Hadding’s look went far away. Men barely heard his voice: “I’m no soothsayer myself, but what I’ve seen in my life whispers to me that sometimes the gods themselves must go by strange roads toward ends that are unknown to men.”
Ivar scowled. “However that may be, lord,” he said, “folk mutter that somehow the king has angered the high ones. They say more loudly that he has no right to squander them for the sake of one willful girl. When I left, things were looking hopeless. Everywhere I was hearing that the king ought to yield her up and be done. Else they’d overthrow him and send her off to the giant. Thus far that was only talk. But let their grief grow much greater, and I think we will have an uprising.”
Hadding stroked his beard. “Hm,” he answered after a silence in which the fire crackled loud. “What has the woman said to all this?“
“I’ve heard different things about that as time went by,” Ivar told him. “It’s understandable. There must be a storm in her, blowing now this way, now that. At first she was as haughty as her father. Never would they crawl before a stinking huge hog. Later, when the landwasting had run for months, she swore she’d kill herself rather than lie with him. But—I know not from my own ears, but they say that lately she thinks if she went to hell instead of to him, Jarnskegg’s rage would be the worse. I wonder if she hasn’t begun to hope she can find a way to kill him in his sleep, once they are together.”
“I doubt she could,” said Hadding grimly. “I know his breed.”
“But why would he lust after her?” blurted the housecarle Svein. “A giant and she—” He broke off, flushing. He was young.
“He may split her in twain the first time, do you mean?” said Gunnar. “Maybe he hasn’t thought of that, or maybe he doesn’t care after hundreds of years with nothing better than elk cows, or maybe he’d enjoy it.”
Arnulf snickered. “Or maybe he’s not so well hung for his size.”
“Or he might make her please him in other ways,” said old Egil. He spat. “Yes, she’s better off dead.”
Hadding lifted a hand. “Be still,” he bade them. “This is a grave matter. More than kingly honor is at stake. Kingship itself may be. We cannot let the harm done to a goodly folk like the Niderings go unavenged. Otherwise lawlessness will spread like wildfire, along with trollery and everything else unhuman. Could this be why the gods hold back their help?”
He leaned forward. “Ivar” he asked, “how much longer do you think Haakon will hold out?”
“I know not, lord,” said the Norseman. “He’s a brave and proud one, him. And then there’s his love for the daughter She’s very fair and winsome. But I fear I’ve seen her for the last time.”
“Maybe not,” said Hadding low. “Maybe not. Stay a few days while we speak further.”
“We need to reach Gotland in time for the mart, lord.”
“Ha, if I keep you from that, I’ll make it up to you. Bide here. It will be good guesting.”
Eagerness flickered in Ivar’s eyes. He had not stopped at Haven without unspoken hopes of his own. Being a trader, he kept his face blank and said merely, “As the king wills.”
Hadding lifted his beaker. “Come, let’s drink, let’s be merry,” he cried. “Hard thinking can wait till tomorrow.”
“All at once you’re ashiver,” his leman, Gyda, whispered to him.
He laughed. “Well, at last I’ve something to be impatient about.”
However, mirthful though he was for the rest of that day and evening, he beckoned men one by one to the high seat and talked softly, earnestly with them—men of weight and wisdom. In the morning he sent messengers off, bidding some more who had not been there to come at once. These messengers went no farther than two days’ hard ride. Meanwhile he was much alone with Ivar and with the redegivers he had called upon earlier.
On the third night, as they lay in their shutbed, Gyda said to him, “You are going to Norway, are you not?”
“What makes you think that?” he asked.
“I have come to know you as well as anybody does, though that is not very much,” she sighed in the darkness. “You will be leaving soon, too. If you felt no need of haste, you’d have sent for chieftains from more widely around, to get everything battened down here at home.”
He chuckled and laid an arm around the warmth of her. “You’re shrewd, my love.”
She stiffened. “Why are you bound off? What is this to you?”
“Well,” he answered slowly, “as I said before, it’s wrong that a high-born maiden fall into the grasp of a filthy unbeast that wins her by running wild through her father’s land. If such a tale got around, it’d hearten too many outlaws. Best the thing never happen.”
“You’ve more in mind than that.”
“True. The Niderings are the strongest folk in Norway. It would be helpful to have bonds with them, loosely though Uffi holds the southern shires. He’d think twice about attacking us.”
“Bonds of wedlock? The Norsemen call Ragnhild comely.”
Hadding laughed. “I’ve never seen her myself.”
“But she is a king’s daughter. After you are dead, the Danes would more likely hail a son of yours by her than any of the by-blow, you’ve got scattered around among them.”
“I ought to look beyond my own lifetime, yes. A fight between sons of mine could wreck everything I’ve wrought.” Hadding laughed again. “But you stray from what we know or can foresee. AM know tonight is that you are shapely and you are here.” He drew her to him. The straw mattress rustled beneath them. Her unbound hair smelled summery “Give me a glad send-off.”
“Oh, I will that.” She swallowed hard. “And a glad welcome home, if
