Page 86 of Don't Let Me Go
“You’re not well.”
“It’s nothing. Bad fish. It will pass.”
“You need rest.”
“Erik wants all his men at his side when the witch arrives.”
“Erik will understand. I will tell him—”
“You’ll tell him nothing!” Ragnar barks, grabbing my wrist. Even in illness, his strength is ferocious. “Erik is our chieftain. We serve at his command. Those who cannot serve have no place in this settlement.”
This rage of Ragnar is nothing new; I have seen his fury in battle. But never in all our years has he aimed it at me. This is how I know he is scared. Not of Erik. Not of losing face among our brother-warriors. But of the sickness that has fallen upon him over the past three days, stealing his strength and making him a prisoner of his bed.
“Even Erik rests when he is weary,” I remind him.
“Great men can afford such comfort. We are but swords. And swords must always be at the ready to serve their masters.”
Ragnar releases me. Whatever strength he mustered in his fit of anger flees his body, leaving him weak on his feet.
“I’ll help you to dress,” I say, clasping his shoulder to steady him. “The chieftain will have his swords. All of them.”
I turn to fetch his clothes, but before I can take a step, I feel Ragnar against my back. He wraps his arms around my chest and buries his lips against the nape of my neck.
“You are half my heart,” he whispers, the words tearing themselves from his lips as if he cannot help them. The new hairs of what will be his first beard scratch my cheek, and his breath on my shoulders is hot and moist. Both fill me with remembrances of our stolen nights together. Nights when, safe from the prying eyes of men, our bodies twisted around each other in an attempt to discover the shape of desire.
“And you are mine,” I tell him, lifting his left hand to my lips, then the right. Then I press both hands over my heart and hold them there. Ragnar sighs into my shoulder, crushing me in the desperate embrace of his arms.
My beautiful warrior. I have seen him stained with the blood of Norsemen when the battle rage blazed in his bones, more wolf sometimes than man. But I have also seen him gentle as the dawn, covering my body with kisses so soft, his lips might have been the breeze.
That Fate can bestow such a blessing has often made my heart rejoice. But tonight, in Ragnar’s sickness, I see the cruelty of such a blessing. For I see now that what Fate bestows to a man, it can also take away.
I know not if Ragnar’s fever will consume itself or consume him. I know only that if it be the latter, I shall not survive the loss. For no man survives with half a heart.
The Great Hall is silent as the sun sets over Brattahlid. The long fire burns strong and bright in the center of the room, keeping the hungry night at bay. Outside, a wailing moves through the valley, though whether it be the wolves who live in the mountains beyond our settlement or the winter wind raging over the fjord, I cannot tell. Sometimes I think they are one and the same.
In the high seat, flanked by wood-carved dragons, Erik sits lost in thought. He scarcely attends to the hushed whispers of his kinsmen, who have gathered on the fur-draped benches nearest their chieftain.Great men have great worries, I think as I watch him run a nervous hand through his long beard, stroking the rough red hairs that have earned him his nickname and that have not, with age, lost their luster.
Never have I seen Erik so quiet. Nor have my brother-warriors, who have taken their cue from our chieftain and shuffle uneasily to their benches. Silence among Norsemen is an unnatural thing. I have, on many occasions, heard this hall filled with such carousing, I thought the roof would collapse. Tonight, though, our earls and warriors are as mute as stones. It is as if they fear that one wrong word or careless utterance might unleash disaster upon our heads.
“She is not to be called a witch,” Erik announces, his voice like sudden thunder. “If she addresses you, you will call her Seeress or Wise One. She must be accorded every honor.”
The men in the hall nod in solemn understanding, and Erik sinks back into his chair to resume the worried stroking of his beard. When he discovered this island and laid claim to its southern shores, he must have thought himself the most fortunate of men to possess such an unblemished paradise. But he did not reckon on the brutal winters taking so severe a toll on him and on those who followed him here. Every year there is talk of abandoning the settlement. That is why Erik sent to Iceland for the witch—to see what the future holds for Brattahlid. Whether greatness or doom.
Ragnar coughs beside me and struggles to loosen his cloak. I wrapped him in the warmest furs I could find to protect him from the elements. But now that we are seated in front of the raging fire, the air around us thick with smoke, he is once again drenched with sweat.
“Let me,” I whisper when I see the leather knot of his cloak defeat him.
He glares at me but says nothing as I remove his furs.
On the bench beside us, Thorsten looks Ragnar up and down with his one good eye. “Where have you been all day?”
“Bad fish,” Ragnar answers.
Thorsten laughs and turns away, and Ragnar smiles at me as if he has claimed some victory with his deceit. Then he coughs and clutches at his chest in such desperation, I am certain it will bring all eyes upon him. But I am wrong. We are spared discovery by the bitter frost-wind that tears through the Great Hall when its large oak door is thrust open.
Erik’s brother Asvald enters. He removes his cap and shakes the snow from his bear-fur cloak. Behind him, lingering in the shadows, a hooded figure waits.
“My lord.” Asvald kneels before his brother. “I bring you Ulfhild the seeress.”
