The Adventures of Helgi the Viking

With only a few days to go before their departure, there were many last-minute jobs to do. The mast was now mounted in place and the ship loaded with ballast, but the rigging needed various adjustments and they still had to bend the newly patched sail to the yardarm. While Jorund worked on the rigging, reinforcing any lines that were worn or frayed, Audun worked down in the hold and Helgi fetched items of cargo to stow on board. He crossed back and forth between the storeroom and the jetty and pressed Kol into helping with the heavier things. The ship had to be provisioned with sacks of barley meal, casks of smoked meat, dried fish, fruit, nuts, and barrels of ale and fresh water. They planned to catch fish to stretch the rations.

Halfway through the morning, Hedin turned up to oversee the activity. He took one look at the hold and said all the heavy items would have to be redistributed because the weight was uneven. ‘A ship must be properly trimmed or else she’ll be unstable. Move the heavy barrels forward and the crates further aft; we need to lower the bow.’ Audun gave him a weary look and began again. Hedin did not offer to help but came down the hatch at regular intervals to inspect his progress. He made Audun move something every time. While Audun shifted the crates around, Hedin opened the lids and rummaged through the contents, counting them aloud, shaking his head and tutting to himself, as if he did not trust Audun’s calculations. By the end of the morning, Audun felt ready to explode. He slammed the last box into place and swung himself up onto the deck. He snatched up a caulking mallet and stared wildly about, pounding it against the palm of his hand. Then he marched across the deck and hammered savagely at a wooden peg that had worked its way loose in the hull.

Helgi kept an eye on him in case there was an outbreak of violence. Hedin’s mere presence was enough to irritate Audun these days. They were barely on speaking terms. Audun spent as much time as he could away from the Manor, working on the ship and eating at the Forge, and returning only to sleep at night, so as to avoid seeing him.

The arrival of Sam and Kormak, carrying a heavy wooden sea-chest between them, brought a welcome release in tension. First they had to find somewhere to put it and then Kormak dropped one end on his toe. That got them all laughing and fooling about. After a while Helgi decided it was safe to leave Audun to it. He went back to the Forge and had just let himself into the storeroom when Halfdan appeared in the doorway.

‘It’s high time we had a talk,’ his father said. ‘We’ll take a walk down to the sea.’

They walked in silence to the far end of the headland and descended the rough stairs that led down the side of the cliff to the driftwood beach. The beach was full of clamour—gulls and cormorants crowded the shore and bobbed on the water—but most of the seabirds took off when Helgi and his father walked out onto the shingle.

Helgi was glad that Grimnir hadn’t been invited along. It was impossible to talk easily or concentrate on anything when Grimnir was around, because he found himself constantly monitoring what Grimnir was doing. Helgi badly wanted to question Grimnir about the sword, but at the same time he did everything he could to avoid being left alone with him. He felt it would be terrible if he and Grimnir ever talked about the strange things they had in common. He did not want any kind of private bond to exist between them. Neither, it seemed, did Grimnir. He treated him just as he treated everyone else, with scrupulous politeness, and never made the slightest reference to the secrets they shared.

Helgi picked up a flat stone and sent it skimming across the water. It bounced five, six times—not bad. Halfdan sank down on a boulder. Helgi noticed how strained and tired his father looked; his body seemed to sag as he sat and his face looked grim and lined with age. He stood in a meek attitude before him and waited for him to speak.

‘We’ll be leaving as soon as preparations are complete and we have a fair wind. I don’t want us to miss the start of the raiding season,’ Halfdan said wearily. ‘Grimnir will organize a separate passage for you. There’s a ship sailing from Drangsnes, not far from Jon’s, in about a fortnight’s time. Grimnir will speak to the captain and make all the necessary arrangements. He’ll accompany you as far as Trondheim, where you’ll find us waiting. You won’t have to worry about a thing.’

Halfdan paused and rubbed his temples as if his head ached; then he looked up at Helgi and took a deep, shuddering breath.

‘Let me explain. I want you to go to Embla’s grandfather Jon, who lives north of here at Husavik, to collect something he is keeping for me—a curiosity, not valuable in itself, but precious to me nevertheless. I wish I hadn’t left it there now but Jon begged me to lend it to him for a while so he could study it. He’s a learned man with an interest in artefacts, and I was curious to find out more about it myself. I wish I’d asked her more about it at the time …’

His voice, which sounded husky, dried up altogether, and he cleared his throat loudly. Helgi knew at once that the artefact had something to do with his mother. That was why Halfdan had said he could only entrust the job to him. He was suddenly desperate to know more, but afraid to say anything. His father had never talked about this subject before because it stirred him so deeply.

‘Please, what is it you want me to collect, and what does it have to do with her … with my mother?’ he asked in a timid voice.

Halfdan’s face flushed at the mention of her as if he was furious or embarrassed. ‘It’s just a trinket … fastened with a pin, but she wore it round her neck like a talisman,’ he said. ‘Your mother gave it to me the last time I ever saw her. That was when she handed you over to me as well. You were a tiny baby, only a few months old, swaddled up in furs. She told me to look after you because she had a difficult journey to make, alone. She said she would be happier knowing you were with me than leaving you with her family. She wanted me to keep you safe, take you back home, and wait for her there. If she did not return—’

His voice convulsed and he could no longer speak; he averted his face and looked away out to sea. Helgi felt emotion rising in his own throat. He was sorry for the little baby.

After a long pause, Halfdan made an effort to recover his composure and continued with his story. ‘If she did not return, I was to get rid of the talisman—throw it into a lake on the mainland. It was wrapped up in an old skin cloth. She wanted you to have the cloth when you were older. There are some funny little drawings on it, and I suppose she thought they would amuse you.’ He looked guilty and uncomfortable. ‘I should have given it to you before now, but I wanted to know what it was before I passed it on to you. To make sure it was safe to handle … I just kept putting it off. I don’t like dredging up painful memories, and what with our recent troubles …’

Helgi stared at his father in disbelief. His mind was full of such turbulent feelings—astonishment, incomprehension, anger, excitement—he hardly knew how to begin.

‘All my life—ever since I can remember—I wanted to know about her,’ he spluttered, ‘and all the time you had these things and you never shared them with me!’

An irrepressible fury suddenly welled up within him.

‘Why?’ he cried, unconsciously moving closer to his father. ‘Why didn’t you tell me she had left me something? Because you wanted to keep her all to yourself—you wouldn’t share her with me! And I was too afraid to ask you about her,’ he added in a broken cry of bitter self-reproach. Tears of rage began to stream down his cheeks. It was as if a huge dam which had been filling for many years, had suddenly broken and the torrent had swept away all inhibition. He flew at his father and seized the front of his shirt and shook it with both fists. ‘You must tell me everything you know about her now! Everything—before you go! I need to know!’

There was a slight tussle as Halfdan tried to prise his hands away. ‘Perhaps I deserve your anger, but you would judge me less harshly if you knew how hard it’s been for me,’ he said through gritted teeth. ‘Not that I’m trying to justify my behaviour—only a coward would hide behind excuses.’ Halfdan gripped his son hard by the wrists until the pain brought Helgi to his senses and he stopped struggling. Trembling and breathing hard, he stared at his father and waited for an explanation.

Halfdan touched his cheek and shivered slightly. ‘You remind me of her,’ he said, frowning at Helgi as if this was somehow his fault. Then he got up and walked down to the water’s edge. Hurt and puzzled, Helgi watched him go. At length, he trailed after his father and stood a little way off, also looking out to sea.

‘Her name was Siiri,’ Halfdan said. ‘She was beautiful, very beautiful, slender with long dark hair. She wasn’t like the women at the trading post who spend their days gutting fish and gathering berries and never range far from their huts and tents. She was bolder than most men. She liked to ski and hunt with a bow. Once she even helped us track down a bear and we trapped it in a pit. I asked her many times to come back with me, but she wouldn’t leave her people. Her people—the mountain Finns—they’re very different to us. They are nomads and hunters and they have strange beliefs. There was a side to her that I never really understood. It was utterly typical of her that she wouldn’t tell me where she was going or why she had to go.’

There was a silence, broken only by the rattle of shingle as the seething foam spread towards them, lapped at the tips of their feet, and drained away as the ocean sucked in its breath again.

‘You should have gone with her,’ Helgi remonstrated, ‘to protect her when she made her difficult journey.’

‘Oh, I tried! She insisted on going alone but I followed her anyway; I left you at the camp and skied after her through the trees for several miles, but somehow I lost her. I looked for hours—days!—but I couldn’t even find her tracks. She’d tricked me. Gone. Vanished into thin air.’

His face darkened with fury and he clenched his fists; he spoke to himself in an impassioned whisper and seemed to have forgotten his son was there.

‘Gone, and yet still here.’ He laughed bitterly. ‘The woman won’t leave me alone. I’ve been grieving for so long now. The torment I suffer every day, the yearning to see her again—the terrible, raw, aching void that never heals, no matter how many years go by. She’s haunting me—there’s no other explanation for it! Sometimes I think it would be better to end it all and join her. And the worst thing is, I can’t forgive her … for inflicting this humiliation, this never-ending pain!’

Halfdan broke down completely. He turned away and walked back up the beach, where he sat down on a rock, his face buried in his hands. His whole body shook as he wept with wild and furious abandon. Horrified by this outpouring of grief and despair, Helgi fixed his eyes on a distant point on the horizon and waited nervously for his father’s agony to subside. He was glad no one else was around to witness the shameful scene.

He examined what he was feeling. Embarrassment, pity and contempt for his father, some residual anger. No devastating grief, nothing like that. Was it wrong to feel nothing?

After a while, Halfdan regained enough control to be able to look up, but he would not meet Helgi’s eye when Helgi came over and stood beside him. He spoke in a deadened voice.

‘You can see now why it’s not something I’ve ever wanted to talk about. I’ve made a complete fool of myself. And I’ve upset you, just when we’re about to say goodbye … I knew I’d go to pieces and that’s why I kept putting it off.’

‘It’s all right. I’m glad we’ve talked about her at last,’ said Helgi, with a rueful smile. He hesitated a moment, then put his arms around his father to show him all was forgiven. Halfdan drew him close and held him and did not let him go for some time. His father wasn’t usually so affectionate, but Helgi knew he wanted to show that he was sorry.

When Halfdan finally released him he said, ‘I’ve looked for her many times on my travels. I was angry with her for leaving you—just walking away and expecting me to take responsibility! I couldn’t let it rest. I questioned everyone I knew at the trading post. I searched the highlands and the forests in the east until I found her people, but no one was prepared to talk to me. They just shot off into the brush whenever they saw us coming. If we managed to catch one, he’d struggle and fight to get away, and shake his head like an ass as if he didn’t understand a word I was saying. It was very frustrating.’

Helgi ground the toe of his right boot into the shingle, struggling to come to terms with notion that his mother had ‘just walked away’. Had she cared so little for him?

‘If she was a nomad and a hunter, perhaps she found it difficult to look after me,’ he said quietly.

‘She loved you, Helgi, I’m sure of that. She didn’t want to leave you behind—in fact, she was distraught. She meant to come back, I’m sure, but something prevented her return.’

Something unknown, uncomprehended, and terrible, Helgi thought. He shivered involuntarily.

Halfdan got up from the rock, placed his hands on Helgi’s shoulders, and looked down at him with a serious expression.

‘Now you know why it’s important that we don’t leave these things behind in Iceland. These mementos are all we have left of her. When you’ve seen them, perhaps you’ll say, “I’ll never understand what mattered to her and why she had to leave; she must have had a secret life from which we were excluded.” Or perhaps you’ll make sense of it all. You’ve got your mother’s blood in your veins so that should give you an advantage.’

Halfdan turned away and walked slowly back up the beach, and Helgi followed.

‘You are the right person to retrieve them,’ said Halfdan over his shoulder. ‘It’s better that you should deal with this. I have to concentrate on the fight ahead. I can’t afford to be distracted. I don’t want to … to fall apart like last time.’

Helgi was silent for a while, trying to make sense of it all. Then an idea struck him.

‘The talisman—if she gave you a talisman she must have thought you were in danger and needed protection.’

Halfdan shook his head. ‘I wasn’t in any particular danger at the time, as far as I knew. And if it was meant to protect me from my enemies, it certainly hasn’t worked very well!’ he said with a wry laugh. ‘It didn’t seem very important when she gave it to me—not compared to the crying infant she had just placed in my arms.’

‘But she wanted you to destroy it—why?’

Halfdan gave a hopeless wave of his hand. ‘Your guess is as good as mine.’

‘Did you ask the reindeer herder Aslak what he made of it?’

‘I showed him the talisman, yes, but he was just as mystified as I was. He advised me to carry out her wishes. But how could I bring myself to throw it away once it was clear she had gone for good?’

Helgi wasn’t very satisfied with these answers. Had he been in his father’s place, he would have demanded a full explanation, he thought. If he ever took a wife, he would make certain to find out everything he could about her background first.

They had reached the top of the cliff, and Halfdan said he had to go back to supervise the loading of the boat.

It suddenly occurred to Helgi that Embla’s intelligent guess about the destination of his journey had been correct. He couldn’t recall now why he’d been so opposed to the idea of her coming.

‘Have you thought what Embla will do once we’ve gone?’ he asked. ‘What if she wants to come with me—back to the north to see her grandfather? Embla knows the way so she’d be useful as a guide. We might not even need Grimnir.’

‘If she wants to go home, then she should. Embla’s a headstrong young woman—she’ll do just as she pleases anyway. But you’ll need Grimnir to organize the sea-crossing to Norway. In any case, it wouldn’t be safe or proper for the pair of you to travel without a chaperone.’

Halfdan walked off across the headland in the direction of the harbour. Helgi waited until he was some distance ahead before taking the same path. He did not want his father to think he was following him, but he felt irresistibly drawn to Eagle Rock. He turned off before he reached the harbour, and lowered himself down the cliff-face to the low bridge that connected Eagle Rock to the headland. Soon he was scaling his lofty perch. He sat there for a long time, gazing out to sea. It was good to be quiet, in his favourite retreat, almost but not quite cut off by the dark-blue water, breathing in the cold salty air. He closed his eyes and listened to the rhythmic fall of the waves on the rocks below, which boomed out a deep, rolling percussion beneath the pealing cries of the sea-birds, and tried to put his teeming thoughts into order.

Siiri. He murmured her name out loud and saw her in his mind, swathed in thick furs, with a bow slung across her back, racing across the snowy wilderness following the tracks of a large animal, her long black hair streaming out behind her. Siiri and the ski-huntress in Gerda’s story could have been doubles. Maybe that was a strange coincidence—or maybe not. Maybe Sirii had always been there for Gerda as well. A ghostly presence that all three of them felt but none of them could acknowledge.

It was strange that his father suffered so much and that he did not. Helgi found it comforting that Siiri had not altogether deserted them. He simply could not understand why his father felt persecuted by her. It wasn’t like being haunted by a dead person at all. Everything he had been told seemed to indicate that she was dead, but his instincts told him that she was not.

‘Helgi,’ said a voice at his back.

Startled out of his reverie, Helgi clutched at the rock to steady himself, and then almost fell off in shock when he saw who was looking up at him.

‘I thought I’d find you here,’ said Grimnir, raising his voice above the tumbling crash of an incoming wave. He was standing on the low land-bridge with his long dark robes flapping in the wind and the spray bursting all around him.

How does he know I come here? He’s been spying on me! thought Helgi. Flustered, he hurriedly slid down off the rock. Grimnir stood no more than four feet away, on the same narrow limb of land, watching him. They were both almost at sea level, the cold spray that was flung up on the windward side of the rocks flecking their clothes and faces.

‘You were far away. I could tell,’ said Grimnir, with a flicker of interest in his dry voice. Helgi felt prickles of sweat break out on his back. He cursed himself for not keeping a sharp lookout. While he had been daydreaming, the old man had climbed down the cliff-face (how had he managed that in his long robes?), blocked the bridge, and cut off his escape. Was this another of Grimnir’s little games or was he in real danger?

‘Did you want to talk to me?’ Helgi asked nervously.

‘Yes.’ Grimnir pronounced the word with a soft reptilian sibilance. ‘We’ll be leaving very soon. We must make the necessary arrangements—transport, provisions, and so on.’

‘Oh—right. I suppose I should pack my bags,’ said Helgi in a doubtful voice. ‘I think Embla will be coming with us.’

Grimnir nodded. His face did not reveal what he thought about that. Then he said, ‘Your father intimated to me the reason for your journey. To collect—certain keepsakes. Items of sentimental value.’

Helgi wasn’t sure how much Grimnir knew. He hoped that Halfdan hadn’t told him too much about the personal nature of the mission, but it was too much to expect that he would employ Grimnir without telling him something about its purpose.

‘I’m sure we will have a pleasant journey,’ continued Grimnir. ‘I am looking forward to getting to know you, Helgi. I hope you will regard me as a friend. I should say how honoured I am to be at your service. I put myself at your disposal.’ He gave a slight bow.

Helgi looked at Grimnir curiously. He was a little mystified by these niceties; he felt Grimnir was hinting at something but had no idea what it could be. ‘It’s kind of you to help us,’ he said in a neutral tone.

‘I am only too happy to help persons of considerable talent, or potential, such as yourself,’ replied Grimnir.

‘It’s just a short trip, luckily,’ said Helgi, with a small, nervous laugh. His back was up against the rock and he felt trapped.

‘Nevertheless, I will be on hand when you need me. I could be most useful to you, when you feel ready to trust me.’

‘Thank you,’ said Helgi uncertainly. Grimnir’s interest in him was making him feel increasingly uneasy. He looked longingly up at the cliff-top, wishing he could get away, but there was no way past Grimnir, unless he charged at him with his head low and pushed him in the water.

‘I’m not sure you grasp my meaning. Would it help if I came straight to the point?’ said Grimnir with a slightly waspish edge to his voice.

‘Yes,’ admitted Helgi, dreading what would come next. Grimnir must be dropping hints about the sword or the damage caused by Vettir. He wondered whether Grimnir would confiscate the sword, or threaten to tell his father.

Grimnir glanced up at the cliff-top quickly, as if he was about to impart a secret and did not want to be overheard. Then he drew a step nearer, bent close, and said in his dried-up wisp of a voice, ‘As you know, I have served Queen Gunnhild for many years. I have been responsible for her personal protection, but not only that. I have also been her tutor. She herself is remarkably gifted but I flatter myself that my assistance has been of some use in developing her skills and knowledge … I think you now know what I mean.’

Grimnir stared at him intently, his eyes drilling into him, and Helgi’s blood suddenly ran cold.

‘Now that your father and I are allies, you should consider what I can do for you.’ Grimnir’s black eyes were blazing; he lowered his deathly pale face closer to Helgi who desperately willed himself not to flinch and betray his inward terror. He fought the urge to recoil from the cold, stale draft of Grimnir’s breath on his face.

‘You are gifted, Helgi,’ Grimnir said in an intense whisper, ‘You must have noticed the symptoms, though you may not understand what is happening to you. Let me assure you that you are not sick in body or in mind. A gift is not an illness … though it could be described as an innate vulnerability. It is at once a great blessing and something greatly to be feared. You are right to be afraid, but do not despair. Help is at hand. There is no cure for your condition, but I can show you how to live with it and how to exploit it for your own safety and personal advantage.’

Grimnir held his piercing stare for a moment. Then he said: ‘You’ve already begun to make use of your gift, consciously or unconsciously. Since coming to Iceland, you’ve acquired a familiar spirit, in the shape of Kol, and you’ve attracted quite a following. You’ve also made a number of enemies—people who feel threatened by what you can do. It’s no bad thing to put fear into your enemies’ hearts. But watch your step. Every time you make some other creature your instrument, you draw attention to yourself. You have a talent most people would envy. If you flaunt it, there is a risk that someone will take it as a challenge to himself. You could find yourself in serious trouble—not least because it’s less acceptable for a man than for a woman to fight by underhand methods. You wouldn’t want to be accused of, er, influencing others against their will, would you?’

He looked at Helgi slyly, his keen eyes fixed on him with an almost amused expression.

‘I … I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ said Helgi in a faint voice.

‘Good, that’s good,’ hissed Grimnir. ‘If anyone challenges you, deny everything. Be careful whom you trust. It’s unfair of me, I know, to ask you to trust me when you hardly know me, but rest easy: I’m not going to tell on you or confiscate your sword or spoil your fun. I’m merely pointing out the need for discretion.’

Grimnir straightened up and laid his hand lightly on Helgi’s shoulder, in an almost fatherly gesture.

‘Think about my offer. I’m glad we’ve had an opportunity to talk. You are badly in need of guidance—and I don’t just mean on our journey north.’ He turned and swept away, his tattered black cloak flapping behind him. Helgi watched him go, almost in a state of shock. Grimnir ascended the cliff-face hand over hand, with more confidence and agility than Helgi would have believed possible. It was almost as if something had pulled him to the top, or he had half-flown. His body stood outlined against the white sky for a moment before vanishing behind the cliff-top.

Helgi waited until he was sure Grimnir had gone. Then he climbed the cliff and made his way slowly back to the Forge. He found the house empty, apart from Malachi who was dozing quietly by the fire. He had intended to sort out the things he would need for the journey, but it was hopeless: he could not concentrate on anything. Grimnir’s words kept echoing in his head. He stood in a daze, his empty backpack at his feet and one odd sock in his hand, unable to remember what he’d been going to do with either of them. Eventually he gave up and sank down onto the floor, still holding the sock.

He sat on the dry, dirt floor beside the smoking hearth for some time—his body rigid and motionless but his brain whirling in panic.

He had expected Grimnir to confront him about the sword sooner or later, but this was a hundred times worse. Grimnir seemed to know everything about him, all his secrets. And by telling him he knew, Grimnir wanted him to know he had a hold over him. He was obviously trying to scare him, but why? He didn’t seem to want to hurt him. He hadn’t threatened to expose him, or tried to extort anything from him, or bullied him in any way. On the contrary, he had made him an offer of ‘guidance’, whatever that meant!

Grimnir had more or less said to him: ‘You and I both know you’ve been a naughty boy, but carry on, I won’t stop you—in fact, I’ll even assist you. Just be careful you don’t get caught.’

How many trustworthy adults would say that?

The more Helgi thought about it, the dodgier Grimnir’s proposition looked. He didn’t like the way the old man had come out onto his rock, uninvited, sneaked up behind him and given him a fright, and whispered to him in that peculiar, excited manner. This was no innocent offer of help. Grimnir was trying to involve him in some kind of conspiracy from which everyone else was excluded.

Helgi felt sick with fear. That creepy old man was obviously up to no good. The safest course would be to tell his father and get him to call off the mission and expel Grimnir from the house.

But what was he to tell his father, and how much? Everything?

If he told him that Grimnir had approached him with an offer of help, he could imagine what his father’s reaction would be. He would say: ‘There’s nothing strange about that. It’s exactly what I’ve asked him to do.’ If he complained that Grimnir had been snooping round the house at night, and secretly spying on him, his father would say: ‘That doesn’t surprise me. Sort of thing he would do. Why else do you think I sent him round to Eric’s? Oh, he’s a sly one, and no mistake, but he’s been useful to us, and right now we need all the help we can get. If Grimnir likes to snoop around at night, that shouldn’t bother us. We’ve got nothing to hide—unlike Eric.’

Maybe he should just pretend the incident had never happened. Go ahead with the mission, but keep a safe distance from Grimnir and refuse to let himself be drawn into any kind of dialogue on the subject of himself.

But it would be hard to ignore Grimnir for the whole journey—not least because he would like to have asked Grimnir what he meant by ‘gifted’, and to have contested some of the things he’d said about him. He kept thinking of all the things he could have said to Grimnir in reply, and wished that he had said.

‘Grimnir doesn’t know everything,’ Helgi thought, trying to comfort himself. Grimnir had got some things entirely wrong. He seemed to think that Kol was his ‘instrument’. That was a horrible word. It implied that he had a lot more control over Kol than he actually did. There was, in fact, a profound equality between Kol and himself. Their alliance was founded on mutual respect. Kol looked after him and he looked after Kol. Kol was not his ‘instrument’; he was his comrade in arms.

Helgi wasn’t sure what Grimnir had meant by ‘familiar spirit’. He and Kol had a close connection, if that was what he meant. He was familiar with Kol’s ways, and Kol was familiar with his. They had hit it off right from the start. When he had first met Kol, he had felt a shiver of recognition. Kol had been the one standing apart from the rest of the herd: the clever one, the misfit, the joker in the pack. Helgi had felt an instant rapport with him. In truth, the affinity he shared with Kol went deeper than any of the friendships he had with humans.

Kol was a person just like himself—Helgi was sure of that. Not a human person, but a person nonetheless. Kol was the better warrior and could teach him how to fight. He had a different way of knowing, a wilder intelligence, a surer sense of mischief, a wisdom far larger and older than his own. When they went into battle, Kol’s deeper knowing enhanced his own small self, so that together they were a force to be reckoned with.

Grimnir knew nothing of that. Grimnir had even accused him of fighting like a woman. That was a dirty lie! There was nothing effeminate about the way he fought! He had always been completely upfront when it came to dealing with people. He fought his enemies in open battle, like a proper man. There was no witchcraft involved, nothing cowardly or underhand. Fighting on Kol’s back gave him an advantage certainly, but not an unfair one. It was the only way he could offer a physical challenge to his enemies, who were numerous, well-armed, and much bigger than he was.

Helgi knew he had done nothing to be ashamed of. But Thorgrim had already accused him of attacking him with ‘some kind of foul despicable magic’ and threatened to pay him back for his ‘cowardly cheating’. Perhaps he was on dubious ground if he engaged in anything that might be perceived as witchcraft—even though it was nothing of the sort.

Helgi came to a sudden decision. It would be safer to dissociate himself from the whole thing. Denounce Grimnir, make a full confession to his father, surrender the sword, give Kol back to Arnor, apologise for being naughty, and promise never again to meddle in anything uncanny that he did not understand.

Could he bring himself to do it? Could he manage without Kol? Give up the vision-enhancing sword? What about the spirits inside it? They were his responsibility now, and he had promised to free them. He had come too far to go back …

The door burst open, startling Helgi out of his thoughts, and Embla bounced into the room.

‘Helgi! I’ve been looking for you everywhere!’ she cried. ‘Halfdan told me I can come with you!’

Helgi looked up at her sternly and asked, ‘Do you still want to?’ He very much hoped she did: having her around would provide some moral support against Grimnir.

Embla beamed at him, and said, ‘Of course I do! Isn’t it exciting? I can’t wait to leave; I’m going to pack my bag straight away!’

‘If you’re in the mood for packing, you can do mine too. I can’t seem to do it at all,’ said Helgi, listlessly tossing the single sock into his bag.

‘No way am I doing your packing, you lazy toad—’ said Embla indignantly, but then she stopped and looked concerned. ‘Are you all right, Helgi? You look terrible.’ She crouched down beside him, brushed aside his damp hair and felt his pallid forehead. ‘You’re pale and feverish. Are you feeling ill? I’ve got something in my medicine bag that might help.’

Helgi looked at her mournfully. He suddenly wanted to confide in her, and tell her not just about Grimnir, but everything that had been troubling him.

‘We need to talk,’ he said. ‘Not here’—he added, glancing at Malachi.

‘He’s sound asleep,’ said Embla. ‘What’s up? Are you worried about the raid?’

She sat down next to him on the dirt floor.

‘Right now the Ericssons are the least of my worries.’

Embla widened her eyes in surprise. ‘What could be worse than the Ericssons? Has Halfdan asked you to do something difficult?’

‘No. It doesn’t have anything to do with the expedition.’

Helgi fell silent as he suddenly recalled the curious words Embla had spoken when she took his hand by the frozen lake. Grimnir had told him You are gifted, and Embla had used the same word—gift. Helgi wasn’t sure what this meant, or whether it meant the same thing. He was certain Grimnir hadn’t been referring to the sword. Perhaps, then, he had misunderstood the prophecy. Perhaps the ‘gift conferred on him’ wasn’t the sword at all. There was no doubt that Embla had seen something in him that frightened her. Her sudden shaft of insight had revealed aspects of himself that he hadn’t known existed—dim and blurred glimpses of something neither of them had understood.

She had made a joke of it and run away. If he told her now about the gift, what would she do? She would believe him almost certainly, but she would be scared—almost as scared as he was. She would run a mile.

‘What is it then?’ asked Embla.

Helgi gave a sudden start, realizing that he had been so immersed in his thoughts, he had said nothing for some time.

‘Oh … it’s Grimnir. Halfdan’s insisting that he comes with us, for our own safety, but I … I just don’t trust him.’

‘Don’t worry,’ said Embla brightly. ‘We’ll keep an eye on him. If he tries anything funny, we’ll give him the slip.’

Helgi wondered if she was joking, but she looked quite earnest, as if she really meant it.

Embla was right, of course. He was silly to be scared of an old man. If things got too bad they could always run away.

Feeling a little more at ease, Helgi began to tell her about his private talk with his father, and what he had found out about his mother, and the keepsakes Halfdan had left with her grandfather Jon.

‘One of them belongs to me. It was my inheritance, my precious inheritance from my mother, and he never even told me about it! I just can’t understand him.’ Helgi took up the poker and stabbed angrily at the fire, bashing the glowing black crusts of dried dung and charcoal into tiny orange flakes. ‘It was the first time he’s ever been willing to talk about her. In thirteen years. Can you believe that? He’s kept her to himself all this time. He says she’s tormenting him and that he’ll never be able to forgive her for the wrongs she did to him. Or forgive himself for allowing her to hurt him.’ He grimaced in disgust. ‘I think he’d like to punish her for causing him such pain. But instead he punished me, by refusing to talk. And now he’s going off to war and … and we might never see each other again.’

‘I know what it’s like to lose someone you love. I think about my parents every day,’ said Embla quietly.

‘Oh, Embla, I’m sorry,’ said Helgi hastily, putting down the poker. ‘I didn’t mean—I’m sorry, it must be terrible for you.’

‘It’s all right.’

‘I really am sorry,’ Helgi persisted. ‘You must miss them so much. It’s just that …’ He looked down, suddenly self-conscious. ‘This is going to sound really odd, but here goes. My mother’s still here. We can both feel her. My father says she’s haunting him, because he believes she’s dead. But she isn’t dead. I know she isn’t. That’s why I can’t grieve for her.’

He could tell without looking that Embla was gazing at him with a kind of puzzled sympathy. Perhaps this was the moment to tell her. He raised his eyes to look at her, and his lips opened as he tried to speak. Suddenly he felt terribly weak. He wanted to tell her everything, but he could not bear the thought of frightening her away. It was bad enough that his father and friends were leaving him behind!

Embla waited to hear what he had to say, and he could see his own fear reflected in her face. He stared at her in desperation, willing her to understand. A long, agonizing moment passed before she asked him, ‘What’s wrong?’

Helgi could not bring himself to tell her anything. ‘Nothing,’ he muttered unhappily. I will tell her about the gift, he thought, but not now. Now is not the right moment.

Embla frowned and decided not to pursue it. ‘So what are these things he wants back?’

Helgi told her as much as he knew about the talisman and the illustrated cloth and what his mother had told Halfdan to do with them.

‘What a mysterious request!’ Embla exclaimed. ‘There must be a good reason for her leaving those things behind.’

‘I thought it would appeal to you. If anyone can figure it out, you can. You’re good at solving puzzles,’ said Helgi.

‘I can read and write, if that’s what you mean, but I don’t think that kind of knowledge will be of much use here. This is all about you. I’m beginning to think of you as a hero in a saga, setting out on a quest to discover who you are.’

Helgi laughed and looked away, secretly pleased that Embla thought of him as a questing hero, although the prospect of Grimnir’s company on the journey filled him with dread.

Chapter 21