Page 35 of Kept By the Viking (Forgotten Sons #1)

Chapter

Nineteen

“ E rik will watch over you.” Rurik spun around and cupped the back of her head. “If anything happens to me...”

The dreaded words spoken, he swooped low and kissed her none too gently.

Lips and teeth mashed. Harshness and fear mingled. She clung to him, her mouth as demanding as his until Rurik released her. Her feet unsteady, she set a hand on the wall and watched him exit.

She was alone.

Men...they rush to battle and limp home, if they return at all . Savta’s words from long ago.

This could be their end.

Gathering her skirts, she sprinted down the hall.

Legs pumping hard, she raced past benches and tables, heading toward daylight bursting through the hall’s open doors.

Horses and riders amassed outside. Midday sun gleamed off shield bosses and helmets.

A command was given. Hooves thundered from the warrior throng tearing down the southern road, dirt and dust spraying in their wake.

Mothers clutched their children close. Geese scattered.

Rouen’s merchants paused to squint at the departing warriors.

Safira held on to the carved lintel frame. Everything—land, men, women, even love—came at a price. Jarl Will Longsword would demand his due. Rurik wasn’t here to simply defend land. He was here to expand it.

“I have never become accustomed to the sight of my son riding off to fight.” Astrid shaded her eyes. She watched the horses and riders charge into the southern forest, a man’s blue tunic dangling from her arm.

“Your son?”

“Yes. Soren. Leader of the housekarls.” The matselja smiled, pride etching lines at the corners of her eyes.

“Is he a thrall?”

“No. My son is a freeman.”

A family passed before the jarl’s hall, the matron smiling and waving to Astrid and Safira.

An older, balding man in plainer clothes tagged along behind, carrying a basket brimming with cabbages and kale.

Slaves abounded on both sides of the Epte River, but if Safira counted, she’d say more lived here.

“What about Soren’s father?” she asked.

“Halfdan died of a fever when Soren was young. We were never married. Now I find comfort with an old farmer, the father of Katla who made the glass bead earrings you wore last night. She sells them in the market.”

Safira eyed the southern road. The forest swallowed the last rider. “I don’t know how you do it.”

“Do what? Watch people I love ride off to fight?” Wheat-blond wisps fell across age-lined cheeks.

“Forgive me. I should not question your ways.”

Astrid’s laugh was kind. “I do not mind. My answers are an older woman’s gift of conversation. You can decide to keep my words or not. But today I cannot speak long. Today is for laboring.” She sauntered into the hall, speaking over her shoulder. “Come with me. There is something I must show you.”

Safira followed Astrid past columns carved with the faces of Norse gods. The matselja dropped the tunic onto a table and crouched low to stir a stick in the fire pit. Orange embers glowed. Astrid pulled a palm-sized hunk of green glass from her apron pocket. It was like a ball cut in half.

“Something tells me you have not used this before.”

Safira knelt before the fire pit. Astrid passed the green glass to her, and she tested its weight in her palm. “What is it?”

“A green glass smoother.” Astrid pointed at the fire pit.

“Place it flat side down on the embers. It will take a while before the glass is hot enough, but once it is, grab the round side with a rag to protect your hand. Then you will run the flat part over the wrinkled tunic I put on the table. Do that until the cloth is smooth.”

Safira held the smoother up to the light. Tiny air bubbles were stuck inside glass. “Why are you asking me to do this?”

“Because you prepare Rurik’s tunic for the var .”

“ Var ? I do not know this word.”

“His pledge to serve the jarl.”

Her chest squeezed. The shade of blue. The yellow embroidery. The jarl’s colors. “He has won the land?”

Hands folded on her knees, Astrid’s cheeks puffed. “It is not certain. I am to prepare a tunic for Vlad. The men will still fight.” She paused, her sad gaze meeting Safira’s. “Unless something happens today.”

Safira sat back on her heels. Rurik’s death .

“Do not be afraid. This is normal. What Vikings know, what we feel is here.” Astrid jabbed five fingers to her own breastbone. “Valkyries weave a warrior’s fate in battle. It is called vefr darradar ... The web of war. We do not run from it. We face it.”

“Does Rurik have to face it with such enthusiasm?”

Astrid’s laugh was hearty. “We are a passionate people.”

“He ran after this chance to fight.”

Astrid’s eyes sparkled. “As he runs after you,” she said softly.

Yearning swelled inside Safira. What else did the wise woman see between her and Rurik?

Love? Lust? Or something in between? Her heart ached when Rurik wasn’t in the same room and it fluttered when he returned.

For all the excitement and desire the rough warrior stirred in her, her mind flashed images of storm-blue eyes watching her when they argued, watching her when they talked, watching her when they worked side by side to set up camp.

Tender skin twitched between her legs.

There was no denying the Viking’s effect there .

“I do not know what you have been taught. I would think you have learned a good many things, but few of them practical.” Astrid’s smile was tight. “It is the way of highborn Christian woman. They are kept like treasures, hidden away, ill-prepared for life.”

Safira winced. “Is my status of birth that obvious?”

“It is obvious like the sun.” At least Astrid was joyful, pointing this out.

She smiled. “Would it matter if I told you I am Hebrew, not Christian?”

“You are Frankish. That is enough,” Astrid said.

Safira sighed and set the glass on orange embers. Pagans lumped her people with Christians, and Christians regarded Hebrews as a notch above pagans.

“I must get to the weaver’s shed. Ten women are waiting for me at their looms.” Astrid began to rise, her knees cracking. “It will take time for the smoother to reach the proper heat. Why not enjoy the market? When you are done tending Rurik’s tunic, you can join us in the shed.”

Safira pushed off the ground and dusted her skirt. “I am supposed to wait for Erik.”

Astrid’s eyes softened, motherly and kind, yet full of knowing. Safira wanted Astrid to stay. The matselja’s words were like coins stacked in a treasury, meant to be counted and weighed with great consideration.

Safira picked up the tunic and fingered a loose thread. “Let me guess...you want to tell me I should claim my destiny and be done with it. It doesn’t change the fact that Rurik would have me be his frilla .”

“Not a frilla , but a fylgikonur ...a mistress of high value.”

She winced at the distinction. Of course, Vikings would have a name for a kept woman’s status. In Christendom, the selection was dismal. Concubine or whore—nameless, faceless positions of low value.

“But not his wife,” Safira said, folding the tunic in half.

Astrid sighed and checked the door. The older woman didn’t understand. She had lived and loved outside the bonds of marriage while Safira was a game piece within it.

“I would never tell a woman to stay at a man’s side if she didn’t believe that he is her destiny.

This is why we Vikings have baratta —” she squeezed Safira’s hand, searching the air “—it is struggle, and lifsbaratta , the struggle for life, a feminine word. One could believe the ancients knew a woman’s struggle is vastly different than a man’s. ”

Safira set her hand over Astrid’s. “Thank you.”

The matselja made her way through the hall, swiping crumbs off a table in one spot, pushing in a bench in another. “It is your life, Lady. Find your way and be done with it.”

Astrid exited the longhouse, skirts swaying with purpose.

A woman of high value to the jarl. At last night’s feast, there was talk of women owning farmsteads.

..common women, wealthy and poor, widows and unmarried daughters, granted the land they worked, deciding their futures as they saw fit.

Rouen’s dirt tickled Safira’s skin through the hole in her boot.

Never had she been shod so poorly or lived so freely.

Setting the tunic on the table, she couldn’t say she was ready to walk away from what Rurik offered her. Could she be happy living in the half-light of Rurik’s attention once he took a Viking wife?

He’d spoken in his forceful manner this morning as if it weren’t a choice.

Men. What made them think they owned all decisions? The Breton Queen certainly made hers. So had Astrid. And Ellisif. Even quiet Gyda.

A soft laugh escaped her. No one would steal this right from her. To stay with Rurik or go was hers to decide. First, he needed to come back.

“Safira.” Erik’s voice growled from the lintel. Legs in a wide stance and face scowling, he was the picture of resentment.

“You have watch over me, but I do not need it.”

“Whether you need it or not doesn’t matter.” His chest expanded with a long, measured breath. “Look. We don’t like each other, but we’re stuck together until Rurik returns.” Erik checked the skies. “The sun is out, and I don’t want to play nursemaid inside.”

“What a fine offer.”

His scowl deepened. She’d not prod the surly Viking. The day was clear, and the glass smoother would take time to heat up. She sauntered through the hall and stopped in front of Erik. Wet hair slicked off his face, he chewed a long blade of grass, his black-whiskered jaws working.

“Let’s get one thing straight. You may not like me.” She poked the wolf carved into his vest. “But I like you—at least, I respect you.”