Then she was gone, and Gunnhild could breathe again.
Yrsa’s keen eyes followed Solveig as the woman went to greet the next guests. “Oddny, Signy—why don’t you help Gunnhild get ready?”
The sisters dumped their bedrolls and scurried off with Gunnhild to the antechamber. Her parents slept on the right side, and behind a curtain on the left side were two wooden bunks with thin straw mattresses atop them.
Gunnhild had once shared this room with her sisters, but as they were much older and had long since been married off, she now bunked with Solveig’s most trusted serving women, and she was glad to see that none of her aged roommates were present. Besides the bunks, the only other fixtures were a few small chests, one of which was Gunnhild’s. She opened it and added the bead Signy had given her to the little pouch full of smooth skipping stones, seashells, and other baubles she’d won over time from the Ketilsdottirs. Then she took out a bone comb and began to assault her thick dark red hair.
Gunnhild’s feast clothing was already spread out on her bunk: a linen dress soft from years of use; a woolen apron-dress, faded and threadbare but woven in a fine diamond pattern; and a pair of tarnished oval brooches with a simple string of beads. All had been handed down to Gunnhild from her older sisters.
“Mother asked to foster you again at the midsummer feast, last time we were all together,” Signy said as she sat down on the bunk with the clothing on it, the beads clinking together at the movement. “Your mother refused.”
“She said you were too old now.” Oddny sat down on the opposite bunk. “As if she hasn’t been asking forever.”
Gunnhild grimaced, but this came as no surprise; she knew there was no escape for her. She’d tried to run away once or twice, slipping out during the commotion of a feast after stealing some finery from her parents’ chests to pay her way to . . . Where? If not to Ketil’s farm—the first place they would look for her—where could she possibly go? Each time, she’d ended up returning in the dead of night, putting her parents’ things back where she’d found them, unpacking her bag, and slipping into bed.
She had thought that nothing would frighten her more than Solveig, but it turned out that the unknown was more terrifying still.
“Of course she refused,” Gunnhild said hollowly. She loves to deny me anything I could possibly want. “And on top of everything else, I’m not allowed to have my fate told tonight.”
Signy had been running her hand enviously over the diamond twill of the apron dress on the bed, but her head snapped up at this. “What do you mean, you’re not allowed to have your fate told?”
“My mother decided it.” And, as usual, she hadn’t offered an explanation besides because I said so. Her father, however, had been a bit more willing to talk after a few drinks and a prolonged exposure to Gunnhild’s whining. “But Papa said it’s because I had my fate told when the last seeress came through.”
“But you were three when the last one was here,” Oddny said with a frown. “That’s not fair. You can’t possibly remember what she said.”
“Of course I don’t.” Gunnhild crossed her arms. “And no one will tell me!”
“For once, I agree with Oddny Coal-brow,” Signy said, and her sister hmphed at the nickname, earned because Oddny’s thin eyebrows were a much darker brown than her fine, mousy hair. “What if you just came with us when our mother calls us forward? Solveig can’t make you sit back down without embarrassing you both. People would want an explanation.”
“She’ll make my life even more miserable this winter if I disobey her,” Gunnhild said glumly, and neither of her friends disagreed.
Gunnhild braided her hair into a thick plait, donned her dresses, and pinned her beads and brooches in place. When she was done, Signy gave a sigh of admiration and Oddny gave a nod of approval. Neither of the sisters owned a set of brooches. The two wore faded woolen gowns—red for Signy and dull yellow for Oddny—and Gunnhild knew Oddny’s was a hand-me-down, for the younger girl had it tightly cinched at the waist with a thin overlong leather belt.
Nevertheless, their dresses were free of stains and didn’t show any obvious signs of mending or patching, so Gunnhild knew that these were likely the best garments her friends had; even their mother’s weren’t much better. And yet, though the family had so little to their name, Yrsa was still adamant about bringing their neighbor’s mistreated daughter into their home.
Gunnhild swallowed the lump in her throat and sat down beside Oddny. “Let’s stay out of the way until the ritual starts.”
“Otherwise Mother might put us to work,” Signy said, disgusted, as she flopped onto her back on the bed. “I want to go one single day without picking up a spindle. Is that too much to ask?”
“Just because you pick up a spindle doesn’t mean that you get anything accomplished with it,” Oddny said under her breath, and Signy stuck out her tongue.
To keep themselves busy, they decided to rebraid Oddny’s and Signy’s hair, which had become windswept during the crossing. By the time Gunnhild had fixed Oddny’s twin plaits and Oddny had done the same to Signy’s, they could hear more and more voices coming from the main hall.
“I suppose we should go before our mothers come looking for us,” Gunnhild said at last, standing. The ritual would begin at dusk, and by now the sunlight outside was spent; the start of winter was almost upon them, and the days were getting shorter. Soon the sun would barely rise at all, and she’d be trapped inside this hall, weaving and sewing by firelight, completely under her mother’s thumb.
But not yet. Tonight, she had her friends by her side, and the future awaited.
* * *
—
THE HALL WAS FULL and the braziers had been lit, and the seeress herself was the last to arrive, borne north by King Harald’s tax collector and his retinue.
Along with the neighboring farmers, Gunnhild’s father’s friends among the Sámi had been invited to attend. They clustered together at the back of the hall, although Gunnhild saw that a few of the women had wandered over to chat with Yrsa in Norse. Ketil and Ozur had stopped to talk with the Sámi in their language, and Gunnhild heard Ketil’s roaring laugh from across the room as the largest of the men clapped him on the back with a grin.
Gunnhild would have to go sit with her parents once the feast began, but for now she sat with Signy and Oddny, content to watch their fathers conversing in a tongue the girls didn’t understand.
“I wonder what they’re talking about,” Signy said.
“I wonder what the Sámi will think of the seeress,” Oddny replied. “Did you know Papa said their men are more likely to be seers instead of the other way around? I’ll bet their rituals are much different, too—”
Signy batted her sister’s arm. “Shh. It’s starting!”
A hush came over the hall as the seeress finally appeared. The old woman was frail and peculiar, from her lambskin cap and gloves to the multitude of mysterious pouches at her belt. But what drew Gunnhild’s eye most of all was her iron staff, twisted at the top, its brass fittings gleaming in the firelight.