The Viking’s Sacrifice

by Julia Knight

  Rune-cut—the rune hung round Bausi’s neck, a silent reminder to Einar of what he was bound to, what he had promised. He couldn’t. Even if he wanted to, and he did, he couldn’t get the rune. Not from Bausi’s neck. “If I can’t?” he managed.

  Geira patted his hand, and the feel of her cold, slippery knots of fingers made him want to flinch, but he dared not.

  “If you can’t, then you must find the right thread to pull. Pull the right one, the net will fall apart. Pull the wrong one and it will bind you ever tighter. Finish this curse, and you can help your thrall too. These are all parts of the same web. It’s up to you, Einar Sheen-mane.”

  She sat down, her back to him, and began to stir the pot again. He was dismissed from her thoughts.

  The grey light of the sun trying to push through thick, snow-laden clouds was still dazzling after the dark of her hut, but the wind was fresh and clean and blew away the smell of the smoke that had clogged his chest.

  He’d gone for help to get Wilda away, but Geira had all but ignored that plea. The curse weighed less in his mind now than getting Wilda safe, getting her away, however he could. Yet with the curse still on him, on all of them, it wasn’t possible. Even without it, it wasn’t possible. He made his slow, halt-legged way back to his hut. Two days wasn’t long enough, two months wouldn’t be. Yet two days he’d promised, and he was a Norseman, a man of Thor in his heart. His word was iron.

  Wilda broke the ice on the well and lowered the bucket. Rowena had been right. The biting cold air was fresh and had cleared her head, and the sight of God’s earth—a beauty cold and harsh and brooding, that He’d made—calmed her. He’d made the towering dark mountains that loomed above the village like sentinels, the still black water of the fjord, the silence that only a deep blanket of snow could bring. She tried not to think of anything else, of the confession she would have to make when next she saw a priest, and how she would have to confess also that she didn’t repent.

  The bucket was heavy and banged against her legs as she made her way back to the house, spilling frigid water on her dress that re-froze almost immediately. Rowena was wrapping the pot so the milk could curdle into the delicacy that was Sigdir’s favourite, skyr. The house lay quiet, the men-thralls all out gathering the cattle and sheep that it was calculated could not be kept through the winter on the hay available. The strongest, and those that produced the most milk, would survive and overwinter with the people.

  Bloodmonth they called it, a subdued affair. To slaughter, Rowena said, was almost an admission of failure. The more cows a man had to slaughter, the more he’d failed to provide with winter fodder. Yet the meat was welcome. Cows had been slaughtered all over the village in the last few days and the smell of smoking pervaded the whole valley. Joints lay in whey to be pickled or were salted or even, to Wilda’s disgust, buried to ferment. Today was the turn of the sheep, and their plaintive bleating as they were led to the slaughter, as though they knew what was coming, echoed round her head. A feeling all too familiar.

  Wilda and Rowena bundled in cloaks and watched, waiting for the hard work ahead, the pickling and salting, the preparation of the parts that wouldn’t keep and had to be eaten soon, while some of the men prepared for curing the skins. Sharp knives for trimming, blunter ones for scraping the fat, piles of salt for the first part of the process.

  Sigdir led the slaughter. First he made a sign over the heavy knife, almost a short broadsword, they called a scramasax. Then, with one hand on the sheep, the other holding the knife, he spoke, rhythmic, powerful words before the scramasax came down and blood splattered the snow.

  “A, well, not a blot, not yet,” Rowena said. “But an entreaty to Odin and Freya, to make sure of fertility next year, to make sure we have enough to see us through the snows and the dearth even of summer before the next harvest. A kind of heathen prayer.”

  Sigdir carefully wiped the blade clean and made the sign again over it. “Thor’s hammer,” Rowena said. “Strength, protection. But also god of the sky, of the weather that kills or keeps them, and fertility.”

  No matter how strange the customs, the personifications of the gods, one look at Sigdir’s face told her how deeply he believed it, how they all did. With a curt nod to the head karl to take over, Sigdir strode away.

  Rowena fussed with the skein of wool that Wilda had tangled while they waited for the meat to come. Wilda watched the men, the free karls and the thralls. The karls did the killing—it was theirs to kill, their right and duty. The thralls did the hard, dirty work, the gutting, the skinning and jointing. Theirs too would be the job of scraping the skins ready to cure.

  The sun dimmed even further behind grey snow-clouds that crept down the mountainside, and the meat began to come to them from the slaughter. As she turned away to get to work, Wilda thought she saw a thin figure creep across the square, keeping to the shadows of the buildings until it reached the one opposite and slipped inside. Before she could think why it troubled her, she and Rowena were overwhelmed with lamb and mutton to cure. But it did trouble her, the more so when she realised she hadn’t seen Myldrith since that morning, and she should be here and helping. Even if Wilda quaked to face her, knowing that no matter how shrill or furious or even a touch mad she’d seemed about what Wilda had done, she was right.

  Wilda kept looking toward the door as they worked, waiting for Myldrith, wanting to explain, to apologise, though she wasn’t quite sure how or why, only that Myldrith was her friend. The day grew steadily darker, and the succession of meat seemed never-ending. By the time they were done, it was near full dark and there was still no sign of Myldrith.

  Wilda wasn’t the only one worried.

  “She was in such a state, maybe we should try to find her,” Rowena said. “It’s not right for her to be gone so long. No doubt Sigdir will be back soon and he’ll want to know where she is. Wilda, you take the buildings here, I’ll go farther afield, in case she’s wandered off.”

  Wilda pulled on her thin cloak and dashed out into the almost-dark, stopping only to pick up a rushlight. The building opposite, some sort of barn, where she’d seen the thin figure earlier was her first thought. The figure had reminded her of Myldrith, even though she’d no cause to think so then. Thin and furtive. Maybe she’d wanted time alone to think, somewhere quiet to pray and find strength. Wilda tried the door, but something blocked it. She pushed again, calling Myldrith’s name. “It’s Wilda, please, Myldrith, I’m sorry. I only wanted to get you help, to get us both away from here.” A lie to compound her sin.

  The door gave way and Wilda pushed past the sheaf of hay that had blocked the door. A hay barn, stacked to the rafters with the sweet smell of dried summer. Wilda shielded the rushlight from the draft and made her way further in. A creaking sound, regular as a heartbeat, sent shivers along her spine. She shouldn’t believe in ghosts, or in premonitions. She didn’t, she was a God-fearing Christian who believed all the Bible told her. Still, a prayer couldn’t hurt and it might still her nerves. Our Father, who art in heaven…

  The rushlight spluttered out and Wilda was in the dark with sweet-smelling hay and a creaking that turned her heart. Something brushed her cheek and she leapt back with a cry. A thrashing of wings and a distinctive cawing surrounded her. Damn raven. Claws dug into her shoulder as it settled there. She tried to shoo it off, but it clung tighter and cawed in her ear, almost deafening her. Her heart hammered, her fingers like ice, her head like lead. Raven, bird of portent… No. No, she wouldn’t believe in the old ways, in the superstitions.

  The creaking stopped and Wilda took a moment to let her heart settle. The raven dug its claws in, and then the hay in front of Wilda seemed to explode. Myldrith’s hand connected solidly, a ringing slap that stunned Wilda.

  Myldrith hit out again, this time with a rope that she clung to, and grabbed at Wilda’s dress, pulling and tearing at it like a wild beast. Wilda staggered back, arms up in a futile attempt to protect herself. All the while Myldrith was screaming “Harlot!
Whore!” and other things too vile for Wilda to comprehend.

  The door flew open and dark figures entered, lamps held high, away from the hay. Sigdir barged past Rowena who stared, openmouthed, and took hold of Myldrith. Wilda was surprised at how gently he held her and at his perplexed frown as he stared at the rope in her hands. When he spoke his tone was soothing, cajoling, and finally she stopped her struggles. Wilda looked up at Sigdir, prepared to hate him for what he’d done to Myldrith, who had made her this way, and saw only confused concern in his hesitant movements, the set of his brow.

  Rowena spoke quickly, quietly, and the concern on Sigdir’s brow grew. He cast a few words in return and cocked his head, looking at Myldrith in an odd way, as though he’d never seen her before.

  “He says he only brought her for your maid, so that you would have company. He wasn’t hard with her, that he did only what men here do, what even Saxon men do with their wives. Yet she would scream and bite, no matter how he tried not to harm her. She bit his—well—you know. Any man would lose his temper. The White Christ doesn’t give his women red blood, he says.”

  Wilda bit her lip against that last and the retort that sprang to mind. At least Myldrith had some fire in her then. Yet what Sigdir said was truth enough. Any woman was slave to her father or guardian and the man she was set to marry. To be bed-slave to a heathen was little different, only that it was out of wedlock, and would God blame a slave for that?

  Myldrith glared up at Wilda, her hatred undimmed it seemed, and gasped out a word, one that Wilda didn’t know but that brought a shocked gasp from Rowena.

  “Skækja!”

  Now Sigdir was the wild man, the Devil’s child, his eyes hard and staring. Like a man possessed, the man rumour made him once again. Wilda shrank back, pulse fluttering in her throat.

  “Wilda skækja,” Myldrith repeated, her voice a hoarse croak but slick with satisfaction at Sigdir’s reaction. “Toki.”

  Sigdir whirled to Wilda, and now she was badly scared. His eyes, always restless, fixed on her unwaveringly and his hand shot out to grasp her wrist, his fingers gripping too tight, squeezing the bones till she gasped. She tried to pull away and he didn’t stop her, but his eyes burned into her, scalding her, shaming her somehow even though she was the Christian and he was the heathen…

  He turned abruptly, his lips set in a grim line that Wilda found cut her as deeply as Myldrith’s outrage had. Whatever his beliefs, he was as devout in them as she was in hers. He barked an order at two of his men and they bundled Wilda out of the barn, ignoring her pleas, ignoring Rowena’s attempts to intervene. They took her to the house and thrust her down on the bench, leaving her to her thoughts, her shame, and fears about what Sigdir would do now.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Seek never to win the wife of another,

  Or long for her secret love.

  Havamal: 115

  Einar was ready, as ready as he could be. He’d packed what little he had and set it on Horse-Einar. The horse’s soft nose nudged at him for a treat, but he had nothing to spare so Horse-Einar had to make do with a stroke and a pat.

  Einar sat by the dying fire, hoping to catch a little sleep before he left. Before dawn he would leave, they both would leave for who knew where. He dozed and strange images danced across his eyelids, of trolls and other beasts he didn’t know the names of, of the darkness beyond the village, beyond the only place he’d ever called home. Of other darkness, sent by Bausi and his seidr magic.

  He knew the villages along the fjord, some little more than a cluster of houses, and they knew him. He couldn’t hope to find shelter there—all paid tribute to Bausi. Their only chance lay if he could get them out up the pass, get Wilda to the next fjord where another jarl took tribute, maybe have her find Harald King, where Einar had never been. If only he could get her out of this fjord that was home, and a weight around his heart. He could get her out, even though he must stay.

  Horse-Einar stamped and shook his head with a snort, bringing Einar out of his doze. He ground the heels of his hand into his eyes, willing the fog out of his head. Two days he’d said, and tomorrow the second. It was full dark now and yet he must wait still, for the darkest time. Horse-Einar stamped again, this time with more force, his head jerking up and down. At the same time, Einar made out footsteps in the snow outside. More than one person. He went to get up, but too late.

  The door banged open and Sigdir filled the space. One of the spae-wife’s threads, but was it the right one to pull?

  Sigdir’s face was dark and flushed with rage and he didn’t stop but barged in, grabbed Einar by the arm and yanked him to his feet. He held them there face to face for long moments, his muscles trembling as though he held in a vast rage.

  “Is it true?”

  Einar almost didn’t know what to think—did Sigdir know what he was planning? How had he found out? But Sigdir’s next words made it clearer.

  “Did you dishonour me with my future bride? Did she make a skækja of herself, a fool of me?”

  Thor help me. Sigdir shook him, and he reached for the amulet that was no longer there.

  “Speak! I know you can.”

  Einar couldn’t say the truth, yet to lie…a lie was worse than what Sigdir said about Wilda. A lie was an affront to Odin. But if he didn’t lie, they would both die at Sigdir’s hand. “No. It was me. She—I—it was me, not her. She’s not shamed you.”

  “You made her?”

  Einar couldn’t look Sigdir in the eye, couldn’t look at the sudden hurt there, something he’d long ago thought had fled his younger brother with his casual cruelties and spite. It might not be too late for Sigdir, the spae-wife had said. Einar began to see, to hope that she was right, that he might yet bring his brother back, even if it took a lie to keep Wilda safe in the meantime. Even if it meant that Sigdir would hate him, kill him most like. “Yes.”

  Sigdir’s mouth crumpled and he bit on a lip so whatever he felt wouldn’t show. He relaxed his hold, let Einar’s feet set on the floor again and wiped his mouth with the back of his clenched fist.

  “You admit it?”

  Einar watched him closely, the downward twist of his mouth, the tensing of his shoulders. He knew what would come, but he was left no choice. “Yes.”

  The punch wasn’t the worst of it, not the first, nor the rest. Einar took them, hunched his shoulders against them without complaint, because Sigdir was right and he had dishonoured his own brother, had known he was doing it at the time, and had done it anyway. Had he done it just to spite his own brother? To pay back years of taunts? Not just that, but it had been there, in the back of his head all the same.

  No, the worst was the look in Sigdir’s eye, the knowledge that the spae-wife was right and Bausi hadn’t completely hardened Sigdir, not yet. But Einar might have, with a betrayal that he’d not known would grieve his brother so.

  Wilda couldn’t sleep. She lay shivering under the blankets on the bench, her open eyes blind to the fire in front of her. What had driven Myldrith so far? Wilda knew why. Not because she’d been made to lie in a man’s bed. As a woman, she would have faced the same in any marriage, and she knew it. Maybe because she’d been denied the solace of a wedding and the social standing it would have given her. Even that—Wilda wasn’t sure that would have driven her to it, or even that Sigdir wasn’t a Christian, that she lay with a heathen. No, it was the child that had been the tipping point, Wilda was sure. A soul brought into slavery, not to be baptised, to be left adrift without the comfort of heaven to look to. That, and the bruises on poor Myldrith’s wrists.

  It wasn’t just a cold bed Wilda had to look forward to—she was well used to that—but a harsh one too. She’d heard of similar among Saxon women, talked of in whispers. But then, a Saxon wife had her protection under law, could leave her husband and claim half her lands. There was no such protection here, not for thralls, maybe not for wives either. Myldrith had seen no way out, that was the truth, and Wilda was staring at the same fate. That w
ould be her soon enough, beaten, ground down with it, with Sigdir.

  Wilda shut her eyes and prayed, a blasphemous prayer. Please, Lord, in Your mercy, send me Einar. Help me set myself free of these heathens, by a heathen’s hand. Yet in her heart of hearts she knew. It wasn’t just that she wanted him to help her. She wanted him, and that was the blasphemy. There weren’t enough Hail Marys in the world for that, but she said them silently in her head anyway, her hand clasped round her crucifix. Yet the other hand held the amulet Einar had given her, a heathen charm that was warm in her hand.

  People came and went, carefully avoiding her corner. Myldrith was too weak to protest much when Rowena led her to Sigdir’s room, but she had the strength to cast a sly, vicious glance at Wilda. Once she had fussed over Myldrith and made sure she slept, Rowena made her way to Wilda. She sat down at the end of the bench but seemed hesitant to say anything.

  In the end, Wilda blurted out the question most on her mind. “Is it true, about him not trying her hard?”

  “I can’t say for her, but with me, no, he never tried me hard, or not to start. He wasn’t rough, or no more than others have been, just expectant. Only—only sometimes he’s…” Rowena shook her head, looking confused. “Two men he is. One is just a heathen, with odd ways maybe but not a bad man. They have their qualities, and one of those is the keeping of their honour as they see it. We’re thralls, yes, but not much worse here than a slave in a Saxon hall. I’ve known both, and there’s not much difference. Yet at other times, Sigdir’s the man that rumour makes him, like he’s possessed by some evil spirit, by the Devil. Those are the days when you keep from his path, whether thrall or karl, man or woman. The days he spends with Bausi, those are the days to watch for, when his temper stretches and his demands become those of the Devil. He will see Bausi on this matter, to be sure.”