The horse stopped. There were no trees anywhere, just white snow. He dismounted, the man with hands like shovels. He bent over her and untied the ropes. His cheeks were spotted red from the cold. The tips of his fur jacket were white with frost. She tried to meet his eyes but he looked away. The ropes dropped. He stood, turned and walked back to the horse. He remounted. The hooves barely made a sound as they tore across the open field. She stood. Her legs were numb and unsteady after the long journey. There was nowhere to lean. She fell. She knelt then stood up slowly, one leg first then the other. She needed to walk. She couldn’t just stand still. Perhaps she would find some shelter. She wasn’t made for the cold. How could anyone live here surrounded by white and ice? The freezing wind cut through her. There were trees in the distance. They could hide her.
Katerine walked and walked but the trees never came closer. They seemed to be stepping further back as she advanced.
She felt hunger and thirst. She sat down in the snow. She scooped snow into her mouth. That eased her. More snow. More snow.
The cold turned to shaking. Lie down on the snow. Don’t fight it. Let it come. But it wasn’t that easy. She wanted to be still and quiet. But the cold tremors rattled her frame. Constant. She was shaking with cold, but it wasn’t just from the wind and ice. Her inner soul was frigid now.
Finally she closed her eyes, and everything stopped. He was there ready to receive her. Soon she would be in the garden with the flowers and fruit. Sweet perfumed scents would touch her like a hand brushing her cheek.
4
Kama wasn’t sure how many days had passed, but then the time came, and she woke to the sound of sticks beating against shields, rising from faraway and traveling all the way to the townhouses.
Kama preferred to ride bareback, her legs hugging Thor’s warm body as she leaned into the horse’s neck and grabbed its mane. That morning, she and Thor passed through the city gates towards the river. The bank was difficult but not too tricky. Bare wild rose bushes crowded the pathway down to the bank. During Harvest Month, slaves had picked the bushes clean then boiled the hips into a sweet red soup that would become a fortifying meal. Now, the roses were only thorny obstacles slowing her descent down the riverbank. Farther down, a safe distance from the bank, where the ships sat locked in the ice, the funeral pyre stood. Large wooden posts held the ceremonial vessel, and on the shore stood several tents.
Kama dismounted. Hidden by the poplar trees, she watched men enter and leave a tent. “Tell your lord I have done this out of love for him,” each man said.
Sticks against shields. Louder and louder. As the day progressed, the beating would become louder, and then, consumed by fire, Father would leave this world for Valhalla, where there would be no more battles, and every moment would be celebration and feasting. But Father had not died in battle.
Kama could have attended her father’s funeral, but she had wanted to stay away. She blamed him in part for what had happened. Why hadn’t he listened to his mother and stayed in Hedeby? Why did he think the rules didn’t apply to him? Why did he believe he could marry a woman who didn’t know his language or understand the ways of the Norse people? Father cared only about himself and never about the Mother, Kama, his mother. It was he, he, he. He wanted something, so he took it, even though it was not rightly his, and living this way, as a merchant, wasn’t his right. And if he had to be a merchant, why not hire men to pilot the ship and sell the wares? He didn’t have to be on the boat, but he wanted to. He needed to be on the water. He needed to always be leaving.
Kama remounted Thor and followed the river. Thor’s hooves clattered along the gravel shore. The leafless trees were brown and red, and the ice on the river was rough, as though it had come suddenly, stopping the current as it flowed, turning it into rugged ice carvings. She was angry at her father—so angry she dug her heels into Thor’s sides and urged him along the shore. She galloped faster and faster. The crunch of hooves on gravel and the strength of Thor under her distracted her from her rage.
Then Thor slowed, sensing Kama’s growing fatigue, the need to stop, get down again, think, but thinking would involve admitting that this was true, and she had a sense that nothing was what it seemed, what she knew and saw not actually there. This moment was a piece of ice that could crack, and when it did, there would be another world.
Smoke stayed in the air and drifted down the path of the river to Kama and Thor. Kama sensed that the drumming and banging of sticks was continuing in the distance, along with the singing. The sounds were all rhythmic reminders and sad laments. Kama had returned regularly to Father’s bedside. She had even held his hand, and when death came, a smile had appeared on his face. The torment of not knowing how to live or whom to love evaporated to leave only the other father. This gentler man cherished beauty and discovery so much he couldn’t remain within the rules of Hedeby. That small kingdom had demanded he diminish his dreams and settle for less. As she closed his eyes, she promised him that she would take her place in Hedeby, fulfilling Astrid’s and his desires, accomplishing what he, with his restless spirit, never could.
LAST DAY KIEV 934 CE
The darkness had deepened, and the cycle of time brought the city to the longest night of Year 934. The Norse people knew the world was much older than the sun and the moon. The earth had formed out of the great emptiness, when the fire world met the cold frozen north. Fire on ice. The melting ice had become Ymir, the giant, father of all giants. And from Ymir’s body, the world had formed, Ymir’s flesh becoming the soil, his bones the mountains and stones, his hair the grasses, and his blood the sea. His skull formed the sky, his brain the clouds. Later on the gods had created time, sending sun and moon in chariots across the heavens. With each moon, the sun would plummet deeper into the darkness below Middle Earth. Like Odin, the god of poetry, the sun craved quiet and darkness and would rise only briefly each day to warm and brighten the earth.
Silver and goldsmiths had fashioned chariots to remind the Norse people of the gifts of sun and time. A chariot stood outside the Big House. Taller than Kama, it showed two horses pulling a bronze sun. The chariot’s wheels had four gold spokes to remind earth dwellers of the endless cycle of seasons, turning winter to spring, summer to fall, year after year.
That night, the last day of 934, the doors to the great hall inside the Big House were thrown open to everyone. Torches glowed throughout the room. Mead was on every table, and in the very center of the hall boars roasted on spits, their mouths stuffed with prunes, their meat spitting grease into the flames. Pine branches hung on posts, brought inside to remind the townsfolk that life would return to the icy city. The fields would become green again. Flowers would bloom. The evergreen scented the room, mingling with the aroma of roast boar and the yeasty smell of mead.
Kama was with Inga. They shared a table with several men, including a man named Bjorn with a square face and blonde beard. “Kama,” she said, introducing herself, “daughter of Sigtrygg, son of King Gnupa and Astrid the Dane.” Kama gave all the details, just in case this man knew about Sigtrygg, the mighty chief who had just died.
“Quite a mouthful,” Bjorn smirked. “My father was Eric the two-time loser. Left Dane land because he couldn’t make a go of it in the city. Moved to Sweden but couldn’t make a go of it there either.” Bjorn raised his mead to his lips and turned back to his comrades, entertaining them now with stories of Christians, how he and his fellow Vikings had attacked them at sea. "We tossed their holy books into the sea and very nearly tossed them. But they’re persistent bastards. Half a year later, they arrived in Birka on foot, ready to convert us all."
Across from Bjorn sat another berserker. Black grit stuck to his teeth. Dirt darkened his fingernails. His long stringy hair would break any comb. Bjorn’s neighbor was having a private conversation with his mead. He had a gray sallow look and the smell of clothes that never got washed. “So she goes off to Norway,” his neighbor went on, speaking to the group now. “I wrote all these songs. You should hear some of them. They