“I failed you, Hilda,” he murmured, reaching up to touch my cheek. I shook my head.
“I failed you. I wasn’t the Valkyrie you named me.” Brynjulf shook his head this time. I could feel the tears stinging my eyes again. “Give me water,” I told no one in particular. One of the men extended a tanned skin to me—the one who always avoided my gaze while we had been walking. I cleaned out the wound on Brynjulf’s arm and washed away the blood as best I could, even as the tears ran down my face. I began to bind his arm with the length of material from my dress, tying it tightly and hoping against hope that it would be good enough. I had heard of men whose wounds went too long without being treated. Their wounds festered and they died.
“I love you, my fearsome little wife,” Brynjulf murmured to me. I nodded, and kissed him on the forehead. The leader came back and grunted at the tableau we made, pulling me away from my husband again.
“Move out.”
We arrived at the settlement, and I saw my friends—our servants—standing around, looking crestfallen as Brynjulf and I arrived. They had been powerless to stop the villagers, who were still counting up their riches from the fallen Vikings. They had raided my own home, of course. I stirred myself to anger again.
“I am a free woman, am I not?” I asked the leader, putting Brandt into the midwife’s arms and squaring off in front of him. “Then why do you and your people steal my goods? Are you savages just like the Vikings that raided you?” The leader looked down at me, confused.
“If you have property of your own, of course it belongs to you.” I took a deep breath, trying to cover the need to calm myself as much as possible.
“First, I will have back my sword. It is my own property.” The men closest to the leader started to protest. “You outnumber me. Clearly I am not going to try and kill you all.” The leader laughed and extended the sword to me. I snatched at it and turned to face one of my younger servants, one I had befriended. “Get my chest,” I told her.
I strode around with the leader’s main comrades, pointing out my belongings that had been taken. I took the linens of my marriage bed, my clothing, all of the things I could identify as my own. I snatched up the wedding cup my husband and I had drank out of savagely, trying to fight back the tears that were threatening again. Everything was loaded into my trunk. They would not let me take back anything that obviously belonged to my husband with the exception of his sword—which I argued should come to my son.
They dragged my husband off to the train of carts they had brought up, and locked him in chains. I began to cry, watching him take his place among the two or three other Vikings whose lives they had spared. He was destined for a life of slavery, and who knew where he would be? What he would be made to do? My beautiful husband would probably be beaten by these savages, ground down into the dirt.
I was herded with the women, and my women servants surrounded me, keeping back the prying eyes of the strange women. Brandt squalled and I brought him to my breast, using the excuse of nursing him to bow my head and cry my tears as I rode in the wagon, jounced on the rough pathways. I looked up one last time as we left the settlement; I could see the lonely-looking house, all its riches spilled out, distributed among these fools who had gotten their vengeance on a raiding party form years and years before. I thought of what my husband had said when I had told him I was with child; that we would raise our son to be a good man, a fearsome little boy. I looked down at tiny Brandt, and realized that I may never see his father again, may never feel the heat of his body in the bed with me. I shuddered, gulping down my sobs and wiping at my face angrily. Valkyries didn’t cry. I had failed my husband before, but I told myself that I would not fail him again.
I would bide my time. I would keep my servants near me as the friends they were, and I would find a way to free my husband. No matter what it took. We would be separated—maybe for years—I refused to entertain the thought of how long I would be without him, shaking my head hard. We would be separated, but I would see us together again. I wondered if, in all of the times we had made love, if Brynjulf’s seed had taken root in me again. It would take some time before I could be away from Brandt long enough to do anything for my husband, but I would find some way to get to him, and I would discover a way to free him. If it took money, I would find a way to earn it. If it took my steel, my sword that I had earned by right of combat, I would use it. My husband and I were not destined to be parted this way, I decided, looking up at the shifting landscape as the cart carried me away from the place that had become my home. We would return, we would be happy again.
Chapter Nine
I was running through the woods near my childhood home; I hadn’t been lost in them since I was a child, but I couldn’t find my way suddenly. For some reason, I was looking for Brynjulf in the woods, and I couldn’t tell you why. I knew logically that Brynjulf had never been in those woods, had never seen my village. I had left my village to become his wife. But somehow, I knew I was looking for my husband, and I knew he was somewhere in those woods. I could hear a raid, screams and clashes of swords; it was far enough away that I couldn’t see it, but close enough to add to my fears. If I could find my husband, my love, I would be safe. We would get away, we would find our son and our home and everything would be the way it should be. If I could only find him.
“Hilda!” I heard my husband’s voice and my feet started in that direction. He had to be close. I could hear his call more clearly than the clamor of the raid. I tripped over a tree root and fell, stumbling back up to continue running. I had never been so afraid, never needed to get to another person so much, since my sister had dashed away from me, running straight into the Viking raid that brought me to my husband. I didn’t even have my sword. At any moment I might find him or he might be wrenched from me again. I couldn’t get the image of my husband being taken by the rough villagers who had “saved” me from him out of my mind.
“Brynjulf!” I called out, grabbing at the trunk of a tree as I tried to catch my breath. I didn’t know how I would get to him, but I knew I had to find him somehow. The woods reeled and spun around me as my breathing gradually slowed. I felt faint, but I couldn’t stop, even though my heart was racing. My husband called my name again, from another part of the woods. I started after him, briefly wishing that he would stay where he was, though I knew he was searching for me as well. I tripped and stumbled through the woods, trying to move quickly, heedless of the noise I made—if the raiders found me first, let them. I had to find my husband. I had to rejoin him. It had been too long already. Our son was growing up without knowledge of his father, my heart broke and continued to break every day that Brynjulf didn’t hold me in his arms.
“Hilda!” Brynjulf cried out—closer this time than ever before. I picked up my pace, rushing to get to him. He had to be only within a few steps of me, on the other side of a tree. I would see him and rush into his arms and we would kiss, in a matter of moments. In a flash I remembered the last time we’d had sex, the way he had stripped me down in the open air of the evening, the feeling of his hands all over me. If I found him I would have that pleasure again; I would feel his cock inside of me, I could maybe have another child.
All of a sudden, I saw Brynjulf. I staggered to a stop, panting and in tears. “Oh, husband,” I gasped. Brynjulf spotted me and he smiled broadly, opening his arms to me. I let out a sob, gathering up the last of my strength to rush into his arms, to feel them close around me and breathe in the smell of leather and clean skin that was my husband’s particular perfume. Just as I took my first step, the ground beneath me began to shake. I lurched, trying to make my way to Brynjulf even with the movement of the world around me, but it persisted, and I groaned, falling to the ground, moving as slowly as honey in winter, falling and falling.
“Mama!” I opened my eyes, and saw the bright, cheerful face of my son. I tried not to feel disappointed at the fact that my son had wrenched me out of the dream right when it had become beautiful, right on the ed
ge of reuniting with my husband. I swallowed the bitter taste of realizing that the dream had been utterly unreal. I was no closer to finding my husband than I had ever been. I reached out and pulled my son into my arms, burying my face in his hair. I couldn’t bring myself to cut it, even though it tumbled past his shoulders; in my village, he would have already had his hair cut short, signifying his transition from babe into child. Part of my hesitation was that I wasn’t sure what my husband would want, and even if I couldn’t find him, I didn’t want to make a choice like this without him. The other reason for my hesitation was less direct; I felt as though as long as I didn’t cut his hair, I could slow down his growing up. I could continue to tell myself that I would find my husband in time for him to teach our son.
I had done the best I could so far; Brandt was able to speak both his father’s Viking language as well as the language I had grown up speaking—and he had so far learned when to use both languages. In the village where I had settled after being “freed,” they could understand the speech I had used for most of my life, though they didn’t know the Viking language, and when they heard me speak to my son in that language, the people around me gave me dirty looks, all except for the servants who had come with me to the village.
We had made something like a life here, the servants and I. The woman who had helped me give birth to Brandt, the midwife Agathe, served the women of the village, birthing their babies and tending their ill and wounded. Alder hunted and sold the game to the butchers, I used the skills my mother had taught me at needlework and herbs, making sachets for the other women of the village who could afford them. But the life was hollow. My food tasted like nothing at all when I ate it, and even though I delighted in my son’s growth, in his development and the quick way he picked up the world around him, he had my husband’s eyes. Every time he looked up at me I felt an ache in my chest, remembering the bitter parting with Brynjulf.
Three years. I cuddled Brandt close to me in the bed, not willing to get up and meet the day just yet. I could hear Agathe and Alder and Jehanne, the young maidservant who had stayed with us. Jehanne helped me around the house, having no other skills that would help us earn our living. Soon enough I would have to get up, have to go about my day. For three years I had been getting up, going about my day, taking care of my boy and earning my food and drink. When we had arrived in this village, we had taken an abandoned home for our own, my servants and son and I. It was at the edge of the community, where we would be out of the way; although it took us weeks to make it comfortable, it was something like a home now. I had watched my son take his first steps, heard him speaking his first words. I listened to Jehanne and Agathe preparing breakfast and nuzzled Brandt quickly. “Why don’t you go and see if Agathe has some bread and honey for you?” I told my son, giving him a kiss on the forehead. Brandt leaped out of bed, laughing and running into the main room of the house we lived in for his breakfast.
I watched him run off and sighed. Brandt had inherited his father’s intense, bright blue eyes and my darker hair—I could see other traces of Brynjulf in Brandt’s cheekbones; it seemed like as he grew up into a boy, he started to look more and more like his father. I tried to tell myself that at least I had my son to remember my husband by, but it was hollow comfort.
I told myself that the dream I had experienced—looking for Brynjulf, being so close to reuniting with him, only to wake up—was not as disappointing to come out of as the dreams where I found myself suddenly in his arms again. Night after night, I had dreamt of the possibilities of the moments after I had found my husband finally; I had felt his hands on me, felt him kissing me with lips so real that I never questioned that the dreams started with our embrace. In my dreams my husband took me a hundred different ways, stripping me down and having me quickly, his hard cock pounding into me until I thought I would burst with pleasure, or caressing me all over teasingly, almost making me beg him for the pleasure of his body like a whore. He took me over and over again in my dreams; in my bed, in the woods, beside a fire, always with the same commanding presence I remembered from our short life together. And every time I woke from those dreams I was slick, soaking wet with need, until I had made a habit of frequent baths—needing the privacy to pleasure myself to the memory. I rubbed my clit and teased my breasts, though no amount of imagination could transform my hands into my husband’s. It was half-pleasure, just as our life here was a half-life.
I had made myself a promise that I would reunite with my husband. I had kept my sword, and kept Brynjulf’s sword for Brandt, with the belief that I would find where they had taken my lover, and free him. I had convinced myself, even as we settled into our half-life here, that it would only be a matter of time. A few days after our arrival in the village, I had seen my husband, along with the few Vikings the villagers who had raided us hadn’t killed, pass by in a wagon headed out of the village. None of the servants was ever able to find out where they had been taken, and even though the community had become accustomed to me in time, they never truly warmed to me; no one would tell me anything about my husband. As far as the village was concerned, I was a widow. I had to admit to myself that it was entirely possible that such was the truth of the matter; Brynjulf might even be dead. His wound might have gotten infected in spite of my bandaging it—what would his captors care if he died? I felt my hands tighten into fists, my nails biting into my palms at the thought. I breathed slowly, reminding myself that there was still hope. I had to keep going, had to do whatever I could to find my husband.
I got out of my bed and into my day clothes, splashing water onto my face and wrapping my braided hair up under my cap. I greeted Agathe and Jehanne, and waved at Alder when he came in with firewood. Brandt was eating his breakfast hungrily, devouring his porridge and taking bites of his honeyed bread. I smiled at Jehanne, who was sitting down to her own breakfast; I insisted that they were members of my household more than servants and could take their meals as they would. Agathe dished up porridge and cut thick slices of bread for me, slathering them with honey. Between us, we had enough to live, with Alder’s hunting skills and the combined efforts of Jehanne, Agathe, and myself in the garden. We traded for what we could not make ourselves, and the honey was procured by Alder, who had found a hive deep in the woods.
“I’m going to go into the village today,” I told the others, eating my porridge slowly. I had goods to sell or trade, and it was getting to be autumn; we needed to start putting away food for winter. We needed salt, good wine, and spices. I had been thinking to buy a few more chickens if I could; more eggs were always helpful, and a few of the chickens we had weren’t laying the way they used to, and could be made into stew. I would need to stay away from Auderic when I was visiting the craftspeople and traders in the village—he had been trying to claim my hand for months. He was one of several men in the village who had decided that my husband was never coming back. While a widow scraping up a living at the edge of the town was not the most desirable wife, the fact of my having servants and a live child made me a better prospect. There were also some that thought—mistakenly—that I would be able to claim my husband’s riches.
Auderic had been only the most aggressive of those seeking to wed me. No matter how many times I told him that I was not interested, that my husband was still among the living and until I had evidence of his death—and maybe not even then—I would never take another man. But he still insisted on crowding me, telling me my son needed a father, that Brandt would never amount to anything under the rule of a bunch of women. I thought for a moment and grinned slowly at Jehanne’s worried face. “I believe I’ll take my sword into town with me,” I said. Brandt crowed with excitement at the scheme.
“Yes Mama!” Jehanne grinned, and Alder chuckled, sitting down with a bowl of porridge after settling the wood for Agathe next to the hearth.
“That would indeed teach Auderic to come after you so hard.” At home, we spoke a careless mixture of our home languages and the Viking that they had lear
ned as slaves and I had learned as a wife.
I left Brandt in Jehanne’s care, strapping my sword to me as I left the house with a small purse of coin and a sack of trade goods. I felt a tightening in my chest at leaving my son, even for a few hours, but I reminded myself that if I discovered where Brynjulf was being kept, then I would have to be away from him for much longer—days or weeks, maybe months. I bit my lip as I walked. If I knew that it would be months, I would have to bring Brandt with me. I couldn’t bear to part with him for months, though if you had asked me before we separated I wouldn’t have thought I could bear to be away from Brynjulf for months. I went about my errands, buying up a large bag of salt, the spices I needed for pickling, good wine, and some fruit and flour. I started back towards my house slowly, loaded down with my purchases. Maybe I should have brought Alder with me to carry things, I thought, shifting the heavy sack strap on my shoulder. Soon enough I would be home and I would eat supper and then work at the vegetable garden until evening.
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