Mother of Kings Read online

  “Tell them,” Aalf ordered, “that we will go see the winter house. Tell them, too, that we will call for this maiden at this same spot a year hence. If she has suffered any harm whatsoever, woe betide your whole tribe.”

  It flitted through Gunnhild that King Harald might not like that. They paid him their share of hides, pelts, walrus ropes, and ivory.

  “They, they cannot help it if—she falls sick or—or something,” Seija stammered.

  “They are wizards, are they not? Let them see to her well-being. And now you are home again,” Aalf ended scornfully.

  X

  Long before this, one Ulf, son of Bjalfi, dwelt in Sygnafylki in Norway, not far from the Sognefjord. He was rich, owned broad acres, and claimed the rank of lendman, just below a jarl’s. In his youth he had gone on viking raids with his friend Kaari, who was a berserker, and later he wed Kaari’s daughter Salbjorg. On his mother’s side he was kin to the famous warrior Ketil Salmon, son of Hallbjörn Half-troll. Ulf was a hard worker and a man of wise redes, but apt to grow sleepy in the evenings; many men believed that now and then his soul roamed after dark as a wolf. Hence he bore the nickname Kveldulf, Dusk-wolf. He and Salbjorg had two sons, Thorolf and Grim. There was strange blood in that family.

  Yet Thorolf grew up handsome, cheerful, and openhanded. When he had reached twenty winters, his father gave him a longship. Thereafter he was often in viking, bringing home much wealth. Mostly this came from the sale of captives taken along the southern Baltic shores, but some was loot from across the North Sea.

  Meanwhile King Harald of Vikin warred about until he had brought all Norway under himself. After Sogn and Sygnafylki fell to him, Thorolf entered his service and wrought mightily. Wounded in the last battle at Hafrsfjord, Kveldulf’s son got well and made a marriage that brought him great holdings. High in the king’s favor, he went yearly north to bring in the Finnish scot.

  But he also gained foes. These slandered him to Harald Fairhair, over and over, until the king no longer trusted him. Things went swiftly from bad to worse. Men were slain. At last Harald took a host to ring in a farmhouse where Thorolf and his followers were, on the eve of going from Norway forever. When Thorolf would not yield, they set it afire. Those inside broke out, weapons in hand, to die fighting. Thorolf got as far as the shieldbearers around the king. Harald Fairhair gave his hacked, pierced body the death-stroke.

  Grim tried to get wergild for his brother. Nothing came of it. Instead, Harald laid hand on everything that had been Thorolf’s. Now Grim and his father would no longer stay, but go to Iceland.

  First they overran and killed a shipful of King Harald’s men. In this battle Kveldulf went berserk. None could stand against him; he cut them down and raged onward. When such a fit had passed, the man was always weak for a while. Although he skippered skillfully the craft they had taken, old Kveldulf fell sick and died at sea. As he had wished, his crew made a coffin for him and set it adrift.

  It washed ashore at Borgarfjord on the west side. Grim took land there, with meadows, marshes, and woods as well as plenty of fish and seal in the waters, plenty of seafowl’s eggs on the rocks. He built a farm he called Borg and became one of the foremost men in Iceland.

  He was big but otherwise unlike his fallen brother, being dark, ugly, and moody. Losing his hair early, he got the nickname Skallagrim, Bald Grim. His wife was Bera, daughter of a lendman in Sygnafylki. Most of their children died young. Four lived. The first son who did they named Thorolf. Then they had two girls, Saeunn and Thorunn, and last another son, Egil. Thorolf took after his namesake uncle, Egil after their father.

  In Sogn in Norway was a young man, Björn, son of the hersir Brynjolf. Guesting in Sygnafylki, he met a maiden, Thora Orfrey-Sleeve, whom he wanted to wed. Her brother, the hersir Thorir Hroaldsson, who had the ward of her, said no. Björn came back by sea and stole her away. Though she was willing enough, this meant trouble. In spring he got a knarr from his father and set sail for Dublin, among whose Norse he ought to find haven. A storm drove him to Shetland. There he wedded Thora. Word came that King Harald had outlawed him, so next spring he and his bride left the broch that had sheltered them and steered for Iceland. Skallagrim took him in. He and Thorolf became fast friends.

  Nonetheless he hoped for peace with Thora’s kin. Word went back and forth over the sea. It helped that Skallagrim was Thorir’s foster brother. Terms of settlement were reached. Björn and Thora returned to Norway. Thorolf, who felt restless at home, went along. Aasgerd, the little daughter of Björn and Thora, stayed behind at Borg, fostered by Skallagrim and Bera.

  Having mended his fences, Björn settled down in his father’s household. Thorolf stayed there too, and welcome he was. In spring he and Björn outfitted a ship, gathered a crew, and fared in viking to the Baltic. They brought back a good haul. Then they went off to call on Thorir Hroaldsson.

  Eirik, King Harald’s most beloved son, arrived soon after. Thorir had been his foster father, whom he saw whenever he could.

  Thorolf and Björn had come there in a karfi belonging to the former. This was like a small longship, with thirteen oars to a side and bearing a crew of about thirty. She was a sweet and nimble craft, brightly painted. Bjorn marked how often Eirik stood looking at her where she lay docked. He advised Thorolf to give her to the atheling. Thorolf did, and Eirik rewarded him with friendship.

  King Harald’s anger at the house of Kveldulf had never lessened. He would not meet with Thorolf. However, for Eirik’s sake Harald gave the man peace.

  Thorolf stayed on in Norway for some years. At first he and Björn spent their summers in viking, their winters with either Brynjolf or Thorir.

  But as Harald grew old and his strength waned, he turned the steering of the kingdom more and more over to Eirik, beginning with lordship over Haalogaland, North Moerr, and Raumsdalr. Eirik raised a strong household troop of his own. There had already been deadly fights between sons of Harald, and Eirik was thinking ahead. Thorolf Skallagrimsson joined this band and soon rose high in it. Now, while he was still mostly off in viking during the summer, he was otherwise with Eirik.

  But one springtime Eirik deemed that Bjarmaland on the White Sea must have healed enough to be worth a new faring. Besides, he had gotten wind of happenings there which he misliked. Thorolf kept the prow of the lead ship, and bore Eirik’s banner when they fought—for fight they did, and hard it was.

  XI

  Endlessly wheeling through summer, the sun cast light that lost itself in boughs overhead and spattered on woodland mold. Leaves glowed golden with it. White birch and gray rowan lifted slim above thick undergrowth. Stands of pine and fir gloomed amidst the shades. Air lay cool and still, full of wet smells.

  Vuokko halted on the game trail, raised a hand, and bent over. Gunnhild stopped behind him. She glanced back at Aimo. The other shaman’s mouth drew tight.

  They three had been long out, having left the camp shortly after it woke. Gunnhild felt how much she had walked, or scrambled through brush or squelped across bogs. True, this was better than the daily round of a Finn-woman, which she had to share. But she loathed her manlike breeks and coat even more than the garb given her for everyday use. Needful though they were right now, they smacked of the twistedness that the Norse muttered went with seid.

  Mosquitoes whined in smoky clouds. At least the louse-hat she had rubbed on her skin kept them off. The trick had never worked as well at home as it did here. When he handed the leaves to her, Vuokko told her he had sung over them.

  Louse-hat also yielded a poison, like wolfsbane. The thought flitted through her, how queer it was that the same thing could both help and harm, give health or death. She was learning uncanniness.

  Vuokko pointed to the ground. “See,” he bade her. “A fox has passed by.” She easily understood him, having fast strengthened her grasp of the Finnish tongue. He showed her the dim spoor she would otherwise have overlooked. “You must become wise in the ways of beasts as well as plants—all the ways of earth, wa
ter, weather. That’s how you gain power over them.”

  “But the girl will have no use for mere stalker’s skills,” said Aimo.

  Vuokko straightened. “The world is one,” he answered coldly.

  “As we both well know, or you should know. Yet who shall ever understand the whole of it? And why should I call a prey to me when a trap or a weir can take it?”

  “I was only showing— Let me do something stronger, then.” Vuokko chopped an arm downward. “Hold still, you two. Watch yonder.”

  A squirrel was darting around the branches of a nearby fir, in and out of sight, a flickery red flame. Vuokko whistled. The squirrel stopped in surprise. The man stared straight at it. The squirrel stayed where it was, as if frozen. Gunnhild gasped.

  “If you make the holy craft into a boast, I had better treat it more fittingly, lest it turn on us,” said Aimo. “Loose that animal.”

  Vuokko scowled but drew a sign. The squirrel chirred and scampered wildly around. Vuokko looked at Gunnhild. “That was not for fun or brag,” he said almost warmly. “I am aware of how you weary of your life in the tribe. You should see it’s not for nothing.”

  Aimo unslung a short bow from his shoulder and took an arrow from his quiver. He whispered to it before he nocked it and drew the string. Vuokko’s eyes stayed locked on Gunnhild. The mosquitoes shrilled. Somewhere a wild goose honked.

  The bow twanged. The squirrel tumbled from mid-leap. A gout of blood followed like the tail of a shooting star.

  Aimo trod over to pluck it from the bush into which it had fallen. Holding the torn little thing in his left hand, he freed the arrow with his right. “I never saw marksmanship like that!” Gunnhild cried in her amazement.

  Aimo laughed. “It is the arrow. See.” His reddened forefinger traced marks cut into the shaft. “I made it so, and sang over it. Now it will strike whatever I tell it to.” He spoke to the carcass. “I am sorry, brother mine. This was done in aid of teaching the lore that holds the world together. May your wraith frolic gladly.” He laid it down and made a sign over it.

  “Yes, this too shall you learn, girl,” said Vuokko, “though it’s no great thing.”

  Gunnhild thought it would not be small if the mark were a man. Her flesh prickled as if with frost.

  “Oh, I can catch prey by myself,” said Aimo. “Come winter, on ski I overtake anything that runs.”

  “I think you will not overtake me,” Vuokko growled.

  This was not the first time a quarrel between them had threatened. “You are surely both mighty hunters,” Gunnhild put hastily in. “But I am—a woman. I shall have to make my way with the Knowledge alone.” She drew breath. The chill in her flared. “Such as sending my soul abroad?”

  “That too you shall, if you are able,” Vuokko promised.

  “Not before you have the deep wisdom,” Aimo warned. “And then we shall go forward very warily. It is a dangerous doing. I will not have you set at risk.”

  Gunnhild thought of wandering lost forever beyond the world of men. She kept the inward shudder hidden. Never would she seem unsure or afraid before these two.

  “No, no, no,” Vuokko agreed. “Now come; let us go on as we meant to.”

  The rest of that walk was given over to plants, mostly mushrooms and toadstools. The shamans wanted her to spy every kind they passed, however hidden it was in the brush, and tell them all its names and all its strengths and weaknesses. Whenever she went wrong, they made her say it over until she had it right. She was learning of deadly kinds, and kinds that brought about drunkenness, and kinds that raised dreams wherein one saw what no eye ever could, and kinds that were good to eat—but when those rotted, they too brewed poisons. Nearing the camp, she thanked both the wizards. They smiled. The anger in them had died down somewhat.

  It would rise afresh, she feared.

  Along the trail stood a tall, crooked boulder, overgrown with lichen. The bones of birds and lemmings lay scattered beneath it. The men stopped, bowed, fluttered their hands, and chanted words Gunnhild could not follow. She waited quietly aside, not knowing what, if anything, an outland woman ought to do.

  Indeed, she knew little about the gods here. She had merely witnessed a few short rites, hardly more than luck-charms. Her father had said he believed the Finns acknowledged Thor under another name. If so, they did not give him the slaughterings of horse and kine that Norsemen did. Was this because they were too poor, or because they found their elves and whatnot were enough? They must feel no need of warlike help, for they seldom attacked each other.

  Vuokko and Aimo had told her she would hear about the Beings during the winter. Within herself she wondered what that would be worth. The Finnish gods seemed as mild as the Finns themselves. Not even their wizards kept the tribes from being made booty of. Well, powers were of slight use to anyone who lacked the will to wield them against human foes, and warriors to back him up.

  Or her, she thought.

  She touched her breasts, as if to find the silver hammer that hung between them. In her quarters, among the few things she had been able to bring along from the ship, lay a small soapstone image of Frey; when she secretly took him forth and rubbed his upstanding yard, a thrill as of mightiness went through her. Thus did she call on sky and earth to be her warders, far though she had fared. Özur had also plighted a great thank-offering if she returned safely.

  But otherwise she had only her own strength.

  Having paid the rock its due, the men took her on into camp. There they said they would meet with her again in a few sleeps. Meanwhile, between worldly tasks she must go over everything she had learned until she had it by heart. She longed to throw a haughty answer into their teeth—she, daughter of a hersir, granddaughter of a jarl—but then they might ask someone to take her straight home. However, if they reckoned that tending fires, plucking feathers, gathering berries, and the dreary rest of it would meeken her, their witch-sight did not reach inside anybody’s head!

  She went on to her lodging. This camp was the biggest of those among which the tribe made their rounds, for here the reindeer were brought after midsummer from the woods and fens where they had ranged. Men and boys ran alongside a herd, steering it toward a pen of untrimmed posts. At this time of year, the beasts stayed close together for shielding against mosquitoes, and would follow any that was trained to lead them. Nevertheless they were half wild, apt to bolt. A few were kept to bear burdens and draw sleds in winter; the rest gave milk, meat, hide, gut, antler, bone.

  Huts huddled around a clearing and off under the trees. Beside each was a njalla, a wooden shed atop a hewn-off trunk, which kept food and other goods beyond reach of thievish animals. A notched log leaned against it, a kind of ladder. Gunnhild had seen the like by Norse yeomen’s houses, though there it oftenest rested on four stout tree boles, dug up and standing on their spread roots.

  She also kenned the turf dwellings. Seija had had one at Ulfgard. Here, though, some were bigger and better, their walls and roofs made of logs chinked with clay and moss. Smoke curled out of them. Women and girls squatted in front, at toil that needed room and bright light. They chattered, shouted to and fro, broke into trills of laughter. The merriment baffled Gunnhild. Maybe their life was a bit less bad than the lot of the Norse lowly, a bit more free, but how hard and dull it was. How helpless.

  She neared the house where she guested. Belonging to Seija’s family, it was not quite such a hovel as most. The woman saw her, leaped up from the leather she was stitching to make a garment, and sped to meet her.

  “Oh, Gunnhild!” she cried. Happiness shone through the soot and grease on her face. She caught the maiden’s two hands in her own. “Wonderful tidings! I am to be wedded! Keino, son of—”

  Gunnhild gave scant heed to the word-stream. It churned in her that she was about to lose the nearest thing to a friend that she had here. Not that Seija was like a sister—more like a dog or cat, whose nearness lent some cheer, some memory of home. Henceforth Gunnhild would have nothing to h
elp her forget how the gaze of the wizards again and again slunk toward her.

  “May all go well with you,” she mumbled. And now Seija is out of the story.

  XII

  Where the River Dvina flowed broad and slow through a stretch of meadowland amidst marshy woods, men fought. Rygi Helm-Splitter had fewer well-armed and skillful warriors—Norse, Danes, Swedes, Russians—than did Eirik Haraldsson; but with him were a great band of Karelians, bowmen, spearmen, slingmen. The sheer weight of them should have overwhelmed the atheling.

  When he saw them coming upon him, Eirik laughed. “Do they think we’ll ship straightaway for home?” he said.

  “Besides, I think if we did, they’d follow us along both shores, shooting us like swine driven down a dell,” answered Thorolf Skallagrimsson. “Yon Rygi can’t want us coming back with more strength to grub him out.”

  Eirik nodded. “A faithless man. He never told me outright to begone from his little jarldom. No, he stalled about till suddenly he could spring this on us. He may or may not live to be sorry. We’ll take our stand on the riverside, where they can’t get at us from behind, and see what happens.”

  Rygi’s vikings shocked first against the shields. Behind him pressed and howled his wild, skin-clad allies. Shafts and stones sleeted from the flanks. Swords rang; axes thundered. Among the reeds, brown water began to redden.

  High flew Eirik’s banner in Thorolf’s left hand. A friend warded him on that side. The blade in his right leaped. It caught a stroke. The foeman’s weapon wobbled. Thorolf twisted slightly and hunched his shoulders. The next blow grated off his ring-mail. Lynx-fast, he struck beneath the other byrnie, into a leg. He felt bone give way. The stranger groaned, staggered, and sank to his good knee. Thorolf split his neck. He fell in a heap. Stench roiled. Gray though the sky was, blood shone fire-bright.

  Nearby, Eirik warred as mightily. So did every man of his handpicked crews. The onslaught lurched back. Its forward rank stumbled against the Karelians behind and broke up in pushing and shoving. “Now, at them!” Eirik yelled. He put the horn slung at his side to his lips and blew. The call hooted over all battle noise. Thorolf forged ahead, step by thrusting step. The banner went above him, rippling from the cross-arm, an eagle black on amber.