The Golden Wolf

by Linnea Hartsuyker

  “He won’t let me help,” Rolli said to Svanhild, giving her a hand as she climbed down from the pony.

  “I have talked with my men at the settlement,” she said to Solvi. “We can depart for Orkney on the morning tide.”

  “I wish you well on your journey,” said Solvi.

  Svanhild glanced at Rolli, who shrugged. She searched Solvi’s face for some hint of anger, a glimpse of his former self. He had liked, once, to be so unpredictable that any raid might be blamed on him. Now he only frowned at Svanhild and went back to his work. His eyebrows caught the rain, and when it dripped into his eyes he wiped the water away with the back of his hand. Gray eyebrows, not golden, with the long hairs threaded among them that only old men grew.

  “You will not come with me?” she said. “Not even for your own daughter? Your granddaughter?”

  “What good can I do you?” Solvi asked.

  “Hallbjorn wants to draw you into this fight. Ketil wishes you to be there. Perhaps you would be as a figurehead for them, or perhaps you have not forgotten all you knew about sea battles, all that you have taught me. Perhaps you should not send your wife alone into battle.”

  “You don’t have to go—let this battle finish and see what happens,” said Solvi. “Do you truly think this force can defeat Harald? Can any?”

  “I don’t care. I want Freydis safe. She will be in the middle of it all,” said Svanhild.

  “Do you? Truly?” Solvi asked. “Or do you like the excuse to rush into battle again?”

  Solvi’s words filled her with fury, and not only because they contained a grain of truth. “If Harald wins, he will come for you next,” she said desperately. “He has often threatened to go after you. He blames you for this whole rebellion—you are the only one of his enemies who has ever escaped him.”

  “I see he has grown no less foolish with age,” said Solvi, standing up and stretching his back. “If he blames me so much, why has he never come to attack me?”

  “I distracted him. My brother distracted him. He had better things to do in Norway.”

  Solvi’s lip curled. “Yes, even in Iceland we have heard about these better things. Is that why you ran away? Was it jealousy over his other women?”

  “Haven’t we covered this ground enough?” Svanhild asked. “I could have stayed, but I came here. To you. To our daughter.”

  “Never enough,” said Solvi. “You came to Iceland for your pride, and now you leave for the same reason.”

  “For ten years my brother and I ruled Norway in Harald’s name,” Svanhild said, trying to keep her voice even. “I suppose I would have been content for that to continue. I keep my oaths. Now our daughter is in danger. Have you become such a coward not even that will move you?” She could not even tell whether her words touched him. “Harald will be far from everything he knows,” she said. “We have allies in all of the Scottish islands. If Harald falls in the Orkneys, my brother will be king of Norway, and I . . . I will make him promise that you can return.”

  Solvi smiled as she spoke, a sharp-bladed smile that she had both loved and hated, long ago, and had not yet seen in their new life together. “I taught you better than that,” he said. “If Harald falls, Norway will break into warring kingdoms again, and your brother will be their first target. Come, Svanhild, you made me swear an oath never to attempt to claim my land again, and I have kept it.”

  “I release you from your oath. If you will not do it for your daughter, will you do it for the revenge you always wanted?” Svanhild asked.

  “I told you I will not put myself in battle again.”

  “Not even for your daughter? Not even for me?”

  “When I can no longer wield a sword? Do you want me dead all the sooner?”

  The Solvi she had known before would have died before saying these things. “I have never been able to wield a sword, but it has always seemed to me that skill is the least a leader needs,” said Svanhild. Her voice shook.

  “You think me less than a woman?” said Solvi.

  “Not unless you let me go without you.”

  “So you are leaving again, as I knew you would.”

  “I am going to our daughter,” said Svanhild. “If you will not come with me, for her, then the man I loved has truly died. He would have sailed to her, even if he couldn’t fight.”

  Solvi met her gaze for a moment, but then looked away. “Hallbjorn will bring her back to Harald and your brother. She’ll be safe.”

  Svanhild wanted to scream. No one was as certain of a woman’s fate as a man. “Do you know what it will cost her, what it has likely already cost her to be in his power again?” she asked. Harald and Ragnvald might decide that marrying Freydis to Hallbjorn was the best option, but Freydis would not agree.

  “I know she is probably already dead at her own hand,” said Solvi quietly. “Should I follow her into death? That is what you are asking of me.”

  Svanhild bit back a reply that he should, it was all he was good for. She did not believe it; she wanted him by her side if he could do nothing more than warm her in his arms on the cold crossing. “What about your promise that Freydis could choose her own fate?” Svanhild asked.

  “That was foolish of me,” said Solvi. “No one can choose their own fate. Not even you.”

  “No, but I can rise to meet it,” Svanhild replied, “with or without you.”

  Svanhild went into Solvi’s house to pack and found Tova staring into the fire, while Falki stood next to her, his arms around her. “I will come back to you,” he was saying.

  She did not answer, and Svanhild gathered this argument had been going on for some time, likely since Unna came with her news. Svanhild felt a small pang for Tova, but she was glad that Falki was coming with her. “I will bring him back to you,” she said to Tova.

  “You cannot promise that,” Tova replied.

  “I can promise this,” said Svanhild. “Before the gods, and with Rolli Ragnvaldsson as a witness, I give you this farmland. It no longer belongs to Solvi Hunthiofsson or his heirs.”

  “I do not—” Tova began.

  “Do what you want with Solvi Sea Coward, I will not be returning to him.” Svanhild turned toward Rolli, who stood in the doorway, shaking water out of his hair. “You have heard what your one-time friend Hallbjorn did,” she said. “Will you come with me to get her back?”

  Rolli shook his head. “That will only make my outlawry last for life,” he replied. “My father will surely be there, and I cannot fight him.”

  “I do not go to fight Harald,” said Svanhild. “I go to get my daughter back, whatever it takes. I will ally again with Harald if I must—I will do anything for her. Will you not come with me for that?”

  Rolli and Solvi wore such similar expressions of helplessness that Svanhild wished she could draw a sword on them for their cowardice, as a man would surely do. “Rolli, you have a ship, a ship I built for you. When my husband’s shame becomes too great to let him stay here, carry him to me in the Orkneys,” she said. “If you do not come to me, do not look for me again this side of Valhalla. Or perhaps not there either. The hall of mighty warriors will be no place for either of you.”

  30

  The weight of Thordis on Freydis’s back made it hard to climb the ladder into Hallbjorn’s ship, but she refused to let go of her even for a moment. As they sailed away, she watched the settlement become smaller behind her. The ships that lined the shoreline remained stubbornly in place, though each time they rocked in the surf, Freydis hoped it was the motion of one of them pushing off, coming to take her back to Iceland.

  She had bargained for the lives of Unna, Solvi, and her mother, as her mother had once done with Solvi. She did not trust that Hallbjorn would keep his promise—he wanted a son, and he would not be content to wait two years until Thordis was weaned. But at least he was not likely to rape her on board the ship. She promised herself she would scream if he did and make sure his men knew that she did not go to him willingly, not this time.


  Thordis, at least, was as strong as her name and drank from Freydis lustily as Iceland disappeared in the distance. She wanted feeding five or six times a day, whether midnight or noon, and Freydis, in a haze of regret and exhaustion, did her bidding.

  She found one friend on board, though. Her cat, Torfa, still lived on this ship, and was now followed by a kitten bearing the same markings of black and dun. One of the youngest sailors said that she had a litter earlier in the spring, and now most of the ships in Ketil’s convoy carried one of them. She curled up under Freydis’s legs wherever she sat, alternately purring and mewing to her half-grown kitten.

  On the second day of sailing, Thordis screamed all morning, drowning out the calls of the gulls overhead, and refused to be quieted, even by Freydis’s breast. Eventually she tired herself out and fell into a doze against Freydis’s breast, yawning and lazily mouthing at her nipple. Hallbjorn sat down next to Freydis.

  “Our daughter is strong, at least,” he said, the first words anyone had spoken to her since he forced her onto the ship. “Let me hold her.”

  “Not until she’s done sleeping, or she will cry again,” said Freydis. Hallbjorn sat next to her in silence, the warmth from his body helping to keep Freydis warm even with her breast exposed. Finally Thordis fell into a deeper sleep and Freydis pulled her tunic back down.

  “Let me hold her,” said Hallbjorn, watching her awkward motions.

  Freydis hesitated, narrowing her eyes.

  “You learned to trust me once. You will learn again.”

  “I did not,” said Freydis. “I succumbed rather than waiting for you to force me, after I learned that no one would help me.” Her shy, old self, quailed with fear—she had spoken meaning to anger him, and she was in his power.

  “You may tell yourself that,” said Hallbjorn. “But I know that you desired me. You had pleasure with me. You cried out.”

  Freydis bent over Thordis’s soft head to hide her shame. She secured Thordis in a sling across her chest where she could feel Freydis’s heartbeat, and smell her milk. Her body had responded to his, a betrayal worse than Rolli’s, worse than the betrayal of the empty sea behind them, the silence of those who should have protected her.

  She picked up her mending and stabbed at the fabric with her needle. Hallbjorn took her hand, and she batted him away. “Stop it, you’ll make me drop my iron needle. It was expensive.”

  He held her hand more tightly as she gripped the needle between her thumb and forefinger. “You said you would be my wife,” said Hallbjorn. “Not a dead woman, waiting to escape into death. Now you won’t even let me hold my daughter.”

  “She’s sleeping,” she said between clenched teeth. “And a wife would tell you not to interfere with her chores. A wife is not a slave.”

  He let her hand go. “I will let you rebel this time,” he said, his tone somewhere between mournful and threatening, “but you will learn to respect me as a wife should.”

  * * *

  They reached the Faroe Islands a few days later, in the early morning. She stayed close to the ship while Hallbjorn’s crew foraged for wild bird eggs, and tried to hunt, though the birds were canny about both hiding their eggs and staying out of reach of clumsy warriors. Some of the men climbed high up the cliffs to where they could only hang on with their fingers. Freydis worried that one of them would fall and she would have to set his broken bones, though she half hoped for it as well. Perhaps the man would be lamed, and then she would have one fewer captor. But all of the men kept their balance, though some broke the eggs that they had put in their waist pouches, giving Freydis more washing to do.

  “Are we leaving soon?” Freydis asked Hallbjorn after their midday meal.

  Hallbjorn frowned. “Ketil Flatnose and Geirbjorn Hakonsson said they would meet us here by the full moon,” he said. Freydis had heard of Geirbjorn Hakonsson—the outlawed son of the old king Hakon. He would never be allowed to return to Norway, having betrayed King Harald along with his father. He had also helped his brother Herlaug wreak a bloody vengeance upon a woman, disfiguring her in a way that had given Freydis nightmares when she first heard of it.

  Hallbjorn ignored her until evening, when he bid her go to wait for him in his sleeping sack. She did not think she would sleep, but days of wakefulness on board the ship and Thordis’s needs had kept her awake so long that she could not keep her eyes open. She fell asleep with Thordis sheltered by the circle of her arm, and did not wake until Hallbjorn came to join her.

  She moved Thordis to a small cradle she had taken with her from Unna’s house. “You swore you would let my daughter nurse for a full two years,” she said reproachfully. “You cannot get me pregnant until then.”

  “You should stop telling me what I can and can’t do,” said Hallbjorn.

  Freydis laughed, high and strained. “What is it that you think wives do, O wise one? Why do you think there are so many tales of grumbling husbands and nagging wives? If you don’t like it, put me aside and trouble me no more. I did not ask for you to come and take me and my newborn daughter from my family. Don’t tell me what wives are supposed to be.”

  He slapped her across the face, hard enough to drive the breath from her. Her cheek went cold and then hot, and Thordis began to cry. Freydis tensed to protect her daughter if she had to. He would have to kill her before she allowed him to harm Thordis.

  But he only lay next to her for a few long breaths while Thordis wailed. “She will wake all of my men,” said Hallbjorn. “Are you going to quiet her?”

  “May I, my lord?” Freydis asked. “May I comfort my daughter?”

  “Yes, of course,” said Hallbjorn, and then more quietly, “you are right. I do not know how to be a husband.”

  Freydis crawled out of the sleeping sack and pulled Thordis to her breast. She rocked the girl back and forth until she fell back to sleep.

  “Why did you want me in your tent tonight?” Freydis asked. “You swore not to make me pregnant, so it cannot be that. Tell me.”

  “You can still”—he seemed somewhat diffident now—“you can still give me pleasure, like I showed you before.”

  She could bear that, she thought, touching him with her hands. She did as he asked, following his directions, until he spilled his seed. He took her in his arms and nuzzled the back of her neck. He began to fumble at her clothes, but she was wearing two layers of skirts, narrow columns of fabric that resisted him.

  “Time enough, my love,” she said, trying to make her voice light and tender. “Even husbands who do not wait two years give their wives a few months respite after childbirth.” Men hated to hear about women’s magic, so she had some power there as well. “I am still sore and torn. You would not want to make it worse.”

  He rewarded her by rolling away from her, and soon enough, the sound of his low, even breathing allowed her to relax. She fell asleep as well, only to be woken well before dawn by Thordis’s crying for milk.

  “Does she always wake so often?” Hallbjorn asked sleepily.

  “Yes, she is a newborn,” said Freydis, speaking gently to keep Thordis from becoming upset and losing her latch. “This is one reason why husbands stay far from their wives’ beds after childbirth. If they do not, their sleep suffers. Why not come when you wish my touch, but sleep elsewhere?”

  He yawned widely. “I think you’re right. Not now, though. She will sleep after being at your breast. I know I would.”

  * * *

  Hallbjorn was far kinder to Freydis during the following day in the Faroes, and Freydis snapped at him less as well. She spent the day washing Thordis’s soiled clouts and preparing food for Hallbjorn and his followers. Hallbjorn had begun to trust her. In time, he would not watch her every minute, and she could sneak away. Back to her uncle Ragnvald, perhaps? Back to Iceland—that thought brought a stab of anger. They should have taken better care of her.

  The next day another ship arrived, this one captained by Geirbjorn Hakonsson. He and Hallbjorn greeted one another heart
ily. Freydis looked at him, trying to see the monster of the tales, the one who had flayed a woman’s face as vengeance against her son, but he looked like any other man. A bit colder in the eyes, perhaps. At first glance, Snorri had been far harder to look upon, with his smashed mouth.

  The moon waxed to full, and they departed just after high tide the next morning for the Shetland and Orkney islands. The wind was not strong, but after two days, Freydis saw gulls in the distance, and more ships joined them, with sails of every color, and some of plain homespun. She wished she had paid more attention to such things in Tafjord, where ships visited often. Her mother would know whom all of these vessels belonged to, and what it meant for the coming war. To Freydis, they only meant that she kept her vital supplies near her, in case her opportunity to escape should come.

  As the wind strengthened, Hallbjorn took command from his pilot and directed his sailors in a strong voice. He had improved as a leader and a sailor over the winter that he had been away. His beard had grown fuller, and his shoulders broader. For a moment Freydis wondered if it would be so terrible to be his wife. He had given her pleasure before and could be convinced to treat her well.

  But when she turned her head, she felt the lingering ache in her shoulder from when he had dislocated it last year. She felt the bruises on her hand where he had gripped it earlier, and the swelling in her cheek. With him, she must always walk carefully to prevent him from using his strength against her.

  * * *

  Hallbjorn approached the Orkney Islands from a different direction than he had the year before and sailed toward the southernmost island, marked by a huge, freestanding stone pillar and a deep, curved valley cutting through its center. The islands collected clouds, even thicker than those that surrounded the Faroes, so the pillar seemed to peek out at her before disappearing into the mist again. Some of the ships milling about followed them, while others seemed to be pursuing, but then fell back. It was not yet time for war. The leaders on both sides wanted to retreat so they could plan first.