She stood up and smiled when Svanhild walked by. Svanhild ducked her head and smoothed down her hair. It fell past her waist unbound, fine as mohair, and, having slipped out of its braid overnight, now stuck up in a lump above her forehead.
“Here, let me, child.” Ascrida wiped her hands on her apron and tucked the errant strands behind Svanhild’s ears. Svanhild smiled back tentatively, glad her mother seemed happy this morning. Days came, more often than ever since Ragnvald left, when she retreated into herself, hardly speaking, her own hair poorly dressed and hanging, stringy and unwashed, out of her wimple. Svanhild never knew what brought on those spells, and even now she walked carefully. Even when her father lived, her mother had been watchful, always worried. As Svanhild grew older, and heard more stories of him, she understood that a careless man must have a careful wife. He had died when she was only five, and his friend Olaf had taken over his wife and his farm. But now that Ragnvald had reached the legal age of manhood, Svanhild’s fate was his to decide, not Olaf’s, and he said he would bring her home news of a husband to take her away from here.
At least the days were long enough now that Svanhild would not have to pass them inside, spinning unwashed wool for ships’ sails. Her fingers might grow less rough from finer work, but neither Vigdis nor Ascrida trusted her with the small stitches that garments required. Her tunics looked as if a peasant child had sewn them, Ascrida said; even Olaf’s servants could not go about dressed like that. Best to stick to the unending skeins of coarse sail wool. It must only be strong, not beautiful, and Svanhild had mastered that much.
“I have to see to the cows,” said Svanhild, scooping up a handful of berries from the soapstone pot where Ascrida had put them. The seeds cracked against her teeth, reminding her of the noise that woke her. The sea ice would be breaking up now, and Ragnvald would be coming home. They would need his sword if raiders came again.
More than that, Svanhild missed her brother. Five years separated them, but they had always been closer than Svanhild was to her stepbrother, Sigurd, only a year older than she. In those terrible days that formed her first memories, after Olaf brought the news that their father had been killed, after raiders had burned their first hall, her mother sat too numb and shaken to do anything. It was Ragnvald, only ten, who had comforted her. He took her out into the forest and showed her where the squirrels nested, in a burrow in the roots of a great oak. They sat and watched as the mother squirrel emerged with her tiny little ones.
“It is like the world tree that holds up all of creation,” Ragnvald told her. “The squirrels carry news from the serpent at the roots to the eagle in the treetops, where Odin sits. Squirrels are the message carriers of the forest. Watch for them. If you cannot see them, the message they carry is death, and you must hide.”
“If I can’t see them,” Svanhild replied, trying to jolly Ragnvald out of his seriousness, “how can they carry a message?” But that day’s advice and many others’ had served her well when she visited the forest to gather mushrooms, to trap small animals for their furs, keeping her safe from predators that walked on four legs and on two.
Svanhild walked through the hall to the cow byre at the north end. Now that Ragnvald was gone, and Svanhild was nearly grown, she spent more time with the cows than in the forest. She liked them, too, for they did not speak, did not argue or order her about. They made impatient noises when she opened the door. This time of year they were still recovering from the near starvation of winter and were always hungry.
As she led the cows out of the byre, Olaf’s foster son, Einar, left from the kitchen door. He walked impatiently, as fast as he could with his limp. She waved to him.
“Doesn’t your mother wish you inside?” asked Einar with a smile. He was not a comely man, not with that limp, but young, and hugely muscled from his work. He had a pleasant smile, slow and shy, all the more winning for how rarely he showed it. Every free man should know how to forge a sword, carve a shield, build a boat, set a trap, and defend himself with sword, dagger, and ax, but some men had more talent for the arts of heat and hammer than others. Einar was one of these. When the old smith died of the cough three winters ago, Einar, young though he was, took over iron-smithing for the farm.
Svanhild tossed her hair. “She may wish it.”
“What if raiders come?” Einar asked.
Svanhild shivered. “If raiders come, I shall send them to Thorkell’s,” she told Einar. Thorkell was Olaf’s cousin, a huge man who had been known to bodily throw cow thieves off his land. He had been hinting lately that he wanted Svanhild as a new wife for him, or his eldest son, when she grew old enough. “Perhaps they can destroy each other.”
He stepped in closer. “What if they came for you, fair maiden?”
Svanhild hesitated. Einar’s flirtation made her uncomfortable. Ragnvald had promised to find a strong, young warrior, a jarl’s son, she hoped, among Solvi’s men for her to marry. Their father had been jarl of Ardal and its surrounding farms. Her grandfather had been king of Sogn. She could aim higher than a lame smith, no matter how blue his eyes or broad his shoulders. Still, she liked Einar. He and Ragnvald had been as brothers growing up, for Einar was a good and friendly companion, even with his lameness.
If Ragnvald did not return at all, she would far rather be Einar’s bride than Thorkell’s. Thorkell had put three wives in the ground already, all having died while giving birth to his children. She did not know how much choice Olaf would give her. The law said her guardian might choose a husband for her, and the only power she had was to divorce him later. After a divorce, she would have no home, no more wealth than the dower Olaf gave her, and might find herself the cause of a feud between his and Thorkell’s families. If Olaf was cruel enough to try to marry her to someone she disliked, she hoped he would not want to risk that.
“They can have me,” said Svanhild, “for they would surely fight less than Vigdis and my mother.”
Einar would have nothing to say about that—Vigdis was his aunt, and Olaf his foster father these last seven years—but his lips quirked.
“Do you think Ragnvald is coming home soon?” Svanhild asked.