by M. E. Sháen
“Why? I am a thrall. I am not a Dane. And I am not the woman on whose thighs you find comfort. Why, Halfdan? What did I do to make you offer me this?”
The sweep of my arm encompassed the farm.
“My children are not old enough to assume the responsibility. You are quick, you wish to learn, and you do what you must to keep it that way.”
I stared at him. “Your brother works this land, who is kin of you. It should be his upon your death."
“Perhaps, vixen, I wish for my brother another fate.”
“And you can choose his fate, then?”
He smiled at me. “I chose yours.”
“You took a thrall! By the gods, you are the most annoying man I ever met!”
I climbed to my feet to stomp away.
“You want me!” He yelled after me.
Bjorn brought a full pitcher and a meal back from the house. He sat by his father.
“What do you do? You angered Nerys Elen?”
Halfdan lifted his gaze to his sons. “You ought to know that women have little aptitude for patience, Bjorn. Nerys Elen doubly so.”
Bjorn untied the cloth in his hands. “Blythe made bread and there was fresh cheese.”
He tousled the boy’s hair. “You did good. And how was Blythe this day?”
“Why does she fear us, father?”
“They raised her to fear her god and to find us evil.”
“Evil?” Bjorn asked.
There they sat while I worked, not far away. Eowils was in the next field with a handful of thralls.
“We do not live as they do, Bjorn. Our laws are different. Our gods are different. Blythe is unsure of us.”
“Nerys Elen is not.”
“She adapts, changes to what is around her. Strong, you see? Like a tree that stays upright in a storm. If it moves with the wind, bends to the power that tries to overwhelm it.”
Halfdan shrugged at that. “It remains to be seen.”
16
After the meal, Halfdan sat on the porch of the house, wooden sword in one hand, ale in the other. Below him, Bjorn held his own sword and attempted to do as instructed. Frida, Blythe, and I sat on the other end of the porch to spin wool and speak amongst ourselves.
“And the god says the death of his son saves you?”
“Yes, child, he was called Jesus. He died so that we may live.”
“And this was for all people, not just his own?”
“It was. He was a man who believed that anyone may be saved, despite what they believe right now,” Blythe explained.
I huffed a laugh, though I kept her thoughts to myself.
“It seems an odd way to show his love, this god,” Frida’s words were slow as she thought it through. “He gives a woman a baby without getting on her thighs. But then he lets this son die for crimes you say he did not commit? Not a good father,”
I saw Halfdan put his hand over his mouth. Did this amuse him?
“In order for us to be saved and live forever, he died for us. For our sins.”
“What sins?” Frida shook her head. “I have not sinned. You said sin is evilness.”
“You are born with the sin of Eve on you,” I said.
“Who?”
Blythe smiled. “In the beginning, there was a man and his name was Adam. He was alone and asked God for a mate and he created Eve as his wife and helpmeet.”
“Then it was your god who sinned.”
Blythe gasped. “He is God. He is incapable of sin.”
“Frida, the story is that this man and woman lived in a perfect garden and God gave them much freedom. A devil tempted Eve to eat off a tree that gave knowledge. She did thus, and that was the sin.”
“You do not believe that, do you, Nerys Elen?”
“No, I do not. It is a story, nothing more.”
“It is the truth, Nerys Elen.”
“Can we not agree that there is more than a single way to see this, Blythe? I never cared what any man believes, so long as he believes it in his heart. Why must you insist to me that this is true when I have said I do not believe?”
“So in your story, it is Adam and Eve?” Frida ignored our bickering. “In the story I know, their names are Ask and Embla. Odin made them from wood that Odin and his brothers found upon the ground. Odin gifted them a spirit, Hœnir gave them the ability to think, and life and Lothur gave them blood. Is it not the same story?”
“It sounds much to me,” Halfdan said.
I grinned at the distaff in her hands. Of course, he could not remain silent while we spoke.
“What story were you told as a child?”
I glanced at him. “It was much the same. The first god was Eiocha, and she was born where the sea met the land. She birthed Cernunnos. He laid upon her thighs, and the other gods were born. And the gods created us from the oaks.”
“It is all blasphemous nonsense,”
“Oh Blythe, even at one time your people believed much as mine. Do not all these stories have some common elements? Trees and names? Are they not similar? What is wrong with seeing the gods in other ways?”
“Because it is wrong.”
“Then we will agree to disagree,” I replied.
I set aside my distaff and wandered to where Bjorn learned from Halfdan. I squatted next to him.
“You see he pays little attention. Watch his eyes, when he does not watch you, then he is weakest and can be bested.”
“Mm, you seek to teach my son?”
“I seek to see him best you.”
He laughed. “One day he will.”
“Could you defeat us together?”
He sat forward, unable to keep a sly smile from his lips. “You wish to try?”
“Give me a sword.”
He tossed me the wooden sword he held.
“What will you use?”
He hefted his axe.
Bjorn looked between us, then tugged my dress. “Come, you are with me.”
Halfdan rose, axe only half raised. “Do as you will.”
“It is unseemly, Nerys Elen.”
“Really Blythe, there is no wrong in a woman having worth in battle.”
Halfdan chuckled, turned his gaze to me as I circled right. Bjorn went left, though not as wide. He locked eyes with me, turned a bit as I continued to move around him. He stepped into my attack as I thrust the sword at him. The wood bounced off the handle of his axe and he nodded.
“It is not so easy.”
Bjorn had come to his other side. He let the axe dip to parry his son’s attack, then spun away from mine.
“You are not united in your attacks. You will not best me this way.”
I prowled around him to back him into the house. He moved with me and the distance equal. He turned his body far enough to catch Bjorn’s sword with the axe head, then turned back to capture my arm when I raised my sword overhead.
“Better. But not good enough.”
“You would allow her to best you?”
He glanced at the two girls still seated on the porch. “Should she ever be capable of it, then yes.”
He turned back in time for a coordinated attack. With Bjorn, he merely smacked away the sword, sending it spinning into the dirt. He caught me, knocked my sword away with the butt of the axe, then yanked me off my feet.
I rose to dust myself off.
“Perhaps on the morrow, I will show you how to use a bow.” He took his seat on the porch again. “Blythe, do you know the lands around the cloister where we found you?”
My brows went up. He shook his head at me to stop me before I spoke. I turned back to my distaff.
“I grew up near it. Why?”
He let his gaze travel to the lake. I suppose he tried not to spook her.
“Oh, I wonder what it is like there. Why do so many women and men go to these cloisters? Is not life beyond their walls worth living?”
“We give our lives to God.”
“But why? Were conditions so poor thereabouts to
send you to your God?”
“No, of course not. They knew my family well in our town. My father was a yeoman for the local lord.”
“Yes? Then you gave yourself to the Christ god willingly and not to escape poor conditions.”
She nodded. “I suppose that is the truth of it, master Halfdan.”
He almost spit ale. “Who?” He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.
The girl actually cringed. Frida rubbed her arm. A kindness that made me realize he taught more than fighting and war.
“Master Erick said I should use that to refer to you all.”
I smirked when Halfdan met my gaze.
“I, ahm.” he cleared his throat. “Halfdan is fine, Blythe.”
She actually blushed, her face hot where he gazed at her. “It is wrong.”
“You could draw a map of your town? How it relates to the cloister?”
Onward and upward, I thought. Perhaps he could yet get what he needed.
“Yes. I could do so.”
“And explain it to the Jarl, should he ask detail of you?”
“Of course.”
He smiled. “I have a task for you.”
17
And so it was that Halfdan found himself with six fully crewed ships not three days later.
I remained at the house with the children while he took Blythe to visit Jarl Thorsson.
I was outside weaving nets when they returned. I could see that the return trip left him giddy with anticipation.
“Take the horse, see that she’s fed and watered, rubbed down,” he told Blythe as he hopped off.
“As you say, master Halfdan.”
He snorted but continued to me. “She did it, vixen. I have the ships I sought. And you to thank for it.”
“Blythe did her part. You will find coin for her upon your return.”
“Yes, of course. I must prepare to depart. Frida and Bjorn will be safe here with you while I am gone.”
“You will not send them away this time?”
He shook his head. “No.”
“I will keep them safe.”
“You seem not pleased, vixen.”
“There was a man. Before.”
My plan was not to mention the man, but Halfdan saw into me too easily. I wrapped my hands around my elbows.
“What man?” Confused, he peered into my eyes.
“He walked beyond the house,” I gestured toward the back of the yard. “I sought to speak to him, but he would not lift his gaze to mine.”
“What did he look like, this man?”
“He wore a cloak, the hood lifted. I could not well see his face. His hair was white. I think he had only one eye.”
Despite the warmth of the day, I shivered.
“Perhaps the gods make themselves known to you. Perhaps Odin.”
“They are not my gods.”
“They are the gods of this land, vixen.”
“As you say then. You will leave me some weapon to protect us if need be?”
“You will have an axe.”
Satisfied that I could protect myself, I nodded and offered him a smile.
He required my help in preparing for the trip across the seas. There was food to gather and barrel, weapons to hone to deadly sharpness, and armor to mend.
I spent two days mending his leathers. He brought a chainmail shirt from town, having paid the blacksmith to make it.
Eowils came and went during that time. He rarely spoke to me as he preferred the company of his brother on those trips to the house.
We silently agreed that what he did to me before would no longer arise in conversation. Though I well remembered his treatment, I know it is unlikely he would try again.
I took Blythe, Frida, and Bjorn to see the ships off on their journey a week later.
Despite the voices of the townsfolk lifted in farewell, I could hear Eowils when he spoke.
“She will be gone when you return.”
“No.”
“You left her alone and unguarded. She will be gone.”
That Halfdan trusted me was unquestionable. But what did it mean for me?
It would be many weeks before I found out.
The raiders returned after two weeks. Blythe, the children, and I were at the little altar behind the house when the sound of hooves came to us.
“A single rider?” Blythe turned her wide-eyed gaze to me.
“Perhaps Eowils went home.”
I rose to hear Halfdan call me. “Not here, brother. I said it would be as much.”
Then they came around the corner.
“Halfdan!”
He nodded as he slipped sideways. Eowils caught him. I drew up a short, narrowed gaze on his shoulder.
“You were wounded.”
“A scratch,” he muttered. “Am I no longer the Dane?”
I blinked up at Eowils who shook his head.
“He grows ill from it. I will fetch the healer. He must have rest.”
I caught Halfdan on my shoulder as he drifted further to the side.
“Come on. You have a sickness in that wound.”
“It is nothing.”
I half dragged, half walked him to the house and the bed where I eased his tunic off to better see the wound.
“Oh.” I schooled my face to a careful blank when I saw the narrow tendrils of red that ran straight as an arrow from a gash that had not yet begun to heal and toward his heart.
“Will I die, vixen?” He meant it as a joke.
I scowled. “It would serve you right, Halfdan Hringrson.”
I turned to Frida. “Bring water and cloths. Bjorn, go with Eowils for the healer.”
His eyes slipped shut. “I like when you,” he swallowed a groan when I prodded the wound softly, “when you speak my name.”
“Then I shall use it more often should you yet live another day,”
The healer could do nothing with him and so I had to take over.
“You are an idiot, Halfdan. Truly. Did you not even see the man before he attacked you? Or did you simply stand there and wait for the blow? Were that I knew better, I would think you did it on purpose so as not to have to harvest your fields.”
He grunted, winced when I placed the poultice from the healer on the wound.
“Keep it on him to draw out the poison if he will listen to you.”
“He listens to no one,” came my prompt retort to the healer. “I will do what I can with him.”
The man placed something on the table. “Give this to him if the pain grows. I will return tomorrow.”
Then he was gone and Eowils came to the side of the bed to loom over me.
“She’s right. You are an idiot.”
Halfdan nodded. “So I hear.”
Eowils just sneered at that. “Take care of him, woman.”
“I intend him to remain alive,” I said.
He grumbled something that sounded suspiciously like bitch. I chose to ignore him.
“Because he must be well enough that I may kill him.”
Eowils’s eyes grew wider and he opened his mouth to say more.
“I am fine in her care,” he rushed in before his brother could grow angry.
With a shake of his head, Eowils turned away. “I will come tomorrow to check on you.”
“Goodnight, brother.”
I sat on the edge of the bed once we were alone. “You look terrible.”
“Mm,”
“And you reek. Did you roll in shit to get so sick with this wound? You smell worse than any man I’ve known.”
“And how many is that?”
I shook my head at him. “Can you eat?”
“No.”
“Then you must rest and heal. There is much to discuss.”
18
I was tucked against his side when he woke some time later, one hand atop his belly. I opened my eyes when he shifted.
“How do you feel?” I rubbed my eyes.
Exhaustion pulled at me after a long and
sleepless night.
“I have to piss.”
“Do you need help?”
“Holding my dick?” He shook his head and tried to rise, misjudged how dizzy he still was, and fell back with a groan.
“Are you certain?” I offered him the smug grin I reserved only for when he was at his most idiotic in my presence.
“A cup?” He suggested.
I rose without comment, fetched a cup, then helped him sit so that he could lean against the wall.
I loosened his trousers when he only fiddled the ties to a knot.
He pissed in the cup I held, then dropped to his back, too exhausted to consider moving.
I dumped it outside. When I returned, I tried to make him more comfortable.
“I take it you do not want my farm,” he whispered once he was again beneath the furs.
“Halfdan.” I stopped to shake my head. My reaction to his injury gave me pause. I could not and would not explain it to him. “You ought to rest,” I finished.
“My head aches.”
He sounded so petulant it brought a smile to my lips.
“Here.”
He drank the mead laced with healing herbs I offered.
I lay next to him then, to peer at the ceiling as he did.
“What is it like?”
“What?”
“To have a man.”
He considered that. “I cannot say. I’ve never had one.”
“But you are one. What does it feel like?”
“To fuck?” He let his head fall to the side to stare at me. “Do you wish to find out?”
I clucked my tongue. “I mean, do you make it feel good? Does it feel good?”
“Nerys Elen, my head aches.” He let his eyes drift shut. “I’ve had no complaints. I will show you when I am better.”
“I did not say I wanted,”
“You do not have to, vixen,” he interrupted. “It was true the first night you arrived.”
I turned to face him. I thought to argue with the truth he proclaimed. Yet my heart no longer needed to hurt him to heal.
His trust during his absence and his wish to teach me, even when we argued, had lifted me above rage at being kidnapped from a place I hated. He provided me an opportunity, not slavery.