by Joanna Bell
"And how can you not see that I miss my father anyway?!" I reply with equal vigor. "How many times do I have to say it? Can you imagine how you would feel, if the King's men came and took you away from here, and fed you roasted pork every day, sent you the prettiest girls? You would miss your people, wouldn't you, even if the food was good and the girls beautiful? You would miss the North? You would think of your family worrying for you, and it would trouble you. You would miss me!"
"Of course I would," the Jarl replies at once. "But I wouldn't fight the way you've been fighting since the day I first laid eyes on you. I would understand that my life was changed, I would accept it. And believe me, your King would no more feed me roasted pork and send me pretty maids as he would welcome my warriors with a feast and hand over his lands to us with a smile."
"So that's it?" I ask. "I should just accept it? I should just accept that I have no say in any of this?"
"You have a say, girl," Eirik responds, and for the first time in our conversation I hear a hint of irritation. "If it's not your wish to be married then we won't be married. You would be very stupid to decide as much but I speak the truth – you won't be forced. It isn't our way to force women into marriages they don't want."
I've made it worse. He has come to me after Asgald's wounding to be comforted, to be held, and I have made it worse. I look up from my place near his chest and shush him gently when he goes to speak again. "I'm sorry," I whisper. "I believe the things I say to you, but it isn't the time. Your friend has been hurt, you worry for him, and I heap more worries onto your head."
Eirik looks down at me, his expression soft. "I can't be heated with you, Paige. If anyone else spoke to me the way you do..." he trails off and bends down to kiss my mouth. "But you – it seems nothing you can do will truly test me."
He's wrong about that, I think, but tonight will not be the night we find out. I turn to face him, still straddling his lap, and pull my tunic the rest of the way down. There is a level of complete comfort with the Jarl that I never even dreamed of reaching with another person. My self-consciousness about my body has gone, melted away like ice under a summer sun. When his eyes drink me in I tremble with nothing but anticipation. He bends down and takes one of my nipples into his mouth, running his tongue around the very tip of it until it stands up small and firm and shiny-wet in the firelight.
"You need me, girl."
He's not asking. He's not even telling, he's just stating the truth. I know it, and I know he knows it.
"Yes," I whisper, exhaling audibly as he repeats himself on my other nipple, pinching it gently between his fingers before he moves away. "Yes, Eirik."
"And you'll be mine. Come the thaw, you'll be my wife."
He wraps his muscular arms around me and flattens his hands against my back, pulling me in close as he draws my nipple into his mouth again, harder this time, and deeper. An arrow of lust flies down, directly to my sex, and I arch back, gasping with pleasure.
"Yes," I moan. "Yes, Eirik. Yes."
He stands, then, lifting me with him and placing me on the edge of the table, where he has just drawn the escape route he claims I will not be capable of following, and spreads my thighs with his hands. I tighten with anticipation, pushing my hands into his hair and crying out his name as he runs his tongue up under my clit and over it, over and over until my body is slick with sweat and my voice shaky with need.
"You're mine," he says, pausing just before he brings me to orgasm, as I squirm and beg and try desperately to pull his mouth back to me. He waits for another second and says it again, a confirmation: "You're mine."
And then he slips two fingers into my slippery, aching sex, drags his tongue over my clit again, and then one more time, and makes his words true, whether I want them to be or not.
I reach for him with weak, shaky arms a minute later, almost crying with the intensity of the orgasm he's just given me. He lets me catch my breath for a moment, but I know we're not finished, I know the Jarl needs me still.
I reach down and wrap one hand around him, smiling at the sound he makes as he thrusts himself up and further into my grip. His eyes find mine and he kisses my mouth, letting me taste his hunger.
"I wait all day for this," he says, his voice so deep it's barely more than a rumble. "When we sail, when we discuss plans in the longhouse. Even when we fight – I think about this. About you."
Eirik's hands are on my breasts, my body – everywhere – as he speaks. His breath is coming short now, I can feel the power inside him building. I look up into his eyes.
"So do I. I think about the way you are right now, that look on your face, the way your breath sounds. I thought you finished me just then but now, seeing you this way, I need you again."
The Jarl tilts my head back so he can kiss my neck, open-mouthed. "You need me again, girl? There's no gentleness in me tonight, you understand? I don't know if you can take –"
It's too much. He's trying to warn me, I know, but it's not having the intended effect. I get off his lap and we look at each other for a few seconds, saying nothing. I keep my eyes on his even as I turn away, until the very last second possible, and then I bend down over his table, offering myself up like a choice cut of venison on a platter.
"Voss," he whispers, and I feel his fingers between my lips, opening me up, readying me. I know I should be scared – the Jarl is so much bigger than me, and strong enough to snap a grown man's bones – but there is no resistance, no hesitation inside me.
"Eir –"
The word dissolves into a little high-pitched scream as he fills me, suddenly and completely, and makes no effort to slow himself, even from the first moment. I can't turn my head, either, because one of his hands is flat against the back of my neck, holding me down against the table, and the other is clasped to my hip, keeping me exactly where he needs me.
This isn't a conversation between bodies any longer, this is an invasion, the sweetest and most longed-for conquering. I submit, relaxing underneath him, breathing in time with his thrusts, because there is no other way to do it.
His movements are soon frenzied, his body tight as he covers me. It's too much, he's too much, and yet it's all I want in the world, to give what I can to please him. I know I'm going to come again, but I'm somehow not involved with it. He's going to decide how it happens, when it happens. I cry out a little when he sinks his fingers into the flesh of my hip so hard I know there will be bruises in the morning, but he's almost lost now, moaning my name, pinning me to the edge of the table.
And when those exquisite few seconds come, just before he finishes, and I hear his breath catch in his chest as I wait, my own body gives itself up at just the right moment. A wave of fiery bliss crashes over my head as the Jarl leans his head back and bellows his own pleasure into the smoky air, filling me, yanking me back against him until everything he needs to give has been given.
We stay where we are for a few moments, and the only sound is our breathing. Eventually, Eirik slips his hand around my waist and pulls me up to a standing position.
"Have I hurt you, girl? Let me see you, come here..."
He turns me around to face him and looks me up and down. I see his eyes widen and then look down myself. A belt of redness runs across my hips, deeper at the crest of the hipbones themselves.
"What –?" I ask, confused. "What's that?"
"It's from this," Eirik replies, running his hands along the edge of the table. "You'll be bruised come sun-up, my love. I'm sorry, girl – it was not my intention to leave marks –"
His expression is genuinely remorseful and something about him right now, in the difference between the aggressive hunger of a few minutes past and the current gentleness with which he runs his fingers over my reddened flesh, fills my heart.
"It doesn't matter," I say, stretching out on the furs and pulling Eirik down with me. "I wanted it the way it was. I wanted you that way." I look away, afraid to finish my thought.
"And?" He asks, reading me like
a book. "What is it you keep back?"
I take my tunic, lying within arm's reach, and begin to play with the thin leather belt that hangs from a loop at the waist. I do not look at Eirik. "I liked that I – that I could make you feel those things," I say, very quietly. "That you were, you know, that you were like that because of me."
"Your cheeks are as rosy as the dawn, Paige. You wear the marks of passion on your body and yet you flush at words. What a strange little creature you are."
"I am not a 'strange little creature!' I protest, smiling.
"Oh yes you are. Beautiful, yes, and sometimes I fear smarter than myself – but undeniably strange. No matter, tomorrow I will tell my people that I intend to marry the strange little Angle – if that's even what you are."
I stretch out luxuriously and a phrase from the psychology class I took during my first year at college pops into my mind: cognitive dissonance. The stress or upset at holding two opposing ideas or thoughts in one's head. Eirik speaks of a wedding, and part of me melts away under his blue-eyed gaze, happy – eager – to be carried down the current of his river. Another part of me knows there will be no wedding. When I take his goodnight kiss and tell him yes, yes, we will marry, it isn't a lie. Even as I know it cannot happen, it isn't a lie.
Chapter 19
9th Century
Five days later, I stand next to the Jarl as his wife-to-be in front of a great structure built of sticks and logs all carefully intertwined so as to hold themselves up. Around this structure stand the higher Vikings – Eirik's men, their wives if they have them, Hildy, the healers – all women – and, at its foot, Asgald's parents. Their faces are stern but I see them clutching at each other under the furs that blow up in the gusting wind. The sun has just set and darkness creeps across the sky from the east. The stars emerge over our heads and Asgald, the young warrior, lies dead atop the pyre.
There are many long pauses in the ceremony, many times we find ourselves facing silently into the biting winter winds. No one turns away. I do not understand the words being sung, or all the meanings of the gestures being given, but it could not be more obvious that respect is being paid.
Finally, Eirik himself steps forward, approaching the young man's parents and kissing them gravely on their foreheads. They kneel before him, each kissing the back of his hand and then standing again. Still, the only sound is the howling wind.
"He was green!" Eirik suddenly bellows, turning to face his people. "He was green but he was not weak! His was the strength of the young birch, flexible still, yes, but speaking of the real hardness of the full-grown man to come. Perhaps I should be glad of his death, for he surely would have challenged me, in time..."
The Jarl's voice rises over the weather as he speaks of Asgald's life, of his childhood in their homeland and his skill as a warrior. I do not know how long his speech is, because most of my body is numb with the cold, just as most of my mind is too caught up in the spectacle unfolding in front of me to be thinking of anything else.
"We light the fire now," Eirik shouts, holding a wooden torch wrapped with linen and soaked in oil over his head, "to bid the valkyries come and take his soul to the Great Hall! We do this even as all of us here know they are here already, howling with the wind, demanding the young warrior for their procession!"
I watch, awed, as the Jarl, clad in his finest furs and bare-chested even in this chill, steps to the side and dips the torch into a small fire to light it. He hands it to Asgald's mother, who steps stiffly forward and pauses for just a moment before holding it to the base of the pyre. The kindling catches almost at once and the fire begins to spread. Next, the young man's father does the same, holding the fire to the opposite end of the pyre. When he steps away he grabs for his wife desperately and I see that they will fall if either one of them loses their grip on the other.
Everybody stares, transfixed, at the funeral pyre. Tears fall and freeze immediately on windblown cheeks. The Jarl takes the torch and steps towards the center of the structure, holding it again to the base. The fire is everywhere now, licking and crawling its way upwards, reaching for the stars.
"A son!" Eirik shouts, holding the torch aloft again. "A brother! A warrior! Asgald! He flies away from us now, to Valhalla!"
The last two words – 'to Valhalla' are screamed, and I swear I hear Eirik's voice crack on the final syllable. I can't be sure, though, because the words are echoed now, by the assembled crowds.
"To Valhalla!"
And just as their voices mingle with their Jarl's, a shower of sparks explodes from the fire, bright orange against the black of the night, and my breath is stolen from my chest.
I am not religious. I was not raised religious. I do not believe in God, or Gods, or any of it. But something happens there, as I stand beside the pyre – a sense of leaving, a loss, as real as the quick turn of one's head when somebody leaves the room in a hurry. You're imagining things, Paige. You've been with these people too long, you're starting to adopt their superstitions.
Maybe so. Maybe I am starting to adopt their superstitions. But my heart is pounding and I am looking around, wide-eyed, at the solemn Vikings, barely able to hold back my astonishment. Did you hear that?! I want to ask, even though I'm not sure it made a sound. Did you see that?! Even though I am not sure I saw anything beyond sparks.
A short time later, after the fire has reached its peak and begun the work of turning the young warrior's earthly remains into ashes, the Jarl leads us back to the longhouse, where a feast awaits. The parents stay behind, and I grab at Eirik's hand, trying to tell him they're not with us. He knows what it is I'm going to say.
"They will stay until the end, girl. Alone. It's as it is."
'It's as it is.' The Vikings say it all the time. I reach for Eirik, wanting the comfort of his arm around me, but he holds me away and speaks sternly.
"It's not the time, Paige."
I fall back, a little hurt, mostly overwhelmed by what I've just witnessed. The people are silent as we make our way back. In the longhouse, they begin to talk somberly, a low murmur that never picks up. I am not seated with the Jarl for this feast, but at the opposite end of the table, with the women and the old men and boys. Casks of ale are brought in, along with huge platters of cold ham, bowls of fresh butter and dark, heavy loaves of bread. A simpler feast than usual, but just as generous. My stomach rumbles at the smell of the food, but there is another speech to be made – this time, by Veigar.
By the time he finishes I'm almost salivating. I look to the women seated around me, waiting for the signal. Hildy soon grabs one of the loaves, tearing off what looks to be a good half of it and I reach for my cup of ale, prepared to fill my belly.
Something odd happens, though, when the scent of the ale reaches my nose just before I take a sip. There's something sweet in it – sickly sweet, almost like rot. I slam the cup back down on the table and a couple of the women seated by my side look at me questioningly. So does Hildy. She laughs when she sees me try again, only to place the cup back on the table with even more force.
"It's the light ale tonight, girl. The dark is only for the higher people, not for communal feasts. Have you gotten so used to fine things already?"
"I, uh –" I start, meaning to deny Hildy's claim – I hadn't even noticed the ale was any different to what I drink with the Jarl in the roundhouse – but my words stick in my throat. My stomach suddenly feels very full. I look up, confused, and Hildy stares right back. I think she realizes what's about to happen before I do, because she's up on her feet before I've even managed to clap my hand over my mouth, hauling me towards the door.
We make it outside, thankfully, before I vomit over the frozen ground. I look up afterwards, sweaty and bemused, and then do it again.
"What the fuck," I mutter, angry at making a spectacle of myself like this, especially in front of Hildy, and also because I'm genuinely surprised. The feeling of sickness had been so fast, so out of the blue.
"What's that you say, girl?"
>
"Nothing," I reply, running my hands down over my thick woolen tunic, checking for splash-back. Hildy is standing there with her arms crossed over her bosom, smirking at me. Emboldened now, because my engagement to the Jarl is known throughout the camp, I make a face at her.
"Why are you looking at me like that?" I demand. "It's not like I could help it. You didn't even have to come out here with me, Hildy, I don't know why this has to be about you. You always –"
"Shut up, girl," she replies easily, before reaching out and grabbing one of my breasts. I leap away, slapping at her hand.
"What are you doing?!" I shriek. "Get your hands off me! I'll let the Jarl know you –"
Hildy grabs me by the shoulders – I am once again reminded of how surprisingly strong she is – and gets in my face before I can finish threatening her. "How the Jarl saw fit to take you as a wife I will never know," she says, rolling her eyes. "Perhaps he enjoys the fact that with you never shutting your mouth, he isn't called on to say much when he retreats to his roundhouse?"
I struggle and think about kicking at her shins, but Hildy holds me steady and fear of what she could do to me before Eirik hears my screams holds me back.
"Gudry and Anja say you missed your last moonblood, girl – is it true?"
"What?" I ask, indignant, as she finally lets go of me. "Moonblood?"
Oh, moonblood. My period. Wait a minute.
"My what?" I cry. "My moonblood? Why are Gudry and Anja – why the hell are you creepers talking about my moonblood, Hildy?!"
Hildy doesn't know what a creeper is, so she doesn't get angry at being called one. Instead I am treated to another eye roll, this one dripping with condescension. "You're to marry the Jarl, girl, are you not? Has he come to his senses and changed his mind? No, I think not. He announced it this week but the women have known for awhile now, the way it is with these things. It's Gudry and Anja's job to care for you, you understand that – right?"
