Heroes of the Valley Read Free Page B

verdict). Arnkel radiated a ponderous authority, but Brodir had none whatsoever and seemed the happier for it. Despite being a second son, he had never taken possession of one of the smaller farms dotted among the lands of Svein's House. It was said that in his youth he had travelled far along the valley; now he remained at the old hall. working in the fields among the men, and drinking with them after dark. Most evenings he was consequently raucous, humorous and abrasive. Occasionally he absented himself on his horse, Brawler, and disappeared for days, returning wild-eyed with stories of what he'd seen.
    And it was the stories that Halli loved him for above all.
    On summer evenings, while Brodir was sober, and the westering sun still warmed the bench outside the hall, they sat together looking up towards the southern ridge and talked. Then Halli heard of the rich lands of the Loops, where the river was languorous, and the cows and farmers both grew fat; he heard of the estuary beyond, where the Houses were built on great stone levees so that during the floods of spring they seemed to float upon the water, chimneys gently smoking, like scattered boats or islands. He heard too of the higher tributaries, where the valley petered out among places of waterfall and tumbled stone, where grass gave over to slate and no animals lived except the chits and chaffinches.
    But always Brodir returned at last to the greatest of the Twelve Houses – Svein's; to its leaders, the Arbiters and Lawgivers, to their feuds and love affairs and the positions of their cairns upon the hill. And above all, he told of Svein himself, of his countless startling adventures, of his escapades upon the moors when it was still permitted to go there, and of the great Battle of the Rock, when he and the lesser heroes held out against the Trows and drove them from the valley to the heights.
    'See his cairn up there?' Brodir would say, pointing with his cup. 'Well, it's more like a mound now, I suppose, with all the grass upon it. All the heroes were buried like that, up on the ridge above their Houses. Know how they positioned him inside?'
    'No, Uncle.'
    'Sitting on a stone seat, facing towards the moors, with his sword upright in his hand. Know why?'
    'To scare the Trows.'
    'Yes, and keep them scared. It's worked too.'
    'Are there cairns all along the valley? Not just here?'
    'From Riversmouth to High Stones, both sides. We all follow the heroes and reinforce the boundary like good children. There are as many piles of stones above the valley as there are leaves on a summer tree, and each pile sits atop a forgotten son or daughter of a House.'
    'I will one day be like Svein,' Halli said stoutly, 'and do great deeds that are long remembered. Though I do not much want to end up on the hill.'
    Brodir sat back on the bench. 'You will find such deeds are difficult now. Where are the swords? Under the cairns or rusting on the walls! We are none of us allowed to be like Svein any more . . .' He took a long draught of ale. 'Save perhaps in our early deaths. All us Sveinssons die young. But no doubt your mother has told you this.'
    'She has not.'
    'Oh, and she a great one for the histories! So she did not tell you of my elder brother Leif – what happened to him?'
    'No.'
    'Ah . . .' He looked contemplatively at his cup.
    ' Uncle . . .'
    'Eaten by wolves up-valley, aged sixteen.' Brodir pulled at his nose and sniffed. 'It had been a hard winter for the wolves, and proved harder still for Leif. The attack happened on Gestsson land, but the pack had come down from the Trow moors, so our family could not prove negligence . . . So it goes. Then there was Bjorn in the previous generation . . .'
    'Wolves?'
    'Bear. A single swipe while picking cloudberries up by Skafti's boulder. Mind you, that was better than his father, Flosi, your great-grandfather. A sad demise.'
    'How, Uncle? How?'
    'Bee sting. Swelled to the most appalling size . . . Not one for the ballads, if truth be