The Half-Drowned King, page 8
Hilda’s mother, Bergdis, put her head out of their family’s booth. She gave Ragnvald a dubious glance, then sighed. “Hilda, come. Everyone can see you.”
Hilda smiled at Ragnvald before retreating under the tent flap.
Egil emerged a moment later. He swung his arms back and forth. “See, she was happy to see you.”
“Yes,” said Ragnvald. “Now, let us speak with your father, if we must. Or you can agree now. Be my witness. You saw Solvi try to murder me.”
“I’m sure he’s busy,” said Egil. “Let’s see who else is here.” He started walking toward one of the other tents, leaving Ragnvald either to follow or remain standing alone.
7
Ragnvald joined Hrolf’s family for dinner that night. It was a small gathering, only a few other families besides Hrolf’s own, which was mostly daughters who stayed away from the feasting men. Before he entered the tent, Ragnvald threw a glance at Olaf’s booth. His family’s booth. Its emptiness—still dark in the twilight, as half the booths were, this early in the ting gathering—had been nagging at him like a stone in his shoe all day.
“Ragnvald,” said Hrolf, when Ragnvald entered his tent. “Welcome.” He closed the distance between them with one great stride. He was tall, taller than Ragnvald, to have made a daughter so tall. Yet after a season warring at sea, Ragnvald could mark the difference between a farmer and a warrior. Hrolf had a farmer’s sloping shoulders, and he moved heavily. The lines on his face came from worrying over harvests, not outfacing enemies or the waves on an open ocean. Ragnvald stood up straighter before he bowed, a fit greeting for his kin-to-be.
“I see you have not been so vain as my son,” said Hrolf. “You have left your hair unbleached.” Ragnvald touched his dark hair. Many warriors bleached their hair with lye, to further put fear into the hearts of their adversaries. Ragnvald had tried coloring a lock, and cut it off when it turned a bright, foolish red.
“How did you come to survive this attack?” Hrolf asked.
Ragnvald glanced at Egil.
“Egil told us little,” said Hrolf.
Ragnvald told the story again, watching to see how Egil reacted. He had not thought to doubt that Egil would stand witness for him once he learned Ragnvald lived, until they met on the field this afternoon. Now he felt foolish for not wondering further. Egil would not want to anger Solvi. Still, Egil was his friend. Surely, he would stand witness for Ragnvald. He only needed his father’s say-so.
Hrolf heard him out, stroking his beard. Ragnvald waited when he was finished speaking, thinking Hrolf would have some advice for him, perhaps praise for his bravery even, in surviving the cold fjord.
But Hrolf said nothing. After a moment, his wife brought them cups of ale. “Now, let us drink to your safe return,” Hrolf said, “yours and my son’s.”
Ragnvald drank Hrolf’s excellent ale, and enjoyed Hilda’s bending down close to him to refill his cup. The women brought platters of food and served the men before retreating to their own tent, leaving behind barrels so the men could refill their cups themselves.
After all had eaten their fill, Ragnvald stood and addressed Egil formally.
“Egil Hrolfsson, you were my brother and stood by my side when we fought in Ireland and won treasure together. Will you stand by my side at the trial, when I fight to win what is rightfully mine?”
Egil took a hasty swig of ale, and began choking on it.
“This is a difficult thing you have given me to think on,” said Hrolf.
Ragnvald looked up at Hrolf. “I was asking Egil.”
“He is my son, and will obey me, I think,” said Hrolf.
“Obey you in what?” Ragnvald asked. “He was there, and he owes me his testimony.”
“He owes you?” Hrolf asked. “You think yourself very fine.”
“I think that I deserve a friend’s loyalty and a fair trial, as all men do,” said Ragnvald hotly. “You are a law speaker.”
“And you came to many trials when you were a boy,” said Hrolf. “You know that Solvi will buy whatever testimony he needs that he cannot threaten.”
“I know that Egil is not the only one who saw Solvi attack me,” said Ragnvald. “My wounds bear witness too, and with them and your son, other witnesses must follow.”
“Must they?” Hrolf asked. “What cause did you give Solvi to harm you?”
Ragnvald heard a woman’s inward breath, and turned to see Hilda behind him, half hiding in the tent’s folds.
“He didn’t—,” she began.
“None,” said Ragnvald, interrupting her. She had to know that her defending him would only make him look weaker. “I gave him no cause.”
“You stir trouble in many pots,” said Hrolf.
“I do not,” said Ragnvald, darting another look at Hilda. She looked concerned. “Solvi owes me my share of the plunder and payment for this insult wound.”
Hrolf stroked his mustache. “Some men’s thread does not run smoothly, it is true,” he said after a moment. “But it does not matter. Egil saw nothing, and he will not testify.”
“If he saw nothing, it is because Solvi’s men held him back—he could testify to that at least,” Ragnvald said. More bitterly he added, “He owes me the truth.”
“Do not speak of what my son owes you—you who would make him into Solvi’s enemy. It is bad enough that you are.” Hrolf stepped forward, now looming over Ragnvald.
“I need to sue for my treasure if I am to pay for”—Ragnvald glanced at Hilda—“your daughter’s hand.” He turned to where Egil still sat. “Egil, brother, we fought together. Your honor—”
“Kings and jarls must concern themselves with honor,” said Hrolf. “My son should not throw his life away for it.”
“Your daughter will be the mother of jarls,” said Ragnvald.
“Your father lost his lands and his life.” Hrolf stepped back. “You are no jarl.”
Ragnvald clenched his teeth. Hrolf spoke only truth. Ragnvald could not change Hrolf’s mind now, and any more speech would make him sound like a begging child. Ragnvald’s father had lost his kingdom and then his life. Ragnvald had only good memories of him before his death, and only shame of him after. Olaf might not like Ragnvald, but at least he could not shame him.
“I will be again when I take back my birthright,” he said.
“You may call a farm a kingdom, but that does not make it so.” Hrolf’s eyes blazed. “No. My daughter will not marry with a man who rushes headlong into trouble, and my son will not stand up for you.”
“You will not say that when I rule Sogn.”
“You might be king of all Sogn and Maer too, and I would not give you my daughter,” said Hrolf. “You will bring grief and bloodshed to her door.”
“I will not,” said Ragnvald. A vision of Adisa’s farm, the silence of the dead, made him wonder if Hrolf was right, if he had carried death with him from the fjord’s waters, if it ran before him. “But I will not argue with you further.”
He left as soon as Hrolf gestured to dismiss him.
Across the grounds, Olaf’s space was still dark. Ragnvald turned when he heard steps behind him, and saw Hilda running, her hair streaming out behind her. Her cheeks were red when she stopped.
“Why do you follow?” he asked, stepping back from her. “Haven’t you seen enough?” She opened her mouth to protest. “It’s not my fault that Solvi attacked me—tell your father that. And I am not my father, to leave my family unprotected. You can tell him that too.” He began to walk away from her. She ran a few more steps to stop him with a hand on his arm.
“Do not turn your anger on me,” she said. “I too thought us promised.”
He looked at her hand, and then at her face. Yes, they were promised. He did not remember a time when he had not known that she would be his bride. They had been children together, with simple dreams, and now it was his task to make those dreams true, even if the path to them was difficult.
“You still wish it?” he asked.
She nodded, blushing.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I spoke hastily.” He hesitated a moment before taking her hand in his. He had frightened her with his anger. She was a big girl, but a girl still, and not as bold or brave as Svanhild. He should not frighten her. He stroked her hand until she seemed to grow calmer. She gave him a tentative smile.
“If you wish, I will—,” he began, not sure what he meant to offer.
“If you make me pregnant, my father must allow it,” she blurted out. Her face went red, and she frowned. “Our marriage.”
Ragnvald burst out laughing and then closed his mouth quickly. This was the last thing he expected of such a solemn girl. She yanked her hand from his grasp and pulled herself up to her full height, as tall as he.
“I apologize for shocking you,” she said stiffly. “Perhaps my father was right.”
He abruptly sobered. “Hilda,” he said, catching her hand again. “You caught me off guard. I did not mean to laugh at you. I was only surprised—that you would offer so much for me.”
“I do not like to break my promises,” she said, still stiff and formal.
“Neither do I,” he said. “I only meant I would come back for you—you need not spend your”—now he flushed as well, and the smile from before threatened to return—“coin with me. I would not trap you.”
“Would you like to be free of me, then?” she asked, and then added, acidly, “Was it only your pride that was injured?”
So she was not so young that she did not know how to wound a man with words. Still, he would not let Solvi’s enmity take her from him. “No,” Ragnvald said shortly. “I want to marry you. Ask of me what promises you will.”
“That is what I want too. Promise to return to me, no matter what happens,” she said, softening. She reached toward him, but stopped for a moment, before touching his cheek as she had earlier.
“I promise,” he said. “I will bring you the bride price you deserve, and a great household to manage.”
“I will wait,” she promised in return, giving him a wide smile that transformed her face. “Father will not marry me off against my will, not with all my sisters needing husbands.”
Ragnvald pulled her close and kissed her on the lips, a kiss she was too surprised, or inexperienced, to return. When he let her go, her smile had turned pleased and knowing. She touched her lips as she bid him good night.
* * *
By morning, Olaf still had not come, but news of a great procession of horses and wagons arriving at the assembly grounds distracted Ragnvald from his watch. Banners of glowing gold on a black field crested the hill before the men that bore them, and Ragnvald thought suddenly of his vision. Perhaps his golden wolf would find him here.
He watched until they came closer, and saw the golden eagle of King Hakon of Stjordal and Halogaland. His servants moved efficiently to rope off stabling areas for the horses, then began putting up tents. With the blowing wind, Ragnvald could not hear them, so it seemed a vast pantomime, too well executed to be real. Hakon coming here would bend currents of power around him like a stone in a river.
Ragnvald was still watching when a tall figure in green waved to him from across the field. Ragnvald returned the greeting, uncertainly, and then as he drew closer, recognized Oddbjorn, King Hakon’s baseborn son, born of a peasant woman, not one of his vowed wives. He was a distant cousin to Ragnvald, as were all of Hakon’s brood, but only Oddbjorn had ever claimed the relationship. When Ragnvald’s father still lived, he and Oddbjorn had been friends. Ragnvald had not seen him in many years.
“My lord Oddbjorn,” said Ragnvald, when he came within hearing distance. Oddbjorn wore his dark hair streaked with blond now. His big eyes and broad cheeks had settled into something more handsome than the wide-mouthed face of his boyhood, and warier too. He still had overlong arms, which made him a fierce wrestler, and likely now a dangerous swordsman. Then he smiled, a mischievous smile that showed the same crooked teeth he had as a boy.
“I’m still Oddi, cousin,” he said, laughing. He pulled Ragnvald into a rough embrace, pounding on his back and then holding him at arm’s length to look at him and his scarred face. “We heard of this at Yrjar,” said Oddi, naming King Hakon’s famous hall, the Hall of Eager Warriors. Once Ragnvald had dreamed of being invited there, as one of Hakon’s men, but when Hakon and Solvi’s father Hunthiof fell out over a border dispute, Ragnvald had turned his ambitions toward Solvi’s ships instead.
“What have you heard?” Ragnvald asked, too eagerly.
“Come—if we stay here, I’ll be called to work,” said Oddi. “Or worse, pulled into one of my brothers’ arguments.”
Above the Jostedal plain stretched an ice field whose meltwater fed all the river systems of the Sogn district. They walked up to it, over a steep slope. A great mouth of ice, dark and blue in its recesses, opened where the ice field began. It looked as though a frost giant had been frozen there, about to take a bite big enough to consume a herd of cattle. Cold air issued from it, the giant’s breath. Ragnvald walked along the opening behind Oddi. He did not want to turn his back on the great maw, so he tossed a pebble into its depths. It skittered for a minute, then fell into a pool of water far below.
Inhuman spirits lived in places like this. It might be the mouth of not a giant but Niflheim, one of the lands of the dead. Oddi peered in, and would have climbed in, but Ragnvald held him back.
“I do not like it,” he said.
“You never used to be so cautious,” said Oddi.
Ragnvald shrugged, ill at ease. He had doubtless changed since Oddi knew him. In the intervening years his father had been killed and Solvi had shown him how little men could be trusted. Perhaps he had changed into someone Oddi would no longer want as a companion. So he agreed when Oddi suggested that instead they climb over the top of the cave. Ragnvald found slim foot- and handholds, places where rocks had fallen onto the ice and melted holes. He climbed with Oddi until they stood above the cave. Below them the whole valley spread out, the tents no more than tan smudges on the green field.
“What are you doing here?” Ragnvald asked. “I had not expected to see you at the Sogn ting again, not while your father and Hunthiof both lived and hated each other.” He paused and raised an eyebrow at Oddi. “They do both live?”
“Yes. None of our prayers are answered as easily as that,” said Oddi.
“And they have not sworn a truce?” Ragnvald asked.
“Never.” They walked in silence for a time. “Come, you’re brooding,” said Oddi.
“Egil said he won’t speak for me,” Ragnvald burst out, then had to tell Oddi the rest of it.
“Egil Hrolfsson is wise,” Oddi said solemnly.
“Wise,” Ragnvald scoffed. He could not tell if Oddi was joking or not, and did not care. “He’s a coward. How could he have ever called himself my friend?”
“Calm yourself, Ragnvald,” said Oddi, looking amused at Ragnvald’s plight. He was joking, then. At least Svanhild would have shared his outrage. “You expect him to rush on Solvi’s blade? When Solvi can probably call a dozen witnesses to name both of you a liar?”
“With these scars?” said Ragnvald, raising his chin. His wounds still smarted.
“You could have gotten them at any time.”
“I am promised to his sister.”
“An arrangement made between Hrolf and Olaf,” said Oddi. “And Olaf has another son for one of Hrolf’s daughters.” At Ragnvald’s glare, he continued. “You know I believe you. But you can see—”
Ragnvald brushed Oddi’s hand off his shoulder.
“As you wish,” Oddi said. “There’s a place for you at my father’s table tonight, if you want it.”
“What is your news?” Ragnvald asked. “Why has your father risked encountering King Hunthiof, where the law of the ting means he cannot kill him?”
“You did not hear that King Harald of Vestfold came, as prophesied, to our shores?” said Oddi.
“Did he? Is he king in the north now?” Ragnvald asked in jest. At least he and Oddi were speaking more easily. Tales of young Harald and his strength at arms had been spread by skalds all up and down the western fjords.
“Perhaps he returns to Vestfold and calls himself so,” said Oddi. “But no,” he continued, “my father made alliance with him, married off my sister Asa to him. My father comes to the ting to recruit.”
“Oh, so King Hakon believes Harald can do it?” said Ragnvald, trying to digest this news. “He’s just a boy,” he added, with a foolish pang of jealousy that this young Harald should already outstrip him, and another feeling as well, a touch of excitement that stirred his belly. Through Oddi, he might yet gain the notice of great kings.
“He is young,” said Oddi, “but I do not think many of the tales exaggerated. He is tall and strong. I saw him fight our most seasoned warriors and best them, in practice at least. His mother is a sorceress, and his uncle, who raised him, is both wise and rich. If anyone can do it, he can.” Then he gave Ragnvald that easy grin. “And if not, I think my father likes having Harald’s name to justify his conquest. My brothers will not be content to divide Halogaland and Stjordal between them. Hunthiof’s rulership of Maer will be the first thing to fall.”
Hunthiof’s line had been kings in North Maer, while Ragnvald’s line had ruled South Maer and Sogn. Over generations, the North Maer kings had maintained their power, while Ragnvald’s grandfather was king only of the Sogn district, his son a minor jarl, and Ragnvald, nothing at all. The men of South Maer and Sogn did not swear to kings anymore: they defended themselves on their own as best they could, and paid taxes to jarls, if they paid taxes at all. A king, a true king of all Norway—Ragnvald could not spread his mind wide enough to imagine what that could mean. Harald of Vestfold might look for allies in Sogn, or he might see it as a ripe prize for the followers he already had.
“Look,” said Ragnvald, pointing at the field below. “I think Olaf has finally arrived. I must see Svanhild, if she is with them. She thinks me dead.”
