But Oddny had to get this off her chest.
“I can’t stop thinking about them, Gunna. Those women in the huts. If Signy’s circumstances are anywhere near that bad—or worse—I wish we could’ve gotten to her before winter.”
Gunnhild slumped against the wall. “I know. But we have a plan. There’s no sense in feeling so guilty that we can’t enjoy ourselves at least a little. Things are only going to get more difficult from here.”
“Especially with Thorbjorg and Katla heading our way as we speak,” Oddny said darkly.
Fear flitted across Gunnhild’s face for a brief moment before it hardened into resolve.
“Exactly,” she said.
By the time they’d dressed and left the bathhouse, both cursing at the cold air that struck them the moment they opened the door, it was clear they’d missed supper. They went straight to the cookhouse and scavenged some leftovers, then retired to the textile workshop, took to their borrowed bedrolls, and fell into a heavy, well-deserved sleep.
19
GUNNHILD DREAMED THAT SHE was drowning.
The water around her was dark as the void, and she was being dragged down, arms flailing, sharp teeth clamped around her ankle as the other foot kicked out.
She was so cold.
She couldn’t breathe.
Gunnhild!
Movement above her, and her heart leapt as she looked up, but it wasn’t the shape of Eirik that materialized—it was a white fox, and it bit down hard on her arm, and another shape was diving toward her and it was the eagle, blood and fluid streaming from its hollow eye socket, its remaining eye glaring hatefully, as Ran’s daughters laughed far below in the deep—
And then two hands grabbed her shoulders.
“Gunnhild!”
She was shaking, sweating, and Oddny was standing over her, looking down in concern. “Are you all right?”
“Yes,” Gunnhild managed. “Yes. It was only a dream.”
Oddny looked skeptical, but released her.
They breakfasted with the workshop women, after which Oddny jumped at the chance to share a loom with Ulla, and Gunnhild went off to work on a spell she had in mind, born of her terrible dream.
The woods were her first choice for some privacy. The problem was that she was hesitant to veer from the path for fear of getting lost, so she kept running into carpenters or thralls at work, marking trees or hauling out logs.
Her second choice was a copse of oaks behind the armory, where she hid herself behind the thickest tree and got started on her task. Crafting a spell from scratch was tedious work; at this beginning stage, it involved little more than scratching runes on a piece of birch bark with a lump of charcoal until she figured out the right combination to use. Men sparred on the practice field nearby, and their chatter and laughter and shouting, paired with the clash of steel, became distant as she worked.
But when several voices floated into her immediate vicinity, she froze.
Eirik’s was first. It was tight, worried: “Are you sure you don’t wish to winter here? It’s late in the season to be crossing the open sea. And it’s bad luck to travel during Winternights. It’s dangerous—”
Then Thorolf, sounding stiffer, more formal than Gunnhild had ever heard him: “There’s a cargo ship of Icelanders here waiting for me, as I arranged at the beginning of summer. If I decide to stay now, they’ll have tarried these past few weeks for nothing. They’ve made the crossing many times before. We’ll be fine.”
Arinbjorn, pacifying as always: “He needs to get away for a time, Eirik. From her.”
And finally, Svein: “And from you.”
Gunnhild’s guilt threatened to suffocate her. In the silence that followed the skald’s words, she took a chance and leaned over to peer out from behind the tree, and saw that the three other men had turned to look at Svein.
“What?” the skald asked, folding his arms. “Everyone knows by now that Thorolf asked her first.” When no one spoke, he sighed, said, “I’ll go get it,” and walked into the armory.
“I don’t wish to get into this again,” Eirik said wearily to Thorolf once Svein was gone. “I’ve already explained myself and apologized. What more would you have of me?”
“Time,” said Thorolf. “Distance.”
His voice was heavy with words left unsaid, and Gunnhild didn’t miss the look that passed between the two men, how Eirik very nearly managed to cover a wince, how he was the one to break eye contact first.
The significance of this moment was either lost on Arinbjorn or else he was dutifully ignoring it. Gunnhild guessed the latter. “Don’t mind him, Thorolf. It’s just that so many of us are leaving for the winter, and it makes him nervous—”
This didn’t improve Eirik’s mood. “Yes, thank you for reminding me.”
“Come, now,” Arinbjorn said. “You’ll have Svein. And Halldor. He was up before dawn practicing, remember? The other hopefuls drank themselves silly with the rest of us and were still drunk this morning.”
“But isn’t it better to get to know the men you’ll be fighting with?” Thorolf asked. “I don’t dislike Halldor, but he seems a bit . . . standoffish, doesn’t he?”
“And Eirik isn’t standoffish? He didn’t drink with us, either, and he was also up before dawn.” Arinbjorn gave his foster brother a bracing pat on the shoulder.
“That’s because I never went to sleep,” Eirik said without inflection.
Arinbjorn pointed a thumb sideways at him and continued, as if he hadn’t spoken, “This one would be living in a troll cave with no one else but his cats if we let him. Halldor will fit right in. Go, enjoy yourself this winter, Thorolf. And tell your father that my father says hello.” Gunnhild vaguely remembered someone mentioning that his father and Thorolf’s father had been foster brothers.
At this point Svein emerged from the armory carrying an axe and handed it to Eirik. The king took it and held it out to Thorolf, who gawped but didn’t move to take it. It was a glorious piece with a crescent-shaped blade, gold inlays, and silver plating on the shaft: a weapon clearly more for show than for practical use.
“You’ve been a good friend to me for many years,” Eirik said, still proffering the axe. “You gave me my first ship when we were young. And you did so in full awareness of the strife between our families, in hopes of healing the rift. Yet over the past moon, I’ve torn it open once again. I can’t regret what I did, or why I did it. What I do regret, however, is negating all your hard work. Let me at least make up for that.”
“But that axe,” Thorolf said. “Isn’t it the one your father gave you when he named you his successor? You can’t possibly mean to—”
“It is, and I do. I don’t know about our fathers, but in my mind, between you and me, there can be no question of our friendship. You haven’t returned home to Iceland since we met, and I wish for you to take this with you.”
“I can’t,” Thorolf said, his dark eyes huge. “It’s too much.”
“Give this to Skallagrim,” Eirik replied firmly. “From my father to me, from me to you, and from you to your father. With my thanks.”