Edin's embrace

by Nadine Crenshaw

  At first Sweyn only looked at it, and wiped his nose on his sleeve, then he went into the longhouse. Edin was working nearby and so saw him reappear in a few minutes with his war shirt and battle-axe. He seemed to droop under the weight of his old trappings, and held his flashing axehead awkwardly in his left hand. In a desultory fashion, he began to take little chips out of the stump. Gradually he took more interest in what he was about, his swings becoming harder, until at last he was hacking the stump, aiming his strokes at this angle and that. Sometimes his weaker left wrist twisted, and the flat of his blade hit the stump. And being lopsided, sometimes he stumbled —and then his eyes glittered and he cursed.

  After an hour he gave up in a fury and strode toward the longhouse.

  But in another hour he was back.

  Within a few days he was able to put some force in the arm that had played little with weapons before. Edin often watched him from some point out of sight.

  When he finally seemed able to swing the heavy blade in a true arc, without losing his balance, he took Arneld away from his shepherding duties. Curious, Edin watched through a crack in the byre wall as he handed the boy a stout blackthorn staff like the one he himself was holding. "Swing it at me," he commanded the boy.

  Arneld looked up at him with a trained smile.

  "Do it!"

  Arneld swung, and Sweyn parried the blow. This went on until the boy began to stagger. Impatient, Sweyn pushed him so hard he fell. That night Arneld walked slowly, as if his body had become glassy and fragile.

  Sweyn was weary as well. His eyes at the evening meal were filled with a dead sparkle, like that of a slaughtered bull's. Yet the next day, as dawn came stealing through a steady late summer rain, he drove Arneld out to the stackyard again, despite the weather.

  At first, many of the boy's blows struck Sweyn's shoulders. The man's face became an insane scowl of effort and concentration. Edin was afraid; the Cripple was so red-tempered. But after a while, try as the boy would, he couldn't touch the Viking.

  This lesson learned, Sweyn sent the thrall-boy back to his shepherding. That was when Edin learned her spying hadn't gone unnoticed. Sweyn caught her behind a corner of the longhouse and backed her against the wall ominously, so that her view of the valley was completely obstructed by his wide body. He said, "You're so interested in my doings, witch, it's time you took a part in them." He took her arm and pulled her to his exercise area. He handed her Arneld's blackthorn staff —while he took up his axe. "Strike me, up, down, anywhere. Well? Go on!"

  She swallowed; her gaze caught on the silver inlays and the glinting edge of his huge battle-axe. "I dare not."

  He grinned sourly. "Afraid? Of Sweyn the Cripple? Of Sweyn the Bench-ender?" The grin faded. "If you don't do as I say, I'll take off my belt and beat courage into your hide."

  She thought he meant it. His heavy belt had an iron buckle. Lifting the staff, she took a half-hearted swing at him.

  He moved away easily, with a calm that was almost serenity. She saw at once that he'd regained a certain grace in his movements. "Harder!" he growled.

  She let the staffs end rest on the ground. "Why are you doing this?"

  "To get the nimbleness back in my legs. I've lain around too long. Isn't that what you told Fafnir Longbeard?"

  She should have known her words would come back to haunt her. She said, "No. I told him you ought to find useful work." He was glaring at her. "Very well —at least you've made up your mind not to drink yourself to death." And she swung the staff with all her might.

  Blackhair had never spared her from the hardest labor in the fields, and she'd been growing stronger. The first crack she gave Sweyn caught him by surprise on the shin and made him wince and go to his knee. He clutched his axe handle with his good left hand and screwed up his face so horribly that she was terrified. She rushed in, hovered, stepped back, then cried, "You told me to do it! I was only doing what you told me!"

  He schooled his face before he looked up. What she heard was not what she'd expected: "A good Viking leg-sweep, that one! But you won't get another one in on me."

  "Please! I don't want to do this!"

  "Why not? Because you bear me so much affection?"

  "Because I don't like to see anyone hurt!"

  He grinned unpleasantly. "Then, you were born into the wrong world, song-singer. Now stop squawking like a parrot. You've been told what to do —do it!"

  The next day he had her at it again. And the next. Then came the day she swiped low for his knees, and he, judging his moment like a hawk, brought down his axe so fast it was only a sparkle in the sunlight. Her hands went numb with the shiver of the blow. Most of the stout blackthorn staff fell at her feet. She stared at the splintered end mutely: It was severed not more than five inches from her grip.

  When she straightened, he put on an evil smile and gave his axe an idle swing, as if to admire the glimmer of its bright silver inlays. He said, "I believe I need a new partner. I'm not ready for Fafnir or Eric yet, but mayhap I'll ride over tomorrow and see if Beornwold's boy, Hrut, can swing a staff any better than you can."

  "And mayhap you should ask Gunnhild if she could use some firewood. That would be a better use for that axe."

  He pulled the weapon in protectively. "You don't use a good war axe like this one on firewood"

  "Then find another axe."

  He lowered his head. "You're telling a Norseman what to do, thrall? Don't you have work?" He brandished the axe and shouted, "Be gone!"

  That night, he was not in the hall for the last meal. When Edin finished her broth and her slice of coarse bread and left the board to make her way to her sheepskin, Fafnir, and then Eric, looked up at her from their chessboard. So direct were their gazes, she faltered and finally stopped. Fafnir raised his ale cup silently, tipped his head in approval, and then drank.

  ***

  The sea was not the flat, monotonous plain it seemed from the shore. It was various and interesting, full of moving hills and veering, dimpled valleys. The light and color changed from green to purple to blue to silver and back again. Sounds filled Thoryn's ear: the low drone of the wind in the Blood Wing's rigging, the crack and whisper of the sail, the whir of the water under the bow, the shrill, sweet mewing of the trailing seabirds. This was the sea Norsemen loved like a second home. And on this particular voyage no one was aboard the Blood Wing who didn't want to be there. They were all good mates sailing a fine, proud ship.

  Thoryn felt the sheer physical quickening of it. He thrilled to the vibration of the oar strokes, the lines thrumming in the wind, the whole ship undulating like a serpent. By no means was it easy being a Norseman. Sometimes a Viking rowed till his shoulders cracked; sometimes sea spray froze his beard; sometimes the ship bucked and corkscrewed.

  Yet always there was this physical quickening, this sense of being a master of the elements.

  The trade route down the protected coast to the summer market had given Norway its name: the great North Way. It ran more than fifteen hundred miles from the White Sea in the northwest to Kaupang, the country's main market town, in the southeast. The journey from Dainjerfjord required one and a half sennights, more or less. To a mariner who knew the waters, it was mostly free of natural hazards.

  Thoryn sailed the Blood Wing with confidence between the thousands of small skerries so thickly clustered they formed a breakwater, always keeping the jagged coast of the mainland in sight. The precipitous coastal cliffs were cleaved by scores of deep-water fjords which offered shelter from storm and concealment from pirates when necessary.

  But this trip had been uneventful. With her sharp keel, the Blood Wing ploughed the foaming deep and sailed a swift course between the skerries and the headlands. For a few days they had traveled under a sky full of anvil-headed thunderclouds, but had felt very little rain. And of pirates they had seen nothing.

  Now Thoryn could see Kaupang's turf-walled booths and larger buildings in the distance. The town was undefended, had no earthwork ramp
arts, nor even a wooden stockade. It looked solid and strong, however. Located in the Tjolling district, it stood adjacent to the prosperous region of Vestfold, where there were warm valleys of lush farmland, uplands carpeted in dew-drenched forests, and lakes that swelled fishermen's hearts. The port was small, with its own protected harbor on the shores of Viksfjord, which cut into the land off the larger Larviksfjord. It was densely inhabited and an extremely prosperous and busy place all through the summer months.

  The weather here on the east coast was not so prone to clouds as it was on the west. Today was as clear as spring; the sky seemed swollen and aching with light.

  Well before entering the harbor, Thoryn had ordered his men to hang their shields over the sides of the longship, alternating the colors, blue and red. For special occasions like this, he kept aboard a spare dress sail made of velvetlike pell lined with brilliant silk. It wasn't practical for the open sea, but it made a fine display. His banner flew from the mast, gaily colored and embroidered with his emblem, Thor's hammer.

  He felt the Blood Wing made a fine sight going in, with her bright sail taut, her sides shedding smothers of white foam and green water, her taunting gilt dragonhead rearing proudly, flashing her ruby eyes.

  Starkad Herjulsson was soon beside himself with gawking at the glittering menagerie of longships anchored in the harbor. Most were caparisoned with wealth, rank, and might. Kaupang was not only a distribution center for all kinds of goods going in all directions, it was a point of assembly for merchants sailing south to Hedeby or proceeding by way of Oresund to the Baltic. Ships waited here to find others to sail with them as a safeguard against piracy.

  Starkad rhapsodized over one vessel after another. This one had lions molded in gold, that one had a golden bird weathervane on the topmast to indicate the direction of the wind, and yet another one was covered with carvings close-clenched and complicated, as convoluted as the syntax of skaldic verse.

  Hauk Haakonsson was more interested in the tented booths they could now see stretching along the shore. He swore he could smell "cauldron snakes" sausages spiced with herbs and garlic. Jamsgar claimed he could smell the local ale which was made chiefly from bog-myrtle with apples and cranberries.

  It took the Blood Wing a while to find a place to nudge her prow up to a stone jetty along the seafront. In the presence of a small clutch of onlookers, Thoryn gave thanks to the gods for their grace in granting the seapaths safe for their ocean journey.

  He too was dressed for show. He had on his father's horned bronze ceremonial helmet and was bearing his new shield emblazoned with a dragonship. His cloak was held by a silver brooch decorated with a motif of twining tendrils.

  The town swarmed with life. The bustle began at the water's edge as men waded or put out boats to load and unload ships. The packed settlement was composed of irregular clusters of buildings. The backbone of trade therein was iron processing, bronze casting, cloth, soapstone utensils, and the manufacture of jewelry from rock crystal, glass, and that marvelous substance amber, the transparent, fossilized resin of pines that had died eons before and were covered by water. The sea washed ashore big chunks that fetched premium prices. Men and women alike loved the golden play of candleflame on a string of amber drops. And when rubbed, the stones took on a seemingly magical magnetic charge.

  None of the crew of the Blood Wing was to see much of the marketplace today. Thoryn required them to accompany him along the "streets" between the houses —actually exceptionally cramped pathways, often no more than a yard wide. They tramped past merchants with fine-balanced scales, past handsome displays of Rhineland pottery and glassware, past high-quality woolen cloth from Frisia, and past several lofted, winged dwellings, to the steps leading up to the oaken door of his Uncle Olaf Haldanr's town house.

  Once admitted, they entered the feast-hall with a clatter of trappings and mail shirts and marched across the floor strewn with rushes, around the stone-lined hearth, to where a man who had seen fifty or more winters sat on his great chair like a proper Norwegian sea-king. "Uncle," Thoryn said formally, "I come to deliver greetings from Dainjerfjord, past the far sea's swell."

  Olaf, all gold to his chin, where his short, wolfs-hair-grey beard began, rested his arms on the chair and smiled faintly. "How is your mother, nephew?"

  "Well."

  "Good, good."

  There was a stir behind Thoryn just then. He didn't turn until Olaf said, "It has been a year since your last visit, but you must remember my daughter Hanne? Eh?"

  Thoryn didn't miss the craftiness in that last syllable.

  The girl's step was gliding rather than springing; her round face was full of prettiness, but lacked animation. She wore a pink gown, and there were pink blossoms threaded in her long yellow hair. She couldn't be more than fifteen. Though her body showed new signs of curves beneath her costly gown, her hands were still the short, pudgy-fingered hands of a girl.

  And she was not overbold. She summoned no more than a tremulous smile for her cousin Thoryn Kirkynsson. She didn't meet his eyes, didn't raise her chin or straighten her back or steady herself under his gaze. Instead, she toyed with her pink gown, stroked the skirt, and straightened the folds. Thoryn's eminently pragmatic mind wondered if she could rule a longhouse, if she could handle livestock, if she could sew, cook, milk, make butter, spin, weave? If she would survive as the wife of a ruler of unruly people? What he saw tended to make him think not.

  "You must be my guests during your stay," Olaf was saying. "And a guest needs water, a towel, and the right sort of amusement: We shall feast tonight!"

  Olafs mead-hall was not as big as Thoryn's, but the house contained several other rooms. One wing, called the "fireroom," was where all the cooking was done. The women could chatter in private there while they did their sewing and weaving. Another wing held a row of bedchambers.

  Early on, there was an interchange of presents. Olaf received from Thoryn a silk tunic garnered from his spring raids, originally from the Orient.

  "A gift for a gift, that is the law!" Olaf claimed as he reciprocated with a set of bronze scales complete with chains and pans brightly polished on the inside and a dozen handsomely molded weights with lead cores sculpted and ornamented with enamel and glass, all of which folded neatly into a bronze container no larger than Thoryn's palm.

  He received this with pleasure. It required no conflict of personality for him to lay down his sword and pick up a pair of scales. Whereas to some it might seem a Norseman's only interest was to steal and destroy, the fact was that to realize a profit from his looting he must needs sell it.

  At the meal, Olaf seated Hanne between his own somewhat compact body and Thoryn's larger presence. Thoryn knew full well that for years Olaf had nurtured a hope of seeing his nephew and his daughter wed. It would be an insult to treat the girl with the total indifference he felt. An insult Olaf would not overlook. Olaf Haldanr was a man of great violence, yet capable of deep and enduring loyalty, which made him the most dangerous kind of man. Therefore, Thoryn put himself out to be friendly to the girl.

  A difficult thing to do considering her avoiding eyes. She'd disappeared after their earlier introduction and come to the table in a new costume, this one yellow and even costlier than the pink. It hung lower from its shoulder loops and humped oval brooches, showing not only her delicate collarbones but also the pale shimmer of the tops of her tender breasts. Being a man, Thoryn's eyes traced the delicate blue veins to where they disappeared beneath the gown's folds.

  She'd refashioned her hair, as well; now the gleaming strands were held by a narrow band of tawny ribbon around her forehead. Thoryn found himself thinking he must find some ribbon like that in the markets to take home to Edin.

  The wooden doors of the hall were closed against the night. Besides the firelight, candles, torches, and crude lamps, the gleam of metal spread a double radiance in the air. Thoryn's eyes studied Olafs sworn-men. One stood out, a Black Dane with dark hair and eyes.

  They dined
well. A broidered cloth of white linen covered the head table. Servants carried in loaves of thin, feather-light bread made of wheat. Local boats, which ventured out at night, had returned that morning with catches of pink shrimp. Hanne served a course as a hospitable gesture. Olaf sat with his elbow on the arm of his chair and smiled at her. The dish she offered was slices of a side of sheep that had been dried, then smoked, and finally roasted. Behind her, servants brought other meats and vegetables in brimming trenchers plated with silver.

  They drank well, too. There was iced red wine in earthenware jars and bright goblets. Thoryn drank more than was his wont, until the room was a blur of faces, and he became aware of a vague benevolent feeling, like a wispy ungathered mist in his mind.

  In that mood, it seemed to him that Olaf was a fine man, and that little Hanne was quite pretty. She was a bit distant, mayhap, and tended to smile very thinly, very unsurely, but he decided he could unravel her should he so wish. Her father was rich, and she was of good Viking stock. She'd make a proper wife for a jarl.

  Olaf, his voice beginning to slur, bragged a great deal about his courage in his youth, and exaggerated the difficult victories he and his two-handed broadsword, Essupe, Gulper, had achieved. Thoryn nodded and tried his best to look impressed.

  "Hanne!" Olaf broke off his bragging to shout, "a song!"

  Harp in hand, the girl had a nice voice, but no real dream-spinning quality. Her song was about the implacable power of fate. Listening to her, Thoryn felt a shadowy disappointment, for her singing didn't give a glimpse of that mysterious realm that hung shimmering behind all the busy doings of men. She didn't have the talent Edin did.

  Nonetheless, the wine he'd drunk had built up a fire in his heart which felt like hunger. He noticed the girl had an enticing sway to her hips as she glided along. Very enticing. When she returned to her place beside him, he glanced slantwise down his beard at her.

  Shall I marry you, little Hanne, and do with you as I please?

  He took another draught of the blood-red wine and imagined how it would feel to place his hand on the back of her neck, to caress her, gather her hair back, to hold her tenderly as he engulfed himself in her young body. A thrill of voluptuous enthusiasm rushed through him.