He had apparently had a great quarrel with his brothers; he hadn’t even stayed the night at Dyfrin. They had taken lodgings on a tenant farm farther out in the countryside. Sir Gyrd—yes, for he could tell her that the king had made his master’s brother a knight at Christmastime—well, Sir Gyrd had come out to the courtyard and warmly entreated Simon to stay, but Simon had given his brother a curt reply. And they had roared and bellowed and shouted, all those gentlemen up in the high loft—Sir Ulf Sakses?n and Gudmund Andress?n had been on the estate as well—so that everyone was terribly frightened. God only knew what it was that had made them foes.
Simon came past the cookhouse, paused for a moment, and peered inside. Sigurd announced quickly that he would get an awl and a strap to make proper repairs to the harness that had been torn in the morning.
“Do they have those kinds of things in the cookhouse on this farm?” Simon flung over his shoulder as he left. Sigurd shook his head and nodded to the woman when Simon had disappeared from sight.
Simon pushed his plate aside but stayed seated. He was so tired that he could hardly even get up. At last he got to his feet and threw himself onto the bed, still wearing his boots and spurs, but then thought better of it. It was a good, clean bed for the house of a commoner. He sat up and pulled off his boots. Stiff and worn out as he was, surely he would be able to sleep now. He was soaked through and freezing, but his face burned after the long ride in the storm.
He crawled under the coverlet, twisting and turning the pillows; they smelled so strangely of fish. Then he stretched out, half reclining, propped up on one elbow.
His thoughts began circling again. He had been thinking and thinking these past few days, the way an animal plods around a tether.
Even if Erling Vidkunss?n had known that the welfare of Gyrd and Gudmund Darre might also be at stake if Erlend Nikulauss?n had been broken and talked . . . well, that didn’t make it any worse that Simon had seized upon all means to win the help of the Bjark? knight. Quite the opposite. Surely a man was obligated to stand by his own brothers, even to the death if need be. But he still wished that he knew whether Erling had known about it. Simon weighed the matter for and against. Erling couldn’t possibly have been entirely ignorant that a rebellion was brewing. But what exactly had he known? Gyrd and Ulf, at any rate, didn’t seem to know whether the man was aware of their complicity. But Simon remembered that Erling had mentioned the Haftorss?ns and had advised him to seek their help, for it was most likely their friends who would need to be afraid. The Haftorss?ns were cousins of Ulf Sakses?n and Helga. The nose is right next to the eyes!
But even if Erling Vidkunss?n believed that he was also thinking of his own brothers, surely that didn’t make what he had done any worse. And Erling might have realized that he knew nothing about his brothers’ peril. Besides, he had said himself that . . . He remembered he had told Stig that he didn’t think they could torture Erlend into talking.
They might still have reason to fear Erlend’s tongue. He had kept silent through the torture and imprisonment, but he was the kind of man who might let it slip out afterward through some chance remark. It would be just like him.
And yet . . . Simon thought this was the one thing he could be certain that Erlend would never do. He was as silent as a rock every time the conversation touched on the matter, precisely because he was afraid of being lured into some slip of the tongue. Simon understood that Erlend had a fierce, almost childish terror of breaching a promise. Childish because the fact that he had given away the whole plan to his lover clearly did not seem to Erlend to have tarnished his honor in any significant way. He apparently thought that such could happen to the best of men. As long as he himself held his tongue, he considered his shield unblemished and his promise unbroken. And Simon had noticed that Erlend was sensitive about his honor, as far as his own understanding of honor and reputation went. He had nearly lost his wits from desperation and anger at the mere thought that any of his fellow conspirators might be exposed—even now, so much later and in such a manner that it couldn’t possibly make any difference to the men whom he had protected with his life, as well as with his honor and his property. All because of a child talking to the closest kinsman of these men.
Erlend wanted to handle it in such a way that if things went wrong, he would be the one to pay the price for all of them. That’s what he had vowed on the crucifix to every man who had joined him in the plot. But to think that grown-up, sensible men would put their faith in such an oath, when it was not entirely within Erlend’s control . . . Now that Simon had learned everything about the plan, he thought it was the greatest foolishness he had ever heard. Erlend had been willing to let his body be torn apart, limb from limb, in order to keep his sworn oath. All the while the secret lay in the hands of a ten-year-old boy; Erlend himself had seen to that. And it was evidently no thanks to him that Sunniva Olavsdatter didn’t know more than she did. Could anyone ever make sense of such a man?