by Lena North
I was on my way into the longhouse with a couple of women when suddenly one of them called out. We all turned, and she'd sunk down to her knees, grabbing her foot and moaning a little. Blood ran freely from a wound on the outside of the foot. It was long but not deep, so it would only need a tight wrap to heal properly, I thought.
"Stay there, I'll get my things so I can clean that up for you," I said.
"Thank you, Sissa," the woman ground out.
As I walked away, I heard them talking about what had happened.
"There it is, I have been missing it forever," one of them said, and when I opened the door, I looked over my shoulder. They held the big skewer we used for grilling meat, and sometimes, though we weren't allowed, to poke the logs in the fireplace.
When I got back, I wrapped the wound up, but I'd been right. It wasn't deep, and it stopped bleeding almost immediately. We were getting back to our chores when the door suddenly was torn open, and Stein walked in.
"Ingolf," he bellowed.
"Jarl Ingolf is out hunting," one of the older women answered.
Stein looked around, and his eyes narrowed.
"Where are the girls from the Northern Isles?" he barked out.
Darn, I thought. He'd left almost immediately after Heidrun's burial, and now he was back asking for my friends. Asking for Catriona.
The women looked at each other in confusion, not knowing why he would even ask the question. I didn't know what to say but started speaking anyway because someone had to say something.
"Well..." I started mumbling.
"Sissa," he interrupted, and growled, "Come with me."
Then he took a firm grip on my upper arm, hauling me toward the door. I managed to get hold of my cloak and then we were on our way through the village, toward the beach.
"Stein, let me put more clothes on. It's cold," I pleaded.
He promptly let go of my arm but continued walking. Half walking, half running, I tried to keep up with him and at the same time wrap my long cloak around me.
"Are they sold?" he growled without stopping.
"What?" I asked, a bit breathlessly.
"You would know, they were your friends," he said. Then he pushed me around the corner of one of the small houses by the beach and turned.
He looked fierce and a little bit dangerous. I remembered all the stories of his ruthlessness on the raids he'd been to with his father's warriors.
"They tried to escape," I said slowly.
"What?"
"You should talk to Jarl Ingolf or Einarr," I said.
"I am talking to you," he barked.
"Yes. Yes, you are, Stein," I said calmly, trying to placate him. "I don't know any details, though. All I know is that they ran off, took some horses. My brother followed them, and they all went down into a ravine in the darkness."
"She tried to escape?" he whispered hoarsely. "But I told her I'd be back," he added.
I waited silently for him to understand what I'd told him.
"Where are they now?" he asked.
"Stein..." I trailed off because the look on his face was suddenly breaking my heart. He had understood, finally, and I realized that what Catriona had seen as a convenient arrangement to secure her future had been something completely different to the man in front of me.
"Dead?" he asked in a hoarse whisper.
I nodded.
He staggered a little and then he went down on his knees. A low groan came through his clenched teeth as he bent his head down to his chest.
"Catriona..."
I went to his side and put a hand on his shoulder.
"Stein, I'm sorry. I know you were..." I trailed off again because I didn't know just what they had been, or what he wanted me to say.
"Why did she leave?" He raised his head and looked at me with anguish in his eyes. "She knew I loved her, that I would get out of that scam of a marriage I was on my way into. I told her I'd take her to my grandmother, and we'd live there. She'd be free, and I'd make her my wife. I told her..."
The words poured out of him, and I felt how my hand involuntarily squeezed his shoulder. I heard his words, but I couldn't believe them. This was not at all what Catriona had said.
"I'm so sorry, Stein," I whispered. "I lost my brother and my friends. I don't know why they left, and I have no answers for you."
He stared up into my face, but then he bowed his head. He looked utterly defeated. I thought that he would want to be alone with his grief so I stepped back a few steps but then I froze. Stein was kneeling in the snow so I could see the soles of his shoes. They were made of leather just like all our shoes, and there were big dark spots on both of his soles. It didn't look like they were wet, or like he'd stepped in mud or manure. The spots seemed to have seeped into the leather and dried there. They were almost black. It realized that it looked like dried blood.
"They were your friends, Sissa, did they not tell you they were leaving?"
As I stared at his shoes, Stein got to his feet and turned to me. I shook my head slightly, but I didn't trust my voice so I didn't say anything.
"She said she'd come," he muttered. "It would have been hard, but I would have worked the land, and she could have learned from my grandmother. She's getting old, and she can't manage all the sick and injured anymore. Catriona could have helped her. We would have had a good life," he whispered.
I trusted my voice even less then. Had he just told me his grandmother was a healer? Within our short conversation, he'd given me a motive for killing Heidrun and told me that he could easily have had the knowledge I knew was needed to do it. He was tall, and he had blood on his feet. He could have been in the grove to pull the hood off his fiancée, and then hid it behind Einarr's house to cast suspicions on them.
Suddenly I was afraid. If Stein were the killer, then he'd soon realize what he'd given away, and I'd be in danger then. He followed me as I started to walk backward, grabbing my upper arms.
"Are you sure they are dead?" he ground out.
"Stein, I don't know," I almost shouted, hoping that someone would hear.
I tried to get away from him but the grip he had on my arms hardened.
"I would have done anything for her, Sissa, I would have taken the beating from Jarl Ingolf, so why did she leave?" he growled.
Then he shook me again, and his hands were hard. I screamed, but suddenly Stein was yanked away from me.
"What in Hel's name are you doing?" Josteinn roared.
Then he charged at Stein, and they both went down. Stein was older and stronger, but Josteinn seemed furious as he pounded his fist into Stein's face again and again. They rolled around, kicking and swearing, but then suddenly there were a lot of people all around us.
Einarr and his men pulled them apart and held them back when it looked like they would charge again.
"What's going on, son?" Einarr asked calmly.
"He had a grip on Sissa and shook her. She was screaming," Joss growled angrily. He was fighting to get loose, and it took two men to hold him back.
"What is wrong with you, Josteinn?" Stein shouted. "Would you really fight me over a thrall?"
I jerked, but his words made Josteinn stop fighting.
"But she is not your thrall, Stein. She will only have one owner, ever, and it won't be you," he snarled menacingly.
"With Heidrun gone I need someone to warm my bed, and she isn't ugly. They even look alike," Stein taunted. "I could pay Ingolf the price for her."
I jolted. What was he thinking? I'd seen how the news about Catriona impacted him just a little while ago, and suddenly he stood there saying that he'd pay Ingolf money for me?
"Stein, calm down," Einarr barked, sounding supremely happy.
The men stared at each other for a while. Then Stein suddenly took a step back.
"Why I ever thought to stay in this horrible place I do not know. I'll leave now. You'll never see me again, Einarr. You can take that as a promise," he growled.
"I won't be sor
ry to see you go," Einarr replied firmly.
I stared at the men, completely astonished. Stein's family was powerful so they would've been useful allies and it was not at all like Einarr to throw something like that away.
Chapter Seventeen
Lovers
After the commotion on the beach, we walked back to the village, but not a lot of words were spoken. I'd gone back to the longhouse and Einarr had put a hand firmly on Joss' shoulder and led him away. We'd met after that like we usually did, but he'd not brought it up, so I didn't either. I had mixed feelings about the incident and hadn't quite figured out what to say to Josteinn so I was glad that he seemed content to let it all rest.
At first, I'd been so happy that he defended me, that he challenged Stein. For me. At the back of my mind, his words kept creeping in, though. He'd said that I would only ever have one owner, and I knew that he probably meant himself, but I couldn't help feeling uneasy about the ownership part. It made me feel a little like I was one of his dogs. Having been a thrall all my life, it should have felt natural because I'd been a thrall all my life and knew well what to expect. It just didn't. I wished there was someone I could talk to, but there was no way my parents would understand. Ulf would be embarrassed beyond everything if I brought it up, and to discuss this with the other thralls when Joss had actually not asked me anything seemed wrong. I missed Torbi and Mags.
"Sissa, come!"
I turned when I heard Josteinn call out for me and raised my brows when I saw him coming toward me at the back of a horse.
"Father has sent me out to see if I can get Torbi's cap back from where they fell," he said. "Come with me?"
I looked around, wondering what he was thinking. I couldn't just drop things and leave without permission, he knew that.
"I have to ask," I said tersely.
"Damn. Didn't think about that," he scowled. "Stay here, I'll go," he added, thrust the reins into my hand and strode away toward the longhouse.
"Where are you going, Sissa?" Jarl Ingolf growled from behind my shoulder.
"Well..." I started uncertainly. He kept watching me without a word, so I continued nervously. "Josteinn wanted me to come, to see if we could get Torbi's cap out of the ravine. It would be good for my parents to have it, and for me to see..." I trailed off and hoped that he would accept my explanation without me having to go into more detail.
"That was good of Joss, of course, you want to say goodbye to your brother where he died." Jarl Ingolf said, and I could see that he still hurt from his daughter's death.
The Jarl had been absent from village life since the sacrifice, had roamed the forest and spent time hammering away with his sword in the practice area. He'd not really interacted with anyone except when he growled in annoyance about something, and I wondered who he could talk to when he needed it. Einarr maybe? Freyja would be of no use to him in a situation like this. I looked carefully at him, thinking that he looked older. His face seemed gray, and his shoulders slumped in a way I'd never seen them do before. I felt sorry for him.
"Don't take the blame," I whispered.
"What?"
"Jarl Ingolf, I know you hurt. You were her father, so you hurt. But don't take the blame for what happened. It might have been your hand that held the knife but in reality, it wasn't. Someone else caused it, and the Heidrun I knew would not have blamed you. She would have wanted you to stay strong and celebrate her memory just as she celebrates with Odin in the halls of Valhalla right now. Then she would have expected you to execute revenge for her."
I didn't know where all the words came from, and they poured out of me before I could stop them. His jaw dropped as I spoke but he straightened and watched me with a face that was harsh but somehow soft at the same time.
"My brother says you're an unusual girl, Sissa. I think that he might just be right," he said, finally. Then he turned abruptly to walk away. "I'll talk to my wife. You will go with Joss to mourn for your brother," he tossed over his shoulder.
I stared at his back disappearing into the longhouse and after a while, Josteinn came out. When he saw me, he smiled widely and walked faster. He carried a bundle in his hand and it turned out to be a thick cloak the likes I'd never worn before, a warm hat lined with fur and a pair of thick gloves.
"I don't know what you said to Uncle Ingolf but he growled at Freyja, grabbed these and told us to go. He shouted after me that you should borrow these with his gratitude," he said.
I smiled but didn't explain. My words had been for the Jarl's ears only.
"How nice of him," I simply said as we climbed up on the horse, and Joss snorted.
"Yes. That's Uncle Ingolf... the nice one," he said, and then we both laughed because Jarl Ingolf was most certainly not a nice man. Except he had just been.
When we got to the ravine I looked around anxiously, but the new snow was deep, so there weren’t any tracks anywhere. There were some soft ridges in the snow by the edge, indicating that snow had been shuffled around, and that was it.
Josteinn tied the horse to a tree and walked over to look down into the gorge.
"Sissa..." he whispered.
"What?"
"I still don't want to know so we won't talk about it. Just tell me one thing. Did you have a rope at least?"
I stared at him. He seemed to have figured out that we'd laid the tracks, and that Torbi might have escaped with the girls. Suddenly I wanted to tell him. I wanted him to know what we'd done, how clever we had been and how exciting it had felt. I turned, but he frowned.
"No. Don't tell me, Sissa. Rope?"
I shook my head slowly, and he looked up at the sky. Then he sighed.
"Right. Okay. Well, I have a rope, so we'll use that to climb down to see if we can find the cap. They told me it was somewhere on the ledge down there."
Without saying anything else, we tied the thick rope to a tree. Then Joss tied the other end around his waist and started to climb down. He scowled when I moved to follow him.
"If you take one step closer to the edge I will tie you to the tree over there, I swear I will," he growled.
I giggled and with my hands raised I backed away a small step, which made him smile a little too. Once he was down on the ledge, he started to paw through the snow, but I could see that he was searching on the wrong side. He was too close to where the ledge ended abruptly and just as I called out a warning, he slipped and fell. I heard the tree creak behind me when it took all of his weight so I grabbed the rope, pulling it hard to take some of the pressure off the tree.
"Are you okay, Joss?" I asked calmly.
"Humpf," he said, so I peered over the edge.
He had gotten one knee up on the ledge again, but snow covered most of him, and I couldn't help myself. I laughed out loud.
"Sissa, what the -"
A large clump of snow fell off the edge, straight into his upturned face, and I laughed even harder as I pulled at the rope to help him get up again. I'd climbed mountainsides like this with Fin many times, although admittedly not in the winter, and there was a thick rope holding Joss up, so I wasn't afraid.
"I think that the other side of the ledge would be a better place to look," I said.
I knew that it would be safer over there, but I also knew that this was where he would find Torbi's cap.
When he'd climbed up again, with my brother's cap in his pocket, we just stood there. I was grinning, and he was scowling. Then he suddenly groaned quietly, pulled off both his gloves, tossing them to the ground. His hands came up to cup my cheeks. Without warning, he leaned down and kissed me.
It was nice. I felt his warm hands caress my cheeks and slide down my back to press me closer to his hard body. I wrapped my arms around his waist. Somehow the world around us seemed to fade away as we stood there on the edge to where my brother and friends had disappeared just a little more than a week ago. Then I felt him shivering slightly so I pulled back.
"You're freezing, Joss," I said. "We need to get you back to the villag
e before you catch a cold."
He looked at me, and the tips of his mouth went up a little.
"I'm not so cold, Sissa, but you're right. We should go back before the sun disappears," he said.
Darkness had started to fall, and on our way back I saw lights in the forest a while away from the village so I turned to look up at Joss and he immediately answered the question he must have seen in my eyes.
"It's the seer, traveling north again. Winter will release its hold on us soon, and she will want to be there when it does. She spends spring and summers in her home up there, and goes south for the fall until the worst part of the winter has passed."
The seer. I'd wondered about the woman since Mags told me about the reading they'd gotten, so I decided to take a walk later. Maybe I would catch a glimpse of her. She never came into our village, but she usually set up camp close by and I knew that those who could afford it went out there to see her when she did.
Joss left me outside my home, reached down to hand me the cap and after giving me a swift caress on my cheek with his gloved hand, he left to put the horse back in the pen. I watched him struggle a bit with the bar because it was heavy and cumbersome to handle but he got it off, and once the horse was back in the pen he got it back on again.
Later, when I'd returned the cloak, hat and gloves, and done all the petty little tasks that Freyja had saved up for me to do, I walked into the forest. Mother hadn't asked me to bring her anything but I took my basket anyway, in case I'd meet someone and they'd question why I was walking around like that.
Suddenly I heard someone, or something, crashing through the snow and bushes toward me so I stepped off the path, crouching under one of the huge firs, hoping that whatever came through the forest wouldn't spot me there.
As I watched, Astrid walked by. She marched along with determined steps, and her face was twisted into an ugly contorted sneer. Her eyes didn't veer to the sides, though, and I was glad for that. I suddenly remembered that Astrid was the one my mother suspected of killing Heidrun, and I shivered. I'd not really thought that it could be Astrid and although I disliked Joss' mother I hadn't believed she had it in her. The woman passing by my hiding place looked like she was perfectly capable of killing and I wondered what had made her so furious.
