IV
Heavy snowfalls and wild storms blocked most faring. Not until spring did Hrut learn that Soti had lately sailed for Denmark, taking the money of the inheritance with him. He went at once to Gunnhild. It gladdened her to say, “I’ll give you two longships with full crews, and moreover the boldest man we have, Ulf the Unwashed, guest foreman.” Hrut knew what she meant, the headman of those guards whom the king sent to find and kill foemen of his and on other dangerous errands. “But go to the king first, of course.”
Hrut did so as soon as he got leave to and told how things were. “Now I’m minded to go after him,” he ended.
“What help has my mother given you?” asked Harald.
“Two longships, with Ulf the Unwashed to lead the warriors.”
“That’s well done. And now I’ll give two ships more, likewise manned. Nonetheless, I think you’ll not have any too much strength.”
All busked themselves fast. King Harald himself went down to see Hrut off. Gunnhild stood on the wharf in the wind, looking after him, till the last hull was lost to sight. She returned to her house full of thought. She could do more yet for him, that which nobody else knew how or dared to. The swallow was going to fly again.
Less friendly was the king toward many others. After all, they bore scant love for any of the Eirikssons. As Gunnhild wove her web anew, tidings of trouble reached her ever oftener. The earliest this year came when the snows had melted and the kings could make their rounds. Harald and his men rode into the garth of the lendman Gisli Gunnarsson, eastward in Haddingjadalar shire. Rain had drenched them; sleet had bitten them; they were chilled through and through. Word had gone ahead: hall and outbuildings were ready for guests. However, Gisli received them surlily. The mood at meat and drink was not cheerful.
“What ails everyone?” asked Harald at last.
“This bids fair to be another bad year, lord,” said Gisli. “I wonder how long they’ll go on.”
“That’s as God wills.”
“Some say it’s that the gods are wroth at what’s being done to their halidoms.”
“Heathen rubbish!” flared the king. He curbed his anger. “When folk have let the light of Christ into their hearts, all will soon be well.”
“All was well aforetime,” answered the lendman. A fist lay knotted on his lap like stubbornness itself. “There are those who miss King Haakon. This is nothing but the truth, lord. I could lie about it, but that’d be unworthy of you, wouldn’t it?”
Yes, Gunnhild thought, most Norsemen who took the new faith while Haakon reigned seemed to have done so for his sake, because he was what he was. They were few, though, and at last he gave up trying, because he was what he was.
Her sons would not yield as he did. But hardly anyone would go to baptism to please them, whether or not offerings still went on afterward behind their backs. To bring in new missionaries would be to endanger those priests. The slaying of even one might unloose war between kings and yeomen. No, for a long time to come, her sons had better not wreck many more heathen shrines, and must beyond question treat men of whatever belief the same way.
Which might well be for the best, thought Gunnhild. The world was darker and stranger than humans knew—than humans could know. Nor would she let go of what power she drew from its shadows. Never had she forgotten those outlaws in Seija’s hut.
She did not utter this. Enough that men felt a breath of it from her.
Giving way came harder to her sons. King Harald repaid sullenness with coldness. When he left, Gisli, sour-faced, gave him a good horse with a silver-inset saddle and headstall; but the king in return gave merely a finger ring. Gisli was not seen wearing it afterward.
In truth, all the Eirikssons were getting a name for greedily grasping but stingily giving. Gunnhild wondered how folk could be made to understand. Each king had his warriors and more than one household to keep, big and costly, although his holdings were not great and the bad year had shrunk the scot he could take in. Why should he enrich men who barely kept hidden their hatred of him?
It came to be said that the Gunnhildssons buried their hoards of gold and silver. Eyvind Skald-cribber made a poem about this, recalling how treasure flowed from the hand of King Haakon the Good but did no longer.
As he might have foreseen, and maybe did, the staves reached Harald’s ears. The king sent for him and, when he arrived, brought lawsuit against him for betrayal. “It ill becomes you to be my foe,” said Harald as Eyvind stood in front of his high seat, with guardsmen grimly listening, “after you’ve entered my service.”
The graybeard looked straight into his eyes and answered through the hush:
“Only one lord had my oath,
almighty king, before you.
Now, with old age drawing nigh,
not do I wish for a third.
Faithfully did I follow
the first. Two shields bore I never.
I yield me today to you.
My years will soon overtake me.”
Harald remembered what his mother had told him. Still, he could not let this go by. He claimed self-judgment in the case. Eyvind wore a big, finely wrought golden ring, called Moldi because, lifetimes ago, it had been found in the earth, lost or left by some chieftain long forgotten. Harald said it would be his gild for the wrongdoing. Eyvind had no choice. Quoth he when he handed it over:
“I hope that you, who halter
the horse of the sea, and I
henceforward shall be friends,
having thus made our peace,
even though now you own
the arm-ring that once was mine,
formerly borne by my father
and forebears from of old.”
He never came near the king again. But, as Gunnhild had warned, his poems winged from end to end of Norway, and would not die.
Yet Harald was no more harsh than he felt he must be. Rather, if men showed him goodwill, he gave it back, often quite freely.
Thus, one time during this bleak summer, he was at Hardanger when a merchant ship came from Iceland. The cargo was sheepskins. The skipper had heard that hereabouts were many dwellers. However, nobody seemed to want the fells he offered. Having met the king aforetime and learning he was on hand, the chapman sought him out and bewailed how badly his undertaking was going. Harald smiled and promised to come have a look. In a fully manned karfi, the king was rowed out to the ship, which lay at anchor in the fjord. Seeing that the wares had nothing wrong with them, he asked if the skipper would give him one. “Yes, lord, and more if you want.”
Harald took a gray-fleeced hide, draped it over his shoulders, and went back aboard his own craft. Before it left, every man of the crew bought a skin. In the next few days, so many came to do likewise that not half of them got any.
Thenceforward and ever after, this king bore the nickname Harald Grayfell.
Meanwhile Gunnhild had, while alone, tracked what happened in the straits and on the sea. Hrut’s ships met those of an outlaw called Atli. A sharp fight began. Though Atli killed Ulf, Hrut gave Atli his death-blow. The victors took a rich booty, along with the two best ships, and fared on over the Baltic in viking.
They did not find Soti. He had doubled back to Norway. The swallow saw.
Like any wellborn householder, Gunnhild must needs go elsewhere from time to time, while her home was cleaned and aired. Now she rode to the Limgard neighborhood, where her son Gudröd was staying.
Soti grounded at Limgardside. To him came Ögmund and struck up talk, without telling whose man he was. “Will you be here long?” asked Ögmund.
“Three days, I think, refitting,” said Soti. “Then we’re off to England, and will never come back while Gunnhild rules in Norway.”
The footling spoke disarming words and scurried off to his queen. He told her what Soti had in mind. She asked Gudröd to catch Soti and kill him. He had grievously wronged a friend of hers, she said. Nothing loth, Gudröd led his warriors off, overcame Soti, took him inland, a
nd hanged him.
Gunnhild sent all the goods to the Byfjord.
About harvest time—and again that was a lean harvest—Hrut returned, well laden with gains. King Harald received him gladly, and heard the tale of his doings. “Lord,” ended Hrut, “have what you will of my winnings.” The king happily took a third. Now Hrut stood high indeed in his household.
Gunnhild told Hrut how she had gotten Soti done away with and saved his inheritance for him. He thanked her much, and gave her half of what was left him. Later, when they were alone, they gave back and forth another kind of thanks.
So passed that winter.
V
But as the days lengthened, Hrut’s mood darkened. Ever more did he sit unspeaking among his fellows; nor had he much to say even to Gunnhild.
Snow melted; brooks brawled; buds unfolded in a mist of pale green; sunlight sparkled on wet grass; homebound birds filled heaven with wings and cries. Hrut took to walking off whenever he had time free.
For weeks Gunnhild watched without saying anything about it. She had foreseen this from the beginning, she thought with a daily sharpening sadness, but hidden it away from herself. Another witchcraft than hers was at work.
If she held back much longer, that which was going to happen would happen without her. Such a loss and shame she would not suffer. A day came when she and Hrut shared her high seat, nobody else about other than servants. Those would hear, and spread what they heard, but now she would as soon have witnesses. Let nobody ever think she had wept or begged.
He sat staring into the fire, a cup of mead untasted in his hand. Outside, wind blustered and rain hissed. She gathered her will together. “Are you sick at heart?” she asked.
His gaze did not leave the restless flames. “As the saying runs, ‘Ill does he fare who eats outland bread.’ “
“Do you want to go back to Iceland?”
Now he looked at her. His face and voice came alive. “Yes!”
She drew a breath before she asked, “Have you a woman yonder?”
She saw him go taut. “No,” he said stiffly. “Nothing like that.”
For an eyeblink she felt as though he had slapped her. His crew had known, and therefore she knew almost from the first, that he was betrothed to a fair maiden, Unn Mördardottir, back there. The wedding had been put off three years while he went abroad. She kept her knowledge quiet. It was understandable if he felt shy about telling her. But today, when less than half that span was spent, he lied. Did he mean not to irk her who had been useful to him? Or did he not want to utter his deepest hopes to the old bitch?
“I don’t quite believe that,” she said coldly. Thereafter they spoke little, he awkwardly, and soon he left. She slept hardly at all that night.
By morning she could show the world a mask. Hrut was bound to seek out the king. He must have been waiting for sailing season, and his talk with her yesterday had set his mind hard. Gunnhild made sure to be there.
The weather had brightened. Sunlight through open doors goldened his hair as he trod forth to greet: “Good morning, my lord.”
“What do you want now, Hrut?” asked Harald with a smile.
“I have come to ask your leave, lord, to go to Iceland.”
The king frowned. “Will you have more honor there than here?” he snapped.
“Not so,” answered Hrut, undaunted, “but everyone must take the lot that is given him.”
“It’s like pulling a rope against a heavy man,” said Gunnhild from her seat. “Let him do as he likes.”
Harald could not but grant it. After all, he had known that Hrut never meant to settle in Norway. So had she, Gunnhild thought; so had she. It was only that she had not awaited the end as early as this, and had kept it out of her mind.
Hrut thanked the king and queen. He would always praise their kindness and openhandedness, he promised. “I will see to it that you get as much meal as you need for the voyage,” Gunnhild said. Men looked at her in some astonishment. After two thin harvests in a row, grain bins were hardly overflowing. But none cared to gainsay her.
He would never forget, Gunnhild thought.
And, yes, she thought, with a cold seething behind her teeth, she would also give that girl he was so hot for something to remember her by.
Hrut and his uncle Özur busked themselves. Özur had likewise done well, but he too felt home calling him. In a few days ship and crew lay ready.
Hrut was on his way through the town to bid the king and his friends farewell when Ögmund wormed through the crowd, plucked his sleeve, and muttered that the queen wanted to see him at her house. It would not take long. She knew he had the ebb tide to catch. He nodded, not very surprised, and went with the footling.
She stood by herself in the long room, between the strangely woven hangings. They looked at each other for a breath or two. Thereupon she walked forward. Her skirts rustled faintly in the stillness. From a bench she took a thing that had been lying there and brought it to him. “Here is a gold ring I will give you,” she said. It was thick and finely wrought. She lifted his hand and slipped it over his wrist.
“Many good gifts have I had of you,” he said.
She reached up, put her arms around his neck, and drew his head down. He smelled of salt and sea-winds. His mustache salted the kiss. But his lips did not stir. She let go, stepped back, and said low: “If my power over you is as great as I believe, then I lay this spell on you, that you shall never be man to that woman in Iceland on whom your heart is set; but with other women you may get along well enough. And now it will go ill with both of us; for you have had no faith in me.”
He made a kind of smile, shook his head, mumbled something well-bred, and left. When he had gotten outside, she heard him laugh. He was too glad of his freedom to heed any forebodings. She stayed there, alone.
Thence Hrut strode on to the hall, where he thanked King Harald again. The king wished him godspeed. Hrut went back to his ship.
She would follow what happened, snaring the news from Iceland as she snared the news from everywhere. Meanwhile she got her mind off it—mostly—in furthering the welfare of her sons.
VI
Bitterness had not yet died out when She met with them. They came to her house at the Byfjord as had been their wont in Denmark and as she hoped they would keep on doing in Norway. Another storm of another bad year howled around the walls, dashing rain and hail at the roof. Lightning flared; thunder wheeled rumbling down an unseen sky. The carven dragons could only snarl at it.
She rose to stand before them, firelit against gloom. Her words lashed: “What do you mean to do about your kingship in Thraandheim? You bear the name of kings, like your forefathers of old; but you have few men and not much land, and they are many who share its yields. Eastward in Vikin sit Tryggvi and Gudröd. They may have some right to that, being of the kindred. But Sigurd Jarl rules the whole Thraandlaw. I cannot see why you let so great a kingdom lie under anybody but yourselves. Strange does it seem to me, that you go abroad in viking in the summers, but here at home let a jarl rob you of your father’s inheritance. Your grandfather, Harald”—she looked at her foremost son—”whom you are named after, would have reckoned it a small thing to take land and life from a mere jarl, he who brought all Norway under himself and kept it until his eld.”
The younger men scowled. Harald Grayfell said weightily, “Mother, it’s not as easy to cut off Sigurd Jarl as to slaughter a kid or a calf. He’s of high birth, with many mighty kinsmen, well-liked, and wise. I think if he knew we threatened him, the Thraands would rally around as one. We’d get nothing but harm. I don’t think any of us brothers could sit safely among them.”
Gunnhild had planned for something like this. “Then we’ll set to work otherwise, and put ourselves forward less boldly. Come fall, Harald and Erling shall go to stay in North Moerr. I’ll fare along. There we’ll see what can be done, and take counsel together.”
After talking to and fro, they agreed to it.
VII
King Harald sent messengers to Sigurd Jarl with rich gifts and friendly words. He said it was his wish to knit the same bonds that there had been between the jarl and King Haakon. Therefore King Harald invited Sigurd to visit, so that they could make this fellowship firm.
The jarl received the messengers well, took the gifts gladly, and gave them gifts as goodly and words as mild to take back. However, he said, he could not himself come to the king because he had too much to do where he was.
The messengers went from there to Grjotgard, bearing the same kind of gifts and the same kind of bidding. Grjotgard answered that he would visit.
Yes, thought Gunnhild when she heard, Sigurd was as wily and wary as ever; but he grew old, while ruthless youth followed close on his heels.
On the day set, or near enough, Grjotgard arrived at the hall in North Moerr. King Harald, King Erling, and Queen Gunnhild took him in with a heartiness overwhelming to such a fameless man. They also took him into their councils about many big doings, as though they found him wiser than most.
Before long he was ripe for that which they had had in mind throughout. They told him over and over how unrightfully Sigurd kept him down; but if he would stand by them in this, he would become jarl in his brother’s stead, and have everything that Sigurd now held.
The upshot was that Grjotgard went home, laden with gifts, to keep an eye on Sigurd and let the king know of any openings.
Again Gunnhild waited.
When she recalled how she had done so in the past, this was nothing. Well before the first snowfall, they heard from him. Formerly Sigurd Jarl kept a big troop of guards, but that was costly, and after the Eirikssons offered friendship he went about with fewer. Now he was making the rounds of his holdings. Shortly he would be at Öglo in the nether Stjoradale. There could be no better time to fall upon him.
Mother of Kings Page 44