Epilogue

The True Meaning of Terror

Thorvald had believed that he’d understood the true meaning of terror.

He did not.

Not until a late winter night when Alodie felt her first pain. His heart started beating with wild abandon. Up until that moment, he’d thought he could remain calm. Or at least rational. After all, it was only childbirth.

Only childbirth, indeed. He’d been a rank fool to believe he wouldn’t have to work to keep himself together. Standing on a battlefield facing hundreds of angry men all hungry to tear him to pieces had never been half so terrifying.

In the flickering light of the fire, Birna gave him one sharp look and that was all he’d needed. He had to remain master of himself. Inside he was more frightened than he’d ever been. Outside, he could show nothing—for Alodie’s sake.

He sat by her side, holding her hand, letting her squeeze as hard as she could each time a pain came. “I’d do this for you if I could.”

The day drew on. The light came and went quickly, no more than a brief dalliance, as it was in the dark winter.

“Might as well go out and see to the animals.” Birna handed him a bowl of food and he handed it right back.

“I can’t eat.”

Thorvald sat on a stool next to his wife. Alodie lay on her side in bed, resting during a reprieve. Having been awake a good portion of the night, she already looked tired.

Birna spooned the food back. Since Alodie had become certain of her condition, Birna had spent twice her usual time at the loom, producing fabric at an alarming rate. When Thorvald questioned her, she’d always said that though they could have enough cloth to fill a longhouse floor to rafter, it wouldn’t seem like enough once the child arrived. “All right then. Might as well go out and see to the animals.”

“See to…no, they’ll have to wait. I don’t want to miss the birth.”

“Won’t happen for a while yet.” Birna glanced to Alodie. “See to what needs to be done.”

The idea that it wasn’t going to happen for a long while made him feel like he was sinking. “How long a while is a while?”

Birna cast a critical eye over Alodie. Alodie caught the other woman looking and winced. “It’s all right. You needn’t disseminate if you think I’ll be at this a while, not for my sake. I’d rather have the tru—oh no…”

She paused to get through the agony, face contorting. Birna reached down to place a comforting hand over Alodie’s shoulder. “Go with it. Don’t fight.”

“Easy for you to say. Curse it, this hurts!” When it passed, Alodie softened and took a breath. “I’d rather have the truth.”

Birna gave her a tender look. “It will probably be a while and get much worse before it’s over.”

Alodie’s head fell back on the pillow. “At least we’ll finally have our baby.”

Thorvald swallowed, but nodded. There was still a long way to go. So many things could go wrong. He’d seen plenty of animals through the business of birthing their young. A goat or sheep was a valuable commodity, and sometimes, for many, one animal was the difference between seeing spring again or…not.

But he’d give all the goats and sheep in the realm of men and travel to the land of giants to slaughter theirs too before he’d give up his wife. She was his everything. She made his life worthwhile. He’d fought for her. Put his life at dire risk, willing to die for her. If she died now, he’d have nothing left.

Outside, he wiped his hand over his damp brow. His breath made clouds before his mouth. The slanted winter sun in a clear sky made the white world sparkle. It was maddening that he couldn’t do anything.

With a huff of frustration, he went about his business with the animals, making sure all were properly watered and fed, and ensuring they had clean bedding in their pens. Yesterday the movements had been familiar. Just one more thing in the pleasant routine of his now quiet life.

Today he wasn’t fully in his body. Too many thoughts were shooting arrows in the ragged patchwork of his mind.

Outside again tending to a few fussy details, he surveyed his surroundings. All about him was his land—it had dogged his dreams for so many winters, been his motivating force. He’d thought it the only thing he’d wanted. Believed this and this alone could make him happy.

It did make him happy. But only because he shared it with her. They worked the land together, tending animals, turning earth, watching the tiny shoots emerge from the soil after the earth awoke from her slumber.

He crossed himself—something he did many times a day with his wife. Morning, late morning, afternoon, evening, night, and at every meal. At first, he’d kept to himself how strange the idea of a single God sounded. Birna made her objections known, but Thorvald had promised Alodie he’d accept her God and leave his own unruly bunch behind, and he had no intention of doing anything less.

He enjoyed the stories she told him. Especially the one about turning water to wine. A hearty drink of something a deep, jewel-tone red wouldn’t have gone amiss now, in point of fact.

When he’d learned about the saints and come to understand what he could ask of them, his silent misgivings had evaporated. There were dozens who could be called upon to help in petitioning the Lord’s intercession. He’d liked that. Cnut—who still owed Thorvald an explanation as to his choice to leave his people—had promised to come stay with them the following summer and tell him more stories of saints’ lives.

When Alodie had first told him she felt the quickening, the first thing he’d done was decide which saint he’d ask for help in keeping her—keeping them both, Lord help him—safe. For his wife and their child, though, choosing had ultimately been simple. Nobody less than the Blessed Virgin herself would do.

It’d taken a while to grapple with the idea of a virgin giving birth. In the end, he’d given up trying to comprehend and decided to accept it would simply be beyond his understanding.

Thorvald bowed his head, closed his eyes, and whispered his words of praise and thanks before begging Mary to petition her son to keep Alodie safe. Then he returned to the animals, doing what needed to be done.

When he finished his chores, he walked back slowly, his heavily swaddled feet crunching over the snow. If he returned and found the business miraculously concluded, Alodie through the ordeal, with their child at her breast, he’d not be too sorry to have missed the event.

Or so he thought until hours later in the dead of darkness when the time came. He was first to hold the slick infant as it emerged into the world, Birna by his side, exclaiming in joy and rushing to rub the little body down with a clean linen.

Lord of all, help him. This was his child. He was a father.

A rush unlike anything he’d experienced shot through his body.

The tiny thing was perfect. Utterly, brilliantly, wonderfully perfect. Birna quickly cleaned out the mouth and nose. An outraged scream broke through the air. Alodie laughed and reached out her arms.

Vision blurred with tears, Thorvald carefully laid the newborn child into his wife’s arms. Emotion cinched his throat and tightened his chest. Exhaustion and relief made him tremble, while bright joy and the warmth of profound emotion made his eyes well with tears. Alodie cradled the babe close, blood smearing on the bare skin of her chest.

“I thought I knew what it was to love.” He gently cupped the top of the tiny wet head. The scrunched face was the most beautiful he’d ever seen, second only to Alodie. “Today I learned there is more than I can know.”

Beaming up at him, her face shiny, her hair damp and tangled, her smile never more brilliant, Alodie reached to stroke his face.

He leaned down. His lips locked with his wife’s, their new daughter in her mother’s arms, howling away.

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