by Lee Savino
You are the best part of us, the warriors told me. We lay tangled together as the sun came up. As the light broke over the world, I fell asleep in my warriors’ arms.
9
Juliet
I woke alone in the low light. Jarl and Fenrir must have gone to fetch firewood or hunt for food. I didn’t know whether it was dusk or dawn, or whether I’d slept a day or a year. The ache between my legs told me what I had done.
I sat up and tried to comb out my hair, but it was too tangled. My shift was gone, torn away. I was naked, barefoot, cold. The bed was still warm from the warrior’s bodies, but I could not return to it. The beauty of our night together was shattered.
What had I done? I’d broken my vows.
I staggered from the lodge. As soon as I stepped outside, my feet ached from the cold ground, but I welcomed the hurt as punishment for what I’d done. All the lovely glow that had filled me after my punishment was gone, leaving me barren and empty inside. The good was gone, only the ugly was left. Only I was left.
I sank down, my hands over my face. Everything inside me welled up and I sobbed.
Jarl found me there, crouched and crying in the mud. He cursed and dropped the firewood he’d chopped, and rushed to wrap me in his robe before carrying me inside. He bundled me on the bed and left my side to build the fire higher.
I curled onto my side and cried as he paced back and forth. A wave of magic, and I sensed the dark form of the beast, prowling back and forth like a wild animal at the mouth of a cave.
Fenrir returned soon after, melting from the shadows. His shape was normal. He felt the pull of the beast but did not succumb to it. He set a brace of rabbits on a stone by the fire, moving slowly as if not to startle either of us. What happened? he asked as Jarl prowled past him.
She is rejecting us. She believes she has sinned.
“Calm down, brother.”
She cannot leave us! Jarl roared.
“She’s not leaving,” Fenrir said. He moved between me and the fire. After a while, his weight sank into the bed beside me. “Juliet, come.”
I pushed him away, but he lifted me to his lap. He had food and drink and met my resistance with calm patience.
“Now,” he said when I had eaten and drank my fill. “Tell me why you are distraught.”
“I am not Juliet.” I said in a hollow voice. “I am someone else.”
“No.” He kissed my shoulder. “You are still you.”
“I am undone.” I pushed back the mess of my hair, but it fell over my face. Fenrir moved behind me. With patient hands, he bundled my hair back and began to brush the strands.
“The abbess was right.” My voice cracked with sorrow. “I am a wild and unholy creature.”
“You were born wild, but you are not unholy.” Fenrir bent and kissed my shoulder. “We have let loose the ties that bound you. Now you are free.”
“How can you say that?” I rubbed my chest. I did not feel free. I felt a great weight on my chest, stones in my heart.
Why this guilt? Jarl spoke directly into my mind. Your priest would make you someone you were not.
“But I am wicked,” I cried.
“So you say. But I see no wickedness in you. Where is your proof?” He caught my hand when I would scratch furrows into my chest and closed his own huge hand around it.
I sat in his lap, quivering like a rabbit in a trap. “I have lain with two men.”
“We forced you, remember? You had no choice.”
That was not entirely true, and we both knew it. But I couldn’t say that. “It doesn’t matter.”
“Juliet,” Fenrir sighed. “Look at Jarl.”
The tattooed warrior was fully Changed into a beast. The giant monster filled the doorway. The top of its dark furred head almost touched the lintel. It’s back tensed, arching, as if any moment it would point its snout at the sky and howl.
“Tell him to come back to you,” Fenrir ordered.
I parted my lips and Fenrir pushed two fingers into my mouth, silencing me. Not that way, his deep voice echoed in my mind.
Jarl. I thought hard. There was a monster in my mind, a dark and angry shape. Hurt, abandoned. My heart cracked. Come back to me.
As I watched, the beast straightened, the fur disappearing, leaving a clean jaw and Jarl’s sharp nose. Jarl the man emerged from the monstrous form. The final swirls of black fur faded into the dark markings on his smooth-skinned chest. He stretched, naked, and smirked when he caught me staring.
“Do you see?” Fenrir murmured. “In your presence, the beast is calm.”
Jarl picked up the makeshift door and set it against the opening, blocking out the night. He returned to the bed and stretched out beside me, picking up my hand and squeezing it. I grabbed his hand and held it between my own, studying it for any trace of claw or fur. But it was a normal hand.
“Tamed by your voice,” Jarl said. He sounded almost smug, but I didn’t understand why.
“You have made us whole,” Fenrir said, and slid me off his lap so I lay between them. “You have this power. Why would you deny it?”
I shook my head. I was so tired. “The priest said—”
“The priest is dead,” Jarl growled. He still sounded like the beast. “Thorbjorn killed him.”
Fenrir gripped my arm. “The priest was punished for his sins against Sage, Thorbjorn’s mate. The man was evil, Juliet. He was not chaste or pure. He broke the very laws he preached to you.”
Was it true? I searched Fenrir and Jarl’s faces. But I didn’t have to search their minds. I had my own memories from my time in the abbey, first as an orphan, then as a nun. I lived by rules of poverty and chastity, bore their weight and had been broken by them. And yet the man who’d never missed a moment to shout at me of my sin was guilty of despicable acts.
My face crumpled. “Everything I’ve known is a lie.”
“It was, little mate. But now you are free.”
“No,” I moaned over the pain in my chest. “I do not know how to live free.”
Fenrir sat back. He was silent a long time, regarding my words. “Then we will bind you to us. One way or another.”
I dreamed of a monster roaring through the forest. The dark shape rushes the magical boundary at the foot of the mountain. The bodies of the enemy rush him and fall, limbs snap like dry branches and the scent of rotting flesh rises in waves to choke him.
I jerked awake, clawing at the sunlight air. I knew without looking around the lodge that Jarl was gone. The fire was cold and at first, I feared both warriors had abandoned me. Then Fenrir came to my side.
“Come, Juliet. The sun is high.”
“Where did Jarl go?” I clutched the fur. My body still trembled as if it expected the enemy to rush me at any moment.
“He went ahead to clear a way for us.” Fenrir laid a new dress on the bed beside me. I touched it before I could stop myself, amazed by the fine woolen garment. It was a rich purple, a color too fine for a peasant. Way too fine for an orphan girl turned nun. Not that the Berserkers would care. They brought me a dress fit for a queen and I must wear it. They’d torn all my other clothing to shreds.
“What does it mean, Jarl is clearing the way for us?” I asked as I dressed.
“You’ll see.” Fenrir produced a pair of fur-lined boots and knelt to put them on my feet. He tugged me up and ran his hands down my bodice. His fingers stroked over the wool and I felt them as if he plucked my bare skin. My body hummed under his touch, a tune only he could play.
Too soon he took his hands away. “Come. We are leaving today.”
“Where are we going?” I wriggled my toes in my new boots.
“You’ll see.” He grinned and I blinked at the sight. I rarely saw him smile.
With Fenrir’s help, I braided my hair into a thick braid. He shouldered a large pack and adjusted his belt, checking the long knife and axe strapped to his waist. Then he took my hand and led me out of the lodge to face the day. We turned down the mountain path, b
ut instead of avoiding the boundary line, he marched me straight toward it. There was no sign of the Grey Men, the dead beings the Corpse King raised for his army. But my stomach still flipped the closer we got to leaving the witches’ protective bubble.
“Is it safe?” I toed the line between the living meadow and the churned mud where many draugr had patrolled.
“It is now,” Fenrir gripped my hand and gripped a long knife in the other. “But we must hurry.” He tugged me over the boundary. I felt the magic roll over my face, like I’d pushed through a curtain of water. We broke onto the other side, panting.
“Run,” Fenrir was still grinning as if it were all a game. Was he mad? We raced for the trees. My feet pounded the ground and my new boots served me well.
We reached the tree line but kept running. He didn’t let us slow until we were deep in a grove of pine. “Where are the draugr?” I asked.
“Jarl drew them off.”
Jarl? I startled. As soon as his name bloomed in my mind, he answered.
I’m here. He answered in the voice of the beast, and thrust an image into my mind. I Saw his monstrous arms and paws. He stood in a clearing, leaning on a double-headed axe. At his feet were piles of bones. The Grey Men, destroyed.
There will be more. I scent another great force, marching to surround the mountain. But I have cleared your route.
“Come, Juliet.” Fenrir shrugged off his pack. He crouched and bid me climb on his back. “Put your arms around my neck. We have leagues to go, and we must be back by dusk.”
I hung on, wrapping my legs around his waist. He hitched me closer and took off. The forest blurred.
We journeyed this way, at Berserker speed, for several hours. Fenrir never paused and never seemed to tire.
“Will you tell me where we are going?” I asked when he let me down to drink at a stream and stretch my cramped legs.
“No. It will ruin the surprise.” He lifted me again.
“At least tell me how much longer,” I grumbled.
“Tell me a story,” he said as he set off.
“A story? About what?” I closed my eyes to the trees passing with dizzying speed.
“Anything. You.”
I bit my lip. I did not have any stories I wished to tell about me. But I had often told stories to the orphans. “Once there was a man named Jonah, who was a prophet. But he ran from God, and tried to escape by sailing across the sea…”
The sun was high in the sky when we came to a meadow full of flowers and he let me down for good. My voice was hoarse from talking. I’d told the story of Jonah and the whale, Noah and the ark, Balaam and the ass, and Gideon and his army. Fenrir enjoyed the stories with fighting best.
I arched my back and swung my arms, loosening my tight muscles. Fenrir had set me in a patch of bluebells. I bent to pick one, and when I straightened, a large, dark form stepped out of the shadows.
It was Jarl. The sunlight slid off his bare shoulders as he strode to me. He wore a pair of ragged breeches and held a shield and double-headed axe. But he was fully a man. I heaved a sigh as he set down his weapon and took up my hand.
“I dreamed you were a monster.”
“I am a monster.” He kissed my fingers. They were cold and he nuzzled them, warming them with his breath. “But more than that, I am yours.”
“You missed the stories,” I said, drawing my hand back.
“I did not. Fenrir shared them with me. Gideon’s was the best.” Jarl winked at me and stepped back as Fenrir approached.
“Well fought,” Fenrir greeted his brother and tossed Jarl a pair of boots and a leather jerkin. Jarl dressed quickly. The jerkin was new, as were the boots, but the well-dressed man who wore them was barely more civilized than the half-naked warrior who’d strode from the woods. Especially when he strapped the shield and axe to his back.
“Do you enjoy fighting?” I asked.
“Yes.” Jarl took my hand again.
“Is that why you became a Berserker?”
“Yes,” he said more soberly. “But that was not the same.”
I cocked my head to the side. “How do you mean?”
“Now we have someone worth fighting for.” He tugged me into him and gripped the base of my braid. He kissed me, his beard scraping my face. He plunged his tongue into my mouth, plundering. I was gasping when he let me come up for air.
Fenrir cleared his throat loudly. “Not here, brother. Not yet.”
I furrowed my brow, wondering what he meant. Jarl laughed and released me. “A little further, Juliet.”
Fenrir also wore the jerkin and boots and breeches he’d worn before, but now they were brushed clean of mud. He’d tied his long hair back. With a grin, he smoothed his thumb over the chafed patches around my mouth. He picked up the bluebells that had fallen out of my hand and tucked a spray behind my ear.
“What is going on?” I asked. Both warriors wore grins, but pressed their lips together at my question. They were hiding something.
“You’ll see,” Fenrir beckoned me to follow. He took my right hand and Jarl took the other.
“It’s a surprise.”
“Will I like this surprise?”
“Yes. At least, we hope you will.”
I sighed and let them pull me along. By the time we’d emerged from the woodland meadow, their excitement gripped me and I happily trotted between them. We came to a clearing that held a small stone hut. My steps slowed, but Fenrir and Jarl guided me straight to it.
“Hello? Who’s there?” A man scurried out, wearing monk’s robes. His tonsured pate gleamed in the light.
“Father, we are here to say our vows,” Fenrir said in his deep voice. He took my arm and tugged me next to him. My mouth was hanging open. So was the friar’s. His wide eyes took in the huge warriors—their rough garb, their shining weapons.
“To be joined in holy matrimony?”
“Yes,” Jarl said, cocking an eyebrow at the tiny chapel. “I wish to be married in the tradition of your god.”
The friar opened and closed his mouth once or twice, gaping like a fish. “Of course, of course. And you are baptized in the Holy Church?”
“Yes,” Jarl lied.
I must have made a sound because Fenrir’s hand tightened on mine.
“If the answer was no,” Fenrir asked, “would you still do the rites?”
“Well, ah,” the priest stammered. “I am only sanctioned to join two baptized in the eyes of God.”
“She serves your god,” Fenrir pointed to me.
“I am baptized,” I said.
“Ah well, then.” The priest cleared his throat. “You should not be unequally yoked. So says the Apostle Paul.”
“Huh,” Jarl snorted. “No one’s getting yoked.”
My cheeks burned twin flames.
“Perhaps, Father, you might make an exception,” I said quietly.
“Perhaps, perhaps,” the friar agreed, taking out a cloth and mopping his face and bald head.
Fenrir stepped forward. The friar cringed when the giant warrior held up his fist but soon realized what Fenrir held: a leather bag bulging with coin. Silently, Fenrir turned it over and let the coins spill out. They clinked to the ground, a small pile of gold. The friar blinked at it.
“Perhaps it will be all right,” the man bobbed his tonsured head. “Would you like to come inside?”
Jarl grimaced and ducked his head inside the the chapel door to peer at the dark, dank space.
“No,” he said, and I hid a smile. His shoulders would barely fit through the door. There was no way both Jarl and Fenrir would fit.
My smile fell away. Which warrior was I marrying? Did it matter?
“Very well,” the priest said, his eye on the gold. “One moment. Wait right here.” He disappeared into the tiny church and returned with a heavy gold cross, a cup of wine and a small plate that contained the Host. These he set on the stone wall. “You wish to begin immediately?”
“Yes,” Jarl said. His voice held a ti
nge of growl.
“Yes, thank you, Father,” I said, and grabbed Jarl’s hand. Please don’t turn into the beast.
Jarl looked down at me, a golden glint in his eye. Fenrir had retreated behind us. By unspoken agreement, it was settled. I was to marry Jarl.
“Very good.” The priest was practically rubbing his hands together in excitement. “First, you must confess your sins and be absolved.” He turned to Jarl and motioned for the warrior to go with him a few steps away for privacy.
Jarl did not budge. “What sins?”
“All your sins.” The priest scurried back to stand before us when he realized the warrior wasn’t going to follow. “How long has it been since your last confession?”
“A long time,” Jarl said slowly, stroking his beard.
“Decades,” Fenrir muttered with a laugh and I frowned at him.
“It’s all right,” the priest encouraged. “You can sum them up.”
Jarl was still rubbing his bearded chin. “What exactly count as sins?”
The priest’s eyes bulged. “Well,” he said after a pause. “The usual. There are many types of sin—”
“Can you give me a list?”
The priest took a deep breath. “Well, first there are grave sins. Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife…” he trailed off as Jarl started nodding.
“Is that all?” Fenrir asked.
“Um, no. There’s also heresies, envies, drunkenness—”
“I’ve definitely done that one,” Jarl said.
“Revellings,” the priest’s voice faltered a little. “M-murders—”
“That too,” Jarl said at the same time Fenrir asked, “What about war?”
“What about it?” The priest dabbed the cloth at his shiny brow.
“Well, we’ve killed many men. But was it murder?” Fenrir rubbed his chin. The friar looked like he would faint.
“Doesn’t matter,” Jarl shrugged. “I’m pretty sure I’ve murdered a few men outside of battle. Just for fun. Is that all of the sins?”
