15
The morning meal at the bald man's longhouse was simple but hardy, with stew, bread and meat freshly cooked over the meal-fire. Dvalinn ate his portions carefully. Erlandr ate like a berserker. The bald man barely touched his food at all, still excited about the wonderful valuables he'd bought. He asked about the history of each and about how Dvalinn had acquired them, but Dvalinn was in no mood to talk about the past. "I see, I see," the bald man would reply, hinting at some kind of dark secret shared between the two of them, "I won't say a word to anyone. You can count on that." The truth about the valuables was simple. Dvalinn had killed men and taken their belongings. The ones that looked the most valuable, he gathered in a sack that he carried with him. When he left the mainland, he took the sack and used it to pay whomever needed to be paid. The few items that were left he had traded yesterday for a cargo of ostensibly worthless everyday items. The bald man, plying him with food and drink, was delighted.
Drudge ate his meal, which consisted solely of stew, in the corner of the longhouse. He hadn't been included in the conversation.
Agata had left the longhouse after serving them and had never returned. "She's probably cavorting with that Kaspar freak," the bald man said with some derision after catching Dvalinn glancing at the door. "I told that boy that if I ever seem them together, I'll kill him with my bare hands. She's a good woman and it isn't right her being with a youth, especially one as queer as that." Still, it didn't seem to be the foremost thought on this mind.
After they finished eating, they grabbed the last of the supplies that Dvalinn had bought and carried them to the boat. Yesterday's supplies had taken up all the storage space under the large sheet of cloth, so these last bundles Erlandr placed loose on the deck. They handsomely took the place of Goll.
When the supplies were loaded, Erlandr and Dvalinn began pushing the boat onto the fjord.
"What are you standing there for?" the bald man shouted at Drudge. "Go on and help them!" He picked up a stick and threatened to smack the giant across the face with it. Dvalinn, watching out of the corner of his eye, saw the worst form of nobility: newly found, never earned. The bald man smiled from ear to ear.
With Drudge's help, they made the boat float. It was heavy with cargo but the wind was blowing strong. Dvalinn and Erlandr got in. "So long," Dvalinn shouted.
"If ever you find yourselves on this island, you are welcome in my home," the bald man shouted back.
Dvalinn doubted that very much, especially as Drudge lumbered aboard the boat and the bald man's expression melted off his face. "What's the meaning of this?" he screamed. "Get back here!"
Drudge turned to look at the horizon, the back of his head ignoring his former master. Erlandr looked at Dvalinn. "You're stealing a thrall?" he asked. There was a hint of disappointment in his voice.
The bald man was screaming obscenities from the shore.
"A man is not leather boot or a horse, to be stolen," Dvalinn said. "He decides his actions and his allegiances, and he suffers the consequences of both."
"It's unjust. The law—" Erlandr said.
"The law says you are a dead man, Erlandr. It is not just but it is lawful, written by men like Likvidr. Justice is a thing deeper, which you feel in your heart and can defend in your head," Dvalinn said. "Your presence on this boat is no more just than the presence of this man, Drudge."
The bald man became smaller and smaller until he merged with the shore and Dvalinn could no longer see him, and the wind had swallowed up his obscenities.
Soon they were on the sea.
Dvalinn kept the boat within sight of land until they passed the place where Birchwood Fjord had been. Now, only a few piles of unused building materials remained, overgrown and resembling burial mounds. "Rikard destroyed the settlement before he sailed," Drudge said.
"Why?" Erlandr asked.
"I do not know, but he had his reason. Rikard was a thoughtful man. I would have been proud to have sailed with him."
"You sail with us," Dvalinn said.
Drudge let out a laugh that rocked them upon the water. "And of that I am also proud."
They maneuvered the boat until it faced west. The wind filled their sail. Behind them, Greenland vanished, its grey mountains being the last to let go. The sea around them opened and Dvalinn felt the exhilaration of the uncharted, a paradoxical feeling that was much like the intense feeling by which he was sometimes overcome in battle: an indifference to life intertwined with a yearning for living in this, its ever-present and glorious moment.