Estrid (The Valhalla Series Book 2)

by Johanne Hildebrandt

  “Ulf is flouting our laws to show that he controls the Scylfings,” Sigrid surmised. “He’ll bitterly regret that.”

  “He should do the test immediately, because we have little time to wait,” Olaf said.

  Sigrid stood up.

  “We are under attack from Utgard’s dark giants and from the cross worshippers, who try to enter our world like serpents,” she said. “We have never before needed the Æsir’s assistance as much as we do now. Never before has it been so important to appease them so they will grant us their favor. Have the cross worshipper do the ordeal of fire so that we can prove his guilt according to the law.”

  She paused and looked at each person in turn, like a mighty valkyrie, gleaming with beauty and unruly strength.

  “The cross worshipper’s crime was serious, and his mere presence here poisons our fields and spreads a curse over us all. I say that if he is guilty, he must die to appease Vanadís. Let us show our faithfulness to Freya so that she comes back and brings warm weather and fertility with her. Let his suffering be the end of our darkness.”

  Relieved cries were heard throughout the room.

  “Well said!” someone shouted. “Make that abomination pay for what he’s done!”

  But Ulf and the chieftains looked angry when Sigrid flashed them a haughty smile.

  “Blessed be our esteemed Sigrid, who is hallowed by the gods,” cried Sigrid’s housekeeper, Ylva, and everyone chimed in.

  “Save us from the frost giants! Come back, Vanadís!”

  The voices started whispering in Estrid’s head, inaudible words so quiet that she couldn’t quite catch them. The hair stood up on her arms as the shadows in the corners grew darker and started climbing up toward the rafters. What was going on?

  A moment later the cross worshipper made eye contact with Estrid and smiled maliciously.

  “I swear to God I’ll save your soul.”

  She could hear his voice loudly and clearly through the whispering confusion of the afterworld. Those gray eyes cut right through her, all the way to her core, befouling her.

  “Mighty Hel, protect me from this evil, purify me with your eternal tranquility,” Estrid prayed. Katla put her hand on Estrid’s shoulder, and she drank in her kinswoman’s dark strength as she looked toward the cross worshipper. “Queen of Niflheim, destroyer of everything, imbue me with your everlasting strength. Empower me so I can stand strong against this darkness and evil.”

  Estrid smiled with relief as a surging wave of hatred filled her chest, burning away the dirty man’s sorcery. The gods were with her. He couldn’t overpower her.

  “I will show you which goddess prevails here.”

  A large crowd gathered around Hadar’s smithy as he heated up the iron rod the cross worshipper would carry. He turned the rod with a muscular arm that was as big around as a grown man’s thigh. The smith did not appear to enjoy having to do such a mundane task. Hadar was widely renowned for his expertise, and Sigrid had had to pay a fortune to convince him to come work here. No noble estate could be without an expert blacksmith.

  “You had no right to dishonor me at the Thing,” Ulf said angrily, so close to her that she could smell the sour odor of mead on his breath.

  Sigrid slowly turned around and eyed her brother with contempt.

  “You were the one who dishonored your king Olaf’s wishes by not sentencing the cross worshipper to death immediately. We need to give him a death that will be talked about for a long time to come. It needs to be something that will strike fear into the hearts of farmers and others who consider converting to worship the white God. And yet you defied our will.”

  Her brother’s cheek twitched, and his eyes seethed with anger. Sigrid could tell from his eyes that he hadn’t even thought this through.

  “All the same, it’s shabby of you to force us into a pointless hunt after the Anund clan. No one knows where they’re holed up.”

  Sigrid stretched her back, noting her brother’s unfamiliar feebleness. Ever since their father had gone off raiding and Ulf had had to fill his shoes at home, he had changed and grown so weak that Sigrid hardly recognized him.

  “I’m not forcing you to do anything. Your king and foster son is the one who would like the Anund clan to be neutralized before Erik arrives. You know we can’t show the king of the Svea even the slightest weakness, because if we did, he would devour us all.”

  Fifteen years had passed since Vanadís had revealed the vision of Sigrid’s son’s destiny. Valhalla would fall if he didn’t save Scandinavia. She had loyally served her former husband, Erik, a man who hated her more than anything else. Year after year she had swallowed her pride to pave the way for Olaf to become heir apparent in Erik’s kingdom, not for her own sake but for Vanadís, for Valhalla, and for the entire Scylfing dynasty. Now the moment was almost here for the boy’s accession, and she would finally be free. Nothing could take that from her.

  Sigrid watched Edmund waving people away from the smithy. The jarl wore a wolf pelt over his armor, and he was handsome and manly there in the dusk twilight with his sword at his hip.

  “Erik’s hardly going to care if Anund’s men are plundering our outlying farms,” Ulf said.

  Sigrid studied her brother with disdain.

  “The weight of Father’s responsibilities clouds your mind,” she told him coolly. “You know that Erik sees everything and that he will use the slightest weakness against us. It’s bad enough that you’re defending a cross worshipper’s life, but worse still that you may not possess the strength to protect your family and their interests.”

  Her brother’s eyes widened at this insult, and he looked like he wanted to kill her. But he took a deep breath and reined in his anger.

  “Is power so sacrosanct to you, sister, that you’re willing to sacrifice everything and everyone for it?”

  Was this really what he thought this was all about? Sigrid raised her chin with dignity and looked down at her brother.

  “I am fighting for the gods and for our own survival, and it is a shame that a Scylfing chieftain such as you isn’t man enough to stand by my side.”

  Ulf turned around and walked to rejoin his fellow chieftains. Sigrid didn’t even look at him. He would return to her side soon enough. Her brother had always been a bit slower of mind than she was, but when it really mattered, he always did the right thing. He would do so this time as well, regardless of whatever weakness clouded his thoughts this evening.

  A moment later Hadar came over with the glowing iron rod, about half an arm long.

  “That ought to warm you up,” the nobleman’s wife, Krusa, taunted the prisoner, drawing laughter all around.

  Sigrid turned toward the cross worshipper in anticipation. His face was white as he reached out his hands and grabbed hold of the glowing-hot metal. There was a sizzle and the smell of burning flesh, and a cry of pain emerged from his lips. Then he started walking toward the chieftains. Four of the required nine steps were done, and now he took the fifth. The corner of Sigrid’s mouth curled upward on hearing his pained moan as he took the eighth step. Then, panting, he took his ninth step and dropped the iron bar in front of the chieftains.

  The cross worshipper’s hands wouldn’t heal in four days. It took the gods’ blessing and expensive salves to overcome something like this, and he had neither.

  “Let us return to the hall and warm ourselves by the hearth,” Sigrid said, and put her hand on Estrid’s shoulder. Estrid stood glaring so darkly at the tormented prisoner that she looked like she wanted to rip him to pieces.

  “As you wish, Mother,” Estrid replied with a nod.

  Sigrid tenderly brushed a lock of hair from her daughter’s face. She hadn’t heard her cough a single time, but Sigrid knew not to let the disease trick her. Each day she got to keep her daughter was a precious gift.

  Sigrid greeted Jogärd, Kjettil’s wife, politely but also with hidden pain. She had laid all seven of her children on the funeral pyre. Only two had lived to Estrid’s
age before moving on to the afterworld; the rest had all died before age five. Sigrid didn’t know anyone who hadn’t lost at least two children. It could be nothing but a blessing from the gods that her twins were still alive.

  She took a deep breath and pretended the knife of grief wasn’t cutting into her chest. She hadn’t lost her little girl yet. Sigrid clenched her teeth so that her jaws ached. She needed to be strong for everyone’s sake.

  “Shall I fetch you a fur, my lady?” asked Lia as she passed behind Sigrid’s back with the rest of the entourage.

  Sigrid didn’t even look at her as she walked up the hill’s muddy path. Two torches burned outside the doors to the formal hall, and she was hurrying to get back to her warm hearth. The damp had soaked through her shoes, and her feet were freezing. She was relieved to see Asta step out of the hall and come to meet her with a little bronze cup.

  “For your warmth, my lady,” she said as Sigrid warmed her fingers on the cup of mulled wine.

  “The most beautiful of my maidservants is never a disappointment,” Sigrid said, and drank the warm draft, which revived her spirits.

  She turned to Edmund, who was walking up the hill with the chieftains and some of the warriors from her hird. His hopeful smile promised the pleasure of a soothing interlude to come, a blissful escape from the burdens she carried.

  “Lia, ask your husband to come to my chamber. He will warm me tonight.”

  Sigrid had a hard time concealing her contempt as the pale maidservant swallowed her sadness and humbly bowed her head.

  “As you wish, my lady.”

  “Did you see the face he made when he grabbed that iron rod?” giggled Katla in high spirits, taking a couple of happy dance steps over the frozen mud. “His hands are never going to heal, and he’ll die soon at the place of sacrifice.”

  Estrid could still smell the odor of burned flesh as the cross worshipper’s hands burned all the way to the bone. He had made remarkably little fuss. His eyes had filled with pain, and he had whimpered like an animal, but he had bravely walked the required nine feet before letting go of the glowing-hot metal. He had stared at Estrid with a steady look of defiance, as if he were going to prove to her that his hands would heal. But they were so badly burned that not even his evil God could grant him that kind of miracle, and he wouldn’t be allowed to live either way.

  Didn’t he understand that the gods had already decided he was going to die? Why was he fighting the inevitable? None of it made any sense.

  Estrid crossed her arms in front of her. The cross worshipper was doomed, and yet he clung to hope the same as she did.

  “Look at Asta twining around Olaf like a snake,” whispered Katla, pointing to Estrid’s mother’s beautiful maidservant, who was whispering something into Olaf’s ear. “Soon she’ll fling herself over backward and spread her legs, just waiting to be screwed. They really suit each other, the two of them.”

  Estrid nodded. She had disliked Asta ever since the maidservant had arrived at the estate as a nine-year-old girl. Her smiles hid a nature twisted toward insanity, and her lascivious looks concealed an insatiable thirst for blood and suffering. Estrid’s mother had honored Asta by promoting her to sacrificial priestess, but that wasn’t enough to satisfy the maidservant’s thirst for blood. Slaves had gone missing twice and then later been found dead, tortured beyond recognition as even human. Estrid knew, and others suspected, that Asta was behind these atrocities, but she was still treated well because no one dared get on Sigrid’s bad side.

  Estrid stopped before entering the hall and looked out over the village at the bottom of the hill, where the cross worshipper was locked back up in the root cellar. She wondered how his hands looked, whether they hurt very much, and whether he still harbored hope of survival.

  “What are you thinking about?” Katla asked.

  Estrid pulled a hand over her head to drive away her thoughts of the foreigner. He was nothing, a foul abomination no better than a slave, and would soon be gone. She couldn’t allow herself to be ensnared by his sneaky sorcery that obscured her mind.

  “Has he infected you?” Katla asked with fear in her voice. “I saw the way you looked at him as he was led away. Did his evil catch you? Tell me the truth, otherwise I won’t follow you anywhere.”

  The thought of going to the afterworld alone frightened Estrid more than anything else. Honesty alone will lead us to our true fate.

  She took her kinswoman’s hand in her own and squeezed it tight.

  “Never! I will never turn away from the queen of Niflheim. My heart is full of longing for Helheim, where you and I will both live together, side by side for all eternity.”

  The fear in Katla’s blue eyes had almost subsided, but not entirely. A streak of suspicion remained, as if she didn’t dare believe it.

  “How could I let you down?” Estrid continued. “You’re everything to me.”

  Katla nodded slightly.

  “I believe you,” she said grudgingly.

  Estrid’s heart ached with relief when her kinswoman finally smiled, and everything went back to the way it had been before.

  Laughing aristocrats strolled past them on their way into the hall for supper. The doors were open, and men were already seated on the benches at the long table, drinking before tomorrow’s raiding. Asta and several other maidservants were sitting on the laps of the most important men. Tonight they would drink and have sex to honor the gods and life. Laughter flowed out over the frozen ground before them.

  Estrid brushed a lock of Katla’s hair out of her face.

  “Come, let me prove my loyalty to you.”

  They could hear laughter from the formal hall only faintly, and the wind had stilled as they walked toward the sacrificial stone behind the formal hall. There were only the bowl of blood in her hand and Katla’s safe presence. Estrid stopped before the stone and smiled slightly at her kinswoman, who nodded, encouraging her to continue.

  “I will serve humbly at the family’s feasts in Helgafjell. Black-blue goddess, corpse-pale beauty, I hear the roar of Hvergelmir’s rapids. Come to me, Eternal One. Come, for I await you faithfully.”

  Estrid knelt before the sacrificial stone and poured a little of the blood over the rough surface. The goddess of death’s presence rose trembling from the underworld and enveloped her in her everlasting power.

  “Hear me, protector of the graves. Protect me from the cross worshipper’s evil, dark and ruthless mistress. Protect me from the false ways, harden my heart, and make me strong.”

  She emptied the last of the blood into the bowl and watched the stone darken as the dark dísir swallowed its life force. Just then a wind gust blew over the hill, and a tingling energy filled the air. Estrid smiled, relieved. She was here.

  Katla knelt beside Estrid and raised her dagger to the skies.

  “Bless me, dark mother. Hear my appeal. Hear my death oath.”

  She cut her palm and let the blood dribble over the sacred stone. Estrid shook with the ancient power emanating from the ground. She clutched the knife, the life force gushing from her wound.

  “Eternally bound, I swear my loyalty to her. I will willingly follow her to the afterworld. I give my word. I give my life.”

  Katla’s eyes sparkled like silver, and she gazed upon the night sky as their blood ran down the sacred stone.

  “Blessed be Hel, Mistress of Niflheim, queen of the afterworld. I follow you and worship you, my sovereign.”

  They spoke as one, bound together for eternity by the oath they’d sworn.

  “Show your never-ending power, queen of the cosmos. I invoke you and your maidservants. Come, sisters. Come and unite!”

  The dark dísir rose up from the afterworld and loomed large, awe-inspiring in their strength. The ground shook as they swooped through the air around them, howling, black shadows that protected and shielded. The dark strength burned in Estrid’s blood as she became one with the afterworld. There was no longer any fear or suffering, only the universe’s i
nexorable emptiness that filled her with blessed power.

  Estrid could picture the cross worshipper whimper with fear in his burrow; weak and powerless, he trembled before Hel’s terrible might.

  “I banish you,” she cried at him, and her voice was dark as a wild animal’s roar and so immense that the nine worlds shook.

  Liberated, Estrid held out her arms as the dark dísir swooped around her body and bound her to Katla, and they drank in the dísir’s immortality. Then the power died down, and the night grew less dark.

  Estrid looked at her kinswoman, and nothing needed to be said between them. They would never be separated, would never be alone. They were truly bound together for all eternity.

  “It’s madness. The feasts will empty the larders, and soon even the court will starve,” Ylva said, pleadingly holding out her hands.

  Sigrid got up and walked across the room, annoyed. Her head ached from her housekeeper’s long tirades, always filled with complaints but no solutions. She sighed heavily and looked out the window where the dreary rain beat down on the waterlogged fields.

  Famine, crop failures, plundering, and Erik’s impending arrival to name Olaf as his heir all came bearing down on Sigrid. A searing band of pain tightened around her forehead. Her housekeeper’s yammering was the last thing she needed.

  Ylva was the highest ranking of the local matrons, and Sigrid had been more than happy to take her on as her housekeeper when Ylva left her husband, Sigrid’s father’s brother, after he brought a new wife home. But not even Ylva, who had run her own farm, could understand how much was riding on this.

  The cross worshipper’s hands hadn’t healed, and Sigrid had sent a messenger to all the estates and farmhouses on her lands to tell them to come witness the execution. She had to show them all that her own power and that of Vanadís had not dwindled. She would show them what happened to people who turned their backs on Valhalla. They would behold the true gods and tremble.

  “So let them starve,” Sigrid said. “It’ll do them good.”