Without thought, I reach both hands out.
“No! Get away from the window. Move to the side.” He talks in bursts between breaths. Blood vessels stand out on his forehead. I back off. “I’m throwing in a dirk. Use it to pin one end of your cloak to the wood floor of your room and toss the other end of the cloak over the window.”
A dirk comes flying through the window. It lands with a clunk on the stone floor. Everything in this room is stone! What can I do? The only wood surface is the door. And it’s farther from the window than my cloak is long.
He’s hanging there. Exhausted. Heart and bones.
I pin one end of my cloak to the door at the height equal to the bottom of the window. I take off my outer shift and use a strap brooch to fasten one end of it to the other end of the cloak. It is still not long enough. I take off my under shift and use the other strap brooch to fasten one end of it to the other end of the outer shift. The remaining end of the under shift now just barely reaches to the center of the window ledge.
I lean my head out the window. “Reach your hand to the center of the window ledge. You’ll feel the cloth.”
His hand fumbles. I place the cloth in it. He pulls. Then his other hand is reaching up and pulling. His head appears over the window ledge.
The under shift rips. No! I lunge for his arm.
But he has already clasped a hand over the inside lip of the window ledge. He pulls himself over and slides in onto the floor. The skin of his chest has been scraped away.
I turn my back and cry. He’s safe. He will live.
I hear his footsteps cross the room. Then my cloak descends around my nakedness.
“Thank you,” he says. I listen to the drag and sough of his rough breathing. “Will you marry me?”
I sob into my cloak.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
The king and his men are in the great hall, feasting. It is a celebration of Alf’s success. The queen is there as well. But she kept true to her word; she did me the favor I asked today. Then she dressed herself beautifully, put on her hawk-plumage cloak, and left.
Thyra and Ragnhild have also done their parts: Women are gathering in the large room of the king’s home. They look at me sideways as they enter. Their skepticism is natural. I am the king and queen’s adopted child—I might well assume the right to order them around. And of late I am the girl in the tower; men died trying to win me. Who knows what evil might lurk in such a heart? And, perhaps most worrisome of all, I am the girl who has kept herself hidden away since the valiant Alf stormed the tower yesterday. What could I be thinking? My mental powers are called into question.
The women sit on the floor. Twelve of them, including Thyra and Ragnhild. Some work in this household. Others, I don’t know. They are friends of Thyra and Ragnhild.
I get to my knees. The very action catches them by surprise—their eyes shift around the room, as though spies might jump out at any moment. They expected me to walk in their midst royally, making declarations, perhaps? I open my hands to them. “Some of you are slaves.” I look around at the faces, some dark, some scarred, all thin. “Some are free women, but servants.” I nod. Only a few of them dare to nod back. “Many of you—maybe all—find few choices in daily life. Maybe you foresee marriage, maybe not. But whether or not to marry and who to marry, for many of you—maybe for all—will not be your choice.” I nod again. They stare at me, unblinking. “Choice. It is a mighty thing, choice. How to pass your day, your life. Who to bed with, or not. Choice.” They are still staring. “I want choice. I demand it. I am taking that right—by force.” I lower my voice. “And if you come with me, you will have that right too. You will choose how to pass your day, how to live your life.”
The women look at one another. They speak only with their eyes, but so many conversations are going on. One woman, the older slave Unn, shakes a hand, open-fingered, toward me. “What do you mean, come with you? Where are you going?”
“I cannot tell you.”
A small murmuring of distrust runs through the group.
Thyra gets to her knees. “Speak, Alfhild.” There is a gasp as the women realize Thyra has called me by name without saying my title first. “Tell them why you cannot say where you are going. If you don’t trust them, how can they trust you?”
I hadn’t planned on this. I would have shared with the women, once we were away. But beforehand, it’s dangerous. I don’t want those who stay behind to lead pursuers to our trail. Thyra’s reasoning makes sense, though. “I cannot say where because I do not know. I have to find my sister.” I swallow the lump of grief in my throat and force myself to say it: “She was stolen by a ship. I think a Russian slave ship. I’m sure of it.”
Their faces open. I see the sadness they carry. How many of them were stolen? But others must have been sold into slavery by their parents. That has to be worse.
“Your sister?” says one woman, a little older than me. Her face is not open; it is shrewd and hard. She is a servant to Queen Tove. Her name is Ingun. “You have lived here a long time. We never heard talk of a sister.”
“It was seven years ago.”
“Seven years?” Ingun looks at me as though I’m void of reason. “Why, anything could have happened to her by now. She could be anywhere.”
“Exactly,” I say. “So if you come with me, you may wander far.”
“How will wandering with you mean we have choice?” It is the slave Unn again. She is bold and tenacious. That’s what I need in my companions. I must win her.
“I will pay wages. Everyone gets the same pay. You can choose to leave anytime.”
“Where will you get the money to pay wages?” asks Ingun.
“I have money.” I look around, my eyes seeking and holding the eyes of each of them in turn. “It is not stolen. It belongs to no one else. This is truth. I will pay you, I swear.”
“But I’m a slave,” says Unn. “No law protects a runaway slave. If I am caught, your father, the king, can have me put to death. And he will. I have no doubt. I have lived here twenty-three years, serving both king and queen, and the king and queen before them.”
I’ve thought about this, at least, thank heavens. “We can send word back to Heiðabý about each of you. The rumor will be whatever you want. It can be that you were lost at sea. Or died of illness. Or that I forced you to come and you’ve escaped and are on your way home. It can be a secret message to the people you love who need to know you are well. It’s up to you. Think about that one thing: It’s up to you. Everything will be up to you. In a new place, with money in your pouch, what becomes of you will be your choice.”
“What do you mean, ‘lost at sea’?” asks a girl I don’t know. From her clothes and skin, she is a slave. “You said that. You said the message can be we were ‘lost at sea’.”
“Can I know your name?”
She presses her lips together, and I see her fight fear. “I want to hear about the sea.”
“I am Alfhild.” I look at her and try to radiate gentleness. “Your name. Please?”
“Jofrid.”
“Jofrid. A good Norse name. And Unn is a good Norse name. All of you go by good Norse names. As do I. But”—I fold my hands in front of my chest—“we may go by other names inside our heads. Those people, those other girls and women with those foreign names locked inside us, they need choice.”
“That may be,” says Unn. “But Jofrid is right; tell us about the sea.”
“The only way to follow the path of a Russian slave ship is by sea. Right?” I look around, appealing to them for agreement. They just look back at me. “There’s a boat waiting for us. It will be our home.”
“I know nothing about boats,” says the servant Matilda.
“You’ll learn.”
“And just who is going to teach me?”
“Me,” I say.
“You know how to manage a boat?”
“I do.”
“That’s hard to believe. But even if it’s true, what will
happen to the boat at first, when none of the rest of us knows a thing about it?”
“Maybe we need some men,” says Ragnhild quickly. She’s at my side. I hear her heavy breathing. “I can think of one who might come.”
“No men.” I shake my head hard. “If women leave, they may chase us, but they will give up quickly. If men leave, they will hunt us down relentlessly.”
“Then we’re back to my question,” says Matilda. “How can we think of setting out with only one person who knows about boats?”
“I know about boats,” says Jofrid. “So we’ll be starting with two of us knowing how to do things.”
I rub my hands together as hope rises in my chest. This may really happen. “Within days all of us will learn every detail of managing a boat.”
Matilda stares. She shakes her head. “I can’t even swim.”
“You’ll learn that, too.”
“I can teach you that,” says Thyra.
“What about food?” asks Matilda. “We have to eat; we’re not like the god Óðinn.”
“Ah!” Grima, the slave of Queen Tove, slaps her hand to her chest in sudden realization. “The boat is well stocked for at least ten days.”
“How do you know this?” It is the king’s slave Osk.
“I just know.” She looks down. “Believe me.”
“And the king knows nothing about this?” asks Osk.
“Nothing,” I say.
“Just how did you get a boat?”
I look from face to face. “You don’t need to know that. None of you. And it’s better if you don’t.”
“Better for you?”
“Just better,” I say.
“And what’s supposed to happen to us once you do find your sister?”
“That’s up to you. You will be free women. You will decide.”
“Free women.” Osk shakes her head. She stands. She looks hard at Grima. She has clearly figured out that the queen had Grima stock the boat with food. She sees it all as treachery. My heart beats erratically. It was a mistake to invite all the women household slaves and servants. Of course some of them would be loyal. Of course. I stuff the back of my hand in my mouth. What an idiot I am. What will happen to Queen Tove now?
Osk looks at me at last. “What do we need to bring?”
I fall forward on hands and knees in grateful relief. “A cloak for sleeping under. It gets cold at night on water. An extra shift if you have one. A pouch. And whatever else you want. An ax if you can get your hands on one. A dirk. But don’t invite suspicion. Don’t carry anything you can’t account for should someone ask.”
“If we had men with us, they could bring axes and no one would question them,” says Ragnhild. “I know one who speaks Russian. That would help if we’re going after a Russian slave dealer. That would help us, Alfhild.”
“I can speak with Russians,” says Osk.
Ragnhild’s face crumples.
“Ragnhild.” I put my arm around her. “When we are finished, you’ll have money enough to buy a slave. Whatever slave you want. We can send someone to buy him for you, and then the two of you can go wherever you want together. We can’t risk the lives of all of us because of any one person’s needs.”
Ragnhild wipes tears away. “I know. I was just being stupid. But I know.”
“Hurry, everyone. Tell no one. Meet me by the fjord bank where they slaughtered the whales. If you don’t show up, we’ll leave without you. We have to put as much distance as possible between us and town by the end of the evening’s feast. We cannot wait.”
“With luck,” says Jofrid, “they will all fall into drunken stupors till morning, and then wake with pounding heads and be unaware of our absence till midday.”
“I’ve never counted on luck in my life,” says Ingun. “Don’t make me start now. Race, everyone. Race.”
PART FOUR
THE HUNT
(SUMMER, FIFTEEN YEARS OLD)
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Over the past seven nights and days, the landscape has changed from flat grasslands to hills to more meadows and now to low rolling hills. We have sailed under full wind. If any among us has misgivings, we don’t voice them. Maybe we’re simply too busy for misgivings—learning the new tasks of sailing, staying alert to both land and sea, surviving.
We turned out to be only nine in the end: Ragnhild and Thyra, Unn, Ingun, Grima, Jofrid, Matilda, Osk, and me. All of them were part of the king and queen’s household except Jofrid. The four women who said nothing at our meeting never appeared at the fjord bank. None was part of the royal household, so there’s no reason for anyone to suspect they might have information about us. If they simply continued to say nothing, no one in Heiðabý would know anything about us beyond the fact that a boat went missing.
But even if those women did talk, it’s clear the kings’ men must have gone looking in the wrong places. Perhaps they followed the coast to the north, or went to nearby islands, or crossed the sea to Skáney. We, instead, went south and then east—east and east and east. That’s the direction the Russians come from, after all. We hug the shoreline, attentive to small settlements. They hold nothing for us—no one in a small settlement could afford a slave, at least not a beautiful, full-grown slave woman as Mel was seven years ago. But once we get to a big town, we’ll stop and look around. I’ll knock on every door and look in the face of every slave woman if I have to. I’ll find my sister.
We anchor only in isolated bays with no signs of people. We swim there, which turns out to be decent bathing, since the water of this sea is barely salty. If there’s a creek that empties into the bay, we fill up on fresh water. We always fish when we stop. And for the past two days we have relaxed enough for me to go off hunting with Grima, who is new to bow and arrow. We brought back hares to roast on sticks over open fires.
We never anchor for long. The wind is our friend, but I know what a fickle friend she can be. So we make use of her day and night. There has been a growing moon, and that helps us steer safely at night—or as safely as anyone can at night.
Four ships have passed us, all in daylight. But all were going the opposite direction, and all traveled farther from shore than we did. Still, each time we passed one, we then headed straight north—out to sea—and once we were far out there, we took down our sails and drifted for a while, hoping to be less than a speck on the horizon should the ship have decided to come back and take a second look at a boat full of women.
At night, though, no one passes us. The wisdom is that it’s foolhardy to sail close to shore at night unless you know every outcropping of boulders, every underwater reef. But we have to be foolhardy—it’s that or increase the risk of being caught.
Ingun is at the helm tonight. The others lie on the open deck. An overlapping spread of cloaks covers them. They sleep hard and deep, the sleep of the exhausted.
I stand at the prow and look ahead. The wet air laps my face. The wood of the gunwale eases against me. Even the floor of the ship presses up at me. That’s how I feel these days, as though the world touches me instead of me touching it. That’s how I have felt since Alf slid into the tower room. He thunked on the floor. Every day that thunk assails my ears. The smell of his sweat invades my nostrils. The bulk of him clouds my eyes.
I rub my eyes now, to rid it of that bulk. No use: There is still something big ahead—bigger than a rock, given the distance it’s at. I strain forward. It’s a dwelling. And then another. There are many along the coast ahead. Many! Finally.
“Osk! Unn!” I wake them with a hand on their shoulders. “Lower the sail.”
Ingun has already pulled up the rudder and is waking the others.
We peer through the dark. “There’s a city ahead,” I say. “It has to be Trusø, no?”
“It couldn’t be anything else.” Osk cups her neck with both hands and rubs. “I knew we were close. It’s the biggest city along this shore. The huge river Vistula runs through Vendland and empties into a large lake called Estmere. Fr
om the east comes the river Elbing; it flows into Estmere too. The city is on the bank. Traders bring amber from the Baltic Sea and travel the Vistula to the south.”
“Traders bring slaves, too,” I say. “Right?” But I know it’s right. I’ve listened carefully in the Heiðabý slave market. I know it. Still, she has to confirm it. “Right?”
“Yes.” Osk hugs herself now. “I was captured somewhere along the Vistula. I was brought north. We passed a few days in Trusø. I was ten years old.”
Ten. That’s two years older than I was when the slave dealers stole me. I touch Osk’s shoulder and speak firmly. “We passed a small creek a little while ago. Let’s turn back and anchor there. Out of sight from the sea. We can sleep the rest of the night, and then tomorrow we can go into town by foot.”
Thyra squeezes my forearm. “If anyone’s still following us, that will give them a chance to catch up.”
“They’re not following us,” I say with conviction.
“How do you know?”
“Tonight, as you slept, Ingun was at the helm. The king would be astonished to see that. Osk and Unn just lowered the sail, fast and efficient as men. The king would never recognize them doing that. All of you can take to the oars and row like mad. No one back in Heiðabý would believe we could do that. No one knows any of us have knowledge of sailing. They probably figure we have foundered and rest on the bottom of the sea by now.” I touch her hand. “I don’t think they’re following us.”
Grima pokes her face in mine. “But if they are?”
“Does anyone have a better idea?”
“I do.” Ingun leans forward. “Let’s sail past the harbor to the next creek on the east side of the city. If anyone’s following our ship—anyone from Heiðabý—they will surely stop at Trusø. This way there’s no chance they’ll see our boat. And if we go carefully, very, very carefully, tomorrow, when we approach the city, we’ll see them before they see us.”
We don’t even discuss it. We simply raise the sail, and soon we are past the town and sliding into a small bay surrounded by forest. It’s ideal. No one could see us from the water unless they fully entered the bay. We anchor near a stretch of beach in water shallow enough that we’ll be able to jump overboard when we want and wade to shore easily. Everyone settles down to sleep again.
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