Mrs. Claus and the Viking Ship

by Laura Strickland

  His happiness, so she told herself repeatedly, was not her responsibility. Had he cared for her happiness when he destroyed her home, threatened her people, and dragged her away from all she loved? Did he care now?

  Well, aye, a little bit.

  They gazed into each other’s eyes for a score of heartbeats before he smiled and said, “Good morning, Missus.”

  It was not endearing that he called her that, Tinnie told herself firmly. He was not endearing.

  Would he reach for her now? Sometimes he did, in the mornings when they lay together so warm and naked. She readied herself, denying that she felt any anticipation for the touch of his broad hand on her breast, her thigh, or parting her legs, nor for the caress of his warm lips.

  He seemed to glean her emotions from the look in her eyes. His smile faded. “You need not look so much the determined sacrifice, Missus.” He sat up and the covers tumbled around him. Tinnie had an absurd desire to touch the reindeer tattoo that danced across his skin, but fought it back successfully. She had never made any move toward him and would not start now.

  “You bargained for my obedience, not my affection,” she reminded him.

  “I hoped for both.”

  Tinnie lowered her gaze. Claus grunted and climbed from the bed to walk naked as he was to the window. Helpless to prevent herself, Tinnie watched him. “It is snowing,” she whispered.

  “Ja—the very first. There is magic, so I always think, in the first snow.”

  “I do not believe in magic.”

  “No? Is it one of the things your priests forbid?” He added in a mutter, “One of the many things.”

  “Snow, no matter how beautiful, heralds a long, hard winter.”

  He glanced over his shoulder—and caught her gaze on his buttocks. “Winter, it is not so bad. Much fun we may have with the games and the skiing. Much fun we have with the Yule. Green boughs brought into the hall—holly, like your name”—she had told him soon after their arrival that her name was but a form of the ancient word for that plant—“and a great Yule log.”

  Pagan celebrations, Tinnie thought, with a tremor of disquiet. He could not expect her to participate. But he added gently, “You will enjoy, I promise. And once the children come—”

  He broke off. She had beheld his disappointment, when last her monthly came. He wanted children badly. Well, so did she.

  Determinedly, as though dismissing that thought, he turned from the window and began to don his clothing. No intimacies this morning.

  “I have a surprise for you today, Missus,” he said. “My friend Sigurd passes through on his way east. He brings something—a gift.”

  Tinnie stared at him solemnly. Claus loved to give gifts and was generous with the wealth he had gained. He particularly enjoyed giving things to her.

  “I have all I need.”

  “This you will surely want.” His eyes sparkled. “Get dressed, Missus, and come see.”

  ****

  Many months had it been since Claus had seen his friend, Sigurd, companion of his childhood. Sigurd and his family always passed through at this time of year on their way to join Marja’s family for their winter visit. And Claus had sent word what they should bring.

  They met outside amid the snowflakes, Tinnie wearing the fine cloak he had given her, with the white fur inside. How Claus wished he could present her to his old friend as his wife in truth and not in duty. But she stood as usual, wrapped in her dignity, somehow apart from Claus though she was right beside him.

  That was, until she saw what Sigurd held in his arms.

  Not a babe, no—Claus had not yet succeeded in giving her that. But perhaps something else to love.

  The pup, just old enough to leave his mother, was all gold and white, with darker points on his muzzle, prick ears, and tail. He poked his head up from Sigurd’s arms, and Claus observed a miracle.

  His wife smiled.

  Not at him, granted, or even at Sigurd, but it made the first time Claus had seen delight fill her eyes. The beauty of it squeezed his heart.

  “Och!” she exclaimed.

  “A fine hund pup,” Claus told her, “companion for you, I thought. Sigurd raises some of the best anywhere.” He added cautiously, “You like?”

  She reached for the pup as she had never reached for him. The chubby bundle of warm fur came into her arms and nestled against her breast.

  “He has blue eyes.”

  “They might turn hazel,” Claus warned, “or he may yet keep them.”

  Sigurd, who possessed little of the Gaelic tongue, began to speak then, giving news along with his regrets that he and his family could not stay. Not until Sigurd walked away was Claus able to ask Tinnie again, “You like the hund pup?” He could see that she did, but he wanted her to say it, to thank him for something.

  She nodded. Color not caused by the bright, snowy day flew into her cheeks.

  “It is good,” he said, “that you have a protector always by your side, for the times when I am away.”

  She raised her gaze to his. “Away?”

  “Off raiding.” He waved a hand at the longships in the fjord below.

  All the pleasure fled her eyes. It was as if she had forgotten in the joy of the moment who he was—what he was.

  “What will you call him?” he asked, trying to recapture the remnants of her happiness.

  “Frost,” she decided. “I will call him Frost.”

  And no colder, Claus thought, than her feelings toward him, in her heart.

  Chapter Six

  “Your people worry about you,” Nels said uneasily. “You never laugh anymore. There was a time, Claus, when your laughter filled your hall every night. They say you are sickening for something.”

  Claus made no reply. The two men walked side by side through deep snow, pulling a sledge piled high with greenery: spruce boughs, holly, and even some mistletoe Claus had found. In just three nights they would celebrate Yule—Claus’s favorite time of year—with songs and feasting.

  And the giving of gifts. For his wife he had a beautiful amber pendant from the far shores of the Baltic, the most precious thing he could find.

  “I am not sickening,” he told Nels. “Have you ever seen a man in better health?”

  “You put a good face on it, ja, but me, I wonder.” Nels’ kind face wrinkled. “You do not eat as you used to. Nor drink. Even your mead cup stands neglected.”

  “There will be plenty of drinking at Yule,” Claus assured his friend. “We will coax the sun back to us then.”

  Nels snorted and shot his friend a close look. “Me, I know what ails you. It is that wife of yours.”

  Claus paused abruptly, and the sledge slid to a halt. Beneath a bright blue sky the dazzling air felt so cold it stung his whiskers.

  “I do not know what to do about her,” he admitted, voicing to his friend all the doubt in his heart. “I have treated her gently. No gift seems to turn her mind. Ah—she loves the hund, ja—any fool can see that.”

  But it did not make her love him. What would he not give for Tinnie to look at him, even once, the way she looked at Frost? But he began to despair she ever would.

  Holding her in his arms last night after he made love to her, he had even considered setting her free, releasing her from their bargain. But his heart would not let him do that, either.

  “Not once in all these weeks has she reached for me,” he added bitterly. Ja, sometimes she curled up against his broad back in the bed, but he knew full well that was just at the bidding of the cold.

  Nels shrugged. “You cannot say I did not warn you. It is as my old mother used to say: You can persuade love, but you cannot command it.”

  “I have tried to persuade. Many gifts have I given. I do not know what she wants.”

  “Ask her.”

  “Eh?” Startled, Claus met Nels’s gaze.

  “You have tried everything else. Just ask her what she wants.”

  ****

  “Missus?”


  Claus stood in the doorway of the tiny stone chapel, blocking the bright sunlight. The place, built in a spot of great beauty high above the fjord, always felt cold to him. He did not know how his wife could kneel here for hours, praying. But there she was now before the little altar she had made.

  He noted gratefully that she wore the cloak he had given her. The fur should keep out the worst of the chill. And Frost, at her side, made a pretty picture of them both until he came to greet Claus happily.

  At least one of them was glad to see him.

  Tinnie turned her head when Claus spoke, then rose and faced him. She watched for a moment as he roughed the hound’s fur affectionately.

  “You wish to speak with me?”

  He noted, with a heavy heart, she never addressed him as “husband” or by name, just as she never reached for him in the night.

  He looked her in the eyes. “Wife, will you not come below with me? We are about to begin decking the hall with the greens brought in—to bring back the summer, you understand. It is a good time for all, and I would have you at my side.” He gestured at the chapel. “Not away here alone. It is the best part of the year, you see, with songs and laughter, and gifts to come.”

  Emotions stirred in her eyes that looked so much like a storm at sea: dark blue like the depths that pulled a man down, gray like cloud and rain.

  Gently she told him, “I want no more gifts. I would stay here, thank you.”

  Frustration rose in a mighty wave and possessed Claus’s heart. “You know, Missus, you have only to ask me for anything that will make your life here better.” And reconcile her to it, reconcile her to him.

  “Have I?” The storm in her eyes intensified.

  “Ja.”

  “Tell me about these Yuletide celebrations—will there be food? And songs and trinkets for your people’s bairns?”

  “I have told you, there will.”

  She tipped up her chin. At that moment she looked so beautiful standing with her hard dignity wrapped around her, Claus’s heart ached anew. “I want none of those things.”

  “By Odin’s eye, then, Missus, what do you want?”

  Something flared bright in her face—an emotion Claus had never before seen there. Of a sudden she bent her head. “At last you ask me! Do you know how many days I have knelt here praying you would ask?”

  He thought of the amber pendant which would look so lovely against her white breasts, and of a hundred other gifts he might give. He made an expansive gesture with his hands. “Then ask.”

  She lifted her face once more to look at him. “I have learned of you. You are a man who looks after his own. You plan these celebrations for Yuletide to brighten the lives of all who live here, especially the children. But tell me, what have my people, this season? What, besides cold, despair, and want? These past two years you have taken from them everything they need to survive—their stock, and their stores of grain. What will gladden the hearts of my children this Christmas?”

  Her children? Claus narrowed his eyes. Did she think of them so? He said nothing, but his fingers stilled on the fur of the hound at his side.

  She went on, with fire now in her gaze. “Many will perish this winter, the old and the very young. My people, who have already lost so much, will now lose what matters most.” She drew a breath. “If you would please me, then give gifts not to me but to them.”

  Startled, Claus met her burning gaze. “How, Missus? They are far away.”

  “Not so far but you were able to go there raiding.” She stepped to his side then, so close he quivered, and made a furious gesture out the door. “You claim to be a great sailor, no? Fearless on the seas? Then load your fine ship with everything my people will need and gift something that matters to me.”

  Claus turned his head and surveyed the ships at anchor in the fjord below. Four longships—for he was a wealthy man. On this fair, sunny day the ocean lay like glass, but he knew full well it would not remain so, and just what such a passage as she suggested might mean.

  “Do you know what you ask, Missus? The winter winds can blow savage as a wolf, and may tear my ships to nothing between here and Sutherland.”

  “I know what I ask.” Her stormy gaze captured his.

  “Do you wish for my death? Is it that for which you hope to bargain? Would you so be rid of me?”

  She turned away from him then, all her fire suddenly flown. “I should have known you would not grant me the one thing I ask. Be sure I want nothing else from you.”

  He reached out and snagged her arm, turned her back to face him. “But, Wife—this thing is a terrible risk.”

  “Oh, aye? And if you are lacking in courage—”

  He stiffened, but not from the implied insult. “This would truly please you?”

  “Above all things.”

  He thought of all the sea perils between here and Scotland, numbered the disasters that could befall him, his ship, and his men. Yet she had called them her children.

  His fingers tightened on her arm. “And you are certain you do not just send me off in the hope of ridding yourself of me at the bottom of the ocean?”

  “Nay.” Her gaze quickened. “For if you go, do I not mean to come with you?”

  With him. Suddenly Claus’s heart sang. “Then, since you ask it, Wife, this thing we will do.”

  Chapter Seven

  “Do you think the weather will hold?” Tinnie, no stranger herself to the cruelty of northern seas, measured the fjord with careful eyes before she glanced into her husband’s face.

  At the moment, the conditions could hardly be better. A clear blue sky arched overhead on this bright morning, though the air felt cold enough to kiss Tinnie’s face with frost.

  Daylight became a precious commodity at this time of year, and she did not fancy being out on the water in the dark, especially in a storm. But her husband had kept his word, and so she had no intention of losing her courage.

  During the time since she had made her request, he had prepared the strongest of his ships for their journey. This was not the longship in which he went raiding but another she could only suppose his favorite. The others of the fleet had high prows carved in the likenesses of dragons, a familiar threat to her people when sighted on the horizon.

  This one—Tinnie stared at it again, in amazement. The wooden prow, obviously carved by a master, broke the foam in the likeness of Claus’s favorite creature, a reindeer, its antlers reaching high into the sky.

  What would folk think when they saw that coming? Her heart twisted in anticipation. Already Claus and his men had loaded so many things: barrels of salt herring and of grain, some of it thieved from Tinnie’s own clan; great batts of warm wool; treats, like dried berries.

  She had overheard much during this time, she who had learned to understand Claus’s tongue even as he spoke hers. His men grumbled that the passage was too dangerous, that they would all perish.

  To each who complained Claus replied, “Then stay behind, if you will. I do not force you.”

  Not one chose to stay behind; he commanded their liking and their loyalty. Why? What made them love this man so? Was it his great heart?

  She had also heard his friend Nels mutter to him amidst the ordered confusion of loading the ship, “You will beggar yourself for this, Claus—for her. Many of these things you saved for trade in the south next season.”

  “Ja, Nels,” Claus had replied, “but I have so much. Surely I can spare.”

  “You are too generous.” Nels had sent a rueful look in Tinnie’s direction. “Too giving, to her.”

  And now, this morning, they prepared to sail. Last night she had lain in Claus’s arms in their bed, and he had loved her well. For the last time? Tinnie, who had grown up at the far shore of this same sea, had no illusions about what she asked of him.

  And what he proved willing to give, for her sake. This fine, beautiful ship could soon lie at the bottom of the cold ocean, and all of them dead.

  Knowing the risks, sh
e had debated long over taking Frost with her. But the pup fretted so when apart from her that now, prepared to board, she stood with him in her arms.

  “Pray the kind weather holds, Missus,” Claus bade her, and surveyed the sky.

  She had, hard and long, on her knees in the chapel. Two days and a night it would take them to reach the shores of Scotland in favorable winds. But at the moment the sea lay so still the reindeer on the prow of Claus’s ship could see its own reflection, and not a breath of wind stirred.

  She searched the face of the man at her side. Did she condemn him to death? Was that not what he deserved, he who had destroyed all she loved?

  She was no longer sure. For last night he had held her so gently, covered her lips with his warm ones, and wooed her so very long and tenderly. And, honest woman that she was, she had to admit she had felt something besides duty toward him.

  Quite possibly his men spoke true when they said that Claus had a generous heart.

  Her arms tightened around Frost, who nuzzled her neck. Aye, she might pray for many things.

  ****

  “Keep down, Missus, and hold to your hund very tight!”

  Claus shouted the words into Tinnie’s face from a mere breath away, yet she barely heard him. The wind—so noticeably absent at the beginning of their voyage—now struck at them with a vengeance, and the fullness of the winter storm had them in its teeth. Again and again the valiant reindeer ship shuddered throughout its length, and Claus’s sailors fought as hard as warriors on the battlefield to keep it afloat.

  And, amidst it all, Claus—Claus thought to worry for her, the woman who had sent them all into it.

  Halfway through their journey they must have been, when the storm hit. Now sleet beat the oaken planks, and ice coated the mast. The men had lowered the big, square sail so the wind would not pull the ship over, and they struggled at the oars, shouting out what sounded like curses and sometimes wailing aloud.

  Claus, never one to set himself above his crew, had taken his turn at the oars. She had watched his muscles bunch and strain before the snow drove into her eyes and she could not see at all.