19. Hopeless

“Listen. Listen. Listen! No, you listen to me! I’m trying—I’m trying. I’m trying. I’m always trying, but the gods give me no moment of peace. Please save me. If you’re reading

Ah. I appear to have happened across a mad man’s unfinished scrawlings but this is important, and I’ve checked the rooms and spoken with Brolli and he assures me that there’s no one around here madder than I am. So listen closely. Think back to the past.

Kata and Grettir. Gudmund and Hilda. Isleif. Isleif. Why does that name sound so familiar?

I need to sleep more, this place is covered in pages. Every marriage. Every pairing. Every birth. This town is dying.

The cold is not reason enough.

Why are there so many women in Wymount!?

Think back to The Landing. Landing Day. Women. Women. Women. Arriving at a town with high walls and a wide lake. Women. Jealous women. Drowned women. What if they are still here? Spirits. Restless. Cruel. What if they are all still here? What if they have made this town a cursed place of broken widows? What if

Listen here, when I find whoever has been using my inks and paper to write down this nonsense, I’ll likely kill the man. Or woman! That much I swear. So if you’re reading this, quill wet with ink, then I am telling you to put that damn feathered thing down!

By the gods, I think I’m losing my mind. Maybe it’s for the better.

Maybe that old woods witch told the truth. Knife to throat. Knife to throat.”

Sybille sat on the edge of her brown-curtained bed and stared into the silver-framed mirror opposite. She stood out amongst her earth-hued room—whether the darker colours of her cupboards and wardrobes, or the paler browns of speckled furs that covered bed and floor—because of her blue dress, carefully embroidered with sea pearls, and her own red hair which shone in the noon light flooding in from the open shutters.

She had been thinking of something. Or nothing. Or many things. But whatever they were or weren’t, they had left her drowning in despair.

Sybille was studying her sore, teary cheeks when a soft knock sounded at the door.

“Sybille,” said a gruff speaker. “Could I have a word?”

Sybille brushed her cheeks with her sleeve. She nodded to no one. “Come in, Grettir.”

Grettir opened the creaking door, ducked under the low frame, and grinned in greeting. Despite the smile, his green gaze was furtive.

“Grettir,” Sybille’s voice was strained from sobbing. “Would you tell me something?”

Grettir perched on a chair by the desk, his back to the silver mirror. Disheveled as he appeared, he looked a little out of place. “I’ll give the best answer that I can.”

Sybille’s slight smile held no joy. “How did my brothers die?” she eventually asked.

Grettir’s brows furrowed. “You were there, Sybille.”

“I meant,” she began. “I mean—”

“Why did they die?” Grettir ventured. “I can’t answer that, Sybille. Because there is no good answer. No real answer.”

“There must be.” Sybille’s brow knitted. “If—”

“If is a poison, Sybille,” Grettir rebuked. “Things are as they are.” He tried to kindly smile, but it only made him look savage. “Your brothers are with Brikorhaan now. As any man would ever hope to be. They had short lives but they had good lives.”

“Yes.” Sybille nodded. “They did, but… Geirmund would have been Chief. A much better one than Gudmund. And now—”

“Geirmund was a good lad,” Grettir agreed. “A good man. But you’re too hard on your father. He does his best, Sybille. He does the best that he can do. It’s not easy, you know, being the one in charge. Speaking of Gudmund, I need—”

“Did you love your wife, Grettir?” Sybille suddenly asked.

Grettir blinked. “That is an odd question, Sybille. And not one I would make a habit of asking men.”

Sybille lowered her gaze to the floorboards.

“Yes,” Grettir said. “I loved Kata. Of course I did. And I love her still.”

She met his eyes. “What will I do if my husband doesn’t love me?”

“Why wouldn’t he?” Grettir asked in mock.

“You know what I mean.” Sybille brushed hair from her eyes. “What if a man only marries me for land and taxes?”

“Then that would be a cold man.” Grettir’s mirth gave way to sorrow. He placed his hand on her shoulder. “But I wouldn’t let memories of Thorfinn and Jarl Thrand poison your hopes for the future. Not all men are the same. There are plenty that will see you for the kind and charming girl that you are. And if your luck holds, you’ll get to choose your own husband. I doubt your father will ever think to marry you off again.”

Sybille met his moss-green gaze. “He will, Grettir. And now it will be all the worse because I’ve no family of my own.”

“Am I not family?” Grettir asked with a pained grin.

“Of course,” Sybille whispered. “But when I’m old… I don’t know. I would have felt better knowing that my brothers were out in the world.” She sighed. “What would I have done at Jarl Thrand’s estate were it not for Engli? Cried like a child when Thorfinn hit me and done my duty to pledge myself to him? I would have watched Engli get killed had Agnar not joined in. Then Engli would be dead, then they would all be dead, and I would still be sworn to Thorfinn.” She smiled despite the tears welling in her eyes. “Gudmund doesn’t care about me, Grettir. Not truly. He wants to be rid of me. Now more than ever. And once he does, I’ll be alone. Even more than I already am.”

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“I understand your fears, Sybille.” Grettir solemnly nodded. “But—” He sighed, and scratched at his wild beard. “I don’t have the right words. I came here because I needed you to speak for me. I need your help convincing your father of something. So why don’t we see if we can manage that, and then we’ll speak to him on matters of marriage?”

“Oh.” Sybille thought for a long moment, then pushed to her feet. “We’ll do that, then.” She straightened her sea blue gown. “What do we need to convince him of?”

“Not to kill the Sage, and not to kill me,” Grettir answered, “when he finds out that I’ve put a halt to the expedition on the word of a stranger. And it would be good, as well, if we could convince him not to drink the tincture that Lovrin gave him.”

***

Thick clouds made the night sky hazy and muted, smothering the light of the stars and the moon, but the glow of candles spilled out from the open doors of Gudmund’s Hall, lending idle braziers a dull shine and baying darkness away from the fenced yard.

“Get out!” Gudmund roared. “The both of you!”

Engli had only just reached the fence gate, and was confused by the outburst.

Sybille hurried out of the hall and Grettir strode after her. Gudmund cut into the candlelight with his shadow, which was then eclipsed by the door’s thunderous closing.

The booming sound echoed into a now unchallenged darkness.

“That didn’t go so bad,” Grettir said.

Sybille managed a tearful laugh. She sniffled amidst the shadows.

“He’ll calm down.” Grettir turned to rest his hand on her shoulder. He heard footsteps, and stepped aside to reach for his axe. “Who goes there?”

“Engli,” he said, walking towards them. “What’s going on? Where’s Ralf and Erik?”

“He sent them home,” Grettir said. “Us as well.”

Engli glanced at the looming hall. “That is Sybille’s home.”

“She can stay with me tonight. I’ve got plenty of rooms.” Grettir scratched at his wild beard. “Now that you’re here though, Engli. And since you’ve nothing better to do. Do you mind walking Sybille to my house?” He cleared his throat. “I meant to do this earlier, but I need to get some men and put the beasts away.”

“It’s done.” Engli regretted the words as soon as he spoke them. “It’s done. Hjorvarth did all the work, but I helped him nearer the end.”

“Hjorvarth?” Grettir asked in surprise. “Even so, I still need to visit a few folk. So if you could walk her home all the same?”

Sybille had dried her eyes and steadied herself. “Don’t I get a say in this?”

“Of course not.” Grettir patted her on the back, sending her stumbling forward. “You’re only a woman.” He laughed, and ambled off into the darkness.

Sybille stepped close to Engli. “Do you even know the way?”

“I was hoping you would,” he admitted.

“I do.” Sybille took his arm, leading him out past the fence. The warmth of her touch quickened his heart. “When I was younger, I would often sleep there with my brothers.”

“I’d find it lonely living in a place so big as that on his own.”

“He had hoped to have a family,” Sybille explained. “His wife was still alive when he first moved there.”

Engli frowned for only a moment, never hearing of his widow before. “I’m surprised he didn’t take another wife.”

“Is it so surprising? That he wouldn’t want to burden a new woman with an old love?”

Engli opened his mouth, then thought better of his answer. “I suppose not.”

They walked a while in silence, hearing the quiet sigh of the wind and the soft lapping of Horvorr’s Great Lake. They passed between shadowed houses, sheds, and storefronts. Chicken coops stood in fenced yards, and a lamb slept by the post that held him.

A rat skittered by their feet, too fleet to be heard.

“Do you remember when Isleif sang a song about Grettir?” Engli asked after a while, answered by a confused glance. “We were only young, sat in Sam’s Tavern, and then something happened. Grettir had him by the neck—Isleif, I mean—and then they brought their swords out, and they were fighting. I remember thinking it was pretend, but I had never seen Grettir look so angry, and now I’m almost sure they tried to kill one another. Or he tried to kill Isleif at the least.”

“What stopped him?” Sybille asked.

“Hjorvarth’s mother got between them.”

“A curious thing to call her. Her name was Sibbe if you’d forgotten.”

“Sibbe,” he echoed, though he hadn’t forgotten. He could still hear his own mother screaming out that name at a desperate, crystalline pitch.

“She drowned, didn’t she?” Sybille asked more of herself. “She drowned trying to save her son.” She waited for a reply but didn’t notice that the young man beside her was lost in memories of bright-eyed children racing across softly cracking ice. “I suppose she had a choice, at least. That’s more than my own mother had.”

Engli realised they’d stopped. “What do you mean?”

“I meant what I said,” she replied. “She died for me before she ever even knew me. Surely if she could choose she would have lived to raise her sons.”

Engli frowned. “Is that what you would do?”

“Yes.” Her keen regard held no warmth. “I suppose that I would.”

“What if there was a way to save you both?”

“Then I would save us both.”

“But if there was a risk, as there often is, and you didn’t really know?” Engli met her narrowing eyes with a stern stare. “My point being that there are no certainties when it comes to having children or trying to save someone from a frozen lake,” he explained. “Your mother might not have wanted to die, but that doesn’t mean that you caused her death. Or that there was any way to save her. Or that you’re in any way to blame. She might well have chosen to save you at any cost.”

Sybille watched him for a long moment. She then started to walk once more.

Engli followed despite feeling like he had overstepped.

“Was I there?” Sybille asked after a while. “At this tavern?”

“Sat beside me,” Engli said. “In a blue dress.”

“A blue dress?” she echoed in a curious tone. “That is an odd thing to remember.”

Engli bowed his head in embarrassment. “You’re wearing blue now.”

“True,” she conceded. “But I don’t remember the night. Isleif was a fair fighter though. I would often see him sparring with Hjorvarth.”

“He was smaller then,” Engli mentioned.

“Much,” Sybille agreed, her hair swaying in the breeze. “Are you good friends, then? You and Hjorvarth. If you were with him today?”

“We were… as children. And he saved me at the battle.”

“Where you saved mine?”

Engli reluctantly nodded. “But when I saw him today, he didn’t even seem to remember me.”

“Does that matter?” Sybille asked.

“I suppose not,” Engli admitted. “But I had wanted to offer my thanks.” He glanced up at the night clouds. “I had never been so scared as I was before he saved me.” He smiled haplessly at Sybille. “You’re right, though,” he decided. “It doesn’t matter. I’ll just have to pay him back by deed instead of praise.”

“Bold.” Sybille fixed him with a serious look, and then quietly laughed.

Engli sighed in reply. He knew that it sounded bold, but the truth was that he didn’t have any choice. He had to do something great, or heroic, if only to convince himself that him surviving better men was anything other than a mistake of fate.

They linked arms once more, wandering the dark night. Both sure that they didn’t belong. Both happy enough to be together.