The Golden Wolf

by Linnea Hartsuyker

  They moved more quickly now, up the broken slope to a well-trod path that led toward a small turf hall. A few goats nosed at the refuse heap near the kitchen side.

  “There will be guards,” said Ragnvald to Solvi, “and you can’t fight.”

  “I know,” said Solvi, clenching his jaw. Ragnvald was glad to hear some frustration in his voice; Solvi was lame and past his usefulness. No man, not even one as lawless as Solvi, could fail to feel shame at that. Ragnvald’s hands were still tired from yesterday’s battle, but at least they felt like they would obey him today.

  “Leave me behind that rock,” Solvi suggested, with a sigh, “and Rolli, you come get me when it’s safe.”

  “You should have stayed behind,” said Ragnvald again, and again Solvi ignored him.

  Solvi hid as the rest of Ragnvald’s men advanced toward Thorstein’s little turf hall. Rolli loomed behind Ragnvald’s right shoulder, and Ragnvald kept wanting to turn, to make sure he gave Ragnvald enough space to move, that he did not run off and do something foolish. Rolli might be big and strong, but he was also young and untried, and his first attempt at battle had been full of mistakes.

  They encountered scant resistance until they entered the hall, and then only from a few dagger-wielding men, whom Ragnvald disarmed, causing little more than bruises. A woman came screaming from behind a curtain, swinging a cauldron around her head, and knocked out one of the younger warriors. She went on swinging and screaming until Rolli caught her arms and shook them to make her let go of the pot. It all happened so quickly that Ragnvald’s eyes had not yet adjusted to the dimness inside the hall before he saw Falki coming toward him, his hands bound in front of him. Rolli quickly cut his bonds, and went to retrieve Solvi.

  “Come this way, my lord,” Falki said to Ragnvald. “Your sister and son—sons are here. But beware—greet your sister first, I beg you.”

  The fear in his voice gave Ragnvald pause, briefly. Svanhild emerged out of the darkness. He had missed her over the winter months—the one woman who had ambition to match his, who had been his right hand for so many years.

  But the way she looked wildly around—for Solvi, Ragnvald assumed—saddened him. “He—Solvi—is here,” he said. “He rode my son’s back to get here.” He laughed a little. “Not a sight I had ever thought to see.”

  “Brother, thank you for coming.” She put her arms around him, and hugged him tightly. He accepted her embrace for a moment, then extracted himself.

  “Where are my sons?” he asked.

  Svanhild glanced at Falki. “They are here,” she said. “But first, you must know: Ivar is dead, and Einar is fevered and near death—though he may yet live. I will take you to them.”

  Ragnvald laughed again. He could not have heard the words correctly.

  “Dead?” Sigurd asked.

  Now Ragnvald felt as though a frigid rain fell on his skin, numbing where it touched. “Ivar—what? Dead? No. No.”

  “He is, brother,” said Svanhild.

  “Dead—how?” Ragnvald asked. “Did Thorstein kill him?”

  “In battle,” said Svanhild. “He was already gone when I found him.”

  “But Falki . . . ,” said Ragnvald. Only a small part of him was here, in this dim turf hall with the roots of grass furring the ceiling just above his head. The rest had fled from her words, inward to a cold and barren place.

  “Let me take you to them,” Svanhild was saying from somewhere far away. “My daughter, Freydis, has been tending Einar. She is an excellent healer.”

  “Can she heal the dead?” Ragnvald asked dully. He pushed past Svanhild, toward a shadowed chamber in this barrow of a hall. He could make out only forms until Svanhild joined him with a lantern, and then he saw Einar, lying motionless, one side of his face covered in a bandage, and the other blank. His eye was open and staring at the ceiling, as though he were already a corpse, like the form that lay shrouded on the pallet next to his. Ragnvald smelled the sweet, terrible scent of death.

  “I want to see him,” he said. His voice sounded far away to his own ears, as though it came from out of the land of the dead.

  Svanhild walked over to the body, and pulled back the shroud covering its face. It was Ivar, his face ashen in death, shades of blue and gray above the black of the wound on his neck. By his side Einar, even with his bandage and illness, looked obscenely alive, a mockery of the still, dead young man next to him.

  Svanhild covered Ivar’s face again, and Ragnvald stumbled forward, and tripped, falling to his knees. He touched the stiff, clay body of his son. Svanhild stood next to him, cradling his head against her waist. Her hard hip bone dug into his arm. She had none of the softness that a woman should, denying him the comfort he needed to sob out his grief like a child, even if it could cross the vast, wintry emptiness that lay within him.

  “Father . . . ,” he heard Einar say. His eye opened and closed, and he looked around. “Father, I am sorry.”

  “Did you do this?” Ragnvald asked. He came back to his feet and looked down at Einar, at the sweating, stinking bandages. What was underneath that? Would he be turned into a creature of death, a horror to look upon?

  “You told me to protect him,” said Einar, staring up at the ceiling again. “I would have gone with him if I could.”

  Ragnvald’s chill threatened to consume him. “You should have,” he said hollowly. He pushed past Svanhild and back out into the main body of the hall. There Falki was drinking a cup of ale by the fire with Sigurd, Solvi, and Rolli.

  “You,” said Ragnvald to Falki, putting his hand to his sword. “You told me my sons were here.”

  “And so they were,” said Falki, rising.

  Ragnvald drew his sword and lunged at Falki. Something caught his arms, a god’s own strength holding him in place.

  “What are you doing, Father?” he heard Rolli ask.

  “He lied to me,” said Ragnvald, struggling against Rolli’s grip. Falki’s eyes were wide with terror and he pressed himself back against the turf wall by the fireplace. “He told me my sons were here. But I have no sons here. There is a dead body and a young man who has betrayed me for the last time.”

  Falki looked wildly at Svanhild. “I thought King Ragnvald might not come for you and his elder son,” he said. “I let him think . . .”

  Ragnvald tried again to free himself from Rolli’s grip. “You lied,” he cried. “My sons are dead.” He tried to look at Rolli. “And they betray me. I am surrounded by traitors.”

  “Brother, you are not yourself,” said Svanhild coolly. “Lay down your sword.”

  Rolli’s hand tightened on Ragnvald’s wrist, making his hand grow so numb he had no choice but to let his sword clatter to the ground.

  Svanhild put her arms around him. The cold inside Ragnvald seemed to have a crack, the same one that the anger at Falki had come through, and now a flood would pour out if Ragnvald let it. Should he give vent to his grief and anger in tears instead of violence? He felt something at his wrists, and Rolli again holding him still. Before he could resist, Solvi had bound his hands behind him and Rolli pushed him to the ground.

  “What are you doing?” Ragnvald asked, looking up at Svanhild.

  “I will let you do no more harm until you have come to yourself again,” she said.

  “I think he is better now,” said Rolli uncomfortably while Ragnvald struggled against his bonds.

  “I do not,” said Svanhild. “I lost a son too once. So did my husband. And neither of us attempted murder because of it. Leave him bound.”

  35

  Ragnvald did not resist as Rolli walked him out to the ship. He wondered what would happen if he lay down and refused to move like a recalcitrant toddler—would Rolli carry him, as he had Solvi? Svanhild was the one who helped Solvi down the steep slope this time. Then Ragnvald waited in the ship with Solvi while Svanhild, Rolli, and some of their crew went to move Einar and finally Ivar’s body.

  “Do you want to be near him?” Svanhild asked Ragnvald
, tenderness and anger warring in her voice. Rolli carried the body of his brother in his arms, as a man might carry a woman he loved, or an injured child.

  Ragnvald nodded. He did not trust himself to speak. Rolli placed Ivar, wrapped in a thin, homespun shroud, on the bench next to him. Einar lay on another bench, staring up at the sky. Ragnvald could not bear to look at Ivar’s covered form, and when his gaze landed on Einar it gave him almost as much pain. Einar had not come back from that battle any more than Ivar had. Some half-dead creature, like the draugr Ragnvald had once faced, lay there in his son’s stead.

  As soon as they landed at Grimbister, Harald’s warriors surrounded the small ship and pulled its passengers onto the beach. Someone cut Ragnvald free from his bonds, while warriors surrounded Solvi and Svanhild, and separated them.

  Up in Thorstein’s hall, Harald was already fuming when Ragnvald’s party arrived. “Thorstein escaped us—south to Scotland with Melbrid Tooth. His turn will come,” he said.

  His anger seemed strange to Ragnvald, a hot anger, compared with the coldness Ragnvald felt. “Your men told me what happened,” Harald said. “Your son and your own sister took you prisoner. They will pay for this.”

  Ragnvald only looked at him, wishing he could feel what Harald wished him to.

  “Your son Rolli is outlawed again for the full term of seven years,” Harald added. “I never should have rescinded that. He has no loyalty and no honor.”

  Rolli threw off the men who held him with a shrug. “I wanted to save my father’s honor,” said Rolli. “Father, would you have rather murdered an innocent man?”

  Ragnvald stared at him mutely. He saw Ivar’s dead features on Rolli’s face.

  Harald stalked forward. “And my former wife—Solvi promised that he came in peace, but now I find his oath broken. Your sister, Svanhild, is a traitor and she should die with him,” he continued. “You have put up with enough from her.”

  “You speak of oaths?” Svanhild asked Harald contemptuously. “You break oath after oath and now you would kill the mother of your children?”

  Ragnvald watched as if at a dumb show. Harald hated to be called oath breaker, and this brought him up short. “True, I have never yet killed any of my sons’ mothers,” he said, “no matter how much they tempted me, but perhaps I should start.”

  Ragnvald shrugged. What did it matter if Harald killed Svanhild? Ivar was dead. But the habit of defending her was too strong, and Harald was already backing down in the face of Svanhild’s anger.

  “You divorced her,” he said dully. “If you were not king of Norway, her kin would have punished you for that insult.”

  “You said it was the only way,” said Harald. “You said you would convince her.”

  “I was wrong,” said Ragnvald, still in the same empty voice. “You may be above the laws of Norway, but you are not above the laws of shame and honor.”

  Harald put his hand to his sword. “You agree with her?” he yelled. “With this traitorous woman? I will not allow any man to speak to me this way.”

  “If you mean to kill her, then do it,” said Ragnvald. He sat down on a bench, and turned his head away. The knowledge of Ivar’s death was a pit inside his chest, a void as great as the emptiness before creation. “And kill me too. Your mother said I would sacrifice greatly for you, and I am ready.”

  “You are my dearest friend,” said Harald, sounding shaken. “You speak in pain and anger. I will not kill you. I swear it.”

  “I have sworn to let Svanhild and her Solvi go,” he said. “They have nothing to do with this battle, except to save their daughter from it.”

  Harald clenched his jaw. “If she swears never to return to Norway, she may live. Outlawed, she may live.”

  “I swear it,” said Svanhild. “And though you may not trust the oath of a woman, any man in Norway can tell you that mine is good.”

  Harald made a dismissive gesture. “You are outlawed from Norway for the rest of your life. You have lived as a man and you will die as a man if you set foot on Norway’s shores again.”

  Harald’s men parted from around Solvi, and Svanhild walked over to him. He took her arm and limped with her toward the door. Svanhild looked back at Ragnvald, her eyes haunted.

  The hall grew loud as men argued over Harald’s decision, but Harald did not mind doubt from others as he did from Ragnvald. Some tried to speak with Ragnvald. He ignored the fingers clutching at his sleeves, the faces he hardly recognized that appeared before his own, and when they gave up and went away, he shuffled out into the drizzly wet of an Orkney afternoon.

  He did not know where they intended to put Ivar now that he was dead. Into the water, to let the sea goddess Ran have him, as she should have had Ragnvald all those years ago? Ran was a greedy goddess, and she would take them both in time. If Ragnvald had given himself to her when she asked before, he would have been spared all of this.

  He walked down to the harbor, where the waves rocked the pebbles back and forth, scraping them against one another. He wanted to claw at his own throat to let out the pain that built there. Where had Einar been when his brother fell? Not defending him, or he would be dead too. Never before had Einar let his brother go anywhere ahead of him.

  He did not know how long he sat there. Sometime later he heard footsteps behind him and looked up to see Rolli helping Solvi slowly down the steep slope. Oddi, wide of belly and shoulder, climbed down after him.

  “Brother,” said Svanhild, “Oddi spoke for me to Harald. I have been allowed to stay for the funeral of my nephew.”

  Oddi met Ragnvald’s eyes. “Harald will not lift Rolli’s outlawry unless you speak with him,” he said.

  “Father,” said Rolli. “I am saddened by Ivar’s death as well.”

  His open face showed the marks of grief: red eyes, and tears upon his pink and boyish cheeks. An easy grief that Ragnvald envied. “You do not know how I feel,” he said. “You were against me. You were all against me.”

  Rolli looked as though he might begin crying in earnest. “You will let him do it then? You will let Harald outlaw me again?”

  Ragnvald shrugged. He did not care.

  Rolli squared his shoulders. “Without me, you could not have saved Svanhild or Einar. Even now my cousin Freydis tends to Einar and says that he will live. Surely that is worth something.”

  “No,” said Ragnvald. “It is worth nothing.”

  “I will take Svanhild and Solvi away then, and stay away forever,” said Rolli. “If my mother hates you for what you’ve done, then send her to me, and I will care for her.”

  “Ragnvald. Brother,” said Oddi. “Reconsider this.”

  “You told me long ago that you were no longer my brother,” said Ragnvald. “Do not claim it now.”

  “Your son Einar lives, though he is wounded,” said Oddi. “Come and see him.”

  “He should not,” said Ragnvald. “He should have gone with Ivar, as he swore. I am surrounded by oath breakers.”

  And Ivar would lie here, in this water, or buried on this rock. He would never rule Maer now; that would go to Thorir. Ragnvald had only lesser sons remaining.

  “Do you mean to follow Ivar into death?” Oddi asked.

  For a moment it seemed like a perfect solution, but no. He still had Maer. Thorir must inherit. He had revenge to take. If not on Falki, who had only been trying to serve Svanhild, then on someone else, on everyone who had a hand in this. Others must feel what he felt now.

  “Will you go to see Einar?” Svanhild asked. “The women of Orkney will care for Ivar. It is their duty. He will find the best of heavens.”

  Something in Ragnvald broke open on the word heavens, and he cried out.

  “You must see Einar,” Oddi said. “You still have sons who need you.”

  “How bad is Einar’s wound?” Ragnvald asked.

  “My daughter is a skilled healer,” Svanhild said. “He lost his eye, but if he avoids infection, he will live.”

  Einar living, and Ivar dead.
Einar’s face forever marred, Ivar’s to decay. The fates were too cruel. Ragnvald allowed Oddi to help him stand and followed Svanhild back up the hill.

  Einar lay on a pallet in Thorstein’s hall with the other wounded. Young Freydis sat by his side, singing to him gently. His bandage had been changed, Ragnvald noted, and he was propped up on some pillows.

  Freydis rose when she saw him, and cast her eyes down. A deferential girl, so different from her mother. “King Ragnvald,” she said. “Your son’s fever is breaking.”

  Einar did look somewhat better. The side of his face that Ragnvald could see was still lean and handsome. And living. Wrongly, horribly living, when his brother was dead. Ragnvald’s grief threatened to overwhelm him again.

  “You were supposed to protect your brother,” he said in a choked voice.

  Freydis moved sharply toward Einar as if to protect him, but Einar laid his hand on her arm, and she pulled away, so Ragnvald could come closer.

  “I’m sorry, Father,” said Einar. He looked over at Ragnvald then back at the ceiling. He raised his hand to the missing eye and opened his mouth, soundlessly, an expression of pain that tore at Ragnvald’s insides.

  “You swore,” Ragnvald said. “You swore to protect him. Why did you fail?”

  “Ragnvald, my friend, he took this wound trying to protect Ivar,” said Oddi.

  “Get out,” said Ragnvald. “I will not hear you defend him. Why do you live? Why?” A part of him wanted to cradle Einar as though he were still a child who might accept such a thing.

  “I am so sorry, Father. We were surrounded—Geirbjorn’s warriors all over the ship. I killed so many I don’t remember, and Ivar was fighting three at once—I was trying to help him when Geirbjorn dealt him the wound that killed him. And then I killed him, but his blow . . . I fell. I was too late to protect him. Ivar . . .”