XXIII
Beneath the starlit sky, Karvalo brought Yorlayvo’s body home. He laid him on a board and arranged a room where his friend could rest for the night ahead of his funeral the next day. Esleyna came at once to Yorlayvo’s side, and her children with her. Beside their fallen kinsman, they clasped each other’s hands, three joined as one, but Esleyna wept alone. They prepared his body that night, stripping him of his blood-marred clothes, washing his skin, and decking him in his finest jewels. Over his waist, they laid a heavy red cloth, tasselled at each end, and embroidered with floral patterns. Then they looked upon him once more before retiring to bed, though none slept much at all that night.
Esleyna returned to Yorlayvo’s side the following morning to oversee a handful of personal visits. Karvalo was the first to come, alongside Seyglena. He knelt beside Yorlayvo and bowed his head, though he found not the courage to cry. Seyglena stood silently behind him, her hand resting upon his shoulder. Next came Thorreda, Amfredha, and Solmodo, Karvalo’s most senior thanes. They bowed before their peer, placed at his side some small trinket each, and offered Esleyna their words of condolence. After them came Essero and Ernala, and they did much the same, and then Awldano came likewise.
Thalo was not entitled to such a visit, for he was not of sufficient standing, nor was he close to either Esleyna or Yorlayvo himself. He did briefly consider visiting Ormana, for they each counted the other among their friends, but his valour did not extend beyond the reach of his spear. He stayed away and alone, fearing she might hold him accountable for her father’s death.
After the noblest folk of the household had paid their respects, Yorlayvo was brought out of the hall, and a great procession gathered to walk him across the river to the cemetery. Karvalo and Seyglena went at the front, as was fitting, and they led the singing of dirges as they went. Behind them were Yorlayvo’s closest kin, Ormana, a daughter deprived of her father, and Kolmago, a son just the same, but no mournful wife walked weeping for her husband. Esleyna had stayed at home, sitting alone by a window overlooking the sea. Preparing her husband’s body had been trying enough—she could not see him committed to the fire.
In the cemetery, the procession gathered about a pyre before the shrine. They laid Yorlayvo atop it, resplendent in his funerary finery, and Karvalo helped Seyglena up onto the dais, from where she administered the rites. She sprinkled some soil upon Yorlayvo’s body, and some water, and then she raised her arms aloft.
‘Hear me!’ she said. ‘Hear me and heed me! All things in this world are fleeting! As day will ever pass to night, so too will night ever pass to day.’
Then she knelt and sang a sorrowsome song as the pyre was lit. Yorlayvo did not stir amid the flames. Some came along in turn to cast little trinkets into the fire, mementoes of their fallen friend, while others joined Seyglena in her dirge, but all watched on as the fire swelled, as cloth crumbled to ash, as gold and jewels all glowed with a gruesome light, as billows of smoke curled forth to blacken the clouds, as Yorlayvo succumbed to the flames.
Once the fire had diminished, Karvalo led the procession home for a funeral feast. It was as grand an affair as ever, though it was equally full of both sorrow and cheer. Karvalo sat at his high table, Seyglena at his right, and their sons to the right of her. At his left, three seats were prepared for Esleyna, Ormana, and Kolmago, though only one was claimed. Esleyna remained so stricken by grief that she could not bring herself into the hall, and Kolmago forsook the feast likewise, choosing instead to go out into the sunset, to climb up onto the wall, and to look out to the distant moors. So Ormana sat bereft thrice over, and so Ernala came up from the lower benches and sat beside her, that she need not be so alone.
Early in the evening, Karvalo called upon Sedweo to speak in Yorlayvo’s honour. Sedweo rose from his seat, and lifting his cup, he said, ‘Hear of the violence! Hear of the valour! Hear of the vengeance!’
These verses followed:
‘Alas for soot and sombre smoke!
Alas for wracks each wrongly wroke!
Alas for fate of fallen friend!
Alas for ill and arrant end!
‘So spring the streams of sorrows forth,
for wrath and ruin each are wrought,
but rivers revelrous shall run,
for daring deeds are duly done!’
Then Sedweo cheered an ‘Oy-oy!’ and received one in reply, and the hall went on with things.
Now the evening progressed, and though the food and the drink did much to alleviate the solemnity in the room, it did not soothe all moods equally, and least of all those of the forlorn folk at the front of the hall. Ormana came to where Thalo was sitting near the door, and she asked him to come outside.
‘I wish to speak with you,’ she said, ‘where things are quieter.’
Though he feared she might wish to speak of weighty matters, Thalo agreed to go with her. Outside, he asked what she meant to say.
‘I wanted to ask how you fare,’ said Ormana, ‘given your involvement in recent matters.’
‘No need,’ said Thalo. ‘Think nothing of me. Not now, at least. Not while your own burdens are the heavier.’
‘I heard you fought them, that you tried to make things right. I wanted to thank you for that.’
Thalo bowed his head, and they parted.
On the following morning, all but one of Yorlayvo’s closest kin returned to the cemetery for the burial. Once again, Esleyna stayed at home. Thalo had not meant to attend either, but Ormana took him by the arm and brought him with her, eager not to stand alone.
The remnants of the pyre had been gathered in an urn overnight, the ashes and the bones, and all the fine crafts that had survived the blaze, and the grave had been dug beside that of Yorlayvo’s mothers. Standing above it, Seyglena took a fistful of the ashes from the urn and cast them within.
‘O bounty!’ she said. ‘Let us beseech you! Let not this loss be lasting!’
They placed the urn in the grave and furnished it with more of Yorlayvo’s possessions: his helmet and armour, rarely used; his spear and sword, yet less so; and all those things he treasured most, save his family. Then the grave was filled, and they placed a stone atop it. Thus was Yorlayvo truly dead.
Karvalo led the way home, but Ormana was not yet ready to depart. She kept hold of Thalo and asked him to stay with her. He did that. Together, they sat in silence, neither sure what might be said, if anything could be, until she put her arm about him, lay her head upon his shoulder, and wept at last for her father.