The Songweaver's Vow

by Laura VanArendonk Baugh

  Euthalia would not—would not—look back as the boats were pushed again into the river. She did not want to see her father standing upon the shore, safe with his remaining men. He would not see her afraid and miserable in the slavery into which he had sold her. He would see her sailing into her new life with the fearsome Vikings as boldly as he should have faced them himself.

  And if the brisk wind drew slow, hot tears to her eyes as she turned into it, he was too far to see them, and so it did not matter.

  CHAPTER TWO

  There were many more men than forty in each boat; nearly twice that many, Euthalia observed when she came to herself enough to start looking around her. Not all rowed at once, and alternating benches were left empty. As she watched the rowers at work she saw that the benches were very close to one another, so that if each had been manned, the rowers would have had to curtail their strokes to avoid bumping one another. The extra benches then were for urgent work, maybe, or some situation other than cruising down an easily-navigable river.

  She had been placed at the center of the boat, where warriors surrounded her on all sides and made escape, by either flight or suicide into the river, difficult. Below the planking upon which she sat, water swished with the boat’s movement, the inevitable bilge which crept always into any vessel. Several men were bailing with casual efficiency, handing buckets up and tossing water over the side.

  There was an exchange among a couple of these men standing ankle-deep in the belly of the boat, and then with a couple of the men on the decking itself. Euthalia could not understand their speech, but she followed their meaning well enough when one of the warriors turned to the two new slaves and gestured them down into the sloshing water.

  One of the men had remained grim-faced and silent since his first reappearance as a captive. Euthalia had seen him of course, but she hardly knew the man. Now, he seemed both resigned and pragmatic; he rose and went to the hold, stepping with hardly a flinch into the cold water, taking the bucket with his shackled hands and starting to bail and pass up the bucket.

  Kazimir was not so willing to bow under his new obligations. He got to his feet and spat on the decking. “Down there? I am no catfish to mildew in the belly of a ship. I am a warrior, and if you want my service, you’ll take me as a fighter. I am a fighting man, and I’m meant to hold a sword or an axe, not a bucket. You can take your bucket and—”

  The sailors did not understand Kazimir’s words any more than he understood theirs, but they followed his meaning and defiance well enough, and at this point one bent and snatched his ankles as another shoved him hard backwards. Kazimir went down on the decking like felled timber, and before he could even roll or sit up, the two had lifted him and heaved his shoulders overboard between the working oars.

  His feet they kept, braced against the shield-rail. Euthalia leapt to her feet and rushed to the edge. Another sailor caught her shoulder, but he did not pull her back. Perhaps he wanted her to see.

  Kazimir hung with his head below the water, his bound arms working frantically to snatch at the shifting oars. He was trying to lift himself by the strength of his torso, but the continuous stroke of the oars kept pushing him down. His movements grew more frenzied as he jerked upward, twice striking his head against an oar, and then his movements weakened.

  At this, the two warriors hauled him up by his ankles, dragging him none too gently over the edge and dropping him beside an empty rowing bench. Kazimir was alive and awake, and he choked and coughed for a moment, wiping his face on his dripping sleeve, and then he began to curse his captors once more.

  A sailor pointed to the water in the hold, where the other new slave was bailing steadily, his eyes well away from Kazimir. Kazimir looked at the pointing sailor and spat in his face.

  As quick as a bird, they heaved him over once more, as the rowers laughed and pulled steadily. On another boat, other captives had been pushed to the rail to watch Kazimir hang and struggle and choke.

  Euthalia squeezed her fingers into the worn wood. Surely this was too long—surely they would kill him. Would they kill him for mere defiance? But of course they might. Her father had never suffered a recalcitrant slave, either. Kazimir was no use to them as he was, and already his punishment was encouraging obedience in the others newly taken.

  At last Kazimir’s struggles slowed again, and after a moment without any writhing or clawing at the oars, the two warriors hauled him up again. This time Kazimir did not respond. One bent to slap him awake. Kazimir choked and jerked as if astounded to find himself alive, and his eyes were white-rimmed as he stretched to feel the decking beneath him.

  They pushed him toward the hold and kicked him over the edge, and he splashed heavily into the swill as the others dodged. Kazimir took the bucket someone shoved at him, and he began to bail, still coughing up water.

  Euthalia drew a shuddering breath. What cruel madmen these were. All that she had ever heard of them was true. And she had been given to them, a sacrifice to their monstrous cruelty.

  She was half-surprised, if grateful, that none of them had yet simply forced her right there on the deck, in full view of the others. She had heard of such things. Such things were probably yet to come. She wondered if she should hope for escape or for death, and wondered which might be less difficult.

  She had no idea of how far they traveled before twilight, but with the regular rotation of rowers, she guessed it was much further than her father’s party had ever traveled in a day, and well beyond his reach to follow and reclaim his daughter and warriors even had he dared to try. They beached the boats and made several small fires, where cooking was begun. The slaves were tethered by their shackles to several saplings, near enough to see one another but not so near that they could reach one another.

  Euthalia was led to a fire and pointed to a place to sit, where she did so. She was given food, like the warriors and the new slaves. Then a helmeted figure came out of the deepening twilight, and she realized she had not seen the man with the dragon voice—how could she have forgotten him?—since the first hour of her captivity.

  “You will stay on the boat tonight,” he said in his deep, enormous voice, and her stomach coiled painfully about the food she had just eaten. This—this is it. Father offered me to this man, and he’s come to claim his prize. On the boat, out of the view of his men—he’ll take me first, and then leave me to them.

  When he gestured for her to rise, her legs had turned to porridge and she could not obey. He reached down, and she flinched, and he took her forearm in a warrior’s clasp and pulled her upright. He led her toward the dragon-headed boat.

  He took her to the stern, farthest from the land, and pointed her toward the deck. Every fiber in her screamed at her not to go down upon that planking, even as some other part of her warned her to obey him lest he hurt her worse. And if they had half-drowned Kazimir for refusing to bail water, what would they not do to a mere woman who refused a woman’s duty to the man who claimed her?

  He handed her a heavy fur—bearskin, she thought without looking, for she could not take her eyes from him, though the helmet and the shadows hid his face entirely. “Sleep here,” he said. “If you slip over the side, the night guards will hear you in the water. If you come down the boat, you will wake the warriors sleeping on the deck. If you get into the woods, you will die of hunger or be caught by the local tribes, a fate far worse than yours here. Stay, and you will be an offering.”

  Offering. The words made her shiver with thoughts of the ancient sacrifices to the spirits of the land. But her head nodded once, as if she understood or agreed, and he turned and left her standing on the upward sloping decking.

  At last, after several minutes of staring toward the fires, as if she could pick him out, she sat with her back against the rising beam which formed the stern, and she wrapped herself in the bearskin. It was warm, and the most comfort she had known all the day, and against all expectation she fell asleep.

  She woke in the night, disturbed by
something—a snore or fart from the sleeping warriors scattered across the boat, maybe. She could just make out their sleeping forms gently outlined by the moonlight.

  Her captor had been right; she could not have picked her way through them without waking at least one. They lay close together, with hardly space for a girl’s foot to slip between, and even with the moon it was difficult to distinguish men from boat.

  She stood, slowly, keeping the bearskin wrapped about her, and looked over either side of the boat. Due to the upward curve of the stern, it was a fair drop to the river below, and it would be impossible to enter the water silently. The man with the dragon voice had chosen his prison well; it was open and spacious and inescapable.

  She let her eyes wander along the shore and picked out more men sleeping near the remnants of the cookfires. Beyond them, dark shapes moved, barely discernible against the trees: sentries to guard the men and the boats by night, and to prevent any of the new captives from escaping as well.

  Euthalia slid back to her place on the deck. Even if she could escape, she had nowhere to go. She could find her way home only by following the river, the same water-road her captors would be taking. She did not have the woodcraft, much less the tools she would need, to survive alone in the deep woods, even if she did not meet any of the tribes hostile to her father’s people. And if she did meet them, she would hardly be in a better position than she was here.

  She settled the bearskin over herself, tucking in the edges. No, she was not surrendering, not entirely. She was simply awaiting her more opportune moment. The foolish warrior acted with no chance of success, and if she were not a warrior, she was also not a fool.

  They would grow careless, if she appeared quiet and compliant. Already they did not bind her like they did the men. Eventually they would forget to guard her, and she could make her way out of their camp, perhaps even freeing one of her father’s warriors to guide and protect her on the journey home. Yes, she would wait, and she would succeed.

  CHAPTER THREE

  They traveled north for days, following the winding of the rivers. Four times they stopped and traded for goods with small towns or at sandy bars where other merchants—sometimes in boats like their own, sometimes with wagons—waited. They traded in silver, in beads, in slaves. Two of her father’s warriors were sold, including the boy who had cried. Euthalia wished she could recall his name, so she had some other way to remember him and could name him when she would eventually tell of her father’s treachery. Though perhaps it would be no favor to describe his tears to his family.

  The silver coins they received looked much like the coins she had seen in Byzantium, and she marveled at their ubiquitous value. The warrior-traders also took or gave gold and silver arm rings, or silver chains. She watched one man cut links from a silver chain to pay for a worked copper brooch. She found a silver coin in the mud, nearly lost in a footprint, and she tucked it into her boot. She would need money, to bribe aid or to buy supplies on her flight. This was a start.

  Thrice she saw the river pirates take gold, spices, ivory, and fine fabrics from merchants who were not quick enough to flee the beast-headed boats. Twice the merchants were left alive and mostly unharmed; once the pirates killed the men who offered resistance and then took all their goods.

  She began to learn their language, too. She tried not to let on how many words she had picked up—best if they underestimated her and believed her stupid and ignorant—but gradually she began to learn the more common names of things and the daily actions on the boat.

  And then, after three weeks of rowing northward, they veered from the river into a tributary, and then into a stream which fed it, and so on upstream. At last the crews cheered as they drew within sight of a village on the water, full of low earthen houses with grass-growing roofs or low-hanging thatch. Women, children, and a smaller number of men appeared to wave and welcome. With a sinking stomach, Euthalia realized that this was the raiders’ home. She had missed her chance for escaping along the route; this was where they would stay.

  Rough planking provided docks along the marshy edges, and each of the boats—without their beast heads, now—were guided expertly into place. There was much noise and embracing and calling back and forth, and twice someone was crowded off the dock and into the water by the joyful greeters. But there was much laughter each time as they were rescued, and it was apparent that no harm was done and no offense was taken.

  Then the unloading of the cargo began, and this included the captives. The new slaves were set to work carrying coffers of precious metals or iron ore or other heavy goods, and Euthalia was pointed toward a woman older than her mother. Words were exchanged, none of them any she knew, and the woman gestured for Euthalia to follow her. Clutching her bearskin, Euthalia did.

  Perhaps this was her fate, and this was her new mistress. She had a lined face, from smiles or scowls or weathering, and no hair visible beneath her white hood. Euthalia wondered if she were a reasonable owner or a harridan who would make her miserable.

  The woman led Euthalia past a dark longhouse to a smaller, square house set into a mound of earth, with grass from the roof overhanging the door, and took her hand to tug her inside. The house was small and simply furnished, but it was as complete a home as Euthalia had seen, with a raised sleeping area and a table and chairs and shelves of utensils and a few stored pots of food. The woman guided Euthalia into a chair, saying something which must mean sit down, and opened a trunk. She withdrew several articles of clothing and spread them on the table for Euthalia’s perusal.

  The clothing looked lovely, even in its strangeness. Anything would have looked good to Euthalia—her own clothing was stiff and stinking after weeks in the boat—but this was appealing on its own. It was made of wool and flax, and the pinafore to hang over the shift was dyed a dark blue, making it a fine and expensive piece. Euthalia’s father had paid a premium price for such a dye. The shift was a pale natural color and pleated, another luxury.

  The woman fingered the material and offered it to Euthalia. She asked a question and waited with eyebrows raised. Euthalia fingered the material just as she had done and nodded obligingly.

  The woman picked up the clothing and gestured for Euthalia to rise and follow. They went toward the stream again, but upward of the docks, where they came to a small wooden house set on the shore. It was, Euthalia was delighted to find, a bathhouse. The woman took off her white hood, revealing short-cropped hair, and indicated for Euthalia to strip off her filthy clothing.

  She had never been so grateful for a bath in her life. The woman even produced a comb, finely carved of antler or horn, and helped Euthalia pick apart the weeks’ worth of tangles which had taken over her hair. When they had finished, Euthalia put on the shift and pinafore, fastening the latter with two small domed brooches. Euthalia ran her hands down the pinafore, reveling in the feeling of being clean.

  “Good, good,” praised the woman, using one of the first words Euthalia had grasped.

  They returned to the house, the woman continuing with a stream of words Euthalia could not catch. This time she noticed the door latch, an ingenious device entirely of wood to both latch and bar the door. They were clever craftsmen here.

  Once inside, the woman went back to the chest and this time drew out a red cape. It was a full half-circle and hung to Euthalia’s ankles, and with it over her shoulders Euthalia felt herself a great lady. The cape was trimmed in fox fur, and she stroked the fur as she looked down at herself. For the first time, she wondered if she might not find herself in total despair in this new place. Surely they would not treat their whores in such fine fashion. Perhaps she was not to be a thrall after all.

  The woman pointed to herself. “Birna,” she said. “Birna. I am Birna.” She pointed to Euthalia and made a questioning face, eyebrows raised.

  Euthalia realized this was the first time anyone had asked her about herself, even just her name. “Euthalia,” she said. There was no need to specify her family; sh
e was her father’s daughter no more.

  Birna nodded. “Euthalia.” And she pointed for Euthalia to sit in the chair again.

  This was not so bad. Birna had combed out Euthalia’s hair, though her own was cropped short like the other thralls Euthalia had noticed. That might imply that Euthalia was not to be a slave, at least not yet. She hoped that was the case, anyway.

  But of course, the man in the dragon helmet. The man who had taken her from her father. He had said she would be a dragon’s bride; of course he referred to himself. It seemed he really meant to marry her, not just take her as a thrall.

  Euthalia took a breath. It was not what she would have wanted, but it was not after all so different from what she had expected, a husband unknown to her in a strange land. Instead of rich Byzantium, she was in a Northland village, but in the end it was not so different. She was prepared for this.

  Birna gestured with an open, flat palm toward Euthalia—Stop? Stay?—and went out, leaving the door open. Euthalia watched as she crossed a short distance to an open shelter with an earthen oven, where she collected several pieces. She returned and offered a flatbread to Euthalia.

  It was fresher than the boat’s provisions, at least, as they had saved the spices and treats to bring back to the village. And Euthalia, no longer surrounded by dozens of strange male warriors, found herself relaxing enough to feel real hunger. She devoured the bread.

  “Good, good,” praised Birna. She nodded. “Eat. Tomorrow, blóta.”

  Euthalia did not know the word. “Blo—what?”

  Birna smiled, a little tightly, and drew her hand across her throat.