Ragnar

by Joanna Bell

  I did go back to sleep, but only after locking one of my arms around her midsection and pulling her back against me.

  When we woke, her head was on my chest and her hair falling over me. She turned her face up and studied me silently for a moment.

  "What do you look at so intently?" I asked, twining my fingers through hers, luxuriating in her presence and anticipating the soft sighs I would soon be drawing from her lips.

  "You," she told me. "You kept turning over in your sleep. Did you dream of the dogs in the forest again?"

  "No," I replied. "I did not dream last night, girl. There is not room inside me for dreams right now, waking life is enough."

  "Because of the invasion?"

  I nodded and maneuvered her more fully onto me, pulling her thighs down on either side of my hips until her eyes closed just a little when she felt my excitement through her linens.

  "Yes, Emma. Because of the invasion. There is so much to do, so many tasks to see to."

  She put one hand on my chest and began to rock herself against me. "Why do you need to invade?" She asked, and my heart beat strong in my chest to hear the tone in her voice. "Don't you have enough room back in – back in the North?"

  "We have plenty of room," I told her, drawing her under-dress up over her knees, and then her thighs. "Not all of it is good for crops, or fit for keeping animals. It is a natural thing for a people to expand, to conquer. It is right to wish to see your numbers multiply."

  "Is it?" She gasped as she felt me between her legs and threw her head back when I pushed my hips up against her. "Is – is it?"

  I put my hands on Emma's hips and turned her over, so she was suddenly underneath me, her eyes as wide open as her legs. And when I gave her what she wanted she made a little high-pitched noise that brought a twitch of pleasure to the full length of me. I bent down close to her face to kiss her neck and her soft cheeks and then her mouth.

  "Do your people sue for peace at every opportunity?" I asked. "How do they survive? How do they hold off invaders if –"

  "Ragnar!" Emma squeaked as I thrust down, hard. Watching her struggle to compose herself was as arousing a thing as I have ever seen. Her long fingers curled into the sheepskin she lay on and her mouth fell open. "I – where I come from we're – we're allies with the most powerful land there is. The most powerful there has ever...been...ohhh!"

  The conversation was going to have to wait. Emma pushed herself up off the furs so I felt her body, her full breasts and her belly against me. Her kisses were weak with hunger, and the weakness in her own limbs was answered with a growing strength in my own, a heightening. I quickened my movements, guiding her like a ship on rough seas, showing her the way as she lay back underneath me, trusting that I was more than up to the task.

  When she reached her peak, instead of burying her face in my shoulder or turning it to and fro as she lost herself, Emma looked at me. Her eyes held mine so I could see every flicker of sweetness, every little jolt and shudder written across them like the weather written on the sky. It brought me along very fast to see her that way, and when I could no longer hold back she held my face in her hands and took me in almost as a wife takes in a husband who is about to leave on a long journey.

  I lay back when we were finished, panting on the furs and almost slipping back into sleep. Emma threw an arm over my chest and I ran my fingers up and down it from wrist to shoulder, over and over, marveling still at the flawlessness of her skin.

  "Are you hungry?" She asked a short time later. "I will go to the feasting hall and bring back buttered bread and ale, we can take our breakfast in bed."

  I reached out when she slipped out of bed, grabbing at her thighs, her buttocks, her belly and laughing as she protested. "Stop! I'll never get out of here if you don't keep your hands to yourself. And then you'll never get that bread and ale."

  So I watched her dress, struggling to keep my eyes open, and then fell into a doze as soon as she was gone.

  When I woke, I was confused. I was alone in the roundhouse, and the light coming through the skins was bright. How long had I been asleep? A quick glance around showed no plate of buttered bread, no cups of ale. I sat up and tried to orient myself in the day. It was much lighter than it should have been, if I'd only slept for a few minutes, and if Emma was still at the feasting hall to collect our breakfast.

  I thought, then, of the way she'd looked at me when we were making love. That look in her eyes, as if I were about to leave for many moons. Perhaps she had been looking at me because she was about to leave?

  "Fiske!" I shouted, as a feeling of dread seized my belly. How long had I slept? How stupid had I been to let her walk freely about the camp, to imagine that somehow it was the noble thing to do? "FISKE!"

  A head poked through the leather flap – not Fiske – and I bellowed at the guard to find Fiske, and to find Emma, at once.

  I threw on my dressings and ran out of the roundhouse, as a commotion started up outside, a reaction to my yelling.

  "Where is she?" I shouted at the first man close enough to grab by the scruff of his neck. "WHERE IS SHE?!"

  "Jarl, Jarl – "

  Fiske. With Arva on his heels.

  "We thought she was with you, Jarl," Arva said, as the small crowd gathered around me turned their heads to and fro, as if Emma must have been standing behind one of us, only temporarily hidden. "We thought she was in the round –"

  "No! She left to find bread and ale for me, and she hasn't returned. I fear she's –"

  Fiske didn't wait for me to finish my sentence. He turned and began to run in the direction of the feasting hall as the rest of the guards looked to me.

  "Perhaps she's still there?" Arva suggested, and I found myself wanting desperately to believe her, even as something in the marrow of my bones told me not to. "If she went to fetch bread and ale, she will be back soon with bread and ale, won't she?"

  But it was still too light, I still had the feeling that I had slept for longer than I intended after our morning exertions. And before I could snap at Arva, Fiske returned leading my horse by the reins and breathing heavily.

  "She's not there, Jarl. She's – one of the cooking thralls said she thought she saw her earlier, walking outside the – outside the camp. I brought your horse, Jarl. The men and I will saddle ours and follow –"

  But I didn't hear the rest of what Fiske was saying because I was already pulling myself up onto the horse and burying my heels in its sides, heading off towards the woods outside camp.

  "We're right behind you!" One of my men shouted as I ducked under a branch and galloped down the path we had followed on our way back from the estate. My eyes roved over the land, not just looking for Emma but looking for signs of Emma – whatever those would be. There was a deep panic in my chest, unlike any I had ever experienced before, a fear not of death or injury but of loss.

  She can't be gone. She can't be. She loves me. We'll find her somewhere silly, in the camp, fetching more pork from the storehouse.

  Fiske and a couple of guards caught up with me later, after I'd covered more ground than Emma could have covered on foot between our encampment and the estate. And he didn't have to tell me they hadn't found her, because I could see it on his face.

  "We should split up," I said, breathing hard. "You – you continue on this path, search the area around the ruined village. I'll go to the beach and look there. Take the guards with you."

  The sound of the horses hooves filled my ears as we galloped back down towards the beach. I brought my mount to a half when we reached it, looking north and south, following the coastline with my eyes, seeking movement. None. Not north or south. A hot flash of fear and anger filled me. She would be whipped when I found her, for distressing her Jarl, for taking his mind away from important matters.

  And even as I indulged myself in fantasies of how she would be punished, I could have wept for helplessness, and for the fact that I just knew she may already be gone for good. I turned the horse south an
d cantered along the path at the top of the beach, before coming to a path that led back into the woods. I followed it, intending to turn back to the north when possible and meet back up with my men, for a short distance and then something up ahead caught my eye. It was a windy, sunny day, and the sun cast moving shadows on the frosty ground as the wind tore at the bare tree branches. But I'd seen something. At least I thought I had. A flicker of linen, was it? Disappearing around a corner? I drove the horse to a gallop again and bellowed into the silent winter air:

  "Emma? Emma! EMMA!"

  And then I came to a stop once I had rounded the corner, pulling the horse up hard because I thought I'd heard something. And yes, I had. An animal – a pig, perhaps – was crashing through the undergrowth. I looked around, trying to locate the direction from which the sound came and realized the sound was too much to be one of the little red pigs the East Angles raised. A deer, then? No, the sound was too clumsy. It was her.

  "EMMA!" I shouted again, dismounting my horse and sweeping the undergrowth blindly out of my way in the direction I thought the sounds were coming from "Emma I know you hear me! Stop this at once! I'm warning you, girl, I'll have you –"

  And then there she was, not the length of one of our smallest ships away, her little face peering at me from behind a bush. I stumbled forward, yelling as my sword caught on the vegetation, my blood surging with the anticipation of getting my hands on her, of having her in my arms again. I looked down and spotted the hem of her tunic next to the ground. Thank the gods. Thank the gods.

  And then when I went to thrust my hands into under the bush and drag her out, they clasped nothing but the cold air. I used my body to shove the undergrowth aside and stood, uncomprehending, as I looked down at... nothing.

  There was nothing there. No sign of her. It was impossible. I turned, sweeping branches aside as my eyes darted from one spot to another. All to no avail. She wasn't there. I stood dead still to see if I could hear the sounds of movement again but there was nothing to hear, either. Just the wind in the woods and the horse's breathing.

  But it couldn't be. I'd seen her. Her face. I'd seen her tunic almost within touching distance of my hand.

  So where was she?

  I began to lurch through the woods, kicking at stumps and ripping small bushes straight from the earth, raging and shouting Emma's name over and over. That's how Fiske knew where to find me. He followed me off the path and had to near shout my name directly into my ear to get me to listen.

  "She was here!" I said, turning and taking him by the shoulders. "I saw her. I saw her face. She was right here!"

  21

  Emma

  I remained, for the whole journey back to the tree from Ragnar's arms, half-convinced I was dreaming. I wasn't really leaving him there, was I? The best man I'd ever met? The man who had openly declared his love for me?

  I was. And I knew if I thought about it too much, I wouldn't be able to do it. So I blundered along as fast as I could, down through the woods outside camp to the beach and then south along the coast, peering constantly back over my shoulder to see if I was being followed and sobbing openly the whole way.

  The first path I followed from the beach, heading east back through the woods, turned out to be the wrong one. It led me to the site of the ruined village and wasted a lot of precious time. Instead of randomly choosing another path from there I headed back to the beach, determined to stick to Paige's instructions so I didn't get lost again.

  When I found another path inland, I hurried down it, increasingly paranoid that my absence would have been noted by then, and not at all confident that Ragnar would let me go. And it was on this path that I heard hoof-beats behind me, seemingly distant at first and then quickly, terrifying close. It had to be Ragnar – or one of this men. I began to run, tripping over roots that crossed the path and getting my hair caught on the thin, leafless winter branches that obscured my way. All the while I had to keep a lookout for it – the tree.

  The horse and its rider were almost upon me when I spotted it just off the path – my way home – and dove into the undergrowth at the last second. I thought about whether or not to stay still and pray that the rider didn't see me, but I was so close to home I just went for it. Which could have turned out to be a rather big mistake, because the rider – who I soon saw was Ragnar – heard me thrashing around like an elephant and dismounted his horse.

  We made very brief eye contact before I left. He saw me, and I saw him. He looked panicked and angry. He also looked – and this was the part that led me to hesitate for so long he almost managed to grab me – betrayed. I still don't know how I managed to close my eyes and turn my head away from him – but I did. Even as fresh tears sprang from my eyes and a sob heaved out of my throat, I pressed my bare hands against one of the tree's gnarled roots and found myself, after a brief moment of rushing darkness, blinking and spluttering in the woods in the middle of the Renner's property.

  I lay on the ground for a minute or two, not quite believing I truly was back home in the present, but soon got to my feet. There was no time to relax – I had to get inside. I had to get somewhere I could change my clothes, wrap a scarf around my neck and draw it up over my face. Most of the people in America knew my face before I went missing – surely they knew it even better after I'd been missing for a month.

  Twenty minutes later, after crossing back over the field towards where I'd parked my car, I saw that it wasn't there any longer. Of course. Panting with effort and nerves, I turned around and headed back into the woods and through the Renner's backyard. I listened, and then slowly made my way along the side of the house before peering around to the front, but I didn't see or hear anyone. Good. At the back again, I took aim at the door that led into the garage and managed to knock it off its hinges with four or five well-placed kicks. The door into the house from there was unlocked and I rushed inside, managing to make it as far as the dusty couch in the living room before collapsing onto it and unleashing the emotions I'd been struggling to hold back ever since I'd left Ragnar's side that morning.

  "I'm sorry," I wept into a pillow, repeating the words over and over. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry..."

  When I could breathe evenly again, I got up and flipped on a light. The place still had power. Then I walked into the kitchen and tried the ancient landline phone on the wall. A dial tone, as sweet a sound as a chorus of angels, buzzed in my ear and I smiled with relief as I dialed my parent's home number. Only seconds now. Seconds until they heard my voice, until I could tell them I was safe, I was OK, I was home.

  But no one picked up the phone. And the voicemail message, when it came on, had been changed. My father's voice came down the line, somber and tired:

  "You've reached the Willises. If you're with the media, please contact our lawyer. We're in America as of December 22nd, so everyone else can reach us on our mobiles. Anyone with any information on our daughter, Emma Willis, please ring 9-1-1 if you're in America or 9-9-9 if you're in the UK and you have any information, no matter how insignificant it may seem, that could help us find her."

  Hearing that message made it feel as if someone had scooped out my heart and thrown it into ice-water. My father, normally so take-charge and upbeat, sounded broken. He sounded half-asleep. Their mobiles. I had to call their mobile phones. Except I didn't have my phone anymore and I didn't know their numbers without it. I reached out to take the landline off the hook again, intending to call the police, and then stopped just before doing so.

  Wait. Just wait a second, Emma. You haven't thought about any of this, have you? You haven't actually made a plan. Remember what happened to Paige.

  My hand fell back to my side. No, I wouldn't call the police. I needed to find out where my parents were, and I needed to contact them. And I needed to do all of this without it getting out that I was back. Because if it got out, who could predict what was going to happen?

  Unfortunately, the internet connection at the Renner's house had been cut off. I w
ent upstairs to Paige's room to get changed into normal, 21st century clothes and think about what I was going to do. I had to get online. But how was I going to get anywhere? I didn't have any money, because I'd left my wallet in the car. The car that was probably sitting in a police impound lot.

  My lawyer. Michael Rappini. I could call the operator and get his office number. Which is exactly what I did after I'd put some of Paige's clothes on.

  "Michael Rappini."

  "Uh –" I said, pausing, swallowing. "Um –"

  "Is everything alright, ma'am? My secretary said you didn't want to give a –"

  "It's Emma," I whispered, desperately hoping I was doing the right thing. "Emma Willis. It's OK, I'm not –"

  "Emma Willis?!"

  "Yes, it's me –"

  "Emma! Are you – where are you? Have you called the p–"

  "No!" I shouted. "No, Michael, please do not call the police! I'm OK. I'm fine. I'm not kidnapped, no one is holding me, I don't need rescuing. What I need is – I need you to listen to me. Please."

  "Uh," my lawyer replied, sounding shocked. "Sure – uh, sure. Yes, of course Emma. But you're – are you sure you're OK? Is someone with you right now? Just answer yes or –"

  "No, I'm alone. I'm at Paige Renner's house. I need to –"

  "You're – wait, you're where? Paige Renner's house?! Emma that place is crawling with cops, what are you doing there?"

  A shiver of anxiety ran up my spine at the phrase 'crawling with cops' but I tried to will it away, remembering that I hadn't seen anyone outside – nor had I done anything wrong.

  Yeah but you didn't look that thoroughly, did you? And Paige Renner didn't do anything wrong, either, and look what they did to her.

  'I'm – I didn't see anyone. I didn't see anyone outside. And they took my car so I –"

  "I'll come get you. I'll come get you right now."

  "I need to talk to my parents!" I told him. "Please, I don't want anyone to know I'm back until I speak to them. I don't want to talk to the police, either, I don't want them to drag me off to the psych ward like they did with Paige. I just need my mum's mobile number. Or my dad's. You must have –"