Page 10 of Viking Warriors: Vol. 1-3

“You see my hair?” I said. “Where do you think this hair comes from? Do you see my eyes?”

She nodded. “I knew from the first moment I saw you. Eirik sees that you’re one of us. You belong with us.”

Bitterness flooded me. “I don’t want to belong to anyone, not even the mighty Eirik!”

My head was hot with fury as I began to sob. “I was born from violence, from a man taking my mother by force, raping her, even as others murdered the man I should have called ‘father’. I should avenge them both by killing every one of you.”

“Living in the past won’t help you.” Helka’s voice was calm, soothing me as she might a child in a tantrum.

She took a cloth, wringing water over my shoulders.

“How can I forget the past? There are too many wrongs there,” I said, through my weeping.

“You’re not going in that direction,” urged Helka. “Better to look at what’s ahead of you, where your feet still have the chance to step.”

I sniffed, wiping my eyes against my arm. “Eirik will grow tired of me,” I mumbled. I knew enough about men. “He wants me because I’m a curiosity. He has no love for me. What am I to him? Another woman to fuck.”

Helka was attempting to find the words she needed. “We judge by what we see, but there’s more to the world. We cannot know the secrets of every heart.”

Helka’s face became more serious. “You have more than Viking blood; you have a Viking soul. This is where your bravery comes from.”

My eyes narrowed. What did she know of whether I was brave or not?

“I saw you last night, in the hall,” Helka said. “I was in the shadows, but I watched. I would not have let harm come to you.”

I soaked a rag, watching the water trickle out.

“I don’t know what I am,” I sighed. “I’m neither hare nor rabbit.”

Helka gave a brief smile.

“And I don’t know where I belong. Not here, perhaps. I’ve never belonged.”

“You feel restless,” prompted Helka.

“Yes. Sometimes, I feel as if I’m so full of chaos and longing for something I can’t name that I’ll burst apart.”

Helka leaned forward.

“This is what it is to be human. Our scream came before our speech, and it’s still inside us.”

She placed her hand on mine, stopping my fidgeting with the rag.

“Let me tell you one of our stories. At the centre of all things, is a tree, called Yggdrasil. It holds all that we know, and much that we do not, in its branches. It draws its water from a well and, inside, live three wise women. They carve into the tree our...” she paused, seeking the word.

“Our destinies?” I suggested. “What will happen tomorrow, and the next day?”

“Yes, our destinies.”

I shook my head.

“If that were true we’d have no power to control our lives. I don’t believe that.”

She drew the pattern of a web on my palm.

“Life is like a spider’s weaving.”

She pinched her fingers, as if plucking a strand of the web.