Ulfarr plucked at her dress once more. Solvi gave him a warning glance, and Ulfarr pulled his hands back. He was the last to go, following the other men out and shutting the door behind him.
Svanhild took a deep breath. They were alone. Solvi had never tried to harm her. She crossed her arms over her chest. Her flesh wanted to shiver, though the room was warm. Solvi put his hand on her shoulder, hot through the thin flax of her shift. She still stiffened and stared forward at his chin rather than tilting her head the scant degree needed to look up at him. His shortness was oddly comforting—she had always been surrounded by men and women taller than her, who engulfed her when they tried to embrace her. Solvi was her size.
“Do you think you will grow to hate me less?” Solvi asked, that hard, dangerous grin on his face. It chilled Svanhild’s blood.
“I don’t—”
“Don’t lie to me,” he said, the grin disappearing, leaving him even more fearsome. Then he sighed. “This day has been hard for you. We can wait until tomorrow.”
Svanhild frowned. She did not want kindness from him, nor did she want his confusing changeability. She felt numb.
“If you do not tonight, I will dread it all day tomorrow,” she said dully. She turned her eyes away from the pinch of pain on his face. Tomorrow she might be more aware, less drunk from the feast. Perhaps more calm as well, though. Perhaps her hands would not shake then. She combed her fingers through her hair. It was still wet from the river and must now be hanging in unattractive strings. Its touch chilled her skin, and she could not hide her shivering now.
“You are cold,” said Solvi. “Come to bed.”
Svanhild turned away from him, stepped out of her overdress where it pooled around her feet, and hung it on one of the pegs. “What side of the bed do you prefer?” she asked. “It is your bed.”
“It is yours too.”
“What of Geirny?”
“I do not wish to speak of her tonight. Now get under the blankets and stop your shivering.”
It was the most luxurious bed that Svanhild had ever lain in. The mattress was of eiderdown, thick and soft, like sinking into a cloud. She closed her eyes to enjoy it more fully, but opened them again when she felt Solvi’s eyes on her.
“What?” she asked.
Solvi did not answer. He took off his belt and jewelry, the arm and neck bands that marked him a king’s son, the finger rings won viking. He did not remove his hose or tunic, but climbed under the covers with her and put his arms around her.
He touched his fingers to her cheek. She gritted her teeth. He ran his hand along the side of her face and tipped it up so she had to look into his eyes. “Svanhild,” he said. “I have loved you since the ting.”
She looked away. If Solvi had been all brute, that she could have borne, but this tenderness made her feel ashamed. He tilted his head down to kiss her, though he did not have far to go. She kept still under his kiss. It was not unpleasant, only strange. She did not belong to her body now; it was someone else’s Solvi was touching.
“Ah, you do not hate me,” said Solvi when he pulled away, mistaking her immobility for acceptance.
Svanhild had promised herself she would find privacy first, but her tears would not wait. Her drunkenness gave her no relief now, only a lack of control. “I should have had a wedding, with my mother to dress me and my people to toast me, not this . . . perversion.”
“We can visit them,” said Solvi. He let go of her arm and looked so downcast that for a moment Svanhild wanted to relent. “You do hate me. I had thought . . .”
“No,” said Svanhild. She was frightened of him, angry at him, and she clung to that anger. “I do not hate you.”
She lay, still as a doll, as he pushed her gown up her legs. “I would see you,” he said, “but perhaps you will find this easier with no light.” He snuffed the lamp with his fingers, scenting the room with smoke.
Faint illumination from outside shone in through faults in the hall’s chinking, making Solvi into a bulky silhouette above her. He ran a hand over her breast and then fumbled beneath her underdress until he pressed a hand between her thighs. She stifled a noise of surprise.
Tears pricked her eyes when he pushed a finger into her, and when he tried to find room for two, she cried out, “No. You’re hurting me.”
To her surprise, his hand withdrew. “I am told it hurts the first time,” he said.
“Not like that,” Svanhild insisted, with a sob, although she truly did not know; she only knew that if Solvi continued to touch her she did not know how she would bear it. If he touched her, she would lose her mind and become a helpless, screaming, crying thing.
Now his hands held her shoulders, gentle and firm. If he were not who he was, she might even find the touch comforting. His legs, still in their hose, rested against hers. She pulled away. “I do not want you to touch me,” she said, her voice rising to a shriek. “Not now, and not ever.”
He pulled away from her. “As you wish, my lady,” he said. He breathed steadily next to her, in a way that sounded full of effort. “A divorce is easy enough to acquire. And I suppose this saves face for me better than if you had declined to marry me at all.” His voice was so bitter that Svanhild wanted to comfort him. “It will take some time. If you stay until the next ting, we can declare it there.”
Svanhild turned away from him and continued to cry until her throat hurt and her eyes were swollen.
23
Harald had stayed up all night, and now stood, armored, waiting for his men to assemble. All moved softly, any loud voices quieted by gestures from commanders. Ragnvald had eventually slept even through his fear, pressed down by the weight of fever. His hand hurt less this morning, but his head felt worse, hot and strangely untethered to his body, as though it could float up, above the battlefield. He wrapped his hand tightly. He put on his leather armor and a helmet Hakon had given him after they took the hall. He must remain able to hold a sword, at least until Harald’s army had the upper hand. He wanted to look no further into the future than that.
He stuck close by Harald as they arranged the men in lines at the base of the hill, only an hour’s march from Eirik’s fort. It was as the scout described, bare on the lower half of its flank, below a scrub of trees that grew into a dense forest on its peak. The men with experience fighting in a shield wall took the fore. Ragnvald hoisted his shield in his left hand, and thought of bracing himself on the men next to him. Perhaps they would hold him up if he fell. His ax was on his back, his sword at one hip, and his dagger at the other.
Harald pulled Ragnvald close to him. “We’re following your plan,” he said. “It is a good one.” Ragnvald thought he might like Harald better now, if only because he saw Ragnvald’s value. Or because it no longer mattered. Here was where Ragnvald would die, when his hand gave out, or when he gave way with Harald, and the battle turned.
“Then can I be in the center?” Ragnvald asked.