Björn’s face was red with outrage, and Ulf gave Sigrid a scathing look. An oath of allegiance to the king couldn’t be broken, and now that they had made it, they were not giving up just their own freedom but Geatland’s as well.
Erik put his hand on Olaf’s shoulder, and she saw the wicked triumph in his eyes. They were all his slaves now.
“Rise, Scylfings. Stand up for a new kingdom of Geatland and Svealand combined, unified under one banner. May Odin bless us all!”
Cheers broke out again as Ulf and the Geatish chieftains stood back up. Sigrid took a few steps forward to convey her best wishes to Olaf, but he turned his back on her to speak to the Svea chieftains.
No one missed this insult. Sigrid stood alone. Not even her own brother or son spoke with her. They looked right through her, as if she no longer existed, she who had sacrificed everything for her clan. Her body still ached from Erik’s abuse as she forced herself to stand up tall, chin up, impassive as power ran like water through her hands, impossible to grasp. How could they be so disrespectful to her? None of this would have happened if it hadn’t been for her strength and cunning, so how dare they turn their backs on her?
The bitter taste of exclusion filled her mouth, and her heart hammered in her chest.
“Mistress,” Asta said, and then placed a cloak around Sigrid’s shoulders and a sumptuous embroidered veil over her head.
Sigrid smiled at her maidservant in gratitude.
So far Erik was strong enough to take what he wanted, but his time would soon pass.
“What do you want, mistress?” Asta asked.
Sigrid clenched her fist, digging her fingernails into her flesh. It was finished, and she was free to take the revenge she had dreamt of for all these years.
“Justice,” she replied.
For that is your will, Vanadís.
The ship heeled under Sweyn’s feet as he walked between the oarsmen’s benches and nodded to the men, who sat idly as the wind carried them home. The sail swelled to the east, and Farman’s scarred face looked relieved from his post at the steering oar.
“At this speed we’ll see Freya’s land before the sun reaches its zenith.”
Sweyn nodded to Knut Danaást, who stood at the gunwale, gazing out at Rán’s vast fathoms.
“Soon you will stand on your forefathers’ shores,” Sweyn said, and his heart swelled with pride as he set his hand on the old man’s skinny shoulder.
That promise he would keep at any rate. The wind played in his uncle’s hair as he smiled at Sweyn.
“My father would have been proud if he’d gotten to meet you.”
“Gorm the Ugly?” Sweyn asked.
Knut Danaást had told him about how his grandfather succeeded in unifying Denmark and about the battles he’d fought with Franks, Saxons, and his own chieftains. He was a great man, and Sweyn had had a hard time accepting that the most prominent of all the Jelling kings, the hero of his childhood, had apparently looked like a troll.
The old man laughed out loud at his words.
“My mother was the beautiful one. My father always said it was her strength and intelligence that built the kingdom, and he called her Denmark’s founder and adornment.”
Sweyn nodded, because he was familiar with the legends about his grandmother, Thyra Danebod, who was connected to Vanadís. Freya had warned Thyra that famine would afflict her land, and she had persuaded the Danes to save their seed grain for sowing and prepare well for the era of misfortune that was to come. Thanks to this, they coped with the crop failures and were exceedingly grateful to her. She had also persuaded her husband to build the Danevirke, and if he hadn’t done that, they would not have withstood the attack the following year.
“My mother was as beautiful as an elf, unbending in her strength, and as quick-minded as an arrow. In truth, she was Freya.” Knut Danaást smiled at the waves as if he could picture his mother standing there now. “Father always said that if I found myself a woman like that, I should do everything in my power to make her mine.”
Sweyn looked out over the ocean, where gulls were playing on the wind. His uncle could just as easily have been describing Sigrid, his own beautiful Vanadís and precious jewel. He would have drained the sea and fetched the stars down from the sky to win her heart, but even so she had rejected him. Now I’m going to marry your daughter and can only hope that she is half your equal.
“Kings don’t get to choose their own brides,” Sweyn said.
A king was married to his realm, and his will was not his own. The bride was chosen to strengthen alliances; only mistresses were chosen for love. Every woman he bedded and every child he begot proved his strength and ability as king, and he had certainly slept with his share of the daughters and mothers of noblemen and farmers. Still, he’d never found Sigrid’s equal anywhere. She was like an unhealed wound in his body that would pain him until his dying day.
“Listen to me, boy,” Knut Danaást said, catching his attention. “If you met a woman like my mother, you would need to have her, because you would never find any peace in this life without her by your side. Spending your days in unrequited longing, far from the one you would choose as your own—that’s no life.”
Knut smiled sadly, and Sweyn knew he was thinking of his own sweetheart that he had left behind. The young maiden who had won Knut’s heart in his youth was named Alfsol, but her family was too low class for King Gorm to ever have allowed Knut to marry her.
Knut had left to fight in England, hoping to win enough treasure that he could persuade his father, because Alfsol was the only woman he wanted. Before he left, he had sworn he would return to her, and that promise had weighed on him all the years he had remained in Wessex. Now he would return to her family farm in the hope of finding Alfsol still alive, or at least to pray by her grave.
The old man was chasing a dream and would reap only disappointment, because Alfsol had probably married someone else and died long ago, buried on some other farm.
Sweyn gulped and looked gloomily out over the waves. What a wasted life the rightful king of Denmark had lived, robbed of his kingdom, power, and beloved. He had given up everything to serve the white God.
Sweyn breathed in the sea air, saturated with salt and sand, and then took in the ships, storming forward over the waves with their sails bulging and gulls screaming around their masts. Far off in the distance, the green hills of Jutland rose from the sea like shimmering jewels.
The beacons had already been lit and looked like a string of glowing pearls warning of Sweyn’s arrival and the sudden, unsuspected death he brought. He was finally going to meet his destiny. He closed his eyes as the wind comfortingly caressed the top of his head, singing of his doom. Sweyn smiled grimly. Despite his bold words, he knew for certain that this simultaneous war against two enemies was too much for him. All he could hope for was a couple of victories that would save his posthumous reputation before he succumbed, screaming and bleeding, to the enemy’s sword.
He did not fear the afterworld. He was bone-tired and longed for peace, far removed from nightmares and the recriminations of the dead. Sweyn was born to a life of war, and he had lived for the sword and for Denmark. It would soon be over now. That awareness sent a twinge through his heart.
He would keep the first of his promises to Knut Danaást at any rate, and that was worth a great deal. Sweyn took a deep breath and looked out over Rán’s watery expanse.
He stood silently beside his uncle as the ship approached the coast of Denmark to seal their fates.
“It’s our duty to escape,” Estrid said, huddled up on the ground at the back of the lean-to made from sapling poles and branches. Anund’s men and Ragna sat around the fire just a few yards away, talking quietly while a slave woman prepared food in a fire pit.
They had their backs to Estrid and Katla, and the grove of trees around the lean-to created a protective darkness. Estrid pulled at the ties around her wrists in vain.
“They’ll catch us, and we wo
n’t last very long in the woods without fire or weapons,” Katla replied.
Estrid leaned back and closed her eyes. Darn it.
If it had been her mother sitting here in the dirt, hands tied, she would most assuredly have murdered all these thugs and returned home through the woods, unafraid of beasts or enemies. No one could conquer Sigrid, leader of the Scylfings.
Estrid took a wheezing breath and tried not to cry. She was sicker, and every breath she took hurt terribly, not to mention the torment of her shame.
She had naively gone out at night, caught in Ragna’s curse, and now she had brought shame to her family with her blind stupidity. She was worthless to everyone.
“I hope I didn’t ruin Olaf’s accession,” she sighed. “Mother must be furious.”
“Shhh! She’s coming,” Katla whispered.
An instant later the wolf’s pale daughter towered before them, horrific with her darkly tattooed face contorted with pure evil. Estrid curled up even tighter as Ragna squatted down in front of her and glared at her with her yellow predator eyes. The snakes crawled over the seeress’s cheeks, and unfamiliar symbols gathered on her nose and cheek.
“I can see that you’re sworn to Hel,” Ragna said after some consideration, and then loosened the rope binding Estrid’s wrists. “A great privilege.”
“You can’t drink my blood,” Estrid said defiantly. “If you harm me, I’ll come back as a draugr and haunt you until you die.”
The seeress broke into a hoarse laugh.
“We wouldn’t want any draugar,” Ragna said, and stood up, grinning, supported on her carved staff with the wolf on top. “Your illness is really taking its toll on you.”
She beckoned the skinny slave woman, who hurried over with a bowl that she placed before Estrid. She wasn’t being offered water this time but rather some kind of dark, foul-smelling sludge.
“Drink, if you want to live,” Ragna said, her eyes gleaming with malice.
Estrid shook her head. She didn’t want to stay in this life. She wanted only to prove herself worthy of the trials Hel demanded of her so that she could return to the blessed peace of Niflheim.
If she drank, it would surely calm her and make her compliant. Ragna wanted to control her mind. The men would use her body, defiling her while she lay limp on the ground. Estrid shook her head and started swaying back and forth.
“No,” she said.
Ragna sighed tiredly. “It would be easier if we didn’t have to force you.”
Estrid rocked faster and bared her teeth at the hissing snakes slithering across the seeress’s face. “I’m a princess, a member of the Scylfing nobility. Hel is my mistress.”
Ragna frowned, her face filled with scorn. “Whatever you were, you no longer are. Drink, or I’ll get the men. Don’t you see that I’m trying to help you?”
Estrid had no choice. Reluctantly she forced the bitter drink down and almost threw up from the taste of rancid fat and clumps of something she couldn’t identify.
The seeress nodded grimly and then grabbed Estrid by the golden horse necklace she wore around her neck.
“You don’t need this anymore,” she said with a covetous glance at the gleaming gold before she leaned down and cut the remaining ties around Estrid’s wrists.
A thousand needles stabbed through her flesh as her blood once again pulsed freely through her hands, and she rubbed them together while watching Ragna return to the fire with the necklace she’d stolen.
It meant nothing. Estrid angrily clenched her teeth while looking at the abrasions left by the rope.
“Wear this,” the skinny slave woman said, holding out a shift made of coarse cloth, far too simple for a king’s daughter. Estrid shook her head. This was a slave’s outfit, and a slave was worthless, lacking lineage and born to serve others. If she put this on, she would lose her worth and become nothing.
The slave glanced anxiously over at the fire before she pointed at the blue ribbon that formed the trim on Estrid’s dress.
“Take it,” Estrid said. “It’s better than your wearing the Scylfings’ colors.”
The slave held the shift out to her again and pleaded so earnestly with her eyes that Estrid was shaken.
They had stolen her away from her family, silenced her with concoctions, and robbed her of her wealth and lineage. Estrid gasped because she finally understood.
“Like Idun, I am descending into the underworld.”
The goddess Idun went to retrieve her dark sister, the unnamable who ruled the underworld. She was forced to leave an article of clothing at each door so it would open, and by the time she finally found her sister, the goddess without a name, she was completely naked. The unnamable turned to her sister and conquered her in battle. Unimaginable in her atrocity, she hung Idun up by a meat hook stuck through her body and left her to die in a dark grotto.
Vanadís, who noticed that the gods and goddesses were aging since Idun wasn’t giving them the apples that granted them eternal youth, saved Idun’s life. Freya persuaded the dark, unnamable one to release Idun, and in return each fall a young man would take her place. When Idun came back up from the underworld, she was more powerful and stronger than before since she had been hardened by and had drunken of her sister’s dark power. This was the trial Hel demanded of Estrid. The Anund people were her way to descend into the underworld, and to get there she had to give up everything.
Estrid started undoing her dress. Once she had withstood her suffering at the hands of the enemy, Hel would liberate her and she—strong and powerful—would be reunited with her mistress.
The slave pulled the shift over Estrid’s head, and the rough cloth immediately began to prickle her skin.
“Lie still while the drink takes its effect,” the slave whispered in a voice so quiet, it was hardly more than an exhale.
Estrid looked into her emaciated face, half-hidden behind her mud-brown hair.
“You don’t scare me anymore,” Estrid said.
“The concoction you drank will make you better.”
Estrid looked at Katla, and they both burst out laughing at the foolish slave’s words.
“Don’t you understand that I’m already dead?”
No matter how much she washed, she couldn’t scrub Erik’s stench off her or out of her. Sigrid sat huddled in the tub, pouring water over her head again and again, but her revulsion at how he’d fouled her was seared into her skin.
Accursed pig, you’re an abomination among men. May your prick rot and wither away.
The bruises on her belly and legs from his punches were turning purple and black, and her crotch ached from being pummeled by his disgusting prick. Sigrid curled up tighter, putting her hands around her legs, while she tried to overcome her nausea.
If only I had never known your touch, my beloved. She closed her eyes and remembered Sweyn tenderly caressing her cheek. Then they were back, standing under the ceremonial oak tree in Lejre, young and filled with the sacred bond that united them. That had been just days before she met Erik and became his bride. Sweyn had lowered himself onto her, his warm skin touching her own to honor the will of Valhalla. Her own unruly desire reached out to her through time and nourished her.
There was never anyone else.
Sigrid washed her face again and this time managed to get the revulsion of Erik off her skin. What was done was done.
She took the washcloth that Lia held out to her and scrubbed her arm so hard, it grew red and raw.
She couldn’t lapse into weakness and self-pity, not now when she had to feed the dragon that held Olaf in its claws and needed to repatriate her daughter.
Erik was leaving her estate, and along with the Scylfings, he was going to get Estrid back and kill every man, woman, and child from the Anund clan and erase their accursed bloodline from this world. The threat of attack from the Svea had been averted, and she had succeeded in everything.
The valkyries’ blood thirst awoke in her chest, and their blessed rage purified her of h
er shame. Erik could not control or conquer her. She was Sigrid Tostedotter, chosen by Vanadís, and she would exact her revenge. With the goddess’s strength, she would rise from the ashes to attain her full power.
Sigrid scrubbed her arm harder and harder.
“That’s enough, mistress.”
Sigrid jumped when Edmund took the cloth from her and squatted beside the tub. She hadn’t noticed him come in. The jarl was horrified at the bruises on her body, and his face was taut with rage when he turned around and looked at his wife.
“Why didn’t you summon me sooner?” Edmund demanded.
Lia looked down.
“I didn’t know what to do,” she whispered.
“Leave us alone,” he said, and only after his chastised wife had left the room did he turn back to Sigrid.
“What did the king do to you?”
His handsome face was tight with outrage.
Sigrid angrily turned away. She didn’t want Edmund in here; she couldn’t deal with his fawning. He was an obligation that tied her down.
“The Scylfings blame me for Erik’s schemes,” she replied tersely.
Her son hadn’t said a single word to her when she left Erik’s camp, and the chieftains had walked behind her back, speaking together in low voices. Not even her own brother had chosen to walk by her side and support her at her worst and most important moment.
“What do the noblemen whisper behind my back?”
Jarl Edmund stood up with a heavy sigh.
“Being forced to swear their loyalty to Erik really made the chieftains angry. They are willing to follow Olaf, but not the king of the Svea, who threatened and denigrated them.”
Edmund reached for a length of cloth, which he set on the bench by the tub.
“Many of them have been annoyed for a long time to have to obey a woman. They’re turning away now because they believe your power is waning.”
Estrid (The Valhalla Series Book 2) Page 16