Heart's Ease (The Northwomen Sagas Book 2) (2 page)

Today was the week’s day of rest; all the men were on land, at home in the village.

She stood a few steps beyond the door of Heino and Maret’s hut and watched the men and some of the women running for weapons—fishing spears and massive hooks, even nets. No man here possessed a warrior’s sword or more axe than that fit for firewood and building lumber, but they clutched what they had in resolute fists.

Olga turned to Maret, who stood gaping. “What do you have that can be a weapon?”

The terrified woman blinked and shook her head.

“A weapon, Maret!” She pushed past her, back into the hut, and searched, finally grabbing a small boning knife from the table. Then she took the poker from the fire and thrust them both at Maret. “Take these and stay with Heino. Fight, Maret. Fight!”

“Where…where are you going?”

As the raiders roared into the town and the screams began, Olga grabbed her blade from the table by the bed. She didn’t answer Maret; she simply ran past her, back toward Johanna and her grandfather.

Already the village was in chaos, and Olga ran across the rutted dirt path, expecting any moment to feel the blade of a barbarian axe in her back. But she didn’t.

The door to the hut was open, and Olga raced in. She was too late. Johanna’s grandfather was dead, his chest sopping with blood, and Johanna was bent face-first on the table, screaming, a creature in furs ripping at her clothes.

These raiders weren’t like the stories she’d heard of those who’d come before—these beasts were killing and raping indiscriminately. No, not indiscriminately. It was more horrible even than that. They killed with intention. They seemed bent on total destruction, on killing every one of them and on taking their enjoyment of the women before they did.

And the girls. Johanna was yet only a girl. Just a girl.

Olga shrieked and raised her knife over her head, held in both hands. She buried it in the savage’s back. But his furs and leather were thick, and her knife was short, and she knew as it sank in that she had done him little damage.

He roared, though, and reared back. Johanna slid to her knees and crawled under the table, trying to cover herself again. Her eyes were round with fear and shock.

Keeping her knife with her, Olga sidestepped, wanting to stay close to Johanna and also find something to put between them and the monster.

He turned on her, snarling like a wild thing. His head was shorn but for a strange tuft on the top of his head, and his face and head were painted with horrible red smears. Olga wondered if it was blood he’d used to decorate himself.

She brandished her little knife before her, but the raider laughed and swung his axe, hitting her arm with its side. Pain sang through her bones. Her blade, and her hope, went flying, and as thick, rough fingers grabbed her throat, she prepared herself for what would happen next.

“KNUT!” a deep voice shouted from the door. Expecting a greater horror, Olga glanced in that direction and saw a broad-shouldered beast with flowing blond hair, his face splashed with blood. He turned to her, and his eyes—deep blue and wild—met hers and lingered. “Leave them for now. Soldiers approach.”

Though she had never before seen one of these men, Olga knew some of their language. Her older brother, Mihkel, had left the village of their youth and gone adventuring, crossing sea and land alike. It had been long since she’d had word of him, and she believed him dead. But on his few visits home, he’d taught her some of the things he’d learned out in the world.

She had an agile mind and remembered all the things she saw and heard and experienced. So she understood the golden giant, and as the red-smeared savage stepped away from her, she knew she and Johanna had a brief reprieve. A chance to run.

When the raiders left, she went for her knife, then grabbed Johanna’s hand and pulled her toward the door.

But there was nowhere to run. The raiders and soldiers swarmed the village, and bodies had fallen everywhere. Bodies of people she knew. The smell of death filled the air.

Johanna’s knees gave out, and Olga barely kept hold of her. The girl was too afraid; they could never get through that murderous throng and find safety.

“Come—we will tuck away and wait for our chance.” She pulled the girl back inside, found a knife near the fire, handed it to Johanna, and then dragged her to the farthest corner of the hut, behind the bed on which her grandfather’s body lay. His blood dripped steadily onto the rough wood of the floor.

“Perhaps the soldiers will win,” Johanna whispered.

“Perhaps they will.” Olga doubted that; Prince Vladimir would not send many soldiers to die for a mere fishing village, not even one less than half a day’s ride from the castle. He would keep his good fighters close and protect what he valued. The raiders would win and take their plunder.

Olga held her knife and knew that she should open Johanna’s throat with it. There was no escape for them, and what awaited was a greater horror and a more painful death. It would be a mercy to end the girl’s life now, before she experienced the world as it truly was.

Olga knew that was true, but she couldn’t do it. The girl clung to her, taking comfort from her. She felt safer with her, and Olga could not face the betrayal she would see in Johanna’s eyes as her lifeblood left her young body.

She was not strong enough to save Johanna or herself.

The women huddled together, their knives clutched to their chests, and listened to the village die.

The barbarians won the village and all its meager spoils.

Eight women had been spared from death during the scourge and claimed as slaves, Olga and Johanna among them. Johanna’s young friend, Helena, was also dragged away, bound by wrist and neck with hempen rope.

They were dragged farther inland, where the raiders made camp. A pen was made to hold the women, as if they were nothing but livestock. Olga understood enough of the talk around them to know that they were less than livestock to these strange men—and women, there were women among the raiders, bearing sword and shield and stained with blood as much as any man.

Four men—three fishermen and one soldier—had been held alive as well. The soldier was blindfolded and bound to a tree. The others were working to build the camp.

Some of the women were dragged away from the pen, and some were beset where they were, still tied to the post in the center by the rope around their necks.

Johanna was one who was dragged away. She screamed and clutched backward for Olga, her fingernails gouging deep into the flesh of Olga’s arm, until the barbarian hit her in the face and threw her over his shoulder.

For her part, Olga was taken in the pen, thrown face-down in the dirt, the rope tugging at her throat.

It was not the first time she had been taken in this way. She knew the pain of it, and she knew that men who could take this pleasure would take more pleasure in her suffering, so she bore the pain quietly.

She could hear the screams and wails of the other women and the girls, and she spoke clearly, as calmly as she could. “Be strong, sisters. Your pain and fear feeds them.”

Their anguish was too great, however, and they could not heed her.

Roaring fetid breath into the side of her face, the raider completed and left her. Before she could push herself from the ground, another was on her. She bore that, too.

And the next.

She did not resist; she lay as still and malleable as she could be, and she let it happen, because it would happen no matter her struggle, no matter her pain. It was the way of things.

Then she was left alone, as were the others in the pen. And then those who had been taken were returned. None of the women were unscathed; they showed ill use, and several had only scraps left of their clothing.

The raiders seemed to have burned off their savage need and were grouping now near a large fire, from which the smell of roasting meat wafted. They had a new appetite, and the women had a reprieve.

Johanna had been dropped near the pole and tied again to it. She made a weak cry and curled her body into a tight coil. Olga stood and went to her, ignoring the pains of her own body. Helena, bruised and battered herself, left wearing only a torn blouse, her bottom nearly bare, knelt over Johanna, sobbing; Olga nudged the girl to the side.

“Let me see,
kullake
. Let me see.” At Olga’s gentle urging, Johanna relaxed her body enough for Olga to examine her.

Blood had soaked through Johanna’s skirt, turning the red wool black and shiny. Olga turned to use her hands behind her and pushed the skirt up, over skinny, bare legs, pale but for the vicious bruises blossoming red and purple over the young flesh. And the blood coming from her woman’s place. Running freely. She had only twelve years. Only twelve, and the first blood to come from her womb should not have been this blood.

The sun still shone through pale clouds, and a light, cool breeze made leaves dance and sing on their branches. It seemed too light and gentle a day to hold such darkness.

The quantity of blood foretold that Johanna would die on this day, in this awful place, so close to her home, and yet a world away. She would die in agony, when all around them were herbs for healing and comfort. Barely more than an arm’s reach away was bed of mouse-ear, which could slow the blood and give her comfort. And there were mushrooms that could take her away from this place. That could take them all away.

A certain kind of mushroom, and Johanna need never know pain again.

All of it, almost close enough to reach. But she was tied to a post, and her hands were bound against her back. In powerless frustration, Olga cast her eyes about the camp, as if there might be some help for them among the monsters making this nightmare.

Walking near their pen was the golden giant who had stopped the raider in Johanna’s hut. He had washed the blood from his face and hands. Olga had no cause to think him less terrible than any other of these barbarous creatures, except that he had met her eyes in the hut, and she had seen in his something other than the rapacious hunger of his blood-smeared fellow. And he had not come for the women. Not in the village, and not here in the camp.

She stood and walked the length of her rope.

“
Palun
!” she called, and then remembered herself and sought the word in the raiders’ tongue. “Please!”

He stopped and cocked his head but didn’t speak.

Olga swallowed, and the rope rubbed against her throat. “Please.” She searched her mind for the words her brother had taught her. “Girl is bad hurt.” A nod toward Johanna on the ground would, she hoped, suffice to fill in any gaps in her words.

“You speak our tongue.” He stepped to the rope fence that bounded their prison.

“Little, yes. A plant at woods. Golden flowers?” She didn’t know how to say ‘mouse-ear’ in any other way. “It help her. Please.”

“You are a”—he said a word she did not know, and she shrugged and shook her head.

“I not know this.”

He paused as if he were thinking and then said, “You make people well?”

“Yes. I try.”

The raider pulled a knife from a sheath at his back and came into the pen. Olga ran backward, away from him and what she was sure was her bloody death. She tripped over her feet and had no way to correct or catch herself, with her hands bound behind her. She would have fallen, except that the raider caught her, his massive arm sweeping around her waist.

He was even more enormous up close. Olga felt sure he could have snapped her in two, and she was sure he was about to do just that. Instead, he set her on her feet and used that knife to cut her rope free from the pole. They had the complete attention of the other women, all but Johanna, who was curled again and moaning.

“Please. She suffers. More than we others. She is girl only.” Her mind raced, seeking all the words she knew of this strange tongue, which did not fit in her mouth very well.

He turned and looked down at Johanna, and, again, Olga saw something softer in his eyes. “How old is she?” When she couldn’t quite make sense of the question and didn’t respond, he asked, “How many years?” With that, she understood the first question, too.

“Twelve.”

His eyes closed. When he opened them, he turned them on her. They were deep blue, like twilight sky. “You can be of use. If you will work and do no harm, I will unbind you.” He shook the rope. “Understand?”

She understood most of his words, but she struggled to make sense of the change in her circumstances. Even if only temporary, it seemed an unthinkable boon. “I help girl?”

“If our healer can use your help, then yes. You will have run of the camp, and may see to the other slaves if you like. But if you make trouble, I will slit your throat.” Brandishing his knife, he asked again, “Understand?”

Olga nodded. “Understand.” She understood enough—he wanted her to work, and he would let her help Johanna. Perhaps the others as well. And he would unbind her.

He cut the rope from her hands and her neck, then sheathed his knife. With a huge hand wrapped completely around her arm, he led her from the pen and into the camp. Over her shoulder, she called to the other women in their own words, “Be strong! I will bring help!”

She hoped that was a truth.

~oOo~

The barbarian healer was another large man—they were all so big—though smaller than the blond, with bushy red hair and beard. He gave the blond one a long look and then nodded.

“You speak our language?” he asked of her.

She kept her eyes downcast; she knew well the role of the subjected. “Yes.”

“You know how to care for wounds—battle wounds?”

Running that sentence through her head as quickly as she could, translating the words, she nodded. “I am healer.” She used the word the blond one had used and thought she now understood its meaning.

There was only one wounded man in the tent. His face was covered in bloody bandages.

“I have no need of her now, Leif, but she can be useful,” the healer said to the blond one. Leif. His name. She looked up at his face and found his eyes on her.

“I will have her tend to the thralls, then. Some of the women are already ill used and will not be of much more use if they aren’t tended to.”

Olga’s head ached from trying to understand the raiders’ words, but sense was already coming more easily to her. “Please,” she said. “I help girl.” Too much time had passed already.

The blond one—Leif—nodded and took hold of her arm again.

But then a horn blew somewhere, and instead of leading her out of the tent, he pushed her back toward the redheaded raider. “You stay with Sven.” To the red one, he said. “Keep her here.”

And he was gone.

~oOo~

“Usch,” the redheaded healer—Sven—muttered under his breath again, while battle screamed and clanged outside the tent. “Usch.”

He went to the tent opening and stood looking. Olga could not see around him, but she didn’t need to; she had seen enough of battle in her lifetime. She had seen enough horror in this one day to last more than one lifetime.

She knew that she would be no help to Johanna now.

Sven turned back to her, a fierce scowl warping his features. “What are you called?”

“I…” She had not expected him to address her. “I…”

“Your name, girl! I am Sven.” He slapped his chest.

“Olga.”

“Olga. Fine. I have use of you after all.” He waved a hand at the corner of the tent. “Lay out the mats and furs. I will prepare. We will have wounded. There are always wounded. Understand?”

She nodded and went to the place he’d shown her. His voice called her attention back, and she turned to him again.

“If we are beset, get behind me. Understand?”

Again, she nodded. Though the soldiers, if it was they who had attacked the camp, were ostensibly on her side, she had no trust that she would be rescued by anyone attacking the healing tent.