Perhaps it was Beorn himself who informed Alf. An atrocious thought. Please, let that not be so. Please don’t let the finest man I’ve known in this country be the one to have planted the seed that will ultimately grow to my grief.
Alf wore this news close, like skin. He told his crew to sail back to Heiðabý on their own and meet him the following week—and he ran across the land, without sleep, without pause, back to this town, my town, in a single day.
I see him run. I hear his feet pound the earth. I feel his heart throb.
Ah, it sears, how I see this man. This innocent man.
Then he arrives in the king’s home.
All this Queen Tove tells me. And more: Alf has returned for one purpose. He will take the challenge. Tomorrow.
I will not accept this grief. “No!” I have been clutching the queen’s hands ever since she spoke his name. “No!” I shout. “He will not take the challenge. I will not allow this.”
The queen’s face lightens for the first time since Valdemar intruded into our lives. “Your distraught response can mean only one thing: You will accept him as a husband without the challenge. I knew it. I knew you cared for him. I glimpsed the two of you at the feast that night. I saw it in your body.”
“I accept no one as a husband.”
The queen looks stricken. “You have the right to refuse a particular suitor. But surely not the right to refuse all. It’s a duty to procreate. Do you not understand?”
“The horror of this tower has changed me. Forever. I will have nothing more to do with this tower, nothing more to do with men who tell me what I have to do. I’m going out right now.”
“Listen to me, Alfhild.”
“There’s nothing left to say.”
“Listen to me!”
“I’m leaving.” I open the door of the tower room.
“You can’t.”
I stand at the top of the stairs. “Send this suitor home. Pay him. End it.”
“Things have changed.” The queen’s voice is heavy as an anchor. “This Valdemar business has brought new fame to Heiðabý.”
“Infamy, you mean. Three men died horrible deaths for no reason.”
“People come here now who wouldn’t have come before, and they spend money. The town grows rich. It is said that Heiðabý girls are more beautiful than others; they are made in the image of the stunning goddess Freyja. The wealthy men of town are getting marriage propositions for their daughters that are better than what they hoped for before. The king’s name has become a household word in much of the northern world.” The queen sinks to the floor and looks up at me. “Many are coming to see Alf take the challenge. The king would be glad—all of us would be glad—if you’d simply marry him. No one wants more needless deaths.” The queen puts her palms on her cheeks, and her face shows again a small glimmer of hope. “The king would turn it into a grand marriage celebration. I could make all the plans. It would become a legend. A happy tale. That would be even better for the town’s business than this infernal cobra pit.”
I see eyes the color of rain. An innocent man.
But I also see a girl in a boat. Fifteen years old. Her mouth is gagged. Her hands are tied behind her back unless it’s time to eat. She was my sister. Whoever she is today, she is still my sister. I’m shaking my head violently.
“You can avoid his death, Alfhild—I know you want to. A marriage would do that in an instant. But we cannot have everyone come with expectations and give them no show whatsoever. The king will not allow you to simply call it all off and go back to life as it was.”
“Then I won’t go back to life as it was. I will run away.”
“Oh, girl, my girl. The king anticipated this. After what you said about leaving—just going away—it wasn’t hard to figure you might try to do that. The king has posted men inside the bottom door. They will not let you leave.”
I look into this queen’s face.
A tear rolls down her cheek. She stands with difficulty, as though this conversation has aged her years and years. She walks to me and stops. “Forgive me.”
“Do you control him?”
“No.”
“Then there is nothing to forgive. But promise me something,” I say, speaking the words without the thought fully formed yet.
“What?”
“After tomorrow, whatever happens, I will need to do something. You know I need to do something. I’ve told you that from the very first.”
“Yes, I know.”
“And I will need your help.”
“How?”
“Promise me your help. No matter what.”
Her eyes plead. But then she swallows, and I watch her neck lengthen with determination. “I will help you, even if it incurs the king’s wrath.” Her shoes slap the stone steps as she descends the stairs. Gone.
I pace. I have no thoughts. Just feet, which can do naught but follow circles. Perhaps I’ll trace so many circles in the stone that the floor will fall through and crush the men who guard the door below.
I cannot avoid thought forever. I cannot afford to avoid it even until tomorrow. I must find a plan. The queen is ready to help me—I must find a plan that will work.
Ragnhild and Thyra appear at my door.
I stop and stand in the very center of the room. “Have you heard?”
“Yes.” It is Thyra.
I’m grateful she doesn’t bother to feign ignorance and ask what I’m talking about. “Your face is strained,” I say.
“And yours is wasted, Princess.”
“Did my father talk with you?”
“You know he did.”
“Did he send you here with a mission?”
“Of course,” says Thyra. “We are to talk you into marrying Alf before the challenge.”
“Do you intend to do that?”
“So far as I can see, you do what you please, Princess.”
“But it’s not just that,” says Ragnhild. “You must have a reason for your hesitation. You always have reasons. So we have agreed between us not to argue with you.”
“I appreciate that.” I touch my head. The hair is still there. It still curls. It has no right to do that. Nothing ordinary should be happening anymore. “Thyra, have you ever loved a man?”
“No.”
“It must be a pitifully painful thing, don’t you think?”
“I can’t guess.”
“It is,” says Ragnhild very quietly. “It is pitiful. It is painful.”
The tremor in her voice steals my breath. When I can speak again, I ask, “Who have you loved?”
“Igor.”
“Igor, the slave?”
“And it is not past.” Ragnhild’s cheeks are blotchy red. “Don’t talk of it in the past. I love him.”
Thyra takes Ragnhild’s hand. “I feared as much.”
“Does he not love you in return?” I ask.
“He adores me.”
Ragnhild is adored. She is simple, but honest and sweet. She works hard. Why shouldn’t she be adored? “Then what’s the problem? A free person can marry a slave.”
“But their child then becomes the property of the slave’s owner. Igor will not allow any child of his to be a slave. He will never marry.”
“What if my father were to free him?”
“He won’t do that. I asked. And he forbade me to prevail upon you for help. He says you are stubborn in your vehemence against slavery, and if I ask you for help, he will sell Igor to an Arab and buy someone else to replace him. Then I’ll never see Igor again.”
I am helpless. “The king can be harsh.”
“All men can be.” Thyra sniffs and pulls herself up to her full height. “I learned that long ago. It’s why I willingly left my last post to be employed by you—a girl. It’s best to enjoy what you can of life, with or without a man on each occasion, but always on your own two feet.”
“I can hardly believe my ears.” I take the hands of these two girls, and we form a closed circle. “Yo
u were hired three years ago—and all this time, we have never talked like this. It’s as though we didn’t know each other at all.”
“I know things about you,” says Thyra. “You love Alf. Admit it.”
“I don’t know what love is.”
“Do you think about him all the time?” asks Ragnhild. “Do your insides fold over and over when you’re near him?”
I look down.
“It doesn’t matter what the king wants,” says Thyra. “You want Alf. Marry him because you want to, not because the king wants you to. Don’t let your stubbornness make a fool of you.”
“It’s not that. Nothing like that,” I say.
“Then what is it?” asks Thyra. “Tell us.”
Ragnhild moves her hand up my forearm. “We’ve been honest with you. And you could hurt us if you wanted to. But we trust you.”
“I have something I must do.” I swallow, and my ears pop with held-in tears. “I think about Alf, it’s true. But I won’t know what I want in the long term until I’ve done something else first. I’ve already waited too long to do it.”
Thyra comes closer. We all clasp forearms now—the circle shrinks. “What must you do?” she asks.
“Find someone—a woman. She may need rescue.”
“Who?”
“My sister.”
“Oh, you have a sister!” Ragnhild squeezes my arm. “But Alf could help you find her.”
“Maybe. Maybe he could. Probably. But then I’d be beholden to him. And you know how it is. When you work with someone at something, when you share a goal, you grow closer. He’d want to marry me even more. But I don’t know what I’ll want after I find her. I might want to stay with her.”
“Well, that’s no problem,” says Ragnhild. “She could come live with you.”
“Except she might want to live somewhere else . . . somewhere else entirely.”
Thyra’s brow furrows. “Where?”
“Írland.” They stare at me. “Eire,” I say in my old tongue. “It’s the land where we were born.”
“Ayyyy.” Thyra drops her head and swings it side to side. “This is a mess.”
“If Alf takes the challenge,” says Ragnhild, “he’ll die.”
“So I have to stop him.”
“You have to do more than that,” says Thyra. “You have to get out of this tower. I’ve listened to them talking. The king won’t let you free unless you marry Alf.”
“There’s got to be a way.” I shiver. We move into a hug. “The King doesn’t control everything. He can’t.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Alf stands on the other side of the cobra pit. He is handsome. I haven’t really allowed myself to think about him that way till now. But I am on the verge of tragedy—there’s no point holding back. Tragedy cannot be cheated; it calls for complete surrender, it calls for extravagance. The man is beautiful.
“Don’t be an idiot,” I call.
“Good advice,” he calls back.
“Three men have died,” I call. “Their bodies stank so bad soldiers finally fished them out with hooks.”
“I know this.”
“Go home. Please.”
“Will you come home with me?” He squints against the sun. “Will you be my wife?”
A dream existence. “Perhaps in some life. Not in this one.”
“Can you explain that to me?”
“I doubt it.”
“Try, Alfhild.”
Alfhild. It isn’t even my real name. “You know nothing about me.”
“That’s what marriage is for. To learn each other.”
It’s a good answer. But an easy answer in the abstract. Alas. “I cannot explain myself to you. Not yet, at least.”
“Do you love another?”
“No.”
“Do you love me?”
“How can I know? I am inexperienced at this.”
“As am I. I may love you already. And in any case, I believe I can grow to love you. Do you believe you can grow to love me?”
“My answer is irrelevant.”
“Humor me, please. Answer.”
“Yes.”
“All right, then.” He opens the satchel on the ground beside him.
I think of the third solo man, who opened his satchel and put on a helmet and a mail shirt and jumped to his death. “Please,” I cry out. “Please, please do not do this. I will not marry you. Believe me.”
“This is what you think now. Perhaps you’ll change your mind by the time I stand beside you in that room. In any case, I must take my chance. No other option makes sense to me.”
Sense? There is no sense in a world in which one man can completely unhinge the life of a girl simply because lust overcame him. A world in which that girl’s father then makes decisions about her whole life based on money. A world in which people steal people and bring them to other lands. I could scream and scream. But no one would listen.
“Would you rather die or have a broken heart?” I call.
“They are the same to me.” Alf takes a smaller satchel out of the big one. He carries it to one end of the pit and shakes it upside down. The carcasses of rats tumble down into the pit. They are each so bloated, the tight skin shines. I see wide stitches of string holding together their bellies. How very odd. I’m fascinated against my will. Alf goes to the big satchel and takes out an enormous jug. Then he pours a glistening red stream over the rat carcasses.
The cobras wind with determined speed—after all, they haven’t eaten anything all week; cobras don’t eat people, as we all know now. Their tongues flicker, tasting the scent. It’s so strong, I can imagine swooning. They open their hoods and mouths gigantically wide and strike. Slowly, ever so slowly, rats disappear down cobra throats. Each snake gorges on multiple rats.
Alf pulls two axes out of the satchel. He throws them into the other end of the pit. And he jumps in, hits the ground, and rolls. I scream. He doesn’t look up at me. He collects the axes and stares at the snakes. None of them gives evidence of knowing he’s there.
He chops at the side of the pit that is in front of the ground before the door. He chops an indentation here, another above it and to the side, another above that and to the other side. He chops now high over his head.
“A snake,” I shout.
He turns. A cobra moves toward him, but awkwardly; it is a lumpy rope of rat. Alf aims the ax and throws hard. It cuts the snake in two. I stare to see if, against all reason, the rumor might possibly be true. The two halves of the snake twitch, but they don’t move forward. And what’s that? A huge shard of glass sticks out from one half of the snake.
Alf takes a step and halts, then another, his eyes on the two remaining snakes. He makes his way like that to the thrown ax and fetches it. Then he races back to the place where he’s been chopping.
He looks at the two snakes one more time. Then he tosses an ax up onto the ground in front of the door. The crowd gasps. He tosses the second ax up. The crowd gasps. I am swallowing and swallowing. My eyes go to those snakes.
Alf puts his hands into the holds he has chopped and begins to climb the wall.
A cobra moves away from the remains of the heap of rats. It winds toward Alf.
Alf climbs the wall. The holds crumble under his feet and hands.
The snake stops and flinches. Then it winds closer.
“Faster,” I call. “Climb faster!”
Alf’s hands are over the edge of the pit now, but his feet search for the holds.
The snake is directly under Alf.
“Faster!”
He kicks a hold with the tip of his boot. Then another.
The snake opens its hood and jaws. It strikes and falls sickly to the side with a series of spasms.
Alf stands on the earth in front of the door. He wipes sweat from his brow and leans, hands on his knees, looking back into the pit. Now he looks up at me. “Thank you for cheering me on.”
“Take your axes and go back.”
“And
have my head impaled on a stake?” Alf smiles. “I seek a better end to this tale.”
“Don’t talk crazy. Go back, Alf. Live. Please. I want you to live.”
“That’s all the encouragement I need.” Alf throws an ax at the bridge-door. It wedges in firmly, a half-arm’s length above his head.
“Are you daft? It would take you days to chop down that bridge-door.”
“I have no intention of chopping it down, for then how could we walk together across it over the pit once I win you?” He grabs the other ax in his left hand. With his right, he reaches up to the ax that’s embedded in the door and pulls himself up with that one arm. He swings the other ax into the door higher up and then hangs by only the left hand. He works the first ax free, then swings it hard. It embeds even higher. He climbs the door like that, hanging from the axes by his arms. At any point, an ax head could give way. He would fall backward onto the ground, perhaps into the pit. At best he would be badly broken. And who dares think of the best?
But the ax heads bite firm.
In the pit, the two snakes move as though in death throes. I imagine their insides sliced with every muscle twitch. Glass-filled rats. The man is brilliant. Insane, but brilliant.
Alf is at the top of the door now. It astonishes me that he’s made it this far. How can his arms be that strong? But axes can’t bite into stone. What now? Oh, good Lord, what now? He cannot descend by the same method he used in climbing. He is lost!
He hangs from an ax by his left hand and reaches into the pouch that dangles around his neck. He pulls out a dirk. A broken dirk, short and stubby, but the jagged edge glints sharp. He closes a fist around the handle and jams it between two stones. Then he hangs by the right hand from that dirk and pulls a second dirk out of his pouch. Equally broken. He climbs the wall like that. It’s slower going than with the axes, because the dirk handles are so short. But at least the stones offer him footholds, so he’s not swinging free.
When he is just below the window, he stops. The window ledge is one continuous slab of stone. No dirk could penetrate it.
He clings there, a hand on each dirk. His feet in narrow holds. “Help me.”
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