Ragnar

by Joanna Bell

  "But the women, Jarl, they said –"

  I stood up, then, and gestured for Halfgan to leave, which he did. Scarcely two winters younger than me, he seemed to be a boy of ten in temperament. But he was the son of my father's great friend and I had been pressed to take him into my service when everyone realized he was never going to be fit for the warrior's life. He took instructions well enough, as long as they were clear, and usually repeated about three times.

  When the bath was ready and I had lowered my cold, aching limbs into the steaming water, I bid the bathing woman to bring me the girl from the estate, the one with bruised wrists. The raid hadn't exactly been challenging, but the men and I often found raiding to be more of an excuse to indulge what desires we would have indulged anyway, with the veneer of tradition now smoothed over our young men's urges. The tradition was raiding, and then women. A fight, the hardness of men trying to kill each other, and then the soft warmth of a woman. I had girls in the camp, some quite well-born girls, but something about the look of that one on the estate had my blood running a little hotter than usual – and it usually ran hot.

  It wasn't just her look, as fair and smooth-cheeked as that was. It was something in the way she'd looked at me, before she let fear drive her eyes away from mine. I was Jarl Ragnar, son of Jarl Augnarr, and women had been looking at me in a certain way since I was too young to know what to do with them. It was one of the constants of my life, that look. Soft, coy – eager. The girl on the estate didn't have that look in her eye. In its place had been a surprisingly even gaze. She'd thought herself my equal, I'd seen it on her face. My curiosity at a woman who saw me unselfconsciously as of equal rank to herself, even if it was only for a moment before she caught herself and looked away, was piqued.

  The heat of the water sank into my flesh, loosening bones and muscles tightened by cold, and I let my mind wander to what might be underneath the girl's tunic. When the flap to the roundhouse was lifted back I felt a stab of rage at the sight of Halfgan – alone.

  "Voss! Halfgan, where is she? Why is it that the simplest tasks are –"

  "She's gone, Jarl," he spoke before I was finished – an offense I would have whipped him for if I thought him smart enough to realize he'd done it – and I knew at once that he was serious due to the fear on his face.

  "What?" I asked, standing up from my bath as the steam rose from my body and into the bracing air – and unconcerned about the fact that Halfgan was now being treated to a full view of just how eager I was to see the girl prisoner. "WHAT?! She's gone? Gone where?!"

  I jumped out of the wooden tub, roaring loud enough for the whole camp to hear me, and at once three of my personal guards charged in, dipping their heads respectfully before speaking.

  "She can't be far, Jarl. The women gave her bread and cheese not long ago. The ground is frosty, her footprints will be visible. We'll ride out now and bring her back to –"

  But I wasn't about to let my men ride out without me, in search of the wench. She'd escaped – and after we'd rescued her from her captors, allowed her to walk back with us unbound! If there's one thing I cannot abide, it's an ungrateful woman.

  "Get my horse," I barked. "I'll find her myself."

  It was a night so cold it half made me think I was at home, with the winds that sweep down from the real north howling outside my longhouse. But I wasn't at home, I was in the woods on the eastern coast of the Kingdom of the East Angles, tracking down a girl who'd be lucky to have her life by the time the dawn broke.

  It wasn't difficult to find her – wherever she got her defiance from, it wasn't from someone who'd taught her how to cover her tracks. I urged my horse along gently, not wanting him to make a sound to alert the girl to my pursuit, and soon enough I came upon her, standing in the middle of a clearing and looking this way and that, utterly lost.

  Not that being utterly lost stopped her trying to run when she spotted me. She stumbled soon enough, her limbs slowed by a cold the East Angles weren't used to. And when she stumbled, I jumped off my horse and snatched her up off the ground by the tunic the women had dressed her in. She twisted her head around then, not as weakened by the chill wind as I'd assumed, and Thor's fury if she didn't try to bite me. To bite me.

  "Voss!" I bellowed, loosening my grip enough to let her twist free, and then angrily making up the distance she managed to flee in two or three strides, taking hold of her once again to the sound of her anguished screams. What did this woman have to scream about?

  "What is it you wail about?" I demanded, tightening my grip on the handful of dark hair I held in my hand. "You'd be dead by dawn, girl – sooner still than that – if it weren't for me riding out for you. It's the second time today you've been saved by a Northman and what do I get? A wild beast of a girl, trying to tear my flesh from my bones with her little white teeth?!"

  Even in my anger, the flashing brightness of the girl's teeth under the moonlight caught my eye and made me wonder once again where it was she came from, to have apparently had a childhood free of hunger and sickness.

  I felt her go limp under my grip, then, and watched as she turned towards me, shrugging my hand off her shoulder the way I might shrug off the attentions of one of the bathing thralls.

  "What did you say?" She asked coldly, and I was so completely stymied by her imperious tone that I laughed out loud.

  "Who do you think you are, girl, to speak to me in that voice? Are you the Queen of the Angles, is that it? Is that why you look at me with that fire in your eyes, which isn't going to achieve anything but a beating if you're not careful?"

  "You're not going to beat me."

  I raised my hand at the provocation and then, before I could bring it down on her insolent head, saw that, somehow, I was being challenged. Not to hit her, but to not hit her. The way a mother will eye a child on the verge of a tantrum, daring them to maintain control of themselves. Left without the option of hitting the girl who taunted me with her eyes, I let my arm drop to my side.

  "Perhaps you are the Queen of the Angles? You certainly don't seem false in your belief that it's right to speak to a Jarl in the manner that you do."

  "I'm not the queen of anything," she responded, calmer now that my hand no longer hung over her head. "I'm just trying to get home. And I wouldn't quite say you rescued me today. Nor would I say that's what you're up to right now."

  "Oh you wouldn't? I've known you less than a day," I told her, and I could not keep the smile from my face, "and yet I'm not surprised. You'll die out here, do you understand? I'm here to take you back to the camp, where there's a fire to warm you, meat for your belly and furs for your sleep. How is it, again, that I am not rescuing you?"

  The girl wrapped her arms tightly around herself, feeling the cold, and my hand twitched to remove my cape. I stopped myself from doing so, not willing to concede the situation yet.

  "You're not here to rescue me," she repeated. "You're here because you're angry I left – I can see it on your face. You don't like being defied, that's why your here. Not because you care for my safety or comfort. What is it you intend to do? Put me to work? Rape me?"

  I felt my eyebrows nearly leave the top of my head. "Rape you? Rape you, woman?! I'd soon as toss you into the sea as lay a hand on you, you little demon. And as to being defied, where is the insult there? I'm the Jarl. Nobody defies me. It's not," I paused, searching for the right words – "it's not how it is with my people."

  Emma and I stood eying each other, and I could not escape the feeling that she had in some way bested me, despite the fact that I'd thwarted her attempt to flee (and probably saved her life, although that was apparently not worth mentioning) and was about to drag her back to the camp.

  "You've a quick tongue," I told her, "but it's cold out here and clever words won't save you from the frost. If you promise to take that look out of your eyes I'll put you on my horse and let you ride back."

  "No." She replied simply, taking a step back – a step I immediately remedied by grabbing
her tunic and pulling her back to me.

  I shook my head, laughing again. "You can't mean it, girl. Is there some magic afoot? Have the gods protected you from the weather? I see you shivering, so I don't think it so. So you choose if you want to come back on my horse, or attached to a rope and led back like a wayward calf."

  She only gave in because she was cold, and I could still plainly see the fire of defiance burning in her eyes as I bound her wrists – what reason to take further chances? – before lifting her onto my horse. I knew, even as I generously instructed the household thralls to build the fire up in the prisoner's roundhouse for Emma, and to feed her again and give her a sheepskin to lay underneath her body as she slept, that instead of thanks I would get only another attempt to flee – and another and another.

  What did this girl have to flee to that was so much better than the food and warmth at the camp? I pondered this question when I retired to my dwelling to dress for the feast and dismissed Halfgan's offer to bring me one of my favored girls later that night. Perhaps Emma truly believed she was about to be made a servant herself? A stupid belief, as anyone could see she hadn't the temperament for serving.

  And if she hadn't the temperament for serving, and she wasn't one of the Lord's daughters, and not a queen herself, as she'd assured me – then what was she?

  9

  Ragnar

  Come the morning, Arva and Fiske – my most trusted advisors – met me at the breakfast table, where we ate the little dried fish that made up so much of the winter diet. There was some thickness in my head from the previous night's feast – the one I had been late for after chasing that foolish girl through the frozen woods – but I knew good food and drink would send it away.

  "The spring will be here before you know," I said, seeing the downcast look in my friends' eyes. "I've been told this is an unusually cold winter for the Kingdom. We need to move ahead with the conquest of these people, settle down, build a village that can't be taken down by a high wind. I see the high days of many summers ahead. We'll have fertile land, fruit and berries aplenty, and the people of this place will know us as their rulers. But first, we must work."

  Arva pushed a lock of blonde hair off her pale face and pressed her lips together in an approximation of a smile. "I know it, Jarl. You keep us well, and we're grateful for it. It's only the season brings us low, and we know it will soon pass."

  "A message in the night," Fiske piped up then, always eager to get to the meat of any gathering. "From Jarl Eirik, who is encamped more permanently a day or two up the coast, to the north. He seeks out the counsel of the other Jarls already in this land."

  "Ah yes," I replied, thinking of my childhood friend. "I have not seen Jarl Eirik since we were boys, playing at being warriors while our fathers led the people. He seeks counsel when the weather turns warm?"

  Fiske shook his head. "Sooner. As soon as can be managed."

  "Was that it?" I asked, curious about Jarl Eirik's apparent urgency. Surely there were many more estates to take before the return of summer and the discussion of how to conquer and order our new lands. "Is he ill? Has something happened?"

  "There was no mention of it, Jarl. Only that he seeks your counsel."

  "Perhaps a trip to see your boyhood friend would be good for you?" Arva suggested, in her gently persistent way. "I won't pretend the raids have been arduous lately, but your men – and your people – could do with a time free of worry to welcome the new year."

  Arva was quieter than Fiske, her manner softer, but she was no less intelligent for it. She was right, too. My people had the necessities of life – food and fire and protection – but what they did not have that winter in the Kingdom of the East Angles was peace of mind. Almost every day their Jarl and his warriors rode out on raids, which meant almost every day the people left behind were flooded with worry until we returned. They knew as well as we did that past ease did not necessarily indicate future ease. They knew that one estate being no trouble to take did not indicate the next would be so. And they also knew that eventually the battle with the King would be upon us, and that such a battle would not be easy.

  I nodded at Arva and Fiske, indicating that I'd heard all they had to say.

  "Are you leaving already, Jarl?" Arva asked, eying me pointedly.

  "Aye, I am," I told her, slightly puzzled. "Why? Is there some other matter that needs my attention? Fiske? How about you?"

  Arva suddenly took a great interest in one of the ties holding her woolen cape around her shoulders. "I thought you might like to eat some more before you leave, Jarl," she replied. And then, a few seconds later – as was her manner – she said what she'd been meaning to say in the first place. "I hear you've taken interest in one of the prisoners from Lord Cyneric's estate. Is that where you go in such a hurry at this early hour? To check on her?"

  I opened my mouth to respond and then snapped it shut again as I watched something almost imperceptible pass between my two advisors – some tiny shift in body language, a slight changing of the tilt of Fiske's head. It was knowledge I saw passed between them.

  "I see word has already spread of my evening ride," I smiled, and my smile gave Fiske and Arva their own permission to smile back, slightly sheepishly because they knew I'd caught them taking an interest in matters of less than life-or-death importance – in gossip.

  Fiske shrugged, pretending in that way that men pretend, even as their interest in delicious personal matters is just as strong, that somehow the subject is only fit for women. Arva immediately saw this and laughed out loud.

  "Look at him! Acting as if he weren't the one in such a hurry to tell me of your pursuit of the prisoner, Jarl!"

  Arva and I both turned to Fiske, who had suddenly spotted something outside that needed his attention.

  "I reported on what the men spoke of when we woke," he grumbled, getting to his feet. "If you'd rather I keep you out of these matters, Arva, I would be happy to –"

  "Go!" I ordered him, still grinning at his reaction to being caught. "Go and take care of your tasks, Fiske. When I have a response for Jarl Eirik you will be the first I speak to of it."

  When my advisor had scuttled away I turned back to Arva and shook my head. "Don't be so hard on Fiske. He does his job well – and he's a man. He needs to think of himself as honorable."

  "And a woman has no need to think of herself that way?" Arva responded at once, her eyes sparkling with mischief.

  "Oh, I'm sure you do," I told her. "I'm sure of it. But even as we're bigger than you, and our shoulders broader, men are brittle in our own ways. Aren't we? His withered arm has kept him from a warrior's life and it's made Fiske very sensitive to his value. All I ask is that you keep it in mind."

  Arva nodded then, as she listened. "Of course, Jarl Ragnar. I'll be more gentle with him."

  "Is there anything else?" I asked, readying myself to leave. "Any problems with the captives, any sickness within their ranks?"

  Arva shook her head. "Not as such, Jarl. Some of them are malnourished, but not badly. Four of the women are pregnant. We'll feed the ones who need it and, when the earth softens after this cold, put them to work."

  I nodded and turned to leave, but Arva wasn't finished with me yet.

  "Is it as I assumed?" She added quickly, before I was out of earshot. "You rush off to see the girl prisoner from Lord –"

  I stopped in my tracks and raised a single eyebrow at my sometimes just-a-little-too-forward advisor. "First, Arva, I do not rush. Where do you see the rush in me?" She declined to answer, although I thought I saw something in her expression that said she wished to, even as she held it back. "Second, there are important matters that require your attention. I scarcely think it worth your time to spend it on my recapture of an escapee. The raid was easy yesterday, I required more exercise to whet my appetite before the feast, nothing more."

  I shouldn't have included that last part about needing more exercise before the feast. It was that, more than anything else, that made me ap
pear defensive. But it was too late and Arva, respectful as she knew to be at the right moments, was carefully concealing her woman's skepticism at my assurances that I wasn't interested in the prisoner – the beautiful, young, female prisoner with the way about her that I seemed already to be slightly mesmerized by.

  The day was, once again, hard-edged with cold. On my way to the longhouse where the prisoners were being kept as we sorted through them and what to do with each one, I stopped one of the household thralls and bid her fetch me one of the thick bearskins we'd brought with us on our journey across the Northern Sea. When it was in my arms, I continued at a brisk pace, blissfully unaware of how right Arva had been about my hurry.

  10

  Emma

  Of all the captives from Lord Cyneric's estate, I was the last to wake the next day. We were all crowded into a tent-like structure made from animal skins stretched over a frame of thin, flexible saplings. A large fire pit, filled with dimming embers, sat in the center of the space and my fellow prisoners clustered tightly around it. When I moved to get closer to the heat, someone casually shoved me away and I, still drowsy from a terrible night's sleep, just sat back on the dirt floor, pulling the woolen tunic one of the Viking women had given me tightly around my body and wondering if I was ever going to be warm again. My stomach began to rumble as the smell of something delicious – was that bacon? – began to waft into the shelter.

  Within a couple of minutes two girls entered with large wooden plates piled high with chunks of dark bread in their hands. A third girl followed with a little wooden cask that she lifted with a loud grunt onto the single piece of furniture – a crude wooden table – in the hut. I watched as the bread was passed out, snatching my own piece from the hand of one of the girls and stuffing it into my mouth with haste, before anyone could think to steal it from me. And after bread came a heavy clay mug of light, amber-colored liquid. I leaned down, sniffing, and wrinkled my nose.