The Viking’s Sacrifice

by Julia Knight

  Before she could go, he stood and held her and she sank against him, quivering again, but not with want this time, not because of him. Because of where she had to go. He wanted to give her what she’d given him so he held her, stroked her hair and murmured soft words that she wouldn’t understand.

  Finally she stood back, her face calm again, her pose upright, eyes determined yet demure, chaste as a lady should be. Chained again, after a night of release. He gave her the only help he could and kissed her—a thanks, a declaration, a farewell.

  She turned for the door and hesitated with her hand on the handle to say some words. He didn’t know what they meant, maybe thank you. Maybe she thought he only agreed to help because she’d lain with him. Maybe something else. Yet the way she said them—he wanted to chase after her, tell her to stay, they’d run, over the mountain, now, never mind the storm and wind and snow, never mind the rune-curse. But before he could catch Wilda, she was gone, lost in the dark, silent swirls of a snowy night.

  He sat and watched the door till it was almost dawn, and tried not to remember her lips on his, her mouth saying his true name, or the look on her face as she left for Sigdir.

  Wilda blundered down the mountainside, not seeing the snow or feeling the ice in her hair or on her cheeks. She lost her way, more than once, and only found it again by chance, by the smell of wood smoke and stumbling across the rapidly filling path. If it hadn’t been for Myldrith, for her need to help the girl, she might never have tried to. Her legs trembled when she remembered Einar, one short, brief time of warmth. Whispered words she didn’t know, the heat of him, the strength and yet gentleness of him, how she’d felt safe with him to be herself, who she really was. Released from the need to be what others thought her, released from others depending on her, for a brief, scintillating time.

  She’d been wrong. One memory would not buffer what was to come, but would make it worse, make it so she knew what should be, and what would not be. What she would never have again. If not for Myldrith she would have stayed up the mountain, and hoped. But Einar would help her, she had that hope too, one to bring and share with Myldrith. He would help them escape. And then what? She didn’t care overmuch, as long as Einar was there too.

  When she reached the short, thundering falls that marked the centre of the village, she knew she was close. Just below, that was Sigdir’s house. Her frozen hands fumbled with the door to the byre but she got it opened quietly enough. The warmth inside thawed her skin, but it was too late for inside her. That had thawed, too, left wide open now to hurt where it had been locked away in ice before. She had to lock it again, but she couldn’t. Even the ice of the fjord in a snowstorm couldn’t do that for her, could not freeze her heart again.

  Rowena looked up from beside the fire, her face lifting when she saw Wilda’s.

  “Is there a way, you found help, my lady?”

  Wilda was reluctant to say, reluctant to speak to anyone. She wanted to curl in her furs, to smell Einar on her and sleep a dreamless, restful sleep as she hadn’t in too long. She wanted to dream that she was with him, and that Sigdir didn’t exist. But practicality got in the way. “I’m not a lady,” was all she managed to start.

  Rowena sat her down and handed her a surreptitious bowl of the stew that was normally reserved for the masters. “It’s no shame, not here, my lady. It’s what needs to be done, if you want something. They’re pushovers for that, every one of them. I hear there was a monk who said that women were the only place they did not limit themselves, and it’s true. There is no limit to them for that. It’s expected of them even, to have many wives, mistresses, bed-slaves.”

  Was that all she’d been? Had Einar been like the rest? No, she refused to believe it, but shame filled her anyway, that she had lain with Einar for herself, with not a thought to those relying on her. A thing, a sin, for herself alone. She held on to her crucifix and murmured a prayer. Hail Mary, full of grace… She would need to say a thousand to be absolved, might never manage it. Yet she didn’t regret it, not for a heartbeat. “I’m not a lady, but we may have help.”

  Rowena went to say something, but Wilda shook her off and lay on a bench. She pulled a tattered fur over herself, and it smelled of him. She smelled of him. She curled into the fur and let the tears fall, here where no one could see. She was responsible for these other thralls now, too, because she was the lady. She wanted to throw it all off, throw them off. Responsible had been part of her for too long. She wanted to run, and again was trapped. His smell comforted her, wrapped around her as his arms had and made the cares disappear, at least for long enough for Wilda to fall asleep.

  A rough shake on her shoulder woke her from warm dreams. The warrior set to guard them stood back with a sly look and went to the fire. Little work for him this morn, but plenty for Wilda and Myldrith and the rest.

  They fed livestock, cleaned stalls, ground corn and barley, and through it all Wilda dreamt. Of a day she could run on a beach, with no care, be the girl she had been before the raid. Yet Myldrith’s face burned before her. Thin, gaunt even, with a mother-of pearl whiteness, a sheen to it. Myldrith herself said nothing, kept her head down and worked, but there was something…something.

  Wilda couldn’t be selfish too long—it had been often engrained on her, that she served those who served her. What a lady would do was ask, talk, make it better. And too, Myldrith was her friend, not of long years, but they had shared things many other friends had not.

  “I’m quick with his child,” Myldrith whispered when she asked. “I—I would rather die and go to hell than see it born. I’d endure anything not to see his child live to face this earth, godless. I will not have a child of mine, even his, born into slavery. I cannot. My lady.”

  Myldrith’s hands quivered on the grinder, then she carried on, grinding as though the stone was Sigdir’s face and she could smooth it from her memory. Quick with his child. Looking like a beaten dog, with bruises to her arms, worse ones to her soul. That would be Wilda soon enough. Even if not, Myldrith was hers to look after. She had to leave, and only Wilda and Einar to help her.

  She shouldn’t talk of it, of his sign to help her. Who knew how it might get to Sigdir, but it would. Yet she had to give Myldrith some hope. “Two days,” she whispered. “Two days is all you have to bear. I’ll get you out, away from him, I promise, as God has my soul, as the Holy Spirit consumes me, I will. I promise it on my love of God.”

  Myldrith took to the grinder again, viciously, with a strength Wilda wouldn’t have thought of her. “And whose god did you worship last night, my lady, God, or the heathens’ gods? Was God with you then? Does he bless what you did, what you are? Or are you a heathen whore?”

  Wilda’s hands fell from her task, from spinning wool. The yarn spun across the floor and tangled in with the straw and reeds. The skein was ruined. That didn’t matter. What mattered was—was Myldrith right? No—no she couldn’t believe her God would hate her so for one night of goodness, one night of what was right. A God of love would not. Would he? No. God helped those who help themselves, and no matter that she still thought of Einar’s skin on hers, his soft words, she was sure he was a good man among barbarians. She hadn’t asked his help just for her. She hadn’t lain with him for help, but because she wanted to, because she wanted to be free, not a lady, to be her. Because she wanted him to know he wasn’t Toki, he was Einar. Was that a sin, to do that? Yes—and no. No—and yes.

  “He’s Sigdir’s brother, this Toki, did you know that?” Myldrith said. “Sigdir and Bausi’s brother, and terrible though they are, even they despise him.”

  “How did—”

  “It’s written plain as day on your face, my lady. You and him, they’s been talking of it all over. The way he spoke to you when he ain’t spoke to no one, how he tried to buy you. And you, you didn’t send him off either, as you should have, as lady, as a Christian, thrall or no. Made Sigdir that mad, it did, made it all the worse for us. Didn’t think of that, did you? And when he finds ou
t what you did last night—oh, my lady, it’s going to be terrible bad for all of us, and you the worst. And you deserve it.”

  Wilda shrank back from the poison in her voice. Sweet Myldrith, turned to this. “How can—”

  But Myldrith wasn’t about to be quiet. Two patches of hectic red blazed on her cheeks in her otherwise pale face, a dreadful fervour on her. “Whatever your harlot ways have got him to promise you, I won’t be saved by a heathen, I won’t. He won’t save you neither. Sigdir and Bausi, they despise him, fear him a little, I think. I don’t know why, but I’ve seen it. I’ve seen it when they warned him away from you. Those two are Satan’s own children, yet they wanted to protect you from him. Their brother can only be worse. I hear tell of him, of Toki and his ways, and it fair turns my stomach. Heathens, barbarians, they is sent by the Devil to kill us, my lady, and they will. Or maybe God sent them to punish us, punish people like you who sin without thought, who lay with the Devil, willingly, wantonly. I won’t be saved by no heathen, or his harlot. I won’t!” With that last, Myldrith fled from the room in tears.

  Wilda stared after her, blind with tears of her own. She shook off Rowena’s hand and scrabbled on the floor for the ruined skein. Myldrith was right, she was a harlot. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. She picked up the threads of her task and let her mind go numb with it, with the repetition. What would God rather her do? She knew the answer—she shouldn’t have gone to his bed. She shouldn’t have asked a heathen for help. But God had sent him, she was sure of it. Why else would Einar help her?

  After a time, she looked up to find Rowena staring at her with a worried frown.

  “What’s he done that they despise him so?” Wilda asked.

  “I don’t know. I only know they say some fear turned him simple, that he didn’t have the courage he should, and it robbed him of his senses.”

  “That doesn’t sound like the Devil to me, or a reason Sigdir should fear him.”

  Rowena laughed under her breath. “Myldrith—Toki isn’t the only one to have his mind turned. It’s been hard for her, devilish hard, and getting his child too…you know how pregnant women can be, they latch on to the strangest things. It’s easier for her to blame you than to accept what’s happened to her. Besides, you had a choice. She didn’t. And I’m glad you made it.”

  “Are you?” Wilda stared down at her hands. “I’m not sure I am. I’m not sure I can say enough Hail Marys ever to be forgiven.”

  Rowena took the wool from Wilda’s twisting hands, where it had tangled beyond repair. “This too shall pass. I’ll take this and finish up. It’ll be hours before the milk curdles enough for the skyr. Go get some water from the well. It may be biting cold, but maybe some air will help, seeing God’s earth in all its beauty.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Oft a witching form will fetch the wise

  which holds not the heart of fools.

  Havamal: 93

  The raven was back, perched on the roof of the spae-wife’s hut. It watched Einar avidly, head on one side, and a shiver rattled down his backbone. He stood outside the hut, just watching for a time before he screwed himself up to go in. It wasn’t that the spae-wife wasn’t held in high regard, or that her magic was frowned upon—quite the opposite. She was no seidr, no black artist as Bausi’s mother had been rumoured to be.

  It was him, and the rune-curse, that held him back. Fear that she’d see it on him and somehow it would all come apart, and then he and Gudrun, even Sigdir, would be at its mercy. That had kept him from her door for eight years, kept him from going anywhere near her, made his only words for years after coming home a desperate begging that she not tend his wounds, because she would see, would know, and then all would be lost.

  Now he had little choice. The curse mattered less and less, Wilda mattered more and more. There was no way to get her away that he could see. The mountain passes were choked with snow, the high pastures too frigid to hide in, even if any smoke wouldn’t have been seen from the village. If he had a boat—even something as small as a fishing creel—he might have managed it. But he didn’t, and had no way of getting one. Even if he had, it would mean leaving with Wilda and he couldn’t do that either, much as he wanted to. The curse held him here, in Bausi’s subtle net.

  The raven cawed at him and flapped its wings. Bird of ill omen, or bird of portent? Odin’s bird, either way. Einar made the sign of Thor’s hammer and pushed open the door into a world as dangerous as any wyrm’s lair.

  The hut was dark and thick with an odd-smelling smoke. The only light came from the doorway, the fire and the cracks around a shutter that covered the one small window against the day. The floor was covered with skins and furs so that his feet sank into it. Things fluttered from the rafters—a forest of tangled bits of feathers, bones and other nameless things that made his shoulders twitch.

  The spae-wife—Geira, her name was—sat with her back to him, stirring a kettle over the fire. Steam rose from the kettle in moist, aromatic waves, making his stomach rumble. Beef.

  “Aye, there’s plenty for you, Einar, I made sure of it.” Geira hadn’t turned to see who it was, or given any other indication she knew he was there, but sat and stirred. “Come on, sit down. Don’t tell me you’re not half-starved.”

  Einar shut the door behind him, shut out the fjord and the snow and everything else, it seemed like. In here there was only…in here. A dark hole in time and place, where the skin between here and the Other was thin, the air thick with wyrd, with magic. The faint cawing of the raven above him was the only indication the fjord outside still existed. He took off his cloak and sat down across the fire from Geira. She’d been old when he was a boy and now was ancient. Her hands were crabbed, the knuckles and veins prominent, and her grey hair hung lankly over her shoulders. Yet in the dim light of the fire her face looked young, a striking woman in the prime of life with high cheekbones and knowing eyes.

  “I knew you’d come in the end.” Geira ladled out a good bowlful of the stew and handed it to him. Her fingers were cold as ice where she touched him, somehow slippery and inhuman. “They always do.”

  The feel of her fingers was forgotten, everything was forgotten in the steam of beef stew. It had been a long time since he’d had beef, or anything decent to eat. And this wasn’t just any beef stew. It was rich with herbs, thick with gravy. Einar had to force himself not to shovel it in, but instead to savour it.

  “So, was it worth it? Sleeping with your brother’s betrothed, I mean.”

  Einar almost choked on a lump of beef. Geira watched him keenly.

  “Maybe it was, after all, Einar Sheen-mane. There’s something strange about you, about you and Sigdir and Gudrun. Something dark, though I’ve never got close enough to any of you to find out what, exactly. Something kept me away. That’s odd in itself. But then, that’s why you’re here, isn’t it?”

  The stew had lost all taste. It might have been water and raw meat for all its flavour now. He swallowed, hard, and worked up the courage to speak. “I have to get Wilda away. She has to go. For all of us.”

  Geira’s eyebrows pinched in a delicate frown. “For her it would be good, I don’t doubt. But why for you? Why does the Jarl’s simple-minded brother care what happens to a thrall, or rather a freed thrall under his brother’s protection?”

  Einar ducked his head and stared into the bowl without seeing it.

  “Hmm. Look at me.” Her icy fingers gripped his chin and raised his head. “Look at me, Einar.”

  Her face wasn’t Geira’s face any more. He tried to pull away but the fingers held him in a firm grip. He couldn’t have said what it was, exactly, but there was something about the face…almost as though there were three people there. He had no choice but to look, to stare. An old crone, bent and wrinkled and grinning, a girl’s face, smooth, bright and smiling sadly. A third, a woman of middle years perhaps, regal and wise. Then they were gone, whatever they’d been, and she was only Geira again
, looking too young for her years but just the spae-wife, born in the village, who’d helped most of them into the world with her herbs and magic.

  Her eyes held his for a moment before she clucked impatiently and began to look him over like a horse. She pulled down his eyelids, checked his teeth and behind his ears, letting out little hmms as though she didn’t much like what she saw.

  Finally she sat back, chewing on her lip and frowning deeply enough that her eyebrows almost hid her eyes. “Explains much, that does. Much. You got a black net on you, Einar. A dark and dangerous curse, and not just you, I’m reckoning. Not just you but Sigdir and Gudrun too. I seen the same shimmer on them as I seen on you, but it’s only now I can see it close, now you’ve eaten the stew to open my eyes to it, I know it for what it is. A seidr-net, rune-cut. A death-curse. But you knew that, didn’t you?”

  Einar nodded and watched her warily. If it should all come undone in the wrong way…this was why he hadn’t come before. Seidr magic, Bausi’s magic, wasn’t to be trifled with, not even by spae.

  Geira got up, stiff and awkward and moaning about old bones in the cold. She opened an old oak chest, dark with the smoke of years, and drew out a staff. More trinkets, like those that fluttered from the roof, were wound about its top. She stared at them with a frown, muttered a few words over them.

  “Sigdir used to have a good heart, eh? A good, strong heart full of courage, like Arni. Like you. Or he did until you abandoned him, left him to the curse with only Bausi to look to. It might not be too late to save him. And little Gudrun, ah, now, her heart is just starting to twist and blacken under it.”

  She shot him a look, steel-hard, that made him shiver in his boots. “You saw the Norns, the web-weavers. You’re the centre of the threads that have been cast around you all, aye, even that thrall. The Norns don’t weave their webs so lightly. There’s a reason they didn’t snip your thread short. It’s rune-cut, this curse. You can’t run from this, Einar, you can’t keep still and hope, holding all your courage in thoughtful inaction, in silence. Aye, I see that was courage, bearing the unbearable, quiet courage, Odin’s deep thinking, making the wise choice. I saw it, and so did others but they dare not say. She saw it, didn’t she? That’s what made you so rash as to betray your own brother, because she showed you what was inside all along, made you believe it. Yet now, Einar, now you need the other sort. Loud courage, Thor’s courage. Red blood and iron. You’ve got that in you too, and to spare. You must turn and fight, like a cornered bear, and with its claws. You have to find where the rune is cut, and burn it.”