“I need not. There’s light enough for one who’s wont to mountains. If! can be of no more use, I’ll set off.” Ragnhild took both his big hands in hers. “I leave you with my highest thanks.” She knelt, bent low above the helmet, and said, “You have those too, warrior, and all else I can ever offer you.”
Before Thorfinn could help her up, she jumped to her feet. He whistled softly. “What a wife you’ll make,” he murmured. “I hope that’ll be for him. Few others are worthy,” and he grinned, “or could cope with you.”
She smiled again, now fully and gladly, before she sought the tent for clean clothes and a long draught of water. “How fares he now?” she asked when she came out.
“I’ll stay till he’s more fit,” said Thorfinn. “But if you’re leaving, best you start, my lady.”
“May we meet anew,” said Ragnhild.
He watched her go down from the peak and on over the heights until the sight of her faded into the light night.
XX
It was a struggle for Thorfinn to get Hadding down from the peak. What strength the king had regained quickly drained from him. Ragnhild’s bindings were soon drenched with blood that oozed out whenever he put weight on that foot. It squelped in the shoe. Though he clenched his jaws, the pain in his ribs at every movement ofttimes made him so faint that he must lie flat for a while. Or maybe that was the aftermath of the blow his head had taken; when Thorfinn took off the helmet, he saw it was dented.
Once past the steepest, trickiest downgate, the Norseman rigged a harness and took Hadding on his back. But no man could go long at this height under such a load. At last he left the other by a streamlet, with some food, and hastened alone to the camp. There he had the housecarles lash spearshafts and saddle clothes together to make a litter. With it they sought back to the king. They found him fevered, witlessly muttering. Two ravens that had been perched on rocks nearby flew off.
So they bore him away, tending him as best they knew how. On the edge of lands where men dwelt, they found a crofter’s hut and laid him in that poor shelter. They thought it would be only for the night, but the woman there said she had healing skills. “I know this breed,” Thorfinn told the warriors. “I’ll believe her. At least she won’t likely make him worse.”
The woman called herself Gro and said her husband was elsewhere. Those who remembered King Gram’s first wife were taken aback. However, the name was a common one, and this bearer of it clearly had nothing to do with the long-dead queen. Sparely clad and housed though she was, something about her made them ask no more. Rather, they went around the neighborhood buying their food, cooked it themselves, and did the work of the little farm.
Meanwhile she brewed herbs for the burning in Hadding’s wounds and body. The men heard her sing to him after dark, words they could not follow. After a night, a day, and a night, the fever broke and his mind steadied. He was so weak, though, that he stayed for days more.
It grew harder and harder for his friends to keep him abed. When at length Gro deemed him fit for the road, she warned him to fare easily.
“You shall have rich reward for this,” he said.
She smiled. “Send no messengers, for they’d not find me here,” she answered. “I need no pay. Once I had a greater reward than any you could give me, for a less lucky outcome to my leeching. Sometimes the token of it shines before dawn. Spoil not my work by heedlessness, and I’ll be content.”
Indeed the trek onward was slow. However much Hadding chafed, he could not sit a horse or walk for any long span; but must lie again on the litter. Still, each day he was stronger.
Thus they reached Ivar’s home. He ferried them out to the isles and their ship. “Say naught of this for now,” Hadding bade him. “If the news got out that I am sick in a strange land, Uffi and others would be swift to make trouble.”
“Surely King Haakon would take you in,” Ivar said.
“I want to come to him as a fellow king, not a sapless way-farer.”
“You would come as a hero, lord.”
“Still, it isn’t fitting. Worse, the truth about me would be bound to go abroad, and Denmark would suffer. If nothing else, 14ffi,could go reaving through Scania. It’s not worth that risk.”
Hadding sat thoughtful until he went on, “Ivar, you have been a friend to me. If you would be a brother, now help me mom See to it that any word of us that may have gotten out is hushed. See to it, also, that what we need in the way of food and other goods is quietly brought us here. Then sail again south. I’ll give you tokens so Eirik Jan l will know I sent you. Bring back treasure such as I will tell you of.”
The Norseman agreed, and they fell into close talk. Some days later his knorr stood out to sea. Hadding abode with the housecarles, working to build back his health. That went ever faster.
Meanwhile Ragnhild and her following had returned to Nidaros. Great was the joy and wonder. Folk thought her unknown rescuer could have been an elf, or even a high god. However that might be, surely one who had flown from the bottom of hopelessness back to freedom was born to luck. Also, of course, her father was rich and mighty.
Men had sought Ragnhild’s hand before the grief came upon her. She had not wanted any of them, and King Haakon
