“I had not thought to see you so soon,” said Harald.
“Me either, but you sent a plague to me, and I have come to bring it back,” said Ragnvald wryly.
“A plague?” Harald asked.
“Atli Kolbrandsson.”
Harald stood too close, and Ragnvald had to crane his neck to see Harald’s face. His expression darkened. “Oh him. Yes, he has asked me for a formal hearing, a few days from now. What other news do you have to tell me?” he asked with a growing grin, and a voice that stilled other conversation.
“Much news—but later,” said Ragnvald, more quietly. Harald should hear of Sigurd and Egil’s leaving, not because they were important, but because they followed others, a tide of free men who liked their chances better abroad than in Harald’s Norway.
“I hear Vemund is finally dealt with,” said Harald. He cracked his knuckles.
“Dead and burned.” Ragnvald tried to match Harald’s hearty tone. “He will trouble us no more.”
“I will raise a toast to that, and tell of your deed,” Harald promised.
“Please do not,” said Ragnvald. He moved his hand toward his scar, but let it fall again before he could make the gesture and show his discomfort. In his vision of Harald as a golden wolf, Harald had burned where he touched. This deed was his.
“A man should boast of his triumphs,” said Harald more quietly as conversations resumed around them, “or how else will others know of them?”
“I would rather boast of battles,” Ragnvald said. “I have brought his men, the betrayers Illugi and Grai, back to you.”
“Why?”
Ragnvald shrugged. “What else could I do with them? I do not trust them.”
“They helped you defeat Vemund.”
“They helped you,” said Ragnvald. “But they are oath breakers.”
“They swore they were not,” said Harald. He gave Ragnvald a sly look and shrugged. “I am certain I can find use for them.”
“What of Atli Kolbrandsson—can you find a better use for him?” Ragnvald asked. “He claims Sogn. And your uncle encouraged him in this.”
Harald put his hand on Ragnvald’s shoulder. “I’m sure it is a misunderstanding,” he said. “I cannot discuss it now, though. This must be done before witnesses. You understand?”
Ragnvald nodded. He knew better than to argue. He would have his chance later, so Harald could make an example of his fairness and generosity. This must be witnessed so all would know Harald’s decision, and there could be no more temptation for men like Atli.
“I will hold court to settle disputes in a few days, and then I will hear the arguments and make my decision known. In the meantime, enjoy my table—there is none better in all of Norway.”
“As I well know,” said Ragnvald, bowing his head.
He returned to sit next to Oddi. “He will hear our dispute later,” Ragnvald told him.
“Did he give you hope he would decide in your favor?” Oddi asked.
“I cannot imagine he would decide against me,” said Ragnvald, though even as he said it, he found that he could. Harald claimed that he never broke a vow and treated all men fairly, but Ragnvald knew that he had killed or outlawed Norse kings without giving them a chance to swear to him when he wanted their land for his allies—kings who had as much right to their land as Ragnvald had to Sogn.
“It was Guthorm who sent Atli to Sogn,” Ragnvald added. “Do you think I should fear him?”
“You have always had to fear him,” said Oddi.
Ragnvald watched the high table, trying to read the faces and interactions of the men: Hakon grew harder and leaner with the years, and Guthorm’s golden hair had faded to a dull yellow, matching his stained teeth, though he still had broad, powerful shoulders and a face like a mountainside. He had sent Atli to Sogn with bad information, hoping to spark a fight. Ragnvald had always found Guthorm unforgiving but fair, willing to follow Ragnvald’s advice if it helped Harald, though he had grown both more cautious and more critical of late, as Harald grew out from under his shadow. When Atli saw Ragnvald watching them, he gave him a slight smile, a self-satisfied widening of his greasy lips.
“Perhaps you are right,” said Ragnvald.
12
Svanhild rushed to Eystein’s side, coughing from the searing wind. She put her sleeve over her mouth. It hardly helped; the air burned her throat, tasting of the sulfur that suffused everything in Iceland. Solvi had to walk more slowly over the uneven ground, and by the time he reached them, Svanhild had already picked up her son. She could not rouse him; his eyelashes only fluttered when she tapped his cheek. His legs dangled on the ground as he slipped down in her arms. Solvi helped lift him up so she could get a better grip and then arranged his legs around her waist and his arms around her neck.
“He is ill,” she said. Even with Svanhild’s face burning from the overheated air, Eystein felt hotter still.
“Yes.” Solvi stood, still as a block of wood.
“Go find Unna—she is a great healer,” said Svanhild. Unna had walked away when he arrived to scold Svanhild. Solvi did not move. “Go,” she said more forcefully. “I will take him home.”
She could carry him easily enough on an ordinary day, but after the long land-claiming ritual, her arms had far less strength. “Hold on to me, Monkey,” she said. “Please. We will be home soon and you can sleep and get better.”
He murmured something against her shoulder. He’s only tired, she told herself. He had walked far today for a child. Too far without enough food. She should have fed him more, given Unna bread to feed him while her hands were occupied leading the heifer. She would take Eystein back to the tent and tuck him into bed. Willow bark tea would bring his fever down, and broth would give him back his strength. It was only a passing ague, the sort that happened to all children.
She tucked Eystein under his blankets in his cot, and made him the willow bark tea. She set a spoonful against his lips, and tipped it in when he opened them. After a few spoonfuls he refused more. Not enough. She lay down next to him on the narrow pallet and put her arm gently over him, in hopes that if he grew chilled from the breeze that blew through the tent he could take some warmth from her.
She tried to think of the children she had grown up with at Ardal. She remembered a boy she played with when Ragnvald had no time for her, a boy named—her memory failed her. His face was suddenly very vivid to her, gap-toothed, with an overbite, and a head as round as the pig-bladder ball that they had kicked around in play. He had not been particularly sickly, but a fever had still carried him off in his sixth year, turning him from an active child to a glass-eyed doll, and then a gray-skinned corpse. He had been healthy until then, though. A fever might take a child at any time, with no warning. Svanhild clung to that: if a healthy child could die, then might not a sickly child live? And she wished she could remember the name of her friend.
She must have dozed off next to Eystein, for she saw the blond boy from her youth coming to her across a field covered with the same mist that often lay in the hollows of Iceland’s fields where hot spring water met cold air. He spoke to her it seemed, though she did not hear his voice, and asked her why she did not remember his name.
“I was young,” said Svanhild.
“The age that your son is now,” said the boy, only now he was Svanhild’s mother, face ravaged and back bent over with age. “Do you think he will remember your name in the lands of death? Or is he too young?”
“I am his mother,” Svanhild cried, feeling as though she barely had breath to make the words, and hearing only silence instead of words. “He will remember me. And he will not die until he is an old man.”
She woke to Solvi shaking her shoulder. He knelt by the side of her pallet, and glanced down at her, then quickly away. “Svanhild, you were calling out.” As before, her name sounded false on his lips, a stranger speaking through him.
“I had a dream,” said Svanhild. “A boy I knew . . . Ingmar. See I remembered his name
.”
“Yes, you did,” said Solvi. “That is what you kept crying out. I worried I had a rival.” He gave her one of his mischievous smiles, a smile that Svanhild could not bring herself to return.
“We must give his name to Eystein. Eystein Ingmar. I did not do well to name him for my father.” Her father had died young, shamed, and murdered by his friends. She had thought she followed in his footsteps, for he was an adventurer, but she had only borrowed his ill-luck for her son. Perhaps if Svanhild honored Ingmar’s memory, his spirit would guard Eystein from death.
* * *
When Svanhild woke again, Unna was sitting by Eystein’s side. Pillows propped up his head. In the shadows cast by the lamplight, he looked far too thin, his skin no more than silk stretched across the frame of his bones.
“How long has he had a bloody cough?” Unna asked. She looked very worried, so much that Svanhild wanted to send her away, to keep her from infecting Eystein with her fear. “Svanhild, did you hear me?” Unna asked again. “How long has he been coughing blood?”
“I . . . he wasn’t. He didn’t. He’s not.” Svanhild sat up and rubbed her head. Her mouth was dry.
Wordlessly, Unna wiped a finger along the spittle that ringed his mouth, and held it under the lamp to show how it painted her skin red.
“I think—a few days?” Svanhild said. “I thought he cut his mouth. Did you see him coughing blood? When we visited before?” She smoothed his lank and sodden hair back from his forehead. Fever had made his cheeks and lips vividly pink, giving him a false look of health.
“No,” said Unna. “He spent more of his time with Donall, remember. I can ask him.”
“Ask the boy,” said Solvi. “He has not lost his wits, he is only sick.”
“Eystein, my son.” Svanhild looked down at him. “How long have you been coughing blood?”
He seemed to struggle to make his eyes meet hers. “I don’t know.”
“Think,” said Solvi. He stood behind Svanhild and put his hand on her shoulder. “Was it before we left the Faroe Islands?” Eystein looked at Svanhild, pleadingly, tears in his eyes. He nodded. “What does it mean, this coughing blood?” Solvi asked Unna.
“I have seen it before,” said Unna. “Please.” She gestured for Svanhild to give her space to examine Eystein.
Unna pulled up his shirt, exposing his thin white chest. His ribs made Svanhild think of the bones of a whale she had seen washed up on a beach. How had she missed his failing health? She should have forced him to drink broth thickened with bull’s blood until muscle and flesh covered those fragile bones. Unna put her ear to Eystein’s chest. “Take a deep breath,” she bid him. He did so, raising Unna’s head with the movement. “And another.”
This one made him cough again. Svanhild could not deny it now: the spittle ringing his mouth was red with blood, making him look like a little wolf that had been at its prey. If only he were as healthy as that.
“His lungs are crackling,” said Unna. “He will have been weak for a while, if it has come to this point. Did you not notice?”
“You did not notice,” said Svanhild, trying to cover her panic with anger. “He kept up with me today.”
“He is not my son,” said Unna.
“I do not need your reproach,” Svanhild cried. “Help me. Help him.”
“What do you know of this illness?” Solvi asked Unna, his voice harsh.
Unna did not answer for a moment. She pulled Eystein’s shirt back down and his blanket up to his chin. “I know that it spreads easily and it usually ends in death.”
Svanhild wanted to rush forward to cover Eystein’s ears. He would be so frightened—Unna had no children, otherwise she would know that some things had to be hidden from them.
“Get out,” said Solvi. “I too heard I would die at his age, and I did not. I will not have you ill-wishing my son.”
“Wait,” said Svanhild as Unna gathered her basket of herbs so she could leave. “How can we make him better?”
Unna wrapped her shawl around her shoulders. “Keep him warm, give him willow bark tea to keep his fever down, and keep him fed. No matter what, you must keep him warm.” She looked pointedly at the fabric walls of the tent. “He is already far too thin.” Her words twisted in Svanhild’s stomach like a blade.
“What causes this sickness?” Svanhild asked.
“Some think sorcery,” said Unna. “Some think bad air.”
“You have brought both of those with you today,” said Solvi. “Get out, or I will make you leave.”
“Svanhild, come and see me,” said Unna. She opened the tent flap to let herself out.
“She is trying to help,” said Svanhild to Solvi. She could not bear to look at him, to take her eyes from Eystein for even a moment.
“She is a part of the poison of this place,” said Solvi. “If she did not cause his illness, be sure she did nothing to prevent it. And yet she tries to blame you. I know of no better mother than you, Svanhild.”
“You did not know much of any mothering,” cried Svanhild. “How would you know?”
“As you like.” His voice was grim. “You cannot stay here now.”
“What? Our son is ill. Where should I go?”
“Back to Norway—the air here has poisoned him, Unna said. It is the only way. Svanhild, come, leave with me tonight.”
“What of your war?” Svanhild asked, still watching Eystein. He had fallen asleep as they argued in tones that usually sent him into hiding until his parents had made peace again.
“This is more important than that.”
“Don’t lie to me again. You want to use his illness as an excuse to drag me and my son into your war, when he needs stable ground beneath him to become healthy again.”
“I mean to give him stable ground—a stable kingdom,” said Solvi. “Svanhild, look at me.” Svanhild turned toward him. She saw in the gold of his beard glinting in the lantern’s light and the laugh lines near his eyes, one half of all she loved in the world. Then Eystein coughed again and she turned back toward her son.
“Go away, husband,” she said. “I do not want to hear of moving him. He is too weak as it is, and sea journeys have never agreed with him.”
“It is being away from his home that disagrees with him.”
“And where is his home? You have never given him a home for more than a season at a time.”
“That is what I mean to change,” said Solvi. “I will give him a few days to become stronger, but do not mistake me, Svanhild. We will bring him back to Tafjord, and he will be healed there.”
* * *
Through the second night of Eystein’s illness, Svanhild lay in her cot next to Solvi, listening to every sound that came from Eystein’s bed: a painful cough, the sounds his rush mattress made when he turned over on it.
In the first two days Solvi tried to order her to leave Eystein’s bedside and prepare for their journey, but she refused, and eventually he left her alone. He seemed a stranger in those moments, an enemy to whom she never should have joined herself. As the endless time passed, marked within the tent only by the lightening and darkening of the hanging wool of the walls, Eystein began to eat more, and eventually sit up. A night passed when he did not cough at all, and Svanhild began to hope that Unna had been wrong. She put her ear to his chest when he breathed and was not sure if she heard crackling or not. It could be the wind moving over the sand, or the shifting of his mattress.
Finally, ten days after Svanhild had claimed her land, Eystein said he felt well enough—and was restless enough—to get out of bed. He wanted to go outside. He stood unsteadily, clinging to Svanhild’s hand, and took a few halting steps to reach the door of the tent. Svanhild lifted the tent flap, and they both squinted at the harsh gray light of the overcast day.
“Are you feeling better, son? Truly?” Svanhild asked.
“The light makes my head hurt,” he said. “But I am hungry.”
Tears burned in her eyes. She had spent the last ten
days begging him to swallow bread soaked in broth, only to have him cry and push it away, saying it hurt his throat. Her stomach growled in answer to his words. She had eaten little but his leavings, and her body cried out for meat, vegetables, food of the living, not the sickbed.
“Let us fix you some food then,” she said brightly. She fought her own dizziness, watching stars dance in the blackness that overtook her vision. “What are you hungry for? Some soft bread and cheese?”
“With honey?” he asked.
She laughed and hugged him to her. “Of course. As much honey as you want until you grow fat as a little round bear cub.” She took a moment, listening to the cries of the gulls, to gather her strength so she could stand and greet Solvi, who crossed the beach and walked toward the cottage.
“He is better,” she said as soon as he was within hearing distance.
“That is good,” he said grimly. He wore a stern expression that Svanhild had rarely seen on his face before, except the night that she gave birth to Eystein and he left her chamber even though she begged him to stay. He had insisted that his presence interfered with the women’s magic of midwifery. She had not forgiven him for a month afterward, for she believed having him by her side would have taken away her pain in a way the Frisian women who had attended the birth could not. Her anger rose, surprising her with its intensity. Eystein had been birthed from sickness to wellness again, and as before, Svanhild had to do it on her own.
“I am glad,” he said. “But in growing well, I fear he has made you ill. You look terrible.” His face softened into a tender look that made Svanhild’s throat tight. She looked away again. She needed all her determination for Eystein. She touched her hair, which was oily and dirty from so long without a bath.
“I had more important things to do than to be beautiful for you,” said Svanhild.
“It is not your beauty I am worried about,” said Solvi. “You are pale and your eyes are dark. You are skinnier than when we were trapped in the Hebrides for ten days and we had to live on limpets.”
The Sea Queen Page 14