Chapter Seven

 

Irritation curled Thorvald’s lip as he watched Halldor’s unsteady approach. Not half an hour had passed since Thorvald’s thoughts on the possibility of his men’s rebellion. Did it begin already? What else could it be? What troubled the man that he risked his life to seek him out? A wave could wash him away in the blink of an eye. As if to lend credence to his concern, the steering oar jerked beneath Thorvald’s fist and he heaved it back into position.

Halldor squatted when he reached Thorvald, reaching out one hand to steady himself against the gunnels. “They insult our gods by their continued prayers to the Christian god,” he said.

A feeble argument designed, Thorvald knew, as a ploy to rid the ship of the women. Anger tightened his lips. Only yesterday the man had agreed that Gisela belonged to Thorvald. Hence, her life and the life of her women were in Thorvald’s hand and of no concern to anyone else.

Yet Halldor had chosen his time well, for Thorvald couldn’t risk letting go of the tiller to grab ‘Silver Tooth’ and enforce his rule that way.

Instead he reached out with his left foot and pressed a heavy heel against Halldor’s toes. “Where’s the harm? I wager we need all the divine help we can get right now.” Thorvald kept his voice calm and ground his heel with all the force he could muster.

Halldor flinched; the expression on his angular face changed from one of confrontation to one of cunning. “Do you fear the storm?”

“I do not.” The ship bucked again and he fought the tiller with both hands. A scowl crept across his forehead; it seemed the violent waves confirmed the other man’s doubt.

Halldor must have sensed his indecision for he pounced on Thorvald’s silence. “Aegir will show us the way,” he said slyly. “If we only give him what he wants.”

The man’s smug tones set Thorvald’s teeth on edge and firmed his resolve. He was master here. The women would not be thrown overboard, no matter what his crew might wish. “There will be no more talk of Aegir, of the Christian god, of any gods. The Sea Queen has never failed us in the past and she will not fail us now. I order you to return to your post.”

Halldor’s black eyes narrowed, then he got to his feet. Without another word to Thorvald, he moved away. “See if you can talk some sense into Thorvald,” he said as he passed Arni.

Arni watched him go, then, after a few quick instructions to Jon, staggered his way to the stern. He dropped to his knees in front of Thorvald. “We need to get to shore or the men will take matters into their own hands,” he warned. “The women’s prayers agitate them.”

“The men are only agitated because Halldor makes it so.”

“We must seek land.” Arni forced a smile. “Surely we are not in that much haste that we can’t spend an extra day or two on our journey while we wait for the weather to clear?”

“Night falls soon. Even if we reach land, it will be too dangerous to put the ship onto shore in the dark.”

“It will be a long night if the men continue to blame your slaves.”

Thorvald shrugged as best he could with both hands on the tiller. “So be it. It’s not the first time, nor will it be the last that I spend a sleepless night.”

“I fear you put too much stock in the loyalty of your men.” Arni got to his feet.

“Remind them I gave them each a piece of gold, so if they drown, they have only to give it to Aegir’s wife Ran. She’ll ensure their entrance into Valhalla.”

“Bah,” grumbled Arni. “What a tasteless way to enter Valhalla. I much prefer to fight to the death on the battlefield with sword and shield.”

“What does it matter how one achieves entrance to Valhalla,” Thorvald replied, “as long as we get there. The mead will flow and every night shall pass in feasting.” He grinned at Arni in an attempt to lighten the other man’s mood. “Return to your seat and listen to what the men say.”

“Aye, I’ll be your ears. But don’t blame me if what I report is not what you wish to hear.”

“We’ll put to shore. Tell that to the men. Tell them too they must work the oars with as much strength as they can. It is as much up to them to power the longship as it is for me to steer us through. Break open a flagon of wine. That will keep them warm.”

Arni rolled his eyes but he nodded.

“Once in Hedeby, all will be forgotten,” Thorvald said with an assurance he didn’t feel.

He squared his shoulders and lifted his jaw. He trusted in his longship but he could not show fear.

Or his men truly would revolt.

 

* * *

 

Gisela awoke to shouts. Not the fearsome shouts of Norsemen on the verge of tossing her, Alda, and Bertrada overboard, but the exultant huzzahs and cheers of men well pleased. Something had changed. Last night the crew had been surly, in a murderous mood, and she hadn’t expected to pass the night unharmed. But she had.

Wary, she opened her eyes. Clear sky greeted her gaze, and a faded half moon perched low on the western horizon. The storm had blown itself out and the longboat rocked calm as a baby’s cradle. She shifted a little against Bertrada to ease the cramp in her buttocks and swiveled her head to relieve the ache in her neck.

Then she spied Arni’s stocky form leaning against the gunnels. She followed the direction of his outstretched arm—he pointed to the eastern sky where palest pink streaked with scarlet rimmed the horizon.

“Land!” shouted Arni, face wreathed in smiles, frizzed blonde hair sticking every which way. “Aegir didn’t want us after all. We’re safe!”

Gisela squinted at the faint white stripe bordering the deep blue edge of the sea. It didn’t look like much but it must be land, for terns and gulls circled overhead, and high spirits enveloped the men. She lifted her nose and inhaled. Her nostrils swelled with the tang of sea weed, rotting fish and aye, perhaps sand. She squinted again at the faint horizon, this time picking out several campfires and dark splotches of what seemed to be other boats lined up on shore.

This was no cruel illusion? They had survived the storm and would soon set foot on land? She twisted around to look at Thorvald to gauge his reaction.

It must be so, for Thorvald stood with one arm wrapped around the stern post and the other on the steering oar. A broad smile creased his face and no worry lines flared from the corners of his eyes, as they had yesterday.

Gisela relaxed.

“God heard our prayers.” Bertrada shifted position and reached around Gisela to poke Alda. “Alda, see we are soon safe on land.”

The woman didn’t respond.

Gisela turned a sharp eye to the thin figure still clutching the oar crutch. Alda’s face was peaceful; the expression calm.

“Wake up.” Bertrada shook Alda’s shoulder. “The storm is over. We’re safe!”

Still Alda didn’t react, and with a sense of foreboding, Gisela bent down to place her ear on the woman’s bony chest.

And heard nothing. Not the sough of breath in the lungs, no steady heartbeat. She straightened up and blinked back the tears. Another severed connection with her childhood.

She turned to face Bertrada.

“She’s dead,” Gisela whispered gently, steeling herself against the stricken look on the other woman’s face.

“Alda?” Fat tears slid down Bertrada’s cheeks and she swallowed hard once, twice before she finally managed to speak again. “How could she die now? We survived the storm, surely the Lord favors us.”

“He has seen fit to take her.”

“She is with our Lord.” A morose Bertrada looked around. Her customary good humor disappeared; instead her bottom lip quivered and the hand clutching her prayer beads shook. “Why have we been left behind?”

“Hush,” Gisela soothed. “There is a plan for us.”

Bertrada’s gloomy mood alarmed Gisela. With Alda now gone, Gisela couldn’t bear to lose another she considered family. She patted the woman’s hand. “As long as we have life, Bertrada, we have hope.”

“What do we do now?” Bertrada swiped her arm across her cheeks to dry them, then pulled a cloth from her pocket to wipe her nose.

“We shall see her properly buried as a Christian woman.”

“The Viking lord won’t allow us to do that.” Bertrada’s lip curled. “They’re northern heathens. Perhaps they eat their dead.”

“I’ll see that he does,” she replied with false bravado, “and no, I don’t think they eat their dead.” The woman relied on her as her mistress, and Gisela would live up to her duties. If it meant defying Thorvald, she would.

But who could she rely on? The melancholy thought crept through Gisela’s mind. She rubbed her fingers over the amber cross hidden beneath her tunic, then touched the key tucked away in her pocket.

Perhaps Martinga and her father still lived. Perhaps Euric only thought he’d seen her father perish in the battle. Perhaps her sister and father had gone to the mill as planned and even now mourned her, Gisela.

But that was a concern for another time. Now, she must deal with the corpse beside her. She pulled the fur around Alda’s body.

A proper burial couldn’t take place until they reached land. Until then, they must hide the fact Alda had died during the night or her remains would surely be tossed overboard. Her devoted servant deserved more respect than that.

Gisela looked over her shoulder at the tall figure braced against the stern post. Her eyes narrowed. Even if Thorvald knew Alda lived no more, he wouldn’t care.

The cruel fact remained; she and her women were nothing more than the spoils of battle. A battle won by him. Therefore the blame for Alda’s death lay on his shoulders. Sudden rage surged through her and she bunched her fists, a useless gesture, for it only pressed her already tender skin against the iron manacles on her wrists.

His jade eyes met hers. Face expressionless, he watched her for a few seconds before she looked away.

He still watched her, though, for the heat of his gaze burned the back of her head. Her breath quickened at the sensation. It seemed as if he branded her merely by looking at her.

She pushed away the fanciful thought and spoke quickly. “Bertrada, sit beside Alda and pray for her. Pretend she still sleeps until we reach shore.”

“Then?” Bertrada’s voice quavered.

I don’t know.

Instead she said, “With or without their permission, we will bury Alda and mark her place so she’s not forgotten.”

Perhaps he had stolen them from their homeland; perhaps he meant to sell them into slavery, but she wouldn’t sink to their barbaric level. Alda deserved to be laid to rest and she, Gisela, would make it so.

Thorvald watched anger seethe in Gisela’s eyes, turning them from indigo to deep blue and back again, as if a tide surged through them. Something upset her.

It made no sense. Apparently she didn’t realize how close the women had been to being tossed overboard during the night to appease his men.

Nay, she shouldn’t be angry; she should be joyful she lived to see another day, joyful she still felt the wind on her cheeks and the warmth of the sun on her head.

He had spared her life, and even if her life now would be as a Norse slave, life nonetheless.

She should thank him, not glower at him and the men who sat around her.

Gisela had better behave—he couldn’t guarantee they wouldn’t disobey him if they still thought her to be troublesome.

 

* * *

 

“You wish to do what?” Thorvald’s jaw dropped. He couldn’t believe his ears. If he thought she would be less troublesome once all were safe and sound on land, he thought wrong. Gisela had found another tack to torment his men. And, by extension, him.

Exasperated, he glared at her.

Chin lifted, fists clasped, she stood before him. She shook with nerves, but she returned his gaze boldly. Behind her, the plump serving woman cowered at his glance and pulled her prayer beads through her fingers.

“One of my serving women is dead. I wish to see her properly buried.”

Thorvald glanced over Gisela’s shoulder to the Sea Queen, now pulled up on shore, sails furled and oars stacked neatly in the oar crutches. And beside one of the oar crutches, the seated, somehow forlorn, figure of the servant. One arm yet hugged the base of the crutch.

“Are you certain she’s dead?” He kicked himself for the idiotic question as soon as it left his mouth. Of course the woman lived no more. He saw the black shroud of death flicker over her yesterday and knew that soon she would be with Hel, the goddess of death.

“As certain as I am that the sun rises each day in the east.” Her voice quavered, disproving her matter of fact tone.

By the gods, now he had a complication he didn’t need. It wasn’t that the serving woman had died. Nay, the complication lay with his crew.

Only last night they threatened the women, had wanted to toss them to the seas. Today, Hedeby and its charms beckoned. The men had coin in their pocket and a great thirst to slake. The delay to bury the woman, a thrall and lowest of the low, would not be looked upon favorably, and he doubted he would find any to perform the task.

How much easier it would have been to toss the body overboard while still at sea. But certainly Gisela knew that.

Now she stood before him, goading him.

He fingered Silver Tooth’s hilt. Of course he wouldn’t honor her request. He would have Arni throw the body into the water with the outgoing tide and that would be the end of it.

She mistook his silence for indecision.

“Are you not a mighty Viking lord?” she taunted. “Do you not hold sway over your men? Surely they will do as you command.”

“Maiden, do not test me.” Thorvald frowned. He didn’t like being forced to bury a dead slave, who Viking law considered not much better than an animal.

Yet he didn’t like Gisela’s implication that his men wouldn’t follow his orders.

“What is there to test? Please tell your men to bury my woman.” She planted her fists on her hips.

He couldn’t help but notice the iron chain linking the manacles stretched across her flat belly. A belly that would swell with his seed if he planted it there. His manhood stirred to life at the thought of coupling with her, and he forced himself to return to the conversation at hand. “If I don’t?”

“Then I will.”

His hackles rose at her imperious tone. Any thought of taking her disappeared in an instant; his manhood shriveled. “My men listen to me and me alone.”

“Then you shall command them to bury Alda?” Innocence lurked in her words, although scorn lurked in her eyes.

Her continued audacity roused his admiration.

And his temper.

Bah, he had no use for her nonsense. She challenged him and his crew at every step and clearly didn’t appreciate her reduced station. Frankly, he couldn’t wait to see the last of her in Hedeby.

Why wait until Hedeby? came the unexpected thought. Theirs was not the only group encamped on the beach on their way to the slave town. He could hold his own auction, here, now.

Karl Wormtongue’s image wavered in his mind. There lay her worth, to give him the wealth he needed to pay the fine against Wormtongue’s accusations. Hedeby’s slave market attracted merchants from far and wide. She would garner much more interest in the market there. For the added riches, he could tolerate her the few days it would take to cross the Jutland peninsula from west to east, especially if she rode in an oxcart and he rode ahead.

Thorvald crossed his arms. “Then give me your key.”

“What?” Her eyes widened and she took a tiny step backwards.

“Give me the key.”

Her face blanched, and she shook her head.

“If it’s so important for you to bury a slave, then you must give me something of import to you. In my homeland, thralls are buried with their masters. As you can see,” he bowed mockingly, “your master is very much alive.” He straightened. “I make my own laws and will bury the woman. But only,” he leaned over and grabbed her shoulder, “if you give me the key you hold so dear.”

Gisela’s flesh hurt beneath his firm grip; her ears tingled with the disdain in his voice. Defeat seeped through her. What had possessed her to provoke this man? He held her life, and that of Bertrada, in his hands. And truly, Alda wouldn’t know if she were buried or not. A kind and just Heavenly Father would accept her into Paradise regardless. Aye, Alda had reached safety at last.

It was she, Gisela, and Bertrada, who didn’t know their fate. She lifted a hand to her mouth but it was the clank of the manacles and not her flesh that stifled her sob. She squeezed shut her eyes. The warmth of the sand crept through the thin soles of her boots and the surf roared in her ears, reminding her she lived still. What was it she had said to Bertrada only yesterday? “As long as we have life, Bertrada, we have hope.”

She lived, Bertrada lived, and they would trust in their Lord to guide them.

But now the Viking wanted her key. Another link to her life in Frisia would be lost.

At least the amber cross that once belonged to her mother still lay concealed beneath her bodice. Gisela vowed to keep it hidden, for it provided the last tangible bond with Falkenstead.

She opened her eyes to blink back tears. Really, she reassured herself, the key was nothing without the chest to which it belonged. Once she returned to Falkenstead, she could dig up the chest and find another way to open it.

Gisela pulled out the key from her pocket and lifted it to her cheek for an instant before giving it to him. “As you wish.”

He nodded curtly and slipped it into his own pocket before turning away. The annoyed set of his mouth showed he loathed her request, yet he had agreed to it. Perhaps he wasn’t the monster she thought him to be.

“Wait.” The word slipped out before she could stop it. Her face grew warm at her boldness and she twisted the folds of her skirts in her fingers.

He turned back to her, face grim.

“Thank you. It—” She faltered at the harsh look in his eyes. He lifted an eyebrow and waited for her to continue, jade eyes boring into hers as if by his gaze alone he could pin her in place.

“It means a lot to me to see my woman buried. I thank you.” She rushed through the words.

What had possessed her to thank Thorvald? Was it because of his handsome face? That he had shown kindness in giving her the fur? That, no matter his ultimate intent, he protected her from his crew?

Nay, she reminded herself, it was for none of those reasons. She thanked him to show her dignity and appreciation. The Norsemen were the heathens, not she.

A startled expression whisked across his face, but he said nothing before stalking off to talk to Arni.

Gisela strained her ears to listen to the conversation between them but they spoke in their own tongue, leaving her to guess at the conversation. An obviously displeased Arni tossed not one, but many horrified looks her way. His voice rose, he pounded one fist in the other, but Thorvald stood firm. Finally, Arni shrugged and stalked away to gesture to the crew.

Her heart thudded when she saw Arni and another man come their way, displeasure evident in their scowls. Arni’s lips twitched as he mouthed what Gisela was sure were profanities, and his companion glared at her with a ferocity that caused her to shrink back as they advanced towards them. This must be the end then. Thorvald had lost his hold over his crew and they were to be sacrificed.

To her relief, the men’s pace didn’t slow as they neared. Her heart slowed, resumed its regular beat.

“We’ll bury your woman,” said Arni as they drew even with her and Bertrada, “but only because Thorvald bids us to. I told him we should let you do it, but he said you didn’t have the strength. He said you would be too slow.” Then he stopped and leaned over to pinch Bertrada’s generous backside, giving the folds of flesh a good shake. He grunted in approval.

Bertrada gasped and jerked away, which drew a chuckle from Arni’s companion. Then the two men continued to the longship, leaving Bertrada to massage the offended spot. She shook her head at Gisela’s questioning look.

Relieved to find Bertrada suffered no harm, Gisela turned her attention back to the two men. The breeze carried their mutterings as they moved Alda’s body before proceeding to dig the grave, casting not one but many truculent glances her way.

While the men dug, she and Bertrada collected sea shells. After the two men had stomped away, still tossing burning glances their way, Gisela arranged the shells in the shape of a cross on top of the fresh mound, then recited the Lord’s Prayer.

“Come Bertrada.” She turned on her heel, lump in her throat. She grasped the woman’s hand in her own and squeezed tight. “We may be slaves but we will carry ourselves with pride. Our spirit will not be trampled by the Norsemen.” She squeezed Bertrada’s hand again. “No matter what comes.”

 

* * *

 

“Hedeby can’t come too soon for my liking,” Arni muttered after he returned to Thorvald’s side. “Gisela holds you in her power. May I remind you she’s your slave, not your wife?”

Thorvald slanted a glance down at the other man. “I like her spirit. And you would do well to remember I am your leader and do as I see fit.”

Arni grinned, a sardonic curve that twisted his lips. “You’re not thinking straight.” He brushed off the sand clinging to his leggings. “We could have been well on our way yet here we sit another night on the beach.”

“Slaughter the last goat and break open a cask of ale, then. Ale is ale whether we drink in Hedeby or here. Tell the men we leave tomorrow at dawn. Two are needed to guard the Sea Queen, let them fight among themselves to decide who must stay behind.”

Arni shrugged. “As you wish,” he replied before plodding off.

Thorvald glanced over to the two women standing at the edge of the grassy dunes. Even from here, Gisela’s wondrous golden hair gleamed in the sun. Too, the breeze carried the scent of wild roses. Her scent. A ridiculous notion, for how could he smell her from this distance?

He shook his head and ignored the twinge of regret at the thought of losing her. She, or more to the point, her worth as a slave, represented justice long overdue him, nothing more.

Somehow, though, regret bubbled up again at the thought of not having her in his life.