In Thrall to the Viking

by M. E. Sháen

  8

  I rose earlier than Halfdan and set to doing what I could in the space the length of chain afforded me. I had enough freedom to reach the fire and lay more wood atop the grayish embers.

  It caught, so, I enjoyed the heat as the house was warmed. The warmth must have waked him, for he rolled over to rub his eyes and nodded at me.

  "You have children, you said."

  "Mm," he agreed.

  He rolled from the bed, crossed behind me, and went out the door. I heard when he pissed in the yard.

  After he returned, he took a seat at the table.

  "My children are kept by a village woman when I am gone."

  "You are home," I pointed out.

  "I will get them when I must."

  I lifted one brow but made no comment. Instead, I shook my foot. "Can you not free me?"

  "You will care for the house, the farm."

  "I thought you needed no woman."

  He snorted. "I need a thrall. You are a thrall."

  I thought it best not to rise to that bait. I shook my foot again.

  "You will not take a knife to me again."

  I lowered my gaze. He had little say in what I might do later.

  "I let you off too easily last night. I said I would use the knife against you and I did not. I will not be so lenient again." He leaned across the table to grasp my chin. "You are too young yet to lose your looks. Do not try me, Nerys Elen."

  "No, Halfdan of the Danes." My tone held a note of petulance I associated with children.

  "What place is this?" I looked around us.

  "Fønn is the village. Why?"

  "So I know what place to burn when I escape."

  He let me go. "I've business in the town. I will be gone today."

  "You plan to leave me here unattended?"

  "You would prefer Eowils keep track of you? His house is close. He can come."

  I sneered.

  "I thought not. There is much to do. Ensure it is done."

  "Chained to the bed?"

  He gestured and I raised my leg to rest my heel on his knee. He unlocked the iron, let the chain fall to the ground. "I expect dinner when I return."

  It had grown dark when Halfdan slid off his horse.

  "Nerys Elen!"

  I gave no response. Candles burned in the house and smoke wafted from the chimney, so he surely knew I was nearby.

  The door opened behind Eowils, who held me pressed to the wall. I struggled against him in silence so as not to give away my fear.

  "Stop fighting," Eowils growled the word.

  I scratched his face, and he hit me in the mouth.

  Suddenly, the wall next to his face split as an axe landed with lethal precision.

  He froze and I slid to the floor now I was free of the pressure of him against me.

  "Nerys Elen,"

  I darted out of Eowils's reach, eyed both men, then dropped to a chair.

  Halfdan took my chin in hand to peer at the blood that seeped from my lip, the bruise that had already formed around my eyes.

  Eowils turned as he tucked himself back into his trousers.

  "Brother."

  Halfdan's lips curled though there was no smile in his eyes. "Do not touch her again."

  "I am owed recompense for the one she killed."

  Halfdan stalked across the room to stop chest-to-chest with his larger sibling. "Do not touch her again,"

  "You will come to regret this one."

  "And that will be my problem. She is not to be touched. Am I understood, brother?"

  "Your death,"

  "Again, not your problem, but mine."

  Eowils nodded as he shot me a hard look.

  "Goodnight."

  Once he was gone, Halfdan stood still, hands clenched at his sides. I gained my feet, inched away, and prepared to run if need be. I could not tell if he were angry or not.

  "Clean yourself up."

  I needed no further persuasion. I ran out of the house and straight to the well. I splashed water on my face

  Hair wet and water streamed into my eyes, I returned. I peeked at him, then away.

  "Dinner."

  Silent, I put two bowls on the table, filled each with a rich stew and bread.

  "Sit. Eat."

  I sat and avoided his look to eat in silence. I had no idea what he thought about the incident.

  "You know how to find trouble, I will give you that, vixen."

  "I sought no trouble."

  "Yet trouble found you."

  "You believe I sought him out?" I stared at him in disbelief. "He is more a pig than you."

  Halfdan smiled. "That he is." He nodded. "Eat." He watched as I tore a hunk of bread.

  I supposed Eowils wasn't wrong; he was owed for the woman who died by my hand. But by Halfdan's insistence. Was that the cause? Or perhaps it angered him because his brother had not come to him to offer repayment, taking without...what, permission? I frowned at my meal.

  "You are angry," I suggested.

  He shook his head, raised his eyes to mine. "You were busy today?"

  I nodded.

  "What did you do?"

  "Fed the goats, mucked the horse stall, washed the stink of you out of the bedding."

  "Good. You know how to work."

  I rolled my eyes, making him grin.

  "The nuns at cloister made certain," I told him around a mouthful of food.

  He leaned back to watch over the rim of his cup. "Why do they call them that? Nuns. Are they not priestesses to the god?"

  I smirked. "Because they get no man on them?"

  His laugh made me smile.

  "I like you, vixen. You amuse me."

  Was there something like happiness in what I felt at his words? Was is possible to look beyond how they treated others? My life had been much like a thrall's at the monastery. Would this be worse or merely more of the same?

  "You said you were taken there at twelve. What happened to your sisters?"

  "One was married off by the women there. They wed her to a man who beat her. Another died after they thought to beat the devil out of her."

  "The devil?"

  "We are evil and born of sin, they say. And all evil comes from devils, they would insist. And they claimed my mother was a whore, that my father would get no redemption in their heaven. He went to his own gods, so what of it?"

  I shook my head at the insanity. "They often thought beating would turn us to their ways. Sometimes just because we did not put our headscarf on correctly we would be thrashed," the words spewed from me like vomit, as if he had opened a wound that would not close.

  It was the most I'd spoken to him at one time since he'd captured me.

  "You had brothers?"

  "Two. Dead. They murder in the name of their god, Halfdan of the Danes. Is that what you do? Or did we merely get in the way of what you want?"

  "You've no love for them."

  "Would you?"

  Yes, I held hate in my heart. I would hate anyone who stood to harm me or those I loved. Why was he not more cautious?

  "Where did you live before they took you to the monastery?"

  "Near the sea." I gestured outside. "Much like this."

  "You are not a Dane."

  "No."

  "Pretty like a Dane,"

  That earned a smirk. He chuckled.

  "You ought to know, vixen. There are more men than my brother who see it and would try to take it from you."

  "Give me a weapon. I will ensure they touch me not."

  "You had one."

  I sighed. "You left me here with your sword, your tools. Yet you will not allow me my own? What was to stop me from killing you the moment you set foot in the house?"

  "Eowils."

  I blinked, then shoved the bowl away. "And now?"

  "I think you will not."

  He rose, crossed the room to where he kept his weapons. He opened the chest and nodded at me.

  "You see?"

  "W
ould you notice one missing?"

  "Yes. And I think you know it to be true."

  I cleared the table without another word. He had left me a test. It seemed I had passed.

  The man was full of ways to test a person. He always had to push, to seek the edges of the truth, wherever they lay.

  He stretched out in his chair to busy his hands at carving.

  "What are you making?"

  I moved closer, seated myself almost at his feet to study him.

  "A cow. Auðhumla who fed the giant Ymir and created the first god Búri, from licking ice."

  "A toy?"

  "You sound surprised."

  "What is the use of a toy?"

  "For my son. He is yet young enough to like such things. Not strong enough to hold a sword for long. Yet."

  "A strange story, what does it mean?"

  "Which tells us how the world was created from the ice of Niflheim when the flames of Múspell melted it. Auðhumla licked at the ice until the first god, Búri came into the world. From him, all the gods are created."

  "Teach me how to do that."

  He looked at me over his hands. "To carve?"

  I nodded. I had little interest in more fairy stories about the gods. My own gods were torn from me by the nuns, while his seemed strange to my ears. A cow licking a god into being? It sounded as far-fetched as the claim that only one god rode the skies.

  He tossed the half-carved piece at me. I caught it as he settled on the floor by my side.

  "You see the beast in the wood?"

  I shot him a look, then shook my head.

  He put his hand over mine to run my finger along the line of the cow where it was taking shape. "Here. You must use your mind, vixen. You see?"

  My gaze was on him, not the wood. Curious, he stared back.

  "Why have you not taken another wife, Halfdan of the Danes?"

  "I have said there is no need." He regarded the house around us a moment. "One day someone will insist that I do. Until then," he let the words fade.

  "It seems a lonely kind of life."

  "There will be a wife when the time comes."

  "Hm." I lowered my gaze as he pressed the knife into my hand.

  "Have you carved before?"

  "No."

  He showed me how to use the knife to shape the wood, then stood.

  "Stay."

  9

  The house was dark save the fire when Halfdan stumbled in, a woman in his arms.

  I had not yet gone to sleep but was in the bed, so he set his soon to be lover atop the table.

  "Who is she?" The woman whispered so loudly it was impossible not to hear.

  No concern of yours," he murmured, then quieted her mouth with a kiss as he lifted her dress up her thighs.

  It seemed a simple thing to free his arousal from his trousers then shove into her with a grunt of need. He let his head fall to her shoulder as he fucked her.

  And after, his head rested against the woman's neck, he glanced my way. I'm sure my eyes gave nothing away, darkened with bruises as they were.

  His gaze, however, was full of curiosity and a smug sort of satisfaction that annoyed me. I frowned and rolled to my other side.

  I heard him settle onto a chair. "There is ale. Pour us some."

  Though the sturdy blonde grumbled complaint, she did as he commanded. She, at least, seemed to know her place. Were all the women these men kept like her?

  One drink turned into three and another round of sex, this hastily taken on the furs before the fire. After, he carried her to the bed to sleep on his opposite side. I feigned sleep so that I wouldn't have to listen to him anymore.

  I rose before them the next morning. The woman he brought home yet slept at his side, her drunkenness kept her deeply in dreams.

  I left as quietly as I could. Outside the sun had almost reached the horizon. I stared at the sky a moment before I left the porch for the yard. There were others up. The quiet noise of a cauldron being put over the fire came to me.

  Halfdan kept three other thralls, two men and a woman. None of them had yet spoken a word to me, and he'd not bothered to introduce me to them as the new thrall. Perhaps he thought he would rid himself of me and chose not to bother with the rest of his household.

  I wandered to the woodpile. There I found one of his axes. I hefted it and imagined what it might feel like to use as a weapon as I saw them do at the monastery.

  Its weight felt natural in my hand, so I chose a likely tree and threw the axe.

  He found me not long after. I still threw his axe ineffectually at a tree. He crossed his arms to watch. I knew I had no style and no accuracy with the weapon, though I was strong enough to wield it. The tree bore the marks where I hit but the axe hadn't gone into the wood.

  "You throw wrong."

  I spun to face him. "I thought I smelled your stink."

  He held out his hand for the axe. I crossed to where he stood and slammed the handle into his palm. He caught me with his free hand and pulled me to his side.

  "I will show you."

  I said nothing, only remained tense against him. He took my hand, put the handle against my palm, then closed my fingers over it.

  "You hold here, not so far up, you see?"

  He shifted, brought me before him, front to back, then lifted my arm so that I held the axe slightly out to one side. "Like this."

  He let go and I drew back farther, let the axe fly. It bounced off the wood.

  "Again. Hold not so tightly the axe and it will do as you command."

  I retrieved the axe, and he set my body once more. This time, the axe made one orbit to turn end-over-end and bite into the wood.

  "Better."

  I nodded and gave him a tiny grin.

  "Again,"

  And so it went; he adjusted my stance and then I threw the axe until the blade sank into the wood every time.

  He nodded at me. "Much better. You learn quickly."

  "Show me to fight this way."

  He laughed. "You wish to learn to fight as we do?"

  "Yes."

  "Why?" He grabbed a second axe, tested the blade with his thumb.

  "So that I can."

  "And who would you fight?" He stepped to me and raised his axe.

  "Anyone I wished." I hefted the axe. "Anyone I felt deserved it."

  I attacked without preamble and he batted my axe away.

  "You will have to do better than that or even my son will beat you."

  I grunted and attacked again, pent-up anger pushed me to be careless. He stepped out of my way with a smirk, then knocked my axe out of my hand with one blow.

  "You must want it, vixen. Otherwise, teaching you is not worth the time."

  This time, I launched myself at him. He caught me and threw me to the ground then sat atop me, pinned me between his thighs.

  "You must not be wild, vixen. You will lose every time if you cannot control yourself."

  "You seem unable to control yourself," I shot back, then shoved him off to roll to my feet, axe in hand again.

  He laughed. "You do not care for the fact that I brought a woman to bed?"

  "You do with your cock what you wish, Halfdan of the Danes. Keep it far from me."

  He closed on me and I swung, he met it and twisted my axe away.

  "You watched. Did you like what you saw?"

  "Fuck you."

  He was unprepared for the ferocity I turned on him. I ran at him and nearly succeeded in injuring his arm, he only just skipped out of the way.

  He danced back, then came at me, this time my axe spun away, and he put the blade of his to my neck.

  "Anger will cost you your life. When you fight you must do so with calm. I will teach you, vixen. Because you are valuable with such skill. But you will not use your anger against me. I did nothing to you."

  "I am your thrall! I say that is far from nothing!"

  He smacked me lightly across the face. "Enough. If you prefer me to take you to bed, I wil
l do so. You need only ask."

  I snarled and lifted my knee into his crotch.

  He grunted. I could see fury come over his face as his eyes narrowed and his lips drew down. He threw me over his shoulder and carried me, kicking and swearing, to the barn to toss into the pile of horse shit that had been mucked from the stall.

  "I ought to beat you." He stood, arms crossed, to stare at me.

  I slid when I tried to gain my footing to fight him, landed on my ass again, then sat to fume up at him.

  He raised his finger at me. "Once more, vixen. Try me once more and I will beat that pretty ass of yours until you cannot sit for a week."

  "Fuck you, Halfdan of the Danes."

  He turned and left me where I was. Anger roiled in my chest at the man. Damn him for everything that he was. No man should be allowed to get away with the things he did.

  I managed to gain my feet and gingerly make my way out of the manure pile. I heard the door slam and then the sleep fuzzed voice of the woman he'd bedded the night before.

  "Halfdan?"

  His anger was only too obvious in his tone when he snapped at her. "Out. Go. Now."

  "What is wrong with you?"

  "Out."

  A moment later, she was on the porch, her overdress in her arms. She didn't spare me a look, just hurried up the path and away.

  I wondered what the thrall yet inside thought of his treatment of women. Did she find him as deplorable as did I?

  Whatever the case, I made my way to the dock that jutted out into the sea. I had to wash myself and my clothing before I considered any other move at all.

  10

  I just started to remove my clothes when Eowils rode into the yard. He glanced at me and his eyes widen as he took in my current state. Then he shook his head, dismounted, and went into the house.

  He left the outer door open and I could hear them when they spoke.

  "Your woman is covered in shit, Halfdan."

  "Good. A lesson,"

  "She is trouble, that one."

  "She is resentful."

  "Resentful?" I could almost imagine Eowils's brows go up. "Of?"

  "How she is treated. What I did to her; to teach her, and to make her strong. And, the woman I brought home."

  Eowils sighed. "She is not your wife, Halfdan. She is a thrall, nothing more. Remind her."