by Betina Krahn
“Where was I?” he murmured, brushing her hair with his nose and pouring warm breath into her ear. “Ahhh. The Franks trade and weave all manner of cloth, and they dye silk and make tapestries—great cloths woven with pictures that tell stories. And the colors they produce would make the rainbow bridge of Asgard quake with envy.” He grinned at her shock. “And the women . . . they like men with light hair, too. It was from them that I learned how to kiss.”
Her eyes flew to his mouth and her lips parted, feeling thicker and warmer. For a moment they stood half embraced, his head near hers, their cheeks almost touching. Need that sank through her core like a stone-weight, dragging her stomach with it, made her stiffen. He considered her sudden tension and drew back, turning his face toward the horizon.
“I come here to think . . . and to see to the ends of the earth . . . to visit again in dreams and visions,” he said, rubbing her shoulder gently with his fingertips. “Eastway, southway . . . there is a way west, as well, into the greatest sea of all . . .”
“And which whale’s pathway did you travel, when you left your blood upon an enemy’s blade?” she asked quietly, praying he would not hate her for asking. The need to know more about his past burned inside her, for she sensed that it was in the fields of his past that the seeds of their future had been sown. He stilled, then straightened, but did not move away. She summoned the courage and raised her gaze to him. His expression was grave and his look was searching. Heartened by the fact that he had not denounced her or pushed her away, she ventured more.
“Will you not tell me how you took the battle-scars you bear?” she whispered.
She asked about his scars, but he knew, in truth, that she asked much more. And he looked down into those warm amber eyes and knew that someday he would have to tell her. Perhaps if she knew the truth, she would understand why he did not fight . . . why he could never fight her.
“You have been on raiding voyages,” she prompted in low, solemn tones. “You have gone a’viking, have you not?”
He expelled a ragged breath and nodded. Then he urged her toward an outcropping of rock nearby and bade her sit. He sank to his knees in the dried grass before her, resting his battered hands on his thighs and staring off toward the distant azure realms of the southway.
“I sailed with Borger and his men for seven years,” he began. “And in that time I left the dew of my wounds on several shores. From the time I was old enough to lift a blade, Borger saw that I was taught the ways of the warrior: weapon-skill, strategies of battle, and how to survive in the wilderness. I learned well . . .” His voice lowered as his thoughts fled back in time. “I was but ten and three when I killed my first man on a raid. He had only a knife to defend his home and I . . . I had a long-blade. Borger celebrated.” He looked away. “I emptied my stomach.”
He paused and his hands curled painfully. “After a time, I learned not to see their faces . . . not to hear their cries . . . not to see their blood. And I learned to talk of it afterward as all warriors talk: words of glory that painted images of courage and cunning and honor. The raiding grew less profitable; again and again we came to settlements of other Norsemen, and then to fortified towns where our usual lightning-quick raids would not succeed. We had to rely more on trading furs and sea-ivory, and we profited less, for Borger was not half so cunning a trader as he was a fighter. Then came one season when the trading failed completely. We had spent the entire winter in the southway, seeking profits and finding none. With empty bellies and nothing left to trade, we sold our sword arms to a king of the southern Franks.”
His voice and his eyes grew distant as sights and sounds boiled up out of memory, filling his senses again. “The fighting was hard . . . we were greatly outnumbered. Every way we looked, defeat bore down on us. I saw my kinsmen falling . . . I felt death’s chilled breath upon my neck.” His fists clenched, his jaw muscles worked tautly, and his eyes began to glow with that same fierce light that had shone in them as he fought the wolves.
“I raised my wolf-blade one last time and began to swing it with every burst of battle-strength and hatred I could summon. I felt death itself invading my arms . . . pouring itself out through the edge of my steel. They came at me and I set my feet and slashed and hacked through that storm of iron and flesh. My senses clogged with the blood and the screams and the strain of fighting, until I heard nothing more, saw nothing more, and felt nothing at all. I just went on wielding my blade and drawing blood . . . killing . . . and maiming.”
Aaren’s stomach knotted as she watched him and realized he was speaking of the battle-fury that came over him . . . the state he had been in after he killed the wolves. Sliding onto her knees beside him, she laid her hand on his bulging arm.
“It is the battle-fury, the berserker rage, Jorund. It happens to the mightiest of warriors in the throes of fighting. It is naught to be ashamed of. Most warriors are proud—”
“Proud?” His eyes were fierce, his shoulders trembling. “Behind me and all around me lay a swath of death and destruction. Everywhere I trod, blood was knee-deep, bodies lay twisted and mangled . . . They lost count of how many I killed that day. I was so blood-maddened I could not stop. I swung at everything, everyone that came near . . . killed some of the king’s men along with the enemy, and even wounded one of my own kinsmen. Then, when there was no one left to slay, I staggered into the woods, slashing at trees—at the air itself—until I collapsed.”
She listened with her heart as well as her ears. In her mind, she saw him again as he had been with the wolves: white-eyed, snarling . . . deadly. And she saw him as he had been years ago.
She understood that strange narrowing of the senses during combat; she had experienced it herself. And she had felt the burn of battle-fire in her blood, which was a foretaste of the consuming blood-rage that had roared in his. Suddenly she shared with him a compelling oneness of feeling, which let her experience some of the pain he was reliving. Then in the silence the tension and anxiety began to fade and she was left with a knot in her throat and an ache in her heart.
“Afterward, I slept for three days. Then I awoke, not to sleep again for months. When we returned home, I put away my blade and haunted the night, wandering like a death-spirit.” Some of the savage light in his eyes dimmed and he looked at her. “It was the women who saved me. I had always loved the women and spent much time among them . . . and they gave me the healing solace of their company, their hearts, and their bodies. And Godfrey came to me, speaking his words of forgiveness, talking of love and peace and salvation. And I began to see—there was a way to live besides fighting and killing.”
“But what you did, Jorund . . . it was in battle.” She tried to reason with him and with her own rising anxiety. “Battle is fighting for a purpose, to an end.”
“That makes the killing-madness that comes over me useful . . . to bloated jarls and greedy kings,” Jorund said bitterly. “But it is still madness. And it is still wrong. You have never been in battle, Aaren . . . never seen the faces of men as your blade batters and rasps through their ribs . . . never felt your garments grow heavy, wet with blood . . . never heard valiant men screaming, pleading with you to end their death agony. There is no glory in battle.”
He seized her shoulders and poured his conviction into his voice. “There is only glory in living, Aaren . . . in loving . . . in building and creating. It goes against much that I was taught and once believed, but I have experienced much and searched my deepest mind and talked many times on it with Godfrey.” Jorund released one of her shoulders and slid a fresh-scarred knuckle gently down the side of her face. He paused to feather his fingertips gently across her lips.
“You must see . . . the wolf-fight was the second time I have fought since that long-ago battle. Both times, the madness has come over me. Aaren, I will not be a mindless beast. Fighting, the violent code of the warrior . . . that can no longer be my way. And if Borger’s men call me a woman-heart, then let them. Words will not change what I am o
r what I must do. I would rather be thought a coward than become a man-butcher.”
He would not fight, she realized, because he believed he could not fight and still be a man. That pain-spawned conviction made his refusal easier to understand and more difficult to bear. She understood, as she looked deep into his eyes and felt the aching tenderness of his touch, that he was indeed afraid to fight her . . . afraid of raging out of control and killing her.
It was in that moment that she understood what love truly was . . . a heart-softness, a marrow-deep yearning, a desire to do anything and everything necessary to protect another . . . even at great cost. And she recognized those longings in his eyes. Jorund Borgerson loved her.
The joy that exploded in her middle was so full, so poignant, that it approached pain. She didn’t know whether to throw her arms around his neck or to grab him and shake him . . . whether to laugh at the irony of it, or to weep for the heartache of it. She had decried his lack of pride, not understanding that the strength she glimpsed in him came from a hard-won and uncommon sense of honor . . . and never suspecting that it would be the depth and power of that honor that would raise the final and most devastating barriers between them.
“Jorund—” she said, her eyes filling with moisture, becoming luminous windows on the tempest in her soul. She raised her hands to his face and traced his cheeks, his lips, and his stubborn, noble chin. “There must be some way—”
But he stopped her words with his fingers against her lips. The pain in his face was terrible to witness.
“Aaren, there is nothing to be said. No way to change it. I am what I am.”
He led her down from the clifftop in silence. Her face was stiff, her eyes dark. Her every movement bespoke a warrior’s finely honed control. Throughout the day and into the evening, as she went about her tasks, she was unfailingly calm and restrained . . . even helpful. But there was an unsettling air about her . . . like that of a yawning wolf, a creaking bough, or a patch of new ice . . . all was not as it seemed. Inside she was tightly coiled and growing slowly tighter.
Jorund watched. He read the tension within her and felt his own building by slow, agonizing degrees. He jested and smiled and teased . . . coaxing her help with preparations for his bathing, and once in the bathing house, cozening her help with removing his garments. But instead of rising to his gambit, she steeled herself visibly and performed each service he asked with brisk efficiency. Then she withdrew, leaving him feeling hollow and hungry in a way he’d never imagined he could be . . . and a bit angrier at the fate the old Norns had chosen to weave for him.
A WEEK AFTER Jorund abducted Aaren and carried her to his mountain lair, Borger sat on his high seat, deep in ale-mist, his spirits sagging like his untied boots. He had just received word from Gunnar Haraldson that the silver for the ransom of his son would take another month or more to raise.
“Spit and roast you . . . you old Son of a Troll,” he snarled, though without much heat. “Making me feed your whelp yet another month while you keep me waiting for my silver.” He looked back through the hall toward the doors where Leif Gunnarson awaited his freedom. Old Gunnar’s heir was near as big as Jorund and every bit as strong. But Leif had a true warrior’s pride and temperament, had a proper Norse battle-lust in his heart.
He turned to Snorri the Loud, who dozed precariously on a stool by the high seat, and flung a hand to the far end of the hall and Leif Gunnarson. “Just look how the old eel’s spawning has fared in captivity—strong-hearted, sound-limbed, and hot-eyed as ever! If only my Jorund was such a one . . .” He tossed back the dregs of his horn and let out a huge sigh as he propped his head on his fist. His optimism for his son’s reformation as a warrior had begun to wane in direct proportion to the amount of ale he consumed this night.
“I wonder if she’s killed him yet.” He sighed blearily.
Miri stood nearby, clutching her ale pitcher to her breast, listening to the jarl’s dismal ponderings. She fled the hall to the cook-hearth, where Marta and Brother Godfrey intercepted her. When she repeated the jarl’s words, Marta paled and hugged her, and Brother Godfrey reddened angrily and made a sign upon his portly breast.
“Think nothing of the old boar’s grunting,” he insisted, lifting Miri’s chin. “Your sister is not a man-slayer . . . and Jorund would never raise a blade to her. They will find some way to settle things between them without blood-letting and killing.” Miri and Marta managed nods and brave smiles as he gave them each a reassuring pat. Moments later, as he hurried across the commons, he paused with a glance up at the night sky.
“I am depending on you, Lord . . . not to make a liar out of me.”
THAT SAME BLUSTERY night, leagues away, Gunnar Haraldson also sat by the blazing hearth in his long hall. His tall, graying form, which had once filled the great, carved high seat with masterful presence, now looked gaunt and pain-wasted as he curled around the burning throb in his belly and bound leg . . . injuries from Borger’s raid. He scowled from beneath whitened brows, deepening the lines that pain and trouble had etched into his once strong face.
“I would have you know my course,” he declared to his captains and chief warriors, watching them glance at one another, then at his wounded leg. He could read their thoughts; his days as jarl among them were numbered . . . and his heir lay captive in the hall of his hated rival, the treacherous Borger Volungson. “I have sent word to Old Red Beard that it will take a while yet to raise the silver for Leif’s ransom.”
There was a murmur of discontent and one of the burly captains spoke, summing up their thoughts. “Why should you pay in silver, jarl, when it was Old Red Beard who attacked us? By rights, it is he who should pay wergeld . . . for his bloody treachery.”
“Borger will pay,” Gunnar declared, his countenance glowering. “Blood for blood, pain for pain. He will hurt as I have. But it may ease Leif’s lot in Borger’s hall if Old Red Beard believes we will redeem him with silver. With such words I have bought us time . . . to heal and to prepare.”
“Let us mount a raid—use our ships for a waterborne attack—and steal Leif back,” a stringy sea captain declared. “We’ll burn Borger’s village to the ground!”
Gunnar studied his men, knowing their anger, feeling it himself. “Nej . . . I intend to let the greedy old cur deliver Leif into our hands himself. There will come a time for raiding and burning,” he said grimly, “but not until Leif is back. It will be his vengeance as much as mine.”
THE FIRST SNOW came the next afternoon, falling from a gray, leaden sky like bits of down pulled from a fatted goose. Jorund stood just outside the lodge doorway, watching the flakes falling and recalling his boastful determination to have Aaren on her back, in his furs, by the first snowfall. She was indeed in his furs, every night . . . but on the far side of the lodge, and alone. So much for his much practiced woman-skill and his vaunted male pride, he thought grimly. For all his pleasuring and patience and caring, he seemed further from his goal than when he’d started.
This new coolness of hers, this utter lack of feeling, was worse than her fiery blasts of pride and temper, and for some reason it stirred the still waters at the bottom of his soul the way little had in recent years. She wanted him, cared for him . . . there had to be some way to penetrate the wall his revelations seemed to have rebuilt around her heart.
He strode out to the horse shed. She was not there. He tried the wood pile. No Aaren. With mounting anxiety, he scoured the nearby woods, then checked the bathing house. There he found her, the door barred against him. He pounded furiously on it.
“Aaren Serricksdotter . . . come out or let me come in.” When she made no response, his temper quickly frayed. “I’ll tear down the door if I must!” And he pounded some more, so that his half-healed hand throbbed.
There was a scrape and a hinge groan, and her face appeared in a small opening. When he pushed on the door, she countered the force and glowered at him. “Go away, Borgerson.”
“In a sow’s eye, She-wolf.
We have things to settle—”
“Not for six days, we don’t,” she declared testily. “Take it up with me then.”
“Six days? What makes you think—” He halted, staring at her pale face, clouded with irritation and discomfort. As well as he knew women, it still took a moment for the sense of it to strike him. “Six days? You mean to say . . . it is your woman’s time?”
Her eyes flashed and her face reddened. “How dare you say such a thing to me!” she snapped, trying to slam the door and finding it blocked by his big foot and shoulder. Her fury mounted precipitously. “Go away . . . get out . . . leave me alone! Give me just six wretched days of peace and quiet—that’s all I need!”
Jorund stared down at her with a huge grin spreading over his face . . . which he quickly stifled. “I see,” he said in a solicitous tone. “Are you hurting, Long-legs?”
“Oooh—” she groaned. “No! I’m not hurting!” She tried to shut the door, but again he prevented it.
“Would you like me to rub your shoulders or back? That often helps.”
“No.”
“Then is there something special you’d like to eat? We don’t have any honey, but—”
“No!”
“I could heat some rocks and wrap them in a blanket for you.”
“Curse you, Borgerson! I don’t want any rocks—I’ve got plenty of rocks!” she shouted, on the brink of tears. Then her voice shrank and became oddly choked. “I don’t want anything. Except for you to just . . . go away.”
Jorund stepped back and the door slammed in his face. But when he turned away, he was grinning again. He strolled toward the lodge, feeling delighted. Just when his spirits had been at low ebb, he was given a dramatic reminder that inside his proud, self-contained warrior was a tender and vulnerable woman. He paused and looked up at the snow showering around him and thought to himself that the first snow was always the most eagerly awaited, but the shortest lived. Lasting things were worth waiting for.
