The Golden Wolf

by Linnea Hartsuyker

  “Not when my father wanted me to send him away from Norway,” said Einar.

  “And what power do you have to do that?” Vigdis asked. “King Hakon once wanted your father to make Heming Hakonsson and Harald into friends, but no man can change the thoughts of another if he wills against it.”

  Einar had heard of that, though his father was loath to admit failing at anything. Heming and Harald were allies now, so perhaps he had not heard the whole story.

  “So I should let him go?” Einar asked.

  “Think of what will serve you best,” said Vigdis.

  “If that was all I cared for, I would go raiding in Scotland too and claim land in Iceland,” Einar cried. “There is nothing for me here, not even my brother Ivar anymore.”

  “Calm yourself,” said Vigdis. “You do not need to leave Norway. There is a future for you here, if you make it.”

  “That shows how little you know,” said Einar, and he stormed from the hall.

  * * *

  Einar did not know where to look at dinner that night. Gyda had seated herself by his side. Hilda and Rolli sat together again, speaking quietly.

  “My lord Einar,” said Gyda, after the meal was over, and a round of toasts had been celebrated. “You are as fine a storyteller as I have ever heard. Will you not entertain us with a tale?”

  He wanted desperately to beg off. He wanted to touch her. He wanted never to see her or think of her again.

  “Must I?” he asked Gyda in a low voice, leaning in toward her. He smelled her scent, like frost and metal.

  “You are lord here,” said Gyda lightly.

  “Hardly,” said Einar. Her fingers lay upon the arm of her chair, less than a hand’s breadth from his wrist. If he had to disobey his father in the matter of Rolli, why should he not lie with Gyda again?

  “Please,” she said.

  “As it pleases you, Princess Gyda,” he said, standing and bowing to her. “Here is my tale. Once there was a beautiful giantess. Her father had died, and she held her mountain fortress against seven giants, all of whom tried to claim her hand.” He continued, as he had once promised Gyda, telling the story of how she had outwitted all of her suitors by pitting them against one another, until she had to agree to the terms of the last one. He invented more details as they came to him, feeling as though he stood outside himself.

  Finally he neared the finish: “‘One more task I shall set you,’ she said. ‘Go forth and slay the giant with brows as white as frost, and mouth as wide and red as the setting sun. Bring me back his head and I will be your bride.’ The giant went out, and though he searched far and wide, he did not find his target, for the only place he would have seen that face was in a pool of still water.”

  Einar stopped, waiting for inspiration that would tell him what would happen next, but it did not come. Gyda’s story was unfinished.

  “So did the giantess rule alone?” Gyda asked.

  “There is another story that many of you know,” said Einar. “Gerta, the giant’s daughter who was courted by the god Frey. Perhaps that is the end to her story.”

  “Perhaps?” Gyda asked.

  “Follow any story too long and it ends in death,” said Einar. He had not been speaking loudly enough for all to hear, and small, grumbling conversations began around the room. Einar sat down, feeling bereft of the applause and cheers that usually accompanied his tales.

  Gyda leaned toward him. “I thought you were going to make me an elf-woman,” she said.

  “Giantess is better,” said Einar. “No one would think it was you.”

  Gyda smiled slightly and inclined her head in response. With Harald’s warriors gone, few wanted to feast late into the night, so after the tables were cleared men began making their beds in their accustomed places. Einar went outside, walking slowly in case Gyda followed him. She caught up with him outside the hall.

  “You have been avoiding me,” she said, her voice low and flirtatious. Einar felt a flush of anger, that she seemed so unchanged toward him, even after wedding Harald, and that he still wanted her. He should have kept his attentions to young men—to Bakur, who he had still not touched, who had noticed his lack of interest and folded himself back into Harald’s mass of warriors when they reached Vestfold.

  In the shadow under the hall’s eaves, they were hidden. He grabbed her arm and squeezed hard enough that a look of pain crossed her features. “That is what you do to me,” he said harshly. He had never touched her other than gently before, and this rougher touch made him feel a harsher sort of urgency for her. Maybe that would disgust her and she would stay away.

  “I am expected to share my mother-in-law’s bed while Harald is gone,” she said to him in a whisper that curled into his ears, more intimate than a touch.

  “Then you had better do that,” said Einar.

  “Are you angry with me?” Gyda asked.

  “More angry with myself,” he said. “Everything I want, everything I must do, conflicts with every other.”

  “So I have gathered,” she said. “And forgive me, I would give you one more choice: bring your brother Rolli to Hordaland. He will be safe from justice, and you will have fulfilled your father’s command.”

  So tempting—he could serve himself, and anger his father while still obeying him. “No,” he said. “Think that through. You would strain every division in Norway, and they are strained already. Harald would view it as rebellion.”

  “Would he?” Gyda asked. “Would he even care? I only want my independence—that is all I have ever wanted. I thought you wanted to help me. We were planning this together.”

  “My father knows,” Einar blurted out. “He found out. We were seen. We cannot—it was a foolish dream.” Gyda looked steadily at him. Einar rested his gaze on her mouth rather than her eyes. It was shaped like a rosebud, perfect even in her anger.

  “We are, both of us, too cold for a romance out of a song, I think,” she said, softly, drawing closer to him. He raised a hand to reach out, if only to touch her shoulder, but then pulled it back. She smiled and tucked a strand of stray hair behind her ear. “I enjoyed you, young Einar,” she said. “Never think I did not.”

  “Gyda,” he whispered.

  “You can still come to me in Hordaland, but I may not be able to hold your place. I will rule there, whatever it takes.”

  Einar had nothing more to say, and so he watched her walk away into the twilight.

  * * *

  Einar found Rolli awake early the next morning by the shore, talking with his men about how to load his ship. Hilda sat, moving grain from one sack to another. He would not be able to catch Rolli alone now. Einar had tried to shape events—perhaps now he should only ride on the currents of fate.

  “So you will allow this?” Einar asked Hilda. “Would Rolli not be safer staying in Vestfold?”

  “Perhaps he would,” said Hilda. “But if he is going to Skane, I will go with him.”

  Einar rubbed his forehead. He could not hold his brother prisoner, nor force him to Iceland or Hordaland. But he could not let Hilda face the dangers of travel without his protection. His father would not forgive him that either.

  “And I too, I suppose,” said Einar. “Though I wish you would not.”

  “You should come with me!” said Rolli. “We sail to glory.”

  After they boarded, Einar made a place for himself on one of the rowing benches, next to Bakur. Rolli’s ship was the smallest Einar had ever ridden. He could hardly believe it had crossed the vast sea between Norway and the Orkney Islands. He had grown up hearing tales of waves ten times the height of a man, sent by Ran, the greedy sea goddess, that pulled ships down to her cold hall. His father, Ragnvald, had even seen that hall once in a vision, and always believed that Ran waited for him still, at the end of his life.

  “What do you think we sail toward?” Bakur asked.

  Einar glanced at him, wondering how much of his agitation Bakur could see. “Perhaps war, perhaps nothing,” he said. “I know
no more than I told you before.”

  Hilda sat at the base of the mast with some sewing in her lap, her dress pooling around her. She, who never liked to venture from her hall at Tafjord, seemed serene in the care of her young son.

  The weather favored their journey, cool and cloudy, but with a steady breeze that never pushed the small vessel past its capabilities, and in five days, they saw the dunes and low cliffs of the Skanian coast.

  17

  In fair weather it took only a few days to sail from Vestfold to Skane, where Ragnvald hoped to find Svanhild safe, and probably annoyed that he had come to her rescue. His ship had a good pilot, and the sailing was easy, so he had ample time to think over his decisions of the past week and regret many of them. He had left Einar with Gyda—a risk, and another test: Would the boy stay away from her, as he had ordered?

  From Einar’s birth, Ragnvald had sensed something hungry about him. He had felt that way too at Einar’s age, jostling for the scraps that men like King Hakon and Harald let fall. Now Ragnvald all but ruled Norway at Harald’s side. But Norway did not have the opportunities it had then, empty thrones and districts in chaos. Instead Harald’s sons strained its seams, would-be kings who needed kingdoms.

  Harald rode in Ragnvald’s ship, seeming uncertain as he never had before, not even as a boy king. On the first day of the journey, he remained silent and spent his time watching the passing shoreline. Ivar too seemed subdued. He had never been away from Einar for longer than a day, and Ragnvald had once hoped he never would.

  Neither of them could sustain a quiet mood for long, though. Even with two of Harald’s sons present, Ivar quickly became the leader of the flock of young men. They ran about the ship, climbing as far up the mast as they could with hands and feet only, playing some half-formed game of tag as though they were still boys.

  “Remember when we were that young?” Harald asked after Gudrod nearly knocked him over. Ragnvald smiled—he had fostered Gudrod for a few years, and liked to see him acting like a boy, rather than the haughty young man he had taken to Jutland, who thought himself too good for King Erik’s daughter. Even Thorir had joined in the play, shedding his self-consciousness for once.

  “I don’t remember being that carefree,” Ragnvald admitted.

  Harald raised an eyebrow. “And you were acclaimed king far younger than these, and had no brothers.”

  “I remember,” said Ragnvald, with a slight smile.

  “Ha,” said Harald. “What happened to my self-effacing friend, the one man in Norway who never boasts?”

  “Was he not tiresome?” Ragnvald asked. “At your side, I have gained so much power and wealth—it would be churlish not to boast of it.”

  Harald shook his head. “You have an answer for everything—that has not changed.”

  Clouds drew in as they approached the Skanian coast. Even when sunlight touched them, the cliffs looked gray and forbidding.

  Harald pushed the mass of his tangled hair back behind his shoulder. “I miss her,” he said. “Her touch . . .”

  No need to ask of whom he spoke—Snaefrid, the Finnish witch. “Women are like that,” said Ragnvald. He missed Hilda and Alfrith when he was away from them and felt more balanced when they were near.

  “But I think I should put her away,” Harald added. “For the sake of my kingdom.”

  “I would not be the one to suggest it,” said Ragnvald.

  “You think so loud I can hear it!” Harald exclaimed. “These past years, whenever I was with her, I heard your voice telling me to end it.”

  “That must have put a damper on your lovemaking,” said Ragnvald.

  “I persevered,” said Harald, echoing Ragnvald’s dry tone. “Gyda was eager enough in my bed—women are not so different, really. And now that I am away from Snaefrid I can see how ensnared I was. But if I see her again, I will be entranced. Promise me you’ll get rid of her when we return to Vestfold. Any other man, and I’d fear he’d be ensnared himself. But you’ll manage, won’t you?”

  “Yes,” said Ragnvald, though he would be cautious and enlist Harald’s mother to help him, sorceress against sorceress, woman against woman. “If you are in a listening mood,” he continued carefully, “perhaps we should speak of Halfdan’s rebellion. I fear we may find him in Skane, behind all of this.”

  “I am tired of this song,” said Harald. “He is my son.”

  “And sons have never turned against fathers?” Ragnvald asked.

  “Not as often as powerful district kings do,” said Harald, his voice suddenly chilly.

  “Yes,” said Ragnvald. “Halfdan has made allies of a few of them.” He glanced around at those who might overhear them, but they had as much privacy as they could get on board a ship. The boys played on, heedless, jostling one another off the capstan pedestal.

  “But not you,” said Harald. “You call him my enemy, though you have brought me no evidence. From what you say, he has been traveling, and gathering allies—nothing different from what you have been doing these past years.”

  “Would you have preferred I stay home?” Ragnvald asked with some bitterness. “I would have. I wanted to preserve your kingdom, the one we fought for, the peace that allowed my sons to grow up safe and my district to prosper. Should I have stopped? Ignored the growing rebellions? I want to make your kingdom strong enough that I can cut your hair and return to my kingdom and grow old there.”

  Harald looked out at the passing shore. The dark shapes of rocks made shadows under the glittering surface of the water. “It will never stop,” he said. “As long as there is power, there will be men who want that power. Now it is you, or it is my son. If both of you were gone, it would be someone else, and will be, until the end of the world.”

  Ragnvald looked at him closely—it seemed like some other power spoke through him. “Then will you never cut your hair?” he asked.

  “I have to, don’t I?” Harald replied. “If only as a symbol. Then those who oppose me will be traitors, not merely kings who do not want to join me. When we have routed the raiders out of the Scottish isles, I will do it, but do not make the mistake of thinking it means our work is over. Can you blame me for taking a year or two of pleasure, amid all this? Have you never taken a year away from my wars?”

  “You know I have,” said Ragnvald. He had taken time to build his kingdom and raise his sons, but Harald had always called him to battle again.

  “If my son is in rebellion, I will do what I must to bring him back to me,” said Harald with a sigh. “You think because I have so many sons, I do not care for them as you do yours, but I do. Do not forget that.”

  “How?” Ragnvald asked. “How will you keep them from each other’s throats? And mine?”

  “They will need tasks and districts. It was my plan that each of them would be heir to their mother’s districts, with the most able to succeed me,” said Harald.

  Could he not see the danger in that? Setting them against the sons of district kings? Two of Harald’s sons now rested on the rowing benches, sprawling across them, long-legged and fearless. Harald then intended Gudrod to be heir to Hordaland. Halfdan would never be satisfied with cold, remote Halogaland, even if Heming let him inherit. Each one of these strong young men carried dangerous ambitions in his breast.

  * * *

  The convoy made for a beach at the southern tip of Skane. From there they would be able to see any approaching ships. Ragnvald had heard that this part of Skane had once been as populous as Vestfold, until a great sickness killed all of its inhabitants. Now it seemed as wild and unsettled a land as Norway must have been before the gods made men to populate it. The only sign that humans had once lived here was a series of burial mounds. The shorebirds did not even know enough to be scared of humans and were easily caught, plucked, and spitted for dinners.

  The wind blew through the grasses that spread over the low dunes, a constant moan that made the land seem even emptier. Ivar and Harald’s sons were still in good spirits at least, eager fo
r an adventure and a little battle, though Ragnvald could not help but see Ivar as half of himself without his brother.

  He had turned soft as he neared middle age, and Einar had taken advantage of it. He had been so certain as a young man, willing to make harsh decisions that led to hurt and anger—he had known that his defeat of King Hakon might cost him his friendship with Oddi, and done it anyway. The man he was today would have begged for Oddi’s forgiveness, promised anything, wished it undone. He looked down at his gnarled hands, the swollen knuckles, and fingers that could not straighten. Solvi had broken something in him; he could no longer cause pain without feeling it too.

  They spent a few days on the beach, waiting to see if Skanians would come to offer terms for Svanhild’s release, but the scouts who patrolled the edge of the forest saw no one. Harald authorized a party to go farther into the woods.

  Ragnvald kept watch while many of the warriors around him fell asleep. As the sun lowered behind the clouds on the southern horizon, lighting the sky with fingers of pink and orange, Ivar sat down next to him.

  “What if they do not return?” Ivar asked.

  “At least then we will know there are people here,” Ragnvald answered.

  “But what then?” Ivar asked.

  “What do you think?” Ragnvald asked. This reminded him of times he had conversed with Einar, training him to think through possibilities, make plans, turn all ends to himself. He had not trained Ivar the same way.

  “Then we must send more parties,” said Ivar.

  “So they can be captured?” Ragnvald asked.

  “Then all of us should go,” said Ivar, picking impatiently at the grass growing next to him.

  “That is a better idea,” Ragnvald allowed, “though some should stay and guard the ships. Still, we wouldn’t know what we were marching into.”

  “What would you do, Father?” Ivar asked.

  “They will likely return,” said Ragnvald. “They cannot walk very far in the time they were given. But I suppose I would take out some ships and try to capture one of theirs for information. That is less risky than a march into enemy territory.”