Skulls & Crossbones

by Andi Marquette

  The ship had a single mast in the center with a large square, striped sail, which was once red and white, now faded and filthy to pink and tan. Bjorn laughed at that sail, as he found humor in many things, and would not hear of changing it. I worried that the sail itself would keep away the strongest warriors looking to go a-viking and pirate their way to fame and fortune. It had not.

  Edwena was my given name. But my brother called me Valkyry, the singular title for all Viking warrior women. Valkyry was what the other warriors from The Bear called me also, because I had earned it by being as bloodthirsty and merciless in battle as each of them. "Valkyry!"

  I tried desperately to gain footing in the slick blood-spattered grass to join Bjorn as he swung Slayer, and split the skull of another Saxon. The enemy was routed and was retreating to the woods as I neared his side.

  "Valkyry, the day is won," he announced in his booming voice, a fiery shine in his ice-blue eyes. Dried blood darkened his blond hair and untrimmed beard. "The spoils of the village are ours, blood of my heart."

  "The spoils of the village belong to you and your bloodthirsty brood, my brother. My sea chest is so full of coin and gold and jewels that I already wear my extra shirt into battle beneath the other. I also own a good sword and fine mail armor. And I have the loyalty oath of my fearless brother. What more could I earn but a brave death in battle to be welcomed in the Halls of Valhalla?"

  "Ransom. Slaves. A captive to warm your bed."

  "I do not believe I could woo a man in the way your warriors will be wooing their captives this night," I retorted.

  Bjorn laughed, throwing his head back and resembling the savage bear that adorned the front of our drakkar. "No, I don't suppose that would be true," he agreed. "But there is a man willing to bed you. And you know of the warrior I speak. I have seen your heads together. It did not go unnoticed that his sea chest was moved next to yours at the oars." His smile widened, if that could have been possible. Bright teeth gleamed through the gory mess on his face. "I would give my blessing." He paused, repeatedly tapping his weapon's massive head on the soiled grass. "What of Ivor? He is a free man. His clan is in favor with our father's. And he would pay a bride price or exact no dowry. He wants you."

  Wiping the blood and muck from The Curse on a fallen enemy's surcoat, I said, "I will be with The Bear. We leave on the morning tide?"

  "Yes. What say you of Ivor?"

  I turned to go, sheathing my sword and ignoring my brother's matchmaking. I might one day give myself fully to passion, but another man would never own me again. "He would buy my slavery so that I would just change masters?"

  "Nay."

  "What, then?" This wasn't what I wanted to speak about on a battlefield. It wasn't what I would speak of at all. "I will not be owned by another again."

  "No, Valkyry, you will not." His voice had softened, and only I would hear him. "You are worth two of any of these warriors. Even as a child you fought with the ferocity of a she-cat." He reached beneath his coat to his upper arm. With a jerking motion, Bjorn brought forth an arm ring of twisted gold, bronze, and silver. "Take this and remember this day."

  I looked at him incredulously as he shoved his most ornate treasure at me. It was still warm to the touch.

  "Have good care of my ship. We leave on the morrow for home. Make sure the bear head is removed from the stem and stored. We wouldn't wish to scare off the good spirits of our homeland." Bjorn looked toward the village atop the grassy knoll. "On the morrow, then."

  "On the morrow." And we parted in opposite directions to the whooping of Viking terror looting the distant village.

  Bjorn called back, "Perhaps I will find a suitor more to your eyes in the Saxon village." He laughed at his own jest then hurried up the hill with the straggling warriors.

  After making the rounds and stowing gear, I collapsed on the beach where The Bear had been run aground. As I leaned against the hull, I unsheathed The Curse, rubbed it down with sand, took an oilcloth to it, then honed its twin edges with a whetstone. I hummed contentedly as the moon rose to throw shards of light that glinted off my newly cleaned weapon.

  Placing The Curse across my lap, I fantasized as I had in young girlhood, where my blood-father would take special pride in his warrior daughter and award the freedom and standing that he had given my beloved brother. I chided myself silently. The pain of my own father's dismissal ran deep. My eyes burned and moistened with tears I would not shed because hate would hold them back. There was no need for the simple dreams of little girls when I had battles, glory, and loyal brethren of the sea.

  Ivor approached. His body slumped with exhaustion, but he was recently washed. "May I sit?"

  I shrugged. He was the one man I could imagine giving myself to. Ivor was white-blond with a massive breadth of shoulder, powerful, exposed arms, and a heavily muscled torso, which dropped to a smaller waist and long, agile, legs. And he wanted me. I knew this. We had stolen kisses on several occasions. Yet he had never made any forceful advances.

  He dropped cross-legged into the sand. "You're not going to the village?" I inspected The Curse for chinks in her cutting edges, expecting none. "No."

  "No, I don't suppose you would." He scooped a handful of soft sand with his large, calloused palm and watched it slip through his fingers. "Perhaps I will stay here."

  "No. Go. My brother feels there will be much excitement and plenty of riches to be found."

  "I already have most everything I want. I only lack for a woman."

  "Then quickly. Go. Before all of the comely lasses are taken."

  "There is only one I wish to bed."

  "Then perhaps you will find a trinket or bauble to woo her with."

  "If you think so." Ivor rose in one smooth motion, knowing he had been dismissed, and stared down at the top of my head as I desperately feigned checking and re-checking my blade for flaws. He leaned over to kiss my hair, and my heart ached to have him stay with me. Ivor the Brave. Ivor the Beautiful. Ivor. But it could never be. I wanted to be free. I would never let another man own me.

  He left quietly. I leaned against the hull of The Bear and let my moist eyes slowly drift closed as I stared, unseeing, at the stars twinkling in the clear blue-black sky.

  A sudden commotion woke me from sleep. The Curse was heavy and battle-ready across my lap. I leapt to my feet in an instant as the clash of metal rent the air.

  Vikings rushed from the village, down the stained and littered grassy slope toward the dunes at breakneck speed, turning only when a mounted attacker was directly upon them. No man was a match for a mounted soldier. Some of the Vikings strove to drive their weapons into the chests or necks of the horses, while others dropped to roll, hacking at legs.

  I had no time to wonder where the horses had come from, or where this new enemy had been hiding. Running forward, I forgot my shield that was hung back up on the side of the ship.

  A dozen others, assigned to the night watch on The Bear, rallied to form a rough skirmish line in the face of the horses. As the routed Viking pirates returned through our line and turned back into it, the fight began to gain ground on the horse soldiers as one after another, riders were knocked from their steeds or went down when injuries to their mounts sent the animals skidding to the wet earth.

  I slammed the flat side of my blade into the head of one horse then swiveled to strike the rider of another with a sharpened edge. Both riders fell. I killed them quickly with a jab through the throat and a slash across the neck. Leaping upon the next rider, we went over the horse together. I landed on top of my enemy, taking the wind out of him with my elbow. I scrambled to my feet and separated his head from his shoulders in one fierce blow. "Bjorn!" I hollered into the darkened night. "Bjorn!"

  The last of the horse soldiers was down and dead. The wounded animals flailed in pain on the blood-slicked turf. They screamed their anguish in high pitches. Vikings went through and dispatched each quickly. Finally, the night air was quiet.

  "Bjorn!" I wailed, sta
rting to shiver as the adrenaline left my veins. The damp gore penetrated my clothes and no longer steamed from my quickly cooling body.

  "Bjorn." Hot tears marked lines in the blood and mud covering my cheeks. He would have surely answered if he could have.

  "Valkyry!" But it wasn't Bjorn's voice that hailed me. Ivor waved me over to where Viking warriors were encircled solemnly around someone on the ground.

  "No," I said as I shook my head and became rooted in place. "No."

  Ivor and Aethelfel, a young warmonger from my father's cousin's house, approached me.

  "Hilde," Ivor said soothingly into my hair as one large hand took my sword while his arm wrapped around me for a moment of comfort. He had always called me the more familiar name for the Valkarie. Even Bjorn had known that Ivor was more than just a brother of The Bear to me. Ivor had asked my brother's permission to have me, if I would let him. And his serious intentions were a clear warning to all others. "Hilde, he wishes to speak to you." His rich, deep voice rumbled in my ear, and his warm, familiar moist lips pressed against my forehead. "No."

  The two big Viking warriors each took an arm to respectfully help me move toward my brother.

  He was dirt-covered, and blood had sopped into his heavy bear hair-coat. A horse's hoof had caught him in the chest with a crushing misstep and now his lips were wet with seeping blood and his breath was ragged.

  "Bjorn." I knelt at his side, taking his fist into my soiled hands and kissing each of his knuckles. "Brother. Don't do this. What am I without you? Do not leave me."

  "Valkyry, I wish to go home." He coughed and sucked great gulps of air into his rattling lungs. "Take me home on The Bear and then she is yours." His speech was difficult. Words warred with the need for breath. "Leave any of these sons of whores on this forsaken coast who will not swear fealty here and now to you." Bjorn rolled slightly to his side as his coughing brought up clots of darkened blood. "I will hear their oaths and take them to the Halls where their loyalties will be weighed before their admittance upon death." He struggled for his final threat in order to assure me their allegiance. But it wasn't necessary.

  Each man went down willingly on one knee in front of me, in turn reciting the oath of fealty they owed the master of a fighting drakkar. I nodded to each in acceptance as I squeezed the fist of my dying brother, tears still streaming down my face.

  "It is done. I hold each man to the oath they gave my sister until she releases you." His raspy breathing mixed with every word, forcing seepage onto his lips. "Or until your death." The last words were a clogged whisper.

  The men of The Bear took up a chant of "Valkyry, Valkyry, Valkyry," in honor of Bjorn the Berserker.

  "I would also wish you and Ivor a happy union. Do not make him wait any longer. He will go his own way if you do." With a strangled laugh and a smile on his lips he stared into my tear-swollen face as he passed from this world to the next.

  "No!" I screamed as if my heart had been wrenched from me. "No. Bjorn? Please, no." Sitting on the ground next to his body, I beat my fists on his chest until I was exhausted and placed my cheek on his encrusted coat. "You have been a big brother to a foolish girl, a caring father in my loneliness and hate, and my true friend always. You cannot leave me."

  Sleep would not come to me. I continued to mumble my fears to my brother's body as my tears streamed in earnest. "Who will protect me now? Our sire will not let me keep The Bear. How will I escape his slavery again without you?" My sorrow was so vast that I thought my pounding heart would explode. I stayed with Bjorn throughout the night, until men from the drakkar came to collect his body for the voyage home.

  Ninety-three Vikings fit to sail, and the corpse of Bjorn the Berserker, floated out on the morning's high tide. The men struck the sail to help pull us out of the tiny inlet into deeper waters, where oarsmen would move the boat more quickly over the calm sea. They'd bring Bjorn back to his father's holdings to be celebrated and sent to Valhalla by the rights of his hard-won warrior's standing.

  Without my brother alive, my father would take notice of me. I was sure that the wretched man would reclaim me as a slave for his estates, sell me, or marry me off if there were profit to be had. After all, the pig had played Bjorn correctly. Bjorn knew that his son hungered for legitimacy, so he gave his sire one-fifth of our plunder as tribute, hoping . . . always hoping . . .

  As the drakkar was once again run aground and secured, the warriors left their shields aligning the sides of the craft in honor of the fallen Bjorn. His body, laid out on flat boards, was hefted over the side to the hands of his Viking brethren.

  For me, the journey to our homeland had been quiet with the troubled memories of comrades lost and personal battles yet to fight. Even the sea seemed subdued. But now there would be feasting and celebration to send Bjorn the Berserker to the Halls of Valhalla on a floating, burning pyre, to be accepted with the honors as a warrior fallen in battle and a true worshipper of Odin. Our father and several of the house Karls from his estates had met The Bear on the beach, no doubt to collect their tribute, where instead they were shocked with the news of Bjorn's passing.

  Immediately, slaves were summoned, and the feasting tables were erected in the sand under a sail used as a tent. Fine dishes of fish and meat were prepared. Wine kegs were rolled from earthen storage cellars, and a funeral pyre was swiftly lashed together then lined with clean straw.

  Women slaves washed and dressed Bjorn's body while I, feeling ghostly unseen, gathered his weapons and the valuables he would need for his journey into the afterlife.

  He was laid out in his finest clothes, cushioned in a thick bed of straw, his hands crossed on his chest, grasping Slayer. Two golden coins from his sea chest were placed over his eyes, and his upper arms were adorned with rings of many types of metal. He was also given a small keg of wine from his birth father, along with a jeweled dagger to present as a gift to Odin. I had argued against killing a slave to send with him as his servant in the after world, saying that he would be too busy fighting and carousing. This brought a chuckle and much agreement from his warriors, which was the only way my wishes were heard.

  A small fire set in a stone ring attracted more than just one of the ship's archers. Many of the men drank the dark, bitter wine or cloudy ale to Bjorn's memory, then made an offering into the fire for his safe journey.

  His pyre was shoved past the breakers at dusk by six of his own hefty warriors from The Bear. As they backed away and the sea took over, a lone archer dipped his pitch-tipped arrow into the fire and shot upward, in an arc that would land to set the straw ablaze.

  The men returned to the feast, drank until drunk, and swapped stories of Bjorn's feats, always mentioning me, his blood-sister, by his side.

  Shamed, our birth father rose to make a speech granting Bjorn the legitimacy in death that the big Viking had longed for in life. Bjorn would now have a family name. But his fighting brethren were not won over. They knew him as Bjorn the Berserker. And I, his sister, was Valkyry, the new master of The Bear. Drunk, disgruntled Viking warriors of battle experience were fearsome. And to change the threatening tone of the feast, Bjorn's sire stood, with cup raised, to welcome his daughter, Edwena, as a legitimate child of his loins and household. Furthermore, he would find me a suitable match from his Karls this very night, though he openly proclaimed me beyond proper marrying age and that he was not assured of my intact maidenhood. He did assure the guests, however, that he could make a match with what dowry was in my sea chest from the spoils of pirating.

  Ivor threw down his cup of mead and stood, knocking over an entire long table at the affront. He staggered from the feast in his drunkenness. No man pursued him for his blatant act of rudeness.

  I was not impressed, as I would have been as a tiny girl, with my father's newfound interest in me. I passed the word that any man wanting free of his oath could take leave. Those who chose to stay should keep their shields mounted on The Bear and prepare to sail with the early morning tide. Most of the war
riors sobered to the plan, quietly slipping away to stow gear and refresh food supplies on The Bear from the feast's stores.

  As the numbers dwindled, my father played the advantage. "Seize her!" He pointed to me as he commanded several of his own warriors into action. "Put her in the longhouse. The women will have much preparation overnight if I intend to have Edwena wed in the morn."

  The deed was easily done, as the crew of The Bear had disappeared or was too much in their ale to have been of any use to me. I stoically walked to the longhouse with courage I did not feel.

  My father haggled at the other end of the longhouse with several old men who had seen their wives long dead, most of them from childbearing. I could not envision these toothless, stinking fools commanding me to their beds. Nor their attempts to arouse their flagging swords and hump their shriveled pods into my bodily sheath. The thoughts disgusted me. Ivor.

  I paced as women attempted to brush out my hair. Their hands were everywhere at once, shucking me from my warrior's clothes as I slapped at them to no avail. They were strong, and frightened in not accomplishing what their master had commanded of them—to make me look like a proper woman for my wedding tomorrow. Ivor.

  When the drakkar shoved out to sea before the pink of the sky glistened off of the waters, there was a full complement of over one hundred and twenty seasoned Vikings. Personal sea chests were aligned at the oars, and the stolen stores were secured in barrels along the middle aisle. The women gossiped about the big blond as he slid off of the beach at high tide and struck oars. Ivor was in command of The Bear. I was betrayed. Ivor.

  The house thralls took advantage of my listless mood to shove a dress over my head, slip tiny leather shoes onto my feet, and braid flowers into my hair.

  The longhouse had settled quietly, with guards at the only entrance. But I could not rest. The smoke hung thick in the air and mingled with the heavy stench of unwashed bodies and obnoxious sounds of snoring, or grunting as some men took maidens under hides or in darkened corners.