Peaceweaver (2 page)

Thryth smiled and reached up to touch Hild’s cheek with her rough fingers. “Of course you have, dear one.” She started walking again and Hild, embarrassed by her childish outburst, fell into step beside her. Across the lake, hills rose in the distance, and beyond them, mountains swathed in mist. Giants walked there. Somewhere beyond the mountains lay the kingdom of the Heathobards, the warriors at whose hands Wonred had died. If Wonred had been from a noble family, the king would have demanded vengeance and the Shylfings would have gained yet another enemy. But Wonred’s humble beginnings, and the fact that Sigyn hadn’t petitioned the king for redress for her husband’s death, had kept the lakeshore a place where Hild could walk without fear of enemy longboats plying the waters.

“Can you remember the days of the queen?” Thryth asked.

Hild turned her attention back from the mountains. She started to speak, then saw that no response was needed. The old woman’s eyes were almost closed, as if she were watching a scene from days gone by, not the path in front of her.

“Back then, before she fell ill, she’d serve the mead horn to the men.” Thryth’s voice took on a singsong quality, as if she were chanting a lay. “I don’t think half the warriors in the hall noticed how much she guided them, but the women did, you mark me.”

“Did they?” Hild asked, even though she knew the answer. She never tired of Thryth’s stories about how things used to be.

“We’d watch from behind the beams while the queen said, ‘I know you want to end that feud,’ or some such—she had a way with words, she did. And then she’d hold out the mead to a warrior”—Thryth held out her own hands, pantomiming the passing of the horn—“and he’d hardly know that when he accepted it, he was pledging to carry out the queen’s words. But we women knew.”

Hild nodded. She could remember the queen moving about the hall, speaking to the king and his hearth companions, even if she’d been too young to pay attention to the words that passed among them.

“It wasn’t just the warriors she counseled. The king listened to her, too. Of course, she had Ari Frothi to help her. He’d pull out his harp and sing something that went right along with what she’d said, some lay about a feud that had ended, or whatever it was the queen was talking about.” Thryth shook her head, making a
tsk
ing noise with her tongue. “But now it’s that younger skald, Bragi, who counsels the king. With him it’s always power and fighting and war. His words make all of us unsafe.”

The sound of honking made them both look up to see skeins of wild geese stitching seams across the sky. They watched until the birds’ melancholy calls faded into the distance. Hild had always liked Thryth, not just because she
was so comfortable and comforting, but also because there were many things they agreed about. Hild’s mother, who had taken over the queen’s duties, was far less willing to try to influence the men than the queen had been. “It’s not my place; I’m not the queen,” she protested to Hild whenever they talked about it. But as bearer of the mead, it
was
her place, Hild argued. Someone needed to counter Bragi’s influence. Ever since the queen had fallen ill, the atmosphere in the hall had changed. Feuds were prolonged; raiding parties went looking for fights, not just gold and slaves; boys became warriors too young, before they were ready; and far more times than they should, funeral pyres sent their greasy smoke spiraling into the sky. The last funeral hadn’t even been a full season past—the grain whose harvest would be celebrated at tomorrow’s festival had already been tinged with gold when Harr’s pyre had been lit. Hild hadn’t known him, but she’d recognized the grief on his widow’s face all too well.

It had to stop. And it would, Hild vowed to herself. Starting today, she, not her mother, would be serving the mead in the hall, and as she did, she would find ways to break Bragi’s hold over the king. She’d show both the king and the skald—and all the warriors, too—how the women of the kingdom saw things. She would make things like they’d been before, when the queen still served the mead.

They came to the bleached skeleton of a boat, long since abandoned, one side buried in sand. A bird sheltering
behind it took flight at their approach. They stood looking out over the lake for a moment. When a fish leapt, slapping the water, they turned back toward the cottage, walking silently, each sunk in her own thoughts. “Will you tell her?” Hild asked when they neared the door.

Thryth nodded. “Of course I will, dear one.” She stopped at the herb bed, reaching down to pick a sprig of mint, its late-season leaves curled and brown. As she handed it to Hild, she squinted up at her. “But don’t look for Sigyn in the hall. Not today, anyway.”

Hild rolled the leaves between her fingers and brought them to her nose, wondering how such a withered plant could hold so firmly to its fresh scent. She gave Thryth a quick hug, then headed back to her uncle’s fortress, her head down, weighted by Thryth’s words.

At the Lake Gate, she looked up and smiled. Brynjolf stood stiffly at attention, square-jawed and resolute. Hild knew she shouldn’t speak to him, or even look at him—it would be far too easy to get him into trouble a second time. But at the last minute, she couldn’t help herself. Glancing quickly to make sure the other guard wasn’t watching, she made a pig face. When Brynjolf’s lips quirked, she did it again, this time sticking out her tongue, too. Before the other guard turned, Hild had wiped all expression from her face and passed through the gate with a queenly bearing. Behind her, Brynjolf snorted with laughter, and she hurried onward, trying not to snort herself. It was just like Beyla
always said, grinning, every time she led her brother astray: “Someday Brynjolf will make a fine warrior. But today is not that day.”

Inside the fortress, Hild stepped off the path to avoid an oxcart rumbling toward her, and greeted her cousin Skamkel, who rushed past her importantly, his helmet hiding his face. Her route led her past the Old Place, the little wooden shrine to the gods that had been left to crumble when newer temples, one each for Odin and Freyja, had been built back when Hild’s mother was a child. Weeds poked from between boards. Under an eave, a bird had long ago built a nest, now as dilapidated as the temple itself. Still, no one would dare tear the shrine down; it was up to the gods to do so when they chose, using their tools of weather and time. Hild laid the mint sprig on the shrine, bowing her head briefly.

Beyond the Old Place, a group of women called to her, and Hild waved, wondering whether they’d heard her news, and whether they would come to watch her. As she rounded the corner near the Thordsby Gate, a commotion made her stop. The guards had pulled the fortress gates wide open to let five horsemen—a newly returned raiding party—ride through. The sun glinted off their helmets, and the horses’ hooves sprayed dust and gravel over a group of children who stood near the gate, cheering. Hild narrowed her eyes to make sure she could trust what she was seeing, then widened them with delight. She could hardly believe
her good fortune. On her first day to serve in the hall, not only would she get to celebrate the homecoming of a raiding party, but one of the warriors standing in front of her would be Garwulf. Had her uncle suspected that Garwulf’s troop would be returning when he’d decreed that she would bear the mead to the men today?

The wooden gates shut, pushing in front of them a band of bedraggled people roped together—new slaves for the kingdom. Mord, the leader of the horsemen, wheeled his horse around and rode directly at the slaves. They startled back, their eyes wide. Their ropes made them pull at each other and cry out in confusion as they tried to get away from the horse’s hooves. Mord’s laughter rang out over the din. Just like him to make sport of helpless slaves, Hild thought, and all to earn the praise of an audience of children. He seemed to have forgotten what everyone knew: the gods might decide who would be slaves and who would be free, but they expected free people to care well for their property.

Another horseman turned, and she breathed out heavily in anger, unwilling to witness a second warrior acting so dishonorably. But it was Garwulf, and instead of repeating what Mord had done, he dismounted as he neared the slaves. Hild watched, gratified, as he put a hand on a male slave’s shoulder, speaking words that she couldn’t hear but that obviously calmed the man, who in turn spoke to the others.

As Garwulf mounted his horse again, he looked in her direction.

Her breath caught in her throat. Had he seen her?

He had! He bowed, then raised his head, his eyes meeting hers, before he rode for the stables.

A thrill ran through her and she looked down at herself, wondering how she had appeared to him. She still had on her everyday gown. She had to go home now if she was to get to the hall in time. If she was to welcome Garwulf with the mead horn.

She picked up her skirts and ran.

TWO

A
T HOME, THEY WERE READY FOR HER
. T
HERE WAS A JOKE
in the kingdom that if an invisible dwarf spoke to you wordlessly in a lightless cave, three people would already know what he’d said before he finished his message. That was how hard it was to be the first person in the kingdom to hear something. Hild thought of the joke now as her mother stood at the door watching for her, urging her to hurry, somehow already aware of the raiding party’s return.

Inside, Unwen, the slave who had served the family for years, was brushing out Hild’s good red gown. A clean linen shift lay over the bed.

As Hild struggled to unfasten the brooches that held up her everyday gown, the door opened and her sister Siri rushed into the room, a stream of sunlight illuminating her from behind. “Did you see them ride in? Aren’t you excited?”

“We don’t have time for chatter,” their mother said, then pushed Siri toward the stool. “You sit and rest so your baby will be healthy.”

“I don’t need to rest. I didn’t with my first three, and look how healthy they are,” Siri said as she reached for the shift. “Here, Hild, raise your arms.”

Hild smiled at her, the two of them amused by their mother’s solicitude. It was an old story, the way she tried to keep Siri from working during every pregnancy, and the way Siri always did exactly what she wanted to do.

“I know you girls are laughing at me,” their mother said. “But we don’t have time to joke. This is too important.”

The shift went over Hild’s head and she inhaled deeply. The linen garment had been washed with lavender, and the scent quieted her agitation.

“You were at the lake early,” her mother said, holding out the red gown. Again, Hild thought of the invisible dwarf. She hadn’t told anybody where she was going when she’d left that morning.

“Did you see Sigyn?” Siri asked, her voice quiet.

Hild shook her head. Neither her mother nor her sister needed any explanation to know what that meant. Hild was hardly the only one Sigyn had turned away without seeing. It was hardest on Siri—it wasn’t her fault that she had three children and another on the way, while Sigyn had miscarried twice, once just after Wonred’s death. Besides feeling rejected by her sister, Siri suffered in other ways. When
she’d heard the raiding party ride in, she had no doubt run to see if it was her husband returning. Hild knew that her sister’s cheerful face hid her disappointment that it hadn’t been him—and her fear that he might follow Wonred and Harr and too many other warriors to an early funeral pyre.

As Hild’s mother and sister worked at the brooches that held up her gown, Unwen, standing behind her, tried to comb her hair.

“Turn this way,” her mother said, pulling Hild toward her so she could get a better grip on the brooch. When she did, Unwen sighed noisily. Hild and Siri exchanged another smile at the familiar sound. Unwen had been their slave since Hild was a little girl. She could barely remember the newly arrived Unwen, who’d wept silently and fumbled through her tasks, not at all like the Unwen of today, with her brisk authority among the other slaves, and her way of showing her opinions through her wordless sighs and grunts of disapproval. When Hild had gotten older, she had come to understand that Unwen hadn’t always been a slave, that she’d been among a group of people—Hild wasn’t sure from what tribe—who had been captured by a raiding party headed by Hild’s father. Unwen ought to consider herself lucky, Hild thought; not only did her captors speak the same language she did, she served a noble family. The gods didn’t always see fit to give captives such a fate.

She felt the comb on her scalp again. Now that her mother and Siri were through with the brooches, Unwen
worked with swift, sure strokes to tame Hild’s hair and tie it into the complicated knot at the nape of the neck favored by the women of the kingdom, letting the remainder fall loose and silky down her back like a horse’s tail.

While Unwen put the last touches on Hild’s hair, her mother looked her over and pronounced her fit for the hall. She led her to the door, Unwen running after her with the comb while Siri picked loose threads off Hild’s sleeve. She would make it just in time.

The way to the hall was crowded, but when people saw the king’s sister—Hild’s mother—approaching, they stepped off the path. Hild craned her neck as they neared Beyla’s house, but she couldn’t find her friend. She must already be in the hall, trying to get a good place in front of a beam. Hild’s fingertips tingled with anticipation.