Page 44 of Viking Warriors: Vol. 1-3
She and I, both, had been cheated, in various ways. I’d thought myself above her, of late, condemning her choices. I’d proven myself no better. I was worse, being a hypocrite. Faline, at least, made no pretence.
“Help me carry these?” I asked. “Lady Asta needs my tending, too, and it’ll be quicker together.”
She regarded me a moment, then lifted a hand to her cheek. “I’m feeling a little weak… and hot. Perhaps, I should return abed...” She turned back after a few steps. “If you’ve any sense, you’ll do the same. Let them look after their own.”
* * *
Ilay upon the floor, listening to Asta breathing through the night. While I heard her, I knew she lived.
She would swallow neither fish nor meat—only porridge and honey, coaxed between her lips from my spoon, though even this her stomach would not keep. I told her stories of my childhood: of the trees I’d climbed, and the joy of leaping into cool water in the heat of summer.
Waking before the dawn, she whispered. “Look after my baby.” I lit the lamp and its flame quivered thin. Her cheeks bore twin flushes, though her face was paler than ever. “You and Eirik.”
Had she forgotten the reason for his departure? Forgotten that there would be a marriage but that it would not be I who stood beside the groom?
“Beautiful in your wedding gown…” she mumbled, in her reverie of a future that could not be.
“And you’ll be there to see it.” I went along with the ‘make-believe’, promising her everything she wished, bringing her jewel box at her bidding.
“To wear on the day you become his bride.” She fumbled among the trinkets until her fingers plucked two brooches, carved in bone and ringed in silver. One bore a bear and wolf, gripping one another in battle, surrounded by looping serpents; the other, a soaring bird, its wings and tail hanging low.
She placed them in my lap before resting back against her pillows, letting me sing to her while she closed her eyes.
The wick burned low, then lower, until the flame guttered and I was left in the dark, Asta’s hand cold in mine.
Somewhere beneath her ribs, the babe unborn pressed its fists to its blood-filled cage, in fluttering jabs of arm and foot. Its battle was over before it had begun.
19
Only one other grieved as I did, though he never showed me his tears. I’d never doubted that Gunnolf loved her, though perhaps only in the way men do when they believe a woman to be too noble for them—resentment and adoration in equal measure. Had he once believed her goodness would elevate his own nature? It was how I’d felt, each day, in her presence. Instead, we’d both deceived her.
Asta had never treated me as a stranger. She’d been sister and mother both; more even than Helka, whose adventures took her beyond my sphere. And how had I repaid this kindness? I’d fallen so easily to temptation, driven by anger, as much as lust.
Now, she was lost to me in every sense, taken to some realm beyond the living where she would surely know my sins. My self-loathing grew, for not only had I betrayed her trust but I’d been unable to save her from torment, dragged slowly, painfully, to the bitterest end.
Her symptoms had been strange. Not quite those of the pox, though she’d displayed many of the signs. Instead, her body had turned against itself without apparent cause.
I washed and dressed her for the final ceremony, for the burial she’d wished. One of her brooches I fastened to her robe of purest white. She’d given me so much, and I wished to place something I treasured in her resting place. The other I pinned to my shoulder. I hoped she’d find peace, embracing both her children in death—her son, and the unborn babe within her body.
Gunnolf carried her in his arms to the edge of the forest, to the hole he’d dug himself beside the resting ashes of their child; she weighed little, and he was strong.
It was a quiet affair, for so many in the village were affected by the pox, keeping to their houses in sickness or in tending others. Gunnolf said naught as he laid his wife’s richest jewels upon her breast, and her lute beside her. He crouched down to whisper his farewell, for her ear alone, then took up the spade, his face hard in sorrow, casting the soil upon her body. I shuddered to see it fall, feeling its weight as if it were I who lay in the cold ground, buried slowly by the earth.
The men would later build a mound above: a resting place fit for the jarl to join his lady and their babes, when the time came, Guðrún told me.
In the days to come, I attended the sick, mixing salves and tinctures. There was too much death. Illness took several of the younger babes, too feeble even to cry their hunger.
Gunnolf did not come near, except to command stronger draughts for sleep. There was danger in increasing the potency of the valerian root. It would do more harm than good, I warned. Headaches and dizziness would plague him, however strong his heart. His mind, in anguish, would rebel, losing its former reason.
He cast my cautions aside, shadows beneath his eyes telling me of his need. I gave what he asked, understanding that longing to find oblivion, each waking bringing the misery of remembrance. I, too, wished to escape, to no longer know myself. My strangled remorse was more than I could bear.
I dreamt of rotting leaves and the drip of water through earth and rock, soil cold in my mouth and crawling things. I looked into the dark, and it slithered inside.
20
Iknew that they talked about me, despite all I’d done for them. It wasn’t enough that I’d treated their sores and tended them through the pox. I heard the whispers as I passed their homes, saw the narrowing of their eyes and heads turned from me.
Lady Asta had been under my care and she’d died. I was to blame.
