“That’s wiser than I would have expected from him,” Oddny said, impressed, though in those words she heard the echo of Arinbjorn’s on the day Halldor had broken his nose. “No wonder you looked so surprised.”
He gave her a strained smile and shifted. “I don’t suppose you see me any differently now?”
Oddny tapped a finger against her chin. “Hmm. No. All I see when I look at you is a man who still owes me ten marks of silver.” She looked up at him through her eyelashes. “And as a matter of fact, I happen to think you’re pretty extraordinary yourself.”
Halldor blinked at her a few times before breaking into a broad smile. It took her breath away. Made her heart feel too big for her chest.
And when he moved closer to her once more, it seemed the moon shone brighter.
“If that’s so, perhaps that kiss was worth subtracting another mark?” Halldor said, cupping her face in his hands. His touch made her shiver and she put her arms around his waist, hardly daring to believe that this was really happening.
“Don’t push your luck,” Oddny said.
Before they could kiss again, Halldor broke from her and said, “Runfrid is waiting. If I want to get my tattoo touched up before she and Arinbjorn leave for Fjordane tomorrow, we’d better get back. It’s already going to take most of the night.”
“Right,” Oddny said. It was difficult not to feel disappointed. Now that she’d actually enjoyed the touch of another person for once, it was hard not to want more, want everything, right this moment, as nervous as she was about what would come next. So when he went to pick up the bucket, she took his hand and smiled. “To Runfrid, then.”
He smiled back at her and her heart soared. But as they walked back toward the armory, she thought of Signy again, suffering out there somewhere in the world while Oddny kissed a man who’d participated in the act that landed her there, and she felt the shame wash over her. It was too much to hold in her head at once.
She tried to tell herself that she and Gunnhild had done all they could for now, but then she remembered Thorbjorg’s offer and the guilt reared up again like a wave, so high that it blocked out all the light that Halldor had brought into her life tonight.
She’d been foolish to turn Thorbjorg down, hadn’t she? She could be halfway to Signy by now if Thorbjorg hadn’t been lying, and if she truly wanted Signy back, shouldn’t she have taken that risk? Had she made the right decision in rejecting the witch? How would she be able to live with herself if she’d been wrong?
Oddny could only hope that when she saw her sister again, Signy would understand.
27
GUNNHILD HAD SEPARATED HER wedding gifts from Eirik’s. The ones meant for both of them—like the fine cloths—she’d left to him. She stacked them on the box chair that had been gifted to them, a magnificent thing with a high carved back and arms, the seat lifting up for storage beneath. Hnoss and Gersemi dozed on the pile of fabrics she’d set upon it, and over the back of the chair was draped another gift: a pristine polar bear pelt.
She’d included her bride-price with his things and crammed as much of her dowry as she could into her witching bag, though the silver weighed it down significantly and made the basket handle of her staff poke out. Then she took a pack basket and stuffed it with everything else she wished to take with her. She had, sadly, decided to leave her duck dress behind, as she would probably have to sell her tarnished old brooches as well as her much heavier, more extravagant, and more valuable new ones, which had been a wedding gift from King Harald himself.
Lastly, she considered the tapestry loom Queen Gyda had given her, and had the sudden urge to smash it to pieces and throw it into the hearth out of sheer spite—but then the door opened, momentarily admitting the racket of the rowdy feast, and then closed.
“What are you doing?” Eirik asked. “And what—what happened to your neck?”
She’d braided her hair over one shoulder, leaving the faint bruising visible, and now she cursed herself. Before she left she would need to put on a scarf to prevent more people from asking that question.
“I’m leaving,” she said.
A clink as he set down his cup on one of the chests. “Leaving? Why?”
“I’m going back to Finnmark. Before the guests depart tomorrow, I’ll find the ship headed farthest north and pay for passage on it. Discreetly. I’ll stow away with Halfdan himself if I have to, to get me as far as Trondheim, and I’ll make do from there.” She gestured at the items piled on the box chair. “I’ve left you what’s yours. Tell people what you will of my departure. I’ll be too far away to care what they think of me.”
“But why?”
She blinked back tears as she met his eyes. “Because I am a fraud.”
Eirik folded his arms, leaned against the door, and regarded her suspiciously. “You stabbed yourself and healed the wound in an afternoon, and planted curses to protect the women in the weaving huts. Your power doesn’t seem false to me. What’s really going on?”
“I’ve been dishonest with you,” she said. “I performed a failed ritual tonight, and it wasn’t the first. Now I’m forced to face the fact that I’m unable to commune with the spirits on my own. My power is limited to charms and curses and a bit of healing. And that’s all.”
A peddler of petty sorceries. Without being able to commune with the dead and gain their knowledge, Gunnhild was only half a witch, maybe not even that. She couldn’t even craft an effective protection charm; she’d tried and failed so many times already that it now seemed an impossible task. What else was beyond her?
Eirik shook his head. “I don’t understand. What about the bird? During the storm? The one that came out of your chest? And what about Signy?”
Gunnhild curled her hands into fists. “Oddny will have better luck finding Signy in my absence. I’m a curse upon both of them.”
Her throat was healing thanks to Oddny’s salve, but her voice was still hoarse, and it cracked on the word “curse,” which caused a few traitorous tears to escape her eyes. She wiped them hastily and motioned to one of the chests she was leaving behind, atop which sat a full haversack, stuffed with dowry silver that she couldn’t fit in her own bag.
“This is for Oddny,” Gunnhild said. “It’ll be enough to get her to Birka, if you’ll see her safely onto a ship heading that way. And, gods willing, after that it’ll be enough to buy Signy’s freedom once she’s found.”
“I’ll see it done.” Eirik rubbed his jaw. “You’re not going to say goodbye to her?”
“No. It’ll hurt too much.” She picked up her pack basket.
He didn’t reply, and when she turned to him, she saw that he was sullenly gnawing at the cuticles on his thumb. She put the basket back down, crossed the room, and ripped his hand away from his mouth. “Ask Oddny to make you something to help you stop that. A salve so nasty it’ll keep you from biting them.”
Eirik looked at her, then at their hands, which had not touched since they swore the blood oath in the woods of Finnmark. Not even during the wedding ceremony, when they’d clasped forearms as the priest bound them together with the woven band; not even when they’d been passing the dragon-headed cup back and forth during the feast afterward.