(no subject)

[thewidewideworld]

The acoustic in the tavern of Ribe were excellent for storytelling, passing sound down the hall just right.

Sinric was sprawled on a bench, holding court as he told his tale.

It was the story of Baldr, most beautiful and beloved of all the gods.

But with a twist. For everyone knew the story of Loki’s jealousy and Baldr’s death and the hands of the much maligned mistletoe, but what became of Baldr’s earthly family.

“For like many of the gods, Baldr walked among men, loved and been loved. For who could not love Baldr as soon as see him? Men had raised sons and daughters proudly, knowing their fair hair and sea blue eyes had been a gift from the shining one.”

“But Baldr’s death had sent a shudder through the land. And even those who did not know they descended from the bright god had wept and wept. Just as all the objects, alive and dead, wept to free him from Hel’s hall. All but the Sly One. “

He took a dramatic breath, hand over his heart to relive such a suffering. “The children of Baldr wept and wept till they made lakes of their homes. They wept so hard that their shining beauty faded and their eyes, once blue as the calm seas turned white as snow or dark as earth for all the water in them was wept away.”

Sinric held the crowd spellbound with his words, letting them wonder if this strange creature with his dark eyes and his odd looks was in fact a child of Baldr.

“And so they go still, Baldr’s tear-wrung descendants, till Ragnarök when he and his brother Höðr will make a new world and beauty will return.” He lifts his mead cup in salute. “Baldr!”

“Baldr!” Many voices call back, giving the skald a chance to wet his parched throat.

Sinric looks around the room as many voices come together to fill the silence after his story and more drinking goes on.

Comments

[thewidewideworld]

He nods his thanks and sips the mead. It is good mead but he misses good wine.

His eyes still dance over the rim of the beaker. "That only goads me to ask what they say. I'm sure men say a great many things about me."

[bigarmy_strangepants]

Ragnar sips his mead, and grins.

"If I tell you," he says, blue eyes on Sinric, "you have to tell me something in return."

[thewidewideworld]

Sinric hums warmly. "I like the sound of this game. The first of us to forfeit an answer must buy the next cup." Young or old, Ragnar is always a chancer.

[bigarmy_strangepants]

"Deal," Ragnar says, putting his elbows on the table. "So, they say your stories can conjure up the very gods, you have been to all the furthest corners of the world and know where the wind blows."

Pause.

"Also, my aunt jokes you must have been the love-child of Baldr and Loki, when you were first born."

[thewidewideworld]

"Not all the corners." Sinric smiles secretively. "Not yet. And as for the wind, most wanderers know that. The wind is the horse we ride, the compass that guides us, the horn that calls us. It is how we know which way to turn next."

At the last, he raises a playful eyebrow and says nothing, but sips his mead with a smile.

[bigarmy_strangepants]

"Tell me which corner you haven't been to yet," Ragnar asks, as it is his turn for a question.

[thewidewideworld]

"I have yet to travel to the far north. The very top of the world, where the snow never thaws, the sun shines all the summer nights and great white bears rule castles of ice."

"I have not yet been as far south as there is to go - where the men are burned black by the sun and go naked, for they have no need of clothes to keep them warm. There is a great desert at the ends of those lands, as wide as the sea. Perhaps one day I will cross it and see if I return burnt black too."

"And to the west - far far to the west. Where the sun sleeps. There is a land no man I have ever met has been. A place of wealth in gold and wonders untold." He smiles almost sadly. "But I feel in my bones, that I will never see where the sun sleep. Not in my lifetime."

[bigarmy_strangepants]

Ragnar listens, rapt. When Sinric falls silent, he sips his mead almost meditatively. "So you have been to the utmost East of the world," he says. "But the West is richer still?"

[thewidewideworld]

Sinric closes his eyes for a moment, savouring the memory. "I stood on a mountain top, on a temple roof made of tiles the colour of fresh blood and watched the sun rise from the closest point man may travel to it. I felt the light of it fall on my face and wept. For I knew then I had reached the eastern border of the world."

He shakes his head and sips his mead. "There are many lands to the west. Many rich with treasure, yes. But not all treasure is gold and silver."

He watches Ragnar's face. "It is west the wind calls you. Isn't it?"

[bigarmy_strangepants]

"It is," Ragnar says. "We always go East -- to raid, to trade, or east and south down the Varangian way to Miklagard. I would see what's on the other side."

[thewidewideworld]

"Hmm. I think you are an ambitious man." He smiles over his cup. "You too must claim kin to the gods, to have the courage to brave the open sea to the west?"

[bigarmy_strangepants]

"Not ambitious," Ragnar says, "Curious. Fed up with beating up on the same poor bastards year after year."

[thewidewideworld]

"Compassionate then?" Sinric hides his expression behind his cup. "Or simply bored." He looks around the room with a sigh. "I can see how one could grow tired with this life easily enough. What I won't give for some good wine. But alas the store of it I brought with me is almost done."

He cocks his head, watching Ragnar's eyes. "Enough to share perhaps."

[bigarmy_strangepants]

Ragnar's eyes glitter blue with curiosity. "I never had wine," he says. "The earl and his wife drink it with their special guests, at their greatest feasts. Sometimes."

[thewidewideworld]

"It is no small thing here. Grapes will not grow in these cold lands. Wine must be traded, carried. Cherished."

He holds Ragnar's eye for a long moment, his face almost unreadable. "Drink wine with me, this night?"

[bigarmy_strangepants]

"Yes," Ragnar says, eyes glittering sapphires. "And talk about the places the wine comes from."

[thewidewideworld]

Sinric drains his cup and sets it down, straightening his skirts as he rises. "Follow me."

There is something to the way he walks - a roll to his hips that is rather feminine and yet a confidence that he needs not look back to know Ragnar will follow.

[bigarmy_strangepants]

As he does -- fascinated by the ideas of far-away lands and of tasting real wine, and also by Sinric himself.

[thewidewideworld]

Sinric's rooms are at the far rear of the earl's hall, accessed by a small door he can slips inside unseen. It suits him to come and go like this, to been invisible when he wishes.

The bed is the earl's second best, a sign of the status Sinric holds. But it is spread with Sinric's own furs - lustrous and black. The furs of the bears of Keivan Rus.

He sheds his outer coat, clasped down the front in the Rus style also and sets it aside. His tunic is a deep red, drinking the light as he brings a taper to the lanterns and candles.

[bigarmy_strangepants]

Ragnar looks around; he's never been that deep in the private parts of an earl's hall.

He walks over to the bed and runs an admiring hand over the black furs.

[thewidewideworld]

Sinric watches with a quiet smile. So many of his memories of Ragnar are tied up with the brush of fur.

He adds more charcoal to the brazier, warming the room.

"Now, wine." He unpacks four skins from his pack, each of them almost empty. And something else - a small ceramic bottle sealed with beeswax, glazed in a white so bright it seems out of place in the muted tones of the room.

And then another treasure - a beaker made of Persian glass, chased with gold dragons. "Yes, it would seem the time for this."

[bigarmy_strangepants]

"What is that shiny, white thing?" Ragnar asks, fascinated. "Our earl never gets his wine in such vessels."

[thewidewideworld]

"I doubt even your earl can afford such spirits." Sinric chuckles. "It is rice wine from the far east. In truth, it is better for cleaning wounds than it is for drinking." He holds the bottle out for Ragnar to see, Chinese characters chased down its sides in black brushstrokes.

"You may try some if you truly wish but last of all. It kills the taste for all else."

While Ragnar looks at that, Sinric pours a measure of light red wine into the beaker, swirling it softly.

[bigarmy_strangepants]

"Yes, that is the colour the earl's wine has, too," Ragnar says. "Once he spilled some on a servant girl's best dress, and she never managed to get the red out again."

[thewidewideworld]

"No, I would imagine not. There is a certain Frankish princeling I will never forgive for upending a beaker of it on my favourite gold silk gown." He muses, eyes in the distant past. "Here. Sip it slowly. Let yourself taste it."

He pours the rest into a simple clay cup, letting Ragnar enjoy the pleasure of drinking from glass.