Viking Passion

By

Flora Speer

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Copyright © 1992, by Flora Speer

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The skalds, those poetic makers of Viking
legends and sagas, tell the story of Ragnar Lodbrok, Ragnar
Hairy-breeches, who in the middle years of the ninth century
harried the northeastern coast of Britain until he was finally
captured by King AElle of Northumbria. He was condemned to death
and cast into a pit of vipers.

Though Ragnar would have much preferred to
live, he was not afraid to die, and so as the venomous snakes
writhed about his body he cheerfully sang his Viking death-song. He
cried out only once during his ordeal. It was not a plea for mercy,
but a threat.

“Ah,” he called to those watching him, “if
only my little pigs knew how it fares with their old boar.”

His “little pigs,” his four sons, soon
learned the manner of their father’s death. The legend says that
Ragnar’s oldest son, Bjorn Ironside, when he heard the news,
gripped the shaft of his spear so tightly that his fingerprints
were permanently impressed upon it. Sigurd Snake-eye, the second
son, was told of his father’s fate as he pared his nails with a
knife. He kept on cutting until he reached bone. The third son,
Hvitserk, sat at his chessboard when the news was brought to him.
The skalds say he clenched the ivory pawn so hard it crumbled into
dust in his fingers. The fourth son, Ivar the Boneless, said
nothing. His expression did not change, but his face became red,
and then blue, and then white.

It was Ivar who gathered a powerful army and,
with two of his brothers, sailed to England seeking vengeance. In
autumn of the Year of Our Lord 866, Ivar landed in East Anglia. He
spent the winter consolidating his forces and acquiring horses and
supplies from the cowed Saxons who lived there. In the spring of
867, Ivar marched north to lay siege to AElle’s capital at York.
Thus began the Viking invasions that soon overpowered most of
England.

In Ivar’s wake sailed Snorri Thorkellsson of
Denmark, Snorri the Late-comer, who, having been abroad on a voyage
of plunder and trade, arrived home to learn of these events from
his father. There was some discussion as to what Snorri should do.
Should he offer his services to Ivar, who was a distant cousin on
his mother’s side?

“It is too late for that, Snorri, almost a
year too late,” his father told him.

Old Thorkell gazed with affection upon the
robust blond man before him. A valiant warrior, this oldest of his
children, a son to make a father proud. Would that Snorri’s
half-brother Erik had also remained strong and battle-worthy. More
damage than the injury to Erik’s leg had been done by those soft
Greeks, with their silken ways and strange learning. The old man
sighed. Luck, that was it. Erik’s luck was bad. He forced his
attention back to what his older son was saying.

Snorri was a clever man. He loved bloodshed
and battle as much as any Viking, but he loved the gleam of gold
and silver even more. His cunning mind had devised a scheme.

“There will still be loot to take,” Snorri
said. “I will discover exactly where Ivar’s army landed, and then I
will sail to settlements on the coast or along the rivers, where he
and his men have not been. A rapid series of raids, with easy
plunder. The young men of East Anglia will surely have marched
north to join the Northumbrians opposing Ivar’s army. There will be
only old men and boys left to fight us. There will be gold and
silver in the churches and the thegn’s halls, and there will be
female slaves for the taking.”

Snorri remembered well the lovely, rosy-gold
maidens he had met on his last raid in England. They screamed and
clawed and fought. Snorri grinned. He liked spirited women. And
Saxon girls sold easily in the slave market of Hedeby.

“Would you like some soft, plump Anglian
women, Father? A few new slaves to warm your bed?”

Father and son smiled at each other in
com¬plete understanding.

With the resources of his wealthy father
behind him, Snorri moved quickly. Thorkell had more than enough
food and ale and extra weapons in the storerooms of Thorkellshavn
to supply such an expedition.

Snorri paused in Denmark only long enough to
reprovision his longship, the Sea Dragon, and rav¬ish half a dozen
or so slave girls before collecting his eager men once more and
setting off on his mission.

East Anglia

Mid June, A.D. 867

“Hurry, Lenora, we don’t have much time.”

“I’m coming. There is so much to do, and it’s
all in your honor, my dear.”

Lenora came running, her long, unbound
chestnut curls bouncing. She embraced her friend with an enthusiasm
that left poor Edwina breathless and clutching at the gatepost of
the log stockade surrounding the tun.

“What a beautiful day,” Lenora exclaimed,
taking in the midsummer green of the East Anglian landscape. “It’s
perfect for a wedding.”

The rich, flat farmlands stretched away
beyond the tiny Saxon settlement, bounded to the north and west by
thick forest and on the south and east by a lazy, shimmering river
that meandered slowly out to the North Sea. All the land as far as
the girls could see belonged to Lenora‘s half-brother, Wilfred.
Like his father before him, Wilfred was thegn to Edmund, King of
East Anglia. His home, a large wooden hall with a thatched roof,
stood within the stockade fence, as did the women’s quarters, a
tiny wooden church, the barn, and the small cottages of those who
worked Wilfred’s land. Although the farmers were free men, they had
pledged their loyalty to him and dwelt within the safety of
Wilfred’s tun.

The appearance of early morning drowsiness
that surrounded the dwellings was deceptive, for inside the great
hall buzzed with activity as preparations were made for the wedding
later that day.

Lenora’s older half-sister Matilda was
supervising the servants, an arrangement for which Lenora, never
very domestic, was extremely grateful. Matilda had arrived two days
earlier with her husband, Athelstan, and her children, and had at
once set about cleaning the hall, directing the hanging of the fine
tapestries that were saved for festive occasions, and cooking vast
quantities of food for the wedding feast.

The wedding might be a small one, lacking the
pomp a noble family would have enjoyed in less troubled times, and
done a bit hastily during the short time when both Wilfred and
Athelstan were free from their duties to King Edmund at his court
at Rendlesham, but Matilda would see to it that her brother’s
nuptials were properly celebrated.

Lenora, her spirits bubbling high, her dark
gray eyes sparkling with excitement, hugged Edwina again.

“I’m so glad you are marrying Wilfred. You
will manage this household much better than I do. And we will all
live together. It will be wonderful!”

Edwina smoothed down her honey-blond braids,
in disarray after her friend’s affectionate attacks.

“You will marry soon yourself,” she said in
her quiet, cool voice. “Then you will have your own household to
manage.”

“No. I think I shall never marry. I was not
meant to be a matron with a ring of keys at my girdle.”

“You were never meant to be a nun, Lenora.”
Edwina knew her beloved Wilfred’s young sister was too proud and,
yes, too undisciplined, for the humble vocation of nun. Lenora must
marry. It was inevitable, although so far she had rejected the few
suitors who had steeled themselves to ask for her hand, and her
kind-hearted brother could not bring himself to press her to make
an unwilling choice.

“I should have been a man,” Lenora said.
“Then I could sail away to the land of the Franks as my father did.
Or I could ride north to York and fight the Northmen.”

“The Northmen.” Edwina shivered, her thin
shoulders hunching beneath her fine woolen gown. The heavy gold
bracelet Wilfred had given her glittered as she wrapped her arms
around herself. “I cannot bear to think of them. Father Egbert says
they are wicked, heathen beasts. I hope they never come here.”

“They seized all the horses they wanted and
now they have marched northward. They won’t bother us,” Lenora told
her confidently. “We have better things to think of. Let’s go
before Matilda tries to stop us.”

She caught Edwina’s hand and pulled her away
from the tun. A short distance from the settlement, close to the
encroaching forest, was a hill, an ancient mound of earth that,
some said, had been raised on the flat Anglian plain by the people
who had lived in this land before the Saxons came. No one knew its
purpose. Most avoided it, fearing evil spirits, but Lenora loved to
climb to the very top. From its modest height she could look down
on her home and the fields surrounding it. The hill was her special
place. There, she knew, she and Edwina would find what they
sought.

“Wait. Edwina, Lenora, please wait.”

“Oh, no.” Lenora glanced back and sighed.
There was nothing to do but wait until the fat little priest had
caught up with them.

“Oh, dear,” he panted. “Oh, my dear young
women, what are you doing?” Father Egbert’s shiny face and tonsured
head gleamed, his dark robe flapping about his stubby legs as he
hurried forward. “What are you thinking of? You dare not wander
about unescorted. Your brother will be angry, Lenora.”

“Nonsense. He won’t know unless you tell
him.”

Lenora regarded the priest with haughty
distaste. His constant disapproval of her independent ways
irritated her. She noticed that his feet, thrust into well-worn
sandals, were very dirty. Lenora was not overly fastidious herself,
but the sight of Father Egbert’s grubby toes only increased her
dislike for the man.

“We are going to pick flowers for my bridal
wreath,” Edwina explained. “We won’t be gone long.”

“Does Matilda know of this?” the priest
inquired.

“There is no need to tell her. She is busy
and we don’t want to disturb her,” Lenora told him coldly.

“It is dangerous to go out unattended,”
Father Egbert insisted.

“We won’t be out of sight of the tun,” Lenora
argued. “We will be perfectly safe. Come along, Edwina.” She took
Edwina’s hand again and turned toward the hill, where midsummer
flowers bloomed among the grasses, in soft white and yellow and
blue.

“Oh, dear, oh, dear. If you insist on going,
then I must accompany you.” Father Egbert puffed after them. “It is
my duty. You need protection. We never know when the Northmen will
appear.”

Lenora stifled her annoyance. She longed to
tell Father Egbert there was nothing he could do to protect them in
the event of danger, but she bit her tongue and said nothing.

She had wanted this last hour alone with
Edwina before the marriage ceremony. By this time tomorrow, her
dear friend, a wealthy orphan who had been first her father
Cedric’s ward and then, after his death, her brother Wilfred’s
ward, would be her sister-in-law. Edwina would be privy to those
mysteries of the marriage bed about which, of late, Lenora was
unable to stop thinking. She knew the bare facts of human mating.
No one growing up as she had, running free about her father’s
farmlands, could long remain innocent of such knowledge. It was the
emotional content of such a relationship, the desire for one man
above all others, that had so far eluded her. At sixteen, Lenora
was intensely curious, but still unawakened.

She had planned to question Edwina, to obtain
from her friend some information about her feelings toward Wilfred
as their bridal night approached. There was no doubt in Lenora’s
mind that Edwina cared deeply for Wilfred, and although she,
Lenora, could not comprehend why her older brother should inspire
such passion, she wanted to understand its causes.

Now Father Egbert had spoiled her plan. There
could be no question of a discussion of earthly love with the
priest listening to every word. Lenora wanted to shake him until
his rosary beads rattled, and then give him a good, swift kick that
would send him scurrying back to the church, where he belonged. She
dismissed the priest from her mind as Edwina called out in
delight.