The Half-Drowned King, page 5
When the men sat, Svanhild brought in the trenchers and then the cups of ale with her eyes cast down, serving the opposite side of the table and never raising her eyes to Thorkell’s. Olaf took hold of her wrist when she went to serve him more ale.
“Daughter,” he said, coolly, “you have not greeted our guest. I think he would like your company at his seat.”
Svanhild flushed red. She had never been asked to share a man’s seat at a feast before, except in her earliest memory, when that man had been her father. Now it marked her as property Olaf wished to display, and Thorkell might wish to buy. Olaf had gifted Thorkell with part of the land he had taken from Eystein, and now Thorkell was the richer man.
“As you wish, Stepfather,” she said.
She walked around to Thorkell’s seat, feeling awkward with all eyes upon her. Walking behind him, she could see where his hair receded from his forehead. He wore a heavy red beard, streaked with gray that hid much of his face. He was huge, and seemed somewhat misshapen from it, as though all his body parts had grown without heeding where the others stopped. His eyes were smaller and darker than Olaf’s, though otherwise their shared blood marked them similarly, deep lines carved from nose down to chin, upper lip covered by a mustache, lower pouting out. Thorkell wore a silk tunic over his homespun shirt and trews, and displayed more wealth in silver rings and clasps. Looking at him now, she did not feel fear, just weariness.
“My cousin does me honor,” said Thorkell, looking her up and down. Her face heated—weariness turning to anger. She sat down next to him and began drinking from his cup. He dwarfed her, blocking half the room from her view. She drank deeply; that was her job, after all, in sharing his seat. When she drained it, she felt no less angry, but less cautious. She called a thrall over to refill it.
“I was sorry to hear of your stepson’s death,” said Thorkell to Olaf when meat was finished, bones thrown to the dogs, and the drinking begun in earnest. “Allow me to toast his easy rest, wherever he lies.” He plucked the cup from between her fingers, rough nails rasping against her skin. She tried to move away from him on the crowded bench.
Olaf’s expression flickered from surprise to anger and then to a false piety that made Svanhild angrier still. He raised his cup and completed the toast, then proposed another, to Thorkell’s new grandson, the son of his daughter, married off to a farmer farther south. Another of Thorkell’s men gave a toast that devolved into an insult competition between two brothers who, Svanhild gathered from the weary cheers, performed this often. The insults were not very creative; the chief entertainment derived from whether they would end the evening with arms around one another in friendship, or nursing bloody noses in separate corners.
Olaf turned to talk with Thorkell’s blacksmith, who he had grown up with. Since no one, not even Thorkell, was paying her attention, Svanhild again drank what was left in his cup. As she put it down, his massive hand closed over hers, and she started.
“Oh, you do like a drink,” said Thorkell. “Perhaps that’s enough for now, though I can see that your father—”
“Stepfather,” Svanhild corrected.
“Stepfather, then. Does that mean you will not call me uncle like you used to?”
If he were her uncle, then he would be too close kin to marry with her. She did not remember that. He had not been a frequent visitor to Olaf’s farm in years past, preferring to visit his last wife’s wealthy family. She was dead now, and her family’s favors had been bestowed on his sons, not him. Now he turned his eyes to Olaf’s land, with its weak son and marriageable stepdaughter. If Ragnvald were still alive, he could prevent this—as her stepfather’s first cousin, the relation might still be judged too close to hers, but with few enough prospects for her of proper birth and wealth in their district, none would voice a protest.
“My cousin did not please you by sitting you here, I can see,” said Thorkell.
“I don’t think he does much to please me,” said Svanhild. She should be flirting and charming him. Vigdis would advise it, even if he smelled of stale meat, stale sweat. She could no more imagine bedding him than one of the cows, but from how he looked at her, clearly he had no trouble imagining it.
“Will you place a wager for me, Thorkell?” Svanhild asked. “I have no coin of my own.” She tried to smile at him.
“If I had a thrall as fat as you, I—I would sell him to a minstrel to dance in his bear-show,” called out one of the brothers to the other. Thorkell’s men shouted their derision. They must have heard the insult before.
“What will you bet?” Thorkell asked.
“Oh no,” said Svanhild. “I asked you to place the bet for me. I will wager nothing of my own.”
“Not even a kiss?” Thorkell asked. Svanhild must have looked as repulsed as she felt, for Thorkell shrugged and handed his glass up to a passing thrall to refill. “No? I forgot how young you are. What bet should I make?”
“I bet they end the night drunk and peaceful. My mother brews strong ale.” The brothers seemed too tired for fighting tonight. Thorkell’s farm lay a half day’s march from Olaf’s in good weather, and today had been cold and wet for the journey.
“That she does,” said Thorkell, raising his glass. He leaned over and spoke a few low words to one of his men, handing him a thin silver coin.
Svanhild watched the money change hands. “Who pays for your swords, Thorkell?” Svanhild asked. “I know you do not get enough silver just from stealing cows.”
Thorkell laughed, although it sounded thin. “You do work for my cousin then, asking me this?”
“Can I not ask for myself?” Svanhild tossed her hair. “I want to know. How do you buy swords?”
Thorkell looked at her soberly. She almost liked him, then, the way he seemed to see her, not just Olaf’s pawn. “I think you are wise enough to know it is not in my interest to tell you this.” He glanced at Olaf. “Your father should arm himself better. Every year brings more raiders, more ambitious men from the south. Any man who does not protect himself will be swept away in the chaos.”
“Are you making certain our guest is enjoying himself?” Vigdis asked from behind Svanhild, startling her.
Svanhild looked at Thorkell, putting her false smile back in place. Her mother was not the only one who could make hard choices. “Am I?” she asked lightly.
“Your daughter is a bold one,” said Thorkell. “I am well entertained.” Vigdis gave her a warning look before returning to her place next to Olaf.
Thorkell put the cup into her hands again, and she took another drink. “Why do you tell me this?”
“I would not see ill befall you.”
“Before you have a chance to bring it to me yourself.”
“I would not be so bad a husband as that,” he said.
Svanhild choked on her ale again. She clung to the table edge, coughing. “And you say I am too bold,” she said when she had recovered.
“I think you are just bold enough,” said Thorkell, making the easy answer.
“You are a grandfather, and I am fifteen,” said Svanhild, trying to be severe now. “Far too young to marry.”
“Better to marry now while you still have a choice,” said Thorkell in a low voice that chilled Svanhild’s blood. She could tell Olaf of his words, that he meant to take Olaf’s land, and Olaf would believe her if it suited him. But why should she help Olaf when she could help herself?
“You are not what I pictured when I made up a husband in my mind,” said Svanhild honestly. She glanced at Vigdis, her slanted eyes and the way she threw her head back as she laughed at the men’s jokes. She put her hand on Thorkell’s arm. “But if you would know me better, ask my stepfather to bring me to the ting.”
There, she could see if she could force Olaf into getting Ragnvald’s treasure for her dowry. He was greedy. He might do it. She could see what other men might like her. Ragnvald had been the rope tying her to Ardal. Now she might be anything, go anywhere. Olaf would not hunt her down if she fled him. She had nothing to offer but her beauty, whatever she had of it, her body, whatever sons she might bring. With no one to shame but herself, she might be a king’s second wife, a concubine, a mistress. She could flee to the priestesses of Freya and swear to do honor to the sibling gods of fertility, to lie with kings and farmers to bring rich harvests. The thought was strange, but not as displeasing as marriage with Thorkell would be.
“I shall,” he said, whispering as though they shared a secret. Svanhild flushed, pleased at what she had wrought.
Some unspoken signal passed between Ascrida and Vigdis and brought both of them to their feet. It was time for the women to clean the table, so the men might continue their drinking and dicing alone. Thorkell’s men would sleep where they lay. Svanhild stood and followed Vigdis into the kitchen.
“Shall we announce a betrothal?” Vigdis asked Svanhild. Svanhild colored; she hated that Vigdis had seen her using those tricks.
“Has Olaf settled with Thorkell for me?” she asked her mother.
“It is a fair match. Thorkell is growing in power,” said Vigdis, before her mother could answer.
“Yes, and he should not be,” she cried. “If”—she lowered her voice—“if Olaf were half the man my father was, he would have kept his land and I would be promised to—to one of King Hakon’s sons.” King Hakon ruled the lands north of Solvi’s and Hunthiof’s fjord, and was reckoned the richest man in the west.
“Marrying with Thorkell is as much as you can expect,” said her mother. “He is kind enough.”
“Kinder than Olaf, perhaps,” said Vigdis quietly, almost turning Svanhild from her tantrum. Svanhild shook her head. She might allow Vigdis or her mother, singly, to speak to her like this, but both of them made her feel a little girl again, scolded for stealing honey.
“He has buried three wives,” Svanhild cried. “And I would be buried too, before I am even dead.”
“His wives were sickly,” said Ascrida. “You are stronger stuff than that. Our family bears easily.” Svanhild’s mother had carried six children to birth, though none born after Svanhild survived their first year. Still, she had lived through it.
“If I am wed to Thorkell, I will—I will take a lover, and make him kill Thorkell for me,” Svanhild said.
Ascrida and Vigdis exchanged another look. Vigdis stepped forward and put her arm around Svanhild’s shoulder. “Wait until it’s settled before you plot anyone’s death,” she said. “Keep charming Thorkell as you have done. Be patient. You might yet find someone better.”
Svanhild scowled; she did not want Vigdis approving of her, reading her thoughts and plans so easily, not today.
“Now,” said Vigdis, “try to act like a proper girl who has no thoughts beyond spinning and children. And stop looking so sad and angry.”
Svanhild tossed her head. “I don’t see how that’s possible.”
“I know,” said Vigdis wearily. “But try.”
5
Ragnvald lay on a curved and unsteady floor, teeth chattering together with cold. He clenched his jaw, and the shivering moved to the muscles in his neck. He could not stop his shaking. Hands plucked at his clothes, while a low voice said words he could not understand. He was back on Solvi’s ship, he must be, and this time Solvi’s dagger would not slip. He fought those seeking hands, kicking out aimlessly, scrabbling at his waist for his dagger, which was still with him, sealed too tightly into its sodden sheath for him to pry loose.
“Suit yourself,” said the voice, and the hands withdrew.
At length the shaking and panic that gripped his limbs subsided. The vessel did not move like a dragon ship; those were too large for the waves to buffet like this. Ragnvald sat up.
He was in a small fishing skiff, thick-planked and inflexible, rocking in the small swells. His rescuer was a sturdy man with gray hair, knuckles swollen from years plying his nets in this fjord. One of the fish in the bottom of the boat, not yet neatly clubbed like the others, jumped over Ragnvald’s foot. He leapt back, nearly out of the boat, his nerves still on edge.
“Twitchy lad, aren’t you?” said the fisherman.
Ragnvald gripped the gunwale. “Who are you?”
“Agmar called Agi, son of Agmar, son of Agmar son of—you see how it goes. My forefathers liked tradition.” He cackled, showing a mouth missing half its teeth.
“To whom do you owe allegiance?” Ragnvald asked, still wary.
“King Hunthiof.”
That was Solvi’s father, the closest king to Ragnvald’s land, though his family owed allegiance to no one. Hunthiof did not try to extend his power so far south, and Ragnvald’s grandfather Ivar had been the last to claim kingship over Sogn.
“That is good, yes,” said Ragnvald. “And he is a good king, I am told.” His chattering had moved to his speech now, the worst place for it. He gripped the boat’s gunwales.
Agi shrugged. “He doesn’t make much bother with the fisherfolk, unless they go talking to those they shouldn’t. Been a lot of fine ships full of warriors passing here these weeks.” He looked at Ragnvald more carefully. Ragnvald’s clothes were all wet, and before that had seen weeks of hard wear since their last washing. Still, he had a sword, a dagger, a silver clasp for his cloak, and strong teeth. Agi would not think him another fisherman.
“You’re not an outlaw, are you?” Agi asked.
“I’m not an outlaw,” said Ragnvald. Solvi had delivered a sentence upon him without ever telling him his crime. He might try to cover himself by having Ragnvald outlawed on some trumped-up charge at the ting trials, and Ragnvald would have to escape overseas, or any man might kill him on sight. If Solvi thought him dead, though, the matter was probably done with.
“Then why won’t you give me your name?”
“I am Ragn—Ragnar,” he said. “Thank you for saving me.”
“You’re a bastard, then?” Agi asked, grunting as he pulled on the oars.
Ragnvald stiffened at the insult. That would be the assumption. He had not given his father’s name. He nodded.
“Noble, though,” said Agi. “You talk like one of them from up at the hall. And you’ve a fine sword.”
“Yes,” said Ragnvald. He did not like the way Agi’s eyes lay upon the sword, covetously. He gave some false details—a noble mother, a child born on the wrong side of the blankets. From the north, where Agi would not have ventured.
“And how did you come to be in the water, your throat half slashed?”
“A game,” said Ragnvald shortly. “I fell in.”
“And none of your fellows fished you out?”
“No, and they will answer for it when I see them again,” said Ragnvald, scowling. They would have pulled him out if it had been just a game. He did not have Solvi’s gift of making friends with everyone, but he had been respected among the men. His stepfather had sent him out raiding with Solvi so he could prove himself worthy of taking over the ruling of his father’s lands, and Solvi had told him he had succeeded, that his stepfather would have a good report of him. And now it had gone wrong—Solvi had changed his mind, or never meant to help Ragnvald in the first place. The unfairness of it made his throat tight.
Belatedly he realized that the description of a man named Ragnar, rescued from the fjord with a cut throat, would be enough for Solvi or anyone from their ship to figure out he was still alive.
Ragnvald put his fingers to the wound on his throat, which bled more freely as he grew warm again. That one had not bit too deep; he could hardly wet a fingernail in it. He did not want to touch the wound on his face, which had begun to drip blood onto his trousers. He wrung out a corner of his shirt and tore off a strip of cloth to bind the cuts.
“You’re not a draugr, then, are you?” asked the fisherman.
Ragnvald smiled grimly. He must look like one of them, a walking corpse, with his throat and face bloody, his fingernails blue with cold.
“Not yet,” he said, “thanks to you.” Agi was still looking at him. This man fished in waters controlled by Solvi and his father. “Though I don’t know that King Hunthiof would thank you,” he admitted.
Ragnvald rummaged under his tunic and pulled loose the armband Solvi had given him. He weighed it in his hands briefly. It was thick and heavy, the silver fine like satin under his fingers. The body was thick twisted wire, each strand wider than that of the heaviest chain mail. The ends were worked into boars’ heads, mouths open in attack. It was a princely gift. Ragnvald had done a warrior’s work to win it, and he had worn it with pride since the feast when Solvi had given it to him. It was the only wealth he had, beyond the pewter pendant he wore and his cloak clasp. The only wealth he likely ever would have, if Solvi wanted him dead.
“Thank you for pulling me out of the water,” said Ragnvald, holding the ring where Agi could see it. He was warming now. His hand tingled with the anticipation of having a dagger in it. He could kill Agi now if he had to, and Agi must know that. “I would be grateful if no one knew I had passed this way,” he said.
“It was no game, young Ragnar, was it?” Agi said. His eyes lit covetously on the silver, but his voice held some kindness.
“I thought it was a game,” Ragnvald said. He wanted to tell Agi the truth, to try to explain himself, and the unfairness of what Solvi had done. Until he explained it to Agi, to someone, it felt as though Solvi had won. “But I was wrong. I have an enemy.”
Agi looked up at Ragnvald’s face and then to his right hand, tense and empty. “I am not your enemy. I’ll set you on shore and be glad to see the back of you. I won’t put you back in the drink, if that’s what’s got you fearful. You can walk to Tafjord along the cliff,” said Agi. “Or away. At least you still have your sword.”
Ragnvald put his hand on the wet leather that encased it. “Yes, I do,” he said.
“You can still die of cold,” said Agi abruptly, and started to take off his tunic.
Ragnvald was cold, but he thought Agi might mean to encumber his hands, and he refused the offer.
