by Gina Conkle
He raised the horn in salute. “Saving Katla’s life was more than worthy of reward. But, here you stay.” He studied her carefully. “I hope you’d save the maid’s life without thought of reward, because you are a…merciful woman.”
Helena blushed, he was certain, to have her own words repeated.
“I was taught to bear kindness for all.” His thrall’s chin tipped high. “Katla and Aud have been good to me.” Her hands lifted in appeal. “You must know I want to return home. Don’t most thralls wish this?”
“This is your home now.” He spoke with the same hardness he used with his men. “You don’t know me well, but in time, you’ll find me fair and just.” He pulled a hunk of soft cheese from the bowl and smiled to soften the sting of his edict. “I’m thankful for your remedy today. How could I let go of a thrall with such a skill?”
Her mouth pulled a taut line and she picked at her bread and cheese. “What I thought would set me free, chains me.”
“You don’t look like a chained woman.”
He said the words as encouragement, but a pang of guilt touched him. Saving Katla was worthy of great reward amongst his men. Such bravery was expected of stalwart men, but facing him now was no trained warrior.
She was as fair as any Norsewoman. Red embroidery decorated her loose neckline—the standard of freewomen, not thralls. The neckline drew his eye to lush womanly swells…curves his hands itched to explore. He drank in her every move, following subtle shifts of her body in the fine linen tunic and liking the way the cloth clung to her.
They ate in silence and Helena poured more ale into his drinking horn. Her long, chestnut braid fell forward and she tossed the dark rope past her shoulder. Her slender arms were lightly golden from the sun. Was the skin lighter beneath the armband that marked her as his? Would her skin feel as fine as Abbasid silk if he touched her? Her cheek had healed well; a dark pink line crescented her cheek. Even that strip of skin needed exploring
Hakan rubbed both hands through his unruly hair. He needed a good dunk in the cold river to rid himself of these thoughts. There were plenty of willing women to sate baser needs. He didn’t dally with thralls—a legacy King Olof had fostered in his youth. Many chieftains did, putting their peaceful homes in peril. He watched Helena leave the table in silence and open a shutter to stare at the sky.
“Do you like our Norse skies?” Hakan asked, aware of her hands twirling a loose tendril falling across her face.
“I do,” she said with a soft, dreamy lilt. “The sun doesn’t set…it hides beyond that horizon.” She lifted a hand, tracing the outline of distant trees. “Trees darken against the sky’s purples and blues. ‘Tis my favorite time.”
The moment, oddly intimate, played on him. He recalled the day he had purchased her from the Danes. Aye, that strange sense, a curling vine, stretched and grew within his chest. When Helena went to extinguish the soapstone lamps, the spell was gone.
“If you don’t need me, Lord Hakan, I’ll sleep now.”
Hakan wanted the spell, the pleasant connection to return.
“Are you tired?” He flipped open an unlocked chest near the bed and pulled out a wooden board and small leather bag.
He plunked the game on the table and waved his hand over the pieces.
“Backgammon?”
“’Tis a game? I do not know this backgammon.” Her pink lips pressed together.
“Come.” He motioned for her to sit opposite him. “We Norse have many pastimes to entertain us when work is done. I’ll teach you,” he coaxed. “One friendly game and you’ll see we’re not so different here.”
She returned his grin and moved to the table.
Hakan set the pieces on the board. “You can speak to me of your home.”
The way his thrall’s eyes softened, Hakan guessed she found him a little less the barbarian. He would sway her from this discontent. She would accept her new home.
Chapter Eight
Lolling against a birch tree, Hakan followed the steady movement of warp and weft. Helena created a swath of wool from the creaking loom, a castoff of Mardred’s that he had moved from the pit house into shade. Many days she worked the wooden structure with the talent of a harpist, weaving cloth the way a musician wove songs.
“You’ll make me a very rich man.” Hakan smiled.
“You are a rich man already.” Helena’s fingers strummed steady movement across tight strings. “Wait for the next flax harvest. My fine linen weaves will amaze you.”
“Amaze me?” His whittler’s knife slid down the wood piece he shaped.
“You’ll be fat with profits. Last season, my linens gained some fame in Paris,” she said with pride. “The secret is not to boil the flax for very long. Too long and you ruin the shine. Truly, I love working with cloth.”
“I noticed.” Hakan chuckled to himself, recalling the ship.
“Oh?” Her eyebrows arched as her hands kept working.
“On the ship,” he added. “The mending. What I meant as punishment was your pleasure. You’re as happy to have needle and thread in hand as weaving.” He wiped the knife’s edge in the grass.
Hakan rested his elbow on a hitched knee. He was impressed with her knowledge. Never before had he cared about such things as turning flax into linen, boiling wool and the like, but with Helena, ‘twas an art form. She produced beautiful cloths of softest quality that made Mardred rave, and then his clever thrall made the sturdiest wools, sail cloths fit for a king’s ship. He didn’t gainsay her requests. Last week he had labored at her bidding, hauling great bales of wool.
She turned the greasy mass into sails. King Olof had charged him to replace a lost Knorr ship, a casualty of the rebellion at Aland. Under Helena’s capable hands, the dirty wool had turned into fine sails.
Those sturdy cloths stretched across one green meadow, bright stripes of color, drying in the sun. Sails, natural weaves and vibrant reds, puffed and billowed, catching air, but large rocks pinned them. He smiled to himself and slid his knife over the smooth birch stick in his hand. Helena was a maid of many talents.
“You smile because you know I’m right.” She crowed her victory. “You see the results with those sails and know I’ll not disappoint.”
Nothing about her disappointed him. In truth, he never thought a woman could stir his interest again or be so easy to wile away the day.
“Nay, I smile because a once mighty chieftain has been reduced to bowing and scraping to his thrall’s whims. But, I’m grateful.”
He meant to tease, but the counter-weights ceased clacking. She studied him behind the loom’s warp strings.
“How grateful?”
“Enough to share the spoils.” His knife slowed. “Trade some for yourself.”
“Truly?” Her face lit at the offer.
“Aye, if the quality is of such renown, perhaps you can get a house thrall for churning butter, making cheese and bread. I need one these days.” He couldn’t help the jest, wanting nothing more than to smooth matters with her.
She laughed and threw a skein of yarn at him. He deflected the skein, and the yarn rolled in the grass. Hakan turned again to the wood in his hands. The loom thinly masked her face, but he caught the way her fingers rested with the lightest touch at the tiny pouch she wore under her tunic.
“You’ve never told me the price for my freedom.” She dipped her head a fraction and unbound hair slid past one shoulder. “But, if my weaves are well received, I would amass enough to trade for my freedom.”
“Helena.” A warning note threaded his voice.
“I wish to return home…you must know this…to return to the people I love.” Her voice was little more than a whisper. She gripped the loom’s frame as if she pleaded with him behind a dungeon’s barred door.
“To your betrothed. The one who let the Danes steal you,” he said, as the sting of her choice burned him.
Broken pottery shards, the loom’s counter weights, clanked again. Her back was stiff, and she was c
losed to him. Hakan tossed his whittling to the ground. He would work the fields. At least flax was not so moody and mysterious as the wants of women.
“Unhappy with that?” Helena nodded at the discarded wood. The loom was a stringed veil, half-hiding her face.
Hakan’s palms pressed the soil, poised to push him off the ground. But he met her blue gaze, and her distress hit him as hard as Sven’s elbow jammed to the gut. A breeze ruffled Helena’s unbound hair. Strands around her face had lightened from the summer sun.
“The carving…a spoon for you.” His gruff voice downplayed the offering.
“Ah,” she nodded. Her voice dropped to soft, soothing tones. “I noticed some small carvings…the chest that holds your chalices. Did you carve those?”
“Nay. Erik did.”
“Your son.”
He did not like this meekness, nor that he caused it. He wanted the maid who bested him in games and laughed at her meager cooking efforts.
“Aye.” He paused. “Erik. He is eight winters now.”
“I am sure he’ll grow to manhood and be as fine a man as his father.” Her direct gaze was followed by a tender plea. “Please. Don’t go to the fields yet.”
She called him a fine man. His heart swelled. And, she who had vexed him a moment ago, now comforted him. The tension in his arms eased as he settled back against the tree.
“A son must know his father. Erik sees little of me.” Hakan’s voice was flat. “The one thing I feared is happening. I grew to manhood without my father, and so will my son, if things don’t change.”
“You have said little about losing your father.”
The loom forgotten, Helena hugged her legs to her chest, resting her chin on her knees. Old wounds lost some of their sharpness when he shared them with her. He was not as quick to keep the past in darkness.
“They died in a fire on our farmstead when I was eight. Mardred was already married to Halsten. They restored the farm, Skardsbok Gard, after the fire. The king took me in.” Hakan raised one knee and rested his forearm there. “Olof raised me as if I were his own son. Gave me my first sword. Alas, Queen Estrid birthed Anund Jakob when I was fourteen. ‘Twas time to go a viking. See the world.”
Hakan stared at the slow-moving river that bordered his fields as visions of the past danced before him.
“I almost willed death to take me,” he said, letting the dark past tumble into light of day. “Sven came to my aid. Many a time he saved my skull, and I his.”
Helena’s eyebrows knit together. “When did you have Erik?”
“After some years, I returned to Svea, a man of success. Sven and I decided to build our own long ship. I became chieftain, and he my second.” He shrugged at this. “Plunder, trade…’twas all the same to us.” Hakan grinned. “Mayhap I was chieftain because Sven would rather knock heads than use his own.”
Her bold eyes sparkled and a smile curved her lips. A tiny bird swooped between them and pecked the ground. Hakan picked up the birch wood piece and knife again. For all of Helena’s impulsiveness, she knew when to hold her tongue…when listening mattered. Too many maids chattered endlessly when quiet would do.
“One summer, the most beautiful maid in all Svea married me. And the next summer she was swollen with child, but all was not right.”
A lump clogged his throat. Dust of the past stirred—retelling was not easy. Hakan drank long from the ladle in the water bucket beside him, then offered it to Helena.
“Nay.” She rubbed her arms and one hand caught on her thrall’s band. Her fingers traced the carving etched deep in silver. “We don’t have to talk about this, Hakan.”
“Better you hear it from me.” He again picked up the unformed wooden spoon and knife. “I want Erik to live here. I’m surprised my meddling sister did not speak of this already.”
Helena smiled. “Remember, I was learning how to cook at the same time. That kept her very busy.”
He grinned and his knife slid across the birch wood. Fragile slivers curled under the blade, dropping to the ground. He was glad to have something in his hands. He would finish this and never speak of that time again.
“All was not well when Astrid’s belly swelled with Erik,” he said, his voice hoarse. “I was happy to have my own farmstead. But Astrid wanted me to take Mardred and Halsten’s farm. By rights, Skardsbok Gard belonged to me, but after the fire, I didn’t want to go back.” His knife slid back and forth over the wood.
The small bird returned, picking up a wood shaving in his tiny beak and flying away. A breeze played with the fine, paler hairs that framed Helena’s face. Her eyes were large blue sapphires shining for his benefit alone.
“What did you do?”
“I built the finest longhouse on the other side of Svea. ‘Twas not enough. I bought thralls. Astrid did not have to lift a finger. I wanted to work the land like my father, but my being a farmer shamed her.” The words tasted as bitter gall on his tongue. “She wanted a powerful chieftain…status in Svea.”
He paused and stared at his now flourishing fields.
“I let her think I was more than I was, a failing of youth. Such was my need to impress her, to convince her to marry me instead of Gorm.” At Gorm’s name, the knife jammed the wood. “She chose me. Soon, she learned I gave equal share to all who served me, not keeping a chieftain’s share. She railed at that.” Hakan shook his head at the memory and flicked the chunk to the ground.
“I preferred the company of my men. Anything to bring peace. Mardred assured me some women don’t do well carrying a babe in their belly. Best I go away and come back bearing gifts.”
He and Helena exchanged smiles at Mardred’s wisdom.
“That didn’t work?” Helena asked, her chin still resting on her knee.
“Nay. Whatever I brought, she thirsted for more. I wanted to please her for giving me Erik.” He smiled. “I wanted more sons and daughters. I was happiest to be with Erik, though all he did was drool on me.” His joyous memory vanished. “By next summer, something was very wrong.”
Small shavings of wood flew from his knife and his jaw clenched. “I am certain Astrid was not faithful. By rights I should have flayed her back, but I couldn’t. The mother of my son would not be treated like an unfaithful…”
Bitterness spilled from him, but Hakan let the acrid poison disappear like mist. His frame eased, drained of the bottled anger.
“When I returned from one of my voyages, she had divorced me,” he finished, but the flat words held no sting.
“Then what happened?”
Hakan shrugged. “A Norse woman gets half, the home and all that’s in it. But I gave her everything: the thralls, livestock, all save my weapons and long ship. I wanted Erik to lack for nothing.”
“And how did you come by this farmstead?”
“Olof,” he said, a wry smile beginning to grow. “He thought I needed to live on this end of Svea.”
“A wise king,” she laughed. “But by the heavy dust I found, you spent little time here.”
“When Astrid and I parted, we agreed Erik would come with me when he was older. ‘Tis the Norse way.” He rolled the whittling knife in his hand. “Now you know why I’ve come home.”
“Mardred explained to me about the son living with his father when older. But why is Erik not with you? This is what plagues you, the reason for your head ailments.” She waggled a finger at him. “Do not deny it.”
“Aye,” he acknowledged.
“And he’s not with you now because…” her voice trailed, inviting him to finish.
“Because Astrid hides him from me.” He stopped whittling. “I want him before having to take the problem before the assembly. She does that to goad me.”
“Then, we must find a way for you and Erik to be together. Now.”
Helena said the words with such resolve; her agreement was another unexpected pleasantness. He was about to say as much, when both heard a trotting horse. Sven rode past the farm’s open gate and behind him, a da
rk-haired boy on the verge of manhood drove an ox cart. ‘Twas Marc, Halsten’s blacksmith.
Sven bellowed across the sunlit yard, “I leave you alone for a sennight and this is how you wile away the time? Sitting under a tree with a fair maid?”
Sven swung his leg over the horse’s head and landed on both feet with a thud. “At least bring one out for me.”
Hakan waved to a spot in the shade beside him. “Join me?”
Sven settled against a bale of wool and stretched his legs before him, crossing them at the ankles.
“Have you food to share with a weary traveler?” He grinned at Helena.
She wrinkled her freckled nose. “I might find something amongst my burnt offerings.”
Hakan watched her departure, her gait long and easy. Sven also watched, and once Helena was inside the longhouse, he turned to Hakan.
“Astrid was greedy with the tribute furs. She took all the mink.” He spat on the ground. “Gorm was nowhere in sight.”
“As I expected,” Hakan shrugged.
“He’s hiding now that you’re back.” Sven’s bushy brows lowered. “You’re too good to her. She’s nothing but—”
“Don’t. Astrid is the mother of my son. Would you have me leave Erik wanting?”
“I hate to see you taken by a—” he stopped.
Hakan flashed a warning glare.
“A viper, such as she,” Sven finished carefully.
Hakan plucked a long blade of grass. “I will have to go before the Althing.”
“A public spectacle.” Sven grimaced.
The subject dropped with the arrival of Helena, a tray in hand burdened with food and ale. Hakan jumped up to help Helena, taking the tray from her hands.
“Thank you, my lord.”
“You should have called me. This is too much for you to carry.”
Helena’s eyes sparkled at him. “You’ve spoiled me. There will be no end of talk from Mardred when she hears how much you’ve labored for me.”
The easy banter continued as she served the fare, pouring horns of ale for both men. Helena set the pitcher down and started to leave when Hakan called her back.