by Ann Boelter
“Twenty, with more every day.”
“And still none of our men sick?”
The healer nodded.
Jarl stretched and rubbed the back of his neck. “We’ve had this every trip; why is it so much worse this time? And so close to port? I thought we had avoided it.”
“I don’t know, my lord. In many ways it is the same as before, but in others it’s different. Instead of infecting blocks of prisoners, it will affect only one out of a small group that share a tent, then skip the rest and affect another somewhere else. Quarantine has been ineffective, as unfortunately has treatment. Unlike before, when many would be sickened but few would die, this time fewer contract the disease, but death is certain. I’ve tried leeches, sandalwood, ratfish oil, arsenic, burning wormwood, even trepanned a few, to no avail. I also attempted some native remedies received from a captured medicine man, but nothing has worked.”
“Keep trying,” Jarl said.
“Of course.”
“And none of our men are affected, you’re sure?”
“Not a one, sir. Just as before.”
Jarl nodded. “If there is anything you need—anything special, send word to me and you shall have it. Whatever you require.”
“Yes, my lord.” The healer excused himself and left the tent.
As the news from the prisoner compound continued to grow worse, men worked around the clock, digging pits for the bodies. Under normal circumstances, they would have constructed great pyres to burn the dead, but Jarl feared the smoke from such large fires would alert the next villages to their presence.
Each day Jarl’s face grew more drawn. His men were also disturbed, but Nena knew from listening to their conversations, that their concern centered only on the amount of wealth they were losing per day. They even raised the suggestion of making one extra sweep to the east instead of going straight to port, to replenish the slave population before they made sail. Jarl agreed to consider the proposal and make a decision—once these quit dying.
After the last of his higher ranking men had left for the evening, Jarl drained his cup and pushed his chair back from the table. Altene remained. She moved to stand behind him and began massaging his broad shoulders. He closed his eyes as her nimble fingers unknotted the tension from deep within his muscles. “Shall I pleasure you tonight, my lord?” Altene whispered in his ear and pressed her breasts against his back.
Nena grimaced. It had been quite a while since Jarl had taken Altene to his furs, a fact that clearly disturbed Altene. Jarl did not respond. Altene traced her fingers along Jarl’s neck just inside his collar, then unlaced the front of his tunic and moved her caresses to his chest. Still he made no move to stop her or take her to the furs. Becoming more bold, she reached down and unlaced the front of his trousers, then extended her hand inside, stroking and pulling.
It was what she did next that shocked Nena, who thought she could no longer be shocked by anything Altene and Jarl did. Keeping one hand engaged inside his trousers, she unclasped her dress with the other. After it fell to the floor, she moved around in front of him, then knelt before him naked. Slipping her upper body between his legs, she spread them slightly, then lowered her head and took him into her mouth. Jarl’s face tightened in immediate response. He groaned.
Nena closed her eyes and tried to go far away, but the image remained vivid in her mind’s eye, kept there by the sounds of his pleasure. She had never heard of such a thing, even from the boldest of the older Teclan women. She took a deep breath and tried once again to go to her warrior’s tranquil place, but was overcome by a sudden wave of dizziness and nausea. She thrust out her hands and grabbed the pole to steady herself.
The sudden jangling of Nena’s chain set off Jarl’s alarms. He shoved Altene aside and stood to gain clear view of the center of the tent. His first thoughts were split evenly on responding to Nena’s escape and her attack. But Nena remained standing like a statue—her shackled hands gripping the pole—her eyes staring at him, unfocussed.
Nena didn’t know what was the matter with her. Three blurry Jarls edged toward her with three Altenes close behind him. All six wore horrified expressions on their faces. She shook her head, trying to clear her vision. The motion caused her to lose her balance. She clawed at the pole for support, but her fingernails were unable to find purchase on the smooth wood. As her hands fell away, the last thing she was aware of was Altene’s terrified whisper.
“It’s the Northman’s Curse.”
“NENA,” JARL SHOUTED as he jumped forward to keep her suddenly limp body from crashing to the floor. He gently laid her down on her sleeping furs, and pushed a few strands of hair from her face. “Nena, can you hear me?” He lifted one eyelid with his fingers, but her glazed eye was unresponsive.
“Get the healer,” he called over his shoulder to Altene, then bent to check her breathing. Her chest rose and fell as normal. When he did not hear the tent flap move, he turned to find Altene still standing where he’d left her a few paces back—still staring horrified at Nena. “Altene!” he shouted.
Her eyes flickered to his face.
“Move! Go get the healer, now!”
Altene gave a quick nod and fled the tent.
Jarl unclasped both shackles from Nena’s wrists and carried her to his own furs. He could feel her body burning even through both layers of their clothing. He found a small rag near the table, soaked it from the waterskin, and returned to her side, wiping her forehead and neck. He felt helpless. He had attended many an injury on the battlefield, but with no wound to address, he was at a loss for what to do. What was taking the damn healer so long? Had Altene even found him? A rattle of the boards at the entrance answered his question. “Enter,” he called out, irritated that they had bothered with the formality when the situation was so urgent.
“Jarl?” the healer asked as he entered with Altene close behind him.
“Here,” Jarl directed him to the furs. Altene waited at the doorway.
“What happened to her?” the healer asked as he set down his bag and rolled up his sleeves.
“I don’t know. She was just standing there.” Jarl pointed to the pole. “Then with no warning, she started to sway and collapsed.”
The healer nodded and felt her forehead. When he lifted her eyelids, Jarl noticed both of her eyes were now bloodshot. The healer parted her lips and checked her gums. He listened to her breathing, first with his ear close to her nostrils, then with it flat against her chest. He checked her skin all over, focusing on the palms of her hands, then her fingernails. Other than her eyes, he found nothing out of the ordinary that Jarl could see. But when he finished, he looked up at him, his expression grave.
“Is it the Curse?” Jarl asked softly, not wanting to know the answer.
The healer only nodded.
“What can you do?”
“I don’t know. First we can bring down the fever. I’ve had luck with ground willow bark for that.” He dug in his bag for a small vial, pulled the cork and stuck his finger inside, rolling it around until was coated in the fine grayish brown powder. Pulling open Nena’s lower lip with his other hand, he rubbed the coated finger along her gums.
“Then what?” Jarl asked.
“Then, when it returns—and it will, we will do it again. And when the chills take her, we will keep her warm.” His shoulders sagged. “Eventually, though, nothing will work. The pain will come next. Thyme will hold it at bay for awhile, but after that only juice of the poppy will make her comfortable.”
“That’s it?” Jarl asked.
The healer looked at Jarl, exhausted and a little exasperated. “Jarl, we have discussed nothing but this for almost a fortnight. You know I do not have a cure.”
“What else have you tried?”
He shook his head. “Everything. You know that, too.”
“What has worked?”
“Jarl....”
“What has worked the best then, dammit? Surely you have learned something with all the
hours you’ve wasted. Have you not saved even one?”
“Apologies, Jarl, but you know that I have not.”
“Get out. Leave the vial and get out.”
The man stood as if he were going to say something more, then headed for the door.
“Altene,” Jarl called.
“Yes, my lord,” she whispered.
“Go to the prisoner compound and find any among them with healing knowledge. I know the healer has already questioned a medicine man there, but there may be others, midwives, someone with a special tribal remedy. Find them for me and take them to the healer. This time, let them know the reward for their success will be their freedom. And yours,” he added.
“Yes, my lord,” she said, her deflated tone reflecting her feelings on the dismal project.
Altene and the healer returned together in the gray light of predawn. Jarl had given Nena several more doses of the willow bark during the night, and though she remained unconscious, for the moment her fever was stable. Jarl met them at the table and poured each a cup of wine.
“Has Altene brought you any treatment of merit?” he asked the healer.
“Nothing new. All remedies she has discovered I have already tried, whether I thought they had merit or not. Contrary to what you might believe, Jarl, I have not ignored any treatment, no matter how strange, out of some egotistical need to prove my own expertise.”
“Apologies, my friend, for my earlier words,” Jarl said sincerely. “I know you are doing your best. Keep looking.”
The following days for Nena were a blackened blur of fleeting images, half awake dreams and fragments of awareness. Once she awoke to find her skin on fire and Jarl carrying her through the camp.
“Is she dead?” she heard a voice ask.
“Get out of my way,” Jarl snarled in reply.
The next thing she knew, he held her body submerged in the cool waters of the river, her head resting in the crook of his arm above the surface while her body dangled beneath.
Then darkness.
She lay covered with some bristly fur, near a fire she could not seem to get close enough to. Her body shivered and her teeth chattered uncontrollably. She burrowed deeper, pressing closer to the heat, unsure of why she could not reach it. As she became more aware, she realized it was not a flame, but Jarl’s body that provided the heat. The bristles were not those of fur, but the hair on his chest and legs. She pushed against him, trying to push him away, but he only murmured something soothing in her hair and tightened his arms around her, pulling her back to the warmth she so desperately needed.
Darkness.
A hollow reed was between her lips, with Jarl dribbling tiny amounts of water into her parched mouth. His face was gaunt with worry.
Darkness.
The senior healer’s face suspended over her, his expression bleak, before he turned to Jarl and shook his head. Dimly she heard Jarl shout something unintelligible, his voice twisted with fury. The healer’s face was yanked from her sight.
Darkness.
Jarl’s voice raised in anger. “We will attack when I say. When—I—say!” Jarl shouted, emphasizing each syllable. “Do not ask me again. Get out! Get out now, Tryggr. And know this—any man who thinks of trying to move her, I will kill him. Any man. Are we clear?”
Darkness.
Jarl cooling her forehead with a damp rag.
Darkness.
Unendurable pain coursing through ever fiber of her body. Nena couldn’t take it—could not stand to be touched. Even the feel of the softest fur against her skin was agony. She longed for the darkness. She longed to die.
Darkness.
The suffering was unbearable; the afterlife beckoned her with sweet relief. The pain would be gone, and she would see her brother, Ruga, and the mother she had barely known. She would ride Nightwing again. They were all near. She could feel them reaching for her—welcoming her. She was ready. She let go.
Something held her fast and pulled her back. Back to the fire. Back to the ice. Back to the pain. Back to Jarl’s haggard face and, one night his voice.
“I will not let you go. You are mine, and no one—not even the gods are going to take you from me,” he whispered, his voice feverish, not from sickness, but from desperation as he held her head and dribbled cool water laced with something bitter into her mouth.
He was mad. Why did he care? Why did he not let her die? No one fought the gods. No one could. And no one dared try.
Then everything went completely black.
Nena awoke to light that did not burn her eyes and a body that did not ache. She took a moment to focus on her surroundings. She was in Jarl’s furs. He sat on a stool at the side of the bed watching her closely. But it was not the same Jarl. This Jarl was bleary-eyed, and his gaunt face was covered with an unkempt ragged short beard. Nena tried to sit up but could not.
“I’ll help you. You’re too weak,” Jarl said, his voice hoarse. He stood and rearranged the furs behind her, then lifted her effortlessly so she could sit upright. “Are you thirsty?” he asked.
She was and she nodded, still confused and disoriented. He brought a small cup and held it to her lips. She tried to gulp the refreshing cool liquid, but after several sips, he pulled it away.
“That’s enough for now. Let’s see how you do with that first,” he said as he sat back down on the stool. “How do you feel? Are you hot? Or cold? In any pain?”
Nena shook her head to each of his questions.
“Good. That’s good.” He ran one hand through his hair, then leaned back and watched her. “How is your stomach with that water?”
“Fine.” She tried to say, but the word came out as a barely audible whisper.
“I have some broth here if you think you can keep it down. Do you want to try?” he asked.
She nodded.
Jarl stood again and went to the table behind him, returning with a small bowl of tepid broth. He knelt down and lifted the spoon to her lips, but she shook her head and tried to reach for the bowl herself.
“Just eat,” he scolded, and pushed her hands away. “You’re too weak to feed yourself, and you’ll never get any stronger if you don’t eat.” He offered her the spoonful again. She took it.
He was right. Her arms felt weak as a baby’s. The tiny effort of lifting them had exhausted her. She finished the bowl, then slid back down in the furs, instantly asleep.
When she next awoke, Jarl was still sitting slouched on the stool, but now Altene stood behind him.
“I will tend to her, my lord. You need to sleep,” Altene said.
Jarl started to protest.
“If anything changes at all, I will awaken you immediately,” Altene reassured him.
Jarl nodded and stretched out across the furs at the foot of the bed. Within seconds he was snoring softly.
“You have survived the Northman’s Curse,” Altene murmured. Her voice was both awed and disappointed. “No others did, though they did not have Jarl attending to their every need.” The resentment in her last words was unmistakable. “There is much talk among the men that you have put some Dor spell on him. He would not eat, not sleep, not speak or listen to reason while you were ill. He even threatened to kill any who tried to remove you.”
“There is no such spell,” Nena croaked.
“You and I know that. I have no idea where they would get such a notion.” Altene smiled, and it was clear to Nena exactly where the notion had come from. “But Jarl’s men are very concerned by it. If he cannot be rid of you on his own, maybe they will be able to convince him—or take matters into their own hands.”
“That would be my wish, too.”
“Perhaps,” Altene said, measuring her.
“Let me go and you shall see.”
“You are too weak to even stand; helping you now would serve no purpose. Besides, Jarl would kill me. Of that, I now have no doubt.”
Over the next few days, Nena’s strength slowly returned. When she could walk without assistance,
she was returned to her place at the pole, though her relationship with Jarl was now one of an uneasy truce. He still chained her at night or when he left the tent, but the rest of the time she was free to move about inside. When they ate their meals together, he still allowed her no utensil other than a spoon, but they were speaking...somewhat.
“Surely there is some Dor law that binds you to a man when he saves your life?” Jarl teased as he attached her cuffs for the first time.
Nena had denied it, but knew her answer was not entirely truthful. There was more to it than that. While there might be no such binding law, the Dor valued honor, and the Teclan valued it more than most. To kill someone who had saved your life would be beyond dishonorable, and for that she would spare him. She had no doubt he had saved her. He had pulled her back from the afterlife more than once, though she still had no idea how that was possible. He had challenged the gods themselves. Who dared do such a thing? Who could do such a thing and have the gods listen? That question was very disturbing and she tried not to think about it. Instead she focused her thoughts once again on escape—though now her plans would require leaving Jarl alive.
THAT AFTERNOON THE tent was filled with his officers. Though Nena remained secured to the pole as they pored over the maps and finalized their battle plans, she listened to every detail.
“Does she have to be here?” Tryggr complained. “I don’t like discussing our plans in front of a Dor—any Dor.”
Nena thought it strange. They had discussed their plans in front of her many times before, and while Tryggr had often looked at her suspiciously, never had he voiced his disapproval. Nena knew it had to be in response to Altene’s rumor. Before she could look to Jarl and gauge his reaction, Gunnar spoke.
“You worry too much, Tryggr. Who’s she going to tell?” Gunnar laughed. “It’s not as if our fearless leader is going to let her out of his sight. If the past weeks have shown us nothing else, they have shown us that.”
“Put your mind back to the business at hand and have the men ready to move on the next village tomorrow,” Jarl said. His voice had a hard edge to it that Nena had not heard him use with them before.