“So he admits he has no honor,” said Herlaug. Ragnvald laughed at that, making Herlaug’s disfigured face darken with anger. “I will know the truth,” he promised.
“You would not even know what questions to ask,” said Solvi. “What should I ask you, Ragnvald? Did you come alone? No, you did not sail a fishing boat from Naustdal to here. Did you meet Hakon? Of course you did, and he is dead now, unless I miss my guess, or you would not have been able to come. Do you know what we do here? I think you must have a guess at that as well. Does Harald know? He will.”
“I did not meet Hakon,” said Ragnvald truthfully. If he did not speak with care, Solvi would figure out everything Ragnvald did not want him to know, and too quickly. Sigurd would not come to rescue him, but continue on to Harald soon.
“I must have time to think,” said Solvi quietly, seeming to speak to himself more than Herlaug. “Tie him tightly and put a double guard on him.”
Ragnvald’s calmness started to crumble when Solvi gave Herlaug charge of securing him for the night. He feared this boy and his cruelty far more than Solvi. While Herlaug’s guards held their swords on Ragnvald, Herlaug retied Ragnvald’s hands behind him, and his legs too, around the ankles and again around the knees. Soon Ragnvald’s fingers began to tingle and grow numb. A man could lose his hands this way—Ragnvald had seen it. Most often it happened by mischance, but Herlaug might have done it on purpose.
He threw Ragnvald into the clearing where the slaves slept. Ragnvald crashed into a tent pole and the heavy wool, stinking of fat, fell down over his face. Herlaug tossed some bread after him, and walked away laughing. He was not hungry enough to wriggle around on the ground until he found it—let the squirrels have it tonight. Tomorrow Solvi would feed him as befit a man.
Solvi had placed him in Herlaug’s care, though. Ragnvald’s belief that Solvi would do him no lasting harm was less strong now. Ragnvald had killed Ulfarr, who had relished carrying out Solvi’s cruelest orders. Now he had Herlaug, who would do far worse.
In the middle of the night, Ragnvald pulled himself up to sitting. His arms were tied so that he could not bend them enough to pull himself around and through them. He could only sit on one hip, in an ugly imitation of a woman’s coquettish pose, or kneel, which he did not like to do either, though it gave him freedom to flex his wrists until the rope gave him enough slack that blood flooded back into his hands. Solvi would not kill him, not yet. He needed to know what Ragnvald and his allies knew. Solvi suspected Hakon had been killed—could Ragnvald keep that from him? Likely not.
Solvi would want to know if Ragnvald’s allies would come looking for him. He had sent Sigurd to bring Harald here, to turn the ambush upon its makers. He had told Heming and Oddi to gather as many forces as they could and come south for the battle to end all battles, a chance to defeat all of Norway’s enemies in one place. Everything turned on whether they would do it, if Ragnvald could trust Sigurd, Heming, and Oddi—his stepbrother, and Hakon’s sons, all three of whom owed him a debt of vengeance, though Sigurd, at least, had sworn not to pursue his.
If he chose not to trust them, he could convince Solvi that Harald knew of his trap, and if he stayed, Solvi would waste the year’s last month of easy sailing in waiting for a battle that would never come. That would risk the least.
Ragnvald flicked a piece of rope with his finger until the end frayed. Yet, yet, yet—if Sigurd brought Harald here, if all the ships and warriors of northern Norway came here, this battle would be decisive. Ragnvald would never have to fight another big battle for Harald, for Norway would be his, and Ragnvald could have his land back.
You make everyone into your tafl pieces, Oddi had said to him, bitterly. But Ragnvald was the one who saw the whole board, better than Harald, better than Hakon, certainly better than Hakon’s sons. He struggled with his bonds again, and fell over. The soft pine needles hid rocks, one of which bruised his shoulder.
You trust no one, Oddi had also said. But now he must trust each of his allies to do his work. He wondered which plan Oddi would prefer, if he would hate for Ragnvald to be right again, a master tafl player winning the game, or if he would hate worse if Ragnvald mistrusted him. He missed Oddi fiercely. They should have been sailing together from Naustdal, and then Oddi would have been the one carrying his message to Harald, not Sigurd.
Sigurd—he trusted Ragnvald, and so did Heming, even when he knew that Ragnvald had helped push Hakon into rebellion. And Harald trusted him even when Ragnvald would no longer fight his battles for him. These were not figures on a tafl board, but allies coming together, some reluctantly, for Harald’s dream, Ragnvald’s vision.
* * *
Solvi left Ragnvald alone for a few days, during which Ragnvald received barely enough water to sustain himself, and little food. He was left to soil himself rather than taken to a latrine, until the slaves in the camp where he had been left gave him a wide berth because of his stench.
He cautioned himself to be patient, but there were moments, when he had to sit in his own shit, or when he smelled the scent of cooking coming from the fires of Solvi’s warriors, that he felt no more than an animal, and wanted release from the torment of his body. In his more lucid moments, he wondered if Solvi and Herlaug even knew the misery that their neglect caused.
Then Solvi sent Herlaug, who told him right away that he was not allowed to hurt Ragnvald in any way that would maim or disfigure him. He asked no questions, only beat Ragnvald bloody, blacking both his eyes so they swelled into slits. The thirst when his body tried to heal itself became more painful than any of his bruises and cuts.
Finally, a day or two after the beating, slaves stripped and bathed him, and then clothed him again, under heavy guard, and brought him, hands tied before him, to Solvi’s tent. Solvi gave him watered ale, which he had to raise to his mouth with both his hands tied before him. It took all of his restraint not to bolt it down and beg for more. Each sip disappeared into his mouth like water on sand. He had once seen a shipwrecked man die from drinking too much water after being rescued, and so he controlled himself.
“You cannot have come alone,” said Solvi. He paced before where Ragnvald sat. “Harald must know that I am here. And now Hakon is dead. I am leaving.”
Ragnvald hardly reacted to Solvi’s announcement. If Solvi left, that would be the death of Ragnvald’s plans, and he would have been captured for naught, but those consequences seemed far distant from the joy of the cool liquid in his mouth. When Ragnvald failed to react to his words, Solvi dashed the cup from his hands. Ragnvald cried out and lunged forward after it. Guards rushed over and hauled him back to his seat.
“I am leaving,” Solvi repeated. “What do you say to that?”
“I say that I am still thirsty,” said Ragnvald.
Solvi slapped him, sending a bright explosion of pain radiating through Ragnvald’s swollen cheek. He moaned and held his hands to his face. How had he been reduced to this whimpering animal so easily, not even by torture but by mere bruises and thirst?
Solvi asked no more questions, so Ragnvald continued staring fixedly at the ground where his cup had landed. His throat worked. Solvi gestured, and a slave brought more ale. He put the cup again into Ragnvald’s hands. Ragnvald drank more quickly this time. Let it make his belly ache as long as he drank it before Solvi could deprive him again.
He held his empty cup and tried to slow his breathing. He heard men talking, dicing, complaining about the food and the poor hunting on this small island—and nothing of packing up to leave. Solvi was bluffing, trying to make Ragnvald react. He had been wounded in battle before, and suffered long and painful recoveries, but somehow, being at Solvi’s mercy made this pain worse and more frightening. He could not predict what would happen, or resist any attacks. His disgust with himself, a deep and helpless anger, only made him feel more powerless, quicker to break. The only advantage of his easy crumbling was that he could, perhaps, make Solvi believe he had wrenched a confession from Ragnvald that Harald kn
ew nothing of this place.
Once Ragnvald had drunk his fill, Solvi’s guards returned him to his clearing, spread now with new straw that did not stink of his days of pissing and shitting on it. For the following few days, a slave brought him bread and water, and a guard took him to the latrines to relieve himself twice each day. Perhaps Solvi did not ever mean to question him. That would be good enough—the longer they delayed here, the more likely Harald and his allies would come. Solvi need not send out a raiding party to lure them in, only wait. Every day that passed brought Ragnvald closer to victory.
* * *
Herlaug kicked Ragnvald awake in the middle of the night. “Solvi has given me permission to hurt you,” he said.
Ragnvald wished that looking at Herlaug’s face did not remind him so much of Jorunn. He wondered if she had found peace in death, knowing that her vengeance had succeeded. Would she now be one of Odin’s carrion crows, or did she go to a gentler afterlife?
A guard’s torch cast a flickering light that made a ghastly mask of Herlaug’s face. Ragnvald stared instead up at the tree branches crossing overhead, the stars jewels between them, set in a velvet sky. Herlaug took hold of one of Ragnvald’s fingers, twisting it until it broke with a wet splintering sound Ragnvald felt as much as heard. The past few days’ respite had given him enough strength not to scream from the pain, but a few more fingers broken and he would.
“Who knows of this place?” Herlaug asked him.
“I know,” said Ragnvald.
Herlaug slapped him across the healing bruises on his face. “Who else knows?”
“Gudbrand, I suppose. Any who have heard the song of his conquest,” Ragnvald answered.
Herlaug hit him again. “Who else knows that we are here?”
“I do not know who has seen you, or know the minds of everyone in Norway,” said Ragnvald.
“Why are you here?”
“I came to find Solvi, and I did.”
Herlaug had more questions for him, more fingers to break. Ragnvald stuck as close to truth in his answers as he could. He did not know who was coming here. He did not know who would rescue him. That much was pure truth. He had chosen to trust men who owed him vengeance, hoping that friendship and loyalty would triumph, but he did not know. He told Herlaug the story he wanted Solvi to hear: that Harald knew nothing, that Ragnvald had sent many scouts from Naustdal, trying to find Solvi’s location, in small groups that would be easily overlooked.
He was crying that out, “I do not know, I do not know, I do not know,” when Herlaug stopped twisting his middle finger and stood up to walk away from him.
A few days later, Herlaug came to rebreak fingers that had begun to heal, and Ragnvald cried out that Harald knew everything, that every king in Norway knew everything, that they were all coming to destroy the fleet. He did not know if that was true either, but it was satisfying to say in the moment he screamed it out. Herlaug left him alone for a few days while Ragnvald had time to regret what he had done, to feel the shame of it.
* * *
Ragnvald’s pain ebbed and flowed. He was at his best when he could ride those waves, at sea in a boat with no oars, no steering, no sail, only tossed upon them. When he gave himself up to them, time passed the same way, sometimes fast and sometimes slow. All present, though: no past to regret, no future to fear. It was far worse when he thought of the future and the past, and whether his hands were maimed forever, whether he would hold a sword again, whether his decisions would lead to Harald’s death. The worst moments were when Solvi sent someone to make him do something. Stand, eat, piss. Move swollen fingers, or look at them, black and purple and red, fat like sausages ready to burst over a hot fire.
Solvi came to him on a hot afternoon when flies buzzed around Ragnvald’s head, and he bore the irritation of their landing on the corners of his mouth rather than suffer from moving. “I thought you were braver than this,” said Solvi. “How can I fear Harald when you are the best he has? I thought you would die well.”
Am I to die? Ragnvald thought, but did not ask. He would not speak unless Solvi threatened him. Solvi had stayed. Ragnvald had won that, at least.
“You have suffered so little compared with what I suffered as a boy, and yet I could offer you death rather than more pain, and you would take it, I think,” he said.
Ragnvald swallowed a few times until he felt he could speak. “I don’t care what you think of me,” he said. It was the most truthful thing he had said since Solvi captured him.
“No?” Solvi asked, though he did not sound surprised. “You and I are more alike than I had thought.”
Perhaps Solvi meant it as an insult, but it gave Ragnvald a strange sort of comfort. Under torture he would have done as Ragnvald did: break easily, like a branch in a gale, rather than let the whole tree topple. It did not hurt to know that. It did not even hurt to imagine Harald knowing of Ragnvald’s humiliation. The only thing he feared was Harald’s defeat.
36
Tonsberg stank in summer. Sometimes the mud and seaweed dried out so that the scent only tickled the back of Svanhild’s throat, but then rain came, and released the stench of all the rotten things from the ground until it rose up, steaming and fetid, and her stomach heaved. She recognized the sickness of early pregnancy. When she carried Solvi’s children she had grown lethargic and inward facing; Harald’s child seemed determined to fill her with fretful energy.
She became out of breath as she climbed the hill above the town, walking quickly to stay ahead of her guard. She did not know if that was because of the pregnancy or because she had become weak in her new life, a housebound woman with nothing but leisure to occupy herself. Harald had been called away from Tonsberg to fight deeper into Vestfold, and the last messenger had said that he had pursued his enemy Rane into Gautland, which was claimed by Swedish jarls. Harald had been offended that the rich farmers of Vermaland had given their loyalty to Rane so soon after giving it to him. Vestfold was his land, had acclaimed him king before any other districts of Norway had heard his name.
Reports of Harald’s victories continued to reach Tonsberg, battles great and small, shield walls that crumpled quickly when Harald’s forces attacked. Harald had left his uncle Guthorm to watch over her and Tonsberg, and Guthorm instructed Harald’s men Grai and Illugi to follow her everywhere. She found their company distasteful, and thought they did not like her any better, though they did not try to make her suffer for it, as Ulfarr had. Without Harald, Svanhild worried Grai and Illugi would fall to cruel entertainments, and so she kept watch over them as much as they did her.
She was panting and red-faced when she reached the top of the hill and turned to look back down at the harbor. Puffy white clouds filled the sky, rising up through the air like bubbles in ale. She wondered if a thunderstorm might come this afternoon, when the clouds closed in, watering Tonsberg’s fields and turning its streets again to mud. The air had that feeling, even with the heat of the sun and the blue of the sky, a waiting tension. Or perhaps that was her. Rumors had reached them that Hakon had ordered Rane to return to Vestfold in the first place, even that Hakon had allied with the Swedish king. Svanhild wished she were a sorceress, as Harald’s mother was, and could cast her awareness out away from herself, over land and sea, to know how Harald fared in Vestfold, how Ragnvald protected Maer, and where Solvi did his raiding. Perhaps Ronhild would teach her, after her child was born.
Svanhild gazed out into the distance, squinting against the brightness. At first, the speck on the horizon seemed like sun in her eyes, but then it resolved to a ship, its sails striped with white and faded red—Ragnvald’s colors, though they were the colors of other kings as well. The vessel was a dragon ship, narrow, with an enormous sail, so big that the long ship seemed to fly in the strong wind. She could not hear it from where she stood, but imagined the power of the wind making the mast creak.
She ran back down the hill to Harald’s hall, which felt big and empty with most of his warriors gone. Guthorm sat
outside, talking with a merchant who had come a few days before, and who had news from Dublin, comings and goings, Irish attacks, the long illness of King Imar, and questions of who would succeed him.
“Women slaves still bring the best prices, young as you can get them,” the merchant was saying.
“Our enemies don’t usually bring their daughters into battle,” Guthorm replied with a laugh, “but I’ll see what we can do.”
“Young boys are good too, but I have to sell them farther south, usually. Louis the Pious doesn’t like that sort of thing in his court. He would pay a lot for a good smith, though.”
Svanhild approached. Solvi had dealt in slaves sometimes but preferred smaller cargo, precious stones, silks, and spices. “I saw a ship coming toward Tonsberg,” she said to Guthorm. “A dragon ship.” She hesitated. “Ragnvald’s colors.”
“No scouts have come to me,” he said.
“My eyesight is better than your scouts’,” Svanhild replied. “I think it is friendly, but it may not be.” Guthorm still made no move to stand. “I think we should ready men to fight them off if necessary. We have more than enough to repel them on land, and if you send some to man the ships—I think two will be enough—we can keep these forces from escaping if they find the battle goes against them.”
“You say it bears Ragnvald’s colors and is friendly,” said Guthorm. “No need for men to fight.”
“I might be wrong,” said Svanhild.
“But you have better eyesight than my scouts,” said Guthorm, mockingly.
“I’m not certain,” said Svanhild.
“If you are frightened, take your women and hide inside.” Guthorm laughed.
Svanhild would not do that, and instead she went down to the shore with extra guards to greet the newcomers. Guthorm followed with his own guards though not, Svanhild noted, enough to mount a good defense. Well, she would have to trust her eyesight, and the fact that this ship had brought too few men to attack Tonsberg, well guarded as it was.
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