Loki's Daughters

by Delle Jacobs

  "Nay."

  "I could do what you are doing, and wake you if you are needed."

  A frisson of terror ripped through her heart, but she shoved it aside. He meant well, but he did not understand. She could not let go, even for a moment, until she was certain Liam was safe. It was like giving up, and giving up was unthinkable. "Nay, there would be no point. I could not sleep anyway."

  Silence returned as they walked on. The air from a wet day had chilled with the clear night, but a stiffening breeze foretold another storm blowing in. She needed the freshness of the wind to invigorate her, and the quietness of his company to calm her.

  When they returned to the cottage, the mud had dried again, and needed once more to be replaced. Arienh gave Liam another dose of the lettuce following the broth, adding bugloss, cleavers, and ash leaves. And they waited.

  Waited.

  Night became morning, day faded to evening. Liam worsened, improved, worsened again.

  And everyone waited.

  The worst of the poison stayed in Liam's leg, and the swelling began to shrink. Beneath the mud, the skin that had turned hideously dark, almost black, finally began to fade to brown. Dead skin crumbled away, leaving an ugly, gaping hole with bright red flesh beneath it.

  By the middle of the third night, Liam slept quietly. Egil slipped out for a little while for the first time, then Birgit. Each returned to take their vigil on the bed with the boy. After a while, they took turns eating, then curled back on the bed, with the boy between them, and slept. Egil's long arm stretched over Liam, to rest atop Birgit's hand.

  "Now you will sleep, too," Ronan announced.

  Aye, now she could sleep. She could not tell if Liam would be crippled from the bite, but he would not die. Silently, with a hand to her waist, Ronan guided her back to her own bed.

  She could no longer even find the strength to remove the old cloth she had tied to her skirt to protect it from the mud and blood. As she sat on the bed, Ronan untied it for her, and removed her soft leather boots. His deft hands smoothed the woolen hose down her legs, evoking a fleeting memory of the night she had so gently done the same for him.

  She was beyond thinking, anyway. Willingly, she succumbed to his tenderness, not caring where it led. Ronan pulled back the heavy woolen blanket and eased her down. Linen sheets, soft and cool, caressed her skin.

  She closed her eyes. The mattress dipped, and Ronan crawled in beside her.

  "Hush", he said as she started to object.

  Aye, surely he must be as weary as she was.

  Beneath the covers, his arm slipped around her waist, drawing her body against his, not so much an amorous thing as one of comforting affection. And the bed was small, hard for two to sleep in without touching.

  He leaned over her, lips descending, touching, caressing, a soothing touch she needed, more than she ever had any other. Tomorrow, she didn't know what she would do, but tonight she would accept his warmth as he once had hers.

  In the other bed, Birgit sat up abruptly. A garbled gasp escaped her as her pale eyes widened in horror.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Small noises floated through the hushed room from Arienh's bed. Birgit sat up, shaking off her exhausted sleep.

  He was kissing her. And she was allowing it. Arienh, who had made such a fuss about the Vikings. A sudden terror arose in Birgit's throat, tightening it as if she were being choked.

  Egil, too, sat up. His big arm wrapped around her as it reached over the sleeping child. "Nay, love, let them be."

  Let them be? Her fists tightened, fingernails biting into her palms. Birgit had tried to keep her fears to herself. She knew they weren't logical, even though they welled up from deep inside her, but every time she saw the dark Viking touch her sister, she cringed. She knew what was in the man's mind, even when she could not clearly see his face. Lust. Horrible, terrifying, dredging up all her painful memories of the past.

  Nay, she knew better. She truly did. Such things were part of the normal way of life, that very same normalcy she hoped Arienh would have some day. Yet all she could think of was her own nightmare that had never really left her.

  "He will not hurt her, Birgit. Don't you know that? What is it you fear?"

  She opened her mouth, but words would not come out. She knew. It was not that. How could she tell him? How could she say aloud her fears when his very knowing would cause them to come true? How could she say she feared for Liam, for Arienh, mostly for herself? In the daylight, she could joke with Mildread about the size of the men's organs, but how could she tell anyone how much she feared the joke might really be the truth? Her only experience with a Viking had been one of terror and pain. She had nearly died from the man's brutality. And she had seen enough, both of Vikings and normal men to know these Northmen were indeed of prodigious size.

  Her tongue seemed firmly wedged in her mouth, her throat too tight to let words out.

  "Birgit," he said, his blue eyes the color of smoke in the dim firelight, "what happened to you was not a normal thing. It is not the way of things between a man and a woman. You must know that."

  She did. Yet she could not dislodge the memories that told her otherwise. How was it she could look at this man and desire him so much, hunger for his simplest touch, yet fear him so much? Why did she long to finger the yellow mane of his hair, crumpled from having been so long without a comb because he had given his full measure of patient attention to her stricken child? Or to run her hand across the newly grown prickle of yellow beard he had so recently shaven off?

  She knew what lay beneath his jerkin and breeches, for she had seen all of it. Yet she wanted to see it all again, the square-set, bulky muscles of his heavy-boned body. Even the huge organ she so feared, she wanted to touch.

  She wanted to know what it felt like to be loved by a man such as he. But she had no courage.

  "A kiss cannot hurt. Have you never been kissed, Birgit?"

  How had he known? Once there had been a boy, but he had been only a boy, before he had been killed, and it had not been a real kiss. No one had ever wanted to kiss her after that. Men had always thought her too strange. Even when there were still men around, they had thought of being father to a Viking's child, and the burden of a wife going blind. No one had wanted her.

  Nor would he, when he knew.

  But he didn't know. And he wanted her.

  The rough pads of his fingers skimmed lightly over her cheeks. His thumb caressed across her lower lip. "Your first kiss, Birgit? Will you give it to me?"

  She thought she would drown in the smoky depths of his eyes. She drank in his scent, salty from the long ordeal, yet so sweet to her, for he had given everything he could, even his penchant for cleanliness, for the sake of her son. His rumpled clothing, scratchy beard, uncombed hair, were all precious to her, for they were the badges of his caring.

  "I promise you, it will be the sweetest you will ever have."

  Birgit licked her lips in anticipation of the touch. Yet she could not find words to say what she wanted. Fear still held sway, fear of pain, fear of...

  The brown fringe of lashes shaded his eyes as Egil's sensual lips gently touched hers. Birgit nearly jumped from the sudden tingling, then slowly melted, yielding to the tender pressure and sinuous flexing, as if they formed whispered words of love.

  Fear of love. Even more, fear of losing it.

  She had no courage. None to say aye, none to say nay.

  The tip of his tongue teased against the tender flesh within her lips, seeking entrance between her teeth. Callused thumbs paraded boldly along the curve of her cheekbones. She opened to him and found herself suddenly lost in the whirlwind of sensation in the play of his mouth and hers. A timid moan escaped her, startling her She pushed against him, a tentatively silly push that said more of wanting him than of resistance. He was right. It was good. Sweet.

  Egil understood far too much of her. With a gentle caress across her cheek, he released her, quietly smiling.

  "S
top that. Leave her alone!"

  Lurching out from the dreamlike state of the kiss, Birgit whirled her head toward Arienh, who was trying to rise from the bed.

  Ronan held her back. "Leave them be, Arienh, it is only a kiss."

  "Will you never cease, either of you? Leave her alone."

  "Arienh..." said Birgit, not at all certain what her objection would be.

  "Do not think just because we are so weary that we do not know what you do. You take advantage of our troubles. You, Egil, you pretend to care about Liam, but you only use him. You think you will win Birgit by your false caring. You do not even care about her, only how you may use her."

  "Arienh!"

  "It is true, Birgit. 'Tis nothing but seduction. Both of them. That one is no different from his brother."

  "How is that, Arienh?" laughed Ronan. "Does he mean to make her his wife? Perhaps if we left, he would finish the task."

  "Stop it. You see, Birgit?"

  "See what?"

  "He is trying to do the same thing to you that-"

  "Do what, love?" teased Ronan.

  Birgit felt the silliness of a half smile creep onto her face. So that was it. Now, she understood. Arienh really was harboring a secret. She could not exactly see Arienh's face, but she could tell by the sudden silence and the stillness of her form that Arienh had let something slip. Exhausted as she was, Arienh couldn't be thinking clearly. So they had made love. And that was why Arienh had been so jumpy.

  Now that she thought of it, Birgit even knew when it had happened, on the morn of spring's first day, when Arienh had gone to await the sunrise at the stone circle. For at the same time, Ronan had been confused and furious, and shortly after that, brazenly cocky.

  It was love, if ever she had seen it.

  Egil slipped a nibble of a kiss at Birgit's earlobe, and a quiet chuckle rumbled through him. Birgit bit back the smirk that teased at her lips. So Egil knew, too.

  "Come on, Egil," Ronan said. "It's time for us to go, lest this one do you harm for molesting her sister."

  "Aye," Egil replied. "'Tis more than time. The boy will be all right, and none of us will get any sleep until we leave."

  Liam sat up, wakened as surely as if he had been swatted. "Nay, Egil, don't go."

  But the huge blond man shook his head. "'Tis time, lad. We've been here three nights, and we should be going home. You are well enough. Listen to your uncle, and go back to sleep." "Uncle?"

  "He's not-" Arienh stammered.

  Birgit smiled. Arienh was far too tired to engage her usual wit. The battle was lost, anyway. Didn't she know it?

  "Mama."

  "Sleep, Liam," she said as she watched the two men, dark and light shades of each other, unbar the door and exit into the chilly night.

  "Mama, I want Egil for my father."

  She knew. The Vikings were right. All boys desperately needed fathers. It was something God had put in their hearts, from the beginning of time. It was what Liam needed most.

  She didn't know how she could survive it. She couldn't, really. She had lived only for Liam for so long, she knew no other way. If only Egil would love her, too, as she knew he would love the boy. But no man had wanted her, once he learned her sight was fading, and no man would. There was too much a wife must do that she could not.

  Ronan. Arienh. They belonged together. Arienh needed a love, needed her own children For years, Arienh had been taking care of everybody. It was almost a joke, the way people had begun to turn to her when she was little more than a girl and expected her to have all the answers, solve all the problems. Arienh had taken care of everything for so long, she had lost track of who she was meant to be.

  Birgit was in the way, between Arienh and Ronan, between Liam and Egil. She stood in the way of happiness for everyone in the village.

  Perhaps there was something in that strange Viking custom that made sense after all, and it did not seem so different than the martyrdom of the saints. If it came down to a matter between her life and Liam's, she knew what she would choose. But she was neither saint nor martyr. Only a useless woman in everyone's way.

  Besides, she would not be able to make the cloth for Arienh's down blanket, and she wanted so badly to do that, for the sister who had done everything for her.

  The cliffs, above the Bride's Well.

  Egil was afraid of the high cliffs. Birgit was not. But then, she could not see what was at the bottom. She would not see the danger until it was too late.

  But it was a sin. An unforgivable one. And she was no saint.

  I'll do the best I can for you, son, she said, but only to herself.

  ***

  It was a strange thing, to wake with the sudden knowledge of having slept, when Arienh could barely remember having touched the bed. Perhaps the turmoil she had expected to keep her awake had lulled her instead.

  Arienh studied the motes floating in the narrow shaft of warm sunlight from the little slit of a window.

  Liam. She could hear his small voice, pale like the dimmest of light. And Birgit sat on the bed beside him.

  Arienh rose. She rubbed her back, convinced it ached all the way down to her toes. Before seeing to her morning needs she went to Liam's bedside.

  "Morning, Aunt," the boy said. "I didn't mean to wake you."

  "You didn't, Liam, it is time to wake. I see the sun has been up for a while. How do you feel this morning?"

  The boy wrinkled his brow, and along with it, his nose, as if he had to think about it. "It still hurts."

  Arienh washed the mud pack and examined the wound. The tissue beneath it was healthy, living. "It will, for a while. I am not convinced the poison is all gone yet, but I think you were lucky. Maybe it was a weak snake and didn't have much poison."

  "It didn't look weak, Aunt."

  She had seen the head. It was a good-sized snake. But who knew? Perhaps all she had done had worked after all. "Perhaps it is because you are strong, or it is God's will. But you must never take such a chance again, Liam. We would be very unhappy without you."

  "I don't think Egil will take me now."

  Arienh exchanged a glance with Birgit. "Take you? Did he plan to?"

  "Aye. He said we will go hunting and fishing together. And we'll go into the hills and find the nettles for Mama to weave."

  "Liam, you belong with your mother."

  "Can't I have both, Aunt? I want him to be my father."

  What was she to say? She did not want to turn him against the big man he adored. She doubted if she could. And she knew Liam understood the circumstances, the danger to his mother. It was not his fault, but he was just like all the others. He expected Arienh to solve an impossible problem. Sometimes she felt like she was drowning, fighting against the water, with huge waves washing over her, yet with everyone else calling out to her to save them.

  "We will just use herb poultices now, I think, Liam. And I think you must be quiet for a while yet, until we are sure the poison is gone."

  She repacked the dark wound with the pounded herbs and grease and wrapped a bandage around them, and went about her morning chores in a sickly sort of silence. Birgit, turning to her loom for the first time in days, avoided Arienh's glances. Usually Birgit's pale green eyes would have followed her, obscuring the fact that Birgit could distinguish little more than the movement.

  Liam slept again, for Arienh had given him the last of the lettuce syrup.

  Arienh tightened her jaw with the silent rage building in her, bit by tiny bit, making her want to slam things around. Instead, she made conscious effort to place everything very carefully, exactly where it should be.

  "Stop banging things around, Arienh."

  "I am not banging things around." She meant to whisper, but the words came out like a shout. "What is the matter with you, Birgit?"

  "Matter? Nay, I am fine. What is it that ails you?"

  "You heard what Liam said."

  "Aye. Perhaps he merely means to continue as he has been doing."

 
; "You know better."

  "Nay, I do not." The shuttle swished quietly.

  "How could you be so foolish? Don't you see the danger?"

  "I see very little, Arienh."

  Arienh's fists balled so tightly, her fingernails cut into her palms. "Oh, do not think you will toy with me. You know very well what I mean. It is you who are in danger, Birgit, yet you all but invited the man to kiss you."

  "It is so. And I know the danger. I do not deny it."

  "I am trying to protect you from him, Birgit. The whole village tries to protect you, yet you ignore our efforts and throw yourself into the midst of danger."

  The shuttle ceased. Birgit's eyes hardened. "I know what you do for me. I know how useless and helpless I am."

  "You are not useless and helpless."

  "Yet you treat me that way. Nay, Arienh, I know I survive only by your good graces. But at least the Vikings would recognize it honestly."

  "How dare you say such a thing?"

  "Because it is true. They would not protect me and pretend it is out of caring. You do not value me, Arienh. You only see me as a useless burden, like a child, yet one with no potential."

  "Nay, Birgit, you are only as useless as you see yourself. But if you are so determined to give up, I suppose I should not stand in your way."

  Birgit shrugged. "It makes no difference. In any case, you will not give up. You never do."

  The knife in Arienh's hand slammed down hard on the table. "You are right, Birgit. I never do. And I never will. Say what you will, you cannot goad me into anything else."

  Arienh stomped out of the door.

  "Leave it open," Birgit called.

  "Do it yourself!" she shouted back as the door banged shut.

  If Birgit thought herself so useless, could she imagine Arienh's fumbling hands on a loom? Birgit would sneer at the very best Arienh could do. How could she not see her own worth?

  Thick moisture filled her eyes as she stalked down the path toward the river trail. She'd go into the hills to gather her own nettles. She did not need the Vikings to do that. And there were herbs to hunt, that would be showing their first tops about now, and she would know where to retrieve them when they were ready to be plucked from the ground. Besides, the stones needed to be moved. Beltane would soon be upon them. She had to...