The Viking’s Sacrifice (4 page)

“Special one for you, see, my lady.” Bebba’s sneer almost didn’t register as the smith clamped it round her neck, the metal cold, the fit just that little too tight so it pinched her skin. She bore it because she had to, as she had borne so many things when all she wanted was to run, far, fast, sprint along the beach with no cares, sand spurting from her footfalls and salty wind in her hair.

She hadn’t run that way since the day her mother died. Since then she’d walked as a lady, talked, wove, spun, everything as a lady. Everything her mother had wanted while she was alive and Wilda hadn’t cared to listen to. Too busy running to listen, to understand. But since that day, she’d stifled it all. First because her father had been so wrapped in his grief and she hadn’t the heart to test his patience so, and then because she’d been married off to Bayen, become a lady to his thane. Thanes’ wives did not run on the beaches, chasing seagulls, or climb trees. Thanes’ wives were elegant and demure and knew their role. People had depended on her. Practicality, survival was everything.

The collar felt as though it was choking her, too tight around her throat, but she said nothing. Practicality and survival were paramount here too. Wordlessly she followed Bebba out of the smithy, to where Agnar waited for them with a glowering look.

He led them a short way up the hill toward a large building, long and low. Other buildings clustered round it as though for warmth, and not far away another huddle of buildings stood.

“This big hall is Bausi’s home and feasting hall. That over there—” Bebba pointed to the other cluster of buildings. “That’s Sigdir’s. That’s where you’ll be living soon enough, I don’t doubt, once he’s done whatever his plan is for you. I got one piece of advice for you. You keep your head down and don’t answer back, whatever you do. Sigdir is Bausi’s man, through and through, though he ain’t so mean, yet. If you’re quiet and respectful, it’ll go easier. If you aren’t—well, then, if you aren’t, it’ll be all the worse.”

Bebba turned and said something to Agnar, but the heathen growled and turned away. “Come on. Don’t you be giving Agnar no trouble either. He ain’t so bad, but you’ll catch it if you don’t mind what he wants. You’re a thrall now, not a lady.”

Agnar grasped Wilda’s shoulder and shoved her in the direction he wanted her to go. He pointed up the valley toward another group of buildings vague in the thickly falling snow. Wilda wrapped her shawl more firmly around herself and trudged on.

Agnar’s house was like the others, long and low, again roofed with turf. A welcome fire burned in the centre of the room, and benches built into the walls were lined with furs and woven blankets. Some sort of membrane covered the small windows to keep out the icy draught, and the only light came from the hearth and the little lamps set about. Not so very different from a Saxon farmer’s hut, and well kept with fresh rushes on the floor. Yet not what Wilda was used to. A lord’s hall had always been her home, with a great feasting hall and bedrooms, thick hangings to keep the draught away.

Bebba bustled over to the fire and dipped her finger in a pot sitting on a stone slab next to it. With a satisfied nod she found two wooden bowls and ladled a thin gruel into each. “This’ll warm your bones a bit. Come on, sit down.”

Wilda sat next to Bebba on a bench set into the wall and tried to ignore the pinch of the collar around her neck. She, with her husband, had owned slaves. She’d never thought to be one, and to a heathen too.
Lord save me
. Now that she was still, now that she was warm, her imagination went wild, thinking what this would mean. These heathens had done nothing to her—yet. The stories she’d heard…she could only hope that was all they were—stories. Even if not, what could she do? Nothing, yet.
Best not think of it now.
Not yet. Tomorrow was soon enough.

The gruel was bland but hot and Wilda cupped her hands around the bowl, slowly letting the warmth reach her, inside and out.

Bebba made herself busy stirring a kettle, full of stew by the smell. Another smell, familiar. Barley and hops permeated the air, warm and malty. It smelled of home and helped her shoulders loosen. Something of her old life among the strangeness. She cautiously took in her surroundings.

Agnar was older than she’d first thought. Strands of silver threaded his fair hair and beard, and his hands were gnarled and reddened. His wife, Idunn, was younger but not by much. Silver touched her hair, too, what Wilda could see under the scarf. Her face was unlined except about the eyes, and her manner was stern but with a hint of pity about it. They spoke together for a time and Agnar seemed to attend her words carefully, as though her opinion was important. Finally he nodded and spoke to Bebba. Again, Wilda could almost make out a few words, but not the sense of the sentence.

Bebba snorted with laughter and then translated. “Old Agnar here says you had better behave or you’ll catch it. He thinks I’m a fool. Like I said, he ain’t too bad for a heathen. He don’t beat me, and as long as I keep him in beer, he’s too drunk to want anything I don’t want to give. Treats his wife right good too. They’re funny over here. Women are… See, it’s their gods and goddesses. The goddesses are as important as the gods, in their own way. Same with the women, the free ones anyway. Bausi’s the jarl, their thane, and he rules this place and he’s poisoning it. But it’s the women that run it, especially when the men are off raiding, and they know it.”

Bebba cast a glance Agnar’s way. Idunn was off somewhere, bustling about in the dimness of the end of the house, but Agnar was watching Wilda keenly. Maybe seeing how she was taking all this, whether she’d give any trouble. Bebba’s mouth twitched when she looked at him, but he didn’t say anything, so she carried on. Wilda got the feeling she was enjoying herself, and that maybe this was a speech she gave often to new slaves.

“In many ways they’re just like us, and in lots of ways they’re very different. You know they don’t see the raiding as stealing? Theft is an awful bad crime here, but the raiding is different to them. A challenge to a fair fight. It’s the same with the women when they raid. A vanquished foe needs to know they’re vanquished, and what’s the best way to prove their manliness? Aye, that’s it, proves to the Saxon men who’s stronger. But you ain’t a foe no more, you’re Sigdir’s property. This ain’t war, this is home and they do love their women, or rather women in bed. Lord, do they! Now some of them, they’ll take you to bed. Same as any man, Saxon or Norseman, some won’t care how you feel about it neither. You want to take care with those’un, but you’re Sigdir’s so they’ll have him to answer to if they hurt you. But there’s some who won’t care that you’re his, see, some who don’t need to care. Bausi’s the worst, and Sigdir’s his foster son and becoming just as bad, learning by example. Those two think they can take what they want, and they can, and ain’t no man in the fjord will stop them.”

Wilda frowned at that. “He said that to take me as his bed-slave would dishonour me, and he wouldn’t. Myldrith, though—it would have been better if he’d taken me.” At least she knew what to expect, how it had been with Bayen.

“Ah, yes, I seen you got a wedding ring. You’d know more about the bed than that young slip of a lass. It’s a man’s world, all right, wherever you are. But Agnar here says the men left you alone on the boat, which ain’t happening often, especially since Bausi. Maybe Sigdir’s going to ransom you?”

“Not to my husband. Sigdir murdered him.” Even now, Wilda couldn’t summon up much to feel. Bayen had been a good man, had maybe deserved more from her, but Wilda had long ago realised that feelings were a hindrance.

“Lord have mercy, you’re a cold one.”

That stung. But what good would tears do for Bayen? She’d prayed for his soul, as she should, had been a good and faithful wife to him. What more was expected?

Wilda stared into the fire, her eyes hot and dry. Tears were no good, no help for anyone. They weren’t practical, they hadn’t brought her mother back to life after the raid eight years ago, hadn’t helped her father with his grief or hatred. Tears didn’t matter, and she’d shed none since then. Sometimes it frightened her, the sense that the well inside her had run dry, that the echoing emptiness of her heart made her life a cold, bland thing. Sometimes she prayed to God to show her where she’d gone wrong, how to feel again, but He didn’t answer and that was her answer. Tears didn’t matter. Dealing with things did.

“Aye, well, those two, Sigdir and Bausi, are the Devil himself.” Bebba crossed herself hurriedly. “Cursing this place, they are. All the young men look to them, see, because Bausi’s the jarl, and they’ve all sworn to their gods that they’re his men. They wear his rings on finger and arm to prove it. These heathens—that’s in their blood, see, in their head. Different from good Christian folk. An oath is their word, and they won’t break it.”

She patted Wilda’s hand absently. “Aye, it’s a different thing. Now there’s many a lady takes a man to bed she don’t love. That’s just the way things are, there’s no help for it, and I see you knows that already. It helps if she likes him though. See, and I may be a thrall like you but I been here a time, nigh on three years now, and Agnar sees me right. I like him, and he’s promised Sigdir he’ll keep you here, and safe. He’ll look out for you. You do as he says, work hard, and you’ll be fine. Maybe even buy yourself free, in time. I almost got enough, four ounces of the six I need. Agnar here lets me sell the extra ale I make.”

Wilda looked at Bebba properly for the first time. She too was older than she first appeared, more Agnar’s age. She had the wrinkles of someone who laughs often and smiles more, and the kind, patient eyes of someone who had seen a lot and come to terms with what life had given her.

Many a lady takes a man to bed she don’t love.
True enough. Farmers’ daughters married men for a roof and a bed, to help out with the smallholding. Merchants married their children to each other to strengthen trade alliances. Love was something the bards sang of, but practicality made it a nonsense. Survival was more important. It was the way of things and always had been. Yet she had loved Bayen, after time. Not as the bards sang, but he was a good God-fearing man who’d treated her with sombre kindness, and she’d felt a quiet kind of love grow from that.

Now Bayen was gone, murdered by these savages, and she was no longer the lady of the house, of the estate, no longer Lady Wilda but a slave. That was what she had to deal with, and she would. You got what God saw fit to give you and made the best of it. God had His reasons, must have even for this. She looked up at Agnar, at the way his eyes were worried, how he chewed his lip. Bebba was maybe right about him. Even if she wasn’t, Wilda just had to get on with it until she could escape or buy her freedom. There was nothing else to be done.

“Where do we start?” she said.

Bebba laughed and stood up. “Oh, you’ll do, my lady. You’ll do.”

By the time Toki had steered the horse down the twisting paths to the village, grateful once again for Einar’s sureness on the slush and ice where his halt leg was not, the snow had thickened. Clouds drew down around the mountain, obscuring their tops. Toki could only barely make out Odin’s Helm, the rocky outcrop that watched over the village, made it a lucky place. So they’d said once, but Raven’s Home didn’t seem so lucky to Toki and hadn’t for years. The wyrd of the village was blackened to his eyes, had become a poisoned thing. As his wyrd was, his fate twisted by one night, one moment.

He found a place for Einar and left him in the fuggy warmth rising from the cows. He hesitated in the doorway and peered across to the feasting house at the centre of Bausi’s group of buildings. It was far larger then the rest, more than forty fathoms long. Smoke puttered out of three holes in the turf roof, and the smell of roasting beef and pork made Toki’s stomach cramp. The entrance was a bustle of activity as the women and thralls and karls got ready for the feast. A celebration for the safe return of the raiders, who would already be warming themselves by the great fire, drinking ale and vying to tell the best tales of their exploits.

They might not even notice him, if he were lucky. If he was unlucky, then he would brave it out for the chance to see Gudrun. They taunted his outside, the limp, the silence. They could not reach his inside, where still he dreamed of one day being able to stand tall and strong and say, “I am Einar, and not a coward.”

He limped his careful way across the snowy yard, through the doorway carved in intricate detail of the World Tree and on into the feasting hall. A karl looked at him sideways with a hint of sneer, but he didn’t bar Toki’s way.

The hall was hot and smoky inside. All the paraphernalia of the day’s work, the women’s weaving and sewing and the men’s carving and armour-work, had been cleared away. The benches down either side were fronted with boards over trestles and covered with platters of steaming meat and vegetables. Kettles hung over the long fire pit that ran almost the length of the hall, and the smell of beef filled Toki’s mouth with spit. He couldn’t recall the last time he’d had beef. Maybe last Winter Nights feast. He’d managed to sneak in at the end, when everyone was too drunk to notice him. Almost a year. He’d face anything for another taste.

That was the courage he had left now, his chance for bravery, worse than battle in some ways. On a raid he’d at least have the chance for glory or to die a good death and have something to tell Odin of his courage when the time came. In this, if he braved the swords of their words, his prize would be a taste of good meat and to get through the night without shame poured on his head. This was his meagre chance for bravery, and he took it.

He tried to avoid Bausi’s gaze from upon the high seat at the far end and took his place. Not up by Bausi as once would have been his right, but the place farthest from him, by the door.

He’d barely sat down before it started.

“Hey, Toki, come to sit with the real men?”

“Toki, you managed to find a woman stupid enough yet?”

“I found your tongue, it was in the pigsty.”

“It’s his brain you want to try to find,” and on. He shut his ears to it and kept his head down. It was worse that the ones who led the jeers were Sigdir and Ragnhilda. His little brother and the woman he’d once hoped to marry. He wouldn’t let their words wound him, wouldn’t let them carry into his heart, where he was still a man. A man who bore this for love of his brother and sister, because he had sworn to Odin on it and no other reason. Halt leg or not, if not for that, then more than one man here tonight would have reason to fear their words. Yet his fear, that need for their safety, bound his hands more securely than any rope.

Sigdir was Bausi’s man now and Ragnhilda had turned from him the first moment she’d heard of his cowardice, his disgrace. Now she was Bausi’s first wife, heavy with child again. He thought a curse at her, that this child be another daughter, that Bausi would never have a son, no matter how many wives he kept under his roof. He couldn’t bring himself to curse worse, though the deepest part of him wished it. If Ragnhilda’s face was anything to go by—the way it had dried up, as though all the joy was sucked from her—she’d been cursed already. Toki’s shoulders twitched at the thought that conjured, of another curse cut in wood and soaked in blood.

When they’d returned from the fateful raid, had laid Arni to rest and seen the sad, shrivelled body of their father before they laid him too under his howe, when Toki could finally leave his sickbed, then it had started. Bausi was jarl and had led with his ridicule. The rest followed, some more, some less willingly, and soon it had become as though it had always been so, that Toki hadn’t once been a well-thought-of young warrior, hadn’t once talked with the rest of them. Gone simple-minded from the fear, Bausi had told them when Toki wouldn’t, couldn’t speak for fear of the secret falling out, fear of the curse rune and what Bausi might do to Sigdir and Gudrun because of it.

Toki had tried to run once, despite Bausi’s warning that it would bring the curse to bear, when it became clear that Sigdir was letting Bausi’s poison grow in him, becoming a hard and hateful man. Yet there was still Gudrun, he could get her away. One day when she’d been about five, he’d made a last attempt at outward courage, had swung her up on his shoulders in a pretence of a game and left. Desperation had driven him to it, but a man with a halt leg carrying a five-year-old had no chance against the seasoned hunters and warriors Bausi sent after them.

By then it had been clear Bausi was enjoying Toki’s humiliations. Clearer when Gudrun fell ill immediately on their return. Weak, vomiting, seeing things, gradually fading away. Like their father before he died. Things became clearer still when Sigdir guilelessly and earnestly tried to persuade Toki that Bausi was a good man, because he would sit with Gudrun for hours and let no other hand feed her. When the illness mysteriously vanished after Toki went to Bausi and fell to his knees to silently beg, shamed himself still further in the eyes of the village even if they didn’t know what he was begging for. For Bausi to stop poisoning Gudrun as he had their father.

That was the day Toki’s outward courage had run dry, the day he knew that Bausi controlled him as another man controls his horse. When he knew his courage had to stay trapped in his head. He was a freeman, more than a bondi and yet a slave, rune-cursed and a nithing, no one. All he had left were dreams of the day when Gudrun was safe, perhaps married away from the fjord to a good man, and he could stand tall and decry Bausi as murderer. Until that day he kept all look of courage locked away inside, and let them think what they would. He knew his heart was as red as Thor’s blood, as strong, even if they did not.

So now Toki dipped his head and made sure to look no one in the eye. If he could bear it, if he could make himself deaf to it, he could have beef. And maybe, just maybe, he’d get a glimpse of Gudrun. He’d not seen her since he’d gone up to the high pasture in the spring. He needed to know that his silence hadn’t been in vain, as it had with Sigdir, his good heart and strong wyrd lost to Bausi’s lies.

When Toki failed to rise to the bait, the men fell back to their tales of the raid, of what deeds of courage had been done with only the occasional minor dig. Toki ached to start on the meat that lent its steam to the general fug. Yet not until the full had been served.

Ragnhilda brought out a copper drinking bowl ready to serve the first formal drink, but Sigdir leaped to his feet and took it from her with a grin. “My jarl Bausi should not drink from such a tatty thing as that. I’ve a gift for him, and for you Ragnhilda. I ask only that in return my sister Gudrun be allowed to make the first full with them.”

Sigdir lifted a fur with a flourish and brought out three silver bowls, each with three loops on the rim done in the shape of birds. Ragnhilda’s eyes lit up, making her seem years younger, almost back to the girl Toki had been due to marry. Sigdir had chosen his gift well.

“From one of their Christ houses,” he said.

“A princely gift indeed, Sigdir,” Bausi said. “It’ll make a fine addition to the bride price I take with me tomorrow.”

Toki risked a look at the high seat. Sigdir’s face clouded at the dismissal of his gift, but it was nothing compared to the look on Ragnhilda’s. As though Bausi had taken his scramasax and sliced into her heart with it.

“Bride price?” Sigdir asked. “What news is this?”

Bausi stretched expansively and smiled a quiet smile that made Toki shiver and Ragnhilda seem to shrink. Not a smile to herald good news for anyone but Bausi. “Harald Gulskeg King has announced his heir. His grandson Harald, by his daughter and Halfdan the Black. The lad’s still only ten, and the king’s old and failing. Ripe for influence, for one close. And no one closer to the lad in kin than his cousin, the fair Disa. A maiden as yet unwed.” Bausi slid his gaze to Ragnhilda, and his smile twisted at the corner. “Maybe a maiden who can give me sons. Her father’s agreed I might try to negotiate a wedding, but I’m not alone. Other jarls see the opportunity, so I must make the best offer, many, many times the poor-man’s-price. I need as much silver and gold as I can take. I’ve also a dozen cattle aboard my ship, ready to sail tomorrow. This will make a nice addition.”

Toki hardly dared look at Ragnhilda. No matter all the spiteful words she’d thrown at him over the years, once they had been due to marry. They hadn’t been in love—it was a wedding, a deal between jarls, not a love affair—but still part of him felt for her, as he had then. Her mouth trembled and her fingertips were white where they gripped the silver bowl. Not at the news of the wedding, Toki thought—Bausi already had another wife, little Ingrid, though she’d yet to bear him any children at all—but at the slight to Ragnhilda for not bearing him sons. For her, or the memory of her when she’d thought him strong and brave, Toki wished back his earlier curse and hoped the child she carried was a son. For her sake, not Bausi’s.

Sigdir’s attitude was more unexpected. He was Bausi’s man, through and through, who sat at his right hand, second in rank only to the jarl. Who hung on his every word, copied every action. Yet now he seemed disgruntled, unsure and caught off balance. His hand repeatedly smoothed his moustache and beard and his eyes seemed alive in his head. Restless and wandering. His look caught Toki’s and his scowl deepened.

Toki held his gaze for a heartbeat, kept his courage, his nerve, that long, then ducked his head. No need to bring attention to himself, because it wouldn’t be good attention. Courage in inaction, in silence. A poor thing, but all he had. Even Odin said, “Keep silent with sharpened hearing, with his ears let him listen, and look with his eyes, thus each wise man spies out the way.” Toki held on to this, that he did Odin’s word. Silence was wisdom, Odin’s way. A small comfort among those who looked to Thor’s way, the red way.

Bausi sat up straight in his seat, seemingly unaware of the feelings he’d caused, or maybe he just didn’t care, which was more likely. He stroked at the silver jarl-torc at his neck thoughtfully and nodded. “Ragnhilda, fetch Gudrun and let her serve her first full.”

Toki’s heart twitched. At the least he’d get to see Gudrun, see she was well, let her safety lend strength to him. All he wished for, all he took everything for. His last bravery, to take what ridicule he was given, for her. And then, the beef.

When Gudrun came in, he almost didn’t recognise her, she’d grown so. Tall and willowy for her age, with a soft grace to her movements and gold lights in her hair. Her eyes shone when Sigdir told her she was to serve the full, an honour normally reserved for the highest-ranking woman. Toki’s heart squeezed at the thought that this, this beauty, this grace, was what he protected with his silence. He would brave the dragon of ridicule, best the troll of indifference, no matter if others saw or not, just for this. She would live and he would know it was because of him, a small scrap of courage to keep in his heart. Thor would know, and Odin and one-handed Tyr. It was enough.

Gudrun filled the first bowl with ale and offered it to Bausi with a careful solemnity. He nodded his thanks. “I dedicate this to Odin, that we prevail over the White Christ and his followers, that Red Thor shall smite them with his hammer and lend his strength to our swords. May we all be feasting and drinking in Valhalla a full day before the Christian god knows we’re dead!”

With that, Bausi drank from the bowl and returned it to Gudrun. She turned to Sigdir next, highest in honour after Bausi. He drank and so Gudrun went on, knowing where each man stood in the line of rank by where they sat. Finally, after several refillings of the bowl, she stood before Toki. He looked up at her face, at the worry that suddenly creased her brow. Toki tried a reassuring smile, but it had been too long and maybe it came out wrong because she flicked a glance over her shoulder to Bausi.

“Only the men,” Bausi said with a smirk he didn’t bother to hide, a stroke at his neck. Not the jarl-torc this time, but the black leather pouch that hung inside his shirt. “Toki does not drink the full because he’s not a man, not in Thor’s eyes.”

The calls began again, spearing his heart, shattering his illusion of hidden bravery. A man to his right laughed at the suggestion that Toki lay with pigs, because that was all he could get. Gudrun’s face seemed to waver in front of him, but with a final hesitant glance at Bausi, who nodded approvingly, she joined in the laughter.

The noise of her laugh, of all their laughs, crowded in on Toki. It didn’t matter that much was forced, only that they laughed. That Gudrun laughed, that she was becoming Bausi’s as surely as Sigdir. That all his silence, all his carefully hoarded bravery was for nothing. In his head, he got up, strode to Bausi and denounced him as a murderer, fed him to the wolves of the
godis
who kept the law. In his head, he was tall and strong, could not be bowed by curse or iron, and he would win, would show the whole fjord the courage inside him. In his head. Yet in this hall he could not, not without sacrificing Gudrun to the curse. It crippled him as surely as his halt leg, and not for the first time he cursed Bausi, cursed the mother who had taught him the runes that bound Toki’s courage tighter than iron.