Estrid (The Valhalla Series Book 2)

by Johanne Hildebrandt

  “Not even I can refuse to bless the bearer of Battle-Fire. That blade is the blessing and curse of the Jelling dynasty.”

  So she knew what had happened. Sweyn wasn’t surprised. Ever since he was a child, the old woman had always known everything.

  Besides, it was good for him to be seen with a seeress of the old ways.

  “Please step inside, my honored guest,” he said, and showed her into his tent.

  The tired seeress squatted on the furs that lay on the ground, and without a lot of fuss she pulled out a leather pouch.

  “The sword isn’t a curse. You’re wrong in that,” Sweyn said, accepting the cup of water Ragnvald brought him.

  Beyla eyed him sharply.

  “Your father almost killed Knut Danaást. After that the Danes’ rightful king spent most of his life living penniless in a foreign land. You call that a blessing?”

  She shook her head so her thin gray braids swung around her head.

  “King Gorm knew what a burden the Jelling dynasty’s dragon-forged treasure was and the draw it had. He was crazy to give it to Knut, when Harald was the stronger of his sons. Now you, the one who was betrayed and banished, are the chosen bearer. We’ll soon know if you have the strength to shoulder this burden.”

  Sweyn had a headache, and he drank the water.

  “Will I be killed in the battle against Svealand?” he asked tersely.

  Beyla kissed the leather pouch and whispered a galdr.

  “Your fate ebbs and flows. Powerful forces oppose you, and the gods doubt whether it’s worth granting you their favor. Offer them a sacrifice. Swear to fight for them, and you will achieve victory.”

  Sweyn hid his displeasure at the veiled threat. Just like a Christian priest, Beyla was trying to use him to strengthen the power of her religion. They were never satisfied. No matter what he did for them, they always wanted more.

  His father had Christianized the Danes through violence and force and forbidden the old ways. He was just as eager for the church’s alliances and ties as Olav “Crowbone” Tryggvason was in Norway. But Sweyn was raised in Jómsborg where people were free to choose their own faith, and as king he had allowed those who still believed in the old gods to practice their faith in peace. The freedom he had given them, however, hadn’t panned out as well as expected. The Christians demanded that the old ways be banned, and those who believed in the old gods viewed him as a traitor for tolerating the church and the clergy. They flocked around him and pecked at his will like ravens at a corpse.

  “Rome and Emperor Otto are far too powerful for me to be able to drive out the clergy,” Sweyn said tiredly.

  “It was the Norse gods and not the white Christ who put you on the Jelling throne,” Beyla muttered.

  “And yet they have rewarded me with betrayal and treason,” he said angrily. “Ask your prophecy bones what fate awaits your king, and what the sword can offer.”

  The seeress inspected him with her hawk eyes before she began singing galdr charms in the old verse. Sweyn waited impatiently until she tossed stones and pieces of bone onto the animal hide. They danced around before finally settling down.

  Beyla went silent at once and leaned over the prophecy bones.

  “Well?”

  She smacked her tongue in displeasure and picked up a round stone with a rune on it.

  “First victory, but no battle.”

  “Well, that sounds auspicious,” Sweyn said with a laugh.

  The seeress didn’t respond, just kept studying the painted stones and pieces of bone that lay on the hide.

  “Harald’s shadow weighs heavily on you. If you falter, all will fall,” she said finally. Sweyn gulped. On this point, the seeress was right, anyway. “If you stand firm in the battle, your chosen woman will grant you victory.”

  Sigrid? Sweyn furrowed his brow. How was that going to happen?

  “What do you mean, seeress?” he questioned sharply.

  Beyla straightened and started gathering up her bones.

  “You know,” Palna’s sister said, unmoved by his dissatisfaction. “The gods have given you your answers, whether you believe them or not. I bless you, boy, in the name of the gods, and I will offer a sacrifice for your strength and success.”

  With those words she departed his tent.

  Senseless drivel and half-sung songs!

  Sweyn pulled his hands over his face and sighed heavily. The war hadn’t started, but they were already pulling and tugging at him for a scrap of the power he hadn’t even conquered yet.

  “My king,” Ragnvald said, poking his head in the tent flap. “The Obotrite chieftain wants to talk to you.”

  Sweyn’s head hurt. Hopefully the scouts would return soon, because he couldn’t stand this waiting much longer.

  The house was empty when Estrid reluctantly woke up. A beam of sunlight had found its way in the half-open door and was moving across the pressed-dirt floor. In the distance she heard voices and the sad call of a guillemot.

  Pushing aside the animal furs that had covered her, she frowned at the dried blood between her thighs. She was filthy, violated by his stinking, sweaty repugnancy, and he would pay for it.

  Hatred churned in her blood as the doorway darkened and Agnatyr ambled in, big and shaggy like a dog. Without saying anything he sat down on the bench by the door and glared at her with bloodshot eyes.

  “Well, aren’t you going to thank me?” he said after a long silence.

  Estrid scowled at the beast.

  “Thank you for what?” she asked. “For abducting me from home and forcing me to become your wife so my life is ruined? Or for your screwing me to a pulp?”

  She pulled up her shift to reveal the dried blood on her thighs.

  “Blood and thunder!” Agnatyr blurted out, looking away, but Estrid had been quick enough to see the shame on his face.

  She firmly pulled her shift down, hiding her contentment. Shame was a powerful tool.

  “I don’t remember any of that,” he said wearily.

  The veins in his neck bulged. One quick flick with a knife and he would drown in his own blood, and then even his hag of a mother wouldn’t be able to reanimate him with her sorcery.

  “It wasn’t much to remember,” she whispered, making herself as pathetic as she could. “It hurt so much.”

  Her words caused him to turn away again, like an ashamed dog.

  “It was my right as your husband.”

  You have no entitlement to me, you lowborn animal. I will torment you until the end of time for the insult you and your witch of a mother have caused me. Then Estrid reluctantly swallowed her rage. She couldn’t show him Hel’s power, not yet. He was Loki’s son, fickle and cunning, so she needed to be equally deceitful.

  “You’re lying. You want to get me with child, to secure your alliance with my father.”

  “That’s what my mother wants, not me.”

  Estrid jumped when he stood up.

  “You’re far too young to bear children. I wasn’t planning to touch you. I swear.”

  A surge of revulsion coursed through Estrid as he sat down beside her.

  “It hurt so much,” she whispered yet again, her eyes wide with distress.

  “It won’t happen again,” he said, awkwardly patting her hand. “I swear it.”

  Well, that was one victory at least. Estrid looked up at Katla, who nodded in pleased recognition of her skills.

  “King Erik will be notified of our marriage,” Agnatyr said, standing up.

  “What will happen if my father does not assist you?” Estrid asked, anxiety sitting in the pit of her stomach like a lump of ice.

  He smiled for the first time.

  “You’re the king’s precious daughter,” he said, reaching for a worn leather sack that hung on the wall. “He’ll assist us.”

  Estrid gulped, recognizing the emptiness of this hope.

  The only time she’d ever met her father, his lack of interest in her was all too clear. Her only value to h
im was as someone to be married off to strengthen Svealand’s alliances. Now that she’d been forced to marry the beast, a poor chieftain without any land, she was worthless to her own father, and she needed to escape before Anund’s people realized this.

  She watched gloomily as Agnatyr packed his weapons and then slung his rucksack onto his back.

  “Do not leave this farm,” he instructed her. “It’s not safe. My people will watch over you here.”

  Then he turned and walked out the door.

  Damn it. Estrid looked anxiously at Katla.

  “We need food and weapons, and how are we going to find our way home through the Iron-Wood?”

  Her kinswoman shrugged.

  “We need a pathfinder, or someone who can tell us precisely how to get to peaceful territory.”

  Estrid nodded.

  “The slave!”

  That was their only chance.

  “Be careful,” Katla said, shaking her head in warning. “She’s fearful. One misstep and she’ll give you away.”

  She wasn’t the only one who was afraid. Estrid’s dream about the beast chasing her up the mountainside gnawed at her courage. Still, she had no choice but to relive her worst fear. She’d survived the previous day at any rate, and that was more than she’d hoped. Estrid forced herself to smile.

  “You know how tactful I can be.”

  The dead filled the courtyard when Estrid stepped outside into the broiling sunshine. Their pale phantasmal figures were scarcely visible in the bright midday light, but she was able to determine that they’d died violent deaths. One man had half his skull missing, and one young woman’s face was smashed in, as if her face had been beaten in with a war club. One child’s chest had been cut open and was gaping, empty, where the heart used to be.

  They nodded to her one by one as if acknowledging Estrid’s presence before withdrawing into the shadows. Whoever they’d been, they were favorably disposed to her. Estrid shivered in the searing heat, rubbing her arms to try to warm herself.

  There was no sign of Ragna. All she saw was the slave sweeping up trash and droppings in the courtyard. Her stooped body in a loose frock moved rhythmically with the broom as her stringy, loose hair swayed before her gaunt face.

  Estrid took a deep breath of the sun-warmed air and felt just a faint pain in her chest. It was weird how her illness had eased up.

  On the far side of the farm, beyond the fields and pastures, the mountainside towered, dark and imposing. There were three peaks up at the top, watching over them like goddesses.

  “What’s the name of that mountain range?” she asked.

  The slave straightened up and brushed the thin strands of hair from her forehead. She really looked quite ugly with her narrow face and bony nose. If she was well fed and healthy, it would be a different story.

  “Those are the Three Sisters.”

  “Do you know the way over them?”

  Estrid bit her tongue. It was much too soon to ask, but she couldn’t stop herself. The slave shook her head and cowered like a dog afraid of being beaten.

  “They’ll kill me if I talk about stuff like that,” she whispered.

  Estrid cocked her head to the side.

  “They’ll probably kill you anyway, so you need someone to protect and look after you.” She tried to smile at the slave to win her confidence, but her mouth felt stiff, and the slave seemed even more afraid of her. “Don’t be scared. I can protect you.”

  The slave brushed aside her lank brown hair, which had fallen over her face again, and jumped when a burly slave looked up from his work in the field and stared at them in suspicion.

  “I have to go,” she said, and practically ran away across the courtyard.

  Katla made a disapproving tsk, tsk, tsk sound and said, “You were way too assertive. You scared her.”

  “I know,” Estrid said angrily.

  “If your dream is true and the beast chases you, we may need to use her as a sacrifice.”

  “I know that, too,” Estrid said, clenching her teeth. “She’ll give in soon.”

  She turned around and spotted Ragna supporting herself on her staff and staring at her from the cluster of houses. The seeress was wearing a simple shift and a necklace of stones and bone pieces. Her wrinkled face was grim, and her gaze made Estrid’s skin crawl.

  “Show no fear,” Katla whispered as the giantess approached. “That would give her the upper hand.”

  Estrid nodded and forced herself to stand up straight as the seeress studied her with suspicion.

  “You need to stay away from Vidya,” Ragna warned.

  Estrid’s heart pounded as she raised her chin in defiance. The seeress was trying to chastise her and treat her like a captive. If she backed down from this, she would never stop backing down.

  “As the wife of the chieftain, I am entitled to speak to my slaves.”

  The corner of the seeress’s mouth curled up in an expression of distaste.

  “You shouldn’t think they’re yours. You may bow or resist, but it doesn’t change anything, Scylfing. I’m in charge here.”

  “Really?” Estrid said, eyeing the dead who had emerged from the shadows. “I see how the dead hate you, standing there around you, longing to pull you down to Niflheim.”

  Estrid smiled joylessly as the seeress looked around.

  “You feel them but can’t see them,” Estrid continued. “Your wickedness must be great indeed to lure enemies from the realm of the dead.”

  The seeress looked her in the eye, but there was no fear in her.

  “You don’t scare me with your crazy talk. You have no power over me.”

  Estrid ought to have been more afraid, but aside from her posthumous reputation and Hel’s blessing, she had nothing to lose in this valley of the shadow of death.

  “In this matter you are wrong,” Estrid said, smiling tranquilly in the face of evil.

  Without saying more, she turned and walked, head held high, into the apple grove with Katla by her side.

  If Ragna believed Estrid had been defeated, she was going to be sorely disappointed.

  Sigrid raised her torch as she wandered through the sacrificial grove by the sea, but the flickering light was hardly strong enough to guide her through the mist-shrouded trees. The offerings hanging from the branches of the ancient oaks were shadows hidden in the fog, and the only sound was the whispering of the dísir and the rustling of other beings withdrawing from the flickering glow of the torchlight.

  It wasn’t without risk, coming out here on a powerful night when the sky was filled with malevolent warnings, but she had to know whether her daughter was alive or dead and whether Olaf was safe with Erik. The uncertainty was driving her to distraction, and it wasn’t just her children weighing on her mind.

  Her heart beat heavily as Sigrid stopped and looked up at the full moon, faintly visible behind its evanescent raiment of clouds.

  “I summon the weaver women of life and death, war and peace. Come, omniscient wise women.” Her cry was swallowed by the silence, and all that could be heard was a shrill shriek in the distance. “You who mete out lives and destinies, mighty Norns, I summon you!”

  There was a quiet splash from the ocean and a crackle from the torch. Everything else was silence.

  Sigrid took a breath and cried out to the Omniscient Ones. They mustn’t get away, not now when she needed their answers, not after everything she’d been through. She had to know what was in the tapestry, what destiny awaited.

  “Urd, Skuld, Verdandi, omniscient wise women, come to me! In the name of my foremothers, I command you! Respond to me, or be cursed for all eternity!”

  Furious desperation carried her voice over the sacrificial grove and all the way to the sea, but it didn’t stop there. The moon itself hid in fear as her cry echoed all the way down to Yggdrasil’s roots and caused the world tree to tremble.

  The shadows around her finally grew darker, and three stooped figures were visible in the distance. Sigrid kn
elt down in the wet grass in reverence. Thank you, Vanadís.

  The women were as ancient as time itself. White hair hung like cobwebs around their shriveled faces, and their clothes were tatters covering their hunched bodies. Supported on their staffs, they walked with difficulty as they approached Sigrid.

  “Omniscient Ones, I greet you,” Sigrid said, bowing her head in expectant fear.

  “The king mother seeks answers about her twins,” said Verdandi, whose name meant “in-the-making.” “She believes she has the power to curse the life weavers.”

  The moon was unveiled in the sky, and the dísir shimmered in the cold light. Sigrid shivered with respect at their wonderful witchery. The Norns spun the fates of mankind and knew everything that was in the weaving. They were older than Odin and Valhalla, and there was no one more powerful in the nine worlds.

  “Have mercy, Omniscient Ones,” Sigrid whispered. “It is my fear for my children that speaks.”

  The moonlight made the three ancient women’s hair sparkle like snow on a clear, moonlit night.

  “Nordr at Niflheim, Nióla sótti,” Urd said.

  The dark of night sought north to Niflheim. The noose of worry pulled tight around Sigrid’s throat while she waited. That did not bode well.

  Then the three sages looked at one another and nodded.

  “Her daughter wanders between Mannheim and Niflheim, always in the shadowland, never in the weaving.”

  Verdandi’s voice was an echo of the nine worlds around Yggdrasil.

  “Hidden in Jotunheim’s borderlands, the gods fight over the shadow wanderer. War around the girl, war for the girl, but the tapestry does not say who wins. Mannheim or Helheim, even to me her path is hidden.”

  Estrid was in Jotunheim, the world of the giants. Sigrid’s heart hammered so hard, it nearly burst her ribs. Ragna was a giantess and the enemy of mankind. Anund’s people must have gathered around her lair, where Estrid was being held captive. That meant she was alive and there was still hope.

  Now Skuld, the powerful dís, began to speak.

  “Your son’s fate is definite and settled, but the will of Vanadís has not been fulfilled. The gods await the king of kings, the light of the North.”