The Long Hunt (The Strongbow Saga) Read Online Free PDF

his head. "Then I thank you for the honor you show me. You will, of course, sit here beside me, at my right hand," he added. I appreciated his kindness, as well as the hint, though I would have felt more comfortable slinking away and hiding in a dark corner.
    As a feast—the first I had ever hosted, in a longhouse hall I'd had the presumption to claim as my own—the evening was not a success. There was none of the mirth of a feast. No tales were told, no poems recited, no songs sung. The mood in the hall was subdued. The men ate and drank and talked quietly among themselves. After the food was finished, few lingered long at the tables, even though ale was still available. Most retired early to where they would make their beds for the night—either in the ships' tents which had been pitched on the grounds around the longhouse, or on the long wall benches and the floor inside the hall. Eventually, even those at the high table bade me and each other a good night and retired, leaving me alone.
    I sat there, in my seat at the high table, late into the night, long after the only sound within the hall was the low rumble of many men snoring. I felt restless and uncomfortable, and knew I could not sleep. For so many months I had dreamed of being able to return here, of coming home, but now that my dream had become real, I found I did not feel at home. This was where I had grown up, the place where I had lived for most of my life. But none of those who had made it a home for me—my mother, Harald, Sigrid, even old Ubbe—were here. They were all gone, and I was changed.
    Finally, I arose from the table, stiff and sore from sitting for so long, and stumbled toward the door to relieve the discomfort that had been building in my bladder from the feast-ale I had drunk. Afterward, I wandered aimlessly through the great hall, lit now only by the flickering remnants of the fire burning on the central hearth, until I reached the small, enclosed private sleeping chamber that had once belonged to Hrorik and Gunhild. Toke had apparently taken it over, forcing his mother to move out to a bed-closet. Ironically, she'd taken the one that had been where my mother, Derdriu, had slept, the one Hrorik had given her, a mere thrall, scandalizing the household and enraging Gunhild. I found it somehow fitting that she had ended up there. But now that Toke was gone, no one was using the sleeping chamber. I decided that if I was claiming the longhouse to be mine, I should sleep there.
    When I pushed open the door, the sleeping chamber was pitch black inside. I remembered that Hrorik had kept a small clay lamp, filled with seal oil, in a niche just inside, next to the door. Feeling blindly for it in the dark, I discovered that it was still there. Making my way carefully back across the darkened hall, I lit the wick with an ember from the central hearth, then returned to the sleeping chamber, holding the lamp in front of me to light my way.
    The furs that once had covered the floor of the chamber had been pulled up and thrown in a heap in one corner, and the earthen floor beneath was now pitted with holes and littered with piles of loose dirt dug from them. Toke must have believed Hrorik or Harald had buried their wealth there. Perhaps they had. I recalled that Harald had spoken of how he, Sigrid, and Gunhild had each taken a share of Hrorik's treasure as their inheritance after his death, though I had never seen it, nor known where it was kept. Had Toke taken Harald's share of Hrorik's treasure, and Sigrid's too, when he had fled?
    I tossed several of the largest furs into a heap along one wall, and lay down upon them. I had no desire to sleep in the bed that had once been shared by Hrorik and Gunhild, and more recently in which Toke had slept. I closed my eyes and tried to sleep, but found my thoughts filled with memories, and peopled by the faces and voices of too many who were now dead. Eventually, though, even the ghosts from my past could no longer