The Kiss of the Earth

There, in the longhouse, it was decided.

Eirikr looked at his people, and saw the fear and the hope and the mistrust and the doubt and the anger on their faces.

He knew it for what it was.

*   *   *

For three years the crops had failed.

For three years there had been hunger, and famine, and disease.

They had killed many beasts, and two men had been blessed on the stone table, too, their blood going after the way of the foals and bulls before them.

It had made no difference.

Still, nothing would grow, nothing but the flower, and there were many who would not touch it, no matter what magic it was reputed to have. So the people had starved, and become weak, and, having become weak, the warriors had fared ill at sea, and had returned not only empty-handed, but short a ship, each time.

So many men lost, so many women left without husbands, so many children dying from the pestilence that creeps into the houses of men when times are hard.

*   *   *

A foal, a man?

A king?

What difference does it make, wondered Eirikr, and yet he knew the laws, for he himself had helped shape them in his long time as king.

And he had lived a long time, that was true.

He owed it to the flower, he believed. He believed that, as did Thorolf, and the others of the cult, and though they all, all the clan, believed in the gods, this flower cult set Eirikr and Thorolf and the others apart.

It was a sacred thing. To drink the magic from the petals of the dragon flower, that still grew abundantly on the western island, despite the fact that all the crops withered—the corn, the apples, even the hay for the cattle.

Now, all the beasts were gone, long slaughtered, and though they had spun out the dried meat, it was finished. Every cow, every bull, every dog, every horse but the king’s black stallion.

Eirikr had lived long, drinking the dragon, and yet, despite his years, and his three wives, he had had no children.

There was no one to come after him.

He would leave no one behind, no one except Melle, of course.

He turned his head to where she sat, beside him, on her throne.

She stared into the far black wall of the hall, her eyes seeing nothing.

He looked at her hands, and saw the bones showing white through the skin, so tightly she gripped the arms of her chair. Her lips formed a thin bloodless line, her whole head trembled, the ligaments in her neck stuck out taut.

He knew she did not understand, would never understand, this third young wife.

The first two dead for decades, only with Melle had he ever felt peace, ever felt such joy, ever felt such love, and though she was young, younger than him, now she was maybe too old for children anyway.

It mattered little. He had once believed he would sire a son, but now, he knew there would be a fight to succeed him, a fight between the three strongest of his warriors, and he already knew who would win.

Gunnar.

The wolf.

He had never made any pretence that he wanted anything other than to lead the people, when Eirikr’s time was over.

And now that time had come, a little sooner than planned, and Gunnar could not hide his delight. He, despite the suffering that filled them all, every day, strode through the village as though he was already their lord, his black beard jutting in front of him, his hand on his sword as if he was always going into war, something, thought Eirikr with a spit in his mind, that Gunnar had never done.

Yes, Gunnar had been raiding, but raiding near defenseless peasants across the seas was nothing to walking naked into battle.

No matter. It was Gunnar who would be king next, he could see, for he had already intimidated everyone in the village, warrior and woman alike.

*   *   *

Eirikr stood.

All the talking, all the whispering, all the shouting and the crying were done now.

Eirikr had never been short of words for his people, not before. Not when the crops bloomed under the sun and summer rain, not when the raiding was good, when the children came quickly and grew happily.

He had not been short of words in times of need either, or when a warrior had fallen, or when a battle had been won, at great cost.

And yet now, he thought, as he looked across the silent faces of his people, what words are there?

My time has run.

What can I say to these people now?

I can say nothing to my queen, what then can I say to them?

Their story will go on without me, with Gunnar to take them into whatever future awaits them. And may the gods help them all.

Eirikr looks at his queen for the last time, and from all the thousands of memories of their time together, just one drifts into his mind; an image of them bathing together in the summer, at the south of the island. They used to spend as long as they could underwater, sleek like seals, before rising to the surface, gasping, and laughing.

The image is gone as soon as it arrives.

He lifts his head to his people once more.

They wait for him to speak, and he does. “Well,” he says, so quietly only those near the front hear, “so it is.”