Page 43 of Viking Warriors: Vol. 1-3
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He visited my dream, and we were wolves together, leaping through shadows. A night-wind rose through the trees and curled back again. A storm was coming, bristling dark. The black veil of clouds moved swiftly, claw-shredding the crescent moon.
When I woke, he was there, beneath the darkened sky. The beast in him had roused me and I could still taste the growling thunder on my tongue. Something in me was stirring, waiting to uncoil.
“No more running.” He touched his fingers above the yoke of my gown, leaning closer. I caught the strange smoke clinging to him and the faint aroma of sex. His breath was upon my neck and I waited for the warmth of his lips.
He was not the man I loved but it was not love I sought from him. I wished for the roughness of a kiss given in the service of jealousy, anger and lust. A kiss which would declare myself to be my own woman—slave to no-one.
Despite my love, Eirik had abandoned me, just as he had so many women. He’d left me to fend for myself and so I would, without regard for him.
The crows were circling, cawing their alarm, before a blinding jolt of lightning stabbed jagged and I tipped back my head in surrender. There was triumph in Gunnolf’s eyes, for he was about to take what his brother presumed to own. He placed his hands about my throat, lifting my chin with his thumbs, drawing me upwards to meet his mouth, his tongue. I was falling and there was no going back.
His hands pushed away my bodice, baring the swell of my breasts to the cool air, before covering them with warm palms, thumbing my nipples. Breaking off our kiss, he dropped to take one hard point between his teeth, devouring me with his suckling and his teasing tongue, until my cunt clenched.
“Mine now,” he growled, laying me down upon the grass and lifting my skirts. I wrapped my legs around him, wanting him inside, making me forget that I’d ever loved Eirik.
He made me whimper, delving my wet sex with a clutch of fingers before drawing out the thick column of his cock. The sky cursed us with its rolling thunder as I returned the roughness of his lust: biting his lip, breaking his skin with the drag of my nails, pinching the underside of his buttocks to drive him harder. He was wild and thorough, taking me so violently that I cried out in pain, but I had only one thought—that he must not stop.
He crushed my lips to his as he came, pulsing thick, his hands clasping my body to the depth of his final thrust.
Held beneath the weight of him, I clenched against each spasm, and the first drops of rain began to fall.
18
The smoke from the sacrificial fire had affected my judgement. I’d had no warning of whatOstarawould entail. If Eirik had given it any thought at all, what had he expected? Didn’t he foresee that the jarl would take what he wanted and I’d be powerless to deny him? With such lies I tried to vindicate myself.
I’d proven faithless. Perhaps the village wives who’d looked at me askance had been right all along. I didn’t deserve their respect, for I had little enough for myself. Wandering from room to room, I couldn’t rest. I found duties outside and lingered in the barn. I willed Gunnolf to follow me, willed him to burn me again with his desire, to make me forget myself. Yet, when he had cause to pass me, I flinched away.
I could barely meet Asta’s eye, though she treated me as she’d always done. Whatever she knew, or imagined, she did not betray it in her manner. Her heart seemed far lighter than my own, without the bitter burden of reproach, though her body grew ever weaker.
The baby, now grown large and eager to enter the world, appeared to be taking her life-force to feed its own. When her pains began, I prepared the room, bringing water and linens, preparing the knife. I knew what was done, having more than once helped my grandmother deliver new life.
And yet, no baby came. Instead, Asta clutched her stomach and wretched bile, perspiration stark upon her brow. “Can you hear it, Elswyth?” Her hand grasped my wrist with strength she couldn’t spare. “It won’t let me rest.”
I soaked a flannel to cool her head. “There’s no one here to hurt you,” I soothed, raising water to her lips, but my comfort was not enough. She trembled and tossed, raking her skin so badly I had to bind her hands in cloth, tucking her nails inside her palms.
At last, she lay still but her eyes were unnaturally bright, following me about the room, until the black haw tincture I gave sent her into sleep. She woke gasping for air, thrashing in her sweated bed, wracked in body and mind.
Gunnolf watched from afar, fearing to come near yet unwilling to leave her altogether. His face grew hollow, watching her slip away. He could not look at me, nor I at him.
My dreams were filled with Asta, walking always behind me, through the dark shadows of the forest, her steps ever slower, hampered by her belly. Her eyes were filled not just with pain but with reproach, as if she knew that I’d wronged her and could not forgive.
On waking, I hastened to her side, ready to beg forgiveness for my offence, willing to do whatever she commanded to make it right.Except, of course, there could be no such remedy. No going back.
On the fourth day, Guðrúnshook me at first light, for Sylvi wouldn’t stir and her skin bore a speckled rash.
“Bathe her in cold water and ensure she drinks,” I instructed.
As the village came awake, we saw that others had been visited by the same shadow, as if it had flown across the rooftops by night.
Had Svolvaen not endured enough? I’d seen this before, or something much like it. The pox had touched our village one summer in my childhood. I remembered my grandmother brewing birch bark, yarrow, elderflower and meadowsweet to ease the fever. Borage too, which grew between the brambles and nettles and fallen trunks,higher than my waist, its leaves rough and wrinkled.
Faline watched as I ladled the mixture into travelling pouches, bottles and jugs, but made no effort to help. Most of the time, she and I barely spoke, but the shared memory of our former home pressed hard on me. I knew her to be kin and regretted that we weren’t closer.
“You remember how we came through the pox, years ago?” I prompted. “My grandmother treated us.”
“I recall.” Faline picked up one of the jugs, lowering her nose to the aroma of its contents. “Your aunt had taken my mother’s place by then. She told me that, if I scratched, the scars would disfigure me and I’d never find a husband.” She placed the remedy back upon the table. “I did everything they told me to but there never was a husband, was there…”
