Chapter 9
"I'd have bet on you coming back home on your knees, with your face punched, puppy!" giggled.
Dag was answering, when Gridd took his place:
"He's a terrible fighter. But he uses his head more than others. Dag had a say about Arne's orders, and he listened to him. I think Dag will learn quickly"
Dag was unbelieving. The girl that didn't even talk to him was now defending him. Maybe she was not so emotionless as he imagined.
"Did he had a say? About what? Wasn't today the pledge day?" asked Stein, sipping a cup of mead.
"I switched my turn with a girl's one. I did this because I didn't want her to be watched naked by everybody…the Berserkr obliged us to put off our s.h.i.+rts.
Even if she will be a warrior, now she's just a little girl. It didn't seem fair" answered Dag.
"Well, this is not a typical Viking behavior but…you did a good thing. Do you like that girl, am I right?"
Stein was talking with his mouth full, eating a mushroom soup Asa put on the table.
Dag blushed:
"N…No! It just was unfair! I…I don't like her!"
everybody sitting at the table started giggling
"There's nothing wrong with this, Dag" Asa rea.s.sured him.
The dinner ended up, Asa and Stein moved to the bedroom, leaving the door open. Gridd got back in the house, after filling the bucket at the well and she started was.h.i.+ng the dishes.
In the meanwhile, Dag looked around, not knowing what to do. His look fell again on the second room's door. This time it was closed.
He said to Gridd:
"can I help you somehow?"
"No, you can go to sleep" answered her, with her usual cold tone.
He can't see Eirik, he must be outside, doing something with the animals.
Without saying anything else, Dag went to the bedroom and at the moment his cheek touched his pillow of straw, he fell asleep.
"Hey…Hey Dag, wake up!"
A
"Get up, come!"
Dag slowly opened his eyes. It was Gridd. He was so drowsy, but he stood up on his feet and walked with Gridd outside the bedroom.
"What's happening, did…did I do something wrong?" asked him, yawning.
"No, you didn't. I saw you looking at the door before." said Gridd.
Dag quickly recovered from sleep and faked knowing nothing:
"the door? Which one?"
"Do you think I'm an idiot? That one, the closed one. Don't you wanna know what's behind?" answered Gridd.
"Y…yes, of course"
Dag was surprised at that question.
Gridd moved to the door, picked a key from her nightdress' pocket and opened the lock.
The room was completely dark. The moonlight that reflected on the main room's floor, barely enlightened a corner of the inside.
There was a window, but it had been tightened with wooden beams.
Gridd pulled Dag in the room with her, grabbing his s.h.i.+rt's sleeve.
When they were inside, she closed the door behind them.
"Gridd, I can't see anything!" whispered Dag.
She was crouched next to the door, searching for something on the floor.
She picked a candle and she lighted it using a matchstick.
Finally, they could see what was inside.
On the wall in front of the door, a suit of armor reflected the candlelight. It was composed of two leather boots with their tip made of metal, a pair of black leather trousers with two blue drapes on the front side and one, bigger on the back. On each of them, the drawing of a hammer.
They were followed by a sleeveless breastplate, with the same big symbol engraved on its center.
At the top an iron helm. Dag paid attention to the helm's details: it had a side broken as if somebody hit it with a weapon. Two big ram horns twisted from the top to the side, also one of them was broken.
"Whose was this armor? It's men-sized…did it belong to Stein? I thought he had always been a lumberjack" asked Dag, in a low voice
"It wasn't his. Dag, there is something you should now, n.o.body knows it, except me and my mother. But there is some feeling in me that pushes me to tell you, and I believe in my senses…"
"What?" asked him full of curiosity
"Stein is not my real father… my mother used to be married before meeting him. She lost her husband in a battle against the Lies Of Loki, an evil Clan coming from the west of Hevnen, the city where she lived"
Dag was listening, out of words
"His name was Brann. He was one of the greatest warriors of Skjold, he held the Emblem n°6. He died fighting and when he fell without life on the ground, somebody stole the emblem from his body" continued Gridd.
"Oh Gridd, I'm so sorry…" said Dag
"was the emblem this hammer shown on his armor?" he asked.
"No, this hammer is the mark of his Clan, the Hammers Of Thor. The emblem was a silver rabbit's foot" answered Gridd.
Dag nodded, looking at the floor.
"After that day, my mother, Asa, the Deadly Swallow, decided to abandon her warrior life. She pretended to be a farmer, and she discovered herself pregnant after a month from my father's death. She set here after meeting Stein.
He and Eirik are convinced that this armor belonged to my grandfather"
"Why did you never tell them these things?" then asked Dag.
"My mother's desire was to make a new start, a new life. If Stein and Eirik should know these things, something among them could change, and I don't want to let this happen" concluded Gridd.
Next to the armor, that lied upright, supported by an iron rod, Dag could see a chest, in the darker side of the room.
"What's inside of that?" he asked.
Gridd extracted another key from her pocket and opened the chest.