by Joyce Holt
Jorunn leaped to each task. Only once had Gyda caught her so wound up in worry as to be deaf to a command. She must please her mistress – must, must, must, if ever she hoped for aid in returning home. I'll leave even if not given leave, Jorunn corrected herself. But better to go with a blessing than without.
Gyda stood, drew herself up – back straight, chin high, long gown trailing behind her like the regal figure woven into one of the tapestries – and paraded out to the high table to put herself once more on display.
19 – King's Daughter
The suitors themselves had not come. Each had sent a brother or cousin on his behalf, as tradition demanded in formal courting. Jorunn soon learned that Brynja's "fellow" was another bonde like Gunnarr, heir of lands further up Valdres.
Brynja's mother, Dagmær Gunnarrsdotter, bore the keys of Gunnarr's household. The stout matron sat at the high table, beaming at her daughter's smiles and laughter. The two of them took a whiff of each spice bag in the gilded casket, a costly gift. Jorunn paid no heed to the other woman at the high table until she overheard Gyda call her "Mor." Not so richly dressed as her sister, and with only one key dangling, Gyda's mother said little, and watched the goings-on with lips pressed tight.
Here they were, Gunnarr's daughters, housing with blood kin rather than with husbands. Gunnarr may carry no title but he lived as a king, following the customs of nobility. He was not just a bonde, Jorunn realized, but a great-bonde, one whose skills in managing lands and livestock brought such prosperity that folk flocked to join his household and swear him loyalty.
Gunnarr had married off one daughter to a king and the other to the grandson of a king-in-exile. Surely Brynja, too, could have found a husband of higher rank than this neighboring bonde. But she seemed pleased with the prospect. Did she look upon her suitor with fondness? Or perhaps even love?
Gyda reigned at the high table, every inch a king's daughter. Those eyes that could glare fierce as a hawk now gazed down upon household and visitors alike in gentility and grace. Her voice rippled like birdsong without a hint of the whip-snap Jorunn knew so well.
Jorunn soon found she'd guess rightly about Toli. He was a younger brother of Gyda's. By evening Jorunn had gathered that there were older siblings as well. Married sisters for Brynja. An older brother of Gyda's who dwelt with her father at Hordaland as heir of that realm on the western coast.
And then there was Uncle Ormi – who returned home to Kvien long past full dark. Lingormr Eight-Finger, heir of Kvien, had spent the day tracking trolls.
"Here, as well?" Brynja cried as she greeted the tall, sandy-haired man. "At Dondstad, Papa cut Yule festivities short because of a ravening she-troll prowling nearby. How large a footprint did you find?"
"Several different sizes, but the largest was like so." Ormi spread palms apart the length of a hunting arrow.
Jorunn noticed the warrior was missing two fingers on his right hand. Old scars slashed across the palm and wrist. Trophies of battle with humankind, she wondered, or with trollkind?
Her head spun with the new names and faces, and even more with hunger. Someone had cleared from the table Gyda's platter of leftovers before Jorunn could make her own meal from it.
Then she ventured into the wrong chamber when sent to fetch an item for her mistress. She stumbled onto Gyda's mother Aslaug helping her portly sister settle onto a chamberpot. Dagmær flared nostrils in outrage, lifted a hand to stab an accusing finger at the intruder, lost her balance, and toppled with a squawk, spilling the pot. Jorunn backed out quickly, her murmurs of apology drowned by a shriek of fury. She felt her face flame as red as the birthmark on her neck. What a horrid impression to make on the lady of the household.
In a few moments of free time, Jorunn dashed off to the smithy which stood at a remove from the other wooden buildings, meaning to ask about a hammer and chisel. She needed to break the silver ingot into bits so she could trade for skis and supplies, and pay for the hand-me-down garb she wore.
At the open front of the building that housed the forge she found the blacksmith, a husky fellow, stoking his fire, going shirtless even in this weather. He said he never loaned out tools and asked what she needed them for, all the while looking her up and down in the light of the flames.
She stared at the score of white scars spattered across his chest and forearms, and mumbled something about an old copper pin.
"Bring it to me, why don't you," he said in a drawl that lingered on certain words, giving them a twist in meaning. "I'll do any hammering you'll let me." He grinned, and his teeth shone white and even through the black beard he kept trimmed short. "My tools are the best anywhere around," he smirked, then called after her as she scurried away. "And I'm the best at using them. Try me, and you'll see."
Jorunn's cheeks heated. She hurried past a shed just as its door swung open. Out roiled the odor of pigs in close quarters, along with a pig-keeper, by the smell of him. Jorunn sidestepped. Even in pale starlight she could see his tunic strained to hold in a bounteous belly, and he kept hitching up his belt. He ogled at her. "Been to see the blacksmith, have you? He won't pay, you know. I will." He grinned, showing crooked teeth.
"Øy, what a bed of adders here!" Jorunn muttered. No wonder Gyda had such sharp words for the maids of Kvien and their dallying, but oughtn't she do something to tamp down the steading's menfolk?
"I have ribbons," the pig-keeper called after her. "Any color you want, I got it. "
Jorunn glared back at him. "You think I'd sell myself for a ribbon?" She flinched at his leer and hurried back to Gyda's side.
The last task of this nerve-wracking day was to empty the chamberpot from the room the cousins shared. As Jorunn sidled past the high table, Dagmær caught sight of her, turned purple as a beet, and swung a meaty hand, clipping her on the ear. "Stay out of my room, you clumsy drudge! Oh ja, spill another pot into the rushes, why don't you? Someone give this oaf a lashing!"
Jorunn fled for the courtyard, leaving a slop or two in her wake. She had only had one brief chance to visit the cesspit by dwindling daylight, and now she stumbled about in the dark, her eyes not yet adjusted to starlight.
Her ear throbbed. Her stomach rumbled. Her arms ached but not as painfully as her heart. Whichever way she turned, whatever she did, folk spat and clawed at her. Surrounded by folk who despised her— Alone in the midst of a crowd—
Jorunn found the wickerwork that screened the latrine from sight and edged past, trying to remember positioning of pit and stool. She misjudged. The ground crumbled underfoot, and she lurched back, slopping the pot. With a stagger she regained her balance, and grimaced at the feel of damp seeping into one boot – and at the stench arising.
Her fingers clenched on the pot. Her jaw tightened. She braced herself against the weariness and heartache. She failed at every little task, let alone the greatest one of all, left far behind in Morgedal.
Jorunn bit her lip, reined back the heaves of misery, finished her work. She blinked madly against tears she must not shed as she trudged back to the empty houseyard.
Stars shone overhead. She gazed up at the Toe and the Eyes, glimmering bright. "Svana, oh Svana, under the watch of the same sky – but all alone, so far away," she said into the silence. Her heart wrenched. "How I long to come to you. How do you fare?"
"I don't fare well at a-a-all," came a grumpy voice from above and behind.
Jorunn whirled, dropping the pot with a clang just as Thor's goat hit the ground, all four hooves at once, his head lowered to glare. The golden horns glinted in the starlight.
"Where – where—" she gasped.
"You fled from me, Sparrow Maid," Toothgnasher blatted. "You owe me help on another proverb, but you fle-e-ed. Coward! Backslider! Trai-ai-aitor!"
Jorunn edged away. "I didn't leave of my own choice!"
"Do you know how hard it was to fi-i-ind you again? I had to go back to the Norns."
"I'm sorry, but, but I was in such trouble there—"
"Trouble?
Trouble? Loki has been hounding me from realm to realm, and you speak of trouble?" Toothgnasher pawed the ground, and ice chips flew. "For a while I found refuge in the caverns of the Nether Plai-ai-ains, but when the dwarves found me gobbling up all the slag from their forges – the silver has to come from somewhere, you know – they drove me out and Loki spotted me. Nothing to eat all that time but slag and dwarf rubbish. Ble-e-ech!" He blew past a wagging tongue. "Look at me now, nothing but skin and bones! And it's all your fault!"
"Not my fault!" Jorunn squeaked. "I'm no true skald! I've never trained at the knees of a master. I haven't such power of words that you seek!"
Thor's chariot-goat stomped in a ring around her, gnashing his teeth with every step. "You claimed you could teach me skaldic arts. Then do it! What more is there? More than echo-words. More than churnings. More than word-clatter."
"There are other kinds of echoes," she panted, "called rhymes."
"Teach me. Teach me!"
As Toothgnasher circled, Jorunn also turned, keeping an eye on the lowered horns. "Teach me, teach me," she gasped, searching in desperation for something to appease him. "Thus you beseech me. Reach. Preach. These are rhymes for teach, do you see? Leech. Beech. Breech."
Her heart tangled at the last rhyme. Breech birth, and her mother had died of it. Her mother had died, and the baby too, and her home lost, and Svana left behind, and lies abounding at Dondstad, and now she was cast adrift and hungry in a new sea of strangers. Misery overwhelmed her. She clutched at her temples, choking on the anguish pent so long inside, and crumpled into a heap on the packed ice of the houseyard. Let him gore her, if that's what he meant to do.
Footsteps thunked unevenly, coming closer. Jorunn looked up from her huddle, blinking against tears. Toothgnasher was gone, and something lurched close, a man's shape, tall, looming over her. The smith? The pig-keeper? Some other drunken lout bent on attacking?
She scrambled to get feet under her, but then his voice came, one she knew.
"Jorunn, girl, did you fall?" Ketill stooped to help her up. "Heard the strangest noises around the corner, and it's you, fallen on the ice. Come, I'll help you inside." He picked up the chamberpot and drew her to her feet.
She took the pot. "Many thanks, but I didn't fall. I was just, I was just—" Her throat closed again. Why would anyone else care about her troubles?
"Enjoying the balmy evening air," he jested. He limped along, half-supporting her, to the hall's doorway. "Are you well now?" he asked as he let go his gentle grip.
"Ja, I am." Jorunn gulped, scraping her wits to find a shred of calm, to form the words needed. "My thanks. Truly, my thanks for the strength of your arm. And for the loan of your hat for our journey." She stripped it from her unruly hair and held it out.
He wouldn't take it back. "You'll need it still, if I know your mistress. Just don't wear it around the hawks." At the tip of her head, he went on. "Squirrel pelt. Makes you look like prey. Up top it does, at any rate. Good night." He limped off toward the byre.
20 – Hounds and Hawks
The next day dawned bright and blustery. Powdery snow blew from the rooftops and skirled against an azure sky.
Jorunn trudged into the teeth of the wind on her first morning chore – once again the chamberpot to empty. When finished at the cesspit, she set the pot aside, wrapped her old ragged gown tighter as a shawl around neck and shoulders, and scouted the steading until she found which building housed the small-cattle. She hoped the goatherd could tell her how to fend off a heavy-horned buck, but no one answered her rap at the door.
She gazed around the steading, wary of those all too eager to make her life a misery. There was no sign of the pig-keeper at the sty, but smoke already rose from the smithy. Fine company those two would make for Utlagi the Sour.
As she turned back to the hall Jorunn's glance took in the byre where Ketill and the other stablemen and herdsmen had a corner to sleep in. Not all menfolk are leering louts, she lectured herself, and went back to her mistress' service.
At the morning meal Gyda made polite conversation with the suitors' messengers. Jorunn stood behind her on the dais with a wide open view down the center of the hall: stone-lined hearths with their tripods and pots and ribbons of smoke rising into the rafters, cooks bustling at their work, hounds winding between the legs of steading folk crowding on benches and stools at the trestle tables. At the furthest trestle, near the door, sat the pig-keeper, ladling spoonfuls of porridge into his maw like one of his own pigs at the trough. Jorunn curled a lip, glad for the distance, all the folk like a barrier between.
Then she saw the smith. No mistaking him. Bright hard eyes, sleek black beard, white freckles of spark burns across his face, clear to be seen – for he sat at the closest table below the dais. Her gaze found him already watching her. A prickle ran across her back as if she wore scratchy wool against her skin rather than a fine linen undergown.
The closest table. A seating of honor. Gunnarr held his smith in high regard. Many folk thought it nearly magic, the power to forge ironwork and steel from the granules of iron scoured from bogs in the high moors. A cold kind of trylleri, and certainly of great use to any steading like Gunnarr's that saw to all its own needs.
Jorunn felt her cheeks heat. She dropped her gaze to her mistress' plate, but not before his teeth flashed in a grin that looked anything but pleasant.
The suitors' messengers left at full light. No sooner had they gone than Gyda shed her queenly air. She ordered Jorunn to help her change into a knee-length gown over baggy breeches bound tight to her legs.
"Breeches," Jorunn muttered under her breath, "rhymes with teaches."
"In that corner chest," Gyda said, "fetch my heavy wool coat and yellow felt cap. I'm going hawking. Come along."
"Out hawking?" Jorunn asked, taken aback.
Gyda sniffed. "Hardly. To the houseyard. Bring out a stool so I can sit while you fasten my bindings."
Outdoors, a shaggy black spisshund danced to greet them then paced around the houseyard, sniffing at every post and corner.
Gyda pointed out her skis. She settled on the stool Jorunn had fetched, waiting to be fitted. The skis were sleek, polished, waxed – a marvel compared to Knut's old splintery pair. While Jorunn strapped Gyda's booted feet – tightening here, loosening there until her mistress was satisfied – she snatched glances at other skis nearby. Any to spare? she wondered. Who should she approach to try bartering? A plain set would do. Nothing so fancy as these.
Already ski-shod, Toli skidded across the houseyard from the sleigh shed. A small falcon perched on his glove.
Gyda shook her head at the merlin, sighing. "Don't let it loose while Shriek is off my fist," she said, "or that will be the end of the pitiful little thing. While I'm gone," she told Jorunn, "help with carding and spinning. Drifa will find you a spindle."
Lingormr Eight-Finger came out of the hawk house with the peregrine riding his padded arm. He handed Gyda her gauntlet. "You see fresh sign of troll, turn around and come on back," he said.
"Uncle Ormi," she began in protest.
He cut her off. "There's a jotun among them. They're more cunning than the younger trolls. Our bells and bonfires should have driven them off. I don't know why they keep prowling our slopes."
"But it's broad daylight."
"It's when you feel most sure of yourself that disaster sweeps in. Return and tell me so I can go read the spoor at its freshest." He gave Gyda a pair of thin leather thongs, one tied to each of the peregrine's legs, and shifted the falcon to her gauntleted wrist.
"Very well," she muttered. She wrapped the thongs around the heavy glove, then took up her ski pole.
Jorunn watched Gyda, Toli, and two of Gunnarr's men ski upslope toward the silent spruce forest beyond the upper fields. The black hound bounded ahead. The peregrine balanced on the gauntleted arm with those two thin thongs clenched in Gyda's fist, binding the falcon to her whim.
The bird must be set free to hunt, mustn't it? Once loose,
what kept the peregrine from sailing off to live its own unfettered life? "If I could just slip free," Jorunn murmured, "I would never choose to return. Not if there were any way to manage on my own."
There lay the hitch. In the frigid half of the year, no one could survive long without the shelter of a steading, the circle of comrades, a defense against the cold and terrors of the wild.
"I lost my way and wandered lonely, friendless and fraught with fear," she murmured, and the cloud-breath of the proverb whisked away on the chill breeze as another saying ran over the first. "Standing amidst a throng of men where no one heeds your need: A fate as hopeless as a hungry eagle swooping over an empty sea."
She shook herself. "Øy, Frigg, give this sparrow maiden wings to fly home," she muttered, then turned and went to find Drifa.
* * *
That evening, Gyda dined on the grouse her falcon had caught. Toli joked about feasting on the buntings the merlin had snatched, but the little feather-puffs had gone into the hawks' larder.
Drifa pointed out the goatherd Jorunn had asked about. "Far back in the shadows there, see? Valka never comes to the hall except for the last meal of the day. Odd and ugly, but the goats do well in her care."
Jorunn heaped Gyda's plates with generous servings of whatever she requested. By dinner's end, there remained several good-sized morsels of pork and venison and half a bowl of barley porridge. When Gyda granted her a short time to herself, Jorunn dashed off with the leftovers to the goatshed. One of the hounds followed her outdoors, eyes bright with hopes to share, but then faltered in stride.
"Valka," she called after a rap on the door. "I bring scraps from the high table. May I speak with you?"
There came no answer from within but a scuffling in the straw and a bleat. The dog still stood in the center of the houseyard. It gave one small whine, lowered its tail, and trotted off.
