Page 98 of Shared By the Vikings

“He can be as angry as he wants,” Tali said, his voice low but determined. “Because there is no way he’ll be taking any fury out on you.” He puffed up his chest. “He’ll have to get past us first.”

“He has an army.”

He tapped the side of his head. “An army doesn’t think. We are multiplied by our minds and our voices, that is how battles are truly won.”

She nodded. “I hope you’re right.”

“I am.”

“Drink more water,” Gunnvar said, handing her a tankard full. “We still have plenty and are making good time. Only a few more days until the fjord.”

“Thanks.” She drank deeply, glad of the way the liquid salved her salt-dry tongue and throat.

“Are you tired?” he asked, sitting next to her, his shoulders shifting as they bobbed over waves.

“No... well, maybe a little.”

He moved closer and wrapped his arm around her, tugged her body flush with his. “Sleep now, on me.” He pressed the side of her head until it rested on his upper chest.

“I’m manning the ropes,” she said, then stifled a yawn.

“You have done your share of that. And the wind is set in this direction, hopefully for our remaining days.”

“I will watch the ropes,” Tali said. “Rest, Ingrid, we do not wish for you to be tired.”

“Why the sudden concern over my tiredness?”

Tali and Gunnvar glanced at Erik. He was standing at the front of the boat, one hand on a mast, the other holding his larvikite. He was staring straight ahead, in the direction of the homeland.

“What is it?” she asked again. “What’s going on?”

Erik turned, his dark beard peppered with sea spray. “You don’t know?”

“No.”

Gunnvar held her a little nearer. “You have taken seed from all of us. You may well have a son in your belly.”

“But... it’s so soon.”

“If the gods have decided a warrior son is in our destiny, then no, it’s not too soon,” Erik said. “And we will welcome him with open arms, each and every one of us.”

She looked at Raud.

He nodded. “You know we will.”

“But I...” Ingrid knew it took months for a child to make itself known, for a woman’s belly to swell. But her men could be right, a child too tiny to be visible could be growing inside her. And she had taken lots of seed. She’d had sex with each man while they’d been on foreign land and on the boat. A sudden thought came to her. She clasped her hand over her mouth and one over her lower abdomen.

“What?” Raud asked.

“You don’t think...” She paused, the image before her too terrible. “Will my son be foreign? What if he has a round patch of hair missing?” She remembered the shiny bald circles on the heads of the men in the monastery. “Maybe that will be a curse for laying with you on Northumbria soil.”

Erik laughed, a real deep guffaw. “No, that is not how it works, Princess.”

She frowned. What she’d said wasn’t that funny. Was it?

“Your son will be sired by one of us, we will not know for sure who but he will have strong Viking blood, bones, and hair.”

“And we will each raise him,” Tali said. “As our own.”

---