Estrid (The Valhalla Series Book 2)

by Johanne Hildebrandt

  “King Erik wanted to kill both Olaf and me when we were born. It’s hard to look up to a father like that, even if he is a king.”

  Katla giggled. She wrapped her arm around Estrid’s waist and pulled her even closer.

  “Olaf yearns for royal power anyway. He would gladly let Erik screw him in the ass if that’s what it took.”

  “Katla!” Estrid burst out laughing at her kinswoman’s disrespect. “You could be whipped for saying that.”

  “Oh mighty king, I’ll do anything for you, my king,” Katla moaned, and then they laughed so hard, Estrid started coughing again.

  Her chest rasped and burned as the beast tried to use its sharp claws to tear free.

  When the attack finally subsided, she took Katla’s hand, kissed it tenderly, and moved it over her heart. They heard laughter and shouting from the hall, but here in the room they were protected from the world.

  “What would I do without you?”

  “You’d die of boredom,” Katla replied, and kissed her cheek before making herself comfortable and starting to gently stroke her belly.

  Estrid sighed contentedly.

  “It won’t be easy for Mother when both Olaf and I are gone. She should hurry up and find herself a new husband instead of letting Edmund warm her bed.”

  “She could have anyone she wants, but she only wants one person.”

  Katla’s hand found its way up over Estrid’s breast and settled there.

  “That’s just malicious gossip,” Estrid said.

  She’d heard the rumors that Denmark’s king Sweyn had wooed her mother a few years back. Wicked rumors said they had coupled at a holy sacrifice and that he was actually Olaf’s and her father. When Sigrid had sent Sweyn’s suitor away without a response, there’d been a lot of whispering about the whole thing.

  “What if it’s not a rumor?” Katla whispered into her ear. “What if your mother and Sweyn really did lie together during the hallowed sacrifice and he’s your father?”

  Estrid smiled at the inconceivable.

  “Well, then I would be happy to have a father who didn’t want to kill me.”

  They laughed together again, and Katla brushed the hair from Estrid’s cheek.

  No cross worshippers could reach them here with their whisperings and sorcery, nor Balder with his luminous attractiveness and his erect cock that had wounded her so badly, it had taken days to heal. It was just the two of them here in safety.

  “I saw how Alrik was looking at you today,” Katla said. She gave a knowing smile as her curly hair fell over her face, and she fondled Estrid’s breast.

  Little rivulets of pleasure trickled over Estrid as she gasped with desire.

  “Don’t you desire a poor third son’s cock?” Katla teased.

  Katla smiled with pleasure as her hand found its way between Estrid’s thighs and around her dripping wetness. Her body shook with passion as, panting, she kissed her kinswoman.

  “All I want is you,” moaned Estrid.

  Katla smiled contentedly and replied, “Then you can have your reward.”

  Sigrid looked up at the blurry reflection undulating back and forth in her mirror. Her eyes were lined with charcoal, and her face was painted white. She wore an ornate necklace of gold and colorful stones. Her dress of delicate red cloth featured goldwork embroidery, and gilded meandering dragons were on the shoulder brooches. Her years of waiting would soon be over, and she would finally be free.

  Ulf and Asta stood by the window in her room, discussing King Erik’s arrival, but Sigrid wasn’t listening to them. Instead she picked up the little gold brooch sitting in her jewelry box, so modest and imbued with so much hope and sorrow.

  I’ll come get you, he’d said after the sacrifice in Lejre.

  She tenderly ran her finger over the brooch depicting Sleipnir, Odin’s eight-legged horse. Sweyn had given it to her after that holy sacrifice in Lejre when they were forced to part, her only souvenir of that brief moment of happiness that had bound them together forever.

  Sigrid smiled sadly at the little brooch.

  He had been a young Jómsviking with nothing to his name beyond courage, and she had been on her way to marry Erik to assure the peace between the Geats and the Svea. Their lives weren’t their own, but the gods stole one brief spell of time for them to be together that night. At daybreak she’d been forced to flee from Lejre. She and her father had sailed to Svealand, where she began her unhappy marriage to Erik, given away by her family as a peace offering. Sweyn had sworn he would return for her, and he had joined Styrbjörn the Strong when he sailed to Ubsala to overthrow Erik, who was Styrbjörn’s uncle. Sigrid knew Erik was planning to ambush them and—in the middle of her labor pains—she sent her half sister Emma to stop Sweyn from fighting in the battle. Emma brought Sweyn the brooch and told him the babies were Erik’s and that Sigrid didn’t want him. The lie was the only way Sigrid could think of to make Sweyn leave Svealand, and it worked. The savage Emma had set fire to Styrbjörn the Strong’s ships and then died herself in the flames. Styrbjörn and his men died soon afterward in the Battle of Fýrisvellir. Sweyn and his Jómsvikings had already sailed away by the time the fighting started. They went off to challenge Harald Bluetooth for the throne of Denmark. Sigrid gave birth to Estrid and Olaf, and Erik had almost killed her and the babies because he was sure they were Sweyn’s. Now Erik had driven Sweyn from the Danish throne, and soon he would be forced to promote Olaf to being his officially recognized son and heir.

  Sigrid ran her finger over the brooch again. Are you still with me, my beloved? Are you still waiting? She curled her fingers around Sleipnir, and for one breath Sweyn felt so close that she could smell his scent, feel his rugged heat, taste his saltiness. Two summers had come and gone since Sweyn had sent a suitor to her bearing the brooch. She hadn’t said yes but rather had asked him to wait.

  Only a few months later, his brothers had betrayed him during the battle in Jelling, and he had been forced to flee, first to Jómsborg, and then out raiding.

  Erik the Victorious may have taken their pasts, but the future was theirs. The moment Erik declared Olaf his heir and coregent of Svealand and Geatland, she would be unchained from her former husband’s crazy shackles. Sigrid tenderly kissed the brooch. Soon, my beloved, the long wait will be over, and you can finally be mine.

  “You are as lovely as Freya just descended from Folkvang,” Asta said, walking over to her side.

  Sigrid smiled contentedly as she pulled her hand over her braided hair, artfully put up with gilded pins, strength swelling in her chest. She truly was Vanadís, merciless and awe-inspiring, and Erik, King of Svealand, would be blinded and tremble before her divine magnificence.

  “Use your abilities to ensnare the king,” she told Asta. “If you succeed in getting close to him, much is won. The smallest little piece of knowledge about him may be of the utmost importance.”

  The divine mania sparkled in Asta’s eyes.

  “I won’t disappoint you, my lady.”

  Sigrid smiled at the girl, pleased by her uncommon attributes. She had come to Sigrid as a maidservant when she was a girl. Her family feared Asta for her love of death and acts of violence. After she beat her own sister unconscious, her father had given her away.

  Sigrid had immediately realized what a gift the girl’s violent inclinations could be. Sigrid had turned her mind to Vanadís, and now Asta was her most enraptured maidservant, a valkyrie who didn’t recoil from anything that Sigrid asked of her.

  “You are my pride and my sharp dagger,” she said, basking in the girl’s affectionate smile.

  Sigrid’s brother, Ulf, still stood by her window, looking out at the moors, tense and irritable.

  “It’s going to take more than a virgin to control Erik,” he said. “If Erik knows that Father is out raiding with Sweyn, he’ll break the peace between the Geats and the Svea. War will be upon us.”

  A Scylfing chieftain shouldn’t speak this way with other people present! Sigri
d quickly sent Asta away with a gesture, and only after the door closed again did she turn to her brother.

  “Fights come to those who believe in fighting,” she responded irritably.

  “They’ve had both disease and crop failures up north,” Ulf said. “They say Erik is coming here to fill his barns, the way he already did with the Scanians and the Danes. If that’s the case, he’ll use Father’s raiding as justification for going to war with us again.”

  Sigrid looked at the serious dís in the mirror. Then she reached for the gold Sleipnir brooch and pinned it to her dress.

  “They say Erik knows all about Father’s raiding, and he’ll get as much mileage out of it as he can to demand something from us. But first he’ll negotiate. And we have the most valuable thing he needs, an heir.”

  In her mercy Vanadís had sent black sickness, which killed the king’s three young sons and the wife he’d married after Sigrid left Svealand. Now Olaf was the only heir to Svealand’s throne.

  “All will go well, as long as my brother is the strong leader for our pack,” she said, eyeing Ulf.

  People were predatory animals who could sniff out weakness wherever it was. If the Scylfing chieftain had little faith, soon everyone around him would begin to doubt, and then Erik would rip them to shreds.

  The watchman’s horn echoed over the area, signaling that Erik and his army had been spotted, and a strange calm came over Sigrid. This was it. Whatever her brother lacked in the way of courage and strength, Vanadís had given her in excess.

  “On my oath, this will be the Scylfings’ finest hour.”

  Estrid found her twin brother in the hall, where his friend Alrik was dressing him in his finest clothes. Alrik tenderly placed a cape covered in goldwork embroidery over Olaf’s shoulders before bowing and backing away. Aversion coiled like a cold snake through Estrid’s belly as she looked at her twin brother, and she wanted only to escape. She took a deep breath and forced the storming physical repugnance out of mind. This was their last moment together, and she was duty bound to say good-bye. She was a king’s daughter and Scylfing nobility, and as such she had to meet her obligations.

  “Well?” he asked, gesturing to his clothes.

  Estrid walked around her brother and inspected the armor with silver fittings, a gold chain around his neck, and his belt covered in colorful stones.

  “You look older,” she said. “Like a real ruler and king.”

  He smiled at her, and suddenly the bond they had once shared was back, though tenuous and fragile like mist at dawn.

  When they were little, they used to sit together in the shade of the hop vines and dream about their powerful father in a distant foreign land. King Erik always had Thor’s strength and Balder’s goodness, and the reason he never visited them was that he was protecting them so evil men couldn’t find them.

  After that, messengers started coming from Svealand, bringing gifts and reports about the world outside their estate. They told of the king’s valor and wisdom, so profound that Odin himself had blessed him. The twins had believed the legends about their father for a long time.

  That all fell apart the day they happened to overhear a serving woman say they might be bastards and the king had the right to kill them.

  Scared for their lives, they had run to their mother, who took them to her room. They had sat on her bed, and she had somberly explained to them that what they’d heard were lies, born from their father’s warped mind.

  “Erik can’t hurt you, Olaf. You were begotten during the sacred sacrifice, chosen by the gods to defend Valhalla and become the king of kings. That is the magnificent fate the Norns have woven for you. It is the will of Vanadís, and it will happen.”

  Olaf’s face had been white with fear, but he’d heard about his own sacredness so many times that he couldn’t help but believe her words.

  “When your father sees you, he will embrace you, and you will rule by his side in Svealand. The gods have given you a great destiny. You are our sun, the defender of the Nordic lands and Valhalla.”

  That was the moment Estrid had truly realized just how blessed her brother was. He would live in wealth and glory while she dwelled in Hel’s shadowlands with the dead, with only Katla by her side. He got everything and she got nothing. Bitter envy percolated through her until that terrible day when she had tried to kill him.

  “Will I please Father?” Estrid asked, twirling around in her blue linen dress with the silver and gold embroidery.

  Her shoulder brooches were the most expensive she owned, and her necklace with the golden horses gleamed like a captured sunbeam around her neck. Her hair hung loose down her back, all held in place by one braid.

  “Your future husband will take great pleasure in you,” Olaf said with a straight face.

  Estrid froze and looked her brother in the eye.

  “You know I’ll be dead soon.”

  Olaf’s face grew harsh.

  “As I would have been if you’d had your way,” he snapped.

  Estrid smiled sadly as her brother’s bitterness once again broke the bond that had united them.

  She ran her fingers over the pale scar tissue on his cheek, the permanent reminder of her crazed attack. The only thing Estrid remembered was being pulled away from her brother as he lay lifeless on the ground in his own blood. They said she tried to kill him with a rock, that she had tackled him from behind, shrieking in rage, and hit him on the head over and over again. It happened just short of their seventh birthday.

  He had hovered between life and death for several days. Their mother had been furious; everyone was, and Estrid had been scared to death, certain her mother would kill her if Olaf died. She had cried and begged, swore that she couldn’t remember anything.

  When Olaf’s health improved, Mother agreed with her seeresses and soothsayers that Estrid had been cursed by the cross worshippers, who were trying to kill Olaf before he reached his full strength. Estrid was Hel’s chosen one. When she wandered between the worlds, the Christians’ sorcery had possessed her and taken control of her actions.

  Estrid knew it was a lie. She hated her brother for everything he was and everything he had been given. While all she had to look forward to was an early death, Olaf’s name would be renowned and praised for many generations. But she bit her tongue and told horrifying stories about how the white God sent messengers to her at night to tempt and control her. She cleverly redirected all the distrust aimed at her to the cross worshippers.

  When Olaf recovered, he was sent to Ulf to be fostered into manhood and become a Scylfing warrior. Since then, the rift between them had only grown.

  “We’re even now,” Olaf said, disgust settling over his face like a stony mask. “I got my revenge and I enjoyed it.”

  Estrid stared at her brother, ice-cold needles pricking her body.

  “What revenge?”

  He reached for his sword.

  “You can’t hide from me behind your craziness, you bitch. You know what I mean, because you squealed like a pig in heat.”

  Estrid plunged into an abyss. Balder, the dream, the blood on her night shift. It couldn’t be true. It mustn’t be true. Nausea swelled in her stomach and almost made her throw up.

  “Balder saved me from the abyss and blessed me. It can’t be true. You’re my brother. We’re twins!”

  He strapped his sword belt around his waist and regarded her with intense hatred.

  “You are a shame to our family line. You should never have been born, and I hope my charitable deed drives you to your death.”

  Her own brother!

  Estrid could hardly hold herself upright. She pressed her hand to her mouth, suddenly drenched in sweat.

  The watchman’s horn echoed from the moors, and Asta opened the door.

  “Her Highness Sigrid summons you.”

  Olaf gave Estrid a nasty smile and offered her his arm.

  “Come, sister. Let’s go meet our father.”

  “My dear,” Sigrid murm
ured, approaching him across the meadow. Her smile was a gentle breeze on a warm summer’s day, soothing and full of expectation. Her hair, the same color as ripe wheat, hung loose over her shoulders, and her feet were bare beneath her thin shift.

  “Don’t you know I’m waiting?” she asked.

  Sweyn drank in her beauty, so pure that it burned away all sins and all bitterness.

  “You’re mine,” he told her, his chest aching with longing.

  She nodded earnestly.

  “Hurry,” she whispered, and a shadow fell over her face. “Our time is running out.”

  An instant later her beauty was contorted, and now a mare, the demon that brings nightmares, stood before him with stringy hair and exposed fangs.

  Sweyn didn’t have a chance to escape before the mare straddled him, crushing his chest. Wheezing, he struggled to get free while she drank his life force.

  “Sigrid doesn’t want a man who would kill his own father,” the mare whispered, raking her nails, poisoned with paralyzing torment, over his skin. “You deserve your brothers’ hatred.”

  The crushing weight on his chest was grinding. Cursed was he among men and despised by his own family.

  With a tormented moan, Sweyn turned his head and saw his father’s ghost glaring at him through the dark, his fat belly still bleeding from the mortal wound Sweyn had given him.

  The men who had been casualties at Jelling stepped out of the shadows one by one, pale ghosts pleading for the revenge they hadn’t gotten yet.

  By every damned valkyrie!

  Sweyn sat up in bed with a groan, grabbed yesterday’s pitcher of wine, and drained it. It helped for a moment, and the mare’s grip on his chest loosened enough to breathe. Sigrid had come to him in his dream again. He pulled his hands over his face and wiped away the clammy sweat as the memory and his longing faded with the dream. She had urged him to hurry before the mare succeeded in capturing him. It didn’t mean anything, not this time and not the previous times. The pale dawn light that seeped in through the smoke hole fell on the long table in the middle of the great hall.