She threw herself at Arinbjorn before she’d made it all the way down the ladder, and he swung her in a circle. Oddny and Gunnhild looked at the ceiling politely and let them have their moment, though Oddny decided that if they didn’t hurry things along so she and Gunnhild could go get cleaned up and settled in, she was going to make a bad impression. The thin smile on Gunnhild’s face indicated that she was of a similar mind.
“I am glad you’re alive,” said the woman when Arinbjorn set her down. “Thorolf and Svein told me what happened . . .” She pulled away and looked him over as if searching for visible wounds. “How are you?”
“Later,” he said, and gestured at Gunnhild and Oddny. “Runfrid, this is Gunnhild Ozurardottir and Oddny Ketilsdottir of Halogaland.”
“Runfrid Asgeirsdottir.” She shook Oddny’s hand, then Gunnhild’s.
“Oddny is a healer, and Gunnhild is a witch. And she’s also marrying Eirik at Winternights.”
“Ah! They told me that, too. This is her, then?” Runfrid froze with Gunnhild’s hand still in hers. She put her other hand over Gunnhild’s as well, looked her in the eyes, and said with mock seriousness, “I am so sorry.” When Gunnhild’s smile only became more strained, she added, “I’m only kidding. I say that because Eirik’s like a brother to me. The big, moody, prickly brother I never had. He’ll grow on you. Like a fungus.”
She dropped Gunnhild’s hand and looked to Arinbjorn as though waiting for him to back her up. He shrugged a shoulder. “You said it, not me. Gunnhild, the bindrune?”
Without preamble, Gunnhild reached into her belt pouch and pulled out the antler coin she’d carved with the symbol she’d created. She explained what it was for and how to use it—all of which was new to Oddny, who listened with interest—and Runfrid nodded along until Gunnhild dropped it into her palm, causing her to gasp in surprise.
“I felt something,” Runfrid said in awe as she ran a finger over the carving. “Incredible.”
“Eirik will talk to you about payment later,” Arinbjorn said. “For now—”
“If this is the task you were talking about, I’ll do it for free. For all our sakes.” Runfrid closed her hand into a fist around the bindrune and turned her head over her shoulder to the freshly bathed hirdsmen trickling back into the armory. “All right, who’s first?”
Oddny and Gunnhild took their leave after that and headed to the building Arinbjorn had pointed out as the textile workshop.
“Gunna,” Oddny said as they stopped just outside the door. “Are you all right?”
Gunnhild chewed her lip. “I was just thinking. About the sacrifice—”
“I’m sure if you just talk to Eirik about it—”
“Oh, gods, that’s the last thing I want to do. Talk to him?” Gunnhild made a face. “No. But I think we could use this situation to our advantage.”
“How? You told me that the spirits wouldn’t come—”
“Hush!” Gunnhild looked around wildly to ensure they weren’t overheard, and lowered her voice. “No. Listen: If Thorbjorg and Katla are here during the disablot, and King Harald allows me to do a ritual as well, then that means neither of them will be able to get to the dark place.”
“The dark place?”
“The place a seeress goes to when she sinks down and meets with the dead. Anyway—whatever those two are doing to prevent me from communing with the spirits, they won’t be able to, because they can’t go into trance right there in the hall.”
“Not without suspicion,” Oddny said, eyes widening in understanding. “And their absence would be noticed on such an important day. And if Olaf and Halfdan are trying to convince King Harald of their innocence—”
“They wouldn’t dare try anything right under his nose,” Gunnhild finished. She reached forward and squeezed Oddny’s shoulders. “Every woman here will be singing for me. I’ll be safe, and the spirits will come, and I will find out exactly where Signy is. We won’t have to go to Birka at all come spring—we can just go straight to wherever she’s been sold off to, as I told you we would back at my father’s. I won’t fail again, Oddny. I swear it.”
“And if King Harald won’t allow you to perform the ritual along with the sacrifice?”
Gunnhild grimaced and dropped her hands. “Then we’ll figure something else out.”
“Yes. We will.” Oddny took a deep, shaky breath, unwilling to get her hopes up again but desperate to stay optimistic for her sister’s sake. And for Gunnhild’s.
She turned back to the door. “Shall we?”
* * *
—
THE MOMENT THEY ENTERED the workshop, a sense of peace settled onto Oddny’s shoulders. The merry crackling of the hearth fire and the soft chatter of the working women were a soothing balm to her ears; the brush and tap of the heddle rods moving and the clink of the loom weights knocking together were songs she knew by heart. Oil braziers hung from the posts here, too, making the smaller space as bright as the main hall. Beneath each brazier hung bunches of dried wildflowers and herbs, their heady fragrances mixing with the smell of woodsmoke to envelop her like a warm embrace.
Statues of Frigg and her handmaidens were perched on the lintel, offering bowls set out in front of them, and soapstone lamps burning high between each figure. Oddny smiled to recognize Eir by the bouquet of angelica clutched in her hands—her kind face so similar to Yrsa’s statue of Eir, stowed safely in Oddny’s bag—and she realized, at the sight of her goddess, that this was the first time she’d felt truly safe since the raid.
But Gunnhild looked uncomfortable. Oddny understood why at once—when was the last time Gunnhild had touched a loom? Probably not since she’d run away from home. And at a glance, Oddny could not identify any of the figures on the lintel as representing Freyja, who was almost certainly Gunnhild’s patron.
Once they entered, a woman came up to them, leaning on a cane. She had maybe forty winters and was tall, with curly dark brown hair and a kind face. Oddny, feeling fully in her element, introduced herself and Gunnhild and explained why they were there.
The woman in turn introduced herself as Saeunn Hrolfsdottir, the workshop’s head. She seemed happy to have them and began explaining the weavers’ daily routine. As she did, many of the women stopped working to peer at the newcomers; some whispered behind their hands and gave Oddny and Gunnhild—especially Gunnhild—strange looks. But a dark-haired, bright-eyed woman at the loom closest to the door was smiling with unconcealed interest, and Oddny found herself smiling back.
“We make sailcloths, mainly,” Saeunn said, and Oddny’s attention snapped back to her. “Alreksstadir is the king’s shipbuilding center, at least until they’ve felled all the trees they can use and they move on. But as long as the sheep are here, so are we.” She smiled. “We sleep here in the workshop. I can have the girls dig out some extra bedrolls for you both.”
“Thank you,” Oddny said sincerely. “We’d love to have a bath before we get settled in, though.”