The Sea Queen Read online

  “If I haven’t killed you yet, I won’t do so at sea either,” said Ragnvald, enjoying Atli’s uncertainty.

  After most had boarded the ships, Ragnvald bid good-bye to Sigurd. “I will see you when I return after Yule,” he said.

  “We mean to be gone by then,” Sigurd told him.

  “Do you have a ship?” Ragnvald asked.

  “Egil says we will find one.”

  Ragnvald doubted that, but he did not know what was in Egil’s mind. He looked at Sigurd, and for a moment thought he could see through him, as though Sigurd were already a ghost, or departed, never to return. He reached out to grip Sigurd’s forearm and made sure Sigurd met his eyes before he said, “You are always welcome at my hearth. Tomorrow or ten years hence.”

  “I will always count you a brother.” Sigurd stepped forward and gave him a firm embrace.

  Strong emotion made Ragnvald’s throat tighten, and he pitched his voice low to hide it. “Thank you, brother.” He held Sigurd’s arms for a long moment before letting him go. As he turned to leave, he glimpsed the grove of trees beyond his hall where he held the district’s sacrifices and rituals. As king, Ragnvald was priest of his Sogn, elevated in the eyes of the gods as well as men. He turned back to Sigurd and put his hands on Sigurd’s head. “Odin give you wisdom, Thor give you strength, and Njord protect you at sea,” he said. Then, as a cool breeze from the fjord made him shiver, he added, “And let Ran’s eye pass you by.”

  Sigurd bowed his head, and Ragnvald turned away and went down to the shore to board his waiting ship.

  * * *

  The wind blew hard against Ragnvald’s ship as he tried to depart from Sogn. With every difficult tack it felt as though the gods were advising against this journey. Hilda sat at the stern holding Rolli. Ivar and Einar were together, as always, climbing over everything, and racing around the ship. Ragnvald’s men made space for their play; they were both graceful boys, and, while loud and underfoot, they rarely caused real trouble. Thorir, only a year younger, tried to chase after them but could not keep up.

  Ragnvald had elevated Malmury and Frakki to be his personal guards, for they had impressed him in their battles with Vemund’s forces. He chose Malmury initially because he thought she might annoy Atli, but she acted much as a man would, including pissing against a tree with her pants down at their first campsite, and so Atli treated her as one. Soon Ragnvald forgot that she was any different from his men, just as he had in Naustdal. With the seamed red scar that creased the eyelid of her missing eye, she seemed far more akin to one of his warriors than to Hilda or even Svanhild.

  Atli tried to play with the boys, but they preferred Oddi above all other adults, and wanted little to do with him. He went to talk with Hilda for a time, and it appeared a pleasant enough conversation. Hilda had adapted well to shipboard life. Ragnvald had hardly been able to picture her away from Sogn, making her daily progress from cooking to cloth making to caring for their children and back again. That night she turned the camp into a small version of her kitchen, pounding and boiling dried fish into an edible meal at night, and spinning while she watched the boys play in the shallows after dinner.

  Atli sat next to Ragnvald when they ate dinner. Though Ragnvald had allowed Atli to bring some men, Atli had left most of them in Sogn, still clinging to the idea they would become Sogn farmers. “You have a handsome family,” he said.

  “You would know,” said Ragnvald. “You have seen more of them than I have lately.”

  “I’ve a wife, but I need some land to plant her on, and my sons too.”

  “Where are they?” Ragnvald asked.

  “My eldest, Aldulf—called Aldi—is in Nidaros, and the others are in Dublin, or thereabouts. It’s been a few years since I saw them.”

  “Perhaps you should ask Harald for some land that is not already taken, and bring them there,” said Ragnvald.

  “Perhaps that land that you took from King Vemund when you burned him alive,” said Atli brightly. He must have known that memory troubled Ragnvald; he had a nose for such things.

  “Tell me again what Guthorm said to you when he was giving away land that isn’t his,” said Ragnvald.

  “I reminded him that my grandfather was king of Sogn,” said Atli. “My father always told me this.” He sucked at the bones of the seabird he ate for dinner, smacking his lips too loudly.

  “My grandfather was king of Sogn,” said Ragnvald. “I do not wish to hear more of your lies.”

  “You asked.” Atli seemed quieter here, subdued by the sound of wind rushing down the fjord, blowing the smoke from their cook fire back toward Sogn. “And Harald did tell me that there was land for me in Sogn. When he and Guthorm visited Dublin looking for allies.” Before Ragnvald had even met Harald.

  “Why did you take so long to come and claim it then?” Ragnvald asked.

  “I was raiding. And my wife likes the court in Dublin. She need do no work other than embroider fine cloth, and share cups with great warriors at the feasting table. I brought her gold, and took my sons raiding with me when they were old enough. There was no reason to leave.”

  “Why now, then? Why should there ever be a reason to leave such bounty?” Ragnvald asked with heavy sarcasm. Atli had lived as Solvi did, depending on his gold and other men’s generosity for a place to sleep.

  “I made the crossing in the spring, from Dublin to Nidaros. I meant to see Harald’s new court, offer my ships for his wars, and see if any of the gold that flocks to him wanted to fly to my hand instead.” He looked carefully at Ragnvald. “You have made that crossing, I think. I hear that is when you became Half-Drowned, and gained that scar.”

  Ragnvald touched the scar that tightened his right cheek, a habitual motion, one that he never realized he was making until his fingers traced the ridge of skin. The scar that pulled at his mouth made his smile into something mocking—he knew, for he had tested it many times in Hilda’s silver mirror.

  “It is a long journey,” Atli continued, “around Scotland, and through the strange currents of the Orkney Islands. The winds nearly blew us onto those cliffs more than once. But that was not what changed my mind. We became calmed in the middle of the North Sea. Hard to imagine, I’m sure—that place always seems to be blowing in one direction or another. It was a misty morning, or afternoon, or evening—I don’t know, but there was fog all around us, and no difference between sky and water. The calm lasted perhaps two days, summer days, with neither sun nor dark. It was a strange time for my men as well. We thought we had sailed into one of the elf-lands.”

  Ragnvald became aware that Malmury and Frakki, who had been noisily cracking the bones of their own fowl, had now fallen silent and listened to Atli and Ragnvald’s conversation with interest. Ivar slept, with his head pillowed on Hilda’s lap, while Einar stood behind them, listening. Hilda too, raised her head from where she bent over Rolli at her breast.

  “A gale blew us out of the calm, and at first we were glad for it, sailing before the wind as fast as we could go. Then the waves grew larger, some nearly as tall as the mast. We reefed down the sail, and used oars and the steering board to head into them. It was hard, punishing work, and I thought I would die of fatigue before the storm blew itself out.

  “All at once the wind died, and I felt a moment of relief. Short-lived though. Out of the distance reared up a wave, the likes of which I have never seen before—three times the height of the mast.” Atli smiled slightly. “I can tell you do not believe me. Few to whom I have told this story to do. Except those who have seen such sights themselves and know that out in the sea where land is hidden, the sea goddess sometimes sends these waves to bring her treasure. You know her—can you really doubt her, Ragnvald?”

  It seemed that it was not Atli who spoke at that moment, but Ran, the cruel goddess of storms and shipwrecks, calling again to Ragnvald from the deep. But when he tried to picture Atli’s wave, instead he saw Vemund’s hall, capped with fire, burning up into the sky, as though it were a wave t
hat would crash upon him.

  “I do not doubt her,” said Ragnvald gravely.

  “Of course, we all thought we were going to die. Men said prayers. One dived into the water—perhaps it was his sacrifice that carried us through, or perhaps he was only out of his head with fear. Either way, we did as we had done before, and steered the wave up the face of this monster. I thought it would flip us over and we would all go tumbling down to Ran’s realm.

  “When we made it over the top, I saw another, just as huge headed for us. In the moments before it came, I said we needed another sacrifice, and I would do it myself, if it came to that, but instead we drew lots, and though Logi did not want to die, in he went.

  “The third wave was just as big, and we had to push Mani into the water. He clung to the side, and I hacked off his fingers with my ax to make him let go. We survived that wave too, and I was resolved to throw myself in if another came, but while the rest of the night was difficult, nothing like those three waves hit us again.

  “I cannot doubt now that it was a message from Ran. What else could it be? Three is a number sacred to the gods. She said that she would have me if I ever ventured into her realm again. So I have lost my taste for sailing, for raiding. I will send a message for my wife to join me if she will, but I will never make that crossing again.”

  He poked at the fire with a stick, sending a burst of sparks up into the air. “That is my story, Ragnvald Eysteinsson. Is it a good enough story for you?”

  “Harald will judge,” said Ragnvald gruffly. “It is not reason enough to hand over Sogn to you. The goddess Ran did not promise you that.”

  The story affected Ragnvald when he tried to sleep that night, little though he wished it to. How small his own adventure in the fjord at Solvi’s hand seemed now, though he had seen his vision then, of Harald as the golden wolf he must follow. He dreamed uneasily and woke in the dimness before dawn with his cloak sodden by a thick fog.

  * * *

  In the morning, as Ragnvald took down the crossbeams of his tent, Oddi pointed to two dragon ships traversing a narrow channel between two islands and then turning to sail up Geiranger Fjord. They looked far away, bent on other prey, but Ragnvald ordered all men to make ready to fight, in case the raiders saw them. The vessels passed by quickly, though, taking advantage of the morning’s landward wind, which would turn by midday and slow their passage.

  “More raiders from Solvi,” said Ragnvald grimly. He did not know for sure—every raid on the western districts was attributed to Solvi these days—but he could see these ships had come to plunder, and had crossed open sea to do so. “We could leave Hilda and the children here, and sail to help Heming, if you want,” Ragnvald suggested. Sigurd’s farewell had made Ragnvald resolve to treat Oddi better; Oddi was his friend, his sworn brother, not merely a retainer, bound to Ragnvald’s will.

  Oddi laughed shortly. “No,” he said. “Not unless you command it.”

  “Your father would want us to,” said Ragnvald.

  “And Heming would not. Let him prove himself or fail. I want to keep my neck far from Heming’s sword.”

  “You do him wrong,” said Ragnvald. “He is only jealous.”

  “His jealousy is dangerous,” said Oddi flatly. “You saw how he killed Harald’s captain Thorbrand, and before that my father’s favorite jarl—what was his name?”

  “Runolf,” said Ragnvald, remembering the dark-haired man whose death he had witnessed at the Sogn ting that had so altered his fortunes. “His name was Runolf.”

  “I would be forgotten as easily,” said Oddi. “My father would mourn for a time, but he would never avenge me.”

  “I would—”

  “He would never allow anyone else to avenge me either.”

  “What do you want?” Ragnvald asked. “What can I do for you?”

  “Keep me by your side,” said Oddi. “When I can’t fight anymore, grant me some land and a plump pretty girl to tend me and give me some sons in my dotage.”

  “I don’t believe that’s all you want,” said Ragnvald, though he was gratified. “I think you want glory. What if you had other brothers, better brothers? Would you then want a kingdom of your own?”

  Ragnvald could hardly read the emotions that crossed Oddi’s face, pain and longing, quickly followed by dismissal, and then good cheer again.

  “It matters not—I have the brothers my father gave me,” he said. “It was only my good fate to find a better one.”

  * * *

  Ragnvald’s ship passed the island of Smola at midday, before entering the fjord system that led to Nidaros. Ragnvald remembered the eeriness of Smola’s treeless plains at dusk, lit by summer lightning. He wished they had come at evening, so he would have an excuse to stop there, and again walk the ground on which he had fought the dead man, the draugr, plaguing Smola. Where he had won King Hakon’s admiration, and Oddi’s. In the time that passed, it had ceased to bother him that the draugr was only a witless man, stumbling around his old haunts until his wound killed his body as it had already killed his mind.

  He wondered too if the sorceress Alfrith, the draugr’s sister, still lived there, brewing her remedies and depending on the generosity of many men rather than binding herself to one. If she kept her beauty, he might take her as a concubine and finally settle the debt he had incurred in killing her brother.

  By evening, the wind had carried Ragnvald’s ships within view of Harald’s town, which lay on a bend in Trondheim Fjord. The polished wood of new buildings gleamed in the settling sun, dazzling Ragnvald’s eyes before he picked out the high carved crossbeams of Harald’s mead hall, the one that could seat five hundred warriors at its long tables.

  The breeze whipped the water’s surface into whitecaps. Ivar stood at the bow with Einar, both of their mouths open like excited puppies, watching the shore fly past. Atli fared less well. He had been nervous even on calm portions of the trip, gripping his seat too tightly, never able to cross from one part of the ship to the other without a firm grasp on something. Once, Ragnvald had almost been driven to the deck by Atli’s heavy hand on his shoulder when he had nothing else to cling to.

  These choppy waves made even the sleekest of dragon ships shudder like a cart on a rocky trail. Atli sat on one of the rowing benches facing the water, clasping the gunwale with both of his hands. He looked down at his hands, the knuckles white. Ragnvald wondered if he was thinking of the sailor whose fingers he had severed before sending the man to his death. A small part of Ragnvald did not relish the ruin of Atli’s courage. Atli had been a mighty warrior and raider, and had been undone by a wave. Three waves, goddess-sent. So little—no more than a quarter of a day between the time when Atli could count himself a man, and was then turned into this. What was a Norseman who could not sail?

  Atli regained his composure when the ship drew near the docks at Nidaros, visibly shedding his anxiety, and pulling his shoulders back. “I have seen you,” Ragnvald said. He stood at the steering board himself to guide the ship into the harbor at Nidaros. “I have seen you frightened.”

  Atli fixed his eyes at Ragnvald’s hand on the board. “But Harald has not,” he said. “I will sit in the high seat of Sogn’s hall yet, you will see.”

  “You have—for ten whole days. I hope you enjoyed it,” said Ragnvald.

  As soon as he turned his ship into the small harbor, the wind fell off, but the ship’s momentum carried it up next to the stone dock as easily as if a giant’s hand had given it a push across the calm water. Ragnvald flung a line to a waiting guard, who caught it and wound it around a piling.

  Ragnvald leaped out of the ship with Atli a half step behind him. He walked quickly, hoping in vain that Atli would stumble on legs that did not transition easily between sea and land, but Atli managed, keeping pace with Ragnvald, so when they reached Harald’s guards, they were both half running.

  “King Ragnvald of Sogn,” said Oddi, racing up behind them, out of breath, “and his followers. Let us pass. Ragnvald, I wi
ll bring Hilda and the boys.” Ragnvald flushed, angry that Atli had caused him to neglect his wife.

  “Atli Kolbrandsson,” said Atli, announcing himself. His men had not yet caught up to him either. “You know me, Ulf, I was here in the summer.”

  This Ulf, skinny, with a scraggly beard, and high, narrow shoulders, cracked a grin that showed many of his teeth missing.

  “’Course I remember you,” said Ulf. “Come in.”

  Ragnvald knew Ulf as well, and had never received a smile like that from him. He resolved to see if any of Harald’s servants might be willing to be his eyes and ears in Nidaros when he was absent.

  * * *

  The evening meal had already started when Ragnvald and his family entered the feasting hall. Harald had made Nidaros into a Valhalla for the living, where his men sparred every morning, patched up their bruises in the afternoon, and drank together every night. At times they hunted as well, though the animals replenished themselves less well than the warriors did. Ragnvald heard grumblings that the woods around Nidaros had run out of deer this fall.

  Harald sat at the high table with his uncle Guthorm, King Hakon, and Hakon’s middle son, Geirbjorn, and, Ragnvald noted, Atli had been seated with him as well. Nearby a dark-skinned man in odd dress spoke with one of Harald’s warriors. This must be an explorer from the south. The table was so fully laden with cheese, breads, fruit preserves, and stewed meat that what little planking could be seen between serving dishes glistened with spilled fat. Only men dined here tonight; the women ate separately in their own hall with the children.

  Every night, Harald fed his household and guests with a feast that would beggar Ragnvald if he hosted it even once. One day, Ragnvald promised himself, he would make Sogn flow with the same bounty he saw here, to repay Harald, and to show him what a rich district Sogn could be with him as king.

  Still Ragnvald was gratified to see Harald rise to his feet as soon as he entered, setting down a spoonful of meat so that he could come to greet Ragnvald with a back-pounding embrace.