Edin's embrace (33 page)

One afternoon, as he stood looking at his new ship yet in its stocks, Sweyn came down to the shipyard. Thoryn didn't greet him. Sweyn spoke anyway. "Jarl, I ask you to relieve me of my oath I made to you once."

Thoryn still said nothing.

"I've decided to give up the salt life. I'm going to wed the widow Gunnhild and settle down to be a farmer." At the mention of the woman's name, Sweyn's eyes took on a warm carnal light. "What do you think?"

Thoryn answered slowly, "I think you aren't as daft as you've sometimes seemed."

"Aye, well, a man loses his good right arm and it looks to be the end. But the seasons go by, and there is no stopping them; they are wheels on a wagon, always rolling while there is a horse to draw them; they are trees that stretch toward the sky, fall, and rot. They mix with the soil, and new trees rise —and that's how it is."

Thoryn still didn't answer, and eventually Sweyn turned to go. At the foot of the path, he looked back. "I'll tell you something, Jarl, that I've never told another. The courage of your berserker was always but a blade's width away from being stark terror." He shrugged. "But that too is just how it is."

Thoryn's lips parted in surprise. Sweyn started to climb the path. Thoryn called, "One-arm!" Sweyn stopped and looked back at him. "For whatever its value in the world, go to your Gunnhild with Thoryn Kirkynsson's blessing." Sweyn nodded.

***

That evening, Edin came out from Juliana's cubicle, where the girl lay with her head wrapped and her arm splinted, looking pitifully abused, yet in reality full of chatter over which thrallman she was going to wed. Surprisingly, Laag the stable thrall, was at the top of her choices. More surprising, the man seemed willing enough, if a bit shy.

Edin took her place at the tables. Thoryn's highseat was empty, as it had often been lately. The meal began without him.

Suddenly the heavy oaken door was flung open, and Thoryn stepped down into the hall. The effect was like still water shattering, like the emergence of something that was half beast and half god. He strode to the center of the hall and, looking from face to face, said, "I have been lost in a spell of grief, but now I am back."

Somehow, between the time he'd left their chamber early this morning and this moment, he had settled into his old manner. Edin could hardly follow the change as he went on concisely. "We have lost one of our fleet. The
Blood Wing
is gone forever. It was only right that such a ship should carry our brother Rolf to Valholl. But that is in the past. There is the future to be considered now. With the two ships we have, I say we leave this sheltered valley at the roots of the great ice-caps. I say that in two days we set sail for
Miklagardur
"

A cheer went up.

A shiver ran down Edin's spine.

***

Edin watched the slow birth of the day trailing its mist. Even the tiniest twigs were spangled over with sparkling, shimmering diamonds of dew. Everyone from the steading was down at the shipyard. Thoryn had brought her with him to the lookout point. He'd positioned her in a proprietary way beside him, and she caught herself drawing closer, as though for safety. He noticed; his hand went around her back and found its natural place there.

Below them the
knorr
lay propped in her stocks. As they watched, Hauk, Jamsgar and Starkad put their shoulders to the tail of the dragon vessel and shoved.

The formidable monster budged. She budged again. And all at once she slithered into the fjord with a splash. She bobbed, seemed to flick her curving tail, then came around to face the strand with her beak. Starkad stood triumphant with her tether in his hand.

The loud gust of admiration rose to the cliff-top. Thoryn raised his hand in salute to his shipwright. He stood regally in his trousers, boots, and a brocade tunic with gold buttons.

Don't leave me!

Edin, looking up at him, felt the sheer strength of her yearning must be enough to gain its demand.

"What's her name?" she asked, and despite her will to remain calm, her voice had a quaver.

He looked down at her, and answered slowly, "She is the
Fair Hope.
"

For a moment Edin was more rapt with the changes she saw in him than with his words. He'd regained himself, and yet was different. Or was it that he seemed unafraid to be different? Then, abruptly, she realized what he'd said. "Why?" she whispered, thinking only of the gentle home she'd lost. "I would think you'd want a fierce name, something strong and invincible."

He smiled, a little sadly. "What could be fiercer or more invincible than hope? I have found that it is the only thing a man cannot conquer and his blade cannot kill and his fire cannot burn. There is always hope."

"And love?" she asked timorously.

His gaze wavered, then went out to the fjord. "I am not so sure about love."

Her whole being trembled, yet she knew that now was the time to speak. "I am sure. I ... I have not said it before, but ... I love you. I love you unto death, Thoryn Kirkynsson."

His arm around her tightened.

"I love you — " she had to catch her breath in order to go on —"too much to let you go away without me. I have decided ... I —I have decided to travel with you to
Miklagardur
"

For a heartbeat, the sun in the heaven seemed to stop. She expected an immediate, firm refusal, and feared even more a slow, considered, reasonable one.

He said, in as dreadfully a reasonable tone as could be, "You are a true shieldmaiden, as brave as any Norseman. You've had courage enough to challenge me again and again, a thing others tread softly about. You stood up to Ragnarr, and Sweyn and Soren Gudbrodsson. All
Vikingar
are to be feared. You stood between my rage and Starkad. You've faced slavery and fear, near-drowning and childbirth, and I who know you best cannot say you've grown one whit less bold. Indeed" —he shook his head a little —"just listen to what you're asking."

Her head was swimming. Was he saying no? It seemed a strange way to come up on it.

A mock-sorrowful look played about his lips. "Not one whit less bold, I'm afraid. So I doubt that a simple matter like a journey across the world should trouble you. If you will travel with me, then you won't find me trying to keep you back."

"Of course, there will be arguments from others." He nodded toward the Vikings still admiring the ship. "But I think I'll just step aside and let the man among them who would bar your way try his best. It will be an interesting thing to watch."

Gladness was dawning in her, and relief, and hope. She said, still not quite sure, "Where I go my son goes."

"The babe is the son of a Norseman. He will live a Norseman's life."

She couldn't believe this. "Who will run the steading?" she asked breathlessly.

"I think Sweyn Elendsson may do that —when I have a moment to ask him. I had best do that soon since we sail on the next dawn."

She went up on tiptoe and threw her arms around him. "I love you!" A brief kiss on his lips, then she was starting down the path.

"Where are you going?" he called after her.

"I have packing to do, Viking!"

***

That night, Thoryn tore her from her feverish preparations and firmly led her to their chamber. There he gave her a gift, a knife. From its sculptured pommel to the etchings in its blade, it was an extraordinary thing, wrought of tempered steel, bright with gold and silver and set with rubies as blood. When she gripped it in her hands, she felt an adventurous daring. She looked up from it, and her heart throbbed to see the expression on her husband's face.

"You will carry it? Though it be a Norse weapon?"

"I've nothing against weapons, my lord, only against the wanton desire to strike first with them."

He said thoughtfully, "You must still learn to swim."

"You can teach me along our way."

He took her into his arms. "Then let us sail to
Miklagardur
, Saxon. Let us fare out after gold, though mayhap we will give the eagles food, though mayhap we will die in Saracenland. Aye, let us always face the perils of the voyage together —but just now ... I would hear you say it again."

Her desire became fluid. She knew exactly what he wanted to hear: "I love you, Thoryn Kirkynsson."

He looked like a man unleashed. She almost felt the torrents of dammed feeling flowing from him, a lifetime of withheld emotion. "And I love you, Shieldmaiden, Song-singer, beloved" he whispered back, and repeated, and repeated. It seemed he couldn't stop whispering it. His eyes shone like Arabic silver. "I have things to say, things I meant to tell you when we were old."

"They won't wait?" she said with a secret smile.

"No." And his lips came down to her ear. She just made out the breath-soft words.

And what her Viking said to her, and what he promised . . . who needs to be told?

In trying to create an illuminated context through which a modern reader might understand the Norse experience, I have included in Edin's Embrace quotes and tales from the Icelandic sagas. Written long after the events they report, these have been for centuries a major documentary source for the history of the Vikings and their age. Snorri Sturluson is one saga writer whose name we know. Other collections were compiled anonymously. The roots of these sagas and mythological and heroic songs go deep into the pre-Norse world of Germanic legend and rank with the finest achievements of medieval literature.