There was silence now. These children have known hunger, and the prospect of never relieving it. The men nod and sip from horns the last of the beer. Kara’s elkhound twitches in his sleep, dreaming of rabbits.
“With Loki’s admission, Freya gave him her magic cloak, transforming the god into a falcon, swift and dark.” Her hands wings now. “And sent him to fetch Ithunn before the gods themselves would wither and die.”
“And Loki flew from Asgard to Jotunheim, where he found Ithunn alone. With the magic of Freya’s cloak, he turned her into a nut! And this nut he plucks in his falcon-talons, and flies as fast as he can back to Asgard.
“But oh, Thiazi has seen this falcon, and knows it steals something of value. So in his eagle form, the giant circles all of Jotunheim, looking for his captive. Never finding her. Finally, the giant understands. The falcon has taken Ithunn, and flies her home to her people. So the giant stretches his great eagle wings as wide as they will go, so they cover half the sky, and all the moon, and all the stars, and he drives the wind behind him, racing to Asgard.
“Loki dares to look behind at the roaring wind, to see the eagle bearing upon him. So he cries out to Asgard a warning. The great screech of a falcon. All look up.
“Odinnn and Thor begin a great and terrible fire, holding fuel in a pile beside it. In the distance could they see two shapes, falcon and eagle, knowing Loki and Ithunn are pursued by Thiazi and his terrible anger.
“The gods pile the flames higher and higher, so that Loki must beat his falcon wings so fast to reach over them, and even then, he flies right through the fire so that his feathers are scorched. And the stink is terrible.
“Oh, but look, the eagle, Thiazi, now is the size of a mountain, and there is not enough sky for him to escape the fire. Thor throws the last of the driest branches on the pyre, and as the eagle flies through he is consumed by the flames, screaming in agony as the fire licks the flesh from his bones and crumbles them into ash.”
The children clap. But no story should end with an ending, but with a beginning of another story.
“But, the Jotun Thiazi, he had a giant daughter, Skathi, she of shadow, and the tides. She was a great warrior, and hearing of her father’s death at the hands of the gods did outfit herself with links of iron and the leather of a great ox, so that no spear could penetrate it. And Skathi took her spear and shield and marched alone against Asgard, against all the gods there.
“Odinnn saw the warrior-princess Skathi, and fell in love with her courage. He sought to appease her with all the gifts of Asgard, now restored to Spring with Ithunn’s returning. Indeed, he promised to serve her as husband, and set the eyes of her father Thiazi into the sky as stars, so that his name would never be forgotten. And so Skathi agreed, and was giantess no more, but goddess in Asgard.
“And now you must go to bed,” says Kara, which is how our mother would end every story.
I make a face, a twinge of pain–not even pain, really, just discomfort.
“What’s wrong, Ladda?” Kara whispers to me as the children are plucked away from the hearth by the aunts.
“The moon is on me, that’s all, sister,” I say. I will not dig beneath my dress but I know it is true. I sigh because there is much to do, and the men will not speak to me while I am bleeding. Much village business will have to wait, or fall to Brandr, and I fear of asking too much of him. Or having the others see him as Jarl, perhaps, I don’t know.
“I don’t bleed,” says Rota, gruffly. I didn’t know she was behind me.
“What do you mean?” I ask. “Ever?”
“Like a woman,” she says. “I asked Gudrun.”
“Gudrun?”
“The great-grandmother who took the hilltop, with the orphan children. I went and asked her my fate, and she knew that I don’t bleed with the moon. She said I never would.”
“You’re only fourteen,” I reassure her. “It might happen.”
“It won’t,” Rota insists. “Gudrun told me.”
“I’m sorry,” I tell her, thought I don’t know why. At the moment to be free of this burden seems a fantastic thing.
“No, don’t be,” says Rota. “She says that I am no woman, that I am to take a wife and die in battle.”
I look to see Kara’s reaction, if she will laugh. But she calmly accepts this news.
“This is some dealing of the gods?” I ask.
“It’s my fate, Gudrun says. My orleg.”
“You’re not… shaped like that. Like a man, I mean. I don’t understand.”
“She says that when I’m slain it is a man’s ghost that will enter Valhalla,” says Rota.
“And you’re happy with this,” I ask. I hope.
“I’m happy,” Rota says. “Be a man. Take a wife. Find my life in battle.”
Kara nods silently. My belly sends me another pang, as though to intrude on our conversation.
“Then I’m happy for you, Rota,” I say.
“The god Loki turned into a mare and bore foals,” adds Kara. “So surely the gods have chosen to make this of you. I love you, Rota.”
Rota takes each of our hands and squeezes them.
“I have to find myself some moss.” I hate to break up this moment, but the blood won’t wait. “And Kara? Could you make me some birch tea? But Rota, despite your warrior’s fate, please give us a year before you go off to prove yourself. Set it aside for a harvest and a winter. You’re the only warrior we have, and I’d keep you here as our guardian. Please tell me you agree to this.”
“I promise,” says Rota. “A harvest and a winter.”
A dream of a young man on a beach. I don’t recognize him at first, but it’s him, the brown-eyed boy between the scraggly blonde youth of a king and the and the kindly Jarl Rorik. Do I remember or imagine his golden skin, the brown of his eyes?
And there’s the familiar sound of the village bell. Though faster now than in memory.
I am no longer dreaming, but the bell still sounds.
Gudrun, on the hilltop with the orphan children, somehow hoisted the thing into a tree and banging it as though Ragnarok were upon us.
Men are coming.
Too early in the year–and too wet–for fire. It must be men.
Rowers.
Rota’ is already up, shield at shoulder and spear in hand, low to the ground and padding out the door, Kara’s elkhound behind.
Kara herself isn’t roused by the clamour, so I shake her shoulder. She squeaks like a kitten.
“Kara, wake up. Wake up. Go down to the river and hide there. Don’t come out. Don’t come out for anything. Now go.” She wakes and smiles sleepily, moving and packing effortlessly but efficiently.
Even just propped up on one arm, my belly protests. My blood cloths are sticky from the night, and I’m both hungry and nauseous. I rise and arm myself with belt and sword, the wolf skin shaken out, cloaked and pinned to my shoulders. My hand rises to brush my hair but I remember Kara braiding it in my sleep into two tight rows alongside my head, and I awake with hair more perfect than if I’d spent an hour on it. Kara’s elf-magic.
This time we will not be cowed. We will not be herded into pens for slavers. They’ve taken too much from us–even our fear. Now, they’ll find nothing but anger and blood. That they would try to take again what little we’ve built here… I remember the crunch of bone beneath my axe, and find myself hungry for the sound.
To Hel with them.
Brandr is at the door, standing with the reins of the dapple in his hand. I mount the horse and ride, ride clear past Rota and the hound, north up the forest path to the right of the hill and the still-clanging bell.
Men, indeed men, but not on their way to war. Two boats-worth of men, a few women too, laughing, some of them.
Shields, yes, but at their side, spears slack and almost blithe at these angles. At their head, a youth on horseback, a blonde scruff of a beard on his chin, his breeches tufted and matted.
Ragnar.
And behind him, the
bronze skin and brown eyes of a dream I had not half an hour before. I wish I knew his name.
I pull my horse up. We both catch our breath and there’s movement to our right, a blur past. Kara’s hound, barking and snarling. He does not look to me, but takes the whole column as a threat. The dog flies like a bolt.
Then a spear shaft, and a yelp of pain that cracks the air between us. Ragnar, out of sport or instinct, has thrown a spear into the dog at thirty paces, stapling it into the ground and killing it instantly.
Not instantly. There is one more yelp, a keening, before this dog goes to his ancestors.
I’m horrified, and my stomach tightens even harder than the cramps I woke with.
I’ll kill him. I swear I will take the point of the sword he gave me himself and I will drive it into the front of his stupid goat-pants. I clap my heels into the sides of my horse.
He sees me, smirks, drives his own horse towards me, near laughing. My sword is out and I don’t know if he understands I mean to gut him like a fish.
But he moves on a horse in a way I’ve never seen, like the horse is swimming, and he sweeps around me so that I run past him, and pull up hard to the point where I’m almost thrown.
He’s circling me now, the smirking blonde and his horse. He clucks at my own dapple to calm it.
“That was my sister’s dog,” I say.
“It looked serious,” he replies. “Did you set him on me?”
“I didn’t get the chance.”
“But you would have?”
“I would have. I’d set a bear on you if I had one, Ragnar Goat Pants.” I’m practically spitting the words.
“That’s King Goat Pants,” he says, smiling. “I am sorry about your sister’s dog. And your imaginary bear, too. Because I’d kill that as well to see you.”
“What?” I’m confused.
“Why do you think I came to the Gaular? To see you, Hladgertha.”
“Jarl Hladgertha,” I tell him. This fetches a broader smile from him, which makes me want to kill him all the more.
“Jarl Hladgertha, then. We should talk.”
“I have nothing to say to you. You’re an ill-omen. You bring nothing but death and suffering with you.”
“Well today, today I bring more. Much more. Speak with me, Jarl Hladgertha,” he says. “It will be worth your time, and that of your people.”
Ladda the girl would not speak with him. Ladda the girl would run and find a rock and crack open his head at a dozen famnr. But Ladda the girl died, I think, that day on the beach. And now Ladda the jarl will sit with the king, and see what he has to say.
I miss the girl.
He has, as promised, brought more than suffering. I’ll grant him that. The village is constantly cheering as each crate is opened, each cask pried loose. There is even music as instruments come to life. The scent of food, and spices salty and sharp in the woodsmoke.
Kara is unshaken by the news of her dog’s death. I thought I would have to find her by the river, but she was in the hall waiting for me.
“He told me,” she says when I tell her the dog is dead.
“Who did?”
“The hound. He told me he died.” Kara is very calm.
“When?” I ask. I’m worried about her.
“When he died. Before you returned. He spoke to me. He said your king speared him.”
“He’s not my king,” I say, insulted.
“He is,” Kara says. “The hound told me that as well.”
I love my little sister but I can’t take much more of this elf and god and ghost-dog business. I see Brandr standing with some of the other greybeards, warming themselves by a tripod, even though the day is hot and flush with spring. It’s the end of Einmanuthur, the last month of winter, and at its end I’ll be sixteen years old and see the dawn of my seventeenth summer.
Ragnar sits on a box, part of a small circle of warriors who are all speaking in serious tones. Some rise out of respect when I approach, which is an odd custom, or maybe they have somewhere else to be.
“Sit, Hladgertha, please,” he says. He’s chewing on a small piece of dried meat, and tears off a slice, offering. I decline the bite, but sit opposite.
“Ladda, if we’re talking,” I say, trying not to look at him. His eyes are too blue. It’s unsettling.
“Ladda, then,” he nods. “We followed Fro north, but he turned, and we lost him in fog. He’s gone south now to his allies in Jutland. My home.”
“What does any of this have to do with us?” I ask. Maybe I’m being rude. I guess I am, but I’m trying to make a point.
“Well, we’ve turned south as well now. For me to be king in more than name, I have to kill him. Our boats are ashore to the north, and we thought you must be here somewhere. So, I have come to visit.”
“A visit.” He makes less sense to me than does Kara. And at least Kara’s runes have something to do with me.
“We brought you some things we thought you might need,” Ragnar says.
“Such as?” I ask.
“Tools, iron. Weapons. Oh, and–” Still chewing, he beckons one of his crew, a slight woman but clearly strong, who brings over a box similar to the one he’s sitting on. She drops it between us and walks back to her tasks without looking.
“And this,” Ragnar says, cracking open the box with his broad hands. I can see white scars there in the sunlight.
He pulls out a fine woolen dress, the blue of lichen-flowers. The colour of his eyes, actually.
I should be, what, flattered? Only I’m suddenly aware that my own dress is stiff with mud and still blood-stained. That I haven’t washed my face this morning, and that my cramps are getting worse.
He rises and comes around behind me, placing something around my neck. It sits awkwardly atop the wolf skin, but I crunch down my chin and lift it up to see it. a necklace of linked bronze plates, beautifully inscribed with animals and birds. A treasure of a thing.
“Why… why are you giving me this?” I ask.
“Ladda,” he says, returning to his box. “I think you should marry me.”
“Why should I do that?” This is impossible. This entire conversation is impossible.
“I should be seen with someone like you,” he says, smiling.
“You might remember I tried to kill you this morning,” I tell him.
“You were serious?” he says, actually surprised.
“Of course,” I say.
“You should marry me, and I could teach you to fight. Then next time you try to kill me, I will know.”
“That’s a fair offer.” I think we are making fun of each other now. One question: “Why me?”
“Because I like you, Ladda. How you took down that Swede. Did you think I give a sword like that to every girl I meet on the beach?”
“You might,” I say. He laughs.
“I would be a very poor king, then. That blade is worth a kingdom.”
“So you said. I was going to let the householders plough with it.” He winces at this.
“Well, now you know what we are talking about. I will have Eindr talk to you.”
“Eindr?” I ask.
“You met him. He is one of Rorik’s men. He has eyes like acorns.”
“Brown,” I say, defending a man who’s name I’ve known for two whole seconds.
“Brown. But shiny. He’s good at talking. He’ll talk you into marrying me.” Standing, he sucks the last of the juice of the meat from his thumb. “But now, I have to go and speak to my crew.” He gives me a smile, more boy than man in that smile, but more real than any exchange between us yet. His fingers reach out and touch my face, very gently and not unwelcome, before he turns away.
“You should,” says Rota. “If you want to.”
“Why should I want to? How can I want to?” I don’t know where to begin. “What would it even mean?” In the hall, seated in what was once the lone chair (though others have now arrived, thanks to our guests), by the long boat-shaped hearth. I have mor
e questions than I could have imagined existed.
“You would be queen,” Rota says, simply. “Think of what that would do for them.” One dirty finger waved to indicate the village, generally. “But they aren’t the ones marrying him.” A pause. “What does Kara say?”
“She says the gods must will it, but they won’t talk to her about it.”
“Why not?” Rota asks.
“Who knows?” I answer. “But she says the elves will tell her.”
“And what do the elves have to say about it?”
“She doesn’t know yet,” I say. “Only that they’ll tell her eventually. I can’t keep Kara’s gods and elves straight. Or dogs, for that matter.”
“Dogs?”
“The dead elkhound. She says it told her Ragnar was ‘my’ king.”
“There you go, then,” says Rota, teasing. “You can’t argue with a dead dog.”
Eindr, of the brown eyes, enters the hall. Rota catches my expression and rises to leave, giving my shoulder a squeeze in passing.
“Jarl Hladgertha,” he says, formally. He’s dressed in some Frankish robe, white with gold brocade in a palm-wide strip down his chest. Of course, he speaks for a king, but he looks so out of place here in my uncle’s hall, with the roof only half-rebuilt and packed earth for a floor. Out of respect, I think, for our guests, I have changed into the blue dress gifted to me, though I have forgotten the collar. The wolf skin over my shoulders and my mother’s brooch will have to serve.
“It’s Eindr, yes?” I say.
“Yes, Jarl Hladgertha. It is kind of you to remember.”
“It’s just Ladda, please. I do remember you, you know, from the beach, though I didn’t have your name. Where is your friend, in the green?”
“Jarl Rorik. He pursues Fro’s fleet south to the Danemark. His hall is in Aalborg.”
“I don’t know where that is, except Jutland somewhere,” I confess. “I don’t know where anything is.”
Winter by Winter Page 5
