Halldor stiffened, offended. “You truly do think me that dishonorable, don’t you?”
Oddny was silent.
“On my life, I’ll pay you what I owe,” he said after a beat. “I intend to join King Eirik’s retinue when they pass through. I’ll get richer raiding with them than I ever could’ve with Kolfinna. I’d be a fool to pass up such an opportunity. This way, I’m sure I can pay your debt off in a season or less.”
“You wish to join the king’s hird?” Oddny asked, raising her eyebrows. “But you spoke of him with such disdain. Why would you choose to swear yourself to him? And why would he trust you, especially after learning you’re from Vestfold?”
Halldor raked a hand through his hair. “His reputation precedes him, but perhaps I wish to judge him for myself, in hopes that he’ll do the same for me, no matter where I’m from. And the sooner I’ve paid off my debt to you, the sooner we never have to see each other again.”
“Your smithing must be worse than you let on,” Oddny observed, smirking.
Halldor only folded his arms and glowered at her.
Despite herself, Oddny had to admit that his plan made sense—judging by the finery that Eirik and his hirdsmen had worn at the feast she’d served, they were wealthy, without even factoring in the expensive weaponry they must’ve kept on their ship.
“Are we through here?” Halldor asked.
“No. There’s still the reason I wished to speak with you.” Oddny straightened. “If they didn’t kill Signy, where would they have taken her?”
Halldor stared at her. “Why?”
“I mean to rescue her once you’ve paid me.”
He seemed surprised, but shook his head. “I won’t say. It’ll only hurt you. There’s no chance of saving her, Oddny. She’s gone. I would rather stay silent and spare you the pain of this hopeless—”
“I’ll take eleven and a half marks of silver instead of twelve if you tell me.”
He eyed her. “Eleven.”
“No. Eleven and a half or no deal.”
“Done.” He held his hand out, and Oddny hesitated a moment before shaking it once. His was cold, and calloused in different ways than her own, but that was all she noticed before he quickly let go of her and said, “Birka.”
Oddny had heard of the town. It was on an island in Svealand, clear on the other side of the peninsula from Norway.
“But . . . why take her there?” she asked. “There are market towns much closer than that. Some even on the way.”
“Birka is where we usually winter, so that’s where she’s most likely to be sold. But . . .”
“But . . .?” Oddny prompted.
“At least one of the witches was still with them to hasten their escape. Even if I handed you your silver right this moment, and you hired a ship and a crew this very night and left tomorrow morning, you’d be too late to save her before she’s sold.”
“But I can buy her freedom once you pay me,” Oddny said. “And if I find the raiders, I’ll find who she’s been sold to. You’ll join Eirik’s hird and pay me what you owe by the end of next summer, as you’ve said, and then I’ll go to Birka and begin my search.”
It wasn’t soon enough, but for now it was all she could do.
“Wait,” Halldor said. “Say I am able to pay off my debt to you by the end of next summer. By then, your sister could’ve been sold and sold again—”
“Yes, I know. Thank you.” She turned to go, eager to get out of his presence, to have some time alone to go through her options.
Perhaps I could send out word of my healing services. If witches wander around the country peddling their magic, couldn’t I do the same with my own skills? Maybe I could earn enough silver that I wouldn’t even need Halldor’s at all.
“Oddny,” Halldor said to her retreating back. “I’m telling you, it’s hopeless.”
She stopped. Took a deep breath through her nose and out her mouth.
“Be that as it may,” she said over her shoulder, “she’s my sister. And she would do the same for me. Good night, Halldor Hallgrimsson.”
She didn’t wait to hear his response.
8
GUNNHILD DUG FOR A long time before she was satisfied with the depth of the grave, and she was sweating by the time she carefully laid her mentor’s body down inside it. She’d dressed Heid in her finest garments, her shiniest rings and brooches, and had even painstakingly slipped the woman’s gloves on over her stiff fingers. Once she’d positioned Heid, Gunnhild placed a bowl of henbane seeds by the old woman’s head and set her hnefatafl board at her shins, arranging the smooth carved ivory and worn wooden pieces atop it as if preparing to play a round of the game. Heid deserved to go to the afterlife with all the best things she owned. In fact, a woman of her esteem deserved much more than Gunnhild had the ability to give her. She deserved a ceremony, wailing mourners, the proper sacrifices.
Instead, she was getting a sniffling young woman and a hole in the ground.
After setting the tafl board, Gunnhild nestled the wooden distaff in the crook of Heid’s elbow. She would keep Heid’s iron staff and what little remained of her silver, for Heid had no more need to be tethered to her body and no more need for wealth.
One last item gave Gunnhild pause: Heid’s little wooden statue of the goddess Freyja. Gunnhild had fetched it from the small copse of trees where Heid had placed it when she’d returned from her last journey—twelve winters ago, with Gunnhild in tow. And now Gunnhild stared down at it.
The statue’s blank eyes stared back, betraying nothing. Freyja’s most recognizable attributes—her golden necklace and her cloak of falcon feathers—had been crudely carved by Heid as a girl. But something in the statue’s face, in its stark and simple beauty, had called to Gunnhild from the moment she’d seen it.
It had been an exhilarating, terrifying thing to run away from home. Once the king’s tax collector and his men had left the seeress and her stowaway on the mainland shore, it took Gunnhild and Heid days of walking to reach the cottage, Gunnhild pulling Heid’s cart all the while. And when they’d arrived, Heid had instructed her to leave the cart at the cottage and had led her deeper into the woods. Gunnhild had been too exhausted to argue, but part of her had wondered if the witch had gone mad and perhaps her invitation to teach Gunnhild magic had been a farce; maybe Gunnhild truly was the foolish child her mother said she was, and she’d be better off going home and begging her parents’ mercy than subjecting herself to the whims of a senile old woman in the middle of nowhere.
And then they’d reached the grove, where Heid had taken the statue from her bag and set it reverently in the hollow of a tree. One look at the goddess’s face and Gunnhild had known she’d made the right choice.
“Freyja was the first witch,” Heid had explained, and turned to Gunnhild with a glint of mischief in her eye. “Perhaps you’ll get to meet her one day.”
“Have you met her?”
Heid had only given her a small smile, turned back to the statue, and pricked her finger to offer the goddess a drop of her blood. Gunnhild herself would do the same many times over the dozen winters that followed.