He gestured behind him, and Oddny saw the shapes of the hirdsmen tying up the sail. But despite that, the ship was not losing speed. It was as though a giant invisible hand were moving them through the water, like little Hakon playing with his toy boat in a puddle. At the stern, the steersman fought with the rudder, which seemed to be stuck in place.
“Can’t you stop the ship?” Oddny asked. “Put the oars in and—？”
“We tried, but we’re going too fast. They flew out of our hands the moment they touched the water,” Svein said as he came up beside Halldor. “We have spares, but not enough to try again.” There was more standing water on deck than usual; some of the men were bailing it with buckets. “And we think there’s a hole in the hull.”
“The water is too calm.” Gunnhild shuffled sideways to peer over the gunnel. “It’s them. There’s no other explanation.”
“Well,” Svein said, “at least it’s not a storm.”
Eirik appeared and grabbed Gunnhild by the arm, hauled her back, and called out to the rest of the hird: “Stay away from the sides. Whatever is doing this might be in the water. If anyone goes overboard, we’ve no hope of finding you.” He turned to his wife. “Is there anything you can do?”
Gunnhild set her jaw and nodded. “Let me get my bag.”
But as she turned and took a step forward, she swayed and fell to her knees, hitting the deck hard. Oddny was by her side in a moment, and Eirik at the other.
“What’s wrong?” Oddny asked, and Gunnhild shoved both of them off and made for the tent. Moments later, they heard her vomit into a bucket. Oddny looked to Eirik, whose eyebrows had drawn together with worry and, if Oddny hadn’t known better, annoyance, as though he suspected that his wife had been hiding something.
Gunnhild crawled back out of the tent with her witching bag over her shoulder, her staff poking out the top of it, and made to stand. Eirik took her by the elbow and helped her up.
“It’s only seasickness,” she said, waving him off, twisting away—only to lose her balance and nearly topple into him. He caught her before she fell.
It was Oddny’s turn to take her friend’s arm. “Come. You need to lie down.”
“Oddny, we’re trapped in a mysterious fog, being pushed toward an unknown destination,” Gunnhild snapped. “I’m not going to lie down.”
“Don’t be so stubborn. If you’re sick to your stomach, that poison tea of yours won’t be doing you any favors.”
“What else am I supposed to do?”
“Where do you think we’re being taken?” Svein asked suddenly, peering out into the gloom. “When we started picking up speed, I felt like we turned to the left.” He looked to the steersman, and the man nodded.
“So north,” Halldor said. “Maybe they mean to run us aground. Or—”
“Or worse,” Eirik said darkly. He turned once again to his wife. “Lie down. Now.”
They held each other’s gazes for a long, tense moment before Gunnhild said quietly, “Fine. But when we find ourselves smashed to bits against a rocky cliff, don’t bother waking me. I’d rather die in my sleep than drown.”
“That doesn’t even make sense,” Eirik said, but she’d already gone back into the tent, jostling him with her shoulder as she went. He looked to Oddny and said, “Stay with her. Make sure she doesn’t . . . go anywhere.”
Oddny had planned on doing so anyway. When she went into the tent, Gunnhild was curled up on one of the bedrolls atop the oars, facing away, sulking. Oddny dug around in her friend’s witching bag until she found the leather canteen of henbane tea, made sure it was still full, and stuffed it into her healing bag for safekeeping. Peering once again into Gunnhild’s bag, Oddny found that the assortment of herbs and rune sticks within indicated beyond a doubt that her friend had been lying: She’d definitely been sick when they’d left and had tried to heal herself, and worse, it seemed she’d already attempted all the cures Oddny herself would have tried.
What could be wrong with her, then? Even if she is with child, these herbs and spells should’ve eased her symptoms. Unless perhaps there are complications with the babe, or with her womb . . .
Oddny thought on it, but there was not much she could do if Gunnhild wouldn’t tell her the truth.
After a time, Oddny poked her head out of the tent and saw that the fog had begun to clear, and the invisible hand seemed to be guiding them to land, slowing the ship as if to grant them a softer arrival. The men disembarked once the ship caught in a sand bed, and they hauled it far enough in to be secure. Oddny helped Gunnhild to the shore and they looked around at the flat, forested land around them.
“At least we’re not dead,” Oddny murmured.
Gunnhild was less optimistic. “Yes, but where are we?”
“We found the hole in the hull. It’s big enough for something the size of a cat to get through,” said Halldor to Eirik.
“Or a fox,” Gunnhild said, trading a look with Oddny.
“Thank the gods we left the cats behind,” Eirik muttered.
“It’s a wonder we didn’t sink,” Halldor went on. “We should have sunk.”
“And whatever it was got into the provisions,” Svein called down from the ship, where he and some of the other men had lifted the deck boards to check on the supplies below. “The stockfish is gone, and so’s the ale, and the spare ropes have been chewed through. And”—he held up the corner of a large, heavy piece of fabric riddled with holes, as though something the size of a dog had taken bites out of it—“the spare sailcloth, too.”
Eirik balled his fists and swore, stalking down to the water’s edge. “Halldor. You’re a man of Vestfold. Tell me where we are.”
Oddny and Gunnhild watched as the two of them stood looking out over the water, their arms folded in identical poses of grim resignation as Halldor attempted to judge their position.
“We can’t have gone that far off course, could we, in half a day?” said Eirik when Halldor didn’t speak.
“At the rate the ship was moving, it’s hard to say.” Halldor pointed. “Judging by that island there—” He swallowed visibly as he realized it. “No. I know exactly where we are—I’ve stood on this beach before. We’re north of Saeheim. The burial mounds of the ancient kings are just through the woods behind us. I used to play there as a child.”
Eirik pressed the heels of his palms into his eyes and said nothing, as though this were the worst answer Halldor could have possibly given. Oddny wasn’t sure why until Gunnhild reminded her, “Saeheim is Olaf’s seat. We’ve been dragged deep into the enemy’s territory.” A bit of color had come back to her cheeks, but she was shivering. “And it must be exactly where Thorbjorg wants us.”
Oddny racked her memory for knowledge of southeastern Norway and found she had very little. Except, “Isn’t there a market near Saeheim?”
“At Tunsberg, yes, but I know better than to show my face there. It’s Olaf’s town,” said Eirik, hands still over his eyes. He seemed to be thinking aloud: “We could row there, since the wind is gone, but even if I stay on board, my ship will be recognized.”