Daughter of the Wind (18 page)

Hallgerd did understand, but was too thrilled and hopeful to do more than nod.

“Take the boat to sea,” said Syrpa, adding a few directions through the lanes, down to the moorings. “Not just now—a north wind is blowing. But when you hear the wind shift, make all haste.”

“You are a loyal friend,” said Hallgerd.

“You are a good-hearted woman, Jarl's Daughter,” said Syrpa, “and I mean you no harm, but Arnbjorg could lock you in a cage and I would do little more than pity you. Thrand convinced me to do this, and my heart is weak. I don't know why I heed the counsels of men, especially a well-made nobleman with gray eyes.”

“Syrpa, you've treated me well, and I am grateful.”

Syrpa looked away, as though stubbornly trying to deny her own kind nature. “We owe our peace to Gudmund,” she said, “but some of us have little love for his daughter. Besides, she played a dangerous sport when she captured you. The forced wedding would only be acceptable to Spjothof if your neighbors and family were largely unharmed.” The housekeeper spoke formally, but with warm feeling in her voice.

Syrpa turned back once before she left. She had something further to say, a final message. But whether it was blessing or warning, she said nothing more. Her footsteps padded across the timbers, and she was gone.

Thirty-seven

The north wind died, and the house was quiet.

Hallgerd left in the darkness. She felt exposed under the starry sky, certain that someone would spy her and call out.

She did not seek the byways down to the harbor—not just yet. She walked quickly, hidden in the homespun hood, the leather pouch of provisions on her back. Hallgerd made a mistake, turning into a broad street where two men were talking, laughing, rattling dice. Spearmen consulted with each other at the end of this lane, and down another a guard clambered heavily up the wooden stairs to the top of the wall, calling out a greeting to the watch he was relieving.

Freylief was restless on this summer night, every shadowy shape Hallgerd glimpsed sporting a shield and spear. A voice called out, “Thyri, do you have my jug?”

Hallgerd shrank into the shadowy angle of a building, praying that the guard had not seen her.

Alrek the berserker trudged forward along the lane. “Thyri,” he called again, using a feminine name common among the Norse. He came closer. He stopped in his tracks only a few strides from where Hallgerd stood, her form pressed against the hard pine timbers of the house.

“Thyri, I'm thirsty,” called the big man.

He came even closer, the leather of his boots creaking. With muffled chime he withdrew his sword.

Hallgerd could see him clearly now, the starlight gleaming off the bear claws around his neck and the long shadowy blade in his hand. She smelled the sweet waft of mead on his breath, and marveled at the town-broken nature of these people. Even a berserker was reduced to half-drunken guard duty here, no more menacing than a haystack. At the same time she well remembered the lessons every child in Spjothof learns, the violent sport of disarming an opponent. She would hurt him, if she had to, and take the sword from his hand—as Thor gave her strength.

Alrek knelt. He nearly toppled over as he probed a mouse hole across the lane with his blade. He sang a childhood ditty, one Hallgerd remembered from her childhood:
Wee friend come out, I mean no harm
.

“Put your sword in its sheath, Alrek,” said Hallgerd in her best version of a Danish accent. “Find some useful thing to do, instead of hunting mice.”

“Ah, so I will,” said Alrek, straightening with a start and doing as he was told. But peering around, too, even as he returned his weapon to its sheath.

Hallgerd brushed by him. She hurried off down the lane, from shadow to darker shadow, and she sensed Alrek's mead-heavy wonder. Whose authoritative voice was that? Some housekeeper, was the impression Hallgerd had sought to make—some woman of high character few men would happily debate.

“Ingigerd?” he called doubtfully from behind her, and then, trying out yet another name, called, “Gudrun?”

She walked with the deliberate gait of a townswoman as long as she could control herself, and then at last she ran. She shrank back into a dark lane, and followed another route. And, for a few moment, she lost her way, and had to double back.

Hallgerd nearly stumbled on a bucket of tallow outside the butcher's shop, even though it was exactly where she had expected it to be. She knelt and pressed her finger on the yielding, ivory pale fat. This was excellent tallow, the sort collected from the kidneys and livers of fatted livestock. She gathered up the bucket, the weight swinging easily in her grasp.

Hallgerd stole quickly into the smith's open shop. The metalworker's hearth was all but dead, the tongs and hammer hanging on hooks. She used a pair of tongs to probe the ashes, reaching deep, until she brought out a barely glowing ember. Hallgerd breathed on the faded coal, and it came to life.

She entered the new house once more, carrying her burdens easily. Hallgerd took the tallow and the coal into the storage room that had been her sanctuary. She eased the block of tallow out of its bucket. The pale fat kept the shape of its former container, and Hallgerd placed the flickering coal on top of the liquid. A flame started, blue and shivering.

That was all it took—a darting, transparent feather of fire, and a spill of tallow, trickling down to the floor, flames blossoming. The storage room began to fill with the tallow smoke, and the smell of burning pine.

Hallgerd crept down the face of the earthen embankment, on the marsh side of town. Syrpa's directions proved more than helpful. The boats there floated listlessly, tied to moorings that angled one way or another, the air ripe with the smell of decaying wood and brackish water, peat and fresh night wind. Already there was another smell, the scent of green timbers burning.

The boat she chose had a mast stretched out in the hull, and a pair of oars, white in the starlight. The vessel felt alive under her weight, but she groped about and could not find a seal spear, and certainly no fishhooks pricked her touch. She was in the wrong boat.

This was an unpleasant discovery. But before she could continue her search for another vessel, something about the small vessel's quickness under her weight, and its balance, reassured her.

The oars slipped in and out of the dark water. They were so noisy! A cry lifted through the starlight, half-alarm, half-question.

Hallgerd gave a wave, and the guard began to return the gesture—and hesitated. He called out a challenge, and she began to row in earnest as, over the peaked roofs of the town, flames burnished the sky.

The alarm was sounding, faster and more urgent than before.

Thirty-eight

Hego was thrilled.

Strider
sliced the sea swells. The black waves fell away behind them, and he and Gauk took turns at the steering oar. Hego laughed at the way the seabirds dodged out of their way. A sole gull flew alongside
Strider
, showing off the strength of its wings, but at last even this stalwart bird gradually lost the pace and fell behind. Hego gave a cry of delight, waving his sea-soaked cap in triumph at the retreating bird, and Gauk had to laugh, too, buoyed by Hego's high spirits.

The sailboat was what the folk of Spjothof called a stiff vessel—she remained well balanced no matter how hard the wind blew. Hego knew as much as any Spjotman about small craft. Many times he had rowed a ship's boat yelling and whooping, driving a whale onto shore where the beast could be harpooned and flensed.

“I didn't know
Strider
was so fast!” cried Hego.

“Odin guides us,” said Gauk in a matter-of-fact tone.

Hego had always trusted the divine powers to provide fair weather and strong ale, and he had never hesitated to lift a song in prayer or thanksgiving. But a god had never given him a message, or taken an essential role in the young man's life. Having heard Gauk's tale of the bear and the taunting pirates, Hego was awestruck.

“No man will be able to stand against us!” Hego exclaimed.

“I hope you're right,” said Gauk.

“I'll be your shipmate from the salt caves to the serpent's mouth,” said Hego. It was an old phrase, implying tireless loyalty.

Gauk gave a sad smile. “Snorri used to tell me that.”

Hego was impressed beyond words by the transformation that had come over Gauk. The young hunter's eyes had depth now, and his words had more weight than ever before. At the same time, Hego had heard enough about killing pirates. Hego sought a saga-worthy adventure, culminating in the rescue of Hallgerd. It would be as well if no lives were lost.

When the boat hit a ridge of submerged stone along the coast, Hego took to the oars, timing his effort to the arrival of a large wave. The craft rose high up the wall of water, soaring even higher, nearly dumping the two young seamen.

But then the prow fell forward, the craft slipped gracefully down the back of the wave, and they left the boiling surf behind.

Hego's heart quickened as they approached the shallow bay where the town of Akerri nestled, one of the southernmost moorings in Norway. Gauk had explained that they would find provisions here, for a price. Hego knew this town was famous for its bullies and its cheese, and the young man was a little apprehensive about visiting the place.

Akerri
was an old word that meant anchor. Gauk suggested that
Cutthroat
would be a more appropriate name, from what they'd heard.
Strider
found a place among a few shabby shore boats, and nosed up along the sandy shore beside the quiet water.

“I'll go into town myself,” insisted Hego. “I'll bring back a cheese as big as this.” He made a great circle with his arms. “You guard the boat.”

Gauk hesitated, his eyes alive with concern for his friend's safety. “I don't want to offend you, Hego. But be careful. These townsfolk are wicked sly—I've heard there's no end to their trickery.”

Before Hego could respond, a voice interrupted the two.

A burly guard carrying a long spear and wearing an embroidered wool tunic called out, “You two, in the boat.”

Hego gave what he hoped was a friendly smile—there was no use in antagonizing anyone unnecessarily.

“It costs you a toll, either cloth or fishhooks, to beach your keel here.” The guard had a square jaw, big yellow teeth, and hugely muscled arms and legs.

The spearman took a long look at Guak's bear pelt and Hego's ax before he added, more politely, “That's the custom here, if you'll forgive me.”

Gauk murmured, with a world-weary smile, “The trickery begins right here!” He gave Hego a handful of delicately carved bone craftwork, fishhooks and thread makers. All these objects were decorated with fine details only the skilled folk of Spjothof could produce, and represented a degree of portable wealth.

Hego knew better than to offer more than he had to, and paid only a deer bone needle, a choice piece of work, which the guard accepted with a grudging wrinkle of his nose.

“Call out for me, Hego,” said Gauk, “if there is the least danger.”

Cutthroat, thought Hego as he strode toward town. Wicked sly.

Surely the town's ill repute was exaggerated.

The path to the settlement was long, pocked with puddles, and lined on either side with windswept shrubs. A small creature, a field mouse or a vole, darted into its tunnel as Hego passed, and the young blade smith chuckled with a show of false ease, a manly sort of laugh that pleased his ear.

He tried it out again, a good laugh. Hego kept a carefree smile on his face, and strode along with studied confidence. He didn't blame the tiny creature for seeking shelter.

He reached the edge of the village.

One bald-headed man flung open the door of a longhouse and stepped into the sunlight. He put his hands in the pockets of his apron and eyed Hego as the young traveler approached.

“We have no cheese here, seaman,” said the man in response to the young traveler's request.

Hego was very hungry, especially now that he could smell the ferment of cream and the brewing of ale from the longhouses scattered around the village. Eyes peered from doorways, and Hego tried to look agreeable.

And he struggled to look confident. He carried Head-Splitter in his belt, the ax-head at his hip, and he put his hand on the sharp-edged weapon—casually, as though his hand naturally rested there.

The aproned villager added evenly, “The cows have just now been herded up to the meadow where they can feed on green grass.”

“They've been eating grain, and you've been milking them all winter,” said Hego, puzzling through what the villager was telling him.

“Old dried-up hay is what they've been digesting,” said the aproned man. “We've had snow on the high meadows until just this week. Ask anyone and they'll assure you Cow-Bjorn knows curds from water.”

Hego could not hide his disappointment. Furthermore, he suspected the man was lying. Surely the cattle had been able to graze long before now.

“They call me Cow-Bjorn for good reason,” said the man, whose face had the open, intelligent look of a trustworthy villager. “I know how to keep thunder from curdling cream. Believe me, sailing man—every wheel of cheese in this town has been eaten up by hungry women and children, many months ago.”

Hego gazed at the ground, dazed with disappointment.

Cow-Bjorn sighed regretfully. “I do wish I could help a traveler in need. Especially a young man from Spjothof, where the women weave that fine herringbone cloth, and the carvers are legendary.”

Hego took a handful of finely wrought bone fishhooks and beads from the inner pouch of his tunic.

“Good seaman,” said Cow-Bjorn, “you don't realize how costly nourishment can be.”

Thirty-nine

Hego's pouch was empty, but he carried a great cheese at the end of a stout stick.