setting up in the marketplace, and once again, Arne is getting on my nerves.
We’re walking in single file along the dock up to the market gate, and it’s a bit of a journey because of how far down we had to moor the Gellir. People are crowding the docks and I’m walking along the edge, right next to the ships, with a sack of wool slung over each shoulder. They’re quite heavy and cumbersome and people keep bumping into me, so I’m trying to watch my footing.
Arne’s ahead of me, herding his Finnish girls on a leash. Under his arm, he’s carrying a small strongbox of Finnish jewellery, over which he fought five men by himself. He’s been gloating about it ever since, but that isn’t why he’s getting under my skin.
Not for the first time, Arne stops, turns around, and grins.
“Arne!” I snarl, staggering forward as the man behind me bumps into me, “Quit stopping!”
“Hervor!” the man behind me growls.
“It isn’t me!”
Arne puckers up his lips, then keeps moving.
Loki!
We finally make it through the gate into the marketplace, and I drop the sacks of wool next to the covered booths Torvald secured for us from the trade guild. There’s one booth per ship, but not all of us are selling wares.
I, for one, am eager to spend some of the silver in my purse.
Arne’s gone off to show his girls at the slave block, and I watch Kimbi set out some extravagant pottery and a fine pair of drinking horns, each elaborately etched with a reindeer prancing around a naked river spirit.
I ask him if he wants to look around with me.
Kimbi places a sax knife with a Finnish design engraved on the blade between the two horns. “I can’t,” he says, “I have to watch my treasure.”
“Can’t you get someone else to watch it?”
“No, they won’t care as much as me and won’t bargain as well for the better profit.”
“We could sneak off somewhere for a bit.”
He blushes and tries to hide a smile. He wants to, but he’s hesitating.
“If you have to think about it that hard then you’re obviously not that interested.”
“What? I’m interested. I’ll go with you!”
“I don’t want you to come anymore,” I say acidly, “stay here and peddle your junk, since that’s what you’d rather do.”
Kimbi throws up his hands. “I don’t understand. What did I say?”
“It doesn’t matter. I’ll just go by myself.”
“I said I’ll go with you!”
“And I said I don’t want you to!”
“Hervor!”
“Just let her go,” the man next to him says, “When women get like that it’s best to just do as they say.”
Loki, men are stupid.
I give up and head off without him to look at what the merchants are selling. We’ve set up next to the blacksmith section and heat blasts my face as I pass the forges. Most of them are making horseshoes and plowshares and other tools for farming. The sight of them makes me homesick. My brothers will be helping Frodmar with the harvest now, working from sun up to sun down with the thralls to reap the fields and bring the crops into the barns. I brush the thought aside and move onto the more exciting wares.
Fine swords are on display with sax knives, spearheads and axeheads. The smith watches me with his big arms folded across his apron as I look over his handiwork. I love the look of those sleek new swords. They’re so clean and polished, and deadly sharp. Every night I oil Asger’s sword and polish the blade until it’s like staring into water, but the blade is chipped and full of nicks from biting mail and bone.
I pick up one of the new swords, and right away I’m disappointed. The grip fits nicely in my hand, but the blade is poorly balanced compared to what I’m used to.
To be fair, It’s a decent enough sword, but Asger’s sword is Frankish steel. ‘You’ll not find a better weapon than what’s crafted in a Frankish forge,’ he told me once, ‘unless it’s made by dwarves with magic.’
What I really need is a new pair of shoes.
The shoemakers are next to the leatherworkers, and this part of the market is thick with the smell of smoke and leather. Saddles and vests hang from the booths with gloves, purses, belts, and harnesses. I’ve picked out a pair of turn-shoes that I like. They’re made of reddish-brown leather; they’re loose and comfortable, and go up a couple inches past my ankles.
I sit down on the bench in front of the shoemaker’s booth to try them on.
“Nice turn-shoes,” a man says. It’s Skipper Dwerg.
“You like them?” I ask, fastening up the leather laces.
“I like them.”
“Can you help me haggle?”
Dwerg looks at the shoemaker. “Wo-koliko se jeste?”
We reach a bargain, and after I hand over my silver, the shoemaker pours a horn of mead to celebrate the sale and drink a blessing on my shoes.
“Have you found anything you like?” I ask as we leave the shoemaker’s booth.
Dwerg shrugs. “A few things, tunics, trousers, some nice dresses for the girls for a better price than I’d be able to get in Lofoten. But we’ve been saving our silver to buy a second farm. I think with this year’s raid we’ll have enough. We’ll see what the wife says when I return to Vågar.”
We wander into the section of the marketplace where the silversmiths, goldsmiths and craftsmen are displaying jewellery and fine carvings. Merchants smile and dangle earrings and hold up necklaces, trying to catch my eye as I pass their booths. Some are women dressed in rich clothing, their fingers glittering with rings as they model their wares. All of the craftsmanship is incredibly fine—intricate workings of gold and silver, set with pearls and precious stones.
What riches you could carry off if you could sack a place like Holmgard. The Finns know it. The Swedes know it too. But even they aren’t foolish enough to try. It would not be wise to cross the Rus. There are not many realms in Midgard that can boast the same might as Gardariki.
A troop of a dozen huskarls with blue and white shields are moving urgently through the marketplace. One of them bumps against me and nearly knocks me down.
“Fy Faen! Watch where you’re going!”
“Prosti-mi,” he mutters without looking back as he squeezes through the crowd.
“Hervor, look there,” says Dwerg, his eyes lighting up with greed as he points to a booth. “I’ve seen such works once before. Oh, it is a rare thing to find this far north. Egyptian gold!”
“Egypt?”
“A land far to the south where they have no winter. It’s so hot there that they have oceans of sand instead of water, and the rich—the rich people who live there lie around eating grapes all day while their servants fan them with palm branches to keep them cool. It’s part of the Roman Empire.”
“Are these people from Egypt?”
Dwerg chuckles. “No, Hervor.”
As I try to imagine how a ship can sail through sand, I follow him to where two men and a woman are sitting behind a booth of jewelled trinkets. The woman’s hair is dark and curled and the men have long mustaches that droop past their chins. Two green shields are hung up in the back of the booth, each with a yellow sun painted on the boss. One of the men gets up to greet us as we approach. “Prosju-wy.”
“Poklono,” Dwerg replies, “Otokudu jesi? Where are you from?”
The man makes a lengthy reply, and he and Dwerg converse for a while. He tells me that they’re from Oium, the Kingdom of the Goths. “Their land is directly south of Gardariki,” he says. “They came north on the river network. They have a great city there, Arheimar, on a river called the Dnieper. That’s where their king’s palace is.”
“Who is their king?”
Dwerg asks the question in Rus, and from the array of jewels I select a pair of turquoise earrings shaped like tears.
“A warlord called Alaric,” says Dwerg.
“Never heard of him.”
The other man smiles and holds up a mirror as I take out my bone earrings and try on the turquoise ones. The woman is staring at me.
“They say he is planning to make war with the Romans.”
“That’s ambitious,” I say, more interested in how these earrings bring out my eyes. My mother was right, I could have had any man I wanted. I still could. My cheeks colour a little in the mirror as I think about Kimbi pushing me up against the wall. Then my eyes sharpen in the reflection.
“Skipper, ask this woman what she’s looking at.”
Dwerg asks the man, who asks the woman, who answers him herself.
“She says that you are an intriguing girl. She wants to tell your fortune.” He gives me an uneasy look. “Be careful, Hervor,” he says, “it’s better not to know what doom the Norns have spoken for us.”
I ignore him and extend my hand to the Gothic woman, and Dwerg shakes his head and examines a golden cat with jewelled eyes. The Gothic woman grins and stares deep into my eyes as she traces her finger along the lines in my palm, whispering my fate in her strange tongue.
“Dwerg, what is she saying?”
“That she sees blood, and riches, and fame,” he says absently, stroking the cat’s head with two fingers.”
Excitement twists in my stomach. “Ask her about the man I’ll marry.”
Dwerg snorts. “One kiss and suddenly that’s all you can think about?”
“Just ask her.”
Dwerg relays the question and the woman’s grin widens as she nods and speaks of my future husband. “You will marry a prince from the race of giants, a hero of great strength. He will become king and will be a wise and just ruler. If you ask me, Hervor, that doesn’t sound like Kimbi.”
But I don’t hear him over my racing heart. “I’ll be a queen,” I whisper. In my thoughts, I’m tangled up in furs and white sheets underneath a powerful king with a broad, hairy chest and bulging arms.
“Tell me about my sons.”
The woman nods and traces her finger along a different line. Her smile fades.
“What is it? What does she see?” But in my heart, I already know.
The woman answers quietly. “She says you will know great sadness,” says Dwerg, “I told you Hervor, it’s better to be ignorant of such things.”
I pull my hand away into a fist. “So I’ll get it then? I’ll get my father’s sword from Samsø Island?”
But the woman turns away and gets up from the booth, leaning on the other man for support as he leads her away.
“What is this? Where is she going?”
Dwerg exchanges a few words with the first man and tells me that she needs to rest after expending herself. The man can see I’m angry because he holds up his hands defensively and goes on some more.
“Now what’s he saying?”
“He says not to put too much faith in palm readings and that nothing about the future is certain for anyone.”
I see a flash of red and my hand shoots for my hip, but Dwerg catches me by the wrist.
“Are you out of your mind Hervor?” he growls, “you draw your sword in this marketplace and we’ll all be dangling from the walls within the hour. Get control of yourself.”
“Just what kind of games are these people playing? Telling me my future and then saying a thing like that?” I start to sob and hot tears melt down my cheeks.
“Loki, Hervor, what’s the matter with you?”
“Just get away from me,” I snap, shoving him off my arm.
The Gothic man says something else and Dwerg nods graciously. “This man says he’s very sorry to have offended you. He says if you like the earrings you can keep them as a peace offering so there is no bad blood. I suggest you say thank you.”
“Hwala-ti,” I mutter, pointing to my ears.
“Wesegda jesme rado,” he says, and as Dwerg seizes me by the arm and leads me off, the man waves and calls after us, “Krasenago dene!”
Dwerg turns back to wave, then turns again and says something else and points at the gold cat statue. The man nods and removes it from the display.
Dwerg is angry with me, and neither of us speak as we head back to where the others are set up. But when we’re nearly there, I can’t stand the silence any longer. I want to get back on his good side.
“I thought you were saving your silver,” I say pleasantly, “you’re going back later to buy that gold cat?”
Dwerg gives me a bitter look, then sighs. Suddenly, he stops and reaches for my arm.
A group of huskarls have taken Chief Torvald. Men from our fleet are gathered around them in fierce protest. Torvald holds up his hands, urging them to be calm; he isn’t resisting and has handed over his sword and sax.
“What is this fuss about?” Dwerg asks anxiously.
Torvald says something to the huskarls when he sees us returning, and four of them come toward us. One of them is the man who bumped into me earlier.
“Hervor Angantysdottir,” he says in Nordic, “we need you to surrender your weapon and come with us at once.”
Dwerg glares at me in exasperation. “Hervor,” he seethes, “we told you!” He holds up his hands.
“It wasn’t me!” I growl, my hand hovering over the hilt of Asger’s sword as I instinctively sink into a fighting stance. The huskarls too reach for their weapons and approach me with caution.
“How do you know my father’s name?”
“Hervor!” shouts Torvald, “It’s alright! Come quietly and do as they say!”
My fingers twitch and my heart is racing. I can probably take one or two if the frenzy takes me, but I can see from the grim focus in their eyes that these are hard men who don’t mess around. The way they’re surrounding us, I’ll be in Hel the second I draw my blade.
“Hervor,” Dwerg says quietly. I’m making him nervous.
“Jaevla,” I whisper.
Dwerg makes a huge sigh of relief as I raise my hands and lift the baldric strap over my head and give up Asger’s sword. I snarl and shrug as two of the huskarls grip me by the arms and lead me over to Torvald.
The men are furious. The skipper of Torvald’s ship is pacing back and forth with wild anger in his eyes. They want to kill these huskarls and free their chieftain. And they could too. We outnumber this small group of huskarls. But if we cut them down we’d be attacked in force and not one of us would make it out of Holmgard alive.
I don’t know what they mean to do with us, but Torvald appears to be calm. He smiles and nods as the huskarls shove me next to him and form up around us with their shields.
“It’ll be alright!” he tells the angry Hålogalanders as the huskarls take us away, “I’m sure it’s all just some misunderstanding! We’ll be back within a couple hours! You’ll see!”
We pass the Gellir’s crew and Kimbi watches them lead me off with a distraught look on his face. These men would kill him in the blink of an eye, but part of me is annoyed he isn’t anxious to fight and free me like the men from Torvald’s crew. It’s not the first time he’s failed to act on my behalf. Arne’s back from the slave quarter too, shaking his head as he watches with amusement, sucking his teeth with a big grin on his face. That bastard …
Still, if Torvald wanted them to fight for us, I know Arne would be the first to strike a blow.
“So what’s this all about?” I ask, once we’re away from the others. They’re taking us through the streets, upward towards the massive hillfort overshadowing the city.
“Well, Hervor,” says Torvald irritably, “it seems word has gotten around that Sigrilami’s great-grandaughter is in Holmgard, and you and I have been summoned.”
“I never said a word!”
Torvald shrugs like he doesn’t believe me.
“And what do you mean we’ve been summoned? Who summoned us?”
Torvald gives me a long, hard look as though the answer should be obvious.
“The queen, Hervor.”