Last Tales of Mercia 9: Sigurd the Gleeman Read online

  *

  Sigurd looked forward to visiting Lord Alfric. But as a lonely week passed, he began to wonder if he had imagined the whole encounter in a state of desperation. He could not believe that a lord as rich as Alfric would extend that invitation to such a poor churl as Sigurd had become. And if Sigurd had still possessed some dignity on the day he met Alfric, the last of it crumbled another week later.

  One morning, he awoke to discover that his meager little orchard—his prime source of sustenance and trading over the last few years—had been infected by a host of little green bugs. They ate at the leaves and stems of his plants with little tubed mouths and caused the leaves to curl and wither. He had dealt with the bugs before, but never seen so many of them at once. No matter how many he caught and killed, more seemed to arise from the soil. He had searched his home frantically for some tool to help catch them, but only succeeded in making a mess.

  Searching his cabin for something useful had proved to be an utterly futile and demoralizing task. When he moved to Shrewsbury many years ago, he had brought with him a great number of trinkets and souvenirs from his life as a royal minstrel. At the time he had treasured them, and thought they would impress anyone who saw them. He had glass vials of foreign spices, little carvings and statues of pagan gods, fine fabrics of intricate embroidery, candelabras, and all other sorts of useless possessions. For only when he had started living a humble life here in Shrewsbury, tending a garden and trying his hand at various crafts, did he realize that almost everything from his past livelihood was indeed useless here in this one.

  None of his old trinkets from royal life would help him with a host of little green bugs.

  By the end of the day he realized he had damaged some of the plants and the tender soil just by his desperate attempts to catch the insects, and that hardly compared to the deluge of destruction caused by the bugs themselves. He had made a mess of his home and a mess of himself. His clothes were filthy, his hands and face covered with soil. He had collapsed in bed that way after attempting to quell his bad temper with an unusual amount of mead.

  When he awoke that morning, he could not find the will to get up until several hours later. He did not want to face his failure yet again. He did not want to spend another day searching the soil for bugs and then squashing them. He did not particularly want to do anything. And so he laid there, staring up at the turf roof of his cabin, which was also in need of repair.

  Then someone knocked on his door.

  Sigurd got up and moved towards it in a state of disbelief. Who could be visiting him at a time like this and why? In any case, it didn’t matter. Nothing seemed to matter anymore.

  But when Sigurd opened the door and saw Godric grinning on the other side of it, he blanched. “Godric?”

  The smile on Godric’s face faltered. Apparently, he had highly anticipated surprising Sigurd with a visit. Sigurd’s heart sank, for he saw Godric smile so rarely. When Godric smiled, his entire demeanor changed. He ceased to be a disgruntled warrior and looked like a younger man full of vigor and hope for the future. Each look suited him in his own way, but Sigurd cursed the fact he had carelessly ruined what should have been a wonderful moment.

  “Have I come at a bad time?” asked Godric.

  “Er, no. Well, I just ...” Sigurd cleared his throat and glanced back into his cabin. Doing so only made him shut the door farther. “I just didn’t expect you. Why have you come?”

  Godric looked around, shifting awkwardly on a feet. Sigurd cursed himself again. He just kept making the situation worse. Why did Godric have to make a surprise visit today of all days? “I, uh, just felt like seeing you. But I suppose I should go.”

  “No, Godric, wait.”

  Godric was already turning around. Sigurd reached out and grabbed his hand desperately. Godric looked up with surprise. Sigurd couldn’t tell whether he looked more pleased or annoyed. With Godric, who could ever say?

  Sigurd released his hand. He realized his heart was pounding at a ridiculous pace. His mouth felt dry but he managed to form a few more words, nonetheless. “Listen, my home is a mess. Give me just a moment to clean up, won’t you?”

  Godric hesitated, his eye peering curiously through the cracked door. Then he nodded.

  With a breath of relief, Sigurd closed the door and turned to face the sad state of his cabin.

  He tried his best to fold his fabrics and put them back in place, to stand up his figurines and straighten the precious pages of his personal poetry. Then he splashed his hands and face in a bowl of water, already dirty from the day before. He dressed in a relatively clean tunic and attempted to tame his short blond hair with his fingers. Most of all, he tried desperately to find his normal spirits amidst his suffocating mood of depression. He opened the window shutters and dusted off a candelabra to set on his table. Then he took a deep breath and returned to the door.

  With a bright smile on his face, he swept open the door and said, “Do come in.”

  Perhaps he overdid it. Godric frowned as he entered, his eye searching Sigurd’s home for some clue to Sigurd’s temperament as he made his way inside.

  “Please, have a seat at my table! It’s so rare I get a friendly visit from you, Godric—other than your annual visit with Edric of course. I really am pleased you came. Can I give you something to eat or drink? I’m afraid I’m fresh out of my famous celery and cheese, but—”

  Godric turned and stared at him. Sigurd gulped. Despite everything they had been through together, he could not help but be a little intimidated by the fierce blue eye of the Kingslayer when he was unhappy. “What’s going on, Sigurd?”

  “N-nothing.”

  “Why were you so unhappy to see me? Have I done something wrong?”

  Sigurd found Godric’s self-consciousness touching. But he shook his head. “Of course not. I admit, er, I was a little worried you might be coming to collect rent, and it seemed a little early for that. But otherwise ...”

  “Would that have been a problem? Are you low on money?”

  “Well … well … well yes.” Sigurd hated to admit it. But he also felt a flare of anger deep in his gut, and for a moment he didn’t know why. “I will get you the rent, don’t you worry about that.”

  “I’m not worried about that. I’m worried about you.”

  “Oh really?” Sigurd gave him sardonic smile. “I don’t know whether to be flattered or embarrassed.”

  “Sigurd ...” Godric seemed to realize that he had done something to hurt Sigurd’s feelings, but he couldn’t figure out what. Even Sigurd didn’t know what, at first. Not until he stood there watching the concern distort Godric’s normally stalwart face and realized it came far too late.

  “If you’re so worried about me, why don’t you visit more often?” Like many words today, the question seemed to burst unbidden from his mouth. But once it was out in the open, he decided not to regret it. He had waited too long to ask such a question. He had hoped too long for Godric to take some sort of initiative and his patience had been rewarded with nothing but disappointment. “I am going to ask you again, and I want you to answer more honestly. Why did you come to visit today?”

  “I … I just felt like seeing you.”

  “Why did you feel like seeing me?”

  Godric’s face darkened. “Why does it matter?” A growl of anger encroached on his voice. For some reason, Sigurd was glad. He was glad he could arouse Godric to feel something. “I didn’t have many chores to do. Osgifu and Edric went to town on an errand. So … I was bored.”

  “You were bored.” Sigurd laughed dryly.

  “If you are lonely, then you should get a wife.”

  Sigurd scoffed.

  Godric’s frown deepened. His fist clenched, bunching the muscles of his arm. “Anyway, you visit me all the time. I thought you wouldn’t mind if I visited you.”

  Sigurd straightened and pushed back his hair with a flourish of his long fingers. “And you hoped that I might entertain you.�
��

  “You’re not acting like yourself, Sigurd.” Godric gnashed his jaws. “I don’t know what you want from me.”

  “I don’t know what I want from you either.” Sigurd sighed wearily, his sardonic grin waning. He did know what he wanted from Godric. He also knew he was foolish for thinking he might ever obtain it. “I don’t know what I must have expected, moving here with you.”

  “Maybe ... I can help.” The hope in Godric’s voice sounded forced. He also seemed desperate to hasten away from whatever confession Sigurd had been close to making. “If you’re having a problem with your garden, I might be able to fix it. Remember, I know a few things about gardening.”

  “More than how to poison a man with a flower?” Sigurd regretted his sour attempt at humor as soon as he saw Godric’s face darken. “I’m sorry, you’re right. You probably can help. I don’t know why I didn’t say so as soon as you arrived,” he lied.

  So they walked out to Sigurd’s garden, and Godric inspected the problem from every possible angle. To Sigurd’s surprise, he walked far past the orchard into the field to find the source of the bugs.

  “Capsids,” said Godric, and pointed to some old logs and weeds in the field. “They often hatch out of sticks and hedges. We need to keep the field around your garden a bit cleaner.” Without further ado, Godric reached down and picked up one of the rotting logs and slung it over his shoulder. “We’ll burn this, if we can,” he said. “If there are still any eggs or babies inside, the fire will kill them. We’ll build a fire of all the debris we find near the garden. If I’m right, the smoke will also help agitate the bugs and bring them out in the open.” Then he walked off with the log in tow.

  Sigurd scrambled to keep up with him, selecting a few smaller sticks to dispose of. After that they pulled out weeds and creeping hedges, which were also an attraction to the loathsome creatures.

  Together they cleaned the field, then built a fire downwind of the orchard. Sigurd felt completely disgusting by then, for he had watched many of the little bugs—some of them red and brownish—scurry out of the wood and a few times onto his skin. Even after he had flapped his clothes violently, he still imagined them crawling all over his body.

  Once the smoke drifted over the plants, more of the capsids flew and jumped about. Sigurd could hardly believe the thickness of the swarm that revealed itself.

  “I suppose a lot of the eggs were on your plants themselves,” said Godric. “You might want to wash more of the stems during the winter to keep this from happening next time.”

  Sigurd glowered. While he appreciated Godric’s help, he felt increasingly mortified by his own lack of knowledge about gardening. He had considered himself a decent gardener after a few years of scraping by successfully, but perhaps he had mostly gotten lucky. Godric, on the other hand, had been trained as a boy by monks in orchards much bigger than this one.

  He saw Godric peeling off his tunic and throwing the cloth to the ground. Godric pulled out his ruby-hilted knife and held it with a firm grip before him. Delight gleamed in his eye as a sneer pulled up his lips. “Let’s kill those fucking capsids,” he snarled, and dashed forward.

  “Don’t hurt my plants!” cried Sigurd, running after him.

  Yesterday, he had felt disgusted and even guilty every time he crushed one of the bugs to death. With Godric, he couldn’t help but take delight in the chase. Every death of the little green capsids felt like a tiny victory. Through the haze of drifting smoke and the blurring swarm of insects, he imagined he was in the thick of a battle. And it was a great deal more fun than real battle might have been.

  “Got you!” cried Godric, plunging his dagger into the soil before him. Sigurd turned to see whether Godric had actually managed to impale one of the bugs on his blade. Crouched and shirtless, his light brown hair scattered about his shoulders, Godric looked positively feral.

  A moment later, a green bug flew from the soil and away from Godric’s dagger.

  “What!” Godric was shocked. “I had the bastard!”

  Unable to help himself, Sigurd burst out laughing.

  “Something funny?” Godric snarled, revealing a flash of white teeth.

  “Oh Godric, you know you can’t aim at anything to save your own life.”

  For a moment, he worried he had hurt Godric’s feelings. Then the Kingslayer smiled and let out a chuckle despite himself. The two of them laughed freely into the bug-infested smoke.

  Together they killed capsids and burned old logs until late in the afternoon. Then they realized that the sky had darkened more than they noticed from within the smoke and firelight. They stood by the dying embers of the fire and looked at the sad remains of Sigurd’s withered garden.

  “I’m sorry if I damaged a few of your plants,” said Godric guiltily.

  “Never mind.” Sigurd sighed and turned away from the sorry sight. “Let’s go inside and get you some food.”

  Sigurd served a meager dinner of cabbage, carrots, and leek stew. He got out some fine wine he had been saving and hoped this helped make up for the meal’s blandness. He lit the candelabra in the middle of the table and briefly felt proud of his humble abode.

  Godric was very hungry. He ate and drank quickly, as if he had forgotten about doing anything else. Sigurd watched him in a state of helpless fascination. It felt so strange to have Godric sitting alone at his table, eating his food and sharing Sigurd’s company—especially with no shirt on. It seemed very unreal, like something out of a dream, and Sigurd wanted to enjoy every moment of it. He appreciated Godric’s absorption in the meal, for that kept Godric from noticing Sigurd’s growing discomfort.

  As Godric finished eating, Sigurd hastened to avoid an awkward silence, even though his own food sat unfinished. “You have dirt all over you,” Sigurd pointed out. “Let me wash some of it off.”

  He stood and made his way over to a bucket of water. This was fresh water, saved for drinking, but Sigurd decided to use some of it anyway. It wouldn’t do to use dirty water on an occasion like this. He grabbed a bowl and a rag and made his way to Godric, afraid to look him in the eye. Godric sat very still, one hand gripping the edge of the table. He looked rather tense considering all the wine he had imbibed.

  Sigurd dipped the rag in water and wrung it out. His hand trembled as he brought the wet rag to Godric’s neck. Perhaps he was being foolish. Perhaps he was going too far. But he also knew he would regret it later if he did not take advantage of such a rare chance as this one.

  Godric flinched as the cold cloth touched his skin.

  “Sorry,” murmured Sigurd. Then he resumed brushing the rag down Godric’s throat. Drops of water spilled from the rag and rolled down his chest, collecting dirt and leaving trails of clean rivulets. As Sigurd watched, he realized that Godric seemed to stop breathing. The rag had lingered far too long on Godric’s neck.

  Godric reached up and grabbed Sigurd’s wrist. The rag fell from Sigurd’s hand and squelched against the floor. Godric stood and turned to face him. Sigurd winced from the tightness of his grip, but dared not pull away. He looked up and met Godric’s stare, even though doing so made his heart pound with terror. He wondered if he had ever seen Godric look at him so intently before.

  “Sigurd, I ...” Godric took a deep breath, his face distorting with uncertainty.

  “Yes?”

  “I should go.” He released Sigurd’s hand and turned to gather his tunic. He faced away from Sigurd as he pulled it back over his shoulders.

  “Godric, it’s dark out.” His disappointment fought with his anger. “If you didn’t intend to stay the night, why didn’t you go home sooner?”

  “Sigurd. Don’t be a fool!”

  The word cut Sigurd to his core. His breath stopped as Godric stormed from the cabin and slammed the door behind him. He crumbled to the floor and remained there, the wet rag cold against his fingers. He wondered if a fool was all he really was, and all he ever would be.