Mother of Kings

by Poul Anderson

  He told Gunnhild of halls bigger and more splendid farther south, but she had never yet seen the like of this. Painted timber, shake-roofed, it reached and reared huge, beam-ends carved into dragon heads, gables into vines and gripping beasts. Pillars, likewise carved, ran the length of the main room, upholding roof-beams, and flanked the high seat. Three fire-trenches went down the middle of the floor, which was hard-packed clay daily swept. Hides, renewed whenever they showed wear, blanketed the benches, under oaken wainscots and colorful tapestries. Lamps hung manifold from chains. A door off the entry gave on a row of lesser rooms along the north wall, but there were windows above its roof as well as in its own side, and more along the south, so that during the day the hall was never gloomy.

  Behind it stood the farm buildings and pens. Children, dogs, and other creatures kept that ground lively. The hall itself lay beside a flagged yard, together with storehouses, workers’ houses, cookhouse, bathhouse, and bower. In the last of these, women could spin, weave, and be by themselves. It had a loft-room. There slept those newly wedded.

  That morning Gunnhild rode from the yeoman’s garth in a wain whose panels were a welter of engraved entwinings, the hubs trollish faces. Two white horses drew it, their harness silver-studded, iron triangles jangling to frighten off evil Beings. She sat between two maids on a bench cushioned with outland silk. Silk too was her veil; her gown and undergarb were of the choicest linen, held together by heavy brooches. Heavy too were the necklace and rings from her old home. A wreath of windflowers circled her brows. On horseback before and after rode a score of Eirik’s guards, helmets, byrnies, and high-held spears agleam, Thorolf at their head.

  Leaves were unfolding on trees, still small, trembling in a breeze that bore smells of growth and song of birds lately come back. A few clouds drifted fleecy. At the hall, horns lowed to welcome her, and Eirik strode forth to help her down.

  She thought how she didn’t really need that, but today had better be the shy young bride. Himself in embroidered, fur-trimmed tunic, worsted knee breeches and hose, gold on his own arms, silver and amber at his throat, how dazzling he stood there! His only weapon was a knife at his belt, and his wonted stark short-spokenness had thawed into friendliness toward all.

  But then he left, the men trooping after him. Gunnhild knew where they were bound. A mighty boulder in a grove had long since been chiseled into a block. Two horses stood tethered. A man waited with a hammer to stun them as they were hauled struggling to the stone; another held an ax to kill them. Kettles and cutting tools lay where a needfire had been kindled. She had heard little about what else went on—not likely quite the same as at Ulfgard—but it would feed the gods.

  She spent that while in the hall among the women. Mostly they made much of her, when they were not working. Eirik’s lemans were slyly spiteful. She clawed straight back and they gave her a wide berth thereafter.

  The day had worn on when the men brought in their kettles of horseflesh and set to drinking. Gunnhild shared Eirik’s high seat. They themselves drank outland wine from glass goblets. She merely sipped, for she wanted to keep her wits and her witchcraft. When folk came to talk with the bridal twain, she spoke quietly, choosing each word beforehand.

  The boards were set up and laden. The feast grew uproarious.

  Yet after it was done, and eventide dusking the hall, a horn blew and a hush fell. Dag trod before the high seat. Quoth he the ballad of Skirnir, which told how Frey won Gerd for his wife; and a lay in praise of Eirik; and a third in praise of the house of Özur, likening Gunnhild to Freyja. For this he got a whole golden arm ring.

  Özur himself followed, to give his daughter away where everyone could hear. Eirik made known that his morning gift to his bride would be a hall and broad acres down in Vikin, well-staffed, with a chestful of coins from as far away as Serkland. Gunnhild took the rings off her fingers and gave them to the wife of Thorir Hroaldsson, Eirik’s foster father, as her bridal fee.

  Aalf and Eyvind begged leave to speak. They asked if Eirik would take them as his men. He said yes, they looked to become stout warriors and this would forge another bond between the houses.

  More gifts went to and fro. Horns were raised and drained to each of the highest gods.

  Because Gunnhild had asked that it be he, Thorolf Skallagrimsson bore in the hammer of the offering, now washed and polished. He laid it on her knees, the sign of Thor, and called on Frigg to bless her and her husband. When he had taken it out again, she was wedded.

  Men shouted, crowded around with good wishes, dipped horn after horn into a tub of ale that had been lugged in, drank their health, victory for him, well-being for her, strong sons for them both.

  The fires could no longer stave off deepening shadows. Lengths of pine branch had been carried in. Each man or boy lighted one at the coals and took it outside. Lamps would shine for them when they returned to the hall and drank till dawn. First they had a gladsome task. Flames flared and snapped beneath the earliest stars.

  Thorolf took the lead. After him walked Eirik and Gunnhild, arm in arm. The others swarmed behind, whooping the lewdest, coarsest redes they knew. Thus they shooed off night-gangers and furthered fruitfulness.

  Their torches ringed the bower. Thorolf went inside with the newlyweds, up the stairs. Opening the loftroom door, he bade them a merry night and closed it behind them.

  Wax candles from the South lighted it. Wreaths of juniper and of last harvest’s grain hung on the walls. A table held wine, bread, and roast lamb. The floor was strewn with sweet herbs. The racket down below seemed a long ways away.

  Slowly, Eirik took off Gunnhild’s wreath and veil. He let them drop. They looked at one another by the candle-glow.

  “I never thought I would wait this long to have a woman I wanted,” he said from deep in his throat.

  “May I be worthy of it,” she answered, knowing full well she would.

  He drew her to him and kissed her. It could have been hard and hasty, but she pressed her lips and herself against him, hungrily, leading him on and on.

  He plucked at a brooch. She laughed and helped him undo it and more. When her last garment fell, she spread her arms a little and turned around thrice, her black hair swirling, before she drew the bedcovers aside and lay down.

  “I’m told this is unseemly,” she murmured, “but does either of us need a nightgown?”

  “No, by Thor’s own whacker!” He scrambled out of his clothes. She took him to her.

  She did not yield to what pain there was—less than she had awaited—or set her teeth against it. She made it a part of what happened. Almost, her soul took wing. When his haste was behind him, her hands and mouth roved until his began to do likewise. They came together afresh. Already that time she foresaw what a bliss this would soon be to her.

  As they lay back, he said, “Were it not for what I felt, and the blood spots, I’d hardly have believed you a maiden, Gunnhild.”

  “I’ve given thought to what might please you,” she whispered into his ear. And over the years she had asked of Seija and other knowing women; but mostly it was her own daydreams and sleepless nightdreams.

  He chuckled. “Well, you are a witch.”

  She knew not how much unspoken wisdom, older than mankind, her spells and seekings had awakened in her. It was well that she had gone to the Finns.

  And it was well that in the end she had gotten them slain.

  Memories and graspings alike lost themselves for this while in happiness, as salt does in sun-warmed water. “I’ll become better,” she said, “for you, beloved.”

  He kissed her with a softness none else had ever met from him. “And you are wise beyond your years. I have been lucky. We’ll make a pair the world will not forget.”

  They began to fondle anew. Before long she was crying out, “Fill me again! Stuff me full of our children!”

  She was to bear him nine.

  BOOK TWO

  THE BROTHERS

  I

  In his later
years King Harald dwelt on one or another of his holdings in southern Norway. After the last wedding guest had gone home, Eirik busked for a voyage to meet with his father and show him his new wife. “He’ll surely like you,” Eirik said to her, “but we’ll speak as little as may be of your stay in Finnmörk, for he hates everything that smacks of seid.”

  “What if he mislikes me?” fretted Gunnhild. “I’m no king’s daughter, such as you might have gotten.”

  Eirik shrugged and laughed. “I may do so later.”

  Gunnhild thought she would see to it, by whatever means, that that did not happen.

  To them as they sat in the hall on a rainy day came Thorolf Skallagrimsson. The longfires did not much lessen a dank chill. They smoked badly, stinging eyes and nostrils. Thorolf’s fair hair was the brightest sight in the gloom roundabout. “My lord,” he said, “as you will soon be off, I now ask leave to go my own way.”

  He had spoken before of his wish to see his kinfolk again after all these years. Throughout them, sailors had brought news from Iceland, which he eagerly heard. The latest was that his sister Thorunn had wedded a well-off young man named Geir Ketilsson. He wanted to fill a knarr with trade goods, always welcome yonder. Eirik had not naysaid this. Gunnhild was sorry, for she and Thorolf had become great talk-friends; sometimes gaze lingered on gaze for more than one heartbeat. Still, Thorolf had promised he would return in the following summer.

  Eirik answered loudly enough for everybody to hear: “You have served me faithfully. May you have the best of crossings. There’s something I want you to take along.” He beckoned to a footling, who knew what he meant and fetched an ax that he laid on the knees of the young king. It was a big and splendid weapon, its blade darkly shining, the steel chased with gold and the shaft with silver. Eirik took it up in both hands and reached it forward. “Here is a gift from me for your father, Skallagrim.”

  Murmurs of wonder went the length of the hall. Though not stingy, Eirik seldom showed any kindness or much friendliness; and many remembered the bad blood between those two houses. Thorolf’s smile flashed white. His thanks were warm. The eventide drinking would be happy.

  Gunnhild masked the unease she alone felt. Somehow, suddenly, all this goodwill boded ill. She had cast no foreseeing spell. It was something she knew, as if in a dream.

  Like a hound casting about after a spoor, she searched within herself for any reason she might find. Sailing down from Finnmörk, and then here, she had talked with more Icelanders than Thorolf, and listened to talk between others when they did not think she was in earshot. The seed of Kveldulf that had taken root at Borg was a seed strange and wild. Already in his seventh year Thorolf’s younger brother Egil slew a playmate with whom he had had a fight. This led to a clash between grown men in which seven died. When Egil was twelve, he and another lad named Thord found themselves matched in a ball game against Skallagrim. The old man was being beaten, but as dusk fell he grew so strong that he dashed Thord to the ground hard enough to kill the boy, then set at his own son.

  A serving woman who had fostered Egil cried out for him to stop. She was called Thorgerd Brak, a big woman with a man’s strength, somewhat of a witch. It was thought that Egil must have learned a few things at her house. But she could not stand when Skallagrim in his madness turned on her. He chased her out over the cliffs and there cast a stone that pitched her into the sea. Soon Egil avenged her by putting an ax through the head of a foreman of Skallagrim’s. Neither father nor son spoke about these things, then or ever.

  And yet Egil was already a skald, whose poems grew steadily better.

  Gunnhild had not had the heart to bring such tales up with Thorolf. Nor did she now. She merely huddled into herself and wished he were not going there.

  Maybe, she tried to believe, her fears stemmed from nothing but a touch of sickness. It did seem that she was carrying her first child.

  II

  Next after the high king, the jarl of Hladi was the mightiest man in Norway. Under him were the rich shires of the Thraandlaw, with farms, woodlands, fisheries, and shipping in and out of the great fjord. The Thraands were many, a stiff-necked folk, quick to take arms for their rights. Close to them, headman at their Things when they met to try cases and make or unmake laws, leading them also in offering to the gods, the jarl could sway them far more readily than anyone else. It was lucky for Harald Fairhair that, when he was hammering the kingdom together, Haakon Grjotgardsson thought it best to fight at his side. Together they overcame eight lesser kings. Harald put Haakon over the lands these had ruled. The two men often met, and Haakon fostered Harald’s sons Gudröd and Haalfdan the Black. When Haakon then died, his own son Sigurd took over the jarldom; the boys stayed with him till they were grown.

  Sigurd Jarl was a wise man, who wanted to be friends with the yeomanry. He gave them justice, and help if they needed it, as well as good gifts whenever he guested their leaders. Thus he won their troth, which made him more powerful than even his father had been.

  King Harald had many children by different women. Some of his sons died young, of sickness or mishap or in battle at home or abroad. Seeking to end quarrels among them, which had now and then become murderous, when he was fifty years old he called a Thing at Eidsvold. There he gave kingship over the most important parts of the land to the strongest fourteen of them—under himself. Each got half the scot and other intake of his shire, with the right to sit on a high seat a step above any jarl although a step below Harald when he was there. Most of them hoped to become the over-king after his death, but it was Eirik whom he named his heir. This did not make them love their brother, as Eirik well knew. Nor did he like having them lie in wait.

  Harald Fairhair was in his seventieth winter when he begot his last offspring. This was on a young woman whose family stemmed from the island of Mostr and who therefore came to be known as Thora Mostr-staff. She was of good yeoman stock, tall and comely, but had gone into service in one of the king’s houses in Hordafylki. That was common enough, a way of earning favor for her kindred. When he stayed there awhile and brought her to his bed, nobody thought the worse of it.

  Sigurd Jarl had business down that way. It happened he was homebound when her time drew nigh. Word went out that the king was at Saeheim, northward. Sigurd stopped for the night at the house. Thora asked if he would bring her along, for surely Harald would be glad to see and acknowledge the child. Sigurd was willing. In the morning she boarded his ship.

  The season was barely summer, the weather tricky. They kept to sheltered waters between islands and mainland, rowing oftener than sailing. When a storm blew up, they put in early to wait it out under the hill called Hellunn. That was when Thora’s pangs came upon her.

  Wind yowled, streamed and struck, laid cold claws under garments that rainshowers and sea-spray had drenched. Waves were not big here, but they chopped like axes, iron-gray as the sky. No dwelling was in sight, only grass, bushes, and trees that tossed boughs still thinly leaved. Rocks littered the shore. The tide being high, Sigurd cast anchors fore and aft, close in. From there a gangplank reached the shallows.

  Thora knelt in the bilge. Sometimes she shuddered; sometimes she moaned a little. Sigurd took her by the hand, helped her rise, and led her over the plank. The pitching ship might well throw her down and smash the bairn’s head. The land was at least steady.

  Thora splashed ashore, then went to her knees again. Among the rocks she brought forth a boy-child. No midwife was there, but men among the crew had knowledge from byres, while she was wide-hipped and sturdy. Sigurd himself cut the cord and tied the knot.

  The newborn yelled lustily and soon suckled thirstily. Sigurd poured water over him and named him Haakon after his own father. The storm died down. The ship fared onward.

  King Harald agreed this was a promising cub. For the next few years he let Thora live on a farm of his, well honored, and Haakon with her.

  III

  Gunnhild’s first was born in a room where candlelight set tapestries agl
ow. Charms of the finest workmanship hung also on the walls. Three skilled women were there to help. She was down on the floor, but with straw thickly spread and clean towels over it. The women changed these and her shift often. Meanwhile they wiped the sweat off her with soft cloths that had been soaked in herb-steeping hot water and wrung out. When her strength flagged, they upheld her. From time to time the oldest donned catskin gloves, got onto a high three-legged stool, and called on Frigg the mother of Baldr, Jörd the mother of Thor, and Ingrun the mother of Frey and Freyja. The second, who had a lovely voice, sang songs of hope and cheer. The third tended a firepot from which wafted sweet smoke.

  Nonetheless, Gunnhild was young and slender. The birthing grew long. Pain was a haze in which she toiled, lost from the world until a sound of wolf-wind and dashing rain came to her like a rallying horn-blast in battle. Each throe was a sword-slash.

  She would not scream, she told herself again and again; she would not cramp over or fall and writhe; she would bear down as and when they bade her. And somehow she would find a way to use the spellcraft she knew of.

  Pain could unbind the soul.

  Bit by bit, chant by silent chant, while day waned and night flowed in, she withdrew—never altogether, for to sleep now would mean death, but at last she steered the thing on the straw as a helmsman steers a ship. What she heard and felt was like no more than sea and weather. Awareness flew aloft and swept northward.

  The moon flew with her among ragged, fitfully lighted clouds. Mountains fell behind, huge darknesses broken by fjords, lakes, fosses, glaciers. The lowlands of the Thraandlaw—this must be the Thraandlaw—broadened from its bayshores, hoar beneath the moon. A hall and its outbuildings sprawled murky. Fire-glow glimmered through gutskins stretched across windows. The men who still sat at their ale got no sight of her when she passed through the roof—or did a few shiver in a gust of cold? She found a side room and hovered above the bed there. Here was no light at all, yet she saw the woman asleep and the bairn in a cradle beside.