The Voyage of Freydis

by Tamara Goranson

  “Hush, now, Thorvard,” I whisper anxiously.

  “Don’t ‘hush’ me, woman. Did you know your brother was planning this great escape from Greenland’s shores?”

  “Stop,” I fret as I wring my hands. I feel embarrassed to hear him berating Leif. “I trust that my brother will be praised for his bravery. He has always wanted to explore new lands. May his name be spoken by the bards. May there be numerous sagas told about his northern quest.”

  Thorvard glares at me. I feel another sharp stomach cramp.

  “Truly, I am afraid for Leif,” Alf says as he rakes his fingers through his hair, “but Leif has always been lucky. He will return to us, and he will enjoy sharing the saga of his adventures overseas.”

  Thorvard folds his arms across his chest and looks out across the churning sea.

  “We need to prepare the evening meal,” I say to Alf as I smooth out my apron skirt with my sweaty palms. “Take a drink with the freedmen and then return to us. I’ll have our thralls attend to your horse.”

  Alf steps towards me. He dips his head, positioning himself so that only I can hear. “Freydis, your faðir wanted you to know that he misses you. He sends you blessings from the gods.”

  That night the men are loud, and the mutton is tough and smells like feet. Sitting at the banquet table feeling ill, I am barely able to touch my food, but Thorvard is a glutton. He calls for more wine, carmine-colored, before he begins to belch and brag about his plentiful harvest and his flocks of sheep. Alf listens avidly. He reminds me of a busy squirrel gathering nuts and stockpiling them for later use. When he is short on news, the story of this feast will be the acorn he retrieves.

  “Freydis is with child,” Thorvard says. “You must tell her faðir. Eirik the Red will be pleased to hear that I am doing well. His döttir has done her duty to my house.”

  I hang on Thorvard’s words, feeling cheated. Not once has Thorvard glanced my way.

  “My lady, this is great news indeed!” Alf exclaims. Then, gently, “Should I tell your mother first?”

  I nod, but my cramps worsen. In front of me, my untouched food grows cold. Thorvard leans towards me, trying to be discreet.

  “You must eat a little for the bairn’s sake,” he whispers fiercely in my ear.

  “I have no appetite.”

  “Prithee, Freydis, have I said something to injure you?”

  I shake my head, grimacing when another cramp attacks me.

  “Perhaps you should go to our bed chamber and rest,” he says impatiently.

  “I’ll stay until Alf retires,” I say quickly. Secretly, I can hardly wait for the fire to die and the charred criss-cross embers to crumble into ash so that the men are forced to go to bed.

  As I lower my head like a chastised thrall, a shadow moves across Thorvard’s face. The fire spits. I sneak a peek beyond the dirty chargers strewn across the table and feel the presence of ghosts floating through the room as they stop to search for morsels and pick through bones. Time runs as fast as a river current and my back stiffens as I endure another cramp. Without turning to look at me, Thorvard waves his hand dismissively.

  “Go,” he says. “Run off to bed like you always do.”

  In pain, I quickly stand only to feel blood trickling out of me.

  “Don’t be rude,” Thorvard whispers fiercely as he suddenly reaches out and tugs my arm to hold me back. He sounds perturbed. “You must first say góða nótt to our guests.”

  I blink and brace myself so I don’t double over.

  “Wife, you’ll heed my order or make me mad. You do not look well. Now take your leave of us and go to bed.”

  I feel a building pressure in my gut, a stab of pain, and another vicious cramp.

  “Freydis Eiriksdöttir, did your mother not teach you the importance of obeying your husband and listening carefully to his commands?”

  I flinch. Thorvard’s face looks deadly calm. As he draws back his dais chair, he glares at my stomach with his dragon eyes.

  “Good men,” he announces in a booming voice as he turns to address the crowd. “My wife is pregnant with our firstborn son and she is feeling tired after a long day of work. Please excuse her from this feast.”

  Alf smiles and I smile back. I am on display for Thorvard of Gardar. Gripping the table and feeling faint, I don another brilliant smile for the sake of showing Thorvard’s clansmen that all is well. I understand the importance of these banal platitudes, and I have learned how to wear a mask. Then, retrieving my grace, I lift my chin and walk in a stately fashion across the banquet hall.

  I have barely made it out the door when I keel over from another vicious cramp. In the yard, there is a raven croaking out a gurgled cry. It is a sign – a sign that Óðinn is visiting Thorvard’s farm.

  I try to right myself, but I can barely stand. Below my skirts, I see a trail of blood. Cringing, I stumble, certain that some monster is passing out of me. When I endure another rush of crushing pain followed by a burning wave of agony, a cry slips out.

  Finna is suddenly at my side. The thrall bends down and tries to support me, but her thin frame wobbles underneath my weight.

  “Mistress Freydis, should I call the midwife?”

  “Neinn,” I blubber as I grit my teeth. “I’ll go to her myself. I don’t want the men to know that I am ill. Alf especially. He will return to Brattahlíð and worry Mother.”

  Finna nods. Her eyes are large. When I let out a little cry, she darts forwards and helps me begin to hobble in the direction of the midwife’s hut. As we walk, I try to clamp my legs together so that I can keep the bairn inside my womb, but the pain comes in vicious waves. Beside me, Finna is muttering fervent prayers.

  “Please,” I grunt. “Please be quiet until we reach Mairi.”

  Mairi, the midwife, is a thin, austere-looking woman who whisks me inside a stuffy room where the hearth fire is far too warm. When she instructs me to squat, her face looks calm in the firelight. Then she reaches underneath my skirts.

  “Your womb is slightly small, but it is certainly big enough to birth another healthy bairn,” she whispers as soon as she withdraws her hand. She reaches for some foul-smelling herb.

  “What about this little one?” I moan as I arch my back. Without looking, I know that my bairn’s lifeblood is draining out of me.

  Another contraction comes, and a scream slips out. In anguish, I place my hands in a triangle on my womb, knowing that something precious and irreplaceable is being stolen from me, knowing that it is too late.

  “Push, mistress!” Mairi mutters fiercely.

  By the gods, I have failed as a woman. I have failed as Thorvard’s wife. Everything looks blurry in the hazy light. The whale-oil lamp flickers in the wall sconce where the cobwebs sit.

  “Boil some water, Finna. Thorvard’s wife needs hot cloths.” Mairi scowls before removing what remains inside of me.

  I cry out again, relinquishing any dignity I have left. I am sweaty and bloodied. My smell is bad. Outside, I hear men’s voices. Someone shouts.

  Another cramp twists me up in pain and fear before tossing me into a great abyss where my mind struggles to make sense of things and my body aches as dark thoughts come. By the gods, if my knife could only dig out this pain, I could stop thinking about all that has happened and all that won’t.

  There is another sharp, stabbing jolt that makes me arch my back.

  Sweet Óðinn! Send me your ravens to raise me up and bear me off into the sky. Oh gods, please hurry, I beg of you.

  I’ll do anything to be free of what’s inside of me.

  In the morning when I wake, they tell me that Alf has left. Mairi brings me goat milk and tells me to drink deeply to restore my health. I squint up at her and see the coldness in her eyes.

  “Did you take your gojya’s fertility herbs?” she asks bluntly as she leans over me. I purse my lips. My body aches so much I can barely move. Someone has covered me with a bearskin hide. I push it down and try to struggle up.

 
“Lie down,” Mairi snaps. “You can expect some bleeding yet.” She turns from me and busies herself sorting jars of tincture and a mess of herbs. “Truly, mistress, I am sorry that you lost your bairn.”

  “Does Thorvard know?” There are welling tears. I brush them off.

  “You should not have told him that you were with child until you were sure,” Mairi scolds. I stare at her. “It is only the middle of Tvímánuður. There is nary a mistress who would have announced her pregnancy quite so soon. It is too disappointing to the men.”

  “How did my husband take the news?”

  “Your husband is grieving still. Didn’t you hear him sobbing in the yard last night?”

  “I heard nothing,” I whisper, feeling only the rhythm of the throbbing pain. Underneath my garments, my belly is distended and my nipples ache.

  “Your husband needs to be consoled.”

  “Have him come to me.”

  “He wants to have nothing to do with you, mistress,” Mairi says. Her voice sounds strange. “He told me to attend to you.”

  Two days later, when I am still feeling heartsick from the loss, Thorvard unexpectedly enters our bed chamber. I keep my eyes closed, feigning sleep, until I feel his breath on top of my head.

  “Freydis, it is time to wake,” Thorvard whispers quietly as he gently runs a soft finger down my face. I am startled when I open my eyes and he is suddenly in my face.

  “You are more like an annoying gnat than a wife,” he sighs in his softest voice. He slowly stands. “You can’t even bear me a healthy bairn who stays alive long enough to see the sun.”

  I glance up.

  With a sudden thwack, Thorvard hits the bed platform’s post so hard that it vibrates and the dust filters down from the rafters.

  “Thor restrain me, you fail at everything,” my husband shouts.

  Instantly I pull back in fear as the hides get caught around my waist. “I’m sorry, husband,”

  “You good-for-nothing ugly old woman! I’m sick of you!”

  I try to draw back from him, but he slaps me hard across the face. In shock, my neck snaps back, and I knock my head into the wall. When he hits me in the mouth again. I feel the blood slipping down my teeth.

  Mairi slinks into the shadows just as Ivor bursts through the door and claws at Thorvard, trying to hold him back and calm him down with soothing words. My ears are ringing, but through the buzz I hear Thorvard shout.

  Then Ivor swears, and I scuttle backwards, cowering against the wall. Someone throws a pewter mug that clashes and clangs as it hits the slate.

  “Watch out!” I scream as Thorvard punches Ivor’s jaw.

  “Hold up, man, I’ve lost my tooth,” Ivor groans. Blood is slipping through his fingers and splattering in big, fat droplets on the floor.

  Thorvard stares at Ivor and then he folds, blubbering pathetically like a little child.

  In stunned silence, Ivor blinks. Cradling his jaw, he stares at his lover who drops to the floor and curls up in a little ball, moaning and crying unconsolably.

  “We shouldn’t have to put up with this,” Ivor mumbles as soon as our eyes connect.

  “Neinn,” I say. “We shouldn’t have to live in fear.”

  After that, Thorvard ignores both of us for two full weeks. Then, on the night of the Feast of Haustblót, he dismisses Mairi and orders me to spread my legs to try again to make a child. Reluctantly I obey, but my insides hurt and my heart is a broken vessel of nothingness.

  As I struggle to lift my skirts, Thorvard turns away to unbuckle the belt that holds his sword. The weapon was a wedding gift, a replacement for his faðir’s burial sword, a leg biter that I now own. As tradition demands, I gave it to Ivor for safekeeping until our firstborn son comes of age. Tonight, I wonder about the whereabouts of the weapon. Will I ever be able to pass it on? Will I even be able to bear Thorvard sons?

  “Lie back,” Thorvard barks. His eyes are bloodshot and he is drunk.

  He spreads my legs apart with his bony knees, and I let him maneuver me into place. To still my angst, I focus on his ice-fog breath pluming from his big, fat lips and will my heart to settle. Fumbling awkwardly, he yanks my skirt up only to discover that I still bleed.

  “Shit!” he swears. His spittle splatters across my chest. Turning my face away, I let him fondle my breasts with his cold hands. When he stops to take another gulp of wine, I try to wiggle out from underneath him until he slaps me hard across the face.

  “When you finally find the wherewithal to bear me a healthy son,” he mutters angrily as I lie there mewling, “what is mine shall never do you any good.”

  Grunting, he falls on top of me like a slab of rock. In the process, he snags a lock of hair. Stifling a yelp, I tug it free and feel the beginning of a rumbling – a black and thunderous rage that feeds the hate. The wolf inside me snarls and I call to it, ready to act on that rebellious part that feels the coils wrapping around my heart, smothering reason, stifling fear.

  With narrowed eyes, I begin to punch and roll and kick and grapple hard like Ivor taught me in the yard. Consumed by resentment, I am filled with vengeance, fuelled by rage.

  An instant later, my world goes silent.

  Completely still.

  “No man will ever hurt me again,” I hiss as I reach underneath the furs for my knife. I focus on Thorvard’s crazy eyes and gnash my teeth, but before I can dig the knife out, he lunges. In the nick of time, I dodge his blow.

  But he is fast. A moment later, he grabs my hair, not knowing that I’ve become a wolverine with vicious, sharp, and nasty teeth capable of biting down on his tattooed arm.

  “You bitch!” he screams, wincing as he pulls back his shoulders, favoring his bleeding arm. Without pausing, I grab hold of his balls and squeeze them hard. He yelps again, and I feel a tiny smile moving into my lips.

  With my other hand, I raise my knife and aim it at his stubbled beard. A moment later, I jab his cheek and allow the blade to dig in deep and rip the flesh open to expose the bone. Then I drag the blade down and blood spurts out from the mess of flesh. Thorvard reels backwards, thrashing and struggling to get free of me, swearing that I am a witch-ridden. In one quick move, I scramble up.

  There is a sudden sickness in my gut. Standing there, frozen, I gawk at him.

  “How now? Are you badly hurt?” I finally mutter in a shaky voice. My hand is bloody. My shift is ripped. In front of me, Thorvard writhes in pain. When he finally rolls over, the open wound – a flap of bleeding skin – reveals cheekbone fat. Gasping, I lean forwards, but just as I am reaching out to help stanch the blood, Thorvard grabs me with his bloodied, sticky hand.

  “Thor’s hammer, you amaze me, Freydis Eiriksdöttir.” On his tunic there is an ugly smear of blood. Slowly, I lift my head. His cheek looks like some vicious animal has chewed him up. Horrified, I pull back. His grip tightens around my wrist.

  “Blood has made you cowardly,” he says through gritted teeth as he squeezes hard. “You should have finished off the deed and stabbed me in the chest.”

  “Blood does not make me cowardly. It makes me bold,” I say in a stone-cold voice. “It reminds me of who I am and what I’ve become living here on this godless farm.”

  Thorvard reaches up to touch his bleeding cheek. “Who are you, my blood-thirsty wife?”

  “I am Freydis Eiriksdöttir! I am the goði’s döttir. I am a warrior. By the gods, the next time I have a chance, I’ll kill you with this fearsome blade.”

  Thorvard laughs sardonically as he struggles up. In silence, I watch him pick up his drinking horn and wander out of the longhouse. As the door slams shut, I am left standing there knowing I have left my mark on Thorvard’s cheek, and in exchange, I’ve become a monster, just like him.

  Far away in the distance, I hear the seabirds shrieking. If I had wings, I would leave this wretched longhouse and fly back to Faðir’s farm. Brattahlíð calls to me. It is the place where I left myself.

  Chapter Five

  Dust devilsr />
  By the time the first big snowstorm comes, I am black and blue with broken bones inflicted by a wolfish husband whom I despise. Thorvard blames me openly for the knife scar that marks his cheek. Then he blackens my good name by telling others that I am a thankless wife, that I am headstrong and feisty and shamelessly bold. When his clansmen shun me, I ask Óðinn, the god of divination and of war, to keep me safe and restore my position on Thorvard’s farm.

  One cold, grey, frosty day I ask permission to go out with a group of huntsmen to harpoon seals. To my surprise, I score a kill. Ivor tells me that my hunting eye is keen. My husband tells me that my tracker’s instinct needs some work. I ignore them both and celebrate my success by drinking too much wine. While most of the huntsmen ignore me, Ivor is agitated.

  “Freydis. I worry that you are not yourself,” he says, taking me aside.

  “I’m not,” I say.

  “Just watch yourself,” he whispers softly in my ear.

  “I always do,” I reply.

  “You don’t,” he says, throwing me a look of pity as if I am a starving dog, a flapping fish out of water.

  “Peace,” I stammer.

  “I advise you to do your duty and show your husband the respect he deserves so that it will be better for both of us.”

  I smile at him.

  “This is not a game,” he says.

  “I didn’t think it was,” I say, faltering.

  In the coming weeks, I hunt so much that the smell of fat and blood and smoke and fresh outdoor air hangs heavily in my clothes and hair. I learn to check hunting traps and follow tracks. Even Einar congratulates me for using my slingshot to target a rabbit from halfway across the yard. I should be proud but I feel nothing. I should be proud but I feel nothing. Worst of all, I no longer laugh, I can’t relax, and sleep evades me. I am too afraid.

  When the weather worsens, Thorvard gathers the good people of Gardar together. “You must come to live in my longhouse instead of suffering in your drafty huts.”