Daughter of the Wind (9 page)

One Danish warrior had been badly wounded in the fighting, a balding, heavily bearded man named Odd. A sword cut in his belly would not stop bleeding.

“I didn't feel the blow,” he explained. “Or see it, until much later when my boots were full of blood.”

Hallgerd knew it was a mortal wound but said nothing, feeling little but compassion for the Dane, and respect for the man's refusal to complain.

“I've been hurt much worse than this,” said Odd. “My brother cut me with a scythe once, here—see the scar.”

It was an old scar, a neat seam along his forearm. His friends agreed that they themselves had suffered many worse wounds, and Olaf said that he himself had been more badly injured a hundred times and that Odd had no need to worry.

But when Odd drank wine, it flowed right out the gash beneath his ribs. He laughed at this, and said he'd be able to outdrink even Olaf. But despite the encouragement of his shipmates, he fell into a slumber, his face swollen, his breath rattling.

It pained Hallgerd to hear Odd's friends tell their unconscious friend that they'd be home soon. “We'll turn the fattest pig on a spit,” his friends told his senseless form. “We'll wear out the women and drink the wine dry.”

When Odd breathed his last, Hallgerd expected to be the object of some bitterness.

There was none that she could detect. There was only a matter-of-fact sorrow as Odd's body was adorned with amulets and a good hunting knife, wrapped in seal skin, and committed to the black ocean swells.

Seventeen

For four days
Bison
and her companion ships followed the sea road south, swept along by a steady wind. Sometimes, along the coastline, a
kaupskip
—a merchant vessel—loomed out of a rivers mouth, and received long study by the seamen. Sometimes a stained sail showed itself along the rock coastline, and they stared long after it.

On the sunny afternoon of the fourth day, the ship was readied for harbor.

Hallgerd did not need to be told what was happening. Cordage was uncoiled, chests freshened with oil, blankets shaken out and stowed, the entire vessel made as beautiful as the storied ships chosen for death voyages, the burials of grand ladies with objects of wealth and nourishment. The Danes were capable sailors, Hallgerd thought, but vain—not one of them could row for a morning without adjusting the creases in his tunic, worried that his clothes were getting stained by brine.

The Danish ships ran out their oars and entered a long, flat coastline. Hallgerd had heard the tales of attacks on such landscapes, and knew that Danes inhabited heath and bog land rich with birch forests. But the place
Bison
approached now was a habitation built up over the water on stout timbers, wharves and piers jutting out over the tide.

A white-timbered fortress angled up from the shoreline, and the silhouettes of spearmen caught the sun. Light glinted off iron spearheads as sentries gazed at the ship, and at her, strangers pausing in their conversation to point, and gawk. Was it only her imagination, or did the onlookers' lips form the words
the jarl's daughter
?

The days of good wind and kind weather had lulled her into childish confidence. Danish song and Danish gentleness had deceived her.

She was about to enter the town of an armed enemy.

Never had she been so afraid.

Eighteen

Bison
made her way into the confined waters of the harbor.

Hallgerd had visited port cities before, with her father, although never one with such a tall timbered wall, each stave sharpened to a rugged point. This town gave every sign of being newly built, despite its impressive air of bustle and military might. Hallgerd knew that kings ordered the construction of such harbor fortifications to protect the mouths of rivers or defend their farmland.

“What place is this?” Hallgerd forced herself to ask, hoping her voice did not betray her anxiety.

“It is called Freylief,” said Olaf. “It's an old town, but some of these walls have grown in the short time since I've slept beside my wife.”

Hallgerd was familiar with the town's name, and felt a chill. The place was famous as Gudmund's stronghold. Olaf was plainly proud of his home port, and Hallgerd added, unable to keep the tension from her voice, “A mighty warrior must be jarl here.”

Olaf smiled. “Gudmund wields a thirsty sword,” he boasted.

Hallgerd was unable to keep herself from shivering.

Bison
's oars stirred the quiet water. The sound of joiners' mallets rang across the harbor. Tiny boats serviced the larger craft moored along the wharf, heavy prowed freight ships manned by crews with black hair and dark eyes. No man was so busy he could not spare a glance at
Bison
and her companion vessels as they glided by.

Hallgerd could see no warships, a fact that gave her little happiness. The fighting ships were no doubt breasting waves, and bringing harm to distant places.

She counted the skips tied up along the wharf—small, sleek vessels Hallgerd could sail as well as anyone, if she had the opportunity. A single guard was posted near them, leaning on his spear.

When Hallgerd left the ship, more than one Danish seaman wished her well, a show of courtesy that touched her.

She felt little irony in replying that she hoped Njord, the god of ships and sailing folk, would strengthen every oar.

“You'll find us good folk,” said Thrand, “if you are patient with us.”

How strange the wharf felt under her feet! The hairy timbers were unmoving, and Hallgerd felt her legs search unsteadily, surprised at finding firm ground beneath them.
Land drunk
, some seamen called these first dizzying paces onto solid earth, but Hallgerd was careful to show no awkwardness.

As she steadied herself, a bearded, bear pelt—clad swordsman strode along the dock. This broad-chested townsman greeted Thrand and Olaf by name, and offered the seamen the goatskin he carried at his side. Hallgerd recognized a berserker's clothing, and observed him with interest and anxiety.

“Alrek,” said Olaf, “I'm always glad to taste some of your mead.”

Olaf wiped his lips with the back of his hand and offered the skin to Hallgerd, who declined courteously. “This mead is made from thyme honey,” said Olaf. “Rare and sweet.”

Hallgerd was ready to decline again, but she realized that noble manners required her to taste this offering. Not all honey is the same, she knew. The bees busy in the mountain bred a honey much more delicious than the domed hives set along a barley field. Alrek's mead was indeed flavorful—and strong. A few cups of this and even a berserker would be immobile.

To her surprise, Alrek the berserker bowed as she returned the goatskin to his broad, suntanned hand. It seemed that a Danish Odin initiate was expected to be as well mannered as his neighbors.

“You've killed men by the hundreds,” Olaf prompted cheerfully, “haven't you, Alrek?”

Alrek shrugged, either overly modest or recalculating his victories. Berserkers were famously spare with words. “By the many hundreds,” said Alrek at last.

“I don't trust berserkers,” Hallgerd confessed as Olaf and Thrand led her into the crooked lanes of the town.

Thrand said, “You are wise.”

Spjotfolk expressed a degree of pity for town dwellers, tramping muddy streets, crowded around wellheads, and preferred the roomy, randomly situated longhouses of their own village. This Danish community had narrow, straw-strewn streets, massed with humanity and animals, and it smelled very much like a crowded habitation, ripe with manure and spoiled food. Goats bleated, pigs nosed a scattering of bright grain on the wet earth, and Hallgerd had an impression of buildings still freshly hewn, lumber bleeding sap and giving off the scent of just-cut forest.

Curious eyes followed Hallgerd, but she did not have far to go through the thronged lanes of leather-aproned craftsmen, all of them finding an excuse to step into their doorways as she passed. She carried herself with as much quiet dignity as she could. The smell of malt was in the air, and the
tink-tink-tink
of a tinsmith's hammer. The townsfolk wore
vadmal
—brown homespun wool—just like the men and women of Spjothof, although Hallgerd reckoned that the quality was trade-worthy and far from cheap. She tried to read her fate in the alert faces she passed, but she could see only recognition.

And something else. Respect, perhaps. Or even envy. The townsfolk knew who she was, and why she was here.

She herself knew nothing.

Accompanied by Thrand and a few seamen from the ship, she found herself treated as an honored guest, the phalanx of armed men like body servants, pointing out the puddles of pig manure in the street so she could avoid them. A woman dressed in the drab, shapeless tunic of a slave ground grain in a stone quern, and other slaves swept thresholds and emptied slops into the street.

The two white-aproned women fell quiet as Hallgerd passed. The gray-haired woman leaned toward her companion, and Hallgerd read the words on her lips:
The stolen bride
.

The jarl's daughter hoped that, in her borrowed
grafeldr
—gray travel cloak—her hair gathered modestly under her hood, she represented her village well.

Which crooked street, Hallgerd wondered, was the way to freedom?

And how far could she run?

Thrand and the armed men led Hallgerd to the
stokkr
—threshold—of a pine-timbered longhouse.

The threshold was the traditional boundary between the domain of women and men. Hallgerd reckoned that if this town was very much like Spjothof, the house guard who opened the bronze-hinged door was subservient to the keeper of the house, just as Hrolf accepted his instructions from Hallgerd's mother and cooperated agreeably with Grettir.

Hallgerd took a moment before she drew any closer to the building, pointedly ignoring Olaf's whispered, “
Hurry!
”

Bright red paint decorated the doorposts, a serpent design. Black wings were stirring in the golden thatch of the longhouse, two ravens perching on the eave, lifting their metallic voices to each other, and to the knot of humans below.

It was common for birds to take up residence in a town. Some villages were famous for the white, long-beaked cranes that inhabited the roofline, and some houses were visited by owls. Certainly the raven was a fairly ordinary creature. But the bird could also be a messenger from the One-Eyed, and Hallgerd offered the unspoken question to this handsome, blue-black pair:
What will happen to me
?

A woman opened the great wooden door.

The housekeeper of a great house was either a high servant or an important relative of the nobleman who owned the dwelling. The woman's eyes flickered up and down Hallgerd's cloaked figure, a measuring look.

The housekeeper did not leave the shelter of the door frame, the frontier of her authority. Neither did she make a move to admit Hallgerd. Thrand gently tugged the hood from Hallgerd's head, and the housekeeper gave Hallgerd a brief smile, reserving a sharp glance for the armed men who accompanied her.

“Who have you brought to my mistress's house?” said the housekeeper.

“It's the beauty from Spjothof, Syrpa,” said Thrand. “As anyone with eyes can see.”

“Where have they found you, child?” asked Syrpa, not unkindly, putting her hands on her hips.

“We brought her kicking and squealing,” Olaf said.

Syrpa lifted an eyebrow, and Olaf fell silent.

Syrpa's tone was measured, but far from unfriendly. “I've never met an honest seaman,” she explained to Hallgerd. “They would lie to the moon if they thought it would win them silver. Who are you?”

Hallgerd spoke. “My father's daughter wishes you a good day.”

At these words, perhaps convinced by Hallgerd's accent, or by her bearing, the housekeeper stepped to one side, making an unmistakable gesture of welcome.

I won't go in
.

Not with breath in my body
.

For several heartbeats Hallgerd would not cross the threshold. Whispers in the smoky interior told her that serving men and women were watching and that whatever she did next—whether an act of cowardice or courage—would be long remembered.

“Only three more strides complete your journey,” prompted Thrand. “I promise you—no one will hurt you.” No doubt the kind, gray-eyed man had been promised a purse of some rich coin on delivery, but Hallgerd considered what a good-humored, considerate sea host Thrand had been.

Not every captor was cruel, and stories abounded of honorable warriors who won fame by stealing future brides. Some songs told of such fighting men falling in love with their captives, and of their hostage's warm feelings in return. While Hallgerd felt no such tender feeling for Thrand, she was sorry to bid him farewell.

“I thank you, Thrand,” said Hallgerd, continuing to employ the highest speech she knew. “And I will implore my father, when he burns this city to the ground, to spare your head.”

Thrand's gray eyes were intense with some unspoken message. His lips parted, but he said nothing further.

Hallgerd stepped
fyrir innan stokk
—over the threshold—as the huge door shut.

Nineteen

Hallgerd counted six windows in the smoky hall, all of them stoutly shuttered.

Figures paused in the thick hearth smoke, and leather soles padded this way and that in rooms beyond. The number and variety of furs on the floor and spread across the walls, and the presence of separate living chambers across the smoky interior, told Hallgerd that this was a richer and grander house than any in Spjothof.

“Please forgive me for questioning you so,” said Syrpa. “Seamen have been known to pass off any fine-looking woman as a noble daughter, simply to collect their fee.”

The benches set out beside tables, and the storage chests along the walls were familiar-looking, but as Syrpa led Hallgerd into a side room, the young noblewoman was aware that despite her status as a captive she was also a war prize, a jarl's daughter, and enjoyed a lofty status.