“Are you drunk?” Ragnvald asked. His women had served only ale tonight, but Oddi had a knack for charming servants, and they would certainly have brought him stronger stuff if he asked.
“No.” Oddi shook his head. “I say: it was an odd tale, especially the part about Arnfast’s mother, Jorunn, showing up in Vestfold. That is very strange.”
Ragnvald wanted to take a step back, to put more space between them. His fingers itched to feel the weight of a sword in them. This was Oddi, though, not a threat. “Sigurd said Herlaug was in Vestfold,” said Ragnvald. “It was not so strange that she would want revenge.” Oddi met Ragnvald’s eyes, finally. He looked wary but hopeful, as though he wanted to be talked out of his suspicions. “When Alfrith and I went to her, she did not want to live with her face so mutilated. Only the prospect of revenge changed her mind.”
“And now she has it, but on her attacker’s father, not on Herlaug, is that what you mean?” Oddi asked, his voice still low and dangerous. “My father came here because he had been told my brother Heming and Atli both stood against you. Why would she say that?”
“People say all kinds of things under torture,” said Ragnvald. “I’ve always thought it better to lie under torture than remain silent. I am sure your father was not gentle with her. Do you think he was?”
“I’ll never get to ask him, will I?” said Oddi. He still met Ragnvald’s eyes, though he had lost his pleading look. “Unless you walk past his body and it begins to bleed again.” As a body was said to do when its murderer passed by.
“I?” Ragnvald asked. He had comforted himself that if Hakon took the bait Jorunn offered, he would deserve his fate. He did not think he could explain his lie to Oddi, though, not in this mood.
“You, Ragnvald the Wise.” Oddi said the byname bitterly, the name that he had given Ragnvald originally, and meant as gentle mocking between friends, before Harald took it up in earnest. “Here is what I think: you sent the woman to my father with that message, knowing he could not resist coming to the side of his true-born son. His favorite son, I think.”
“Your father betrayed Harald,” said Ragnvald, knowing it sounded like an excuse. “He made an alliance with Solvi—Solvi Hunthiofsson, the son of his old enemy. And Eirik of Sweden. His life would have been forfeit, no matter where he went.”
“But you couldn’t leave it be, could you?” Oddi asked. It seemed as though he hardly heard Ragnvald. “Ragnvald the Wise, acting alone, tying everything up in a neat bundle—let your enemies destroy one another, and anyone else who gets in the way, as long as you come out on top. You killed my father, and Aldi’s, as much as if you held the blade. Did Atli Mjove deserve that of you? He died defending your land.”
“Land he stole with Guthorm’s help,” said Ragnvald.
“You have an answer for everything,” said Oddi. “But you will not tell me I am mistaken? That you had no hand in this, that this woman and her family acted alone?”
“If they did, will you take your brother’s feud to them? Should all of their faces be sliced open to satisfy your family’s vengeance?” asked Ragnvald, his anger building. He and Oddi would come to blows soon if he did not defuse this.
“It does not matter,” said Oddi in a high voice. “You did this. You.”
“Your father was an oath breaker,” said Ragnvald. He tried to speak deliberately, in the same measured tone he used for dispensing justice as king. “Herlaug and Geirbjorn defied Harald’s justice, and your father supported them in that.” Hakon’s betrayal had been as inevitable as winter.
“Tell me though,” said Oddi, tears in his voice. “Tell me you did this.”
Ragnvald sighed. “I did this. I will never lie to you, my friend, though it pains me to tell you. I did not know the arrow would find its mark, but I am not unhappy that it did, except if it loses me your friendship.”
“Tell me truly then—would you have done differently, if you knew it would?” Oddi asked.
“What would you have done, if I told you what I planned?” Ragnvald asked. “I thought you wanted to stay out of your father’s struggles, and your brothers’.”
“I have been a coward,” said Oddi. “But no longer. You are my sworn brother, and I will not be forsworn, but I cannot fight at your side anymore. I will see what my brother Heming thinks, and my father’s men. Be warned, Heming has a hotter temper than I.”
“Let us do it now,” said Ragnvald. He could not believe that he had lost Oddi’s friendship. At this moment, Heming had not yet decided what to think about his father’s death, but Oddi, in his anger, could push him toward rebellion.
Ragnvald asked one of Heming’s men where to find him, and learned that he kept vigil for his father, sitting by Naustdal’s burial mounds. Before Oddi could speak, Ragnvald began: “Heming, I am sorry for your father’s death. It is only fair to tell you of the part I played in it.” He explained that he feared that the only other choice was letting Herlaug destroy Arnfast’s family down to the root, and see the feud cause a rift between Harald and Hakon that would destroy Norway. “And I thought to put your father to a test—a test that he failed, for he had already betrayed Harald and allied with Solvi Klofe. Your brother Oddi hates me for this. Do you?” His stepfather, Olaf, had taught Ragnvald that an unanswered killing was like an invisible wound that brought pain to all who knew of it. Sometimes gold could heal it, sometimes only blood.
Heming had hardly looked at Ragnvald as he spoke, and only on Ragnvald’s question did he turn his eyes up. He laughed brokenly. “You cannot give me time to mourn my father before I decide whether to kill you?” he asked. “When you tell me this, I know I should feel anger. But when I learned my father was dead, and had avenged himself in the moment of his death, I felt nothing except relief.”
“Relief?” cried Oddi. “He”—Oddi shoved Ragnvald hard enough to make him stumble—“tricked our father, he killed him!” Ragnvald put his hand to his sword.
“Yes, relief,” said Heming, with a shaky laugh. “Now he will never mock me again. I do not think I will kill you, Ragnvald. I am not wise as you, but I see that my father’s path would have led him onto your blade or Harald’s for his betrayal. My father cannot include me in his betrayal now. Your path will lead to peace.”
“Peace?” Oddi asked Heming. “What do you care for peace?”
“Since I have ruled Maer from Tafjord,” said Heming. “Are you not tired of blood, brother?”
“It does not matter what I am tired of. Ragnvald did not ask me—”
“And that is why you are angry,” said Heming. “Not over our father. He was an oath breaker, and a fool who thought himself wise. He is my father and I will mourn him, and he was my enemy and I am glad he is dead. Make your peace with Ragnvald. He has been better to you than our father ever was.”
“Never,” said Oddi. “You are, both of you, fools and cowards.” He walked away across the grass until he was lost in the shadows.
Ragnvald did not want to leave Heming like this. “I want to keep vigil with you,” he said. “I too will mourn.”
They sat in silence for a while, watching the horizon turn from orange to deep blue. At midnight, a few more stars pressed through the fabric of the sky, faintly winking overhead. Ragnvald usually loved this part of summer, the long days, the heat that made him feel relaxed and easy, though he mistrusted it too for the same reason. War and death came out of that heat: breezes brought convoys of ships, sudden rainstorms brought crop-killing hail.
“He was a great man,” said Heming.
“Yes, he was,” said Ragnvald. No one could deny that. Hakon had shaped the western coast, won countless battles, and opened up the far north for trade. It must have been hard for him to see a man like Harald, younger than his sons, win effortlessly what it had taken him a lifetime to bring within his reach. Hakon had been the first to notice Ragnvald’s abilities, to encourage him rather than try to crush him, as Olaf had. Even after Ragnvald broke with Hakon, he never forgot Hakon’s early prais
e, so precious after a boyhood marked by Olaf’s constant doubt. “He will be remembered forever,” he said to Heming.
“For his betrayal,” said Heming.
“Perhaps not,” Ragnvald answered. “Perhaps he went to Atli because of a misunderstanding, and they killed each other for it.”
“You know that is not what happened,” said Heming.
“Harald’s skalds may hear it another way,” said Ragnvald. He could be generous now; Hakon could no longer harm him.
Heming threw him a skeptical glance. “I do not think that is likely.”
“Harald will not want everyone to know of Hakon’s betrayal either,” said Ragnvald. “He is the prophesied king, and the strength of his claim rests on everyone believing in that prophecy. If your father did not . . .”
Heming laughed shortly. “So your generosity is for Harald after all.”
“I prefer when everyone can win,” said Ragnvald.
“Or all of your enemies can lose,” said Heming. Ragnvald shifted uneasily, until Heming sighed and bowed his head. “Don’t worry, I am not going to duel you. My father killed Atli and is thus avenged. Oddi won’t either. Sometimes it is hard, though, to feel as though you are a chess piece, with Ragnvald the Wise moving you about the board.”
Ragnvald’s throat tightened. “Oddi is my sworn brother.”
“He feels guilty that he did not do more for our father,” said Heming. “Do you know why our father bought him from his family? My father went to visit Oddi’s mother, but she had died, and he sees this boy with an ax who is the right size to be his son. He asks the family, and they say yes, he is. And my father takes him home, and makes him demonstrate chopping wood, killing a pig, all with his ax. He said to me and my brothers, ‘See this boy, this is my son, you should be more like him. Be as strong as him. Stronger than him.’ Remember the jarl I killed at the Sogn ting?”
Ragnvald made a noise of assent. He would never forget that duel, which he had watched when Heming had seemed as golden and distant as a god. The jarl he had killed, Runolf, had been dark-haired, like Ragnvald.
“My father compared me to Runolf until I could not stand it, until I thought I was less than a man if I allowed him to live. I sent one of my men to trap him into insulting me and demanded the duel. I thought it would make my father respect me, but of course, then he chose you.”
“His endless quest to provide you with good examples, I suppose,” said Ragnvald sardonically. That was what Ragnvald had seen of Hakon. He had been a great king, and a disastrous father. He hoped to raise his own sons better. Even Olaf had done better than that. He had taught Ragnvald to be strong and self-sufficient, to prefer deeds to words, to watch and listen more than he spoke. Olaf had been as much his father as Eystein, giving him a double legacy, lessons from two men that Ragnvald did not know how to balance or discard.
“I’ve never heard you boast before,” said Heming, and Ragnvald grimaced. He wished he could see Heming’s expression. “Once he realized that Oddi was not going to play his game, that he would not compete for my father’s attention, or rise to his baiting, my father ignored him. Used him as an example of what not to be—until Oddi distinguished himself again at your side. Oddi made a fair show of pretending it didn’t bother him but . . .”
Ragnvald could fill in the rest. Oddi had shaped himself to avoid notice, to please and charm everyone, to need nothing. Svanhild had used and discarded him much as his father had. He must feel that Ragnvald had done the same. “I suppose your father wanted the best for you,” said Ragnvald.
“I’m not sure of that,” said Heming. “He killed his uncle, warred with his own father, and banished any skald who sang his father’s praise songs. I think he feared one of us would do the same to him.” Heming began crying, suddenly, sobs that embarrassed Ragnvald, even as tears prickled in his own eyes and he envied Heming’s release.
When Heming quieted, Ragnvald called for a servant to bring him and Heming some bread and watered ale. In the morning when the rooster crowed, Heming went to his bed, and Ragnvald to his morning tasks. He did not think he could sleep, not until Oddi returned, or at least until he knew that the hundreds of armed men staying in and around the hall at Naustdal would not kill each other. Heming woke in the afternoon and brought Sigurd to join Ragnvald where he labored out in a field, repairing one of the stone walls.
“We must plan,” said Heming. “A force masses against Harald.”
Ragnvald turned to Sigurd. “You said that Solvi means to attack this summer?”
“He means to gather a great force in one place,” said Sigurd, “and trap Harald with it. He said that little raids were not enough—only a great battle would defeat Harald. He will not do it unless victory is certain.”
“Where does he plan to fight this great battle?” Heming asked.
“I do not know,” said Sigurd. “Solvi would not reveal it to any but Hakon and his captains. But I know he means to do it soon.”
Ragnvald heaved up a stone, then dropped it when one of Hakon’s men got in his way. “Let us have a council. Has Oddi returned?” He had not, so Ragnvald gathered with Heming, Sigurd, and Aldi in Naustdal’s sacrifice grove, a shaded clearing by a small brook, lush with grass that grew tall in soil fertilized by blood. “Heming, what do you think we should do?”
“Stop them,” said Heming. “Drive Solvi Hunthiofsson and his allies out of Norway once and for all.”
“Not kill Solvi?” Sigurd asked.
“I’ve heard that he made a pact with Loki and he cannot be killed,” said Heming.
“And,” Ragnvald added, “I have sworn to Svanhild I will not kill him unless I have no choice.”
“I have sworn nothing,” said Aldi, “so if he needs killing, I will do it. King Ragnvald, what do you think we should do?”
Ragnvald fell silent for a moment. A breeze came up the cliff and stirred his hair. Out in the fjord, a small fishing boat passed by. “We do not know how many allies Solvi has, nor how many men the king of Sweden will send. We have here ten ships in all, lightly crewed. Aldi, can you muster the men of Sogn? Heming, Maer is for you. I will take my brother Sigurd, for he is the witness to all of this. We will go to Harald in Tonsberg and let him know how things lie. I will send a messenger to tell you where the battle will be.”
“How will you know?” Aldi asked.
“Someone will have to lure Harald there,” said Ragnvald. “That will teach us where the ambush will be, if nothing else does. Come south, keeping to the innermost passage, and that is where my messengers will find you. If Solvi wants a great battle, he will have all the kings of Norway to meet him.”
“What of my father’s lands?” Heming asked.
“I will send a messenger,” said Ragnvald, “or Heming can, that would be better—so Halogaland can send warriors as well.”
Oddi stepped into the clearing. Ragnvald had not told the guards to alert him if Oddi came. He could not begin to think of Oddi as an enemy.
“I will go,” said Oddi. “It is what I should do for him.”
Ragnvald felt a loosening in his chest. Oddi could not give up being his friend so easily, though he still refused to meet Ragnvald’s eyes.
“Very well,” said Ragnvald. “Are all satisfied?”
“Satisfied that you will get the glory,” Heming grumbled, but with a fond look for Ragnvald.
“As always,” said Oddi, with a good deal less warmth.
“I can stay and muster men from Maer,” said Ragnvald, with a shrug. He did not want Heming and Oddi to take him up on it. Harald would only believe this news from Ragnvald’s lips, especially after Hakon’s betrayal.
“No,” said Heming. “Harald will trust your words more than any of ours. You go.”
* * *
Ragnvald spent the next few days arguing with Heming and Aldi about how many men should accompany him and how many should remain behind in the western districts to recruit their fellows. Finally Heming and Oddi, using Ragnvald’s guilt to wear
him down, made him agree to depart with only two ships, a hundred men in total. Ragnvald went only to deliver a message and to plan for war.
Oddi avoided Ragnvald whenever Ragnvald tried to find him for a private talk. The day Ragnvald was to leave, he found Oddi playing with Einar and Ivar, chasing them around a tree, and tickling them when he caught them. It caught Ragnvald off guard to see Einar laughing and joyful. He stopped as soon as he saw Ragnvald.
Oddi grew solemn as well when he saw Ragnvald approach. He looked so much like an overgrown boy, standing with Ragnvald’s sons with his dark hair flopping down over his eyes, that Ragnvald wished he had been able to hide his manipulations from him forever.
“Boys, it’s time to do your chores,” said Ragnvald. He sent them off to water and feed the chickens and gather pails of milk. “I am sorry,” he said, before Oddi could speak. “I tried to protect you from your family’s troubles, and I see that was the wrong thing to do.” This was what Oddi wanted to hear, so Ragnvald would say it.
Oddi looked at Ragnvald, searching his face, evaluating him. Ragnvald clenched his fists, willing Oddi to forgive, forget, become his friend and brother again.
“You said you would not lie to me, but this is a lie,” said Oddi finally. “You would do it again without hesitation. I know you. You trust no one, and you think you know what is best for everyone, especially if it is what is best for you and your beloved Harald. You know he is only a man, whatever . . . vision you claim to have had. And I think Harald is weak—what is the difference between him ordering the mutilation of all those men in Tafjord and what my brother Herlaug did?”
“My vision . . . ,” said Ragnvald. He had clung to it when Harald disappointed him, used it as a sun-stone on a cloudy day, to see Harald as more than a man, even when he acted as less than one. Harald had a vision too, a peaceful, united Norway, strong enough to stand against King Eirik of Sweden, strong enough that its laws would be obeyed, so men like Herlaug could not take revenge with impunity, and so feud need not destroy families and districts.
“A man needs a north star,” said Ragnvald slowly. “To steer by. For a long time, I thought mine was taking back Ardal, and then becoming king of my grandfather’s district. But—”
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