The Golden Wolf Read online

  “Hallbjorn,” Rolli said to his friend, with panic rising in his voice, “they are not raiders. What should we do now?”

  “Take them to shore,” said Hallbjorn. “Bring the ship. The other will follow, I think. Then we will sort all this out.”

  * * *

  Dota and Freydis huddled together as Hallbjorn steered Aldi’s ship up onto the shore of a narrow dune island. It had no trees, only waves of yellow grass, and then sea again on the other side. The ship crunched on the sand and drifted to a stop. Rolli set up a ladder, and Hallbjorn beckoned for Freydis to climb down.

  Dota rushed after her and sobbed as Hallbjorn shoved her back. “You stay on board,” he said to Dota. “I’ve heard you’ll make a good hostage.”

  Rolli had to help Freydis down the ladder, since she could only use one hand. Hallbjorn ordered some of his followers to bind the wrists of Aldi’s men, and keep watch over them. Other young warriors from Rolli’s ship laid out the four warriors who had fallen in the battle in a line along the beach, their feet pointed toward the surf. The faces of the dead men had already begun to turn gray, their wounds livid against the pallor of death. Kolbrand looked much like the others, death smoothing out the differences of rank and age among them. Rolli’s mistake would not easily be fixed.

  A strong wind blew offshore and kept Aldi’s ship from making progress toward the island. Even oars could do little good against this fierce shore breeze. Freydis sat on a piece of driftwood while Rolli and Hallbjorn finished pulling up their ship out of the waves. One of their men made a fire, and Rolli and Hallbjorn sat and warmed their hands before it.

  Freydis gathered her courage and sat down on a driftwood log near them. She ran her fingers over her swollen shoulder joint. Even a gentle touch made the pain bloom.

  “Cousin,” she said to Rolli, pitching her voice low to try to hide its quaver, “your friend dislocated my shoulder. I need to reset it quickly or it will . . .” She began crying too hard to tell them that if it healed crooked, she would be crippled and useless, a poorer marriage prospect, and a valueless hostage.

  Hallbjorn rushed over to sit at her side. He put his arm around her, his touch making her scream. “Hush, hush,” he said, still holding her injured shoulder. “We have no healers here. You will have to wait.”

  “Let her go,” said Rolli. “You’re hurting her.”

  Hallbjorn released her. The sudden lessening of pain made her cry all the harder. She tried to breathe through it until she could stop her sobbing.

  “I . . . I am healer enough to reset my shoulder,” she said. Her face itched from the tears drying upon it. “I know how, but I need help.”

  “You are a valuable creature then,” said Hallbjorn. “Tell me what to do. I caused you pain and I want to set it right.” He took Freydis’s hand, and held it lightly, stroking her skin. His touch made her feel ill.

  “No,” she said. “Not you—my cousin Rolli. He is stronger.” Hallbjorn’s gentle smile ran away like water from a basket, but he let her go.

  Freydis directed Rolli to hold her wrist, and moved herself against the tension he provided, gritting her teeth when the bones of her arm and shoulder ground against one another. Alfrith would tell her that pain was only a sensation, and she must move through it as though she were wading through a heavy surf. She could bear this. She let Rolli take more and more of her weight, and then jerked hard against him, feeling a pop and a rush of pain like someone had put a hot knife through her shoulder.

  “Let me go,” she said to Rolli. He let her wrist fall, and she knelt on the sand, cradling her arm. She waited, unmoving, until she heard Rolli and Hallbjorn sit again on the logs near the fire, and then stood up.

  Moving her arm still hurt, but now it felt more sore than broken. When she felt she could bear it, she picked up a stick of driftwood and used it to tear a strip from her skirt, tied it into a loop, and placed it around her neck. Her arm would not obey her, so she had to use the other to place it in the sling, and then, finally, the pain receded.

  Rolli’s men had gathered at the fire with him while Freydis had been distracted. Rolli sat, chewing on a strip of dried meat, and ignoring them until one of his men spoke: “We’re going to be in trouble,” he said. “That was a king’s son you killed.”

  “It was a mistake,” said Rolli. “My father will pay the wergild.” He sounded uncertain, and for good reason—Ivar was King Ragnvald’s favorite son and his heir, while Rolli had often run off to play with the children of fishermen when he should have been learning king-craft. His father might not be willing to help a son who had so long rebelled. And if he did not, Rolli could be outlawed, cast out from his country and his family, for any man to murder at will, and no justice to be done for his death. Many did not survive even a short term of outlawry.

  “Your mother will help you, at least,” said Hallbjorn, and burst out laughing. Nobody joined him, though Freydis smiled tentatively. Rolli was his mother’s favorite, her charming, giant son, and he doted upon her too. “Don’t worry, boys,” Hallbjorn continued. “As young Freydis has reminded me, we hold valuable hostages.”

  Near evening the wind changed and Aldi’s ship finally drew near. Rolli arrayed his men along the shore, and they drew their swords when the ship’s keel scraped along the beach. It tilted over as Aldi’s men rushed to the gunwale and jumped over it into the shallow water. Rolli’s men ran toward them, and pinned Aldi and his followers against the ship.

  In the mass of warriors and weapons, Freydis could not see what was happening, but she heard Aldi’s angry voice above the fray. “Rolli Ragnvaldsson, what have you done?” he asked. “Your father will be ashamed.”

  A few of Rolli’s men backed away from his advance, but then Rolli lunged at him, and in a moment, his men had disarmed Aldi’s, and herded them up onto the beach.

  “Where is my son?” Aldi yelled. Two of Rolli’s men held his arms. “Where is my daughter?”

  Rolli opened his mouth, but stayed silent until Hallbjorn stepped forward. “Your son is dead,” Hallbjorn told Aldi, “and your daughter is our hostage. You should think about what you will trade for her life.”

  The blood drained from Aldi’s face, and he fell forward, letting his arms hang from his captors’ hands. “What about the other captives?” Aldi asked, looking up at Rolli. “You had no right to take any of them. Does your father think so little of me he sends you to make sport of me?”

  “My father didn’t send me,” Rolli protested. “I thought you were raiders—why do you sail in his ship, flying the wrong banner?”

  “King Ragnvald loaned me his ship,” Aldi replied. He stared hard at Rolli. “You will be outlawed for this.”

  “I could kill you now,” said Rolli uncertainly.

  “Yes, kill him—see, he kneels for the blow already,” said Hallbjorn, “and we will sell the survivors south as slaves. Your father need never know about this.”

  “No,” said Rolli. “You steered me wrong today, Hallbjorn.”

  Aldi scrambled to his feet and backed away. “Your friend is right—the best you can hope for is outlawry. You had better kill me now, or I will take your life in payment for my son’s. I should have killed your father when he caused the death of my father, Atli, but I was willing to trade my revenge for land. Not this time.”

  “I made a mistake,” said Rolli, his voice breaking. “My father will understand that.”

  “If we are outlawed . . . ,” said Hallbjorn.

  “Stop saying that,” said Rolli. “My father’s steward can have his son’s body and his daughter. The rest will be our hostages, to ensure that he leaves peacefully.”

  “Peacefully!” said Aldi. “There will be no peace after this.”

  “Go find his son,” Rolli ordered Hallbjorn. Rolli sheathed his sword, and called his men away from Aldi’s. “We will keep this ship, and you can return my father’s ship to him.”

  “Your father will answer for this if you do not,” said Aldi. He looked up at Rolli,
his face white and drawn. Rolli’s men retrieved the bodies from the shore, and Rolli helped Dota down from the ship.

  Freydis waded out into the surf to give Dota a one-armed hug, and then walked with her over to where Aldi stood with his men. As they passed Hallbjorn, he grabbed Dota’s arm and pulled her away from Freydis, and shoved her toward Rolli.

  “We need more hostages,” Hallbjorn said to Rolli, “or this man will kill you.”

  Rolli shoved her back. “Do you want to force Harald to outlaw me?” Rolli asked Hallbjorn. Then, to Aldi, “I am sorry for your son. I will make it right.”

  “Who is in command here?” Aldi asked. “Who is responsible for this crime?”

  “I am,” said Rolli.

  Hallbjorn lunged suddenly, Dota shrieked, and Freydis whirled to see him holding Dota again, with a dagger to her throat. Dota’s eyes were closed in fear, and Hallbjorn looked terrified too, darting his eyes from Aldi to Rolli. “I can’t let you do this,” Hallbjorn said. “We need hostages, or we will be outlawed.”

  Freydis stepped forward. Her mother often used words against men’s swords. Freydis could do no less. “I am King Harald’s stepdaughter,” she said gently. “If you need a hostage, you already have me.”

  “Let her go,” said Rolli.

  Hallbjorn shoved Dota at her father, then grabbed Freydis’s uninjured arm, and pulled her close so she could feel the heat of his skin and smell his sweat and the leather he wore. “That’s true,” Hallbjorn said to Aldi. “We have a much better hostage than your daughter. Now go before I change my mind.”

  2

  Gray clouds covered the sky on the day Ragnvald and his party arrived on the coast of Jutland. Ribe, King Erik’s capital, lay a short sail up the river to where it widened into a marsh. Ragnvald disembarked there with his son Thorir and Gudrod, Harald’s son, and left his stepbrother Sigurd to see that the ship was tied up securely.

  The week’s journey south had taken them from winter into spring. Over the past months in Vestfold, Thorir had grown a patchy beard that marked him more clearly as a boy of only sixteen years than a clean-shaved face would have. He was almost as tall as Gudrod, though Gudrod was three years older. Ragnvald had to bless Hilda for that—his wife’s height had made all of their sons tall.

  Many of Ribe’s houses were new, their logs still shedding bark—a far more pleasant smell than the marsh. King Erik’s guards conducted Ragnvald and his party through the town, to where Erik held court. He sat on a roughly carved chair beside a young women who, from her pale, unbound hair, Ragnvald guessed was Erik’s daughter, Ragnhilda, the object of his journey.

  A young guard with a wide chest and a loud voice announced him: “Ragnvald Eysteinsson, Ragnvald the Mighty, King of Maer and Sogn. With him, Gudrod Haraldsson and Thorir Ragnvaldsson.” Ragnvald bowed as he greeted King Erik. A breeze blew through the clearing, sending leaves from the previous fall skittering around their feet.

  “Welcome, King Ragnvald of Norway,” said Erik. He was a short, friendly-looking man, with round features, and light hair and eyes. Sun and wind had polished his cheeks bright and made him appear younger than his years—at least ten more than Ragnvald’s, and most of them spent in battle against other Danish kings.

  “I am only the king of a few districts,” said Ragnvald carefully. “I come on behalf of King Harald of Norway.”

  “Oh?” said King Erik. “That is not what I heard.”

  Ragnvald swallowed down his uneasiness. “What have you heard?” he asked. He had come here to make a marriage for Harald’s son Gudrod, and an alliance for Norway, but he had also heard rumors that Harald’s eldest son, Halfdan, had come to Erik to stir up trouble against his father. If Ragnvald could return to Harald with proof of Halfdan’s rebellion, then Harald would have to punish him—outlaw him, or at least send him far away.

  Erik smiled. “I’ve heard that it is you who truly rules Norway, while King Harald lies abed with his new concubine,” he said.

  “Who did you hear that from?” Ragnvald asked.

  “Everyone knows how Harald stole and wed his son Halfdan’s Finnish concubine,” said Erik. “That must have rankled you. When Norse merchants come here, they tell me that before then, Harald did nothing without your approval.”

  “Sometimes I wish that were so,” said Ragnvald, with forced cheer. “But King Harald is his own man.”

  “Still, you are his eyes and ears, I am told,” said Erik. “There is nothing that happens in Norway that King Ragnvald does not know.”

  Ragnvald nodded at the compliment. “I would serve my king better if I truly had eyes and ears everywhere,” he said. Even though he and his sister, Svanhild, traveled the length of Norway every summer, meeting with local rulers and quelling rebellions, the fjord-cut, mountain-divided peninsula still harbored too many men whose aims Ragnvald did not know. “I have come with an offer of alliance from King Harald,” he continued, “to be solemnized with a marriage—”

  “Marriage to you?” Erik asked. “My daughter could hardly do better than the man who rules Norway in truth.”

  Ragnvald gritted his teeth. King Erik meant to irritate him. His accusation was the shadow side of Ragnvald’s praise-names: Ragnvald the Mighty, whose might could eclipse Harald’s; Ragnvald the Wise, whose wisdom could hide treachery. “Do you want to hear my offer, or insult me by questioning my loyalty to my king?” Ragnvald asked. Erik’s courtiers whispered to one another.

  “I have heard that you take offense easily,” said King Erik, “but I did not know that even praise might offend.” He smiled. “Tell me your offer.”

  “The Jutland and Vestfold kings are natural allies,” Ragnvald replied. “Together we can control the entrance to the Baltic Sea, and tax our cousins in Skane and Roskilde. I have brought with me Harald’s son Gudrod, to join with your daughter, Ragnhilda, in marriage. The wedding can take place in Vestfold at midsummer, when Harald weds Gyda of Hordaland, fulfills his vow to conquer all of Norway, and cuts his hair.”

  “I have heard you are eager for him to be shorn,” said Erik, “for he will set down his sword and no more resist your rebellion.”

  Ragnvald reached for his sword. “Should I tell King Harald that all you have to offer him is insults?”

  “Calm yourself,” said Erik. “Of course, I do not believe such rumors.” Ragnvald let his hand fall by his side. “I will consider this,” Erik continued. “I would rather marry her to a king, though. You, or your Harald, if you prefer.”

  Ragnvald smiled slightly. “I am already wedded to a woman named Ragnhilda,” he said. “Two wives of the same name is not a challenge any man would take on willingly.” And in his youth, when he had little fame and no power, he had promised Hilda that he would never take another wife, a promise that had saved him from trouble before this.

  “I think it would be easier!” said Erik. “My daughter goes by Ranka, though.” Erik looked at her fondly, and she tossed her hair.

  “I am curious,” she said to Ragnvald, standing to show off a figure similar to her father’s, round and short, “is there not another son I could have? King Harald has twenty or more.” She smirked. “And taller ones.”

  Ragnvald glanced at Gudrod. “What are your objections to Gudrod Haraldsson?” he asked. Halfdan was taller than Gudrod—perhaps Ranka had already seen him and compared the two. “Gudrod was fostered with me for much of his youth, and I can vouch for his character.”

  Erik turned to his daughter. “He is young and comely,” he said truthfully. Skalds called him Gudrod the Gleaming, for he had inherited Harald’s shining gold hair, and more beauty than a man should possess. Behind his back, he was called ergi, one who preferred the attentions of men as though he were a woman. But such accusations were often leveled against beautiful young men.

  Ranka sneered. “Too young, and he is not tested in battle, or that would be his fame, not his beauty. Father—tell him I can do better.” Ragnvald heard Halfdan’s words in that too. Ranka continued, “King Haral
d is not too old yet, and he has many wives. He should take me as one of them. He is a proven warrior.”

  “Gudrod is as like Harald as any man,” said Ragnvald. “He took a wound last year fighting the Scottish viking Melbrid Tooth who raided our shores. What more test would you like to see?”

  “I cannot decide this immediately,” said King Erik. “How long will you remain in Ribe?”

  “A week,” said Ragnvald. “We must return to Vestfold for Harald’s midsummer wedding feast. I hope it will be your daughter’s as well, but perhaps the king of Skane or Roskilde will want to make this alliance instead.”

  “You press me hard,” said Erik. “Is the boy under a spell that he must wed immediately?”

  “I seek to bring my king an alliance and a daughter-in-law as a wedding present,” Ragnvald replied. “If a week is not enough time, send a messenger to Vestfold when you do decide. Perhaps the offer will still be open.” Ragnvald bowed and retreated to join Sigurd in the crowd. Erik greeted other newcomers: some Frisian priests who wanted to set up a church to their Christ in Ribe, and after them a Spanish trader, with dark hair and heavy eyebrows.

  Then Erik dismissed his court, and Ragnvald followed one of Erik’s servants toward the hall where they would sleep. Thorir fell into step a pace behind him with Gudrod on the other side. “A week, Father?” Thorir said. “So soon?”

  “Does the king of Skane truly have a daughter?” Gudrod asked. “I would be happy to escape this Ranka. She is pretty but ill-tempered.”

  Ragnvald wished Gudrod would pretend interest in the girl, at least for long enough to determine if Halfdan had been here. But he had not shared his suspicions with Gudrod, or anyone except his son Einar and his sister, Svanhild, the only two people he could trust to keep quiet.

  “Erik is not very well informed,” said Ragnvald. “There is no king of Skane, at least not one that can be depended upon to keep his crown for more than a summer. Though with Harald’s influence, a stronger man might emerge.” Ragnvald had sent Svanhild to Skane to determine if Halfdan had been there too, making the same offer on his own behalf. “The tribes in Skane elect a new war-leader every few years. Harald will be happy to install one to his liking if Erik will not make a treaty.”