Soul's Fire (The Northwomen Sagas Book 3)

by Susan Fanetti

  Bjarke and Astrid stood on the shore as the ships shoved off. Neither of them waved, and Leofric saw no one on the ships wave, either. After a few minutes, when the rowers had moved into bluer waters in the bay, Bjarke and Astrid turned as one and climbed up the rise toward him. Bjarke nodded and walked on, back toward their horses. Astrid stopped at his side and took the hand he’d held out.

  He could see that she was inexpressibly sad, but she twitched the corner of her mouth up in an attempted smile. He pulled her into his arms and turned her so her back was against his chest and she could see the ships.

  “They’ll be back. Mayhap in only weeks.”

  “No. Not before new summer. Need time for—to—make ready.”

  He squeezed her, offering, he hoped, reassurance. “But they’ll be back.”

  “Ja. They will.”

  “And we will travel to them someday, and you can show me the world that made you.”

  She leaned back, resting her head on his shoulder. “I like that, ja. But it make part of me only. This world make me, too.”

  “I love you, Astrid of the North.”

  “Love,” she whispered, nodding. Her eyes, though, were on the ships moving away.

  “We can stay here and watch them as long as you like.”

  Again, she nodded. Leofric held her and rested his cheek on her head. While she watched her friends leave her again, he waited and hoped that she felt surrounded by the love she was staying to keep.

  They stood like that until all eight ships had moved out of the bay and had unfurled their sails. As the ocean breeze filled them full, Astrid stood straight and turned in his arms to face him.

  “Take me home,” she said, her voice soft with sadness and with love.

  Leofric leaned into the carriage and held his hands out to her. She’d intended to ignore him and climb out on her own two legs, but when she tried to get herself off the seat, she failed.

  He laughed and stepped back up so he could help her from the seat as well. When she was finally standing on the ground, he groaned dramatically and arched as if his back ached. “You get bigger each time, I think.”

  Astrid glared at her husband. “King or not, you should be careful with your words, lest they cost you your blood.”

  Leofric grinned down at the two children goggling up at them. “We jest, children. Your mother doesn’t mean it.”

  “You’ll see if I do not.” But even the discomfort of the end of her third carrying couldn’t keep her in poor temper on this day, and the grin took over her face before she finished the threat. Leofric laughed and kissed her hard. When he pulled back, she was breathless, but that was no rare occurrence of late.

  The footmen and driver, and the villagers who’d stopped to watch the royal family exit their carriage, all remained in their bows and curtsies, pretending not to notice their exchange.

  Leofric had been king, and Astrid his queen, for a year now. His father had died the year before, in his sleep, after celebrating with his family the day marking Eira’s second year of life. The people of Mercuria were just beginning to accept Leofric’s more relaxed style of rule. Eadric had been a good and fair king, but he’d been reserved and devout. Leofric enjoyed life more obviously than his father had, and he wasn’t above teasing his wife and children in public. Or bending his queen back over his arm and kissing her as if he intended to do more right there.

  “Godric, take your sister’s hand and escort her to the docks, will you?”

  “Yes, Papa.” Their dark and serious son took Eira’s hand, still round and soft with an infancy not so long past, and headed toward the docks.

  Leofric offered Astrid his arm. “Come, my queen. We have guests to greet.”

  She took her husband’s arm, and they followed their children to the Norshire docks, nodding as the people of the village bowed and curtsied.

  The first settlers had come the summer after the alliance had been forged, when Godric had been just a new babe. In the six years since, Norshire had grown into a bustling and prosperous community.

  Bjarke had used those first months, nearly a year, without his family to learn the ways of Mercuria and his responsibilities as a noble. He’d also marked out a place to begin the village of Norshire. Coming from a coast-dwelling people, he’d wanted the sea nearby, so the village spread from the small bay upward, fading into farmland at the top of a cliff. They’d made the buildings and streets meander down a hill. It was a lovely place, though the trek from the bay to the church was challenging for some.

  The church. Every village had a church at its center, and Leofric and his father had both been adamant on that point. Bjarke had resisted, and the first settlers had as well. They’d finally conceded, expecting to ignore the structure that they thought of as the Christian treasure house.

  But the Christian god had a way of sneaking in, and by now, many of the settlers had given up the gods of Asgard and had been baptized into the Catholic church. It had begun, Astrid thought, as a way to ease their business in this Christian world, but over the years, as the northern settlers began to meet, blend with, and sometimes mate with, other people of Mercuria, the faith of this place seemed to be taking true hold.

  Godric and Eira had been baptized as babes, and they took instruction about the Christian god from Father Thomas, the realm’s bishop. Astrid had fought and won many battles with Leofric over the years, but that was one she hadn’t even tried to wage. His god was of this place, as were their children, so they should hold this god close.

  But she told them stories of her people—of their marvelous living gods and of the mighty people who’d achieved great things. Warriors like Vali Storm-Wolf. Great leaders like Jarl Leif of Geitland. And shieldmaidens like Brenna God’s-Eye and Astrid of the North.

  For her part, Astrid, more than seven years after her baptism, could feel her gods fading away. She liked Father Thomas very much. He was kind and wise, a healer at heart, and she’d found herself going to him often when she had questions for which she could find no answers on her own. She attended Mass regularly because it was expected of her, and she found herself sometimes moved.

  What she believed about the world beyond this one, she no longer knew for certain. She kept her mind on this world, and she knew what was true and important here: her husband, her children, her life.

  And today, her life was full and complete. On the docks stood Leif, Olga, and their son, Magni, who had grown, at fourteen years, into a tall, fine-looking young man. Astrid noticed at once, before they were close enough to greet, that he wore an arm ring, so he was a true man indeed. Vali, Brenna, and their oldest two children, Solveig and Håkon, were there as well, talking with Norshire men who’d been helping unlade the ship.

  This ship had brought no raid, no war. This ship brought friendship, a renewing of an alliance that had grown strong and bountiful over the course of peaceful years.

  Leif and Vali had visited three times since the alliance had been made. Brenna had joined them once before. Astrid and Leofric had visited Geitland twice as well. This was the first time that they’d brought any of their children with them, because this was the first time they’d made a trip primarily for friendship, without other business to attend.

  Solveig, at fifteen years, looked so much like her mother that Astrid had the strange sense of looking into the past. The two were dressed alike as well, in leathers and braids. Solveig was taller than her mother, though—and Brenna was a tall woman, like Astrid.

  Håkon favored his parents in equal measure, it seemed. He was—Astrid figured in her head—half a year younger than Magni, so near fourteen years, and taller than Magni already, and more broad. His size and darker coloring were of his father, but there was something in his aspect that showed his mother as well. A tendency to frown, perhaps—though Brenna, like Astrid, had found a life that made smiles fit more easily on her face.

  It was the first time Olga had traveled since she’d first landed in Geitland, before Magni had been b
orn—and, truthfully, she looked a bit worse for the trip. She was a woman who needed a good rest on steady ground.

  The three families met together at the head of the docks, and there was a sudden wellspring of chaotic happiness, as hugs and handshakes were exchanged, and happy words said. They all spoke in the Northern tongue. Leofric had become fluent in Astrid’s language, and they had taught their children from birth to speak in both ways.

  Bjarke and his family came to the head of the docks. The Duke of Norshire, dressed to greet dignitaries, lifted a hand in greeting.

  “Come!” Leofric called out above the group’s gleeful babble, sweeping Eira into his arms. “Norshire has put on a festival to greet our dear friends, and tonight we shall feast in the great hall.”

  He met Astrid’s eye, and she nodded. She was too far along with her third child to make it up Norshire’s hill on foot, so they would proceed without her. Carrying Eira, he and Leif strode out ahead. Vali swept Godric into his big arms and followed them, holding Solveig’s hand. Brenna followed with Håkon, and Olga, leaning a bit on Magni’s strong arm, walked with Astrid.

  When they reached Bjarke and his family, Leofric stepped back and let the greetings and welcome continue. Then Bjarke and his wife took the group up into the town. Astrid held back with her husband. Before Magni could lead his mother too far away, Astrid grabbed his arm.

  “Olga, would you prefer to stay back here with us? We can sit under the canopy with Mayda and enjoy the view while we rest.” Dunstan’s wife was nearly as great with child as Astrid. She was posed prettily on a grassy patch that overlooked the sea, under a silk canopy.

  Her friend, still pale with seasickness, nodded. “Go on, kullake,” she said to her son. “I’ll rest and be well soon.”

  With a nod, Magni led his mother to the canopy and helped her sit. Astrid had made her own seat before he or Leofric could help her. The king walked away to speak with Dunstan, and Magni gave the women a courtly nod and ran to catch up with the group.

  Olga laughed as they watched him go. In his haste to miss nothing, he looked more like a boy than a man, his blond hair swinging over his back with each hurried stride. “You’d think I was gravely ill rather than simply woozy.”

  Astrid remembered the days when he’d been a small boy, and she had thought he would never be disciplined enough to follow his father. She’d been wrong. “He takes care of his mother.”

  “Yes, indeed he does. He’s a good boy. A good man. Like his father.”

  Realizing that they were speaking in a language Mayda didn’t understand, and that Lady Tarrin had never met Olga, Astrid switched to the language they could all speak. She made introductions, and the three women picked up the empty chatter that women made when they’d been left behind by their husbands.

  Though Astrid had redefined what being a queen meant in Mercuria, there were some feminine courtly skills even a warrior queen couldn’t escape, especially in a kingdom without war. Making pretty words of little import was one of them.

  Leofric had explained to her the political importance of a queen who could smooth the social waters of the realm. He’d convinced her of the power in pretty words.

  So she had set out to achieve greatness in her every role.

  ~oOo~

  Feasting when Astrid’s people came was not the same as feasting for special guests from elsewhere in Anglia. Despite their alliance and the influx of settlers into Mercuria, there had not yet been significant melding of their cultures. What had occurred was more of a sharing than a blending. Her people retained their egalitarian impulses and their earthy attitudes. They were suspicious of finery and pomp and found all the many layers of ritual and steps of respect unnecessarily complicated, but both ways had come to coexist.

  Astrid had learned to accept that her adopted home found comfort in its regimens and rituals.

  To their credit, Leif and Vali and the others had learned to moderate their behaviors in the great hall. They ate and drank and spoke in ways that mimicked the nobles at court. Leofric’s attitude about feasting was considerably more lighthearted than his father’s, and a middle place had been found between the courtly rigor of the kingdom and the emphatic revelry of their guests.

  Over the years, the ‘Wildmen of the North’ had become more familiar to the people of Mercuria, and thus less wild and scandalous. By now, few tensions remained among all of Astrid’s people.

  There was dancing after the meal, because there was always dancing. Now, with a whole village of northern people residing in Mercuria, the dances and music Astrid had known in her life before had become part of the customs of the realm, and the musicians played music from both worlds. Her people hadn’t learned so well the traditional dances of this place, but they were willing to try and to laugh when they failed.

  Astrid was far too big and uncomfortable to dance, so Leofric took Godric and Eira onto the floor and danced with them both. Holding her belly as her babe danced inside her, Astrid smiled and watched all her people at play.

  When the musicians ended a Northern circle dance and struck up a courtly tune, Leif bowed out and came to sit beside her.

  “You look happy, my friend,” he said in their language. He set his hand on her belly, and his eyebrows went up when the babe kicked hard at the spot. “He’s dancing with us.”

  “Yes. He’s been happy tonight, too. But there’s not so much room in me for him to move so vigorously.”

  “It can’t be much longer.”

  “No,” she sighed. “Every morn I wake and hope it is the day, but he seems content where he is. More comfortable than I.”

  Leif chuckled, smiling down at her belly, his hand rubbing circles. Astrid scanned the dancers for her husband and found him. Their eyes met, but he had no more jealousy for Leif. He simply smiled and continued on with the dance.

  “What makes you laugh?”

  “I was thinking of the woman I knew in Geitland. The one who looked so sourly at Magni when he was playful and excited. I never thought to see a day like this one.

  She smiled. Much of that woman was still inside her, but Astrid now understood that she had been incompletely formed. She had thought she needed no love or tenderness, no family or child of her own. She had thought the very idea of happiness was a tale for stories and that strength and will were all she needed to be her best.

  In those days, she’d thought Brenna God’s-Eye had given up her life to become a wife and mother. Now, she understood that she had enriched that life. It was, in fact, possible to be both a shieldmaiden and a mother. Because a shieldmaiden was more than the weapon she wielded. A shieldmaiden was a shieldmaiden in her soul foremost. In peace or at war, alone or in company, a true shieldmaiden’s fire couldn’t be doused.

  And little was worth having or being if it couldn’t be shared.

  To Leif, she said, “They still say here that King Leofric tamed his wild woman and made her into a queen. It’s become quite a story.”

  He grinned. “And you let them live? With all their parts?”

  She returned the grin. “I let them think they’re right.”

  ~oOo~

  A few days later, while their guests were still with them, Astrid pushed a fussing Audie away with a huff. “Enough, Audie.”

  “Forgive me, ma’am. I just want you to look your best.”

  “Do I not look well?” She cocked an eyebrow at her maid, and regretted her teasing when Audie went pale.

  “You’re beautiful, ma’am. The most beautiful—”

  “I was teasing, Audie. I look a mess. I just brought this boy into the world, and the work is hard. I don’t need to be beautiful today. I made a miracle. So go on—His Majesty will want to meet his new son.”

  In the world of her past, Leofric would have been with her, if he’d wished, but in this world, men were not allowed in the birthing room, and Leofric had looked quite ill at the thought of it, when she’d been carrying Godric. So she brought her children into this world with the help of
friends, and Leofric met them after all the reality of it had been cleaned away.

  Astrid looked down into the fat-cheeked face of her third child and second son. The many years of her life when she’d thought she would never want children seemed far away now. How odd that she’d believed that bearing children meant giving up strength and power.

  Above the fireplace across the room hung her axe, and she thought of the talk she’d had with Leif on the night of the feast. For years, she’d fought valiantly with that weapon in her hands. Now, living a fuller life, she understood that the power to wield an axe well was not the only power there was. A life of battle was lonely and fraught. The power to build a future, though—that made a life rich and complete.

  She hadn’t been tamed. She had grown.