The Northmen Series Box Set

by T S Florence

  “Thank you, Torsten,” Ragnar said.

  “She’s inside,” Torsten nodded towards the farmhouse.

  Ragnar was beginning to feel sick at the thought of people turning against Rose. No matter how much he wanted her to come back to him, he did not want it to be because of people turning against her. He did not want her sad, let alone in danger.

  He had sent his men to their families before he had entered Rose’s land. Once he arrived, he tied his horse off at the front of the house.

  “Rose,” Ragnar shouted.

  “Ragnar?” A quiet voice sounded from inside.

  He opened the door without waiting for her. She was just several feet from the door, which she had obviously been on her way to open.

  “Hello,” Rose said, looking up at him.

  “If your safety is in question, then you must change your living arrangements,” Ragnar said.

  “I am perfectly safe,” Rose clipped.

  “It doesn’t seem that way,” Ragnar said.

  “If Torsten has been telling you stories, it’s just because he is overly worried. He’s afraid of failing you,” Rose said.

  “Torsten is a capable warrior. And part of a warrior’s job is to watch things carefully. To watch any potential outbreaks of fights. And he tells me he is noticing things,” Ragnar said.

  “Ragnar-” Rose began.

  “Your safety is of my concern if you are carrying my child,” Ragnar growled.

  “If I feel unsafe, I will let you know,” Rose said.

  “That is all I can ask. If I see something myself, I will be intervening,” Ragnar said.

  “Ok Ragnar,” Rose said.

  Ragnar rode his horse back into the dark city, where most people were in their houses, save for the large gathering of people outside a local church - at least one hundred people.

  “And we must strike down all those who bear children with heathens,” An old woman said, his hand balled into a fist and shook above her head.

  “Strike down the traitors,” other men and women started to agree amongst the crowd.

  “We go tonight, we kill the treacherous sinners,” the woman shouted.

  “Hang the sinners,” The crowd began to chant.

  Ragnar, like any warrior, could see when a fight was about to start, but even a peasant could tell that trouble was imminent on that night.

  He kicked his feet hard into his horse, his knuckles white from his grip on the horse’s reigns.

  Rose

  “This bread is lovely, Brenna,” Rose chewed on the crust of the warm bread, letting herself sink into the texture of the freshly baked goodness, mixed with the butter that she had gotten from a neighbouring dairy farm. She sat back, appreciating everything that had happened in the last six months. The only thing she missed from Fyrkat was Elder Ragnar. She was English in her heart, and being home made her feel more whole. She was Rose again.

  “I’ve never eaten bread so good, my love,” Torsten gripped Brenna’s leg.

  “Truly?” Brenna beamed at her viking.

  “I look forward to eating this bread when I am fat and old and can’t lift a sword any longer,” Torsten said.

  “So you will need to keep me around then,” Brenna smirked.

  “Only if you will let me keep you,” Torsten said.

  Rose rolled her eyes. She loved them, and she was glad that Brenna was happy, but it was non-stop. They were so over the top in love that it made her feel suffocated. How could two people be so happy together? Why didn’t they fight? Was it because Brenna was never Torsten’s slave? Or was it because Brenna never had to deal with being abandoned by Torsten?

  Rose caught herself in the middle of her thoughts, and recognised that she was feeling jealous, more than anything. She would have loved to know what Ragnar thought of the blanket that she had given him, before he went south. She didn’t want to ask him when he came to her farm, for fear of looking desperate of his approval. His compliment of her expanding marketplace had made her whole week. It made the horrible comments seem insignificant in comparison.

  One of the sheepdogs began to bark into the night. “Do you hear that?” Torsten asked, his voice cautious.

  “The dogs are always barking at nothing,” Rose said.

  “No, I hear something too,” Brenna said.

  Rose sat up, taking more care to try and hear any noise. Sure enough, a faint sound of voices began to find its way across the surrounding fields. It was still too far away to make out any words.

  “Probably just travellers passing by,” Rose said, though her stomach began to turn on itself, and she thought of the baby.

  Torsten went to the door and looked out, “There’s people coming. They have torches lit. There’s a lot of them,” his voice was low and serious.

  “Get up, quickly. We need to hide,” Torsten said.

  “I will not hide,” Rose said, despite the feeling of fear prickling across the back of her neck.

  “You will hide,” Torsten growled. For the first time, he was not careful and kind. His mind had switched to his training.

  He buckled his sword belt around his waist, and put a hand axe through a loophole.

  “Brenna, are you ready, my love?” Torsten asked.

  “What do they want?” The white of Brenna’s eyes shone out through the room, her fear palpable.

  “This is a mistake,” Rose said, more trying to calm herself. She noticed that her hands were over her stomach, which is where they seemed to go most of the time, of late.

  “Rose,” Torsten said, urgency in his voice.

  “Very well,” Rose said, agreeing with Torsten, “where are we going?”

  “In the fields behind the house,” Torsten said.

  “We’ve done nothing wrong, we should not be hiding,” Rose whispered, as they watched people enter the house without knocking. “They didn’t even knock,” she said, shocked.

  “They don’t care what we think we have or have not done, and they did not bring good manners with them tonight,” Torsten said quietly.

  Rose’s skin broke out in goose bumps. Her mother. She made out her mother’s face in the torchlight. She could hear her addressing the crowd.

  “They are near. They are likely hiding in the darkness, with the devil, putting curses on us as we stand here. Search! Search the fields for them,” Elsbeth commanded the group.

  A soft cry left Rose’s lips. Her own mother was out to get her. But what was her intention? Did she wish to scare Rose into becoming religious? Or was it something more sinister?

  Men began to walk in a line, slowly closing the distance between their three dead-still bodies, lying in the field.

  “We’re in trouble,” Brenna said.

  “When I say now, I want you to both run into the darkness. Aim for the woods. I will take care of these men,” Torsten said.

  “My love - you cannot, there is too many of them. They will kill you!” Brenna said.

  “This is not a time for discussion,” Torsten growled, “this is a time to obey,” he said.

  “You cannot command me, I am not your slave,” Brenna said.

  The word made Rose flinch. “Rose - I’” Brenna began.

  “It’s ok, we have more important things to worry about here,” Rose said, as she gripped Brenna’s hand.

  “I see something,” one man said, as he began to pick up his pace towards them.

  “Now,” Torsten shouted. He leaped from his position and pulled his sword out with lightning speed. In the blink of an eye his sword was in the man’s stomach, and the man who had found them was now whimpering, holding the blade and looking at his own stomach in disbelief.

  “Say hello to your god for me,” Torsten said in his native tongue, before he kicked the man backwards.

  The advancement of men with torches stopped, and Rose and Brenna jumped to their feet.

  “I said go,” Torsten said to the two girls, without taking his eyes off the men.

  These were not trained
soldiers, even Rose could tell. These were normal everyday people, and… Egbert. Egbert was here too. Rose was not surprised that he had come, more so that she had recognised another face in the crowd. There was more, she was sure, than just Egbert and her own mother, who had come for her blood.

  “No,” Rose said. She stopped running.

  “We stay?” Brenna asked

  “We stay,” Rose said.

  “Then we all die,” Torsten growled, as he levelled his sword, preparing for a battle.

  Another man came forward, swinging a scythe, in a low and clean sweep, but Torsten was too quick. He stepped back, and whipped his sword forwards, slicing through the wooden handle of the scythe. The aggressor, wide eyed, looked up at Torsten and realised his failure. He was not a battle-hardened man. A short poke, and Torsten’s sword pierced through his eye, causing the man to howl in pain.

  But the aggressor’s attention was elsewhere. A thunderous noise echoed through the night air, and became louder with each breath. More torch lights. They would not see another day, Rose thought. What a fool she had been, running from Ragnar, the one man who wanted to protect her, she thought. And her unborn child, the one living thing that relied on her for its life, and she had failed it before it was even born.

  “I’m sorry,” Rose whispered silently, as she clutched her stomach.

  Rose’s mother, Elsbeth, started towards her, pushing her way through the distracted men, and lurched at Rose.

  She fell short. Torsten had stuck out his foot, causing her to fall harmlessly into the long grass.

  “Devil child,” Rose’s mother gasped, as she clawed at Rose’s legs.

  “My child is no devil,” Rose snapped, as she stepped back from her mother’s grasp.

  “What child? You have no child,” Elsbeth said.

  The thundering of horse hooves grew louder in the still night. Men began to disperse into the darkness, putting out their torches.

  “I’m pregnant,” Rose said to her mother.

  “You’re having a child?” She asked, as if returning to sanity.

  “Yes,” Rose said.

  “Whore,” Elsbeth spat, “Sinner! Un married! No man will ever want you, you traitor, may god have mercy on your soul.”

  Tears began to well in the corner of Rose’s eyes.

  “May god have mercy on yours, for you’re the hateful one,” Rose said.

  But her attention was turning elsewhere. The outline of men on horses began to form. They were within shouting distance, and within just a few breaths, they were on Rose’s property. The man leading the charge was immense. He sat atop his horse, huge and powerful. He rode his horse standing in his stirrups, with a sword in one hand, which was already dripping red.

  “Rose,” The man bellowed, causing the men who had not yet deserted their mission to shrink back in fear.

  “Ragnar,” Rose breathed a sigh of relief.

  “Where are you? I cannot see” Ragnar’s voice was a blunt force to Rose’s fear, destroying it. His mere energy was a presence that brought life back to the farm.

  “I’m here, Ragnar,” Rose said, though her throat was still tight with nerves, and she could not speak loudly.

  He turned in her direction, leaped from his horse with the grace of a man half his size, and found her before she could steady her heart.

  “Round them up,” Ragnar bellowed, before he turned to face her.

  He had only arrived with six other men, all of whom were Isla’s house guard.

  “What are Isla’s men doing with you?” Rose asked, knowing the banality of the question, considering the situation.

  “I told them to follow me or die,” Ragnar said. “I saw that crazy woman, stirring a frenzy in the town. She was creating a mob to come and kill the heathens. Even I could see they were speaking of the viking farmers on the outskirts of Newcastle,” Ragnar said, nodding towards Elsbeth, who lay in the grass, sobbing.

  “Meet Elsbeth, my mother,” Rose said.

  “You’re serious?” Ragnar’s voice was coarse with disbelief.

  “I believe my father’s death and my disappearance sent her mad. Now she thinks me a traitor, and wants me dead,” Rose said.

  “I would never allow it,” Ragnar replied.

  “Thank you, Ragnar,” Rose said.

  “For what?” Ragnar asked.

  “You have saved my life for a third time, now,” Rose said.

  “Third?” Ragnar asked.

  “First, on Fyrkat’s shores. Second, when you killed that poor man Dag, and third, right now,” Rose said, quietly.

  “You can thank me when you’ve calmed down,” Ragnar said, eyeing her stomach.

  “What do you mean? Rose asked.

  “You’re coming to live in the city with me, again,” Ragnar said.

  “Why can’t you stay here?” Rose asked, gesturing to the farm.

  “It’s not safe,” Ragnar said.

  “Then I should live my life in fear?” Rose asked.

  “You’re coming with me,” Ragnar said.

  It was in that moment that Rose thought back to Fyrkat. She thought of Elder Ragnar, of the kind people of the small village, people who were not devoted to Jesus, the god of the English. The religion was not how she remembered it, nor the people who worshipped him.

  46

  Ragnar

  Ragnar could not sleep, unlike Rose, who fell asleep the second he lay her head down on the pillow. He had ordered several men to stay on the farm and make sure that no animals were stolen, or the farm house ransacked.

  Rose still slept as Ragnar towelled himself dry after a long soak in the bath. He stood in the morning light, watching her belly rise and fall with each breath. A small bump was taking form in her stomach. He had to marry her now. He needed to protect her. Rose was not Isla. She could not marry a Viking without people turning against her. She was too unusual for these people. Her English accent, tainted by her years spent in Fyrkat, left her speaking not like a viking, but not like an English woman either.

  He would claim her. Show the world she was his, whether she wanted it or not.

  Rose

  Rose woke to an empty room. Ragnar was awake most mornings before her, so this was nothing unusual. She looked in the corner of the room, where her two large sacks of gold sat. There was enough there for a lifetime ten times over. She was rich. Yet it felt meaningless. What did gold matter if her life, and her child’s life, was in danger? Money could buy protection, but only until that protection was outbid. Except for Ragnar. But Rose did not want Ragnar to be her protection. She did not want him serving a purpose in her life. She did not want the constant threat of danger to be an ever-present stressor on his life, on their child’s life.

  She knew what she needed to do.

  Ragnar

  “Hurry, priest,” Ragnar said to the old man, as he fussed with the rope that held his robes together. “You priests worry so much about your looks, when you cannot lay with women anyway, I do not understand it,” Ragnar said.

  “We priests are an earthly extension of our Lord. We represent our Lord with the self-respect that our position demands” the priest replied.

  “That means playing with your rope?” Ragnar laughed at the implication of his question.

  “The Lord does not take kindly to sexual innuendos,” the priest said, his cheeks rosy with embarrassment.

  Eventually, Ragnar became impatient and dragged the priest from his home. “Go and get your church ready, priest,” Ragnar started a quick pace back to his roman palace.

  But what he found when he arrived back in his home was the last thing he expected. “Uh, Ragnar, I’m sorry old friend,” Jack said, as he scratched the back of his head.

  “What’s are you doing you traitorous English turd?” Ragnar grabbed Jack by the scruff of his shirt, pulling him close to his face.

  “I’m helping protect my sister,” Jack pushed against Ragnar, to afford himself some degree of space.

  “Protect her from
what?” Ragnar growled.