“What did he say, then, the old man dying?”
Brand lifted his voice loudly so that it filled the whole hall, like a herald issuing a challenge. “He said, ‘Gynthja mundu grisir ef galtar hag vissi.’ ”
This time there was no need to translate. The whole hall knew what Ragnar had said: “If they knew how the old boar died, how the little pigs would grunt.”
“So that is why I came uninvited,” called Brand, his voice still high and challenging. “Though some told me it might be dangerous. I am a man who likes to hear grunting. And so I came to tell the little pigs. And you must be the little pigs, from what men tell me. You, Halvdan Ragnarsson”—he nodded to the man with the knife. “You, Ubbi Ragnarsson”—the first draughts-player. “You, Ivar Ragnarsson, famous for your white hair. And you, Sigurth Ragnarsson. I see now why men call you Orm-i-auga, the Snake-eye.
“It is not likely that my news has pleased you. But I hope you will agree that it was news you should be told.”
The four men were on their feet now, all facing him, the pretense of indifference gone. As they took in his words, they nodded. Slowly, they were beginning to grin, their expressions all the same, looking for the first time as if they were all a family, all brothers, all sons of the same man. Their teeth showed.
It was the prayer of the monks and minister-men in those days: Domine, libera nos a furore normannorum—”Lord, deliver us from the fury of the Northmen.” If they had seen those faces, any sensible monk would have added immediately: Sed praesepe, Domine, a humore eorum—”But especially, Lord, from their mirth.”
“It was news we should be told,” said the Snake-eye, “and we thank you for bringing it. At the start we thought you might not be telling all the truth about this matter, and that was why we may have seemed displeased. But what you said at the end—ah, that was our father’s voice. He knew someone would hear it. He knew someone would tell us. And he knew what we would do. Didn’t he, boys?”
A gesture, and someone rolled forward a great round chopping block, an oak trunk sawn off. A heave from the four brothers together, and it crashed down firm on the floor. The sons of Ragnar clustered round it, facing their men, each raising one foot and placing it on the block. They spoke together, following the ritual:
“Now we stand on this block, and we make this boast, that we will—”
“…invade England in vengeance for our father”—so Halvdan said.
“…capture King Ella and kill him with torments for Ragnar’s death”—so Ubbi.
“…defeat all the kings of the English and bring the land into subjection to us”—so Sigurth the Snake-eye.
“…wreak vengeance on the black crows, the Christ-priests who counseled the orm-garth”—so Ivar spoke. They ended again together:
“…and if we go back on our words let the gods of Asgarth despise us and reject us, and may we never join our father and our ancestors in their dwellings.”
As they ended, the smoke-blackened beams of the long-house were filled with a roar of approval from four hundred throats, the jarls, the nobles, the skippers, and the helmsmen of the whole pirate fleet in unison. Outside, the rank and file gathering from their booths and bunkhouses nudged each other with excitement and anticipation, knowing that a decision had been made.
“And now,” the Snake-eye yelled over the din, “pull out the tables, spread the boards. No man may inherit from his father till he has drunk the funeral ale. And so we shall drink the arval for Ragnar, drink like heroes. And in the morning we shall gather every man and every ship and take our way to England, so that they shall never forget us nor be quit of us!
“But now, drink. And, stranger, sit at our board and tell us more of our father. There will be a place for you in England once it is ours.”
Far away, Shef, the dark boy, the stepson of Wulfgar, lay on a straw pallet. The mist was still rising from the dank ground of Emneth, and only a thin old blanket covered him from it. Inside the stout-timbered wooden hall, his stepfather Wulfgar lay in comfort, if not in love, with the boy’s mother, the lady Thryth. Alfgar lay in a warm bed in a room by his parents, and so too did Godive, the concubine’s child, Wulfgar’s daughter. At Wulfgar’s homecoming they had all eaten lavishly of the roasted and the boiled, the baked and the brewed—duck and goose from the fens, pike and lamprey from the rivers.