The Sea Queen Read online

  “Yes,” said Svanhild.

  “Then you are a fool. You saw what Tafjord was like. What it was. There were no women except slaves who Hunthiof’s and Solvi’s men raped every day. I hated that place, and I hated giving my body to him. When I had my first daughter, I gave her to a wet nurse because I could make no milk, and I cried. All I did was cry. Hunthiof came to me and said that Solvi would be happier if I let him expose our daughter so I could try for a son, so I let him do it. I hated myself after, but at least, I thought, I had done what my husband wanted. Then when he came back, he was furious with me. I never fell pregnant again. I hated him, so I told him that I’d killed his daughters. But I would have killed them rather than let them be brought up there.” She was sobbing now.

  “Be quiet or I’ll hurt you again,” said Svanhild. She could see all too clearly what Geirny had endured, the underworld that Tafjord had been.

  Geirny continued in a harsh whisper. “Would you want a daughter to grow up in a place like that, Svanhild, truly? What if Solvi had left you there instead of taking you with him?”

  “I would have left on horseback, or on foot, or hired a ship. I would have gotten away,” said Svanhild truthfully.

  “And what if they came to drag you back?”

  “Is that what they did to you?” Svanhild asked.

  “No,” said Geirny. “I thought they would have, though.”

  “It is easy for one person to hide,” said Svanhild softly. She did not want to feel any sympathy for this woman.

  “I would envy your certainty that everything will always go your way, if I weren’t sure the gods will teach you differently one day,” said Geirny bitterly.

  “Why are you here then?” Svanhild asked. “Why don’t you go back to Norway?”

  “I told you. My last husband died, and I am under my father’s control again.”

  “Not if your husband had money, land.”

  “He was a younger son. I—it’s complicated. My father needed me.”

  “And now, though you did not need to be here, you are trying to upend my life,” said Svanhild.

  Geirny laughed. “You are so naive. Ask your husband why my father wants him gone.”

  “It was you. It’s because of you,” said Svanhild. “Tell him you don’t care and he’ll let us stay.”

  “Your dear Solvi”—she said his name as though it tasted bad—“made a deal with my father. My father wants him to fight Harald. Solvi asked him to make these objections so it would be easier to convince you.”

  Svanhild sat back, taking her knife from Geirny’s throat. She still held the rope around Geirny’s wrists, though if Geirny wanted to, she could rip it from Svanhild’s hands. She did not doubt the truth of Geirny’s words. Solvi thought like that, in twists and turns. He had often told her that if you felled the right tree, it would bring down the whole forest.

  “I’m glad he did,” said Geirny. “You should know what your husband is. Anyway, I do not want to share a land with him any more than he wants to share land with me.”

  “Then go home,” said Svanhild quietly. “I will spare your life and let you go, if you ask your father to bring you home.”

  “We don’t have a home anymore.” She slipped back against Svanhild’s leg, and Svanhild grabbed her by the shoulder to make her sit up. “My father came here to find allies, and I will help him in that.”

  “If you hate my husband, then why do you want him by your father’s side?”

  “He will help my father win.”

  Svanhild felt panic begin to grip her again. She was all alone here, acting against even her husband. Nokkve could demand a payment for the wound and insult to his daughter. Svanhild dragged the point of her dagger over the scratches already on Geirny’s throat, slowly, in a way she hoped was as frightening as it was painful. “You will stand on the top of this dune and make an oath for all to hear that you are willing to have me and my family stay in Iceland. That you do not want Solvi to fight by your father’s side. Then I will let you go,” said Svanhild.

  “You should let him go fight his war,” said Geirny. “Then he will die, and you will be a rich widow.”

  Svanhild gagged Geirny’s mouth again, shoving in the sock until Geirny choked and whimpered, and then sat down next to her in the sand. She pulled tighter on the rope securing Geirny’s wrists, so Geirny could not break away. She listened to the surf, the crawling of little animals around the sea grass. The sand of the dunes stayed cool even as the rising sun began to heat Svanhild’s shoulders. Her eyes became gritty with missed sleep.

  She heard the stirring of men in the camp, and then yelling when they discovered that Geirny was missing. They would find Svanhild soon enough, unless she did something first. She dragged Geirny up to the top of the dune so she could look down on the camp, and before the exertion could make her winded, she forced Geirny to her feet, and put her knife against her neck again.

  “Solvi and I have as much right to settle in Iceland as anyone,” Svanhild said. “We do not need to fight your war.” Men arming themselves turned to look up at her. One of Gudbrand’s sons rushed forward and Nokkve put an arm in front of him to hold him back.

  Solvi gestured to the other men to stay where they were, and stepped forward, looking up at Svanhild, his eyes beseeching. “Come down here. You are doing yourself no good.”

  “I am doing this for us!” Svanhild cried. “You want to put our family in danger. Tell them, Geirny.”

  “She told me to say—”

  “No, you have to swear it,” said Svanhild.

  “How much do you trust an oath given with a knife to my throat?” Geirny asked.

  “Women’s oaths don’t matter,” said Gudbrand. He gestured at his sons, who began to climb the dune toward them. Svanhild pressed her knife deeper into Geirny’s throat.

  “I hate Solvi Hunthiofsson. I don’t want him fighting on my father’s side,” said Geirny. “Now let me go, you harridan.” She swung her bound hands to the side to elbow Svanhild under the ribs. Svanhild coughed, her knife slipping from Geirny’s throat for a moment. Geirny took the chance to pull herself loose from Svanhild’s grip.

  She had spoken the words though, so Svanhild did not chase her. Geirny stumbled down the dune and into her father’s arms while Gudbrand’s sons advanced on Svanhild. One of them grabbed her wrist and squeezed until she dropped the knife. The other picked her up, slung her over his shoulder, and carried her down the hill.

  He dropped her at Solvi’s feet. “You need to keep better track of your woman,” he said.

  “King Nokkve,” said Solvi. “I apologize on behalf of my wife. I will pay your insult price, and I will certainly fight Harald with you.”

  “You should have told her the truth,” said Nokkve to Solvi. “This was contrived so you would not have to face your wife, and my daughter has paid for your cowardice. I thought it harmless fun. Now I have to question your judgment.”

  “Don’t be hasty,” said Gudbrand. “Solvi can recruit raiders from every shore, and win any sea battle. We cannot succeed without him.” He gave Svanhild a cold look. “He would not be the first man made foolish by his wife.”

  * * *

  Svanhild found no one willing to talk with her on the trip back to the Smokey Bay settlement. She sat on a rowing bench with her back against one of the boat’s knees—not comfortable, but it let her lie still, dozing with her eyes half-closed. Solvi, with a man’s pride and the need to appear undiminished, walked around the boat, commenting on the boat’s construction, which had shorter strakes than he was used to because Iceland grew few trees taller than a man’s height. He spoke to all on board, save Svanhild, and especially engaged Nokkve in conversation about how Nokkve might rule Romsdal when he won his kingdom back.

  Gray clouds moved swiftly across the sky, and a shifting breeze kept the sailors busy trimming the sail, altering the course to catch it. Again and again, the wind failed to fill the sail and it hung slack and tired until Solvi took the st
eering oar and began calling out commands to Gudbrand’s men.

  “Truly you are the best of sailors,” said Gudbrand when Solvi increased the speed of the boat, and the Iceland coastline flew by on their left. Gudbrand glanced at Nokkve. They had been carrying out this argument during the whole return voyage, more and less overtly, with Gudbrand praising Solvi, and Nokkve insulting him. Svanhild thought Nokkve would give in soon. Gudbrand had been correct—Solvi was widely respected. The king of every Norse outpost she and Solvi had visited for the last six years wanted to know what Solvi’s plans were against Harald.

  The boat reached the settlement in the late afternoon. Solvi helped Svanhild down onto the shore rocks, and walked with her, holding her arm, up to their campsite. With the tent empty—Katla and Eystein at Unna’s farm—the hanging fabric made Svanhild think of a shroud. Both were made of the same weather-bleached homespun, and both enclosed a dead thing. No work was done in Svanhild’s tent, no craftsmanship, no farming. It was a body without a spirit; a tent, not a home.

  “I am tired and dirty,” she said to Solvi. “I am going to take a bath.”

  “Svanhild, we need to talk,” he said. He called her many things, “wife,” “love,” and other pet names, but rarely by her given name. It made him sound like a stranger.

  “Bath first,” she said. “We should find more servants if we intend to stay,” she added as they walked up toward Unna’s bathhouse.

  Solvi did not speak again until they were both in the bath: a small building made of birch harvested from Iceland’s dwarf forests. In the light from the bathhouse brazier, Svanhild started to help Solvi strip off his clothes. He stopped her when she came to his trousers. “Svanhild, you cost me today, in reputation and likely gold.”

  “You deceived me.” She continued to work on the knot in his waist-cord.

  “I knew you did not like the idea of my going to war again.”

  “I do not,” said Svanhild. “The man I married is king of waves, not land. He takes what he wants.”

  “And yet you would tie me to this strange place, and make your sea king into a farmer.”

  “For Eystein,” said Svanhild. “He is no sailor, and he never will be.”

  “That is why I would give him a kingdom,” Solvi replied. “His inheritance should be a kingdom, and not a farm. As my father tried to leave for me.”

  “Now? He is a boy.” She pulled her own dress off and sat down next to him on the dry wood, waiting for the bloom of sweat to clean her.

  “He will grow into a man,” said Solvi.

  “Gods willing,” Svanhild added.

  “Gods willing,” Solvi echoed. “A man with more ambitions than farming.”

  They were both naked now as newly formed humans, the bare branches into which the gods had breathed life. Svanhild stood, ready to berate him, to vent her anger with words, bow down his head with them. Sweat and lamplight made Solvi’s beard glisten like gold. The pull she felt toward him was as much a part of her as her own skin, as their child. His ambitions were not Eystein’s; they were a knife that would cut their family apart.

  “You may die,” said Svanhild simply. “I would rather have you living.”

  “All men die,” said Solvi. “The fates have already measured out my life. Between now and then, I can only do what I must.”

  Svanhild remembered when she had first married him, she had feared that he had no honor, for he did not mind lying or cheating, and he broke his word when it suited him. Then she had found he did have honor, though he steered himself by his own star, and the words of other men did not sway him. She should have remembered that when Nokkve insulted him, then perhaps she would not have been fooled.

  “What are we to do?” Svanhild asked.

  “You could come with me,” said Solvi. “You are very useful in a battle, and you can take care of yourself. As you have recently reminded me.”

  Svanhild flushed. She could wield a knife as well as any man now, though she would always be clumsy with a heavy sword. She had a good mind for battle tactics, and Solvi valued her advice.

  “And what of our son?” Svanhild asked. “He would not be useful in a battle.”

  “Svanhild . . . ,” he said. He would not be the one to say it, she knew. He kissed her instead, ran a hand up her arm. She and Solvi had not been parted for more than a day since Svanhild, pregnant with Eystein, bid Ragnvald farewell. When she had asked, with no hope of success, if Ragnvald would come with them. The thought of watching Solvi sail off and leave her for a year or more, perhaps heading toward his death, made Svanhild feel as though she were drowning in the hot close air of the bath. He was here now, flesh pressed to hers, but in a day, or a week, he could be gone, never to return.

  “I don’t want you to go,” she said.

  He stood and embraced her, and then pulled her down so she straddled his lap. He kissed her as she took him into her, and only moved a little, not seeming to want his release or hers, only to stay like this, joined, forever.

  “I will miss this,” she said as she moved slowly. “Will you miss this?”

  “More than anything.” He breathed. “So much I fear I cannot do without it.”

  “You must keep yourself safe so you can come back to me.”

  “Svanhild,” he said again, burying his face in her neck, and moving in time to meet her. He made her cry out, and afterward she cried in truth against his shoulder. He held her until she stopped.

  “I cannot,” she said. “Eystein cannot travel with us.”

  “Wouldn’t your Unna foster him? If you asked her?” Solvi asked. He reached out and caught her hand. “I cannot . . . do not make me leave you behind.”

  A breeze stole between the slats in the bathhouse. Unna might, and Svanhild could shed the shackles of motherhood the same way she had shed her earlier chains. Leave Eystein behind and let others mother him as best they could. She saw before her Ragnvald’s face when she left, betrayed—but he had been a grown man, and Eystein was a child.

  “I cannot leave him,” she said. “And if you think on it, you will not want me to. The tides of battle are too uncertain.”

  “I know.” He looked down at the floor of the bathhouse and sighed heavily. “I know—it is too dangerous. You may stay with Unna while I bring war to Harald. I will send for you when it is safe.”

  9

  Atli’s men and Ragnvald’s gathered around the coals of the long fire in the Sogn drinking hall, as the evening sun shone through the open door. Servants poured ale for all and offered Frankish wine at the high table. Atli allowed himself to be seated below Hilda and Ragnvald without complaint, below even Oddi and a few of Ragnvald’s other captains. Ragnvald watched the border between the two groups closely, to see if a fight would erupt. A bloodied nose did not break the laws of hospitality, and would make Ragnvald feel better even if he could not throw the punch himself.

  Sigurd was still absent. Hilda had told Ragnvald that he had run off after Atli’s coming. Ragnvald did not know if he wished that Sigurd had stayed—then he might have a companion in his shame, for both of them had failed to protect Sogn, in his way—or glad that he need not take responsibility for Sigurd’s weakness. Ragnvald’s mother, Ascrida, had been brought to the high table as well. She had become simple in her old age. She went where she was bid, and could perform easy chores, though she also had moments of stubbornness when she behaved like an angry child.

  Atli complimented Hilda on setting a good table. “But then, I have grown to enjoy it often,” he added, nodding at her. Hilda flushed, making Ragnvald wonder how much she had minded her unexpected guest.

  “You have had great success, I think,” said Atli, “judging by the ships in your train.” His beard shone with the fat from the meat. He wiped it off with the sleeve of his shirt—a gesture that any man might make, but it annoyed Ragnvald. Sogn thralls must wash that shirt. Atli had brought only men to consume his resources, and no women to replenish them.

  “We defeated Vemund,” s
aid Ragnvald.

  “You spin a tale fit to pass a long winter’s night!” Atli exclaimed. “I will send you a skald to accompany you on all your battles, if this is the type of story you tell.”

  “Ragnvald does not like to boast,” said Hilda. “I have told you this.”

  “Your deeds have spoken for themselves,” said Atli. “Far and wide, and beyond Norway’s borders.” His expression turned inward, at odds with the forced cheer in his tone. Perhaps this was a glimpse of Atli’s true feelings, his jealousy that his name was less famous. “It is fitting in a king,” he added, still grandly. The flattery pleased Ragnvald, against his will. Too often Harald and his other captains mocked Ragnvald for his short speech. He frowned at Atli; he did not want to like the man even a little.

  “Yet it is not fitting that your men should go without praise,” Atli continued. “Are you so closemouthed about their deeds?”

  “Odd—Oddbjorn Hakonsson will call out their deeds if my own praise falls short,” said Ragnvald. He did not want to give up any ground to Atli, even the freedom of Oddi’s nickname. Atli took too much as his due already.

  “Then let him praise your men tonight. They have come too far not to be feasted and rewarded properly.”

  “After we have set your ships on the whale’s road again, it will be time to feast properly. Then we will have more to celebrate.”

  “Can you not be generous with your entertainment as you have been with your food?” Atli’s voice grew louder. “I am your guest. My men and I both would benefit from the example of your fine company and their deeds. Let us hear them.”

  Ragnvald could see no way of winning this petty battle. He would indeed look churlish and ill-tempered if he refused to gift his men with their gold, and call out their deeds. Let it be done and let Atli see what fine men followed Ragnvald, heroes from all over Norway and farmers that he had forged into warriors. He glanced at Oddi, who shrugged. Ragnvald stood. Men around the hall grew quiet, set down their eating daggers, and held cups between their hands, ready to toast. These men would do what he asked and wished for his recognition above all things. It was a headier draught than any Frankish wine.