“Between what places?” Gunnhild asked with suspicion.
Arinbjorn waved a hand vaguely. “You’ll see. Saeunn takes all kinds: older women who never married, widows conned out of their farms by their children’s in-laws, daughters who have to earn their own dowry because they had too many older sisters . . .” At the look on Oddny’s face, he grinned. “There are plenty of eligible men coming and going in a place like this. A small dowry doesn’t matter much to some of these drunken fools, so long as the summer’s plunder was good.”
“And so long as she’s pretty!” one of the nearby men chimed in, and several of the others laughed. Oddny and Gunnhild traded a droll look.
“We’re going to get cleaned up before supper.” Arinbjorn took a swig of ale and scanned the crowd over the rim of his cup. “Have you seen— Oh no.”
Oddny turned. A woman was watching the grimy men file in with a look of mild distaste, as though she were the one who’d have to sweep up the dirt they were tracking into her hall. But no, Oddny thought—this was not someone who’d ever held a broom. The woman had at least seventy winters, if Oddny had to guess, and she wore a deep red gown with a bright blue apron-dress, the latter secured with a pair of enormous, intricate oval brooches strung with several strands of beads. She wore a thin golden circlet on her brow, and her hair was bound back in a silk scarf, with a few gray wisps escaping at her nape.
Eirik approached her and said something, and her mouth turned down in a scowl as she replied. With the noise in the hall and with the considerable distance separating them, Oddny couldn’t hear what was said, but she could tell that the conversation was not going well. Whoever this woman was, she was not happy to see Eirik. And whatever he was saying was causing her expression to grow angrier with each moment.
Gunnhild observed this interaction with interest. “Don’t tell me that’s his mother.”
“Ah, no,” Arinbjorn said. “His mother died when we were young. That’s Queen Gyda.”
Oddny stifled a gasp. Queen Gyda’s father had ruled Hordaland when Norway was made up of petty kingdoms, and she was almost as much of a legend as her husband. In his youth, King Harald had asked for her hand, and she’d refused him, instead daring him to bring all of Norway under one rule before she would marry him. He’d sworn an oath to neither cut nor comb his hair until he’d carried out this task. Oddny, though a bit terrified, found herself awestruck as well.
Gunnhild, on the other hand, blinked once before draining her entire cup of ale in one go. Arinbjorn, Oddny, and Svein watched in impressed silence until she lowered the empty cup and said, “Right. My future mother-in-law.”
“One of many,” Arinbjorn reminded her.
Gunnhild glared down at her cup as though willing it to refill itself.
Svein asked, “Arinbjorn, aren’t you going to go rescue him?”
But before he could reply, both Eirik and Queen Gyda turned to look at them.
“Not this time,” Arinbjorn said. He nudged Gunnhild, who in turn gave Oddny a pleading look, and the two of them linked arms and went forward.
“This is she. My betrothed. Gunnhild Ozurardottir of Halogaland,” Eirik said, gesturing at her and completely ignoring Oddny, which didn’t at all surprise Oddny. “Gunnhild, this is Queen Gyda, my father’s foremost wife if not presently his favorite.”
Queen Gyda ignored the jab. Her lips curled into a mirthless smile as she looked Gunnhild up and down. “And does your father know that you mean to marry a witch, Eirik?”
“How would he possibly know that?” Eirik shot back. “He isn’t here yet.”
“He won’t be happy. It would behoove you to remain in his favor if you still wish to become king of Norway, boy. And this?” Queen Gyda looked again to Gunnhild—her shabby clothes stiff and crusted with salt, her hair wild and windswept, her cheeks and nose sunburned—and scoffed. “This is not the way to do it.”
Gunnhild tensed and Eirik squared his shoulders, but to Oddny’s surprise it seemed that for once neither of them knew what to say.
Queen Gyda huffed and waved them off. “I must return to preparations for Winternights. Things have gotten considerably more—complicated—now that I have a wedding on my hands.” She said the word as though it were the name of a disease. After a last scathing look at Gunnhild, she swept out of the hall without so much as a goodbye.
“Well,” Oddny said into the awkward silence that followed. “That went well.”
Eirik scrubbed a hand down his face. “Unfortunately, I don’t think it could have gone any better.”
Gunnhild whirled on him. “We’re getting married at Winternights, now, are we? I didn’t agree to this. It’s too soon.”
Though Oddny followed the moon’s phases rigorously to know when to expect her blood, her sense of time had been thwarted since the raid, and she’d all but forgotten that the full moons that marked the Winternights festival were so near. The three feast days heralded the start of winter and the beginning of a new year, and served to usher in the season of darkness and magic and rest: a direct contrast to the sunlight and traveling and raiding—not to mention the farmwork—that dominated the summer for most people in the north.
“There was nothing in our terms about when we’re getting married. Besides, it’ll soften the blow not to ask for a separate wedding feast,” Eirik returned. “Weddings often happen at Winternights. The timing is auspicious.”
“？‘Soften the blow’—‘the blow’ being me?” Gunnhild said. The hurt in her voice took Oddny by surprise. That Gunnhild was showing any measure of vulnerability in front of him meant that her near-death experience on the ship had brought her lower than Oddny had realized.
And the way Queen Gyda had looked at Gunnhild—similar to the way Oddny had witnessed Solveig looking at her daughter many times before—had clearly not helped.
“I wish you would’ve mentioned that your family would hate me when we were making our terms,” Gunnhild continued bitterly. “Although I suppose I should’ve expected it, given your father’s history with witches. It was my folly to expect any better of you. Any of you.”
Eirik seemed about to argue, but instead he turned on his heel and stormed toward Arinbjorn, spoke to him briefly with some angry gesturing, then stalked into the chamber on the left and slammed the door behind him. Hnoss and Gersemi ran up to the door and pawed at it, and it opened a crack to let the cats enter before slamming shut again.
At least Eirik knew when to walk away, Oddny thought, because Gunnhild clearly did not: She tried to follow him before Oddny grabbed her by the arm. “You should probably let him be until he’s calmed down.”
Gunnhild tore out of her grasp and glared at her. “Whose side are you on?”
“Oddny has the right of things,” Arinbjorn said as he came up beside them; Svein had disappeared along with many of the other hirdsmen, leaving only the servants who endlessly swept the hall. “Come. I’m to take you to Runfrid to give her the bindrune first thing—some of the men have long journeys home and plan to leave before the festival, so the sooner she can start tattooing them, the better. I’ll point out the workshop on the way. They’ll take care of you from there.”