The Voyage of Freydis

by Tamara Goranson

  “Tomorrow then.”

  “Tomorrow is a long way off.”

  “I see,” I say.

  “You don’t,” she says.

  When it is time for bed, I tell Thorvard that I am craving the quiet of an evening stroll. He asks where I plan to go. I lie and tell him that it is my intention to wander over to my gyoja’s hut. Even as he waves me off, I see him eying one of Faðir’s young advisers – a tall Norseman who hails from a powerful family east of here. Disgusted, I turn my back and wander outside where the midnight sun is easing into a bed of clouds tinged the color of bruises.

  Soon I find myself following a well-trodden path leading to my favorite hot spring. The meadows are loamy green and eerily quiet at this time of night. With the bugs nipping at my ankles, I scamper through the grass, breathing in the crisp, fresh air and tasting the freedom that I have greatly missed. After cresting the last hill, I see a shroud of mist rising from the hot pools that give off a sacred scent.

  In the sky, the moon is rising, its white pearly face half-distorted in the steam rising from the blue water that burps bubbles and lures me in to its steamy extravagance. As soon as I shed my clothes and ease my body into the warmth, I try to dismiss the childhood memories that threaten to overwhelm as thoughts of Faðir unravel like balls of wool.

  When he was alive, Faðir always said that if he could not reach Ragnarok by dying an honorable death in battle, living in Helgafjell – the holy mountain – would have to do. I am sad that he will never have the chance to admire the golden shields mounted on Valhalla’s walls, that he will never be able to marvel at the magical stags roaming freely across the golden grounds.

  “Find peace, Faðir,” I whisper into the evening sky as midnight sun flares behind a ridge of hills.

  By the gods, I wonder what it would be like to allow myself to fall asleep and drown, to succumb to death. I’d be free from the wicked husband I had been forced to marry. I’d escape from all this misery, from having to worry about Thorvard’s threats, his violent fists.

  Turning my face into the water, I feel the pain of everything as the steam begins to lick my face. The mineral bath cradles me and I let the water drag me down, filling my ears with its liquid peace.

  There is a sudden gust of wind just before I go down, and my eyes pop open as a patch of mist in front of me clears. Faðir’s spirit presence hisses in the wind, telling me not to end my life, warning me not to die a coward’s death. Suddenly, the wind picks up and the rippling water is pushed towards me, and I am enveloped in a cloud as islands of memory surface and Faðir’s breathy voice creeps towards me through the steam.

  Let nothing threaten you, döttir. Do not be intimidated or hindered by difficult men. You must leave them to be punished by the gods.

  I swallow hard, knowing that the gods are gone. They, too, have abandoned me. As Faðir’s image fades into nothingness, I am left with only wind whispers scattering the steam.

  “I will miss you, Faðir,” I murmur underneath my breath. “I will miss you terribly.”

  The return journey back to Brattahlíð is uneventful in the dark. When I arrive in the quiet yard, I do not join Thorvard in his bed. Instead, I find a dark, dry corner in the byre where I can be alone in my struggle to fall asleep.

  In the morning, I snap awake at the sound of the startled boy who comes to milk the cows. He gapes at me as I scramble up and begin dusting the pieces of hay off my lap.

  “Lo! It is Freydis Eiriksdöttir,” I quickly say. In response, the boy jumps back and spills the contents of his slop pail. He gawks at me as if I am masquerading as a Valkyrie intent on taking him against his will to the afterlife.

  “I am in need of the gyoja,” I sputter. “Do you know where she sleeps these days?”

  “Up there.” He points his finger towards the hills.

  “Could you take me to her?”

  In a flash, the boy turns and runs, and I follow him. Frenzied, he stumbles past the stores shed before following the frost-covered footpath where he stops and throws a look over his shoulder as if he is expecting to see a giantess or something worse. Panting, I wave him forwards. He takes off again at a run, quickly mounting a sloping hill.

  Halfway up, I am so winded that I stop. The boy beckons me to hurry before he disappears around a bend. When I finally reach him, he is standing outside a hut that has been newly hewn into the side of a grassy hill. On the bank, a cow sits lazily, backlit by the rising sun, its tail swishing back and forth as it swats away a swarm of flies.

  “Góðan morgin!” the boy calls out as he pokes his head inside the hut. He darts back when I approach and shuffle past, panting. It is dark inside and I am suddenly hit with the pungent smell of herbs. For a moment I stop and listen to the sounds of the busy farm I left behind: the bleating sheep, the lowing cows, the sounds of Norsemen waking up, a crying child. Then, from somewhere in the inky black shadows, I suddenly hear the dry rattle of my gyoja’s cough.

  “Freydis, you have returned,” she croaks. She clears her throat. As soon as my eyes adjust, her wizened face comes at me as if she were an apparition in the dark.

  My gyoja is as stooped as I remember. Her long greyish-white hair hangs down in strings. Her leathery face, mapped with wrinkles, looks stern.

  “Freydis, the gods have not been kind to you,” she wheezes as she squints up at me. “You look too thin and your nose is twisted out of shape. Offer sacrifice to our lady, Frigga, who has abandoned you, my child.”

  She drags me outdoors where a raven pokes around the cooking pit before hopping to a flat altar rock. Then it begins to croak, its calls echoing down the slope.

  Hobbling forwards, my gyoja picks up an elaborately carved walking stick. I notice that her hunchback has grown more noticeable and her eyes are filmy, almost blind.

  “I see the blackness of your soul,” my gyoja moans, her voice rasping like rustling leaves, dead and brown in fall. “Freydis, my girl, you must come closer so that I can feel your bones.”

  Reluctantly, I do what she asks, bracing myself when I smell the stink of onions on her breath.

  “Even though my eyes are dim, I sense your grief and feel your pain. Poor child. I want to see you. Come hither. The light is poor.”

  Leaning down, she feels around the dirt until her hand comes to rest on a smooth, speckled rock. With effort, she holds the pebble up to the sky.

  “Oh great mother, your döttir, Freydis, is a good child. I bear witness to it. Bless her with noble gifts and make her barren womb conceive. Hail, Queen of Asgard, holder of heart and home. Lay your hand upon this child’s womb and work your threads. You are the weaver of the web in which we live, the friend of mothers, the giver of new life. I ask that you please bless this child, this friend, this gentle woman who reveres the gods.”

  When her incantations are almost done, she reaches out to feel my face. Then her forehead kneads into a frown. “I hear tell that you have not done your duty to your husband, Freydis Eiriksdöttir?” She pauses and my anger erupts like a spray of water shooting up from a mussel bed.

  “Too often have I heard of duty,” I round on her. “Forsooth, my duty is done. I have lain with Thorvard and worked hard to conceive a son, but no seed takes root. Now I have found a different path.”

  “You are bound to your husband, Freydis Eiriksdöttir. He will want you to bear him sons.”

  “He hinders me.” I will not tell her the all of it. I will not tell anyone anything anymore.

  “Hinders you? Fie! You are a fool to reject the likes of him. He will make trouble for you. He will punish you. I know it.”

  “You are an old woman who knows nothing.”

  She squints. Her forehead crinkles into an even heavier frown.

  Down the hill, the child begins to wail again as the wind picks up. The cry startles my gyoja whose long white hair whips forwards into her face. Fumbling, she struggles to reach underneath the folds of her woolen caftan and brings out a small ivory box. Then she lifts the lid so
that I can peer inside at the bundle of herbs that give off an aromatic scent.

  “Take these. They will help you to conceive a bairn.”

  We hear another piercing scream. My shoulders tense.

  All my life I have been taught to revere the gods, to offer them daily sacrifice. What good has come of it? Today my gyoja instructs me to burn some herbs. She gives me lady’s mantle, thyme, flax, and shepherd’s purse, and tells me to offer these up to Freyja, the fertility god.

  “The Queen of Asgard has the power to help,” my gyoja says as she holds her heart. “You must light the herbs and put yourself into a trance. Allow the scents to linger in your hair, to infuse your clothes.”

  I wait for her to finish instructing me on the ritual that will bless my womb. Just as her eyes fall shut, her lips release an unearthly chant. “Think of your belly growing round and watch the smoke carry your heavy burdens up, up, up into the sky. See wishes rise in wispy curls to settle around the Queen of Asgard’s feet. The god, Freyja, will see your needs in the heart of all that smoke and bless you, Freydis of Gardar.”

  My gyoja’s filmy eyes go round, and I find myself breathing hard.

  “Take inspiration from our lady. Her story is much like yours,” my gyoja manages in the middle of a coughing fit. “Frigga gets her way by using careful planning to dupe her foes. She never opposes Óðinn, her powerful husband, the chief of the Aesir tribe. Truly, I tell you, Frigga is very wise. She tolerates Óðinn’s retinue of beautiful Valkyries and giantesses without complaint. Because she recognizes Óðinn’s improprieties without allowing his indiscretions to weigh her down, she remains married to a great, great god. Follow her lead, Freydis, and heed my warning. It would be dangerous and ill-advised to divorce Thorvard of Gardar.”

  Bending low, she stoops to pick a fallen sprig off the ground and I study her, thanking her for planting a tiny seed. I will speak with Mother about divorce after Faðir’s burial ceremony is over and my inheritance makes me mistress of my own farm. Only then will I demand to be released from my marriage bed.

  In fact, I will insist on it.

  I do not have the opportunity to pull Mother aside until well after Faðir’s sjaund when we drink the funeral ale and toast Faðir one last time.

  We come together in Brattahlíð’s great hall for the death feast, a sober ritual during which all of Faðir’s belongings are laid around him: his swords and shields, his favorite furs, his drinking horn, a stringed instrument he used to love playing. Someone has dressed him in his very best, and his hair has been combed and groomed with scented herbal oil. Even in death he looks strikingly handsome and strikingly fearsome. Everyone remarks on it.

  When I learn that Faðir’s treasured horse has been run hard in a nearby field in preparation for its butchering, I still can’t shed a single tear. The horse is frothing at the mouth, and after the hunters spear it to death, my gyoja cuts out its heart. Then she orders my father’s men to place the carcass alongside Faðir’s body in all his finery.

  “We should sacrifice your faðir’s favorite thrall as well,” Thorvard announces as soon as the funeral pyre is ready. “She can serve him in the afterlife.”

  “Faðir was not a man who liked to waste,” I reply as I eye the frightened girl.

  “’Tis the proper thing to do, but I am tired of all this death,” Mother sighs weakly. Her opinion settles things, and Faðir’s thrall is spared. I watch the poor woman crumple in a heap.

  After she has been carried off the beach, the barge is lit on fire. The wind propels Faðir’s remains towards the afterlife in a pillar of smoke, and I feel nothing. Nothing.

  Behind me, Faðir’s loyal clansmen push in closely as they honor the greatest goði who ever lived. Mother is so weepy that my younger brothers squirm uncomfortably. Their youth leaves them ill-prepared to fill Faðir’s shoes. Thorvald and Thorstein are boys not men.

  On the seventh day following the burial, I follow the clan custom and order Faðir’s thralls to serve the funeral ale. Mother calls for me to join her in Faðir’s counting chamber as soon as the toasts are finished and the guests have left. Thorvard is standing by her side surrounded by Faðir’s most loyal men. My two younger brothers, Thorvald and Thorstein, are there as well.

  “I wish that Leif, my eldest, was home to manage this,” Mother begins uneasily as she turns towards Thorvard. She takes up his arm and pats it before drawing her head in close to his. “As my döttir’s husband, I ask that you oversee the transfer of the lands.”

  Thorvard throws me a curious look. Then he smiles. “Of course, my lady,” he replies.

  The meeting starts. I have trouble following all of it. Faðir’s advisers talk amongst themselves. When they pose questions that Mother can’t address, Thorvard answers for her before comforting her with soothing words. Her tears well up. In silence, I study all of them.

  When it finally comes time to bequeath my inheritance, Mother stands. “Thorvard,” she sighs heavily. Her cheeks have a rosy glow. “Am I to understand that my döttir is the rightful heir of one fourth of all of my deceased husband’s lands?”

  “’Tis the arrangement Faðir made for me,” I say dully.

  The room falls silent as Thorvard taps his index finger against his chin. I stare at the beard ring that holds his whiskered braid. “Who will manage all of this land for her?”

  “You are her husband. ’Tis your right,” Mother sighs.

  “I see,” Thorvard says. I look up. My hands grow cold. Thorvard draws in air, ignoring my outrage, pretending that he doesn’t see. “And who will manage Leif’s lands while he is gone?”

  “My husband did not say,” Mother sputters. Her face crumples. She begins to weep.

  “What if Leif does not return to Brattahlíð?” Thorvard presses. “What then?”

  Mother dabs her eyes. Faðir’s closest adviser holds her up as she turns to address us all. “In Leif’s absence, I deem Thorvard of Gardar to be in charge. He will oversee our family farm.”

  Behind me, my brothers whisper amongst themselves. My heart thuds so loudly that I worry that it will burst apart. Gods’ bread, Mother lacks discernment! How can she be so blind? Can she not see the dragon who stands before us breathing out a stream of fire that scourges all?

  “Thorvard of Gardar will be the chieftain of our clan,” Mother blubbers. We wait as she struggles to collect herself. “He can be in charge and take my husband’s place until the next goði of Greenland is chosen at the next Althing.”

  In shock, I stare at her, feeling woozy, as if in a nightmare.

  “Now give me peace, my loyal friends,” Mother continues with a heavy sigh. “I need to be alone and mourn my husband. I grieve for my missing son as well. Even now I worry that Leif has drowned. Njörd’s undersea gardens will be his grave.”

  “Dear lady, you mustn’t fear the worst,” Thorvard soothes. “Your oldest boy is surely safe. We’d feel it in our bones if it were otherwise.”

  I glare at him. Thorvard is a two-faced snake.

  “’Tis true,” Mother says as she sucks in air and turns to me. “Freydis, this must be hard for you.” Her voice cracks. I pinch my wrist to stop myself from spitting on her. She has no idea what she has done. Studying me, she reaches for me with her fine-boned hands. “Thorvard will help to ease the pain of your faðir’s loss. He will oversee your lands.”

  “Oversee my lands?” I repeat dumbfounded. “My lady Mother, I had hoped to manage my own affairs.”

  “Lay hand on heart,” Mother says in a tired voice. “You inherited a large parcel of land on this very day. Let your good husband do his duty to our house. From here on in, you must allow Thorvard to be in charge.”

  “’Tis not needed.”

  “Please, Freydis. I don’t want it said that you have become a domineering woman.”

  “I beg pardon, lady Mother, but I am confused. Why should I give my husband full control?”

  “Why should you give him full control?” Mother stammers. Her fore
head knots into a frown. “It is his right. It is his duty to protect your faðir’s wealth!”

  “You tax your mother, Freydis,” Thorvard whispers in my ear. I shrug him off.

  “Good mother,” I say in a pleading voice, “I had high hopes. After the ritual drinking of the funeral ale, I had hoped to ask a favor. I want to raise some sheep on my own lands.”

  The room goes silent. I catch a glimpse of Mother’s stricken face.

  “Freydis, your faðir is dead, and your brother gone. If it was not for your husband, our family would be in ruins. By the gods, your faðir worked hard to build this farm and earn the respect of this clan. Thorvard and these good men will help to keep our family strong.”

  I gawk at her. “Lady Mother, please hear me out—”

  “What a ready tongue you have to speak on matters such as these,” Mother admonishes. “Forsooth, your spirit has become too wild. I see a strangeness in your face, döttir. Have you changed so much since your wedding day?”

  There are tears of frustration brimming in her injured eyes. Thorvard slithers forwards to comfort her and she clings to him, and just like that, she is lost to me.

  There is a sick smugness in Thorvard’s face. “Perhaps you should leave,” he mutters underneath his breath.

  My stomach sours. “I’m sorry. I didn’t think Mother would—”

  “If Leif is living, he will return to us,” Thorvard interrupts as he suddenly turns to address Faðir’s men. “Until then, I will happily manage Freydis’s lands. I am sure my wife will come to understand that it is for the best.”

  Nothing Thorvard does is for the best. All he wants is to steal from me, to amass his fortune and claim the goði title as his own! If Leif is lost at sea, my husband will rule as a tyrant does.

  “Mother,” I plead softly in a pathetic voice. “Thorvard of Gardar is mean and false. He beats me hard. He is a wolf.” I take a breath. “Please help me seek divorce.”

  Mother’s eyes grow wide.

  Thorvard’s eyes grow sharp.