Axel stood up and with a gesture had Orm sit back down on the bench.
“I apologize for my companion’s words. He speaks as the king’s most loyal friend, and surely no one can fault him for being attached to his friends.”
Sigrid nodded for him to proceed.
“What you say about the war is correct. Honorable vengeance has sent far too many to the afterworld. Entire clans have been killed in battles in Svealand as well. But there has never been any enmity between the Svea and the Scylfings. Like us, you are sons and daughters of Frey. We are kinfolk, not enemies.”
His candor earned many nods of approval throughout the hall.
“Lovely Sigrid, both you and Erik are scions of the venerable Folkunga bloodline, and that is why I stand before you in this hall. Our king needs you as his peace queen. Then harmony and good can prevail once again.”
Axel raised his tankard.
“It is said that the only thing greater than your beauty is your intelligence. Today I see that you are a queen in thought and action, and I speak for my king when I ask if you will marry King Erik and sit beside him on the throne of Svealand.”
The words had been spoken now and could never be taken back. Sigrid drank some mead and leaned back in her chair, watching the men watching her. They all knew she had to say yes. All the same she couldn’t do it here. To consent now would affect her bride price.
“Does your king honor the old ways?” she asked.
“Erik is sworn to Frey, and Svealand’s king must host the sacrifice every year, otherwise he will be burned by the Thing. That is our law.”
That was reassuring.
“Is he wealthy?”
Axel’s face broke into a broad smile.
“There is no Svea who owns more.”
Toste leaned forward and joined the conversation. “With her inheritance from her mother and with my gifts, my daughter owns eight farms and a hundred of land. She is to retain these, married or not. Will your king consent to this?”
The two messengers exchanged a glance.
“We can certainly promise that, but it will affect the bride price,” Axel responded.
Let the negotiations about the cost of the mare begin. Sigrid suppressed a sigh as Toste ran his hand over his beard and pretended to be contemplating the issue.
“Forgive me, my beauty,” Axel said and turned to Sigrid. “It was not my intention to bore you with men’s talk.”
She regarded him calmly. Everything going on in this hall was filled with lying, cheating, and maneuvering.
“The farms are mine, and I am the one guaranteeing the agreements that are made,” she said.
Axel waved to one of his hirdmen who was standing by the wall holding a wooden box. The warrior hurried over to Sigrid and dropped down to his knee before her and then opened the lid of the box.
Sigrid looked down at the most beautiful piece of jewelry she’d ever seen, a half-moon–shaped disk of heavy silver inlaid with several rows of red stones. There was a beautiful pattern of intertwining dragons curling around each stone, with no beginning or end. Even the chain was formed of small figures, and the whole thing fastened by the sacred couple embracing each other.
Sigrid had never seen anything so ornate, but she carefully concealed her delight at the extravagant gift, surely worth several hundreds.
The warrior held up the necklace to Toste and the men at the long table.
“Thank your king,” she said quietly, receiving approving looks from everyone for her self-control.
Axel smiled, and Sigrid could clearly tell that he wasn’t fooled by her attempts to appear indifferent to the gift. The messenger cleared his throat and then spoke again.
“These are the words Erik asked me to deliver: Nothing would please me more than to have you as my bride. I swear to respect and honor you.”
Sigrid bit her lip to keep from laughing. Erik was not much of a poet. That much was now clear to everyone present.
“Perhaps the maidens of Svealand are driven out of their minds and into lovesick swoons by pretty words and beautiful jewelry, but I am a Scylfing daughter, and it will take more than that to woo me.”
Toste had meticulously instructed her to be cunning in negotiations. Selling herself was like selling a horse or a slave. What someone was willing to pay determined everything. If you paid a high price for a filly from a good family, you would give her tender care and ample food so she could have strong, healthy offspring.
Combined with her father’s and the rest of her family’s property, Sigrid’s wealth in land and farms included almost all of western Geatland. When Erik married her, he would control this land. Although she had to marry Erik, she knew he would value her more if her bride price were high.
Even now she could see that Axel and Orm regarded her with greater deference than when she had entered the hall. She had to make sure it stayed that way. It was the only way to get them to respect her.
Sigrid nodded graciously and said, “Your king is generous.”
“We hope that he will also be your king,” Orm replied ceremoniously.
The whole hall awaited her response now, and it was so quiet she could hear the mice breathing. Sigrid took a deep breath and slowly put down her mead cup. The power she held in her hands was unexpectedly agreeable.
Ulf looked quite exhilarated, as if he could already start celebrating his sister’s becoming queen of Svealand. The warriors sat way down at the end of the long table. These men and many more would have to fight against Svealand if she didn’t go through with the marriage.
“I’m pleased by what’s been said of King Erik,” she said and got up from her seat. “Now I will consider your words carefully before I give my response.”
She left the hall with her head held high, feeling the floor sway beneath her feet. At least the proposal was over with now. Sigrid shivered and pushed aside her nagging sense of uneasiness.
She had to have faith.
I follow your will, Vanadís. If this is what you wish, I will follow your path.
“I hope they have a lot of silver behind those walls so I won’t be freezing my nuts off for nothing,” whispered Åke, who lay semirecumbent by Sweyn’s side in the rain.
Sweyn gazed somberly up the hill where a stone church towered above them like a dark shadow in the rain. It had a yard on one side and a building surrounded by a wall on the other. At the bottom of the hill toward the ocean there were some farms but no sign of any people. Even the cattle were staying indoors to avoid the cold rain that lashed the fields.
Sweyn changed position, feeling the water soaking into his breeches and shoes. The thicket they were lying under did not provide much shelter. The rain bent the leaves down and soon his cloak felt like a wet hand on his back. And it didn’t make him any happier that they were watching the only place they knew for sure that neither the king nor his men were.
Six ships, the Jómsvíkings’ five dragon boats plus Alfred’s ship, had sailed south to find the king of England and take revenge on him for Mikklavík. It was an audacious idea, almost insane given how few men they had, and therefore also glorious. If they managed to catch the king’s hird off guard and kill King Edward, the Jómsvíkings’ renown would grow, and they would be even more celebrated in song. A warrior couldn’t wish for more.
They had tracked the king to Corfe Castle in Wessex. Palna had tasked Eyvind, one of the six ship captains, with watching the castle. After that he had assigned the warriors from his own ship to watch a monastery on the outskirts of the village, which they could raid to fill their coffers. The Jómsvíking leaders often gave the best assignments to the crews of the other ships to keep them loyal.
Since Sweyn and Åke were the youngest, they had to do the jobs no one else wanted. So they had been lying in the wet, staring up at the monastery forever, looking for signs of warriors and riches. The only thing that had happened so far was that two poor, scrawny figures had begged at the gate and a couple of religious men in long,
gray tunics had entered the church.
“Pain and cold are bracing,” Sweyn whispered, trying to think of something besides the wetness. Distraction was the only way to endure. He had certainly learned that.
“If the others go into battle without us, I don’t know if I’ll be able to stand it,” said Åke.
Sweyn clenched his teeth to keep them from chattering.
A Jómsvíking had to be a man, and if he didn’t behave as one he would take a vicious beating from his brothers. There were warriors who had lain still for days to get the lay of a place. Ax-Wolf was full of stories from his youth, like the one about Yng, who had frozen to death by his side without saying a word while they were watching a mountain pass near Tromsø.
Sweyn tightened his aching hands into fists and looked out at the hills undulating like waves of grass down to the sea. The English countryside spread its legs like a bawdy bitch to all who desired her. If Guthrum hadn’t turned his back on the gods, this whole land could have belonged to the North.
Guthrum had unified the various Scandinavian chieftains into one kingdom, the Danelaw, and ruled almost all of Britannia. Only here in Wessex had King Alfred succeeded in holding the Scandinavians at bay, so Guthrum had brought his men here. The raid started out badly. The Danes lost 120 ships at Swanage, and then chieftains Ivar and Ubbe went home.
All the same Guthrum carried on and attacked Alfred’s castle in Chippenham. But Alfred managed to get away, and even though he didn’t have many warriors, he first conquered Guthrum’s hird and then besieged the castle that had been taken from him.
Guthrum, King of the Danelaw, shamefully gave up after two weeks. He abandoned the old beliefs and allowed himself to be baptized. The Scandinavians’ grip on the island had never been as strong again.
It was hard to fathom why Guthrum was so lacking in honor that he would first give up and then turn his back on the gods. A Jómsvíking should have fought to the death.
Sweyn twisted the oath ring on his arm. There were few things he was as proud of as what it represented. King Harald Bluetooth had built five ring fortresses and filled them with warriors who were sworn to defend the kingdom of the Danes and Jutes. Jómsborg was the most prominent of Harald’s fortresses, and that was especially thanks to Palna, because there was no better fighter or more worthy leader than Sweyn’s foster father.
Men came to Jómsborg from far and wide, filled with hopes and lofty opinions of their own fighting skills, but few were worthy of wearing Palna’s oath ring. A Jómsvíking had to be equally skilled with the sword, ax, and spear. Some of them who came were too clumsy, others too frail since they had been sitting at long tables instead of running, swimming, and making their bodies strong. Many had to leave because they were weak of mind.
Sweyn twisted his oath ring again. He had fought, bled, and suffered since childhood to wear the oath ring. Never had he been as proud as when Palna gave him the ring, which qualified him as a full Jómsvíking. He had his foster father to thank for everything, and all he wanted was to one day prove himself worthy of Palna’s faith in him.
The church bells started ringing in heavy, low peals that echoed through the roar of the rain. Then a low rumble was heard in the distance. Sweyn looked hopefully at the gray-black clouds and smiled as the noise of the sky chariots grew. Thor was here and his einherjar. The most faithful of the gods had arrived to stand by their side. There would soon be battle.
Te deum laudamus, te dominum confitemur.
The holy sisters prayed before the simple wooden cross. Their head coverings bobbed up and down and made them look like hatchlings popping up from a sea of stone.
Emma knelt at the very back of the church with the servants and waited for the prayers to end. Her legs ached from the cold floor and she was so tired it was hard to stay awake. Matins was the hardest of the day’s seven fixed-hour prayers, and she still had a hard time getting up in the middle of the night to pray and then work the whole day after that, with prayers and mealtimes as the only breaks.
“To work is to serve God,” Sister Hedvig used to say, and Emma was certainly forced to venerate him day and night.
When the prayer was over, she would go to the cookhouse and help prepare the first meal of the day. Then it was time to go to the building outside the walls where wayfarers were granted shelter for the night. After giving them water and a small piece of bread, she would sweep the dirt floor, spread out clean straw, and then hurry back for morning prayers and then proceed with the rest of the day’s duties.
Emma looked at Jesus hanging on the cross. Sister Hedvig said Jesus had had mercy on her sinful soul and that work would drive the devil out of her body. It might take a lifetime of penance before her soul was cleansed of sin, and then she could receive the virgin’s grace. Emma had been trying to make it come true, had been trying for almost a year. She suppressed another yawn and felt her sleepiness swallowing her up. Soon her head lolled forward.
She was startled awake when the prayers ended. Her legs ached as she stood up, and she took care not to touch any of the other servant girls as they followed mistress Gyrwynne out to start their daily work. She heard Megan whispering something to one of the other girls.
The gate in the wooden palisade that surrounded the nuns’ dwelling house was a light shadow in the cold, gray morning. Rain splattered as they hurried shivering along the path, into the courtyard. Some of the girls pushed closer to Emma. Then Megan’s smiling face popped up, right next to her.
“Devil’s little whore-child,” Megan whispered and pinched Emma’s breast, hard—quickly so that mistress Gyrwynne wouldn’t see anything.
Emma slipped in the mud but didn’t let on how much it hurt.
Megan sneered, like a demon with her wet hair plastered to her rosy cheeks. None of them hated Emma more than she did.
“I’m going to drive the devil out of you tonight,” she said.
The other girls stared at them, fully expecting to see Megan strike Emma with her cane and force her to crawl on the ground in humiliation.
Emma swallowed. She should kill Megan, by stabbing a knife into her face until it was a bloody pulp, and then pee on the wound. But that would be a sin and she would burn for all eternity for it.
Her heart pounded harder in her chest. If she could only get out of here! Sometimes she studied the wayfarers who stopped at the guesthouse and hoped that one of them would take care of her, but they were all just as poor as she was. Failed crops and food shortages had driven many people onto the roads. If Emma left the nunnery, she would surely starve to death.
“Leave me alone,” Emma said, looking up at Megan for the first time.
Megan made a face and continued to taunt Emma. “You may have fooled the sisters, but I see what you are: a filthy whore. I see the devil in you.”
Emma pushed a lock of wet hair out of her face.
The rain had already soaked through her shoes and dress. Now she was going to be cold for the rest of the day.
“If the devil was in me, I would have sent you to hell.”
Before Megan could respond, mistress Gyrwynne called that she was going to get the vegetables. Megan ran into the warm cookhouse. Emma watched her disappear and then went to fetch some firewood.
A year earlier as she had walked up the hill to the nunnery for the first time, Emma thought she had arrived in heaven. A monk named William had taken mercy on her when she was begging in the streets. Her owner, Acca, had beaten her up earlier that same evening because Emma had pleaded with him not to offer her body to men that night. When the monk saw her wounds and swollen face, he gave in and brought her to the nuns in the hope that they could save her soul.
Emma went to the woodshed and started loading the basket with pieces of wood.
The monastery was by a village near a castle on a hill overlooking the water, and was much bigger than she’d imagined. On one side was the monks’ big building, protected behind high stone walls. The nunnery was smaller and made of wood, surround
ed by a simple wooden palisade. The stone church sat between them.
On that first day, Sister Hedvig had brought Emma to the cookhouse and seen that she was given food and a place on the floor to sleep. Since then Emma had worked very hard to pray to Jesus Christ the savior. It wasn’t so bad in the beginning. The other servant girls shunned her, but she had a roof over her head, received food every day, and no longer had to raise her skirts to all the men Acca sold her services to. She’d been given a new frock and a head-cloth that completely hid her hair, and the work tired her out so much that she didn’t have nightmares anymore. It would have been all right if it hadn’t been for Megan. Emma had received the first surreptitious pinch last winter and since then things had grown worse and worse. Emma was used to being beaten, and the men who had groaned and emptied themselves into her had sometimes hit her, but to have a girl just a few years older than herself harassing her was more than she could bear.
She prayed to Jesus and Mary for help, and sometimes when no one was listening she prayed to the gods she had prayed to as a child, to Thor and Freya. So far none of them had responded.
Her back ached when she lifted the full firewood basket and carried it across the muddy courtyard into the warmth of the cookhouse. Mistress Gyrwynne was kneading dough. Megan sat on a footstool peeling turnips and sneered malevolently when Emma stepped in.
Emma set the basket by the oven and put some wood on the fire.
A curse on that fat Megan and her fingers.
The flames leapt up with a crackle. She ought to set fire to the cookhouse and then see how the flames devoured the monastery with a roar. Megan would scream in pain as her skin burst. She would bellow until her lips turned black. This place was hell on earth, so why shouldn’t they all burn now?
“Don’t sit there dawdling,” mistress Gyrwynne yelled.
The Unbroken Line of the Moon Page 4