Palna gave him a look so brimming with rage it filled Sweyn with fear.
“If you touch her, I will lash the flesh off your back. Do you understand?”
Cowed, Sweyn looked down. He nodded grudgingly.
“Yes, Father.”
The wind tugged at Sigrid’s shift as she walked through the Jómsvíking camp, past the warriors sitting outside their tents sharpening their weapons, repairing their outfits, or playing board games. She scanned the men the whole time and finally found what she’d been looking for. Her cheeks reddened.
You will be mine, he had said yesterday. My beloved, he had tenderly whispered in her dream. Now he made a point of looking the other way. Sigrid’s heart sank in her chest. Why was he so contrarian? Had the things he had said just been a young man’s drunken ramblings, full of charming lies?
“What brings Toste’s daughter and her summer brides to our simple camp?” Palna asked.
Sigrid smiled at the scarred leader and said, “I’m looking for Beyla.”
“You’ll find my sister over there under the oak trees.” Palna pointed to a solitary tent at the edge of their camp.
A gust of wind kicked up a cloud of dust and a few drops of rain fell. Sigrid turned to Orm and her kinswomen.
“Wait here,” she instructed. She curiously watched Sweyn, who was still averting his gaze. “I have to do this alone.”
The seeress’s tent was surrounded by four oak trees, which whispered their welcome to Sigrid as she approached the grove. Dark shadows from the branches fell over Beyla’s tent, where Emma sat in front of a cold fire pit.
Emma’s hair hid her face, and she was filling a leather pouch with dirt and leaves as she squatted unsteadily on her toes as if extremely drunk.
Beyla was wearing a blue dress. A blue cloak embroidered with symbols lay beside her. She wore a simple necklace of bones and pieces of wood around her neck.
“Brísingamen,” Beyla said, putting her hand on her necklace.
Sigrid smiled. This was a simple test, but she knew the story of how Freya had slept with the four dwarf-smiths to get the gleaming necklace that had the power to conquer her enemies. When Freya returned home, everyone else saw only bones and wood when they looked at the necklace, and they thought she was crazy. And yet Freya was able to use it to defeat the enemy, and with Thor’s help they were all killed.
“Power comes in many guises,” Sigrid said.
Beyla nodded, relieved. That was the answer she was looking for.
“Well said,” the seeress replied and invited Sigrid into her tent.
It was small and smelled strange. Sigrid sat down on a fur pelt and looked at all the knapsacks and bags around her. The dried head of a fox hung from the roof and watched her through dark eye sockets.
Emma slipped in and curled up by a sack. She stared straight ahead but moved her lips as if she were having a silent conversation with something that could not be seen.
“What’s the matter with her?” Sigrid asked.
Beyla’s necklace rustled as she sat down next to Sigrid.
“Without Emma I wouldn’t have taken the risk of meeting you here. Harald has warned that anyone clinging to the old religion will be put to death. Even here in my brother’s camp we are not safe from the king’s spies.”
“Vanadís will burn them all to ash,” Sigrid said.
“We certainly hope so,” Beyla said with a smile. “Tell me, future queen of Svealand, what is it that you seek from a seeress?”
Sigrid took a breath and started to tell Beyla about the dís who fell as a shooting star, the wind that saved them in the Alva Woods, her dreams about the child and Sweyn.
“And then,” Sigrid continued, “Vanadís sent you to give me the answers I seek. Why did I dream about Sweyn if I’m to marry another man? What does Vanadís want me to do?”
Sigrid swallowed. Her mouth felt dry after she shared her many concerns.
Beyla looked at Emma, whose head drooped as she rocked back and forth.
“Do not be silent,” Sigrid urged. “Help me find the answers I so unwaveringly seek.” Having waited so long, her patience was at an end.
Beyla pursed her lips and gave her a stern look.
“It’s pitiable to hear you ask questions you already know the answers to. Vanadís has already said what she wants. What more do you wait for, Tostedotter? Should Freya carve your fate into a stone and hit you on the head with it?”
Emma burst out in shrill laughter. Sigrid looked at them both, taken aback. This was not what she’d been expecting.
“I’ve had no training at being a seeress,” Sigrid said. “I have no knowledge of the Hidden.”
“Tsk, tsk, tsk,” Beyla said shaking her head and clicking her tongue. “A seeress is something you are, not something you become.”
Sigrid gasped for breath. So this was truly who she was. She had been chosen, just as she had suspected—known—since she was a small child.
I thank you.
“Tell me, then, how I can serve the goddess,” she said, her heart pounding.
Beyla shook her head as if Sigrid were some lunatic simpleton. Then she blew life into an ember in the metal warming pan. She fed it with moss until a small flame flared up.
“If you have not understood that, then you truly deserve no answers.”
Sigrid looked into the flames, ashamed.
Beyla fed the flames with twigs and crumbled dried herbs. A heavy, pungent smoke spread through the tent. The mark on Sigrid’s wrist heated up and burned.
“The will of the goddess and the tapestry of the Norns are not easy to interpret,” the seeress said. “Brief glimpses are what we get, revealing small fragments of eternity. Who knows where they fit into the tapestry or when something will happen? The knowledge you seek is not to be found.”
The heavy smoke made Sigrid’s eyes tear up, and she started to feel oddly lightweight, as if she were hovering above the ground.
“You know what must happen,” Emma said in an unfamiliar voice.
The hair on Sigrid’s arms stood up as the air around them thickened. There was a presence in the tent that felt like something not of this world. A tunnel of light formed, connecting her to Emma, but there was someone else in the girl’s face, a shapeless being that watched her with night-black eyes.
Arrows of fear shot through Sigrid as a stormy joy burgeoned in her chest.
“Respect me.” The voice could be the roaring of a thousand wild animals, so terrible in its inhuman power.
“May you be hallowed, dís,” Sigrid whispered.
Then the light of the tunnel bond faded and died. All that was left was Emma, rocking back and forth and staring blankly into space.
Silence filled the tent. Only the whispery moan of the wind could be heard. Sigrid pushed back Emma’s hair with a trembling hand. The furious inhumanness of the dís was both frightening and alluring.
“Tell me how to serve you,” Sigrid said hoarsely.
Emma laughed again and then the creature within her hissed, “Your child is mine.”
At the moment she spoke those words, the wind rushed into the tent, and Sigrid felt a hand caress her hair before the tent flap fluttered closed again. The whites of Emma’s eyes showed before she crumpled, loose limbed, to the ground.
Sigrid gaped at the seeress, startled, her heart pounding.
“Is she going to hurt my son?” Sigrid pleaded. Nothing must happen to the boy. Sigrid would sooner die herself. A sharp pain burned on her cheek, and Sigrid gasped for breath. Beyla had slapped her.
“Do not blaspheme!” Beyla snapped. “Kára came to protect you and the child. Be happy that your son is blessed.”
Sigrid lowered her head. Forgive my foolishness in the face of the protection and the gifts you give. She rubbed her eyes, which burned and stung from the smoke. Dancing bears, new ice, a bride’s words in bed. From the first moment it had all been about the child. The smoke eased, and her chest filled with certainty in the face of
what must happen. Sigrid shook her head, steeling herself against the seeress’s sharp look.
“I see you’re starting to get it now,” Beyla said with a satisfied nod.
Sigrid gulped and stammered, “I can’t do it.” For all her yearning and longing for the child, she was filled with horror. She would do anything for Vanadís. Except this.
Beyla leaned forward and wrapped a cloak around Emma and then awkwardly patted her hair.
“The burden Emma bears for the sake of your child is going to kill her,” Beyla said.
A wave of compassion swept through Sigrid as she looked at Emma, curled up under the cloak. She didn’t look very old, younger than her, and now the poor girl was forced to live with a dís inside her—for Sigrid’s sake.
“I’m sorry,” Sigrid said and stroked Emma’s arm. She took Emma’s hand in her own. The girl smiled with gray, cracked lips.
“I want to do it for him—and for you,” Emma whispered and then gave Sigrid the leather pouch she had been holding in her hand.
Sigrid wrapped her fingers around the worn leather. She couldn’t waver now that Vanadís had shown her will. Strength was everything.
Emma watched her, her face motionless.
“It’s in the tapestry,” Emma said.
An irrepressible joy filled Sigrid and swept away both doubt and uncertainty.
I am yours.
Then she nodded and said, “Then it must happen.”
Dancing had already begun around the maypole, which was decorated with leaves to make the earth fertile, and drums boomed from the burial mounds.
“Tonight we will celebrate your great fortune,” Ax-Wolf cried cheerfully, trying to be heard over the drums. He kicked a drunken farmer who was sleeping in the grass. Right next to him a couple was kissing and groping so eagerly that the woman’s crotch was on display for everyone.
“Give it here,” Åke said. He grabbed the strong drink from Ax-Wolf. After he’d drunk, he handed it to Sweyn, who shook his head.
“Are you still mad at Father?” Åke asked. “You’ll forget about her soon enough.”
Sweyn didn’t answer. He watched Ax-Wolf playfully grab a woman whose hair was the same color as his own and kiss her right on the mouth. Any other day of the year she would have slapped him, but now she pushed against him affectionately. Tonight people honored the gifts of the fertility gods, and Sjofn was in charge. Anything was allowed, and many children would be born in the spring.
“Father just wants what’s best for us, for us to be leaders,” Åke said. Three girls danced around him, trying to pull him along with them. When he declined, they laughingly moved on to other warriors. Åke drank more and then put his arm around Sweyn’s shoulders. He guffawed at a man painted blue who was juggling balls.
“Forget about Palna, Sigrid, and everyone,” Åke urged. “Be happy for once.”
Sweyn looked out at all the dancers moving around the flower-bedecked maypole. Many of the dancers were already topless. Soon more clothes would fall away.
Sweyn clenched his teeth. He wasn’t allowed to touch Sigrid, but betraying her father and attacking her husband were fine, of course.
“There’s a bull dance out by the pasture,” Gunnar called, running past with several of their fellow warriors, all of them quite drunk.
A few Jómsvíkings followed them to watch the spectacle, but most stayed with the thundering drums and the dancing, lusting after what it had to offer. A laughing maiden gave Sweyn a lusty look and gestured for him to come with her.
“Put Toste’s daughter out of your mind, now,” Åke said. “See all the looks you’re getting. You can lie with whomever you want tonight. May Thor himself hit you in the head if you don’t accept what’s being offered.”
Sweyn twisted away to get Åke’s arm off his shoulders. The love spell Sigrid had cast on him was so strong that he had no desire for any of the screaming, laughing women around him. It was as if she had castrated him.
“It’ll be over later,” Sweyn said. “Beyla promised to break the spell I’m under tonight.”
Åke gave him a teasing grin. “You really believe you’re under a spell?”
“I know I am,” Sweyn responded angrily.
“As you wish,” Åke said, raising his hands as if to say he’d given up and backing away, chuckling. “Uh, your spell is coming this way. If you want to drive it away, I mean.”
Sweyn turned around and then gasped for breath. She was coming toward him through the crowd, proud-backed and with a smile on those lips he’d caressed. She didn’t say anything when she reached him, just looked him in the eye and took his hand. With no willpower, Sweyn allowed himself to be led into the dance.
The church was built from thick wooden planks. It had a pointed roof covered in black shingles. Two torches stood in front of the door, and a warm light shone on the grass from an opening in the side of the building.
Emma squatted under the oak tree, listening to the hymns from the window. Male and female voices blended in melodies that reminded her of the monastery in Wessex. Images of her life there, the church, the hard stone floor, the strict faces of the nuns, the girls’ taunting laughter, and Megan’s harassment welled up in her like rats filling her with a sickening darkness.
Emma crossed her arms and rocked back and forth. The monastery didn’t exist anymore. It was gone, along with the person she’d been before Kára had blessed her.
The hymn faded, and a priest’s mass began. The dís filled her with dark strength, which washed through her mind, purifying her of sin.
Suddenly Emma saw the fat monk Ambrosius kneeling before her, screaming and pissing blood out of his cut-off cock. She blinked. Then the vision was gone.
The monotonous voices of the mass in the church blended with the festival drums.
Emma rocked back and forth and looked up to see two monks wearing brown cowls walking toward the church. They walked close together, conversing seriously in concerned voices. She pressed her back against the tree, hoping they wouldn’t notice her, but the elder of the two glanced up and stopped at the oak in surprise.
“What’s the matter, my child?” he asked kindly.
Emma eyed them, her heart pounding. The smell of fire came to her from somewhere. It grew stronger, stinging her nose and tearing at her throat, making it hard to breathe.
“She looks scared,” the younger monk said. “Be not afraid, we won’t hurt you.”
They looked at each other in concern when she didn’t respond.
“God knows what she’s been through,” the elder one said.
Kára hissed inside her like an animal. Emma focused on the things people used to say at the monastery, and at once Kára was gone.
Sinner.
Seek salvation.
You will burn in hell for your sins.
The hand the monk held out was clean, his fingernails clipped and neat. As if in a dream Emma took it, allowing herself to be helped to her feet. Smoke tore at her throat, and voices whispered in her head as she let herself be led to the church as if she were a passive animal. The priests spoke to her in voices filled with caring and praised her for not participating in the heathens’ festival. Emma did not allow their words to draw her in. Soul trappers, that’s what they were. Their words only existed to overpower her so she would become a slave to their god.
Emma stopped in front of the door of the church. The smell of fire grew stronger and stronger. The cross on the door glowed like a burning ember. Emma’s heart was bursting in her chest.
“Come, child,” said the elder priest, but his face was ugly and contorted, and his eyes glowed red as he lured her. Demons, they were all demons. Emma couldn’t move, her feet were stone, and the screams of the dying filled her head. The demon priests walked into the church. The cross on the door burned and glowed.
“What do you want?” she whispered, looking down at her dirty hands, screams echoing in her head.
Emma bit her lip so hard that the taste of blood fill
ed her mouth. Kára had to come back. Without her, she was nothing.
Why aren’t you with me? she pleaded.
The death screams from the villagers burning in the basement echoed through her head. The smell of burning still stung her nose, and only then did Emma realize what the wonderful Stormy One demanded of her. She pulled the base of the torches up out of the ground and then laid them in last year’s dry leaves under the stairs. Emma backed away and felt Kára wrapping around her like a cooling, comforting embrace. She got the flames of the fire to stick to the wood, and soon they were licking at the glowing cross. Fire rose against fire, faith against faith. The screams in her head became real, and Kára filled her mind again.
Emma ran away laughing, toward the festivities as the flames raged against the sky and swallowed the house of the God worshippers.
Feeling liberated, Emma flung herself into the dance and let the drums silence the screams in her head. Kára was pleased with her offering. Emma was in her good graces again. Laughing, she felt an arm pull her close.
“Palna,” she said, putting her arms around his neck and pushing her body greedily against him. “How may I serve the leader of the Jómsvíkings?”
He smiled and pulled her away to a more private place.
Damn the future and the past. Damn the twisty prophecies of the seeresses. Damn spouses, fathers, and duties. Here and now, this was all there was: Sweyn’s strong arms around Sigrid’s back, his grasp on her waist, his warm breath burning against her neck.
The horns called out their greeting to Nátt as ethereal summer darkness settled over Lejre. The fires on the hills were lit, and they blazed up.
Drumbeats hammered and sweat rushed over her body. The darkness and drums made the world feel dense and trancelike.
Bare feet kicked up dust, and warm bodies pressed against each other, eyes closed, hands gripped tightly. Drums urged them on and wove gods and people into one, while the full moon watched over them in the sky and sorcery flowed through the ground. Since the dawn of time, people had danced their thanks on this night for the gifts of the gods, and the lust-filled Sjofn rewarded them richly.
The Unbroken Line of the Moon Page 18