by Joanna Bell
As I stood, not getting undressed, the two attendants moved heated rocks from the middle of one of the fires and plunged them into the third tub, where they hissed and sizzled and made the water around them boil furiously.
"Is that – uh, is that safe?" I asked. "Won't those rocks burn me?"
"Oh you just don't touch them at first," Paige replied airily. "Anja will push them to the bottom end, just give it a few minutes for them to cool and then you can use them to warm your feet on."
For a brief moment, I wondered if Paige was playing some kind of prank on me. "What?" I asked. "Are you serious? How don't those rocks burn their way through the wood, anyway?"
"They're placed on other, smaller rocks to prevent it," one of the attendants answered, gesturing to the tub I was to bathe in. I peered in and saw the smaller, flatter rocks arranged at one end. OK. That was taken care of. I just had to manage not putting my bare feet on one of the rocks which had, moments ago, been sat in the middle of a raging fire.
"So – I just get naked right here?" I asked, looking to Paige. My fingers and face were cold from the brief walk between the westerly roundhouse and the bathing roundhouse. I wanted a hot bath more than I wanted food at that point. But I didn't fancy getting completely naked in front of my best friend and three total strangers. "I mean, in front of everyone?"
Paige smiled serenely. Paige smiled serenely a lot in this place – more than she ever did back in our time. She lifted one arm out of the water and waved it lazily in the air. "No one cares about that here," she said. "Seriously, Emma, it's just not something to be embarrassed about. Anja and Gudry can help if your leather laces are tied too tightly, or if they're frozen."
Nothing Paige said actually stopped me from being embarrassed, but it didn't look like I had a choice. One of the attendants, the one with the friendlier demeanor, approached me and began to work on the ties of the long fur cape.
"I'm Anja," she said. "Don't worry, we'll have you warmed up and clean soon!"
I burned with self-consciousness as I was undressed, and then even more acutely when I was naked, standing in front of everyone. To be fair, no one seemed particularly interested. Not until Anja slid a couple of her fingers over one of my thighs – where the evidence of Ragnar's lust had not been wiped entirely away yet – and giggled before announcing to the room that I must have just come from 'pleasing the visiting Jarl.'
I remember feeling my eyes widening as I turned sharply to Paige with a 'did that just happen?!' look on my face. She just smiled up at me from the tub.
"Paige!" I screeched, my cheeks tingling as I looked from Anja – who didn't seem to think she had said anything wrong – to my friend. "What the fu –"
"It's not a thing," Paige said, chuckling. "I mean, they don't think about sex the way you do. It's not this big 'thing' here, you know? It's like eating or sleeping – don't be embarrassed."
"Uh," I said, because Paige appeared to be serious. It was apparently perfectly fine, in that place, for strangers to wipe cum off other people's thighs while making gossipy comments about their sex life to a roomful of people. "Um. OK."
I think Paige might have noticed that I was actually quite bothered by what had just happened because she pulled herself up to a sitting position in her tub and reached for my hand. "Hey," she said. "Hey, Em."
"What?" I snapped, annoyed that she seemed to be expecting me to somehow immediately adapt myself into this community of perverted Vikings.
"I'm sorry," she said, squeezing my hand. "I – in some ways it doesn't feel like I've been here very long, but having you here has kind of made me realize just how long it's been. Anja didn't mean anything – it really is just how it is here. No one gets uptight about bodies, or sex, or any of –"
"Well that's nice for them!" I cut her off, irritated because now I saw that it was me who was coming off as strange and foreign, not Anja and her lack of boundaries. And as soon as the words were out of my mouth I regretted them, regretted making a big deal out of it.
"I'm sorry," Anja said, looking like she might be about to cry. "I didn't mean to offend anyone – especially a friend of Paige! I won't – I won't do it again, I –"
"It's OK," I said, rubbing my forehead. It's – uh, yeah. I mean, it's really odd to me but it's OK. I'm not angry."
After everyone's feelings had been smoothed over sufficiently – including my own – I let Anja and Gudry take my hands and help me into the tub. And Paige was correct – it was wonderful. As I submerged my body under the steaming hot water, it was the first time I'd felt truly, completely warm since arriving in the past. The aches of the cold and the lack of mattresses and the simple stress of my situation seemed to leak away into the water.
"See?" My smiling friend asked, turning to me as we both lay with our heads resting on the edges of our tubs. "Isn't it great?"
And I couldn't even pretend to disagree. "I think I want to stay here for a whole day," I told her, my voice slowed now to match the easy pace of everything else in the bathing roundhouse. "Do you think they could bring us supper in here?"
We couldn't really talk about anything to do with my getting back to the present time with Anja, Gudry and Willa – who was introduced to me as Paige's childhood friend and the wife of the man I'd met on my first, brief visit to the past – all within earshot. So instead we just talked of – well, I guess you could say we talked about men. And specifically about which ones were hot, and which ones were not. There was much interest in the new Jarl in their midst – Ragnar.
"Will you marry him?" Willa asked, after she had woken up from her hot-bath-induced sleep and joined the conversation.
"Oh!" I said, laughing. "Oh, um. No! No, of course not."
Three pairs of eyes – all except Paige's – fixed themselves on me, clearly wondering if I was insane.
"Why?" Willa asked plainly a few seconds later.
"Uh," I said. "Uh, I –"
"My friend doesn't yet know who she will marry," Paige jumped in. "Stop pestering her, she's had a long trip from the south."
But Willa, already showing herself as headstrong – to put it mildly – wasn't satisfied. "Long journey?" She asked. "I heard it hardly a day by sea! Tell us, Emma, are you holding out for the King himself? Or do you already have another man's child in that flat belly of yours?"
"No!" I protested, once again offended by the bluntness of the 9th century people. "No I'm not – I'm not pregnant. And I'm not holding out for the King. If you must know, I'm trying to get –"
"You'd best be careful, then" Willa spoke before I'd finished. "Because if there's no baby in there now, there soon will be."
I opened my mouth to respond, but found there was no real response to Willa's comment, because she was right. I turned to Paige, hoping maybe she would be able to put a muzzle on her too-forward friend, but all she did was shrug.
"She's right, Em. I mean, there are other ways to have fun without risking a baby, right?"
At that moment, before I had time to stammer out a sheepish response, Hildy's voice boomed through the wooden walls of the roundhouse.
"Stop your gossiping and get dressed, ladies – the feast begins shortly!"
Gudry and Anja both made faces in the direction of Hildy's voice – faces I suspect they would not have made had she been able to see them, and began to help Paige from her bath.
"Why do you let her speak to you that way?" Gudry asked my friend as Anja wrapped a long length of soft linen around her wet, naked body. "You're the Jarl's wife, lady. You could have her whipped for –"
"You're right," Paige replied cheerily. "I could. But without Hildy bossing everyone around I'm not sure this place would run half as smoothly as it does."
Willa left the roundhouse after drying off and dressing herself – I noted that Anja and Gudry seemed explicitly interested in helping Paige, not Willa. Paige kissed her cheek before she left and then turned to me.
"You'll eat at the Jarl's table tonight. That means you have to behave."
I laughed as Anja ran a comb through my hair, assuming Paige was kidding.
"I mean it," she followed up a moment later. "It's not a joke, Em. I can see already that a part of you finds all of this – the Viking ways – silly. I don't blame you, I was even worse when I first came here, half-convinced it was all a show they were putting on just for me. But it's not a show. And Eirik has invited you to sit at our table – if you act badly, it reflects on him. It makes him look bad in front of –"
"Oh my God, Paige!" I burst out, unable to hold my tongue. "Don't talk to me like I'm a damned idiot, OK? What do you think I'm going do, rip all my clothes off and show all the Vikings my tits?"
"No," she replied, her voice a little tight. "No, that isn't what I meant. I just meant –"
"Like I said, Paige – I'm not stupid. You're not stupid, either. Remember when you and I had classes together and one of us almost always got the best mark on our papers? Remember that? So yeah, neither of us are dumb and we both know it." Paige moved as if to speak but I kept going. "But I see how you're treated here. And if you think it's too alien to understand, it's not. You know I'm English, you know I understand class and hierarchy and all of that tedious bullshit. All I'm saying is, I'm not going to embarrass you, alright? Not knowingly, anyway. I can't say there aren't any Viking eating customs I'm unfamiliar with. But don't expect me to treat you like royalty. You're not. You're just the same as –"
Anja suddenly dropped the hank of my hair which she was busily detangling, and I saw that she wore an expression much like I imagined mine must have been when she drew attention to the fact that there was semen on my leg. "Don't speak to the Jarl's wife like that," she said quietly. "Paige – she should not speak to you in such a –"
"Anja!" Paige suddenly exclaimed, clapping her hands. "Gudry! Leave us. I'll have one of the thralls bring you some meat from the feast later, OK? I need to speak to my friend alone right now."
Without another word, both attendants took their woolen tunics off the hooks near the door, shimmied into them, and left. And as soon as they were gone, Paige and I stood looking at each other, each of us wondering if we still knew the person in front of us.
"You look annoyed," I said. "But I meant what I said – we're the same Paige. We're equals. I know you know it. No one else here knows it, apparently – but we –"
"Of course I know it, Em! Jesus! What do you think? That I want you to kiss my ass or something? I don't. But this is real, do you understand? This is real. This is my real life. These are my people now. And I've learned to just go along with certain things, even if they seem silly or nonsensical to me. So no, this isn't about me thinking I'm better than you or any horseshit like that. It's just about not making waves, OK? You want to get home, don't you?"
I pulled one of the soft linen under-gowns, one of which had been laid out for me, over my head. And as I smoothed the fabric down over my body I found that I felt ashamed of how I'd acted.
"You're right," I said, blinking back a quick tear. "I'm just so stressed out. It's not your fault – it's not anyone's fault, I know it. I don't know why I'm acting so –"
Paige pulled me into her arms and shushed me. "Shh, Em. Shhh. I know. You know I know, don't you? Out of everyone on this planet, in this time or any other time, I truly do know. Come to the feast. Sit with Eirik and Ragnar and myself. Eat your fill. You won't wake up in America in 2017 tomorrow morning, but it will help. I promise."
Why had I ever resented my friend? I shut my eyes as I buried my face in her shoulder, heavy with guilt. It wasn't her fault I was here. What had happened to me back in the present wasn't her fault either. We were both buffeted by high winds, by outside forces. It was folly to try to ascribe responsibility for any of it. At that moment, all I felt was an all-encompassing sense of warmth and gratefulness for her friendship, and her support in helping me get back home.
"I'm sorry," I mumbled. "I know it's not your fault, Paige. Or my fault. All of this happened to you just as much as it happened to me, didn't it?"
Paige nodded. "It did. But right now, Em, we need to get dressed and get to the feasting hall before Hildy comes back and drags us both there by our ears."
We got dressed. My clothes were much finer than those I'd worn before – softer, woven with more skilled hands and decorated with beads and small colored stones. Even the wool tunic that went over the linen layers had scalloped leather sewn around the cuffs, hem and neckline.
"Ragnar's going to die when he sees me in this," I giggled, looking down and running my fingers over the necklace of black beads Paige was fastening behind my neck.
"You should be careful with that," she commented, patting my shoulder.
"Oh don't worry, I'm not here to steal your baubles! Well, unless –"
"I don't mean the necklace," she said, her voice gently serious, and I realized what she was talking about – my relationship, whatever it was, with Ragnar.
"Oh," I replied. "Oh. Yeah. Paige, if you think I'm going to stay here, or that I'd leave my family to –"
"That isn't what I think, Em. In fact it's the opposite of what I think. I know you're going home – I know it because I remember feeling it myself. But I see the look in your eyes when you talk about him. Don't make it more difficult for yourself than it has to be."
I laughed, but it didn't sound very convincing – even to me. "It's only been a few days, Paige. It's – I mean, it's just fun, isn't it? You saw him, right? He's so hot! What was I supposed to say? No?"
She offered me a small, almost sad smile. "I know, Em. I know. Just be honest with yourself, OK? I'm only saying this because I care about you."
"I know."
We hugged again, holding each other tightly, and then Paige linked her arm with mine and we ducked under the leather flap, gasping at the sudden blast of icy winter air as it filled our lungs.
15
Emma
The feasting hall at Jarl Eirik's encampment was bigger by far than the one in the southern Viking outpost. The logs that made up the walls were thicker, too, standing sturdy and solid in the face of the cold winds. Paige and I found ourselves escorted to the table that sat on a platform a little higher than the rest of the tables – of which there were many, all looking to weight about a ton each, and all ornately carved and piled high with platters and plates and huge clay pots full of food and drink. I wanted to describe it as 'like a movie' but unlike the movies, there were the wonderful smells to take in. Roasted meats and vegetables, venison pies and sausages, the sweetness of the heated mead and the milky steam that rose from the pots of what looked like oatmeal – all of it tickling my nose and sending me into a near-delirium of hunger.
"Oh my God," I whispered to Paige as we took our seats – her next to Eirik at the head of the table, facing the hall, and me next to Ragnar at the side. She turned to me, smiling brightly.
"If the Vikings know how to do anything," she whispered back, "it's a feast. Just be careful to go slowly, or you'll be outside groaning and cursing yourself by the end of the night."
Jarl Eirik nodded at me when I sat down and Ragnar leaned in, as seemingly unperturbed by PDAs as Anja had been at scraping his cum off my thigh, and kissed my neck so slowly I half thought he was going to pull me to my feet and bend me over the table right there in front of everyone.
"You smell good, girl," he told me, kissing my earlobe. "I've suddenly lost interest in this feast."
My head tilted itself away from him, exposing my neck to be kissed even as I giggled and tried to pretend he was having no effect on me. When he slid one hand up my thigh, not stopping until his fingers rested against my sex (albeit through layers of linen and wool), I turned my face up to look at him.
"Ragnar," I breathed, "I –"
"That's all I wanted to see," he grinned. "That look in your eye, Emma. That's the state I want you in for all of this evening. Hungry, needful. And not just for venison and dried fruits. When I take you to bed later, I want to feel how much you want it
."
And just like that, his words guaranteed that he was going to get exactly what he wanted. I actually had to look away immediately, because that feeling of welcome helplessness, the one that felt new despite my past relationships, was coming over me again.
It took a little longer for the hall to fill completely what with the numbers of people in the camp, but when it finally did Eirik stood up and waited for a hush to fall across the room. It didn't take long – as soon as his people saw their Jarl waiting for their attention, they gave it.
"The winter is almost at its darkest," he began, surveying the men, women and children seated at the groaning tables, making eye contact, acknowledging them. "But on the cusp of our first Yule in this new land an old friend arrives, bringing with him the memories of a childhood spent together. We played together at being warriors, in the ever-green fields of youth, and now we find ourselves become the thing we pretended." Eirik turned to Ragnar at this point, with respect and love openly written on his face. "I have missed you, brother. To see you again is to feel the joy of the first warm day of summer two moons early. We have much to discuss, and the path forward for our people to plan. We welcome you and your party to our outpost in the land of the East Angles, we celebrate your presence over the Yule time, and we offer you our hospitality. Welcome, brothers!"
At that point, Jarl Eirik took hold of the horn drinking flagon set in front of him and raised it up. His people mirrored his gesture with their own cups. And then, just before taking a swig, Eirik turned to me, grinning.
"And sister! Welcome brothers – and sister!"
"And sister!" His people shouted in unison, before everyone drank and the room transformed from quietly attentive to raucous in the space of less than a minute. Servers streamed into the hall, bringing the food that they had not been able to find room for on the central tables, and making their way down the rows of hungry Vikings, doling out huge chunks of chewy, dark bread and filling drinking cups to the brim from clay jugs sloshing with ale.
