by Julia Knight
“You’ve no choice. I intend to have land among the Saxons, good, fertile land, so my men no longer need to raid, to die. I intend it to be yours, where I will have right to it as your new husband. I intend to wed you at Winter Nights, and I will. And you’ll be a good wife, I don’t doubt. You were a good wife to your Saxon thane, you’ll be one to me. There will be little difference. You married him for position, I marry you for the same. I’ll not try you too hard, if I get the lands I want, and a son to rule them after me. I’ll even take your collar off, make you a freed woman. Not so many rights as one of us, born free as Norsemen, and still under my protection and command, but not a thrall. I tell you all this for frankness, for honesty between us as should be between husband and wife. Call it a wedding gift.”
Wilda clenched her hands behind her back and kept her voice as icy as the fjord outside, kept her fear locked away behind it. Survive. Be practical. “And yet, no marriage here would be legal there. In a church, it must be. A Christian church, before God. And that would mean you being baptised, embracing God. Or this marriage will mean nothing to the Saxons.”
Sigdir planted his hand on her shoulders and shoved her down to the bench. “Don’t speak. Do not ever speak unless I permit it. I still have men at your estates, remember. It wouldn’t take long to burn it all.” Rowena’s voice was earnest as she added her own words to Sigdir’s. “Please, my lady, you should do as he says. His temper’s a terrible thing to behold, especially when he’s been with Bausi.”
Wilda bit her lip to keep what she wanted to say back, and hated herself for it. She’d spent all her adult life biting her lip, keeping it back, being the lady everyone wanted her to be. Look where it had got her—a slave to a thug, soon to be his wife. Not now, now isn’t the time. Be practical. Wait. She stood up and smoothed her dress with demure hands, kept her eyes lowered and said nothing.
“Better, he says. Winter Nights is only days away. You have till then to learn their tongue better, and your place.” Rowena’s face was twisted with fear as she told Sigdir’s words. “Please, my lady. It could be worse. Much worse.”
Sigdir’s next words brought that home. “You will agree, or I will make use of you as I do my other thralls, with far less freedom, and no respect.”
The thought of that brought a shudder to her spine and Wilda nodded her acceptance. There seemed little else to do for now, and at the least she would be free, or freer.
Sigdir’s face lit up, lost its scowl and took on a relaxed smile that showed the tension he’d lost with her answer. The difference quite bewildered her, but Wilda managed a smile in return, keeping her puzzlement to herself.
At Sigdir’s orders, Rowena got them bundled into cloaks and outside, where the other thralls had built a fire. One of the men returned with a sheep, which he presented to Sigdir with some ceremony. Another brought ale in two cups, one each for Wilda and Sigdir. Even the smell of it was enough to make Wilda’s eyes water.
“Ale brewed from three measures,” Rowena said when Wilda asked. “I wouldn’t drink too much, my lady, but at the least it should calm Sigdir some, later.”
“And the sheep?”
Rowena talked with one of the warriors, raised her eyebrows in surprise, and translated, “A ceremony, to induct you into their law, into Sigdir’s house. You’ll not be free as a free-born woman, you’ll still have to do as he says, and behave respectfully, but you won’t be a thrall.”
One of the warriors came and, after much tugging and what sounded like cursing, took off Wilda’s collar. Sigdir placed it round the sheep’s neck, closed it, and held out a scramasax.
“What am I supposed to do now?”
“You take the sheep’s head, my lady.”
“I do what?”
Sigdir’s eyes followed them carefully as Rowena explained as best she could. “The sheep has your collar now, it’s you as slave. Now you free it—you—by killing it, and your life as a thrall. Sigdir will call for Odin and Thor, Frigg and Freya to welcome you into his house, under his protection. Once he’s done that, well, you’re one of them and he’ll fight to the death to protect you.” Rowena frowned. “It’s a big thing for him to do. Like—like baptising one of them, saying they can worship in God’s house. He’s saying in front of his gods that you are a person to him, not a thrall, beneath care or notice. That he’s responsible for you.”
Sigdir held the scramasax out to Wilda again and tried a smile. He seemed eager of a sudden, less the Devil’s child than just a man of another people, different to hers, but no better or worse. Yet her face still stung, her lip still swelled. In the end, it seemed she had little choice. At least she would be free—or freer, and there was something about Sigdir’s seriousness about this, the intent look in his eyes that made her believe he meant this for what it seemed. A gesture of trust.
The weight of the scramasax in her hand took her back to the last time she’d held one, when Einar the boy had lain in blood and agony for her. She wished he was here now. Sigdir held the sheep steady in front of her as she shut her eyes and brought the knife down. It took three hard strokes before the head fell away and the men hurried to collect it and the body, to stem the blood and prepare the sheep for roasting. It shouldn’t affect her so—she’d killed sheep before, pigs, rabbits. But not like this, not for a heathen ceremony, an affront to God.
Sigdir spoke some words—she caught the names Odin and Thor in among them—a phrase oft repeated, that made a verse of scripture come to mind. But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathens do. Yet he seemed so intent, as devout as the friars, as believing as she was, only in different gods, different practices. Blasphemous thoughts, which seemed to come with ease of late.
When the words were gone, Sigdir turned to her, solemn as a judge now. He let his gaze roam over the bruise on her face, her split lip, with something that seemed like regret and spoke through Rowena. “A matter of trust, between us. You’re now of my house, and your behaviour reflects on me. I trust that you’ll remember that, and in return know that the law now protects you. You are freed, not thrall. No man will harm you, not even me, or the law will prevail. Yet you have agreed to this marriage, and the law will uphold that too. For I will have my marriage, my land, and a son to take it after me.”
Wilda nodded to show she accepted what he’d said, and he grunted in apparent satisfaction before he jerked his head at Myldrith and made for his bed, Myldrith following meekly. Wilda and Rowena hurried inside, back into warmth and dim light. The warriors, all except one, left for a separate building where they made their beds. The one remaining came inside, stripped down to his breeches and lay down on the bench under a stack of furs. Wilda sank to a bench, her hand over her mouth. Rowena huddled next to her.
“Oh, my lady,” Rowena said. It seemed about all she was able to say for a long while. Wilda didn’t seem able to think past “his wife.” She wouldn’t, couldn’t. There would be no quiet love from this marriage, not to Sigdir. He was no God-fearing man, he wouldn’t be kind as Bayen had sometimes been. Yet she had no choice, none at all.
Finally the warrior began to snore gently and the fire died down.
“Rowena,” Wilda began. “I need to get out, I need to speak with someone. I have to go, no matter how. I can’t be married to him, I can’t. I have to run.”
Rowena sat back in alarm. “You can’t, oh, you can’t. Not even in summer, but now especially. How could you? You have to bear it, that’s all, what all women must bear. As his wife at least he must be respectful to you, at least must treat you as a person. That’s more than any Norseman need give a thrall. You have some hope, my lady.”
“No, no, I don’t, and neither does Myldrith, or you.” Wilda thought on Myldrith, at the changes in her since they’d been captured. Not just thin and frail but hopeless. That would be Wilda herself soon, if she didn’t run. Sigdir would be little different as a husband than he was as a master, she had no doubt of that no matter what he said on the law. No matter that he migh
t be devout, he was heathen, not Christian, no mildness in him, no thought of meekness. She had agreed because she had no choice, but there was time, there was a chance, faint and frail, that she need not marry him. She would never again marry because she must.
Wilda, renn. The words echoed down the years, from the day her life had changed forever to now. All he’d ever spoken to her, all he’d wanted from her, for her to run as she always loved to run. A man who’d stood before a murderer to save her, who’d stood before Agnar and his knife earlier. He was her only hope. “If I sneak out and back, will you look out, if I’m missed? Can I do it?”
Rowena looked bewildered. “I—I think so. But if he finds out—oh, my lady, if he finds out, our lives won’t be worth living. Why would you want to sneak out? Who would help you?”
“Because I have to. Poor Myldrith in there… If I can help her, help us all, to get away, then I have to try. And I’ll be damned to hell before I let Sigdir have any right to my lands, or me. God helps those who help themselves, isn’t that true?”
Rowena nodded uncertainly. “All right. It could be done. But you’d best not be long. It’s a fearful risk. I can watch while you go. If either of them wake, well…” A blush crept up Rowena’s neck. “I can keep them from being too interested in where you are, for a time. One of the other girls snuck out once or twice. There’s a young thrall up at Agnar’s she’s sweet on.” She looked round at the warrior. He lay fast asleep, his snores a gentle counterpoint to their conversation. “Go now, while it’s still early, and be back as soon as you can. They’ll be up at dawn, mark my words, but dawn’s late coming this time of year. Go through the byre, take the door there so you won’t wake him. And may God watch over you and send us salvation.”
“God is always watching us.” Wilda touched Rowena’s shoulder in thanks. “And salvation will be ours, in the end.” Though she didn’t think she believed that anymore.
Sigdir had taken the cloak Toki had made for her, but Rowena helped her find another and she wrapped herself in it before she crept through the byre, past the warm cows picking at wisps of hay. She sneaked the door open as quietly as she could and crept out into the crisp, hard air of winter. Toki’s hut was up the valley. She’d seen him riding down from it. Right on the outskirts of the spread-out village, but she could get there and back in time. She had to.
She ran. She’d always run, everywhere, when she was a child, run for the sheer joy of feeling the sand between her toes on the beach, the rustle and swish of corn or cool, dappled grass. Now she ran because she didn’t know what else to do, because it all pressed in, enough to crush her head with it. God had cursed her for helping a heathen, for helping the boy Einar, and this was a taste of the hell he had planned for her. A slow, cold hell that would freeze her solid. Snow slipped under her feet and she staggered to one knee, but righted herself quickly.
Before she had always run to something, but now her only thought was from. Away from slavery by another name, away from the spectre in her head of her quiet, cold marriage to a good man who was only a different kind of slaver. Away from Sigdir and his icy eyes, and his plan, a different kind of marriage. Away from being good, and pious, and doing what she was told because it was sensible and practical. She wanted to run till her cold heart burst and she could fall down dead, if that was the only way.
The hut was farther than it looked, and while a path had been cleared in snow that came up to her thighs, more was falling. It seemed that snow always fell here. It had hardly stopped since she’d arrived, as though the land itself wanted her icebound.
By the time she reached Toki’s hut, she was frozen, down to her bones. Even so, she hesitated by the door, afraid now to open it. Yet she had nowhere else to turn, no one else to ask for help, and she needed help. God had sent him to her, sent Toki to save her. God had sent him that one night when her childhood was cruelly murdered, and God had sent him now, when she needed him again. It would be a sin not to take what God had sent to help her in her hour of need. She pushed the door open.
Toki sat by the low fire wrapped in an old seal-fur, wretched in his heart. He’d lost his chance to keep Wilda away from Bausi, to keep her from saying what she’d seen and speak the words that would kill him and Gudrun, and Wilda too. Yet that wasn’t the burn in his chest, or only part of it.
She was Sigdir’s, and he wanted her to be his. Not as a master and thrall, but as a man and a woman. Yet now he wouldn’t even be able to see her. That had made the time since she’d come, since fear had began to claw his belly, bearable. To sit at Agnar’s house with her there, watch her. He wanted just that, if that was all he could have. To watch her smooth movements, the tilt of her head in the firelight, the set of her mouth when she spoke. Her slow smile when she looked at him.
He thought back to the raid, to the day he could hardly bear to recall. Her little fox-face watching them, of how wild and untameable she’d looked. Yet someone had tamed her, or maybe broken her. Her movements were smooth, yes, graceful. But there was a sense of something restrained, chained up about her. He wanted to unchain her, wanted to see again the wild face, see her run across the beach, free of all the care that seemed to sit on her shoulders. There must be something he could do, some way, but he couldn’t think of it, of how to get round Bausi and Sigdir and his own chains.
A blast of frigid air made him start and Einar snorted in his stall. The door opened and a bundled-up figure came in. He pulled himself to his feet when the cloak came off, thinking he must be asleep. He must be, because it was Wilda.
She stood shaking in the doorway, her lips twisting and her eyes red with tears she hadn’t cried. He couldn’t think what to do for long moments and they stood and watched each other until Einar snorted again and brought Toki’s notice away from her.
He shut the door and pointed to the one bench, suddenly ashamed for the meanness of his hut, for the little he had and that mostly rags. She perched on one end of the bench, her hands twisting together as though she was working herself up to something. He couldn’t think why she was here, how she’d got away. Why she’d come to him.
Wilda stared at the flames of the low fire and took a deep breath before she looked up at him. Something seemed to break inside her, the smooth grace gone, the elegance forgotten. Suddenly she was there again, the girl from long ago, hiding on a beach, hair wild and face wilder. She spoke, a rough, impassioned outpouring of words he had no hope of understanding. He shook his head, trying to convey his confusion, and she leaped to her feet again and grasped at his hands, a plea for something.
She stared at him in a way that made him want to pull away, to wrap himself in a cloak and not be seen. But the touch of her hands on his—he couldn’t pull away. It had been long and long since he’d had the comfort of a touch that was kind, that wasn’t a push or a shove or a hit. Just a touch, and he’d not remembered what he’d been denied until now.
She took a deep, halting breath, gathering herself maybe. “Sigdir.”
Thor’s blood—had Sigdir…? Toki looked her over carefully, her face, her arms, but saw no further hurt, no sign Sigdir had harmed her beyond the bruise and cut he’d made before. That didn’t mean he hadn’t done any more, but Toki had no way to ask that she’d understand.
She slid her hands from his and pointed to the ring on her left hand, a plain gold band. A wedding ring. She tried to say something else, but he couldn’t make it out through her accent.
“Went necht,” it sounded like. Finally she managed to get the sounds right and he realised it was “Winter Nights.”
Toki recalled what Sigdir had said—a surprise for Winter Nights. A wedding ring. He was going to marry Wilda at Winter Nights. No negotiations to go through, no bride price to pay. But to marry a thrall—why would he, when he need not? Marriage was to ally families together, no more or less, and as Bausi’s brother and only heir as yet he could find a fine family to forge with. What had Wilda or her family got that Sigdir wanted?
Wilda tried to hi
de the tears that gathered, attempted a smile, and everything else fled before him. Sigdir and Gudrun were lost to Bausi and his wyrd. The whole village was lost to it, he saw it now, through Wilda’s eyes. Toki had done nothing for too long, had kept his silence and his actions to himself. Now he had to do something, or Wilda would end like all of Sigdir’s thralls—thin, dispirited, broken. That the curse would find him too if he left didn’t matter. All that mattered was Wilda.
Her fingers trembled against his and he looked down at her, at the wide-spaced eyes, the finely crafted mouth that quivered now.
“Wilda run,” she said.
If only that were possible. There was no running, not now. Not till spring, maybe not even then. He’d thought and thought and could see no way around it, not ’round the rune-curse, or Sigdir’s hold on Wilda. If she ran, he would chase her and all would come undone. Yet first was Wilda. Always first in his thoughts now.
“Please, Einar. Wilda run.”
He turned away at that. He hadn’t been Einar for a long time. He was Toki, and while he might dream of courage, might feel the burn of it in him, he couldn’t act. His courage lay only in bearing what he must, in silence. He couldn’t help her, no matter how much he wanted, needed to get her away, for both their sakes.
“Toki, I’m Toki.” Toki he’d been for too long, with not even the courage to acknowledge his own name.
Her soft hand on his cheek turned him back, seemed to burn him with kindness and comfort. Her eyes held him, her voice firm. “Einar.”
He tried to shake his head, to deny it, deny he was who she thought him, a warrior or brave. She stopped the shake with a kiss, firm and warm.
He pulled away with a start, a flush creeping up his neck. She shouldn’t. She was worth better, much better than him, or Sigdir or any man he could think of. She deserved a king, a prince, someone to keep her safe and shower her with fine things. Not him, not a man with nothing, not even the courage to kiss her back. He turned his back on her, on the way she was looking at him as if he was any kind of man, like a warrior and a man of Thor, a man of iron. She had to leave. If Sigdir found she’d been here—no, that wasn’t why. She looked at him as though she believed his dreams, the ones where he was tall and strong and brave.
