Daughter of the Wind (15 page)

“Please,” pleaded Hego, “help me out of the water.”

Thirty-one

Hallgerd stepped into the light of the fire, her eyes smarting from the smoke, and waited for her hostess to speak again.

The woman was in no hurry to do so, but at last she broke her silence. “Hallgerd, from the brave village of Spjothof,” she said, her pale, finely woven gown rustling as she moved. “I am honored to meet you at last.”

The woman plunged the glowing end of the hardwood staff into a drinking cup at her feet. It was a method used to warm a drink quickly and to spice it with hardwood, a flavor some people enjoyed. The beverage sizzled.

“All along the north coast,” said Hallgerd, with what she hoped was proud courtesy, “people honor the name of Arnbjorg, Gudmund's daughter.” Her father and mother would have been pleased at the courteous firmness of her voice, but Hallgerd hoped her hands did not tremble as she accepted the drink from her hostess.

Arnbjorg was an amber-haired woman, and the cloth of her dress was beautiful, like the white of the moon—undyed wool, Hallgerd guessed, of an unusual breed of sheep. The sleeves of the dress were fastened with pretty knots. Not only was the garment attractive, it also demonstrated that the wearer had servants to fasten the sleeves. No one in Spjothof had taken up the style.

Syrpa, standing well out of earshot, kept a bright gaze on Hallgerd, with an unspoken plea:
Don't betray my confidence
.

“I am glad to see,” the noblewoman said, “that you are as beautiful as the reports of men portrayed you.”

Hallgerd was determined to make no further remark until she could quiet her pounding heart.

But the woman's eyes were amused, as though sure that a young woman from a farming village would not know how to speak well. Hallgerd responded in customary phrases, offering respect to the house that had sheltered her for the night. Then she added, trying to sound sure of herself, “I insist that I return home at once.”

“Let's have our day meal first, shall we?” said Arnbjorg, using the familiar word
dagverdr
, the same one used by Spjotfolk for the food eaten at daybreak. “And before we eat, drink some of your mead and take a walk with me—I have something to show you.”

Arnbjorg reached out, and Hallgerd flinched.

It was an involuntary start, and she hated herself for not seeming calm.

Arnbjorg gave a quiet laugh. “You have spirit. Snebjorn will be a lucky husband.”

She followed her hostess out the timbered doorway, into the cool morning.

She was grateful to be outdoors again. And Hallgerd wished she could set eyes on Thrand once more—she missed his reassuring glance and his gentle voice. At the same time she suspected that escape down one of these shadowy, crooked lanes would take her to freedom. But which one?

A thin-faced servant came with them, stepping softly behind. Eaves overhung the street, and barrows of raw wool and flax were awaiting entrance into many of the houses. Doors were opening, and yawning, puffy-eyed inhabitants smiled curiously at Hallgerd as she passed. Many of the lintels and door frames were elaborately carved blade work that Hallgerd was forced to admit to herself was capable work.

Alrek the berserker greeted her from an open doorway. He was fastening his sword belt, his hair and beard mussed, his bear pelt askew. A woman's voice behind Alrek chided him to close the door against the chill. Hallgerd noted to herself with interest that among the Danes it seemed that even the berserkers had wives
or frillur
—concubines. In many villages along the north coast berserkers had trouble winning the company of women. More than one account told of a berserker who killed a woman while in the transports of bear fury, an act considered shameful.

Hallgerd admired the timbered walls they passed, carved in places with decorations, serpents and ships. She paused at a smoothly hewn ladder. “Can I see the view from up above?” she asked.

Her hostess smiled, but made no remark.

“We have no such walls in my village,” Hallgerd continued, truthfully enough. It was also true that anyone from Spjothof would find such walls confining, preferring the clean, uninterrupted wind off the fjord.

“You'll never see such a fortress, if you traveled to the edge of the sea,” said Arnbjorg. “My father's walls are like nothing ever built.”

They kept on and did not stop, past a tanner hanging out his hides, the air nearby redolent with the pungent smell of the curing vat and the stench of untreated animal skins. The tanner was complaining to a thrall, and the thrall kept his rough-wool hood over his head. In Spjothof, tanning was carried out by farmsteads, just like brewing and cloth making, and there were no professional leather merchants.

A bucket of tallow, used in dressing leather and making candles, sat outside a butcher's shop, and in the open shop of a smith the nearly dead coals awaited the arrival of the craftsman and his bellows. Blacksmiths were rare among the Norse, iron being hard to come by. Such a shop, Hallgerd realized, was further evidence of this town's wealth.

They came into the shadow of a dwelling so new that sap seeped from its timbers. Even before she approached the threshold she scented it, the building smelling of freshly cut timber and sawdust. Hallgerd did not want to see this place. The door was so new that the blond wood grain caught the early morning sun, gleaming. The roof overhead was shingled with stone—an unheard of extravagance in Spjothof, where turf and wood were the best anyone could afford.

“After my father has returned,” said Arnbjorg, “and the wedding preparations are complete, this will be your home.”

Every step and murmur echoed off the empty walls.

The construction was green pine, the roof posts still seeping subtle beads of sap. The house was like many great houses Hallgerd had seen, the roof beam massive, crossties supporting the weight of the roof. But no building in Spjothof was as grand as this.

In addition to several storage rooms, the house boasted a new feature, one unknown to her—an inner space, open to sky, encircled by the house itself. “It's a courtyard,” said Arnbjorg. “Frankish traders have told me that such spaces are prized among the people of the south.”

“All the better to keep me prisoner,” said Hallgerd. Nevertheless, the beauty of the building stirred her.

“I knew,” said Arnbjorg, “that you would prove a woman of great will. I am considered a woman of spirit, too.” There was a tone of hope in Arnbjorg's voice as she added, “We will learn to enjoy each other's company, don't you think?”

Hallgerd was ashamed she could not make any progress in the contest of wills between Arnbjorg and herself. Every alehouse sported talking contests, proving who could invent the best poem, or remember the most ancient songs. But it surprised Hallgerd that her hostess had sounded just a little needful for a moment, as though she might enjoy the company of a jarl's daughter, even one years younger and from a northern village.

Her hostess was continuing, “King Sigfred of the Danes has asked my father to fortify this coast. Charles the Great, the king of the Franks, wars against the Saxons, these Saxons spill into our kingdom—so much is unsettled. My father is off supervising the building of walls up and down our kingdom. Gudmund needs an alliance with brave people. With your village in particular. It will buy us peace.”

“Peace, but not friendship,” said Hallgerd.

“My father wants to protect the Danish kingdom,” said Arnbjorg, “from a repetition of that blood-soaked summer when your Spjotmen harried us so badly. I told my father that my plan was wise, adventurous, and that it would work. To unite the men of your brave village with us, you will marry into my family.”

Hallgerd was familiar with the political reasoning behind such marriages, but she felt the breath leave her body as she understood how helpless she was. “My father will have no trouble finding Gudmund's stronghold, and burning this place to ash.” Hallgerd knew this could well be an empty boast.

She was nearly as tall as Arnbjorg, and Hallgerd estimated her own strength, and how long it would take to strangle the noblewoman with her naked hands.

“I have spoken with my cousin Thrand,” continued Arnbjorg. “He told me every detail of the attack on your village, and how bravely your neighbors fought.” Arnbjorg looked up at the great hole in the roof, where the hearth smoke would rise up into the sky.

Hallgerd made no further response. She was aware that Arnbjorg looked directly at her when she added, “I believe your father will not object to the marriage when he considers the treasures we will offer him in return.”

Her hostess tugged the door of a storage room, and indicated well-woven cloths already stored there, folded on the shelves, each blue-and-red fabric the result of the finest loom craft. Furs were there, too, examples Hallgerd had rarely seen before—martin, she guessed, as well as fox and sable. This was going to be a handsome house, the home of a wealthy woman. Many stolen brides would accept their position as one of unexpected good fortune.

Hallgerd reflected once again on the fact that kings and jarls could seize a bride as booty, and that this marriage was considered both binding, and a possible source of material advantage for the bride and her village. A forced marriage was often long and fruitful, once rich payment had soothed the offense. Lidsmod was a keen-eyed, good-tempered young man, respected by all, but her father had yet to fully consent to the marriage between the youth and Hallgerd.

Marriages were arranged by fathers, and where two countries and complex politics were involved, Hallgerd had heard of a
mundr
—bride price—of entire shiploads of cows or horses. Even though his voyage to the west had been successful, Lidsmod would have trouble raising a price that could compete with the means of this wealthy Danish family.

As she stood in the emptiness of this nearly completed dwelling, Hallgerd realized the temptation even a protective and loving father would feel in having his daughter so well married, with a satisfying bride price delivered in shiploads.

“If my father arrives and agrees to the marriage—” Hallgerd began, her voice sounding weak.

She nearly added,
I may accept it
. But the memory of Lidsmod's voice, and his touch, silenced her.

“And if your father does not arrive,” said Arnbjorg, “will that not be a sure sign of his assent?”

Hallgerd recalled then Olaf's voice, murmuring confidingly beyond her locked door last night. She had almost been able to make out the words. Now she was beginning to guess what he had been saying.

Thirty-two

Olaf had been boasting, sharing a secret. One of the servant women had prompted him, keen with questions.

Hallgerd probed her memory, gazing up at the blue sky above the fireplace. As she watched, a raven appeared, a glinting, blue-black pair of wings.

Hallgerd
, the raven cried, an utterance that sprang not from the bird's black beak but from within Hallgerd's blood.

Two more times it seemed to intone her name. The bird settled on the new, bare timbers of the roof, and looked directly into Hallgerd's eyes.

Many folk dreaded the possibility that an animal might have discourse with them. But some highborn families had a tradition of accepting wisdom from animals. As a girl, Hallgerd's mother had once heard a distant buck elk bugle the name of her grandfather, and the famous, white-bearded old man had not awakened the next dawn.

Now this handsome raven parted its beak and gave a cheerless laugh.
Hallgerd
—
trust her not
.

This was a fragment of high speech, the way gods and heroes spoke in the sagas. Hallgerd was speechless, both fearful and rapt at this message that came at the raven's prompting from within her own heart.

Arnbjorg was oblivious, describing the number of thralls that would supply the house with its needs.

Hallgerd gazed upward, unable to move or make a sound. There was no sure protocol for receiving word from the far-seeing god. Hallgerd soundlessly shaped the question, gazing at the great bird, “What can I do?”

The divine messenger had red eyes, unlike the black eyes of an ordinary raven. The black apparition parted its beak. And when Hallgerd heard the voice again, as before, it did not seem to come from the raven's black tongue, but from within her own breath.

Believe nothing, Jarl's Daughter
.

Hallgerd was silent, praying that the winged apparition would say more.

But the bird shook itself, all its feathers awry for an instant, and then winged away, its flight making a rustling, rhythmic whisper. And it was then that Hallgerd began to guess what Olaf had been saying—that the jarl was not unhurt.

That the Danes had left him bleeding on the ground.

Arnbjorg was describing the cloths that would hang on the walls, scarlet and blue. Gudmund's daughter had heard nothing out of the ordinary, it seemed, nothing more than one of the town's ravens croaking.

Hallgerd exercised the greatest self-control. She managed to give her hostess a smile and said, when she was able to make any sound at all, “The seamen of this town are nearly as accomplished as the men of my village.”

Arnbjorg accepted this compliment with a nod.

“My neighbors make strong oarsmen,” said Hallgerd, “but they splash the water, and spill ale on each other, and by the time they reach port they look like they've been painted with pitch.”

Arnbjorg gave a gentle laugh. “We are proud of our sailing men.”

Hallgerd could not suppress the thought that Arnbjorg was far too proud altogether. She continued: “I wish you would allow me to visit Thrand. I would like to thank him for bringing me here safely.”

Arnbjorg turned to look at Hallgerd—surprised at the younger woman's sudden graciousness, or perhaps suspicious. “Thrand knows all the coastal soundings from Freylief to Nidaros,” said Arnbjorg with an air of quiet superiority. “By heart.”