“Do not turn your anger on me,” she said. “I too thought us promised.”
He looked at her hand, and then at her face. Yes, they were promised. He did not remember a time when he had not known that she would be his bride. They had been children together, with simple dreams, and now it was his task to make those dreams true, even if the path to them was difficult.
“You still wish it?” he asked.
She nodded, blushing.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I spoke hastily.” He hesitated a moment before taking her hand in his. He had frightened her with his anger. She was a big girl, but a girl still, and not as bold or brave as Svanhild. He should not frighten her. He stroked her hand until she seemed to grow calmer. She gave him a tentative smile.
“If you wish, I will—,” he began, not sure what he meant to offer.
“If you make me pregnant, my father must allow it,” she blurted out. Her face went red, and she frowned. “Our marriage.”
Ragnvald burst out laughing and then closed his mouth quickly. This was the last thing he expected of such a solemn girl. She yanked her hand from his grasp and pulled herself up to her full height, as tall as he.
“I apologize for shocking you,” she said stiffly. “Perhaps my father was right.”
He abruptly sobered. “Hilda,” he said, catching her hand again. “You caught me off guard. I did not mean to laugh at you. I was only surprised—that you would offer so much for me.”
“I do not like to break my promises,” she said, still stiff and formal.
“Neither do I,” he said. “I only meant I would come back for you—you need not spend your”—now he flushed as well, and the smile from before threatened to return—“coin with me. I would not trap you.”
“Would you like to be free of me, then?” she asked, and then added, acidly, “Was it only your pride that was injured?”
So she was not so young that she did not know how to wound a man with words. Still, he would not let Solvi’s enmity take her from him. “No,” Ragnvald said shortly. “I want to marry you. Ask of me what promises you will.”
“That is what I want too. Promise to return to me, no matter what happens,” she said, softening. She reached toward him, but stopped for a moment, before touching his cheek as she had earlier.
“I promise,” he said. “I will bring you the bride price you deserve, and a great household to manage.”
“I will wait,” she promised in return, giving him a wide smile that transformed her face. “Father will not marry me off against my will, not with all my sisters needing husbands.”
Ragnvald pulled her close and kissed her on the lips, a kiss she was too surprised, or inexperienced, to return. When he let her go, her smile had turned pleased and knowing. She touched her lips as she bid him good night.
*
By morning, Olaf still had not come, but news of a great procession of horses and wagons arriving at the assembly grounds distracted Ragnvald from his watch. Banners of glowing gold on a black field crested the hill before the men that bore them, and Ragnvald thought suddenly of his vision. Perhaps his golden wolf would find him here.
He watched until they came closer, and saw the golden eagle of King Hakon of Stjordal and Halogaland. His servants moved efficiently to rope off stabling areas for the horses, then began putting up tents. With the blowing wind, Ragnvald could not hear them, so it seemed a vast pantomime, too well executed to be real. Hakon coming here would bend currents of power around him like a stone in a river.
Ragnvald was still watching when a tall figure in green waved to him from across the field. Ragnvald returned the greeting, uncertainly, and then as he drew closer, recognized Oddbjorn, King Hakon’s baseborn son, born of a peasant woman, not one of his vowed wives. He was a distant cousin to Ragnvald, as were all of Hakon’s brood, but only Oddbjorn had ever claimed the relationship. When Ragnvald’s father still lived, he and Oddbjorn had been friends. Ragnvald had not seen him in many years.
“My lord Oddbjorn,” said Ragnvald, when he came within hearing distance. Oddbjorn wore his dark hair streaked with blond now. His big eyes and broad cheeks had settled into something more handsome than the wide-mouthed face of his boyhood, and warier too. He still had overlong arms, which made him a fierce wrestler, and likely now a dangerous swordsman. Then he smiled, a mischievous smile that showed the same crooked teeth he had as a boy.
“I’m still Oddi, cousin,” he said, laughing. He pulled Ragnvald into a rough embrace, pounding on his back and then holding him at arm’s length to look at him and his scarred face. “We heard of this at Yrjar,” said Oddi, naming King Hakon’s famous hall, the Hall of Eager Warriors. Once Ragnvald had dreamed of being invited there, as one of Hakon’s men, but when Hakon and Solvi’s father Hunthiof fell out over a border dispute, Ragnvald had turned his ambitions toward Solvi’s ships instead.
“What have you heard?” Ragnvald asked, too eagerly.
“Come—if we stay here, I’ll be called to work,” said Oddi. “Or worse, pulled into one of my brothers’ arguments.”
Above the Jostedal plain stretched an ice field whose meltwater fed all the river systems of the Sogn district. They walked up to it, over a steep slope. A great mouth of ice, dark and blue in its recesses, opened where the ice field began. It looked as though a frost giant had been frozen there, about to take a bite big enough to consume a herd of cattle. Cold air issued from it, the giant’s breath. Ragnvald walked along the opening behind Oddi. He did not want to turn his back on the great maw, so he tossed a pebble into its depths. It skittered for a minute, then fell into a pool of water far below.
Inhuman spirits lived in places like this. It might be the mouth of not a giant but Niflheim, one of the lands of the dead. Oddi peered in, and would have climbed in, but Ragnvald held him back.
“I do not like it,” he said.
“You never used to be so cautious,” said Oddi.
Ragnvald shrugged, ill at ease. He had doubtless changed since Oddi knew him. In the intervening years his father had been killed and Solvi had shown him how little men could be trusted. Perhaps he had changed into someone Oddi would no longer want as a companion. So he agreed when Oddi suggested that instead they climb over the top of the cave. Ragnvald found slim foot-and handholds, places where rocks had fallen onto the ice and melted holes. He climbed with Oddi until they stood above the cave. Below them the whole valley spread out, the tents no more than tan smudges on the green field.
“What are you doing here?” Ragnvald asked. “I had not expected to see you at the Sogn ting again, not while your father and Hunthiof both lived and hated each other.” He paused and raised an eyebrow at Oddi. “They do both live?”
“Yes. None of our prayers are answered as easily as that,” said Oddi.
“And they have not sworn a truce?” Ragnvald asked.