by Derek Nelsen
Tor pushed through the spectators.
Three men slept on straw mats made up on the riser next to the empty throne.
Elsa, Pedar’s maid, moved from one mat to the next, pouring spoonfuls of warm broth into each unconscious man’s mouth before tucking them into thick wool blankets. Two of the three thanked her by spitting out the broth and kicking off their covers. But the giant one lay still as a corpse, other than the occasional gasp, as if he was struggling to tread water in a sea of bad dreams.
Tor’s heart stopped. After all this time, he couldn’t believe his past had found him now.
Here.
He gripped the handle of his seax and gave the fat one a nudge with his boot. Come on Orri, give me a reason. The heavily tattooed man’s eyes opened, then grew wide. Tor pulled back.
He recognizes me. I should end this all right now.
He looked over his shoulder. The entire hall was watching. Or I could come back tonight. If I killed them all, who would take up the law against me?
Tor hadn’t killed a man in so long. The fat Viking grumbled something, then his eyes fell closed again. Nothing felt right to Tor now. He took his hand off the hilt of his seax. He would not add assassination to his list of sins.
Tor raised himself up and looked to Elsa, the unfortunate nurse. “What’s wrong with them?”
“They’re deprived, is all.” Elsa was the ugliest thing in Pedar’s house and worth every grimace. “Deprived of sleep, of food, of water. They’ll be alright once I get enough of my tonic in ‘em.” As bad as it usually tasted, she did have the recipe for healing.
Tor thought of the men spitting unconsciously. They would rather die than drink the troll’s brew. He could relate. One time he pretended to get better just so his wife would stop making him take it. He doubted he was the only one.
“Take care this one survives, Elsa.” Pedar timidly pulled at the giant’s collar. His voice came back when he backed away. “He is Jarl Olaf, the Soul-less. Do you see the string of rings around his neck?”
The hall leaned in.
“What do you hope to gain out of this, Pedar?” Tor asked. “You already trade with half the Sogn.”
“Vikings have gold and silver, and livestock on faraway lands,” said Bor.
“What have you been telling these men, Pedar?” Tor felt like he was being forced to eat bad lutefisk, the kind you only ate when the pantry was empty and spring refused to come. “Keep your trade in the northern villages. Whatever you do there, keep it there. Leave this place sacred.”
“Sacred? You speak of sacred when you—” Pedar broke off, as if trying to choose his words carefully. “When was the last time you sacrificed to the gods?”
“It’s been quite a while, hasn’t it, Tor?” another voice said.
Of course, Old Erik would be there. The decrepit old priest needed a staff to steady himself, but somehow he was always there when big decisions were being made. His brother, Afi, was probably around the hall somewhere, too. Old Afi he liked. He was more of a listener. Tor always joked that those two should have been dead ten years before he even arrived, and that was thirteen years ago.
It wasn’t long after he found this place that Old Erik encouraged him to take the empty throne. He said he had a natural way about him that people would follow. Tor never told anyone that. He didn’t want to find out who agreed with the old man.
Since then, he kept his distance from the priest. He never liked people who encouraged him to do or take what he wanted. Who needs council for that? From then on, he noticed, if anyone was looking for someone wise to tell them why it was alright to do something selfish, they’d make a sacrifice just so they’d have a reason to talk to Old Erik. He’d make them feel much better about it. Tor seemed to be the only person who noticed that.
The last time he saw Old Erik, he was heading off on a long hunting trip. When the old man smiled and wished him luck, he immediately felt guilty for leaving—like he was abandoning his family or something.
“What do you think, Tor? Look like Olaf to you?” Old Erik winked with his green eye.
Why is he smiling like a forest cat? Tor exhaled deeply. The hall smelled like farmers in the fall. Like sweat stained clothes, earth, and smoke.
“It’s not Olaf. It’s one of his sons.” He wiped the damp from his forehead and shook off his outer coat. When did it get so hot? “Olaf only asks for the soul rings of his thingmen. In exchange they get a larger share from the raids, and one of his arm rings. Look.” He pointed to the Vikings’ arms. Each was wearing one silver band. The one with long, black hair had two. “Olaf wears at least five so he has some to give away. To get one is an honor.” Everyone had gotten quiet. They were all listening now. “Before I left Olaf’s army, I had three. Solid gold.”
The hall murmured.
“I was second only to Olaf himself. I had wealth and power.” Tor withdrew his seax, dug its tip into the table, and leaned on its hilt. “Men have sold their souls for less.” With it he cut the leather thong from around his neck and held up his gold-plated ring. “Here’s what it cost me. This is what I made with some of that precious gold.” He frowned when he looked at it. “What a beautiful forgery.” He felt like he was confessing his sins to his late wife’s priest. His eyes glanced up as if to heaven. Could he still be listening now?
Tor sheathed his seax and snatched Pedar by the wrist. Pedar tried to withdraw but his strength was no match. Tor twisted and squeezed until Pedar’s palm forced open. Then he dropped the little gold soul ring into his hand and let go.
The room erupted in whispers. Tor could make out the general sentiment. He’s lifting it!
No one looked more surprised than poor Pedar. He half expected to have broken an arm or at least had his hand smashed into the table.
“It’s just a ring!” They were hardly whispers anymore.
Pedar stared at the little golden ring reflecting firelight in his hand. Tor felt flush as he could only imagine what Pedar was thinking. It was a poor forgery. So plain. Maybe even a touch small. Tor always kept it hidden in his shirt. Now they all knew why. Soon everyone would know.
Tor took the ring back, then patted Pedar on the shoulder. “Did I hurt your wrist?”
Pedar shook his head blankly.
Tor held the ring up to his eye and looked at it, then dropped it into the fire. That was a lie he’d been carrying for far too long. The priest was right, confession is good for the… Well, it may have been too late for his soul, but not for his conscience.
He looked for the stunned faces, but they weren’t there. “Men like these,” Tor motioned to the platform, “cost me my soul.”
Tor stared at blank faces. Maybe they were missing the point. So he said it more plainly, “I was Viking.” The whispers stopped—but there was still no surprise. Men he knew well refused to look him in the eye. Some bit their lips and stared at the fire. If anything, they looked worried about the gold melting away in its coals, enough to cover their own dirty souls if they could just get their hands on it. They knew! Tor shook his head. He never was good at secrets; he had only been fooling himself. They already knew.
The Girl
Arn climbed up on one of the benches. “To Tor!” He raised a horn of ale. “May his past, and past friendships, bring security and opportunity to us all!”
Horns of beer and cups of mead were raised in raucous agreement. Tor pulled Arn down from the bench and the noise fizzled like foam on flat ale.
“I have no friends among Vikings.” Tor cleared the last of the excitement from the room. “I left because I no longer wanted to be a part of that life.”
“That life you left offers trade and opportunity. This land offers onions,” Arn persisted. “I have sons to worry about.”
“We all do,” Bor reminded. “What future do you have to offer your youngest son, Erik? What’s he got to look forward to with no inheritance? Plowing fields for his older brother?”
“Catching goats is more like it.” Ar
n laughed into his cup.
“They’ll never be your allies,” Tor scolded. “Not without a cost.”
“Well, I’ll not make enemies of them; that’s for sure,” said Bor, “or their fathers.”
“I’ve got to go.” Tor glared at Arn with narrow eyes. “I’ve got goats to catch.” Then he looked to Pedar. “There was a girl?”
“Ja,” said Pedar. “Hiding over there. Old Afi’s with her.”
A waif of a girl was huddled up on a bench close to the trough of embers near the back. The Vikings were the draw here, and she looked to be sitting as far away from the commotion as possible.
“Where is she from?”
“She’s one of them,” replied Bor.
“The gods must have favored her,” added Arn. “How could that girl have come off that ship in better shape than these men?”
“My wife figure’s they must have given up their rations for her,” Bor added.
“My wife thinks she’s a witch,” said Pedar.
Tor shook his head. “If anybody’s a witch, it’s your wife,” Tor whispered under his breath as he skulked over to grab a few pieces of wood, then returned to the girl.
Her head was bowed. He nodded to Old Afi. The old man nodded back. It was good she wasn’t alone.
Tor eased the wood into the coals closest to her, knocked the bark off his hands, and lifted her chin. A burst of flames brought warmth to the chilly corner.
She was dirty, but pretty. Her strawberry blond hair matched the color still visible through the filth on her dress.
“Can you speak?”
She didn’t reply. He lifted her hand. Broken blisters had formed thick callouses.
“She’s no witch,” said Tor. “She’s been pulling the oar. If anything, she was meant to be a slave.”
“How else could she have survived?” asked Pedar.
Tor ignored him and lowered himself to her level. She could have been his daughter.
“Are you alright?” he asked in broken English, dredging his memory for the right words to use.
“What did you say?” Arn leaned in, his eyes curious.
Tor ignored him and kept his focus on the girl. “I won’t let anyone hurt you.” He ran his hand down her shoulder and held her hand gently. He cast a look over to the three unconscious Vikings, then back to her. Her eyes were green and sad. “I’m sorry for whatever they did to you, but you are safe now. This is not their village.”
As he began to stand, she tightened her grip around his fingers. Tears made two clean lines down dirty cheeks.
“I’m cold,” she replied in English no better than his, only seasoned with a Gaelic rasp.
Tor raised an eyebrow, put her hand gently down, stood, and walked toward the door.
“Where are you going?” asked Pedar.
Tor returned with his bear skin cloak and put it around the girl’s shoulders. It covered her head to toe. Then he refilled her empty bowl from the large iron pot hanging under the hearth, broke off a fresh piece of bread and put it on the table beside her.
“Are you from Ireland or Scotland?” He hadn’t spoken Irish since his first wife died in Runa’s father’s own bed. Toren was probably only three then, and Erik just a baby.
“Ireland.” She hovered her hands over the steaming bowl.
Tor hung his head. He had raided there many times. Olaf had a thing about it. He smiled as his mind shifted back to his first wife. Her hair was red too. She taught him how to love—and forgive. He looked at Old Afi. “My wife will care for the girl through winter. I’ll send the boys over to get her.”
“What about the others?” asked Bor.
“Stop treating them. Put an axe in each of their hands and let them go to Valhalla where they will only kill more of Odin’s favorites.”
Blank faces.
Tor lowered his eyes and shook his head. “If you want Elsa to keep torturing them, have her do it somewhere else.”
More blank faces.
“This is a common hall not a boarding house. If they wake up here, they’ll empty the casks, then come for the women.” Tor remembered how his first wife was the reason he left the Viking life in the first place. He looked back at the girl. Red heads fetched twice as much as other women in much of the world.
The door slammed as he exited the hall. It was snowing again.
Runa
The boys knocked over a chair on their way out, excited to be going to the village—and to collect the girl.
“How are we going to take care of her?” Runa stared at Tor—her mouth tight with annoyance. “We barely have enough to feed ourselves. Those sons of yours will have eaten half of our stores before the lake freezes.”
Does leaving always have to be a fight? Tor thought.
“It’s not their fault the ground here is fallow,” he murmured under his breath.
“It was never fallow when I was growing up.”
“Well it is now. Everything your father sold me was fallow,” he said—then wished he hadn’t.
Runa’s eyes flared, and she threw a stale loaf at him. He caught it, broke off a piece of crust, and crushed it in his hand, more mad at himself than at his wife. He dropped the crumbs to the floor. A little dog scurried from under the table, retrieved the scrap, and retreated to his spot in front of the fire.
Tor put his hand on his wife’s shoulder. Her muscles were bunched, but her breathing softened. Then he crossed to the other side of the room. After pushing a thin linen curtain to one side, he dragged the stuffed mat they used for a bed to one side and lifted a loose plank from the floor. From inside a small hole he pulled out a little wooden box, ornately carved and trimmed with brass. He weighed it in his hands as he walked it back and put it on the table.
Runa started sweeping up crumbs the dog hadn’t bothered to clean.
Other than the fine red velvet lining, there were three gold coins, two silvers, five coppers, and a few small, colorful jewels. Everything else was gone. Tor’s brow furrowed as he fingered the contents of the box.
“What have you done?”
“If you spent less time on the mountain and more time tending to the farm I wouldn’t have had to.” Her eyes narrowed and she raised a hand. “Did you think I could run this farm by myself while you and your sons went hunting? When I was a girl my father had twenty hands running this place.”
Tor’s eyes burned as he fought to keep it together. He stalked across the room and started stuffing heavy clothes into a bag.
She ran around in front of him.
“What about the animals? If you can’t grow feed, then we have to buy it, don’t we? Or did you think the horses eat what you carry out of the woods on your shoulder?
His mind raced through the argument he did not dare to have. This woman had no idea what that small fortune cost him. How dare she use it. And for what? To prop up what was left of her father’s failing farm? To pretend to still be somebody. They should have sold it all to Pedar and built a cabin in the woods, something easy to keep up. Let the weeds have this barrow, a shrine to what used to be. His knuckles cracked as he tried to keep from breaking something of hers.
Tor closed his eyes and breathed deeply. He almost prayed for peace, something his first wife had taught him how to do, long ago. But he gave up on that after she died. The gods ask too much. Odin only wants you if you take. Jesus only wants you if you give.
The only good he had from his past was knowing he had something to leave to his sons. And now that was gone. Tor pulled on his heavy fur lined boots, the ones with the toes nearly worn through. He belted his axe and his seax.
“Your oldest son will inherit my father’s farm one day. Think about that before you complain. Some of that money went to make sure he has a house worthy of that girl’s hand. Did you think the roof would fix itself?” Runa taunted him.
“I fixed the roof.” Tor ducked through the door, out of the dark house into the bright, snow-covered world.
“Where did you think we got our
stores all these years?” She followed him out to the barn, still pulling on her new winter coat. “What do we have for sacrifices? Pedar makes regular offerings to the gods and look at how they’ve blessed him.”
“You’ve given Old Erik our choicest yearlings.” Tor was near growling now. He checked his bow string and counted the arrows in his quiver before fixing it to the top of a sledge that was already packed, always ready.
“Well, apparently the gods are sick of goat. As am I!” his wife derided.
“Tell me you haven’t been stealing from my sons’ inheritance to sacrifice to those greedy gods. It’s never going to be enough, you know. Ask Old Erik. They’ll take everything from you, until finally you give them your soul. Yours looks beautiful, by the way. At least all of the coin wasn’t squandered on keeping up the farm.”
She stared back at him. “Inheritance? You have to eat if you want to live long enough to worry about that.”
“Well thanks to you and Pedar, the priest will outlive us all,” he said, as he stuffed some small things in his pockets.
“You cannot go. What are we going to do with the girl?”
Tor pressed a gold piece into the palm of his wife’s hand. “Take this to Pedar. Buy provisions for winter, enough for our growing boys and that waif of a girl. I doubt she’ll eat much.”
Tor strapped on a pair of skis and grabbed his spear.
“None of it goes to Old Erik. None of it goes to the upkeep of those Vikings. They can sleep with Pedar’s chickens for all I care. But not the girl. Take care of her as if she was-”
Runa’s eyes cut him off. He knew he was walking on thin ice. “Where are you going?” she asked.
“Anywhere but here.” Tor skied off, towing the sledge behind as he shooshed across the top of the deep, powdery snow shouting “Wip, wip, wip!” Two dogs ran out from the woods to greet him, and Vigi, a little slower, trotted out of the barn. “Not you, boy. You’ve got to stay back and help protect the farm, alright?” Tor hated leaving Vigi behind, and Vigi didn’t look like he understood. The last thing he heard was Vigi whimpering lowly to himself.
