This came near being funny. Yet it was not witless. Gunnhild smiled. “To me you’ll always be Kisping, my ferret,” she said. “However, let me think— hm—Ögmund? That’s a name oftener heard in Norway than in Denmark. It won’t mark you out.” Inwardly she thanked him, that he had, for this short spell, whimpered her mind off sorrow and back toward hope. “Yes, I’d liefer not lose you, Ögmund-to-be. I’ve use for you still.”
II
Harald reckoned he would stay in the hall on the Byfjord oftener than anywhere else. There was the heart of the midlands, where he and his brothers were safest, in a busy and growing harbor through which flowed men and wealth, while the waters could shelter as many warships as he might want. There his mother would find a home. He ordered her old bower torn down, enough trees cleared away, and a house built. That work took some time, for, although not itself a hall, it was to be roomy, laid out according to her wishes, richly decorated and furnished, with a high seat for her.
Through fall and winter, well into spring, he was mostly gone. The Eirikssons must fare widely around, show themselves and their might, get to know the leading men, get hailed kings at Thing-meetings—which happened, though with scant cheer—and one by one settle in on the lands which each was to have.
Harald worked to make peace with the lords left by Haakon. Spokesmen went to and fro, month after month. His words were strict but not overly harsh. He and his brothers would swear no oaths by heathen gods, and any try to make them take part in any heathen rite would mean war. Otherwise they were willing to bargain. Slowly agreement was forged. Gudröd Bjarnarson in Vest-fold and Tryggvi Olafsson in Vikin were to keep the names of king and everything else that was theirs, on the same footing as with King Haakon.
Gunnhild’s thoughts were helpful. There were no grounds to harm the widow and daughter of Haakon Aethelstan’s-foster, she said. Rather, kindness would be wise. With soft speech and gifts not too costly, she brought it about that Gyda wedded a longtime follower of her and her sons. They bestowed a goodly holding on him and made him a hersir. He treated the former queen quite well and fostered his stepchild with the richest yeoman in the neighborhood. That neighborhood was off in the Uplands and did not see many outsiders.
It went harder dealing with the Thraandlaw and took longer. Those shires now paid no scot whatsoever, nor did they acknowledge any new king. But at length an understanding was reached here too. Sigurd Jarl was likewise to keep the same power as before; the Thraands would live under their own laws; in return, they would do nothing to trouble the Eirikssons. They and Sigurd having sworn to this by the God or gods that were theirs, Gunnhild thought the bond could easily be broken, come the day.
Meanwhile she was the lady at the Byfjord. Folk looked to her and heeded her. She received visitors, feasted them, questioned them, charmed those she could and slipped a little fear into those who stayed cold. They remembered her hereabouts, after all the years.
For her also this land was haunted—waiting for Eirik, welcoming him back, her youngest sons and her blossoming daughter, wreaking the death of Haalfdan the Black; Eirik bringing victory home from the South, and at last ships gathering for the flight to Orkney and everything that waited there.
Well, then, she thought, let here be where a new beginning took root.
Late in spring Harald returned, which he had otherwise done only fleetingly. Now he meant to abide for a while and tighten his grip on these parts. His foremost skald, Glum Geirason, had made a poem in his praise which gloated over how he avenged Gamli and Guthorm in the blood of Haakon Aethelstan’s foster. It went from mouth to mouth until it got to Eyvind Finnsson at his house. Thereupon the old skald angrily made one about Haakon’s overcoming of Gamli. By then he had likewise told of Haakon’s going to Valhall.
Those who wanted to curry favor with King Harald were quick to bring him news of this. Wrathful, Harald outlawed Eyvind. Anyone might slay him without owing gild for it, but the king might well give such a killer a handsome gift.
Gunnhild hastened to draw her son aside. No luck could come of putting skalds to death. Theirs was the witchcraft of words, which lived on after them. She reminded him of what evil had sprung from the hatred of Egil Skallagrimsson. Even the harm that fiend did with his hands was less than the bad name he laid on her and her man, Harald’s father. Besides, here there was kinship; on the distaff side, Eyvind was a great-grandson of Harald Fairhair. Now was a very good time for Harald Eiriksson to behave openheartedly. Everybody would think the better of him for it.
So friends went between him and Eyvind, who came up to the Byfjord on promise of safety. Harald lifted the ban on condition that henceforward Eyvind should be his skald, as he had been King Haakon’s. Eyvind took this and, in the hall, under the eyes of high and low alike, gave back:
“Never wavered your will
for warfare, Hördaland’s king,
when arrows broke on byrnies
as bowstrings drew taut and sang,
but, Harald, strongly you held
the hilt of the clanging sword.
Often have you offered
much eating to the she-wolf.”
Men called the poem well done, and Harald himself was pleased. Gunnhild deemed it utterly hollow—and what did the skald really mean when he bespoke “the she-wolf”?—but said nothing aloud.
Eyvind went home and, although now King Harald’s man, was seldom with him.
Still, as Gunnhild foretold, the forgiveness bought some goodwill, or at least some easing of wariness. The brothers could move further on toward unhindered overlordship.
On a hill a few miles outside the town a halidom had stood for ages beyond knowing. Trees grew tall around a barrow which folk kept clear of brush; on top of it reared a standing stone, lean and lichenous. A shelter below gave roof to wooden images of Thor, Frey, and Njord, likewise kept washed and freshly painted. They looked over a patch of ground blackened by fires and a rock blackened by the blood of slaughterings. Thither twice yearly went yeomen, fishermen, hirelings, their wives and older children, to bless the land at the turnings of the sun.
Formerly dwellers in the town came too, and a few did yet, but the inflow of outlanders and new thoughts had made many Christian and weakened the beliefs of the rest. The little church that King Haakon built in his early days had lasted on through the later years. Its priest was a man born in the neighborhood, with barely enough learning to hold mass and hear confessions, his living mainly from the farm he owned; but when he rang his bell, the song went over the town and far across the waters.
Thus Harald met no foes when, shortly before midsummer, he led his guards forth against Thor.
They cast down the standing stone; they cut down the shaw; they heaped firewood before the altar and there they burned the gods. All through the short, light night those flames blazed and crackled. Then they flickered low on charcoal and ashes until, next day, rain wept them out.
Harald’s brothers did the same, where and when they handily could.
Most folk were shocked. These seemed to them to be dreadful deeds. However, they could do nothing more than light their own fires on the eve. Maybe later. One did best to wait and see.
In Vikin and the Thraandlaw they were openly wrathful.
That summer turned bleak. Hailstorms smote cropfields and the fishing was poor.
Gunnhild kept aware of what was happening, but her whole mind was no longer on it. To her had come Hrut Herjolfsson.
III
Although highborn and lowborn were everywhere around and heedful of her, although she had the ear of King Harald and of her other sons when they came visiting, loneliness gnawed. She could lessen it somewhat by going out to be with sky, water, earth, wildwood, seeking a oneness with them such as she had sought in Finnmörk, but never winning to it. She could not do this often, nor walk far, without men worrying and searching for her. Nor could she often send her household staff off, lest there arise too much wondering about what she did by herself. She ha
d not altogether quelled the priest; it would be troublesome if he began to ask and nag.
One eventide she did empty the house for a night, saying that once again she needed silence for prayers and meditation. From her locked chest she took the drum, the herbs, the runic bones, things secretly gotten in the course of the years. She ate, sang, danced about a lampflame that her gaze never left, until sleep came in a dark tide and she lay down to dream.
A man walked through that dream, tall, strong, golden of hair and beard, his face not unlike Eirik’s although the eyes were a deeper blue and the mouth lacked hardness. Longing kindled lust, hot in heart and loins. A wind blew. It gained a voice, which keened high-pitched in the Finnish tongue; but it told her much.
She woke blinded by night, shuddering toward calm. As the first white light stole into the east, she went out and breathed chill freshness. Dew washed her feet. Now there was a thrilling in her, a looking forward. This had been no more than a spell of farseeing, of foresight. She must think how to use the knowledge.
A while after, in late summer, a hint of yellow on the birches, she heard—no news was slow to reach her—that a big ship was heading in. Calls had already flown between it and the land. Gunnhild’s blood leaped. “Are Icelanders aboard?” she asked. Yes, she was told, the ship hailed from there. It belonged to a trader named Özur, who had with him his nephew Hrut Herjolfsson. “Then I know his errand,” she said. “Hrut has come to claim an inheritance that’s fallen to him. But a man named Soti has seized it.” The talebearer stared at her and shivered a bit.
She sent him away and had Kisping—Ögmund, here—brought to her. “Go down to the harbor,” she bade. “Find Özur and Hrut. Tell them I invite them to stay with me this winter. Say that I’ll be their friend, and if Hrut follows my redes, I’ll stand by him in his claims and anything else he means to take up, and I’ll also further his cause with the king.”
Ögmund sped off. The Icelanders greeted him well when they learned he came from the queen. He drew them aside from the bustling on the wharf and gave them his message. They went off by themselves and spoke low. Ögmund could easily guess that Özur warned against offending Gunnhild. He took their yea back to her. “This I’ve awaited,” she said. “I’ve heard Hrut is a wise and well-bred man. Now keep a lookout, and let me know as soon as they enter the town.”
Friends and kinsmen of Özur’s had gone down to welcome him. He and Hrut lodged with one of them for the night. On the way to that house, they met Ögmund again. He brought them greeting from Gunnhild, and told them she could not receive them before they had met the king. “Otherwise gossip would have it that my lady makes too much of you,” said the footling. “But leave everything to her. Hrut need only speak freely to the king and ask him for a post among his guards. Meanwhile, here’s garb that Gunnhild sends you.” He gave Hrut a package. “Wear this when you go before him,”
Next day Hrut and Özur went to the hall, ten of their friends along. Hrut trod in first, splendidly clad. King Harald sat at the drinking board with some of his own friends. His mother sat across from him among a few women. Her heart stumbled at sight of the newcomer. How beautiful he was!
The king also looked closely, and asked who this might be. Hrut told what his name, his home, and his business were. “I seek your help, lord, in getting my rights.”
“I have promised that every man in this land shall have his rights under the law,” said the king. “Is there anything else you wish of me?”
“Yes, lord,” answered Hrut. “I ask for a place in your guard, and that you take me as a man of yours.”
King Harald made his face a mask and sat silent.
Gunnhild took the word. “It seems to me this man is showing you great honor. If there were many like, him in your guard, it would be well filled.”
The king’s gaze thawed. “Is he a sage man?”
“Both wise and able,” she said.
The king turned to Hrut. “I think my mother would like you to have the rank you ask for,” he said. “But for the sake of worthiness and usage, don’t come back here for half a month. When that time is past, you shall become a trooper of mine. Meanwhile my mother will see to your needs. Then come before me again.” In that span he could find out what men knew about Hrut and thought of him; but it was not likely he would slight Gunnhild.
She beckoned to Ögmund, who had been standing by as watchful as a squirrel. “Take these two to my house and treat them well,” she ordered. He led Hrut and Özur off. Their followers paid the king their respects and went home.
Gunnhild’s house stood by itself on stone groundworks, some three hundred yards from the hall and garth. Its timbers were painted dark red-brown, like the trunks of the pines in back of it and on either side. A gallery ran around the upper story, beneath a high-pitched roof of cedar shakes. The outthrusting ends of the ridgepole and main rafters were shaped into beast heads that threatened any trolls or ghosts or night-gangers, but the porch pillars and the doorposts bore carvings of twining, leafy vines. This was a cold day where smoky clouds hurried under a leaden overcast, as many days had been since midsummer. Wind tossed the murky boughs. Rushing between them, it sounded like surf.
Inside, however, were warmth, a hearthfire scented with herbs, lamplight and candlelight soft upon tapestries. Wonderfully woven, these seemed themselves to be a wildwood, teeming with creatures four-legged or winged among trees and flowers never seen on earth. Hounds and horsemen chased deer, Sigurd Faafnir’s bane slew the dragon, warriors rode with ravens overhead and wolves close behind; but some of the signs here and there were unknown to Norsemen.
Juniper rustled underfoot as Ögmund took the Icelanders through the long room. “Now you shall see it’s true what I told you from Gunnhild,” he said. He looked more or less squarely at Hrut. “Here is her high seat. Take it and keep it, even when she herself comes in.”
Özur and Hrut swapped a glance. The older man shrugged, twitched a grin, and chose the lower seat on the right. Hrut stood for a little, thinking, before he did as he was bidden. Ögmund had maids bring them food and drink.
They had not long to wait before the queen arrived. Hrut rose. “Keep your seat,” she said merrily. “It shall be yours all the while you stay with me.”
She mounted the dais and settled there beside him. More drink was borne in, both mead and wine. The vessels were silver, cast with figures like those on the hangings.
Özur kept as quiet as might be. Talk ran in spate between Gunnhild and Hrut. He had never been slow of speech or dull of wit. From him she heard of his background: his forebears—among them the hero-king Ragnar Hairy breeks and a famous woman, Aud the Deep-Thinking; his home westerly in the Broad Firth Dales; then this business of the inheritance, a hundred marks, which fell together with a hankering to go abroad and make a name for himself. What with foul winds, the crossing to Norway took three weeks. She saw in his eyes and heard in his voice how long that had felt.
For her part she had endlessly much to tell, carefully, about her life and what she knew of the world. It gripped him.
Özur said early in the evening that he was getting sleepy. Ögmund led him to a shut-bed elsewhere in the house. Gunnhild and Hrut talked on.
At length she said, wholly aware of what she did and what power was hers: “Tonight you shall go upstairs with me, we two together.”
“It shall be as you wish,” he answered, not quite steadily. But when she smiled at him, he smiled back. In this light she did not look overly old.
They took a candlestick of three branches with them. At once when they were in her bedroom she barred the door and swung toward him. He set the candlestick down and took her in his arms. When her headcloth came off, the coils of hair shone night-black, with hoarfrosty glints of silver. Nor, when shamelessly unclad, was she a hag, not yet, not yet.
He was hot, bull-strong, and quick to learn what she liked. Soon she flew from herself almost as wildly as with Eirik. At last they slept.
When they w
oke they dressed and went downstairs for their morning bread and drink. Two watchmen were on hand, as was wonted. Gunnhild stopped, looked up into their eyes, and told them sweetly, “It shall cost you nothing but your lives if you say anything to anyone about Hrut and me.”
Their nods were stiff. Of course, there was no way to keep maids, carls, thralls, and the like from babbling, but they always did. The wellborn gave such gossip a deaf ear, or made believe to.
Özur asked leave to go stay with his kin, whom he had missed. Gunnhild granted it. For the next half-month, she and Hrut were mostly by themselves.
He did have his trade goods unloaded from the ship. At the end of the time, he ordered his gift borne to her—a hundred ells of wadmal and twelve sheepskin cloaks, Icelandic wares—in return for her kindness, as he said while others were with them. She thanked him. They snatched a short span alone for him to kiss her and say his own thanks. That kiss burned long on her lips.
“This is not farewell,” she whispered. They must now sleep apart, but for the time being she was slaked. Indeed, walking to the hall hurt somewhat. At her behest, thirty men followed him when he went there to stand before the king.
“Well, Hrut,” said Harald, “belike you still wish me to keep my promise.”
So Hrut became one of the guard. “Where shall I sit?” he asked.
The king sighed. “Let my mother settle that.”
Thus Gunnhild got him a seat among the foremost. A man of such rank could very understandably call on her now and then, to ask her rede about this or that, under four eyes. If otherwise he tumbled a few wenches, it would look all the more believable.
Hrut proved to be as able as she had said, and got along well with everybody. He passed that winter in good cheer and high honor.
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