The Gargoyle

XXI.

Of all the places in which a boy might find himself orphaned, ninth-century Iceland was among the worst. Sigurðr Sigurрsson’s parents had arrived with the first wave of Norse immigrants and decided the land had a strange beauty that would be suitable for raising a family. But when Sigurðr was only nine, his father disappeared on an ice floe and, not long after, his mother went to sleep never to wake up. The boy took over the family land and resolved to make his way in life, but he failed: he was just too young, and soon found himself scavenging a living from the dead whales that washed up on the shores.

In truth, it was not a bad skill to possess: the flesh was used for food, the blubber for lamps, and the bones for any number of household items. All these things, Sigurðr could trade to support himself. Still, he felt there was something missing from his existence; even as a child, he knew it was not enough to carve a life out of the carcasses of the dead, and he longed to be strong and valiant.

So, when not cutting apart beached whales, Sigurðr dove. On the edge of a fjord, with the entire ocean stretched in front of him, he would take a moment as the world around him seemed to disappear. Then his legs would push him up into the air and there would be a moment of brief weightlessness when the battle between sky and sea was deadlocked, and Sigurðr would-just for this one beautiful moment-imagine himself floating near Valhalla.

But the sea always won, and the boy would cut the air like a dropped knife. The water rushed up to meet him, and when he sliced through the transparent surface he felt as if he’d come home. Down he would go, searching for the bottom, before emerging from the ocean with the feeling that he’d been cleansed. But the feeling never lasted.

When he played with the other boys, because there was still a little time for this, he always felt one step removed from them. He liked to wrestle and run just as they did, and he even enjoyed drawing a little blood in a sporting contest, but there came a time when all the other young men found young women with whom to wrestle. Sigurðr, poor Sigurðr, remained content to wrestle only with the boys, and soon people started to wonder why he didn’t seem to have the slightest interest in taking a wife.

Sigurðr took to spending his evenings in the local tavern in an attempt to display his manliness, but try as he might to keep his eyes fixed on the breasts of the waitress, his gaze would invariably wander to the hairy knuckles of the bartender. From there, his eyes would go to the strong curve of Hцрbroddr’s buttocks and then, always, they would settle upon one man, a little older, named Einarr Einarsson.

Einarr was a block of granite disguised as flesh, with a massive chest and thick forearms that could tame a man-or so Sigurðr liked to imagine. Einarr’s eyes reminded Sigurðr of the icy water into which he dove, and his flaming hair was like the passion in the younger man’s heart. Einarr was by trade a carpenter, but he was also a Viking.

The two men had a passing acquaintance, inevitable given the sparse population, but little contact until the evening that Sigurðr summoned his courage and headed over to talk. He stuck out his chest farther than usual, lowered the timber of his voice, and laughed only his most masculine laugh. Still, it did not take long for Einarr to see that it was not a man who sat before him, but a lost boy.

There was something about Sigurðr, so pitiful and yet so hopeful, that touched Einarr’s better impulses. He knew the boy had lost his parents, and he had seen him wandering the shores with bags of dead whale. Rather than dismiss the boy, he listened, and when Sigurðr said embarrassing things-and there were plenty-Einarr simply nodded. He saw no need to insult someone whose life was already difficult enough.

That evening in the bar was the first of many. Their relationship was a strange fit, but somehow a good one, because Einarr appreciated that aspect of Sigurðr’s character which his Viking companions lacked. The young man, though not particularly intelligent, had moments in which he longed for something better. Sigurðr did not want to destroy, he wanted to create-but he didn’t know how. He often spoke about how wonderful it must be for Einarr to build things from wood. While Einarr only grunted, inside he agreed-it was a good thing that he did for a living-and he also thought that perhaps this boy could do better for himself, if only he had a little guidance.

Soon Einarr proposed that Sigurðr assist him in the carpentry shop, and the offer was accepted with excitement. It would not be an apprenticeship, per se, because there was never any suggestion that Sigurðr would eventually set out on his own, but it would be a fine way to fill out his days. Sigurðr’s heart was beating more quickly than usual the first time he arrived at Einarr’s longhouse.

The dwelling was typical of the Icelandic style, constructed from the materials at hand. Rough stones had been laid in as foundation around upright posts of timber, and the walls were turf-sod with birch branches for infilling. Einarr proudly displayed one feature that was not common: in a corner of the longhouse, he had dug a trench that ran under the wall from a nearby stream. It was not even necessary to go outside to get clean water, because all one needed to do was lift the floorboards and dip in a bucket.

Every inch of the place was piled high with wood: some native to Iceland, some imported from Norway, and some that had washed up on the coast. All had to be kept inside so it was dry enough to work. On the walls hung dozens of irons, files, rasps, knives and chisels, and there were shelves to house the oils used to finish the woodwork.

Nearly all the benches, shelves, and even farming implements were carved with intricate designs. Sigurðr ran his finger gently along the twisting grooves of one such object, a cradle sitting near a wall. From the four corners of its body, posts extended upwards; each was a dragon’s neck with a head that fit perfectly into the parent’s hand so the child could be rocked to sleep.

“It is for my boy, Bragi.”

Sigurðr knew that Einarr was a father and that he was married. He didn’t need to be reminded of these facts. “It’s good,” he replied, then pointed to a barrel overflowing with thin wooden cylinders. “What are those?”

Einarr pulled one out and held it in front of his face, looking down its length, before handing it over.

“I have no particular skill with a bow, but tooling a shaft straight and true is another matter altogether.”

“Einarr is showing off, is he?”

A woman, cradling an infant sucking at her tit, had come into the house unheard. Her eyes were an even brighter blue than Einarr’s and her hair, swept back with a colorful headband, had streaks of bright blond where she had bleached it with lye.

“You must be Sigurðr. It is good to meet you finally.”

“This is Svanhildr,” said Einarr. “My anchor.”

“Ah, your steadying influence, then?” asked the wife.

“No,” answered the husband, “that which is dragging me down.”

Svanhildr slapped him hard across the shoulder, and Einarr reached out his own hand-not to strike in return, but to cup the baby so its balance was not lost.

“The lucky little one,” said Einarr, “is Bragi.”

Svanhildr handed the child over to her husband, adjusted the treasure necklace around her throat, and closed her apron-dress. A chain of keys around her waist rattled in time with the many ornaments of her necklace and, as a result, her every movement was musical. She slapped her husband once more, tunefully, before taking the child back into her arms. From the look on her face, this was a woman pleased with her life.

The man and boy worked through the afternoon-mostly, Einarr demonstrated the uses of the tools-before Sigurðr returned home after declining Svanhildr’s invitation to dinner.

The following day, when Svanhildr answered the longhouse door, Sigurðr handed a sack to her. “I brought shark,” he said.

“How very kind,” she said, politely exaggerating the bag’s weight. “I will ferment it, and you will eat it with us when it is ready.”

In the pause that followed, Sigurðr blurted, “It’s good to find dead whales, but sharks are also useful.”

“Yes. Come in.” She kicked aside a stray piece of lumber. “That is, if you can find room among these logs. Sometimes I feel like I’m living in a forest.”

Again the men spent the day together; this time it was the maintenance of the tools that was explained. When Svanhildr extended another dinner invitation, Sigurðr accepted. She served chicken stew with seaweed and, as the men ate, she rocked the dragon cradle until Bragi fell asleep.

They sat around the longfire until late in the night, smoke drifting through the vent in the ceiling. Svanhildr heated a small cauldron of ale and when the men’s frost-cups neared their dregs, she would dip the ale-goose into the cauldron to refill them. When Sigurðr commented on the brew’s excellent taste, Svanhildr explained her secret lay in the combination of juniper and bog myrtle. “It is often said that a man’s happiness depends on the quality of his food,” she explained, “but in Einarr’s case it’s more the quality of his alcohol.”

Einarr grunted appreciatively and took another gulp.

That night, as Sigurðr walked back to his own house, he absent-mindedly rubbed his fingers with the patch of sharkskin he had not given to Einarr. He had sliced it from the top fin because he knew it would make fine sandpaper, but somehow he had not found a good moment to hand it over. By the time he arrived at his own shabby dwelling, his fingers were so numb he didn’t notice they were covered in blood.

In the afternoons that followed, Sigurðr discovered that while he had no real feel for woodwork, he did have a talent for paints. He ground the pigments-blacks from charcoal, whites from bone, reds from ocher-and applied them to the finished work. Sigurðr was thrice pleased: by the new skill he was developing; by the colors themselves; and by the smile on Einarr’s face.

Einarr, too, was content. Not only did Sigurðr’s painting improve his work, but also the young man was a good companion-not quite a friend yet, but certainly not only a workmate. To recognize this fact, one day Einarr handed over a long package, wrapped in worsted fabric and tied with a leather string. Inside was a sword with an intricately carved dragon handle. “It would be good for you to have a proper blade,” Einarr said, “not that fish-cutter you have now.”

Sigurðr nodded, because he didn’t know what else to do. Since his parents had died, this was the first gift anyone had given him.

“Now,” asked Einarr, “would you like to learn to use that?”

Einarr set about correcting the weaknesses in Sigurðr’s technique, and the pupil was quick to incorporate the suggestions. Einarr was impressed. “Your body naturally knows which way to move, and this is good. There are many things that can be taught, but a feel for the attack is not one of them.”

Sigurðr looked at his feet. He didn’t want Einarr to see the blush the compliment had brought to his face.

“You will need a name for that,” Einarr said. “I suggest Sigurðrsnautr. Because if you ever need to put your blade into a man, it will not be a gift that he soon forgets.”

When Sigurðr returned home that evening, he turned the sword over and over in his hands. He liked the name-“Sigurðr’s Gift.” He carefully tied together the ends of the leather strap that had wrapped the package, and hung it around his neck. From that day forward, he was never without it, but he always made sure the strap was carefully tucked into his tunic. There was no need to display it; it was enough to know what had once been in Einarr’s fingers now constantly touched his skin. To think of the fact sometimes raised small bumps on Sigurðr’s flesh, the way a blast of the northern wind might.

When the inevitable day came that Einarr left for a series of Viking raids, Sigurðr expected this would mark a return to his lonely ways. But Svanhildr invited him for pancakes and ale each morning and-to his own surprise-Sigurðr kept showing up. Bragi was growing bigger and soon added a new phrase to his growing vocabulary. He knew mother and father and wood, but one day he looked at the man who had the mouthful of pancakes and said: “Sig Sig.”

Though Einarr may have built the supply chests in the home, it was Svanhildr who controlled them with her chain of keys. Not without careful planning could a Viking household make it through the brutal winters, and Sigurðr grew to appreciate her work. She knew all the methods for preserving meat-smoking, salting, pickling, and more-so her husband did not grow tired of the same meals. After a while, Sigurðr found himself helping her after breakfast, slicing the meat into strips while she prepared the brines in which they would soak.

Not once during her husband’s absence did Svanhildr mention a fear that he might not come home-but when word came that the ship had returned, Svanhildr rushed to the shore and jumped into Einarr’s waiting arms. She kissed him passionately, then punched him twice in the face, and then gently kissed the blood off his lips. Sigurðr wasn’t quite sure, but it almost seemed that when Svanhildr pulled back her fist, Einarr offered up his chin to receive the coming blows.

Sigurðr helped to carry the plunder back to the longhouse and was amazed by the volume of goods: precious metals and bags of coins, jewelry, tools snatched from foreign workshops, and the bottles of wine that had not broken on the return voyage. But for all this, it was clear that Svanhildr was waiting for something more. Then Einarr drew out a jeweled book mount he had ripped from the cover of an edition of Gospels at one of the English monasteries, and pressed it into Svanhildr’s hand. She admired it for a few moments before adding the bauble to her treasure necklace, and finally Sigurðr understood from where the great variety of her charms had come. Everywhere.

They drank ale and wine late into the night until Sigurðr, too drunk to stumble home, passed out on one of the benches that lined the walls. Here he lay, until awakened by the sounds of a fight-or so he thought, in the disoriented moments before he realized he was overhearing the coupling of his hosts.

Einarr thrust brutally into his wife from behind, his hands pulling back her hips. It appeared that Svanhildr was desperately trying to escape, and she was, but not really: it was part of their game. When she finally managed to break free, Einarr grabbed her kicking legs and flipped her over. When he entered her from on top, she dragged her fingernails across his back, carving streaks of blood into his flesh. She bit his neck so hard that he had to pull her head away by a fistful of hair. She barked in pain, then smiled wickedly and told her husband that he smelled like old fish and fucked like a girl. Einarr growled that she wasn’t going to be able to walk straight come the morning.

It took a long time for Sigurðr to fall back asleep.

When he woke again, it was clear that Einarr-teeth marks ringing his throat-had already washed the stench from his body in the nearest hot spring. Bragi was running around, reacquainting himself with his father, while Svanhildr-bruises running down her arms-implored the boy to keep his voice down as she patiently untangled Einarr’s hair with a whalebone comb. Every once in a while, she threw her arms around him from behind to whisper, “Ég elska Þig. Ég elska Þig. Ég elska Þig.” I love you. I love you. I love you.

When Sigurðr exaggerated a yawn to signal that he was awake, Svanhildr jumped up from her husband and went to get a bucket of fresh water so their guest could wash himself. Even before she had brought it over, Bragi had launched himself into Sigurðr’s arms. By now, his vocabulary had improved and he squealed with joy: “Uncle Sig!”

It was not long after that Einarr, for the second time, extended an offer that would change Sigurðr’s life: this time, to join the Viking crew. As Einarr explained, the long voyages were boring and he missed his life back home; perhaps the company of a friend would help ease that.

The offer was not without appeal, because Sigurðr often feared he was not enough of a man. In the mornings, he jumped into water and scavenged for dead animals; in the afternoons, he worked as an assistant; when he felt lonely, he helped another man’s wife with domestic chores. Sigurðr only promised to think about it but he already knew that he would accept the offer, and not least of all because Einarr had called him friend.

Sigurðr soon found himself being considered by the Vikings. There was some dissent-whispered rumors that Sigurðr was fuðflogi, a man who flees in horror when faced with the prospect of sexually servicing a woman-but no one wanted to offend Einarr. When one’s existence depends upon the longboat, it is inadvisable to upset the master carpenter. Besides, the Vikings believed there was nothing inherently wrong with queer feelings in any case, so long as one was the aggressor. The man who would submit himself to another in sex might also do so in other matters, like battle, but there was no evidence that Sigurðr had ever surrendered to another man, only the suggestion that he might not mind doing so. After a few tests of Sigurðr’s strength and skill with weapons, he was accepted on a trial expedition down the English coast.

The ship was an imposing thing, with cowhide shields and woolen sails, at its head a fierce carved serpent. They steered by the sun and the stars, the Vikings sitting on empty chests that would be full by the time they came home. It was clear that there were members of the Viking crew who relished the fight to come. They would prepare for the siege with chants, by slapping each other across the face, by cutting their own skin to whet their blades’ thirst for blood. Some would even imagine themselves as possessed by animal spirits, and aided the process by taking large mouthfuls of berserkjasveppur-berserker mushrooms-before hitting the English shore.

Einarr advised Sigurðr not to bother. He had used the mushrooms on his first raid, but they only disoriented him. However, he did confess he sometimes used them back in his workshop when he lacked inspiration for his carving. After a few mushrooms, he said, it was easy to envision the flowing designs that elude a man while sober.

Sigurðr soon discovered that the fighting came easily to him and that it was a simple task to overpower the English; they would mostly just hand over the loot in an effort to have done with it, especially the monks. The raids were a great success and Sigurðr, with Einarr’s help, acquitted himself well. He was invited for a second run, then a third, and after that he became a regular crew member. For the first time in his life, Sigurðr felt that he belonged. He’d moved from having no family to having two-Einarr’s, and a fraternity of brothers-and he believed that his newly earned manliness would, at the end of his days, allow him to enter Valhalla.

So it went for years. In the intervals between the raids, Sigurðr and Einarr practiced their weapons and improved their woodworking partnership. Einarr’s carving became ever more imaginative, perhaps because of the ale he sipped with increasing regularity or the mushrooms he took when in particular need of inspiration. Sigurðr’s skill with paint likewise progressed. The men spent most days together and, usually, on each new day they liked each other better than they had on the previous one.

It was inevitable, of course, that Sigurðr fell in love with Einarr. It was no longer simply lust’s first bloom, but something deeper and truer and better. It was equally inevitable that Einarr knew, but he had become an expert at pretending not to notice Sigurðr’s occasionally lingering looks. This is how they dealt with it: by acting as if it didn’t exist. Nothing good could come from talking about it, so they didn’t, and it hung between them like a long night with a dawn that never came.

As for Svanhildr, her love for Einarr also grew with each year; however, the excitement of his Viking way of life gave way to the harsh reality of his absences, and she became moody in the weeks leading up to each raiding expedition. Then came one time that was worse than any that had come before. She snapped whenever Einarr asked for a refilled frost-cup, berated the gods for no apparent reason, and even broke down into tears when Bragi scraped his knee while playing with a toy sword.

When Einarr could no longer stand it, he grabbed her shoulders and shook her until she gave up her silence.

“The problem is you,” she said. “And your trips, when I’m with child.”

A smile spread across Einarr’s face.

“Stop that! I’m not supposed to be pregnant again,” she lamented. “I’m old.”

“But not too old,” said Einarr. “Apparently.”

On the night before the men were to leave, Svanhildr served them smoked pork and her latest ale but barely spoke. The following morning, she did not accompany Einarr to the shore. She just slapped him once across the mouth at their front door to say goodbye.

The raids went as they always did. The reputation of the Vikings was almost enough to win any fight before a sword was lifted and by the time they approached their final target, their ship was loaded heavily. Perhaps they had grown complacent, because they were less prepared than usual. The English village had been attacked many times without difficulty, but recently the townspeople had learned some methods to defend themselves in an attempt to restore their pride. They didn’t expect to defeat the Vikings, but they desperately wanted to take a few of the intruders down.

As the Vikings poured out of their boat and across the sand, there came an unexpected exclamation of arrows across the sky. Sigurðr had a good eye; he spotted one arrow that posed a particular threat. He readied himself to move out of its path but then realized that if he did so, the arrow would hit the man behind him.

Einarr.

And so he did not move.

The arrow cut through the pelts across Sigurðr’s chest and he fell to the ground with a sharp yell, his fingers wrapped around the shaft.

After their initial surprise, the Vikings quickly regained control and the village fell to the attackers, as it always did. But the battle no longer involved Einarr Einarsson or Sigurðr Sigurрsson, who were back on the shore. The arrow was lodged deep in Sigurðr’s chest, embedded past the barb, and could not be pulled out without ripping the wound open.

Sigurðr knew this. He was afraid but gathered his courage even as he felt his eyes glazing over like ice forming on idle oars. “Einarr?”

“Yes.”

“I am dying.”

“You are not.”

“Remember me.”

“How could I forget a man,” Einarr replied, “so stupid that he believes he’s dying from a flesh wound?”

“Einarr?”

“What?”

“There is something I need to tell you.”

“You’re talkative for a dying man.”

“No,” Sigurðr insisted. “Ég elska—"

Einarr cut him off. “All this prattling makes you sound like a woman. Save your strength.”

The look on Einarr’s face let Sigurðr know that the discussion was finished, so he closed his eyes and let his friend carry him back onto the longboat. There Einarr cut away the flesh around the arrow’s shaft, and Sigurðr howled in agony with each slice. When the trench had been dug wide enough, Einarr used tongs to pull out the arrowhead and then held it up so Sigurðr, barely conscious, could see the meaty fibers that clung to it.

“Svan must have fed you well,” Einarr said. “There is fat near your heart.”

Through the return trip, Einarr washed the bandages and checked Sigurðr’s wound for infection but it seemed to be, if not healing, at least not getting worse. Almost before Sigurðr knew it, he awoke to the sight of Svanhildr holding out a bowl of leek and onion soup.

“The warmth will be good for you,” she said.

“I can leave. It is not wise for a sick man to be in the home of a pregnant woman.”

She seemed amused. “You are family, and we will hear of no such thing.”

“But the baby…”

“Drink up. If I can smell the onions through your wounds, I’ll know your insides have been damaged.”

Over the following days Einarr and Bragi prayed to the goddess of healing, and Svanhildr continued to tend Sigurðr’s wounds. The local healer blessed a number of whalebone runes in exchange for one of Einarr’s best chests, and scattered them around the bench on which Sigurðr slept.

It seemed to work; Sigurðr’s wound remained onion free. The first thing he did, when it was obvious he would live, was head into the workshop to bore a hole through one of the healing runes. This, he handed over to Svanhildr.

“I would be honored,” he said, “if you added this to your treasure necklace. You don’t have to, but-”

She cut his sentence short by throwing her arms around him, and nodding vigorously.

The recovery was not easy. Sigurðr had difficulty lifting his arms and occasionally there were shooting pains when he least expected them, but he soon grew tired of being looked after. He joined Einarr on his latest project, a boat intended to take Bragi into the coves for fishing. He was determined to paint every inch of it; such decoration was not necessary, by any means, but it felt good to have a brush in his hand again. The job dragged on for far too long, but Einarr never once complained about his friend’s slowness.

Svanhildr’s pregnancy progressed without difficulty, despite her advanced years for such an adventure. When she went into labor, young Bragi ran to fetch the midwife while the men stayed behind to comfort her. Another boy, healthy and beautiful and named Friрleifr, soon joined the family.

When it appeared certain that the child would survive, the men decided to drink to their good fortune. Even Bragi was allowed to stay up late and down a number of frost-cups filled with strong ale; since he now had a younger brother to watch over, his father contended that it was time for him to start drinking like a man.

The room was aglow from the longfire and the blubber lamps, and Einarr laughed as his boy-now, he noted proudly, his older boy-stumbled to his sleeping bench on wobbly legs. “No, not quite a man yet,” he teased, while Sigurðr called out that the ale would put hair on Bragi’s chest. Or, at least, hair on his tongue the following morning.

Within minutes the boy was snoring and Einarr, satisfied that his wife and new baby were also safely asleep, retreated to his workshop. He returned with a small bag that he tossed to Sigurðr; inside were a number of dried mushrooms. “Now we should truly celebrate. The gods smile upon us.”

Each man ate a couple of the berserkjasveppur-Sigurðr didn’t like the texture, but was never one to refuse his friend-before Einarr dumped the remainder into the ale bowl on the longfire. “We will boil the rest. It doesn’t taste good, but the effect…”

As they sipped late into the night, Einarr tried to describe the beauty of the free-flowing lines that floated all around him, and Sigurðr found himself laughing at Einarr’s every attempt. A few times Svanhildr lifted her head confusedly at one of Sigurðr’s exclamations, but settled back into sleep without a word. The men drank until the mushroom bowl was empty, and then ate the soggy remains at its bottom.

“It was good when you gave Svan the rune for her necklace,” Einarr said with a slur. “I wish I’d thought of it.”

“She looked after me,” said Sigurðr. “As did you.”

“It was time for her to have something of you around her neck.”

“I love,” said Sigurðr, “her.”

“I know.”

“Bragi,” added Sigurðr. “Bragi, I love, too.”

“I have something for you.” Einarr once again retreated to his workshop, and this time he returned with the arrowhead that had entered Sigurðr’s body. He sat down heavily, closer to Sigurðr than before. “Give me your necklace.”

“I didn’t know…” Sigurðr murmured. “I didn’t think you’d ever noticed it.”

“I knew of it from the first, but was reminded when I cut this”-he held up the arrowhead-“from your chest.”

Sigurðr handed over the leather strap, and when it was in his fingers, Einarr twisted it around and said, “It looks just like the day I wrapped Sigurðrsnautr with it.”

Sigurðr stared intently into the fire, unable to meet his friend’s eyes, as Einarr slipped the arrowhead onto the necklace. Then he held it out for Sigurðr to take.

Sigurðr started to reach for it, but then changed his mind and bowed slightly instead. Einarr hesitated momentarily, and then slipped the necklace over Sigurðr’s head. Sigurðr could feel the hand brushing up against his hair, perhaps even grazing the nape of his neck. After all his years of imagining Einarr’s fingers there, they finally were.

They paused a moment, eyes on each other.

Sigurðr leaned in a bit, and Einarr did not pull back. They were so close. Sigurðr cleared his throat, which felt clogged with boiled ale and fungus, and his voice cracked when he released the words he had waited so many years to say. “Ég elska Þig."

Einarr narrowed his eyes a little, but otherwise his expression did not change.

Sigurðr leaned in a little further, and still Einarr did not pull away. So Sigurðr closed the remainder of the distance, settled his mouth to Einarr’s, and kissed him.

Einarr did not react. Sigurðr read this as acceptance, and kissed harder.

Then Sigurðr felt Einarr pull back, followed by an excruciating thud at the side of his head. The blow sent him toppling off the bench and he looked up just in time to see Einarr jumping forward, leg swinging. The kick caught Sigurðr full in the ribs and drove all the breath from his lungs. Using his sword arm, Einarr drove one punch to the center of Sigurðr’s stomach, and followed that with more. The attack was uncoordinated, heavy on frenzy and short on strategy, and mostly the blows missed.

Sigurðr tried to retreat but Einarr drove his shoulder into his chest, sending Sigurðr sprawling into one of the lamps, knocking it over. He tried to use the momentum to roll away, but Einarr followed with more wild fists. So many blows, so fast, and everywhere-into Sigurðr’s jaw, off his shoulder, to his throat, and at the most tender place on his chest where the arrow had entered. He could barely breathe, both from the violence of the attack and the fact it was happening at all.

The baby. Friрleifr was now howling in the dragon crib, aware that something was terribly wrong in the world he barely knew. Svanhildr had jumped up and was screaming at her husband to stop, and Bragi stumbled off his sleeping bench, confused both by the fight and by the ale that still ran through his veins. He could not quite control his legs, and the floor seemed to lurch like a boat deck during a storm.

Einarr was beyond any understanding of the yelling voices. Whatever demons the berserkjasveppur were making him see, he was fighting them as if they were the only real things in the room.

Sigurðr did not fight back with the conviction that one would have expected. His injuries limited his physical ability, true, but it was more than that: when he saw the stumbling boy Bragi and heard Svanhildr’s screams, he simply lost the will. He became aware, not consciously but nonetheless completely, that his moment of weakness was a betrayal of those closest to him, the family that had taken in a confused boy and given him the life of a man. In one lustful moment, Sigurðr had crossed the unspoken line he and Einarr had spent more than a decade constructing.

So Sigurðr allowed his body to go limp; he would let Einarr punch that line back into existence.

When Svanhildr saw Sigurðr give up, she was afraid for his life, and turned away from her path to the baby’s dragon cradle. She grabbed at Einarr’s right arm when it was drawn back for another blow, and her husband automatically spun around with his left fist. It connected heavily, sending Svanhildr sprawling headfirst into a pile of lumber.

Bragi knew better than to engage his father directly; a boy who still played with toy swords was no match for a Viking. The beating of his uncle Sig terrified him, but Bragi could also see a greater danger: whale blubber had spilled out of the knocked-over lamp and ignited a pile of wood shavings, and the flames were spreading.

Bragi began yelling that the room was on fire, but even this was not enough to bring his father back. Einarr’s fists, still inaccurate but unfailing in endurance, continued to rain down upon Sigurðr’s body and there was nothing in the attacker’s face but fearful rage.

The benches along the walls caught fire and those flames reached up to grab at the birch twigs that stuck out of the walls. There would be no stopping the blaze and-worst, Bragi saw-it was headed towards his mother, who lay motionless where she had fallen. There was blood leaking from her forehead, into eyes that were no longer open.

Bragi shook his mother, but without response. When he realized she could not be woken, he hooked his hands into her armpits and tensed his legs. He pulled with all his strength, but he was still too drunk and too small and he could only jerk her haltingly, a few feet at a time. Still, he would get her out. He had to.

As Bragi dragged Svanhildr towards the door, Einarr continued his merciless attack. Sigurðr could no longer have fought back even if he had wanted: his face was bloody pulp, many of his ribs had snapped, and his legs twitched with each connecting blow. Still, he was able to spit a few words through his broken teeth.

“Fire, Einarr,” he sputtered. “Wife! Bragi!”

He kept repeating the words until they finally made it through. Einarr stopped his fists and looked around confusedly, like a man who did not know where he has woken up. He saw that Bragi was at the longhouse’s entrance with Svanhildr but could go no further, stopped by a barrier of flames.

He bolted to them and kicked open the burning door. He grabbed Bragi and threw him out, but he could not do the same with Svanhildr-her unconscious deadweight made that impossible-so he lifted her over his shoulder and put his head down. The only way out was through; they might get burned, but they would live.

Sigurðr, lying shattered on the floor, saw Einarr and Svanhildr disappear through the curtain of flames and knew that he would never be able to follow. He could not imagine moving a few feet, much less the distance needed to escape, and thought: So this is how it ends. In flames.

The fire crackled around him like laughter, and he expected this would be the last sound that he ever heard. Then he heard the baby crying.

The edges of Sigurðr’s tunic were ablaze and his skin felt as if it was starting to bubble. With a handful of broken fingers, he put out those flames; he might have burned his hands while doing so, but he couldn’t feel them and it didn’t matter anyway. Blood seeped out of the corners of his eyes and into his beard, but he wiped it away and began to crawl towards Friрleifr’s cries.

Outside, in the glow of the longhouse, Svanhildr had regained consciousness and grabbed hysterically at Bragi. When she realized that Friрleifr was not with them, she threw her arms out and broke into screams. She began lurching towards the longhouse, and then it was Bragi who held her; he would not allow his mother to enter an inferno it was obvious she could not escape.

Einarr, his wits regained, also heaved his body towards the burning building. His heart urged him to burst inside, but his most basic instincts would not allow it. Unable to do anything else, incapable of moving towards the fire or away from it, he fell to his knees and buried his face in his hands. Svanhildr continued screaming at the burning house and Bragi continued to hold her back, until it was apparent that her rage was no longer directed at the building. The boy released his mother and she ran to Einarr, punching and kicking him until she dropped exhausted at his side.

Einarr never once lifted a hand to Svanhildr until she collapsed, and then he raised it only to reach out to her. The moment his open palm touched her, she jerked away, and he knew not to try again.

The following morning, the longhouse was little more than a blight of glowing embers strewn among the foundation stones. Others had arrived-farmers, Vikings, tradespeople-and had begun to comb the ruins. Einarr wanted to do anything but this, but knew he must.

He headed to the spot where the dragon cradle had last sat, but it was no more: there was only a pile of burnt sticks, and one smoldering dragonhead post that had not been incinerated with the rest.

A cry went up from one of the searchers: Sigurðr’s body had been found. It was not where the beating had occurred, but perhaps a dozen body lengths away. The corpse was so badly charred that Einarr could not even recognize it as his friend; it was the shape of a human body, but melted to the bones.

The sight sickened Einarr, but the location puzzled him. Rather than heading for the door, Sigurðr had pulled himself into the corner of the house where the water trench ran. This might have made sense if the opening was large enough to escape through-but it was far too small. Sigurðr hadn’t even opened the floorboards; he lay on top of them.

There was a noise.

Einarr and the men standing around the scorched body looked from face to face, as if to confirm that they were not mad, that there was indeed sound coming from a dead man.

Soft. A whimpering.

Underneath. The noise was coming from below the floorboards.

Two men pulled Sigurðr’s remains to one side, the skull puffing out a breath of ashes, and Einarr began ripping up the planks. They were scorched but not burned through; it was clear that Sigurðr’s body had acted as a buffer against the flames. When the boards were removed, Einarr saw that there in the flowing water, wrapped in his swaddling blanket and tied securely with Sigurðr’s arrowhead necklace, was the newborn. The child Friрleifr was shivering and half submerged, but alive.

Einarr scooped his son out and held him tighter than he ever had before.

In the days that followed, Einarr and Bragi spent all their time at Sigurðr’s favorite fjord, digging a massive hole. When it was large enough, they enlisted the help of the Viking crew to carry Bragi’s boat-the one that Sigurðr had painted so brilliantly-to the gravesite. While it was being lowered, some of the Vikings grumbled that Sigurðr was not so important a warrior as to deserve such a fine boat grave, but no one dared speak such a thought aloud. They simply left Einarr and his family to bid farewell to the man who had saved their child.

Beside Sigurðr’s body in the boat, they laid a number of items: his favorite frost-cup and the household’s ale-goose, both pulled from the ashes; his paintbrushes and pigments; Sigurðrsnautr; and the single unburned dragonhead from Friрleifr’s cradle. Then Svanhildr removed her treasure necklace and placed it gently across Sigurðr’s withered chest, keeping only the healing rune that he had given her.

Svanhildr and Einarr also considered placing the arrowhead necklace into the grave, but ultimately decided against it. It would go to Friрleifr, a talisman to protect the child as he grew into a man.

Einarr filled in the grave by himself. Bragi and Svanhildr, the baby clutched tightly to her bosom, stayed with him as he worked through the night. Just as the sun was rising, the last shovelful was put into place and Einarr slumped exhausted, to look out over the ocean at the sun rising like the condemning eye of Урinn. The boy Bragi had fallen asleep and Einarr, unable to keep the awful truth to himself any longer, confessed to Svanhildr how the fight had started.

When he was finished, Svanhildr touched her husband for the first time since the longhouse was burning. She couldn’t offer any words of forgiveness, but she took his hand into her own.

“I don’t know why I did it,” said Einarr, tears running down his face. “I loved him.”

They sat not speaking for a long time, Einarr weeping, until finally Svanhildr spoke. “Friрleifr is a good name,” she said, “but perhaps not so good as Sigurðr.”

Einarr squeezed her fingers and nodded, and then broke into new sobs.

“It is proper that we never forget,” said Svanhildr, looking down on the sleeping face of the rescued baby at her breast. “From this day forward, this child will carry our friend’s name.”