by Jayden Woods
*
Their first year together was one of happiness. She cooked and mended his clothes for him. Sometimes, even though she did not need to, she hunted for them with the great bow she had created. Often she played games with him—or at least, he thought of them as games at first—in which he would teach her some of his fighting skills. At first he would tease and trifle with her, seeing such an activity as little more than foreplay. But he began to see that she progressed steadily from one skirmish to the next, and their games became something more like training sessions. Thorkell enjoyed training her, because it was a form of practice for him, as well; soon he would receive King Sweyn Forkbeard’s own son, Canute, to train and foster like his own.
Runa even made friends with another woman in town named Halla. Halla was an old runeswoman, full of strange tales and mythical knowledge. She taught Runa the names of many of the flowers and herbs she had long gathered in the forest and showed her new uses for them. She also demonstrated new ways of reading the runestones.
During one such lesson, Halla stopped suddenly, looking deep into the criss-crossing patterns before her.
“What’s wrong?” asked Runa.
“There is evil in your past,” said Halla in her dry, scratchy voice. “You ran away from it, but it lingers within you.”
Runa’s heart thudded in her throat. She reached down and tossed the stones with a sweep of her hand. “A vague reading,” she snapped, somewhat breathless. “You could say that of anyone!”
“Perhaps,” said Halla. “But you ...”
Runa glared at her until the old lady grew silent. Soothsayer or not, she could see that the subject should be dropped. And because she did, she remained Runa’s friend, and their meetings continued peacefully so long as Halla did not broach the topic. When Halla ran out of herbs and recipes to teach her, she began to teach Runa English, for the woman knew the language well. At first she did not know why Runa would ever wish to learn it, and Runa did not have a good answer. But her lessons continued, nonetheless.
Every time Runa began to tire of Thorkell and the monotony of her life with him, he would leave for some sort of battle or voyage. In his absence she would long for his kind words, his playful roughhousing, and his surprisingly gentle embrace. When he returned she would throw herself upon him, just as she had in the woods the night of their first encounter.
Then she became pregnant again.
At first she did nothing. She did not tell Thorkell. She tried, even, to shut it from her mind, as if ignoring the fact would make it go away. She was able to do this until one night, she had a horrible nightmare.
The darkness trapped her. A monster called to her through the walls. Breath became scarce but she could not leave the dark hole. She pressed her lips to the cracks and savored the slightest breeze. Screams of the tormented echoed from the shadows. The same victim cried again and again for help. She recognized the scream. She knew it by heart.
She awoke to Thorkell’s arm, heavy around her waist, and she thrashed from his grip. He stirred but did not awake as she slipped from the bed, sweating and panting. She dressed and grabbed her most important belongings. Then she left, not sure when she would return—knowing only that it would not be anytime soon.
At the break of dawn she visited Halla on the edge of town. She paid the woman for a large supply of pennyroyal. Halla knew well enough not to ask too many questions, but she could not refrain from saying something before Runa hurried off.
“Perhaps you should stay here, so I can care for you through the sickness.”
The offer tempted Runa, but she fled from it, before she could say yes.
Returning to her cave caused a strange emotion to stir within her. She expected to feel cozy and nostalgic. Instead she felt alienated, as if she was no longer the same woman and this dank hole belonged to someone else. At the same time this saddened her. She did not belong here anymore, but nor did she belong in the city of Jom, pretending to lead a normal life as the wife of a great Jomsviking. She belonged nowhere.
She stayed in the cave only long enough to build a fire and brew her tea, infused with all the pennyroyal Halla had given her. She drank until her stomach burned and sloshed when she walked.
As the sickness seized her, she spread out on the forest floor. She rested upon the incredible weight of the earth beneath her, reveling in the little sensations of bugs and worms scuttling beneath her and causing the surface to ripple with life. She fed herself on the warm breeze and loosed her moans to its sway; she cried openly and shamelessly, releasing her pain into the soil and wind because she could not endure it all herself.
When it passed—perhaps over two nights or several days, she wasn’t certain—she found a stream to wash away the blood between her legs. She used the next few days to gather berries and nuts, catch birds and rodents, and slowly nurse herself back to health.
At last she returned to Jom.
Thorkell was not home at first. Anxiously, she passed the time by throwing herself back into her daily chores. He did not arrive until the sky outside glowed orange with the sun’s descent.
At the sight of her, a strange look came over his face. She tried to decipher the emotions beneath his pale brows as well as she could. First, she hoped, there was joy. But this was fleeting, and replaced quickly with anger. And once the anger appeared, it would not go away. Such fury flared in his stony irises that she felt the nausea of fear in her belly—an unusual sensation, for not much frightened her more than all she had already endured.
“Thorkell ...” She struggled to find her breath. “I’m back.”
He slammed the door behind him so hard she jolted. He did not speak for a long time, and the boom of the door continued to resound in her ears like a thunderclap in the distance, foretelling the oncoming storm.
Then a shudder went through him, and he rushed forward, capturing her in his arms. “Runa ...” he gasped. “Runa, I worried ...”
She closed her eyes as his fingers massaged the tangles of her hair. “Don’t worry,” she said. “I’ll always come back. And if I don’t … consider me dead.”
He held her tighter to him, and did not pester her with the questions she feared. He did not even try to make love to her. He simply held her, as if he never wanted her to escape again. And for a time, she did not mind.
After that her life felt normal again, for the most part. She tried to pretend as if her disappearance into the woods had not occurred, and it seemed as if Thorkell ignored it, as well. When they met again, Halla gave her a disapproving glance, but also one of relief; then she proceeded to provide Runa with all sorts of elixirs—herbs that would cleanse her body of the remaining toxins, she hoped.
But Runa could not cleanse herself of what she had done, and it continued to plague her, more than any toxin could have.
She told herself that her decision had been for the best. A child would trap her. A child would pull out the monsters within her and reveal her ugliness to all. A child would be in danger of getting hurt by her in return. It had been for the best.
And yet her nightmares worsened, and she dreamt of the baby she might have had, warm in her lap as she cradled it. When she awoke her empty stomach felt cold and knotted.
Young Canute Sweynsson arrived at Jomsborg the next year and fell under Thorkell’s tutelage, a responsibility which greatly benefited the married couple. Runa rarely saw the boy, for he remained mostly in Jomsburg, but Thorkell cared for him as if he had acquired his own son. He picked out gifts for the young prince and spent his short nights with Runa speaking of him. She had never heard Thorkell speak so much about anything.
Runa only met the boy a few times, but he made her uncomfortable. Most kids did, but he even more so. Though well-behaved, his eyes glittered with a conceit that struck her core with fury. It was a conceit that made everyone around him a means to an end, a toy to play with, and nothing more. If such a characteristic was so strong now, when he was but a boy, and if all the people aro
und him—even Thorkell—fed such unfounded pride, how much worse would it become once he was grown? It made her want to hurt the boy, to poke a hole in his bulging sack of confidence, to watch him squirm when no one could raise a hand to help him. She recognized such self-importance from the monsters of her nightmares, but at least in her sleep, the monsters chased her and no one else. The monsters within Canute chased after everyone.
She managed to keep her impulses at bay for a long while, and Thorkell stayed away often, and Runa enjoyed her freedom. But one night something changed. Thorkell had unusually high spirits. He seemed full of hope and joy, so much so that he brought Canute home and told Runa that he would be staying the night.
“Why?” snapped Runa.
“Because,” said Thorkell. “He has been a long time without a mother.”
Fear gripped Runa’s heart like ice. There was no use in arguing, she knew. Thorkell’s love for the boy blinded him.
So that evening she fiddled with her bow, and in the morning she took Canute outside to use it. “Set the string like so,” she told him. She even demonstrated, dropping a bird as it flapped through the sky. She could see by his expression that he was truly impressed. “Now you try. Put your face here, so you can aim properly.” She handed it to him, struggling to suppress her smirk.
“I don’t see any more birds,” the young boy said grumpily.
“Shoot that tree, then.”
“Easy,” he snorted. He aimed and pulled the switch, as she had demonstrated. But the string flew back and snapped him in the face. He cried out as the arrow spiraled uselessly across the grass.
“What was that?” said Runa. “You did it all wrong!”
“I did what you told me!” He blinked back tears as he touched the swelling welt on his nose. “It’s the stupid bow’s fault!”
“No it’s not, and no, you didn’t do it right.” She took it from him, set another arrow, and shot it cleanly forward. He stared in awe as it sank into the trunk of a distant tree.
“But—!” His shock became outrage. “Give it!”
He grabbed the bow. He set another arrow. When he released it, once again, the string smacked him in the face, this time even harder. He dropped the bow and staggered backwards.
A long silence hung in the air. Then proud little Canute burst into tears.
Runa couldn’t help herself. She grinned.
“What happened?” Thorkell stormed from the house. Runa had a sinking feeling that he had been watching for some time.
Canute just sobbed and sniffled. Runa attempted to meet Thorkell’s gaze with defiance, but found she could not.
Thorkell clenched his fists, his knuckles bulging like spikes from a mace. Canute just kept crying. The sound had been entertaining at first, but now it grated on her. She wished he would simply grow silent.
“Canute,” growled Thorkell at last. His voice sent chills down Runa’s back. “You used the bow like she showed you?”
“Yes, Thorkell, I did!” cried Canute.
“And yet it hurt you anyway?”
“Yes!”
“Then it is a danger to you,” said Thorkell. “Or something here is.” His eyes remained on Runa. “And what do you do to something that is a danger to you?”
Canute stopped crying. Joy flared suddenly in his eyes, but Runa went cold with fear. Canute looked at her, a sneer crawling up his puffy red face. Then he picked up the bow.
“No!” shouted Runa.
But Canute scurried away, taking the bow with him. He found the nearest rock and smashed the bow against it. Nothing happened at first; Canute was too little to put much strength in the swing. But he swung again, and again; and at last, a crack split the air.
“You little bastard!” Runa moved towards him, but Thorkell stepped into her path, and she dared not cross him. She seethed at him with fury and even hatred, staring into the black silhouette of his shape against the searing blue sky. Pain sapped the strength from her voice. “It was my wedding gift to you!”
“Much good that did us,” he said.
She was not exactly sure what he meant. She was not sure she wanted to know. The bow cracked again, finally splitting in half, and Canute laughed with triumph.
Runa turned away, hoping to hide the sorrow consuming her, along with the unquenchable urge to enact some manner of revenge.