by Joyce Holt
Summer travel. A daunting prospect. Paths and tracks winding in and out, up hill and down dale, looping far around the long shining lakes of the mountains. Deep, dark forests where trolls prowled at night and lawless men might lurk in waiting for careless travelers.
The sun had climbed halfway up the eastern sky when hoofbeats sounded behind them. Trouble already? Jorunn pulled Gyda into the brush. A whole troop of warriors trotted their fjord horses into sight. As they drew near, their beardless faces betrayed them.
Gyda laughed and leaped out into the open. "Brynja! Valkyrie of Valdres, leading your own war-band. What a sight you are! Helms and spears and painted shields. Where do you ride?"
Brynja grinned down at her cousin. "To the king's countryside! I won't let you walk alone to Ringerike. We've come to guard you on your way. Mounts!" she called, and one of her woman warriors led two saddled horses to her side.
Gyda lashed her bag behind the saddle, then mounted with help of a boost from Jorunn. She gazed down with her old lofty air and said, "So I could have brought all my gowns after all!"
Jorunn scrambled onto her own mount. "Go back for them if you wish. I'm riding on."
Gyda laughed.
The path rattled past underfoot, up and down the ridges along the watercourse. Jorunn's thighs made no complaint, still tough from the many outings the two of them had taken before the troll's snatching, five years past. Five years, yet barely a matter of days.
From an overlook, Jorunn saw in the dale below the brilliant blue of a long narrow lake. One of the beads on the silver chain leading her home. While the cousins chattered away, she recited to herself the list of fjords to follow on the long, long trek.
That first night, while they ate around a campfire, Brynja handed to Gyda a clinking linen bag. "Your mother sent this. She said you might value them now more than the day they came."
Gyda opened the sack and gave a small gasp. "The ivory tablets from Harald." She clutched the bag tight. "I will use them. I will prize them," she said, her eyes glinting in the firelight.
The Valkyries welcomed Jorunn as one of their own. When she took her turn at watch that night, she still gripped the troll's spoon as her weapon of choice. Beneath her fingers she felt the marks of the bear's claws on the staff. Criss-crossing slashes, diamond shapes engraved in the wood. She still shuddered at the memory of the huge beast. And of the scrawny little monster Dimplekin. And of the hulking, blind cook that had clenched her and Gyda in one massive hand.
I must get myself a white-skin slave, the cook had muttered, and the words still echoed in Jorunn's head, to dance upon all my dough rounds. No bubbles where the vermin trod.
Jorunn's fingers tightened upon the staff as in her mind the two strands came together. Two odd streams of thought, weaving a peculiar new one. A flatbread roller, scored into a diamond pattern like the spoon-shaft, pressing tiny "footmarks" into the flattened rounds of dough.
She blinked into the gloom, wide awake now, her heart beating in new hope. If this worked as she imagined it, she'd have no need to spend the rest of her life herding goats.
"The wit to weave odd strands together," she whispered into the night, and shook her head, awestruck that the Norns would have known, months ago, which way her life would run.
57 – Blue Beads on a Silver Chain
On the third day, deep in the forest, Brynja's troop came across a group of seedy-looking men lolling around a campfire. Their gazes followed the company of women. They leered and made guttural comments, sparking laughter among themselves, but not one of them took any action.
Gyda's gaze sought out Jorunn's. The ruffians she had foretold. How would the two of them alone have dealt with such a threat?
Each morning and evening as they journeyed, Jorunn spied afar. All too often she found Utlagi lurking about Knut's cabin, watching Svana. It made her skin twinge to see the hunger in his eyes.
Still there was no sign of Oddleif. She searched with great care, turning bit by bit until she had called his name to every direction. Sorrow swelled, and an aching regret that she'd hurled blame at him for leaving Svana without an ally. He'd had his own trials to face, some dire challenge she had not seen. Her heart clenched with grief.
Grief for him. For Ketill. For Gyda's brother Steinarr, who should have risen to the throne at Bergvin—
Bergvin, where she spied Harald one day, sitting in the high seat, ordering affairs in his new territory of Hordaland.
His foes were on the run. Jorunn found Solve Cleft-Chin to the southeast, around the great curve of the Nord Way and partway into the Vik. He beached his ship on the shingle at a scrubby uninhabited headland, letting off Roald and Hadd, Gunnarr – and Lingormr, carried on a stretcher. Solve waved them farewell then sailed swiftly away to the south.
For days after that, Jorunn caught sight of that small party from Dondstad and Kvien, working their way inland. Exhaustion drew their faces into shadow. She guessed from their direction and heading they were aiming for Morgedal.
Harald himself was working his way northward along the west coast. "Stay in reach of the sea," Jorunn whispered. "Don't even look at the mountains looming inland, realm of wild goats and prowling trolls. Pay us poor fjell-folk no mind."
The Valkyries of Valdres rode down out of the fjells on the ninth day. The silver chain of the river brought them to the shores of sprawling Tyri Fjord. Jorunn greeted the lake with gladness, for it meant they'd come a third of the way. Here in the lowlands, steadings cropped up beyond every hill. This was Harald's lush land of Ringerike.
And so they arrived at Harald's manor Hønenfoss, where his skald had sung the saga of his grandmother Åsa – the maiden stolen and wedded by Gudrød the tyrant. Harald's folk welcomed the travelers, remembering the favor he'd shown Gyda, the Golden Maid of Hordaland. Lovely as ever, ran the murmurs as they busied about, preparing quarters. Beautiful as the day she first came!
Rumor flew, tongues wagged, for it was well-known here how the king's daughter had refused his order to come to his side, how she had challenged him to take on this great deed of gathering all the Nord Way under one crown.
News trickled to Hønenfoss about Harald's progress and the changes he left rippling across the countryside. Over every district where he had vanquished a small king or great chieftain, he set a jarl to rule under his oversight. His messengers sailed with orders from realm to realm and brought tidings of his latest conquests. Feast followed feast at Hønenfoss as his loyal folk celebrated. Cups raised to Gyda, sitting ever at the high table.
Jorunn did not stand in the shadows, ready to reach and serve. She joined other commoners at the lowest table, ignoring Gyda's beckoning finger. The steward noticed, and sent a housegirl to tend Gyda's needs.
Even before Brynja turned around to lead her troop home, Jorunn set to asking folk about the next blue bead in the chain leading home, the great Vik – the saltwater fjords they'd skirted that lay between Drafn and Borre. Gyda got word of Jorunn's queries, and summoned her to the guest chamber. "Half my jewels, as I promised," she said, and opened the casket.
Jorunn refused to take a single one. "Folk will know at one glance that I wasn't born to wealth," she explained. "I'd be called a thief again, or pursued by one." After much cajoling, she accepted a necklace strung with silver coins, which she wore beneath her gown.
"I owe you far more," Gyda declared. "And so I will provide for your remaining travels. I'll send you under care to Drafn where they will find passage by ship for you, setting out from Drafn's harbor, along the coast past Borre, down to Skiringssal. There I'll have the ship's captain provide you with two sturdy ponies. Which you can easily trade for skis, should the snows come early." She took Jorunn's hands between her own as tenderly as she might cradle a fledgling hawk. "Come with me," she pleaded one last time. "Be my eyes afar!"
And one last time, Jorunn shook her head. "Go in safety," she told the king's daughter. "May Harald share his glory with you, for it's you who sent him on that grand road.
"
That night, their last together, while a housegirl combed Gyda's hair and Jorunn did her own, Gyda spoke of her hopes and fears, the welcome she yearned that Harald would find in the courts of other nations, the threats of revenge he had surely earned from all those he had conquered.
"I hear," Gyda said in an off-hand manner, "that he's already taken three wives." She waved it off. "That's only to be expected from a high king. What I worry about is where will I come to dwell? He'll leave each wife and her children to be raised by her parents in whichever quarter of the land." As she climbed onto the platform bed, her voice dropped low. "But now I have neither Bergvin nor Kvien to call home."
"I think," Jorunn said as she joined her, "your grandfather is on his way back to Kvien. He still carries a weight of importance. You can be the peace-wife to unite Gunnarr's realm to Harald's."
"Back to Kvien in the end. Vel, that will not be so bad. I could go live with Brynja and my mother, if Beste-Papa still grumbles about the tribute." Gyda plumped cushions and settled in.
"I would go back to my mother, if I could," Jorunn said, voice low.
Gyda rolled over, her back to Jorunn. "Have you ever tried," she said through a yawn, "to look for the stolen brooch? With the key, that is."
Jorunn sucked in a sharp breath, sitting up in spite of her bedmate's protest. It had never occurred to her. She could find the brooch, and determine the true thief, and clear her mother's name! She would stride into the mead-hall at Dondstad and fling the cursed silver thing at Rimhildr's feet and say—
What could she say that Rimhildr would believe? "I found the brooch by looking through my magic key." If she tried to prove it, the she-wolf would snatch the key for her own.
If she claimed to have found it lost, wherever it might be hiding, vel then, Rimhildr would surely snarl that the mother was a thief and the daughter a liar.
Jorunn lay down again and stared into the rafters. What if the thief had carried it far away, beyond the key's view or her willingness to travel? What if he'd had it melted down, or cut into bits for trade? Her head swirled with "what if's" that gave way to twisting dreams as exhaustion swallowed her for the night.
* * *
In the morning, Gyda's words still ran circles in Jorunn's mind. Look for the stolen brooch. Not to clear her mother's name in the minds of others, nor in her own – but to lay the heartache to rest.
She eased out of bed slowly to keep from waking Gyda, and drew the key from hiding. "The brooch stolen from my mother's keeping," she whispered into the bow, and searched to the south. She tried two directions before her bedmate stirred and grumbled.
"I know what you're doing. Look for Harald for me one last time, be so kind."
After a short search, Jorunn told her. "Aboard ship. Sailing north."
"Heading back to Trondelag." Gyda sat up and stretched. "They say he plans to rule from there. I wonder what wife he has in residence. Would she be pretty, do you think? Or just a plain girl giving him kinship to a former king?"
"I'm not spying for any rival wives," Jorunn said, a teasing note in her voice. "Go and find out for yourself!"
"As soon as Uncle Eldjarn sends for me."
Later that morning, Jorunn bade farewell to the Golden Maid of Hordaland. She rode with an escort to Drafn where she boarded a wide-bellied merchant ship. The captain gave her a tiny room to herself for the short journey.
For three days Jorunn had nothing to do but watch Harald's lands drift past and use the key to look afar.
Gyda still waited at Hønenfoss. Harald still sailed north. Roald, Hadd, and Gunnarr still trudged along, carrying Lingormr on a pallet, up hills growing ever steeper.
Solve Cleft-Chin had sailed into the west. Now she saw a flotilla of longships flanking the one with the sail of red, white and blue. Hazy bluffs reared above the horizon.
Utlagi the Sour still lurked about her father's hut, openly eyeing Svana, taking turns with Knut in ordering her around. Jorunn's stomach soured with worry.
On the third day the ship nosed into a vik near Skiringssal and tied up at a wooden dock. The captain followed Gyda's orders and bought two fjord horses for Jorunn. He went so far as to search out a party heading in her direction.
Jorunn set off in company with a merchant couple and their cartload of apples just shipped in from warmer lands to the south. They had three strapping sons and a strapping daughter, all armed and clamorous with tales of the bandits they had thwarted on earlier journeys.
From a high ridgetop trail Jorunn caught glimpses of the next lake in that silver chain leading home. The freshwater fjord called North Sea stretched on and on, for twice as long as it seemed possible. Their path on the southern bank rose and dipped and wound, a far cry from the swift straight journey by sleigh last winter – nei, five winters ago.
Harvest season began. Barley stood golden in the sloping fields. Jorunn spent one of her silver coins on a flatbread roller. She whittled criss-crossing grooves around the pin, scoring diamond shapes into the ash wood. One evening, taking shelter at a small farmstead, Jorunn asked a turn at the flatbread table.
This lump of dough felt different than any before. As she worked it with her hands into a rough disk, she remembered the feel of the spongy mass under her feet in the troll's kitchen. She rolled, lifted, dusted, turned, rolled again, and her pin left tiny "footprints" across the yielding surface.
She knew when to stop working the dough. It seemed to speak to her, "Thin enough, do no more."
The dimpled round slid free of the table, rolled up onto peel slats without sticking, flopped loose and flat onto the hot iron skillet.
With hawk's gaze Jorunn stood watch at the hearthside. No large bubbles formed, none at all. The flatbread did not sear patchy as a spotted cow, as even the best of hers had done in the past. It came out lightly browned all over, as even as the freckles on a lad's back. The round lifted easily to a tray, where it cooled to a crisp, perfect flat-loaf.
A thrill of triumph surged from the tips of her toes through every fiber of her core to her tingling ears. She had the knack, and a splendid new style of roller as well. If only her mother could have seen this day!
58 – Poise and Grace
At the head of North Sea the merchant family's course broke paths with Jorunn's. Traveling on her own, she worked her way from steading to steading, improving her touch with the flatbread roller every evening, trading stacks of crispy, thin flatbreads for her board and room.
She found herself standing with Gyda's poise, moving with her grace. All those months serving a proud king's daughter, and now she had her own pride to wear in gladness, and never a better role to follow. Head high. Pace smooth. Eyes unwavering. Voice steady and sure and heeded on every hand.
Folk responded as she'd always seen them react to Gyda the Lovely. They treated Jorunn the Ugly with the same eager goodwill.
If she stood beside the glorious Maiden of Hordaland, she knew, their eyes would all swing toward Gyda instead, but since she wasn't here for comparison, vel, Jorunn had that dais to herself. Widely traveled, bearing news from afar, and producing such fine fare for the table – what did it matter, that list of flaws she'd carried her whole life?
Jorunn worked her way further along the silver chain. Flat-Water came next. At each steading on the hillsides along the shore, Jorunn asked directions for the next stretch of travel. More and more often she spent the night in the wilds, sheltering beneath heavy spruce boughs.
The days grew shorter and the farmsteads further between. Cattle trampled the stubble in the barley fields. The weather turned chill and wet. One morning Jorunn woke to frost. She watched the sky, studied the bellies of the clouds, sniffed for the first silky scent of snow.
Later that day, spying through her key, Jorunn saw her sister washing rags in a bucket – shoulders hunched, eyes shifting, lip already bitten bloody. Svana lurched, spun around, her hand flying to her throat.
Knut came into view, confronting the girl. He grabbed her by t
he shoulders.
Jorunn's every muscle tightened in dread. He'd shake Svana now, box her ears, punch her in the belly. His fingers would leave bruises for a month.
But nei, he turned her side to side, looking her up and down. He made a show of sniffing. His mouth twisted into a leer, and he spoke.
Jorunn bent her ear to the key, straining to catch his words. "—reached womanhood, have you? Took long enough. I'll wed you off at last and clear my debt."
"Please, Father, not to – to him! Pick someone else, anyone else. He'll beat me to death!"
Knut pinched Svana's cheek. "You're promised to him, and to him you'll go. At the next gathering of dale-folk so all can witness it's done properly. The assembly for Winternights will do."
Winternights? The turning of autumn to winter - that day of feast and sacrifice would soon be upon them. Jorunn clenched the key tight in her fist. She must hurry, but ahead lay the steepest lakeside ridges she would meet in Telemark.
Time to spend her coins and her silver bar, if that's what it would take. She bought a warm winter coat and hood, more blankets, supplies, and a third horse to speed her journey.
Flat-Water fell behind. Jorunn rode from first light of dawn to last glimmer of dusk, changing horses, goading the reluctant mares faster, feeding them only at midday and throughout the night. The silver creek down below dashed eastward along its rocky course, while her progress west seemed to crawl slower than a glacier toward the last fjord leading home. Kviteseid-Water.
Jorunn snatched glances through the key whenever she could. Harald she abandoned to his ploys on the west coast. She saw at a glance that Gyda still waited at Hønenfoss, in seeming good humor. Roald and Hadd reached Morgedal before she did. She watched Gunnarr's men carry Lingormr into the mead-hall at Dondstad.
