by Speer, Flora
Again and again before morning he awakened her with deep, passionate kisses and the most intimate of touches. She was not always certain whether she was dreaming about him, as she had so many nights during his absence, or awake and holding him in her arms while he carried them both to the heights of delirious rapture, until she lifted her lids and found his green eyes looking deeply into hers as he made her his yet again.
“Erik,” she sighed, “I have been so lost, so empty without you.”
“You are not empty now.”
“No, I am full of you. Never leave me again. I want to sleep beside you every night. There, do that again, and that. Ah, Erik, Erik…”
Snorri’s marriage to Gunhilde was to take place at the turning of the year, during the great Yule feasts that celebrated the time when the days began to lengthen. He and Thorkell and a large retinue of men left for the home of Sven the Dark. Erik and Freydis were responsible for the preparations to welcome the bridal party on its return ten days later; then Sven and a group of his friends would accompany his daughter to her new home.
The guest chamber where Sven would stay and the great hall where his men would sleep along with Thorkell’s hird were cleaned and decorated with evergreen boughs. Snorri’s own room received special attention. Lenora, unwilling to enter the room, stood at the door, watching, as Freydis put the finishing touches on the decorations. Lenora regarded the little statue of the god Frey that had been placed near the bed and nervously crossed herself.
“Stop that,” Freydis ordered. “You will bring them bad luck. This is for fertility, so they will have many children.”
“If anything will work, that will,” muttered Edwina, considering the statue’s enormous, erect phallus. “Maybe I should have placed my faith in Frey.”
“Don’t say that, Edwina. You are just upset because Thorkell took Maura with him.” Lenora was genuinely shocked. Edwina had once been deeply religious, had often scolding Lenora for her laxity.
“I don’t know what I’m going to do. Thorkell hasn’t slept with me since Maura came. I thought he would marry me.”
“Edwina, come and help me in the kitchen,” Freydis advised. “You will be much happier if you do some work. You think too much about your problems.”
When the bridal party returned Lenora was fascinated to find the bride’s father tall and thin, with thick, silver-blond hair and pale blue eyes.
“Why do they call him Sven the Dark?” she asked Erik, who had just greeted the returning Halfdan, arrived for the feasting.
The two men laughed uproariously.
“Because,” Erik said, when he had calmed himself, “when Sven was born he was a deep red color, no one knows why. It was believed he would not live, but he did. In fact, he has never been sick a day in his life. His father thought it was a great joke to call him Dark.” With this, he and Halfdan burst into laughter again.
Lenora shook her head, understanding that this was another of those strange jests the Norsemen found so amusing, like the friendly insults they often hurled at one another.
Sven’s daughter Gunhilde was extremely tall, almost as tall as Snorri. She was coldly beautiful, with red-gold hair and pale, creamy skin. In spite of many friendly overtures made to her, she maintained an unbending aloofness toward the women of Thorkell’s household, preferring the companionship of the people she had brought with her to Thorkellshavn from her old home. Lenora did not like Gunhilde, and she believed Freydis did not either.
The wedding feasts continued for days. On the third night, in the midst of noise and revelry, Lenora was talking with Halfdan when she became aware of a growing quiet in the hall. She turned in her seat to see by the firepit a tiny old woman, gowned in white and holding in her right hand a staff taller than she was. There was a majesty about the woman, a serene and profound stillness. And something more, a quality of unknowable mystery, of darkness, that Lenora felt even before the woman’s eyes briefly met hers. Lenora had been about to cross herself for protection against the power she felt emanating from the woman, but her hand was arrested in mid-motion by those deep, impenetrable eyes. In an instant the woman’s gaze had moved on to rest on others in their turn, but still Lenora could not move.
As those in the hall fell into an unnatural state of complete silence, Thorkell rose from his seat beside Snorri and Gunhilde. At the same time, Lenora found her tongue again.
“Who is she, what’s happening?” she asked Halfdan.
“It’s the volva,” Halfdan whispered back in an awed tone.
“The what?”
“Hush.” Halfdan’s voice sank even lower. “Thorkell is the officiating chieftain here; he will speak. You must be quiet. She is the volva, the seer, the Angel of Death. I do not know the word in your language.”
“You are welcome,” Thorkell told the old woman. “Do you come to prophesy?”
“I do.” In spite of her apparent frailty, the woman’s voice was strong and commanding. She looked around the hall, as though assuring herself of everyone’s complete attention before she drew herself to her full height. In a gesture almost too rapid for the eye to follow she threw something into the firepit. There was a flash of light and a billow of gray smoke, followed by an appreciative murmur from the audience, as though most men and women in the hall had seen exactly what they expected to see. Borne on a wisp of smoke, the smell of bitter herbs pricked at Lenora’s nose, making her want to sneeze.
Again the volva waited until silence was restored. When all was quiet once more, she lifted her staff off the ground to point its base toward Thorkell.
“You, my old friend Thorkell the Fair-speaker, will not see another Yule. I will come for you.”
A gasp was heard around the hall, followed by frightened whispers. Thorkell nodded at the volva’s words, unafraid. Lenora was more than ever impressed by his great dignity.
“I am ready,” he said. “But what of my sons?”
The volva’s long staff pointed now at Snorri. Lenora thought she saw a tremor of fear pass over his face before he recovered himself and sat impassively, staring back at the volva.
“Snorri,” the woman intoned, “your end lies far from here. I see treachery and double treachery.”
Snorri laughed. “What of my reputation?” he asked. “Will it live after me?”
“You will be long remembered.”
Snorri nodded in satisfaction, for such was the wish of every Norseman.
“Will I have sons to follow me?”
“You will have twin sons, but you will never see them. Before they are born, you will die the most shameful death of all. You will die at the hands of a woman.”
“I don’t believe you.” Snorri’s face had turned bright red. He began to rise, but Thorkell stopped him.
“Sit,” he commanded, and Snorri sank back into his seat.
“My other son,” Thorkell asked. “What of Erik?”
The volva turned to face Erik and pointed her staff at him.
“Ah,” she said, “such a long path. So far away. Other lands, other gods. And treachery. Danger. Trust no one, son of Thorkell. Your way is long and difficult. I cannot see, I cannot see…” The old woman fell onto the earthen floor in a crumpled heap. Freydis hurried forward with a cup of mead to revive her. No one else moved. Lenora felt a cold chill along her spine.
Suddenly, Snorri leapt across the firepit, his sword drawn.
“You,” he shouted at Erik. “It is you who have done this.”
Sven, on this occasion seated next to Erik, put out a restraining hand. “Would you bring shame to my daughter’s marriage feast by spilling your own brother’s blood?” he asked.
“This is no brother of mine,” Snorri rasped, showing his yellowed teeth. “You did it, Erik. You brought the old crone here to curse me.”
“You know perfectly well the volva goes where she wishes,” Erik replied cooly, “and she spoke not curse but prophecy.”
“Snorri, sit down.” Thorkell’s voice rang across the hal
l. “I will have order in my home. Sit down, I say.”
With a scowl, Snorri crossed the room and sat down. Lenora noticed the icy expression on his bride’s face and her rigid shoulders. I would not be Snorri’s wife for all the gold in Grikkland, she thought.
The disturbance had spoiled the once-boisterous mood, and the night’s feasting ended early.
“I’m glad Snorri didn’t hurt you,” Lenora said when she and Erik were alone in his house. She ran her hands along his finely muscled arms and locked them behind his head. She kissed his lips, but to her surprise found no response. “Erik?”
Reaching up, he took her wrists in his strong grip and held her away from him.
“I should kill you,” he said.
“What?” She stared at him in shock.
“I believe yours is the hand that will strike down my brother. You are the woman the volva spoke of, who will destroy him in shame. You will bring disgrace to my family. Why can’t I kill you?”
Since the first night he had owned her, Lenora had never feared Erik, but now she was terrified at the look on his face.
“What are you saying?”
“I think you have bewitched me, Lenora. You are more seductive than all the dark-eyed beauties of Grikkland. I swore I would never touch what had once been Snorri’s, and yet every night I lie with you and I cannot help myself. I told myself I would find another woman when I visited Halfdan, but there was no one I wanted. Erna wants me again, and I look at her with disgust. What have you done to me that I want no other woman?”
“You need no other. You have me. And you know full well I was never Snorri’s woman.”
“Do you deny you want revenge against him?”
“I had thought of it, but I gave up the idea as impossible for a slave. Besides, I promised Thorkell—”
“I know what you promised. And I know what the volva said.”
“I remember a night when you almost killed Snorri yourself, after he insulted your manhood,” Lenora responded. “Why do you worry about his safety now? He would kill you if he had the chance and not think twice about it.”
“On the night you mean, I did think a second time, even in the heat of anger,” Erik told her. “I remembered that we have the same father, that I was born a slave yet Thorkell freed me and adopted me, that he has always treated me fairly. In that thinking lies the greatest difference between Snorri and myself. I am so grateful to Thorkell, I love him so well, that however angry I may be, however much I might wish I could, still I will not harm any son of his.”
“Not even to save yourself?”
“It will not come to that.”
His confidence dismayed her.
“It almost came to that tonight,” she responded quietly. “Snorri would have killed you and laughed to see you die. He is dangerous, Erik. Please, be on your guard against him.”
He would not listen to her. His hold on her wrists tightened.
“If I ever catch you in treachery, Lenora, I will kill you slowly. I know how you Christian Saxons fear death.”
“That’s not true. I’m not afraid to die, but I haven’t done anything wrong. How can you treat me like this because of what a half-mad old woman says?”
“She is the volva.”
“You don’t believe that heathen nonsense?” Lenora would not admit that she herself had felt a thrill of fear at the volva’s prophecies. She knew what Father Egbert would have said about such witchcraft.
“The volva has powers you do not understand.” Erik dropped her hands and she rubbed her wrists where his fingers had bitten into her. “Go to sleep, slave. I am going to talk with Halfdan, and then I will go to Erna.”
But he was back later that night, after Lenora had cried herself into exhaustion. He lay down beside her on the straw mattress and put his arms around her.
“I need you,” he moaned as his mouth found hers. “Only you. Lenora, you beautiful witch, I can’t do without you. What in the name of all the gods have you done to me?”
At his touch, a heavy, throbbing desire stirred in Lenora, stronger than the fear and anger she had known earlier. She could feel her own hot blood coursing through her veins.
“Erik,” she whispered, “whatever I have done to you, you have also done to me. I can’t stop wanting you, and when I am with you, nothing else matters.”
There was no gentleness in their coming together. They tore at each other’s garments, gasping and sobbing in their urgent, primitive need, until they were both naked. Her fingernails raked his back as he pulled her roughly to him. She cried out like some wild animal, totally lost in the sensation of his skin against hers, his body demanding equal passion from her, until suddenly she lost all control and was swept away beyond thought, beyond time and place, to some strange realm where all the stars in the sky exploded at once and fell in shimmering pieces into the quiet sea.
And then, only then, there was peace between them at last. Erik slept in her arms, and she marveled at the passion that had flared between them. She thought of Snorri, holding Erik more closely, as if to protect him, and wondered where Snorrri’s hatred of his brother would end.
Three days later Lenora found Edwina singing happily at her loom. “Have you heard the news, Lenora?”
“I have heard nothing. I’ve been working in Thorkell’s chambers.”
Maura is gone, Edwina announced.
“Gone?” Lenora looked for confirmation at Freydis, who had just come into the weaving room.
“It’s true,” Freydis said.
“Sven wanted her,” Edwina reported. “So Thorkell gave Maura to him for a gift. She departed with him early this morning.”
“Did no one ask Maura what she wanted?” Lenora knew such things happened, and she had not especially cared for Maura, but the casual exchange of a human gift was cruel.
“She’s only a slave.”
“So are you, Edwina.”
“Not for long. Thorkell took me to his bed last night. Soon he will ask me to marry him.” Edwina went back to her weaving, a sly smile on her face.
Freydis followed Lenora out of the weaving room.
“She’s mad,” Lenora said. “Thorkell will never marry her, will he?”
“Edwina has always been mad,” Freydis replied. “Since the first day she came here. Mad and weak. She is not strong like you. No, Thorkell will never marry her. Why should he? She is only dreaming.”
The gray, wet, cold winter continued, with only the slightest lengthening of the days to give hope that spring would ever come. Storms blew in off the North Sea, bringing snow and stinging rain and sleet. Hands and feet were constantly cold, faces chapped red from the ever-present wind.
In the cold weather Erik’s injured leg ached badly and his limp worsened. At night Lenora wrapped hot stones in cloths and laid them against his old wounds.
It was an unhappy time, for Freydis was often at odds with her new sister-in-law over who would manage the household. Snorri, quickly bored with his cold and distant wife, was anxious to be off on another voyage. Because of the volva’s prophecy, there was general agreement among his former crew members that Snorri’s good luck was gone. Few wanted to sail with him again, most fearing they would be involved in his predicted shameful end. Snorri’s temper grew ever shorter.
“Forget the freemen. I’ll buy slaves to sail with me,” he snarled one day, striding about Thorkell’s chamber. His angry presence upset Lenora as she struggled with a long list of Thorkell’s goods and a bad pen. She wished Erik were there, but he had gone riding with Halfdan.
“You will never make good sailors of slaves,” Thorkell observed mildly.
“I will if I promise them their freedom at voyage’s end,” Snorri replied.
“They’ll throw you overboard before you are out of sight of land,” Thorkell said. “No, you need free men.”
“Give me part of your hird. You support them; they owe you their allegiance. You can order them to go with me. They are well-trained fighters, and an
y true Norseman is a sailor.”
“If I do, who will protect my lands while you are gone?”
“Then give me half of your men, and I’ll make up the rest of my crew from your farmers and my few loyal friends who will still volunteer.”
“Take my farmers? Who will sow my fields when spring comes? Besides, they are free men. I cannot order them to go.”
“They will go if you ask them to.”
“No, Snorri.”
Snorri’s huge hands doubled into fists. Lenora sat watching this scene, terrified of Snorri’s vicious temper. But Thorkell stared him down, unafraid.
“Will you strike your own father?” he asked with a smile.
“I need to go a-viking,” Snorri ground out between clenched teeth.
“Have you gone berserk in the dark winter, as the men of Sverige in the far north do? Or is it your cold wife you long to leave?”
“I will return in time for the spring planting. I give you my word.”
Thorkell’s knotted fingers stroked his long beard.
“Perhaps it would be best for you to go. I grow weary of stopping your constant arguments with Erik, and if you continue to quarrel with Gunhilde, you will soon get all my serving women with child. Very well, go find yourself some other diversion.”
Snorri grinned happily. “You will provide the supplies I need?”
“Don’t I always do that? But I warn you, I want a large profit on my investment. And see to it that as many of my men as possible return in good health.”
“I will. I must find Hrolf and Bjarni. They will want to go with me.” Snorri, his good humor restored, slapped his palm against Thorkell’s to seal their bargain, then hurried from the room. He sailed six days later, and most of Thorkell’s household was glad to see him go.
“I hope he brings no more slaves home,” Edwina said. “Thorkell is happy with me now.”
Privately, Lenora thought Thorkell looked more tired than happy, but she was too involved in her own life just then to give much thought to others. On a cold night, as they lay snug under layers of furs, warm and content after their love-making, she told Erik her secret.
“I am carrying your child,” she said.
