Page 3 of Viking Warriors: Vol. 1-3
As the last spent his seed, the others thumped his back, in congratulation.
It was then that she entered. No Northman, but woman, speaking as sharply as a mother to errant children. They stood a little straighter, those men, at her command, and left.
She stepped closer and reached out her hand, to touch my cheek. Her face was older than mine, but it was as if I looked into the lake, at my own reflection. Her hair, her eyes, the length of her nose, and something set in the lip. I saw another part of myself, another me, born in another skin.
And then she spoke, and though her words were awkward, I understood.
“I’m Helka,” she told me. “I’ll help you now, and you can help me.”
4
What can I tell you of that day, when all about me wept, for husbands, brothers, sons slain? Every family, it seemed, had lost someone dear. I shed my own tears, giving the appearance of a grieving widow, though my sobs were not for my husband.
I had no love for him. He was less than a pig or a goat to me: unworthy to be called a man, let alone the chieftain of our village.
My tears were rather for the boys with whom I’d spent my childhood. Some had received injury, some were dispatched to the next life: Daegal, Nerian and Algar.
And how many women had been bent across their table or held upon their bed, as their uninvited guests made their welcome? Had they bid their children hide their faces, or turn to the wall, so as not to see?
Before the Northmen had arrived, my grandmother had taken to her bed with aches in her legs and, thank the Lord, they’d left her there. It was a blessing, for she remained ignorant of much that had passed.
The strangers would leave surely, if they had what they’d come for. There would be no reason to stay.
“We want to go,” said Helka, turning those eyes upon me that were my own. “We were on the sea, when the storm came. The other boats sailed on, but it blew us here, and tore our sails. Our oars too; some are broken.”
If we helped them, they’d leave.
I was the chieftain’s widow. What could I do but urge our people to help repair those sails? Make haste, and send them on their way. They were too strong for us to fight.
The Northmen, having ensured that no man, or woman, would be inclined to do other than submit, ate, slept, and gathered whatever was of value. I thought them brutish in their manner, and their language rough upon the ear.
Their hair was long for the most part, and plaited like that of a woman, but their bodies were those of men — tall and broad and strong. They were unafraid to pierce you with their gaze.
I found myself looking, at the muscles beneath their leather jerkins and furs, at the size of their hands. Such hands had slid beneath my buttocks to hold me upon the hammering of lust.
There was one, taller even than the rest, a giant almost, with a long scar through his cheek, wearing the green and blue of their skin decorations all down his arms, and up his neck. Eirik, I heard them call him. He took our blacksmith’s son by the scruff of the neck, and shook him like a doll. Only when Helka argued with him did he stop.
He laughed, but ceased his torment of poor Grindan.
Like all the others, he held her in respect.
Were they married?I wondered. It was a relationship like none I’d seen.
5
“Come, Elswyth,” said Helka.
Our women had stretched out the sails and had begun threading sheep gut to mend them. The Northmen would make their own oars.
“Take us into your forest?” she asked. “Show us where to find wood that is hard?”
They needed oak, the strongest, and I led them: Helka and ten of her Northmen. I know the secrets of the forest better than most.
I took them through the meadow, while the eyes of the village women bore upon my back. They’d been jealous of me, no doubt, as chieftain’s wife. I’d always been thought to set myself apart, taking satisfaction in making myself different. Now, they were suspicious of me. I was too helpful, too placatory; the Northmen were our enemy, after all.
“How do you speak our language?” I asked, as we entered the first shade of the trees. My curiosity was too great to keep silent.
“Our father came here years ago, when Eirik and I were little. He brought back slaves, who lived with us.”
