Except Göte. He stands on the shore.
“Come along,” calls Hoskuld. “Hurry.”
“I’m staying here,” calls back Göte.
“Weren’t you the one who complained about hunger back on Brännö Island?” Hoskuld’s voice cajoles, but there’s a threat behind it. “The life of a free man in Iceland can be very good, indeed. Didn’t you beg me to let you come work so you could earn enough to buy your own land, have your own homestead?”
It’s true; I remember. Göte begged fervently.
“After that storm, well …,” calls Göte, shaking his head. “I hate the open seas now.”
Hoskuld’s eyes flash anger. His hands close into fists.
I grab Hoskuld’s arm, to stop him from jumping out and bashing the man in the name of morale, as he did the þræll who talked of fearing the sea early in our journey—the þræll whose name I now know is Hlif.
Hoskuld looks at me with an open mouth, ready to protest. Then his eyes change. He folds his big hand over mine.
I move close to him, and we watch as the townspeople take Göte in gladly. I imagine this is the only way they ever get anyone new to come live in this dismal land. I will miss Göte. He’s the one who nodded to me the night we both saw Brid. He’s the one who told me Brid is a honey buzzard.
We set out, our bellies full from the midday meal. I wave to the women on shore. They’ve set fires and boil seawater to get salt, because they gave us most of their own supply. They wave back. I wonder if they’re wistful.
I wish we could take them with us. All of them. I’d like to rescue them from these dank islands. They should be nothing to me. But I feel I know them. They are generous and warm.
I wave and wave.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE: TRUST
We travel over open sea at great speed. The waves come like sliding mountains, miraculous green towers on the starboard aft quarter. A strong wind blows from the northeast. We hang on, but we aren’t afraid. Rather, it’s exhilarating. Viking ships are made for exactly this. Our ship moves so smoothly through the changing water that at times it seems as if we’re on a large living animal, instead of a collection of wood.
The horizon where the sky meets the sea is only a couple of hundred yards in every direction. I feel like no matter what we do, where we turn, we’re heading off into an abyss. But I don’t care. This moment is good.
Last night, after Hoskuld fell asleep, I opened the pouch that the island woman gave me. It was full of boiled seagull eggs. There is nothing particularly wonderful about seagull eggs. Yet I found myself ravenous for them. And they worked wonders, making my two otherwise constant companions, exhaustion and nausea, leave for a while. I ate them all, as I watched Brid eating even more greedily. The bird hopped from animal to animal, obviously pleased at the variety the newcomers lent to her diet. She feasted on goat ticks and hog lice. I wished she’d eat the fleas off me. They drive me batty sometimes.
Today we’ve been eating the new flatbread and peas. We planned on having dried meat for our evening meal. But the memory of the feast at the island town hall two nights ago lingers, making the men hungry for fresh flesh.
So when the wind lets up a little, they cast fishnets. Older children uncoil lines and run wax along them. They attach a hook at one end and drop them into the water. We eat delicious bass and cod. There’s so much, we pickle a good portion of the cod for later.
After we clean up, people gather for stories. I don’t care to listen tonight, though. I go to the aft, near Snorri, who’s working the rudder. Something catches my eye. I look toward the first ship, which is ahead and slightly to starboard. A man pushes another overboard. I gasp.
The man goes underwater, but he comes up again. He knows how to swim!
I grab Snorri and point.
He sets up the alarm.
The sail comes down. Someone throws a piece of driftwood tied to a rope. It lands near the man, but a wave comes between them. The man disappears underwater. The other two boats have pulled down their sails now too. Everyone’s watching.
The man surfaces. He swims for the driftwood and latches on just as another wave comes. Cheers go up.
We pull him in. As he comes over the side into our ship, he cries, “Have pity on me,” and falls to his knees.
“What are you talking about?” says Hoskuld, quickly coming forward. It’s clear from the man’s clothes that he is a þr339;ll. Yet Hoskuld wraps him in a blanket he bought from the islanders. Hoskuld is tender, sweetly tender. I wonder if he ever had a brush with drowning.
“My master threw me overboard.”
Hoskuld steps back in distaste. “You must have done something awful to make him do that.”
“I did. But only because he forced me. I stole a brooch for him. Then he wanted to kill me, so no one could ever tell what happened.”
Hoskuld’s face squinches in a frown. “Who is your master?”
“Brynjolf. Please don’t send me back to him. He’ll only kill me.”
Brynjolf. I’ve heard the name before. But because he’s not from our ship, I don’t know him.
“Whose brooch was it originally?” asks Hoskuld.
“Egil’s”
“Egil?” Hoskuld puts his hands on his hips, “He’s a goði—a local chieftain—just like me.” He takes down the horn that hangs on the mast and blows loudly to call the ships together. The sea has calmed enough to do that without risk. “Egil,” calls out Hoskuld.
“Here I am, friend.” A stout man comes to the side of the first ship.
“Are you missing a brooch?”
Egil goes to his chest and searches through it. “Yes,” he calls back. “A fine one too.”
“Brynjolf,” Hoskuld calls out.
“Here I am, friend.” He’s the man I saw push the þræll overboard.
“Did you order your þræll to steal Egil’s brooch?”
“No!”
“Did you push him overboard?”
“No!”
I grab Hoskuld’s arm and shake it.
He pulls away. “Not now, Beauty.” He doesn’t know I was the one who first saw this þræll in the water. He has no idea.
I pinch his arm as hard as I can.
Hoskuld jerks his head toward me in annoyance. Then he blinks and stares at my eyes. Slowly he turns to Brynjolf. “If we searched your personal chest, are you saying we wouldn’t find Egil’s brooch?”
“There are a few brooches in my chest. I traded for them fairly. Like everyone else. And you have no authority to search my things. This isn’t a general assembly. You can’t settle a dispute. Besides, all of us lost things in the storm. If Egil’s missing a brooch, probably it’s at the bottom of the sea, along with many of my things.”
Hoskuld rubs his mouth. “Why would your þræll lie?”
“He’s crazy.”
“Then you don’t want him anymore?” asks Hoskuld.
“He should die. He’s not trustworthy.”
Hoskuld looks at the þræll. “We’ll test you, to see if you’re trustworthy. If you pass, I’ll take you as my þræll.”
The þræll vomits a whoosh of seawater. His face goes pale. He shakes. He didn’t shake when we pulled him up over the side out of the cold ocean. But he’s shaking now.
I understand. If he fails, he’ll wind up back in the sea. Whatever this test is, it’s unfair; Brynjolf lied about throwing the þræll overboard. I bet he lied about the brooch, too.
Someone’s already reviving the fire from dinner. A vat of water is hung over it. Hoskuld looks at me sideways and raises one finger toward me, forbidding me to move. He drops two stones into the vat. When the water boils, Hoskuld steps back. “It’s time,” he says to the þræll.
The þræll comes forward. He looks around at the crowd. Everyone’s watching. His face crumples. His lips pull back from his teeth. He shoots his left hand into the water and shrieks as it comes out with a stone. His forearm and hand are bright red. Tears stream down his face. He’s sc
reaming and screaming.
There’s still one stone left in the vat. I won’t let this happen. I step toward Hoskuld, but someone grabs me hard from behind. “Don’t,” comes the whisper in my ear. “I’ll take care of him.” I look over my shoulder into Torild’s face as I hear the second stone hit the deck.
Torild rushes to the þræll with a bucket of fresh seawater. Another woman is supporting the þræll, because he’s collapsed, beyond screams. Torild plunges his red arm into the cold bucket. A boy stands ready with another bucket of water just drawn from the sea. After a few moments, Torild moves the þræll’s arm to that bucket, while the boy goes to refill the first. Torild moves the þræll’s arm five times before she’s satisfied.
I watch all this closely, panting in my distress. Now she beckons me even closer. She whispers, “Lean over me from this side and spread out your cloak so people can’t see what I’m doing.”
I shield the þræll’s arm so that only Torild and I see what she does now. No one else still watching knows. But there aren’t many left anyway. The sails are back up and we’re moving again. People have broken into their small sleeping clusters. They’re talking softly.
Torild smears an ointment on the blistering arm. She wraps it in moss and winds a white cloth bandage over arm and hand. “You were smart to use the same hand twice,” she says to him. “This way you’ll always have at least one usable limb. You’re smart.”
The whole time the þræll’s gaze is fixed somewhere far away, as though pain has stupefied him. His pupils are large. His breath is shallow. I take his right hand, the healthy hand, to give him comfort. It’s cold and clammy. He has the tremors.
Torild pours mead down his throat. “This will help,” she murmurs. She fixes her one good eye on me. “Nothing went on this arm except a clean bandage. Nothing. Those are the rules. When we remove the bandage, in two days, if the wounds are healing well, this is a trustworthy man.”
Why she has taken me into her confidence, I don’t know. In a world of such brutality and injustice, how does anyone dare such a thing? How can kindness survive?
The day ends, and I wait till snores come from every direction. Then I leave Hoskuld’s side and lower myself into the animal pit. Brid’s eating, as I knew she would be. I come within arm’s reach of her and she doesn’t even hesitate in her scavenging. What a smart creature. She counts on me to be a friend.
Like Torild.
I weep. What a foolish expression of gratitude. But my body acts of its own accord. How lucky am I, to have the privilege of being counted on.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX: HOME
The last two days I’ve spent much of my time sleeping or standing near Asgör. I am tired or nauseated or both almost all the time. And this old man’s voice soothes me. I listen while he tells how in spring a journey like this one amounts to simply following the black-tailed godwits and the curlews, but in late summer, like now, there are no birds going to Iceland, so it’s only the wave patterns and prevailing winds that guide him. I look at the water where he points, but I don’t see the messages myself. The ocean simply roils in my eyes. But I marvel at Asgör’s skills, which he is clearly proud of. And I like him for the patient way he explains things to me.
It’s close to midday when Hoskuld calls the people on our ship together. “Time for the proof,” he announces, and everyone knows what he’s talking about. We’ve all been expecting this since we woke today.
I rush to Torild’s side, and she doesn’t even fix her good eye on me. She merely touches the back of my hand in acknowledgment. We are a team now. She never has to come looking for me. When she’s needed somewhere, I go as well, automatically. I’ll make her glad she picked me as her assistant. I’ll prove she was right to trust me. I watch her carefully now, ready to follow her lead.
Olaf—that’s the þræll’s name—sits with his back against a chest. His eyes widen, his mouth falls open, his good hand clutches the cloth of his tunic. I remember Ragnar’s face when he knew he was about to be thrown overboard. He said “please” to me, just like I am saying “please” to the Lord inside my head right now. Please, please.
We play the same game, Torild and I, with me leaning over in my wide cloak and her on the other side, so no one can see her remove not just the cloth, but the moss underneath. Then Torild and I fall back to give a clear view to everyone: Olafs arm is raw. But there’s no pus.
Hoskuld raises a fist high and declares, “This þræll is trustworthy.” He doesn’t hide the victorious pleasure in his voice. That Brynjolf is despicable. I’m glad Hoskuld got the best of him. I’m glad Olaf will live. I’m so insanely glad at everything.
“There’s healing yet to do,” says Torild. She holds out a wad of moss before Hoskuld’s face and stares up at him. “He’s your þræll now. What’s your decision?”
Hoskuld slaps himself on the chest in triumph. “Take care of him however you think best, Torild.”
And so Torild and I administer more ointment, more moss, and a clean cloth. And the whole time Olaf keeps shaking his head in happy disbelief.
As soon as the new bandage is in place, Hoskuld steps forward and shakes Olafs healthy hand. “Congratulations, Olaf.” I am the one shaking my head in happy disbelief now. Hoskuld shook the hand of a þræll! I’m smiling so hard, my cheeks hurt.
Hoskuld grins at me. He picks me up and swings me in a circle. When he stops, he kisses me. And I am so caught in the joy of the moment, I kiss him back. His eyes fly open with a gasp of delight.
“You were right, Beauty.” He smoothes my hair away from my face with both hands and cups my cheeks lovingly. “There’s no one like you, Beauty. No one in the whole world. I’ll keep you with me always. You’ll be my most important þræll. My greatest treasure.”
I step back from him quickly. It’s as though night has fallen in an instant. And here I thought Hoskuld had finally come to understand. I spin on my heel and race across the deck, though I’ve nowhere to go, no way to escape.
“Can’t you ever be satisfied?” he calls after me in exasperation. And I know he’s angry that others have witnessed me refusing him. But it’s his fault for making a spectacle—for saying those things when people had gathered to see Olaf’s arm. At least he doesn’t follow me now. At least he knows better than that.
But I was wrong; Hoskuld comes stomping after me. He grabs me by an elbow and yanks me to one side of the ship, pinning me there. His mouth moves in little twitches. A muscle on his jaw jumps. And then, in an instant, his whole face crumples.
“I don’t know what you want. Maybe you want everything. You want to be free, that much I know.”
Yes. I fix my eyes on his firmly. Yes, Hoskuld. But not just me. Free all your slaves. Then your companions might too.
He shakes his head slowly and his eyes glisten. “You could buy your freedom if you had a way to earn money. I suppose I could let you work as a healer. Still, Beauty, if our world changed, if the order of things were undone, what would happen then?” His hands move up my arms, up my throat. They hold my head. His eyes beg. “You’re marvelous. A mystery I fear I will never tire of. Do you hear me? I fear that, because you can only lead to heartache. You’re unreachable.” He takes a deep breath. “If I free you, I risk losing you entirely.” He closes his eyes, bends down, and rests his forehead heavy against mine. “We are caught.” His voice cracks with sorrow. “This is the way the world is.”
Such sadness undoes me. My hands rise as though to touch his cheeks. But I am as unable to accept what is as he is to change it. I stop my hands at his chest. All my strength flows against him, pushing harder and harder. I keep my eyes down.
He finally leaves.
I force back tears. Then I look around. The þrælar are preparing the midday meal. I help serve. I rush about, avoiding Hoskuld, not meeting anyone’s eyes.
After the meal, Asgör calls out, “Attention, everyone.” Another announcement? I hug myself. “The raven has not returned!” Everyone cheers.
&nbs
p; I hug myself harder. We will be landing in Iceland today, that’s what Asgör’s words mean. He let free a raven yesterday morning and it returned to the ship before midday. He let free another this morning, but today’s raven hasn’t returned. That means it found land. Asgör explained everything to me. I can hardly believe it. This voyage has come to seem interminable. Iceland was a mirage. But we will be there today, on the ground, with the people of the settlement. All that, perhaps before the stars come out.
Immediately almost every free man on all three ships busies himself with grooming. Head hair, facial hair, nails, teeth, everything. They put away their travel clothes, grimy after having been lived in all this time, and take out their other outfit. They don knee-length, full-skirted tunics gathered at the waist by ornately buckled belts, with a drawstring at the neck. The sleeves are long, blousy at the top and fitted from elbow to cuff. The necks are braided or embroidered. The trousers are tucked into boots. And everything is in colors. The richer the man, the brighter the colors.
Hoskuld doesn’t ask for my help in his selfministrations. Maybe he actually has the good grace to realize that since he’s cleaning himself up for his wife, he shouldn’t be asking his concubine to tweeze his nose hairs. If he angers her too much, she could divorce him. Viking women have that right. Snorri talks sometimes about his first wife, and his second, and his third. Everyone divorces him, that’s what he said to me.
I smiled then. Snorri’s simple manner disarms me. He’s a sweet man, really. I don’t condone divorce, of course. But I can’t say with all certainty that I wouldn’t do it if Hoskuld were my husband and he brought home a concubine.
My face must have softened just now as I was thinking of Snorri, for Hoskuld approaches me, if somewhat gingerly. “Come look in my personal chest, Beauty. Choose a dress. Any dress.” I look him straight in the face and stare coldly. He gives an exasperated sigh and leaves again.
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