The Viking’s Sacrifice (7 page)

He recalled how it had been much the same with Sigdir, the look of sudden realisation that his brother was to be sneered at, that it was right to do it. The day Bausi’s poisonous words had finally taken over his heart.

Bausi turned to Horse-Einar and hit his rump with the flat of his knife, sending the horse plunging through the snow. “You keep yourself to yourself, Toki. I don’t want young minds like Gudrun’s thinking weakness is anything I’ll accept, or my new bride to look at you and think I’m weak because of you. If you come close enough for me to see you, I’ll be rid of you once and for all.” He held out a hand and Gudrun took it, casting a complicated, hard look on Toki as they walked away.

It wasn’t just the snow and ice that made Toki’s heart a cold thud in his chest. Not just the snow.

Toki shivered by the fire in his hut, grateful for the extra warmth of Einar in his stall. He stirred the thin gruel that was today’s ration. More than ever, he had to do something, only he didn’t know what. The only solid thought was to carry on with his plan, to buy Wilda and keep her from Bausi. After that—after that he didn’t know.

First he must get Wilda. He shoved aside every other thought, concentrated on what he could do rather than what he couldn’t, and surveyed what he’d managed to find. Five fox furs, barely enough for a good cloak for him, but it would fit Idunn, who was small and looking frail as a bird this winter. That would please Agnar, a cloak this fine for her. Maybe enough to sell Wilda. Then, when that threat was safe, he could plan.

He set the latest fur in a barrel to soak, to loosen the fat and skin before he scraped it. Two of the other furs were ready, while the last two needed a day or so more to cure. He gathered the two that were ready and set to, letting the repetition take over his mind and free it to think.

He’d lived asleep for too long, he saw that now. Let it all wash over him, letting the poison that was Bausi seep into everything, into everyone. He’d let it, because he loved Sigdir and Gudrun and wanted to see them live, even if twisted. Twisted was better than dead. He’d been asleep and blind with it, thinking his silence courage. It was time now to let his dreams become real, to live outside his head and show the iron in him they all thought long rusted.

Wilda had come, woken him up, opened his eyes. He’d been drifting on the tide, but now he had to row for shore. Only he didn’t know where the shore was. His only guide was Wilda, and he clung to the thought of her, like a guiding star to take him home.

It took two days before he was satisfied. By then his eyes were strained, his back hunched, but it was done. The finest thing he’d ever made, a cloak of white fur, trimmed with the tails, the little bone carving from his trunk altered to serve as a pin. It might be enough, if Agnar was feeling generous.

He led Einar out into the grey daylight and heaved himself onto the horse’s back. His hut was far from the others—no one wanted him close by, so he’d built far up the valley, close by the forest. A tiny patch of land that had been begrudged him, but it was home now.

Down the valley toward the fjord, smoke rose from longhouses and farmsteads in tidy little plumes, rising and mingling with the lowering clouds. Near the centre, near Bausi’s feasting hall and the blacksmith’s, Agnar’s farmstead puffed out smoke and little black figures darted around the buildings. Slaughtering for Bloodmonth. Toki looked back at his hut. The pig. If he added the meat that was smoking slowly in the rafters, that would be more than enough. If he added that, he might not make it through the winter. If he didn’t buy Wilda,
she
might not make it through the winter. He thought of her younger face, drenched in sweat, blood and fear as she threw his knife, averted the blow that would have killed him. Bought him precious time, enough for Agnar to come and stop Bausi from another outright murder.

He brought the meat. He owed her that.

It was slow going at first. Horse-Einar had to break the crust of snow and make a path for himself, at least till they got to the first farmstead. After that it got easier, though it became full of half-frozen slush that made the way slippery. By the time Toki reached Agnar’s farmstead, the sun was a grey disk through the clouds halfway up the sky. Toki slid carefully from Einar’s back, mindful always of his leg, and took down the cloak, folded and wrapped in an old scrap of homespun wool.

When he turned, Bebba stood in the doorway, hands on hips, with a disapproving purse of her lips accusing him. Of what he wasn’t sure, but she stood aside when he approached. He ducked through the doorway into smoke-soaked dimness. Agnar stood on one of the benches, hanging hams from the rafters above the fire so the smoke would preserve them. His face drew into a scowl when he saw Toki, but he got down and wiped his hands on his trousers.

“I hope you aren’t here to cause more fuss.”

As always, Toki said nothing. From the corner of his eye he saw Bebba dart through into the room she used for brewing and glimpsed Wilda, the bronze collar around her neck not quite covered by the sweep of her dark hair. He held out the parcel. Agnar took it with a suspicious look that widened into surprise when he unwrapped it. “This is a fine cloak, and it’ll be just right for Idunn. But why are you giving it to me?”

Toki slid his eyes toward the brewing room, where Bebba stood with her arms crossed in the doorway, Wilda behind her, pale but stoic. She managed a wan smile for Toki, and he knew why her collar pained him. Because she’d been a wild thing once, all scrambled hair and bare feet and daring, and now the collar tamed her.

That smile gave him enough courage for this. His voice crackled and broke, rusty from disuse, but he spoke. “For Wilda.”

Agnar snorted and shoved the cloak back at him. “And there was me, thinking maybe you weren’t such a simpleton after all.”

“Please,” Toki said. “For Wilda. My pig too, what meat I got from it. Take both.”

“What you want with her, eh?” Bebba’s voice was sharp with disapproval. “Going to be like your brothers, take yourself a bed-slave? I thought better of you than that, for all they say you’re simple.”

“Bebba, enough.” Agnar shot her a warning look. Bebba sometimes forgot her place, and though Agnar was a patient man, he’d had cause to teach her more than once before. A man nagged by his own thrall was not a man, not in the eyes of the village. “Toki, what do you want with a thrall? You can barely feed yourself, and she won’t help much. It’s not like you can all of a sudden afford a flock of sheep so she can spend her time spinning.”

Toki’s breath was tight, his throat burning, but he couldn’t say it. It had been hard enough to say the few words he had. He thrust out the cloak again and kept his eyes on Agnar’s. Even as he did, he knew it was no good. Agnar’s face, hard as rock, sad as moonlight, made it clear even before he spoke.

“She isn’t mine to sell, Toki. She belongs to Sigdir. I’m just keeping her till Winter Nights. And I don’t need to say he won’t sell her to you. Especially this one.”

Toki’s throat dried up and his heart squeezed painfully. She belonged to Sigdir, and the whole village knew what he was like with his thralls. He’d learned from Bausi. And Sigdir wouldn’t sell him a thrall. Sigdir would give him nothing he didn’t need to. Wilda’s pale face watched, her brows creased as she tried to follow the words. He couldn’t bear it, the thought of her with Sigdir, of any poor woman thrall with Sigdir, with what he’d become without Arni to guide him, with Bausi to twist him.

Agnar’s old face wrinkled even more, in pity maybe. “Why’s this one got you all so fired up? It’s not like you, not at all, and it worries me, though I’m glad you found your tongue at last. Why this one? She’s pleasing enough to look at, but that’s not it, because all Sigdir’s thralls are that.”

Toki stared down at the cloak, watched his hands sink into the soft fur, crumple and twist it, seemingly on their own. He couldn’t say. Even if he’d not been cursed to silence on it, he couldn’t say because it wasn’t just what she’d seen, the danger she put them all in. Not just because keeping her alive was his one good thing, stored up to tell Odin that he was worthy when the time came. It was her.

Agnar sat down heavily, shaking his head. “Wish I knew for sure what happened the night Arni died. All we got is Bausi’s word, because you don’t talk, and you act like you’re simple, or ashamed of yourself, right enough. I don’t know what’s got into you, but here’s the small comfort I got for you. Sigdir took this one particular. He’s got a reason, though I don’t know what it is. But he’s been playing very secretive of late, even with Bausi, and that comforts me. It comforts me that he’s grown enough now to not take everything Bausi says as truth, that he doesn’t always follow Bausi’s order true. Makes his own little twist on it. He don’t want Bausi knowing of this Wilda, and that should comfort you too. He’s planning something, I don’t know what, but whatever it is, he don’t want Bausi to know. So you just leave her be, Toki, you hear me? I’ll be taking care of her, till Winter Nights at least, and you know I’ll take good care.”

Toki nodded miserably. Agnar would take good care of her, he knew that, but that wasn’t the problem. Sigdir was the problem, and Bausi. And himself, he was the biggest problem, because he lacked the means to do anything about it.

If he couldn’t buy her, and he couldn’t help her run, what could he do? He looked down at the cloak. He could help her buy herself—she could buy her own freedom, and no one could stop that. The cloak wasn’t enough, nor cloak and pig, but it would be a start. Six ounces of silver was the price of freedom. He pushed past Bebba and looked down at Wilda. She trembled, making his Mjollnir amulet jingle on its chain where it hung from the brooch that pinned her apron-dress, yet the look she gave him was steady enough, and again she managed a smile. Too hemmed in, pinned down, caught where she had once been free.

Maybe he was doing this, not because he should, not because saving her was the one good thing he’d ever done and he would keep it, but for that smile. A smile for a man, not a half-wit mute, a coward and a disgrace. He held out the cloak.

Wilda spent the afternoon grinding, a hard and thankless task and a mindless one she could lose herself in. Her back, neck and arm throbbed with the strain, but she dared not stop. Agnar had Bebba repeat to her often that she was a thrall, she would do as she was bidden.

A shadow fell over her, black and looming from the doorway. Almost before she registered it, a hand took her across the face, knuckles and two rings opening a cut. Wilda fell to the floor, her fingers to her cheek. Before she could try to get up, someone caught at the back of her dress and dragged her to her feet, and face to face with Sigdir.

Red hair streamed back from a broad face that would have been handsome but for the twisted sneer. Blue eyes peeked out of deep sockets, eyes that were never still, always searching, suspicious of everything and everyone. Sigdir, her master.

His words sounded like a wolf growling and, against her will, Wilda shrank back. When Bebba translated, her voice shook.

“He says you ain’t doing as you’re told. You’re a thrall, his thrall, and you do whatever you’re told to do, as soon as you’re told to do it. You don’t stop till you’re given leave. And you’re to stop all this making up to Toki. He says…he says you ain’t to get above yourself, like I do.”

Wilda’s spine stiffened at that. She’d done as she was told for a long time now.
Be good. Be virtuous. Stop running off wild when it suits you. Buckle down. Work hard.
Where had it got her? Here, where things were worse than ever, where the chains were only more obvious, the collar visible round her neck now.

Sigdir spat out more growls and Bebba translated again. “He says stand up straight so’s he can look at you.”

Wilda pinched her lips together but stood up straighter. There was a time and place for fighting back, and this wasn’t it. Not with just her and Bebba against Sigdir, who stood a head taller than them, probably weighed the same as the two of them put together and had a bright sword at his waist. She had to bide her time.

“He wants to know about Toki.”

Wilda snatched a look at Bebba, but the older woman’s face was blank. “What about him?”

“You know right well what.”

“I don’t know, I told you. Even if I did, I wouldn’t tell him.”

Bebba translated and Sigdir’s face grew red as a beet. His hand flashed out and caught Wilda across the face again, the heavy ring on his forefinger cutting her lip. She staggered back but wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of falling again. Silence was her only rebellion.

“He says not to worry, it won’t matter soon. You belong to him, and you remember it. And you do what he says.”

Sigdir leaned forward and pressed his face close to hers. His hand came up to grab her jaw and squeezed. If he was hoping for any sign of pain, she denied it to him, pinched her lips shut against the gasp, against the fear and the anger. He whispered some dread-sounding words then dropped his hand and stalked out of the door.

“He said—he said you’d best learn more of their tongue by Winter Nights. He wants you to understand what he’s saying to you, even if you can’t reply much. If you don’t, we all gets it in the neck. You, me and Agnar.”

Wilda sank down to a bench, her hands shaking more with anger than with fear.

Bebba settled next to her, but her tone wasn’t her wise, patient one, it was the scold. “You got to do it, you understand? Whatever they asks, you got to do. You can’t go on behaving like you’re a lady, ’cause you ain’t, not anymore. You got to do as you’re told. And that means learning, if that’s what he wants. He’s a cruel bastard at times, and this is one of them times.”

Do what you’re told.
She always did, that was the problem, could hardly remember the girl she’d been who’d never listened, who ran her own path and laughed at those who didn’t. One fateful, bloody, flaming night had changed everything. Yet it seemed that was her lot in life, in most every woman’s life. Do what your man tells you whether he’s your father, your husband or your owner. She wasn’t sure she had it left in her to do anything else, too ground down with it to care anymore.

No one was more surprised than Wilda when Toki chose that night to come again, his face resolute against Bebba’s glare, against what she’d told him. He saw Wilda’s swollen lip and cut cheek, scowled at Bebba and loomed over her till she babbled out some heathen words that didn’t calm him at all. Wilda could make out one or two words—Bebba had spent the afternoon drilling her as she ground—yet it was the “Sigdir” that seemed to affect Toki the most. His hands curled into fists and he turned away, but not before Wilda saw the look of impotent rage. He crouched down by the fire and stared into the flames for a time, but when he turned back, all the anger was gone from his face.

He gestured at Bebba until she understood and made a fuss of getting warm water and sprinkling a few dried herbs in it. She brought it over with a cloth, but Toki took them from her with a reproachful glare that made her blush and waved her away. Bebba went, reluctantly, to busy herself in the brewing room. Toki crouched in front of Wilda and dipped the cloth in the bowl.

He dabbed the damp cloth at the cut on her cheek, and she willed herself not to flinch, to stay cold and proud, a Christian among heathens. She managed it all right, until he dropped the cloth and traced his finger over the cut, so delicately she hardly felt it. She sat back, discomfort and fear stalking her thoughts. That this was one of the raiders who’d killed so many that day, that above all he was heathen, not Christian, had barbaric ways that made all the tales of devilry about them seem but child’s stories.

Only Toki wasn’t of the Devil, she knew that, she’d always known that, and the knowledge confused her. It was ridiculous, he’d only ever said three words to her, and yet he was the closest thing she had to someone she could trust. There was a quiet sort of strength to him. Not like the other men she’d known who were hard and forceful to show that strength, but it was in Toki’s eyes, the steady way he’d looked at Agnar when he’d offered to buy her. That he was here now, even though Bebba had warned him it might cost his blood to come again. Coward, Bebba said they called him, and he was anything but that.

She couldn’t see his eyes in the half-dark of the lamps, but the set of his mouth changed when she trembled, became twisted with sadness. He took his hand away and turned his head. Almost, she reached out for him. Almost. She couldn’t, not a heathen. She should pity him, yes, she should try and show him the light. But not that, not the touch she wanted to give, would have done once without a second thought, before practicality had shorn her of her heart, before piety had driven it from her. Yet part of her ached to throw all that off, to say to the Devil with the consequences, because the Devil was with her in her torment, and if God cared, why had he brought her here?

Agnar banged through the door, his placid face twisted into a fierce scowl that was still tinged with sadness. A few short, sharp words got Toki to his feet but he didn’t leave, no matter that it was plain what Agnar said to him. Instead he stood for long heartbeats, standing tall before Agnar despite the knife the older man had pulled out, Toki’s look strong and steady even in the face of that. Agnar broke first and put away the knife, muttering about something, and Toki left with a last soft smile at Wilda.

Agnar spent some time berating Bebba, his face flushed with a temper Wilda hadn’t seen on him before. Finally he slammed out of the house, leaving Wilda shaken and Bebba white and trembling.

“Now you’ve gone and done it, girl. Both of you have.”

“Done what?” Wilda tried to still her hands, which shook not just from Agnar’s anger, but from Toki and his feather-light touch.

“Agnar’s taking him to Sigdir and Bausi, and he’s livid that you two made him do that. That meeting ain’t going to end well, mark my words. They’re brothers, the three of them, didn’t I say that? When brothers come to blows over a woman it never ends well, and it’ll be Toki taking the brunt.” Bebba smiled a little. “Part of me hopes he’ll stand before Bausi like he did to old Agnar there. And part of me knows, if he does, it’ll cost him more than blood. It’ll be everything he has—blood, bone and heart.”

When Toki got outside Agnar’s, armed men were waiting for him, come to take him to Bausi, as Agnar had said. His visit had been marked, it seemed. He took a deep breath to steady his hand, and gave them no trouble; there was no trouble he could give them, halt and weaponless against their nimbleness and swords. They shoved him through the swirling snow.

“A thrall all you can manage then, Toki? Can’t even get one of them, can you?”

“Poor bastard,” the other said. “Not even Ingmar’s thrall, the one who lives with the pigs, would look at Toki twice.”

The back of Toki’s neck burned, but he set his mouth shut, to keep his words in as he always did. Maybe they were right. No woman would look at him, not even a thrall. Except Wilda, who looked at him, made him think the courage he had in his dreams was real, made him stand tall.

They reached Bausi’s hall and ducked though the doorway, shaking snow from cloaks and stamping it from boots before they went further. The hall was almost empty tonight except for Bausi in his high seat, Ragnhilda to one side. One of his men shoved Toki forward and onto his knees, needing no prompting but the blood-cursed rune in its bag on a leather thong round Bausi’s neck that sucked the will from him. Yet even on his knees, he kept his back straight and his eyes on Bausi. All the courage he could afford, but he took it.

Bausi took his time before he spoke, time to study Toki intently with a puzzled frown, cuffed him till he looked at the floor. Toki kept his hands curled into fists of impotent wishing. Agnar came in with a swish of cloak and a stomp of snowy boots. His face was hard with worry and anger. Sigdir came a pace behind with a curving sneer and it seemed that was the cue for Bausi to finally speak.

“Sigdir tells me you’ve taken a liking to one of his thralls, that you keep pestering her. That you tried to buy her from Agnar. Is this true, half-wit? Look up!”

Toki raised his eyes and wished he had not. Ragnhilda looked beautiful and spiteful, her face fair, her eyes narrowed in contempt. She’d been his once and had been as fair in her heart as she was in her face. Until Bausi persuaded her parents that she should marry him instead of his disgraced brother, and poisoned her until she was like him. Now there was nothing left of the girl who’d blushed when she saw her betrothed off on his first raid, who’d giggled at everything and saw good in everyone.

Bausi looked dread and imposing on his high seat. Always broad of shoulder, he’d filled out to his prime now, a force of nature and personality that dwarfed any other. “What makes you think you have any rights to thralls? You have rights only where I bestow them, and a nithing like you gets few indeed. You’re lucky I’m benevolent enough to give you land to feed yourself and shelter against the snow. Other jarls would not be so forgiving, and you repay my and Sigdir’s kindness with this?”

Bausi stood and descended from the dais, his hand on the hilt of his sword. Sigdir shifted to Toki’s other side. The day had come when Bausi would kill him, as Toki had always known it would come eventually. Bausi kept him alive only as long as he was no inconvenience, as long as he was amusement, as long as he stayed properly cowed. As long as he did not speak, and he’d spoken.

“What is it about this thrall, eh, little brother? Why
this
one? Why tell her to escape, when the snows are deep and she has nowhere to escape to? Why spend your first words in all this time on that? Why try to buy her? Come, now. We know you can speak. So, speak. Tell me why you disrespect your brother so.”

They crowded in on him, one either side, swords out now, flickering in the dim light.

“Now, that’s not—” Agnar began.

Bausi stopped him with a slashing motion of his hand. “He tried to buy this thrall from behind his brother’s back. He speaks, to her and no one else. He gives her a Mjollnir that was a gift from our father, a gift he shouldn’t be handing to just anyone, let alone a thrall. Then a fine cloak. He encourages her to escape.” Bausi’s sword came up under Toki’s chin and raised it further. “Tell me, brother. Why this thrall?”

Sweat slicked Toki’s brow as he struggled to think what to say. It had been so long since he’d had cause to, and that it should be about this… “I didn’t know she was Sigdir’s. And—and it’s been a long time and lonely.” Not a lie—a man of Odin wouldn’t lie before their jarl, no matter how twisted he might be. Yet not the whole truth. Just enough so Bausi wouldn’t guess his secret. Toki watched Ragnhilda as he spoke, thinking of the few kisses he’d stolen before his shame, and the utter lack of any kind touch since.

“And you liked the look of her, did you?” That was Sigdir, from the other side. “A thrall like that is not for the likes of you.”

Bausi threw him a questioning look and Sigdir smiled, smug as any cat.

“A surprise. But no thrall is for the likes of this nithing. What’s your ruling?”

Bausi pinched his eyebrows together in a frown, considering, and slid the blade further along Toki’s throat. Toki wondered how it would be if he stood now, if now his silence was broken and he spoke Bausi’s deeds. If he reached up and twisted Bausi as Bausi had twisted the wyrd of the fjord, twisted Sigdir and Gudrun against him. His heart thumped loudly at the wanting of it, of being able to show them, all of them, he wasn’t the coward they thought.
Silence, keep still. Keep lives, not make deaths. Bear it, so they will live.

Bausi smiled as Toki turned his face away at that thought. “You keep yourself away from her, from any thrall. You have no right to own one, remember that. Keep to your hut, away from decent men and women. If Sigdir should catch you pestering her again, he’ll be within his rights to take you to task for it, as he sees fit. But, Sigdir, I’d like to see this thrall, see what it is about her that has our brother so brazen.”

“And you will. I intend her for a surprise at Winter Nights.”

Bausi kicked at Toki’s shoulder, sent him sprawling, and jerked his head at his men. “Take him home. And you, Toki, remember your place in this world. Remember that you are nothing, and you stay in that hut. For good.” He touched the rune at his throat, nestled under the silver jarl-torc, and Toki’s throat dried up.