Edin's embrace

by Nadine Crenshaw

  Edin made her appearance with her hair put up and studded with flowers. She found a place by Red Jennie to watch the wrestlers. Jennie was as cheerful as always, gaily attired and redheaded and lovely, exclaiming over Edin's bride ring.

  A moment of doubt fell when Sweyn stepped up to Thoryn and challenged him to a left-handed wrestling match. "It's undignified for me to take on a puny fellow like you, but if you would, Jarl . . . ?"

  Thoryn blinked slowly, then nodded. They drew off their tunics, positioned themselves, braced their legs, clasped one another's hands, and began. The muscles in their arms stood out like ropes and cables, sweat sprang up and glistened on their faces and backs. Sweyn warned the jarl in a voice clenched to save breath, "Don't put on any airs; I won't tolerate any bragging from you."

  This had the effect of doubling their efforts. Their backs and shoulders revealed every superficial and buried muscle, every sinew and tendon. Their faces tightened like fists; the skin went red behind their beards. Beneath the simple rules of the contest lurked all sorts of opportunities for subtle, ruthless, and cunning strategies. And beneath Sweyn's challenge lurked subtle meaning. Edin's nails bit into her palms. Why must they do this —behave like heaving stupid beasts?

  It seemed to go on forever, but at last Sweyn grunted mightily and gave a sideways shove. The jarl missed his footing, his stance broke, and he was forced to one knee. He cursed himself. Sweyn leaned down and stroked his face gently, like a mother. "There, sweeting," he mocked, "no tantrums now."

  The jarl tossed his head. He stared up at Sweyn with flinty eyes, a magnificent chief in the pride of his manhood bested by a cripple! Suddenly he laughed. Edin's hands relaxed; her pent breath escaped in a sigh. As Thoryn stood, he pulled a fine gold ring from his finger and placed it on Sweyn's strong left hand. There was applause, for it was an honor when a chief gave a ring to a warrior. Edin felt proud of him.

  A wandering fortune teller appeared at the door. Having heard of the merriment, she'd come to make her quota of coins. The jarl beckoned her in. "Welcome!" The woman looked as old as motherhood. She never smiled or even seemed pleasant. She made herself at home in a corner and began to entertain one and then another of the gathering. Starkad Herjulsson was among the very first.

  Mead and ale were all this time flowing freely. Ottar, his eyes a little wild, stood up on a bench and raised his cup as if to make a toast. He'd dressed for the celebration in his best war shirt and had his hair in multiple braids over his shoulders, with a leather thong around his bronzed forehead. He was too drunk to be prudent in his words, and said, "Jarl, your lady is beautiful, with a wonderful, er, succulence — " he was openly staring at Edin's bosom —"aye, and . . . and . . . but she seems somewhat slender, I think. She would look fine with more of a belly. What say you?"

  What would he say? From what Edin knew, a Viking expected his legitimate wife to be esteemed and respected, for in his absence she must serve as his representative. Evidently others wondered as well. The gathering was so ablaze with light and finery that Ottar's folly was like a sudden gust of wind fluttering the leaves of a sunlit autumn birch. He stood shifting from one foot to the other on his bench, as if only now realizing the possible offense of his words. His face changed, colored oddly; an ashyness glimmered through the weathering.

  Edin took a pitcher from Olga as the thrall passed by her, and moved toward Thoryn, as if to top his cup. She murmured, "He meant no harm, my lord. He is merely over-merry with drink."

  Thoryn accepted the refill of his cup from her, raised it, and took a slow, deep draught. At last he said, "What say I, Ottar Magnusson? This: I wager you a half-mark of silver against that chess set of yours, the one carved out of walrus ivory, that my lady's belly will be round as a cabbage by the time the Yule season arrives."

  Edin stirred uncomfortably.

  "Careful, Ottar," Rolf called, "our jarl is called the Hammer, not the Drooper!"

  This occasioned a new round of boisterous jest and laughter and, of course, refreshment. Food was served again. Thoryn shouted, "Come! I challenge all comers to an eating competition!" No more need be said. The gathering swarmed to the tables where they began to eat like mastodons, some laughing and conversing as they ate, others silently absorbing themselves in dedicated gluttony.

  ***

  Juliana sighed yet again. Inga snapped at her, "What is wrong with you, girl! You've been doing that for two days!"

  Juliana looked at her mistress with sudden spite. "It's just that they're all having a grand time at the longhouse."

  Inga's blue eyes focused on her with new attention. "What do you mean?"

  Juliana wanted to smile. She was learning how to goad her hateful mistress. "Well . . ."

  "What?"

  "I only know what Fafnir said when he brought the supplies."

  "What?"

  "He said the jarl was taking a wife."

  Inga's voice was low. "Who . . . who would he . . . ?"

  Juliana swallowed. The woman's look was more than she'd bargained for. "Edin," she said a little timorously.

  Inga stood in the sudden dead silence, stood so quietly it was as if Juliana were dreaming it. And then she laughed, an insane giggle. Fear became a living thing, feeding on Juliana from inside, pushing mewling sounds out of her throat.

  ***

  Edin was passing among the banqueting guests. She still felt shy of these Vikings, yet she could not shirk her duty as hostess. She asked Starkad, "What did the fortune teller say to you?"

  Beside him, Jamsgar grumbled, "No man may see his future or mark his fate. His life is in ghostly hands beyond his reach."

  "Why, Jamsgar," Edin chided, "how morbid you are."

  "Don't pay any attention to him," Starkad said. "He can't find anyone to take that little Juliana's place." He laughed at his brother's grimace. Wiping down his red beard with the back of his hand before he looked back up at Edin, he said, "The crowbones said I would earn the nickname Scafhogg, Smoothing Stroke, whatever that means."

  "I can tell you what it means, little brother," snorted Jamsgar beside him. Both of them grinned as Edin turned away with a blush.

  By the time the meal was over, the weather had cleared, and Hauk Haakonsson offered to take on Eric No-breeches at foot-racing. Eric said he would prefer a drinking contest, but finally consented to the race instead. The jarl went out with the others, but shortly came back. Edin had slipped into their chamber to tidy her hair, and that was where he found her. She turned, arms raised to her head, eyebrows lifted in question.

  "I only came for a bracing drink."

  "I'll get-"

  He stopped her as she started around him. "You have what I came for." He took her into his arms and with his hands held the back of her head, tipping it to his mouth.

  When he raised his lips from hers, it was to say, "Ottar prizes his ivory chess set. When he has to give it to me, he will remember not to let his eyes wander where they shouldn't, or to speak of my wife's 'succulence.' "

  Edin found herself vaguely delighted with the jealousy she heard in his voice. But then realized what the bet had been about. He knew. She should say something, but didn't, couldn't. He seemed to wait. Gradually his face changed, and he looked at her as though she'd betrayed him. He said cruelly, "You know you have no other home than this one now."

  "Not since you Vikings made a visitation with fire on the home I knew before."

  "If you were a man, I would take out Raunija and hold a blade discussion with you to settle this dispute."

  "But I'm not a man, so you must find another method, Viking."

  "Aye, Saxon!"

  It was late that afternoon when every pot and tray was finally emptied, every bone gnawed and the marrow sucked, and the Vikings, their ladies and children, their favorites and folk, at last wiped their chins and cleaned their greasy fingers and went home. The jarl was down at the dock seeing the last boat off while Edin stood waving from the lookout point above. The fjord glittered like molten silver in
the fading light. It was cool, and she'd worn a new dark-green cloak edged with white fur. As she turned it rustled.

  The steading was crowded with sunset shadows. Arneld was calling the dogs to gather the sheep. The jarl was right; this was her home now. She looked over her shoulder at him. His profile was dark against the fjord which glimmered like elf silver behind him. He was her husband.

  Out in the water bided the two dragon ships, the Blood Wing and the captured Surf Dragon. These were her enemies.

  Upon her pillow that moonlit night was yet another fur-wrapped package. "My lord," she said, a little mutinously, for she still remembered he'd forced this marriage on her, "you must stop showering gifts on me or I shall own all your wealth."

  "And by your hurry to unwrap that I see you are foolishly unwilling to impoverish me. You're still more Saxon than Norse."

  Inside the fur she found such a thing as to take all mutiny from her mind, however, for there were eleven beautifully wrought amber beads.

  He took her into his arms with that sense of power and ease he could exude with every movement. "What was that prayer you used to offer up in your Wessex kirks against me?"

  Even as she tipped her head back for his kiss, she murmured, "I still offer it. 'Deliver me,' I pray, 'from this Norseman.' "

  His lips lowered to hers, and his tongue passed into her mouth and probed profoundly. When he lifted his mouth away, he said smoothly, "I think you lie. Do you want me to let you go just now? If you say yes, I will — I swear it."

  She looked up at him helplessly. His eyes were like mothy clouds, with hardly more color than smoke in a sunny noon. He'd made her his wife, a freed woman, yet her body and her heart were still held in bondage to him. "You are a demon, Viking. I wish I could make you my thrall for just one day."

  He smiled down at her and laughed softly. "I grant you your wish —but for a night, not a day. Tonight I will be your bed-thrall."

  At first she thought to demur, but then the idea caught her. She would take him at his word.

  She began to undress him, a thing she'd never done before. He watched her hands unbuckle his sword belt, unbutton his tunic, unwind his leggings, and unlace his trousers. When he was naked, she stood back a step. Slowly she raised her hand, letting it reach toward him almost as though it had its own purpose, its own intent. He stood motionless. Her hand hovered. The sensitive tip of her middle finger touched his upper arm. His muscles clenched. She murmured, both hands now going high to caress his chest and shoulders in one smoothing stroke. "Get onto the bed, thrall, and wait for me there."

  He stretched out on the bed to smooth his beard and watch her undress herself. She did so slowly, though she felt a rush of fire through her whole body, something more violent than anything she'd felt before. It was the essence of power replacing the blood in her veins. She couldn't help trembling as she loosed the long and thick rope of her hair which had been wound about her head. His eyes narrowed as she let the heavy waves spread around her.

  When she joined him, she unleashed a long-denied desire to touch him at her own pace, to trail her fingers over him languorously, to hold him as she would. She was aware of a certain dominion over him which she'd never used. She used it now, to run her palms over his mighty shoulders, to smooth them over his broad chest, stopping to lightly pinch his flat nipples into tiny points. She lay half over him, reveling in the feel of his hard body beneath her.

  "Strands like rays of amber sunlight." He'd taken a piece of her hair between his fingers. "What is your name, Mistress?" In his voice was an amused pretense of meekness. "I've never met such as you before, and I would know who takes me."

  "My name is Edin. You will remember me before I'm through with you, thrall." As she spoke, she sat up and tangled her fingers in the short crisp hair of his loins. "Do you like this?" she asked softly.

  "Aye." His hands came up, but did no more than bracket her breasts. His touch was like mead. Her hair dangled over his shoulders and amused face. "As you can see, I am ready to serve you."

  She looked down. "Well then." She put her hand on him intimately, possessively. All amusement faded from his expression as she leaned above him, inclined into him, and bent her head over him. "Shall I be the dragon now?" she murmured, her lips so close to him she could feel the heat of his flesh. "Shall I?"

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Now the sea birds, the ducks, grouse, puffins, and warblers began to leave for warmer places. All along the fjord, drying racks became familiar sights, where cod was cured for several weeks. The window hole in the bedchamber was covered with a thin hide to keep the new chill out. One night, after loving Edin, Thoryn told her, "I sent Hauk out today to invite a few men to the hall tomorrow."

  "Why?" she murmured, almost asleep in his arms.

  "There are some matters that need discussing."

  She accepted that. He was the jarl; she supposed it must be usual for him to meet with his people.

  The men arrived in time for the first meal the next day. There was the normal gossip over the food, but as Edin rose to help clear the tables, Kol Thurik said, "What did you have on your mind, Jarl?"

  Edin tried to seem as if she weren’t taking much notice, yet when she saw her husband unconsciously take on that stature of heroism and powerful deeds that seemed to make him the kind of man other men were eager to die for, her attention was caught. "I have many things on my mind, friend," he said. "Adventure, danger—"

  Herjul the Stout hooted, "Thank the gods!"

  "The first thing I have in mind is to build a new ship, the best, most commanding ship ever made in the North. A knorr. And Herjul's son Starkad will be my shipwright."

  "Why do we need a new ship, Jarl?" Jamsgar asked.

  Starkad's irritation was immediate and waxed as erubescent as his beard. "Are you trying to axe me out of a job, brother?"

  "Of course not —but we already have the Blood Wing and the Surf Dragon"

  "For what I have in mind," Thoryn said, "we will need a third ship, a cargo vessel."

  "Where do you want to go, then, to need a full fleet?" Kol prompted.

  "Everywhere there is to go, to dare everything there is to dare. I have a yen to see Muslim minarets rising high, to visit cities wherein every exotic vice men know is nurtured. It's said that the orb of the world is riven by many fjords. Well, I propose to visit one far from Dainjerfjord."

  Edin stood stricken, her housework forgotten. The men gathered closer around Thoryn. Taking a quick consensus of their faces, Edin saw in each an insatiable wanderlust and felt in herself the sting of panic.

  "There are markets in the East that can be spectacularly exploited if I read the thing correctly. Furs are wanted, as well as hides, cables, sea-ivory, and down, and these we possess, or can obtain, in abundance"

  "Are you saying we should take to the seas in search of Miklagardur?" Leif the Tremendous scoffed. "Bah! Mayhap it's time for Thoyrn Kirkynsson to trim his hair and take his ease."

  Ignoring him, Fafnir Danrsson asked, "How do we get there?"

  Elaborately casual, Thoryn said, "We need only set a course across the Baltic to the Gulf of Finland. From there, the twisting Neva River will carry our ships forty-three miles through reefs and rapids to Lake Ladoga in north Russia. Some seventy streams feed the lake, but by far the most distinguished is the Volkhov River, leading south to Lake Ilmen and to the fortified trading market of Novgorod.

  "From there, we row. The waterway is too swift and too cramped to maneuver by sail. Farther south, up the River Lovat, we'll arrive at a point where we drag our vessels on logs a short distance overland. Thus we'll reach the source of the great Dnieper River, winding fourteen hundred miles to the Black Sea, along the coast of which well make our way to Constantinople — Miklagardur, the Great City."

  Gasps had been heard through this; faces grew open-mouthed. Edin swayed on her feet.

  "The journey will be desperately difficult, make no mistake," he continued calmly, "especially below Kiev, where t
he Dnieper turns south through granite ravines and a series of brutal cataracts. In the middle are sheer high rocks. The river, dashing against them, causes a loud and terrifying tumult." He scanned the faces watching him so attentively, and added dryly, "Any Norseman afraid of loud noises had best stay behind."

  "How do you know all this, Jarl?" asked Magnus Fairhair.

  "I met a merchant in Kaupang, a traveler from far places, a man of great inquisitiveness of the doings and dwellings of strange folk in strange lands —a Muslim who had many dinars and dirhims. He told me all this and much more."

  Edin felt faint. Her heart was throbbing. Such a journey would take years, mayhap a lifetime.

  Thoryn was speaking on: "For some time I've considered the Middle Sea —in the light of glory as well as profit."

  And what of his wife, sea-tossed from her homeland to this far coast where she had no one but him? Had she been considered?

  "I for one am a man whose heart is that of an explorer—"

  "As is mine!" Hrut Beornwoldsson, who had just arrived to visit Sweyn, stepped forward. "I'll go with you, Jarl. I'm fifteen winters now and should be reckoned a full man. I'm sick of staying up at night to help gravid cows drop their calves!"

  The older Norsemen hid their smiles at this boy who was wearing his father's outsized war shirt and helmet. But Jamsgar said, "You're just a puppy too witless to keep silent in the presence of your betters."

  Hrut's hand fell to is axe haft, and at the same time he surged forward. He was stopped by Magnus and his son Ottar. Thoryn said, "Hrut, you think you are man enough?"

  Deflected from his thoughts of challenge, he answered in a voice vibrant with daring and adventure. "I'll prove my valor as soon as I get the chance."

  The older men's smiles were not so well hidden now. In fact, Jamsgar was staring with open derision. "The boy thinks because he can get his hand up a thrall-girl's skirt he can get his spear in a pirate's heart."