“Put a knife through my heart,” she said. “Make it as quick and clean as you think I deserve. And once I’m gone, take care of my girl, Halldor. You’re the only one of my crew who could handle her, and she always loved you best. Swear to do these things, and I’ll tell you who I sold her sister to, and where to find him.”
She held up a clammy hand and offered it to Halldor, and Halldor shook it.
“She’s in Courland, across the Eastern Sea,” said Kolfinna. She went on to give the name of the man who’d bought Signy. He was a well-known farmer; they’d need only ask around once they arrived, and they’d find his home in no time.
When Kolfinna was done, Oddny couldn’t bring herself to say thank you, so instead she said, “We appreciate your cooperation.”
“What was her name?” Kolfinna asked as Oddny stood to leave. “The woman who killed me.”
“Yrsa,” Oddny said, the name catching in her throat.
“Yrsa.” Kolfinna closed her eyes. “She was a worthy adversary.”
Afterward, Kolfinna bade farewell to her daughter before Oddny bundled Steinvor out of the cottage and waited outside in the small yard, watching as the child played in the dirt of the unsown garden plot, ignorant of the fact that she’d just seen her mother alive for the last time. Svein emerged shortly after and closed the door behind him, and at Oddny’s questioning look, he said, “He wants to do it alone.”
Oddny looked down at her hands.
Moments later, a small, strangled sound from inside the cottage indicated that her mother’s revenge was complete.
* * *
—
THE NEXT DAY, THE townsfolk burned Kolfinna’s body and interred her remains in a mound just outside the city, where other such burials dotted the island’s landscape.
By night, Steinvor grew fussy at her mother’s absence and the presence of three strangers in her home, and the dockmaster’s wife—who had tended to the girl last summer when Kolfinna was on the raids and who had been looking in on her several times a day since Kolfinna had taken to bed—reluctantly offered to care for her a little longer.
“Just as you and your husband get settled in,” the woman said. “But only until then. I have too many children of my own.”
“If you’ll watch her from now until we get back from Courland,” said Oddny, “it would be most appreciated.”
Oddny had thought to seek passage on a ship across the Eastern Sea at once, but that night after she’d laundered Kolfinna’s bed linens and aired out the cottage to clear the smell of death, she sat Halldor down to check the damage to his knee and realized it had started to swell again. And the slash on his arm, the one she’d judged too shallow to stitch, had still not healed. She ended up sewing it shut and, remembering Kolfinna’s horrific wound, slathered it with extra poultice to keep it from festering.
“We’re staying put until you’re healed,” she said firmly as she rebandaged it.
“No,” Halldor said. “Take Svein and go. You’ve come this far—”
“And if Gudrod found himself in trouble once we left, and your uncle’s men are on their way here to capture you as we speak?” Oddny said, tying off the bandage. “Absolutely not. I’m not leaving your side, Halldor Bjarnarson. And that’s a threat.”
Halldor hung his head, pinched the bridge of his nose. “If any harm comes to my brother, I’ll never forgive myself.” He looked at Oddny, then past her at the wall. “He was—the first one to call me by my name. Hallgrim, my father’s smith at Saeheim, was the second. And Kolfinna was the third, and then the rest of her crew . . .”
Oddny took his hand. She wasn’t surprised that Kolfinna had known. There were few secrets on a ship, and they’d sailed together a long time. But that must’ve made what he’d had to do the day before even harder.
“Gudrod used to let me borrow his clothes when I’d sneak away to the smithy,” Halldor continued. “He told me so many times that our father would understand if I told him my truth, but I—I never got the chance. I was too scared. In my heart, I was always his son, and once he died, it hurt that he’d never know. But I thought if I strode into Valhalla with a sword in my hand and told him that he was avenged, he’d have no choice but to accept me. So I did what a son was meant to do. Revenge consumed me, not just because I hated Eirik but because once I fought him I would finally have the validation I’d craved for so long. But now I realize—I never needed it. There’s more to being a man than doing the things men are supposed to do. I think that’s what Gudrod was trying to tell me. I was his brother because I said I was, and that was enough for him. And I think our father would’ve felt the same way.”
Oddny sat down beside him on the bed and leaned her head against his shoulder, still tightly holding his hand, and she realized that she understood the meaning of his tattoo.
“The story where Loki turns himself into a salmon,” she said. “To escape the gods after insulting them all at Aegir’s feast, and admitting he orchestrated the death of Odin’s son. I always wondered why he’d do such a thing, but I think I understand it now. He wanted to face his fate on his own terms, and take the gods down a notch on his way out.”
Halldor gave her a thin smile. “I’ve always felt a certain kinship with Loki. But there are many different ways to interpret that story.”
“You can transform yourself, but sometimes you can’t escape,” Oddny said. “And what you couldn’t escape was being your father’s son—to avenge him or die trying.”
“Yes. Until I realized that I had a choice. That things didn’t have to be this way,” Halldor said quietly. “If Gudrod and Tryggvi’s men hadn’t been there, I might have tried to talk Eirik down. I didn’t want to fight him, but I felt like I had to after what Tryggvi said to me. It made me feel I had something to prove again. But, Oddny—I think that if my father were here, he would tell me to let this go. I don’t think the dead want us to die for them. I think a better way to honor them is to live.”
“Now there’s a radical thought. I think Loki would approve,” Oddny said, nudging him gently with her elbow.
Halldor smiled a bit at that. This was the most she’d heard him speak in a long time, and she didn’t want to push him, but there was something else on her mind.
“You know, the dockmaster’s wife thought we were married. I didn’t correct her.” She shifted. “We could go along with it. Who would know otherwise?”
Halldor studied her. He’d not slept well since Vestfold, and the skin beneath his bloodshot eyes was a deep purple, making the pale green of his irises appear brighter.
“I don’t see why not,” he said. “It would be easier that way, wouldn’t it?”
It would be. No bride-price or dowry would change hands; no official witnesses would be needed for the marriage. It simply was, because they said it was so, and in their world that was as unheard-of as a man giving up vengeance in favor of happiness, as a woman determining her own future without her family’s consent.