Page 16 of A Curse Carved in Bone
“Because it is the truth,” Guthrum answered. “And I do not think you would hear it from Bjorn.”
“I do not wish to hear it at all.” I turned away from him, pulling the sealskin up higher because I felt so painfully cold.
“Why is that, Freya?” Guthrum asked. “It is the truth, seen with my own two eyes. Why do you not wish to know it?”
“Because I am not stupid,” I hissed. “If I forgive Bjorn for his betrayal, it will be easier to make me do what you all want. Your truths are wielded to turn me into a monster.”
“We all have a monster within us.” As I turned to meet his gaze, it was to find his eyes had gone as yellow as Kaja’s in the fading light, wholly inhuman.
He rose to his feet and cast aside his tunic, obviously intending to jump back into the water to again blend into the forest. But as he slung his leg over the edge of the drakkar, I said, “It was your dog who killed your father, wasn’t it?”
The corner of his mouth turned up. “Yes, because I asked him to do it. The monster was let loose but the monster wasn’t the dog.”
Guthrum dove into the depths of the Rimstrom and disappeared into the darkness, Kaja along with him.
We are all monsters,I thought, then Harald’s voice broke the silence. “We camp here tonight.”
Though Harald’s thralls had rowed through the day and were no doubt exhausted, not one of them said a word when he ordered them to set up camp in a clearing surrounded by dense woods. After the tents were pitched and the fires crackled brightly, they lay down in rows and immediately fell to sleep, hoods still firmly in place. Though I’d spent time around Snorri’s thralls in Halsar, I found the behavior of these men to be strange and myself deeply uncomfortable around them for reasons beyond their enforced servitude. The leather hoods they wore concealed most of their faces and they never spoke, only obeyed Harald’s commands without question. They were dressed identically, so the only way to tell them apart was through their size and the myriad of tattoos on their arms. Not one of them carried a weapon but every time one of them stepped near me, I reached for my sword. Only to remember that it had been left behind in Skaland. Steinunn appeared equally uneasy around them, for she volunteered to cook rather than accepting Harald’s offer to wake a thrall to do the task.
Yet after examining the meal, I couldn’t help but wonder if waking one of the strange thralls would have been the better option.
“Do spice merchants not travel to Nordeland?” I muttered after one mouthful of the watery soup, which tasted like river mud and boiled rabbit. “Or is blandness a Nordelander preference?”
“Our supplies were lost,” Steinunn answered. “Eat it or starve, your choice.”
Dumping the soup back in the pot, I lit a branch to serve as a torch and started down to the riverbank. Bjorn followed and I glowered at him. “I don’t need an escort. I’m only foraging.”
“As will be many predators in the woods at this time,” he replied. “Predators foraging for spicy shield maidens. If you are eaten, I’ll have nothing for dinner but Steinunn’s disgusting soup, so I am invested in seeing you back to the fire in one piece.”
“What you should invest in is a bath.”
“I had one when I was dumped into the sea.”
“With soap.” I pulled up a thick pepperrot plant, then moved into the trees where I spotted some fine mushrooms. “There is not a soup good enough to give me an appetite with your stink wafting over the fire.”
Bjorn didn’t answer. Wondering if I’d pushed him too far with my insults, I paused in my mushroom foraging to look over my shoulder. But Bjorn’s face held no irritation, only concern.
“Are you well, Born-in-Fire?” he asked quietly.
I knew he didn’t mean my injury, yet I said, “It was not a deep cut.” My fingers moved swiftly to pluck up the small mushrooms so as to escape the conversation. “It has already scabbed.”
“I wasn’t speaking of the cut.” He hesitated. “I ask because you killed many men today.”
My stomach plummeted. The hollowness it left behind made me feel oddly short of breath. “As did you. Are you well, Bjorn? Or do you wish some privacy to weep over the Islunders you hacked apart on the beach and in the village?”
“I am not well.”
“I do not actually care.” I bit the insides of my cheeks until I tasted blood, hating how I reached for the nastiest possible thing to say onlyto regret the words the moment they passed my lips. “No one made me kill those men. I made the choice myself and I do not regret it. Now leave me be.”
Pine needles crunched beneath my shoes as I walked past him, but Bjorn caught hold of my wrist. His hand felt like fire against my cold skin and all the world fell away. I stared up into his eyes, the shadows of the torch dancing across his face as I waited for him to say whatever it was that had driven him to follow me. My mind suggested several ideas for what might be going on in his head, including that he might fall to his knees and beg my forgiveness. But Bjorn only gave a tight nod and let go of my wrist, the echoes of heat on my skin making me feel colder as I hurried back to camp.
The others had all dumped their soup back into the pot and watched me with interest as I washed and chopped the plants I’d foraged and allowed them to simmer until it was to my satisfaction. Spooning it into the bowls, I set to eating though I had no appetite.
“It’s good,” Steinunn said. “You’ve skill.”
I gave a noncommittal grunt. She’d said little on our journey, and if not for the fact that the skald had been the one to drug me as I tried to escape Harald, I might have thought her as much a prisoner as I was.
Yet as my eyes fell on her shoes, the leather dyed a brilliant red, I was reminded that she’d been Harald’s spy all along. When she’d sung the song of our journey through the tunnels beneath Fjalltindr, Steinunn had accidentally revealed that she’d indeed followed us rather than returning to Snorri’s camp, for the cup I’d knocked down the stairs had bounced past those very shoes. She’d negotiated her survival in the tunnels with the draug jarl by promising to compose a song about his fame, spied on Bjorn and me, and then conspired with Harald once she’d reached the top. It had been Steinunn, not Ylva, who’d tried to come into the hall only to be repelled by Ylva’s wards. It had been Steinunn who’d left the message of Snorri’s plans for Grindill carved in runic magic on the tree, shown to me by the specter.
