“I don’t know. You tell me.” Eirik put his hands on her shoulders. “Are you mad? What were you thinking? I was worried sick. I’ve been out here all night looking for you.”
“You . . . were worried about me? Why?” Gunnhild put a numb hand to her forehead and it came away with a dusting of frost. Her wet clothing had frozen stiff. “How long have I been gone?”
“It’ll be dawn soon. I’d planned to sleep in the armory—but when I went to our chambers to fetch a pillow, I saw you hadn’t returned, so I went looking.”
She held his cloak more tightly around her. Her head was clearing, but her vision was still a bit fuzzy around the edges. “Would this not be the first place you checked for me?”
“That’s just it,” Eirik said with a wary look at the Freyja statue. “I know the way like the back of my hand, but I couldn’t find it. And just when I’d decided to go back and rouse the hird to help me search, the path just . . . appeared. Right where I remembered it.”
Gunnhild looked at the statue, too. The goddess had spoken to her for what seemed like only moments, but had it taken all night?
He took her hands between his and rubbed them together. The warmth was immediate. “Can you walk?”
“I think so, if you’ll help me up.”
Eirik put an arm around her waist and gently eased her to standing. Her feet were numb, her legs heavy, and no sooner had he gotten her upright than she wrenched herself away, staggered forward, doubled over, and vomited next to the dead fire.
“Ah yes, my sick wife wanders into the woods in the middle of the night and doesn’t come back, then wonders why I was worried about her,” Eirik said when she was done.
Gunnhild wiped her mouth and straightened, wobbling, and he came forward to steady her. She waved him away. “I’m not sick. I’m pregnant.”
Eirik froze for so long that she thought he might have turned to stone, but in his eyes she saw something she’d never seen before: awe and fear and hope all rolled into one. She felt it mirrored in herself.
We can be better than our parents were, she wanted to say. We will be better than them, if you give us one more chance to be better to each other.
“That’s good news,” he said at last, and her heart leapt.
“Is it?” she asked, disguising her hope with mild disinterest. “I wasn’t sure how things stood between us. I thought you might choose to set me aside.”
Eirik looked away, arms folded. If he wasn’t ready to talk about it, she wouldn’t push him, and she was surprised when he spoke.
“You made a poor choice at the duel, but I shouldn’t have said those things to you.” He looked to her at last. “I’m sorry.”
She hesitated for a beat before throwing herself into his arms. Eirik returned the embrace and she buried her face in his neck.
“I’m sorry, too. For pushing you that night.” Gunnhild pulled away to look at him. “But I won’t apologize for saving your life, and I don’t care what people are saying about me. I would rather be the most hated woman in Norway than be your widow.”
Eirik seemed a bit affected by that; he opened his mouth, but no words came out. As if seeking an escape from having to express his feelings, he looked past her to the dead fire, then to the Freyja statue in the hollow again. “What were you doing out here?”
The memory of her encounter with the goddess crystallized in an instant, as though she’d been arranging broken shards of pottery without knowing what she was trying to re-create and had finally realized what shape the pieces were meant to take. She let out a sharp breath and grabbed Eirik’s bicep, and he looked down at her in concern.
“There’s something I must do,” Gunnhild said.
* * *
—
THE SUN WAS FULLY up by the time they returned to the main hall. Eirik refused to let her go to the workshop as she’d wanted, instead forcing her back to their chambers to change her clothing before she caught her death. Once she was bundled up in clean, dry wools and furs to his satisfaction, Eirik slipped from the room to fetch some of the women for a ritual at her instruction. Ulla and Saeunn arrived first, rubbing sleep from their eyes, quiet and wary. Ulla had her drum, though, which was a good sign.
“Oddny is gone, and it’s my fault. I’m sorry. I know you miss her. I do, too,” Gunnhild said to them, her staff and steaming teacup in her hands. “But I can still find her sister. I need your help. If you would sing for me—”
The door creaked open and Queen Gyda and Hrafnhild the cook slipped inside.
“I won’t be summoned like some servant,” said the old queen imperiously.
“Eirik did ask you politely,” Hrafnhild said.
“Yes, but he interrupted my breakfast.”
“Where’s Thora?” Gunnhild asked worriedly. She couldn’t stomach the thought of Thora, the only member of Eirik’s family who’d shown her any kindness, turning her back on her.
“Still abed. I tried to wake her, but she sleeps quite deeply, that woman,” said Queen Gyda. “Now, what’s this about another ritual? Why will this be any different than last time?”
Because I never should’ve doubted myself in the first place, Gunnhild wanted to say. Because I take failure so seriously that I let it determine my worth.
“It will be different,” she asserted. “Now, will you sing for me?”
After a brief hesitation, they agreed, and Ulla drummed. Remembering Freyja’s words, Gunnhild felt her confidence flare as she began to spin, and this time, when she sank under, a lone spirit waited for her. And one look at the person’s face made Gunnhild burst into tears.
“Yrsa,” she whispered.
Her friends’ mother gave her a small, sad smile and took her hands. “Oh, Gunnhild. It’s so good to see you.”
“Tell me. Please. Tell me where to find her.”
And Yrsa leaned forward and whispered in her ear.
33
GUDROD HAD BEEN AS good as his word: He’d returned with additional horses and with directions to where Oddny and Halldor would meet the ship before first light. He’d seemed just as surprised to see Svein waiting there with them as Oddny had been when the skald had come out of the darkness carrying their things. Halldor had been unconscious still, but Oddny had wept, relieved to be fleeing the country with more than a bag of herbs and the clothes on her back, and grateful to have her mother’s Eir statue with her again; she’d packed it with her clothing instead of with her healing supplies, and had cursed herself for it until Svein had appeared.
Oddny’s surprise, though, had turned into utter shock when he’d given her the bag of silver from Gunnhild—which she felt strange about accepting after all the things she’d said, but felt she had no choice but to take—and told her that in leaving the camp, he had also left the hird.
“I know she was your friend, but after everything Thorolf told me, something in me never fully trusted her,” he’d explained, glancing down at where his arm ring used to be. “What she did tonight will be unforgivable in the eyes of every man who hears of it, and while I love Eirik as much as the rest of the hird, I know he won’t divorce her, which makes me question his judgment.”