest flicker of amusement in the corner of the old woman’s eye, but it was gone so quickly it would be easy to think he’d imagined it.
‘We will talk more about this,’ the chieftain rumbled. ‘The river has not yet run to sea.’
‘No doubt we will,’ Eirik agreed.
Breki wondered if he’d missed a joke somewhere, but Ingileif was rising, Big Rolf had followed and within moments the entire Northern delegation was moving towards the door.
No one smiled, no one spoke.
*
As the door closed behind the Northmen, Alfgeir looked at Eirik. ‘Well . . .’
‘That went about as expected,’ Eirik said, leaning back.
‘Hm.’ Thorgnyr offered an annoyed half-sneeze.
‘Are you not happy?’
‘It’s boring,’ the reedy man said. ‘You said as much. We followed the script. She says this, you say that, then I have to step in and slap some sense into her and we both walk away with exactly what we had decided beforehand would be perfectly acceptable.’ He peered at the king, then Alfgeir. ‘Boring.’ After a moment’s thought, he added, ‘. . . your Majesty.’
Alfgeir cleared his throat. ‘In that case, you might be pleased – or at least entertained – to hear what’s coming.’ Thorgnyr’s head inclined ever so slightly towards the king’s right-hand man. ‘Grim of the Dales is ill.’
‘Oh yes.’ King Eirik looked interested. ‘You said they’d hired a negotiator?’
‘They’ve hired Jorunn.’
The longhouse went silent.
King Eirik paused, then, ‘. . . and when you say “Jorunn”, you mean . . .’
‘Yes, I do. Jorunn daughter of Unnthor, wife of Sigmar son of Goran, last heard of travelling down by Miklagard. She’s back, and if the stories are to be believed, old Grim was only too happy to hand his responsibilities over to her.’
‘I must remember, next time I spill blood for the gods,’ King Eirik said wearily, ‘to ask them what in the nine worlds I have done to anger them so.’
‘Never saw a rat-hound go after its prey like she did,’ Alfgeir said.
‘Remember Olthor?’
Alfgeir’s brows knit, then he gave a heavy chuckle. ‘The poor boy who was so certain they were about to be married?’
‘Until she claimed his land, his farm and his pelts in court. She spoke so well that he ended up thanking her for her generosity in allowing him to keep half a blanket to sleep under.’ King Eirik smiled. ‘I suspect we’ll have to count our words, lest she takes half of those too.’
‘And find some new ones,’ Alfgeir said. He looked at Thorgnyr. ‘Still bored, Lawspeaker?’
Thorgnyr peered thoughtfully up at the rafters. ‘No,’ he said, after a moment. ‘I heard about Olthor’s case and how she argued it. I am . . . not bored.’
He turned his head and glared towards the door, utterly missing the look that passed between King Eirik and Alfgeir.
*
Helga watched from afar as the delegation of Northmen walked down the hill, chatting and laughing. Only one of them looked a little confused: a tall, lumbering boy walking by himself at the back. She thought of Volund and smiled. Some boys were just oxen without a nose-ring, big and meaty and waiting to be led. And others . . . For a moment she imagined she could sense where Freysteinn was, how he moved, how his hard, warm thighs felt under the fabric of his trousers. I’m sure Hildigunnur would like him. She thought of her mother again – or rather, the woman she’d known as her mother – and let her mind wander as she made her way down the hill towards the market-field. There was sunlight and she would have it on her skin. There would be trades to be made and she would make them. And then there would be the night . . .
Enjoying the feel of the soft grass even through sturdy leather boots, she let herself drift. Just telling Eirik what was on her mind had lifted a weight off her chest and she felt a lot less responsible for the boy who had died. His face briefly visited her again but she shook his image away and continued resolutely enjoying the day.
It is summer, I am about to make some money and I have tamed an animal of my very own. Smiling, she let her feet guide her to her cart.
It took her a moment to notice the tension. Only when Grundle, standing patiently beside the cart, whinnied and shook her head twice, then stamped her feet, snorting, did she register that a number of her fellow traders were huddling together in small groups, whispering and trying not to look at a handful of people on horseback at the far end. I thought the Northmen had already tied up their—?
The memory of a snarling face and a wielded blade hit her like ice in the gut, her knee buckled and her breath caught in her throat. She knew that profile, that wave of the hand, that arch of the back. Stiffening herself, determined not to fall, she edged across until she was leaning casually on her cart, her clenched fingers tucked out of sight.
Remember to breathe. The voice – her own, but calm – came to her. As if a dream, she watched Jorunn dismount, graceful and lithe. Pay attention, Helga told herself, although she had no need of such a reminder, not with Jorunn.
The riders were following Jorunn’s lead. One was a big bruiser, clearly no stranger to violence. Another, with close-cropped grey hair and beard, looked like he’d seen and survived a lot. In fact, they all looked like hard men. Hardly your normal trade delegation, this, she noted. Well, unless they’re planning on trading blows. The echo of her mother’s voice made her heart beat a little slower and brought a half-smile to her face – then the last man joined them. He was small, maybe a head shorter than the grey-hair, but he moved like a cat. Or a snake, her internal voice helpfully added. And the others are having none of him. Most of them were Svear, or near as, and fighting men the likes of whom she’d seen any number of, although none the likes of her father. But this man, he was different, and not just his skin, which was darker. He was lighter on his feet and graceful, and where the others suggested strength, danger and quick tempers, he radiated calm.
For some reason, that did not put Helga at ease at all.
She busied herself re-organising her already perfectly laid-out wares in the cart so she could keep the newcomers in her field of vision without being seen to be staring. Where is Freysteinn? she wondered, suddenly wanting him to be there, wanting someone to whisper with, but she was alone – and Jorunn Unnthorsdottir most certainly wasn’t.
She was forced to watch from a distance as bindles and bundles were unloaded at speed, the men all moving in near-silence and marshalled efficiently by the grey-haired one. Jorunn stood watching them, not moving but occasionally snapping a command, with the small, dark-skinned man at her side, relaxed but observant.
Like a well-trained attack dog.
‘This is unusual.’ Freysteinn sounded casually interested.
Helga had to school herself to not let on how annoyed she was that she hadn’t noticed him come up behind her. ‘What is?’
‘We’ve got visitors and you’re here, rearranging bags of herbs that were perfectly fine when I left, rather than fleecing them for every last bit of metal with your legendary market-wit.’
He had a smirk on him that suddenly annoyed her. You weren’t there, she thought, and the bitterness of it surprised her. The leader of ‘those visitors’ wanted to kill me. For some reason, though, the words stayed unspoken; the urge to tell him everything about that night, the satisfaction of watching Jorunn walk into her carefully laid trap, immediately followed by the very real fear of death, had somehow vanished.
Instead, she found somewhere within her a controlled smile. ‘It is not always wise to rush in,’ she said coolly. ‘Better to give them some time to sniff around first. If they know what’s what, they’ll come to me.’
His smirk turned into a smile and she found herself warming to him again. ‘What are you grinning at?’
‘I know how great you are,’ he said, ‘and I like it when you know it too.’
She made a face at him and was about to retort when movement caught her eye. Now there’s a thing. ‘Look who else is out and about,’ she muttered.
Freysteinn turned, and she wondered fleetingly why the surprise on his face made her happy. ‘Indeed,’ he murmured. ‘Thorgnyr Lawspeaker in the trading field long before any dispute has been called – have you checked for carrion?’
She grinned in response, then turned her attention back to the Lawspeaker. They weren’t the only onlookers to have noticed his arrival and she watched the ripples of his presence ruffling moods. Some traders strapped on fake smiles, others, muttering, were crossing their arms and rolling their eyes. She took particular note of a few people sidling towards their wares, especially those who were trying to look innocent while surreptitiously pushing things out of sight. A couple had very convenient side compartments built into their cart, something she hadn’t noticed at first, which set her wondering what might need to be hidden from the Lawspeaker’s sight . . .
But Thorgnyr ignored them all.
‘What’s he doing?’ Freysteinn muttered.
The tingle hit Helga’s spine. ‘He’s waiting,’ she whispered.
And sure enough, just a short time later, the newcomers had finished setting up their stall and Jorunn stepped out in front and started, ‘People of Uppsala!’ Her voice rang out, clear and strong, with just the right mix of command and invitation. ‘Come and see the finest that the Dales have to offer: amber jewels to melt your heart. Mead to warm your soul. We have—’
‘No permit.’ Thorgnyr’s nasal whine grated across the end of her sentence.
Helga’s heart stopped for a moment. The interruption was somehow made more insulting by the boredom in the Lawspeaker’s voice.
He knows what he’s doing, Hildigunnur whispered in her ear. He intends to rile her up and then outwit her. Surprisingly, this annoyed Helga. She couldn’t help it: for all she hated his opponent, the Lawspeaker, however clever he might be, was an innately unlikeable man.
Like a cat spotting a rival, Jorunn shifted and faced Thorgnyr. ‘Permit?’ she asked, her voice laced with honey.
Helga could feel the warmth of Freysteinn as he sidled up next to her. She revelled in it.
‘You can’t trade without a permit,’ Thorgnyr said. ‘King’s rules.’
‘King Eirik granted me a permit to trade freely in Uppsala and adjacent lands seven years ago. That would have been . . . before your time.’ In her voice was the cold suggestion that her permit was not only more valid than the Lawspeaker, but would also last longer than Thorgnyr. A lot longer.
Freysteinn glanced at Helga. ‘Was that a threat?’ he whispered.
Yes. ‘I don’t know,’ she whispered back, but no one was paying them any attention; all eyes were on Thorgnyr.
‘Not before the time of laws,’ he answered, distinctly unimpressed. ‘That permit was given to your husband Sigmar and you cannot expect to use it just because you are his wife. The speech of a maiden should no man trust,’ he added, turning to the crowd and winking.
Helga looked at Jorunn and her blood ran cold. Thorgnyr had just quoted the Hávamál at her. That . . . was a mistake.
There was no sign that she had taken the insult to heart. Instead, the blonde woman looked up and to the right, biting her lip just slightly, as if she was trying to remind herself of something. When she spoke again, her voice was clear and calm. ‘King Eirik pays you.’
Thorgnyr blinked, almost as if surprised, and looked Jorunn up and down. ‘I eat. I drink. I solve disputes and make arrangements.’
‘So he pays you for your legal work in food and board.’
The Lawspeaker hesitated. Helga glanced at Freysteinn, who was staring at the two debaters. ‘He does not,’ Thorgnyr said slowly. ‘He follows the rules of the Book of Wisdom and offers me guest’s rights.’
‘A greedy man, if he be not mindful, eats to his own life’s hurt,’ Jorunn said, smiling.
‘That was definitely a threat,’ Freysteinn explained breathlessly, as if Helga hadn’t already worked out the implications herself. ‘She’s forced him to swear that he isn’t getting paid, but that’s meant he’s had to mention guest’s rights.’
I know. ‘No better burden than the mother’s wit,’ Helga muttered. Night after night of repeating long verses full of laws about how to behave, how to treat guests and how to deal with life, came back to her, along with the image of Hildigunnur’s stern face staring down at her from a height. ‘You never know when it’ll come in handy,’ her foster-mother had said, forcing her to learn the Hávamál, the Book of Customs, by rote. Just like her four children before me.
‘And does it not say in the Hávamál,’ Jorunn continued, ‘of your friend, that you should share thy mind with him, gifts exchange with him, fare to find him oft?’ She bowed with a flourish of her cape and suddenly held in her hand a finely carved figurine, two hands tall and glistening black. Like a skald she held it still just long enough for the people close enough to get a good look at it. ‘There are things we have to trade that I will swear Uppsala has never seen the like of. If I and my men may speak to the subjects of King Eirik again’ – she looked around, nodding at some of the older, more respected traders, some of whom nodded back, curtly – ‘I will sell, buy and bring profit and prosperity.’
And then, with a flick, she sent the figurine flying gracefully through the air. Thorgnyr flinched and flailed at it, but it landed two steps in front of him.
A perfect throw. Just close enough to force him to move and nowhere near close enough to catch. A throw designed to make him look weak and feeble.
Jorunn was polite, respectful and, above all else, devastatingly correct. Her face, carefully impassive, very loudly said, That’s my fucking permit right there.
Then Helga glanced at Thorgnyr’s face. The snide, arrogant Lawspeaker looked down on the statue as if it was a pile of rotting dung, but he was trapped in custom. He had been played at his own game and outwitted, forced to take the trinket as a guest’s gift. Although quite against her will, at that moment Helga couldn’t quite muster the full extent of her fury at Jorunn Unnthorsdottir.
The Lawspeaker bent down awkwardly, picked up the figurine and made a show of being unimpressed with its exquisite features. ‘I will present this to King Eirik – as a gift,’ he said, turning around.
Jorunn watched him turn, then without missing a beat continued her introduction. ‘As we sell more from our cart, who knows what we will uncover? Come on over – and if you remember me from old, there will be a cup of mead on offer. On that, you can trust the speech of a maiden.’
