The Golden Wolf

by Linnea Hartsuyker

  She was exhausted from the sea crossing, the days of sleeplessness, and had hoped for some rest before having to decide whether to join a battle. Hers and Ketil’s ships had separated during the journey—Svanhild could not tell if they were ahead or behind, but based on the battle that had already started, they must have gotten ahead somehow, hidden by the banks of cloud and fog that had dogged her journey.

  When she did find a ship, it seemed nearly unmanned, drifting. She thought it looked familiar, and the colors were Ragnvald’s, but raiders used whatever sail they could find. She called out the order to fling a line across. There was no resistance as her men pulled and brought the two ships together. The wind abated as the rain intensified, so she only had to worry about the currents. She wanted to go closer and see what had happened on the ship, but she needed to keep a hand on the steering oar to feel how the current pulled on her and steer away from the cliffs and sharp rocks of this headland.

  “It’s ours,” Falki called out from the other ship. “I mean, it’s your brother’s,” he amended. “Your nephew is here. Wounded, maybe dead.” Svanhild’s heart leaped to her throat. No matter which of her nephews it was, she had to help him. She handed off the steering oar to Aban and climbed between the ships.

  There in the stern lay Einar, almost unrecognizable with half of his face bloody, the ruin of his right eye lying upon his cheek. Still, a man did not die from losing an eye, and she saw no other wound upon him. Unless the blow that had disfigured him had shaken his brain too much for him to live, he must only be insensible.

  She bent over him and felt at his neck, where a pulse beat, strong and steady. “Bring him over to our ship,” Svanhild commanded.

  As Falki put an arm under his shoulder to help him up, Einar’s head lolled and he shuddered and woke. He pushed Falki off and scrabbled back, feeling at his belt for his sword. “Where is he? Where is he?” Einar cried.

  “Hush,” said Svanhild. “It’s me, your aunt Svanhild. You are alive.”

  “Where is he? Where is Ivar? I can’t see.”

  “You lost an eye,” Svanhild told him. “But your other one should still work.” She had heard that a man who had lost one eye could lose sight in the other one, but that should not happen immediately.

  Einar looked around wildly, blinked his remaining eye, and finally seemed to see her. “Ivar—he—Geirbjorn Hakonsson. Cut his—” Einar broke off, choking on the words.

  Svanhild knelt down by him and stroked his hand, hard and sword-callused for one so young. “What happened?” she asked.

  “Geirbjorn, he—he can’t have—he—it looked like he killed him. Svanhild, Aunt, tell me it is not so. Tell me it’s not true.” He began to weep, tears pouring from his unwounded eye. He put his hand to the other one, and flinched when he touched the mess of his eye still on his cheek.

  “He is not here,” said Svanhild.

  Einar looked hopeful for a moment, then sagged. “He fell,” he said. The tears started again. “He fell and I could not save him.” He slumped down and closed his eye, and Svanhild and Falki had to drag him over to their ship.

  “Hostage for us?” asked Bjorn, one of Ketil’s men who had traveled with her.

  “For me,” said Svanhild. “I am the captain.”

  Bjorn gave her a scornful look. “You’re a woman.”

  Falki advanced on him, hand at his sword. Svanhild saw Ketil’s men about to square off against hers, and shouted, “A hostage for me, a ship for you.”

  Bjorn gave her a greedy smile. It was a well-made ship, worth more than a small farm, especially to a raider. “I accept,” he said. He beckoned to Ketil’s other men, and they left Svanhild’s small ship for the larger one.

  Einar paid no attention to any of this, still lying on a rowing bench, his lips blue with cold. If Ragnvald decided she was an enemy, then Einar would be her hostage, but she need not tell him that now. She would only use him that way if she had to, and even then, if Ivar, Einar’s beloved brother and Ragnvald’s favorite son, was truly dead, then Svanhild did not know if she had the stomach to bring them more pain.

  Bjorn had sailed it off in the direction of the battle sounds, which still continued, and Svanhild had decided to follow, when she saw a body washing in the surf of a nearby pebble beach. She could not be sure, but it looked like Ivar, with his dark hair, fine armor, and helmet that might be the one that Harald had given Ragnvald as a young man.

  Svanhild did not want to make Einar look, so she directed her ship to sail toward the beach. When she drew closer she saw Ivar’s handsome features, and the mess of torn flesh at his throat, gone blue from washing in the waves. She could not let him lie there; Ragnvald would want his son’s body back for a proper burial.

  The damage looked worse the closer they came. Svanhild cringed to see the ruin of such a fine young man. At least her son Eystein had died without violence. Though Solvi had done his body violence after death, insisting on burning him on a pyre, on the shore of Trondheim Fjord. Ragnvald would be able to choose what happened to his son.

  Falki and Aban brought Ivar’s body on board. Svanhild knelt down next to Einar. “We’ve found Ivar’s body,” she said, wanting to be sure she did not give him false hope. Einar sat up and stumbled over the benches to lie down next to Ivar, curled around him.

  A pair of hostages, one living, one dead. If they had not been her own blood, and her brother’s most precious sons, she might have been pleased by this turn of events. She could not join this battle on Ketil’s side, though—Einar and Ivar, lying next to one another, made the costs too clear. Let Harald have his divorce, let Solvi retreat back into his frightened little life in Iceland, as long as Svanhild could find her daughter again.

  She sailed after Bjorn and the ship captured from Einar, trying to peer through the rain to see a place to land. Einar needed a healer and she needed to feed her crew. As the rain lifted, though, she saw another ship in pursuit of hers. A larger ship, with all of its oars out—it caught her in a moment, its stern slipping past her prow, so she could see the big, red-bearded man who captained it.

  “Thorstein the Red, it is I, Svanhild Sea Queen,” Svanhild declared. She made a quick calculation. “I have come with Ketil Flatnose to lend my forces to you.”

  “If you came with Ketil, you are my enemy,” said Thorstein. “I have promised aid to Harald.”

  Svanhild tensed. She had only stopped steering Harald’s alliances a few months ago, and already she could not read the currents. Thorstein’s larger ship carried enough men to outnumber hers three to one, so Svanhild surrendered to him. Saving Einar and retrieving Ivar’s body should be enough to buy her favor with Ragnvald. At least he could not make her go back to Harald, not after Harald had divorced her. And Solvi did not want her enough to sail to war with her. As long as she found Freydis, she would willingly return with Ragnvald to Maer. He would need her comfort after the death of his son.

  She did not notice at first, lost in her thoughts, that Thorstein carried her not to the Grimbister settlement but to a small island beyond that the local folk called Hoy. She recognized it by the huge rock pillar that flanked it, hewn by wind and time and the whims of the gods until it wore the face of a man. She had navigated by it in fine weather when sailing to the Orkney Islands.

  Hoy was tenanted by sheep farmers, who mostly dwelt in the deep valley that bisected the island. The shape funneled the wind through it, but the valley’s high walls sheltered it from the worst of the winter storms that blew across the North Sea.

  Thorstein pulled up his ship on a small, steep beach almost at the base of the tall pillar of stone on Hoy’s coast. He bound her hands and had his men take all of her crew captive. They let Einar remain unbound but took his weapons. Four of Thorstein’s men carried Ivar’s body into the valley to a hall of piled turf.

  “Why did you bring me here?” Svanhild asked before they entered the hall. “Why should you attack me at all? I am Solvi’s sea queen, once, and now forever. And why would you si
de with Harald? What has he ever done for you but kill your friends?”

  Thorstein looked at her. “Are you done?”

  “No,” said Svanhild. “I sailed with Ketil, but I have not fought Harald, not since I’ve been married to him and then divorced. There is not a side in this battle that would not be happy for you to deliver me to them.”

  “Exactly,” said Thorstein. “Now I can get the terms I want. Which of your men is the best sailor?”

  “Why should I tell you that?” Svanhild asked.

  “Because if you do not want to grow into an old woman herding goats on Hoy, I must send him to get a ransom for you. And that half-dead boy in there.” Einar had allowed himself to be shoved into Thorstein’s hall on Hoy, enduring slaps and prods from Thorstein’s men without complaint as long as he remained in view of Ivar’s body.

  “Ransom from whom?” Svanhild asked as Thorstein grabbed her shoulder and prodded her toward the hall. Inside was dim, and the door looked like a great black mouth yawning open.

  “From King Harald, of course,” said Thorstein.

  The wind whipped her hair into her eyes. “I thought you were his ally,” she said.

  “I said I wouldn’t fight against him. But now I have something he wants, and if I give it to him, he will give me these islands to rule.”

  “Ha,” said Svanhild. “You should know better than to trust him. You sailed with Solvi—”

  “Where is Solvi? You throw his name around as easily as the Norse kings who blame him for every raid upon their shores. But he is not here, is he? And he has not been worth worrying about for years.”

  “He is not here,” Svanhild admitted.

  “Who is your best sailor?” Thorstein asked.

  Svanhild sighed. “That is Falki. If you let him go, he will carry your message to Harald.” She ducked under the beam of the hall’s open door, and went inside.

  33

  Solvi woke to a knocking on his door and groaned. He had been sleeping long hours since Freydis was taken and Svanhild left. When he was awake, his weakness taunted him; when he slept, he dreamed of losing battles, but at least in those battles, he could still walk and fight.

  Tova answered the door. She had been quiet again with Falki gone, and this time it seemed like a reproach. She let in Unna, who carried a basket that smelled of new-baked bread, a scent that made Solvi’s mouth water. Unna put the basket down on his bed, in the space where legs longer than his would be, and pulled out a wedge of cheese, and a pot of honey. These she spread on a crust of bread and gave it to him, along with a cup of light morning ale.

  She ate and drank her own portion without speaking. Solvi wondered if she noticed that he had not welcomed her.

  “How long have we been friends, Solvi Hunthiofsson?” she asked.

  Solvi frowned. Her Scottish accent seemed very strong this morning; perhaps she had chosen the wrong word. “No time,” he said. “We have never been friends.”

  “Is that true?” Unna asked. “We have shared farm labor, and cared for one another’s sick animals. I housed your daughter and—”

  “For Svanhild,” Solvi said.

  Unna continued as though he had not spoken: “—and helped her bear her child. If that is not the work of a friend, I do not know what to call it.”

  Solvi had not thought he could feel any more guilty, not after Freydis’s capture and Svanhild’s departure, and he too useless to help, but Unna’s words still made him hot with shame. “For Svanhild,” Solvi insisted, drawing his knees up. “You did it for her.”

  “At first,” said Unna. “But it is you who have been my neighbor these last ten years, while she was gone. It is you who welcomed and protected your daughter when her mother failed to.”

  “What do you want?” Solvi asked.

  Unna pressed her lips together, looking as though his words had caused her pain. Did she truly bear him some affection?

  “I suppose we are friends by your definition,” he allowed. “A king’s son does not have many friends. Neither does a lame, ill-tempered farmer. If you are my friend, I am blessed by it.”

  The sharp cheese tasted familiar, and he remembered her sending a servant to give him a wheel of it last winter. Tova made a small amount of cheese, but they did not have enough servants for a full dairy, nor did Tova have the knowledge to make more than soft cheese and whey. And that had not been the first time Unna had shared something with him. He had taken it for granted, or seen it as a veiled insult, a sign that she had surplus at her farm, enough to be charitable to Svanhild’s lame former husband, even though she did not like him.

  “Good,” said Unna brusquely. “I do consider you a sort of friend, the kind that can only be made by long acquaintance and suffering through Iceland’s seasons together. You are my nearest neighbor. Keep that in mind when I tell you this: you must go after Svanhild. I do not know how you bear the shame of staying here.”

  “You think I can’t bear shame?” Solvi replied angrily. “I have eaten that along with your neighbor gifts these past ten years.”

  “Do you value your life more than your daughter’s?” Unna asked. “Or Svanhild’s? Or is it that you will see old comrades and enemies and they will know your shame?”

  “You just want my farm,” Solvi grumbled. “Well, you can’t have it. Svanhild already gave it to Tova and Falki.”

  Unna gave him a fond and exasperated look. “That is not why I have come. I am old. Older than you, and all of my children are dead. What use would I have for your farm?” She shook her head. “Know this, Solvi Hunthiofsson: if I could do something and make my children live again, I would do it, even if it meant my shame and death.”

  “I would go if I thought I could do anything for her, but I would be a burden, another hostage,” Solvi said, clenching his fists in his blankets.

  “How do you know you cannot help her?” said Unna. “You gave her the words she needed to make her live when she wanted to die. You held her hand when she delivered her child. You will do far less harm if you go than if you stay, and you may do some good. Young Rolli Ragnvaldsson is waiting outside—he will tell you that you must as well.”

  “You think I would rather listen to that boy than to you?” Solvi asked. “At least let me get dressed first.”

  “Very well,” said Unna. “But then invite us in, and give us the welcome that guests are due.”

  Solvi splashed water on his face, pulled on his trousers, wrapped his legs to keep out the cold, and then invited in his guests. He spoke the ritual words of welcome as Tova handed them glasses of ale. The wind must be strong today—Rolli’s cheeks were pink from it.

  “Uncle,” he said eagerly, “some spring merchants bring a message from my father telling me to come to Orkney, that my outlawry is ended. My ship is yours to steer if you will go after my cousin and my aunt.”

  “I cannot,” said Solvi. “I would be useless.”

  “I need you,” said Rolli. “I did not go before because I knew what it would look like if I arrived with Ketil Flatnose and Harald’s enemies.”

  “It will look equally bad if you arrive in my company,” said Solvi.

  “Perhaps,” said Rolli, glancing at Unna. “But now I have been invited, and I . . . I don’t know if I can make the crossing on my own. Aunt Svanhild led me here. Before”—he spread his hands—“all this, I had hardly sailed farther than the length of Geiranger Fjord. She taught me some, but she said you could teach me more, and now . . .”

  That tugged at Solvi unexpectedly. He and Rolli had little in common, but they were both exiled sons of Tafjord, and left behind by Svanhild Sea Queen.

  “So I can help you sail across the open sea to Orkney,” said Solvi.

  Rolli nodded. “Yes, and we will rescue my cousin and my aunt together.”

  Solvi got to his feet and limped across the floor. He did not try to exaggerate his limp but neither did he try to hide it. Without his cane, his walk had a lurch that almost overbalanced him, so he had to slow to a
shuffle.

  “What use am I to her if I cannot fight?” he asked.

  “You know sea battles,” said Rolli.

  “It has been so long. What do I still know?” Solvi asked.

  “Do you truly think you have forgotten?” Unna’s voice was quiet, softer than the wind that rustled the turf of the roof overhead.

  Solvi closed his eyes. In his early years here, even after he sold his ship, he had taken a boat out sometimes so he could feel the breeze in his hair, feel free of his shame and fear. He could never forget the balance of wind and his own touch on the steering oar. But he had put it aside when it grew too hard for him to make his way down to the shore and when he knew he would never again cross a great sea, never again see another new land.

  “Even if you could do nothing else other than go to her—go to them,” said Unna, her voice as gentle as Solvi had ever heard, as gentle and firm as when she talked Freydis through her childbirth, “you must do it. For what else did the fates send you to Iceland than to be here when your daughter arrived? She needs you, and your wife needs you too.”

  “Even if I die doing it,” said Solvi, and though he spoke the words as a protest, he knew they were a promise. “You old carrion crow,” he added, with a grin that he had never before turned upon her. The corner of her mouth twitched up, the first sign of humor he had ever seen on her stony face. He wanted, suddenly, to live, to return to Iceland with Svanhild and Freydis, to be husband and father again, and to know Unna as the friend she truly was, but he must face his fear, his shame, and even his death if need be.

  “Rolli, you will take me?” Solvi asked.

  “As long as you don’t plan to fight Harald,” said Rolli. “Or my father.”

  “I cannot fight,” said Solvi. “I am only going to try to get my family back. Will that suit you?”

  “Of course,” said Rolli.