Secret Murder: Who Shall Judge? (10 page)

“So say we all!” every man cried, and many of them wept at the power of Otkel’s words and for their lost leader.

They sheathed their swords in the dying firelight, and Otkel filled the cup again from a nearby keg. He turned to the other mourners, those not of Thorolf’s band. They were a mixed crew: several small merchants, a crippled boy and his mother, Northmen, southerners. Rhys, the bailiff’s man, was among them.

Otkel carried the cup over to them. “And what better way to keep Thorolf’s memory alive than by honoring those who honor him? Come with us, back to his hall. There will be food and drink, and a bard. Thorolf was planning this celebration for weeks, and we shall keep it.” He handed the cup to a gnarled old man, a local dealer in roots and herbs.

The man held the cup, looked over its rim at the flames of the pyre. “I remember Thorolf. When he came to town with you, and began asking local merchants for a share of their business, I thought him very hard to deal with, and gave him his share grudgingly.

“Then as I was returning from an herb-gathering trip, wild bandits came out of the wood. They robbed me, and set my wagon on fire. They were having sport with me when Thorolf came riding alone. He killed two of them, and chased the other three off; then he returned, bandaged me, and gave me all the goods he’d captured from the bandits.”

He lowered his lips to the rim of the great cup, and drank. Firelight gleamed on his baldness, picked out his wrinkles. He raised his head again, and Otkel could see tears. “He saved my life. He was still hard to deal with – but he held by his deals, and took care of his own.” He returned the cup to Otkel.

Now Otkel gave the cup to a southerner. “I too remember Thorolf.” Memories flickered across his tanned face with the shifting light of the pyre. “I remember his hearth-fire. Two years ago a scow escaped from its moorings, and rammed my ship just off Northlanding. We foundered before we could reach the shore. Thorolf was passing by, with all of you. You threw out a line and pulled us into the shallows, then Thorolf set the bunch of you to salvaging the cargo while he took me and my crew back to his hall.

“He hosted us for a week, until matters could be settled. He bought my cargo. The two of you –” his eyes locked with Otkel’s “—drove a harsh bargain for damaged goods, then more than made up for it by repairing my ship.”

He raised the cup to his lips, gold and garnet in his earlobe echoing the gold and garnet of the cup. “I’ve drunk Thorolf’s ale before. I’m proud to do so now, and saddened I’ll no longer have the chance in the future.” He drank.

He returned the cup to Otkel, who passed it among the rest, then took it back to its tripod.

“Thorolf’s spirit has gone. Let us go to his hall, and honor his passing.” He handed out torches to all, and they lit them from the dying pyre. They walked down the hill and into the night, Otkel in the lead, holding the torches high.

As they passed the horses, the crippled boy’s mother lifted him onto his pony. “Thorolf saw Jem hobbling down the street with his crutch. He swept him up on his horse and rode off to Milltown, and bought him this pony from Matilda. Now Jem knows every street in Northlanding, and earns enough carrying messages to pay for the pony’s upkeep, and warm clothing besides. Bless Thorolf for his gifts!” She embraced her child as he sat with four strong legs beneath him, and both of them wept.

The other horses, less placid, shied at the firebrands. Otkel reassured the mourners. “I’ll send men to bring them to Northlanding. Come to the fountain square in the merchant’s quarter at noon tomorrow.” Holding their torches still, the mother leading the pony, they formed a small procession. As they entered the woods, the mosquitoes started to bite. People began to slap at them. It broke the solemn mood, as annoyance can.

People came together, talking quietly, in groups of two or three or four, and passed through the darkness of night up to the watchfires of Northlanding.

The western gate was closed. A watchman leaned from a crenel, his face lit from below by their torches and those on either side of the gate. “Who comes at night?” he asked with a voice worn featureless by repetition.

“The friends of Thorolf Pike, from his funeral pyre.”

The watchman’s face disappeared, and there was a rattling of chains from within. The massive gate swung open, and the procession walked through the gatehouse into the streets beyond. Behind, the gate squealed shut.

Once they heard the sounds of revelry from an enclosed yard, and there were a few windows still lit. Occasionally a shutter would open a crack and an eye peer out at their torches. But the town slept, and they met none but the night-watch until they came to their warehouse.

The upper windows were thrown open, and the shifting glow of a fire lit the hall within. A small group of men and women stood at the gate—Christian friends unwilling to go to the Sacred Grove even though it was well away from the watchful eyes of the Church. The servants were waiting. The gates flew wide as Otkel and the others approached. The two groups came together and embraced in mutual consolation. They went in, and up the stairs.

The servants had set out trestles while everybody was at the funeral, and there were many delicacies: jams and honey and sweet cakes of maple sugar, formed into figures; pots of butter and little loafs of white wheat-bread; last year’s winter apples, preserved in the cool caves of the river-bluffs. Drinking-horns were scattered about, and an enormous horn at the head of the table. Great trenchers of barley bread rimmed the trestle board, and sweating cooks were bringing a huge roast up the stairs from the cook-house in the yard.

The guests scattered into the room and took seats on the benches around the trestles. Bursts of talk and of silence alternated. Then Otkel raised his hands. “Dear friends, we are here to celebrate Thorolf. Let’s do so.” He raised the horn from the head of the table, freshly filled to the brim, and drank until he was forced to quit for air. “Ah,” he said, wiping his moustache, and handed the horn to Leif, still very full. Leif made a valiant attempt to drain it, but there was still ale left when he handed it on.

Otkel looked at Thorolf’s high-seat.
Tomorrow,
he thought, and sat in his usual place on the bench next to it.

Servants moved about, carving meat and filling horns with ale. And now a bard sang in a clear voice, verses made that day in honor of Thorolf. There was a hush, then one of the Northmen who’d been at his horn quite seriously knocked over a bowl of apples. They went rolling across the table, thumping to the floor, accompanied by gales of mirth. At the foot of the table two Northmen wept. The bard began another poem.

Otkel sat in his chair next to the empty high-seat, and sipped his ale. He’d taken an extremely large drink, that first pull at his horn, and now of all times, his wits should not be dulled.

One of the servants set a pie before him. The odor of cinnamon was heavy in the air, and Otkel suddenly realized how hungry he was. He drew his dagger, cut a slice. Venison, apples, and spice complemented one another. He swallowed, took another bite.
I didn’t know we had cinnamon in stock,
he thought.
I’ll have to take a better inventory soon.

Talk and song ebbed and flowed, growing freer as the people drank. Occasionally somebody would have a special story of Thorolf, and the room would hush as they told it.

One of Thorolf’s men spoke. “Do you remember that merchant from Saint George? Proud as a peacock, and dressed like one, with six bodyguards in silk? Turned down Thorolf’s invitation, he did. Claimed a pavilion from Saint George was better lodging than any greathall here in a howling wilderness whose only virtue was fur-bearing animals.”

“Didn’t he snub the Bishop, too?” another voice added.

“Well, Thorolf sent Otkel out. He got one of the fellow’s cooks drunk, and found that the merchant was running short of absinthe. Nasty stuff, that. Thorolf doctored some absinthe up with a strong purgative—who can taste anything else beside the wormwood?—and stocked up all the wine merchants, with strict instructions.

“Next thing you know, here come two of the peacock’s guards, off to get the best doctor in town. ‘Our master has been taken ill!’ they said. Well, he’d actually just had a drink of freshly-purchased absinthe. We took ’em with no trouble.

“We sent a litter to fetch the merchant ‘to the doctor,’ and as soon as he and the remaining guards were away from the camp, we took them, too. Hit ’em over the head, stripped ’em, and left ’em in the ditch. We were disguised, of course.

“Thorolf ‘just happened by,’ and took the victims off to his hall to recover. Six of us put on the guards’ silk livery and broke the merchant’s camp, and nobody looked twice at us.

“Thorolf gave the merchant his own bed, and treated him well in every way. He dressed all the guards in fine embroidered linen, and gave each of them a silver ring and a good sword. They looked like proper Northmen, almost. Meanwhile, he had the tent off at the dyers, being dyed green.

“When the merchant was back on his feet, he couldn’t find words enough to praise Thorolf’s hospitality. He asked if he could stay a bit longer, because he’d learned his entire camp had been stolen.

“Now, most of the fellow’s merchandise was still back on his riverboat with his crew. We’d made a nice haul of his personal possessions, but he still had a lot left.

“So Thorolf explained that he had family coming from up North, and there wouldn’t be room, but he had a fine pavilion in his warehouse. They dickered for hours, and Thorolf struck a very hard bargain with him. It cost that merchant a third of his goods for that tent.

“I wish I could have been there to hear him, when he had it pitched and learned he’d bought his own pavilion back—and dyed plain green at that, instead of a fancy yellow and blue like it was before! He raised a fuss, of course, but the bishop intervened and the peacock was sent packing. Thorolf and the bishop never got along as well as then, before or since.”

The entire room rang with laughter. Boots stamped, and Northmen pounded on the table. The servants scurried about filling horns with ale, and the bard sang a ribald song, with many gestures, about the difficulties suffered by the nobles of Saint George when they tried to mix absinthe and lovemaking.

Otkel sat, listening to the tales of Thorolf’s deeds and generosity.
Who will tell Otkel stories when I’m dead?
he thought.
What kind of stories will they be?
He noticed the woman leaving, crippled Jem—stuffed with rich foods—sleeping over her shoulder. He came to sudden decision.

“Wait!” he cried out to her. “Don’t leave yet!” He snatched up his axe, stood, ran across the greathall to Thorolf’s room, plunged in.

The three keys burned in his pouch, but he knew he could manage without them. With his axe, he attacked the log strongbox. Men came to the door and stared in amazement. Otkel was a powerful axeman, and he had the chest open in less time than anybody would have believed. The locks and iron bands still held; the end was gone. “Leif! Hermund! Come help!” The three of them lifted the strongbox, poured out a rich hoard of silver and gold and bronze. There were silver rings and brooches glinting, and the warm glow of a golden torc. On top of the pile was a wonderful brooch, gold and silver and copper animals glistening against an enameled background. Gemstones winked in the eyes of the animals. Other things were there as well, carnelian and glass beads, and carven figures made of walrus ivory.

“Tonight, none of Thorolf’s friends leaves our hall without a gift!” He searched through the treasures, found a necklace of carnelian interspaced with silver pendants from the Skraeling kingdoms to the south and west. He motioned the woman forward, placed it about her neck. He bent again, picked out a small silver cloak-pin for Jem. He embraced the two of them. “Go now. Remember.”

He turned to the others. “Leif, you were Thorolf’s closest friend. You should have this golden torc. Hermund....”

By the time he was through, Otkel had even given a bronze cloak pin to the bailiff’s man, Rhys.

The gifting had pretty well crowned the feast, and people quietly began to slip out until Otkel and the others were alone. Otkel raised his hands for silence. “Men, tomorrow will be busy. It’s time to sleep. We’ll rise a couple hours after the sun.” He instructed a servant to wake them, and another to see to the horses they’d left back at the Sacred Grove.

The men were pulling out their bearskins and blankets, making up beds on the benches around the hall. Otkel headed toward his room, then thought of the sadly-diminished pile of silver lying on the floor in Thorolf’s room.
Let’s be sure it’s still as big in the morning,
he thought. He went through the other door, threw off his clothes, and sank into heaped white bear furs. He slept.

In the hall, the light of the rising moon shone in the still-open windows. The dying fire cast a ruddy glow. Leif and Hermund, sleepless, were talking quietly. “Otkel has been a much better leader today than we could have expected,” Hermund began.

“That’s very true,” Leif agreed. “He certainly gave Thorolf a funeral to be proud of!”

“
We all
gave Thorolf a funeral to be proud of,” growled Starkad sleepily.

“Right. But Otkel was there at our head while we did it. And he gave us a very good bragarfull oath to swear.” Hermund sank back on his furs, wriggled to a more comfortable position.

“It was a good oath, but there was one thing about it that puzzled me.” Leif hesitated. There were inquiring grunts from Hermund and Starkad.

“Why did he call Odin’s curse, and our vengeance, down upon the person that
dishonored
Thorolf, instead of the one that killed him?” Leif, too, lay down his head. There was silence. Soon all were asleep.

Chapter 8

Tuesday: More Troubles

Gervase and his men stood near the fairgrounds’ tavern. The Eastern sky flamed red across the river. The morning mist was taken by the wind that had risen during the night. Leaf-rattle challenged the roar of the falls. Several morning fires were burning, smoke trailing close to the ground, but most of the camp was just beginning to wake. The grass was wet with dew.