Viking Lost

by Derek Nelsen

  “Well,” said Skadi, “I had Anja bring Old Erik a chicken just after what happened at the harvest festival and had her tell Old Erik to sacrifice it in your name.”

  Anja squirmed a little in her seat.

  “I knew there’d be trouble after all of that happened,” Skadi continued. “Do you need me to give you an animal to take?”

  “No.” Runa held her chin up high, then somehow managed to wriggle out a gracious smile. “Thank you. We’ve got plenty to sacrifice,” she lied. “It’s Tor,” which was true.

  “Well, you must do it for him. That’s all.” For having such a pretty nose, Skadi sure liked to stick it where it didn’t belong. She could be the queen of condescending while doing it, too. “Do you think I wait for Pedar’s permission to do anything around here? You wouldn’t believe the sacrifices I’ve made. I’d sacrifice your children if I thought it would benefit my Anja.”

  “What?” Runa jumped to her feet.

  That was a particularly stupid thing to say. Even Kiara knew what had happened to Runa’s daughter. She doubted she’d have been so offended if Skadi had said Erik; that’s for sure.

  “I didn’t mean anything. I mean, I-” Skadi put her hand on Runa’s shoulder to calm her. “Stupid girl,”—she spoke to Kiara as if she’d been the one who said it—“bring Runa a real drink. Bring us all some of that mead Halfdan brought over.” Runa’s chest was heaving. “You know what I meant, right?” Skadi pushed the bowl of berries back in front of Runa, and eased her back into her seat. “A mother’s love knows no bounds.”

  Runa emptied two cups of mead before the color came back to her cheeks. The sound of falling snow broke the uneasy silence. “I blame Erik, you know. This whole thing is his fault.” Runa tapped her cup on the table. Kiara had been well-trained. She jumped up and refilled all the cups. “Or maybe I should blame Kiara. Maybe she seduced him. I mean. Why else would Erik have risked our reputation to stop us from giving Kiara back?”

  “He was defying you,” Kiara whispered under her breath.

  Runa cut her eyes to the girl. “Well, if I hadn’t sent you back to Vidar before, I’d have had to send you to him now.”

  “Why is that, exactly?” Kiara hated to ask, but what worse could Runa do to her? She’d already been returned to her owner, like a lost dog she no longer wanted to feed.

  It was Runa who was condescending now. “Oh dear, you don’t know our way, do you? If fate smiles on my husband and by some error he kills Vidar in the holmgang, you will be buried at the Viking’s side—no different than a weapon or bit of his coin. His men will see to that.”

  “What?” Kiara stiffened in shock.

  “If Vidar has pleased the gods then he will go to Odin’s Valhalla or to Freyja’s field, Fólkvangr,” continued Runa.

  “But you are no warrior,” Skadi said, as if Kiara should know what that had to do with anything. “You have done nothing to earn a glorious fate.”

  Anja put her hand on top of Kiara’s. She must have mistaken her horror for curiosity. “In our culture, slaves accompany their owners into the afterlife, and if none of the gods want you, then you will go to Hel.” Anja’s touch was unnervingly soft and warm, which made her words that much colder.

  Skadi smirked and lowered her brow, as if Kiara’s repulsion was entertainment. “My dear, haven’t you learned anything about our way? Our village may not be Viking, but our gods are still warriors. Do you think they would let your Christ save you here?” Runa seemed to always know just what to say to make Kiara feel worse. “And there will be no resurrection. Our dead stay buried. We lock the doors to their graves to make sure of it.”

  These women were preaching nightmares.

  “Erik knows all of this, and so does Toren,” said Runa. “And yet, they are still praying for victory for their father.”

  “We all are,” added Anja.

  Thank you mouthed Runa as she put her hand on Anja’s forearm. “You’re such a good girl.” Then Runa turned to Kiara, a bright smile on her face, as if she hadn’t been talking about her murder and damnation. “You think you’re a good girl, too, don’t you Kiara?” Runa pursed her lips like she wasn’t so sure. “So, go on, sneak away to the woods, and talk and tell stories and laugh with my boys.”

  “I don’t-” Kiara didn’t know what to say.

  “But know this.” Runa apparently didn’t want to hear excuses. “The best thing that can happen to you is that their father is killed by the Viking. Because my husband will surely kill Vidar if he gets the chance.”

  Kiara’s head was spinning. Other than Skadi’s burst of insanity, she couldn’t stop thinking about Old Erik burying her with the Viking. So, did Erik assume she was praying for Vidar to kill his father? She hoped he knew her better than these women because she would rather God take her now than be the reason he saved Vidar.

  “You see,” Anja explained. “We’re not like the men. We’re not just smiling to make you smile, laughing to make you laugh.”

  “Real friends tell you the truth, even if the truth hurts.” Skadi mouthed the words I’m sorry to Runa.

  Runa nodded to accept her apology. “In that case, we may be the best friends you have here.” Then Runa gently tapped her empty cup on the table.

  Obviously, the mead was doing its work on these beautiful hags. Kiara was still stiff. Her throat was still tight.

  “Kiara dear, are you alright?” Skadi ran her claws along Kiara’s back.

  Kiara jumped back, away from the table. She didn’t want to be touched, not by any of these black hearted crows. She really could use a true friend right now, someone sane to talk to.

  Oh, Erik. What must he think of me?

  “Are you alright, dear?” Skadi asked again.

  Kiara took a deep breath. She wouldn’t give these women the satisfaction of watching her break down again. She was done being their entertainment. “Yes, I think so. It’s just a lot to take in.”

  “Ja,” Skadi pouted her lips as if she understood. “Well, I just wanted to say, before I forget, after you fill our cups, I’ll need you to get some more firewood for my bedroom.”

  Kiara pulled up the collar on her borrowed coat, then wiped a tear away from her eyes as she walked out into the cold yard. Behind her she heard the ladies at the table cackling, which reminded her she still had to feed the chickens.

  Collecting Spices

  Sterkr barked in excitement, then started jumping up on Erik amongst all his spinning.

  “Here to find out my father’s secrets?” Erik held up both hatchets like he was ready for battle.

  “Yes. The Viking’s sent me to find out how your father collects his firewood.” Kiara was nervous. She made jokes when she was nervous. Could Erik really hate her?

  “Well, you can tell them it’s no secret. He uses his sons.” Erik smiled, and Kiara felt warm inside at the sight of it. “What are you doing here, lass?”

  “I’m bringing you your lunch, like I used to.” Kiara ran her fingers through Sterkr’s thick fur. Then she reached into a wool sack and gave the dog a chicken wing.

  “Whoa, look at all of this!” Erik started digging through what she brought. “Is Ragi coming to eat, too?”

  “Ha. Ragi leaves more food on his plate after breakfast than this. Pedar’s family will never miss it.

  “Do they know where you are?” Erik put the axes down in exchange for a chicken leg.

  “Of course,” she said playfully. “I’m collecting spices. Plan to do it every day while the wee bit of sun you get around here still shines.”

  “With three feet of snow on the ground?” Erik looked like he was getting bigger, as if he’d changed somehow in just the last month.

  “Pedar likes my cooking.” Kiara missed her lunches with Erik. “He thinks it’s exotic. So, I told him it’s the special ingredients, that the Irish have a nose for ‘em, and no amount of snow could hide what’s needed from an Irish woman. So, he sent me out, just like that.”

  “What will you come
back with—snow?”

  “Ah, they’ve got more in that house to cook with than the Saturday market in my village. They just don’t know what to do with half of it.” She took a bite of a brownish cheese and shrugged. A little strong, but it was good enough to share with Sterkr. “Erik? Why do you and Toren always cut wood with hatchets instead of axes?”

  “They’re all axes, Kiara.” Erik dropped a bone for Sterkr, picked the hatchets up, and cleared some limbs as big as his arms off a fallen tree with alternating strokes. Then he shrugged. “My father won’t let us use a wood axe—I remember him insisting we do it this way since we were little.”

  She thought about the power in each of his downward strokes. Was he showing off for her? “Do you want any of this, or did I just walk out here to feed your dog?”

  “If you give Sterkr all my lunch then you’ll be stacking this wood for me tonight.”

  “If I go near your house, your mother will accuse me of spying, or worse.” Kiara sat down and pulled out some dried fish and bread for them to share, much more than Runa ever fed him.

  “Worse? What could be worse than helping Vidar?” Erik sent one of the hatchets fifteen feet, sticking it just below a knot in an old oak.

  Sneaking off to have lunch with you. She couldn’t bring herself to say it, so she changed the subject. She’d learned from her mother long ago that if you want to change the subject with a man, change it to something he knows he does well. They’re never more than half listening, anyway.

  “I didn’t know you were left-handed.”

  Erik landed the second hatchet into the knot’s center. “I’m not.”

  “Does your father train you to fight with axes or swords?”

  Erik looked shocked as if she’d brought up something she wasn’t supposed to know about. “My father’s not training us, but we do spar him when he trains.”

  “Well, Vidar trains with a sword.”

  “Ja, I know. It’s my father’s—Ice Breaker. Remember?”

  She pretended she might throw some bread at him, not sure if she was giving away how much she liked his sarcasm. “Well, did you know this? After Vidar practices with Ubbi, Ubbi and Orri still train the boys in the village. More of them now than when you were sneaking off.”

  “Are you trying to make me feel worse than I already do?” He stole away with a piece of fish. “Pedar has swords, too, but my father says they’re just toys, not for real fighting. I was hoping Vidar would’ve chosen one of those. You should’ve seen Pedar’s face when neither of them chose any of his shiny swords for the holmgang.”

  “So, you train with axes,” she answered her own question. “Well, if Tor has always sent you out to cut firewood with two hatchets instead of a heavy, two-handed wood axe like every other man I’ve ever seen, then I think he’s been training you to fight your entire life.” Erik looked stunned. Then he just stared at his two hatchets, handles worn. They looked molded to fit his strong hands from years of heavy use. As he got his head around what now seemed obvious, Kiara interrupted his thoughts. “Teach me to do that?”

  “I might be able to teach you to hit the side of the barn, as long as we were throwing from the inside.” Erik’s dimples showed when he smirked.

  As he cleared snow off a log so he could eat his lunch, Kiara wrenched one of the hatchets from the tree, took aim, and stuck it into a fat pine ten feet away.

  “I’d be impressed if I thought you weren’t aiming for that birch over there.” Erik was rummaging through the food. “You know, Skadi would probably kick you out of her house if she thought you could do that. Norse women aren’t very trusting. Runa warned us you might have been planning to kill us all in our sleep when you lived with us.”

  “Are you thinking of telling her?” Kiara jerked on the handle of the second axe.

  “There’s a lot going on right now that’s better kept from my stepmother.” Erik watched Kiara struggle to retrieve the second axe, as if she were doing it for his entertainment. After trying unsuccessfully to pull it out, pry it out, and painfully kick it out, she picked up a piece of wood off the stack and smacked the hatchet’s handle. It came out as easy as a nine-year-old’s baby tooth.

  This was their winter-long ritual. Kiara would bring Erik his lunch, and he would pretend not to look forward to it.

  When Kiara was alone with Erik, he helped her work on her Norse or axe throwing, or anything else he was already better at than she was.

  Sometimes, Toren was there, too, and they talked about more serious things. “How is Anja? Does she ask about me?”

  “She doesn’t know I come here,” Kiara would remind him. “Promise you won’t tell her?”

  “When would I? That Viking has turned us into outcasts in our own village,” Toren complained. “I never see her anymore.”

  “I’m sure things will change after the holmgang,” she said. She wanted one of the boys to make her feel like everything would be alright, but they never did when she said things like that. They would always stuff their mouths with Pedar’s food—or change the subject.

  “Does Anja spend time with Vidar?”

  “I don’t know,” she lied. Vidar seemed to have a power over people. He wasn’t like that before. It was like watching the puppeteer who used to perform every year at her village’s spring festival. He would push them away, and then he knew just what to say to bring them back to his side. Anja was his favorite puppet. “I’m just a servant,” Kiara would remind them. “Anja doesn’t come find me to tell me her secrets. I see her when I’m serving the meals, that’s it.”

  “What can you tell us about Vidar? Anything we can pass along to our father?” Toren would always ask the same questions every time he was there.

  For some reason, today Kiara was frustrated. “What do you want me to say?”—she let her guarded tongue run—“That he’s injured? He isn’t. He’s getting stronger every day. Do you want to know the real reason I can sneak away with so much food every day? It’s because of how much extra we’re cooking to feed the man. Skadi’s having us cook double to make sure he never goes to bed hungry. It’s as if your future mother-in-law wants to help Vidar get stronger to beat your father, and it’s working.

  “Do you think your father can win?” Kiara asked.

  Both boys looked like she’d put them back on their heels. Why couldn’t she just keep her mouth shut?

  The boys considered their answer. Erik confided in her that because of Vidar’s silver tongue, their father had not only been training them how to wield axes and shields, but also words and diplomacy, something she needed to learn to do.

  “My father will win,” said Erik. “Don’t you remember what he did to Ubbi and Orri?”

  “Yes, I remember,” said Kiara. Erik always had a way to make her feel better, but she’d obviously shaken his confidence.

  “I don’t know,” admitted Toren. His words were measured, and heavy. “I used to think my father was so strong. But Vidar—well, now the Viking is using his own sword against him. It’s as if Odin himself has set Vidar against him for trading his sword for a rake.”

  “And for marrying a Christian?” Kiara watched Erik bristle as she said it.

  “Toren, you’ve been spending too much time around the house with Runa,” said Erik. “The woman’s so negative. It’s like she’s already planning his funeral.”

  “Is your father planning to kill Vidar?” Kiara was almost afraid to hear the answer.

  “Go back to Vidar, Kiara.” Toren said it as if scolding a little girl. “And don’t come back here again.” The sudden distrust in Toren’s eye turned to rage as he slammed his hatchet into a log.

  “She’s not a spy, Toren.” Erik stepped in front of Kiara and faced his older brother. “Of course, he will—if he can. If our father lets him live, Vidar leaves in the spring. And when Jarl Olaf finds out what happened, he’ll seek revenge. His ships would be here by summer. Then father’s dead anyway, isn’t he?” It was as if he hadn’t thought about it before. “
Besides, Orri told me some things about Vidar. I think he wants this village for himself, not for his father.” His voice trailed off as he put the pieces together like some grand puzzle. “Both father and Vidar are going to want to end this now rather than bring a Viking hoard to our shores.”

  “The only one who’s ever wanted more Vikings is you, Erik,” said Toren, “and your idiot friends, half of which are apparently still training so they can sail away with them now.” Toren turned his fire toward Kiara. “What are you crying about?”

  Kiara knew she shouldn’t say anything—that Erik and Toren had too much to worry about already. But she did anyway. “Runa came by to discuss your marriage with Anja.”

  “Of course,” said Erik. “That woman cares more about that than she does about my father.”

  “Shut up, Erik,” said Toren. “Is everything still on?”

  “I don’t know. I guess so. They barely mentioned it while I was in the room.” Kiara wiped tears from her cheek. “She said that if your father kills Vidar that they would bury me alongside him.”

  Erik looked shaken.

  “Don’t worry about what Erik said. He doesn’t know what he’s talking about,” said Toren. Kiara noticed he didn’t deny that they might do it. “There are rules to the fight. We talk about them every night. No one is going to kill anyone, except Runa if I don’t get back to work on my new house.” He put on his skis and slipped off into the shadowy forest, toward his home.

  That was the last time she saw Toren until the ring ceremony. As Erik would often sarcastically explain it, “As the heir, sometimes Toren was much too important to chop wood.” He had to learn how to pluck his chickens or sweep the floors of the house that would one day be Anja’s bridal gift—the girl who needed nothing.

  Kiara was glad Toren had to work on his house because that meant there was never a day Erik wasn’t chopping wood, never a day she couldn’t meet him in the forest, the one place she didn’t feel like a slave. She’d even learned to make peace with the cold. Erik was only there because the fires never stopped burning in Norway. She wondered how many fires Tor’s sons had fed as their father secretly trained them for battles he prayed would never come. Who he prayed to, though, was anybody’s guess.