by Betina Krahn
“Whoa—that was my meal!” Jorund said, laughing as he removed his outer tunic and sat down beside her. But his protest was belied by the warm light in his face. He was utterly charmed by the girlish pleasure she took in his gift.
“I had a tame forest cat once before. A long time ago.” Her eyes shone and her cheeks turned rosy. “Father Serrick brought it back to me from a hunt. I fed it goat’s milk and let it sleep with me in my fleece. It followed me everywhere until . . .”
“Until?” he prompted.
She winced. “It wandered too far from me while I was picking berries with Miri and Marta, and a fox got it.” The sadness, the longing in her face touched him. “I heard it cry and ran to help. I had just begun my training as a warrior . . . and I picked up my small blade and chased and chased it. But it was too late for my little cat.” The feelings she had known then lived again in her face, and he slid close and put his arm around her and rubbed her shoulder. “I found that old fox later and killed it.”
“Females are at their most dangerous when defending their young,” he mused, scratching the little cat’s ear with a finger. Then he teased to lighten her mood. “What a ferocious mother you will be.”
“A mother?” She stopped dead still and looked at him. “Me?”
His smile was irresistible as he leaned close to whisper in her ear and send a hand sliding down her belly. “You might even now bear a cub, She-wolf. Why do you think the women often call loving by the name cradle-filling?”
She sat up straight, setting the kit on the floor beside her, and clasped a hand over his on her belly. “But, Jorund, I don’t know anything about being a mother.” She turned wide, frightened eyes on him. “I . . . I never even had a mother myself.”
Jorund felt a shiver run through his shoulders. “But of course you did, your mother was—”
“A beautiful raven-haired Valkyr,” she repeated, as if she’d said it a thousand times. Her voice dropped to a hush. “She left us not long after she set me upon Father Serrick’s knee. I never saw her. I do not even know her true name. Then Father Serrick found Leone and brought her back to us. She was so beautiful, so kind and good. But when Miri and Marta had two summers, Fair Leone began to pine for her home in Asgard . . . and to waste away. When he finally let her go, Father Serrick wept and wept. I had six or seven summers by then, and I missed her, too. After that we did not even see the few women who sometimes came with the trappers into the mountains.”
He watched the emotions in her face as she spoke and imagined her as she must have been as a little girl . . . dark, fiery curls and huge golden eyes . . . running barefoot in a meadow . . . then wiping tears away . . . grieving for a little cat . . . wishing for a mother.
“Do you know, I had no mother, either,” he said wonderingly, lifting her chin to look into her eyes. “My birthmother died before I was weaned. The women of the village took me in. They nursed and fed and taught me and cared for me. After a while, I began to think of them all as my mother.” His laugh was a bit pained. “I spent much time with them, and they kept my hands too busy for mischief and my ears filled with their talk. You had no mother . . . well, I had many . . . often too many.”
Aaren returned his poignant smile, then suddenly thought of the village children and their reaction to her. Her smile died.
“But what if . . .” In the last fortnight she had learned to trust him. There was no one else in the whole world to whom she could reveal her deepest fears and longings. She took one more step into that trust. “What if my child is . . . frightened of me? All of the rest of the village children are.”
As her face paled and her eyes grew rimmed with moisture, he recalled the devastating blend of hurt and longing on her face that afternoon in the bee meadow . . . when the children scurried back to their mothers’ arms. An odd pricking began at the corners of his eyes and he pulled her against him, wrapping her securely with his arms.
“They will love you, Aaren. All your children will love and revere and adore you . . . I can promise you. Babes take in their mother’s love with their mother’s milk, and they cannot help but return it. It is the way of things.” He saw the stifled hope in her eyes and sighed, trying to think of a way to convince her. Then it came to him.
“Like your sisters . . . they love you, Aaren.”
“But I’m not their mother. I just took care of them when they were small . . . tended their ills and helped them learn to walk . . . and milked the goats so they would have something to grow on . . . and made sure they wore their fleeces in winter . . .”
He took her face between his hands and smiled into her glistening eyes. “What more could a mother have done for them, Aaren?”
His words found a target in the very center of her heart. For a long moment she sat, stunned, seeing her care of her sisters in a very different light. She had not been just “sister” to them, but “mother,” as well, without even knowing it. She had fulfilled a woman’s role for almost as long as she could remember. And somehow that realization freed her from the doubts that had plagued her about whether she could truly live as a woman. In one way, she already had! She slid her arms around his ribs and buried her face in his shoulder.
“Why is it you, a man, know so much about being a woman . . . and I, a woman, know so little?” she said, sniffing back tears.
“I don’t know. The way I was raised by women, among women, I suppose,” he said, laying his cheek against the top of her head.
“Your many mothers . . . it was from them that you got your woman’s heart,” she said, raising her face to him and running her fingertips over his lips. She saw him with different eyes now, understanding that the woman-heart in him had nothing to do with cowardice or valor. It had to do with the way he looked at things and the way he conducted himself, sharing the depths of his strength and his passion . . . lending them to others. “It’s true, you do have a woman’s heart in many ways. You value many of the things women hold dear . . . like children and harvests and peace-weaving. And you know and can do many of the things a woman must know and do.”
“I did not always,” he said quietly. “I was eager to be a warrior . . . to redden my first spear. Now, my life’s path has brought me back to the things of my early years.” He looked at the sadness-tinged wonder in her eyes and suddenly wanted to fulfill every longing of her heart.
The little cat had wandered away and now mewed from the corner near the door, sounding lost. Aaren slid from Jorund’s arms long enough to rescue it, then came back to settle in his embrace and gave him a lavish kiss that he would have pursued if the little beast caught between them hadn’t started to yowl. Aaren pulled away, then laughed at his disgusted look.
“We’re hungry, Cat and I. And I’m afraid you’ll have to roast the fish.” She lifted the ball of fur with an impish grin. “Well . . . I have my hands full.”
THAT NEXT AFTERNOON, Jorund persuaded Aaren to leave her new pet asleep in the lodge for a while and accompany him on a hike to collect sweet root and birch limbs suitable for arrow-making. They had ranged far from the lodge, along the banks of the stream, and were returning when they reached a small clearing and sat down to rest. Jorund looked up at the lowering sky and took stock of the moisture-laden wind.
“Snow.” A white breath-plume rose from his mouth as he pronounced his conclusion. “And plenty of it. It’s good we have lots of meat and a sizeable stack of wood . . . we’ll need them.”
She nodded, reading in his face that he had reached the same discomforting conclusion she had. “We should probably have started back for the village already,” she said with a sigh, rubbing her hands together and breathing on them to warm them. “My sisters are probably frantic.”
He got to his feet and rolled his shoulders. “I wonder how many wagers Borger has made on my neck.”
“On your neck?”
“He doesn’t have much faith in my willingness to use a blade. He’s been badgering me to take up a sword again for the last three years. A
nd he finally found the perfect persuasion.”
“He did?” She looked at him in surprise. “What?”
“You.” He chuckled at her puzzled expression. “Surely you know that was why he decreed that only I could challenge you with a blade. He could see I wanted you and counted on you being either stubborn enough or enchanted enough to make me take a blade to you.”
She shifted the bundle in her arms and halted, staring at him, then she chuckled, too. “That was it? Truly?” When he nodded and continued along, she hurried after him. “I thought it was because he was testing me . . . my honor and my willingness to fight.”
It was Jorund who paused now, searching her, seeing more clearly why she had considered fighting him such a matter of honor. “I suppose that might have been part of it. But it is not the first time he has tried to force me to fight. He has decreed that whoever will succeed him on the high seat must fight him for it. He will not acknowledge me as heir unless I take the seat by force. The old boar . . . he knows how badly I want the high seat and is determined to use my own desires against me.”
“But why won’t you fight him, Jorund?” she asked. “It would be only one fight . . . and you would make a wonderful jarl.” Her wholehearted support brought a smile to his face.
“I want the high seat . . . but I want the fighting to stop even more. As long as anyone living in the village can remember, our people have been fighting Jarl Vermud’s and Jarl Thorvald’s and especially Jarl Gunnar’s people. But some of the old ones, now dead, told of a time when our peoples were part of the same large clan. We once married and traded and prospered together . . . now we war and prey on each other like rogue wolves. There must be another way to live and to rule a clan . . . besides with a sword.”
“But, Jorund, a clan must defend itself. Why just recently, Jarl Gunnar tried to steal—”
“Gunnar was not stealing . . . at least he hadn’t yet, when Borger rode to the attack,” Jorund protested. “Borger has never tried to live peaceably. If he has no cause to fight, he will make one. He came back from his voyage early this season with the battle-itch still strong in his blood. And when the herdsmen brought word of a dispute over the ear-notches of some of the sheep brought down from the high country, he bellowed like a gored ox and mounted a raid to reclaim his property.”
“Well . . . it is important that a jarl assert his property rights,” she said, pausing, scowling. Jorund halted beside her and searched her doubtful look.
“Less than a score of sheep . . . and a small planting of grain. Is that worth risking and possibly squandering threescore lives to redeem?”
She drew a huge breath and let it out in a disgusted huff. “I suppose not. Not when you lay it out side by side like that.”
They walked on in silence until they came to another small clearing. Jorund slowed and looked around him, his senses roused by something. Aaren slowed as well, searching the trees for a sign of what had alerted him.
“What is it?” she whispered.
“Do you not recall this place?” he asked, turning to her. The confused look on her face said she did not. “It is where we exchanged last blows . . . where you were wounded.” He dropped his bundle of limbs and strode across the clearing, looking for something on the ground. When he stopped, she emptied her arms and joined him . . . and gasped.
There, half hidden by leaves, lay her sword, Singer. She snatched it up and wiped away the dirt and leaves with her cold fingers. Some of the spots stayed . . . they were rust. Fully five different emotions flickered through her face as she stroked the tarnished silver handle and clasped it to her breast. But foremost in her reeling heart was anguish at the thought that in the days since their battle she had not missed her sword . . . or even thought of it. Her precious weapon, which had been like an extension of her very arm . . . she had lost and forgotten it. She raised a troubled gaze to Jorund.
“Father Serrick traded Leone’s fine silver beads and two seasons’ bounty of furs for this blade. I lived with it, slept with it, defended myself from animals and plunged into blade-fights with it. . . . How could I have not even thought of it?”
He struggled to respond to her distress, but could offer only one comfort. “Perhaps because you found something more precious to you?”
His thought settled in her mind like a warm, soothing presence and she recognized the truth in it. But she still felt a keen sense of loss, a displacing of something precious and familiar in the core of her. Her throat was constricted and her word-well seemed completely dry.
Only another warrior could have understood her sense of loss in the passage she was making in that moment. And only Jorund was both warrior enough and woman-heart enough to make that passage with her. From this time on, the woman, more than the warrior in her, would direct her course along her life’s path. It was a passage ordained for her . . . inevitable, but painful all the same. He put his arms around her and held her, sheltering her with his warmth, lending her his certainty.
When she looked up and nodded, he understood she was ready to go on, and he picked up her bundle as well as his, balancing one under each of his big arms. He indicated their direction with a nod, sensing that she did not need words at this moment, and she struck off ahead of him.
A short way into the trees, she stopped dead, her eyes widening.
“Aaren, what is it?” But his gaze struck the handle of his own sword in the same instant the words left his mouth. He stood, dumbstruck, staring at the blade, which was embedded in the trunk of a birch sapling. A dim memory flooded back, dragging with it a feeling . . . pain.
“Jorund, your sword! How could it have? . . .” The turbulence in his face when she turned to him made her realize it had to do with their fight.
“I flung it away after you were wounded,” he confessed. “I saw you lying there . . . covered with blood.” The depth of the blade’s bite into the tree was a chilling measure of the fury with which he had hurled it and of a pain that had approached madness in him. Moved beyond bearing, she hurried to the tree to seize the handle and draw out his sword.
“Nej, Aaren, leave it!” he called out, halting her just as she grasped it.
She turned with her hands on it, astonished by both the words and the vehemence with which they were spoken. “But your blade, Jorund—”
“Leave it, Aaren. I will not need it.”
“But, Jorund, your heart may change. You cannot just leave it here.”
“My heart will not change,” he declared, his voice thick as he turned his face from the sight of it. There was a lump in his throat, and he had to strain to speak around it. “I have made a vow to the White Christ that I will never raise a blade to another man as long as I live. And I will not be tempted to break that vow if I have no sword to raise.”
The horror of it slammed through her. “A vow. But, Jorund . . . a vow is sacred . . . you cannot take it back!” Her hands fell, empty, to her sides.
“I do not intend to take it back. Ever.” As he said it, his eyes were pained and leaden.
Not to fight . . . not to wield a blade ever again . . . it was his choice alone to make, she realized. And she understood too well his reasons, his fear of slaughtering others, his sense of guilt for having fought and wounded her. Still, she could not accept that a warrior could willingly lay down his weapon, the fierce companion of his struggles, and turn his back on the bond of pride and honor that adversity had wrought between them.
“It is just as well, Aaren,” he said in a constricted voice. “Someone must be the first to say enough to the killing. There must be a way to forge peace among our clans . . . and I will now have to find it.” The finality in his voice and manner sent a chill through her shoulders.
“Jorund, you speak of peace and an end to killing, but what of the other jarls and clans? They do not share your god or your vision . . . most of your own clansmen do not even share it. And until such a time as all lay down their blades, we must be ready to defend ourselves and our people. The
surest way to ward off an attack is to be strong . . . to make others fear your might.”
“As long as all carry swords, then swords will always be wielded,” he said, trembling. “It must stop somewhere.” The full impact of his vow was borne in on him as he confronted the pained disbelief in Aaren’s eyes.
“I am trying to understand, Jorund. . . . I do understand your loathing for the reddening of spears. But sometimes swords must be wielded, victory must be won. Some things are worth fighting for . . . to secure or to defend. Surely you can see that.” She clutched her own blade to her chest as she came to him. “Jorund . . . you had to fight for me, for our love.” But even as she said it, she knew that it was the tumult that fighting and wounding her had stirred in him which had caused that grim and difficult vow. And she felt great remorse that she had forced him to do something so painful for him that he would make such a drastic vow.
His gaze flew back to the handle of the blade that had shielded him on near and distant shores . . . had been his companion, his livelihood, his honor, and ultimately, his shame. He clenched his teeth and his eyes reddened.
The decision of whether or not to rescue his blade was almost physically painful for him. Only another warrior, one who knew the value, the honor, and the piece of his spirit that resided in a warrior’s battle-blade, could have understood the magnitude of the decision Jorund was making in that moment. And only Aaren, who loved him, could have shared that pain so keenly with him.
He wheeled and moved off quickly through the trees, his decision made. Aaren blinked to clear the blur of tears in her eyes and followed him.
“And what of the high seat, Jorund?” she whispered. “What of your people?”
IT WAS QUIET that evening in the lodge. There was a new tension between them as they went about tending the horses, stringing a rope line from the lodge to the nearby shed, and preparing an evening meal. After they had eaten and laid in a store of water and dry wood and meat for the snow that was already beginning to fall, there came a long silence as they sat before the fire. Each eyed the sleeping shelf and contemplated meeting the other in the furs.