Signy pitched her voice high. “？‘Signy, you shirked your father’s fighting lessons as a child just as often as you shirk your chores. You can barely chop firewood and you haven’t practiced with a weapon since before he died.’？”
Their mother sounded nothing like that, so Oddny added, in a disturbingly accurate imitation of Yrsa: “？‘Signy Ketilsdottir, you’d be killed the moment you stepped off a ship. Go finish your chores and do not speak of this again.’？”
“Yes, yes, we all know you’re the best mimic in Halogaland. It’s not polite to brag.” Signy opened the door of the modest hall and a crisp breeze blew in. Outside, Vestein, their mother’s servant Lif, and a half dozen farmhands were sitting on stools and eating their curds in silence. The farm’s two dogs lazed in the sunlight near the door; they had kept the girls company at the dairy all summer, helping to herd the livestock and providing protection. Oddny gave one of them a scratch behind the ears as she passed.
“Signy Ketilsdottir.” Yrsa stormed up to them the moment her daughters appeared. “You’re not going anywhere today. Is that clear?”
Signy shot Vestein a murderous look. “You told her?”
“How long did you think you could get away with hiding out at Ozur’s?” Yrsa demanded. “Don’t think I haven’t heard the nonsense you’ve been spouting all summer about bedding a king.”
Now Signy turned to glare at Oddny, who pointedly looked away. She might have mentioned it to Yrsa out of frustration as they’d unloaded the dairy cart upon their return yesterday, but she hadn’t thought her mother would ever bring it up.
“Well, if you’d heard anything, you’d know there was no bed involved,” Signy said, and Vestein made a choking sound and spat out some of his breakfast. The older farmhands rolled their eyes, but the younger two—who Oddny knew for a fact her sister had lain with—looked slightly miffed. “I don’t understand why you’re shaming me for—”
“You may do as you wish where men are concerned,” Yrsa snapped, “as up until now you’ve been discreet about it.” And that was the case: One of the first things she’d taught Oddny was how to brew a contraceptive. “But now that you’ve made a spectacle of yourself, the other mothers are going to give me an earful at the next feast.”
Signy threw her hands up. “I don’t understand why you wouldn’t want this for me. You act like me marrying a king wouldn’t be good for our family.”
“If this king is anything like his father,” said Yrsa with icy disapproval, “you’re more likely to end up as his concubine than his wife.”
“And are concubines not well taken care of?” Signy pressed. “Would the sons I’d give him not stand to inherit the title of king should he choose to legitimize them?”
Oddny rubbed her temples. The way Signy vacillated between her two opposing life goals—of fighting and raiding and adventure, and of attaching herself to a rich man with whom she’d want for nothing—would never cease to amaze her.
“My sister wishes to marry the most hated man in Norway.” Vestein glanced upward as though directing his words at the gods. “Our family truly is cursed.”
“Being a king’s concubine would be better than this.” Signy gestured around them, the color rising in her cheeks. “This—this simple little life.”
For a moment Oddny thought her mother was going to argue, but instead Yrsa deflated, shook her head, and sat down heavily on her stool.
“Don’t be so ungrateful, Signy. We’re alive, aren’t we? No thanks to your laziness,” Vestein growled. He had grown into a quiet, gangly man with prematurely thinning hair and no beard. That raid—and their father’s death—had changed him. While many other men his age were off making names for themselves, Vestein worked hard but was unambitious beyond completing the day’s farmwork. Legally the farm was his, but everyone knew Yrsa was in charge.
“Don’t you dare start,” Signy said, turning on him. “It’s at least partially your fault that we have no prospects. You, and that thrice-damned old seeress.”
Vestein countered, “You know very well that the only men who haven’t cared about the prophecy hanging over your heads are old goats desperate enough to take cursed women as second or third wives. And all of them offered a bride-price far less than either of you is worth. Was I wrong to refuse them? Is this life truly so bad by comparison?”
Signy dug her fingers into her hair and gestured wildly at the fjord, at Ozur’s hall on its distant island across the strait. “You think so small, brother! There’s a king coming through here again, and I—”
“Enough, Signy,” Yrsa said softly. “Eat your breakfast. Don’t speak of this again.”
Maybe it was because of the resignation in her mother’s voice, and the way that none of the rest of them—including Oddny—would look at her, but something in Signy seemed to break.
“Fine,” she said, and then, more forcefully, “Fine,” before she turned and stormed off in the direction of the woods. This in itself was nothing new—and in truth was how most arguments between Signy and Yrsa ended—but the fact that she’d gone without having breakfast was worrisome, though Oddny didn’t follow her. Signy always needed time to cool off before anyone, usually Oddny, attempted to soothe her.
Deep down, Oddny knew that Signy’s fears were not unfounded: One day Vestein would marry and have children, and his sisters would become two extra mouths to feed. Oddny stole a few glances at the faces around her before landing on Lif, her mother’s age, the last daughter of a poor family who could afford no dowry; she’d had few other options than to become a servant. At this point, Oddny had to wonder if her future would end up looking similar, and she told herself it wouldn’t be so bad. Lif seemed content enough.
Once they’d finished breakfast, Yrsa handed Oddny a basket. “For your ingredients. And find your sister and make sure she’s all right. I fear I pushed her too far today, and I regret it.”
“I don’t think you did,” Oddny said. “I think it was kinder of you to disabuse her of her fantasy than to indulge it.”
Yrsa put a hand to Oddny’s cheek. “Sometimes I think I’ve made you too much like me, dear one. Often the stories we tell ourselves are all we have to hold on to. Perhaps I should’ve let her go on dreaming.”
“It wouldn’t do her any good,” said Oddny bitterly. “She’s right about one thing. Our prospects are limited.”
“You can’t lose hope.” Yrsa tilted Oddny’s chin up. “You’re diligent, a hard worker, and a fine spinner and weaver, and a healer on top of it. You’ll be a wonderful wife one day, Oddny. Your prospects aren’t as bad as you think.”
The words almost escaped her then, her deepest, darkest fear: Maybe I’m more like Signy than you think, but I’m good at hiding it.
When Oddny’s blood first came in her early teens there had always been at least one full day during her cycle when she was completely bedridden, feeling guilty and useless, and Yrsa had known her daughter well enough to know that she wasn’t simply trying to get out of doing chores. Eventually she’d managed to concoct the tea that would ease Oddny’s pain, but those first few moons of trial and error had been the worst.