Edin's embrace

by Nadine Crenshaw

  Hot vigor thrilled his veins. He was almost glad for this opportunity, almost drunk with it. He was thirsty for honor. Now he could release his pent and frustrated fury; he could slash off this shame he carried in the eyes of his men.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  As the Norsemen cleared the deck for combat, suddenly the enemy released a crosshatch of arrows. At once the air was cut through with a furious hissing. Jamsgar went down with a scream. There was another low thung of strings being loosed and the waspish hum of a dozen shafts hissing. A shaft struck only a yard before Thoryn and scuttered on, like a stone skimming over water, past his legs, before it stopped against a sea chest. The oarsmen lost their rhythm. Before they could pick it up again, the attacking longship veered, its oars beating powerfully, bringing it straight into the Blood Wing's ribs. She was rammed amidships; her stout oars snapped off like kindling with the impact.

  The pirates’ selected champions stood in the prow of their dragonship and delivered the first fury of the impact. If one prowman fell, another stepped forward to take his place, while the men aft in the ship rained spears and even stones on the defending ranks. The invaders pressed forward, a few of them managing to leap aboard the Blood Wing, using their shields to ward off the blows of the defenders. This bold handful included a screaming, bare-headed chieftain wielding a stupendous battle-axe.

  Thoryn leaped down from his platform. He heard a grumbling. "We'll have a hard grind of it here," said Ottar Magnusson. Furious, Thoryn drew back his fist. But Ottar shouted, "Strike another way, Jarl" He gestured with the axe in his muscled hand. "It's more needful in that direction."

  The pirates heaved a four-pronged grappling hook, binding their vessel fast to the Blood Wing. The Norsemen of Dainjerfjord settled to the work of defending their lives.

  Thoryn had never fought so savagely. He was hard-pressed from every angle as he maneuvered his way through the fracas to engage the big chieftain. The man was a great figure, a towering crag of a man, larger than life and twice as ugly. He shouted, "I bear an invitation to a party! Let us dance together!"

  For a long while Thoryn knew nothing except that he must keep hacking and hewing. At last he saw blood running from the chieftain's arm. The man was wounded, but Thoryn couldn't tell where, and had no inclination to ask.

  "You seek a glorious death, Norseman!" the chief screamed.

  "I seek your death, dog-dung!" Thoryn muttered grimly.

  "Come to me, my beloved." The chieftain laughed.

  The clutch of men in the pirate ship had been thinned by their attempts to cross over. Seeing a gap in the invasion, the chieftain suddenly leaped back across onto his own vessel. Thoryn leaped across right behind him.

  For a moment he was alone, working a deadly way along the line of the attackers. But then others of his crew came aboard behind him. There were few niceties of strategy; it was a grim process of wearing down, hammering away, until exhaustion or numbers swung the balance. A Norse sea battle was no place for the faint-hearted.

  Outnumbered and weakened at last, panic seemed to bite into the enemy ranks. As their numbers grew fewer, they retreated. Sharp was the clang of axe blades, and shrill the ring of swords. Blades flashed everywhere.

  The toughest men were fighting in the stern, up on the high steering platform. The deck was wet with blood. Only a small band was left about the chieftain. More of Thoryn's men climbed aboard and closed on the platform, chopping with their broad-axes and swords. Rolf appeared beside Thoryn. "I see you can use a hand here."

  "Aye," Thoryn said laconically.

  They fought side by side, their arms red, their faces streaked with blood and sweat.

  The chieftain began to grit his teeth so savagely that pieces broke off. He began to gnaw his lips with such abandon that his blood ran down his long beard, turning it red. He swung his iron axe perilously, beyond speech and reasoning. When he saw they were surrounded and clearly doomed, he screamed, "Norseman, this ship is called the Surf Dragon; treat her honorably!" and he jumped into the sea.

  His last men, wide-eyed with surprise and hysteria, one-by-one paused, and then followed him overboard—all with their armor, shields, swords, and axes. Thoryn, still in the haze of his battle fury, leaned out frantically, trying to seize the leader before he went down. But the chieftain pulled his shield over his upward floating hair and vanished beneath the waters.

  Thoryn would have gone in after him, but hands gripped his legs. He turned, his sword raised to slice off the fetters that kept him from his rightful kill.

  Hauk Haakonsson and Kol Thurik backed off quickly. "Easy, Jarl, easy."

  Thoryrt lowered Raunija, whose blade was blunted. For a moment there was silence, and he thought he heard the Valkyries singing.

  The victors took possession of their spoils —the pirate's gear, including booty taken from other raids; and their ship, which became Thoryn's. Many a man lay on the deck, spread-eagled by death. Their bodies were pitched unceremoniously into the cold water.

  On the Blood Wing, Jamsgar was on his knees, groping at a shaft high in the back of his thigh. Thoryn stopped to help him pull the arrow out, saying, "Lucky your back was turned, or Victory Giver might have been damaged."

  The Copper-eye grinned. "Jarl, Victory Giver always seems to have a following breeze and good luck."

  The Blood Wing had not been so lucky. She was filling quickly with brackish water from a gap in her oaken bones. "We're holed —and soon will be swamped! Starkad!"

  Using the Surf Dragon, they made for the nearest land, towing the Blood Wing behind. Beneath a flat-topped mountain, they found a sheltered cove, full of shoals. The Norsemen waded ashore, pulling the battered ship as far up the strand as they could. Her oaken keel scraped noisily up the shelving sandy beach. For two days she lay half settled in the cove while Starkad filled the hole in her with rope strands and patiently tarred them over. The men cursed "the dark ones who spin our web," but did so with self-satisfied smiles.

  Many of these smiles were bestowed on their jarl. As they sat around their driftwood fire, Kol Thurik said, "Did you see him? With every fall of his longsword, a man went sprawling."

  "Makes a person wonder how a bony Dane could force him off a cloak," Rolf said, one rusty eyebrow raised.

  Thoryn said nothing.

  At last, when the sun was lowering on the second day and her tarred side seemed to keep out water, the Blood Wing set out again. Thoryn stood, feet well apart, upon the steering deck, bracing his weight against the ever-moving currents of the leads. The pirate ship moved in tow behind.

  The sun dipped down toward its rest. In the well of Thoryn's ship most of the men were sleeping, their fair hair gemmed with spray. A few casually wiped and cleaned their weapons or buffed the edges back into their axes.

  Thoryn was eager to return to Dainjerfjord now. Already summer was at the verge of autumn. He had an uneasy and unreasonable feeling that he should never have gone to Kaupang, that he should never have left his longhouse, that he should never have left his thrall-woman.

  ***

  Soren Gudbrodsson left his hut just after midnight. He stood for a moment with his legs wide apart and sniffed the dewy air like a man grown young again. He was off on an adventure!

  The sky was cloudy, but there was no fog. This was all to the good as he traveled on foot toward Thorynsteading. He wore his old shirt of mail. It had long sleeves and came to a point above his knees. On his back he carried his round wooden shield, sheathed with hide and centered with a metal boss. His armor had cost him dearly back when he was newly bearded and trying to outfit himself for his first summer raids. He'd paid eleven cows for his helmet, which was made of interlaced strips of iron. He remembered his impatience over his battle shirt, but even the best armorer could only weld two hundred and fifty or so rings a day.

  His axe, of course, was his pride. The armorer had lavished much care and decoration on it. The blade-sides were etched with intricate designs inset with copper.

&n
bsp; It took him several hours to make his way to the jarl's jetty. There he chose a small mast-equipped fishing boat lying half-ashore, surrounded by scuds of foam. He hadn't brought his sea chest; there wasn't room for that, but he did have a sack containing a few things he thought he might need. He stowed this and prepared to wait.

  ***

  "Wake up."

  Edin heard the voice and understood that it came from beyond the wall of her dreams. She started up when a hand shook her. She always slept with her face to the hall and now opened her eyes to see Inga standing over her, holding a small stone lamp. The flame danced before her eyes.

  "Get up, girl. I have an errand for you," she said in a tone Edin had never heard before, a tone of unnatural calm. She seemed to see someone or something that existed through or beyond Edin.

  It took another moment for Edin to gather her wits. Yesterday she'd gathered driftwood from the fjord-side, and had come to her bed to sleep the sleep of exhaustion. It must be very late now —or very early. The hall was full of a silence that seemed to press jagged edges against her sleep-clouded mind. She measured Inga with unfocused, mistrustful eyes. And Inga returned this look with that strange, calm dispassion.

  "Get dressed. And bring your cloak."

  She led Edin down the mead hall to her own chamber. Inside the rich, cluttered room, she sat in her high-backed chair, carefully putting her feet up on a carved footstool, leaving Edin to sway sleepily in the middle of the floor. "I want you to take that bundle down to the dock. Old Soren Gudbrodsson is traveling to the next fjord today. I want him to take something to a friend of mine! As she said this, her gaze seemed to be focused through the opposite wall.

  Blowzy with her sudden waking and hasty dressing, Edin's eyes fixed on a small bundle on the floor near the door.

  "Well?" Inga said. "Pick it up. And be quiet, people . . . people are . . . sleeping. . . " She broke off the words as if they were thin twigs snapped from a tree.

  ***

  Sweyn left Gunnhild's farmstead, Freyahof, rather late. He'd made another excuse to pass by there this afternoon and had stopped to help Hrut with the sheep again. Once the chores were done, he'd showed Hrut how to grasp an axe handle and how to stand. He challenged the boy to cut him with the blade, and as the boy swung, and swung again, Sweyn dodged away. Gunnhild came out with the sound of their blade play and invited Sweyn to stay and share their late meal.

  Gunnhild. Why had he never realized before what a handsome-oared vessel that one was? There were still a few young men, tall and yellow-headed, to be got out of her womb. And Freyahof— there was plenty of rich grass for the sheep there.

  Hrut pestered him for stories of his summer's activities. The boy was anxious to go a'viking, to stand at the stern post of a dragonship and hew down some foemen.

  With all their talk, Sweyn had left the farmstead rather late and was getting back to the longhouse in the desolate middle of the night. He looked forward to his sheepskin.

  Not so long ago night had seemed to stretch before him like a dark tunnel at each day's end.

  Now he slept through that darkness, as a man should.

  He crept into the hall quietly, noting the smell of stale cabbage that persisted from meal to meal. Inga's cooking was not getting any better. He made his way through the shadows, but then stopped and stood with his left hand resting on his axe head. He saw the Song-singer, which was what he privately called Edin, following Inga to her chamber.

  Busy with gathering up his life again, he'd seen little enough of the thrall lately. Her hair was loosely snarled over her shoulders, and dirty. The sleeve of her threadbare dress had torn and hung unstitched and flapping. She had her cloak thrown over her arm. Unfamiliar with the emotion of pity, Sweyn felt immediate anger instead. When the girl disappeared behind Inga's door, he stood on, his face in shadow, concentrating, listening.

  But he heard nothing and soon turned for his bed. Lying alone in the dark he raised his left hand to run his fingers through his blond chest hair. He ran it over his hard muscled shoulder. He flexed his fingers. He'd shown Hrut quite a few tricks today. The boy admired him. Gunnhild needed a man, and he was a man again. The thought was like a cool pebble for his thirst. Once he'd been a great warrior, but there was no sense in weeping for days that would not happen again. Meanwhile, Gunnhild. . . . Edin and Inga were forgotten as he drifted into a pleasant dream.

  ***

  Inga accompanied Edin to the door of the dark hall. But there Edin hesitated. Her disorientation at being wakened in the middle of the night was lifting. Suddenly she had so many questions; suddenly she saw how many ways Inga could be working against her. This could merely be a means to catch her in a seeming escape and call for her death. And death it would be, for that was the law and not even the jarl could protect her if he wasn't here.

  Inga didn't notice her hesitation immediately; she'd gone away again. Her eyes held nothing but two tiny flames, two reflections of the stone lamp she held cupped in her hands. At last she gave a small start and fixed Edin with a look. "What are you still doing here?"

  The realization clearly surfaced in Edin's mind: Inga Thorsdaughter is not right.

  At that moment the ever-lingering smell of cabbage almost made her gorge rise. But she mustn't wretch. For several days now she'd been struggling not to draw amy attention to her morning attacks of nausea. She had a secret inside a secret, something she hadn't divulged to anyone. She compressed her lips against the churning urge.

  "Go!" Inga said.

  Edin needed to get outside. It was too late to ask questions. She had no choice but to do what she was told anyway. After all, she didn't own herself anymore.

  Outside, it was dark as midnight. Clouds hung over the bowl of the valley like woodsmoke in a closed room. Her poor cloak hardly protected her from the chill, even with the hood pulled low over her head. But the fresh air checked her need to wretch. She breathed it deeply. Out on the green, the lush wet grass soaked her footwear. Briefly the tree's branches made a web against the night sky over her head. She skirted a small byre from which came a sheepy smell, sharp and proclamatory of its usual occupants. Passing close by it, she thought she heard a voice and stopped in a renewal of suspicion.

  "Here now, give me a kiss, pretty lass. Mmm . . . you got nice legs — and what is this?"

  Another voice answered, a feminine murmur, a voice Edin recognized: "You know what that is—oh! Blackhair!"

  Blackhair! The worm! Edin looked at the byre wall wide-eyed. How could Juliana . . . ?

  "Come on, you know you want it again" came Blackhair's muffled chiding. "You got to go back inside in a while."

  "But —oh! don't you do it so hard!"

  Then came whimpers and the sound of bodies in harsh motion. Edin continued on.

  She couldn't blame Juliana for falling so low. The girl only wanted more from life than serving endless horns of buttermilk and ale. They all wanted more than this existence they had, this never-ending labor which gained them no reward, no single moment of satisfaction or happiness, and they were all driven to desperate measures.

  She hurried the short distance to the path leading down to the water's edge. Near the dock, she felt a large, immovable hand on her shoulder and turned with a gasp. An old Viking stared down at her fiercely, with grey eyes so colorless she thought at first he must be blind. Her heart vaulted into her throat.

  "You're late, girl!"

  She pulled tentatively at her shoulder, and after a moment he released her. He had in his free hand a very fine axe, its head decorated with copper in the image of a creature like a bird. Mutely, she held out the bundle Inga had sent her to deliver. He grunted and motioned toward the boat he had ready to go. Edin looked at this slantwise, and the thoughts that went through her head in that instant were multitudinous, and by the end of the instant, she felt the center of her heart harden.

  He took everything from me and left me to this end. So be it

  Slowly, fatalistically, she turned, pre
senting her back to the old Viking. She was not surprised when he struck her. What surprised her was the strength of the blow and suddenness of its effect on her.

  The Blood Wing, with the Surf Dragon in tow, entered the mouth of the Dainjerfjord under a cross-grain of wind. The sea birds gave voice to their homecoming. Thoryn had had more time than he'd wanted to think on this trip, and it was Edin who'd filled those thoughts. She'd seemed so distant for so long. But now he was home and Edin was here. A straight road ran ahead of him.

  The land on either side of the fjord glittered under the glare of the overcast day. He had to squint to spy the small figure on the lookout point, a dark-headed thrall-child who turned and disappeared, no doubt to spread the word that the longship was home.

  The welcoming party was not large. From Thorynsteading there were only thralls to greet the ship. And there was Sweyn, who said, looking at the Surf Dragon, "I see the trip was fruitful."

  Before Thoryn could comment, Inga came huffing down the path. His eyes scanned behind her, looking for a particularly bright head of hair, amber hair that flashed and hung down nearly to the knees. She wasn't among the welcomers, however. He wondered, but couldn't bring himself to ask his mother outright.

  Inga was saying about the Surf Dragon, "What do I take for the explanation of this?"

  "You will get your explanation, Mother —but where is everyone?" This seemed an ominously uneasy arrival. No one was saying much; there were none of the usual little knots of welcoming conversation.

  Sweyn stepped forward. "There's been some trouble." Thoryn sensed a change in him, but he didn't have time to identify it, for Sweyn was saying, "Your Song-singer, Edin, is missing."

  Thoryn's whole heaven collapsed. He turned deaf, as surely as if a whole fugue of sound had hit his ears at once.

  . . . missing . . . missing . . . missing . . .

  A voice in his mind quietly promised: "I may not be here when you return, Viking."

  She had deserted him.

  Snorri bumped into him under the load of a standing whale-oil lamp of iron and a brass-bound wooden bucket, booty from the Surf Dragon which he was carrying up to the longhouse. His nudge seemed to bring Thoryn's emotions suddenly and violently to the surface. He turned on the man and cursed him harshly, too charged with emotion to hold it in.