Author: Julia Knight
Date: 2012-01-02 05:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Historical; Historical Romance; Romance; Historical Fiction; Medieval; Viking Romance
Description: Viking raiders destroyed Wilda’s home. She witnessed the murder of her mother and would have been killed herself if it weren’t for the Viking boy Einar, who saved her from his ruthless brother. The blood and murder left Wilda cold and shorn of feeling. Eight years later, the heathens return for Wilda. As a captive in the Viking village, she finds protection and silent comfort in the man who once gallantly saved her. Einar has been cursed to silence by his brother. With the dark net of his brother’s power cast over their village, silence is a small price to pay for his family’s safety. But Eina
Publisher: Carina Press
Rights: Copyright © 2012 by Julia Knight

The Viking’s Sacrifice

By Julia Knight

Viking raiders destroyed Wilda’s home. She witnessed the murder of her mother and would have been killed herself if it weren’t for the Viking boy Einar, who saved her from his ruthless brother. The blood and murder left Wilda cold and shorn of feeling.

Eight years later, the heathens return for Wilda. As a captive in the Viking village, she finds protection and silent comfort in the man who once gallantly saved her.

Einar has been cursed to silence by his brother. With the dark net of his brother’s power cast over their village, silence is a small price to pay for his family’s safety. But Einar is immediately drawn to Wilda, and the need to protect her from his brother awakens his Viking courage. Can Einar break his brother’s curse in time to save the village and the woman he loves?

69,000 words

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Dedication

To Scarlett, for getting it. Me. Whatever. Thanks, babe.

Acknowledgements

Thanks to my dedicated betas, Sue and Scarlett, for their incisive comments of “I really liked it.” Absolute Write and their helpful hints about research, not to mention writing. As always, to Deb, but especially for inspiring this story with an offhand “Have you thought about writing an historical?” three days before I left for Norway. This one’s her fault! Thanks to Olaf, the world’s most giggle-inducing guide, whose knowledge was awe inspiring. And thanks to Geirangerfjord, Lodalen, and Norway for being so damned beautiful I had to write about you.

Author’s Note

While I have strived to be as accurate as possible, I suspect there will be some inconsistencies, not least because not everyone agrees on all the actual facts, and the facts that are known are contradictory.

For example, there is much disagreement over whether the Norse invaders and the Anglo-Saxon inhabitants of England would have understood one another at the start of the raiding period. Both languages come from the same/similar roots, but it seems likely that, at the least, they would have only understood a word or two, in much the same way that English has many words based on Latin, or West Germanic, and I fail at both those languages. Also I note that due to accent and local idiom, I can fail to understand the spoken words of someone who is nominally speaking the same language as me, and they will fail to understand me.

So while I’ve made every effort, please forgive this poor writer for any errors.

With regard to the mention of Tristan and Isolde, while the first known manuscripts are later than when this novel is set, Mark of Cornwall (Isolde’s husband in some versions) probably lived in the sixth century, and other speculative dates for the tale’s timing are in the seventh or eighth centuries. Many tales were well known before they were first committed to paper, and I have assumed that the story of Tristan and Isolde is one such tale.

Contents

Copyright

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

About the Author

Chapter One

Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.

Matthew 5:7

Northeast England, in the year of Our Lord 836.

Wilda ran, not to anywhere or from anywhere, but for the sheer joy of running. Along the beach or through the orchard, scattering sheep in the fold and startling men from their reaping, always she ran.

Today she ran along the beach through the edge of the waves, salt spray wetting her dress, damp sand sticking between her toes and the hot, heavy air of late summer whisked to lightness by the sea breeze. She ran for the wind whipping her hair in her face, the screech of the gulls as she swooped among them, and the guilty knowledge that she should be at home, spinning and sewing, but had escaped for an afternoon.

Movement caught her eye and she hunkered down behind a sand dune to peek through the rough grass. What one of the kitchen maids was getting up to with the new stable boy was far more interesting than rock pools or looking for seashells.

The stable boy shifted and slid a hand inside the bodice of the maid’s dress. Wilda blushed and thought to turn away, but she was eleven now. It wouldn’t be long till she was a lady, till she was married to Lord Bayen as a peace-weaver between him and her own lord father. Mother had steadfastly refused to elaborate on what would be expected of her when she married, except for the cryptic comment that “it wasn’t something to look forward to” but was “something to be borne.” She could gather some of it—she’d seen plenty of sheep tupping and once her father’s prize stallion sent to cover a mare—but people were different from animals, surely? The stable boy leaned over the maid again and Wilda pulled back. She shouldn’t be watching, no matter how much she wanted to know.

A glance behind her at the last half of the sun as it dipped over windswept hills made her decision for her. She had to be back by dark, always. She couldn’t wait till she was old enough to stay out as late as she wanted. The sand was soft under her bare feet, with little bits of shell and grass prickling her skin as she snuck away from the maid and stable boy and made her way along the high tide line back toward her home, Dunburh, the fortified town perched on the highest hill. She dawdled along, trying to put off the inevitable chores and bedtime, but not so much that she’d incur her mother’s wrath.

She reached the path that led away from the beach, up to the town. A raven sat in the oak tree where the path forked. She stopped, alarmed, then berated herself. Superstitions were for the ungodly, for heathens and sinners to cling to, so the priests said. Those who looked to God had nothing to fear. She took a step and the raven flapped on its branch and cawed at her, its beady eye boring straight into hers. Superstition, that was all. Still, there was another path, one where she needn’t pass the raven, down around the base of the cliffs and up the other side. That path was longer but came out closer to home. If she ran, she wouldn’t be late. The raven flapped its wings at her again, and she turned.

Red sunset bounced off waves and all but blinded her, but for a moment she thought she saw something, some movement down on the beach beneath the headland where the hills blocked the town’s view of the sea. She glanced over the hill at the setting sun. Enough time to look, if she was quick. Mother would never know. She ran as she always did, everywhere, her feet making little spurts of cloudy sand.

It was a ship, but not one she recognised. Not one of the fishermen’s craft that sailed whenever they could, bringing back all manner of tasty things to eat. Not a trading ship either. Dunburh didn’t have much of a harbour, and there were better opportunities south in Bamburgh. She found a fold of land where she could hide see without being seen, and watched.

A young man, boy really, jumped off the prow and into the water, starting the laborious process of hauling it up the sand. He didn’t look much older than she was, though for all his young age he was big, bigger than her older brother who was fifteen. This boy’s hair was fair, braided in an unfamiliar way, but he looked quite handsome beneath. She had a brief, silly daydream that he was a noble warrior come to take her away from the manor and title she’d been born to, from arranged marriages and older brothers and fathers who scolded her lack of domestication, mothers who always insisted she walk like a lady rather than run. He would take her away to palaces and knights, daring feats, epic loves and kings that the bards told of.

Another two men landed in the knee-deep water beside him, older, bigger and broader. A second ship nudged onto the beach. A niggle started at the back of her mind, grew when yet more men jumped into the surf. They wore trousers and cloaks—and leather armour. One of them worked on a pile of torches, lighting them and passing them round. The niggle turned to outright fear when one of them called down to the boy, “Einar!” and threw down a spear and shield.

The ship’s figurehead loomed large in her vision. A raven’s head, a motif repeated on the single square sail. Her breath stopped and she took in the rest of the ship. Long and lean. Not a trader or a fisher. Men busied themselves taking shields from the side of the longboat, grabbing spears and swords, neatly shipping many oars.

One of the other men shouted something she couldn’t understand. Then she knew, when she realised why her mother always insisted she be back by dark. When she realised the raven had warned her as surely as Dunburh’s alarm call might, only she’d not listened. They’d all heard the tales that raged up and down the coast, of the warriors who sometimes came from over the sea and pillaged and plundered and burned what they didn’t take. The priests intoned a prayer at church, every week now as the raids became more frequent. Our supreme and holy Grace, protecting us and ours, deliver us, God, from the savage race of Northmen which lays waste our realms.

The raven had warned her in time. The heathens were here. Wilda turned and ran for home.

Einar stepped onto the sandy beach and adjusted his shield with fingers that shook with excitement and, yes, maybe a little fear. His first raid. His first chance to prove himself to his father, to his half-brothers, Arni and Bausi. He tightened his grip on his spear and looked around. It all looked too open, too low. No steep-sided fjords, no high, sweet meadows or sweeps of dark fir trees cut by wispy waterfalls. Here it was all rolling grass, hills little more than rounded humps in the ground, and dour oaks. A settlement perched atop a low headland, dark against the setting sun.

A flash of movement caught his eye and he squinted into the sunset. A raven swooped over a tuft of tough sea-grass and a small face grinned at him from among rocks at the bottom of a tumbled cliff. Her dark hair whipped across her face and her eyes were alight with interest. She reminded him of a fox, the sharp, intelligent face, the air of wildness that nothing could tame. For a heartbeat he grinned back. He hadn’t expected this. Her gaze moved over the ships, took in the armed men, and her face pinched with fear. Then she was a figure in a sky-blue dress, running along the beach where it met the small cliff. The raven perched on a rock and began to preen. A raven, one of Odin’s birds perhaps, but a bird of portent always.

“Arni, over there.” Einar pointed with his spear.

His eldest brother shaded his eyes and his mouth lifted in a grin. “Well done, Einar. And she’s leading us the way. Good girl. Let’s get after her before she gets too far and raises the alarm.”

Bausi glared at Einar from under lowered brows and barged past him, deliberately smacking Einar’s shoulder with his shield as he passed. Einar hung back, let Bausi get ahead before he followed Arni along the beach at a swift trot. Bausi had been short with him the whole way over, sneering at his attempts at rowing, laughing at his knots, making fun of how Ragnhilda had come to see him off with a chaste kiss.

Yet Bausi had argued long and hard with their father that Einar was old enough to come on his first raid. Einar’s marriage to Ragnhilda was set for later in the year, the bride price paid, the families’ jostling done, and a boy old enough to be married was a man, so his argument went. Other boys his age could, and did, go on raids. Besides, Father was too old now, in failing health, a sad shadow of a man knowing that now it was too late, he would die in his bed instead of in battle, with a blade in his hand.

Bausi had argued that his sons stood for him, that they needed all the men they could get, and Einar had filled with pride that even the temperamental, sneering Bausi included him in that. He could forgive a little teasing—it made him more determined to show everyone he was ready, to bring some glory and riches back to Ragnhilda for the wedding.

The raiding party passed under the cliff and out onto more open land, verdant pastures and tilled fields almost ready for harvest. The path to the village, and the figure running along it, was plain to see as it cut through barley and fields of sheep up to the log wall that surrounded the houses. Arni stepped up the pace, hoping to get to the wall before the girl could raise the alarm, or the men roused enough to defend.

Bausi kept close by Arni, watching him with an intentness that shivered Einar’s shoulder-blades. Bausi was a tricky character at the best of times, liked to throw his weight around and bluster. Loki’s child their father called him, sometimes joking, sometimes not, because not all the bluster was harmless.

Arni had said, with a warm, strong arm around Einar’s shoulders, that all got a few nerves before a raid. Most likely, Bausi’s temper was only that. Though Einar didn’t think nerves applied to Arni, not the big, bluff warrior with a bigger voice that could scare pigs at a hundred paces, a booming laugh that would tame a wolf and a grin or a tale always ready. One day, when he was at his full growth, Einar hoped to be half the warrior Arni was.

The girl ran through the gateway to the village and her thin cries carried to them on the soft sunset air. They were heartbeats behind her. The gate began to swing shut but Arni shouldered into it and burst it from the hands that would bolster it. The rest of them charged in, yelling and brandishing weapons and torches.

The Saxons never stood a chance, taken by surprise. Not up to the challenge, not up to this band of raiders. Fear and excitement thrilled through Einar, lent strength to his spear, courage to his shield. A Saxon came for him, spear high. Einar sidestepped and lunged for the unprotected back. Arni’s interminable lessons paid off, and Einar had survived his first fight.

His heart thudded, pulsed its beat through him in a glorious appreciation of now. Nothing else mattered but that. This instant, when a sword came for him, or a shield went up, or a man went down in a bloody mess. Now was all that mattered, this heartbeat, because there might not be another.

He pulled his spear out of a Saxon body and looked around. He was on his own. Bausi was running toward the great hall. Where whatever lord they had would be, whatever riches, what they’d come for. Not theft—that wasn’t their way. But a raid was a challenge to a fight and if the Saxons weren’t up to that challenge…

Einar ran after Bausi, wanting to regroup. He ducked down a narrow cleft between two burning buildings and came to a space. It took him a heartbeat to register what was happening. A boy knelt on the ground—begging, it looked like—a woman behind him screaming “Wilda, Wilda!” Arni stood waiting for the boy to take up a sword, a spear, anything. To make the fight, the challenge, real. Bausi was two steps ahead of Einar, and he didn’t wait for the challenge. His spear ripped through the boy, through his chest and out again. The woman screamed, louder, more desperate.

To Einar’s side was the girl, the one who’d raised the alarm, her sky-blue dress marred now with dirt, her face pale, dripping blood from a cut under her eye as she tried to hide behind a stack of hay that was already smouldering. Her eyes caught his, and he couldn’t move. The absolute fear in them, the aching wildness turned to terror now. The way she shrank back from his gaze, the tears that lurked but tried not to be shed. Trying to be brave. He understood that. The trying, because courage was everything to a Norseman, and Einar held a secret fear he’d be found wanting.

A scream from the side made him turn. Not the woman. Arni, with Bausi’s spear in his back. Einar’s eldest brother, heir to the jarlship, fell like a skewered bear, eyes staring and unbelieving. Bausi stood over him, his mouth awry with an odd smile. He yanked the spear out, pulling a gurgle of blood with it, and cast his gaze to Einar. Bausi licked at his bottom lip and came forward. He threw down the spear and drew his sword.

Einar stood no chance. None. Third son, with no sword as yet, only his spear and a scramasax at his back. His shield was a tattered mess somewhere behind him, shattered by a Saxon spear. Bausi had the weight of his full growth and ten more years’ experience.

Einar stepped up to Bausi’s challenge.

The woman took her chance, lunging toward the hidden girl with a cry of “Wilda!” Too soon. Bausi slashed at her, took her in the back of the neck, shook the body off his blade with an impatient push of his boot and came on.

Einar swapped the spear to his left hand and planted it, his best chance would be to manoeuvre Bausi onto it and let the solid earth make up for his lack of muscles, at least compared to Bausi. With his right hand, Einar drew out his scramasax.

Bausi hesitated and his twisted smile split his blood-splattered face. “Come now, Einar, don’t tell me you never dreamed of being the eldest? Let me kill the girl, let only us two know what happened, and we’ll talk. Think what I could give you. No longer third son now. A trusted right-hand man you could be, with rings of gold and oaths of fealty. Ragnhilda wouldn’t make that man stop before he went too far, wouldn’t tease him and then say no.”

Bausi took a careful step forward. “No, you’d be in her bed, quick as a hunting wolf, marriage or not. And as that man, well, there are better families than hers to arrange your marriage to. I hanker for a wife close in kin to Harald Gulskeg King. He’s named no heir as yet. We’re strong, we men of Raven’s Home. We could become stronger, a force to be reckoned with in Sogn. A fitting tribute to our father’s glory.” He took a sideways step, his eyes never leaving Einar as he tried to get round him.

Einar swivelled to follow him and caught a glimpse of the girl out of the corner of his eye. He didn’t know what kin the woman had been to her, but he and the girl were the same now, had watched the murder of someone they loved. Both killed by the same man, a man Einar knew as brother and realised he didn’t know at all.

He put out his scramasax to bar Bausi’s way. “No. There’s a special place in Niflheim for murderers, isn’t that so? No strength could repay that.” He turned so he could watch both Bausi and the girl. “Wilda, run. Run!” She stared at him, uncomprehending, and he gestured, a hint with his scramasax, though not so much he couldn’t bring it to bear.

“The Norns have woven our lives together, you and I. Shall we see whose thread is the shorter?” Bausi shrugged and the movement turned into a lunge as he came for Einar.

Wilda stared at her mother’s body where the heathen let it drop, watched the way the blood seeped into the earth, reddening it. Taking her heart and hope with it, draining her of warmth, of tears, of everything she was. Dear Lord, take her swiftly to thy embrace. She couldn’t make sense of anything. The heathens were come, were burning and pillaging her home, were murdering even each other, such was their bloodlust. It was everything the friars had told them. She had to run, had to hide, had to try to pretend she could escape.

The burning barn popped and crackled with a whoosh of air, and a pig screamed as it burned, trapped inside. If she didn’t run, and soon, she’d fare no better.

Harsh voices in a language she didn’t know grabbed her attention. The big man with the nasty twisting smile, the tangle of dark hair and menace of a bear stepped toward her. She cast about. There was nowhere left to run. All escape cut off by flames or heathens. At least the sword would be quick. The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want…

The boy—he was called Einar, she’d heard them say it to him twice now—stuck out a heavy hunting knife and blocked Bear Man’s path. Einar’s head turned a touch, and he seemed to be looking at her.

“Wilda, renn. Renn!”

Her breath stopped, clogged in her throat with fear. What did he—he was saving her. A twitch of his hand. A shooing movement. He wanted her to run. She looked round wildly. Everywhere was burning, except in front of her, where two men stood facing each other down. One of them wanted her dead. There had to be a way. Had to. Part of the barn collapsed behind her, showering her with sparks, but a beam, still only smouldering as yet, had knocked a slim path through the flames. Maybe—

Bear Man leaped forward with a yell, his shield swinging round sideways to connect solidly with Einar’s face and drop him on his back while the sword came round in an arc. Einar managed to bring up the knife, grasping it with both hands to try to stay the blow. The sword scraped along it and stabbed into the earth. Bear Man wasted no heartbeats but kicked Einar’s wrist. The knife skittered over the dank straw of the yard. Another kick, to the head this time, and Bear Man had spun Einar onto his front.

She couldn’t leave him. Her father taught her that heathens were just ignorant of God, to be pitied not despised for that ignorance, as Saxons had once been ignorant. She should never leave someone who needed her help, no matter whether they were good Christians or not. The Good Samaritan, that was his favourite tale. And this heathen, this one had told her to run, had stopped the Bear Man with his sword coming for her, killing her without a glance as he had her mother. This heathen was sacrificing himself as the friars said Jesus had, had shown her mercy when he need not. She ran, but not for safety. For the knife.

Bear Man loomed over Einar and she ducked behind him, skirting the burning barn. She tried not to hear the scream as she scrabbled in the straw and dung. Here, she’d seen it here. Her fingers closed over the smooth leather of the grip. She was glad it wasn’t a sword—she could barely lift her father’s—but while this knife was heavier, bigger than she was used to, she’d gutted many a hare, jointed many a sheep or pig. Better than that, she’d used a knife to hunt small things, practiced throwing till she put her brother to shame, just so she could say she was better at one little thing. Her father had whipped her for her pride in the skill God gave her. It might be wrong, sinful, she might not be accurate with this, but it was all she had.

When she turned, the knife in her trembling, unbelieving hand, Bear Man was pulling his sword from Einar’s back. He swung it up for another blow, the final cut that would take Einar’s head. Wilda shut her eyes at the thought of throwing at a living, breathing man—please God, forgive me what I am about to do—and threw.

Einar lay pinned to the ground by his blood, by the terrible weight that burned between his ribs. By fear. He turned his head, ready to see his end. Bausi stood over him, sword raised, about to finish what he’d started.

Einar’s scramasax landed hilt-first between Bausi’s eyes. He staggered and his blade went astray. Instead of Einar’s neck, it sliced straight into the back of his knee. Einar had no breath to scream—blood clogged his lungs, filled his mouth. He could only lie there, under the weight of his misery. A glimpse of sky-blue in the flickering, flame-ridden dark. The girl, Wilda, she hadn’t run.

Bausi recovered and swung toward her, his face full of menace. She stood transfixed, like a statue, except that her hands fluttered against her thighs, as though they didn’t believe what she’d done.

Darkness loomed large in Einar’s thoughts as his blood leaked into the earth. He had to do one thing. Just one, and it might be enough for Odin, for Thor. He might then be welcomed by them. He’d stood against a murderer and saved one person, even if she was a Christian, a Saxon. He’d have died in battle, even if it was a battle with his own brother. It was all he had.

He did the only thing left to him. “Wilda, run.”

His whispered voice, maybe her name, startled her out of her trance. She met his gaze for a heartbeat, tears mingling with the blood that dripped from the cut under her eye. Bausi took another step.

A cry of “Bausi!” made them both start. More raiders came, huge vague shapes in the smoke. With a last, petrified look at Einar, with two words he couldn’t understand, Wilda ran. Across a beam that had fallen through the barn and then she was lost in the bright flames and the smoky darkness beyond.

It was enough. He’d done one thing, one good thing of courage. Odin, take me now. He shut his eyes and gave in to the blackness.

He drifted there, brought only to sudden, screaming wakefulness when they cauterised his wounds. Iron hands held him down as he thrashed, and cruel words dripped in his ear but he didn’t hear them over his own noise. When they were done and a hard hand slapped the poultice on, he gladly sank again.

The movement of water, the gentle slap of it on wood and the creak of oars brought him back. Odin didn’t want me then.

He tried to lick his lips, to swallow, but his mouth was dry as ashes. Breath was hard to come by, and it felt as if his knee had been replaced with a red-hot coal. Opening his eyes seemed a monumental effort, one beyond him, so he lay in his own darkness and drifted with the soothing sounds of water, the familiar feel of it under him. He stirred when they left the sea, into the calmer waters of the fjord, again when the water stilled further and the current changed at the sound of waterfalls either side. He knew then where they were. The falls to the left were the Daughters, to the right, the Lovers. Above all would be the rock of Odin’s Helm that watched over Hrafheimfjord, Ravens’ Home Fjord. He was home.

Bausi’s voice roused him. “I tell you, Agnar, that’s what happened. Shamed though I am to say it, my own brother a coward, taken in the back while running away. Makes me wonder if his mother didn’t have him on the wrong side of the furs, because he’s no son of Olav Hammerheart. Father was right, he wasn’t old enough.”

Agnar said something in reply, though Einar didn’t catch the words.

“True, years don’t make a man, but heart and courage. How to tell my father that one son is dead and the other a coward, when it was I who persuaded him to let Einar come? All right,” Bausi said. “Let me sit with him a little.”

Einar managed to open his eyes a crack. He lay amidships, ropes creaking, the sail billowing over him, the raven’s eyes accusing him. Bausi sat down on a coil of walrus-hide rope next to him. Einar tried to speak, tried to call Agnar back and tell him the truth, but his lips were dry as dust, his throat constricted with thirst.

“Now, now,” Bausi said with his twisted grin. “No good trying to tell anyone. You were lucky there, that little Saxon bitch saved you. For now. But there’s ways and ways. Little accidents that can happen. And not only to you. I’ll just have to bide my time.”

Einar tried to get up but failed even to get his arms to move. Bausi was going to kill him, that was sure. Not now maybe, not in front of everyone, and Einar thanked Odin for Wilda and the knife that had stopped the blow just long enough for Agnar to come. Even Bausi wouldn’t do murder in front of him, in front of their father’s truest feal-sworn.

Bausi’s grin stretched as he watched Einar struggle and finally give up. It was beyond him. He couldn’t breathe for the rock in his chest, couldn’t move for the grinding pain, or the fear of what would happen, how bad it would be if the rot got into it and he festered to death. Fear of what Bausi was about to say.

“That’s right, you lie there and listen to me. Listen well, little brother, for your life and others depend upon it. I can’t kill you now, not here. No, I can’t do that. Once we’re home, even that might prove difficult. Agnar’s no fool. Two brothers dying, so near? In a raid, yes, and what I planned for. Anything else looks suspicious. Especially coming on top of our father’s death.”

Einar finally managed some croaked words. “Father’s not—”

“Isn’t he?” Bausi’s low chuckle made Einar’s back itch. “He’s been failing for months, worse every day. Such a shame. He should be more careful what he drinks. If he’s not dead, he soon will be, so you can’t throw yourself under his protection. I’ve already taken pains to tell everyone how you ran instead of saving Arni from the Saxon spear, like the disgusting coward you are. How you raved and ranted like a madman, undone by your fear. Strange, how quickly they believed it. It’ll do you no good to tell now, you see. Any words of yours would be the words of a madman. Worse, it will do you and yours great harm. Gudrun and Sigdir will be under my protection. And I may choose not to protect them.”

Einar stared at Bausi in horror. Gudrun, his little sister, only two. Sigdir, his younger brother, who idolised Arni almost as much as Einar had. Under the protection of Bausi, who might take it away at any moment. Who had shown that he could murder his own kin without remorse.

How easy would it be to arrange an accident for a two-year-old? Too easy. A stumble—or push—into the smaller, stronger falls by their father’s feasting hall. A rope failing when they were at the summer pasture high up the mountains where all the young children were tied to the house for fear of the suicide drop. A host of things. A boy Sigdir’s age, always climbing the mountain looking for gull’s eggs, sparring with practice swords and spears—accidents were common, it would be easy to make one fatal.

Bausi watched him as these thoughts ran through Einar’s head in panic. The twist of a grin was half-hidden behind Bausi’s beard, but it was there. He was enjoying himself as he always did, at someone else’s expense. Loki’s child. His hand dipped into his tunic and brought out a leather pouch which held a slice of wood. Runes had been cut into it with savage slashes, and blood soaked it, stained the grain and runes red.

“Do you know what this is, little brother? Do you see what the runes say? Ah, no, there are few who ken these runes. A curse on you and yours if you speak of it, this says, sealed in your blood. If you should speak of it, if anyone should find out, whether through you or not, if you should try to run, you’ll die along with young Sigdir and sweet little Gudrun.”

Einar’s soul shrivelled in him, seemed to drain his courage away through his blood to soak the poultices. Bausi’s mother had been seidr, a seer, among other, darker rumours. The runes were cut with a jagged edge, a threat of death and destruction to any who crossed the blood-wrought curse. If he crossed it, if he spoke of Arni’s death, Bausi need do nothing and Gudrun and Sigdir would suffer, would die, sudden or slow to Bausi’s whim. Einar’s hand crept into his own tunic, gripped the amulet there in the vain hope it could save him from seidr-magic. He was caught in Bausi’s net.

“Odin said repay treachery with lies, and that I shall. But you, do not leave the fjord. Keep to yourself. Say nothing of that night’s work, if you value your family,” Bausi said. “Nothing.”

No words passed Einar’s lips. Not when they carried him off the ship and dumped him on his bench. Not when Sigdir told him of their father’s lingering death while he’d been away. Not when the rest of the village laid both Arni and Olav Hammerheart under their howes. Not when Ragnhilda turned from Einar in disgust or when Bausi, to save the bride price, took her as his first wife to keep the seal between this fjord and the next.

His only words were when, as he’d feared, the chest wound festered and Sigdir called for the spae-wife. Then he’d spoken, opened his mouth to cravenly beg. “No, please, no.” Because the spae-wife would see with her magic and her charms, she’d know, and he and Sigdir and Gudrun would be lost. Dead as Arni, cold in his howe, no matter that Bausi would be held to account. It wouldn’t matter, because all Olav’s children would die. So he’d cravenly begged and had seen the look in Sigdir’s eye, had seen himself for what he now was. He was no man of Thor, no child of Odin. He was shamed before them, the coward Bausi said him, his mind so turned with it to beg that the best woman with herbs not be given the chance to heal him.

After that, he said nothing.

Chapter Two

The treacherous are caught by their own greed.

Proverbs 11:6

Northeast England, in the year of Our Lord 844

Wilda muttered under her breath as the yarn snapped, again. No matter how she tried, she could never spin it longer than a foot before it either tangled or broke. Her maid, Myldrith, looked up in alarm at the words Wilda used before she dropped her gaze to her stitching, her face pink and indignant. Wilda promised herself—again—that the next time she took the Lord’s name in vain she would do so silently, especially in front of Myldrith.

It seemed she did that ever more frequently as life closed in around her, her days reduced to spinning, sewing, running a household rather than along the beach. Myldrith, particularly, frowned upon her language. She was Bayen’s young second cousin, come up from her parents’ home in the hope that here Bayen could broker a good marriage for her. But, Lord forgive Wilda for such thoughts, she was a censorious thing, tutting at every word of Wilda’s out of place or perceived infraction against the Bible and going to confession at least once a day, though Wilda couldn’t work out what it could be she had to confess.

Outside, a lowering autumn sun tainted everything gold, yellowing the grass, reddening the leaves. Washing the far beach a subtle rose-pink. Wilda set her lips and turned back to her spinning. Beaches and running along them, delighting in the feel of sand and surf on bare feet, were for children, for girls and maids, not ladies. Wet sand squidging between your toes wasn’t practical, or useful, and nor was a hem ruined from salt water.

A rapid tapping on the window frame made her drop the spinning again, this time with a loud “Goddamn it!” that made Myldrith gasp in outrage.

“Oh, don’t tell me you’ve never wanted to say it,” Wilda said, and immediately repented the words at the shocked look on Myldrith’s face. “I’m sorry, I don’t know what’s wrong with me today. Maybe because summer’s gone, the air chills. Soon it will be winter, the little death.” Wilda shuddered at the image that brought to mind.

The tapping came again, and Wilda stood to look out of the window. A raven, black and glossy, perched on the pussy willow just outside. As she watched, it tapped again, three times. Tap, tap, tap before it looked at her with unblinking eyes. Wilda crossed herself, almost without thought. Tap, tap, tap, and again the look. Its eyes were even blacker than its feathers, little drops of night, oily bright and intent on her. Tap, tap, tap.

Wilda grabbed her spindle and threw it at the bird, making it squawk and take to the air, but when the spindle had passed, it settled on its perch again, seemingly unperturbed. The feeling of foreboding grew in her, one that had made her irritable and nervous all day since she’d seen the magpie on her roof that morning.

Crows, magpies, ravens. Birds of ill omen all. Ones she had come to dread. A crow fluttering round the altar the day of her wedding to Bayen, Thane of Oxhurst. A magpie swooping on the goodwife the day their son had been stillborn. A raven, blocking her path the day her mother—and her heart—had died, a day of flames and blood and murder that had ended her childhood, and her running free, forever.

Tap, tap, tap. The raven watched her, unblinking in the dying light of the day before, with a whoosh of feathers and a last warning caw, it swept off toward the beach. She shaded her eyes to watch, her breath tight at wondering what this new thing meant even as her mind told her it was just superstition. God watched her, God looked after her in His glorious embrace, she had no need for heathen ways. Yet hadn’t He used ravens and other birds, through Noah on the ark? Even then, the raven had never been the bearer of good news. The skin prickled on the back of her neck.

The raven became a smudge, then a dark speck almost lost to view and Wilda’s heart lightened. Even ravens had to be somewhere, and this one just happened to be here. That was all. Portents were for the superstitious, for those who clung to the old ways even though they went to church and prayed to God.

The speck turned along the beach, dove down to the waves and—

Wilda ran out of the room, startling Myldrith, who dropped her stitching with a screech, casting servants and slaves aside in her rush to reach the church, and the bell there. The bell to warn the whole town.

Heathens were come.

This time, they did not burn. They plundered in a halfhearted kind of way, but they burned nothing. Wilda was glad; dreams of flames and blood—and a heathen boy dying to save her—woke her often.

No, they did not burn, but they killed. The open space where the market was held was churned and bloody, bodies lined up against the thane’s house, her house. She’d found Myldrith and they’d hidden, but they couldn’t hide well enough. These raiders knew what they were about and scoured every hiding place until the patch of grass in front of the church was full. One had found them, Wilda trying vainly to still Myldrith’s sobs, and they stood among the churls, slaves, priests and traders while the raiders brought in yet more. At the last it was the warriors, the defenders who were thrust upon the ground, bruised, bloodied, dying. Wilda couldn’t see Bayen anywhere.

A heathen came forward, a big, broad-shouldered man about Wilda’s age with a shock of fair hair. He growled out something in his tongue and a smaller, darker man with a shorn head and an iron collar round his neck translated.

“Sigdir doesn’t come to kill you, not this time, if you do as he asks. Which of you is the thane’s wife?”

One or two of the crowd cast surreptitious glances at Wilda, but no one spoke. Yet the implication was clear, and she served those who served her, another of her father’s lessons. She straightened her shoulders and stepped forward. Myldrith grabbed at her arm and tried to hold her, but Wilda shook her off.

“I’m the thane’s wife. Where is my husband?”

The heathen looked her up and down with a cool smile before he nodded and said something to the warriors behind him, big, raw-boned men all. One of them grabbed Wilda and dragged her toward the Great Hall. Another snatched Myldrith and pulled her, screaming, after him.

Wilda didn’t resist the arm—there was nothing she could do that wouldn’t get her and others killed except to go along for now. A way might present itself, once she knew what this Sigdir wanted. That they hadn’t burned the houses and farms, had left most alive, was a hopeful thing. She’d heard of such before, farther south, where the heathens would sometimes beach their boats and offer the townsfolk a chance to pay tribute rather than be raided.

The warrior shoved her into the smoky dimness of the hall, lit by candles and rushlights. Bayen was on his knees by the fire, hands tied behind his back and a warrior holding his head up by his hair. His face was sore used, and blood mingled with the grey that shot his dark beard, but he looked at Wilda steadily enough.

A red-haired heathen stood beside him, and by the way he carried himself, the way all the others deferred to him, the richness of his clothes and armour, this must be Sigdir.

“Is this her?” the slave asked Bayen.

“Yes, that’s my wife.”

The slave said something short and brutal to Sigdir. The heathen’s sword flashed out and took Bayen in the neck, so suddenly Wilda didn’t have a chance to even cry out. That didn’t stop Myldrith from screaming when Bayen’s body dropped lifeless to the floor. His head hung from the heathen’s hand, his face slack, beard now nothing but blood.

Wilda couldn’t think for shock, couldn’t move for fear—all her limbs seemed made of ice. All she could do was stare at Sigdir as he barked out orders to his men. One of them grabbed a sheaf of Bayen’s vellum scrolls while the rest methodically stripped the hall of anything of value. Sigdir studied Bayen’s sword, ran his fingers lightly over the hilt in seeming appreciation before he sheathed it and buckled it on next to his own.

He turned to Wilda and watched her, a cool appraisal. Finally he gave a short nod and spoke.

“You’re to come, you and your maid, for he’s not heartless. No one else will be harmed, or taken,” the slave translated. “If you come without trouble. You have his word.”

Wilda’s numb lips spilled out words without thought. “Can I believe the word of a godless heathen?”

The slave’s sideways look was a warning maybe to watch what she said, but Sigdir stepped closer, close enough that she could smell the mustiness of the furs across his shoulder, the sweat and blood of this day’s work. Wilda forced herself not to shrink back as the slave translated.

“A man of Odin will never promise what he can’t keep, and to say otherwise is to insult him. His word is iron. No one else will be harmed, if you come without trouble.”

“And if we do give trouble?”

“Then he’ll kill all he can find, take everything of value and burn the rest, and still, he will take you.”

“Then we’ll give no trouble.” Wilda tried to think that it would be no different from her arranged marriage to Bayen, which was, if not loveless, at least not born of love, yet practical, essential for survival. Though the tales she’d heard, of how these brutes used women… She would bear it if she had to, if circumstances made it necessary. Survival was all, a lesson hard learned.

Sigdir smiled coolly and inclined his head.

“He admires your level head and your sense of practicality. You’re his slave, less than nothing, to do with as he will, and you will do as you’re told. Sigdir will leave men to guard the town, and if you don’t, they’ll torch it and everyone in it.”

Wilda set her face and straightened her shoulders. The Northmen despised weakness, she’d heard, and she’d be damned if she’d show him any. If this was the only way, then it was. There was nothing else she could do, except get everyone in the town killed, the town itself—Bayen’s town and estates, his true love—burned. Survive now, think, plan, grieve later. But survive the now. The Northmen and their brutality had taught her that bitter lesson. “Very well.”

“Wilda!” Myldrith’s face was pale and as blotched as turned milk. “No, we can’t—”

Wilda took Myldrith’s hand. “We have to. We’ve no choice, not against men armed and armoured.”

“But they’re heathens, animals.” Myldrith glared at Sigdir, which made his mouth twitch in amusement. Myldrith dropped her voice. “They’re godless.”

“What would you have me do?”

“Anything! Anything but go with them. The king—the king will help, other thanes, your father. They might ransom us.”

Sigdir growled out some words and waved a hand at them, seemingly having lost patience. Two of his men, shoulders hulked from being at oars, took hold of Wilda. They weren’t gentle, but neither were they too rough. That didn’t stop Myldrith screaming fit to burst.

Wilda did her best to make her see sense. “There’s nothing I can do that won’t end in our deaths and those of everyone here. We’ve no one to call on for help. King Rædwulf died against Northmen not a week ago. Bayen had word this morning. The thanes are in uproar and the Northmen ready to take advantage. No place is safe and we’ve no one to call on for help. I need to make sure the town is safe, at least until a new king is found. Maybe now Rædwulf is dead, Æthelred can take the throne again. Until then, we’re friendless. We need to live long enough for help, for ransom to reach us, if that’s what they’re after.” In her heart, Wilda had doubts about that. If ransom was the goal, why kill Bayen, the one most likely to pay?

Myldrith dissolved into tears but Wilda didn’t have time for pity, for herself or anyone else. The warriors marched them toward their longships. Myldrith kept up a long stream of sobs, but Wilda held herself straight, and the warrior who held her gave her at least the dignity of not dragging her by the waist as Myldrith’s escort had to. Instead she walked through the town, hers and Bayen’s, past the stunned white faces of so many people she knew.

Bayen’s men-at-arms knelt, heads down, on the greensward in front of the church. Their captain—a hard-faced man in his forties with hands scarred from a lifetime of wielding blades and a mind just as scarred from the battles he’d fought—knelt at their head. He didn’t keep his head bent as Sigdir’s slave spoke in his ear. Instead the captain watched Wilda with mix of impotent anger and admiration, and he graced her with a knowing nod as she passed. At least one person saw she’d done the right thing. Not much of a blessing, when the chill in her heart told her nothing.

The warriors helped her onto the ship, though they had to drag Myldrith, and before the day was done, their home, their life, was a blurred light on the horizon.

Chapter Three

A fool is he named, who nought can say,
For such is the way of the witless.

Havamal: 103

The Norwegian fjords, in the year of Our Lord 844

They called him many names. Once the by-names had been full of praise. He had been Einar Skinfaxi, Einar Strangi, Einar Fagri, Einar Ungi; Einar sheen-mane, the strong, the handsome, the young. Those days were long gone. Now they called him Burlufótr, Hokinn, Kamban, Kleykir, Nidingr, and those were the kinder—clumsy-foot, crooked, crippled, disgraced, coward. Mostly he was Toki, the simpleton. No one bothered with his real name anymore, all knew who they meant. The coward who had lost his mind in the raid that claimed Arni’s life, whose courage had failed, who had run away to be stabbed in the back. Whose fear had turned him mute and witless.

Toki chewed the names over in his mind as he looked up from the meagre patch of high summer pasture that was grudged to him. The soil was poor, too shaded by dark firs and the angle of the mountain for much to grow, and the snows had come early this year, leaving him unprepared. Even the pig looked half-starved, and it had taken him over a year to gather enough fox furs to buy it and the horse that made life so much easier. The pig snuffled at his boots and tried to steal the turnips he’d pulled.

His horse stamped a hoof and snorted in alarm. A raven made its perch on the horse’s back, digging in its scrabbling claws. It cocked its head and regarded Toki with a beady eye through the swirling snow. He sat back on his heels and watched it in turn, a feeling of foreboding churning his stomach. Raven’s Home Fjord saw many of the birds. They nested on the outcrop of rock called Odin’s Helm, their cries echoing round the mountaintops. Odin’s birds, which gave warning, birds of sacrifice and ill-omen. It was rare they came so close, almost within touching distance. Toki slid a hand to his amulet, a warding, a protection.

The raven launched into flight and stooped down over the fjord below with a triple warning cry. Toki lurched to his feet and watched it plummet almost to the water before it turned and skimmed the smooth surface of the fjord, the water dark and bleak, smooth as oil, cold as death. With a further triple cry that sounded thin and weak, the raven swooped up and over a ship and was lost to view in the swirling snowfall. Sigdir’s ship, with its raven’s sail. Two more behind. The raiders had returned and that must count a success.

The ships cut their paths through the water, oars in perfect rhythm, the wind that blew stinging little flakes of snow into Toki’s face pushing the raiders home. Bausi had been right about one thing; they had become strong. He’d increased the raids and, with the wealth that brought in, many men had come to join him from other fjords. He rewarded them well and so they stayed and each year the raids became bigger, ranged farther, brought back more wealth in gold and slaves. Each year they became stronger. This was the last raid to return this year and the first one Bausi had allowed Sigdir to lead, while he’d led the main force elsewhere and killed a king, or so he boasted.

There would be a feast in honour of Sigdir’s first success, Bausi would lay on meat and ale, and the spoils would be bartered and sold. A good day for the fjord, for the men who’d raided. Meat and ale. Toki’s stomach rumbled at the thought. The snow had come too soon, before half his crops had ripened properly in their shady bed. The pig wasn’t fat enough to slaughter, but it would have to be done. Toki didn’t have enough food to keep it alive during the long snows and dark days, and meat from the pig was almost all he had for himself.

The ships pulled up on the shore and men tumbled out, greeted by their women and Bausi’s warriors, who’d returned only two days ago. Other men, those who hadn’t raided—the too old, the too young or, like Toki, deemed too incapable—gathered round with much slapping of backs and rough laughter that drifted up to Toki like acrid smoke.

He should go to the feast. It was time to come down the mountain for the winter anyway. If he had the courage, if he wasn’t the coward they made out, he would go, would close his mind and ears to the by-names he now went by. It wasn’t courage that decided him in the end. It wasn’t even the thought of a full belly for once, of proper meat—beef, pork, mutton—not the scant and scrawny hares that were often his only source of food. It was company he craved, even company that shunned him.

Far below, Sigdir jumped down from the ship, instantly recognisable from the shock of flame-red hair he’d inherited from their father, and a tightness in Toki’s chest loosened. His little brother, not so little now, a full-grown man of eighteen, strong and brave. Unlike Toki, Sigdir came back in one piece, came back a man of Thor. Toki would go to the feast, if only to see Sigdir and Gudrun, whose safety had led him to this shameful hovel, to this lonely, silent life. To see them, know they were safe, he would brave a dragon’s den, cast all his courage on one action.

He packed up what little he’d managed to gather to see him through the long winter, got the brace of hares he’d trapped that morning, and shooed the pig ahead of him while he limped to the grazing tether.

He’d named the stout dun horse Einar, silently in his head, for he was sheen-mane, young, strong and handsome. As Toki had once been.

Wilda gave thanks to God when the ships finally stopped moving and pulled up on the shore. She lay shivering under the scant protection of a blanket, no match for the bitter wind or the biting flecks of snow. It had been worse for some of the other women the Northmen had taken, from other villages along the coast, who Sigdir’s men claimed for bed-slaves. Sigdir himself had chosen Myldrith. Wilda had protested, had even offered herself instead, because Myldrith wasn’t strong enough, had never seen the inside of a man’s bed before and still had rosy notions of how it should be.

Wilda was strong enough, open-eyed enough—she’d had to be. A bed-slave wasn’t much different from your father selling you to a man twice your age and more in return for no outright hostility, to settle a decades-old feud. It was to be borne, that was all, if she wished to survive. Be practical. Live, and thank God for His mercy in allowing your life when too many died. Think only of that, not how you want to run.

Sigdir had brushed her off with a wave of his hand and his cryptic words through the collared slave. “I would not dishonour a lady of the Saxons in such a way.” Though he’d said it with a look that Wilda had taken to mean “Yet.” A look that had made her heart shiver. You will bear this. You will live. You must, if it is God’s will.

She’d tried again, until the threat of a sword had her acquiescent. When Myldrith returned to their little patch at the rear of the ship—some blankets to hold out the chill was their only luxury—Wilda had done what she could to console her, but it was precious little, even if it seemed Sigdir hadn’t been overly rough with her. No more so than Wilda’s own wedding night perhaps.

It was enough that Sigdir had the power over them, and that was what made Myldrith sob. That, and that she’d sinned against God, lying with a man not her husband, and a heathen too. No soft words of Wilda’s helped. Until today, Myldrith had never let go her foolish dreams of marriage and a man’s bed, had never discovered as Wilda had that the bards lied, that a marriage was a bargain, a sale from a father to a husband as surely as a slave was sold, and yet was necessary. It was how it was.

The stripping of those dreams laid Myldrith bare, as they had made Wilda cold of heart when hers had been taken by blood and murder. She hoped Myldrith didn’t end the same—for all her faults she was a sweet girl and didn’t deserve that, to live in cold numbness.

Finally, after three days of rough weather, slanting sleet and now snow, the ship stopped rocking and Wilda’s stomach began to settle. One of the heathens came toward them, his face wild and ruddy behind his tangled beard. Wilda faced him steadily at the forefront of the gaggle of slaves and refused to cringe back as he reached down, grabbed her arm and dragged her and Myldrith to the rail. He spoke to them in a language Wilda could only make out bits of, and shoved them toward the front of the ship. Another shove, like being barged by a horse, indicated they should get off. Wilda managed all right, but Myldrith stumbled onto the shore, weak from days of sickness on the sea, the oddness of the places they passed, the looming mountains seemingly made for fog and cloud and snow. All that had gone before faded in the face of the sea and now this harsh landscape.

Wilda held herself together and helped Myldrith up. The heathen shoved them again with an angry wave of his hand. It was so odd, that the men and the country seemed made for each other. Hard and forbidding, dark in the deep parts, yet Wilda had seen high pastures and lower fields trim and tended, seen wildflowers in the meadows before the snow had started. She had yet to see anything like that in these heathens.

A woman’s voice stopped the heathen from another shove. Not gentle, this voice was a scold, high, shrill and demanding. An older woman with shorn hair stepped down the shore toward them, snugly wrapped in fur against the wind. She stood square before the man, looked up at him and berated him with a wagging finger. The other men laughed and cat-called. The one taking her tongue-lashing dropped his head and blushed, though he hid a shame-faced grin in his beard. With a final sharp flourish, the woman turned to them and eyed them critically but not unkindly.

“Seasickness is a bitch, ain’t it?” she said in Saxon.

“I—er, yes.” Wilda was too taken aback to say anything else.

“Well, you’re off the boat now. You’re to come with me, my lady. Agnar and his wife Idunn have got the job of keeping you for now.” The woman pointed up the shore to a grim-looking man with a ruddy, weathered face and a gut just starting to turn to fat. The woman next to him, the first Norsewoman Wilda had seen, was handsome but stern, her fair hair gathered in a bun at the nape of her neck and covered with a scarf, making her face seem even sterner.

“What about me?” Myldrith asked. “I should stay with my lady. Please, I have to stay with my lady.”

The woman snorted and her eyes slid over Wilda with a cold, contemptuous look before she looked more kindly on Myldrith. “You belong to Sigdir, you’ll be in his house and I don’t envy you.” She crossed herself and muttered under her breath.

Myldrith clutched at Wilda’s arm, but seemed to be rendered speechless with fear. Wilda held on to her, an arm around frail, hunched shoulders.

Wilda managed to squeeze her hand before she was taken. “God is with you.” A poor comfort, perhaps, but all Wilda had to spare for her. Time for no other words of comfort before a heathen dragged Myldrith away sobbing. Wilda couldn’t bear to watch, to think what might happen to Myldrith. To her.

Finally the cries stopped, cut off by the slam of a door that was a slam to Wilda’s heart too. In a godless land, her and Myldrith, and each alone. Survive, only survive. Do what you must.

“I’m Bebba by the way,” the thrall said. “Come on, my lady, let’s get you to the smithy for your collar. At least it’ll be warm in there.”

“Collar?” Wilda asked, but she knew well enough. Saxons and Northmen both kept their slaves in collars, but it was the reality of it that brought it home, even more than Sigdir and the others’ treatment of their new slaves.

“Aye, collar. Like this, see?” Bebba pulled the tatty fur away to show an iron collar welded shut around her neck. “Mark of the thrall. Well, the hair too. Of course, your ladyship gets something different. Sigdir said you’re to keep your hair, for a start. Won’t make you no more free though.”

“Why…why did they bring me?” Wilda stumbled after Bebba, who led the way off the windswept shore, watched by the avid eyes of half a score of heathens and their women. “Why didn’t they just raid the town, kill us?”

“Because slaves is wealth. And they brought you for a special reason. Don’t know what it is but you’re to be kept up at Agnar’s house, all quiet like.” Bebba shot her a sharp glance. “It won’t be good, I reckon I can tell you that. They ain’t all bad, I’ve had worse Saxon masters than old Agnar and his wife. He ain’t too bad for a heathen, the old goat. Idunn is a fine mistress too, firm but fair. But there’s some of them… There’s a curse on this village. I knows, I sees it. They don’t, not all the while they’ve got gold coming in, while Bausi and Sigdir make them strong. But they will.”

Bebba led them up the shore past Agnar and Idunn’s watchful eyes, onto a path that wound up the steep slope where the village looked out over the fjord. A river tumbled down the centre, loud and chattering, crossed by a small wooden bridge. A biting wind laced with snow whipped through Wilda’s dress and shawl. My Lord, it was so cold, so early in the year. She hardly dared think how cold it would be come Christmas.

They passed by neat-looking houses with wooden walls and turf roofs. A man stood on one, scything the hay before the snow ruined it, but stopped to watch them pass. Bebba noticed Wilda watching him. “A winter long as it is here, you got to find as much hay as you can. The amount of livestock a man can feed over winter is a sign of his wealth, so they don’t spare nothing in that regard. You think it was cold where you’re from? Here it’s colder than Satan’s heart for more than half the year. Get used to it.”

Walking into the warmth of the smithy was bliss. The smith was hard at work at the anvil, the sound of metal on metal reverberating round the small room in a rhythmic song, like the peal of church bells. He finished what he was doing and stood up, head and shoulders above Wilda, so tall he all but brushed the ceiling. He snorted, said something short and brutal-sounding to Bebba and turned away.

“Off you go,” Bebba said. “Over to the anvil so he can put your collar on.”

There was no escape from this, not now. For now she had to survive, and that meant doing what she was told. For now, the thought of Sigdir’s men left behind in Bayen’s house would keep her from acting too impulsively.

The smith appraised Wilda’s neck critically, then pulled a collar from a chest at the rear of the smithy. When he held it up, ready to put it round her neck, she saw what was different, as Bebba had said. Not iron but bronze, with an intricate pattern engraved upon it, of ravens and horses and a huge tree threaded through everything.

“Special one for you, see, my lady.” Bebba’s sneer almost didn’t register as the smith clamped it round her neck, the metal cold, the fit just that little too tight so it pinched her skin. She bore it because she had to, as she had borne so many things when all she wanted was to run, far, fast, sprint along the beach with no cares, sand spurting from her footfalls and salty wind in her hair.

She hadn’t run that way since the day her mother died. Since then she’d walked as a lady, talked, wove, spun, everything as a lady. Everything her mother had wanted while she was alive and Wilda hadn’t cared to listen to. Too busy running to listen, to understand. But since that day, she’d stifled it all. First because her father had been so wrapped in his grief and she hadn’t the heart to test his patience so, and then because she’d been married off to Bayen, become a lady to his thane. Thanes’ wives did not run on the beaches, chasing seagulls, or climb trees. Thanes’ wives were elegant and demure and knew their role. People had depended on her. Practicality, survival was everything.

The collar felt as though it was choking her, too tight around her throat, but she said nothing. Practicality and survival were paramount here too. Wordlessly she followed Bebba out of the smithy, to where Agnar waited for them with a glowering look.

He led them a short way up the hill toward a large building, long and low. Other buildings clustered round it as though for warmth, and not far away another huddle of buildings stood.

“This big hall is Bausi’s home and feasting hall. That over there—” Bebba pointed to the other cluster of buildings. “That’s Sigdir’s. That’s where you’ll be living soon enough, I don’t doubt, once he’s done whatever his plan is for you. I got one piece of advice for you. You keep your head down and don’t answer back, whatever you do. Sigdir is Bausi’s man, through and through, though he ain’t so mean, yet. If you’re quiet and respectful, it’ll go easier. If you aren’t—well, then, if you aren’t, it’ll be all the worse.”

Bebba turned and said something to Agnar, but the heathen growled and turned away. “Come on. Don’t you be giving Agnar no trouble either. He ain’t so bad, but you’ll catch it if you don’t mind what he wants. You’re a thrall now, not a lady.”

Agnar grasped Wilda’s shoulder and shoved her in the direction he wanted her to go. He pointed up the valley toward another group of buildings vague in the thickly falling snow. Wilda wrapped her shawl more firmly around herself and trudged on.

Agnar’s house was like the others, long and low, again roofed with turf. A welcome fire burned in the centre of the room, and benches built into the walls were lined with furs and woven blankets. Some sort of membrane covered the small windows to keep out the icy draught, and the only light came from the hearth and the little lamps set about. Not so very different from a Saxon farmer’s hut, and well kept with fresh rushes on the floor. Yet not what Wilda was used to. A lord’s hall had always been her home, with a great feasting hall and bedrooms, thick hangings to keep the draught away.

Bebba bustled over to the fire and dipped her finger in a pot sitting on a stone slab next to it. With a satisfied nod she found two wooden bowls and ladled a thin gruel into each. “This’ll warm your bones a bit. Come on, sit down.”

Wilda sat next to Bebba on a bench set into the wall and tried to ignore the pinch of the collar around her neck. She, with her husband, had owned slaves. She’d never thought to be one, and to a heathen too. Lord save me. Now that she was still, now that she was warm, her imagination went wild, thinking what this would mean. These heathens had done nothing to her—yet. The stories she’d heard…she could only hope that was all they were—stories. Even if not, what could she do? Nothing, yet. Best not think of it now. Not yet. Tomorrow was soon enough.

The gruel was bland but hot and Wilda cupped her hands around the bowl, slowly letting the warmth reach her, inside and out.

Bebba made herself busy stirring a kettle, full of stew by the smell. Another smell, familiar. Barley and hops permeated the air, warm and malty. It smelled of home and helped her shoulders loosen. Something of her old life among the strangeness. She cautiously took in her surroundings.

Agnar was older than she’d first thought. Strands of silver threaded his fair hair and beard, and his hands were gnarled and reddened. His wife, Idunn, was younger but not by much. Silver touched her hair, too, what Wilda could see under the scarf. Her face was unlined except about the eyes, and her manner was stern but with a hint of pity about it. They spoke together for a time and Agnar seemed to attend her words carefully, as though her opinion was important. Finally he nodded and spoke to Bebba. Again, Wilda could almost make out a few words, but not the sense of the sentence.

Bebba snorted with laughter and then translated. “Old Agnar here says you had better behave or you’ll catch it. He thinks I’m a fool. Like I said, he ain’t too bad for a heathen. He don’t beat me, and as long as I keep him in beer, he’s too drunk to want anything I don’t want to give. Treats his wife right good too. They’re funny over here. Women are… See, it’s their gods and goddesses. The goddesses are as important as the gods, in their own way. Same with the women, the free ones anyway. Bausi’s the jarl, their thane, and he rules this place and he’s poisoning it. But it’s the women that run it, especially when the men are off raiding, and they know it.”

Bebba cast a glance Agnar’s way. Idunn was off somewhere, bustling about in the dimness of the end of the house, but Agnar was watching Wilda keenly. Maybe seeing how she was taking all this, whether she’d give any trouble. Bebba’s mouth twitched when she looked at him, but he didn’t say anything, so she carried on. Wilda got the feeling she was enjoying herself, and that maybe this was a speech she gave often to new slaves.

“In many ways they’re just like us, and in lots of ways they’re very different. You know they don’t see the raiding as stealing? Theft is an awful bad crime here, but the raiding is different to them. A challenge to a fair fight. It’s the same with the women when they raid. A vanquished foe needs to know they’re vanquished, and what’s the best way to prove their manliness? Aye, that’s it, proves to the Saxon men who’s stronger. But you ain’t a foe no more, you’re Sigdir’s property. This ain’t war, this is home and they do love their women, or rather women in bed. Lord, do they! Now some of them, they’ll take you to bed. Same as any man, Saxon or Norseman, some won’t care how you feel about it neither. You want to take care with those’un, but you’re Sigdir’s so they’ll have him to answer to if they hurt you. But there’s some who won’t care that you’re his, see, some who don’t need to care. Bausi’s the worst, and Sigdir’s his foster son and becoming just as bad, learning by example. Those two think they can take what they want, and they can, and ain’t no man in the fjord will stop them.”

Wilda frowned at that. “He said that to take me as his bed-slave would dishonour me, and he wouldn’t. Myldrith, though—it would have been better if he’d taken me.” At least she knew what to expect, how it had been with Bayen.

“Ah, yes, I seen you got a wedding ring. You’d know more about the bed than that young slip of a lass. It’s a man’s world, all right, wherever you are. But Agnar here says the men left you alone on the boat, which ain’t happening often, especially since Bausi. Maybe Sigdir’s going to ransom you?”

“Not to my husband. Sigdir murdered him.” Even now, Wilda couldn’t summon up much to feel. Bayen had been a good man, had maybe deserved more from her, but Wilda had long ago realised that feelings were a hindrance.

“Lord have mercy, you’re a cold one.”

That stung. But what good would tears do for Bayen? She’d prayed for his soul, as she should, had been a good and faithful wife to him. What more was expected?

Wilda stared into the fire, her eyes hot and dry. Tears were no good, no help for anyone. They weren’t practical, they hadn’t brought her mother back to life after the raid eight years ago, hadn’t helped her father with his grief or hatred. Tears didn’t matter, and she’d shed none since then. Sometimes it frightened her, the sense that the well inside her had run dry, that the echoing emptiness of her heart made her life a cold, bland thing. Sometimes she prayed to God to show her where she’d gone wrong, how to feel again, but He didn’t answer and that was her answer. Tears didn’t matter. Dealing with things did.

“Aye, well, those two, Sigdir and Bausi, are the Devil himself.” Bebba crossed herself hurriedly. “Cursing this place, they are. All the young men look to them, see, because Bausi’s the jarl, and they’ve all sworn to their gods that they’re his men. They wear his rings on finger and arm to prove it. These heathens—that’s in their blood, see, in their head. Different from good Christian folk. An oath is their word, and they won’t break it.”

She patted Wilda’s hand absently. “Aye, it’s a different thing. Now there’s many a lady takes a man to bed she don’t love. That’s just the way things are, there’s no help for it, and I see you knows that already. It helps if she likes him though. See, and I may be a thrall like you but I been here a time, nigh on three years now, and Agnar sees me right. I like him, and he’s promised Sigdir he’ll keep you here, and safe. He’ll look out for you. You do as he says, work hard, and you’ll be fine. Maybe even buy yourself free, in time. I almost got enough, four ounces of the six I need. Agnar here lets me sell the extra ale I make.”

Wilda looked at Bebba properly for the first time. She too was older than she first appeared, more Agnar’s age. She had the wrinkles of someone who laughs often and smiles more, and the kind, patient eyes of someone who had seen a lot and come to terms with what life had given her.

Many a lady takes a man to bed she don’t love. True enough. Farmers’ daughters married men for a roof and a bed, to help out with the smallholding. Merchants married their children to each other to strengthen trade alliances. Love was something the bards sang of, but practicality made it a nonsense. Survival was more important. It was the way of things and always had been. Yet she had loved Bayen, after time. Not as the bards sang, but he was a good God-fearing man who’d treated her with sombre kindness, and she’d felt a quiet kind of love grow from that.

Now Bayen was gone, murdered by these savages, and she was no longer the lady of the house, of the estate, no longer Lady Wilda but a slave. That was what she had to deal with, and she would. You got what God saw fit to give you and made the best of it. God had His reasons, must have even for this. She looked up at Agnar, at the way his eyes were worried, how he chewed his lip. Bebba was maybe right about him. Even if she wasn’t, Wilda just had to get on with it until she could escape or buy her freedom. There was nothing else to be done.

“Where do we start?” she said.

Bebba laughed and stood up. “Oh, you’ll do, my lady. You’ll do.”

Chapter Four

Never a whit should one blame another, whom love hath brought into bonds.

Havamal: 93

By the time Toki had steered the horse down the twisting paths to the village, grateful once again for Einar’s sureness on the slush and ice where his halt leg was not, the snow had thickened. Clouds drew down around the mountain, obscuring their tops. Toki could only barely make out Odin’s Helm, the rocky outcrop that watched over the village, made it a lucky place. So they’d said once, but Raven’s Home didn’t seem so lucky to Toki and hadn’t for years. The wyrd of the village was blackened to his eyes, had become a poisoned thing. As his wyrd was, his fate twisted by one night, one moment.

He found a place for Einar and left him in the fuggy warmth rising from the cows. He hesitated in the doorway and peered across to the feasting house at the centre of Bausi’s group of buildings. It was far larger then the rest, more than forty fathoms long. Smoke puttered out of three holes in the turf roof, and the smell of roasting beef and pork made Toki’s stomach cramp. The entrance was a bustle of activity as the women and thralls and karls got ready for the feast. A celebration for the safe return of the raiders, who would already be warming themselves by the great fire, drinking ale and vying to tell the best tales of their exploits.

They might not even notice him, if he were lucky. If he was unlucky, then he would brave it out for the chance to see Gudrun. They taunted his outside, the limp, the silence. They could not reach his inside, where still he dreamed of one day being able to stand tall and strong and say, “I am Einar, and not a coward.”

He limped his careful way across the snowy yard, through the doorway carved in intricate detail of the World Tree and on into the feasting hall. A karl looked at him sideways with a hint of sneer, but he didn’t bar Toki’s way.

The hall was hot and smoky inside. All the paraphernalia of the day’s work, the women’s weaving and sewing and the men’s carving and armour-work, had been cleared away. The benches down either side were fronted with boards over trestles and covered with platters of steaming meat and vegetables. Kettles hung over the long fire pit that ran almost the length of the hall, and the smell of beef filled Toki’s mouth with spit. He couldn’t recall the last time he’d had beef. Maybe last Winter Nights feast. He’d managed to sneak in at the end, when everyone was too drunk to notice him. Almost a year. He’d face anything for another taste.

That was the courage he had left now, his chance for bravery, worse than battle in some ways. On a raid he’d at least have the chance for glory or to die a good death and have something to tell Odin of his courage when the time came. In this, if he braved the swords of their words, his prize would be a taste of good meat and to get through the night without shame poured on his head. This was his meagre chance for bravery, and he took it.

He tried to avoid Bausi’s gaze from upon the high seat at the far end and took his place. Not up by Bausi as once would have been his right, but the place farthest from him, by the door.

He’d barely sat down before it started.

“Hey, Toki, come to sit with the real men?”

“Toki, you managed to find a woman stupid enough yet?”

“I found your tongue, it was in the pigsty.”

“It’s his brain you want to try to find,” and on. He shut his ears to it and kept his head down. It was worse that the ones who led the jeers were Sigdir and Ragnhilda. His little brother and the woman he’d once hoped to marry. He wouldn’t let their words wound him, wouldn’t let them carry into his heart, where he was still a man. A man who bore this for love of his brother and sister, because he had sworn to Odin on it and no other reason. Halt leg or not, if not for that, then more than one man here tonight would have reason to fear their words. Yet his fear, that need for their safety, bound his hands more securely than any rope.

Sigdir was Bausi’s man now and Ragnhilda had turned from him the first moment she’d heard of his cowardice, his disgrace. Now she was Bausi’s first wife, heavy with child again. He thought a curse at her, that this child be another daughter, that Bausi would never have a son, no matter how many wives he kept under his roof. He couldn’t bring himself to curse worse, though the deepest part of him wished it. If Ragnhilda’s face was anything to go by—the way it had dried up, as though all the joy was sucked from her—she’d been cursed already. Toki’s shoulders twitched at the thought that conjured, of another curse cut in wood and soaked in blood.

When they’d returned from the fateful raid, had laid Arni to rest and seen the sad, shrivelled body of their father before they laid him too under his howe, when Toki could finally leave his sickbed, then it had started. Bausi was jarl and had led with his ridicule. The rest followed, some more, some less willingly, and soon it had become as though it had always been so, that Toki hadn’t once been a well-thought-of young warrior, hadn’t once talked with the rest of them. Gone simple-minded from the fear, Bausi had told them when Toki wouldn’t, couldn’t speak for fear of the secret falling out, fear of the curse rune and what Bausi might do to Sigdir and Gudrun because of it.

Toki had tried to run once, despite Bausi’s warning that it would bring the curse to bear, when it became clear that Sigdir was letting Bausi’s poison grow in him, becoming a hard and hateful man. Yet there was still Gudrun, he could get her away. One day when she’d been about five, he’d made a last attempt at outward courage, had swung her up on his shoulders in a pretence of a game and left. Desperation had driven him to it, but a man with a halt leg carrying a five-year-old had no chance against the seasoned hunters and warriors Bausi sent after them.

By then it had been clear Bausi was enjoying Toki’s humiliations. Clearer when Gudrun fell ill immediately on their return. Weak, vomiting, seeing things, gradually fading away. Like their father before he died. Things became clearer still when Sigdir guilelessly and earnestly tried to persuade Toki that Bausi was a good man, because he would sit with Gudrun for hours and let no other hand feed her. When the illness mysteriously vanished after Toki went to Bausi and fell to his knees to silently beg, shamed himself still further in the eyes of the village even if they didn’t know what he was begging for. For Bausi to stop poisoning Gudrun as he had their father.

That was the day Toki’s outward courage had run dry, the day he knew that Bausi controlled him as another man controls his horse. When he knew his courage had to stay trapped in his head. He was a freeman, more than a bondi and yet a slave, rune-cursed and a nithing, no one. All he had left were dreams of the day when Gudrun was safe, perhaps married away from the fjord to a good man, and he could stand tall and decry Bausi as murderer. Until that day he kept all look of courage locked away inside, and let them think what they would. He knew his heart was as red as Thor’s blood, as strong, even if they did not.

So now Toki dipped his head and made sure to look no one in the eye. If he could bear it, if he could make himself deaf to it, he could have beef. And maybe, just maybe, he’d get a glimpse of Gudrun. He’d not seen her since he’d gone up to the high pasture in the spring. He needed to know that his silence hadn’t been in vain, as it had with Sigdir, his good heart and strong wyrd lost to Bausi’s lies.

When Toki failed to rise to the bait, the men fell back to their tales of the raid, of what deeds of courage had been done with only the occasional minor dig. Toki ached to start on the meat that lent its steam to the general fug. Yet not until the full had been served.

Ragnhilda brought out a copper drinking bowl ready to serve the first formal drink, but Sigdir leaped to his feet and took it from her with a grin. “My jarl Bausi should not drink from such a tatty thing as that. I’ve a gift for him, and for you Ragnhilda. I ask only that in return my sister Gudrun be allowed to make the first full with them.”

Sigdir lifted a fur with a flourish and brought out three silver bowls, each with three loops on the rim done in the shape of birds. Ragnhilda’s eyes lit up, making her seem years younger, almost back to the girl Toki had been due to marry. Sigdir had chosen his gift well.

“From one of their Christ houses,” he said.

“A princely gift indeed, Sigdir,” Bausi said. “It’ll make a fine addition to the bride price I take with me tomorrow.”

Toki risked a look at the high seat. Sigdir’s face clouded at the dismissal of his gift, but it was nothing compared to the look on Ragnhilda’s. As though Bausi had taken his scramasax and sliced into her heart with it.

“Bride price?” Sigdir asked. “What news is this?”

Bausi stretched expansively and smiled a quiet smile that made Toki shiver and Ragnhilda seem to shrink. Not a smile to herald good news for anyone but Bausi. “Harald Gulskeg King has announced his heir. His grandson Harald, by his daughter and Halfdan the Black. The lad’s still only ten, and the king’s old and failing. Ripe for influence, for one close. And no one closer to the lad in kin than his cousin, the fair Disa. A maiden as yet unwed.” Bausi slid his gaze to Ragnhilda, and his smile twisted at the corner. “Maybe a maiden who can give me sons. Her father’s agreed I might try to negotiate a wedding, but I’m not alone. Other jarls see the opportunity, so I must make the best offer, many, many times the poor-man’s-price. I need as much silver and gold as I can take. I’ve also a dozen cattle aboard my ship, ready to sail tomorrow. This will make a nice addition.”

Toki hardly dared look at Ragnhilda. No matter all the spiteful words she’d thrown at him over the years, once they had been due to marry. They hadn’t been in love—it was a wedding, a deal between jarls, not a love affair—but still part of him felt for her, as he had then. Her mouth trembled and her fingertips were white where they gripped the silver bowl. Not at the news of the wedding, Toki thought—Bausi already had another wife, little Ingrid, though she’d yet to bear him any children at all—but at the slight to Ragnhilda for not bearing him sons. For her, or the memory of her when she’d thought him strong and brave, Toki wished back his earlier curse and hoped the child she carried was a son. For her sake, not Bausi’s.

Sigdir’s attitude was more unexpected. He was Bausi’s man, through and through, who sat at his right hand, second in rank only to the jarl. Who hung on his every word, copied every action. Yet now he seemed disgruntled, unsure and caught off balance. His hand repeatedly smoothed his moustache and beard and his eyes seemed alive in his head. Restless and wandering. His look caught Toki’s and his scowl deepened.

Toki held his gaze for a heartbeat, kept his courage, his nerve, that long, then ducked his head. No need to bring attention to himself, because it wouldn’t be good attention. Courage in inaction, in silence. A poor thing, but all he had. Even Odin said, “Keep silent with sharpened hearing, with his ears let him listen, and look with his eyes, thus each wise man spies out the way.” Toki held on to this, that he did Odin’s word. Silence was wisdom, Odin’s way. A small comfort among those who looked to Thor’s way, the red way.

Bausi sat up straight in his seat, seemingly unaware of the feelings he’d caused, or maybe he just didn’t care, which was more likely. He stroked at the silver jarl-torc at his neck thoughtfully and nodded. “Ragnhilda, fetch Gudrun and let her serve her first full.”

Toki’s heart twitched. At the least he’d get to see Gudrun, see she was well, let her safety lend strength to him. All he wished for, all he took everything for. His last bravery, to take what ridicule he was given, for her. And then, the beef.

When Gudrun came in, he almost didn’t recognise her, she’d grown so. Tall and willowy for her age, with a soft grace to her movements and gold lights in her hair. Her eyes shone when Sigdir told her she was to serve the full, an honour normally reserved for the highest-ranking woman. Toki’s heart squeezed at the thought that this, this beauty, this grace, was what he protected with his silence. He would brave the dragon of ridicule, best the troll of indifference, no matter if others saw or not, just for this. She would live and he would know it was because of him, a small scrap of courage to keep in his heart. Thor would know, and Odin and one-handed Tyr. It was enough.

Gudrun filled the first bowl with ale and offered it to Bausi with a careful solemnity. He nodded his thanks. “I dedicate this to Odin, that we prevail over the White Christ and his followers, that Red Thor shall smite them with his hammer and lend his strength to our swords. May we all be feasting and drinking in Valhalla a full day before the Christian god knows we’re dead!”

With that, Bausi drank from the bowl and returned it to Gudrun. She turned to Sigdir next, highest in honour after Bausi. He drank and so Gudrun went on, knowing where each man stood in the line of rank by where they sat. Finally, after several refillings of the bowl, she stood before Toki. He looked up at her face, at the worry that suddenly creased her brow. Toki tried a reassuring smile, but it had been too long and maybe it came out wrong because she flicked a glance over her shoulder to Bausi.

“Only the men,” Bausi said with a smirk he didn’t bother to hide, a stroke at his neck. Not the jarl-torc this time, but the black leather pouch that hung inside his shirt. “Toki does not drink the full because he’s not a man, not in Thor’s eyes.”

The calls began again, spearing his heart, shattering his illusion of hidden bravery. A man to his right laughed at the suggestion that Toki lay with pigs, because that was all he could get. Gudrun’s face seemed to waver in front of him, but with a final hesitant glance at Bausi, who nodded approvingly, she joined in the laughter.

The noise of her laugh, of all their laughs, crowded in on Toki. It didn’t matter that much was forced, only that they laughed. That Gudrun laughed, that she was becoming Bausi’s as surely as Sigdir. That all his silence, all his carefully hoarded bravery was for nothing. In his head, he got up, strode to Bausi and denounced him as a murderer, fed him to the wolves of the godis who kept the law. In his head, he was tall and strong, could not be bowed by curse or iron, and he would win, would show the whole fjord the courage inside him. In his head. Yet in this hall he could not, not without sacrificing Gudrun to the curse. It crippled him as surely as his halt leg, and not for the first time he cursed Bausi, cursed the mother who had taught him the runes that bound Toki’s courage tighter than iron.

He got to his feet, blind to everything around him, head dipped to keep his face hidden. He must swallow the courage that begged to be let free, to run through Bausi like a sword. His dreams would accomplish nothing but the death of those he loved. Keep your peace, keep her safe. Silence is our friend. That had been his motto for eight years now. Eight long silent years, hostage to his sister’s safety, and now that sister laughed at him and yet still he must keep her safe. No matter his useless dreams of courage, the slow beat of it in his heart where no one could see. Silence was his only refuge.

He stumbled out into the snow, the chill of it a welcome balm to his flaming face. Not the only refuge—there was Agnar’s house. Bebba was bound to have ale, and hers was the best in the village. Besides, Idunn was one of the few who never laughed, who chided those who did. Though she might never greet him with warmth or a smile, that she had no time for ridicule was good enough.

He needed something to give for the ale. The brace of hares he’d left on Einar’s pack. That would get him enough, maybe. Maybe not, because, not for the first time, he wanted to get very drunk indeed. He took the hares from their loop on the pack and made for Agnar’s.

Chapter Five

To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven…
A time to keep silence, and a time to speak.

Ecclesiastes 3:1/3:7

After Agnar left for the feast to celebrate the return of the raiding party, Wilda spent the evening learning where things were kept and what duties she could expect.

“Old Agnar can’t do so much with the stock anymore. He’s got a few thrall boys and such but, well, he’s getting on now. But we makes a fair bit from the ale, because I’m a dab hand. Best ale in the village. So while you’re here you’ll be helping out with the animals and the food, same as everywhere. Maybe we’ll get you to spin and sew too. But mainly, we’re going to make lots more beer. That’s Agnar’s plan to keep himself comfortable in his dotage, even when he can’t cast a cow no more.”

The house was large, at least for one not a thane. One big main room with the hearth at the centre. Two rooms led from it, one a bedroom for Agnar and Idunn, with a sagging box bed covered in blankets and furs. The other seemed newer and was filled with all the makings of ale. It smelled of barley and hops and honey, and reminded Wilda of how Bayen would smell when he came to bed, of mead or beer. It reminded her of home. She turned away. No time for that.

“We sleep on the benches,” Bebba said. “Comfortable enough, and there’s skins and blankets to go round.”

Indeed, the benches were covered in skins, sealskin, wolf, deer, some Wilda couldn’t name. Some with coarse grey hair, some smooth and slippery, some so soft Wilda kept wanting to touch them. Bebba rummaged around in a large chest against one wall. “Here, you’ll find these a bit warmer.”

She handed Wilda a long tunic and another, more of an apron, to go over the top. Not so very different to what Wilda already wore, but thicker and undoubtedly warmer. She’d just finished pinning the brooches that held on the apronlike overskirt when the door banged open with a flurry of snow, and a man ducked through the opening. Wilda flinched, just a little, at the look on his face, a twisted grimace of…she couldn’t tell what.

He stood up straight again, his eyes wide with surprise when he realised she was there, then dipped his head and made for a bench, his lips pinched amidst his beard.

“Oh, don’t you worry ’bout him,” Bebba said. “That’s only Toki. He won’t do you no harm. He’s simple, poor lad, don’t talk. Does like his beer though.”

Bebba fetched a wooden cup, filled it with ale and took it over to Toki. He was a big man even for one of the Northmen, made to look even bigger by the fur across his shoulder. His fair hair was braided and his neat beard was two shades darker with a reddish tint. His clothes were clean but tatty and threadbare. Rents in his trousers had been badly patched and the fur at his shoulder was ragged at the edges. He didn’t look up even when Bebba handed him the beer, though he held out a brace of hare.

“He’s a good lad, don’t deserve what that lot put him through. Always pays for his beer in kind, with hare or helping out. Shy though.” Bebba said something to him but was rewarded only with a brief shrug. Toki kept his head down, eyes on his beer.

He stayed that way as Bebba got Wilda to work, cleaning and scrubbing. Whenever his cup was empty he would hold it out and Bebba would go and fill it again. It grew darker outside, the wind sharper so it rattled the wooden shutters Bebba had closed. Finally, when Wilda’s eyes had begun to droop, the door banged open again and Agnar came in, dripping snow and unsteady on his feet.

Bebba got up to help him in, take his cloak and settle him on a bench. “Wilda, you get Toki another ale, will you?”

Toki moved at her voice, a sudden jerking as though surprised. When Wilda brought him the full cup he stared at her, his eyes intense and unsettling. He searched her face, seemingly looking over every part. Wilda didn’t dare move—he looked too savage, too frightening. Yet she didn’t flinch either. Her pride wouldn’t let her, because she was a Christian among heathens, barbarians.

Finally, he set his cup on the floor and stood up, towering over her. When he reached out a hand, she did flinch, a little. His fingers grazed the skin just under her eye, where she bore a scar from the fateful day the heathens had killed her mother. The skin on Toki’s fingers was roughened from work, but his touch was gentler than she expected from such a large man, one of these loud barbarians.

“Hey, Toki.” Bebba took hold of his arm and began to berate him, but he shook her off. He was still staring at Wilda.

Bebba scolded him in his language but he ignored her, ignored Agnar’s question and hand on his arm, trying to pull him away. He only had eyes for Wilda, and that unsettled her in ways she couldn’t name.

“Wilda,” he said and both Bebba and Agnar pulled up short, Bebba cut off in mid-sentence. “Wilda, renn. Renn.”

Ice prickled over Wilda’s skin, crawled over her face and down her back. She wasn’t in a longhouse in some godforsaken heathen country that was too cold and strange. She was a girl by a burning barn, watching two heathens fight in blood and flames. It couldn’t be…

“He ain’t never spoken a word, not all the time I been here. Not a word,” Bebba said behind her. “I didn’t think he could.”

Toki stared at her intently and she tried to imagine him without the beard, without the creases by his eyes or the frown of care that marked his forehead. The eyes themselves were dark brown and full of worry. Like the boy, Einar. She’d never forgotten his face, or the way he’d screamed when Bear Man had thrust a sword into his back. The way he’d faced down Bear Man to save her.

“Ei—”

He cut her off with a quick finger on her lips and a brief, furtive shake of his head. “Renn, Wilda.” He touched his fingers to his own lips, a gesture for silence, and again on hers. His fingers vibrated on her mouth, as though he was suppressing some vital urgency.

Agnar seemed to get over his shock then and grabbed Toki’s hand away. Toki shook him off but made no other move, as if he was waiting for something. Agnar spoke to him in a low voice, slow words as though for a child who couldn’t understand. Bebba came and led Wilda away. Her feet didn’t seem to want to move, but she let Bebba sit her down on a bench.

“Agnar’s trying to explain to him, but I don’t know how much he understands, poor fool. Why would he tell you to run?”

Wilda could still feel his fingers on her lips, the urgency in his movements. Silence. Say nothing. She couldn’t see why, what purpose her silence would serve, only that she felt compelled to obey, at least until she could find out why. She owed him that, and more besides, if he was who she thought. “I don’t know. Maybe he has me mixed up with someone else.”

The name jerked Toki out of his reverie. Wilda, a name that echoed down his dreams, ones filled with fire and murder and one act, the one little thing he’d done to claim bravery before Odin. It was her, the same girl, he was sure, though it’d been long. She had the same dark hair and pale skin, the same wide eyes. A scar just under one of them, where he remembered blood on her face. If it was the same girl, then one breath of that night from her, and Bausi wouldn’t stop at illness for Gudrun. It was only Loki’s luck that Wilda hadn’t seen Bausi yet, because surely she’d know him. He’d changed little in the passing years, because he’d been full grown at the time. Not like Toki and Wilda, who’d had all their growing still to do.

Agnar’s low voice was a murmur, a meaningless babble he ignored. He had to get her away from here or they were all dead, Wilda, Gudrun and Toki, even Sigdir. He had to gather his courage for more than keeping silent when he wanted to shout, more than dreaming of the day he lived for and might never come. Wilda was watching him now, a delicate crease in between her eyebrows as she thought. He had to get her to see. He took a step forward, thinking maybe now he’d said a few words, more might come easier. Agnar’s grip on his arm didn’t slow him down, though he listened now to the words.

“I don’t know what you’re thinking, boy, or even if you do think. You ain’t the simpleton Bausi makes you out to be, I know that. But what are you doing? Why’s she got to run? Run? She can’t run, she’s a thrall. Even if she weren’t, the snow’s coming down, good and thick. Be a foot and more by morning. Where’s she going to run to?”

That made Toki pause. There was nowhere for her to go. Yet he had to make sure, make sure she said nothing, that Bausi didn’t find out who she was, what she’d seen. Bausi could kill her and all he need do afterward was pay Agnar for her. She was a thrall, no one would care overmuch, or even if they did, none would dare question Bausi about it. Maybe she’d speak and then the curse would fall. He was all that stood between Bausi and Wilda dying, Gudrun dying.

He steadied his breath. Courage. A new thing for Odin and Thor. You can. You can be a brave man and do this. Hold your courage like the Norseman you are. Show Thor you still have his red blood in you. That helped, settled his mind, sent a warm ripple through him from his amulet. Thor was with him, lent courage to him. I am not a coward, no matter what they say, no matter that no one sees it.

“Come on lad, I think you’ve had enough to drink. Get home, sober up. Stop acting like a fool over a thrall.” Agnar tried to steer him toward the door.

Toki shook Agnar’s hand off, reckless now. As if it was the day of his dream, the day he stood tall and strong. She couldn’t run, neither could he, but he could do something, could show the courage he knew beat in him. A little thing, but maybe enough.

When he stepped toward her, she stiffened but didn’t move away. Her eyes, a deep blue-green he saw now, watched him gravely. A small pang in him then, for the aching wildness of the girl that seemed stamped out of her, replaced by a dull chill. Gone, forgotten, except in his memories. He knelt awkwardly before her, his bad leg twisted under him.

“Odin’s arse, Toki, will you stop this.” Agnar grabbed for the scruff of his neck but Toki ducked out of the way and reached into his tunic. When he pulled out his amulet, the bronze one of Mjollnir, Thor’s hammer, Agnar stuttered to a stop.

Wilda’s eyes were very wide and she jumped when he took her hand, tried to pull it back but he wouldn’t let go. He put Mjollnir in her hand and closed her fingers over it.

Agnar’s voice dropped to a hoarse whisper. “Toki—Toki, your father gave you that. It’s a sacred thing, not for a follower of the White Christ. What are you doing, giving it to a thrall?”

Protection, that was what he was doing, giving up all the protection he had for her. She wore a crucifix but the White Christ couldn’t save her. Not here, not in Odin’s country, not against Bausi’s rune-curse. It was all he had to give her, all he could do for her tonight, for the days ahead until he could think of a way. Bausi was leaving tomorrow, to negotiate a wedding. He had time.

He let go of Wilda’s hand and she stared at the amulet as though she didn’t understand what it was, but she nodded and placed her fingers to her lips. Silence.

When Agnar grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and pulled him away, Toki didn’t try to resist. He stepped out into the deepening snow, shrugged his furs more snugly about his shoulders and headed for home. He’d done all he could for tonight. Now he had to think, to plan, to wake his rusty brain and work out how he was going to keep Bausi from seeing her when he returned, finding out who she was. How he was going to keep her alive. Keeping Wilda alive, that had been his one little thing for Odin. He wasn’t going to let anything or anyone take that away from him. It was all he had.

Chapter Six

They know but unsurely who sit within, what manner of man is come.

Havamal: 133

Wilda stared down at the bronze amulet in her hand, still warm from where it had hidden under Toki’s tunic. “What is it?”

Bebba tutted and shook her head. “One of them heathen charms. Thor’s hammer, got some weird name I can’t never remember. Supposed to be a protection or somesuch.”

Agnar shut the door firmly behind Toki and came to loom over Wilda. She stood hurriedly. Her master, or rather her master’s watchdog. He didn’t act like it, though, not now. He stared at her thoughtfully for a long time, then down at the amulet. Finally he shrugged and made for his bedroom, casting a few words over his shoulder at Bebba as he went.

“He says you can keep it, but he doesn’t think Red Thor protects Christians. Why did Toki give it to you? Awful peculiar, the way he was acting. I never thought he was as simple as they made out, just shy, but I never seen him act like that before. And fancy, him being able to speak after all.”

That was the part that puzzled Wilda the most. Einar the boy hadn’t been simple, or mute. So why was he now both? She couldn’t bring herself to put the amulet on, not a heathen charm round her neck with her crucifix. That would be blasphemous. Yet she didn’t want to be parted from it either. It seemed important to Einar, and his giving it to her had shocked Agnar, that was plain. But why?

She ran her thumb over the markings on it, little spirals along the head of the hammer. Protection. She had need of protection, the most he could give her, protection of the gods he worshipped, like a blessing. The thought made her hand tremble a little, and she covered it from Bebba’s watchful gaze by attaching the amulet to one of the chains hanging from the brooch that pinned her apron dress.

When it came time for bed, Wilda lay under her blankets for a long while before she could sleep. Morning came late, or so it seemed. Her head ached with tiredness, with the wrongness of where she was. What she now was.

In the morning Bebba opened the door, and the ground outside was thick with snow. Wilda gazed in wonder. What had seemed dark and drear yesterday seemed bright and new today. Long stretches of unmarred snow lay in swathes around and below them, broken only by small brakes of trees and huddles of farm buildings, until the snow reached the black waters of the fjord. Above the water the steep-sided mountains held scarves of snow that seemed to hang in mid-air, playing hide and go seek with lowering wisps of cloud. This more than anything brought home how alien this place was. She’d known snow but not as much as this, not such a thick blanket and from one night’s fall. She’d known hills but not the towering mountains or the brooding crystal stillness where she’d lived in the bustle of town and market, where all lived nearby for safety inside stout walls.

The air stung Wilda’s nose, but it was clean and crisp after the longhouse, which was steeped in sweet, heady smoke even when there was no fire. Bebba set her to clearing a path, feeding the pigs, then to breaking the ice and drawing water from the well, scrubbing and cleaning. All the thousand and one jobs that needed doing in any farm or household. Yet ones that Wilda had rarely done, as lady, for Bayen’s thralls had done them while she’d spun and sewn and woven, or tried to. Now she was thrall and Idunn was lady of the house.

The sun crept over the edge of the mountain before Bebba called her for breakfast, and Wilda was exhausted already, her feet and legs wet from snow and scrubbing, her hands chapped and raw.

Bebba gave her a bowl of warm buttermilk and some bread. “Make the most of this. Day meal they calls it. You get one other, night meal, at sundown. Today’s going to be busy. Snow came early, see, even for these parts. They don’t have enough fodder to overwinter all the animals, so tomorrow’s a slaughter day, and the days after that. The men’ll do the killing, Agnar and his thrall boys, and even Sigdir. It’s up to us to make sure it keeps. And if we’re doing that tomorrow and after, we got a lot to do today to get ready.”

Wilda had to force herself to not wolf down the meal. Her belly was cramping with hunger but she wouldn’t show it, or any hint, so she sipped and chewed with care.

Agnar came in, stamped snow off his boots, shook out his cloak and sat at the head bench. The two thrall-boys scuttled in after him and Idunn made an appearance, moving regally to sit next to her husband and watch Wilda with a puzzled gaze. Bebba served them, Agnar and Idunn getting extra, as well as dollops of butter and honey for their bread. Agnar sneaked a look at Idunn, for approval it seemed, because he didn’t speak till he had her cautious nod.

“Vetrnætr,” Bebba said when he was done. “Winter Nights. We got to get you learning their language. But Winter Nights is coming up on us. A blot, a sacrifice that is, and a great feast. Bausi’s asked for my ale to be served. We’re going to need a powerful lot of it to feed the thirst of the whole fjord. We’re all going to be working harder than horses for a while.”

When they’d finished the meal, the two thrall boys ran off under Agnar’s orders. After they were gone, and as Wilda was about to get on with the cleaning, Bebba had her stay.

“Agnar and Idunn, they wants to know a thing or two. You sit there and answer their questions. Truth be told, I got one or two my own self. Like how you can sit and be so calm when your husband was murdered in front of you, you taken as thrall and, when you talk of it, your eye is as dry as this fire.”

Wilda stared at her hands as they twisted in her lap. “What’s to say? I’m here now, and must do as I’m told. I’ve heard what they do to thralls, that a man can beat one to death here and it makes no matter, and worse. I will not die. Survival, that’s everything. There’s nothing else. God gives us what He will, and He gives us the strength to survive it. Or not. All is God’s will.”

“A cold one, I said before. You’re well-suited to this place, my lady. Colder than a witch’s tit.”

Wilda knew it to be true. Cold in her heart, for too long. The fire there had died when a sword ran through her mother in front of her, when she had to leave a boy to die for her own survival. Only he hadn’t died, had he? Yet that coldness had served her well, had made her cool in a crisis, practical, an asset to her father’s, then her husband’s households. Fire in her heart was worth nothing, could do nothing but hurt, so she quenched it with cold practicality.

Bebba spoke quickly with Agnar and came back with another question. “He wants to know why Toki gave you the hammer. Why he told you to run. He ain’t spoke to no one for years, poor sod. Why you?”

Wilda looked down at the amulet, a wash of guilt tingling through her that she wore a heathen token. It was smooth under her hand, yet ridged with signs and meaning. His meaning, when he’d put his finger to her lips. Silence. Her answer was truthful enough, as far as it went. “I truly have no idea why he gave it to me. You say it’s for protection. Who should I need protection from? Agnar?”

Bebba snorted. “No, the old goat’s soft as melted butter under all that hair, though he’s as lustful as the rest. But you must know. Agnar says Toki ain’t spoke a word for eight years, not since his brother got killed on a raid. The fear of it turned him simple, that’s what they say, drove the sense from his head and the words from his tongue. Till last night, and he spoke to you, a thrall. Why?”

The amulet seemed to throb in Wilda’s hand. His brother had died in a raid, and he hadn’t spoken since. A big man, a heathen, run through from behind by Bear Man. The twisted smile as he’d turned on Einar, intent on doing the same to him. A touch of fingers on her lips. Silence. “I don’t know. Truly.” God forgive me the lie. Not a true lie though, because she didn’t know why, or not exactly.

Bebba pursed her lips in a silent “humph.” Disbelieving, and rightly so. Agnar’s gruff voice growled out more nonsense words.

“He says you keep away from Toki, you hear? I reckon it worried him, last night. Not for you, for Toki. These two, they had no children, to their grief. And Toki—I don’t know, but I think they feel they should watch out for him, especially the way everyone else treats him, like he was lower than pig shit. Agnar and Idunn are the only two in this village that don’t call him names, that don’t sneer at him. Poor young fool, he is, as welcome in this fjord as the Devil at a birth. Agnar and Idunn don’t sneer, even if they ain’t too welcoming, because of what he done. I told you, didn’t I, courage is all to a Norseman? The way they see it, the whole village sees it, he sees it, he’s shamed himself. Like a man sinning before the sight of God, with no hope of confession. But they don’t like to see him upset, and he was right upset. Difficult to tell with this lot, until you have the way of it. If you don’t know, you don’t know, though I’m thinking there’s more here than you’re letting on. But we’ve work to do, lass. Come on, we’ll get started, and I can teach you their tongue. Young Sigdir was most insistent about that. You’re to know their words, at least enough to understand most of what’s said to you, by Winter Nights. Lord knows why.”

By the time the early dusk came on, Wilda’s back was aching but there was no rest as she and Bebba made the night meal for the older couple and the two thrall boys. The stew had been brewing most of the day by the fire, but now they baked fresh bread and Bebba brought out something she called skyr—a type of curd too soft to be cheese and sweetened with honey—for Agnar and Idunn. A delicacy, Bebba said, and not one they shared often with thralls, who made do with buttermilk.

“See, now meat ain’t all that common here, excepting at slaughter time and what they can preserve. It’s all about what the others see, what you can keep because of the winter. Too long to keep most the animals and feed them. So Winter Nights is a big feast where they eat every damn thing they can’t keep from the slaughtering. It’s the milk and what you can make of it that they live on, mostly. This meat’s tougher than boots by a liar’s mile. Been cooking all day though, reckon you won’t break a tooth. When they start the slaughter, then you’ll get your fresh meat, though you and I won’t get the good stuff. But Agnar’s not so stingy as some. He likes his thralls to eat enough to keep them healthy.”

True enough, the food wasn’t the best Wilda had ever eaten—the stew was as tough as predicted, and no butter or honey on the thralls’ bread—but it was hot and filled her, and that was enough.

When they were done, Bebba and Wilda collected the bowls and rinsed them. The two thrall boys went off to their space in the hayloft, both yawning prodigiously. Agnar took his leave with a tender kiss on Idunn’s forehead and went out into the snowy night. Once he was gone, Idunn’s rod-straight posture wilted and Bebba hurried to help her up from the bench. A quick, stern look at Wilda stopped any comment until Idunn had been installed in the bed and the partition closed.

Bebba bustled about doing nothing much, her shoulders stiff to ward off any comment, but finally she sat down across the fire. Sparse tears lay scattered on her cheeks. “Breaks my heart, that it does.”

“What does?”

“Idunn in there. Dying she is, no doubt about it, but won’t show a damn thing to Agnar. He don’t know, the old fool. Thinks she’s just tired of late is all. The spae-wife—that’s like their, I don’t know, not a priestess, more like the goodwife, see? Knows all the old charms and herbs. Anyway, she brings up a thing to dose her with, make the pain go enough so she can sleep. A sad thing, I calls it, when she won’t take comfort from a husband she loves, and who loves her. But there, one way they’re different, the Norsemen. Courage is everything to them, even the women.”

Bebba wiped her face with her apron and got up, all business again. “Can’t be sitting around with idle hands. Here, you take the wool. It’s washed and it needs combing. Their combs is much the same as at home.”

Bebba took out two long-tined bone-handled combs and left her to tease the wool into order while she went into the ale room. Wilda set to, almost happy in it. Combing she could do, without too much taking the Lord’s name in vain. A mindless task she could lose herself in, not think, just do. Lose herself she did, in the soothing movement of hand and eye. She could pretend she was at home, that Myldrith was just waiting for her next “Goddamn!” or that Bayen would be here any moment—soft, comforting thoughts. Even if it hadn’t been her life of choice, it was a life she knew, where the rules made sense. And yet that seemed pathetic, to want what she hadn’t wanted, just because it was familiar. As though she had forgotten who she was.

The bang of the door made the combs skip from her hands as she jumped up, half expecting Bayen to be standing in the doorway. Instead, it was Toki. He hesitated, as though gauging her reaction. When she made no move, he ducked his head shyly and bent to pick up the combs and wool, now tangled worse than when she’d started.

Bebba came out of the ale room, wiping her hands on her apron. When she saw who it was, she tutted and began to hector Toki, but he paid her no mind. Instead he handed Wilda the combs, his head still ducked, and went to sit on the same bench as before across the fire from Wilda. Bebba’s voice trailed off when he still took no notice and instead went to fetch him a cup of ale with a weary sigh.

When she came back, she eyed Wilda thoughtfully. “No trouble, that’s what I told him. Don’t want no trouble disturbing Idunn. Same goes for you. I got a powerful lot of work to be doing, but I’ll be keeping an eye, don’t think I won’t. Whatever’s going on, you keep it quiet.” She disappeared back into the ale room, though the door was left open and she kept a careful eye on the two of them. What trouble was she expecting?

Wilda went back to combing, but her eyes were drawn to Toki. The way he sat, hunkered in on himself as though he was ashamed even to exist. It shouldn’t be so. He’d saved her life once and paid a price for it, and she wanted to tell all of them, everyone who Bebba said treated him as worthless. Yet he didn’t want her to.

When he’d drained his cup, Wilda fetched him another, wilting a little under Bebba’s glare. She stood so she was on a level with Toki’s eyes and held out the cup. Toki chewed on his lip a moment before he reached for it, his head still ducked. She wished he’d at least look at her, like he had last night, when there had been something more than dimwittedness behind his eyes, When she’d seen the deep thought, the sharp glance of a boy who’d saved her.

“Toki?”

Toki knew he shouldn’t have come. Agnar had said he was welcome to come for his ale, if he kept away from Wilda and gave no trouble. He’d meant to come and sit, just watch Wilda and think, plan what he was going to do. He had time now that Bausi had gone to negotiate his new marriage. Time to work out how he was going to get Wilda away. In the meantime he wanted to sit and watch her, the only good thing he’d ever done, kept her alive. A warm thought in the ice of his life.

Yesterday he’d seen her and thought that here was the one person who could make everything fall around his ears, and that he had to make sure she said nothing. Today—she hadn’t sneered at him, she hadn’t looked at him as if he was a coward or an idiot. She’d looked as though she was both surprised and pleased he was alive. No one looked at him that way, and that had drawn him back because he wanted it again. To be looked at like the man he knew in his heart he was, even if he dared not show it.

Even if he just sat in the same room as her, which was all the courage he could conjure—to come here when Agnar had such hard words on it. He couldn’t find the courage to look up and maybe find that she knew now what they said about him, that she would look at him as they did.

He kept his gaze on the floor as he took the cup. Her voice, soft as falling snow, saying his name made him jerk in surprise and he almost spilled the ale. When her hand touched his, he did drop it, spilling ale across his breeches and the floor.

“Toki?”

Her hand was still there, burning him with his own want. If he looked up, he’d be lost. Either she would look at him as they did, and the faint flicker of hope would die in him again, or she would look at him as she did yesterday, as though he was a man. If she did that, he was lost to her.

“Thank you,” she said, stumbling over the words, and then he had to look.

And was lost. She was smiling, she was looking at him as though he was a man, as though she could see inside to his dreams, where he was tall and strong. A clatter from the ale room and Bebba muttering something under her breath broke the spell. Wilda turned away, back to combing wool, but it was too late.

It was no longer just because of Sigdir and Gudrun that he had to get her away, no longer because of the curse over his head. It was because of her. Because she’d looked at him like that, with a smile and a softness around her eyes that bewitched him. For that, he would find the courage to do something, to save her from Bausi. His dreams would come outside his head.

He had time, and while he planned he would sit and watch her, hope that she’d smile at him again. A small thing to wish for, but he was reduced to taking comfort from small things and had been for a long while.

Toki watched until Agnar came back but no coherent thoughts formed, and he was content to just sit. He was entranced by her, by the thought that Wilda, the untamed wild girl who’d saved him, had become so controlled, so changed. The collar at her neck pained him to see, a symbol of the chains that seemed to bind her inside as well as out.

Agnar’s glower and the lateness got him to his feet, ready to return to his lonely little hovel that would seem all the lonelier, all the colder tonight. He tried a smile at Wilda before he left and was rewarded with one in return, one that made him think that girl was still in there, somewhere, waiting to break free. Just as he was wanting to break free of his chains. The snowy air outside didn’t seem so cold after that.

Once home he sat in the darkness of his little hut, lit only by a feeble rushlight and the flames from a meagre fire, and thought. Wilda being here was too dangerous. Toki could make sure he didn’t curse Sigdir and Gudrun by talking, but what about Wilda? Bausi had laid no such thing on her, and she was thrall, worthless.

She couldn’t run, Agnar was right about that. It would be the recourse of desperation. The snow was thick, clouds gathering around the mountain tops even now, piling up to great cliffs of waiting snow, grey and threatening, waiting to spill white blankets. The pass over the mountains would be all but blocked already, and Toki couldn’t leave, by the curse he couldn’t. That was his courage—staying amid this. Yet every day she stayed was a day closer to Bausi working out who she was, or her seeing him, knowing him and saying something. He couldn’t tell her why she should be silent, because he knew none of her words. He couldn’t even ask Bebba or one of the other Saxon thralls to translate, or then it would be out, and all their lives would be forfeit.

Say nothing of that night’s work.

Every day was a day closer to her death, though she didn’t know it. Toki was determined that wouldn’t happen. He had saved her once, and she had saved him in return. He had to do it again.

He could buy her. The only way he had to help her. He could buy her from Agnar and keep her here out of Bausi’s sight until spring, until he could send her away. Horse-Einar snorted in his stall, leaned his head over and blew warm air down Toki’s neck. He patted the horse absently.

He rummaged around in his chest and pulled out his meagre possessions. There was precious little. A knife with a walrus-bone handle that he used for skinning. A small, burnished bronze cat of his mother’s. How she’d preened the day Toki’s father had given it to her, a present from one of his raids. Another little ornament Toki had carved from bone, long ago, meaning to give it to Ragnhilda. One white fox fur, soft and downy, that he’d intended to barter for some food to see himself through the winter, to add to the meat he’d got from the pig that hung above the fire to smoke. But one fur wasn’t enough, and he couldn’t hunt as the others did, his bad leg too stiff, especially in the cold. He laid snares, but foxes were too wily, or if they were caught, had often been scavenged by wolves before Toki could get to them. Horse-Einar had helped this last winter, so that the snow did not make his leg a cold, wrenching ache when he climbed the mountain, but still, only one fur.

All he had apart from what vegetables he’d salvaged to see him through winter, hay enough to feed Einar and meat from the pig. Not much. It wasn’t enough to buy a thrall. Maybe—if he could hunt more, get more furs and made them into something? A cloak of fox fur, that would be worth more, maybe enough if it were well-crafted. He patted Einar’s nose again and smiled at the silky feel of it under his hand. Einar never judged him.

For a decent cloak he’d need at least another four furs, maybe five, and time to work them. He had two weeks, he hoped. He also hoped two weeks would be long enough.

Chapter Seven

Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might.

Ecclesiastes 9:10

Wilda followed Bebba’s gaze as she shielded her eyes against a rare glimpse of sun that turned all the snow to glaring whiteness. Wilda shaded her own eyes with one hand and watched a shape move down the mountain. A man on a horse picking its careful way through the snow. Toki.

“That’s every day for the last week,” Bebba said. “And every day he’s been coming here too, to watch you. But every day up the mountain—that’s hard for him, what with that leg the way it is, even on a horse. No wonder he’s looking so weary. What’s he up to?” She gave Wilda a knowing look at that last.

“I told you, I don’t know. Even if he spoke, you know I wouldn’t be able to understand him.” Wilda had picked up a few phrases here and there, but not enough to have a conversation.

With Toki it didn’t matter. He came every night to sit with his beer and watch her as she worked. She found herself looking forward to sunset and him coming. He said nothing, but that wasn’t it, or maybe it was because he said nothing, expected nothing. He just was, and so she could just be too, a luxury she couldn’t recall having before. He was a comforting presence, maybe like he’d wanted the amulet to be.

Toki rode the horse down past a far toft puffing out smoke, and children ran beside Toki’s horse, calling names, throwing snow and chunks of ice. He kept his eyes forward, but his shoulders hunched.

“Why do they do that? What are they calling him?”

“Coward,” Bebba said.

“But—”

“Not coward like you or I see it, maybe. He sits and he takes it, that and worse from every last man, woman and child in the fjord and he says nothing, never hits back. Never even a nasty glare. That takes some doing, for you or me. For him it’s more—a Norseman sees that as cowardice. Especially to bear that from children, from anyone. A true man of Thor wouldn’t take it, wouldn’t sit and bear it. They’re different, see, in how they think. A man don’t take cheek from anyone, not from a woman or a child or a thrall. Or another man. Any slight to their honour is an excuse to fight, and fight they do. They hold that honour above everything, above land and wealth and wives, second only to their gods. So Toki there, you and me may see he’s turning the other cheek, like a good Christian would. To me, that looks like a brave man. For him, turning a cheek is the worst shame, an admission he isn’t a man. They see a craven weakling boy, not a man in their eyes, not before Thor. That’s the difference between us. White Christ they call him—milk-blooded and cowardly versus Red Thor—red of blood, red of war, who wouldn’t turn a cheek to anyone, unless it was his arse cheek. A brave man, I see, but he thinks it makes him coward.”

Bebba fell silent as another chunk of ice hit Toki on the shoulder, shattered across his horse’s neck and made it shy. He made it past the toft and the children found something else to torment.

Bebba chivvied her inside, and Wilda went, thinking hard, hurting in her heart. What Bebba said was true—a brave man to stand what he did with no complaint. Yet he thought that shamed him. Not to her. To her that made him a good man, a strong one among barbarians. She wished she knew enough words of his to say it to him, but all she had were actions.

He’d be here soon enough—the sun was already lowering behind the high mountain forests and sending long shadows creeping across the valley. The thrall boys came in, loud and laughing. Bebba cuffed one round the ear when he had the cheek to pinch her, but she was smiling and the blow had no force. “Pair of devils. Come on, Wilda, look smart.”

Wilda jerked out of her reverie and set to work on the night meal, but her mind wasn’t on it. She could think only of Toki, of how he bore what they said, what they did. To her, that was courage, the courage not to turn like a wild animal and hit back, the courage to be better than that, to turn the other cheek. Her father had taught her, in long, tiresome lessons, that meekness was courage—the courage to be human.

She kept stealing glances at the window, checking how dark it was. How long till he came. The meal seemed to last an eternity before the thrall boys went to their beds and Agnar levered himself to his feet. Off to the feasting hall as he did most nights, to sit with the warriors and join in their talk, pretend he was still young enough to be one of them. Bebba got Idunn settled in her bed and dosed with whatever concoction it was that made her sleep.

When she came back in, she shook her head at Wilda with exasperation. “Don’t think I can’t see what’s in front of me.”

Wilda stopped trying to tidy her hair and felt her cheeks flush, but Bebba said no more. They fell to combing the last of the wool, ready to start spinning. Wilda had just finished the last comb-full when Toki came in. He walked differently now, though still with the limping drag of one leg. Yet his shoulders no longer hunched, and he didn’t hesitate to look at Wilda, no longer held his head down. He seemed almost happy.

Wilda got him his ale and his sudden smile was shy, reticent, but it changed him, changed his face from well-set-up and strong to startlingly handsome in a heartbeat, or maybe that was her own eyes only now showing it to her. Her cheeks flamed and she turned away when Bebba clucked with disapproval.

Bebba handed her the spindle and Wilda’s stomach dropped.

“Lord, girl, what are you doing?” Bebba shook her head when Wilda managed to snap the thread almost straightaway. “You need to get your rhythm right. Thought you’d be able to spin, being a lady and all.”

The bench beside Wilda creaked as Toki sat down next to her and took the spindle and the mass of combed wool. He was quick and sure in his movements and soon had it all arranged again. He took her hands—to a sharp tut from Bebba—and held them on the wool. His hands swamped hers, making her feel almost childlike in comparison, and though his skin was rough from work, his touch was feather-soft. Her face heated up again, and she couldn’t seem to take her eyes from his as he guided her hands along. He smiled again, with a little duck of his head, and again it changed his face, and how she saw him. A brave, kind man, hiding it when she would shout to everyone if he would let her.

“That’ll do, I think.” Bebba stood over them, glaring with disapproval as though they were the two thrall boys who had pinched her, children who needed chiding. She spoke a few words to Toki in a sharp tone that made his smile disappear like smoke and his head dip again so that he looked at the floor. He put the wool down and shuffled to his feet. Yet he cast Bebba a hard glance before he went, and left Wilda with a last, sad smile.

“What did you say to him?”

“What Agnar should have said to him long since. He ain’t got no business with you, and you got none with him. People are already talking. It’ll end in blood, else. Toki’s, more than like, and I won’t have that. Poor sod, he’s had enough of that even if he’s got the courage to bear it, no matter what they say on it. He bears it, and well, that boy. He’s got iron in him, like they all do, though the rest don’t see it. But I told him good, this’ll end in more than that, this’ll end in blood. His, and yours too most like. He won’t be back.”

“But—”

“That’s all I’m saying on it. Now get on with the spinning.”

Wilda set to with her mouth pinched, wondering what spite Bebba had said to him to turn him back to the man hunched against the world. She promised herself she would be extra attentive to him when he came the next day, make sure she let him know how much she liked him and his soft presence, that she saw the wit behind his eyes, the only bright point in days dull and bleak.

But the next night he didn’t come, and Agnar took to watching her instead, a worried look about him and his heavy knife across his knees, as though he’d failed in some task and would not do so again. She didn’t care about that, or anything. Only that Toki didn’t come to lend her his quiet strength or grace the night with his shy smile.

Toki didn’t dare go back to Agnar’s, not until he had something to offer in payment for Wilda. Bebba had been quite clear, and she wasn’t one for lying. You come again, Agnar will have to take his knife to you. He won’t want to, but he’ll have to. Maybe to her too. Who do you think will care if he does?

No one would. He’d have braved Agnar and his knife in a heartbeat if it weren’t for what might happen to Wilda because of it, but he couldn’t understand why. Why would Agnar care so much about him seeing a thrall, or even bedding one, if that was what Bebba thought he was about? Agnar had bedded his share of slaves in his day.

It didn’t matter, though, because he was going to buy Wilda and keep her safe in his hut until spring, when he could get her away from Bausi. Her, in his hut. Till spring. His face flushed red hot at that. She’d been kind to him because he’d once stopped Bausi killing her, and it was gratitude, that was all. She was being kind. But the gratitude that he felt to her had grown, become something else, a burning bright spot in his silent, icy life. She was all he could think of. Even Bausi and his curse paled beside her.

There wasn’t much time left. Bausi would be back soon, triumphant and gloating or having failed in his wedding negotiations and taking it out on everyone. Toki had to get Wilda up to his hut, out of sight and safe, before Bausi came back. He needed one more fur, which could be curing while he made the rest of the cloak.

Einar stamped and blew at the biting air that seemed to freeze the inside of Toki’s nose. The sky was high, as blue as robin’s eggs, and the mountains stood out clear and hard against it. A good day to be in the forest. With the help of an old stump, Toki slid onto patient Einar’s back and nudged him up the slope to where he’d left his traps.

He’d had to set the snares farther and farther away in hope of catching a fox, and it was several miles through snow that was hock deep on Einar to reach them. The first two were empty, and the next had neatly garrotted a hare, which Toki tied to Einar. It would do for dinner. Deer tracks criss-crossed their path to the next trap, but Toki didn’t take out his bow. Food wasn’t what he was here for, not today, though the hare was welcome.

More tracks got Toki’s attention—fresh fox tracks weaving up the mountain, along the path he’d seen before, when he’d set the trap. He’d put the snare, baited with a hare leg, in the tangle of old and new tracks that meant a fox’s den close by. A nudge to Einar and they were through the last of the trees and at the trap. A big dog fox was thrashing in the snare, all sharp teeth and sharper fear. Toki slid from Einar and approached warily. A trapped animal was dangerous, especially when you weren’t too nimble on your feet, but one swift stroke from his scramasax and the fox was dead. He skinned it, his hands quick and practised, and scattered the remains for scavengers. Einar snorted at the scent of blood when Toki put the bundle on his back, but soon settled.

The sun was lowering behind an arm of the mountain by the time Toki pointed Einar downward, the air chilling still further as night loomed, and it was dusk by the time they came out of the forest and across a clear expanse of snow that was one of Agnar’s pastures in summer. A few dark figures hurried toward him from the direction of his hut and Toki pulled Einar to a halt. Sigdir led, and the bundled-up figure looked to be Gudrun, but it was the third that twisted Toki’s gut. Bausi was back already. Toki didn’t have the time he’d thought.

He considered turning Einar, heading back up the mountain until they’d passed, but night was falling around him like a cloak. The iciness of the wind seeped further into his bones, and the forest was no place in the snow and dark. Instead he put his head down, held his nerve and nudged Einar on.

Sigdir called to him, but he ignored it and made to steer Einar around the three. Bausi grabbed at a rein and pulled Einar to a stop with a snort of breath that puffed out in an icy cloud.

Toki couldn’t see Bausi’s face—Sigdir held a torch that guttered in the night wind from across the fjord but he stood on the other side of Einar, holding the horse from there. Neatly trapping Toki, like the dog fox in his snare. Gudrun huddled by Sigdir, her face creased in a frown, as though she thought she should understand what was happening here, but didn’t.

“I hear you’ve been busy while I’ve been gone.” Bausi’s voice was a growl in the dark on that side. “I also hear you’ve been making trouble at Agnar’s. That you spoke, little brother.”

The sly tone was just for Toki, reminding him, as if he needed it.

Say nothing. Toki stared down at his gloved hands on the reins and concentrated on silence. It came with the ease of long practice, but it seemed silence wasn’t enough today. Bausi’s hand reached up and, with a casual yank on Toki’s cloak, had him on his back in the snow. Horse-Einar shied before he settled, ears twitching, a few yards away.

Bausi leaned over him and pointed with his scramasax, the twist of a smile evident now as Sigdir came to stand next to him and held up the torch. Be still. Use your courage and bear this, as you have borne all the rest. Yet his heart pounded, told him to get up, to refuse the insult from Bausi, to show what was in him. Be still, be silent.

“See, Gudrun, this is what weakness is. You’re growing fast and though I’ve tried to shelter you from what your brother is, you’ve begun to see. A craven weakling with less than half a mind left from fear. He’s not worth the shit off my boot, or even a kind word. We reserve that for those who earn it through strength and courage, not those who throw away the right for cowardice. Sympathy for the weak will make you weak too. It’s enough that we let him live.”

Toki glanced at Gudrun. Her eyes were wide, not with fright but what seemed sudden understanding. When she looked at Toki again, the last of the affection had gone from her face. It had slowly seeped away over the years, as she’d grown and seen how others treated him, had begun to copy them, had earned approval for it and forgotten who he’d been. Now the last went, all at once, as she saw him helpless under Bausi’s knife. Helpless because he dared say nothing, dared do nothing, for her.

He recalled how it had been much the same with Sigdir, the look of sudden realisation that his brother was to be sneered at, that it was right to do it. The day Bausi’s poisonous words had finally taken over his heart.

Bausi turned to Horse-Einar and hit his rump with the flat of his knife, sending the horse plunging through the snow. “You keep yourself to yourself, Toki. I don’t want young minds like Gudrun’s thinking weakness is anything I’ll accept, or my new bride to look at you and think I’m weak because of you. If you come close enough for me to see you, I’ll be rid of you once and for all.” He held out a hand and Gudrun took it, casting a complicated, hard look on Toki as they walked away.

It wasn’t just the snow and ice that made Toki’s heart a cold thud in his chest. Not just the snow.

Chapter Eight

It is better to live than to lie a corpse.

Havamal: 70

Toki shivered by the fire in his hut, grateful for the extra warmth of Einar in his stall. He stirred the thin gruel that was today’s ration. More than ever, he had to do something, only he didn’t know what. The only solid thought was to carry on with his plan, to buy Wilda and keep her from Bausi. After that—after that he didn’t know.

First he must get Wilda. He shoved aside every other thought, concentrated on what he could do rather than what he couldn’t, and surveyed what he’d managed to find. Five fox furs, barely enough for a good cloak for him, but it would fit Idunn, who was small and looking frail as a bird this winter. That would please Agnar, a cloak this fine for her. Maybe enough to sell Wilda. Then, when that threat was safe, he could plan.

He set the latest fur in a barrel to soak, to loosen the fat and skin before he scraped it. Two of the other furs were ready, while the last two needed a day or so more to cure. He gathered the two that were ready and set to, letting the repetition take over his mind and free it to think.

He’d lived asleep for too long, he saw that now. Let it all wash over him, letting the poison that was Bausi seep into everything, into everyone. He’d let it, because he loved Sigdir and Gudrun and wanted to see them live, even if twisted. Twisted was better than dead. He’d been asleep and blind with it, thinking his silence courage. It was time now to let his dreams become real, to live outside his head and show the iron in him they all thought long rusted.

Wilda had come, woken him up, opened his eyes. He’d been drifting on the tide, but now he had to row for shore. Only he didn’t know where the shore was. His only guide was Wilda, and he clung to the thought of her, like a guiding star to take him home.

It took two days before he was satisfied. By then his eyes were strained, his back hunched, but it was done. The finest thing he’d ever made, a cloak of white fur, trimmed with the tails, the little bone carving from his trunk altered to serve as a pin. It might be enough, if Agnar was feeling generous.

He led Einar out into the grey daylight and heaved himself onto the horse’s back. His hut was far from the others—no one wanted him close by, so he’d built far up the valley, close by the forest. A tiny patch of land that had been begrudged him, but it was home now.

Down the valley toward the fjord, smoke rose from longhouses and farmsteads in tidy little plumes, rising and mingling with the lowering clouds. Near the centre, near Bausi’s feasting hall and the blacksmith’s, Agnar’s farmstead puffed out smoke and little black figures darted around the buildings. Slaughtering for Bloodmonth. Toki looked back at his hut. The pig. If he added the meat that was smoking slowly in the rafters, that would be more than enough. If he added that, he might not make it through the winter. If he didn’t buy Wilda, she might not make it through the winter. He thought of her younger face, drenched in sweat, blood and fear as she threw his knife, averted the blow that would have killed him. Bought him precious time, enough for Agnar to come and stop Bausi from another outright murder.

He brought the meat. He owed her that.

It was slow going at first. Horse-Einar had to break the crust of snow and make a path for himself, at least till they got to the first farmstead. After that it got easier, though it became full of half-frozen slush that made the way slippery. By the time Toki reached Agnar’s farmstead, the sun was a grey disk through the clouds halfway up the sky. Toki slid carefully from Einar’s back, mindful always of his leg, and took down the cloak, folded and wrapped in an old scrap of homespun wool.

When he turned, Bebba stood in the doorway, hands on hips, with a disapproving purse of her lips accusing him. Of what he wasn’t sure, but she stood aside when he approached. He ducked through the doorway into smoke-soaked dimness. Agnar stood on one of the benches, hanging hams from the rafters above the fire so the smoke would preserve them. His face drew into a scowl when he saw Toki, but he got down and wiped his hands on his trousers.

“I hope you aren’t here to cause more fuss.”

As always, Toki said nothing. From the corner of his eye he saw Bebba dart through into the room she used for brewing and glimpsed Wilda, the bronze collar around her neck not quite covered by the sweep of her dark hair. He held out the parcel. Agnar took it with a suspicious look that widened into surprise when he unwrapped it. “This is a fine cloak, and it’ll be just right for Idunn. But why are you giving it to me?”

Toki slid his eyes toward the brewing room, where Bebba stood with her arms crossed in the doorway, Wilda behind her, pale but stoic. She managed a wan smile for Toki, and he knew why her collar pained him. Because she’d been a wild thing once, all scrambled hair and bare feet and daring, and now the collar tamed her.

That smile gave him enough courage for this. His voice crackled and broke, rusty from disuse, but he spoke. “For Wilda.”

Agnar snorted and shoved the cloak back at him. “And there was me, thinking maybe you weren’t such a simpleton after all.”

“Please,” Toki said. “For Wilda. My pig too, what meat I got from it. Take both.”

“What you want with her, eh?” Bebba’s voice was sharp with disapproval. “Going to be like your brothers, take yourself a bed-slave? I thought better of you than that, for all they say you’re simple.”

“Bebba, enough.” Agnar shot her a warning look. Bebba sometimes forgot her place, and though Agnar was a patient man, he’d had cause to teach her more than once before. A man nagged by his own thrall was not a man, not in the eyes of the village. “Toki, what do you want with a thrall? You can barely feed yourself, and she won’t help much. It’s not like you can all of a sudden afford a flock of sheep so she can spend her time spinning.”

Toki’s breath was tight, his throat burning, but he couldn’t say it. It had been hard enough to say the few words he had. He thrust out the cloak again and kept his eyes on Agnar’s. Even as he did, he knew it was no good. Agnar’s face, hard as rock, sad as moonlight, made it clear even before he spoke.

“She isn’t mine to sell, Toki. She belongs to Sigdir. I’m just keeping her till Winter Nights. And I don’t need to say he won’t sell her to you. Especially this one.”

Toki’s throat dried up and his heart squeezed painfully. She belonged to Sigdir, and the whole village knew what he was like with his thralls. He’d learned from Bausi. And Sigdir wouldn’t sell him a thrall. Sigdir would give him nothing he didn’t need to. Wilda’s pale face watched, her brows creased as she tried to follow the words. He couldn’t bear it, the thought of her with Sigdir, of any poor woman thrall with Sigdir, with what he’d become without Arni to guide him, with Bausi to twist him.

Agnar’s old face wrinkled even more, in pity maybe. “Why’s this one got you all so fired up? It’s not like you, not at all, and it worries me, though I’m glad you found your tongue at last. Why this one? She’s pleasing enough to look at, but that’s not it, because all Sigdir’s thralls are that.”

Toki stared down at the cloak, watched his hands sink into the soft fur, crumple and twist it, seemingly on their own. He couldn’t say. Even if he’d not been cursed to silence on it, he couldn’t say because it wasn’t just what she’d seen, the danger she put them all in. Not just because keeping her alive was his one good thing, stored up to tell Odin that he was worthy when the time came. It was her.

Agnar sat down heavily, shaking his head. “Wish I knew for sure what happened the night Arni died. All we got is Bausi’s word, because you don’t talk, and you act like you’re simple, or ashamed of yourself, right enough. I don’t know what’s got into you, but here’s the small comfort I got for you. Sigdir took this one particular. He’s got a reason, though I don’t know what it is. But he’s been playing very secretive of late, even with Bausi, and that comforts me. It comforts me that he’s grown enough now to not take everything Bausi says as truth, that he doesn’t always follow Bausi’s order true. Makes his own little twist on it. He don’t want Bausi knowing of this Wilda, and that should comfort you too. He’s planning something, I don’t know what, but whatever it is, he don’t want Bausi to know. So you just leave her be, Toki, you hear me? I’ll be taking care of her, till Winter Nights at least, and you know I’ll take good care.”

Toki nodded miserably. Agnar would take good care of her, he knew that, but that wasn’t the problem. Sigdir was the problem, and Bausi. And himself, he was the biggest problem, because he lacked the means to do anything about it.

If he couldn’t buy her, and he couldn’t help her run, what could he do? He looked down at the cloak. He could help her buy herself—she could buy her own freedom, and no one could stop that. The cloak wasn’t enough, nor cloak and pig, but it would be a start. Six ounces of silver was the price of freedom. He pushed past Bebba and looked down at Wilda. She trembled, making his Mjollnir amulet jingle on its chain where it hung from the brooch that pinned her apron-dress, yet the look she gave him was steady enough, and again she managed a smile. Too hemmed in, pinned down, caught where she had once been free.

Maybe he was doing this, not because he should, not because saving her was the one good thing he’d ever done and he would keep it, but for that smile. A smile for a man, not a half-wit mute, a coward and a disgrace. He held out the cloak.

Chapter Nine

The mind knows alone what is nearest the heart
and sees where the soul is turned.

Havamal: 93

Wilda spent the afternoon grinding, a hard and thankless task and a mindless one she could lose herself in. Her back, neck and arm throbbed with the strain, but she dared not stop. Agnar had Bebba repeat to her often that she was a thrall, she would do as she was bidden.

A shadow fell over her, black and looming from the doorway. Almost before she registered it, a hand took her across the face, knuckles and two rings opening a cut. Wilda fell to the floor, her fingers to her cheek. Before she could try to get up, someone caught at the back of her dress and dragged her to her feet, and face to face with Sigdir.

Red hair streamed back from a broad face that would have been handsome but for the twisted sneer. Blue eyes peeked out of deep sockets, eyes that were never still, always searching, suspicious of everything and everyone. Sigdir, her master.

His words sounded like a wolf growling and, against her will, Wilda shrank back. When Bebba translated, her voice shook.

“He says you ain’t doing as you’re told. You’re a thrall, his thrall, and you do whatever you’re told to do, as soon as you’re told to do it. You don’t stop till you’re given leave. And you’re to stop all this making up to Toki. He says…he says you ain’t to get above yourself, like I do.”

Wilda’s spine stiffened at that. She’d done as she was told for a long time now. Be good. Be virtuous. Stop running off wild when it suits you. Buckle down. Work hard. Where had it got her? Here, where things were worse than ever, where the chains were only more obvious, the collar visible round her neck now.

Sigdir spat out more growls and Bebba translated again. “He says stand up straight so’s he can look at you.”

Wilda pinched her lips together but stood up straighter. There was a time and place for fighting back, and this wasn’t it. Not with just her and Bebba against Sigdir, who stood a head taller than them, probably weighed the same as the two of them put together and had a bright sword at his waist. She had to bide her time.

“He wants to know about Toki.”

Wilda snatched a look at Bebba, but the older woman’s face was blank. “What about him?”

“You know right well what.”

“I don’t know, I told you. Even if I did, I wouldn’t tell him.”

Bebba translated and Sigdir’s face grew red as a beet. His hand flashed out and caught Wilda across the face again, the heavy ring on his forefinger cutting her lip. She staggered back but wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of falling again. Silence was her only rebellion.

“He says not to worry, it won’t matter soon. You belong to him, and you remember it. And you do what he says.”

Sigdir leaned forward and pressed his face close to hers. His hand came up to grab her jaw and squeezed. If he was hoping for any sign of pain, she denied it to him, pinched her lips shut against the gasp, against the fear and the anger. He whispered some dread-sounding words then dropped his hand and stalked out of the door.

“He said—he said you’d best learn more of their tongue by Winter Nights. He wants you to understand what he’s saying to you, even if you can’t reply much. If you don’t, we all gets it in the neck. You, me and Agnar.”

Wilda sank down to a bench, her hands shaking more with anger than with fear.

Bebba settled next to her, but her tone wasn’t her wise, patient one, it was the scold. “You got to do it, you understand? Whatever they asks, you got to do. You can’t go on behaving like you’re a lady, ’cause you ain’t, not anymore. You got to do as you’re told. And that means learning, if that’s what he wants. He’s a cruel bastard at times, and this is one of them times.”

Do what you’re told. She always did, that was the problem, could hardly remember the girl she’d been who’d never listened, who ran her own path and laughed at those who didn’t. One fateful, bloody, flaming night had changed everything. Yet it seemed that was her lot in life, in most every woman’s life. Do what your man tells you whether he’s your father, your husband or your owner. She wasn’t sure she had it left in her to do anything else, too ground down with it to care anymore.

No one was more surprised than Wilda when Toki chose that night to come again, his face resolute against Bebba’s glare, against what she’d told him. He saw Wilda’s swollen lip and cut cheek, scowled at Bebba and loomed over her till she babbled out some heathen words that didn’t calm him at all. Wilda could make out one or two words—Bebba had spent the afternoon drilling her as she ground—yet it was the “Sigdir” that seemed to affect Toki the most. His hands curled into fists and he turned away, but not before Wilda saw the look of impotent rage. He crouched down by the fire and stared into the flames for a time, but when he turned back, all the anger was gone from his face.

He gestured at Bebba until she understood and made a fuss of getting warm water and sprinkling a few dried herbs in it. She brought it over with a cloth, but Toki took them from her with a reproachful glare that made her blush and waved her away. Bebba went, reluctantly, to busy herself in the brewing room. Toki crouched in front of Wilda and dipped the cloth in the bowl.

He dabbed the damp cloth at the cut on her cheek, and she willed herself not to flinch, to stay cold and proud, a Christian among heathens. She managed it all right, until he dropped the cloth and traced his finger over the cut, so delicately she hardly felt it. She sat back, discomfort and fear stalking her thoughts. That this was one of the raiders who’d killed so many that day, that above all he was heathen, not Christian, had barbaric ways that made all the tales of devilry about them seem but child’s stories.

Only Toki wasn’t of the Devil, she knew that, she’d always known that, and the knowledge confused her. It was ridiculous, he’d only ever said three words to her, and yet he was the closest thing she had to someone she could trust. There was a quiet sort of strength to him. Not like the other men she’d known who were hard and forceful to show that strength, but it was in Toki’s eyes, the steady way he’d looked at Agnar when he’d offered to buy her. That he was here now, even though Bebba had warned him it might cost his blood to come again. Coward, Bebba said they called him, and he was anything but that.

She couldn’t see his eyes in the half-dark of the lamps, but the set of his mouth changed when she trembled, became twisted with sadness. He took his hand away and turned his head. Almost, she reached out for him. Almost. She couldn’t, not a heathen. She should pity him, yes, she should try and show him the light. But not that, not the touch she wanted to give, would have done once without a second thought, before practicality had shorn her of her heart, before piety had driven it from her. Yet part of her ached to throw all that off, to say to the Devil with the consequences, because the Devil was with her in her torment, and if God cared, why had he brought her here?

Agnar banged through the door, his placid face twisted into a fierce scowl that was still tinged with sadness. A few short, sharp words got Toki to his feet but he didn’t leave, no matter that it was plain what Agnar said to him. Instead he stood for long heartbeats, standing tall before Agnar despite the knife the older man had pulled out, Toki’s look strong and steady even in the face of that. Agnar broke first and put away the knife, muttering about something, and Toki left with a last soft smile at Wilda.

Agnar spent some time berating Bebba, his face flushed with a temper Wilda hadn’t seen on him before. Finally he slammed out of the house, leaving Wilda shaken and Bebba white and trembling.

“Now you’ve gone and done it, girl. Both of you have.”

“Done what?” Wilda tried to still her hands, which shook not just from Agnar’s anger, but from Toki and his feather-light touch.

“Agnar’s taking him to Sigdir and Bausi, and he’s livid that you two made him do that. That meeting ain’t going to end well, mark my words. They’re brothers, the three of them, didn’t I say that? When brothers come to blows over a woman it never ends well, and it’ll be Toki taking the brunt.” Bebba smiled a little. “Part of me hopes he’ll stand before Bausi like he did to old Agnar there. And part of me knows, if he does, it’ll cost him more than blood. It’ll be everything he has—blood, bone and heart.”

When Toki got outside Agnar’s, armed men were waiting for him, come to take him to Bausi, as Agnar had said. His visit had been marked, it seemed. He took a deep breath to steady his hand, and gave them no trouble; there was no trouble he could give them, halt and weaponless against their nimbleness and swords. They shoved him through the swirling snow.

“A thrall all you can manage then, Toki? Can’t even get one of them, can you?”

“Poor bastard,” the other said. “Not even Ingmar’s thrall, the one who lives with the pigs, would look at Toki twice.”

The back of Toki’s neck burned, but he set his mouth shut, to keep his words in as he always did. Maybe they were right. No woman would look at him, not even a thrall. Except Wilda, who looked at him, made him think the courage he had in his dreams was real, made him stand tall.

They reached Bausi’s hall and ducked though the doorway, shaking snow from cloaks and stamping it from boots before they went further. The hall was almost empty tonight except for Bausi in his high seat, Ragnhilda to one side. One of his men shoved Toki forward and onto his knees, needing no prompting but the blood-cursed rune in its bag on a leather thong round Bausi’s neck that sucked the will from him. Yet even on his knees, he kept his back straight and his eyes on Bausi. All the courage he could afford, but he took it.

Bausi took his time before he spoke, time to study Toki intently with a puzzled frown, cuffed him till he looked at the floor. Toki kept his hands curled into fists of impotent wishing. Agnar came in with a swish of cloak and a stomp of snowy boots. His face was hard with worry and anger. Sigdir came a pace behind with a curving sneer and it seemed that was the cue for Bausi to finally speak.

“Sigdir tells me you’ve taken a liking to one of his thralls, that you keep pestering her. That you tried to buy her from Agnar. Is this true, half-wit? Look up!”

Toki raised his eyes and wished he had not. Ragnhilda looked beautiful and spiteful, her face fair, her eyes narrowed in contempt. She’d been his once and had been as fair in her heart as she was in her face. Until Bausi persuaded her parents that she should marry him instead of his disgraced brother, and poisoned her until she was like him. Now there was nothing left of the girl who’d blushed when she saw her betrothed off on his first raid, who’d giggled at everything and saw good in everyone.

Bausi looked dread and imposing on his high seat. Always broad of shoulder, he’d filled out to his prime now, a force of nature and personality that dwarfed any other. “What makes you think you have any rights to thralls? You have rights only where I bestow them, and a nithing like you gets few indeed. You’re lucky I’m benevolent enough to give you land to feed yourself and shelter against the snow. Other jarls would not be so forgiving, and you repay my and Sigdir’s kindness with this?”

Bausi stood and descended from the dais, his hand on the hilt of his sword. Sigdir shifted to Toki’s other side. The day had come when Bausi would kill him, as Toki had always known it would come eventually. Bausi kept him alive only as long as he was no inconvenience, as long as he was amusement, as long as he stayed properly cowed. As long as he did not speak, and he’d spoken.

“What is it about this thrall, eh, little brother? Why this one? Why tell her to escape, when the snows are deep and she has nowhere to escape to? Why spend your first words in all this time on that? Why try to buy her? Come, now. We know you can speak. So, speak. Tell me why you disrespect your brother so.”

They crowded in on him, one either side, swords out now, flickering in the dim light.

“Now, that’s not—” Agnar began.

Bausi stopped him with a slashing motion of his hand. “He tried to buy this thrall from behind his brother’s back. He speaks, to her and no one else. He gives her a Mjollnir that was a gift from our father, a gift he shouldn’t be handing to just anyone, let alone a thrall. Then a fine cloak. He encourages her to escape.” Bausi’s sword came up under Toki’s chin and raised it further. “Tell me, brother. Why this thrall?”

Sweat slicked Toki’s brow as he struggled to think what to say. It had been so long since he’d had cause to, and that it should be about this… “I didn’t know she was Sigdir’s. And—and it’s been a long time and lonely.” Not a lie—a man of Odin wouldn’t lie before their jarl, no matter how twisted he might be. Yet not the whole truth. Just enough so Bausi wouldn’t guess his secret. Toki watched Ragnhilda as he spoke, thinking of the few kisses he’d stolen before his shame, and the utter lack of any kind touch since.

“And you liked the look of her, did you?” That was Sigdir, from the other side. “A thrall like that is not for the likes of you.”

Bausi threw him a questioning look and Sigdir smiled, smug as any cat.

“A surprise. But no thrall is for the likes of this nithing. What’s your ruling?”

Bausi pinched his eyebrows together in a frown, considering, and slid the blade further along Toki’s throat. Toki wondered how it would be if he stood now, if now his silence was broken and he spoke Bausi’s deeds. If he reached up and twisted Bausi as Bausi had twisted the wyrd of the fjord, twisted Sigdir and Gudrun against him. His heart thumped loudly at the wanting of it, of being able to show them, all of them, he wasn’t the coward they thought. Silence, keep still. Keep lives, not make deaths. Bear it, so they will live.

Bausi smiled as Toki turned his face away at that thought. “You keep yourself away from her, from any thrall. You have no right to own one, remember that. Keep to your hut, away from decent men and women. If Sigdir should catch you pestering her again, he’ll be within his rights to take you to task for it, as he sees fit. But, Sigdir, I’d like to see this thrall, see what it is about her that has our brother so brazen.”

“And you will. I intend her for a surprise at Winter Nights.”

Bausi kicked at Toki’s shoulder, sent him sprawling, and jerked his head at his men. “Take him home. And you, Toki, remember your place in this world. Remember that you are nothing, and you stay in that hut. For good.” He touched the rune at his throat, nestled under the silver jarl-torc, and Toki’s throat dried up.

Then Bausi’s men bundled him up and out into the snow.

Chapter Ten

Whoso findeth a wife findeth a good thing.

Proverbs 18:22

Wilda hesitated behind Agnar as they entered Sigdir’s house. Bebba had warned her of him too well and she’d seen what he was like with Myldrith on board the ship, felt the sting of his hand herself, knew too much for her to feel anything other than dread.

Sigdir got up from the bench where he was taking his night meal, waited on by three thralls including Myldrith. Agnar spoke swiftly to him, and one of the thralls gave Wilda a quick, furtive glance of alarm before Sigdir barked an order and led the men out, save one armed warrior.

When they were gone, Myldrith hurried over and threw her arms round Wilda. It hadn’t been long, but Myldrith looked like a different girl. Her face was pinched and gaunt, her eyes haunted and her skin pale and blotchy. Wilda hugged her back, glad more than she could say that she was back with someone she knew, some reference to her former life.

The other thralls gathered round, watching Wilda carefully as though afraid, or maybe resentful. Then one smiled a little and handed her a bowl of gruel. Not much, but it was hot and Wilda was famished. She took it gratefully and they all settled on the benches under the half-asleep eye of the remaining warrior laid out on a bench against the far wall.

“He always leaves at least one to guard us,” Myldrith whispered. “These girls say he’s had too many run from him before, and—and—I would run, Wilda, no matter the snow or any of it. Lord help me, I would run to the Devil himself rather than stay.”

The other girls nodded, and in the stronger light by the fire Wilda could see the purple shadows across one’s face, the marks of a hand on Myldrith’s arm. And this devil was her master. The gruel turned to ash in her mouth.

She took Myldrith’s cold hand in hers. “We’ll get away. I promise you, as soon as we can.”

“There’s no getting away in this weather. Not for months, not till spring. Only way in or out is by the fjord, they say, and it’s a long, hard row to anywhere. Besides, once anyone sees your collar, they’d bring you right back.”

The two other thralls nodded. “One girl tried it, last winter,” the younger one said. “They found her body in the thaw. Even in summer, it’s a long way to anywhere else. The pass over the mountains is hard, and Sigdir—he sends his men after them, and when they catch them it’s worse. Some of these other heathens, they aren’t so bad. We talk to the other thralls sometimes, when he lets us, and some of them, well, they get to make money to try to buy themselves out. They aren’t beaten, or anything else, or not so much, so bad. They have to work hard is all. Sigdir isn’t like that, nor that devil Bausi. But running is hard, and just as likely to get you killed, or make things worse.”

Myldrith hugged herself, looking pitifully frail. “I don’t know how he can be worse.”

Wilda had to get away. This would be her soon, she had no doubt. Thin and afraid and hopeless. Maybe she could get Myldrith away too. “I might be able to—”

The door opened with a whirl of frigid air and a flurry of snow. The warrior on the far bench sat up as Sigdir came in and sat next to him. Myldrith ran to help him with his boots.

Sigdir watched Wilda, his eyes darting over her, lingering here and there until Wilda’s flesh began to creep with it, but she didn’t flinch. He spoke, his voice deep and brutal-sounding, with a hint of smugness. The older thrall, Rowena, translated for him in a halting, stumbling voice.

“He—he says that you are a noble lady, the thane’s wife, yes?”

“I was, until he killed my husband.”

Sigdir laughed at that and clapped his hands.

“He says, yes, and he got a fine death. But that this thane, he willed his estate to his wife—oh, my lady.” Rowena’s mouth dropped open.

The sheaves of vellum that one of Sigdir’s men had gathered in the hall, while Bayen lay dead upon the floor. The making sure she was his wife before they killed him…

“He says that your husband warned him of Saxon law, that a widow can’t be made to marry for a year after her husband’s death. That’s why he brought you here, because they’ve no such law.”

“Tell him that’s true, but because he’s taken me, the lands will be given to someone else. A relative of Bayen’s, or my brother perhaps.” God would forgive her the lie, she hoped.

Rowena translated and Sigdir stood up with a snarl. Wilda did flinch this time—her face still stung from his slap, her lip was still swollen. He was a big man, a warrior who’d shown no indication that he was shy of any kind of violence and every indication that it was his first recourse in any situation.

“Then he’ll kill them too, and install you as the rightful heir,” Rowena translated when Sigdir spoke. “And as his wife. He will protect your lands from other raiders, other Norsemen. A deal, a trade to benefit you both.”

Wilda’s hands fluttered by her side and her pulse throbbed in her throat, at both the words and at the look on Sigdir’s face. He reached out with one hand to cup her chin. She jerked away from his touch, but he gripped harder until she had to face him. His smile was hard, lips pulled back against his teeth like a snarling dog.

“You’ve no choice. I intend to have land among the Saxons, good, fertile land, so my men no longer need to raid, to die. I intend it to be yours, where I will have right to it as your new husband. I intend to wed you at Winter Nights, and I will. And you’ll be a good wife, I don’t doubt. You were a good wife to your Saxon thane, you’ll be one to me. There will be little difference. You married him for position, I marry you for the same. I’ll not try you too hard, if I get the lands I want, and a son to rule them after me. I’ll even take your collar off, make you a freed woman. Not so many rights as one of us, born free as Norsemen, and still under my protection and command, but not a thrall. I tell you all this for frankness, for honesty between us as should be between husband and wife. Call it a wedding gift.”

Wilda clenched her hands behind her back and kept her voice as icy as the fjord outside, kept her fear locked away behind it. Survive. Be practical. “And yet, no marriage here would be legal there. In a church, it must be. A Christian church, before God. And that would mean you being baptised, embracing God. Or this marriage will mean nothing to the Saxons.”

Sigdir planted his hand on her shoulders and shoved her down to the bench. “Don’t speak. Do not ever speak unless I permit it. I still have men at your estates, remember. It wouldn’t take long to burn it all.” Rowena’s voice was earnest as she added her own words to Sigdir’s. “Please, my lady, you should do as he says. His temper’s a terrible thing to behold, especially when he’s been with Bausi.”

Wilda bit her lip to keep what she wanted to say back, and hated herself for it. She’d spent all her adult life biting her lip, keeping it back, being the lady everyone wanted her to be. Look where it had got her—a slave to a thug, soon to be his wife. Not now, now isn’t the time. Be practical. Wait. She stood up and smoothed her dress with demure hands, kept her eyes lowered and said nothing.

“Better, he says. Winter Nights is only days away. You have till then to learn their tongue better, and your place.” Rowena’s face was twisted with fear as she told Sigdir’s words. “Please, my lady. It could be worse. Much worse.”

Sigdir’s next words brought that home. “You will agree, or I will make use of you as I do my other thralls, with far less freedom, and no respect.”

The thought of that brought a shudder to her spine and Wilda nodded her acceptance. There seemed little else to do for now, and at the least she would be free, or freer.

Sigdir’s face lit up, lost its scowl and took on a relaxed smile that showed the tension he’d lost with her answer. The difference quite bewildered her, but Wilda managed a smile in return, keeping her puzzlement to herself.

At Sigdir’s orders, Rowena got them bundled into cloaks and outside, where the other thralls had built a fire. One of the men returned with a sheep, which he presented to Sigdir with some ceremony. Another brought ale in two cups, one each for Wilda and Sigdir. Even the smell of it was enough to make Wilda’s eyes water.

“Ale brewed from three measures,” Rowena said when Wilda asked. “I wouldn’t drink too much, my lady, but at the least it should calm Sigdir some, later.”

“And the sheep?”

Rowena talked with one of the warriors, raised her eyebrows in surprise, and translated, “A ceremony, to induct you into their law, into Sigdir’s house. You’ll not be free as a free-born woman, you’ll still have to do as he says, and behave respectfully, but you won’t be a thrall.”

One of the warriors came and, after much tugging and what sounded like cursing, took off Wilda’s collar. Sigdir placed it round the sheep’s neck, closed it, and held out a scramasax.

“What am I supposed to do now?”

“You take the sheep’s head, my lady.”

“I do what?”

Sigdir’s eyes followed them carefully as Rowena explained as best she could. “The sheep has your collar now, it’s you as slave. Now you free it—you—by killing it, and your life as a thrall. Sigdir will call for Odin and Thor, Frigg and Freya to welcome you into his house, under his protection. Once he’s done that, well, you’re one of them and he’ll fight to the death to protect you.” Rowena frowned. “It’s a big thing for him to do. Like—like baptising one of them, saying they can worship in God’s house. He’s saying in front of his gods that you are a person to him, not a thrall, beneath care or notice. That he’s responsible for you.”

Sigdir held the scramasax out to Wilda again and tried a smile. He seemed eager of a sudden, less the Devil’s child than just a man of another people, different to hers, but no better or worse. Yet her face still stung, her lip still swelled. In the end, it seemed she had little choice. At least she would be free—or freer, and there was something about Sigdir’s seriousness about this, the intent look in his eyes that made her believe he meant this for what it seemed. A gesture of trust.

The weight of the scramasax in her hand took her back to the last time she’d held one, when Einar the boy had lain in blood and agony for her. She wished he was here now. Sigdir held the sheep steady in front of her as she shut her eyes and brought the knife down. It took three hard strokes before the head fell away and the men hurried to collect it and the body, to stem the blood and prepare the sheep for roasting. It shouldn’t affect her so—she’d killed sheep before, pigs, rabbits. But not like this, not for a heathen ceremony, an affront to God.

Sigdir spoke some words—she caught the names Odin and Thor in among them—a phrase oft repeated, that made a verse of scripture come to mind. But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathens do. Yet he seemed so intent, as devout as the friars, as believing as she was, only in different gods, different practices. Blasphemous thoughts, which seemed to come with ease of late.

When the words were gone, Sigdir turned to her, solemn as a judge now. He let his gaze roam over the bruise on her face, her split lip, with something that seemed like regret and spoke through Rowena. “A matter of trust, between us. You’re now of my house, and your behaviour reflects on me. I trust that you’ll remember that, and in return know that the law now protects you. You are freed, not thrall. No man will harm you, not even me, or the law will prevail. Yet you have agreed to this marriage, and the law will uphold that too. For I will have my marriage, my land, and a son to take it after me.”

Wilda nodded to show she accepted what he’d said, and he grunted in apparent satisfaction before he jerked his head at Myldrith and made for his bed, Myldrith following meekly. Wilda and Rowena hurried inside, back into warmth and dim light. The warriors, all except one, left for a separate building where they made their beds. The one remaining came inside, stripped down to his breeches and lay down on the bench under a stack of furs. Wilda sank to a bench, her hand over her mouth. Rowena huddled next to her.

“Oh, my lady,” Rowena said. It seemed about all she was able to say for a long while. Wilda didn’t seem able to think past “his wife.” She wouldn’t, couldn’t. There would be no quiet love from this marriage, not to Sigdir. He was no God-fearing man, he wouldn’t be kind as Bayen had sometimes been. Yet she had no choice, none at all.

Finally the warrior began to snore gently and the fire died down.

“Rowena,” Wilda began. “I need to get out, I need to speak with someone. I have to go, no matter how. I can’t be married to him, I can’t. I have to run.”

Rowena sat back in alarm. “You can’t, oh, you can’t. Not even in summer, but now especially. How could you? You have to bear it, that’s all, what all women must bear. As his wife at least he must be respectful to you, at least must treat you as a person. That’s more than any Norseman need give a thrall. You have some hope, my lady.”

“No, no, I don’t, and neither does Myldrith, or you.” Wilda thought on Myldrith, at the changes in her since they’d been captured. Not just thin and frail but hopeless. That would be Wilda herself soon, if she didn’t run. Sigdir would be little different as a husband than he was as a master, she had no doubt of that no matter what he said on the law. No matter that he might be devout, he was heathen, not Christian, no mildness in him, no thought of meekness. She had agreed because she had no choice, but there was time, there was a chance, faint and frail, that she need not marry him. She would never again marry because she must.

Wilda, renn. The words echoed down the years, from the day her life had changed forever to now. All he’d ever spoken to her, all he’d wanted from her, for her to run as she always loved to run. A man who’d stood before a murderer to save her, who’d stood before Agnar and his knife earlier. He was her only hope. “If I sneak out and back, will you look out, if I’m missed? Can I do it?”

Rowena looked bewildered. “I—I think so. But if he finds out—oh, my lady, if he finds out, our lives won’t be worth living. Why would you want to sneak out? Who would help you?”

“Because I have to. Poor Myldrith in there… If I can help her, help us all, to get away, then I have to try. And I’ll be damned to hell before I let Sigdir have any right to my lands, or me. God helps those who help themselves, isn’t that true?”

Rowena nodded uncertainly. “All right. It could be done. But you’d best not be long. It’s a fearful risk. I can watch while you go. If either of them wake, well…” A blush crept up Rowena’s neck. “I can keep them from being too interested in where you are, for a time. One of the other girls snuck out once or twice. There’s a young thrall up at Agnar’s she’s sweet on.” She looked round at the warrior. He lay fast asleep, his snores a gentle counterpoint to their conversation. “Go now, while it’s still early, and be back as soon as you can. They’ll be up at dawn, mark my words, but dawn’s late coming this time of year. Go through the byre, take the door there so you won’t wake him. And may God watch over you and send us salvation.”

“God is always watching us.” Wilda touched Rowena’s shoulder in thanks. “And salvation will be ours, in the end.” Though she didn’t think she believed that anymore.

Sigdir had taken the cloak Toki had made for her, but Rowena helped her find another and she wrapped herself in it before she crept through the byre, past the warm cows picking at wisps of hay. She sneaked the door open as quietly as she could and crept out into the crisp, hard air of winter. Toki’s hut was up the valley. She’d seen him riding down from it. Right on the outskirts of the spread-out village, but she could get there and back in time. She had to.

She ran. She’d always run, everywhere, when she was a child, run for the sheer joy of feeling the sand between her toes on the beach, the rustle and swish of corn or cool, dappled grass. Now she ran because she didn’t know what else to do, because it all pressed in, enough to crush her head with it. God had cursed her for helping a heathen, for helping the boy Einar, and this was a taste of the hell he had planned for her. A slow, cold hell that would freeze her solid. Snow slipped under her feet and she staggered to one knee, but righted herself quickly.

Before she had always run to something, but now her only thought was from. Away from slavery by another name, away from the spectre in her head of her quiet, cold marriage to a good man who was only a different kind of slaver. Away from Sigdir and his icy eyes, and his plan, a different kind of marriage. Away from being good, and pious, and doing what she was told because it was sensible and practical. She wanted to run till her cold heart burst and she could fall down dead, if that was the only way.

The hut was farther than it looked, and while a path had been cleared in snow that came up to her thighs, more was falling. It seemed that snow always fell here. It had hardly stopped since she’d arrived, as though the land itself wanted her icebound.

By the time she reached Toki’s hut, she was frozen, down to her bones. Even so, she hesitated by the door, afraid now to open it. Yet she had nowhere else to turn, no one else to ask for help, and she needed help. God had sent him to her, sent Toki to save her. God had sent him that one night when her childhood was cruelly murdered, and God had sent him now, when she needed him again. It would be a sin not to take what God had sent to help her in her hour of need. She pushed the door open.

Toki sat by the low fire wrapped in an old seal-fur, wretched in his heart. He’d lost his chance to keep Wilda away from Bausi, to keep her from saying what she’d seen and speak the words that would kill him and Gudrun, and Wilda too. Yet that wasn’t the burn in his chest, or only part of it.

She was Sigdir’s, and he wanted her to be his. Not as a master and thrall, but as a man and a woman. Yet now he wouldn’t even be able to see her. That had made the time since she’d come, since fear had began to claw his belly, bearable. To sit at Agnar’s house with her there, watch her. He wanted just that, if that was all he could have. To watch her smooth movements, the tilt of her head in the firelight, the set of her mouth when she spoke. Her slow smile when she looked at him.

He thought back to the raid, to the day he could hardly bear to recall. Her little fox-face watching them, of how wild and untameable she’d looked. Yet someone had tamed her, or maybe broken her. Her movements were smooth, yes, graceful. But there was a sense of something restrained, chained up about her. He wanted to unchain her, wanted to see again the wild face, see her run across the beach, free of all the care that seemed to sit on her shoulders. There must be something he could do, some way, but he couldn’t think of it, of how to get round Bausi and Sigdir and his own chains.

A blast of frigid air made him start and Einar snorted in his stall. The door opened and a bundled-up figure came in. He pulled himself to his feet when the cloak came off, thinking he must be asleep. He must be, because it was Wilda.

She stood shaking in the doorway, her lips twisting and her eyes red with tears she hadn’t cried. He couldn’t think what to do for long moments and they stood and watched each other until Einar snorted again and brought Toki’s notice away from her.

He shut the door and pointed to the one bench, suddenly ashamed for the meanness of his hut, for the little he had and that mostly rags. She perched on one end of the bench, her hands twisting together as though she was working herself up to something. He couldn’t think why she was here, how she’d got away. Why she’d come to him.

Wilda stared at the flames of the low fire and took a deep breath before she looked up at him. Something seemed to break inside her, the smooth grace gone, the elegance forgotten. Suddenly she was there again, the girl from long ago, hiding on a beach, hair wild and face wilder. She spoke, a rough, impassioned outpouring of words he had no hope of understanding. He shook his head, trying to convey his confusion, and she leaped to her feet again and grasped at his hands, a plea for something.

She stared at him in a way that made him want to pull away, to wrap himself in a cloak and not be seen. But the touch of her hands on his—he couldn’t pull away. It had been long and long since he’d had the comfort of a touch that was kind, that wasn’t a push or a shove or a hit. Just a touch, and he’d not remembered what he’d been denied until now.

She took a deep, halting breath, gathering herself maybe. “Sigdir.”

Thor’s blood—had Sigdir…? Toki looked her over carefully, her face, her arms, but saw no further hurt, no sign Sigdir had harmed her beyond the bruise and cut he’d made before. That didn’t mean he hadn’t done any more, but Toki had no way to ask that she’d understand.

She slid her hands from his and pointed to the ring on her left hand, a plain gold band. A wedding ring. She tried to say something else, but he couldn’t make it out through her accent.

“Went necht,” it sounded like. Finally she managed to get the sounds right and he realised it was “Winter Nights.”

Toki recalled what Sigdir had said—a surprise for Winter Nights. A wedding ring. He was going to marry Wilda at Winter Nights. No negotiations to go through, no bride price to pay. But to marry a thrall—why would he, when he need not? Marriage was to ally families together, no more or less, and as Bausi’s brother and only heir as yet he could find a fine family to forge with. What had Wilda or her family got that Sigdir wanted?

Wilda tried to hide the tears that gathered, attempted a smile, and everything else fled before him. Sigdir and Gudrun were lost to Bausi and his wyrd. The whole village was lost to it, he saw it now, through Wilda’s eyes. Toki had done nothing for too long, had kept his silence and his actions to himself. Now he had to do something, or Wilda would end like all of Sigdir’s thralls—thin, dispirited, broken. That the curse would find him too if he left didn’t matter. All that mattered was Wilda.

Her fingers trembled against his and he looked down at her, at the wide-spaced eyes, the finely crafted mouth that quivered now.

“Wilda run,” she said.

If only that were possible. There was no running, not now. Not till spring, maybe not even then. He’d thought and thought and could see no way around it, not ’round the rune-curse, or Sigdir’s hold on Wilda. If she ran, he would chase her and all would come undone. Yet first was Wilda. Always first in his thoughts now.

“Please, Einar. Wilda run.”

He turned away at that. He hadn’t been Einar for a long time. He was Toki, and while he might dream of courage, might feel the burn of it in him, he couldn’t act. His courage lay only in bearing what he must, in silence. He couldn’t help her, no matter how much he wanted, needed to get her away, for both their sakes.

“Toki, I’m Toki.” Toki he’d been for too long, with not even the courage to acknowledge his own name.

Her soft hand on his cheek turned him back, seemed to burn him with kindness and comfort. Her eyes held him, her voice firm. “Einar.”

He tried to shake his head, to deny it, deny he was who she thought him, a warrior or brave. She stopped the shake with a kiss, firm and warm.

He pulled away with a start, a flush creeping up his neck. She shouldn’t. She was worth better, much better than him, or Sigdir or any man he could think of. She deserved a king, a prince, someone to keep her safe and shower her with fine things. Not him, not a man with nothing, not even the courage to kiss her back. He turned his back on her, on the way she was looking at him as if he was any kind of man, like a warrior and a man of Thor, a man of iron. She had to leave. If Sigdir found she’d been here—no, that wasn’t why. She looked at him as though she believed his dreams, the ones where he was tall and strong and brave.

She began to talk again, but he couldn’t understand her. Her hand pulled at his arm, but he ignored it, refused to meet her gaze. It wasn’t him she wanted. She wanted his help, that was what the kiss was for. And he couldn’t give it, so he wouldn’t take her kiss, or anything else she offered, wouldn’t take advantage of her need. Wouldn’t dishonour Sigdir’s future bride, no thrall at all he saw now, the collar gone from her neck, but still he could see it on her soul. He wouldn’t be like his brothers. If nothing else, he would not do that. He opened the door for her but couldn’t look her in the eye.

Wilda stared at Einar’s back. And he was Einar, not Toki, not a simpleton, not mute. It was in the way he looked at her, a shadow behind his eyes. Einar was still in there, waiting to come out.

She wasn’t sure what had possessed her to kiss him. Maybe because she saw the same things in those shadows as were in her own heart. Because who she appeared to be was not her. Something had snapped inside, so hard she would have sworn she heard it. She didn’t want to be Lady Wilda anymore, she never had. She had done everything she’d been asked, had walked with grace, had spun and sewn and woven when she would have rather been running, out on the beach, down among the orchards. She had let them hem her in, had wanted to be hemmed in maybe. She had let herself die, let herself be blown along with a cold heart, and now, now something about him was bringing her back to life.

Just in time for her to be married off to a brute. This was a fool’s errand, a false hope, that a man who refused to speak, who was treated as badly as any thrall, could help, and yet it had been her only hope, one now cruelly dashed. He couldn’t help her, she’d known that from the way his face clouded when she asked, the way he looked away as though ashamed.

That was what had made her snap—that it was hopeless, useless, that all the lessons she’d been taught in how to be a lady were for nought because she had to marry a heathen, a barbarian, had to bear his children and let him take Bayen’s lands and could do nothing to prevent it. That, and how Einar denied even his own name in favour of being called simpleton.

She didn’t know what had happened to him to make it so, only that she couldn’t bear it, couldn’t bear that the man who’d saved her life, who’d shown her kindness in a land of barbarians, whose every action seemed to her one of quiet courage, taking what everyone threw at him, was reduced to this. She didn’t even think of him as heathen anymore, he was only Einar. And she knew it was a sin, against her faith in God, but she didn’t care. If kissing him was a sin, she didn’t want to be virtuous. If no one could help her, and she knew now that no one could, then by God, she was going to make sure she had one night first.

Soon she’d be married to Sigdir, in a heathen’s bed. If she was going to bed one, she didn’t want him to be the first, because she’d found a good, kind man and she wanted him to know it. She wanted to throw away every last shackle, every last restraint, just for once, for one night. The lady they’d made her hadn’t helped, so she was going to be herself instead. Damn “practical” and “reliable.”

Snow and icy air swirled in through the doorway, and she shut the door with a bang.

“Einar, look at me.”

Still he wouldn’t, seemed only able to stare at the floor. Her hand found his again, the roughened skin prickling on her fingers like fire. The tingle of it travelled up her arm, through her chest. She knew now why she’d kissed him, not for any of those reasons. Because she wanted to, because of the way he looked at her, the thought behind his eyes, the way his touch caused such a thrill in her belly. She stood on tiptoe and kissed him again, let herself linger in it as she never had before, kissed him as she’d never kissed anyone before. Because she wanted to, because it made her heart thud and her ears ring.

He pulled away again, and her lips ached to kiss his, to kiss around the strong cheekbones, over his wide dark eyes with their shadow behind. To kiss down and round, discover the strength of him under his shirt, make his brilliant smile light up his face like sunrise on snow. Now she’d let it out, she couldn’t put it back in. But the way he stood, hunched against the blows of his life, burned her, made her want to cry bitter tears for him.

His eyes found hers, and he looked at her at last, but she didn’t see what she expected. Men lusted, she knew that, and that’s what she’d expected to see, lust or passion or something like it, not this hesitancy or the deep flush creeping up his neck as though he was embarrassed.

How long had he lived here alone? In the meanest hut, far on the edge of the village. How long had they been calling him simpleton or worse, cutting him apart from them? How long had it been since he’d been with a woman, if he’d been with one at all? That was when all was laid bare for her to see, when she remembered her wedding night and her nerves.

He seemed to gather himself then, stood up straighter and took a deep breath before he leaned down and planted a kiss of his own. It was slow at first, just a touch of lips but when she didn’t pull away, the kiss grew. His hands took hers and drew her into him, into his warmth and strength, and stars spun in her head, making her drunk with feeling. Now she knew what it was the bards sang about, why Tristan and Isolde had done what they had, why men wrote poems and sagas and women swooned over them. The bards had not lied.

He pulled her closer still until she could feel his heart beat near hers, until there was nothing left in the world but him and his kiss. Until she could take it no more. She had to go, and soon, back to Sigdir, back to the spectre of his bed, but he would not be first. Einar had saved her once before and he could again, could give her a memory of how it should be to last her through forever.

She stepped away from him, from his suddenly unsure eyes. She smiled to reassure him and undid the brooches that pinned her apron dress, taking the time to savour his amulet in her hand for a moment. All the protection he could give her, leaving him none for himself, and he’d done it without hesitation. A different kind of courage. She dropped the apron and started on the kirtle. He stepped forward with a shake of his head, but she pushed his hand away when he would stop her. Nothing would stop her.

Tonight she was going to be the woman she always wanted to be. Her boots landed carelessly behind her. The kirtle came off over her head, and she was naked before him, and she didn’t care if she was wrong, or if she’d be damned to hell. It would be worth it, because she knew now that she loved him, had known when she’d first taken his hand and felt her heart race, or before that, when a man who never spoke warned her to run, gave her the only protection he had, risked all he held dear for her. One night might be all she would ever get, and she was going to take it.

Einar stood with his back to the fire, his hands twitching by his sides. He licked his lips. “Wilda, no.”

“Wilda, yes,” she said in his tongue, one of the few words she could manage, and took a step forward. He said nothing when her hands slid under his rough homespun shirt, but she felt the way he shivered at her touch and she smiled. Soon the shirt was in a heap on top of her dress. She ran her hands over him, tangled her fingers in his hair, trailed them over warm lips, across shoulders broad enough to shelter her from anything, make her safe from anyone. Over muscles taut and strong from hard work, over the scar on his back where he’d taken a sword meant for her. Felt the quiet and gentle strength of him. Who could ever think such a man a coward?

The hesitant touch of his hands made gooseflesh prickle all over her, made her quiver as his fingers sent thrills up her back, down round into her belly and below. One hand came back to stroke at her cheek, to turn her face up to his, gentle against the bruising. She pressed into him when he kissed her, let his skin warm hers, warmer than she’d ever been, she was on fire with it. Her heart, so cold for so long, broke free of its ice.

She kissed him back, harder, hungrier, and all hesitancy fled from him and his touch. His hands were swift on her, drawing shivers and thrills behind them, over her back, along the curve of her throat and down, over her collarbone. His mouth followed, now soft butterfly kisses, now hungry, and the shivers turned to heat, down over her breasts, over a nipple where his warmth and his tongue stroked it to standing.

She pulled his head to her, pushed herself into his mouth. It had never been like this, never had she been so full of want, full of heat and need. Bayen had never kissed her so, as though he wanted to be part of her, never stroked her as though each touch could convey a depth of his heart.

They couldn’t talk, not so the other would understand, but words didn’t matter where actions did, where the softness of a touch, the hunger of a mouth, the gasp of a breath told her everything, and she hoped told him everything too.

He raised his head, but didn’t kiss her again, not yet. The back of one knuckle drifted over her cheek and she leaned into it, like a cat. His sudden, brilliant smile pierced her heart. With a tug on his hand, she pulled him to the bench, drew off his breeches and soon they joined the rest of the clothes on the floor.

She wanted to take all night, all month, all year kissing him, receiving his kiss and touch, but they had no time, and even if they had, she didn’t want to wait. She pushed him down on the bench and sat astride him, feeling wanton and abandoned. Again, his mouth was on her throat, kissing around the curve of her jaw, lips soft and tantalising. He pulled her closer, till she could feel the heat of him along her belly.

When he ran a hand along her stomach, light as feathers, when she kissed his neck and face, smoothed her hands over his strong back, when his hand delved between her legs, slid across and in, making her shudder with a want she’d never known…she wanted to savour every moment, and she wanted him to be with her, in her, now. She wanted the heat in between her legs to never stop, and she wanted it to blow away against him. She raised herself up and leaned forward, her mouth by his ear but no words to say, even if he’d have understood them.

He pressed against her thigh and she pressed back, wanting, needing, now, and nothing else existed. Only him, and her and the furs and the fire. She wasn’t a lady-become-thrall, not a Saxon, he wasn’t a heathen, or a ragged man on the edge of existence. When she slid down, when he grasped her hips and moved in return, the heat of him pierced her and they were two as one, needing and desperate. She moved against him, a long slow slide that made her moan aloud, pulling against him, helpless to the heat within, a slave to that too.

His mouth found hers, urgent, hard, and hers was frantic in return. Their rhythm picked up, in time to her racing heart, until she couldn’t tell one beat from another. He whispered against her neck, words she couldn’t know, not halting now but a fluent river, a flood of words. It wasn’t the words that entranced her, but how he said them—soft but raw, whispered but full of fervour. A last thrust and she was lost to it, to the tremor of her limbs, the heat between her thighs, the words on her throat. Lost to him.

Oh my Lord…

She cried out, unable to move, to do anything but cling to him, her face buried in his neck, pressing against him as though she could make an imprint and keep him within her forever.

Chapter Eleven

If thou fain wouldst win a woman’s love,
And gladness get from her,
Fair be thy promise and well fulfilled.

Havamal: 130

Einar pulled Wilda’s trembling body toward him, laid her head on his chest and looked down at her, at the length of her body against his. Warm, inviting, and not his to keep, not his at all. Just a gift she’d given him in return for what he couldn’t give her. He almost wished she’d not come here, not shown him this, not asked for help this way. Almost. Her eyelids fluttered and she moved closer, her arm around him, her breath on his neck, soft and not yet steady. Her heartbeat was a flutter against his chest.

He couldn’t help her, had no way, and yet he couldn’t let her go back to that, to Sigdir. Not to be married to him. There must be something, some way. He only had to gather the courage to try, and maybe now he could. Maybe he could find it, if it was for Wilda, could risk everything, even his life.

She’d saved him once before with a well-placed knife, and now she had again. A different sort of knife, a blade that pierced his heart, one that had given him back what he’d forgotten he’d lost. He’d return the favour even if he could never leave, not while Bausi still had the rune-curse on him. He would do it, for her, the best gift he could give her, let her go and find the man who deserved her, who could give her all she could wish for.

Yet for now she had to go, back to Sigdir’s. If they found her missing in the morning, here would be the first place they’d look. If Sigdir hadn’t harmed her yet, there was a hope he’d not touch her till the wedding, not dishonour his own future wife. Einar had time to find a way. He had to have time, and to use that time well.

She stirred and the feel of her skin sliding against his sent a shiver along him. He didn’t want her to go. If she had to, first he wanted to know her again, to join her and suck the soul from her, so all Sigdir would have of her was skin and bone. He kissed her back to full wakefulness, a sated look to her, a softness he’d not seen there before that pulled at him. He took a heartbeat to study it, to burn it into his mind, a memory to bring out on dark nights when he needed it, when he was alone and silent again, and he would be. This would not happen again, it could not.

Her mouth twisted down and her glance flicked to the door. “Sigdir.” She said some other words he didn’t know, but he knew her meaning. She had to get back.

She made to sit up, but his hand stopped her.

“Wilda, Toki will help you run.” A wild promise, and one he didn’t know how to keep. A bad thing he did, against what the gods taught—never promise what you can’t keep, and when you give your word, keep it like iron. He no longer cared. She’d given him too much not to give her something in return, even if it was only hope. He’d laid his worth in inaction, in silence all this time. Now was the time to show his courage in action.

“Run?”

He was decided now. He didn’t know how, but he was going to find a way, one that meant they all lived. He nodded briefly and mimed a sunrise, over the mountains to the east. It took a few attempts, but he was well-practised at signing and soon she caught his meaning. He held up two fingers. Two days. Within two days, he would find a way. They could run up the mountain, try the pass. Yet he needed time to prepare, because otherwise they would die on the path.

“Toki will help you run. Far and far.” Einar could get her to the lip of this valley, no farther, but he could get her away enough so she could run. To Harald Gulskeg King, maybe. He was old and wise, and said to be a good man. He would see, he would help. He would have skalds and netweavers and magic to call on, to help them both. Maybe, if all men weren’t become like Bausi in these last years.

Einar could save her, and that would be enough. Another small thing to say before Odin.

Her smile was fragile, as though she knew he was only trying to comfort her, but her fingers stroked through his hair, a softness that he stored with the look, for the remembrance of what a kind touch was. “Einar. No Toki. Einar.”

No, no matter what he did, he’d never be that boy again, never Einar. Never face such things with a blithe braveness, with little thought to the courage he’d once known. That she thought of him that way was a warm twist in his heart.

She dressed with swift, elegant movements, her face sharp with the beginnings of dread at what she was returning to. He couldn’t let her go, he couldn’t, but he had to. Sigdir would kill him else, maybe kill them both. He still might. Einar’s own death might be a mercy, but not hers. She had to live. But he couldn’t let her go alone.

“No.” He stood and grabbed up his knife, the heavy scramasax, closest he had to a sword. “Not to Sigdir. Stay. I’ll help you run. Now. Stay.”

Her eyebrows curved down as she tried to work out what he said.

“No Sigdir,” he tried, and at the name, at the bruise on her face, his grip tightened on the haft of the knife. He didn’t care what it took. Sigdir hadn’t been a brother for long years, and he was losing Gudrun too. He couldn’t lose Wilda, not now he’d found her. Not if he had to brave a dragon at his den.

He wasn’t sure what he’d expected her to do, but it wasn’t the quick, soft step to reach him, the gentle hand on his cheek that traced down his neck and left five lines of fire behind it, the almost invisible shake of her head.

“Myldrith.”

The word was meaningless. He took her hand and engulfed it in his own. “No Sigdir.”

Tears gathered in her eyes. They hung there like a late icicle, wet but not ready to fall. She pulled away and mimed, as he had, two sunrises. She meant to go back though he couldn’t think why, what reason she’d have to go back into the den when he’d help her, would do anything now to help her. She smiled, a soft, sad thing, at his confusion. “Myldrith,” she said again, “Myldrith and Wilda and Einar, run.”

She pulled on her boots. Determined to return. Myldrith run…hadn’t Sigdir brought another girl back with her? Agnar had mentioned a new thrall, possibly in Sigdir’s bed. Of course, Wilda would want to help her too. But it was Wilda who was in the biggest danger…

She turned away, a frown marring her face. If she stayed, then Sigdir would come. Here would be the first place he’d look, and then everything would collapse into Niflheim. He had to let her go, for now, so he could save her later, but it still felt like cowardice and he was sick of that in him.

Finally she was ready to brave the snow and wind, to brave Sigdir’s house. He wished he had the same courage. Yet she thought he did, and that was enough to give him some. Enough to do this, enough to not feel as ashamed.

Before she could go, he stood and held her and she sank against him, quivering again, but not with want this time, not because of him. Because of where she had to go. He wanted to give her what she’d given him so he held her, stroked her hair and murmured soft words that she wouldn’t understand.

Finally she stood back, her face calm again, her pose upright, eyes determined yet demure, chaste as a lady should be. Chained again, after a night of release. He gave her the only help he could and kissed her—a thanks, a declaration, a farewell.

She turned for the door and hesitated with her hand on the handle to say some words. He didn’t know what they meant, maybe thank you. Maybe she thought he only agreed to help because she’d lain with him. Maybe something else. Yet the way she said them—he wanted to chase after her, tell her to stay, they’d run, over the mountain, now, never mind the storm and wind and snow, never mind the rune-curse. But before he could catch Wilda, she was gone, lost in the dark, silent swirls of a snowy night.

He sat and watched the door till it was almost dawn, and tried not to remember her lips on his, her mouth saying his true name, or the look on her face as she left for Sigdir.

Wilda blundered down the mountainside, not seeing the snow or feeling the ice in her hair or on her cheeks. She lost her way, more than once, and only found it again by chance, by the smell of wood smoke and stumbling across the rapidly filling path. If it hadn’t been for Myldrith, for her need to help the girl, she might never have tried to. Her legs trembled when she remembered Einar, one short, brief time of warmth. Whispered words she didn’t know, the heat of him, the strength and yet gentleness of him, how she’d felt safe with him to be herself, who she really was. Released from the need to be what others thought her, released from others depending on her, for a brief, scintillating time.

She’d been wrong. One memory would not buffer what was to come, but would make it worse, make it so she knew what should be, and what would not be. What she would never have again. If not for Myldrith she would have stayed up the mountain, and hoped. But Einar would help her, she had that hope too, one to bring and share with Myldrith. He would help them escape. And then what? She didn’t care overmuch, as long as Einar was there too.

When she reached the short, thundering falls that marked the centre of the village, she knew she was close. Just below, that was Sigdir’s house. Her frozen hands fumbled with the door to the byre but she got it opened quietly enough. The warmth inside thawed her skin, but it was too late for inside her. That had thawed, too, left wide open now to hurt where it had been locked away in ice before. She had to lock it again, but she couldn’t. Even the ice of the fjord in a snowstorm couldn’t do that for her, could not freeze her heart again.

Rowena looked up from beside the fire, her face lifting when she saw Wilda’s.

“Is there a way, you found help, my lady?”

Wilda was reluctant to say, reluctant to speak to anyone. She wanted to curl in her furs, to smell Einar on her and sleep a dreamless, restful sleep as she hadn’t in too long. She wanted to dream that she was with him, and that Sigdir didn’t exist. But practicality got in the way. “I’m not a lady,” was all she managed to start.

Rowena sat her down and handed her a surreptitious bowl of the stew that was normally reserved for the masters. “It’s no shame, not here, my lady. It’s what needs to be done, if you want something. They’re pushovers for that, every one of them. I hear there was a monk who said that women were the only place they did not limit themselves, and it’s true. There is no limit to them for that. It’s expected of them even, to have many wives, mistresses, bed-slaves.”

Was that all she’d been? Had Einar been like the rest? No, she refused to believe it, but shame filled her anyway, that she had lain with Einar for herself, with not a thought to those relying on her. A thing, a sin, for herself alone. She held on to her crucifix and murmured a prayer. Hail Mary, full of grace… She would need to say a thousand to be absolved, might never manage it. Yet she didn’t regret it, not for a heartbeat. “I’m not a lady, but we may have help.”

Rowena went to say something, but Wilda shook her off and lay on a bench. She pulled a tattered fur over herself, and it smelled of him. She smelled of him. She curled into the fur and let the tears fall, here where no one could see. She was responsible for these other thralls now, too, because she was the lady. She wanted to throw it all off, throw them off. Responsible had been part of her for too long. She wanted to run, and again was trapped. His smell comforted her, wrapped around her as his arms had and made the cares disappear, at least for long enough for Wilda to fall asleep.

A rough shake on her shoulder woke her from warm dreams. The warrior set to guard them stood back with a sly look and went to the fire. Little work for him this morn, but plenty for Wilda and Myldrith and the rest.

They fed livestock, cleaned stalls, ground corn and barley, and through it all Wilda dreamt. Of a day she could run on a beach, with no care, be the girl she had been before the raid. Yet Myldrith’s face burned before her. Thin, gaunt even, with a mother-of pearl whiteness, a sheen to it. Myldrith herself said nothing, kept her head down and worked, but there was something…something.

Wilda couldn’t be selfish too long—it had been often engrained on her, that she served those who served her. What a lady would do was ask, talk, make it better. And too, Myldrith was her friend, not of long years, but they had shared things many other friends had not.

“I’m quick with his child,” Myldrith whispered when she asked. “I—I would rather die and go to hell than see it born. I’d endure anything not to see his child live to face this earth, godless. I will not have a child of mine, even his, born into slavery. I cannot. My lady.”

Myldrith’s hands quivered on the grinder, then she carried on, grinding as though the stone was Sigdir’s face and she could smooth it from her memory. Quick with his child. Looking like a beaten dog, with bruises to her arms, worse ones to her soul. That would be Wilda soon enough. Even if not, Myldrith was hers to look after. She had to leave, and only Wilda and Einar to help her.

She shouldn’t talk of it, of his sign to help her. Who knew how it might get to Sigdir, but it would. Yet she had to give Myldrith some hope. “Two days,” she whispered. “Two days is all you have to bear. I’ll get you out, away from him, I promise, as God has my soul, as the Holy Spirit consumes me, I will. I promise it on my love of God.”

Myldrith took to the grinder again, viciously, with a strength Wilda wouldn’t have thought of her. “And whose god did you worship last night, my lady, God, or the heathens’ gods? Was God with you then? Does he bless what you did, what you are? Or are you a heathen whore?”

Wilda’s hands fell from her task, from spinning wool. The yarn spun across the floor and tangled in with the straw and reeds. The skein was ruined. That didn’t matter. What mattered was—was Myldrith right? No—no she couldn’t believe her God would hate her so for one night of goodness, one night of what was right. A God of love would not. Would he? No. God helped those who help themselves, and no matter that she still thought of Einar’s skin on hers, his soft words, she was sure he was a good man among barbarians. She hadn’t asked his help just for her. She hadn’t lain with him for help, but because she wanted to, because she wanted to be free, not a lady, to be her. Because she wanted him to know he wasn’t Toki, he was Einar. Was that a sin, to do that? Yes—and no. No—and yes.

“He’s Sigdir’s brother, this Toki, did you know that?” Myldrith said. “Sigdir and Bausi’s brother, and terrible though they are, even they despise him.”

“How did—”

“It’s written plain as day on your face, my lady. You and him, they’s been talking of it all over. The way he spoke to you when he ain’t spoke to no one, how he tried to buy you. And you, you didn’t send him off either, as you should have, as lady, as a Christian, thrall or no. Made Sigdir that mad, it did, made it all the worse for us. Didn’t think of that, did you? And when he finds out what you did last night—oh, my lady, it’s going to be terrible bad for all of us, and you the worst. And you deserve it.”

Wilda shrank back from the poison in her voice. Sweet Myldrith, turned to this. “How can—”

But Myldrith wasn’t about to be quiet. Two patches of hectic red blazed on her cheeks in her otherwise pale face, a dreadful fervour on her. “Whatever your harlot ways have got him to promise you, I won’t be saved by a heathen, I won’t. He won’t save you neither. Sigdir and Bausi, they despise him, fear him a little, I think. I don’t know why, but I’ve seen it. I’ve seen it when they warned him away from you. Those two are Satan’s own children, yet they wanted to protect you from him. Their brother can only be worse. I hear tell of him, of Toki and his ways, and it fair turns my stomach. Heathens, barbarians, they is sent by the Devil to kill us, my lady, and they will. Or maybe God sent them to punish us, punish people like you who sin without thought, who lay with the Devil, willingly, wantonly. I won’t be saved by no heathen, or his harlot. I won’t!” With that last, Myldrith fled from the room in tears.

Wilda stared after her, blind with tears of her own. She shook off Rowena’s hand and scrabbled on the floor for the ruined skein. Myldrith was right, she was a harlot. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. She picked up the threads of her task and let her mind go numb with it, with the repetition. What would God rather her do? She knew the answer—she shouldn’t have gone to his bed. She shouldn’t have asked a heathen for help. But God had sent him, she was sure of it. Why else would Einar help her?

After a time, she looked up to find Rowena staring at her with a worried frown.

“What’s he done that they despise him so?” Wilda asked.

“I don’t know. I only know they say some fear turned him simple, that he didn’t have the courage he should, and it robbed him of his senses.”

“That doesn’t sound like the Devil to me, or a reason Sigdir should fear him.”

Rowena laughed under her breath. “Myldrith—Toki isn’t the only one to have his mind turned. It’s been hard for her, devilish hard, and getting his child too…you know how pregnant women can be, they latch on to the strangest things. It’s easier for her to blame you than to accept what’s happened to her. Besides, you had a choice. She didn’t. And I’m glad you made it.”

“Are you?” Wilda stared down at her hands. “I’m not sure I am. I’m not sure I can say enough Hail Marys ever to be forgiven.”

Rowena took the wool from Wilda’s twisting hands, where it had tangled beyond repair. “This too shall pass. I’ll take this and finish up. It’ll be hours before the milk curdles enough for the skyr. Go get some water from the well. It may be biting cold, but maybe some air will help, seeing God’s earth in all its beauty.”

Chapter Twelve

Oft a witching form will fetch the wise
which holds not the heart of fools.

Havamal: 93

The raven was back, perched on the roof of the spae-wife’s hut. It watched Einar avidly, head on one side, and a shiver rattled down his backbone. He stood outside the hut, just watching for a time before he screwed himself up to go in. It wasn’t that the spae-wife wasn’t held in high regard, or that her magic was frowned upon—quite the opposite. She was no seidr, no black artist as Bausi’s mother had been rumoured to be.

It was him, and the rune-curse, that held him back. Fear that she’d see it on him and somehow it would all come apart, and then he and Gudrun, even Sigdir, would be at its mercy. That had kept him from her door for eight years, kept him from going anywhere near her, made his only words for years after coming home a desperate begging that she not tend his wounds, because she would see, would know, and then all would be lost.

Now he had little choice. The curse mattered less and less, Wilda mattered more and more. There was no way to get her away that he could see. The mountain passes were choked with snow, the high pastures too frigid to hide in, even if any smoke wouldn’t have been seen from the village. If he had a boat—even something as small as a fishing creel—he might have managed it. But he didn’t, and had no way of getting one. Even if he had, it would mean leaving with Wilda and he couldn’t do that either, much as he wanted to. The curse held him here, in Bausi’s subtle net.

The raven cawed at him and flapped its wings. Bird of ill omen, or bird of portent? Odin’s bird, either way. Einar made the sign of Thor’s hammer and pushed open the door into a world as dangerous as any wyrm’s lair.

The hut was dark and thick with an odd-smelling smoke. The only light came from the doorway, the fire and the cracks around a shutter that covered the one small window against the day. The floor was covered with skins and furs so that his feet sank into it. Things fluttered from the rafters—a forest of tangled bits of feathers, bones and other nameless things that made his shoulders twitch.

The spae-wife—Geira, her name was—sat with her back to him, stirring a kettle over the fire. Steam rose from the kettle in moist, aromatic waves, making his stomach rumble. Beef.

“Aye, there’s plenty for you, Einar, I made sure of it.” Geira hadn’t turned to see who it was, or given any other indication she knew he was there, but sat and stirred. “Come on, sit down. Don’t tell me you’re not half-starved.”

Einar shut the door behind him, shut out the fjord and the snow and everything else, it seemed like. In here there was only…in here. A dark hole in time and place, where the skin between here and the Other was thin, the air thick with wyrd, with magic. The faint cawing of the raven above him was the only indication the fjord outside still existed. He took off his cloak and sat down across the fire from Geira. She’d been old when he was a boy and now was ancient. Her hands were crabbed, the knuckles and veins prominent, and her grey hair hung lankly over her shoulders. Yet in the dim light of the fire her face looked young, a striking woman in the prime of life with high cheekbones and knowing eyes.

“I knew you’d come in the end.” Geira ladled out a good bowlful of the stew and handed it to him. Her fingers were cold as ice where she touched him, somehow slippery and inhuman. “They always do.”

The feel of her fingers was forgotten, everything was forgotten in the steam of beef stew. It had been a long time since he’d had beef, or anything decent to eat. And this wasn’t just any beef stew. It was rich with herbs, thick with gravy. Einar had to force himself not to shovel it in, but instead to savour it.

“So, was it worth it? Sleeping with your brother’s betrothed, I mean.”

Einar almost choked on a lump of beef. Geira watched him keenly.

“Maybe it was, after all, Einar Sheen-mane. There’s something strange about you, about you and Sigdir and Gudrun. Something dark, though I’ve never got close enough to any of you to find out what, exactly. Something kept me away. That’s odd in itself. But then, that’s why you’re here, isn’t it?”

The stew had lost all taste. It might have been water and raw meat for all its flavour now. He swallowed, hard, and worked up the courage to speak. “I have to get Wilda away. She has to go. For all of us.”

Geira’s eyebrows pinched in a delicate frown. “For her it would be good, I don’t doubt. But why for you? Why does the Jarl’s simple-minded brother care what happens to a thrall, or rather a freed thrall under his brother’s protection?”

Einar ducked his head and stared into the bowl without seeing it.

“Hmm. Look at me.” Her icy fingers gripped his chin and raised his head. “Look at me, Einar.”

Her face wasn’t Geira’s face any more. He tried to pull away but the fingers held him in a firm grip. He couldn’t have said what it was, exactly, but there was something about the face…almost as though there were three people there. He had no choice but to look, to stare. An old crone, bent and wrinkled and grinning, a girl’s face, smooth, bright and smiling sadly. A third, a woman of middle years perhaps, regal and wise. Then they were gone, whatever they’d been, and she was only Geira again, looking too young for her years but just the spae-wife, born in the village, who’d helped most of them into the world with her herbs and magic.

Her eyes held his for a moment before she clucked impatiently and began to look him over like a horse. She pulled down his eyelids, checked his teeth and behind his ears, letting out little hmms as though she didn’t much like what she saw.

Finally she sat back, chewing on her lip and frowning deeply enough that her eyebrows almost hid her eyes. “Explains much, that does. Much. You got a black net on you, Einar. A dark and dangerous curse, and not just you, I’m reckoning. Not just you but Sigdir and Gudrun too. I seen the same shimmer on them as I seen on you, but it’s only now I can see it close, now you’ve eaten the stew to open my eyes to it, I know it for what it is. A seidr-net, rune-cut. A death-curse. But you knew that, didn’t you?”

Einar nodded and watched her warily. If it should all come undone in the wrong way…this was why he hadn’t come before. Seidr magic, Bausi’s magic, wasn’t to be trifled with, not even by spae.

Geira got up, stiff and awkward and moaning about old bones in the cold. She opened an old oak chest, dark with the smoke of years, and drew out a staff. More trinkets, like those that fluttered from the roof, were wound about its top. She stared at them with a frown, muttered a few words over them.

“Sigdir used to have a good heart, eh? A good, strong heart full of courage, like Arni. Like you. Or he did until you abandoned him, left him to the curse with only Bausi to look to. It might not be too late to save him. And little Gudrun, ah, now, her heart is just starting to twist and blacken under it.”

She shot him a look, steel-hard, that made him shiver in his boots. “You saw the Norns, the web-weavers. You’re the centre of the threads that have been cast around you all, aye, even that thrall. The Norns don’t weave their webs so lightly. There’s a reason they didn’t snip your thread short. It’s rune-cut, this curse. You can’t run from this, Einar, you can’t keep still and hope, holding all your courage in thoughtful inaction, in silence. Aye, I see that was courage, bearing the unbearable, quiet courage, Odin’s deep thinking, making the wise choice. I saw it, and so did others but they dare not say. She saw it, didn’t she? That’s what made you so rash as to betray your own brother, because she showed you what was inside all along, made you believe it. Yet now, Einar, now you need the other sort. Loud courage, Thor’s courage. Red blood and iron. You’ve got that in you too, and to spare. You must turn and fight, like a cornered bear, and with its claws. You have to find where the rune is cut, and burn it.”

Rune-cut—the rune hung round Bausi’s neck, a silent reminder to Einar of what he was bound to, what he had promised. He couldn’t. Even if he wanted to, and he did, he couldn’t get the rune. Not from Bausi’s neck. “If I can’t?” he managed.

Geira patted his hand, and the feel of her cold, slippery knots of fingers made him want to flinch, but he dared not.

“If you can’t, then you must find the right thread to pull. Pull the right one, the net will fall apart. Pull the wrong one and it will bind you ever tighter. Finish this curse, and you can help your thrall too. These are all parts of the same web. It’s up to you, Einar Sheen-mane.”

She sat down, her back to him, and began to stir the pot again. He was dismissed from her thoughts.

The grey light of the sun trying to push through thick, snow-laden clouds was still dazzling after the dark of her hut, but the wind was fresh and clean and blew away the smell of the smoke that had clogged his chest.

He’d gone for help to get Wilda away, but Geira had all but ignored that plea. The curse weighed less in his mind now than getting Wilda safe, getting her away, however he could. Yet with the curse still on him, on all of them, it wasn’t possible. Even without it, it wasn’t possible. He made his slow, halt-legged way back to his hut. Two days wasn’t long enough, two months wouldn’t be. Yet two days he’d promised, and he was a Norseman, a man of Thor in his heart. His word was iron.

Wilda broke the ice on the well and lowered the bucket. Rowena had been right. The biting cold air was fresh and had cleared her head, and the sight of God’s earth—a beauty cold and harsh and brooding, that He’d made—calmed her. He’d made the towering dark mountains that loomed above the village like sentinels, the still black water of the fjord, the silence that only a deep blanket of snow could bring. She tried not to think of anything else, of the confession she would have to make when next she saw a priest, and how she would have to confess also that she didn’t repent.

The bucket was heavy and banged against her legs as she made her way back to the house, spilling frigid water on her dress that re-froze almost immediately. Rowena was wrapping the pot so the milk could curdle into the delicacy that was Sigdir’s favourite, skyr. The house lay quiet, the men-thralls all out gathering the cattle and sheep that it was calculated could not be kept through the winter on the hay available. The strongest, and those that produced the most milk, would survive and overwinter with the people.

Bloodmonth they called it, a subdued affair. To slaughter, Rowena said, was almost an admission of failure. The more cows a man had to slaughter, the more he’d failed to provide with winter fodder. Yet the meat was welcome. Cows had been slaughtered all over the village in the last few days and the smell of smoking pervaded the whole valley. Joints lay in whey to be pickled or were salted or even, to Wilda’s disgust, buried to ferment. Today was the turn of the sheep, and their plaintive bleating as they were led to the slaughter, as though they knew what was coming, echoed round her head. A feeling all too familiar.

Wilda and Rowena bundled in cloaks and watched, waiting for the hard work ahead, the pickling and salting, the preparation of the parts that wouldn’t keep and had to be eaten soon, while some of the men prepared for curing the skins. Sharp knives for trimming, blunter ones for scraping the fat, piles of salt for the first part of the process.

Sigdir led the slaughter. First he made a sign over the heavy knife, almost a short broadsword, they called a scramasax. Then, with one hand on the sheep, the other holding the knife, he spoke, rhythmic, powerful words before the scramasax came down and blood splattered the snow.

“A, well, not a blot, not yet,” Rowena said. “But an entreaty to Odin and Freya, to make sure of fertility next year, to make sure we have enough to see us through the snows and the dearth even of summer before the next harvest. A kind of heathen prayer.”

Sigdir carefully wiped the blade clean and made the sign again over it. “Thor’s hammer,” Rowena said. “Strength, protection. But also god of the sky, of the weather that kills or keeps them, and fertility.”

No matter how strange the customs, the personifications of the gods, one look at Sigdir’s face told her how deeply he believed it, how they all did. With a curt nod to the head karl to take over, Sigdir strode away.

Rowena fussed with the skein of wool that Wilda had tangled while they waited for the meat to come. Wilda watched the men, the free karls and the thralls. The karls did the killing—it was theirs to kill, their right and duty. The thralls did the hard, dirty work, the gutting, the skinning and jointing. Theirs too would be the job of scraping the skins ready to cure.

The sun dimmed even further behind grey snow-clouds that crept down the mountainside, and the meat began to come to them from the slaughter. As she turned away to get to work, Wilda thought she saw a thin figure creep across the square, keeping to the shadows of the buildings until it reached the one opposite and slipped inside. Before she could think why it troubled her, she and Rowena were overwhelmed with lamb and mutton to cure. But it did trouble her, the more so when she realised she hadn’t seen Myldrith since that morning, and she should be here and helping. Even if Wilda quaked to face her, knowing that no matter how shrill or furious or even a touch mad she’d seemed about what Wilda had done, she was right.

Wilda kept looking toward the door as they worked, waiting for Myldrith, wanting to explain, to apologise, though she wasn’t quite sure how or why, only that Myldrith was her friend. The day grew steadily darker, and the succession of meat seemed never-ending. By the time they were done, it was near full dark and there was still no sign of Myldrith.

Wilda wasn’t the only one worried.

“She was in such a state, maybe we should try to find her,” Rowena said. “It’s not right for her to be gone so long. No doubt Sigdir will be back soon and he’ll want to know where she is. Wilda, you take the buildings here, I’ll go farther afield, in case she’s wandered off.”

Wilda pulled on her thin cloak and dashed out into the almost-dark, stopping only to pick up a rushlight. The building opposite, some sort of barn, where she’d seen the thin figure earlier was her first thought. The figure had reminded her of Myldrith, even though she’d no cause to think so then. Thin and furtive. Maybe she’d wanted time alone to think, somewhere quiet to pray and find strength. Wilda tried the door, but something blocked it. She pushed again, calling Myldrith’s name. “It’s Wilda, please, Myldrith, I’m sorry. I only wanted to get you help, to get us both away from here.” A lie to compound her sin.

The door gave way and Wilda pushed past the sheaf of hay that had blocked the door. A hay barn, stacked to the rafters with the sweet smell of dried summer. Wilda shielded the rushlight from the draft and made her way further in. A creaking sound, regular as a heartbeat, sent shivers along her spine. She shouldn’t believe in ghosts, or in premonitions. She didn’t, she was a God-fearing Christian who believed all the Bible told her. Still, a prayer couldn’t hurt and it might still her nerves. Our Father, who art in heaven…

The rushlight spluttered out and Wilda was in the dark with sweet-smelling hay and a creaking that turned her heart. Something brushed her cheek and she leapt back with a cry. A thrashing of wings and a distinctive cawing surrounded her. Damn raven. Claws dug into her shoulder as it settled there. She tried to shoo it off, but it clung tighter and cawed in her ear, almost deafening her. Her heart hammered, her fingers like ice, her head like lead. Raven, bird of portent… No. No, she wouldn’t believe in the old ways, in the superstitions.

The creaking stopped and Wilda took a moment to let her heart settle. The raven dug its claws in, and then the hay in front of Wilda seemed to explode. Myldrith’s hand connected solidly, a ringing slap that stunned Wilda.

Myldrith hit out again, this time with a rope that she clung to, and grabbed at Wilda’s dress, pulling and tearing at it like a wild beast. Wilda staggered back, arms up in a futile attempt to protect herself. All the while Myldrith was screaming “Harlot! Whore!” and other things too vile for Wilda to comprehend.

The door flew open and dark figures entered, lamps held high, away from the hay. Sigdir barged past Rowena who stared, openmouthed, and took hold of Myldrith. Wilda was surprised at how gently he held her and at his perplexed frown as he stared at the rope in her hands. When he spoke his tone was soothing, cajoling, and finally she stopped her struggles. Wilda looked up at Sigdir, prepared to hate him for what he’d done to Myldrith, who had made her this way, and saw only confused concern in his hesitant movements, the set of his brow.

Rowena spoke quickly, quietly, and the concern on Sigdir’s brow grew. He cast a few words in return and cocked his head, looking at Myldrith in an odd way, as though he’d never seen her before.

“He says he only brought her for your maid, so that you would have company. He wasn’t hard with her, that he did only what men here do, what even Saxon men do with their wives. Yet she would scream and bite, no matter how he tried not to harm her. She bit his—well—you know. Any man would lose his temper. The White Christ doesn’t give his women red blood, he says.”

Wilda bit her lip against that last and the retort that sprang to mind. At least Myldrith had some fire in her then. Yet what Sigdir said was truth enough. Any woman was slave to her father or guardian and the man she was set to marry. To be bed-slave to a heathen was little different, only that it was out of wedlock, and would God blame a slave for that?

Myldrith glared up at Wilda, her hatred undimmed it seemed, and gasped out a word, one that Wilda didn’t know but that brought a shocked gasp from Rowena.

“Skækja!”

Now Sigdir was the wild man, the Devil’s child, his eyes hard and staring. Like a man possessed, the man rumour made him once again. Wilda shrank back, pulse fluttering in her throat.

“Wilda skækja,” Myldrith repeated, her voice a hoarse croak but slick with satisfaction at Sigdir’s reaction. “Toki.”

Sigdir whirled to Wilda, and now she was badly scared. His eyes, always restless, fixed on her unwaveringly and his hand shot out to grasp her wrist, his fingers gripping too tight, squeezing the bones till she gasped. She tried to pull away and he didn’t stop her, but his eyes burned into her, scalding her, shaming her somehow even though she was the Christian and he was the heathen…

He turned abruptly, his lips set in a grim line that Wilda found cut her as deeply as Myldrith’s outrage had. Whatever his beliefs, he was as devout in them as she was in hers. He barked an order at two of his men and they bundled Wilda out of the barn, ignoring her pleas, ignoring Rowena’s attempts to intervene. They took her to the house and thrust her down on the bench, leaving her to her thoughts, her shame, and fears about what Sigdir would do now.

Chapter Thirteen

Seek never to win the wife of another,
Or long for her secret love.

Havamal: 115

Einar was ready, as ready as he could be. He’d packed what little he had and set it on Horse-Einar. The horse’s soft nose nudged at him for a treat, but he had nothing to spare so Horse-Einar had to make do with a stroke and a pat.

Einar sat by the dying fire, hoping to catch a little sleep before he left. Before dawn he would leave, they both would leave for who knew where. He dozed and strange images danced across his eyelids, of trolls and other beasts he didn’t know the names of, of the darkness beyond the village, beyond the only place he’d ever called home. Of other darkness, sent by Bausi and his seidr magic.

He knew the villages along the fjord, some little more than a cluster of houses, and they knew him. He couldn’t hope to find shelter there—all paid tribute to Bausi. Their only chance lay if he could get them out up the pass, get Wilda to the next fjord where another jarl took tribute, maybe have her find Harald King, where Einar had never been. If only he could get her out of this fjord that was home, and a weight around his heart. He could get her out, even though he must stay.

Horse-Einar stamped and shook his head with a snort, bringing Einar out of his doze. He ground the heels of his hand into his eyes, willing the fog out of his head. Two days he’d said, and tomorrow the second. It was full dark now and yet he must wait still, for the darkest time. Horse-Einar stamped again, this time with more force, his head jerking up and down. At the same time, Einar made out footsteps in the snow outside. More than one person. He went to get up, but too late.

The door banged open and Sigdir filled the space. One of the spae-wife’s threads, but was it the right one to pull?

Sigdir’s face was dark and flushed with rage and he didn’t stop but barged in, grabbed Einar by the arm and yanked him to his feet. He held them there face to face for long moments, his muscles trembling as though he held in a vast rage.

“Is it true?”

Einar almost didn’t know what to think—did Sigdir know what he was planning? How had he found out? But Sigdir’s next words made it clearer.

“Did you dishonour me with my future bride? Did she make a skækja of herself, a fool of me?”

Thor help me. Sigdir shook him, and he reached for the amulet that was no longer there.

“Speak! I know you can.”

Einar couldn’t say the truth, yet to lie…a lie was worse than what Sigdir said about Wilda. A lie was an affront to Odin. But if he didn’t lie, they would both die at Sigdir’s hand. “No. It was me. She—I—it was me, not her. She’s not shamed you.”

“You made her?”

Einar couldn’t look Sigdir in the eye, couldn’t look at the sudden hurt there, something he’d long ago thought had fled his younger brother with his casual cruelties and spite. It might not be too late for Sigdir, the spae-wife had said. Einar began to see, to hope that she was right, that he might yet bring his brother back, even if it took a lie to keep Wilda safe in the meantime. Even if it meant that Sigdir would hate him, kill him most like. “Yes.”

Sigdir’s mouth crumpled and he bit on a lip so whatever he felt wouldn’t show. He relaxed his hold, let Einar’s feet set on the floor again and wiped his mouth with the back of his clenched fist.

“You admit it?”

Einar watched him closely, the downward twist of his mouth, the tensing of his shoulders. He knew what would come, but he was left no choice. “Yes.”

The punch wasn’t the worst of it, not the first, nor the rest. Einar took them, hunched his shoulders against them without complaint, because Sigdir was right and he had dishonoured his own brother, had known he was doing it at the time, and had done it anyway. Had he done it just to spite his own brother? To pay back years of taunts? Not just that, but it had been there, in the back of his head all the same.

No, the worst was the look in Sigdir’s eye, the knowledge that the spae-wife was right and Bausi hadn’t completely hardened Sigdir, not yet. But Einar might have, with a betrayal that he’d not known would grieve his brother so.

Wilda couldn’t sleep. She lay shivering under the blankets on the bench, her open eyes blind to the fire in front of her. What had driven Myldrith so far? Wilda knew why. Not because she’d been made to lie in a man’s bed. As a woman, she would have faced the same in any marriage, and she knew it. Maybe because she’d been denied the solace of a wedding and the social standing it would have given her. Even that—Wilda wasn’t sure that would have driven her to it, or even that Sigdir wasn’t a Christian, that she lay with a heathen. No, it was the child that had been the tipping point, Wilda was sure. A soul brought into slavery, not to be baptised, to be left adrift without the comfort of heaven to look to. That, and the bruises on poor Myldrith’s wrists.

It wasn’t just a cold bed Wilda had to look forward to—she was well used to that—but a harsh one too. She’d heard of similar among Saxon women, talked of in whispers. But then, a Saxon wife had her protection under law, could leave her husband and claim half her lands. There was no such protection here, not for thralls, maybe not for wives either. Myldrith had seen no way out, that was the truth, and Wilda was staring at the same fate. That would be her soon enough, beaten, ground down with it, with Sigdir.

Wilda shut her eyes and prayed, a blasphemous prayer. Please, Lord, in Your mercy, send me Einar. Help me set myself free of these heathens, by a heathen’s hand. Yet in her heart of hearts she knew. It wasn’t just that she wanted him to help her. She wanted him, and that was the blasphemy. There weren’t enough Hail Marys in the world for that, but she said them silently in her head anyway, her hand clasped round her crucifix. Yet the other hand held the amulet Einar had given her, a heathen charm that was warm in her hand.

People came and went, carefully avoiding her corner. Myldrith was too weak to protest much when Rowena led her to Sigdir’s room, but she had the strength to cast a sly, vicious glance at Wilda. Once she had fussed over Myldrith and made sure she slept, Rowena made her way to Wilda. She sat down at the end of the bench but seemed hesitant to say anything.

In the end, Wilda blurted out the question most on her mind. “Is it true, about him not trying her hard?”

“I can’t say for her, but with me, no, he never tried me hard, or not to start. He wasn’t rough, or no more than others have been, just expectant. Only—only sometimes he’s…” Rowena shook her head, looking confused. “Two men he is. One is just a heathen, with odd ways maybe but not a bad man. They have their qualities, and one of those is the keeping of their honour as they see it. We’re thralls, yes, but not much worse here than a slave in a Saxon hall. I’ve known both, and there’s not much difference. Yet at other times, Sigdir’s the man that rumour makes him, like he’s possessed by some evil spirit, by the Devil. Those are the days when you keep from his path, whether thrall or karl, man or woman. The days he spends with Bausi, those are the days to watch for, when his temper stretches and his demands become those of the Devil. He will see Bausi on this matter, to be sure.”

“What was it she called me?” Wilda could guess the gist, just from the fact Myldrith had said Toki’s name after, but she needed to know.

Rowena blushed. “A whore, or their word for it. She said you whored yourself to Toki.”

Wilda shut her eyes and said another Hail Mary. “What will Sigdir do?”

“It depends. If you went willing, you’ve dishonoured Sigdir. Oh, if Toki took you by force, then that’s no dishonour for you, or even if he seduced you, that’s one thing of a difference here. But if you went willing…”

She had, oh Lord, she’d been more than willing. “What will Sigdir do?”

“Kill him, most like. A blood price.”

Dawn was a long time coming, and Wilda couldn’t sleep. Finally, as the sky grew pale, she set to work, anything to take her mind from what Sigdir was doing, what she had done. Killed a man with herself, and not just any man.

She went out into the frigid cold of a Norse winter dawn. The sky was pearl-white, the just-broaching sun seeming rimed with frost. Snow crackled under her boots, and her breath puffed out into little clouds that turned to prickly ice-drops in a moment. The well was frozen over, again. She dropped the bucket in to break the skin and when she’d managed it, concentrated on getting it full and pulling it up. The cold bit through the rough wrappings on her hands, and her fingers were long since numb so she fumbled the rope.

A commotion across the yard disturbed the blessed silence. Four horsemen rode in, Sigdir at the head. Something was tied to his saddle, a long line of rope half-dragging in the snow behind him, and what was at the end was dripping blood.

Einar raised his head briefly, his beard tangled with blood from his nose, his cheek misshapen and purple. A yank on the rope that bound his hands and tied him to Sigdir’s horse brought him back to his knees. He looked up again and saw her watching. She began to run, her mouth already open to shout her reproof, to demand that he be let go as though she still had any authority. His fingers, blue-purple with cold, raised to his lips, a brief touch. Silence. Then he turned his head away, as though shamed that she should see him so.

Sigdir slid from his horse and strode toward her, his face hard and eyes glittering. He called for Rowena so that Wilda could understand him, and waited impatiently for the house to rouse. “A gift for my betrothed. The one who’s dishonoured you will not go unpunished.”

“I don’t understand.” Wilda couldn’t take her eyes from Einar, from where the warriors manhandled him into the building where the overwintering sows were kept.

“Toki’s confessed that he took you against your will, that he’s dishonoured his brother. Yet it’s no dishonour to you. It’s their way, my lady. You’re a freed woman now. Not a thrall, though you still got to do what Sigdir tells you. But free born and freed women…if a man rapes or seduces them, then it ain’t the woman’s fault. It’s the man who’s dishonoured her, and her house. Especially if she’s unwed, that’s a bad crime, to them. You ain’t got no house but Sigdir’s, you’re part of his house now, and he’ll defend your honour to the death if he needs to.”

The warriors came out of the pig barn, laughing crudely at something. Wilda looked up at Sigdir, at the flame-red hair, the harsh face that was softened now by something she couldn’t name.

“What’s he going to do to Ei—Toki?”

Sigdir frowned when Rowena translated the question, as though he wasn’t sure why she should ask it. “My own brother’s dishonoured me for the last time. More, he’s dishonoured you, my betrothed. I must claim for that dishonour, the dishonour to my whole house. A blood price. A killing.”

Einar struggled to get up, but balance was hard to find when one leg didn’t bend properly and your hands were tied in front of you. Finally he managed to get to a sitting position. That would have to do. It wasn’t as though he could go anywhere if he made it to his feet.

The pig barn stank, and it was all over him, their muck stinging where the skin had been taken off his cheek, and his wrists where the rope bit in cruelly, the knots pulled as tight as could be. It would take a knife to get the rope off, a knife he didn’t have. The other end of the tether was up far beyond his reach, tied to a rafter. He got his leg into a more comfortable position and waited. There was nothing else to do.

How Sigdir had known he couldn’t fathom. Surely Wilda wouldn’t have told him. So now all Einar’s choices had fled, leaving him this. Waiting for Sigdir to extract his price. Einar had nothing to give, no money, no real property to buy his pardon. And Sigdir hadn’t looked like a man willing to accept that in any case. No, this would be a blood price.

One of the pigs snuffled at the blood on his face and he shoved it away. The door opened and Sigdir came in, his face screwed up in disgust and anger. He stood over Einar and looked him up and down, making no attempt to hide his sneer.

“So, what did you do? Slip some of the spae-wife’s herbs to her? I can’t think a simpleton cripple such as you could overpower her. She need only run at a trot and you couldn’t catch her. And why, brother, why did you? You knew it would shame me, dishonour me. Is that why you did it? Your cowardly way of angering me?”

Einar turned his head away and kept silent. Silence was always best, he should have remembered that at the beginning, when he’d known Wilda for who she was. Silence was safety, silence was life.

Sigdir grabbed him by the hair and pulled him to standing. There was no turning away, not from the eyes that burned like ice and the hurt behind them.

“Tell me.”

Einar looked into his face, one so like Arni’s and their father’s except it was warped with hate and anger till all Einar could see was Bausi there. Bausi twisting Sigdir’s heart and mind, and Einar had done nothing to stop it, because he didn’t have any way to thwart his jarl or the curse he’d laid on.

Sigdir threw him down in disgust, and Einar landed with a jolt and a grunt of pain on his bad knee.

“Why was it that Arni died, and not you, eh? If he’d have lived—” Sigdir broke off with a pained look, and Einar remembered how much Sigdir had idolised Arni when they were boys, almost as much as Einar had. He’d seemed like a god to them, like Thor made into flesh, and in their eyes he could do no wrong. Yet a god that could die a meaningless, empty death on the end of his brother’s spear.

Sigdir paced, his hand stroking the hilt of his sword as though he debated using it, but the hatred seemed to have disappeared, fading away into a childlike bewilderment. Finally he stopped and looked down at Einar. “How was it that you could let him die? Not even summon the courage to try to help him, but run like a woman, and a milk-blooded woman at that?”

Einar couldn’t answer. Every day he wished Arni had lived. Every day he wondered why Arni had died, and he had not. What fate the Norns had woven for him. Instead of answering, he did what he always did and turned his face away.

“It wasn’t just one brother I lost that day,” Sigdir said to his back. “I lost Einar, not because he died or was a coward or even became simple, because I don’t think I ever believed that. I lost him because he abandoned me, even when he never left, and I hate him for it.”

Einar shut his eyes and wished he could shut his ears too.

“And worse, now that brother dishonours me, my house, our house, in the worst way possible. I—I only have Bausi to look to, and I know, I know what he’s like, that what he says isn’t always the right thing. But a haze comes over me, a black mist on my mind, and I can’t think but to do as he’s taught me. Arni shrinks of shame in Valholl, I don’t doubt, at some of the things Bausi teaches me. But I know no else, no other way. Because you abandoned me to him. So, Einar, tell me, why did you take her—and dishonour me?”

Einar forced himself to look at Sigdir, to see the youth and bafflement under the mask of hate, but he couldn’t bring himself to speak. What could he say, what reason could he give? None, because he had no excuse. No reason except for a kind word, a soft touch, a single brief warmth in the frozen waste of his life.

“She was going to be my way out, away from Bausi.” Sigdir’s face crumpled in a frown. “The raids go well enough, we’re strong and become stronger. Other jarls become richer because they don’t raid, they settle. Yet Bausi likes to raid, to pillage and plunder for the pleasure it gives him. So I took her, killed her thane husband and took her. They had no children, no obvious heirs. His estate was willed to her, but under their law she couldn’t marry yet, not for a year after his death. So I brought her here. When we marry, those lands come under me. I planned to settle there, with some of my men. They’re farmers, herdsmen, woodsmen, and they too weary of raiding. I thought to get out from Bausi, to appease him by making tribute.

“Only now, now I must take a blood price from you. That saddens part of me, that I should have to do that to my brother, who I once loved. But the other, stronger part of me is glad that I can lay my hate of you to rest, because the brother I loved never came back from his first raid, though he lived. The brother I loved would never have abandoned me to such a man as Bausi, knowing I had no way to escape him, as my jarl and protector. So I will take my price, then I can marry this Wilda, and be gone with a clear heart.”

Einar watched Sigdir’s back as he made for the door. Pull the right thread, but which was it? Sigdir—it must be Sigdir, but Einar had little hope now, no hope of lifting this curse, except that it would die with him, and maybe that would be enough. There was still one thing left to do though, one faint chance for Wilda.

“Sigdir.” Einar’s whisper stopped his brother with his hand on the door. “Sigdir, I didn’t abandon you. I did what I had to, bore every word and taunt, to protect you and Gudrun. Because we’re cursed, all of us, and that’s all I can say. Silence was my only defence, our only defence.”

Sigdir looked back over his shoulder, a suspicious frown darkening his forehead. “Cursed? Why?”

“Because I didn’t die.”

Sigdir’s frown deepened and he opened his mouth to speak, but Einar cut him off.

“Keep her away from Bausi. Please, Sigdir. This coward, for I am that, this coward begs. Keep her from Bausi.”

“You think I’d let him near her? Why do you think I keep her hidden? Because he’d take her and her lands, in a heartbeat, and I’m not the heartless man you think I am.” He stepped through the door before Einar could say any more, and the door banged shut, leaving Einar in pig-strewn darkness.

It wasn’t enough. Bausi would see her at the wedding, and worse, she would see him, she would know him, Bausi would kill her, and there was nothing he could do now to prevent it.

Chapter Fourteen

And when you stand praying, if you hold anything against anyone, forgive him, so that your Father in heaven may forgive you your sins.

Mark 11:25

Wilda couldn’t breathe for fear as they waited. Yet there was no sound of fighting, of a sword drawn, no screams or cries, only a dread silence that was worse. When Sigdir came out of the pig barn his face was turned in, a hint of sadness behind the hate, but his hands were free of blood, and Wilda could breathe again.

Sigdir stamped into the longhouse and all scurried out of his way, warriors, karls and thralls alike. Only Wilda couldn’t move, had to stay there and stand to him, brazen and afraid. Afraid too of what would happen if she didn’t. It was all she could do for Einar, and it was nothing.

Sigdir eyed her, his brow darkening as she stood and faced him when all others hunched out of his way. He waved a hand, barked an order at her, but she didn’t move. At Sigdir’s impatient signal, Rowena crept out from where she hid by the byre door.

“He asks what it is that you want, why you stand there defiant before him like a lady of the house already. A freed woman must still listen to her former master. Wilda, now’s not the time, not when he’s like this.”

Wilda set her shoulders and tried not to think of running, out through the snow, up the mountain, as far and as fast as she could with the knife-wind in her hair and lungs. She couldn’t run, not now, not with Einar there with the pigs, waiting to pay the price for her folly. “Now is the time, it must be now. Tell him, he’s not had to pay a bride price for me, for what this marriage will give him. He stands to gain much, and I lose much. I ask a price, a bride price, a small one. That’s the custom here as well, isn’t it?”

“Yes, but—”

“Then he should honour it, if he has any honour.”

Rowena cringed as she relayed Wilda’s words, and it seemed she was right to. Sigdir’s face twisted into a hook-mouthed sneer and he stepped forward to loom over Wilda. It took all her nerve not to flinch, not to make a break for the door and run, anywhere, anyhow, just away, run until her heart burst on the mountain. Sigdir’s eyes held hers, their restlessness gone, still now, bright, hard. The Devil’s child.

When his words came, they were little more than a whisper, but all the more menacing for that, and for the breath of them over her cheek from his nearness.

“He—he asks if you question his devotion to Odin.”

Wilda managed to shake her head without the tremor travelling through the rest of her.

“Then what is your price?”

His eyes were too blue, too cold—like the glacier ice at the head of the fjord, glimpsed only briefly when the clouds deigned to lift.

“Free Myldrith, let her have the child in Christian lands, baptised. And don’t kill him. Not for me, not for my honour, for I have none. Tell him that Christ forbids it, that my faith bids me to speak for him, for his life. I must forgive.” Though she had nothing to forgive poor Einar for, and everything to thank him for. Yet Sigdir mustn’t know that, and this was all she had.

Sigdir took a step back at that, clearly puzzled. Yet the anger, the hate still bubbled through, apparent in the set of his shoulders, the timbre of his voice. “Your Christ is weak, with milk for blood, thinking everything worth doing is a sin. That’s why they call him the White Christ, the coward god, no match for red-blooded Red Thor. It seems you have a hard, cruel master as well as cowardly one. My brother forced himself upon you, and you wouldn’t take vengeance for that?”

Not even if he had. “No. Christ bids me to forgive, seventy-seven times if I must. Fine him in the Saxon way, the Christian way, if you have to. I’ll not have his blood on your hands and my soul. Not if you wish to marry me and take my lands.”

Sigdir’s brows drew down and his eyelids hooded, guarding his feelings. Finally he jerked his head in agreement. “Myldrith may go if that will please you, if that is your price. I brought her only as company for you, as a comfort. Come spring, I will take her back myself, and in the meantime she may live up at Agnar’s. I will not trouble her again. As for Toki—if he’ll be the hostage to your good behaviour, then I’ll take thought on it, and counsel. Bausi must be told, at the least. Yet if truth is told, it’s not just this that brings his neck into my hands. Not just this. I’ll think on it.”

And Wilda had to be content with that.

Einar had lost all feeling in his hands from the rope that twisted round his wrists. His bad leg had begun to seize from the cold packed-earth of the floor seeping into the mangled knee joint. He tried to move, to loosen it, but the numbness of his hands and having them tied made balance difficult. Worse was wondering what Sigdir was doing, who he was telling, what he was planning.

When the door banged open again and Sigdir strode in, his face dark as black ice, it was almost a relief. Sigdir yanked him up by the hair but steadied him when his leg failed and he would fall. Sigdir’s sword stayed in its carved wooden sheath, peace ties still intact. The blood price would not come yet. Not yet.

Sigdir looked him up and down, eyeing him critically. “She’s a strange woman, all these Christ followers are strange. All is sin, everything a man wants to do, everything a true man knows is right, is a sin. Forgive those who wrong you, where’s the glory in that? She asked that I not kill you, as her bride price.”

Einar shut his eyes. Strange her beliefs might be, but she’d come to see what was important to them, to the Norse, and use it well.

“Will you pay it?” was all he could ask when he opened his eyes again.

Sigdir got him standing upright before he cut the rope where it was tied to a beam and pushed him to the door. “It’s her right to ask it, to name her price. But for this—for this I must talk to my jarl. And so must you.”

A yank on his hair made sure Einar followed, though it was hardly necessary. Sigdir pushed him ahead, made him walk at the point of his now-drawn sword, like a condemned man going to the death that should have been his anyway.

They passed karls and bondsmen who looked at him with sneers and derision, past thralls who saw him as little better than themselves. His face throbbed and not just with the swelling. He stumbled across the snow, out of the shelter of Sigdir’s holding and onto the path that led to Bausi, to his jarl and chief tormentor.

By the time they came to the point of the path below the feasting hall that also served as Bausi’s home, most everyone in the village had turned out to watch. Women whispered behind hands, men openly debated what had brought the simpleton Toki to this. Word soon got round, it seemed, because Wilda was mentioned, words said about her that burned him to hear, that would have made him lay about with fists and feet if he hadn’t been tied, even if he had no sword to bite the words from their mouths.

Silence is best, silence is your friend, has kept you and Gudrun and Sigdir alive this long. Keep silent. He held on to that, to the only thing that had kept him alive so long. He missed the silence of his days in the high meadows on the mountain, before Wilda had come, when the only noises were the snorts of Horse-Einar, the snuffle of the pig and the call of the hawk. The homely quiet of his little hut, with little but a mean fire to break it. The silent days when all he’d wanted was company.

A simple thing to want, an easy thing, not this Norn-weave that left him wanting everything with no hope of getting it. And yet—and yet he couldn’t regret her coming, even if it cost him everything. He could never regret one night of soft comfort and warmth that had, briefly, made him remember what he’d once been, and still was in his head. A warrior, a man of Thor. To everyone else he was a simple coward, and had the ties on his wrists to prove it, for any man would have fought back, would have kicked and bitten and stabbed with the good sword he’d earned, not have stood silent while they tied him.

He wanted to shout it all out, say all the words through his rusted throat, see what they thought of their beloved jarl when they knew what he was, but he couldn’t. Not even when Sigdir had a sword at his back, because Einar saw a hope there. That Sigdir’s heart was still strong, that he still might see.

The point of Sigdir’s sword kept him on his path, even if it was kept well back. Three brothers, and the watchers whispered about that too, of the sagas, of Gunnar and his brothers and how that had ended.

The feasting hall loomed above them, just by the falls, short and fierce here, thundering their spray over everything, turning all soon to slick ice. Einar slipped and fell to his knees without the balance of his arms, dragging a grunt of pain whether he wished it or not. The knee wouldn’t straighten when he tried to stand, too hard used this last day. He had to hobble like an old man, more shame upon his shoulders. More by-names to add to the ones he already owned. Wry-foot, nithing.

“Wait,” Sigdir said. “Let’s not foul our jarl’s hall with your pig-stink.”

He prodded Einar toward the falls, to the ledge that jutted out under the thunder of the water. Another prod, and Einar screwed himself to go, to stand under the blast of frigid water, to ignore the laughter above as the force of it almost took him from his feet and he had to grab a rock to keep from falling into the thrashing foam below.

The wall of water slammed into him, the cold of it stole his breath, the smack of it numbed his skin, left him dripping and quaking like a new lamb when Sigdir yanked him out again. Water froze on his shirt, clanked in his beard as his breath shivered in and out.

The door to the feasting hall loomed above them, all carved in likeness of the World Tree, with Ratatoskr the squirrel running up one side, carrying his messages from the creatures that lived there. Dvalinn the deer nibbled on the leaves in wooden splendour, Nidhogg chewed on the roots. Between all the carvings, standing like Odin himself before he gave up an eye for wisdom, no doubt forewarned, stood Bausi.

Sigdir prodded Einar on up the hill, away from the roar of the falls and the eyes of the villagers. Bausi watched him, silent, eyes guarded under his heavy black hair, neatly braided now, tamed for his own wedding tomorrow, for his bride’s arrival today. The distraction Einar had hoped to use, when Bausi’s eyes and thoughts were fixed firmly on what he was about to gain. Now his eyes narrowed in calculation, in disgust.

“Why are you bringing me this nithing again, Sigdir?” He cast his gaze over the watchers and stood aside to let Sigdir and Einar past.

Sigdir didn’t answer but pushed Einar through the door and into the hall. The warmth from the fire pit was a blessing and a curse as numb fingers came alive again, and made him clench his hands and mouth to keep the moan inside. Thralls and free women bustled around lighting soapstone lamps, sweetening the air with fresh herbs, making everything glisten as though it were new. Getting ready for a new bride, a new dawn for Raven’s Home Fjord, when its jarl married close to the kingship of Sogn. More power for the already powerful. The only sourness was Bausi’s glance at Einar, and Ragnhilda’s pinched-in face that was a bitter extra twist to Einar’s heart.

Bausi cleared the hall with a harsh word and a harsher look and took his place on the high seat, set between carved pillars. He leaned forward, making his hair fall over his face, black as crows’ wings and as secretive. One hand crept inside his tunic, under the jarl-torc and reaching for the little leather pouch that held the curse, that hid it from other eyes so only he and Einar knew of it.

“Found your tongue properly now, I hear, talking many words. Be careful how you wag that tongue, before you lose it.”

The leather pouch dangled in Bausi’s fingers, loomed large in Einar’s head and he looked to the floor, head bowed against it. Hold all your courage in thoughtful inaction, in silence. Geira’s voice echoed round his head. Odin’s deep thinking, making the wise choice. Now you need the other sort, loud courage, Thor’s courage. Red blood and iron. He raised his head and stared Bausi full in the eye. In his head, his arm was strong and held good steel, and Bausi fell back before him. In his head, Bausi was no longer jarl but dishonoured. In his head, in his heart, he was not the coward they made him. He was Thor’s man, but yet must bide his time, deep think it, as wise as Odin.

“So, Sigdir, tell me, why do you bring this nithing? I gave you leave to deal with him as you saw fit if he bothered you or that thrall again.”

Sigdir hesitated and cast a nervous glance at Einar before he spoke. What did Sigdir have to be nervous about? “No thrall now. I freed her.”

“Freed her?” Bausi sat back, brows knit together in puzzlement, eyes suddenly sharp as arrows and twice as dangerous. “Why do that?”

Still Sigdir hesitated, cast a quick, furtive glance at Einar before the words came out, halting as though dragged unwilling. “A gift for my jarl, and for myself. She has lands, many acres. I thought to marry her and take them, take some men and settle there, a new longhouse to raid from, closer to the people we raid. Send you tribute.” Sigdir shifted uneasily under Bausi’s look. As well he might. “Only our brother here dishonoured her, and me, took my bride into his bed, took her against her will.”

Bausi snorted, apparently disbelieving but a quick look at Sigdir’s earnest face sobered him quick enough. “So why isn’t he dead already?”

“Because she’s asked for a bride price. She’s a freed woman, she’s within her rights to ask, demand a price. The White Christ bids her to forgive him, she says, and she won’t have his blood on her, or on my hands. I came for your counsel.”

Bausi stroked a hand down his beard thoughtfully. “I’d say you freed her too soon. She sounds a sleekit one, but these Christ followers are peculiar. So this is the surprise, this thrall with many lands? And you thought to marry her yourself?” One eyebrow arched.

Sigdir stood back a pace and licked dry lips at the hint of a threat in Bausi’s low words. Einar wasn’t sure what game Sigdir thought he was playing, but he knew, none better, that to interfere with any plan of Bausi’s was disaster, and it was clear Bausi wasn’t pleased.

Sigdir spoke quickly, quietly, his stance defensive as though he readied for a fight. Shoulders tense, hand tight on sword hilt, legs planted just so for balance, ready to lunge forward or dance back from attack. “You’ve wives already, another arriving today, bringing us closer to the king. You can’t leave to take over the running of this Saxon land. You’re a jarl, a warrior, your strong hand is needed here. I can be your right hand over there, raid from that strong place. No wind and water to drown men when they bring the spoils, but good earth under their feet and spears. Maybe get more lands, more cattle, slaves. More everything, for us both.” He stopped his flow of words and waited.

No fool, Sigdir, then. He knew how to play Bausi, what to offer, when to push, when to stop and wait. It might not be too late for Sigdir. And maybe it wasn’t, but it was too late for Einar, by Bausi’s answer.

Finally Bausi smiled his twisted smile. “So you have a great prize and you let a nithing like him at it? Makes me wonder who out of the two of you is the simpleton. But your plan, yes, I’ll think on that. Yet first, what to do with this wretch. A thorny problem, one even Odin the wise might balk at. You have to honour the price, but he mustn’t go unpunished for what he’s done. A thorny problem indeed, but I have the answer.”

He turned cold, dark eyes on Einar, who shrivelled under that gaze. Einar had ever known that if he became a hindrance, any trouble, he’d be dead. Trouble enough he’d caused and too late now to change it, too late to help Wilda. His courage was sucked away by the ice in Bausi’s eyes, by the remembrance of what he’d said on the return from the raid. An accident is an easy thing to arrange.

“Einvigi,” Bausi said with a lift of his lip that might be amusement. “Let Ullr decide. Don’t ask your little thrall, tell her that’s what will be. She can be in a collar again soon enough, and then the question of bride price flies away. But in deference to her request, the blood will not be on her new husband, but on her new brother-in-law. On me.”

Sigdir’s shoulders relaxed and he subtly moved stance. No longer looking for Bausi to attack. When had little Sigdir, all scabbed knees and tangled hair, become such a warrior? Yet his answer—Sigdir’s eyebrows pinched down and his eyes began the restless roving that meant he was deep thinking. Questioning Bausi’s answer, Einar hoped, seeing that a threat to thrall her again wasn’t the right way.

Worse for Einar. Einvigi, a duel. Brother against brother, for blood in front of the god Ullr to decide who had the right of it. Einar, with a wry-leg and not having picked up a weapon other than his scramasax for eight years, against Bausi, who’d been on many raids, killed many men. Who’d bested him before, would have killed him with ease if not for Wilda. As good as a blood price, because it would see Einar dead.

Sigdir’s eyes flicked Einar’s way and he saw the worry there, the fret that all was not as it seemed, but he nodded to Bausi, accepting what he said.

“After the weddings.” Bausi’s grin twisted further as he stared at Einar. “The blood can add to the sacrifice, a morning gift for my bride. Now, leave him here with me. I want to keep him under my watchful eye.”

He leaned down from his high seat and held out his hand for the rope that bound Einar. Sigdir handed it over with a dark, complicated look Einar couldn’t fathom and Bausi yanked him close, making him stumble.

“Sigdir.” Einar’s voice was hoarse, barely loud enough for him to hear, but Sigdir turned. He looked different somehow, but Einar couldn’t see how or where he’d changed. Only that he need say no more, Sigdir knew what he was going to say, from the short nod, the pitying look. That maybe he’d pulled the right thread.

Sigdir left and Bausi yanked again on the rope, pulling Einar to the foot of the high seat before he tied the rope tight to a pillar, leaving Einar barely any slack to move. Bear this, the quiet courage. Bear it, and Sigdir will live, will see Bausi for what he is in time. Wilda will live.

“Talking quite freely now, aren’t you? Be careful of it, little brother. Be very careful. Sigdir is grown, but he’s mine now, twisted in with all I’ve done and he’s done for me. And young Gudrun, ah, well, soon enough it will be time to find a husband for her. And I’m sure you want a good match for her, rather than someone like Rurik, fat and old and ugly, or Orm, who barely has a pot to piss in. Or someone like me.”

Bausi’s eyes creased at the corners, a true smile from him for once as he thought on this. “Like me, and who will do to her what I did to your Ragnhilda. Dry her up, wear her out, grind her down. Because she was yours, because she only gives me daughters, because after a time she couldn’t bear me near her but pride wouldn’t let her ask the godis for a breaking of our marriage. Because she blamed it all upon you, for not being the man she wanted. She thought she was getting the better deal, no longer to marry a third son but a jarl. I only married her so as not to lose the bride price, but ah, she was greedy and she’s paid for it. So be careful with all these new words, Toki. You’re still the madman simpleton, still the nithing, and one wrong word from you…”

The curse dangled out of Bausi’s kirtle, taunting Einar with its existence, with its nearness. If his hands weren’t tied, if he had the courage of Thor he was born with, he could end it all, now. Grab the little flake of wood that ruled his life and throw it on the fire. Without the curse he could let free all the words that had built up inside him over the years, lodging in his heart, choking in his throat. Words that would condemn Bausi, and he could not say. A rune he could not take, for the deaths it would cause, his and others. His courage was to stand and bear the unbearable, to watch Bausi twist the wyrd of the whole fjord and be helpless to stop it.

“I said nothing of it, to anyone.”

Bausi cuffed him round the head. “I know that! Maybe you really have gone simple. But keep holding that tongue, keep holding it for Sigdir and Gudrun. Face your wyrd, keep silent and all will be well for them. Until the einvigi, when the price will finally be paid, that I should have had from you years since. You’ve given me the perfect opportunity to get you as dead as you should have been then, and finishing that wyrd will give me much pleasure.”

Chapter Fifteen

The hasty tongue sings its own mishap
if it be not bridled in.

Havamal: 29

Rowena came into the longhouse, rubbing her fingers to get the warmth back in.

“Is he back yet?” Wilda couldn’t settle to anything but kept jumping from one task to another, from preparing the day meal ready for Sigdir’s return to combing wool to curing the mutton from the slaughter. She burned the gruel for the thralls, dropped the skyr and honey that was to be Sigdir’s meal, tangled the wool and cut a deep gash in her finger, trying to separate racks of ribs. Her apron dress was an unholy mess of skyr, honey and streaks of both sheep’s blood and hers.

“Lord have mercy,” Rowena said when she saw. “Here, that cut needs binding better. It’s easier with my two hands than your one.”

She got Wilda to sit down and bound her finger with quick, efficient wraps of old linen. “No, he’s not back yet, but a ship’s coming up the fjord, and such a ship! Bausi’s new wife, ready for the wedding tomorrow. Kin to the king here, she is. Sigdir will be down there to greet her, most like, show off all the warriors and such. Bausi’s had them all cleaning their armour and braiding their beards.” She looked up at Wilda. “You want to get his answer right now? And, if it’s not a cheek to ask, why did you ask for that, for Toki not to die?”

Wilda stood up and took off the apron dress but didn’t answer, because she didn’t know how to or even really why. Because he’d saved her once when he needn’t. Because she thought she loved him, and that wasn’t right, not unless he came to God, and she’d seen how he was, seen the faith he had in the Thor’s hammer that dangled from the pin on the apron.

If he came to God he wouldn’t be the same man, she could see that, could see how they all were with their gods and how it made them see things in a way she never would, and she would see things in a way they never would. Too, it was because she was ashamed that he’d lied to save her honour when it was she who had seduced him, when she had no honour. Yet Rowena was looking at her, curious for the answer, wanting to know. “As I said, because Christ teaches us we should forgive, something these people would do well to learn.”

It was forgiveness she wanted too. Wilda got to her knees in front of the little altar Rowena had made, that all the Christian thralls prayed at. It wasn’t much, a crude carved cross, but it was theirs, a place for them to believe. Sigdir allowed them that.

Wilda shut her eyes and tried to remember the prayers the priest often used at home. It wasn’t that prayer that came to mind, but one the goodwife had used, over and over, while Wilda gave birth to a boy who never saw his first dawn.

Have mercy upon me, O Lord, have mercy upon Thy sinful servant and woeful handmaid, who now, in my greatest need and distress, do seek Thee.

She felt no better, no lifting of her shame, no peace running through her. This place was godforsaken, at least by her God. Wilda got to her feet. If Einar died because of her there would be no forgiveness, not in her soul for herself. She couldn’t sit and wait, her nerves were too stretched. “Yes, I do need the answer now, Rowena. Can we go and watch the ship, and I can talk to Sigdir?”

Rowena patted her hand, almost as though she were talking to an invalid or an old woman. “I was hoping you’d come. It’s always an event when a ship comes in, and this one should be no different. Better even. Come on, it’ll take your mind away.”

They bundled up in thick cloaks and Wilda took the time to unpin Thor’s hammer from her soiled apron and use it to clasp her cloak at her throat. It was a comfort there, somehow, in a way her crucifix had rarely been.

The wind had dropped as the sun rose behind banks of grim grey clouds. For once those clouds had receded above the tops of the mountains, and the rock stood over the fjord, dark with trees and a grave splendour.

Rowena led her down by the path cut through the snow, steps carved out in the steep places. Past snug houses with smoke puffing from their tops, past fields and sleeping orchards choked with snow. Others, free men and women and thralls too, made their way to the lip of the fjord, where the dark, oily waters lapped at the gravelled shore. The women stared at her and talked in gossipy tones as they passed but Rowena refused to repeat what they said so Wilda could understand. The path wound away to the root of the mountain, under a great hanging rock in the shape of a helm.

“Odin’s Helm they call it, reckon it makes this a lucky place,” Rowena said.

Underneath the helm, snow had been cleared in a vast space between bare birch trees, so that the yellowed winter grass lay in a ring around a flat-topped grey stone. Dark streaks ran down the stone and into the grass.

“That’s where their godi—their priest that is—he does his rituals. Sacrifices.” Rowena shuddered and Wilda joined her when she realised what the dark streaks were. “Don’t do people no more, though, or not since I’ve been here. Used to, mind. That godi tells gruesome tales about it when he’s in his cups. I think he likes to scare us God-fearing folk with it.”

“What do they sacrifice then?”

“Depends. When they have their spring or winter ritual, it might be a lamb. When they’re off to raid, often as not it’s fighting horses. If he’s asking their gods for something, then it could be anything. I seen him do a hare last week, trying to see if he could fathom the wyrd of Bausi’s wedding. Reckons she’ll give any husband a lot of sons, so Bausi was well-pleased, him having had nought but daughters as yet. And sons close to the king too. Harald’s named his heir, right enough, his grandson, and Bausi’s new bride’s cousin.”

Then this fjord and its jarl would become more powerful. Yet Sigdir wanted to get away, out from under Bausi. Wilda followed Rowena down the slope, through a stand of birches and on toward the shore. Sigdir stood there, resplendent in his armour, a close-fitting helm covering his bright hair.

Wilda was beginning to wonder about Sigdir. As Rowena said, there seemed two people trapped in him. One, the obvious one, was a violent brute. Yet the other—he’d seemed concerned for Myldrith, seemed bewildered and hurt at Einar’s supposed betrayal and had been steadfast in his insistence on protecting the honour he thought she had. She couldn’t decide if he was the Devil’s child Bebba said he was, or just a man caught in a different world than Wilda had known.

A woman stood next to him, heavy with child and with a stony look to her. “Bausi’s first wife, Ragnhilda, come to welcome the new one to the house,” Rowena said.

“How many wives does Bausi have?” Wilda asked, appalled.

Rowena laughed. “A Norseman may have as many as he can afford, or stand. Bausi’s got two already. I’m thinking that this new one will be favoured, though, and not just for her kinship with the king. She’s said to be the fairest Norse maiden on the west coast. Look at Ragnhilda’s face. She looks like she swallowed a cat.”

The ship that glided toward them was enormous, more than twice the size of the one Sigdir had brought Wilda in. The sail was raised, dyed a blood red with a raven stooping. There was no prow carving—Rowena said that they removed it when coming into the fjords, for fear of offending the land-wights, more heathen superstition. The oars moved in a quick, precise rhythm before they were shipped with practised ease, and the ship came to rest neatly by the little jetty.

Men scurried about securing the boat, and a plank was laid so that getting ashore was made easy. A warrior, almost a match for Sigdir in height and the splendour of his armour, stepped down the plank and Sigdir greeted him warmly with a clasp of hands. The ship was large enough that a kind of tent was pitched near the rear of the deck and, once the ship was secure, the flap opened and three women came out. Two were clearly maids, from their plainer tunics and apron-dresses.

The third walked with a straight back and a proud head. As well she might. Her clothing was very fine, bright blue linen with gold edging and several silver and gold pins, and her cloak was dark blue wool trimmed in silver fox. Wilda caught a flash of some red stone in the centre of the cloak’s clasp. The girl’s hair was golden and left loose—because she was unmarried, Rowena said—except where it was held by a golden fillet across her brow. The girl’s face was even finer than her clothes. Fair skin with a hint of blush to the cheeks, clear eyes and a mouth upturned in a serene smile that encompassed everyone on the jetty.

She approached Ragnhilda, still smiling, to be greeted with cold words from a harsh face. The smile faltered a little, but the girl rallied and she and her maids followed Ragnhilda up the hill towards Agnar’s house. “Got to get her ready and can’t do that in Bausi’s house. Old Agnar will have been thrown out, and many of the wives of the village will be in there. They do all this bathing and such and hand out all sorts of advice on being married. I expect the spae-wife will be there.”

“Spae-wife?”

Rowena grimaced. “Heathen magic, it is. Best you don’t think on it, but old Geira’s a nice enough biddy. It ain’t the dark sort of magic. She’s a dab hand at birthing, women and animals, I’ll give her that.”

The men from the ship finished their work and came ashore. One of Sigdir’s men led them up to the feasting hall. Sigdir caught sight of Wilda and, once they were gone, came over to her. He frowned behind the nose-guard of his helm but said nothing for long moments as he regarded her. It seemed to her that he was weighing something in his mind, maybe her and her worth, or rather her lands’ worth, against what she had cost him.

Of a sudden, her shame was not just at lying with a man she wasn’t married to, and a heathen at that. Not for lying with Toki for pleasure rather than procreation. No, it was for the shame she’d brought on him, the disgust of his brother because of her, though he didn’t know it yet. Finally, with a snort, Sigdir growled out some words to Rowena and stalked off up the hill.

“He says you’re too forward, too different. That you should be readying for your own wedding, and him too. It’s—you shouldn’t really be talking before the ceremony, you see? But it’s plain you want words, and there are some he’d speak to you, too, answers he wants. In private, excepting for me.”

Tension ran from Wilda’s shoulders in the faint hope for Einar, and because she needn’t wait to know what this Bausi had decided. She followed Sigdir up the slippery steps cut into the ice, past the open space that had begun to fill with people, all decked out in their best furs and finest, warmest clothes. A riot of blues and reds and greens against the grey of the blood-streaked stone, the black of the birch trees’ bare arms and the dark, brooding menace of the mountain.

The path wandered to the river, steeply sloping up past the falls that thundered and made any speech nigh on impossible to hear even from two paces away. A group of warriors in bright armour and brighter cloaks moved down the path and Sigdir stepped aside. Wilda and Rowena followed his example. The leader of the group stopped and Sigdir spoke something Wilda would not have caught, even if she’d been able to understand. He seemed oddly ill at ease, shifting his weight from one foot to the other, and Wilda turned to see who could discomfort him in such a way, this man who seemed to have no fear of anything.

Wilda staggered back, slipped on the ice and fell, tumbling down the steps in whirl of skirts and banged limbs. She got to her hands and knees almost before she realised her fall had stopped. Her heart thudded up around her throat, making breath hard to come by, tinting her vision pink. She had to go, she had to run. Now, as far and as fast as she’d ever run before.

A mailed arm slid round her and helped her to unsteady feet and she let out a little breathless scream but it was Sigdir, a perplexed, worried look to him. Compared to the face she thought she’d seen, Sigdir had no power to scare her now. A face that had danced in her dreams too many times to count.

His black hair was braided neatly rather than left to go wild, silver rings threaded his beard and he was broader than she remembered. Yet the twisted smile in that beard was the same, the dark, watchful eyes under thick brows. The hand that had held the sword that had pierced Einar from behind, who’d tried to take his head. Bear Man, who’d killed Mother in front of her, who’d killed one of his own men. Who’d tried to kill Einar, and her.

Sigdir followed her gaze and his frown deepened for a heartbeat before he cleared his face, indicated Bear Man, and told her why Einar had been silent all these years, why he’d asked for her silence on it.

“Jarl Bausi,” Sigdir said.

Chapter Sixteen

Cattle die, kinsmen die; the self must also die. But the fair fame never dies of him that has earned it.

Havamal: 76

They made it back to Sigdir’s longhouse and Wilda sank down to a bench, her mind racing. Einar’s jarl—brother even—had tried to murder him, had murdered another of his men. Yet if what she could gather was true, a jarl had much power over his men, as a thane would at home. More so, the warriors swore oaths it was said, oaths of fealty to their lords, witnessed by their heathen gods. Oaths not meant to be broken, unless they wanted to go to their version of hell. It couldn’t be just that, though, or Einar might have left, surely? Might still leave.

Sigdir watched her carefully as Rowena fussed. Wilda found she had little fear of him now. Whatever devilry had been in him before seemed leached away to leave the real, true man in its place. She wondered again about what Bebba had said, about Bausi changing the wyrd of the men who followed him, changing the wyrd of the village. Something had happened out there in the pig barn to change Sigdir.

When Wilda could stand it no more, when she was about to burst wondering what had happened to Einar, Sigdir spoke.

“A negotiation, he says,” Rowena said. “Not your whole price, but not an outright death. An einvigi, that’s like a fight for honour. Only he says that Bausi will fight instead of him. Because of a price Toki should have paid before or somesuch. But that ain’t our Sigdir’s main concern. You knew him, Bausi I mean, that was plain. I think—I think Sigdir’s wanting to know a lot.”

Wilda thought back to Einar’s urgent fingers on her lips, asking for silence, the desperation in him. That he’d been silent on it all these years it seemed. It also seemed best to make sure of that first. She’d not said it in words, not agreed, but she wouldn’t betray him. Not Einar. Yet she had to find a way to get him—get them both—out of this.

“I met him, yes. He killed my mother on a raid in my home town. I remember him.” No mention yet of the other death, of what he’d done to Einar. Not until she was sure. “A question for a question. Why did Einar not speak till I came? Why does everyone treat him like he’s simple?” Bebba had touched on it, but it still made little sense to Wilda.

Sigdir shoved back on his bench and turned his head away, clearly unhappy with the question. Finally he nodded, as though making a momentous decision. “The greatest failure for one of the Norse is cowardice. It’s a shame not to be borne. To be a coward is to turn your face from Odin, from Thor and Tyr and all the gods. Toki was, is, a coward. He ran when he should have protected his brother—my brother too—from the Saxon spear that killed him. He’s not Einar, he’s Toki. Einar died when Arni did and that day Toki was born. The fear and shame turned his mind. He never spoke, except to beg the spae-wife not to see him when he first came back, injured almost to death. Begged like a coward, so we knew it was true. I wish now that he’d died along with Arni, that I didn’t have to see him, be reminded of it. Toki’s not my brother. Einar was, but he’s dead. Or I thought he was…I thought he was, till today.”

Sigdir dropped his head into his hands, ground the palms into his eyes as if to try and grind knowledge into them. “He says he’s cursed because he didn’t die, that me and our sister are cursed too. He’s raving, I know that. I know he’s not been right, not been Einar, since he came back, a sorrow to me more than he’ll know. But he seems so sure. Surer still that I should keep you away from Bausi, and I don’t know why. Why should he want that?”

His blue eyes were still now, watching her. Wilda wanted to trust him, to trust someone. Yet Einar’s fingers on her lips, the look on his face…and this man had been among the worst to torment him. Had struck her for little more than talking to Einar, had driven Myldrith past mere despair.

No, she couldn’t trust him, except maybe on one thing. It was clear that Sigdir had reservations about what Bausi intended for Einar, that he loved his brother. She had to work on that, and trust to God, and hope.

“Because he knows what sort of man this Bausi is, a man likely to drag you all down to your version of purgatory,” she said. “And he doesn’t trust him. I know nothing else.” Forgive the lie, forgive all the lies, and all my sins. “Please, can’t you stop this—this duel? Can’t you do anything?”

Sigdir’s eyes never wavered, and Wilda fought the urge to blurt it out, to say that it was Bausi who killed that other brother, she knew, she’d seen. Einar had asked her silence, and she would give him that if nothing else, but Sigdir’s next words crushed her.

“My brother is dying for you,” Rowena translated. “Everything dies, except fair fame. Make his death worth it, give him something to stand in front of Odin with and plead his case for Valholl. Let him have his fair fame, and stand to watch it. Be a Norsewoman, and hold your courage. You have promised me a marriage and a promise is a vow to the gods. Do not shame me in front of Bausi.”

At dawn the next day, when the faint sun began to rise behind the high mountain and Odin’s Helm, Bausi returned to Einar and pulled him to his feet. “A treat for you, young Toki. A wedding, a sacred place for our einvigi after. A willing audience for your death. At least you might hope to show some courage here. Am I not a merciful brother, to allow you to die with a blade in your hand and have a chance at Valholl?”

Bausi laughed at the look on Einar’s face and threw the end of the rope to one of his men, an older warrior with a cut-about face and hands like gnarled roots. “Bring him at the back, I don’t want him scaring my bride.”

They left the longhouse with much ceremony, warriors and karls singing an old song about Baldur the Golden. Bausi led, his face bright yet unreadable, the silver rings in his beard flashing. They came onto the path by the falls and began down the steps cut into the ice until they came level with Sigdir’s longhouse.

Sigdir came out, no less resplendent than Bausi, freshly bathed with the same silver rings in his beard and his hair newly braided. There was a new look in his eyes, too, one watchful of Bausi that Einar had never seen there before. His gaze slid over Einar with no ripple.

They reached the sacred space under Odin’s Helm, with its scarred and streaked stone, its comforting arms of birch. Many stood there already, though they quieted from their chatter as Bausi strode through them, Sigdir at his right hand. A proud pair of warriors, unimpeached in courage, with no known shame of honour to tarnish them.

Einar watched the crowd and wondered what spell Bausi had woven about them, that they never questioned him. That they never saw. All knew what he was like, the casual brutality, yet it was never questioned. Not even by those who had been oathed to their father, or known him, who was as different to Bausi as midwinter is to midsummer.

Geira stood back from all of them and her eyes found Einar’s. She flicked a glance at Sigdir and back approvingly. The wyrd of the village, of the fjord, and she thought it rested with Einar. He dropped his head so he didn’t have to look at her. He had nothing to change it with, no bright sword, no rings of gold or oaths of fealty. He had einvigi, and that was all. His last chance to do one thing to show before Odin, that he knew how to die well. Before that, he had Wilda and Bausi, and only the faint hope she would keep her silence. Then she would go with Sigdir, across the North Sea, far from harm. Tomorrow maybe. It didn’t matter when, as long as she kept her peace till then, where she would be safe.

The crowd parted to let Bausi and Sigdir through to the sacred stone, where the godi stood ready. Rings sat atop the stone, four gold sparks in the faint sunlight. Bausi jerked his head at the godi to get started. Time to prepare the sacrifice, ready for when the brides entered. Something special for this day, for both Winter Nights and the weddings of the jarl and his brother.

The crowd parted and a young lad brought forward the sacrifice. Something special it was. Horse-Einar, snorting and nervous at the people and noise. Bausi caught Einar’s eye and a smile twitched his beard.

Einar got up from his knees and made to move forward. Not Horse-Einar, not him. His only respite from loneliness, a patient kind soul, who bore Einar with equanimity. Einar’s only friend, who never judged or taunted, but nudged for treats and whickered a greeting. Not Horse-Einar, sheen-mane, young and strong and handsome, as he’d once been.

Horse-Einar whickered and pulled back on the halter. The lad tried to urge him forward, but the horse wouldn’t move, leaned back against it and planted his hooves. The godi moved toward him, hand out, soothing Horse-Einar until his ears twitched forward and his legs became less stiff. A handful of grain relaxed him further. The sacrificial knife glittered in the godi’s other hand.

When the knife slid in a smooth arc for Horse-Einar’s neck, Einar moved, pulling against his ties, finding his wider voice. “Not him, Bausi, that’s my horse, mine, not yours to do with as you will. Leave him, leave him!” His voice broke on that last word, and the scar-faced warrior behind Einar jerked on the rope to bring him back to his knees.

The knife continued in its arc, undisturbed by Einar’s powerless outburst. Horse-Einar’s blood slaked the earth, and the crowd bellowed approval as the godi finished the job, took Horse-Einar’s heart and laid it on the stone. It would wait there, with the godi, to see which bird came for it first and so divine from that the wyrd of today’s weddings. The carcass of Einar’s only friend they carried away for thralls to butcher for the coming feast. Einar stayed on his knees, unable to get up. Unable to see anything but the blood, the poor, still heart atop the stone.

Not Horse-Einar.

The crowds parted again, this time to let through the brides. Bausi’s blonde beauty came first, a vision in blue. A gold fillet across her brow matched her hair as it swung in the firelight from the torches that brightened the grey of the short day. Then, hair dark as the other was fair, came Wilda. No less beautiful to Einar, she paced behind, her eyes wide at the blood, at the heart atop the stone. Then she saw Einar on his knees and her step faltered.

Here it was. She would see, she would know. She would say, and all these years of Einar’s silence would be brought to nothing. The people of the fjord wouldn’t believe her, not a sometime thrall, a Christian. Even if they did, Bausi held them in some kind of spell-thrall anyway. The wyrd of the fjord, the spae-wife had said, changed beyond changing.

Unless Einar could get that curse from around Bausi’s neck and burn it.

Wilda took a hesitant step toward Einar but he dipped his head. He couldn’t look at her, let her see him like this, on his knees like the coward they all said he was and she didn’t see. Sigdir’s thrall said something behind her in low tones and she moved on, but when Einar raised his head, she was still looking his way. He could read nothing in that look, except maybe that the chains that had bound her so long were now to be welded shut. The wild girl on the beach would be gone forever. But she would be alive, if she said nothing. Einar raised his fingers to his lips a last time. Silence.

Her mouth twisted at that, as though she held in a sob. Her gaze slid away, disappointment glowing in it, disappointment in him. Nothing new in that look, except it was from her. She now knew him for what they all said he was. If that was what her silence cost him, what her life cost him, it was worth the price.

Wilda turned forward again, away from the sight of Einar tied like a pig on his knees. She tried to hang back, to keep her face from Bausi as he stood at the far end of the clearing, but Rowena nudged her on. She looked up to see Sigdir, his face dark with some thought as he looked to his left, to Bear Man. Bausi. Instinct made her flinch, look to Einar, as she had once before.

Renn, renn! His mouth formed the words, all he could give her. Run, run!

Sigdir’s hand landed on her arm and jerked her glance back to him and Bausi with a look dark as night. They spoke together, Bausi demanding, Sigdir unsure. She heard her name and Bausi blinked in surprise before he looked over at Einar, and back to her again. Bausi’s hand was harder than Sigdir’s, gripping her wrist tight enough she feared it might snap as he dragged her face close to his.

His glance flicked over her, took in the planes of her face, paused at the scar under her eye. His eyes slid sideways to Einar and back to her again, dark now with thought, with realisation. She’d hoped he wouldn’t know, wouldn’t see or remember her from that young stick of a girl, but he did. He knew who she was, from her own recognition of him, from her name and Einar’s silent plea. She’d seen him murder one of his men, his own brother, a murder no one seemed to know about. A murder he’d as like kill to cover up.

Bausi’s mouth twisted into a parody of a smile. No mirth in it, no warmth. More like a grim, cold threat. “Renn, Wilda.”

There were more words, ones she didn’t know, but that was enough. This was what Einar had tried to stop, this was why silence and run. Bausi thrust her away from him and drew his sword. His grin stretched further as the point came level with her face.

All Einar’s fears had come true. The wyrd the Norns had woven, for him and Wilda, aye and even Bausi, were shrivelled to this one knot. He got to his faltering feet. He was Thor’s man, in his heart, and he wouldn’t face it on his knees. A true Norseman knelt for nothing, even his gods.

Bausi drew his sword and lifted it to point at Wilda. Einar yanked at the rope that held him, took the scar-faced man by surprise and had him on his back in the mud. Einar was on him in a moment. “Cut it. Cut the rope!” And then to Wilda, “Run, run!”

He didn’t get the chance to see whether she did because the scar-faced warrior wasn’t so easy to best, especially when Einar’s hands were still tied. A punch to his belly winded him and then the warrior slid his scramasax out of its sheath, and not to cut the rope. The heavy blade whistled past his cheek as Einar dodged, and the warrior had him off balance, his lame leg betraying him and dumping him on his face in the dead winter grass. The warrior’s weight on his back slammed all the breath from his lungs, and the cool feel of smooth steel on his cheek stopped any further struggle.

Coward. If you had the courage you were born with, you’d have this dog off your back, even if it meant a blade in the face.

If he could have seen Wilda, he would have done it. If he’d seen her, seen her look at him as though she knew that courage was in him, he might have found what little sinew left to him to throw his attacker off.

But in the sudden chaos in the sacred grove, among the running women, the men with swords out, the shouts and threats, torches held aloft or guttering in the yellowed grass, Wilda was gone. She ran. Good. Good for all of us. And it was good, that Bausi would have to search for her, that maybe she’d escape him.

As he lay in the frigid mud with a blade at his face and Bausi striding toward him with a look blacker than midnight and harder than good steel, a part of him died. The secret part of him, where he knew he was truly a man, where Thor’s courage lived unseen, except she’d seen it somehow and given him one night of warmth. It hurt to let her go, hurt worse than Bausi’s sword in his chest, worse than all the years of ridicule since.

Bausi planted his feet in front of Einar’s face. The weight on his back lifted, and so did Einar when Bausi pulled him up by his hair. Einar gathered his nerve—Thor’s man! Have Thor’s courage—and looked him in the eye. What he saw was madness, buried deep for long years but now bubbling to the surface for all to see. Bausi’s eyes were very wide, very dark, with only a sliver of white around them, full of wyrd, of seidr magic that seemed to flow from him like black tears. His lips were somehow slack but twisting, trying to force out words that wouldn’t come.

In the end he said nothing but dropped Einar, let him fall to his knees once again, his place in life before Bausi. Then a swift kick to the face, and Einar’s world dwindled to a point of black.

Einar woke to an icy torrent of water over his head that made him cough and splutter. He pushed himself up onto his knees, trying to hold in the grunt of pain as his bad joint protested, hold in the gasp from bruised ribs. His face throbbed from his brow down to his chin, and his lip felt fat and awkward. His wrists were fire where the rope bit in, but his hands were blessedly numb.

He blinked against the torch held too close, blinding him. Then the torch withdrew and after a few moments and a shake of his head that sent water from his hair and beard, he could see where he was.

Bausi’s longhouse—the feasting hall, empty but for two men, him and Bausi. On his knees again before the high seat, with Bausi looking down. His magic-dark eyes met Einar’s gaze and they held there for a time, until Einar remembered to breathe again. Fear shrivelled his belly. They weren’t the eyes of a man, but of a hunting wolf, a hawk circling its prey.

Bausi raised himself slowly from the high seat and came to crouch in front of Einar, sneering when he dared to look his jarl in the eye.

“You’ll not get round the curse that way, Toki. If anyone should find out, through you or otherwise, do you recall?” The whisper was cruel, taunting. Expectant.

Einar almost laughed. How could he not? That was why he’d risked it all to try to get her away, why he’d wanted her to run.

“She’ll be dead by now.” Bausi’s words were casual, almost a caress. “She ran, but she’ll not get away, not from my men, not in this valley.”

“Sigdir—”

Bausi cut him off with a backhanded slap that caught Einar’s already bruised and bleeding lip and he had to clench his teeth not to cry out.

“Sigdir will do as he’s told. He’s sworn to me, as they all are. Oaths of fealty, didn’t I say? Oaths you could have shared, if you’d used the wit Odin gave you. Besides, she’s only a freed thrall he had some whim about. There will be others like her, if I decide he can carry on with his plan. But I like him here, close to me. Where you can see him becoming more my man every day.”

Bausi reached into his tunic and pulled out the pouch, the leather black and smooth from constant contact with his skin.

“Not just the one in there now, no. Not just your curse. I’ve made others, stronger ones, ones to bind men to me, to follow my will, unite all this fjord with me. Ones to curse those who oppose me. You remember young Oddr? A good lad, strong-hearted, strong-willed. Too strong.”

Einar half remembered him, and how he’d opposed some plan of Bausi’s, spoken out against some action. How dead he’d looked when they’d fished him out of the falls.

“I’ll not be crossed, Toki. You know that. She’s dead by now, and soon enough you will be too. Your wretched life no longer amuses me. For now, I will be wed, and then the entertainment. Einvigi. More blood to bless my marriage, and the coming season for Winter Nights.”

He slid the pouch back into its place by his heart, got up and left Einar in the dim torchlight of his hall. Bound and helpless, with nothing but hope that Bausi lied as he always lied. That she wasn’t dead. He tried the knots again, cast about uselessly for something in the rope’s reach he could use to cut the ties, but there was nothing. He had to, had to get out, had to find Wilda. There must be a way, any way. He no longer cared about the curse, about what it would do to him. He had to find her before Bausi’s men killed her.

A quiet sound behind him, a soft boot and the gentle swish of a cloak. Sigdir. He stared at Einar as though he was an apparition, a fetch already.

“Bausi is out to kill your bride,” Einar said, unable to keep the bitterness from his voice. “Aren’t you going to stop him?”

“Maybe, but only I know which way I sent her.” Sigdir crouched down so that his eyes were on a level with Einar’s. “Why does he want her dead?”

Einar took deeps breaths, trying to steady his heart, his head. Trying to think. There might be a way. “You have to get her away, take her and Gudrun and get as far as you can. You have a ship, use it. As far and as fast as you can, leave now, as soon as you can find her. To King Gulskeg, maybe to those lands you want so much. Anywhere but here. If you’re far enough away…” If they were far enough away, then maybe death, the curse wouldn’t find them. “Take Wilda to Harald Gulskeg, tell her she no longer has to keep silent. Run, Sigdir.”

“Run?” Sigdir snorted and he looked at Einar with disgust. “Cowards run, not warriors.”

“Sometimes brave men run and fools remain. You have to, or all this is for nothing, all these years of my silence. All those taunting words I bore, for you and Gudrun. I bore them to keep you alive. Now I’m telling you to run to keep you alive. You have to if you’re to be safe from the curse I brought on us all.”

Einar watched Sigdir as he thought, the restless eyes, the stern set of his face. But no Bausi there, not anymore. Not Bausi’s man. If that was all Einar had done, it might be worth it.

“Wilda knew Bausi. The raid—the raid when Arni died. That was the curse. Is she cursed too?”

Einar’s lips twisted painfully against the swelling. “Yes, and no. She’ll bring the curse on us. But that’s not why I want you to take her—she thinks I’m brave because I once did a good thing, a good thing that led us to this. I don’t want her to see the truth when Bausi comes for the einvigi. Leave, or all this time, all these taunts, will mean nothing. Get Gudrun, find Wilda before Bausi’s men do, and go.”

Sigdir stayed a moment more and looked at Einar as if he was brother, something he’d not done for long years. Then he stood and left without a word or backward glance. But that was enough, maybe, to die with. That he had a brother again, that the three of them would be as safe as Einar could make them.

Wilda ran till her breath burned her throat, till her legs were stones, till her heart might burst on the mountain. She wouldn’t have run, would have stayed and faced whatever Einar now faced because of her, if it hadn’t been for Sigdir yanking her aside, for the sound of Einar’s voice calling on her to run, run! As though it were his life, too, that depended on it.

Sigdir had shoved her behind him, away from Bausi’s sword, away from his dark eyes and twisted smile. He too had told her to run.

So she ran, through the birches that seemed bleak and drear as the short day began to darken, away from the torches, away from Bausi and his sword, away from Sigdir and his marriage. Away from everything in this God-forsaken place. Yet this running held no pleasure. There was no delight in the snow crunching under her boots, at the wind knifing through her hair, no joy in the sheer freedom of it. All was panic, heart-thudding fear, and a shaft of regret so sharp it made her stumble.

Einar was left behind. She stopped dead. Einar was behind her, with his kind eyes, soft words and quiet courage. Her left hand gripped at the little hammer amulet he’d given her, that she’d dared to add to her wedding gown. All of it had been for her, everything, and she was running from him.

She sank down into the snow, not caring about the frigid wetness that seeped through her dress. If she wasn’t there, he wouldn’t even have the hope of the duel, the einvigi. That had been a small concession to her, her bride price. All that courage, all that kindness, gone to waste. Her one night never more than that, never more than memory.

Silence. That was what Einar asked of her. That was what she would give him. Silence on what Bausi had done. If she made it plain she’d not talk of it, if Einar lived…yet she couldn’t trust Bausi to keep his word. Not when she’d seen the way his face had contorted when he knew her, the way madness had taken him. So what could she do? The coldness settled in her heart again. What Saxon women always did—what they had to, to survive, and she’d not live out here, not running through the snow with nothing but a dress and a shawl and some boots.

A noise below her interrupted her thoughts. Someone coming up the path she’d made through the snow, their boots crunching and their breath rasping. Making no effort to creep up on her. Because she was trapped—nowhere to go and no way of knowing how to get there, even if there were—was her first thought, when the helm gleamed in a flick of light from a waning sun scudding from behind the clouds. Mail jingled and someone said what sounded like a curse-word in the heathen tongue.

Wilda slid behind a slim birch tree and hoped that would be enough to hide her in the grey light from a wan sun. It was Bausi, Bear Man, she was sure of it. Come to kill her and end it. With her and Einar dead, no one would ever know what he’d done.

“Wilda.” The voice was low and so choked with feeling, for a heartbeat she didn’t recognise it. Then the sun came out, bright and strong now, made shadows into sharply etched charcoal sketches on the dazzling snow. “Wilda, help Einar. Please.”

Sigdir lifted his head and she could see him clearly. The bemused look about his eyes, as though everything he’d been taught was a lie. He held his empty hands out, to show he meant no harm, she supposed. It wasn’t that what decided her. “Wilda, help Einar.”

Sigdir had never called him Einar before, no one but Wilda had. To them he was Toki, the simpleton, name and station in one.

“Please.”

Wilda came out from behind the birch and faced him. She’d been right before. He’d changed, something in him so different, so hard to pin down until she realised that now, his puzzled face turned to her with a soft, sad smile, he reminded her of Einar. He held out a hand to help her down the slope.

“Yes,” she said, and hoped her trust wasn’t misplaced.

Chapter Seventeen

None can be sure who jests at a meal
that he makes not fun among foes.

Havamal: 31

Wilda followed Sigdir into the dark of Einar’s little hut, far away from the rest, from the light and noise that drifted up through the frosty air and a deepening snowfall. Sigdir lit a mean rush taper and light flickered over the little that Einar had.

She sat down on the bench and stroked a hand over the tatty furs there, hoping to feel a little of his warmth still on them, but they were long cold. Sigdir watched her closely, though he said nothing before he crouched before her. His eyes flicked about, restless again, across her face, down to where her hand held a palmful of deer fur, then he looked away, as though ashamed. Shamed for her, for coming to Einar? Or shamed for Einar? She couldn’t tell and it didn’t matter.

“Bausi.” The word made her jump, the harshness of it disturbing the hut, as though it had no right to be there. Sigdir’s face worked as he struggled to find some way to talk to her with only the few words she knew of Norse. Finally he shoved up a sleeve of his mail and revealed a gold arm ring carved with flying ravens. Arm rings for oaths. “Sigdir, Bausi. Odin.”

An oath to Bausi. All the men here were oath-sworn to him, in front of Odin, chief of their gods. And Sigdir was as devout to his gods as she was to her God. The men wouldn’t go against Bausi, because to do so would be to break oath, to go against their gods.

Sigdir took a deep breath, steeling himself for some great thing, she supposed, slid off the arm ring and gave it to her. It lay heavy in her hands, not just with the weight of gold, but with the weight of the gesture. Sigdir stood and arranged his mail again. He made a sign that could only mean she should stay, and with a last heavy look he left.

The hut lay draped in shadows, in ghosts. Of Einar and one night, of all his years here, alone and silent. Wilda held the arm ring and stared at it for a good while. What could she do? She didn’t know whether to trust Sigdir or not, whether Einar was already dead. Sigdir had made sure of his weapons before he left—wherever he was going, there would be blood, Wilda was sure of that. There was nothing she could do there. Where then, or rather what?

Have mercy on me, O Lord, have mercy upon me, Thy sinful servant and woeful handmaid, who now, in my greatest need and distress, do seek Thee.

Einar kept his head down, away from notice, but he could not hide from this. Bausi had him tied to a main beam in the hall so that all could taunt him during the wedding feast that doubled as Winter Nights.

A platter was shoved in front of him, full of steaming meat. Horse meat. Horse-Einar. He looked up at Bausi, at the towering strength of him. Einar stood no chance, none, come the einvigi. No chance to win, but that wasn’t what he’d planned. He couldn’t win—not the fight—but he could do something worse to Bausi than make him lose to a simpleton.

Bausi laughed at him, at the way he turned his head from a platter of good horse meat because of which horse it had been. Another weakness to add to the pile. Bausi moved away, unsteady on his feet, and sat in his high seat with his new bride beside him, surveying the hall, surveying the men in it who were his, oath and heart and curse.

Agnar sat in the shadows that darkened the hall as twilight approached, looking sorrowful but not interfering when other men came and taunted, pushed and shoved and told Einar they’d known that was the only way he could get a woman, by force, because only a simple mind would willingly go to him.

Geira sat in at the far end of the hall, her eyes not leaving Einar for a moment. He could feel the heat of them on his back, the weight of her expectation, but he had no threads left to pull, bar one.

Agnar half got to his feet when the door opened and Sigdir strode in, but sat back down abruptly at the look on his face. Einar risked a look. Sigdir’s face was pale but set, his hands hard knots at his side. He moved to his place by Bausi without a glance in Einar’s direction. Why was he still here? With Sigdir, and he supposed Gudrun and Wilda, still in the fjord, he couldn’t risk his plan. He had no threads left to pull.

“Well?” Bausi said, though he barely glanced Sigdir’s way, too intent on his new bride.

Sigdir finally looked at Einar, but there was nothing there, no emotion. “She’s dead.”

Einar stared at him, at the blank of his face, hoping to find the lie there. She couldn’t be dead, he’d spent all this on keeping her alive. All of it, just for that. No, that was a lie too. He’d done everything because he wanted her, because she saw inside him and thought he had courage. Because she was the only warmth he’d known for long years. He could see no lie in Sigdir’s face, and his world froze over again. For good this time.

Either Sigdir had killed her, or Sigdir was lying and he couldn’t tell which it was. Either way, she was gone, for good. Either way he had to do this, had finally gathered the dregs of his courage to face what he should have faced before. Take the curse and burn it, Geira had said, change the wyrd of the fjord. No way to do that—except in the closeness of einvigi. Bausi would expect Einar to try to kill him, not try to take a necklace.

Bausi grinned and clapped Sigdir on the shoulder. “Not to worry, little brother, only a thrall. There’ll be others like her. Or we could take a fort by force and settle. Would that satisfy you and your new hankering for farming over fighting?”

Sigdir stiffened at the insult of the last words, but he said nothing, only shot Einar an apologetic look. “Yes, Jarl Bausi.”

“Good, then wipe that smacked-arse look off your face and help celebrate! Winter Nights, a new bride and a fight in the morning, blood to offer on the occasion of my morning gift to my bride. It doesn’t get much better than that.” Bausi gestured to Ragnhilda, that Sigdir might drink.

Ragnhilda brought the full. As she walked past Einar—no, Toki again now, always Toki, he was only Einar to Wilda and she was gone—she spat on the floor by his knees. Toki stared at it, unseeing, unthinking. The spits, the taunts and jibes, no longer had any power over him. Nothing had any power over him. Not Bausi, not these ropes that held him, not even the curse. He watched Sigdir as he lifted the full to his lips—and saw the flicker of his eyelid. A brief spark of hope, a flame against the ice.

Once Sigdir had finished the full, he gestured to Toki. “You want that in here while you celebrate? Let me take him back to the pig barn, then we can drink in peace while he grovels in the shit.”

Bausi laughed expansively, making his new bride look nervous, though she covered it well, only the clank of her bowl giving away her trembling hand. “Good plan, Sigdir, you were always the one for good plans. He can freeze before I warm him up at the einvigi.”

Sigdir’s face was blank as he yanked Toki to his feet and shoved him toward the door. Outside, snow feathered down in great waves, making it difficult to see farther than a few feet ahead in the dying light of the day. Wind blasted Toki, a lazy wind that couldn’t be bothered to go round so it cut through.

“Storm coming. A bad storm, not one to be out in.” Sigdir wouldn’t look at him, but pushed him along the path towards the pig barn. Snow swirled about them, almost blinded Toki, but he could tell where they were headed by the smell.

Inside was at least warm. Not in the shit this time—at the end of the barn where they kept the feed. Sigdir kept his face turned as he tied Toki to a post. “Wilda’s alive. I left her in your hut.”

Alive—all his muscles seemed loose with relief so that he sagged against the wall. If she was alive, then he had to win free, had to do something before Bausi found out she was alive.

“Sometimes a brave man runs and fools remain, eh?” Sigdir said. “Well, I’m the fool then, because I didn’t run.”

“But—” And still, he couldn’t say. If I leave, then it’s worse, then you and I and Gudrun will be gone, cold in our howes like Arni. Yet a thought came to him, a plan. First see Wilda safe, see her to the edge of the valley and on. Then take this new courage that she’d given him, that bubbled up now and made itself felt, made it leak out of him like blood from a wound so he could no longer sit still and silent. Use it to end this curse, for good or ill.

Sigdir moved to the door and turned to face him finally, looking bewildered and yet determined. “I’ve lost too many brothers already. Stay alive, Einar Sheen-Mane.”

With that he shut the door, leaving Einar alone. Alone except for the grunt of pigs—and a knife thrust into the post by the rope. Sometimes a brave man runs. Wilda was still alive, and so was he. He set to cutting the rope that bound him.

Chapter Eighteen

There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear.

1 John 4:18

Einar took a horse from Agnar’s, a stout stallion that would bear the weight of them both, that made his heart ache for Horse-Einar. The house was quiet and no one saw him in the deepening storm, or heard him above the rising howl of wind. He wished he could leave something for it in return, but he had nothing but his clothes, and the knife Sigdir had left, half rusted and blunt.

By the time he made it to his hut, both he and the horse were cloaked in snow, hair and beard alike frosted and clinking, but he didn’t get down, not yet. She was inside waiting for him and now he wasn’t sure if he had the nerve to go in, or whether it was shame that they were running that made him stay out in the snow. Then she was at the door, running to the horse with a laugh, her hand was on his and she was smiling up at him. It was enough. To see her safe was everything, worth any shame.

Her fingers trembled against his, and he looked down at her, at the wide-spaced eyes, the finely crafted mouth that quivered.

“Einar will help you run.”

Her eyes seemed worried, but he smiled and nodded and something in her loosened.

The horse stood, patient and puffing as he dismounted and began to gather what little he had. Wilda spoke to him, saying nonsense words he couldn’t know but only caught part of, a sense of a phrase here or there, gleaned from listening to the thralls. The only word he really heard was Einar. She thought him that long-ago boy still, full of hot blood and bravado. That boy was long gone, replaced by a hovel-dwelling coward. But even a coward had his day, reached the point when he could take no more but turned and fought. Even a coward would find his courage, let dreams of it outside his head, when he must, when Odin played his runes on a man and grinned to watch what happened.

An Odin trap, this. Bausi would follow, would try to find them. Would kill Einar for this, if the curse did not.

She had no cloak so he handed her his and the look as she took it was worth it, the numbness in his limbs, the fear in his heart. Other than that, the ragged furs that lined his bench where he slept, the pork that was only part smoked, a few oats for the horse, it was almost all he had to take.

He bundled the furs onto the horse, wrapped one across his shoulders in place of a cloak, took as much of the meat as would fit, and got Wilda up. Before he got the horse—he’d begun calling him Horse-Einar, silently in his head—to the tree stump he used to help him mount, Wilda grabbed his hand in both of hers. She said something, but he couldn’t know what. All he knew was the look of panicked fear held under control, the bewilderment.

“Bausi,” he said. “Bausi will kill you if you stay. We have to run. Run.” One of the few words he felt sure she knew.

“Renn,” Einar said, and Wilda knew then, knew a sick, dread fear. Bausi was there, somewhere, and once again Einar was saving her. Telling her to run, as she always wanted to run.

She clamped down on the fear, on the aching sickness in her belly, and held out a hand to help Einar onto the horse. He was as them—a heathen, a barbarian, without God. And a good man. He didn’t scare her as the others did, with their strangeness, their savageness. His courage wasn’t loud and blustering like theirs. Quiet, but just as strong, deeper perhaps. Like the mountains here, strong and silent. She sank into the soft warmth of the cloak, into his arms around her as he took the reins. She felt safe as she hadn’t in days, weeks. Maybe years.

Einar spoke quiet words to the horse and they passed under the dark arms of the forest.

Together they ran.

Einar led the horse up the gorge and they both stumbled with exhaustion through the blizzard that had descended with the night. Forcing their way through snow that was chest-high in places had taken its toll, but Einar couldn’t stop. Was afraid to stop.

Bausi hadn’t started the chase as soon as he’d feared, but soon enough they’d heard the echo of hunting horns. When Einar looked down the valley, peering between squalls of snow, dark groups of men on horses gathered. Bausi would not take this slight well. It was a faint hope that he’d not taken it out on Sigdir.

Those who chased Einar and Wilda would have it easier, following their trail. Every time Einar looked—when he could see them, which wasn’t often—they were closer, narrowing the gap. The falling snow was thicker up here than in the valley, spinning into Einar’s face so at times he could barely see a horse-length in front. He had to be careful—this gorge split up ahead, one way leading to a little-used pass that led to the next valley, the other to a sheer drop, and the short day was finally dying, grey light turning black, hiding them and hindering them.

He stumbled again, and fell to his knees with a grunt of pain. His hand seemed frozen in place on Horse-Einar’s bridle and he used the patient horse’s strength to pull himself up to standing again.

When he looked up to try to see the way ahead, Wilda stood there, swathed in the cloak he’d given her, which framed her face. She reached for his hand and tried to prise it from the bridle. When he wouldn’t budge, she said, “Einar, up,” and pushed him toward the saddle.

He shook his head—he couldn’t explain, he could only try to show her that they had to go on. Fear was curdling in his belly at the thought of what would happen to them both once Bausi caught them. At what would happen once they reached the marker, and he must turn back, turn into Bausi’s path. Until then, he had to keep going, keep her safe.

“Einar, up.”

Again he shook his head and this time took a step forward. They couldn’t stop. He couldn’t ride, because he’d never see the drop ahead in time. Wilda barred his way with a gentle hand and a stream of words. In the end, when it was clear he couldn’t understand, she cupped her hand by her ear, and Toki stopped to listen. All he could hear was wind, the puff of Horse-Einar’s breath, the soft plop of snow as it slid from a branch. He realised he’d not heard horns or the call of the dogs for some time.

An outcrop of rock stood just to one side, bare of trees. He’d be able to get a good view of the valley, perhaps, if the swirl of snow allowed. The rock was slick with snow and ice and it took long, hard minutes to reach the top. Einar caught his breath and looked down through the curtain of snow.

They’d managed to climb near to the top of the mountain, and the village lay far below, a distant huddle of lights in the dark. More lights, just pinpricks in the white-blown blackness, lay closer but not moving. Torches, fires, gathered in a clearing. More than halfway between Einar and the village. Closer every time he looked. Bausi would catch them soon, but not before Einar had got Wilda safe, somewhere she could find the next valley, one of the little huddled villages there. I swear that to you, Odin, and that I will finish this curse, one way or another, as soon as she is safe.

Wilda came up the rock and stood next to him, peering down with a worried look and shuddering with cold in her cloak, her face white as the snow that drifted across it. They watched for some time, but the torches didn’t move—Bausi was no fool. He’d camped for the night, confident enough he could catch a halt-legged idiot and a woman trying to make the pass in a blizzard.

The weather worsened by the minute, the wind shearing through the gorge, biting through even furs. Once they were past this gorge, the way would only become colder, harder as they trekked across the open scree of the mountain top. No trees to soften the knife-edge of the wind, to turn the worst of the snowfall. Wilda was half-frozen and Einar was about ready to fall down with weariness. Even the horse drooped where he stood, head down so his muzzle rested on the snow, his ears limp.

They could go on—and die from cold or exhaustion long before they reached the next valley. Or they could stop, rest during the worst of the storm, and maybe get caught out by Bausi. It wasn’t certain all his men were at that camp. The choice was Einar’s.

In the end, weariness overcame fear. If it came to it, if Bausi caught up with them right now, there would be nothing Einar could do for the exhaustion that dragged at him, turned his bones to ice, his thoughts to glittering, useless frost. He helped Wilda down from the outcrop. The horse had a thick layer of snow over his back even in the short time they’d stopped.

If Einar remembered right, there was a place not far where they could rest. Not a cave, more a scooping out in the mountainside with trees growing above to keep out the worst of the weather. With the furs he’d brought, and the fire-steel and striking stone kept safe inside his tunic, he should be able to keep them warm and dry.

He gathered the reins and, with a cluck of encouragement, he got the horse started. Wilda followed, and Einar took her hand—two missteps now, and she could be lost in the whirl of the blizzard. She squeezed his fingers, and when he looked down, she graced him with a grave smile from a face fringed with snow.

When Einar stopped and began to unload the furs from the horse, Wilda sagged with relief. She was frozen to her bones, her feet numbed with wet and cold. It didn’t take long for Einar to get a makeshift shelter ready, and Wilda helped where she could. Soon they were in a cocoon of furs and fir trees, the horse as out of the wind as they could make him. Einar scooped out some snow at the back of their shelter and managed to find some pine needles that were only a little damp. A fire at the entrance of their little bolthole soon warmed Wilda enough that she could feel her feet.

Once that was done, Einar retreated to the far side of the tiny space and watched her. She wished she could talk to him, tell him, have him tell her what was passing behind his eyes. She could see a clear pain there, and something else she couldn’t name. Then his face lit up into his brilliant, hesitant smile, and all that was forgotten when he reached out his hand and stroked her cheek with the back of his fingers.

“Thank you.” His smile faded, left behind it some kind of proud sadness. “Thank you.”

Wilda took his hand and kissed it, a soft touch in the middle of his palm, and smiled at the shiver that ran through him. “I don’t know what you’re thanking me for. Or why I’m saying this when you won’t understand. I should thank you.”

He pulled her closer in the frosty dark, and tapped her hand on his chest. When she frowned, wondering what he meant, he made her hand into a fist and thumped it to his heart.

“I don’t—” But then she did see. He sat straight now, no longer hunched, no longer taunted or silent. His eyes were still clouded with sadness, for what she didn’t know, but he looked at her, not shyly from under his brow but really at her. Courage was everything to a Norseman, wasn’t that what they said? She’d always thought him brave, but now maybe he did too. “Not me.” She took her hand away and replaced it with his, folded it firmly over his chest. “Einar.”

The smile slid back, made his face sad and strong and wanting in the firelight. “Thank you.” His voice brooked no argument, and he didn’t give her the chance even to breathe before he pulled her into him and kissed her. For a brief moment she was afraid of him then, at the ferocity of his kiss, the strength of his hands on her, before her own want burned in her chest, in her belly, and she gave in to it, to him.

Before, it had been her who was desperate to shake off her chains, her responsibilities and what was expected of her. This time, it was his desperation that drove them, made him fumble and drag at her clothes, rip at his breeches until they were naked. He kissed her until she could barely breathe, until all she knew was chill air, warm fire, soft furs and his mouth, before he was on her, in her and she was wanting, sinning, not caring, wanton with it. Not a sin, something so glorious could never be a sin, so that when it all peaked inside her, it was God she called to, to forgive her, to bless her.

Chapter Nineteen

Young was I once, I walked alone,
and bewildered seemed in the way;
then I found me another and rich I thought me.

Havamal: 47

Einar wrapped them in the furs and when he went to kiss her again, she giggled. He pulled back, perplexed, but she took the edge of the fur by her face and tickled it along his neck. He laughed too, and when he looked at her again, there she was. The free and unfettered girl he’d once seen and had wanted to bring back. Everything now was for her, that wild girl who’d caught him with a glance, with a nerve that filled him with awe.

He would swear it to all the gods, make sacrifice on it and swear in blood. Get her away so she could find the man who deserved her, who could give her all she could wish for. Because he knew, one way or another, he’d not make it to the next valley with her. She’d saved him again, given him what he’d lost, his courage, the nerve to face what he should have faced long since.

He’d face it all, because of her and what she’d given him, just as soon as she was safe, so that if he failed and all came to nought, he would still have this one thing, before Odin.

The wind still howled around them, through the cracks in the makeshift shelter, bringing flurries of snow and biting cold. Bausi would not come on in this. They had a little time, and in the furs they were warm, warmer than he could ever recall in his frozen waste of a life.

This time, he took his time, kissed her slowly and with care, let his hands discover all of her. Discovered too what his hands could do. A sweep of finger here that made her gasp, a caress there that brought a moan and at last, one final stroke just there, that made her whole body stiffen as she pressed against him with a cry.

He would have carried on all night, finding what he could do, but she pulled at his back, guided him in. He was lost in her, in the scent of her hair, the salty taste of her skin, the feel of her under him, around him. Each thrust brought a ragged gasp from him, a sweating moan from her until she cried out again, the whole of her holding him, gripping him, pulling him in, and he could last no longer and came with his own harsh shout.

They lay together in a sweating tangle, her lips on his neck, whispering sweet nonsense words until they slept. Strange images danced across his eyelids as he dreamed, of other darkness, sent by Bausi and his seidr magic, of what would happen if he left the valley. Sigdir’s younger face withered before him, Gudrun shrank into herself and disappeared, Wilda ran across the mountain with a faint, sad wave, and all that was left was Einar, alone and cold in the silent dark.

Silence jerked him awake, and he slid from the furs to peer outside. Still dark, but the storm had blown itself out, left its mark over the mountain and gone. With its passing, Bausi would come on as soon as it was light.

He woke Wilda gently with a kiss, but they had no time to waste. Einar dressed in a rush and pushed his way out through the snow to check on the horse and look down the mountain. Wilda wasn’t far behind, and they stared down the gorge to where it opened out onto a steep open place that was a high pasture in summer.

The snow was dark with horsemen.

Wilda clung to Einar’s back as he pushed the horse on, faster now they’d reached the open mountaintop. A scouring wind drove the snow before it, leaving bare rock in places, so the horse didn’t need to push a path. The poor beast stumbled nonetheless—the weight of them both had taken its toll, the exhaustion from the previous day only slightly dulled by rest. Einar slid down and walked, pulling at the bridle to urge the horse on. The looks he cast over his shoulder grew more frequent, more urgent, the set of his face harder each time. Wilda didn’t need to look to know—the horsemen, Bausi’s men, were gaining.

Somewhere behind the clouds, the sun shone. Mist and blown snow shrouded its pale disc, but the light made grey shapes of what had been utter dark and brought a shred of hope.

Finally they neared a forlorn stand of trees, black claws of branches bowed down with snow. At its edge stood a great grey stone, cut about with some sort of writing, seeming to warn of entering. Einar let the horse stand and looked over his shoulder again, panting from the effort. Wilda looked with him.

Two dozen riders, Bausi at their head, his bright sword already unsheathed. Sigdir rode behind him, his face dark and unreadable. When a raven cawed behind her, Wilda almost fell from the saddle. The bird settled on the stone and seemed to watch with interest.

“Einar, up. Up!” If they could get into the trees, maybe they had a chance, but not with Einar limping, worse the last mile as the pace took its toll. Wilda leaned down for his hand, to pull him up.

He didn’t mount or let her pull him but stood, hard and solid as the mountain under them. He lifted her hand and planted a soft kiss on the back of the wrappings that kept it warm. His gaze never left hers, even as he put her hand back on the reins and spoke, soft and sad.

“Wilda renn. Renn…” He frowned, perhaps trying to think how to phrase it so she could understand. Then he put his fingers to her lips and shook his head. No silence. Her lips tingled where he’d touched them.

“Einar renn too. Please, get up.” She couldn’t understand what he was doing. Bausi got closer with every passing heartbeat. She reached for his hand again, but he stepped back to avoid it, his smile no longer shy, but as soft and sad as his voice had been. He was staying. She refused to believe it, or to let him. “Please, get up. You can’t—”

He brought his hand down in a great slap across the horse’s rump, making the poor beast start and almost unseating Wilda. Again he slapped, this time with a shout that had the horse into a canter before Wilda could even cry out. The horse bolted for the trees. Wilda barely had time to look back before all her attention was on not being knocked from the saddle, and the arrow that whistled past her and sank into the trunk of a tree.

Her last sight of Einar as the horse plunged deeper into the wood was of his outline, black against the grey of the sky, with one hand half raised in goodbye. Then he was gone.

Chapter Twenty

When some thane would harm me
in runes on a moist tree’s root,
on his head alone shall light the ills
of the curse that he called upon mine.

Havamal: 151

Einar watched as Bausi came on, his eyes dark and gleeful, his dark crow’s-wing hair escaping its braids, free ends plastered to his face. Wilda had been free once, a wild thing in the dunes caught and cooped and chained, and he’d meant to free her again. That he’d done, a second thing to say before Odin, and now was the time to pay for all else. He had to fight now to keep her free, to free himself and Sigdir and Gudrun, the whole fjord, and now he had the courage that she’d shown him. Not Odin’s deep thinking, but Thor’s courage in his blood and in his head, as it had always been in his dreams. Now was the time to stop them being dreams, time for the loud courage, the shout and battle cry. Time for blood and bone and steel.

He had no weapon but a rusty knife, against archers and Bausi’s bright sword, but he would fight, die if need be. At least he would die with a blade in his hand and have that chance at Valholl.

Odin, give me wisdom, Thor, give me strength to my arm. Tyr, one-handed god of battles, give me him to face, and a sword in my hand, and I’ll do what I should have done long since. Let me take my wyrd and batter it on his, and see whose thread the Norns have cut shorter. And may Frigg find Wilda a good man, even if he is a Christian.

He looked up at Bausi, no keeping his head down now, not when the fire of it was in his belly. A fire she’d given him just by believing it was there, that Sigdir had flamed by staying, by helping a brother he’d thought lost. No matter how this ended, there was a good chance they’d all end up dead.

Einar didn’t care. Silence had been a cloak he’d worn, a false safety. Now words tumbled like the falls outside the feasting hall that had once been his home. “Ready for the einvigi now, Bausi? Blood to bless your wedding?” He stood square and tall, as he had all those years in his dreams. “Or don’t you have the courage you were born with?”

There was no one, nothing, not a man or mountain or snowfall that could move him. He was empty of everything, nothing, less than nothing, and with nothing left to lose—except his one thing to speak before Odin, that he’d saved a girl from dying, had stood and fought when he had no chance to win.

Bausi held up his hand and the archers stopped, though two riders peeled away round Einar, after Wilda. There was nothing he could do to stop them except trust to Odin. He looked sideways at the raven perched on the stone. He would have sworn on his life the bird winked at him.

Bausi jumped down from his horse, threw the reins to one of his men and approached. Another two men fell in behind him, and Sigdir. His face was blank of anything. Waiting, watching.

“Always the simpleton, eh, Toki?” Bausi said. “Why didn’t you keep running, like the coward you are?”

Einar shifted at that, an uncomfortable feeling in the pit of his stomach, before he stood straighter. “Einar. My name’s Einar. And I both cannot and didn’t need to. Wilda is safe from you.”

“Einar is dead,” Bausi snapped, but his look was sly. Even now talking in riddles and weaves that only he and Einar could understand. “And cannot? So simple of mind you can’t pass a marker stone?”

Einar didn’t answer, only shifted his grip on the paltry knife, rusted and half-blunt. It would be enough for what he wanted.

“You stole Sigdir’s bride, and yet you stand and face us as though you have no shame.”

“I have no shame for Wilda. Einvigi, you promised me that.”

Bausi stared at him as though he truly now believed Einar was mad, but at the end he laughed. “Einvigi, yes. See, even Odin’s bird comes to watch me kill you.”

The raven flew off in a clatter of wing feathers, but it didn’t go far. As far as Geira, who sat atop a sled, watching them with the same beady eyes as the raven.

Wilda kept low over the horse’s neck as he bolted headlong into the trees. Never much of a rider, she was hard put to stay on his back and avoid low branches. She tried to pull him round, to go back to Einar, but he was stubborn. Other hoofbeats joined his. A quick glance showed two of Bausi’s men coming into the woods behind her. She stopped trying to turn the horse and concentrated on staying on—and alive.

The trees grew thicker, blotting out the weak sun, making a dark tunnel of boughs sifted with snow. The hoofbeats behind grew muffled as they passed from rock to pine needles. There was no way to escape them, not that she could see. They were gaining, Einar’s horse flagging with exhaustion.

She burst out of the trees onto a plateau of pristine snow. Her horse stumbled, almost fell and ran on. Please Lord, I know I have sinned, lain with a heathen and a man not my husband, but please, let me live. Let us both live, if You would extend Your Grace to those who have yet to see Your light. She hoped He would listen, and that there were enough Hail Marys in the world to atone for that sin. Yet she couldn’t bring herself to repent this one, to repent for Einar.

They were still gaining—the breath of the lead rider’s horse seemed almost at her back, yet she didn’t dare turn. The plateau ended ahead, but she couldn’t see whether in a slope or a drop. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death.

This time when the horse stumbled, he didn’t recover but pecked forward, pitching Wilda off, into the snow—and straight into the hands of Bausi’s men. She struggled, slapped, kicked, bit, but they just laughed and one hoisted her onto his horse in front of him.

Bausi’s men marked out the area, built a good fire there on the mountaintop, and the godi came forward to speak words, of the god Ullr and rings and the rules. More people came, from the fjord, snug on their sleds, tall on their horses. The heads of each toft and house. Gudrun, wrapped in furs next to Geira, her face pale and pinched. All come to watch Einar’s final fall, bear witness to it. At Bausi’s nod, Sigdir came to call Einar forward. Maybe he thought Einar didn’t have the nerve to come on his own.

“What are you doing?” Sigdir murmured. “You’ve no chance, none, not against him, not as you are, with numb hands and a gimp leg, rags against his good mail, and not even a sword to call your own. Why hasten your own death? Why didn’t you go with her? Maybe you could have escaped.”

“Because fools remain. There is no escape except this. The longer he’s here, the farther away Wilda gets. His men aren’t back yet. They haven’t found her. But I’ve something to do here. Something I should have done long since.”

Sigdir turned away, his face full of grief, his voice gravel-rough with it. “Die? That’s all you will do here. You can’t win and he’ll show no mercy.”

Einar rubbed feeling back into his frozen hands. “It’s not winning I’m after. Wait, watch. And if I do as I hope, then listen. You—and them.” He nodded at the small crowd of fjordsmen that had gathered.

Sigdir turned away. He didn’t take two steps before he turned back, took his sword out and held it toward Einar. “This would have been yours, if—if things had turned out otherwise.”

Einar took it with a solemn nod, hefted the weight of it and hoped he could do the sword justice.

Across the space, Bausi snorted a derisive laugh and eyed the watching men. “A noble gesture, Sigdir. But useless. A coward doesn’t need a sword for his heart to crumble.”

Einar swung the blade, watched the glitter of light along it. A good sword, too. Sigdir stepped back and, for a heartbeat, Einar could see it. Bausi’s net, seidr magic. The shimmer that Geira had spoken of, a black weaving across his face. What Einar was here to destroy, at last.

“I have been a coward, you’re right about that. For too long, I was too afraid. I aim to right that, the long years when I should have acted, or spoken. Look to the Sky-Father one last time, Bausi. Call his name before you die. It will be your last, however this ends.”

Bausi laughed but for once no one joined him. The ring of faces was silent, watchful. The wyrd in the air made it hard to breathe, a thickness that lay heavy on Einar’s skin and made goose bumps prickle at the back of his neck. The Norns stood ready to snip a thread here today. Einar could almost feel them at his shoulder, watching, waiting.

Bausi’s laugh died on his lips and he strode forward, sword ready. “It’s time I saw you safely to Hel, as I should have done a long time since.”

Einar was outmatched, and he knew it. Bausi was bigger, stronger, more practised with his sword. He stepped up to Bausi’s challenge, with only one advantage.

He wasn’t Bausi and he didn’t look to kill a brother by his sword. He wasn’t going for the heart or for the slice of the throat. His aim was for the curse that hung there, and his only way out, its destruction all he could do. No more threads to pull. If he couldn’t get it, then at least the einvigi might have given Wilda more time to get away.

Bausi inclined his head and, with that signal, it was started. Without a heartbeat’s pause, he came for Einar, sword scything for the throat, looking to end this quickly.

Einar staggered back, the force of the blow along his arm as he parried shaking his precarious balance. The blows came one after another, no pause for breath until they were both panting like dogs, sending plumes of steam to lick round their beards. Einar’s hand and arm were cut, not badly but enough to seep blood onto his ragged tunic in small blooms of colour, to drip into the snow like tears. His bad knee was the worst, where Bausi planted a well-aimed kick that sent Einar rolling in the snow before he lurched back to his feet. He couldn’t do this—he was only still alive because Bausi was playing with him, he was sure. The twist of a smile was there, half-hidden in the beard. Einar couldn’t do this, but he had to.

Bausi kicked his knee out from under him again and paused for breath, or maybe to gloat. Einar sucked in great lungfuls of frigid air. It would come now, the death stroke, while he lay winded and gritting his teeth against the fire in his leg. Not before a final word, it seemed. Bausi leaned forward and smacked the sword from Einar’s hand with the hilt of his.

Lying at Bausi’s mercy, Einar half expected to hear the crackle of flames, half expected that, if he looked, he’d be in a Saxon town and Wilda would be readying a scramasax to throw, to save him.

But he’d sent her away, and now there was no one to save him. Except himself. Bausi leaned down farther, and the smile stretched. His eyes were darker than night and Einar could smell the seidr, it seemed to him, a thick vicious scent that sent waves of fear through him. The curse slid free to dangle from Bausi’s neck, so close but farther away than stars. If he reached for it, the sword that dangled above him would fall before he could grab it.

It seemed that Bausi grasped his thoughts—maybe more of his seidr magic—and he set the leather bag that held the curse to spinning. So small, that thing that had shaped so many lives. So small and fragile. Just a pull and Einar would have it, could crush it in his hand or throw it to the fire at the edge of the einvigi ring.

Bausi’s sword slid over Einar’s skin, a whisper of steel against the throat. He was going to die without a blade in his hand, no chance now of any glory, of speaking to Odin about what he’d done. And still he could not speak it—at the first word, that blade would slice his throat, and it would all be for naught.

His handed twitched, thinking that at the least he should try for it, that someone—Sigdir at least—would see that this thing meant more than it appeared. Bausi leaned upon the sword, thin-slicing blood from Einar’s skin. Slow then, he meant this death to be. A murmur began, whispering through the crowd, through those born here in the fjord. Not Bausi’s paid men, who had spent their lives raiding and plundering, who knew death and blood as Einar knew silence.

Sudden sound made Bausi jerk his face away. The jingle of mail, the crunch of feet in snow, the snort of a horse. A woman’s voice crying “Einar!”

A voice Einar knew. Wilda.

It took Wilda everything she had not to run, to grab Bausi and pull him from Einar. His men behind her muttered among themselves at the scene before them, their grip on her loosened now. Einar lying on his back, blood blooming along his tunic, Bausi kneeling over him.

The ring of faces only watched. None spoke out. There’s poison in this village, Bebba had said once, what seemed like a lifetime ago. Poison enough that even when they held it a dishonour, that thing they held so dearly, none would stand against Bausi.

Wilda wasn’t so constrained. “Einar!”

Bausi turned to her with his twisted grin. She took half a step back, and the hands of his men gripped her more firmly again. There was something wrong with his eyes—they had no whites to them, were nothing now but blackness. The whole space felt wrong, felt…other. She groped for her crucifix, for a prayer to help her. Her hand found Einar’s amulet and something seeped into her. Maybe his faith in the god whose hammer this was. It stilled her mind, and gave her what she sought, her own faith.

O Lord, have mercy on me, a sinner. ’Stablish my heart in Your will. Grant me true repentance for my sins; right faith and true charity, patience in adversity and moderation in prosperity. Help me and all my friends and kinsmen, all who desire and trust in my prayers. Show mercy to all who have done me good and shown me the knowledge of good, and grant everlasting forgiveness to all who have spoken or thought evil against me. To You, my God, and to all Your holy ones, be praise and glory forever for all the benefits You have given me, and for all Your mercies to me, a sinner. For Your name’s sake. Amen.

A jerk of Bausi’s head, a growled-out word, and men stepped out from the ring around Einar. Armoured men, Bausi’s men, with swords that shone. Sigdir moved too, came to stand with her. When he drew his scramasax, the crowd held its breath. Into that soft silence of blood waiting to be drawn came a scream, a bone-jolting, heart-racing scream that made Wilda want to run as if the hounds of hell themselves chased her.

Einar had hold of something that dangled from Bausi’s neck, but the touch of it seemed to burn him where he lay. Bausi, jerked back from his wary watching of Sigdir, sliced with his sword, but the point found only snow.

The curse burned Einar’s hand even through the leather, the seidr magic protecting its own. He couldn’t help the scream, though it shamed him. He had it in his hand, the little piece of wood that had ruled his life all these years.

Bausi turned back at the sound, tightened his grip on his sword and it was now, if it was ever, the only chance Einar might ever get. He yanked at the pouch, trying to ignore the sickening pulse of it in his hand, pulled it free and rolled. The point of Bausi’s sword pierced the snow where he had been a heartbeat before.

The mountaintop became a maelstrom of voices, of shouts and bellows of anger, confusion. Bausi ignored them all and swung again. Einar rolled, then up onto all fours and stumbled toward the fire.

A flare of pain shot through his knee—Bausi laughed and pushed forward, sliding the point in, the same place as before. Einar fell to the snow with the dread feeling in his gut that his death was moments away. Not yet, you haven’t done enough to claim courage before Odin. With a great effort he managed to free himself from the sword and roll onto his back. Bausi grinned above him, sword already arcing down. Einar kicked out with his good leg and scrabbled out of the way. The fire was close, so very close. All he had to do was burn this thing that throbbed in his hand and he’d be free—him, Wilda, all of them.

Sigdir’s eyes moved restlessly between his two brothers—deep thinking. It must have been Einar’s imagination that made the dark lines on his face darker, made them shrivel and shrink. Pull the wrong thread and the net will draw ever tighter.

Bausi’s ragged breath was as loud as the roar of wind over mountain, hot as a forge fire on his cheek. The cool of the blade smoothed his other cheek. Odin, let my aim be true.

He threw the curse into the flames.

Chapter Twenty-One

And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.

John 8:32

The curse fell into the flames to take all Einar’s dread with it, to crisp his need for silence, and burn his life to ashes that might grow something new. Einar lay, gasping for breath, trying to will his body to speak. He’d been silent too long. Speak.

He was sure, later, that he felt it fall away from him, the curse flaking off in snaking black threads, letting him ignore the hot coal in his knee, grab for Bausi, bring him down in the snow with a rusted knife to his throat. Yet all he really knew was the look in Sigdir’s eyes, a sudden widening, a rush of relief from he didn’t know what, a cloud of wondering.

Einar pulled himself up on Sigdir’s proffered hand, which felt warm and solid in his.

There was no need for silence, not anymore, and yet the words were still choked in his throat, frozen there like poor Arni in his howe. The words might have stayed there, if not for Bausi’s hot eyes on his, the words forming on his lips.

“It was Bausi who killed Arni,” Einar said, and when the words were free, the secret swirling with the snow, he couldn’t stop them. “Bausi who thrust his sword in my back. Bausi who laid a curse on me and Sigdir and Gudrun should anyone ever discover it, if I should ever speak it. And so I stayed silent, for them. I was a coward who let Bausi twist this village into something black, for them. It took a Saxon, and a woman, to show me where courage lies, that it isn’t fear that makes a man a coward, but lack of action because of that fear. It was Bausi who killed Arni, and our father.”

Bausi’s laugh made Sigdir jump, and several of the others. “So says a madman and a fool. I told you, Sigdir, I told you how it happened. You know as well as I, he’s witless.”

A murmur ran through the other men, the heads of houses who’d come to bear witness, that maybe Einar lied to save his own life, another act of cowardice.

Einar nodded to one of the Saxon thralls who held the horses. “Ask Wilda what she saw, and tell her there is no need to be silent on it for my sake.”

She looked at him, quick, unsure, and he nodded, a reassurance.

“Einar is no coward, or a fool,” she began, her soft words spoken louder by the thrall, and when she was done Bausi was the one in bonds, with his own sword at his throat, held there by Sigdir whose face was clear of the net, his eyes no longer restless.

All held still, waiting for new threads from the Norns, to see what picture they would weave. Sigdir moved first, pulled free the silver jarl-torc around Bausi’s neck and held it out to Einar. “It’s yours now. And yours to decide what we do with him.”

His to decide. He looked at Bausi, at the slackness of his mouth, the wildness in his eyes. He would give him a choice, a choice that Bausi had denied him. Leave it to the Norns. Whatever they chose, whatever the web of it, Bausi was undone and that was enough.

A black flutter against the snow caught Einar’s eye. The raven, perched on Geira’s shoulder even as she perched on the sled. Gudrun sat next to her, wide-eyed, innocent again, smiling and crying. More gathered behind, Agnar panting and propped up on a thrall boy. Other men who’d sneered at him, taunted him yet now seemed to see with clear eyes and open hearts. Now it was they who were silent before him.

“I told them to come, got Geira to bring them,” Sigdir said, and he was brother again, the brother who had often looked to Einar with a question in his eyes when they were younger, who had turned those questions on Bausi when Einar could not answer. Did I do right? “Whatever happened, they should see, they should know which brother was true, by Ullr and the einvigi.”

Fjordsmen crept closer, circling, watching, silent still. Gudrun slipped between Einar and Sigdir, one hand in each of theirs.

“He said, and I believed him,” she began, but couldn’t seem to go on.

Einar squeezed her hand. “He said much. And I said nothing. We were both at fault there.”

Bausi’s mouth worked, yet loose, slack, and no words came out. Before Einar could say anything, could give Bausi the choice—the cliff or the path out of the fjord—Geira’s voice startled them all, harsh in the silence of the mountain. “On his head alone shall light the ills of the curse that he called upon mine. So says Odin. So say I. This man is a fetch already, a ghost of the seidr magic he used to curse Einar, and the fjord. Now I curse him, in Odin’s name. This man is dead in this fjord.”

The raven on Geira’s shoulder cawed, adding weight to her words. Odin’s bird. A low murmur of approval ran through the crowd, satisfied with that. A man outcast in winter was dead. A choice enough for Bausi, as Einar might have done. The path out of the fjord—or take the quick way, the cliff.

Sigdir held out the torc again. Einar looked at it, thought of the silver itch on Bausi, that he’d infected the whole fjord with. “No. The torc isn’t for me, and I don’t want it. You take it.”

Einar looked past him to where Wilda still stood, held by men unsure what to do except they had been ordered to hold her. Words stilled in him again, at the question he most wanted to ask. “And Wilda? She’s handfasted to you.”

Sigdir stared at the shaking wretch that was Bausi for long, slow heartbeats before he caught Einar’s gaze again. His swift smile was like sun on the mountain. “She’s under the protection of our house,” he said. “And a freed woman. I think she was never mine, or would be. Besides.” The smile grew broader. “I hanker for a wife closer in kin to Harald Gulskeg King, and there’s a lady in the valley who might ask the godis for an annulment. I don’t think they’d refuse her.”

Sigdir thrust out his sword hand and they clasped wrists together. Brothers true again, at last.

Wilda couldn’t be sure what was happening, only that the fighting had stopped, that Einar stood tall and strong, the warrior in his heart now that she’d always known he was. That she’d broken her silence and let them know the truth, and had let loose all that was inside her, let all the ice melt to be forgotten. Men still held her, but slackly now.

Sigdir and Einar set Bausi, oddly shrunk, by the cliff edge and the godi spoke harsh words, stark as the mountain, cold as the fjord. As one, the fjordsmen and women turned their faces from him, their backs cold to him, hiding him from their world. The truth had shown them who was the brave—and who was not. They turned instead to Einar with guilt and soft words that seemed to float in the still air.

She watched Einar, the set of his shoulders, the look in his eye as he received their words and gave them no blame for all they’d done to him. The Einar-who-had-been, the first time he saved her life, bold and brave, and the Einar-who-was-now, quiet and gentle. Both together now in the same man, one the rest of the fjord saw now as she always had, so that it made her heart twist for him, made her want to laugh and cry for him.

He dropped the hand of the girl by his side and stood watching Wilda, awkward on his bleeding leg. A tall figure set against the stern mountains that were like all these people, yet now she’d seen the high, sweet meadows in them too.

No hands held her arms, or could stop her running to Einar.

This was the sweetest run of all, with the cold air clean in her lungs, the snow crunching under her boots and Einar at the end. He engulfed her in warmth and furs and his arms. His beard tickled her neck when he kissed it, and she was safe, they were both safe.

“No renn, Wilda,” he said. “No renn.”

Chapter Twenty-Two

If haply a fool should find for himself
wealth or a woman’s love

Havamal: 78

Northeast England, in the Year of Our Lord 845.

Wilda ran along the beach, chasing gulls, relishing the feel of warm sand squidging between her toes, the salt-laden air feathering her hair into tangles, the thump of Mjollnir against her chest next to her crucifix. She ran until she was breathless, until the heat of the day made her sticky with it. She stopped to cool her feet in the surf, and to watch the black speck that swooped towards her.

A raven, bird of omen. She waved at it and turned for the rough grass-topped dune, ran herself ragged and flopped down next to Einar. His sudden smile was brighter than the sun, and she basked in it, faked mock outrage when he kissed her so that he would smile again.

“There is no one to see,” he said. “And a man can kiss his wife.”

For a man of so few words for so long, he’d learned the Saxon tongue quicker than she had any hope of learning Norse. “You saw the raven?”

His smile broadened. “Odin is checking you haven’t made me a heathen like you.”

Wilda lay back and looked at the clouds like wave caps that studded the sky. “Or maybe a portent. A good one. Ravens have been kind to me of late.” She smoothed her hands across her stomach.

Mary, virgin, brought forth Christ; Elizabeth, sterile, brought forth John the Baptist. I adjure you, infant, whether you be masculine or feminine, by the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, that you awaken, and move. And there it was, the slightest flutter inside her. She grabbed Einar’s hand and laid it there, and prayed again, that he would feel it too, that this one’s birth wouldn’t be accompanied by a magpie on the roof. Smiled at his wide-eyed look as the flutter came again.

“I think we should call him Arni,” she said.

About the Author

Julia Knight lives in Sussex, U.K., with her ever-patient husband, two kids and the world’s daftest dog. Her interests include motorbikes (men in leather), wrestling (half-naked men covered in muscles, sweat and baby oil) and exploring new ways to get a giggle out of life. She was recently diagnosed with bipolar, making sense of much weirdness in her life. It also gives her an excuse when she does something daft. Which is often. Her first book, Ilfayne’s Bane, won the 2010 EPIC Award for fantasy romance, and the sequel, Love Is My Sin, was a 2011 finalist. Both these, along with a red-hot historical romance novella, The Wicked Lady, are available from Samhain Publishing. Ten Ruby Trick is available from Carina: Fantasy pirates discover more than they wanted to know about trust and betrayal.

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ISBN: 978-1-4268-9298-1

Copyright © 2012 by Julia Knight

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All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.

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