Thorolf stood wordlessly and left. Svein followed after one last glance at Gunnhild. Anyone who hadn’t known of her involvement with Thorolf would have thought little of this, but Gunnhild knew better—and by the look on Eirik’s face, and the fact that he did not so much as turn to acknowledge their departure, he did, too. Next to where they’d been sitting, Arinbjorn smiled tightly. Eirik looked at him as if for reassurance, and his foster brother gave him the tiniest nod of encouragement.
Eirik turned back to the hersir. “I wish to marry your daughter.”
It was almost embarrassing, Gunnhild thought, how Ozur fell all over himself to accept without even asking her. She clenched her bandaged hand, a twin to Eirik’s own, into a fist in her lap as the two men negotiated the dowry and bride-price.
It was no less than a small fortune. And it was hers.
“Gunnhild,” Oddny hissed from the bench beside her, “did you know about this?”
“You think Eirik would’ve done it without asking me first?” Gunnhild said out of the corner of her mouth. “Even he’s smarter than that.”
“So this is what last night was about. Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because you would have talked me out of it,” Gunnhild admitted. “And because you were sleeping this morning when I left to work on my bindrune.”
Before Oddny could reply, Ozur stood and announced, quieting the chatter in the hall, “A toast! To the betrothal of my daughter and King Eirik!”
He had the servants take down the ceremonial drinking horn—a massive thing as long as Gunnhild’s arm, carved and painted with elaborate scenes and whorls, its rim and tip gilded—from where it was displayed on the lintel with the statutes of Odin, Thor, and Frey, and told them to fill it with mead from his stores. This got everyone’s attention: Mead was sacred to the gods, and due to the sheer amount of honey that went into its brewing, it was passed around only on special occasions. Eirik’s hird and Ozur’s men roared their approval as the hersir’s orders were carried out.
“To our marriage.” Eirik took the first swig of mead from the horn before passing it to Gunnhild, and for a moment both their bandaged hands remained on it, not touching, before he let it go. She hoped that any onlookers took the grim looks on their faces for nervousness instead of what it really was.
“To our marriage.” She forced a smile, took a sip, and passed it on to Oddny. The sweet mead slid down her throat like sludge and left a lingering dryness in her mouth, which she washed down with ale.
“I don’t like this” was Oddny’s quiet toast before drinking and passing the horn on to Arinbjorn.
“Then I suppose you can stay here instead of coming with us to Hordaland and then, in the spring, Birka,” said Gunnhild, more brusquely than she intended.
Oddny’s mouth opened and closed a few times before she choked out, “I—you—what?”
“It was part of our marriage agreement. We leave tomorrow morning to overwinter at King Harald’s estate at Alreksstadir. We took a blood oath, and Eirik has sworn to take us to Birka as soon as—”
She stopped talking when Oddny threw her arms around her and squeezed tightly.
“Oh, Gunna, thank you,” she whispered.
“All I do, I do for Signy,” Gunnhild whispered back. “And for vengeance.”
“Take care that the latter doesn’t become more important than the former,” said Arinbjorn from Oddny’s other side.
A short time later, when the horn had been passed several times and the drink flowed freely, Ulfrun took Gunnhild aside. “Your mother is awake. She wishes to see you.” The old woman wrung her hands. “But don’t feel that you must. I can make an excuse for you. I could tell her that—”
“I’ll see her.” Gunnhild rose and put her cup down on the bench with a clumsy hand. She swayed and Oddny grabbed her arm.
“You don’t have to,” Oddny said.
“Yes, I do,” Gunnhild replied without looking at her.
“Don’t do this to yourself. You’ve come so far.”
“I need to confront her.”
“It won’t satisfy you. She’s weak.”
“This may be my last chance.”
Oddny sighed, gave her a squeeze, and let go. “As you wish.”
Gunnhild’s legs felt heavy as she followed Ulfrun to the antechamber. Despite sleeping in the adjacent bunk room for the past two nights, Gunnhild had been diligently avoiding looking in the direction of the master bed during her comings and goings. As such, she had not looked upon her mother’s face in over a decade.
But now there was no avoiding it. She stepped into the room and there was Solveig, propped up with a pillow behind her head, staring at Gunnhild as though she were an apparition.
Then Ulfrun closed the door behind her with a snap, and mother and daughter were alone.
Gunnhild strode forward woodenly—back straight, hands clasped to still their shaking—and lowered herself onto the stool next to the bed. As she took in her mother’s skeletal face and withered limbs, she realized Oddny was right: It gave her no satisfaction to see Solveig this way. She wished she were dealing with the monster she remembered instead of this sick and dying woman.
But the monster was still in there somewhere, and she knew it.
“Little Gunna,” Solveig wheezed, eyes watering, reaching for her. “My darling.”
“You’ve never called me either of those things before,” Gunnhild said. “Not a nickname. Not a term of endearment. Not even once.”
Solveig’s lower lip trembled. “Of course I did. You’re my daughter.”
Ah. There she is. “Name one time.”
In her annoyance, Solveig’s voice gained strength. “You’ve been gone how many years, and you expect me to remember everything I ever said to you? Ridiculous.”
“Curious, isn’t it, the things that stay with us, and the things we choose to forget?” Gunnhild fought to keep her tone level. She would not lose her temper. Not now. She had to stay in control.
Solveig’s hand dropped. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Oh, don’t you? Do you remember the last words you spoke to me, Mother?” Gunnhild’s voice was deadly quiet. “Did you ever wonder why I ran away?”
Solveig sniffed. “You were a difficult child.”
Gunnhild remembered Heid’s hand on her shoulder. “You are not a bad child. You are not a burden. I’m sorry that you’ve been made to feel that way.”
“Was I?” she asked. “Or were you a difficult parent?”
“I should have expected this from you. Such ingratitude.” Solveig waved a hand, her thin voice quavering with anger. “You run away. Worry us sick. Make us believe you’re dead. And then you say it was our fault that you ran off with that old witch and became—what, a witch, too? Is that what I’m to believe?”
It was clear to Gunnhild now that no good would come of this conversation; it was time to end it before she lost her composure. She could relay each memory to her mother one by one in extensive detail, and the woman would tell her she was wrong—that she was only a child; she was misremembering.