She thought they looked like something out of a tale until they came closer and she saw that one of them was old, and another had a face from a nightmare, mouth broken and poorly healed, as though it had been cloven with an ax. The foremost man, though, had clear and even features—he could still be a saga hero.
“Is your father within, young maiden?” asked the lead rider as he pulled his horse to a stop. Seeing him up close, Svanhild thought she had never seen a more handsome man, with his close-trimmed beard, the same golden red as the amber that inlaid his cloak’s clasp, and his flashing, knife-edge smile.
“He’s in a barrow,” said Svanhild, standing. She shook out her hair. She had brushed it until it shone this morning, leaving it loose under the white of a narrow cloth band, and she was glad of it now, for the man’s eyes followed it as it swayed behind her and curled around her hips. “If you seek my stepfather Olaf, I know not where he is.”
“What is your name?” he asked.
“Svanhild Eysteinsdatter,” she answered. One of the warriors’ horses stamped impatiently. A shadow passed briefly over the man’s face before the grin reappeared.
“A lovely name for a lovely woman,” he said.
Svanhild waved off the compliment. “If you know mine, I should know yours,” she said.
“Try to guess it,” he replied, grin turning wicked.
“How shall I guess it?” she asked, tossing her hair again, glad to be invited to look him over from head to foot. “You have missed the sacrifices, so I think you do not care much for gods, and you are not from Sogn. You wear a fine sword at your belt and cut your beard close like a warrior, but there are many rich warriors in Norway. You have not enough men with you to be a king or jarl.”
“Do I not?” he asked, his eyes sparkling. “Come ride with me, and I will tell you more.”
Svanhild looked around. Vigdis was nowhere near. Svanhild should not do this—she would be talked over if anyone saw, and they would. But if this young man liked her, he could ask for her, and if he had wealth beyond his fine weapon, Ragnvald might arrange it for her. She stepped up onto a rock and then, taking the man’s hand, climbed up in front of him on his horse. He held her familiarly around the waist, a firm grip that made her stomach jump.
“What shall I call you until I guess your name?” Svanhild asked.
“What do you want to call me?”
“You have red hair like a flame. I shall call you Loki. And perhaps when you feel insulted enough, you will tell me your name.” She threw him a smile over her shoulder.
“You could never insult me, Svanhild,” he said. She liked the way he said her name, as though it were a secret between the two of them. He jerked his chin at his friends, who obeyed his signal to depart and rode across the field away from them.
“Have you been up to the glacier?” he asked, pointing at the wall of ice above.
Svanhild shook her head. At night deep groans came from it, like the sounds of giants shifting in their sleep. She must have shown her fear somehow in her body, for he pulled her closer and said in her ear, “Do not be scared. I will keep you from falling.”
She clung to the horse’s mane as it picked its way up the rock-strewn slope above the camp. Svanhild looked straight ahead of her so she would not have to see the height they had climbed.
“Your horse is sure-footed,” she said. “Do you plan to fight him?”
“Her,” said the man, leaning forward as they ascended. His chest pressed warm against her back. “And what does a maiden know of horse fighting?”
“Only what I’ve heard,” said Svanhild, now worried that she had steered the conversation where a woman should not.
“Then I’ve some advice you might not have learned: never fight your own horse, only bet on others’.” He laughed, and she smiled, though he could not see it. “Anyhow, this mare is too sensible to fight. It is only the stallions that can be provoked.”
“Horses are not so unlike people, then,” she said, though she herself often wanted to fight. When they reached the summit, he climbed down first and helped her down. In the short time it had taken to reach this place, clouds had come in to cover the sky. A wind started to blow, carrying the cool breath of the ice cave toward them. Svanhild regretted not bringing her coat.
“You are short,” she said when he stood next to her. He was still so handsome, and with a knowing quirk in his smile, so that she could only dart glances at his face, now level with hers, before looking away, blushing. “And wealthy enough to have a good horse, and a gold clasp for your cloak. Your armor is much scuffed, though, so I think if you are a king, it is of a very small place.” She smiled at him on that last, and found an answering smile from him.
“Perhaps this armor has saved me many times, and I would not part with it for prettier,” he said.
She had to look away from him again, and looked instead into the ice cave. The blue was brighter than the clearest jewel.
“Tell me more so I can guess,” she said.
“Tell me of yourself, fair Svanhild. All I know of you is your name.”
How little there was to tell. “My father was a boaster, my grandfather was a king.” It sounded to her like it could be a rhyme. “My stepfather wants to kill my brother, and he may yet do it.” Her throat grew tight, and she stopped speaking. The cool air from the cave made her face feel all the hotter. She tried to remember some of what Vigdis had taught her of how to catch a man’s attention. It was not with tears; she could remember that much.
“He wants to kill your brother?” the man asked. “How do you know?”
“He sent my brother Ragnvald out raiding to be killed by Solvi Klofe, who tried to do it, but Ragnvald survived.”
“He survived,” said the man slowly. Svanhild turned to look at him. “That is good,” he added, “but I did not ask about your family. I asked about you.”
“I am a girl raised on a farm,” she said. What else could she tell him: that she spun poorly, that she hit her stepbrother with his own sword? “I think my brother should sail away across the sea and take me with him. I have only ever seen these same mountains.”
“Where do you want to go?”
“Anywhere—everywhere.” She had thought of this often. Ragnvald was supposed to find her a warrior to marry, one who might go raiding to Scotland or beyond, and bring her with him for the long winter sieges. Or settle in Iceland or the Orkney Islands, as she had tried to urge him. “Why should he be the one to decide? Why should he be the one who gets to go?”
“I could take you there,” he said. He stood close behind her, looking into the cave with her. He did smell more of sea than of earth.
“Should I have called you after a sea god rather than a trickster? No, I think you are still Loki, full of fire and guile.” She had said it to be flirtatious, but she could see, or sense from the way he shifted, that her words made him uncomfortable.