by Joanna Bell
"Now what?" She asked. "Is this it? Right here? What do you have to do to –"
"No," I shook my head. "No, it's this way..."
I led us across the Renner's field and into the deserted woods, thankful for the bright moonlight, and we were soon at the tree. Katie noticed I'd stopped.
"Emma," she said, panting with the effort of trudging through the snowy field. "Is this it? Is this the right place to, um – to do it?"
When I started to cry, I almost expected Katie to comfort me, to produce some reassuring words. But she was crying, too. "Stop it," she sniveled, punching me on the shoulder. "It's not forever, Em. It's just for a little while."
"Just make sure you don't change your phone number," I replied, my voice hitching with emotion. "Because I won't know how to – to – I won't know how to contact –"
We fell into a hug and held onto each other tightly, both of our bodies shaking. "I'll leave some money here," she said, wiping her cheeks off. "I'll – yeah, I'll put some cash into a plastic bag and bury it here. I'll put a big rock on top of it, OK? So when you come back, you can get a taxi and some, uh, some –"
"Thank-you, Katie," I said, and by then I was crying so hard I'm not even sure she understood me. "Th –thank-you."
"We're so stupid," she chuckled through her tears. "Look at us! Jesus. So much for stiff upper lips, huh?"
The plan was for me to come home at some point. That was the plan. It wasn't forever. But even as neither of us spoke of them out loud, both of us felt the weight of alternate possibilities hanging over us. I hadn't had time to explain the way the tree worked, not really, but what if I couldn't get back to it in the Viking time? What if the invasion, which I already knew to be successful, went badly just for Jarl Ragnar and his men – and me? What if something happened to Katie, in the future? What if, what if, what if?
"You have to go," she choked out. "Mum and dad will start worrying if I'm gone too long."
"What are you going to tell them?" I asked, stalling. "What are you –"
"I'm going to tell them that you're safe. And that you have been safe all this time. I'll tell them you needed to go away, to let the situation calm down. I'll tell them you're coming back."
"I am coming back!"
"I know, Emma. I know you are. I love you."
Emma and I were close, but we were still English, we still didn't actually say those words to each other. In fact I think that was probably the first time either of us had.
"I know," I cried, burying my face in her shoulder. "Me too, Katie. I love you too."
Before I left, I told her to stand back a little so as not to risk bringing her with me. And when she stepped away I only just managed to let her go. I didn't want to, but I knew I had to.
"OK," I said, so emotional the words were just squeaks now. "OK. I'll see you soon, Katie. Tell mum and dad I love them. Tell them I'm safe."
"I will. I promise. See you soon, Em."
And then I was gone.
25
Ragnar
She was gone. I'd chased her into the woods, I'd seen her – and then she was gone. Not further into the woods, either. Somewhere else. The place she'd told me about – her home. I refused to believe it at first, and my men and I spent the whole day searching under every fallen tree, every bush, everywhere.
But I knew she was gone, because I felt her absence. It was sudden, too. She didn't fade away like an animal fleeing a huntsman, she was just utterly... gone. There one moment, and then not there the next.
I needed to see Jarl Eirik again. I needed to see Jarl Eirik's wife again – she was from the same land as Emma, was she not? I needed answers.
"Jarl," Arva approached me slowly, not looking me in the eye, when I arrived back in camp long after the sun had set. "Jarl, I –"
"DO YOU KNOW WHERE SHE IS?!" I roared, causing her to flinch away even further.
"No, Jarl," she whispered. "I'm sorry, Jarl."
"Don't speak to me of anything – of anything! – unless it is her," I growled, storming onwards towards my roundhouse. Others who saw me coming leapt aside, having heard my bellowing at Arva and understanding not to get in my way at such a time.
And then, once inside the roundhouse, I realized I did not want to be there, either, and left again. I spent most of the night like that, roaming around the camp as if possessed by bad spirits, my hands clenching and unclenching, as chaotic and out of control as I had ever been.
I spent the night hating her. How dare she leave? How dare she?
"She'll not return," I declared to Fiske when he found me just before dawn, leaning against the gate that kept the pigs in their sty at night. "If she knows what's good for her, she'll not return. I'll kill her myself if she does, Fiske – I swear it. Whipping's too good for a woman who spits in a Jarl's face. I'll open her pretty throat with my dagger!"
"God's allow you the chance," Fiske replied, very softly.
"We must go north again," I told him. "To Jarl Eirik's camp once more. I have – I need to see his – I need to see my old friend once more. There are some matters still to discuss. Important matters. We must go soon – this morning! We must go north when the dawn –"
"The men aren't ready," Fiske said, and I could see he was afraid of my reaction from the way he shrank away from me after he spoke. "This morning is too soon, Jarl. I beg you give it a day, or two. Perhaps she will return before –"
"Ready a fresh horse then, if my men cannot be roused from their beds! Voss, I'll ride north myself!"
"But Jarl, the marshlands are treacherous between here and Jarl Eirik's –"
"Are you dull?!" I shouted. "Do you not feel the chill in the air, Fiske? The marsh will be frozen solid all the way north."
"But the horse," Fiske continued, trying my patience like he had never tried it before, "on the uneven marshland – even if frozen, the beast is likely to break a leg! And you riding north unaccompanied – who knows what gangs of outlaws and East Angles roam the land? Man to man, my heart rests easy but seven or eight of them? More than that? You're a strong man, Ragnar – the strongest I know – but still a man. We need you, Jarl! The people here, they crossed the sea with you, they put their trust in you. How can you risk –"
Fiske was smart to appeal to my sense of duty. He was right, too. It was a stupid risk to ride north alone, even for a Jarl.
"Ready eight of my men, then," I told him. "Eight of the best – and have the smith sharpen their blades before we go. And eight well-rested horses, as well."
My advisor was hesitating, looking away. It didn't take a wise man to see he did not wish to carry out the tasks I bid him to carry out.
"Please Jarl," he beseeched. "Please think of the people here – the women, the injured and sick. There were no Angles come in the night when you were north with half the warriors, but what if we don't get so lucky this time? What if they find us undefended, our Jarl gone away? You know, Jarl – you do know..." he trailed off and I, having cooled ever so slightly, looked sharply towards him.
"What, Fiske? I do know what? Don't test me this night – of all nights, not tonight. Speak your mind."
"You know that she is not there, Jarl," he said, his voice barely a whisper, his eyes averted. "What do you think you will find in the other camp to get the foreign girl back? How will they –"
"Voss, Fiske!" I barked, lifting my hand as if to strike him and then snatching it back, ashamed. "Voss! Who says I ride north to find the foreigner?! Who speaks lies? I have matters to discuss with Jarl Eirik – matters of importance – of the invasion!"
If my blood hadn't been running so hot I would have seen it on Fiske's face that he knew the truth, that he knew I had no reason to go north except to seek information on Emma's whereabouts. But my blood was running hot, and I was not thinking of anyone except her – and how thoroughly I was going to make her regret her ungratefulness when I got my hands on her again.
When told a second time to ready eight men and eight horses, Fiske no long
er attempted to argue.
We rode out before the sun was at its highest point that day, heading north along the coast with the cold wind in our faces and the sound of the gray waves crashing against the shore to our eastern side. I drove my horse hard, and so my warriors drove their horses hard. Before nightfall, we came to a place where the coastal path led inland around the delta of a river, and there I found that the marshes were not frozen solid. Colder, yes, and thicker than water or muck – but not solid. My warrior Sigurd's horse sank up to its mid-legs with no warning, and it took the effort of all nine of us to pull the animal free. There would be no more progress made that night. Frustrated and snappish, I ordered them back to the beach where we spent a miserable night sleeping exposed to the winds, and awoke at the dawn with our bones aching. The horses suffered too, huddling together where we'd tied them, and already weakening.
As the men hunched against the chill and produced pieces of bread and cheese from their satchels for breakfast, they did not meet my eyes. When one stood, to ready his horse, I told him to wait. I told them all to wait. And then I walked down to water's edge, where the gray sea battered the rocks and the bleakness of the land was matched only by the bleakness in my own heart.
How far were we from Eirik's camp? More than a whole day, I thought. The horses were cold. The land was not as passable as I had imagined, and already my men were tired. How could I ask them to keep going? They knew we were on a fool's errand – and I was the fool. They knew as well as I did of the invasion to come, of the need to keep the fighting men as fit and healthy as possible. They knew I was risking their lives for no greater good except my own.
When I returned I gave them my orders plainly, telling them to turn around at once and head right back to the encampment. When they asked of my plans I told them I would be right behind them, that I needed time alone to think, to accept that Emma was gone. Most of them didn't believe me, but I was their Jarl and they had no choice but to listen – and to do as I said.
I felt better when they were gone south again, reassured as I was then that none of their pointless deaths would be on my head. Besides, I could make quicker progress alone, with only my horse for company and my mind temporarily freed of the worries of command.
At first I stuck to the coast, allowing the horse to pick its careful way through treacherous rocks made slick with seaweed, but I was soon forced back inland by the impassability of the terrain. And there, for a short distance, I found a corner of the marsh that seemed able to take the weight of a Jarl and his mount. Something in me knew I had to keep moving, I had to focus on the next step in getting Emma back – to stop would be to bring it all crashing down around me. That next step was talking to Eirik's wife, who I felt certain would know where my girl had gone to.
Soon, though, the marshland softened again, and I could not go on. I couldn't go on with my horse, anyway. So I dismounted and removed the creature's reins, bidding it luck in finding the encampment again and leaving it behind me to continue alone. Which I managed, for some time. My feet were cold and wet, but I was making progress.
And then came the time I was no longer making progress, and found myself almost thoroughly mired in the marshlands, with nothing but more marshlands around me, stretching out as far as my eyes could see. I stumbled forward onto a small, grassy hillock, a tiny island of semi-solidity, and fell onto my knees, my chest aflame with anger. It was her fault I was there – without men, without horses, without hope. And even as I knew it to be true, and I knew her to be the wickedest woman who had ever lived, still my arms ached to hold her again, my eyes ached to see the little curl at the corner of her mouth when she wanted to laugh at me but she tried not to, my loins ached to feel her opening herself up underneath me...
"Emma," I whispered into the frozen grass on the hillock, lowering my face so the stiff blades almost touched my lips. "Emma. Emma, Emma."
It didn't even matter why she'd left. What did it matter specifically who or what stole her away when the fact was that someone did, something did – and whoever or whatever it was meant more to her than I.
That was the truth that finally broke me, there in the freezing marsh. That was the truth that had driven me to mistreat my advisors, my warriors – even the horses. Something or someone in the world meant more to Emma than I meant, and she had made her choice. And I, in turn, had made my own people pay for the rage and pain she caused in me with her fickleness and her disloyalty.
"Emma," I spoke again into the grass as the freezing marsh water crept further and further up my legs, soaking my leathers. "Emma! Emma!" My voice became a hoarse cry, my throat raw from the winter wind, and still I got louder and louder, until it seemed even the people in the Northland must hear my misery.
"EMMA!" I howled, clenching my fists until I thought my fingers would snap."EMMA! EMMAAAA!"
Who knows how long I bellowed for her, knowing there was no one but the sky and the cold marsh to hear? I only knew that soon I would be dead and my people, who I had sworn to safeguard and fight for, would be without their Jarl. The water had gone too far – it was almost at my loins now – and I had not the energy to go back.
I tried a few times to move but my limbs grew heavy so I lay my cheek in the ice-frosted grass and imagined who would tell my mother and father I was dead, lost in the marshlands of the Kingdom of the East Angles? Who would tell Eirik and Fiske and Arva? And after I was dead, and a new Jarl chosen, how long would any of them even remember me?
It didn't matter. I settled into the grass as numbness took hold in my hands and feet and began to crawl up my limbs towards my heart. And then I fell into a series of fleeting dreams, mostly just images of people I had known. I saw my cousin Arvik, who died one day when were not yet ten winters old and spending the day digging a cave in the sandbanks near my parent's longhouse. The sand collapsed on top of us and only I made it out. It was no matter now, for my time had come and soon I would see Arvik again. I saw battles, too – recollections of danger – the sound of a sword slicing through the air, the feeling of a dying man's breath on my neck.
Now I was the dying man.
And yes, she was there too. My Emma, my girl. She came to me in those death-dreams, as warm and bright and full of life as ever, her arms reaching for my neck, her body lifting itself up to mine. I jerked awake at one moment, when she seemed to speak my name aloud into my ear in waking life – but she was not there and I tumbled back into the darkness where, now, she slipped away from me and I had only time to catch glimpses of her tunic or a lock of her hair as she flitted around a roundhouse or a tree, or sank beneath the waves of some unknown ocean.
Soon even the dreams slowed, and I was left with nothing but whispers and images seen as if through water. Her sighs echoed in my mind and I was sleepily glad of it, that she would be the one singing me to the next world...
26
Ragnar
I opened my eyes and blinked. Did I open my eyes and blink? Does a dead man do such things? But yes, I seemed to be awake, although I did not know why, and even as I felt it a final cruelty from the gods to let me linger so long.
A sound. Was it the wind? I tried to turn my head to look but to do so seemed to take more strength than I could find within my frozen body.
Again, the sound. A voice? It couldn't be. Men hear things when they are not long for the world, or so say the gothis. Voices of the warriors and family members who have gone before them. Was it that I heard? Again I tried to move, and again my body did not respond.
Soon. It will be over soon.
But there it was once more and louder this time. I struggled harder to lift my head and saw – something. A dark shape, slowly getting larger as it – was it heading towards me? Across the swamp?
"Jarl! Ragnar!"
One of my men had come back for me. He was making his way across the marsh. I had to warn him. I tried to lift my arm to signal him to stay back, but the limb was useless. I tried to shout at him to stay away but nothing more than a h
oarse whisper came from my lips.
"No," I rasped, almost too quiet to heat the word with my own ears. "No! Stay back!"
And then I closed my eyes and opened then again, confused, as the dark shape became three dark shapes and their outlines began to stand out against the gray sky. Three men were coming for me.
"Jarl!" One shouted as they approached, and then spoke to his companions. "Take his arms! Here, give me the fur, it weighs him down. Now – pull!"
I did not feel myself lifted up, as all feeling had gone. But I saw the marsh slip out of view until I took only sky in through my eyes – and then the figures of my men, one on either side and one at the front, their furs flapping in the wind. They spoke, their voices loud and urgent, but I did not understand all that they said. I did not even understand if they spoke to me or each other.
And some time later, it could have been a moment or a lifetime, I was still again, having been laid on the first patch of solid ground my warriors could find. Still they shouted to one another, and beat their hands against me to try to make the blood flow again. It seemed to work, as a sensation like waking up came over me and my eyes and ears began to function once more.
"Jarl!" A voice cried. "Look – his eyes! Jarl Ragnar – do you hear us?"
But my lips were still too frozen to form words. All that came out was a grunt.
"Don't stop rubbing his limbs," another voice came now. "His leathers are soaked from the marsh, the danger is not passed."
"When will she arrive?"
"Who's to say? How long can Brynjulf's horse travel with two riders? She arrives when she arrives, maybe some time from now."
The word hung in my mind, apart from all the other words I was taking in. 'She.' At first it just floated there, like a ship on calm seas, not moving. But then it began to sink in, it began to wake me. She. She.
