A Slave's Tale

2

"I AMNOT ASLAVE." I said the words out loud; then I looked at my bare feet and thought, "They are not a slave's feet." I heard Hakon say something, but I was not listening. I felt that the world for a moment had stopped breathing and that I was alone. A voice cried from far away, "Hakon! Hakon!" I recognized that it was Harold the Bowbender, and the thought came to me: "He will think that I am still a slave." Hakon took a step forward. "Let us go to my father 's hall." "Your hall,Hakon," Isaid. He stared at the ground. "I am not fourteen winters old. My face cannot grow a beard." I could only repeat, "It isyour hall, Hakon." Hakon looked at me. He was smiling; but it was that sad smile I had seen so often on his father's face; and I looked away. "Come." Hakon held out his hand to me; but I could not take it, for fear that again I should cry. "You go. I want to stay with Rark." Hakon started to say something; then he changed his mind. He touched my cheek gently with the tips of his fingers,turned, and walked swiftly in the direction Har14 2 old the Bowbender's voice had come from. I stood perfectly still until he disappearedbehind a hillock; then I touched my cheek with my hand. I walked towards the hall that only the day before had belonged to Eirik the Fox — that hall which after Hakon's father's death, the long year that Sigurd Sigurdson had ruled Rogen, had been my home. No, not home, for the slave cannot call his master's hall his home, any more than the captured falcon can call the wooden stick its feet aretied to, home. Eirik's hall was not as big as the main hall, nor was it surrounded by as many or as large storehouses; yet as I stood in the yard and looked at the dragon's head which protruded from the top of the roof, a desire came over me to be mistress of it. I was only thirteen winters old; and like a child, I mistook freedom for having power over others. It was dark inside the hall, and it took a while for my eyes to become like the owl's. Rark moaned. I walked over to the bench on which he was lying. His eyes were closed but his mouth mumbled words. I leaned over him to try to understand what he was saying in his sleep. Rark had been captured in a land far to the south of Norway. It was a strange language he was muttering in: much softer than ours; it sounded like the words one might sing to asleeping child. Now Rark was free, too. The thought of his leaving the island filled me with fear: who would protect me now? Rark had, I knew, both wife and children in the strange land to the south. Were they their names he was mumbling? My heart was filled with jealousy for 15 these children, whose names I did not know and whose fate might be no better than my own. I walked over to the long table where we ate, up to the head of it, where the chieftain sat. My hands glided over the carved arms of the chair; then I sat down in it. I — the slave, the girl, the child — sat down in the seat from which Eirik had ranted and screamed at me, and promised me beatings. The drink of freedom is mixed with honey; it is sweet. My thoughts went back over all that had happened, and I rejoiced at the thought of the dead tyrants. "Good little Helga," Hakon's father had once said. Oh, he had not known me; only misunderstood meeknessfor goodness. "I am glad Hakon killed you." I said the words out loud as if Eirik were still alive and could hear me. The stillness of the hall answered me and frightened me. I said again, "I am glad!" Rark groaned and moved restlessly in his sleep. I rose and walked over to him. I put my hand on hisforehead, fearing that the Wound Fever had come; but his forehead was cool. "He killed Sigurd," I thought. "Does he dream of that now?" Rark's lips parted in a smile. He...