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

  ‘Not far now,’ Storm-Elk’s skipper told her after a long day’s sailing, jumping down from the mast fish from where he had been looking out across the fjord and the many tree-covered islands scattered along the grey coastline. Runa nodded back at him and felt her stomach roll over itself at the prospect of coming to this island that would be her home for the gods knew how long.

  King Thorir’s messenger had returned to Skíringssalr three days ago with word from the Freyja Maidens.

  ‘Runa Haraldsdóttir is welcome. On our honour she will be safe with us until the king sends for her.’

  That had been good enough so far as Sigurd was concerned and the king had begun the preparations. Every full moon he sent a ship to the island with supplies, offerings really, to buy the goddess’s favour, such as smoked and salted meats, ale, barley and oats and other preserved foods. On occasion King Thorir also sent swords and spears, brynjur and helmets, along with the men who made them so that they might make alterations as necessary and help with any repairs that might be needed.

  It would not be full moon for another three nights but Sigurd would not leave Skíringssalr until he saw Runa in the king’s ship and the mooring ropes thrown into the thwarts, and so Thorir had agreed that Storm-Elk could set sail ahead of time. As generous as he was to the Freyja Maidens and the goddess herself, as a king Thorir was no doubt counting the cost of hosting Sigurd’s crew day after day. His mead supply would have to last through till late summer, and with the likes of Svein, Bram, Moldof and Bjarni going at it like dogs at a stream on a ball-sweating day, he was wise to want them gone.

  ‘You are my blood and my heart, sister,’ Sigurd had said, embracing her on the slippery wharf before she went aboard. There had been tears in his eyes and that had made Runa even more determined that she would not cry. ‘I will come back for you when it is safe.’

  ‘It will never be safe, brother,’ she had said.

  He had smiled at that. ‘No,’ he admitted, ‘but we will all be a little safer when our enemies are dead.’

  ‘And then I shall pity them in the Allfather’s hall,’ Runa said, ‘with our brothers waiting there for them.’

  Gently, he had kissed the scar on her face, then tucked some escaped strands of her hair back over her ear. ‘Do not leave me alone in this world, Sigurd,’ she said, and this was an order rather than a request. ‘I shall hate you if you do.’ That had been a heavy thing to say. A cruel thing. But she had wanted to hurt him a little then, as revenge for leaving her.

  ‘The gods want me to avenge our father,’ he said, which was not saying that he would die, but it wasn’t saying that he would not. But then how could he promise that he would not leave her alone? By refusing King Gorm’s offer of peace, Sigurd had raised his sail and set his course upon a red sea. A sea of blood.

  ‘Learn what you can. Stay safe. I will be back soon enough,’ he said.

  Bram came up grinning. ‘And if you meet a fierce beauty who wants to breed with a hero, then you tell her that Bram whom men call Bear will moor in her cove when we are done killing kings and jarls,’ he said, which was just the kind of boast to take the cold edge off the parting so that there were smiles and waves as Storm-Elk slipped out into the cold water of the Viksfjord and turned her bows away from the kaupang, her crew pulling the oars with unhurried strokes, as those on the wharf, but for Sigurd, Olaf and Svein, trudged back up the hill towards the king’s hall and its hearthfire.

  Winter’s grip at last was loosening. It was rare for the snow to sit so long on the coast as it had this winter. Even more so this far south, King Thorir had told them, clearly bored by it all and wanting to get outside again as all folk did. Now, clumps of snow were regularly falling from snow-laden pines or sliding from roofs when doors were slammed. The mantle lying like a fleece over the fields was glistening and wet-looking, ever a sign of the beginning of winter’s end.

  Runa longed for the spring, when the snow would have melted and only the mountaintops and north-facing hillsides would remain white. When spring flowers of every colour would rise, if only fleetingly, to cover the meadows like rewards from the gods for all living creatures which had survived the winter. But spring was also the time when jarls and kings hauled their boats from their nausts, stepped their masts, covered them in new pine resin, re-caulked them and fitted them with mended sails and new ropes and trimmed them with fresh paint above the water line: yellow, red and black. Men would resume blood feuds. They would go raiding and fight wars. For many new beards and many seasoned campaigners, this winter would have been their last.

  ‘Fly, brother,’ Runa whispered, looking south. ‘Fly far, my eagle. So that they cannot kill you.’

  And soon, with the sun in the west and Storm-Elk’s crew moaning about the prospect of a night spent out in the open, for unlike the blacksmiths Ibor and Ingel they were not permitted to set foot ashore, they came to the island which they called Kuntøy, but which the ship’s skipper had told her was called Fugløy. Out of the two names Runa preferred Bird Island, though it was not hard to imagine why the men had given it a coarser name. And there, lining the rocks like a palisade to deter invaders, stood the Freyja Maidens in their battle gear, painted shields across their chests, spears pointing at the leaden sky, on some the dull grey of mail showing beneath cloaks and pelts. Runa counted thirty of them as Storm-Elk came gently up to the rocks – for there was no jetty – and some of her crew hurled ropes to the women whilst others used their oars to fend off the shore. Indeed, there was no other sign of the island being inhabited, which was surely intentional, Runa thought, imagining those rocks covered with birds: gull, terns and oyster-catchers, whose spring song would proclaim the end of winter.

  Inland there were trees; birch and spruce and gorse, showing dark green where the snow had melted away. The spruce woods looked dark and inviting, the bare brown trunks promising shelter and firewood, and above them Runa thought there was perhaps a skein of smoke in the sky, but she had only noticed it because she had been looking for a sign that people lived in this place.

  ‘Let’s not linger,’ the skipper said, gesturing at his crew to hurry up and get hold of a sea chest which needed to go ashore. Full of silver it was, if the rumours were to be believed. A gift from King Thorir to the goddess herself.

  ‘Aye, this place puts the hairs up on the back of my neck,’ a grizzled man said, and although Runa was not afraid as such, nevertheless she could feel the seiðr of this island, a magic which hung in the still air, as insubstantial as sea mist and yet as undeniable as the rock itself and the sea nuzzling it.

  They laid a wide plank from the knörr’s side to the shore and those in the thwarts began unloading; the barrels and sacks of supplies, the weapons which were King Thorir’s gift to the Maidens, and that big sea chest which had the gangplank bending like a bow, so that if it really was full of silver then surely it would buy King Thorir and his queen a table in Freyja’s hall come their deaths.

  ‘Such a waste, all that lovely flesh. All those hungry holes,’ one man said, ogling the women who had laid down their arms so that they could haul on the ropes to keep the ship still.

  ‘You say that every time we come here,’ another man said, helping Runa up on to the gangplank.

  ‘Doesn’t make it any less true,’ the first man said, which no one could disagree with, and, her nestbaggin slung across her back, Runa thanked the skipper and walked across to the island, taking the hand of a striking red-headed woman who was there to help her.

  ‘Welcome, Runa Haraldsdóttir,’ the woman said. ‘I am Skuld Snorradóttir, whom the Freyja Maidens call High Mother.’ It was unusual but interesting to hear this woman name her mother rather than her father, and Runa wondered if Skuld’s mother had also been, or still was, a Freyja Maiden. That Skuld shared a name with one of the Norns, those spinners who weave one’s wyrd, was not lost on her either.

  ‘I am honoured to be here, High Mother, and grateful for your hospitality,’ Runa said, which drew a smile fro
m the tight line of the red-head’s lips. Then the woman, who wore her copper hair in two thick braids which hung over the iron rings of her brynja, turned and thanked Storm-Elk’s skipper and asked him to pay her compliments to good King Thorir whom Freyja the Giver watches over.

  ‘I’ll tell him, lady,’ the man said with a nod, as Ibor and Ingel went ashore and his men then pulled the gangplank back into the thwarts.

  ‘Give ’em one from me, you lucky shits,’ one of the men growled after the blacksmiths.

  ‘Ibor, you swine! If your sword snaps in the act, shout loud enough and I’ll swim back here like a bloody otter,’ another man said, though without conviction. But neither Ibor nor his son rose to the bait, Ibor hoisting a hand in farewell without looking back.

  Some of the Maidens were now hefting the barrels and sacks, while others threaded spears through the short sleeves of the four brynjur to carry them more easily between them. They had brought a handcart too and into this the blacksmiths hefted the sea chest, huffing and puffing about it until the cart was creaking with the weight.

  ‘Come, Runa,’ the High Mother said. For a moment Runa’s gaze lingered on those Spear Maidens who still lined the shore facing Storm-Elk as the rowers took to their benches to manoeuvre the knörr away from the rocks before setting the sail. ‘They will stay until they are sure that the king’s men have gone,’ Skuld explained. ‘You can imagine how tempting an island of women could be to them.’

  ‘As tempting as a dragon’s hoard, lady,’ Runa said with a knowing smile.

  ‘And yet harder to plunder,’ Skuld said. ‘Come, girl.’

  So Runa went.

  ‘While you are here among us you will live as we live,’ Skuld said, as Runa descended the ladder from the loft where she would be sleeping. It was a small space and would likely get smoky on those days that the fire didn’t draw well, but there was a bed with a straw-filled mattress and Runa was happy with the prospect of being somewhat apart from the other women, with only the mice and spiders and occasional roosting bird for company should she choose to retreat up that ladder.

  ‘You will train as we do, work as we do, honour the goddess as we do,’ Skuld went on, showing Runa around and letting the other Freyja Maidens get a good look at their young guest. Runa smiled at each face she saw, and the women greeted her with warm welcome as they took off their war gear, hanging sword belts and scramasaxes on pegs and shrugging off their brynjur. To look at them Runa was reminded of Valgerd, for like the shieldmaiden they were lean and well-muscled, broad of shoulder and fierce of eye.

  ‘Have you learnt any sword-craft? Done any spear and shield work?’ Skuld asked, taking Runa’s shoulder in a strong grip and appraising her from head to foot.

  ‘Yes, lady. My father was a great warrior, as were my brothers. I have trained with my brother Sigurd and even with a shieldmaiden.’

  ‘Truly?’ Skuld said, her eyes betraying surprise if not disbelief.

  ‘Her name is Valgerd and she has joined my brother’s hirðmen. She is a great warrior.’ Runa considered mentioning that Valgerd’s mother’s mother had been a Freyja Maiden herself, but she decided against it. Better to wait a while before offering up such information.

  ‘It is not often we hear of shieldmaidens, hey,’ Skuld said with a wry smile, ‘other than in fireside tales. But I believe you even if others would not.’ She lifted her hand so that her finger brushed against the scar on Runa’s cheek. ‘Even so, perhaps you could be faster with the shield?’ she said.

  The longhouse was one of three standing side by side in a clearing in the pine woods, the clearing itself in something of a hollow with rock walls surrounding it on three sides down which fresh water trickled, finding its way into a narrow stream which burbled to the sea. Runa was shown inside all three houses and it struck her how strange it was to hear no gruff voices, no men cursing or boasting, laughing or mocking and taunting each other. There were no men drinking themselves stupid, wrestling between the benches, petitioning the jarl, giving vent to their grievances, pursuing pretty girls, comparing scars and old wounds, telling tall stories of war and dangerous journeys to far-flung lands, of fights won and loves lost.

  In each house there were tables and benches at either end of the central hearth. Along the sides, between the roof support posts, were sleeping benches with mattresses and furs, whilst dozens of iron dishes filled with oil hung from the sloping roof, filling the place with flame and light and some sooty smoke which had blackened the roof timbers. The walls were almost entirely covered in tapestries depicting the goddess Freyja in all her guises: as the warrior riding in her cat-drawn chariot or upon her battle boar Hildisvíni, as a protector of the harvest in a field of golden rye, as a receiver of the slain in her hall Sessrymnir, as the lady of seiðr, war and death, and other forms with which Runa was as yet unfamiliar. But the tapestries which held Runa’s eye were depictions of Freyja as the goddess of fertility and lust. In these weavings she was naked and wanton. She was big-breasted and open-legged. In some she was depicted in the act itself, rutting with naked warriors, her head thrown back as the men entered her.

  ‘You like our work?’ Skuld asked her, and Runa felt her cheeks flush for she realized she had been staring like a dead fish at those wall-hangings.

  ‘They are like none I have seen before, lady,’ she said. And neither were they, in their imagery or in the skill of their needlework. Who knew if these women could fight, but they could weave like the Norns themselves.

  ‘We need our cattle for milk and our animals for food, and human victims to sacrifice are hard to come by here on our island,’ Skuld said, ‘so the Goddess does not receive many blood offerings from us. These tapestries are our offerings. When one of us dies, she is buried with one of her hangings, as well as with her weapons, as a gift to the Goddess and so that she knows here lies one who is pledged to her, who dreams of joining the Valkyries who choose the greatest warriors to fight beside the gods at the end of days.’

  ‘I would wager that Freyja’s hall is all the more beautiful for these gifts,’ Runa said.

  ‘And free of draughts by now,’ Skuld said, casting her gaze along the numerous hangings, implying that many of her sisters had gone to Sessrymnir over the years. None of it, neither the hangings nor the way the houses were lit nor the buildings themselves, was anything like as impressive as King Thorir’s mead hall. And yet these dwellings shared the same air of seiðr as Skíringssalr, a sense of the gods being close at hand, within earshot, watching these mortals but perhaps even on occasion moving amongst them, leaving a clue to their presence hanging in the flame-licked dark like a scent.

  The only other buildings were a store house for grain, a cattle byre, a smithy, a smokehouse, and a hut that housed the cesspit, the ends of the longhouses themselves being given over to the usual occupations of weaving, butter- and cheese-making, brewing and milling. Pigs and hens wandered the woods at will, the pigs rooting and the hens pecking for food amongst the mud and carpet of pine needles, and given there was little in the way of pasture to be seen, Runa supposed the cattle must be brought hay from one of the stores or else taken to feed elsewhere on the island, perhaps on the fringes where the grass grew tall in summer.

  ‘You will be safe here, Runa. Your brother has paid well, but know that we would have taken you in anyway, for the kings of Skíringssalr have long been friends of ours, none more so than Thorir.’

  Runa knew that Sigurd had sent the Maidens seven swords and two of the four brynjur, which amounted to a hoard worth as much as a sea chest stuffed with hacksilver: a sum which must have impressed Skuld, though she was too proud to show it. Having been plundered from Jarl Randver’s dead warriors, the brynjur would need to be altered, hundreds of their rings removed so that they would not drown their new owners, but that was one of the tasks for Ibor and Ingel, who would live on the island until Storm-Elk returned to collect them.

  There were forty Freyja Maidens, seven of whom were too old to train with sword and sh
ield these days and had been excused from coming down to the shore to meet Runa. The others were a mix of ages, but all looked strong and healthy, and Runa was eager to see them training for war. Even so, she could not help but wonder if they really had any steel in them, these Maidens, enough to face a real fight should they ever have to, yet alone the final battle at the twilight of the gods. It was one thing to hack at the trees, she thought, looking at an area in the woods where the pines had been sheathed in leather to use as targets for sword and spear practice, but it was quite another to face a shieldwall of spitting, growling, fearsome men who are worked up into the killing frenzy.

  Runa studied the High Mother’s strong but not unhandsome face. Perhaps I have seen more of battle and the red chaos than you have, she thought. But she said nothing, as they left the warm longhouse to pay a visit to the standing rune stone which the very first Freyja Maidens had put up many years before. She felt a gathering breeze and a mist of rain on her scarred cheek, even through the trees, and fancied she could hear Storm-Elk’s crew complaining about having to spend a damp night on some nearby island.

  ‘Does the wound trouble you, girl?’ the Freyja Maiden asked.

  Runa had not realized that she had been running her fingers over the raised scar, and she pulled her hand away. ‘No, High Mother,’ she lied, then shrugged. ‘I know it could have looked even worse had my brother or one of the others done the stitching rather than Valgerd.’ The shieldmaiden had been so very careful with the fine bone needle and horsehair thread, her skill worthy of the embroidered hangings of which these warrior women were so proud.