“We can sell off this ship too,” said Hallbjorn. “Then none will know what we’ve done or where we’ve gone.”
Freydis swallowed. Her throat was dry. If her mother were here, she would have found a solution already, something to make skalds sing of her. “I will speak for you,” she said softly to Rolli. “I will tell Uncle Ragnvald that you were trying to save me.”
“That might work,” said Rolli. “Don’t you think, Hallbjorn? I think it might work.”
“You will still pay a great wergild for killing Aldi’s son,” said Hallbjorn. “If you return with gold, it will be better—and you can sell this ship and these people.”
“Won’t that make it worse?” Freydis cried.
“What do you know?” Rolli asked. “You’re just a girl.”
“She is the daughter of the great sea queen Svanhild,” said Hallbjorn. “What should we do, Freydis? Freydis Svanhildsdatter?”
A child was only called by her mother’s name if her father was unknown, and Freydis’s father was Solvi Hunthiofsson, upon whom all raids of the Norse coast were blamed, so often that Freydis sometimes thought him more of a trickster spirit than a man.
“My father,” she said hesitantly. She had never met him. She cleared her throat and spoke more firmly. Her words had saved Dota. They might have power now as well. “Let us go to my father, the great viking Solvi Hunthiofsson in Iceland. You can raid with him, and then go home rich.”
“Iceland? How do you know he is there?” Hallbjorn asked her.
Freydis flushed—she did not know where Solvi was, but she had a better chance of being rescued on that journey than if they sailed south. “He is my father,” she said.
“Solvi Klofe,” said Hallbjorn. “Solvi Sea King. Yes, this could save us.” He paced back and forth.
“Solvi is my father’s enemy,” Rolli protested. “He tortured him.” He twisted his fingers together in an echo of a gesture his father often made. Freydis had heard the whispered stories—King Ragnvald had broken under Solvi’s torture. It had made Freydis fear her father, since she knew of no man tougher than her uncle.
“So no one will think to look for us there,” said Hallbjorn. “Solvi will help us for the sake of his daughter. And when you return wealthy, you can buy off Aldi and anyone else who troubles you.”
“It is a thin chance,” said Rolli.
“No, it is the best chance,” said Hallbjorn. “Why did we set out if not for this? Do you really want to go back to Tafjord, or to Vestfold, and live in your brothers’ shadows for the next ten years?”
Freydis almost smiled at that; Rolli was too large to live in anyone’s shadow.
“How will we get there?” Rolli asked. “We have no sailors who know how to cross the open sea.”
Freydis had not thought of that; she had only wanted to do what her mother would have done. “News will not travel too swiftly for us to go to Nidaros and find a captain bound for Iceland,” she suggested, speaking before she could second-guess herself. “We should go there first.”
“This girl knows a few things,” said Hallbjorn approvingly.
“This girl wants to be rescued,” said one of Rolli’s men—a boy called Arn whom Freydis knew from Tafjord. “She thinks she’s important.”
“She is important,” said Rolli. “None will harm her.”
“Unless she means to testify against us,” said Arn. “Women are treacherous.” Freydis frowned at him, wondering what she had done to make him dislike her.
Rolli shrugged. “Aldi has sailed away with more than enough witnesses,” he said.
“We can’t go to Nidaros,” said Hallbjorn. “We may be captured. But we can follow a ship bound for Iceland. That is a good thought. We will wait outside Trondheim Fjord until we find one.”
* * *
Near an island in the entrance to Trondheim Fjord, a wide-bellied merchant ship wallowed through the waves, riding low in the water, its sail too small for the weight of the cargo it carried. Rolli’s smaller ship caught up to it while Hallbjorn, piloting Aldi’s stolen ship, followed behind. They chased the merchant onto the island, where he accepted a trade: his life and some of his goods for a larger sail and an escort to Iceland.
While the merchant replaced his sail and Rolli and Hallbjorn redistributed his goods, Freydis kept watch back toward the broad opening of Trondheim Fjord, hoping for a ship to turn and rescue her.
A few of Aldi’s captured men tried to escape, but Rolli and Hallbjorn killed the two instigators, and then two more who complained about their deaths, after which the remaining ten resigned themselves to the journey. Hallbjorn left the four bodies rocking in the shallows during a dinner of spitted shorebird and hard rye bread softened in ale. Freydis could not make herself eat with the dead so close by.
She gave her food to Rolli and said, “Aldi’s men must be buried, or they will follow us.” She felt she had the fates’ attention here, for Hallbjorn and Rolli had followed every suggestion she made. If only she could convince them to take her home, but she knew her power would not go that far.
Arn sneered at her. “Don’t listen to this foolish girl. Slaves don’t deserve a burial.”
Rolli shifted uncomfortably. “She has been trained by my father’s concubine, Alfrith, who is a great sorceress.”
Hallbjorn gave Freydis a measuring look. “What should we do, young Freydis? Do you know the spells to keep them from following us?”
Freydis nodded. “I will need help,” she said. She gave Hallbjorn her instructions, and he found four men to help move the bodies inland and dig graves for them. Freydis had known them a little in Sogn, but she could think of no words to say beyond the ritual prayers of peace and farewell. What rest could they find here, on this bare strip of sand?
Still, she touched their cold, wet eyelids to stop their sight. She tied strips of cloth torn from her under-dress around their heads to keep their mouths closed. She instructed the men to bury them with their feet facing inland, so if they did try to follow the ships, they would be confused.
The next day they set sail, and Freydis watched the four mounds recede into the distance behind them. Rolli’s ship was lightly crewed, and Freydis feared it would be capsized by one of the gusts that kept trying to steal her head scarf, leaving her entirely in Hallbjorn’s power.
She often caught Hallbjorn looking at her, and she looked away, blushing. She did not see why her eyes always landed upon him—he was taller and more handsome than the other men, and he did look a little like Einar, but she was no Dota, to think of nothing besides men and marriage. And he was cruel—her torn scalp and aching shoulder reminded her of that often.
On the second day she grew bored of watching open water go by and took out her weaving. Hallbjorn sat down next to her, sending her cat fleeing under the rowing benches.
“What are you making?” Hallbjorn asked.
“It was to be a ribbon for Princess Gyda,” she said glumly.
“Come now, little Freydis, is this not better than a dull trip to Vestfold?” Hallbjorn asked. “To wait upon King Harald and praise him? How can Svanhild’s daughter not crave adventure?”
“I am not my mother,” said Freydis stiffly. If she had a daughter, she would keep her by her side, not abandon her to relatives who shuffled her from one farm to another like a piece of livestock.
“No, you are far prettier than she,” said Hallbjorn, shifting closer to her.
He touched her hand as she twisted the cards for her weaving. “I regret hurting you. Tell me you forgive me.”
“I forgive you,” she said flatly. She did not see how she could say otherwise.
“You don’t, not yet,” he said, with certainty in his voice, “but this will be a long journey. You will like me by the end.”
“Not so long,” she countered. “We will see land soon.” She kept her eyes on his feet, which were clad in shapeless boat shoes that made the bones of his ankles look oddly delicate.
“Why do you say that?” Hallb
jorn asked.
“The birds,” she said, pointing at the black shapes in the sky. “The merchant ship follows them toward land, and we follow it.”
Hallbjorn put a hand to her chin and lifted her face so she had to look at him. “I thought you might be simple when I first came to Tafjord, for you spoke so little, but here I find you are a beauty who can heal broken bones, placate angry spirits, and knows something of sea navigation. What other surprises are you hiding?”
Freydis glanced around to see if any of Hallbjorn’s men noticed them. When he had given her too much attention at Tafjord, she had only thought he meant to mock her. Was he so desperate for a woman, any woman, that he would pursue a girl child only just blooded, far too young for marriage?
“Please let me do my weaving,” she said.
“Do I distract you?” Hallbjorn asked.
Freydis shook her head and refused to look at him until he left her alone.
* * *
Another day of strong winds brought the ships to the Orkney Islands. Since Harald’s victory at Hafrsfjord, when Freydis was only a baby, the islands had become a haunt for the vikings and sea kings who could no longer make a home on the Norse coast. Perhaps she would find Solvi here instead of in Iceland.
The merchant approached through a gap between islands, sailing toward a rocky shore flanked by high hills and cliffs. Many Orkneymen stopped their work to look down at the ships as they beached, and Freydis’s skin itched from having so many eyes upon her. Her mother would have counseled that they find another approach, and make landfall in a hidden cove. From there they could send scouts before exposing themselves.
Lush grass covered the island’s upper hills, an even greenness broken by only a few scrubby trees and larger hummocks that were set in a regular pattern up the slope. Freydis could discern no buildings until she saw a small figure in homespun emerging from one of the hummocks.
Now the landscape resolved itself into an order she could understand. One of the larger turf houses could likely shelter fifty people, and was surrounded by smaller turf outbuildings. The narrow lines in the slopes were lichen- and bramble-covered rock walls. Sheep grazed among them. It was the scale that had confused Freydis, at once too large and too small, the cliffs rising as high as the fjord walls at home, but not set against the backdrop of mountain and forest. How could spirits live here with so little shelter?
More men sat on rocks near the shore, clad in armor and wearing swords. They did not appear threatening, but their posture showed a casual alertness that could turn to attack in a moment. One man grabbed the line that Rolli threw down, and pulled the ship up onto the shore as far as the strength of one man could take it. Rolli jumped down into the shallows. On seeing Rolli’s size, the man took a few steps back, his hand at his sword. Rolli stepped forward to loom over him, Hallbjorn at his side.
“I am Rolli Ragnvaldsson, and this is Hallbjorn Olafsson,” said Rolli. “Tell your master we have arrived.”
“Will he care?” asked another man, who had come to join the first.
“He will,” said Rolli. “I am the son of King Ragnvald of Maer.”
“And I am Hallbjorn Olafsson,” said Hallbjorn. “We come seeking hospitality, with no ill intentions, carrying slaves and trade goods to sell, and news from Norway.”
The mood of the gathering crowd turned friendlier. More men came to help drag the ships farther up the beach and tie them up. Arn put down a ladder against the side, and the rest of the sailors disembarked. Hallbjorn stood at the bottom as Freydis descended, and when she reached the bottom, he picked her up around the waist and set her gently on the sand.
She followed the Orkneymen up to the long turf hall, where servants spread thick blankets over the seats to make them more comfortable. Women brought heated ale to warm them, and a big, redheaded man took the high seat.
“I am Thorstein the Red,” he announced. “These are my islands. Now tell me who you are.”
Rolli took a gulp of his ale. “I am Hrolf—Rolli—Ragnvaldsson, youngest true-born son of King Ragnvald of Maer.”
A man of middle age stood up abruptly. Something about the shape of his face reminded Freydis of Rolli, though he was skinny to the point of emaciation. “I am Egil Hrolfsson,” he said. “Your uncle—your mother’s brother.”
Rolli embraced him so heartily that Freydis worried he would break the man’s back. “Uncle!” said Rolli. “I have more aunts than any man deserves, but few enough of those.”
Egil smiled thinly in response. Freydis could not remember Hilda mentioning him.
Thorstein cleared his throat. “Your father is no friend to Orkneymen,” he said to Rolli. “But you are under the protection of my hospitality now. And your handsome friend.”
Hallbjorn smiled at the compliment. “My father was Olaf of Ardal, and my mother is Vigdis Hallbjornsdatter,” he said. “She lives in Vestfold in the court of Harald and his uncle Guthorm. My half-brother is Sigurd Olafsson.” Freydis sensed an uneasiness in Hallbjorn as he listed these connections. Rolli could name an unbroken line of ancestors back to Odin himself if he chose, while Hallbjorn’s were more tenuous. Like Freydis: daughter of one of King Harald’s wives, but not the king’s daughter. Daughter of a legendary sea king she had never met, who might not be happy to see her.
Freydis was lost enough in her worry that she only heard the end of Thorstein’s introduction. “I fought on the wrong side at Hafrsfjord,” he was saying. “And in Orkney I am as close to being king as any man outside of Norway. I have women. I have timber now, and I will build a fine drinking hall with it. I plunder when I want. Harald has sent a few expeditions against me, but they usually attack Scotland instead, for the islands’ tides and weather foul them. But what are you doing here? Why would the son of Ragnvald of Maer turn viking?”
“There are few enough lands to rule,” said Rolli. “My father will have to divide his kingdoms among all of his sons and some of Harald’s as well. And I would rather be a sea king anyway. Already I am too big to ride most horses.” He laughed, but Thorstein did not join him.
“Would you?” Thorstein asked. “I do not think you know these waters well, or you would not have followed that wallowing merchant ship into the harbor.”
“We are going to find Solvi Hunthiofsson and join with him,” said Rolli. “My cousin Freydis is his daughter.”
Thorstein gave Freydis a piercing look that made her wish she could shrink away into the ground, then turned back to Rolli. “Why would the son of Ragnvald the Mighty”—he said the byname with deep sarcasm—“want to join with an enemy of King Harald?” he asked.
Rolli told what had brought them to Orkney. “But if I make myself rich raiding, then perhaps I can buy my way back,” he concluded brightly.
“You are a young fool,” said Thorstein. “You should go home and beg for your father’s mercy while you still have a chance. There is not so much gold to be had in viking as there once was, and I do not like to share.”
Hallbjorn made a noise of protest. “The Great Danish Army still brings back great chests of hack-silver from England. And we go to Solvi Hunthiofsson, the greatest sea king that has ever lived.”
“Ha!” said Thorstein. “Solvi Hunthiofsson has not left Iceland in over a decade. He is not what you think.”
Freydis crossed her arms over her chest and hugged herself. She wanted to look at Hallbjorn, to see if he believed Thorstein, but feared what she would see.
“That cannot be,” Rolli exclaimed. “Everyone knows that he attacks Norway every summer!”
Thorstein shrugged again. He seemed to like the way it drew attention to his massive shoulders. “As you say. But if I had a father as powerful as yours, I would return to my homeland and find an easier life than this.”
* * *
That night, Freydis shared a damp, mildewed mattress with one of Thorstein’s serving girls. The next day, while Rolli and Hallbjorn tried to find buyers for their slaves and the merchants’ wares, she made herself help
ful in the kitchen.
She was tying up bundles of herbs, separating flavoring herbs from healing herbs, when she felt herself being watched. She turned and saw the girl who had shared her bed looking over her shoulder. In the daylight, she had a snub nose and freckles, and wore a sullen expression.
“Are you a wise-woman?” the girl asked. “You seem young for it.”
“My aunt was teaching me,” said Freydis.
The girl made a sign over her chest that Freydis had seen some of the Christian slaves in Tafjord make. “I don’t hold with that—my mother says that Christ heals all. But one of the crones who lives up the hill helped me get rid of a child after one of Thorstein’s men forced me.”
Freydis nodded. “I have heard of such things.”
“Can you?” the girl asked. “Do you know how to do that?”
Freydis looked at her sharply. “Are you pregnant?” she asked.
The girl shook her head. “No, but it could—it might happen again, and I don’t want to go to the crones this time. If you give me the herbs, then I won’t need them.”
Freydis looked at the hall’s collection tied in bundles at her feet, and did not see those that would loose a babe from its mother’s womb before its time. “I don’t have what you need,” she said. “And it is dangerous—you should not take them without someone to tend you if it goes wrong.”
“You’re not much of a wise-woman then, are you?” said the girl.
Freydis shrugged, and the girl went back to her work.
When Freydis went to her pallet that night, it was empty except for her cat. She had lost the serving girl’s companionship by refusing to help her. She sat down, pulled up her knees, and rested her head upon them, letting her tears dampen her torn under-dress. She had kept them at bay when she had people around her, watching her, but now she had no one. Thorstein had cast doubt on her father’s power—he might no longer even be living.
She felt the mattress shift when someone sat down next to her, and turned to see Hallbjorn’s silhouette.
The Golden Wolf Page 5