Then he remembered the men who had blocked Egil’s way. More than Solvi were involved in this. Yesterday he would have vouched that these warriors would risk their lives to save his, as he would for theirs, but if Solvi could not be trusted, how could he know about the others? He let the current carry him past the ship, and did not cry out.
The cold shuddered his limbs. His teeth chattered together. Any anger at Solvi seemed far away, lost in the water along with Ragnvald’s warmth. The cold took him away from himself. He tongued his cheek, the one that Solvi had cut, and tasted the iron saltiness of blood, mixed with the brackish water in the fjord. Solvi had cut clean through the flesh in places, although Ragnvald’s mouth was still whole. He thanked the gods for that small mercy.
He had seen a wound like that, cheek and mouth opened by a monk’s ax, fester and rot until the warrior’s face was half gone and he was screaming from the pain and fever dreams. Ragnvald would seek Solvi out and let Solvi kill him outright before succumbing to that fate. At least then he would find Valhalla in death, rather than one of the cold, stinking hells of fallen cowards.
The sun fell fast below the line of cliffs, and the air on his face, which had seemed warm against the cold of the water, grew chilly. His limbs were heavy and numb now, his body passing quickly through cold to the empty doorway that waited beyond. He could slip easily here into death, and none would know where his body lay. It would be almost as shameful a death as that from fever. He could have fought back on the ship, but instead he had taken the craven way, and played dead rather than face that uneven contest. His stepfather, Olaf, had been right; Ragnvald was not ready to stand among warriors, and now he never would be.
His wool tunic weighed him down, dragging him deeper under the water. He tried to swim toward the shore, but the current in the middle of the fjord flowed swift and strong and resisted the movements of his arms. Something tugged on his ankle, the cold and grasping fingers of Ran, goddess of sea and shipwreck, pulling him down to her chilly feasting hall.
It would not be a terrible death, it seemed, perhaps better than lying forever alone, a cold body in a barrow, for Ran’s hall was filled with sailors and fishermen. He saw them, raising horns of seawater slowly in a silent toast. Every sunken ship sacrificed its treasure to the sea goddess, and her warriors ranged far and wide to retrieve it. Beams of light reflected from the gold that adorned her hall, filtering up to where Ragnvald floated.
He looked in wonder at the shifting shapes below, forms of dark and light. Nets of gold decorated the high ceiling of the hall. A sea maiden took Ragnvald’s arm and guided him into that cold feast. Is this my place? he asked. Will I eat fish every day? Will I drown sailors in my turn?
The gills on her neck fluttered. She bade Ragnvald sit at a bench in front of a long fire that gave no heat, and burned with a blue and green flame. He did not know how long he stayed there, among that silent host. The sea maidens brought food and drink, but all tasted of salt, all smelled of fish. And he was cold, so cold.
Then the great doors flew open, and in strode a great wolf, golden-furred and blue-eyed. Sparks flew from the ends of its fur. It stalked slowly down the length of the hall. Where it touched its muzzle, some men burned, but others grew burnished, losing the green cast of seawater. Ragnvald watched as it weaved between the men, wondering if it brought him ashy death or shining glory. When it came near Ragnvald, he saw that its fur was matted and dull in places. He reached out for its pelt, and where he touched became bright, shining like fresh forged metal. Its eyes were the blue of a summer sky, and its fur was so warm on Ragnvald’s hands that he hardly noticed the flames crawling up his fingers, his forearms, only warming him where, elsewhere in the hall, they had consumed flesh and wood. He reached forward, embracing the wolf. Its tongue of fire licked at his throat, filling his vision with blue flames. He could be destroyed here, he knew, in this wolf’s embrace, and yet he could not do other than meet this death.
This could not be a shameful death, here with this wolf sent by the gods. He wanted to give himself up to it, but something pulled at his ankle. Not the chilly fingers of Ran’s handmaidens now, for he was already in her domain. He thrashed against the pull, crying out in protest, as strong hands grasped him and drew him from the water.
2
A loud crack woke Svanhild from a sound sleep, and she sat bolt upright on her pallet. The same sound had roused her a month ago, when the raiders came. They arrived in the middle of the night, surrounding the hall, keeping silent until their attack, which began when one of their axes struck the barn door.
Under the eaves, a few pricks of light entered through chinks in the turf. Her stepmother, Vigdis—her stepfather’s favorite wife—still slept on the pallet next to her. Vigdis smiled in her sleep. She had much to smile about. She was still beautiful, and she was not subject to the many humiliations that Olaf visited on Svanhild’s mother, who he had married out of obligation to a dead friend.
Svanhild listened for the other sounds she had heard that night: the low voices of men, the cows fretting. She heard none of those now. She smelled smoke, not the sweet and terrifying scent of burning hay, but the tang of half-dried firewood that fed the kitchen fire. The sound had only been the servant, Luta, breaking kindling to build the fire from embers back to a blaze. Svanhild breathed deeply. Today would not bring death.
Beneath the smoke, the air smelled fresh, like sunshine and new growing things. Svanhild pulled her furs up around her face for one last moment of peace, before climbing off her sleeping bench and pulling on her shoes. She had a good spot, near the fire, with a mattress of feathers rather than rushes. A hanging curtain divided her and the other women from the gazes of men. Her stepfather, Olaf, had a chamber to himself, and whichever wife he chose to share it—usually Vigdis, although not tonight. The nearly thirty other residents of the farm, the enslaved thralls and free servants, and Olaf’s armsmen, slept on the long, deep benches that lined the hall, the same that were packed with the poorer farmers at the year-turning feasts. The morning would not be quiet for long.
In the kitchen, Svanhild’s mother Ascrida was already overseeing breakfast, nothing more today than oats boiled in milk and some dried cloudberries. Ascrida poked with a stick at the fire that a thrall had built, never satisfied with the work of any but herself.