The Wolf in the Whale

by Jordanna Max Brodsky

  “Freydis may be greedy, but—”

  “Freydis is a madwoman. Finnbogi is right: she cannot be bargained with.”

  “She’s one woman.”

  “One woman who rules her men like the strongest jarl. If there were still shield-maidens, she’d lead the Greenlanders into battle herself. You saw her with the red men, swinging her weaving sword as if it were a real blade. I don’t trust her, Galinn. And I don’t trust this houseful of merchants and sailors, either. If Freydis and her men attack, the Icelanders will not be able to defend us.”

  “What are you saying?”

  I stand but keep my voice low so the others might not hear. “I’m saying that we’re already feuding with the red men. If another war begins between Icelanders and Greenlanders, then we will be caught in the middle. We are Greenlanders who sail with Icelanders! Who will we choose? Our neighbors or our crewmates?”

  His face, already so pale from the long winter, blanches further. “So…”

  “So we need to be ready to leave.”

  “Leave? I… I can’t.”

  “We can take the rowboat,” I begin, but Galinn cuts me off.

  “No, you don’t understand. My dreams…”

  I have heard these dreams before. The same ones that brought us to Vinland in the first place. But I listen anyway.

  “The goddess of love came to me again last night. She’s more beautiful than you can imagine.” He whispers, as if his wife, Geirlaug, were standing just beside him rather than far across the sea in Greenland. “Freya has long, shining hair the color of wheat sheaves, and she wears nothing but spring flowers girdling her waist. She looks scared. Her voice shakes when she speaks.”

  “You’d never left Greenland until six months ago, kid. What do you know of wheat?”

  He doesn’t smile, my serious brother. “My dreams roam farther than I do.”

  I sigh. “And what more did your dream goddess say?”

  “The same thing she always says. That the end is near. For so long, the gods have prepared for the Ragnarok, the final, splendid battle with the Frost Giants. But now Odin has seen the future with his all-knowing eye and fears there will be no great battle after all—just a slow wasting away as the Christ approaches. A desert dweller who can raise the dead yet wields no weapon and lies with no woman. A god who let himself die, pinned to a cross like a spread-eagled man, rather than fight for his life. Now the Christ comes for the Aesir, naked and bleeding yet somehow stronger than the mightiest god.”

  “So the Aesir would rather have the Ragnarok.” I can’t help the disdain in my voice. “A fight against their ancient enemies. Don’t they ever get tired of blood?”

  “They want to face death with swords in their hands, as warriors should.” Galinn’s eyes grow vague, as if he watches the great war unfold before him. My shepherd brother, who has never struck another man in anger, sounds nearly wistful as he describes the litany of bloodshed I’ve heard prophesied since my childhood. “Odin will battle the monster wolf, Fenrir. Thor will wrestle Jormungand, the sea serpent who circles the roots of the giant World Tree with its own tail in its mouth. Garm the hound fights Tyr the one-armed swordsman. One of Fenrir’s brood, a wolf in troll’s skin, will swallow the Sun… or perhaps the Moon. Gentle Frey will be attacked by Surtur, a fire fiend with sparking hair and a sword of flame.” His eyes snap to mine, suddenly sharp. “Surtur looks like you, Brother.”

  “Is that what you think of me? An evil fire fiend?”

  He shakes his head, as if to clear it. “No. I think you are the bravest, most generous man I know. One who would come all this way for his brother’s dream. A dream you don’t even believe in.”

  “I believe you’re having dreams, Galinn. I just don’t believe they mean what you think they do. Did the gods ever say they wanted you to come to Vinland?”

  “No,” he admits. “But Freya doesn’t want to become a Christian saint, and Thor won’t give up his war hammer to any virgin weakling. Greenland was the gods’ last stronghold, but now the Aesir lose ground even there. I know they need a new home. Somewhere as far away from Rome as any man has ever traveled. Vinland is perfect. I must stay here until they arrive.”

  And so I do not argue with my brother. He is as stubborn in his own way as Freydis is in hers. I leave him there beside the fire, gazing at the flames as if he sees the future in their dance.

  It’s my turn to stand guard that night. When all are asleep, I steal a few rounds of flatbread and a sack of stockfish from our stores. I would take my sword, too, but it hangs on the wall just behind the pallet I share with Galinn, and I dare not wake him yet. I stare at him from across the hall instead. The purple shadows beneath his closed eyes. The way he curls his shoulder to spare the scarred arrow wound at his collarbone. He has already suffered too much pain. I will not let him get hurt again.

  I slip from the turf hall, through the forest, and down to the shore, where the two knarrs lie anchored: Freydis’s smaller Greenlandic boat and the larger Icelandic vessel she covets. I stow the supplies in the biggest rowboat, taking my time to lash them carefully, to find a pair of oars, a barrel of fresh water. It’s a crazy plan to try to row all the way back to Greenland. One that can never work. But it’s the only way I can think to protect my brother from these feuding fools. I pray that Galinn is right, that tomorrow’s Althing will resolve the conflict. Such conferences often prevent bloodshed back home. But this is not home. This is a land where none of the old rules seem to apply. Where skraeling boats are faster than Norse ones, shepherds act like Vikings, and women can lead armies. I did not come all this way just to fight in another war. And I won’t let Galinn, either, no matter what his gods tell him. If I have to tie him up and drag him into the boat, I will.

  I head back through the woods. Then I hear the screams.

  For a moment I cannot believe my ears. It cannot happen tonight. Before the Althing. Freydis wouldn’t dare.

  And I was supposed to stand guard.

  I start running.

  The Greenlanders, some of them men I’ve grown up with, stand in front of the Icelanders’ house with their swords and axes drawn. I creep forward, dashing from tree to tree to stay out of view. On the ground in front of them lies a pile of dark shapes. Sheep carcasses? Maybe seals they found lying on the beach? In my panic to believe something other than what I know to be true, I even imagine they’ve come to share the spoils of some lucky midnight hunt.

  I am right, in a way. A midnight slaughter of helpless beasts. A pile of men’s bodies. Just bodies. No heads. I still don’t understand what’s before my eyes. Not really. Not until I hear Freydis’s husband say, “Galinn Gunnarsson was no Christian. He was a Greenlander, like us. We should’ve spared him.”

  I hear nothing else. Only the rush of blood in my ears. My feet are rooted to the ground, my heart beating so fast I feel it might burst through my chest, leaving only my hollow carcass behind.

  Then her voice cuts through. “Galinn was their friend, their crewman. He raised his brother’s sword against us to defend them. Don’t question me on this.” She peers around the clearing. “Brandr must be somewhere. And when he returns, he’ll seek justice for his brother. I want him dead. Be ready.”

  “Thorvard?” one of the Greenlanders calls to Freydis’s husband. “We tied up the ambatts inside. What should we do with them?”

  Thorvard answers quickly. “We should divide them among the men.”

  “No.” Freydis’s voice is calm. “They have plotted against us and against our gods. They die. All of them.”

  The men are silent. I can almost hear their ragged breaths. The Greenlanders only play at being Vikings—this is too much. They might butcher a houseful of sleeping men, but they won’t kill unarmed women, even Christian ones. Freydis begins to scream at them, calling them cowards and worse, but they won’t move. Even Ingharr Ketilsson, who slaughtered an entire family of fur-clad skraelings with his own sword, stands frozen in place.

  Thorvard se
izes his wife’s arm, but Freydis twists from his grasp like an eel and grabs his hammer from him.

  “If you don’t do it, I will.” Her cheeks burn so red they look black in the moonlight. I have never seen Thor’s gift upon a woman’s face before. It is monstrous. She is the fire fiend, not I, bringing the Ragnarok in her wake.

  She marches into the house with the hammer raised high. The screams are terrible. But more terrible still is the growing silence as voice after voice cuts off. When Freydis finally emerges, her green dress is splattered with blood. I finally find the strength to move—but only enough to fall to my knees behind the tree and vomit. My face is pressed so low to the ground that I nearly smother in my own bile. I, who have seen so much blood, have never seen anything like this.

  I watch as the men carry out the ambatts’ bodies. The pile of corpses grows so tall it towers over the living. She orders her men to burn them all, without even the proper rites. And I just lie there, hidden in the woods. Letting all of it happen. I am one man against twenty, but that shouldn’t stop me. As a berserker, I would take them all on at once, even knowing such folly would mean certain death. I’ve vowed never again to seek Thor’s gift, but now I reach for it. Beg for it. Instead I feel only a creeping coldness, as if all my limbs have turned to ice.

  I lie there all night, wide awake, unmoving. The pyre finally burns out at dawn. It is one of those warm spring days that make you forget winter ever existed. The ground around me is sprinkled with tiny blue flowers that weren’t there the day before. Galinn would’ve stopped to give thanks to the Aesir. To Frey, the god of growing things, and his sister, Freya, who wears spring buds in her hair. And to Thor, whose thunderstorms make both war and flowers bloom.

  I hate them all.

  Galinn came all this way to save his gods. But when he needed them to save him, they ignored his pleas.

  I tear off the Thor’s hammer from around my neck, the one Galinn made for me the first time I went viking, when he was just a child barely old enough to hold a knife. I bury it there in the dirt.

  Two Greenlanders guard the Icelanders’ longhouse against my return. One of them, Ulfar, has my sword sheathed at his hip.

  I creep up behind him and press the point of my knife to his throat. His son Snorri raises his spear.

  “If you don’t drop it, I’ll kill your father.”

  Snorri obeys.

  With my free hand, I rip my sword from Ulfar’s waist.

  Dimly I hear the old man babbling in my ear. Begging for forgiveness for what happened to my brother. But all I can think about is that the blade is still clean. Galinn may have tried to defend the Icelanders, but he’d never even drawn blood. He’d wanted so much to be a Viking. Like me.

  I don’t pull back my hand to strike. I just press the knife into Ulfar’s throat until the blood runs down my fingers and his body goes limp.

  Snorri picks up his spear and lunges at me, screaming to wake his companions. I dodge and bat his spear away with my sword, but I’m using my left hand and we’re both fighting with more rage than skill—he pierces my thigh. The pain clears my head: I slice the spear in half with my blade. One more swing and I’ll take the boy’s head.

  I kick him in the gut instead, with force enough to burst his spleen.

  He goes down, and I start running.

  Blood courses down my leg.

  Just get to the rowboat. Get to the rowboat.

  Run, you fool. Run like the coward you are.

  And don’t look back.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  The first time I drank the red woman’s potion, I awoke to Brandr’s voice, begging me to come back to him.

  This time, he had let me sleep. At some point in the night, he had carried me to the sleeping platform and tucked me beneath the furs.

  Very slowly I sat up, my mind still whirling with memories of blood and flame.

  Next to me hung the broad bear fur I’d strung between us. Brandr lay on the other side, fast asleep, one long arm extended to push the fur aside so he might watch over me through the long night.

  Sweet One whimpered a quiet greeting from where she lay next to him, her chin resting on his hip. He twitched at the sound but didn’t rouse.

  I watched the even rise and fall of his chest. So different from his panting breaths as he fled Leifsbudir—breaths I could still feel burning my own throat. Some burdens could never be lifted, some crimes never forgiven, but in sharing his truth with me, some of Brandr’s unseen wounds had finally healed. I had rarely seen his face so calm, his sleep so untroubled. I could not bear to wake him yet.

  Trapped inside the qarmaq, we had traveled farther together than we ever had on our long trek south. Like angakkuit on a spirit quest, we had been ripped apart and made anew.

  I had found the good in him, he said. Now I had rooted out the worst in him as well. But he was not the only one full of contradictions. Within us both, cowardice, despair, and violence warred with bravery, faith, and love. All we could do was keep fighting.

  I reached up and unfastened the bear pelt from the ceiling. There should be no barriers between us now.

  Then I noticed the silence.

  Sila Itself seemed calmed by the peace between us, for the blizzard had finally ceased its roar.

  I wanted to stay and watch Brandr wake. To see the new man he had become.

  But if the storm had stopped, I had no time to waste. Our other journey must continue. White Paw and Floppy Eared, both curled beside the hearth, lifted their heads as I gathered my pouch of tools and pulled on my boots and outer parka. I motioned for them to stay. Brandr should not wake up alone.

  I had to dig a little with my spear shaft to get out of the qarmaq, but I’d built the entrance in the lee of the wind so the drifts wouldn’t trap us inside. The Sun nearly blinded me when I emerged, the bright rays reflecting off the snow in sharp stars of light. This time, however, I’d come prepared. I tied my new eyeshields tightly around my head.

  I cleared the snow from the top of the sled and bent to chip the runners free of the frozen ground. Then I turned to the bay to check the clouds above the water. If the weather held, we would leave today.

  I saw more than clear sky. Somehow, in making peace with Brandr, I had forged a truce with the spirits as well. Sanna had finally relented. The sea had given me a great gift: a narrow bark-covered boat, its prow stuck between two rocks and its stern floating free in the iceless ocean.

  Cautiously I walked toward the shore, alert for approaching strangers. When no one appeared, I decided the boat had drifted free from the painted men’s village up the coast. A paddle was lashed inside the hull—how could I resist it?

  Had I not seen the seals, I would’ve fetched Brandr to come exclaim over my find, and our story would be a different one. But as I turned to the qarmaq, I noticed a dark mound on the snowy island in our bay. After avoiding my harpoon for so long, the seals offered themselves—more proof of Sanna’s favor. Their meat would feed us on our journey; their pelts would make Brandr a much-needed pair of fur trousers to replace his useless cloth ones.

  I resolved to catch a seal and return triumphant before he awoke. Stupid. Reckless. Yet after revealing my woman’s body to him, I wanted desperately to prove my man’s heart. I can be both to him, I decided. A vision came unbidden and unstoppable. Not a dream of the past but a hope for the future. I would drag the seal into camp. I would pound out the blubber and fill a shallow stone with the oil. Make a wick from a thick tuft of wolfdog hair. Then, by the warm, constant light of a proper lamp, I might finally dare to remove my atigi and, for the first time in years, choose to be naked in front of another person. And then… would he do the same? I had not forgotten the sight of his bare chest. My mind roved where my body dared not. Across the tattoo that circled his wrist. Over knots and around loops and through every twisting spiral. I wanted to trace them all. Up the long bone of his forearm. The swelling rise of his bicep. All the way to where the beast sank its fangs into the meat of
his shoulder. I swallowed hard, imagining the taste of his skin.

  The seals barked. The sound like laughter carrying across the water. You haven’t caught us yet. Stop dreaming like a woman, Omat, and come prove yourself a man.

  From the pouch slung across my chest, I retrieved a toggling harpoon head and fitted it into the foreshaft of my weapon. I stepped carefully into the birchbark boat, missing my kayak. I longed to paddle with my legs under the waterline, feeling the embrace of the sea around my lower body while my arms pushed and pulled like the waves themselves. Instead I splashed ineffectively with a one-bladed oar in the wobbly boat that was not quite kayak, not quite umiaq. The seals would hear me and be gone in a heartbeat, slipping off the rock and out of my reach.

  But Sanna had indeed forgiven me—the animals remained on the island as I approached. I stopped paddling, taking note of waves and currents to keep the boat drifting silently toward the rock.

  Despite all my precautions, one large bull seal lifted his head.

  But he wasn’t looking at me. I followed his wide black gaze to a flash of white on the horizon. The jaw of a breaching whale, I thought. But it didn’t disappear beneath the waves. I sat, transfixed, as the white shape grew larger. As the monstrous wooden ship came into view.

  Only then did I let myself understand—I had found the Vikings at last.

  “Kiasik,” I breathed. I imagined him huddled defenseless among yellow-haired butchers. I imagined myself rushing to save him… but with what? My single harpoon? If they saw me here in the open water, the Norse would either kill me as thoughtlessly as they’d murdered Issuk’s family or, at best, capture me as they had Kiasik. All this time, I’d thought I’d have time to plan a rescue. Now it was all happening too fast.

  Jolted from my stupor, I paddled furiously for shore.

  I glanced back toward the ship. I could make out the silhouettes of the Vikings now, could even see one standing in the prow, pointing at me. No matter how hard I paddled, the creaking of the ship grew louder, closer. My arms couldn’t find an easy rhythm; the water churned and splashed around me as if bubbling with Sanna’s laughter. My birchbark boat wasn’t her gift—it was her trap.