Daughter of the Wind Page 4

  A stream gushed, and splashed as they forded a current, Stag Brook, one of the many watercourses full of snowmelt this time of year. They were traveling faster higher, footsteps crunching snow. Hallgerd was surprised at the path they seemed to be following, a little used, rocky passage up through the mountains.

  Hallgerd had heard of such captures, she reminded herself—they were the stuff of fireside tales, told to chill children and teach them caution. A jarl’s daughter, forced into marriage or held for some political gain, would find herself powerless, far from friends and family. While the Norsemen of her experience treated neighboring women as respected equals, the women of far-off places were sometimes little more than prey.

  Surely, she told herself, her father would retake her before the Danes could reach their ships.

  By the time hands unfastened the sack from around her neck it was full morning, the sun nearly blinding off the mountainside snow. Someone behind her unknotted the leather gag and loosed the bonds around her wrists.

  She blinked at the sudden sunlight, and kept silent. They were on the far side of the mountain ridge, out of sight of her village.

  After her long journey, half-breathless and upside down, the sky swung slowly back and forth, and even the chirp of mountain birds sounded unfamiliar. Armed men were panting hard, flushed from their long climb. There were only half a dozen men, so badly winded that one or two slumped to the ground. Their armor was dark and well oiled, unlike the yellow, cracked armor of Spjothof’s fighters. Their sword pommels were well-polished bronze. A man with long blond hair and gray eyes held forth a goatskin sack, and she accepted it, tasting water pleasantly flavored with mead.

  This honey wine was not a common beverage in her own village, although foreign merchants sometimes traded it for cheese and sailcloth. The gods enjoyed mead every night, according to the poems. Only the wealthy men and women of the kingdoms to the south were so fortunate.

  Which one of these men had carried her over the mountain?

  “Did they hurt you?” the gray-eyed man inquired in that lilting, foreign accent of the Danes. His voice was soft, not unpleasing, and he wore a sword buckle of polished silver, an amber finger-ring on his hand.

  Hallgerd said nothing. She could not trust herself to speak, and her bladder was about to burst.

  Not far down the mountainside four ships nestled in the deep shadow of Wulffjord, the fjord to the south of her homeland. The tops of the spruce wood masts just caught the sunlight. Far in the distance was the early morning cooking smoke of the tiny village of Ard. She counted her enemy, and did not see enough to work so many ships.

  “Tell me, jarl’s daughter,” he insisted gently, “if you have suffered so much as a single bruise.”

  She would choose her words carefully, and above all she would delay. Hallgerd expected to hear her father’s battle cry very soon, and to see Hrolf’s sword flash in the bright morning light. Now that she felt confirmed in her understanding that she was not going to be raped and butchered immediately, she tried to recall her father’s ability to negotiate with difficult strangers. Act as though the outcome is of no concern.

  And remember, her mother had always advised her, who you are.

  Hallgerd’s parents had often counseled her on her behavior in recent years, helping her to see that while she could continue to wear her hair loose around her shoulders like any unmarried woman, she would have to speak with a certain bearing. Hallgerd had a good example to follow: Rognvald’s even temper, Sigrid’s warmhearted gentleness.

  And the legendary pride of her village. But it took an effort to keep her voice steady and speak as nobly as she wished. “No Dane alive,” said Hallgerd, “has it in his power to hurt a man or woman from Spjothof.” She said this to strike an attitude of calm indifference. She sounded, she thought, convincing. She began to feel the first glow of real courage.

  The gray-eyed man smiled. “Then no one will do Rognvald’s daughter any harm.” He used the formal designation, Rognvaldsdottir, indicating that he realized her father was a man of name.

  This polite way of referring to her parentage—fine courtesy by Spjothof standards—made her uneasy. Perhaps it was this easy reference to harm, or the extreme politeness, which Danes used to cover up their baser motives.

  “If you have spilled one drop of my father’s blood,” she said, “I’ll see your heads on stakes.” She said this with too much passion for a noblewoman—there could be no mistaking her anger.

  To her surprise, the gray-eyed man gave a bow.

  Hallgerd’s captors conferred with him, and with an apology one of them refastened her wrists. “Forgive me, pretty one,” said the rough voice.

  This was the one—the man who had threatened to cut off her nose and break her bones. This man spoke with an air of good cheer, as though she had agreed to take part in a rough game with well-established rules.

  “Do you believe,” asked Hallgerd, “that a few weak threads will bind the arms of my father’s daughter?”

  Her captor finished with his knots and stepped back. He was a well-built, suntanned man evidently proud of his smile—he showed nearly every tooth. “For a little while,” he said, in a tone of gentle teasing. “If you will allow a seaman’s hitch-knot to test your strength.”

  Like many seamen, his handsomeness was offset by a white scar, a straight line across his forehead. Many men carried such scars, the result of splintering oars or ship’s strakes in collisions or battle. Oddly enough, this scar made him look less like a violent pillager and more like the good-natured shipwrights she had known all her life.

  “These knots do hurt me,” said Hallgerd, in the tone her mother used to get a shoemaker to set a lower price. It was not true—the cloth was some slithery, soft fabric, perhaps silk, although Hallgerd had rarely set hands on the precious cloth herself.

  The gray-eyed man turned to his scarred shipmate with a troubled frown.

  She spoke again, trying to sound as a noblewoman should, and doing, she thought, a good job. “They pain me very much.”

  The gray eyes blinked.

  “They will cause me a bruise,” she said. “And besides,” she added, with what she hoped was a noblewoman’s offhandedness, “I need to relieve myself.”

  The gray-eyed man nodded to Scar-Face. “Untie her,” he said.

  “I’ll do that, Thrand, but she’ll scamper,” said Scar-Face. His voice was as rough as a file-stone, a man so strong, he could climb through an entire mountain pass without growing weary of his burden. But either the presence of his superior, or the proximity of the ships, softened his nature, and he did not frighten her so badly now.

  She gave him what she hoped was a cool and level glance, and her scarred captor looked right back at her, smiling. She had an instant of impulse, imagining her hand drawing his knife from his belt, slicing his neck where the life throbbed.

  “She’s a noblewoman, Olaf,” said Thrand. “Such folk expect to be well treated.”

  Scarred Olaf broke into a chuckle. He was a broad-shouldered, tall man, with the sort of muscles the best seamen develop from seasons of rowing. Hallgerd had heard ale drinkers describe a fighter named Olaf Bjornnson, often known as Olaf the Strong, who had sailed with Gudmund and killed scores of men. Such war tales were often unreliable exaggerations, she reminded herself, and a fighting man hired himself to various jarls, from season to season.

  But perhaps this was the storied Olaf himself. It certainly was possible. This insight, she tried to reassure herself, did not trouble her at all.

  “I think the ladies of Spjothof,” Olaf was saying, “are at least half-wolf.”

  “Release her,” said Thrand, with a soft laugh. “And I’ll bet you a piece of silver she doesn’t run.”

  “One whole piece of silver.”

  “Two,” said Thrand, and the two men laughed together.

  The sound of their amusement disturbed her, and she realized that calm as she tried to sound, she could do nothing to command these s
trangers, or to prevent them from hurting her.

  Olaf unfastened her bonds and handed her the long length of silk, for certainly that’s what it was, nearly two full ells in length. The shiny fabric was midnight blue, and at the same time it shimmered in the sunlight.

  The armored men had fallen still, their faces expectant, while two muttered side bets to their companions.

  Run.

  Run, now—why are you waiting?

  She should bolt across the mountainside, toward the distant, sulking hamlet of Ard, a smoky little settlement in the far distance. Which of these overmuscled, sword-clad men could catch up with her? Let them spear her in the back, or use a Danish weapon—an arrow or a sling stone.

  She stepped behind a boulder furred with spring moss, the moss so fresh with life, it was golden. She knelt, disarranged her linen underclothes and, as she relieved her bladder, she had to admit how frightened she had been, and still was.

  O Freya, goddess of the earth, she prayed. Shall I run, and die in the attempt?

  Or stay, and pray that Odin shares his cunning with me?

  Nine

  Hallgerd’s infant brother had died two summers ago.

  It was cruel that the sunny season of tall, green-black birches and plush pastures saw Knut, the jarls son, slowly develop a cough, then a fever, and gradually drift into a sleep from which he never awakened.

  Hallgerd had helped her mother dress Knut’s pale, shriveled body in the finest doeskin clothing. He was interred with a whale-ivory spoon and high-lace leggings in a burial mound that also protected the bones of his ancestors. Sometimes a seeker spent the night on top of such a burial mound, hoping that the dead would impart dreams that would allow a glimpse of the future.

  Publicly, Hallgerd’s parents had mourned the baby’s death in the stoical manner expected of a jarl and his wife, but sometimes late at night Hallgerd had heard Sigrid weeping, and Rognvald joining her. Knut’s cradle, made of oak, remained untouched in a corner of the longhouse. Hallgerd’s family was proud, but it was a pride rooted in love for one another, and for their neighbors. The gods were enigmatic, but they respected human dignity, she believed, and they would not forget Hallgerd now.

  It was this faith in her village, and in her father, that kept her from fleeing.

  She returned to her captors. Olaf shrugged and laughed, accepting the loss of his wager with good cheer. Hallgerd would buy time, and give her father an opportunity to catch up with these Danes, following their trail.

  “I know what you have tried to accomplish, Thrand,” said Hallgerd, feeling once again a hopeful regard for this well-spoken leader. Surely the gray-eyed man with the gentle voice would be a reliable captor, someone with whom a jarl’s daughter could negotiate. “And your good man Olaf—who, you should know, threatened to cut off my nose.”

  “No jarl’s daughter could be deceived,” said Thrand, accepting bright treasure, two fragments of silver, from Olaf’s hand. Thrand wore a bright arm-ring, itself finely crafted silver, and his boots were horse leather, finer than any footwear her father owned. He added, “Especially one so beautiful.”

  A compliment was a gift, and Hallgerd gave a nod, secretly embarrassed by the bold eyes of these Danes.

  Thrand said, “But now, let us hurry down to the ships.”

  “Where are you taking me?” she asked. If she delayed, enticing Thrand to engage in talk, she would buy time for her father and his men.

  “To an endless banquet, Jarl’s Daughter,” said Thrand formally, “where you will be very happy.”

  “You set attackers on one edge of my father’s village,” said Hallgerd, “while you escaped with me on the other side, through the sheep to disguise your trail.”

  “Spoken like a seeress,” said Thrand, without the least trace of condescension. “The rest of our battle force will come around the other side of the mountain. And we have to be joining them—” He made a gesture, polite but increasingly impatient, indicating the beautiful sailing vessels in the fjord below.

  Thrand talked like a professional soldier, Hallgerd thought, a captain in a king’s army, someone out of a foreign saga. Hallgerd had heard of such spear-bearing hosts, trained soldiers with matching helmets and well-practiced formations. By all accounts the men of Spjothof fought like warrior farmers, brave but with a manly casualness regarding strategy.

  “You have gambled,” she said, hoping she struck the right mix of confidence and pride, “that the folk of my village are fools.”

  “It was a reasonable hope,” said Olaf, insinuating himself into the conversation. His rough laughter was joined by a few of the men.

  “I will promise you a fat purse,” said Hallgerd, keeping her voice steady, “if you return me to my father now.”

  “A purse fat with what?” said Olaf with rough good cheer.

  A guard hissed.

  Thrand held up one hand, his eyes searching the path they had just traveled. Every man listened, and Hallgerd joined them, holding her breath to make out a step high up the mountainside, and another, sharp pebbles scattering.

  “Hallgerd, go with Olaf, if it please you,” said Thrand briskly, “and find a comfortable seat in my ship.”

  A cry split the cool morning air, an unmistakable Spjothof accent, “Thor by our side!”—the ancient battle cry.

  Hallgerd smiled grimly. Her father had recited this chant many times, around the kettle fire. It was the prayer the legendary Onund Stone-Ax had made when an army of trolls surrounded him. Onund called to the strong-armed immortal, and, with the thunder god’s help, troll corpses choked the streams and turned the flowers along Spjotfjord scarlet. They were to this day the source of the finest red dye.

  Hallgerd recognized Hego’s voice. Surely many more voices would join in, every villager with a strong arm, overwhelming her captors.

  The unmistakable sound of an ax against shield rang out through the morning air. The noise came from high up, and each Dane reached for a weapon.

  Olaf seized her. “Come along, pretty treasure,” he said with a laugh, a man not cruel, perhaps, so much as in love with his own brawn. He dragged her, picked her up, and swung her, kicking, but then, before he could take her far down the rocky slope toward the ships the sound of fighting made him turn.

  He let her set her feet on the ground, keeping a seaman’s grip on her arm.

  “I’m here!” cried Hallgerd.

  Above the sounds of a single battle-ax chopping a sword into bits, her voice echoed and reechoed off the mountains. Olaf pressed his weathered hand over her mouth, and her cries could only be prayers, now, muffled, soundless.

  Father, I’m here.

  Ten

  Hego lay on the cool grass.

  He did not know how he had gotten there, only that the soft tussocks of vegetation supported his head, and that he was grateful to the dark, wet field for embracing his body so gently.

  His head hurt. He rolled onto his back and heard the sounds of a fire in the village, a great conflagration, like the giant bonfires of celebration that had followed Landwaster’s return a few short summers ago. Maybe the village was celebrating a wedding—drinking a wedding, it was called, the rowdy, all-night consumption of ale. Maybe that’s what I was doing, Hego thought. I was dancing, whirling, and leaping, and I cavorted all the way out here.

  Sheep surrounded him, the black-faced, well-nourished breed-ewes Hego knew were supposed to be in the pine wood pen in the village. The animals skittered one way and then another, bumping into one another, making that plaintive noise that Hego could not help imitating—feebly, not in mockery, but in wordless sympathy. He knew how they felt, the anxious, dumb creatures. Hego reached up to give a ewe a gentle pat, puzzled why the flock had been herded up onto the sheep meadow so early in the predawn.

  His head throbbed, and when he put fingers to his scalp they came away sticky. He touched his forefinger to his thumb. He thrust out his tongue—it tasted very much like blood.

  This was far from the first ti
me that Hego had awakened under the dark sky in a field of gentle sheep-grass, but he began to knit together a memory of what had happened earlier that night. Soon he would sit up and really begin to make sense of what he was hearing, a sword ringing out against another sword, a spear striking a shield—it made a distinctive, hollow sound, even at a distance.

  Perhaps the jarl had arranged a fighting contest—rough, merry games to entertain some important foreign merchant. The sounds of more combat drifted through the chilly darkness. The sheep parted, complaining, stirring anxiously, and a few men in stout, foreign armor hurried through the flock. One of the men carried a bundle over his shoulder, and the bundle was squirming and kicking. The bundle squealed—surely it was a woman. In the poor light Hego could make out only a vague shape, but as the flock huddled together again in the wake of these strangers Hego felt the keen prick of curiosity.

  And confusion.

  In the neighboring fjord, behind the mountains that shielded Spjothof, was a tiny hamlet called Ard, from the old word for plow. This tiny collection of longhouses, nestled at the farthest end of Wulffjord, was known for its barley, which waved tall and golden on the hamlet’s gentle slopes. The men of Ard held spitting contests each midsummer, it was said, unable to think of any intelligent sport. Spjotmen had always had summer spear-throwing games, and wrestling matches, and board games of strategy and capture. Spjotfolk prided themselves on their militant saga lore, and felt a sort of affectionate contempt for the village of Ard.

  It was unheard of, Hego knew, for a group of these artless Ardmen to don expensive armor, and even less likely that they would try to creep into a village of legendary fighters and shipbuilders. Hego groped through the dark stems of grass, searching until he found Head-Biter, lying near a puddle.

  Maybe tonight for the first time in their history the Ardmen had mustered a little spirit. Perhaps they had tired of their pudgy, argumentative brides and decided to steal one of Spjothof’s beauties. It was a regretted but established way for an adventurous man to provide himself with a bride, and sometimes such a stolen woman lived long and happy years with her adopted household.