Svanhild continued her work with ill humor. She knew she had not gotten the better of that meeting. She should have made him understand how she loved doing farm work at Ardal, managing the dairy at the shieling, the high mountain pasture, herding the sheep out to graze in the morning and back to the barn in the evening. She loved the long days spent under the sun and clouds, the endless beauty of Ardal’s land. She loved the winter less, trapped inside with Vigdis and Ascrida, but when she ran a farm of her own, she would surround herself with the daughters of local farmers, pleasant girls whose company she would enjoy.
And if her husband brought in another wife—well, that could not be worse than being concubine to a sea king. When would she see one such as Solvi—every half year, when he came home from raiding? And the rest of the time she would be trapped in his dank hall, raising his brats, awaiting his return. Even if she wanted that kind of life, wanted him, Solvi was a man without honor, a man she could not consider.
She glanced around at Hilda and her sisters, each working at her task. She could not imagine any of them, even the headstrong Hilda, being tempted by an offer such as Solvi’s. She flushed and put her head down, working until her arms ached.
*
Hrolf’s farm was only a half day’s walk from the gathering grounds, though mostly uphill, so they did not leave until after the midday meal. Egil walked with the mule, who was prone to fits of sulkiness, and needed his cajoling to continue the upward march. Hilda and Svanhild went first among the women, just after Hilda’s father himself. Svanhild hurried to match Hilda’s long stride. She was so tall, it was like trying to keep up with Ragnvald again.
Hilda had other qualities that reminded Svanhild of Ragnvald as well: her quiet watchfulness, the way she kept her own counsel. Svanhild had wondered if Hilda would abandon Ragnvald when his luck was at its lowest ebb, but she had visited Ragnvald’s side as he healed, and the words they exchanged, in quiet voices, seemed to bring both of them contentment.
“Now you’re walking too fast,” Hilda called out to Svanhild, who looked back and saw that Hilda now carried her littlest sister, Ingifrid. “She can’t keep up.” Svanhild smiled ruefully, and slowed her pace. She looked behind her, memorizing the slope of the land, the path markers on the cairns they passed. “What do you seek?” Hilda asked. “Do you fear pursuit?”
“No,” she said. “My stepfather is too much of a coward.” Then, more diffidently, “I want to know my way back.”
“Do you expect to be traveling here alone?”
“I don’t know what to expect,” said Svanhild. Ragnvald had taught her to be always prepared, in the woods around Ardal, in which he knew every stump and fallen tree, and had showed her hidden hollows and groves where snowdrops bloomed in the spring in shafts of sunlight when all else was frozen still. She could see why he would not want to leave it.
In the late afternoon they stopped for water and a small meal. Svanhild did not know how to react to Hilda’s sisters, whose conversation seemed composed entirely of little barbs, and she could not tell which ones would produce a stony silence and which gales of laughter. They tried with Svanhild as well, needling her about her height—shorter than Hilda’s next three younger sisters—about Solvi, calling him crippled and twisted; about Ragnvald, which made Hilda scowl as much as Svanhild did.
“There it is,” said Hilda when they first caught a glimpse of Hrolf’s hall. It stood on the edge of the forest, a border space that looked half in another world, a haunted world of more gray than color. The vegetable garden was shaded; stalks straggled along the ground, seeking light. The hall’s planks were weathered, rather than gleaming with fat rubbed into the wood, as fine halls were. Ardal was not so different from this building now, even if Ragnvald said it had gleamed when he was young. All but the richest farms needed all of their fat for light and cooking.
Hilda made room for Svanhild in her sleeping chamber. Svanhild did not feel tired, though, not even after the long walk from the assembly plain at Jostedal.
“I’m glad you’re here,” said Hilda to Svanhild. “Do you think you’ll be able to sleep?”
“It’s much quieter than the hall at Ardal. Olaf keeps more men than your father does,” said Svanhild. Hilda was silent, and Svanhild worried that it might sound like a reproach. “I shall be glad not to hear their snores,” she added.
“Where do you think Ragnvald sleeps tonight?” Hilda asked.
Svanhild sighed. Hilda had lost no opportunity to bring him up whenever they spoke during the day, clinging to that one subject they held in common.
“On some shore,” said Svanhild. “I wish I were there with him. Not that your family is not . . . kind to take me in, but . . .”
“I know,” said Hilda. “I would like to be where he is as well. But it is not our place.”
No, Hilda would not think so. She rolled over on her side, making a warm tent of blankets between the two of them, and slept, while Svanhild imagined that the sound of the wind through the rafters of the hall was the sound of waves instead, that Hilda’s snores were a sailor’s, and that this solid bench swayed because it carried her somewhere far away.
13
Hakon’s great train of followers meandered down the slope toward the fjord. Horses pulled carts over rough ground where they frequently became stuck, making the animals balky. Ill-tempered thralls carried heavy loads down steep hills, and stopped to rest every hundred steps. If Ragnvald were at his full strength, it would be less than a day’s walk to the shore where Hakon left his ships, but now he was grateful for the slow pace.
Hakon’s ranks had been swelled by men from the ting, all hoping to win gold fighting at his side—farmers’ younger sons, newly freed slaves, men who to Ragnvald, his every step tinged by pain, seemed either too young or too old, untrained in all but the most rudimentary fighting techniques.
They spoke of meeting the legendary Harald at Yrjar, and fighting for him as well. Ragnvald wondered at that. He could not imagine a sixteen-year-old boy king, no older than Svanhild, as anything but a figurehead. Hakon was a true king, grown mighty in wisdom, riches, and land. Ragnvald was content to follow him, lucky that Hakon had chosen him.
Their path overlooked the river Moen, whose waters passed the ting grounds, and which now plummeted over boulders, flying into the air and catching the sunlight. Wildflowers dotted the banks. The sound of rushing water and the wind flowing down the mountains was louder than the clanking and grumbling of Hakon’s train.
“How do you fare?” Oddi asked, coming up alongside Ragnvald, who resisted the urge to answer curtly. He had been grateful to spend a day without anyone’s solicitude, but he supposed this was better than being ignored.
“Well enough,” he said.
“Heming’s badgering Father for a fleet to sail against Solvi. Now, rather than in a year as we planned.”
“I’d go with him,” said Ragnvald, smiling wolfishly.
“Of course Father won’t do it—he’s still wroth with Heming over the duel.”
“Why did he do it?” Ragnvald asked.
“There was no insult, I’ll tell you that much,” said Oddi. “Heming is spoiled and jealous and—hello, brother.”