Hiccup's Bride Chapter 37
After what seemed like hours, the door opened. Stoick stepped out and motioned for Hiccup to go with him. They returned to the chief's house. Gunnarr gestured sharply at Astrid, who walked back inside, inwardly cringing the whole time.
"Sit down," he ordered her. Okay, this was going to be bad.
"We just don't know what to think," he began.
"Dad, have I ever lied to you when it's important?" she burst out. "Mama, can't you tell that I'm telling the truth?"
"Your actions are speaking a lot louder than your words," he said firmly. "There's no question you spent the night with a boy who isn't your husband. To the average Viking, that means only one thing, and you're living in a town full of average Vikings. You can protest your innocence, but you can't possibly prove it. Whether we believe you or not, doesn't matter at this point. When word of this leaks out – and it will, if it hasn't already – no one will ever believe you did nothing but sleep." He looked away in frustration. "Congratulations, young lady. You've brought shame on yourself and your whole family."
"Why am I getting all the blame?" she demanded. "Doesn't it take two to be guilty of... that stuff?"
"There are three reasons why," Edda said sadly. "One, there's always been a double standard. Boys are almost expected to try to get away with stuff like that, but Odin help the girl who gets caught at it. Two, he's the chief's son, and no one is going to gossip about him because of what his father could do. Three, everyone knows he's grieving for his wife; no one would ever believe he'd run to someone else's arms this soon after losing her. If you wanted to make yourself a lightning rod for the whole town's disapproval, you couldn't have done a better job."
"Okay, so I'm shamed. What does that mean?"
"It means you have no friends," her father began, counting on his fingers. "It means your mother and I can talk to you only when you're in the house. It means no one can sit with you in the Mead Hall. It means you can't take part in Snoggletog, or Thawfest, or Bork Week, or any of our other celebrations. But that won't even matter after a few days. Once Mogadon finds out about you... that's when it gets really bad."
"How would he find out?" Astrid challenged him. "He lives on another island."
"His sailors come here every two weeks on trading ships," Gunnarr explained patiently. "As soon as they land and unload their cargo, they head for the Mead Hall for drinks, company, and any gossip they can pick up. There's no way they won't hear about what you've done.
"Once that happens, it will take them two days to get home and tell Mogadon. He'll probably need a day to get himself organized and get a ship ready. Then it will take him two more days to get here." He took a deep breath to steady himself. "That gives you five days, Astrid."
"Five days for what?" she asked.
"Five days until he kills you for what you've done," Edda sobbed, and buried her face in her hands. "Oh, Astrid, how could you?"
Astrid turned to her father, who sadly shook his head. "I can't protect you from a chief's wounded sense of honor. You're engaged to his son; he'll take your action as a personal insult to him and his family." He looked away, shook his head again, and whispered, "I can't protect you."
Word of her disgrace spread quickly. Her actual transgression was quickly magnified into a morass of rumors that got nastier with each passing hour.
"I heard she got Hiccup drunk first."
"That's nothing! I heard she used a seið-kona's love potion on him."
"I heard she disguised herself with Thora's clothing in the night to fool him."
"I heard, from a very reliable source, that she's carrying his child."
Everyone believed the worst about her. No one would make eye contact with her as she walked around town. They all turned their backs to her in the Mead Hall, and closed ranks to keep her from sitting with them.
She dropped by the Dragon Training Academy late that morning. The twins rubbed their fingers at her and chanted, "Shame! Shame!" Snotlout leered at her and muttered something about her poor taste in bedmates. Fishlegs sadly turned away. She didn't try to stay.
She visited the forge that afternoon. Hiccup carefully kept his eyes on the door hinge he was making, and whispered, "I'm not allowed to talk to you, Astrid. I'm sorry. I really am." That hurt her the worst of all. She went for a walk in the woods to think.
Was there any way she could turn this situation around? If Mogadon broke her engagement to Thuggory, that would actually be good. The dying part, on the other hand... not so good.
She'd faced death before, fighting dragons and defending her town against raids. She was willing to die for a good reason if she had to; that's how warriors got to Valhalla, right? She didn't want to die for the sake of a bad decision that didn't even hurt anyone.
Even if she found some way to stay alive, was a life of shame worth living? How could she exist in a town that was literally turning its back on her? She might as well join the Outcasts! No... that wasn't happening. She could guess how those brutes would treat a pretty young girl with no family members willing to protect her.
She was too young to die! She wasn't even eighteen yet! She hadn't won any battle honors, or taken any plunder, or vanquished a notable enemy, or done much of anything, really.
She sat on a fallen tree, clutched her knees, and let the tears fall. She didn't sob out loud – that would be unworthy of a warrior. She wept for all her dreams that would never come true, and for all her plans that would never be accomplished now, and for Hiccup, who would be left with no one at all who loved him.
The next few days were awful. She hadn't realized how much she depended on other people until they all stopped having anything to do with her. The cooks wouldn't even serve her at the Mead Hall; she had to eat whatever she could find at home. Her mother prepared a few meals in advance, but she had to keep busy spinning yarn for the Meathead trade agreement, and didn't have a lot of extra time to cook extra meals. None of the tradesmen would wait on Astrid; she had to bring one of her younger brothers with her on errands, and coach him in exactly what to say before sending him into the shop while she waited outside.
On the fourth day, her stress level began rising. It was possible that Mogadon had sailed for Berk the day he learned about her disgrace, and he might arrive as early as today. Every time a ship appeared on the horizon, her blood ran cold. None of them were Meatheads, and none of them brought death to her. The strain was intolerable.
After an improvised supper of dried fish and stale bread, she decided she had to talk to someone other than her parents, and there was only one other person on the whole island who might even be willing to share a few words with her. He wasn't home that evening, and Toothless was nowhere to be found, either. She knew where they were. Stormfly knew the way.
She found them in the cove, sitting next to a camp fire. Hiccup was cooking chunks of fish and some of last year's vegetables, impaled on a thin metal stake over the fire. She slowly walked over and sat on the opposite side of the fire.
After a few seconds, she asked, "What are you cooking?"
"I'm not supposed to talk to you," he said quietly.
"I know," she nodded. "What are you cooking?"
"It's a simple little meal I learned from Thora," he said after a moment, keeping his eyes on the fire, "except I'm trying it with fish instead of meat. I call it 'fish kabobs.' Do you want some?"
"Will there be enough for you if I do?" she asked.
"I'm not eating much these days," he said dismissively. "It'll be ready in a few minutes."
She tried to conceal her hunger. "I'd be glad to try some. Thanks." After a moment, she added, "It might be my last meal."
He looked up at her and nodded slowly. "Yeah. My dad's been talking to me about that. He told me to stay out of it, whatever happens. I guess he thinks that'll be easy for me to do."
"Hiccup, please, don't endanger yourself," she pleaded. "I'm not worth it."
"Says who?" he demanded, leaning forward. "You can't make a call like that! You have no idea how much good you've done, or how many lives you've touched."
"Name one," she said flatly.
"Well, me," he began. "This is for your ears only, but... what you did the other night was pretty stupid, but it's the only good night's sleep I've gotten in weeks."
She snorted. "For my ears only? Are you worried that I'm going to talk? I'll be dead in a day or two, and all these dreadful secrets you're telling me will die with me."
Wordlessly, he got up, walked around the fire, and stood next to her. She rose and looked in his eyes for a moment. They embraced tightly. It was not a lovers' embrace, but the prolonged hug of two close friends who are parting forever. She made sure to keep her skirt spikes from impaling his legs. She felt moisture on her neck.
"Hiccup, are you crying?"
"We could have been so many things for each other!" he sobbed. "Friends, lovers, comrades in arms, husband and wife... What did I do to deserve a life this cruel?"
"Promise me something, Hiccup," she whispered. "Promise me you'll be strong after I'm gone."
He clung to her tighter. "Being strong is easier when there's someone beside you. I'm running out of people who will stand by me. Everyone I love gets killed."
After a few minutes, he quietly said, "You once said that we could fly away and live somewhere else, like a couple of nobodies."
She slowly shook her head. "That was a bad idea. Running away from your problems never solved anything."
He took a deep breath. "You also suggested that we... well, we're alone in this cove, just the two of us, and we'll never have another chance to do the things we dreamed of doing with each other."
Again she shook her head. "We've had a couple of chances to do that, and both times, we managed to behave ourselves. Why ruin our perfect record? Hiccup, why are you saying these things?"
He pulled away so he could look her in the eye. "Because, when I remember you, I want to remember the Astrid who didn't try to take the easy way out. I want to remember you the way you really are."
He thinks I'm strong, she thought. He's very close to wrong. She pulled him close again and held him tightly, and refused to let him go until her arms were too tired to cling to him any longer.
They held hands for a moment, looking in each other's eyes. Then Hiccup remembered – his supper was still cooking! He glanced down, expecting to see charred bits of fish and vegetables on a glowing-hot spike.
He saw nothing over the fire at all.
"Hey, where did our supper go?" he asked, bewildered. They both looked all around. They found the bare spike next to Stormfly, who was licking her lips.
"Well, I guess it was good," Astrid shrugged.
He was grieving for his wife and suffering from lack of sleep. She was under shame and a death sentence. Both of them were stressed to the limits of endurance, and their nerves were stretched as tight as bowstrings. Something had to give.
Hiccup began to laugh. It wasn't that funny, but he couldn't help himself. She started to giggle as well, and soon both of them were literally rolling on the ground, laughing uncontrollably. They could not stop until they were gasping for breath.
They wound up lying on their backs, about a foot apart, looking up at the cloudy night sky, trying to catch their breath. Toothless and Stormfly were giving them a puzzled look.
"That was unexpected," Hiccup said suddenly. Astrid didn't reply. He rolled over to look at her.
"I was just thinking," she said thoughtfully, "if I could laugh like that when Mogadon swings his sword, it would take all the fun out of him executing me."
"Astrid," he said quietly, "you are not going to die. I don't know how I'm going to arrange it, but you mean too much to me, in too many ways, to let something stupid like a mad Viking chief come between us."
"He's a lot bigger than you are," she reminded him as she got to her feet, "and I don't think Toothless can help this time."
"If I have anything to say about it at all, then I promise you, you'll have the last laugh," Hiccup vowed.
"How do you plan to pull that off?" she wondered. "And don't say you'll do something stupid or something crazy – you've already done those things."
"In that case, I'll come up with something totally insane. But you should get home. Your mother will worry where you've been, and if you have to tell her you've been out here alone with me... you're in enough trouble already."
"What's she going to do – kill me?" Astrid shot back. "She'll have to wait in line. But I should get back before it gets too late. Hiccup... thank you for talking to me when no one else will."
"You know about me and rules. I never could follow the stupid ones," he answered. "Go home and get some sleep." There's no sense in both of us being exhausted tomorrow, he thought.
The next morning, after yet another poor night's sleep, he was roused by a knock at his door. It was his father. "The Meathead trading ship is pulling into the harbor," Stoick said, "and Mogadon's pennant is flying from the mast. He's here."