Council, page 20
Jorunn had appointed herself the leader of the mission from the first moment and none of the men had dared to disagree. Despite herself, Helga had a certain amount of admiration for the pure edge on the woman. She could silence a group of hard-bitten warriors with just one look. But after all, men are the easier opponents. Some of her own conquests drifted up from where she kept those memories and the corners of her mouth rose, unbidden.
‘What’s so funny?’
Startled back into the real world, Helga glanced over at Freysteinn, who looked very comfortable flicking the reins and pretending his cart needed any sort of driver’s care when she had no doubt the carthorse could manage perfectly well without him.
His steady gaze made her a little nervous. How long have you been watching me? ‘Nothing,’ she said. ‘Just remembered a funny rhyme.’
‘And you’re keeping it for yourself? On the road? That’s not right, is it?’
She kept the smile fixed and her eyes twinkling. And this right here is why we don’t lie. ‘Of course not.’ Something funny. Come on! But nothing came. ‘You may have heard this one.’ Mother, come on, help me.
And then she remembered.
‘Cows will moo and sheep will shit and critters will be counted –
But make sure you get off the horse before the mare gets mounted.’
He leered at her, his eyes bright with suggestion. ‘Hadn’t heard that one,’ he said. ‘Some good advice, there.’ He was about to say something more when they both caught a sudden movement from up front: Nazreen’s hand had shot up, palm out. He didn’t need language for that; the message was clear. Shut up.
A flash of annoyance crossed Freysteinn’s face. ‘Little shit,’ he muttered. ‘He may be a fighter, but he knows nothing about being in charge.’
There was an unpleasant edge to her lover that she hadn’t seen before and it made her feel a little sick to her stomach. His cheerfulness had vanished and while it had been annoying, it was preferable to whatever this was.
She stared at Nazreen, then looked back at Freysteinn, her spine tingling, although she couldn’t yet tell if it was good or bad. ‘She trusts him, though.’
‘Can’t imagine why.’
The decision was right there in front of her . . . And this was a game she knew. She felt bad for a moment, but . . . He should have asked how I felt. He should have asked what I wanted. ‘Neither can I. I think you should be up at the front, at least.’
‘Yeah,’ Freysteinn mumbled. Like men do when they are just agreeing with themselves, she thought.
‘Maybe—’ She left the idea floating for just long enough, like a hook in the water, waiting for a bite.
‘We should be going faster.’
And there it was. ‘Mm,’ she said, pinching her lips together to avoid smiling. A dark thrill coursed through her as she saw the tension build in him. It started in his hips and his lower back and spread to the arms and legs slowly, like a disease. Now all we need is timing . . . Something told her to hold back, and she listened, saying nothing, just glancing sideways, innocently, at Freysteinn.
Who was now looking like a bottled thundercloud.
Helga allowed herself a small inwards smile as they rode on in silence. The seed had been planted and watered. He’d been delighted by this little adventure and convinced that it’d be fun – but not once had he thought to ask her for her opinion, or advice.
Let’s find out how smart you are when you’re in the driving seat, cart-boy.
*
The tall trees enclosing the fields around Uppsala eventually gave way to gently rolling fields. After that the road wound through a denser forest of towering pines and thick yew trees, until the low, hunched shapes with needles so dark as to be almost black, punctuated by bright red berries warning of danger, suddenly opened up to reveal a lake as wide as the eye could see.
Helga remembered arriving at the other side of that lake a few years back, thinking that she’d reached the sea and somehow missed the biggest town in Svealand. She’d known nothing then. And do you feel you know much now? The question had more than a hint of her mother’s voice gently telling her she was being an idiot, but in any case, she lost the answer in the steady thud of hooves on hard ground.
The lake changed beside them as they followed the waterline south. Jorunn went on ahead, clearly trusting no one else to scout for her, and returned to announce that the ferryman, having heard of Styrbjorn’s advance, had found a very urgent reason to visit relatives in the north. Eventually, even the near-endless water disappeared behind them and they were once again swallowed up by trees. Above them, the sun started its slow sinking towards the edge of the world, vanishing just as they reached the edge of the forest.
‘Camp.’ Jorunn’s command was short and sharp.
‘What – here?’ Big Rolf’s bushy eyebrows almost knotted together in the middle.
‘The copse,’ Jorunn snapped, pointing to a covered depression in the ground no one else had noticed about a hundred paces away. ‘There’s cover from the wind, trees at our back, sightlines, easy to guard. More questions?’
There weren’t.
As the carts turned towards the destination, Helga caught a glance of Big Rolf’s face. The North Wind’s advisor looked like he’d been carved out of stone. If you hit a bump in the road, you’ll bite your tongue off. She wondered why she was finding it so satisfying, watching Jorunn whipping the men around her. She remembered those fateful days at Riverside and how the woman’s lying and scheming had sickened her and asked herself what had changed.
Maybe it’s me.
Dismounting, she breathed in through her nose and caught the smell of forest, sun-warmed bark, resinous sap and pine needles. She led Grundle to a patch of long grass and looped the reins loosely around a nearby branch. She had a vague awareness that behind her, the camp was being set up without much in the way of barking of orders from anyone. As the mare settled down to graze, Helga pulled out a brush and started the long, even strokes along her flanks.
The smell of Grundle mixed in with the cooling air, which made her think of summer nights with Hildigunnur, listening to her foster-mother talk about the world, or at least her view of it. A man’s place was to fight his corner and stand his ground, take what life gave him and share it with his family and friends. A woman’s place . . . was to find herself a good man, then spend her life whispering in his ear so he did what she wanted him to do.
‘Men rule, women decide,’ she mouthed, hearing the words as if they were being muttered by another voice from long ago. Grundle whickered and turned her head. ‘No, not you. You’re a horse,’ Helga said softly, getting a gentle nudge in return before Grundle returned to the much more interesting subject of grass. ‘You rule and decide, and allow me to hold the reins so I feel important.’
Helga looked over at the camp. Jorunn, standing a little way apart from the men and observing them, was an achingly similar figure to Hildigunnur. It must have been strange to see one’s own daughter become a grown woman. ‘And a murdering liar,’ she added, and the venom in her voice surprised her. But on the other hand, like Grundle, Jorunn was also trying to both decide and rule, and that was exciting to watch.
For no reason she could fathom, Helga suddenly found herself getting angry. ‘She has no business looking like my mother,’ she muttered through gritted teeth. ‘No business at all.’ She remembered all too clearly being the only child on the farm, and then losing it all when Hildigunnur’s real children came back. She would never forget that rush of pain, of being a cuckoo in the nest, an unwanted stepchild, when she saw Jorunn standing next to her blood-mother. They looked so alike. It was sometimes hard to remember that the woman in charge of their crazy expedition to spy on King Harald was the same woman who had murdered her own brother and threatened to gut Helga like a fish. And because they looked so alike, it was also hard to remember that the woman she was looking at was not her mother, the person who’d taught her everything she knew, who’d brought her up with love, wisdom and filthy jokes.
‘Stupid,’ she muttered, mostly at the feeling in her chest.
As she worked meticulously to rub down the mare’s coat, she studied the men. They hadn’t traded four words between them before now and yet they were working together as if they’d never done anything else. Short commands were exchanged and batted back with the occasional question. The horses were tethered and tended to, wagons secured and covered, lean-tos erected. She spotted Haki, who’d conjured up a bow and arrows from somewhere, disappearing into the forest with Freysteinn, who was carrying a hand-axe and a sack.
Big Rolf went off in another direction with a battered old pot in one hand.
Nazreen exchanged words with Jorunn, then rode off towards the setting sun at quite some speed.
The forest suddenly felt very quiet indeed.
Helga switched to Grundle’s other side, where it turned out she could watch Jorunn without being seen. She was surprised to see that as soon as the men were out of sight, Jorunn, wincing, hunched over, as if to relieve pain in her stomach.
‘You’re good and done,’ Helga muttered to the horse as she felt in her herb pouch for the right quality of leaf – there, yes, that’s you. She straightened her back as she walked towards Jorunn. The look she got was not inviting, but she found she didn’t care. This was different: she was on familiar ground.
‘Here.’ She handed three leaves to Jorunn. ‘Chew this.’
Jorunn was about to say something when another cramp hit her and instead she gritted her teeth and hissed.
‘If you do this now, the pain goes away before they come back.’
Jorunn’s face was set in a scowl for what felt like an eternity before she found her words. ‘What is it?’
‘Dried juniper leaves in honey.’
‘Honey?’
‘Tastes like moose-arse otherwise.’
A half-snorted laugh. Jorunn’s fingers felt cold, brushing against her palm. Moments later she was chewing. ‘Mm, you’re not wrong there. The honey is good – but there is a definite flavour of arse at the back.’
Helga nodded, but said nothing. Now that she had time to think about what she’d just done, she realised she had no idea what to say next. The last time they’d been this close, Jorunn had fully intended to stab her in the gut, blame the stable-hand and leave her to die.
So let’s wait.
Jorunn’s eyes were closed as she chewed, but moment by moment Helga could see the leaves take hold. She’d tried to explain to Freysteinn once how watching someone start to feel better made her feel a bit like watching them fall asleep – or in this case, seeing every muscle in their body relax as the pain went away. He’d said something nice – he always did – but she’d not had the sense that he’d understood her. Now she was standing in front of a woman who had murdered her own brother, someone who had broken her – no, their – mother’s heart, and yet it still felt good to be able to take the pain away.
‘Better?’
‘Oh, much,’ Jorunn replied almost huskily, and then she added, ‘I hate it.’
‘Yeah, me too. I don’t think anyone likes it.’
Jorunn opened her eyes. The harshness was gone, along with the commanding fury, leaving something that Helga didn’t recognise. ‘I think if it happened to them they’d be at war with everything.’
Helga shrugged. ‘Men rule—’
‘—women decide.’
The silence between them was thick.
‘How could you do it?’ Helga felt her heartbeat slow and the blood harden in her veins. The words were out there now and there was no taking them back.
Jorunn looked at her like she was seeing her for the first time – and then something gave way. ‘I don’t know,’ she said, her voice flat. ‘I was so . . . angry, all the time. Nothing moved fast enough. I wanted to be rich, but I didn’t want to wait for it. In that way, I wasn’t so different from my dear brother.’
You actually regret it. The certainty hit Helga hard. Jorunn suddenly looked tired; tired and sad. ‘I had this half-baked scheme to charm the gold out of our father, but that didn’t amount to much, not once Bjorn killed Karl. I was acting without planning, and I have never been very good at that.’
Steady, now. Helga clenched her fist, once – twice – three times, the last time so hard that she felt her hand might break. What was going on? Jorunn’s words had gone straight to her cheeks; Helga thought if she touched her face, she’d be warm to the touch.
She looked at the woman who looked exactly like Hildigunnur.
‘. . . thank you.’
That was unexpected. ‘I . . . uh . . . for what?’
‘For making me say what I did and forcing us away from Riverside. Apart from anything else, it was devious.’ There was the smallest glint of a smile on Jorunn’s face. ‘The old hag taught you well.’
‘I got lucky.’ The words tumbled out.
‘Maybe,’ Jorunn said, ‘but it made me go my own way, apart from Sigmar. I went down south, where being a woman could be a real advantage in trading.’
‘Why?’
‘Because they made their deals while staring at my tits,’ Jorunn said, ‘and as it turned out, that didn’t really help them think.’
Helga was filled with a deep yearning for her mother, to see that twinkle in her eye as she shared a dirty joke . . .
‘I imagine you’ve used your own charms once or twice.’
Helga looked up and met Jorunn’s eyes. ‘Me? Never.’
Jorunn chuckled. ‘You’ve not made your fortune on lies, that much is certain. I reckon—’
They both heard the snap of twigs in the forest: someone was coming towards them and they didn’t care if anyone heard their approach.
Without thinking, Helga found her hand on the rune-knife. Beside her, Jorunn’s stance had also shifted subtly, but there was no sign of fear. You’ve been in a fight or two. Helga felt a little bit safer.
Moments after, the rangy form of Haki became visible between the trees. He was carrying the body of something big over his shoulder – a bird of some sort.
Jorunn relaxed slightly, but kept her eyes fixed on him. ‘Well met!’ she called.
‘Well met,’ Haki replied, the words only just short of a grunt. He crouched and proceeded to pluck the goose with fast and brutal movements.
The wound where the arrow had ripped through the chest was clearly visible. One shot. Must have surprised the shit out of the bird, Helga thought. However little attention Haki paid to them, though, his mere presence was enough to turn Jorunn once more into the leader of men. Her walls were up and without a word, she busied herself counting and re-counting the goods in the wagons.
Guess that leaves me talking to the horses. Moving over to where the carthorses were lazily grazing, Helga busied herself grooming the animals, which was comforting work; she could let her mind wander. She thought of Jorunn, what had just happened between them and how it had happened . . . the grimace of pain that had eased off with the leaves; the emotion on her face as she talked about those fateful nights at their parents’ farm.
She looks so much like her mother. It was almost enough to erase the fact that Jorunn was a murderer.
But there it was again: the face of the dead boy, staring accusingly at her. Anger flared and she wanted to scream, I don’t know! She had been so busy being furious with Freysteinn that the questions had left her mostly alone . . . but now that he was gone they’d started creeping back. Why would some unnamed man of Styrbjorn’s kill the boy? And why would they sneak into Uppsala to kill only a fat cook? None of it added up to anything that made sense. And if it didn’t, well, why was King Eirik sending them all away to spy on Harald Bluetooth?
Her brush strokes slowed just as the horse’s head perked up. When she paused and let the world in, she could feel, very faintly, the thump of hooves.
Someone was coming their way, and fast.
She looked back at the camp and saw white down drifting to land on the half-plucked carcase of the abandoned bird. Haki was nowhere to be seen, and neither was his bow. Jorunn, on the other hand, was standing in the middle of the camp, head held high.
The bait . . . and the hunter.
Helga’s heart started thumping. There was something about Jorunn’s defiant stance that terrified her. She expects trouble. Now the rider was easy to hear, but still hard to place; with the echoes bouncing off the trees, it sounded like the horse was coming from three different directions at once. Or there are three riders. Helga pushed that thought away and very calmly forced her hands to take hold of the carthorse’s reins. There was no time to saddle the animal, but she’d be able to get away quickly. A burst of shame hit her in the stomach. So that’s how it is, is it? Running away? Is that how we treat our . . . the word drifted through her mind and settled on her tongue . . . our sister? It tasted unfamiliar.
She watched, half in a daze, as the reins dropped from her hand, then she walked over to stand next to Jorunn. It felt like she was walking up-river against the current.
The command was short and sharp. ‘Whoever is coming, follow my lead. Stand tall and show no fear.’
The thundering of the hooves had stopped bouncing around: the rider was coming straight from the east, following in their tracks.
‘There.’ The blurred shape of horse and rider were drifting into vision.
‘Saw him.’
Jorunn was right: it definitely was a man, and a big one, at that.
Something tickled at the back of Helga’s head. ‘I think—’
The briefest movement of a hand and she stopped talking again. Her fear had changed, though; she was no longer afraid for their lives but she was worried about the rider. There was something familiar about him . . .
