“Brand. From England.”
“There are many men called Brand.”
At a sign two of the ship’s crewmen swung a gangplank from ship to jetty. Brand strolled across it, thumbs in belt, and stood facing the dockmaster. On the level boards he was looking down. Far down. He noted with inner pleasure the slight shift of the eyes as the dockmaster, no stripling himself, weighed up Brand’s bulk, realized that man-to-man, at least, he was outmatched.
“Some men call me Viga-Brand. I come from Halogaland, in Norway, where men grow bigger than Danes.”
“Killer-Brand. I have heard of you. But there are many killers here. It needs more than a name to be welcome.”
“I have news. News for the kinsmen.”
“It had better be news worth hearing if you disturb the kinsmen, coming here without leave or passport.”
“News worth hearing it is.” Brand looked directly into the dockmaster’s eyes. “Come to hear it yourself. Tell your men to come and hear it. Anyone who cannot be bothered to hear what I have to say will curse his laziness till the last day he lives. But of course if you all have an urgent appointment in the privy let me not ask you to keep your breeches up.”
Brand brushed past the other and strode wordlessly toward the plume of smoke rising from the great longhouse, the hall of the noble kinsmen, the place no enemy had seen and left alive and free to tell the tale—the Braethraborg itself. His men trooped off the ship and silently began to follow him.
The dockmaster’s lips twitched, finally, with amusement. He made a sign and his men, picking their spears and bows from concealment, began to straggle inland. A flag dipped in acknowledgement from the still-vigilant outposts on the headland two miles off.
Light shone into the hall from many open shutters, but Brand halted when he got inside to let his eyes adjust, to look around, to get the feel of his audience. In later years, he knew, this scene would be famous in song and saga—if he played it right. In the next few minutes he would gain either imperishable glory or unthinkable death.
Inside the hall many men were sitting, standing, loitering, playing at one game or another. None looked at him as he came in, or at the other men silently filtering in behind him, but he knew they had registered his presence. As his eyes cleared he saw slowly that though there was no apparent order in the hall, indeed a careful avoidance of it—a pretense that all warriors, all true drengir, were equal—still the groupings of the men were all subtly poised on one center. At the end of the hall, there was a little space no one ventured into. There four men were grouped, all seeming intent on their own concerns.
He walked toward them, the padding of his soft seaman’s shoes audible in what had indiscernibly become silence.
He reached the four men. “Greetings!” he said, pitching his voice loud for the audience clustered around and behind him. “I have news. News for the sons of Ragnar.”
One of the four glanced over his shoulder at him, went back to paring his fingernails with a knife. “Great news it must be, for a man to come to the Braethraborg without invitation or passport.”
“Great news it is.” Brand filled his lungs and controlled his breathing. “For it is news of the death of Ragnar.”
Utter silence now. The man who had spoken continued his paring, intent on his left index finger, the knife slicing, slicing. Blood sprang out, the knife cut on down, down to the quick and the bone. The man made no sound and no movement.
A second one of the four spoke, picking up a stone piece from the checkerboard to make his move, a powerful, thick-shouldered man with grizzled hair. “Tell us,” he remarked, his voice carefully unperturbed, deliberately refusing to show unmanly emotion. “How did our old father Ragnar die? For it is not to be surprised at, since he was getting on in years.”
“It all began on the coast of England, where he was wrecked. According to the story I heard, he was caught by the men of King Ella.” Brand changed his voice slightly, as if to match, or to mock, the second Ragnarsson’s studied pretense of imperturbability. “I do not suppose they had much trouble, for, as you say, he was getting on in years. Maybe he offered no resistance.”