Chapter 9 Freya
Though Harald’s thralls had rowed through the day and were no doubt exhausted, not one of them said a word when he ordered them to set up camp in a clearing surrounded by dense woods. After the tents were pitched and the fires crackled brightly, they lay down in rows and immediately fell to sleep, hoods still firmly in place. Though I’d spent time around Snorri’s thralls in Halsar, I found the behavior of these men to be strange and myself deeply uncomfortable around them for reasons beyond their enforced servitude. The leather hoods they wore concealed most of their faces and they never spoke, only obeyed Harald’s commands without question. They were dressed identically, so the only way to tell them apart was through their size and the myriad of tattoos on their arms. Not one of them carried a weapon but every time one of them stepped near me, I reached for my sword. Only to remember that it had been left behind in Skaland. Steinunn appeared equally uneasy around them, for she volunteered to cook rather than accepting Harald’s offer to wake a thrall to do the task.
Yet after examining the meal, I couldn’t help but wonder if waking one of the strange thralls would have been the better option.
“Do spice merchants not travel to Nordeland?” I muttered after one mouthful of the watery soup, which tasted like river mud and boiled rabbit. “Or is blandness a Nordelander preference?”
“Our supplies were lost,” Steinunn answered. “Eat it or starve, your choice.”
Dumping the soup back in the pot, I lit a branch to serve as a torch and started down to the riverbank. Bjorn followed and I glowered at him. “I don’t need an escort. I’m only foraging.”
“As will be many predators in the woods at this time,” he replied. “Predators foraging for spicy shield maidens. If you are eaten, I’ll have nothing for dinner but Steinunn’s disgusting soup, so I am invested in seeing you back to the fire in one piece.”
“What you should invest in is a bath.”
“I had one when I was dumped into the sea.”
“With soap.” I pulled up a thick pepperrot plant, then moved into the trees where I spotted some fine mushrooms. “There is not a soup good enough to give me an appetite with your stink wafting over the fire.”
Bjorn didn’t answer. Wondering if I’d pushed him too far with my insults, I paused in my mushroom foraging to look over my shoulder. But Bjorn’s face held no irritation, only concern.
“Are you well, Born-in-Fire?” he asked quietly.
I knew he didn’t mean my injury, yet I said, “It was not a deep cut.” My fingers moved swiftly to pluck up the small mushrooms so as to escape the conversation. “It has already scabbed.”
“I wasn’t speaking of the cut.” He hesitated. “I ask because you killed many men today.”
My stomach plummeted. The hollowness it left behind made me feel oddly short of breath. “As did you. Are you well, Bjorn? Or do you wish some privacy to weep over the Islunders you hacked apart on the beach and in the village?”
“I am not well.”
“I do not actually care.” I bit the insides of my cheeks until I tasted blood, hating how I reached for the nastiest possible thing to say only to regret the words the moment they passed my lips. “No one made me kill those men. I made the choice myself and I do not regret it. Now leave me be.”
Pine needles crunched beneath my shoes as I walked past him, but Bjorn caught hold of my wrist. His hand felt like fire against my cold skin and all the world fell away. I stared up into his eyes, the shadows of the torch dancing across his face as I waited for him to say whatever it was that had driven him to follow me. My mind suggested several ideas for what might be going on in his head, including that he might fall to his knees and beg my forgiveness. But Bjorn only gave a tight nod and let go of my wrist, the echoes of heat on my skin making me feel colder as I hurried back to camp.
The others had all dumped their soup back into the pot and watched me with interest as I washed and chopped the plants I’d foraged and allowed them to simmer until it was to my satisfaction. Spooning it into the bowls, I set to eating though I had no appetite.
“It’s good,” Steinunn said. “You’ve skill.”
I gave a noncommittal grunt. She’d said little on our journey, and if not for the fact that the skald had been the one to drug me as I tried to escape Harald, I might have thought her as much a prisoner as I was.
Yet as my eyes fell on her shoes, the leather dyed a brilliant red, I was reminded that she’d been Harald’s spy all along. When she’d sung the song of our journey through the tunnels beneath Fjalltindr, Steinunn had accidentally revealed that she’d indeed followed us rather than returning to Snorri’s camp, for the cup I’d knocked down the stairs had bounced past those very shoes. She’d negotiated her survival in the tunnels with the draug jarl by promising to compose a song about his fame, spied on Bjorn and me, and then conspired with Harald once she’d reached the top. It had been Steinunn, not Ylva, who’d tried to come into the hall only to be repelled by Ylva’s wards. It had been Steinunn who’d left the message of Snorri’s plans for Grindill carved in runic magic on the tree, shown to me by the specter.
And it had been Steinunn who’d passed word to Skade that I’d gone to see my mother, which meant it had been Steinunn who’d caused my mother’s death.
It was all I could do not to fall upon her and beat her bloody, but I forced myself to keep eating.
“Would you grace us with a song?” Harald asked the skald after we’d eaten. “A story about the gods?”
“Yes, my king.”
As Steinunn climbed to her feet, Bjorn gave a soft snort of annoyance. “I’m going for a bath.”
I glared at the fire, but my traitorous eyes followed him. Watched as he pulled off his tunic and the naked muscles of his back were illuminated, as well as the old burn scars. Guthrum’s tale had begun only after Saga had brought Bjorn to Nordeland, so the exact details of what had happened before were still unclear. I’d been led to believe it was Harald who had attacked Saga and kidnapped Bjorn, only to be told that Harald had saved them. Logically I should just ask for the truth and be done with it, but deep in my heart, I feared that his story would make all the lies he’d told reasonable and just. That I’d lose my grounds to be angry with him, and if I could not be angry, all that would be left was grief.
As though she played for a large group in a great hall, the skald removed her cloak and straightened her red dress. Though the curves of her full breasts strained against the bodice, I noted that her face had gained hollows, the skin beneath her eyes dark with exhaustion. She ran her fingers through her light brown ringlets, which spilled down to her waist and gleamed in the firelight. Steinunn picked up her small drum as Bjorn moved out of the fire’s illumination, and then clucked her tongue in irritation for the instrument was still wet from having been immersed in the sea.
Bjorn had surely known Steinunn was a spy and yet had done little to dissuade me from blaming Ylva for all my woes. So many lies. So many cursed lies, and I was such a naive fool who’d been played by everyone.
Steinunn began to sing, and I tensed, my eyes fixed on the crimson tattoo on her neck that pulsed with the beat of her heart. No part of me wanted her visions playing in my head. But the words were an old poem written about the death of Baldur by way of Loki’s trickery. How Hel had refused to release the most beautiful of gods from Helheim unless all the world wept for his loss. All had but one, the giantess Thokk, and in Helheim, Baldur had remained.
The song trailed away on the wind through the trees, and I lay down to sleep, rolling so that my back was to the fire. The moss beneath me was thick and soft, and every time I moved, it released an earthen scent. The fire crackled, the pine sap making loud pops, but I scarcely noticed. My focus was on the sounds of the others readying their bedrolls for rest. On the soft tread of Bjorn returning to the camp, though I refused to look at him.
Sleep, I ordered myself. You must rest.
But Steinunn’s song had filled my head with thoughts of Helheim and the souls I had sent there. For many, it would be no curse to go to Hel’s realm, but for a warrior, it was worse than death itself to be denied Valhalla.
The Islunders had deserved death. They’d raided an innocent village, killed many, and had intended to steal those children to make them into thralls. But it should be the gods who decided which realm their souls went to after death, not mine. Not in a split-second decision driven by desperation and fear. It was too great a power and the consequences of using it were far too high.
Never again, I promised myself.
Then a branch snapped.
I lifted my head to discover Steinunn creeping away from the fire. I’d vaguely heard her volunteer to take the first watch but instead of doing so, the skald disappeared into the forest. A quick survey of those around me revealed all were asleep, so I silently rose to my feet and followed.
It was the darkest sort of night, neither moon nor stars visible in the sky. To follow her would have been nearly impossible except that Steinunn carried a lamp. It allowed me to keep enough distance that she did not hear the errant crackle of needle and branch beneath my own shoes, and as a pair, we made our way farther into the woods.
What precise reason drove me to follow the skald, I didn’t know, but with each step, I silently repeated her lies. Her betrayals. The names of those I loved whom her actions had cost me. So by the time Steinunn stopped moving, my fists were balled tight and my anger seethed. I wouldn’t kill her. But by the gods, I fully intended to make her hurt for what she’d done.
As I readied myself to give the skald a pummeling she would not soon forget, my eyes picked up familiar shapes in the shadows around me. Not just trees, but the remains of burned structures. The charred bones of what had once been a village. Steinunn dropped to her knees, and my anger faltered as I took in the row of cairns she knelt before. As I watched, the skald bent her head over a smaller one and her body shook with sobs.
The memory of a conversation she and I had had after the taking of Grindill filled my head. I endured a tragedy that cost me nearly everything I held dear.
A family, it seemed. A child, judging from the small cairn. And from violence, if the remains of the village around me spoke true. A pang of sympathy struck me in the heart, her sobs so thick with grief that it made the air around me unbreathable.
That Steinunn had suffered did not absolve her of the harm she’d caused me, but I would not sink so low as to attack her in the depths of her grief. Exhaling a breath to find some measure of calm, I stepped back with the intent to return to camp.
Only for my shoulders to slam into something solid and warm.
A hand clamped over my mouth to smother my shout even as an arm wrapped around my waist and lifted me off my feet. Panic rose only to burst into aggravation as I inhaled Bjorn’s familiar scent of pine, as well as the soap he seemed to have used while bathing. Only respect for the dead kept me from lashing out as he backed away from the village and carried me deeper into the forest. But once we were far enough distant that Steinunn would not hear, I slammed my heels against his shins as hard as I could.
He hissed in pain, muttering curses about my parentage that I did not appreciate as he dropped me to the forest floor. Spinning, I slammed my palms against his chest. His bare chest.
My hands jerked away from his skin as though he’d burned me. To cover my reaction, I glared at him in the darkness. “Did your clothes wash away while you were bathing or is it Nordelander custom to wander the woods in the nude?”
“You know it is my preferred attire for fighting,” he replied. “And given I followed you, I needed all the advantages I could muster.”
“Nudity does not serve so well in the dark.”
“I beg to differ.” He leaned closer, the heat of him warming my skin. “Now lower your voice. I bribed Kaja with a rabbit, but she may yet follow and her ears are keen.”
It was tempting to be contrary, but I had enough pragmatism left in my soul to drop my voice to a whisper as I said, “Why? So that she does not hear you brag about your good looks and report back to your master about your excessive vanity?”
“It is only you who comments on my looks, Born-in-Fire,” he retorted. “Unlike yours, my mind is on more serious matters.”
It was a struggle not to grind my teeth. “Something equally self-serving, I’m sure.”
He exhaled a long breath of frustration. “Freya, I know you are angry with me, but could you please set aside your emotions and listen to what I have to say?”
“No,” I snapped. “But as luck would have it, my emotions have no impact on the functionality of my ears, so say what you wish to say and be done with it.”
He kicked at the underbrush. “There are no words that you’ll not take issue with.”
Triumph filled me at having bested him. “Perhaps, but it does not help that you choose the worst of them. Or that half of them are lies.”
Silence stretched between us, the tension so thick I could barely breathe.
“I do not trust Harald’s intentions.” His voice was soft, barely audible over the wind in the forest around us. “He was driven by my mother’s visions of the future and my desire for revenge against Snorri to see you dead. Over and over, he tried to kill you, Freya, and I can’t fault him for that. What worries me is that upon seeing that you have Hel’s blood, he has turned away from the path my mother set him on. My concern is why he wants you alive.”
I scoffed. “What concerns you is that he is no longer trying to kill me? This feels like backward thinking.”
In truth, I had considered Harald’s motivations as well, but I was curious what Bjorn might say in the face of my willful denseness.
“Don’t,” he growled, not fooled. “You know what a weapon your magic is, Born-in-Fire. If you’d wanted to, you could have fought that battle on your own. Put every Islunder on the ground with a few words.”
“I’ll never do it again.” My nails dug into my palms. “To decide where a soul should go is not a power any mortal should have. I refuse to wield it again.”
“You say that, but desperate moments drive desperate actions. If you think that thought has not lighted upon Harald’s mind, you are wrong. I think he balances the risk of what my mother has foreseen with the reward of having you defend his shores because the moment anyone you perceive as innocent is in danger and your back is against the wall, I think you’ll call Hel’s name.”
Even if I desired to serve Harald, it was impossible with the oath I’d sworn to Snorri, but instead I said, “You name him Father and wear his arm ring as a sign of fealty, but it seems you do not trust your king.”
“I trust him to do right by Nordeland,” Bjorn replied. “But I fear what that means for you. He believes you cannot run from your fate as it has been foreseen—that you must change it or succumb to it. I think he aims to help you change it.”
My eyes narrowed, uncertainty filling my chest because that was not something I’d considered. Harald was the enemy and no part of me was inclined to see him as otherwise. Yet perhaps even enemies could have common goals. “Given the dark future your mother sees for me, I fail to see how Harald aiding me to change it is a bad thing.”
“You assume it will change for the better. What if it changes to something worse?”
For reasons I could not explain, his words struck like a punch to the stomach. “What would you have me do?” My eyes burned but no tears fell. “Do something. Do nothing. Either way, it seems I am cursed.”
“No!” Though we stood in the deepest dark, he caught hold of my hands with unerring precision. The feel of his palms against mine, large and calloused and so painfully familiar, made my body shake. “That is not what I mean, Freya. I know you don’t trust me. That you believe everything I’ve ever said is a lie and that you hate me for it. That you have no reason to listen to me now. But I will beg one thing from you, and that is that you do not serve him.”
“In that you have nothing to fear, for even if I desired to serve Harald, I cannot.” I pulled my hands away. “I’m bound by Ylva’s blood magic with a vow to serve no man not of Snorri’s blood, which unless there are yet more secrets I’m unaware of, does not include Harald.”
Bjorn didn’t answer, and his silence conveyed his shock even if the darkness hid his face. Finally, he said, “When did you make this oath?”
“The night I was wed to him.”
“Why would you swear such a thing?” he demanded.
“Because the alternative was far worse.” The words came out choked, and I swallowed hard to steady my voice. “I made the choice I could live with.”
“I wish you’d told me.” His shadow shifted restlessly. “I’d have…”
“You’d have what?” No matter how many times I swallowed, the emotion strangling me would not clear my throat. “Killed him? Because that’s a lie. You apparently have had just cause to kill Snorri all these long years and have not, so do not pretend my oaths to him would have moved your hand.”
We stood inches from each other, though I’d not remembered either of us closing the distance. So close that I could feel the heat of him. The brush of his breath against my face. My heart fluttered in my chest like a wounded bird, emotion choking me, drowning me. I wanted to be away from it and from him. So I said, “There was a moment I believed that I stood strong because you were always at my back, Bjorn. Now I know better. I stood alone then, and I’ll stand alone now.”
Not allowing him the chance to respond, I strode back in the direction of camp without making any effort to be silent. The forest was alive with the sounds of nocturnal creatures, or those who were hunted by them, and my ears filled with the bark of a fox and the hoots of an owl. But it wasn’t enough to drown out the flap of heavy wings overhead. I froze and looked skyward, searching for a shadow. But I could see nothing through the branches of the trees.
Was it Kaja?
Whatever it was had sounded larger than the merlin but sound behaved strangely in the night. Gooseflesh broke across my skin at the idea that she’d been spying on us, but there was nothing to be done about it now. I continued on until I reached the camp. Steinunn was still gone, everyone else sound asleep, including Guthrum. But just outside of the firelight, Kaja picked at a dead rabbit.
Circling around, I knelt before her. “If it was you,” I whispered, “please don’t tell.”
And then before Bjorn or Steinunn could return and force me to acknowledge them, I crawled into my bedroll and squeezed my eyes shut, willing myself to sleep.