Mother and Father. And, oh, my brother. Máthir, athir, bráthir. I have not yet seen them. It was my plan to go directly to Írland. Those three slaves . . . no, those three good Irish girls . . . they needed to be brought home immediately. Then we could winter in Eire, and as soon as spring came, we’d head out for Ísland.
Alf agreed. He said, “I’d follow you to Hel and back.” He said, “I’d fight armies for you.” He said, “I’d slay Níðhögg, the worst dragon of them all, for you.” He wore nothing but smiles.
Until he heard the rest of my plan. I told him I feared that if I became with child I would not be able to do whatever it took to rescue Mel, and therefore I could not marry him until after I had found her.
So Alf lost no time in persuading me of a new plan. I smile now as I think about how persuasive this man Alf can be and how much I respond to him, so that his new plan swiftly became mine as well. Next spring was too long for him to wait. So we paid all the women in my crew enough money to go on to the lives they chose, just as I had promised them. Alf paid another boat’s captain to take the three Irish girls back home, and he hired a crew to take us—him and me—to Ísland immediately, before the weather turned.
The next four days were a flurry of gathering provisions and checking rigging. Then we set sail. Ten days later—only two weeks after we’d made the new plan—we arrived in Ísland.
After all my fruitless searching, suddenly everything became easy. Everyone knew of Hoskuld, the Viking chieftain; everyone knew of Melkorka, his mysterious concubine. She lives on land south of Salmon River, in a rolling dale called Melkorka-stead—named for her, despite the fact that she’s a slave. Her wonderful son abides with her, while Hoskuld lives separately, with his wife and their children. She is still beautiful. Though the label of “slave” has worn on her, she is still strong. That’s what they say.
I am walking across grasses now toward Melkorka’s home. Alf walks behind, at a distance, as I’ve asked him to. Mel’s home is made of wood, not stones with a turf roof, like the houses in the village on the coast where we landed. We’ve been told about that wood; everyone talks about it. It’s from logs brought all the way across the ocean from Nóreg, for the trees here are few and small, and nothing is as strong as Norse trees anyway.
There is no one outside the house. No activity. I see not a single window, so I have no idea whether the house is empty or not. But it’s the middle of the day; maybe they are resting inside. Let that be so. Please, Mel, please be home.
But I can wait. I can circle this house. I can run around it so many times my feet dig a moat even in this rocky land. Seven and a half years I’ve been yearning for this moment. I can wait a little longer.
I am but five boat lengths from the front door when a woman comes outside. She squints into the sun. I walk faster. I lope. We stare at each other. She drops the basket in her arms.
“Mel,” I call.
She’s shaking her head. Her brown hair catches the light, dark and bright and mixed, like the hawk-plumage of Queen Tove’s cloak.
“Mel,” I cry.
And we’re hugging. “Brigid,” she says hoarsely into my hair. “Oh, Brigid.”