What Helga had retrieved from the wall was no less than a cloth inscribed with runic letters. She explained to me that the Norse written language wasn't used very much by the common folk. It was usually displayed on religious buildings and talismans. Sometimes the religious figure in a village will display ruins on their body written in blood at ceremonies and celebrations.
"Usually the writer keeps their message brief and about distance to a destination or a message or warning" her finger traces the images on the page.
"What does is say?" I ask looking intently at the crackling letters, they were a deep down colour.
"I think it says Othila and Perth" she looks at me.
"What is that?"
"- they are charms, Othila means inheritance or Wealth in family and Perth represents fate or mystery" We exchange a meaningful look.
"Why was this in your wall Helga?" I asked cautiously.
"I don't remember ever having wished for theses specific things on the house when it was built" she passed it to me.
"It must have been done my your father- a wish for himself perhaps"
~*~
My mind was cloudy, and I blinked several times. Still the blank stare from the woman's eyes met mine. She's not Freya, Ive met her enough times to know. I was lent forward my knuckles turned white from gripping the table. I was filled with a new urgency. We needed to figure this town out and get the information back to my father and I needed to get the hell out of this country.
I needed to get home to Saoirse to see if what freya says was true!
A child. My child. Half of me. Bewildered and scared at the prospect I briskly stood up from the table sending the three legged stool flying. A sweat broke out over my skin. And I struggled backwards.
"I hope you got the message" the woman says. I'm not sure if she's implying I didn't the first time and that I'm an idiot or that she hopes her connection into my skull was clear.
The men looked smug, as if they knew all along. Roughly passing my sleeves over my mouth I turn and tear through the swarms of people.
I was worried and humiliated. I stressed for where I knew I belonged and was humiliated that I was again visited by a goddess and could not understand what she told me. A sweat broke out over my skin- was it warm out or was my body burning from the inside?!
I don't recall a time where I was more angry. The celebrations continued outside and as I passed through the door, the light blinded me. The music was once again loud and energetic. I was completely overwhelmed. I needed to get the job done and go home.
Pushing my hands through my hair I decided I'd take the quickest route out of the town. I'm sick of playing into my fathers requests, I'm exhausted, tired of the desire to appeal to my father, to make him see that I am the better son. I grit my teeth. I need to get home. The two of us were tyrants. We pillaged our way through the available women in the village. Spent nearly all of our days drunk and the other times high from the mushrooms Destin would collect.
He was a couple of years my senior, and at the impressionable age of sixteen he was my best friend.
The difference between us was that our mothers weren't the same, and Destin resented me and my mother. It wasn't until our first major falling out; did I realise that he, on many occasions had purposefully gotten me into trouble with our father to have him scorn me and push me from his good graces. It's not forgotten, even today, and I'm not willing to allow him the pleasure of seeing me fail. The town, this forsaken place, we must conqure it.
Björn and Floki, nowhere to be seen when I finally take in my suroundings. the list of places I need to find; The grain store, the five largest farms, and the armoury and their boats. We need to weaken them at the knees, make the men bow to us. To my father. But I doubt we'd be able to do it alone. Gathering my thoughts and trying to focus I breathed deeply, still feeling myself shaking. I felt my fists quivering. I felt disorientated as if the world spun faster with every movement I made.
Evening up my shoulders and running my hands down my chest and rubbing them together I took an inside step to my right and stumbled through clusters of people. I took my first right and then down between the buildings, the streets became more and more empty. As if there was some sort of force keeping me from regaining full mental capacity I stumbled and battled against my own balance. Falling to the side I reached out a hand and braced myself off a pillar holding a roof over a pig pen. Their squeals erupting at my sudden appearance. I was stressed and needed to urgently put space between myself and the residents of this town.
~*~
I bet my father hadn't a clue about how things would have ended when he placed the talismans. He didn't plan on raising me away from his home, had things gone to his plan I would have been Norse, a Viking lady, praying to God's I know nothing about and presiding over a town that is the farthest thing from what I did grow up surrounded by. Ice cold winds of winter and dense mysterious forests to ramble about in in summer.
I guess it would have meant that Sven wouldn't have had the life his lived, the hardships he faced and he probably would not have made it to this day, either by being driven to death by drink or by being slain in battle with not any drive to stay alive, but most of all Id probably not be as irreversibly in love with him as I am. We would have never met in the same way, for all I know I'd have married another village's leader and lived a different, but not better life.
It scared me a little to think of just how wild my life had been in the last several months, as we have now come into summer months and the heat has begun to rise and set the forests alight with flora and fauna.
On a day such as today, no different from the others I have lived here I found myself walking amongst the people along the streets, having been with my grandmother Helga this morning I could still see the finely inscribed lettering of the runes in my mind. I had an uplifting feeling filling my chest a lightness and a giddiness I felt as if good things were on their way.
I am so prepared for Sven to return to me so that we may move forward with our lives, fully repair our home and begin our little family. What I don't want, is for my child to be born with out a father. Everyday I fear more and more that my loneliness will be extended to the end of my last breath that I will have to face this world without him, and my child will understand the devastation of living with out two parents.
"Saoirse?" A soft voice, with a singing quality to it. I looked in her direction. She looked at me, with her blue eyes, they had a familiar quality as if I'd looked at them many days of my life. Her wavy brunette hair was drawn back at the sides into intricate braids.
"yes?" I said a little bewildered, I almost hadn't recognised her - Sven's mother.
I curtsied a little to show my delayed respects.
It was the strangest place to meet completely by accident. Nowhere near the great hall, neither half way into town or near my own home. I glance around us she was drawing a unwanted amount of attention to us.
"I want you to know, that if there is anything I can do for you, all you need to do is ask" her gentle feminine fingers grazed my cheek. Her eyes glistened with a warmth and unpredicted love I couldn't have wish for more.
With that said, every-time I had a conversation with this woman something bad would ensue.