The Golden Wolf

by Linnea Hartsuyker

  “You should not have come,” Einar said to Halfdan while he caught his breath. “You would have been safe if you didn’t come here, but this is my land. I am the jarl of Orkney, I am Turf-Einar.”

  “Turf-Einar?” said Halfdan with a laugh. “Your face looks like torn-up turf—is that why they call you that?”

  “Yes,” said Einar.

  He plunged toward Halfdan as his men drove Halfdan’s back. Halfdan attacked Einar’s blind side time and again, and each time Einar had to turn to see him, and turn again, until he had turned around entirely, and his back was to Halfdan’s forces, and Halfdan’s to his.

  Halfdan lunged at him again, and Einar parried with leaden arms. If Halfdan did not get through his guard this time, he would with his next thrust, or the one after that. Halfdan was stronger than he was, even with Einar’s anger and hatred, even though Einar had the right of revenge. He squeezed his eye shut, anticipating death.

  But something checked Halfdan’s swing, and when Einar looked, he saw the end of a turf cutter protruding through Halfdan’s shoulder, pinning him in place. Einar took his chance and slashed Halfdan deeply across the neck. Strangely, he remained standing, holding his bloody throat. Behind him, a small man held the handle of the turf cutter, his muscles shaking as he tried to support Halfdan’s giant body.

  Einar ducked out of the way, and the man let Halfdan’s face hit the earth.

  “What is your name?” Einar asked.

  “Arknell,” said the man. “I’m just a farmer. I didn’t know if—”

  “My thanks, Arknell,” said Einar. “I will name my first son for you, and your name will never be forgotten.”

  “I—didn’t you want to kill him?” Arknell asked. “I heard he killed your father?”

  “I think we both killed him,” said Einar. “And I don’t think you want the credit. His father is the king of Norway.”

  “No indeed,” said Arknell. “I won’t tell anyone, if it’s all the same to you. But”—he grinned—“go ahead and name your son Arknell. It’s a good name.”

  Einar grinned back. “To be sure I will.”

  * * *

  After Halfdan’s death, his men quickly surrendered, beginning with Gudrod, Harald’s son by Gyda’s sister. Einar was glad of that—he did not think he had another fight in him. He would have to practice until it felt as easy as it had before. And though Gudrod had helped Halfdan kill his father, he was also Gyda’s foster son and looked very like her.

  Einar borrowed an ax from one of the Orkneymen and chopped off Halfdan’s head, then picked it up by the hair. Blood from the severed neck dripped on the thick turf. Fear contorted Gudrod’s beautiful face as Einar strode over to him, carrying his trophy. Two Orkneymen held his arms behind his back.

  “I was only following my brother,” Gudrod explained, desperately. “He told me it was the only way to get kingdoms for ourselves. It was he who ordered your father burned. I wanted us to kill him fairly, in a duel.”

  Einar shook his head, and his men pulled Gudrod’s arms back farther.

  “My father will kill you if you kill me,” Gudrod gasped out.

  Einar held up Halfdan’s head. “I’ve already killed one of your brothers. Your father’s wrath is assured. Why should I not kill you as well, and all of your men? Then at least I will delay my death for a time.” He walked in close to Gudrod, so he could smell his fear-sweat and the blood spattered on him from the battle. “That is all any of us can do, delay death. But some are more cowardly about it than others.”

  Gudrod’s face twisted in rage. “Coward? When you have me bound? Face me like a man.”

  “I already did,” said Einar. “I faced you like a jarl, the jarl of Orkney, and you lost. Now tell me why I should let you live. How will you help me?”

  Gudrod swallowed. “I will tell my father that you spared my life when you could have taken it. I will tell him that you only took your just revenge.”

  “Revenge he should have taken,” said Einar.

  “Revenge he should have taken,” Gudrod repeated. “I will say all of that if you let me go.”

  “And your men?”

  Gudrod nodded. “Yes, yes, them too.”

  Einar curled his lip. “Of course. Them too. Swear it, before me, your men, and the gods, and I will let you live, provision your ships, and send you back to your father. If you break your oath, I will know and the gods will know, and you will draw every breath in fear until you die on my sword.”

  “How will you know?” Gudrod asked, still fearful.

  Einar saw Freydis out of the corner of his eye, bringing water to the wounded. “The gods that have taken my eye have given me sight to make up for it,” he said, a lie, but one Gudrod would believe. His father had seen visions.

  Gudrod shuddered and nodded. “I will swear,” he said.

  Epilogue

  Einar stood next to Freydis and Svanhild as they watched Thordis and the warrior Thorgeir exchange their marriage vows. Thordis wore a deep green dress that looked well with her red-gold hair. She was beautiful, but the impression she gave was of strength even more than beauty. She had grown up taller than Freydis, nearly as tall as Einar, and all said she looked so much like him, she could have been his daughter. Indeed, she had known no other father.

  Einar knew that Freydis wished her daughter were marrying a younger man, but Thorgeir had been fighting at Einar’s side since Harald’s final visit to Orkney, and Einar esteemed him well. And Thordis had chosen him herself.

  Einar’s sons Arknell, Thorkell, and Thorstein stood together, watching Thordis and Thorgeir share their wedding cup. Thorkell and Thorstein giggled and shushed each other, while Arknell tried to act as though he was above their foolishness. At fifteen, he considered himself a full-grown man.

  “I wish Father could have seen this,” said Freydis.

  Einar glanced at Svanhild, whose hair had gone all to white now. She had sent out Solvi’s body on a burning boat the previous year, and come to Orkney after Freydis sent a messenger to Iceland inviting her to see Thordis wed.

  “I do too,” said Svanhild. “He would have been pleased to see Thordis grown, to see your sons turning into men. But he was in so much pain last year that I am glad he was spared another winter.”

  The guests tramped up to the hall for a long afternoon and evening of feasting before putting the couple to bed. After Einar had toasted the couple, and so had Thorgeir’s companions, Svanhild stood, raising her glass.

  “I know it is unusual for a woman to give a toast,” she said, giving a self-deprecating smile, “but I bring well-wishes for the couple from Rolli—Hrolf Ragnvaldsson, who now styles himself a Frankish duke. The Emperor Charles gives him more gold than he knows how to spend, so he has promised to send some to you.”

  A cheer went up, and Freydis raised a toast to Duke Hrolf. Svanhild had told them how she and Solvi taught Rolli everything they knew about making war and seafaring, and how he had gone on to surpass them. He never returned to Norway but gained followers wherever he went, and was known as Hrolf the Ganger, Hrolf the Walker, too big a man to ride even the largest horse. He attacked the Franks for years until their Emperor Charles bribed him with land, a title, and gold rather than face his continued raids.

  Perhaps Rolli would send aid to his half-brother if Einar asked. Thorir sent ships sometimes, even though Einar’s byname for him had stuck, and he would go to his grave known as Thorir the Silent for refusing to speak up for his father. Wedding Harald’s daughter Alof had helped ensure his silence. Still, Einar did not scorn his help. The Danes threatened the islands as regularly as summer. Einar’s new son-in-law had fought battles against them at Einar’s side for many years before this day. Thorgeir had been wounded in the shoulder last summer and Freydis said he would not recover his fighting strength. Thordis had tended his wound all winter and, in the spring, decided to wed him, and bring him to take up her inheritance in Iceland—the farm of old Unna the Wise. Thorgeir was still strong enough to be
a farmer, and weary of war.

  Einar too was weary of war, but it was the price he paid for peace with Harald, and freedom from his revenge, and so he paid it willingly.

  All throughout the hot summer that had followed Ragnvald’s death, Einar looked for Harald’s coming. Gudrod would deliver his message, Einar had been sure of that. He had shown enough fear that many of his fellow warriors looked at him with disgust. Some of them had asked Einar if they could stay in the Orkney Islands, since they would not be welcome in Norway again, not having been at Halfdan’s side when he killed Ragnvald, and then having failed to prevent Halfdan’s death, and so Einar let them stay, though not without misgivings.

  That summer too Freydis’s stomach had taken the curve that became Einar’s first son, growing inside her. He had not thought that he could ever feel pure joy again, but touching the swelling of life within her made Einar feel as full and blessed as he ever had at Ivar’s side, though never without a twinge of pain. Ivar would never meet Einar’s sons, nor father his own.

  But he brought his sons to Ivar’s grave mound, high on the Orkney hillside, and told them of their uncle. Perhaps that was why the fates had moved to keep him in Orkney.

  Harald did not come until the autumn, bringing ten ships, enough to kill all the men of Orkney if he chose. Einar called a meeting of the mainland farmers, and stood before them, with Freydis by his side.

  “There is no chance of defeating Harald, as there was with Halfdan,” he said to them. The men had brought their makeshift weapons, ready to fight for him again. “I will go and make the case for my life. If he kills me, it will be me alone.”

  “If he kills you, we will make sure your son is jarl of Orkney after you,” said Arknell.

  If Harald killed him, Einar hoped that Freydis would be able to make her way to Iceland, to her mother and father, and give her children a different inheritance, since he would leave her nothing. But he nodded his thanks to Arknell. He had not thought to find belonging here, at the edge of the world.

  He walked down to the shore, unarmed, with his hair unbound, as if in mourning. He met Harald and his ships, standing still while men surged around him, tied his hands, and brought him into Harald’s vessel.

  “What is this?” Harald asked, gesturing up at the mainland’s great hill.

  Einar turned and saw the men of Orkney arrayed on the slope, watching. He bowed to Harald, and said, “My king, you are welcome to the Orkney Islands. Will you accept hospitality from their jarl?”

  Harald looked very grave, and for the first time Einar saw what he would look like as an old man, with the furrow between his brows drawn even deeper. Ragnvald had wanted Harald to know what it was to lose a son, and now he did.

  “You offer me hospitality when you stand on my ship?” Harald asked, his voice quiet and dangerous. “I have come to kill you for killing my son.”

  “I know,” said Einar. “I did not think you would come to reward me, even for avenging your best adviser and closest friend.”

  Harald’s jaw tightened.

  “Before you kill me,” said Einar, “please tell me—do you miss him? My father was not an easy man, but I know you valued him.”

  Harald sighed. “I did. Now . . . I am surrounded by men who are loyal and praise me often, but not a one will tell me the truth, no matter how much I need to hear it, and their advice has no more sense than the noise of the wind in the grasses. Your father was as crafty as Odin.”

  “In the end, not crafty enough,” said Einar. “Not to find a way to keep your friendship and his life. He knew that he must choose, and he chose his death. When your son came to Orkney, I made a different choice.” He gestured up at the Orkneymen. “We defended our lands.”

  “Your father told me you were a gifted poet,” said Harald. “Tell me, did you give Hilda the words she said against me? I still hear them repeated whenever I displease someone. A wolf-king who makes his subjects into deer?”

  Einar shook his head. “No, those were her words, the words of a sorrowing mother. And here are my words, the words of a sorrowing son, a sorrowing brother, with no more poetry: I wish there had been a way for my father and your son to both live, for myself and your son both to live. For my brother to live. But fate sets us on these paths. If you let me live, I will be your loyal jarl in Orkney, I will defend these lands and send you taxes. And I will avenge wrongs done against you.” He looked at Harald until he had to meet Einar’s gaze. “Wrongs like the murder of Ragnvald the Mighty.”

  Harald bowed his head. “I will not kill you, Einar Ragnvaldsson. But I will demand a wergild of you, and if you do not pay it, your lands and your life will be forfeit.” He named a sum that even his father, at the height of his wealth, would have been hard-pressed to raise.

  Einar nodded—perhaps it would be better if Harald killed him now, rather than forcing him to beggar Orkney to pay for his life. “When must I deliver this to you?” he asked.

  Harald gave him a small smile, touched with sadness. “I had thought to lead an expedition against the Danish raiders who now occupy the Shetland Islands, so I would not make this journey only to kill one young man. But I find I am weary of war, and want to go home again. I can, however, leave you some warriors and ships. Send them back to me when you have put the Shetlands under your power, and send my wergild with them.”

  “Thank you, my king,” said Einar. Ships and men—men to feed through the winter, but at least he could take the wergild from the Danish raiders.

  He bowed to Harald and took his leave, but as he turned to go, Harald called after him. Einar looked back.

  “Einar Ragnvaldsson,” Harald said, putting a hand over his heart. “I miss him. I will never stop missing him.”

  Einar nodded, and returned the gesture. “Neither will I.”

  Einar had sent Harald the wergild he required, and rich taxes taken from Danish raiders every year since. Yet the Danes still threatened the islands, and one day Einar’s sons would go into battle against them. Would his father have been pleased to see this day? To see Thordis wed, to see his family line continue and spread across the north? To see his grandsons growing into strong young men? Einar hoped he would have, and been glad, as well, to see his son acclaimed and praised as Turf-Einar Ragnvaldsson, jarl of the Orkney Islands.

  Author’s Note

  Like The Half-Drowned King and The Sea Queen, The Golden Wolf is a work of fiction that takes its inspiration from “The Saga of Harald Harfagr” in Snorri Sturluson’s Heimskringla, The Saga of the Kings of Norway. It further incorporates some information from the Orkneyinga Saga, a thirteenth-century history of the earls of Orkney.

  In The Golden Wolf, I have dramatized many of the semihistorical events from Heimskringla, but I have also combined some characters, and compressed some events for narrative effect, particularly those leading to Einar becoming jarl of Orkney. I have also invented some events and relationships, like the affair between Gyda and Einar. Sigurd’s death from a scratch dealt him by a tooth on the head of a man he had decapitated is from Heimskringla, and it was too good a detail to leave out. Ragnvald’s anger with his son is present in Heimskringla, and though he does not blame Einar for Ivar’s death in the saga, it seemed natural to me that this is where his anger would have come from.

  In writing The Golden Wolf and the other books in the trilogy, I have used the stories in the Heimskringla as a jumping-off point, and also asked myself what might have been the real events behind the stories that Snorri Sturluson and others passed on and recorded.

  Ninth-century Norway exists on the boundary of myth and history, and the existing sources for the life of Harald and his contemporaries were written many centuries later. Much of what we know about the era comes from the archaeological record, not written records. Vikings did not have written language besides runes, the angular writing found on markers like the Danish Jelling stones, which were raised in memory of great deeds and departed family. Runes in Viking Age Norway were used for fortune-telling, as
well as some religious and other monuments but not for historical record keeping.

  In the thirteenth century the Icelander Snorri Sturluson, a historian, poet, and politician, would write down the Heimskringla and many other sagas. The Heimskringla was based on oral tradition and almost certainly has gaps and inaccuracies. Furthermore, many scholars believe that Snorri Sturluson used the saga to make certain implicit arguments about Iceland’s political situation at the time, leading him to highlight some stories and leave out others.

  Other historical records do attest that Einar Ragnvaldsson, later known as Torf-Einar, became jarl of Orkney and the progenitor of a line of Orkney rulers. Similarly, Hrolf Ragnvaldsson became Duke Rollo of Normandy and was the great-great-great-grandfather of William the Conqueror, who invaded England in 1066.

  By the late ninth century, Arab explorers had begun to travel to Scandinavia and chronicle their travels, which also have given us some glimpses into viking culture, as in the writings of Ibn Fadlan. The minor, invented characters of Aban al-Rashid and Bakur are my small acknowledgment of that.

  Sources

  Here are a few, but not nearly all, of the books I have found valuable in researching Viking Age Norway and early medieval Europe. This includes works used for researching The Half-Drowned King and The Sea Queen as well. Christie Ward’s Viking Answer Lady website, www.vikinganswerlady.com, is also a helpful resource.

  Bagge, Sverre. From Viking Stronghold to Christian Kingdom: State Formation in Norway, c. 900–1350. Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Press, 2010.

  Bauer, Susan Wise. The History of the Medieval World: From the Conversion of Constantine to the First Crusade. New York: W. W. Norton, 2010.