“You will frighten everyone with your size, at least,” said Solvi.
“Yes,” said Rolli. “I was born for nothing else.”
“You owe my daughter a dowry to compensate for her maidenhead,” Solvi replied. “If you gain riches raiding, that can be the first debt you discharge.”
“I—” Rolli began.
“You should have been her protector,” said Solvi. “She is right about that. If you meant to marry her to Hallbjorn, it should have been done correctly, with a dowry, bride price, and ceremony. If you want to act like a man, you must do it all the way.”
Rolli bowed his head. “Yes. I will bring my cousin a dowry enough to buy her a king. But how should I do it? I have not had much luck in picking my targets.”
Solvi found he liked the boy in spite of his being Ragnvald’s son. He saw almost nothing of Ragnvald in him. Rolli’s mother must have been the one to give him his height and plainspoken charm.
Falki sat close by Tova, talking quietly with her. When Falki had arrived with Svanhild, he watched her with an intensity that Solvi recognized. Svanhild Sea Queen still had one subject. Now Tova wore a happy pink on her cheeks, rather than disdaining Falki, as she had other Iceland men who had come courting over the years. Solvi felt a pang of jealousy.
Falki raised his head from Tova’s and said, “Harald is coming to make war on Orkney next summer. Svanhild wanted to warn the Icelanders and the Scottish vikings to be ready for him. Rolli, will you come with us?”
So Svanhild would be leaving again, and soon. Solvi should not have expected anything different, but a foolish part of him had already begun to hope otherwise.
Rolli shook his head. “I will do nothing against Harald,” he said. “When the term of my outlawry is over—”
“I thought you wanted to be a sea king,” said Solvi. “If that is so, there will never be a place for you in Norway.”
“My mother is there,” said Rolli.
“Turn farmer, then,” said Solvi. “I need help here, and then you and your followers may avoid offending Harald in that time.”
“Yes,” said Freydis. “Stay here. I do not want a dowry, I want protection if Hallbjorn should return.”
Rolli looked uncomfortable but shrugged. Solvi judged he would not keep the boy for long. Still, he would accept a strong back during harvest, and a new face to enliven the long winter.
* * *
Solvi had trouble falling asleep, with his legs aching from his walk. When he woke he felt oddly restless, and then he remembered the events of the day before. Svanhild had come, stirring up feelings he had thought long dead. Even when he heard tales of her over the years, he had learned to ignore them. Icelanders did not celebrate Harald, since he had driven so many of them from their homes, but they all liked a bold woman, and sang of how Svanhild helped win the battle of Hafrsfjord, which made Harald king of Norway in truth.
Solvi heard Svanhild’s voice from outside. So she had already come to visit. Rolli’s was a low rumble that still occasionally rose to a boyish tenor when he grew excited.
When Solvi joined them in the garden, Svanhild’s eyes went to his cane before darting away. He hardly remembered picking it up—it was a part of him now. He forgot to feel ashamed of it unless someone looked at him like that.
Svanhild turned back toward the men at the rough outdoor table, her followers and Rolli’s who had camped on Solvi’s land without even asking his permission. “Falki, will you take my ship and let the Scottish vikings know of Harald’s plans?” she asked.
“Of course, my lady,” Falki was saying. “You do not want to come with us?”
“No,” she said. “If you can, come back before the end of the summer, and you can winter here.” She gave Solvi a sardonic smile. “After all, this is my land.”
Svanhild had been the one to claim it, and had done it without Solvi’s help or approval, making it hers by law, now that they were divorced. Falki departed, and Svanhild asked Snorri and Tova to show her the farm that Solvi had built. He had poured years of work and treasure into it. He could no longer drive a plow, but he could plant seed, milk the animals if they were brought to him, and with his powerful arms he had become adept at shearing. The wiry wool that Icelandic sheep produced was in great demand all over Europe for its warmth and weather-resistance.
Svanhild returned ahead of the afternoon rain. Solvi had learned the weather of Iceland as well as he had once known every eddy and current of Geiranger Fjord. Under the big sky he watched the storms chase one another across the fields before they reached him, as he had once watched the weather on the open sea. Svanhild’s years at sea had whittled away all the roundness of her youth. She did not look like a girl, but she did not look old either—she looked how he imagined a goddess, timeless, made of something stronger than flesh.
He sat down across from Svanhild at the table. It was so strange to have her here, looking over his life like a tax collector. That had been one of her roles for Harald, he recalled: tax collector and assessor, visiting kingdoms, taking what she wanted, and leaving again.
“You have made a farm here,” she said grudgingly.
“I have,” he said. “With much help.”
“You once scorned farmers.”
“I still do,” he said. “Farmers work too hard.”
“But here you are. Where is my sea king? How did you come to this?”
He spooned some porridge into his mouth from a bowl that Tova offered, chewed, and swallowed it. She had sweetened it with honey and mixed in butter to please him, but it still tasted like ash.
“Are you not glad to see me caring for your land?” Solvi asked.
“If I thought”—Svanhild’s face contorted in some pain Solvi did not understand—“I did not imagine that you would become a farmer. I thought you would live as we once did, raiding, trading, sailing from court to court. No home but our ship.”
“I was obeying my oath,” said Solvi.
“You are more than a farmer,” said Svanhild, “even if you’ve forgotten it. Your name is legend. They still blame raids upon you. You could still rally Harald’s enemies, and landless vikings.”
“You made me swear I would not,” Solvi said, far too loud. He would rather speak privately, but his legs ached too much from yesterday’s exertion for him to walk with her out of earshot of his household and Svanhild’s and Rolli’s followers.
“And now I am here,” said Svanhild. “Your old allies are gathering to fight Harald. He will be far from home, fighting battles from a ship, which is not where his skill lies. Plus,” she added scornfully, “he has spent the last three years in bed with a Finnish sorceress, neither ruling nor fighting. He is weak. I thought you would want this—a chance to be victorious, finally. It will never come again.”
Solvi’s face felt hot. So, the gods would not let him die without a final humiliation.
“Svanhild,” he said, “that time is past. I am lame. I tried for a time, but I could fight less and less as each year went by.” He felt the eyes of all of Svanhild’s men upon him. “The sea made me ache, and some mornings I could hardly rise from my bed. I lost . . .” Solvi could not say more, not without his fear shaking him apart. “Tryggulf died . . . and Snorri . . . Snorri had to save me. Do not ask me more.”
“But you were strong enough to make this farm,” Svanhild protested. Her face showed no scorn, but no comprehension either. He had flayed himself for her, and she had not listened. “I cannot believe that the great Solvi Hunthiofsson would flinch from this battle.”
How much would he have to abase himself to make her see that he was not the man he once was? She had watched him struggle to walk to Unna’s farm yesterday—how could she imagine he would fare better on a ship?
“I will not fight again,” he said. “And certainly not to punish a man who has hurt your pride.”
“The man I married before would have done it in a heartbeat,” said Svanhild.
“Then go marry someone who will do th
is for you,” said Solvi. “I will not.”
“Do you want me to leave with Falki?” she asked.
“No,” he admitted. “But you will leave Iceland sooner or later, and I am foolish for wishing it later.”
“I want to stay,” she said. “This is my land.”
“Can you not leave me this, Svanhild? What do you want with this land, now?” he asked. He did not want to beg, but he would—for Freydis’s sake, at least.
“I do not want to leave you at all,” she cried. “You and Freydis decided I should stay with Unna instead. She hates me. My own daughter.” Svanhild laughed brokenly. “You have more reason than she. How have I raised such weak children? At least my—”
“At least your sons with Harald do not have the taint of my seed?” Solvi asked, half choking on the words. “Go then. Leave your weak daughter and your weak husband—who is no longer your husband. Your men—if they followed you here, where won’t they follow you? Make yourselves rich raiding Scottish monasteries.”
Svanhild buried her face in her hands. “Never a day went by when I did not think of returning to you,” she said. The sky was lightening, and a ray of sun touched her hair, showing its golden highlights, blurring the lines around her eyes so he had a glimpse of the fiery girl who had once been his wife. “Do not send me away, please.”
“Svanhild,” he said. He did not know what he could say to her. Their way toward each other seemed as strewn with rocks as Iceland’s broken crust. “I will not send you away. Will you take my land from me?”
“No,” she said. “I swear it.”
“Our son was weak,” he said slowly. “I do not think Freydis is weak. I heard from Tova that when Hallbjorn and Rolli wanted to sell their slaves south, she convinced them to come here. It was her idea to follow a merchant across the open sea.”
“What? How?” Svanhild cried.
“She drank your milk and heard your tales,” said Solvi. “How could she not?”
He felt the glow of pride from her. “She did not tell me,” said Svanhild.
“And why should she? I will not try to drive you away, but . . .”
“What?”
“I am weak,” said Solvi. Words a true warrior would never say—but when had he been a true warrior? Never, not since the fire that burned his legs when he was a boy. “Your daughter is not as weak as you fear, but there are none of us who do not have moments of weakness, even you. Hate that and you will hate her, hate me, and even yourself when you are as broken as I am. I would rather you leave than live with your contempt.”
“I won’t leave,” said Svanhild. “Or, I will only go where you send me. Back to Unna’s house for now, I suppose.”
“Until Freydis is willing to welcome you,” said Solvi.
Svanhild tossed her hair. “Is that how I will win you back again? By winning her?”
“If you like,” said Solvi. He could not help but smile at her refusal to let him drive her away.
“Then I will,” Svanhild promised.
* * *
Svanhild set out for Solvi’s farm again a week later, after Falki left. She carried a loaf of bread and quarter round of cheese from Unna. Freydis stood at the door, watching her approach, her eyes hard. Svanhild tried to remember something about her daughter that might help them talk. She had been a quiet, superstitious child, more fascinated with Alfrith’s spells and charms than anything Svanhild could share with her. Occasionally she looked so like Solvi, or her dead brother, Eystein, that Svanhild had to turn away.
Now she did not know who she saw standing in that doorway. A woman, not a child, a woman already a little taller than she was. She held herself with a wary grace that Svanhild had never seen in her before. Had she learned that from Alfrith in Tafjord? Or had that come later? Pregnancy made most women awkward, though she was hardly far enough along for it to show.
“As you desired, daughter, I have been dwelling with Unna,” said Svanhild, feeling oddly formal.
“You are here again, though,” Freydis replied sullenly.
Tova was passing with a basket of dried dung for the fire, and touched Freydis’s shoulder with her own. “Freydis, be polite to your mother. She is our guest.”
Freydis bowed. “Would you like some refreshment?” she asked.
“Yes,” said Svanhild. She followed Freydis into Solvi’s house, lit only by smoldering coals in the fireplace, a dimmer and dirtier place than Unna’s dwelling. The ale Freydis served her was cold and herbal, Iceland’s sere beauty made into a drink.
“Tova is an excellent brewer,” said Svanhild.
“She’s teaching me,” said Freydis.
Svanhild nodded. “It is a good skill to have. One I do not possess.” She could still milk a cow and oversee a dairy, but she had run away from her mother before learning the secrets of brewing, which were entrusted only to women of proven fertility.
“Is there anything I can do for you?” Svanhild asked. “I am sorry for what you heard me say.” She took a deep breath. “I am sorry I left you in Tafjord for this—I am sorry for everything.”
“I may give you a granddaughter,” said Freydis stonily. “Are you sorry for that?”
“Not if—”
“Not if she turns out stronger than me?” Freydis asked.
“No!” Svanhild cried. “I hope she is weaker, if it means she does not kill you.”
Freydis gave her a small smile. “That is how I feel too,” she said. “And no.”
“No, what?”
“I do not need you to do anything for me.”
She did not say it in an unfriendly way, but Svanhild’s chest still hurt. No, Freydis did not need her. Svanhild had been absent when she did, and now Freydis had grown beyond her.
“I need you, then,” said Svanhild.
“For what?” Freydis asked, sounding suspicious.
“To come with me to Reykjavik and help me buy your father a pony,” said Svanhild. “He has been trapped here too long.”
* * *
Ponies were few and expensive in Iceland and it took a few trips to various farms before they found a gentle, dappled gray gelding, whose owner was willing to part with it for a handful of Svanhild’s hack-silver.
Freydis went with her each time, and each time their conversations became a bit easier. Freydis took her mother’s request very seriously and made sure that the pony they chose had a smooth gait and was not too bony for Solvi’s pained legs to grip.
He was carving a new handle for one of the scythes to make it ready for the harvest when Freydis led Svanhild, sitting atop the pony, into his yard. He looked up from his pile of shavings at Svanhild and said, “She suits you. What will you call her?”
Freydis had chosen well; the gelding had an easy gait—which was good, since Svanhild was not a practiced rider. Her inner thighs already ached from the short ride up from the settlement.
“He’s for you,” she said. “You can name him.”
Solvi gave her a look that mixed affection with amused tolerance. “If I wanted a pony, don’t you think I would have gotten one by now?”
“Yes, but men are often foolish,” said Svanhild. “Why don’t you want our gift?”
Solvi raised an eyebrow at Freydis, who laughed, a sound that surprised Svanhild, for she had rarely heard it.
“Don’t be stubborn, Father,” she said. She leaned over and kissed him on the cheek before going into the house.
“A dwarf on a pony?” said Solvi. “I court laughter enough already.”
“Come riding with me,” said Svanhild. “You can sit in front if you’ve forgotten how.”
He gave her a skeptical look but used his cane to clamber onto a stump, and with a grip on her forearm, mounted behind her. Svanhild smiled when he leaned forward against her back. They had sat this way at the Sogn ting where they had first met, though then Solvi had held the reins, and Svanhild did not know who he was except a handsome warrior with a sharp smile who gave her an escape from her feuding family.
>
Iceland had ice fields like the one they had ridden up to on that day, but too far away for an afternoon’s ride. Tomorrow the harvest would start on these upper farms, and roll like a tide down to the lower and warmer farms by the water’s edge. Every farm helped its neighbors, weeks of backbreaking labor before the winter storms.
Today, though, Solvi wrapped his arms around her for the first time since she had returned to him. She guided the pony up toward the upper edge of the property, where hummocks of grass gave way to a broken slope that only the half-wild goats could navigate.
“Is this not better than walking?” Svanhild asked quietly when they slowed to a gentle amble.
“When you are not with me, I will still be a little man on a little horse,” said Solvi, though he did not pull away from her.
“You never used to worry about things like that.”
“Then I was a warrior. Now I am a farmer. And barely that.”
“Why don’t we rest here for a while, my love,” Svanhild offered. Solvi tensed against her when she said “my love,” and she flushed, glad she sat in front where he could not see it. She nudged the pony forward so they stood next to a mound of rock that would make dismounting easier for both of them. She jumped down and then helped Solvi off.
Storm clouds built to the east, waiting to sweep rain and wind across the plain. The sheep nearby had already sheltered in the hollows, the tufts of their white wool looking like the snow that would linger in those hollows in the spring. The wind brought with it the smell of sulfur from the mountains.
She settled on the ground against a soft grass-covered hummock and beckoned Solvi to do the same. She pulled him half against her, as though they were back on the horse again, with him in front.
Even with the smell, Iceland’s beauty made Svanhild feel at home, though the vast scale of the landscape made her feel small in a way that Norway’s narrow fjords and sheltered valleys never did. Before she ever set foot on Iceland, she had imagined coming here as a girl, to escape.
“The oath I asked of you was not to trap you here,” she said. “I promise you that. Now please, tell me why you stayed. How you could bear it.”
The Golden Wolf Page 28