Mother of Kings Read online

  Well-drilled, the crewmen formed a wedge that clove through the pack. Smiting right and left, they moved in on another standard. A huge man with a shaggy beard met them, bellowing like a bull elk. His ax crashed through a Norse shield, down to the wrist behind it. Then a sword slashed across his forearm. Blood spurted. He tried to hew again, but Eirik gave him his deathblow. Thorolf killed the man who bore his flag and cast it down.

  When Rygi thus died, his host broke. Milling, wailing, they were sheep for the slaughter until they got loose and ran every which way over the meadow. Thereafter the Norse had room to throw spears and shoot arrows. The vikings who were left put up a harder fight, but they stood scattered in twos and threes. Knot by knot, as Eirik ordered, his men surrounded and made an end of them.

  “No need to chase the rest,” he said. “We’ll find them later.”

  He grinned as he looked across the field. The dead sprawled, ugly as the newly slain always are; the badly wounded moaned, yammered, and threshed about, more and more weakly. His men searched among them for their hurt or fallen shipmates and took care of these. They seldom bothered to cut the throat of a foe, unless it seemed he might creep away. Some ravens already perched on lichs, picked eyes out, and tore at flesh. There would soon be many.

  Beyond, Eirik’s longships nestled against the shore. The one that had belonged to Rygi lay farther on, moored with two sailless river freighters at a rough-built wharf. Above this loomed his stronghold. The hall roof showed over the stockade. Rygi and his gang had done well in the years since they took sword-land here. On horseback where they could not row, they raided, had scot from the tribes, got fighters to join with them. These bleak reaches held more wealth than one might think, hides, pelts, thralls, and also gold from Kola. Rygi sent his traders to the Swedish marts and even Aldeigjuborg on Lake Ladoga. It was small wonder that when Eirik Haraldsson, to whom word of this had drifted, came to learn what was going on, Rygi forbade him to roam freely about. That was Rygi’s first mistake. Meanwhile he secretly sent for his Karelians, and with them attacked the Norse. That was his second and last mistake.

  “We’ll have work aplenty, bringing this country to heel,” Eirik said.

  “What?” Thorolf boggled. “We can hardly make your father or you king of it, as few as we are and as far off as it is.”

  “No, no. But we’ll scour widely, avenging our losses and taking a rich booty. Yes, drive it well into the heads of these folk that never again shall they make trouble for ours. Traders will be thankful, and—they will pay the kingly house a share.”

  Thorolf frowned. “That work would go too slowly. Well before it was done, we’d find ourselves frozen in.”

  Eirik nodded. “I know. We’ll send the ships back to the seashore, with a guard, to wait for us—if we do decide to winter.” He laughed. “First let’s see if Rygi has left us enough horses, sleds, food, firewood, and ale. Come.”

  Thorolf nodded and went beside him toward the stockade.

  Night in the late Bjarmaland summer was short and wan. Day still lighted the hall, however dimly, when Eirik and his men sat back fed, drank from horns filled by women who were now theirs, and hearkened to his skald Dag Audunarson. While this youth had been in the battle, at Eirik’s behest he stayed somewhat back, that he might more likely live to make a poem about it. Every man dies; fame does not. Dag trod forth before the high seat and began:

  “Give to me your silence.

  Suttung’s mead I’m pouring

  to tell how Eirik bloodied

  the banks of River Dvina.

  Hasty on the swan’s road,

  sea horses bore him thither.

  Soon the moons of bulwarks

  beckoned to valkyries.—”

  The staves were no more than middling good. Few of their kennings were new or very striking. Nonetheless, Eirik was in the best of moods. When Dag was through, he drew a golden ring off his arm, broke it, and gave half to the skald. A king should ever be openhanded.

  XIII

  Winter pressed inward, shadows leaping as light wavered, darknesses crouching at either end of the house. Smoke off a peat fire glimmered ruddy, swirled around a besooted kettle hung low above, and drifted toward the hole overhead. The room was not cold, but the reek cut sharply at nose and eyes. Blubber in a few stone lamps stank.

  Aimo hunkered over a drum. The uneasy glow webbed his face with murk. The drum thuttered to a small hammer in his hand. His song rose and fell, eerie to hear. Charms a-dangle round the drumhead—bones, claws, teeth, tufts of wool—swayed with the shifting beat. Standing beside Vuokko, Gunnhild could barely make out the signs painted on the white reindeer skin. An arpa, a carved wooden rod, skittered across them. Aimo was foreseeing.

  The sounds ended. He leaned forward to peer at the rod, how it lay, what this told. Gunnhild felt her heart slugging.

  Aimo rose. “It bodes ill,” he said starkly.

  Vuokko glanced at Gunnhild, smiled, and answered, “Oh, now. Mishap need be no worse than something bothersome. Maybe we’ll fail to hold off a storm, which keeps us indoors for a while.” He smiled. “I would not call that so bad.”

  “I heed warnings when they come,” Aimo said. “You are less wise, it seems.”

  “But this was no strong spell. We were only showing Gunnhild such use of the drum as anyone can make. And they often do,” he added to her, “and sometimes get it wrong. I wonder whether you did,” he went on to Aimo, “unless you are fearful. I do not think this is worth doing over with my full powers. The girl is not ready to understand what happens then.”

  She ran her tongue over lips gone dry. “Do you send your soul forth?” she whispered.

  “You are truly eager to witness that, are you not?” Vuokko said, still cheerful.

  Aimo shook his head. “My kinsman speaks like a fool,” he snapped. “To go out among the Mighty Ones, unclad even in flesh, is a hard and dangerous thing.”

  “So I have told you already, as well you remember,” Vuokko said to Gunnhild. “You’ll learn somewhat of it later, but you would need years of work, forgoing, and, yes, suffering before you could do it more than fleetingly.”

  “Teach me what you can, then, in what time is left. I beg you,” Gunnhild wrung from an unwilling throat.

  Aimo’s voice warmed. “That may be not so little. You have the gift inborn to become a great shaman. How I wish you would stay and learn onward.”

  Vuokko turned to her. It burst from him: “Yes, spend those years, Gunnhild! I feel how much lies sleeping in you. Let me waken it!”

  More and more had she begun to await this. Nevertheless the words struck like a fist. Hers were the first that flew into her mouth. “No, I, I cannot forsake my kin—”

  “Can you not? Wed me, and I’ll make you a queen of the Otherworld.”

  “What?” shouted Aimo. “You would keep Gunnhild—Gunnhild—in your wretched huts with you?” He curbed himself. “Some wild ghost has laid hold of my kinsman,” he said to her. “I understand your needs, your wants. I can give you might in this world; kings shall heed you; wealth shall be yours beyond reckoning.”

  Anger sprang high in her. Too long had she been humble. “Then why do you live like this?”

  At once she was sorry. Though they surely dared lay no hand on her, they could chop her schooling off, leave her emptily waiting for her ship. Or what bad luck could they brew, once out of her sight?

  It was very welcome when Aimo said more calmly, “We have our own kin, who have their own ways. Never could we find a home among yours. But—take me, and I will give you—”

  “Give you an oldster’s pawings, and his brats,” Vuokko fleered. “You shall have better from me, Gunnhild.”

  The wizards glared at one another.

  “No, I will raise a hall for you, and fill it with fine things,” Aimo said.

  “With me,” Vuokko said, “you shall have no more toil, but the elves at your beck.”

  Gunnhild wondered how much they lied. But she saw there
was nothing to fear, not yet, if she handled this rightly; and she saw how, a knowledge she had not fully known was hers.

  A few tears ran out when she bade them. She blinked, smiled, and told them softly, unsteadily, “You awe me. I am bewildered. You are both so dear to me. And what would my father think? What would he do? Oh, let us go on as before; strengthen me with your wisdom; lead me to insight that can help me. At the least, we must wait till my brother comes back and I can talk to him. Must we not?”

  The wizards stood unspeaking. Flames flickered.

  “Yes, that seems best,” said Aimo at length.

  “And don’t quarrel,” Gunnhild pleaded. “It tears my heart. I can’t bear to see kinship broken because of me.”

  After more stillness, Vuokko said, “We should behave as behooves men like us, Aimo. I never wanted to do otherwise.”

  “Nor I,” said his copemate. “I have always held that a man must closely heed his words.”

  Gunnhild followed through, as a rower does his stroke. “And I, I’d not willingly weep or be weak in your nearness. I hope to stay worthy of you. But can I be by myself for a while? I’m shaken, I’ve need to gather my thoughts, and—oh—” Fresh tears glistened on her lashes.

  “M-m, yes, we could go hunting,” Vuokko said. “The weather’s clear.”

  “We are short of fresh meat,” agreed Aimo.

  “And you are both such wonderful hunters,” Gunnhild crooned.

  Inwardly she shivered. She had uttered bald truth. Even when clouded, the dayless winter laid no blindness on these twain, and to them the stars were like sparks off the sun. Their skis bore them wind-swift over open snowfields, and like the wind did they weave their way among trees. They knew from afar where prey would be when they got there. Their arrows never missed.

  Yes, they made their blunders, being men, but at the core they were terrible men. She had yet to find out the reach of their powers.

  Having decided, they were quick to dress for outdoors, take their gear, and go. The entryway was three feet high and ten long, to keep heat inside. Gunnhild felt a short breath of chill and caught a glimpse of whiteness. For a heartbeat or two she wished she were going too. Whenever she was able to leave for more than a dash to the backhouse she felt unbound, the keen air a kiss all over her face.

  Well, anyhow, for now she was alone. “Alone!” she rejoiced aloud.

  Freed from the wizards, her look danced about. Not that there was much to see. The house was of the kind that Finns called a gamma, sod, thirty feet long and half as wide, the ends bowed. Elsewhere it would have sheltered a whole family and some livestock. Here it was meant for those bands who came down to the fjord. The outside walls rose barely five feet above ground, but inside it was dug out to make headroom for a tall Norseman. On an earthen bench lay the skins that were the men’s bedding. A box held their garb, another box their witchy tools and stuffs. Wooden tubs stood by bowls, trenchers, drinking horns, bone spoons and cookware, three low stools.

  The poorness of it all closed in on Gunnhild. She struck fist against palm. How slowly everything inched forward! Drumbeat, song, mushrooms, even painstaking work to cut signs in wood, those could send her beyond herself—but how seldom! When would she have gained more skills than any backwoods hexwife owned? Meanwhile, aside from what they told of spellcraft, the wizards’ talk was as drab as their lives.

  Gunnhild sighed. She had better use this little span of hers.

  Reindeer skins, sewn together, hung at the north end of the gamma, closing off a room. She took a lamp and slipped around the curtain. Behind it were her bed, fetched from the ship, and two chests filled with her things. They took up most of the clay floor.

  She undressed, found a clean rag, and went back to the kettle. With its warm water she washed herself. That was the best she could do. Would the steamful bathhouse at home ever get the last grime and stench off?

  Sometime soon she must again scrub her cloths, if not her clothes, a thrall woman’s task. It was bad enough, those men’s eyes always seeking her, slyly ogling, without their noses snuffing her monthly blood. Or did they anyway?

  This was how the lowly everywhere lived.

  XIV

  Spring came slowly and stormily to Bjarmaland. Folk were often weather-bound for days on end. When Thorolf Skallagrimsson left the stronghold after one such spell, he wanted to stir his legs and breathe clean air as much as to see how things looked by now. His leman went beside him.

  Wind blustered cold and wet. It shook leafless birch boughs and rustled the junipers. Snow still decked the ground, but most had melted on top and then frozen, melted and frozen, till it lay in shapeless heaps gray with dust. It was melting anew, potholes and puddles everywhere, a few skulls and bones of Rygi’s troop bared to sight. Boulders nearby outlined the shape of a ship, beneath which rested Eirik’s fallen. Clouds scudded. A flock of crows passed by, harshly calling.

  Man and woman halted at the riverbank. Ice stretched unbroken to the other side, north and south to the worldrim. Thorolf smiled. “Good,” he said. “Nearly all the snow’s off, but we keep a road for horses, wains—” He laughed. “—and skates.”

  Stricken, she stared up his great height to the strong, blunt face, neatly trimmed golden beard, blue eyes that years of sea-glare had edged with crinkles. “You go soon?” Her voice trembled. She was a Karelian, young, short, buxom, her hair more fair than his. He had not taken her from the stock of women kept here, but from a camp he found later while ranging around. Because she was comely and he hoped she’d warm to him, he forbade his followers to kill anybody or loot so much that her tribe would starve. During the months afterward she had picked up some Norse and he a useful bit of her speech.

  He nodded. “In a few days. You’ve seen how my lord Eirik champs and stamps to be off.”

  “But your ships?”

  “They’re where the river meets the sea.” His mood kindly, though he wasn’t sure if she’d understand, he made it clear. “They’ve been drawn ashore, and the ice may well linger a ways beyond, but we can skid them to the water.” They were warcraft, light and lithe, built for such handling. Rygi’s freighters had long since become firewood.

  She touched the arm beneath his cloak. “Ice—ice floes, you say?—grind, crush.”

  Thorolf shrugged. “Eirik’s a breakneck fellow, true. But thus far the gods have been with him, and we should have the wit to steer shy of things that merely float.” He gazed westward before he murmured, “I’m eager too.”

  She swallowed. “You come back?”

  “Maybe.” He didn’t think so. The yearning that waxed in him was for Borg, his father’s Icelandic homestead.

  Her hand fluttered over her swelling belly. “Your child.”

  “Belike.” Thorolf squeezed her shoulder and smiled down at her. “Fear not. We won’t torch the buildings when we leave. You and the others can stay. Men will quickly learn we’ve gone. They’ll swarm here. I daresay one will take you to him. If you bear a boy, and he becomes a wander-minded youth and can speak Norse, send him to me. If I’m alive.”

  Her fists clenched. “How I know?”

  “Word may find you. Wait.”

  Never before had he heard her ply his tongue so well. “Yes, a woman must needs be good at waiting.” She clamped her lips together and looked away, across the dying snow.

  XV

  Sunlight from the east seeped through overcast and woods. Trees stood darkling, as if their shadows had drained upward into them. Old snow lay in patches on the sodden mold. Air hung still but raw.

  Gunnhild had gone outside the gamma. Of course the Finns did also. Their faces were haggard and hollow-eyed within the unkempt, unwashed hair, for these nights they slept poorly. Better rested, she strove to keep her bowstring tautness hidden.

  “We have no need to hunt,” Aimo said. “And this is the lean season.”

  “But I would so like some fresh meat,” she wheedled. “Or even a few fish?”

  At once Vuokko la
ughed. “Then we will go!”

  “Go by yourself,” Aimo told him.

  Vuokko lost his bit of mirth. “No,” he rasped. “You shall come too, or I stay.”

  Both glowered. By now neither would leave the other alone with Gunnhild.

  She was using that. Through the penned-in winter months, stiff words had often passed between the wizards, but none unforgivable. Outright wrath or hatred was not the Finnish way. Yet if these two waxed angry enough, what might they let loose?

  “Oh, my teachers, my beloved masters,” she begged. Bitterness that she must speak like this crowded out uneasiness.

  Vuokko’s glance sprang from Aimo to her. “Beloved?” His voice stumbled. “Then why will you forsake me?”

  Aimo followed on his heels. “Abide, Gunnhild. You have hardly set foot on the path of knowledge.”

  “You know I cannot,” she said haltingly. She did not say aloud that her flesh crawled at the thought. “My father would never understand, he’d think you’d bewitched me, and he could well come after you sword in hand. Only teach me what more you can in the time that’s left us.” All too much time, at least another month, maybe longer. “You and your Saami will forever have a friend in me.”

  “Never would we do you harm.” Aimo shook his head. “But the forewarnings are bad.”

  Vuokko likewise went grim. “Here we can ward you. We cannot from afar.”

  Well did she remember their drummings, chants, and dream-seeking sleeps, day after day during dayless winter and onward while the sun returned. They told her that something boded ill, but what it was or whom it threatened stayed unknown. Sometimes they had to force themselves to go on with her schooling.