by Derek Nelsen
The satisfied birds flitted close to his head before landing deftly atop the snow-covered roof.
Maybe it was the bite of cold, maybe it was the ravens, but Vidar’s mind took him back to the sea.
The last thing he remembered before losing consciousness was looking up at three ravens. Could’ve been these same birds, looking down at him just like this. Mocking him. As if to remind him he should have never been on the water that late in the season. As if Odin himself had sent his spies to report how the son of Olaf was to die.
These couldn’t be the same birds, could they?
He remembered how he cursed them. From their perch atop the broken mast they reminded him that dying at sea would not get him into Valhalla. That his father and his brother would meet there someday, after a glorious death with a sword in their hand, and only then find out that Vidar had died with an oar in his. Drowning or dying of starvation at sea would not earn him a seat at Odin’s table.
Would my father even care? Is he searching for me now? No, probably not.
Vidar hated being alone with his thoughts.
No, these were different birds. He was still alive. In a panic, the rough tips of his gnarled fingers scratched his neck until he found the rings. They were still there, held tight to his throat on braids of tanned leather. Each a soul lost while under his care. He tallied each one. Twenty-four.
He thought of the strong men his father put in his care. How they sustained him. How they looked at him with their dead eyes as he stripped them of their souls. How his stomach turned after their corpses began to rot on that ship that somehow seemed to shrink with every new empty seat. How the tiny fish sheltering under the dragon’s cracked hull swarmed to feed after he pushed what was left of them into the waves. The small fish always ate first. Then the sharks would come.
The smaller of the birds rescued him from that dark place with a mocking toc-toc-toc.
Vidar sneered, grabbed a handful of snow off the roof, and threw it in their direction. “Tell the trickster Odin that I’m not dead yet.” They flitted quietly out of the way, only to land back where they started, and continued to stare at him with tilted heads. Then the larger threw in a deep rattle as if in protest of the assault.
Vidar belched, cringed at the taste, and scratched his stomach. He looked down at his own emaciated frame, running his fingers along his ribs. Then he glanced down at the meager contents of the cup he was holding and rolled his eyes.
“Uff-da.”
Throwing the cup down into the snow, he stood naked, the heat effervescing from his body as it met the cold morning air. He looked around and saw he was on a farm.
Up on the hill there was a large house, away from the barn and the servant’s quarters nearby. Magnus emerged from the red front door, leading a boy about his age onto the porch, then ran off into the woods.
The boy waited, then a man emerged. He looked down at Vidar, turned back toward the door, waited, looked down at Vidar again, then went back inside. The boy went back in and a moment later the two of them emerged again. What are they doing?
Elsa met him at the door with the reindeer skin he’d shed and put it back over his shoulders. “Aren’t you cold, dear? Ah, there’s the master now.”
Vidar stepped off the porch and started walking up the hill. The man saw him and went back inside.
Elsa followed him. “Wait, let me get your clothes.”
Vidar kept walking. He was finished talking to the servants.
Elsa ran ahead of him, went inside, then opened the door.
“Master Pedar invites you in.”
Vidar grabbed pants, his naked hips knocking the rest of his clothes onto the porch as he ducked inside.
The Trader
The splotchy-cheeked man seemed to be posing by the fire. Uncomfortable. Maybe even nervous. Which, from the size of him, was understandable.
He teetered at no more than five and a half feet tall and had a backward tilt. Likely something he’d picked up to offset the weight of his paunch belly.
“I am Pedar, son of Thord, son of Ralph. And this is my son, Ragnall.”
Who could miss the unremarkable boy? Pudgy and red cheeked, he cowered behind his father—like a fat chicken trying to hide behind a crooked fencepost.
“This is your farm?” Vidar doubted either had ever touched a plow.
“Ja.” Pedar stood up straighter when he said it, making his pot belly stick out with pride. “My grandfather was the first to settle this land. It feeds my family and my workers, and there’s usually enough left over to sell.”
I’ll bet there is. Vidar didn’t like false modesty. Just from what he saw walking up the hill, there were enough harvested fields on this farm to feed a small village.
“My maid Elsa has been taking very good care of you while you were recovering. I made sure she kept a close eye on you.”
Vidar pretended he didn’t see Elsa staring. That woman had a smile that could cure fish. “Er, boy, were you with Magnus when he fell into the fjord last week?”
Ragi stretched his neck to peek out from behind his father. “Ja.”
Was this boy an imbecile? “And?” Vidar grabbed his shirt from Elsa and pulled it over his head. It smelled like her. He wished it didn’t.
“We saved your treasure.” He looked to his father as if this would make him proud.
Instead, Pedar looked nervously at Vidar, as if waiting to see which way the wind would blow.
“Don’t worry,” Ragi added. “Orri’s got it. He’s the one who told Erik about it. Offered two gold pieces to Erik and Magnus to get it. Toren and I were there, but we didn’t get anything.”
Did Ragnall just wink to his father? Vidar couldn’t help but think to himself, if he had landed here on a raid he would have already killed these two.
“Erik is Tor’s youngest son.” Pedar’s voice faded as soon as he started talking.
“And Toren’s his oldest,” added Ragi.
“Orri?” Vidar slowly shook his head. “He did this without me?”
“Nobody thought you ever would wake up.”
Then Vidar thought he ought to smile before Pedar ran away from his own house.
Ragi smiled back like a dog waiting for a pat on the head. Pedar like he’d pissed himself.
“That was an impressive ship you came in on.” Pedar the Fencepost changed the subject.
The man’s coat was of stitched weasel. That seemed appropriate. Vidar decided to not say anything. One of the few things he’d learned from his father was to see if a man hated silence enough to fill it himself. His father was drunk when he said it, and he said it to his thingmen, not to Vidar. But it was useful advice just the same.
“Built for open water, eh?” Pedar cleared his throat. “I have a ship as well. I’m a trader.”
Vidar didn’t want to take the bait. Whether raiding or trading, everywhere he’d been there’d been some local merchant telling him how valuable they’d be as a trading partner—usually after being discovered hiding in the barn loft.
“Just a little trading business, mostly around the fjord.”
Here it comes.
“I would love to meet your father.”
This man was an idiot. No one wanted to meet his father. “Do you know who my father is?”
“You are Vidar, Jarl Olaf’s son. One of my friends recognized the resemblance. He’s been here a long time, so you probably wouldn’t know him.” Pedar held his hand up high over his head. “Big man, somewhere between you and Ubbi. His name is Tor Ovesen.
“Tor Ovesen is here?” Vidar felt a chill, then wiped sweat from his brow.
Pedar looked pleased with himself to have made a connection.
“He’s in the farm just past those trees. Found us twelve or thirteen years ago.”
Vidar took a deep breath to calm his thoughts. Every man in his father’s service had heard of Tor Ovesen. He was the ghost that Vidar could never measure up to. Didn’t matter what he or his brother Egil did, his
father and Tor had done it better when they were that age.
“After you’re better, of course. I’m sure there are opportunities for you, too.”
What was this crooked little man stammering on about?
“There are things my neighbors need, and I’m sure I can get him crops and meat much cheaper than anyone he’s working with now. I haven’t any competition here. Can set my own prices, if you understand.” Pedar raised an eyebrow. It was the one muscle he had that looked well exercised.
The little man had gotten much more comfortable since he started talking about his willingness to cheat his neighbors.
“I’m not here to make trade deals or introductions to my father. I’m feeling tired.”
Pedar smiled. “I understand. Elsa, please take our guest back to your house where you can take good care of him. And get him some real food. We wouldn’t want him to be hungry.”
Vidar really was tired. Before walking back down the hill, he took another look at Pedar’s house. Servants, high ceilings, wood stacked neatly by a roaring fire. And the kitchen was in another room altogether. And it smelled as if beef was simmering. The maid and her son lived in a single room small house that smelled only of potatoes and onions. Something to remember. The smell made his stomach burn for meat and bread and mead. How long had he been living on Elsa’s terrible broth?
Viking Slave
“Ahh.” Kiara looked up into the beautiful blue sky. Days were short, but she loved to feel the sun, no matter how impotent it’s warmth. “Whew!” She shivered and began to trot. As soon as she felt the chill, she had learned not to wait. It was time to get moving. This time the shiver felt like it crept slowly down, from the top of her head and down her back, leaving a trail of goosebumps in its wake.
The borrowed dress she wore was a size too big, and it let the cold air in like a door not quite shut. The way the wind can find a crack to spoil a koselig room, no matter how hot the fire was burning.
Koselig. The word finally started to make sense. After spending most of the last year with the Vikings, that was one expression she never really grasped. The raiders would come into her house and tell her mother how koselig everything was—as if they were guests thanking a willing hosts hospitality.
Even though she’d learned a bit of Norse during the siege, that word never resonated with her. Was the home she grew up in supposed to feel nice and welcoming when assumed by invaders who sat at her father’s table and ate their food? Ending each meal with a clap on the back and a smile, as if they were old friends over for a nice visit. Was she supposed to have a warm feeling in her heart, even though she lived with the fear that she would be the next girl one of the Viking fish eaters would start to take a liking to?
She must have lost her senses after all this time. Or maybe, she was finding hope. Compared to what her life was like just a about a year earlier-had it been that long?—things now were at least...Well, not like then. In a place so cold it was like nothing she’d ever felt before, she started to get its meaning, just a little. She prayed to God every night that her hope, and that feeling, would last.
She was running now, and her tears felt like they were freezing to the sides of her face. The more she ran the warmer she felt and the farther she got from that dark, stifling house. Farther from Runa, a woman who seemed like she’d lost something and wouldn’t let anyone help her find it. The only warmth she showed in that house was to her little dog Jeger, as if she didn’t have a family to care for.
What Kiara wouldn’t do to see her family again. She found herself so lonely for her mother that she thought if she could just get Runa to smile or to lay her hand on her back, just a whisper of praise, some form of affection, that she’d just...Oh, what was she thinking about? Her mind wandered something awful nowadays, always drifting somewhere between contented and despairing.
“It’s about time. Don’t you know I’ve got someplace to go?”
Kiara’s mind was still buzzing. Get it together girl. She put her hands on her knees to catch her breath. Warm white fog froze in the air between them. “I’ve got your lunch.”
Erik smirked. “What did you say?”
Kiara thought for a second, then smiled back. “F-o-o-d,” she annunciated. Erik was always making fun of the brogue she added to her Norse.
He walked up to her. Close. Maybe too close. “Have you been crying?” He put his hand on the side of her face, and gently rubbed the side of her eye with his thumb.
She caught herself looking at him looking at her. Embarrassed, and still breathing too heavy, she grabbed his hand and pushed it away. She rubbed her eyes, “I haven’t been crying.” His hand was cold, but she felt warm, which made no sense. “I’ve been running.” Her cheeks felt like they were cramping. She forced herself to stop smiling. Had she been smiling that whole time? His smile was infectious. That’s what it was. He was the one smiling. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
“No reason.” His smile widened. “I’ve just never known anyone to run as much as you. I mean, unless there’s a troll chasing you or something?” He took the basket from her hand and pretended to hide behind her.
Erik was ridiculous. He reminded her of how she and her brother used to play when they were little. “All you talk about are trolls. Did you get whisked off to a trollheim or wherever they live, or something like that? You seem obsessed with them.”
He looked a little shaken by her saying that, as if trolls had some hidden meaning to him. “Not me, I’m obsessed with your country, full of faeries and gnomes, which are really just nisse by the way. Same thing.”
“They are not.” She felt herself smiling again. Even though Kiara’s cheeks were numb, she could tell, and she wanted to hit him for some reason. Maybe that would make her stop smiling. So, she hit him.
“Hey!” He laughed and pushed her way too hard. She fell.
“Hey!” Alright, she wasn’t smiling now. She had stumbled over a pile of stacked staffs, about as big around as her arm. “What are these?”
“Sticks.” Erik was looking in the basket at what he she’d brought him for his lunch. He didn’t even offer her a hand up. She grabbed a staff. They were carved down at one end, just a little too big around for her hand. She used it to push herself to her feet. “What are you doing out here. Your mother told me you were chopping wood.”
“Stepmother, lass.” His fake brogue was bad. She didn’t know whether he was trying to be funny or make fun of her. Since he didn’t have the ability, or maybe the interest, to learn her language, she didn’t think he had room to mock her or where she came from. At least she was trying.
He picked up one of the staffs by the narrow end. The narrow part was definitely a handle, which seemed obvious once he was holding it. “How could you think that cruel woman would be my mother?” He held the rod up like a sword or a club, like he was going to hit her with it. “Don’t make me remind you again.” Then he broke out with that impish smile again. “Go on, defend yourself. Tip up.”
It took two hands for Kiara to raise the staff. It was heavy and awkward. “Don’t you hit me.” She wasn’t sure what Erik considered to be fun half the time. Once, he bloodied her nose with a snowball packed so hard it might as well have been ice. Another time, he grabbed her and spun her until they were so dizzy they fell down in the snow. Well, she fell in the snow—he fell on her. That hurt.
Erik’s games often spun out of control like that. From fun to not. She was thinking about taking him his lunch earlier and earlier, lately. Last week, she had it ready for him before he even left the house. She had to hide it from him so he wouldn’t grab it on his way out the door.
Was the way he made her feel worth his antics? She knew the answer to that. Better to have a broken rib from someone trying to make you happy than a clean dress from someone who wants you to look presentable while you’re cleaning their house—or feeding their animals—or cooking their meals. Erik always knew how to make her smile and helped her understand what koselig mea
nt, after all.
She swung the staff right at his. He feigned to be surprised, then slapped his against hers. It made a crack. Is that what she’d been hearing the other day when she went to town with Runa? Runa said it was just someone chopping wood, but Kiara could tell it was something different. It would have had to be three or four people chopping together to make that much noise.
“Entertain me while I eat.” He said it as if he were the king of all Norway.
“Put down that staff.”
He put it down and looked at what she brought him. Kiara thought for a moment. “If I had my fife, I’d play you a song.” Her mind traveled to happier times.
“Where is it?” he scoured the ground playfully.
“I lost it, sometime at sea. Or maybe it’s in the belly of the Viking’s ship.” And, as quickly, Kiara felt the darkness of her situation again. She wiped her eyes with her sleeve, then her nose. “My father gave it to me. He’d been trying to teach me how to play...” Her mind wandered again. “He was really good.”
“And you?”
“No. I didn’t practice enough.” How she wished she’d played with him more.
“Tell me another story, then.” Erik said it as if curious why she’d even brought it up in the first place. “Tell me something good, something from your country, something with wide green pastures covered with sheep.” He pointed an onion at her. “No goats.” Then he held the little vegetable between his hands, closing his eyes as if its warmth were the best part of it. “Tell me something with magic. And the land of faeries, hidden in plain sight.” He rummaged around some more, pulled out a skin and took a drink.
She knew he’d be cold, so she filled it with a hot tea she made with some herbs and dried berries from a basket Runa had hidden in the larder. Not enough that she’d notice, but just enough to add some sweetness to the water. He smiled after he drank it, then put the stopper back and put the warm skin under his shirt. “Tell me one with a hero like...What were their names?” He stood and knocked more snow from his seat atop an old stump. “Fionn? Was that it? Or Goll mac Morna, or Samson, the most powerful man who ever lived. I like that one. I haven’t had my hair cut since you told me that one, did you notice?”
