Athelstan couldn't eat.
He hadn't been able to keep much down after watching Gyda's small body wither away under flames and into the sea. The thought of her face melting away into her skeleton haunted him in the night. He'd never been very good at dealing with death, even at the monastery. If he thought about it too much, he'd begin to feel mad, terrified at the thought of non-existence. Every sacrificial ritual he witnessed punctured more holes into his Holy Book. Even the carcasses of the slaughtered animals made his palms sweat.
He couldn't shake away the sight of Gyda's still, open eyes. He tried instead to picture Gyda embraced by God. Gyda with wings. Gyda in the company of Jesus Christ.
He couldn't.
"You need to eat," Lagertha said, pulling him out of his thoughts. She nudged the porridge bowl toward him and raised an eyebrow. "You'll fall ill again. You're still weak."
He tore a piece of bread and placed it in his mouth. It was dry. Lagertha had little patience for cooking even before the sickness. Now, she made Siggy cook. Siggy, a former jarl's wife, was not much better.
Lagertha wasn't faring much better than he, Athelstan thought, but she handled grief admirably. He wasn't sure what he expected from her, but at the sight of her dead daughter, she had just closed her eyes, muttered under her breath, knelt down and kissed Gyda's cold forehead. She didn't even cry when Gyda floated out onto the sea. She hadn't cried, either, when her maids had buried the infant in the middle of the night. She didn't cry when Ragnar was away for months on end.
She never cried, not like he did. He wept in fits for days after the sickness was over, shaken by his close brush with death. He nearly died in a fever, huddled in blankets on the ground in a foreign land. He likely would have, too, had Lagertha-was it her? Or had he only imagined it was her?-not spooned ale into his mouth to keep him hydrated, or broth to keep him fed.
He knew that it was not God who saved him, but a very real woman with warm hands, who smelled of the forest floor after a rainstorm-earthy, clean, perfumed by leaves, kissed by dew. He would never say it aloud. He could barely let the thought pass through his mind without an all-encompassing wave of guilt, insecurity and shame. But the thought persisted.
Still, he noticed how she pushed around her porridge, distracted. She stared into the bowl. Athelstan noticed smudges of dirt and soot on her face and neck. The large washbasin, brought into the house after Ragnar was named jarl, hadn't been used in a week.
He thought of her bathing, naked and wet, cloaked by steam rising from the hot water into the cold air.
He stifled a moan, felt the blood rush to his cheeks, and shoveled porridge into his mouth.
Lagertha didn't even miss Ragnar this time around.
When he had set sail on his first voyage, her body ached for days. She tossed and turned during the night, anxious for his safety. At least then, though, she'd had Bjorn and Gyda by her side to help with managing the farm. They kept her busy, made her laugh. If Ragnar dies at sea, she'd thought, at least I have my children-the product of our love.
But now she was alone. She had cherished the days with only Gyda and Athelstan around after Ragnar had left her without so much as a half-hearted embrace. It was easier without him and Bjorn around, she admitted only to herself. Ragnar was a passionate lover but he was also intense and impatient. His cold response to the loss of the baby had brought their love to a standstill, unlike any dispute they'd ever had before. And Bjorn, while kinder to his mother and sister, was not always kind to the townsfolk who came to Lagertha and Ragnar with their ailments and concerns.
But the days with Gyda and Athelstan were consoling for her in the wake of her grief. The two were alike, she'd thought, while watching them play in the woods-both kind, soft-hearted, fond of animals and plants. The priest was good to Gyda, patient with her. Ragnar was fond of his daughter, but had little tolerance for the musings of children. Neither the priest nor her daughter were made for this difficult life-their hands were slow to callus, their feet quick to ache; she'd seen them exchange bandages for blisters-but somehow they persisted without complaint. She admired that more than she had admired Ragnar's ambition.
Now she was a jarl's wife. Ragnar had forced Lagertha into a new life with new responsibilities but also new threats. She'd taken to her new leadership role well, earning the respect of the people far more quickly and sincerely than Siggy ever had. Even Siggy herself acknowledged that. Lagertha had become the queen of the people.
But the emptiness in her stomach threatened to consume her. First, the son who left her womb before he was whole. And then the daughter, who died like she lived-peaceful, quiet and selfless. And the townsfolk-the bearded men who gathered wood, the women with long braids who dared to smile at Lagertha and left her loaves of sweet-smelling bread in baskets. And her stubborn husband and loyal son, far away, likely instigating a war.
Outside of the home, it rained. She loved the rain, took solace in it. It cleaned her, soothed her in the night. It helped her appreciate and revel in the warm hearth, the soft furs that covered her bed, the sturdy dresses her and Gyda had woven.
She watched as the priest spooned porridge into his mouth and swallowed with his eyes closed and his hands closed into fists. When he opened his eyes, he started at her gaze, surprised by her stare.
"Are you alright?" he asked.
Lagertha blinked-she had often asked that of others, but couldn't remember the last time she had been asked. Behind the priest's face, the rain was beginning to pool in the open door way. She was suddenly aware of the soot and dust and dirt on her skin. It felt like a chain.
"I am going to the river," she said, standing and smoothing out the front of her dress. "Would you like to join me?"