Runes and Red Sails (Queenmaker Book 1)(42)
“Feast, feast, feast, feast,” Aelfhild chanted, elbowing her mistress.
Ceolwen giggled beside her. Hunger, fatigue, relief, and a smattering of other emotions had swirled together to reduce them to children once more, peeking through a curtain as they watched servants load buckling tables with dish after heaping dish.
Guests were arriving at the hall, a steady flow of crimson tunics and dresses. There were eager embraces and a great deal of back-slapping; as Kolbrun had said, these Landsthings served as a sort of extended family reunion for many folk. Children scampered about underfoot, roughhousing and battling with wooden swords. Geir returned with a freshly scrubbed Bercthun, who looked dapper if somewhat self-conscious beneath a fresh jerkin and cloak.
Eyrun flitted about between the various groups, greeting new arrivals, speaking with guests, and keeping an eye on the flow of work. Benches and tables were carried in on strong backs, a line of them stretching on either side of the central hearth from the front doors of the hall down to the far end, where between two carved pillars sat a wooden throne atop a raised platform. The seat was covered in furs and hung with banners bearing the crest of the Leifings: a huntsman’s horn hanging from a chain looped over the hilt of a sword, gold lines sewn on a field of red.
“Forgive me for saying so, lady,” Aelfhild whispered, “but I am a little glad the Jarl could not see us.”
“Me, too, Aela. I just want to eat. Hold me back, or they will not think me very ladylike.”
Kolbrun appeared at the gap in the curtains.
Aelfhild’s cheeks flushed as she straightened up from her vantage point. Ceolwen coughed beside her, and she could feel the laughter bubbling up. One look at her mistress and they both dissolved into chortling fits.
Looking thoroughly confused, Kolbrun stared down at her charges. “Are you two quite well?”
Ceolwen gasped for air and strained out a few words. “It has been a bad few days. Please forgive our madness.” When they had composed themselves, the shield-maiden led them out into the hall.
Embla the wolf-dog arrived just before her master Eyvind, who swept in with Rolf and Jarngrim in tow. The three warriors wore fine armor for the occasion, tunics of ring-mail polished to a dull gleam, and they were the only men that kept axes at their side. All the other guests had made a pile of weapons by the door, keeping only their beltknives.
Eyvind made his way through the crowd, stopping here and there for an embrace or a brief greeting, and came at last to the throne at the far end. He stepped atop the platform but did not sit, calling out to his guests for silence. Eyrun, who had drifted up noiselessly beside them, leaned over and translated her brother’s words for Ceolwen and Aelfhild.
“Brothers, sisters,” he called out, “I welcome you to my father’s hall on the eve of the Landsthing. Eat well but drink sparingly, for we will need our wits! The Ulfings have come in numbers, for they know they cannot face us in an even fight!” This comment aroused much murmuring and nodding from the crowd.
Eyes burning, Eyvind continued, “Do not start fights—I will brook no rabble-rousing, nor will my father!—but do not shrink from one, either. Our foes are not fools, they will taunt and trick you if they can. Be wary!”
He paused for a moment, letting the words sink in. “But enough of this unhappy talk—let us feast! Sit and be cheerful. We toast to spring’s coming, to the Landsthing, and to the Jarl!”
With that he raised a cup, oath-rings clinking softly as they slid down his forearm, and a thundering cheer shook dust from the hall’s rafters. Food was heaped on the tables and bowls passed around as the crowd jostled and elbowed for places on the benches, the room resounding with the scrape and clatter of knives on earthenware.
Eyvind and Eyrun sat across from one another at the table closest to the throne, each immediately to the right and left of the empty seat held for the Jarl. Rolf sat beside Eyvind, and Eyrun brought Ceolwen and Aelfhild to sit next to her. Bercthun disappeared to the other end of the hall, dragged away by Geir and Jarngrim to join the group of men by the mead-cask near the doors. There was hollering and no shortage of laughter from the crowd as Bercthun was put on display, the southern slave-warrior found lost on the waves.
“Some of the men were not happy to have Earnfoldings in the hall,” Eyrun whispered to her guests. “Thrym do not always get on with foreigners.”
Ceolwen mumbled something unintelligible through a mouthful of roast pork. Aelfhild could not criticize. Her bowl was piled with glistening mutton, turnips drowned in a lather of butter, and what appeared to be tiny lobsters baked in their shells. She had a leg of chicken in one hand and was eyeing the blackberries drowned in clotted cream further down the table.
Luckily, Eyrun seemed not to mind. “We live close to your lands, but that can mean trouble as well. Some of the older men remember raiding your villages. See that man across from us, beside Rolf? He says we should have nothing to do with your kind.”
“Do not stare,” she hissed, though her audience was far more focused on their dinners.
“My brother does not care for politics, but I take after my father,” Eyrun shivered. She seemed giddy to discuss all the scandals. In conspiratorial tones, she told them who in the clan was not speaking to whom, which families were behind on their quitrent to the Jarl, and so on. The list of feuds was especially long. It seemed the Leifings got on no better with one another than they did with the other Aettir.