THREE
As Cem was finishing with Sigrid’s hair, another thrall peeked in on them. “Visitors,” the thrall exclaimed, and then disappeared before either Sigrid or Cem could ask a question. Sigrid felt Cem pulling her hair harder than necessary as the thrall hurriedly tried to brush out the last recalcitrant snarl.
“Cem,” Sigrid said, stopping the other woman with a touch. “Leave it.”
Cem blushed, stepping back and dropping her gaze to the floor. “I am sorry,” she started.
“It is fine,” Sigrid said as she rose from the stool. “Let us go see who has come to visit. It is undoubtedly more exciting than my hair.” She understood the allure of visitors: they would bring news of lands beyond her father’s land-hold, and maybe even new stories and sagas. The thirst among the hold’s folk for new stories was nigh unquenchable.
Together, Cem and Sigrid hurried to the main hall of the longhouse, where her father, the Jarl of the hold, would receive the visitors. The room was already crowded when they arrived, and Sigrid, being taller than most men, had an unobstructed view. Cem, on the other hand, stood on her toes, craning to see.
At the far end of the room, Sigrid’s father, her mother, several of the Sworn Men, and the hauscarl were greeting a dozen men. The spokesman for the visitors was a lean older man, well dressed and decked out in a richly embroidered dark blue linen tunic under a long coat of gray herringbone wool worn against the spring chill. He carried a hand ax in his belt and a narrow langsaex hung under his left arm. His younger companion was a veritable giant, and Sigrid estimated that he was wearing what must be three stone of iron scales for armor. An enormous sword hung on his belt, and a round shield was slung at his back. The rest of the men stood behind in two ranks of four each, all in maille and spangenhelms, armed with sword and shield and spear.
“Shield-Brethren,” someone said at Sigrid’s side, and she turned her head to find ?ke standing beside her. He was dressed in a sweat-stained sark—what he had been wearing under his armor-cote—and his legs were bare. He noted her gaze and shrugged as his eyes ran over her tunic and brushed hair. “I was having an earnest discussion with Ejulf and Solvi,” he said by way of explanation for his attire.
“Debating the proper use of a lang ax, no doubt,” she replied.
“Precisely,” ?ke insisted. He noticed her looking at the fresh stain on the front of his sark. “I was parched,” he said. “Fighting is thirst-making work.”
“So is talking about it,” she said dryly. She nodded toward the men at the other end of the room. “Why are they here?” she asked. The Shield-Brethren, members of an ancient martial order known as the Ordo Militum Vindicis Intactae, had a citadel on an island off the southern tip of G?ttland. Tyrshammar was its name. The order had its origins far to the south, somewhere in Christian lands. The sagas spoke of an even older fortress, high in the mountains, called Petraathen. Named after a Greek goddess—She Who Fought First.
Sigrid had always liked the idea of a warrior goddess who, like Freya, fought in the front ranks of her devotees. As it should be.
“I heard something about a boat,” ?ke said.
Sigrid shushed him, straining to hear what her father was saying. He was inviting the Shield-Brethren to join them for the bl?t: the celebration of the bountiful grace of Ostara that would provide for their lands over the coming six months. The leader of the Shield-Brethren accepted the Jarl’s hospitality gracefully, but Sigrid sensed from the tension in the leader’s shoulders that he was chafing at the delay such hospitality would exact upon him.
It was then that she realized the tall one was staring at her. She stared back—not in a challenging way, but more to acknowledge his attention. His lips formed into a thin smile, and he inclined his head in her direction.
“Your hospitality is well known,” the leader of the Shield-Brethren was saying, “and it would be our honor to accept.”
“It is my honor to offer my house and hold to you,” her father said, bowing. The formalities finished, he grinned at the Shield-Brethren. “You’re just in time too,” he added. “The games are about to begin.”
In the early spring, it was the hold’s custom to conduct a festival for Ostara, the goddess who broke the icy grip of winter and allowed the lands to be fertile once more. There was an invocation, complete with a sacrifice and a ritual plowing of the first field, and while the food for the feast was being prepared, the families of the hold participated in games of skill and stamina. This was the time of year when the boys, and occasionally girls, who had reached puberty competed to show they were worthy of training in the arts of war. There were footraces to show speed and endurance, contests of wit and agility, the throwing of axes and spears, and feats of lifting and carrying. Scores were tallied throughout the day, and by evening the winners were known. At the night’s feasting, the winners who chose the warrior’s path dined with the Jarl’s Sworn Men. It was their first taste of the life of professional warriors; for many, it was more intoxicating than any amount of mead.
Halldor remembered winning in his own hold’s games. He knew the thrill these boys would be feeling; though the memory of that heady feeling in his heart and head was tempered by all that happened to him since. The training. The fighting. The blood—his and his enemies’. Would he make the same choice, knowing what he knew now?
He imagined he would, and that realization made watching these games somewhat bittersweet. These boys wanted so desperately to become men, and they had no idea the price to be paid for that desire.
Some of the hold gathered to watch their kin compete in the games; others gathered in the yard of the palisade or spilled out of its gates. Tales were told, songs sung, and the adults played their own games: throwing darts or quoits, or wrestling to the boisterous cheers and jeers of the onlookers. Tables of finger foods had been set out in the yard. Thralls handed out prunes, dried cherries, flatbreads of wheat and barley with honey or preserves, dry sausages, and fresh goat cheese under the watchful eye of a stern older woman in a stained apron.
Halldor’s stomach grumbled noisily at the sight of all that food. He had been eating cold rations for a week—as had all the Shield-Brethren. Regardless of Kjallak’s consternation about their delay, Halldor knew the company’s leader was pleased about the Jarl’s hospitality.
Horns of ale and mead were being readily passed among the crowds as well, though the Shield-Brethren would drink more sparingly than they would eat. The All-Father, the One-Eyed Traveler who watched over all wayfarers, cared little for drunkards, and none of the order wished to burden their journey further by inciting Odin’s displeasure.
As he stood near a long table, idly accepting food from a thrall who was eager to stuff him as full as possible (a plan which he was heartily enjoying), he let his gaze roam across the yard. He didn’t realize he had been looking for the tall woman he had seen in the longhouse until he spotted her approaching. He was man enough to note the young woman’s natural grace, combined with an economy and precision of movement that bespoke a warrior’s training. He found the combination intriguing.
“Are you enjoying our bl?t?” she asked as she reached the table. Halldor noted she did not have to crane her neck to look up at his face as much as most did.
“I am,” he replied. “It reminds me of my own boyhood.”
“A time not too far removed,” she noted.
He laughed. “Far enough,” he said. He set aside the plate he had been holding and bowed. “I am Halldor Sigvatrsson. I am from”—he waved his hand toward the east—“from a hold you have, undoubtedly, never heard of.”
She returned his bow. “I am Sigrid Pettirsdottir,” she said.
“Ah, your father is the Jarl.” Halldor nodded. “Yes, I can see the resemblance, though you have your mother’s hair.”
Sigrid raised a hand and touched her hair, and Halldor noticed the calluses on the side of her hand. They were similar to the ones he carried.
“Your presence at our celebration is not merely to trip through the halls of memory or make merry of the season, is it?”
“No,” Halldor said. “We had an unfortunate accident with our boat. Not far from a fishing village that resides in that narrow cove a few miles down the coast.”
“I know the one.” She nodded. “And I know of the waters thereabout. Tricky, but not treacherous. Unless your captain is either blind in one eye or you were…” She trailed off, gauging him carefully.
He laughed off her suspicion. “Avikinga? Us? The Shield-Brethren are not holdless marauders. Do the skald actually tell such fanciful stories of us?” He shook his head. “We ran afoul during the night,” he explained.
She nodded thoughtfully, as if she might be inclined to believe his story but was withholding judgment for a moment. He caught an impish glee in her eye, though, as she turned her head and looked over at Kjallak, who was patiently listening to a Sworn Man with pale hair and a thick beard that had been groomed and braided. “Your master is anxious, though he hides it well,” she said. “And I suspect it is not entirely due to ?ke’s lengthy story.”
“Is that who he is speaking with?” Halldor asked. He examined the man talking to Kjallak. “I saw him with you in the great hall earlier, did I not?”
She regarded him plainly. “I was standing with a number of folk from this hold,” she said. “Your wandering eye is keen to have noticed me among the others.”
Halldor was a little taken aback by her direct manner. “You are tall,” he said and then stopped as he realized he was stating something very obvious. “My apologies,” he continued, feeling a flush rise in his cheeks. “Forgive me if I have said or done something to offend you.”
She shook her head, though he could not tell if she was responding to his words or to her own thoughts. “It may not be my place to offer you and your master advice, but I am certain it has not escaped your notice that we do not have such horses to spare for you and your men,” she said, changing the subject.
“Aye,” Halldor said awkwardly, still somewhat befuddled as to how he had managed to express himself so poorly.
“While my father would have sent word to the farmholds to gather mounts, your arrival coincides with many of those same folk being here for the festival. It will be much easier for my father to request horses from them. It is quite fortuitous, don’t you think?”
“I…yes. Yes, it is.”
“I am certain my father’s hauscarl is among the farmers now, making known your needs. Your master will have horses on the morrow, and what better way to spend the day than with entertainment and feasting?”
“I can imagine no better way,” Halldor said.
Sigrid looked at him again, staring at his face, and though her attention was not unwanted, he still felt awkward. She offered him the briefest of smiles again and then bowed once more before taking her leave.
Halldor tried his best not to stare after her, and he managed to resist the temptation for a few moments.
“Who was that?” he heard Kjallak ask.
“The Jarl’s daughter,” Halldor said distantly. He tore his attention away from Sigrid’s departing form and looked at his elder. “She—” He cleared his throat. “The Jarl is making arrangements for horses,” he said.
Kjallak glanced after Sigrid. “Is that all she said?”
Halldor caught a twinkle in the eye of the older woman who was watching the tables of food. She glanced away quickly when he glared at her. “Aye,” he said, “that was the gist of it.”
At the outdoor feast following the games, Halldor and Kjallak were seated at the high table with the Jarl and his wife. They were joined by a striking older woman, nearer to fifty years of age than forty, who was introduced to them as Grimhildr, Pettir’s sister, along with a willowy woman with dark hair and eyes named Malusha, who was Grimhildr’s daughter—the Jarl’s niece.
Grimhildr was a tall, spare woman who wore a tunic and long coat of rich wool. Her elaborately tooled boots reached high up her calves, and heavy raw-silk trousers were bloused into them after the fashion of the Rus far to the east. Large beads of amber and chains of silver and gold hung about her neck, and her wrists were bedecked with many bracelets, her fingers each sporting one or more rings. Her saex knife’s sheath was similarly rich in its decoration, and she wore a sword slung low on her left hip.
Malusha, on the other hand, wore a light gray linen dress, the neck and wrists of which were trimmed in elaborately stitched patterns. Over this she wore a dark blue woolen apron with silver medallions, covered with hammered runes, securing the straps over her shoulders. Kjallak showed no sign of confusion as to the difference in attire between mother and daughter. “skj?lmdo,” he said to her after pleasantries had been exchanged with the Jarl and his wife, Fenja. “It is a pleasure to meet you. I had been speaking with one of the Sworn Men earlier today, and he was telling me stories of your charge.”
Halldor had been glancing around the room on the pretense of making sure the other Shield-Brethren were taken care of. They were scattered across several of the tables reserved for the Sworn Men. He counted heads, noting that the winners of today’s games were intermixed with the Shield-Brethren and the Sworn Men, a pairing that made him smile. He caught sight of Sigrid, and she looked up and smiled at him just as Kjallak’s words penetrated his thick head. skj?lmdo. Shield-Maiden.
“Aye,” Grimhildr said. “I am rather proud of her, in fact; she shows extraordinary promise.”
Halldor’s attention was pulled away from the other tables by the arrival of the thralls with trays and plates of food.
The choicest bits of the ox that had been roasting all day came to their table, and then the warrior’s table next, and so on. Halldor had seen the beast earlier—suspended on a thick pole of green wood over a long pit filled with coals—and knew there was an enormous amount of meat to be had from an animal that size. He suspected there would be no shortage of meat, and his eyes widened as the thralls continued to bring trays of food to their table. There were roast boars and goats, salmon and herring—fresh, smoked, or pickled!
After the meat came a sweet soup made from dried fruit; bowls of spring greens with vinegar or cooked in bacon fat; roasted or boiled turnips and beets; flatbread with gravy, honey, or preserves; and—as a rare treat, indeed!—boiled eggs. There was mead as well, of course, flagons and horns of the thick, honey-flavored drink, and Halldor was suddenly concerned that he couldn’t eat enough to be a dutiful guest. There was just too much food!
And no sooner had the thralls finished laying out the feast, than people began to get up and move about the room, completely disregarding the distinctions of the arranged tables. As Kjallak and Grimhildr fell into comfortable conversation—old warriors sharing stories of distant exploits—Halldor was subjected to a steady stream of available young women who subtly hinted that they might be available to him that very evening. In fact, the thralls weren’t subtle at all, making their intent plain even to the extent of whispering often quite explicit offers in his ear.
He did his best to remain amiable throughout, keeping in mind that he was a sworn initiate of the Shield-Brethren. While the order did not require celibacy of its knights, he did not know the Jarl’s household well enough to chance offending some family member or another by bedding one of the eager—and quite persistent!—thralls. As soon as he could manage without being offensive, he excused himself from the throng and made his way toward the clusters of fighting men, whose company was much less fraught with…
“The maids do like a new face, don’t they?”
Halldor recognized the man as the one Kjallak had been speaking to earlier in the day. ?ke, he remembered, the First of the Jarl’s Sworn Men. “Aye,” he replied. “I am like a rare flower.”
?ke threw back his head and let loose a full-throated laugh. Halldor joined him, though he did not think his comment that uproarious.
“I am ?ke Fair-Haired,” the other man said when he had recovered from his bout of humor.
“I am Halldor, son of Sigvatr.”
“A Shield-Brethren knight,” ?ke said.
Halldor nodded. “That I am.”
“The skalds sing stories of men like you,” ?ke said, sipping from his horn.
“Do they?” Halldor said, his attention wandering. He spotted Sigrid near one of the bonfires that provided the light and heat that kept the night at bay. “She is skj?lmdo,” Halldor said, figuring he might as well fess up to what he had been looking at.
?ke laughed, pressing his teeth against the bottom edge of his horn. When he lowered it, his beard sparkled with mead. “Aye, that she is,” he said.
“It would seem to me that a woman would be at some disadvantage as a fighter; they lack the upper body strength and weight of a man. Though I suppose that matters little if they are trained well,” Halldor said thoughtfully. “It is not the arm that wields the sword, but the body,” he mused, quoting from the lessons that had been drilled into him at Tyrshammar. “The body is moved by the feet, and the hand follows the foot.”
“Aye,” ?ke said, a touch ruefully. “Size may be telling, but it is not the entire story.” He rubbed his ass, making a show of wincing.
Halldor took ?ke’s measure carefully. He was taller and heavier than Sigrid and his arms were longer. Maybe a full handspan longer. “Truly?” he said, his curiosity plain in his voice. “Ah, now there is a story I must hear.”
“I hardly know it,” ?ke said, looking chagrined. He took a long pull from his horn. “Early this morning, I merely said that the lang ax was a man’s weapon, and next I knew she took one up and called me out. I took my shield and a practice sword and we squared off. I moved in when she stumbled and next I knew I was flat-out in the dust.” He glanced over at Sigrid, his face reddening with embarrassment. “That girl never stumbles. I should have known better.”
“So she fights with the lang ax?” Kjallak asked.
?ke snorted. “No, she was taught to fight with the hewing spear. I’ve never seen her fight with a lang ax before. It didn’t matter. She picked it up and sussed it out right quick.”
“She’s that good then?” Halldor asked.
?ke looked thoughtful a moment. “In some ways she’s the best I’ve ever worked with,” he said. He pointed a finger at Halldor. “Mind you,” he continued, “I’ll thump you good if you ever tell her I said so, Shield-Brethren or no.”
“I have forgotten already what it is you have told me,” Halldor assured him, though he most certainly had not.
?ke belched before continuing. “She never puts a foot wrong, and her sense of timing and distance is just as good. I tell you, I was a warrior when she was just a gleam in the Jarl’s eye, and I am First among his Sworn Men, but I never take for granted that I could defeat her in a fight.”
Halldor stopped a passing thrall and took the flagon of mead from the young woman. He refilled ?ke’s horn and tapped the flagon lightly against it. “Let us drink then,” he said, “to the hope we shall never have to face her on the field of battle.”
“Aye,” ?ke said, shaking his head and lifting the full horn to his lips.
Halldor raised the flagon to his, though he did little more than sip from the wide-mouthed container. Over the rim, he looked at Sigrid, a subtle prickling at the back of his skull.
The sensation was not new. If he was mindful, it would steal over him while in battle, though he had felt it the previous night. It had stirred him awake, in fact. Shortly before the boat had sprung its seams.
Temperatures plummeted as soon as the sun fell from the sky, and despite the fires, the warm clothes, and copious amounts of mead, the nighttime air began to seep through clothing and chill the skin and bones beneath. Some of the heartier souls filled the yard inside the palisade, where more bonfires burned and the walls reflected and contained the heat. Instruments were brought out, kegs tapped, and soon music and dancing filled the space.
The core of the party—the Jarl and his family, the Sworn Men, and their guests—retired to the great hall of the longhouse for a hot drink and to hear the tales told by a skald who had traveled to the hold for the occasion. The common folk would pass through as space allowed, clustering into the hall to hear bits and snatches of the skald’s songs before returning to the yard for more merriment.
Sigrid took advantage of the coming and going of the thralls and the commoners to slip out of the great hall herself during the applause and cheers that followed one of the skald’s stories. The cold air was refreshing after the smoky great hall of the longhouse. The combined misty breath of the revelers picked up the light of the fires, making the air almost glow over the crowded yard. The sound of flutes, horns, fiddles, and drums echoed across the space filled with dancing bodies.
As she neared the tables—a few still laden with the remnants of the feast—she was surprised to find her cousin Malusha idly nibbling on some dried fruit. The younger woman looked up at Sigrid, smiled, and lifted up two horns of mead as if she had been waiting for Sigrid.
Sigrid accepted the horn from her tiny cousin. “What?” she inquired, noting that Malusha’s grin had not diminished.
“Help me, cousin,” Malusha implored, fighting hard not to laugh. She pointed past Sigrid. “Is that the sun, rising early, or…”
Sigrid glanced quickly over her shoulder and spotted the giant Shield-Brethren, his blond head bobbing above the crowds. His hair reflected the firelight in a way that made it appear to glow. Sigrid tried to grab Malusha, who was already dancing back, staying out of reach. “Do not leave me,” she hissed at her cousin.
“Never,” Malusha laughed. “But I know when to make myself scarce too.” Sigrid’s cousin vanished into the shadows of the longhouse, the trilling sound of her laughter fading after her.
Sigrid considered running after her for a moment, but when she heard Halldor call her name, she held her ground. Raising her horn, she rapidly drank half its contents, her throat tight against the sudden influx of mead. Nearly choking, she forced herself to slow down.
“Do you dance?”
She swiped the back of her hand across her mouth before she turned. “Dance?” she asked, trying to make her lips turn upward into a smile.
Halldor’s face glowed in the firelight, or perhaps the apple color in his cheeks came from the mead—Sigrid wasn’t entirely sure. “Yes, dance,” he said, waving a hand toward the merriment going on near the palisade. “It is what people do when they are celebrating. They dance; they drink; they—”
He broke off, and Sigrid was impressed that he could manage to eke out another shade of red in his face.
“And what part should I dance? The man’s or the woman’s?”
“Aye,” Halldor said. “I have heard that about you. Though, while I still have my wits about me, I can attest there is no confusion in my mind.”
“Made up your mind already, have you?” Sigrid replied.
Halldor took her tone the wrong way, and his face crumpled as he brought up his hands defensively. “No, no,” he said, “I only spoke of dancing.”
A hearty peal of laughter slipped out of her, and he blinked in surprise, uncertainty writ across his features. Starting her training as young as she did, she had little practice in the womanly arts of flirtation and fewer opportunities to miss them, and maybe it was the drink making her bolder than she might be otherwise, but she found his awkwardness disarming.
“I wasn’t,” she said. “Speaking of dancing, that is.” She took a long pull on her horn, giving him time to think about what she was saying, and when it seemed as if he hadn’t quite got it, she said, very deliberately, what was on her mind—what Malusha had known she was thinking. “All things being equal, I’d kick your heels out from under you and have you right here in the yard.”
Halldor gaped at her for a second and then threw his head back and laughed, his voice ringing with honest delight at her nerve. “?ke told me you’d give as good as you got in a scuffle,” he said. He raised his hands again. “Peace, skj?lmdo, I yield. Thank the gods I only came at you with words; I would fear for my life if we crossed steel.”
And well you should, she thought, intending to say those words as she stepped forward, meaning to poke him in the chest with a stiff finger as punctuation for her words, but also as an excuse to stand closer to him. But her finger never touched him. His eyes never left her face, but he grabbed her finger before it had even crossed half the distance between them. He squeezed her digit—not unkindly—and then, realizing what he had done, he let go and stepped back.
“I am sorry,” he said quickly. “Did I harm you?”
“No,” she said, quite puzzled. Her hand was still upraised, finger extended, but he was out of measure now.
Measure.
She was thinking about her finger as a weapon, and Halldor as an opponent.
He rubbed at the side of his head as if it bothered him, and when he looked at her again, all the levity was gone from his eyes.
“What is it?” she asked.
“Something’s wrong,” he said.
As the words left his mouth, a cry came drifting out of the longhouse—a long, terrified wail. Sigrid shuddered as she heard it, and she quickly brushed past Halldor, heading for the longhouse. “My mother,” she snapped at his unasked question.