“No,” Ragnvald lied quickly. Drawn as she was by grief and anger, and with her short, round figure, he had judged her older. “Is Hilda your only child?”
“Only living,” she said, firmly enough that she could not have lost any other children recently. Whatever grief she carried for them was scarred over.
“You should marry again at the ting,” said Ragnvald. He cleared his throat, and tried to sound older. “You need someone to protect your farm.”
“You have been protecting my farm.”
“But I am not returning with you.” His answer was loud enough to make the girl squirm. “And I am betrothed.”
“Oh yes,” she said. “To a girl with my daughter’s name.”
“Hilda Hrolfsdatter,” said Ragnvald. His last meeting with Hilda had been formal, Hilda wearing her finest dress as she served Olaf and the men Olaf had brought with him to make up the courting party. Ragnvald was not supposed to speak, only allow Olaf to make the negotiations with Hrolf, while he watched Hilda. They had known each other as children, for Hrolf was third cousin to Ragnvald’s father. Hilda had played captured princess when he and Egil pretended to be warriors. Ragnvald remembered taking that play very seriously, for he had always known that they would be betrothed, as Svanhild would be chosen for Egil. Then, though, Svanhild had been too young to play their games, and by the time she grew old enough, their father was dead, and Ragnvald had given over play swords for steel.
At the betrothal meeting, he saw how the girl at solemn play with him and Egil had grown into the careful, serious woman who waited upon him and Olaf. She was tall and long-limbed and moved with a surety around the room, pouring cups of ale, her long hair swinging behind her. Ragnvald caught her eye only once, and neither of them smiled, the moment too freighted with promises and duty for that.
When the negotiations were done, she looked pleased, bowing her head before retreating behind the wall of all her sisters, though none of them were close to her height. She was a swan among baby chicks.
Now he lay in the forest with another woman and her daughter, who had twice come close to losing their lives in the last week. That much harm and more might have come to Hilda in the time he was away. Harm had come to him. His face was still gashed from Solvi’s knife.
“Will you protect her as you have me?” Adisa asked.
“Better, I hope,” said Ragnvald. “I am sorry I did not come sooner.”
“They were in force,” said Adisa. Her voice was very flat. “You would have died as well.”
He had nothing to say to that, if she did not want to hear talk of a husband, so he made a show of yawning deeply. The child Hilda turned away from him, and toward her mother, in sleep. Adisa gathered the child in and slept as well.
*
They emerged early the next day from the forest, above the river. The ting assembly ground covered a patch of bare land at a bend in the Moen River. The river was cloudy with glacier-melt now, a ghostly white torrent, which added its noise to the rushing of the wind. The bright cloth of tented roofs covered open booths of turf where established families stayed, ringing the broad and rocky plain with temporary long fires and feasting halls.
Ragnvald shifted the child off his back and set her on the ground. She rubbed her eyes and yawned.
“You should stay with my family until yours arrives,” she said. They came from north of the assembly grounds, and had not heard of Adisa’s peril. Adisa started sobbing as soon as she saw them, stammering out what she could of her ordeal. Her mother, a stouter, grayer version of Adisa, enfolded her in an embrace, while her father scowled at Ragnvald. Ragnvald stood watching dumbly. The last time his mother had dried any tears other than her own was before his father’s death.
Her father’s frown grew deeper as Adisa cried. He took a threatening step toward Ragnvald, and another, until Adisa stopped him. She wiped her eyes with the edge of her shawl.
“This is Ragnvald Eysteinsson, who came—after. And saved me. Twice. Tell them.”
“I came too late,” said Ragnvald, suddenly tongue-tied. Adisa should tell them, not him. “I found her”—Adisa looked up at him, shaking her head—“I killed a man who was still there. And when they came back I killed one then too. She did too.” He was not telling it well. He did not have the knack for boasting that other men did. He never missed it except at moments like this, when the eyes of all of Adisa’s family stared at him, wanting something from him he could not give.
“Ragnvald Eysteinsson kept me from—worse,” said Adisa, wiping her eyes. “And he saved me again when they came back. We must give him all welcome.”
“Of course,” said Adisa’s mother. Her father clapped him on the back and invited him to share their midday meal, and claim a place at their camp as long as he wanted it.
He ate with them, a little apart, though, for all had news to share with Adisa that meant little to him. They pet her and let her cry, and gave sweets to the little girl. Ragnvald looked around the grounds while their talk went on without his hearing. His forefathers had once claimed pride of place and spread their tents wide on ground that never grew marshy, even when the river flooded. He could camp there and wait for Olaf and Vigdis—they would want to know he lived—but here with Adisa’s family he would be more welcome than with the two of them.
On the far side of the field, the blue-and-gold banner of Hrolf Nefia fluttered as men hurried to stake down the tent from which it flew. Hilda would be there, and Egil too. Egil would have told his family of Ragnvald’s fall. They would be pleased to see him living.
The wind blew fierce down the slopes, setting the skin tents flapping. In the noise, Ragnvald was able to walk close to Hrolf’s without Egil seeing him. Egil’s tow-colored head bowed over his sharpening leather where he worked his dagger back and forth, the scratching a thin counterpoint to the thrumming of the wind.
When Egil looked up and saw Ragnvald, his face went pale, before realization dawned and he leapt forward and embraced Ragnvald, clapping him on the back like a brother.
“I thought you . . .” He held Ragnvald by the upper arms, gripping them tightly. “You’re alive.” Ragnvald shook his hands off. Egil grinned and swung at him. Ragnvald threw a wide, half-strength punch at Egil that Egil ducked, and then Egil put a shoulder into Ragnvald’s chest and pushed him to the ground. Ragnvald sat up, laughing.
“I’m very glad to see you,” Egil said. He held Ragnvald’s gaze for a moment before cutting his eyes away.
“And I’m glad to see you,” said Ragnvald. He laughed, at ease for the first time since he slipped from the oars. “But I will be even gladder to see your sister.”
“I could fight you for that,” said Egil.
“I only meant—she must think—”