Through the dust a man moved, a single figure thrusting slowly and steadily at a bar. The bar, thick as the steering-oar of a warship, was set into the upper millstone, and as the man pushed so the millstone moved round and round. And the man moved round and round, in the same weary circle, never resting, never coming to an end, never seeing anything but the same dusty room.
Yet in fact he could see nothing, Shef realized, for the man was blind, his eye-sockets empty. The man slacked his pace for a moment, trying to get better grip for his footing. Instantly a lash from somewhere, a red stripe springing up across the naked, filthy back. Though he was blind the man looked back, as if bothered by some fly he could not quite get to grips with. His hands were fettered to the bar he pushed with great gyves of iron. As he put his weight on the bar again, Shef saw the monstrous muscles stand out on arms and back and sides. There seemed to be nothing between them and the skin. The man was as strong as Brand, as tight-drawn muscularly as Shef himself. Long black hair curled down over his shoulders.
That is a way of milling Udd has not thought of, Shef reflected as the vision began to blur, he came to himself again. Use a man instead of an ox, or a horse, or a dozen grinding-slaves with hand-querns. But I do not think my protector in Asgarth has sent me this to tell me about milling, any more than he sent me the Völund-vision to warn me of open chests. Then he meant to tell me the boy had to die. And the slam of the chest closing was the crash of the catapult-stone, the mule-stone. Now the millstone… It means something more immediate than cogwheels or gearing.
“Tomorrow morning,” said Brand, repeating Vigdjarf’s words. “Me against you.”
Shef pushed his horse forward till it drew level with Brand’s side. “Tomorrow morning,” he said, looking down from horseback at the burly Vigdjarf. “But not you against him. Our champion against yours.”
As the warrior eyed the crossbows and opened his mouth to protest, Shef cut in quickly. “Your champion may have choice of weapons.” Vigdjarf looked thoughtful, suspicious, eyed the group behind Brand, then nodded agreement.
From somewhere, not too far away—or was it in his own head?—Shef could hear the dreary, slow creak of a millwheel turning.
Chapter Seventeen
Shef realized a man was coming towards his little group bivouacked in a fenced yard on the edge of the village’s common grazing land. He seemed uncertain rather than hostile or aggressive. Indeed, as he reached the group he paused, sketched what might have been a clumsy bow—performed by someone who had heard of the custom but never seen it done. His eyes were on the white priest-clothes of Hund, now badly soiled, and the Ithun-apple that hung round his neck. “You are a leech,” he said. Hund nodded, remained seated. “There are many in this village who are sick, or with wounds that have not healed. My son broke his leg, we bound it up but it is crooked, he can put no weight on it. My mother has the eye-sickness. There are others—women whose childbirth tore them, men who have had the jaw-ache for years, no matter what teeth we pull… Leeches never come up here. Will you look at them?”
“Why should I?” said Hund. The priests of the Way did not believe in humility, had never heard of Hippocrates. “If our champion loses tomorrow you are going to hang us, or maim us and enslave us. If you brand me tomorrow, why should I heal your sick today?”
The man looked uneasily at the others in the group. “Vigdjarf did not see that you were a leech. I’m sure… Whatever happens… He did not mean you.”
Hund shrugged. “He meant my companions.”
Shef got to his feet, looked down at Hund, winked his one eye barely perceptibly. Hund, who had known Shef since they were boys, caught the hint, looked away, his face unreadable.
“He will come,” said Shef. “When he has unpacked his leech-tools. Wait for him over there.”