Peaceweaver (25 page)

Thialfi grumbled something she couldn’t hear and Mord looked away.

“I mean it. You waited for me, and you got me safely away—to here.” She gestured around the campsite. “I thank you for it, all of you.”

Not one of them met her eye, and she knew she wouldn’t be able to convince them. Not yet, anyway. “Listen, then, and I’ll tell you what happened.”

As she began the story of being taken to the monster’s lair, Gizzur moved to a closer rock, followed by Wake, who had been spreading her cloak beside her shift to dry. She raised her voice to include them in her audience. At first, only Mord and Thialfi asked her questions, but then Gizzur began to, as well.

She couldn’t tell them where the cave was, but she described it as well as she could—the alder trunks growing out of dark water and, on the other side of the pool, the
oak tree’s sinuous roots hiding the cave mouth. She told them about the fire in the cave and the dying monster, the sword buried in its chest. She paused, looking from Mord to Thialfi, expecting one of them to ask where the sword had come from, but neither of them did. Had it been less of a secret than she’d supposed?

Thialfi leaned forward to stir the fire, but his face gave nothing away.

Hild settled more comfortably on the stone and continued her story. When she explained the way she had made the poultice of roots and substituted Aunt Var’s lay for a healing charm, Mord said, “Just as well that you didn’t heal the monster, my lady,” drawing a chuckle from the others. They nodded appreciatively when she told them how she got the monster’s mother to leave the cave by convincing it its son needed food, and again when she explained how she pulled the sword from the monster’s chest to help free herself from the rocks. She thought she heard one of them—Wake?—draw in his breath when she told about the creature returning just as she was about to escape.

“How badly did you wound it?” Thialfi asked.

Before Hild could answer, Mord said, “Would you have stayed around to find out?”

They pressed her for details about her flight from the cave to the river, and she told them as much as she could remember, but she knew it wasn’t enough to help the
Shylfings know where the cave was, or how to avoid it on the return trip.

At the end of her recital, the men fell silent. Then Thialfi spoke. “In years gone by, King Beowulf defeated a monster like the one you fought.”

“I’ve heard that tale,” Mord said. “It was the Danes, wasn’t it, that the creature attacked?”

Thialfi nodded. “Grendel, they called it. Our king killed the monster and its mother, too.” He looked at Hild. “Do you know the story, my lady?”

She didn’t. Her uncle’s skalds usually sang about the exploits of her own people and those of their allies, not the deeds of hostile tribes.

“It’s said that the king had the strength of thirty in his hand’s grip. But you, my lady …” Thialfi paused, shaking his head. “You have strength of a different kind.”

The other men nodded. They rose, talking among themselves, and returned to their duties, Gizzur heading down the hill to relieve Hadding, Wake taking the path for the tarn, her newly mended gown in his hands.

Hild felt drained from reliving the memories. She stared into the flames, seeing the fire in the monster’s lair, the wounded creature lying on one side of it while she’d huddled on the other. She didn’t realize Thialfi was still standing near her until he spoke.

“You’ll need a sheath for that.”

She looked up, her face frozen.

“We have Brynjolf’s sword belt. She could use that,” Mord said, walking back.

Hild sat in front of them, feeling like a child caught stealing apples.

“It wouldn’t be the right shape, but we could make it fit,” Thialfi said, stooping to pick up the blade. “Wulf’s good at that sort of thing.”

The two of them looked at the sword, Thialfi testing its heft in his single working hand. He held it to his eye and sighted down the blade. “It’s a fine weapon,” he said before he laid it on the ground beside her again. The two warriors walked away, their conversation back on the monster and whether it would cross the river.

Hild watched them, wondering whether they’d been charmed into forgetting she’d had the blade before she’d gotten to the monster’s lair.

Then Thialfi glanced back and their eyes met. He remembered. He knew she’d tried to escape, too. And from his expression, she thought he might understand the options she’d been given—and the choice she had made.

He turned to face her and bowed—not a polite nod to a noblewoman, but the full bow of a warrior to his queen.

TWENTY-SIX

T
HEY PREPARED TO RIDE OUT THE NEXT MORNING
, H
ILD
dressed in damp but clean clothes, her red dress packed away again. Her sword slapped against her leg—it would take some time before she was accustomed to wearing it. Thialfi had been right about Wulf. The young warrior was good at leatherworking, and she had watched, impressed, as he’d adapted the belt and sheath to her and her sword. It comforted her to have a memento of Brynjolf with her.

As she readied herself for the day’s ride, she tied Unwen’s leather bag to the belt, her fingers stiff with the cold morning air. Then she struggled with her hair. When Unwen arranged her hair, the knot in the back was always perfect. How had she done it? And how many other things had the slave done for her that she’d never noticed? The men helped, bringing her food and water, but nobody rolled
up her blankets for her or helped her pin on her gown. And who was there to hold up a cloak for privacy when she needed to relieve herself?

When she was finally ready, frustrated at how long it had taken her and aware that Hadding was patiently waiting to escort her, she made her way down the path to the grassy place where the horses had been hobbled. This time Fire-eyes didn’t shy away from her, but Wulf had to help her into the saddle now that the sword was in her way. As she labored to arrange herself on her horse’s back, she wondered how the men wore their weapons with such ease.

The sun was climbing above the distant hills when they rode into the cold, clear morning. Glancing back, Hild could see how defensible their camp had been, with its boulders for guards to hide behind, and the campsite at the very top of the hill, hidden from view. Her eye fell on the pony, its saddle empty. She swallowed a lump in her throat.

It wasn’t just that she had to do everything herself. It was Unwen, too—her wry expression, the way she muttered to herself as she went about her work and bossed the other slaves around. The way she took care of Hild. “Lady of the Vanir,” Hild whispered. “Watch over her.”

With sudden clarity, her own future spread before her like a landscape viewed from a height. She hardly needed a vision to tell her that whatever had happened to Unwen, whether she still lived or not, their paths had been inviolably
sundered. Escaping to the slave’s people was no longer a possibility.

Yet if she had followed Unwen, what would her fate have been? What place might she have had among Unwen’s tribe? Surely Unwen would have vouched for her—assuming that she had a voice among her people. Then she remembered the look on Unwen’s face when they parted. She might have ended up an outcast among Unwen’s tribe. She might even have been enslaved herself.

She shook the thoughts away. None of that mattered anymore. The company had crossed into the land of the Geats, and whether she wanted to or not, Hild would marry their king.

As if a cloud had covered the sun, she felt the day darken. She bowed her head, letting Fire-eyes follow the men.

They rode down the hillside toward the valley, the warriors’ helmets giving them a menacing look, their weapons poised against sudden attack. Every stone could hide an unknown threat. No one joked or even spoke. They kept close together, the men in formation around Hild.

She was the one who broke the silence, her words surprising her. “The creature. It’s not here.” As she spoke, she realized how certain she was. Just as she’d known it was racing through the woods to attack the men back on the other side of the river, she could tell that the monster was no danger to them now.

Thialfi, riding next to her, looked at her and she nodded
to reassure him. The other men exchanged glances and the mood shifted. They still rode without speaking, keeping a close guard around her, but Hild felt as if their mail shirts had been given permission to jingle.

She eased into the ride through the stone-filled valley, her fingers barely touching Fire-eyes’s reins. He needed no direction. What a handsome gift he had been. Her young cousin’s generosity humbled her. Could she have given Fleetfoot away, even to Beyla, who loved the horse so dearly? She didn’t think so. Perhaps Arinbjörn had been more cognizant of what she’d done for him than she’d thought when she’d been sunk in her misery.

She recalled the day it happened, and the way she’d known the Bronding had been about to kill her cousin. The compulsion that had overtaken her had been so strong that she had half believed it when Bragi said she was possessed. But now she knew her uncle’s skald had been wrong. She hadn’t been possessed; instead, she’d been so overwhelmed that she’d lost all sense of herself.

Brynjolf’s sheath slipped, digging into her leg, and she reached to adjust it. Fire-eyes tossed his head to ask what she was doing and she put a palm against his neck, warming her fingers. They were keeping a quick pace, and cold air buffeted her cheeks.

Again the sword worked itself into an awkward position and she moved it back, the touch of the weapon making her think about the first time she’d used it, when the monster
attacked the men. A compulsion had filled her then, too, just like when she’d saved her cousin. Yet it had been different. How? She gripped the hilt, letting the sensation in her fingers remind her of that night. When she’d left Unwen, she hadn’t lost herself in the compulsion. She’d known who she was and what she was doing, even if she hadn’t understood why. Of that, she still wasn’t sure.

She glanced at the men who surrounded her, their helmets hiding their faces. Then Hadding looked her way and beamed, his eyes bright behind his helmet’s mask, his teeth bared in a grin below it. She smiled back.

She might not know why she’d run to help the men, but she recognized that the vision she’d had by the river, of the creature coming for them, had been different yet again. She’d been given knowledge, but whether to act on it had been left up to her. Was that what it meant to be far-minded? Was that the load her grandmother had borne when she’d envisioned her youngest son crowned king?

The company turned south, and Hild could see a forest thick with firs in the distance. Thialfi pulled ahead of Mord, taking the lead—after all, this was Geatish territory, and it was his prerogative to guide them along paths familiar to him. But as Hild watched, Mord maneuvered around him, signaling Gizzur to accompany him. Thialfi reined back, but she saw the anger in his eyes when he looked at Wulf and Wake, who brought up the rear.

Yesterday’s easy camaraderie between Shylfing and
Geat was gone. Hild remembered Arinbjörn’s warning. Her uncle’s men weren’t just watching for monsters and other threats. They were judging the best route to bring an army to conquer the Geats once they had been pacified by marriage—to her.

She would have to live with the Geats to the end of her days. Her only consolation was that her end would come quickly. When the Shylfing army attacked, she would be killed. Her uncle would see to that. He didn’t like what he couldn’t control, and over her far-mindedness, he had much less power than she did. He would wait for early spring, she thought, when the snows had lifted enough to allow an army through and the Geats were weak from hunger. And then he would attack.

She doubted she would live to see another harvest.

They passed the first trees on the edge of the forest, quickly leaving behind light and warmth. Hild pulled her cloak closer around her, wishing she’d worn her red dress instead of her damp clothes. They hadn’t seemed bad when she’d put them on, and she’d felt sure they would quickly finish drying, but now she couldn’t get warm.

The path widened and she looked up as they emerged into a bright glade. “We will stop here,” Thialfi said, veering to the side and dismounting. Wulf and Wake did the same, but Mord signaled to his men that they should stay on their horses.

“We can stop later,” he said.

“No,” Thialfi said, and there was iron in his voice. He gave Mord a look that caused Hild to think he was made of much stronger stuff than she’d realized. “This is a sacred place. You should dismount.” Without waiting for a response, he whipped off his helmet and strode to a massive oak at the edge of the glade, Wulf and Wake right behind him.

“All right, we’ll let them have their little prayer,” Mord said, his contempt loud enough for the Geats to hear. But he dismounted.

Hild watched the Geats as she clambered from her saddle, trying not to poke herself with her sword, but they didn’t respond to Mord’s provocation. They were standing in front of the tree, doing something she couldn’t make out because their bodies blocked her view. All she could tell was that their arms were moving, and she thought they might be saying something.