The Price of a Man
oneiriad
Disclaimer: Vikings does not belong to me, I'm just playing.
A/N: First, what is the point of having head-canon if you don't write it? Second, I've collected most of my info about Viking slaves and emancipation from The Viking Answer Lady. All mistakes, changes and bits of creative anachronism are all my own fault, of course.
There are coins in his purse. There are half-coins, slivers, ingots, even an earring and half a brooch, the edge jagged and surprisingly sharp. There's a broken-off fragment that once upon a time decorated the cover of a Bible in Lindisfarne.
There is hacksilver in Athelstan purse, bright and gleaming.
There are twelve ounces of silver in Athelstan's purse.
He has just returned from the stall down by the beach, where the travelling merchant sells his silks and spices and the strange black cosmetic that Floki will gleefully buy whenever he sees it. He has just had his hoard weighed, and while compared to the treasure Ragnar and his men brought back from their latest raid it is insignificant, to Athelstan - right here and right now - there is no greater treasure.
He remembers the first time one of the men of Kattegat had approached him, on the night after Earl Haraldson's death, had placed a coin in his hand, folded his fingers around it and asked that he might speak well of Ubbe Thorfinnsson to the new Earl, that he might at some point mention what a fine man with an axe Ubbe is.
He had sought out Ragnar and Lagertha, had told them what had passed. Ragnar had nodded, had smiled as he instructed Athelstan to listen, to let men approach him and then bring their words to Ragnar.
"And the silver?"
"Why, keep it. Buy yourself something nice."
And so, during the long, dark winter and during the summer while Ragnar was away, raiding Christian lands, Athelstan has listened, listened to the old fisher's wife telling him of her husband, injured from stepping on a weever, listened to warriors bragging of deeds yet undone and answered the travelling merchant as best he could, when asked whether amber or pearls might best please the new Earl's wife.
Little by little, piece by piece, his tiny hoard has grown. Until today.
Athelstan stops outside the Earl's longhouse, sparing a wistful thought for Ragnar's farm and the days of summer there, then another for Floki's cramped, dark hut. It had seemed so easy to talk to Ragnar then, freely where none might overhear.
Finally, he gathers up his courage and enters, feeling a wave of relief at the sight of Ragnar and Lagertha lounging alone at one end of the hall. At least he will have the semblance of privacy.
"Earl Ragnar."
"Athelstan," and Ragnar smiles, like he always smiles, open and with his arm outreached.
"Come, join us, priest," and Athelstan wants to, wants to sit down with these his friends, except - except he has a purpose today, and perhaps Ragnar sees some of it on his face, for he pushes himself upright, leaning forward as he studies Athelstan.
"I want to buy my freedom." The words rush past his lips, tumbling, almost stumbling in his hurry to speak them, before he loose his nerve, and then it is said, it is done, and he holds out the purse.
"So eager to leave us, priest?" Lagertha asks, no smile on her face.
"No, yes, I - I don't know, I just." He stops, closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. "I would like to be a free man. Please."
But Ragnar is making no move to accept the purse, his silence the loudest noise in the world, and Athelstan can feel his right arm beginning to tremble and his shoulders beginning to sink. Then he lowers his head, defeated.
Ragnar's hands are calloused as they fold around his.
"Athelstan, I cannot take your silver."
"But..." and there's a thousand things he could say, a thousand arguments to be made - Athelstan knows, for he has made them all, rehearsed them in his mind, every time he feared this day and what it might bring, that Ragnar might choose to take Athelstan's desire for freedom as an insult, feared his refusal. Except when he lifts his head to speak the words he catches sight of Ragnar's face and it's the oddest thing, the expression one he's never yet seen on the Northman. He looks almost...
Embarrassed.
"I told you that you should have told him."
When Ragnar tugs on his arm, he finds his legs folding under him, finds himself kneeling down by the sitting man.
"Athelstan, do you remember last summer - the day I brought you along when I went to Haraldson to ask his permission to return to England."
"I remember," because oh, he remembers. How could he forget? How could he forget the sense of betrayal he had felt that night, the hopelessness at the sight of his murdered brothers, the strange calm as he waited for the knife to slide into his flesh, now that his usefulness was at an end.
Except it never came.
"Do you remember what happened afterwards?"
"You cut my rope."
"Yes. I cut the rope. In the middle of town, where anyone could see. Athelstan - I cannot take your silver, because you have not been my slave for many months."
"But - but why didn't you tell me? I asked you, you knew how much it meant - why didn't you," and oh, so this is anger, rising hot with a roar in his ears, Athelstan's fingers curling into fists under Ragnar's hands, the purse of silver lying forgotten on the floor between them.
Somewhere, Lagertha is laughing.
"And what would you have done?" and Ragnar's voice calls him back to himself, his hands trapped in his unyielding grip. "What would it have changed, if you had known? You and all your talk of leaving - would you have wandered off, alone and unarmed, to be eaten by a wolf or taken by an outlaw or captured and tortured by Haraldson's men? A man might do whatever he so pleases with his slave, this is true - but a free man, a man without kith or kin? Such a man is free for anyone's taking. Is that the freedom you want?"
"No," because no, of course not, he doesn't - because he stopped wanting to leave so long ago he can barely remember how it feels, truly. Because his greatest fear, greater still than Ragnar refusing him his freedom, had been for Ragnar to accept and then send him away, away from the home he had so very unexpectedly found in this cold, savage land. "No, of course not. I... You should have told me."
"Yes. I should," and it's the closest thing to an apology Athelstan has ever heard Ragnar offer anyone.
After an eternity he finds himself picking up the purse of silver, turning it over in his hands. For so many months it has been so very important to him, this tiny bundle of metal, and now?
"Now what am I to do with this?" Buy a honey-apple for Gyda, have the village silversmith make a brooch of it, the possibilities are many. Perhaps - he knows of one of his brothers, sees him sometimes mending nets down by the beach - perhaps...
"Oh, I think I have an idea," and Ragnar pulls him to his feet, making him loose his train of thought as he clasp him around the shoulder.
"Friends!" In the other end of the house, men look up from the tafl board. "It has come to my attention that in all the excitement of the last few months, my friend Athelstan has yet to invite us all to his frelsis-öl."
"My what?"
The sheep is grey and brown, not yet a year old. Around its neck, Ragnar has tied a rope. Floki has pressed a knife into Athelstan's hands, told him what to do.
Told him what to say.
He finds that he cannot do it, cannot sacrifice an animal to the gods of this land.
"Sacrifice it to your god, then," Ragnar says, shrugging, but that doesn't help. God doesn't ask for the blood of innocent animals, he asks for faith and prayer. Kill a sheep, they said, and yes, that he can do - but not this, this blasphemy.
Rollo laughs.
"You'd almost think he'd rather be a slave. Perhaps you should just take him back, brother?"
But in the end, it's the thought of Gyda - sweet Gyda, who gave him this sheep - and Bjorn with his eyes full of scorn at Athelstan's weakness, that finally make him step forward, crossing himself before lifting the knife, speaking the Pater Noster as he cuts the sheep's throat, praying for forgiveness as the blood of the lamb covers his hands.
"Amen."
He rises, then, and turns around to offer the rope, stained as it is, to Ragnar - Ragnar, who is a splendid sight today, his tunic edged with the finest silk, several gold rings gleaming on his arm.
Ragnar, who accepts the rope with a smile, raises it above his head for all to see, then drags Athelstan into a hard embrace, apparently not caring about the blood staining his fine clothes. Once he lets go, Lagertha takes his place, and after her it's Rollo crushing him against his chest in a bear hug that lasts just long enough for Athelstan to have to catch his breath after.
They lead him away, to wash and to change out of the bloodstained clothes. Behind them Siggy and Thyri take charge, ordering about the slaves as they set about getting the sheep ready for the evening's feast.
It is dizzying, the feast - the ale is strong, very strong, and Athelstan has never had much of a head for drink - and Ragnar's men keep plying him with it, punching his arms and clasping his shoulders, hard enough that he suspects he'll be covered in bruises come morning. It is dizzying and when he is to pour ale for Ragnar and Lagertha, serving them for one last time as is proper, the ale sloshes and spills.
Ragnar takes the pitcher from him then - but he's smiling, always smiling, this strange Northman.
"Friends! This is a fine day! But there is one more thing to celebrate."
And he tells Athelstan to kneel.
Athelstan looks up, swaying slightly from the drink even on his knees, trying to guess what Ragnar's about, and then the man stands, impossibly tall, and pushes back his sleeve, slides one of the golden rings off his arm.
Behind Athelstan, people are muttering as Ragnar lifts the arm ring high, for this is unheard of, a freedman being treated thus. The mutters grow when he grasps hold of Athelstan's arm and pushes the arm ring on to it, as far as it can go, which is embarrassingly high, and Athelstan stares at it, three threads of gold twisted around each other, the ends shaped like hammers - like hammers or is it crosses, perhaps?
"Welcome to the family, priest."