by Joyce Holt
Jorunn steadied the king's daughter until her weeping ran dry. At last they set out again, two bedraggled drudges trekking down from the heights.
They halted only when they came to a field of cloudberries, ripe and sweet from the afternoon sun. As they feasted on handfuls of berries, the breeze wafted from a distance the faint sound of a flute playing a haunting tune, unlike any heard in hall or hut. Valka still herded for Kvien.
Jorunn grinned. The trolls had been too busy chasing their white-skin prey through the caverns to go prowling after one runaway bride.
While Gyda busied among the berry scrub, Jorunn stole a moment to look through the key for her little sister.
She found a willowy maiden wending her way, like any self-respecting Norsewoman at this time of year, through a stretch of cloudberry bushes. Jorunn stared. Svana had grown so tall! The maiden bent and picked, turned away, reached again. Jorunn yearned to reach out and hug her sister, to ask how she fared. Svana didn't limp. She had full use of both arms. There were no bruises Jorunn could see, though with the backglare of the sun, she couldn't be sure.
Jorunn had just started searching for Oddleif, having no luck, when Gyda stepped up and ordered, "Look for Harald."
Jorunn whirled to face her, putting her hands behind her back and setting her mouth in a grim line.
Gyda shuffled from foot to foot, sighed, and tried again. "Be so kind and look for Harald for me, will you? You say time has sped past. I yearn to know how he fares in his campaign. Must know it, before I set foot back at Kvien."
"Very well," Jorunn said, but turned away. She still didn't entirely trust Gyda not to snatch the prize. She searched for Harald in the north, then down the coast, fjord by fjord. "Harald," she murmured again and again, turning from west to southwest. "Perhaps he's gone back to his first lands in the east," she began, then halted.
There he was, far south on the western coast, tall and splendid as any hero from saga, his dark tangled mop of hair rumpling in the wind. His beard had come in thick and bushy. Jorunn knit her brow, remembering the downy dusting on his jawline not so long ago, during their journey through Vestfold and Ringerike.
Harald stood in the prow of his dragonship, calling to another captain in his fleet. A sea wind whipped his cloak. The rising sun struck glints from metal in the background – helmets, spears, the bosses of shields.
"Harald's host," Jorunn muttered into the key.
The view pulled back and widened. Countless longships spread across the waters of a fjord, like poplar leaves on a pond in autumn. Their masts stood naked, sails stowed among the thwarts below. Oars dipped, pulling the vessels into a line, side by side. Grappling hooks flew.
"Harald's foe," Jorunn said, her voice rising.
Another fleet gathered there in the same fjord. Jorunn caught sight of several sails being lowered before battle. One had wide stripes of red, white and blue. "Solve Cleft-Chin," Jorunn blurted, her voice tight.
That same ship swelled in the key's bow, whirring close. The view filled with the sight of Solve's face.
"Eirikr of Hordaland," she cried, and without needing to move the key, there he was, shouting orders, shaking his gold-trimmed red shield.
"Not my father," Gyda snapped. "Look for Harald."
A thought struck Jorunn, something Eirikr had ordered, and she murmured another name. "Roald of Telemark." She sucked in a breath. "His brother Hadd the Hard."
"What are you saying?" Gyda asked, reaching for Jorunn's arm.
She twisted away, clutching the key with white fingers, and gazed back into Gyda's piercing blue eyes. "Your father, and Brynja's. And Solve Cleft-Chin. They're all there. Arrayed for war. A great host, in sea battle. Too many ships to count."
Gyda sucked in a breath of alarm. "How can Harald stand against such a foe?"
"You should be worrying about your father's fate. Harald's hosts outnumber his."
Gyda spun and gazed into the southwest. "How long have we been gone?" she asked.
"I don't know. Let us go find out." Jorunn tucked the key away, took Gyda's arm to help her down a craggy shelf, set off again on the long track to Kvien.
* * *
Whenever they halted so Gyda could catch her breath, Jorunn sought sight of Harald and his foes. By noon the sea battle had begun. Jorunn called one name after another. Harald took full part in the frenzy, cutting down any who stood against him. Once she saw him climb a mast to survey the scene. He barked orders at a warrior below, who then blew signals on a long musk ox horn.
The brothers Roald and Hadd fought side by side in a bloody dance upon the heaving ship-decks. Jorunn saw them beaten back step after step, their path strewn with the bodies of Harald's men. After one whirling defense, they turned together and leaped to the next ship in line. Retreating.
The gold bars on Eirikr's red shield gleamed in the sunlight. His troop of warriors formed a sturdy shield-wall, a reef upon which waves of attackers crashed. Bodies draped over the thwarts and bobbed in the water. Jorunn saw one of Eirikr's men fall, but another from the rear leaped to fill the gap. Swords and spears lanced out from behind the overlapped shields when foemen came within reach.
With rage twisting his face, Solve Cleft-Chin fought Ragnvald the Treetrunk, the two of them the only ones left standing on one ship's corpse-strewn deck. Ragnvald went down, but threw himself aside, out of reach of Solve's next thrust. A band of Harald's warriors came bounding from ship to ship. Solve bellowed curses at his foe, then fell back to his own vessel, where his men were casting off grappling hooks and hoisting the sail in billows of red, white and blue.
"Harald!" Gyda insisted.
"Still standing. Still unscathed. It's turning into a rout, I'm afraid. I'm so afraid—"
"You cannot leave my service," Gyda growled, iron-willed tone of command in her voice once again. "I need you to be my eyes afar. With this knack—"
Jorunn braced her shoulders for one hard look at her companion. "Stay too long at one steading and your welcome wanes," she quoted.
"Nei, I give you greater welcome than ever. Stay with me! I'll send a troop for your sister."
"I go myself." Jorunn turned back to the key and the distant battle. She whispered Eirikr's name, then gasped, for at that moment a war-hammer smashed the gold-barred shield. A fragment of gold-rimmed red planking spun across the key's view, but did not block sight of the spear thrust that followed the hammer blow. Eirikr went down. The spearman took a wide-legged stance, then with a two-handed grip drove his shaft down again.
"Eirikr. Eirikr!" Jorunn cried into the key.
A haze filled the bow opening. A swirl of mist, on this day when sunlight blazed far too bright and hot for any fog to linger.
"Nei, nei," came a cross voice. "Spy for Harald."
Jorunn looked up from the key, and her voice shook. "Do you not care that Harald's men, this very moment, have slain your father?"
Gyda paled and took a step back, eyes widening. Her mouth parted, but she uttered not a word.
Jorunn took her arm. "Harald is winning his battle, his war, his grand campaign of conquest. For the small-kings, all is lost, and at your bidding, my lady. Let us go now."
Tears flowed silently down the cheeks of the king's daughter – a new round of weeping, quieter but deeper than her grief over the loss of the mare. By the time they came running down the last slope to Kvien, Gyda's cheeks had dried. Her lips stretched thin to still their trembling.
Along the way, Jorunn had watched Solve Cleft-Chin escape with three ships. On one of them the brothers Roald and Hadd bound each other's wounds. She heaved a long breath. Brynja Haddsdotter, at least, had no mourning in store.
Gyda slowed her pace to stride with dignity into the houseyard before Kvien's mead-hall. Heads jerked, fingers pointed, voices muttered until one woman stepped forward from the cookhouse to cross their path. "My lady Gyda?" she asked, eyes round. "Is it truly you?"
"It is, and I have a bear of a hunger from my long travels. Bring a meal for me
and my housegirl."
The cook's gaze took in Gyda's untidy hair and her blood-stained yoke-apron. She nodded and backed away. "I will go announce you."
"That's not needed," Gyda began, but the woman had already scurried into the hall.
"Master Torleikr!" the cook called. "Come quick!"
Jorunn dragged on Gyda's elbow. "Who? Why is she not calling for your Beste-Papa?"
Gyda shook off the hand. "Toli!" she cried in greeting as a tall figure emerged from the hall.
Toli? Jorunn stared. He'd been a slim, smooth-faced youth, the last time she saw him. Now a wide-shouldered man stood on the threshold, jutting a bearded jaw. The eyes were Toli's. Master Torleikr's.
"You," he said, and there was no welcome in his voice.
"We escaped," Gyda said, and took a step toward her younger brother, her eyes shining. "We've returned, safe and sound."
"Escaped? From your own conniving plots?" He crossed his arms in a forbidding gesture.
"Plots? What are you talking about?" she asked. Her smile vanished.
Torleikr's eyes narrowed. "It came out soon after you left, how you'd been planning to betray Kvien and all your kin. Running off to that traitor Eldjarn who clings to Tanglehair's coattails."
"I didn't leave," Gyda retorted, her voice indignant. "I went hawking in the heights."
"For five years?" Torleikr growled.
"Five – years?" she echoed. "Where's Beste-Papa? And Uncle Ormi?"
"Right where you put them. In battle's front line."
Jorunn sucked in a breath. She'd never thought to call their names while following the sea-war.
Gyda swayed where she stood. "Beste-Papa," she whispered, with an anguished twist to her lips. Jorunn took her arm. Gyda braced her shoulders, blinking swiftly.
"At Hafrs Fjord," Torkeikr grated. "Trying to hold back the tide of tyranny. The last stand. The last hope." He drew out the word "last" in a voice deep as a cavern.
The alliance of small-kings had already fallen. Jorunn had seen it herself this very day, but of course, word had not had time to fly the long distance to this inland dale.
She glanced around the houseyard. Though a few of the faces looked familiar, Ketill was not among them. Had he gone to fight as well, lame leg and all? Who could she ask?
"Where have you been," Torleikr growled, "if not to Tanglehair's camp in Trondelag?"
Gyda stood speechless at the chill in his voice.
Jorunn stepped forward to speak on Gyda's behalf. "Berg-taken." She held up her staff as witness to her words, for the scoop end was clearly the bowl of a gigantic spoon.
"Who's this wild-woman?" Torleikr said, raking his glance over both women.
Jorunn gazed back, chin high, knowing she looked as bedraggled as her companion but caring not a whit. They, too, had gone to battle.
Gyda shot her a glance, sniffed, drew herself into regal pose. "She was my housegirl, you dolt. Don't you remember? A free woman of Morgedal. The hero who flew to my rescue."
56 – Valkyrie of Valdres
Torleikr would not let Gyda into the mead-hall. He treated her with scorn, nor could she well argue against his judgment, for she had indeed planned to abandon Kvien and all her kin.
He sent a paltry meal to her, up in the guest chambers above a storage loft. There she found her belongings packed away in dusty bins and boxes.
Gyda grumbled as she rummaged through a rough-planked chest. "Half my gowns, gone. My favorite winter hood still here. Good. Where's my fur-lined cloak?"
Jorunn stood at the open hatch, watching the folk below, waiting until she could use the key unseen. It seemed everyone had errands that required them to cross the houseyard, and then they must slow and gaze and point fingers. She heard their comments clear on the evening air.
"Hasn't changed at all."
"Lovely as ever."
"She doesn't look as if she carries twenty-one winters. Still a slender maiden!"
"I'm leaving in the morning," Jorunn said. "What will you do with yourself? Cloister yourself up here until Gunnarr returns?" If he returns.
"I doubt he'll show me any more welcome than Toli so I'll take up my plans where I left off."
"Send word to your uncle Eldi in Trondelag?"
"Nei. I'll join you on the road to Ringerike."
Jorunn turned, astonished. "It's a perilous journey, as you keep telling me!"
"If you can do it, so can I." Gyda's chin set in a determined line. "Ah, here it is." She drew out a small locked casket. With one of her dangling keys she opened the lid. Jewels sparkled within. "We'll hire a guard at the next steading we come to. I'll send a message to Eldjarn when we reach Ringerike." She looked up and met Jorunn's gaze. "Where we part company, I suppose. What I have left at that point," she nodded at the casket, "half will be yours."
"Gyda! Gyda!" rang a voice in the evening air.
The two of them craned to peer out the hatch.
"Brynja!" Gyda squealed, and spun about to scamper down the ladder.
The cousins embraced and whirled each other around the houseyard while Jorunn settled to sit in the open hatch, every muscle aching with weariness.
"I've missed you so!" Brynja cried below. "I never believed them. I knew you would have bid me farewell, if only with a flower on my pillow. They did give me the gown with all your tiny, dancing stitches."
"You wed without me." Gyda gave a teasing laugh.
"Ja, indeed! I made Mundi wait till harvest, hoping you'd return. That ugly goatherd of yours told me. Berg-taken! But no one else listened. I made them ring the bells every dawn and dusk until autumn when he took me to his steading. We have two little ones, you know. Both boys! They're home with Drifa. I have a wet nurse for baby Dond, too, for I run the steading now that all the menfolk have gone to war."
"All but Toli?"
"He's in a fury. Wanted to go, but Beste-Papa charged him with defending Kvien if all else fails. Leading an army of old men, lads, and womenfolk." She tapped the hilt of a short sword she wore at her belt. "Our mothers have moved their quarters to the borg at my steading, already bracing for a siege that may never come. You'll dwell with me, too, now. Say you will!"
"Rather there than here," Gyda said with a curl of her lip. "But neither, I'm afraid. I must keep my vow and go to Harald's side."
Brynja pushed her to arm's length and studied her face. "You're jesting, aren't you? Nei? You truly mean to go? When?"
"At dawn."
The two argued until nearly dusk. All Brynja's pleadings and rantings could not swerve Gyda's heart. She meant to go, and nothing would stand in her way.
Brynja at last gave up. She hugged her cousin farewell, mounted her horse and rode up-dale to the steading of her own.
The guest chamber offered one musty old pallet for their bed. Jorunn sank beside Gyda who grumbled on and on about the rough furnishings. Twilight still hung in the air, plenty of light for spying near and far. She meant to look for Ketill and Gunnar and all, but sank into exhausted oblivion with the key still cradled in her hand.
* * *
At the first glimmer of dawn, Jorunn slipped from bed and set to hunting about with the key. Svana was already hauling water from the stream, treading that old familiar path near their hut.
There was no sign of Oddleif. And none of Ketill. Did that mean they were dead? "Nei!" she whispered. It must not be so!
Ketill, poor lame Ketill the gentle, what pain to think he may have fallen in battle.
A far deeper ache wrenched her heart at the thought of losing Oddleif. He'd always danced there in the shadows, eager to brighten her day, slipping unseen past Knut's boundaries to lend a hand where needed. Always cheerful, laughing, open-hearted. What horrid fate had befallen her only true friend?
She shuddered at the memory of Eirikr's death, how the far view had bled to mist before her eyes, and had given way to nothing more than the terrain ahead of her own feet. The world at hand. As if she was aiming in the wrong direction.
&n
bsp; And now no sign of Oddleif.
Jorunn spied Gunnarr talking to Roald. He must have taken the same ship as the brothers from Dondstad, in flight from the sea battle. She hadn't seen him in that earlier glimpse, but of course, the key's view always narrowed in on the one she named, not his comrades. There might be forty or fifty men aboard, most of them unseen.
She found Gyda's uncle Lingormr there too, when she asked for him. He lay between benches near the stern of the longship. Eyes shut. Chest barely moving. His tunic torn open, revealing strips of red-stained linen wrapping his belly.
Jorunn sucked in a breath at the dire sight.
Gyda stirred. She groaned in complaint. "How am I supposed to sleep with you making noises and letting in the chill? Come back and keep me warm."
"You're not supposed to sleep," Jorunn said as she put the key away. "You no longer reign at Kvien. You're a vagabond like me, and vagabonds must rise early and get on their way."
Gyda huffed and rolled over, drawing one corner of the blanket over her head.
"A wise wolf wakes early," Jorunn muttered – Toothgnasher's first kenning – as she repacked Gyda's travel bag, adding a hood and more stockings and discarding two lovely gowns.
"What are you doing?" Gyda sat up at last. "Put those back!"
"Remember, you'll be carrying this all the way to Ringerike." Jorunn hefted her own bag and turned to the hatch.
"You forgot the chamberpot. Needs emptying."
Jorunn glanced at the dented old thing. "Ja, it sure does." She climbed down the ladder without it.
Gyda caught up with Jorunn halfway along the trail to the river. "Going off without me? What are you thinking? We haven't had firstfare!" She struggled with her overloaded travel bag.
"I'm sorry." Jorunn let irony color her voice. "Did Toli invite you in for fried trout?"
Gyda grumbled, but matched Jorunn's stride along the track leading away from Kvien. Jorunn paid little heed to her muttering and complaining, too caught up in her own thoughts about the path ahead. Eagerness churned inside, gladness to be on her way home at long last, hurrying the flight to Svana's side. She had untangled the knot in Gyda's strand, and now must attend her own life's thread.