Hallbjorn spat. “Ask her—it is mine. She has spread her legs for me every night for a month. Who else’s could it be?”
Solvi turned toward where Freydis still sat on the grass, tipped over where she had landed on the side of a tussock. “Tell me, daughter, what you would have me know of this business. Do you want him to be the father of your child?”
The words were so exactly what she wanted to hear that her tears spilled over again.
Hallbjorn struggled in his captor’s grip. “What does it matter what she wants?” he asked. “The child is mine.”
Solvi advanced toward Hallbjorn, staying well out of sword range, though Hallbjorn’s arms were still pinned. “I am certain someone else can be found to acknowledge it,” he said. “Or if she would rather expose it or get rid of it, that can be done. She is over-young to bear a child or to marry if I reckon the years right.”
Freydis had wondered if she would be able to find the necessary herbs in Iceland, even if she could get away from Hallbjorn and take them. The herbs were dangerous and did not always work. And Freydis did not think she could bring herself to expose a healthy child, even if it came to her unwanted.
She shook her head slightly. There would be time to think more on that later. If Solvi acknowledged her as his daughter, then by law, he had to give his permission for the marriage.
Solvi gave her a look that seemed scornful, and Freydis wiped her eyes. She must answer him, if she could gather herself enough to speak. He nodded at his men, who took Hallbjorn’s sword and dagger from him and flung them away on the grass. The younger one forced Hallbjorn to his knees and pulled his head up.
“You are frightened,” the disfigured man said to Freydis, speaking slowly to make sure she could understand him. “But if I can speak, so can you.”
His words gave her courage. “I cannot escape that he is the child’s father,” she said. “But if I can escape marriage with him, I would do that.”
“You will have to repudiate him as the father then,” said Solvi. “They are very particular about the law here in Iceland.” This he added with some scorn.
The disfigured man spoke again. “I will acknowledge her child, if someone is needed.”
Hallbjorn, still held captive, laughed sharply. “No one would believe that.”
“So much the better,” said Solvi. “It matters not what is believed, but what she is willing to claim and all of us to witness. Now, get out of my sight before my man Brusi cuts your throat.”
Hallbjorn snarled. He lunged at Solvi’s man, who stepped aside so Hallbjorn stumbled, flailing his arms.
“I will return for her,” Hallbjorn promised. “You had better set a double guard and sleep with a dagger under your pillow. I will not let you keep me from my son.”
“Should I kill him now?” Brusi asked, grabbing Hallbjorn with surprising swiftness. He wrenched Hallbjorn’s head back again and held a dagger to his throat.
“Who is his family?” Solvi asked Freydis. “Would anyone avenge him?”
Hallbjorn’s eyes moved wildly. He gave Freydis a pleading look, then focused on Solvi, who walked toward him with his sword out, his teeth gritted. Freydis allowed Solvi’s other man to pull her to her feet.
She brushed off her dress from the ground and touched her face where it was tender from Hallbjorn’s blow. She liked the fear in his eyes. If only he could be made to feel as powerless as she had in his bed.
“His father was Olaf Ottarson, who was killed by King Ragnvald long ago,” she said. “And his mother is Vigdis Hallbjornsdatter, who is now the mistress of Lord Guthorm, King Harald’s uncle.” Hallbjorn looked at her with that wild hope again. She smiled slightly. “I don’t know how much they care about him, though.” He flinched.
“An enemy of Ragnvald Eysteinsson, then,” said Solvi. “Pity. Had you come here under different circumstances, we might have been allies. Still, I will not kill you. Perhaps one day you will take the revenge on him that I cannot.”
Solvi looked at Freydis. Her shyness returned, and she looked at his feet again, nodding. She did not truly wish to see Hallbjorn killed.
“What about my sword?” Hallbjorn asked.
“Brusi, escort him to the edge of my property and give it back to him,” Solvi commanded. Brusi picked up Hallbjorn’s sword and used it to prod him away, down the hill.
“Come here, to me,” said Solvi. Freydis picked up her satchel, which she had dropped when Hallbjorn hit her, and walked over to him, her eyes still downcast. He put his hand under her chin and turned her face one way, and then the other. “You are not what I thought a daughter of myself and Harald’s queen would look like, but I see both of us in you, and I cannot doubt it.” He sighed. “I have not expected either of my children to be as they were; it should not surprise me that you are strange to me. And both my children have been timid.”
Anger lit up Freydis’s blood again. She had been timid sometimes, but she did not want to be. She raised her eyes to his. “I did what I must to survive,” she said. “It was I who suggested we come here, rather than sell the captives south.”
“Oh?” Solvi asked. “I shall have that story from you, then.” He looked at her again. “Later, though. Come with me. I have a woman here who can care for you.”
12
Einar sat in his tent, wondering if Gyda would find her way to him. Likely she could not steal away from the chambers where Vestfold’s women slept. That tale had been a foolish risk, enough to make his father scold him, though not guess the reason for it. If his father should discover this—Einar imagined justifying his actions by saying that it had helped Gyda leave her fort without violence, but that had not been the true reason. He enjoyed having this secret, the love of a queen.
He saw a woman’s silhouette in the door of the tent, and felt her cool touch on his ankle, then followed her out into the dimness. He knew where the Vestfold scouts patrolled, and how to pass between them. He led her down on a path that bordered the fjord and ended in a pine grove where the ground was covered with the soft needles of seasons past.
She seemed to want him ever more urgently each time they met, as the day approached that might be their last. They had no need to speak, though Einar wanted to ask her many things: what she thought of his tale, what plans she had for the two of them, a reassurance that she still wanted him. Only the moment of his release made his mind stop turning. When she rolled off of him and lay next to him on the ground, she sighed.
“I thought . . . ,” she said.
“You thought what?” he asked, rolling over to face her. She still looked up at the sky, a deep midsummer blue with only a few stars visible. She sighed again.
“I thought he would at least greet me,” she said. “Harald.”
“Well,” he said, curtly. “It is good you have me for a poor substitute.” Gyda curled next to him and put her arms around his shoulders, her breasts pressing against his side, at first a cool touch that then warmed as she leaned against him.
“That is not what I meant. I only—” She broke off to kiss his neck, her hair brushing against his skin making him shiver with pleasure.
“Can this truly last, Gyda?” Her name tasted sweet to him. He wanted to say it again.
“I don’t know,” she said.
“And so you think to spend your last days of freedom tormenting me, trying to make me into an enemy of my king and your husband?”
“You could refuse me,” she said.
“I can’t,” he said. “I will do whatever you want.”
“Ivar has been with my niece Signy every night of these past weeks,” she said. “I could insist on a marriage, especially if she becomes pregnant—she is Harald’s daughter. Then you can both return with me to Hordaland, and you can be my champion.”
Einar did not answer. Now that he had seen his father, and how suspicious Einar’s tale had made him, it seemed far less likely.
“This will be difficult,” said Gyda, leaning against him. “We cannot afford
to mistrust one another. We should have no secrets.”
Einar had already told her of his secret ambitions, his wish that he and his brother might both find success, that neither need eclipse the other. But he had also held back—he had not shared the witch’s words, which haunted his dreams every night, or his father’s plans. He was sure Gyda hid as many secrets from him.
“My brother already has a kingdom to inherit,” said Einar. How far could the sons of Ragnvald’s ambitions extend?
“He can rule there until it is time for him to inherit,” Gyda offered. “And then . . .”
Einar felt a chill. Gyda seemed to speak with the witch’s words. Ivar would inherit when their father died, something Einar could not imagine, and she herself would be old then. “I am yours to command, my queen,” he said. “In anything that does not violate my oath to my brother.”
She rested her cheek against his shoulder. “I command you to satisfy me again. Give me treasure against the lean times to come.”
Was this how his father had felt about his mother, Vigdis, knowing the danger but unable to resist a desire that built again as soon as it was slaked? Gyda kissed his ear, his shoulders, the sword calluses on his hand, and drew him down next to her again.
They lay face-to-face this time, her leg over him, fitting them together so he could move in her slowly, feeling as though this could last forever, until he could stand to wait no longer and rolled her onto her back. He thought he saw a man’s shape in the woods and froze, but Gyda raised her hips to meet his again, and his pleasure overtook him. Whoever had seen them, it was too late to change anything now.
* * *
Einar sent Gyda from the bower first and waited until he judged she had returned to her bed before he walked back to his tent. He could not stop thinking about the figure he had seen, though no evidence of the person remained near his and Gyda’s pine-needle bower. But it had not been a trick of the light, or a vision based on his fear. They had been seen. The thought made him feel sick.
He tried to put himself back in that moment, Gyda’s legs tightening around him, the pure smoothness of her skin under his hands, and someone standing among the thick trunks of the old pines—a man with a light beard. One of Harald’s sons? Harald himself? Einar stared up at the shadowed ceiling of his tent, trying to call up the man’s face in his memory, but the more he chased it, the more it faded, until all he could remember was dark spots suggestive of eyes and a mouth. Perhaps the interloper had not recognized them either. But he could not rely on that. He would have to tell Gyda, and make sure any future meetings were better hidden.
He dozed eventually, until someone shook him awake in the early morning when the camp was still quiet, with a rougher touch on his ankle than Gyda’s had been. Einar had his hand on his dagger before he fully opened his eyes and sprang toward this intruder, with a mind to make him regret waking him, but drew back when he saw his uncle Sigurd’s face, his eyes shadowed by sleeplessness.
“Is your brother here?” Sigurd asked, his voice hardly above a whisper. The rest of the camp must still be asleep.
“He’s found someone else’s bed to share,” said Einar. He replaced his dagger in its sheath.
“Come, let us talk,” said Sigurd. He looked at Einar until Einar grew discomfited and lowered his eyes.
Einar pulled on his trousers. “Why are you up so early?” he asked Sigurd. Hilda had always teased Sigurd that he slept like a boy whenever he could, late into morning, no matter how much noise went on around him.
“I think you know,” said Sigurd. Einar swallowed. Sigurd had been the one to see him last night. It could have been worse—one of Harald’s sons—but Sigurd was loyal to Ragnvald above all others.
Einar followed him up the hill behind Vestfold’s halls. Sigurd was taller than him, and set a pace that Einar had trouble matching, even though he had kept up his stamina over the long winter in Tafjord, putting on snowshoes to race his brothers up the steep slopes to the cliff tops whenever the weather allowed.
“I saw you,” Sigurd said when they reached the crest of the hill. “You and Harald’s queen. She is a beautiful woman, but this cannot continue.”
“I love her,” said Einar. “She has a plan for us.”
“What can come of it?” Sigurd asked. “She is too old for you, and far too dangerous. I have asked your father to meet us here—”
“No!” Einar cried.
“I am not as clever as you or my brother Ragnvald,” said Sigurd. “But think—how can this possibly end well? If anyone else finds out, both of you will die.”
“So don’t tell anyone,” said Einar sullenly.
“If I saw you, anyone could.”
“Harald will send Gyda back to Hordaland,” said Einar. “My brother Ivar will marry Signy, her niece, and I will go to Hordaland with both of them.”
“And live as husband to Hordaland’s queen?” Sigurd asked. “You will only delay Harald’s vengeance.”
“We would keep it secret,” Einar protested. “Harald doesn’t care for any of his wives except his new Finnish witch. He will ignore us.”
“He may ignore his wives, but he will not ignore a slight to his honor. Einar, please.” The tone of Sigurd’s voice made Einar’s eyes sting with sudden tears. “I only have one son, and I fear for him every day—he is with Svanhild in Skane. If I can do something to save you, I will, even if you hate me for it.”
Once, in his seventh year, he and Ivar let the hall’s chickens loose, and a fox killed half of them. Their father had punished them, giving Einar five switches for every one he gave Ivar. The law punished the baseborn more severely than nobility, but Einar had not thought his own father would apply it to him. Sigurd had told him that Ragnvald was a hard man, but a fair one, and how, when he was a boy, urged on by his father, Olaf, Sigurd had once tried to kill Ragnvald. When Ragnvald killed Olaf, he might have killed Sigurd as well, but instead he called him brother, and Sigurd had been loyal since then.
Einar took a deep breath to steady his voice. “My brother spent the night last night with Gyda’s niece. This plan is already in motion. If Gyda makes Ivar her heir, what is to stand in our way?”
“You are determined to do this?” Sigurd asked.
“What better future do you see for me?” Einar cried. “I will never—” He cut himself off. He could not reveal to Sigurd that he imagined a greater future for himself than always protecting his brother.
“I will tell your father unless you promise to end it. See, here he comes.”
Sigurd raised his hand in greeting and Einar turned to see his father climbing the slope behind him. “I promise,” Einar said desperately. “I promise.”
“What do you promise?” Ragnvald asked. “Why did you call me up here, Sigurd?”
“I . . . ,” Einar began. He could mislead his father more easily than Sigurd could. “Ivar was with Gyda’s niece Signy last night. I thought he might like to rule Hordaland, since Aldi will refuse Ivar his daughter now. Sigurd thinks it’s a bad idea.”
Ragnvald rubbed his forehead. “Sigurd is right. That is the last thing we need,” he said. “Already Harald thinks I have control over too many districts.”
“I promise to make an end to it,” said Einar.
“Well, we should discuss this,” said Ragnvald. “Your ambition for your brother is admirable, but misplaced. I have news from Jutland—Halfdan’s rebellion is certain, King Erik admitted it to me. And now your aunt Svanhild has not returned from Skane. If she has been captured, we will need to take war there as well.”
Einar’s heartbeat began to slow back to normal. His father had not seen through his half-truths. He was not Odin, seeing all from his high seat.
“There was almost rebellion in Hordaland as well,” Einar said. He told his father how cleverly Gyda had played the rebels against one another, using her betrothal to Frode to do it, and how he and his brother had defeated the last of them.
Ever since the witch’s words, he had been wo
ndering what would happen if Ivar died, testing the thought like a sore tooth, where every touch gave more pain than letting it alone. He thought of asking his father about her prophecy, how she had spoken to him without a tongue. His father had experiences with prophecies—his vision of Harald had long guided him—and might have wisdom for Einar, but her words would awaken every fear his father had of him.
“With so much rebellion, how can Harald cut his hair, and marry Gyda, and fulfill his oath?” Einar asked instead.
His father looked at him sharply, and Einar tried to maintain a neutral expression. No, his father was not Odin, but he did see clearly—too clearly.
“Because this is not a song,” Ragnvald said. “Because the sooner Harald weds a new woman and fights some battles, the sooner . . . He must wed her, it is foolish to suggest otherwise.” He rubbed his forehead. “I saw that Dagfinn Haraldsson returned with you.”
“I tried to leave him in Hordaland, but Princess Gyda is a strong-willed woman,” Einar replied. He braced for a scolding, but his father only shrugged.
“We have bigger problems now. You have heard of what your brother Rolli is accused of, I am sure. People said I should have killed Hallbjorn when he was a boy rather than foster him. But if I killed the kin of every man I killed . . .”
Sigurd laughed. “If you did that, Norway would have only women living in it,” he said.
“And women more vengeful than men,” said Ragnvald. He shook his head. Einar glanced at Sigurd. Hallbjorn was half-brother to both of them. “Find out what you can,” Ragnvald said to Einar, “from Aldi’s men, from your mother—anything that will help me save your brother.”
“My brother Rolli?” Einar asked sharply.
Ragnvald looked back at him, and Einar regretted his words. He did not need to give his father reason to doubt his loyalty, not now. “Both of them, of course,” he said flatly.
* * *
Einar wandered back down the hill, leaving his father and Sigurd, toward where Aldi’s men camped. Before he could decide what to say to them, he saw his mother approaching, looking handsome in her blue and gold. She waved him over and he followed her to the small grove that separated Guthorm’s hall and Harald’s outbuildings. She pulled him into an embrace that smelled of honey and amber, then held him at arm’s length for a moment before letting him go. Stray pieces of hair escaped her head scarf and softly framed her face.
The Golden Wolf Page 14