The last time she had made this crossing, she had been sick with worry for her dying son, angry at Solvi for making him leave Iceland. The time before that, they had been fleeing King Hakon’s forces in the Faroe Islands. She had not been as good a sailor then but was still able to outrun his ships, with her hand on the steering oar, her voice commanding her sailors. She remembered Solvi’s eyes shining with pride when her ship caught up with his. Every time she had made a difficult crossing since then, she imagined his approval, his advice. It would be strange and wonderful to sail with him again.
Now Rolli followed her in his ship as they skipped up the Norse coast, camping on islands, using pieces of treasure to buy food for her men and Rolli’s crew of youngsters. A strong wind carried them out of view of the last of Norway’s barrier islands, so strong that Svanhild had to order the sail reefed down to only a third, and it still made the lines hum and the mast groan. Falki stood next to her, saying nothing, but he seemed full of the same energy that drove Svanhild. When the wind slackened enough that Svanhild no longer worried it would tear the mast from the deck, she said to him, “I am glad you are with me, my friend.”
“You could not have doubted it,” he replied.
“King Harald dishonored me,” she said. “I had to leave.”
“Of course.”
“I wonder that I waited so long,” she said with a laugh.
“I do too,” he replied. “We go to your husband now—Solvi?”
“Yes,” she said. Falki spoke carefully, but she still felt his longing. He would have happily shared her bed anytime in these past years, and had she not promised Ragnvald that in exchange for her freedom and this ship, she would take no lovers, she would have done it. Now her body thrummed with the promise of sailing to her true husband. If she did not go to him, she would have gladly lain down with Falki. She would have a lover soon, she promised herself. Whatever she found of Solvi.
“You will be rewarded well,” she said to Falki. “I have heard there are not many women in Iceland, but I will find you a wife if you want—I want you to be happy.”
“Should I turn viking or turn farmer, do you think?” Falki asked.
“Turn what you like,” she said joyfully. “You will never lack for a roof or food, not as long as I am living.”
They stopped on the tip of the southernmost Faroe island for a night’s rest. A waterfall plummeted over the cliff that sheltered them from a lake high above, a silver-gray ribbon coming out of the clouds to join the sea.
Rolli seemed to stand straighter away from his father, though Svanhild could not bring herself to think too much of Ragnvald. She had not even said good-bye, as she had the first time she left him for Solvi. At least she could do something for his son.
“You must let Falki captain your ship for the crossing,” she said to Rolli as he took off his boots so he could climb the cliff with some of the other young men.
“I did cross before,” Rolli reminded her.
“You followed a merchant, you told me. And you feared to cross without me. One in three ships that attempts this crossing does not succeed,” Svanhild replied. “This is a good time of year for it, but I want every advantage.”
“It’s my ship,” said Rolli. “You always said that on a ship, the captain must make all the decisions and bear responsibility for them.”
“Yes,” said Svanhild, “and I want you to allow a more experienced sailor, who knows and can follow my commands immediately, to pilot you to Iceland. This decision may save the lives of your followers.”
He agreed without much more argument. He was not a boy who feared to take direction from a woman like many young men did. No wonder Hilda valued him so.
He and some of Svanhild’s other sailors killed a brace of small shorebirds for dinner and helped Svanhild skewer them to cook over the fire. “Do you think I can find a way to make it right with my father? Before my time is up?” he asked.
Svanhild thought Rolli’s outlawry was just—whether it was a mistake or not, her daughter had suffered for it, and might be suffering still. “I don’t know that it is your father you must convince,” she said slowly.
“He is Harald’s friend,” said Rolli. “If he forgives me, Harald will have to as well.”
“In seven years, all will have forgiven you,” Svanhild countered. Seven years looked like an eternity to a boy his age. And she had been gone from Solvi twice that long.
“What am I going to do?” Rolli asked. “I wanted to be a sea king, but not . . .”
“Not so soon?” Svanhild asked.
“Yes,” Rolli agreed. He drew squiggles in the sand with a stick of firewood. “And not without . . .” He sighed. “Not without my father’s blessing.”
“I am sorry,” said Svanhild. He had always been Svanhild’s favorite nephew, so big and earnest, with a stubbornness that reminded her of herself.
“Why wouldn’t he help me?” Rolli asked. “I am not his favorite, but I am still his son. What is the use in being the most powerful man in Norway if you can’t help your own son?”
“Or your sister,” said Svanhild quietly. She thought that Ragnvald could have found another way to save Ivar and Harald’s sons. He had made so many other clever bargains over the years. She looked at Rolli, at his cheeks, still full with a boy’s plumpness, and rosy from the chill here under the cliffs. “I do not know what I will find in Iceland, but I will help you. I will teach you everything I can of real sailing—not just following fjords and coastlines—and if Solvi will not teach Ragnvald’s son to be a sea king, he will know who can. There is still room in the world for adventurers, if not in Norway.”
* * *
They cast off the next day with Falki in command of Rolli’s ship. Once Svanhild could no longer see land in the distance behind them, she had to remember the tricks of navigation that she had only used a few times in Harald’s service: steering by sun and stars, and half-remembered lore about the currents in this part of the sea. Every question Rolli asked her reminded her that she had always followed Solvi or ridden in his ship when they crossed open sea. On a cloudy day she pulled out her sunstone, which she had rarely needed when sailing Norway’s coast, and used its magic to find east again.
One day a great collection of whales, each many times the size of her ship, bubbled up from the depths. A few gently bumped the vessel with their huge foreheads. Svanhild watched them, her heart in her throat, and recited every prayer she knew. Such vast creatures could easily spell their doom.
Rolli watched too, wonder and fear making his eyes wide. The whales kept pace with the ships for a whole day, during which the crew spoke only in whispers, before the great creatures disappeared in the evening. Svanhild nearly collapsed with relief. Some Norsemen hunted small whales, and all harvested the bounty from when they beached, but these seemed another order entirely, gods of the deep.
“Aunt Svanhild, what were those?” Rolli asked, his voice high.
“Some of Solvi’s men told me whales are the ghosts of drowned ships, and they hate those who can still sail on the surface and bear their passengers to dry land,” she replied, still feeling the strange weight of their presence, far below.
“I did not know whales could grow so large,” he said, confusion crinkling his smooth forehead.
“There is so much out beyond Norway’s shores,” she said. “Many things bigger than us, bigger than Harald.”
“Bigger than my father?” Rolli asked with a hesitant smile.
“Perhaps,” said Svanhild, smiling in return. “I used to find it so, and I will again.”
* * *
Finally, three weeks after leaving the coast of Norway behind, Svanhild saw the dark stripe on the horizon that could only be Iceland. As they drew nearer, the bright days gave way to clouds. She remembered this: the gray skies that often covered Iceland, making the black of the soil and the beaches all the more forbidding. One of the mountains belched smoke. She was closer to Solvi than she had been in so long. She fel
t as though the tether attached somewhere in her chest, that had always stretched back to Iceland, and the land she had claimed here, grew shorter again, its pull relaxed, giving her spirit a comfort that she had missed all this time.
They made landfall that night on a wide black beach that did not have a single speck of green upon it. A milky river flowed through the sand and tasted of the silt it carried down from the mountains. She gave thanks to the gods for the ease of their crossing. A few weeks’ sailing, and after fourteen years apart, she could again stand before her husband.
“This is Iceland?” Rolli asked. “It looks very different from the Orkneys.”
“Yes,” said Svanhild.
“It looks dead,” Rolli added.
“It does,” said Svanhild. “But there is green and fertile land, I promise.”
Another day of sailing brought them to the Reykjavik settlement, through its fog-choked bay. Mist swirled around the ship, though the sun shone overhead. Svanhild’s men rowed slowly to avoid crashing into rocks hidden by the fog. The voices of settlers carried to them across the water well before the mists dispelled. Svanhild could not see any buildings until her ship’s keel scraped over the stones at the shore.
She breathed the air, and tears sprang to her eyes. She could smell a hint of the sulfur blast that had brought on the illness that killed her and Solvi’s son. Rolli looked around at the settlement, eager as a puppy to greet new friends. At least Svanhild had brought a stronger boy to Iceland this time.
An old fisherman was mending his net near where Svanhild directed the ships to be beached. Behind him, a town to rival Nidaros had sprung up, composed of buildings of many shapes and sizes—a few of wood, and more of stone and stacked turf. The arrival of her ships had drawn a few onlookers, but gone were the days when every new arrival to Reykjavik called forth a greeting from the settlement’s leading men.
“You there,” said Svanhild to the fisherman. “Does Solvi Hunthiofsson live here?”
“Never knew Solvi to have so many visitors,” said the fisherman with a cackle. He pointed toward the rocky border at the edge of the settlement, near the land Svanhild had claimed. She still remembered every footstep she had taken when she walked its borders, though she had never planted there, never grazed an animal of her own on the fields she claimed, never even slept one night on its ground.
Had Solvi lived on the land she claimed for all this time, waiting for her to return? That was not what she had meant for him when she sent him away from the battle at Hafrsfjord, after forcing him to swear never to try to reclaim his land in Norway. Whenever Svanhild left Norse waters, she wondered if every sail on the horizon was his, or if she would find him as a guest in a court she visited. She had imagined him continuing to raid and trade, to explore new lands, to sail off the edge of the earth perhaps, or be devoured by the Midgard serpent whose coils wrapped through all of the depths of the ocean. She had never suspected that he had bound himself to her land, and the farming he had despised.
She bid Falki and Rolli accompany her, and the others remain at the shore. The footsteps of many years had broadened the path. Even the iron rock of Iceland must yield to time.
The clouds hung low over Unna’s hill. Should she go to see Unna first? No, Svanhild could not wait. She still wore the britches that were her costume on board her ship. Perhaps she should have stopped and changed into women’s garb—she had a collection of rich dresses, shifts, and overdresses in colors that Solvi would like, but they were presents from Harald. He might prefer her like this; the woman with whom he had traveled the world wore britches far more often than gowns.
She touched her hair. She wore a narrow scarf, little more than a headband to keep loose strands from her braid out of her face in the wind. Her hair was crusted with salt, and oily from a long trip without bathing. But she would not go back and change now. Solvi would know her no matter what she wore.
The land—her land—was striped with lines of plantings and divided into fields. A weathered wooden hall, little more than a house, stood on the high corner. Not where Svanhild would have placed it, since it added more distance to the walk to the settlement. Still, having wood at all in Iceland showed that Solvi was rich enough to import it.
A fine rain began to fall, and field-workers walked toward the buildings to wait out the weather. And that was where she found Solvi sitting under the eaves of his house. A woman sat next to him on the narrow bench, laughing with him. Svanhild had pictured many things about their first meeting, but never this: to see him with another woman.
Jealousy made her flush. She should not have brought Falki and Rolli with her to see this—but she was unaccustomed to going anywhere without guards. And why should Solvi not have a woman? Svanhild had been gone for a long time. Still, her voice was strangled so she could not make herself heard when she tried to speak. She only looked at him mutely until he finally raised his head and saw her.
He had many more lines around his eyes, and the brilliant, red-gold hair he had given their daughter was mostly silver now. There was still something vital about him, though, laughing with this woman. Then he looked at her; shock, surprise, and anger replaced his smile. There he was, her Loki, changeable as fire.
When he stood she saw he had grown round at his middle. It made him look like a gnome, and for a moment she felt she did not know him. He had become an old man. This journey had been a mistake. She should have swallowed her pride, as all Harald’s other wives would surely do, and waited until he could be her husband again.
Solvi remained where he was until the woman handed him a stick that Svanhild did not realize was a cane until Solvi began limping toward her. He grimaced, and she knew he felt ashamed, as always, of his injury, feeling it made him less than a man. That wound went deeper than any of his scars, a wound that she had made worse by leaving him. Her moment of regret faded. He was the end of all her paths, and she had come to him to rekindle what lay between them or see if it had truly burned to ash.
She closed the distance between them so she would not have to see what age and his old injury had done to him. He even smelled different from what she remembered, no longer like the sea, leather armor, and rope. She had taken on that scent, while his made her think of Iceland’s loam, thistles, and green things. Under it, though, the warmth of his body near hers was the same. They could never change so much they would not recognize each other.
“Svanhild,” he said, simply. She could not say anything at all. She could no longer see the woman who had sat with him—beautiful, homely, she did not matter. Seeing him now was worth everything she had left behind.
“Solvi,” she said finally, smiling ruefully. They were fools together, and always had been. He reached out toward her and touched her fingertips. They were the exact same height, eye to eye, though she could not meet his for long. She looked at his firm mouth instead, framed by the beard he kept close cropped, as though he still captained a ship. No shaggy old man’s beard for him.
“Did you come for your daughter?” he asked.
“I came for her and for you,” she said. “She is our daughter—did you not believe that?”
“No, I believe that,” he said quickly. “But if she had not been taken here, would you have come?” Of course, they must fight before they embraced. Best to get that over quickly, so it could burn bright and fast and be done.
“Harald divorced me,” she said. “He divorced all of his wives to marry a new Danish queen. He said he will remarry the rest as soon as the girl gives him a son. That is what my brother negotiated, but I—”
“Your pride could not bear it,” Solvi said.
Svanhild tossed her head. “I saw my escape and I took it. It was that, and not my pride.”
“Ah, Svanhild,” said Solvi. He brushed her hair from her face. His hands felt different touching her than any other’s, full of care and love. “You are just the same.”
“I suppose you don’t mean my looks,” she replied.
“You
will always be beautiful to me,” he said. “And now you have come back. To an old farmer waiting to die.”
“Is that what you are? I think you are young still.”
“You know I am not that,” said Solvi. “Any pool of water shows me the white in my beard.”
Silver with the barest hints of gold—she thought she could learn to like it. The spell holding them together, as though nothing else in the world existed, seemed to dissipate.
“I will take you to Freydis,” he said.
“Our daughter,” she said, wonderingly. She had tried not to think of Freydis that way, as a tie that bound her and Solvi together, though she looked too like Solvi for Svanhild to forget her parentage for long. She had not been much of a mother to any of her children, but with Harald’s sons at least she had the excuse that they must be fostered to make alliances.
“Is she with Vigdis’s son? Hallbjorn?” Svanhild asked. “Have you made sure they are married?”
“She did not want to marry him,” said Solvi. “So I sent him away.”
“Sent him away?” Svanhild asked.
“She was his captive,” said Solvi, his voice strange and hollow. “Should I have made her marry him?”
Svanhild had once been Solvi’s captive, and then married him. Still, Freydis was not her, and Hallbjorn was not Solvi but an untried young man, with no more to offer Freydis than the beauty he had inherited from his mother.
“How is it that both of our children are so different from us?” Svanhild asked. Solvi’s gait with his cane had a rhythm to it, practiced and efficient as he could make it, though not quick. She had to keep her steps short so she did not run ahead of him.
“Is it already time to speak of that?” Solvi asked.
The Golden Wolf Page 26