The men moved back into formation on the field to try yet again.
It would be Yule soon, and training was taking all his time. In addition, he’d spent a fortune in silver on food and on the smith who had armed them all. And still, the men were so pathetic they’d be killed in their first battle. And his aspirations would die with them.
They had to learn. Even if he had to whip the skills into them, they were going to become fearsome warriors.
“Don’t let them leave the field until they can do it,” he said sternly. “I’ll be back before dark. Palna wants to see me.”
The north wind tugged at Sweyn’s cloak as he walked toward his foster father’s house. It was the biggest in Jómsborg, built of logs that had been chinked with mud and then whitewashed, with a thick thatch roof where the smoke rose from two chimneys.
Sweyn knocked on the door and waited until Valdur, the limping, old warrior who served Palna, opened the door.
“He’s expecting you,” Valdur said and led Sweyn down the hall into Palna’s room.
Sweyn’s foster father was sitting on a stool in front of the hearth, looking into the flames. Sweyn stopped in the middle of the room and took a deep breath of the smoky warmth. It did not bode well that his father wanted to speak to him alone.
“Have a seat,” Palna said, gesturing to a bench beside him.
Sweyn sat down, his legs aching with fatigue. Gratefully he warmed himself in the heat of the crackling fire.
“How’s your mother doing?” Palna inquired.
“Better. Beyla has been attending to her with healing drinks. I hope the evil in her will be driven away.”
“You take good care of your mother. It does you credit,” his foster father said and nodded contentedly.
“You deserve my thanks for the slave you gave her. She’s good.”
“Good, good. I hear things aren’t going so well with your warriors.”
“They’ll be ready by the spring.” Something would work. He would show his father that he could lead men and be victorious in battle.
“I’m sure they will. That’s not why I summoned you.” Palna cleared his throat before proceeding. “You’re not a child anymore but a Jelling nobleman, a chieftain in charge of four ships. You need a wife at your side. If you have a son, your name and your position will live on. My Valfrid is of marriageable age, and she is both accomplished and beautiful.”
Sweyn watched his father and waited. So this was the old wolf’s plan? Sweyn laughed somberly at the thought of sharing a bed with any of Palna’s three daughters.
“She’s my sister,” Sweyn objected.
“Not by blood. Valfrid can give you many splendid sons and she’s familiar with a Jómsvíking’s life. It would be wise to take her as your wife.”
Sweyn stared into the flames with distaste. Valfrid’s head was so empty it echoed, and she never had anything sensible to say. She was nothing compared to Sigrid, and he would rather have tied a boulder to his back than take her as his wife.
“I’m going to be the king of the Danes, and Valfrid is no queen.”
A shadow came over Palna’s face, and he said, “Are you saying my daughters aren’t good enough?”
“They’re my sisters,” Sweyn replied calmly. He wasn’t planning on letting himself be scared into something he didn’t want.
“That Tostedotter woman still poisons your mind, I see. But you should give up on her. Sigrid is already heavy with Erik’s child. That’s what that tradesmen from the North said when they were unloading their goods last month.”
A baby! Sweyn’s heart skipped a beat. “How far along is she?”
“It’s Erik’s baby,” Palna said with a sigh. “She’s lost to you. Take Valfrid as your wife and forget Tostedotter.”
Sweyn shook his head. Certainty took root in him. Sigrid had been untouched when they lay together during the sacrifice, and now she was carrying his child.
“In the spring I will fetch her and the baby from Svealand and bring them to Jómsborg. She is my wife and queen. There is no other.”
He was going to be a father. That knowledge lifted his spirits. He would win in Svealand, and his men would be more than ready. He had to get back to the training grounds, and push the men harder than he had been. They had to succeed, for the sake of both the baby’s and his own destiny.
“You are weaving wishes and dreams out of a cloth that does not exist. Take Valfrid. That is my wish.”
“I respect you and honor you in everything, my foster father,” Sweyn said, standing up. “But I am a Jelling and the son of a king, and on this matter I make my own decisions.”
As Sweyn strode through Jómsborg, he pulled out the pouch he wore on a cord by his heart and stroked the worn leather. Sigrid and the baby were his. Neither Erik nor Svealand’s warriors would keep him from taking what he wanted. In the spring his wait would be over.
Icy winds swept through the hall. The wind tugged at the doors, which banged on their hinges. Outside, the frost giants reigned. They had covered the fields in a gray chill, and snow lay knee-deep around the buildings.
Sigrid pulled her fur-trimmed cloak around her swelling body. The flames in the hearth could not drive away the cold, even though everyone had gathered in the women’s small room, which held the heat better. Solveig and Haldis sat at the loom, where images of Erik’s victories against the Obotrites were revealed by their labor. Several of the women were embroidering another part of the tapestry. It would hang in the great hall soon, along with others that told of Erik and showed that he was the greatest of Svealand’s kings.
The women regarded their responsibility to record the great heroic deeds in pictures with the utmost seriousness. Haldis paid close attention, deciding which warriors would be included in the weaving, what they would be doing, and whether they were alive or dead.
“Saga herself, the most eloquent of the goddesses, wants each matron to pass on the stories by weaving her own cloth, like the Norns,” she’d explained, as if Sigrid came from a distant land.
Sigrid stared gloomily at her own needlework and sighed. Erik’s horse looked mostly like a big pig, and she was so tired she could hardly sit upright on the bench.
She should have demanded her right from Haldis, should have stood up and declared that from this moment on she was the one who made the decisions about tapestries and stories. But she didn’t have the strength. The baby drained her and gave her swirling dreams about monsters and giantesses who put a baby in her belly and waited around to steal it from her, once it was born. Sigrid shuddered and looked at the women sitting silently, leaning over their looms.
Because of her weakness she had barely been able to visit any farms lately. Still, with Emma by her side, she had forced herself to visit every home in Svealand, or at least that’s how it felt. Poor, wide-eyed farmers had shyly offered her porridge and then asked her to touch their young daughters’ bellies—and the same with their goats, cows, horses, chickens, and even an ox—so that she would make them fertile. Proud matrons, the wives of warriors and chieftains, had asked the same, although the food they’d offered her was better. She’d even been offered meat.
She’d visited drafty longhouses where snotty-nosed children sat in straw beds with their dirty mothers, as well as ornate halls with domestic servants in courtly clothes. Everyone had accepted her basket, filled with dried meat, eggs, honey, cheeses, berries, and sweet buns, with the same pleasure. After that they had asked the same questions: Had she been blessed by Freya or was she the Lady herself? Could Kára reveal herself to them? Could they touch her belly and be blessed? Humbly, Sigrid had complied in every way.
For your sake, so that they will see you and revere you.
She even found Erik’s cast-off mistress, Aedis, when she visited an old farm with a leaky thatched roof and scrawny farm animals. There was a lot of animosity toward her among the household servants, and Sigrid hadn’t understood why until she spotted Aedis trying to hide herself behind some wome
n. Aedis had run out of money when Sigrid kicked her out of Kungsgården. Her mother, Hyndla, couldn’t help her since she’d been expelled from the temple after trying to kill Emma on the bonfire. Now Aedis and her children lived with relatives who could scarcely feed them, and no man would marry her because they were all afraid of getting on the king’s bad side.
“Didn’t Erik give you silver and jewelry to ensure the well-being of you and your children?” Sigrid had asked.
“I had to hand those over the day I arrived here,” was her bitter response.
Sigrid looked at Erik’s two daughters, who were gray in the face and skinny as twigs. This was shameful of Erik. He was no better than her father, who took what he wanted and then went on his way. They were dishonorable rogues to let their children live in hunger and privation.
“You must come with me to live and serve on my staff at Kungsgården.”
Sigrid’s offer amazed Aedis and her household servants, but she turned it down.
“I’d rather starve than let you make a fool of me.”
The mistress’s hatred and pride didn’t surprise Sigrid, and she hadn’t actually thought Aedis would take her up on it.
“Well, but the king’s children shouldn’t live in poverty. Accept this token of my friendship, the first of many.” Sigrid put one of her silver bracelets on the table in front of Aedis and then left the farm. Word of her magnanimous generosity toward Aedis had spread quickly, and Solveig praised her for her benevolence.
Every Freyaday, Sigrid had gone to the temple with offerings, which were sacrificial animals from the king’s own flocks. She’d gotten to know the priests better, but she gave most of the animals to the priestesses, who in turn showed her genuine friendship. At each visit she prayed to Freya and the Norns in the sacred grove, and for this she gained respect in the temple. It was a pleasure for Sigrid to get to pray at the site where the old ways were strongest.
Everything had truly worked out well, and wherever Sigrid went she was met with admiration and joy. All of it would benefit her son when he arrived.
“Tell me about how Queen Elfrida murdered King Edward and put a child on the throne, Emma,” cried Virun, Orm’s young wife. Several of the Svea women chimed in right away, also eager to hear the story again.
People loved Emma’s stories from far away England and never tired of hearing them.
Emma stood up and wiped her palms on her dress. She pushed aside her blond hair, which seemed impossible to tame, and looked out at the noble women on the benches.
“The crops were failing in England, and most people were sure it was because God was dissatisfied with young Edward having been chosen as the king. Several of the chieftains came to Corfe Castle and sought the advice of the king’s stepmother, the dowager queen Elfrida, who lived there with her son Æthelred. Every time one of the chieftains stepped into the queen’s room, she said that if God wanted her to intervene, then she would receive a sign.”
They were enthralled as Emma told them how King Edward rode alone into Corfe Castle after getting away from his hunting party and how Elfrida met him in the lower courtyard, where she was pouring mead. When he went to get off his horse to take the welcoming cup, the dowager queen’s servants murdered him.
“Did the king die well?” Virun blurted out.
“He took a sword in the back and didn’t manage to say very much.”
“He didn’t make any poetry about his death or give any advice to his young half brother?”
Emma shook her head.
“When the blow landed, the king’s horse ran away, dragging his body out of the castle, and he wasn’t freed from the horse until it reached a poor, blind woman who lived below the castle. When the blind woman walked up to the body and touched him, she immediately got her sight back. That was the first sign that the crop failures were over.”
Jorun and Alfhild were the only ones not listening eagerly. They appeared unmoved.
Sigrid faltered when she noticed them, the pain in her belly getting worse.
“Erik should be home soon now that the giantess and goddess Skaði has covered the water with ice,” Solveig said without looking up from her embroidery.
Sigrid looked into the flames. She could hardly remain upright on the bench. The baby in her belly kicked as if he were trying to break her back. Sigrid moaned, and Haldis gave her a look of disapproval.
“Childbirth is the battlefield of women,” Haldis chastised. “They must withstand it just as bravely as men do battle.”
The Svea women all nodded in agreement, as did Alfhild and Jorun, who sat sewing with the others. It annoyed Sigrid that although neither of her kinswomen had ever given birth, even they seemed to find Sigrid a little too delicate.
Sigrid clenched her teeth in anger. She really had no use for know-it-alls, not now, when it felt like she was going to be split in two. And this was one of her better days. Lately she had been so weak that she sometimes hadn’t been able to leave her bed and couldn’t stomach anything more than the warm milk Jorun brought in the mornings.
“I couldn’t eat for several moons when I was pregnant with Virun, and it took two days of labor before she was born, but I didn’t complain about it,” said Haldis’s sister Ingrid.
“The king’s son kicks with the strength of Thor,” Haldis said, and everyone laughed.
Curse them all. Sigrid doubled over as a jab of pain cut right through her belly. Emma came over next to her right away and held her hand.
“Something’s wrong,” Sigrid whispered, her forehead breaking out into a cold sweat.
“It’s not time yet,” Haldis said in an attempt to comfort her.
“I’ll take you to your bed,” Emma said, trying to help Sigrid stand up.
The floor swayed beneath her, and everything went blurry.
“Help me,” Emma hissed to Jorun, who methodically set her needlework aside.
Alfhild and Solveig responded more quickly to Emma’s plea and helped Sigrid toward the stairs. Something was wrong with the baby. Sigrid knew it. She forced herself forward, step-by-step, while the jabs of pain just got worse. Finally she fell into the darkness.
Sweyn stopped in the doorway in surprise, seeing his mother sitting up and sewing his battle flag even though it was the middle of the night.
“You’re still awake?” he asked, undoing his sword belt.
His body ached after the long cold days on the field where he was training the men. Still, it was worth it. The archers weren’t as good as they should be yet, but the warriors had eventually learned to form a wedge shape.
“I want to finish your pride,” she said, looking up from her needlework with a smile.
The light from the lamp danced over the deep wrinkles below her eyes.
“You should rest, not work so late,” he said.
“Nonsense. Are you hungry? Gren can get the fire going and heat you up some food.”
The slave got up and waited, her eyes down. Sweyn shook his head and walked over to his mother and looked at the light-blue flag, his heart swelling with pride. He’d been wondering for a long time what symbol he ought to adopt as his own. The flag was the symbol his men would follow in battle and would be displayed behind him one day when he sat on Harald’s throne. It was something to choose with care. Mother was sewing up the last of the brightly colored pattern with the finest of stitches. It twisted around the hammer of Thor, which was being held by a howling wolf. Sweyn had never seen anything like it. The handwork was so well done and colorful that he couldn’t take his eyes off it.
“It’s a masterpiece,” he said, running his hand over the embroidery work.
His mother smiled, pleased.
“Every stitch has been a pleasure. It will go with you as you conquer the world. When your standard bearer holds it high and thousands of warriors follow you into battle, a part of me will always be with you, my son, my pride and joy.”
Sweyn put his hand on hers and firmly grasped it.
“You’
ll see it happen.”
She burst into a hacking cough that went on for a long time, and then their eyes met.
“I’ll be dead soon.”
Sweyn stared down at the floor. He’d known it for a long time, but even now he didn’t want to believe it was true.
“I’ll go to the afterworld with honor and my name restored. Don’t grieve for me, Sweyn, not even you with your strong will can do anything about it. Be happy about this last bit of time we’ve had together, when you made me prouder than any mother could be. I’ve gotten to watch you take your first steps toward the greatness you will achieve, so I can die in peace.”
Sweyn stared at the floorboards in silence.
“No,” he said firmly. “You’re not going to die yet. You’ll see me take my place on the Jelling throne.”
“Not even you can change my fate.”
The silence between them grew.
“Are you planning to tell me about her, or are you planning to remain silent until it’s too late?” his mother finally said.
“Who?” he asked, running his hand over his head.
“The girl you carry here.” With an amused grin, she put her hand on his heart and then went back to her sewing. “A mother notices these things, even if you try to hide them. I persuaded Beyla to tell me a few things, although hers is not an easy tongue to get wagging. Tell me now, because I’ve been waiting a long time for you to say something.”
Sweyn nodded to the slave, who set out a plate of bread and cheese on the table along with a cup of small beer.
“You’ll meet her in the spring after I fetch her and my child, who will have been born by then.”
Just saying those words filled him with a rare sense of warmth. It would be a son to raise, a copy of himself, or a girl who was like Sigrid. A whole clan of smaller versions of themselves would eventually come, but this would be their first.
The Unbroken Line of the Moon Page 28