by Lena North
Slowly I got to my feet. It wasn't easy since my hands and feet were still tied, but the cloth they'd used to gag me had at least slipped down so it was hanging around my neck, covering the leather collar showing my status as a thrall. I jumped across the floor, but as the ropes cut into my ankles, I stumbled and fell straight into the door with a loud thump, holding my bound hands in front of me to soften the fall as best I could.
"Let me out!" I yelled as loudly as I could, frustrated that they had forgotten me in the shed. Celebration after the sacrifices was usually rowdy and going on all through the night, though the thralls would not participate for long, so I wondered why my family had not released me.
When no one seemed to be on their way to help me I got to my feet again and started thumping my shoulder and hip on the door, shouting loudly for someone to let me out. It took a long time but finally, I heard an uncertain voice.
"Sissa?"
It was my brother Torbiorn.
"Who else, idiot? It's not like there are plenty of girls tied up in sheds all over the village. Let me out and untie me!" I replied, sourly.
The door opened slowly, which made me fall out. Since my brother did nothing to soften my ungraceful exit, I ended up in a heap on the ground. The sun was bright and my eyes filled with tears so it took a while for me to see Torbiorn clearly. His face was completely white, and his mouth opened and closed just like the fish our men caught when they took the faerings out on the sea.
"But they sacrificed you last night, Sissa. I was there," he whispered hoarsely, cleared his throat and continued, "We were all there. They brought you out, and they sacrificed you."
I stared back at him. My mind whirled and at first, I could not think of anything to say so I just raised my hands to him, showing him the ropes around my wrists. "Untie me, Torbi, please," I whispered when he just stood there, staring at me.
Then there were people all around us, other thralls, villagers, and warriors. Everyone was talking, there were questions shouted at me and I heard feet moving around. Finally, someone started cutting the rope.
"Sissa, my girl. I thought you were lost," my mother said as she calmly worked on the rope with her short curved knife.
Her voice was trembling a little, but her hands were steady and her eyes calm. When I was free, she put her hands on my cheeks and looked into my eyes.
"I thought you were lost," she repeated. Then she said with a sigh, "I am glad you're not."
That was my mother, a strong woman, and a good parent, though not someone who used an abundance of flowery words of affection. I knew she loved me, and I also knew that I'd never hear her say those words to me so I nodded slowly as we continued to look into each others' eyes. Hers were red-rimmed, and I realized to my surprise that she had cried for me. I'd never seen my mother cry.
"Mother," Torbiorn whispered, continuing in a louder voice, "if it wasn't Sissa, then who was sacrificed last night?"
Silence settled over the group around us, and I let my eyes glide over the crowd. I could tell that most were still wearing the clothes from the evening before from the blood splattered over their shoulders and chests. Some had put their fingers in it to mark their cheeks and forehead. They looked stunned, and when I spoke up, they started to move around uneasily.
"I think someone should find Jarl Ingolf," I said, turning to one of the men. "Einarr, please, your brother will want to know about this."
Einarr was the Jarl's younger brother and with a tense nod and a grim face he turned and walked away quickly. The Jarl would have performed the sacrifice so it would be good to tell him that it wasn't me he'd killed. I also suspected that I knew who they'd sacrificed because there was really just one other girl it could have been. The others seemed to be in shock so they had not figured it out yet, and I wouldn't say anything. If I were right, then the Jarl would not be happy, but he should be the first to know. There was only one other girl in the village who had the same hair as me. Long, straight, and almost white hair that would have been hanging out from under the hood as they led her to her death.
Heidrun. The Jarls daughter.
Chapter Two
Confusion
Jarl Ingolf and his brother walked toward me with long strides, their faces hard. Both men were tall, powerfully built, and they were both feared, but for different reasons. The Jarl was a seasoned warrior with a mean temper, and he was well known for using his strength to get any kind of message through. The Jarl's younger brother, Einarr, kept his emotions hidden, and I'd never heard about him being in any fight, ever, though he always got his way as well. He had a way of looking at you that was scarier than the Jarl's bellowed insults and flying fists.
I met a wolf once, just stumbled upon it in the forest, with no warning. At first, we'd been standing there, face to face, and I wanted to run so badly my knees started to shake. My father had taught me that a wolf chased any prey that ran, so I hadn't moved. It had seemed huge, reaching well above my midriff, with thick brownish-gray fur, except for the black tip of its tail. What I remembered most was the wolf's pale, almost yellowy brown eyes, lined with black. The look in them had been cunning, and I'd wondered if the wolf could read my mind. Then it started walking to one side of me, turned to walk toward my other side, and then turned again, and again. As it paced in front of me, its eyes never left me, and I'd been sure that it was judging me, looking for my weak spots and thinking about how to take me down. I had no weapons except a big basket half full of blueberries, so I raised it above my head to make myself seem taller, and shouted at the wolf, at the top of my lungs. My sudden action startled the animal, and it stopped. I'd not known what to do next, but something had felt better than nothing so I threw the basket toward the wolf, and when I did, it backed off a few steps. Then it cocked its head to the side a little, turned slowly, and walked away.
Einarr's eyes reminded me of that wolf. I wasn't sure whether he would back down when shouted at, or if he would pounce. I hoped I'd never have to find out.
"Talk."
Jarl Ingolf barked out that single word still walking towards me. I started to back up, but then Einarr put a hand on his brother's shoulder to hold him back and murmured, "Ingolf, the girl knows nothing. She was locked away during the ceremony. I saw myself how her brother removed the slat locking her into the shed."
"I sacrificed a girl last night, and it's not the thrall I thought it was. Someone has to know something," the Jarl bellowed. He paced around waving his arms wildly, and he started to turn red in his face. Then he roared, "Who in the name of Hel did I kill?"
No one said anything although I could see that some of the others had started to guess. When the silence stretched out, and the crowd became restless, I decided to tell the Jarl about my suspicions. He'd already not killed me once, so maybe he would let me live one more time.
"Not many could be mistaken for me..." I started, carefully judging his reaction and ready to move away.
Jarl Ingolf looked at me, but I could see that he didn't understand.
Einarr did.
"Brother," he said hoarsely, putting a hand heavily on the Jarl's shoulder again.
"Not many have the same long, white hair," I added calmly, and Jarl Ingolf caught on then.
"Heidrun," he roared, looking around wildly. "Where is my daughter? Find my daughter," he shouted and turned around in a circle as if trying to find her in the crowd.
"Go. Look in her bed, the house, and ask around if you can't find her," Einarr murmured to two of the men next to him. "Find Stein," he added.
"Heidrun," the Jarl bellowed again and again.
When I started to back away, I felt my mother and brother move with me. We could do very little in this situation and, knowing the Jarl, there would be repercussions. I didn't want them to fall on us.
"Torbiorn," Einarr suddenly murmured, stopping us. "Quickly, run to the grove and look who it is we have hanging there. Tell me when you're back, and if it is who we suspect then I'll tell my brother," he whi
spered.
Torbi nodded and walked away immediately. He was barely noticed by the others because the Jarl was working himself into a frenzy, shouting and moving around, demanding that his daughter would be brought to him, repeating that it couldn't be true.
"Ingolf, what is happening?"
The question sounded like it came from a very young girl. The voice was high pitched, and she spoke in a slow, almost lisping tone, but I knew it was all pretense. I knew this because I knew the girl, she was my age, and she was Freyja. The Jarl’s wife.
"Freyja, where is Heidrun?"
"She's in bed, Ingolf. None of us went to bed until late, so she must be sleeping still." Freyja answered, and then she wrinkled her forehead a little. "Why do you want to talk to Heidrun? Has something happened?"
"Are you sure, wife? You've seen her in bed this morning?"
The Jarl hadn't answered Freyja's question, and he pierced her with a hard look. She promptly started fidgeting.
"Yes, I'm sure. She must be in bed because the morning meal was not done, so Heidrun has not ordered the thralls to start preparing it."
In Freyja's mind, it was as simple as that, but her words annoyed both Jarl Ingolf and Einarr. When she noticed, she moved a few steps to the side, which made her bump into me.
"Sissa," she said, both as a greeting and a question.
Then her eyes widened, and she turned to her husband.
"Ingolf, how can this be? You sacrificed Sissa last night, and yet she's standing here. Did you not let enough blood out of her? Is that why you want to talk to Heidrun? Did she help Sissa escape from the grove?"
We all stared at her, and I felt the tips of my mouth twitch. What a jumbled mess of idiocy she spouted when they were all standing there with blood all over their clothes and faces. To me, Freyja had always seemed incredibly stupid, though she usually took greater care and didn't show it quite so clearly to everyone. Jarl Ingolf opened his mouth, but he couldn't seem to get a sound across his lips so he shook his head slowly and turned to walk away, presumably to look for his daughter himself.
"Einarr."
Torbi was back, and when I saw the look on his face, I knew that I'd been right. They would not find Heidrun in her bed. Einarr knew too. There was a short glimpse of pain in his eyes, then he clenched his jaws, and his face hardened.
"Brother!" he shouted after the Jarl.
Jarl Ingolf turned around to look at his brother and then at mine.
"NO," he roared as he started to walk back to us. He pointed at Torbi, repeating that single word in an even louder voice filled with anger and anguish, "NO!"
Torbiorn started to back away, but he wasn't fast enough, and the Jarl tackled him. They both went down, and Jarl Ingolf took all his grief and fury out on my brother with his fists, bellowing curses while he did it. Einarr had to have help from a few of the other men to haul him up, and he growled at them as the struggled to hold him back.
"Ingolf, get a hold of yourself. Now is not the time for grief, now is the time for the Jarl to be a leader. You will avenge your daughter when we know. When we have proof," Einarr said, placing himself in front of his brother.
The Jarl visibly pulled himself together, took a few ragged breaths, and then he nodded.
"What is happening? Why are you so upset, Ingolf?" Freyja asked.
She was shivering, though she had at least understood that something bad had happened. The Jarl turned his face to the ground, swallowing furiously. No one said anything because no one wanted to say the words. When the silence stretched out for too long, I decided to speak up.
"I wasn't sacrificed last night, Freyja. And if it wasn't me then it was someone else our Jarl sacrificed. Someone who could be mistaken for me," I said as gently as I could.
"But... How? Who was it then?"
"Freyja, there's only one girl it could be. The only unwed girl in the village that has the same kind of hair hanging loose. If it wasn't me, and it wasn't, Freyja, then it was Heidrun."
When I was little, I used to watch my father make carvings of wood. Painstakingly slowly, he'd removed one tiny chip after the other, and it had felt like forever before I could even begin to see what it would be. Freyja's mind worked at the same pace as my father's woodcarving knife so it took a while before my words had penetrated, but understanding slowly seeped into her eyes. Then she started bawling, loudly, throwing herself at her husband. It was an effort to calm Freyja down, and our Jarl was not happy, though he was likely used to her ways because he kept telling her in a harsh voice to be quiet, so after a while, she was just whimpering quietly.
"It's horrible, just horrible. It must have been the wishes of the gods, but what have we done to displease them so, Ingolf? Why was it not enough with a thrall girl? Why did they want our beloved Heidrun?" Freyja wailed as her beautiful pale blue eyes filled up with fresh tears. Then she repeated, "It must have been the wishes of the gods."
Many in the crowd nodded. The Jarl frowned, but then he nodded too. I could see that the idea was appealing to him, and it would be, of course. It would take the responsibility for Heidrun's death from his hands and put it firmly in those of our gods. Maybe they were right, I thought. Maybe the gods had intervened, though if they hadn't, then it could cause us even bigger problems than we already had.
"You don't agree, Sissa?"
I jumped, and my eyes met Einarr's sharp gaze. I shook my head slowly, though I knew when I heard my mother whisper my name that I should be careful. Heads had turned, and both Freyja and Jarl Ingolf were about to say something so I hurried to explain.
"I don't know, Einarr. It could be the gods, and maybe it was. Though, what if it wasn't? If we blame the gods for this, and they weren't involved, wouldn't they be even more displeased with us than they already are?"
Einarr's eyes narrowed, and he pressed his lips together. Suddenly I got the feeling that he didn't care if it was the gods or not, and that he instead tried to figure out which option would be the best. I hoped that he wondered what would be best for the village, or his brother, but I was afraid that it was all about what was most beneficial to him. Then he turned to his brother.
"Sissa could be right. If we blame the gods mistakenly, they will be very displeased with us. Is it a risk we want to take?" he asked, and I relaxed. Agreeing with me was apparently the best option for Einarr, for the moment.
"But if it wasn't the gods’ interference then it was someone from the village. Then it was one of us." One of the older men had spoken, and a murmur of unease went through the crowd.
"Sissa's family, Ingolf. They were the only ones to gain something. They did it, to save her life. They're thralls, they have no honor," Freyja whispered urgently to her husband and then she turned to face me.
When we were younger, she'd been unpleasant to all the thrall children. As we grew older that stopped and these days it was as if I were so far beneath her that she didn't have to pay me any attention at all unless it was to order me around. She had a strange blank look in her eyes that I couldn't interpret although I suspected that it could simple be because all of this was hard for her to grasp. When it looked like she was about to say something else the Jarl put a hand on her shoulder, squeezed, and she got the silent message. Her face became smug, and as she raised her chin a little, the tips of her mouth tilted up slightly.
"My wife makes sense, few would gain from this, but Raudulf and his family would. Sissa is alive, and my daughter is dead instead."
My gut suddenly clenched with both anger and fear, making me want to scream at him. My parents and siblings would never dishonor our family by doing something like that, and they all knew it. Then my mother suddenly took a few steps forward to face the Jarl, moving so close she almost touched Freyja. I couldn't see her face, but I could hear her voice, and it was cold as ice.
"You know that this is not true, Ingolf. It is convenient, and it fits nicely, but you know it is not the truth."
She was speaking to him as if they were equals and
I inhaled sharply. I'd never heard my mother say anything other than a simple 'yes' or 'no' to Jarl Ingolf, and for a thrall to speak like this was dangerous.
"Gudrun," Einarr interrupted harshly.
My mother ignored him and kept her eyes on Jarl Ingolf as she continued talking, still in that strange forceful voice.
"If Torunn meant anything to you, then you know. We would never harm Torunn's daughter, and you know it."
When she mentioned the Jarl's first wife, Freyja straightened, and she made a small sound, which neither my mother nor the Jarl seemed to notice. They were too busy glaring silently at each other, and it felt like the standoff went on forever. Finally, Mother nodded silently and then she sighed.
"Do you just want to punish someone, or would you like to punish the one who did this, Jarl Ingolf?" Mother asked, sounding like herself again. Like the calm, subservient thrall.
"She's right, brother, we need to find the truth, and we need to have proof. If we discover that this was not the works of the gods, then the guilty one needs to go to the Thing for his sentence. Then you can have your revenge, brother," Einarr stated calmly.
"Will you find out who did this, Einarr? Can I trust you to make this right, for Heidrun?" The Jarl asked. He was oddly calm suddenly, although he avoided looking at my mother. Before Einarr could respond we heard running feet approaching, and a young man came flying around the corner of one of the houses.
"Heidrun? What has happened to Heidrun?" he shouted.
It was Stein, Heidrun's betrothed. As they explained, I watched him carefully. The negotiations for their marriage was completed at the Thing last summer, but that was many months ago, and it was unusual to wait for so long for the wedding, so there had been gossip. Stein had good reasons for delaying because his mother had gotten sick and then died, but some said that it still was an insult to Heidrun that he moved the wedding. Heidrun herself hadn't seemed to care, so I'd wondered if she wanted the marriage at all. Although her father must have asked for her approval, and even though most felt obligated to say yes I knew that Heidrun would have protested if she hadn't wanted to marry Stein.