“Skuti!” gasped Brandr’s mother. “That was the girl he loved. The girl he made a promise to marry. You can’t blame him. I would have stayed with my husband to the end if I had been there, so I understand his grief.”
“I should have done something to help her,” said Brandr, still feeling guilt-ridden and grief-stricken even after all these years.
“You couldn’t have done anything,” growled his uncle. “She was useless and wounded and was going to die eventually anyway.”
Brandr’s head snapped up at his uncle’s comment. “What did you say?”
His uncle’s eyes darted over toward Isgerd and then back to Brandr. “I said, she died. It was too late for you to help her.”
“Nei, you didn’t. You said she was going to die eventually. That’s different.”
“Nei, you misheard me.”
“I heard it as well, Skuti,” his mother chimed in.
Brandr glared at his uncle. He felt the rage inside him growing. He tried to keep his composure and spoke in a low voice. “Was Kadlin dead before we left the beach that day . . . or was she still alive?”
“Well, I . . . I . . .”
“Dammit, Skuti, was she still alive?”
“She . . . might have been.”
Brandr grabbed the front of his uncle’s tunic and shoved him hard into the wall. “You told me she was already dead! That she’d been beheaded.”
“I had to or you would have gotten yourself killed!” the man yelled back. “You were too blinded by her and you weren’t thinking clearly. As it was, we almost lost you.”
“Arrrrgh!” He threw his uncle to the ground, pulling his seax from his waistband and lunged at him. He rolled around the floor with the man, fists flying as they fought with each other.
“Stop it!” shouted Isgerd. “You two are family, now stop acting like you’re enemies.”
“It’s his fault I left Kadlin behind.” Brandr got to his feet along with his uncle, giving him one last push that almost landed him in the fire. “I never would have left if I’d known she was still alive. You pulled me away, Uncle. You should die for what you’ve done.”
“Brandr, calm yourself.” His mother put her hand on his arm. “Like Skuti said – he saved your life, even if lying to you was wrong. As it was, those arrow wounds almost killed you. You are lucky to even be able to walk.”
“My daughter was still alive when you left the raid?”
Brandr turned to see Kadlin’s mother, Signy, standing there holding her young son who had been born after she’d lost her husband.
“Are you telling me I didn’t need to lose both my husband and daughter in that battle? That you could have saved her life, yet you left without her? How could you?”
“Signy, I thought she was dead. I only just found out she wasn’t.”
“I should have gone with you to fight that day,” said the woman with tears in her eyes. “I would have been an honorable warrior and stayed at the side of my loved ones until the very end.”
“Signy, if you hadn’t been pregnant with your child that day, you would be dead now, too,” Isgerd pointed out.
“I could have saved Kadlin.” She sneered at Brandr.
“Hush, woman!” he shouted. “You might be a shieldmaiden, but you’d be dead, just like my mother said. Had I known Kadlin was still alive, and if I hadn’t been wounded and losing so much blood, I would have brought her back with us, dead or alive.”
“What are you going to do about it?” asked Signy.
“There’s nothing we can do about the girl,” interrupted his uncle. “However, we can go back and get our revenge for the loss of so many of our warriors.”
“Ja. For once I agree with you, Uncle.” Brandr looked up to the rest of the Vikings who were eating around the fire. “Ready yourselves, men. We are going back to Northumbria, and this time we will not leave before we have taken what we want, and killed every soldier who gets in our way!”
Chapter Two
Kadlin dumped the herbs she’d harvested onto the wooden table in the monastery’s refectory and threw the wool bag to the side. “I think this should do fine for now,” she said in her Norse tongue, looking up to see the confused looks on both Sister Adelaide’s as well as Brother Francis’ faces. “I’m sorry,” she said and repeated what she’d said in their language which she’d learned over the past five years of living at the monastery.
“Kadlin, you are a good healer, and though we pray to our God for healing, you have shown us many things we can do to also help ourselves to stay well,” said the monk.
“These herbs are not only for healing, but some of them can be used in that pottage you make, Sister Adelaide,” she told the nun. She brushed off her hands on her robe. She wasn’t a nun, but wore the robe of one since that is what they’d dressed her in when they’d picked up her broken, bloodied body from the battlefield and taken her to live with them even though she was their enemy.
“Even those blue flowers?” asked the nun, pointing to the table. “What would we use those for?”
Kadlin looked down and gasped when she spied the stalks of dainty blue Forget-me-nots amongst the sage, thyme and oregano. She hadn’t realized she picked those. Matter of fact, she’d avoided the fields of those flowers since they only reminded her of someone she hated right now.
“These are evil and good for nothing at all.” She picked up the flowers and tossed them to the ground.
“I think they’re rather pretty.” The nun picked them up and took a sniff and then held them out to Kadlin. “Smell them. They are wonderful.”
With the flowers right under her nose, her heart sped up and her eyes focused on the periwinkle-blue color of a promise that had been broken so long ago. She thought of Brandr and his long, blond hair and the swirling depths of his blue-green eyes. She found herself reaching out her hand for the flowers, her fingers trembling as she did so. She remembered his soft lips upon hers in the field of Forget-me-nots and the way his warm hands felt on her waist. It had been so long since she allowed herself to ponder these memories.
She was supposed to be married to him and would have had several children by now. She didn’t want to think of that. After all, he’d made a promise and then he’d broken it. She hated him for leaving her behind that day and rightly so.
“Nei!” She waved her hand through the air. “I want nothing to do with them.”
“Why not?” asked the monk.
“Those flowers mean nothing but heartbreak to me.”
“Kadlin,” said the monk, laying a gentle hand on her shoulder. “You have lived with us, cleaned and cooked for us, and helped to heal us for five years now. The day I brought you from the battlefield you had a certain look in your eyes and you have it again now. Tell me, child, what is troubling you?”
Kadlin had felt so lonely for the past five years and had learned to confide in the monks and nuns of the monastery because they were her family now. She missed talking with her mother and playing with her younger siblings. She wondered if her mother lived through her last pregnancy and if she birthed a boy or a girl. And if her mother had successfully birthed a child, she wondered if the baby survived. She hoped so. Her mother would be feeling the loss of not only her husband but also her eldest child.
She also wondered if Brandr was jarl now that his father was dead. If so, he’d certainly married a woman of the village by now, as every Viking man wanted male heirs as quickly as possible.
“Those flowers symbolize a promise made to me long ago by a man I thought I loved,” she told them. “He left me behind and it doesn’t matter now. I hate him and want nothing to do with those flowers, nor do I ever want to see them again.” She pushed away and headed across the room, pulling out wooden bowls and spoons, preparing to work with her herbs as well as cook some supper for the inhabitants of the monastery.
“I don’t know what your gods tell you, but our God teaches forgiveness,” said the monk from behind her.
“That’s r
ight,” said Sister Adelaide, reaching out and taking the stalks of Forget-me-nots and weaving them into one of Kadlin’s braids. The nuns all wore their heads covered, but Kadlin usually left her hood down, liking the feel of the wind against her face. It reminded her of home . . . her real home. It also reminded her of sailing on the sea in one of the Viking longboats. Her heart ached for the life she once lived. “Wear these flowers today and see if you can find it in your heart to forgive this man you claim to hate.”
“I don’t want to,” she said, putting her hand over the flowers. When she did, a vision flashed through her head and she gasped aloud. She hadn’t had a single vision since the day she was left here.
She saw in her mind’s eye three Viking longboats sailing across the water to their shores. She saw Brandr and the other men with hatred and vengeance in their eyes and grimaces on their faces. She even saw her own mother dressed in her shieldmaiden’s attire and her younger sister, Asa, dressed as a shieldmaiden as well. They all rode on a longboat together. She let go of the flowers and grasped on to the edge of the wooden table so hard her knuckles became white.
“What is it?” asked the monk.
She looked up into the eyes of two innocent people. Loving people. People who had taken in an enemy, opposed to the Vikings who had left one of their own kind behind.
The Vikings were coming for revenge. She felt it in her bones. And this time, she knew they weren’t going to leave until they got what they came for. She wanted to tell the monks, but then again, she didn’t. If they knew the Vikings were about to attack, they’d ring the bell and call in King Eardwulf’s soldiers from the next town to help them.
The soldiers had armor to protect them as well as horses to give them the advantage of height in a battle. Last time, they’d slaughtered so many of her people and then just left them above ground to die and rot. She’d been the one to help the monks bury each and every one of her Viking family, and with each shovelful of dirt she threw atop their unmarked graves, a piece of her heart went with it.
Her mother and sister were amongst the Vikings this time. While she didn’t care what happened to Brandr or some of the others, she couldn’t let her family be killed in the raid.
“It’s nothing,” she said, turning away and looking out the open window at the bright, blue sky with billowing, white clouds that reminded her a lot of the sails on the Viking longboats. The monastery sat high atop a cliff and was guarded by high, wooden walls. “I need to find a few more herbs and then I’ll start dagmál.” The monk looked at her oddly and she realized she had slipped back into her language, using the word for day meal.
She hurried out the door and headed through the covered, cloistered walkways, not stopping until she got past the church, and climbed the stairs that led to the wall walk. She picked up her skirt and ran to peer out over the edge toward the vast sea.
She strained her eyes, but couldn’t see any ships on the horizon. She looked around and when nobody was watching, she got to her knees and pulled out the pouch with the runes that she wore hidden beneath her robe. The monks had let her keep it, thinking it was a game of the Norsemen. She’d never told them what they were really used for, because she didn’t want them to know she was a seer. It certainly wouldn’t be accepted well amongst such a religious organization.
She needed to know when the Vikings would arrive so she could start deciding what to do. She spilled out the runes made from polished and etched bone, running her hand over them to read the symbols. She was also able to feel things by just laying her hands atop them. Sure enough, the signs were there. There was trouble on the horizon, and death and destruction, and it was close – very close indeed.
“Odin, Thor, and Freyja, if you haven’t yet abandoned me, tell me what to do,” she said in the Norse language. She closed her eyes and listened, but had never been able to hear the voices of her gods the way her grandmother had. She was about to give up on getting her answer, when she clearly heard the words Forgive Him.
Her heart raced and she was sure it was Odin talking to her, but then she realized the words were in English, not in her native tongue. Her eyes sprang open and there, in front of her, stood Brother Francis with a kind smile on his face.
“What did you say?” she asked so he could understand her.
“I didn’t say anything, child, why do you ask?”
She pushed her runes back into the bag, noticing the monk looking at them intently, but not saying a word. He’d never judged her, nor had he ever tried to push his beliefs of his God on her.
Kadlin was sure she’d now gotten an answer. An answer that she wasn’t sure had come from her gods, nor the monk. Could it have come from the Christian God, she wondered?
“No reason,” she said, getting to her feet, and running a hand over the Forget-me-nots still intertwined in her hair. “No reason at all.”
Chapter Three
Brandr stood at the prow of the longboat looking out over the vast sea. His blood boiled just thinking of how his uncle had deceived him. If it wasn’t dishonorable and punishable by being banned from the village if a Viking murdered a man, he swore he would strangle Skuti with his bare hands for what he’d done.
All these years, he thought Kadlin was dead, and now he found out she could have possibly lived through the attack. He hoped so. If she was still alive, he swore he’d find her and bring her home if it was the last thing he ever did.
“You’re thinking of her, aren’t you?” Kadlin’s seventeen-year-old sister stood behind him with her shield in her hand and her weapons at her waist. He already regretted letting her come along since she’d only been a shieldmaiden for a few years now and had never gone along on a raid.
“Ja, I am.” He stared out at the sea rather than looking at her since she only reminded him of Kadlin. “You should have stayed back at the camp and watched over your younger siblings. This is no place for a woman.”
“I’m not just a woman, I’m a shieldmaiden, and so is my mother. There’s nothing at all you could have done to stop either of us from coming after Kadlin. She’s my sister and if there’s any chance she’s still alive and nothing but a thrall, I want to help fight to save her.”
“There’s no telling what those bastards could have done to her,” growled Dagfinn – or Finn, Brandr’s younger brother by a few years. He walked over to join them at the prow, towering over all of them with his height. He was one of the tallest Vikings in the village, even passing up Brandr. They’d both taken after their father and, some day, their younger brother would follow in their footsteps. “I’ll tear them apart limb from limb and then hang their severed heads from the mast and show them we won’t be treated this way.”
“Your anger is making your face red, Finn,” Brandr told him in a calm voice. Finn was reckless and that would someday get him into trouble. “You’ll only attack by my orders. All of you,” he said, looking at Asa and Signy as well.
He felt angrier than all of them put together, but he couldn’t let everyone run off on a rampage and lose control. He was jarl now, and he needed to keep his head about him and maintain order. Finn had been acting crazy lately, and Brandr already saw the signs becoming clearer and clearer of him turning into a Berserker. He sincerely hoped not since Berserkers were the most ruthless and restless of the Viking warriors and usually ended up getting themselves killed.
Asa, on the other hand, scared him half out of his mind. She was every bit as beautiful as Kadlin, but twice as feisty. He’d seen her train and she was definitely a good warrior, but she was also too careless and carefree. If she didn’t mature quickly, it was going to be her downfall. She had the pride of a male Viking. Women warriors were either feared or rejected by not only their enemies, but the Viking men as well. He hoped neither of those things happened to her. She was too young and unseasoned and needed a man to tame her wild, careless ways.
“Do you both understand?” he asked louder and they hesitated and grumbled but then nodded their heads. “Do you all
understand?” he called out to the men rowing, as they neared the shore. “No one attacks until I say so. No one kills or takes thralls unless I give the signal, and no one – I repeat, no one, will lift a finger to hurt any woman on those shores. It might be Kadlin and I will not take the chance that she survived the attack only to be killed by one of her own clan.”
“Look yonder,” said Finn pointing across the water. “I see land and what looks to be a castle on a hill.”
Brandr’s body stiffened and his jaw ticked. “It’s a monastery,” he told his brother. “We’re there. We’ve returned to the same place after all these years.”
*
Kadlin had been nervously pacing back and forth for the last two days now. The anticipation of confronting the Vikings confused her and ate away at her soul. They were coming. There was no doubt in her mind. She didn’t know if she could endure the pain of what would transpire either way.
She stood in the bell tower, the highest point of the monastery, looking out to the vast sea. It was connected to the cruciform-style church and cloistered walkways below. The monks had built beautiful gardens hidden away behind the high walls, and with it were the scriptorium, the bakehouse, the stable, and several more buildings that made up their home and place of worship and prayer. It was always quiet and calm here. It was a very peaceful setting.
They were happy here and she hated to say that, in a way, so was she. She’d not only learned their language over the past years but she’d also made friends with people who should be her enemies. She’d never seen anything like it. They were so unlike her people. Vikings were loyal to family members or others of their clan, but not to strangers from a different land – and certainly not Christian holy men either.
She fingered the Forget-me-nots she’d slipped into her braid this morning, still not sure why she picked the fresh flowers. She’d done so each day for the last few days now. Why did she even wear them after what Brandr had done to her? She hated him right now, she really did. Or so she thought. Then again, she’d been hearing the voice of someone’s God in her ear for the last two days, telling her to forgive him.
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