The Widow Queen

by Elzbieta Cherezinska

  “He doesn’t need his shoes in bed!” they pulled off his long leather boots.

  The women at the feast were chuckling, taking the discarded clothing as the men carried him toward his bedchamber.

  “Who will carry the queen?” Jorun asked once the procession with the redbeard disappeared from view.

  “I will!” Great Ulf replied in a loud voice, and, not waiting for anyone to fight him for the privilege, he picked her up.

  “We will, we will, we will!” Sven’s jarls from the highest table called out and moved toward them.

  “Adversae res admonent religionem…” Wulfric called to her weakly.

  Adversity teaches piety? That’s what was meant to comfort her? She sat on Ulf’s shoulders as if she were in the embrace of a high chair. Thorgils of Jelling reached them first. His dark eyes gleamed, and the redness in his cheeks revealed how much he’d had to drink.

  “Does the queen need her shoes?” he called and looked at her.

  “No, Jarl of Jelling,” she replied in a sweet voice, and took them off herself. “Take my shoes and guard them. The queen will come for them in the morning.”

  “Yes,” he murmured, clutching the shoes to his chest.

  “Does the queen need her cloak?” the drunk Ragn of the Isles howled.

  “No, my jarl of all small and great islands. The queen gives you her cloak with the same plea: take care of it until morning.” As she spoke, she took the cloak off her shoulders and handed it to Ragn.

  “Dre … Dre…” Gunar choked. He stared at her, barely conscious.

  She motioned to Ulf, who set her on the table.

  “Do you want my dress, Jarl of Limfiord? The jarl of many ports? The most loyal of the loyal?” she asked.

  “Yeee … I want…”

  “Vali!” Świętosława shouted. “Beautiful girl, come here with a knife and help your queen get undressed.”

  The fair-haired girl ran over.

  “Don’t you have a knife?” Świętosława asked with concern. “Never mind. Thorgils of Jelling, come back with my shoes. Vali, search inside them. Are you surprised?” she asked the people who surrounded her in a circle. “In the country I come from, every woman carries a dagger in her boot. Those are our traditions.”

  And the other one is hidden on your back when you walk into the marriage bed, she thought, gritting her teeth.

  Vali took out the dagger and held it up.

  “Gunar of Limfiord wants to take my dress off, but Sigrid Storråda’s dresses must be removed with a knife. Vali, do as Jarl Gunar has asked.”

  Świętosława lifted her arms and the girl cut through the seams of the dress.

  I’m wearing armor that is invisible to the human eye, Świętosława repeated as the thick silks pooled at her feet. She was left standing in a thin, translucent shirt held by a leather belt. She lifted her head up proudly and twirled.

  “Does anyone else want to take something off me?” she shouted teasingly.

  “Yes,” Vigmar’s completely drunk voice answered her. “I’d like to rip that shirt off you, my lady, but I daren’t do so.”

  “Rightly so, since you aren’t first among my husband’s men. To the bedchamber, to the marriage battle, bear me, Wolf,” she ordered, and Ulf quickly picked her up again.

  “Queen Sigrid Storråda! Stor-rå-da!” the ones who had undressed her shouted. “Sigrid! Storråda!”

  The victory was naked and bitter, but it tasted real enough.

  Ulf placed her on the stone floor of the bedchamber. She felt the cold beneath her feet and shivered.

  Sven, with a goblet in his hand, naked from the waist up, exclaimed:

  “My lady! So, you’ve come to fulfill your marital duty.”

  “Yes, husband. I humbly ask you to accept me into your bedchamber.”

  She heard Ion’s whisper from behind her:

  “What God has joined together let no man put asunder.”

  And the bard’s inspired voice:

  “Let us now do everything with a brave heart that we have bragged about with a full cup.”

  The redbeard stroked his naked belly with the hand which wasn’t holding a goblet.

  “Come in, Gunhild,” he said, cocking his head.

  “Sigrid Storråda,” his chieftains panted, staring at her nakedness under the spiderweb thinness of her shirt.

  I’m clad in a Valkyrie’s armor, she told herself, gritting her teeth and raising her arms.

  “Sigrid! Storråda!” they chanted even louder.

  Sven shouted furiously:

  “Get out! I will be with my lady one on one!”

  “Storråda,” they whispered in unison, giving her courage.

  46

  NORWAY

  Olav had no doubts, since the moment he saw the axe hanging over the pair of lovers in the rock, that he had been sent a message from his new God to turn from his chosen path. He didn’t go to the place of kings’ meetings of the past at Göta älv’s estuary. He sent a messenger to Sigtuna to warn Świętosława: “If God allows it, we’ll meet again.” And he hurried northward with his troops, stopping only to let the horses rest. The white dog he’d encountered at the rock hadn’t been a vision this time. It chased after them.

  He met with his mother and Lodin in Viken, but only for the short time it took to prepare the ships, and not a day longer.

  “Your men under Varin’s command have carried out your orders,” Lodin told him. “They are going from settlement to settlement, calling all those free to come to Gula for the council. It seems you had the right idea: the people are eager to finally see you, to know you and find out whether you truly are as great as the legends that speak of you.”

  “Remind me, what’s the wealthiest of those men called?”

  “Olm, King.”

  “Olm,” Olav repeated the name of the man who must be the first to realize the legends were true. “Lodin, prepare your family for the journey. My sisters, Ingebjorg and Astrid, and your daughters, Ingireda and Ingigerda. Your son, Torkil, is an agile young man, let him be responsible for your safety on the road. I expect my mother to accompany you. Come to Gula. There is no need to rush, the council will be held in spring. I want to see you all there, as my family.”

  “What do you plan to do until then?” Lodin asked uneasily.

  “I will sail to the entrance of Hafrsfiord with my fleet,” Olav replied, looking in his stepfather’s eyes. “I will remind everyone how Harald Fairhaired, my great-grandfather, began his reign.”

  Lodin stroked his smooth chin and gave a small nod.

  “If you’ve thought this through, Olav, then all I’ll say is that you don’t lack courage. To face the people of the western counties and say: here, over one hundred years ago, my ancestor destroyed yours—”

  “It could be understood differently, Lodin,” Olav interrupted. “Accept my reign, because I want to unify the country.”

  “Do you know what the result was of that ‘unification of the country’? Fleeing and exiles. Fairhaired allowed no place in the country for those who thought differently than he did.”

  Olav shrugged.

  “Don’t be naïve, Lodin. There can be no strong rule without the putting down of opponents.”

  His mother’s husband retreated. “Perhaps you’re right. Our country was only ever unified under Fairhaired. Only at what price?”

  “My cause is right. And I have something my great-grandfather didn’t. I have the true faith.”

  Lodin sighed heavily. If he had any doubts, he had hidden them since Bishop Sivrit had baptized him and the rest of the family. Just before Olav left, when he was already in the saddle, Lodin approached him, humbly took his stirrup, and whispered:

  “I beg you, for your mother’s sake, the woman we both love. Don’t force those who refuse to accept the faith to flee the country, as your great-grandfather forced those who disagreed with him. King Olav, you yourself have been an exile, and your faith is based on mercy…”

 
“My faith?” Olav repeated after Lodin. “Or ours?”

  Olav said nothing more, setting off toward the docks. The white dog didn’t leave him for a moment.

  * * *

  The warm ocean currents meant that even in winter, the southwestern shores of Norway were rarely covered in snow. Olav ordered thirty ships be arranged in a line, with their sails up, so as to be visible from land. People soon gathered on the rocks, looking at them, unsettled. Eventually, in the afternoon, a small boat approached them with a piece of white fabric mounted on the mast.

  “Who are you and what do you want from us?” the helmsman asked.

  “Who asks?” Olav shouted back.

  “Lord Erling Skjalgsson of Sol, to whom most of these lands belong.”

  “Tell your master that Olav Tryggvason, the rightful heir, has returned home.”

  “In that case, my lord invites King Olav to his court,” the helmsman called out.

  “No, King Olav invites his master to the council in Gula.”

  “So you will not attack us?” the messenger asked.

  “Tell your lord that my intentions are peaceful.”

  The helmsman spoke with two older men sitting with him in the boat for a moment. They clearly weren’t sure how to proceed.

  “I want to celebrate the memory of my great-grandfather, Harald Fairhaired, and the place where he defeated the unsubmissive.”

  * * *

  Olav arrived in Gula long before the council. He had some of the ships come into the docks, and he left the other half at the anchor point. They looked excellent, like an army, identically dressed, because, once they had taken down their sails, they each raised a flag with a silver snake on a purple-red background. The Yngling snake. He’d asked his mother and sisters to make the banners before he’d sailed to Świętosława. He returned from Sigtuna without his beloved, but the women who loved him unconditionally had done as he’d asked. Thirty snakes fluttered on the masts of the ships at Sognefiord’s entrance. Olav set up a large camp around Gula and joined his forces with Varin’s, which had come by land from the south.

  Varin only had to look at Olav to know what had happened on his journey, but Omold the bard couldn’t refrain from adding:

  “And so it happened. Our king has come without Queen Storråda. But he has brought a dog.”

  The pale-eyed and cool Bishop Sivrit summarized it rather differently:

  “That was the will of the Lord.”

  Olav met with his “sleeping guards” privately, the men he’d stationed in the country for the time he’d been in England. There wasn’t a day that messengers from one of the local lords didn’t come to ask if it was truly him, inviting him to their masters’ houses. He declined these invitations the same way he’d declined Erling of Sol’s, saying, “I invite everyone to the council.”

  “They say that Sognefiord is the most beautiful place in Norway,” Varin said. “My mother’s mother was apparently from Sogn.”

  “Let’s take a boat and see how much truth there is in that, friend,” Olav suggested.

  The dog jumped on board first. They left the bard on shore, so they wouldn’t have to hear him speaking grandly of all he saw and could simply take in the view as it was. The boat had three sets of oars, and was boarded by Lodver, Ingvar, Orm, Eyvind, Rafn, Varin, and Olav. A delicate, early spring breeze pushed it along. Varin stood by the helm with the dog beside him.

  “This dog is strange, my king. I haven’t heard it bark yet.”

  “It barked once,” Olav replied. “In greeting. It isn’t strange, it’s extraordinary. I feel as if I’ve known it its whole life.”

  “The hound’s within you, little Ole. Wake it up.”

  “What now, King?” Rafn, who the people now called God’s Axe, asked. “Will we fight or be baptized?”

  “Rafn was bored without you, chief.” Ingvar spat into the water. “He sharpened his blade every day.”

  “He could shave with it,” Orm added.

  “He should,” Lodver interjected. “If he could see how poor his overgrown mug looks.”

  “Each one of you is to shave and dress well before we walk into the council. I want them to look at you and say, ‘Olav’s men look honorable.’”

  “Will women be there?” Lodver couldn’t help but ask.

  “Not at the council, but in the inns and camps of the lords of the western lands, yes. But I warn you, you’re to behave in such a way as to bring me no shame.”

  “That means how?” Rafn asked.

  “I want the people to be afraid of you, while also wanting to be like you.”

  For a moment, there was no sound other than the even splash of oars in water. Olav watched the huge mountains, wet from the spring sun. High on the mountain passes a phenomenal white snow lay, but the bushes on the sunny sides had already begun to turn green. They sailed over emerald waters. Varin sighed longingly.

  “Oh, to have some land here. Build a house, bring a woman under its roof…”

  “Not just yet, friend, not just yet,” Olav interrupted the dream, though he had just been thinking himself that he’d love to show all this beauty to a certain woman. “We have a long road ahead of us. The council at Gula comes first, in a few days. Then we must face Frostating in Trøndelag, Jarl Haakon’s old place. When both gatherings accept me, when I convince the people to accept the faith throughout the entire country, then we can rest.”

  “Hmm,” Orm said to the helmsman. “The woman you bring under your roof will be old by then.”

  “That doesn’t matter,” Varin replied, though the longing could still be heard in his voice. “I swore my oaths to the king, not the woman.”

  A large island soon came into sight to their right. The dog lifted its head, sniffing. It turned to Olav, looking at him, and then back to the island.

  “Is the dog speaking to you, King?” Varin asked, surprised.

  “Head toward the island,” Olav said.

  When the boat began to move toward the shore, the dog wagged its tail.

  “It speaks!”

  They came to a small dock hidden between two rocks. The white dog leapt quietly onto the shore and ran into the bushes.

  “What in the devil’s name…?” Orm snarled.

  “Don’t call on evil,” Olav reprimanded him. “It wants to lead us somewhere.”

  “Six grown men, conquerers of English gold, listening to a dog,” Orm, who stayed to keep watch over the boat, said to himself with resignation.

  Olav followed the direction the dog had gone. It wasn’t long before he heard it barking. He couldn’t believe his ears. Until now, the dog really had only made a sound once.

  “Vigi,” someone shouted. “Where’ve you been?”

  “My lord…” Varin touched Olav’s shoulder. “The dog may have led us into a trap. I told you it was strange.”

  They peered carefully between the trees. They saw a poorly dressed peasant in a large field, with a staff in his hand and a herd of sheep searching for the first spring grass. The dog was prancing around them, as if it had been a sheepdog all its life, and the man was talking to it. “Tell me, Vigi? Where have you been for so long?”

  Olav clapped Varin on the shoulder and laughed.

  “It’s brought us to its home.”

  They emerged from the bushes, but Varin kept his hand on the hilt of his knife.

  “My good man,” Olav called to the peasant. “Is this your dog?”

  The man hunched in and crossed himself when he saw them. This piqued Tryggvason’s curiosity even more. He made the sign of the cross and shouted as he approached, “Don’t be afraid, we come in peace. And, as you can see, we believe in the Only God, as you do.”

  “My lord.” The pale man bowed. “Forgive me, but I’d sooner believe that flowers will bloom in the dead of winter than that a wealthy man who greets me with the sign of the cross comes to my island in peace. Are you a vision?” The man waved a hand in front of his own eyes. “No … you’re not.”


  The dog ran back toward Olav and rubbed itself against his legs.

  “Is it your dog?” Tryggvason asked again.

  “Mine, my lord. It disappeared in autumn and only just returned, as if it knew it was high time to let the sheep out to graze. It’s a strange dog, and this wasn’t the first time it had disappeared…”

  Olav and Varin exchanged glances.

  “Are you real, my lord?” the man asked again, staring at the silver cross on Olav’s neck.

  “Touch me,” Olav suggested, “and see for yourself.”

  The peasant reached out a trembling hand and lightly touched Olav’s chest. He pulled back quickly and crossed himself again, this time with relief.

  “Praise the Lord!”

  “This dog brought us here,” Olav said.

  “I said, it’s a strange animal,” the man nodded.

  “But I met it very far from here. In the south of the country.”

  “Vigi, you vagabond!” The man tugged fondly at the dog’s ears.

  “You call him Vigi, is that right?”

  When Olav said its name, the dog leapt up and caught the gold band on Olav’s wrist in his teeth, pulling gently.

  “Would you be willing to give me your dog?” he asked, taking off the bracelet. “I will pay you.”

  The peasant flushed when he saw the gold Olav held out to him.

  “My lord, I am not worthy…” he whispered. “That’s gold … it’s too much…”

  “I think Vigi is worth it,” Olav replied, knowing that he’d pay even more to ensure he didn’t have to separate from the white dog. The hound’s within you, little Ole.

  “I … I…” the surprised man stuttered.

  Vigi took the gold bracelet between his teeth and handed it to the man, as if it were conducting the transaction.

  When they returned to the boat, Orm was waiting. “And?”

  Varin filled him in. “The dog’s name is Vigi, and it cost as much as a good ship, although before it became worth as much as treasure itself, it had been a simple sheepdog.”

  “That’s not true,” Olav disagreed, stroking the white head. “The old owner said it had always been an extraordinary dog.”