Troll and Trylleri

by Joyce Holt

  "Indeed." Dagmær swelled. "Decent food at a cushioned seat and a flagon of mead will soothe my wounded soul." She swept toward the hall close on the heels of Lingormr, with her housegirls scurrying along behind.

  "Mother," Brynja growled.

  Gyda sniffed and smoothed her gown. "If not for that fretting, we'd be having a grand adventure. Come, girl."

  After three bounteous courses at the high table, and mead on the side, Dagmær sent her housegirl to summon the young men of the steading. She issued orders like a war leader, commanding that all her belongings be brought into the guest chamber given her for the night.

  "Leave them," Lingormr said, putting out a hand to stop the burden-bearing youths. "No use carrying twice in the span of one day's turn. We'll load the boats tonight and get an early start in the morning."

  Dagmær crossed her arms, jutted her chin, and declared she would journey no further. "The good wife here is cousin of Aslaug's husband's cousin. We shall stay on land until it is safe to return home."

  "But Mor," Brynja cried, "Harald may come this far in his pursuit. It's not safe here!"

  "Father charged me," Lingormr said, grating each word, "to take you to Eirikr's court."

  "And Harald—" Brynja began.

  "Harald sounds to me like a lackwit, from what I hear." Dagmær waved the youths to continue as she'd ordered. "I don't know why you're making such a fuss over him! All this turmoil, casting us out homeless in the midst of winter. How we suffer! And for what? A vain, babbling fool."

  Gyda pulled a long breath. "Fetch my coat and cloak," she told Jorunn.

  Jorunn blew out a huff of disgust as she went for the garb. Fur-piled sleighs, travel baskets overflowing with food, cushioned corner beds in warm mead-halls – this, Dagmær called suffering? Try waiting out a blizzard in a drafty hut with no hangings on the walls to block the icy air, and the woodpile running low.

  Dagmær's ringing voice echoed from the rafters. "We are not going to Eirikr's court. Aslaug has no desire to speak with the man, and I have no desire to ride the bucking steeds of the sea. The bonde here will, by custom, invite us to stay longer, and we will agree."

  Lingormr made some rebuttal, but his sister ran over his words.

  "If I sense our welcome waning, I will gift our cousin with half my jewelry – half my jewelry! Who could say nei to that? – and retreat to my guest chamber until spring. They shall hardly even know I'm there, except for the meals I shall require. But to go on? Nei! My stomach sours with all this jostling about the whole day long and never any rest until nightfall."

  Jorunn shook her head as she belted Gyda's outerwear in place.

  Brynja made some protest. Lingormr rumbled again in question.

  Aslaug's voice carried, softer by far than her sister's. "It is true I have no wish to visit my husband. If he has forgotten me, it gives me peace."

  Their brother muttered and strode off to talk with the lord and lady of the mead-hall.

  Jorunn grabbed her own cloak and followed Gyda outside into the houseyard. Snow still fell. "My legs are quivering from sitting so long," Gyda told Brynja who darted out after them. "And my ears, from the thunder indoors."

  "There's no safety for our mothers here. You won't argue that, will you?" Brynja fretted. "We've got to make them come with us and shelter under your father's protection."

  "Your mother doesn't easily change her mind."

  "Nor do you. Please, talk them into coming!"

  One sharp-tongued harpy was more than enough for Jorunn. She'd be glad to see the last of Dagmær for a while. "I don't think Harald will even go to Kvien," she blurted, louder than she meant to. "He'll be chasing the dream you set him."

  "I didn't ask your opinion," Gyda snapped.

  "Please come!" Brynja said. "I couldn't bear it if he took them hostage!"

  "He'd soon regret it if he did," Jorunn said under her breath.

  Drifa chuckled. Jorunn hadn't noticed the older woman following so close. "He'll be chasing Gyda's dream, you say?"

  "So I would guess. What do you think?"

  "I think I'll pay close heed to the skald-maid's words."

  "I'm not a skald-maid! Pay heed to those words."

  "If you say so." Drifa eyed her with a sidewise glance.

  Jorunn grimaced. "I'm not a Finn. I was born in Telemark. I'm a Telar through and through, like Roald and Hadd and—"

  "Drifa, come along," Brynja said. "Too cold out here for me. I'll go see if Uncle Ormi has talked any sense into them."

  "Roald and Hadd?" Drifa echoed. "They're part Swede. What's to keep you from being part Finn?" She scurried away after her mistress.

  The Finns lived in the far north. They spoke a different language, herded reindeer, knew secrets and spells and a wild kind of trylleri. Jorunn shook her head. Neither of her parents had Finnish blood.

  Not that it mattered. The knack for far-seeing wasn't her own but belonged to the key from the realm of dwarves, though she wasn't about to tell that secret to Drifa or anyone else.

  * * *

  Dagmær had her way. She and Aslaug and their housegirls stayed behind, along with three of Lingormr's men and two baskets of provisions so the guests would be less of a burden for their hosts.

  The next morning the rest of their party trooped out onto a wooden dock, their way lit by torches for dawn had not yet prevailed against the heavy cloud cover. After all the fresh-water fjords they'd sleighed upon, it was a marvel to see the water dark and free of ice.

  Jorunn eyed the gangplank bridging the gap from the pier to the flank of a longship. The narrow walkway shifted with the rise and fall of the ship, as if the tide were the breast of some great beast, sighing in sleep.

  Everyone else trotted up the gangplank without the slightest sign of fear. Jorunn helped Gyda with the first few steps then stood back and watched her mount the rest of the way.

  "Go on," Drifa said from behind, giving Jorunn a little push.

  She gulped and followed. Someone at the top took her arm and hoisted her over the rim and into the belly of the vessel. She grabbed at the nearest strut for support as the deck tilted underfoot. "I'm a creeping creature on a leaf in the stream," she muttered, and staggered after Gyda down the center aisle between rowing benches.

  Seamen gave the womenfolk blankets and a pail of heated rocks, and settled them in a huddle at one end of the longship where they talked in quiet murmurs. This was the ship's rear, Jorunn learned once the oarsmen settled at their benches and the voyage began. The stern, they called it, because of the steer-board mounted far back on the vessel's right side.

  The ship heaved with each thrust of the oars, all of them at once as if in some solemn dance. Jorunn's stomach heaved, too. Mists swirled grey on all sides. She swayed, unable to center her balance. Which way was up? She felt like knuckle-bone dice being shaken in a cup.

  A cup – she needed a cup, or a small pot. Is this what Inga had suffered? She swallowed her queasiness, and swallowed again. "No different than sitting high in a wind-tossed spruce," she urged herself to no avail.

  When the fog cleared and she could see the white-clad heights to either side of the fjord, her stomach settled and she could once more pay heed to the other womenfolk. She found Brynja chiding Gyda for her seeming unconcern about their mothers.

  "Harald's a fool," Gyda answered, "but not so much a fool as to waste his time on a fruitless chase. He'll have men who can read a trail. They'll know by the time they reach the Keel that there's no way they could catch up to us before we set to sea. If they bother to come so far as Kvien, let alone the Keel." She glanced at Jorunn, one lovely brow arched in thought.

  Jorunn knew better than to speak. She watched the helmsman at the tiller, how he worked the steer-board. Such a small plank, but it sent the whole ship veering course.

  Good fodder for kennings. She watched for more novelties of the sea-faring life. At the other end of the ship, the stem, stood a sharp-eyed seaman who called out sightings from time to time.r />
  Another voice called from above. Jorunn gazed up the mast which looked sturdy as a hall pillar. A crossbeam, long enough for the ridgepole of a roof, was mounted just below the top where a lad clung as lookout. Ropes hung down from the crossbeam, some of them leading to a folded mass of woolen fabric amidships. Is that the sail? she wondered, remembering tales and sagas and the image-filled tapestries in Gunnarr's hall.

  The mast swept against the clouds as the ship surged. Jorunn's belly surged again in answer. She had to tear her gaze away and fix upon the landscape sailing past, and listen to the lazy talk of folk used to idling away their time.

  When the fjord widened, the lad up the mast unrolled a streamer. The helmsman glanced at the banner. "A good southeast breeze," he told his fellows. After a short consultation, he shouted orders.

  A dozen seamen hauled on ropes, hoisting the sail up to the crossbeam. Others ahead and behind tightened other ropes to set the yard and canvas at an angle to the body of the vessel. The longship leaped forward, sail bellying with wind.

  Jorunn steadied herself. The wooden hull thrummed with life, tossed by waves, wafted by wind, drummed by oar strokes. Many, many kennings she could make from this one adventure, riding the Swan's Road with warriors of the sea – kennings and tales to tell Svana and bring a sparkle of wonder to her eyes.

  There was no spot aboard the longship where Jorunn could easily hide and use her key, not when they sat so close under the helmsman's post, and him so vigilant. The sun gave no clue to its location beyond the winter clouds, so she had a hard time figuring her directions. Once, sheltering under the blankets and twisting around, she managed a glimpse of Svana far behind them. That must be east.

  The fjord went on and on, like a dozen lakes strung together. Day was dimming when the seamen gathered again at the tiller. "The current is slowing," one said. "It will soon turn, and our speed is already slackening. Do we have enough daylight left to make the passage?"

  "If we row at raiding pace, and if the wind holds."

  Everyone squinted at the banner high overhead, still streaming like the tail of a galloping mare.

  "What is it?" Lingormr asked.

  "The maelstrom ahead. We could put to land now, and pass the narrows in the calm of the midmorning ebb, or try to fly past in the twilight and get an earlier start tomorrow."

  "Maelstrom?" Jorunn muttered. The very name boded ill. Churning stream.

  "Now that we're at sea, I have no great need of speed," Lingormr said.

  "Nei? But we should make good use of this weather. You'll not see better, and it's already lasted longer than one could wish for."

  "Do as you deem best," Lingormr said.

  Jorunn sniffed the air. Back home, she could often smell storms on their way, but here, the air tanged with unknown odors. She hunched a blanket around her shoulders, feeling as blind and helpless as the other womenfolk.

  The seamen talked longer, then called orders again, adjusted the angle of the sail, and set to rowing to the swift beat of a drum.

  "We're going to challenge the maelstrom," Gyda said. "Did you know the Greeks have one, as well?"

  "Who are they?" Brynja asked.

  "Folk in the hot lands of the south. They live on the coast of seas always blue. It's said they go about shod in sandals all year round."

  Jorunn wiggled her toes in the warm cocoon of wool and heavy leather.

  "In one of their sagas," Gyda went on, "they tell of an underwater monster that sucks in the sea, then belches it out again, and thus the maelstrom."

  "A nykk haunting the southern sea!" Brynja said. "Who told you all this?"

  "My green book." Gyda shrugged off her blankets. "The Greek tale tells of two monsters in a narrow sea passage. On one side, the maelstrom that swallows up entire ships. On the other, a six-headed dragon with a taste for hapless seamen." She rose and asked one of the oarsmen, "Which side should we watch?"

  "'We'?" Brynja huffed and shook her head, snuggling back in her furs.

  Jorunn tottered after her mistress with an armful of blankets. At one sway of the ship she lost balance and had to clutch at a rower's shoulder. His muscles bunched as iron-hard as any blacksmith's, she noticed as she stammered an apology. She staggered off to join Gyda at an empty oarsman's bench on the left.

  Gyda didn't acknowledge her presence, even when Jorunn draped a blanket around her shoulders. Together they leaned against the breastwork of the ship's planked side. The wind bit at their cheeks. The dark current streamed past little more than an arm's length below.

  The carcass of a deer wafted into view. The backwash of oar strokes whirled it about and drew it closer. Its glazed eyes seemed to fix on Jorunn, and she shuddered with the cold hopelessness of fate. She knew the danger of icy waters. She and her mother had once helped nurse Oddleif's oldest brother after he broke through a frozen tarn back home in Morgedal.

  A dozen oars swooped again, and one struck the bloated body. It spun to thump against the ship's side.

  Jorunn lurched back with a gasp, for that sudden movement and the talk of nykks made the corpse look for one eye-blink like a monster of the deep.

  A rack of talons grabbed her arm – but it was only Gyda, drawing her back to the rail. "There," her mistress said and pointed ahead. "The fabled maelstrom."

  31 – Seven-Hilled City

  The fjord's surface swirled in a disturbance the size of Morgedal Tarn, dimpling in the middle. "Is that what killed the deer?" Jorunn asked, her heart still racing. The maelstrom looked too weak to give the ship even a shudder. She tightened her grip on the rough wooden planking and leaned forward, peering down into slate-green waters. She saw no fierce, glaring, horse-shaped nykk, nor a dragon with even one head, let alone six. "Does the monster lure voyagers close to gawk at the great eddies, then rise to snatch them?" she asked.

  Gyda sniffed. "Some seamen think so, but see how narrow the passage is here? One old fisherman told me this is nothing but the result of the surging tide trying to pour through a small opening. I tested his words. Had Toli dig two trenches joined by a rock-lined trough and fill the lower trench with water. I poured bucket after bucket into the upper end. Just past the narrow passage it swirled and eddied like this. Never sucked a leaf down, though I floated many in trial."

  As they raced past, the dimple deepened. Jorunn stared at the gentle heave circling the center – gentle but immense – and imagined the longship sliding into its dance. Hull twisting, turning, sail losing the wind, oars dipping into air as the vessel tipped, and tipped, and spilled men into the circling current that never neared shore. She shuddered, glad to see the maelstrom fall behind.

  In a sheltered cove further along the fjord, the seamen ran the longship aground. Some built a bonfire on shore as dusk deepened. Others lowered the sail, making great folds at the foot of the mast.

  "How Mother would complain about tonight's lodgings," Brynja said as they settled on the sloping deck of the stern under a canvas awning. "If we wedge in tight enough, none of us will go rolling in the night."

  Lingormr brought stew from the bonfire, serving his nieces and their housegirls. Jorunn felt awkward eating beside her mistress, feasting on the same fare, elbow to elbow. As the saying went, Pity the witless who sits with the wise, reaping scorn for his foolish remarks. She ate in silence to avoid the sharp sickle of Gyda's tongue.

  The next morning they rounded the headlands at fjord's end, but Jorunn sought in vain for a glimpse of open sea. To westward overlapped the steep rocky shapes of many islands. She remembered Gyda's map, marveled at the size of these "specks" off the mainland coast, and saw how they formed a shieldwall against winter storms pounding in from the ocean. Even now she could see the heavy sheeting shadow of rain beyond those western crests.

  The seamen rowed in shifts. The sail stayed stacked at the mast's foot, for they drove straight into the wind as often as not, wending their way south in channels along the coast.

  On the third day of their sea travel, at midmorning in
a drenching rain, the longship heeled into a bay where two other vessels rode the waves. Five hulls sat high on the shingle, their masts lowered and no sign of their sails.

  "Bergvin of the Seven Heights," Gyda said. "Rome also was built on seven hills, but ours are higher, so say the travelers who've been there."

  "Right now I don't care about the height of the hills," Brynja said. "I'm yearning for a blazing hearth and a cup of hot broth."

  Jorunn wondered if this famous seven-hilled city of the south had appeared on Gyda's map. She gazed up at the bergs rising from the meadows at the head of the vik. These seven mountains, their heads lost in the rain clouds, rose as steeply as the never-ending western flanks of the great Keel, the cliff-like slopes that had so terrified Dagmær on their descent. High atop one cliff perched a borg, a stone-built refuge for times of war.

  The mead-hall and many lesser buildings sat on a swell of land at the base of the seven bergs. "Bergvin," Jorunn murmured. "Mountain Meadow."

  The longship sidled up to a dock. Seamen leaped out and lashed their vessel in place. Brynja heaved a sigh of relief when the gangplank was secured. Lingormr helped his nieces disembark. Jorunn trailed down the plank after Drifa then ran to catch up with Gyda. Her pace, still loose in the ankles from constant balancing, wavered like that of a newborn calf.

  The folk of Bergvin watched and nodded greeting from doorways as Lingormr's party tromped up the squelching path toward the mead-hall. The hall's sturdy wooden door was painted as deep a red as ox-blood, Jorunn saw. It swung open at their approach. Together the womenfolk dripped into the grand dwelling of Eirikr, king of Hordaland. Brynja beamed at the sight of the flames running the length of the central hearth. "Øy, I swoon at the thought of dry clothes," she sighed.

  As they walked the long way to the dais, Jorunn glanced about at carven beams and woven wall hangings. Hanging high on a post beside the great chair was a shield as red as the door, and crossed with bars painted a shimmering gold. Beneath it, wearing a scarlet cloak embroidered with glinting threads, sat a king with counselors at his feet – a sight that seemed to have sprung from tapestry and legend.