Chapter Five #2
“’Tis just a matter of Ivar getting to know you better,” Soren said, after his man offered me nothing more than a grunt hello and went to oversee the unloading of the ships.
“He’s never taken well to outsiders. Once he trusts you, he will lay down his life for you, and few warriors are so fierce or loyal. ”
“Something tells me his trust is not easily won,” I said, not put off by Ivar’s cold greeting, but then curtness and grumpiness were something I was used to with my father.
“Ah, ’tis good to lay eyes on you again, my boy,” a short, slender, older woman said boisterously, grinning from ear to ear as she strode for Soren with a slight gait and pulled him into a hearty embrace.
Clearly a force unto herself, the woman, with her intricately braided, white-streaked gray hair, turned one sharp blue eye my way as the other was hazed over with white, speaking to blindness, and kept smiling just as broadly.
“And ’tis even better to see you looking so well, Freya Helvig.
’Tis far past time you returned to these shores once and for all. ”
“This is Brynhild, Freya,” Soren said fondly. “Not just my boat builder, amongst other things, but my aunt. You likely do not remember, but Brynhild helped tend to you when you’d first arrived years ago and grew ill.”
“I have no memory of that, but you have my heartfelt thanks, Brynhild.” I returned her smile. “’Tis good to be back.” Glancing from the ship on which we had arrived and back to her, I couldn’t help but praise her. “Your ships are very well made. You are to be commended.”
“’Tis less me these days building them but overseeing their construction, but thank you nonetheless.” She gestured for me to join her. “Come. Let me show you around whilst Soren sees to his men, then ready you for the evening as ’twill be grand indeed.”
When I looked at Soren, unsure if I should follow rather than assist with the ships, he insisted I go, so I did, at ease with Brynhild far faster than I was with most strangers. She had an inner strength and self-confidence that I appreciated. One that seemed to persevere despite her aging body.
As she led me past children playing at the shore and merchants selling goods at carts through the front gates, she described all the renovations and fortifications Soren had made to the stronghold since losing his father.
“And what of his mother?” I remembered her gentle ways and kind manner from when they visited us in my youth.
“My sister is no longer with us,” Brynhild said softly. “Gone for years now but never forgotten.” There seemed to be an all-knowing glint in her gaze when she looked at me. “You remember her fondly, do you not?”
“I do,” I confessed. “So it saddens me to hear this.”
“No doubt it does,” she murmured before the shadows that had briefly settled around her eyes lifted, and she offered me a warm smile. “Today is not for sad memories, though, but to create good memories, is it not? Because I don’t doubt my sister would want this day celebrated above all others.”
“Would she, then?”
“Ja, to be sure.” Brynhild pointed out various things along the way, such as the stables, weaponry, the smithy, and other important buildings. “For the bear finally weds the wolf, bringing great change and new beginnings.”
My talisman marked the truth in her words when it warmed, telling me once again that I was on the right path. I swore the wolf pendant my sister had given me heated as well, but when I slipped my hand into my pocket, it was cool to the touch.
The deeper we walked into the village, the more scents permeated the air.
Although I still caught the scent of sea salt on the wind, it now mixed with that of wood smoke and freshly baked bread.
People smiled at me in passing before Brynhild led me into a cottage beside a sizeable lodge with a deeply sloping roof meant for someone of importance.
“This will be your cottage when you wish to use it,” Brynhild enlightened upon entering the warm, inviting building.
It hosted a bed with plush fur, a crackling fire, as well as a basin for bathing, and a small table holding a pitcher of ale and a variety of cheese and bread on which to snack.
She asked the servant tending to things to bring warm water for bathing.
“I know this place,” I said softly, feeling as if I had stepped into a dream. “How do I know this place?”
“You know it because you were here before, Freya,” Brynhild said just as softly, helping me remove my fur cloak. “’Twas where you were tended when you fell ill.”
“Whose cottage is it?” I wondered, feeling like I should know the answer. More than that, I felt it hovering somewhere in my mind and heart just out of reach, dusting my memory with hazy moments I couldn’t quite grasp.
“Let me help you prepare for your wedding and I will share.” Brynhild poured ale into a wooden cup and handed it to me, her gaze as kind now as I remember her sister’s being so long ago. “You see, my sister was a healer, and she—”
“Healed me,” I murmured, seeing a flash of kind eyes, the same dark blue gray of Soren’s staring down at me. While caught in a memory, I felt her cool, soft hand against my blazing hot forehead. “Or at least, she tried…”
“Let us sit and enjoy a drink together whilst your bath is prepared,” Brynhild urged, gesturing at a chair in front of the fire. “And I will tell you of when the wolf and bear first truly came together. ’Twas in this very cottage on an eve much like this one.”
Curious what she meant, I sat and listened to a tale about a young boy and girl. Of Soren and me, in this cottage, many years ago.
“Like most you traveled with, you became gravely ill shortly after arriving,” Brynhild said.
“’Twas at young Soren’s insistence that his mother see after you, though I suspect she would have anyway.
Not just because you were the daughter of the bear and her son had begged it of her, but because she felt drawn to you in a way she couldn’t put to words. ”
“But what of the others?” I wondered.
“She saw to them, too, but we had other healers, so she spent most of her time tending to your needs.” Her gaze a touch sad, as if she looked back in time at those moments, she sipped her ale and stared into the flames. “You were but a child…far too young to go to the gods.”
“And I did not.” Sipping my ale, I was pleased by its smooth taste yet saddened by the conversation in a way I didn’t quite understand. “Thanks to her, ja?” I frowned. “Though my parents never did share such, and for that I’m sorry.”
“As am I, but then times were different back then,” Brynhild said. “The wolf had yet to come into its full strength, and the bear had yet to be crippled. ’Twas a time of friendship but not marriage pacts.”
There was no need to ask what she meant because I remembered my father before his injuries.
How prized my sisters and I were, given the substantial accomplishments of our tribe under his earldom.
To promise me or my sisters to any other tribe at the time would have been foolish had they not been as great as ours, and none were. Not until now.
Not until Soren had brought his earldom so very far.
“Soren’s father tried to arrange a marriage betwixt us far sooner, didn’t he?” I said softly, seeing things clearly enough now. “But my father rejected it.”
Although about to respond, Brynhild paused when a soft rap came at the door, and she was summoned away before she could divulge more due to a problem with one of the ships only she could resolve.
Yet I got the sense as she left and my stone warmed once more that her departure might have been more purposeful than an issue with a boat.
Soon after, my trunks arrived, followed by several servants to prepare my bath and help me get ready.
All the while, I mulled over a past with this tribe that seemed hazy at best. I recalled well enough Soren visiting our tribe, but even then, they were the memories of youth, and those could so easily become warped in one’s mind over time.
After bathing, I blinked back tears when I discovered our mother’s marital dress in a trunk Tove had sent along.
Not just that, but one of my father’s swords, along with a family ring engraved with the Helvig bear insignia.
While I would like to think my father had provided these to exchange with Soren during our matrimony, something told me he had not.
He’d been too preoccupied with taking blades from me, not the other way around.
Either way, I was grateful I had something to offer Soren, given our tribes still practiced the old ways born of our Viking ancestors.
Although I was still unsure why I hadn’t grabbed a blade and shield when Soren offered them to me on his ship, the timing had not seemed right, and I couldn’t say why.
Especially considering I was a shield-maiden meeting my new tribe for the first time.
Perhaps out of pride because they weren’t my own?
Yet somehow that didn’t feel like the reason.
Curiosities aside, it was time to see through my fate.
So, once dressed and properly adorned, I was led back to the shore to marry, and my life started anew, taking me down roads I didn’t know awaited me. However, interestingly enough, it turned out that, mayhap, Soren and his mother very much had.