“I miss your silences,” said Solvi sardonically. “My men follow me because I lead them to treasure, in and out of danger. They follow me because they trust my judgment. It is the only reason any man should follow another. This Harald is young and stupid if he thinks the oath of a king with a sword to his neck means anything.” He gave Svanhild a piercing look. All she knew of the world beyond her farm, and the journey she had taken that put her in Solvi’s hands, was what she had learned from songs. Her mixture of innocence and ruthlessness was charming, and he could never decide whether he wanted her to keep her pretty pictures of the world, or learn his own cruel lessons. “What would you do, Svanhild, I wonder, to save your life? To save the life of your child?”
Another woman might have bent then, acknowledged that he knew of things she could not. Svanhild lifted her chin and said, “I don’t think you know what mothers must do, have done, to save their children’s lives. My mother”—she shook her head—“my mother sacrificed her spirit, I think sometimes, so that Ragnvald’s land could be protected until he grew up. I wonder if it was worth the cost, her marriage with Olaf.”
“It was her fate.” Solvi did not want her to think of marriages and their costs. He touched her on the cheek before returning to his work.
*
Solvi took his ships around the outer islands, into the sheltered embrace of Hardanger Fjord. He stopped and talked to whichever shore folk they found, listening to the stories of raiders. Those who carried knowledge traded it like coin, and so he gathered a picture of what had passed during the fall.
“We make for Gudbrand’s hall in the morning,” Solvi announced to his men. “He is the strongest remaining king, and he hates this upstart Harald.” Harald had killed seven kings, or so went the tale, and Gudbrand had not been among them. Indeed, Harald had fought Gudbrand twice, and never killed him. This might be the king to defeat Harald.
Solvi’s men were loyal to him, but they still talked over the other story, of the upland King Eirik, his mighty fort, his haughty daughter. Svanhild told him what she had learned about Harald’s oath for Gyda as they settled in to sleep. The wind rippled the walls of the tent.
“Harald will marry every woman in the Norse lands, if it helps him rule,” said Solvi.
“It is the story, not the betrothal,” said Svanhild. “It will win men to him. Don’t forget how you won me.”
“Yes,” said Solvi. “My men did like you for that.”
“You did too,” she said, snuggling up to him. He kissed the top of her head in answer, and told her more about King Gudbrand. They had met a time or two. Gudbrand had sent his sons raiding with Solvi in years past, and those sons had settled in Iceland, where they would have more land.
“He may call them back now,” Solvi added. “He has more land to give them, with so many kings dead.”
“So Harald has done him a favor,” said Svanhild.
“And humiliated him. I hope he feels that more keenly.”
“Is that how you will win him to your side?”
“Yes,” he said. “And offer him the wealth of Vestfold. He trusts me to know more of the world than he does. I can tell him that Harald is young and not truly tested, and Vestfold will fall easily if we gather enough allies.”
“Is that true?” Svanhild asked. Solvi shrugged. Svanhild pulled the blanket over them. She pressed her legs gently against his, warming the scars that made them grow easily cold.
“It is believable enough,” he said. “His victories are not as notable as the tales make them seem. Harald has always had far more men on his side than his adversaries could muster in time, and the advantage of surprise. If we sail against him, in force, too early in the spring for him to gather men who will have gone home during the winter, then we can defeat him where he lives.”
“Force against force,” said Svanhild. “I suppose it is more honorable than a sneak attack.”
“It has nothing to do with honor,” said Solvi. “It is a trick that will only work once, now, before he gains too much power. If we lose, then raiding will be all we have left.” He yawned. “When we win, I will take you to Dublin and drape you in Irish jewels.”
“I don’t care as much for jewels, and I would rather not see you fight.” Because then he would fight Ragnvald, Solvi supposed. As long as she thought of Ragnvald first, she would never truly be his.
*
Once inside the embrace of Hardanger Fjord, the wind grew less and the temperature plummeted. Solvi sailed up a river to Gudbrand’s hall. When they finally found it, night was falling. The hall had been razed; only charred posts remained, sticking up out of a thin dusting of too-early snow. Early snow, easy winter, was the proverb, but no winter was truly easy.
“A hall burning,” said Solvi. He walked around the charred foundations. “But they did not burn it with people inside, see.”
Svanhild followed behind him without saying anything. He wished he had left her in Dorestad. She should not have to see this. She followed him to the sacred grove, which stood on a slope that was slippery with ice and fallen leaves. Runes were carved into the bark of the trees. Something crunched under Solvi’s foot, something that did not feel like wood. Solvi bent down and pull out a pale shard of bone. He wiped his hands on his trousers. Unburied bodies brought bad luck.
“If Harald’s force has already been here, does Gudbrand still live?” Solvi asked, more to himself than to his men, who followed behind.
They found a small camp at another clearing. Some tents had blown over in the wind, and no one had set them up again. Under the leather shrouds of the rotten tents lay the bodies of old women and children, only those too old or young to be useful as slaves. They had eaten small animals, to judge by the untanned skins and tiny bones discarded here, and then, horribly, begun to eat each other. These people had been waiting for rescue, for men who never came.
“This place is evil,” said Svanhild. Solvi was glad she spoke. As a woman, she could voice fears so his men need not. “We must leave.”
“Yes,” said Snorri through his ruined mouth. “These dead will walk.”
Solvi ordered his men to build a huge bonfire to consume the dead, with wood from the grove that had been poisoned by their terrible final days. When the fire burned out, close to dawn, he led his men back to the ships. Harald’s promise of safety should not have allowed him to leave families to starve, even if they were his enemies.
Farther inland, they found a few more abandoned farms. Near the end of the fjord a larger group had banded together, forming a collection of lean-tos and temporary buildings around the nucleus of a hall. The community was disorganized, composed of refugees, mostly women and children, and a few men too old and lame to fight.
Solvi did find one man of a warrior’s age who told them what had happened. “It was King Hakon’s men,” he said. “They come and raid. They ask for us to swear to Hakon as king, and if we say yes, they only take everything. If we say no, they kill and burn.”
“Not Harald?” Solvi asked.
“He said he conquered for Harald.”
“What did you say?” Svanhild asked. “When he asked you to swear?”
“I said no,” the man said, proudly.
“Yet you live,” she said. “This hall still stands.”
The man looked sullen. “He left us the hall to see us through the winter. Vekel, jarl who ruled here—he took his men and ships and went to his cousin in Rogaland. He said there was no fighting there yet.”