“You had only one purpose, and that was to protect him,” said Ragnvald. “You swore. You swore.”
“We swore,” said Einar. “We swore that we would never go into battle without one another. I swore to protect him.”
“With your dying breath, you said. And yet you live.”
“Should I die, Father? Would you kill me now? I do not want to live without him either.” His voice held too much bitterness for such a young man, even a young man who had bedded a queen and killed many men. “Kill me or forgive me, Father. I would rather have died than him.”
“Do not call me ‘Father.’ You have failed in your duties as a son, and so you are no longer mine,” said Ragnvald, and now he was crying too. “You swore. You swore.”
“You separated us first,” said Einar, half to himself.
“What did you say?” Ragnvald asked, almost grateful—Einar’s words had brought back the cold emptiness that could freeze these tears.
“You left me in Vestfold without him. You caused me to break my oath first.”
“You blame me for this?”
“No, I blame myself,” said Einar. “And I blame Ivar for letting himself get killed. I blame Geirbjorn Hakonsson. I blame King Harald for attacking here—what is Orkney to him? I blame Aunt Svanhild for leaving him and pricking his pride, and I blame you for not talking him out of it.”
“So you do blame me,” said Ragnvald.
“What good does blame do, Father? Or what shall I call you now? King Ragnvald? Go away and let me heal or die. If you are not my father, then I am not your son, and I will no longer do your bidding.”
He rolled over and turned away, his back shaking like a boy’s. Ragnvald stumbled out of the hall. It was a gray day, clouds moving swiftly overhead, gray on gray on gray, with moisture in the air, cooling his hot cheeks. No matter what Oddi said, Einar should have died with his brother. It was the fates who had done wrong in saving him.
* * *
When Ragnvald left, Freydis’s child erupted into great, desperate screams, so loud and angry that Einar felt jealous. He would scream like that if he could, at his father, at the fates, at Geirbjorn Hakonsson, who had, Einar supposed, finally exacted his vengeance for the death of his own father from Ragnvald’s scheming.
Einar heard people milling around, but missing one eye and with a great bandage over his face, half the room was blank to him. Svanhild walked around to his seeing side and took his hand.
“Einar,” she said gently, “your brother will be buried tomorrow, and then I will leave. Do you want to come with me to Iceland? I will always have room for my family there.”
Einar ignored her.
She squeezed his hand, and then let it go. “I cannot stay past the funeral. But remember my offer. There is a place for you in Iceland.”
She departed with Rolli, leaving only Oddi, and Freydis, who sat down in her chair by his side.
“He didn’t mean it,” said Oddi. “Your father. He loves you.”
Einar did not answer him either.
“He’s in pain. He didn’t mean it,” Oddi continued.
“He did,” said Einar. “He says nothing he does not mean, nothing that is not true.”
“No,” said Oddi. “He is not such a paragon as that. And this is not true. This is not your fault. Are you a god, who should prevent every death?”
“My task was to protect Ivar, and I did not. I should have died protecting him, and I did not. Can you deny that?” Einar asked.
“Yes, I can,” said Oddi. “You cannot control fate. And you are not a slave to die for your brother on his pyre, so do not think of it.”
“He will not be burned,” said Einar.
“Then to die with him. That is not your fate, to be buried next to him.”
“I broke my oath,” Einar insisted.
“You were both fighting off your enemies when he died. You should think of avenging him now,” said Oddi.
Einar opened and closed his sword hand. What vengeance could he take when he had already killed Geirbjorn Hakonsson?
Oddi sat with him for a while longer, and then left when his stomach began to growl, leaving Einar alone with Freydis. She stayed by him, as she had since Hoy, sometimes singing to her daughter, sometimes giving him broth by the spoonful. Once he caught the names “Diarmuid” and “Grainne” in her song, and tears had come that burned his missing eye, causing salty blood to leak from the wound. He thought of Gyda, also red-gold and pale, like Freydis. She would never call him beautiful now.
Freydis lay in a pallet next to Einar’s as he tried to sleep, waking to give him watered ale when he coughed. He had not felt the peace of sleep since his wound, only fevered unconsciousness and painful waking, but he must have fallen asleep this night, for when he woke, Freydis and her daughter were gone.
Einar sat up. His head spun, and his wound throbbed from the unaccustomed movement, but that subsided after he sat still for a moment. He found his shoes and tied them on. Standing brought the same rush, and he stumbled over to the door, where he could lean on the lintel until the dizziness passed.
Outside, it looked to be past midnight. Low clouds made the island’s hills seem draped in shrouds. Near the top of the slope, light shone from a small hovel. Einar climbed toward it, though he had to stop and catch his breath every few steps. He had lain too long abed.
The door to the hovel was open, and when Einar drew close he saw that within, on a wooden table, lay a body—Ivar. An old woman sat on a stool, spinning out gray wool into a fine thread that would make the winding cloth for the next visitor to this hut. Einar stepped closer. Ivar wore the breastplate of the leather armor that would be buried with him. Freydis was there, combing back his hair and braiding it into a warrior’s braids, neater than a man would ever manage himself. Einar watched the movement of her hands, transfixed.
When she was done braiding, she picked up one of his wrist-guards, the same that Einar had tightened onto Ivar when he was living, and raised Ivar’s forearm to put it around his wrist. The tenderness of her touch brought tears to his eyes. He wished that this was a man’s task, so he could do this last service for his brother, but no, this was women’s magic, and he intruded even by watching.
Freydis raised her head, and Einar shrank away, back into the night’s dimness. Tears blinded him even in his good eye. He scrambled upward until he came to the crest of the hill, then rested for a moment, blinked to clear his vision, and walked down to the cliff’s edge. He stood above the very water where he had failed to protect Ivar.
The clouds had lifted enough that the other islands were visible in the distance, dark gray in the predawn light, against the soft, pure blue of the sky. The air smelled of sod and wildflowers. The breeze had a light touch as well, teasing Einar with pleasure when all he wished to feel was pain. The rocks at the cliff’s foot beckoned. If he found his death upon them, he could lie next to Ivar. Though perhaps his father would not even allow him that.
Einar heard the noises that Freydis’s daughter made when she was happy and well fed, a familiar and comforting sound. He turned to see Freydis standing a few paces behind him, with her daughter strapped to her chest.
“Einar,” she said quietly. “I am glad you are well enough to walk about.”
The calm beauty of her face made him want to cry again. “Why did you come?” he whispered. “I meant to join him, here where he died. I will—I am going to.”
“Why?” Freydis asked.
“What have I left to do?” Einar asked. “I have no father, no brother, no land, nothing.”
“I am sorry,” said Freydis. “You have lost too much, and you did not deserve your father’s cruelty on top of that.”
“But I did,” said Einar. He turned away from her again and looked out over the water. He tensed, ready to jump, but Freydis moved quickly, to close the distance between them and put her hand lightly on his arm. She did not use enough force to hold him if he did decide to fly, but her touch still stopped hi
m for a moment.
“I sought death too, very recently,” she said, speaking hardly above a whisper. “I was pregnant and alone in Iceland, far from everything I knew, with a man who wanted to use me, and a father who did not know me. Spoiled for marriage with all but the man who had taken me. Fearing death in childbirth.”
“My brother Hallbjorn did that,” said Einar bitterly. “My blood is tainted, as my father always said.”
Freydis shook her head. “I tried to rid myself of the pregnancy and failed, and it seemed like I had no hope left,” she said. “So I tried to die.”
Did she mean that it was womanish to think of ending his life? Not so—warriors sometimes killed themselves when they could no longer fight, seeking a more courageous death than one from old age and infirmity.
“Men, women, we are all weak sometimes,” Freydis said more harshly. “Your father is weak, letting grief and anger rule him.”
Did she now call him weak? Perhaps she was right.
“Then I found in Iceland that I was not as alone as I feared,” Freydis continued, “and the people who reminded me of that are the ones who saved me.” She gripped his arm more tightly. “You are not alone. You still have brothers who would value you by their side. You have friends. And you have me. I would stay by your side for the rest of my life if you would have me.”
“I?” Einar laughed hollowly. This gentle, beautiful girl wanted him? Now that he was ugly, scarred, disowned, no woman should want him. “I, who am too much of a coward to jump?”
“You,” said Freydis. “Who are strong enough to live, to stand by those who still need you.” She sighed. “And to take your revenge, if you must. Come back with me. Do not add to everyone’s grief by dying. Instead, stay to comfort us.”
Einar gave one last look at the water, and then turned to put it to his back. He could still feel the cliff behind him, the escape it promised, but it would still be there tomorrow, and then he need not force Freydis to witness his death.
“Little Freydis—who are you to say these things to me?” he whispered.
“I am Freydis Solvisdatter, now with a daughter of my own. The woman whose stitches are still in your face. I have known you a long time, and I know you are more than Ragnvald’s son, and more than merely a handsome face. I worked hard to save you,” she said. “Do not throw it away.”
“Svanhild Sea Queen’s daughter,” said Einar, with a slight smile that pulled at those stitches. “You are not much like her.”
Freydis bent her head down over her daughter, Thordis, who was now sleeping. “I am like her enough,” she replied.
36
The next day, the day of Ivar’s funeral, was as beautiful a day as Einar had ever seen in the Orkney Islands, marred by only a few high, puffy clouds in the distance. Ivar would have loved this weather; he would have wanted to ride their horses to the one broad field near Tafjord where they could go for a good gallop, forgetting that Einar’s horse was barely capable of that gait. Now he lay wrapped in a shroud next to the pile of earth that Einar had helped make.
Oddi had come to wake Einar not long after he returned from the cliff with Freydis, and he went out with his godfather to help make Ivar’s mound, on this hill. Many of Ragnvald’s warriors came to help, for Ivar had been much loved.
A man had handed him the long tool that Orkneymen used for cutting turf, so Einar could be the one to chisel the first square. He lifted it out, a whole mat of grass, bound together by its roots. He later dug with the spade that Oddi put in his grip, and then with his hands when someone took it away from him. Finally, his wound began to weep from the exertion, and Oddi led him away and bade him sit down and drink some ale.
By the time the mound was ready, and Ivar’s body brought, Einar felt light-headed. The ale sloshed around unpleasantly in his stomach, as though his body rejected anything of the living world. He had tried to eat some of the bland porridge from the bowl that Oddi thrust into his hands, but every swallow tugged at his injured face. The texture of the wet cereal made him think of the jelly inside a man’s eye, and his stomach rebelled. He thrust his bowl away, into the hands of a serving girl.
With a helmet pulled down over the fine braids Freydis had made, Ivar looked no different from any other fallen warrior. Broader in the shoulder, perhaps, with good proportions. Einar had already been tricked by another man in the corner of his eye who, for an instant, moved like Ivar had, and the leap of joy in his chest was more punishment than anything else he had yet endured.
His father had arrived when the digging was half done. He would not look at Einar, who tried to avoid glancing at him as well, in case their eyes should meet and his father look away, rejecting him again. Einar had decided to live, or at least not die today, but he did not know what he would do tomorrow.
Last night Freydis had offered to stay with him—was she expecting marriage? Perhaps he owed that to her for her care, and to settle the debt that his half-brother Hallbjorn had incurred by making her pregnant. Save for a few weeks in Vestfold, he had lived his life entirely with Ivar. What would his life look like alone? All he knew was that he would never be welcome in Maer again, not after his father’s words.
His father led funeral prayers, his voice cracking, and tears upon his cheeks. Rolli cried too, his nose and eyes red like a boy’s. Tears burned fiercely from Einar’s missing eye.
Harald’s skald spoke a short verse about how Ivar had bravely attacked a ship full of his enemies, and would surely be among Odin Alfather’s most valued warriors in Valhalla.
Einar, half unthinking, stepped forward next. He recited, diffidently, his voice thick:
My brother lies here dead,
The son of Half-Drowned gone.
The ravens will starve with
His sword forever stilled.
The steeds of the bright sea
Will carry him no more.
His sword, forever dulled,
Must rust in treeless ground.
Son of mighty Half-Drowned,
Tell Odin of your deeds,
Of those who now half-live,
And wait to feast with thee.
Men nodded their appreciation when Einar finished, touching his shoulders as he returned to his place among the mourners. It was not good poetry, and his father would surely hate it. Einar dared a look at him, and saw him staring fixedly at the mound of dirt that now enclosed his son.
Harald led a procession of men, each of whom laid a block of turf back over the top of the mound, filling in the places between with packed dirt. In a season, it would be covered entirely by grass, and no longer have fissures running through it. Time heals, Einar supposed he should think. But time would not bring back his brother, or his eye.
“We will drink and toast our fallen comrades tonight,” said Harald. “And tomorrow we will take the fight to Scotland to root out more of these raiders. None of them will threaten Norway again.”
The cheer that greeted his words surprised Einar. He did not desire any more revenge for Ivar’s death. The only death he desired was his own. Freydis had stopped him last night, but an arrow could still find him, a sword cut, shipwreck. He could not believe the gods would keep him separated from Ivar for long.
At the funeral feast Einar, without thinking, took his accustomed place among Harald’s sons—his first feast without Ivar. How many other feasts, how many other firsts, must follow this?
He raised his glass for toasts when they were called, ate little of what was put on his trencher, and hardly spoke even when spoken to. Harald’s chief skald recited a tale of a warrior that one of Odin’s Valkyries had loved too much and carried up from battle to be her groom. A compliment to Ivar—unheeded by Ragnvald, who sat picking at his food next to Harald.
Harald rose after the skald’s tale and raised his cup. “Ragnvald Eysteinsson—he has been called Wise, and Mighty, and he is both. My truest friend who, it has been prophesied, will sacrifice much for me. But I will not let his sacrifices go unrewarded. Ragn
vald of Maer, you may now call yourself Ragnvald of the Orkney Islands. These lands and all of their incomes are yours, my friend.”
Halfdan let out an indignant shout and lowered his glass. “Father, you promised Orkney to me,” he said. “What has King Ragnvald done to deserve it except question your wisdom?”
“As you are doing now?” Harald replied. “When you have sacrificed as much for me as my friend Ragnvald has, then you may question me as he does.”
“My king does me too much honor,” said Ragnvald. His voice did not have its usual strength, but its quiet made the rest of the hall grow still. “I fear you have given me too many responsibilities.”
Halfdan looked hopeful for a moment. Then Ragnvald looked directly at him, and said, “I will give this land to Sigurd Olafsson, my stepbrother who has been as loyal as any brother could be. Rule this place, Sigurd, and let your sons inherit when you are gone.”
The murmur among the warriors sounded displeased. Ragnvald had refused an honor from his king, and had not returned the islands to Halfdan. Father and son both wore identical, offended expressions.
Harald recovered more quickly. “Of course,” he said. “Sigurd has been an able captain. This elevation suits him.” He raised a toast that his sons echoed halfheartedly.
Even Sigurd did not look happy. He must know that Ragnvald had made enemies for him this night.
* * *
Einar left the feast early and went to sleep on his usual pallet long before the drinking was done. He woke in the morning and saw that the pallet where Freydis slept was empty.
He would have liked to see her this morning, her sharp, wary face softened by looking down at her child. Had she looked that way when she had offered to stay with him? He had been too wrapped up in his pain even to turn and face her. What could he offer a woman, any woman? He might not even be able to fight without his right eye.
He stood up and turned in a circle to make sure she was not hiding on his blind side, but the chamber was empty. He heard the sounds of women moving in the kitchen, and the voices of a few men flirting with them, talking to one another about the coming battle. His stomach growled. He tried not to think of Ivar and of the ruin of his own face, which he had still not seen—mirrors and still water were scarce on these remote islands—but his hunger refused to obey him. His body wanted to live, even if his spirit rebelled.
The Golden Wolf Page 38