‘We will have landed before we have time to light them,’ Thorkell shouted over the noise of the men.
To this day I do not know how he still stood. We had not slept in days. It felt like a lifetime ago that we set sail for Atholl. Before my father had massacred our men. Before I gave birth to our son.
‘Sigurd.’ I tried. ‘Sigurd.’ I shook him gently.
The clunk of the boat coming into the harbour jolted me forward. Fires from the greased torches that lined the wooden dock, crackled and spat, sending sparks fluttering into the darkness, illuminating Sigurd’s pallid face. His mouth hung lax, revealing a row of almost white teeth. His glassy eyes reflected the light of the torches. It made him seem as though he might still be alive.
Ligach let out a gasp and touched his cheek.
‘He’s gone,’ she said, lowering her eyes and crossing herself. Still warm, she pulled the furs towards his chest and closed his eyes.
‘Do not say such lies. Bring me the Volva!’ I shouted, trying to pull his head into my lap. ‘Bring her now.
Chapter 36
A Leader Bold Enough to Take the Banner
Bring her to me,’ I said again, my words drifting on the commotion. ‘Bring her!’
All around me was noise. That much I remember. Men running. Women screaming. Boats jostling against the hardness of the dock. A deathly silence lay upon my lap. No sound. No flicker of mischief behind dead eyes. I placed a hand against his chest and waited for the tap, tap, tap against my palm. Stillness. Nothing.
‘Please…Please don’t leave us,’ I whispered. ‘Come back to us.’
I held his limp fingers, trying to drag him back from wherever Odin had taken him. I could feel a hundred eyes upon me. Tears stung my eyes. I can still feel my throat closing now, at the thought. His beautiful plait. The line of his jaw. The neatness of his bloodied beard. How could it be that he would no longer exist? I wanted it to be a trick of Loki. That I would not soon be washing my husband for burial. Beloved by all, like Baldur, but even the gods could not bring him back.
Pulled in two I stayed on the ship. Thorfinn sleeping soundly at my breast and Sigurd lay in an eternal sleep in my lap. How could fate have been so cruel? To make me think that I could outrun it.
My wet tears now wound clean lines through the dried blood upon his cheek. I rocked, tucking Thorfinn closer to me. I stroked a hand gently through his hair.
‘She will be here soon,’ I whispered. ‘She will know what to do.’
On the dock, people clustered. Sombre eyes stared down at us. I curved myself closer to him, placing Thorfinn between us.
I felt the movement of the boat against the water as someone stepped behind us. ‘Olith.’ Donada gently squeezed my shoulder. ‘We have to go inside. You cannae stay here.’
Suddenly, I was all too aware of the biting darkness. My breath hung frozen in the air. Thorfinn. I stared down at my child, naked but for furs. ‘Please,’ I said, words shuddering. ‘Bring Sigurd by the fire, he must be so cold.’
‘We will.’ Ligach nodded to Thorkell and some of the men, who climbed down into the ship.
Donada wrapped an arm around my waist to steady me and Thorfinn. Clumsily I managed to get out onto the dock and Ligach and Halldora wrapped a cloak around my shoulders. My legs would not respond no matter how I urged them. Melded to the floor like hardened tallow.
Gently, they lifted him from the hull where he had died and carried him slowly up the winding path towards the Mead Hall. I could not tear my eyes away from him. A procession of candles fell in behind. From somewhere beyond the guttering torches, I heard the Volva’s voice. ‘All this I had foreseen.’
I turned to face her. White buckskin cape over her tiny, wizened frame and wreathed in her ring of maidens. She wore no headdress now, a cloud of grey hair billowing around her and a white ink line of runes around her forehead.
My anger burned like a fire. ‘It is you who brought this upon us! No one else!’ I twisted unsteady as a lamb. ‘You sent our men to slaughter with your riddles! You did not foresee it. You willed it!’
Anger. I could taste it on my tongue. I could feel it through my bones. The tears came hot now. Thorfinn let out a terrified wail. ‘You willed it. You.’ I tried to rock him but he would not settle. ‘Now you must fix it.’
All around us, men and women were standing in silent witness. Chieftains. Farmers. Shieldmaidens and thralls. I could not look at the sea of faces or I would be lost. All would be lost.
‘Bring him back to me,’ I pleaded. ‘I will pay any price. Bring him back.’
Her steel gaze settled upon me. ‘He is in Odin’s palace now, roofed with shields. He sips honied mead in Valhalla.’ She glanced up at the sound of a falcon. My eye followed, in the darkness they looked like spills of ink, but I knew their call. ‘Daughter of Freyja, it is you who will lead us. Where you go, they will follow.’
‘A mother with a husband who is to be food for the worms, and I am to lead us?’ I shouted through a hail of tears. ‘I am your charge?’
The old woman turned, using her staff to guide her on the uneven path. The maiden’s followed, disappearing through the darkness as though it had all been a dream.
