The Danish ships ran out their oars and entered a long, flat coastline. Hallgerd had heard the tales of attacks on such landscapes, and knew that Danes inhabited heath and bog land rich with birch forests. But the place Bison approached now was a habitation built up over the water on stout timbers, wharves and piers jutting out over the tide.
A white-timbered fortress angled up from the shoreline, and the silhouettes of spearmen caught the sun. Light glinted off iron spearheads as sentries gazed at the ship, and at her, strangers pausing in their conversation to point, and gawk. Was it only her imagination, or did the onlookers’ lips form the words the jarl’s daughter?
The days of good wind and kind weather had lulled her into childish confidence. Danish song and Danish gentleness had deceived her.
She was about to enter the town of an armed enemy.
Never had she been so afraid.
Eighteen
Bison made her way into the confined waters of the harbor.
Hallgerd had visited port cities before, with her father, although never one with such a tall timbered wall, each stave sharpened to a rugged point. This town gave every sign of being newly built, despite its impressive air of bustle and military might. Hallgerd knew that kings ordered the construction of such harbor fortifications to protect the mouths of rivers or defend their farmland.
“What place is this?” Hallgerd forced herself to ask, hoping her voice did not betray her anxiety.
“It is called Freylief,” said Olaf. “It’s an old town, but some of these walls have grown in the short time since I’ve slept beside my wife.”
Hallgerd was familiar with the town’s name, and felt a chill. The place was famous as Gudmund’s stronghold. Olaf was plainly proud of his home port, and Hallgerd added, unable to keep the tension from her voice, “A mighty warrior must be jarl here.”
Olaf smiled. “Gudmund wields a thirsty sword,” he boasted.
Hallgerd was unable to keep herself from shivering.
Bison’s oars stirred the quiet water. The sound of joiners’ mallets rang across the harbor. Tiny boats serviced the larger craft moored along the wharf, heavy prowed freight ships manned by crews with black hair and dark eyes. No man was so busy he could not spare a glance at Bison and her companion vessels as they glided by.
Hallgerd could see no warships, a fact that gave her little happiness. The fighting ships were no doubt breasting waves, and bringing harm to distant places.
She counted the skips tied up along the wharf—small, sleek vessels Hallgerd could sail as well as anyone, if she had the opportunity. A single guard was posted near them, leaning on his spear.
When Hallgerd left the ship, more than one Danish seaman wished her well, a show of courtesy that touched her.
She felt little irony in replying that she hoped Njord, the god of ships and sailing folk, would strengthen every oar.
“You’ll find us good folk,” said Thrand, “if you are patient with us.”
How strange the wharf felt under her feet! The hairy timbers were unmoving, and Hallgerd felt her legs search unsteadily, surprised at finding firm ground beneath them. Land drunk, some seamen called these first dizzying paces onto solid earth, but Hallgerd was careful to show no awkwardness.
As she steadied herself, a bearded, bear pelt—clad swordsman strode along the dock. This broad-chested townsman greeted Thrand and Olaf by name, and offered the seamen the goatskin he carried at his side. Hallgerd recognized a berserker’s clothing, and observed him with interest and anxiety.
“Alrek,” said Olaf, “I’m always glad to taste some of your mead.”
Olaf wiped his lips with the back of his hand and offered the skin to Hallgerd, who declined courteously. “This mead is made from thyme honey,” said Olaf. “Rare and sweet.”
Hallgerd was ready to decline again, but she realized that noble manners required her to taste this offering. Not all honey is the same, she knew. The bees busy in the mountain bred a honey much more delicious than the domed hives set along a barley field. Alrek’s mead was indeed flavorful—and strong. A few cups of this and even a berserker would be immobile.
To her surprise, Alrek the berserker bowed as she returned the goatskin to his broad, suntanned hand. It seemed that a Danish Odin initiate was expected to be as well mannered as his neighbors.
“You’ve killed men by the hundreds,” Olaf prompted cheerfully, “haven’t you, Alrek?”
Alrek shrugged, either overly modest or recalculating his victories. Berserkers were famously spare with words. “By the many hundreds,” said Alrek at last.
“I don’t trust berserkers,” Hallgerd confessed as Olaf and Thrand led her into the crooked lanes of the town.
Thrand said, “You are wise.”
Spjotfolk expressed a degree of pity for town dwellers, tramping muddy streets, crowded around wellheads, and preferred the roomy, randomly situated longhouses of their own village. This Danish community had narrow, straw-strewn streets, massed with humanity and animals, and it smelled very much like a crowded habitation, ripe with manure and spoiled food. Goats bleated, pigs nosed a scattering of bright grain on the wet earth, and Hallgerd had an impression of buildings still freshly hewn, lumber bleeding sap and giving off the scent of just-cut forest.
Curious eyes followed Hallgerd, but she did not have far to go through the thronged lanes of leather-aproned craftsmen, all of them finding an excuse to step into their doorways as she passed. She carried herself with as much quiet dignity as she could. The smell of malt was in the air, and the tink-tink-tink of a tinsmith’s hammer. The townsfolk wore vadmal—brown homespun wool—just like the men and women of Spjothof, although Hallgerd reckoned that the quality was trade-worthy and far from cheap. She tried to read her fate in the alert faces she passed, but she could see only recognition.
And something else. Respect, perhaps. Or even envy. The townsfolk knew who she was, and why she was here.
She herself knew nothing.
Accompanied by Thrand and a few seamen from the ship, she found herself treated as an honored guest, the phalanx of armed men like body servants, pointing out the puddles of pig manure in the street so she could avoid them. A woman dressed in the drab, shapeless tunic of a slave ground grain in a stone quern, and other slaves swept thresholds and emptied slops into the street.
The two white-aproned women fell quiet as Hallgerd passed. The gray-haired woman leaned toward her companion, and Hallgerd read the words on her lips: The stolen bride.
The jarl’s daughter hoped that, in her borrowed grafeldr—gray travel cloak—her hair gathered modestly under her hood, she represented her village well.
Which crooked street, Hallgerd wondered, was the way to freedom?
And how far could she run?
Thrand and the armed men led Hallgerd to the stokkr—threshold—of a pine-timbered longhouse.
The threshold was the traditional boundary between the domain of women and men. Hallgerd reckoned that if this town was very much like Spjothof, the house guard who opened the bronze-hinged door was subservient to the keeper of the house, just as Hrolf accepted his instructions from Hallgerd’s mother and cooperated agreeably with Grettir.
Hallgerd took a moment before she drew any closer to the building, pointedly ignoring Olaf’s whispered, “Hurry!”
Bright red paint decorated the doorposts, a serpent design. Black wings were stirring in the golden thatch of the longhouse, two ravens perching on the eave, lifting their metallic voices to each other, and to the knot of humans below.
It was common for birds to take up residence in a town. Some villages were famous for the white, long-beaked cranes that inhabited the roofline, and some houses were visited by owls. Certainly the raven was a fairly ordinary creature. But the bird could also be a messenger from the One-Eyed, and Hallgerd offered the unspoken question to this handsome, blue-black pair: What will happen to me?
A woman opened the great wooden door.
The housekeeper of a great
house was either a high servant or an important relative of the nobleman who owned the dwelling. The woman’s eyes flickered up and down Hallgerd’s cloaked figure, a measuring look.
The housekeeper did not leave the shelter of the door frame, the frontier of her authority. Neither did she make a move to admit Hallgerd. Thrand gently tugged the hood from Hallgerd’s head, and the housekeeper gave Hallgerd a brief smile, reserving a sharp glance for the armed men who accompanied her.
“Who have you brought to my mistress’s house?” said the housekeeper.
“It’s the beauty from Spjothof, Syrpa,” said Thrand. “As anyone with eyes can see.”
“Where have they found you, child?” asked Syrpa, not unkindly, putting her hands on her hips.
“We brought her kicking and squealing,” Olaf said.
Syrpa lifted an eyebrow, and Olaf fell silent.
Syrpa’s tone was measured, but far from unfriendly. “I’ve never met an honest seaman,” she explained to Hallgerd. “They would lie to the moon if they thought it would win them silver. Who are you?”
Hallgerd spoke. “My father’s daughter wishes you a good day.”
At these words, perhaps convinced by Hallgerd’s accent, or by her bearing, the housekeeper stepped to one side, making an unmistakable gesture of welcome.
I won’t go in.
Not with breath in my body.
For several heartbeats Hallgerd would not cross the threshold. Whispers in the smoky interior told her that serving men and women were watching and that whatever she did next—whether an act of cowardice or courage—would be long remembered.
“Only three more strides complete your journey,” prompted Thrand. “I promise you—no one will hurt you.” No doubt the kind, gray-eyed man had been promised a purse of some rich coin on delivery, but Hallgerd considered what a good-humored, considerate sea host Thrand had been.
Not every captor was cruel, and stories abounded of honorable warriors who won fame by stealing future brides. Some songs told of such fighting men falling in love with their captives, and of their hostage’s warm feelings in return. While Hallgerd felt no such tender feeling for Thrand, she was sorry to bid him farewell.
“I thank you, Thrand,” said Hallgerd, continuing to employ the highest speech she knew. “And I will implore my father, when he burns this city to the ground, to spare your head.”
Thrand’s gray eyes were intense with some unspoken message. His lips parted, but he said nothing further.
Hallgerd stepped fyrir innan stokk—over the threshold—as the huge door shut.
Nineteen
Hallgerd counted six windows in the smoky hall, all of them stoutly shuttered.
Figures paused in the thick hearth smoke, and leather soles padded this way and that in rooms beyond. The number and variety of furs on the floor and spread across the walls, and the presence of separate living chambers across the smoky interior, told Hallgerd that this was a richer and grander house than any in Spjothof.
“Please forgive me for questioning you so,” said Syrpa. “Seamen have been known to pass off any fine-looking woman as a noble daughter, simply to collect their fee.”
The benches set out beside tables, and the storage chests along the walls were familiar-looking, but as Syrpa led Hallgerd into a side room, the young noblewoman was aware that despite her status as a captive she was also a war prize, a jarl’s daughter, and enjoyed a lofty status.
Hallgerd dined at a broad table, supping on a large piece of fish that had been softened with warm butter. It was delicious. So was the honey wine Hallgerd accepted with thanks, and the ample slice of brown wheat bread and butter.
Servants stole glimpses of her, but the presence of Syrpa at the side, cutting another serving of loaf bread, gave Hallgerd the continuing impression that she was both guest and captive. Chain mail gleamed in the doorway where armed guards stood duty.
“Are you unhurt?” the housekeeper was asking. She gave her words particular weight, and Hallgerd knew that she was asking if her captors had taken sexual advantage of her.
Hallgerd did not answer at once. She knew that silence continued to be a defense, perhaps the only recourse left to her. And possibly Olaf deserved some punishment for his braying laugh, even though she already missed soft-voiced Thrand. At the same time, Hallgerd was aware that Syrpa could be a source of information—and perhaps even prove to be an ally.
“I am not pleased,” said Hallgerd.
“Have they caused you any injury?” said the serving woman. “If they have, my mistress will turn each one of them on a spit over a fire.”
Just as the men and women of villages like Spjothof were reputed to be drunkards, the Danes were imagined to have large appetites for women. Hallgerd was not, however, a maiden, having spent time with Lidsmod under the sky and in their favorite cave. If this would render her an unfit bride, Hallgerd would happily tell this servant about her deep love for the man she hoped to marry.
“They have hurt me, Syrpa, by stealing me from my father’s house.”
“Of course,” said Syrpa, and in this eager but flat-toned agreement, Hallgerd could take little comfort.
“What will happen to me?” asked Hallgerd.
“The lady of this house will see you when she wishes,” said Syrpa, with the well-trained air of a veteran retainer, neither friendly nor forbidding.
Hallgerd could scarcely bring herself to frame the question, but needed to seek information regarding the famous war chief. “Is Gudmund the Fair still a killer of men?” she asked.
“Gudmund sails with the best warriors under the sky,” said Syrpa properly, but with an air of cordial calm.
“Has this great jarl,” asked Hallgerd, “sent for me?”
Syrpa’s features dimpled with something like a smile. “Gudmund? Oh no, dear child, not that noble warrior.” She laughed, real amusement lighting her eyes.
“Then who has dared to raise his hand against my village?” asked Hallgerd, her pride stung.
“Your hostess,” said Syrpa.
Hallgerd had always enjoyed the long winter nights playing word games with her friends. Now she took no pleasure in such drawn-out conversation. “My hostess, and your mistress,” said Hallgerd.
Syrpa gave a bow of assent.
Danish towns were what Spjotfolk called deep-wealthy, well appointed with both furnishings, weapons—and thralls. But she understood, too, that it was very unlikely that a jarl’s daughter would be stolen simply to adorn this timbered hall as an exotic bond servant.
“I was raised by my family housekeeper,” said Hallgerd, hoping to form some understanding with this imposing chief servant. “A gentle woman, named Grettir. Kind, and wise. I shall miss her very much, until I see her again.”
“You can send for her,” said Syrpa. “After you have learned to call this place your home.”
Hallgerd chose her words with a certain delicacy. “Syrpa, does your mistress command ships?”
“Her father sails ships from Frisia to the Seine,” said Syrpa. Then, perhaps aware that she had confided too frankly, she added briskly, “You will bathe when you have eaten. And afterward I shall show you your bedchamber.”
“I shall bathe when I choose,” said Hallgerd. She took a sip of mead, a drink she rarely tasted, marveling at the flavor. “Who is it, Syrpa? Who has committed this crime against my village?”
“Arnbjorg, Gudmund’s daughter,” said Syrpa confidingly, lowering her voice. “She seeks a wife for her son.”
One of the serving thralls had a patch of dark red on the back of his tunic, a long curve of dried blood. Some mistresses punished slaves with whips, Hallgerd had heard, but most did not. Any show of uncontrollable emotion toward servant and neighbor alike was considered bad manners among the Norse. Still, it was not hard to imagine what cruelty might take place in a house owned by the legendary fighter.
Hallgerd managed to keep her composure. “I do believe I misunderstand you.”
“You will marr
y into Gudmund’s family!” whispered Syrpa.
Hallgerd’s throat closed, and she felt the candles around her dim.
“I will pay a heavy price,” said Syrpa, continuing to whisper, “if my mistress ever guesses that I’ve told.” She paused, perhaps taking in the sounds of the timbered dwelling all around. Then she said, “Gudmund and his family want to ensure a strong alliance with Spjothof, so that your brave village will never again harm Danish settlements.”
“Why is there such a need for an alliance?” Hallgerd managed to ask.
“The Franks are newly powerful, armored and carrying heavy swords. They are seeking new territory themselves, from the south, and need careful watching.”
Hallgerd appreciated the flinty logic of such reasoning. She had heard Rognvald discourse on the Franks over ale, and knew that many forced marriages resulted in strong bonds between old adversaries.
The young noblewoman put her hand over the housekeeper’s work-reddened fingers. Such servants gave orders to a staff of servants and thralls, and were respected by fighting men and noblewomen, but there were limits to their power. Hallgerd suspected that Syrpa had come close to violating some confidence by saying too much.
Hallgerd asked, “What is he like, this man I am expected to marry?”
But Syrpa said no more.
Twenty
Hallgerd’s bedchamber was adorned with plump pillows and a bear pelt on the floor, an extravagant fur she was reluctant to tread on. Cunningly woven cloth decorated the walls. The red-and-blue-dyed litklaethi—colored fabrics—were brilliant evidence of the household’s wealth.
Soapstone craftwork was displayed on a side table, including a well-wrought carving of Sleipner, Odin’s eight-legged horse. A taflbord, for playing games of chance and strategy, was set out, as though to reassure Hallgerd that she would never suffer the stark boredom of a prisoner. The game pieces were agate and jasper, rare minerals in Hallgerd’s world.
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