“Oh!” Ragnhild gasped.
For a span she stood with fists clenched at her sides and the lightning-light white on her eyeballs. How young she was yet, after all, Gunnhild thought. But taller day by day, it seemed, withy-slim but hips and breasts swelling under a gown maybe a bit closer-fitting than was quite seemly—she liked to flaunt herself; she joked and laughed with youths in the guard—and the chestnut hair flowing around a face eerily like Gunnhild’s own.
She caught a shivering breath. “Oh, when I’m free, I’ll—I’ll—” She lost further words.
“No one is ever free,” Gunnhild said. “No man may shun his weird. Nor may any woman. We’ll be remembered for how we met it. Don’t shame the blood you bear.”
Tears burst loose. Gunnhild folded her arms, which she longed to lay around the lass, and watched.
Ragnhild fought down the sobs, wiped her eyes, and stood still beside the loom. After a while she gulped, “Oh, Mother, I do want to be like you.”
Now Gunnhild could smile and offer a hand. “That’s better. Welcome back.”
Ragnhild caught it. How thin and soft hers was, Gunnhild thought.
“I, I want to be a queen too,” Ragnhild stammered. “With a king like Father.”
Yes, Gunnhild thought, given such a father as Eirik, how could any girl wish for less?
Ragnhild straightened in half-childish haughtiness. “And I will. Nothing shall stop me. Nothing.”
Though today that high heart had made her blunder, time would teach it, Gunnhild thought. Then it would stand her in good stead. Christian women might creep from the world into nunneries, to live barren and helpless. But it was not right for any who bore the blood of Özur Dapplebeard, Rognvald Jarl, and Harald Fairhair—Eirik Blood-ax.
“Good,” said Gunnhild. “Let’s get to the hall before the rain does.”
XVIII
Sooner than awaited, a horseman galloped to York crying that the king’s ships were rowing up the river.
Though glad to see his wife again, however many he might have bedded along the way, he was otherwise not happy. Over and over he had lain weatherbound for days on end. The Scottish, Irish, and Welsh shores he came to had already been picked gaunt. Even when he led his crews inland, they found less than he hoped for—barely enough to make his Orkneymen think it had been worthwhile and to keep his household until next year.
He brightened at Oswulf’s message. Calling in the priest, he had a letter written to say he would indeed like meeting with the high reeve of Bamburh and plighted him safety whatever came of it.
Oswulf arrived on a day when a wind from the north rattled dead leaves across the yard. Eirik received him hospitably. Gifts passed between them. Eirik held a feast in his honor to which the chief men of York were invited.
Gunnhild misliked him from the first. She could not quite say why. He was a stout man with thinning reddish hair and watchful eyes. The teeth that had rotted from his jaws left him lisping. A shrewd and careful speaker, he drank sparingly. His words were of friendship.
Later he talked alone with Eirik. Later still, Eirik, alone with Gunnhild, told her what had gone on.
His grin shone through the cold, shifty shadows in their room. “Of course, he doesn’t outright say anything against King Eadred. But he hints—hints stronger than I’ve yet gotten from Dublin—at alliance between us two, he to hold North Northumbria as I hold York, together casting back any attack from the South. First—he’s right about this—I’ll need more wealth to bind more warriors to me than I now have. He’s been sending spies around. He told me how weak Olaf Sandal really is in Cumbria. And, beyond its shores, it’s hardly been looted at all.”
Gunnhild’s skin prickled. “Do you trust his bare word?” she asked slowly.
“No, no. I trust in my strength. This was a poor year. But during winter I’ll look into things myself. If I find Oswulf speaks truth, then come spring I’ll gather a mighty fleet—mine, and what the brothers of the Orkney jarl have, and sea-kings everywhere. We’ll ransack places seldom touched erenow. We’ll stuff our holds with booty. Then let Eadred try whatever he likes.”
“It’s a great risk,” said Gunnhild.
“For a great gain.” Eirik tossed his head. “What else can I do?”
She saw no hope of talking him over. The years with him had taught her the signs. And this could work out well. Already, though, she felt forebodings.
“I think all our sons had better stay behind,” she told him. “No knowing what King Eadred may do while you’re gone with so many of our spears, and openly defying him. We may need such leaders here.”
Belike it would take her the whole winter to get his agreement. And then he must lay down the law to those young wolves. But one way or another she would hold them from this faring.
XIX
Again spring came back with the lapwing, to call fields, woods, and wanderlust awake. On a day when hawthorn blooms scattered white across a land gone utterly green, Gunnhild bade her man farewell.
The riverside surged with warriors, their kin, townsfolk, farmfolk, and herders here to watch. Metal flashed; bright dyes bragged amidst gray and brown. Noise rolled around like surf and rose like the cries of sea-mews. As yet, walls and roofs to eastward blocked sight of the sun, but the sky overhead reached forget-me-not blue. A wind still cold from the night ruffled the water. Ships rocked a little at their moorings. Timber and tackle creaked.
Guardsmen had made a way through the crowd for the king and his household, and kept clear that wharf where his dragon waited. The crew were already aboard. He stopped at the gangplank. Maybe sleeplessness had slightly deepened the furrows in his lean face, but it left no mark in the springiness of his stride or straightness of his shoulders. His smile was almost wry. “May luck abide with you,” he said. “But I think you’ll see to that.”
Gunnhild looked up into the frost-pale eyes and answered, “Our hopes and wishes will sail with you.” What more could they say when their carls and wenches were listening?
“Our prayers,” said Gudröd, and signed himself. No priest was there to bless those outbound. Though Eirik had heard mass yestermorn, ashes, bones, and bloodstains lay on a hilltop where he had made offering the day before.
Their other sons mumbled this or that, none of it mirthful. Three of the oldest four, who went with him last year, barely masked surliness. The rest had caught their mood, even nine-year-old Sigurd—all but Harald. He seemed willing to respect his father’s judgment, however bleakly.
Eirik turned, nodded, bounded down the plank, and leaped into the hull. Seamen cast off and shoved free. Oars stretched forth. The dragon walked down the river. One by one, more followed, and more and more. Gamli stared after them, unstirring but for the fist he struck into his palm, over and over, a young Eirik Blood-ax chained.
Weariness weighted Gunnhild. Her loins, her whole body ached. She and her man had taken no rest this past night. Now she must bank the fire and wait.
She must be the queen. “Keep his kingdom for him,” she said to her sons.
“Maybe we’ll win fame thereby!” Erling’s voice cracked and he reddened. Thirteen, he might have gone along.
“Since he doesn’t let us do it otherwise,” muttered dark, Özur-like Guthorm.
“This year,” Harald told them. “This one year. There will be later years.”
Gunnhild knew how hard-won that steadiness was. Yes, she thought, among them he took most after the grandfather whose name he bore.
They stayed until the last sternpost was lost to sight; then she led them home.
The weeks went slowly by. The weather was much better than before. Gunnhild could hope that that boded well for the vikings. She had enough to do that most of the time the work smothered her fears and let her sleep of nights; but her dreams were often bad. When her sons were not at weapon-drill, they hunted, wrestled, ran footraces, put on horse fights, and the first five lay with woman after woman. They were also apt to brood and pick quarrels with me
n. Their mother must sometimes step in to keep these from becoming deadly. They needed no ill will, here in York.
After about a month, a ship from the north brought news at last. Eirik’s fleet had harried the eastern shores of Scotland, with some gain. Reaching Orkney, they lay to while the ships of Thorfinn Jarl’s brothers Erlend and Arnkel gathered. At the Hebrides he met with no less than five sea-kings. Thence they all sailed onward. Soon thereafter a thick fog wrapped the islands for days on end. From them on it was as if the blind gray stillness swallowed every word about him.
Nor could Gunnhild get better than scraps of knowledge from the South. They betokened no threat. If anything, that made her sons even more restless and foul-tempered. Were it not that they stood in a good deal of awe of her and their father, the gods alone could say what recklessness they would have launched. She herself felt a waxing unease.
The springtime passed in sunshine and rainshower, birth and growth, trees full-crowned and full of birdsong. Each day was longer than the last.
Then tidings did come—from Wessex. A Danish chapman, Ivar Bentnose, had traded his wares there. Instead of sailing straight home, he went first to York, where he could sell dearly the English goods that King Eadred tried to keep out. Ivar cared not for royal wrath. His hair was white; after this voyage he meant to settle down quietly at home.
As they often did, three of the four elder Eirikssons had gone hunting. One always stayed behind, by turns. It happened to be Harald. He received Ivar well.
Next day he found Gunnhild and asked if they could speak alone. They went to a loftroom of the hall. Outside fell a drizzling rain. Lamps hardly brightened the room. Their smell of burning blubber was not unwelcome in this dank, chill air.
Two stools were the furnishing. Mother and son sat down. His gaze on her was troubled. “What do you know of goings-on southward?” he asked bluntly.
A foreknowledge of his aim crept upon her. Indeed he was the sharpest of her brood. How handsome he was too, shoulders broad within the fur-trimmed tunic, hair and young beard like the unseen sun. Were it not that his women meant less to him than his hounds and horses, she would envy them. “What do you ask of me?” she answered. “It was you who questioned Ivar at length. I only listened, as was seemly.”
“You know we’d have heard you if you spoke, you, the queen. I wondered why you didn’t.”
She gave him a smile. “You were doing well.” He was learning, she did not say aloud. “I’m sure you did this morning also, when you drew him aside.”
“I got no more than yesterday. It doesn’t seem King Eadred wants to fight this summer, but Ivar heard how he has men riding from end to end of Wessex. He must be telling his shire-lords to stand by for something. An ealdorman whom Ivar talked with thought he might move on the Welsh.”
Gunnhild nodded. “He could let fall hints about that, while having something else in mind—if he’s been shrewdly and secretly counseled.”
“You grasp these things as well as Father does,” said Harald more grimly than gladly. “And you have ears everywhere.”
She sighed. “Would that were so. But this is not Norway. Here it’s merely a few lowly ones, whom I get wind of mostly by happenstance and have brought to me. Packsack traders, tinkers, landloupers, witches—they get about, they hear things, but it’s not from the seats of the high; it’s only gossip. What I can gather seems to bear out that King Eadred won’t attack us this year. But give me time to weave a new net.”
“If we have time. Still, this is useful, isn’t it? And Father will be back, with his fleet and his warriors, by fall—and the Orkneymen not over-far away—won’t he?”
“I know not,” said Gunnhild into the dimness.
His voice hardened. “Have you cast runes?”
She sat silent. She had, and could read nothing. That in itself was disquieting, though, true, runes often failed.
Harald frowned. “A heathenish thing. Like your dealing with those witches.”
“Ragged, houseless, hungry. Small strength in them for good or ill.”
“As it ought to be, in a Christian land.”
Gunnhild narrowed her eyes. “You went and offered with your father before he left.”
“Because he wanted me to, and the others. We’d not anger him. Nor—maybe—the old gods too much. But worse, I think, would be to fall out with Christ.” Harald grew earnest. “Mother, I wish you’d hear mass oftener. Remember, the feast of St. John draws nigh.”
Gunnhild’s voice went flat. “As you like.” She looked past him, toward a window, through the rain in it and beyond.
He leaned forward. “What’s wrong?”
She heard his fear for her, and his love, but as though across a rushing river. “Nothing,” she said. “If we’re done here, shall we go down to the hearth?”
It shivered within her: Soon now came Midsummer Eve, when gods, ghosts, elves, land-wights, all the unearthly walked abroad, while men and women went into the woods with songs and spells, to call blessing on the land and bane off it. Then if ever was witchcraft set free.
She had knelt before the Man on the Cross, given gifts to his Church, prayed for his redes and the help of his saints. Never so much as a dream had he sent. Maybe the fault was hers. She had not fully confessed, forsworn her sins, and humbled her heart as they told her she should. She could not.
Once, only once, an awe of him had taken her, when young Brihtnoth showed her the holy books. She had still felt a little of it when the holy water bedewed her brow. But it faded. Brihtnoth had left—to serve Haakon, she learned, Haakon in Norway. None since him had spoken with her that openly, been that ready to answer her questions, about the Faith. Priests might try it with Eirik, and seemed to be having some luck with his sons, but for them a woman need merely believe.
Yes, maybe she was in the wrong. Yet a great lord ought to reward his followers as befitted his greatness. Odin gave them victory or he gave them death, but he wanted no more from them than offerings and stalwartness, and he would guest them in his Valhall till doomsday. So many of them said. Whatever the truth was, men and women could leave undying names behind.
Through the loftroom shadows and the rain outside, it was as if she saw the Man on the Cross and the Man on the Gallows; but between those tall darknesses crouched the Man with the Drum. The thunder of it boomed; the song of him keened.
On Midsummer Eve she would again send forth her soul, to find Eirik, know how he fared, and bring him more than her wishes.
XX
A little house near the hall, formerly the home of the under-steward, had been turned over to her. It held the room that was hers alone. She sent off the staff, forbidding anyone to come here until she said they might. It was not the first time. They dared not talk much about it. And today they were happy to be freed for joining in the celebrations. Nonetheless she barred the door to the room before she opened her locked chest.
Western England was not as far as Iceland, but tonight she was sending not a witchy call but herself. She needed a strong spell. Having put the dried mushrooms to soak, she went about her other work while twilight slowly deepened into night. Shouts of merrymaking drifted in past half-closed shutters, with warm, smoky smells from a balefire at the hall. It was less to her, more sundered from her, than a moth that fluttered through the window and around her one lamp till it flew into the flame and burned.
She unclad herself. She donned the feathers, teeth, and claws. She ate. As the feeling of otherness took more and more hold of her, she danced, sang, shaking the bones and a rattle, laid them aside at last to take a small drum and beat it, everything whisper-softly, here in the shadow of the Cross, but the tide of it rising ever higher, the wind of it crying ever more shrilly. Air, at first cool, turned the sweat over her nakedness to a cold whip. There was no need of other pain. It was as if her will itself raised her. Now blackness filled the window, barely hazed by moonlight. A single star glimmered there. It began to whirl in her sight, around and around, a quernstone
whose grinding shivered the bones of the world. She put the drum aside, snatched up the bird-shape of feathers, lay down on the bed, folded hands over breasts with the bird-thing between them, closed eyes, and went away.
The fire outside was sinking. She caught the heavy smoke and wrapped it around her, breathed life into it. The swallow winged aloft.
From on high, York was a huddle strewn with sparks, the River Ouse a dull-silver snake, the stream Foss a thread, winding over a huge, dappled murk. Fires still glowed widely across it. This was not the summer night of Norway, hardly more than dusk, nor eerily lighted by the midnight sun of Finnmörk. Stars glittered, the Winterway glimmered, in sable. A crooked moon, waning a little past the full, had climbed well up. Not far behind it gleamed the great wanderer that men gave many different names, Jupiter among the Christians. She turned her back on them. Eirik was somewhere in the west.
On she flew and on. In this shape she was tireless. She would pay for that when she returned to her body, pay more if she did not return. She gave it no thought. Her whole being had become a search.
However dark, the night was short. Dawn dimmed the morning star. Sunrise drowned it. Brightness shouted back off the Irish Sea. A thousand shades of green rolled inland.
North or south? Likelier north. She tilted on the wind and flew well above the shore, scanning and scanning. Neither hunger nor thirst did she know, and for that too her flesh would pay, or this soul if it lost its way home.
A hawk, early at hover, spied her and stooped. Air whistled with its speed. She flew on. It drew nigh and sheered off in a crackle of wings, affrighted. Otherwise she saw only seafowl and stray white clouds.
The sun went higher on her right, the moon lower on her left. Still she flew.
The land began bending west to make the head of a broad bay.
Ships and ships rested side by side on the strand at water’s edge, like a row of swords. More rode at anchor nearby. Men walked about, raced or wrestled, squatted where their cookfires had scarred the earth. Sunlight blinked on steel. Gulls wheeled and piped, skulking for scraps. No gladness or fear could storm through her while she was wind, smoke, and ghost, but she knew what she had found. Single-minded as an arrow, she slanted downward.
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