A Flame Put Out (11 page)

Selia felt a flush creeping over her face as realization dawned on her. Bolli loved the slave boy. Not in a depraved way such as the sniggers on the ship suggested, but in the way of any person loving another. Everything made much more sense now: Hrefna’s idea that Bolli and Ingrid should marry, the boy’s ready acceptance of a marriage to his cousin carrying another man’s babe, and Ketill’s willingness for his son to raise a child not his own. For even though the child wasn’t Bolli’s, it did at least carry Ketill’s bloodline through Eydis and Ingrid. Close enough, perhaps, to even bear a resemblance to that side of the family and convince a casual observer that Bolli was indeed the father.

So that was why Ketill had been so quick to agree to this wedding.

As though sensing her scrutiny, Bolli turned to Selia. They exchanged a long look that told her suspicions were correct; he didn’t want this marriage any more than Ingrid did. He loved another, just as Ingrid did.

Bolli closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the wall, escaping with his mind as he was unable to do with his body.

Ingrid and Hrefna emerged from behind the curtain a little while later. Ingrid wore the same gown, but her skin was scrubbed clean and her hair had been combed. Hrefna had dressed Ingrid’s hair very simply, with two small plaits at the temples joined at the back of her head, the rest of her hair hanging free down her back. She wore an elaborate headdress consisting of strands of wheat woven into braids and knots. The bridal crown was supposed to be trimmed with flowers, but since the winter wedding didn’t allow for that, Hrefna had improvised by trimming it with silk cording. Selia thought it lovely.

“We are ready,” Hrefna said to the group, and to Selia’s surprise everyone began to don their overcoats and cloaks. Apparently the wedding was to take place outside.

Bolli swallowed. He drew in a deep breath and smiled at Ingrid. The boy stood up with some difficulty, gripping his cane, and his father approached him. Ketill had a long, wrapped parcel in his hands.

“I never thought you would be the first of my sons to marry.” Ketill addressed Bolli formally as he unwrapped the parcel. It was a sword, recently polished, and it gleamed in the firelight. “The sword of your grandfather, to be kept in trust for your son.”

Ketill made eye contact with Selia, a long, slow blink, before turning away. He wanted to be sure she understood the significance of this.

At the naming ceremony when Geirr was born, Alrik claimed the child as his own and presented him with the sword of Geirr Jorulfson. Selia could only hope that Ingrid’s babe was a girl. Then, at least, Ainnileas’ son wouldn’t be given this heirloom sword from Ketill’s dead father. Maybe the sword could be used instead for Skagi’s son, if any woman could ever be convinced to marry him. Selia kept her eyes to the floor as Ketill fastened the sword around Bolli’s waist.

Bjorn had a similarly-wrapped parcel as well, which he untied and handed to Alrik. It too was a sword, new and beautifully worked, and the crowd murmured in appreciation as Alrik unsheathed it and held its lustrous length before him. He tested the sword’s weight and examined the blade, then nodded down at Bjorn.

“Well done,” Alrik praised. Bjorn smiled, as pleased as a mother whose child had just been complimented.

Bolli gripped his cane as he hobbled to the door. Even though Ketill held his other arm, each step was labored and uncertain, and his face looked pinched from the pain.

The thralls had cleared a path through the snow that led to a copse of fir trees near the house. Torches had been erected and placed along the path to light the way. The intention must have been for the trees to block the weather, but they did precious little against the bitter wind. The small wedding party huddled in the trees, shivering, as the female thrall led a sow into the clearing by a rope.

Alrik stepped forward, waiting silently until all eyes turned to him. He stood tall and formidable, and he studied both Ingrid and Bolli in turn, with a look on his face that would strike fear into the hearts of battle-hardened men. Hrefna hadn’t told him of Ingrid’s condition, but Alrik was no fool; surely he suspected something. Quick winter weddings weren’t planned without good reason.

“We are here to call witness to the marriage of my daughter Ingrid, to Bolli, son of Ketill, grandson of Bruni. The dowry and the bride-price have been exchanged and all business has been settled to satisfaction.” Alrik turned to Hrefna. “Proceed, Hrefna Erlandsdottir.”

Hrefna stepped forward. She took the sow from the slave and handed the woman an ornately carved wooden cup. The placid sow shifted in the snow on its small black hooves and studied the wedding guests.

“My friends,” Hrefna said. “Each god holds one beast sacred above all others. The sow is sacred to Freyja. It is in her honor that we offer up the blood of this beast so that Bolli and Ingrid’s marriage shall be blessed with prosperity, fertility, and happiness.”

Hrefna moved quickly. She straddled the sow between her legs and held the rope taut as the animal began to squeal and struggle. With a swift motion, she pulled her dagger from her belt and slit the sow’s throat. The thrall moved in with the cup to catch the spurting blood. The sow sank to its knees, and Hrefna lowered the body to the ground as the animal’s blood darkened the blanket of snow beneath it.

Queasy at the blood, Selia averted her eyes. The scene reminded her too much of the murder of Father Coinniach. Surely the priest’s death had not been planned by Alrik all along as a sacrifice to bless their union, as the sow was meant to bless Bolli and Ingrid’s? Selia studied Alrik’s face but his expression was stony.

With the sow dead at her feet, Hrefna held the cup high. “Bolli and Ingrid, the joining of husband and wife is a sacred union and not one to enter into lightly. We pray the gods see fit to bless your marriage, to open Ingrid’s womb to bear Bolli many strong and healthy children, and to give Bolli the vigor to provide for his wife and family and to protect them from harm.”

Hrefna dipped a small bundle of tied fur twigs into the cup of blood. She tapped it lightly three times on the side of the cup, then, to Selia’s surprise, she flicked the bundle in the direction of the wedding party. A fine spray of blood hit Selia’s face. “May the blessing of the gods rain upon you, and know they show favor to those who honor them and offer sacrifice.”

Selia shivered and refrained from wiping the blood away. Hrefna then nodded to Bolli. The boy looked very wan, and Ketill stood close as Bolli unsheathed his grandfather’s sword.

“Ingrid Alriksdottir,” Bolli said, his young voice cracking a bit. He cleared his throat and continued. “It is with reverence that I offer you the sword of my ancestors. I charge you with the task of keeping this sword in trust for my future son, and for his son after him. Will you accept this sacred duty of a wife?”

Ingrid’s nervous gaze met Bolli’s. She at least had enough sense to feel guilty about pawning off her bastard child on her cousin. “I will,” she said in a quiet voice. Ingrid took the sword from Bolli and passed it to Hrefna. Ingrid then turned to Alrik, who handed her the new sword.

Alrik narrowed his eyes at Bolli. “Bolli Ketilson,” Alrik said, “I offer you this sword, forged new in a spirit of trust and unity. By taking up this sword, the responsibility of my daughter’s protection and care is transferred from father to husband. Will you accept this sacred duty?”

“I will,” Bolli said. Ingrid laid the gleaming sword in his hands.

“Then speak your vows,” Alrik commanded.

Bolli looked to Ketill, who pulled a ring from the pouch at his waist and carefully placed it on the tip of Bolli’s new sword. Bolli turned back to Ingrid. He gripped his cane with one hand and with the other offered her the ring, dangling from the sword. It seemed odd to offer a ring in such a way—almost an implied threat should the wedding oath be broken.

Ingrid looked sick as she put the ring on her finger.

But Bolli smiled at her. “Before the gods and these witnesses, I, Bolli Ketilson, take you, Ingrid Alriksdottir, as my wife.”

Ingrid now trembled. Selia had never seen her so uncertain. The girl stared at Bolli, and Bolli nodded to her in encouragement. Ingrid drew in her breath and spoke in a small, hesitant voice. “Before the gods and these witnesses, I, Ingrid Alriksdottir, take you, Bolli Ketilson, as my husband.”

“It is done,” Alrik said with a curt nod. The wedding party erupted into cheers.

Thankfully, they began to move back toward the house. Selia was so cold she could barely feel her toes. It was slow going, however, as Bolli led the way, hampered by his lame foot. It was obvious he was exhausted as he hobbled toward the door.

When he reached the threshold, Bolli turned to Ingrid and held out his arm for her. His face was waxy pale and he looked as though he was about to faint. Ingrid took Bolli’s arm and put it around her shoulder, and wrapped her other arm around Bolli’s waist.

Bolli took in a deep breath as he looked down at the lip of the threshold. “Welcome to my home, wife,” he said to Ingrid in a shaky voice. He led with his good leg, leaning heavily on the cane and on Ingrid, but as he tried to bring his crippled foot over the threshold it caught on the raised lip and Bolli stumbled forward ever so slightly. Ingrid held him with both arms around his waist to keep him from falling, and they stepped through the door and into the house.

A hush fell over the wedding party. This Finngall threshold ritual was apparently of extreme importance—Selia remembered how Ingrid had tried to make her stumble as Alrik had led her through the doorway the first time she had entered his house. For the bride to stumble was an ill omen.

Selia could only assume that the stumble of the groom couldn’t portend any better. She looked at Hrefna but the woman wouldn’t meet her eyes.

Chapter 11

The wedding festivities lasted well into the evening, with a sense of forced merriment in the house, as though the guests were attempting to erase the bad luck incurred with Bolli’s stumble. Alrik had brought a cask of wine left from the battle at sea, and it flowed freely. Ingrid and Bolli drank a sweet concoction made of ale and honey, which they were instructed by Hrefna to quaff together for a full cycle of the moon.

Selia was tired and had a backache from the long ride in the sleigh. The babe was restless and had unfortunately decided to bang its head against her bladder for most of the wedding ceremony. Alrik had forbade her to use the outside privy unless someone accompanied her, because the harsh winter made the wolves bold. For the convenience of the wedding, a bucket had been placed behind the curtain in the far corner of the dwelling, but Selia was reluctant to use the bucket in a house packed with drunken men. She would wait until she could stand no more.

She made herself as comfortable as possible on one of the benches and sipped at her wine as she watched the interaction of the wedding guests. Alrik and Ketill were deep in conversation. They matched each other in their quest for the oblivion they could only find at the bottom of the wine barrel, and kept Kier scrambling to refill their cups.

Skagi and Bjorn sat a bit apart from the others. Bjorn looked animated as he only did when talking weapons, and indeed he moved his hands in the air as if describing the beauty of a sword to Skagi. Selia was always loath to look directly at Skagi. His face had healed from the beating inflicted by Alrik in the spring, but his nose would be permanently crooked and he had no teeth on one side of his jaw. Skagi held his mouth in an odd way when speaking as though trying to hide his lack of teeth. He had never been handsome even before the beating, but now the odds of him finding a wife were abysmal.

Ingrid and Bolli sat together, heads bent close, whispering to each other. Bolli’s face had more color in it now as he drank the bridal ale and laughed with his new wife. Selia studied them. Although their marriage was a ruse, it was obvious they cared for each other very much. Many a good marriage had begun with much less than that, according to Hrefna. And Bolli was kind and even-tempered. He would make a good father for Ingrid’s child.
Ainnileas’ child
.

Selia would never see her brother again, but that wound was eased a bit at the thought of the babe growing in Ingrid’s belly. Selia would have something of Ainnileas, at least.

The marriage of Ingrid and Bolli had been a clever solution, and Hrefna had chosen wisely. She must have been privy to Bolli’s secret. Did everyone know? Bolli and the slave boy, Hakon, hadn’t even looked at each other since their strange interaction earlier. Still, an unspoken connection seemed to link them, as if each knew where the other was in the room. But perhaps that was Selia’s imagination after guessing the nature of their relationship.

Hrefna was in the kitchen area with Ketill’s female thrall, whom Selia had heard Ketill call Aslaug. She was Hakon’s mother. The thrall had butchered the sow and was now cooking it, and the smell wafting over from that side of the house was delicious. Hrefna looked more content than Selia had seen her since the death of Olaf. She fussed over the cooking pot, wanting the spices just right, and waved Aslaug away.

The child in Selia’s belly shifted again, and she could take no more. It was either the slop bucket behind the curtain or the privy outside. Selia looked over at the curtain, and just at that moment a drunken Bjorn came stumbling out from behind it, laughing as he fastened his breeches. No, Selia would take her chances outside with the wolves.

She crossed to Hrefna and whispered, “I must go out,” motioning below her belly.

Hrefna thought for a moment and then called, “Aslaug, fetch your cloak.”

Aslaug nodded and donned the garment, lifting one of the torches that burned from urns along the wall. “This way, Mistress,” she said to Selia.

Selia put on her cloak as well and followed Aslaug out the door. It had started to snow again. The night air was very cold, and burned her lungs, but it felt good to take a deep breath after the smoky air of the house. A path had been cleared from the house to the privy, some distance away, but the fresh snow was quickly covering it.

“Take my arm, Mistress,” Aslaug said. “It may be slick.”

Selia did as instructed, but Aslaug gazed at her for a moment. “What is it?” Selia asked as they began to walk.

Aslaug shook her head. “Forgive me, Mistress. I shouldn’t stare. But Grainne was my friend and she spoke of you often. It seems so strange to see you now. You are as beautiful as she said you were.”

Selia stopped. “She spoke of me?”

“Yes. Of you and your brother. She used to cry at night when she first came here. She thought you were dead. She was so happy to know you had survived.”

“Oh.” Selia wasn’t sure further mention of Grainne was a good idea. “You have been here a long time.”

They began to walk toward the privy. “I was born here,” Aslaug replied. “But my mother was Irish, so I knew a bit of what Grainne was saying.” She was silent for a moment. “I do miss her. Did she go home after all? To Ireland?”

“Yes. She went with my brother.”

Aslaug smiled. “Well. That is good, then.”

This woman was Grainne’s friend, probably her only confidant. If anyone knew what was in Grainne’s heart, it would be Aslaug. Giving in to her curiosity, Selia stopped again and turned to the woman. “Did my mother ever say anything about . . .” She paused, unsure how to ask the question that had plagued her for so long. “About why she thought it was my fault my father died?”

Aslaug averted her eyes. “Yes. She did. Her mind was very troubled by it.”

“Please tell me.” Selia was shivering, and her bladder felt ready to rupture, but she couldn’t move until she heard what the thrall had to say.

“Grainne said you were very small when you were born. Too small to live. You were barely breathing and couldn’t suckle properly. Your father was distraught and he took you out of the house the night you were born. Grainne feared he was going to expose you, to end your suffering. But later when he returned with you, she said you were like a different child.”

“What did he do?”

“He took you to a cunning woman. She cast a spell.”

“A spell?” Selia faltered.

“Yes. A spell to make you strong. And Grainne always thought that was what brought the ill luck to your father. It was a punishment from the White Christ.”

Selia shook her head. Of course it went against God’s word to work magic, but as spells went, this one seemed relatively benign. “How could that be bad, making a babe strong?”

Aslaug frowned. “Because there is no such thing as something from nothing. Summer doesn’t come without winter. Morning falls to night. To make strength, it must be taken from something else. From whatever your strength was drawn, Grainne thought it was unnatural. And your father paid the price.”

Selia shuddered. Maybe Grainne wasn’t as mad as she’d at first believed. Perhaps Selia was brimming with dark magic after all. Hadn’t she always had an attraction to Finngalls and their heathen ways, even as a child? Hadn’t she married a Finngall Hersir, and loved him even after learning the evil deeds he had committed? Hadn’t she prayed to a heathen god to ensure her husband’s safe return and nearly slaughtered an animal in that god’s name?

Selia’s knees felt as though they would give out from under her. “Can the spell be broken?”

Aslaug shook her head. “I don’t know. I’m not a cunning woman. As I said before, Grainne thought you were dead until just recently, so there was never any reason for her to talk about breaking the spell. The damage had been done. Your father was dead.”

Selia’s thoughts remained unsettled as the evening wore on. The wedding guests drank and laughed, Hakon played his drum, and the men sang and stomped their feet. The noise in Ketill’s small house was overwhelming. The thralls served the wedding feast, and although the sow smelled delicious, Selia had no appetite. She wanted nothing more than to go home and sleep in her own bed. But unfortunately they wouldn’t leave until tomorrow. And with the way Alrik was drinking it seemed unlikely they would get an early start.

The conversation with Aslaug played over and over in Selia’s mind. Could the story be believed? It was obvious Grainne believed it, and had convinced Aslaug. But Grainne’s memory of that night might not be accurate. The woman had given birth to twins, had most likely been exhausted and in pain, then upset when one of the infants proved sickly. Could she be blamed if her memory of the night was faulty?

Grainne had spent half her life obsessing over the death of Faolan, to the point where she became consumed by it and had slipped into madness. The more probable events of the night of Selia’s birth was one where her father had taken her out of the house and gone to a priest for last rites, and the prayers had revived her.

No, the story of a dark spell worked by a cunning woman was most likely the product of Grainne’s unbalanced mind. Grainne had lost her husband in a Finngall raid, but so had countless other Irish wives. Would those wives blame their husbands’ deaths on a spell? Of course they wouldn’t. They would place the blame where it was due, on the Finngalls.

The party finally reached the point where the bedding of the bride needed to take place. The wedding guests laughed as Ingrid and Bolli stumbled off to the farthest bench. They climbed in, both flushed red, and Bjorn followed them over. As the only freeborn man at the wedding who was not related to either the bride or the groom, it was his responsibility to ensure the marriage was consummated.

Bjorn was very drunk. He winked at them and pulled the curtain closed. “Get on with it now,” he called to them through the curtain.

Selia raised her eyebrows at this. Her own wedding night had been terrifying in its own right. But thankfully it hadn’t included a roomful of people listening in.

She looked over at Alrik, laughing at something Ketill had said, and watched him for a moment. He was beautiful, with his hair glittering in the torchlight, and his cheeks flushed with the wine. He smiled and Selia found herself blinking back tears. Alrik had been so sad since he had returned from the fall trip. The deaths of his men, especially Olaf, had nearly destroyed him. It was good to see him laugh and enjoy himself.

Maybe this renewed alliance with Ketill would bring Alrik back into the good graces of the surviving members of his war band. Maybe Selia would get her husband back, instead of this shell of a man who sometimes seemed to be looking through her when she spoke to him.

When Alrik burned bright, as he did now, Selia could feel his overpowering pull even from across the room. Whatever radiated from him—power, heat, vigor—it was an attraction that drew her in like a moth to the flame. Selia couldn’t resist it even if she wanted to. If Grainne was right, and Selia was under some sort of a wicked spell, could it have made her fall in love with Alrik? Or would that have happened regardless?

There was a rustling behind the bed curtain, then Bolli and Ingrid peeked out, giggling and sheepish. “It is done!” Bjorn shouted. Clapping and cheers arose from the wedding party. Selia clapped as well, but studied Bjorn. Had the cousins actually consummated their marriage, or only pretended to? Bjorn could very well be in on the entire ruse. He was like a second father to both Bolli and Ingrid. It could be that Bolli’s apprenticeship with Bjorn had been set up by Ketill to deny his son easy access to Hakon.

The drumming had stopped some time ago. She looked around the room for Hakon but he was nowhere to be found. He must have slipped outside unnoticed, preferring to freeze than to be present for the bedding of the bride.