“I pray that you make for Norway a king worth swearing to, but for now I am the strongest king in the north,” said Hakon. Harald bristled, and Hakon continued, “Be silent. I must swear my part, so the gods do not punish me.”
Hakon gave his version of the oath, listing his ancestors back also to Odin. He linked himself explicitly to Ragnvald by mentioning their common ancestor Sveidi, only five generations removed. Ragnvald knew where Sveidi’s burial mound was. Hakon was claiming him as kin. “I will be your lord, until you have done me a service, and I have helped you regain your land from your stepfather, at which time you will be released from your oath.”
Ragnvald looked up at him, surprised. He had expected Hakon to require, perhaps, a lifetime pledge not to raise arms against him.
Hakon shrugged. “It is not so fine a sword as to command your whole life, Ragnvald.” He smiled and made a sign with his fingers against ill luck. “Only the fates do that.”
Ragnvald bowed his head again and walked back to his seat, feeling dazed. Hakon called up other warriors to swear to him, a few more to swear individually, then the remaining men in a mass. Ragnvald drank the rest of his ale, which seemed to make him drunker than it usually did. Men he did not know congratulated him and brought him more to drink. A skald sang of his fight with the draugr, and Ragnvald slaked his thirst until he could no longer make out the words.
*
When his head had cleared somewhat the next morning, Ragnvald walked down to the ships beached on the broad plain to see if he could help. He was eager to be fighting and proving himself. Hakon’s chief pilot, Grim, was a small, taciturn man, with a face wrinkled leather-tough by a lifetime spent at sea. He did not seem to like anyone, least of all Ragnvald, who received a smack on his hands that stung smartly when he tried to help load the ship.
“Do you know where to put the casks of water so the ship won’t founder in high seas?” Grim asked, and then, before Ragnvald could do more than open his mouth to start a reply, grunted. “I thought not. Leave this work to the real seamen.”
There were plenty of other tasks for the waiting warriors. Ragnvald assisted Oddi and Dagvith in rolling up a second sail for each ship, in case the first one was ripped away. A mast could be replaced, but each sail contained enough fabric to make full sets of clothing for every man on board and was dyed in a checkered pattern of blue and white—Hakon’s colors. The wool was rough; it made his hands greasy and worked small, hard fibers into the soft parts of his fingers. Sail wool was unwashed, for the natural oils kept the rain from soaking in and weighing down the sheet until the spars broke.
Ragnvald remembered Svanhild’s hands after a winter spent spinning the rough fibers. His sword calluses softened over the long winter indoors, while her hands only grew rougher, chapped with cold and hard work. Ragnvald whispered a prayer to Ran the sea goddess, thanking her for the sail that kept them from having to row every long mile between here and wherever Hakon planned his attack, in hopes that she would let them return again safely, not cast her net over them. He asked also, if she was watching him, that she would watch over Svanhild as well, no matter how far she was from the sea.
Ragnvald mentioned Svanhild’s hands to Oddi as they went about their work. Oddi had enjoyed tales of Svanhild before, how often she got into trouble, and Ragnvald nursed hopes that Oddi might want to marry her when they returned.
“Did your household not have thralls to do that work?” Oddi asked.
“Svanhild spun so ill she was only allowed to spin sail wool,” said Ragnvald, laughing, then worried. A man wanted a wife who spun, and spun well. “In truth, I think she liked spinning she could do outside.”
“My mother made me learn to spin when I was small,” said Oddi. In poorer families, Ragnvald knew, without enough women thralls, everyone spent the winter spinning, not just the women. Ragnvald smiled, trying to imagine his stepbrother Sigurd with a spindle. He would fight with it more than Svanhild did.
“And were you skilled at it?” Ragnvald asked.
“There have been worse,” said Oddi. “But then she died and my father came to claim me. I suppose I would have sold onto a ship for Iceland if he had not, made myself a bondservant until I paid off my passage and grew into a man.”
Ragnvald grunted his acknowledgment. He had not realized Oddi had come from such a meager background. When they met, Oddi was a brash boy already, spoiled by his father and holding a sword, not a spindle. Ragnvald had pictured Oddi growing up underfoot at Hakon’s court, turning jaded and sardonic from all he observed there.
“I’m glad you did not,” said Ragnvald finally, when Oddi seemed to want more from him.
“I am not so sure sometimes,” said Oddi. “I am only a hanger-on in my father’s court. He will not make me an heir when he has so many trueborn sons.”
“Another man might kill his trueborn brothers and have himself acclaimed king,” Ragnvald said, jokingly, though in truth he wondered—if Oddi had more initiative, perhaps he would have risen higher.
“Alas, I am not the type for brother-murder,” said Oddi. “Either doing murder or suffering it.” And so he had chosen to try to slip by under their notice, showing neither ambition nor favoritism.
“I hope it works,” said Ragnvald. “I will take your part, if it comes to that.”
“My parts?” said Oddi. He grabbed his pants, between his legs. “My parts are my own—it’s not you I want taking hold of them.” Ragnvald laughed with him, but resolved to keep a closer eye on Heming, and not just for himself.
*
Still, it took several days before ships and men were ready to depart. Hakon and Guthorm spent long hours in private conference, walking on the beach or sitting near a fire in the evening, talking in low voices, with guards protecting ten paces of privacy around them. Harald and Heming joined them from time to time, but each grew bored quickly and found more enjoyable pastimes, Harald training with the warriors, or alone with his new wife, and Heming betting on dogfights.
The meat of the disagreement was easily understood, no matter how much Hakon and Guthorm tried to keep their arguments quiet. Hakon wanted Harald’s help attacking Solvi and Hunthiof in Tafjord, especially after the intelligence from Smola that the rovers of Tafjord stuck close to home with their raiding this summer. Guthorm wanted Hakon’s help in subduing Hordaland to the south. Harald and Guthorm had put most of the area around Vestfold under their control, and Hordaland was the next step in their expansions. Tensions between their rules spilled out into fights between Harald’s and Hakon’s men.