“I am honored to be your guest, King Melbrid,” said Svanhild. “I feel certain we can come to an agreement.”
“Don’t be too certain of that,” Halfdan said. “I have already sent messengers to my allies.”
“Your allies?” Svanhild asked. “Skane could not field enough warriors to carve a single rock off of Norway.”
“I have more allies than you can imagine,” said Halfdan.
“Halfdan,” said Melbrid sternly.
“No,” said Halfdan, “I will make this unnatural woman respect me, since my father cannot.”
“Who, Halfdan?” Svanhild asked. She felt no fear, only a brightness in her blood. Halfdan would tell her, and then she would tell Ragnvald. “Who are your allies?”
“King Erik of Jutland for one,” said Halfdan, puffing out his chest. “More Scottish vikings like Melbrid than you could name—Ketil Flatnose, Geirbjorn Hakonsson, Gudmar Gudbrandsson are just a few—and the kings of Ireland and Sweden have both offered ships to me. My father will be defeated no matter what you offer.”
6
Bakur sat next to Einar, picking at the porridge that Gyda served them. She had shared a welcome cup with Einar, so now he and his men were her guests. Her respect for the gods should prevent her from harming them, but Einar did not trust her very far. He ate with a will, until he noticed Bakur’s lack of appetite. “What troubles you?” he asked.
“My father taught me that corpses are unclean, and must be buried before the sun sets on the day of their death,” he said. “I will not be easy until they are in their mounds.”
Bakur’s face was tinged with green, and his hands shook. He was hardly older than Einar, and had seen less battle. At least Einar had gone with Ivar and some of Harald’s sons to clear out raiders in the barrier islands. In those small skirmishes, he had learned to trust his sword and his speed.
He put his hand over Bakur’s and squeezed it. “You did well today,” he said. He met Bakur’s eyes for a moment, and then looked up to see Gyda standing over them.
“My servants have prepared the bathhouse for you,” she said. The amusement on her lips irritated him.
Einar let Bakur and Uffi use the bath first. As the sun rose higher in the sky, he began to nod off where he sat, slipping into a dream in which his limbs entwined with Bakur’s, dark and gold together. In the way of dreams, his father appeared, and though his mouth did not move, he still spoke words of reproach: Einar must put aside boyish things.
I will never have a wife, Einar told him wordlessly. Why do you deny me this?
The lash of his father’s scolding lacked any words at all this time, and Einar screamed out his frustration, and woke with his throat hurting from unvoiced rage, and Gyda’s cool fingers on his hand. He was still aroused and angry from his dream, and her touch made him think of her binding his wrists earlier.
“Your friends are done with the bath,” she said.
He thanked her tersely and went to cleanse himself. Afterward, he found that Bakur and Uffi had already fallen asleep on pallets in the hall, and joined them in a deep slumber that lasted until the smell of hot food woke him again.
Einar rubbed his face and pushed aside the curtain to see a long table set up for a feast. He smoothed down his sleep-rumpled hair and joined his companions near the fire for some ale.
Gyda sat down next to Einar to share his cup, an honor to him. Younger women, with similar coloring to hers, joined Bakur and Uffi, laughing with them. These must be Gyda’s nieces, Harald’s daughters.
“What are your intentions, my lady?” Einar asked Gyda. “Your husband will return, and my brother and his forces will be here tomorrow.”
“I am not wed,” Gyda replied sharply, “and if your King Harald had protected me better, I would not have needed to—” She broke off and gave him a very false smile. “I am ready to go to Harald. Will you not trust me? Even after I helped you kill Frode’s men?”
“Ride with me, alone, to my brother’s camp, and then I will trust you,” he said. As much as Einar enjoyed his brother’s company, he enjoyed this as well, being on his own, relying on only his wits. His father had not spent his youth with an army behind him. He, too, had to win with cleverness and bravery.
“It will take some time to make ready to go to Vestfold. And who will guard my fort while I am gone?” she asked.
“You may leave your men behind—in fact, if you want Harald to trust you, you must.”
“What if I simply keep you captive and never venture forth?” Gyda asked. “We have stores here to last—well, perhaps I should not tell you. You might grow to like it here.”
Bakur was whispering something in the ear of the girl by his side. A tide of foolish jealousy washed over Einar; Bakur should mean nothing to him beyond being a follower he must protect. He looked over at Gyda, sitting by his side. She was as beautiful as a snowflake, as dangerous as a blizzard. Einar had rarely composed poetry about women, but he thought she might merit it—except Harald would not want the truth of this meeting to be shared. His skalds would tell the story of a loyal bride who, if she needed to be killed, would die by mischance in an attempt to rescue her from her kidnappers. They would never tell the true story of this Gyda, mistress of Hordaland and the fates of men.
“If you never let me go, what harm in telling me?” Einar asked, after a long pause. If Gyda wanted a siege, she would get one. Ivar would go to Harald, and though Gyda could escape while Ivar’s force was gone, she would have to live in the foothills and hide when they returned. “And it does not matter how deep your stores are,” he added. “Harald’s armies can last longer.”
“Can they last through a winter in the mountains, though, with no shelter?” Gyda asked. “I can send raiding parties over the wall during the long nights, and I have allies in the mountains.”
“My brother and I can kill your betrothed for you, as we have killed his men,” said Einar. “Then you may still be able to save face and marry Harald.”
“You will have to kill his family too,” said Gyda. “Do you have the stomach for that?” Her voice was light and teasing despite the grimness of her words.
“Depends how big his family is, I suppose,” Einar replied, imitating her tone. “But you are right—we do not want a feud, so we must kill the whole family. I trust there are no children to kill as well—no children of yours?”
Her expression did not change, which Einar took as confirmation that she did not have children with this man. No woman could think on the deaths of her children without a flinch.
Gyda’s servants brought dishes of food for the table on trays of wood and in soapstone bowls. The seats filled with men of fighting age, more than Einar had counted before, enough to match the warriors in Ivar’s party. Gyda introduced the older man who sat to her left as Omund, the captain of her forces in Hordaland. He nodded and gave Einar a speculative look.
Gyda took up a drinking horn from the table, and let the servant behind her fill it to the brim. She gave a toast, saying, “A feast is pleasing in the eyes of the gods even when the guests are few.”
She took a sip from the horn and handed it to Einar, her fingers brushing his. He knew he was expected to drain the whole horn to prove himself a man, but he was hungry and it would make him drunk, and perhaps foolish, when he needed his wits. He took a sip and then offered the horn to the captain Omund. “You do me so much honor I must share it. Your Omund is a hero of more renown than I, I am certain. Let him drink deeply, and if he cannot drain the horn, my men will help.”
Omund took the horn and emptied it in one long draught.
“You are a strange boy,” said Gyda, after they sat. “How old are you, truly?”
“I have seen nineteen summers,” he said.
“So young,” said Gyda. “But when I was your age I was betrothed, and queen of Hordaland in all but name.”
Einar tried to remember his father’s advice: do not be as other young men, do not be too protective of your pride. Easy to hear h
is father’s lessons, harder to avoid rising to Gyda’s baiting, protest that he had fought other battles, beyond what she had witnessed.
A skald took up a song about Gyda’s father and kept Einar from having to respond. His eyes rested upon Bakur again.
Gyda spoke in his ear, “I see you watching my foster-daughter Signy and your man. Would you prefer a younger woman by your side?”
“Not unless you have one as beautiful as yourself,” said Einar, a rote compliment.
“Or would you prefer to be sharing that young man’s cup yourself?” Gyda asked.
Einar controlled his anger with more difficulty this time but still replied evenly, “Do you doubt your charms, my lady? I am honored to have you sit with me.”
When Einar was done eating, he rose and recited a poem he had composed the previous year about Harald’s oath to conquer Norway and then return for Gyda’s hand. He improvised a verse about how Harald always fulfilled his oaths and expected others to do the same.
She smiled slightly when he was done and took a sip of her ale. Einar sat down again next to her. “I have seen you a few times before, I think,” she said. “King Ragnvald’s firstborn son, but not by his wife, passed over as his heir.”
Einar wondered why she wanted so much to goad him to anger. Was it to give her warriors an excuse to kill him? “That is so,” he said.
“Tell me, does it trouble your father that you are known as the most handsome and able of his sons?”
“I am not—” Einar began, hotly, half rising, ready to defend Ivar. He had seen Ivar and seen his own face in Hilda’s silver mirror, and knew she lied. He stole a glance at her. The smile she gave him reminded him that he was facing an adversary as fierce as any warrior he had ever fought. “Did your father mind that you were born a girl?” he asked instead.
“Every day,” said Gyda. “But don’t you want King Ragnvald to make you his heir?”
Einar’s mother was no thrall or peasant but a renowned beauty, mistress of kings and jarls. Many men would have made him heir, though not King Ragnvald, who had promised his wife that her sons would be his heirs and no others. Einar had heard this question whispered when he went to Nidaros or Vestfold, and heard it from men who would bait him in the practice ring. He had learned to ignore it.
He wondered if he should say yes, and hear what she would promise him to make that true—but he liked her, even with her baiting, and did not want to hear her offer him his brother’s life. “My godfather, Oddi, tells me that no joy comes to kings, and recommends avoiding the notice of the gods,” he answered.
“I think you will attract the notice of the gods wherever you go,” said Gyda. She put a hand on his forearm and left it there, her cool fingertips on the skin of his wrist.
Einar had little experience of women—he had been with a thrall-woman once, and regretted it, not wishing to father a child who would grow up in bondage—and moments of pleasure with other boys had seemed safer. Gyda could not mean anything by her touch, except to make him nervous. She had been betrothed to Harald for many years. He wondered if she had taken a lover in all that time. Ragnvald had told Einar he thought not, thought Gyda too cold to want a man, but she did not seem cold to Einar.
“Why are you trying to anger me?” he asked. “You will not solve any of your problems by having your men kill me.”
She looked at him thoughtfully for a moment, and then said, “My father was ill for a long time, so long I thought he might go on being ill forever. I wish he had.” Her cheeks were flushed now from the ale she had drunk from the cup she shared with him. “His death has brought many wolves to my door, and the only way to keep them out has been to invite one in to protect me.”
“So you are married then, my lady?” Einar asked.
“Not yet,” said Gyda. “It has been my fate to have long engagements, and to set the men I betroth difficult tasks. I have asked Frode to bring me the heads of seven mountain bandits who have been troubling me. I gave him their names and distinguishing marks, so he could not come back with just any heads and try to fool me.”
“He sounds like a farm cat, bringing songbirds to his mistress,” said Einar. “How many has he brought you?”
“Six. You see, you have come just in time.”
“This is too much like a tale, my lady. Seven bandits, six heads, the hero come just in time . . .”
“Are you a hero then, Einar Ragnvaldsson?” Gyda asked with a thin smile. “Will you make a song from this, golden poet and warrior? You and your brother are already like something from a poem.”
“I have sworn by gods and by the fates, and by my love for my brother and respect for my father’s wisdom that I will protect him and die for him if I must. Perhaps someone will one day make a song about it. That is all the inheritance I hope for.” He rushed his words. He rarely spoke so plainly to anyone.
“You are a hero then,” she said quietly.
“Yes,” he said. “I am a hero from a tale, and you are a queen from a tale, and a bandit king goes off to kill seven bandit brothers—”
“I didn’t say they were brothers.”
“Yes, but it’s better that way. I will make a song of it, and like all songs it will be mostly pretty lies, to distract from the uglier truth beneath. Unfortunately, I will have to change your name, and perhaps—yes, I will make you a giantess from a hundred generations ago, so no one will know that you even thought of betraying King Harald.”
“Giantess?” Gyda asked, arching her eyebrow. “Do you wish to insult me?”
“Elf queen, then,” he said.
“Do not sing it of me. I did not betray King Harald, but sent Frode out with a task he can never fulfill. He will only find a man matching the seventh bandit’s description in a pool of water, for it is himself.”
* * *
Einar woke in the dimmest part of the night too restless to sleep, and went outside. The sun was only an orange glow on the southern horizon. He felt peaceful, even with so much hanging in the balance: Gyda’s decision, Ivar and Dagfinn holding Gyda’s men captive somewhere near the fort. Tomorrow they would arrive and show their strength. He could not tell what Gyda wanted, but she did not seem to want to kill him, at least.
The cool, motionless air felt good on Einar’s sleep-warmed skin. He passed by a barn and heard the animals snoring within. Atop the fort’s earthwork wall, he saw a silhouette of a slim woman. It could only be Gyda; no other woman in Hordaland, and few in all Norway, held themselves with that grace and strength. It seemed like fate that she had been woken by the same night spirit as he.
Einar crossed a plank bridge over the inner moat and climbed up to join her on the wall. She waited until he had reached her side before turning to look up at him. Then she turned back to the darkened plains before them. Einar could not discern where Ivar’s camp might be in that midnight dimness. Perhaps they had hidden in one of the bands of forest that separated some of the Hordaland farms from one another. Perhaps they had learned something from Gyda’s men that made them go back to Harald. In this mild night, Einar could not bring himself to worry.
“You could not sleep, my lady?” Einar asked quietly. He did not want to break the peace of the darkened plain.
“I am thinking of too many things,” said Gyda. Her voice sounded like the wind sighing through the fields.
“There is not so much to worry about,” said Einar. She seemed so different now; he wanted to put a hand on her shoulder to comfort her, as he would have his little cousin Freydis. “In the morning, my brother will come, and you can welcome them, and when this Frode comes, we will kill him.”
She sighed. “I expected to be able to play this out a little longer. Every day until I marry Harald is another day I am queen.” That was what she wanted, then, to keep her power.
“You will still be queen when you are married,” said Einar. “Many of his wives live with their families, on their ancestral lands. Harald would not deprive Hordaland of its queen.” Harald might not even notice
his new wife, from what Einar had heard, but he would not reveal Harald’s weakness and half-abdication to Gyda.
“He has sent his sons and armies,” she said. “I expect you want to leave someone here to guard Hordaland while I am gone.”
“To keep it safe,” said Einar. And to occupy one of Harald’s sons, to keep him from threatening Ivar’s inheritance. Now he saw the price—Gyda’s rulership.
Gyda turned to face him. “Harald will keep me by his side,” she said. “He will want to show off his most famous bride. I will once again be queen in name only. I never wanted . . . I have escaped a woman’s fate for so long and now—you are not the messenger I expected, Einar Ragnvaldsson. I think . . .” She put her hand on his arm as she broke off with a little sob. The tears on her cheek reflected the moonlight. Her loneliness pulled at something in him.
“I am sorry to bring you sadness, my lady.”
She took a deep breath, which moved her hand slightly on Einar’s arm. “You have seen me cry, which none of my subjects have ever done.” She pinched the light fabric between thumb and forefinger. “You should call me Gyda.”
“Gyda,” he repeated.
“My last free night,” she said. “Do not leave me.” Einar stood still, uncertain. Was she offering what it seemed—and to him?
“I won’t,” he said. Gyda moved her hand from his arm to his chest, cool against his heated flesh.
“Or do you prefer the company of men entirely?” She smiled up at him, a little brokenly.
“No,” said Einar gruffly. “You are beautiful to me.” He wondered what his father would make of this—would a night spent in Gyda’s arms make her more likely to surrender or less?
“Few men are indifferent to my beauty,” she said, and it did not sound like vanity. “It has been one of my weapons, but I suppose it will fade one day, like the strength in your arm.”
The sadness in those words did make him want to embrace her, but still he hesitated. “You were right—I know little of women.”
The Golden Wolf Page 7