The Lost Tales of Mercia (24 page)

By then she was restless, and ready to
leave. She longed to return to her forest home, no longer burdened
by the energy-sucking weight in her body.

As she walked from the hut one morning,
ready to leave and never come back, her knees buckled underneath
her. She fell into the wet grass and wept.

Thorkell came to see her that evening. The
smell of fish and butter filled the peasants’ lodge as they
prepared the night meal. Thorkell and Runa huddled in the corner,
far away from the quiet couple who had been caring for her.

“I want to leave,” said Runa. She glanced at
her hosts again, and they glared back. They were more than ready
for her to leave, as well.

Thorkell nodded. “I know. I have found a
place for you.”

She reached out and ran her fingers over the
gold and silver rings encircling his wrists and arms, reminding
herself of how rich he was. “What sort of place?”

“A home. Where I can visit you.”

Her hand fell away from him. “And if I
didn’t want you to?”

His face went so still she could hardly read
it at all, only speculate. She had come to see that he could hide
his emotions completely, if he wanted. But she knew they were in
there somewhere. His ability to do this infuriated her, and she
suspected he knew it.

She growled. “Thorkell. I don’t understand
what you’re giving me.”

“I think you do.”

She pitied their eavesdroppers on the other
side of the room, who no doubt heard the reverberating grumble of
his voice, but probably could not understand the conversation.
Neither, however, could she. Her eyes searched his desperately for
clarification, but she could not find it. “Thorkell!” she cried. “I
would not be your bed-slave!”

Without a doubt, their listeners understood
her
words. Runa hoped she would embarrass them enough to go
away. But they were too stubborn to leave their own home.

Thorkell, however, achieved her desire by
simply twisting his head and staring at them. The inhabitants
seemed to understand immediately; they wiped their hands of fish
and walked outside.

“Not a slave,” he said in their absence. “A
wife, in the eyes of Frigga.”

She shrank back against the wall. The smell
of fish guts seemed to grow too strong very suddenly and nauseate
her. This was far too much, far too quickly.

“But … but … I have nothing to offer you.
Not even ...” She did not want to admit it. Whether he guessed it
or not, she had no idea. But she did not want to give him
confirmation of the truth: that she had no family.

Then she understood that despite his great
status—or perhaps because of it—this mattered little to him. He had
nothing to lose by taking a wife of low status. He could marry
again, and again. He could have as many wives as he wanted. She
would be nothing more than a possession to him, whether he called
her a wife or a concubine. From her perspective, the two seemed
very much alike.

Sweat beaded along her brow. Her heart
palpitated against her ribs. Her head spun. “No,” she gasped at
last. “I won’t do it.”

She got up to go. He caught her arm, and
perhaps he tried to be gentle, but his grip lurched her to a
halt.

“Live there for a month,” he said. “I’ll
leave you alone. Then you decide.”

The simple kindness of his request melted
her resolve. Pulling against him, her eyes drawn away as if to her
thorny home in the woods, she marveled at the choices in front of
her, and cursed herself for nearly making the wrong one. A
Jomsviking chief wanted her as his wife. She practically killed his
child, and yet he had nursed her back to health. So far he had not
requested a single thing from her—only given.

She leaned into his strength, sweeping
herself towards him. She wrapped her arms around him, then her
legs. He held her against him effortlessly, as if she was a part of
his own body. She breathed with him, their breath flowing back and
forth long before their lips touched.

He carried her down to the floor, then
pinned her there. She could not have escaped if she wanted to—but
she did not want to. She laughed, thinking of the poor peasants
outside the door, and pulled him closer.

*

Her new lodge was a wonder to her, and very
much to her liking. Thorkell kept his promise to her and did not
visit her for a month. Instead, she visited him. She was not
supposed to, of course—“no women in Jomsborg.” And yet she
delighted in breaking the rules. She prided herself in the fact
that she was quiet and agile enough to slip past the legendary
Jomsvikings. Once, Thorkell said to her, “Perhaps you should be a
Viking, too,” and he laughed, a pleasant sound that shook the
bedframe. But his chuckles faded quickly when he realized she was
not laughing with him.

She did not need to work much, for Thorkell
provided more than enough. But she engaged in various tasks for her
own pleasure and satisfaction. She tried to mingle with other women
in the village, sometimes helping them churn butter or dye a piece
of fabric. She quickly learned that she could not make friends,
even if she wanted to. Most of the women regarded her with
suspicion and distrust, especially once they learned she had spent
most of her life in the woods. And even when some of them grew
interested in her, going out of their way to be kind, Runa found
herself lashing out at them, stirring up trouble against her own
intentions.

When she could no longer endure the
frustrations of such acquaintances, she wandered into the woods. As
she did not need to spend much time hunting for food, she began
work on a new creation, one she had visualized for a long time but
never had the means to produce. She decided that this would be her
gift to Thorkell on their wedding day. Normally, a wife would give
the groom a sword that had been passed down her family. But she had
no family, let alone an heirloom.

The time eventually came for her wedding, at
which point the support of the community surprised her. Thorkell
had assured her that it did not need to become a large event, and
yet everyone seemed to know about it. In the morning a group of
wives from the town led her to the bath-house, where they scrubbed
her with soap, and sprinkled water over hot stones to fill the room
with steam. Once Runa was both sweating and sopping, they led her
into a cold pool to douse herself, and she cried out with
delight.

She put on a dress embroidered with golden
thread, and she wore a crown on her head beset with crystals and
flowers. She had never felt so extravagant in her life. When she
saw Thorkell waiting for her on a soft loping hill, she found
herself blushing. She had never felt so honored—and yet so
incredibly vulnerable—ever before.

She tried not to discourage herself with the
fact that very little of his own family or great following had come
out to witness their union. To them, this wedding did not matter.
They gained nothing from it. And yet at least a few warriors did
leave the fortress to represent him, and she knew from the way they
all joked and teased each other that they were among his dearest of
friends. They were the ones who cared about Thorkell’s well-being,
so perhaps it was best this way.

They sacrificed a goat for Thor, and the
priestess dipped her hand in the bowl of its blood and flung it
upon the congregation. Then they exchanged gifts. Thorkell gave her
a sword, and when she took it in her hands, the weight of it spread
like a shock through her body. She knew it was meant for their son
one day. She did not want it for a son. She wanted it for herself.
But she ignored this, and continued with her role. She could hardly
wait to give him her creation. When she presented it, everyone in
the field grew quiet, so that nothing could be heard but the
rustling wind. For a moment, Thorkell only stared at it, his gray
eyes wider than usual.

Runa ran her hands longingly over the wood.
“It is a bow,” she said. “The best bow you will ever use. Look …
you can even set the string, so it can be shot at a whim.”

She was speaking too quickly due to
nervousness, and she bit her lips shut. Thorkell recovered from his
surprise and took it, balancing it uncertainly in his grasp. “Thank
you,” he said at last, and the ceremony continued.

For the most part, the rituals meant little
to her, and she carried through them easily. When it came time to
say her vow, something changed within her. A terrible fear washed
away all the warm feelings of joy and pride that had thus far
collected, replacing them with a gut-piercing panic. Suddenly she
wanted to bolt away, away from all these staring eyes, away from
Thorkell. But he must have sensed her urge, and he reached out and
clutched her arm. No doubt his touch appeared casual, based on the
effort he put into it, but his constraint was absolute. In a sense
she was grateful, and knew he was right: she had had her chance to
change her mind, and she had not taken it. And so she professed her
devotion.

Nothing went wrong until time for the
wedding feast. At this point the men and women split into separate
groups and raced to the feasting hall. It was a competition filled
with laughter and shouts of joy. Thorkell and his Jomsviking
friends ran further and faster than most of the women. But the mood
began to change when Runa pulled ahead of all of them. Her crown
flew from her hair and she did not pause to retrieve it. She pulled
up her skirts to free her legs. She sped over the fields, and when
the hall’s threshold appeared before her, she did not slow down—she
only raced faster. She had heard that the groom was supposed to bar
her way with a sword and lead her inside, as a sign of his
guardianship. Instead, she made to race through the door on her
own.

Then she stumbled over the lip of the
doorway.

The crowd behind her fell deathly silent,
but for their panting breaths, which turned into gasps and sighs of
dismay. The wife’s entry to the hallway signified her transition to
the life of her wife-hood. The way Runa had stumbled indicated the
interference of evil spirits; her union with Thorkell would be full
of conflict and hardship.

Thorkell appeared next to her, reaching to
help her to her feet. She flung herself away from him and hurried
inside. She heard the grumble of Thorkell’s voice, and words which
were something like, “I guess I’ll serve the ale, then,” and people
began to laugh nervously. But she trembled with rage and
frustration. Why had she been so careless? Why had she ruined
everything that seemed to be going well, as she so often did? She
did not understand herself. It was almost as if she did not want to
be happy.

Perhaps it had not been her fault, she
thought with trepidation. Perhaps her marriage with Thorkell truly
was doomed.

*

Their first year together was one of
happiness. She cooked and mended his clothes for him. Sometimes,
even though she did not need to, she hunted for them with the great
bow she had created. Often she played games with him—or at least,
he thought of them as games at first—in which he would teach her
some of his fighting skills. At first he would tease and trifle
with her, seeing such an activity as little more than foreplay. But
he began to see that she progressed steadily from one skirmish to
the next, and their games became something more like training
sessions. Thorkell enjoyed training her, because it was a form of
practice for him, as well; soon he would receive King Sweyn
Forkbeard’s own son, Canute, to train and foster like his own.

Runa even made friends with another woman in
town named Halla. Halla was an old runeswoman, full of strange
tales and mythical knowledge. She taught Runa the names of many of
the flowers and herbs she had long gathered in the forest and
showed her new uses for them. She also demonstrated new ways of
reading the runestones.

During one such lesson, Halla stopped
suddenly, looking deep into the criss-crossing patterns before
her.

“What’s wrong?” asked Runa.

“There is evil in your past,” said Halla in
her dry, scratchy voice. “You ran away from it, but it lingers
within you.”

Runa’s heart thudded in her throat. She
reached down and tossed the stones with a sweep of her hand. “A
vague reading,” she snapped, somewhat breathless. “You could say
that of anyone!”

“Perhaps,” said Halla. “But you ...”

Runa glared at her until the old lady grew
silent. Soothsayer or not, she could see that the subject should be
dropped. And because she did, she remained Runa’s friend, and their
meetings continued peacefully so long as Halla did not broach the
topic. When Halla ran out of herbs and recipes to teach her, she
began to teach Runa English, for the woman knew the language well.
At first she did not know why Runa would ever wish to learn it, and
Runa did not have a good answer. But her lessons continued,
nonetheless.

Every time Runa began to tire of Thorkell
and the monotony of her life with him, he would leave for some sort
of battle or voyage. In his absence she would long for his kind
words, his playful roughhousing, and his surprisingly gentle
embrace. When he returned she would throw herself upon him, just as
she had in the woods the night of their first encounter.

Then she became pregnant again.

At first she did nothing. She did not tell
Thorkell. She tried, even, to shut it from her mind, as if ignoring
the fact would make it go away. She was able to do this until one
night, she had a horrible nightmare.

The darkness trapped her. A monster called
to her through the walls. Breath became scarce but she could not
leave the dark hole. She pressed her lips to the cracks and savored
the slightest breeze. Screams of the tormented echoed from the
shadows. The same victim cried again and again for help. She
recognized the scream. She knew it by heart.