Read Online Odin’s Child by Bruce MacBain - Free Book Online Page A

Why, I’ve seen suits overthrown by the tiniest flaws—a witness improperly summonsed, a declaration in the wrong form of words. Oh, there are endless possibilities.”
    â€œYou waste your breath, lawyer,” sneered my father. “You forget I was a godi once. I
know
how it’s done. Money, force, and friends, Hoskuld. Money, force, and friends—without those your piddling lawyer’s tricks aren’t worth a bite from a mare’s backside. Now, Hrut has money, hasn’t he? And force is his nature, is it not? And we know, brother-in-law, who his friends are, don’t we?”
    â€œDo we?” Hoskuld’s eyes narrowed. “Who?”
    â€œYour accursed Christmen, that’s who! Those wolves who have circled me these thirty years, contriving against me, waiting for their chance to strike home. Isn’t he one of you? Isn’t Hrut a Christman? You know he is, brother-in-law. And they’ll all come together against me now!”
    He hacked so hard at his stick I feared he would take his thumb off.
    Now it was out in the open and Hoskuld was so angry he could hardly speak. “And I?” he sputtered, “and your own wife, you sorry man, are we plotting against you? You’ve driven yourself mad with religion, Thorvald. I swear you spend more hours in the day brooding about Jesus Christ than any of us Christmen do. Yes, Hrut has friends among the godis. He’s a merchant, he lends them money when they’re short. Only that. But I,too, have friends, and, if it comes to that, money—which, God help me, I wouldn’t spend for your stinking heathen hide but only to save my sister’s children. Now say no more to me about religion.”
    â€œBut that’s the heart of it! Why else does the high-and-mighty Snorri of Helgafel hate me?”
    â€œHates you, does he? Well, we mustn’t be too hard on poor Snorri for that!”
    They were both half out of their seats, glaring at each other across the table. Hoskuld, I imagine, couldn’t see clearly the expression on my father’s face, but I could. And I saw his knuckles whiten on the hilt of his knife.
    â€œGunnar, sing!” I cried. The gods alone know what put it into my mind.
    My brother stared at me perplexed for an instant and then understood. He only knew one song,
Finnbogi’s Daughter
, which he always sang with spirit—though without a noticeable melody. He roared out the first line, and I came in on the second, both of us pounding the floor with our feet. Then Kalf added his voice, and so did the others in the back of the hall, stamping and shouting lustily.
    Hoskuld and my father looked about, equally astonished.
    Jorunn did not lose a second. Snatching up a horn of mead, she abandoned her brother and ran to her husband’s side. His shoulders were bunched, and he was snorting like a bull.
    â€œDrink, Husband,” she urged, sitting down by him and putting the flagon to his lips. “Enough gloomy talk for one night. The young’uns are right to be impatient.”
    She covered his hand with hers and brought it slowly down to rest on her thigh and as she did so, looked past him and caught my eye.
    Every shade and hue of pain was in that look. She understood that this meeting, on which she had fastened all her hopes, was a disaster—that her husband was just possibly not as mad as she had thought, and her brother, perhaps, not as wise. Between these two angry men she did not know where to turn. The only thing certain was that we dared not let them come to blows.
    We sang ourselves hoarse. Finnbogi’s Daughter has a great many verses, each dirtier than the last, and after a little, you could see the tension begin to go out of Thorvald’s shoulders and the fingers uncurlaround the hilt of his knife. Even his foot began to move absently in time to the music. Who would have believed it? Jorunn drew a deep breath and slowly let it out. It would be all