by Gina Conkle
“Aye, blot…blood. The ninth year sacrifice: nine cows, horses, pigs, goats, and men.” Mardred scanned the road ahead as if such a thing was commonplace.
“A sacrifice of men,” Helena gasped and jerked to a stop.
“Aye,” Mardred nodded. “This happens.”
Mardred cocked her head at Helena, bewilderment writ on her face. Then she smiled.
“Oh, nay, Helena. You wouldn’t be a sacrifice. Only male thralls, and troublesome ones at that.” A firm nod punctuated the last statement. “Surely, this happens in other places, too?”
“Nay.” Helena’s shoulders hunched against a shiver.
“Mayhap Hakan has said as much.” Mardred played idly with her keys. “This is what the king wants to abolish. The ninth year blot comes this year…ah, look—” Mardred waved her hand with a flourish. “—Hakan’s farmstead.”
Helena was glad for the change of subject. Mardred’s brisk fingers pointed here and there.
“Hakan’s longhouse. Not the typical longhouse of a chieftain. He is modest. Look.” Mardred scurried ahead to a narrow home built lengthwise into a hill. Thick grass grew on the roof. “And, he has a barn almost as large as his longhouse.”
“Over there is the entrance to the thralls’ longhouse. And, there…” Mardred turned a quick glance to make sure Helena followed. “…that smaller door leading into the slope? That is the root cellar, and beyond…the weaver’s shed.” Cocking her head, Mardred asked, “Do you weave?”
“Aye, Mardred, much better than I cook.”
Mardred laughed heartily. “Then let’s poke about and see what we find.”
Clutching the rings chained to her waist, Mardred paused. Her gaze measured Helena, a narrowing of the eyes before she sighed and passed the clanking ring to Helena. “I may as well give these to you. You are as close to the lady of the house as Hakan will have.”
Entering the longhouse, the women met clouds of dust. Mardred sputtered and coughed. “I’ll leave you to look around while I set the men to work.”
Helena batted thick air and waited for her eyes to adjust to dim, dusty light. She rolled up animal skins covering each window and opened the shutters to let sunlight bathe the room.
Two hearths, one in the floor and another built into the wall, overflowed with ash. Chests were stacked near a rough table and benches. A large bed dominated the far end. One heavy, ornately carved chair sat in the middle, a lonely throne. Cobwebs hung from wall pegs and shields. A few spears dotted the walls, all caked with dust.
“You have your work cut out for you.” Mardred entered, followed by the men carrying chests.
Helena dove into the distracting work, dusting and washing. She hung dried herbs, scenting the air pleasantly. With the keys in her possession, Helena tested each chest’s lock. Treasures ranged from sturdy pelts to dried spices, flat pans and more bronze-banded buckets in need of polishing.
In one chest, she found a heavy green glass smoother for flattening seams. Who would think the fierce Norse so vain about their clothes?
“Look at this, Helena.” Mardred cooed as she unfolded linen thick as a cloud from an open chest.
“What is it?”
“Eider down bedding.”
Mardred buried her face in the softness. Helena found more down-stuffed pillows and set them on the bed. Both women admired the linen luxury.
Mardred clucked her tongue and said in gossipy tone, “Astrid will be full of envy.” She gave a satisfied “humph” and sank into the rich bedding. “I envy you this luxury.”
A bolt shot through Helena. She thinks I will sleep there?
Mardred closed her eyes, swishing her arms across the linen’s softness. “You won’t want to rise on cold winter morns.”
Helena busied herself folding cloths. “Who is Astrid?”
Mardred hitched up on both elbows.
“Fairest woman in all of Svea, and a grasping witch. Years she was married to my brother. Then one day she was not.” Mardred shrugged, as if this were commonplace.
Helena folded another linen and watched the Norsewoman trace circles in the down cover. Silence was the best enticement to loosen Mardred’s tongue.
“A woman calls witnesses to her home to divorce her husband. She announces three times that they are no longer married, first at the lintel and then by the bed. Our custom is, young children stay with their mother, and boys go with their father when they’re older.”
She warmed to the topic and wagged a finger at Helena.
“This is what plagues my brother… causes his head ailments. He wants much to have his son. But Astrid knows that when Erik goes with Hakan, the gold will stop. So, she delays and asks for more of this and that—” Mardred flopped her hand back and forth, mimicking a childish voice. “—as a condition to release the boy permanently.”
Mardred’s eyes took on a sage light as her arm swept a wide arc over the longhouse.
“All this is yours to care for and oversee. My work is done, but you have much ahead of you. Come bid me farewell.” Mardred stretched from the bed and headed toward the door. “You can explore my brother’s many hidden treasures later.” Mardred winked. “He has many surprises for the one who takes the time to look.”
Chapter Seven
Helena tested a key on a small chest blanketed with dust. Rusted hinges creaked as she raised the lid and found shiny silver ingots the size of a man’s fingers. How long had this chest sat, forgotten? Another chest held two richly jeweled chalices fit for a king. In this same chest, someone had wrapped a boy’s tunic around child-sized ice skates, as if these were just as valued. She turned the chipped elk bone skates over in her hands.
Erik’s.
A rough carving of a horse in wood, the work of a child, completed the cherished trove.
What manner of man lives by his sword, yet keeps tender remembrances of a little boy?
Her favorite find was a harp, a close replica to one she had played at home. Stroking the strings soothed her. Every spare moment, Helena strummed her idle pleasure. Music held memories of home.
Helena loved fixing the longhouse with no one to gainsay her. Wiping her hands down the front of her apron, she took in the glorious day. The sun shined bright, the air smelled of fresh pine boughs, and the grass beckoned like a soft carpet.
Gamle and Selig worked the barn and fields. Both men had served Hakan and Mardred for years. Gentle in demeanor, they enjoyed Helena’s music while at their labor. She climbed atop the longhouse and sat over the lintel, dangling her legs over the edge. She closed her eyes, and her fingers strummed soothing notes of home. One Frankish melody after another floated through the air.
…
Hakan, as bone weary and dirt-covered as Agnar, passed by the rune stone that marked his farmstead. His body ached and his head pounded. He’d sleep on molded fodder and be glad.
The sight that greeted him promised nothing of moldy hay.
Someone worked a plow in one field. Rich, black earth churned into neat rows. His barn’s lintel carvings shined with a new coat of red, blue, and yellow on the weathered doorway. Docile beasts nipped at flowing grass in a newly fenced meadow. He had wandered into a dreamland, drawn by hypnotic sounds of a glossy haired siren atop his roof.
That siren’s long legs swung from her perch above his door, her dark braid coiling at her hip. Agnar’s hoof clomped the earth, her reverie broken. Pain knocked at Hakan’s head and…
His Frankish thrall?
She scrambled to her feet, her mouth rounding as she stared back at him.
“Lord Hakan, you are home.” She scurried across the roof and into the yard.
Hakan slid from his horse, wincing as his feet touched ground. Gamle raced from the barn and took Agnar. Hakan rubbed his temples as he gave another quick survey of his land, but grimaced anew when daylight pierced like shards of iron to his head. His stomach swirled from the pain. The rooftop siren, wide-eyed and clutching a harp, approached him with keys jingling from her wa
ist.
“Welcome home, my lord. I didn’t know you’d be back so soon.”
He squinted at her. “My bed.”
“Come, all has been made ready.” Her voice was breathy and low.
He followed the sounds of soft, jingling keys to his longhouse, and he met pleasant aromas. Stew simmered in a pot. Flat bread browned in a pan. On his table, wooden bowls heaped high with wild berries. Then, he scanned the walls.
“Pine boughs on my shields?” If his head didn’t hurt so bad, he’d laugh.
“They freshen the air.” His thrall smiled as she moved to the hearth.
He remembered the longhouse before—bare and dusty. Now, hard-earned luxuries, objects of long ago trades, pieces he had forgotten he owned, were on display. Someone had been busy, very busy, nosing through his things. Hakan rubbed his forehead. Tension overpowered anger at his thrall’s prying. He needed his bed and her gone.
“Your head ailment?” Helena asked, as she removed the bread from the fire. “Mardred told me about them.”
He grunted, sure that Mardred had given his thrall an earful. Hakan removed Solace from his back, the iron clattering on the table. With pounding head and sore limbs, his bed drew him like lodestone. He stretched across clean linens and able hands moved over his calves, untying and removing his boots.
“Does the pain fill all of your head? Or just behind the eyes?” his thrall asked in hushed tones.
“Starts behind my eyes and moves over my head.” Waving a hand at the window, he groaned, “The light…”
He draped his forearm over his eyes, blotting out daggers of brightness. His thrall’s footsteps pattered on the earthen floor. Heavy wood shutters scraped shut, and welcome darkness came. His hand flopped onto the cool linen coverlet.
The bed dipped from the weight of someone next to him. His thrall’s soft hand pressed his forehead and slid to his cheek.
“Leave me,” he growled.
The cool hand withdrew, but she did not. He winced as more sharp pains shot through his head and receded. He needed her gone. Sometimes things turned ugly…he turned ugly.
“Best you leave me. I can be…unpleasant,” he rasped.
A rustle of cloth on cloth, then the warmth of her frame drew near.
“My lord,” she whispered. “Is the pain only behind your eyes? Or has it begun to move?”
“There’s a harpy in my head who’s unsheathed her claws. By Odin, why the questions? Leave me.” But his words had no bite. He was weak as a lamb.
“I can help you.”
He tilted his head and squinted at the maid through his lashes. The move roiled his stomach worse than churning seas.
“My father was…is an apothecary,” she said. “There’s a remedy, ergot, a spur that grows on certain grains. I saw it here when I cleaned your root cellar. Ergot cures head ailments.”
Hakan rubbed the heels of his hands across his forehead. “Thor’s hammer knocks my skull. If you’ve a healing potion, get it.”
His head ailments marched with vengeance once the ache moved behind his eyes.
“My lord, the ergot can also be a dangerous remedy. Mad grain, we call it. The cure can be worse than the ailment.”
“Aye?”
“Your arms and legs might burn from within, or you’ll imagine seeing things. ‘Tis not so bad. But…you could lose a limb, go mad, or—” He heard her suck in her breath. “—death. But, this is only if the quantity is incorrect.” She touched his shoulder. “I would use only the smallest amount.”
“You plan to kill me?” He asked, opening one eyelid.
Terrible pain, cramping, and the need to retch gripped him. “Get your potion,” he rasped.
Footsteps left the longhouse. Keeping his head still, the agony eased. Mayhap he should bear through it as he always did and sleep it off. ‘Twas a dangerous idea to trust his pretty thrall. Her welcome today was friendly enough. If she poisoned him, she must know his death would not mean freedom…’twould mean her own end.
What had she said? Too much, and he died. Too little, and he lost a limb.
Ah, the havoc one woman could render. Sweat pricked his forehead and trickled down the side of his face. He ought to stop grousing at her; he was at her tender mercy. Under him the bed dipped, the frame creaked, and in the shadowed haze, a soft hand touched his shoulder.
“My lord, open your mouth and swallow.”
A pasty lump slid over his lip with little effort.
“We’ll know the potency soon.” Her whisper hovered near his ear.
A cool cloth stroked his brow. He waited in darkness, his breath slow. Hakan couldn’t fathom time or space, save the pain in his head and the roil in his stomach, an ugly twin to his head ailments.
“Do you feel heat in your limbs? Does the pain ease?”
The voice floating in the dark spoke to him. His Frankish thrall. His belly churned less. Heavy drowse seeped into his frame from head to toe.
“The pain lessens,” he mumbled, keeping his eyes shut. “My legs…tired.”
“Good.” A cloth gently swiped his cheek and neck. “Mardred says these head ailments happen after you see your former wife. That they’re caused by guilt and anger.”
“Mardred talks too much,” he groused, shifting on the cool linen eiderdown. His head and limbs numbed as after drinking a pleasant elixir. “Too forward. Thrall…should know her place.”
He tried to smile. Hakan opened one eyelid a slit, but Helena was a hazy nymph at his side.
“Forgive me,” the nymph whispered as she began to remove herself.
He grabbed her wrist, not wanting to lose her closeness. “Stay…”
“Such kindness for one in need of my help,” she said, tart-tongued.
He chuckled softly. “Deserve that.” Hakan kept his eyes closed, but his grip on her slackened. “Please stay. My head…improves.”
“Harp music is a soothing balm for head ailments such as yours. Would you like me to play?”
“Aye, play for me.”
Soothing music floated, as much an elixir as sleep’s drugging potion curling over him. The bewitching thrall surprised him. What other talents did she offer?
…
Helena awoke to the acrid odor of burning meat. The harp pressed her chest and gouged the hard stone in her neck pouch.
A steady pulse of breath broke the silence. Lord Hakan slept. She wiped sleepiness from her eyes and, uncurling from the great chair, let her vision adjust to the dim interior. Quickly, she removed the stew pot outside the door. Gamle had kindly left an earthen pitcher full of creamy milk on the doorstep. She lit soapstone lamps inside and prepared the meager cheese and bread.
There will be no fine white linen and glass or slow-roasted pork as befits a chieftain’s homecoming.
Helena plucked Selig’s tunic from the mending basket. Back and forth went the rhythm of her stitches, but her eyes flicked to the bed, studying Lord Hakan in the half-light.
He is nothing like my betrothed.
Guerin, soft and scholarly, stood about her height, while Lord Hakan towered over her, his massive shoulders and body hard as stone. Guerin’s long tunics slumped and wrinkled about his frame. This man stretched out before her wore a long sleeveless leather jerkin to his knees with no trousers. His legs, long and well-muscled, caught her gaze. Coin-sized scars whitened his knees and dark slashes marked sun-browned legs. The bed creaked when his arm flopped. She jumped, and felt a flush rising.
She rolled her eyes and thought of Sestra. “I’m turning into her.”
…
Hakan awoke with a powerful need to quench his thirst. He scrubbed both hands across his face and sat upright. The Frankish thrall glanced up from her sewing. A hint of charred food filled his nostrils.
“Have you burned my homecoming feast?”
“My lord, I thought you’d sleep through the night.” She set the shirt in a basket and rose from the chair. “Are you feeling well?”
“Aye.” He rubbed a w
hiskered cheek and grinned. “Your potion worked miracles.”
“’Tis a powerful remedy.”
“You haven’t poisoned me.” Hakan flexed arms and legs, inspecting them. “I have my limbs.”
She stiffened visibly. “I would not harm another, especially someone weak. I am a merciful woman.”
“Unlike we Norse, you mean?” The bed creaked as he stood up. “Mercy,” he snorted. “A rare trait among your sex.”
Hakan removed his warrior’s belt and dropped it on the bed. Helena motioned to the table, but her dark blue eyes snapped with rebellion.
“Your food.”
He strode to the table and dipped his hands in a bucket, washing away traveler’s dust. His thrall stood attendance, but her eyes held the same hawkish stare that had pierced him on the ship. He wanted things to go better with her.
“I insulted you, when you have done me a kindness.” He slid over the bench and waved a hand over the table. “Will you sit with me?”
‘Twas his best effort at an apology—she’d get no more. She hesitated. He’d not force her, but both heard her stomach growl and saw her cheeks turn pink.
“Please.” Hakan smiled as he removed a cloth covering a bowl of cheese. “You cannot deny your hunger.”
The maid’s shoulders eased their stiffness and she slid onto the opposite bench. Good. She set a ripe berry cautiously to her lips, watching him with wary eyes.
“Why didn’t you eat?” Hakan tore into the bread and offered her the inner, soft portion.
“Mardred said ‘tis a lack of respect to begin without you.” She accepted the bread. “Remember, I was not born to this.”
“You would go hungry with food here?” His hands swept over the table. “I’d wager the men have eaten.” He smiled, shaking his head. “Mine is not a royal house. Do what I ask of you and show respect …otherwise live as you see best on my farmstead.”
“Only within the farmstead?” She picked up an earthen pitcher.
“Where else would you go?” He scooped a handful of berries into his mouth.
“Home,” she said easily as golden ale poured from the pitcher into his drinking horn. “When you were gone, I saved Katla’s life. Such an act must be worthy of reward. The reward of my freedom?”