“Well, you’re a witch. I’m sure Freyja would welcome you into her hall. Would she not give her own kind the afterlife you deserve?”
Gunnhild was both touched and alarmed that he spoke of Freyja with such reverence, especially after every witch in the north had turned against him. While she supposed his interest in her goddess explained why he’d dubbed his cats Hnoss and Gersemi, it didn’t explain something that had been bothering her since she’d learned the creatures’ names.
“It seems to me that you hold more respect for the magic arts than I thought. But,” she ventured, “if that’s true, how could you have gone through with killing your brother Rognvald?”
Eirik’s face darkened. “Because it’s not right for men to practice magic. Men are meant to pick up swords and fight out their problems. Magic is for cowards and women.”
“And yet,” Gunnhild said, “you honor the likeness of Odin in the main hall and the armory and the temple. Is he not also a witch? Did Freyja not also teach him magic?”
“Odin is different,” Eirik said stiffly, with an infuriating matter-of-factness that made her suspect that he was regurgitating the words of another. She had a strong suspicion as to who. “He’s also the patron of kings.”
“But did Rognvald not also honor him?” she pressed. “Tell me—before you burned him alive in his hall, did you see whose statue your brother had lofted upon his lintel?”
Eirik’s eyes went wide and he drew away from her. She didn’t know what he was seeing in that moment in his mind’s eye, but she could hazard a guess.
“I don’t know what you wish me to say,” he said, voice hushed. “There’s no way to undo what I’ve done, and now I’m paying the price. I regret—”
“Do you? Would you still regret it if Thorbjorg weren’t so intent on avenging him?”
“Yes, I would. Would you care about the enslaved women on this estate if you didn’t picture your friend as one of them? I’ve heard about that charm of yours—men seem to have been blighted with pustules upon trying to enter the weaving huts. It was noble enough of you, but whatever you do for them won’t help Signy Ketilsdottir.”
“You’re a beast,” she said, because he wasn’t wrong, and she hated it.
Eirik was silent. Then he said, “That’s not the worst I’ve been called.”
Any pity she’d felt for him when he was being castigated by his father and stepmother had evaporated. “I find you endlessly vexing. It’s clear to me now that you’ve never had an original thought in your entire life. You’re King Harald’s creature through and through. You’re lucky to have Arinbjorn at your side—he sees the need to humble you, lest your head get as big as your father’s.”
“Don’t speak of my father that way,” Eirik snapped.
“And why shouldn’t I, after hearing the way he speaks to you? He says, Go kill your brother, and you say, Yes, my king, and then you say ridiculous things like Magic is for cowards and women. Do you hear yourself? He’s tried to make you in his exact image.”
Eirik was visibly uncomfortable now, his reddened face twisted up like that of a child about to throw a tantrum. “Is that such a bad thing?”
“Yes. Because if you can’t admit that your father isn’t perfect, how are you ever supposed to become better than him?”
He flinched as if she’d struck him, and she braced herself for him to rage at her or order her to go away. But instead he only looked at her, and didn’t move, and didn’t speak.
She wanted to smack some sense into him. She wanted to grab his hair with both fists and—
No. The next thought was horrifying, exciting, and completely unwelcome. No, no, no. It was better, easier, to think of him as a heartless monster.
But he was scared. He was vulnerable. She saw it now. This, from a man who had never known anything soft in all his days, who probably had only the faintest memories of a gentle presence in his life, unnerved her more than anything else.
And then the moment passed, and he was himself again.
“You are steering this conversation onto thin ice,” he said. “Tread carefully.” The words, her own words thrown back at her, were low, harsh, clipped. He regarded her now with his usual contempt, which she returned in kind, with an anger stronger than anything else she’d ever felt—because it was born of disappointment, of the dashing of her own optimism.
She saw her foolishness now. It was folly to think for even one moment that this man could be anything other than what he was. What he had been born to be, and molded into.
It was only when his horse’s hoofbeats faded into the distance that her heart slowed its rapid pounding and she sat down on the stump, put her head in her hands.
What have I gotten myself into?
* * *
—
BY THE TIME SHE’D returned the horse to its stall and walked back to the workshop, it was past suppertime and her stomach growled ferociously. It seemed the workshop women had gotten their hands on some hot cider, for Gunnhild recognized the smell of apples wafting from the cauldron over the center hearth. She went to sit by Oddny, who sat sewing, while Ulla was nalbinding a sock—and surprisingly, Runfrid the tattooist was there, too, sewing a rip in the sleeve of a kaftan.
“The whole hird’s in the armory to make room in the hall for the other kings and their guests,” Runfrid explained when Gunnhild expressed surprise at her presence. “Oddny invited me here for some quiet. I figured since you were all done working for the day, no one would try to shove a spindle or shuttle into my hands.”
“What happened, Gunna?” Oddny asked. “Where have you been all day? How did it go with King Harald?”
The moment Gunnhild entered, Ulla had gotten up and returned with a steaming cup of cider, which Gunnhild accepted with gratitude. Ulla settled back in beside Oddny and went back to her nalbinding.
“Judging by the mood Eirik was in when he returned to the armory,” said Runfrid, “I’m thinking it didn’t go well.”
Gunnhild looked at Runfrid and Ulla, then at Oddny, and grimaced. “I’ll say this much: I doubt King Harald will let me do the sacrifice now, let alone a ritual on top of it.”
“You were going to do a ritual?” Ulla asked, eyes huge. “I’ve never seen a Norse seeress tell the future before.”
“But you’re still getting married, aren’t you?” Oddny asked, her eyes searching Gunnhild’s. “He hasn’t made Eirik put you aside?”
Not if Eirik doesn’t decide to do it himself first, after the conversation we just had, Gunnhild thought. But she said, “Not yet. For now, I’m still to be married in a few days’ time, which means we’re still going to Birka in the spring.” She leaned against the post behind her and took a sip of cider. “Winternights would still be the perfect time to do this. Yule would work as well, but the fact that Katla and Thorbjorg are here gives us an advantage now that we won’t have then.”
Oddny worried at the skin of her bottom lip with her teeth as she thought. “What if we did the ritual right here in the workshop and kept it private instead? Everyone will be at the feast. We can ask one of the men to keep an eye on Thorbjorg and Katla to make sure they don’t leave the longhouse to interfere.”