The Island House (39 page)

Solwaer pointed to Bear, and four of his followers leapt; the youth was brought down in a heaving melee.

“Bear!” Signy struggled from Gunnhilde’s grasp, but the old woman grabbed her tunic.

The sound of cloth as it rips is very loud in a nearly empty space, and Gunnhilde wailed as the fabric tore; as it fell from Signy’s shoulders, the girl’s chest was exposed.

Shocked silence was filled by a man’s laughter.

It was Solwaer.

Clapping, he strolled forward. “Truly, Abbot, I do not know when I was last so well entertained.” He stood over the huddled novice. Perhaps he was trying to assist with the tunic, but Signy knocked his hands away, sobbing.

Solwaer gazed at her benevolently. “It seems, Abbot, that you have troubles with your young people just as I do.”

The girl crouched on the floor, cradled by Gunnhilde.

Solwaer sighed. “It’s the same everywhere, isn’t it? How to keep girls from misbehaving when ungelded bucks sniff around.”

Bear, pinioned, growled and spat. Part of his tunic now served as a gag.

Cuillin gathered what rags of composure remained to him. “You have shamed us all!” he bellowed at Signy. “And you . . .” He hissed at Bear, tried to stare him down—at least the girl was crying, that was something—“you are banished from this place and—”

Too late, Gunnhilde saw Bear heave his captors aside and grasp the candle stand beside the altar.

Signy screamed as they both saw the long spike connect with the side of the Abbot’s head. Perhaps the tallow lessened the blow, but Cuillin was still swept sideways and down the altar steps. His head hit the floor as he rolled away, the sound between a
pop
and a
thock.

Solwaer jumped forward and grabbed Bear, the knife in his fist pressed against the young man’s windpipe—so hard that a fat, swelling thread of blood appeared.

As Bear struggled, he dropped the candle stand. It fell beside the prostrate body of the Abbot with an outrageous crash just as the door behind creaked open and the community streamed in half-asleep. The first of the monks nearly fell as they tried to avoid Gunnhilde and Signy, kneeling in their path.

Solwaer’s men swarmed over Bear as their leader stood back, knife in hand. “Sister, I shall rid you of the Demon—tell the Abbot, when he wakes—but I shall return and will be delighted to receive more instruction then.”

“Bear!” Signy’s long wail was swallowed as the west door closed behind Solwaer’s back.

Pandemonium broke out in the church. How could God permit such things to be?

For Bear, the journey from the island to Portsol—the old settlement had a new name now, one that increased the Chieftain’s standing in the scattered settlements of the western shore—was passed in a pain-fog. He floated in and out of consciousness, in and out, and heard bits of what was said. “Not worth a ransom, is he?” and “He’ll be gelded. Too much fight in this one.” And “. . . goes there, empty-handed, comes back with a free slave. That’s Solwaer. Monks better count their fingers next time.”

Bear drifted on the laughter. He remembered things from long ago. He remembered the sound and feel of a keel driven up on the shingle of Signy’s clan settlement. He remembered, too, the wooden trackway from the beach to the houses.

This time he was dragged because he could not walk; he still left a trail of blood. Some things don’t change.

Bear opened blackened eyes. The round huts were gone. Now, banked around the base of the great cliff, there were many buildings, some made of stone. Some huts had even begun to straggle away from the main settlement, as if to escape before they were noticed.

And, jutting into the dangerous, narrow channel, was the greatest change of all. Cutting out from the land, a long arm of black rock rose above the water. Solwaer was indeed a powerful man if he could cause such things to be. Many slaves had dragged those stones into place. Bear closed his eyes. He would not become one of them.

“Here.” They pushed him through a low door, and he collapsed. Falling, falling down. He knew nothing more than blank dark.

It was evening. Far away, someone was screaming at him, taunting. Bear woke thirsty, his belly griped and hollow. No food for a very long time, that was it.

The voice howled insults as it called him from the dark.
Filth, Monks’ whore.
Something hit him, slicing and vicious, across the shoulders. A whip thong, it bit hard, gouged flesh to the bone.

Bellowing, Bear leapt up and struck out blindly, but the whip
caught him again. Across the face, his damaged face. That horror destroyed any ability Bear might have had to think.

Solwaer’s foolish servant had not thought to find a berserker in the hut, and soon he lay dying, one eye gouged from his head. When the man did not return, several others were sent, but howls from inside the prison slowed their approach. It was only the final scream of their companion that made them rush the door. It took all four to hold the captive and still they could not pry him away from the corpse until he had pounded Whip Man’s head into a mush of blood and brains.

He woke quickly this time, came back from wherever their blows had sent him, and shook his head to clear blood dripping into his eyes. He would stay awake, first, and then, he would remain alive.

Bear sat up. Pulled by two sinewy slaves, the cart he sat in was jolting down a narrow street that stank of shit. People of the settlement pressed back against the house walls as they passed. Solwaer ruled with fear, it seemed. But the blood had stopped, and Bear could see their destination if he blinked hard. There was a clear space among the huts, and men stood in groups, some holding torches that flared and guttered. They were waiting for something. For someone. Him.

The cart rocked and stopped in front of a hall. Constructed from fir logs and the same black rock as the breakwater, it was, at best, functional. Bear remembered Signy’s home. The carcass of that first building existed here, but it had been swamped by this ugly structure.
But ugly is powerful.

Bear was comforted by that thought. He looked down at his fingers—bound so tightly they were turning blue; there was blood beneath his nails. He’d killed a stranger with nothing more than these hands. Cuillin had been right to fear him. The Abbot had
sensed what Bear had not known for so long. He understood himself in a new way now. He was dangerous.

A spear nudged between the slats of the cart. It pricked Bear cautiously between the shoulder blades, a goad. From a safe distance, men taunted him with drawn swords. They were taking no chances. “Up!”

Solwaer’s men did not know Bear understood a good part of their language. Many of the words they used were Signy’s local dialect, and this was an advantage Bear would guard as long as he could.

“Up!”
The word was bellowed, but one of the guards gestured also, waving his sword arm toward the sky.
“Up, slave. Lump. Stupid ox!”
The man’s voice said he was nervous.

Bear nearly smiled. Never presume your enemy is stupid. He stood, as if he had just understood. The cart rocked. He was pleased to see how much bigger he was than Solwaer’s men; living on Findnar had been hard, but he’d stolen food for years and gathered a lot more from the cliffs, the sea, and the meadows; he’d eaten better than the monks and was taller than any of them, and so it was here. His escort edged back farther when they saw the true size of Solwaer’s new slave.

Bear raised his bound arms. He did his best to look amiable and dull-witted, but his escort saw a demonic giant with the face of a bloodied monster. The biggest of Solwaer’s men gestured and pointed. “In there.”

Bear was happy to hear the quaver in his voice.

Inside, the hall was dim with smoke. Torches flared and spat burning resin around the perimeter, but for all the flame and crackle, light fought to penetrate gloom. Hanging from tie beams in the roof were wheels with oil lamps of red clay on the rims. These fared little better. The one bright glow came from the fire pit, and it was toward this that Bear was prodded. Women drew back into the shadows, clutching children as he passed, and men muttered. Bear saw fear in their eyes.

Perhaps I am a demon. Perhaps that is good.
He bared his teeth suddenly, a flash of white, and hissed. A frightened
waaaaaah
came from the women. Several of Solwaer’s men rushed forward, spears and swords held high.

“Our Lord takes his seat!”

There was a raised dais beyond the fire pit. On it stood a large wooden stool draped with rich pelts of fox and wolf and white winter hare. A man was standing beside the empty honor seat, and he held up one hand, announcing again, in a strong voice, “Lord Solwaer is in his hall.”

Curtains of ocher red hung over a doorway behind the dais. The man, Fiachna—Solwaer’s chief housecarl—pulled the hanging back, and Bear had his first sight of Solwaer since the violent blur in the Abbey church.

Since they were separated by a considerable space, Bear thought Solwaer must be a young man, but as the Chieftain sat, and Bear was shoved forward by the guard, he saw deep lines etched into Solwaer’s face and white streaks in his hair.

So, not young, not old.

Fiachna spoke again. “Solwaer, our Lord, sits in judgment on this man, who has murdered one of our comrades.”

Portsol’s Chieftain stared down at Bear. “You may think it is good that you are still alive here, in this hall. But I can promise that soon”—he smiled quite kindly, and those around the dais drew back; Solwaer famously smiled often but was no man’s friend—“soon, you will not think that breath in your chest, blood in your veins is good. To breathe will be pain, and your blood will find another home besides your heart. The floor beneath my feet.” Mothers covered the eyes of their excited children, and some left with the very youngest.

Solwaer paused as the crowd settled again. “But why do I waste my breath with this savage? An ignorant, dumb brute. An animal herder. And like an animal, he will be butchered when that is useful to his masters.”

Solwaer laughed loudly at his own joke, and merriment swept the hall. This was what they liked, a good show on a cold night.

Bear nodded, completely calm; he even chuckled with the crowd. “Lord? Perhaps I may speak?”

Silence preceded a rising babble. A good death, even of a slave, was a thing to be appreciated. This man had courage.

Solwaer held up his hand for silence. “Perhaps you understand what I say, but that will not help you. Speak, if you like—it will be the last exercise your tongue will have. With words, that is.” Another guffaw, happily echoed.

Bear did not acknowledge the taunt, and he did not blink as he stared at Solwaer.

The guard stirred uneasily. Though the slave was well bound, he had the air of a man preparing himself.

“And I say that I will meet death, when it comes, on my feet with my hands unbound. And my death will not be tonight.” This had the air of prophecy, and an interested ripple passed through the crowd. Perhaps the man was a shaman?

Solwaer frowned. “You are stupid after all. I shall choose the time and place of your extinction, not you, slave.”