Ingharr lowered his sword with a grunt. “And what of my recompense? I’ve been injured by your property.”
Freydis bristled. “Recompense?”
Ingharr would not be cowed. “In Greenland, I could take you to the Althing. I demand payment.”
Freydis tossed her head. “First put away your sword, Ketilsson. Do you think to threaten me?”
The baleful look in his eye spoke volumes. I waited for Freydis to back down. For her to relinquish her power to this man who thought himself more suited to rule. Instead, she simply narrowed her eyes and said, “Need I remind you that I am the leader of this expedition? That I paid for this ship and secured the other? That I fought off the skraeling band that attacked Leifsbudir while you were playing in the woods?”
Ingharr’s lip curled in a snarl—but he sheathed his sword.
Freydis gave him a curt nod, their bloodless battle over. A clever leader does more than punish those who rebel; she rewards those who obey. “I’ve taught the thrall to spin,” she said, gesturing toward me, “but she’s clumsy and slow. I have little need of her. As a sign of my goodwill, I give her to you as your ambatt.” Muirenn uttered a stifled cry, but Freydis cut her off. “I’ll hear no sound from you, old woman. I’ve spared the skraeling’s life.”
“That’s a poor gift indeed, Freydis Eriksdottir,” Ingharr grumbled. “She’s too ugly for me to bed.” He looked at the redheaded woman with one brow raised. “I’d rather a true Norsewoman.”
Freydis stared at the man as if he were meat gone bad. “For too long, you’ve prowled the ship like a hound after a bitch in heat. Take what I offer. I’ll give you nothing else.”
Muirenn looked at me, shaking her head sadly. I read the message in her gaze: I know you understand. You know what awaits you. And for that I’m sorry.
As Ingharr hauled me away, the old woman held my eyes, a silent line of comfort passing between us. The tall Norseman’s fingers bit into my upper arm as he dragged me toward the center of the camp. “First you work. Then later—we’ll see if you’re worth bedding.”
Young Snorri stood near the gang of poorly clad, skinny men digging fruitlessly at the frozen earth with iron tools. Their torques, some of metal, some as crude as the rope and stone around my own neck, branded them thralls. They’d scraped away the top layer of thick snow—but the earth beneath was hard as stone. What were they doing? I knew Brandr’s people usually made their homes of turf blocks, but surely even a Norseman knew he couldn’t dig up the ground in winter. They were wasting their time.
“Help the thralls dig,” Ingharr ordered, shoving me toward the workers. “If we don’t get some houses up soon we’ll all freeze. Here, Snorri, give her a pick.”
The curly-headed boy passed me an iron tool with a long wooden handle. Ingharr motioned that I should copy the other slaves. “Go on. Dig so you—”
He stopped midthought, the blood draining from his face as he looked me up and down. I stood with my feet planted, the sharp tool clenched tight in my fists, glaring at him. For the first time since I’d been with the Norse, I held a weapon. I had little hope of escape—not with so many of my captors surrounding me—but at that moment I was willing to kill Ingharr and take my chances. And he knew it.
He moved a hand slowly to his sword hilt. The iron pick felt unwieldy in my arms, its heavy head pulling toward the earth. I longed for a well-balanced spear. Or the sharp steel knife I’d lost in the waves the day of my capture.
Ingharr took a step back, his eyes never leaving mine, his hand still resting on his sword. The caution slowly drained from his expression. He smiled thinly, his gaze narrowing like that of a fox about to pounce.
He raised his voice so all the surrounding thralls would hear. “This woman has already disobeyed me once today. For that, she has lost her meals. Now she threatens me. She’d rather fight than work. Well, who said I wasn’t a generous master? Go on, skraeling! Fight me, if that’s what you want.”
“She doesn’t know what you’re saying,” Snorri interjected anxiously. “She doesn’t speak Norse.”
“Perhaps not, but she understands. Look at the fight in her eye.” With a keening scrape of metal, Ingharr drew his sword from its scabbard and took a step toward me. “Come on, kunta.”
“Ingharr—” Snorri began hesitantly.
“Stay out of this, Ulfarsson.”
I raised the pick higher to defend myself, hoping his blade wouldn’t sever the wooden handle with one blow.
“Omat?”
I started at the sound of my name.
One of the thralls, scrawny and stooped, stood before me, his face hidden beneath a thin hood. He must have come on the Icelanders’ knarr, because I hadn’t seen him before; I would’ve recognized the motley assortment of colored patches on his ragged cloak. He pushed back his hood.
“Kiasik…”
Ingharr reached forward and grabbed the pick from my unresisting hands. “So these two skraelings know each other!” He laughed, the sound conjuring memories of slaughter. “Now I know a better punishment for her.”
He strode quickly to my milk-brother and struck him across the face with the flat of his sword.
Kiasik crashed to the ground, not even trying to brace his fall. He lay with eyes closed, blood seeping from his torn cheek, an eerie echo of how I’d last seen him on the day the giants sailed out of the mist.
Ingharr raised his sword again. I threw myself across Kiasik’s limp form.
“Don’t touch him!”
Too late, I realized I’d shouted in Norse.
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
Been playing us for fools, huh?” Ingharr grunted. “I told you, Snorri, she knows more than you think.”
“I guess she picked it up on the boat.”
I rose to my feet. My small frame was a poor shield for Kiasik’s prone form, but I would defend him with my fingernails alone if need be.
Ingharr shifted his grip on his sword, ready to strike if I made another move. “How much do you understand?” he growled.
With all my energy divided between him and Kiasik, I only dimly sensed the gathering crowd of thralls and freemen. Dark-green cloth fluttered in the corner of my vision; Freydis was here.
“I understand everything, Ingharr,” I said coolly. “And if you strike my brother again, I will kill you.”
Snarling, he lunged toward me.
“Wait!” Freydis thrust her way through the crowd as Ingharr stumbled to a halt. Unarmed, she stood fearlessly between us. “Tell me, skraeling! How do you speak our language?”
I looked the taller woman straight in the eye. I would not cower. I, too, had been a leader of men. “I am a great seer among my people. Our gods taught me your tongue.”
Ingharr was not impressed. “All the more reason to let me kill her, Freydis. If what she says is true, she’s dangerous.”
The Norsewoman dismissed him with a flick of one long-fingered hand. Her eyes pierced mine. “How do I know you’re telling the truth?”
I shook my head, the gesture reminding me of Brandr. I must keep him safe. “You don’t. But how else would I know Norse? You really think I could pick it up from living with you for so short a time? Even an Inuk is not that smart.”
A murmur of astonishment rippled through the crowd. Freydis merely smiled. She looked as if she might even laugh. “Which gods have taught you so well?”
“Ones not unlike your own. Gods of ice and fire. Thunder and wave. More powerful than any Christ.”
Freydis’s eyes flashed. “What do you know of the Christ?”
“There are Christians among your own people.” I heard a hiss of breath behind me, but I couldn’t worry about Snorri now. “My gods warned me about them.” I raised my voice, wanting all the gathered freemen to hear. “The Christ approaches these very shores.” For the first time, I saw fear enter Freydis’s eyes. “Don’t worry.” I smiled tightly. “My land is too cold for a desert man. He won’t survive long.”
Hands on hips,
Freydis returned my grim smile. “Come, skraeling. Bring your… brother, is it?… to my tent. We must speak more of this.”
Ingharr placed his hand on her arm as she turned to go. He spoke with barely concealed rage. “Have you forgotten you said I could use her as my ambatt?”
She laid her own slim fingers on his meaty ones and looked up at him with soft eyes. So—Freydis ruled her men with more tools than one. “Be patient.”
I bent to help Kiasik. Too rushed to examine him closely, I couldn’t tell the extent of his injuries, only that he seemed to have shrunken like a hide left too long in the sun. “It’s me,” I whispered in our tongue. “Please wake up.”
His eyes fluttered open, and he tried to push himself upright. His elbows wobbled and bent; he collapsed again. I slipped my shoulder beneath his arm, but still he listed to one side, dragging me down. To my surprise, Muirenn appeared, hoisting him up with unlikely strength. Together we hobbled after Freydis with our limp burden, leaving the other Norse dumbfounded in our wake.
Inside the cloth tent, Freydis gestured toward her own low pallet. “Put him there.” Only one other item furnished the space: a tall wooden frame strung with hanging threads, each kept taut by a dangling rock. Woven cloth in stripes of yellow and white stretched across the threads. A loom.
Carefully I laid Kiasik down on the pallet and wiped the blood from his head. The new injury was minor compared to the old. A deep, still-angry scar ran from his temple to his jaw, snaking through a field of newer swellings that distorted his mouth. Livid bruises mottled his skeletal face, each a different shade of purple. Such injuries, at least, would heal in time. The searing heat of his flesh worried me more. The patches of skin that showed through the layer of filth were corpse gray. The swollen pouches beneath his eyes were nearly black, the skin of his lips cracked and torn. Kiasik was dying.
I reached instinctively for his amulet pouch, thinking to summon his protecting spirits—but he wore only a thrall’s torque around his neck.
“What have you done to him?” I demanded.
Freydis shrugged. “Ingharr captured him. What he does to his thrall is his business.”
“Yet you just protected us from him.”
“So far.”
I turned away at the implicit threat, unwilling to let this woman distract me from my brother’s pain. Freydis and I would have our test of wills. Of that I had no doubt. For now, there were more important things to attend to.
“Omat?” Kiasik crawled his fingers up my arm.
“Yes… yes, it’s me,” I said hoarsely in my own tongue.
“How? I don’t understand…”
“I came for you. Did you think I’d let them take you without a fight?”
I thought I’d be embarrassed to have failed so utterly in his rescue, but relief overcame my shame. He wasn’t dead yet. There was still hope. And we were together once more.
In all our winters together, I’d never seen Kiasik weep. Not once. Not when Ipaq died or Ataata. Not even as a child, when Puja scolded him or he fell on the rocks or he almost got gored by the caribou bull. But now his tears sliced tracks through the grime. “I—I don’t deserve that from you.”
“We will always save each other,” I insisted. “You told me that, remember?” I felt myself once more his younger brother, always loving him, regardless of his faults. I wanted nothing more than to clasp him in my arms, yet I couldn’t show such emotion in front of the Norsewomen watching us from across the tent. I took his hand in my own, channeling all my love and strength through our pressed palms.
Kiasik wiped the tears from his face, smearing blood and dirt into his mustache. “What happened to the others? Issuk—”
“All dead.”
He paused for a moment. I didn’t want him to ask, but I knew he would. “Kidla, too?”
“Yes.”
He didn’t cry again. He merely blinked up at the ceiling, his face turned to stone.
“How did you find me?” he asked finally.
“A friend showed me the way.”
“And you speak their language.”
“The same friend taught me.”
“The Wolf Spirit? You can call upon him again?” he asked hopefully. “Will he help us escape?”
“No,” I conceded. “But these Norse don’t know that. I told them I’m an angakkuq, full of mysterious power.”
His brow furrowed. “You tried this once before, Little Brother. With Issuk. It didn’t work then.”
Little Brother. That lessened the sting of his criticism.
“Trust me.” I squeezed his hand. Despite the chill inside the tent, his grip was as hot as sun-warmed stone.
Freydis spoke over my shoulder. “What are you saying to him?”
“That I’ll make sure he’s not beaten again.”
“Then you lie. Ingharr sent him to the other knarr as a rower. He told Olfun to beat him if he didn’t work hard enough. If Ingharr chooses to have his thrall beaten, he may. If I tell you to serve as his ambatt, you will.”
“Then why am I here with you and not in Ingharr’s bed?” I retorted.
She raised a pale eyebrow at my audacity. “You say you’re a seer.”
“Yes.”
“You speak to the gods. To your own gods.” She paused for a moment, eyeing me carefully. “Could you speak to ours?”
I must tread very cautiously here, I thought. Kiasik was right; the last time I tried and failed to speak to the spirits, I was forced from my home. If I disappoint Freydis, my fate will be far worse… and I may get Kiasik killed as well.
“I’ve never spoken to your gods, so I don’t know,” I admitted. “But I could try. What would you ask of them?”
Freydis moved to the tall loom, her back straight. She reached for the shuttle and passed it through the threads as she spoke—but not before I saw the sudden tremor in her hands. Freydis, always so controlled, was scared. I could use that to my advantage.
“If you speak of what I’m about to tell you,” she began, her voice clipped, “I will kill your brother. Ingharr’s thrall or not, I shall kill him myself.”
I looked to Muirenn.
Freydis followed my glance. “The old woman knows. She nursed me as a babe. She can be trusted. I cannot trust you. But know that if you speak to the others, neither of you will survive the night.”
I nodded solemnly, my hand damp in Kiasik’s feverish grip.
He propped himself on an elbow. “What did she say?”
“I’ll explain later,” I cautioned. “My brother doesn’t know your tongue,” I continued in Norse. “You may speak freely.”
Freydis picked up a long piece of ivory shaped like a sword. It looked good in her hand, as if she were born to be a warrior, not a weaver. She knocked the threads upward, tightening the weave before picking up the shuttle once more. The constant action of the loom calmed her trembling, just as an angakkuq’s drum might do for me.
“I dreamed of Vinland before I ever saw it,” she began. “Many years ago, a ship blew off course and spotted a forested shore. When the crew brought word back home, my brother Leif dared make the voyage to seek out this new land. He returned two years ago, speaking of fields of golden grain, rich purple grapes, forests of towering pine—things never seen in Greenland. You must understand that we are a family of voyagers. My father, Erik, left Iceland and discovered Greenland. Leif has traveled beyond the boundaries of the known world. Many of my kinsmen are merchants, sailing to Englaland and Northway and beyond, returning with tales of lands far and wide. Yet I had never left Greenland.”
She thrust the threads upward with her sword again, as if to push away the words. “The dreams started coming that first night after Leif’s return. I saw golden fields and thick forests—or at least, what I imagined those things must look like. Visions from the gods, I thought. Why else would they haunt me night after night? In my sleep, I walked on the Vinland shore, the sun hot on my neck. Then I’d wake in my freezing longhouse, still sweating f
rom my dream. I convinced my husband to allow me to organize this voyage. I gathered men and women and thralls so I might reap the rich Vinland harvests and bring them back for the glory and wealth of Greenland.”
And for your own, I thought. I know what sort of men and women you gathered—I know what happened to them. Still, I held my peace.
“Leif had lied, of course. I wasn’t surprised—men can’t be trusted. Vinland has forests, but no grapes. Still, the wood and furs alone will make me rich. I should’ve been content—I even thought I might settle there forever, shipping our goods across the ocean and living luxuriously on the profits. But then the red skraelings came.”
Her knuckles whitened on the shuttle. “At first I tried to trade with them, but my foolish men killed two of them in a quarrel. That was the beginning of our troubles. A blood feud. I cursed my men’s stupidity, but then Thor appeared in my dreams. He said he wanted me to fight. The Aesir wanted Vinland for themselves, and no red men would stand in their way. No Christians, either. I did as he asked. I fought off the skraelings; then I cleansed our ranks of Christians.”
She makes murder sound as easy as scraping fat from a hide, I thought, remembering the tall pile of corpses in Brandr’s tale.
“I thought that would be enough…” Freydis faltered for the first time, the shuttle striking the edge of the frame and slipping from her fingers, the thread unspooling. She bent to retrieve it, deftly rewinding the wool, using the excuse to pause for a few long breaths, as if summoning her courage for the rest of the tale.
“My dreams returned,” she continued finally. Her fingers moved slowly now, wandering across the threads as her mind wandered through the past. “This time, blood drifted through the Vinland forests like snow. I ran, chased by slavering wolves. Frost Giants stormed through the trees, and the ground itself rose up to destroy me. One of my own men, a Greenland Viking whom I’d come to trust, led an army of skraelings against me, crying out curses upon the Aesir. And all around, my men died. Every night, without respite, the same nightmare. A new sign from the gods. I knew that to stay in Vinland would be death.”
The Wolf in the Whale Page 36