Winter's Fire: (The Rise of Sigurd 2) Read online

  The king frowned and Queen Kadlin leant forward, fixing Herkja with eyes like rivet heads in the fire-licked dark.

  ‘This Sigurd is a savage,’ she said. ‘He could have had power and wealth. Instead he insults us all.’

  I wonder what power. I wonder whose wealth, Hrani thought but did not say, for whilst being jarl at Hinderå he was now jarl at Skudeneshavn too, where Sigurd’s father had been jarl. He would like to know what the king had been prepared to offer Sigurd in return for his fealty, though he knew he would get no answer about that now. Besides which, Sigurd had made it all moot by putting his blade through this Freystein and sending Harald’s torc back to the king round his messenger’s neck.

  ‘He may be a savage, my lady,’ Herkja said, ‘but I almost pity him for having made enemies of our husbands. He must feel like the woodlouse that finds itself on the end of the log in the middle of the hearth with flame all around.’

  Queen Kadlin laughed at that. ‘My girl, you have the imagination of a skald,’ she said, ‘but your stomach is too weak if you pity such a man.’ Now her face had all the charm of a granite cliff. ‘Sigurd and any fools who follow him will die. They will die and be denied the Allfather’s mead.’ She held Herkja’s gaze an uncomfortable moment, then forced a smile, wafting away her talk of death with a pale hand. ‘Come now. Sit by me,’ she said, beckoning Herkja and patting the bench beside her. ‘Let us leave the men to discuss how they are going to pay the savage what they owe him. I would hear about your life at Hinderå and how you find raising that boy.’ She leant in close. ‘They say his mother was a thrall?’ she said in the voice of someone whispering to be heard.

  Herkja planted a kiss on Hrani’s cheek, then dutifully climbed out from the bench to do as her queen bid and talk about the son she had inherited. Not that Hrani cared what they talked about, but the sooner his new wife had her own boy growing in her belly the better. He pointed to his cup so that one of the pretty thralls would come over and fill it with warm mead. He was comfortable, his stomach was full and he had even put behind him that business about the king killing Estrith Left-Handed. Almost. And now his night was going to get even better. Because they were going to talk of killing their common enemy, a man Hrani hated to the very marrow in his bones.

  ‘Did you get the name of their leader?’ Fionn asked, warming his hands over the fire. Clenching and unclenching his fists to help the heat get into them. The man had done well to get a fire going at all, what with all that snow and ice. But Fionn supposed it was either that or die out there like a lame beast, for the only dwelling Fionn had seen since yesterday was five rôsts to the north and it was already too dark to make that sort of distance and seek hospitality which might or might not be forthcoming.

  ‘No,’ the man said. ‘He was young though. Well, younger than me.’

  The pine branches crackled and spluttered but there was enough flame to warm their faces as the two of them crouched over the fire. And yet it was the smoke, not the flame, which had led Fionn inland, over a hill and across a valley, straight to the man as surely as if he could see him through trees, rock, earth and the blackness of night. It was the smoke which had killed the man, even if he did not know it yet.

  ‘Was there a one-armed man with them? A big wolf-jointed bastard.’

  The man shook his head. He was shivering. Looked as if he hadn’t eaten for days. ‘There was a red-bearded giant. Had a long axe. Of course.’

  Fionn had known already that it was Haraldarson’s crew who had got the better of this man’s raiding band, but it was good to have it confirmed. ‘And you were the only one to escape?’ he asked.

  The man turned to look at him now, his eyes narrow, reflecting the flame glow. ‘What’s it to you? Why the questions?’

  Tethered in the trees nearby, one of Fionn’s two ponies nickered and snorted.

  ‘I’m looking for the men who killed your friends,’ Fionn said. No harm in telling this man that. No harm in telling him anything.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I’m going to kill the young golden-haired man who made you shit yourself and run away. Made you abandon your friends when they needed you.’

  The man stood then, clutching the hilt of his sword and glaring at Fionn as the pine branches hissed and spat.

  ‘Peace, friend,’ Fionn said, raising a hand to show he meant no harm. Smiling even. ‘I’m thankful for the fire. Your friends stayed and made a fight of it and look where it got them. You were wise to run.’

  The man frowned, not liking that much either, but he huffed into his hands and crouched by the fire again so that it lit the side of his gaunt, shadow-pooled face.

  ‘So where was this farm you mentioned?’ Fionn asked. He picked up the nestbaggin from where he had left it on a bed of pine branches to keep it off the snow, then opened it and took out a dead hare which he had snared that morning.

  The man jutted his chin towards the south. ‘Two days’ walk. Got a decent fence around it. Did have a gate but we broke it in.’ He was eyeing the hare with round, greedy eyes. ‘I doubt the farmer will be able to tell you much. They were just there to steal his food, same as us.’

  ‘They might still be there, enjoying the hearth and a roof over their heads. All the meat they could want, a little crew like that,’ Fionn said. ‘And even if they didn’t stay long, tracks will lead off from there. I’ll find them.’ Tracks in the snow perhaps, but other tracks too. A word spoken here. A name mentioned. Signs which a man could follow if he knew his business. He laid the hare on the snow beside the fire. Its dead eye glinted in the flamelight. It was a slow business, this tracking his prey through the snow, and at some point it was likely he would have to take ship again or fall too far behind. But he had still been at Avaldsnes when the news had been brought to the king that his ship Wave-Thunder and her skipper Bjalki had run into Haraldarson and his ship Reinen off the coast of Åkra in the open sea. Sigurd had smashed Bjalki’s oars and fled into the south leaving Wave-Thunder all but crippled, like a bird with a broken wing, and her benches strewn with dead and dying men. King Gorm had raged and thundered and Fionn had set off southward, buying passage here and there to cross the water, asking questions. Threading together sightings of Reinen by fishermen and coast-dwellers and the whispers of the mackerel in the sea.

  Gods knew what would become of Bjalki, though in fairness he had at least tried to fight.

  And yet Sigurd might be even now sitting by some farmer’s hearth, his ship hidden in some island cove while her crew warmed their bones.

  ‘You going to skin that and get it cooked or not?’ the man asked, nodding at the hare.

  Fionn drew his knife and looked along its edge which reflected the fire’s glow, then tested its sharpness against his thumbnail.

  Haraldarson and his crew were ahead of him but they would need to come ashore often, to hunt or raid and to cook their food. It was only a matter of time before Fionn caught up with them, and he did not mind the wait, for he was a patient man.

  ‘Not much meat on it,’ he said. ‘Even the hares can’t find much to eat with all this snow.’

  The man looked down at the hare. ‘I’ll take whatever you can spare,’ he said. Then he shrugged and shivered. ‘I have shared my fire with you,’ he reminded Fionn.

  Fionn nodded. ‘We will need a good green stick for a spit,’ he said, standing and moving towards the trees.

  ‘We should eat one of your horses,’ the man said. He began to say something else but it came out as a gurgle because his throat was cut, the rent of it spraying blood across the snow and into the fire where it sizzled.

  When the man’s legs had stopped shaking and his heart had stopped beating, Fionn laid him on his back in the snow, then cleaned his knife on the man’s tunic. Then he went to fetch his hand axe from the horse and cut himself a stick from a pine branch. Nice and straight, it was, and green enough not to burn, if he was careful.

  Then he came back and sat down again beside the fire, and began to skin t
he hare.

  ‘There may be a place,’ Valgerd said. She had come to stand beside Sigurd at the prow and she kept her voice low so that the others would not hear. ‘Somewhere Runa can stay where she will be safe until this blood feud runs dry.’

  ‘Olaf told you?’ Sigurd said. He did not like the idea of them talking about Runa and what to do about her behind his back.

  ‘And he’s right. A shieldwall is no place for the girl,’ she said. ‘We cannot protect her when we are so few. And you will end up making the wrong decision in a fight because you are thinking about what might happen to her.’

  Sigurd thought about this for a while, though he needn’t have. He knew what she said was true. Still, he didn’t have to like it.

  ‘Where?’ he asked.

  ‘There is an island. Fugløy,’ the shieldmaiden said, which did not help Sigurd much for only the gods could say how many islands shared that name. He knew of three Bird Islands within a day’s sailing from Skudeneshavn! ‘It’s a sacred place,’ Valgerd went on, ‘an island upon which men are forbidden to live for it is the home of the Maidens of Freyja.’

  Sigurd gave a slight shake of his head to show that he had never heard of these women.

  ‘Freyja the daughter of Njörd and Skadi was born in Vanheim,’ Valgerd said and this time Sigurd nodded. He recalled the stories of the Vanir, those gods associated with fertility and magic, and their long ago war against the Æsir. ‘When Freyja reached Asgard the gods were so impressed by her beauty and grace that they gave her Sessrymnir, a hall so vast that she could accommodate as many guests as she wanted.’

  Valgerd reached out to trace a finger over the intricate carving which ran up the stem post, her lips bowed in a sad smile so that it seemed to Sigurd her thoughts were caught up in the person who had told her this story rather than in the story itself. ‘But for all her beauty Freyja was not satisfied to sit in her hall like some soft, pleasure-loving queen,’ she said, ‘which is why she often leads the Valkyries down to the battlefields, choosing and claiming one half of the heroes slain.’

  ‘As much as half the slain?’ Sigurd said, struck by a sudden fear. What if in death he was claimed not by Óðin but by Freyja? If he were taken to this hall Sessrymnir he would never drink with his brothers and father again, for they were surely in Valhöll, Óðin being the god of jarls. Another reason for me to die wearing the jarl’s torc, he thought.

  ‘I am just telling it as it was told to me,’ Valgerd said, looking at him.

  ‘So Freyja the golden-haired and blue-eyed is no stranger to the sword-song. What has this to do with Runa?’ he asked, though he knew what they were coming round to.

  ‘The Freyja Maidens devote their lives wholly to the goddess,’ Valgerd said. ‘They live on Fugløy and take no husbands. They spend their days training for war.’

  ‘What war?’ Sigurd asked.

  Valgerd looked out across the water and shrugged. ‘The end of days,’ she said.

  ‘Ragnarök,’ Sigurd said, the word itself heavy as a stone anchor.

  ‘They will fight at Freyja’s side in the last battle,’ the shield-maiden said. It was hard to tell whether Valgerd admired these women or thought them fools. For as a shieldmaiden she had given her life to the gods in a way, protecting the völva and the sacred spring at which folk made their offerings. And yet since the witch had died, and taken a long and miserable time doing it, so Valgerd had said, the shieldmaiden had seemed to have nothing but scorn for the gods.

  A herring gull shrieked in the wan sky above them and Sigurd watched it wheel away into the west.

  ‘You want me to take Runa to this Fugløy,’ Sigurd said. An icy wind thrummed the lines and whistled through the blocks. It ruffled beards and made eyes water.

  ‘The maidens may take her in,’ Valgerd said.

  ‘How do you know all this? I thought you lived in a waterfall with the spirits and your völva down at the arse end of the Lysefjord.’

  ‘My mother told me of the maidens when I was a little girl,’ she said.

  Sigurd’s thoughts were buzzing like the shrouds with the gusts in them. Runa must stay with me and I must stay with her, he told himself.

  ‘Why would they take her?’ he said.

  ‘Because you will pay them well,’ Valgerd said, watching the sleeping, snow-covered land slide by. ‘And because my mother’s mother lived amongst them.’

  Sigurd turned to her but she kept her eyes fixed to the skeletal birch and the snow-laden pines and the cold rocks of the shoreline.

  ‘She was a Freyja Maiden for many years.’

  ‘You said they could not take a husband,’ Sigurd said.

  Valgerd’s lips pursed into what was almost a proper smile. ‘Some do,’ she said. ‘If the prophetess deems the man a worthy match. If he is a strong jarl or a powerful king.’ One of her eyebrows arched like Bifröst. ‘Or sometimes a warrior of reputation can earn himself one of the Freyja Maidens as a wife, as happened in my grandmother’s case. For the issue of such a match may be gods-favoured and will surely fight beside the Æsir and the Vanir at the twilight of the world.’ She pointed to the shore and Sigurd looked up just in time to see an otter slip from the smooth rock into the water. ‘Away from the Freyja Maidens Ingun brought my mother up as a warrior. That was always to be her wyrd with the parents she had.’

  ‘And your mother was a guardian of the spring before you,’ Sigurd said, looking at her fierce beauty but seeing beyond it.

  She nodded, then turned to look at Runa who sat on a sea chest on the steerboard side before the sail, which had enough wind in it to save the oars getting wet. The girl was looking out to sea, her face still swathed in bandages and her eyes still full of shame. She blamed herself for the injury, which to Sigurd was worse than her blaming him.

  ‘I should have had my shield up,’ she had told him.

  ‘I should have caught the arrow with my own shield instead of letting it hit my helmet,’ he had said. But Runa believed she had let them all down through her own carelessness. And worse, she worried that the others thought she brought the crew bad luck, for in every other sense the raid had gone as smoothly as could be.

  ‘You think she would be safe with these corpse-maidens?’ Sigurd said, for what were these island women if not Valkyries in training? And Valkyries were not necessarily to be trusted, he knew. It was said they shared some powers with the Norns and could not only prophesy the outcome of a battle but sometimes weave a victory or a defeat with their own hands. They possessed the art of the war-fetter, too, and could bind a warrior with terror or release him from those same bonds.

  ‘Safer than she’d be with us,’ Valgerd said, which was not quite the same thing in Sigurd’s mind. ‘The Freyja Maidens are not sworn to any king,’ Valgerd said. ‘Nor do they pay tribute to any man.’ She smiled at the saying of that. ‘In my grandmother’s day it was the opposite. The local jarls would make offerings at their temple. They’d even give them bairns sometimes, to be brought up as one of them, thinking it bought them the Goddess’s favour, in this life and the next.’

  ‘Where is this island?’ Sigurd asked.

  Valgerd shook her head. ‘Somewhere not far from Skíringssalr in Vestfold. That’s all I know.’

  Sigurd had heard of Skíringssalr. It meant shining hall, being named after the king’s hall on the hill behind it, though he did not know which king, only that Skíringssalr was a trading outpost which sailors had talked about over the years in his father’s hall. He did know that the Vestfold was under Danish control and had been for as long as anyone could remember. The royal estate there levied taxes from every trader who set up at the kaupang, the trading place, in summer to sell their wares.

  He and Valgerd both looked out over the sweep of the sheer strake, their hair whipping around their faces, breathing in the fresh sea air, letting it fill them. Letting it clean them. Not that sea or wind, rain or snow could scour away all stains, Sigurd thought. He had killed his friend Loker for Valgerd and that was
one such stain. And yet there were few people he would not kill for her, he realized now, knowing that he was getting the terms of the oath they had sworn to each other back to front. She had sworn on his sword to kill his enemies and in return he would reward her with silver as if he were her jarl. Ha! Try telling that to Loker! There are bears in the forests that have more jarl about them than I, he thought, turning into the wind to look at his half crew of outlaws and homeless men.

  ‘If Runa is agreeable we will seek out these Freyja Maidens and ask them to take her in,’ he said, drawing the words out of himself like an arrow from the flesh.

  ‘And if she is not?’ Valgerd said, that eyebrow cocked again.

  ‘Then we will do it anyway,’ he said, hating the thought. But he would not lose Runa. That was one death in which he would play no part. No matter what.

  Then he turned to make his way to Solmund, to ask the old skipper if he had ever sailed to Vestfold and knew where to find this Skíringssalr and the king who lived there.

  Fionn was enjoying the work. Having sat on his horse for the last two days it was good to get his body moving, get the blood flowing through his limbs again. He bent and lifted the split timber, knowing that the farmer would be surprised at how strong he was, then he held it in place against the new gate as the farmer hammered in the nails. There was little talking, just the rhythmic thump of the hammer on the iron heads, the sound chasing across the meadow and its white mantle, echoing back off the trunks of the trees where the woods began.

  Haraldarson was not here. That had been obvious, but the farmer had said Fionn looked in need of a proper meal and Fionn had offered to help the man repair his gate in return for a hot dinner and somewhere warm to sleep. The man used to have thralls, three of them, he said, but he had sold them after a poor harvest.

  ‘No trouble round here for eight or nine years, then I sell my thralls this summer past and get raided twice this winter. Twice on the same damned day,’ the farmer said through lips clenched on a nail.