Romantic Legends

by Kathryn Le Veque

  “Father!” She ripped a piece of her own garment from her body and used it to try to wrap up his hand. He reached out with his other hand, and lay it atop her arm to still her. That’s when she noticed the gaping wound at the back of his head. “Oh!” she gasped and held her hand to her mouth at the horrific sight.

  “You shouldn’t . . . have come,” he told her.

  “Hush,” she said, trying to stay strong, holding her finger to his lips.

  “Are you . . . hurt, daughter?”

  “I am wounded, but I’ll live. I guess it was not my day to die, but I wish Brandr had died for leaving me here.”

  “Don’t . . . say that, Kadlin. Brandr will be a mighty warrior someday, just like his father.”

  “No mighty warrior would make a promise and then break it.” She felt for the Forget-me-not in her hair, knowing she was probably already forgotten by Brandr as he selfishly saw to his own safety.

  Thunder boomed in the sky above them and the rain started to fall. Blood ran down to the sea, much the same way the Viking warriors had run back to their boats with their tails between their legs, in her opinion.

  “Brandr is a good man, Kadlin.” Her father used all his strength to speak. “When a Viking makes a promise – nothing but death can make him break it.”

  “Nei.” She shook her head. “He’s left me here and he wasn’t dead. We were supposed to be married, and now he’s seen to his own safety and left me here to die.”

  Her father’s eyes started to close and his grip on her arm slackened. Thunder boomed overhead and lightning slashed through the sky. “Thor is saying . . . he’ll be . . . back.” Her father faded from this lifetime then, his hand going limp and sliding off her arm to the ground.

  “Father, nei! Don’t leave me!” Tears fell from her eyes and panic filled her being. She felt so alone and frightened. She was in a foreign land by herself . . . and wounded. She wasn’t even sure she was going to live, nor sure that she wanted to either.

  She heard words she couldn’t decipher and turned her head to see a monk standing there in a long, brown robe with the symbol of their god – a cross on a chain around his neck. She reached for her knife, ready to defend herself until she realized the man was smiling and unarmed. Instead, his hands were folded as if in prayer. He said something again and she just shook her head, confused.

  “I cannot understand your language,” she said in the Norse tongue, but he shook his head in return and held out his hand instead.

  This was her enemy, yet the man wanted to help her. Her people had infiltrated their land and tried to steal from them and even killed many of them in the process, but yet this man seemed to hold no remorse. She looked down at her father and reached out and closed his eyes like she did to the jarl, then struggled to stand.

  The monk held out his hand to help her and she hesitated only for a second before she decided to take it. She leaned against him as he motioned with his other hand, telling her he would take her up the hill to his dwellings. She looked up toward the threatening sky as the storm intensified and rain pelted down around them. She felt as if Thor were warning her not to go into the Christian temple, but she had no choice. She was seriously injured, abandoned, and all alone now. She looked back to the North Sea, but the Viking sails had already disappeared on the horizon.

  “Ja,” she said with a sigh, reaching out and pulling the flower from her hair. “I’ll go with you.” Then she held the flower out in front of her, turned her palm downward and dropped the Forget-me-not onto the blood-soaked ground. She felt nothing at all as she stepped forward and crushed it under her foot.

  Never again would she believe in men who made promises and sealed them with flowers, telling her they’d never forget her. She was forgotten by the man of her dreams and now she would push the memory of Brandr from her mind until she forgot him, too. She held tightly to the arm of the monk as she painfully made her way up the hill in the pouring rain, heading toward a new life that held no promises at all.

  Chapter One

  Five years later

  “Jarl Brandr, the men are restless and want to go raiding.” Brandr’s uncle, Skuti, sat next to Brandr in front of the fire that warmed the longhouse. The fire was used to cook as well as warm, and the coals were spread half the length of the longhouse, with rocks making a small wall around them to contain the fire. Everyone from the village met here to eat their meals.

  As reigning jarl, he held the power over the village of Skathwaite, and everyone looked to him for their directions since the death of Brandr’s father in battle.

  “Ja, I feel it’s time,” he agreed. He took some roasted squirrel from a serving wench, ripping at the hot meat with his teeth. Squirrels were one of the main foods they hunted, and no part was wasted, as the furs were made into cloaks and vests.

  His mother watched over his sisters and brothers at the other side of the room, looking over her shoulder, trying to hear their conversation.

  Brandr stood up and walked with a limp over to her, and his uncle followed. The arrow he’d taken to the leg the day he’d lost Kadlin was nothing to the arrow he’d taken to the back or the one in his shoulder. Those had almost killed him. Without Kadlin’s skills to heal, it took a very long time for his body to mend. Every day since then, he only wished he would have died along with Kadlin on that raid.

  “Brandr, I want to go raiding with the men this time,” said his mother, Isgerd.

  “Nei.” He shook his head, picking up his youngest brother, Svan, in his arms. The boy was the youngest of the siblings and only seven years of age. It was sad that he’d been too young to remember their father. “You’re not a warrior. You’ll stay here and take care of the family. It’s what father would have wanted you to do.”

  “I’ve been learning how to fight from Kadlin’s mother, Signy.”

  “Signy is a shieldmaiden, but you’re not. You will not go with us.”

  “But you barely have enough men to go raiding. We lost so many that horrible day.”

  This was true, he realized. They’d not only lost a good amount of men that day, but they’d had to leave behind two of their longboats since there hadn’t been enough men alive to commandeer them.

  “The boys of the village have grown in the last five years, Mother. I’ve been sure to train them well. We’ll be fine.”

  “We’ll go back to Northumbria,” suggested his uncle.

  “Nei.” He put down his brother and ran a weary hand through his long hair. “I won’t go back to the place where I lost Kadlin, not to mention my own father.”

  “There’s treasure to be had there,” his uncle persisted. “We have let them go for too long. We need to finish the raid we started.”

  “I said nei!”

  “We’ll go further south along the shores of Northumbria then. Surely we can find new places to raid there.”

  Just thinking of that awful day and the image of Kadlin crying out for his help made his gut twist into a knot. He never should have left with his uncle. He should have stayed and died at Kadlin’s side to fulfill the promise he’d made to her.

  “You’re just sulking over that wench!” spat Skuti.

  “Skuti!” gasped Brandr’s mother. “That was the girl he loved. The girl he made a promise to marry. You can’t blame him. I would have stayed with my husband to the end if I had been there, so I understand his grief.”

  “I should have done something to help her,” said Brandr, still feeling guilt-ridden and grief-stricken even after all these years.

  “You couldn’t have done anything,” growled his uncle. “She was useless and wounded and was going to die eventually anyway.”

  Brandr’s head snapped up at his uncle’s comment. “What did you say?”

  His uncle’s eyes darted over toward Isgerd and then back to Brandr. “I said, she died. It was too late for you to help her.”

  “Nei, you didn’t. You said she was going to die eventually. That’s different.”

  “Ne
i, you misheard me.”

  “I heard it as well, Skuti,” his mother chimed in.

  Brandr glared at his uncle. He felt the rage inside him growing. He tried to keep his composure and spoke in a low voice. “Was Kadlin dead before we left the beach that day . . . or was she still alive?”

  “Well, I . . . I . . .”

  “Dammit, Skuti, was she still alive?”

  “She . . . might have been.”

  Brandr grabbed the front of his uncle’s tunic and shoved him hard into the wall. “You told me she was already dead! That she’d been beheaded.”

  “I had to or you would have gotten yourself killed!” the man yelled back. “You were too blinded by her and you weren’t thinking clearly. As it was, we almost lost you.”

  “Arrrrgh!” He threw his uncle to the ground, pulling his seax from his waistband and lunged at him. He rolled around the floor with the man, fists flying as they fought with each other.

  “Stop it!” shouted Isgerd. “You two are family, now stop acting like you’re enemies.”

  “It’s his fault I left Kadlin behind.” Brandr got to his feet along with his uncle, giving him one last push that almost landed him in the fire. “I never would have left if I’d known she was still alive. You pulled me away, Uncle. You should die for what you’ve done.”

  “Brandr, calm yourself.” His mother put her hand on his arm. “Like Skuti said – he saved your life, even if lying to you was wrong. As it was, those arrow wounds almost killed you. You are lucky to even be able to walk.”

  “My daughter was still alive when you left the raid?”

  Brandr turned to see Kadlin’s mother, Signy, standing there holding her young son who had been born after she’d lost her husband.

  “Are you telling me I didn’t need to lose both my husband and daughter in that battle? That you could have saved her life, yet you left without her? How could you?”

  “Signy, I thought she was dead. I only just found out she wasn’t.”

  “I should have gone with you to fight that day,” said the woman with tears in her eyes. “I would have been an honorable warrior and stayed at the side of my loved ones until the very end.”

  “Signy, if you hadn’t been pregnant with your child that day, you would be dead now, too,” Isgerd pointed out.

  “I could have saved Kadlin.” She sneered at Brandr.

  “Hush, woman!” he shouted. “You might be a shieldmaiden, but you’d be dead, just like my mother said. Had I known Kadlin was still alive, and if I hadn’t been wounded and losing so much blood, I would have brought her back with us, dead or alive.”

  “What are you going to do about it?” asked Signy.

  “There’s nothing we can do about the girl,” interrupted his uncle. “However, we can go back and get our revenge for the loss of so many of our warriors.”

  “Ja. For once I agree with you, Uncle.” Brandr looked up to the rest of the Vikings who were eating around the fire. “Ready yourselves, men. We are going back to Northumbria, and this time we will not leave before we have taken what we want, and killed every soldier who gets in our way!”

  Chapter Two

  Kadlin dumped the herbs she’d harvested onto the wooden table in the monastery’s refectory and threw the wool bag to the side. “I think this should do fine for now,” she said in her Norse tongue, looking up to see the confused looks on both Sister Adelaide’s as well as Brother Francis’ faces. “I’m sorry,” she said and repeated what she’d said in their language which she’d learned over the past five years of living at the monastery.

  “Kadlin, you are a good healer, and though we pray to our God for healing, you have shown us many things we can do to also help ourselves to stay well,” said the monk.

  “These herbs are not only for healing, but some of them can be used in that pottage you make, Sister Adelaide,” she told the nun. She brushed off her hands on her robe. She wasn’t a nun, but wore the robe of one since that is what they’d dressed her in when they’d picked up her broken, bloodied body from the battlefield and taken her to live with them even though she was their enemy.

  “Even those blue flowers?” asked the nun, pointing to the table. “What would we use those for?”

  Kadlin looked down and gasped when she spied the stalks of dainty blue Forget-me-nots amongst the sage, thyme and oregano. She hadn’t realized she picked those. Matter of fact, she’d avoided the fields of those flowers since they only reminded her of someone she hated right now.

  “These are evil and good for nothing at all.” She picked up the flowers and tossed them to the ground.

  “I think they’re rather pretty.” The nun picked them up and took a sniff and then held them out to Kadlin. “Smell them. They are wonderful.”

  With the flowers right under her nose, her heart sped up and her eyes focused on the periwinkle-blue color of a promise that had been broken so long ago. She thought of Brandr and his long, blond hair and the swirling depths of his blue-green eyes. She found herself reaching out her hand for the flowers, her fingers trembling as she did so. She remembered his soft lips upon hers in the field of Forget-me-nots and the way his warm hands felt on her waist. It had been so long since she allowed herself to ponder these memories.

  She was supposed to be married to him and would have had several children by now. She didn’t want to think of that. After all, he’d made a promise and then he’d broken it. She hated him for leaving her behind that day and rightly so.

  “Nei!” She waved her hand through the air. “I want nothing to do with them.”

  “Why not?” asked the monk.

  “Those flowers mean nothing but heartbreak to me.”

  “Kadlin,” said the monk, laying a gentle hand on her shoulder. “You have lived with us, cleaned and cooked for us, and helped to heal us for five years now. The day I brought you from the battlefield you had a certain look in your eyes and you have it again now. Tell me, child, what is troubling you?”

  Kadlin had felt so lonely for the past five years and had learned to confide in the monks and nuns of the monastery because they were her family now. She missed talking with her mother and playing with her younger siblings. She wondered if her mother lived through her last pregnancy and if she birthed a boy or a girl. And if her mother had successfully birthed a child, she wondered if the baby survived. She hoped so. Her mother would be feeling the loss of not only her husband but also her eldest child.

  She also wondered if Brandr was jarl now that his father was dead. If so, he’d certainly married a woman of the village by now, as every Viking man wanted male heirs as quickly as possible.

  “Those flowers symbolize a promise made to me long ago by a man I thought I loved,” she told them. “He left me behind and it doesn’t matter now. I hate him and want nothing to do with those flowers, nor do I ever want to see them again.” She pushed away and headed across the room, pulling out wooden bowls and spoons, preparing to work with her herbs as well as cook some supper for the inhabitants of the monastery.

  “I don’t know what your gods tell you, but our God teaches forgiveness,” said the monk from behind her.

  “That’s right,” said Sister Adelaide, reaching out and taking the stalks of Forget-me-nots and weaving them into one of Kadlin’s braids. The nuns all wore their heads covered, but Kadlin usually left her hood down, liking the feel of the wind against her face. It reminded her of home . . . her real home. It also reminded her of sailing on the sea in one of the Viking longboats. Her heart ached for the life she once lived. “Wear these flowers today and see if you can find it in your heart to forgive this man you claim to hate.”

  “I don’t want to,” she said, putting her hand over the flowers. When she did, a vision flashed through her head and she gasped aloud. She hadn’t had a single vision since the day she was left here.

  She saw in her mind’s eye three Viking longboats sailing across the water to their shores. She saw Brandr and the other men with hatred and vengeance in
their eyes and grimaces on their faces. She even saw her own mother dressed in her shieldmaiden’s attire and her younger sister, Asa, dressed as a shieldmaiden as well. They all rode on a longboat together. She let go of the flowers and grasped on to the edge of the wooden table so hard her knuckles became white.

  “What is it?” asked the monk.

  She looked up into the eyes of two innocent people. Loving people. People who had taken in an enemy, opposed to the Vikings who had left one of their own kind behind.

  The Vikings were coming for revenge. She felt it in her bones. And this time, she knew they weren’t going to leave until they got what they came for. She wanted to tell the monks, but then again, she didn’t. If they knew the Vikings were about to attack, they’d ring the bell and call in King Eardwulf’s soldiers from the next town to help them.

  The soldiers had armor to protect them as well as horses to give them the advantage of height in a battle. Last time, they’d slaughtered so many of her people and then just left them above ground to die and rot. She’d been the one to help the monks bury each and every one of her Viking family, and with each shovelful of dirt she threw atop their unmarked graves, a piece of her heart went with it.

  Her mother and sister were amongst the Vikings this time. While she didn’t care what happened to Brandr or some of the others, she couldn’t let her family be killed in the raid.

  “It’s nothing,” she said, turning away and looking out the open window at the bright, blue sky with billowing, white clouds that reminded her a lot of the sails on the Viking longboats. The monastery sat high atop a cliff and was guarded by high, wooden walls. “I need to find a few more herbs and then I’ll start dagmál.” The monk looked at her oddly and she realized she had slipped back into her language, using the word for day meal.

  She hurried out the door and headed through the covered, cloistered walkways, not stopping until she got past the church, and climbed the stairs that led to the wall walk. She picked up her skirt and ran to peer out over the edge toward the vast sea.