by E. B. Brown
“Was he expecting me?” Benjamin asked.
“Yes. I wrote him a letter. He found it and figured out where, or rather when, we were at. He’s here now, I’m sure he would like to see you awake. You have a lot to catch up on.”
“Is this hell? I’ve gone to hell for using that evil magic, haven’t I?” he whispered.
She subdued the urge to tell him that yes, it was hell, and that he had gone there for his deceitful ways. After all, she had forgiven him, hadn’t she?
“No. It’s not hell. Don’t you remember your father? Or the farm we lived on?” she asked. Yes, he had been a child when the Bloodstone first took him, but he was old enough to recall a few details. Finola once told her Benjamin had arrived half-naked, starving, and mute, but eventually he told Finola fantastical tales about his future time.
“I remember. All of it,” he said softly. “Ye were the last one I saw that day, when I picked up that stone as a boy. And ye were the last one I touched before it took me again, as a man. Aye, I remember.”
His eyes met hers, soft and knowing.
“Ye say yer no longer my wife. Ye found him, then?”
She nodded. She knew who he referred to.
“Be off with ye, Maggie. I need to piss, and it willna be fit fer ye to see,” he mumbled. She tried to contain her smile at the absurdity of his words, seeing how serious he was about the matter, but she failed in her attempt and let out a muffled laugh. After all, they had been married once, and she had seen much more than that.
“Really? Come on now, if you try to sit up by yourself, you’ll fall on your stubborn head! Here, I’ll help you, then I’ll leave you to it,” she laughed. His pale cheeks filled with color, yet his lip turned up in a grin.
Benjamin let her help him sit up and put his feet on the floor. His legs were thin, and he had lost weight all over, but it was his face that was most changed. Covered by a full, black beard, even through the mass of hair she could see the sharp lines of his cheeks and the way his blue eyes seemed hollow in his head. Eyes so much like his brother.
“Oh, damn!” she murmured.
“What?”
“I’m going to fetch your father. Don’t fall over, you’ll split your head. Again,” she said. She left him sitting on the edge of the bed, pulling the curtain behind her as she went. She kicked a piss pot under the curtain, sending it sliding across the floor until it stopped with a thump.
“Thank ye,” he called.
“You’re welcome,” she mumbled.
Maggie updated Gwen on Benjamin’s awakening, and the older woman ran off to find Marcus.
Benjamin took the news surprisingly well. After Marcus entered the cottage to speak with his awakened son, Maggie and Gwen played with Kwetii to keep occupied while the men talked. With a few glances between them, Maggie and Gwen made a silent pact to remain in the adjacent room. Maggie stayed out of curiosity, and she figured Gwen stayed from loyalty to her Chief. The voices started out low, but as the conversation wore on it became louder, and at one point there was a dull thud against the floor.
As Gwen fiddled with some kindling by the fire, Marcus parted the curtain. He stood wide legged, arms flexed, and Maggie could see he shook as if cold. He eyed them up, his face a mixture of confusion and joy.
“Will ye help him? I’ll send Cormaic and Erich to bring him to the hall, but he’s a bit weak still yet,” he said.
“Of course we’ll help him, but do you really think it’s a good idea to get him up so soon? He’s been unconscious for a week,” she answered, crossing her arms over her chest.
She heard Gwen gasp, but ignored her. Maggie knew she was expected to defer to the Chief’s every whim, but for Pete’s sake, he was still the same old Marcus. Marcus ruffled Kwetii on her head as he met Maggie’s questioning gaze.
“The lad wants to meet his kin. It’s about time he takes his place among his people.”
*****
The Northern Hall was louder than it had been the night they arrived, if that was possible. She counted the numbers but rapidly lost track. There were over thirty people joining the celebration, and she knew that was not the whole of them. The crowd was a mash up of cultures, with Indians and Norse living together, and Maggie suspected she heard the inkling of other languages among a few of the men and women. She listened intently to tidbits of conversations around her, and in the days they spent in the company of the Norse she came to realize they had a close relationship with the Nansemond who lived nearby. She imagined it was that alliance that helped keep them hidden in the mountains, essentially undisturbed by the encroaching English settlers. Unless the Norse chose to interact, the village was unlikely to be of interest to the English. It seemed they ventured into town very rarely, trading on occasion with the Indians more than they did with the English. Gwen told her they had settled in the area prior to the arrival of the English, and since they kept to themselves high up away from the James River, they had very little trouble.
Without Winn there, she did not feel up for celebrating, but when both Teyas and Rebecca were excited to go, she decided to join them. Ahi Kekeleksu made friends with a group of boys his age, among them the Indian youth she noticed earlier, and they raced around the Northern Hall screeching and play-fighting. Maggie noticed Makedewa hanging back in the shadows, his eyes following Rebecca, yet he stayed away with the other men while Rebecca carried Kwetii. Cormaic was speaking with Rebecca and fussing over the child as much as a big lug could, and they both laughed as they spoke. Maggie took her tankard and made her way to where Makedewa stood.
“Fire Heart,” he mumbled gruffly with a nod when she approached. His arms were crossed over his lean chest as he watched Rebecca eat with the women. He wore a new vest over his bare torso, made from the thick hide of a brown bear and edged with a knot work of intricate silver thread, a gift from Erich to welcome him to the village.
“You could go sit with her,” she commented. He made a shallow grunting sound.
“I can stand here, just as well,” he replied.
“You’re as stubborn as your brother,” she teased, taking a sip of her drink. He tilted his head a bit and raised an eyebrow at her.
“Hmm. Who is more stubborn, my brother, or his wife? He is much changed from the brother I know.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
He shrugged, turning back to watch the crowd.
“My brother forgets his people for you. Yet still you cannot be happy. What would you have of him? To live here? With his white brother, whose bed you once shared?”
She froze at his hateful words, her response caught in her dry throat.
“I’m happy as long as I’m with Winn,” she finally whispered.
“My brother is the strongest brave I know. But even he could not bear what you want of him.”
“I’ll go wherever he wants.”
Makedewa sighed as he shook his head.
“No. You will stay here, and Winn will let you. He forgets who he is, for you. With each sunrise I see less of my brother, and more of a Tassantassas.” Makedewa drained his mug. “If that is what being bound to a woman makes a man, I will stay away. Let her find a Tassantassas to make her happy.”
Her mouth dropped open when he abruptly turned and walked away. His hateful words stung, the truth of it mixed in with his conflicted feelings for Rebecca. She shook her head to clear the rush of tears that threatened, trying to convince herself he did not mean what he said. Yet on some level, she knew he did, and the guilt nipped at her heart.
She took a long gulp of mead and made her way back to the table to join the women, where perhaps the conversation would be more welcoming. She took a seat on the bench next to her aunt.
“Who is that boy?” she asked Gwen, as the Indian youth began to wrestle with Ahi Kekeleksu in the crowd. Gwen was fussing with her kirtle strings which had fallen loose, and she stopped for a moment at Maggie’s question.
“Iain? He’s son to Ellie-dear, by a Chesapeake brave. So
me of them stayed here for a bit when the Powhatans attacked. We’ve taken in quite a few stragglers. We’re not the only people who’ve lost their kin,” she said. Maggie raised her eyebrows in surprise.
“Why did he go after the Chesapeake?”
“We heard it was a prophecy. It was the old Chief Powhatan back then, he and his brother Opechancanough were much alike in that way,” Gwen said with a shrug of her shoulders. “A priest said the Chesapeake would rise up against the Powhatan Empire, so he attacked them. We sheltered some of the Chesapeake for a time. Most of them moved on with the Nansemond, but Ellie and Iain stayed with us.”
“Is Ellie-dear here?” Maggie asked.
“Oh, aye. She’s the blond one, sitting near yer sister. Her bairn’s an Indian, like yer husband,” Gwen replied, nodding toward the end of the table where Teyas sat.
Maggie did not know how to respond to that as she looked over at her husband’s sister. Cultural tolerance aside, she was well aware that the Norse were uncharacteristically welcoming to the Indians. Perhaps it was their shared history that bound them, or the need to have allies to survive. Whatever the reason, she was glad for it.
She spotted Ellie-dear sitting beside Teyas, engaged in a discussion. Ellie had long, straight blond hair, pulled demurely back with a single tie at the base of her neck. Her features were delicate, like Rebecca’s, and although Ellie was older, she was clearly English.
“What a pretty lady,” Maggie murmured. Gwen chuckled as Maggie took a bite of bread.
“That Chesapeake brave thought so, too. He took her to wife from that group of Roonok settlers, and she’s lucky to be alive. I think all her kin are dead.”
The bread caught in a dense lump in her throat and Maggie gasped into a choking fit. Gwen thumped her on the back with a closed fist until Maggie was able to suck the air back into her lungs and catch her breath.
“Shoo, slow ye down! Can’t have ye choke yerself into the grave!” her Aunt chastised. Maggie took a swig of the proffered wine, coughed up more bread, and took another sip.
“Elli’s from Roanoke?” she sputtered.
“Nay, I said Roonok. The English left a few of their people on the Island early on, and they right starved to death until the Chesapeake took them in. Elli-dear’s one of them. Her ma died when she was still a wee thing, so they called her by her ma’s name. Eleanor,” Gwen mused, “Eleanor died early on. Terrible time, that was.”
“Eleanor Dare,” she whispered. The lost colonists, starved and desolate, had sought shelter with the local Indians, just as historians had suggested. She recalled no one knew for sure what happened to them. Some surmised they went to the Chesapeake, others believed they went to the Croatoan. There were various rumors of blue-eyed, fair-haired people living amongst the Indians, but the reports were unreliable and impossible to verify. Knowing firsthand how those early years of English settlement played out, Maggie was not shocked to hear of whites living among the Indians. Yet the village of Time Walkers had apparently escaped documentation in written history, just the same as the fate of the Roanoke Colony.
With a sinking desperation in her belly, Maggie realized her safety and that of her family was just as tenuous. She could hardly believe she was sharing a meal with Virginia Dare, as the woman’s half-Indian son ran amok in a breechcloth amongst a group of Viking children. The Roanoke Colony had met a gruesome end no matter how history reported it, as evidenced by the lone survivor sitting across the table. Would her family fare any better?
She braced her elbows on the table and rested her forehead in her hands for a moment. Gwen patted her shoulder.
“Ye sick, dear?” Gwen asked. “Ye look like ye’ve had a fright?”
“I’m fine,” Maggie murmured.
Marcus raised his drinking horn to start the celebration, and the crowd responded with a roar. Pounding fists rocked the tables, and a lyre wailed a joyful tune. Her mouth watered as the scent of thick spicy venison rippled through the air, a smoky cloud lingering over the still-smoldering meat laid out on the long table.
Maggie waited to raise her own cup, knowing it was the proper way to behave toward the esteemed chief. She often felt frustrated with the cultural constraints of the time, and becoming acclimated to the Norse way of life was no easy task. The more time she spent in the village, the more she felt she belonged, even when she was expected to defer her opinions to the men around her. As Maggie stared down the table at her kin, she wondered what her life would be like if they settled with the Nansemond. Would she raise a strong, proud, daughter? Or a subservient woman waiting for the next order from a warrior? It was a question only Winn could answer, and she would have to abide by it.
A raucous thud of fists upon the dry wood table roused her thoughts, and she looked up toward the men.
Benjamin sat to the right hand of Marcus, and she could not help noticing it was the place of honor Winn had occupied the day prior. Although Winn was resistant to forging a relationship with Marcus, she was pleased they stopped trying to kill each other. At least that was progress.
Yet as she watched Benjamin sit beside Marcus, reveling in the attention like the long-lost Prince, she wondered how it would affect her husband. He spoke little of his feelings for his father, but Winn had gradually involved himself in the Norse activities within the village and seemed to fit in. She hoped when he returned matters would continue in the same vein.
“May the Gods bless the return of my son. Thank ye, Odin, for waking him from his rest!” Marcus shouted. He raised the horn higher, and then took a long gulp. The men shouted in agreement and the pounding of fists resumed. Erich stood, raising his tankard as well, and although heads turned to listen, there was still a rowdy murmur among the crowd.
“Bless his hard head, yet it might be made of rock! It is good to have ye back, Young Nielsson!”
A roar of laughter ensued, and both Marcus and Benjamin grinned.
“Why, thank ye, Erich, I hear I owe ye a clouting for this lump on my skull,” Benjamin said.
“Aye, ye’ll get your chance, lad. I expect to see ye training as soon as ye get yer fancy arse outta Gwen’s sickbed. Unless ye prefer the women helping ye piss, I’d say it’s time to find another place fer ye to sleep.”
“There’s space among the men, it will suit him fine,” Marcus said.
Maggie suspected they spoke of one of the larger long-houses where the single men slept. Their sleeping accommodations were similar to the Indians in that respect. Marcus, the Chief, slept in his own house, which had previously been occupied by the men. On the day of their arrival, Erich had insisted on giving it to Marcus, and although they argued about it, Erich prevailed. The single men moved to a smaller Long House, and it looked like Benjamin would join them. It seemed the only other way to procure a private space was by being married or by having several children.
Maggie’s emotions toward Benjamin ran the gamut between relief and frustration. Of course, she was glad to see he lived after wondering if the magic of the Bloodstone had taken his life. Although he had lied to keep her as his wife, she vowed to put her anger aside. No good would come of holding onto the past.
Then there was Marcus and Winn to consider as well. She cared enough about Marcus to want his son returned to him, yet it was a confusing desire to see reconciled. Benjamin had been taken from Marcus as a child, and Winn had never known a father. She hoped her old friend wanted to make a relationship with both men he now called son.
After glancing down the table at Kwetii, who was sitting happily with the other women, Maggie left her seat to refill her tankard. As she dipped it in the large oval serving kettle, a familiar shadow fell over her shoulder.
“They have good drink here, at least,” Benjamin said.
She nodded, without turning toward him.
“Vikings know how to make merry,” she agreed. She raised her full tankard to her lips and drank down the brimming rim.
“Would you walk with me for a spot, Maggie? It’s quite loud in
here, I canna hear much at all. Mayhap it’s the ringing in my ears, or the mead, I do not know. But I would like to speak with you.”
She wrapped both hand around the tankard and squeezed it as she raised it to her mouth, turning to glare at him. She drained half of it before she spoke.
“No, I will not. I’m glad you’re not dead, but that’s it. I have nothing else to say to you.”
“You need say nothing. I only ask ye to listen.”
She shook her head.
“None of it matters now, just let it go, Benjamin. You have a new life, take it and be happy. Leave me be.”
“I woke up today in a strange place. All these strangers,” he said, his voice strained with emotion as he waved toward the crowd, “they say it was two years past. But for what I know, it was my bed you shared only a sennight ago.”
“If that is what you recall, then you must remember sending me to hang as well!” she whispered.
“I set ye free, didn’t I? I sent ye back to him!”
He took hold of her wrist, and she looked slowly down at it in awe. How dare he put his hands on her!
“Take your hand off me,” she warned him. His throat tensed as he swallowed, and he ran his other hand through his thick black hair.
“Must ye hate me so? I willna harm ye, I only want to talk!”
She shook her hand away, and he released her wrist without further issue.
“My wife says she does not wish to speak to you, Englishman.”
Maggie froze at the sound of Winn’s voice. Winn placed a hand on her shoulder as he joined her, standing by her side to face Benjamin. She tried to edge back to push him away and give them distance, but Winn would have none of it and remained firmly rooted in place. She could only hear the three of them, as if a fog descended around them, and it seemed the other Norse continued their celebration without interruption. Perhaps she could get Winn away before something terrible happened.
“Let’s go, Winn,” she whispered, trying to pull her husband back. Her attempt was unsuccessful, and she felt the muscles of his arm tense beneath her hand. She saw Chetan standing a few feet away and cast him a pleading look, hoping he would intervene before there was bloodshed.