Heroes of the Valley Read Free

hill. From Svein's House it was possible to see the ridges on both sides of the valley, and the little dark uneven stubs that ran continuously along the tops. They reminded Halli of Katla's teeth. Behind the cairns, hazy with distance even on a clear day, were the mountains, white-crested, flanks dropping precipitously out of view.
    Often Halli lost himself down the lanes and side alleys of the House, strolling happily with the dogs among the workshops, cottages, sties and stables until hunger drove him back at last to Katla's anxious embrace. In the evening they ate apart from his family in the kitchen of the hall, a comfortable place full of hot, savoursome vapours, broad benches and pitted tables, with the glow of the fire reflecting in a hundred hanging pots and dishes.
    There Katla would talk and Halli would listen.
    'Without question,' she would say, 'your features come from your father's side. You are the image of his uncle Onund, who farmed High Crag when I was a girl.'
    This was an unknowable gulf of time. Some people claimed Katla was more than sixty years old.
    'Uncle Onund . . .' Halli repeated. 'Was he very handsome, Katla?'
    'He was the ugliest of men, and had a difficult temperament to boot. By day he was amenable enough, and indeed something of a weakling, as you yourself may be. But after dark he gained greatly in strength, and was liable to ferocious rages in which he tossed men through windows and snapped benches in his hall.'
    This awoke Halli's interest. 'Where did this magical strength come from?'
    'Most probably drink. In the end an aggrieved tenant smothered him in his sleep, and it is a measure of the dislike with which Onund was held that the Council merely fined his killer six sheep and a hen. Indeed, the fellow ended by marrying the widow.'
    'I do not think I am like my great-uncle Onund, Katla.'
    'Well, you certainly do not have his height. Ah! See how your face corrugates sensually when you frown! You are Onund to the life. It is clear enough to look at you that you are prone to evil just as he was. You must guard against his darker impulses. But in the meantime you must eat those sprouts.'
    It did not take Halli long to discover that, Onund possibly excepted, his lineage was a matter of importance to everyone at Svein's House. This was welcome to a degree, since every door was open to him: he could wander at will past the sour-smelling vats of Unn the tanner and lie beneath the drying racks, looking up at the skins flapping against the sky; he could stand in the hot blackness of Grim's forge. watching the sparks dance like demons beneath the crashing hammer; he could sit with the women washing clothes in the stream below the walls and listen to their talk of lawsuits, marriages and other Houses far away down-valley by the sea. There were some fifty persons at the farm; by the age of four Halli knew the names of all, together with most of their secrets and peculiarities. This valuable information came more readily to him than to the other children of the House.
    On the other hand his status resulted in much unwanted attention. As Arnkel's second son, his life was valuable: should Leif succumb to creep or marsh fever, Halli would be heir. It meant that he was frequently prevented from carrying out important activities at the most inconvenient moment. Vigilant bystanders plucked him from the Trow wall as he began to navigate its teetering brink; they stopped him sailing the goose pond on an upturned trough with a pitchfork for an oar; most often they pulled him away from older, bigger boys just as they came to blows.
    In such cases he was brought before his mother, where she sat sewing and reciting genealogies with Gudny in the hall.
    ' Why this time, Halli?'
    'Brusi insulted me, Mother. I wished to fight him.'
    A sigh. 'How precisely did he insult you?'
    'I do not wish to say. It doesn't bear repeating.'
    ' Halli . . .' This was spoken in a deeper, more dangerous voice.
    'If you must know, he