What had gotten into Ivar, you did not know. What you did know was that you were not allowed to have anyone in his eyes. No one was deemed good enough for him. The marriage to Whitehair was a formality for what the man was really cooking up: a life alone. He was meant to be your best friend and yet, he had done that.
"Lady, I've made the skyr." Sigunnr, your new thrall, says. Whitehair bought her from Rorik himself. For well... obvious purposes. In addition to a bed slave she would help you care for the home. You had managed yourself well in taking up the basket of clothes in one arm.
"Oh good. Sweep the floor and begin the weaving. I'll go wash these clothes." You say.
"I can come with you!" She insists, her cropped short blonde hair bobbing as she stood, hands in front of herself.
"No, no... I'd like time to think by myself."
"Oh. Of course."
Like that you took your basket and made your way out of your home. If you could, you wanted to erase thought of your wedding night. The fact that you were still a virgin was shameful enough. What woman was a virgin after her wedding night?
But then...
I forbid you from being with any other man.
Ugh! He was infuriating! You knew that he cared... you knew! But he had gone too far. As you made your way through the streets of Kattegat, you knew that people were watching you. Not normal, ordinary everyday people. Ivar's men. You skate into the house where your mother was prepping everything to go.
"(Y/N)?" She tilts her head as you appear within the cabin. You hand the clothes to your mother, almost smiling.
"I know you have water. Could you perhaps wash these for me tonight before you go tomorrow?" You ask. "I have something else to do."
"Why yes but–"
"Perfect, thank you." You drift off searching for the planks that cover one lone exit. You pop it open, tucking the crutch under your arm and pop it open. Then you crawl within it, looking for anywhere that might afford you some silence. Ivar had walled off Kattegat from both the pier and the back. There was no going to the water you loved so passionately– except.
"This is the exit. Should you need to escape, you know how to."
Whitehair would be too busy constructing defenses. Few guards were at this station facing the forest. Most were constructing the wall. So as you throw the planks off, slipping through the door without another moment, you feel your taste of freedom by Kattegat's springs. You peel off your dress and set it beside you, crawling into the water– the place where you feel weightless and beautiful in your own way. You lay with your back upon the bumpy but smooth rocks, letting yourself enjoy the water.
"I keep catching you in the worst predicaments." The voice, behind you, belonged to the most unlikely of people. Or really, it should have been likely. You sit up abruptly, rushing to cover your breasts while pressing your legs together tightly.
"You're staring at my nakedness!" You look over your shoulder. The Prince Rorik stands facing the opposite direction beside you. His large dark wooded bow is in his hand, a quiver of arrows over his back. On his belt just beside his short knife, a hook of sables.
"I was not." Rorik complains. "What is it with women bathing without weapon? Do you not think someone could see you?"
"Other than you?"
"Other than me." He agrees.
"I think I came here to bathe without being judged. I thought no one would be outside the walls." You look down to your legs, hands never leaving your chest.
"I came to hunt." He says. "There are sables. But very little. I've seen batches of honey. I should come out here with my thralls and steal it under King Ivar's nose! Do you think that would irritate him? He's quite the drunk."
"I think it would." You laugh softly. "But he commands a lot of land. I'm sure there is more."
"Tell me then." He says. "How was he the other night? I know he was looking upon you."
"Did Whitehair not tell you?" You turn to face him. He stares off into the dark forest before the both of you.
"Of course he did." Rorik stretches up on the balls of his feet. "I am just don't care."
That was something new– someone... unafraid? Freydis was unafraid. Those words she spoke, however, were all inked with passion for Ivar. Rorik seemed not to care one way or another. Even in the case where this could bring death.
"You can sit beside me." You say, glancing away from him.
The prince turns before dropping beside you, unwrapping the leg wraps and removing his boots. He slides his toes into the water after yanking his grey baggy trousers up his haired legs. The water is warm by the sun as he dips his toes into the warm stream.
"He forbade me from being with you." You inform him, looking away to your notched legs. You desperately pull them around, tucking them to the side away from his view. Rorik notices your efforts and reaches out, pulling them not only back around but on top of his trousers. He then slides his hand from under his cloak, gingerly massaging them. You make no noise of protest and so he continues.
"He thinks he controls you." Rorik snorts. "What a cocky man to think he can control a beautiful woman like you from seeing who she wants to see."
"He is a king." You murmur. "That is why I shouldn't be with you.
"A king of Kattegat, not the world."
That was true.
"I say that I see you for just that reason." Rorik at last proposes, inching closer. Your hand protects your breasts as he caresses up your legs with one large hand, stopping at your knees. You glance to the prince again.
"He says you are a bad match for me."
"Of course he would say that. He wants you to himself." Rorik clicks his tongue. "Until he can convince himself to take you as a second wife, he will do this."
"But I don't want to be a second wife."
You wanted to be a first wife. No, a wife alone. Bed thralls were one thing. Even men needed them to release their frustrations! But... you had dreams of being upon a man's arm as more. Whitehair was a good friend but a shitty husband. And yet, was he ever meant to be a husband? You exhale.
"I will get in trouble."
"Possibly."
"You could die."
"I doubt that." He looks to the side with only his eyes before looking back to you. His lips curve into a wild smile almost teasing in its nature.
"Then I have one condition." You say, looking upon his hands on your knees.
"What is it?"
"That you teach me how to love. Like a real woman."
Rorik leans back, letting one hand support himself sitting up. He brings his thumb to his dry lip, tasting the honey he stole on the corner of his tongue. Now– that. That was dangerous.
"You want to have sex." He says.
"No." You scrunch your nose up together. "But Ivar claimed my virginity. He took off my bridal crown."
Rorik slouches a bit as he looks to you. Of course, a woman– especially a viking woman, would not tolerate that sort of disrespect. You still had your honour! Ivar obviously thought that he could claim you in ways that he should not be able to. Ivar chose the position he wanted in your life... a best friend. One that disrespected you by saying Rorik would jerk over your 'mangled' legs out of pure jealousy.
"Pride waxes in him but wisdom never and onward he fares in his folly."
"What does that mean?" You laugh, sorting out the words.
"I don't know. I heard a skald say it once." Rorik relaxes back. "But are you sure you want to give it to me?"
That was new. Most men wouldn't have thought twice. You pull your legs off of him, dragging yourself from the waves to prop yourself over him. Rorik perks up his ruddy eyebrows at you, his hand coming to the small in your back almost waiting for you to smack him a good one across the face.
"Yes." You say. "No one else will disobey him. It's... sexy."
The way you give an awkward laugh is adorable to him. Rorik's eyes slide shut, head bobbing. He reaches his hand up to push your hair away from your face.
"Let's start with a kiss."
"What is it with you and the cripple girl!?"
After seeing off your parents, Rorik sat in the Great Hall with his warband for the first meal of the day. He meant to stay to help his uncle assemble Kattegat's defenses– but the closer he got to your sweet body, the more he wanted to stay. His war band through words together in their mixed slavic words, tinted with old norse.
"What do you mean what?" He flicks his head up as he eats. The king scowls on his seat in his direction as he had for some time.
"Are you taking her home?" His warrior asks. The door spreads open. A cool winter chill spills in. In its place, you walk with your husband Whitehair, your hand in your husband's arm. Rorik leans back with his cup, twisting his head slightly as he holds it up.
When you sit at your table, Ivar dismounts his throne. Ivar sits beside you and you visibly squirm to the edge of the bench. No words, no pretty things seem to work. Not even the bulging hardy white Cyclamen that Hvitserk brought back from the mediterranean will you back to him. He tucks it in your hair just as you slip away from the table, biting back the tears dripping from your cheeks. When Ivar looks around, Rorik is there to return the stare. He offers up his drink, nodding cockily to him. Ivar turns back around and balls up his fist upon the table.
"That is the plan." Rorik rises from his seat. Four of the warband rise with him. "The king is digging his own grave. It won't take much to capture his queen."
He walks out of the Great Hall to go tend to the wall.
Or at least that was what he was meant to do. The members of his personal guard broke off with the knowledge of where he was going next.
Beside Ivar's old wooden barn, you waited with your hands fondling the white stem of the flower. It was cold and such a beautiful thing should have not lived. Yet it had. You compare it to your legs, your shattering bones. You wonder if you can even have sex. You lean against the barn lamenting of the rumours that insane girl had told you.
"He is Boneless." She said before her timely death. Poor Ivar, you think. Would you be Boneless like him? Well, no you couldn't have been because he as very much a man and you were very much a woman but–
"Come." An abrupt hand pulls you forward. You limp on your crutch into the man that tugs you forward to meet his lips with yours. You don't need to guess to know that it is your Rorik. The salt on his lips is reminiscent of irony blood.
"You are hurt?" You ask, parting from his warm lips and soft tongue. "I didn't know–"
"Nevermind that." He pulls the door of the barn open, stealing another kiss from you as he does. The second that the barn opens– Rorik knows it has been a mistake. Rorik catches the sight before you do: Freydis's stale hips riding another man with long, tumbling brown hair and a scruffy beard. Within seconds of seeing them, it all goes to mush in your brain. He leans back from your lips, pulling the axe of his belt.
"Freydis?" You chirp.
The raunchy noises meet an abrupt end when she whirls around to look at you, knocking her slave to the ground.
"What are you doing here?" You ask, looking to her rearranging her skirts. You don't want to think the worst, you don't. If anything else, you wanted to believe that she really did love Ivar. She steps over the slave upon the ground, heading towards you.
"May we talk alone?" She asks. Rorik steps over to the slave, booting him in the ass with his blood coated boot.
"Out."
The slave runs, falling on slippery feet on the way out. As for Rorik he keeps his place stubbornly. His arms fold one over another with clear evidence that he is going nowhere. Freydis quickly takes the message and motions for you to meet with her in another small corner.
"You know Ivar to be a god, don't you?" She asks of you, fondling your cheek in her hand. Her soft fingers sooth over the soft rouge on your cheek.
"So you say he is." You answer.
"He lacks the will to lay with me. I know him to be able to if only he would try. Becoming with child– for him, it would help give him confidence to lay with another woman after what lies his family has spread."
"This is... for Ivar?" You ask, the wheels of your mind stopping.
"Yes, it is." She says. "It is all for him."
"He will die?" You ask.
"He will."
"Then I am happy. I will keep him quiet." You place your hands together, looking up to Freydis's clear eyes. "If it will help Ivar."
She huffs smally out of her nose.
"You are not angry with him." She asks.
Ever was that a complicated statement. Was it possible to love him? With all that he had done to you! He claimed your virginity as his, stole your first kiss, forbade you from seeing Rorik which your heartedly disobeyed and still you kept his interest in heart.
"I am but..."
"You love him."
There's nothing else to be said. You only look up to her with a slight nod in your head. Then as you look back to Rorik, flipping his axe in his boredom, there is one other thing to discuss. If Ivar knew... You twiddle a ring around your finger. You might have asked had Freydis not leaned forward. She plants a small kiss upon your lips, sweet and plush compared to the flaky lips you had the last few days. It leaves your eyebrows flushed up together.
"It is a promise." As she walks out, past Rorik, he pushes his eyebrows together. He saunters forward, glancing toward the door where she went through. Then replacing the sword back on his belt, he hooks his thumbs through the belt loops of his pants.
"Now that wasn't weird at all. Is she a lesbian?"
"Rorik!"
"What? I would quite like that!"
"She isn't speaking to me."
"You should apologize to her." Freydis always had the answer. He told her all about what had gone on. The way that he removed the bridal crown was unacceptable to any woman. It was symbolic of being the one to deflower her. Something that ran squeamish excitement straight to his cock just like everytime Freydis attempted to slide her hands around him.
"It was her fault." Ivar pouts upon his bed. "Now you've seen them kissing." Newly married, weeks of kisses and love had gone on. They came to the conclusion that they would have a child together. He always wanted one. Freydis could be perfect for him.
"Of course she was kissing. She is lonely."
Freydis comes around the bed to sit beside him. Ivar sighs, burrowing his face into his hands. Of course he knew how it was to be lonely.
"He traffics sex slaves." Ivar prompts. "It is better she stays alone."
"Speak to him. Would you really be happy if she met another man?"
He boils, scrunching up his nose as he rolls onto his back to look at the dark wood of the ceiling. No, it wouldn't be better. It wouldn't be better because he would still have the threat of another man taking her, moving away– just like now.
Where was Novgorod anyway?
"No to both." He answers grouchily.
"Then take her as a wife."
The first thing that came to mind was the first thing that he began to dread admitting to her. But as with many things lately, it just came out.
"She is a cripple." Ivar turns his head. "I have worked and worked to dispel everyone from looking at me like a nothing more than a crawling cripple. If I marry her, we will be two cripples. What would they say?"
"That you are a god and she a goddess." Freydis says. Ivar turns his head upon his furs, reaching out to grasp her fingers.
"You make all the goddess I need." Ivar says. "It is better she stays a friend."
"Then would a friend do this to another friend?" Freydis softens her features.
It stunts Ivar's expression. He drops, tucking his head against his inner arm. He doesn't know what else to say. He weighs what he has done– why he has done it. Her lips... they sear against his like the burn of a brand. He can't seem to separate it.
"I don't know."