MidgardBrómber
Chapter One
A milky sea poured over the valley of the River Trent, obscuring the roads and footpaths aneath. Through this cream a clot drifted on, pushed by the breeze. It was a mare, warm white, that split through the fog on a half-broken road. She was fourteen hands, maybe one-half more. Scraps of leather intended to be a saddle and stirrup lay on her back, pressed firm by the weight of a blond thing with skin paler than her coat and limbs like a birch. Straw hair hid his ears and his hood hid his hair, both shielding blue eyes set deep under his brow. He squinted at the fog, lips cracking as he tried and failed to whistle a tune. She huffed. It always bothered her when he did that.
Neither had plans for where they were going nor did they travel with much besides the other, save for a long knife, broken on the back, that spanned the length of his forearm and hand when drawn out from its resting place along his belly. Its presence didn't make up for the lack in his stomach. As empty as their bags, they kept on down the road, parting the fog and looking for something to look at.
As the early morning turned late they came to a cross in the road. The stones they trod on cut through a packed dirt trail. She stopped when he asked, observing the paths before them. Onward was more of the same, more of not enough. The left carried on before breaking at an odd angle into the woods. The right was clearer, a path better lit by the sun ahead of it. That was south. The sun bent that way, a little lower and briefer every day. He asked his companion if she had any objections to chasing it and, with her silence, steered right. A long nose jutted out from beneath his hood, narrow and straight. It crinkled. A breeze pushed by, carrying the scent of water and dung. Something was ahead, a farm and a pond, with luck a town.
The fog could not keep the odor back. He scanned the road, following the edge of the fog. Her ears twitched at the sound of moving water. The thought of it filled his mouth. Water and a path and a river and a crossing. Manure and smoke. A town. The pair were short in silver but his seax was long and her back strong. They would make money and eat and be happy. It was a pretty thought.
Wet thatch and woodsmoke colored the air more and more as he approached the town, the smell of man. Woods fell to pastures, pastures made way for farmsteads and strips of cut grain. Cattle and sheep called out things he didn't understand, but that she might. His grimace gave way to a grin when they came upon a beast of his kind in the road, an unkempt dog with a mouth full of green linen. He dismounted and she kept her distance. He approached without worry and the dog was happy to meet him. The rider asked with his hand what the dog carried. It was less eager to share its secrets than its company; as he reached out to inspect the cloth a low growl came from ahead. He ground a higher growl from his throat. He snatched its mouth, fighting a dog for a wad of fabric on a dirt road. The mare watched from a distance. If she found him pathetic it didn't show. Pulling and snarling, the pair unraveled the fabric, dropping its contents onto the ground. A hand hit the ground and rot filled the air. He fell back and the dog fell forward, biting down onto the hand and feeding itself.
"Christ," he stammered. He mounted the mare again and they took a wide berth as they passed the hound, still guarding its meal.
As they passed nearer to the settlement the day grew louder and clearer. People and beasts, work and the river. Animals and townsfolk brayed and bleated as they went on with their business. The smell of hot iron bled from the smithy and was cut by bile and urine when the wind shifted. A tannery must have been near. Wood hit wood, iron hit iron. Each strike forced him to recoil. The buildings were sod and timber, curving like landed boats of odd proportions. Danes, what luck. It might be the last Danish town as far south as they were. He wasn't scared of the English but they weren't fond of him. Danes were a surer bet for work and food. A longhouse fell into view and an ache fell into his stomach. Smaller structures surrounded the thing, pushing up by the river. She whinnied beneath him.
"There, girl." He patted her. "Don't get too excited yet. We still need to find work to feed us and a church to sleep in."
She huffed, defiant. The road bent a bit and more came into view. A ford with shallow stones guiding the way across and more buildings on the other side. A wooden hall perhaps forty feet long with a cross atop stood on a hill near the ford, looking out over thatched roofs and squared walls. The largest was sixty feet or more, smoke billowing out of the top and wooden crosses adorning its sides. People stopped as he passed but didn't say much. He might have seemed a penniless and poorly pilgrim to them were it not for his seax. Their eyes bore into him but they turned when he looked back. Two men sat on either side of the ford, extracting tolls no doubt. He rode up by one, a Dane by the looks of it, no taller than himself but brighter in hair and darker in the eyes. He had a scar on his lip and a sword on his hip.
"How much to pass then?" he said. The man looked up at him with a flat expression and alert eyes.
"What are you carrying?" the Dane asked.
"Nothing but me and my horse."
"And the seax, yes?" said the Dane.
"Yes, and the seax."
The man before him looked at his counterpart on the other side of the ford, a squatter man with a gentler way about him. He shrugged.
"If you carry nothing, we have nothing to charge you for, yes? But be quick crossing and quicker leaving town. Strange men last not long here."
He nodded and carried on, talking to his horse as they stepped into the cold waters of the river.
"Well," he said, "I suppose we must be with the English if we will stay at the church."
She didn't reply. The water was frigid. It bit at his legs. She bore the brunt of it. For a moment he felt that death had grasped onto his legs, but the ford was narrow enough that its grasp did not linger.
They rose out of the waters and into a different day. The right angles and dead thatch roofs cut the town from the world around it. Two men guarded the large hall on his left, the local lord's manor. The church lay further down the road, on the right and up the hill. The pair tried to pass without notice, but the fog was too thin and the road too near to the hall. She tensed under their watch. He felt their eyes on them too. The bones in their cheeks and on their brow seemed sharper than their neighbors' across the river. They didn't look away when he looked back and kept on without kindness in their faces. He smiled. Their mouths kept flat. The greater of the two guards, a head and a half taller than he was, stood at eye level with the rider's belt. The guard smirked as they passed. The rider kept his neck stiff and bit his tongue. He would not look at them. The men fell out of sight and he sighed. A quarter of the path past the hall and to the church came and went in peace.
The still air stretched until it broke. A crack rang out from the ground beneath them. Someone had hurled a stone the size of an apple at her hooves. She recoiled in fear, nearly unseating her rider. The pace of his heart outstripped the rhythm of her hooves. He looked back at the men behind him, the larger baring his teeth with a cruel smile and the smaller howling with laughter. He scowled at them as they had at him.
"It is well." He tried to soothe her. "Men like that are short and nasty at any height." The sound of his voice did what it could to give peace to his mount but he decided to put more distance between them and hurried toward the church. Sundry shops and houses lined the streets. People went about their work and life filled the air. He was cold. They passed by a workshop, raw timber and wood boxes visible at its side. Outside a dark-haired man stood sizing him up. An axe lay on the man's hip and sawdust coated his hair.
"Leave the town or get off the horse," said the man.
He brought the mare to a stop and paused, his right hand resting on the hilt of his knife.
"For what?" A tension twisted through his shoulders and neck. The town bustled as silence hung between them.
"If you stay in this town, you shall die," the carpenter said with a grin, "and if you're planning on dying, I need to size you for a coffin."
A church bell rang from atop the hill.