He was pulled upright. Vali’s bones felt terribly heavy, like things excavated rather than lifted. Then he was staring into a familiar and furious face.
‘You’ll pay for this,’ said Forkbeard. ‘I should have known never to trust the Horda. No wonder they sent you, their most useless son. Well, we’ll have your blood anyway. The prince wants death. Well, we’ll oblige him, won’t we, boys? Take the weapons from the other spies.’
Five spears were pointed at Bragi as Vali’s arms were pinned behind his back.
‘Get him down to the hall. I want the assembly there in short order. He can’t die without their say-so. This is not just an execution — make sure everyone knows that — it’s an act of war.’
Vali was kicked forward up the hill, still gasping and retching. His mind was full of what he had seen beneath the waters: the wolf, the cave, but most of all the memory of Adisla, himself and the wolfman, all twisted and misshapen under the influence of that dreadful rune. Their destinies were linked, he knew that, and the knowledge brought him comfort as well as dread.
24
There were voices raised against Vali’s execution. Arnhvatr said how he had organised the defence; Hakir spoke of his bravery in the line. But Forkbeard’s charges were strong ones.
The assembly took place two days after Vali had been taken from the pool, but the summons had travelled quickly and only those from the most distant farms did not attend. People were drawn into Eikund to hear of the Danish attack and to see the spy Forkbeard had caught.
The king was a blunt man and laid out his case bluntly. First, Vali had known of the raid and had called in the attackers when Forkbeard was away. Second, he had killed Drengi because of his jealousy over Adisla. That could not be denied, as the boy Loptr had seen him with the axe in his hand, standing over the body. He had also been heard on the Hogsback telling Drengi he should die. Third, when the enemy attacked he had tried to make off with a quantity of plate, a plan undone by the very people he was seeking to help. He knew that, though he had brought the berserks to Eikund, they would not recognise him in their rage and, fearful of their swords, he had fled. Fourth, in the wall he had refused to take up weapons and had even saved one of the invaders from death. When it became obvious his crimes would be uncovered, he had gone to the drowning pool to try to conjure magic to save his skin. An additional point, if additional points were needed, was that the traitor could even speak the language of the enemy. Why had he bothered to learn that, if not to trade with hostile powers?
Vali could not speak. His throat had clamped shut after his ordeal in the pool, and his mind with it. He had taken something with him from those waters, a pressure in his skull, a weight that seemed to make his head too heavy for his body. He had stepped close to something, he felt, something hidden within him, and had pushed the normal world away.
The assembly seemed to pass as in a dream, its significance not quite graspable. There were faces, some familiar, some unknown: hard-eyed farmers’ wives staring at him in accusation, warriors, some friendly, some inscrutable, some hostile. Many people were sympathetic to him but a battle is a crucible of confusion. Those at the port when the raiders arrived had no coherent picture of exactly what had happened. Forkbeard made sense of it for them — interpreted the actions of the day, named the heroes and the cowards.
Vali’s thoughts seemed obscured, glimpsed only in blurs, like the light of the day through the waters of a mire. He had never been so cold. He shivered and his flesh was pale and blotchy. The voices around him said it showed his weak-hearted nature.
Each man who had been with Forkbeard at the regional assembly said Vali was a coward and a turncoat. The warriors’ shame at being absent when the Danes attacked redoubled the venom of their accusations.
Forkbeard knew he had let his people down, been too easily deceived, lured into complacency by years of peace. He needed a scapegoat, and Vali — an outsider and a man who didn’t fit the heroic mould — provided him with one. Vali’s mistake had been that he hadn’t realised it wasn’t enough to act heroically. You needed to talk heroically too, show relish for arms and slaughter, not laugh at heroes and spend your time chattering with women at the hearth. When Vali had led the defence, deceived the berserks and won the victory, many could hardly believe the evidence of their own eyes. By the time Forkbeard had finished bludgeoning his message home, they didn’t.
Queen Yrsa had unwittingly endangered her son too. She made a mistake that Authun in his right mind would never have committed. Wary of the Danes’ capacity for deception, she had not gone to the regional assembly and doubled the watch on her shores. She had known there would be an attack on the Rygir but suspected the Danes might have more than one target or, if they were successful in Rogaland, would push on to Horda territory. The Horda’s absence at the assembly — not even a jarl was sent to represent them — was all the evidence Forkbeard needed.
Vali was a spy, said the king, a spy who had been placed in his court from his earliest years, accompanied and tutored in deceit by the scheming Bragi.
Vali’s old tutor was next to him, beaten and bound. Bragi shouted his denials but Forkbeard had him struck down. The vote was taken. It went badly. Vali was seized by Forkbeard’s guards and dragged outside.
A pit had been dug up on the hill, twice as deep as a man is tall and just wide enough to stop anyone wedging themselves against the walls and climbing out. Vali noticed none of this as he was thrown into it — just the fall and a sensation of breathlessness. The pit was wet. The rain had stopped but there was two fingers’ depth of water at the bottom. His clothes had been torn to nothing during his struggles in the mire and he was cold. Still he was exhausted and he fell into a dead sleep, dreamless.
Vali heard voices at the top of the pit. Argument and struggle. Then something large and heavy landed across him with a thump.
‘Bastards,’ said Bragi. Vali shoved the old man off him and he rolled away, cursing. ‘I have demanded a trial,’ said Bragi. He was fuming. He was indifferent to anything but the injustice he had suffered and, it seemed to Vali, had been complaining of it almost as he fell.
Vali glanced up at the square of stars above him and looked around him at the walls of the pit. He swallowed. There was an awful ache in his throat and one in his head to keep it company. He remembered how he had once stood on Bragi’s shoulders to gain access to the church. That was their way out of the pit. He was sure he could reach the lip to pull himself up. Did he have enough strength, though? A face appeared against the moonlit sky, almost as if on cue to render his question meaningless. There were guards. All he would get for trying to climb out was the butt of a spear in his face.
‘A trial is the least I am owed.’ Bragi was actually thumping the walls.
‘A trial?’ said Vali. His voice was rough and it was painful to speak.
‘Not that thing in the hall,’ said Bragi. ‘A trial by combat — holmgang, the proper way.’
‘You can’t challenge the king to fight. The assembly has decided.’ The prince spoke slowly and quietly to save his throat.
‘I have challenged him and he will provide a champion,’ said Bragi.
Vali leaned back against the wall. There was an acrid scent in his nostrils. He recognised it. Down on the beach they were burning the dead. Glimpses of what he had done came back to him.
‘I killed Orri,’ he said.
‘Yes.’
‘Then I am a kinslayer.’
‘You were bewitched by the mire. And he attacked you, remember. He was coming for you with a knife at the time.’
‘You would make a good advocate before the lawspeaker,’ said Vali. ‘I killed him. He was my kin.’
They sat for a while. Vali tried to come to terms with his crime. He couldn’t. He deserved to die for that alone. Then he said, ‘If you win, you’ll be free. I suppose it’s as logical a way out of this mess as any.’
‘I knew you would see it that way, lord,’ said Bragi, ‘and I am pleased to say I have issued a challenge on your behalf, as your trusted vassal.’
