'The third year of war was hard,' admitted Kvasir, 'and made a man think on it, so that we were glad, then, of a hall of our own.'
That third year of red war against the enemies of Jarl Brand had spilled a lot of blood, right enough, but I had not known the likes of Kvasir had thoughts such as he admitted to now I gave him a sharp look, but he matched me, even with one eye less.
'Last year made it clear you were finding reasons not to go where we all thought you should,' he declared. 'And while we spent, you hoarded, which we all thought strange in a young jarl such as yourself.'
'Because you spent I hoarded,' I replied hotly. 'A jarl gives and armrings are expensive.'
'Aye, right enough,' replied Kvasir, 'and you are a byword for the giving out, for sure. But this year, when Erik became rig-jarl of all, you had to be made to start the Elk building and thought more of trade and horses.'
'A ship like the Elk costs money,' I bridled back at him. 'Good crewmen need purse-money and keep or had you planned to go silver-hunting with what remains of the Oathsworn only? There are a dozen left in all the world and two of them are in Hedeby, one caring for the addled other. Hardly enough to crew a knarr, never mind go raiding.'
Kvasir rode out the storm of my scorn, then thumbed snot from his nose and shrugged. He took to looking at me with some sadness, I was thinking, which did not make my temper any cooler.
'You have tried to make those left into herders of neet and horses, with a hayfield to plough and a scatter of hens scratching at the door,' he growled.
'Shows what you know,' I snapped back, sulky as a child, digging the point of the sabre into the beaten earth at my feet and gouging out a hole. 'We coop our hens had you not noticed?'
He wiped his fingers on his breeks.
'No. Nor want to, when it comes to it,' he replied levelly. 'I am thinking none of the others know much about hens, or hay, or horses either. They know ships, though that's why all of them are cutting and hauling timber for Gizur every day, building the new Fjord Elk. That's why they stay and I would not be concerned at gaining a crew, Orm; Thorkel, I am thinking, is only the first to arrive looking for a place at an oar. Even after five years the silver in that hoard is bright.'
'No. Nor want to, when it comes to it,' he replied levelly. 'I am thinking none of the others know much about hens, or hay, or horses either. They know ships, though that's why all of them are cutting and hauling timber for Gizur every day, building the new Fjord Elk. That's why they stay and I would not be concerned at gaining a crew, Orm; Thorkel, I am thinking, is only the first to arrive looking for a place at an oar. Even after five years the silver in that hoard is bright.'
'You have a wife,' I pointed out, desperate now, for he was right and I knew it. 'I was thinking you meant it when you hand-fasted to her is she as easy to leave as the chickens?'
Kvasir made a wry face. 'As I said she will have to learn to like the sea.'
I was astonished. Was he telling me he would take her with us, all the way to the lands of the Slavs and the wild empty of the Grass Sea?
'Just so,' he answered and that left me speechless and numbed. If he was so determined, then I had failed the tap-tap of the adze and axes drifting faintly from the shore was almost a mockery. It was nearly done, this new Fjord Elk, the latest in a long line. When it was finished. .
'When it is finished,' Kvasir said, as if reading my thoughts, 'you will have to decide, Orm. The oath keeps us patient well, all but Finn but it won't keep us that way forever. You will have to decide.'
I was spared the need to reply as the door was flung wide and Gizur trooped in with Onund Hnufa, followed by Finn and Runolf Harelip. Botolf and Ingrid had moved to each other, murmuring softly.
'If you plane the front strakes any thinner,' Gizur was saying to Onund, who was shipwrighting the Elk, 'it will leak like a sieve.'
The hunchbacked Onund climbed out of the great sealskin coat that made him look like a sea-monster and said nothing, for he was a tight-lipped Icelander at the best of times and especially when it came to explaining what he was doing with ship wood. He sat silently, his hump-shoulder towering over one ear like a mountain.
They all jostled, looking for places to hang cloaks so that they would not drip on someone else and yet be close enough to the fire to dry. The door banged open again, bringing in a blast of cold, wet air and Red Njal, stamping mud off his boots and suffering withering scorn for it from Thorgunna.
'The worst of wounds come from a woman's lips, as my granny used to say,' he growled, shouldering into her black look.
Ingrid unlocked herself from Botolf to slam it shut. Botolf, grinning, stumped to the fire and sat, while the children swarmed him, demanding stories and he protesting feebly, swamped by them.
'I would give in,' Red Njal said cheerfully. 'Little wolves can bring down the biggest bear, as my granny used to say.'