“I wanted to hate you for asking that of me,” she said.
“Do you not?”
“No. Fear makes all of us less than ourselves.”
“Not you,” said Ragnvald.
“I do not feel fear at the side of the wounded,” said Alfrith. “My mother feared life without my brother too much, and she kept him alive when she should not. I have never lost someone I feared that much to live without.”
Ragnvald shivered. She had called him cold, yet Ragnvald would willingly kill or die for Svanhild, for his sons, especially Ivar. If either of them had been served as Jorunn had—he did not know what he might do. His anger would blind him to any but the bloodiest revenge.
* * *
Svanhild stood at a loom in the women’s chamber, stringing the warp for sail wool. The new hall at Naustdal was always damp. Some of the moisture came from the wet weather that forced water droplets inside even the best-daubed hall, and some from the beams of wood and the turf, still fresh from its construction this summer. The wool’s dampness made it hard to weave, and some flax had started to mold. It would have to be boiled to kill that growth, and even so, anything made from it would turn out mottled and musty.
“It only snowed a little last night,” said Hilda. She sat down on her favorite stool, arranged her skirts over it, and took up her spindle.
“Yes,” said Svanhild. “I think we may get a thaw before true winter.” She glanced at her mother, Ascrida, who sat dozing in a darkened corner. The lamp overhead swung a little, enough to make Svanhild feel slightly dazed. She wore a short tunic and skirt under her overdress these days, to make it easy to nurse her daughter, Freydis.
Thora, Freydis’s wet nurse, who had given birth at the same time as Svanhild, carried Svanhild’s daughter into the chamber, bouncing her as she walked, to soothe Freydis’s hungry cries. Svanhild still shared feeding duties with Thora—Freydis would accept a wet nurse, but not as well as Svanhild’s own breast. She undid the large bronze brooch that held up her overdress on the right side, and pulled up her tunic to bare her breast. She beckoned Thora to bring her daughter to her. Freydis stopped crying as soon as she came close to Svanhild, her perfect rosebud mouth curved as though it anticipated this feeding. She had been a fussy feeder at first. Now, as she neared her fourth month of life, she had become an easy child, and seemed to grow bigger each day.
Freydis began to fret again, and Svanhild loosened her grip and transferred her to her other breast. She was stronger than Eystein had been, even at this age. This child would likely have survived all of Solvi’s voyages, and Svanhild would never cease to blame herself that she had not protected Eystein better. Sometime earlier in the fall, while Svanhild lay abed, recovering from the weakness of Freydis’s hard childbirth, she realized that a year had passed since she saw Solvi last. Legally, their marriage was no more.
At least when Freydis nursed, Svanhild did not have to spin or do any of the other women’s tasks. She saw that Hilda plied some black sheep’s wool, a color that would never be used in a ship’s sail, and wondered at the purpose. She would not ask, though. Hilda ran Naustdal, not in the way that Svanhild would have, but well enough, and resented any of Svanhild’s questions.
She watched every day for Ragnvald and Alfrith’s coming. She had not been able to fulfill Ragnvald’s request that she keep Oddi distracted. He needed someone to soothe and calm him, but their conversations went in circles. He said he hoped that Arnfast’s brother was mistaken and the wound was not that bad—then he swore he would kill Herlaug himself. He hardly seemed to hear Svanhild when she flirted with him and offered him the distractions of games, conversations, or walks in the snow.
When Ragnvald finally returned, he looked as though he had aged years. He sat staring into the fire, holding a cup of ale long after most of the household already slept. Even Oddi, to whom Ragnvald would say little of what had passed, had gone to his bed. Svanhild sat down next to him.
“Oddi is . . .” Svanhild spread her hands. “I do not know what he will decide. I suppose it depends on what happens, and what has happened.”
Ragnvald looked down at the cup in his hands. “I don’t know,” he said. “Harald will hear of this and punish Hakon’s sons. Hakon will go to war over it, and these wars will never end until Harald’s dream is dead.”
“I thought you had lost hope in his dream,” said Svanhild. “That is why you are in Naustdal now and not by his side.”
“We are in Naustdal because Harald asked me to protect Maer,” said Ragnvald. “If Harald does not punish Hakon’s sons, then Hakon will be the true king of Norway, and all will know it. Harald understands this. He will punish Hakon’s sons.” It sounded like he was trying to convince himself.
“Would it truly be so bad if he didn’t?” Svanhild asked.
“Yes and no. It will come to war sooner or later. You think Harald will choose the easy path here but . . . I know him better.” Svanhild’s skepticism must have shown on her face, and Ragnvald’s lips curved slightly. “Say what you think, Svanhild.”
“I think he will take the easy path, and stay on it as long as he can,” she said. “Unless you force him off it.”
“How?”
“Push Hakon into open rebellion. Go with Arnfast, take an army, and punish Hakon’s sons. Hakon will come after you, and Harald will come to your aid.”
“Or he may say I am in rebellion, taking his justice for my own.”
“He values you more than that,” said Svanhild.
“His poorest ally, who will owe him taxes for generations? Who could not defeat Vemund without treachery?” Ragnvald asked. He asked it with his usual irony, but Svanhild saw a wound that went deep.
“His friend,” said Svanhild. She touched Ragnvald’s arm, wishing she could push her conviction, her knowledge, through her fingers and into him. Every man in Norway save Ragnvald himself knew how much Harald valued him. “His friend who did defeat Vemund, who won an impossible battle at Solskel. His friend who he would grant any favor because he knows you would do the same for him. His friend he values so much he is willing to suffer without your company for a few years because you asked it.”
Ragnvald did not seem to hear her. “No,” he said, softly rejecting all that she had tried to give him. “But you are right, Hakon is close to rebellion. He hardly needs a push—he only needs to fall where he will do himself the most harm.”
26
Sigurd’s journey to Dublin in Hakon’s ship was marked by cold and darkness. They sailed in dim light, shadowed by clouds, while Hakon’s pilot navigated the dangerous currents around the Shetland and Orkney islands, and then through the protected channels of the Hebrides, steering by the black silhouettes of land and the stars overhead as often as by the sun. On a whim, Sigurd had asked Hakon to put Egil in a different ship from him and enjoyed being among strangers. He found calm in working himself to exhaustion every day. He shared a sleeping bag with a man who knew nothing of him but his name, and that his brother was a mighty king. They slept soundly and warmly together at night, and passed the days rowing, for the pilot needed the oars out to help keep the ship close enough to shore that he could navigate by it, and far enough away to avoid death on the rocks.
The waves grew smaller when the ships reached the more sheltered sea between England and Ireland, and near Yule they finally reached Dublin. Its river and natural harbor welcomed them in, and King Imar allowed all of Hakon’s men to sleep on benches in his long, high-ceilinged hall.
Sigurd had never seen such richness mixed with so much squalor as he did in Dublin. Smaller buildings housing Norse-Irish artisans packed around King Imar’s hall, the space between filled with half-frozen human and animal refuse that stuck to his feet. The town jutted out on a bend in the river called the Black Pool, and was easy to defend for that reason, but always muddy and, in the winter, choked with fog that smelled of shit.
The Norse kings of Dublin had been fighting with the Irish for a generation now, and each battl
e enriched their hall with treasures, among them hangings that depicted strange beasts, decorated with gold thread and glass beads. Sigurd sat by Egil at the Yule feast, and drank heavily, falling asleep during a tale told by a visiting Spanish merchant, dark of skin and heavily accented, before the toasts for the new year were finished. When he slept, he dreamed of endless seas, endless wakefulness, endless responsibilities that he had never desired.
* * *
Spring arrived in Ireland with softer rain and milder wind. Small buds appeared on brown trees. And, on a blustery day when the sun glinted occasionally through rents in the clouds, King Imar said that the spring attacks would begin soon. “Every winter the Irish sit inside their turf barrows, getting drunk and planning revenge,” he added to King Hakon as they sat playing tafl.
“Sounds like us,” said Egil to Sigurd.
King Imar’s warriors arranged a raid of their own against some Irish in the hills. With Egil by his side, Sigurd killed a man, and took a copper brooch from him. He was giddy from his success that night at the feasting to celebrate their victory, and grew drunk quickly. He toasted King Imar so loud and long that the king, who usually loved flattery, told him to sit down and be silent. As Sigurd rose one last time to escape his embarrassment in sleep, King Hakon caught his eye and beckoned him over.
“I have heard you did well on this raid. Come, show me what you won,” said Hakon.
Sigurd’s face heated as he held out his prize to Hakon. “Thank you, my lord,” he said. “My king.”
“Did Ragnvald train you in battle?” Hakon asked.
“Some,” said Sigurd. He had trained with Sogn warriors, and sometimes with Ragnvald himself, though he never fought well when he faced his stepbrother.
“I have wondered if Ragnvald allowed you to learn anything from him, or whether he preferred to keep you weak.”
Sigurd saw the room spinning around him. He had not learned enough wisdom from Ragnvald to frame a response to that. “He—he—I—thank you. Yes. He—”
Hakon held up a hand to stop him speaking, and Sigurd closed his mouth gratefully. “Come and sit and tell us what you did learn from him. You did well in this raid, I hear, and I like a man who will praise a king.” Sigurd ducked his head, ashamed even through his drunkenness. “I think you should rise higher than a simple warrior,” said Hakon, “and I want to see if you are ready for the task.”
When Sigurd sat down with him, Hakon raised a hand to call over a serving woman, who filled their cups with ale again. Sigurd drained his immediately, while Hakon ran his thumbnail over the bubbled glass. The man sitting on the other side of Hakon turned toward them, startling Sigurd. He was so massive that Sigurd had thought at first that the broad stretch of chest behind Hakon was a wall hanging, not a man.
“If this young man is half as crafty as his brother, he will be useful,” said the giant. “I am Jarl Rane of Vermaland. Well met, Sigurd Olafsson.”
“Don’t blame craft when you should blame poor weather and poor sailing,” said Hakon. Rane huffed and took a swig of his ale. “I am more interested in what Sigurd knows about Ragnvald’s plans and loyalties,” Hakon continued. “Come, Sigurd, tell us—who among Harald’s allies does he trust, and who does he fear? Who does he think he can betray to gain his next district?”
“I don’t know any of that,” said Sigurd. It startled him to hear Hakon talk of Ragnvald as planning betrayal. And this Rane whom he treated as a friend—this man had fought his stepbrother.
“And if you were given the opportunity to take revenge against him, would you not take it?” Rane asked.
Hakon laughed. “Sigurd’s loyalty is exemplary. Still, I wager he would do his duty to his father, if things fell out that way.”
Sigurd wondered which of his loyalties Hakon meant, to Ragnvald, Harald, or himself. Or his father, years dead on Ragnvald’s blade. Sigurd had killed a man last night, and found it easier than he had feared.
“Come, you must know something,” said the giant Rane. “Tell us of your brother. Everything you know.”
Hakon and Rane gave Sigurd more ale to quench his thirst, for he had much to say about Ragnvald, words that he did not remember when he woke the next day with an aching head. Hakon and Rane had pestered him with many questions that he did not know how to answer, and tried to trap him into saying that Ragnvald meant to betray someone: Harald, Hakon, or another, Sigurd could not tell. Finally, when they had reduced Sigurd to repeating, “I don’t know. He is my stepbrother. He is wiser than me,” they sent him to his rest.
* * *
After that first, uncomfortable night, Sigurd grew to like Jarl Rane of Vermaland. He asked no more questions of Sigurd. Sigurd heard that he had fought on Solvi’s side against Ragnvald and Harald, but the Dublin court often hosted enemies. Hospitality right protected all of them.
Rane seemed an incarnation of Thor set down to walk among mortals, a Thor in his later years, with a wind-chapped face and a broadness so vast it could be confused for fatness until he sprang into action. Rane’s preferred weapon was an ax most men would wield with two hands, but his massive forearms, protected by firm leather wrist guards, supported it in either hand alone.
On a misty, muddy morning, he gave a demonstration of lifting stones and bested every man in Dublin, then lifted up a stone that two of Imar’s strongest warriors had strained to lift together, carried it up a hill, and rolled it down the other side, knocking down a stone fence. Curious chickens came scurrying to see what had happened.
“Are you big because you lift stones, or do you lift stones because you’re big?” Sigurd asked, chasing after him as he returned to King Imar’s hall.
“Both, I think,” said Rane. “My father’s father trained him this way, and my father was even bigger than me.” He looked at Sigurd. “You did well today.” Sigurd had picked up a large and heavy stone and lost it by slipping in the mud rather than his strength failing. “Next time you’ll lift it higher if you push your hips through like you’re trying to make a woman pregnant with one thrust.”
Sigurd laughed and said he would.
That night Rane told the tale of how Harald’s father, Halfdan, had taken his land from him and exiled him, and how now, with the backing of the Swedish king, he planned to take it back. King Imar hosted many of Harald’s enemies as guests, so the cheer that rang up did not surprise Sigurd. What did was Hakon’s announcement that he and his forces would accompany Rane to Vestfold.
“My younger sons are in Vestfold,” Hakon said. “We will go together and see how they fare.”
The next day, Hakon set his men to provisioning his ships for the crossing to Norway. Sigurd made sure he worked at Egil’s side, carrying endless loads up the planks into the ships. In Imar’s storehouse, he tipped a barrel of ale on its side, and then pulled it up onto his thighs, remembering what Rane had said about using his hips.
“Do you think Rane and Hakon mean to betray King Harald?” he asked Egil as he waddled up to him with his load. Egil stumbled, his foot caught in the mud, and nearly dropped the sack of grain he carried onto the ground.
“Rane is not Harald’s subject, so he cannot betray him,” Egil replied.
“King Hakon is,” said Sigurd. “And you swore an oath to Harald directly. Remember, you swore when Ragnvald married your sister?”
“I remember,” said Egil, guarded.
“Hakon means to bring his ships and men to Vestfold,” said Sigurd. “With this Rane. What else could it be?”
“Many things,” said Egil. “He might only wish to keep Rane’s friendship until he knows his plans. And if Hakon is planning a war against Harald, what would you do about it?”
Sigurd had left Sogn; Hakon and Egil would say that he owed his brother no more loyalty, even though he had sworn an oath to Harald and had vowed to take no revenge for his father. Hakon would see Sigurd dead if he thought he would take news of Hakon’s betrayal back to Ragnvald. He could stay in Dublin when Hakon left—King Imar always needed more wa
rriors. He could keep silent, follow his original plan, and avoid being called oath breaker, especially if he went on to settle in Iceland.
Sigurd continued walking with his keg of ale, and when he came to a ship, set it on the ramp that led up to the gunwale. Or he could try to make his way back to Sogn and Ragnvald, and honor his oath with more than simply silence. Ragnvald would want to know what happened here, the company that King Hakon kept. If he did not go with Hakon, he would have to wait in Dublin for a ship traveling to Norway, and try to convince an unknown captain to take him on. He could as easily sail with Hakon until open sea no longer separated him from his kin.
“You’re in my way,” said Egil, wheezing from the weight of his grain sack. Sigurd rolled the keg up and into the ship.
“We could find other passage to Iceland,” he said, after Egil joined him at the top of the ramp.
“I’ve a mind to see where Hakon takes me,” Egil replied. “I have heard there are not many women in Iceland. Perhaps I will find one in Vestfold, and earn some treasure in Hakon’s service before settling down.”
“You would break your oath to Harald,” said Sigurd.
“I will see where the wind carries me,” Egil replied. He leaped down from the ship, and began walking away from Sigurd.
“That’s what you did to my brother at the ting trial and look what happened,” Sigurd muttered.
“Stepbrother,” said Egil, turning to correct him. “One day you’ll realize he’s only a man, not a god, and I hope you take his head off for it.”
“He is—” Sigurd began.
“Why ask me about Hakon,” said Egil, “when you can simply ask yourself what would Ragnvald do? I had hoped to get away from him, and now I find you have carried him with you.”
“Wait and watch, I suppose,” said Sigurd.
“What?”
“That’s what Ragnvald would do. You asked.”
Egil nodded. “And that’s what I am doing also. See, he is not so clever.”
The Sea Queen Page 32