Maidensong

Bjorn’s hair was bound back out of his eyes. A look of
dogged concentration was etched on his rugged face as
he swung the heavy double-bladed ax. Rika knew in that
moment that she loved him. Loved him with every fiber
of her being, with every breath, with every drop of blood.

And she knew just as certainly if she died without
letting this man love her, she might as well die right now.

Maybe it didn’t matter that tomorrow or next week or
next month they’d reach the end of this journey and be
parted. A Pecheneg arrow could find either of them at
any moment.
No one was promised tomorrow. But they did have now.

As if he felt her gaze, Bjorn turned her way.

“Rika?” he said uncertainly, unable to hear her words
over the roar of the great waterfall behind her.

She took a step toward him, but made it no farther. The
soft bank beneath her feet had been eroded by the constant hammering, and all it took to send it
plummeting downstream was the slight addition of her
weight.

Her eyes and mouth flew open wide in shock, and she
disappeared into the mists of the falls without a sound.

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The babe wailed again.

“There, lamb,” Helge whispered as she sponged the
last of the slick fluids off the enraged little body. Flickering light from the central fire kissed the newborn
and danced across the smoke-blackened beams of the
longhouse.

The old midwife sighed. However difficult the babe’s entry into the world had been, she was at least a healthy child, perfectly formed with all her fingers
and toes. A crest of coppery hair was plastered to her
damp head.

“Hush you, now,” Helge coaxed.

The wrinkled little face puckered and the newborn shrieked as if Loki, the trickster godling, had just pinched her bottom. Helge wrapped the child snugly
in a cat-skin blanket, crooning urgent endearments.

“
Shut the brat up,” Torvald said, his voice a broken shadow of its usual booming timbre. All the souls sheltered in the longhouse went expectantly silent. As if
she sensed menace in the air, the child subsided into
moist hiccups.

“Will you not hold your daughter?” Helge offered
the small bundle to Torvald. “She’s a fine child, fair and lusty.”

“No, I’ll not.” Torvald knuckled his eyes. “She’s killed my Gudrid. I’ll have naught to do with her.”
When he looked at the mewling babe, his face was a
mask of loathing. “Put her out.”

Helge flinched. “But, my lord—”

“
Don’t argue with me, woman. Am I not chief over
my own house?” Torvald’s gray eyes blazed with a po
tent mix of fury and grief. “I said, put her out.”

Helge’s shoulders sagged. She couldn’t remember
the last time a healthy child had been exposed. But Torvald was master here, so there was nothing for it but to do his bidding.

Still, it didn’t seem right to consign the babe to
Hel
empty-handed. It was bad enough that she’d go
unloved and unmourned to that shadowy, icy place.
Even worse, she’d arrive there as a pauper.

Helge laid her little charge on the bedding, and un
tied the thin strip of leather from the dead woman’s slim neck.

The pendant was a simple little amber hammer, its
only distinctive mark a tiny purple orchid trapped for
ever in the glowing stone. Perhaps Thor would mark
the child for his protection if she met her death wear
ing his talisman. It wasn’t much, but it was all Helge
could do for the mite.

She bundled herself against the cold and left the
longhouse bearing her whimpering burden. The stiff
hairs in her nostrils froze with each breath.

The thought of leaving the child for the wolves
made Helge’s chest constrict smartly. She decided to
let the sea take her. It would be clean and quick.
There’d be less chance of hearing the child’s keening death wail on the wind. And the unhappy little soul
would find it harder to trouble those who’d disowned her with malicious tricks later, as some malevolent
ghosts were known to do.

Snow crunched underfoot as Helge trudged down to the shore where the fjord was choked with ice. Armed with an ax she picked up as she passed the woodpile,
Helge carried the babe as close to the edge of the floe
as she dared.

“Good-bye, little elf,” Helge said as she placed the
newborn on the smooth, cold surface. “Thor keep you,
for I cannot.”

She brought the sharp ax down with a thwack. The
brittle ice shattered in a jagged line and separated
from the main body of the floe. Helge gave it a nudge
with the ax handle.

She watched with a gathering heaviness in her chest
as, bobbing and dipping, the tiny bundle on the ice sheet floated out with the tide.

*
  
*
  
*

Magnus Silver-Throat, lately court poet to the King of the Danes, pushed back the wiry strand of white hair that drifted across his weathered face. He didn’t really believe in Ketil’s dreams, he told himself. And yet last month when the boy had vehemently insisted they not put to sea on a cloudless day, he’d indulged his son’s fancy. A violent squall had come up that afternoon that surely would’ve swamped their small craft had Magnus kept to his original plan. Ketil’s current
dreyma
wasn’t nearly so specific. Only that they had to be in this precise spot.

Magnus squinted against the glare of the cold northern sun on the water, not quite believing what he thought he saw. “Ketil, look you starboard and tell me what’s there.”

The nine-year-old twisted on his sea trunk and gazed in the direction his foster-father pointed. His simple face screwed into a frown. “Something on the ice.”

A thin wail floated over the water to his ear.

“It cries,” Ketil said.

Magnus’ mouth tightened as he adjusted the steering oar to swing toward the bobbing mound of fur. “See if you can fetch it out, son. Be careful.”

The boy moved clumsily to the prow of the small boat and leaned over the edge. As they neared the bundle, Ketil grabbed it and hauled it aboard. He weaved back to Magnus.

The man peeled away the soggy wrappings, his mouth fixed in a grim line. The babe was blue with cold, but she stopped whimpering long enough to fasten her pale green eyes on him. His old heart was forever lost in that instant.

“It looks like we’ve fished up a Pictish princess,” he said to the boy. “I don’t think she could be any bluer if we dipped her headfirst in woad.”

“Can we keep it?” Ketil asked, his mouth hanging open. His soft heart always wanted to keep and care for little lost creatures.

“It’s difficult to return a gift from the gods,” Magnus said. “They tend to resent it when you try. Especially since they apparently went to a lot of trouble to send us to find this one.”

As he said it, he eyed the coastline, wondering what calamity could lead someone to abandon such a goodly child. Magnus removed the cat-skin blanket and tucked the babe into the folds of his own warm cloak. Then he reefed the coracle around smartly.

“Winter is harder here than I expected, son.” He searched the shoreline for a clue as to which settlement in the deep fjord had expelled this tiniest of its members. “Hard winters can lead to hard hearts. I believe we’ll fare better going south.”

“But we had to come here, Father,” Ketil said insistently. “I dreamed it.”

“So you did, son,” Magnus said, pondering the gods’ wisdom in giving the boy this unusual gift when they had denied him normal intelligence. He glanced down at the tiny girl, whose skin was already regaining a healthy pink color, sheltering peacefully in the capacious folds of his multi-hued cloak. “And it appears we’ve already found the reason why.”

Every dog in the settlement howled as if the world were ending. Rika peeked out a crack in the privy door. Rough men, armored in hardened leather, herded people and livestock to their dragonships
moored at the quay. So far, none of the raiders had
thought to check the cesspit. She and her foster
brother, Ketil, were safe enough for the moment.

“Father’s out there.” Ketil's round face was streaked
with dirty runnels where tears left their tracks.

“I know, I know.” Rika bit her lip, trying to think
what to do next. She hoped to catch a glimpse of the
old skald’s flowing white hair and multihued cape. “Where can Magnus be?”

And why, oh, why did he ever drag us from the Danish court?

Smoke wafted toward them. The flames were closer now.

“Come.” Rika grabbed Ketil’s big hand and pulled him behind her. She darted across the muddy lane,
slipping and going down, then scrambled back to her
feet and skidded into a stable. Rika stopped, frozen in mid-step. A small gasp escaped her lips.