by Joanna Bell
"No?" The older man repeated back to me. "And what say do you think you have in the matter? If you're truly from York, which I doubt, you can tell us of the secret paths through the forests and marshes, and the weakest gates to the city itself. And if you're not from York, you can tell us why you lied."
He moved to grab my arm, then, and I jumped out of the way. He wasn't expecting that – he wasn't expecting how quick I was.
"Voss! Enough! Come with me now, woman."
Out of the corner of my eye I could see my gun lying on the sand, about 6 feet away. I couldn't get to it, both men stood in my way. Ivar was eying me, sizing me up, ready to grab me again – and I didn't have any confidence I would be able to slip out of his reach once more. I had 3 choices. Run, surrender, or try to grab the gun. I ran.
And as I ran, almost stumbling in the soft sand before getting to the dryer ground at the top of the beach, I heard the sound of both men dropping their swords and then, soon enough, the sounds of their pursuit. My heart was soon beating near out of my chest, not just with the effort of flat-out sprinting, but with the animalistic fear that comes with being pursued.
The ground was uneven, I had to keep my eyes low so I could try to work out where to put my feet, but I also had to look up, to try to spot the pink hiking tape tied to the tree. One set of footsteps drew nearer and nearer, sending a hot, tingling wave of panic through my veins.
And then I saw it – a flash of pink against the green of the woods. I veered off the path towards it and screamed with terror as I realized my feet were no longer on the ground. I landed hard enough to knock the wind out of me and lay there, panting and trying to scramble away, as a heavy hand grasped one of my legs.
"No!" I screamed again, kicking out blindly as I was yanked backwards on my belly. I reached out, grabbing at the earth, at the slender trunks of young trees, but I wasn't even half as strong as my captor. And when I finally managed to flip over and look, I saw that it was him – Ivar.
"You run," he panted, "as if for your life. You – you run fast, too. I don't think I ever saw a woman run so fast."
It's not that I didn't sense a threat from Ivar – I did – and it's not that his golden good looks had somehow mesmerized me into compliance. He simply didn't give off the feeling of volatility that his brother did. I didn't fear that Ivar was about to kill me at any moment. Perhaps he could be reasoned with?
He pulled a leather tie from around his neck and used it to tie my wrists tightly in front of my body and then, when we'd both caught our breath enough to walk again, he hauled me to my feet and ordered me to walk.
And so I walked. There was nothing else to do, no heroic escape attempt to mount. I'd already tried that and I'd failed. So now I was being marched back to whatever 'camp' these strange hillbillies called home.
I was almost thankful, in an odd way. There wasn't much room in my head to think about the things that didn't make any sense at all – such as where I was, or how I'd gotten there, or how I was going to get back home – with those two dragging me away.
Not once did it occur to me that I wouldn't be getting home. There was a lot that didn't occur to me that day, as I walked into the woods away from a sea that by all rights should not have existed.
Nine
Ivar
I regretted allowing Gunnar to join my faction almost as soon as he arrived from the North, on a ship that was too grand for a man of his age – or one with his lack of accomplishments. He was impudent from the very first moment on the beach, refusing to meet my eye for too long or to pay the proper respect to my men.
And then he took a girl – more than one girl – and spent the time he should have spent in the war roundhouse with her instead. I could not have been closer to sending him back home that day – a gesture that would not just wound his pride but embarrass my mother and father, and leave a mark on our family that would not soon wash out. He wasn't stupid, as much evidence as there was of it. He was just – too easily led, his head too easily turned. If I asked him over dinner what was to be done with a woman from York, he would know the answer. If I asked him again, in front of 'his' girl, whose wide-eyed feminine attentions gave him the feeling of being a man, he wouldn't.
I kept the prisoner ahead of me, perfectly aware that her story about being from York had to be untrue. No one in the land of the East Angles – or the Mercians, or any of their brethren – allowed women to travel alone. Any unaccompanied woman, especially one as healthy and unmarred as the one walking in front of me, would not find herself unaccompanied for long – and some companions were more desirable than others.
There had been almost no resistance to our incursions so far, estate after estate falling with the blessing of its lord. But the people near the coasts were used to us, they assumed we wanted what we had always wanted – food, women, horses, silver. Many of them did not yet understand that this time, the people of the North were here to conquer – to stay.
But perhaps someone did know? Was it a coincidence that this woman had appeared on the beach so close to our latest encampment? Were the pleasing curves of her body – curves I knew I was going to have to set a guard to, if my brother was to be kept from taking her as his own – unintentional? Who had sent her? And what did she hope to find?
Bryn waited nervously for her man beside the cooking pit, giggling at the sight of him, perfectly unaware that he would soon be bored with her. I walked straight past her and nodded at my warrior Sigvald as he first took notice of the captive.
"Tie her to the post near the pigsty," I told him. "I'll talk to her after my supper."
But before Sig could agree, the woman herself, who I had already gathered didn't seem to have much of an idea of how much danger she was in – if anything I got the feeling that she somehow, inexplicably, felt herself to be the danger to us – stopped short and turned around to face me.
"What is it?" I asked, as my stomach growled with hunger.
She was pretty, her skin unblemished. Not yet ten and ten winters, if I had to guess. What was so important that a man who could afford to keep his daughter in such a condition would let her wander so near an enemy encampment?
"I can't stay here."
Again, her voice was defiant. She was not asking for release – no, she was demanding it. And even then, there was already something about her that softened my heart.
"You can't, can you?" I asked, grinning at Sig who stood to the side, his eyes widening at the woman's impertinence. "And how is it that you plan to leave?"
She didn't answer that. Instead, she narrowed her eyes and peered at Sig and I, as if there was something about us she couldn't quite make sense of. "Where are we? Where is this camp?"
"This is the Jarl, woman! You don't question the Jarl – the likes of you doesn't even question the cooks without permission!"
I held up a hand so Sig would know I didn't want her struck – not yet, anyway – and studied her reaction. Anger. Some fear, but mostly anger. Her cheeks grew red with it.
"Is that why you're here?" I asked. "To bring news of our location back to your people? We move often, sometimes twice in a single moon – any information you can bring back to York will be useless by the time you bring it."
The woman paused, thinking. She had long eyelashes and a full, wide mouth. Yes, I was definitely going to have to keep her away from Gunnar. If we had to kill her I didn't want him being troublesome about it.
"How far are we from New, uh – from York?"
I laughed. "I thought you were from York, woman? If you've been sent to convince us you're from York, and you're already asking how far it is to York, I have to say I don't think much of your ruse."
"But I am from there," she told me. "I'm lost. I don't know the way home. I want to go home."
"And I want supper," I replied cheerily. "Which you're keeping me from. Sig, fasten her to the washing post near the pigs – and have bread and pork brought to my roundhouse. I need to speak with Uldric, I'll deal with her later."
"No! Wait! Jarl! Jarl – please."
I nodded to Sig, signaling to take her away, and then I continued on to my roundhouse, already thinking about what possible new information Uldric would have for me on the East Anglian King's location. He and his men, like many of the highers in the land, never stayed in one place for long. He was in the south with a company of 200 men the last we'd heard, not half a moon ago, fishing. Fishing! As his Kingdom was in the midst of an invasion! Not that it particularly mattered what King Edmund was doing – we were the superior force in numbers and skill – all that remained to determine was whether he lived as a servant to the North, or died a stubborn rebel.
I reached for the bread before the cooking thrall had even placed the platter beside me, biting off a substantial mouthful and sending her on her way. The King was a problem. One that needed to be dealt with. We were more than capable of the task, but it did need to be done before we could move further inland. If I couldn't find him, morale was going to suffer, and the East Angles who harbored secret wishes to fight would be emboldened. Where was Uldric?
Later that evening, I happened to walk into the dining longhouse – if such a temporary structure of skins and sticks could be called such a thing – and who should be sat at the table but the prisoner, head bowed over a piece of untouched bread.
"Do you wait for butter, woman?" I asked. "Do you not understand that you're a prisoner? Do the Yorkish waste their butter on prisoners?"
She looked up at me, and although there was a tiredness evident in her expression, the spark remained in her eyes. "Yes," she shrugged. "We give our prisoners butter. Why wouldn't we? Besides, I'm not really a –"
"You must have a lot of cows in York," I observed, "and a lot of green grass all year round. And great underground spaces in which to store all this butter before it goes rancid. If what you say is true, I'll be twice as happy to conquer the place."
The captive looked up at me, and although no words came out of her pretty mouth, it was not difficult to perceive the skepticism emanating from her.
"You doubt the people of the North?" I asked amiably – she was no threat to me, physically or otherwise. "We have the numbers. Our warriors are trained, battle-hardened, many of them have spent their past winters raiding up and down the Frankish waters – your King has good men, but not many, and most who defend the estates of the East Angles are little more than peasants."
The woman parted her lips as if to speak, and then paused to shake her head the way you do when someone has said or done something unbelievable. "I'm sorry," she said, "but I have no idea what you're talking about."
She didn't look dull – her words were not simple or childlike and her movements on the beach had been quick, almost practiced. She was hiding her true intentions.
"Perhaps you don't," I replied. "But you understand you won't be allowed to leave until you tell us, don't you? You might not be allowed to leave at all."
"Are you going to kill me?" She demanded, again in that tone that made me think she didn't quite understand the danger she was in. "You do understand that killing a police officer is going to get you life in prison, don't you? And why would you need to kill me? What threat am I to you?"
I picked up a piece of cheese from the plate that was set in front of me and bent a piece of dark bread around it before taking a bite. "What threat are you, woman? What threat? Do you understand you're talking to a Northman? We're invaders in this land, we come to take it from its current overseers, we come to make the towns and the people ours. What threat is a lone woman found close to camp, with no sense-making story about how she got there? What threat might you be if you got back to your people with information on our numbers, our locations, our movements and tactics? Surely you do not need such things explained to your further."
Once again she wore the disbelieving expression, the one that seemed to indicate that it was she who believed me to be mad, and not the other way around.
"Eat your bread," I told her when she was unable to find any words with which to respond. "You won't be fed again soon."
"I don't like it. It's too dry."
I laughed heartily. "Too dry, eh? How many days and nights will it take for that complaint to disappear under the grumbling of an empty belly, I wonder? Take it with you, you'll be grateful of it come the morning."
We fell into silence and I continued to eat my bread and cheese, watched enviously by the captive. And just as I was brushing the crumbs off my tunic and preparing to go to meet with the other Jarls, she reached out and touched my forearm.
"You'd best not do that again," I told her, cuffing her hand away. "I could have you taken out into the woods and beheaded for that, woman. If anyone had seen you do it, I'd be obliged to carry out the sentence myself, even as I'd like to keep as many pretty women around camp as possible."
"What kind of person kills someone for touching their arm?" She asked then, clutching her slapped hand to her breast. "What is this place? How have you stayed hidden for so –"
I turned sharply, peering at the prisoner. If she was speaking falsely, she didn't show it. The surprise and hurt on her face at the light punishment appeared real, as did her bafflement at the idea of punishment itself.
"You're in the Kingdom of the East Angles, woman! Where else could you be? Would you have me believe you just wandered off course for a moon or two and ended up here, far from your home in York?"
"And what year is it?"
"I don't know the meaning of that question," I told her simply. "And I'll ask you not to waste a Jarl's time with nonsense questions and –"
"What time is it?"
"What time is it?" I repeated back to her, annoyed. "Are you blind? Do you not see the sun's light fading with the evening? Woman, I've –"
"My name is Sophie. Sophie Foster. I don't know what you think I'm doing here, but I can tell you it has nothing to do with you. I'm looking for someone. I'm looking for several people, actually. People who went missing from River Falls, New –"
It crossed my mind, as Sophiefoster from York babbled on, to bring her back to my sleeping roundhouse with me that night. There were a few women with us, as there always was, but none I had any real interest in. The captive's breasts moved under the odd dressings she wore, and her pulse throbbed in her fine, pale throat. A stirring under my leathers began to awaken as I looked down at her, imagining what her mouth would taste like if I were to – no. No, I had news to bring to the other Jarls.
"We're still clinging to the coastline," Ragnar said, eying the scratchings in the leather sheet laid out on the war table in front of us. Uldric had drawn up a picture, on the leather, of the Kingdom of the East Angles, and Mercia and Northumbria to the north. The landing place of the Northern forces was marked, and the locations, still fairly close to each other, of the different Jarl's forces who had arrived many moons ago. I was the Jarl of Jarls, the oldest and most experienced, but I was no King – nor did I have any interest in being one. As such, we planned together the way wolves do, each playing their role but each taking their cue from the leader.
"We've taken every estate along the coast," Styrr added, tracing his finger along the representation in the leather. "And we hold them now, with Northern men."
That – the holding of the East Anglian estates – was important. Before, we raided. We took the villages and monasteries of the East Angles and the Franks quickly, brutally, and we left in the same manner, often on the very same day of our arrival, with our ships loaded down with plunder. It was different now. Now we needed to hold the land.
"If the coastal land is secure," I spoke to the small group of Jarls and their high warriors as we stood around the table, "we must move deeper inland, we must secure Thetford by the time winter comes. Uldric's scouts report the marshlands at their driest during the high point of summer – by the next moon."
Jarl Eirik rubbed his chin. "Do Uldric's scouts speak of the people?" He asked. "The East Angles that live inland do not know us beyond r
umors, and we do not know them. It's possible they'll give us more of a fight than we've been lucky to find so far."
"If all they've heard of us is rumor, all's the better for us," Styrr grinned. "The Angles call us baby eaters – demons – they say we ride hell-hounds into battle. We'll find them cowering in their estates if we don't find them abandoned first, the people having fled in terror."
"Nevertheless," Eirik continued, showing only the slightest annoyance at Styrr's eagerness. What was he going to make of Gunnar, if I ever allowed my little brother to attend a Jarl's meeting? "We'd be wise to tread with more caution inland."
I nodded. "I agree."
"And what of the King?" Ragnar spoke. "Is he still in the south?"
"Aye, he is," I replied. "The scouts place him on his way north, but say he moves slowly. We do not have time to wait for the King of the East Angles. I'll ride south with two hundred warriors and present this Edmund the fisherman with a proposal – and when I return I'll bring with me either his head or his allegiance. Ragnar, I'll take you and your men with me. Styrr, Eirik, Vidar, bring your forces north on the Great Road, we'll catch up with you before you get far."
And so it was decided, and the next stage of our conquest set in the Kingdom of the East Angles. Uldric's leather map, with small marks used to denote the positions of my people, would soon be full of such marks. The King himself would soon be choosing which side he wished to take.
I left the war planning council with a spark in my blood. At ten and ten and nine I was no longer like my brother, no longer eager for the smell of other men's blood in my nostrils, or the sound of my blade catching on bone – not without reason, that is. Some of the raids of my younger years had been ultimately purposeless, bringing no grain and no silver and often leaving some of our men dead. They were the result of impatient youth, of those who – like Gunnar – had simply not had the time to tire of the battlefield, and of killing without an end in mind.