Hidden

by Donna Jo Napoli

  So they tell us to go north only half a day, and then we’ll see the largest island of the Dan people to the west. It’s called Selund, because it has so many seals, but good ones—not shape-shifters. We can go west there and follow the northern coastline of Selund until we see another island of reasonable size to our west and a little north. That’s Samsø. We are to go up the east coast of Samsø and cut through a passage that will let us out on the island’s west coast and within sight of the mainland of Jutland. From there we can go north to the fjord that cuts across Jutland and will allow us to come out on the North Sea. After that, they can’t help. Only one of them has ever traveled outside Skáney, and that one never went beyond Jutland.

  I’ve been only half listening since the first mention of Samsø. I know a man who uses the channel in that island when he goes after pirate ships. I see his eyes. I toss and turn all night.

  Before dawn, Ingun wakes us. “Shhhh. No talking. We have to leave quickly.”

  We act without question. Within minutes we have everything we brought on land with us. We sneak onto our ship and Ingun tells us “North,” so we set sail northward.

  Once we’re far from the settlement, Ingun tells her tale. She was relieving herself in the night, when she saw a man from the settlement jump off our boat and then get into another boat—a small one—and sail away south. “He was spying,” she says.

  And, of course, in our personal chests now are the women’s clothing that families have given us—the clothing we wore on our excursions into Birka.

  “Was he the tall one, missing a finger?” asks Jofrid.

  The man who questioned why we wanted to stay within sight of land lacked a finger.

  “Who could see his hand in the night?” answers Ingun. “But he was tall.”

  “I bet he was the one who grabbed at my tunic.”

  “What happened, Jofrid?”

  “I was walking to our ship after the evening meal, to bring fresh water to Cadla and grasses to eat, when he appeared out of nowhere. I jabbed him in the ribs and he took off.”

  “Why didn’t you say anything to us?”

  “I didn’t think much about it. You know. He could have been a fuðflogi, hopeful that a ship of men would bring him love for a night. I felt sorry for him; it can’t be easy in these little settlements to find what you need.”

  “Maybe he was trying to see if you were a woman. You’re the smallest of us—the easiest to target.”

  “Ah,” says Unn. “He knocked my hat off. I thought it was clumsiness—but maybe he was checking my hair. Thank heavens mine is cut off.”

  “And not red,” says Matilda, our redhead.

  “All right,” I say. “Let’s assume he found us out. He went south. So I agree with Ingun, let’s continue north. We just have to be extra alert.”

  We set up four lookout posts, one to each direction. Within the hour a fishing boat appears in a cove, but we simply head out farther from land and it stays there, possibly without even seeing us.

  By midmorning we reach the point where we can see Selund to the west. We cross over and hug the north shore of the island. Within a few hours a fjord splits the land. The terrain is flat, so one can see long distances. There’s no evidence of a settlement. We enter into an enormous bay, a perfect harbor, and anchor.

  “I’ve never been hunted before,” says Sibbe.

  “That’s because you were a servant, not a slave,” says Unn.

  “It’s an awful feeling,” says Matilda.

  Ingun picks up an ax. “They’ll be looking for us by day. So let’s stock up with whatever we need so we can travel at night. What do you say?” She lifts the ax. “I’ll get firewood so we can warm ourselves at night.”

  We fan out in pairs. Drifa and I hunt with bows and arrows. She’s as good as I am. We quickly roust a pair of greylag geese and take them both down. I’m carrying the brace when we hear something behind us on the water. In one swift movement, Drifa turns and shoots. Then she gasps. I look. She’s hit a swan!

  In Eire it is unlucky to kill a swan or crane. Drifa was stolen from a country the Norse call Finlandi. I can see from her face that she also shares this belief. We feel cursed. The big bird struggles. It is wrong to leave it suffering. And the curse is already on us. I shoot a second arrow. The bird sinks.

  “Fish will eat it,” I say. Drifa says nothing. I see a muscle in her cheek twitch.

  We start back toward the ship when I see a stone statue of a woman seated on a throne. She wears a long shift, an apron, four bead necklaces, a neck ring, a strange hat that flattens out to the sides like wings, and a wide cloak. She’s flanked by a bird on each armrest. Above the back of her chair extend the heads of two dogs. Those must be Óðinn’s greedy wolves, Geri and Freki. I’m guessing the goddess is Frigg—for she has the right to sit on her husband’s throne.

  Is this a good omen, to balance the bad? A boy bursts out from behind the statue and runs away as if for his life. There’s a settlement in that direction, for sure.

  We race to our boat, whooping the alarm call we’ve agreed on. Everyone clatters onboard. I count, to be sure, as Sibbe pulls up the anchor—twelve! I look around. “Unn!” I shout. “Grima!”

  A ship rounds the bend. They can’t help but see us.

  Ragnhild and Thyra have our sail up already.

  We go. We go without Unn and Grima. I feel insane.

  That ship follows. It’s bigger than us. But the wind is with us, so we’re faster. The first shower of arrows comes.

  “Lie flat,” I scream.

  “But we have to steer,” says Jofrid from the helm.

  “You and I will take turns. No one else will stand.” I run for the helm and push Jofrid flat as the second shower of arrows comes.

  Jofrid pops up in front of me. “Don’t be stupid. I’ll watch the rear. When they pull back the bowstrings, we’ll both dive for the deck. Dive!”

  This time some of the arrows are on fire. One passes through the sail, and instantly it’s aflame. Cadla the goat bleat-screams.

  Everyone’s on their feet now, dunking buckets on ropes into the sea and splashing the sail. The flame is doused quickly.

  The next rain of arrows falls short. We’re out of range now. We’re flying.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  We speed along the northern coast of Selund, not a boat or house in sight. Ragnhild hugs Hrodny, who is crying out for Grima. Grima and Hrodny had become nearly inseparable.

  “They’ll be all right,” says Ingun. “Unn and Grima will follow the plan.”

  If anyone got stranded, the plan was to claim a slave ship had snatched you, and then the women pirates had attacked and taken you. For some of us that was even the truth. If you were caught with weapons, that was because the women pirates had forced you to hunt.

  Hrodny swipes at her tears. “We have to go back for them.”

  “That ship isn’t far behind,” says Ingun. “We couldn’t return without passing them. Besides, who knows what forces might have amassed back in that fjord. Maybe the settlement there was large—it has to be somewhat large to have a ship that size.”

  “Let’s discuss it,” says Hrodny, looking around. “We need to discuss it.”

  “Once we’re sure the ship has given up following,” I say.

  Hrodny glares at me. But she moves to the rear of the ship and looks backward.

  The land to our port side is all tufted saxifrage, white and red and yellow. It could be spring, it’s so colorful. But I imagine the grass on each little spur of land under my feet, and I know it’s tough and old. Winter is close. The sky changes, even as I’m thinking this. Clouds come in from the north.

  We scramble to put on cloaks when, all at once, the land ends. This is a finger of land—a long peninsula that juts out westward.

  “Ship!” shouts Hrodny.

  Up along the southern edge of that finger peninsula comes a ship. It can’t have come from the settlement with the statue. There was no inlet in the pen
insula the whole way—no passage for anyone to cut across. So this is a second boat, coming from some other community. How they got the message from one community to another so fast is anyone’s guess. But they knew we’d stick to the coast. Our habits must be general knowledge.

  Without hesitation, Jofrid steers us west, out to sea. No one speaks. They fill quivers and check bowstrings. They set out axes and swords. They line up shields. I watch the sea behind us. The ship that follows grows smaller. We are fast. Please, let us be fast enough.

  Rain comes. The air goes cold with it. The wind picks up. The sky darkens. It starts high up and stains gradually lower and lower to the sea, now dark as charred wood. Thunder rumbles. A jagged spear of lightning splinters the sky ahead, making the world bright for the briefest instant. The waves grow, higher than I’ve ever seen them before. They spit white froth. We race at tremendous speed, rising and slapping down wildly.

  “Tie yourselves!” I shout.

  Everyone has a rope in her personal chest, and we’re all tying them around our waists and through an oar hole. But the rope does little to reassure. It’s insane to be out at sea in this. I’m sure both the boats chasing us have turned back.

  The axes have disappeared back into the chests. The swords, too. The bows are tied to the mast, the quivers of arrows are in the chests. Every loose thing has been battened down. Cadla skitters across the wet deck, bleating piteously, till I catch her and make a harness of rope under her front legs and across her shoulders and tie her to the mast too. She hushes, but her crazy narrow slits of eyes say her silence is because she’s given up.

  The rain turns to ice pebbles that pock our hands and face, our only exposed parts. Thunder booms. A shaft of lightning goes straight down, from heaven to sea, directly in front of our boat. A wave breaks over us. Should we take down the sail? I have no idea.

  I will not let us die at sea. There has to be land around here somewhere. These waters are littered with islets. More thunder; more lightning. “There!” I point port side. Something looms out there. It has to be land. It can’t be just a storm cloud. “Do you see it?”

  Jofrid calls for help. She and Ingun together pull the rudder and they turn us, but too fast. The ship lists to port so hard it rides on its side. Chests tumble into the sea. People tumble out. But the ship rights itself and we’re going toward that looming thing, and those of us still onboard pull in the ropes of Ingun and Drifa and Ragnhild and Cadla the goat, hoisting them in. No one cries, no one screams. We are all pretending to be solid.

  Lightning cracks behind us, so close I can smell it.

  I should have reefed the sails long ago—before the winds howled.

  And it is an island! It is, it is! We steer straight for it, but there’s no ready harbor on this side, so we head west around it to the south side, and there’s still no harbor, but at least the island protects us from the wind gusts and the worst of the waves. We lower the sail and secure it with ropes and brace ourselves. Please, please let there be no reefs here.

  We bob for I don’t know how long, listening to the trees of the island rustle and break and fall with crashes. And then, as quickly as it started, the storm stops. The wind ceases. The waves dissipate. The sun returns. Gulls circle as though no sky could be more lovely. Dolphins jump and one breaches, playing in delight. I can’t remember seeing dolphins in the Baltic before. It feels like a dream.

  I call to Hrodny, “Do you still want us to discuss going back for Unn and Grima?”

  Hrodny looks around. Few meet her gaze. “Does anyone know the name of that settlement?”

  “I can’t be sure,” says Sibbe. “But the only settlement I’ve heard of on the north side of Selund is Hleiðra.”

  “All right,” says Hrodny. “For now, let’s try to get somewhere with all of us alive. Then I’ll leave you. I’ll find a way back to them.”

  Jofrid has taken the helm again. Her arms shake with exhaustion, but she doesn’t complain. There’s little sunlight left before nightfall. Still, she heads the boat west and slightly north. Out to sea. After all, this island is too small to have a fresh water source.

  We do an inventory. We have six axes left, two swords, five shields, three bows, but not even a single quiver of arrows. Most of our food is gone. The rest of my hoard is gone.

  The sea was greedy. But at least it wasn’t monstrous: We are alive.

  We spread out our clothes to dry. We undo our braids, those of us with long hair, and let our locks dry. We are alive.

  Dusk falls. That’s when we notice a fire. It must be Samsø island. The fire is above the horizon—on a cliff, for sure. We travel up the east side of the island. From what I see through the gloom, the land is softly rolling. The wind soughs through grasses.

  Soon we see a second fire—high up again. But I don’t see cliffs or even hills. It’s as though someone has built a tower and made a fire at the top. How strange.

  We hug the coast and travel around a hook, out into the sea, and then we head north once more. And there’s the opening at last! The canal that the people of Samsø and the people of Jelling built together so they could fend off pirates better. We enter the waterway. It’s lined with wood on both sides. We lower the sails and fit the four oars we have left into the oarlocks.

  That’s when the sky lights up. At first I think it’s lightning again. But it’s fire—torches! A ship bears down on us from ahead. Another comes up from the rear.

  We scramble into our clothes and jam on helmets. I grab a sword, and then, on second thought, I hand it to Sibbe. She and Hrodny are both better than me, and Hrodny already has the other sword. I am without a weapon. I grab a rope.

  Men come aboard, shouting threats. Everything is happening quickly. Chaotically. I see Drifa get thrown into the water. She’s a good swimmer—but I don’t know if she was wounded. I see Ingun pinned to the ground with an ax raised above her. These are real warriors. We have lost before we’ve begun. The air fills with screams.

  I have to pick one point and focus on it. Sibbe—she’s right there in front of me. She fights with another swordsman. He smashes the sword from her hand. It comes sliding across the deck. He chases her to the mast. I pick up the sword and go after him. He turns at the last moment and knocks the sword from my hand in one blow.

  He has eyes the color of rain. He raises his sword to me.

  I am suspended in those eyes.

  “No!” Thyra races to my side and pulls off my helmet. My curls fall to my shoulders.

  “Alfhild,” he says with awe. His sword is still aimed.

  I shake my head.

  “You are a pirate? Alfhild, my Alfhild?”

  “I am Brigid.”

  “Brigid?”

  “I was hidden before. But I’m Brigid inside.”

  He nods as if in a dream. “Brigid then.”

  My eyes leave his and travel to the tip of that sword, pointed at my chest. “Don’t kill us.”

  Alf shouts, “Stop! Weapons down. Everyone!”

  The screaming stops. The chasing ceases. I feel eyes on us.

  He lowers his sword.

  “We’re not pirates, Alf. Not really.”

  “Tell me.”

  “We steal only slaves that were stolen from their homes. And we return them to their homes. If they want to go.” I remember the rumors about red-haired devils. “We’ve never killed anyone. We’ve wounded, but only in defense of ourselves or the slaves.”

  “Strange behavior.” His cool eyes cloud, then clear. His chest heaves. “But not criminal. Slave dealers don’t own the people they stole. No, they don’t. You are not pirates, real or fake.”

  “So we are free to leave?”

  I see his Adam’s apple rise and fall in a swallow. “Where will you go?”

  “Írland. I have to return three girls. And I think . . .” Breathing is so hard. “I think I might just visit my parents and brother.”

  “You are Irish?”

  Am I? “Born Irish, raised Dan.”
/>   “I hear Írland’s beauty is magical.” Those rain eyes hold me. “I’d like to go.”

  I’m shivering so hard I can barely talk. “Then I’ll travel on to Ísland. My sister is a slave there.”

  Alf blinks. “Your sister. A sister is important.”

  “I have to go.”

  “My ship is better than yours for such a journey.”

  “Are you offering to go with me?” Offering what I have never allowed myself to ask for.

  “I didn’t want to love you, Brigid. Brigid, my Brigid.”

  He says my name with such sweet acceptance, I could laugh or cry. But I just stare at him.

  “After you turned down my offer of marriage, my life was punctured. Joyless. No, I didn’t want to love you. I wanted to forget you. But now I see I have no choice.”

  Nor did I want to love him. Nor do I have a choice. “Put out your hands.”

  Alf slides his sword into its scabbard and extends his hands, palm up.

  I drop my fists into them. “Heart and bones. These are mine. Now yours.”

  Alf closes his hands around mine.

  PART FIVE

  HOME

  (AUTUMN, TURNING SIXTEEN YEARS OLD)

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  Mother and Father. And, oh, my brother. Máthir, athir, bráthir. I have not yet seen them. It was my plan to go directly to Írland. Those three slaves . . . no, those three good Irish girls . . . they needed to be brought home immediately. Then we could winter in Eire, and as soon as spring came, we’d head out for Ísland.

  Alf agreed. He said, “I’d follow you to Hel and back.” He said, “I’d fight armies for you.” He said, “I’d slay Níðhögg, the worst dragon of them all, for you.” He wore nothing but smiles.

  Until he heard the rest of my plan. I told him I feared that if I became with child I would not be able to do whatever it took to rescue Mel, and therefore I could not marry him until after I had found her.

  So Alf lost no time in persuading me of a new plan. I smile now as I think about how persuasive this man Alf can be and how much I respond to him, so that his new plan swiftly became mine as well. Next spring was too long for him to wait. So we paid all the women in my crew enough money to go on to the lives they chose, just as I had promised them. Alf paid another boat’s captain to take the three Irish girls back home, and he hired a crew to take us—him and me—to Ísland immediately, before the weather turned.