“Which brother does Thorbjorg work for?”
“Olaf. Another one, Katla, works for Halfdan,” Eirik said. “But it gets worse.”
Katla. Gunnhild felt like she’d been kicked in the chest. During the raid, Thorbjorg was clearly in charge, but Katla had been the one who’d fought Heid. The one who’d killed her.
I’ll kill her, too, once I’m done with Thorbjorg.
“I fail to see how it could possibly get worse,” Gunnhild said.
“Rognvald was Thorbjorg’s mentor.”
Gunnhild pinched the bridge of her nose between thumb and forefinger. “I stand corrected.”
He looked past her, seeming lost. “After we— After Rognvald— As his hall was burning, I saw a girl standing at the tree line with a bag over her shoulder. Staring right at me. Then I blinked and she was gone. I thought I’d imagined her, but she’s haunted my steps ever since.”
“So it’s not just that she’s in your brother’s employ. She’s also seeking vengeance. It’s personal,” Gunnhild said. She stood and faced away from him, folding her arms, digging her fingernails into her biceps, biting her lip hard enough to draw blood.
What can all of this mean?
She had a feeling she knew. But she didn’t want to admit to herself that the most likely answer was that her fate and the king’s were somehow inextricably linked.
“It’s your turn,” Eirik said from behind her, sounding very tired, as though he were unused to speaking so much at once. “How do you know her? What did she do to you?”
Gunnhild took a deep breath and let it out. “Yesterday I was traveling in the way that witches do and checking in on some dear friends when their farm was raided and their family murdered by Thorbjorg’s design. One of my friends was kidnapped and the other has likely taken refuge with her closest neighbor: my father. As we tried to help them, the witches attacked my mentor and me, and they—they killed her.”
Eirik waited a long moment before saying, “So that’s why you’re in such a hurry to get home. But what was the reason for this attack? Were your friends powerful? Were they some sort of threat to her?”
She was glad to still be facing away from him, for it was all she could do to hold back her tears.
“One of you clouds the futures of the others.” Heid’s words echoed to her from a lifetime ago, and along with them, Thorbjorg’s from her dream: I didn’t mean to make an enemy of you—just to preemptively ensure that you and your sworn sisters stayed out of my way.
“No,” she whispered. “But I’m starting to think that I am, or at least Thorbjorg thinks I am, and that my friends were targeted by association. I’m still trying to make sense of it all. But first I need to get to my father’s.”
Eirik stood. “Earlier you said you weren’t for hire, but it’s clear now that we have the same enemy. If you’ll work for me—”
She swiped at her tears and turned at last to face him, stony-eyed, trying to shrug off the mantle of grief that had settled upon her shoulders.
“No,” she said.
“Why not? It would make sense. And I’d make you rich, besides. You’d never want for anything. You’d have all my resources behind you, as Thorbjorg has Olaf’s. You’d be foolish not to accept. You can’t possibly hope to destroy her alone.”
The last of her sadness turned to anger in an instant.
“I don’t care about getting rich, and I care less about vengeance than about rescuing my friend,” Gunnhild said hotly. “And furthermore, I have no wish to throw in my lot with the likes of you. I believe Thorbjorg is after me for something I might do, but you did the things she hates you for. You killed your own brothers, and if Rognvald was as dear to Thorbjorg as Heid was to me, I can’t deny that if I were her I’d be out for your blood, too.”
By this point Eirik was shaking with rage, fists balled and muscles coiled as though he might strike her, but she stepped toward him anyway.
“If you raise your hand to me, Eirik Haraldsson,” Gunnhild said in a low voice, “know that I can kill you nine times over in nine different ways before your blow even lands. As far as I’m concerned, you’ve dug your own grave. Our association will be brief, and past that, I’ve no wish to see your face ever again.”
“Fine,” he said tightly as he took a step back from her. “We’ve made our deal. Now get out of my sight.”
11
WHEN SHE RETURNED TO camp, the men were eating supper. Gunnhild had thought herself too angry to have an appetite until Thorolf pressed a wooden bowl of steaming stew into her hands, at which point she found herself suddenly ravenous.
“How did it go?” Arinbjorn asked as they sat around the fire.
Gunnhild confirmed that Eirik was nowhere in sight before replying, “We came to terms.”
When she didn’t elaborate, Arinbjorn prompted, “And those terms were . . .?”
She explained about the bindrune and its effects.
“That’s quite a trade,” he said quietly when she was done. “And it’s appreciated.”
“It’ll make a big difference to us,” Thorolf added. “Not to have to worry that what happened will happen again. Thank you, Gunnhild.”
She swallowed the lump in her throat and they finished eating, washed their bowls, and went back to the fire. The sun had set by now, but nobody seemed intent on going to sleep, even though they were to leave at dawn. Instead, Thorolf fetched more ale, Svein took out his lyre, and Arinbjorn reset the hnefatafl board.
Eirik still had not returned.
“He does this sometimes,” Arinbjorn said blandly when she questioned him about the king’s absence. He gave her a knowing look. “Did you make him angry?”
“I’d say we made each other angry,” Gunnhild grumbled.
“And yet you still were able to work out a deal without coming to blows. I’d call that personal growth on his part.”
“He did pull out his seax at one point.”
“Yes, well, he tends to strike first and think later.”
“If that’s the case, why didn’t you come with us? You seem to temper him.”
Arinbjorn raised an eyebrow. “You didn’t need me—you stood your ground with him yesterday, after all. I love Eirik, I truly do, but I can’t deny that it’s satisfying to see him humbled every once in a while.” He gestured at the tafl board. “You know how to play?”
Gunnhild nodded. Heid had favored the game as a way to keep her wits about her in her advanced age, and they’d spent many nights playing together. Gunnhild had become a skilled player as a result.
“Excellent,” Arinbjorn said as she sat down on the box across from him. “Do you want to be the king and his defenders, or the enemies?”
She thought for a moment. “The king.”
Arinbjorn grinned. “All right, then,” he said, and made the first move.
His cheerful mood did not last long. A very short time later, a dozen men had gathered around to watch him sweat. Gunnhild nearly had him beaten, but a few surprise moves by Arinbjorn won him the game.
She scowled. “I suppose it’s a good thing for Eirik to have you on his side if you’re so good at capturing kings.”