Her parents returned to their own land, and Freygerd became the Lady of Danelaw, as Ragnar had no woman. But, she noticed, he really had lots of women. It was a very strange, overly masculine hall. Even the women of the hall were crude like men. She was no stranger to female warriors, and she had stood on the banks with her father many times and watched women seafarers unloading ships, but when they spoke to her, they were respectful. These women would belch in her face while she was speaking. They had no understanding of how best to serve her and seemed deliberately incapable of learning.
As the months wore on, her status seemed to slip through her fingers. No one did as they were told, and her husband was growing increasingly frustrated with her slim waist. She heard the whispers through the hall day after day. "Still not pregnant" "Barren" "A cold fish". She cried herself to sleep most nights.
Spring and summer slipped away, and the weather had grown cold. She had gone to the main hall with her husband, where breakfast was underway and her father-in-law and his deformed son, Ivar, were sitting at the head table. She saw their eyes go to her waist. She tried not to blush and pretended that she did not know she was the topic of everyone's conversations. But Ragnar was loud with his criticism.
"Do you think your brother knows what he's doing?" Came the booming voice of Ragnar. And now it was Guthrum's turn to try to ignore it.
Like everyone, Freygerd knew that Ivar was a virgin, and for the past nine months of her life, she understood what that meant. She thought it was unfair that she and her husband should be criticized on fertility by a man who no woman would have. The women doubted he was capable and there was speculation that he was missing certain parts of his anatomy. Since Freygerd was afraid of Ragnar, her dislike and anger settled on Ivar more and more as her resentment grew.
Ivar, for his part, did not respond to his father's question, but looked up as Halfdene and Ethilda were entering. A nurse walked behind them carrying their eight-month-old son, and she was heavily burdened by another extended belly. Freygerd forced a smile. Ethilda was the closest thing she had to a friend, but she was intensely jealous of the Saxon woman, who was once a slave.
Halfdene greeted Guthrum heartily. He seemed the only one in the room not as grim as a funeral. But why should he be grim when he had everything that a man could want. Freygerd greeted Ethilda and took her son from the nurse so that she could dote on him. It was embarrassing to play with a baby and broadcast her own slimness, but she loved the boy like a nephew.
The loud scraping of a chair halted conversation, and they all turned to see Ragnar stand up and raise his drinking horn. "I see cracks running through this great hall."
They all turned to examine the nearest wall, but their leader was not being literal.
"My tribe is growing restless. They need a voyage, an adventure, a conquest! Perhaps I was wrong thinking that we would be happy farming this rich and promising soil. Perhaps the sedentary lifestyle is not in our blood. All the farmers remained in the Old Country; it was the adventurers who struck out with me all those summers ago!"
Rothgar stood up and shouted his approval. "RAGNAR!" he shouted. Several others bubbled in a general approval, but they were all wondering what he had decided.
Ragnar growled. "We should go and kill ourselves a king. There are a few left to the south of us. What say you?"
"Yarr!" Rothgar held up his cup in a salute. "I would go anywhere with my chief!"
"Yarr!" Ragnar laughed and took a drink, but then he got up to start putting together a voyage.
Guthrum left Freygerd's side and hurried to him. "Are you planning a raid for the spring thaw? I should go with you!"
Freygerd's heart soared at the idea of Guthrum leaving for a few months.
"You're not going anywhere until that wife of yours is as fat as a sow. And we won't be waiting. We're going tomorrow."
Her heart dropped to the pit of her stomach.
"The winter is coming," Guthrum stated, perplexed. His father had to know the season.
"Right! They won't be expecting THAT, will they?"
Guthrum shook his head. He looked to Rothgar, hoping that someone would talk some sense into his father, but Ragnar was decided.
Freygerd went to bed with her husband that night amid a trove of fertility charms that various people had placed along the wall to decorate their chamber. She knew they meant well, but she intentionally kicked one as she got into bed.
"Perhaps," Guthrum pondered as they lay back on their separate sides of the pallet. "Perhaps there is an angle, or prayer, or a charm …"
She knew the problem he was trying to solve. It was the only thing that existed in her life, her own infertility. Guthrum had no bastards, like many of the men in the hall did, and she let herself entertain the silent accusation that the fault could lie with him.
"Perhaps it's this private chamber."
"It is not the chamber," she whispered.
She could feel him glaring at her in the dark of the room. He was mulling Halfdene's prediction that he would never make her happy and that one day she was going to kill him in his sleep. She also had the option of divorcing him and returning to her parents, which would be a lifelong embarrassment for him.
She worried that he was going to give up their private chamber, but she spent most of her time there, hidden away from the others. Everyone in the hall hated her, and she could not understand why. Everyone in her father's hall had loved her. Silent tears slipped from her eyes and ran into her ears.
The following day was full of ceremony as the warriors received blessings and ate the heart of freshly sacrificed ox. Guthrum and Freygerd stood together at the front of the assemblage as they were the defacto rulers of the kingdom in Ragnar's absence. Ivar, Halfdene, and Ethilda stood close by and watched the men carry their boat through the freezing cold shallows.
"You should take more than one boat!" Guthrum shouted his objection.
"Think of the songs they will sing of us!" Ragnar called out as he hopped out of the shallows and into the boat to grab an oar.
"Why is he doing this?" Ivar asked.
"I do not know." Guthrum shook his head. They stood silent and watched until the single boat was out of sight. The household waited for Guthrum's cue, and when he turned back to the mead hall, they went with him.
"Should we schedule the winter games, Guthrum?"
Freygerd could hear someone speaking to her husband, then he was overwhelmed with questions, suggestions, and problems. Some of the men were eager to capitalize on Ragnar's absence, and were trying to get permission for side raids which the chief had already vetoed.
Freygerd walked away from them. No one wanted to hear her opinion anyway. She found Ethilda sitting on the floor with Little Guthrum, whom they all referred to as Guthie.
"How are you feeling?" Freygerd spread her skirt out as she took a seat on the ground and smiled at the baby.
Ethilda sighed. "Heavy. I think it might be a girl this time. Guthie used to kick so hard, but this one has a lighter touch."
"I hope for you to have a girl, as much as I hope for Halfdene to have another boy." She brushed the fine baby hair from the little boy's eyes. Ethilda smiled at the child, then she looked sadly at Freygerd. They did not talk about it.
That evening, Freygerd dutifully poured her husband's mead, and she found his mood to be foul.
"Drink some yourself, and you won't be so scrawny," he growled as he snatched his cup.
The happy expression dashed from her face. She thought he might be upset that his father had gone on a voyage without him, and she tried to push down her pain as well as the tears that burned her eyes. She went to bed that night and laid down with her husband, praying to Freyja that she would conceive a child. Her face was wet with tears as he rolled to his side of the bed and began to snore.
Freygerd sobbed quietly, but she shook uncontrollably. She had wanted more than anything to be a successful wife. She made sure to always look pretty and speak softly. She made sure his cup was full and that his servants were in line, but there was one especially important thing that she was still missing. She placed a hand on her tight belly, which was sore from sobbing so hard. She hated herself for being such a dismal failure.
Guthrum's nights grew longer with the worries of the kingdom, and more and more often, Freygerd went to bed alone. Snow piled against the walls of the mead hall and no word from the chief reached them. Guthrum was nervously waiting for the spring thaw, but Ethilda's second child came first.
"Frey," Ethilda gasped one evening at dinner. "Get me out of here."
They abruptly left the hall, and Freygerd took her to her private chamber where Ethilda labored for more than a day. The result was the daughter Ethilda had prayed for, and the whole hall set into an air of celebration.
Little Guthie cried for his mother, but Freygerd held him during the evening's drink and feasting, and he eventually fell asleep on her shoulder. She carried him into the chamber and Ethilda woke from a half-slumber.
The air of the room was misty where the two worlds had collided that afternoon. The little baby was a testament to the gods. Tears welled in Freygerd's eyes as she laid Guthie next to his mother and sister. Ethilda felt the little drops on her arm as she cuddled the sleeping boy. Her heart went out to Freygerd, but she did not have the words needed to heal her pain.
Freygerd laid down next to the little family and slept while the celebration continued, loud and boisterous, down the hall. The baby howled in the middle of the night and Ethilda woke to nurse her. Freygerd checked on Guthie, who was still sound asleep, then she slipped out of bed in search of her husband. He was asleep on top of a table in the mead hall, surrounded by everyone else who was passed out with drink. Meanwhile, thought Freygerd, the only person who did any work today is awake with the child.
She shook her head and turned to go back to bed when a loud cracking sound announced the frozen door being pulled open. A rider with icicles in his beard and in his horse's hair, came thundering into the room.
"Lady Danelaw?"
"It is," she told him.
"I have brought news for your husband."
"You will not have word with him until morning."
"Then let me have word with you."
She built up a fire and brought him mead and some cold bread. She put a pot on the fire and the thick layer of fat that covered meat and vegetables began to liquify. When he was warm and fed, as was the social contract, the messenger relayed his tale.
"They found a boy near frozen in the snow, only an hour south. He had escaped from the village that was being burned by Chief Ragnar."
Freygerd breathed a sigh of relief to hear that her father-in-law was alive. She did not much care for ruling the kingdom.
"The boy said that Ragnar had killed the king. I have my riders at speed to find out which king, and where the chief is now. It is probably the King of East Anglia because the boy was closest to there."
Having this information finally gave Freygerd something to delight her husband, and she waited eagerly all night for him to wake so that she could tell him. She was rewarded with a smelly kiss on the lips, but they were both smiling.
Freygerd's blood stopped that month, and on Ethilda's advice, she took to her bed and stayed there, hoping that she was with child, and fearful to do anything that would destroy it. The hall celebrated even though the news was not certain, and that made Freygerd worry more. Guthrum stopped coming to her room, but also, her belly began to harden, and her breasts swelled. Amid her greatest relief, she was brought dreadful news.
A feast was going on in the main hall, but Freygerd was scared to be out of her room. She sat on the edge of the bed and leaned on a bedpost, weaving some reeds from the floor when Ethilda came in, her face a mess of distress.
"Oh, Frey," she said, shaking her head, and tears ran down her cheeks.
Freygerd's heart stopped. Was it her parents? One of her brothers?
Ethilda knelt on the floor in front of her and placed a hand on Freygerd's knee. "There's terrible news, I don't know what your husband is going to do."
Freygerd gripped her hand, too scared to ask.
Ethilda went on through her tears. "Chief Ragnar, after he killed the King of East Anglia, he was on the trail of the bastard Aelle."
They tightened their grip on one another's fingers. Freygerd stared at her as Ethilda gathered the strength to tell her. "He chased Aelle to the city of York, where Ragnar was captured and tied like an animal. They wouldn't give him a death in battle."
"He's dead?" Freygerd was sick to her stomach.
"The bastard Aelle, he … He threw the chief into a pit of vipers and let them bite him to death!"
"No!"
"The chief yelled in his moments of dying, not in pain, but in revenge. He said that the young piglets would squeal when they hear what has happened to the old boar. He swore to his murderers that his sons would avenge him."
Freygerd sat stock-still with no emotion on her face. She did not want Ethilda to see the relief she felt at the thought of her husband leaving the hall. Even though she was with child, it would be an easier time without him around. She looked to the door, where the mead hall echoed nothing but silence.
"Is he going?"
"Guthrum will go to south," Ethilda whispered. "And Halfdene will go north, and they are going to hunt him until they have his head."