Chapter 1

Their first meal with Lagertha after Ivar came home with the horrid news from England was tense, to say the least. Ivar's eyes shot blue fire at her across the table and he barely took a bite of food. Ubbe kept a close eye on his brother throughout the meal, half expecting him to burst into a rage or throw his knife into Lagertha's neck without warning. But he didn't, long before the meal was complete, after a barbed statement from Sigurd, Ivar slipped from his chair, announcing as he did "do excuse me brothers, I'm going to bed."

Ubbe nodded to him, noticing how pale he was as the fire light hit his face. He gave his brother a concerned look, but Ivar only glared back at him and began to crawl away. Several minutes later Ubbe had finished his own rabbit stew and excused himself, bowing his head respectfully to his brothers as he wiped his face and beard and turned to leave the hall.

As he was walking down the corridor towards his bed chamber, Ubbe heard a curse, then a hard thud. It was Ivar, he was sure of it. Ubbe took a torch from the wall and went to search for his brother. When he finally found him, Ivar was lying on his stomach, his nose was bleeding, and there was a smell as though he may have vomited. He was letting out low groans, and his eyes were screwed shut. He was clearly unable to move. It looked as though he had collapsed after failing to clear a low step which he had probably crawled over every other day of his life.

"Ivar... What the hell happened?" Ivar grunted, trying to push himself up, a look of feverish determination in his eyes. Ubbe put his hand on his brother's back, just between his shoulder blades.

"Don't try to move Ivar, you could have broken something. You'll only hurt yourself further. Can you tell me what happened? Where does it hurt." Slowly, he helped his brother turn over, careful not to jostle him too much. As he turned him he noticed his brother's skin was hot to the touch, and he had indeed vomited up what little supper he had eaten. Ivar just shook his head, mumbling something almost incoherent.

"Not sure, feels...strange...fuzzy. Hurts, Ubbe, everything hurts." Ubbe lifted his brother over his shoulder, Ivar being too weak to protest, and stated firmly.

"It's alright, don't try and talk just yet. Let's get you cleaned up and in bed. Then we'll try and figure out what's wrong." Ivar's body relaxed against his brother, allowing him to carry him to his room.

Once there, Ubbe placed Ivar on the small leather cot which Ivar used for dressing and went to get some water to clean the blood and bile from his brother's face.

Ivar lay silently, as chills and stabs of pain racked his body. Ubbe returned presently and cleaned his brother the best he could while the younger man lay motionless. As he undressed his brother, in order to change him into a nightshirt, he examined his body for signs of disease or injury. When he began to work away the stiff leather braces and straps which kept his brother's legs straight he noticed a change in his brothers soft pitiful noises. His breath caught, as though breathing through pain. As he lifted Ivar's lower body to remove his heavy trousers he could immediately see and smell the problem. His nose was bombarded by the smell of rotting flesh. He lifted his brother's hip to find a coin sized sore eating its way towards the bony protuberance on his ass. Ubbe let out a low curse. This had happened before, many times in fact. But not since Ivar was quite small. Harbard had discovered that allowing Ivar to move about freely and having him sleep on a bed of sheepskin allowed these sores to stop appearing. As he rolled the trousers down he noticed that Ivar's right calf was swollen and hot, a sign he had been taught at a young age meant his brother's brittle bones had been broken.

"Oh Ivar," Ubbe sighed. "This is a mess, you must have been crawling around like this for days." Ivar seemed to have come around a little, and nodded.

"I noticed a change in the pain a few days before I left England." Ubbe looked quizzically at his brother.

"A change? Ivar you have to have been in agony!" Ivar sighed, he hadn't wanted to ever tell his brother this, as it might allow him to figure out what had happened between him and Margrethe, but he clearly didn't have much choice.

"Do you remember three years ago, when I hurt my back?" Ubbe nodded, furrowing his eyebrows. Ivar had fallen down a hill while playing, Ubbe had found him lying unconscious at the bottom and had carried him home. At first it seemed he might die of his injuries, but eventually he began to recover his strength. His brother had lay in bed for several months, hardly able to move for the pain. But he had regained his strength, even surpassed it. Ivar continued, the words spilling out like long held back tears.

"Ever since that day, my legs have felt...strange. Only they don't feel much of anything. I can't feel when they are hot or cold, and I have to press very hard to feel anything in my legs, and there are places where even if I press very hard I feel nothing. And there is strange pain, a stabbing feeling that starts in my back, where I was hurt, and goes up and down my legs. But when they are actually hurt, I can feel very little. I didn't feel the sore at all, although I was worried it would happen because Ecbert's men had me sleeping on the floor with only a rug, and I had to sit in a hard chair all day. I felt my leg, it knocked hard against the wreckage of the boat during the storm, but I didn't think it was bad enough to be a break. I only realized how bad it was when I got back and was able to wash and change. By then the sore was already infected and my leg was so swollen I could hardly take off my boot." Ivar had exhausted himself with his speech, and lay back staring silently at the ceiling. Ubbe tried to control the pity he felt, knowing how much his brother hated it when people pitied him. He couldn't believe he hadn't known after three years, and couldn't understand why Ivar had never mentioned his diminished sensation. Although, he thought, Ivar never really spoke about his legs, even when he was clearly struggling or in pain. He would snidely call himself a useless cripple, but he would never admit to pain or weakness.

Ubbe nodded slowly, "I see... well we should get you into bed, then I'm going to go for the healer." Ivar blinked his eyes slowly, sighing softly, and nodding.

"Alright brother."

Ubbe lifted his brother gently, moving Ivar to his bed and tucking him amongst the furs.

"Try and rest while I get the healer." Ivar nodded to his brother and rubbed his face with his hands before closing his eyes and drifting into a feverish doze.