Milk started running down Sigrid’s chest as Emma placed the girl in her arms. Reluctantly she closed her arms around the baby, who found Sigrid’s nipple. Then the girl closed her little mouth and started greedily sucking on the breast. My daughter. Sigrid was filled with such love that she could hardly breathe. My baby.
She smiled sadly at the girl, who suddenly fell asleep with her mouth open, unaware of the catastrophe she brought into this life with her.
Just then the door was flung open and Erik hurried in, cheerful and full of anticipation.
“Give me Olaf so I can show him to the chieftains,” he cried.
Haldis reached over and pulled away the cloth that lay between the girl’s legs.
“It was a girl.”
Erik stared in disbelief at the slit between the baby’s legs before his face contorted in rage.
“A curse on you, Scylfing. A curse on your bastard,” he said, drawing his dagger.
Sigrid put her arm around the baby, protecting her with her own body.
“We can pretend she was stillborn,” Haldis said.
Sigrid shook her head, looking around horror stricken. The girl was so little and defenseless. They couldn’t hurt her. Erik watched them both.
“They both died in childbed,” he announced coolly. “That’ll be best.”
Mother of All, save us!
Erik left the room, slamming the door behind him. Sigrid held on to the baby desperately.
“Why is it a girl?” she whispered to Emma, who shook her head in response.
“I don’t know,” Emma said.
Then came the pain.
Sigrid’s body shook as the band of pain cinched tight around her belly again. She embraced the pain with joy.
Her mistress hadn’t failed her.
It went faster this time. She tilted her head back and screamed in triumph as she pushed out the baby. Roaring, she gave birth to yet another baby, who cried loudly and clearly. Haldis cut the umbilical cord and wiped away the blood and grease before she held up the newborn boy.
“Olaf Lap-King, I welcome you to life,” Haldis exclaimed and placed the baby into Sigrid’s arms.
Sigrid sank back exhausted onto the bed’s bloody sheets while tears of joy ran down her cheeks. They were saved. The boy was smaller than his sister and his face was pinched, but his tiny cry was full of the will to live. Welcome, my son.
The women smiled and expressed their best wishes, but there was still concern in their faces and they whispered to each other, quietly so that Sigrid wouldn’t hear them.
“The boy is strong,” said Haldis. “But twins are still a bad omen.”
Sigrid stiffened and looked around the room. Had they taken her daughter away from her? A newborn’s life wasn’t worth much. They set them out in the woods to become ghost mylings, or drowned them, suffocated them, or set them on dung heaps to die.
“Give me the girl,” she cried, fear making her voice shrill.
“She’s here,” Emma said calmly and laid Sigrid’s bathed, sleeping daughter in her arms, wrapped up in the finest linen.
Relieved, Sigrid hugged the baby to her chest. The little girl slept, breathing gently against her arm. The boy whimpered and then settled down. Sigrid was bursting with joy. This was everything to her, the will of the goddess, the reason she was alive.
If anyone tried to harm them, she would tear them to shreds and then destroy their families. No one in this world or the next was going to touch her children.
“Twin-born children are sacred, blessed by the dísir,” Emma said, eyeing the women sternly. “Kára will protect them as a guardian spirit. That is the valkyrie’s promise to the Svea.”
Sigrid stroked the boy’s wrinkled face. He yawned and then looked around shakily. His blue eyes and nose were very familiar to her, for she had seen them many times before. The worry that nagged at her grew into fear.
It was Sweyn. Her beloved was the boy’s father. Vanadís had given her the children during the sacred couple’s sacrifice in Lejre. Everything was as she had seen it in the dream.
Sacred mother, wash away his likeness and save our lives.
Sigrid jumped when Haldis carefully lifted Olaf from her arms. She washed the boy’s face and then wrapped him in a blue and gold garment with the king’s family’s dragon embroidered on it in silver thread. The door opened and Erik stepped into the room again.
“I give you your son, King Olaf, ruler of Svealand’s families,” Haldis declared.
Erik took the child and held him aloft while he carefully inspected him. The king was stone-faced, and Sigrid’s heart almost stopped. He knew.
“This baby was sent from Valhalla to ensure your victory over Styrbjörn and the Christians,” Sigrid said. She couldn’t keep her voice steady as Erik’s and her eyes met. Olaf was so little and frail in his hands. One light blow to the back of the head and the little one would be dead. Sigrid clutched the girl to her bosom.
Protect your gift, I beg you.
“The chieftains will rejoice and fight for your victory when you show them your son,” Haldis said.
Sigrid reached for the newborn. Then Erik turned around abruptly and walked toward the door with the baby in his arms. Sigrid exhaled slowly. He was going to show off the boy. The threat to Olaf’s life had been averted, for a while. Exhausted, she sank back in the bed. Cries of hurrah could be heard from the hall where the men were honoring their new king.
“Bless Olaf the Lap-King,” someone cried, and everyone chimed in.
“It’s a good omen,” someone else said.
Sigrid stared straight ahead vacantly with the little girl in her arms as the women cleaned her up and made her ready.
“Even the Jómsvíkings won’t give Styrbjörn the victory,” a voice cried out in the hall below them.
Sigrid gasped for breath. The Jómsvíkings were here. Sweyn was here. Her heart started hammering in her chest. Her beloved was near.
“You need to rest now,” Solveig said and spread a clean comforter over her. “We’ll bring little Olaf back to you soon.”
Sigrid couldn’t even look at the women as they left the room. What should she do? The children’s lives were flickering flames in a raging storm. If Freya didn’t protect them, they would soon wander to Hel’s caves. Her daughter looked at her with eyes the same dark blue as the sea itself. Guide me, I beg you.
Then she saw the answer, deep in her daughter’s ancient eyes. Sigrid wiped away a tear and then smiled, filled with sorrow. What she had to do now was terrible, but there was no other way. Now she understood.
I hear and obey.
Sigrid had to wait a long time for her opportunity. After Haldis returned with Olaf and then left, Sigrid was finally alone in the room with Emma. Then Sigrid asked Emma to fetch a bit of charcoal and a piece of bark to write on.
“There are no words for how much it pains me to ask you this.”
Emma accepted the wood with the runes that Sigrid had laboriously written in the dark and then smiled sadly.
“I know,” she whispered.
Sorrow at the decision she’d been forced to make tore Sigrid to pieces. Still, she had no choice. Tomorrow her beloved would fight Erik and no matter who won, her life and the children’s lives would be in danger. Erik would kill them if he won, she was sure of that. If he won, he would no longer have any use for them.
If Styrbjörn won, Valhalla’s final foothold in this world would be gone, and the old ways would collapse. The new king would kill her babies to wipe out their claim to Svealand. No matter where she turned there was nothing but death for the two tiny lives she had just brought into this world.
She leaned back in the bed and looked sadly at Emma. There was only one way out of all this, and it was tenuous and fragile. Sigrid took a deep breath.
“You must give this to Sweyn and to no one else,” she whispered.
Emma leaned forward and tenderly brushed aside the hair that had fallen into Sigrid’s face.
&n
bsp; “I know,” she said again.
No one had stood vigil by Sigrid’s side as loyally as Emma. Kára had to protect Emma now. Nothing could happen to her. I know you’re watching over her.
“Fetch my jewelry box,” Sigrid instructed.
Emma got up and retrieved the ornate box. Sigrid opened the lid and took out Sleipnir, the gold brooch that Sweyn had given her in Lejre. She kissed it tenderly before placing it in Emma’s hand.
“Give this to Sweyn, and then he’ll know that the runes are from me.”
“Anything else?” Emma asked, closing her fingers around the eight-legged horse.
The sorrow in Sigrid was going to boil over. She wanted to say that she thought about Sweyn every morning when she woke up and every night before sleep came, that the best and worst part of her life was the brief time they had had together, and that she couldn’t imagine a life without him. But she couldn’t ask Emma to say any of that. The babies had to live, even if she had to die.
“Tell him that I hold him in high regard, and that I implore him not to enter this battle.”
“What should I answer about the children?”
Sigrid gave a sob and said, “Tell him they’re Erik’s.”
The words were so difficult for her to say she barely got them out.
Emma stood up with a nod. Sigrid held out her hand and firmly squeezed Emma’s.
“Come back to me,” Sigrid told her. “Without you we’re alone and defenseless.”
Emma kissed her hand and then walked over to the cradle, where she ran her finger over the babies’ cheeks.
“I will always watch over you,” she told them.
The next moment she was gone.
Emma snuck down the stairs and into the royal hall, where Erik’s closest chieftains were putting on their swords and adjusting their armor and other protective gear. The Svea stood straight-backed in groups, readying for battle. No one noticed her walk through the room. It was as if Kára were hiding her from their view.
“Well,” Orm said, tickled with amusement, “you definitely succeeded in appearing angry that the Södermanland chieftains hadn’t shown up. Styrbjörn’s spies will definitely have passed on word of their betrayal to Styrbjörn. He will have no idea of the size of the force that’s hiding in the woods, the force that will come from behind to break his back like a hammer.”
“Styrbjörn will bitterly regret the battle at Fýrisvellir,” Erik said, picking his helmet up off the table.
Emma slipped outside into the courtyard as Erik and the chieftains started heading toward the doors. The night air was cool as she crossed the field, sticking to the shadows, and making her way toward the woods. She wasn’t the only one on the move. Farther away, in the cold moonlight, she saw unit after unit of warriors passing through the trees. Horses whinnied, and the rattling of armor echoed through the night. When Emma started running, there was no fear in her chest, only firm determination. She knew now that she would fulfill her destiny.
Kára propelled Emma’s feet forward. Noiselessly, like a warm breeze, she swept between the trees toward Styrbjörn’s camp. The light from the enemy’s fires guided her as she made her way. At the edge of the woods she stopped and looked out across the vast field. The warriors’ campfires were as numerous as the stars in the clear night sky. In raising her hand Emma paused and smiled tenderly because she caught a whiff of the scent of the two babies still on her fingers. Without hesitating, she headed straight across the field as Kára’s whispering voice grew stronger.
No one stopped her as she wandered between the warriors’ tents, all with banners hung above the flap openings.
The warriors sat around the fires, resolute, their emotions unreadable, sharpening their weapons or staring into the flames as they awaited the next day’s battle. They prayed to their crosses, seeking courage and comfort from their god. Others sought strength from mead and talked loudly. Emma giggled at the stench of their fear of death. None of them would live until the next night. They all had the mark of death on their faces.
Onward. Forward.
By one fire a woman lay on her back, waiting patiently for the warrior groaning and thrusting between her legs to finish. A pockmarked older woman took silver from the next man in line. The crowd around the fire was large, so they must be making quite a profit.
Emma looked away. Long ago Acca had taken her to a camp like this, where she had spread her legs for a pittance. But that was before she had been blessed by Kára and joined Sigrid, her beloved sister, the only one who had ever given her joy and safety in this life. The small bundle containing the gold Sleipnir brooch and the piece of bark with the runes written on it hung around her neck. She would faithfully deliver the message that was going to shatter Sigrid’s happiness but save the babies.
Emma hurried along the path, carefully scrutinizing each flag and banner: griffins, dragons, crosses, and crossed axes. There was no end to all the symbols and colors that waved in the gleam from the fires, but nowhere did she find the roaring wolves of the Jómsvíkings.
She smoothly stepped aside for a hirdman in a conical hat, who stopped and stared at her in surprise.
“I can’t find my way back to master Palna, the chief of the Jómsvíkings,” she said.
“They’re all the way over there,” said the hirdman with teeth so rotten that his jaw stank.
Ah, finally. Emma started running, but she hadn’t gone many steps before a shadow emerged from the darkness and grabbed her roughly by the arm.
Ax-Wolf came up to the fire and squatted down in front of the flames. The red-haired giant looked grimmer than usual. The men were quiet, and there was neither anticipation nor hatred in their chests, as there should have been.
Sweyn exchanged a glance with Palna, who was waiting impatiently for him to give the orders Palna wanted to hear. And yet, he couldn’t do it, not yet. His weakness for Sigrid paralyzed him.
“What’s weighing on you, brother?” Sweyn asked.
Ax-Wolf scratched the back of his head and made a face.
“I’ve fought on every shore in the world and faced both Franks and giants in battle. Never have I backed down. But I have a bad feeling about this battle. I can’t deny it. A black bird fell dead from the sky, as if Odin himself were sending me a warning.”
His brothers-in-arms nodded. They obviously all had some doubts about standing beside Styrbjörn. Just before sunset, Styrbjörn had strolled through the camp dressed in his showy armor and promised them victory in the name of his god.
“The godless heathens will be slaughtered,” Styrbjörn the Strong had shouted. “The demons will no longer poison Svealand, and those who fall by the sword will be rewarded with an eternity in the kingdom of heaven.”
A priest had walked around and splashed water on them. Very few of Sweyn’s men or the other Jómsvíkings had enjoyed receiving the white god’s sorcery.
Sweyn fished out the leather pouch he wore around his neck and held it in his hand. Sigrid was so close he could feel her; only the woods separated them, and if Styrbjörn won, he would hold her in his arms before the next day was over. Sweyn sighed heavily and looked up as the guard Trond approached, dragging a woman through the darkness.
“I found a spy creeping along in the shadows,” Trond said and shoved her into the light from the fire.
Sweyn recognized Emma immediately as she fell flat on the ground.
“Let her be,” he said, watching the girl scramble to her feet.
Sigrid must have sent her.
“Do you have a message?” he asked.
Emma pushed her hair out of her face and looked at Palna, Beyla, and the others around the fire before she responded.
“I have a message, an ominous one,” she said, handing Sweyn the piece of bark.
Sweyn snatched it and squatted down near the fire. Slowly he deciphered the symbols that had been written on the wood. Leave Svealand. Leave me. That was it. He closed his hand around the wood as the hope that had nourished him
died and everything became a charred wasteland. It was over.
“She implores you to forgo the battle,” Emma said. “All that awaits you is death.” She took out the gold brooch that Sweyn had once given Sigrid and put the piece of jewelry in his hand. “Many times more Svea are hiding in the woods, waiting to attack your flank during the battle. You will all die. The men’s faces all bear the mark of death from Odin, the All-Father, who has promised to make Erik victorious. Turn around. This isn’t a battle. It’s a slaughter. You are destined for something else.”
Sweyn looked down at Sleipnir and ran his thumb over the gold. She had risked everything to warn him. My beloved.
“Did Sigrid have my baby?” he asked, choked up.
“She had a son and a daughter today,” Emma replied, shaking her head. “Both are the very image of Erik.”
Not his? The last hope drained from Sweyn. He angrily threw the piece of bark with the runes into the fire. Sigrid had given birth to another man’s children. She had turned her back on him and asked him to leave Svealand. How could she forsake him like this?
Kára swept over the meadow into Emma’s mind. Emma reeled as the Wild Stormy One filled her with engulfing flames, devouring fire. Sweyn’s campfire flared up, kicking up a cloud of sparks. Emma nodded to the storming dís. The destiny she had twice avoided needed to be fulfilled. She understood that now.
“Summon your men. Prepare your ships for launch. Only death and despair await you here,” Emma cried out as the wind tore at the men’s tents and cloaks.
She had shattered Sweyn’s hopes with her lie, yet still he hesitated to do what he needed to do. He was blind and deaf to the signs he had received.
“Flee from here. Kára will fill your sails. Listen to Sigrid’s appeal.”
It was true that the Jómsvíkings had a bad feeling about this battle site. They all felt a sense of foreboding about the darkness that towered over them, and yet they remained, hesitant, standing at the precipice. Kára’s whispers increased in strength. She had to drive them from this land. Their lives must be saved. Emma turned to Beyla and grabbed her arm.
The Unbroken Line of the Moon Page 34