Heart's Ease (The Northwomen Sagas Book 2) (24 page)

“We were together in Estland from the time of Ivan’s attack until just before…the end, and I was not seeded. I am barren.” The topic chewed on Olga’s heart, and she wanted it over.

But Brenna persevered. “Have you had your blood since he was here?”

She hadn’t, but nothing inside her had been working well since winter had fallen. The thought was both beautifully tempting and crushingly painful, but it was impossible. “I am not. My womb is dead. Nothing can grow there. I am a healer and a midwife, and I know my ken.”

Brenna took her hand from Olga’s shoulder. She bent forward and pressed on Olga’s belly. “Then air must make you fat, my friend. Because you don’t eat and yet your belly grows. You need to come to the seer’s with me. Karlsa is too dangerous for you, as well.”

Olga pushed Brenna’s hand away and left hers in its place. Her belly had swollen a little, but she could name several causes vastly more likely than a seed sprouting in a womb that had died long before.

“No. You are wrong, and I am needed here.”

The two women stared long at each other until Brenna nodded. “Very well. If you are sure.”

“I am.”

~oOo~

Frida and Jakob lay next to each other on the hall floor. Olga knelt between them, dripping a new concoction between Jakob’s slack, bluish lips. More than a week had passed since the solstice. The dead now numbered nearly thirty, and the ill almost one hundred. But Jakob, one of the first ill, held on.

His end was coming, though, and soon, Olga knew. His skin had taken on the flat grey hue that told of sluggish blood, and his eyes, which hadn’t opened in days, had sunk into the caves of their sockets.

His coughing had eased, but not for any good reason. He had lost the strength to cough. Now, when a fit overtook him, he simply strangled weakly until someone could reach him and turn him to pound on his back.

Frida was rallying a little and thus struggling more noticeably. She wheezed at his side, and her eyes and nose leaked corruption. In some of the worst cases, the seepage fused the eyes shut. When Olga had given Jakob all she could of the new brew, she turned and pulled Frida to a seated position and cradled her head on her shoulder. She wiped her face clean.

The girl’s fever still raged, but in the past ten days, Olga had seen that those with the worst fevers often seemed to rally, as if the heat burned the pestilence away. On first noticing as much, she had thought to let the fever take hold—and then had promptly lost four young people to the fever itself. She could not make sense of the ways of this plague.

One in three of those stricken had regained or were regaining their health, Frida among them. Nearly one in three, so far, had died—some more quickly than Olga could treat, and others lingering like Jakob. The others were in the throes of the illness, and she could not say their fate. And every day, new sufferers staggered, crawled, or were carried into the great hall. The sickness was tearing through the town like a band of raiders.

Orm and Bjarke. Rikke and Elfa, who had nursed the others. They all had pallets in the hall now. Hans was among those taken quickly. Whatever this was, it fed on the weak, the strong, the young, the old. Four children in swaddling were gone.

Olga, Dagmar, and Holmfrid had remained well despite spending their days amongst the ill. Vali, Jaan, and Georg had remained well despite carrying the dead to the earth.

Vali and some of the strongest men standing had dug deep into the frozen ground to make a grave in the woods for all the dead. And now they were preparing a ritual of blood sacrifice to seek their gods’ aid. Olga left them to their beliefs and tried to understand the disease.

“He’s leaving me,” Frida gasped.

“Hush,
kullake
, hush.”

The young wife shook her head. “I can feel him going. I should have let him seed me.”

Olga closed her eyes. Since Brenna had brought up the idea the week before, it would not leave her mind. She was barren, she knew, and the thought that she might be with child was nothing more than a new torment to add to her vast collection of them. “If you had a child inside you, it would also be ill.”

Frida suffered a jag of rheumy coughing, and Olga held her and rubbed her back. “But I’m not leaving. I can feel that, too. My body is pushing the pestilence away.” She was quiet, staring at the still form of her young husband. “His is not. And I will have nothing of him.”

“Shhh. Shhh.” Olga stroked the girl’s hair and could make no words for the sorrow in her heart. “Shhh.”

~oOo~

Jakob died that night, while Olga had gone to her house to make a new batch of the brew that at least seemed to offer ease in the chest. When she returned, Frida was lying at Jakob’s side, holding his cold hand, her head on his stiff chest.

Vali came in and carried the boy’s body out himself, and Olga followed. Frida, still rallying, had tried to stand and go with them, but she hadn’t the strength. So Vali and Olga, and Jaan and Georg, stood at the side of the grave, into which Jakob’s body was laid with two others who had also died on the same day.

She had lost another brother. Another boy like a son.

“When I pulled him from the sea,” Vali sighed, “I had the help of the gods. I thought he was meant for great things.”

Olga took his hand and squeezed it. “He had love, and he made a new home. You saved him for that.”

Jaan leaned close to Olga’s ear. “Can you say our words?”

She closed her eyes. When tears came, she let them fall unhindered, and they made cold tracks down her cheeks.

In the language of their homeland, in a voice broken by grief and rusty in her own tongue, she said, “We send you into the earth, our friend and brother, our son, so that you may begin the path anew. We put your name into the air, Jakob, and cry our tears onto your body, so that you may be prepared for the next turn of the wheel. May the sun warm you and the earth hold you while the world rolls forward. May your spirit now be free.”

~oOo~

Two days later, Frida’s fever broke, and her chest began to clear. She was listless and pale, but Olga understood that to be mourning as much as illness and knew that she would, if she chose, regain her health. She had only fourteen years and was already a widow, but her spirit was strong.

When, later in the day, Olga saw her sitting up, speaking gently with the old woman lying at her side, she knew it with certainty. Frida would be well.

The pace of the newly ill was becoming stable, with no more than two or three coming to the hall each day for the past few days. The pace of the dying was increasing, however, as more of the lingering ill lost their battle.

Vali had sacrificed a great steer in search of their gods’ aid to lift the pall of illness from the town. Olga thought of the horse he’d sacrificed before they’d left her home. Brenna’s horse, a lovely golden mare.

Their voyage had been arduous, but the tossing seas had brought them here, to Vali’s home, where an army had been waiting to aid him in his quest to save Brenna and avenge them all.

Perhaps there were gods in the skies and the sea. Perhaps the blood of that steer would appease them in some way and gain the people of Karlsa some relief from this pestilence.

Olga set a cooling cloth over the eyes of a feverish child. She stood and bent to pick up her water bowl, and she felt something inside her, a flutter in her belly. Straightening quickly, she laid her hand over the spot. As Brenna had pointed out, and as she herself had, of course, known, her belly swelled slightly, where always before it had been a flat plane. Always before except once, for a few precious months. And now something inside was moving.

Could Brenna be right? Could she be with child? She should know. It was her job to know.

She thought of her aches and illness for the past few months. She had believed them to be signs of her despondency, and they could well have been. But she had missed her blood three times as well. And her belly grew. And now that flutter of movement. It could have been a spasm, nothing more than a twitch in her vitals. Any of these could be signs of other ailments of body and spirit. But all of them together?

Yet years of barrenness said it was impossible.

What would she have told a woman who came to her like this?

She would have said that when the signs are strong, the truth is clear.

She was with child. Leif’s child. She had thought it impossible, she had been blind to the signs, had denied them, and now she was well along.

Leif’s child. Her child. A child.

What would that mean for the future?

It didn’t matter. She was with child, and for the first time in many, many months, Olga cared about the future.

She was surrounded by deadly illness. Though she had not taken ill, she couldn’t risk that she might yet. She prepared to tell Dagmar that she would have to leave the hall. These weeks tending to the afflicted had trained the others well in their care. She would stay close, in her house, and make the brew, and be available for counsel, but she could no longer be in the hall herself.

Before she could find a moment alone with Brenna’s mother, Olga felt another flutter, this one in her throat. She tried to clear it.

Then she couldn’t stop coughing.

Leif rested the longsword on his fingers. “The balance is good.” With a flex of his hand, he tossed the heavy blade up and caught it by the grip. “I don’t like the weave on the hilt, however. Too soft.”

The smith nodded and took the blade from him. “You would prefer it unwrapped and polished?”

Leif nodded.

“As I thought. Young Dag”—he indicated his apprentice—“thought the jarl’s new sword should be fantastical. He wove the grip and even hoped to carve the fuller. But I told him that was not your way.”

Smiling at the boy, Leif said, “The weave is good work. An elaborate blade is well and good for rituals and ceremonies, boy. But a jarl should carry a blade like those of his clansmen. It is a tool. The most important tool a man will ever have, but a tool. When I forget that, I won’t be worthy of wielding it.”

The boy blushed. “Forgive me, Jarl Leif.”

With a sharp pat on the boy’s back and a nod to the smith, Leif left the smithy and continued on his way to the shipbuilder’s.

The celebrations of jul had ended, and the town had recovered from the days of revelry. They were still in deep winter, but here on the Geitland shore, the snows weren’t so deep and the water moved freely. Each day brought them more sun. There was work to be done to prepare for the great raids of the coming summer.

The plans for this raid kept his mind engaged and his body active, and that was a good thing. In the quiet dark of the night, alone in his quarters, loneliness ate him raw. He could feel himself becoming bitter, the guilt he’d felt for the consequences of his actions festering into resentment because he had not been forgiven, would not be understood, by those he loved best, and he knew that if he let those dark feelings get their claws into him, he would become someone he did not wish to be.

Astrid believed he should find a wife. He needed living heirs, she insisted, and he needed companionship, and if Olga did not want him, then he should find someone who did.

Luckily, she had not been offering herself in the role. Leif cared for Astrid; especially since he had become leader of Geitland and she his right hand, he admired her very much and preferred her company to any other in town. But she was sour-tempered and quick to fight, with words, fists, or weapons, and he thought that any man she might mate with would need a great deal of fortitude and perseverance.

Leif had no intention of marrying again. Although he had married once without love and been fortunate to have grown into it, now he was already in love and knew he couldn’t love anyone else. He would have Olga or no one, and she didn’t want him. Besides, Olga could not have given him more children, so there had been no more heirs in his future in any case. If he was still jarl when he died, the people of Geitland could fight out the question of who would take his seat.

The shipbuilder’s house was the largest of any building in the town save the great hall itself. Inside, Grimulv and his five apprentices were hard at work finishing the first of two skeids they would sail to the west. North in Karlsa, Leif expected that Vali’s men were building two similar vessels.

Two great fire pits kept the large space warm while the workers climbed over and into the nearly-completed hull of the massive new ship. Off to one side, Grimulv’s wife and several other townswomen were at work on the sail, striped in Leif’s colors: black and white. He had chosen them for the simplicity of their contrast. The darkest color and the lightest.

Grimulv’s wife had sighed at him when he’d chosen the colors in his early days as jarl; apparently black was among the most difficult dyes. But he had been resolved on the point. The result of the women’s efforts was, on close inspection, more of a deep grey, but the sea would have its way eventually, anyway, so Leif was satisfied.

“How goes it?” Leif asked when the shipbuilder had climbed down from the ship.

Grimulv ruffled his hand over his head. “We won’t be sure it’s seaworthy until it sits on the sea, but I see no problem yet. We will be ready to begin the next in a fortnight, perhaps.” Since Grimulv was of a melancholic nature and tended to be subdued about his ability to meet other people’s demands, his assertion that there had been no problem yet was high confidence on his part.

“That is good. On your schedule, yes?”

“Yes. Come.” He started off toward a table, where a heavy sailcloth was draped over an odd shape. “I work on this at night.” He pulled the drape free to expose a large, intricately-carved dragon bust. “I have a plan for the other as well. You didn’t ask, but ships as great as these should have a great beast on the prow.”

Leif traced his hand over the carving. The dragon was rendered roaring, its head cast high, its great teeth bared. “It’s magnificent. Thank you, friend.”

Grimulv merely nodded and pulled the sailcloth back over the figurehead, forcing Leif to move his hand.

~oOo~

When he came out of the shipbuilder’s house, Astrid stood there with her arms crossed. “What do you think?”

Leif grinned. “We will have magnificent ships to sail to this new place. What news with you?” He turned toward the hall, and Astrid fell in step at his side.

“There is a rider in the hall, seeking to speak directly to you. He bears a message.”

“A rider?” Though travel was far slower over land, it was the safest path in the winter. Icy winds that gusted from the north played havoc on the water, and in the north, the sea itself froze, well out from the shore. “From where?”

“He would not say. He will speak only to you anything regarding his message. But he came into town from the north.”

Karlsa was far to the north and through two other jarldoms. A journey over land, even by relay, would take nearly a fortnight, and more if the weather were bad. Only a crucially important message would come so far in winter. It was more likely to be from Finn or Ivar, the nearer jarls. Even if it had come from Karlsa, it would likely be Vali, with some need or trouble regarding their plans for the summer. It would not be Olga. She would have no desire, or understanding, to send him a message this way.

But Leif’s heart began to thump with worry nonetheless. He picked up his pace, moving so quickly toward the hall that Astrid was forced to trot to keep up.

Once there, he saw the rider immediately, sitting near the fire, still in his furs, with a cup of mead and a heaping plate of hot food. When Leif strode toward him, the man stood and bowed his head. “Jarl Leif.”

“You have a message?”

“Yes. I am Erik, of Dofrar. I carry a message from Vali, Jarl of Karlsa.”

A strange blend of relief and disappointment surged through Leif’s veins. He had been correct. Olga would not convey any message to him, certainly not in this way. Instead, the message likely meant trouble for the raid. Unable to help himself, he sighed. “What is it?”

“Only five words. They are exactly the words conveyed to me by the rider before me. The message is this: ‘Come now. She needs you.’”

~oOo~

He left that very day. It nearly crazed him to ride; he was a man of the sea, and riding long distances took far too long. But he had no choice. The sea would be too treacherous for a journey so far north, and they would have faced a strong headwind all the way. By mount, he could ride alone—or, at Astrid’s insistence, with a single companion—and find shelter should a storm come up.

Ulv rode with him, and they pushed hard every day, changing their horses often and sleeping and supping rarely. And still, it was a full fortnight before they made it to Karlsa. Almost a month since Vali had sent the message.

The message had been maddeningly vague. All relayed messages, by necessity, were; they had to move through many mouths and ears before they arrived at their intended audience, and so they had to be short, lest they be misremembered. All the ears and mouths heard the information themselves as well, so a sensitive message could not be too specific. But for many days of the journey, Leif’s mind gnawed at the question of Olga’s need, one so great that Vali himself had intervened to bring Leif to her.

Then they began to hear word of Karlsa, and his worry grew until he thought it might crush him.

As they’d traveled farther north, a story had developed about the state of Vali’s people. By the time they were moving through Jarl Ivar’s holding, adjoining Vali’s, those they encountered had cautioned them strongly to turn back.

Karlsa had been stricken with a great plague. Every person had a different accounting of the numbers of the ill and the dead, each one growing more extreme, and everyone had a different story about the illness itself. By the time they saw the town of Karlsa ahead, Leif and Ulv had been half-expecting the dead themselves to walk, and none other.

Olga was their healer. Vali’s message was that she needed Leif immediately. It could mean only one thing. She had been stricken.

And nearly a month had passed since the message had been sent. Leif spent the last days of the journey preparing himself for the likelihood that he was too late.

Not far from the town proper, they came upon a large open grave and two snowy mounds next to it that Leif knew were others just like it that had been filled with bodies and covered.

Was Olga already in one of these holes? Leif’s heart sank heavily at the thought.

Ulv pulled up his mount. “Leif. If we cross into town, we might not leave it.”

That was a truth. Even if they didn’t take ill themselves, they could bring the sickness with them when they left. They would have to stay until it lifted. Leif turned to his friend. “You are right. You should turn back. Return to the house where we took our last meal. They’ll keep you for the night, and you can return to Halsgrof and ask Jarl Ivar to provide you with lodging.”

Ulv considered him for a few moments, then shook his head. “No. I’m with you. I only wanted the import of what we do said aloud.”

Åke had been disappointed in Ulv, his quiet, thoughtful son, but in truth, he was the best among the former jarl’s heirs. Leif nodded, and they nudged their horses to continue this last stretch of their long journey.

Vali rode up just before they entered the town. He looked haggard—not ill, but exhausted and full of sorrow. He cast a surprised eye in Ulv’s direction and then turned to Leif.

“I’m glad you came.” He didn’t come near enough to touch.

Relieved that Vali hadn’t stood on the niceties, Leif asked the only question in his head. “Is she…” He couldn’t say the word.

“She is gravely ill, but she yet lives. Before I take you to her, we must talk. There is much you need to know.”

He had not ridden so hard and long to have another accusatory talk with Vali. “No. After I see her, we’ll talk.”

Vali smiled without humor. “I am not making a request. Come with me, or I will not allow you to see her at all. Where we’re going is free of pestilence.”

Without saying more, Vali turned his black steed and led them into the woods.