25
Magnus leapt from the bed, grabbed his trousers, and tugged them on as he said, “Quickly, Zarabeth, dress yourself, then wait in here until I see what is happening.”
He was gone and Zarabeth heard the shouts and screams. Then she smelled smoke. The longhouse was on fire.
She was dressed in a moment and running into the main hall. The smoke was growing heavy, for the roof was afire. The thick beams still held, but for how long?
“Zarabeth! Quickly, get everyone out of here. Save what you can!”
She didn’t think, didn’t allow herself to slow. She gave orders, calmed where she could, moved quickly, not thinking, trying not to breathe in the ever-thickening smoke. Men, women, and children, all were carrying out their belongings and a chair or a chest or cooking implements. Two women were carrying out the huge upright loom, all the shuttles they could carry, and Eldrid’s distaff.
Eldrid! Where was she?
Zarabeth ran back into the bedchambers. All were empty. Save for one. Eldrid lay on her side on the dirt floor and she was unconscious, overcome by the smoke. Zarabeth grabbed her beneath the arms and dragged her out into the main hall. Thank the gods one of the men was there. She shouted to him and he lifted the old woman over his shoulder as if she were naught but a bag of cabbages. Zarabeth grabbed the rest of the cooking pots, directed the others to carry whatever they could hold. Clothes and blankets were dragged along the dirt floor, outside to safety. The smoke was thick now, and her still-raw throat burned and she was coughing, her eyes watering. Magnus was there beside her then, and he grabbed her arm. “Come, it is unsafe now.”
“Your chair!”
One of the men shouted that he would fetch it.
She saw Magnus’ tunic on her own chair and she wrenched free of him, stumbling, as she ran to fetch it.
Magnus wanted to beat her, but when he saw the smile on her smoke-blackened face when she held up the tunic, he could only shake his head.
They were all outside now, all their people gathered around to watch the longhouse explode into flames. Their faces were blank with disbelief. It wasn’t possible, yet it was happening and they were watching it happen. The other huts surrounding the longhouse were made of stone, but their thatch roofs were quickly aflame. The heat grew stronger and stronger.
Zarabeth was looking around, trying to count heads, to see that everyone was safe. Eldrid was coughing, sucking in the fresh air. At least she was alive. She saw then old Hollvard, the gatekeeper, and he was lying huddled on his side, an arrow sticking obscenely out of his back. Two other men, both guards, lay near, both dead.
What had happened hit her full force at that moment. She turned to her husband, waiting for him to finish giving instructions. Then he turned on his heel and she grabbed his sleeve.
“Hollvard,” she gasped, “someone killed him, Magnus! And two others as well.”
“Aye. Stay here. We are bringing up more water from the viksfjord. It won’t help much, but maybe we can save the food-store hut and the bathouse.”
He was gone from her, and Zarabeth stood there feeling helpless and deadened. Hollvard, killed! But who? That old man who had always been kind to her, from the very first, even when she had worn the slave collar.
Then she knew. She felt such rage that she shook with it. Slowly, with no show of outward feeling, she made her way through their people, studying every face, speaking a soothing word here, a word of encouragement there.
Ingunn wasn’t there. But Zarabeth had known she wouldn’t be.
It was when she found Ragnar, near to one of the storage huts, a sword thrust through his shoulder, that she raised her voice and cried out in shock and rage.
She fell to her knees beside him. He was still alive, but the blood was flowing freely from the wound high on his left shoulder. She ran to the well, grabbing Magnus’ new tunic from the ground as she went. One of the men had filled his bucket, and she quickly dipped the soft wool into the water, wringing it out as she ran. When she reached Ragnar, she cleaned the wound as best she could and pressed the tunic against it to stop the bleeding.
She wasn’t aware that she was crying until Magnus gently laid his hand on her shoulder and said quietly, “Come, Zarabeth, let the men carry Ragnar into the open, where there is less smoke.”
An hour later, Malek’s people were still huddled in small groups near the barley fields, staring at the smoldering ruins of the longhouse and the roofless huts surrounding it. The palisade walls were standing in places, straight and upright and untouched. Just a few feet away there was naught but smoldering timber left.
Five people were dead. Ragnar was still alive and Eldrid was attending him.
The animals were safe and the fields were untouched, but the destruction within the once-secure compound was nearly complete. Zarabeth looked over at her husband. He was speaking quietly to one of the slaves, a young man whose eyes were still red and tearing from all the smoke. She watched Magnus speak to many more of the people, then saw him pull away and walk off toward the pine forest at the back of the palisade. He stopped and turned, and she saw such naked rage in his face that she drew back.
He stood there for many minutes looking at his once-flourishing farmstead. It was gone now, years of work and tending. But it was but stones and lumber, she wanted to tell him. They had saved nearly all the things from within the longhouse, including his chest. She would help him. They would rebuild. They still had their crops, their lives, their belongings. They still had each other.
Zarabeth looked away, unable to bear it. It was past dawn now, and soon everyone would be hungry. She had several men collect stones to stack around a small fire pit. Then she had long stakes hammered into the ground, deep notches cut into the tops. Then the men lowered a cross-stake carefully into the carved notches. Chains were wrapped around the top stake. Now Zarabeth could hang pots from the chains. She kept busy, kept toiling so that she wouldn’t have time to think.
Ragnar was still alive, but all of them knew it would be a close thing. Eldrid stayed with him, wiping his face with wet cloths, feeding him water, waiting for Helgi to come with her store of medicines.
It was in early afternoon that Magnus’ parents arrived, bringing no more than a half-dozen people with them. Mattias and Glyda hadn’t come. It was soon obvious why. They had had to leave their farmstead well-guarded, Mattias in charge. They would take no chances that Orm would attack while they were gone. Indeed, all wondered if that was his plan.
