by T S Florence
“I’m here to tell you that Skald is on his way,” Freya said.
“He killed two of my men,” Isla said.
“I know,” Freya said, quietly.
“He also killed at least five of my men,” Ivar said.
“I know,” Freya said again.
“Why?” Isla asked.
“Because I was kidnapped by Cnut Foxhair, and Skald was making his way back to stop them from taking me unwillingly and killing me,” Freya said.
“And the reason for killing my men?” Isla asked.
“I cannot answer that for Skald,” Freya said, for she truly did not know what the Englishmen had done to be killed by Skald.
“It cannot go unpunished,” Isla said, gravely.
“He’s one of my blood warriors,” Ivar said to Isla quietly.
“Not now, Ivar,” Isla said to him.
“I cannot watch one of my men punished,” Ivar said.
“Then any of your men should be allowed to kill my men?” Isla said, frowning at him.
“And why are we to believe your story?” Isla turned back to Freya.
“I… because it’s the truth?” Freya asked, uncertainly.
A commotion began to erupt outside the castle’s front door, and the guards were shouting, before the doors flung open, and Skald stepped inside. He looked like the warlord that he was. His black wolfskin hung from his shoulders, his sword in his hand… and Freya’s bow… across his back. Her lips parted slightly, wondering how it was that he managed to find her bow, again.
He was a terrifying sight, even Freya saw that, as he walked towards them. His face was set hard in a deep scowl, as he dragged a viking behind him.
“What is this?” Isla asked.
“This is the man who aided Cnut Foxhair in the kidnapping of my wife,” Skald said.
“You’ve had a hard time,” Isla said more quietly, turning to Freya.
Freya shrugged her shoulders, afraid of the decision that Isla would come to.
“He intended to take my wife unwillingly, and then kill her,” Skald growled.
“Why haven’t you killed him?” Isla said.
“Because he’s a witness,” Ivar laughed, at her innocent question.
“Of course,” Isla said, sitting more upright.
“And now, I will kill him, if Freya grants it,” Skald turned towards her.
For the first time, a man who had done something to Freya, Skald had not killed him without first asking Freya, and she knew that all her words were not falling on deaf ears. He did listen to her. He did care about how she felt regarding his killing of men in her name. Her heart quickened as she looked at the man.
“Cnut was a hard man,” he pleaded, “I didn’t have a choice,” he said.
“And you would not harm me again?” Freya asked.
“No,” The man said, his face disbelief that she was actually considering letting him go.
“Then you tell the men that Freya was forgiving, and let you live,” Freya said to him, taking Skald’s sword that he had not given to the guards, and cut the man free.
“Thank you, Freya,” he said, kissing her shoes, before scrambling to his feet.
“You will forever have my loyalty,” he said, lowering his head.
“Thank you. You can leave now,” Freya said.
“Go home, Brunson,” Skald clipped the man over the back of the head, pushing him towards the door.
“Skald,” Freya hissed, embarrassed at his behaviour.
“I would have killed him,” Skald said, displeased.
“I know,” Freya rolled her eyes, before turning back to a bemused Isla and Ivar. Ragnar stood to the side, amusement on his face at the entire situation.
“As to your punishment,” Isla said to Skald.
Ivar turned to her, his face hard, readying to protest. Skald stood, emotionless before the princess.
“Yes,” he said.
“I would have you stay within Newcastle for the next year, until I can see that you can behave yourself around my Englishmen,” Isla said, looking at him, before continuing, “And Freya, as Skald is your husband, I would have you stay in this castle, close to me, so I can ensure that I get to know you better,” Isla said, looking towards her.
“Yes, princess,” Freya said.
“I would want to go back to my cottage by the lake-” Skald said, beginning to protest, before Freya elbowed him in the ribs, causing Ragnar to laugh.
Freya thought back to the moment that Isla promised Freya that she would let her stay in Newcastle. The night that she had sent Cnut away as they sat by the river. She had used the death of her men as an opportunity to give Freya what she had promised, and avoided any real punishment against Skald, for an action that most men would be killed for.
34
SKALD
One year later
“You’re a free man,” Ivar said to Skald, as they walked the boundary of the castle.
“I’ve never been more free in my life, this past year,” Skald laughed at the irony of his being confined to the castle, which did not feel like a punishment at all, for it allowed him to spend almost every hour of every day with his beautiful wife, and his new baby boy, Dane.
“Do you think you could take your boy, Dane, away from our daughter?” Ivar asked, referring to his and Isla’s daughter, Princess Rose.
“I don’t think it matters what I want,” Skald said, looking back at their wives, as they cooed and played with their babies, “Freya has fallen in love with this place. We will go back to our cottage from time to time, but Newcastle is our home now,” Skald said.
“We have many good years ahead of us, brother.” Ivar said.
“As do our son and daughter,” Skald said, smiling at his leader and friend.
Freya
Things could not have been more perfect. Freya had found a female friend, unlike any she had ever had in her life, with Isla. The two instantly connected, and their children had become best friends.
They had their children at the same time, Freya’s son only being born one month before Isla’s daughter. The two babies had an instant connection, it was easy to see.
“So are we still on for going to the cottage by the lake this weekend?” Freya asked Isla.
“Of course, I’ve heard so much about it, and now we don’t need to keep up this silly punishment with Skald,” Isla laughed.
In the next book…
Ragnar
Things in Newcastle were idyllic. Ragnar’s closest friends, Skald and Ivar, had borne small children with their beautiful wives, and there had not been any war for the last year. That was until news from home reached the shores of England.
Raiding vikings had pillaged their way through Ragnar’s home town, leaving destruction in their wake. Ragnar knew his ageing parents would not have been able to defend themselves from the attack, and their slave, and Ragnar’s closest friend since he was a child, Hilda, would likely have been taken.
But, sometimes fate had other plans for victims of raiding vikings, and land owners would be left alone, depending on the particular viking who raided their farm, Ragnar knew this.
“I need one hundred and fifty men. I’m going to Norway,” Ragnar said to Ivar.
“May the gods have mercy on your loved ones, and find the bastards who did this. You will need four good ships,” Ivar said to Ragnar.
And so Ragnar’s journey would begin. At the onset of winter, he would prepare himself for a journey that few men relished. Open sea at winter. Cold and unforgiving, and a journey that often left many men dead.
“I will fight my way through all the viking lands until I find the truth of what happened,” Ragnar said, the joy in his voice gone.
Ragnar the Destroyer left Newcastle with one hundred and fifty loyal men, hungry for revenge and glory.
Hilda
Hilda meant ‘the fighter,’ yet Hilda was anything but a fighter. She had been torn from her family’s hands at an age of only ten or eleven, befo
re she was bought by Ragnar’s family, to be put to use as an extra helper on their small piece of land. Ragnar had always been there to protect her, that is, until he left with Ivar the Cruel, and his father, Bjorn the Fearless, to go raiding lands across the seas.
He never returned. And Hilda would never forgive him for that. He always swore to protect her. Even though she was a slave, he told her that he loved her and would come back for her. He did not. He lied. And now, she had been taken again. At the age of just eighteen years old, she would be sold to a rich man, who would likely abuse her and take her unwillingly.
This is your fault, Ragnar. You should have been here. You should have protected your family.
Hilda’s wrists bled from the coarse rope that bound them, preventing her escape, as she was pushed onto a boat.
“Where are we going?” She asked a huge, terrifying warrior.
“Shut up slave,” he said.
And so, Hilda watched the township of Fyrkat shrink onto the horizon, the place that Hilda had known since she was a small girl, as they headed out into the cold, dark ocean, with horrible men who had killed their families. Children and women cried alike, for the loss of their families, and their new lives that were being forced upon them.
Some of these people had never been slaves before in their lives, but Hilda had been through this before. She knew that she was lucky the first time, but she also knew that, often times, girls her age were bought for different reasons, and that this time, her experience would be different.
She hugged at her stomach, as she huddled between women who were once above her, but now, were equal to her, with no status to hold to their name.
Where are you, Ragnar?
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Epilogue
Twelve years earlier
Rose
Rose Draper was nine years old when she and her twin brother, Jack Draper, were beginning to learn the basics of their father’s wool business. He was the most renowned wool merchant in all of Kingston, a prosperous township on the eastern coast of England, which had a strong family name on the crown. They had one of the best harbours in the region, because of the narrow peninsula that jutted into their territory, giving it shelter from the rough, open seas. Their parents ran a large estate with many sheep. During sheering season, Rose and Jack helped their father sheer their sheep, alongside the peasants that he hired for help.
“If you can sell one bag of wool for market price, then you can sell one hundred bags of wool for market price, and a man who can sell one hundred bags of wool is a man who will become rich,” Rose’s father would say to her and Jack. Jack never had the same interest in the business, but instead played with wooden swords with the other boys from neighbouring estates. He enjoyed sitting outside the house, carving weapons from wooden branches.
Their father wasn’t renowned just for the high quality wool, but the beautiful garments that their mother, Elsbeth, would make out of the wool. She would dye the wool and knit beautiful long dresses and tunics, hats, hand warmers, and woollen socks that would keep her feet warm in the cold winters that their windy oceanside township experienced. Jack and Rose wore the beautiful bright coloured garments all year round. Her parents would then sell the clothes in the markets as well.
On the first day of spring, when the markets began to open for the season, Rose and Jack would go with their mother and father down to the Kingston markets and sell their wool, before travelling up and down the eastern coast of England, going only as high as Newcastle, for going any further heightened the chance that raiding Scotsmen or Vikings would take all of their belongings.
They would go as low as Dover, where her father would take the family to see the great white cliffs that rose up from the ocean, which Elsbeth said was a sign that god himself created these lands for them.
“We were blessed by God with these lands,” Rose’s mother, Elsbeth, said to her as they looked out over the cliffs, the ocean crashing against the cliffs below. “These rich lands that the barbarian northmen want to take from us, which we must pray to god they never succeed in doing,” her mother would say.
They would travel to the nunnery and donate a portion of their profit to the nuns, who worked the fields to provide for the needy.
“Without nuns and priests, the world would surely be a darker place, for they care for the sick and injured when others would not,” her mother told her.
Rose and Jack would make friends with other children on their travels, and children always wanted to touch and wear their clothes, for Rose and Jack always had clothes as fine as those worn by princes and princesses. Jack was especially close to a girl in Newcastle called Isla. Since he was only five years old, Jack would race up the streets of Newcastle until he found Isla playing in the great hall of her father’s castle. They would play together, talking non-stop and laughing. Even Isla and her father, the famous Duke Henry, would buy the famous woollen clothing from Rose’s parents.
ten years earlier
Rose and Jack’s mother and father had the most successful season of their lives in the Spring when they turned eleven years old. They had bought an extra fifty sheep from the last season’s profits, and now they were headed to Newcastle, the richest township and castle, to sell their season’s haul. After selling the first season’s harvest alone would put them back in front of where they were just last season, her father said. Rose didn’t quite understand how they weren’t already ahead for they had so many beautiful sheep, but it made her happy to see her mother and father happy.
“Jack will stay here and look after you,” Rose’s father said to Elsbeth, “and Rose will come with me. We will return upon selling all of the wool, and then we will stay for as long as it takes for you to get better, my love,” Rose’s father said. He was deeply in love with their mother; he always had been. It was one of the benefits of simply being a rich trader, for he could marry for love instead of seeking out strong families to form alliances with.
“Rose and Jack, you can go play with the young Duchess Isla, but be back before lunch, for we must depart today,” Rose’s father said to the siblings. They were already running up the street as he finished his sentence.
Rose took Jack by his hand as they ran up the uneven cobbled road that led to Newcastle’s castle. The guards, recognising the children of the rich merchant, let them pass by without remark.
“Rose, Jack!” The young duchess, Isla, called out to the two siblings.
“Isla,” they called back.
“How was your winter?” She asked them both.
“Good. We have a present for you,” Rose said.
Rose handed her a bright red knitted jumper, causing Isla to squeal with delight.
“Your mother made this?” She asked.
“Yes!” Rose said.
Isla put the jumper on, pulling lightly at the edges, admiring the fine knitting and colour. After a brief period of excited chatter, the three of them went into the streets to find others to play with. Several boys were playing with a ball, which was a rare thing to see and had other children around them buzzing with excitement.
“Where did you get that?” Rose asked the boy who was holding onto the ball.
“Me dad makes em,” the boy said.
The boy was wearing a ratty tunic that had holes in the front from rolling on the ground.
“Do you have any more?” Rose asked.
“Yep, but we don’t give em away,” the boy said.
“Can I meet your father?” Rose asked.
“‘Course, he is just round the corner,” he said, taking Rose’s hand.
A group of excited children followed them, fighting over the leather ball that was the size of a grown man’s head. Rose saw the boy’s father in a smal
l cottage, sitting at a table, making more balls. There was a small pile of them in the corner of the cottage, which Rose assumed he intended to sell or trade.
“That’s him,” the boy said, before he ran back down the road with the rest of the children. Isla and Jack stayed with Rose as she stood at the door, waiting for the man to look up.