Maidensong (21 page)

 
“
What’s wrong?” Bjorn asked, nudging his horse back down the trail to stop beside her.

 
“Nothing,” she said. The beauty of Sogna made her chest tighten. “It’s just this place. When you first brought me here, I hated it. Now it’s hard to think of leaving. With Magnus, I traveled around so much, no
place ever felt like home. I don’t know why, but this
fjord does. I can’t believe that once we embark on Friday, I’ll never see Sognefjord again. I was just wondering if Miklagard will have charms to compete with it.”

 
“
No doubt your new husband’s wealth will be charm
enough,” he said dryly. She flinched at his words. “
Don’t fret yourself, Rika. The mighty city is a won
derment, never fear. It sits astraddle two great seas
with a large wall to keep its people safe from harm.
And from raiders like me.”

 
“You’ve been there, then?” She pressed her heels into the gelding’s flank and urged him up the path. It
felt good to be talking with Bjorn again, even if his
resentment was still there, roiling under the surface.

 
“
Once, when I was a boy.” Bjorn pressed up the trail
after her. “Uncle Ornolf took me with him. Made me want to keep traveling forever. It was the best adven
ture of my life.” Rika heard a smile sneak into his voice.

 
“
What is Miklagard like?”

 
“There’s nothing I can compare it to,” he said. “The city is so large it would take days to walk all the tangled rabbit warren of streets.”

 
“Oh,” Rika said, suddenly feeling very small.

 
“They don’t build with timber as we do. The rich use stone for their magnificent houses. The poor make do
with mud-bricks.” Rika glanced back at him to see his
face flushed with excitement as he remembered. “The
market was something. It smelled like perfume and
spicy foods and great piles of steaming camel dung all at the same time.”

 
“Ew!” Rika laughed and was heartened when Bjorn laughed with her. “What’s a camel?”

 
“You’ll see. Goods from all over the world find their way to the bazaars of Miklagard—silks, spices, tin, sil
ver and gold, gems that sparkle with such fire you’d
swear they were alive. Anything can be had for a price.
And the people ...”

 
“What about them?”

 
“
You never saw so many different kinds. Greeks,
Arabs, Jews, men from Abyssinia who are black as jet,
Mongols. Uncle Ornolf was always after me to stop
staring, though I must admit they stared back readily
enough. Seems Northmen are considered quite exotic
there.” He chuckled softly. For a few moments, the fact that he was taking Rika to Miklagard to marry another
man seemed to have slipped out of his consciousness.

 
“
You sound excited to be going back,” she said.

 
Reality crashed down on him with more force than the falling pine. “No,” he said soberly. “I could stand not seeing the great city again.”

 
He urged his mount into a lunging scramble past her
up the path. The muscles of the gelding’s heavy flanks
bunched and flattened with the effort.

 
Rika found Ketil helping to load a long, thick tree trunk onto a sturdy wagon. No doubt Jorand’s clever
hands would find a keel for a longship or two buried in
the heart of the lumber. When Ketil saw her approach
ing, he wiped the sap off his hands onto his tunic and ambled toward her, a wide smile on his face.

 
Rika dismounted and ran to meet him, clasping him in an embrace. They sat down in the shade of a broad
ash tree and talked happily with each other while Bjorn
picked the horses’ hooves a discreet distance away.

 
After awhile, Ketil’s face grew serious. “I had a dream last night, Rika.”

 
“What about?” She was almost afraid to ask. Sud
denly she remembered Ketil’s last dream. The night of
Magnus’s death Ketil had wakened blubbering that she would be sent away to a big city. “Was it about me go
ing away?”

 
“No,” he said with a shudder. “I was the one who went away.” Ketil’s voice dropped to a whisper.

“To the place with the big trees and the dead things.”

 
Ketil had been so upset eight years ago when they went to Uppsala with Magnus, the old skald had
sworn not to go to the sacrifice again, never mind that it was practically mandatory for a devout Odin man.

 
Ketil’s new dream solidified Rika’s resolve. It was
within her power to thwart this evil prediction. She
would make it not be true.

 
“Ketil, that will not happen. I swear it,” she said,
sneaking a glance at Bjorn, who busied himself with
the horses. She had to make certain she was not over
heard. “I made a bargain with the
Jarl
of Sogna, and he
has promised me that you will not go to the sacred trees at Uppsala.”

 
“Really?” His broad face beamed for a moment and
then crumpled. “But he has bad eyes, sister. How do
you know he’ll keep his promise?”

 
“I’m sure he will, because I’m doing something he
wants in exchange,” she said solemnly. “I told you I made a bargain with him. In return for his promise, I
have to go away. Do you remember your dream about the big city?”

 
“
Ja,”
he said shakily.

 
“
That’s where I have to go.”

 
“
And they won’t let me come with you,” Ketil said flatly. It was not a question.

 
“No, you’ll stay here with Surt.” She forced a smile.

 
“
Surt is my friend.” He nodded slightly. Then a new
thought struck him and he turned to her. “Will you
come back?”

 
Moisture gathered at the corners of her eyes and she drew her lips into a tight line. “I don’t know,” she said honestly. “I don’t think so.”

 
Ketil put his arms around her and squeezed.

 
“
You’ll see me again,” he said. “I’m sure of it.”

 
She took his face in her palms and kissed him, once
on the each of his cheeks and once on the lips. Then
she leaned to touch her forehead to his for a moment, her eyes squeezed tightly shut.

 
“Good-bye, Ketil,” she whispered. Rika tore herself
away from him and fled back to where Bjorn stood
holding the horses.

 
Ketil waved at her and watched till she and Bjorn
were out of sight. Her shoulders twitched and he knew
she wept.

 
“Don’t cry, Rika,” he said softly. “You’ll see me again. At the place with the big trees.”

 
Rika’s route to her wedding would be a long one. Gun
nar envisioned her progress as an ambassadorial en
tourage and decreed some of their stops. At his order,
Bjorn sailed the
Sea-Snake
up the crevice of Viksfjord to Kaupang, the better to display the lavishness of
Sogna’s
jarl
to the citizens of that important trading
center. Ornolf cast some longing glances at the fine
soapstone kettles that would fetch a princely sum in
Miklagard, but decided against them on the basis of
bulk and weight.

 
From there, they negotiated the Danish archipelago
and stopped at the Dannevirke to pay Gunnar’s re
spects to the Danish King. Rika was welcomed warmly
in the mighty fortress of oak and earth, but the joy at court over her coming wedding was tempered by the
news of Magnus’s death.

 
Royal courts swirled with gossip like a cesspool with slime. Now Bjorn understood why Rika said Magnus
couldn’t stay at one for too long. The sibilant voices hummed around him. Rika’s demeanor was a bit glum for a bride, they noted, but everyone knew how de
voted she was to her father, so it was easily explained.

 
And wasn’t the
Jarl
of Sogna a fine man to arrange so advantageous a match for an orphan like Rika?
Gunnar’s generosity was praised even as the court
evaluated his astuteness in the choice of a strong,
wealthy alliance. There was definitely a new power ris
ing in distant Sognefjord.

 
When he overheard snippets of these conversations, Bjorn clamped his lips shut. Gunnar’s plans were succeeding. Again. But they’d have to do so without him
from now on. He was bound by his word to take Rika
from Sogna forever, but it would be no breach of his
oath not to return himself.

 
With the eye of a warrior, Bjorn studied the heavily
fortified ramparts of the Dannevirke. The earthworks
had held back the Frankish kings, and even Charle
magne himself, from overrunning the Danes. Bjorn
was no stranger to battle and he’d decided the time to
support himself with his own blade was fast at hand.
Now that Rika was going to another man, even the
pull of the land had dimmed. Bjorn couldn’t go back to
managing his brother’s holdings, even if all he ever won for himself was a foreign grave.

 
They were blessed with fine weather, and their next port of call was Birka, the bustling trading port that
sparkled like polished amber in its inlet setting. A man
could walk from Sogna to Birka if he had to, crossing
the spine of mountains and dropping down into the
southeastern edge of the Norse peninsula, but Bjorn couldn’t imagine why anyone would want to trudge that weary way when he could sail.

 
“Thank the gods!” Helge clambered out of the long-ship. “It’s a fine thing to have solid earth beneath these old feet.”

 
“I don’t mind sailing, but I’m glad to be ashore,”
Rika said as she watched Bjorn tying up the
Snake
at
the wharf. The ship would ride quiet there, thanks to a
breakwater surrounding the sheltered lagoon.

 
“
Can you attend Rika on her trip to the market?”
Helge asked Bjorn. “I’ve got to find the herbalist and
mix up some of Torvald’s medicine or he’ll be unfit to stand, so he will. Thor knows, you young people don’t
want to stand around and watch herbs ground.”

 
“I’ll go with her,” Torvald said, as he frowned at the old woman and tried not to wince when he put weight
down on his big toe. Pain from the inflamed joint must
have shot up his leg, for he settled back down onto his
sea chest. “Maybe Helge is right, just this once. But a
bride can’t walk unescorted in a strange town. You’ll
take her?”

 
Bjorn nodded sullenly.

 
Jorand helped his captain secure the ship, then sniffed the air appreciatively. The yeasty presence of a
nearby ale house wafted over them. “Sailing is thirsty
work. I’m tired of curdled milk and stale water.”

 
“
You’ll
have to wait for your ale till the second
watch. We’ve too many goods on board to leave her
unguarded,” Bjorn said to his friend. “After I
escort the skald around the market,
I’ll
come back and spell you.
”

 
He hardly ever used her name anymore, Rika no
ticed. It was yet another way of keeping the distance
between them and she supposed she should be grate
ful, but it still stung. The way he said ‘the skald,’ with
no more warmth than he’d use to say ‘the fur bale’ or ‘the amber,’ made her feel like cargo. Just one more item of trade goods he was forced to carry.

 
Which was exactly what she was.

 
Nevertheless, she straightened her spine and strode with her chin up, determined not to let him see that she felt the slight. As they walked up the planked path
to the market, she noticed an oval fortress rising from
a long bare rock south of town.

 
“What’s that?” she asked.

 
“
A safe haven. A place to retreat in time of trouble,” Bjorn said. “Birka is a rich town, too tempting for some to resist. If a fleet of dragonships heads into the
lagoon, the merchants gather their goods and make for the fort.” Bjorn met her eyes for the first time in days
and she felt herself being pulled into those dark orbs. “
You know what men are. When they see something
they want, their natural inclination is to take it.”