She eased the door to the storeroom open and stepped out into the night. The gold of a false dawn shone on the horizon. Overhead stars winked. She shivered, pulled on her traveling coat, and over it, tied her dagger around her waist. She left her hair tucked into the collar and pulled her hat low over her head. She hoped no one would look at her too closely. Few women traveled alone for more than a day’s walk. Near Hrolf’s farm she would be known, and that might protect her, but not from being sent back.
She must make her way toward the ting grounds, and then hope that a path remained from there to Lustra Fjord. If she could not find a fishing boat to take her to Ragnvald at Yrjar, perhaps she could travel overland to the nearby market town of Kaupanger. There she could certainly find a boat, or news, something. She could sell her jewelry for silver coins to more easily buy passage.
The fields of Hrolf’s farm looked different at night. She had tried to remember landmarks on the way here from the ting grounds at Jostedal, as Ragnvald had trained her, even turning to see how they looked coming the other way. Features she remembered in daylight’s detail were now silhouettes, though, or lost in dark entirely.
She followed the marked path downhill away from Hrolf’s farm before turning at a lopsided cairn to track across an open field. No one would know she had gone until morning. Hilda would not raise the alarm, Svanhild thought, not until she could keep it a secret no longer. And then, Svanhild did not know if Thorkell would pursue her.
She saw a cairn, but it was the wrong one, too many piled stones, traced over with orange lichen. Walking unfamiliar ground felt longer, she reminded herself. Behind her the gray of Hrolf’s hall was lost against the black silhouette of the mountains. The stone fences that separated Hrolf’s fields from his neighbors’ looked like crouching black creatures. Anything could hide in their shadows.
She should have come to the cairn by now, but she would not backtrack. She splashed through a creek she did not remember on her journey here. Had there been enough rain in the past week for water to flow where it had not before? Through her growing worry, she could not remember. A smattering of rain began to fall.
The path went through a dark grove, and Svanhild decided to wait there for morning. Panic was waiting for her, whatever direction she continued, the reasonless panic that would waste her energy, drive her in whatever direction she feared most. Panic killed, Ragnvald had told her; it used up energy and drove men into their enemy’s snares, or over cliffs in the dark. She sat down to rest.
Then a bolt of lightning struck, not twenty feet in front of her. She screamed and stumbled back, the image of an oak tree burned into her vision. Another strike sounded behind her. She started running, heedless of the branches that caught her feet and tore at her dress. She got caught in a thornbush once and wrenched herself free, tearing a long scratch along her arm. Her bundle of bread and clothes grew heavier.
She was cold, tired, and on the verge of tears. She needed to stop, or she would injure herself. It was Loki, men said, who addled their brains in the woods, turned them around so they could no longer tell north from south, even with the sun high in the sky.
She crawled under the shelter of a fallen log, tucking her sack into the driest ground and covering it with leaves. For a pillow she bundled her clothing under her head. She could rest here until the storm passed, and then continue to Kaupanger.
17
As the men finished their meal, Hakon stood and began to speak. It seemed like sorcery, the way his presence quieted all talking. Even Harald stopped his flirting with—no, that was not Asa Hakonsdatter any longer, but a brown-haired thrall with buoyant breasts that showed even through the rough homespun of her shift.
Hakon’s voice drew Ragnvald’s attention back. It was the blood of kings that gave him that power. Ragnvald wondered if that ability flowed in his own veins. It seemed that lately he only gained attention when he was getting himself into trouble, foolishly talking himself into attacking a draugr, or humiliating himself at the trials.
“Welcome to our new sword hands, our new raven-feeders,” said Hakon. “You must drink deeply tonight, that your swords will drink deeply of our enemies’ blood.” He went on in this vein, welcoming the men generally and then calling out a favored few, sons of wealthy farmers and jarls from South Maer. Ragnvald watched as the men stood to be acknowledged and toasted, trying to fix names to faces in his mind.
“And we are especially pleased that Ragnvald Eysteinsson has joined with us,” said Hakon finally. “Ragnvald, come and swear, and then you will all swear.”
Ragnvald stood.
“Give me your sword,” said Hakon when Ragnvald approached him. Ragnvald felt the crowd’s eyes on him, heating the side of his face. He drew his sword half out of its sheath and extended the hilt toward Hakon, who drew it the rest of the way.
“I make my ancestry known,” said Ragnvald, then listed father, grandfather, great-grandfather, condensing generations, naming only famous forebears, until he came to Fornjot the giant, almost fifty generations back, and before that, Odin himself.
“I endured . . .” Ragnvald’s lips curved sardonically. In this part of the oath he should list his heroic accomplishments, the things that would induce Hakon to want to take him on as a carl, a sworn man in his war band. “I endured Solvi and my stepfather’s attempt to murder me.” And his own foolish behavior at the trial. He kept his eyes fixed on the hilt of the sword held in his and Hakon’s hands. “I hope I will win greater battles than that in your service.”
Hakon let go of the sword. “Ragnvald is overmodest,” he said to the crowd, and then, in an aside to Ragnvald, “It does him no credit.”
Ragnvald’s already heated face grew even hotter. He had not thought that by refusing to name his deeds, he insulted his host, his king, who had singled him out. Hakon continued, “All of you, bid him tell you of the draugr he slayed, just two days past. Or better yet, skald”—he gestured at the man who had accompanied them from the ting assembly—“teach your fellows Ragnvald’s song. Let it be sung near and far, so all men know his name, and the name of his king.” He turned back to Ragnvald. “Now take this sword.” He handed it back to Ragnvald with two hands, and Ragnvald took it the same way.
“I accept this sword,” Ragnvald continued, “and the lord who gives it to me. Until the end of my days or you release me from my oath, my death will stand between you and danger. If you fall, I will avenge you.”
He glanced at Harald, who watched him in return, an unreadable expression on his face.
“Should some of these men not swear to us?” Harald asked his uncle, not troubling to keep his voice low. “I want Norway’s heroes sworn to me.” Ragnvald cast his eyes down, worried others would see how much he enjoyed hearing himself so described, though he did not think much of Harald’s rudeness.
“Hush,” said Guthorm. “When Hakon swears allegiance to you, then all these men will be yours as well.”