Edin's embrace (25 page)

A drifting gull screamed. The
Blood Wing
loped along through the inner leads between the shielding
skjaegard
and the coast, her prow-head snarling as always on her carved hull. Rolf came to sit on the
lypting
near Thoryn's feet. His rusty beard swayed as the sea breeze toyed with it. At length he said, "We've had an uncommonly good run so far."

"The winds have been good, right out of the wide mouth of Freya, praise her."

Rolf inhaled deeply. "A true Norseman can live a week on one breath of salt air."

Hauk Haakonsson called from his sea chest, "Then a true Norseman is a fool, for there is nothing so desirable as a good pork stew, and barley bread spread with butter, and a flagon of well-brewed beer to wash it down. By the gods, this dried fish tastes like gritty driftwood." They had as a matter of course eaten their fill of their fresh supplies as soon as they'd left Kaupang, and were now down to their preserved rations.

Across from Hauk, Jamsgar Copper-eye lolled on his sea chest and pretended to polish his gold arm ring as he said, "You're both as simple as Lapplanders. A real Norseman knows the most desirable thing on earth is a warm woman undressing in haste. Did I tell you about the one who invited me into her chamber in Kaupang? Swanhilde was her name. She lived in Coopersgate, the street of the woodworkers, where her husband had a little business. She had enormous pale eyes and a forlorn smile. Aye, now there was one who undressed in haste, brothers, and no sooner had she done so than I seized her and tossed her onto her bed."

He looked around him, eyes agleam, to see if he'd captured everyone's attention yet. He had, and so went on. "Aye, she lay there, not daring to look me in the face, but watching my hands undoing my belt."

The massy necklace that Hauk was wearing glimmered as he stirred restlessly. "And then?"

"And then I got over her and rubbed my naked chest on her splendid breasts."

"And then — ?" Hauk half-moaned, half-laughed, wrinkling the bridge of his high, hooked nose. They had all been aboard ship, without women, for well over a sennight.

"Her face turned up to mine, I lowered my lips to hers."

More moans and laughter, from others besides Hauk now. Lief the Tremendous shouted from the other end of the ship, "You're a bawdy devil, Copper-eye! Get to it and tell us the good parts!"

"The good parts, hmm, let me see —this was no smash-and-grab assault, you know." He frowned like a man trying to seize the tail of a memory to drag it into the open. "Well, eventually she did dare to take a cautious hold of
Victory Giver
."

"
Victory Giver!
What's that?"

"My stiff-stander, of course."

A shout of laughter. "You can't name that!"

"Brothers, do you want to hear the story or not?"

"Tell the story," Leif grumbled, impatiently waving the others to silence. "'She took hold of
Victory Giver. .
'"

"Aye, she did, and gave a strange half-cry, a sort of overwrought laugh, you know, naturally fearing its great size. Don't laugh, brothers, I actually felt the fear flash through her; I felt it make her weak. It terrified her into silence. And not being one to waste my chances, I rapidly spread her knees, opening the road to the earthly paradise of men.

"She knew this was not a Norseman to refuse or argue with. She was utterly silent as my fingers opened the way for my entry. Friends — " he paused— "she was ready, luscious, oozing the soft moisture of a woman with voluptuous wants and urgings. A glow of excitement was in her face. I was now pushing forward, touching the entrance to her. At that first contact, she quivered with fear even as she campaigned to relax her body for me.

"Then suddenly she flinched away. If I were a smaller man, and if my fierce desires hadn't been so fiercely goaded, she may well have flung me off.

Startled, I looked up to see her husband. He gave out a yell from the doorway that would shrink a cedar pole to the length of a rye sprout!"

The groans were painful to hear. Even Thoryn smiled, though he kept his eyes fixed on the distant horizon.

"Brothers, he had a massive form —a Norway elk wouldn't go up against a man that size! Being a cooper, he was all covered with wood shavings and chips, and he had a lathe-turned bowl in one hand and the spoon-gouge he'd been using to make it in his other hand —a nasty-looking tool that"

Asmund Wartooth hooted, "What did you do, Copper-eye, roll onto your back and bare your breast to the stroke of Chance?"

Harold Rignivaler cried, "I know! You told him you were her long-lost brother just escaped from captivity by the Christians."

"I considered that, Harold, but didn't think he would believe it, not with her full sex gaping, with its rosy folds throbbing and clasping, and my organ erect, its tip already glossy with her moisture. So, thinking fast, I asked him if I might buy that pretty little bowl. For a moment, his face remained colored with rage, but then —you know how these town-bred Norse are —the man asked me how much I was thinking of offering. Let me tell you I bargained brilliantly; silver-tongued Loki could do no more than I did."

Hauk moaned painfully. When the hoots of disappointment died down, Kol Thurik shook his long head so that his grey plaits moved on his chest. He said, "All you young beards can think about is women, and when you win one, you burst with pride, like a cock on a dung heap. But women are dangerous. Their hearts are tailored on a turning wheel. They can melt a tough Norseman's spirit, make him into a charcoal chewer, a half-man who stays at home like a good little boy. And that is not the way to get to Asgard."

Thoryn felt pricklings across his neck.

Kol waved his hand at Jamsgar. "Don't waste our time with any more of that babble."

"Babble? You make light of a solemn matter, Kol Thurik. Personally, I have a prejudice against being caught with my trousers down by a man with a spoon-gouge in his hand. It was not a moment to wave aside lightly. When I have an hour to spare, I think I'll challenge you for that insult."

From above them, still keeping watch on the surrounding sea, Thoryn said, "If you featherheads start anything now, I'll toss you both overboard and let you swim home."

Jamsgar replied flippantly, "Didn't you hear? I can walk and breathe under water. As can Starkad. Both of us visited a school in Kaupang run by-a Finland witch fresh out of her cave. We paid good silver to learn the trick."

Was Thoryn only imagining it, or was the Copper-eye showing disrespect? Thoryn couldn't tell anymore. His "defeat" by the Black Dane had left him with a mantle of gall so weighty that he was having trouble gauging others' reactions to the thing.

Jamsgar turned back to Kol. "I'm not a fool you know."

"You should be more cautious."

"But not overly cautious."

"But above all cautious with another man's wife."

Hauk put in, "Don't argue with a fool, Kol."

"Are you calling me a fool, Hauk Haakonsson?" Jamsgar asked.

Norsemen could keep this sort of exchange going for hours at a stretch. They could get drunk on words —or burst into anger at any moment. It all depended upon their mood.

But what was their mood? For once Thoryn couldn't tell. The trip had been successful, but their jarl had been bested by a man many of them felt they might have shortened by a head's height themselves.

Thoryn did upon occasion lose a game or contest, of course. But never before had he let an opponent triumph over him. He felt their rankling, unspoken questions: Did he step off the cloak —or was he forced off it? Is he losing his might? Is he still the best man to lead us?

While his mind was thus occupied, he saw, without first comprehending, the enemy. A pirate ship came rowing forth from where it had been lying in wait behind an island. It swooped out of the sea haze now, full of marauders.

"Ship ahead!"

The
Blood Wing
came instantly alive.

The pirate ship was already dropping sail to row into battle. Thoryn hastily maneuvered the
Blood Wing
fighting against the powerful currents of the inner leads. While Ottar Magnusson and Rolf made to unstep the mast and clear the deck for action, Lief the Tremendous yelled in great alarm, "No, Thoryn, turn us about! We can outrun them!"

"Strike that sail!" Thoryn's voice sliced out. "Never shall men traveling with me think of flight."

"Do you realize how much silver I have? We
all
have profits. We can't risk a brush with so great a ship!"

Those words had the impact of another public defeat on Thoryn. The pirate vessel was indeed larger, but the
Blood Wing
was a thoroughbred warship, a ship for heroes, for warriors, not cowards. He said, "My father never fled from a battle, and until the gods dispose of my life, I shall never flee from one either! Rolf!" he snapped out, "if Leif opens his mouth once more, stick a blade through his teeth."

Hot vigor thrilled his veins. He was almost glad for this opportunity, almost drunk with it. He was thirsty for honor. Now he could release his pent and frustrated fury; he could slash off this shame he carried in the eyes of his men.

As the Norsemen cleared the deck for combat, suddenly the enemy released a crosshatch of arrows. At once the air was cut through with a furious hissing. Jamsgar went down with a scream. There was another low
thung
of strings being loosed and the waspish hum of a dozen shafts hissing. A shaft struck only a yard before Thoryn and scuttered on, like a stone skimming over water, past his legs, before it stopped against a sea chest. The oarsmen lost their rhythm. Before they could pick it up again, the attacking longship veered, its oars beating powerfully, bringing it straight into the
Blood Wing
's ribs. She was rammed amidships; her stout oars snapped off like kindling with the impact.

The pirates’ selected champions stood in the prow of their dragonship and delivered the first fury of the impact. If one prowman fell, another stepped forward to take his place, while the men aft in the ship rained spears and even stones on the defending ranks. The invaders pressed forward, a few of them managing to leap aboard the
Blood Wing
, using their shields to ward off the blows of the defenders. This bold handful included a screaming, bare-headed chieftain wielding a stupendous battle-axe.

Thoryn leaped down from his platform. He heard a grumbling. "We'll have a hard grind of it here," said Ottar Magnusson. Furious, Thoryn drew back his fist. But Ottar shouted, "Strike another way, Jarl" He gestured with the axe in his muscled hand. "It's more needful in that direction."

The pirates heaved a four-pronged grappling hook, binding their vessel fast to the Blood Wing. The Norsemen of Dainjerfjord settled to the work of defending their lives.

Thoryn had never fought so savagely. He was hard-pressed from every angle as he maneuvered his way through the fracas to engage the big chieftain. The man was a great figure, a towering crag of a man, larger than life and twice as ugly. He shouted, "I bear an invitation to a party! Let us dance together!"

For a long while Thoryn knew nothing except that he must keep hacking and hewing. At last he saw blood running from the chieftain's arm. The man was wounded, but Thoryn couldn't tell where, and had no inclination to ask.

"You seek a glorious death, Norseman!" the chief screamed.

"I seek
your
death, dog-dung!" Thoryn muttered grimly.

"Come to me, my beloved." The chieftain laughed.

The clutch of men in the pirate ship had been thinned by their attempts to cross over. Seeing a gap in the invasion, the chieftain suddenly leaped back across onto his own vessel. Thoryn leaped across right behind him.

For a moment he was alone, working a deadly way along the line of the attackers. But then others of his crew came aboard behind him. There were few niceties of strategy; it was a grim process of wearing down, hammering away, until exhaustion or numbers swung the balance. A Norse sea battle was no place for the faint-hearted.

Outnumbered and weakened at last, panic seemed to bite into the enemy ranks. As their numbers grew fewer, they retreated. Sharp was the clang of axe blades, and shrill the ring of swords. Blades flashed everywhere.

The toughest men were fighting in the stern, up on the high steering platform. The deck was wet with blood. Only a small band was left about the chieftain. More of Thoryn's men climbed aboard and closed on the platform, chopping with their broad-axes and swords. Rolf appeared beside Thoryn. "I see you can use a hand here."

"Aye," Thoryn said laconically.

They fought side by side, their arms red, their faces streaked with blood and sweat.

The chieftain began to grit his teeth so savagely that pieces broke off. He began to gnaw his lips with such abandon that his blood ran down his long beard, turning it red. He swung his iron axe perilously, beyond speech and reasoning. When he saw they were surrounded and clearly doomed, he screamed, "Norseman, this ship is called the
Surf Dragon
; treat her honorably!" and he jumped into the sea.

His last men, wide-eyed with surprise and hysteria, one-by-one paused, and then followed him overboard—all with their armor, shields, swords, and axes. Thoryn, still in the haze of his battle fury, leaned out frantically, trying to seize the leader before he went down. But the chieftain pulled his shield over his upward floating hair and vanished beneath the waters.

Thoryn would have gone in after him, but hands gripped his legs. He turned, his sword raised to slice off the fetters that kept him from his rightful kill.

Hauk Haakonsson and Kol Thurik backed off quickly. "Easy, Jarl, easy."

Thoryrt lowered
Raunija
, whose blade was blunted. For a moment there was silence, and he thought he heard the Valkyries singing.

The victors took possession of their spoils —the pirate's gear, including booty taken from other raids; and their ship, which became Thoryn's. Many a man lay on the deck, spread-eagled by death. Their bodies were pitched unceremoniously into the cold water.

On the
Blood Wing
, Jamsgar was on his knees, groping at a shaft high in the back of his thigh. Thoryn stopped to help him pull the arrow out, saying, "Lucky your back was turned, or
Victory Giver
might have been damaged."

The Copper-eye grinned. "Jarl,
Victory Giver
always seems to have a following breeze and good luck."

The
Blood Wing
had not been so lucky. She was filling quickly with brackish water from a gap in her oaken bones. "We're holed —and soon will be swamped! Starkad!"

Using the
Surf Dragon
, they made for the nearest land, towing the
Blood Wing
behind. Beneath a flat-topped mountain, they found a sheltered cove, full of shoals. The Norsemen waded ashore, pulling the battered ship as far up the strand as they could. Her oaken keel scraped noisily up the shelving sandy beach. For two days she lay half settled in the cove while Starkad filled the hole in her with rope strands and patiently tarred them over. The men cursed "the dark ones who spin our web," but did so with self-satisfied smiles.

Many of these smiles were bestowed on their jarl. As they sat around their driftwood fire, Kol Thurik said, "Did you see him? With every fall of his longsword, a man went sprawling."

"Makes a person wonder how a bony Dane could force him off a cloak," Rolf said, one rusty eyebrow raised.

Thoryn said nothing.

At last, when the sun was lowering on the second day and her tarred side seemed to keep out water, the
Blood Wing
set out again. Thoryn stood, feet well apart, upon the steering deck, bracing his weight against the ever-moving currents of the leads. The pirate ship moved in tow behind.

The sun dipped down toward its rest. In the well of Thoryn's ship most of the men were sleeping, their fair hair gemmed with spray. A few casually wiped and cleaned their weapons or buffed the edges back into their axes.

Thoryn was eager to return to Dainjerfjord now. Already summer was at the verge of autumn. He had an uneasy and unreasonable feeling that he should never have gone to Kaupang, that he should never have left his longhouse, that he should never have left his thrall-woman.

***

Soren Gudbrodsson left his hut just after midnight. He stood for a moment with his legs wide apart and sniffed the dewy air like a man grown young again. He was off on an adventure!

The sky was cloudy, but there was no fog. This was all to the good as he traveled on foot toward Thorynsteading. He wore his old shirt of mail. It had long sleeves and came to a point above his knees. On his back he carried his round wooden shield, sheathed with hide and centered with a metal boss. His armor had cost him dearly back when he was newly bearded and trying to outfit himself for his first summer raids. He'd paid eleven cows for his helmet, which was made of interlaced strips of iron. He remembered his impatience over his battle shirt, but even the best armorer could only weld two hundred and fifty or so rings a day.

His axe, of course, was his pride. The armorer had lavished much care and decoration on it. The blade-sides were etched with intricate designs inset with copper.

It took him several hours to make his way to the jarl's jetty. There he chose a small mast-equipped fishing boat lying half-ashore, surrounded by scuds of foam. He hadn't brought his sea chest; there wasn't room for that, but he did have a sack containing a few things he thought he might need. He stowed this and prepared to wait.

***

"Wake up."

Edin heard the voice and understood that it came from beyond the wall of her dreams. She started up when a hand shook her. She always slept with her face to the hall and now opened her eyes to see Inga standing over her, holding a small stone lamp. The flame danced before her eyes.

"Get up, girl. I have an errand for you," she said in a tone Edin had never heard before, a tone of unnatural calm. She seemed to see someone or something that existed through or beyond Edin.

It took another moment for Edin to gather her wits. Yesterday she'd gathered driftwood from the fjord-side, and had come to her bed to sleep the sleep of exhaustion. It must be very late now —or very early. The hall was full of a silence that seemed to press jagged edges against her sleep-clouded mind. She measured Inga with unfocused, mistrustful eyes. And Inga returned this look with that strange, calm dispassion.

"Get dressed. And bring your cloak."

She led Edin down the mead hall to her own chamber. Inside the rich, cluttered room, she sat in her high-backed chair, carefully putting her feet up on a carved footstool, leaving Edin to sway sleepily in the middle of the floor. "I want you to take that bundle down to the dock. Old Soren Gudbrodsson is traveling to the next fjord today. I want him to take something to a friend of mine! As she said this, her gaze seemed to be focused through the opposite wall.

Blowzy with her sudden waking and hasty dressing, Edin's eyes fixed on a small bundle on the floor near the door.

"Well?" Inga said. "Pick it up. And be quiet, people . . . people are . . . sleeping. . . " She broke off the words as if they were thin twigs snapped from a tree.

***

Sweyn left Gunnhild's farmstead,
Freyahof
, rather late. He'd made another excuse to pass by there this afternoon and had stopped to help Hrut with the sheep again. Once the chores were done, he'd showed Hrut how to grasp an axe handle and how to stand. He challenged the boy to cut him with the blade, and as the boy swung, and swung again, Sweyn dodged away. Gunnhild came out with the sound of their blade play and invited Sweyn to stay and share their late meal.

Gunnhild. Why had he never realized before what a handsome-oared vessel that one was? There were still a few young men, tall and yellow-headed, to be got out of her womb. And
Freyahof
— there was plenty of rich grass for the sheep there.

Hrut pestered him for stories of his summer's activities. The boy was anxious to go a'viking, to stand at the stern post of a dragonship and hew down some foemen.

With all their talk, Sweyn had left the farmstead rather late and was getting back to the longhouse in the desolate middle of the night. He looked forward to his sheepskin.

Not so long ago night had seemed to stretch before him like a dark tunnel at each day's end.

Now he slept through that darkness, as a man should.

He crept into the hall quietly, noting the smell of stale cabbage that persisted from meal to meal. Inga's cooking was not getting any better. He made his way through the shadows, but then stopped and stood with his left hand resting on his axe head. He saw the Song-singer, which was what he privately called Edin, following Inga to her chamber.

Busy with gathering up his life again, he'd seen little enough of the thrall lately. Her hair was loosely snarled over her shoulders, and dirty. The sleeve of her threadbare dress had torn and hung unstitched and flapping. She had her cloak thrown over her arm. Unfamiliar with the emotion of pity, Sweyn felt immediate anger instead. When the girl disappeared behind Inga's door, he stood on, his face in shadow, concentrating, listening.

But he heard nothing and soon turned for his bed. Lying alone in the dark he raised his left hand to run his fingers through his blond chest hair. He ran it over his hard muscled shoulder. He flexed his fingers. He'd shown Hrut quite a few tricks today. The boy admired him. Gunnhild needed a man, and he was a man again. The thought was like a cool pebble for his thirst. Once he'd been a great warrior, but there was no sense in weeping for days that would not happen again. Meanwhile, Gunnhild. . . . Edin and Inga were forgotten as he drifted into a pleasant dream.

***

Inga accompanied Edin to the door of the dark hall. But there Edin hesitated. Her disorientation at being wakened in the middle of the night was lifting. Suddenly she had so many questions; suddenly she saw how many ways Inga could be working against her. This could merely be a means to catch her in a seeming escape and call for her death. And death it would be, for that was the law and not even the jarl could protect her if he wasn't here.

Inga didn't notice her hesitation immediately; she'd gone away again. Her eyes held nothing but two tiny flames, two reflections of the stone lamp she held cupped in her hands. At last she gave a small start and fixed Edin with a look. "What are you still doing here?"

The realization clearly surfaced in Edin's mind:
Inga Thorsdaughter is not right.

At that moment the ever-lingering smell of cabbage almost made her gorge rise. But she mustn't wretch. For several days now she'd been struggling not to draw amy attention to her morning attacks of nausea. She had a secret inside a secret, something she hadn't divulged to anyone. She compressed her lips against the churning urge.

"Go!" Inga said.

Edin needed to get outside. It was too late to ask questions. She had no choice but to do what she was told anyway. After all, she didn't own herself anymore.

Outside, it was dark as midnight. Clouds hung over the bowl of the valley like woodsmoke in a closed room. Her poor cloak hardly protected her from the chill, even with the hood pulled low over her head. But the fresh air checked her need to wretch. She breathed it deeply. Out on the green, the lush wet grass soaked her footwear. Briefly the tree's branches made a web against the night sky over her head. She skirted a small byre from which came a sheepy smell, sharp and proclamatory of its usual occupants. Passing close by it, she thought she heard a voice and stopped in a renewal of suspicion.