A/N: Many thanks for the reviews. I'm elated people are noticing and enjoying my work. Much love.

CHAPTER 2

You were brave as a chessboard queen,

But the shoe didn't fit your feet.

Cover the mouth of Earth's great cough.

As soon as she entered the cabin, Kari made quick work of heading to the fireplace and setting the dry logs within it ablaze. When the fire was breathing easily and burning bright, she filled a great big pot with water and hung it above the flames. She only needed one pot of water, for once it was scalding hot, the temperature would become pleasantly warm when mixed with the cool water she was already filling the tub with.

The tub itself was large, extremely so, and looked to be able to fit two grown men comfortably. It's oval-shaped, wooden structure looked sturdy and dependable. Kari wondered who could have made such a marvellous thing.

Ivar the Boneless watched her intently as she continued working. His scowl had diminished. He seemed to be much more at ease now that he was in the privacy of his own home. Perhaps the way he acted in the presence of others was worse than the way he actually was. In the glances she stole while she set up a stool beside the tub, Kari noticed that his face was less a sneer and more a frown.

Walking back to the fireplace, she saw that tiny bubbles were beginning to rise to the surface of the water in the pot. It would not be long now before it was boiling wildly.

Kari unknotted the last band in her unkempt hair. She placed it between her teeth, gathering her mess of orange waves and manoeuvred them off her shoulders and atop her head. She secured the large, lopsided bun with the band.

Kari was not one for luscious hairstyles. While most of the women wore their hair out in intricate braids, or twisted it about their heads in beautiful patterns adorned with ornaments, Kari wore hers as a thick rope down her back, with bands wrapping around it every two inches to keep it tamed. Even so, completing her jobs during the day would sometimes prove difficult for her when the orange snake would fall over her shoulder in the way of whatever it was she was trying to do. She had debated simply chopping it off, but couldn't bring herself to part with it. No, it was the out-of-the-way bun that she preferred.

Kari turned to Ivar, who was regarding her hair with poorly masked curiosity.

"That is not a style I have seen before." He said flatly.

He was seated at the wooden bench on the opposite side of the fireplace to the bath. Kari approached him as she replied, "I have noticed it is not a common trend amongst the people of Kattegat."

"It doesn't look good. Not on you, anyway." Ivar looked her in the eye. "Why do you not just take better care of your hair?"

Kari smiled, her first real one since entering the Great Hall this evening. She was amused.

"I do not care if you don't think it looks good. I do not wear my hair a certain way for your benefit, Prince." She teased lightly. "And I suppose that I'm simply lost when it comes to styling hair. I cannot make anything of it besides a rope."

"Such a shame." The cripple tsked dryly. "I might have considered you beautiful if not for your horrid hair."

"That is the wrong thing to say to a woman if you hope to not receive the cold shoulder. I'm not surprised you haven't yet bed a woman." Kari quipped. "Shall you remove your clothes or shall I?"

Ivar's light features turned sour with a glower at her words. Obviously the topic of women was tender for him.

"I've bed many women." The boy countered sharply. When Ivar made no move to take his own clothes off, Kari did so for him.

"Of course you have." Kari agreed, making it clear she did not believe him.

He merely curled his top lip at her but remained silent as she crouched down and began unstrapping his forearm braces and sliding them off. Kari's fingers were nimble and she undid the buckles and knots with speed and ease. She stood, leaning over him to slip his tan over-shirt off his shoulders. She straightened it out and lay it down on the table behind him alongside the arm braces. His long purple shirt was next to go. She unbuckled his waist belt and took the fabric by the hem. She was pleasantly surprised when he did not resist her, he even lifted his arms up to assist instead of acting like the sour child she thought he would.

A lifetime of depending on upper body strength to move about had sculpted his arms and chest extremely well. Kari paused halfway through a fold she was making in his shirt to admire his torso. Blinking once to bring herself back to focus, she met Ivar's gaze to see him smirking yet again.

He leaned back against the tabletop, one elbow extending out leisurely against the wood as his hand hung freely. "Like what you see?"

Kari finished folding the shirt and threw it over his head onto the table behind him. She gave a scoff and a playful grin.

"Oh, my prince!" She cried mockingly. "I'm falling to my knees before you at the mere sight of your beauty!"

Kari, true to her word, lowered herself to her knees before him as he rolled his eyes, but he couldn't fight the amused smile forcing its way onto his face.

She ran her finger up and down the length of his knee high boots absentmindedly as she tried to solve the complex puzzle of the ropes, straps, and knots that held them together. The thick leather bands on the outermost layer seemed to be the simplest, so she reached for the highest one, just below his knees, and set to work.

Ivar stared down at her as she perched on her knees before him. He drew in his estranged elbow after a wave of uncertainty lapped at him: Did he really want this fire-haired girl to see him stripped bare? Unlike what he had told her, he had only ever had one lover in the past, and his inability to pleasure her had resulted in the night not ending well; She had ultimately left Ivar for his brother Ubbe, never to share his bed again. His lack of experience made him nervous -an unfamiliar sensation he did not enjoy- despite Ivar reminding himself that she did not come here to try and sleep with him.

No, she had come here to bathe him.

Ivar let go of his apprehension at the thought of her running out, screaming and crying once she saw all of him. He was the prince of this country, and if she dared make him feel ashamed, he would slit her throat and leave her body for the pigs. He would not allow himself to fall back into the pit of self-loathing and insecurity he had once dwelled in.

She was merely a girl, and Ivar royalty. He would do with her as he pleased.

The third thick, leather strap fell into her grasp and she laid it down beside her in parallel with the rest. The lacing of his high boots were intricate, and once Kari unknotted the top, it took some time to pick loose the string from their many confines. She slipped his feet from the huge boots, not paying attention to their eerily slim shape, and set them down next to each other to the side.

"You will have to stand in order for me to remove your pants." Kari informed him.

Ivar shook her off. "I can manage this part myself. Go make sure the bath is ready."

Kari bit her tongue as the urge to snap at him not to give her orders came over her; she did not wish for him to turn to his sour mood again- he had already scowled at her enough times to last an eternity. Even so, she made her way back to the fireplace once more, checking to ensure the water was boiling.

Taking a smaller, more manageable pot into her hands, Kari began cautiously transferring the scalding water into the already half-full tub. She repeated the process until the water was warm enough.

"The bath is ready." She turned to look at Ivar, easily keeping her eyes on his face and not allowing them to stray elsewhere.

He crawled past her, pulling himself onto the stool she set down, and then hoisting himself onto the rim of the giant wooden bath. Ivar pulled his legs up, over, and into the water before submerging himself.

As he sank into the warmth, his body visibly slackened as he relaxed. The water only came up to just below his nipples, and Kari resumed her task of carrying hot water to the tub. By the time the water had covered his armpits, leaving only his collarbones and shoulders exposed, Ivar's eyes were closed and he appeared to be sleeping, his head reclined back against the rim of the tub.

Kari realised then that he was wearing a necklace. Intrigued, she moved closer trying to get a better look at it. Delicate strings of dark brown leather had been braided together to form a thin rope, and from the rope hung a small, silver axe head. The pendant itself was embossed with elaborate designs, surely carved by a master craftsman.

The water would surely damage the friable leather, and Kari did not wish for something so beautiful to be destroyed. She lowered herself silently onto the stool, silent so as not to wake the sleeping boy so close to her. Kari leaned over the rim of the tub and circled her arms around Ivar's neck, and with a touch as gentle as she could manage, the tips of her fingers searched for the knot that clasped the leather ends together. Finding it, she blindly untied the knot and began retracting her hands to herself. A sudden splash of water sounded from in front of her and then Ivar had her wrist enclosed in his steady grip. His necklace dangled from her hand, directly in front of his face, and he looked at it before raising his eyes to hers.

Even the whites of his eyes seemed to glow with a faint blue hue as he raised an eyebrow at her and asked lowly, "You would thieve from a sleeping man?"

Knowing she would not be able to pull her wrist free of his grasp, Kari merely used her free hand to take the necklace and lay it down where it would not become wet. He did not attempt to stop her.

"If I was thieving from you, you would not have noticed until I had long walked away."

Despite it being clear that he knew she was not, in fact, stealing from him, Ivar did not release her cloth-covered wrist. He continued to stare at her. To Kari, it seemed as though he was in deep thought. She met his intense regard with a neutral expression, not squirming under his stare as she often saw others do.

When he realised he would not gauge a reaction from her, Ivar let go of her arm and submerged his and under the water once again.

"Wash me."