The sun was fully up when the pounding started. At first, Dísa thought it merely in her head, the effect of too much mead, too little rest, and a dire crack to the skull. She groaned and burrowed deeper into the warm pelts. But it kept on, despite her every effort to ignore it.
And with it came a man’s voice bellowing her name.
“Dísa! By Odin’s lost eye, girl! Dísa! Rouse yourself!”
Her door rattled on its hinges as a dagger pommel struck it half a dozen times in quick succession. Snarling and spitting, Dísa threw back the furs and rolled off the bedstead. Disheveled, with bruised eyes nearly swollen shut, she staggered to the door and flung it open. Light spilled in, and with it the shadow of two interlopers.
“What do you want, you dung-bearded pot-licking whoreson starver of ravens?”
“Mind your tongue, girl.” Dísa heard her grandmother’s harsh voice. She was in no mood, though. Her eyes watered; her head ached far beyond anything she thought possible.
“Mind yours! What do you want, I said?”
Dísa squinted, focusing one eye on the man who stood before her—heavyset and barely a head taller than she. It was Jarl Hreðel, she realized; like her, he was still bleary-eyed from the night before. The golden torque he wore around his neck caught the watery midmorning sun and reflected it—jags of light Dísa found too painful to look at. He sheathed his dagger. With trembling fingers, he smoothed his silver-flecked beard.
“My son, where is he?”
Dísa shrugged. “How the devil should I know? I’m not his minder!”
Behind him, Sigrún smote the frame of the house with one balled fist. “Stupid girl!” she snarled. “Your Jarl—”
But before Dísa could give voice to the salty curses that were poised to fall from her lips, Hreðel intervened. “Be silent!” he said, glancing over his shoulder. “Fetch water for the girl, and see that food is brought.” Then he turned back to Dísa. “May I come in?”
Dísa knew better than to chuckle at her grandmother’s discomfiture. The look in Hreðel’s eyes was one she knew well—a barely suppressed need to do violence. And that look reminded her, then, that though he was not the largest or the fiercest warrior in Hrafnhaugr, there was a reason Hreðel Kveldúlfsson was its Jarl.
Sigrún withdrew to do Hreðel’s bidding. Dísa motioned for the Jarl to come inside. He did so haltingly. She could tell by his expression that he had never stepped foot inside Kolgríma’s hovel. Dísa offered him the chair while she sat on the edge of the bedstead. The young woman palmed her aching forehead, ran the same hand through her tangled locks, and ended the motion with her cheek resting on the heel of her hand. “And so?” she said, suppressing a yawn.
“Flóki has gone,” Hreðel replied. The thick fingers of his left hand twittered with a ring he wore on his right. “Snuck out sometime before dawn. The sons of Viðar, Eirik and Ulff, and Sigræfr the Bastard, have gone with him.”
There came a soft scratch from outside. Hreðel cursed at the interruption; Dísa took it as a chance to gather her thoughts. She rose, opened the door, and saw the downcast face of Bryngerðr—one of the youngest of the Daughters of the Raven. She offered Dísa a basket with a flask of water, another of ale, bread, a crock of butter, and a smaller dish of honey. Dísa smiled at the girl, took her burden, and sent her on her way.
“Do you think I have him hidden away? Stashed under my bed?” Dísa said as she resumed her place.
Hreðel’s eyes narrowed, but he held his anger. “My son loves you,” he said, ignoring the color rising in her cheeks. “I thought, perhaps…”
“You thought perhaps he would not make good on his oath to fare forth and earn his beard, did you?”
“That’s none of your concern,” Hreðel said, his voice hard and cold.
“You’ve made it my concern,” Dísa snapped. She sat upright and pointed an accusing finger at the Jarl. “You want something from me, I take it? So, tell me what you know!”
Hreðel chewed his lip; finally, he said: “He’s been worried that a third long winter in a row might spell famine. Last night, he sought my blessing to lead a band of raiders south and west, past the Horn. And if they could find no prey, he wanted to push on to Eiðar and spy upon the Swedes there. Maybe take ship to the Danelands or to Ireland. I saw through him, of course. A lad’s foolishness, it was. An excuse to—”
“To earn his beard?” Her words struck the Jarl like a blow. Still, he took it. “You refused, and he gathered a few trusty lads and went anyway.” Dísa sucked her teeth. She weighed her next words very carefully. “Have you considered,” she said, “just letting Flóki have his way in this? Send a couple of your thegns after him—warriors you trust—if you must, but tell them to stay out of sight. He wants space, Jarl. Space to stand on his own and be his own man.”
“So now you know my son better than I?” Hreðel said, his rage boiling over. “You watched his brothers die, did you? One by one? You watched his mother bear one last son then fade away from heartsickness? You know all this, which is why you dare lecture me about my son?”
Dísa winced. “No,” she said after a moment. “No, but I do know he’s not some little boy who has wandered away from home. He is eighteen summers, soon to be nineteen, and you do him no favors by coddling him. Why have you come to me? What do you want, Jarl, if not my advice?”
Hreðel looked up, his fierce eyes damp and agleam with unspoken regrets. “I have served the Hooded One all my life. I have asked nothing of him. I have always put the needs of Hrafnhaugr above my own. But now, I ask a boon of him. Go to him, girl! Ask him—beg him if need be—to fetch my son back to me! Flóki is all I have left…”
Dísa shook her head. “I was told not to return till the new moon.”
Faster than Dísa thought possible, Hreðel’s long fingers wrapped around her throat; the Jarl lifted her bodily from the bedstead, twisted, and slammed her up against the stone hearth. The impact caused the hut to creak, and set stars to dancing before Dísa’s eyes. Her seax clattered to the floor.
“Fool!” Spittle flew from Hreðel’s lips as he leaned in close, his breath hot and reeking of sour wine. “You will do this! You will go to him and you will convince him to help! If he does not—Odin, witness my oath!—if he does not, then I swear I will send my warriors against him and we will burn even the memory of him from this land!” He let go of her.
Gasping, Dísa slid to the floor. She rubbed her throat, the marks of his fingers still livid against her flesh. “And you think threatening him will bring the Hooded One around to your cause?” she said, after a moment, her eyes flickering to the hilt of her seax. She very nearly dove for the blade and drew steel on her chief, consequences be damned. Instead, Dísa winced and rose on unsteady legs. “You know better than I, the Hooded One is not the … the giving sort. A lad who has run off with his mates to make their war-names might not warrant his attention. There may be a price.”
“And so?” Hreðel snarled, gripping her arm. “Tell him I will give all I have to see my son safely home again, if that puts him on the trail to Eiðar, to the Danelands, or to Hel’s fences! Or, tell him I will come for his bastard head if he refuses! I care naught for how you do it, girl! Just get him to fetch my boy back!”
Dísa twisted free of his grasp. “I will tell him, Jarl,” she hissed. “He will understand. You have my word on it.”
Hreðel nodded. He stepped back and shook himself like a bear coming awake. The image of the desperate father sank from view. Soon, he was the Jarl of Hrafnhaugr once more. Lord of the Raven-Geats. He thrust his hands into his richly worked sash and waited for Dísa to open the door for him. Outside, out of earshot, she could see Sigrún and a few others marking time and waiting for Hreðel to emerge. The Jarl stood on the threshold. He nodded to his followers, then turned and met Dísa’s gaze. His eyes were cool and brown, but the madness that lurked in them glimmered just below the surface, held steady by a chain forged of will. The smile that touched his lips knew nothing of warmth. “Men think me soft in the head,” he said, his voice barely rising above a whisper. “Women think me weak. I saw your eyes, girl. I saw you calculate how fast you could draw that pig-sticker and ram it through my guts. I can see why my son admires your courage. But remember this and remember it well: if you even think of drawing a blade on me again, not even the Hooded One will be able to protect you.”
Dísa’s smile matched his own; her eyes were like chips of ice. “And if you believe that,” she said, “you’re more of a fool than you seem. Have your men ready a boat. I’ll leave within the hour.”
Without waiting for Hreðel to answer, Dísa closed the door in his face.
It was quiet inside. Motes of dust swirled in the light that slanted through a horn-paned window. Dísa stood still, her back against the door, and listened. She heard Hreðel walk away, heard her grandmother’s harsh voice: “Well?”
And then, nothing. A bird pecked on the eaves of Kjartan’s smithy; a dog barked nearby.
Well, indeed, Dísa thought. She went to the basket. Her trembling hand hovered over the two flasks, one of water and the other of ale. She shook the fear from her hand, cursing under her breath, and then seized the flask of ale. She drained it in half a dozen gulps. The bite of the alcohol helped steady her. Dísa wiped her lips on the forearm of her tunic. She had an hour and more to come up with a good argument for why Grimnir should involve himself in this spat between father and son, for a reason not to relay Hreðel’s threat to him. And she knew—by the dull ache in the pit of her belly—this would not end well.
Still, it was not all bad. Hreðel’s petition gave her a reason to return. And though a part of her loathed the Hooded One, she was eager to begin her weapons training. As Dísa attacked the loaf of bread, in her mind she started laying out what she would need. Her seax, of course, and a change of clothes; food, and perhaps a bribe in the form of mead …
HREÐEL LEFT NOTHING TO CHANCE. The two Bjorns, the White and the Black, bundled Dísa into a feræringr, a four-oared boat that resembled a miniature longship, and set out across Skærvík. An old, weather-beaten Geat sat in the stern, his leathery hand on the steering tiller as the two Bjorns plied the oars. Dísa knew him only as Hygge—Old Hygge—and by their reckoning he was near a hundred years in age, making him the eldest man in Hrafnhaugr. Though he might have been older than some trees, Dísa watched him transform from the moment his fingers caressed the spruce wood of the tiller. The years shed from his limbs like the leaves of an oak. Strong white teeth shone through his tangled gray beard as Old Hygge guided them across Vänern’s dark waters.
The two Bjorns made quick work of it, even towing a smaller boat in their wake. This last was Dísa’s idea, to bring a keipr along. She could hide the two-oared canoe at the lake’s edge, she told Hreðel, and once she had the Hooded One’s answer she could be back in Hrafnhaugr within an hour.
The keel ground against the shingle; Old Hygge leaned back on the tiller, his seamed face the picture of serenity in the midday sun. Bjorn Hvítr lifted Dísa bodily from the boat and carried her ashore while Bjorn Svarti dragged the keipr up on the shingle and laid it keel-up under a veil of evergreen shrubs, its oars underneath it.
“We will wait here for you,” Bjorn Hvítr said, handing Dísa her leather knapsack. He glanced to the sky, where clouds were beginning to gather. “There’s weather on the way.”
“That’s not necessary,” she said, nodding to where Bjorn Svarti was putting the finishing touches on the keipr’s hiding place. “It may take a while to coax an answer from him. But tell the Jarl I’ll be along as soon as the Hooded One decides.”
Bjorn Hvítr looked dubious, but finally agreed. In short order, the two Bjorns said their farewells and shoved off, Old Hygge coming to life as soon as the oars bit the water.
Dísa watched them a moment before shouldering her knapsack and heading inland. Unlike the day before, this time she was prepared: she’d drawn her hair back into a braid, gathered at the nape of her neck and secured with whalebone combs; she’d changed into a fresh tunic, dyed the same shade of green as the boughs of a spruce and worked in black thread. Dísa wore a man’s trousers of undyed wool, gathered by swathing bands to the knee, and stitched leather boots with hobnailed soles of tough ox hide. Over this, she wore the cloak of wool and wolf fur Halla had given her. And riding her hip—supported by a broad leather belt with buckle and fittings done in hammered bronze—was her sheathed seax.
She made good time, reaching the boundary stone at the crest of the hill, half a league from the beach, before the hour was out. As she came abreast of the carved stone, though, she slowed, and then stopped. Something stirred the hackles on her neck. Something unseen. Dísa dropped her hand to the hilt of her seax. Her eyes raked the line of trees ahead, their roots wreathed in a thin mist that drifted up the slope from the bog-land below. An eerie silence gripped the woods around her. Images from her dreams welled unbidden in her mind: a figure waits; it bears the shape of a man, though hunched and as twisted as the staff he leans upon. He is clad in a voluminous cloak with a slouch hat pulled low. A single malevolent eye gleams from beneath the brim.
Slowly, she turned …
And there was Grimnir. He squatted on his haunches in the lee of the boundary stone with his shoulder leaned against it, his black hair a tangled veil through which his good eye shone like an ember. His nose wrinkled, nostrils flaring; he sniffed the air above the ground.
“Scared, little bird?”
Dísa relaxed—but only by a fraction. “I … I thought you were someone else.”
“Did you now?” Grimnir snorted. “Who else but you would be fool enough to wander up to the fences of my lands uninvited? Are they here now? Call them out, so I might peel the wretched skin from their bones and hang it on a bramble!”
Dísa cursed under her breath.
“What was that, rat?”
“I said: does everyone have an oar up their ass, this day?” She gestured ahead of them. “I did not see anyone, nor did anyone follow me up here! The … The air grew … I cannot explain it. Silent, perhaps? Silent and alive at the same time, like the way it feels before a storm breaks. It reminded me of a dream I had, is all.”
Grimnir cocked an eyebrow. “And you were ready to fight, little bird? Ready to draw your talon and rip out the eyes of your unseen foe?”
“Eye,” Dísa said. “He only had one, in the dream.”
Grimnir rose to his feet, chuckling. “So you’re not blind, which is good news. The bad news, though, is you’re too stupid to count.”
Dísa blinked. “What?”
“You heard me! Did no one teach you your numbers?” Harness jangled as Grimnir sprang down to the path. “Because by my reckoning you’re nigh on twelve days shy of the new moon. So I ask myself,” he said, jabbing a finger at Dísa, “why are you traipsing about, little fool?”
“Jarl Hreðel sent me.”
Grimnir sniffed in disdain. “And what does that filthy sot want now, eh? Another throat slit? Another enemy stabbed in the dark and sank in a bog? The whole useless lot of you seems to have forgotten who is servant and who is master, here.”
Dísa made to take a step toward him but hesitated. “He’s not forgotten,” she said. “He has served the Hooded One, served you, faithfully all his life. What he asks now, is a boon. Payment for his loyalty.”
“Payment, is it?” Grimnir squinted. “What is he asking?”
“His son, Flóki. He’s run off with a couple of his mates, to either hunt around the borders of Geatland or raid the folk of Eiðar, at the southern end of the lake.”
“Eiðar, eh?” Grimnir sucked his teeth. “I know it. Soft little squat filled with cheeseparing Swedes and the miserly Danes who trade with them. Skinflints, the lot of them. If I had a few trusty lads from the old days, I’d have long since lanced that boil and squeezed it dry. Your chief’s lad is no fool, but he’s a mite full of himself if he thinks three milk-blooded Geats fresh off the tit will do more than piss off that nest of pikers. Does that wretch, Hreðel, want me to show those lads how it’s done?”
Dísa shook her head. “He wants you to stop Flóki. Stop him and fetch him back.” But even as she said it, Dísa knew she’d chosen the wrong word. Grimnir’s face darkened; his single eye blazed.
“Fetch? The sot thinks me no better than a dog, does he? Wants me to fetch his boy back to him like a cur playing at sticks?” Grimnir hawked up a gobbet of phlegm and spat it at the boundary stone. “There’s my answer! Tell your precious Hreðel if he’s lucky and his idiot boy isn’t killed outright, the Swedes might sell what’s left back to him!”
Dísa stared at him, unsure of what she’d just heard. Had Grimnir just consigned Flóki to slavery or worse over a single word, a perceived slight that wasn’t there? The young woman’s choler rose. She spluttered and stamped her foot. “You … you bowlegged dribbling shortwit! Ymir’s beard! That wasn’t how he meant it! Flóki’s a good man! One of the best! Hreðel doesn’t want to see his son die needlessly, you black-toothed sack of offal! Flóki’s meant for greater things than licking the boots of some fishbelly Swede!”
Grimnir’s nostrils flared. His eyes narrowed; the ghost of a sneer teased the corners of his mouth. “So that’s it, is it? Aye, it makes sense now. You should have just told me the truth, little bird.”
“Truth?” Dísa scowled. “What truth? What are you blathering on about?”
Grimnir turned away; as he did, his sneer turned to a full-on smile—the toothsome grin of a cat toying with its prey. “You should have just said you fancy the lad.”
The accusation hung between them for a moment. Though nearly sixteen, Dísa had lived among men long enough to realize when she was being baited. Grimnir wanted to provoke her, to make her flustered and embarrassed because that amused him. And while the bastard was no man, he shared enough traits with them that she recognized how to take the piss right out of him. “So what if I do?” she said after a moment, her chin rising in defiance. “He’s quick-witted and hard-handed, as befits a young lord of the Geats. He will be a man of parts, one day. I could do much worse. Does my fancying him tip the balance in his favor?”
Grimnir shrugged. “It makes the game more interesting.” He glanced sharply at her. “Does the lad fancy you in return?”
Again, she didn’t react to his goading; she hid her feelings. “I think not,” she lied. “Oh, I’d wager Hreðel wanted the match, since it would strengthen his hold on my grandmother through bonds of kinship. But Flóki…?” She made a half-shrug that turned to a wince. “I do not know.”
“But you would see him spared?”
“I would.”
“All safe and snug and back under the thumb of his useless sot of a father, eh?”
Dísa swallowed. If she were honest, she’d rather see Flóki make a name for himself away from Hreðel, but … she nodded. “I would.”
Grimnir circled her; his eyes narrowed. The ivory and silver of his false one caught the light, inlaid runes flaring. “What would you give to make that happen, little bird?”
Dísa sensed a trap. Her pointed gaze matched his own as she followed his movements. “What do you mean?”
“You know what I mean. What would you give to see your sweet little Flóki safe and whole again?”
“I … I have nothing.”
“You have a pound of flesh, do you not?” Grimnir said. “You have the blood in your veins? The sweat from your brow? The salt-sweet tears of agony you will shed?”
Dísa hesitated, and then replied: “I have those things, yes.”
“And you would give them?”
“Yes, but—”
Grimnir stopped circling. One sinewy hand rested on the hilt of his seax. Dísa heard the tick-tick-tick of his black-nailed finger tapping the pommel. “Here is the wager, little bird: you want me to fetch your precious Flóki? I’ll do it … but only if you can draw blood on me, first.”
“I drew blood on you yesterday,” she replied. Even so, her off hand drifted down toward the scabbard of her seax.
“That? That was luck,” Grimnir snarled. “Let’s see you do it for real, this time!”
“And what happens to Flóki if I kill you by accident?”
At this, Grimnir threw back his head and roared with laughter. He coughed and spluttered, wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. “What a tender little fool! I see why you like this wretch, Flóki—he’s as full of himself as you are. Do not worry about me. If after twelve centuries I can’t defend myself from some lickspittle whelp like you, I’m not fit to live.”
“So, one cut,” Dísa said. Subtly, she shifted her weight onto her lead foot. “One cut is your fee for helping my friend, my Jarl’s son? The son of a man who has served you without fail?”
“Draw blood and he is as good as back home, snug in his bed,” Grimnir replied. He held up a cautioning finger. “But you’d best not hold back, little bird. If I sense even a shred of hesitation, I’ll take that sticker from you—”
And before Grimnir could finish, Dísa attacked. With scabbard held steady by her off hand, she drew her seax in a single fluid motion and slashed up and out. The tip of the blade streaked for the point of Grimnir’s chin. He did not move his body; Grimnir merely swayed his head back out of reach as her blow swept by. Before she could recover, though, he stepped into her guard and punched her in the face.
Dísa went down, doubled over, her seax clattering from nerveless fingers. She clutched at her face. Hot blood ran from her already-broken nose—blood she choked on as she drew breath to scream. The young woman spat and cursed; blinded by the rush of tears, she scrabbled for her fallen seax.
Whereupon Grimnir kicked her in the ribs for good measure.
The blow of his booted foot caused a bloody froth to explode from her lungs; she gagged and writhed, gasping for breath.
Grimnir leaned over her. “I want my pound of flesh, little bird. I want every drop of blood, every ounce of sweat, every tear you shed. Show me your mettle, daughter of swine. You want your darling Flóki spared? Prove it! Come after me. Draw my blood, if you can.” And with that, Grimnir bounded over and caught up her knapsack. With a derisive chuckle, he loped off down the trail toward the longhouse.
Dísa lay there a moment. Then, gritting her teeth against a wave of nausea, she rolled to her knees. She fished her seax from the leaf mold, sheathed it, and struggled to her feet. The world swam. Her head felt like someone had struck her in the face with the flat of an axe. But she stayed upright. The young woman spat blood then scrubbed her mouth with the sleeve of her tunic.
And with a murderous light dancing in her eyes, Dísa followed in Grimnir’s wake.