This seemed to satisfy Ulfrun and Vigdis. Oddny turned to leave and Halldor followed, thanking Vigdis for the apple and grabbing his lantern from a table before closing the door behind Oddny and himself.
“Gunnhild would be more subtle than that if she were going to kill you,” Oddny said once they’d emerged into the chilly night air and were walking toward the longhouse. Eirik and Gunnhild were probably still arguing around the other side of it, but Oddny could neither see nor hear them.
“Right,” Halldor said dryly. “She wouldn’t be standing over me. She’d be a swallow, flying at me with a knife clutched in those little talons of hers.”
“That’s rather specific. I was thinking she’d just poison you.”
“I’ll take care not to accept any drinks from her.”
“Halldor.” Oddny stopped and looked at him as he finished the apple and tossed the core aside. “Listen. I believe you. And—what did you do to your hair?”
The wind had picked up and blown his loose curls over the top of his head, revealing that he’d unevenly shaved the area just around his left ear, where he sported a very faded tattoo: A hook-jawed knotwork salmon leapt from his nape to his temple.
“Oh,” Oddny said, squinting at it in the lanternlight. “What does it mean?”
“Must a tattoo always mean something?”
“You missed a few spots when you shaved it.”
“I couldn’t exactly see what I was doing. I’d borrowed Ulfrun’s bronze mirror, but it’s the size of my thumb, so it didn’t help much.”
Oddny didn’t know what made her say it, but she offered, “I could touch it up for you if you’d like once we’re inside.”
“Thank you, but I think I’ll pass. After all, the last two times you were holding a knife in my presence, you were threatening me with it.”
“Well, if I kill you now, I won’t get my silver, will I?”
“True enough,” he allowed after a beat. “Lead the way.”
With Svein performing and the men drunker and rowdier than when Oddny left, it was easy enough for her and Halldor to slip inside, cross the hall, and enter the antechamber without much notice. Solveig was asleep; Oddny spared her a passing glance as she led Halldor to the bunk room, where someone had left a lit soapstone lamp atop one of the chests.
Before Oddny could draw her knife, Halldor reached into his pouch and pulled out a smaller one in a scuffed leather sheath with tarnished, stamped brass fittings, attached to a broken chain. It was the kind of tool a lady of the house could hang from her brooches if she were lucky enough to own a pair. She wondered if it had belonged to a family member—or maybe even a lover.
“I just sharpened it,” he said. “Be careful.”
“All right.” Oddny gestured to Gunnhild’s old chest. “Sit.”
He did, and she got to work. The knife was very sharp—the sheath had seen better days, but the blade itself was pristine—and they both winced at the scratching sound it made as she drew it across his scalp. She had to pause every time he fidgeted.
“Whose knife was this?” she said after a time.
He hesitated for a moment before replying, “My grandmother’s. She gave it to me when I was small.”
“She must’ve been very dear to you if you still carry it.”
“She was,” Halldor said shortly.
Oddny worked a few moments longer. “What was her name?”
His shoulders tensed. “Are you almost done?”
Oddny pursed her lips and decided not to press the subject despite her curiosity. She knew what it was like to lose family, and that he didn’t wish to speak of his own made her think that he carried as deep a pain as her own. With a last scrape of the knife, she finished evening out the shave along his hairline, then wiped the blade on her sleeve, sheathed it, and handed it back to him. He took it wordlessly and stuffed it back into his pouch as he stood.
“I didn’t mean to offend you,” she said as he made to go.
Halldor stopped just before the curtain that divided the bunk room from the rest of the antechamber, but he didn’t turn around. “I’m not offended. Just confused as to why you wanted to know.”
“I was only curious. I’m sorry. I—”
“Svanhild,” he said quietly. “Her name was Svanhild. My grandmother.”
Swan-battle. “That’s a strong name.”
He turned so that she saw him in profile, the side with the tattoo facing her. “What was your mother’s?”
Oddny clasped her hands together to still their shaking.
“Yrsa,” she whispered.
“She-bear. A strong name as well.” Halldor turned once more to leave. “Good night, Oddny.”
“Good night, Halldor,” she replied, sinking down to sit on Gunnhild’s chest, and it was long after he’d gone that she realized her hands were still trembling. A strange feeling had risen in her tonight, a feeling both wildly unexpected and wholly undesired, and she vowed then and there to stamp it back down. Until she rescued Signy, she could not afford to become distracted—least of all by one of the men who’d been responsible for her sister’s plight.
16
GUNNHILD’S LAST DAY IN Halogaland passed in a blur. She spent most of it sitting on the edge of the cliff on the north side of the island, working on her bindrune and trying to put the previous night from her mind.
Thorolf hadn’t been able to look her in the eye after she told him of her conversation with Eirik and the decision she’d made, and he’d fled back to the hall without a word. She hoped he’d gotten drunk with the rest of the men to dull his pain; part of her wished she’d done the same to assuage her guilt, but instead she’d gone straight to bed and hadn’t even told Oddny what happened.
By the time the sun was low in the sky, she was exhausted, but the spell was complete: She’d found the perfect combination of runes. First, she took a needle and some charcoal dust and water, and hand poked it into her own arm just above the elbow, her deep concentration numbing her to the pain as she sang the runes. It was hardly the work of a professional tattooist, but the moment she’d made her last poke and stopped singing, a thrum ran through her and she smiled—hopefully that meant it would work. Her mind and her dreams were safe.
Afterward, she carved her creation deliberately and with care onto a circular cutting from the antler of a deer, pouring as much intent as she could with each stroke, then chanting the runes at least thirty times, once for each man in the hird. When she was satisfied, she put the bone in her pouch and stood, swaying on her feet, and made her way back across the island to her father’s hall. She sat on the bench next to Oddny and studiously avoided looking at Thorolf, who sat with Svein. The skald glared openly at her; she ignored him.
“Are you all right?” Oddny asked her during supper when she slumped in her seat and nearly dropped her stew bowl.
“I think I need to lie down,” Gunnhild muttered, but before she could, Eirik stood and turned to her father, and her stomach dropped.
“Ozur,” he said. Even amid the clamor of the feast, she could hear the stiffness in his voice. “I’ve a matter to take up with you.”