Warrior, page 2
It was hard work, with many punishing slices. There was a reason we avoided the brambles, even when harvesting their fruit, we left the berries that grew in the middle safely inside. At long last, the branch came free. I reached for it then, carefully extracting the hawk’s feathers. I was surprised it let me, even when I had to use my knife. The moment it was free, it made an undignified squeak and hopped into the clearing, stretching both wings into the air beside it.
“There, you see?” I sheathed the blade with a smile. “No harm done.”
It cocked its head to the side, studying me in silence. I studied it back. We stood there so long, I half-expected it to speak. Then without a bit of warning, it lifted suddenly into the sky.
I stared after it, feeling unexpectedly sad. “Safe travels to you as well.”
The sound of bells echoed in the distance. I turned my head with a sigh.
It’s starting...they’re here.
Chapter 2
It was possible my people did not understand the meaning of the word birth day. Because when it came time for the king’s celebration, everyone acted like it was the very first time.
“Out of the road!”
My eyes flashed up to see a horse and cart flying towards me, still a long ways off. It wasn’t a road, it was a forest path. And I wasn’t standing on it, I was walking alongside. It seemed impossible the man wouldn’t realize this. From the looks of things, he just needed to shout at somebody.
With theatrical obedience, I bowed low to the ground and then took wide steps backwards, so wide, I needed to lift the hem of my skirt. His brow tightened with a scowl and he opened his mouth to say something, but by the time the words came to him, the cart was already gone.
I stared after it until the wheels vanished over the crest of the next hill.
For weeks, people had been pouring from all over the kingdom—straining the walls of a village already too swollen for its fences. But those fences were large, and the roots ran deep. It was more of a settlement than a village, and there were only a few so far south in the kingdom. The king had already celebrated in the rest the land had to offer. This year, the honor had fallen onto us.
You’d have thought the gods themselves had come down from Valhalla. Never had I seen so many people, heard so many dialects. The markets sprang up before they’d finished unpacking—a colorful sea of awnings, displaying wonders from everywhere in the known world. There were silks from China, coins from Arabia, and necklaces from the Indian provinces that shone like the sun.
None of it was ours, of course. It was all stolen, but my people never used that word. Raided, that’s what they called it. A noble profession, taking things by the edge of a sword.
Then selling it at twice the value.
For as much as we Vikings liked to throw around words like honor and sacrifice, for as much as we steeped ourselves in legend—claiming divine dispensation—there was something depressingly economical about us as well. For over three hundred years, people had been striving to keep us trapped on our little island. For over three hundred years, those same people had failed.
Maybe I can get something, I thought distractedly, my eyes flitting over the curls of smoke rising from behind the fence. I have a little coin saved.
Instead of going to the settlement proper, I made a wide curve and headed off the path, through the waist-deep grass that caught on my skirt and served as a barrier between my home and the rest of the village. There were a few of us that lived beyond the fence. People who farmed, or fished, or tended goats and cattle. People with backstories that would be questioned were they to venture past the gates. For a people that placed a fierce value on loyalty, that fence had been one of the first things they’d built. A pointed reminder between who was deemed worthy, and who was not.
When I was a child, I used to stare for hours at those sharpened stakes, wondering what was happening on the other side. These days, I didn’t mind. They got the settlement. We got the view.
“Morning, Liv!”
I raised my head to see the figure of an elderly woman waving in her front yard. She was the carpenter’s wife, but he was long dead now. The morning after it happened, my grandmother and I had gone over with baskets of flowers—weaved them into a shroud to place atop his grave. When my grandmother had died, just a few years later, she’d arrived with baskets of her own.
“Morning,” I called back, waving in return. “Do you need any help with the washing?” I eyed the heavy parcels stacked by the door. “I could carry those inside.”
Drag them, was more like it. Each one of them weighed the same as I.
She let out a cackle of laughter—the kind of sound that could easily frighten, if you didn’t see the warm crinkles around her eyes. “With those stick arms? I’d have better luck with them myself. I’m surprised to see you here, anyway. Shouldn’t you be down at the settlement?”
“I’m going there now,” I replied, cocking my head further up the hill. “Just getting Trina.”
She bobbed her head and murmured something unintelligible, before waving again and disappearing inside. The door swung shut behind her, as I continued up the hill.
Unless one was familiar with the landscape, there wasn’t much to distinguish one place from the next. The forest was bare in some patches, then stretched endlessly in every direction. The river was a good marker, but the land was riddled with a hundred identical marshes and streams. The little houses that dotted along the hillside weren’t much better. Each of them was small and compact, and hobbled together with the same dark wood and dried grass as the next. Some of them had been built so long ago, the weather-stained planks had begun to sink into the earth beneath them.
But my grandmother had strived to make ours into something a bit different. Not in terms of structure, but all the little flourishes she’d added along the side. Instead of the same grass or a muddy pen to keep sheep like most of our neighbors, a wide garden had been meticulously grown around the path that led to the front door. The house itself was dripping in flowers—not the bright blooms that grew for a season, but their paler companions that lasted for the entire year.
Every day of my life, I’d awoken to the scent of those flowers. No matter the rigors of the day, it was a quiet solace. It was probably the reason I was so partial to bees, which were drawn to it like a haven. Five years she’d been gone, and I’d done everything I could to keep up the garden, drawing extra buckets of water in the summer months, doing endless battle with the weeds. It was a constant burden, but one I was glad to shoulder. Even if I was undermined every step of the way.
“By the hammer of Thor—I shall destroy you!”
There was a hitch in my stride, then a wide grin spread across my face as I sailed over the last few steps and pushed open the door. A lovely woman was standing in the kitchen, wielding a blunted hatchet over her head. Her eyes were fixed upon something hiding in the corner, something apparently deserving of a bladed weapon. Something too small to see.
Given our history, I was guessing a spider.
“Liv—thank the gods!” she cried, turning at the same time and spotting me. The hatchet was still raised above her head. “I know I promised that last time was the last time, but there’s a—”
“A spider?” I guessed, flouncing past her with a smirk.
I grabbed a cup from the table and crouched in the corner, striving to find it for myself. As though it felt my roving gaze, a pair of grey legs scuttled farther beneath the wood pile. I moved the logs quickly aside, capturing it at the same time.
“Streð mik!” she cursed, pressing to the wall as I walked past her. “Filthy beast. Why must you always release them? You should crush them—decisively—so they can never come back.”
I knelt down in the garden, tipping the spider from the cup.
“But then how would I collect so many favors?” I rose from the ground as it skittered out of sight, turning around to face her. “Where did you learn that kind of language?”
“At the docks,” she replied without hesitation. “Where did you learn to be so judgmental?”
“From you.”
We stared at each other a moment, then cracked a simultaneous smile.
No matter how many years she’d been there, I didn’t think I’d ever get used to the sight of Trina in the kitchen—hands on her hips, black curls spilling brazenly down her shoulders, standing in blatant opposition to the quiet serenity my grandmother had always fostered in the house.
It hadn’t always been that way.
When my grandmother had spirited me away from our last village, the place I was born, we had come here alone. I was too young to remember, I knew the tale only from stories. The moment of rendering, secret footsteps in the dead of night. Trina had come not long after, but she’d kept her distance from the house—claiming a room in the brothel where she worked. She would visit often, but never linger long. And never did the two women share company, unless I was present.
The week after the burial, she’d simply appeared on the doorstep—a flamboyant pipe stuck between her lips, and a bag slung over her arm. I don’t cook, was the only thing she’d said to me.
Then she started to unpack.
It was a beginning.
The woman may have refused to spend time in the kitchen, but she did a great many other things. She taught me to read, taught me to fight. Helped me stitch new clothes when I outgrew the ones I was wearing. She’d even tried her hand at midwifing, if only to keep up the old woman’s legacy, but to be honest, she didn’t really have the stomach.
The woman had once fended off a wildcat using nothing but a stick, but she couldn’t stand the sight of blood. Or babies. Or insects. It was a toss-up as to which one she hated most.
I’d always teased her for it, said she was a disgrace to our heritage. Our people liked to say things like that—throwing out arbitrations at random. A Viking who tensed at the sight of blood was like a cat with no claws, a snake with no venom, a ship with no sails. So far from the rest of the breathing world, it was the only identity we had, so we wielded it whenever possible. Making jokes and making threats, drawing lines and claiming folly where none had existed before.
It should have been easy sport, the woman shuddered at the sight of crickets. But Trina wasn’t so easy to tease. She merely said that when it came to Vikings, there were better things to be.
“Where were you this morning?” she asked, tossing the hatchet carelessly on the table. “I asked for you at the market, but no one had seen you there.”
The humor stilled on my face, and I ducked my head swiftly.
“I was just running some errands,” I said evasively, picking up the weapon and placing it back on the shelf. “Silly things, nothing of consequence.”
She looked over her shoulder, taking in every detail with a sweeping glance. “Nothing of consequence, eh?” she repeated, adding a log to the fire. It sent up a burst of sparks when it landed, fading quickly in the morning air. “Are you going to the settlement?”
I nodded quickly, remembering my purpose. “In a moment. I was just coming here to get you.”
Even as I said it, my eyes drifted over the house. Her cloak was folded neatly by the door, her boots lay forgotten beside it. She’d just added more wood to the fire.
“You’re not coming?” I asked in confusion. “Don’t you want to see the processional?”
The woman might claim indifference, but each village was a point of isolation in a wild and uncertain land, and there was only one king. Our people lay roots, we didn’t travel. Other than feast days and the seasonal sacrifice, there was very little to differentiate one day from the next.
“I’ve had my fill of soldiers,” she said lightly. “But you should go. It’ll do you good to get out of the house for a while. And we could use the coin,” she added with a sideways look.
I tilted my head sarcastically, well familiar with the look.
“Oh yes? And how will you be helping with that?”
She turned with a sweet smile to face me, arms folding across her chest.
I wasn’t supposed to know about the brothel, even though I’d seen her vanishing behind the wooden doors almost every night. When I was a child, easily swayed with deflections and excuses, it had been a puzzlement. When I’d gotten older, it had become a sort of game. The solitary time I’d worked up the courage to ask her about it directly, I’d received a rather predictable reply.
“That’s no talk for such a tender spirit.”
To complete the image, she’d condescendingly patted my ears. Ridiculous as it had become, I loved her for keeping it from me. It was a kind of tenderness, precious in its own way.
“What do you mean, Liv?”
I hedged my bets, pleased the counter was between us.
“It’s a simple enough question.” I tried to mimic her posture, failing spectacularly at the same time. “You bring in far more coin than me. Is there to be some kind of plan?”
Her eyes twinkled as she crossed the kitchen, flicking me under the chin. “Never you mind.”
And the game continues...
With a quiet chuckle, I strode down the hall and grabbed what I needed before heading back to the kitchen. Trina was already sitting at the table—her legs kicked up on the wooden slats, a cup of something that wafted sweet steam affixed to her hand. I debated stealing a sip, then crossed instead to the doorway, nodding absentmindedly as she rattled off a list of cheerful demands.
“Remember not to set down your cloak, it will be lost in a sea of hundreds and we cannot afford to get you another one. Don’t go anywhere alone with a stranger—or even a friend, for that matter—and keep to the main tent. There will be guards and attendants. It will be the safest place, at least when the night is young. When it darkens, come home straight away. I don’t like the idea of you wandering outside the fence. You have your mother’s knife, don’t hesitate for a moment to use it. But don’t show it to anyone, not unless you intend to stab them. The blade is pure silver, Liv. It will be taken from you and sold before you ever realize it’s gone. And if you intend to stab them, be sure to aim for the neck or the belly. A stomach wound is a curse to those who—”
I turned around slowly, trying to control my face.
For years, I’d heard the same lectures. For years with my grandmother, before that. Lectures were often the only thing we could offer, and the women in my family did them well.
So well, that I could recite most of them by heart.
“I will be safe,” I promised indulgently. “I will stay somewhere well-lit, with hundreds of guards, and if anyone looks at me sideways, I will stab them a thousand times in the stomach.” I tilted my head, catching her gaze. “There. Are you happy?”
She lifted her chin ever so slightly, looking too young to have delivered such a speech. “Scarcely ever. But then again, I’ve been sentenced to a life of perpetual servitude. You should meet the girl I’ve been tasked with protecting. She would give you frightful dreams.”
My lips twitched, holding back a smile. “I’ll stab her in the stomach, too,” I promised.
The tension eased, as I strapped the cloak over my shoulders and shoved open the heavy wooden door. It had swollen in the warm summer months—cramming itself into the frame, like the two were strangers. We would have to shave down the edges just to force it back to size.
“I’ll see you after the feast,” I called over my shoulder, blinking swiftly as my eyes adjusted to the blinding sun. “A decent person might have supper waiting—”
“No decent person lives in this house,” she answered without pause. Our eyes met in a silent farewell, but before I could shut the door, she called out to me once again. “And, Liv...?”
Our eyes met for a solitary moment, then I put my hands deliberately into my pockets.
She nodded slowly, drawing in a deep breath. “That’s my girl.”
Chapter 3
“Brothel or kitchen?”
In an attempt to be clever, I’d decided to avoid the main entrance to the settlement—a dirt-packed road that was sure to be crowded—and had circled instead to a smaller door on the southern side of the great wall. Only then had I discovered how many other people had attempted to be clever the same way. The path was almost as tangled as the other, only less choked with the vats and crates and cages brought by the merchants, eager to hock their wares. Those people needed a permit, which could only be given at the proper road. If only the rest of the locals had forgotten.
“This is ridiculous,” a girl in front of me muttered. She had a pointed chin and hair that was very nearly black, a rarity amongst our people. “At this rate, the feast will be over and done. They will simply force the jobs we might have done, onto those who already have work in the kitchens.”
The arrival of royalty was a once-in-a-generation occasion, and the modest settlement had spared no expense. The doors of the sacred grain store had been opened, the hunters had been at it for weeks—combing the forest in preparation, coming back with dried strips and pelts. The women had been at it even longer, sewing and cleaning and shuttling back and forth between the forest, coming back with baskets of roots and berries and flowers. If nothing else, the king would see an abundance of over-achievement, even if our standards were not as he was accustomed. Bets had been placed on the clothes he’d be wearing, and the weapons. And the queen. Everything from their horses, to their luggage, to their bannermen had been a source of constant speculation.
I was not looking for a spectacle. I was looking for work.
“Brothel or kitchen?”
Because there was but a single door, we’d been forced to straighten into a line and file inside, one after the other, just like all those un-clever people who were surely moving much faster on the main road. It should have been an easy enough process, but for some unknown reason, we were moving at a glacial pace. This for a people not particularly inclined towards lines in the first place.
