Chapter 3 – No More Hiding
Welcome to the first chapter of the second story I've posted on the internet! Thumbnail by: Isbjorg User Profile | DeviantArt
Warning: this story will have very triggering subject matter throughout. Individual trigger warnings will be placed with chapters when appropriate. Any feedback is really appreciated.
Triggers for this chapter: violence, vulgar language.
"Shame, I was looking forward to killing you!" Ivarr groaned.
"It was so easy. To infiltrate your ranks, Yvette," La Mère said, ignoring Ivarr's insult.
"Whatever do you mean? Explain yourself Sister - "Yvette started.
"DO NOT CALL ME THAT!" La Mère suddenly screeched.
Ubba couldn't help but wince at her high-pitched voice. The nun stood there, her chest heaved up and down as she panted. Her aura was that of a wolf having spotted its prey, tensing its muscles as it prepared to attack.
"It's almost amusing how you've called me sister these past few months," La Mère said as she abruptly yanked off her thick face veil.
Ubba was surprised to see her reveal a youthful face free of the scars she supposedly had.
La Mère's mousy brown hair flowed down past her chest, fraying upwards from wools' static. "You used that title with me in a much different context once," she said sadly.
"Mon Dieu…" Yvette breathed, dropping her wine goblet. It clattered to the ground, echoing loudly in the dead silence of the corridor.
La Mère shook her head. "How could you, Yvette? You truly abandoned me! Someone you saw as so vile. So, disgusting! Surely my suffering would be forever etched into your memory," La Mère said, her voice trembling.
A single tear fell from La Mère's brown eyes. "Yet you didn't even recognize my voice!" She hissed.
"You know this woman?" Ubba asked Yvette, but Yvette was transfixed on La Mère. Yvette turned to run, undoubtedly to alarm the guards.
"Swayne! Stop her!" La Mère ordered her guard.
The guard, apparently named Swayne, swiftly launched his lyre at Yvette. It pierced the center of her back with pinpoint accuracy, a testament to his skills.
Yvette yelped as she was launched backwards, falling awkwardly on her knees in front of La Mère who promptly kicked her over.
"Turning your back on me once again?!" La Mère taunted her angrily.
Yvette tried to get up but La Mère straddled her, holding her down. Withdrawing a small dagger from inside her robes, La Mère plunged it into Yvette's right arm. Yvette screamed as La Mère twisted it, making her bones crunch loudly.
"Consider yourself lucky, Yvette! Know that you will die on much easier terms than Aucassin!" La Mère bellowed.
A demonic agonizing cry erupted from La Mère as she stabbed Yvette vigorously. The poor girl continued to scream, gargling on her own blood.
La Mère finally put the doomed woman out of her misery by digging her blade into her skull. With a working grunt she cracked Yvette's skull open. Her brains and shards of bone spewed out like the yolk of a chicken's egg.
Ceolbert gawked at the horrifying scene. But La Mère took no mind to the troubled boy.
"Satisfied, mother?" Swayne asked, peering over her shoulder.
She actually goes by that with her underlings?
"For now. Bring Aucassin to me alive, Swayne. He is mine to kill," she growled. Swayne bowed at her respectfully and yanked his lyre out of Yvette's mutilated torso.
"Let's go kill some Frenchmen!" Swayne jeered. Ivarr enthusiastically took his dual axes out while Ceolbert quickly unsheathed his sword.
While his comrades charged into battle, Ubba took one last glance at the woman claiming to be La Mère. She stared down at Yvette's dead body, almost as if she were mourning her.
"You have some explaining to do!" Ubba barked at her before following suit.
Finally, the battle was on.
Alongside his brother, Eivor, and now Swayne, Ubba wiped out the de la Croix's guards. One by one Ubba cut the guards down. It was almost too easy.
How La Mère felt threatened by such weak soldiers was still a mystery to him. Though he'd earned a few scratches and would most certainly find bruises the day after, Ubba emerged without serious injuries.
Afterwards he helped Ivarr pile up the bodies outside Tamworths entrance, mainly to satiate his brother's sadistic hunger. The greediest of the Ragnarsson's eagerly dug through the corpses' pockets and encouraged Ceolbert to do the same, but the Saxon boy utterly refused.
Ubba kicked over a Francian body to ensure it had drawn its last breath. Drengr were tending to minor wounds as the Francians barely put up a fight. It was just another example of people playing with swords rather than actually fighting.
Knowing any effort to stop Ivarr would be futile, Ubba turned his attention to a far more important issue.
Where was Aucassin?
The French lord was nowhere to be found among the bodies, assuming it was still intact.
He'd been careful to look for him during the battle, knowing La Mère would be furious if he'd die by someone else's hand.
Young women usually didn't frighten him, but after seeing her kill Yvette earlier he'd rather not risk incurring her wrath.
Then, as if on cue, Swayne sauntered over to him, carrying Aucassin on his back. He flung him to the ground and held him down with his foot. The Frenchman grunted from the pressure as his cheek was forced into a jagged wooden step on the hill leading to Tamworth.
Aucassin too had emerged from battle with only minor injuries. Ubba could only imagine what La Mère had in store for him.
Ubba gave Swayne a once over. The young man's smirk emulated the same cocky energy as Ivarr's. Having made it an extension of his body at such a young age was an impressive feat.
The splish splash sounds of footsteps in the bloody puddles, normally a welcome sound to Ubba, was quickly soured as he saw La Mère walking slowly towards Swayne.
Soon they were joined by the pitter patter of rain drops. Dark clouds loomed overhead; indicative of a great storm to come.
Ubba intended to bring a storm of his own on whoever the hell Sister Bernadette was, or claimed to be.
"Enough games, you bacraut! Who are you really?!" Ubba demanded.
"What can you expect brother? When we're dealing with a canny, vile trickster?!" Ivarr sneered.
"You mean La Mère des Secrets," La Mère hummed. She paid the rain no mind even as it rapidly graduated to a torrential downpour. "She's long dead!"
Ubba blinked. That...actually explains a bit.
"Did it not occur to you that the wretch finally passed from this world to hell? It took ages for her to succumb to old age. We'd endured her cruelty long enough!" La Mère cried out.
"Then who are you, really?" Ubba demanded once more, this time with more trepidation in his voice.
"You'll be relieved to hear I am nothing like my predecessor," La Mère said. She tucked her long, soaked hair behind her ears. "I will hide behind no veil of aliases. No cloth obscuring my face."
She stood tall and proud, lifting her hands up to the sky.
"I AM BLANCHEFLEUR DE LA CROIX! LA MÈRE DES BÂTARDS. THE MOTHER OF BASTARDS!" She howled.
Her dramatic proclamation was accompanied by a loud ensemble of thunder and lightning. Ubba was astonished that Thor would give her such a public display of his approval to someone like her.
A de la Croix?! Wiping out her family?! What in the name of Loki is going on?!
Aucassin's head jerked up at La Mère. She towered over him; her eyes were completely dilated. He looked absolutely mortified at his sister, clearly expecting her to be dead.
If only he'd seen what she'd done to Yvette, for he'd surely be pissing himself right now.
"That's...impossible! Y-you - "Aucassin stammered.
He clearly couldn't believe what he was seeing. La Mère cupped her brother's head in her hands, rubbing his cheeks with her thumbs tenderly.
"Oh, dearest brother...you could've never expected this day," La Mère said. Ubba noted how her voice choked up a bit.
Whatever trespasses were between them, it was clear she wished securing her power hadn't come to this. Her hands snaked around his head and up to his drenched, short hair. He whimpered pitifully, flinching at her touch.
Ceowulf soon joined them, letting his sword catch the rain to remove a layer of blood and guts. Ubba was satisfied to see his king fight alongside them. For a Mercia he was capable of wielding an actual sword, unlike Burgred and his butter knife.
"I suppose this concludes our arrangement?" Ceowulf asked, glowering at La Mère.
La Mère's head jerked up. Her somber disposition had completely transformed into a twisted scowl.
"You forget one crucial thing, King Ceowulf," she stood up. Before she could say anything else, Ceowulf held his hand up, silencing her.
"If you are to be reunited with her, it will be on our terms." Ceowulf declared. La Mère growled quite literally at him, baring her teeth like a feral animal.
"Reunited with who?" Ubba asked. "This is the first of me hearing of this, my king."
"Her daughter," Ceowulf said simply.
"Why the fuck are we just learning about this now?!" Ivarr demanded.
"Ivarr!" Ubba scolded him.
Though Ivarr was still coming down from the heat of battle, Ubba was rational enough to make sense of the king's plan: Ceowulf wanted to catch La Mère off guard.
Had Ubba and Ivarr known she expected Ceowulf to deliver her daughter, they could've given it away. Ceowulf wanted to hold all the power that came with that knowledge.
Secrecy was not the way of the Ragnarssons. Even their body language might have signaled someone as cunning as La Mere.
Or rather, her successor.
She must've felt she had several winning pairs of dice, and for a while that was indeed fact.
But to let such a dangerous trickster continue to have him and his kingdom by the balls, if you will, was far too great of a risk. Her pack of wolves was not the only one in this realm. And keeping with that analogy, Ubba's pack was far bigger than hers.
She had to possess some traits of the original to have maintained her position for three years. Assuming that was indeed the truth.
"This wasn't part of our agreement!" La Mere snapped. Swayne tried to hold his "mother" back but she slapped his hand away.
"Do you honestly think we'd trust you with retrieving her on your own?" Ceowulf asked her, sheathing his sword with a loud click. "One of my men will do that."
Ivarr crossed his arms confidently, sharing the same pride in his king as Ubba.
La Mere sighed. "Very well," La Mère said, then pointed at Eivor. "But send her. My birth daughter is nervous around men," she said.
Ubba rolled his eyes. "Why do I suspect you instilled that fear in her?" He jabbed.
She motioned to Swayne. "Do you not see the man not two feet from me? I'd never teach my daughter such prejudice," she spat.
Eivor stepped forward giving Ubba a reassuring look, almost as if she was saying "let me handle this."
"I am Eivor Wolf-Kissed. If this is what Ceowulf commands, I will retrieve your precious daughter," Eivor said formally.
Aucassin breathed hard under Swayne's foot which was still planted in Aucassin's shoulder. Visibly annoyed, La Mère stomped on Aucassin's knee, causing it to fracture. The Frenchmen wailed in pain, apparently so much he quickly passed out.
What a weakling!
"Are we going to stand around in the fucking rain or are we going to do something?!" Ivarr griped.
"Eivor," La Mère put her hands behind her neck and fiddled with something. She removed a golden chain with an ornate heron ornament in the center. "Present her with this. That way she'll know I sent you," she explained.
Eivor took it, tracing the edges of the heron with her finger. "How will I know when I see your daughter?" She asked.
"She's currently hiding in a cave north of here. Follow the road until you've reached a crossing, then head off the path. Look for the collection of oak trees. She has my exact likeness, save for her fiery red hair and blue eyes," La Mère said, smiling.
"And a lame foot. She uses a cane," La Mere continued.
Ubba placed his hands on his hips and shook his head. This was getting too complicated. He yearned for the moment he could swig some mead down his throat.
Eivor turned to leave when La Mère suddenly stepped towards her. "Eivor...make haste. I need her!" La Mère begged her. Her lips were pursed together in a paper-thin line. Eivor nodded to her, then to her comrades before swiftly taking her leave.
Swayne beckoned La Mère to follow him. "You mustn't get a chill," he insisted. La Mère did not take her eyes off of Eivor until she was completely out of sight before finally retreating back into Tamworth.
Ceolbert stepped forward. "I'll take him to the cells in our dungeon. La Mère can...have him after that," he said.
The aethling gulped, undoubtedly trying to push the torture La Mere had in store for Aucassin out of his innocent mind. Ceowulf nodded approvingly as Ceolbert carried the unconscious Frenchmen on his back.
Ubba looked at Ivarr and shrugged.
"What a night we've had indeed. It's about time for that mead," Ubba jested half-heartedly. Ivarr rolled his eyes.
"Don't become a poet yourself, brother!" Ivarr complained.