Hi! So I am very sorry for the late update. Time got away from me and then I had wisdom teeth surgery, which had me resting for about a week. But here is the new chapter and guess what? The night is still not over. I know, I've lost control of my life here, lol. But I hope you enjoy it. I hope you are all enjoying May and luckily, it is soon to be the weekend! Thank you! And as usual, I only own Dagny.
Sigurd wondered why he was watching Dagny and Hvitserk dance across the great hall. He told himself it was to ignore Ivar, who was sitting beside him at the table. But some of it was that she was quite good and even if she really wasn't, there was something about her that drew the eye anyway. Hvitserk took her by the arm and crushed their chests together, taking clear joy in it, while Dagny laughed. For a slave, Sigurd thought, she had always seemed quite happy.
Hvitserk's mouth was suddenly on hers, sloppy, fumbling, hungry. His fingers crept across her waist and her shoulder blades and her throat, casting a strange spell over her. In the next instant, she was away from him, grinning and twirling with her arms in the air, her fingers moving up and down one by one. She was flushed, the combination of the three goblets of wine Sigurd had seen her drink and Hvitserk's ministrations taking their toll.
Ivar slammed a glass down onto the large oaken table and Sigurd rolled his eyes. Ivar was a messy blend of anger, envy, and fear and it was so easy to tease him.
"Are you jealous, Boneless?" Sigurd asked, tilting the corner of his mouth up in a smirk. Ivar turned slowly, as if he thought Sigurd was actually waiting with bated breath for his, no doubt, terrible response. His blue eyes were narrowed. "You can't dance, can you?"
"Dancing is stupid," he replied through gritted teeth. His dirty fingers still had a harsh grip around that glass, contemplating throwing it.
"I guess it would be to someone who'll never be able to do it." Ivar snarled, baring his teeth in a way that Sigurd found no different from his usual smile. "I think I'll join her," Sigurd said, just because he could. Because Ivar couldn't.
"I don't care," Ivar responded, even as his eyes turned stormy. "She doesn't like you."
"No," Sigurd agreed. "She likes Hvitserk." Across the room, Dagny laughed and Hvitserk buried his face in the nape of her neck. She threaded her fingers through his long hair. Sigurd assumed she must have finally drunk enough to no longer care about Ivar's or anyone else's opinions. That was a good thing. Perhaps, she was wising up. "You have competition, brother. Or perhaps it is not a competition at all, for I think he has already won." Sigurd desperately wanted to lay Ivar low, tell him that at least Dagny could be sure that Hvitserk would satisfy her, that Ivar was no true man. But concern for Margrethe's life stayed his words.
Ivar turned, his handsome face a mask of rage. "You know nothing. All you do is talk."
Sigurd did not dignify that with a response. Instead he pushed away from the table and began to make his way to Dagny and Hvitserk. He'd given things some thought since that night at the cabin, since Margrethe had told him everything yesterday, and he knew he should speak with Dagny, even though he doubted she would listen.
Across the hall, Dagny was back in Hvitserk's arms, stumbling enough that he had to steady her. She looked over his shoulder, hazel eyes aglow, and her happy, half-moon smile faltered. She saw Ivar, with his clear eyes and tousled hair and violent temperament. Her hands closed around Hvitserk's sea green tunic, which only spurred a grin from him. Sigurd looked back to see Ivar watching Dagny, his fingers digging into the table and jaw clenched. Good. Sigurd made his way to Dagny and Hvitserk, whose hands were now linked together.
"Would you mind sparing Dagny for a dance?" he asked, tossing hair over his shoulder. Hvitserk narrowed his eyes, suspicious because Sigurd had never once shown interest in Dagny before. Dagny, to her credit, did not seem put off, even if her knuckles had gone white as bone.
"Of course, brother," Hvitserk responded, after looking to Dagny. He was well and truly under her thrall, thought Sigurd. Perhaps more so than Ivar. Perhaps enough to free her.
Hvitserk let her go and walked away, no doubt to find Ubbe and a glass of ale. Now that she was on her own, Dagny no longer appeared quite so brave. She seemed more a girl than a woman, more meek than bold. But she reached towards him anyway.
Why was he doing this? Why embitter himself to Ivar any further? Why warn a girl who was apparently too stupid to realize that she should be running? Sigurd didn't even like Dagny. She was calculating and pensive and sneaky, always watching from behind some door or tree and listening to things she shouldn't. Like Ivar. She was proud. She sometimes bucked against her mantle as a slave like a horse that should be broken, as if she was better than that. But, of course, that was Aslaug's fault. Most things that happened around Sigurd seemed to be Aslaug's fault.
Even though he didn't much care for her now and pretended to have forgotten it, that it meant nothing, Dagny had once been close to him. He supposed she had been to everyone in his family at one time or another, from Aslaug as a child to Ivar now and Hvitserk always. He would never term what they had as friendship but when he tried to think of another word that encompassed it, he came up blank. She had been small as a child, tiny and prone to sickness, and someone else would've sold her or left her to the woods on a snowy night but Aslaug had been taken with her, as she was all broken things. When she was weak and wasn't old enough to do the work of the other slaves, she'd been a companion to Aslaug's children. Sigurd supposed there was nothing unusual in that but still, there was part of him that remembered what she'd done. When Harbard came into town and everyone was under his thrall, Sigurd had seen through it. Dagny listened. When he took up the lute, Dagny listened. Even as they got older and drifted apart, Dagny was still kind. Her talents laid in quiet arts and she never used them maliciously. He could not name the times he was sure she had seen him doing something he shouldn't or something that would inevitably ruin his reputation. But she'd kept secrets for him, secrets that to this day, he was positive she had never shared.
So Sigurd owed her and if he had to be callous to make her listen to reason, he would be.
Sigurd took her hands. They were as coarse as his own, made tough by hard work, not by handling weapons. Not by playing the lute. She looked down at their linked fingers, as if insecure.
"What?" Sigurd cut out. The poor girl flinched. The length of her jaw was painted red with the stag's blood, with messy lines along her cheeks and chin. She looked down, as if remembering she was a slave and not his equal, and light flashed across the blood on her lips. For a moment, Sigurd wondered if Ivar could see it. He hoped he could see it, his only ally who was not related, marked by another man.
"You have nice hands," she murmured. "The hands of a musician."
He scoffed. "I don't care for your flattery."
"Then why ask me to dance?" She was drunk, he could see that now. Her eyes watered and her cheeks were a somewhat flattering pink.
"To make Ivar angry." She flinched, as if she'd jerk away from him. It made him want to laugh. She would sit at Ivar's side at a feast, one of his hands on her waist and the other on an ax, not at all worried but Sigurd tightens his grip on her hands and she wants to bolt.
"Why?" Dagny muttered. Sigurd shrugged.
"Why I do anything is not of your concern. You're just meant to follow orders." She nodded.
"What do you want me to do?" Her voice was small, meek, and her hazel eyes seemed to glaze over. He'd seen that before, when hunting. He'd seen it tonight when his mother held a blade to the sacrificial stag. It was a sign that a hunter's prey had registered that it was the target. It was fear. But there was also resignation in the set of her jaw and the way her fingers brushed his palms. She would do whatever he asked. And she would appear to do it gladly.
He grimaced. "No," he stated firmly. "I won't ask you to do anything like that. I'm not as charmed by you as others. Dancing is more than enough."
Relief and then hurt flickered across her face for a fleeting moment before she gave him another wide smile. He didn't think she truly cared about his opinion of her, not when she had Hvitserk worshipping at her altar, but Dagny was soft. She liked niceties and pleasant words. Anything else cut her. She simply pretended it didn't.
"You should be careful, Dagny," he said. They came together and Dagny turned her head so that their cheeks would meet. She was cold, despite the fire and the ale and Hvitserk's attentive kisses.
"I am careful every day," she whispered, pulling back. She twirled once more and smiled. He watched her, with her hands in the air and the blood on her collar, and for a singular moment, he saw what his brothers saw in her. When she returned to him, Sigurd fumbled his grip of her hands.
"Have you spoken to Margrethe?" Sigurd could feel Ivar's wolfish eyes on them, trying to burn him from the inside out. It made him smirk.
Dagny's face leeched of color. "No. She won't speak to me. But then, we are not friends."
Sigurd laughed. "I don't suppose you would be." Dagny let go of him to allow the back of her hands to travel down his arms. It was as if she was preparing him for the ritual she'd just performed. "Well, she is my friend and she told me what happened and I think you should know."
Dagny closed her eyes. It might have been for a myriad of reasons but her bottom lip quivered and Sigurd thought she was actually scared of what he might say. All the more reason for her to know.
"He hurt her." Her eyes opened and she nodded. This was something she expected.
"I know," she said.
"Do you know why?" The back of her knuckles dragged down his forearms again. She flipped her hands just in time to take his.
"No," she muttered, though it was an answer that seemed to be a lie.
"He couldn't do it." Her eyes flashed. "He can't satisfy a woman." Her grip seemed to slide and tighten and her face paled further, if that was possible. "She talked her way out of it, blamed herself. Apparently, he blamed her too because she wasn't who he wanted. That's what kept him from killing her."
She took a ragged breath and came in closer, so close that their chests met. "Why are you telling me this?"
"Why do you think?" he asked, in a tone that called her foolish. Anyone who could get this far into trouble and not see it certainly was. "He'll kill you, Dagny. The moment he realizes the fault isn't Margrethe's, he'll cast blame on you and you will be dead. I should think that would be obvious to you."
"What would you have me do, Sigurd?" she asked, her breath warm against his ear.
"Act like you don't want it, for if you do not, you have made a poor show of it thus far."
"That would change nothing." Sigurd conceded that that was true. Ivar was like a child, spoiled and petulant. If he wanted something, he was given it. Dagny would be no different. She was a prize and worse, one he was more than entitled to. "And I cannot lie," she murmured. Sigurd shivered as she pressed close to him again, as he saw Ivar over her shoulder, digging a knife into the table. It was impossible.
"You're drunk, Dagny," he said. "We all know it is Hvitserk you want. All our lives, that has been clear. Even Ivar knows it. Your kindness to Ivar has been a gift to him, something he doesn't deserve. You should stop playing his game. I will tell him to leave you alone, that you don't want him."
She slid from his arms and twirled once more. This time when she stopped, she shook her head at him once. It was a condemnation of everything he thought he knew.
"You cannot be serious," he hissed. Sigurd couldn't fathom any woman caring for Ivar, unless they desired to be killed. Did Dagny wish for death? Was she genuinely mad?
"Why do you believe Ivar is incapable of being loved?" When she grabbed his hands, he drew her near. He thought about shaking her. All the while, Ivar just watched, a hawk surveying a pair of mice and deciding which one he might devour.
"You don't know him, Dagny. Not as I do. I don't wish to light your funeral pyre."
"Sigurd-" she began, her voice suddenly soft. Which he didn't want. He did not want her to like him. He wanted her to listen.
"I don't see why you would desire him anyway. Margrethe has proven that he can't please you or any woman." He knew he sounded cold by the way her eyes narrowed.
"There are many ways to please a woman," she replied. Dagny was just tall enough to look down on him and in that moment, she seemed to stretch herself even taller.
"Perhaps," Sigurd replied, staring into her dark eyes. "But he knows none of them. Nor do you." She shuddered, embarrassed, her damnable pride at work. "And he doesn't really care for you. He is incapable of it. He is crazy. And you are a slave."
"Tell that to Margrethe," she spit out, all trace of her normal shyness gone. "Just because I am owned does not mean I am not cared for."
"Yes! By Hvitserk or Ubbe or even my terrible mother. But not a mad and coddled boy who would discard you as he has his many other toys." Dagny's gaze turned stormy, the blood on her face suddenly a form of war paint.
"You are cruel, Sigurd," she muttered. She came close and their chests met but she pulled away just as quickly.
"Indeed, I am," he hissed. "You should be grateful for it. You should be grateful that you do not belong to Ivar and Ivar alone. That is all he wants from you, to be a captive audience. A captive friend."
"Then it is not a chore. I am glad to do it." He rolled his eyes.
"Do you know why he's attracted to you at all? Because you look like our mother. That is all. You remind him of Aslaug, the only person who's ever cared for him!"
A muscle feathered in her jaw, the only sign that she was affected by what he said, but he knew it had cut through the haze of the night and her inexplicably good mood. In truth, Dagny bore little resemblance to the queen. That she was tall for a woman was the only thing they had in common. He'd said it to hurt her, to make her think twice. But part of him regretted the words.
"What happened to you, Sigurd?" she murmured, drink giving her nerve. "When you were a boy, you were so kind. I know you still must be, that this malice and spite is a mask."
"You know nothing about me," he scoffed. "And if you want to die, I do not care. You're as mad as he is, if you won't listen to reason."
Dagny yanked her arm away from him, stumbling a bit backward. She kept her hand raised and Sigurd had a sudden fear that she might strike him. Muscle corded in her arms, strength she most likely didn't know she had, built up from lifting and carrying and dragging. In a fight, she might be decent.
"I owed you," he admitted. "For listening all these years. But now my debt is paid. If you will not heed what I've said, that is your fault."
When he started to walk away, she said, "One day."
"What?" he asked sharply.
"One day, I will earn your respect." Miraculously, Dagny stood straight. Her black hair was a veil and her eyes were just as dark and she looked like she would be just as comfortable in battle as she would in this great hall. She was too good to be just a slave. Someone else would have punished her for that, on another day Sigurd might have punished her for her boldness, but this was a strange night and it was not yet over.
"I look forward to seeing you try," he responded.