Red Ottar was standing with one foot on the gangway, talking to Edwin, when Mihran came hurrying—skipping, almost—along the quay.
“Yaroslav, king of the Rus, will see you,” he announced. “He will receive you at noon.”
“Today?” asked Red Ottar.
“Today,” said Mihran. “Noon or never. This afternoon he will be fitted.”
“Fitted?”
“His new armor. And early this evening he shares his table.”
“Ah, yes,” said Edwin. “With me.”
“With you?” exclaimed Red Ottar.
“Me,” said Edwin with a bucktoothed smile, “or another man with the same name.”
“What are you up to?” asked Red Ottar.
“Many a loaf,” Edwin replied, “has been spoiled for being lifted from the oven too early.”
“You schemer!” said Red Ottar, not wholly without respect.
“And tomorrow,” Mihran continued, “the king sails north.”
Then Solveig and Bergdis and Slothi all came trooping off the boat with wares for their stall, and the skipper made way for them.
“King Yaroslav will see me,” he told them. “At noon.”
Bergdis dropped the furs she was carrying and threw her arms around Red Ottar. “Praise the gods!” she screeched.
“I will,” said Red Ottar drily. “But first, I’ll praise Mihran.”
“Will the king buy from us himself?” Bergdis asked. “And his queen?”
“Time will tell,” Red Ottar replied.
Then Mihran held up his right hand. “King Yaroslav also require you,” he told Red Ottar, “to bring with you Solveig, Halfdan’s daughter.”
“Solveig!” exclaimed Bergdis angrily. “Why her?”
Solveig could scarcely take her eyes off King Yaroslav. He wasn’t particularly tall or short, fat or skinny, hairy or bald, but he had the brightest blue eyes she had ever seen, brighter even than Torsten’s.
A large circular earring hung from his left ear, and it was inlaid with a stone that matched his eyes.
The king was sitting on a very high golden bench, and beside him perched his twelve-year-old daughter, Ellisif. She was wearing gold necklaces and gold armbands, and her fair hair was swept back and braided so that it looked like a whole cluster of swirling snakes. She couldn’t quite touch the floor with her pointed shoes.
Red Ottar and Solveig, accompanied by Mihran, knelt in front of the king, and all around them in the great hall of the palace stood groups of counselors, retainers, and servants.
“Stand!” King Yaroslav told them. “Welcome!”
How deep his voice is, thought Solveig. Like an ox. Mihran says he has been king since before I was born.
To begin with, the king almost ignored Red Ottar. He gazed at Solveig with his deep-set eyes, and then he beckoned her. Scarcely daring to breathe, Solveig stepped up to him, and he nodded and rubbed his trimmed beard.
“Mmm!” he rumbled. “Light-footed, not limping. Whippety. Quick-fingered, not clumsy . . .”
Solveig began to shiver.
“But,” said the king, inspecting Solveig further, “the way you tilt your head a little to the left. The way you watch.”
Now Solveig was trembling.
King Yaroslav smiled. “Like father, like daughter,” he growled. “If you’d come into this hall with one hundred other girls, I’d still recognize you. Halfdan’s daughter!”
“Oh!” gasped Solveig, and her legs almost gave way beneath her.
The king patted the bench beside him, and Solveig sat down on the padded purple velvet.
She swallowed loudly. “You met him,” she whispered.
“Any friend of Harald Sigurdsson is a friend of mine,” the king replied. “But your father—he was much more than that. At Stiklestad, he saved Harald’s life. Isn’t that so?”
Solveig nodded and swallowed again. She felt quite sick.
“Look at me, girl,” said the king.
Solveig raised her eyes.
“Yes,” said the king, with a wry smile. “‘A bit of changeling. Eager as a colt. Her voice clear and bright as a ray of sunlight.’”
Once more, Solveig was trembling. She couldn’t help it.
“Your father is well,” King Yaroslav told her. “He came here at the end of autumn on his way to Miklagard. He was in the company of Earl Rognvald—”
“I met him,” said Solveig. “For one night I did. But I was only nine then.”
“Earl Rognvald and twenty Norwegians,” continued the king. “They’d planned to meet in Sweden—”
“Over the mountains!” exclaimed Solveig, but then she put her hand over her mouth. “I shouldn’t interrupt you.”
“Some thoughts matter so much,” said the king, pursing his lips, “there’s no stopping them. As things turned out, they all made their own way to Ladoga. Yes, Solveig, your father was eager to see Harald again. Harald Sigurdsson, leader of the Varangian guard!”
Solveig gasped and clapped her hand over her mouth again.
“Yes,” said the king. “That man! So, Solveig, I praised your father’s resolve, his loyalty, his honor . . .” He paused and turned to Red Ottar. “This girl,” he said, “is the daughter of a determined, loyal, honorable man, and she is no less so herself. A young woman, traveling from Trondheim to Miklagard—I’ve never known the like of it.”
Red Ottar inclined his head and slowly nodded.
“I rewarded her father,” the king told him. “I gave him a saber.”
Red Ottar frowned and pushed his head forward.
“A curved blade,” said Mihran under his breath.
“Made by one of my own smiths,” the king went on. Then he turned back to Solveig and considered her carefully. “I asked your father,” he said, “whether he had any regrets.
“‘One,’ your father told me. ‘Only one.’”
Solveig gazed at the king, unblinking.
“He said he had left a fine woman behind.”
Solveig blinked.
“A fine woman,” the king repeated slowly.
Then Solveig lowered her eyes. Asta, she thought. Asta. My father spoke of her.
“A young woman with one gray eye,” the king went on, “one violet. Wide apart.”
“Oh!” gasped Solveig, and she shuddered. “Ohh!”
“Ahh!” sighed the king. “He said he left without telling her. Without explaining. He said he would regret it for as long as he lived.”
Solveig kept gulping, and for some time King Yaroslav sat quietly beside her. Then he turned to Ellisif. “You see how it is?” he asked in his deep voice. “Fathers and daughters.”
Without bothering to look over his shoulder, the king raised his right hand and beckoned. Two servants hurried forward, one carrying a tray with a pitcher and three little gilt cups on it, the other a silver platter decorated around the rim with wildflowers and laden with little cakes and roasted nuts.
The king waved again, and the servants brought stools for Red Ottar and Mihran.
As one servant poured liquid from the pitcher, Solveig saw that it was pale red and transparent.
“You know this?” the king asked her.
“Lingonberry?” said Solveig.
“Try it.”
So Solveig took a sip and immediately screwed up her face. “Sour!” she exclaimed.
“Cranberry,” the king said. “Good for thirst. Good for safe childbirth.”
“I’m not pregnant!” Solveig protested.
“I’m glad to hear it,” the king replied, and with that he turned his attention to the two men.
“Well, Ottar,” he said. “Red Ottar. Why Red?”
Red Ottar ran a hand through his red-gold hair.
“And a hot temper?”
“I know how to keep it, King. And I know when to lose it.”
“And blood on your hands?”
“No,” said Red Ottar. “Not spilled unjustly. Not the blood that stains.”
The king nodded. “A good reply,” he observed. “So, now! Miklagard!”
Red Ottar gave Mihran a sideways glance. “No,” he replied in a guarded voice.
“No?” exclaimed the king, and he was either surprised or very good at pretending to be so; Solveig wasn’t quite sure. “Why no?”
“It was never my plan,” Red Ottar said.
“If Solveig can go,” the king said, “you can go.” He planted a firm hand on Solveig’s shoulder. “You can watch over her . . . like a daughter.”
“My crew will say we have come far enough already.”
“Only weak men,” said the king, “blame their followers. Strong men have supple minds. I would have expected better of you, Ottar.”
Solveig listened, astonished. For the first time, she saw Red Ottar having no choice but to be submissive and heard him being put in his place.
“As it happens,” King Yaroslav said, “you’ve arrived here at a crucial time. A time that can be very profitable for you. Once more, the Pechenegs are gathering, thousands of them, and before long they’ll attack. I’ve sat on this throne for eighteen years, and this will be the greatest battle of all.” King Yaroslav made the sign of the cross on his chest. “May God guard me,” he said, “so that it’s not also my last.”
“Where are they now?” Red Ottar asked.
“North from here,” said the king. “North of the Snake Ramparts. Massing already on the banks of the Dnieper. You? You can scarcely go back. Upstream, rowing all the way. The Pechenegs will pick you all off. You can wait here, or you can go on.” The king paused. “Ottar,” he said, “Red Ottar, I need your help. I’m asking you to carry my messenger to Miklagard as quickly as you can. For me—my family, my followers, my kingdom—I believe it’s life or death.”
Red Ottar inclined his head, in submission or in thought. “Your messenger,” he said.
“I will send him to your boat.”
“King,” said Red Ottar, “you must allow me to talk to my crew. To do so is not a weakness but a sign of strength.”
“You can be quite sure I will reward you all handsomely,” King Yaroslav told him. “Not only that, the prices your furs and wax and honey will command in Miklagard . . .” The king shook his head as if there were no words to describe them. “Whatever cargo you’ve brought, buy even more. You will not be disappointed.”
“I’ll come back in the morning,” Red Ottar promised him.
“Come this evening,” King Yaroslav said sharply. “Send one of your crew to speak to me. I’ll have my men watch out for him.”
“As you wish,” Red Ottar said.
“And then you can leave in the morning.”
“King,” protested Red Ottar, “we’ve only just arrived. We’ve come all the way from Ladoga, and my crew is worn out. One of my men is badly injured. We’ll have to find someone to replace him.”
“Ah!” interrupted Mihran.
King Yaroslav nodded. “I wouldn’t ask so much of you if things were not desperate. But once you’ve passed the cataracts—”
“Cataracts!” exclaimed Red Ottar, looking wildly around him as if he expected them to hurl themselves right through the palace hall.
“Then,” the king told them, “you can all rest. Mihran, you will guide them?”
“I will,” said Mihran with a small bow, and Solveig wondered just how much of the king’s intentions the river pilot already knew.
“In this way,” the king told Red Ottar, “you will assist me and all the Rus—all the Vikings—here in Garthar. You will make yourself rich, and not only rich but honorable. You’ll always be welcome at my court, just like Halfdan and his saber!”
There was so much Solveig wanted to ask. About her father. About Harald and his two years serving King Yaroslav in Kiev. About the Vikings who guarded the emperor in Miklagard by day and by night.
But King Yaroslav stood up. All his counselors, retainers and servants bowed low. Then the king gently put his hand on the small of Solveig’s back and ushered her back to her companions.
Red Ottar and Solveig and Mihran all bowed to the king. Then they shuffled backward out of the great hall.
The dusty track from the palace to the quay was so steep that Solveig whooped and skeltered down it.
Red Ottar and Mihran followed at a more sedate pace.
“You have a daughter?” asked Mihran.
Red Ottar shook his head. “No,” he said, as much to himself as to the river pilot. “No son. No daughter. We’ve made sacrifices, we’ve offered the gods gifts . . . I don’t know.”
“But your baby is coming now,” Mihran said warmly. “Coming quickly.”
When they had set off for the palace before noon, the quay had been seething with merchants and customers, children, cattle and asses, cats, dogs.
Solveig had looked longingly at the wares on the stalls, so many more than at Ladoga—colored glass cups and plates, bronze bottles as tall as she was and material so filmy that it seemed to float, little pyramids of colored powders . . . Red Ottar wouldn’t stop, though, and kept hurrying her up.
Edie and I, later on we’ll look at every stall, Solveig resolved. We will.
But now! Solveig could scarcely believe her eyes. The same quay was deserted. A few mangy dogs were ranging around, sniffing and barking, one boy was trying to fly a kite, and a dozen or two people were drifting from stall to stall. As she looked more carefully, Solveig saw that most of the merchants and their wives were lolling beside their stalls in the shadow of their awnings. Some of them were dozing, some snoring, though Solveig supposed they’d wake at once if anyone came close to their wares.
“Here,” said Mihran, stretching out his arms, “everybody rests in the afternoon. They eat and drink and then . . .” The river pilot couldn’t help yawning, and that made Solveig yawn too. “The heat of the day,” Mihran told her. “That’s what we call it.”
“Today is the first day of June,” Solveig said.
The river pilot nodded. “And now each day will be hot and more hot. You see.”
Solveig closed her eyes, and what she saw was a little boat crossing molten gold water. There was a man in the bows and another smaller figure amidships, both of them looking forward. Solveig’s heart was bubbling with everything the king had told her . . . She opened her eyes again.
Mihran smiled. “You go on a journey?” he asked her.
“Sometimes I scarcely know where I am,” Solveig replied. “I’m here in Kiev, but at the same time I’m at home on the fjord and I’m in Miklagard.”
Red Ottar’s crew was resting too. Torsten had hauled the sail a little way up the mast, and most of his companions were dozing in its shadow.
Before long, though, Red Ottar clapped his hands several times and summoned everyone. He said the king had welcomed him, and Solveig too, because he had already received and honored her father.
“The king gave him a curved sword,” Mihran told them.
“And that’s why King Yaroslav wanted Solveig to accompany me,” Red Ottar told Bergdis.
Bergdis simply thrust out her chin and lower lip.
Then Red Ottar told his crew about how the Pechenegs were massing upstream, and how the king had asked them to assist him and promised to reward them all, and about the rich pickings to be had in Miklagard. And he said that he wanted any decision to be as much theirs as his own.
“This is my boat,” he told them, “and I have the last word, so you can’t do without me, but I can’t do without you. In the end, we have to agree.”
Slothi and Bruni were of one mind. They said at once that they favored continuing their journey to Miklagard if the boat was fit to make the journey.
“Fit, yes,” the river pilot said, looking at Torsten. “But she is large.”
“Large?”
“For cataracts.”
“What’s cataracts?” asked Bard.
“Rapids,” Slothi told him. “Rushing water.”
“Seven,” said Mihran thoughtfully. “Many Vikings leave their large boats here and buy smaller boats. Barges.”
“No,” said Red Ottar. “I’m not doing that.” He looked up and down the length of the deck. “She’s . . . she’s my sea wife.”
“I think,” said Mihran, “she is large but not too large. We portage the fourth cataract. All boats must do that.”
Memory of the last portage was sufficiently recent and painful for some of the crew to begin to have their doubts, but then Red Ottar and Mihran said that the Pechenegs were an even greater hazard than the cataracts.
“Our choice,” the skipper told them, “is to wait here or to continue our journey.”
Odindisa pointed to the inert figure lying in the hold. “What about Vigot?” she asked.
“If we go on,” Red Ottar said, “we’ll have to leave him here.”
“Infirmary,” said Mihran promptly. “Monks.”
“At least the Christians are good for something,” Red Ottar observed. “And when we get back, we’ll decide whether or not to take him with us.” He gave Odindisa a nod. “You’re right. Not deciding is sometimes best.”
“Do you want to know what I think?” Bergdis demanded.
“You do surprise me.”
Red Ottar snorted.
“We should make live sacrifices and look at the omens,” Bergdis declared.
“There’s no time for that.”
“No time for the gods?”
“Later,” the skipper replied. “If we’re going, we must leave as soon as we can. And if we’re fated, we’re fated.”
At once Solveig remembered the shaman and her third prophecy: “I see what I see: one new death.”
The thick, sweaty smell in the shaman’s tent filled her nostrils.
“Fated, are we?” said Bergdis. “Is this the same man who has always called on the gods for their help?”
Red Ottar growled.
“Jesus helps us to help ourselves,” observed Slothi.
“We’re not talking about Jesus,” Bergdis retorted.
“It’s not only the rich rewards,” Slothi went on. “I want to see Miklagard with my own eyes. It’s the greatest city except for Jerusalem in this whole middle-earth—for Christians it is.”
“Why?” Solveig asked.
“Don’t start him,” Red Ottar cautioned her.
“I want what’s most safe for my children,” Odindisa said. “The same as any mother.”
Red Ottar glanced at Solveig. “No point in asking you,” he said.
And Solveig gave him a smile full of such lightness and brightness that Red Ottar couldn’t help laughing.
Around and around circled their talk and argument, and as the quay began to throb and hum and seethe again, Red Ottar and his crew at last agreed to continue their journey.
“In which case,” said the skipper, “we must pack up our cargo.”
“We’ve only just unpacked it,” Brita protested.
“Haven’t you been listening?” Red Ottar demanded. “All our merchandise will sell in Miklagard for double the price.”
“And if we can pick up anything more here,” added Blacktooth, “we must do so.”
“You and Slothi,” Red Ottar told him, “you go around the stalls as soon as the cargo’s stowed.”
These evenings, thought Solveig, closing her eyes, what will they be like in Miklagard? With my father.
“Solveig!” Red Ottar barked. “Did you hear what I said?”
“Oh!” exclaimed Solveig.
“This is no time to dream. I said I wanted you to help Mihran and the monks carry Vigot to the infirmary. And then we must find someone to replace him.”
“Not difficult,” said Mihran. “King Yaroslav will help.”
“I see,” Red Ottar said with a grim smile. “So you and he have already talked about it. And doubtless the king has already rewarded you for . . . your services.”
“No, no,” said Mihran.
“Yes, yes,” Red Ottar retorted, and he turned to Bergdis. “So now! You wanted to see the palace.”
“I have never seen a king,” Bergdis replied.
“No,” Red Ottar said. “Most unusual. Four legs.”
“Is that true?” asked Bard. “Do kings have four legs?”
“What do you think, Bard?”
“Smik had four when he wanted to.”
Red Ottar slapped his thighs. “Very good!” he exclaimed. “Kings have as many legs as they say they have.” Red Ottar turned back to Bergdis. “You wanted to see the king,” he said, “and so you shall. Better than that! You are to speak to him.”
Solveig had never seen Bergdis so taken aback, let alone so nervous.
“He’s a man,” Red Ottar told her. “You know how to talk to men. Say Red Ottar greets King Yaroslav. Say I’ve spoken to my crew and we’re of like mind . . .”
“Like mind,” repeated Bergdis.
“Say we’ll sail to Miklagard and carry the king’s messenger.”
“Please,” said Mihran, “I will go to the palace with Bergdis.”
“No,” said the skipper. “You’re taking Vigot to the infirmary.”
Mihran fingered his mustache. “Infirmary is in the palace,” he replied.
“Is that so!” barked Red Ottar. “Is there anything left for me to arrange? This message must be extremely important.”
“Or is no other boat prepared to shoot the rapids so early in the year?” Red Ottar demanded. “Is that the truth of it?” Then the skipper looked around his crew. “We must buy provisions,” he said.
“Several seams need caulking and mossing,” Torsten added, “and those knees have come loose from the thwarts again. Odindisa, will you mend those splits at the bottom of the rig?”
“What about the new vane?” asked Odindisa.
“That too,” said Torsten.
“And then,” said Red Ottar, glaring at Bard, “we’re sending you back up the mast again. And this time we won’t let you down until we reach Miklagard.”
Bard looked up at Red Ottar and grinned.
“All this,” said Red Ottar, “and with or without the king’s help, we have to replace Vigot.” He turned to Bergdis and nodded. “Tell the king I await his messenger.”
Some members of the crew were glad to see the back of Vigot—Red Ottar because Vigot was such a liability, Bruni because Vigot had stolen his scramasax, and Bergdis because she despised him.
But others surprised themselves by feeling sorry for him and almost reluctant to let him go. None more so than Odindisa.
She dropped to her knees beside his litter. “You saved Brita,” she told him. “You saved her life. That matters more to me than any amount of wrongdoing.”
“The monks will look after you well,” Slothi told him later. “And if anyone can help you mend, they will. Heaven knows, you’ve been punished enough.”
Brita overheard her father. And on her own, unbidden, she just stole up to Vigot, knelt beside him, and planted a kiss on his brow.
Vigot opened his dark eyes.
“Daystar,” he murmured.
“What?” asked Brita.
But Vigot had closed his eyes again.
With the help of two monks, Solveig and Mihran carried Vigot on his litter up the hill to the monks’ infirmary, and Bergdis helped them before proceeding to the palace on her own.
The world inside the infirmary’s thick walls was cool and quiet and shadowy.
It’s like a world inside the world, thought Solveig.
The monks already knew all about Vigot’s injury.
“I prepare the way,” Mihran told her, nodding seriously.
“So I see!” said Solveig.
Solveig sat on the cool flagstones beside Vigot. “Red Ottar says he’ll come and find you when he gets back,” she told him quietly. “You know he won’t punish you further,” she said. “You know that, don’t you?”
Vigot nodded.
“I think he’ll try to get you back home,” she said.
“You?” Vigot whispered.
“What?”
“Home?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Wherever my father is.”
“My lines,” Vigot said. “All my hooks.”
“Yes?”
“Yours,” he said in a weak voice. “Yours now.”
“Oh, Vigot!”
“I wish . . .”
“What?”
Vigot’s dark eyes shone in the gloom. “I wish I hadn’t. Your bead . . . your eye.”
Then Solveig just dipped her head so that her lovely fair hair caressed Vigot’s chest. She paused for a moment, and then she stood up, and, with hot tears in her eyes, she turned away.
In the almost-dark, two white faces ghosted along the quay. One stopped short of Red Ottar’s boat in the shadow of an upended skiff, but the other walked right up to it. He put his right foot on the gangplank.
“Ottar!” he called out.
Red Ottar grunted. He and his crew were all sitting around the mast, some drinking ale, some dozing. Bruni and Slothi were talking about their new purchases, and Odindisa was saying that although Vigot had been no use to man or beast since his terrible injury, it was still not the same without him.
“Red Ottar!”
Red Ottar growled and got to his feet. He grasped the flaming brand and lifted it from its metal stand beside the hold. “Who’s there?” he called out.
“The king’s messenger,” said the voice.
Red Ottar took several steps down the gangplank and waved the brand in the man’s face.
It was Edwin.