The Half-Drowned King, page 46
“Norway,” said Hakon. “What is that? You dress your own ambition up in these false colors. There is no Norway. There are lands separated by kings and valleys, lands that will never be reconciled to one another. Your Norway will be a weak land with a weak king.”
“I hear your own fears in your words,” said Guthorm.
“My Norway will have many kings,” said Harald. “You and your sons among them, if you will be my ally again. Must we make war on each other again? Remember, I defeated Solvi at a fraction of my usual fighting strength.”
“Because you had my men,” said Hakon.
“And many of those were killed, while mine were not. They are still at their farms.”
“What kind of king are you, to boast that you let other men do your fighting for you? You should be ashamed even to say this to me.”
“It is not a boast,” said Guthorm, stepping between them, as he had at the trial for Heming’s life. “It is only truth. Harald is at better strength now than you, if it comes to a fight. Furthermore, your men have fought alongside him and his captain Ragnvald, as have your sons. Are you sure they will be loyal to you?”
One of Hakon’s men, who had come with him into the hall, shifted uneasily. None of the men would like to be accused of disloyalty, and Ragnvald did not really think they would follow him rather than their sworn king. Hakon looked as though his angry certainty had been shaken, though. He tugged at his beard, rubbing the ends between thumb and forefinger.
“Help me get my son,” he said, sounding tired now. “He helped you; Now you must help him.” He gave Ragnvald a look of disdain. “Ragnvald will not mind trading his sister to Solvi for him, if he is as loyal to you as he would claim.”
“We will sail out and attack him. I mean to marry the girl,” said Harald, at the same time as Ragnvald began to voice a protest.
“This is the cost of my friendship,” said Hakon firmly.
“Your friendship is precious,” Guthorm assured him. He looked at Harald and Ragnvald. “We must think on this.”
* * *
Harald and Guthorm considered for a few days, while the snow melted and Hunthiof’s body moldered. Harald wanted to speak to Svanhild, but until Guthorm made up his mind about what to do, he would not let Harald in to see her. Harald might be too swept away by the heroism of fighting Solvi for Svanhild, and Guthorm could not allow it. Finally, they called Ragnvald in to help decide.
Harald had a chamber he shared with whatever woman took his fancy—until Heming’s duel, it had been Hakon’s daughter Asa. It contained a bed as well as some chairs and a table, which was where Guthorm and Harald were sitting when the servant brought Ragnvald in. He had never been invited here before. There were circles within circles of belonging to Harald.
“King Hakon has ever been more trouble than he is worth,” said Harald.
“He has few enough men with him now,” said Guthorm. “But he can still muster from all of the north and much of the west.”
“Ragnvald, what do you think?” Harald asked.
“Svanhild is my sister. How can I give a fair answer?”
“You always give a fair answer.”
Ragnvald sighed. “Let me talk to her again.”
“What will you say?” Guthorm asked. Ragnvald did not know. He was grateful when Harald spoke.
“I do not wish to send her back against her will,” he said. “Perhaps we can trade King Hunthiof’s body and some prisoners for Heming.” If he still lived. Hakon had looked drawn and worried, and he spoke of a wound that festered. If Harald and Guthorm waited too long, they would certainly make an enemy of Hakon.
Guthorm shook his head. “Hakon swears Solvi will only trade for her. He said he does not care where his father lies.” Ragnvald was troubled by the blasphemy. He did not want Hunthiof’s body resting at Vestfold. “Do you think you can convince her?”
Ragnvald sighed. “I do not think it is against her will. Would that it were otherwise.”
Harald gave him leave to go speak with Svanhild, and he went to the room where they had put her. She had shared a chamber with Harald’s mother these past few days.
“Ragnvald, I do not wish to be here,” she said as soon as he entered. “Return me to Solvi.”
“You have only one song, dear sister.” He sat next to her. “I have done as I promised, and found you a fine husband. If you refused to go, I might convince them to defend you.”
“I refuse to stay.”
“At least help me understand. What is Solvi to you now? Why do you prize him more than me?”
She drew her knees up and pulled her skirt down over them, so she sat as if within a tent. For a time she did not say anything, but then she tilted her head and looked at him. “Solvi is my freedom. Will any of your fine choices for husbands take me raiding with them? Or will it be halls and children and first wives whose word is law? Will I be left at home while my men go out and live?”
“You loved the farm at Ardal.”
“Not as I love this. Not as I love him.”
Ragnvald did not want to hear more of this. He stood and paced the room, this soft women’s room where he did not belong.
“And what of you, brother? Are you content to be the messenger of kings, always dependent on their will? I always wondered why you did not go and carve out your own land.”
A path closed to both of them now. He did not ask if Svanhild would follow him then, across the sea. She had made her choice. “The bones of our ancestors lie in Sogn’s earth,” he said. “We were born to keep that land safe, and with Harald as king, that will happen.”
“And he is your golden wolf,” said Svanhild. At Ragnvald’s surprised expression, she put out her hand to him. “Ronhild and I have spoken. Now tell me what you came to say.”
He took her hand in his. “This is what is happening: Harald, Guthorm, and Hakon are all agreed. Do you know what you are being sold for?”
“Hakon’s son.”
“Yes,” Ragnvald replied. “And a renewed alliance between Hakon and Harald, an alliance that will only hurt your Solvi.” He watched to see how she would react. Her face crumpled. She withdrew her fingers from his.
“No matter where I go,” she said, “I hurt someone.”
“How did you come to leave Hrolf’s farm, truly?” he asked.
She told him, haltingly, of Thorkell’s coming, of feeling trapped. Then she told him too of being at sea with Solvi, and her voice grew clear. “Solvi must already know this,” she said, finally. “He must know that by allowing Hakon to come to Harald, so that I might be traded for Heming, he might cause their alliance to be restored. What can I do, rather than go to him?” She scrubbed her hands over her face to wipe away tears, and looked up at Ragnvald. “I do not want to make an alliance that hurts him. He is my husband.” She put her hand on his arm. “Take me away from here, brother. Bring me to Solvi. Without this trade. Come with us. You do not want to bind your life to Harald’s ambition. Follow your own ambition.”
Ragnvald turned away from her. It was one path. He could break his promises, and leave Harald with Hakon his enemy again. He remembered what Ronhild had said he would sacrifice for Harald. Here was one thing, a first precious thing.
“He is my ambition,” he said.
“You have not yet sworn to him. You are free.”
“No one is free. I have not yet sworn, but I will.”
“You said you’d care for me when our father died, and you did. You used to. What now?” The words stung less than he thought they would. They were Svanhild’s last weapon. Ragnvald stood and rubbed at the scar on his face.
“You made your choice, Svanhild. If you wanted to stay here, to abandon Solvi, I would try to help you in that, but I will not help Solvi. Do you wish to stay, or go to him?”
She only hesitated for a moment. “I want to go.”
* * *
Svanhild looked peaceful as Ragnvald helped her onto the ship. How could Solvi have driven this much of a wedge between them? She was his Svanhild, the best and most charming of sisters, the bravest. And now the most wrong. She could be a king’s wife, and she would rather be Solvi’s.
They found Solvi with a few ships, beyond the bend in the fjord. When Solvi saw Svanhild, Ragnvald almost understood. Solvi was the most accomplished liar Ragnvald knew, lying not only with words but with every movement he made, every expression. Even his eyes could glance with lying intent. But he could not mask his love for Svanhild—or at least his desire for her and the child she carried.
“Ragnvald Eysteinsson,” said Solvi when he helped Svanhild step across from one ship to the other. The weather had turned warmer. Trees dripped bits of snow into the fjord. “You said no one could turn Svanhild’s mind but herself. I have seen that you are right.”
“She loves you,” Ragnvald said, pushing her at him ungraciously. “I cannot think why.” Solvi gave him a smug smile. “Svanhild, no matter what, you will always have a place with me. Your child too. You do not need to go with him now. I will find a way . . .”
“I want this, brother.” Svanhild moved lightly, even weighed down by her pregnancy, with the sort of step that sailors of long experience had, the knowledge that the ground beneath her foot might give way at any time. It would, too, with Solvi.
“You want to be shackled to an outlaw, a man with no land, no country.”
Svanhild raised her chin. “The sea is our country. Our land is any shore on which we rest. How much better is that than the chains you bind yourself with, to land, to king?”
Ragnvald shook his head. He did not want to envy her, her body taken over by Solvi’s seed—that was her binding, and a stronger binding even than any oath Ragnvald would swear to Harald. No, he did not envy her anything except her certainty. He had believed that she would never love someone more than him; even when she was married, it would be to a man Ragnvald chose, and so bind her to him closer, not separate them.
Hakon made a rude noise. “Solvi Hunthiofsson, you promised me my son in this trade. You and your wife can pretend to be heroes of some ancient song later.”
Svanhild’s face went red. Solvi merely shrugged. He put two fingers in his mouth and whistled sharply. A few minutes later, men rowed a small boat over to the two ships. Within, Heming’s fair hair showed above a gag. His head lolled forward, and the guard behind him pulled him back from toppling over. He was not well.
“You may keep the boat as well as the hostage,” said Solvi. “My thanks for returning my wife.”
“You probably stole it from some Vestfold fisherman,” said Ragnvald.
Solvi grinned. “I did.” Harald’s men took possession of the boat. “Are we done now?”
“No,” said Harald. “You are outlawed, Solvi Hunthiofsson. I call upon the gods to witness this. Your father is dead. Your lands are forfeit. Any man who sees you may kill you without penalty. Indeed, should he come to my court with your head, I will reward him.”
Solvi looked white for a moment—no man could think lightly of exile and outlawry, not even Solvi Hunthiofsson—and then he grinned again. “I never wanted to be king,” he said. “Come, Svanhild.” She crossed the last few steps to him and stood next to him, clasping his hand, as though it did not matter to her that Harald had declared it the duty of Ragnvald and every free man to kill her husband on sight. She might never see Ragnvald again, and she did not even appear to care.
Harald’s party returned to his ship. Ragnvald watched as Solvi’s ships receded into the distance. Svanhild looked back. She waved good-bye, a flash of white wrist, as Solvi’s men raised his sail.
Harald stood by Ragnvald’s side. “We will pay and pay again for this alliance with Hakon,” he said, hardly above a whisper, too quiet for Hakon to hear him where he stood at the prow. “I wonder when it will be too much. You have sacrificed greatly. Never has a man served me as well as you. I wish you to be by my side for the rest of both of our days, and I wish to reward you as you see fit.”
“You sent me away,” said Ragnvald. It still rankled.
“If I ever do that again, you may laugh in my face.” Harald spoke louder now. “I call all men present to witness this. You will be first among my captains and advisers, saving only my uncle Guthorm. No man has ever been a truer friend than you.” The men on board the ship applauded, all except Hakon himself. “You have told me that your grandfather was king of Sogn,” Harald continued, “and his fathers and forefathers before him. So you must be king—my king, now. It is spring, the seas are open. We will go to Sogn, and claim a kingdom for you.”
“Thank you, King Harald. You do me great honor.”
“Do not thank me,” Harald said. “It is no more than your due. It is I who should thank you.”
Ragnvald could not speak. Harald turned to Hakon. “Then we will go on to Tafjord and win the kingdoms of Maer for your sons. I will build my northern capital there. Together we will rule this new land.”
A land where his sister was not welcome; he had sacrificed her, just as the sorceress Ronhild predicted. He pressed his fingers into the scar on his palm as he walked with Harald up the beach and toward the hall. The sun lit up Harald’s tangled, shining hair.
Author’s Note
History
The Half-Drowned King is a work of fiction that takes its inspiration from the saga of Harald Fairhair in Snorri Sturluson’s Heimskringla.
Norway in the late ninth century is only beginning to emerge from myth into written history. Most of the existing sources for the life of Harald and his contemporaries were written many centuries later. Ninth-century Norway did not have written language besides runes, the angular writing found on Viking markers like the Danish Jelling stones, which were raised in memory of great deeds and departed family. Runes in Viking Age Norway were used for fortune-telling, as well as marking some religious and other monuments, but not for historical record-keeping.
In the thirteenth century the Icelander Snorri Sturluson, a historian, poet, and politician, would write down the Heimskringla, and many other sagas—roughly the equivalent of someone today writing the story of the founding of the United States with only oral tradition on which to base his narrative. The Heimskringla almost certainly has gaps and inaccuracies. Furthermore, many scholars believe that Snorri Sturluson used the saga to make certain implicit arguments about Iceland’s political situation at the time, leading him to highlight some stories and leave out others. The works of Saxo Grammaticus, a twelfth-century Danish historian, and Historia Norwegiae, a history of Norway written in the thirteenth century by an anonymous Scandinavian monk, also attest to Harald’s conquest of Norway and his reign, while focusing on different aspects of the events than the Heimskringla.
In writing The Half-Drowned King, I have used the stories in the Heimskringla as a jumping-off point, and also asked myself what might have been the real events behind the stories that Snorri Sturluson and others passed on and recorded. My sources mention Ragnvald, Harald, Svanhild, Solvi, and many others, but I have invented aspects of these figures’ relationships—such as Svanhild and Solvi’s romantic involvement—and also invented some new characters, like Ragnvald’s stepfather, Olaf, and stepmother, Vigdis.
Still, those wishing to avoid spoilers for subsequent novels should probably avoid Wikipedia and the Heimskringla.
Names
Because so many names and name parts are repeated in the history of Harald Fairhair, I’ve had to make some tough choices. For instance, Ragnvald’s brother Sigurd (here I’ve made him a stepbrother) shares his name with many other Sigurds, including a son of Hakon Grjotgardsson. It would be terribly confusing to have two important characters named Sigurd in a novel, so Hakon’s eldest son takes the name of one of his other sons, Heming.
Similarly, the prefix Ragn- (meaning council, wisdom, or power) is found in the names of many characters in Harald’s saga. For the sake of clarity, I’ve used the spelling Ronhild rather than Ragnhild for Harald’s mother. I also shortened the name of Ragnvald’s intended, Ragnhild(a), to Hilda, again for clarity.
Old Norse—similar to modern Scandinavian languages—is an inflected language, meaning it has noun cases. Old Norse names in the nominative case, the case used when the person is the subject of a sentence, end with the suffix -r, so Ragnvald would be Ragnvaldr (sometimes transliterated Ragnvaldur). For ease of pronunciation, in most instances I have omitted the-r suffix, and used more anglicized versions of the names without diacritics, e.g., I use Solvi rather than Sölvi.
Sources
Here are a few, but not nearly all, of the books I have found valuable in researching Viking Age Norway and Early Medieval Europe. Christie Ward’s Viking Answer Lady website, www.vikinganswerlady.com, is also a useful resource.
Bauer, Susan Wise. The History of the Medieval World: From the Conversion of Constantine to the First Crusade. New York: W. W. Norton, 2010.
Davidson, Hilda Ellis. Gods and Myths of Northern Europe. New York: Penguin, 1990.
———. The Roles of the Northern Goddess. London: Routledge, 2002.
Fitzhugh, William W., and Elizabeth I. Ward, eds. Vikings: The North Atlantic Saga, Washington, DC: Smithsonian, 2000.
Foote, Peter G., and David M. Wilson. The Viking Achievement: The Society and Culture of Early Medieval Scandinavia. London: Book Club Associates, 1974.
Griffith, Paddy. The Viking Art of War. London: Greenhill, 1995.
Jesch, Judith. Women in the Viking Age. Woodbridge, England: Boydell, 1991.
Jochens, Jenny. Women in Old Norse Society. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1995.
Jones, Gwyn. A History of the Vikings. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press, 1984.
Larrington, Carolyne, trans. The Poetic Edda. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press, 2014.
Lindow, John. Norse Mythology: A Guide to Gods, Heroes, Rituals and Beliefs. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002.
Sturluson, Snorri. Heimskringla; or, The Lives of the Norse Kings. Translated by Erling Monson. New York: Dover, 1990.
