7. SEVEN
SEVEN
HERVOR
When I open my eyes again the forest is moving above me through the fog.
My arms are stretched over my head, and my wrists and ankles are lashed to a wooden frame.
Some horse is pulling me along. I don’t know why they’re dragging me like this through the forest. It must be to punish me.
It’s working. I’m so weak and tired I feel like every bump and knock is going to crack my bones.
Behind me, my grandfather’s huskarls are walking two by two, only their eyes visible behind their helms and veils of chain.
Asger’s trudging along at my side, his shoulders slouching under the weight of his heavy mail coat and the shield slung across his back.
I’ve never seen Asger weary in my life. I never thought it was possible.
He looks spent, like he’s been through an ordeal.
I want to ask him about what happened, but he doesn’t look like he’s in the mood for talking, and when I try to speak, my lips are too exhausted to make the words.
There’s a lot I can’t remember, but I know I’ve killed my grandfather’s men.
By now they’ve figured out what happened to the man in the yellow tunic. It isn’t looking good for me.
I’ll be executed for sure. My grandfather doesn’t have any choice after what I’ve done.
It would be unfair of him to let me live.
If he did, it would show everyone in H?logaland that he’s too old and soft-hearted to uphold the laws of our people.
He wouldn’t stay jarl for very long. No, all that’s left for me is to show Odin my courage and die fearlessly.
I wonder how they’ll do it. Beheading wouldn’t be so bad.
It’s usually thralls who get their heads chopped off for disobeying their masters, but it looks quick and mostly painless.
Or drowning. but only thralls who’ve gotten too old to be useful are drowned.
Thieves are hung from a tree and left dangling by the neck until they rot and their limbs fall off their bodies.
It’s a shameful thing, and I’ve only seen it happen once, but I always thought it would be an alright way to go, if I had to choose.
The more I think about it though, I’m realizing I won’t be getting off so easy.
I’ll be charged with nid, a term used by my people for any sort of crime that harms society: lying, stealing, running from duels or battles, killing in secret, defiling graves and bodies; betraying your king, your jarl, or your chieftain; raping women or children; practicing homosexuality or sorcery …
Some of these crimes are considered so foul and perverse that my people believe no one would do such things unless influenced by evil spirits.
If they execute me as a nidding then it won’t be quick at all.
There’s a good chance I’ll be impaled and burned alive—with dry wood to keep the smoke from dulling my wits and suffocating me too early.
They’ll make good and sure that I die screaming; then they’ll know the dark forces have been expelled.
Afterward, they’ll break up my charred remains and sprinkle the black flakes in the fjord to be sure there’s nothing left of me that my spirit could come back to repossess.
There’s a story about a goddess, Gullveig, whose gold lust drove her to commit many evil deeds, and whom the other gods skewered on a spear and burned to death three times in Odin’s hall.
Her magic was so strong that each time she died she was reborn as an infant.
But after the third time they killed her in the fire, her wickedness left her and she became wise and good and changed her name to Heidi—though volva witches and those who practice seidr magic still worship her as Gullveig.
For me, the only second rising will be waking up in Niflheim—the coldest, darkest place in the underworld where all niddings are sent.
I hope they don’t burn me.
Someone at the head of the line blows a horn to let the people of Ofotfjord know that my grandfather’s returning with the hunting party.
There’s a second horn blast from farther off.
We come out of the trees, and after a while we’re passing through the gate.
In the mist above I can see the shadows of the cloaked guards peering down at me over the wall.
Everyone’s gathering to watch the procession.
Men still armed to fight the troll come jogging up from the wharf and hurrying out of glowing forges as women creep hesitantly out of log houses with their children.
They’re whispering, staring at me in astonishment as I’m paraded past them through the mud.
These people have known me my entire life.
I’m their princess. They don’t know what to think.
They’re wondering how it is that my grandfather rode off into the woods with all these men and boys to save me from the troll, only to drag me home behind a horse like some captured criminal.
A wave of silence falls over them the way a river drains before a tidal surge, and for a brief moment, it’s like the gods have struck me deaf.
Heidrik is standing among the crowd with Rugga and some of their friends.
The look he gives me—he spears me through the heart.
He shakes his head, his face scrunching into a sob.
He disappears in a flash of red as a rock skips off my lip. The taste of blood floods my mouth and I writhe in my bonds. “Who threw that! I’ll kill you! Throwing rocks—Agh! Loki!”
Another rock clips me on the ear, and Asger pulls on his helm and swings his shield down from his shoulder as the people start pelting me with rocks and sticks and clods of mud.
“Shame on you! Shame!”
“Hel can have you, Hervor!”
“Murderer!”
“Witch!”
“Pervert!”
One woman pushes ahead out of the crowd and comes right alongside me.
“You wretched girl!” she screams, her face twisted with grief and hate, “your mother was a fool to bring you into this world! You’re worse than your father ever was!
” Asger snatches her by the arm and she spits in my eye as he shoves her back into the shouting mob.
It’s startling how much they hate me all of the sudden. Asger and the huskarls have had to make a shield wall around me just to keep them from tearing me to pieces. Then their angry voices converge into one, and I can’t keep from sobbing as the whole village chants together,
“Nid!”
“Nid!”
“Nid!”
We’re going up now to the hall and the huskarls form a line to keep the crowd at bay.
People are still shouting and shaking their fists as someone starts loosening my bonds.
He tells me to get up and I try to stand, but I’ve been lashed to the wooden frame for so long that I collapse right in front of him, and he has to haul me up by the arm.
At first, I think he’s bringing me up into the hall, but he jerks me over toward the stable where my grandfather’s horses all are kept.
The men from the procession are starting to disperse.
Some of them are going up in the hall, others are going to down to their wives and friends in the crowd; a few are still standing around outside at the bottom of the steps as if they don’t know what to do with themselves.
I look for my Frodmar and my grandfather among them, but I don’t see them. My guard brings me into the stable.
My mother’s waiting for me there with Bolla and Almveig. Her eyes are pink and puffy. She’s been crying. But when I come in her face is iron.
“Mother,” I croak.
“Strip off her clothes,” she says.
The guard turns to leave but Mother glares at him as though she expects him to stay.
Bolla and Almveig start tearing my dress, ripping it in two right down to my knees.
I step out of it, shivering in the drafty air.
Almveig gathers up the bloody tatters and discards them; Bolla dips a bucket into the icy trough from where the horses drink.
I take a step back. “Bolla—” My heart stops as she dumps the freezing water over my head. “Agh! Hel! Loki!”
As Bolla dabs me with a towel and scrubs the crusted blood from my face and neck, my mother steps in close an inch away from my nose. There’s ice in her eyes. Normally I’d meet her gaze with fire, but this time she wins and I look down.
“You were given everything from the day you were born,” she says, “you could have married anyone you wanted. Not even I had that. And look at how you’ve squandered it.”
“Mother—”
“Don’t call me that. I’m not your mother, not anymore.
” She snatches the leather band off my head and marches briskly out of the stable, and I’m left standing there naked with chattering teeth until Almveig comes back with a new dress for me to wear.
It’s a worn old thing made of coarse, undyed yarn, and I’m ashamed to put it on.
Even the two thrall-women are dressed more finely.
At once the guard snatches my arm and drags me out of the stable.
He hurries me towards the hall, but instead of taking me up the steps, he brings me around back and takes me down into the stone cellar where all the stores are kept.
It’s a dark place, the cellar under the hall.
Asger and another man are holding up torches while some thralls move sacks and big clay jars out of one of the back rooms. I used to play down here, so I know what’s in that room and what it’s used for.
“Asger, where’s my grandfather?”
But Asger only snorts and shakes his head. “Bring her in.”
“No! I want to talk to my grandfather! Asger!”
I brace myself against the floor and reach out for the doorframe as the men drag me into the cell, but they overpower me and a chill shoots up my spine as my fingernails rake the rough wood.
In the red light, I see an old bench next to a filthy pot in the corner and an iron shackle chained to the wall.
One of the thralls stoops down to clap the iron cuff around my ankle. I hiss and kick him in the face. Then Asger gives me a harsh look and drops down to do it himself. There’s something final about the lock clicking on the shackle. I start to sob as he gets up to leave, taking the light with him
“Asger, wait, please. Asger! Asger!”
The door slams shut and a heavy bolt slides into place. I’m engulfed in utter black.