by T S Florence
“More like, from who,” Jack said.
“I took care of that,” Ragnar snapped.
“You know as well as I do that the problem will never be solved,” Jack stepped back, as Ragnar loosened his grip.
“Where are you taking her?” Ragnar asked.
“To your home,” Jack said.
“This is my home,” Ragnar growled, yet more softly than before, for the pain of rejection was beginning to overcome his anger.
He looked at the sacks that were already loaded into the horse’s cart. He recognised them from last night. All of Rose’s gold. There was enough to fund a small army for a lifetime, he thought.
“And what of her livestock?” Ragnar asked.
“It is taken care of,” Jack said.
“Tell me,” Ragnar stepped forwards.
“I have bought it from her. I had a substantial savings from my work as a smith over the years. If she ever decides to come back, it will be hers to take,” Jack said.
“Traitorous bastard,” Ragnar said.
“You’ve said that one already,” Jack said.
“It’s true,” Ragnar said.
“Why don’t you come with us? I know Rose would like it,” Jack said.
“She doesn’t want me, she never has. She took her freedom as soon as it was in front of her, and she cut me loose instantly. She can have my home, and I’ll have hers,” Ragnar strode to his horse, which was already saddled - a part of his plan to take Rose into a secret part of the woods after their marriage. What a fool, he thought.
“Ragnar,” Rose called, running out of the front gates.
“What,” Ragnar called, rounding his horse.
“Jack told you?” She asked.
“I should have left you in Fyrkat the second time, it would have saved us both this trouble,” Ragnar did not wait for a reply. He grabbed the reigns of his horse and kicked hard, with no end destination in his mind.
[TIME STAMP HERE]
Rose
Her heart felt more numb than her blue fingertips, as she clung to the rope that held the main sail in its place. She did not feel pain, or hope, or fear. She did not feel. Ragnar had proven to him that he did not care for her. He did not love her like she loved him. It was about control, and when he could sense that she would not bend to his will, he left.
Not even the silhouette of Fyrkat brought joy to Rose’s heart. She prayed that Elder Ragnar was still there. If he was not, this would all have been for nothing, for she would have nobody to turn too.
Isla had begged her to stay. Rose asked how she had found out so quickly, the princess has ears in every corner of her kingdom, she’d said. A tiny smile curled at the edges of Rose’s lips as she thought of Isla. The only small consolation was having Brenna and Torsten on board with her. It was a small comfort, in an otherwise uncomfortable situation, and Rose had come to realise that comfort was a pleasure of the mind, and not the heart.
“He will come for you,” Brenna took Rose’s cold hand and held it between her own, which were warm despite the frigid winds that blew off Fyrkat’s shores.
“Your hands are warm,” Rose said, not taking her eyes off Fyrkat’s shores.
“Torsten has been keeping them warm… Are you sure that this is what you want? Coming back here?” Brenna asked.
“I am. I want to raise the child without a fear for its life,” Rose said.
“Ragnar could have-” Brenna began, but Rose cut her off.
“Ragnar should not bear the responsibility of not only my own life, but also a child, in a land where people want to kill both,” Rose said.
“He wanted that responsibility,” Brenna said.
“My child will be raised here, in Fyrkat, as I was.” Rose felt a kick in her stomach at that comment, as if her unborn child was understanding the conversation.
The wooden boat’s creaking quieted to a whisper in the wind, as the waves slowly lulled to a dull rock. They had reached Fyrkat’s sheltered bay.
Rose had not yet seen Ragnar. Usually the whole town gathered at the sight of newcomers. Torsten helped Brenna climb off the boat onto the small jetty that jutted out from Fyrkat’s stony shore. Small waves rocked the boat gently against the jetty, making the step off a precarious one. Once Brenna was safely on the jetty, Torsten held out his hand for Rose. Torsten’s hand was warm, and brought Rose’s attention to the icy weather.
“It’s cold,” Rose said, as she took Torsten’s hand.
“My hand?” Torsten asked, confused.
“Your hand is warm. I meant the weather,” Rose laughed.
“Ah. Yes, not like England. She’s a warm, fertile country, at least for half of the year” Torsten said.
“And dangerous,” Rose muttered to herself.
Rose thought back to her mother. Many of the men that had come to the farm that night were killed, despite Rose’s protests. Egbert was one of those men. One of the few people that were saved was Elsbeth. Despite Rose’s kindness after the whole event, she was still blinded by her own piety and madness. She was not the same woman that Rose had left all those years ago. Yes, she was religious, but she was not hateful. Something had died in her during the years Rose had been gone. Maybe it was the death of her father, maybe it was her disappearance, maybe it was both. Maybe it was just life that had made her like that.
“Where is Earl Ragnar?” Rose asked the closest child on the wharf.
“Probably drunk, in the great hall like usual,” the child said, laughing.
“Drunk? Earl Ragnar never got drunk?” Covered her mouth, shocked at the information.
“He is these days,” another child quipped.
Rose noticed that the men eyed each other warily, as if they were embarrassed at what the children were saying.
“Where is Earl Ragnar?” Rose asked one man.
“In the great hall,” he said softly.
Rose did not wait for further information. She trudged through the muddy streets until she reached the great hall. The sound of drunk men singing good songs badly made its way through the open door. The smell of ale and unwashed bodies meat hit Rose as she entered the hall.
Some men were asleep, face down on their tables, some were singing badly, with women sitting in their laps, and a few men stood in a distant corner, talking seriously. Ragnar sat in the large, high-backed chair, his head resting sideways on his shoulder, as he slept.
Rose turned around, walked out into the street, where she found a bucket that was catching water runoff from a nearby shelter, and carried it back inside. This time, men turned to watch as she stormed towards Ragnar.
“Isn’t that his slave girl, the one that Young Ragnar left with?” whispers started to take the place of badly sung songs, and the serious men in the corner turned and frowned as she stood on the raised platform that was said to denote superiority. Ragnar’s belly, bigger than it was when she had last seen him, rose and fell with his breath.
“Ragnar,” Rose said loudly.
He did not rouse.
“Ragnar,” Rose repeated, more loudly.
Again, he did not move.
Rose leaned forwards, and turned the bucket upside down, the icy water splashing down his face and onto his round belly. A rage-filled scream erupted from Elder Ragnar as he reached for his sword.
“Who’s dying?” He screamed, as he stood to his feet and swayed on the spot.
“I suppose that would be me,” Rose said.
“Hilly?” Ragnar croaked, his voice hoarse from dehydration and sleep.
“Well, if you’re going to kill me then get on with it,” Rose clipped.
Ragnar slowly slid his sword back into its sheath. “What are you doing here?” He wiped the water from his face.
“I decided to come back,” Rose said.
“You’re pregnant,” his eyes widened as he looked down at her growing belly.
“So are you, by the looks,” Rose quipped.
hush fell around the hall, as men waited to see what puni
shment Earl Ragnar’s slave girl would receive for such an insult. He looked down, and put his hand on his stomach, as if considering its size. “Twins, I think,” He said mildly.
Rose could not help but laugh. Quietly, at first, but then Ragnar began to laugh, too. Soon, they were both laughing uncontrollably. She rushed forwards as she laughed, falling against his immense frame, hugging him tight.
“You’re back, Hilly,” he said.
Relieved murmurs began to fill the hall, as men sighed with relief that there was not going to be any punishment for the newly arrived golden haired pregnant girl.
“I’m back, and you’re going to be a grandfather,” Rose stepped back.
“You are having Ragnar’s child?” He gasped.
“I am. You need to sober up,” Rose said.
“I knew it,” Ragnar balled his hand into a fist, as if experiencing some kind of victory.
A horn sounded from outside. The sound of a war horn. Jack had been on the second boat, following Rose’s. “We’ve been followed,” he said.
The men who had been standing in the corner of the great hall in a serious discussion only moments ago drew knives from their belts and advanced towards Elder Ragnar.
47
The day after Rose left Newcastle
Ragnar
“I need ships,” Ragnar was again standing in front of Ivar, asking for one of the most precious commodities known to man. Fighting ships.
“To go where?” Ivar scratched at his beard.
“You damn well know where,” Ragnar growled.
“She left yesterday without a word,” Isla said, her face showing her sadness.
“How can I know you’ll come back,” Ivar asked.
“You can’t know, not until I’m back,” Ragnar replied.
“You won’t come back,” Ivar said.
“Maybe,” Ragnar said.
“Then we will go with him. And we can return with the ships,” Isla said to Ivar.
“What?” Ivar turned to his queen with a frown.
“I want to see where she grew up. I want to see what your northern lands are like,” Isla said.
“The northern lands will make you believe in the old gods. The true gods,” Ragnar said.
“That much is true,” Ivar said.
“How so?” Isla said.
“Our mountains could not grow like that without the help of Odin himself,” Ivar said.
“We are wasting time,” Ragnar growled, “We must leave. We can catch them before they reach Fyrkat if we leave today. Your boats are faster than the trading ships they left with,” Ragnar said.
“Very well,” Ivar stood and stretched. “It has been a while since I went on an adventure.”
Present day
Rose
“It’s that bastard,” one of the Fyrkat’s warriors yelled.
“Grim,” Elder Ragnar growled.
“Shield wall,” Ragnar’s voice boomed over the sound of the waves, and men began to fall into formation.
“Why should we listen to an old drunk?” A formidable warrior with tattoos on his face shaped up to Ragnar.
Ragnar did not even care to look into the man’s eyes. His huge bear-like paw flashed through the air, and the back of his hand cracked across the man’s face like a sack filled with sand. The man fell to his knees and put his hand out to steady himself from falling.
“Shield wall or die,” Ragnar walked towards the shoreline. Three boats approached. At least two hundred vikings were coming for revenge. The boats had the same colours as the ones that had come on that fateful day she was taken from their farmstead.
Ragnar had saved her life for a second time, following that event. Three times in total he had saved her life. She knew that luck came in threes. She also knew that her Christian god thought luck to be a thing of the devil, and that all his followers needed was faith. And so she prayed to her Christian god, despite sleeping out of wedlock. Despite fellow Christians attempting to take her life back in her home country. She prayed that she would live long enough to see her child take its first breath.
One day earlier
Ragnar
“Every damn boat,” Ivar growled.
“You still have your queen and all your men. We can build you new damned boats,” Ragnar growled as they marched through the rocky terrain, dwarfed by the immense cliffs that surrounded them. It was one of the few things in life that made Ragnar feel small. The mountains of his home country. He felt nearer to the gods when he walked among them.
They had been caught in a storm and lost all of their boats. Fortunately, no men were lost in the chaos, and the entire party had managed to get ashore. Ragnar was relentless. He commenced marching as soon as the last man had made it to dry land.
“Are we much further?” Isla asked.
“We will rest soon,” Ragnar said.
“Will we?” Ivar questioned him.
“I am an Earl in these lands,” Ragnar warned.
“And I am a king in my own,” Ivar returned.
“And I’m a queen,” Isla said sweetly, trying to defuse the tension between the two men.
“We can rest when you are tired, my lady,” Ragnar said, more softly.
They led an immense party of five hundred men, for when the queen travelled, she travelled with protection. Ragnar and Ivar could protect her from fifty men alone, but this was not an ordinary expedition.
Rose
The spikes that had been lodged in the ocean impaled Dag’s boats. He was still no better of a viking than he had been the last time he had taken them. Such a basic defence had already rendered two of his three boat’s unusable, at least not without significant repairs.
But the spikes did not harm the men. Slowly, they began to climb down into the water, carefully, not to impale themselves on the spikes that jutted out of the water.
Rose huddled with Brenna, hidden away in a fortified building. They watched from a small window as the Fyrkat warriors prepared for battle. They sang songs of war and beat their weapons against their shields. They displayed courage, but they were outnumbered. Fyrkat was still a small village.
Grim’s men had climbed from the sinking boats and made their shield wall opposite Elder Ragnar’s. Fyrkat was outnumbered 2:1. After a war cry, Grim’s men began marching forward, one step at a time.
Ragnar
They had only slept half of the night, and rose again before daylight. Ivar had asked Ragnar why he felt the need to continue travelling so early. Ragnar could not explain himself, but something was not sitting right.
“Faster,” Ragnar said to the slowing troops.
They had grown lazy during the quiet times in England. Not enough fighting. It made men slow and weak. Even in training, they were not treating it like the training would save their lives one day. They were not Viking.
Finally, they reached a waterfall. The water fell from a cliff so high that it seemed as though the water came from the gods themselves.
“We are close,” Ragnar said.
“You know this place?” Ivar asked.
“Yes. It’s only a short walk now. We must not stop,” Ragnar said.
“If your instinct is wrong I’ll have you scrubbing boat hulls for an entire winter,” Ivar said.
“You have no boats,” Ragnar retorted.
Rose
The fighting was vicious. Elder Ragnar was at the front of the shield wall. He was immensely strong, but he was also old. Too old to be in a shield wall, let alone the front. And too inexperienced. Despite his position, he had spent most of his life as a farmer. His strength made up for his shortcomings. He swung a mighty axe that crushed a shield in front of him, but as his opponent fell, so did a warrior besides him. The gap in the wall was not filled quickly enough, and Grim’s men took advantage.
Men pushed around their Earl, protecting him from the onslaught. But it was hopeless; there was no way Elder Ragnar and his men could win now.
The sound of shouting erupted from the w
oods behind Fyrkat. More of Grim’s men, Rose thought. They had circled around the village to create an ambush, just in case. Rose’s hand instinctively went to her stomach.
