Page 2 of A Shield Maiden's Earl
Relieved that I could let my guard down and return her affection, I embraced her just as tightly, trembling at the impact of these final, bittersweet moments. Fleeting moments, before we went our separate ways. We might never see each other again, something Tove seemed to understand, because I felt a tremor go through her too. Then, just as swiftly as she’d embraced me, she pulled away and returned to being distant, as if the tender exchange hadn’t happened.
With good reason, too.
She’d sensed our father coming.
Moments later, he pounded on the door and entered before Tove had a chance to respond. A once-tall, formidable man and ruthless warrior, Earl Bjorn Helvig, ‘The Ferocious,’ had at one time been renowned for his battle prowess, yet was now a husk of the man he’d been. Stooped, terribly scarred, and in more pain than he would admit, he wore an angry scowl where once, at least for his daughters, there had been a warm smile. With the assistance of his second-in-command, Knud, he lowered into one of the chairs around the fire with a muttered grunt and accepted a mug of ale from Tove.
Knud Thorngard was a towering monster of a man with broad shoulders, a lightning bolt scar at his temple, and a more-than-imposing bearing. He had risen to the rank of our father’s trusted second-in-command when he’d saved him from the polar bear that nearly took his life. Though many women found Knud handsome with his thick, dark brown hair and braided beard, including, I suspected, Tove, I found him unnerving. He hovered on a violent, beastly edge from which, if he ever crossed over, he might never return.
To that end, I had long known Knud was a great deal of the reason why Bjorn had not married off Tove yet. Outside ofhimself, she was the only one who seemed able to tame him. As for our father, although he never took offense at the bear that attacked him, having long fashioned his tribe of berserker warriors after the polar bear and proudly wearing its white pelt, his disposition changed drastically afterward.
He went from loving and doting to this, the man who narrowed his near-obsidian eyes at me and looked me over as if I were prized cattle about to be auctioned off.
But then, in a way, I very much was.
“Are you ready for him, girl?” he rasped, his shredded vocal cords making impossible the booming, commanding voice that was once his. He noted my impressive shield of blues and the well-sharpened blade I kept sheathed at my side. “You seem prepared, yet still I will have you recite your duties on behalf of your people when you greet Soren on the morrow.”
Feeling my blue talisman stone warm against my skin beneath my tunic, I dutifully listed off everything my father wanted to hear. Everything I knew the gods wanted me to adhere to, as my time to marry and face my destiny would soon be upon me.
Face the man destined to be with me for the rest of my days.
“When Earl Soren Dahl, ‘The Brazen,’ arrives on the morrow, I shall greet him as the wife who will soon belong to him,” I recited, loathing every word, yet what choice did I have? Not only was my father ordering it, but my talisman agreed.
According to the Norns, this was my fate.
The only path I could walk.
“Soren will spend time among our people,” I went on, “and receive your blessing, Father, before we travel to his stronghold and marry among his tribe.”
Bjorn was too feeble to make the journey to the Dahl stronghold, and it was only proper that I marry there, so though untraditional, we had to do things this way.
“And then,” Father prompted when I hoped to leave it at that because I especially loathed the next part.
“And then,” I forced past my lips, “I will dutifully bear him many children, sealing the unification of our earldoms.”
“Ja,” Father grunted, perking a bushy gray eyebrow, “but first?”
I sensed, rather than saw, my sister tense. This response was the most important of all, and the most unnatural, given I was every bit a shield-maiden.
Yet I would not say it without a bite to my voice.
“Upon greeting him, I shall hand my shield and blade over to Soren to show I will honor our upcoming vows,” I swore through clenched teeth, dreading the moment. It would feel so wrong. Not like me in the least. “Despite my being an esteemed warrior who could greatly improve his ranks, and mayhap he should be told such, I will—”
“Notsay such,” my father bit out, his scarred face growing redder at my daring to say anything that countered his wishes. “You will say what I want said without any of your foolishness, girl, do you hear me?” His eyes narrowed to obsidian slits. “You are privileged enough to wed the fiercely renowned Soren Dahl, Ruler of the Ulfhednar, whose last wife bore him no sons. But you will, and strong sons at that. Sons born of our bloodline who will long watch over the Kingdom of Norway and expand well onto the distant shores of other lands.Ruledistant lands.”
While that sounded admirable enough, there was once a time Father would have wanted that to happen with me fighting alongside his warriors. Fighting as he had trained me to fight in my youth, with the spirit of a shield-maiden and the ferociousness of the bear. With the might of a thousand Helvig’s because our tribe was fierce, indeed.
Yet now, I was to lay down my shield to bear sons.
Lay down who I was, at my core, for my father.
Where once I might have taken great pride in that, however difficult to grasp, because I loved my father dearly, that time had passed with Bjorn’s changed disposition. Even so, as my gaze flickered from his beast, Knud, with his muscular arms crossed over his broad chest, eyeing me darkly, to the veins bulging in Father’s now beet-red face, I had no choice but to swallow my pride and heartache and do as he asked.
Forcing myself to nod in acquiescence, however tightly, I continue saying all the words my father longed—demanded—to hear. Then, after being dismissed so that Bjorn might speak alone with Knud and Tove, I made my way back to my cottage beneath a waxing moon, enjoying the woodsy hint of spring on the tepid, salt-ridden winds.
That is, until I sensed something watching me and slowed, watchful of the surrounding forest. Although close to the sea, there was enough woodland to support wildlife, so somehow I wasn’t surprised when I caught the glittering eyes of my gray wolf watching me from the darkness.
Even though it made no sense, the wolf pup we’d seen in the snow had somehow followed me from the northernmost reaches of the mainland to an isle off the coast. Appearing grown, he never approached, nor brought another mystical Viking blade, but only ever watched me from afar. Comforted me. Gave me strength as if he knew I would need it.
