Edin's embrace

by Nadine Crenshaw

  When it was full dark, she turned to her husband. He was shadow-edged, his beard stroked by the silver of the new-risen moon. He was without sleep, which gave his face an edge of roughened grief. She knew in that moment what he would look like in old age. And she loved him unbearably. She said, "My lord, you have done the duty of friendship. Now you must go inside and eat and rest."

  A heavy shudder shook him. The breeze that smelled of ashes and salt lifted his hair. He said at last, "Had I done my duty sooner, my ship-brother would be alive." He stood quite still, like a big cat listening, then went on. "Had I acted as I should have from the beginning, I would have killed my mother when first I learned she was my father's murderess. That heinous crime cried for revenge. But I had a thrall, a gentle creature who wanted me to be a gentler man." He glanced down at her; his eyes looked at her as though from a great distance inside his head. "I was in love with her, and wanted her to love me in return. So I changed myself, I questioned my ways, and ignored my duty. And because of it my friend, who was only trying to serve me as he was sworn to do, will not travel to Miklagardur at my side."

  Edin saw that he'd worked out what had taken place, and none of it was in his, or her, favor.

  "What have you wrought in me, wife? Am I a Norseman anymore? A Norseman doesn't question when he should act. His courage doesn't hesitate to do what must be done."

  "Then a Norseman must be more than mortal."

  He turned away abruptly. "He must be more than what you would have me be —you who have tried to teach me naught but southern gentleness and Christian passivity and good conscience."

  "And love."

  "It was love that killed my father and Margaret, and Rolf— and even my mother."

  "That was madness and mayhem, not love. The habit of love cuts through confusion and somehow, somehow, contrives a way out of every difficulty."

  He said scornfully, "Even now trying to teach me, Saxon?"

  "He who will not be taught can never learn."

  He shrugged dismissively. "I am a barbarian. You surely cannot expect much from me along those lines."

  She stiffened herself. "You can be barbaric. I myself have seen such bloody-mindedness in you that I have been appalled. Yet there is strength, determination, and pride among your basic traits. And these are things to build upon. There is hope for you."

  "Hope," he said scornfully. "Hope."

  ***

  There are moments in a man's life when he welcomes folk about him, so that they may comfort him. But there are other moments when he wants no one but himself. Thoryn was such a man come up against such a moment. He stood quite alone for many days after Rolf's fiery funeral. For the first time since he'd become a man, he went without a sword, without any sign that he'd ever been a fighting man.

  Mostly he walked the edges of the fjord that late spring, the warm sun beating down on him. He stayed near the water, the same water upon which, in a cockleshell of a longship, he'd often ventured out. He wondered now where he'd ever found the courage. He certainly felt no courage anymore. Rolf's death seemed to have opened a curtain behind which he now saw that he too could die. The knowledge filled him with more fear than he'd ever known.

  One afternoon, as he stood looking at his new ship yet in its stocks, Sweyn came down to the shipyard. Thoryn didn't greet him. Sweyn spoke anyway. "Jarl, I ask you to relieve me of my oath I made to you once."

  Thoryn still said nothing.

  "I've decided to give up the salt life. I'm going to wed the widow Gunnhild and settle down to be a farmer." At the mention of the woman's name, Sweyn's eyes took on a warm carnal light. "What do you think?"

  Thoryn answered slowly, "I think you aren't as daft as you've sometimes seemed."

  "Aye, well, a man loses his good right arm and it looks to be the end. But the seasons go by, and there is no stopping them; they are wheels on a wagon, always rolling while there is a horse to draw them; they are trees that stretch toward the sky, fall, and rot. They mix with the soil, and new trees rise —and that's how it is."

  Thoryn still didn't answer, and eventually Sweyn turned to go. At the foot of the path, he looked back. "I'll tell you something, Jarl, that I've never told another. The courage of your berserker was always but a blade's width away from being stark terror." He shrugged. "But that too is just how it is."

  Thoryn's lips parted in surprise. Sweyn started to climb the path. Thoryn called, "One-arm!" Sweyn stopped and looked back at him. "For whatever its value in the world, go to your Gunnhild with Thoryn Kirkynsson's blessing." Sweyn nodded.

  ***

  That evening, Edin came out from Juliana's cubicle, where the girl lay with her head wrapped and her arm splinted, looking pitifully abused, yet in reality full of chatter over which thrallman she was going to wed. Surprisingly, Laag the stable thrall, was at the top of her choices. More surprising, the man seemed willing enough, if a bit shy.

  Edin took her place at the tables. Thoryn's highseat was empty, as it had often been lately. The meal began without him.

  Suddenly the heavy oaken door was flung open, and Thoryn stepped down into the hall. The effect was like still water shattering, like the emergence of something that was half beast and half god. He strode to the center of the hall and, looking from face to face, said, "I have been lost in a spell of grief, but now I am back."

  Somehow, between the time he'd left their chamber early this morning and this moment, he had settled into his old manner. Edin could hardly follow the change as he went on concisely. "We have lost one of our fleet. The Blood Wing is gone forever. It was only right that such a ship should carry our brother Rolf to Valholl. But that is in the past. There is the future to be considered now. With the two ships we have, I say we leave this sheltered valley at the roots of the great ice-caps. I say that in two days we set sail for Miklagardur"

  A cheer went up.

  A shiver ran down Edin's spine.

  ***

  Edin watched the slow birth of the day trailing its mist. Even the tiniest twigs were spangled over with sparkling, shimmering diamonds of dew. Everyone from the steading was down at the shipyard. Thoryn had brought her with him to the lookout point. He'd positioned her in a proprietary way beside him, and she caught herself drawing closer, as though for safety. He noticed; his hand went around her back and found its natural place there.

  Below them the knorr lay propped in her stocks. As they watched, Hauk, Jamsgar and Starkad put their shoulders to the tail of the dragon vessel and shoved.

  The formidable monster budged. She budged again. And all at once she slithered into the fjord with a splash. She bobbed, seemed to flick her curving tail, then came around to face the strand with her beak. Starkad stood triumphant with her tether in his hand.

  The loud gust of admiration rose to the cliff-top. Thoryn raised his hand in salute to his shipwright. He stood regally in his trousers, boots, and a brocade tunic with gold buttons.

  Don't leave me!

  Edin, looking up at him, felt the sheer strength of her yearning must be enough to gain its demand.

  "What's her name?" she asked, and despite her will to remain calm, her voice had a quaver.

  He looked down at her, and answered slowly, "She is the Fair Hope."

  For a moment Edin was more rapt with the changes she saw in him than with his words. He'd regained himself, and yet was different. Or was it that he seemed unafraid to be different? Then, abruptly, she realized what he'd said. "Why?" she whispered, thinking only of the gentle home she'd lost. "I would think you'd want a fierce name, something strong and invincible."

  He smiled, a little sadly. "What could be fiercer or more invincible than hope? I have found that it is the only thing a man cannot conquer and his blade cannot kill and his fire cannot burn. There is always hope."

  "And love?" she asked timorously.

  His gaze wavered, then went out to the fjord. "I am not so sure about love."

  Her whole being trembled, yet she knew that now was the time
to speak. "I am sure. I ... I have not said it before, but ... I love you. I love you unto death, Thoryn Kirkynsson."

  His arm around her tightened.

  "I love you — " she had to catch her breath in order to go on —"too much to let you go away without me. I have decided ... I —I have decided to travel with you to Miklagardur"

  For a heartbeat, the sun in the heaven seemed to stop. She expected an immediate, firm refusal, and feared even more a slow, considered, reasonable one.

  He said, in as dreadfully a reasonable tone as could be, "You are a true shieldmaiden, as brave as any Norseman. You've had courage enough to challenge me again and again, a thing others tread softly about. You stood up to Ragnarr, and Sweyn and Soren Gudbrodsson. All Vikingar are to be feared. You stood between my rage and Starkad. You've faced slavery and fear, near-drowning and childbirth, and I who know you best cannot say you've grown one whit less bold. Indeed" —he shook his head a little —"just listen to what you're asking."

  Her head was swimming. Was he saying no? It seemed a strange way to come up on it.

  A mock-sorrowful look played about his lips. "Not one whit less bold, I'm afraid. So I doubt that a simple matter like a journey across the world should trouble you. If you will travel with me, then you won't find me trying to keep you back."

  "Of course, there will be arguments from others." He nodded toward the Vikings still admiring the ship. "But I think I'll just step aside and let the man among them who would bar your way try his best. It will be an interesting thing to watch."

  Gladness was dawning in her, and relief, and hope. She said, still not quite sure, "Where I go my son goes."

  "The babe is the son of a Norseman. He will live a Norseman's life."

  She couldn't believe this. "Who will run the steading?" she asked breathlessly.

  "I think Sweyn Elendsson may do that —when I have a moment to ask him. I had best do that soon since we sail on the next dawn."

  She went up on tiptoe and threw her arms around him. "I love you!" A brief kiss on his lips, then she was starting down the path.

  "Where are you going?" he called after her.

  "I have packing to do, Viking!"

  ***

  That night, Thoryn tore her from her feverish preparations and firmly led her to their chamber. There he gave her a gift, a knife. From its sculptured pommel to the etchings in its blade, it was an extraordinary thing, wrought of tempered steel, bright with gold and silver and set with rubies as blood. When she gripped it in her hands, she felt an adventurous daring. She looked up from it, and her heart throbbed to see the expression on her husband's face.

  "You will carry it? Though it be a Norse weapon?"

  "I've nothing against weapons, my lord, only against the wanton desire to strike first with them."

  He said thoughtfully, "You must still learn to swim."

  "You can teach me along our way."

  He took her into his arms. "Then let us sail to Miklagardur, Saxon. Let us fare out after gold, though mayhap we will give the eagles food, though mayhap we will die in Saracenland. Aye, let us always face the perils of the voyage together —but just now ... I would hear you say it again."

  Her desire became fluid. She knew exactly what he wanted to hear: "I love you, Thoryn Kirkynsson."

  He looked like a man unleashed. She almost felt the torrents of dammed feeling flowing from him, a lifetime of withheld emotion. "And I love you, Shieldmaiden, Song-singer, beloved" he whispered back, and repeated, and repeated. It seemed he couldn't stop whispering it. His eyes shone like Arabic silver. "I have things to say, things I meant to tell you when we were old."

  "They won't wait?" she said with a secret smile.

  "No." And his lips came down to her ear. She just made out the breath-soft words.

  And what her Viking said to her, and what he promised . . . who needs to be told?

  Author's Note

  In trying to create an illuminated context through which a modern reader might understand the Norse experience, I have included in Edin's Embrace quotes and tales from the Icelandic sagas. Written long after the events they report, these have been for centuries a major documentary source for the history of the Vikings and their age. Snorri Sturluson is one saga writer whose name we know. Other collections were compiled anonymously. The roots of these sagas and mythological and heroic songs go deep into the pre-Norse world of Germanic legend and rank with the finest achievements of medieval literature.