by Joanna Bell
I didn't know what 'light the wreaths' meant but I could tell he was just being nice to me because I was Paige's friend, and that he had somewhere to be, so I didn't question him further.
Little food was taken that afternoon, apparently a tradition on the feast days of Yule, so by the time darkness fell and it seemed the entire population had packed itself into the feasting hall, my belly was rumbling with hunger – and I hadn't seen Ragnar all day. I spotted him, already seated at the high table, before he spotted me. He was leaned back in his chair, talking intently to one of his men, who stood behind him in a pose that spoke to the respect he held for his Jarl. I smiled at the sight of them together, and a strange species of pride filled my heart.
Pride? I asked myself. Why would you be proud of someone else having a conversation? It was my usual thing – trying to pooh-pooh my own emotions, make them small and silly in order to dismiss them – but it didn't quite work that time. The feeling snuck up on me, a swelling sense of gratification at seeing Ragnar. It wasn't just me, either – and that was part of it. He was a Jarl, and that meant others treated him as a Jarl. It meant he took their respect and deference as his due.
At first it had seemed a little silly to me, these Vikings and their Jarls, almost as pompous and anachronistic as future-Britain's royal family. But Jarl Ragnar and Jarl Eirik – and, I presumed, the other Viking leaders – were no figureheads. It was my modern mind and way of thinking that blinded me to the very necessary role these men played in their society. Ragnar's people didn't respect and defer to him because of some inherited birthright, or for reasons of traditions or politeness alone. They respected and deferred to him because he was the strongest among them, with the most capable mind for defense, conquest, organization and all the other things a Jarl needed to master in order for his clan to thrive.
I almost felt a little chastised, sitting down next to him as he broke from his conversation to kiss me on the cheek and ask if I was OK. Ragnar wasn't just battle-brave. He was heart-brave too, telling me what he felt without fear of embarrassment. I was the coward on that count, hanging back because I feared the truth and what it meant.
And what was the truth?
Ragnar signaled one of the servers to fill my cup with dark ale and put his hand on the small of my back, observing me, checking to see how I was – not in some showy, dramatic way, but just in that quietly strong way of his, that made me feel so loved, so cozy in the bosom of his affections. I glanced up at him and caught his glacier-blue gaze, thinking to myself that leaving was going to be difficult. Perhaps the most difficult thing I had ever done.
But the feast was no time for sadness – it simply wouldn't have been permitted. We ate until our stomachs groaned for mercy, and then we ate some more. And drank some more. Many speeches were given, most of which seemed to consist of stories from the past year and hopes for the new one, as well as entreaties to the gods to bring a warm summer, healthy crops, victory for the people over the East Angles. I wondered, briefly, as I listened to the martial words of the Vikings, what anyone back in present-day England would make of my presence there. After all, the conquest the Norsemen spoke of was the conquest of my people, of the place I came from. But by the time I was born, who was to say that most of the people in my part of the UK didn't have Viking blood running in their veins? That they couldn't quite be said to be Angle, or Saxon, or Viking the way those in Ragnar's time could?
Afterwards, when the crowd was boisterous and rosy-cheeked with ale, the gothi and his young helpers led us down to the grassy sand dunes that curved around one side of the beach. Songs were sung – songs I did not know the words to – and more ale was drunk, and I thought that was going to be it. But as the wind carried the words of the last song away I saw that people appeared to be lining up, jostling for a place, closer to where the gothi stood. Paige came up behind me then, with her sleeping baby fastened to her back with linens, and nudged me in the ribs.
"They're burning the wreaths," she whispered in my ear, because the crowd had become quiet by then, watching as the gothi handed a wreath to Jarl Eirik, who dipped it into the flames coming from a small fire-pit and then held it aloft as it sizzled and crackled brightly against the dark sky.
"The sun hides her face from us!" He intoned, loud enough so even those at the back of the gathering could hear. "And births a daughter at this, the darkest time of the year. The eternal cycle turns once more and we ask the gods that this daughter of the sun grow healthy, that she shine her light on the people. Daughter of the sun! The gods make you strong and bright!"
And then, just as the flames were about to reach his hand, Eirik turned and sent the burning wreath tumbling and rolling down the dunes towards the sea. And after him Jarl Ragnar received his own wreath, also set alight and sent spinning down over the grassy dunes. Others followed the Jarls, all holding the wreaths up when they were first lit and bidding the gods to grow the sun's daughter strong and warm, and then rolling them down the dunes to cheers and laughter.
I was so mesmerized by the burning wreaths as they left a trails of glowing embers behind them on their way to the waves that I didn't see Ragnar pushing his way through the crowd towards me.
"Come," he said, when he reached me, and I scarcely had time to look back at Paige before I found myself pulled away.
"It's OK," I protested, sure I was fine observing, rather than participating. "Ragnar, I don't need to –"
"I'll be the one who says what you need, girl."
I laughed. I could easily have gotten angry, or dug my heels into the sand, but what came out of my mouth was a laugh. Ragnar turned when he heard it, flashing a smile that said he knew damn well I could have gotten upset, and that he also knew I just wasn't capable of it at that moment, on that night.
Still, I found myself balking when the gothi handed me one of the wreaths, nodding at me to dip it into the flames.
"Go on, foreigner," one of his female helpers urged me. "You're soon to be one of us, aren't you? You must learn our ways."
I turned to look at Ragnar, wondering who had informed the girl that I was soon to be one of them, but he just shrugged. Everyone was looking at me. Why was I hesitating?
I was hesitating because, even before the gothi's girl spoke up and made it explicit, some part of me understood that it might not be the best idea for me to travel even further down the path of blending in with these people. But Jarl Ragnar was watching me, and the people were watching us together. They would see it if I defied him, if I refused to light the wreath.
So I did it. I lowered the wreath into the fire and then held it up over my head, flinching away from the sparks that flew up.
"Sun," I started, and then stopped because I'd forgotten how the words went.
"Daughter of the sun," Ragnar whispered.
"Daughter of the sun!" I repeated, louder than him.
"The gods make you strong and bright."
"The gods make you strong and bright!"
"Use your wrist," he instructed, as I moved to send the burning wreath down the dunes. "The further the wreath travels, the better the year will be."
I tried to use my wrist, even though I felt it slightly unfair that I, a burning-wreath-tossing virgin, might be held to the same standards as the Vikings. The burning round of dried twigs and sticks, studded with pinecones and other forest detritus, flew out of my hand and rolled uncertainly down the sand. Before it had gone far it hit a ridge in the sand and wavered, wobbling and threatening to fall over. And when it began its descent into the sand, having traveled not even half as far as the worst performing wreath before it, Ragnar suddenly leapt forward and, to the laughs and cheers of the crowd, lifted it out of the place where it was stuck and nudged it gently on its way again. Everyone watched as it then, slowly but surely, made its way all the way to the water's edge, where it fell with a hiss and a puff of steam into the cold waves.
That night in the westerly roundhouse, as the camp slept and the fire's embers glowed in the d
ark, Ragnar tossed and turned in his sleep. His restlessness woke me and I lay beside him, watching him worriedly, wondering if I should wake him up. After the Yule rites with the burning wreaths he had taken me back to the roundhouse and made long, slow, proper love to me – until both of our bodies seemed to be made of jelly and we fell asleep in each other's arms. I had not forgotten about the parting to come, not at all, but it was easy to push it aside in my mind when I was next to him, as I was then.
Gently, I placed my palm on one of his burly, muscled shoulders, hoping maybe my touch would calm him. It didn't seem to. And a few seconds later his eyes suddenly flew open and he started looking blindly around the room, and at me, the way you do when suddenly woken from a dream.
"Where – ?" He started, his voice thick and groggy. "What am – Emma? Emma, oh, it's you. I –"
"Were you dreaming?" I asked, kissing his sweaty brow soothingly and rubbing his back when he sat up.
"Yes," he replied. "Yes, I – I think I was. I was in the forest – not this forest, outside the camp. And not the forest where I grew up. Some other forest. It was dark, the middle of a night – and with no moon. I was on a horse and it was – it was so quiet. I couldn't even hear the horse's hooves."
I leaned in and kissed his shoulder, still trying to ease him back to sleep. But he was perturbed, almost fully awake.
"I could hear hounds, though. That was the only sound. A hound barking loud and then another, quieter." He paused, and looked at me wide-eyed.
"What is it?" I asked, confused by his reaction. "What do you think –"
"Odin's hunt," he whispered. "It was Odin's hunt, Emma. The first time I've dreamt of it myself. But it is as it is, the dark woods, the sound of a hound – and then another, not as loud as the first. It's a sign."
"A sign of what?" I replied, as a little shiver ran up my back – how easy it was to get sucked into the superstitions of other people, when those other people took them seriously!
Ragnar shook his head. "War. Conflict. A change in circumstance, or a change in the weather."
"So anything, you mean?"
He turned sharply towards me. "It's not a light matter, girl. My first dream of the wild hunt, and in a foreign land – in another Jarl's camp to plan the conquest of the land. I must speak to Eirik about this. I must –" he got out of bed and began to dress.
"Ragnar," I implored, trying to take his hand and pull him back to bed. "It's not yet dawn, do you think Jarl Eirik wants you to wake him up at –"
"Girl!" He shouted, yanking his hand away. "I dream of Odin's hounds in a dark wood, and you bid me back to sleep? You lay your head back down on the furs, I have to speak to Eirik about this before it fades."
I tried once more to get him to stay, to talk sense into him, but he was dressed and out of the roundhouse within minutes. I crawled out of the cozy cocoon of furs to throw more wood on the fire and then got back in, falling into my own restless sleep until the light of the morning seeping in from outside got me up.
"We sail south after the last Yule feast," Ragnar announced that afternoon, when he found me in the roundhouse with Paige and baby Eirik, talking in low voices about my plans. She'd given me clear instructions on how to find my way back to the tree, involving finding the path from the beach. I was to walk south down the beach until I spotted it, not head straight into the woods that surrounded the camp, as I had done on that first night. She thought it unlikely I would miss it.
Paige and I looked up at the Jarl. "Did you hear me? We sail south. Word goes across the sea to the Northlands, to the other Jarls, to the chieftains of the people. When the summer comes, many more arrive on these shores, and we move inland."
How strange it was to hear, in real time, of the Viking plans to invade and settle Britain after having read up on the subject. They would be successful in their conquest, too – and for many years. They would leave a mark on the land and the language and the people that ran so deep it became a part of the place itself.
The final feasts of Yule took place, but I felt that both Eirik and Ragnar had already moved beyond Yule, in their own minds. They took their seats at the high table and participated in the rites only because it was expected of them. But both of them moved and spoke with a new urgency, a rush to get on with things, a wish for the sun to do her job and bring about the thaw that would mark the start of the Viking plans.
I waited on the beach on the day of our leaving, watching as supplies were loaded onto Ragnar's ship and then, when it came time for me to be loaded, clinging to Paige as she put her arms around me and we cried.
"I don't know if I can do it," I whispered in her ear. "I don't know if I'm strong enough to live without – him. Without you – and with knowing about this place."
She pulled back and clasped her hands around my face, looking me straight in the eye. "You're stronger than you think, Emma. I know the pain you're feeling. I know it won't go away until you see your family again. You know where to find the path to the tree. Go. Keep me in your heart, as I'll keep you in mine."
"You're even starting to talk like them," I laughed through my tears.
Paige kissed my cheek, then, and one of Ragnar's men led me thigh-deep into the sea before others hauled me aboard the Viking ship. And then I stood in my wet tunic as we sailed away, refusing a fur and refusing to hunker down out of the wind before Paige and the beach were out of sight.
Ragnar watched me as I did these things. He didn't watch me obviously, and when I say 'watch' I don't mean he did it only with his eyes. His eyes were occupied with navigation. But he kept a small part of his attention aside, to focus it on me. I felt it. I knew what it was about, too. We were heading back to the place where he'd first taken me, and back to the place where, he presumed, I might be able to find my way home. And although we seemed now, perhaps, to have an agreement that I was not a prisoner, I understood that the agreement had not yet been tested. Both of us, I suspected, and in our own ways, were grimly anticipating that test.
20
Ragnar
The journey south had a different mood to the one that had taken place a few weeks before it, when we headed north. Gone was the happy expectation of seeing a long-lost friend, and of allowing the woman I came to love the same pleasure. Gone was the lazy warmth of Yule, always the least busy time of year, and all the attendant goodwill and closeness with the people.
Not that I was unhappy, heading south. I was just crowded. Crowded with thoughts, with worries and plans. A small gathering of ships would be leaving Eirik's camp before the next moon, returning across the gray winter seas to our homeland, summoning the Jarls and the warriors to an invasion unlike anything we had undertaken in the green isles before. As I cast my eyes over the water, looking for signs of incoming bad weather, I also took in my men. Young, strong, and smiling even in the cold wind. Before the next Yule, some of them would be dead. Perhaps many. It was my responsibility to see that they were ready, that they were hungry for the coming conquest. And what better way to train for combat than to engage in combat? The raids would need to picked up in pace.
And then there was her. My eyes fell upon her chestnut colored head even as I tried to keep them away. Seasick, she stood leaning over the shields that ran the length of the ship, pulling her hair off her face as the winds blew it repeatedly back. Whoever her people were, they were not the seafaring kind.
Or maybe her sickness was a mother's sickness? Maybe she already carried my son or my daughter there, within her belly? I wanted to go to her then, to wipe her mouth and offer her some comfort. But I didn't. It wasn't just because my men were without their own women, even as I told myself it was. Emma wasn't like the Northern women. She didn't seem to be like the East Anglian women, either. There was a steel inside her, like the blade of a sword. You can wrap a sword in lambskin, in shearling and furs. You can tie it with leathers and fasten spring flowers into the ties. But it is still, under the pretty, swaddling softness, a sword. The women I knew as a younger man did
n't have that sharp edge sewn into them – or if they did, I had been too young and stupid to see it. Emma did. It was, I suspected, part of why I loved her. She seemed to know herself, to know what it was she wanted.
And yet it was also this that made me wary, that sent little flashes of uncertainty through my heart. The quick-witted little foreigner loved me. She needed me. She even looked up to me in that way that women do, their admiration filling men's chests with the bravado they need to carry out their duties. I caught her doing it all the time, even as she thought she hid it from me. But like the sword wrapped in soft leather and fur, I wasn't sure that she wasn't going to set aside her softness and slice me open.
I couldn't keep her against her will, she was plainly right about that. No woman of worth would submit to such a thing, and no woman of worth would be able to look with eyes unclouded by disappointment upon a man who needed to do such a thing.
"Jarl!"
I shook my head free of the thoughts of Emma and took notice of the rocky headland pushing out into the water, before directing the oars to carry the ship further out into the choppy sea.
We sailed for a day and a night and then part of a day again, with the wind against us. And after the camp had welcomed back its Jarl and a portion of its warriors, we all retreated to our roundhouses to sleep for many hours.
I awoke suddenly, in the darkness of night, and with a hollow in my belly. Had I eaten something rotten? No. It wasn't anything I had taken by mouth. It was the empty space on the furs beside me, an absence. Emma. I threw the furs off me and leapt to my feet, my heart beginning to pound.
"Emma!"
"Yes?"
Gods, she was right beside me, unseen in the dark. "Where – girl, what are you doing? Where have you –"
