The Half-Drowned King, page 25
Ragnvald looked around for Heming, but wherever he was, it was not here. Perhaps he was enjoying one of those unspoiled women now—all the more reason for Ragnvald to stay clear.
Hakon waved off a few men who stood near. “Tell me,” he said.
“Heming means to leave tonight when all the men are drunk, and sail back to Tafjord to attack Hunthiof and Solvi.”
“How do you know this?”
“He told—he asked me to come with him,” said Ragnvald. It seemed petulant to bring up Heming’s threats, and Hakon might believe him less.
“And you do not wish to?”
“Solvi will keep,” said Ragnvald. In truth, he did not want revenge on Solvi, not the way he did upon Olaf. “I am here now.”
“Thank you for telling me this,” said Hakon, his eyes shadowed. “Come with me. If it is true, Heming will answer for it.”
They found Heming standing under the eaves of one of the outbuildings, together with the captains who must have decided to throw in with him. He looked so guilty when Hakon and Ragnvald approached that Ragnvald did not fear being disbelieved.
“Is what I would give you not enough?” Hakon roared, on seeing him. The captains glanced at each other and, by unspoken accord, slunk off in various directions. Hakon narrowed his eyes at their leaving, but did not stop them. “I would have made you king of Maer, had you only waited a season. Ragnvald here would have been your adviser and companion.”
Ragnvald made his face as impassive as possible, trying not to show how ill that would have suited him.
“Explain yourself,” said Hakon.
“I am a man’s age now, have been five years gone,” said Heming, his hand on his sword. Ragnvald put his own there. He was sworn to defend Hakon. “Yet you treat me like a boy.”
“Because you act like a boy.”
“King Hunthiof is your sworn enemy. I want to kill him for you. You defied your father and conquered Halogaland,” said Heming, his angry tone turning aggrieved.
“Because I was a younger son, and my father did not mean to give me anything I could not take with my own hands. I conquered Halogaland before my older brother could.”
“That is not what the songs say,” said Heming.
“You call me a liar?” Hakon roared. “The songs say what I will them to say.”
“I’m sure your puppet Ragnvald said what you wanted him to say too.”
Ragnvald tightened his grip on his sword, in case Heming should draw on him now.
“Ragnvald is sworn to me, not you. He did what a man ought,” Hakon said.
Ragnvald wanted to be far away from here. If he left, would they stop talking about him? He continued to back away, slowly, in case Hakon bid him stay, but he did not. Ragnvald had volunteered to set guards for Hakon’s treasure, and that would serve to keep him busy and out of Heming’s way until morning.
* * *
Oddi came to sit by him later in the night. Ragnvald paced back and forth in the dark, around the pile of treasure that Hakon had looted. The hall smoldered and smoked. He greeted Oddi, who sat on a rock, looking down toward the river, toward the grove where they had done their killing.
“My father has spent half the night scolding Heming and the other half torturing the captives. He is angry.” Oddi spread his hands. They were still red with blood, flecked with darker specks of something thicker—from battle, or else he had been called on to help with the torture. When Ragnvald sailed with him, Solvi had said that some men had the stomach for torture, and some did not. Solvi himself did not, he said, and so he kept Ulfarr to do the work for him. He had said it was not unmanly, for true men had deep feelings. Ragnvald had wondered then, what Ulfarr thought of that, but Ulfarr seemed proud to do this bloody work, to set himself apart from the ranks of other men. Ragnvald would not have thought Oddi had the stomach for it either, at least not to seek it out.
“Did you do it? The . . . questioning?” Ragnvald asked.
“No,” said Oddi. “It is bad enough to see. He cut the guts out of the first man while his fellows watched. I think he wanted to frighten Guthorm and Harald.” He shook his head as if to dispel the vision. “At least I did not vomit. All we learned is that King Gudbrand is on the move with his warriors. He has heard of our coming or of Harald’s. We will not catch him, not without more information, or more men.”
Ragnvald was surprised at that. They had near on four hundred men, and Harald at least that many, surely more than a petty Hordaland king could likely muster, at least on short notice. He said as much to Oddi.
“Gudbrand has raised men against Harald already,” said Oddi.
“Then he should be easy to find. That many men cannot pass unnoticed. Will we put more halls to the torch?” Ragnvald asked, feeling stupid from lack of sleep.
“I know not,” said Oddi, looking at him curiously. “You sound worried. Do you not like killing?” he asked, more bitterly. He held his hands oddly, apart from one another, not relaxed.
“I like it well enough,” said Ragnvald. “Until the middle of the night when it is done.” He gave Oddi a smile that felt strange. He was in one of those odd moods that overtook him after battle, now that Solvi had wounded his face. Every battle since then had ended wrongly for him: Solvi’s dagger, a false draugr, and now Heming’s betrayal. “What will this King Harald have us do? What does he bid?”
“You can guess as well as I,” said Oddi.
“Yes,” said Ragnvald. “We will find King Gudbrand, and put him to the sword. We will put all the other men to the sword who opposed us. We will open more bellies. We will sell his slaves away from his lands, and ransom his women from their kinsmen, just as we are doing now. We would torture some, if we felt like it.”
“You are tired and drunk,” said Oddi. “Go, find a woman, and sleep some. I will guard here.” Oddi looked down at his bloody hands again and then wiped them off on the grass.
“No, I took this task,” said Ragnvald. “I am guarding this gold. How much gold do kings need?”
“What do you want, Ragnvald?” Oddi asked. “If you would know the shape of fates and of countries, go talk to a skald or a priest, or talk to Ronhild the sorceress. If you’re not going to sleep, I will, and I don’t want you sending me evil dreams.”
He stood up and walked away. Ragnvald immediately regretted speaking as he had, voicing questions no man could answer: why some men were kings, and others soldiers; why a man like Olaf would raise Ragnvald up to be his son and then betray him. Why Hakon would set his sons against each other; why gold flowed to his hands, while Ragnvald had to be grateful for a handful of silver. He would need more than that to make Ardal into the farm it should be, rich as he remembered it as a boy, with cows that ended the winter fat as they began it. And then a hundred times that to become a fine enough lord that the men of Sogn would be willing to acclaim him king. And he should be grateful to Hakon, but the obligation only made him feel small.
20
Gerta woke early the next morning, seeming none the worse for her drinking. She must drink that deeply every night. Svanhild followed behind her, with her bags over her shoulder, as Gerta led her toward the beach. Svanhild’s head ached a bit from the two glasses of ale she had consumed.
Gerta carried herself ramrod straight. She took no provisions, though she had pressed a few rounds of bread and hunks of cheese on Svanhild. Svanhild took that to mean that Gerta would not be traveling with her. She thought of Gerta’s desire to go to Yrjar, and also of her offering Svanhild a place with her. Gerta had carved out a life of independence and respect here in Kaupanger, but it looked lonely.
They walked among the ships pulled up on the beach. Gerta lifted her skirts as she stepped over slimy piles of seaweed. She gave each of the vessels a careful look, and then walked on to the next one. Svanhild could see little difference between the ships—most were wide and deep, without oar ports—knarrs, for merchants. They could not outrun an enemy, or leave a harbor quickly, but they could carry far more cargo than a dragon ship, from what Svanhild could see. Ragnvald had said they also required less skill and fewer men to sail than a narrow warship.
At length, Gerta stopped in front of a well-maintained merchant’s vessel. On the deck, a stoutly built man near Gerta’s age directed two younger men loading heavy chests. He had white hair, kept short and neatly brushed, a short beard, and small, dark eyes, but he looked youthful for all that, with a restless energy to all of his movements. Gerta waved the older man over, and they had a low conversation. Then she motioned Svanhild to come closer.
“This is my friend Solmund,” said Gerta.
Svanhild made her greeting with a curtsy, and introduced herself, glancing at Gerta before giving her real name.
“How does the fancywork business?” Solmund asked. “My wife treasures the counterpane you gave her.”
Gerta nodded at the compliment. “Well enough,” she said. “When next you go to Birka, perhaps I will accompany you.”
Solmund smiled. “You always say that, Gerta.”
Gerta nodded again. It seemed she would not smile this morning—the only evidence of her night spent drinking. “I wish you a speedy journey,” she said to Svanhild.
“Thank you for your help,” said Svanhild. “The gods smile on your hospitality.” Svanhild would have liked to hug Gerta, but Gerta’s straight back seemed to forbid it. She watched Gerta leave, feeling bereft. Here she was, handed off yet again.
Svanhild bowed to Solmund again when Gerta receded from view. “Can I help with anything?” she asked.
“You can see if my wife needs anything,” said Solmund absently, waving in the direction of the ship. Svanhild was happy to learn that there would be another woman on board, although she had resolved not to doubt Gerta’s trust of Solmund. As she descended the stairs into the ship’s hold, she made a prayer to Freya in thanks for her good luck. The gods must smile on this path.
Solmund’s wife, from what Svanhild could see in the gloom inside the ship, was possessed of a friendlier face than Gerta’s. Had she more flesh on her bones, she might have been pretty. Her shoulders and hips were narrowly framed, and her life at sea had stripped any excess from her, leaving her eyes and cheeks deeply shadowed in their hollows.
“I like company,” she said, when Svanhild greeted her and told of her destination. “Though I am glad I had sons, not daughters. A daughter might keep me at home. Not a daughter such as you, it seems.” Svanhild felt that was an invitation to tell her story, and so she did, as far as fleeing Hrolf’s farm.
“That is a bold story,” said Solmund’s wife. “Are you sure this is safe for you?”
“Is any sea travel safe?” Svanhild asked. “This is safer to me than staying behind.”
Solmund’s ship carried gold and Frankish swords for King Hakon, as well as bolts of cloth from Constantinople. Svanhild and the wife—who gave her name as Haldora—unwound the rich fabric to make sure that it was aired and would not spoil during the journey, then rewound it back on its dowels. In this way they passed the time until high tide, when Solmund made a prayer to the sea gods Njord and Ran, bowing and gesturing over the bow of the ship, and then cast them off. Svanhild sat with Haldora near the small tent on the deck where the whole family slept if they had to spend a night on board.
Haldora gave Svanhild a length of wool roving and an empty spindle. “It’s hard to spin shipboard,” she said, “but you’ll soon get the trick of it.” Svanhild had been too busy watching Solmund cast them off to explain that she was a poor spinner at the best of times.
Solmund’s sons were well made, taller than their father, loose-limbed, with the promise of attaining their father’s bulk one day. They climbed over masts and gunwales like mountain goats on a steep slope. None among them looked as formidable as Ragnvald, though.
Svanhild had been too scared and busy over the past few days to think of her brother much. Soon she would pass over the same sea roads he had sailed on his way to Yrjar. She would see the things that he had seen and described to her: the diving of ocean birds, the sea fog, the seals that rested on rocks and called to each other like playful children. The wind blowing off the fjord smelled new-washed.
After they maneuvered out into the middle of the fjord, Svanhild picked up the spindle and the bolt of fine wool roving. “Do you have anything rougher?” she asked. “I’m better suited to sail wool.”
Haldora plucked the spinning from her lap. “You need not spin at all, my dear, I only thought you might be happier with your hands occupied.”
Svanhild smiled at that. “I can as easily comb wool for you, or something simpler.”
Haldora gave her an odd look, but like most women, she detested the tedious task of picking sticks and dirt out of wool, and then the endless combing between iron spikes until all the fibers ran the same way. At least Svanhild could always make friends by offering to do that work.
* * *
They stopped that night on a narrow beach beneath the fjord’s high cliff. Solmund’s sons pitched a tent on the sand while Svanhild and Haldora prepared the evening meal. Svanhild added some of Gerta’s bread to the repast. She and Haldora waited on the men until Haldora sat down next to her husband on a piece of driftwood to eat her meal, salt fish boiled with some leeks, and so Svanhild sat down as well, rather than waiting until the men were done.
“How do you come to be out here alone?” asked Solmund.
Svanhild tried to tell a short version of leaving Hrolf’s farm, glancing at Haldora, who smiled at her—she did not mind hearing the same story twice. So Svanhild added as much as she could of Ragnvald’s story, before she meant to, telling of Solvi, how he tried to kill her brother, at Olaf’s leading.
“It is like something out of an old song,” said one of Solmund’s sons eagerly, tripping over the words.
“And Solvi asked for me,” said Svanhild, laughing and blushing. “It is too foolish to be a heroic tale, and I would rather not figure in a comic one.”
“This Thorkell does not seem so bad,” said Haldora gently.
Did all women think the same? Svanhild looked to Solmund. “Do you trade with Solvi Hunthiofsson?” she asked. “Or his father?”
Solmund looked taken aback, perhaps to be questioned so boldly by a woman. Svanhild bit her lip—she should have followed Haldora’s lead more. Haldora was competent and brave, it seemed, to lead this life, but gentle too.
Solmund finished chewing his bread before he spoke. “I used to. Before I married, when this Solvi was still a boy. Tafjord was a rough place, always too many warriors without enough to do. When I brought servants to help me, Hunthiof’s men would have sport of them, forcing them to fight one another so they could bet, that sort of thing.” Warriors played cruel games, and servants and thralls were usually the butt of them. Svanhild knew this. A good king would keep his men from doing too much damage, but they must be allowed to pass the time somehow.
“That was before Hunthiof’s wife died. I came there once after that. By Thor, I was glad I had left Haldora and my sons at home. It had become haunted. The boy ran wild. Men had been killed in duels—or nothing as formal as a duel—and their bodies lay unburied around the hall. It had snowed early that year at least, so the stench was not so bad until I came into the hall. I should have fled then and there.
“‘I would bid you welcome,’ King Hunthiof said when I came with my usual wares. ‘But we are the dead here, and there is no welcome from the dead, for the dead.’ His words chilled me. I could see that he had taken leave of his senses, and that his men, those that remained, had followed him into madness. His son, Solvi, had recovered from his injuries enough to walk, but he did not speak. He only wandered among the fallen men—and none could tell those fallen from drink from those fallen in death. He ate and drank whatever had been left to spoil on the table. I saw him vomiting in a corner before I left, with no woman to care for him, to wipe his face. I do not know what happened to the women who once served the hall, but sometimes I have dreams about it. If the child had not been maimed, if his father was not a king, I think I might have stolen him away. Certainly I wish I had.”
He shuddered. Svanhild thought he had not meant to say this much, but now that he had begun, he was far away, back in that world. He gripped his wife’s hand hard, making her tanned skin white.
“He took all my goods as spoils—for Hel, they said—for none can bring goods away from the country of the dead. And then he took my servants—one of them, Sverri, had been with me for years. He had been my companion since I inherited my first ship from my father, may he lie quiet in his barrow. He said that if I would leave the land of the dead, I must pay for the privilege. Of course I protested, and asked for him to take me instead, but he said no, that Sverri would do, that taking the life of a free man would put them in debt—I do not know what they meant. Their rituals were none I had heard of before. Whether they were from some terrible god, or only Hunthiof’s madness, I do not know. I will not tell you how they killed Sverri, though they made me watch, and once they had smeared me with his blood, they put me back on my ship and sent me with my hold empty, back out into the stormy fjord.”
Solmund let go of his wife’s hand and shook himself. “I borrowed heavily from all my friends so I could continue to trade, for all the wealth I had left was my ship. I have heard that Hunthiof’s madness is not so strong as it was, and he is a canny ruler again. Some traders still go to his hall, but I shall never go again. And I have heard I am not the only trader he served thus. Is it any wonder that his son should have grown up cruel and capricious? I am glad you are going to your brother. He will want to keep you out of Solvi’s grasp.”
Svanhild felt guilty for making Solmund relive those memories, and her heart went out to small Solvi, wandering through that hellish hall, with none to tell him what was wrong.
