It was heartbreaking to hear Andronikos' despair. Growing up in the hall of a chieftain, Kildevi was raised to a certain hardness in regard to suffering, even towards children, but something made the boy's cries cut right into her.
Maybe it was his likeness to Eskil, or the time they'd spent playing two days before. Maybe it was knowing he was to be the brother of her own children, or the stand she had chosen to take for him. Either way, it was hard to stand the panic in his eyes as the crew took to the oars and rowed out from the harbour to finally leave the bay behind them. Kildevi couldn't make herself turn to see if Sophia had left, or if she still stood on the pier, watching her son disappear forever.
"You don't go takin' a toddler from the mother," Audvard said with that sad and heavy tone to his voice he had when something had gotten to him. "It's a cruel fate for a child, ripp'd from'is land an home."
"He'll be fine," Thore replied with the full confidence of someone who hadn't cared for a wee one in his life. "Children cry, it's more or less what they do, and he's not abandoned, he just has a new family. Let him go off for a while, he'll get over it."
Neither of them did anything but air their opinions. With the cries of the child rubbing her nerves raw, Kildevi wanted to push both of them overboard.
"That's great," she snapped. "But unless you plan to get down here and distract him, your opinions are as worthless as you are!"
Finally, she and Deva managed to find a wooden doll in his sack of belongings that combined with peek-a-boo could provide magic. As they followed the Marmara coast east, a blessed if temporary silence fell. With a relieved sigh, Kildevi left her husband's son in Deva's hands to take a last goodbye of the city as they rounded it. She cursed how no one had considered that while they had both women and Greek speakers on board, there was no overlap between them.
Around her, their convoy stretched out in all directions, boat after boat, most of them re-fitted monoxylas, but also a few byrdings of the kind they had left in Rusa, and a handful of flat bottomed river boats like their own, stabilised for sea. She was not surprised in the least when the convoy continued to follow the coast west instead of setting out over the open sea.
When they left the port, both Eskil and Thore had been sporting their new coats. As the city disappeared behind them, the finery went into their chests again. Now, they truly were on the way. She wondered if the unspoken rules had changed back, too.
Asgaut had been none too happy when he learned that he would have a toddler on his vessel. Eskil's new affiliationwith the Rus had, however, tipped their power balance in such a way that after his initial protests, any disfavour mainly took the form of an annoyed frown whenever he was disturbed by the boy.
Apart from that, the boat felt like coming home. She had looked forward to it. Thogard's deep rumble, Audvard's contemplations, Thorven running his mouth and Thore patiently cutting him off, even Eirik's presence, felt like being around family.
Thus it was a double disappointment when Eskil sat down to inform her that she couldn't look forward to the same carefreeness that she had enjoyed on the way down.
"But why?" she asked, even though she already knew the answer. "These are our shipmates. They're my friends and my brothers."
"Because," he patiently replied, "we are not in a convoy of 90 men led by a senior steersman anymore. We are in a convoy of 900, led by commanders from the prince's personal guard. You can still sit around our campfire, you can still talk with our shipmates, but you can't walk around the camp in disarray and you can't go alone between campfires like a well dressed washer woman, because that makes it look like I have no control over my household and you no sense of dignity. If you go around camp, you bring one of the housecarls, or Thore, or possibly Asgaut, unless I'm there."
"But the Rus think me a fearsome sorceress, they don't dare touch me."
"Yes, and how long do you think that will keep if you stroll around drinking with half of them?" He sighed. "What would your grandmother have done? Would she have run around in a shift and a cap being artlessly friendly with everyone from farmhands to commanders?"
"Not in a shift and cap. But she acted on her own. She made friends and started feuds to her liking. Are you giving me that same authority to manoeuvre?"
He gave her a look she thought probably meant that he didn't.
"Let's discuss that again in a few years. There is also Ormgeir to consider. I don't want him to find you unguarded and alone in the dark a second time."
"Ormgeir just talks, and that is a kind of battle I know how to fight. I've fought more fearsome beings than him."
"Ormgeir talks until one day he decides he has talked enough, and he acts in
my realm. The less I seem to have you under guard, the more avenues of attack he'll have."
"He has never shown any sign he wants to attack me."
"No. At this point, he's attacking
me."
So, that was that. There had been no anger or frustration in his stance during the exchange, just the firm, calm statement of how it was going to be. That made it much harder to argue.
A while later, when Eskil had turned to tar a rope, Thorven joined her where she sat at the prow, his face split in a wide grin.
"I am so happy you called us your brothers! Did you know we're the same age? Like, exactly the same age, two and twenty, born in spring."
She smiled.
"No Thorven, I didn't know that."
"I've thought a lot about why I have
nothing going for you even though you're really pretty. I mean, I should have. I'm not picky. But no, nothing! It's like you're my real sister!"
Kildevi looked up at her youngest shipmate.
"And you don't think that has anything to do with having known my husband this entire time?"
"No. Usually not a problem."
"Seen me piss on ship for the entire journey?"
He thought about it for half a moment, then shook his head.
"No. Wouldn't have stopped me."
"The time you sat in wake? I don't remember anything, but it couldn't have been pretty."
"What kind of a monster doesn't want to fuck someone just because they're dying?"
Kildevi looked up at Eskil, who sat just a pace away. He had abandoned his rope, and was fighting a losing battle against laughter.
"Yes. What kind of a monster wouldn't?"
"But that also means that if someone is really trying to harm you, we kill them."
He looked around. "Or… I guess your housecarls were hired to do that anyway, and Thore has a bond now, and Audvard already has killed for you, so… I am just late. But late or not, I'm here."
"Thank you, Thorven. I really appreciate it. You are better brothers than my father's sons ever were."
With Deva busy keeping Andronikos from falling overboard, all needlework was back in her hands. The Romans had given them new sails, a mind boggling thing for her who understood the work involved.
That meant all that was left for her was the mending, and, now that they had a toddler among them, binding the mittens, socks and hats she knew would be needed in a few weeks' time as they went north. Even this far south, autumn was in the air, the balmy heat of summer turning to comfortably lukewarm days and chilly nights.
"You don't have to do that, you know," Eskil told her as he saw her sitting with one of Thorven's hose. "They can do it themselves, or Deva can do it once Andronikos is asleep."
"It's something to do," she replied. "And I don't want to be the distant lady at the prow again. Not among our own."
"You will want to make something for yourself," he noted with a look up and down her dress. "You will need at least one new dress and a new smokkr. Look through our Roman silk and put some decorations on your finest woollens too. Kyiv will have higher demands for dress."
There was a difference between building a camp for 90 men and one for over 900. Noone had been happy when Asgaut announced the convoy would sail through the night for two days and make camp on the third unless weather and winds called for exceptions.
That first full camp night, Kildevi understood why. The sheer space they occupied along the shoreline, the logistics of distributing campsites and collecting firewood, digging ditches for human waste, not to mention making provisions for rations and cooking, all of it made Kildevi realise that daily camps would have made their journey considerably longer.
On the other hand, the first camp night felt like a shore leave. They had started building it mid-afternoon and come evening, beer was brought out and meat was roasting around
some of the campfires.
"For food, you signed up with the wrong crew," Thore commented as Kildevi looked around to see where the mouthwatering smell came from. "Thorven is a good trapper, but none of us are good enough to hunt well in unknown lands. I'm willing to bet Skytja's crew won't have that problem."
"So… do you think we could join them?"
"Probably? Can you keep those eyes in check?"
It took her a moment to realise he was teasing, not seriously questioning her.
"If I feel overwhelmed, I'll just look at you. That should cool me off."
"Ow, and here I thought I had cleaned up nicely."
He had. Thore wasn't what anyone would call beautiful or striking, but he looked… nice. Trustworthy and kind, with those sort of common features that could blend in more or less in any crowd. Well groomed and in well fitted clothes, he now looked like a man who might not make maidens swoon, but a good number of more practically inclined widows look twice.
"I'll take my chances. If not, you're there to save me."
Thore had been right, more than right.
The campfire had been hastily turned into a makeshift rectangular hearth. Vibjorn and one other man were still hewing a deer into pieces small enough to roast. At least some twenty people were milling around, some being useful, but most of them not. Kildevi noted how Thogard walked over to relieve the marksman from his labour, taking the axe out of the younger man's hand to firmly send him off to sit down by the hearth instead.
It felt like old times, Eskil sitting behind her with his cloak around them both, well known faces all around, Jonar and Eirik hogging the gaming board while Thorven sat talking in a circle of young men she only vaguely recognised.
From across the hearth, she saw the other butcher call Andronikos closer, to let him hold the grip of the butchering knife, the man guiding the blade as they cut. The boy's eyes were bulging, and she realised that a Roman town boy probably never had seen a slaughter, or held a real knife for that matter.
He had taken these last few days very unevenly, sometimes crying inconsolably, sometimes playing and laughing as if he wasn't on a strange boat with people who didn't speak his language. Even though Kildevi took part in looking after him, Deva took care of him most of the time, and at night, he had slept between her and the thrall while they sailed. He still cried every time he woke up, but she thought the bouts of despair were getting shorter.
Kildevi had not realised how many of the men had left sons and nephews and even little brothers at home. Once they got to shore, there seemed to be a good supply of people willing to play chase, or show him whatever they were doing at the moment. That was a relief. His own father hadn't exactly tried to get to know him.
"You're not very engaged in him," she commented with a frown, as she saw the butchering man place a piece of rib in the boy's chubby hands and send him off towards the hearth. "For a firstborn son, you seem thoroughly disinterested."
"I… I didn't know you wanted me to be," came Eskil's voice next to her ear. "I figured you'd be relieved if I don't take to him like I would to one of ours."
"I try to think of who he will be in the lives of our sons and daughters," she replied. "I know he will be important to Alfhild, but not in what way, so I would rather he not become bitter and jealous."
He didn't ask how she knew, but she felt him nod.
"It has all gone too fast, he doesn't feel like my son, you know? He came as a surprise, and then there was so much else to think about, between us, with preparations… Then we were stuck on a boat, and a boat is like a little realm of its own. It's like he's not real yet."
"He is real. And you are his father. People are even commenting on your likeness."
"And yet I feel nothing when I look at him."
"You'll never warm to him unless you try."
Eskil didn't reply, but he wrapped the cloak closer around them.
They were almost done with breakfast the next morning, when Vibjorn Skytja came wandering in between the tents and joined them. The night before, there had been so many people she had been able to avoid him with ease. Now, Kildevi noticed with some relief her mind didn't instantly clog and the nervous flutter in her chest, although still there, was more of a weak reminder than a full scale war on her senses. But she decided to be silent, just in case.
"Skytja! How can we help you?"
Thore rose with his bowl and went to wash it off in the wash bucket.
"I'm looking for a woman," the younger man said, seemingly unaware of the myriad of answers that opened for.
"Aren't we all," Thore replied, "anyone in particular?"
Kildevi thought that was a very polite reply to that particular comment. It must have been the early hour that hampered their wit.
"Aslaug needs some attention to her face, and she won't let us do it, claims she needs someone with a neater hand. So I thought of your thrall, she made those coats, so she should be fine, right?"
"I'll do it."
Thore turned, surprised.
"See, the vǫlva herself will do it. Wait, didn't you hate her guts?"
"Deva is busy with Andronikos, and Aslaug has less to tease me with now. I should be fine."
"Dress!" came Eskil's voice from inside their tent, and her yellow kirtle came flying out through the tent flaps, soon followed by the amber coloured smokkr.
"I won't throw the brooches, I'll put all of your tools and trinkets here, just reach in and take it."
With a sigh, Kidlevi wriggled into her layers of dress and fastened the buckles with a single row of beads between, needle case, scissors and knife hanging from the right-side one. She actually had the keys to their luggage coffers there too. The honorary house keys had been left at home with Alfrida, but it felt good to have something to show she managed his house, albeit now a symbolic one. Finally, she slung her bag across her chest and straightened the stockings.
"That should be it. Where is she?"
Skytja showed her and Thore to a place behind a couple of tents, strangely secluded in the midst of a crowded camp teeming with men. In the borderland between two crew's campsites, Aslaug sat on a small bench in just her stockings and braies with a rag and a bowl of salt water at her side. Blood was still running from her forehead, a thin steady trickle down into her eyebrow. She didn't look that badly hurt, just a bit beat up. Now, she squinted up at them.
"You came yourself? Missed me that much, pussycat?"
"I've been tossing and turning in yearning for you all this time," Kildevi replied, dryly. "But be warned, now I understand most of the bullshit you spout."
As the men walked away, Aslaug wiped some more blood off her face. She traced the split with her fingers and grimaced.
"How's your needlework, sweetheart? Care to stitch up this pretty face of mine?"
Kildevi crouched down in front of her, carefully following the swelling with her fingers.
"I'll do better. I'll sing over it as I work."
While she went through her bag for thread and unhooked her needle case from the brooch, she gave Aslaug a thorough once over.
With the tunic off, Kildevi didn't need her sight to see life carved into the surface of the skin like an inscription. Her breasts were tied down with what looked like leg wraps, the binding worn and discoloured. Layers of scarring laid out in the open, some of the common sort shared by everyone who used a sharpened blade on a daily basis, others not. Old, faded whip-marks marked the back and shoulders, newer cuts on the arms and torso more or less crudely stitched up, and one of the bigger ones distorted in a way Kildevi was willing to bet stemmed from a bad wound fever.
Aslaug smirked and pointed to her left shoulder, where a scar ran like a ridge across the muscle leading up to the neck. The skin almost looked overlapped.
"And that there is Jonar's handwork, if you wonder why I'm asking you to do the face. Fucking klutzes. Can't trust a mate with a needle."
"Does this happen a lot?"
The bound warrior shrugged, then twitched and carefully examined the left lower rib with her fingers.
"The way it is in every new fucking camp. Enough who don't know me - some cocky asshole wanna show I'm in the wrong place."
"What happens if you back off?"
"Can't afford to. I back off, I'm fucked."
"And if you lose?
"Depends on who I lose to."
"And this time?"
"Got broken up, much like that fucker's face. Are you done asking questions? Don't wanna rush you, sweetheart, but I'm bleeding here."
Kildevi carefully closed the split as neatly as she could, the galdr a whispered murmur as she pushed the needle through the layers of skin. Aslaug sat still, but her knuckles were white as she clutched the bench.
When she was done, Kildevi noted, "I wouldn't call you pretty, but you're quite handsome. No wonder my fylgja noticed."
"You fucking tease."
Kildevi didn't reply, instead she just smiled and cut the threads.
"There, you're done. Ready to heal and fight another day."
"Thank you."
"You can call me sweetheart, but no more pussycats."
"I swear on my cock, not to your face."
Although their campsite wasn't far off, Thore still escorted her back. About halfway, she suddenly heard a well known voice call her name.
"Kildevi!"
Ormgeir came walking up from the shore, a pleased smile on his face. He wasn't as lavishly dressed as on their earlier meetings, but the wide trousers were rich in fabric and of a clear blue wool that draped in beautiful folds beneath a madder-red tunic. It was its own kind of magic, how slight differences in weave and dye could make the most commonplace of garments look fit for kings.
She halted, and so did Thore, who eyed the newcomer with wariness. She wondered how much Eskil had told him.
"Good morning, Ormgeir. What are you doing in this part of the camp? I thought your men were lodged on the other side of the hill."
"Ah, I am just looking for Isidor, Pridbor thought he had gone to find Eskil. By pure luck, I ran into someone I would much rather speak to."
He looked at Thore.
"I see that you have an escort."
He didn't add "this time". That was left to hang in the air, unspoken.
"Yes, have you met Thore? He is not only Eskil's adjunct, but also a good friend."
"We have been introduced," he smiled with a nod, but didn't give the other man any further attention before he continued.
"Next camp night, come over and visit our pavilion. It is not fit for feasts, but it keeps us comfortable and off the ground while we eat." He leaned closer, looking her straight in the eye with a self assured smile. "Games kept outside, of course. I would love to grapple with your husband, so bring Eskil on your first visit. After that… let's how it goes, shall we?"
"They're expecting us back," Thore said abruptly. "We should go."
"What a great idea! I'll come with you, see if I am lucky enough to find Isidor."
He offered his arm and not really knowing how to refuse, Kildevi took it.
Isidor turned out to be a weathered man maybe one score years older than Eskil, tall and slender like a birch and with a face best described as weirdly beautiful, but whether it was beautiful because of, or in spite of, its odd proportions was anyone's guess. The cheekbones were just a smidgen too wide-set to fit the exceedingly long face, the eyes both large and deeply set beneath a straight and even brow. Kildevi got the impression two very good sculptors had worked on the same statue, without seeing each other's work in the process.
When they came into the circle of tents, she quickly let go of Ormgeir's arm to walk up to Eskil's side, where he instantly slung an arm around her waist in a marked gesture of possession. If the old silver fox took offence, he didn't show it, instead he gave Isidor a booming greeting and joined the men where they stood talking.
"We need to talk about how to go on past the middle Danube delta," Isidor said with a voice surprisingly soft in contrast to his gnarly appearance. He spoke Norse with a different Slavic accent to the rest of the eastborn, but she was willing to bet her brooches it was a native language. "If we are sailing through all the way to Belezan island, we need to re-stock provisions somewhere along the northern Bulgar coast."
"I have it on good authority most of the Yazı-Qapan has gone west with the Bulgars against the Serbs," Ormgeir replied. "Whatever camps they have left should be small, unless they brought the entire tribe west. You never know with Pechenegs."
Kildevi glanced up at Eskil. So that was why the forces had been gathered when they passed.
"We have a truce with the Yazı," he said casually, as if it was something to expect from a trade convoy of 90. "But I hesitate to think that would expand to the whole convoy. It would, however, create an opening for negotiations in case they have forces left."
Ormgeir showed no reaction except for one slightly raised brow, but Isidor turned towards them, visibly taken aback.
"A truce? With the Yazı? There must be something more behind this than a simple hit and run!"
"And there is. It is a story worth telling well, so let's save the details for a night around a fire. In short, he had lost something of great value, and my wife found it for him. He was grateful enough to lend us his friendship and we parted with generous gifts."
"So, it was your wife's triumph," Ormgeir noted. "Then she will tell the story, next camp. Let's all hear the volkhvas tale from the volkhvas mouth. I don't think this is a woman who needs someone to speak for her."
"You are right," Eskil replied, but there was a chill in his voice now that hadn't been there earlier in the exchange. "This is her triumph, and if she wants to tell her own story, we should all listen to what she has to say. Not only in her triumphs."
Ooo, she was nettled. At them both. Just as clearly as she remembered how Ormgeir had overridden her wishes and forced an escort on her that night outside St Mamas, she had in vivid memory how Eskil had put down the rules of dress and standing while dismissing her right to act on her own accord. She did not appreciate being used as a bludgeon in yet another insincere word battle.
"If I don't need anyone to speak for me, why do you both do it so often?"
With that, she turned her heel and went into their tent. It was just a handful of paces away, and she heard the following moment of silence well enough through the canvas.
"Is there something here that I don't know about?" Isidor said.
"I believe you just don't know the volkhva," came Ormgeirs amused voice in reply. "She does not suffer fools gladly, and she just labelled us fools."
"My wife has her realm, and I have mine. Sometimes she forgets which one she's in."
He spoke clearly and with emphasis, obviously meant for her to hear inside the tent. So, he wanted her to know that he was cranky. She decided that wasn't her problem.
Just a moment later, she heard the two Rus leave and Eskil came in after her. He didn't look furious, but his face was hard-set enough for his lips to have tensed to a thin white line.
"What was that?"
"That was my reaction to your childish cock-fight."
"I can't just not reply when he is shamelessly flirting with you!"
"But he's only doing it to get back at your father!"
Eskil blinked.
"Can you say that again? And start from the beginning this time."
Kildevi sighed. She had been thinking about it a lot, trying to put all the pieces together in a way that made sense to her, and now she thought she finally had it.
"Think about it. He knows your mother from his youth. He is about your father's age, maybe a handful of years more, yet he remembers her well enough to instantly recognize you as her son, even though he has been east for as long as you have lived, and you do not favour your mother's side. She never talks about anything that happened while Thorlev was away, but it was three years! For her it was between fourteen and seventeen. Do you really think she went invisible those years? That not a single man did a double take when she walked by with that vivacious hip swing? I bet she's always had that, it's in her bones. I also have a hard time believing someone as practical as Alfrida would simply wait at home and hope he would come back. No. I think Ormgeir was her back-up."
Eskil didn't look convinced.
"Do you have any evidence for this, at all."
"No."
"So can you please run me through your reasoning?"
Kildevi leaned closer, forefinger raised to count her arguments.
"He's been too hard on you. Not spiteful, but the natural thing for an older man when meeting someone younger from his own lands would be to take him under his wing. Instead, he's judging you harsher than the rest of the Rus do, especially concerning everything that has to do with me." She paused for effect, then raised another finger. "He was effusively friendly to me from the first time we met, and the only time I've heard him mention Alfrida was to comment on… I think the word he used to describe her was sultry. Do with it what thou wilt. He also left Westmanland for Ladoga about the same time that your parents married."
Eskil looked at her hand with its four raised fingers, then shook his head.
"All of that could be coincidence."
"Absolutely. It could. But it adds up quite well, don't you think?"
Eskil didn't protest, but he gave her a long look.
"Is it really that unfathomable to you that you could be courted in your own right?"
She looked up, surprised.
"No. If Helgi or Eymund or anyone else who isn't far out of my league were making eyes at me, I would think it was common yet inappropriate interest. But when it's people like you and Ormgeir, I find it more likely to be something else."
"But I adore you."
"Yes. Now. When we've bantered and squabbled and laughed and found that our desires fit well, and also because you have an interesting affinity for women who wield power in realms that you don't, and don't think I haven't noticed how you look at me as soon as I am doing something vǫlvic. You definitely didn't adore me from the first time you saw me."
He didn't refute the statement, which was a relief because that meant she could believe in the honesty of what he did say.
"I still think you're selling yourself short."
Kildevi shrugged.
"And maybe I am. That doesn't change that Ormgeir - probably - sees his chance to take a woman from the son of the man who once robbed him of the curvaceous yet supple joys of your mother."
"Don't. Don't say it like that."
He looked pained. This was fun!
"What? I've heard your father say much worse."
"I know. For some reason it sounds even worse from you."
"What does? The sensuous hip-swing? The alluring pout? Trust me, it wasn't her cooking that sent your teenaged father on a three year quest."
"I would like to think it was more than that. Liking, ambition, shared goals and kinship."
"Remind me, how early was your brother born again?"
"That is neither here nor there, we weren't talking about the presumed allure of my mother in her maiden years. We were talking about Ormgeir pushing me to a point where I'll have no choice but to act, and trust me, I already want to. The only thing holding me back is that it would ruin my relations with Kyiv. But on the other hand… " He shook his head. "I can't bloody well let him go on. If I'm not ready to stand up to him over you, then what is my name worth?"
"He is a powerful man. One of the richest this side of Holmgard."
"Rich men still bleed."
She sighed. This was one of those times when their differing backgrounds showed itself clearly.
"While it is true that they do, I think he expects you to let him. In truth, I think he is waiting for an offer to borrow me, either to signal loyalty or in exchange for… something. Trade deals, one of his own concubines, or just his good will, whatever you hope to get from him. I am not saying you should!" she added quickly, seeing his expression, "...but I believe that is what he is waiting for."
In an effort to soften the words, she reached out and put her hand on his cheek.
"You are rising, ástin mín. And like it or not, up where you're going, women are currency and markers of status. I am flattered by your reaction, I truly am, but there is nothing shocking about the expectation itself, bonds have been tied that way before. The outrageous part is that he is courting
me for it. That's why I think he's trying to win me over, not just seal a deal."
"Let him wait, then, because that offer is not coming. You are not a slave, or even a concubine. You are my first wife, the highest ranking woman in my house. I even laid that out when I set the very first terms for our marriage: once you're mine, you're mine, it would be like lending him myself. And you are not only my wife, you wield power in your own right. A man might lend his chieftain a concubine, no one can lend another man a seeress."
Kildevi sighed. He had a point. But it was also… messy.
"Can you please sit on your hands, at least until we're past the rapids? I will avoid him. I will hang on your arm and coo like a dove if it helps. And once we reach Kyiv, you and he will go with the prince while I stay behind with Bjarni, and the problem will effectively have solved itself."
Endnote: For a bit of chit-chat on polygyny and woman-lending, see
Over the sea and down the rivers - A few notes on the history
