The Rule. Jack Colman

The bump in her belly was so large that he could see its smooth contours even through the thick rolls of bedding. Egil remembered when he married them in his hall, on a night in midsummer when they were barely more than children, and felt all the more glad that he hadn’t denied them.

      Gunnarr drew his arms out from the covers and made as if to rise, but Egil quickly shook his head to stay the movement. He smiled at the pair again as Gunnarr dug himself back down into the blankets and closed his eyes, and passed on into the dark.

      Fafrir was the last to be found. Together he and Egil walked back towards the longhall beneath the greying sky, and by the time that they arrived the other three were already waiting, huddled inside the small antechamber beyond the outer door.

      ‘Why can’t we go inside?’ Eiric asked irritably.

      ‘I didn’t think you’d want to wake your wives,’ his father replied.

      ‘Nonsense!’ Eiric declared. ‘It’s about time they were up. These women will sleep all day if you let them.’

      He pushed his way through the inner door, and led the rest of them into the hall. The log that Egil had tossed on the fire was bathed in bright new flame, and the room seemed to sway in the vague and murky light. Two identical sets of benches ran parallel to the walls on either side, with raised berths behind them, upon the west of which the women were huddled in slumber. Eiric and Bjọrn set about lifting the trestles and table top down from the cross-beams overhead, making little effort to dampen their noise. Hákon lounged in the chair at the head of the table, the flames dancing behind his back.

      ‘Isn’t that my seat?’ Egil reminded him, and Hákon smiled and slid onto the bench beside his brothers.

      ‘Since we’re here together, how about some ale?’ Eiric suggested, flashing his teeth with a grin.

      Egil came around the table to his chair. ‘I’m told there’s one cask of ale left for the whole town.’

      ‘And judging by your face, this might be our final chance to drink it.’

      Egil smiled wearily at his young son’s bravado. ‘Save it,’ he said, ‘for when we have something to celebrate. What I have to say now won’t keep you long.’ He draped his cloak over the back of his chair and then, rather than bothering to sit, rested against the shoulder of it as he made to begin. Before he could start, Bjọrn spoke up from his left.

      ‘Shouldn’t we wait until Gunnarr arrives?’

      Hákon huffed. ‘I’m certain we’ll manage without him.’

      Egil flashed his son a disappointed look. ‘I didn’t ask Gunnarr to join us. At this moment, his wife has far more need of him than I do.’

      Eiric ruffled with mock offence. ‘Well, you could say the same thing about mine.’

      ‘Except Brynja, unlike Kelda, isn’t fit to burst with child.’

      ‘About bloody time too,’ Eiric muttered, and he and Bjọrn sniggered together. They were boys still in Egil’s eyes, but each had already succeeded in adding to his bloodline. Their children lay beside their mothers in the shadows to Egil’s right. Gunnarr and Kelda had been hoping for some time, Egil knew, but Kelda was a slight thing, and the lack of food went harder on her than most.

      Without speaking, Egil walked a few paces to the gloom near the back of the room and bent down to lift something with a heave of exertion. When he returned to the light, he was carrying a large trunk made from pine wood and leather. He held it for a moment before the eyes of his sons, and then dropped it onto the table top with a bang.

      ‘There you have it,’ he said.

      All of his sons came to their feet at once, and stared at the trunk as if they’d never before seen such an object. One of the women tossed in the bedding and muttered some complaint about the noise, but none of the men seemed to hear it. Their silence drew out for a few waiting breaths, and then Fafrir voiced what they all must have been thinking.

      ‘That’s it?’

      Egil nodded. ‘I gathered it myself.’

      Fafrir was shaking his head. ‘They will say it’s not enough.’

      ‘They can say what they like, that’s all that there is,’ Egil growled, his voice rising in volume. Helvik had never been a place of any magnitude. Its wealth was its freedom, nothing more. What meagre treasures it did possess were scattered around the dusty alcoves of the longhall, odd trinkets and relics from days gone by. Egil had spent the evening going around with the lamp and sweeping up every last one.

      With a dubious expression, Hákon lifted the lid of the trunk and stared down at the shadows inside. ‘We should ask the men,’ he said after a moment. ‘Get them each to contribute whatever they have.’

      Egil was shaking his head before his son had even finished the suggestion. ‘Life here for them is miserable enough. I won’t have them give up what small sources of joy they might have, only to buy more of the same.’

      ‘They wouldn’t agree to it anyway,’ Bjọrn stated, slinging himself back down onto the bench with a thump. ‘It’s a glorious fight they want. This paying off our enemies doesn’t sit well with them.’

      ‘Nor I,’ Egil responded, ‘but we have no need for such fancies. If all these invaders want is plunder, they are welcome to it. I will not seek out bloodshed for the sake of a few bits of metal.’

      He sat back down heavily and glowered at the trunk as if it were the cause of his problems. One after the other, his sons did the same, apart from Hákon, who remained on his feet. He stared down at the contents for a moment longer, and then dropped the lid closed.

      ‘I will fetch someone to carry it to them,’ he said, and set off towards the door.

      Egil let him go a few steps before he stopped him. ‘Hákon,’ he called reluctantly, and his son must have sensed something in his tone, for he drew up just as sharply as if he’d reached the end of a tether. He turned back around, his lips apart with query. Egil sighed, and leaned forward in his seat. ‘I have found someone to carry it,’ he said.

      Hákon hesitated for a moment, and looked to his brothers. They were all watching their father, brows wrinkled with concern. In the gloom of the sleeping berths someone shifted beneath the blankets, as if rolling over so as to hear better. The hounds by the fire had lifted their heads, ears pricked in anticipation.

      ‘Father,’ Hákon sighed, coming back towards the table, ‘you cannot. If they capture you—’

      ‘I wasn’t speaking about myself, Hákon,’ Egil said, with heaviness. ‘I want you to be the one to take it to them.’

      Hákon stopped in his tracks once again. ‘Me?’ He glanced towards his brothers, and released a breath of hesitant laughter. ‘And what might I have done to deserve such an honour above all others?’

      Egil felt the familiar tug of sympathy, and did his utmost to suppress it. ‘Sometimes as a ruler,’ he explained, ‘you must demonstrate to your people that you serve them more than they serve you. I will not have any more mutterings that I stood back and sent Meili to his death. But, as you say, if I ride up there myself there is a risk that I may be offering our enemies a gift that they cannot resist. That is why I wish for you to go in my stead.’

      Hákon was leaning one hand on the table, his face becoming slowly more drawn. ‘And is the risk not nearly as great if I go? I am your eldest son, the next in line to be ruler—’

      ‘I do not recall having named my favoured successor yet,’ Egil cut in, and his voice had an edge of reproach to it.

      ‘But still,’ Hákon spluttered, ‘surely someone else, like Gunnarr perhaps—’

      ‘For the love of the Gods,’ Eiric groaned, standing up from the bench, ‘I’ll bloody take it if you’re so scared of losing your eyeballs.’

      ‘No,’ Egil