The Sea Queen Read online

  “You fret like a woman,” said Heming. He tugged off his bright tunic and exchanged it for one of dark homespun that would fade into the forest’s dimness. “My men are bold enough to win through without this trickery. You would have us tiptoe like mice.”

  “You’re alive because of Ragnvald’s trickery and you know it,” said Oddi, testily. “If you walk into a trap, you must walk carefully.” Ragnvald ignored both of them. Heming would grumble, and then do as Ragnvald asked. He would only worry about Heming disobeying him if he did not complain.

  Ragnvald tugged at the padding inside his helmet—a reward from Harald for his victories the previous summer—to make sure it would not come loose during the fighting. It had a cap of unbreakable steel, decorated with gold filigree—a rich gift and a mark of favor that Ragnvald feared he had not yet fully earned. He drew his sword half out of its scabbard to ensure that nothing in his gear impeded his movements. Mist gathered under the trees. Droplets of water from the branches fell into the fire, sending up bursts of steam. Ragnvald could not count how many nights this summer had begun like this, in quiet preparation, and ended in mornings of laying out the dead and tending the wounded. King Vemund had refused to swear loyalty to Harald, and only killing him would end this fighting. His sons fought well but were too young to take his place.

  After Ragnvald finished his adjustments he paced around the fire. The fire’s heat made his clothes steam.

  “How will we know when it is midnight in this weather?” Oddi grumbled.

  “Does it matter?” Heming asked, just as peevishly as his brother. “You’ll do whatever Ragnvald says, as you always do.”

  “Do you have a better plan?” Oddi asked.

  “Solvi Hunthiofsson sends his ships to harass Tafjord, and I should be there,” said Heming. “Not here.”

  “If you had killed Vemund like you promised, none of us would be here,” said Oddi. True enough; Heming had a taste for the more enjoyable parts of kingship, but not the hard work of subduing districts and rooting out rebels.

  “Keep telling our father that,” said Heming, “and maybe he’ll give you Maer. But if he gives you Maer, you will inherit all of my enemies, and one more besides.” He put his hand on his sword. “Me.”

  Oddi laughed shortly. “I don’t tell King Hakon anything. You’re the one who goes crying to him whenever you think King Harald has treated you poorly.”

  Heming sprang to his feet. “I do nothing of the sort. I have endured all of Father’s scolding while you hide from him with Ragnvald. I do my duty as a son should. Anyway, your precious Harald didn’t give me enough men.”

  “I thought that was our precious father’s decision,” said Oddi.

  “You shouldn’t speak about him that way. You’d be nothing if he hadn’t taken you from your mother. Ragnvald would be nothing if our father hadn’t noticed him.”

  “Do you ever shut up?” Oddi asked.

  Ragnvald sighed. Oddi did not care enough about Heming’s words to duel him, and Heming feared his father’s anger too much to force the issue. “Both of you be quiet,” he commanded. “We are too close to King Vemund for this noise.”

  “I thought you set guards,” said Heming. “You’re always setting guards.”

  “Guards can be killed,” said Ragnvald. Or bribed. Too many times this summer, Vemund’s warriors had surprised Harald’s forces.

  As the talk quieted, Ragnvald heard nightingales calling to one another. He remembered watching them above the fields of Ardal during the long summer evenings of his boyhood. They dipped through the deep blue sky of a summer night in pairs, catching insects on every mirrored flight. Nightingales mated for life, the legends said. Like swans—and he could never think of swans without then thinking of his sister, Svanhild, whose name meant “swan-battle” and who had now mated with Solvi Hunthiofsson, perhaps for life, a life that would never bring her back to Ragnvald’s side.

  The sky turned a deeper blue and the nightingales fell silent. The only thing Ragnvald could hear beyond the breathing and shifting of his men was the chirp of insects in the grass. He looked at Oddi, nodded, and came to his feet, shaking out the tension in his arms. He felt nervous before every battle, no matter how many times he fought and survived. He feared his sword arm, which had always been strong, would fail him. He feared the gods might, without warning, take from him all that he had earned.

  He and his men followed Arnfast through the woods on a trail that Arnfast had marked with signs only he could read in the dimness: a broken twig, a fallen branch placed against a tree trunk, a scrape in the pine-needle floor, which led over the softest ground, where their passing would make the least noise. He stepped where Arnfast did, watching the heels of Arnfast’s shoes, hardly visible against the dark forest floor. Low birdcalls made by his men signaled that everyone in the attack party still lived, and kept pace.

  Arnfast held a hand up and stopped. Ragnvald echoed the gesture and heard the wave of feet coming to a halt behind him. A campfire gleamed between the tree branches before them. Ragnvald averted his eyes from the brightness. He quieted his breathing to listen for a moment, and heard nothing but the sounds of snores, and the shuffles of men moving quietly as they kept a light guard over their sleeping fellows. Or seemed to. Vemund would bait his trap well. Ragnvald made the signal that would divide their force, and heard Oddi’s answering call.

  Another call told his men to block off the camp’s available exits. Ragnvald slid his sword out of its sheath, and moved forward, trying to be as quiet in his own steps as he had been following Arnfast’s. When he judged that enough time had passed for all of his men to get into place, he made the signal for attack.

  Ragnvald drew his sword and ran forward, then stumbled when Heming pushed past him, yelling out, “For Maer, for Hakon’s sons!” as he swung his ax. Ragnvald followed a moment later, hoping that the yell had not given away the slim advantage of surprise his forces had against a foe who knew this land far better than they did.

  Ragnvald’s sword clashed against the blade of a stout man whose battered leather helmet tipped forward to half cover his eyes. His opponent retreated a few steps for no reason Ragnvald could see, and defended himself against Ragnvald’s second blow a half second too late. Ragnvald’s sword cut through the hardened leather armor protecting his upper arm. As Ragnvald swung his sword again, the man dropped his weapon and raised his hand in submission.

  “Stop, King Ragnvald, stop! I’m Isolfur Arnbjornsson. I fight for Harald, like you. Why are you attacking us?”

  Ragnvald checked his swing and looked around the camp. Everywhere he saw a bit of armor, the movement of a blade, and the set of a pair of shoulders that he recognized. “Halt! Halt!” he called. “These are Harald’s men. Stop fighting.”

  Only a few heartbeats passed, yet his words took far too long to reach the ears of men in a battle rage. A young man bled from a cut that had opened his cheek from eye to jaw, shattering his teeth and leaving a flap of flesh hanging loose over his chin. He would have a terrible scar if he lived. The wounded man turned, clapping his hand to his face, and Ragnvald recognized him as Herlaug, one of King Hakon’s sons. Arnfast stood over him, his bloody sword falling from his hand.

  “Tend him,” Ragnvald yelled. Oddi rushed to Herlaug’s side. Herlaug’s eyes, round and white above his dreadful wound, rolled up into his head and he collapsed onto the dead leaves of the forest floor.

  Oddi pressed his hand to Herlaug’s cheek, trying to press the flesh back into place. “We need a healer to sew my brother up.” Oddi’s face was pale even to his lips.

  “Arnfast.” Ragnvald made his voice harsh to cover his feeling of helplessness at seeing these wounds dealt by his own men. “I thought you said this was Vemund’s camp. Did you see them?”

  “Yes.” He gave Ragnvald a pleading look. “I swear it. I saw King Vemund. He was in this place.”

  “Isolfur,” Ragnvald said. “When did you arrive?”

  “Late evening.” Isolfur
held a hand to his bicep. Blood leaked between his fingers, dripping dark in the firelight. “Guthorm sent us as an advance party. He wanted us to find a way to surround Vemund’s force. There was already a fire pit here and we thought it would be as good a place as any to spend the night.”

  “Did you not think it would be a trap?” said Ragnvald. If Harald’s uncle Guthorm had sent another attack party, that meant he doubted Ragnvald’s sortie would be a success. “There is no exit here.”

  “We guarded the southern approach. It seemed good that it had few paths, and anyway, we only meant to spend one night.”

  This was a different trap from the one Ragnvald had foreseen, perhaps, or only terrible luck, a god’s curse on this summer.

  “Ragnvald,” said Oddi, still looking pale. He knelt by Herlaug’s side and held a piece of cloth to his cheek that was not enough to stanch the bleeding.

  “Arnfast, run to the main camp, and come back with a healer and more guards. Many more guards, as fast as you can. This was a trap—I’m sure of it.” Best to act sure now, to set a story in his men’s minds. “Tell Harald that Vemund meant us to attack our own men. And now we are all here, all of Hakon’s sons and me. Wounded. Come back quickly with help.” Arnfast nodded and sprinted into the woods, fleet as a deer. For a moment, Ragnvald envied him the ability to run away from this, even if only to come back with help. But Arnfast would have to pay a mighty wergild for wounding the son of a king, far more than he could afford. If Ragnvald did not help him, Arnfast’s entire family would have to sell themselves into bondage to discharge the debt.

  Ragnvald turned and counted the men who were still whole. He found enough that if half of the unwounded stood guard, they would have good warning of any more attacks. Too many were injured to move camp, though. Vemund—and Ragnvald’s folly—had trapped them here.

  3

  Svanhild pulled on the steering oar so her ship followed Solvi’s as closely as possible, carving the same line as his had through the waves. It took all her strength plus the strength of a man from her crew to turn the huge board against the force of the water. She liked to have her hands on it, though, for through that contact she could feel qualities in the water, as Solvi had taught her. A heaviness told her of the strength of the rising storm, as did the wind blowing her hair into her face. To the west, Hakon’s pursuing ships faded from view behind sheets of rain as the Faroe Islands themselves receded behind that veil.

  “Look, Eystein,” she said to her son. “Your father has done it again. The winds carry him faster than any other man.” Eystein was tall for his age, at six summers already past Svanhild’s waist. Solvi’s father, King Hunthiof, had been of normal height and Solvi might have been as well, if he had not been burned in childhood. Svanhild hoped their son would tower over both of them.

  “Whose ships are those?” Eystein pointed behind them, toward the four trailing ships in their convoy.

  “Those are our friends. Boddi is in one of those ships,” said Svanhild. Boddi was Eystein’s particular friend, a boy a year younger than him who disdained the more boisterous children among Solvi’s followers and had attached himself to Svanhild’s quiet son. “And your father is in front of us. He is leading us to safety.” The wind, the mist, every element of the sea bent to Solvi’s will, and thwarted any who sailed against him. Svanhild had seen it often in the years they traveled together; from the great city of Constantinople, the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire, to the northern reaches of Iceland, the sea goddess Ran treated Solvi as her cherished son.

  “The wind carries Solvi better because he’s so light!” said Ulfarr. He had thickened over the years, growing bigger in the shoulders and stomach, so he could no longer climb up a mast. He rushed toward Eystein with his head down, as though he meant to scoop Eystein up in his arms, as he often did. Eystein hung back and hid behind Svanhild’s hip.

  “Don’t let him, Mama,” he said.

  “It’s only Ulfarr,” said Svanhild, though she was glad that steering the ship meant she did not have to move to allow Ulfarr access to her son. Even though she was his king’s wife, Ulfarr sometimes put his hands on her lewdly until she shook him off. She knew that Solvi would laugh if she said anything—after all, Ulfarr was one of his oldest friends—but she did not have to like him.

  “Mama,” said Eystein. “Look!”

  A flock of dark birds flew toward them, tumbling, calling wildly, moving faster than their own wings should carry them. They passed just above the top of the mast. The blast of wind that had flung the birds forward hit the sail with a force that made the whole ship dip forward. A loud crack sounded: the breaking of one of the lines that held the sail in place. Svanhild prayed that her other lines would hold and adjusted her heading, spilling wind from the sail. The ship rolled toward the other side before regaining its balance. Before her, she saw that Solvi had done the same, and felt a swell of pride. He had taught her well; now she could steer a ship almost as well as he could, and perform any sailing task that did not require a man’s strength.

  She turned to look at the ships behind them again, holding Eystein against her leg so he would not fall as the ship rocked. The gust had also struck the other vessels in the convoy. The sail of one hung crosswise, as though its lines had come loose or been torn off. Another bobbed broadside to the wind when it should have pointed into the waves. Solvi had placed skilled captains in those ships, ships that were filled with his followers and their families. Some had joined Solvi for plunder. More, though, were refugees fleeing Harald’s Norway, subjects, petty kings, and jarls from Hordaland and Rogaland, Agder and Thelemark, who would not swear to Harald and pay the heavy tax burden that went along with that oath. Still others Harald had not even given the choice of oath and payment, and instead expelled them to make room for Hakon’s sons and other allies who wanted land to buy their loyalty. At least Ragnvald had only accepted his birthright from Harald, and no more.

  A yell drew her attention back to Solvi’s ship. He gestured to her and called out, “Reef the sail!”

  Svanhild echoed the command to her own crew and Ulfarr amplified it. Men rushed to unwind the lines that held the yard, bringing it halfway down the mast and securing the small ties that would decrease the sail’s surface area. Now the ship could ride the strong winds without putting as much strain on the mast.

  Svanhild’s vessel rested in a lull for a strange, brief moment before the wind hit again, stronger and harder, while in the distance, the other ships shuddered and skittered across the waves. The ship behind her heeled over on its side like a child’s spinning top about to fall over. Then, as a rain squall blurred the air between them, the ship toppled and the sail disappeared from view. The next gust hit her own ship, shuddering the wood in Svanhild’s hands.

  She scanned the horizon frantically for the capsized ship until Eystein’s insistent tugging on her skirt forced her attention to him.

  “The ship—is Boddi—are they dead?” Eystein asked.

  “I don’t know.” Svanhild pulled him close without looking away from the emptiness where the ship had been. “If you see the sail again, they may be all right.” She turned to face forward again; she could not afford to split her attention, now that the storm had reached her ship.

  “I don’t see them,” said Eystein.

  “Then they are gone,” said Svanhild. “Or will be soon.” Eystein shivered against her and buried his face in the folds of her skirt.

  “What will happen to them?” he asked.

  None of the ships could go to the rescue of their fallen brother. Perhaps a few strong swimmers might be lucky enough to cling to a rope flung from another ship—if one passed nearby. “They will drown,” said Svanhild, “and then, I suppose, they will join the fleet of the goddess Ran, who sends ghost ships out all across the sea. They will feast in her golden hall.” Svanhild shivered as well. She did not want to think of this.

  “I hate the sea,” said Eystein. “I don’t want to be cold anymore. Will Boddi al
ways be cold, then?”

  Svanhild directed one of her men to hold the heading for her. She crouched down before Eystein. The sudden shelter from the ship’s walls blocking the wind made her face hot, as if she stood before a fire. Eystein looked at her, eyes pleading for word from her that could make his friend live again.

  “Boddi will crew a great ship,” she said, “and when he grows up will marry one of Ran’s beautiful daughters. Ran’s husband, Aegir, has the finest drinking hall of all the gods, save Odin’s Valhalla. When we are out of this storm, I will tell you the story of how Thor tricked the miserly Aegir into holding a feast. Now go in the tent and warm yourself.” She could not give him more than a moment in the midst of this storm. “If you want to help, pray to the sea goddess.”

  The men in her ship mouthed their own prayers, wearing grim expressions as they carried out their tasks, lashing down barrels and tightening the lines that held the sail in place. Svanhild could not recall which other friends and acquaintances had been on the capsized ship. They had fled so quickly when Hakon’s force arrived that surely some who usually traveled in the fallen ship had found other berths. Families would be torn in two.

  “Mourn,” she remembered Solvi saying to his men after a previous wreck, “but remember that they are beyond suffering, and you are lucky to be alive. Bless your luck, and keep on living.” Svanhild could not face death so calmly, though she would gladly give herself to the sea to save Eystein. He became ill when ship-bound, and only grew healthy when he had solid ground under his feet. An ill-fitting son for the sea king Solvi Klofe, Solvi the Short, a man who wore his deficiencies as a badge of honor.

  “Mama, I’m still cold.” Eystein had gone into the tent—the ship’s only real shelter—briefly, and come out again to cling to her, digging skinny arms into the top of Svanhild’s hip bones. The wind drove the rain hard against her back, frothing the surface of the sea into stripes of foam and deep green.