“Axes are for splitting wood,” Breca grumbled.
“They are just as good as swords at splitting skulls,” Thorkel said, quiet for a long moment, then he shrugged. “Probably better. A weapon is just hard, sharp steel. A tool, nothing more, only as good as the one holding it.”
“I want to be good with a sword,” Breca said stubbornly.
Thorkel shared a look with Orka and blew out a long breath.
Orka leaned back in her chair, crossing her feet and eating as Thorkel spoke on, talking to Breca about honour, about peaceful living. She knew he had the right of it, though part of her had agreed with Breca when she had been stood back in the hazel square, looking at Virk’s lifeless body. He should be avenged, and by rights his sons should do the deed. But they were too young and unskilled in weapons craft, and too fiery to go about it in a way that they may live to look back on and savour the deed.
It is a dark world, and dark deeds rule it, drag us down a white-foamed river we cannot resist. An image of Guevarr, the honourless weasel lying in the hazel square, eyes blank and staring, an axe in his skull…
She blinked and shook her head, realising the road her thoughts were taking her down and not liking it. Thorkel’s voice seeped into her, deep and reassuring, calming her, like a fire pushing back the darkness that churned and coiled in her veins. Her eyelids drooped, sleep dragging at them.
A hand touched her foot and Orka jolted awake. She jumped, reaching for her seax at her belt, then saw Thorkel’s face smiling at her.
“You were snoring loud as a bear,” he said.
“Huh, and you are a fine one to talk about that,” she said, sitting up in her chair.
The fire still flickered, Breca and Vesli sitting beneath the table. Breca was carving at a lump of wood with his knife while he chatted with the tennúr.
“Time to snore in a soft bed, I’m thinking,” Thorkel said to her.
“Aye,” Orka grunted, rising and stretching.
They all set to their night-time chores. Breca collected the empty plates and cook-pan, and he loaded his small cart and pulled it out of the chamber, taking it to the stream to wash. Vesli fluttered her wings and perched upon the pile of plates and pans, and Orka and Thorkel followed them out into the darkness.
Each of them lit a torch and carried it with them, Breca giving his to Vesli to hold. Thorkel went to the gates, to check the bolts and locks, and then to make his customary patrol of the stockade wall. Orka strode for the barn, placed her torch in an iron sconce riveted to the barn’s gate, then proceeded to check on their pony. She spent some time mucking out his stable, filling his hayrack. When she finished, she gave him a handful of oats from a hemp sack and scratched his head while he chewed.
When Orka left, taking the guttering torch from the barn door, she saw the others had all finished their chores. She crossed the open courtyard and stepped into the hall. The fire still flickered in its hearth-ring, burning low, illuminating the room in ripples of amber and shadow. Breca was already in his cot, tucked under a woollen blanket and Vesli was curled on the floor beside him. Orka squatted down beside her son and just watched him a moment: his face pale and still, chest rising and falling in a slow, steady rhythm. Around his neck a wooden pendant hung by a leather thong. A sword, small but well carved with a three-lobed pommel and a curved crossguard. Orka snorted a laugh.
He is stubborn. He wants to learn sword craft, and this will be our reminder, every day. Thorkel must have drilled a hole in it and found some leather.
She reached out and stroked his hair and Breca opened his eyes, large and serious.
“I feel sad for Mord and Lif, Mama,” he said sleepily.
“I know you do,” Orka said. “And I’m glad that you do. It tells me that you have a big heart.”
“How are they going to live without their papa?”
“Well, if they can control their anger and not get themselves killed in a holmganga, then they won’t starve. Virk has taught them well; they have a fisher boat and a trade. That is what we try to do, as parents. Teach our children how to survive when we are gone.”
“I don’t ever want you or Papa to go,” Breca said. He blinked, eyes bright with sudden tears.
It is inevitable. Death comes for us all, Orka thought, though she did not speak her mind. She could already imagine Thorkel giving her his thundercloud frown.
“What were your mama and papa like?” Breca asked her.
“I hardly remember,” Orka said. “I have stray images of them, like leaves floating in a pool. My mother’s smile, combing her red hair.” Her screams. The back of my father’s hand…