Page 12 of Viking Warriors: Vol. 1-3

I went first to find my grandmother, still in her bed. Each time I’d brought her food and drink, I’d shared little, though she heard much.

Stroking my face, I could see her attempting to read the anxiety there, to surmise its cause.

“I’m well,” I reassured her. “There’s naught to trouble for.”

She looked at me intently.

“There’s something new in your expression, Elswyth. In your eyes.”

I offered her some broth on a spoon, but she waved it away.

“There’s a softness in you. As if you’re in love.”

I looked away, hardly knowing what to say. I wasn’t ready to lay claim to that word for a man I’d spent mere hours with. A man into whose sleeping mouth I might have pushed a piece of Death’s Cap mushroom. It lay still in my pocket.

Her brow furrowed and she shifted her position in the bed, wincing. Her legs had grown much worse of late.

Despite her suffering, she smiled.

“That look should have been there a long time ago.”

My cheeks reddened a little.

“Be careful,” she urged, placing her hand on mine.

“This change in you is not for love of your husband, is it?”

I hadn’t told her.

Her nose, old as it was, had recognized the smell of burning flesh the day before, but she was unaware that our chieftain, my husband, had been among those corpses assigned to fire.

There was nothing now but charred bones, and little to distinguish between them.

“No, not for him,” I said. “But, don’t worry for me. I’ll take care.”

She lay back against her pillow, wearied from talking.

“Rub some flaxseed oil into my knees before you go Elswyth. And put a few drops of white willow tincture on my tongue. It eases the pain.”

She took my hand. “I know you’ll be cautious but, remember, there’s a time for taking risks too.”

12

The children’s shouts brought me from my reverie. The Northmen had returned, bloodied and mud-spattered, skin split, eyes glazed in pain, clutching their wounds. There were none unscathed.

Eirik was not among them.

I ran from one to the next, repeating his name, my voice rising in fear, and then I saw Helka, her face weary.

“Eirik?” I asked.

“Still in the meadow.”

I heard my wail as if it came from another’s throat.

“No, Elswyth,” she urged. “He’s not in Valhalla.”

And then I saw him, staggering under the weight of two men, carrying one upon each shoulder. Behind him, others too bore the bodies of those severely wounded, and dead.