A Thor’s hammer hung from the neck of Tyra’s new husband-to-be, and indicated that he was no Christian, like most chiefs and kings, but a proud man of Odin. His smile reached every wrinkle on his face.
Burisleif was old, but his calm demeanour was reassuring. Tyra supposed that she could come to love it, and him, or at the very least appreciate him. His hall was soothing in its familiarity, with images of heroes and gods carved into the beams. The wedding preparations too reminded her of a safe home, long forgotten. Not since her childhood in Ash-hill had Tyra seen a week of drinking and laughter quite like this one, which had already lasted eight long days.
Tomorrow she would be married, anew, with the gods as her witness, and unlike her last husband, her new match was a kind man.
Tyra smiled back at Burisleif, but her heart was not in it.
For more than ten years she had fought the tyranny of her last husband, Styrbjorn the Strong with his eyes of fire, and such memories were difficult to forget. Even if she tried not to think about the past, her body remembered, and she recoiled when her future husband’s wrinkled hand touched hers.
His hand was cold, not burning as Styrbjorn’s had been, and his eyes were not lined with fire as those of her last husband, and yet Tyra felt her heart speed with worry, and she was glad to have her blood-dripping dagger fastened to her belt. The same dagger she had stabbed her old husband with, before she had made her escape with her brother Svend.
At the opposite end of the hall, Svend was seated with his future wife, for tomorrow both of them would be married: Tyra to King Burisleif, and Svend to Burisleif’s daughter. The matches had been arranged and agreed upon by Svend himself, on his father’s behalf, and he was well content with his success.
Tyra had not wanted to get married at all, but Svend had insisted that this would be better. He had dragged her along with promises that Burisleif was old, so she wouldn’t have to be married for long, and that he himself would marry the king’s daughter so he would never have to leave Tyra’s side, but Tyra knew that was not how it would be.
Burisleif was old, but he was healthy. He seemed kind, but Tyra’s last husband too had seemed kind before their wedding night. And Svend’s plan to stay at her side was doomed: sooner or later his father would call for him and he would leave. Or some great war would start somewhere, and he would leave. She doubted he would even stay the winter out; he had never known how to settle. But she appreciated his resolve, even if she didn’t have his optimism.
Across the hall, Svend rose from his seat. His cheeks were flushed red from the foreign wine they had been drinking, and his future wife was just as invigorated. Svend swung her to her feet and shouted for the musicians to play louder as he launched into a stomping dance.
‘I’ll be back,’ Tyra whispered to her future husband, before he too could get the idea to dance.
She stepped gingerly; the floor was sticky where she had spilled the wine she had pretended to drink. The feasting crowd was too loud and tight for anyone to notice Tyra slipping through their midst and out of the hall into the night.
Outside, some men and women had made a fire. Accompanied by the music from inside, they sat around the bonfire, laughing and telling stories.
‘If it isn’t the bride,’ one of the men yelled to Tyra. ‘Come and join us, my queen,’ he added, with particular care not to slur his words. ‘It’s warm by the fire.’
‘I don’t need any more warmth, after all that wine,’ Tyra said, to excuse herself. ‘My cheeks are red as a pig’s bum.’
That made them laugh, and they were still laughing as she passed them by. In truth, she hadn’t been drinking at all tonight, only plotted her escape.
She didn’t encounter anyone else as she rushed to the inlet and pushed the rowing boat into the water. The night was clouded, and she struggled to see anything as she climbed into the small rowing boat and untied it from its post.
‘Where are you going?’ someone asked as Tyra was readying her oars. ‘Why are you leaving?’
It was Svend. She had thought him too drunk and content to notice her leaving, but of course he had. No matter how close or far away Svend was, he had always kept one eye on Tyra, and made certain she was safe.
‘I can’t stay here,’ she told him. ‘I can’t do this.’
‘Do what?’ His words were slurred with drink, and she knew that his thoughts would be too. ‘Marry a good man and live a happy life?’
‘I can’t pretend that I feel safe here,’ Tyra said. ‘We’re not safe. I can’t ignore what’s happening everywhere else in Midgard.’ For many moons she had tried to tell him as much, but it was difficult for Svend to understand and accept that safe did not mean to her what it did to him.
‘Why not?’ he asked.
Tyra’s boat began to float out into the inlet, and she had to stroke the oars once to stay close enough to speak to Svend so others wouldn’t hear.
‘Why not?’ Svend pressed. ‘Why can’t you just be happy?’
‘Siv…’
‘Siv is dead,’ he said flatly. His voice was harsh, but Tyra knew that was not his intent. The strong drink that had filled his stomach made it come out as such. ‘Forgive,’ he said.
‘She can’t be dead,’ Tyra insisted as she always did, despite the more than a dozen years that had passed since she and Siv had parted ways. ‘In the afterlife I will meet her. She promised, so I have to make good on my promise too, so that in the afterlife, I can look into her eyes and know that I did exactly what she asked of me.’
‘Can’t this be enough?’ asked Svend. ‘We could be happy here.’
‘I’m not twelve anymore, Svend,’ she said, in the kindest voice she could muster. ‘My happiness doesn’t come from closing my eyes to the world we live in. I can’t sit and laugh in that hall for all eternity and pretend to be blind to how Midgard is burning. I won’t stick my fingers in my ears and pretend that I don’t hear my kinsmen scream in my dreams as they’re burned alive on Christian pyres. All over the north people like us are dying, Svend. Do you realise?’
Svend didn’t answer immediately, and the night was too dark for Tyra to see him properly.
‘Don’t you see what it means?’
‘The end is coming,’ he obliged.
Tyra nodded, although she doubted Svend would be able to see her. ‘The fire demons are here,’ she said. ‘Their pyres are burning all over these lands, and I must stop them. Even if it’s the last thing I do, I must. So that in the afterlife, at least, we can be happy.’ She didn’t just mean her and Svend, but also Siv, and her parents, and her sisters, and everyone she had known and loved in this life, and everyone she yearned to see again in the afterlife. ‘Will you come with me?’
Svend took a long time to answer, and in the gloom his silence seemed all the longer. ‘If you had wanted me to come, you would have asked me before you left,’ he decided.
‘I didn’t think you would listen,’ Tyra admitted. ‘So, I’m asking you now that you are listening.’
‘If the end is truly here…’ Svend began instead of answering her request, ‘then there won’t be time for happiness in the afterlife.’
‘That’s precisely why I can’t get married tomorrow. I can’t afford to sit here and waste time, Svend. Soon there won’t be anything left of Midgard to save.’
The distant sound of song and laughter echoed out onto the inlet, and for a moment they both halted to listen to the raucous joy echoing from the feast.
‘What is the point of saving this world, when you don’t want to live in it?’ Svend asked, and then Tyra heard his steps through the foliage, leaving her alone in her rowing boat.
‘Because you want to live here,’ said Tyra although Svend was already gone. ‘And if I don’t do something, then even this place won’t be safe much longer.’